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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
What's up, y'?
- [00:01]
John Ganz
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- [00:49]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [01:33]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show. The author of Unpopular Front on Substack, he wrote the book when the Clock Broke, Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked up in the early 1990s about the, you know, David Duke and the right wing media ecosystem. We're going to talk about that. He co hosts a film podcast, Unclear and Present Danger with Jamelle Bowie. It's John Ganz. How you doing, man?
- [01:59]
John Ganz
Good. How are you, Tim?
- [02:00]
Tim Miller
Well, I kind of feel like I'm in college again because I was up vomiting all night and I had to meet with TA this morning to discuss some reading. Ross Bard. And we're going to do a little Rene Girard, so we'll be okay. It wasn't the fun kind of vomiting, though. So you got to carry me. You got to carry me. Is that all right?
- [02:22]
John Ganz
Okay, I will do my best. I will do my best. I was not vomiting so far as I can remember.
- [02:28]
Tim Miller
Not the best evening. I just want to start for people who aren't familiar with your substack, which is great. Give us a little baseline for your politics. JVL on our internal slack was calling you one of the good socialists. I don't know if you accept that moniker, but why don't you give people
- [02:43]
John Ganz
what's the good part of the social stuff, either?
- [02:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [02:45]
John Ganz
I guess you could say I'm a Social Democrat. I would say that's how I would identify. That's the tradition I feel closest to.
- [02:52]
Tim Miller
I mean, that's like David Brooks.
- [02:54]
John Ganz
Yeah, like David Brooks used to be. I hope I don't have the same trajectory. I think I'm too old for that now already. But, you know, that's part of the socialist tradition. It's one part of the socialist tradition historically, and, you know, it comes with a commitment both to, you know, an economy that tries to work for everyone and also a commitment usually to liberal democracy and, you know, a robust free society.
- [03:22]
Tim Miller
Okay, so, you know, give me a. If John Ganz was in Congress, who would your doppelganger be?
- [03:27]
John Ganz
I mean, I very, very rarely disagree with anything Bernie Sanders says, I gotta tell you. And, you know, we're very temperamentally similar, I think. I know. I. You know, Elizabeth Warren is someone also. I have a lot of admiration for aoc. You know, I was very excited about her rise. And, you know, and I support Zoram Ondani. So, you know, these are my politics, basically.
- [03:51]
Tim Miller
I've had too many Bernie people on the pod lately. I've got a. We need a cleanse. I need a cleanse. I need to get Joe Manchin back on the pod.
- [03:57]
John Ganz
Yeah, you gotta find somebody to the left of Bernie to put on the pod, like some PSL people or something like that. Could tell you how he's a revisionist.
- [04:08]
Tim Miller
I'm open to it. I want to start with just kind of Trump administration stuff. Then we're going to go back into your book and the origin of how we got here on the right. You wrote this, which resonated with me, which shouldn't surprise you, given that I've got to wake up and talk about this nonsense every day. At the beginning of the second Trump administration, I wrote that I wasn't enjoying my job anymore because it was at once too easy and too awful. The people in charge are evil, stupid, or both, and those who support them are either evil, stupid, or both. That's all there is to say, over and over. Anything else strains the truth.
- [04:41]
John Ganz
I stand by that. I mean, yeah, absolutely. And I think that what I. What I wrote after that is actually, it's become more difficult and not as easy because I find that, you know, when you write political analysis, you know, you usually attribute motives or reasons for people's behavior. And sometimes those reasons are ideological, sometimes they're self interested, sometimes they're in the context of partisan politics. You try to make it legible for people and you try to, you know, put your spin on it, would maybe advance your politics a little, but generally try to communicate the truth with the actions of the Trump administration. It's very difficult, I find, to give them any coherence because it's so based on Trump's personal whims and his own, you know, very idiosyncratic and mercurial way of doing things. So I often find that when I attribute, you know, some kind of ideological thinking or some kind of project, anything they do, you know, a week from, from then the line has totally changed. You know, usually a presidential coalition, you know, has tensions, but there's this in like open confrontation with each other all the time, which is unusual. You know, a president usually like undertaking a project like going to war, say right now usually you would imagine, I mean, this is the way we used to think about politics. They would first have their own party very much on board and then they would use that as a platform to get the rest of American people on board. Now Trump didn't even have his own party on board going into it. So it's a different type of politics than we grew up with and we're accustomed to commenting on. And it very much is the Trump show. And he, he personalizes everything he does. Not able to think in terms of systems or abstractions, ideas like the market or.
- [06:38]
Tim Miller
You don't believe that Donald Trump can abstract?
- [06:41]
John Ganz
I don't think he can basically. I don't think that. I think basically he is sometimes swayed by conspiratorial rhetoric. Is some people are ideologically conspiratorial because it sort of supports their worldview. I think that Trump is basically psychologically incapable of understanding things as processes that don't have like a person behind them. He's, he, that's the way he's always done business. He always thinks someone's trying to screw you or you're trying to screw somebody. And, and you can see the way he runs the economy. The idea of a deal is like a one off kind of carve out where you make a, you make some compromises. Now for the behavior of businessmen and firms, that's fine. On at scale, you have to have rules. So you can't have a million different rules for each type of business. There has to be, you know, some rules across the board, which is why the tariff policy looks so incoherent and why, you know, most of his policies look so incoherent is because he basically doesn't have the conception of the economy as a system. He has it as a conception of, okay, this guy's in my ear, wants a break for his business and I want this business to do that. It's, it's just a consistent kind of making of carve outs and making exceptions and you can't have nothing but exceptions. It's just total chaos.
- [07:57]
Tim Miller
Maybe this is just another way of saying the evil stupid frame, but isn't it really just that Trump is a megalomaniac and everything that he's doing is in his personal self interest and it's enriching himself and his family and it's just sometimes he has the illusion of knowledge and doesn't realize what's in his interest and so he does shit that ends up being not in his interest.
- [08:19]
John Ganz
That's about right. I think that he, I mean, we all don't exactly have a perfect idea of our self interest, but his instincts lead him sometimes, I think, to make mistakes in his political career because his idea of his self interest is extremely narrow and not very subtle. But he can also change course. Unlike say he has some instinct that listening to Stephen Miller about every single thing is probably not the best idea. But he keeps him around.
- [08:47]
Tim Miller
Where do you feel like the Iran war and the latest one we have fits on the evil stupid.
- [08:53]
John Ganz
It's both. It's really remarkable. I mean, you know, it's a war that had no public support. I am not an expert in foreign policy in any way. I read the news, you know, just like a lot of Americans and I've been following politics for most of my adult life. Anybody who has half a brain knew that this was not going to end up in a way that was favorable to the United States or the world at large, that it would be some kind of catastrophe. In fact, this is kind of on the low, lower end of the, of the catastrophes, but it's a completely absurd situation. We engaged in this war, it didn't accomplish a single strategic goal for the United States. They were talking in the beginning about regime change. They're making all this noise, all this grandiose plans and then we basically have nothing like that. And we're going to go to something that was, is kind of a weaker version of the jcpoa. And you know, it seems as if basically, and this is, goes back to his decision making process, he was talked into it he thought it was a good idea. He was talked into this very simplistic idea of it, and when it turned out to be a lot tougher than he was led to believe, he decided to walk away. And he's just basically pulling out of what he feels is a bad deal and trying to enter into a new deal with, with Iran, who now he praises as reasonable people. And before they were lunatics and so on and so forth. If you go back to the way he behaved in New York City and the way he carried on business deals and he carried on his behavior with politicians trying to get those deals across, it was always like this. It was a lot of recriminations, huge statements that he would never work for somebody. This guy was crazy, he was a lunatic, he was the worst. And then they, you know, the next week he's trying to make buddy, buddy or vice versa. He has a close relationship, working relationship with somebody, and then they have a terrible falling out and he's saying all kinds of horrible things to them. He's, he, he speaks in a way that is guaranteed to make headlines, you know, to stay in the news all the time, but it can't entirely be taken seriously. He's a self promoter extraordinaire. There's a term called mere puffery, right, in advertisement. Like if you say it's the best coffee in the world, I can't sue them for, for false advertising because that's obviously, you know, just an average piece of advertising rhetoric. Trump's almost every word is, is essentially mere puffery. Like, that's, that's his functional mode of discourse. And so you can't really take any of his declarations seriously, which makes, I'm sure, doing diplomacy with him very hard or doing any kind of, you know, business with him at all very difficult and hard to get it. And he's extremely unreliable. I have a little schadenfreude, as I think many people do as the Israelis having such a hard time with him and being so shocked. What did you think? Who did you think you were dealing with?
- [11:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [11:45]
John Ganz
Oh, you thought you had the special key to his heart. Give me a break. I mean, oh, we're so friendly and he's so good to us. He can change his mind at any moment. He's dropped old friends, he can drop some political ally when it doesn't seem like it's going as wet. Consistency is not his forte. And he, you know, to his advantage, he's able to, to change course very quickly.
- [12:08]
Tim Miller
Should have bribed him.
- [12:09]
John Ganz
Well, I'm sure that they probably tried and are doing something, but I think the real people who are excelling in bribing him are the Gulf states probably, and that that may reflect the approach here.
- [12:23]
Tim Miller
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- [14:04]
John Ganz
My agent didn't seem to think it was going to be a good idea, but I convinced the publisher of it pretty quickly.
- [14:10]
Tim Miller
Okay, nice. Yeah, I want to get into kind of the political philosophical, if you even want to call it that, underpinnings of this, but you have an interesting insight into that about how Trump is a bit of an unfrozen caveman from this period too. And Trump was obviously not influenced by the writings of Murray Rothbard, but his obsessions and his instincts were kind of developed in the same time.
- [14:37]
John Ganz
Well, Rothbard foresaw the type of politics that Trump practices as a path forward for like the hard right, which is basically a kind of what he called it at the time, right wing populism. He was looking at David Duke running in Louisiana and how the media kind of freaked out about it. And he said this is the way to do it. You know, you go around the media, you short circuit the media and you talk directly to the people and you attack your enemies and the bureaucracy and the elites and the liberal elites, and you get a lot of people very excited. And it's a very bombastic style. So he envisioned the style, I would say the policies, insofar as there's any kind of coherent background. A guy named Sam Francis who envisioned basically a kind of us under a kind of dictatorship, but that was like a developmental dictatorship that was highly protectionist, that would try to protect American businesses, a unilateral, aggressive policy, an America first foreign policy. So that was the kind of people who I saw as, as, as being harbingers or prophets of, of Trumpism. Now Trump himself, he saw Pat Buchanan and David Duke running. He said, look, you know, they're, they're, they're doing well because there's a lot of anger in this country. And he for a very long time had these protectionist instincts. Essentially, you know, he temperamentally goes along with this ideological program which is that the United States relationship with the world is adversarial and our so called allies are trying to screw us, immigrants are sucking up our resources. It's a very zero sum hostile and paranoid attitude towards the world. And you know, insofar as a philosophical articulation, these guys do it. But you know, you can also just boil it down to certain instinctual or habitual behaviors and beliefs of Trump that he picked up through his life. He also don't forget Trump experienced a near brush with ruin in the late 80s, early 90s. I think that this intensified his paranoia and his, his attitude to the world as being an essentially hostile place. It he found his negotiations with the bankers, which ultimately came out quite favorable to him because they could have ruined him to be very humiliating and he wanted to take revenge against a lot of people who he felt had not stuck with him through his hard times and turned on him. The 80s was a great boom time for Trump. That comes to an end at the end of the 80s. And he sticks with a lot of the same preoccupations. Urban crime. Urban crime is on the decline. But that's an obsession for Trump. If you go back to this era, this is the era where Japan, South Korea, and at that time, West Germany, their imports were very competitive with American manufacturers. And there was a current of opinion which Trump was, you know, shared, which is that, you know, we need to protect domestic industries. And I think that basically Trump is also in this kind of late Cold War period where those under our protective umbrella are now becoming our competitors. You see it also in his attitude towards immigration. You know, the Reagan administration was fairly liberal on immigration, but there was a current of opinion that started to get more and paranoid or hostile that immigrants were harming the national substance of the United States or taking up resources. I think his obsession with Russia has to do with his notion that Russia is still a power on par with the Soviet Union. He's very obsessed with this summit diplomacy that he must have seen Gorbachev and Reagan engaging in and the pompan circumstance with it. So his idea of Russia is just, well, you know, these are the Soviets. We need to treat them with respect and so on and so forth. And that suits Russia just fine, because that's exactly how they want to be perceived. I also think that Trump temperamentally finds Putin's mode of government to be appealing. I think that he likes his way of doing things. He's a bigger gangster in a certain way. I don't know that he has direct desire to help Russia because of, you know, whatever.
- [19:12]
Tim Miller
Pee tape.
- [19:12]
John Ganz
Yeah.
- [19:13]
Tim Miller
As I was listening to some of your interviews on this, the emergence of this kind of mindset, this kind of, right, populism in the period of the early 90s. This stuff was bouncing around before that. Right. And it's not as if there was not kind of right populist thought before. And a lot of this was in, you know, kind of like, like, mailed newsletters and Republican campaigns and, like, things of this notion. And so I was trying to figure out, like, this question of, like, when you were on Chris Hayes's show and you guys were talking about this, like, why 1992 and 2016 and you guys, as progressives, like, both fell back on economic anxiety, basically, like, the economic structures that were happening at these times. And I'm just, like, not sure if that's right. Like, to me, it feels like it's more about mass media. And there was this undercurrent of right populism in the country that needed basically bombastic media figures, politicians to be able to reach them. And a lot of these people weren't reachable. It was hard to organize this sort of thing prior. What do you make of that?
- [20:26]
John Ganz
I think it's both and it's not either or. I think that basically, yes, the fragmentation of media has opened up the doors for a lot of things that would not have made it into the previous ecosystem of media. And that is a boon to all kinds of crackpots and charlatans and politics that were once fringe, there's no doubt about it. But the appeal of these politicians only makes sense if you consider the trajectory of the society and the fact that you have large members of the middle and lower middle classes feeling increasingly squeezed and dispossessed and feeling unrepresented by their politicians who they feel are intrinsically corrupt. And, you know, I don't think that Trump comes along without the 2008 crash and the feeling that there's something rigged about the system, as he likes to put it. So I don't think you can really disentangle them.
- [21:33]
Tim Miller
They're not represented is a good word, though, because this is another thing I was thinking about because. And this is why I'm not like, I'm of the view that the Republican Party is not returning to anything resembling anything from before when the clock broke. Well, I guess, unless you're counting like Lindbergh. Unless you're counting about way before. Right. Because another variable about these two times as I'm thinking about, like, why is BUCHANAN Rising in 92 and why is that successful? Why is Trump successful in 2016? And I think. Well, yeah, it's because this is what Republican voters really wanted. Like the Republican voter, voter ID was always Buchanan culture war, Trump. But, you know, the elites of the party managed to be able to kind of control the animals a little bit. And then you have, like, H.W. bush and Mitt Romney, God love him, were both particularly ill suited to kind of be able to bring that crowd into more of a mainstream conservatism. Reagan and H.W. sun and W. Bush both had a folksiness that kind of allowed them to bridge it.
- [22:40]
John Ganz
Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. I do think that the new right that coalesced around Reagan and Reagan was not the first choice for a lot of those guys. They wanted to somebody crazier, like John Connolly. You know, Reagan was kind of too moderate for some people on the in. In that version of the new right. And then they kind of grew to love him and, and realized he, you know, he was sort of one of them. But the people I write about exited the Reagan years feeling betrayed and let down that he wasn't more radical rightist. For people on the left like me, you know, that sounds wild because we think, oh, Reagan was an absolute catastrophe and could not have been more right wing. And as Buchanan said, the biggest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan. And there was a constituency for the type of politics they practice became apparent. Wallace campaign showed that it was there. It overlaps with the, let's say, the Republican primary voter, but it's not entirely partizan because it's an. I think this is what you have to understand about Trump is and what I was trying to get out of my book. He also encapsulates the spirit of a third party candidate, right? Of a candidate like Ross Perot who comes out and says, you know, the parties are crooked. I'm going to reform them, I'm going to change everything. So there is a populist spirit which is not entirely contained in either party and in fact, can attack the party's system itself. And if you look at the way Trump takes over the Republican Party, he kind of attacks it as a, as a, almost a third party kind of candidate. He is not connected with any of the existing power structures. He's connected with kind of a mass movement in the Republican Party because he has, he's a Tea Party figure, but he's not connected really so far, and with the elites that, that generates. But he's not connected to any of the old party structures. And that makes him appeal. Right, because. Because there's a feeling of betrayal, a feeling that those, those people aren't tough enough. I mean, the Massey quote where he said, oh, I realized that they didn't care what I believe. They were just voting for the crazy son of a bitch. It's one of the most insightful things about American politics anybody said in about 20 years.
- [24:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [24:52]
John Ganz
So, yeah, there was a desire on many levels for a figure like Trump, and it was contained, but it couldn't be contained permanently because the voters got fed up and they said, we don't like the candidates. You're, you're feeding us in that way. It's, it's Democratic. I mean, Trump's first election is not through Democratic means. It was through the system of the Electoral College. But in terms of the way he took over the Republican Party, he won those primaries fair and square. There was a huge, huge, you know, enthusiasm behind him, which, which I'm sure you guys all remember. But the internal Party democracy of the Republicans allowed Trump to happen. The Democrats still have a little bit of an intact party structure for good and ill.
- [25:39]
Tim Miller
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- [27:33]
John Ganz
I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that for a second. First of all again, like Trump and Tucker Carlson has been in media for a very long time. He knows how to make. He knows how to make news and get into headlines. And he does that instinctually. You know, he's got to be interesting. He's got to always say something. Also, he's mirroring what people do as right have already said is he's just copying Nick Fuentes at this point, who's been saying the same thing. Nick Fuentes goes farther to be provocative and says he's going to vote for Democrats. He's going to change his mind. So is Tucker Carlson. They're making news. The other thing about Tucker Carlson is I don't think he remembers half the things he says. And he makes outrageous statements all the time. He said that he thought that this administration was ruled by the Antichrist. And then he was on the Times, they said, well, you said this administration is ruled by the Antichrist. And he said, I never said that. I never said that. I don't know if he was lying or just doesn't know the truth from anything. These people, I mean, you know, we're part of it in a certain way, but I don't think in exactly the same way. They basically have an ongoing discourse, verbal diarrhea. And I don't think that they really pay that close attention or that careful about what they say. They won't. They don't say, oh, I said this, and to be a principled person, I have to stick by it. I'm sure by primary time, Tucker's going to have his guy. And the fact that he said that is going to mean nothing. People are going to play the clip over and over of him saying, I'm not going to support problems. He's not going to care. He's not going to care. He's going to say, well, actually, this guy, probably J.D. vance is fine. And you know what? Frankly, he might be setting himself up for his own run. There's been a lot of speculation for a long time that Tucker has ambitions in those regard. And the only reason why you'd think that might not be true is because, you know, a lot of his friends and family work for JD Vance and they seem to have a buddy relationship. So does he really want to compete directly with them? I don't know. Like, even paying attention to that seems to be kind of. Kind of stupid. He's just making noise.
- [29:23]
Tim Miller
Two things that later in the interview, he does talk about JD and he discusses, like, basically how this is why he's a media person and JD Is A politician because he couldn't be in JD shoes. He's in this impossible situation. The Vice president, you know, works for the president, can't be fired. And he's like, I believe the J.D. you know, realizes that this is a mistake. It's kind of the Iran War, Israel partnership element of it. And I think that he is trying to like at least position himself as being an outside air cover, I guess, for JD but in the context of the book though, I do think it's interesting. Like he is, he is leveling the same critiques of the right populists from the era you're talking about, you're writing about.
- [30:07]
John Ganz
Yeah, especially when it comes to Israel. That was a big, that was a big issue for them even at that time when it wasn't quite so salient. I think it's extremely dangerous and irresponsible to pretend like that. First of all, J.D. vance wasn't part of the policy making apparatus of this administration and didn't have a hand in making this decision. And that Donald Trump is not a grown up who doesn't make his own decisions. I mean, they support a guy who they seem to implicitly say in their discourse is swayable and controllable by other people.
- [30:41]
Tim Miller
People.
- [30:42]
John Ganz
So like, what kind of a person is that? What are you doing supporting this person? And they're creating this narrative, this kind of stabbed in the back narrative where, oh well, you know, MAGA was great and we were going fine and then the Israelis, the Jews came along and screwed it all up. Well, Trump screwed it all up because he, unlike every single other US President, didn't see through the fact that Bibi's rhetoric and ideas about this were unrealistic and crazy and he had his own political needs to take care of that had nothing to do with the United States and nothing to do with, you know, protecting our interests and just said, go fuck yourself, I'm not going to do it. Trump was the only person stupid enough or, you know, mercurial enough or whatever to try to roll the dice. I think he rolled the dice because his administration was sinking on every other issue. You know, don't forget this comes not long after the tariffs thing. You know, I think you have to put every decision in the context of, of what is going on in the news for Trump shortly before. And if he feels like he's being weakened or he looks bad, he makes these improvisational decisions based on the needing to appear strong. The President happens to have a lot of power in foreign policy and war making powers, unfortunately. So that's an area he can make an immediate impact and try to make a big splash when the policy part of his administration is pretty much a flop. So, you know, I think that that's what he was thinking with the war, and he thought it would probably be something like Venezuela, a simple matter. And anybody who is an adult who's read the newspaper can tell you not the same story at all. But for some reason, every 15 years or so, the United States forgets how to think. We think that the world is some simple place that we can manipulate at will and, oh, well, you know, we're going to go in there and then we're going to knock over the regime. And people who ought to have known better because they lived through Iraq were like, oh, yeah, well, well, maybe it'll work out this time. You know, even some people who, who were critics of Trump went well about this. Look, about this thing. Oh, you mean one of the most unrealistic and potentially catastrophic things he could possibly do, which is to pick a fight, you know, start a war with another power with no idea what was going to be at the end of that war. I think the United States basically showed itself to be not that powerful. He made a lot of big noises, like he could affect a lot. Now they realize, eh, we gotta kinda just take what we can get here.
- [33:17]
Tim Miller
I did not actually suffer through Communion. Producer Ansley did. J.D. vance's new book.
- [33:21]
John Ganz
Oh, yeah, I haven't read it either.
- [33:22]
Tim Miller
Sent some sections. It's a section I wanna share with you. Cause I noticed you were on the Know youw Enemy podcast. Shout out to our guys over there. We've been on a couple times. At one time I was discussing Rene Girard. Yeah, and you won't be surprised that Rene Girard gets a shout out in Communion. There are two sections I want to read to you. The first one is how came around to seeing the error of his ways with regards to atheism. Peter Thiel impacted me in another way. Possibly the smartest person I'd ever met, he identified very openly as a Christian. He defined the simple social template I had constructed, that dumb people were religious and smart people were atheists. I began to wonder where his faith came from, which led me to Rene Girard, the French philosopher under whom Thiel had studied at Stanford. Girard's thought catalog is rich enough that my summary went to injustice. His theory of mimetic rivalry, that we tend to compete over things other people want, spoke directly to some of the competitive pressures I had experienced at Yale. So it goes on. But I just wondering what your kind of initial reaction is to that origin story.
- [34:23]
John Ganz
Well, Rene Girard believes that people essentially, you know, mimic each other and want the same things, and that leads them into inevitable conflict. And that's the heart of this kind of philosophical anthropology and description of the world. And the upshot for him is the only way out of this is religious faith. So the whole thing is kind of a Christian apologetics. For me, what he's describing there is not really being moved by religious sentiment. It's kind of realizing that the smart people that he wants to be in with are religious and then kind of changing his tune. And he said, oh, well, you know, I want to impress Teal. So I'm into Ernie Gerard. And that's mimetic behavior like Gerard describes. You start to copy people because I. I think Teal is smart, therefore, what Teal pursues. So I've always believed that J.D. vance is deeply wounded by the kind of entry into America's elite that he had, which is that he's a bright guy. He went to Yale, you know, but he comes from this underprivileged background. And I think he. He, like Richard Nixon before him, who was a bright guy, but really resented elites and their condescension towards him. I think that, you know, he really has a chip on his shoulder about that.
- [35:52]
Tim Miller
It's funny, there's another clip of his. I was watching Bob Costa was interviewing him and Usha together about the book to joint interview, and I just thought it was, like, really unintentionally revealing.
- [36:02]
John Ganz
Oh, I thought you said Bob Costas. For a second, I was like, that's.
- [36:05]
Tim Miller
Who knows? He could be rebranding. Everybody's a podcaster these days, right? Here is Usha Vance explaining why she didn't convert alongside JD I think it's pretty telling.
- [36:15]
John Ganz
Well, I think in some ways, it has been a very personal journey for him.
- [36:19]
Tim Miller
I grew up in a household, a Hindu household, a very stable household, and I've not felt the same sense of need to seek something different that he has.
- [36:30]
John Ganz
So I think the journey has been
- [36:32]
Tim Miller
more in our relationship.
- [36:33]
John Ganz
Right.
- [36:33]
Tim Miller
Trying to understand where he is, the different ways he's thinking about things, how
- [36:37]
John Ganz
that fits into the life that we have together.
- [36:40]
Tim Miller
And less a religious journey of my own. I thought the quote's so funny because she's basically saying, yeah, JD Was wounded. His ego is wounded by the lack of a father figure and maybe by the people looking down their nose at him as eao. And this is all part of his Self discovery more than it is actually a religious endeavor.
- [36:59]
John Ganz
One knock you could make on Girard in general and this approach to religion and a lot of conservative approach to religion, quite frankly, is that no doubt many of them are sincere, of course, but they usually relate to religion as some kind of social or psychological necessity. And that's not quite the same as believing. Right. If you say, well, it's better for society if we do that, that's not quite saying, I believe in the literal truth that, you know, of this religion and that, you know, God is communicating through its representatives. It's something much more utilitarian. So I think that Girard's philosophy is an entry point for people whose viewpoint on the world is fundamentally not one of faith, it's one of reason. And this seems to be a rational picture of the world and how it works and why people are competitive. What Girard is right about is that being involved in these social competitions and desiring what others want and being in these mimetic, basically, love triangles is extremely painful. And it's very difficult to feel like you've accomplished, you know, very much because there's always this endless regress of, oh, this person has something I want. So the appeal of religion, then is it seems that Gerard said, well, you know, instead of imitating others, imitate Christ. And, you know, he was the only person not infected by this. And, yeah, I can understand, you know, the pains of living in a competitive society. One would want to escape that and take a more contemplative stance towards it. It seems to me that these fellows have a very utilitarian, almost cynical relationship to religion. That is not one of deep feeling. I don't know. I've not read the book. But does he describe, you know, being in the presence of God? Or is it like Augustine's Confessions, where he has this very, you know, this realization that his former life was deeply sinful.
- [39:03]
Tim Miller
Well, he does shout out his mistake about the childless cat ladies. You mentioned the love triangle. And I do wonder if maybe that. I don't know if you know that Dinesh d' Souza and Laura Ingraham and Aaron Coulter were in a love triangle back during the early 90s. And so maybe that was a Gerard.
- [39:16]
John Ganz
I'm very sorry to have learned that because it's a totally repulsive prospect. And I will never forget that. I didn't know that. But it doesn't surprise me. I mean, like, you know, the professions of conservatives to moral rectitude, everyone knows that's a hypocrisy. Everyone knows they're just like everybody else.
- [39:33]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Summer is here and the sun is out. Make sure you take care of your skin this summer. Now through June 23rd, shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on sunblock from Neutrogena Sun, Bum, Hawaiian Tropic, Banana Boat and coppertone and earn 4 times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [40:04]
John Ganz
Bro.
- [40:04]
Tim Miller
From the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill?
- [40:08]
John Ganz
Because this is our life backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real.
- [40:13]
Tim Miller
And that's the best part.
- [40:14]
Ryan Seacrest
Whole crew, no plan, just moving.
- [40:17]
John Ganz
Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it.
- [40:24]
Tim Miller
That's why it holds up.
- [40:26]
Ryan Seacrest
Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. power.
- [40:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you can tell.
- [40:32]
Ryan Seacrest
2026 Nissan Rogue.
- [40:34]
John Ganz
Built for what really happens for J.D.
- [40:36]
Tim Miller
power.
- [40:36]
John Ganz
2025 U.S. initial Quality Study Award information. Visit jdpower.com awards awards based on 2025 model year. Newer models may be shown.
- [40:47]
Tim Miller
I want to read one more quote from the book, and then we'll do Democrats. Girard's work captured so well the psychology of my generation, especially its most privileged members, mired in the swamp of social media. We would identify a scapegoat and digitally pounce. We're keyboard warriors. He goes blind to our own failings. It's hard to imagine how you can write that without reflecting on one's own failings, the author's own failings. But JD Manages to do that. He thinks he's talking about the cancel culture Libs, I guess.
- [41:19]
John Ganz
Yes. Okay, so that's the other part of Girard's philosophy. He believes that basically society picks scapegoats, and this is an outlet for aggression that would otherwise, you know, lead to kind of a universal civil war all the time. So we've scapegoat people, and his solution is like, well, he thinks Jesus was scapegoated, but he was the one person who was totally innocent. So therefore it revealed the mechanism of scapegoating, so on and so forth. What I think that people like Thiel and Vance take from Gerard is not in order to be good Christians, in order to be good people, we ought not to scapegoat. They say, well, that's kind of the way the world works. So we're going to pick our own scapegoats and we're just going to make the right people are scapegoating. I don't think the man who repeated the, you know, the slander against Haitians eating cats, you know, I don't think that person really can say with a lot of sincerity that they're against scapegoating. So I think that essentially that's another side of the cynicism, is that Girard gives them a picture of the world of a humanity that's irrational, competitive, prone to violence, naturally scapegoats people. And then Gerard himself says, well, this is why Christianity is necessary and why, you know, there is an escape from this. But they sort of say, well, that's just sort of the way things are.
- [42:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And it works.
- [42:42]
John Ganz
And it works. Right.
- [42:44]
Tim Miller
So one of the things I really wanted to explore with you is this. One of the political problems Democrats have is, I don't remember who I stole this from, and I've said it a lot. So my apologies is the crank alignment under Trump and where a lot of people that resonated with the politicians and figures in your book had been Southern Democrats that were kind of racist Southern Democrats. They were part of the FDR coalition. A lot of them had been kind of independents that were not really part of the political process, maybe voting for Perot, maybe they voted for Clinton one time. And now fast forward today, and Trump has kind of united all of those types of voters inside the Republican coalition. And as Democrats try to think about how to handle that challenge, there's whatever the social justice woke thought that's like, fuck those people. Whatever, you know, and then there's another school of thought that maybe is, you know, the Platner might be an example of, you know, which is like, we need kind of a bad boy of our own, a working class figure of our own to reach them. Like, how do you, like, think about the political challenge of reaching these kind of aggrieved voters?
- [43:56]
John Ganz
Well, I think it's going to shake out the way it's going to shake out in this whole primary season. Electoral cycle is going to see who. There's probably going to be some coalition, a mixture of the two. The Democratic Party will be an amalgam, as it always has been. I do think there's a populist tradition of the Democratic Party, obviously, and perhaps Democrats have moved too far away from that populist tradition that's independent of the merits of any particular candidate or defending Any particular candidate? Obama comes out of a wing of the Democratic Party, which kind of doesn't exist so much anymore. But it was kind of the Howard Dean progressive side of the party, which was anti war, you know, a little populist, but, you know, not Looney Tunes, not. Not Dennis Kucinich. Right.
- [44:44]
Tim Miller
So Mike Revell.
- [44:46]
John Ganz
Right, right. So it was kind of. I don't know, you might want to call it, like, moderately populist. And. And that was kind of what it meant to be a Democrat for a while. And I think that that spirit is good and fine and actually necessary. And I think it will appeal to people, you know, who feel that alienated from. From politics. I think Trump's coalition of the. Of the alienated, obviously, was extremely fragile and temporary, and many of the people he brought on board, he quickly alienated himself, and they're. They're up for grabs. Are they all going to become Democrats? No, some of them will just be demobilized, you know, But I do think, yeah, of course, like, a politician who seems to be a fighter against entrenched sloth and privilege and systemic corruption is going to appeal to a certain type of voter. I don't think that the appeal to we are competent technocrats is really going
- [45:43]
Tim Miller
to work, especially since this leads to your Pete skepticism. I went back and looked through our Twitter history of you dunking on me on Twitter. No, that's okay. No, it's great. Your first ever Twitter dunk on me was over me being too gushing to Pete. You were like, he got exactly what he deserved. This was like, right after he dropped out.
- [46:02]
John Ganz
Maybe I'm less hostile to him now than I was then. I think that he's demonstrated a lot of seriousness and is genuinely. He does seem to be kind of going a little too. In set pieces. He seems a little stiff to me. I think John Ossoff is a little bit more like the Pete Buttigieg who's a little more spontaneous.
- [46:21]
Tim Miller
I just. I'll give you a homework assignment. You should go listen to Jon Ossoff on this podcast a couple months ago and report back to me.
- [46:26]
John Ganz
Okay.
- [46:27]
Tim Miller
We'll see if you still feel that way. All right.
- [46:29]
John Ganz
Okay. Well, I've seen him speak. I've seen him speak, and his speeches are really good. His speeches are good. Okay. That's not the same thing.
- [46:34]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pete's more. Actually chill.
- [46:36]
John Ganz
And I will agree with you. Yes, Pete. Pete's appearances on the talk show circuit have been quite interesting. And I think that, you know, he's positioning Himself as a kind of radical reformer, which, which is an angle perhaps in the, in the primaries, which will be one of the angles. You know, he's got to find some ire because it's going to be a cycle where, you know, Democrats are angry at their own party, angry at the Republicans, and they're going to want somebody who seems like a fighter and is going to change things. Yeah. You know, the Democrats do have a little bit of a nerd problem.
- [47:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [47:13]
John Ganz
Let's say the Biden administration was the test run for the competency and technocracy.
- [47:20]
Tim Miller
Was it Wasn't that the Obama administration. I think the Biden administration was like Biden having a couple of old timers around him and then outsourcing the policy making to Elizabeth Warren walks. I think was.
- [47:34]
John Ganz
But those people were. That's true. But there was a lot of people who were highly qualified, educated people who had all these advanced policy ideas. And then the, the perception of people's actual experience of those policies is a lot different than, you know, they wanted.
- [47:54]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [47:54]
John Ganz
Also, he was not in great shape as a messenger for all of it. So I would say it depends. He was not. I'm not saying technocrat as synonymous with centrists.
- [48:05]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [48:05]
John Ganz
I'm just saying there was a highly wonkish aspect of the Biden administration which I was very friendly to because I thought their ideas sounded great and I think some of them actually worked and just didn't draw attention to them. But yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that the kind of social democratic ideas that Biden tried to implement were sunk partially because of inflation, which is an issue that, you know, every politician seems, just seems to be kryptonite for everybody. And there's not much you can do about it.
- [48:37]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons N. Safeway. Summer is here and the sun is out. Make sure you take care of your skin this summer. Now through June 23rd, shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on sunblock from Neutrogena Sun, Bum Hawaiian Tropic, Banana Boat and coppertone and earn 4 times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Bro.
- [49:09]
Tim Miller
From the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill?
- [49:12]
John Ganz
Because this is our life backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real.
- [49:17]
Tim Miller
And that's the best part.
- [49:19]
Ryan Seacrest
Whole crew, no Plan just moving.
- [49:21]
John Ganz
Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it.
- [49:29]
Tim Miller
That's why it holds up.
- [49:30]
Ryan Seacrest
Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. power.
- [49:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you can tell.
- [49:36]
Ryan Seacrest
2026 Nissan Rogue built for what really happens for J.D.
- [49:40]
John Ganz
power 2025 US Initial Quality Study Award information, visit JD Power.com Awards Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown.
- [49:51]
Tim Miller
On those kind of reform questions and mentioned that Pete's trying to do radical reform is something that I have, like two wolves inside of me on this question, which is assuming the Democrats get back into power, like, how do you solve the Biden problem of people not feeling the positive change? And I think that the predominant view within Democratic circles is going to be, you know, we should be more aggressive, you know, in using the levers of power that we have in order to get policies done. Biden kind of trying that with a student loan thing and it backfired, you know, so, so this is like a little bit of an easier said than done. I think a lot of people are like, magic wand, we're going to start doing it. Then there's like another view which is, okay, we need to reform the whole system and take less power away from a future demagogue and fix things. And this kind of question, you wrote something a while ago about an old, about what we could learn from. I think it was the French in the 20th century. And this question of the Senate and how to deal with the Senate, you can take that wherever you want. I'm just wondering where your head is on that.
- [50:59]
John Ganz
I mean, I am, I'm personally conflicted as well. I mean, you know, I, I am sympathetic, I'm highly sympathetic to the belief of fellow people on the left that there are deeply undemocratic and unrepresentative parts of the US System that, you know, is it fair that New York State has two senators and North Dakota has two senators, and that makes the, you know, the proportional representations of those places so out of whack? I don't think so. Is it fair that the judiciary, which is packed with conservative justices, have so, so much power? I don't know. But on the other hand, you know, as this second Trump administration has unfolded, I have to say the checks and balances are real. I mean, perhaps not Congress, unfortunately, but more, you see this, the judiciary institution, I never really had much regard for. Now, unfortunately, I think the Supreme Court has made things a little easier for Trump in some Regards, but also, you know, rejected key parts of his policy. So, you know, I'm, I guess, a little bit more of a constitutionalist than I was at the beginning of Trump. But I will say that that is tempered by the fact that, you know, the parts of the Constitution that were supposed to protect us from a crazy demagogue ironically allowed him to take power in the first place. Right. So. So the idea that those, those mechanisms are so essential to prevent, you know, abuse, I don't know. And I do think that perhaps if they were reformed and there was a more muscular mode of governance, the desire for a kind of strongman figure might be lessened because there would be less sclerosis and less frustration with the political system and people could see it working. Are people ever going to be totally happy now? So am I worried about, like, a future Trump? I mean, having less, you know, checks on their power? Like, whoever has authoritarian designs on the United States has learned plenty. And they're. I don't think that they're going to need that much help.
- [53:08]
Tim Miller
Kind of where I fall end up falling, too, which is frustrating, which I don't like it. I want to circle back to Platner really quick, though, because part of the reason why we invited you is because I had professional jealousy over your platinum article, because it was another thing where I think we're in a similar boat where you kind of were grappling with the question of platinum. I totally recognize the appeal to main voters, and that is what democracy is. And you have this old governor who, like, wants to compromise running against an old senator who wants to compromise. And you've got a young guy who's basically like, fuck these people. We need to care about your economic interests. I'm going to fight for you. Like, and he's from Maine, and they get that. They know the type of character. Like, I get it 100%. Like, I don't think that it's sneaky anti Semitism among the 75 year old main Democratic primary voters. Like, I get it. No, on the other hand, like, so. So there's like the main Platner that you write about, and then there's kind of like the platinum is a fig as a national figure that is an avatar for this kind of factional fight within the Democratic Party. And on that, he's a little more complicated. And my professional jealousy was sealed when you pulled a random Simone de Beauvoir quote that just, like, nailed him. I was just like, where did you fucking pull this from? So this is so good. It was I mean, it just happened.
- [54:29]
John Ganz
Yeah. From the ethics of ambiguity, describing him
- [54:31]
Tim Miller
as like this adventure, lost soul. So anyway, for people who haven't read it, why don't you kind of summarize that?
- [54:36]
John Ganz
Yeah, you know, I think that his character is legible to me. I could be wrong. You know, I can't see into his soul, but from his behavior, from his activities, I think, yeah, you know, he's a person who yearned for adventure, who yearned for a more authentic feeling life than was given to him. And, you know, those types of people can be very charismatic and wonderful and, and do great things in the world and they can also be very dangerous and really only kind of nihilistically interested in their own self expression and so on and so forth, which is platinum. I don't know. I would say I would rather Platner on our side than the other side. I would say from my perspective, he's lending his powers for good. I'm, you know, pleased with most of the things he says. He's not said anything that I find particularly offensive or worrisome. We share very close politics. Frankly, I just find it intellectually insulting to believe that he didn't know that that was a Nazi symbol when he got it.
- [55:33]
Tim Miller
He obviously knew. He obviously knew because he can't say,
- [55:36]
John Ganz
yes, I know I got a Nazi tattoo because everyone's going to be like, what do you mean? But because what he was doing was. And it seems like everyone doesn't have a conception of this for whatever reason, even though it's to me very understandable. He did it to be edgy. And if you say, well, that's too offensive, well, that's the whole fucking point. It's a taboo.
- [55:53]
Tim Miller
I get this 100%, by the way. So this is. Somebody can, whatever, clip this and use this against me if I ever. I'm not ever running for Senate. But like, when I was in college, I was being edgy and we have various overlaps and dissimilarities between me and Platner. But like, my buddies went to Ole Miss and I got like old Colonel Reb gear and brought it back to my dorm room to like troll the Northeastern libs. And it wasn't like, I want to bring back the Confederacy, I'm scared of needles. So I didn't get a tattoo. It was like kind of a trying to be a bad boy kind of thing, which is silly and childish, but, like, that's what happened. Like, that's what happened. He got the tattoo. Maybe he didn't know at the exact moment. But eventually he knew and then he thought it was funny and edgy and whatever. And so he didn't get rid of it. Like he didn't keep it because he's a fucking secret Nazi. Like that's why he did it.
- [56:40]
John Ganz
Those people are not that good at like hiding their politics. There would be a lot of other things other than the tattoo that suggest they have those politics tactics. And I don't think being a critic of Israel is a sign, frankly. So I'm very sensitive to signs of Nazism and I just don't see any in platinum, frankly. He doesn't strike me as that sort. Now in a different historical era, different conditions, would someone like him be attracted to fascism? Sure, but so would many people, right? I would say that, you know, his adventurous streak and maybe that slightly nihilistic and boundary breaking thing, yeah, he could get into that. But it seems like, you know, as an adult he has an ethical worldview. And is that ethical worldview always been expressed consistently throughout his whole life? No, but the story that he has matured and become a better person is trying to do civic service. It's a plausible one.
- [57:33]
Tim Miller
You weren't negative polarized by the reaction among Platner Stans.
- [57:38]
John Ganz
I think that that's a bad way to going about thinking about the world. It's tempting, but you got, you can't. Like this is a problem. Like, you know, a lot of the people who I thought who were going to the mat for him, I was like, you sound like an idiot and I don't like that you insist like I sound like an idiot. But I don't think that your judgment of the world should be, you know, affected that much by okay, well the, you know, really like this guy. So I don't want to be on the team. So therefore, you know, I think that that really deforms your, your judgment. With that being said, what people are projecting on what he represents for certain people, I'm like, well that's stupid too. But I don't think that that's necessarily Platner's fault that they're projecting that onto him. Maybe it helps him in a certain way, but so no, I really try to avoid that sort of habit of thought of being negatively polarized.
- [58:33]
Tim Miller
Here's the more concerning part within the coalition for me than Platner. There's a story yesterday. Dan Goldman is running tonight in the primary in New York. He's going to get his ass beat by Brad Lander, which is democracy. That's how democracy works. But Like, Dan Goldman was an impeachment manager. He's a conventional, down the line, liberal progressive. He was out there defending his chief of staff vociferously when these right wing assholes were posting pictures of him in like leather gay outfits. And Goldman was coming to his defense. He is a J Street type, pro Israel liberal, not an APAC type.
- [59:14]
John Ganz
Well, so is Brad Laevner really.
- [59:15]
Tim Miller
Right? And he goes into a coffee shop, Poetica, in New York, and they said they were gonna deny him service, but they didn't recognize him in time, so they posted a picture calling him a genocide lover and they refunded the money. And that activity on the left starts to head more down the path of antisemitism. To me. I don't know that Dan Goldman deserved to be denied sitting at the counter because he has like some conventional progressive views on Israel.
- [59:47]
John Ganz
Well, yeah, probably not, but you have to keep in mind that, I mean the, the, the, the common sense on this has shifted enormously in the past couple years. Like, yeah, I think that, you know, it, it gets ridiculous and it can edge on antisemitism, but the fact of the matter is, is that a lot of people live in a previous world where Israel is perceived very differently and they're having a rude awakening because, you know, the fact of the matter is people grew up, they didn't grow up with Israel as this brave little country standing up to big enemies all around it. They grew up with the occupation, they grew up with Gaza, and they have a very different perception of it. And they view Israel like they say, as, you know, they use the word apartheid as, as people would view South Africa or Rhodesia as kind of rogue, racist country and they have some good reason to feel that way. So I just think that the, there's a generation gap and older people are very shocked.
- [60:45]
Tim Miller
There are several other apartheid countries though, and it seems like Dan Goldman's the only one that's getting denied his coffee.
- [60:50]
John Ganz
Well, I mean, is there any others that we, you know, directly give their military so much aid and, and like
- [60:58]
Tim Miller
just went, just went to work cutting a deal with Pakistan right now. I don't know that they're internal politics
- [61:04]
John Ganz
or, I mean, is there the focus on, on Israel is because. Well, yes, I mean, I, I am no friend of the uae, but you know, Israel right now, those places are not great places. You cannot deny that. Israel post October 7th. And maybe for some understandable reasons, I'm
- [61:26]
Tim Miller
not denying that, I'm just saying that Dan Goldman should be able to get a cup of coffee in New York, sure, whatever. It's a little concerning.
- [61:31]
John Ganz
I think that, that. I don't think that that's a systemic problem. I mean, there are many Dan Goldmans in New York getting coffee just fine, thank you. So I don't think New York City has to worry about a spate of anti Semitism.
- [61:43]
Tim Miller
We'll keep an eye on it. All right. We're going to close with a rapid fire. You famously had the jock creep theory of fascism where the Italians were the jock and the Germans were the creeps. I googled the German word for classic example, and that is muster bichspiel. So I would say that the musterby spiel. Examples of this would be Stephen Miller as the creep and Pete Hegseth as the jock.
- [62:05]
John Ganz
Sure.
- [62:06]
Tim Miller
So I'm going to rapid fire to you other figures in the administration. You tell me where they are. Greg Bevino, jock. Carrie Lake, jock. J.D. vance, creep. Steven Chung, Carolyn Levitt, jock. A lot more jocks than creeps. Who are some other creeps in the administration?
- [62:34]
John Ganz
Miller, Michael Anton, but he's not part of the administration anymore. Would be another example. I'm sure there's a lot we.
- [62:41]
Tim Miller
Todd Blanche is jock jock. I mean, at the high level, Trump picks the jocks.
- [62:46]
John Ganz
The face.
- [62:47]
Tim Miller
Trump picks the jocks.
- [62:48]
John Ganz
Camera facing is jocks. I mean, Trump's a jock.
- [62:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [62:51]
John Ganz
Advance is the creep. That's the coalition right there. You know, Tucker is a jock, but he's a prep. That's something a little bit of a synthesis. So, you know, there's probably a lot of people we don't know about in the policy wing or like, you know, staffers who are. Who are. But yeah, pretty jockey. Jockey bunch.
- [63:10]
Tim Miller
It's notable how jockey it is. I can find the umbrella echo the ur fascism. Like the parallels to Trump are so much more on the nose than the Hitler stuff.
- [63:21]
John Ganz
Oh, for sure.
- [63:21]
Tim Miller
You know, and so there you go. So it's jock jock fascism. We'll leave it there. Anything? I didn't ask you anything. You want to illuminate the Bulwark audience on.
- [63:29]
John Ganz
Before we let you know, please subscribe to my substack if you think I sound like I make sense at all and buy my book. It's out in paperback and yeah, that's it. I'm hopefully gonna have a new book that I'm gonna be working on soon. So I'm not. I can't talk about it yet, but it's a little teaser.
- [63:49]
Tim Miller
Exciting. All right. It's unpopular front. It's a good substack. I recommend that everybody else will be back here tomorrow. Hopefully the color will be back in my skin and I'll get a good night's rest. So we'll see y' all then. Peace. Thanks, John.
- [64:02]
John Ganz
Thanks.
- [64:02]
Tim Miller
A lot better day than Gaston. I just take it day by day. The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [64:33]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 23rd. Shop for you, Save days and get great savings on all your favorite personal care Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on items like head and shoulder shampoo, Pantene Shampoo, Tresemme Conditioner, l' Oreal Hair Dye, Tresemme Hairspray and Aussie Miracle Curls and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [65:04]
Tim Miller
Bro, from the show last night to this drive. Why is it never chill?
- [65:07]
John Ganz
Because this is our life backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real.
- [65:12]
Tim Miller
And that's the best part.
- [65:14]
Ryan Seacrest
Whole crew, no plan, just moving.
- [65:17]
John Ganz
Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks. Real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it.
- [65:24]
Tim Miller
That's why it holds up.
- [65:25]
Ryan Seacrest
Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. power.
- [65:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you can tell.
- [65:32]
Ryan Seacrest
2026 Nissan Rogue built for what really happens for J.D.
- [65:36]
Tim Miller
power.
- [65:36]
John Ganz
2025 U.S. initial Quality Study Award information visit jdpower.com awards awards based on 2025 model year. Newer models may be shown big transfer news today. Who's moving me to the couch with Domino's?
- [65:51]
Tim Miller
Best deal ever since they just added stuff.
- [65:53]
John Ganz
Crust any pizza, Any toppings now with stuffed crust for 9.9. It's a long term contract with no release clause. Only 9.99. Yeah, that sounds like the move.
- [66:03]
Ryan Seacrest
I'm heading straight to dom.
- [66:07]
John Ganz
Price is higher for some locations. Excludes Excel and specialty pizzas.
- [66:09]
Tim Miller
Select this offer from 6:15 through 726 online only.
- [66:12]
John Ganz
Size availability varies by crust type. Max 7 topping 6 for pan and New York style crust.
- [66:16]
Ryan Seacrest
Minimum purchase required for delivery prices, participation,
- [66:18]
John Ganz
delivery area and charges may vary.