1039: The Feelings Show | The Secret Podcast

Summary

The Next Level — The Feelings Show | The Secret Podcast (Ep. 1039) Date: December 5, 2025
Host: The Bulwark (Sarah Longwell, Jonathan V. Last [JVL], Tim Miller [discussed but not present])
Main Theme:
A candid, emotionally rich conversation between Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell and JVL unpacking the week’s political news, the nature of public memory and legacy, media accountability, the perils of "liberal masochism," and the challenges of maintaining optimism and integrity in media analysis.

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Episode Overview

The episode finds JVL and Sarah Longwell together for the Bulwark's all-staff in-person gathering, lending a personal, “emo” energy to the podcast. Their discussion weaves through the implications of the Trump era's symbolism (like the renaming of federal buildings), the long arc of political legacy, critique of journalist rehabilitation, and meta-reflection on the dilemmas faced by centrist and liberal analysts. Throughout, the hosts blend political critique with introspection about their own roles and responsibilities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bulwark Staff in "Feelings Mode"

• Vibe Check:
  • JVL and Sarah are together in person for a rare all-staff event, leading to heightened emotions. "JVL's just been...just an emotional...just a ball of feelings. I've gotten so many hugs." (Sarah, 02:41)
  • JVL admits to literal tears and an "incredibly emo day." (JVL, 02:37)

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2. Donald Trump’s Name on Federal Buildings

• News Hook:
  • The discovery that "Donald J. Trump" now appears on the Institute of Peace—a symbolic act seen as both absurd and ominous.
    • “It just…People were walking past the building, like, wait a minute. Did I always say Donald J. Trump up there?” (JVL, 03:21)
• Deeper Concern:
  • JVL and Sarah compare the vanity display to authoritarian regimes, tying it to a broader erosion of democratic norms.
    • "This does feel like North Korea. Yeah, right. Like with the portraits...it's not normal. It's not American." (JVL, 04:24)
• Institutional Response:
  • The real danger is not the “cosmetic” egotism but the underlying illiberal actions—e.g., Supreme Court decisions requiring some citizens to carry papers, ICE abuses.
    • “Now, they are not entirely separate...the Institute of Peace 1. It's just so transparently obvious.” (Sarah, 05:21)
    • “The putting the name on the building is the cosmetic coverup.” (Sarah, 05:55)

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3. Memory, Legacy, and Historical Optimism

• Short- and Long-Term Memory of Trump:
  • JVL imagines a future saturated with Trump’s name (schools, stadiums, airports), but Sarah holds hope for eventual repudiation.
    • “...we should just prepare ourselves...every municipal building, every high school sports stadium...inescapable.” (JVL, 07:18)
    • Sarah: “...for in 15 to 20 years...Trump's memory...so distasteful that no one will cop to having been for it.” (Sarah, 09:47)
• Comparisons to Nixon:
  • JVL and Sarah recall how Nixon’s support lingered for years post-resignation, but eventually no one wanted his name around—implying hope for a Trump parallel.
    • "Within like conservative world at the time, they were all behind Nixon...you gave it 20 years and nobody wanted Nixon on anything." (JVL, 10:35)
    • “Maybe that's where we go. Maybe I try to take the optimistic view on that.” (Sarah, 11:13)

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4. Media Accountability and the "Nuzzi Interview"

• Background:
  • Discussion of Tim Miller’s controversial interview with Olivia Nuzzi, whom JVL calls “deeply skeptical” about platforming.
    • “I am the guy who...is really conscious about platforming and...I don't love it when we have Ross Douthit on the show.” (JVL, 11:31)
• Outcome:
  • JVL and Sarah agree Tim’s compassion and persistence revealed Nuzzi’s lack of real accountability or redemption, hurting her rehabilitation.
    • "The net effect...was to illustrate that her rehabilitation is a failure, that she is not actually okay." (JVL, 13:22)
    • "He was just human and empathetic, but also very, very real and focused on the important parts. And he pushed and pushed and pushed..." (JVL, 13:46)
  • Sarah commends Tim’s humanity, contrasting it with what their less-compassionate approaches might have yielded.
    • “People know that Tim will talk to them like a human.” (Sarah, 15:00)
• Redemption and Accountability:
  • They compare Nuzzi’s lack of self-searching with the Bulwark’s "Never Trump" team, who have publicly interrogated and taken responsibility for their previous roles.
    • “...a characteristic of sort of the Never Trump set is that we...all...went, wait a minute, what is happening here?” (Sarah, 15:28)
    • "Tim wrote a whole book about this...held himself accountable for what he felt like his role is." (Sarah, 16:04)
  • They wish Nuzzi had taken more responsibility:
    • “What did you do to enable Donald Trump’s second term?...She is not at the point...where she says, you know what? I made this mistake, and here's how I'm going to rectify it.” (Sarah, 18:08)
• On Tim Miller:
  • JVL: “Tim is genuinely like at a molecular soul level. A compassionate human being. Like, his ability to meet people where they are...it's amazing.” (JVL, 20:07)

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5. Meta-Reflection on Media Work and Emotional Labor

• Newsletter Writing Struggles:
  • JVL describes the difficulty of keeping up with fast-moving, dark news cycles and his focus on quality over deadlines.
    • “I just couldn't get my arms all the way around it...I missed a day because I couldn't...hit my marks, which is a very bad feeling for me.” (JVL, 22:07)
• Expanding Media Ecosystem:
  • With growth at The Bulwark, JVL is more focused on building dialogues across the platform and not just reactive commentary.

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6. Intellectual Honesty and “Liberal Masochism”

• Packer Interview Recap:
  • JVL’s recent essay, reacting to George Packer’s book and his interview on The Bulwark, is discussed. Packer's thesis: American society is polarized into oppressive "woke" urbanites and reactionary "yeomen." He criticizes liberals for clinging to a dead consensus.
    • JVL pushes back, arguing that the old neoliberal consensus worked, and that excessive left-liberal self-critique (what he calls “pathological scrupulosity”) is self-defeating.
    • "I think this is an incomplete understanding of our time...It is absolutely not true for some very large percentage of other people who embrace MAGA.” (JVL, 26:49)
• Defending Liberalism & Capitalism:
  • JVL and Sarah assert the achievements and virtues of the American system (liberal democracy, regulated capitalism), rejecting the narrative that it failed.
    • “I just call it the neoliberal consensus. But...the most successful period in American history and people did not abandon it because it wasn't working.” (JVL, 27:54)
    • “Republicans and Democrats would fight...But that's just haggling over price. Right. On the fundamental things, is capitalism good? Yes. Does it need to be regulated? Yes. They both agreed.” (JVL, 30:35)
  • Sarah points out that Trump’s negativity toward America broke with previous Republican tradition, which had always believed in American exceptionalism.
    • “No Republican talked like this ever...we have built a system that is, if not perfectly fair, tries to be more fair.” (Sarah, 31:33)
  • On being "exiles" from conservatism, finding more common ground with pro-democracy center-leftists than with post-Trump Republicans.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On emotional in-person camaraderie:

  • “We are together. We are like best friends should be.” (JVL, 02:00)

• On Trump as ‘Maximum Leader’:

  • “The fact that we now live in a country where not only do we have the maximum leader's visage staring down at us and his name being plastered across everything…” (JVL, 04:24)

• On redemption and responsibility in journalism:

  • “The net effect…was to illustrate that her rehabilitation is a failure…she is not actually okay.” (JVL, 13:22)

• On liberal masochism (“pathological scrupulosity”):

  • “This was my favorite phrase…that there is a difference between healthy self-interrogation and pathological scrupulosity.” (Sarah, 27:09)
  • “It is wrong and unhelpful to turn it into this navel gazing. You’re supposed to be able to understand the big picture.” (JVL, 27:27)

• On Tim Miller as interviewer:

  • “Tim is genuinely like at a molecular soul level. A compassionate human being. Like, his ability to meet people where they are...it’s amazing.” (JVL, 20:07)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:41: Sarah describes the emotional, in-person Bulwark gathering.
• 03:21: JVL on the Trump Institute of Peace renaming incident.
• 04:24: JVL compares the dynamic to authoritarian regimes.
• 07:18: JVL predicts Trump’s name being on public symbols everywhere.
• 09:47: Sarah expresses hope for eventual rejection of the Trump legacy.
• 13:22: JVL on the Nuzzi interview's outcome.
• 15:00: Sarah acknowledges Tim’s unique interviewing style.
• 18:08: Sarah asks for media figures to own their mistakes.
• 20:07: JVL praises Tim’s exceptional compassion.
• 22:07: JVL recounts struggles of writing thoughtful media analysis.
• 26:49: JVL pushes back against both-sides and liberal fatalism.
• 27:09: Sarah on “pathological scrupulosity.”
• 30:35: JVL on consensus about the virtues of capitalism.

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode combines political savvy with self-aware, heartfelt conversation. The Bulwark’s hosts don’t merely analyze the news—they constantly interrogate their own obligations and roles in the democratic fight. The show critiques superficial political drama while anxiously defending the enduring value of liberal democracy. It finishes with an invitation to join the "other side" at Bulwark+, teasing further emotional openness and analysis.

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Recommended For:
Listeners interested in the intersection of American political analysis and personal media ethics, with a bracing dose of emotional candor and intellectual honesty. The hosts’ willingness to critique themselves and their media colleagues sets this discussion apart.

Transcript

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[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Hello everyone. This Is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark in Meet Space. We are together. We are like best friends should be.

[Sarah Longwell]

I love being together.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And we have a great deal to talk about today.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

We're going to talk a tiny bit about news, a tiny bit about media drama.

A little bit about the.

Problem of liberal masochism and whatnot that I wrote so eloquently about this week.

[Rocket Money Narrator]

Yeah, sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

I read the whole thing. I read it twice.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

We're gonna. We're gonna talk about parades, possibly watches.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

No.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And feelings. Because I am having an incredibly emo day.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. For people who don't realize this, one of the reasons we have all been together and we're putting our hands on each other and we've been in the studio is. It is the Bulwark all staff. So everybody has flown in to be together. JBL's just been. Just an emotional. Just a ball of feelings. I've gotten so many hugs. There's some hugging.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

People crying a little bit.

[Sarah Longwell]

You have been crying a little bit.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I mean, it's. Anyway, we'll get to it. So we woke up this morning, I think, or maybe we went to bed yesterday with the news that Donald Trump's name is now on the Institute of Peace. This is a thing that just happened.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Like, it just. People were walking past the building, like, wait a minute. Did I always say Donald J. Trump up there?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Not clear to me that this was an act of Congress. That was a thing. But it's there. Like, there are gold letters now on the building. It is the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

The ballroom is going to be the Donald J. Trump Ballroom.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I assume the White House eventually will be the Donald J. Trump White House. He wants the stadium for the football team to have his name on it. What is to stop him from simply putting his name on every federal building in the country?

[Sarah Longwell]

Nothing. He's gonna do it. And we should tear them all off.

Now, the actual. You know, do we campaign on tearing down the ballroom? Let's put a pin in that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Okay.

[Sarah Longwell]

But his name. I mean, you take his name off the second he's no longer president.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I mean, I don't want to get too.

I don't want to make too much of this.

But this does feel like North Korea. Yeah, right. Like with the portraits. Remember the portraits that he had hanging, you know, with his face glaring down from public buildings and stuff? It's not normal. It's not American. The fact that we now live in a Country where not only do we have the maximum leader's visage staring down at us and his name being plastered across everything.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

But the Supreme Court now says that certain classes of people do have to carry their papers.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And we had yet another story of an ICE encounter where a U.S. citizen was assaulted because she refused to show her papers. Good for you. That was their license to. Well, she's not gonna show her papers. We're gonna take her down because she's proud.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I mean, shouldn't, I don't know, like this is a thing we could say every single week. Shouldn't people be more alarmed?

[Sarah Longwell]

They should. I mean, the cosmetic. Here's what I always try to do. I try to understand the difference between the cosmetic challenges and. And the deeply devastating illiberal challenges. Now, they are not entirely separate.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

That diagram has a lot of.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right, there's like a. And the Institute of Peace 1. It's just so transparently obvious. It's like, are you in the middle of a major scandal in which you are alleged to have committed serious war crimes? Well, what do we do?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I hadn't even put those together actually.

[Sarah Longwell]

Of course that's what he's doing. He's saying, oh, no, no, no, no, put my name on the Institute of Peace. Because I'm going to try to mask the real damage that I'm doing. Like the war crime is the real illiberal act. The putting the name on the building is the cosmetic cover up.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

That's the Orwell part.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Right. That's the cosmetic cover up of the real liberalism.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so I try not to get exercised about the specifics of the cosmetic part in order to instead focus on. Then you can do both.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

You can explain to people, as I think we just did, how they're connected. But I just wanna like the act of him putting his name on things is like, that is his vanity. And it's also like something you sort of can't stop while he's president. Nobody's done this before, but unless somebody pushes back, meaning his own political party.

[Sarah Longwell]

The public, in an enormous way, and.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

It'S fine to do those things symbolically, but like the thing that we need to focus on, and I think where you do have actual members of Congress looking into them and looking for oversight and you have people speaking out about them and there's probably going to be hearings, is the very non peaceful, illiberal, probably criminal, certainly immoral thing that he's doing. And so I guess that's how I've.

[Sarah Longwell]

Been thinking about it.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah. I mean, we should just prepare ourselves that we're going to live in a world where five minutes after he goes to be with his lord.

Half of the high schools in red state America will be named Donald J. Trump Memorial High School. Like out in red state world, every airport, every municipal building, every high school sports stadium, it's going to be, well, this inescapable.

[Sarah Longwell]

So maybe here's where my particular brand of optimism continues to live and breathe, which is Donald Trump is doing an actual horrible job at being President of the United States. He is failing across every vector.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

True.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so my greatest hope, the reason that we do this thing that we do, the reason, the reason we try to grow, the reason we.

Want at the end of all this, for Donald Trump to be so deeply unpopular, to be such a self evident failure that people don't wanna put his names on things like when he can't do it. And I understand that there are going to be people who want to go down with that particular ship, but we don't know where this ends.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Let me explain to you my case for why this will happen. Okay. If you are a Republican in a like R plus 40 district.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

In Texas, Donald Trump has just passed away. The surest way to get popular is to trigger your local libs. And the easiest way to trigger your local libs is to start naming shit after him.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Which will get all of your local opponents and local Democrats to yell and scream, at which point you can stand up and speak, say, oh, look at that, I'm owning those lips. Like, that's what, you know what I mean? It's the local politics of this that will allow them to. It's like the easiest way to troll your local liberals will be to name shit after Trump.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think that's right. I think you're right about that. I also think though that.

There'S immediate history right where Donald Trump will be triggering and then there's the history that goes on, like, that's 20 years from now. And I think that when I think sometimes about, like, what is our, what is our goal or what do I want for the country? I want for in 15 to 20 years.

Trump's memory of what he did to be so distasteful that no one will cop to having been for it. And there are people like that throughout history where, you know, they're ultra patang. They're people who were still with them in the immediate aftermath because their name carried with them, but then their names became mud. And.

You know, if there's any. And I know people will say that there isn't. But if there is anything good and decent left in the country there. I think over time, my hope is that people will look back on this as a failure and as a time when America lost its mind and that we can get back to a better place.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

People who are younger than us may not realize that. So Nixon was driven out by the Republican Party. Republican senators who came to him and said, you got to step down because otherwise you're going to be convicted. But within like conservative world at the time, they were all behind Nixon.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, they were. There was.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Even after he left.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, it was about 50, 50. Because I've written about this before and it's true, like there was a. You gotta remember that there was still decent support among Republicans for Nixon. But like you gave it 20 years and nobody wanted Nixon on anything. And so I could see that being the case.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Maybe that's where we go.

[Sarah Longwell]

Maybe I try to take the optimistic view on that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

All right, let's talk a little bit about the Nutzi interview. We talked a little bit yesterday on TNL about it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. We kind of didn't get into it too much. It's better to do it behind Tim's back. You thought it was a spectacular interview was your take.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

So, yeah, I'm in a weird position on this because I was deeply skeptical that we should do it. I am the guy who is really conscious about platforming and like I don't love it when we have Ross Douthit on the show because I'm just like, to me that is like having Scott Jennings on. Right. Like he's just gonna.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Not me.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think there's gradations.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Well, no, no, but what I mean is like you just. It's a person who, you know, won't be straight. And so for those two reasons I was like, I don't know, like, you know, but there's news value in it. It's like I'm open to it. It's a one time thing. You're not making this person a contributor.

[Rocket Money Narrator]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I thought the execution of the interview was exceptional. It was something that only Tim could have done. Like I know I couldn't have done that.

And I thought the result of it was what I was most concerned about because I have a very dim view of Olivia Nutzy quad journalist. Tim focused his interview on Kennedy and her responsibility for Kennedy becoming where he is now and his ability to impact the world. My more parochial view was like, I'm part of the journalism Guild and someone like, this is hurting us. I think the net effect of this, of his conversation with her was to illustrate that her rehabilitation is a failure, that she is not actually okay. Like, because the fact that Vanity Fair hired her in the New York Times did like, 4,000 words in which there was barely a cry. I mean, it was just a glow up in which everything she said was accepted. And they did these glamour shots and it was like they were trying to turn her into Joan Didion.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And I think the net effect is that she comes out of that interview much more badly damaged, much more exposed.

I think she's now unemployable.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

In journalism, you know, she could be a screenwriter. Right. She could work for Netflix. There are plenty of things she could do. I just think she can't be a journalist and she's a good writer.

And so I thought for all those reasons, Tim was able to do that in a way that was civil and compassionate. Right. Like, you know, I would have been foaming at the mouth, like, why didn't you? You know, like. And it would have been horrible. It would have been absolutely hard, unwatchable. It would have been horrible. And Tim was just human and empathetic, but also very, very real and focused on the important parts. And he pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. And.

I just don't think any reasonable person could come away from that interview thinking, yeah, she really helped herself.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I can't imagine she does other interviews after that, because why would anybody do another one? Yeah.

And not because she shouldn't have done.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

This or any of the others, or.

[Sarah Longwell]

She'S not in a place to own. Right. This is the thing about a redemption tour. Right. Is sort of. It begins with. Cause I was thinking about this in the context of.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

One of the reasons.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I'll say this. I want to say this two things about Tim really quickly. So one, Tim. There's a reason that somebody like Tim gets an interview like that from somebody who's kind of at the center of this.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is that they. It's not that they think they're gonna find.

Like, a sympathetic person. It's that they know that Tim will talk to them like a human.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right. He will, like, be a human being in a conversational way that I think for people who.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Well, I just think it works for everybody, honestly.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, there's a reason Tim's like, an.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Exceptional interview is because interviewer, and it's.

[Sarah Longwell]

Because he sort of meets people with.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

A lot of humanity.

[Sarah Longwell]

But I think for in this moment where you think about people who did a great deal of damage or in the process of damaging democracy. I was thinking about, like, well, one of the things that is a characteristic of sort of the Never Trump set is that we looked up the second that Trump happened and all went, wait a minute, what is happening here? What is going on? And trying to figure out this isn't what we thought the Republican Party was. And then you're like, well, did we enable this?

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And there's this soul searching.

[Sarah Longwell]

And like, Tim wrote a whole book about this where he kind of. He took a lot of. And so he held himself accountable for what he felt like his role is. And I think part of the process.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

For us early on.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sometimes people who come new to the Bulwark are like, I don't hear them apologize for whatever.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I'm like, I'm sorry, you're six years in.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, yeah, we are. But, like, all of us spent years.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And still, like, pamphlets for you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Why am I. Why did I start doing the focus groups?

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

It was like, wait a minute, is.

[Sarah Longwell]

This what's happening with the Republican Party? Is this. And, like, I talk about this all the time, how I spent too much.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Time in sort of an academic think.

[Sarah Longwell]

Tank world of conservatism that did not have to grapple with sort of the sewer underneath.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And what I saw, like, my experience.

[Sarah Longwell]

Was, yeah, like, we all knew there.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Was this, like, kind of in both parties, you would say, well, there's these strains, and that's filled with sort of, like, crazier people. But it was always like, John McCain and Jeb or, you know, George W. Bush, and which, of course, we can say, like, oh, you can hate them.

[Sarah Longwell]

Too, but this is not. But this is not Donald Trump. And so I think that.

Our decision was to both figure out what was wrong.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And then part of the.

[Sarah Longwell]

It wasn't even, like, accountability. It was like, no, we're gonna go fight back, right?

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And so my objection to her is like, okay, you made major mistakes here.

[Sarah Longwell]

Mistakes that go beyond.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And, like, again, it's like, not so.

[Sarah Longwell]

Much the tawdry stuff.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And part of why I sort of hate the whole conversation around with Nuzzy and everybody is like, it's all very gross, right? There's, like, a lot of gross rubbernecking and things like that. The thing that I feel about it is, what did you do to enable Donald Trump second term? In part because I know that RFK helping Donald Trump get elected was a real piece of how Donald Trump did get elected. And there wasn't like, she is not at the point. And maybe she'll never get there because maybe that's not who she is. Where she says, you know what? I made this mistake and here's how I'm gonna rectify it. I'm gonna rectify it by saying, no, this guy's doing real damage. And here's what I know. That's just like, not where she is. And Tim was trying to get that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Over and over, giving her the opportunity.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

But here's the other thing about Tim that I'll say.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, Tim also went through like a.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Big public pile on in those early days. And I think he carries with him a level of compassion for anybody who is like, when they're at their lowest moments. Like, he's not gonna kick somebody. Right. Like he is going to. He was doing the correct thing journalistically. But I know, like, the hunger that I felt not for her to suffer, but for her to sort of make the turn of what I did was wrong. And here is how I'm going to fix it.

I think just seeing that that's not there, like, you don't get to have redemption then. And I think Tim really exposed that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

It was a bad interview for her.

[Rocket Money Narrator]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And so I just.

But I'm like, you, where, like, I give him credit for an ability to do something that like, you and I both couldn't do that because we wouldn't be capable of.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Can you imagine me?

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Can you imagine me? I mean, like, I just the, like, I can't access the compassion that he can access. Because my. This is. What's funny is sometimes you guys are like, no, no, Sarah's the nice one. No, no, no, no. My rage is like, JBL's not nice.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Exactly. You're the good one. Tim is compassionate. Like, Tim is genuinely like at a molecular soul level. A compassionate human being. Like, his ability to meet people where they are. I mean, small children, old people, right wing grifters.

Sweet hippies in Venice. Like, it's amazing. You know that blue shirt he has with a little patch that looks like the tv. Remember the old TV pattern thing on it? It's like just some woman on Venice Beach, I think met him, was like, I think you should have this. And he was like, thank you so much. Like, in a genuine way, he's an exceptional human being. Love that, Tim.

[Sarah Longwell]

So for people who wanted to see sort of the bloodletting, I think it's fair. I kind of did too.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

But there was no other way for.

[Sarah Longwell]

Him to be him and do that. And I think the result.

Was.

A Laying bare of what it was.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Hugely effective, but in a very bulwarky way. You know, like that. Civil and kind. Right. You know, in a way, it's compassionate. It was great. All right, so how about that tryout today? This was a weird week in which I had half of a news. I had half of this newsletter written the day before, and when I sat down to finish it at like, 7 o' clock in the morning, the day it was supposed to go out because it's Tuesday, it just kept, like. I just couldn't get my arms all the way around it and kept, like, writing and writing and revising and editing and all this stuff. And I think it went up at, like, 3,500 words, and it was just, like, too late to send out. I was like, fuck it. Like, we. I missed a day because I couldn't. I couldn't hit my marks, which is a very bad feeling for me. I don't like that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I can't believe you.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I don't like it. It's been happening more often. I don't know if you've clocked this, but, like, over the last three months, it's happened fairly regularly. And I'm trying to, like, give myself space through that because I don't want to have bad product. Like, it's much more important to me to, like, protect the integrity of the product than it is to hit the marks.

But anyway, I was like, this is a case where I'm also trying to react. I'm trying not to react. I'm trying more to be in dialogue with other things that are going on at the Bulwark, because it's now, like, we're not two products anymore. We have this big constellation. And I think one of the ways that I can add value for people is by trying to surface something happening elsewhere in the Bulwark that maybe they didn't see and being in conversation with it for them. And so I was reacting to the George Packer interview that Tim did the day after Thanksgiving, maybe, which made it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Maybe get lost in the shuffle, but it's, like, really worth people's time.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Very much worth it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And can I just say to you, not to gas you up, but, you know, we are all together in person, and so there's a little bit of a. Like, you know, we're all so proud of each. You know, we're proud of the work each other are doing. And.

I think that what I have seen, and I know it's a bit that we do about how I don't read your triads, but like I say, I mostly do. I don't always get to them right by the time we talk. But it does seem, and I think this is appropriate for this moment. There's doing the analysis of the news, which is moving very, very fast and is like the whole dark. JVL is in part that when you write every day and you're in the news every day and the news is.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Dark every day, it's like.

[Sarah Longwell]

But I like when you pull back and you do the big questions. Tim always teases you at the end.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Of the tnl cause you will often.

[Sarah Longwell]

Drop one of these at like minute 55. It's like, can liberalism be saved? And we're all like, no.

And so that's my move. Yeah. But so when you do these big wrestling pieces, when you do stuff like this, it is my favorite to sit and like, wrestle with.

So I'm gonna tell you all the things I loved about it and I'm gonna tell you all the things that.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Are wrong with it.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

That sounds great. I'm here for this.

[Sarah Longwell]

Do you wanna set it up in terms of the cause? It is very long.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah. So I mean, what I was doing, I wanted to pick, I wanted to unpack and excavate like a very, very small portion of Packer's conversation with Tim. And George has written this novel which is really a Romana clef about our moment. And the idea is that you have. The country has really separated into red and blue, and the blue in the cities are. They don't. He doesn't call it woke, he calls it together. But they're. They're very woke. And like, they're well meaning. But it's also sort of oppressive and bad. And then out in the outerbergs, there are the people who I think he calls the yeoman, who are.

Doing like military stuff. Like they want to be.

Militias, basically.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Sure.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And they hate women and all that stuff. And George like a lot of good liberals. And I don't mean good, I mean good.

People like us, people who believe in liberal democracy. George has a lot of like, hey, both sides, we have to understand where this came from. And you know, like, sure, the people who are committing war crimes are bad, but so are the people on college campuses who, you know, say things I don't like.

And he also says, and this is the bigger point of it, that say what you will about Trumpism, but at least MAGA and Trump understood that the old consensus was dead and needed to be replaced. And Democrats and liberals are Stuck defending this thing which is outmoded and which can no longer work. And I think that, I think this is an incomplete understanding of our time. I think that it is certainly true that many, as he says, that people turned to Trumpism because they believed that the old consensus could no longer address their legitimate needs and provide the good life for everyone. I think that may be true for some people.

It certainly is true for some people. It is absolutely not true for some very large percentage of other people who embrace maga. I think that the both side stuff is true in the most technical sense, but actually falls prey to what like in Catholic world they would call scrupulosity, which is when.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh my God, this was my favorite phrase that I've never heard before. Pathological scrupulosity. Yeah, I underlined a bunch of things here. But there is a difference between healthy self interrogation and pathological scrupulosity.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

So this is a Catholic thing. So you know, Catholics have confession.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Right. And like one of the things that you get talked to about is like when you do your examination of conscience before confession, you want to be doing a real examination of your conscience. And that's really important and really. But it is wrong and unhelpful to turn it into this navel gazing. Oh, and then I did this very tiny little like it's. You're supposed to be able to understand the big picture.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And when you stop doing that and turn everything into a sin that's called scrupulosity, it's actually wrong. Like the priest will tell you, no, no, that's not. Got to focus on what real sins are here. What you're doing is not that it's scrupulosity. And the third part is that I have a real bee in my bonnet about the old. I just call it the neoliberal consensus. But like I think it's is probably the most successful period in American history and people did not abandon it because it wasn't working. They abandoned it for other reasons. But it absolutely is working and did work. And I do not believe that there is a reason that liberal Democrats, by which I mean all of us on the anti Trump side should feel like, oh, we gotta like really find whatever the new thing is. And you know, for the post, like I just, I reject that. So there. Did I set the table adequately?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, I think so. Although I think that your thesis in here where you talk about the pathological scrupulosity and also. What was that? That was maybe the. Maybe that was the thing I was the Difference between healthy self interrogation. Your point is it is good to look and examine your failures and where things might be failing.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Totally.

[Sarah Longwell]

But that, that doesn't mean that one ought not fight for liberal democracy and all of the positive attributes that it had, not the least of which, other than. I would make a similar argument about capitalism. Same, I might say you do. Actually, there's a lot about this I liked. And sometimes now when you and I both, when we write, I feel like there's just a bit of us in the back of our heads being like, wait, what would the critique be from Sarah J. Matt?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

We're like King Ghidorah, the Godzilla monster with multiple heads, where the heads are actually talking to each other telepathically.

[Sarah Longwell]

You made sure to say that capitalism.

Mattered and was good. The forces of capitalism could create more general prosperity than other competing systems. True capitalism must be regulated in order to blunt its ill effects. True. Small government is an impossibility for a hyperpower. Government should be more concerned with efficiency. No, sorry, efficacy. Than size. Yes.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And I think these are things everybody agreed on by, like by 2010.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

2008. I mean, you know, like Republicans may have gone around saying we need a small government, but they didn't govern that way. That's their revealed preference, is they did not believe that the government should be small.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

They believe the government should have been more effective. The Democrats had really come around on the free market. Right. Republicans and Democrats would fight a lot about the level of regulation and about how much regulation was needed to optimize outcomes from capitalism. But that's just haggling over price. Right. On the fundamental things, is capitalism good? Yes. Does it need to be regulated? Yes. They both agreed. They both agreed on foreign interventionism. Right. Like again, they would haggle about the signs of it. Right. You know, like maybe this, we should intervene here, we shouldn't intervene there. But they agreed on all these things. The reason they agreed was because it was good. It was a good system.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

So part of what I loved about this piece is that.

I think that this. One of the things that Trump has done is to say America is bad in all of these ways, which is.

When people are like, oh, Trump was just the logical extension of, you know, the rest of Republicans.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

I'm like, no Republican talked like this ever. There was no Republican.

[Sarah Longwell]

You were much more likely to find Democrats who would tell you America was bad and wrong for a variety of reasons. And Republicans would tell you, there's lots of good here. People can succeed in this thing. We have built a system that is, if not perfectly fair, tries to be like more fair. We are trying to be more perfect. And so that to me, that's the America I understood.

[Unnamed Bulwark Staff Member]

And it's one of the reasons why.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sort of the kinds of conservatives that we were, even though you and I were kind of different conservatives, it's not hard now to find ourselves more aligned with kind of center left Democrats because they still believe that the system, all the stuff. Yeah. Is roughly good. Now the part I wanted to push back on though, or just I kind of wanted to explore it with you is.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Hold on. Yeah, hold on.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, do you want to hear more about what I liked?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

We should do that on the other side.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, yeah, sorry.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

On the other side.

[Sarah Longwell]

We should come. Come with us. It's a good discussion.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Come join us over at Bulwark Plus. On the other side, you also get to hear me be emo.

[Sarah (AMPM Ad Speaker)]

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[Sarah Longwell]

Oatmeal.

[Sarah (AMPM Ad Speaker)]

So long, you strange soggy.

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