Fast Politics with Molly Jong-FastThe Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson examines the Democrats' handling of the CR and their leadership’s strategies. Comedian Trae Crowder discusses his new comedy special, Trash Daddy, which is out now on YouTube.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle Voice of America.
We have such a great show for you today.
The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss the handling of the cr and democratic leadership strategies. Then we'll talk to comedian Trey Crowder about his new comedy special, Trash Daddy.
But first the news.
So, Molly, the Trump deportations are starting to not seem like it's the rapists and criminals he promised, and some people we really need in this country. And this is getting confusing for some of those MAGA people who are willing to admit that Trump can have faults at times.
Yeah, it turns out that Trump is actually just deporting people who have last names. So here's a doctor studying at Brown. You may know Brown as the Ivy League institution in Rhode Island. She was deported out of the country for reasons still unclear to her family, her lawyer, and her Brown Medicine colleagues. They did not do anything to stop the plane who was learning details of the event through information relaid by her family members, So clearly they wanted to deport her, regardless of if the judge said orders are not worth seeing this everywhere Trump world getting court orders telling them not to deport people, and them just deporting people. Why because they don't follow the law. Why don't they follow the law because they're criminals.
And we're seeing this more and more.
She was a doctor in Rhode Island evaluating potential transplant recipients and following the progress of those patients after their procedures. Oh, a transplant doctor. That is not who we should be deporting team.
Yeah, and people don't realize transplant doctors are really hard to come by.
Well, and also the whole idea here is I mean, this is just so fucked up, and you'll be shocked to know that she is not the only one.
Yeah.
No, I've read another story that just seemed dumbfounding why they would deport this person. They had a light marijuana possession charge that was then forgiven and they deported him.
It's ridiculous.
So Molly Trump is celebrating after killing an anti money laundering law.
Does that sound like training the swamp to you.
Trump celebrates after killing anti money laundering law. Look, this is the whole thing, right. They're ending the Consumer Protection Bureau, They're ending all these laws, these anti corruption laws. They're just firing inspectors general. These are not things that you do when you want to end corruption. These are not moves for transparency. These are things you do when you want to increase corruption. Firing the people people who root out corruption means that they are planning on doing corruption in In fact, the government will no longer require shell companies to disclose their owners and beneficiaries, allowing wealthy corporations and individuals to hide the profits from the public. Some businesses to report information on people who control or own a company indirectly.
Quickly, Trump went.
To Truse Social after the Treasury announcement, posting exciting news. The Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for small businesses. It has been an absolute disaster for people who want to do crimes.
And hide them.
And now it is gone coincidence.
I think not no, And I think the Lever did that great documentary, The Master Plaod that really laid out how much of this has been a long played The Republican Party to do these type of things, and that people that we thought were saying, like John Roberts, the Supreme Court justice, is all part of this and totally in on it. Yeah, but Molly, this must just be our Trump arrangement syndrome talking and sadly, in Minnesota.
Our mental illness.
Yeah, Republicans are pushing to get that classified as a mental illness in Minnesota.
Yes, mental illness, all right, whatever, I mean, this is so dumb. This is like welcome to peak dumb Trump troll.
We're not mentally ill. We just want him to stop breaking the law.
Yeah, it's the more craven reads of this are that you know this is going to be for in prison.
I don't think this is that.
This is just that everything in the Republican everything, the Republican Party is trying to own the Libs s right now.
Okay, So Chris Murphy says, Americans want Democrats to take risks right now to save our democracy. Direct Chris Murphy, that is correct. Nobody wants Democrats to just roll over and watch Republicans and American democracy. We want to see Democrats fight like Republicans. We want to see them protect norms and institutions.
We want to see them.
Protect us, protect their voters. I mean they're already deporting people. Where does this end? And I think Chris Murphy is completely right. I think the whole idea that I feel like our elected leaders are just not meeting the moment at all.
And I'm not the only one, by the way.
The polling, I mean, like the polling shows that Democrats are like the least popular they've ever been, twenty seven percent.
I mean, the voters are not happy.
And I think a lot of people are mistaking that. For the voters just hate the Democratic brand right now, and it doesn't seem to be that it's that it's like embarrassing because they don't represent what we want.
Yeah, And I also think like people are taking real risks. They're out there protesting in a very crazy moment in American life, and your constituent should not be taking.
More risks than you will.
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Rick Wilson, Mollie junk Fast. Thanks, going great, going great.
It's going great. Everything is awesome.
So basically every what I love about European newspapers. Is they're all like you guys are on the knife edge of fascism.
FYI, I will say this, I'm not even sure we're on the knife's edge anymore. I feel like the diving board is like going, and we're headed towards it at a very fast pace after having decided to dive right into the delicious warm waters of oppression.
So here's a question for you.
I vacinate between being very worried m thinking oh, these guys are pretty incompetent and it'll be okay.
I embrace their incompetence.
If we survive, it will be because of that.
Right, Yeah, I embrace their incompetence. But I mean I can't count on.
It, right, right, That's I think that's a move.
I can't like wake up in the marine and go, well, thank god, they'll all fuck up because they're such idiots. I mean, they may well fuck up, but there is a certain degree of momentum right now on things where they're not fucking up. And I'll give you the perfect example. And not a lot of people have like fully locked onto this yet. But today, in absolute defiance of a federal court order, Trump continued to deport el Salvadorians out of the country. There's an absolute court order that says thou shalt not until we have a hearing, and they said, fuck you, and they're doing it.
But hot take, they're not deporting them to al Salvador, right.
No, of course not. Who the fuck knows where they're going to deport him. But this idea though, that these guys have have just decided to ignore the very clear stipulations of a court order. That is a post small d democratic country unless you have a rule of law that everybody plays by, and these guys do not. Right now, I think we're in some terrible kind of position.
So let's not get fatalistic, let's get happy and I'm just kidding. No, let's just sort of talk to where we are right now. There was a CR. It was in the House. I want to talk this through because they had to pass the CR to stop a shutdown. The Democrats didn't have to, but there was a moment right a cliff and Republicans probably would have written Republicans were supposedly from what I understand from what I heard from the office one of the leadership offices. I'm not going to say which one. They were told that OMB was delighted with a shutdown and that ross Volt was planning on designating HR as essential.
Workers a central personnel.
Yeah right, so they were going to put HR as a center to workers and just keep firing the federal government during the shutdown. And this thread got the leadership world scared enough to just keep going and just give them the R. But here's my hot ist taken. I want you to talk to us about this again. You know, what people say and what really happened are two different things. Maybe, but I wonder if you could talk through why once the CR got out of the House, Democrats were actually cooked.
I still believe that Schumer had more leverage than he either understood or cared to exercise. I found the whole thing still deeply inexplicable.
But if we could go back to the original sin here the CR in the House.
Oh yeah, Look, my view on everything with the Democrats right now is they've got to form a shield wall of absolute no on this bullshit. They've got to stop this idea that they're going to My honorable colleague across the aisle is a good faith interlocktor. They're not. They've yet to understand you have to stop them over and over again. You don't just get to stop them one time. You have to stop them every time.
So when we talk about this CR in the House, it was voted, there was one Democrat who voted for it, Jared Golden, main.
Beloved of no labels. Jared Golden.
Well, I have met him before, and he's a in an R plus twenty seven district.
Right, he's like the last rural Democrat. Now pause for a minute.
I still think that had Jeffries been more with it, he could have told Golden not to vote for it and it wouldn't have passed.
Yeah, he could have said to Golden, I'm counting this vote. I'm whipping this vote. You don't get a pass on this one, but you do get ten million dollars if you need it. None of this is to my mind forgivable for any of them. They all have to take some responsibility here. But I think Schumer precapitulated in this thing, which really I found unbelievable that he showed his cards before even bothering to find out what he could get. Yeah, and he should have asked for something. He should have gone for something.
Right, This is something I'd love to talk to you.
For one we're talking about, which is when you have a cr like this and you have a House that's so tight and a Senate where you know you need four votes, right, I wonder if you could play out to me what you think this would have looked like with a Harry Reed, Nancy Pelosi one two.
Or if it was Mitch McConnell on the other side. They would have leaned in on everybody. They would have leaned in on those House members that like Golden they got flaky and shaky. They would have told their own members, you are voting for this bill at your mortal fucking peril. Do not believe for a moment I'm not keeping track of every one of you. This is not acceptable. If you don't show a weak spot, it can't be exploited. And they showed very simply that Chuck Schumer was afraid more of the blow back than of the game. I don't accept a world where I know for a fact Mitch McConnell would have absolutely run John Thune's bell if he was on the other side of this equation.
Right, No, No, absolutely, one hundred percent.
I just think it's unforgivable, and.
It seems like my man is not getting forgiven. So let's talk about sort of where we are as a party right now. So Democrats are everyone I know, Maybe not everyone I know, but a lot of people I know are protesting all the time. Right, You cannot walk down the street without whacking into a protest. Right, They're everywhere there on the west side, they're on the east side, then they're uptown, theyir midtown. Columbia University grad student still in a Louisiana detention center. He is got a green card, married to a pregnant citizen.
Pregnant American citizen.
Yes, yes, his crime was being the negotiator, right, and yeah.
Yeah, we are seeing a preview. They're finding a person who is an affiliate, if you want to say it that way in the most exaggerated case, but a loud mouth in the actual case. If you believe that you can redefine everything as terrorism, then nothing is terrorism. If you're gonna if you're gonna find a college protester who's started to build a you know what, it was illegal, Okay, he violated the law. There are plenty of ways and plenty of things on the scale where violating the law is horrible but is punishable, And this is one of their things where they want they're trying to lure the country into this dialogue that anyone who's critical of Trump's priorities eg. Israel is somehow a terrorist or a terrorist affiliate, right.
But I also think some of this is that he's using antisept like this guy does not give a fuck about anti Semitism.
Oh share about anti Semitism.
He's like, anti Semitism is the scourge and these people aren't anti Semitic. And it's like, as a liberal Jew, I can tell you that this is not about making life better for Jews. And I think the sooner that Jews are able to wake the fuck up and know that this has nothing to do with an anti Semitism, the better look.
I think there are a lot of people on the right who have decided that their superpower is going to be leveling opposition by saying that if you're not with us, you're anti anti semit you're a terrorist. And then the problem I think we're about to encounter, and I don't think it's a trivial problem, is that they have found a weak spot in American liberals where they don't want to be called anti Semitic, even if they know it's not true, even if they know it's garbage. They don't want to be called that. They don't want to be in that position. They don't want to feel that way. And it's awful. But you know, these guys are not good faith actors. I keep saying that to people. It's like, do not think that this that this is some sort of difference of opinion, This is some sort of difference of ideology. This is a politic tactic where they're going to say, Okay, well, now we took out that terrorist and that now we have to take out these other terrorists who are also opposed to Trump's policies, whether it's on Israel or anything else.
Right, And I think that is I think that is the big that this really does not have anything to do with anti Semitism, but has everything to do with Trump's enemies or perceived.
Or real enemies.
That's right. I think that's exactly right.
And this is hit with a one two punch, right, four hundred million dollars of funding from Columbia arresting grad students and sending them to Louisiana, right, Like, this is part of authoritarian playbooks. So all of the experts in authoritarianism, and I'm thinking about Steven Lebitski from Harvard, who is one of my favorites, say you have to push back hard, you have to push back right away. You have to immediately get together as a group. Like, how much of the country do you think like love this trump ism, this authoritarianism, this sort of orange orbonism.
Twenty five percent?
That's what I think too.
I think it's I think it's twenty five percent, And I think an awful lot of that twenty five percent is relatively soft, because you know they're there. Yes, there are the Tucker Carlsonite sort of tendency in the GOP today, but that is still a minority, and there are still a lot of people that don't look at at oppression and dictatorship as the role model for American political life. Even in the MAGA world, there's some there's been some hesitation in some like, oh do we have to do that right? Not enough in my opinion, not consistently in my opinion. But the space that they're in right now I think is very problematic for them because you really are asking a bunch of Americans who grew up in the Cold War, who did not believe in Putin and the Russians as the good guys. You're asking them to pretend that Putin and the Russian are the good guys.
Yeah, and they're not.
Nope, they are.
Not, are not, now, never have been, never will be.
Yeah, nobody thinks they're the good guys. They are not the good guys.
Man, they are exceedingly bad guys. And one of the things we're about to learn. I think I think the Europeans have done a kind of brilliant job in resetting the power equation in Europe. Yeah, by just saying, Okay, well we'll buy our own airplanes, we'll build our own Shit, We're not going to play this game, and we're not going to sit here in MacDonald Trump break apart the rest of the European Alliance. I think Trump really thought that there would be a quick capitulation by the rest of Europe, because he does have that sort of that sort of cheesy, cliched Tucker style thing of like everyone in the European Union is a trans wissy or whatever. They have this like stupid image in their heads, that is not true.
Right, We're in it, right, We're in Project twenty twenty five.
Right, we are all in that shit.
Yeah, let's sort of talk from minute. If you were in the kind of dream scenario where you like, if you you were actually sort of setting up people to survive democracy, to survive what would be your first thing you would do?
Well, The first thing you have to do is address the singular force that's giving all these Republicans' confidence to stick with Trump, and that singular force is Elon Musk. Right now, they wake up every day and they say, Haha, if I do what Elon wants, He'll throw twenty five to fifty million, one hundred million dollars at my campaign if I need it. And look, I don't think a lot of them are wrong about that. So the destruction of Tesla's stock value in the market has done more for American politics in the last ten days than any of us bitching or writing op eds. I think that is an important thing to consider. What's the only thing that started to alter his behavior. It's his stock price crashing into the ground. Look, folks, if you've got a Tesla to sell it, if you're think about buying a Tesla. Don't. If you're a state government and you give Tesla buyers any kind of incentive, cancel it tomorrow. California, by the way, is part of why Elon Musk is still surviving financially, because California is still giving people these enormous tax credits and rebates for electric vehicles. I know you love electric vehicles, guys. I'm not no hate on electric vehicles, but Tesla is no longer an electric vehicle company. It is a bank for fascists.
Yeah, I mean no, it's true. I mean that's the thing is, they can't make us fine. Tesla is as much as Teslay Teslay. Yeah, that's a really good point. Tesla stock. So basically Elon has has.
You gotta start. You gotta start knocking Elon's knocking Elon's ability to wage these battles down to size. Everything about his financial position is about the value of his Tesla stock everything. And I think if you end up where Elon's waking up in the morning and saying, ah, crap, now, it's starting to get tighter and smaller my margin of error, and I could be fucked. I could lose Starlink, I could lose SpaceX, I could lose all this financial leverage I've had over so many Republican members of the House and the Senate.
Yeah.
No, it's a really good point, Rick Wilson, do you think Democrats should have a new Senate leadership?
Yes? I do.
And who do you think it should be?
I don't know who it should be, but Chuck Schumer is not a wartime consigliary, and we need a wartime consiguliary right.
Now, Rick Wilson, will you come back always?
You know me?
Tree Crowder is a comedian whose new special, Trash Daddy is out on YouTube right now.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Try Yeah, glad to be here.
So explain to us how you got to be the liberal redneck and your origin story, as we.
Say, yeah, well, for that, you got to go back to the mid nineties rural Tennessee place called Clay County. There's no traffic lights for McDonald's in Clay County where I grew up. It's incredibly rural. But I kind of grew up in a family of Southern Democrats and was raised by one, actually my dad. I was raised by a single father and I and thinking back on it, I think that the big reason my dad was like that is because his only sibling, my uncle Tim, who I also loved very much, was gay and openly gay man and had been since they were young adults. And so I think in part because of that, and also just in part because he wasn't really down with it, my dad didn't He didn't mess with the church at all, so we didn't go to church growing up. And he also he just was like a lifelong Democrat, and so I just always kind of was the weird old comedy kid or whatever and like growing up like the whole time. But like a lot of people, really, I'm sort of kind of just the way that I was raised to be. It's just that I was raised in an odd place for that too have happened most of the other liberal rednecks. I'd nothing like my wife and a lot of my good friends and guys that I do comedy with and stuff, they're kind of all the blue sheep and their family. It seems like that's more common, Yeah, but that's not really the case for me actually.
So Yeah, my first question is one of the problems that I think about a lot, right, which is that Democrats have a lot of really popular policies for working people, right, Like Republicans are not fighting to get free classes. Right, that's a democratic policy. But for whatever reason, that is not how a lot of people in the area you grew up vote.
So why do you.
Think that is.
I can start with a personal anecdote that I'll never forget my grandfather, my dad's dad, who had also been a lifelong Southern Democrat. And I'm not gonna lie when we're talking about my grandpa and I say Southern Democrat, I do kind of mean the old school type of Southern Democrat, which is to say, you know, he definitely wasn't not racist, but he had voted Democrats whole life and was doing so in the nineties and for Clinton and everything. But I'm from a small town. There was the beating heart of that town's economy was a big clothing factory, an Oshkosh Bagosh factory, and my grandpa had a car lot, my dad had a video store, my gay uncle I mentioned earlier had a deli. And then the factory closed after NAFTA, and in pretty short order all those other businesses closed too, and the town just kind of died. And I can remember when that was in the process of happening. I was probably ten, and I remember sitting in my dad's video store, and I have a vivid memory of my grandpa storming into the video store holding a newspaper that I'm assuming had something on it about the factory leaving or whatever, and he spiked the newspaper on the counter and he goes, I'll never vote for another Democrat as long as I live. And my dad was like kind of trying to talk him off that ledge a little bit, but he wasn't having it. Now, my grandpa didn't live that much longer. He had a massive heart attack as a few years later, but so he hasn't been around for all this. But I think it kind of started there. And then that was around the same time that you know, propaganda got into full swing in my opinion, you know, that was like that was sort of the rush Inball era and then followed by the Fox News era, and the narrative got firmly entrenched that, you know, the Democrats not only don't care about you, but like look down on you, and you know, think they're better than you and think you're gross and all that type of stuff. And now in the modern era. It's even worse than that because now they're all, of course sex trafficking, pedophiles and all this crazy. So it's like they hear all that and don't ever get to like, or even if they get to it, don't believe in the actual like working people policies that the Democrats do try to do or get across to them. And it's frustrating.
I mean, it certainly seems like NAFTA was the original sin right in this case, you know, this is one of the Originalton's right, the idea that it's manufacturing that left, so we're talking sort of the Clinton era, you know, losing those I think it's super interesting, and I also wonder a lot, like when we talk about this propaganda stuff, because that is certainly worked incredibly.
Wow, why do you think it worked so well?
And what are these threads that you think I've been the most successful.
I think part of why it works so well as it gets tied to like people's identity and everything, and like at a fundamental level, like religion is obviously a big part of it gets drawn into it, which I alluded to earlier, is a huge thing, at least in my part of Red America, well most of like red rural America, you know, the church is pretty big, and it's like that was another kind of earlier factor that's been very successful with them, like aligning themselves so incontrovertibly with the Church, you know, so successfully. So it's like, you know, you're not a good Christian if you're not you know, a Republican. And then you know, and then on top of that, especially when you hear you know, the Democrat you know, they whatever, you know, they love abortions and they love drug addicts and all this stuff. And it's like, you know, even though obviously Jesus was like a you know, like a barefoot socialist who hung out with constitution reprobates and centers and stuff. Yeah, but that's you know, they don't that Jesus is kind of he sort of they've been like catfished by uh, you know, Naga Jesus or whatever they you know, that lost sight of the old one, the real one.
I mean, I just wonder like when we talk about these MAGA influencers, people like Charlie Kirk or Steve Bannon, actually think Steve Banner is not in the same category as Charlie kirkuse, I think Steve Bannon is very very smart. I don't think Charlie Kirk is so smart. But the volume, the sheer volume of content, Like there is no liberal producing hours and hours and hours of content like that.
No, And it's like, so if you get into that whole world, you get down that rabbit hole, it's like you can be satiated endlessly. You know, you never have to come out of it. Like it's just it's perpetual, the content stream over there. You're right, Liberals have ourd time replicating that. And I think, you know, I mean, I'm kind of in that world. I make you know, comedic political videos on the Internet for a liberal audience and stuff. So I've definitely thought about this type of thing. And I think that it's also just kind of a fundamental difference in the demographics. Speaking as a liberal, you just don't see the same type of cultish devotion or whatever that you see, Like it's not as people aren't as zealous, like you know, I'll go after like the Democrats too, they pissed me off often, you know, And also the Democrats are much more diverse coalition because it's like, you know, it's everybody or you know, trying to be and so it's not as like unified in that way, and you see fewer bumper stickers and T shirts and stuff. We don't treat it as much like a sports team on the left. And so that's like another reason why it's hard to get that level of influence on this side of you know, the isle or the fence or whatever.
Do you think that is actually how we got here?
I mean, I often puzzle about the fact that we have elected this man twice?
Yeah, how do you think we got here?
Oh?
I don't. I mean, no, I'm with you. I mean, even though like in twenty sixteen and during his rise, he gotten a little bit of a following and stuff, and I was posting online and even though I was telling people because of where I'm from, you know, I described earlier my town, that factory, my grandpa, everything that happened there, and what state was it in Tennessee to Salina, Tennessee. And because of all that, I was telling people during his rise, like, you know, some of y'all are not taking this seriously enough. This is definitely a real thing. But even I still didn't go into my head at the end of the day actually think he was gonna win though, and so I was kind of blindsided by what he did, and then I was more ready for it this last time. But it was like, to me, in my head, I was like, okay, that first time, I know, I could understand. I could understand people in my hometown. I don't know how they didn't see that it was complete bullshit what he was doing. I don't know how they couldn't tell that, but I could see that, you know, he was like pretending to care about them and nobody else was, and he was saying things they wanted to hear, and I could understand how that was like effective. But to me, all these years later, after him having proven that he's not going to do any of that, he's not going to like help any of them and everything, was surprised that not only would they go back to the will, but that he knew people would sign up. Of course, a lot of other things happened along the way with.
Biden his perception, right, Yeah, and for sure that was definitely an issue. And I think that one of the things that happened was Biden disappeared, so there was no candidate that they had, no one right, they didn't even know if he was running for president really, and in fact, like we saw the day of the election google searches of people trying to figure out who was running for president. So obviously mistakes were made. But I just wonder, like one of the things that a lot of people think, including myself, is that I always thought, and I think this is a mistake I made, that at some point voters and especially these conservative voters right, would be like, oh, we've been had, right, We've been conned. But it seems like that moment has never happened. Will that never happen? And explain that, Yeah, I'm with you completely. That's what I was thinking too. That's what I was, you know, trying to get at a minute ago. Was like I kept thinking that moment would come to and then clearly after just like, clearly it hasn't yet.
Will it ever? I think for a certain subset of them, no, no, absolutely no, it won't. Oh wow never, oh wow, certain chunk But I do think that that and I don't know what the percent is, but I'm just saying some of them I do think are like I think are basically unreachable at this point. But like I think enough of them, I think it still could happen. But I think the only way that the only way he gets there is like it gets bad enough for enough people, like in a way that they can't ignore, you know. I mean we've already seen some you know, it's like some anecdotal viral accounts of people being like I didn't know he was going to do this when I voted for him, even though it was stuff he said he was going to do the whole time. But like, if that happens to enough people in effect, because that's always been the thing with them that I found, it has to affect them personally, right, like for them to really care. It's kind of a lack of empathy that's behind it all, in my opinion. But if things get bad enough to affect enough of these people on a personal level that they can't ignore, then I would like to think surely they'll wake up. And then if and when they wake up, then the Republicans won't feel they're beholden to Trump anymore if enough of the public turns on them, and then maybe there's some hope at that point. But I don't know where that line is or how bad things have to get or you know how far we have to go. But I'd like to think it's that it exists, that it's possible, right right, right?
No, No, I mean I too would like to think it exists in as possible. So like that's the big question, right, Like I think about this a lot, because you know, this summer, I did a whole YouTube series on Project twenty twenty five, and when I did it, I have this realization, which was, if you are dependent on anything from the government, Project twenty twenty five will completely fuck you, because it was like, you know, it's basically stripping the government to the studs, making it a government that doesn't do stuff for people anymore. So that's the ethos, right, that's the Koch brothers, that's the dream of all Republican elected maybe not all, but many. So what I wondered when I went down this path was I thought, like, when will the moment be where these Tennessee voters who you know elected Marsha Blackburn, Like that crew goes like, wait a second, I had social Security stacks under Biden. I mean they're saying they won't touch social Security, Okay, so let's say they touch Medicaid, right, say because you know, that original House bill had eight hundred.
And eighty billion from Medicaid over ten years.
So that means like I live in rural Tennessee and my local hospital is gone. It's closed because they don't have Medicaid money anymore, So I now have to go to a hospital an extra forty miles or fifty miles the way. Do you think that will be the moment or will they just go into some other coping mechanism.
I mean, I think I know what the coping mechanism will be. If that's the path that choose, they'll find I don't know. I know this sounds crazy, but they'll just find some way no matter what. To still blame Democrats for it, because like the town I'm from I mentioned earlier, our hospital is currently closed and has closed and reopened like three or four times in the past few years, and closed for good during Joe Biden's administration. But it's because of.
A state refusing to take the Medicaid expansion.
The Republicans who run the state are the reason that it closed. But Joe Biden was the president, and so it's like, you know, they're like, this is Biden's America and so I wonder too, will they be able to convince themselves, delude themselves, or whatever, and to find when they have every you know, branch of government and every lever of power there is right now and everyone knows that, will they still find some way even despite that, to blame Democrats for some of these bad things that do happen and then just you know, go on from there. Because that's part of what worries me. I'd like to think that enough of them won't be able to do that, because even they will have to admit it's like, well, hey, this is Trump's in the White House, the Republicans are or in Congress, so this kind of has to be on them. I'd like to think that's what happens, but I'm not you know, I'm not sure.
What you're saying here. And this is the thing, And actually Paul Krugman wrote a really smart substack about this where he's said, the problem with trump Ism is that ultimately they are constantly using conspiracies to explain things, and so you find, you know, another conspiracy ends up being the solve for this conspiracy, if that makes sense, And that is kind of crazy.
Absolutely crazy that I mean, that's that, like we mentioned earlier, with like them becoming inextricably intertwined with like the Christians and the Church and everything. That's like now also happened with like every conspiracy theory is like after QAnon, and now it's like every right winger who's serious about it is also a conspiracy theorist or whatever. And it's you know, because I mean I used to like reading about aliens and UFOs and stuff, and you know, watching Oliver Stone over here and there and that type of thing that was fun. I never liked seriously, God never got too deep into it, but I thought it was like neat that type of thing. And then now it's just, like like so many other things, just going completely off the deep end is way more nefarious. And yeah, and it's dangerous because, like you said, when you're into that type of thing, you can make almost anything, make exactly the kind of sense that you want it to, because making actual sense doesn't matter to you anymore when you're you know, when you're into that stuff.
It's just a rabbit hole that I don't quite understand how you get yourself out of. If Republicans are responsible for nothing, then when would you be able to ever sort of process and change. I mean that's the question is like the market, right, Like Trump is crashing the markets and it's not entirely clear why, right, Yeah, you know he's doing it because he's mad at what.
I don't know.
Estion is sort of like if he's doing that and everything is about a conspiracy, then how do you ever stop?
Right?
Where's the exit?
Yeah?
No, I don't. I'm yeah, I'm with you. I worried about that. That's also another huge factor, you know, him establishing the like sort of fake news paradigm or whatever too. It's like any you know, like that quote everybody uses pretty appropriately from nineteen eighty four about the Party told you ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final most fundamental command or whatever, and he like started with that in twenty sixteen, like you know, even if you see something doesn't mean it's true. And so it's just all kind of like wrapped up together into one big, you know, ball of really shitty yarn that the rest of us are choking on. And I don't know what today, you know, I know the left is trying to figure it out, as always talking about like the search for a leftist Joe Rogan and all this type of thing about like pushing back. But the thing is, I do think it's important to find for the left and get writ large, to find a way to push back in that fight, the propaganda fight, you know. But it's hard.
But isn't the leftist Joe Rogan just Joe Rogan, Like Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders, Like he's obviously somewhat open to that, at least maybe not anymore.
But he was. I'm a comedian and I was a comedy nerd before I was a comedian. I don't know Joe personally, but I was a big fan of Joe's and I used to listen to his podcast all the time. And I also for a while when it kind of first started to talk about him, you know, being up gateway to the right or whatever, people said, I was an apologist for him. I was like, Nah, he's really not like that. Again, he's a Bernie guy. If you actually listen to what he says, he's like, he ain't that guy. But speaking as a fan in COVID in the years COVID and moving to Texas, the Spotify deal and all the years since he has definitely drifted much further. He's pretty solidly on the on the right at this point, not the same Joe that I recall and was and was into in my twenties and stuff. So I mean, I don't know who they left. I saw somebody pointed out, you know, it's like it could be Bill Burr, but Bill Burr's not I don't interested in doing it. He's like probably the best best comedian right now, and he's very much a common sense guy. And it's like, but I don't think he's looking for that job necessarily. So but again I did because I have two I have two sons, they're twelve and thirteen, and everything's cool right now. Everything's fine, But like, I just worry a lot about the narrative of like gen Z Boys and like Andrew Tait of it All and all that stuff. You know, there needs to be a response to that out there, like on the left, because when I was like coming of age, the coolest thing there was, like when I was in college age and stuff, the coolest thing there was was like John Stewart in the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert and every college every frat bro, every college guy was watching that every night, getting high and watching the Daily Show and stuff.
Yep, so good and so important.
Tray.
I hope you'll come back.
Oh yeah, absolutely anytime. Thank you out, thank you for having me.
And all on moon. Rick Wilson, It's a time for a moment of fucker.
It is the moment of fuckery.
What's your moment of fuckery this week?
Molly, So we are gonna we're going to talk about the Alien Insurrection Act, which was an eighteenth century law that, by the way, was in.
Project twenty two. I know you're going to be shocked to hear this.
Pit Wait, no way, are you telling me that Project twenty twenty five was the plan all along? I am that is remarkable.
Remember when we said that A yeah, you said no, he wouldn't and everyone was like, why would he lie?
Don' for lying?
I don't know what to tell anyone except what what.
Look if they really believe we're going to be in a world where where we returned to eighteenth century laws and and apply them as a political tool of Donald Trump, well they are telling us once again that American institutions and the rule of law and democracy are not only a thing of the past, but that they're going to use every conceivable tool in the toolbox to make that the case.
Can I just say one last thing about this Alien Interaction Act and Republicans more generally, this was the plan right to use these zombie laws the age, and you're going to see over the next four years, hopefully only four years, that they're going to use more laws like this, Like the next one is going to be calm stock. This is a function of the Democratic Party not being careful and saying, well, these laws aren't getting any use, so there's no point in having to repeal them, right right.
When they say something to the effect of, well, yeah, but that's so unlikely, and the courts would if anybody is like counting on the courts to save us anymore, I do have some terrible news for it. Well.
The thing that's weird, though, is the courts are actually saving us. The problem is that it turns out the totally lawless guy does really give a fuck about the course.
That is to my mind a bit of an issue that you have somebody who is now there's no political accountability from his own party. Certainly you know, as you would not expected, but there's no political accountability whatsoever for the people that are enabling him. It's just a very dark and problematic thing because you would in an ordinary universe these people would have to face consequences for doing things that are lawless and insane. But again, going back to Elon Musk, they all feel like Daddy Elon will save me if I get in political trouble for doing the stupidest fucking things in the world.
Rick Wilson, I'll see you soon.
Pleasure talk to you later.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
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