Kind: captions
Language: en
so people need to go back and read the
history of the first 100 days under FDR
the sheer amount of legislation that
went through his ability to bring
Congress to heal and the Senate he gets
all this stuff through but as you and I
know legislation takes a long time to
put into place right we've had people
starving on the streets all throughout
1933 under Hoover the difference was
Hoover was seen as this do nothing joke
who would dine nine course meals in the
white house he's a filthy rich Banker
FDR comes in there and every single day
has in fireside chat he's passing l
legislation but more importantly so he
he tries various different programs then
they get ruled unconstitutional he tries
even more so what does America take away
from that every single time if he gets
knocked down he comes back fighting and
that was a really part of his character
that he developed uh after he got polio
and it was uh it gave him the strength
to persevere through personally what he
could transfer in his calm demeanor and
his feeling of fight that America really
got that Spirit from him and was able to
climb itself out of the Great Depression
he's such an inspirational figure I
think of Johnson and of Nixon of Teddy
Roosevelt even of FDR I can give you a
laundry list of personal problems that
all those people had I think they had
really really good judgment and uh I'm
not sure how intrinsic their own
personal character was to their
exploration and thinking about the world
so JFK is actually JFK might be our best
example because he had the best judgment
out of anybody in the room as a brand
new president in the Cuban Missile
Crisis and he got us out and avoided
nuclear war which he deserves Eternal
credit for that and I encourage people
out there this is this is a brutal text
we were forced to read it in Graduate
School uh the essence of decision by
Graham Alison I'm so thankful we did
it's one of the foundations of political
science because it lays out theories of
how government works people really need
to understand Washington Washington is a
creature with Traditions with
institutions that don't care about you
they don't even really care about the
president they have self-perpetuating
mechanisms which have been done a
certain way and it usually takes a great
shocking event like World War II to
change really anything beyond the
marginal every once in a while you have
a figure like Teddy Roosevelt who's
actually able to take peacetime
presidency and transform the country but
it needs an extraordinary individual to
get something like that done uh so the
question around the essence of decision
was the theory behind the Cuban Missile
Crisis of how Kennedy arrived at at his
decision and uh there are various
different schools of thought but one of
the things I love about the book is it
presents the case for all three the
organizational Theory the bureaucratic
politics Theory and then kind of the
great man Theory as well so there's a
you know you and I could sit here and I
could tell you a case about PT 109 and
about how John F Kennedy experienced
World War II and how he literally swam
miles with a wounded man's life jacket
strap in his teeth with a broken back
and he saved him and he ended up on the
cover of Life magazine and he was a war
hero and he was a deeply smart
individual who wrote a book in 1939
called why England slept which to this
day is considered a a a text which at
the moment was able to describe in
detail why Neville Chamberlain and the
British political system arrived at the
policy of appeasement I actually have a
original copy it's one of my most prized
possessions because and from 1939
because this a 23-year-old kid who the
fuck are you John F Kennedy um turns out
he's a brilliant man and another just
favorite decide is that at the Potsdam
Conference you know where Harry Truman
is there with Stalin and everybody so in
the room at the same time Harry S Truman
President of the United States Dwight D
Eisenhower the general right who will
succeed him 26-year-old John F Kennedy
as a journalist and all three of those
presidents were in the same room with
Joseph Stalin and others and that that's
the story of America right there it's
kind of amazing I'm going to give you
one of the most depressing quotes which
is deeply true Roger alses who is a
genius shout out to the loudest voice in
the room by Gabriel Sherman that book
changed my life too um because it really
made me understand the media people
don't want to be informed they want to
feel
informed the following is a conversation
with Sagar and Jetty his second time in
the podcast Sagar is a political
commentator journalist co-host of
breaking points with crystal ball and of
the realignment podcast with Marshall
klof Sager is one of the most well- read
people of ever ever met his love of
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Reading thousands of history books
radiates through every analysis he makes
of the world in this podcast we Trace
out the history of the various
ideological movements that led up to the
current political moment in doing so we
mention a large number of amazing books
we'll put a link to them in the
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in the description and now dear friends
here's Saga and Jetty so let's start
with the obvious big question what do
you think Trump won let's break it down
before the election you said that if
Trump wins it's going to be because of
immigration so aside from immigration
what are the maybe less than obvious
reasons that Trump won yes we absolutely
need to return to immigration but
without that multifaceted expl let's
start with the easiest one um there has
been a wave of anti-incumbent energy
around the world financial times chart
recently went viral showing for the
first time I think since World War II
possibly since 1905 I need to look at
the data set that all anti-incumbent
parties all across the world suffered
major defeats so that's a very very
highlevel analysis and we can return to
that if we talk about Donald Trump's
victory in 2016 because there were
similar like Global precursors that
individual level in the United States
there's a very simple explanation as as
well which is that Joe Biden was very
old he was very unpopular inflation was
high inflation is one of the highest
determiners of people switching their
votes and of putting their Primacy on
that ahead of any other issue at The
Ballot Box so that's that but I think
it's actually much deeper at a
psychological level for who America is
and what it is and fundamentally I think
what we're going to spend a lot of time
talking about today is uh the evolution
of the modern left and its collapse uh
in the kamla Harris candidacy and
eventually the loss to Donald Trump in
the popular vote where really is like an
apotheosis of several social forces so
we're going to talk about the Great
Awakening so-called awokening which is
very important to understanding all of
this there's also really Donald Trump
himself who is really one of the most
unique individual American politicians
that we've seen in decades uh at this
point Donald Trump's Victory makes him
the most important and transformative
figure in American politics since FDR
and a thought process for the audience
is in 2028 there will be an 18-year-old
who's eligible to vote who cannot
remember a time when Donald J Trump was
not the Central American figure and
there's stories uh in World War II where
troops were on the front line some of 18
19 years old FDR died and they literally
said well who's the president and they
said Harry Truman you dumbass and they
go who they couldn't conceive of a
universe where FDR was not the president
of the United States and you know Donald
Trump even during the Biden
Administration he was the figure Joe
Biden defined his entire candidacy and
his legacy around defeating this man and
obviously he's failed we should talk a
lot about Joe Biden as well for his own
failed theories of the presidency so I
think at a macro level it's easy to
understand at a basic level inflation
it's easy to understand but what I
really hope that a lot of people can
take away is how fundamentally unique
Donald Trump is as a political figure
and what he was able to do to realign
American politics really forever I mean
in uh the white working-class
realignment originally of 2006
the activation really of a multi-racial
kind of workingclass Coalition and of
really splitting American lines along a
single individual question of did you
attend a four-year college degree
institution or not and this is a crazy
thing to say Donald Trump is one of the
most racially
depolarizing uh electoral figures in
American history we lived in 2016 at a
time when racial groups you know really
voted in blocks Latinos blacks whites
there was some of course division
between the white working class and the
uh white white college educated white
collar workers U but by and large he
could pretty fairly say that Asians were
Indians everyone Mo 80 90% were going to
vote for the Democratic party Latinos as
well uh I'm born you know here in Texas
in the state of Texas George W bush
shocked people when he won some 40% of
the Latino vote Donald Trump just beat K
Harris with Latino men and he ran up the
table for young men so really uh
fundamentally we have witnessed a full
realignment in American politics and
that's a really fundamental problem for
the modern left is erased a lot of the
conversation around Jerry mandering
around uh the Electoral College the
so-called electoral bi college bias
towards Republicans uh really the being
able to win the popular vote for the
first time since 2004 is a shocking and
landmark achievement by a republican uh
in 2008 I have a book on my shelf and I
never I and I always look at it to
remind of how much things can change
James Carville and it says 40 more years
how Democrats will never lose an
election again 2008 they wrote that book
after the Obama Coalition and the
landslide and uh something I love so
much about this country people change
their minds all the time I was born in
1992 I've watched red States go Blue
I've seen blue States go red I've seen
swing States go red or blue I've seen uh
millions of people pick up and move the
greatest internal migration in the
United States since World War II and
it's really inspiring because it's a
really Dynamic interesting place and I
love covering it I love thinking about
it talking about it talking to people
it's awesome one of the reasons I'm a
big fan of yours is uh you're a student
of history and so you recommended a
bunch of books to me and they and others
thread the different movements
throughout American history some
movements take off and do hold power for
a long time some don't and some are
started by a small number of people and
are controlled by a small number of
people some are mass movements and it's
it's just fascinating to watch how those
movements evolve and then fit themselves
maybe into the constraints of a
two-party system and I'd love to sort of
talk about the various perspectives of
that um so would it be fair to say that
this
election was turned into a kind of class
struggle well I won't go that far um
because to say it's a class struggle
really implies that things fundamentally
align on economic lines and I don't
think that's necessarily accurate
although if if that's your L lens you
could get there so there's a a very big
statistic going around right now where
kamla Harris increased her vote share
and won households over $100,000 or more
uh and Donald Trump won households under
00,000 so you could view that in an
economic lens the problem again that I
have is that that is much more appr
proxy for four-year college degree and
for education and so one of my favorite
books is called coming apart by Charles
Murray uh and that book really really
underscores how the cultural milu that
people swim in uh when they attend a
four-year college degree in the
trajectory of their life not only on
where they move to who they marry what
type of grocery store they go to their
cultural uh what television shows that
they watch one of my favorite questions
from Charles Murray is called a bubble
quiz I encourage people to go take it by
the way uh which it ask you a question
it's like what does the word Branson
mean to you and it has a couple of
answers one of them them is uh Branson
is Richard Branson Sir Richard Branson
number two is Branson Missouri which is
like a country music tourist style
destination three is it means nothing so
you are less in a bubble if you say
country music and you're very much in
the bubble if you say Richard Branson
and uh I remember taking that test for
the first time I go obviously Sir
Richard Branson Virgin Atlantic like
what and then I was like wait I'm like
I'm in the bubble and uh there are other
things in there like can you name
various different military ranks I can
because I'm a history nerd but the vast
majority of college educated people
don't know anybody who served in the
United States military they don't have
family members who do uh the most
popular shows in America are like the
Big Bang Theory and NCIS uh whereas
people in our probably cultural milu uh
our favorite shows are White Lotus The
Last of Us this is prestige Television
right with a very small audience but
High income high education so the point
is is that culture really defines who we
are as Americans where we live and uh
rural urban is one way to describe it
but honestly with the work from home
Revolution and more rich people Highly
Educated people moving to more rural
suburban or areas they traditionally
weren't able to commute in that's
changing and so really um in the
internet is everything the stuff that
you consume on the internet the stuff
that you spend your time doing type of
books you read whether you read a book
at all frankly uh whether you uh travel
to Europe whether you have a passport um
you know all the things that you value
in your life that is the real cultural
divide in America and I actually think
that's what this revolution of uh Donald
Trump was activating and bringing people
to the polls bringing a lot of those
traditional workingclass voters of all
Races away from the Democratic party
along the lines of elitism of sneering
and of a general cultural feeling that
these people don't understand me and uh
my struggles in this life and so of the
trivial formulation is that is the the
wokeism the anti- wokeism movement yeah
so it's not
necessarily that uh Trump winning was a
statement against wokeism it was the
broader anti- elitism it's difficult to
say because uh I wouldn't dismiss
anti-woke or wokeism as an explanation
um but we need to understand like the
Electoral impacts of woke so there's
varying degrees of like how you're going
to encounter quote unquote wokeism and
this is a very difficult thing to Define
so let me just try and break it down
which is there are the types of things
that you're going to interact with on a
cultural basis and what I mean by that
is uh going to watch a TV show and just
for some reason there's like two trans
characters and it's never like
particular explain why they just are
there or watching a commercial and it's
the same thing uh watching I don't know
I remember it was watching I think it
was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness and the main it was a terrible
movie by the way don't recommend it uh
but one of the characters I think is her
name was like America and she wore a gay
pride flag right look many left-wingers
would make fun of me for saying these
things but that is obviously a social
agenda to the point as in they believe
it is like deeply acceptable that is
used by Hollywood and cultural Elites
who really value the those uh progress
you know in sexual orientation and
others and they really believe it's
important to quote unquote showcase it
for representation so that's like one
way that we may encounter quote unquote
wokeism but the more important ways
frankly are the ways that affirmative
action which really has its roots in you
know American society all the way going
back to the 1960s and how those have
manifested in our economy and in our
understanding of quote unquote
discrimination so two books I can
recommend one is called the origins of
woke that's by Richard hanania uh
there's another one by the age of
entitlement by Christopher Caldwell and
they make a very strong case that
Caldwell in particular that he calls it
like a new founding of America was the
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
because it created an entire new legal
regime and understanding of race in the
American character and how the
government was going to enforce that and
that really ties in with another one of
the books that I recommended to you
about the origins of Trump by Jim Web
and Senator Jim Webb uh incredible
incredible man he's so underappreciated
uh intellectual he was anti-war and uh
he was people may remember him from the
2016 primary and uh they asked him uh
they asked him a question I don't
exactly remember about one of his
enemies and he's like well one of them
was um guy a shot in Vietnam and he was
running against Hillary and uh that guy
the he wrote the book born fighting I
think it's what history of the Scotts
Irish people something like that and
that book really opened my eyes to the
way that affirmative action and racial
preferences that were playing out you
know through the HR managerial Elite
really turned a lot of people within the
white working class away from the
Democratic party and felt fundamentally
discriminated against by the
professional managerial class and so
there's a lot of roots to this the
managerial Revolution by James Burnham
and in terms of the origin of kind of
how we got here but the crystallization
of like Dei and or affirmative action I
prefer to use the term affirmative
action in the higher highest echelons of
business and there became this idea that
representation itself was the only thing
that mattered and I think that right
around 2014 that really went on steroids
and that's why it's not an accident that
Donald J Trump elected in 2016 at this
point do you think this election is a
kind of statement that wokeism as a
movement is dead I don't know um I mean
it's very difficult to say because
wokeism itself is not a movement with a
party leader it's a amorphous uh belief
that has worked its way through
institutions now for almost 40 or 50
years I mean it's effectively a religion
um and part of the reason why it's
difficult Define is it means done
different things to different people so
for example there are VAR degrees of how
we would Define quote unquote woke do I
think that the Democrats will be
speaking in so-called academic language
yes I do think they will I think that
the next Democratic nominee will not do
that however kamla Harris actually did
move as much as she could away from
quote unquote woke but she basically was
punished for a lot of the sins of both
herself from 2019 but a general cultural
feeling that her and the people around
her do not understand me and not only do
not understand me but have racial
preferences or a regime or an
understanding that would lead to a quote
unquote Equity mindset you know equal
outcomes for everybody as opposed to
equality of opportunity which is more of
a colorblind philosophy so I can't say I
think it's way too early and you know
again like you can not use the word
latinx but do you still believe in an
effective affirmative action regime you
know in terms of how you would run your
Department of Justice in terms of how
you view the world in terms of what you
think the real dividing lines in America
are because I would say that's still
actually kind of a woke mindset and
that's part of the reason why the the
term itself doesn't really mean a whole
lot and we have to get actually really
specific about what it looks like in
operations in operation it means
affirmative action it means the NASDAQ
passing some law that if you want to go
public or something that you have to
have a woman and a person of color on
your board like this is a blatant and
you know extraordinary look racialism
that they've enshrined in their bylaws
so you can get rid of ESG that's great
um but you know you you can get rid of
Dei I think that's great but it's really
about a mindset and a view of the world
and I don't think that's going anywhere
and you think the reason it doesn't work
well in practice is because it there's a
big degree to which it's anti
meritocracy it's anti-American really I
mean uh you know Dei and woke and
affirmative action make perfect sense in
a lot of different countries okay and
there are a lot of countries out there
that are multiethnic and they're
heterogeneous and they were run by
basically quasi dictators and the way it
works is that you pay off the Christians
and they pay off the Muslims and they
get this guy and they get that guy and
everybody kind of shakes it it's very
explicit whether they're like we have 10
spots and they go to the Christians we
have 10 spots and they go to the Hindus
you know I'm talking India is a country
I know pretty well and this does kind of
work like that on state politics level
in some respect but in America you know
fundamentally we really believe that no
matter where you are from that you come
here and basically within a generation
uh especially if you migrate here
legally and you integrate that you leave
a lot of that stuff behind and the story
the American dream that is ingrained in
so many of us is one that really does
not mesh well with any sort of racial
preference regime or anything that's not
Merit itic and uh I mean I will give the
left Wingers some you know Credit in the
idea that meritocracy itself you know
could have preference for people who
have privileged backgrounds I think
that's true um and so you know the way I
would like to see it is to increase
everybody's equality of opportunity to
make sure that they all have a chance at
quote unquote willing out the American
dream but that doesn't erase meritocracy
hardw work and uh many of the other
things that we associate with the
American character with the American
frontier so these are two ideologies
which are really at odds like in a lot
of ways like wokeism racialism and all
this is a third world ideology it's one
that's very prevalent in Europe and in
uh all across Asia but it doesn't mix
well here and and it shouldn't and I'm
really glad that the America feels the
same way yeah I got to go back to uh Jim
Webb in that book what a badass
fascinating book my God warn fighting
amazing how the Scots Irish Shaped
America so I did not realize to the
degree first of all how badass the Scot
Irish are
and the to the degree many of the things
that kind of identifies American and
part of the American Spirit were defined
by this relatively small group of people
as he describes the model could be
summarized as fight sing drink and pray
so there's the principles of fierce
individualism the principles of a deep
distrust of government the elites the
authorities bottom up governance over
2,000 years of a military tradition they
made up 40% of the Revolutionary War
army
and uh produced numerous military
leaders including Stonewall Jackson ulys
S Grant George S Patton and a bunch of
presidents yeah some of the more
gangster presidents Andrew Jackson Teddy
Roosevelt Udo Wilson Ronald Reagan Bill
Clinton MH just the the whole cultural
Legacy of country music we owe them so
much and they really don't get their du
unfortunately a lot of for the reasons
that I just described around racialism
is because post you know Mass
immigration from Europe the term white
kind of became blanket applied to new
Irish to Italians to slovenians and you
know as you and I both know if you
travel those countries people are pretty
different and it's not not the different
here in the United States Scott CIS was
some of the original settlers here in
America and particularly in Appalachia
and their contribution to the fighting
spirit and their own culture and like
who we are as individualists and uh some
of the first people to ever settle the
frontier and that Frontier mindset
really does come from them we owe them
just as much we do the Puritans but they
don't ever really get their due and the
reason I recommend that book is if you
read that book and you understand then
you know how exactly could this group of
white workingclass voters for go from
2012 voting for a man named Barack
Hussein Obama to Donald J Trump um you
really seem to it makes perfect sense if
you combine it with a lot of the stuff
I'm talking about here about affirmative
action about distrust of the elites
about feeling as if institutions are not
seeing through to you and specifically
also not valuing valuing your
contribution to American history and in
some cases actively looking down you
know I'm I'm glad you pointed out not
only their role in the Revolutionary War
but in the Civil War as well um and you
know just how much of a contribution
culturally really that we owe them um
for setting the groundwork that so many
of us who came later could build upon
and adopt some of their own ideas and
their culture as our own it's one of the
things that makes America great Mark
Twain yeah I mean so much of the culture
so much of the yeah the American Spirit
the the whole idea the whole shape and
form and type of populism that
represents our democracy so would you
trace the that that Fierce individualism
that we think of back to them definitely
it's a huge part of them uh about who
they were about the screw you attitude
um I mean uh that book actually kind of
had a Renaissance back in 2016 when Hill
bology came out I'm sure you remember
this which it's kind of weird to think
that it's now this Vice president-elect
of the United States it's kind of wild
honestly to think about um but JD
Vance's book Hill beology I think was
really important for a lot of American
Elites who were like how do these
support people support Trump where does
this shit come from that they really I
mean that if you really think back to
that time it was shocking to the elite
character that any person in the world
could ever vote for Donald Trump and not
just vote he won the election how does
that happen and that's hillbilly elogy
guided people in an understanding of
what that's like on a lived day-to-day
basis and JD to his credit talks about
Scots Irish heritage about Appalachia
and the legacy of what that culture
looks like today and how a lot of these
people voted for Donald Trump but we got
to give credit to Jim Webb who wrote the
history of these people and taught me
and you about you know their their
original fight against the uh the
oppressors in Scotland and in Ireland
and their militant spirit and how they
were able to bring that over here um and
you know they got their due in Andrew
Jackson and some of our other populist
presidents who set us up on the road to
Donald Trump to where we are today dude
it got me excited to be an American me
too I love that book it's crazy that JD
the same guy because that's uh hillbilly
El is what I kind of thought of him as
yeah yeah I mean I'll tell you for me
it's actually pretty surreal I met JD
Vance in like 2017 I didn't in like a
bar I didn't ever think he would be the
vice president-elect of the United
States I mean just kind of wild uh one
of my friends went back and dug up the
email that we originally sent him just
like hey do you want to meet up or he's
like sure you know okay I was watching
on television um I mean the first time
that it really hit me I was like whoo it
like name in a history book is whenever
he became the Vice Presidential nominee
I was watching him on TV and the
confetti was falling and he was waving
with his wife and I was like wow like
that's it you're you're in the history
books now forever especially now so uh
as the literal Vice president-elect of
the US but his own evolution is actually
a fascinating uh a fascinating story for
us too because I think a lot of the time
I've spent right now is kind of this a
lot of what I'm giving right now like
2016 kind of takes about like why Trump
won that time but we should spent a lot
of time on how Donald Trump won this
election and like how what happened some
of the failures of the Biden
Administration some of the payback for
the great awokening but also if you look
at the evolution of JD Vance this is a
person who wrote hillbilly elogy and not
a lot of people pay attention to this
but if you read hillbilly elgy uh JD was
much more of a traditional conservative
at that time uh he was citing you know
report I think the famous passage is
about like payday loans and why they're
good or something like that I don't know
his position today but I would just
assume that he's probably changed that
but the point is is that his ideological
Evolution from watching somebody who uh
really was more of a traditional
Republican with a deep empathy for the
white working class then eventually
become a champion and a disciple of
Donald Trump and to believe that he
himself was the vehicle for
accomplishing and bettering the United
States was specifically for workingclass
Americans really of all stripes and
that's story is really one one of the
rise of the modern left as it exists as
a political project as an ideology it's
also one of the Republican party which
coales now with Donald Trump as a
legitimate figure and as the single
bullwark against cultural leftism and
elitism that eventually was normalized
to the point that majority of Americans
decided to vote for him in 2024 so let's
talk about 2024 what what happened with
uh with the left what happened with
Biden what's your take on on Biden Biden
is um I try to remove myself from it and
I try not to give like hit big history
takes while you're in the moment but
it's really hard not to say that he's
one of the worst Presidents in modern
history and uh I think the reason why
I'm going to go with it is because I
want to judge him by the things that he
set out to do so Joe Biden um has been
the same person for his entire political
career he is a basically C student who
thinks he's an a student the chip on his
shoulder against the elites has played
to his benefit in his original election
to the United States Senate through his
entire career as United States Senator
where he always wanted to be the star
and the center of attention and to his
1988 presidential campaign and uh one of
the most fascinating things about Biden
and watching him age is watching him
become even more of what he already was
and so a book recommendation it's called
what it takes and uh It Was Written in
1988 and there's actually a long chapter
on Joe Biden and about the plagiarism
scandal and one of the things that comes
across is his sheer arrogance and belief
in himself as to why he should be the
center of attention now the reason I'm
laying all this out is the arrogance of
Joe Biden the individual and his
character is fundamentally the reason
his presidency went arai this is a
person who was elected in 2020 really
because of a feeling of chaos of Donald
Trump of we need normaly decides to come
into the office portrays himself as a
quote unquote transitional president
slowly you know begins to lose a lot of
his faculties and then surrounds himself
with sycophants the same ones who have
been around him for so long that he had
no single input into his life to tell
him that he needed to stop and he needed
to drop out of the race until it became
truly undeniable to the vast majority of
the American people um and that's why
I'm trying to keep it as like him as an
individual as a president because we
could separate him from some of his
accomplishments and the things that
happen on some I support some I don't uh
but generally a lot of people are not
going to look back and think about Joe
Biden and the chips sack a lot of people
are not going to look back and think
about Joe Biden and the bill back better
bill or whatever his Lena Khan
Anti-Trust policy they're going to look
back on him and they're going to
remember High inflation they're going to
remember somebody who fundamentally
never was up to the job in the sense
that one again book recommendation
Freedom From Fear by David Kennedy is
about uh the Roosevelt years and one of
the most important things people don't
understand is the New Deal didn't really
work in the way that a lot of people
wanted it to right like there was still
high unemployment there was still a lot
of suffering um but you know what
changed they felt that they had a
vigorous commander-in-chief who was
doing everything in his power to attack
the problems of the everyday American so
even though things didn't even
materially change the Vigor that's a
term that was often associated with John
F Kennedy at Viga you know in the
Massachusetts accent we had this young
vibrant president in 1960 he was running
around and he wanted to convince us that
he was working every single day
tirelessly and when you have an
80-year-old man
who is simply just eating ice cream and
going to the beach while people's
grocery prices and all this go up by 25%
and we don't see the same Vigor we don't
see the same action the bias to action
which is so important in the modern
presidency that is fundamentally why I
think the Democrats uh part of the
reason why the Democrats lost the
election and also why I think that he
missed his moment in such a dramatic way
uh and he had the opportunity he could
have done it you know if he wanted to
but uh maybe 20 years ago but the truth
is that his own narcissist ISM his own
uh misplaced belief in himself and his
own accidental rise to the presidency
ended up uh in his downfall and it's
kind of amazing because again if we if
we look back to his original campaign
speech 2019 why I'm running for
president it was Charlottesville and he
said I want to defeat Donald Trump
forever and I want to make sure that he
never gets back in the white house again
so by his own metric he did fail that
was his it was the only thing he wanted
to do and he failed failed from him you
said a lot of interesting stuff so one
FDR
that's really interesting it's not about
the specific policy it's about like
fighting for the people and doing that
with Charisma and just uniting the
entire country
for a partic this is the same with
Bernie like maybe there's a lot of
people that disagree with Bernie that's
still support him CU like we just want
some authentic yeah that's it we just
want somebody to fight authentically for
us yes FDR people really need FDR was
like a king he was like Jesus Christ
okay in in the US and it some of it was
because of what did but it was just the
fight so people need to go back and read
the history of the first 100 days under
FDR the sheer amount of legislation they
went through his ability to bring
Congress to heal and the Senate he gets
all this stuff through but as you and I
know legislation takes a long time to
put into place right we've had people
starving on the streets all throughout
1933 um under uh under Hoover the
difference was Hoover was seen as this
do nothing joke who had dine nine course
meals in the white house he's a filthy
rich Banker FDR comes in there and every
single day has in fireside chat he's
passing legislation but more importantly
so he he tries various different
programs then they get ruled
unconstitutional he tries even more so
what does America take away from that
every single time if he gets knocked
down he comes back fighting and that was
a really part of his character that he
developed uh after he got polio and it
was uh it gave him the strength to
persevere through personally what he
could transfer in his calm demeanor and
his feeling of fight that Amer America
really got that Spirit from him and was
able to climb itself out of the Great
Depression he's such an inspirational
figure he really is and uh I people
think of him for World War II of course
you know we can spend forever on that
but uh in my opinion the the early years
are not studied enough 33 to 37 is one
of the most remarkable periods in
American history we were not ruled by a
President we were ruled by a king by a
monarch and people liked it he was he
was a dictator and he was a good
one yeah so uh to uh sort of push back
against the
implied thing that you said so when
saying Biden is the worst president no
second worst in modern history that's
what I said second in modern history
who's the worst W with no question I see
because of the horrible Wars probably I
mean Iraq is just so bad like one of my
uh favorite authors is a guy Gene Edward
Smith he's Ru a bunch of presidential
biographies and in the opening of his
but duy biography he's like there's just
no question there's a single worst
foreign policy mistake in in all of
American history and W is one of our
worst Presidents ever he had terrible
judgment and it got us into a war of his
own choosing it was a disaster and it
set us up for failure it by the way we
talked a lot about Donald Trump nobody
is more uh responsible for the rise of
Donald Trump than George W bush but I
could I could go off on Bush for a long
time oh we will we will return there so
as part of the push back I'd like to say
cuz I agree with your criticism of
arrogance and narcissism against Joe
Biden the same could be said about
Donald Trump you're absolutely right of
arrogance so I think you've also
articulated that a lot of presidents
throughout American history have
suffered from a bad case of arrogance
and narcissism absolutely but sometimes
to a benefit you know you have to be a
pretty crazy person to be uh to want to
be president I you know I had put out a
tweet that got some controversy and uh I
think it was Joe Rogan uh who I love but
he was like I want to find out who KLA
Harris is as a human being and I was
like I'm actually not interested in who
politicians are as human beings at all
um I like I've read too much about them
to know uh I know who are um if you
spend your life and because I live in
Washington and I spend a lot of time
around would be politicians I know what
it takes to actually become the
president it's crazy you have to give up
everything everything every night you're
not spending it with your wife you're
spending it at dinner with potential
donors with friends with people who can
connect you every even after you get
elected that's even more so now you got
to raise money and now you're on to the
next thing now you want to get your
political thing through you're going to
spend all your time on your phone you
and your staff are going to be more like
this your entire life revolves around
around your career it's honestly you
need an insane level of narcissism to do
it because you have to believe that you
are better than everybody else which is
already pretty crazy um and not only
that uh your own personal
characteristics and foibles lead you to
the pursuit of this office and to the
pursuit of the idolatry of the self and
everything around you there's a famous
story of uh Ladybird Johnson after
Johnson becomes the president he's
talking to the White House Butler and
she was like everything in this house
revolves around my husband whatever's
left goes to the girls her two children
and I'll take the scraps so it she
everything revolved around Johnson's
political career and his daughters when
they're honest because they like to
paper over some of the things uh that
happened under him but they didn't spend
any time with him Saturday Saturday
morning was for breakfast with you know
Richard Russell I forget these are all
in the Robert a Caro books Sunday was
for Rayburn there was no time for you
know for for his kids that's what it was
and and by the way he's one of the
greatest policians to ever live but he
also died from a massive heart attack
and he was a deeply sad and depressed
individual yeah I saw that tweet to go
back to that and also I listened to your
incredible debate about it with Marshall
on the realignment podcast and I have to
side with Marshall I think you're just
wrong on this right um because I think
revealing the character of a person is
really important to understand how they
will act in a room full of generals and
full of uh yeah this gets to the
Judgment question the judgment and
that's I think of Johnson and and of
Nixon of uh Teddy Roosevelt even of FDR
I can give you a laundry list of
personal problems that all those people
had I think they had really really good
judgment and uh I'm not sure how
intrinsic their own personal character
was to their exploration and thinking
about the world so JFK is actually JFK
might be our best example because he had
the best judgment out of anybody in the
room as a brand new president in the
Cuban Missile Crisis and he got us out
and avoided nuclear war which he
deserves Eternal credit for that but uh
how did he arrive to good judgment uh
some of it certainly was his character
and we can go again though into his
laundry list of that but most most of it
was around being with his father seeing
some of the mistakes that he would make
and he was also had a deeply inquisitive
mind and he experienced World War II at
the personal level uh After PT 109 so it
is look I I get it I actually could
steal man it I could the response to
what I'm saying is judgment is not
divisible from personal character but
just because I know a lot of politicians
and I've read but the really great ones
the people who I I Revere the most um
there's really bad personal stuff
basically every single time but you're
saying the Judgment was good his
judgment was great Missile Crisis some
of the best uh judgment and decision
making in the history of America yes and
we should study a lot of it and I
encourage people out there this is this
is a brutal text we were forced to read
it in Graduate School uh the essence of
decision by Graham Allison I'm so
thankful we did it's one of the
foundations of political science because
it lays out theories of how government
works this is also a useful transition
by the way if we want to talk about
Trump and some of his cabinet and how
that is shaping up because people really
need to understand Washington Washington
is a creature with Traditions with
institutions that don't care about you
they don't even really care about the
president they have self-perpetuating
mechanisms which have been done a
certain way and it usually takes a great
shocking event like World War II to
change really anything beyond the
marginal every once in a while you have
a figure like Teddy Roosevelt who's
actually able to take peacetime
presidency and transform the country but
it needs an extraordinary individual to
get something like that done uh so the
question around the essence of decision
was the theory behind the Cuban Missile
Crisis of how Kennedy arrived at at his
decision and uh there are various
different schools of thought but one of
the things I love about the book is it
presents the case for all three the
organizational Theory the bureaucratic
politics Theory and then kind of the
great man Theory as well so there's a
you know you and I could sit here and I
could tell you a case about PT 109 and
about how John F Kennedy experienced
World War II as this uh I think it was
like a first lieutenant or something
like that and how he literally swam
miles with a wounded man's life jacket
strap in his teeth with a broken back
and he saved him and he ended up on the
cover of Life magazine and he was a war
hero and he was a deeply smart
individual who wrote a book in 1939
called why England slept which to this
day is considered a a a text which at
the moment was able to describe in
detail why uh Neville Neville
Chamberlain and the British political
system arrived at the policy of
appeasement I actually have a original
copy it's one of my most prized
possessions because and from 1939
because this is a 23y old kid who the
fuck are you John F Kennedy um turns out
he's a brilliant man and another just
favorite aside is that at the pot Stam
conference you know where Harry Truman
is there with Stalin and everybody so in
the room at the same time Harry S Truman
President of the United States Dwight D
Eisenhower the general right who will
succeed him 26-year-old John F Kennedy
as a journalist some shithead journalist
on the side and all three of those
presidents were in the same room with
Joseph Stalin and others um and that
that's the story of America right there
it's kind of amazing uh I I love people
to say that because you never know um
about who will end up rising to power
but are you announcing that you're
running for oh absolutely not yeah I I
don't have what it takes I don't think
so I'm self-aware yeah well maybe
humility is necessary for greatness okay
so uh yeah actually can we just Linger
on that book yeah so the book essence of
decision explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis by Graham Allison it presents
three different models of how government
works the rational actor model so seeing
government as one entity uh trying to
maximize the national interest uh also
seeing government as uh
through the lens of the momentum of
standard operating procedure so this
giant uh organization that's just doing
things how it's always been done and the
government politics model of there's
just these individual internal power
struggles within government yes and all
of that is like a different way to view
and they're probably all true to degree
of how decisions are made within this
giant Machinery of government that's why
it's so important is because you cannot
read that book and say one is true and
one is not you can say one is May more
true than the other but all of them are
deeply true and this is one this is
probably a good transition to Donald
Trump um because uh and I guess for the
people out there who don't think I've
been up too obsequious he will be my
criticism Trump said something very
fundamental and interesting on The Joe
Rogan podcast probably the most
important thing that he ever said which
is he said I like to have people like
John Bolton in my Administration well
because they scare people and it makes
me seem like the most rational
individual in the room so at a very
intuitive level a lot of people can
understand that and then they can
rationalize while there are picks that
Donald Trump has brought into his White
House people like Mike Waltz and others
that have espoused views that are
directly at odds with a quote unquote
anti- neocon anti- Liz Cheney agenda now
Trump's theory of this is that he likes
to have quote unquote like Psychopaths
like John Bolton uh in the room with him
while he's sitting across from Kim
Jong-un because it gets scared what I
think Trump Trump never understood when
he was president and I honestly question
if he still does now is those two
theories that you laid out which are not
about the rational interest as the
government is one model with the
bureaucratic Theory and the
organizational theory of politics and
because what Trump I don't think quite
gets is that there are 99% of the
decisions that get made in government
never reach the president's desk one of
the most important Obama quotes ever is
by the time it gets to my desk nobody
else can solve it all the problems here
are hard all the problems here don't
have an answer that's why I have to make
the call so
the theory that Trump has that you can
have people in there who are let's say
warmongers neocons or whatever who don't
necessarily agree with you is that when
push comes to shove at the most
important decisions that I'll still be
able to Reign those people in as an
influence here's the issue uh let's say
for Mike Waltz who's going to be the
National Security adviser the a lot of
people don't really understand you know
there's this theory of National Security
adviser where you call me into your
office and you're the president you're
like hey what do we think about Iran I'm
like I think you should do X Y andz no
that's not how works the National
Security advisor's job is to coordinate
the inter agency process so his job is
to actually convene meetings him and his
staff where in The Situation Room CIA
State Department SEF others before the
pus even walks in we have options so
we're like hey Russia just invaded
Ukraine we need a package of options
those package of options are conceded of
three things we're going to have one
group we're going to call it the doish
option two we're going to call it the
Middle Ground Three the hardcore package
Trump walks in this is how it's supposed
to work Trump walks in he goes okay
Russian invaded Ukraine what do we do Mr
President we prepared three options for
you we got one two and three now who has
the power is it Trump when he picks one
two or three or is the man who decides
what even in option one two and three
that is the part where Trump needs to
really understand how these things
happen and I watched this happen to him
in his first Administration uh he hired
a guy Mike Flynn who was his National
Security adviser you could say a lot
about Flynn but him him and Trump were
at least like this on foreign policy
Flynn gets outed because what I would
call an FBI coup whatever 33 days he's
out uh as a national security adviser H
Arch Master he's got a nice nice shiny
uniform forstar all of this master
doesn't agree with Donald Trump at all
and so uh Trump says I ran on pulling
out of Afghanistan I want to get out of
Afghanistan they're like yeah yeah we'll
get out of Afghanistan but uh before we
get out we got to go back in as we need
more troops in there and he's like oh
okay um you know it's like all this and
uh he approves a plan and effectively
gives a speech in 2017 where he ends up
escalating and increasing the number of
troops in Afghanistan and it's only till
February 2020 that he gets to sign a
deal the Taliban peace deal whic