S2 Ep176: Sarah Longwell's Message for Everyone Who Thinks We’re Doomed (w/ Andrew Weissmann)

0:00It's like a quilt. It's so beautifully pieced together. You've got sort of your intellectual argument, your story, and then all these voices in there all happening together, which is why the cover, by the way, is so perfect because it's like this jigsaw puzzle that's pieced together that's really beautiful. Hello everyone and welcome to the illegal news. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bullwark. I'm still not a lawyer, but I am a first time published author and I'm here with my great buddy Andrew Weissman. I read his book. He read my book. We did a book talk on his excellent book. Now today I'm turning the show over to him and we're going to have a conversation about my book and I'm super excited about it. This is so great. I was thinking actually I should, I was about to interrupt you and be like, you know, I'm doing the illegal news. You're my show. It's my show. It's like, you know, it's like pupil master at some point, you know,

1:03switches. I couldn't be more excited. You know, I have said this already on a previous episode, but I mean, I know this is so weird because of course everyone's going to think I'm just doing this as a favorite. It's really, really, really, really, really good. And like if you haven't, I know like the board people are loyal listeners and readers and they go out and buy stuff, but it's it's if you haven't, you should buy it. It's it's it's really educational, but it is a fun, fast read. And you are going to feel like you are talking to Sarah Longwell from beginning to end. Whether or not that seems like a good thing to you, it is true. And I was worried though that maybe the book drove you insane. And that's why you're coming to us live from a padded room. They're not going to let you out of. Yeah, exactly. I've got so many questions. I was actually,

2:04you know, there's a part of the book that's really is optimistic and great. And then there's a huge part that's really pessimistic. So that part could drive you insane. But I am in a conference room. I know it feels like I'm in a white void. I'm in a sensory deprivation tank. Exactly. So no, I'm in a conference room because right after this, like you, I'm about to go on call. So hence doing it. You know, I'm sort of usually kind of known for my backgrounds and having like, no, this is why it jumps out at me. This is like my homage to Steve Jobs. The minimalist. Can I just tell you one other thing about this? Okay, so yes, you made a good. I appreciated the five release and how really good it is. And the hard pitch, here's what I really for. Oh, you only want to do for while you throw an extra one in there. And I appreciated it.

3:06Do you know who is number one on the New York Times bestseller list right now? And the fiction or nonfiction nonfiction, which is what I'm competing in. Well, normally I would say regime change. It's been it was on there for weeks and weeks. Right. But no, there's a new person. Is it the Clarence there's some book about Clarence Thomas. Ted Cruz has a Clarence Thomas biography. If there is a book or two people that I am more excited to try and topple, I have become a period time with JVL, my colleague who's really obsessed with winning a webbie. And it was one of those things we had to go online and vote. And I mean, for weeks, he made people he blew every other person so far out of the water on the webbie because he had so jinned people up to go vote for him on this thing. That's how I feel now. I didn't care about number one until Ted Cruz was the number one person. And now I've got to get him. Okay, so this is that's for all of you out there who feel like Sarah that's one more motivational reason. This is maybe

4:10like a terrible thing to say and it's maybe not true. But here I'm going to phrase it as a question. What percentage of that book do you think Ted Cruz actually wrote? Oh, can I this is actually so when I got into the writing process and somebody was like, oh, you're writing it yourself. Like they said it to me as though that was not like an obvious thing. And I was like, what do you mean? And they were like, well, the, you know, these so many of these sort of fox news, you know, personally, it's like someone just like churn in these things out. Yeah, there's a whole cottage industry of people who are ghost writers. And and there's a whole process you can have. They can be true ghost writers. They can be as told to buy or with little with so and so. And you know, that's and frankly, you know what, for a lot of politicians, they're probably they may not be the best writers. But it's just like you just go ahead and acknowledge it. And with this person. Right. Exactly. And sometimes they do just to be fair.

5:16Right. But okay, Sarah, let's let's actually jump in. Because I'm sure you have a lot of questions. Yeah, exactly. So I just think it's time for you. Like I run a tight ship. Not like let me go off on these tangents, you know, because I'm going to take the tangents. But with you, I'm going to be like, okay, Sarah, we're going to snap a doodle and keep me on top. I'm ready. Okay. So, okay, I'm going to start with the most out. So why do you read the book? I wrote the book because I think we're on the precipice of a generational opportunity in politics. I think to the extent that we've spent the last 10 years or more by the time Trump has gone. You know, living in this whole new world and people are kind of they feel like there's no way out of it. And I think that's wrong. I think there absolutely is a way out of it. And I want to start with the fact that Trump is both constitutionally and actually wearily very likely to be out of our

6:19are he's not going to be president anymore after 2028. Like and I think we spend so much time JVL and a lot of the people you don't want to people don't want to presuppose that he's going to leave right because he tried last time not to leave. And I do think that we all understand that there are ways in which he will do things to try to hold on to power. But I think that we should operate from a place of there is a new opportunity ahead of us because Donald Trump took the Republican Party and made it a cult of personality. So it is now bereft of ideas of policies that it champions of leaders. And so the and one of the stories I tell very early on in the introduction is about being in a deal book summit. And Kevin McCarthy's in the green room with me and I'm trying to avoid him. But he's going on and on to the reporter. She's like preening around and he's saying Trump is such a turnout machine. He's putting up these huge numbers

7:23in all these rural areas. And of course I know this is true. I follow these numbers. Trump has has increased. He's brought all these new people into the electoral process. I don't think though that there's any guarantee that they stay in the electoral process. And I was sitting there listening to Kevin McCarthy going, okay, what are you going to do with Trump's gone, bro? What's your idea then? And the answer is they don't really have one. And so that means that if Democrats or the pro-democracy coalition that sort of has to live under the tent of Democrats, there's this opportunity to overwhelm the hold that Donald Trump has had on the culture and on our politics going into 2028. But it's going to require doing a few things. It's going to require building a few things, recalibrating on a few things. And so I wanted to lay out how one would go about building the biggest, broadest, strongest coalition, both from a leadership

8:24level, communications level, tactical level, in order to overwhelm what's going to be left of that Republican rump at a time when Donald Trump is no longer there to prop it all up. So it's so funny because when I was reading your book, I made this point before. This show is sponsored by Factor. Factor makes chef-crafted, dietician-designed, ready-to-date meals so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. Factor is coming in incredibly clutch for me in my post-labor day sprint to the election because everyone has a lot going on. But one way we're all staying healthy is with Factor. With over 175 band ingredients, every Factor meal is designed around what supports a healthier lifestyle and nothing that doesn't. Factor meals are ready in two minutes and require no prep and no cleanup. So even on the days your schedule is completely out of control and mine always is eating well is still achievable. My trainer is on me all day to be like you gotta get more protein.

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10:28You and I both were talking about the unique media environment we're in and both of us were looking at that time period. The time period when we went for the next general election it's sort of like where will we be and what do we need to do and it was it was just so interesting because it was like you were looking in from the political perspective I was looking from legal perspective and I had some ideas okay here this is one of the reasons I just like adored the book and also because like that's it's not a world I think about you know in the same way that you do with that kind of expertise it was just a absolute pleasure okay if you had to say like I don't want to limit it to like what are the top 3d but what are the Democrats doing right and wrong and what are the Republicans doing right and wrong like you know viewers like sitting there in an internal conference room saying like you know here's what's working and here's what's not working and pretend you're like thinking about this for the upcoming general election not midterms what would you what would

11:32that conversation look like yeah well I'm just gonna say quickly as a as a set up matter what Republicans are doing wrong is trying to destroy American democracy and what Democrats are trying to do right is protect American democracy however leaving those little things that's actually great that you said that because I that's obviously big picture right that's but I know that's how you're asking but it's like why do we care about this what is like how do we protect democracy going forward and I'm like what was so great about this book is it's sort of like okay and what are the tools what are the things what are the strategies to get there so but I great that you said that because I don't read right into the weeds no no and that but that's right and I think okay so let's start with the Republicans and I'm gonna have to for the purposes of this to separate Trump from the Republicans because there's a lot that Trump has done and let's not call it right exactly but it has been effective and one of the things that I think is a deeply unique about Trump that I

12:38think cannot be replicated by some of the wannabees who are gonna come after him is that Trump had built decades of a parasocial relationship with voters some one of the things I talk about in the book is there was a bit of a surprise to me early on was when I asked voters uh Republican voters if they had watched the apprentice and like everybody's like oh yeah I love the apprentice and I had forgotten that the apprentice literally ran basically up until the point like Arnold Schwarzenegger had to take it over from Donald Trump because it was still on the air like he lived in people's living rooms I went back and watched all these old interviews with him Oprah you know Larry King you know all the page six stuff he just lived in the American imagination such that in you know home alone too he just has this cameo and everybody's like right that's Donald Trump um and so imagine who else is like that and and and a distinction I want to make uh is that a lot of times people then say yes we

13:40need to on the democratic side we need to run like the rock or a celebrity and I say no no no you're missing something here guys because Donald Trump isn't an actor playing somebody else he has been himself the whole time and so he is able to violate norms values and rules in a way that other people can't because people already know he's a dirtbag they already know he divorced everybody like it was built in uh and so that is very different and so to have that pair of social relationship is deeply powerful um and then he he used that sorry do you want to say something before I get to go to I was going to say I was going to say that that um just relating it to our lives that is um something that I that that difference between a celebrity was sort of an actor celebrity makes it different than like an anchor or a podcast host or the sort of Joe Rogan's um or even a tiger carlson's because although you know we may think if you know them behind the scenes they're

14:42they actually are different they're not really playing a character like there's like you know when when someone comes up to you on the street and says oh you know like I feel like I know you it's like it's not like an actor where it's like no you really don't know them they play roles and it's like it's like oh actually you do know me because you know because I am who I am exactly so um that's in some ways it's like maybe not get us celebrity but that's the reason you hear like the Tucker Carlson might you know is that I run it's because or Megan Kelly or people who um have a relationship with the audience I still think they are not they don't have the same type that Donald Trump had and I I emphasize his uniqueness in the culture because I want to impress upon people that I do not think there's an easy Trump-like figure on either side to grab to replicate the thing that he did it doesn't mean that there are no other people who can be demagogues it doesn't mean that there's

15:44not other people who can be aspirationally fascist or connect with voters it just means he is pretty unique um and lots of limitators will fall apart when they try however so his his ability to be himself and led him to something that I think has changed the way we communicate which is that Trump then also decided he was not going to use intermediaries in the way that he communicated with voters right his tweeted he calls into these news shows like he's like you're going to hear it directly from me this changed the way voters thought about their relationship with the president and this is a thing that I think sticks now Joe Biden thought he could go back uh and this is where I'll get to something that I think Democrats are doing wrong that I want them to recognize that Donald Trump specifically did right which is that he chose a moment when all of us are used to now having parasocial relationships where we're used to watching people think through and have conversations and the people that we like the most are the ones that were like I trust that person I think they're telling us the truth because they seem authentic they seem like you know I they're the same everywhere I see them vote on that now from their power of friends yeah and it's interesting

16:49obviously there's many many more ways to do that now and to cut the the sort of media out as an intermediary but you know I'm thinking about my parents generation no cracks here because you're going to be like I weren't you around then um but um I remember my mom and dad talking about hearing FDR do fireside chats and everyone they said everyone would go to the living room and and listen to him and it's direct and there was this sense of he was speaking right to you now with there's so many more ways to do that now but it's worth I think noting it's not it's not a unique thing to do that but it is unusual that you like he is so good at taking advantage of all of the ways to um talk directly but then with respect to media that's sort of bad coverage as he

17:52fangsly said to Leslie Stahl I'm gonna denigrate you so that no one believes what you say or just what you say yes um so I go directly or I have an immanuance and a mouth pieces through Fox news and others but I then with people who are going to be the Sarah Longwells of the world I just say you know that's fake news exactly but but you bring up then sort of the next layer of how Trump achieves a kind of narrative dominance so people who listen to the bull work know that for a long time I've talked about the Republican triangle of doom and Trump is like the ignition point for that but then the other thing that the Republican side has that they do right um and then we can move on to Democrats is that because repul and I was around for this uh I was a Republican in my early years uh we're gonna get we're gonna get that but but one of the one of the things that like they they beat into you is a kind of victimization mentality around they shut us out from the mainstream institutions and you're like you know there's all this bias against conservatives like that

18:52victimology is kind of it's bred into quite early but but the thing is is Republicans complained and wind about it a lot and they're always bitching about this on the other hand they also did go do something about it they built their own media ecosystem and it's now they got this massive head start for when mainstream media kind of disaggregated in this new environment like for a long time it could be an alternative to mainstream media but now with the algorithms and the silos people live there like one of the things that you learn in the focus groups very quickly or one thinks that was I like kind of blew me away was and you get here Democrats say this all the time they're like well how can they vote for him if they know about X and I'm like oh buddy they're not hearing about X or if they're here about it it is like a tiny tiny little smidge of their information diet relative to this entire world that they now live in or like they can they can go their whole whole week without hearing about the negative story that you and I are are inhaling uh and so there's

19:54there's a um like if somebody after you finish reading this I have another book for people you should read this which is the hour of the predator and one of the things he talks about you it's such a good companion to yours but definitely secondary thank you it's a street here but he talks about you know usually it's like you know believe what you see um and he said that the slip of the tongue when somebody was talking about this was people nowadays um believe what they see and he's like the person who is on air saying that people see what they believe yes meaning that you're you are only being reinforced in this bubble that's totally right and so the Republican triangle doom is the toxic and symbiotic relationship between the right wing infotainment media the elected officials and the voters because voters they demand that you tell them nice things about Donald Trump because the mainstream media is just saying bad things you have to say good things so you say good

20:55things you build audience well then the politicians need to come on and say good things and you can see it if you take like the election denialism of 2020 and how those three vectors worked together it comes very clear how suddenly 70% of Republicans say that the election was stolen all right yeah and this is um yeah this was you know if you look at what happened at Fox News and the lawsuit by Dominion it is it was that Fox at some point was trying to get out of that triangle and realize the voters were letting them so they continued that cycle that's exactly right because that is it right the Fox News and this is something that I think people don't really think about it enough is how much Fox News which people see as the main problem I'm like Fox News is now competing with like this panoply of Newsmax and OANN and um and then all these weirdos out there in your Alex Jones and everything else those guys are taking their audience share and when Fox News I heard this in the focus groups all the time they were like well Fox News has gone woke because they

21:56called the election you know for Joe Biden and like Fox News is a left wing outlet now like that is a huge problem okay so there's no coral corresponding media infrastructure on the left and I think sometimes people get really demoralized by this because they're like well we don't have 40 years whatever and I'm like great news though the barrier to entry today to build something new is so much lower and also because of the deep fragmentation happening to mainstream media the fact that the business model is crumbling means that there's like actually a lot of openings for new media things to get built with people who are serious and tethered to the truth um and can can have pro-democracy outlets flourish so let me push back on that to see so if you I mean I in theory I totally I mean mixed total sense but here's one of the ways um is that if you're on the on the right and you're thinking how do I sort of have this you're just going to get a mirrored of what you believe and I'm

22:59going to reinforce it and I'm not going to bring out other stuff and I know a lot of people say well that is what MS now for MSNBC does but you know I'm here to tell you that's not what they do it's not happening and and and so when you say they can they that the Democrats have this ability to do it they're not going to do that because or at least I don't think they should sort of not not as I'm not talking from an effective point of view it's like they they're not going to be like oh but we're going to ignore some important factor salient factor or it's like so how do they they can't do I think it's not exactly apples to apples then I think a lot of people worry about the idea of a left wing or a either in center left but a sort of independent media ecosystem getting built on the left uh that feels like a mirror of the right and my response to that would say as long as you're tethered to the truth like you're not it's not violent rhetoric whatever I just think there's

24:04a world where there should be more there should be more uh people out there talking like when I I did I did this exercise where I just analyzed how many of the podcast charts were sort of right wing and how many left wing yes and it is just a total asymmetry total asymmetry in in this environment and I think that you've got to bring some balance to that um and so your point that that that I think is really what I'm arguing and and part of it too is because I came up on the right the right has this incredibly I I went through something called the collegiate network where they find young conservatives on college campus and let me tell you I wasn't like a young Republican type okay I was cool I played sports I like hanging out with my buddies I wasn't like in the young Republicans but I you know it was political science major and people knew that I was and so they found me uh I've written a couple articles for something and they get me into this pipeline where okay hey we're going to take you to Prague on this journalism thing and um you know there's all these ways in which

25:07the Republicans have an infrastructure and a pipeline for talent Democrats do not have a core uh corresponding uh thing like there's all of these ways in which you can think about infrastructure differently uh on sort of the left and center left or even just pro-democracy I mean it doesn't have to be overtly partisan I built the bulwark not to be a left wing uh place but to be a pro-demo democracy place that is uh tethered to the truth and then has a lot of different voices and we disagree and I would just like to see more of that and I what I guess part of it is I built this kind of on accident and it came together and because there's a demand for it like there really is the appetite and I think there should be more things to feed that appetite and try to balance out that that asymmetry so part of my what I'm saying like what what Democrats need to do is they just have a lot of infrastructure but I think part of it is just too that I think they're too reliant on mainstream media to carry their messages and then they get mad when mainstream media operates

26:07with that neutrality uh and and that problem is that neutrality does play to the benefit of the authoritarian right or or to the sort of Donald Trump far right and that balancing that out is is tough uh but something I think that needs to be done this show is sponsored by hers if you've been waiting for the right time to tackle your weight loss goals this is it hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications including the wagovi pill and the wagovi pen with wagovi at hers lose up to 20% of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise it helps you regulate your appetite eat less and keep weight off plus wagovi is the first ever GLP weight loss so there are no needles needed everything is a hundred percent online through hers you'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment is right for you if prescribed your medication is delivered right to your door no insurance necessary and it doesn't stop there weight

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28:12i know are you done with like the democrats but me because i'm not even close not even close and so it's a wait let me just let me do one small thing yeah this is why it's 303 pages it is a fast read but my one of my personal favorite chapters in this book is the republicans are from Mars democrats are from Venus chapter yeah and part of it is because one of the things that i do think that i have unique insight into besides just listening to thousands of people at focus groups is that i've been in an operative on the republican side and i've been an operative operative on the democratic side like i have tried to elect democrats and republicans republicans are straight up mercenaries and it is to their maybe moral detriment that they build companies and LLCs and all of the things that force them to basically line up behind the leaders in their party they have a system that bolsters like it is just it is the way it is built is that they are both homogenous and then they also like their entire infrastructure is meant to support the dominant politically ethos which is

29:13why when someone like Donald Trump comes along they can just turn on a dime and sort of support him democrats when i got over to the democrat side and saw how they did things i went oh no you guys it's all these c3s they're nonprofits they can't even do political work the c3s are all there to make the democrats do what they want them to do it's a different relationship the democrats are there to try to get the democratic leaders to do it they want as opposed to supporting the democrats as they try to you know make political change and that forces democrats to take very difficult often positions that are not politically popular and i and also they can't do direct political work it's just it's a totally unruly coalition and also there's this weird ethos where like they're always unionizing their nonprofits and fighting with each other that's like who gets to center which voices they don't want to work on Fridays like Ken Martin like one of these you know Ken Martin's like well people for the DNC need to come back to work and they're all

30:14like we're in revolt we will not come back to work and this is my central frustration with democrats and it's not that i pick on democrats a lot in the book i really don't uh but i this this really bothers me democrats spent the last decade telling us the democracy was at stake but they themselves do not act like democracy is at stake if they did you don't nominate the 82 year old again that is historic that's like incredibly unpopular and not a good communicator because he's too old to be uh if democracies at stake like you put on pants and go into the office and go fight the authoritarians and you don't be like i'm not going back in uh like that but like everything about the way the democrats have behaved doesn't seem like they think democracies at stake yeah i so i love i thought that was great and we've talked in the past i thought that the the question that your old boss put to you which is essentially what would you do if your life's on the line and you know and it's like you need to act like that um okay Sarah how on gods green earth were you

31:23a republican and so i want you to talk because you tell a lot of um uh personal stories you talk about being a lesbian instead of that how that sort of happened and um or say actually not how it happened how you came out but so i could let me so it's a really fun interesting story which you could give us as much of that as you want to like like a spoiler alert but there is a component of that that i'm going to tie to sort of a political theme which is how do you know when an issue is salient enough that it will change how enough people will vote on it as opposed to yeah um the democrats or some people care about the supreme court but not enough um like they say and they pull oh i care about the supreme court but it's not getting at the issue of yeah but where is it on the the list of things that cause an event and you see how that relief to you because i'm

32:27going how could somebody be part of a party were a huge part of the party was saying that your rights you don't have any rights uh this is a complicated one and i i tried to be really honest with it this is this is where i will do all the political analysis on the podcast because people have me doing political analysis all the time but i am going to sort of try to make people read the book for some maybe juicier more personal things but i will say this lovely uh that's lovely by the way it's it's it's wonderful and we woven in beautifully well a lot of i mean look like a lot of people my life experiences uh shaped a lot of my politics um but and i guess as a as a crib notes on this i grew up in a very small town in central pennsylvania like 700 people and uh i know that people often know that i'm from pennsylvania but i grew up in like rural small town pennsylvania uh and the county that i lived in uh peri county is just like trump country and and and one of the things i did and i

33:32went back and traced um it was always republican but you can see how many voters from the county trump added uh how many more people voted for trump how much he ran the numbers up in a place like peri county and that's where i'm from uh and i do think that part of my ability to sort of relate to a lot of trump voters comes with the fact that they remind me of the people that i grew up around who did not seem to me to be lustful for authoritarianism and in fact i think there's a lot of other things going on there um and i get into a lot of that in the book but the so so let's just say like i grew up culturally conservative to start uh and then um i i basically like bill clinton shows up when i'm 18 and he's sleeping with a girl you know he's having sex with with monica lawinsky who's just a few years older than i am and this is when i'm coming of political consciousness and so i get sort of from a character standpoints or polarized away from the democrats

34:35and then just a few years later john mccain shows up and i get really into john mccain um and so i sort of decided that i was a conservative before i realized i was gay and so you know my senior you're in college uh you know i was like you know i started dating somebody i started dating girl and i you know there's a lot in there you don't need to hear all the details but for me it was uh it was a it was like oh no and actually i had this isn't in the book but i'll tell you this story anyway which i had a political science professor who i was uh i was doing an independent study with she also taught by like whatever she was my advisor i loved her uh and i asked her i was like can i talk to you and i like went and i said um so i'm like in love with this person and i i don't know what that means for me but i'm also i've got this job where i'm going to go started a conservative think tank and something that she told me then turned out to be really true which she was like nobody's gonna care she's like the people at these like conservative

35:37upper echelons of things like they don't care it's all a fake it's all a fake as a stop to the voters that they represent um and so one of the things that and now i'm gonna really answer your question is let's say it's 2008 i have been out at this point for like four years and 2008 is when there's the whole fight over gay marriage and there's they're passing um you know restrictions on gay marriage all over the country do you remember what john mccain's position was in 2008 and when baraka obama's position was in 2008 on gay marriage i would have assumed they were almost identical they were identical right so so when you say how could i belong to a political party that for me i was like okay well i i believe all these things but baraka obama's his marriage is between one man and one woman john mccain says the same thing and also i know neither of them actually believe it neither of them actually believe it because i know

36:41that this is a thing politicians say and so to me it didn't seem as asymmetric as it does i think in retrospect to people because they forget that democrats and republic it wasn't until 2012 that there was like a real split when baraka obama's four gay marriage met round he was against it by 2016 trump was four gay marriage trump ever didn't talk about gay marriage yeah other there were new answers to that because you know because john mccain was an extraordinary sort of man and politician and also was in some way sort of ahead of where his party was but meaning that the party left to its own devices may have been in favor of things that would have been much worse for gay people than the democrat party left to their devices and in fact that's where they went 100 percent and so and in sort of an in my world a legal world in terms of fighting for legal protection in law whether it's by statute whether it's by the level of equal

37:48protection scrutiny you know the parties have very different positions so but i hear you let me just say i find this part that part of your book absolutely fascinating i just want to give a quick shout out on something you said there was a woman who i know has written for the Atlantic she's been on the bulwark with tim um she was a CIA analyst and she her story which is remarkable she is a trans woman and she rose to the level of being a briefer for the vice president vice president hence and and her story part of it is everyone knew and everyone was fine with it and everyone respected how good she was and by the way to people don't really understand to be the briefer that is the most extraordinary privilege but also takes the most the person who has just that got this encyclocratic knowledge to brief senior leadership and they have to be able to answer like a million questions and synthesize so much every day it's a little bit like being

38:54sort of the the press secretary which do you have to be on top of everything but but but life's lives are unaligned um and so what became a problem is once it was out that she was trans and that's when she had to leave i mean it was like because suddenly it is a political problem even there privately people are like we're so sorry uh this this and we'd i talked about this in the podcast and sometimes i think people think that i'm saying that i believe that both Republicans and Democrats were the same on gay marriage or uh that i was trying to absolve Republicans in this case of the CIA officer by saying like they didn't really care they only care when they think their constituents are going to find out about it or it doesn't mean that's that's awful like i don't like let me be clear the idea that and it was awful it was awful that Republicans who worked in the Bush administration and whatever that they were all made to be in the closet or felt like

39:57they had to be in the closet i felt like i had to be in the closet like there was a psychological toll that it took and so they're not the same and it's and and they're the the people who voted for those politicians weren't the same but i also try to do i get a lot of this um because i'm so open about all this stuff people sometimes think though that they say well you built you know the Republican Party of Trump and uh there's a little part of me that's just like from an age perspective there's no way that's true and i want to tell you that i was 28 uh when Barack Obama and so like there's a little bit of um i was so early in my career and things that i it took a while to understand Sarah your pro wait Sarah you're pre-empting my question because one of my questions was um Sarah why did you put Donald Trump in office i was like you know you were solely and you know single handedly put him in office and i wanted to know why you thought it was good idea i mean it's

41:01so funny i did not have that in impression at all i mean but people think that about like me and Tim they'll be like well you guys built this and Tim as like a Jeb Bush guy and and and a a john huntsman guy both Tim and i were part of a young movement in Republicans that wanted the Republican Party to be more like john mcain and more moderate and more socially moderate more open to immigration and i think people don't realize that that was a real strain in the Republican Party and in fact felt like the dominant strain in the Republican Party and we thought there was a world in which you could have a more fiscally responsible Republican Party and a much more open social Republican Party and we believed that though because we didn't know who the voters were we knew the politicians at the elite level and none of them cared about gay marriage really and uh none of them like they all were pro immigration uh because it was good for businesses like it was just a different thing and so it's hard to explain to somebody who's looking at it from right now

42:05trying to who then retroactively understand who we were uh in relationship to Trump but like it wasn't like that back then okay so fascinating and that actually it's interesting there's some of that in the book but that's sort of an interesting overlay um to what's in the book as well um okay I have so many kind of this could go on and on but okay here's more questions one of the things you talk about is that sort of the voters sort of know that Donald Trump is a bullshitter right like they think I have a there's a quote on page 184 I say I I'm a total nerd like I have like holistic questions I love it age references and sites and quotes so anyway but I would not bore people with that and you're like well you know people know he's a bullshitter but I have a question for you on is there something that we can take away as a positive um by the fact that Trump won't actually admit that like he won't say it is that some in other words I'm always looking

43:08for the where are the lines because Trump is so transgressive right it's like I'm happy to say that just talk about John can I'm happy to denigrate his military career which I thought was like okay well his career the Trump's career's over Trump should be over yeah right um and there's he that the point is to be transgressive it is to tear down the Eastway without legal authority um and but is there something in the fact that he doesn't actually just say yeah the call with Ukraine I was extorting them or yeah when I did that that's a lie um you like that's like the tribute that vice-paste to virtue is that what you mean sort of it just doesn't sell it isn't the case that he's just totally out there with this is who I am because if he was really this is who I am he would be like yeah there wasn't fraud in the election like I mean he could just be like I'm lying about that I think that what's hard for voters to parse that what you and I know quite clearly and

44:12people sort of are onto this right it's like with everything that Trump does is projection so right now Trump is in the process of trying to mess with the 2026 elections he's looking for anyway that he can because none of us would ever think to say the elections were rigged because we would never think to rig an election but Trump does think about rigging elections and therefore he can accuse other people of rigging elections and so I actually think the answer to your question the direct answer is no I don't think it's good that he doesn't straightforwardly say that he's doing the bad thing I think that it's much more pernicious because what he does is he accuses his opposition of doing the bad thing that he is doing while he says he's doing the virtuous thing and frankly that is a thing a lot of voters believe and they believe it in part because the things that he says that they find to be true where he says the quiet part out loud right he says

45:15you know the immigrants are criminals or you know I'm not going to be politically correct also that's what they mean they mean that Trump says things not like a regular politician that's calibrating to be politically correct that's what they mean by he tells the truth even though I know he lies I'm pretty sure that's the quote because that is what I hear from voters all the time which is like yeah I know he's a liar but like he's telling us the truth and I know that people listening right now are saying they're being like what does that mean and I'm telling you what it means to them is he's going to break all these taboos and he's going to see things that people really think whatever but also sometimes he just BS and around just to like trigger you lives and that's sort of what they mean yeah you know I agree with that I just I guess what I'm I mean I agree that everything you're saying I just think there is an element of if that we I mean just to put it in psychological terms that the he understands that the super ego that the nor there there's a norm that he can't whether it's whether it's I mean I'm sure it's not for

46:19altruistic reasons it's like you know this I cannot be saying I lied to you right I can't and I just feel like when we are because you're you're thinking about this and I'm thinking about this in terms of the what's in the post trumpet yes opportunity and that that is something that is a norm that we will are going to need to have in place and go back to and I think the fact that he wasn't he's still understood he can't say that means there's still some vestige there that is you know because Putin could just be could just be like I can say whenever the hell I watch you and it doesn't matter because what are you going to do about it and I know it's a fact that is what's going on but there's this idea that I'm not going to I can't quite say it yeah I can't say I'm not going to say I'm corrupt because people think corruption is bad and it's good that people think corruption is bad and I understand you're saying like shouldn't we take some solace that corruption is bad and Trump has to lie about being corrupt or hide how corrupt he is or accuse

47:21his opponents of being corrupt to distract from that because voters still do think corruption is bad yeah okay I have a question for you which is we talked about Democrats and we talked about Republicans and sort of like what they're doing right and wrong and some giving some previews of a much deeper and and fun interesting analysis that you have if what would you say to not pollsters but people who are sort of like advisors to campaigns the people who like show up on MS now to advice but also for a living are advising Republicans what are they getting right and wrong like what what you know I'm always as an armchair you know person saying oh I would do so much better and why do they just do what I say you know I don't know what the hell you know I don't this not my world at all but of course I have to pin you not it because you know why not and I'm always thinking people that you were lying on polls and it's like why can't you

48:28lead and that can have a huge effect on polls I understand there's certain issues that like polling can be useful but the idea that you're just constantly taking the temperature where the public is can lead to like I just feel like inauthenticity for sure and I think that my armchair analysis is that people smell that out you know people say when you run for president it reveals who you are so there's this paralysis by analysis that happens with the Democratic side when Trump says he operates from his gut Trump doesn't need to watch a focus group or see a poll like Trump tries to will polls into being for him right he tries to create his own reality and it's a it's a obviously totally debased form of leadership but Trump does drive the narrative in the direction that he wants right so he is leading he is the force pushing Democrats and I watch this happen

49:29in real time something will happen some big thing and they will all everybody will scramble on the Democratic side what should we make of this what will voters think about this quick do a poll quick have a focus group and there's a deep irony as somebody who listens to voters all the time but I don't do it as a consultant I don't do it as a paid consultant to Democratic politicians I do it for myself and for the things that I do and the projects that I run but the way that Democrats need to know what people think before they tell you what they think is to me an essential problem I have Democrats come up to me at some of these messaging talks that we have or whatever and they say so what should I say about X Y R Z and I put my hands on their shoulders and I say what do you believe tell me right now what you believe and they sort of look at you with this weird stunned look on their face and I think that this is a really big problem for Democrats because it's people like well what should I say about the trends you know whatever I'm like tell me what you think what do you because the biggest problem for Democrats is that they try and just take the trends

50:33issue which is I talk I was a whole chapter about it in the book and they say they're like well I know I'm supposed to think you know to say yes it's okay and otherwise we're being mean to trans kids and I'm like do you think that because if they if they say that and then they get pressed on it like many of them do by Republicans they can't defend it because they don't know how because they don't actually believe it and and I think that Democrats and they struggle because they're like but I want to be compassionate and I want to be a good person and I don't want to throw trans people under the boss and I don't want to be part of you know the nasty way that Republicans are doing it and I'm like okay everybody needs to get right in their own head what they think and also to be like it's okay say I don't know it's okay to say this is a really difficult problem that I don't know what's on about but I do know that the way that Republicans are demonizing everybody is disgusting and wrong and is to distract from all of their failures like I just I sort of need Democrats to figure out like and this is this is again part of the essential point

51:38here is that Republicans do not know who they are without Donald Trump Democrats need to figure out first who they are without Donald Trump that is how you go on offense Democrats are on defense all the time and this is one of those Rick Bermanisms but defense loses over time you've got to be on offense Republicans are always on offense and Democrats are always on defense how do you go on offense I'll tell you one way so here's the thing so one of the other things I really focus on in the book and this is just a true thing it's as true and you were just getting at this why do we talk about all of this stuff it's because we're all these college educated types who we get bored if we talk about the same thing over and over again we don't want to just say affordability kitchen table issues blah blah blah but you know what 70% of everything that any elected official ought to be talking about is how to improve the material well-being of the lies of their constituents or the people of the United States because you know what people actually care about just actually care about they care about whether or not they have a job how much that job

52:41pays can they be paid more can they get an education can their kids get a good education what is upward mobility look like what is making a better life look like how do they get paid health insurance or make sure that they're they're they can you know access health care coverage like if you're in a focus group and I didn't know this genuinely or it's not I could know it intellectually but I couldn't feel it until I listen to voters day in and day out talk about the trouble they have when gas prices are high and they have to make a choice between whether they go to a place or they do this other thing I just listen to voters talk about trade-offs all the time they know exactly how much milk costs they know exactly how much bread cost they will tell you in a focus group how do you think things are going in the country bad this serial use to cost this much now it costs this much this is what people talk about this is how they feel and politicians get really distracted because they live in the elite world where people don't know how much bread costs or don't think about it because they don't care because it doesn't matter to them because they can afford it and so we end

53:41up living in luxury conversations all day long and that's not how most people live and that's why when you say low information voter they're not really low information they are living their lives yes they scroll whatever they don't have the luxury time to learn about every issue they're just trying to live and support their families and that is who politicians should focus on that is actually the healthy populism of I'm going to pay attention to issues that actually matter to the vast majority of people and if you talk to swing voters their frustration with Democrats isn't the Democrats have a position they don't like on trans issues it's that they talk about trans issues too much to the exclusion of things that they think is important in their lives that's what they say they're like why are we talking about all this stuff why are the pronoun stuff why do we do all of this I want to talk about my rent is so high and like that is the essential thing that people just forget it's like you have to remind it's there's that about it's not that they're against

54:41the wokeism and the values that underlie it it's like it's like but you need to make sure that you are where that that gets used to say that's all you care about and that you're in that world as in this sort of limousine liberal not thinking about people and their daily lives and you know what I was saying you had you were about to say something there's this George Orwell quotation I think I think it's Orwell who says like to see what's right in front of one's face is a constant struggle and I think that that is that is what talking to so many people like helped me understand is like the things that we are talking about and this is another thing in the book is just how often I would walk into a focus group and we would all have been talking about something the shutdown Trump on the stage in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin siding against America's intelligence for you things that we were like this is this is enormous this is huge this is a game changer

55:42you walk into a focus group they had no idea what you're talking about they don't know that that's happening it's not bothering them yet shutdown hasn't impacted them yet the shutdown people don't know there's a shutdown until the checks stop coming like until there is a negative personal consequence for them I hear from a lot of people because I do the focus group podcast they're so mad at voters for being selfish and I do have bad news for you in that regard voters do care more about the stuff that impacts them and their lives then they do about anything else they just do and so I sort of you need people to remember this all the time and constantly remind them and the other thing is is people want to feel safe and so Donald Trump has done an enormous amount to make people feel under threat that's what he did with immigration they're bringing drugs they're bringing crime they're rapists right he made it about terrorism he made it about crime he made about them stealing your jobs whatever and he made people feel like they are threatened by this thing and that led them to feel differently about immigration politicians don't usually do that usually say we're a nation of immigrants and they get but we need to have a good immigration system

56:46and that's how they talked about that's not what Donald Trump did he made people feel threatened and people can't access their compassion when they feel under threat you're not going to do criminal justice reform while people feel under threat from crime or while crime is high and that's why the defund the police stuff doesn't work and it's why Democrats feel people feeling like Democrats leave the border open is a huge problem Donald Trump catapulted himself into the public imagination he talked about a wall him build a wall wall never got built voters didn't hold him accountable for that why because they can care about the wall the wall was a symbol of a guy who said I'm going to take immigration seriously and I that's where Democrats like what would it mom donny do mom donny's individual policies in New York pretty stupid him talking about affordability very smart people do want to know how do I afford to live in New York City and so that's where it's a vibe it's not that policy doesn't matter but it's that a lot of the particulars don't matter and it's the emphasis of what you're talking about so this is why okay this I want to end with this like people

57:54I would keep on saying this but people you need to read this because so as I think people who are listening to this get the sense that you are just like brimming with ideas and opinions and thoughts and it's really great like I have gone back to different than also preparing for this to talk to you today I went back and it was like reading over chapters and it and it's great to have a here with like different thoughts and oh yeah wait what it's Sarah say about this and let me go back to that and I not only is it sort of woven at your story which is just it's so great because there's a personal story in here which is I thought was just just made it you feel like you want to know you and it comes through but the other is it sort of larded through and I don't mean that in bad way so sort of in a cooking way with all of these different voices of the people in these focus groups and to illustrate where you're talking about and it sort of it brings it

58:58it makes it not an academic sort of sending book it's like here's what let's talk about what Laura and Ohio said about this or Sam and Massachusetts or you know et cetera and it was so nicely done to get oh that's like that's a great phrasing and that's oh so this is what she's talking about and this is how it resonates so and as I think I said that it's like a quilt it's so beautifully pieced together because you've got all of those you've got sort of your intellectual argument your story and then all these voices in there all happening together which is why the cover by the way is so perfect because it's like this jigsaw puzzle that's pieced together that's really beautiful can I say it makes me really happy uh that you liked it um and I am proud of it but also I wrote it in part because you're right when you try to talk about it in an hour it doesn't fit together properly like you can't sort of take it all in why is it called how to eat an elephant

1:00:02because we're trying to solve a big intractable problem right the idiom how to eat an elephant one bite at a time uh and obviously I say this one voter at a time because voters are at the center of this but it's like hard to pull all of this together to see a communications environment plus a you know a demagogue uh plus like the future of our politics and America and messaging but I I worked really hard to tighten it into something that feels like you can really follow it through and it can be both a pep talk and a manual and a here's what happened and a here's where I think we're going um without all of the Sarah Longwell handway that I have to do on a podcast in an hour uh they can't really really you know break through in that same way you should be very very proud of it and I think um like the bulwark and also your career that you read about it's real public service to do it and I know that it came from that place of like how are we going to

1:01:07do fortify democracy and and how do we get there and what are we up against and what are the strategies we need to use so it was it was a great read and it's like such a great service um to have written it uh well thanks buddy uh I will say I bet you get this a lot where people come up to you and they're so like what do we do what is going to happen like are we doomed yeah and the one thing I want to say kind of in closing is um JBL wrote the forward it's a lovely forward he is also like he edited the book and so he really helped with a lot of what you're saying about the structure because he's a genius but he's also a gloomy dark sour puss who is like we're doomed and you know and I I took the the people who come up to me and are like you know I appreciate the churn optimist and like I what do I do about this like I wrote the book for the bulwark community who come to the shows and ask that question I felt like I wanted to try and answer it um and this

1:02:10is my best attempt uh but also I just think that if we say we're doomed if we say America's lost it will be like we're giving up and I whether because I have a the enthusiasm of a lesbian softball coach and when I'm come on guys uh whatever it is I just I don't want to be lost I'm I think there's a way out of this and I think there's an opportunity if we can seize it also like what's the alternative I mean what's the alternative right it's like you know it's like if you love you know this is where the period where like um we're Democrats and people believed in the rule of law we're wearing um you know flags and putting them out at their homes because this is about like you love this country and what it's supposed to stand for um there there is no alternative this is what you have to do um it's a great great read people um should go not just go out and buy it but I know you're going to be

1:03:10an ulceress of book tours and talking about it and I'm sure you're going to be talking to people with what I found when I was doing my book is um different interviewers you're going to find are really interested in different parts of the book and I'd always fascinated into me and so it gives you an opportunity just sort of you know talk about different aspects as you go along and for those people who are addicted to um to you and the bulwark it's like you can think and follow along and hear you talk about all sorts of different aspects of it but again thank you it's like thank you for writing it congratulations uh I'm just trying to be like you Andrew Mr. number one New York Times Best Seller uh Andrew thanks for the book discussion uh and thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the illegal news uh we I'm going to be out on book tour but I think we pre-tapped something and don't worry there'll be illegal news for you the whole time I'm gone all right see you later guys