Sarah Longwell (2:19)

For any of our listeners who don't like jbl, which I don't think there's any of you out there, but if you're one of those crazy people and you want to go to a show without him, thanks. Connor wrote this. JVL tickets are on sale today for our shows in San Diego on May 20 and Los Angeles on May 20. First, I'm going to be there with Tim Miller and Sam Stein and unfortunately not JBL. Go get your tickets@thebull work.com events. These events have been selling out. I am not Catholic. And in fact I'm going to say up front that part of the reason you're here is you are quite Catholic. And so you are going to. You're going to.

Jonathan V. Last (3:01)

I mean, I guess as much as

Sarah Longwell (3:04)

anybody is really Catholic person, I know

Jonathan V. Last (3:06)

that can't be true.

Sarah Longwell (3:07)

I'm pretty sure it is. I mean, I know lots of people who are Catholic, but not people.

Jonathan V. Last (3:12)

How many friends of yours are priests?

Sarah Longwell (3:14)

Zero. I don't know any priests.

Jonathan V. Last (3:16)

You and all friends of yours are nuns.

Sarah Longwell (3:18)

None. Okay, get it.

Jonathan V. Last (3:20)

I mean, if you can't rank your top five priest friends, I'm not sure how Catholic you are.

Sarah Longwell (3:25)

Right, okay. So you have many, many priest friends.

Jonathan V. Last (3:28)

I'm kidding about that. You, everybody who. It's a universal church. All are welcome.

Sarah Longwell (3:34)

This is the question. It's just like, what do you wish that non religious people like me and in our audience knew about the Catholic faith? Like, tell us, can you give us a quick primer?

Jonathan V. Last (3:45)

I'll give you two big things because we're going to be talking about the Pope. And the first thing is that people who don't follow this stuff closely will often say, I thought the Pope was infallible. Like, don't Catholics all have to believe what the Pope says? And the answer is sort of, but not really. The Pope is infallible on matters of dogma. And so if there are dogmatic assertions by the Church itself made by the Pope, then those are things that you got to get on board with but is not infallible about everything else.

Sarah Longwell (4:17)

Sorry, what's dogma?

Jonathan V. Last (4:19)

The most foundational beliefs of, of the Church, Like Mary was conceived without sin. This would be a piece of dogma. Right. She was the, the Immaculate Conception, not actually about the conception of Jesus, the conception of Mary. So she was conceived without sin so that she could bear, bear the, the Lord's Son. And um, if the Pope says, I think climate change is the single most important issue facing mankind, you don't have to agree with that.

Sarah Longwell (4:51)

Got it.

Jonathan V. Last (4:52)

So which is saying that you can be Catholic and you can disagree with the Pope on a whole, whole host of things like you're. And without being, you know, thrown out of the church or excommunicated. The second thing is that there is very little difference between Popes. So people like me will draw lines between say, Benedict XVI Pope. I Loved quite a lot. And Pope Francis. Pope I was very mezza Metz on because of the narcissism of small differences. And you can go through and be like, yeah, well, look, well, he did this and he did that and he did this and he did that. This is like the, the percentage of DNA that people, people share with monkeys, you know, like 99.9999% of the things that all Popes say are consistent always. And so as a for instance, a Pope saying war is bad. We, we don't want war. We think that you guys should, should do peace and negotiating. That is a. Something that all Popes say everywhere, basically. And, and so it's not a new thing because there are a lot of people, even some Catholics who you will hear from later today in this episode who are like, what's he talking about? Saying that war is bad. That's, you know, all the. He's so political. No, that's literally what they all say. Every time there's a war somewhere, the Pope says, this war is bad. We don't want war stop. So I think those are the two big ones for people to hold on to as you go through this. And if you have Catholic questions, I will answer them to the best of my ability. But I will say again, I am a Catholic. I'm a very bad Catholic the way most Catholics are bad Catholics. Like, you know, like, it's a heavy lift as a religion. Everybody's just trying their best to, to find out what the Lord wants them to do. What does Maria von Trapp say? Find what the Lord wants me to do and do it with all my heart? Or something like that. That's, you know, that that's what it is to be Catholic.

Sarah Longwell (6:54)

Okay.

Jonathan V. Last (6:55)

Also to celebrate your war warriors. I'm sorry, this is a. Can we just do a 30 second aside on this thing that Pete Hegseth

Sarah Longwell (7:01)

do, the Pulp Fiction thing?

Jonathan V. Last (7:02)

Yeah, yeah. So Pete Hegseth did a press conference in which he shared a prayer that was given by pilots in the rescue of the downed aviator. And it's just, it's the Samuel Jackson Pulp Fiction speech. It's just a real. For guy who's into Jesus and the New Testament and forgiveness and like, you know, Jesus did establish a, a new covenant with his people. Man. A lot of these Christian nationalists seem really into Old Testament stuff. And, and even that just like the performative. And I, I lay my vengeance upon thee. Right. And this is the idea that, like Ezekiel, it's 25:17, they frequently meditate upon that they weren't just taking it from Pulp Fiction. I'm sorry. They're just. They thought it sounded cool, like. Like Samuel Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction. They just thought it was a cold thing to say to a motherfucker before you kill him. That's all this is.

Sarah Longwell (8:03)

Yeah, great. Well, look, for this particular episode, we fielded groups of both Catholic 2024 Trump voters and Catholic 2024 Harris voters. Interestingly, according to a Pew Research survey, Catholics voted 50 to 49% for Joe Biden in 2020 and 55 to 43% for Trump in 2024. So you can assume Catholics are well represented in the Biden to Trump voter groups that we do oftentimes on the show. Now, if you're a real partisan Republican or Democrat, you are in some kind of tension with the Catholic Church, either because the church says you should be welcoming to immigrants, or because it says homosexuality or abortion are sins, or for lots of other reasons. So we asked both of our groups about that and to play these back to back. So we're first going to listen to how Trump voters talked about it, and then Harris voters.

Trump Voter Female 2 (8:57)

I have no problem with people choosing to get, you know, gay or marriage there, whatever. I think more importantly in my faith is that family unit. And I think that it's important to sit together as a family. And that has always been important to me. And also kind of morally, I think there's so much lying in politics sometimes. And that's one thing I really do appreciate with Trump is he can. He's a lot of things, but I trust that he's at least saying his

Trump Voter Male (9:30)

truth, politics and religion are intertwined, and God's going to bless his people if we keep his commandments and, you know, follow, follow him. He's not going to bless a nation that does not follow his commands. So I think, you know, it's got to come back together. Politics and religion, I don't think they should ever be separated. So I know we grew up thinking, oh, you have to, you know, separate politics and religion. I think the opposite.

Trump Voter Female 3 (10:00)

I don't really think about my religion are intertwined with politics. I believe in, like, I believe in a woman's right to choose. I'm against abortion at the later stages of pregnancy, but I feel like in certain situations that I'm okay with abortion.

Trump Voter Female (10:23)

I love the community of the church. I love how, like, the families are close to each other. I like that sense of community that

Sarah Longwell (10:32)

you get from them.

Trump Voter Female (10:34)

I tend to keep my beliefs and politics separate. I mean, I feel like, there's a point where, yes, your beliefs are going to kind of steer you with how your politics, like, what your political beliefs are, but I don't think that the beliefs of the church should be part, like, of politics. I don't know if I'm. It's coming across the right way, but like, like she was saying, like the abortion thing, I don't think it's a black and white situation. I know as part of, like the Catholic Church, you're not supposed to take birth control. I've taken birth control. I'm sure a lot of women have taken birth control. I don't think that it's one or the other.

Trump Voter Female 4 (11:21)

It's kind of a love hate relationship that I have between religion and politics. And I think that's, it's grown more of a love hate relationship as I've gotten older and as I've been on the shadow cancer journey. You know, I'm, I'm completely against abortion, but I support a woman's right to choose. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm pro gay. I have no problem if somebody is in a relationship with somebody of the same sex. It doesn't bother me. I struggle that as a Catholic, I'm supposed to follow exactly what the Pope says. I struggle with that because I don't agree with a lot of the stuff that he says. Don't like the idea of, you know, mixing religious beliefs with politics.

Harris Voter Female (12:05)

But

Trump Voter Female 4 (12:08)

main things, as far as similar beliefs are, you know, I mean, I was raised, went to a Catholic school my whole life, 1st through 12th grade, you know, and, you know, like abortion, I, I believe in the right to light, you know, from conception.

Sarah Longwell (12:27)

Okay, so I'm gonna move quickly into the Kamala Harris thing. But before I do, just, just really quickly. I found this part when I was listening to them, I thought, okay, well, this is mostly. Seems pretty healthy. People kind of seem to hold these things in a different kind of proportion. But did you find it healthy or did you find it not so an

Jonathan V. Last (12:47)

underscore for people listening? These are all Trump voters. And so you had a significant percentage of the group who were like, yeah, I'm pro life, but, like, abortion should be legal. I believe in a women's right to choose. So there was a lot of picking and choosing, but a lot of picking and choosing that goes in, like, both directions. And so one of the gentlemen in the group says, you know, the Pope says that, oh, we have to keep all the immigrants here. Well, why not open up the Vatican walls and let them Live with you if you think it's such a great idea. That same guy, when he was talking about being pro gay people, he said, we didn't get to this. Part of that quote was God said he loves all his children. You know, he didn't say, well, except for this group or that group. You're like, oh my gosh. So you're at the one time being like, I don't believe the Catholic Church with all this gay stuff. Gay people are totally cool, but why is the Catholic Church telling me we gotta take in immigrants? That's no good. You know, you can't just pick and choose which group you like and which group you don't like. It's the weirdest mishmash of I struggle to even draw like a through line to it. This is a classic Sarah Longwell like, boy, people are messy balls of contradiction.

Sarah Longwell (14:02)

If you're listening to the focus group podcast, it's safe to say that you care about where American democracy stands and where it's headed. So there's another podcast you should know about. It's called the Context from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. The Context is a podcast about how to make democracy work for everyone and why that's so hard to do. I've been a guest on this podcast and I'm a senior fellow at the Kettering foundation. So I can tell you from experience, these folks bring the goods, you know that democracy is in crisis. I talk about it all the time. You know that many Americans feel alienated from their government. If you listen to the folks group podcast, you hear it over and over again. Trust in institutions is falling. Corruption and polari dominate the headlines and a lot of people are being left behind. But that is not the whole story. On the Context, Host Alex Lovett speaks with folks on the front lines of democratic practice. Together they examine the challenges and strengths of a system where in an ideal world, everyone gets their say. This isn't partisan spin. These are careful, clear eyed, nonpartisan conversations on how democracy works and how you can help make it work better. Find the Context wherever you get your podcasts, same place as you get all the bulwark podcasts. I actually did want to say, because this group with Catholics specifically said the line that, I swear I say this all the time to people and they sort of are like, really? But it's it. I, I write about this in the book which you edited. And so you see that the number of people who say, I am against abortion and I believe in a woman's right to choose, I hear it all the time. And it's a great example of how people sit with the contradictions on these issues and how nonlinear so much of politics is in the minds of voters. Okay, so that's the Trump voters and their tension. I will just say that the most dominant theme of that group, with the exception of the one woman, was that they separate politics and religion. That's important because that's going to come back later as a main rationalization for a few things. Okay, so now let's listen to how the Harris voters talked about this tension and how they talk about how the Trump voters in their lives handle the tension. Let's listen.

Harris Voter Male 1 (16:19)

It's hard to leave that stuff completely independent. When you talk. When you listen to candidates and when you listen to parties, that's just. That's not for just the president. That's for senators, that's for congressmen. That's.

Jonathan V. Last (16:33)

Yeah, whatever. Right?

Harris Voter Male 1 (16:34)

It comes down to loving one another, caring for. And that comes down to just caring about other people, caring about your fellow man.

Trump Voter Female 4 (16:40)

Right.

Harris Voter Female 1 (16:40)

We're part of this understanding that kind of treat others the way you want to be treated and leading with kindness. And very much you would think that maybe this is the issue that stands firm.

Harris Voter Female (16:54)

Do you.

Harris Voter Female 1 (16:54)

Do you stand with Trump or do you stand with your religion? And it's just, I think, very interesting that a lot of these people are choosing Trump. I know that the understanding is you're not supposed to, you know, question these teachings or, you know, understand that, you know, the Pope is the Lord's messenger here on earth.

Harris Voter Female 2 (17:12)

Church and state, in my mind has always been like, it's supposed to be separate. And I was educated in Catholic schools that were very liberal and progressive. And as such, I never really realized that through that progressiveness, my decisions were really based upon my faith and led me how I led my life and how I made actions and how I decided certain things, especially political things. There are certain things that I hem and haw on. And sometimes I think, well, I really have to think about that one again and get back to it.

Harris Voter Female 3 (17:51)

My personal current Catholic parish has an LBGTQ outreach program. They have an LGBTQ support group. When I look at certain bills that have passed recently in various states and probably nationally, too, I get so disappointed when I find that, like, our most recent abortion ban in Florida was lobbied for by multiple Catholic organizations across the state. And it's just so disappointing to see, like, people who claim to be leaders of my religion advocating to, like, take rights away from people and doing, like, the exact opposite of what you're supposed to be doing and saying.

Trump Voter Female 2 (18:27)

I went to Catholic Church and learning the commandments. One of them is very clearly that you're not supposed to idolize anyone in the way that you do God. And I feel like there's Catholics who idolize Trump, and it's just so blatantly against what were taught.

Harris Voter Female 3 (18:45)

If you actually listen to the stuff Jesus was saying and how he preached and his message of, like, ensuring that you live by helping others, those that are less fortunate, those that need your help, those that are in need, just do whatever you can to support humanity and help each other out. Jesus was kind of like the classic progressive figure, and it's just unfortunate that some parishes have twisted that around and gone a different direction. But I'm fortunate, I guess, that I've always found these places that kind of teach the proper way, in my opinion, at least. And most of my extended family, too, has been at parishes like that, so. Well, they're all Catholic, too. They also generally have more progressive views.

Harris Voter Female (19:26)

I used to try to keep church and politics separate, but with the way things are changing, I think it's increased my faith because I feel like I have to have that extra protection. I find myself praying more, and after watching so much trash on the news, I found out on social media at some point during the day, somebody saying the rosary. So now I catch myself in the morning on my lunch break when I get off work, constantly almost having the rosary running in the background. And then with everything that's going on with the Pope, are we about to be persecuted?

Harris Voter Female 1 (20:11)

Now that I'm here in New York, I've loved going to Mass just because of the priests and the people. The one thing that I really kind of noticed was when they set a prayer intention for Palestine, Gaza and all the wars that are going on, because in Indiana, they're not going to even mention it. That's too much. Why would we touch that during Mass? That's. That's not what we do. Because in those communities, they think that faith and politics are separated, I guess, until it really benefits them in that way.

Sarah Longwell (20:43)

So this was. It was just interesting to me. What did you make of the. Did you think those scripts sounded similar in the way that they were treating faith and politics, or did you think that they sounded somewhat similar?

Jonathan V. Last (20:57)

Pretty similar, actually, in. So the way it used to go in Catholic circles. This is before we had like, the trad Catholic integralist world, which sort of began erupting right around the time when Trump did Conservative Catholics, which would have been people like me were people who were like, so you gotta take all of the tenets of the church seriously and you can't just pick and choose. And the liberal Catholics were, you know, the cafeteria Catholics were the people like, yeah, I like this commandment and that other commandment, though. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm into that. Right. And there's a little bit of more pick and choose. Understand that everybody picks and unless you're a saint, everybody's doing that to some degree or another. I'm just trying to speak in a very broad generality. We're at the point where, as you could hear with these groups, both groups now do some picking and choosing. And it is funny to me that like the single biggest thing separating like liberal progressive Catholics and conservative Catholics used to be abortion, as you heard, with even these Trump voting Catholics, a bunch of those people now are like, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm pro life, obviously I'm pro life, but I do feel like, you know, you need to have a woman's right to choose. And the, the dividing line now is immigration and whether or not you can be nice to immigrants. Yeah, that is a weird, weird shift for me to say, like the receding of abortion from the, the foreground to the background. And in fact, a lot of conservative type Catholics now being like, well, I don't really know that we have to do all that. And, and instead the line being like, don't tell me we've got to be nice to the immigrant. Don't tell me that I have to be nice to the immigrant. And that's where they wanted to draw the line.

Sarah Longwell (22:49)

Yeah, I mean, look, there are exceptions to this in both groups, but I did find it really striking how many of the Trumpers were, I think they were more intense about saying they wanted to keep their faith and politics separate. Both groups did it though. It was in both. But I, I just, it felt like to me that there was more in the Harris group that sort of said, actually I think these two are linked and they inform each other. But also they're just like, wasn't as intense. It felt, it felt to me like a pre justification in the Trump group for sort of where it was going. Because I was doing NPR this morning and as I was talking about it, I said something that I'm like, yeah, this is really true. I just think Trump voters have had 10 years to think about how to reconcile these things. And so I feel like they came ready when confronted with the tension. They had already worked out a Way in which a theory of the world in which they keep their religion and politics separate as a way of saying, like, then that's why Trump is fine.

Jonathan V. Last (23:54)

Yeah. And the other thing that you hear listening to these groups is the, the, the Harris voter. Catholics talk about religion as the way they live their lives. There's a lot of, like, you know, this is the. Or I teach in a Catholic school. I'm around all these other Catholic families. I try to, you know, be good to poor people. In the, the Republican voting, Catholics did not really talk about that. They talked about their Catholicism as a badge. It was, you know, because it's important to me to have faith and value. It's important that God will bless the devout nation. Right. It was much more abstract and much more about, like, this is a jersey that I put on. And again, I'm not saying that this is how they believe it. I'm just saying that listening to them talk the gestalt was less, this is important to how I live my daily life and more this is how I present myself to the world.

Sarah Longwell (24:55)

That's interesting. All right, we're going to come back to the Trump group later in the show, but for now, I do want

Jonathan V. Last (25:02)

to have a bit of a discussion

Sarah Longwell (25:03)

about the Harris group. Yeah, I want to talk about the Harris group a little bit first, because we started with, we were really interested in how they were thinking about Pope Leo specifically and about Trump's relationship with him. So let's listen to what they said.

Harris Voter Female (25:15)

I don't have security, I don't have cardinals. I'm a regular schmegular person. If he's threatening the Pope and he decides to come after, like, me or my demographic, what am I going to do? You threaten the Pope and you're standing with it. You're not. You're not backing down. You're justifying why you threaten the Pope. So. And then you have the support. You're getting support from people. Nobody's saying, hey, man, why don't you just have a cookie and take a nap for a little bit? Put the phone down.

Harris Voter Male 1 (25:46)

He definitely came into the door with a little bit more skin in the game. A lot of rich history from the community. And I just think that that's actually needed because in comparison to the post before him, he is definitely niche. He's not like them. And I think that he was a pope for the time that we needed. You know, kind of extreme circumstances bring extreme. I'm not going to say ideologies, but responses.

Harris Voter Female 1 (26:22)

A lot of us, especially young people were kind of interested in how he would approach technology, especially in the time of AI. And I think his approach has been so refreshing in terms of, of a new church, needs to accept new technology and needs to accept like a new way forward. And I love reading his tweets every day. I love seeing him pop up on my Instagram. And I really like Pope. That's it reminds me a lot of John Paul II in that way of committing to the young people in that way that's necessary.

Harris Voter Female 2 (26:53)

I guess Pope Leo is kind of similar like to Pope John Paul ii that, you know, he's like a people's pope. And I think the fact that he was educated at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, which is a school that's based upon either a master's or a Ph.D. and the fact that he's an Augustinian, I think that he's very well educated and he knows not to partake in nonsense with someone who, you know, as Wayne said, is definitely mentally ill. I think with Pope Leo being as educated as he is and that he's been out there amongst the people, he knows how to talk to someone and just like brush aside nonsense. And that's what this is really about is that indirectly it's a threat towards this person, but at the same time it's just utter nonsense that we don't need in our world, in our society right now.

Sarah Longwell (27:48)

So jbl, these voters liked Pope Leo quite a bit. The Harris voters premier hosts on VRBO

Jonathan V. Last (27:56)

deliver quality vacation rental stays with fast responses and clear instructions. Oh, I had a question.

Sarah Longwell (28:01)

Our host replied, super quick premier move. Wish I had a premier group chat.

Harris Voter Female 1 (28:06)

They won't even write me back.

Jonathan V. Last (28:07)

Book a top rated stay with a premier host. If you know, give herbo.

Sarah Longwell (28:11)

What do you think about, like, what do you think Pope Leo, an American pope, the first American Pope was chosen as a figure to stand up to Trump. Do you think that was part of why he is the guy right now?

Jonathan V. Last (28:27)

I don't know and obviously you can't know. I have a lot of thoughts about this though. First of all, I'll just say I'm not sure how well educated Leo is. He went to Villanova, not Notre Dame. Again, just more inside Catholic humor for. Look, if you know, you know, Carlos Lozada is listening to this right now and he is screaming. He's so happy. I did that for you, Domers. I did it for you. So here is, here is the thing. When we were, when we had the conclave, I remember somebody, it might have been you saying what are the chances we get an American pope. And I was like, you will get a trans pope from Africa who has a gambling problem before you get an American pope. Like, this is not something the College of Cardinals is ever going to permit. And jvl not always, right? One of the biggest shocks I've ever seen. And so it means something. Right, but what does it mean? It could mean that the College of Cardinals no longer sees America as such a hegemon that it had to be avoided. Giving them a pope, the Americans, that's one possibility. It could mean that they no longer needed to think about any of this stuff anymore. And they could just say, we're going to take Francis's guy because Bobby was one of Francis's close, close guys and trust that he's going to finish the reforms that Francis started. Or it could be more like the 1978 conclave, which is where the cardinals chose John Paul II. Carol Watia and this was again, this is like ancient history to most people, but this is how I grew up and I assume mostly how you grew up. We get this Polish pope, he's the first European Pope since 1560 or something like that. I mean, it's been a couple hundred years. And this is happening as we have the Cold War coming to a head. Everything is focused on the Warsaw Pact and the communist menace throughout Eastern Europe. And you get this Polish pope and one of the first things he does is he goes home to Poland. Remember, at this point, Poland is part of the Soviet Union. These are officially atheist states. The state is opposed to religion, period. The end. And John Paul shows up in Poland. At the time, Poland has 30 million people. 11 million people come and see him in person. So one third of the country sees him live during his tour and he goes from place to place and says, let God in. He's just throwing down a gauntlet to the entire communist system. And like, this is the most political provocation a pope has done since God knows when. Right? I mean, it's, it is wrong to say that the papacy is, is apolitical. It has never been apolitical. But like, even, even by the standards of the papacy, this was an unbelievable provocation. And as a result of that, you get the, the Solidarity movement kicked off and really turbocharged in Poland. Like Walesa sort of rises up and that's often dated as like the beginning of the end of Soviet authoritarianism. It is possible, as two of the, two of the women in, in this group suggested, and they didn't like, go all the way to saying this, but you could tell this is what they were hinting at. What if the cardinals, by which they, which they really mean the Holy Spirit? Because that's how we, we think of these things. The cardinals are merely channeling the will of the Holy Spirit. Thought that we needed an American Pope to counter the rise of an authoritarian America. And that's a pretty provocative and interesting thesis.

Harris Voter Female (32:28)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (32:29)

I wonder, when we look back on it all, if that will be the interpretation. Wouldn't shock me, especially I, I, I, I also now see the Pope on Twitter, which is a new thing.

Jonathan V. Last (32:39)

And, well, the other Francis was on Twitter too.

Sarah Longwell (32:42)

Really. But I didn't know.

Jonathan V. Last (32:44)

Is Leo based.

Sarah Longwell (32:45)

I mean, he's, he's clapping back, as the kids say. He's subtweeting the President a fair amount, and. Which is a weird, a weird thing to say. All right, just for fun, we asked the Harris Group about J.D. vance's conversion story and his upcoming book. And so let's listen to what they had to say about that.

Harris Voter Female 1 (33:06)

I just find it very interesting that as outspoken as J.D. vance is about his religion and about his conversion, he's just very conveniently not there or very quiet about these issues. You would think that an outspoken Catholic such as JD Vance would maybe, and that's even a scapegoat or a way to get out, and just. There's nothing. I just, I'm very surprised by this specific one.

Harris Voter Female 2 (33:31)

He may have gone through the motions of converting to Catholicism, but to me, he is not a Catholic in any sense of the word. He has disappointed the Pope. The Pope has basically, you know, been polite to him. And I'm just at the point where I have family members that when this picture came out, and even before the picture came out, another family member was talking to someone that happens to live in Indiana and said, you know, what do you think of our new Pope? And she says, I don't. And that's part of the, part of the situation of that is because this person's a real big Trump supporter, and she just thinks that the Pope is a big disappointment.

Harris Voter Female 1 (34:09)

The COVID of his book doesn't even feature a Catholic church. It features, like, a Protestant or Methodist church. And that never somehow made it past a copy editor. But I guess to continue, I look at J.D. vance, someone that these conservative Catholics are trying to uplift, as, like, a ideal Catholic man. And then I look at Joe Biden, someone that truly was. Was a Catholic man, at least in my understanding, and yet was so clowned, maybe specifically by my understanding conservative Catholics saying that you know, Joe Biden's performative. Oh, he only goes to mass on Sundays to prove he's a Catholic. He only carries a rosary with him to prove he's Catholic. It was like, if you called Biden performative and JD Vance genuine, then what are we doing here?

Sarah Longwell (34:53)

So I have a couple thoughts. One is, you know, I talk a lot about how in our age of polarization, like, crazy things are polarized now. Like the, the democracy is polarized. They do all these focus groups around democracy, and Republicans think Democrats are a threat to democracy, and Democrats think Republicans are a threat to democracy. I have strong feelings about which group I think is right. But the, but like, democracy itself is polarized. The Pope is now polarized. Like, it's not just Donald Trump. Like, polarization preceded Trump, Our, our entrenched polarization, but Trump has accelerated it, hardened it, whatever. I mean, do you think it's crazy? And this. And I'll tag on, like, my main question, which is, you and Tim love to talk about the difference between cradle Catholics and adult converts. Do you see that divide in these clips? Like, I'm trying to decide, like, the chicken or egg problem, Are the Harris voting Catholics voting for Harris because they're Catholic, or do they see their Catholicism as validating their political worldview and vice versa?

Jonathan V. Last (36:02)

Well, I mean, I was going to wait to get into this, but we can, we can dive deep on it if you want.

Sarah Longwell (36:07)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (36:07)

So the Catholic voters in America have been shifting a lot. I pulled up some numbers on this for you. In 2008, Catholic voters were +9d in 2008. So they were more Democratic than the actual general, general population.

Sarah Longwell (36:29)

Okay.

Jonathan V. Last (36:31)

By the time we get to 2024, they are minus 12D. And again, this is. They are much more Republican than the general population is. So they go from being a predominant, a disproportionally Democratic bloc to. To a disproportionately Republican bloc. So this is a 21 point shift over the course of like 18 years. That's huge. And it isn't just Trump. What's interesting is that it starts around 2008 and you can see it moving, but it actually accelerates under Trump, which is weird. You wouldn't expect it. Right? You might have expected. Huh. Well, if they're becoming more Republican, that that trend would either stay at the same rate or maybe it would flatten out once you have Trump, who's this, like, wildly immoral anti Christian guy. Right. Like the most UN Catholic person to ever be a major party nominee. And instead it's the opposite. Trump shows up and Catholic voters are like, oh, I really want that. That's, that's interesting. It's evocative. It, it talks about your chicken and egg question. I think this is, my thesis is that Catholics are, as a voting population, beginning to go through what white evangelicals went through starting in the early 90s.

Sarah Longwell (37:57)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (37:57)

And the, I mean, white evangelicals were not like they are today. And so here, and I'll just give you the numbers here. White evangelicals were plus 50 for Republicans in 2008, which sounds like a lot. Right. Then they were plus 66 in 2024. Right. So big. But again, that is only a net swing of plus 16. The Catholics swung harder during the same time period. Catholics swung 21 points.

Sarah Longwell (38:33)

What do you think it is?

Jonathan V. Last (38:36)

I mean, it's hard to say because the Catholic Church is white majority, but has a lot of Hispanics voters in. It's really, really hard to know. And so you, I don't, you know, you can't tell if it's race, you can't tell if it's education. If you were going to really dig into this, you would have to start really filtering everything by all the other markers. Right. Filter it by high school education versus, you know, college or more filter it by English come. Filter it by race to try to understand if, if the signal here is really Catholics moving or if the signal is actually these other things that are just showing up in the Catholic population. So I can't. I did a lot of prep for this. I didn't do that much prep. That's like doing a master's thesis. But it's, it does suggest to me that it is possible that the swing that we're seeing that we've been doing for 18 years could continue and maybe Catholics wind up voting like white evangelicals. Maybe not all the way to 82 to 16 the way white evangelicals were for Trump in 2024, but maybe, you know, 74. 24 is possible.

Sarah Longwell (39:48)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (39:49)

Not that far away.

Sarah Longwell (39:50)

I just, just one other observation, because I certainly don't know the answer, but, like, it's crazy to me that they seem to have simultaneously become more Trump friendly while also becoming more socially liberal. Like they are more supportive of abortion, more supportive of gay marriage, and yet friendlier to Donald Trump, which makes me think that there's something cultural in it that is sort of bigger than policy issues, like about which team I ought to be on as a result of my religion, which I think is a lot of it. With evangelicals now, like When I do evangelical groups, which I do a lot of, say with Mormon groups, you get a lot of people who now, because their identity is religion, their identity is also Republican, like, they. They see them as. As linked.

Jonathan V. Last (40:44)

So this is. I mean, my. My biggest thesis on this is that what you see is a crisis in American Catholicism. And it's important to understand that, like, the Catholic Church in every country is very different. It's a universal Catholic Church. They all believe the same thing. But the culture of what the. Like the Catholic Church in Germany is super different from the Catholic Church in Spain, super different from the Catholic Church in Argentina, from. From the Catholic Church here or in Nigeria. In American Catholicism, I believe that politics is basically corrupting it and is forcing. Not everybody, but some large percentage of people are just deciding that actually the political stuff matters more and the Catholic stuff gets subsumed to that. And so the. The thing that I really worry about. David Frum wrote a piece in 2018. You probably remember it, even if you don't remember remember it. He said, if conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will reject democracy. He wrote this in January of 2018. I remember being brought up short by it and thought, oh, geez, what if that's right? Because I think a lot of us in January 2018 were still waiting for conservatism to say, no, no, no, no, we reject this Trump stuff. And it wasn't. They rejected the democracy stuff. M. And I am concerned that if you ask Catholic Trump voters to choose between the Catholic Church and Donald Trump, which is essentially what Trump creating this loyalty test is, some very large percentage of them, maybe not a majority, but a significant percentage, are going to choose Trump. And it's because that's where their heart really is. Their heart really is with, like, the illiberalism, the immigration stuff, the hurting their enemies, and the. The team aspect of American political polarization, it's not really with the catechism, you know, that's.

Sarah Longwell (42:52)

It's interesting because I've always thought about it a little bit, like, as evangelicals and Catholics and. And, you know, but religious people who are religious in general feel like they lost their hold on the culture. When you say it's a crisis of the church, I feel like the fact that, you know, attendance has been declining like one. I. One of the things I always think of when I look at the. The swings that you're talking about is I'm like, okay, well, how many people who would have identified as Catholic before have stopped identifying as Catholic in there. So, like, if you're losing people, are the people who are staying more Republican, more conservative leaning. But I guess. But that's not even really my point. My point is, if you feel like the church is in crisis or that people are walking away from God, does that invite in sort of the King David, you know?

Harris Voter Female 2 (43:45)

Well, I need.

Sarah Longwell (43:45)

Trump's here as a defender of Western civilization and the idea that, you know, we, Even though they know he's not sort of personally faithful, I mean, anybody who's like, sentient knows that you have to be like really deep in the pocket to think he's actually religious, but they think that he maybe is doing something that protects their way of life. That includes religion. I don't know. I don't know. That's my only stab at a theory.

Jonathan V. Last (44:08)

It's funny. So a lot of professional Catholic influencers, like Bishop Robert Barron, they do that move and they say, well, he's just been so good on religious freedom. He's been so good on religious freedom. I'm like, I'm sorry, the Catholic Church is just as free today as it was four years ago, as it was 10 years ago. When you listen to these voters, none of them are talking about that. They're talking about immigration.

Sarah Longwell (44:29)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (44:30)

I mean, they're saying, why is the Pope telling us to be nice to immigrants? We don't want that. It isn't. You know what I mean? Like, it's really just a policy preference. And it is interesting to me that again, these are policy preferences that are notional to them and don't really impact their real lives. Right. I mean, people, these people are worried about immigration without immigration really touching anything in their real life. You know, they don't, their, their day to day existence is not impacted by immigration in the way it is by, say, the Iran war. Right. So the Iran war, like, raises the price of gas for them, and yet they're all like, the Iran war is great.

Sarah Longwell (45:10)

That's true. In this group. We're gonna, we're gonna turn to these Trumpers. Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (45:13)

So this is what, again, a lot of this feels to me like self perception about what I am and who I am and the things that I want to signal to the world that I value and less how I live my life around me.

Sarah Longwell (45:28)

It's ironic a little bit because a lot of the immigrants that we're talking about are themselves Catholic that are coming here. Like, they're Hispanic Catholics.

Jonathan V. Last (45:37)

It is.

Sarah Longwell (45:38)

All right, all right, let's turn our attention to the Trump Group. Let's listen to how they were talking about Pope Leo and what they said about his political.

Jonathan V. Last (45:47)

This is the best. Can you. Before you run this, will you just set the table by telling people what the Trump voters said when they were grading Trump?

Sarah Longwell (45:57)

You. You tell them.

Jonathan V. Last (45:58)

So the, the first thing that we, we always do in these groups is ask, what. What would you give? What grade would you give?

Sarah Longwell (46:04)

I love that you said. I love that you say we. Yes, we always. We do a letter grade for Trump.

Jonathan V. Last (46:08)

And among the. The Catholics in the Trump group, five A's, three B's, and one C. Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (46:14)

And can I just say on this point, that is the high. These were the highest grades I have seen a group give Trump, including, like, Trump voters talk to Trump voters all the time. This is the. He. Even in Trump voting groups, he's usually getting B's and C's. This was the. I haven't seen him get an A in a really long time. And this was a group full of A's.

Jonathan V. Last (46:36)

Yeah, okay. Sorry. I just want to set that before you ask people what they think of Leo.

Sarah Longwell (46:42)

Yeah. All right, let's listen.

Trump Voter Female 4 (46:43)

He said, you know, people should be calling their congressman. Now you're getting into politics. Now you're trying to sound. In my opinion, now he's sounding like a politician, not a Pope. I think Francis was delivering the same message, but just in a. In a different manner.

Trump Voter Male (47:01)

The Pope is basically, oh, we have to keep all the immigrants here, and why not open up the Vatican walls and let them live with you. If you. I think it's such a great idea. We're not being Catholic anymore. And I think Trump's bringing it to light because there's. The Catholic Church has been infiltrated as well as our government.

Trump Voter Male 2 (47:18)

I don't hear Pope Leo talking about what's going on in the Ukraine and Russia very often. And there's 25 to 30,000 young men dying every single month, sometimes even every single week. And I haven't heard a word about that from him. So if he wants to talk about our war, at least Trump is trying not to kill civilians.

Trump Voter Female 4 (47:40)

I'm starting to hear his voice more and more lately, and it seems like it's the voice of a politician, which is how I'm interpreting it. So I used to think I liked him, but now I'm. I've gone from, boy, I really like this, this Pope, too, who, you know, if, if you, if you ask for a grade on. I gave Trump an A plus, I'm going to give the Pope a D minus right now.

Trump Voter Female 2 (48:12)

I haven't remembered prior popes having so much, I guess, conflict or, you know, going with, with our presidents or even giving that much opinion on political, like, things. At first he said, you know, that countries should have the right to, you know, determine who can come in and out of their country. And then he turned around and completely criticized, you know, the immigration that Trump is doing. I feel like it's kind of almost as if anything that Trump says, it's like he's going to immediately disagree with it.

Trump Voter Male 2 (48:57)

I think that he's much more political than any other pope that I can remember, honestly. I think that he. It seems like most of the decision he makes or the thing or any, Anything that he says publicly, it seems like it's geared towards something political, and that's not normal for me. I feel like a Pope should only have the best interest of humanity and his parishioners. What about North Korea? What about Cuba? What about Venezuela before? There's so many worse things that these popes could be talking about. What about the Christians being murdered in Africa? I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of them.

Trump Voter Female 4 (49:46)

He makes statements as if we're naive, you know, putting himself into the, the immigration policy. There's a difference between legal and illegal immigration, and he's bypassing that as if Trump is just completely against immigration coming into the country. Well, we're not naive. I'm not naive. I fully believe there are two terrorist cells that came into the US with all of those open borders.

Trump Voter Female 5 (50:15)

I don't get the thing where he's, like, reaching in, trying to guide me spiritually. I'm not in the throwing stone business. I'm in the, you know, trying to understand people and, and, and, and, and listen, everybody has issues and problems, and we have forgiveness in our hearts, and that's, that's what we were told to. And I just think the Pope's trying to become very judgmental on, on something that's not, not his realm. That's what I kind of look at for my faith is to find, is to create a happy life, not a more complicated life.

Jonathan V. Last (50:44)

How dare a Catholic pope be judgmental?

Sarah Longwell (50:48)

Yeah, just give me your reactions on this. I don't really. I can ask some questions, but, like, what did you make of this response? Because I'll tell you one thing I don't know about your point about choosing the Catholic Church over Trump. They're certainly choosing Trump over this pope.

Jonathan V. Last (51:04)

100%. Yeah, 100%. This is nonsense from a bunch of people who are either historically Illiterate or willfully dishonest. I couldn't say which. It is. As a for instance, one gentleman said, at least Trump is trying not to kill civilians.

Sarah Longwell (51:28)

Who.

Jonathan V. Last (51:29)

We just went through an entire thing where Pete Hegseth celebrated the fact that we're not going to do woke DEI rules of engagement that worry too much about whether or not civilians get killed, because that's not warrior war fighting. And after he did that, the President said he would do genocide if he didn't get what he wanted.

Sarah Longwell (51:46)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (51:47)

This is literally the Trump administration's entire thing is, hey, listen, we're doing this war and we don't give a fuck how many civilians we kill.

Sarah Longwell (51:54)

I see what you're saying.

Jonathan V. Last (51:56)

How anybody who has watched the last six weeks could. I mean, there are ways that you could try to defend the Iran war. That's not one of them. And this idea that it's ridiculous that the Pope is inserting himself into these things. The most political Pope, again, just as a factual matter, not true. Francis was against all of the wars, all the wars that happened. Francis was against them. Benedict against all of the wars. John Paul II against all the wars. In 2003, when George W. Bush was trying to build a coalition to go into Iraq for Iraq too, John Paul sent his top boy over to the White House to have a one on one, closed door meeting with the President in which he tried to express the Holy Father's absolute dismay at this. John Paul went to Europe and tried to lobby European leaders out of helping us. Like, went out of his way to say to American allies, hey, this is a terrible idea, don't do this. You don't need to do this war. This is an unjust war. Don't do it. That's not what. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, this is, it is insane to say, like, whoa, this, this guy. Can you believe it? Can you believe this guy? And I. Then they do you talk about in, in the book, this reaching for.

Trump Voter Female 5 (53:25)

What about.

Jonathan V. Last (53:26)

What about. What about.

Sarah Longwell (53:27)

Yeah, yeah, right there. That was some. That was a real what about guy.

Jonathan V. Last (53:31)

Yeah, these people have learned to do it with this. And again, it's insane, this idea that, that Pope Leo. Well, why is he not saying anything about the Ukraine war? He says stuff about the Ukraine war all the time. He gave an entire Angeles sermon in, you know, in St. Peter's Square on February 22nd. It was about basically nothing but war, specifically the Ukraine and Russian war. This is, this is a. Being against wars is like number one on the things that Popes do you heard the, the, the one voter in there who said that actually Trump is okay, but that Trump is the true good one. She said, why, you know, we're not being Catholic anymore. And I think Trump's bringing it to light because there's, the Catholic Church has been infiltrated as well as our government. And I think that's what he's, he's meaning Donald Trump trying to bring to light.

Sarah Longwell (54:27)

To be fair, this woman was a straight up like trust the planner and

Jonathan V. Last (54:30)

talked about the lavender mafia. I don't know if you know that, but that is a theory that there is an entire hidden hand of gay priests that actually run everything. I, this thing drove me so insane, I cannot even tell you. And there's, there's another one who said that the Trump is, she says, being asked about him criticizing the Pope. She said he has every right to respond to the Pope. The Pope should be a man and take it again. That is a crazy, that's not like, hey, it was regrettable. I wish he didn't, you know, but we shouldn't make too much of it. And there's a separation. She's like, how dare the Pope insult the President with his. There shouldn't be war. And then, then she says, I'm not so upset about what he said to Leo because he has every right. Leo has his own house to clean. As Tom Homan said, he needs to worry about the Catholic Church and let him take care of business. You know, I'm just like, what the fuck are you people even doing?

Sarah Longwell (55:36)

They're choosing Trump.

Jonathan V. Last (55:37)

Crazy. But that's, this is what I'm saying, right? They've been asked to choose between. And they're doing in a maximalist way. They've been asked to choose between the Catholic Church and Trump. And they are not saying love the Pope, love the Catholic Church. But we do have these problems that we have to take care of. And sometimes religion isn't like the, the only tool in the toolbox. And look, we really need to regime change in Iran because this is a terrorist state that has killed so many people. They will kill more people in the future. And so we've got to change the regime and bring democracy. Like you can make arguments like that. This wasn't that, this was how dare that Pope speak that way to our orange man. And it was just maximalist defense of Donald Trump against the Pope. They took sides with Trump against the Pope. And I gotta tell you, I do not think that this is a one off. I don't think this was an outlier. I think this is a significant portion of American Catholics who will wine there. I can't tell you if the number is 10% or 40%, but it's not going to be 1%.

Trump Voter Male (56:55)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (56:56)

I think for people thinking, did Trump. Is Trump alienating Catholics? This is the, this is the question I went in with. Right. When I go into focus groups, oftentimes I have an essential question. And for this, the Trump one was, you know, is Trump's attacks, aggressive, hot war attacks against the Pope, does it make Catholic Trump voters uneasy? The answer is yes, but only in the sense that they're uneasy with the Pope being in a fight with Trump, not the other way around. Yeah, right.

Jonathan V. Last (57:27)

This is, this is the crazy thing. We had a, we had a long talk about that. It's on the next level. And Tim was like, you know, yeah, he's finally getting some pushback. And I, I gotta say, I just thought, what do you mean he's getting pushed back? I'm not seeing a lot of pushback. I see Riley Gaines and Bishop Robert Barron saying, oh, gosh, I wish he didn't say that he was Jesus, because that is blasphemy, technically. And I, it's so unfortunate. And, but listen, he's the greatest president that has ever been and I love him and I want to be in heaven with him, but I do think that maybe he ought to apologize.

Sarah Longwell (58:02)

Well, let's talk about this, because this is it. This is our last set. And there's the Pope issue, which is, I was sort of specific to Catholics. And then there's where, where Trump was getting pushback seemed to be more from the Christian, and forgive me for not knowing all the different permutations, exactly how to talk about them, but from sort of the more evangelical types. When he tweeted an AI photo of himself, that was him as Jesus, which he later denied saying. He said Trump's response was, it was a doctor. And one of my favorite things responses to this, where people were like, wait, did they tell him to say that the photo was doctored? And that he went with no, I'm a doctor in it? Because that was a preposterous response, even for Trump. It was like a real, you have to believe me over your lion eyes moment.

Jonathan V. Last (58:53)

Yeah. You know, when I went to my medical school interviews, I went dressed like that, thinking that I was dressed like a doctor. You know, you gotta dress for the job you wanna have, not the job you do have. And it turns out. But they did not think that they should take the guy Dressed like Jesus.

Sarah Longwell (59:07)

Yeah. Literally not. Never seen a doctor that looks like that. But people, I think they're angrier about the AI Jesus photo than they are about the attacks on the Pope, as best I can tell. So let's play the Trump group's reaction to Trump's truth social post portraying himself as Jesus. Let's listen.

Trump Voter Male (59:27)

He has every right to respond to the Pope, and the Pope should be a man and take it. But it was that whole meme saying, I don't know if he creates his own memes or somebody else, but it just looked like he was supposed to be Jesus healing somebody. My daughter's like, oh, he's healing Epstein, and he's a deep state guy. And I'm like, the whole meme was ridiculous. It shouldn't have been put out. Unless there's some method to his madness, there's a reason for it. I'm not so upset about what he said to Leo because he has every right. Leo has his own house to clean. It's Tom Hunter, Common said, and he needs to worry about the Catholic Church and let him take care of business.

Trump Voter Female 2 (60:04)

You know, even though we still agree with his policies and things like that, that he still says some things that you're like. So I feel like Trump has been one of the presidents that I feel like has been most active on social media from what I could ever remember. And sometimes we don't need to respond, sometimes we don't need to poke, you know, just, you know, everybody has an opinion about him, you know, from, you know, the crazy celebrities to Pope Leo to everybody. And I don't feel like he needs to address all of them.

Trump Voter Male 2 (60:48)

He should have known better, and artist team should have known better. I think that everybody makes mistakes. But, yeah, it was not in good taste, for sure.

Trump Voter Female 5 (61:01)

Trump has never had a boss, so a lot of his personality cooks and things like that have come out because he's never had an answer to anybody but himself in his whole career.

Trump Voter Female 3 (61:13)

They were asking him in front of the White House, the reporters, and he said that it wasn't supposed to be him being Jesus Christ. He was a red Cross, something to do with the red Cross, with the red. And he was healing people. So he tried to explain that. I don't know how good that went over with everybody, but I did like that he deleted it. Maybe he felt it was in bad taste.

Trump Voter Female 4 (61:36)

I thought it was in poor taste right away, but it didn't change my opinion because he's done other things in poor taste before, where he seems to be Reactionary. That's one of his bad points that. That I don't like, but it didn't change my opinion of my support.

Trump Voter Male 2 (61:57)

The one thing that we don't like about him is also the one thing that we do like about him.

Jonathan V. Last (62:02)

He.

Trump Voter Male 2 (62:02)

He doesn't ask for permission. He doesn't take prisoners. He does what he. He says what he wants, and then he does what he wants. And that's one of the things that we like about him that makes him not a politician.

Trump Voter Female (62:16)

It just kind of just gave me a bad taste in my mouth because I feel like Jesus did a lot of sacrificing.

Jonathan V. Last (62:26)

He was crucified for you.

Trump Voter Female (62:28)

I just don't. In my mind, I don't compare Trump to Jesus, like, as a Catholic.

Jonathan V. Last (62:34)

We're going to stake out some territory there, sweetheart.

Sarah Longwell (62:37)

So what did you. Did you. I found it. At least. At least. At least they were upset about, or I upset. They thought it was.

Jonathan V. Last (62:47)

And of the six, I think all of them, when they talked about it, gave some version of. But, you know. Yeah, I didn't love it. But also, I love that he does stuff like this. And this is kind of why we like him. I just wish he didn't do this one. And one of these people said, here, I love this. He believes in what he believes in. And I think he, you know, sometimes his delivery's off, but he's truthful, and I can appreciate that. I think that that's important, you know, that somebody has those values in general. She's talking about the values of just saying what's on your mind. Notice that doesn't apply to the Pope. Yeah, the Pope can't just say, I do think war is bad. When that happens, all fucking hell breaks loose. But when Donald Trump says, look at me, I might be like the late great Jesus, Even better. He rose on third day. I could have done it in two. Even. Even that, right? They're like, well, you know, it's a little out there, but I do like that he's edgy. These fucking people.

Sarah Longwell (63:50)

Well, I'm glad you got that out of your system. But this was. I actually. I love doing groups like this where you take specific subcategories.

Jonathan V. Last (64:01)

You want to try to kill me?

Sarah Longwell (64:04)

Oh, no. Because I thought it was. I think for. For a lot of people who even at this late date, think, there's got to be a line, right? There's gotta be. There's gotta be a reason why there's

Jonathan V. Last (64:19)

a line for the Pope. Yeah, the Pope has a line. He can't Cross or they will turn their back on the teachings of the Catholic Church. The President. No lines.

Sarah Longwell (64:30)

Yep. That is the takeaway. That is the takeaway that in the, in the battle between Trump and the Pope, these Catholics take Trump.

Jonathan V. Last (64:38)

It was interesting to me that the Harris, the, the Trump voters sounded basically hysterical about everything. Like, it was like, well, Iran is coming to kill the whole world. They're going to do nuclear holocaust. And the Harris voters, even when teed up by the moderator to be like, so what'd you think about this thing where, you know, Trump is, like, making himself like Jesus? They were like, it's really bad, isn't it? You know, like, there's no rending of garments. There was no performative. How dare he. There was just this exhausted. Yeah, it's another thing, isn't it? Wake up every day, it's going to be another thing. They were very, very even keeled. And there was, like, no victimhood about it. There was no, oh, I am so offended as a Catholic, you know, none of that. It was all just like, wow. Yeah, I guess we got to deal with that, too. And that said something good about them. I think it suggested that they basically had their, their heads screwed on. It is a. I'll just say this to people as we try to pack this up. If we wind up in a place where even the Catholic Church in America winds up becoming fully politicized and we get to a place where this Christian nationalism thing comes along and finds that it can actually make hay by creating these loyalty tests that we think are mistakes, we look at it and say, oh, can you believe he did that? But in fact, again, it's like gang initiation. What you're doing is you're polarizing people and pulling them over to your side, that's going to be very, very bad for America and for anybody out there who thinks that there is a way out of this stuff. Maybe there is now. But if this sort of thing keeps happening, I just don't understand long term how we put this thing back together again.

Sarah Longwell (66:41)

Well, you know that this is a big part of my argument in the book, which is that I'm not sure that there are other people who can do what Trump does. That. I think Trump is a very specific phenomenon related to his long history in American public life, his unique, let's say, skillset in terms of communication at a time when the communication infrastructure was being totally disrupted, in which he knew how to manipulate it. At 46, I'm not sold, but I'm old enough to have watched a Lot of pendulums swing. I think there are certain elements of Trumpism that keep going and where we're never going back. I think there are other elements in which the appetite for something not as hostile as Trump is growing in people. I gotta say, one of the things I hear is just a decade's worth of justifications, a decade's worth of rationalizations. People who are on both the groups to your point, both who are kind of inured to Trump and how he is. And like, there, there's, there's a lot of sunk costs here. And the people who are sticking with Trump the most are religious people. And, and so a lot of it's like the sort of people who are

Jonathan V. Last (68:02)

there for the economics approval on with white evangelical voters as of right now. And I got to ask you, so you said pendulum swing and kind of a little bit, but do you think the pendulum say of white evangelical voters is going to swing away from illiberalism? Because I don't see any reason why that would happen.

Sarah Longwell (68:26)

It's not that I necessarily think that precisely. I just think they are not everybody. I think there's something specific about Trump that has people dug in in a certain way. Like, I don't think J.D. vance could get away with the things that Trump could get away with. And it's not just his role in public life. It is the extent to which Trump constantly blends his sort of cultural awareness with a kind of humor. Like there's specific things that allow him to get away with things that other people cannot. And I don't think the Republican Party has the tools post Trump to keep it going.

Jonathan V. Last (69:00)

All right, well, I'll. This is my last thought. So you and I were very, very excited about the election results in Hungary last week.

Sarah Longwell (69:08)

Yes.

Jonathan V. Last (69:09)

Tisha won 69% of the seats in Parliament. We thought this was a huge landslide. Okay. When you look at the actual raw popular vote numbers, I read your triad about this. Did you?

Sarah Longwell (69:22)

Yeah.

Jonathan V. Last (69:23)

TJ won 52% of the vote. That's it. That's it. You have an economy in shambles. You have rampant, obvious corruption, scandal after scandal, proven demonstrable interference on the part of the Russian government. An old Tyler candidate who had absolutely no message except for like Zelensky just putting up pictures of Zelenskyy and saying, ah, don't vote for me or you'll have to go to war in Ukraine. And a government repression, a program of government repression that everyone in Hungary understood. And still more than a third of the voters there chose Orban, and they did it because they wanted the illiberalism. It wasn't because they don't like the other stuff. Right. And this is why, I mean Hungary's not America. But if in even as bad as things are there a third of the country still wants a liberalism, how are we ever going to get to even like 55% of the vote?

Sarah Longwell (70:20)

Sorry, JBL, I, I do think that there is always about a third of people like who have pretty bad. I mean whether it was, whether it was people who supported Hitler, whether in America or, or, or slavery or, or oppose the civil rights movement or put like, you know, you, it is about majorities and, and in America obviously more than majorities and it has to do with how they're apportioned. But I actually think, and this is you and me, you see the downside in this. I see the upside. Which is yes, 52% voted for Peter Magyar. Only 36% I believe. Or it was like a low in the low 30s. It's not, it's not that, it's not that.

Jonathan V. Last (71:05)

48% voted for 39. Fidez got 39.6% of the vote.

Sarah Longwell (71:10)

Okay, so ultimately got 39%. That is still a resounding defeat. And even with 52. Yeah, okay, but, yeah, but here's. But my point is even with 52, like he could campaign like on his shoes, like on his feet, but he wasn't allowed to go on tv, wasn't allowed to advertise. Like he wasn't able to do any of those things. Democrats will still be able to do that in America. But he is the opposition had no mechanism for getting it his word out except going and talking to people directly, number one. Number two, 52% was enough for now him to come in and start reforming the entire system. And so if we the pro democracy coalition can get 52% that includes the right states. There's, there are worlds in which that too can be a blowout if, if J.D. vance gets 45% and unnamed Democrat gets 52%. That's a mandate for a lot of change.

Jonathan V. Last (72:11)

Actually we'll talk about that on Friday. Okay, I have some thoughts in response.

Sarah Longwell (72:16)

All right, JBL buddy, best friend, thanks so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. Remember to rate and review us on Apple podcasts, subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark plus member at the Bulwark.com and go pre order my book how to Eat an Elephant. One voter at a time. What's the title of my book, which is edited by Jonathan V. Last my guest today, and also the forward is written by him. If you would like to see him argue with the voters in a forward, go pre order my book. I've tried to advocate as hard for you to get a webby as you have advocated for people. Have you buy my book? Well, you know what? I did for a while. Yeah, because then you were at 72%. You want to talk about a blowout? You were crushing all the other newsletters, so I couldn't keep it up. Okay.

Harris Voter Female (73:07)

All right.

Sarah Longwell (73:07)

See you, best friend.