<v SPEAKER_01>Words mean things.

<v unknown>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like you keep dodging this, but just like the discourse of the day is genocide.

<v SPEAKER_01>They are fighting a war.

<v SPEAKER_00>Hi, I'm Jerusalem Debsis.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm Matthew Glacius.

<v SPEAKER_00>Welcome to the argument.

<v SPEAKER_00>As you can probably hear, I sound a little sick today, but that's good because it's on theme.

<v SPEAKER_00>Today we're talking about sleepy Joe Biden.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, he is he's back, sort of.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um Ben Terrace had this article in New York magazine about uh Joe and Jill Biden trying to get back in the public eye, trying to make some money, trying to raise funds for presidential library, do a book tour.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I would say the upshot of the article is that like Democrats aren't buying it.

<v SPEAKER_00>Trevor Burrus, Jr.

<v SPEAKER_00>Nobody wants this.

<v SPEAKER_00>Democrats don't want it, progressives don't want it, Forever Biden staffers don't want it.

<v SPEAKER_00>Joe Biden doesn't even seem like she really wants it.

<v SPEAKER_00>Trevor Burrus, Jr.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that there is an element of cope by Democrats in this.

<v SPEAKER_01>That it would be one thing if Joe and Jill Biden were being abandoned, because Democrats, broadly speaking, are like going in a radically different policy direction from the Biden administration.

<v SPEAKER_01>That would that's like a valid reason to abandon somebody.

<v SPEAKER_01>But they're actually not.

<v SPEAKER_01>I feel like there's this like personalistic piling on as if like the Biden family single-handedly ruined everything, but also was right about almost every question of substance.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so we're gonna like turn turn them into like the omelas of the Democratic Party who need to like suffer for the sins of everyone without anything changing.

<v SPEAKER_00>You mean you mean the child in Omelas?

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_00>Whatever it is.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um Most of the people at Omelas were like happy.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yes, after great luck.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>But the Democrats are like those people, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Who are like going along and they're like, we're right about everything, we're vindicated about everything, we don't need to change anything.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's just all Joe and Jill's fault.

<v SPEAKER_00>So we're gonna put them in the basement and we'll poop at them.

<v SPEAKER_00>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I don't I don't buy that.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, it's not it's not that I want to celebrate them, but like I want to condemn Bidenism, not like Joe Biden is a man.

<v SPEAKER_00>So like while I have like big policy disagreements with Joe Biden as well, I do think that it is like perfectly coherent to be like if Joe Biden was like 30 years younger, or like most of the problems by the end of the Biden administration would not have happened.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, I I mean I'm I'm open to that.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, I think so I I think the conceit was we were gonna try to like rank our complaints with Joe Biden.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I mean, I do agree, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, you know, 2024 election was lost, you know.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, the number one reason I think is just that like he should not have run again.

<v SPEAKER_01>Aaron Ross Powell Okay, so this is like my number one candidate.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, who is gonna come out here?

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, you know, that like the the the terrible thing about Joe Biden is that he chose to run again.

<v SPEAKER_01>I have a that's like the right thing to say.

<v SPEAKER_01>If I can just give the case for it.

<v SPEAKER_00>I I just I don't think he is like president of the United States because a man could not get over himself enough to realize, or he's so sick that like someone around him should have done this, but they were like actively concealing this man's decline from the American public.

<v SPEAKER_00>They required a movie star, someone with absolutely no democratic kind of accountability reason to have to tell us anything, to reveal to us, George Clooney, that he was actually, this is not just like a one-off night where he like shat the bed in front of the entire country and the world, but that he was actually in this long-term decline.

<v SPEAKER_00>He made every single one of his allies that stood up for him look like a moron.

<v SPEAKER_00>He made every single Democrat that they called on to say, like, you know, they called all these Democrats behind them and be like, tell tell the press that he's actually totally fine.

<v SPEAKER_00>He discredited them.

<v SPEAKER_00>He discredited the whole party, he made everyone in the entire left look like a complete moron for defending this person.

<v SPEAKER_00>All because he could not recognize that he was too old to run for president again.

<v SPEAKER_00>And as a result, we have President Donald Trump, number two, way worse than number one.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I wanna, I wanna express a nuanced view of this, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>So George Clooney is a hero.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>He's a great man.

<v SPEAKER_00>And come on the pod, George.

<v SPEAKER_01>And we'd love George Clooney.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um I liked uh his his movie, uh Jay Kelly, that nobody really saw.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I thought it was brilliant.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's on Netflix.

<v SPEAKER_01>Everyone should check it out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh, but you know, the right thing to say, if you are a Democratic Party politician, is that Joe Biden erred by running for re-election at all.

<v SPEAKER_01>That he was too old, that they covered this up, that it denied the public, you know, the opportunity to have a real primary, et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_01>That's clearly like the right thing to say.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't think it's actually true, though, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Now, clearly, Biden should have dropped out several days before he actually did.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, they should have admitted that that debate made it untenable.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I actually think that staying in the race too long to have a primary uh was good.

<v SPEAKER_01>That if there had been an open primary, if they had, if if if everyone had read Ezra's column and been like, this is correct, like, I'm not running for re-election, we're gonna have an open nominating process.

<v SPEAKER_01>All that would have happened is that Kamala Harris would have won the nomination, but she would have faced pressure from her left to like tie herself even more to the mast of unpopular left-wing politics, and things would have been even worse.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, it's high-minded and idealistic and like correct to say we should have had an open primary process, but like it wouldn't have accomplished that.

<v SPEAKER_00>I guess like I want to separate out two things.

<v SPEAKER_00>One, he shouldn't have run like way before.

<v SPEAKER_00>I know I'm talking about like this man should have been like a one-term president, like he was saying, and should have been clear that he was doing that after like 2022.

<v SPEAKER_00>It should have been just obvious.

<v SPEAKER_00>And then the second one is like that's even worse.

<v SPEAKER_01>I guess what I'm saying is the more open the process, the worse it gets.

<v SPEAKER_00>I actually disagree with about this.

<v SPEAKER_00>A, because I'm a democracy believer, I guess, unlike Matt Iglesias, who's I guess for folks who are listening, just thumbs down democracy.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I think this is for a couple of reasons.

<v SPEAKER_00>One, I think a couple of things would have happened.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think you are right that an open democratic primary process at that point in American politics and history would have been very focused on Gaza and Israel.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um I think I have like different views than you about how bad that would have been for Democrats.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think that's clearly become an issue where acknowledging how bad Israel is now.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, but but to be clear, I want to bracket Gaza, but it's just it would have been everything, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like we saw what Democratic Party primaries are like in 2020.

<v SPEAKER_01>To be clear, they lost anyway.

<v SPEAKER_00>To be clear, like the b by both worlds, they're lost.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah, but I'm saying they lose anyway.

<v SPEAKER_00>So the question is if you're gonna lose, especially at this point, would it have been better to have an open democratic primary process where A, I think hopefully someone could have distinguished themselves by being like, I think having better views on the economy, having better economic policy views, not being a Warnite person who could have sent themselves up better for 2028.

<v SPEAKER_00>Or B, the fact that those views would have been discredited is actually a part of the democratic process.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like right now we have this like the whole cope thing that you're worried about, that you're upset about, is that because everything is focused on Biden's age, there's no actual reckoning about the ideas that the Biden administration stood for.

<v SPEAKER_00>But that's like the whole point of having an open process.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like the democratic process literally lets you have those debates in public and invalidates points of view that we think are negative or positive.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I guess I'm saying, like, you know, Biden steps aside.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer like could have challenged Kamala Harris for the nomination, uh, but they chose not to.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's too late.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well, I don't know that it was.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well, I mean, like they should or they could have done it, but like I just mean like I think they would have if it was 2022.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think that the well, so I sort of disagree with that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I think the easiest way to dump Kamala would have been through a behind closed doors insider process at a convention rather than an open primary.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, she was just a crushingly dominant position to win the nomination as the incumbent VP.

<v SPEAKER_01>But because she won it in a coronation, she at least did have the opportunity to distance her.

<v SPEAKER_01>She chose to make the only thing.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, but it it worked some.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, like, her number is one way, way, way up.

<v SPEAKER_01>I guess all I'm saying is that like, I think that there's this like metacope that like somehow you could have gotten a nominee other than Kamala Harris if Joe Biden had made different decisions.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like, it was just always gonna be her from the moment she was picked.

<v SPEAKER_01>I just think the concern that I always heard from people who were like, maybe Biden shouldn't run again.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it was like, well, if Biden doesn't run again, we're getting Harris.

<v SPEAKER_01>And people were afraid of getting Harris.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well, we'll figure out where to rank picking Kamala Harris as one of the topics.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, let's let's do it.

<v SPEAKER_01>Let's think I think that's another another strong candidate, is like picking Kamala.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I just I I want to dig it here because I think it's like the point of a op the point of democracy, not to go way too far back here, but the point of democracy is that like the process of the public reasoning allows us to get to better ideas.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like by doing in a close- yes, if it had worked, if there was a closed-door process that had done this that was still somewhat democratic because you're through like, you know, the you know, the uh the selection mechanisms that have been laid out, like, yeah, that would have been fine, but clearly that wasn't gonna happen because she'd consolidated that effort.

<v SPEAKER_00>So at that point, then it's like we should have an open process, not only because I uh not because I think it's necessary that we're gonna get someone else.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think you're right, Kamala Harris is the dominant choice of the voters at that point um in time, but I think because it lets you force people into making cases for themselves and then and then arguing why those cases are actually good or bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I'm gonna I'm gonna bracket that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like I I my view is that like democracy should exist like between the parties rather than within them.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that like the real moral of this story and of so much that's crappy about American politics is that um intra-party democracy is like a bad idea.

<v SPEAKER_01>But that's that's probably a whole other podcast.

<v SPEAKER_01>So picking Kamala Harris, um this was a porch selection.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I I rate this very high on the list.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>The one thing that gives me some I I don't know what.

<v SPEAKER_02>It is.

<v SPEAKER_00>You're on Team Jill Biden about this.

<v SPEAKER_02>No!

<v SPEAKER_01>Jill Biden hates Kamala Harris.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, this is the thing, is like I remember when Kamel Harris was selected.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I said on the day that she was selected that this is a poor choice.

<v SPEAKER_01>I said on a podcast recorded two weeks before it was selected that I didn't understand why anyone was saying Kamel Harris was a good choice.

<v SPEAKER_01>I said in a podcast before that that like if Joe Biden felt that he was cornered, that he had promised previously to select a woman, and then because of George Floyd, he felt he had to select an African American, and there was only one African-American woman who had like traditional qualifications for the vice presidency, that Joe Biden should say it was a mistake to have made that pledge, and he should select Corey Booker.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I know also that Joe Biden was resistant to selecting Kamala Harris, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>That's how we ended up with this last-minute vetting of Susan Rice uh and Karen Bass, um who were, you know, I I think like unsuitable uh for for that role is why they weren't selecting, you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>I like Susan Rice.

<v SPEAKER_01>I know you hate her.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, but she's not a politician.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, that didn't make sense as an idea.

<v SPEAKER_01>That was a principal who was grasping at straws to evade this logic.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I was really on an island when I was saying that stuff, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like Democratic Party donors were like really excited about the Kamala Harris pick.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um again, like I was I was doing a podcast with Ezra Klein at the time, and he was like, Biden hit it out of the park with this Kamala choice, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like I don't I want to hear somebody say that like they were wrong, that the conventional wisdom in liberal America was wrong, that like the values and processes and ideas that led to Kamala Harris were a mistake.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because again, if someone is saying my takeaway from the Biden experience is that like the conventional liberal approach to identity politics is broken, then like I'm gonna stand up and cheer, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>But if they're like fuck Joe Biden, let's keep everything the same, it's like, well, like this is what you're doing.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, I have to do this every time I talk about Kamala Harris.

<v SPEAKER_00>I did work for Kamala Harris uh in her uh 2019 presidential campaign in South Carolina.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um Yeah, not great.

<v SPEAKER_00>I left politics and now I'm here ragging on Kamala Harris.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I mean, I I think at the time, um a lot of people-I mean, the reason Doders liked her is because she's actually just someone who's very charismatic in those kinds of rooms and is very comfortable with people in that kind of milieu and like is just a very charismatic person in general in those in those spaces.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like they liked her.

<v SPEAKER_00>She had very normal liberal opinions on most topics.

<v SPEAKER_00>She spoke really eloquently about, you know, uh reproductive rights and things that are really important to a lot of Democrats.

<v SPEAKER_00>It also was, of course, a moment where people really wanted to elevate a non-white man, especially a black woman, to higher levels of office.

<v SPEAKER_00>We saw this in multiple areas of governance and also, you know, the economy, et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I just, I mean, my my my view of this is just the impulse to look around halls of power and realize that they are like overrepresented by certain powerful groups is like a correct impulse.

<v SPEAKER_00>The decision then to go, okay, the way that we fix this is to find any black woman at all to elevate is like obviously fucking stupid.

<v SPEAKER_00>And it's stupid because it's also like insulting to like the actual structural inequalities that don't produce black women who are with the qualifications to be vice president in higher numbers that are relative to the population, uh, proportion of population.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I think that like the reason behind this is because like it's actually quite difficult to solve these problems.

<v SPEAKER_00>Most people now look back on that pro most people, at least that I talk to in the Democratic Party, look back on that process and are like, this is obviously a huge mistake.

<v SPEAKER_00>This is obviously not how we should have done things from both perspectives.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like both the idea that like it was a bad choice at Kabla Harris, but also like really actually kind of insulting to black women and to black people in general, that like the thing that you do to like help a population that has real concerns about inflation, about educational opportunities, about crime, whatever, is that you just like elevate some random person who happens to share some of their characteristics.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I just think that that's like not a perspective that people will anymore espouse openly.

<v SPEAKER_00>So I think you should take the win on this, Matt.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, people agree with you now.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I got I got another sticky, and it says, it says, it says identity over merit.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be provocative.

<v SPEAKER_01>I have a more, a more nuanced view of what was going on here a little bit, but I think that like the Biden administration repeatedly did versions of this, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, you know, Kentachi Brown Jackson uh is like a perfectly reasonable Supreme Court selection.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think this is nothing like picking Kamel Harris for the vice presidency, but he like pre-poisoned the well by not selecting an African-American woman for the Supreme Court, but saying he was going to select an African-American woman for the Supreme Court, then interviewing three African-American women for the Supreme Court, then picking one of them.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that he put her on the Supreme Court, so it's not like the most terrible thing you could do to somebody, but conditional on giving someone a Supreme Court appointment, it's the worst way you could do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, George H.W.

<v SPEAKER_01>Bush always maintained with a straight face, a total kayfabe, that he did not pick Clarence Thomas because he wanted a black man to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court.

<v SPEAKER_01>He just said that he looked at a bunch of candidates and there was this guy, and he really liked him, and he thought he did good work and he put him on the bench.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like identity has always been a consideration in judicial appointments.

<v SPEAKER_01>But that's the appropriate way to do it.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, there was for a while there was a Jewish seat on the Supreme Court, but nobody ever said, um only considering Jews.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, and Biden would also do things uh, you know, uh it was Marsha Fudge said she wanted to be agriculture secretary.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah because actually the agriculture department runs the food stamp program.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that's a very important issue for, you know, the urban poor, a constituency that she cares about a lot, and that she was tired of, you know, HUD being just like the black job in the cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then Biden offered her HUD.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, um having Becerra, who his had a remarkable career resurgence and is going to be governor of California, but he wanted to be attorney general, which is a job that he was qualified for.

<v SPEAKER_01>But Biden was so invested in the cutesiness of making Merrick Garland attorney general that he didn't want to give Becerra the job that Becerra wanted, but he did want to have a Hispanic person in the cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_01>So he offered uh Michelle Luhan Grisham HHS secretary, which is a job she was well qualified for, but she didn't want to be in the cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_01>So then Biden offers HHS to Becerra, which is not a job, he has he has no professional background in that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Then the White House got really mad that Bacera wasn't good at the job.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so it's this kind of like double bind where on the one hand they were obsessed with identity, but also they wouldn't actually treat the people they were elevating well, whether it's how you would characterize them, giving them jobs that they actually want.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, this is a c I mean, this is like the classic, you are now espousing a classic woke opinion about glass ceilings, which is that people get put in in like Bacera in particular gets put in a position to fail.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, it's because he's gonna end up being governor because of Eric.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, you know, all this other stuff, it winds up being fine.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I was Well, not fine for the administration of I felt really bad for earlier when Becerra's gubernatorial campaign was flailing.

<v SPEAKER_02>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>I was sitting there thinking, you know, as a somewhat Latino person myself, like, this is a huge shame.

<v SPEAKER_01>This guy was attorney general of California.

<v SPEAKER_01>He would have been a frontrunner for the gubernatorial nomination had his career not taken this bizarre detour into being a cabinet secretary whose boss then was shitting on him constantly.

<v SPEAKER_01>And you also saw this with your good friend uh Corinne Jean Pierre, who not my good friend for listeners.

<v SPEAKER_01>He wrote a funny article about her.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's weird to it's not that weird to have a press secretary who you fire because you don't think she's doing that good of a job.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's really weird to have a press secretary who you maintain in a job while clearly and openly lacking confidence in that person's ability to do the job, bringing like a white guy in to do half the briefings, leaking to politico that like you were hoping a kicker upstairs to a job at Emily's.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's like it's really it's both shabby treatment of these people as individuals.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And also with like a terrible way to run the government.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, it's also, I mean, like the what's so crazy about this is like there's obviously an internal push by some uh, you know, high-ranking minority uh political bodies, whether it's like CBC or CHC or um various members of, you know, the political um establishment that's tried to promote diversity in the ranks, um, that like you want to put forward your people in order to make sure that there's still um an impetus to diversify.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like you have to have like political groups that like care about uh care about this in order to like create pressure for people to actually consider identity in some form or fashion.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like it's kind of insane to go like, okay, we're going to bow to the pressure of the CBC and do this, but then we're going to like viciously insult the people that we're actually elevating at their behest, which indicates then that like you're both kind of in their pocket.

<v SPEAKER_00>You resent being in their pocket.

<v SPEAKER_00>So you lose both the benefit, you like it's like the worst of all worlds.

<v SPEAKER_00>Now they're also mad at you because you're treating Kate uh Karine badly.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like there were like stories about how like people were offended that um Karine Jean Père was being treated badly by the press, uh, by the president and his office and his staff.

<v SPEAKER_00>There's like tons of tension in DC among, you know, black uh uh uh uh consultants and political uh staffers that like these staffers are being treated badly, which is like true.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like if you're going to hire someone in that role, like you shouldn't be an asshole to them.

<v SPEAKER_00>Right.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I think that like at core here, the thing I'm worried about is that there's like an overreading of this entire situation.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like Donald Trump is president right now.

<v SPEAKER_00>His chief of staff is a woman.

<v SPEAKER_00>There are like, there's a gay cabinet member for the first time.

<v SPEAKER_00>This is like actually like identity, like you know, wins for these groups.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like, I'll just note there aren't tons of stories questioning the competence of Susie Wiles to like, I don't know, like destroy the country.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like she's clearly very, very good at helping them do that.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I I want to just impart to people like it is not bad to have a diverse cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, that is not a problem.

<v SPEAKER_00>And that like when another democratic president gets into office, the goal here should not be, oh, that was like a really shitty thing or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_00>Because I'm going to these like fucking like left-wing things sometimes.

<v SPEAKER_00>I was invited to this like liberal um event, and they were just like, it was like the least diverse thing I've ever been to in my life.

<v SPEAKER_00>I was like, I swear to God, the only black person there.

<v SPEAKER_00>There was like 10% of people were women.

<v SPEAKER_00>It was like kind of shocking to me.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I'm like, oh, it's because like everyone has stopped giving a shit about this.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like the woke era is over, like no one gives a shit about it.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I'm like, this is like a complete like incorrect overcorrection.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay, but again to the Trump point, yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, Trump has a much less diverse uh cabinet and senior White House staff.

<v SPEAKER_01>You would expect I mean the the Republican Party is less diverse, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>You would if you if you I'm not suggesting you do this, but if you just picked House Democrats at random and gave them cabinet jobs, you would end up with a fairly diverse cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_01>If you picked House Republicans at random, you would end up with a not very diverse cabinet.

<v SPEAKER_01>But the elements of diverse.

<v SPEAKER_01>In the Trump cabinet, make a lot of sense, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>There are lots of people other than Scott Bessant who could be Treasury Secretary, but of possible jobs for Scott Bessant to have, Treasury Secretary is one of like three.

<v SPEAKER_01>He's a guy who could have a senior economic policy job or no job.

<v SPEAKER_01>Scott Turner, HUD is the only job he could conceivably have.

<v SPEAKER_01>He is a legitimate housing guy.

<v SPEAKER_01>He's not my favorite person in the universe, but he's a completely reasonable resume-based HUD pick.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's not Trump in his first term actually did the Biden thing and was like, here's a prominent African-American conservative.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm going to make him HUD secretary instead of HHS secretary or something.

<v SPEAKER_00>To be clear, that's like a long-standing thing.

<v SPEAKER_00>Absolutely.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, yes, yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, it's like Trump broke with that, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Susie Wiles is chief of staff because she was his campaign manager and people felt that she did a good job of imposing discipline on the campaign.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's not like, you know, like Donald Trump thought it would be a fun press release.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so he found a woman to be chief of staff.

<v SPEAKER_00>So I will point out though, like uh like what the female uh cabinet secretaries have been the ones kind of being dropped.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, no, Trump is Trump is glass cliffing them, and I think and I think doesn't get along well with women.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um there's a lot of lot of history there.

<v SPEAKER_01>But just to say that there's a, you know, trying to be there's a difference between trying to be thoughtful, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I like this guy, Bacera.

<v SPEAKER_01>What would be a good job to give him?

<v SPEAKER_01>And this kind of flailing, you know, sort of stuff.

<v SPEAKER_01>But in terms of staffers, next sticky note.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, I I think I I I wrote this down as Warren Staffers, but it to me, this is the core of Bynism.

<v SPEAKER_01>And when I talk about COP, like this is what I am talking about.

<v SPEAKER_01>We we had an open primary contest in 2020.

<v SPEAKER_01>It was uh quite vigorous, and we saw very clearly that the donors to the Democratic Party, the small donors, they wanted Bernie Sanders.

<v SPEAKER_01>If they didn't get Bernie Sanders, they wanted Elizabeth Warren.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh the big donors wanted either Warren or Pete Buttigieg or maybe Kamala Harris.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and all those people were well to the left of Joe Biden.

<v SPEAKER_01>And the voters disagreed with the donors, they disagreed with the staffers, they disagreed with the media, like no columnists that I know of were supporting Joe Biden, no big Twitter personalities were supporting Joe Biden, but the voters of the Democratic Party wanted Joe Biden.

<v SPEAKER_01>He then immediately fires his campaign manager after winning the primary, which is bizarre.

<v SPEAKER_01>He brings on Jen O'Malley Dillon, who is the architect of the better presidential campaign.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um Ron Klain, you know, comes in uh a longtime Biden guy, but you know, headbit on the outs, but he gets back in.

<v SPEAKER_01>And his idea is to create this this not say like we we won the argument, this is the new moderate Bidenist Democratic Party, but this to create this this Biden-Warren fusion in which all the key economic regulatory jobs go to Elizabeth Warren proteges, and they really reject having won the primary on the basis of I was Barack Obama's vice president, they empower all these people who feel very strongly that the Obama administration like deliberately let all these criminals off the hook, was a cesspool of corruption, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_01>And there's been no reckoning inside the Democratic Party about this, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like Obama doesn't acknowledge it, you know, publicly in any kind of way, but there was this brain transplant of like the old thinkers running economic policy in favor of their intra-party critics under the guise of continuity.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think this is you know, just a really important question.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, do we want to continue on this trajectory or do we want to revert or do something else?

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think those people, I think the the the Bidenist Warrenists are sort of ground zero for just like oh, this guy was too old, and we we just gotta like swap in a younger-looking skin suit.

<v SPEAKER_00>This is one of those things that's uh like conventional wisdom in DC, but I'm not sure is like well understood everywhere.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's just how much power um Warren adjacent orgslash Warren's office itself had over the hiring and appointments of senior and mid-level people in the administration.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like there is just like an effort, both I think there's like a good faith effort at the end of every contentious primary to like bring the party together.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like you want a unified party.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's a bad vibe if like you still have the old person, like uh you're old, you know, sniping at you, saying you're horrible or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_00>You want a unified uh anti-Trump coalition going into the general election.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's all normal.

<v SPEAKER_00>You bring some people in, Obama did this, like Clinton did this, everyone does this.

<v SPEAKER_00>This went further.

<v SPEAKER_00>This is like after the general election ends, after the transition, during the transition process, when you're having decisions about who to appoint for various mid-level positions, like deputy undersecretaries, et cetera, is that like there's an outsized impact that not just, I think literally these offices and groups had, like groups like Revolving Door Project, et cetera, but like the ideas they espouse.

<v SPEAKER_00>So like this idea that individuals who had worked in the private sector were necessarily, you know, suspect that like if you had ever worked at like a McKinsey, if you had ever worked at a consulting firm, which base or you know, even in the industry, like if you'd worked in like oil or or gas, or you'd worked in uh even more like banking or whatever it is.

<v SPEAKER_00>And there's like, I want to step back here.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, obviously, it's the case that it's very, very bad to have like regulators completely co-opted by the industries they're supposed to be regulating.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, no one actually wants there to be like a complete revolving door here.

<v SPEAKER_00>But there's a difference between, hey, like four bankers and people who are going to be bankers once they leave the administration should not be in charge of all the banking regulatory bodies.

<v SPEAKER_00>And we shouldn't have anyone with subject matter expertise working in banking regulation.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I heard from you know, someone who was in uh Treasury uh on background tell me about how like they had trouble during the SVB Silicon Valley Silicon Valley Bank uh uh crisis to finding someone who could just like walk them through internally, walk them through what was literally going to happen that evening, that night, the next day as this crisis was unfolding, because they didn't have people who were working um in uh you know uh banking in the administration um at that and in that in those offices.

<v SPEAKER_00>And so I just I think this is one of those things here where this is such an under, I think, discussed point because many of the people who are criticizing Biden still continue to have these views.

<v SPEAKER_00>Aaron Ross Powell Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>And you know, I I mean to get detailed on this, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>So you had a number of people appointed to prominent jobs at FTC, at um Commodities Future uh Trading Commission, um, other kinds of things like this throughout the administration, but you also had Pramila Jayapal's chief of staff who was running the Office of Presidential Personnel.

<v SPEAKER_00>And Pramila Jayapal is the CPC Congressional Progressive Caucus's head.

<v SPEAKER_00>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that's a very eccentric decision making, you know, and it has a lot of influence over the paper flow of who gets nominated for low-level jobs.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so, you know, you would wind up seeing people who had been like OG Biden camp primary campaign staffers at a time when that was a very unfashionable campaign.

<v SPEAKER_01>And they would end up, you know, working at the Department of Transportation or, you know, elsewhere in the outer realms of the galaxy.

<v SPEAKER_01>Whereas people who were more wired with the left of the party would be in the White House or in the power agencies.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's a very strange way to construct an administration.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I think it's a profound difference of opinion as to whether whether one's take on Biden being too old was that the everything about the construction of the Biden administration was amazing, but the guy at its head lacked the vim and vigor to sell this amazing agenda.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because that that because these are two things that like sound the same as text.

<v SPEAKER_01>My version of Biden is too old is that Biden as an old guy did not have the vim and vigor to stand up for himself to a certain level.

<v SPEAKER_01>He had this top level of like old chums of his, you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because to be clear, I mean, it it's not like it was only leftists in the administration, but it was a very thin layer of people who he had known personally for a very, very long time.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then he just seeded all kinds of ground on lower-level decisions and did not seem very personally engaged with the details of policymaking that was coming forth in this administration.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, this is actually, I think, I would categorize this as like a different reason to be hate Joe Biden, which is that like he just didn't give a shit enough about like policy.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I know that like, you know, it's so funny because the entirety of the Biden administration is kind of revolt against economists, revolt against the wonks.

<v SPEAKER_00>So there are all of these columns written during the Biden administration about how economists have lost cachet, et cetera, because like the Vox wonk white paper style uh of governance of the Obama years is super out of vogue and embarrassing.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like I just want to like point out here that like even the left critiques of Biden almost entirely rest in the fact that this guy was completely disconnected from policy, whether we're talking about foreign policy where like I think that he's actually more connected than anything anywhere else.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like domestic policy in particular, like this guy was just like did not like he was not the one negotiating with Joe Banchett.

<v SPEAKER_00>He's like out to lunch when they're doing the big IRA negotiations.

<v SPEAKER_00>He's completely devolved that down, like multiple layers away from him.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I'm just like that's not how the Obama administration worked, because Obama personally was invested in the details of what was going on of his signature economic policy bill.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>So this I I think we're agreeing here.

<v SPEAKER_01>But this is the debate that's like not in the Ben Terrace article.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's not in these takes about how everyone's past Joe Biden is.

<v SPEAKER_01>Are we saying this was great, but the frontman wasn't doing enough salesmanship?

<v SPEAKER_01>Or are we saying that it was actually like a deeply flawed construction in which the frontman's lack of engagement uh with what they were doing is the problem.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and and that brings us to you know a couple other things they've written down here.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um I I just for folks, I I want to be clear to audio folks.

<v SPEAKER_00>Matt has been sticking these uh stickies on the code.

<v SPEAKER_01>I got stickies all around.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm just you know, I'm adjusting to podcasting as a visible music.

<v SPEAKER_01>He's on the mics.

<v SPEAKER_01>So this this one says open borders, which you know, that's an exaggeration, but clearly something went wrong with immigration policy in the Biden years.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's so funny.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think the biggest problem with Joe Biden, I mean, sorry, number one will be that he chose to write again, even though you you have different views.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think my number two is like the the didn't care enough about economics thing.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um my number three is like not taking immigration seriously enough.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like one of the most damning parts of the entire I mean, the Dempsey's thesis on immigration during the Biden years is that like disorder was like the biggest problem.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um, and like it's very hard to manage like millions of people trying to come into the country.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like you can do better and worse jobs of it, as you can witness mayors like the Denver mayor, who was much more able to handle the inflows of migrants versus the Chicago mayor, which for folks who are not geography heads, Denver is closer to the southern border than than Chicago, and so was was handling a much more difficult flow of people, but didn't have the kind of like insane issues that Brendan Johnson did in Chicago of, you know, creating basically like race war between uh existing African Americans who are upset about resources being taken away for migrants.

<v SPEAKER_00>But my point is the Biden administration did not take seriously enough the need to be engaged in the resettlement process of migrants coming across the border.

<v SPEAKER_00>There's reporting that's done by, I believe, Reuters, um, we'll put that in the show notes, that like they basically thought, the administration thought that if they didn't take ownership of resettling them, then they wouldn't be blamed for where they ended up and how it ended up.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I'm just like, this is like to me like the most brain-dead thing on the planet because it's just like obviously people are gonna blame you.

<v SPEAKER_00>You're currently president of the United States no matter what happens.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I don't think you could have solved all of the problems, but like if you had spent more time getting resources to cities and states such that like when people were coming in, New York wasn't having to like scramble to figure out where to put these fucking people.

<v SPEAKER_00>That actually would have made a massive difference in how the migrant crisis was experienced on the ground.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um, you know, obviously I'm I'm pro-letting in lots of immigrants.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's just, you know, you gotta do it in a way that doesn't spur backlash.

<v SPEAKER_01>My best article that I wrote in the Biden administration was at the beginning of March 2021.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I was saying, you know, I'd gotten this people, you know, pitch me stuff.

<v SPEAKER_01>So don't say somebody at the White House was like, we want you to like like write about how this huge surge of people at the southern border like isn't our fault that you know Republicans are lying about this.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I was like, okay, I I mean, uh sure, it's it's not your fault.

<v SPEAKER_01>Whatever.

<v SPEAKER_01>Stuff happens, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, there's a lot of external events in the world.

<v SPEAKER_01>But but but what do you want to have happen here?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what is your policy objective?

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it was like you know, because they didn't want to say we're immigration restrictionists who don't want these people to come.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's not our fault, and we are trying to stop it.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because that would be too right wing.

<v SPEAKER_01>And at the time they were very focused on placating everyone.

<v SPEAKER_01>But they also obviously didn't want to say everybody is welcome.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, open.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because while it wasn't their fault, quote unquote, it wasn't, it was like not not their fault, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, if they had just said, please everybody come, yeah, like we're opening the floodgates, like even more people would have come and it would have looked bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>And they had no desire to like they didn't actually want more people to come.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>But they also didn't want to say they didn't want more people to come.

<v SPEAKER_01>They didn't want to stop people from coming, they didn't want to facilitate their arrival.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>They were just annoyed that this was happening because they had these aforementioned economic policy ideas that they wanted to do.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so it was like, maybe the weather will change and people will stop coming.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, you know, who knows?

<v SPEAKER_01>Maybe we'll go into a recession and people will stop coming.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then Greg Abbott out politics and was like, no, I will not let this just be some shit that I am dealing with.

<v SPEAKER_01>I am going to ratchet up the salience of this as high as possible.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Send people around.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, they could have said, right, okay, this Abbott is sending people to all these different blue cities, but they have these very different characteristics, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And so, you know, Brandon Johnson's a little disorganized, but also Chicago is just poorer, much poorer than Denver or New York.

<v SPEAKER_01>On the other hand, less like uh expensive land and objective housing constraints, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Lots of housing.

<v SPEAKER_01>Chicago plus an influx of financial resources would arguably benefit from a lot of migrants coming in.

<v SPEAKER_01>New York, like in theory, could, but you wouldn't get it.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, they figured it out.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's what's so crazy.

<v SPEAKER_00>People don't like, they've literally just like it stopped being a problem after like a couple of months.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, it costs them a lot.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well, yes, but I just mean like it wasn't like migrants living on the floors of midtown.

<v SPEAKER_00>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>But yeah, you know, I mean, now New York has like big housing problems, land use constraints, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_01>You you can imagine a world in which an influx of asylum seekers like rebuild Chicago.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um but you know that 60,000 Ukrainians came in and no one noticed.

<v SPEAKER_01>You would you would you would have to try to do it.

<v SPEAKER_02>The other obvious one is that the American rescue plan was too big.

<v SPEAKER_02>This is another reason.

<v SPEAKER_00>Trevor Burrus, Jr.

<v SPEAKER_00>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_00>Another reason for Joe Biden hating Joe Biden is that ARP was too big.

<v SPEAKER_00>Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But nobody wants to say that.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I feel like the like, isn't the uh the economics of this kind of like it was a small impact relative to the larger forces causing inflation?

<v SPEAKER_00>Because like inflation happened all over the world.

<v SPEAKER_00>ARP obviously only in the United States.

<v SPEAKER_00>There was I I should have looked this up before this podcast, but um there was some paper that was estimating the amount of inflation that occurred as a result of the ARP, and it was like pretty modest.

<v SPEAKER_00>Right.

<v SPEAKER_00>Was it I mean, some things about this?

<v SPEAKER_01>I will see people saying, oh, there's all this research saying the ARP didn't really spark inflation.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well, it's just like moderate.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, but you look at it and they're saying, okay, well, you know, inflation went up to what, like eight, nine percent?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And they're saying, you know, maybe like two percentage points of that was ARP.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um but that's the difference between winning and losing in 2024, I think, really, really clearly, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>The other argument that people make is that um we saw similar amounts of inflation globally, which is true, but the shock to natural gas prices induced by the Russia-Ukraine war was much more severe in Europe than it was in the United States, uh, because there's physical constraints on how much liquefied natural gas can be exported from the US to Europe.

<v SPEAKER_01>So the fact that there was about the same amount of inflation is kind of a coincidence.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, the higher levels of fossil fuel production in the United States insulated us.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, I I am not gonna, you know, argue for like Biden's um wishy-washy energy policies being like a top-tier policy error.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I think that this was a significant mistake.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um the Biden administration went soft on enforcing oil sanctions against Russia because they were concerned about the impact on the global economy, but they raised drilling fees in the United States and blocked oil infrastructure projects in Alaska.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, this is like a classic thing where it's like easier to do your policy um aims in foreign policy because there's just like less congressional oversight and less like press oversight because no one gives a shit.

<v SPEAKER_00>And so you end up seeing like true preferences of elected officials in the foreign policy space.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, I I spoke to somebody at the NEC and I asked them, I was like, why don't you go easier on domestic drilling and harder on international sanctions enforcement?

<v SPEAKER_01>You get the same climate outcomes, a better economic outcome, a better foreign policy outcome.

<v SPEAKER_01>And he told me the green groups don't lobby on sanctions enforcement.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, exactly.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm like, oh yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>That's like a really irresponsible way to run the government, in my opinion.

<v SPEAKER_00>I agree.

<v SPEAKER_00>I want to return to care uh care uh to ARP, though, because so it seems like the best figure is probably around three percentage points, but that includes cares, which I think it you can't blame on the Biden administration.

<v SPEAKER_00>I'll say this.

<v SPEAKER_00>I have a lot more empathy for the ARP mistake, in part because like every single including myself, and I think most economists at the time were basically saying we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the Great Recession and understimulate the economy.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like there was, I think, not as well understood a phenomenon that, like, you know, economists are like, okay, yeah, unemployment's bad, inflation's bad.

<v SPEAKER_00>We're not really sure which is worse.

<v SPEAKER_00>Unemployment seems really, really, really bad.

<v SPEAKER_00>Let's really try to avoid that, even if we get a little bit more inflation, particularly because we're coming from a context where we've had really low inflation for a long time.

<v SPEAKER_00>Everyone kind of like memory hold how bad inflation is, both politically and just like literally bad for people it is.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um, and also like it doesn't actually make that much sense to economists who are like, okay, like your prices go up, but like your wages go up.

<v SPEAKER_00>So are you really that worse off?

<v SPEAKER_00>And the American people were like, yes, this is the fucking worst thing that's ever happened to me.

<v SPEAKER_00>I don't care if my wages go up, my wages go up because I'm a good worker, prices go up because you're bad at the economy.

<v SPEAKER_00>And so, like, you end up in some people like, I actually think that like not realizing that this was the incorrect paradigm fast enough was an error.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think by the time we're getting to 2023, like they're still a little bit too behind the curve doing the whole like the economy's actually doing really well, guys.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like that, that that whole like vibe is really bad.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like, I'm not sure I would blame them for ARP.

<v SPEAKER_00>And were you saying that at the time that ARP was giving?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, I I I I I I endorsed ARP.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um I I remember in uh when Obama was president, um, I will I will violate anonymity because it just reflects well on him.

<v SPEAKER_01>I was I was arguing with Jason Furman and he was like, you guys should do more inflation.

<v SPEAKER_01>And he was like, we absolutely should not do more inflation.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I was like, but like unemployment will be lower and yeah, like prices will be higher, but wages will match up.

<v SPEAKER_01>And he was like, you young people do not understand how much the Is Jason Furman older than you?

<v SPEAKER_01>We would hate that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, not like a lot, a lot older, but he was like, no, people will get really fucking mad if that happens.

<v SPEAKER_01>He was right, wow, it's stupid, that doesn't make sense, blah, blah, blah.

<v SPEAKER_01>He was completely right.

<v SPEAKER_00>Was Jason Furman against ARP?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, he was.

<v SPEAKER_01>Wow.

<v SPEAKER_01>Not a coincidence.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, he he wrote against it.

<v SPEAKER_01>He like, he called me up on the phone.

<v SPEAKER_01>He was like, Matt, you're still wrong about this.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and he was completely right.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>I struggle to blame them for ARP.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because there was a lot going on and a lot of considerations on the other side.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think it became clear quite quickly that they were mistaken about this.

<v SPEAKER_01>You mean before 2023?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Not saying like they should have like admitted they were wrong because nobody wants that.

<v SPEAKER_01>But there was no pivot, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, this goes back to the left-wing economic staffing, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>That there was no like, huh.

<v SPEAKER_01>Maybe Jason and Larry were right about this.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Huh.

<v SPEAKER_01>Maybe the decision to like stiff arm traditional neoclassical economic policy advice is not working out that well.

<v SPEAKER_01>There was no there was like an executive order to create like a whole of Government antitrust crackdown.

<v SPEAKER_01>There wasn't a revisiting of the concept that ditching um low consumer prices as an enforcement goal for antitrust policy might be a mistake.

<v SPEAKER_01>And there was definitely no, we want every agency to run through the regulatory books and bring to us as many things they can find, as obscure as they might be, that will help bring prices down.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so what I've heard from people who tried to run exercises like that is that, you know, they weren't allowed to propose anything to the White House that labor groups or environmental groups would get upset about.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so that then meant you're like committing to not doing anything on cost of living, which is was the number one uh issue.

<v SPEAKER_01>So we've been dwelling on left-wing staffing in the administration, left-wing policy choices.

<v SPEAKER_01>I want the defeat of Joe Biden and the discrediting of Bidenism to lead to like the dawning of abundance and um sound uh return to economic practice.

<v SPEAKER_01>Instead, it's been seen as discrediting moderate Democrats.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um leftists are running amok uh now, more so than ever before.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that's clearly because in most people's minds the salient factional dispute in the Democratic Party right now is about Israel.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um I've written about Gaza here, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>But like far and away, the number one criticism of Joe Biden that is articulated by people beyond being old is that he was like complicit in a genocide uh done by Israel, and that we need to wash our hands of Bidenism, meaning the US Israel alliance, and that we need to turn to leftists who in fact were running the Biden administration policy on like most issues that most people care about, and just like also give them control over the US relationship with this tiny country in the Middle East.

<v SPEAKER_00>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think Biden did shit the bet on Israel.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well that's pretty clear.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like, do you think that Biden was complicit in Israel undertaking a genocide?

<v SPEAKER_01>I think that if I said, I think that if if I, you know, it's in the debate, whatever, I said, like, no, like I think that's like a weird slander.

<v SPEAKER_01>Then people would say, like, nope, fuck you.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, you're on the ash heap of history along with everybody else.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think what's like really obvious is that really early on, Israel began acting in ways that were like genuinely horrifying.

<v SPEAKER_00>That it was like known that they were gonna have some sort of reaction to October 7th, obviously, um, an incursion uh that that ended up killing and hurting like tons of people in Israel.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like I just want to be clear here, like once you were getting credible reporting and images coming into the United States of what they were doing to children, defenseless civilians, et cetera, it just the entire posture of it being like, we're still friends with Israel, like we're but like it's just insane to me.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like from the very beginning, like in that I mean, again, I was already more left-wing on this issue.

<v SPEAKER_00>So like that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I don't I because like really, like, I don't understand this at all.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like that this viewpoint, which I I admit, like I'm alone.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm like lost on an island here.

<v SPEAKER_00>But this is like What do you mean?

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I think, I mean, again, like in general, like if I'm witnessing another country in the world bombing civilians, I'm like upset when I notice the U.S.

<v SPEAKER_00>bombing civilians.

<v SPEAKER_00>So okay, so what do you mean?

<v SPEAKER_00>People were dying, civilians.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's a dense urban environment.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's a war that is happening in the dense urban environment.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>And there's a policy by the government of Egypt, which is that like refugee outflows will not be permitted.

<v SPEAKER_01>I also think that's bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I know I know you think that's bad because you're like a reasonable person, but the but the conventional wisdom, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Throughout this war on the left, be like a good person on the left, right, is that like don't say anything about Egyptian policy.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I did.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_01>But you're talking with me.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure, no, no, but I'm just saying, like, what's going on here, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>That like, and if Israel was to advocate for this, that would be like even worse, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Now they're doing double genocide.

<v SPEAKER_00>I just think that at the at that front, like the person who has to justify the value and efficacy of a bombing campaign that will kill tens of thousands of people is the person doing the bombing campaign.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, yes, what a mass said is a hor they're a horrible terrorist organization who like did this horrible thing October 7th.

<v SPEAKER_00>But then Israel has to go, okay, like what is the value of us doing this like mass bombing campaign on Gaza?

<v SPEAKER_00>Is that going to lead to less terrorism?

<v SPEAKER_00>Is that going to lead to a geopolitical situation that will be safer for Israelis and Jews?

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I think clearly not.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think it's clearly gone worse for everyone except for the most right-wing parts of Israel.

<v SPEAKER_00>And now, as Trump has betrayed Netanyahu with Iran, it's like not even going to be a good idea.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm not talking about Iran, though, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, because again, like the Biden administration did not give Netanyahu what he wanted on Iran.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay, so I want to be clear about this because I think the war with Iran has rightly made people more critical of Israel than they were before.

<v SPEAKER_01>But the Biden administration was preventing that from happening, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And there's this there's a view of Biden that he was just like Netanyahu's poodle and was doing everything that he wanted, but like he very specifically resisted pressure to go do this.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I think we're we're left with the question of like what where does the moral culpability lie for this?

<v SPEAKER_01>And I know I like I I I've lost the argument and will be run out of town on a rail if I say this, but like it's Hamas's fault.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like they could have surrendered at any time and ended this war.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that people who are motivated, right, if you if you try to think about it like in a rational way, like if your concern was with the human welfare of the people of Gaza, you should be like concerned that the people who created this military conflict were insisting on fighting to the last civilian and not taking this view that it's like outrageous that Israel would fight back.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think that you're getting too I think that your focus is so much on like these like very unrepresentative activists that you're seeing online or et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like I think the majority opinion from like most people who are not super involved in politics is that it's very, very bad to witness a government killing children.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like when you see images like that, that's really bad, and that you should not want that to happen.

<v SPEAKER_00>And then you have Joe Biden getting up there and saying, hey, Israel is a state that has been America's partner for a long time and we're gonna stand with them.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like obviously he's doing I'm not like denying that there was this pressure campaign behind the scenes to push Netanyahu to do different things, but like, hey, like why is your public posture this way about a government that's enacting these kinds of policies?

<v SPEAKER_00>And I just to be clear.

<v SPEAKER_01>They were fighting a war.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I just like I don't I think the war's bad.

<v SPEAKER_00>Do you think I mean like I mean seriously, like I don't understand.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I think it's bad when people are fighting wars, especially ones that have like no clear end game that it's going to actually lead to long-standing peace for me.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, there is no war there at no point in Netanyahu articulate an actual strategy for like ending the war in a way that would lead to peace.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, that doesn't matter.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, I I I I agree with that.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like Hamas also didn't.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah, and Hamas is an awful terrorist organization.

<v SPEAKER_01>But it is, but I mean it just like to me, like there is a war, like a long-standing war that has been going on here that has two sides to it.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>And where like now the progressive view to be like in good standing in the Democratic Party is to just be on Hamas's side.

<v SPEAKER_01>I do not think that is true.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think they're still.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's how we mean a not that obviously obscure activists.

<v SPEAKER_01>But who's winning all these DSA primaries everywhere?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like this is what's happening.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like this is what's true, but I just think again, like you're too focused on this, like one like I'm not saying they're not like powerful or whatever, but like I'm saying like most people who are opposed to Israel are not like, I like Hamas.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like I don't know what the polling on Hamas is, but I think if you're like asked the American public, like, how do you feel about Israel?

<v SPEAKER_01>I understand that that's not their subjective view.

<v SPEAKER_01>By the same token, literally everyone who is pro-Israel is not like, I enjoy killing Palestinian children.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>But Israel's critics pin them with the deaths of Palestinian children because that is what is occurring.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think that nation state.

<v SPEAKER_01>Regardless of whether or not that's their subjective goal here.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so by the same token, right, the people whose reaction to October 7th is to do anti-Israel protests the next day because you know, the counter-attack is too brutal.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like they are just they are taking sides in a conflict.

<v SPEAKER_02>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like the critique of the Biden administration is that it was wrong to take Israel's side in the conflict, that they should have taken the view that it's illegitimate for Israel to fight back.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think that like this the big problem for Biden is that obviously the conflict did not begin during the Biden administration.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like this is like a long-standing conflict between Israel and outside the Middle East, like for like decades and decades.

<v SPEAKER_00>And so like obviously you're like now we're starting the clock on October 7th, and that's like the situation that Biden had to deal with.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I think that the idea that nation states should be held to a different standard than like terrorist actors is like not insane to me.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I think when a terrorist actor does something terrible, I'm like, yeah, that's a terrorist actor that we're trying to eradicate, that does not have the access to international banking, that does not have access to buy weapons from the United States government or any government, like that is part of an illicit web of uh, you know, bad actors that we actively try to sanction, that we actively try to find through our um, you know, uh uh various, you know, DOD arms.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like that's different than Israel, where it's like, yeah, you are a nation state that is ostensibly supposed to be a democracy that is currently like allowing, not even with Gaza, like that's currently allowing members of your country to like incur into the West Bank and like steal people's land and beat them.

<v SPEAKER_00>And it's just like you're already behaving in ways that are far beyond what we allow liberal Western democracies in good standing to behave.

<v SPEAKER_00>And then on top of that, you're not going to start a war that's going to create political problems in the United States where you have no end game.

<v SPEAKER_00>And why would I be worried about this?

<v SPEAKER_01>Because like I feel so critical of Israel.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yes, I know.

<v SPEAKER_01>And yet, I feel that what is standard conventional wisdom, like entry stakes into progressive politics at this point, is like so over-the-top hysterical that like I just don't know, like I don't know where I'm left by, but like words mean things.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, right.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like you keep dodging this, but just like the discourse of the day is genocide.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like that is a weighty concept, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, like legally speaking.

<v SPEAKER_01>And the goals, right, of like the boycott development sanctions movement, which again, like, this is becoming quite mainstream, like lots of Democratic Party elected officials, and increasingly so.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like there's primaries happening, you know, in house races pitting totally down-the-line Orthodox progressives against also down-the-line Orthodox progressives who also want to sanction Israel, where that's like the only issue.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like really, really big.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I just like I like I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying to like rank Biden flaws here, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like I don't want to say that their Israel policy worked out great because it obviously didn't.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, right.

<v SPEAKER_01>It didn't achieve like any of its own goals.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like a lot of people died and it ended completely unsatisfactorily.

<v SPEAKER_01>And yet I just feel like a like wildly overblown criticism has become conventional wisdom.

<v SPEAKER_01>While like we're like, oh, like remember inflation that like destroyed Western democracy?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, eh, should get a pass on that one.

<v SPEAKER_00>Because I think that's a fair read of what's I think most people the entirety of the DSA left is like, we only talk about cost of living now.

<v SPEAKER_00>Mom Daniel showed us the way we w we talk about cost of living now because like everyone recognizes that's like a number one issue.

<v SPEAKER_00>And like secondly, like to be clear, like even abstracting away from like the leg like the the the um the literal policy merits and what actually happened in Israel and the Middle East and US policy, et cetera, like on the politics that's also been proven correct, like that being anti-Israel is not actually the anchor around the weight of candidates as it was expected to be.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think we see this all the time uh online with human beings, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Just like individual people.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like when people decide that a given person is like one of the bad guys, they then because there's a lot of people out there, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Some of the people criticizing the bad guy will be criticizing the bad guy in terms that are not factually accurate.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And then because that person is the bad guy, the people who agree that that person is the bad guy don't want to step up and correct the other people, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And we saw this like so much of what I mean, this is the problem with populism.

<v SPEAKER_01>This happens with Yes, and and like cancel culture is like a very vague term.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I I I to me that was sort of the essence of it, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Was like if we have decided that so-and-so is a bad person, then you should not stand up for that person against any kind of criticism, whether the criticism is accurate or not.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I feel, and it it wounds me as a Jewish person, that like Israel has become the like social media's main character, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Where like because Bibi Netanyahu is like a bad guy, and because the sort of post-2009 trajectory of Israeli handling of uh the Palestinian issue is not really defensible, that it's like anything you say about Israel is fair game, and like nobody is supposed to um stand up for them in any kind of way.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like we're nitpicking to like actually care about the specific accuracy of claims that are being made.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that this is then like metastasized into intra-democratic party factional politics because all this shit we were talking about before, like progressives don't want to acknowledge, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>So it's like all getting piled in to this idea that there was some like really obvious better way to resolve uh the Gaza war, which like I don't think stands up to a ton of scrutiny.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what were you gonna do that was going to lead to a happy outcome of this?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, this is a uh a classical difficult policy problem that has uh befuddled people for many generations, uh, because there's a lot of supernatural considerations uh in play over control of the Holy Land and supernatural considerations.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and I think it's like well, I mean, I do I think supernatural considerations.

<v SPEAKER_01>You mean religious considerations?

<v SPEAKER_01>Gotcha.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like I think Chuck Schumer and Zorhan Mamdani, two nice secular New Yorkers, could probably like sit down and like just draw lines on a map in like all kinds of different ways and be like, this is fine, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Just as like Jews and Muslims coexist like quite well in the United States of America, but they're like fighting over the holy land in a way that's like not that amenable to compromise.

<v SPEAKER_01>We've like veered off topic of of Joe Biden here.

<v SPEAKER_00>We're enacting a microcosm of the broader problem in which Israel takes over the entirety of the conversation.

<v SPEAKER_01>I just I think that a lot of the policy problems of the Biden administration had like relatively straightforward fixes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, that this one is like actually hard.

<v SPEAKER_00>I don't think that anyone believes that there's like a straightforward fix to the problem of Gaza and um uh and Israel and the the West Bank.

<v SPEAKER_00>People don't want to be on the side of the bad guy.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh-huh.

<v SPEAKER_00>Right?

<v SPEAKER_00>Like it's almost like exactly what you were saying.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like it is like really bad to like witness a country bombing another country into the mud, and then like TikTok is taking off during the 2020s, and so you get like visceral videos all the time of uh we didn't talk about the TikTok ban.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's another reason to be pissed off at Joe Biden.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um, but uh visceral videos all the time of like children and women and families and civilians getting their homes bombed to the ground.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I think I think my point here is just that like I actually think there was really low levels of effort by the Biden administration to distinguish the fact that they were not on that side that they could have taken to make people feel like, okay, I now have faith that you were making diplomatic efforts to actually help the people of Gaza not be in the situation.

<v SPEAKER_00>Instead, it was like, we're wrapping our arms around Bibi, we're not doing like that to me was like a massive tactical political error, regardless of what was going on behind the scenes, and like made me feel less trusting of the Biden administration.

<v SPEAKER_00>They were actually taking the problems of Gaza seriously.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay, so how high would you advocate for putting this?

<v SPEAKER_00>Israel on this list.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, I think that like number one to me is the economy.

<v SPEAKER_02>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_00>Number one is where is yours?

<v SPEAKER_00>Is that number one for you two?

<v SPEAKER_02>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_00>Number two is him running again.

<v SPEAKER_02>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think I have to put Israel at number three just because it's like massively destroyed like the Democratic Party policy.

<v SPEAKER_00>And also, like, like you said, has helped spur anti-Semitism across the entire country.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um maybe number four is not taking immigration seriously enough.

<v SPEAKER_00>Are you agreeing with all of these, or is this just my putting it down?

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh number five is gonna be Kamala.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_00>I feel like I'm just sort of listing them now.

<v SPEAKER_00>What else do I have here?

<v SPEAKER_00>I've forgotten them all.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um so we had energy stuff, we had like the specifics of the rescue plan.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't know how you how you sort of parse the.

<v SPEAKER_00>ARP is like down number.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, I don't even think I'll put that on a list.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like ten.

<v SPEAKER_01>You think ARP is fine.

<v SPEAKER_01>But so you're thinking like like economic staffing.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, basically my view is like, I blame you for something where like if the method that you the the is the if the pathway to that got you to that solution was bad, I blame you for that solution.

<v SPEAKER_00>But like ARP of like you listened to experts and economists and tried to solve a problem and then it didn't turn out great.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's just like life, you know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_02>Yeah, right.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um So okay, I I guess like I would go closer to uh what I think is like the the the mass electorate view of this.

<v SPEAKER_01>The what electorate?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like like the the electorate's view, the the mass public's view.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like that just like the economy was really bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um people people were upset about that, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>So I think I I think the the construction of the economic team, I would put the immigration stuff number two because like that was the other thing people were really mad about.

<v SPEAKER_01>I might even put the immigration stuff ahead of the economy just because it it felt at the time quite idiosyncratic to me.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, this economic stuff I didn't agree with, but there was like a lot of people pushing for that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um so I don't really know.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I I would categorize the sort of identitarian staffing like more broadly than just Kamel Harris, but put it up there, um, you know, high at number three.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, I do think, you know, we we have to give some consideration uh to the rescue plan as like a serious error.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, it's true that a lot of people were for it.

<v SPEAKER_01>I was for it.

<v SPEAKER_01>I can't be too too down on it, but like really the top people um in the prior Democratic administration were like warning them against this course of action.

<v SPEAKER_01>There was something happening with the legislative politics uh that didn't quite make sense.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um you know, I I guess like, yes, I I mean, uh despite whatever my passion on this, I mean, I I think that their handling of Gaza belongs on the list.

<v SPEAKER_01>It clearly did not work out the way that they wanted it to.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, they didn't achieve what they were trying to achieve.

<v SPEAKER_01>I guess I should say that I think that other aspects of the Biden foreign policy like actually did work out well and constitute the sort of um main redeeming quality of the administration, actually.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, without Gaza, like Biden's foreign policy would have been considered like a return to tradition.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, the defense of the United States.

<v SPEAKER_01>Ukraine worked well.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think they're still going.

<v SPEAKER_01>Handling of the, you know, uh the the the sort of um handling of China was like pretty good um, you know, on the whole in terms of these things.

<v SPEAKER_01>So you know, that's another reason I go a little soft um on on the Gaza situation.

<v SPEAKER_00>What are our biggest things you wrote them down?

<v SPEAKER_00>So what are our biggest disagreements?

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_00>How like are we disagreeing- No, I mean like what on a sort of running again.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, you have that up as number two.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh you stand with the conventional wisdom.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um I think that that was good.

<v SPEAKER_01>That, you know, like going through the tape, dropping out at the last minute.

<v SPEAKER_00>You gotta write this take out.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh you gotta write Biden was right to run again this time.

<v SPEAKER_00>I think I wrote it at the time.

<v SPEAKER_00>Did you really?

<v SPEAKER_00>I don't think so.

<v SPEAKER_01>That would have been uh but you know, it was like, you know, he he dragged it out for like two weeks too long, um, or however many that was.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I I feel bad for Andrew Bates, um, who had to do some embarrassing tweets.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh and now is getting dragged by Joe Biden anyway.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, like that's and I think that their post-dropout behavior, which we didn't really talk about that.

<v SPEAKER_01>I guess I guess I would sub that in.

<v SPEAKER_00>Well because they're egomaniacs.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and and so some of this is like Joe Biden clapping back at Andrew Bates for being a little critical of their resurfacing, but also, you know, not just an ego a smart, rational egomaniac would have said to Kamala Harris, my legacy depends on you winning this election.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>No matter what you say or do for the next hundred days, if you win, my legacy will be secure.

<v SPEAKER_01>As the man who saved the country from Donald Trump, who saved the independence of Ukraine, who saved the Western Alliance.

<v SPEAKER_01>Those are the things that I care about most healing the soul of the country, restoring the faith of the West.

<v SPEAKER_01>And all of that requires.

<v SPEAKER_01>You to win.

<v SPEAKER_00>So throw me under the buttons.

<v SPEAKER_01>Say or do whatever you think it will take to do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I'm gonna get on the phone with Jed Dillon, with everybody there in Wilmington, and I'm gonna have this exact same conversation with them.

<v SPEAKER_01>I will be really mad at you if you lose, but whatever it takes to win, go do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>And he didn't do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, we don't know like exactly what he said, but it is clear that like they felt that there would be downside to breaking with the Biden White House that some kind of you know, counter messaging uh would would come forth.

<v SPEAKER_01>That he really wanted her to like run as his successor in a way that is just like it's short-sighted.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>Because like in the grand scheme of things, like nobody's gonna care, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like what happened now is that because she lost, he failed.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And because he failed, nobody wants to find his stupid fucking presidential library.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, but I think that that is a post-dropout problem more than a decision to run again.

<v SPEAKER_00>I do think that like most of my um ranking stems from the idea that like I blame blameworthiness to me is assigned based on like the process by which someone lands a decision.

<v SPEAKER_00>So, like to me, the process by which someone lands that you cannot even badmouth me to win the presidency and save us for Donald Trump is like the same th, this is the same process that lands on like let me run again.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like it's just like you are to be president, you'd be somewhat of an eomaniac.

<v SPEAKER_00>So you can't really blame someone for that.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, that's just kind of like what the whole situation is.

<v SPEAKER_00>But I just think that at some level here, the lack of long-term thinking was based in the fact that they were so sensitive to slights from the Obama years.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, all of that to me is just so central to understanding Biden's entire the economy, the his his hatred of economists, his hatred of wonks, his distaste for like Obama-type people, like his teen's distaste for those kinds of people, that type of policy making.

<v SPEAKER_00>It all stems from this whole like people are being mean to the Biden's type of energy.

<v SPEAKER_00>And everything that flows from that I find so I mean, I know this is not like rational of me, somebody like whatever.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's like it's like so irritating that like you would put that above like how many people am I helping?

<v SPEAKER_00>How many people's lives am I saving?

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, it's just like it's it's insane.

<v SPEAKER_01>I guess I would frame this a little bit differently, but like it there's a curious way.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because I think everybody in big time politics, every president is a bit of an egomaniac.

<v SPEAKER_01>But it's and this is just I I think like the main thing that is misunderstood by the broad public about the Biden administration is that I don't think you could get a world in which Joe Biden is not an egomaniac, in which any president's not an egomaniac.

<v SPEAKER_01>But the egomania that I wanted Biden to have is the one where he's like where he's like, no, no, no, but not just long term.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean I mean there's that at the end, but at the beginning to be like, guys, I was too old.

<v SPEAKER_01>I do stutter.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm not charismatic.

<v SPEAKER_01>The donors didn't like me, and I beat all you motherfuckers anyway.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, show me, like, yes, like I want you all on the team, but like I want everybody who backed Warren, everybody who backed fucking Pete to like explain to me why I beat you.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, show me that you understand, right?

<v SPEAKER_00>Because if you did You want LBJ style egomania.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, no, but you know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>Because because the reason why he beat them was that continuity with Obama was popular, that beating Trump at any cost was popular, that like cultural moderation was popular, that there was in fact like no demand for this kind of change.

<v SPEAKER_01>But instead, Biden seems to have directed his egomania at a desire to get over on Obama.

<v SPEAKER_02>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right.

<v SPEAKER_01>And to like embrace the critics of continuity, because that was going to show that he was even bigger, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>That that he was like a bigger and better change agent than his predecessor, rather than that he was a smarter politician than all the people that he beat, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, you know, so it's it's true that there's like then many different things happen.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I think that like the reckoning that we keep like not having in the Democratic Party was with this, like the voters were like, we want continuity with Obama.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then the continuity with Obama guy was like, nope, we're doing a high heart break with Obamaism.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then the voters hated that.

<v SPEAKER_01>And now we're like still doing it again.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, we're like, we're like going in circles.

<v SPEAKER_01>Let's let's do a quick peer review.

<v SPEAKER_01>We got on for a long time.

<v SPEAKER_00>This one is uh this is a fun one.

<v SPEAKER_00>So I actually talked to the um co-author of this paper for my old podcast at The Atlantic, but it's called Bachelors Without Bachelors.

<v SPEAKER_00>Great name.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh gender gaps in education and declining marriage rates.

<v SPEAKER_00>So there's obviously this kind of like conventional wisdom, kind of probably best uh understood through JD Vance's childless cat ladies comment, right?

<v SPEAKER_00>That like the people, the women who aren't getting married, are these, you know, girl bosses getting their PhDs and degrees and living in the big city and uh, you know, 10 cats and they're f too invested in their careers.

<v SPEAKER_00>They don't care enough about family.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um what these uh economists show is that like that's actually just not correct, that the people who are not getting married, like that college-educated women largely have seen their marriage rates stay pretty stable, um, that it's non-college educated women that have seen their c uh their um rates of marriage decline.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh for non-college women, uh marriage rates have cratered from 78.7% to 52.4%.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um that's big.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh seems largely driven by the fact that um basically what's happening is like the best earning non-college educated men are now marrying college educated women, which you could imagine this is like a like a nurse marrying a plumber, right?

<v SPEAKER_00>Like nurses have to have a college degree, plumbers don't.

<v SPEAKER_00>So like that's kind of that relationship we're imagining here.

<v SPEAKER_00>And that means that like the non-college educated men who would have been marrying non-college educated women are like taken up.

<v SPEAKER_01>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, there's a great paper.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's a it's a good corrective to the sort of culture war uh framing of this.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I wrote a piece uh, you know, about this.

<v SPEAKER_01>So social conservatives who are concerned about the declining marriage rate really want to hector what they perceive of as I mean, we we we we did the feminine mystique episode, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And so it's like the sound critique of what Betty Friedan is doing is that like she is very like monolithically focused on high achieving, highly educated women.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so social conservatives are like just doing the same thing in reverse, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And they're like, no, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_01>All you people who read Feminine Mystique and like went to go become girl bosses, like you need to be trad wives instead.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like the girl bosses are continuing to be married at a fairly high rate, just to the most high-achieving men.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>The thing that's happening is that the least um educated, least economically dynamic women who uh are potentially partnering up with like the most fucked up, unimpressive men are opting out of marriage.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that's just like a completely different I think like a very genuine social problem, actually.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and like worthy of social conservative concern, and notably isn't like was like the blind spot of second wave.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's it's not like the fault of second wave feminism, but there was just so much discourse in there about like high achieving people, but all social problems like primarily accumulate at the bottom ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And uh, but like people who read prestigious publications are very interested in like our own lives.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>And we just like tend to neglect the problems of you know, people of below average earnings, below average education, below average intelligence, below average conscientiousness.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like usually when bad things happen, that's who suffers.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so we're seeing both like you're left without good marriage prospects, but also so it's like understandable.

<v SPEAKER_01>You don't want to marry like bad partners, but like also being like a poor single mom is pretty bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like dying alone is not great.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like it's like a bad situation.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like we should we should think more about that.

<v SPEAKER_00>Yeah, and I mean, I I think it's um it's another point in the whole like even if average marriages are better off than average people who are made single, like it's the marginal marriage seems potentially like not actually um like a good for the people involved.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um so basically, like the paper looks at both employment and prison and it finds that where non-college men have jobs, non-college women marry more.

<v SPEAKER_00>So it's not just like they want people with degrees, like, do you have a job?

<v SPEAKER_00>And the and the effect is pretty strong in the worst area.

<v SPEAKER_00>So in places where male employment is low, only 45% of non-college women are married.

<v SPEAKER_00>But in places where male employment is high, like in the best places, like 66% of non-college women are married.

<v SPEAKER_00>That's like that's like a m it's like 20-point difference.

<v SPEAKER_00>It's huge.

<v SPEAKER_00>So like there's like a clear pathway here, like jobs for like non-college educated men seem like extremely important.

<v SPEAKER_00>If your concern as a social conservative is to increase marriage rates, like, do these men have jobs, good paying jobs?

<v SPEAKER_00>And also like prison, they look at this too, places with less incarceration go with more marriage too.

<v SPEAKER_00>So um it's it's it it it basically like you want people to not have gone to prison and still have a job.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think you could think about the causation there in different kinds of ways, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Because like probably, you know, you can reduce your prison, your incarceration rate by like letting all the murderers out of prison earlier.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm not sure the guy who might actually work.

<v SPEAKER_00>It might or might not.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like increasing marriage rates.

<v SPEAKER_00>It would have other problems, but Well, I mean, I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_00>Men would literally be outside.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, I think that probably the guy who was like just in prison for three years for murder is not a highly desirable uh marriage prospect.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, you know, so I mean I just think I think the people's on your market.

<v SPEAKER_01>You know, and again, with the unemployment, you know, it's hard to say exactly what's happening.

<v SPEAKER_01>I haven't.

<v SPEAKER_00>So there's a whole lot of people.

<v SPEAKER_00>I'm really missing out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um But yeah, I mean the point is you have this kind of negatively selected population, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>That where outcomes for men are bad, women are not that interested in marrying men with bad outcomes, which has sort of always been the case.

<v SPEAKER_01>But as women's economic prospects improve, there is less incentive to like settle for somebody who sucks, which is like that's good.

<v SPEAKER_00>I mean, the social conservative position here is something that I think often is unstated, is that like marriage has sometimes been the mechanism or the institution by which men have stopped sucking in these ways that we're talking about.

<v SPEAKER_00>And so, like, they're like their actual, I think sometimes that the actual policy aim is that, like, okay, if women will just marry some of these subpar men, then they won't be a subpar anymore.

<v SPEAKER_00>And I think that that's like actually what's going on here.

<v SPEAKER_00>Because I think in your model of this, it's like, oh, they're super confused.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, why are they focused on the girl boss instead of focused on the fact that like, you know, women are marrying men with jobs and with with, you know, that have all these characteristics that are positive.

<v SPEAKER_00>Like, I think it's because they're like, they just want them to do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I have a maybe a darker interpretation of that, but we'll even we'll even find that.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, no, that's no, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, I think I think that like just as like Betty Friedan is aware that she's talking about a minority of the population, but she just like cares a lot about those outcomes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I just think cultural conservatives are like authentically like want to reverse these elite phenomena and they're marshalling social statistics that are only tangentially related.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, just as again, like remember like Betty Friedan's with her like soft Korean War POWs, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like people, when people are like trying to win these culture war arguments, they say crazy.

<v SPEAKER_01>They tend to reach, right, for like more ammunition because it sounds petty to like admit how obsessed everyone is with a small number of highly educated people.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, Linda Hirschman, I always give credit to for being like the one person who will say I actually care a lot about elite outcomes because it sets the tone for all of culture and society.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like I that's like a bad move in the discourse to just own up to it.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I think we get a lot of.

<v SPEAKER_00>This is what I say in affirmative action, and uh everyone hates it.

<v SPEAKER_00>There you go.

<v SPEAKER_00>Okay, I think it's a great place to close off.

<v SPEAKER_00>Uh in a couple weeks, we're gonna be reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacob.

<v SPEAKER_00>So if you wanna pick up that that tome and read along with us, uh feel free.

<v SPEAKER_00>We've gotten a lot of suggestions from people about books they want us to read.

<v SPEAKER_00>So if you have those, feel free to add us on uh Substack or on Twitter, and we'll get back to you if that's a book we're gonna pick.

<v SPEAKER_00>Um but as always, like, comment, subscribe, tell people about the podcast.

<v SPEAKER_00>We're growing and we're trying to make new people.