Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And TikTok has sued the US government for violating their First Amendment rights.
We have a historic studded show today.
MSNBC is Jen Saki stops by to talk about her brand new books, Say More Lessons from Work the White House in the World. Then we'll talk to philosopher Jason Stanley about America's creep towards fascism. But first we have former White House communications director and host of the podcast How to Win twenty twenty four, Jennifer Paul Mary. Welcome to Fast Politics. Jennifer Paul Mary.
Happy to be here, Mollie, thanks for having me.
I'm such a fan of yours, and I also like anytime I see you, I'm like, oh, you know, there are people where you're just like, there's a little bit soothing.
I get. That's good. That's good, that's good. I hope I make people feel better today.
You worked in white houses, you've worked on campaigns, You've literally done it all. There's something horrible about how it feels right now. Can you match it to any other moment in your sort of history at.
Such lower stakes that people might find it laughable, but it reminds me of twenty twelve and being in the White House in twenty twelve when Obama was running for reelection.
And it was just the same kind of sense.
Now again like in the parallel universe, you know, different kind of scale, but just like we felt like we had done a lot, we didn't feel like any of
it was taking hold. Obamacare was not popular, and you know, Santa Romney, who's someone like even in the time, our opponent we had a lot of respect for, Like we really thought the wrong chords and it was very hard to get traction, and the polls were not great, and there was a lot and we could see a lot on the horizon from me until November that could be problematic, from Gad's crisis rising to met healthcare premiums possibly rising.
People associated that with health care and just like having non gotten over the recession and feeling like things that were out of your control we're going to impact the election. And I feel like that it's kind of a good parallel to how it feels now where we see Lake.
It's hard to fathom than although there were two national poles that had Biden up by five, very excited and ascy that particualing with where you feel like you have a good argument to make and it's not taking hold and things outside of your control and to determine the election,
it feels like twelve. David Ploff was the President's senior advisor in the White House that year, and he would do, you know, Bridger for us every week, and then at the end, I would wait for my servame thing Molly, which was for David to say in the end, I'd rather be up for them, And there were some weeks where he did not say that. He never said up one, I'd rather be them than us. But it's just and I would in this case, I would definitely rather be
a side of Bide then than then. I think in the end, what Biden has to do to win is easier, even by sort of like traditional electoral standards, than what Trump has to do win.
First of all, thank you for giving me a modern historical precedent, because one of the things I'm obsessed with is that we never, for whatever reason, punditry is shaped in a way that we're never asked to just look back at like four years ago, and there's so many lessons to be gleaned from the very recent past that I'm always shocked that we don't do that. Like the midterms a great example. I do think like that is
so useful. But also when I was in DC for White House Correspondence Weekend, the Blur of parties.
Though, there was a place where they had a chocolate station.
By the way, my friend was like, I've never seen you happier than when you wandered into a party and they had like a whole chocolate station.
Was it like a fountain, Like I talk about fountain. They have it in Manhattan. It's very expensive.
It has these sheets of chocolate, like you go in for a chocolate bar and you spend eighty bucks, you know, so.
It's very expensive.
But they had it's ledakorie anyway, I'm mispronouncing if someone's going to write me an angry email, but they had it, and I like found a bag and started like it was like I was at a barn.
It's fars up thing.
And I always say, you know, so that was the best moment of the whole weekend. But I went to you know, some of those things have, like we present information to you, which usually is not so interesting. But this was some polling numbers which I hate, and think that the poll was maybe a little bit, a little bit suspect. But what I thought was interesting was he said the closest parallel was twenty twelve. Oh interesting polling wise, because he said people are not happy and they're not excited.
There were a lot of parallels, you know, he said the stakes are obviously ten times higher, right, but that Biden too looks a lot like Obama.
Too, right right, Yeah, that's all Field.
They were the same, you know, all on a different scale, the same but the same dynamics. But I do feel like there are things in our favor this time that definitely did not exist in twelve two.
Yeah.
I mean the things though that are on Budden's favor this time are like the things that could seriously end American democracy if they're not, you know, like Mitt Romney. Nobody worried that Mitt Romney was going to end American democracy.
Oh yeah, the salad days, Yeah, I know, I know.
I mean that's not how you eat fish. I'm talking about.
When he has a catchup and this he makes a fish hamburger, I mean that is like the he's a.
Very rich guy. Did they not send anyone to just like make a little food for him? It's definitely his own man.
Like we learned that, you know, like you still to learn that they had that great documentary about him. Of the course that his family I think children that are pine and it was really great that they didn't. You know, like all back campaign decisions came out after the election and I was like.
Not happen, you know.
Then he saw the mcmah every kind of know today not that met Romney the Obama campaign to fight in June of twenty twelve.
Yeah, they did a good They did a really good That was a good campaign.
You were in the White House then I was in the White House then.
Yeah.
It's so funny because Biden world, it's like it's so quaint compared to Trump world. But you know, if you ask someone in the Biden White House about the campaign there, oh we can't talk about that because that there's a firewall between the two. Meanwhile, Trumpetti's press secretary writing checks, you know, not checks, but dealing with the porn star checks. I mean, oh yeah, it's amazing just looking at at
the landscape. The thing that people love to do is like saying, well, you know, this is how Biden world should be doing this or that. Oh yeah, you actually know how to do that stuff. Most of the people working in the White House, I can't speak to everyone, but the people I know who work there are like some of the nicest people in the entire world. You know.
It's like it seems like a very kind of organized, you know, not very dramatic, you know, work environment, which is why people don't like to read books about them. But right, I mean, because it's like pretty boring. But do you see anything where you feel like they're not doing it right?
Their biggest challenge is breaking through, right, and so I think that they and I would say from the beginning of the year to now, I think they've done a They've done a really good job.
Everyone's like, oh, they're so late.
You're like, it's many people Like they had people in battleground states earlier.
Than usual, earlier than we did in twelve.
They had you know, the president was doing battleground state travel on January fifth, you know above, but we didn't do that until June. They have a ton of money and they're using it really smartly and the polls are right. So like that is there's like group of concepts right there, and it is like there will I'm sure there will come a time in the next sixth month where some mady charitable will happen or gas prices will go up or whatever, and like he will fly back down.
But the point is, like why people.
Should feel good is that, you know, when they've had some runway of you know, obviously the GODSA conflict is a huge problem, but they've had some runway to make their argument and there's evidence that it is taking hold.
So like that's durable, Okay.
But the thing that I think, I think that in terms of because it's harder than a breakthrough if they try to go to places when they were doing events that were in direct conflict with Trump, like go to Wakeco, Texas where.
He announced his campaign.
Everyone like this the scene of the branch Davidian fire.
Yeah, that was insane. That was insane. That was last April.
He went there to announce his reelect and you know the Dan six him and the whole you know, the whole bit, you know, go there and to talk about democracy, go stand out in sead of Jocelyn Benson Home and Michigan the Secretary of State, where people were you know there like an arm protests after the election, saying and like they wanted her to overturn Michigan election to try to find the dramatic backdro off or something that's in durrect conflict with Trump that will like let their argument
puncture the bubble, because it is very hard. The one time where I felt like they really broke through and got to Trump was when Biden went to the border a couple of months ago. I guess he announced he's going to the border, and then Trump chases him to the border. You're like great, And then polling showed that sixty three percent of Americans blamed Trump and the House
Republicans for the border security bill not getting pad. You know, so that it's like, I think, if you have you know, that is the one sort of tactic that I think would work that I don't see them doing. Always VP did that. She went to Florida, Right, That's where I can do. Somebody needs to be in Florida on May one.
I would go to some red states too, you know, particularly one abortion, because I think that women everywhere in America, even if you're part of the sec you have rights and the re United Stations have your back, and I think that and not the kind of thing that would break through as well. And by it, I think ultimately, you know, part of white Biden will win. It's this decent thing and you like for opportunities for that to
come through. That just work keeps popping up a lot lately, and it's very true of him.
I think that's a really good point and that we have seen more of that. And by the way, every time we see that, when we see like you know, them go aggressive, people in the mainstream media are like, oh, it's like you're running against a guy who wants to end American democracy and.
You're like and so wow, right, it's like, oh Biden wor all this going? You know, Oh this is that we're not used to this from Biden.
It's like we're not used to him wanting to win, so we don't all have to move to Brazil.
I mean, the framing is insane.
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I mean, I know I've been doing only with it for twenty five years, and but you know, I go back and read books just like the Crater White Health bitching about the New York Times, the Kennedy White Health pitching about the cart like some dictator was attacking him in the third world country is like, oh Di's the first work with leaction of posts. You know, the mainstream media liked to beat up on Democrats to prove that they're not really on our side.
Okay, that is what it's about.
Yes, that's what it's about. And that's a really good point. I mean, I was listening to this audio book now I can't find it about how the right loves autocrats because basically the history of the right and autocrats.
It's funny because you know, I had these.
You know, my grandfather was this liberal writer who wrote for the Nation and for a lot of places, went to jail for the House of American Activities. People were mad at him because he was very late to disavow Stalin. I mean, my dad, he was the last living recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize.
Okay, so whoa they were.
Mistakes were made, Mistakes were made, but when you look, I know, not good.
My dad said he founded in the garage. That's amazing was that that he done it. We were in nineteen fifty four. That's late to begin to stall in peace price. Yeah, it's not good.
So anyway, you know, even the times with the Autocrat stuff like, there is a sort of over correction on the part of the mainstream media.
And I think that's a really important point. Yeah.
I remember talking to somebody when I worked for all the way back the network for President Clinton, and they were giving us a really hard time about gas pricess.
The press were and like, what President's going to do to solve it? No?
No, And I was like, I don't know when hw Bush President, I remember you all going on after, you know, work like this, and they're like, because Republicans don't intervene in, they hunt me, and that's what you guys do, so we're gonna be a hard time about it.
And I was like, okay, alright.
I see, like what you know more, you know, it's just sort of revealing why they're harder on Democrats.
That's so interesting.
Yeah, that's how they prove they're not really on our And I think they all big Democrats get help you a way higher standard than Republicans do. Like why why shouldn't they just be on Republicans to solve that problem too. Why is name but disolling on Democrats solve problem?
The Clinton white House. That must have been a complicated job.
It was volatile. It was a volatile place. I loved it. That was kind of like my first family in politics.
I just learned so much and it was such an exciting place to be and it was a sink of so much possibility. Demographs had not been in charge for so long, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton were such banks that made it fun and exciting and thought anything was possible. I mean, we just had obviously like a roller coaster of experience there too. So I mean talk about like I've never had an experience again, even every you know, everything we stained up like downs and downs
of the Clinton white House. It was awesome and every in every sense of network.
He was such a talented politician in a way that Democrats had not had talented politicians like he was. He had this charisma that even though I think of Obama as a kind of gifted orator of which we have not had since and may never have, Clinton had a certain kind of charisma that you just don't associate with Democratic politicians.
Here, like the person at the person I have met, and I thought all things people were like that had that kind of aura, and I came to realize that it's something that is unique to him. But Democrats had not been you know, he got elected in ninety two, the left time my Democrat had been elected with seventy six, and even then the charter people are only there for four years, so it had really you know, have a
sort of an admiration. So it really felt like nobody had been there sixty eight, so no one had any idea what they were doing. But it was a very grilling time and you know, lots of disappointments obviously all around, but like incredible.
When you think about Hillary and sort of like in history what happened there. I mean, it strikes me that the fundamental reason that she lost, besides Jim Comey, is that Democrats felt they had it in the bag. And like we saw that in twenty twenty two, Like when Democrats feel they have it in the bag, they do not happen in the back.
I went into that campaign thinking I was a great choice for communicating this darker because I've been through I've been White House communications darker, I've been through sooo of any things. I knew the Clayton as well, and I was ill prepared, and that I had never worked for a woman, and no one had ever worked for a woman on that scale. And it's not that everyone in sexist, but just the unconscious gender bias that just blew us
away at every turn. You know, there's just something about her I don't like that no one could ever define, or it's just something about her I don't trust, even though when you go through the litany of things I have questions about, from you know, Whitewater to emails, letter's like nothing unprecedented or nothing that someone else hasn't done.
Or nothing that people didn't really explain away. There's all that.
But I think the fundamental problem was it wasn't that Democrats were over confident.
We were very you know, like we were really scared and worried.
It was that no one thought it was possible for him to win, and that kept a lot of people, I think at home when it was just sort of the you know, I could see just all along in the years I've worked for politics, things becoming just pulling, more broken, and people more centical, less people voting, and just kind of the whole game of politics becoming calcified and kind of needed, you know, in some ways needed
to be blown up and revitalized. You know, obviously not in the start of way that it's happened, but I do think now it is, you know, getting revitalized at grassroots level and either will win you know, when this big fight or not. But I think we will win this big fight, and I being beyond twenty four, and then we will come out of this with more people voting, more people running for off It's different kinds of people
running for up. There's more diverse people running for office, and that part of it feels good.
Yeah.
I saw her last night, by the way, and I'm just I don't have to say how brown I am of her, And I just think in history, ellery I mean, in history, she is going to be a just I think she's going to be a very big figure and people appreciate talents that she has, but also what she went through in sixteen and I think that like, yeah, she'll be rightly remembered.
Well exactly and also just super interesting. Thank you so much, Jennifer, Paul Mary and tell us what the podcast is called.
It's called How to Win twenty twenty four, How.
To Win twenty twenty four, and it's you and Claire mccaskell and filled with a lot of really important insight and very modern history that none of us look back to ever.
Because what can I say one thing that will make people feel that you remember, like to hold on too when you're freaked out.
It's like, let me here are the things that beat to hold on to.
Trump's job is harder, which is he has to get people who have never voted for him to vote for him.
Biden's padless easier. He's got people. You need to get people who voted for him before to vote for him again.
Biden's problem it's people don't know enough about him, and he's spending money to solve that problem. And I think you know that will work out. Abortion abortion abortion, man. I thought in twenty two like everyone like I was out on the road and people are like, it's not really bringing through.
It's like, I don't know.
I just talked to three guys with twenty four year old white guys in Pittsburgh with trumpads who said they thought the Democrats were going to win because of abortion. Yeah, help for me, Like it's breaking through Republicans who don't want to support Trump because them Jan sick. Then Democrats win. Democrats know how to win in the battleground state. It's been a long time since Republicans had think about the battleground state. Think about them in eighteen twenty and twenty two.
Democrats the ground game there, like the headlock, faith in that. So those are the four or five things you can hold on to, Okay when you're like wake up at a start in the morning.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you too. I hope you'll come back, please come back.
I love it, love talking with you.
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats, and toe bags to grab. Head to fastpolitics dot com. Jensaki is the host of MSNBC's Inside with Jensaki, former Biden White House Press secretary and author of SayMore Lessons from Work the White House.
In the World. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Jensaki, Thank you, it's so great to be here. One of my favorite commentators out there, Molly.
Oh you're so nice. I am such a fan of yours. I always feel like you're a person where people really like you.
And I also like you. Thank you. I like it.
I like you. There are normal people in this normal I don't know if that's the right word, but like good humans in this business.
I think you're really smart.
And also I was thinking about this because you actually may have been on this podcast when you were still.
In the admin. I was I think I've also done this podcast since I left. Yeah, so that.
You know the problem is because we do nine thousand interviews a week, Jesse and I are.
I was like, just where am I and what am I doing? It's all good, I'm like, Molly, it was really memorable for me?
Was it not all for you?
Kidding? And you won my show a ton of times?
I mean fun Midnight when I asked stravaganzas together, so may.
Yes, and you do a really fun streamer. So now we're going to talk about say more. So, yeah, let's talk about this book. Why did you decide to write this book? What was the sort of thinking behind it?
Sure?
So, when I was leaving the Biden administration, you know, I'd been working in politics and in government for presidents and politicians for twenty years at that point, and you and I both know them this same age. You learn a lot over time, thinks, you make things you wish you would have done differently, things you wish you would
have known. And I was sort of thinking through the prism of my kids are younger than yours, But what do I want to tell my daughter my son too, when they're old enough to have the conversation about the work world, about how to talk to people, about how to have tough conversations. So I just had all these stories and I didn't I didn't want to do it
through the frame of a memoir. I joke that I'm too young for that, but so I'm not kind of like then at this point, this person said this in this meeting and it was so seedy, and you just didn't know about it until now.
Like not my personality.
The people work in the Biden admin tend not to have books like that.
No, it's true, or Obama really, but I really wanted to write a book that was about lessons and things I wish I would have known when I was starting my career.
And so that's what this is. And since I've never written a book before.
The challenge was the structure, right, like how it's a way that's like not chronological, but people can follow it. And it took me some time to really figure that out in a lot of smart people giving me advice on how to do that.
But that's that's the kind of book I wanted to write. Yeah, it's really writing a book.
I just say, I've written a bunch of books and it's always a fucking nightmare.
Like you are literally like how do I do this?
And also now for you know, I can write you two thousand words on almost anything, but now do that you know twenty times?
Is not you say?
I mean, first of all, I am a total book nerd. Like my dream would be just like sit in a hammock or a comfortable chair and like read all day with copy. That's what I'm gonna be doing when I'm ninety. People underestimate how hard it is to write a book. It is hard, and I could talk about probably any issue under the sun until I'm blowing the faith.
I have no shyness about that.
But really articulating and I love to write, but articulating and making it cohesive and clear, I have so much respect for authors.
And I always have, but now even more so. Oh yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I just think that it's tough, and I also think the loneliness of it is really just crushing sometimes.
Yeah yeah, and just kind of thinking, am I making this clear? Is this a story that's accessible? And I want I hope people when they read the book, take away and feel like things are applicable to them.
I mean, whether they're in politics or not.
I mean, I don't think any maga people are buying my book, maybe, but even for people love politics. There's lots of stories about politicians and there people people know, but a lot of things in there are more broadly applicable than that.
And that's what I hope people's takeaway is when they read it. It's opunny because we're both forty five.
I think it's a weird age because you consider yourself to be young ish. Yeah, but you know you're not young because there are people who are twenty years younger who are adults walking around and as hard as a woman. You know, I had this feminist mother, so she spent all her time talking about like how hard it was to be I don't want to say we're middle aged because we still have a little runway.
But very hip Molly. First of all, about aside.
I hate to say something positive here, but it does seem to me like society is a little more interested in us than they were twenty years ago.
I think that's true.
I also think and this is just like as like self benefiting our mutual age. Here, I am a much more comfortable in my own skin. I don't give a fuck about a lot of things. That means I can focus on the things that do matter. And that obviously applies to obvious things like kids and my husband, but it also applies to like friendships and.
Who you surround yourself with. I mean, like you, I'm like not, I hope.
I'm certain there's many people who hate me out there so much trying to underestimate that, but like, I try to have like civil relationships with everybody, right, But it's more about being selective about how you live your life.
Now.
I've actually found and you mentioned people who are in their twenties.
So one of the things I've found, like at forty five, is like I seek out people who are different than me to be friends with. I find that to be most interesting, right, It's like I'm not I'm like, I like it when people are like they have different points of view, they have different life experience, maybe they're different age, and that to me is life giving in a way that is different from when I was like twenty two and you're just like looking for people to.
All be like like you. Yeah, you surround yourself with You're not in the admin anymore.
But that job is a tough job and you were wildly popular in it.
Why thank you? Yeah?
Sorry, but I mean it's a tough question because but it's something I think a lot about because as a feminist and also as a writer, I often wonder why, like you have something about you and in that job you were quite beloved, and that is not an easy job, and most people who have that job are not beloved.
Thank you for that, I would say, I know how I approached the job, and in a weird way. I mean, being in that job during the height of COVID was incredibly challenging in a thout ways. There was a weird benefit of it in that, like my life was so small in the sense that like I was focused on being as prepared as humanly possible every day right, reading everything, consuming everything, and then I would go home and see my kids and my husband. I like barely left the
White House when I was there. And I remember that summer in twenty twenty one where I like, I think I was at a baseball game and people recognized who I was and I was like, are they looking at me? Or like, what's happening me?
I didn't.
I just like kind of lived in what my job was and I hugely benefited.
And this is like I talked about this in the book, but like a lesson you probably have these two. Mollie is like I was the runner up for that job twice, right, and set it obviously either tie.
I think I knew this, yeah, And you know the.
First time I was like relieved because I was like, christ, I don't know how to do that job. And Jay Carney became the press secretary and that was the right choice and he was amazing at the job in all things. The second time, I really really wanted the job and I knew I could do the job. And John Journies, who's a friend and amazing and crush that job and was so good at it, got the job and it was like.
You know, crushing in the moment.
But what I've realized is that like I was as the most prepared the third time around, right because I was a little bit older, a little bit more sure of myself. I had already been the spokesperson at the State Department, so all of these nerdy things about Russia and Ukraine, it's just.
Like I'd lived that.
So I feel, in a weird way lucky that it like didn't work out till the third time.
Yeah, listen, I'm a big fan of rejection.
Like, one of the seminal moments of my career was I wrote this enormous historical novel and a fancy agent said this is going to make your career and then it did not.
Sell, which and like what?
And then I went to an even less good agent and I was like, if I write something, will you and she was like she didn't quite say no.
But it was basically no.
And I was like oh, And you know, I was like twenty four or something, and I was like, oh, this is oh, this part of my career is clearly over.
And thank god it was, because you know, that's not fun.
It's so well. I mean, first of all, you've written a lot of amazing things since then.
So it's like, but I had to start over again, and it was amazing for me.
It's the best thing that ever happened to me.
It can be so good and like life clarifying. And I think sometimes the toughest moments can be that right where you feel like rejected or beaten down or and she you know, it's also a realization. And I write about this in the book too, of like, well, I didn't get the job the second time. I was like, oh my god, all of these people rejected me in your work right house, right, it felt so just like embarrassed. And then I had to go on this trip just because I was still doing my job at the State
Department right with president and the Secretary of State. And I said to my mother, who's a therapist and I write about her a lot in the book, is like, oh my god, how can I go on this trip?
I want to die? Like all these people have been so embarrassed. Yeah, And my mother.
Was like, it takes two to make it awkward, which is so true, right, It's like you just have to go and hold your head high. And she didn't exactly say this, but all I learned from that is like, these people aren't worried about me, they're not rejecting me.
They got a lot of things on their plates. They picked somebody else from the job, who, by the way, was great at it.
So it's it's also good to experience rejection because it brings you down to planet Earth yourself too.
Oh, such a good point. And I really do feel like that myself. And it is like, you know, they're not doing it to you, They're just doing it.
Yeah, it's just happening sometimes. You know.
My mother used to always say when I was growing up, she grew up in Queens, so she always tells me she just like brings us all down to Earth. Is like life is unfair, life is unequal, and life is what you make it.
Which is a pretty simple thing but very true. Well, and it is.
And it's also you know, this idea that it's personalizing rejection. And one of the great things that I've experienced in my career is, you know, I've done a ton, ton ton of freelance writing, and you know, I've had the experience where they're like where you convince an editor to run a piece and then they get the piece and the you they're like we're sorry, or even they just
ghost you. And then I've had the experience where you know, they seem so excited about you and then they get the piece and they're like mah, yeah right, so but it's so good because what it did was it really did make it so I understood that really huge quantities of rejection are just the.
Biz and that I need to just keep going totally, totally, totally, and.
If I had taken every rejection as proof. And by the way, like the other thing which I think is such a like incredible moment that I have understood at forty five is that as I do things more, I get better at them.
Oh for sure, this is you know, it's so interesting and I'm sure you live this too. It is like the other one of the things I talked about a
lot in my book is about feedback. And now it took me a long time, I mean not the turning forty was like some marketing point, although sort of maybe yeah, to really seek aggressively seek feedback from people, in part because I think when I was growing up in politics I mean by growing up, I mean in my twenties and early thirties, and I had a lot of jobs where I was seen as young for the job, right, And so you don't want to almost expose yourself as
somebody who recognizes they're not perfect that the thing they're doing. It's like I can't feedback from people because then I'll expose myself.
Right.
What I've learned is that feedback is what makes you better and once you get over and this is what rejection teaches you.
Once you get over this.
Notion that like we all can always be improving, we're all works in progress, it's super helpful, you know. And if you can create a form for feedback, I mean I go through ebbs and flows of this. But since you know my whole show team, it's like I go through periods of like harassing them for feedback, right, like I wish I would have done it better. Yeah, you know, And it's like every show you think that, and then once you're free of like, oh and it's okay if people like criticize me.
It's very freeing and it's also so helpful.
I mean, Ali Mettali and I were texting because I watch my hits, which which is like so masochistic, But you don't do it because you want to feel bad about yourself.
You do it because you want to see what works and what doesn't. People have to watch their hits. You have to. It's painful, it's so harsh.
But anyway, Yes, I love feedback, and I think it's really helpful and relevant and also important for the experience of getting better at things.
I agree completely one hundred percent. Talk to me.
About like one of the things that when you talk to Democrats, they have a lot of complaints about how Democrats message. Right here, we have this administration has done climate, has done a lot of legislation which is kind of like FDR level stuff right bringing chips and you know, just federal money for medicaid, I mean, stuff that is amazing.
I don't agree that Democrats message badly as much as like it's a war against fake news and news avoidance and people who are But I'm just curious what you think and also like answer this question for me, because this is the thing I've been obsessed with. Country of three hundred and thirty million people more probably like only a couple million read the newspaper.
Well, yes, and I love a good printed newspaper, and like.
Oh school, In this way, it's like when I'm on a long flight, not with my kids. I love to have one with me. Right.
The circulation of these newspapers, if people saw the numbers would shock them.
They are tiny, even cable news.
Would you and I both passionately love It's not a huge group, but.
Much bigger than newspapers. Yeah, this right, It's true. There's a couple of things at play in this moment.
One of them is the biggest political story in a presidential election year is the presidential election, right, And one of the candidates is sitting in a courthouse because in only one of his criminal trials. People can criticize coverage of that, too much coverage.
All of that. It's a debate to be had.
But it's also a historic moment now that is clouding out the sun of any Biden storyline because it's a historic moment for the bad right. And that's a challenge if you're sitting in the White House. This is not a normal time where it's like Mitt Romney and Barack Obama getting equal time to debate their social security plans.
That the world we're living in, right, So that's a reality. Now.
What I think is also true is that what the campaign is doing, and I don't see all of this is trying to meet people where they are right by doing a lot of digital organizing, by doing a lot of paid media.
What the impact of that will be, we won't know till November, but that is how you break.
Through the clouds in some ways. What I also think though is true, which is a warranted criticism. I think it's a little overtrqued. Still, I have actually somebody sent me a mug that was NACP not a comms problem. Say this all the time. It's like people would be like when I was in the Obama administration, people say that about like Syria.
I'm like, no, it's it's not like it's like a brutal civil war, right.
But it's a brutal civil war. It is a not comms problem, and that does happen. But what I also think democrats not every there are certainly exceptions to this could be better at it's speaking in a way that is accessible English. I actually read a whole chapter in my book about this because it's like democrats.
One of the reasons I love democrats. They're like intellectual nerds. You know what I mean. You and I are nerds too. We are very much it's all.
Relative, right, like cooler than maybe the average nerd, but democratic nerd, I don't know, maybe not convinced.
I have a C Span sweatshirt. I would have one if they would get when I wear it. But like it's really good. I mean, but it's so good. I love PBS anyway.
But sometimes Democrats speak in a way that is so intellectually elite.
It's not. And I'm not saying dumb it down.
I don't think the American public is stupid, but like speak in a way that like there's an entry point for people, right, I mean, like, and this is something actually that I think is a superpower of Joe Biden. I don't think he's like going to go down in history as like the number one orator of presidents, but I do think he speaks in a way that is accessible and that's important. And sometimes the people are like out there, like well the squad and the Paris climate agreements.
Like people are like, what are you talking about? I'm living my leg here.
And that's an important lesson I think to learn that Democrats could improve upon.
Yeah, no, I think that's the right answer. And again there are some things that are just real things in the world, like the carnage in Syria, and they are not Tom's problems.
They are like actual humanitarian crisises. So I thought that was a really important point. Thank you, Jensaki. Oh my gosh, Molly, I'm such a super fan of yours.
I always look to see what you write, so thank you.
Jason Stanley is a philosopher and professor at Yale, as well as the.
Author of How Fascism Works.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, my buddy, Jason Stanley.
Thanks so much, Molly. Great to be in conversation with you.
I'm so happy to have you, fancy Yale professor. Before we started we were just.
Talking about You were like, what are we going to talk about?
I was like, the death of American democracy, the hopefully not death of American democracy. But you were saying. Putin was selling your new book discuss.
So Putin just said, wars are won by teachers, And my new book is called Erasing History, how fascists rewrite the past to control the future. And it's about when you're trying to establish authoritarianism, you really want to attack the schools, you really want to delegitimate democratic education. You want to delegitimate any narrative that speaks against the glory of your country. You want to erase all the history of the past crimes of your country. So people think
your country is innocent. They think it's innocent and great, and they think that anything you do that might be anti democratic is justified by this glorious innocent history.
You know, you specialize in reconstruction. That was what you wrote your thesis on, right, or those sort of larger post Civil War America.
Right. No, I specialize in philosophy language, right, But you.
Have this other profound interest in reconstruction. And one of your thesises, which I think is a really strong and important one, is that we've had many moments in American history where the country has had the opportunity to become a multi racial democracy and has been unwilling or unable to do that, and one of those moments was reconstruction.
Oh.
Absolutely, it's an existential moment to be thinking of. I specialize in two things, philosophy of language and epistemology, and it's my work in epistemology that leads me to think about how these barriers to knowledge affect politics. So pistemology is the study of knowledge, and I'm interested in the study of barriers to knowledge and how they're strategically used. So,
of course, most Black Americans vote for Democrats nowadays. So if you are strategically trying to delegitimize votes for the Democratic Party, you're going to try to delegitimize black votes, especially black votes in cities and majority Democratic cities.
And we're seeing that history return.
When Trump talked about errupt cities, he was t like Atlanta and Philadelphia. He's talking about cities with large black populations. Detroit often majority black populations. And that was precisely the reason that was given to end reconstruction. That was precisely the reason given to say we need the Ku Klux Klan to shut down voters in the South because black politicians are corrupt.
Do you think that is a fear of black power. It's a fear of black power and equality, Black equality, yees.
Overall, we see this. We see this for example in India, any movements for equality are treated as attempts to take over the country. I mean, we don't need to go to India. We can just ask any woman in the world what people say, how is men's reaction to your claim that you'd eat greater equality.
Oh, the feminists are taking over, right, that's a really good point.
It's that impulse in humans that patriarchy is the first ideology. Any attempt for women's equality seems like an attempt to take over. But just take that and put it through every dominant group. You find the sort of cultural representation of Black Americans and political representation that gets treated as a threat for white Americans.
Right, So I think that's really interesting. So now sort of thread the needle to sort of where we are.
Right now, we have.
A fascist social and political movement that has many components. A fascist social and political movement can only win if it's supported by many different groups that don't view themselves as fascist. They just view democracy as, you know, the worst alternative given their goals. So suppose, now, you know, to take a very salient example, you're a pro Netta Yahoo Zionist. You might think, Okay, I don't really care
about American democracy. What I really care about is making sure that no matter what Netan Yahoo does, he gets unqualified, unconditioned support whatever happens with American democracy. Then you know you're going to strategically vote or take you know, abortions. Suppose all you care about is making abortion illegal atocracy. Those okay, but more importantly, we have to make sure there are no abortions in the United States. You might not consider yourself a fascist, but you're going to vote
for the fascist party. So what we have in the United States is we have, as it were, a broad tent political party, the Republicans, that appeal to multiple factions. They appeal to white supremacists, they appeal to anti abortion advocates, they appeal to male supremacists, they appeal to ethnonationalists of various kinds christian nu and then there's the overarching appeal of a macho leader whom the rules don't apply to.
What we have now is we have a kind of classic mid century fascist formation with an actual cult of the leader, which unifies various longstanding elements and threads in the American right. And that, of course is a long standing danger. I mean European fascist parties only one because social conservatives started voting for them, so observatives that well, better these guys than the social democrats.
Right right, So how does this sort of steep ban in flood the zone with shit crue factor into those.
They're undermining any kind of way of.
Tracking reality, right, So you just you and of course you know anytime when you have these interest groups, you know, different interests groups representing different goals, then it's easier to do because each of those interest groups is going to be like, I don't really care about truth as long as I get my goal fulfill. So now you're getting Most recently, we have these protests on campus that are being represented as violent riots. That benefits one group that
just wants to attack universities. The same went out your critical race theory, gender ideology. They don't care about anything other than attacking and delegitimizing universities.
As JD. Van said, the professors are the enemy.
So this kind of all out attack on any institution that you want to delegitimate is part of the flooding the zone with shit strategy. And since all you care about is smearing institutions that you don't like, then the truth doesn't matter. Think of the campaign against quote unquote welfare called anything you didn't like welfare and people turned against them. So this is kind of the strategy to get to direct people's attitudes to create negative attitudes among
people towards institutions you want to delegitimize. You connect the those institutions, say the Democratic Party with Hamas, it's a terrorist organization. You say, oh, the Democrats really are Hamas, And it's like there's no factuality there.
But it works for the narrative that you want. It works in creating us, this very extreme us them narrative.
Right, if Trump loses again, right, this he'll have lost in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty twenty two. If he loses again, does this start to go away?
Well?
Trump had a unique ability that I think he's losing that enact with his supporters. He had what Max Weber called charismatic authority. Seeing his latest speeches, he seems to be losing that. Actually, he seems to be losing the kind of thing, but in a very different way that Barack Obama had.
Bizarro Obama Bizarro right exactly? Tisaroa.
I mean, so you need you know, as we saw from Ron DeSantis, a politician with zero charisma who's just a mean guy, can't really do that. Trump is an unusual figure. It's hard to predict whether you could have such a character person come and sort of get Americans. I mean I found I used to find Trump funny, right.
No, of course, I mean that's the secret of Trump.
I mean that's like Mussolini, right, Mussolini came to power because people sort of thought he was funny.
Yeah, and Mussolini had a kind of complete clownish funniness. Trumps sort of varies between accurate and you know, the system is broken and this kind of outlawsh sensibility that Mussolini has as well, So to get people unified behind that and this really macho patriarchal strutting thing, which is, you know, patriarchy always appeals. You need that kind of leader for a cult of the leader. However, this coalition that we're seeing between the old Right, it unifies traditional
religious conservatives across many religions, Jewish people, Christians. Not seeing an increasing pro Trump Muslim vote.
That's insane. Like the guy had a Muslim ban, Yeah you saw.
I believe Michael Flynn visited a Detroit's majority Detroit city recently or last year or two by invitation. Because you have conservative sides of religions, patriarchy can appeal to them, antioy sentiment can appeal to them. So, and we forget that Muslims were Republican voting block before nine to eleven. So you get that aspect that we call the old right,
you know, the social conservatives. And then you get the billionaire class who just wants they don't want regulations, Democracy limits them, so they want to get away with democracy. They don't want to be regulated, So the billionaire is supporting this. Then you get Christian nationalists, the sort of hard edge of the social conservatives, who are like, this is a Christian country, immigrants are going to ruin us.
And then you.
Get, you know, people with just these very specific interests like both anti Semites I think right.
Right and religious Jews I mean exactly. Yeah, how is that a coalition? Oh oh, my colleague el Yahustern has talked about that.
I mean, one of the main rabbis in Germany in nineteen thirty five said Hitler will be our ally in the war against intermarriage.
Right.
Wow, we can't forget that Hitler's enemy was not religious Jews in the first instance, very clear, his enemy was Jewish people who looked like everyone else. The idea was Jews were infiltrating German society and they were infiltrating in a way that you couldn't tell who was Jewish and who wasn't. They were marrying Aryan women and polluting their blood, and they were taking over the press and infecting it
with Marxism and communists. His enemies were leftists Jews. You had Jewish people religious Jews in Europe thinking Stalin was the greater threat. Of course, Stalin was a monster.
Right didn't have the death camps for Jews.
Also, I would like to point out that in the other episode that is going to air on this episode today, I did, in fact talk about how my grandfather won the Stalin Peace Prize and was late to disavouse Stalin. He was the last recipient of it while Stalin was still alive. So, you know, Stalin was a lot of things, but he was nice to some Jews.
Well, there's a story that my family tells because when my grandparents had to decide whether to flee when the Malta of Rode Bribent trop packed when they split Poland, my grandparents had to decide whether to go east towards USSR or sort of west towards Germany. And my grandfather said, Hitler hates the Jews. Stalin hates everyone, bet or not to be singled out.
It's true.
There's no endorsement here of any foreign dictator now deceased.
Yes, but Dalin killed just as many people as Hitler. He hated everyone, and.
Grandpa did, in the end admit he was wrong about Stalin, which for Grandpa to admit he was wrong about something me and you really knew he was wrong about Stalin. So I do think though, was a really good point. We're six months from this election, and it really is if Trump wins, it's over.
It's over. Yeah.
I mean, he explicitly tells you who he admires, and those are the people who only have sham elections like they just had in Russia. And that's what he wants here. He's very explicit, that's what he wants here. You're already seeing the sort of group, very now effective group behind him, the Heritage Foundation. You're seeing publications like the American Conservative endorse Trump for twenty twenty eight talking about how you know, the two term rule is just as anti democratic, right.
So we're already seeing the brain trust, the new brain trust. What we the difference now is that there is a whole fascist intellectual cadre behind Trump now, the Claremont Institute, Heritage Foundation, and they're completely organizing what a new authoritarian society will look like in American authoritarian society. Trump is not the mastermind there. Trump will allow it through all
these changes. It's an interest convergence, and then you know you're going to have minority rule rule by the far right for the rest of America's existence.
Right until there's some other thing that is expensive and possibly terrifying. One of the things that Trump wild has started doing very effectively, I think, and effectively.
Again, we don't know how effective it is until the election.
But so Biden made a real point, and I think it was the right point of how democracy is on the line, and so you see Trump as pushing back. No, it's Biden who wants to end American democracy. He just sort of the significance of that.
Well, that's just a standard. That's what I would do if I was advising Trump, and he's advising himself on there. He's got great instincts. You deflate any accusation. You know, there's an old cliche, every accusation is a confession. That's what we're seeing here. Trump very early On fastened on this seat very early on said okay, let's make this a fight about democracy.
I can do that because he's very good at reversing things. Remember crooked Hillary, who was the one I'm not saying. You know, the system wasn't crooked and corrupted. It is.
We shouldn't have presidents leaving office with one hundred million dollars, which we do too often. But you know, Trump is clearly the more explicitly a corrupt one of that duo. So this is a reversal. This is a pro projection. It's meant to confuse people and deflate the charges that are aimed at him. He's trying to take these criminal charges against him that are instances of the rule of law and represent them as really ways Biden is trying to undermine him politically.
We know that's not true. We know that these are criminal charges.
And of course it's not that surprising that Donald Trump faces criminal chartists. We New Yorkers know, right right, It's a standard propagandistic technique to project to take the accusations made against you and reverse them, and it leaves people confused, and so it deflates the power of the accusation.
So interesting.
Jason Stanley, can you please come back, of course anytime.
I love to be in conversation with you. No moment, Jesse Cannon, my joining Fast. Some people predicted that this Trump trial would be boring. I think not.
Trump is mad about the Stormy Daniels testimony. Different parts of it annoy him, though. I think the thing that got him upset was the recounting of their sexual activity and also other stuff. But either way, Stormy Daniels has made Trump completely crazy and now he is saying that he must have a mistrial.
And the judge said to that that they should have done more objections during the trial, which is sure to make Trump blow a gasket. Yeah that's good.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.