Paxton Americana

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Paxton Americana" – May 27, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, hosted by Jon Podhoretz with regulars Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, Seth Mandel, and guest Matthew Continetti, analyzes the political earthquake in Texas: the decisive defeat of long-serving Senator John Cornyn by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate primary runoff. The panel explores the shifting dynamics within the Republican Party, how scandal now signals virtue to the grassroots, and the corresponding shifts in Democratic politics—particularly concerning anti-Israel sentiment and the rise of activist-driven candidates. Broader themes include the divorce of personal morality from political performance, the dangers of radicalization on both ends of the spectrum, and the growing influence of activist money in elections.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Texas Senate Primary: The Cornyn-Paxton Shellacking

• Paxton's Landslide Victory: Ken Paxton trounced John Cornyn by 30+ points in the Texas GOP Senate primary runoff, despite Paxton’s extensive legal and ethical troubles.
  • Podhoretz notes: “The political career of John Cornyn…has been ended in an extraordinarily humiliating defeat to Attorney General of the state Paxton.” (00:59)
  • Trump’s Endorsement: The group agrees Trump’s endorsement boosted Paxton, but the margins indicate Paxton was already favored.
    • Continetti observes: “Trump played a major part in getting the size of this victory for Paxton.” (02:22)
  • Changing GOP Values: The hosts emphasize that scandal or controversy now often signals that a Republican is "fighting liberals," not disqualifying them from office.
    • Continetti explains: “For much of the Republican grassroots, scandal or controversy is actually a sign that you’re fighting liberals and liberalism... That’s the ideal state... be a MAGA warrior.” (04:26)

2. Shifting Standards for Political Leadership

• Morality vs. Performance: The US electorate now largely separates personal morality from political effectiveness.
  • Podhoretz elaborates: “We are now living in a world in which politics is almost entirely divorced from the personal morality of the candidate in question.” (19:22)
  • He draws a line from Clinton’s impeachment to the present, with both parties now minimizing moral judgments.

3. Democratic Party: Anti-Israel Sentiment and the Rise of the Activist Left

• The Platner Phenomenon:
  • Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate with a Nazi tattoo, is emblematic of anti-establishment, anti-Israel left-wing populism in Democratic primaries.
    • Continetti: “Platner is obviously benefiting from anti-Israel currents in the Democratic Party... there is similarity between Paxton and Platner in that they are both anti system candidates.” (31:51)
• Other Notable Contests:
  • Discussion of anti-Israel, or explicitly antisemitic, candidates in other primaries (e.g., Marie Galindo in Texas, Abdel Hamawi in New Jersey).
    • Continetti: “It is two races in two weeks where the explicitly anti-Israel candidate…loses primaries in both parties. And I can just have to say that is a great thing and we should celebrate.” (34:09)
  • Yet, the hosts warn of the growing normalization of anti-Israel, even antisemitic, positions in left-wing organizing and Democratic politics, highlighted by events like the Park Slope Food Co-Op’s vote to ban Israeli goods, and local NYC community garden by-laws requiring anti-Zionist declarations.

4. Paid Activism vs. Organic Grassroots

• Cultivated Radicalism: The panel distinguishes between spontaneous grassroots political shifts and “cultivated agriculture,” i.e., heavily funded activist efforts from the left, often by NGOs and wealthy donors.
  • Podhoretz: “This is cultivated agriculture…tens of thousands…being paid…billions and billions…being poured into American nonprofits.” (57:34)
• Example: The rapid spread of anti-Israel activism across local institutions is cited as an outgrowth of this trend.

5. Economic Populism and the DSA

• Dueling Populisms: The popularity of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates, the economic anxieties of young, educated voters, and the Republicans’ struggles to offer a compelling economic alternative are discussed.
  • Seth Mandel: “The DSA folks also have an economic message that really resonates with overeducated, underemployed liberal elites in this country.” (67:08)
  • Abe Greenwald adds: “This helps explain Vance’s rise in popularity in part too…there is this sort of populist right, and that Vance can articulate this has made him a hero among a certain sector of the right that was like, well, we were just ignoring economics…” (68:27)
  • The group notes that the left’s message on economic grievances is currently more “positive” and appealing among young people than the right's.

6. Election Dynamics: Base Mobilization

• 2026 and Beyond: Both parties are seen to be “mobilization” parties now, not coalition- or persuasion-based. Issues like Israel, populism, and identity are discussed as drivers of base turnout.
  • Continetti: “Right now it looks like the 2026 campaign is shaping up to be a mobilization election. Both parties are moving toward that.” (13:27)
• Future Risks: The panel warns of growing polarization, further diminishment of substantive debate, and radical flank effects in both parties.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Scandal as Credential:

  • “For much of the Republican grassroots, scandal or controversy is actually a sign that you’re fighting liberals and liberalism... That’s the ideal state... be a MAGA warrior and Cornyn wasn’t.” – Matthew Continetti (04:26)

• Morality Bifurcation:

  • “Politics in America began to separate character from performance... We are now living in a world in which politics is almost entirely divorced from the personal morality of the candidate in question.” – Jon Podhoretz (19:22)

• On Anti-Israel Trends:

  • “We are getting very close to the Democratic Party’s line being that it is okay to be anti Semitic because Israel's behavior over the last three years has crossed the line so much.” – Jon Podhoretz (35:13)
  • “There was one [community garden] in Queens that had in its bylaws that...you had to declare your opposition to Zionism. This...has always stood out as the sort of crazy end where we're heading.” – Abe Greenwald (54:42)

• On Paid Activism:

  • “This is cultivated agriculture…a generation of cultivated agriculture creating a class of activists, tens of thousands of them who are being paid…Billions and billions of dollars are being poured into American nonprofits to train and send people out across the country at the state level.” – Jon Podhoretz (57:34)

• On Youth and Economic Populism:

  • “The DSA folks also have an economic message that really resonates with overeducated, underemployed liberal elites in this country... And this is seed. There is seed money for that. If you start showing some success…that spigot can start getting open.” – Seth Mandel & Jon Podhoretz (67:08 – 64:26)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Paxton Defeats Cornyn:
  • 00:59 – 06:35: The Texas Republican runoff, Trump’s impact, and the new Republican grassroots.
• Personal Scandal and Political Success:
  • 06:35 – 11:08: How a history of scandal and corruption is no longer disqualifying for GOP candidates.
• Morality in U.S. Politics – From Clinton to Trump:
  • 16:13 – 28:21: The Clinton impeachment’s legacy, divorcing character from leadership; evolution through Bush and Trump.
• Anti-Israel Sentiment and Democratic Activism:
  • 35:13 – 44:12: Rising anti-Semitism in progressive circles; candidate examples (Platner, Galindo, Hamawi); local anti-Zionist activism.
• Grassroots vs. Paid Activism:
  • 54:42 – 59:30: How the modern left’s “grassroots” are cultivated and funded.
• Economic Populism and DSA Influence:
  • 63:33 – 69:06: The DSA’s economic appeal to young liberals and the strategic implications for Republicans.

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Closing Thoughts

The episode paints a bleak but energetic picture of U.S. politics heading toward 2028, where ideological purity, adversarial activism, and “warrior” credentials increasingly overshadow policy details or personal virtue. The Texas race is held up as a bellwether for both parties: conservatives embracing combative, scandal-tinged MAGA populists, and progressives moving rapidly toward radical, activist-driven politics—with antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment rising as potent forces. Economic grievances supply rocket fuel for the left; traditional Republicans and Democrats alike seem caught off guard by the pace and direction of these changes.

Memorable sign-off:
“For Matt and Seth and Christine and Abe, I’m John Podhoretz. Keep the candle bur.” (72:33)

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For listeners who missed the episode, this summary captures the major themes, arguments, and spirit of the Commentary team’s 5/27/2026 discussion, illustrating the highly charged dynamics shaping American politics today.

Transcript

[Abe Greenwald]

Foreign.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Expect the worst Some reach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, May 27, 2026. I'm Jon Bud Horowitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Joining us today, Poobah at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist with the Wall Street Journal, Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

So the political career of John Cornyn, 40 year Texas politician, attorney general rising to the Senate, has been ended in an extraordinarily humiliating defeat to Attorney General of the state Paxton, who beat him in the runoff, that Cornyn actually won by 2 points, by 30 points. So Republicans faced with a head to head choice between Cornyn and Paxton, it would appear that half of Cornyn's voters decided to switch over and vote for Paxton in the two months between the primary and this runoff. Thus, I guess, you know, validating Donald Trump's decision last week to endorse Paxton, which I assume he did because the private numbers must have shown that a result like this was on the way and he wanted to get on the side of the very obvious winner so he could claim the victory. Though when you win by 30 points, I don't really think that it's Trump came in and switched it to a 30 point margin in a week.

[Matthew Continetti]

He may have increased the margin though, because one interesting aspect of this result, and there are many interesting aspects, but one is Paxton outperformed the polls. The polls were showing a closer race, still a Paxton lead ahead of Cornyn. But this type of margin is pretty incredible. It's the largest defeat for an incumbent senator since 1974 when Dale bumpers beat William J. Fulbright as part of the class of 74 Watergate babies, kind of a prelude to that change in the Democratic Party. Now we have Cornyn being defeated by an incredible margin. I think Trump played a major part in getting the size of this victory for Paxton.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Right. Well, so it's basically like a Knicks Cavaliers result. I mean, it is, you know, when you win, it's not only you win, but you win by 40 points. A game that speaks to, I don't know what the larger, I don't know what the larger focus is. I think the larger focus is that attacks on Republicans, even when the attacks on Republicans often come from other Republicans. As long as the Republican who is being attacked is a figure of controversy with liberals, may have a completely jiu jitsu boomeranging effect. That Paxton is a person of very questionable character, that he was investigated for pretty serious malfeasance. And all of that not only didn't hurt him, but helped him in this margin. Though it may hurt him in November because it gives his opponent, James Talarico, a lot of running room with whatever size of independent voter base there is inside Texas to say, we don't really want this guy representing us in November.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, I mean, before the turn of the general, I think it's worth dilating on the point you just made, John. For much of the Republican grassroots, scandal or controversy is actually a sign that you're fighting liberals and liberalism. And so the way that Paxton is described online among Republicans and Trump supporters is as a MAGA warrior. You know, that's what that's like. The ideal state or status to have is you're a MAGA warrior and Cornyn wasn't. I thought a very revealing comment was in the Punchbowl AM newsletter this morning describing Cornyn as, quote, a reliable conservative able to cut deals with Democrats on gun safety and chips. That's why Cornyn lost. That's exactly why Cornyn lost, is that the base doesn't want a conservative who is able to cut deals with Democrats on gun safety above all. But also the chips bill, that was $400 billion, I think, back in the Biden administration. They don't want that. They want someone who's going to take it to the Democrats every single time. And that's just not John Cornyn. I've followed John Cornyn's career since his first election in 2002 to the Senate. And he is a reliable conservative. There's no question about it. He represents an older Republican Party, more kind of open to compromise than the Texas Republicans. Remember, that's where George W. Bush came from. Right. But he's out of step with where the party is today. And so I think the Trump endorsement was, yes, it was both a reflection of where the party is, and Trump's grasp of the party is really uncanny, I think. But it also, I think, boosted Paxton in the final week of the campaign.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

But it should be said, and then we can sort of move on from the Paxton corn and think particularly the pursuit of Paxton, legally and politically, was done by Republicans. It was not an act. It wasn't the Democrats slandering.

[Seth Mandel]

It was for felony securities fraud. I mean, it wasn't like some sort of political

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

and hiring a mistress and then asking people in his employ to cover up the fact that he had hired the mistress and then fired them for not doing it properly and then was basically lost a judgment in a court that required him personally to pay them for, I think, slander or something like that in the tune of millions of dollars. So it's not as though he was come after with sleazy, unfair stories about how sort of like the DeSantis stories of 2021, that he was like sending the COVID vaccine to white people instead of to black people. These were actual acts of criminal malfeasance and misuse of his office. And it was Republicans in the state of Texas who were pursuing him and believed him to be somebody who should be extirpated from the party. Now, those people may themselves now be missing a bet and fundamentally misunderstanding where the politics are. But I don't think that was a clear bet at the beginning of 2026 that he would be able to jujitsu even legitimate charges of corruption, double dealing, mishandling and mismanagement for personal gain and also personal doing stuff with his mistress and stuff like that. In a state full of evangelicals, obviously those rules are now out the window. That's what I'm saying. Like any expectation that people are going to be judged by MAGA for their personal behavior when they appear to be warriors, as you would say. And Paxton was his career, his, his histories of doing extremely provocative things with his attorney general position to advance right wing MAGA causes often in contravention of the Constitution, but nonetheless he fights for that. And that is Kashuring. That covers the multitude of sins that he may or may not have committed and that people might be just perfectly willing to believe when they hear them that it's like this is just the liberal media piling on instead of investigating and saying, well, we have this totally pristine guy who votes 100% of the time with Trump, we'll go with him because he's a better person. No, that's not a calculation anymore.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, the response to look, I don't think James Talarico, he's far to the left of the average Texas voter, so this is going to be a tough race for him as well. And so all of the sort of Democrats assuming that they have a clear path to that Senate seat are misguided. But in the aftermath of the runoff, his response was he reached out to Cornyn voters and said, hey, come join us. Like if you're even slightly independently minded and you think this guy's bad news, come join us. And Paxton's response was to call him low t Talarico. So I think that kind of gives you a sense of the rhetoric of these two different politicians. Now that again, the general race will be very interesting, but the independent voters in Texas are low. It's like under 20%. So it's not a huge number of voters. But I'm not sure that betting on the MAGA rhetorical style is always gonna lead to a victory. Now we'll see with Paxton. I mean, he's just kind of an unpleasant character to people who might not be already on board with the mag MAGA style, but in Texas that might not matter. However, I don't see this as necessarily an evolution in the Republican Party's fortunes to be praised. I think it's probably bad news for our politics in general if somebody who goes around insulting people on social media is going to be in the Senate.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

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[Matthew Continetti]

Can I just say something about the Texas race because I think it's important. First of all, if you study Tallreco, if you follow him, that low T joke is pretty funny. And I think that the clips that they have on Talarico and him struggling with his whiteness and his masculinity from the pulpit and him talking about how God is non binary and how there are six genders in a stereotype in a legislative setting show stereotype. Yeah, this, this nomination in Paxton makes the race more competitive, but Republicans, I think, still have a lot to go after Talarico for. And that highfalutin rhetoric about come join me. We know how that works out. That's what Obama does. All Tall Reiko does is mimic Obama and Beto o', Rourke and neither of those individuals won Texas. So that's just something to keep in mind. Right now it looks like the 2026 campaign is shaping up to be a mobilization election. Both parties are moving toward that. Okay. And so if you have problems with Paxton, it's clear that you should also have problems with Platner. And everyone on this podcast does. But I think the media is only focusing on one side of the equation. Right. The selective indignation is strong. What did we see yesterday with Platner? We had Jake Ochenkloss, who's up and coming, I think, pretty sensible Democrat as far as it goes. Interesting guy. He comes out and says that someone who has a Nazi tattoo is automatically disqualified in his book from holding federal office. You know what? Sensible point? Instead he finds himself on defense by the Chenk Uyghurs and the Hasan Pikers and the Chakrabarti's socialist wing of the Democratic Party. And in the end he has to say, look, I'm not endorsing Susan Collins, but I kind of stay by my position. It's the same dynamic taking place. And I think Trump's bet is with figures like Cassidy in Louisiana and Cornyn in Texas. He went for their challengers who won the primary because he thinks, you know what, leave Louisiana aside, that's a safe red seat. But in Texas, Cornyn, yeah, Cornyn gets plaudits from the media, but are those grassroots voters going to turn out for him in a base election in the fall. Not so clear right now. He may be able to cover that up with. Make up the difference with independents, maybe some Hispanics at the same time. If it's going to be base versus base, I think Paxton is still competitive in this election.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Look, I think there's no question he's competitive. I'm not saying he's not competitive. Just to zoom out 30,000ft, which is what I was going for. This just interesting coincidence that Newt Gingrich came out on a podcast yesterday and said that in retrospect, Bill Clinton should not have been impeached in 1998. Now, as it happens, I agree with that for complicated reasons. But I do think that the hinge moment in American politics in the post Cold War period was the impeachment and failed conviction of Bill Clinton, because it was the moment at which politics in America began to separate character from performance, that is to say, leadership in America. There was a whole category of the idea that leaders in America were supposed to be admirable people who had reasons other than being educated and knowing things about politics you didn't know and having experience and all of that, that they were supposed to be pretty good and that they represented, they reflected the pretty goodness of the American people altogether. And the Democratic Party, faced with the challenge of Bill Clinton's personal malfeasance, not criminal, because that's why the impeachment failed, but personal malfeasance that both the Democratic Party had a choice to make really, at that moment in February, March, April of 1998. And it said, we don't care. We don't care about, you know, a president, you know, sort of mishandling an intern. We don't care about.

[Seth Mandel]

He did perjure himself, actually, and he was disbarred for that. So there was actually a legal offense there. It just.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

They didn't care because it was covered in the video.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, okay, that's MAGA warrior Christine talking

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

there, but okay, but I mean, in the specific case of Monica Lewinsky, right, The thing with Monica Lewinsky not to get deep in the weeds was did Bill Clinton go to Vernon Jordan and get Vernon Jordan to give Monica Lewinsky a job in New York to get her out of Washington and buy her silence when the special prosecutors might come calling and they could never prove that there was no evidence of it. I think everybody is pretty sure that it happened, but there was no way of demonstrating that it was the truth. And. And so he got off. But more important than that was the few Politicians like Joe Lieberman, who thought it was necessary for the prophylactic health of the Democratic Party to censure Clinton or at least say we disapprove of his behavior. The behavior that was. That unquestionably happened in the Oval Office. Democrats didn't even wanna do that because they didn't wanna hand Republicans and Newt Gingrich and others a victory.

[Abe Greenwald]

And.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

And because the religious right was on the march, was going to steal our rights. And what about abortion? And I just think that moment, 28 years ago, we had American politics bifurcate. And it opened. It was a crack opening that opened further and further and further and further. Made Trump possible. Made it possible for. At the point at which Trump was running to. When he basically said, what? You think I'm corrupt? What about them? You think I'm a bad guy? Look at what this guy did. I'm bringing all the women. You think I'm Mr. Access Hollywood? Disgusting tape. Here at the debate. Here are all the women who say that Bill Clinton mistreated them or raped them. It was. You didn't vote for morality then. And you're not. You're not gonna come at me saying you're gonna vote for morality now. But we are now living in a world in which politics is almost entirely divorced from the personal morality of the candidate in question. And that's where we get to Graham Platner. Wait.

[Christine Rosen]

But, Jon, I wanna ask you a question. I'm curious about your complicated reasons for agreeing with Newt here, because do you feel as if were there no impeachment, politics would not have bifurcated in that way character from performance? Because I don't think that's the case.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

I think that the public exposure of the first trial of a president of the United States in the Senate that ended that was basically about the president's personal beauty, behavior in his malfeasance that ended in his acquittal while Rehnquist and the others were wearing these robes that Rehnquist had designed after watching a production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta called Iolanthe. So there was something comic about the whole proceeding rather than deadly serious. First impeachment of a president since 1868. Like, this is a very serious business. And we knew from the get go that it was never gonna go. And just like prosecutorial discretion says, you don't bring a case when you know you have no choice, realistic chance of getting a jury to find someone guilty doing this, to go through the process of just impeaching him. And now we're back. We've had two, we've had two impeachments since of Trump. We're going to probably have another one in 2019.

[Eric Gertler]

From the State House to the courthouse, in the emergency room and in the classroom, Americans are losing trust in their leaders. In a 2025 U.S. news and World Report survey, 85% of Americans said government leaders care more about their own power than the people they serve. 73% are disappointed in healthcare leaders, 72% in business, and 68% in education. But there are still leaders worth believing in. I'm Eric Gertler, CEO and executive chairman of U.S. news World Report. This is the Best Leaders podcast sponsored by the Noble Reach Foundation. On this show, we'll go deeper into the stories, challenges and lessons of extraordinary leaders across across public service, business, healthcare and education. You can find the Best Leaders podcast from U.S. news World Report on YouTube, Apple Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matt Ebert]

I started with one shop. No college degree, no big investors. It was just a willingness to work. Over time that one shop turned into a multi billion dollar business called Crash Champions. All the lessons I learned along the way came from the grind. And that's what my show podcrash is all about. We have real conversations with people who've built things the hard way. We talk to founders, athletes and blue collar leaders who kept going when things got tough. You'll hear stories of grit, leadership and growth, plus real world lessons you can take back to your team and your life tomorrow.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

When you get momentum, you step on the gas.

[Abe Greenwald]

That's how you get separation from everybody else.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

I was at Harvard Law School as blah blah blah.

[Abe Greenwald]

I looked up, let me tell you something.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

There's kids in my neighborhood putting in Sheetrock that are smarter than you.

[Abe Greenwald]

AI is going to disrupt a lot of stuff.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

It is never going to disrupt physical blue collar trade skill.

[Abe Greenwald]

And the guy just looked at me

[Matt Ebert]

and he said it's bloody impossible.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

So I asked him this question.

[Matt Ebert]

I said, it's impossible unless that's pod crash with me. Matt ebert. Watch on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matthew Continetti]

Just add an asterisk though to your great thesis here, which is remember what happened to Lieberman? He was selected to be the vice presidential nominee in 2000. And who was elected president in 2000? George W. Bush, who spent his campaign saying he wanted to restore dignity to the White House. So even though that was of course a very close race in 2000 and Joe Lieberman was not the vice president, I do think there was a Slight backlash to Clinton's personal behavior. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's a similar backlash to all of the corruption controversies surrounding the Trump second term in 2028. And that's. And again, that same backlash is the reason most prognosticators are saying that this Texas Senate race is going to be more competitive than not. Now, look, what's interesting is Cornyn and Paxton weren't that much different in polling up against Tall Reiko. And I think that's another reason that, you know, to the junkies who were voting in the Texas primary, they thought, okay, well, you know, why not Paxton? He's won the state three times. He is a fighter. He's going to throw the punches. There's no question about that. He's going to get out the base, so let's just go with him. But the voters do kind of react to these things. I think the contest now in Texas is between Paxton's corruption and the allegations and Talarico's ideology. And though it's not the same because Ted Cruz is not been accused of any of the ethical wrongdoings that Paxton has. Remember what happened just six years ago again, a Trump midterm election, Democrats fired up to resist the tyrant in the White House, Trump mobilizing his base. In that case, you had Beto o', Rourke, who had actually, I think, slightly better political skills in a way than Tallreco, to be honest with you. Talareko's kind of like this emissary from liberal podcastistan who's kind of come and kind of had this enormous rise, except he's a Christian. Except that he uses a politicized Christianity in the same way that some MAGA politicians use.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Absolutely. But I'm just saying, that is the difference between him and Beto.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Beto had, you know, the COVID of Vogue magazine. So I ask you, you know, which is more important? Nonetheless, Cruz won. It was a narrow victory. Lots of money was spent, and there's going to be lots of money spent in this race. So if you're looking at it from the point of view, I think, of a Texas Republican, you're like, look, we can win this. And maybe Paxton gets people more excited than Cornyn would. It is kind of. It's a slight generational change. I mean, it's going from one end of the baby boom with Cornyn to kind of the lower end with Paxton. But if you're looking at it from the point of view of Jonathan Steve Daines, John Barrasso kind of The Republican leadership.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

He's the Republican Senate leader.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, Republican Senate leadership and campaign leadership. Like, gosh, we're not going to have to spend resources in Texas where we would like to be spending them, say, helping Susan Collins against the Nazi tattoo guy.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Okay. I just want to. Just to put a bow on this and then move on. You're right. That 2000 featured essentially an evangelical candidate. Though of course, George W. Bush was not actually an evangelical really, because he was an Episcopalian, but an evangelical candidate who actually got in trouble in his last week with evangelicals because of the. Just to give you a sense of how different the last 25 years have

[Matthew Continetti]

been, Bush goes to a Methodist church. I don't know.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Excuse me, Methodist. I'm sorry, he's an evangelical. Okay, okay.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, but he had the evangelical style in politics, I would say.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, the first debate he said Jesus is his favorite political philosopher, you know, because he changed his heart.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Okay. But so in his last week, he seemed to betray his. You know, the word came that he had had this DUI in 1986 that he had hidden. And according to Karl Rove, he lost 3 million voters who were disappointed in his moral failing that had happened 14 years earlier. That is unimaginable today, 25 years later. No one is voting and saying a guy who had a DUI in 1986, you know, what would be the difference now in 2000 is not presidential material. We've just had Donald Trump win the presidency twice and nearly went a third time with his record of personal peccadilloes and horrible misbehavior. So that's out of politics. This was a slow acting poison. The Clinton. The Clinton introduction of the world in which you. And polling bifurcated too, by the way. It was when Clinton became controversial that you started getting these polls that measured presidential approval based on job performance or personal characteristics that had never been a feature of polling. You just did presidential approval. This was done, I think, ideologically in order to find. To create controversy, to say people love the job that Clinton's doing, even if they disapprove of his personal actions, to give them a way of saying both at the same time and thus giving him an out. But nonetheless, what has happened over the last quarter century is we've gotten to the point where we have Paxton winning and we have Platner. Is there anybody in the state of Maine who is not a political professional who would say, based on what we know about Platner now, that he was, as a human being, superior in character to Janet Mills, whom he drove out of the race and who was somebody who won the governorship of Maine from the same voters that she was seeking to earn the senatorial nomination in Maine two years earlier. But that doesn't matter anymore. And in fact, my question would be, does it help these bad boys? And they're mostly boys, but I'm just calling them bad boys. These bad boys got a streak in them of nonconformity and a refusal to hew to political correctness, whether it's right wing political correctness or left wing political correctness. That gives them, you know, a soup song, gives them something special, a zette. It's a little fun. You know, I'm voting. You know, this guy Platner, he's got that Totenkov tattoo. I don't know. Interesting guy, Oysterman with a Totenkopf tattoo who went to Hotchkiss. You know, bad boy.

[Matthew Continetti]

Fun. He's called himself a communist. Look, I mean, he's. Platner is obviously benefiting from the anti Israel currents in the Democratic Party, which I want to address in a moment. But there's also the similarity. There is a similarity between Paxton and Platner that is in that they are both anti system candidates. Right. And so Paxton was running against Cornyn as a representative of the Beltway Republican establishment, and he wins. Platner running against Mills Mills, longtime politician, the favored candidate of the Democratic Beltway establishment. In the person of Chuck Schumer, he's able to force Mills from the race before a vote is cast. I think that is also, by the way, a sign that unlike Cornyn, Mills didn't have any fight in her. You know, all credit to John Cornyn. He fought that. He fought a campaign. $130 million was spent on this primary. He came out ahead in the initial count back in the spring. Spring. Then he lost the runoff. But he waged a campaign. Mills didn't. She saw what she interpreted as the writing on the wall and she left. Now that leaves the job done to Susan Collins to show that Graham Platner should not be anywhere near the United States Senate. He's got a lot of problems that he needs to figure out. He needs to go to the oyster farm. He needs to do some thinking about his life. He's done a lot of thinking online, which is going to come up to his detriment in the campaign.

[Seth Mandel]

Reddit is his philosopher.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah. I mean, it didn't seem to work, though, if it was therapy. He needs more. So that's Platner, and I Think I wish the Democrats had put up a little bit more fight there in Texas. However, we should talk about the House primary where I think her name, first name is Marie Galindo, as she's described in the media today, the progressive sex therapist, who is an outright anti Semite and who just last week was saying that she wanted to turn a ICE detention center into a prison for American Zionists.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Maureen Galindo.

[Matthew Continetti]

Maureen, I knew it started with an M. Maureen Galindo. She lost her runoff election by a similar margin that Cornyn did by a 30 point margin. And so it was after that most recent comment that even the AOCs of the world said that she did not deserve an election. Prior to that, actually, Talarico had said, based on her other attacks on American Zionists, that is Jews, Talarico had said he would not support her campaign for her if he won the runoff. He gets some points there, but she lost badly. And so that is two races in two weeks where the explicitly anti Israel candidate, the candidate who traffics in either anti Semitic tropes, which is Massey, or explicit anti Semitism like Galindo, loses primaries in both parties. And I can just have to say that is a great thing and we should celebrate that it is.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

And we should now talk about why it's a great thing and what's happening in the real world that indicates why it's a great thing and why it is so important for the health and future of the United States that Graham Platner not be elevated to the Senate in November. Here's what's happened just in the last 24 hours. And one thing happened here and one thing happened in London, but London, you know, I wish we could say that London was so far away that stuff like this couldn't happen. Here in Golder's Green, which is the main Jewish neighborhood in London, a kosher supermarket was firebombed. You can see the footage anywhere you want to look if you Google it. It was a massive bomb. It blew the store up. That's gone. This is, you know, weeks after people are getting punched in the street and, you know, kids are getting abused and all that in London, in Jewish neighborhoods in London. Meanwhile, another grocery store, the legendary hippie grocery store, the Park Slope Food Co Op, which is a, is a co op, meaning the people who run it own it. You own a share of it and you actually, to be a member of it, you actually have to work there. You have to do hours of work a week. And supposedly the, you know, the, the produce is really fresh. And it's really wonderful. And it's basically been the center of the liberal to left Park Slope, which is a very progressive neighborhood in Brooklyn, the center of the community for half a century and thousands and thousands of people are members and a lot of them are Jews and a lot of them are very left wing Jews. There's a very left wing synagogue called Bet Elohim in the neighborhood that is not exactly friendly to Israel or certainly friendly to the current regime. But there was a vote, this is the third or fourth time that they've done this, a vote to ban Israeli, certain Israeli products from sale in the stores. And the vote came in. And interestingly, the two candidates for office in that district, one an anti Zionist Jew, Brad Lander, and the other a non anti Zionist Jew, Dan Goldman, the sitting congressman, both said they were opposed to the boycott winning and the Boycott won by 2 to 1. So we have in the United States, in a Jewish neighborhood, in a liberal to left live and let live hippie, you know, founded on hippie principles store. They have now passed explicitly antisemitic policy because the idea is if a Jew made it, we're not selling it. If a Jew made it in Israel, we're not selling it. And you can give me all kinds of guff about how what they mean is that some of it came from the west bank or not. That is sophistic beyond measure. This was an anti Semitic act by a, by a left wing organization. And we are getting very close to the Democratic Party's line being that it is okay to be anti Semitic because Israel's behavior over the last three years has crossed the line so much. And Jews in America who are, who are supportive of Israel are so complicit in the evil that Israel is doing that all of this is okay. And you saw that in the response to Jake Auchenkloss by this whole world of podcasters and candidates for office and sitting members of Congress saying Jake Auchincloss should be primaried because he is trying to get Susan Collins, the Republican elected in Maine, no Democrat should be allowed to hold that position. He should be driven from the party. That is the position that is being held by mainstream leftist Democrats in 2026. For someone who says, I do not believe that a person with a Nazi image engraved on his body should represent Americans in the United States even today. And I don't know what room the Democrats are going to give people who do not hold explicitly anti Israel and anti Semitic views as if this progresses and goes forward and if they have score some victories in 2026 that give the candidates who are going to run for office in 2027 a sense that this is a platform on which they should stand.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, we have Platner in Maine who did win. He's going to win the nomination because Mills dropped out of the race. We have the contest in Michigan, the three way Democratic primary where El Sayed is again the Platner like candidate. Bernie supporter Democratic Socialist of America, anti Semite just said the other day, according to Jewish Insider that he struggles with the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. I'd love to hear him struggle with the idea of Saudi Arabia as a Muslim state or Iran as the Islamic Republic or any of the other countries in the Middle east which explicitly outlaw or suppress minority faiths, including Judaism. So that's Maine. And then we have Hamawi is the candidate in the New Jersey House race, a multi candidate Democratic primary there. And this guy, I mean he's something else. He shows up in the transcripts of the Blind Sheikh trial connected to the original World Trade center bombing in 1993. Again, Jewish Insider just reports that he volunteered for what was known as an Al Qaeda front during the Kosovo conflict in the 1990s. I mean he's not a pro terrorist candidate. He is a legitimate case for a terrorist candidate in the Democratic primary. And of course he is running on an anti Israel platform as well.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think a lot of, by the way, I think a lot of people would benefit just from some, some background on, on this. I don't think people think of Bosnia as, you know, people think of, of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tora Bora when they think of training camps, Al Qaeda training camps and, and where the threat was really grown into something international or the funding from, and cooperation from Iran, the Saudis, whoever. But Bosnia was, you know, as Matt alluded to in the 90s and then in the aughts Bosnia was a, the, the petri dish for what Al Qaeda would become especially in the 90s. This, this was where war, where ethnic war was and therefore this was where you went to participate in ethnic war. So this was the Central Asia in a manner of speaking of its time the way we think of Central Asia today and have thought about Central asia really since 9, 11 and after, before that Bosnia was the place where that stuff happened. The Tora Boras were, you know, in this, in this region. And so that's just, just some background for people. He, this, this candidate Hamaui, he was, he, he volunteered at an office where they recovered Al Qaeda Battle plans and, and, and sort of hierarchy of leadership and things like that written down, handwritten down and stuff like that. There was this. This was a sort of. This was the hq, the Orwellian, the

[Seth Mandel]

Orwellian name of the Benevolence International Foundation, Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

And this was part of the whole. But this was the kind of seed of a lot of the violence and extremism that would come later. And also.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

And remember, very important, very important recruiting and developing. Right. But the important. He went in 1994, this means he went after the first bombing of the World Trade center, which was the second major terrorist act in the jihadist frame on New York soil. The first being the assassination of Mayor Kahane in a hotel room in New York in 1990 or 1991. The World Trade center was bombed in 1993. People just don't remember this. That was the Blind Shay case that Matt made reference to, convicted in Michael Mukasey's courtroom with Andy McCarthy prosecuting. So Hamau is in touch with him. And 1994, he goes off to volunteer for this group. And while most people in America did not know what Al Qaeda was or who Osama bin Laden was, people in the know knew like this was not an unknown name. And the purpose of Al Qaeda was to take down the Great Satan. And he went there to do just that. So this is going to be a very interest. Again, these are tests. These are tests of where the guardrails are in our system here. And this is New Jersey, which means that there are people in his district who died in the Trade center in 2001, like these, you know, people were murdered by Al Qaeda in the Trade center, an organization for whom he had worked. Like this is no joke. If he wins and he represents that district, that's a Rubicon that has been crossed, you know, in American politics. And the real question, as I keep saying, is 2027 in the Democratic primaries, because once again, we're going to have a huge field and that field is going to have to distinguish itself, try to. These people are going to have to try to figure out how to pop, get themselves some attention, get themselves some money, make noise, be fighters, whatever. And Israel is clearly the number one popping issue for them.

[Matthew Continetti]

Go ahead.

[Christine Rosen]

It's actually, it references a point, Matt, that you've made many times, an excellent point, which is that it's the candidates. I'm thinking about the sort of Democrats in the medium to long term here. And Matt, you've noted that it's the candidates who sort of come out and run against their party, that make a difference, that can take it in a new direction, that sort of surprised everyone who had been going along in a sort of uninspired way. So I'm thinking about, like, okay, so could there be some interesting, engaging, charismatic Democrat to run against the Democrats on this poison, you know, to sort of go, what on earth are we talking about here? We've got real problems. We've got, Donald Trump has done this, we've got done, and we're obsessing over Israel, which has nothing to do with anything. But then I'm thinking, actually, I don't see how anyone could do that, because even the candidate who has to come out and run against the party to get the attention and the energy has to find some traction among the disaffected.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, well, Mallory McMarrow just did that. Mallory McMurraw in Michigan literally, just. We kind of have this case where Mallory McMurraw said, Yes, I have considered what Israel did in Gaza to be genocide. I think it meets the definition, whatever. But we shouldn't be making this a litmus test. We should move on.

[Christine Rosen]

I don't think that counts.

[Eric Gertler]

I really don't.

[Abe Greenwald]

That's right. That's exactly how it had. That's the closest anyone can come, is to actually abide by the litmus test and then say, let's stop talking by her own logic.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's such an absurd argument. Yeah, they committed genocide, but, you know, let's talk about something else. Of course, they didn't commit genocide, and that's a blood libel anyway. But the sad thing, Abe, is the way to run against the party, it seems to me, right now, if you're a Democrat, is to run against past Democratic support for Israel. If you look at the way that the party is, the insurgents in the party, right, the people who are running against the party, the way they're running is the Platner way. It is the way that the Analia Mejia, who won the primary in another kind of affluent New Jersey district and who is also a virulent opponent of Israel, they are going against the establishment, right? And so that means that you have to go against the past Democratic support for Israel. You have to make AIPAC funding into a litmus test to have to go after the Jewish lobby, right? That's the sad thing. And I was struck by the discussions of this ridiculous DNC autopsy that was leaked last week. The main critiques were coming from the left because they were saying it wasn't anti Israel enough.

[Seth Mandel]

They were saying they're blaming that on Harris?

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, they're blaming Biden, and Harris didn't do enough to stop Israel reign. Israel in which, of course, you know, for our audience, you know, is lunacy. It's absolute lunacy. But that's where they're coming from. That's what I'm worried about with this primary. I was in a conversation with the veteran Democratic thinker writer the other day, and he was talking about, oh, no, no, no. The party is having this wonderful debate about all sorts of positions, and I can see the moderate critique of Israel gaining strength. You know, remember, people come out of nowhere and the Democratic Party has such great candidates as Andy Bashir of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Same thing.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

What?

[Matthew Continetti]

First of all, Andy Bashir, it's just his time has not arrived and it may never, let's just put it that way. And Josh Shapiro, for all of his skills, for all of his record, for the fact that he is going to most likely win a very whopping reelection, this Democratic Party nominating Josh Shapiro in 2028, keeping Jew. Yeah, that would be an amazing thing. That would be Dianu. That would be a miracle for the earth.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Right. So I think where we come down today with all of this politically is there are interesting debates going on in the Democratic Party. For example, Jonathan Chait, a writer I do not ordinarily think well of at all, has an extremely interesting piece in the Atlantic on people he calls the Brandesians, named after Louis Brandeis, the people who believe. And. And I've come to believe that monopolization is the sole issue in American domestic politics. And basically, beginning from a standing start in 2010, this thinking about how to break up monopolies, or to name things as monopolies that aren't really monopolies as a way of basically eliminating corporate power in the United States. It's a theory of everything, as Chait says, how they have come to dominate American political discourse when it comes to what the Democratic Party should do on economics. And it's really interesting, and the debate is really interesting. And it will play absolutely no role whatsoever when it comes to finding a president in 2028. Now, it'll be part of the policy prescriptions that we are interested in. But this is gonna be run. Trump has changed the terms of how you run for president. This is going to be run on. Are you the kind of person who is going to destroy the other team? Are you going to take them and kill them and burn them and wreck them and ruin them and eat them alive? And having A conversation about abundance versus monopolization is like when we thought, boy, having conversations about entitlements. That's the way to, to get America focused on the real problem, which is the coming debt cliff. You know what? Nobody cares about that. No one ever cared about it. That's not the way politics works. And particularly now. This is very broad brush, very broad. And so Israel is a broad brush. Trump is a broad brush. Republicanism versus Democratism is. Democrats are now saying that they favor socialism 49 to 22. They don't know what socialism is. They don't know what it means to say that you're for a socialist. They only know that conservatives hate socialism and it sounds nice. And people in movies and TV shows from the 70s and 80s say they were socialists and so socialism is fine for them. We are moving into a political period in which big. It's all going to be this tectonic are two like cruise ships, massive cruise ships that are sailing directly into each other's path and who's going to smash who and which one is going to sink and which one is going to limp into port. And unfortunately, Israel is like one of the torpedoes and there aren't going to be many others.

[Abe Greenwald]

Can I say something else about the anti Zionism taking over the left as a sort of psychosis also, and just to understand how deeply this has embedded itself in the thinking, in the political and cultural thinking, is that last year there was a fight between the, between New York City, the government, and this was when Eric Adams was still mayor, and a community garden. Community gardens in New York City are public. Generally speaking, they are public property. They're city owned land. And they are, they can be marked for any sort of development ever. Which means they can, you know, the city could sell them tomorrow to a developer or whatever, but in the meantime, the city, there are people who volunteer to build gardens there. There was this whole movement in New York building gardens anyway to make New York nice. And so the city actually subsidizes this. So the city, you know, pay for whatever. So it is a public. If you are in a community garden, you're actually running city proper property. The community gardens operate as clubs. And there was one in Queens that had in its bylaws that you had to, in order to be a member of this Queen's Community Garden, you had to declare your opposition to Zionism. And this to me has always stood out as the sort of crazy end where we're heading. You know, we talk about the Park Slope Co op and the other boycotts you know, in terms of boycotting Israeli products, you had to declare your opposition to the existence of a Jewish homeland in Israel if you wanted to help plant and water the flowers in a community garden. And of course, we know about this because that's why I mentioned that it was public land. That's why it's important, because the city cannot have an agency that requires people to denounce Israel in order to sign up. And therefore they were able to, you know, push them into changing their bylaws or whatever. But I just want people to understand how deep in the soil, no pun intended, this has gotten for the up and coming grassroots left that is powering the ideology that is powering future candidates for office and this sea of activists out there, that it is something that has to be fought by Democrats, first of all within their party and Jewish Democrats, because it is sinking roots so deeply that you can be expelled from your building's community garden for not denouncing Zionism as a form of colonialism.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

And this isn't just grassroots. These aren't like grassroots we usually imagine are. They grow naturally, right? That's the whole point about grassroots is the grass sits in the ground and then, you know, it's watered and then it grows. This is cultivated agriculture. This is a generation of cultivated agriculture creating a class of activists, tens of thousands of them who are being paid. We mentioned this yesterday, you know, Neville Singman, Fergie Chambers, the Soros family. Billions and billions of dollars are being poured into American nonprofits to train and send people out across the country at the state level. This is what they learned from genuine Republican grassroots over the previous 20 years and really through the Tea Party, that change at the local level can start bubbling into the national level. And the way to watch this now is not just the community garden story, though. That's a very good example of something that comes out of nowhere with no particular valence. But how did the COVID opposition start manifesting itself in genuine grassroots in 2021? School board meetings, small local events where citizens who could not bear what was going on went up and started shouting at the microphone about what was being done to their children. Now imagine 2027 with this network of paid NGO people going to every city council in a small town in Missouri and saying they want a resolution condemning Israel for its latest incursion into the West Bank.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's the same as the DEI statements that applicants to faculty positions would have to sign. Or the same way you have to declare that you're an anti racist for membership in the Democratic Party, all of the moral energy that's, like, directed towards some of this expiation of guilt that's part of the liberal mentality. You have to apologize for something. You have to show that you're morally against something. All of that has shifted from, say, the BLM philosophy where you have to apologize for your whiteness, to now it is anti Israel. It's making a fetish of Israel. And John, you're absolutely right, because malevolent actors are exploiting this kind of desire for moral purity, whether they're NGOs or whether they're foreign countries like Qatar that's influencing the Iranian propaganda network. They are maximizing it. And there are votes. There are votes for it now, too, in places like Michigan, in places like New York City. Right. And so it is a very toxic stew. But I just would like to, as I was telling this Democrat I was in conversation with the other day, I would like to see the debate. All the people saying, oh, a debate is necessary or the debate will arrive. I'm looking forward to that debate because right now all I see is conformity. All I see is the Brandesians running everything. The joke in Washington is if the Democrats win in 2028, it will be Elizabeth Warren second term because she dominated the policy of the Biden administration even though she was still in the Senate. Where is that debate coming from? And I just. One final point, I really have to say. I think the debate's not going to arrive for this reason, and that is you need a Southern Democrat to come and say, stop this foolishness. Because the last time this debate happened in the Democratic Party, it was in 1976 and it was in 1992. In both cases, there were Southern Democrats, one from Georgia and the other from Arkansas, who said the party is too far to the left. The McGovernites took it too far to the left. Now, in the end, we know what happened to Carter. Right. But in 1992, it was Clinton saying that the Paleo libs who had dominated the Mondale campaign in the 80s, the Dukakis campaign in 88, that wasn't enough. Same thing. If you don't have a Southern Democrat who has his own political or her political profile, who kind of knows how, you know, what 50% of the country thinks, you're not going to have the debate. And the regional separation of the parties, I think limits that. Right.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

It's an interesting area.

[Seth Mandel]

Can I just add one question about that, actually, which is the. And I think the next both the midterms and certainly the next presidential election will help answer it. How powerful the DSA actually is within the Democratic Party. Is it really forcing the party? I mean, I would point to our. We have a local mayoral election coming up here in Washington D.C. one of the candidates is exactly as you've described these other local candidates, Denise Lewis George. She's endorsed by the dsa. She declared publicly that one of her campaign managers had written all kinds of anti Semitic posts. She sort of shrugged it off. And she's declared publicly that she won't participate in any pro Zionist event. We have other Democratic candidates because of course it's all Democrats running who have a chance. Who called her out on that and said, no, that's not how I'm running my campaign. However, she is extremely popular among the young transplants. Blue City, very much like the Mamdani kind of momentum. So I will be really interested to watch how the dsa, which is starting to gain ground in these obviously blue urban youth, more youthful oriented voting cohorts, if that spreads. Because if it does, I think even a really charismatic, thoughtful Southern Democrat might not be able to crush that impulse.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

It's momentum investing. The way I look at this is the DSA was a joke. Democratic Socialist America, founded in the late 60s, early 70s by Michael Harrington, because what was called the Socialist Party USA had essentially become a kind of supporter of the afl, cio, labor unions, and was anti communist and basically hewing toward neoconservatism. And so the people who were more left wing and who were actually still believed in socialism spun off and started their own group. And it was basically somnolent. It was somnolent and meaningless. And then in 2018, AOC kind of used it as a springboard to get herself this surprise victory and nomination.

[Seth Mandel]

I would say they used her to gain a foothold and start.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

But the point is, it was momentum investing. Somebody showed that there was a pathway to electoral success either with this panoply of issues or using this posture, the DSA posture, at which point, and that's why I say it's not grassroots. And what we don't really know is how it functions, because a lot of this is dark money. In which case it became one of the most lavishly funded political efforts that we have seen in our lifetime. This has not come from nowhere. The BLM stuff did not come from nowhere. The encampments did not come from nowhere. All of this was paid for. Now, it's not that that means that it's fake, doesn't mean that they invented It. It means that they put accelerants behind it, and they added to the attractiveness of it. And they leveraged social media and the use of new versions of reaching people in grassroots form, TikTok ads, things like that. TikTok's to rally and harness and convince people and seduce them. But this is like a very big thing that looks like a small thing, the dsa. It is not a small thing. They also have, like, when people say, billionaires are funding the Republican Party, billionaires are funding the DSA with real results. These are real results. Graham Platner didn't get to. He didn't just sort of spring from the head of Karl Marx and start walking around Maine. There was a lot of juice behind him even when he started this campaign, because he's standing on the shoulders of the squad and others, and they've shown a path to victory. And this is seed. And there is seed money for that. And if you start showing some success, Mamdani being the most notable one you can, then that spigot can start getting open. And while it looks like it's grassroots money, some of it is. A lot of it is because people get popular. But there's just this world of support structures, organizations that have been created in the last eight years by these foundations that are giving money to a lot of little organizations to spring up and start doing this activist organizing.

[Seth Mandel]

Can I say, though, there's something that those of us who oppose socialism, whether we're conservatives or populists or whatever we call ourselves, we have fallen down on something that's very central here, and that's that the DSA folks also have an economic message that really resonates with overeducated, underemployed liberal elites in this country. I think Mamdani's election was a perfect example. They also have zero understanding of history. So when Mamdani stands in front of a microphone and says, it took a socialist to get all this money flowing back into New York City to fix things again. They don't realize they were just bailed out by the state of New York, which, you know, basically threw some money at the city. And. And this was not any sort of, you know, socialist victory, they are seeing and demanding economic changes that I think whether it's because the fracturing in the traditional versus populist wings of the Republican Party, whether it's just kind of the mess of our contemporary economy right now, there is not a very singular positive response on the right to that economic challenge. And that's where I think Whoever is going to run on our side in 2028 needs to come up with a positive message to counter that DSA message, which is, I'm sorry, it's very popular among young people for a reason. Housing costs, you know, job opportunities. These are real challenges for young people, even the college educated. So I think that's something to keep in mind if you're someone on the right.

[Abe Greenwald]

This helps explain Vance's rise in popularity in part two. Right. I mean, we. This. This is the Vance wing of the party claims to address this. Whether it does is a whole different. You know, but the idea that there is this sort of populist right, and that Vance can articulate this has made him a hero among a certain sector of the right that was like, well, we were just ignoring economics and we're ignoring healthcare and we're ignoring blah, blah, blah. This.

[Matthew Continetti]

Next to that, let's just bomb Iran and open up the strait and gas prices will come down. And there's your economic policy.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

That is it. And also, Vance, it's not wearing. Well, like Vance. Vance. This was Vance's play. And Vance has got half the popularity that he had a year ago. I'm not saying that that's because people aren't interested in his economic program, but his economic program is beside the point. That's right, because basically this administration's entire bet is winning this war and bringing gas prices down. And if it doesn't win this war, as I keep saying, the risen Christ can run as the Republican nominee in 2028, and he's not gonna win. That is a very important aspect of this, Mamdani. Very interesting thing. And then we can close up here. Mamdani announced a housing policy yesterday. Not only is it incredibly ambitious, it's also psychotic because it involves basically nationalizing private homes, apartments, when it is determined that the landlords are running them improperly or paying the rents of people who can't pay rent anymore. So therefore becoming wards of the state and having the city pay rents to private landlords to keep them afloat. And this grocery store that you may have heard about, these are the seeds of the potential revolt that people don't quite understand. And it is the hard. It's a version of the 1970 hard hat revolt in New York City. And the hard hat revolt that led to Nixon getting 62% of the vote in 1972, which is. He is now setting it up so that some landlords are gonna get money and a lot of landlords aren't gonna get money. And there's gonna be a city owned supermarket that is gonna get favorable rates on produce and goods. And there are 10,000 bodegas run by small businessmen and small families all over this city that are not gonna be getting those goods at discount rates and that. And there are 100,000 landlords in the city. It's not just like big fat cats with cigars. People own their houses and rent out their basements and whatever. And this, if he goes there and this actually happens, that's where you see the revolt. Cuz it's not just grand policy. It is a question of whether or not the specific policies that are engaged in by these politicians, particularly at the local level, when they are implemented there is going to be a whirlwind. And that's the one thing that has never been tried or tested. In part because a lot of the initiatives that liberals have attempted over the last 10, 15 years have been reversed or stymied or stalled by the courts. The last one being of course Biden's effort to forgive all student loans, which

[Seth Mandel]

again transfer the debt to others. Sorry, you know, that's my hobby horse.

[Jon Pod Horowitz]

Which. Yeah, but I mean the point here is like that would have been a case in which tens of millions of people would have to have had their loans forgiven and another tens of millions of people would have been paying off all their loans and haven't been immiserated by it and they're not getting anything out of it. And that would have set the. There would have been two Americas. The America that Biden paid off and the America that is watching Biden pay others off and didn't get the same benefit. That's not class war. That is actually what happens in elections when you're like, you are taking care of other people and you are screwing me in the process. And the Democratic Socialists of America are going down that path and they are gonna create real world circumstances in which there is gonna be a real effort, a real world consequence to what they do that will stimulate real grassroots, not being paid for by a guy in China who's married to the head of Code Pink. Matt Continetti. Thanks for coming on. We'll see you next week. We'll see. And until tomorrow for Matt, For Matt and Seth and Christine and Abe, I'm John Pod Horowitz. Keep the candle bur.