Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Vice President Harris has raised so much money that she's giving twenty five million dollars to down ballid candidates. We have such a great show for you today Bolts Magazine Daniel Nickanean tells us about how many local government legal battles will affect the upcoming election.
Then we'll talk to Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth about how to create a college campus that is both safe and also political. But first we have legendary campaign manager, my friend, the author of the Conspiracy to End America Five ways my old party is driving our democracy to autocracy, the Lincoln Projects, Stuart Stevens. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics. That one the only Stuart Stevens.
Thanks for after me to the party.
Molly, I'm such a fan of yours.
But more importantly than being a fan of yours, I think you are a realist.
You know.
I was telling my brother this on the phone and he was getting really bored. But I thought it was a good point, which is that there is a certain sense in which the hive mind of punditry. Political punditry feeds off itself and comes up with some dumb ideas, and I feel like you don't ever get stuck in that.
I think that the greatest danger on the Trump moment is the way in which he has normalized so much that we normally wouldn't accept right. And I think that there is this deeply human need to see the world as normal, to see people as normal. We even have a language that talks about that. You know they'll revert to normal, And there is a desire to look at
this race sort of like Romney Obama. It's gonna let's talk about taxes, let's talk about economy, let's talk about which I find to be sort of like a debate on your cholesterol count when you're in the middle of a knife fight. Not that the cholestical count is an unemployment, but maybe there's something more important going on. And I think that it's difficult to keep framing the race and the choice that it means, but I think it's really
critically important that we do. That Trump is just gauged by a different standard now, and he's allowed the party to be gauged by a different standard. Now, and I think that that historically is a very dangerous path to go down, the way autocrats use the benefits of democracy like free speech to end those benefits. So I think it's just really important to constantly try to frame the
race for what it is. I think it's really more beholden upon those who are outside the Harris Waltz campaign to do that, because when you're inside the Hair Walts campaign, you can't be waking up every day and saying, my opponent wants to ruin America, my opponent wants to It just doesn't work. You have to be able to reach people where they are and all of them. But I think that's why it's important for everybody else who believes that to be saying it consistently and loudly and clearly.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good point. And again, like this is the question of, like, how do you keep American democracy going when one party fundamentally no longer believes in it.
I mean, I don't know.
I don't think that the Republican Party is a normal traditional American party. I think it's become an extremist movement. That's how we should and no extremist movement ends because a moderating element within the extremist movement emerges dominated. It wasn't like the moderates inside the Red Guard finally ended it, you know, or the moderates inside like the Shining Path, decided well, yes, it's gone too far. The party is
not going to save itself. The party is invested upon having a unified front that would help them eat to deny what they have become. And when you look at those who say no, they are expelled from the party. I mean, this goes back to twenty sixteen when Romney called out Trump. I think it's fair to say that amit thought the more people would join him. Yeah, And of course they finally did with the Access Hollywood tape, But then they reversed themselves. There is nothing within the
Republican Party that's going to save itself. I mean, if you think about it, what line can you cross that is worse than sending a mob into your office to try to kill you. Do you accept that?
What do you think?
You go, Oh, well, they went too far in the law of the Seat treaty.
I can't go there. It is a complete collapse of a party. And that's why I don't think this race is going to be particularly close.
I hope it's not. But tell us why you think that.
Well, I think the structure of this race is is pretty sent. Trump has never gotten north to forty seven percent. He won with forty six point two percent. Romney lost with forty seven point two percent, He lost in twenty with forty six point nine percent. And even at the worst of after the terrible debate that the president had. It was a lot of people saw that debate and had doubts about Biden but didn't become Trump voters. And Trump has this self limiting ceiling of around forty seven percent.
Campaigns can deal with that, and the campaign understands that they're not stupid. So if you read the speech that was written for Trump to give, it was an effort to try to expand that base. But then you look at what Trump give. He couldn't stay on the speech for ten minutes. I mean, you could write a dissertation about those two different texts. And they know that they're theory of the cases, that there's a winning set of issues immigration, prime inflation, that they can win this racehome.
They're going to win on policy.
Donald Trump is going to win the presidency on policy right.
I don't buy that because when I look at the numbers, I don't see immigration as a number one issue from the majority of the country at all. I see it as one issue of people who are supporting Trump. But even if you believed in that, and so, how do you do that. You have to have message discipline, have to wake up every day. You know. Famously, when Bill Well ran and got elected the first Republican governor of Massachusetts in over twenty years, he talked about crime welfare taxes everywhere?
What crime welfare taxes.
Trump can't do that because he can't stay to any message, and he can't not respond to any slight and he can't let anything go. So that makes a very easily manipulable, vulnerable candidate. So if you just take this back and forth about Arlington Cemetery, any singing campaign would let us go and.
Move back because it's a bad luck. It's, among other.
Things, it's just if you think you've got something out of it, you got it, you're not going to talking about it, You're not going to get more out of it. And when you're the one thing a campaign can control. The three three things campaigns can control what you say, where and how you spend money and where you go.
And all the bullshit about campaigns, all the fault of war, what they really say, all the spend you really cut through when you look at what they are saying, where they're spending money, how they're spending it, and where they're going. So where is it in a recent expenditure of thirty seven million that they put on advertising, they put twenty
three million into Georgia. That's what they think. They know that they're now back to having to defend the state that a couple of months ago they thought was a gimmee. And compared to the PRIs campaign, their Reproductive Freedom tour, bus tour, fifty stop tour. Where does it begin? Right down the floor at Florida. Yeah, and then they're going to Jacksonville. That is a campaign that is expanding the map, that is making an other campaign spend money from where
they didn't think it was going to be. And it really shows who is driving the agenda.
Yeah, that's really important and I think relevant and also just interesting. So here's my question for you, why do we think that, Like, for example, Trump last week was like I'm going to get every man, woman, and child at IVF okay IVF tens of thousands of dollars. Donald Trump tried to overturn Obamacare. Like, why doesn't anyone ever bring up in the policy that Donald Trump tried to enact during his four years as president?
Well, I mean, I think I think everybody think the Harris campaign should. I'll tell you who is asking that question, and that was any any abortion moves who were like, what you know, what the fuck are you doing here?
When Trump is talking about idea, it doesn't matter what he says.
He's losing. This is a losing issue for him. He had shut up about it. It's same on abortion. He's now flip flopping around about abortion. So instead of spending time talking about these issues immigration, crime, inflation that he thinks he can win, he's over here saying, look, I'm gonna we're gonna have mandatory idea require nobody believed.
But it also runs contrary to this embryonic personhood that his party is super obsessed with.
It's why attorneys remind clients they have the right to remain silent. You don't have to keep saying this inside that campaign.
He drives them crazy.
I promise you you've already got Corey Lewandowski. You've got Chris Losovita is working for Corey Lewandowski.
Really you're really doing that, you know, I mean it's come to that a guy like Corey Landowski and the you and I used to just mock a guy who, you know, part time puddle cop.
Who couldn't even get a full time a cop. Andy Sure, he's most known in politics for a guy. When he was working for the Nanfra State Party, he debated a cardboard cutout as a Democratic good theatorial candidate, and the consensus was to cut out Onewhelmingly. You know, we never would left these people in the campaigns. He's a thug, he hates women, assaulted reporters, but he charged with that so much of Trump World. Do you rise in Trump World by flattering Trump?
Right?
So what does that mean? It means whatever he does. You have to say, that's great. You can't coach that way. You can't have a play or run some crazy route that's way off targeted. When they talked off to the sidelines the coach, So that was great, that's great. I don't know what happened to the quarterback. You should you know. It's instead of like, well, don't do that. This is what you're supposed to be doing. We can't do that
because you get expelled from Trump world. And it's why there are no serious people around Trump and it greatly limits your ability to really run a campaign as opposed to just go out in public in a moat.
And that's really what Trump is doing.
Now, what do you think about this? There's sort of their strategy is they're kind of just getting mad a little bit.
I mean, you know, he's doing a few rallies.
I mean, and then they think that the debate will change everything for Trump.
How would that even work?
Yeah, you have to say, debates rarely matter. It didn't matter and Trump button. So I suppose you could sit there and talk to yourself that it's going to happen again. The problem is every other debate Trump had he lost.
Yeah, it didn't go.
Up after any debates with Clinton, go up after the Biden debate. If I was in the Harris debate prep, I would say, look this it's just very very simple, and this debate can be about a lot of things, like all debates are, but we have to decide what this debate is going to be about, and what this debate should be about is prosecuting Donald Trump.
Play to your strength.
A lot of political consulting is grasping what a Canada does best and reinforcing that so they take what they do well and may help them do it great and just let make sure what they don't do well, they don't do it badly enough to the cost them the race. And so she's a great prosecutor. I mean, I would say, in the old Ning statement, this has never happened before in American history. A kreparent is on stage. Fortunately there's a prosecutor on stage.
That's me.
In the course of this debate, I'm going to show you what Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States and wise a danger to the American experiment. I would just prosecute the most aggressive candidate usually win the debate, and I think it would drive Trump crazy.
Do you think she'll do that?
I mean, she's been very smart about doing things that fight the world didn't necessarily have the stomach for, but was the right way to meet Trump where he is. Do you think she'll do that?
I think that. You know, candidates tend to like to do what they do well.
Like athletes, fastball pitchers like to throw fast balls, so I think she'll do more of it than not. The danger in debates is always going into him with either having not really felt through the goals or going in with too many goals. I think you can go into a debate with two or three goals and that's it in this dynamic. I think it has been true from the very beginning. I think it was two with Biden.
The essential goal that the Democratic candidate now Harris has to accomplish this That person has to represent the future, and I think Biden had a chance to do that. Because of this policy, Harris has a better chance to do that and to be the safer choice. I have to make Trump a dangerous choice, and I think that that's easy to do. I think the simplest way to do it is to say it, don't be complicated. Voting mac Donald Trump is dangerous. We know what he has done,
but we don't know what he will do. Whatever the next time is going to be worse. The history of authoritarians becoming less authoritarian in office is non existent.
I don't want to laugh because it's so serious, but it is true.
And you don't want to make it a necessity to vote for Harris that you buy into all of her proposed You may not agree with some of her proposals, That's okay. I mean, this is what Jeff Junkin and Adam Keinzinger were saying. You don't not to agree with everything, but what you have to do is agree on a few basics that we must defend in the selection, like rule of law right.
And then also it creates a permission structure for Republicans to vote for her.
The one essential element of a democracy is someone has to be willing to lose, and Donald Trump has proven that he's unwilling to lose. You can't have a democracy. Then, I think that Harris should be just unrelenting in the debate and not worry about mocking him, not worry about baiting him, Just go at them. She has a very good feel for this, and I think she's going to do really well.
Do you think Trump just sort of keeps sleepwalking into this now? I mean, do you think there's a way for his people to reset the campaign when he seems so sort of bored with running for president?
Yeah, he does seed border he's done it. Three times now. I mean, yeah, he's basically run for president almost now as long as he's been married to one person and doesn't have a great track record, Trump won't allow the campaign to be about anything but Trump, And it's just a reality of it. He's uncoachable and he's not going to follow any directions. And by bringing in Corey Lewandalski,
you're just reinforcing that. He really brought Cory Lewandalski because he was tired of arguing with Susie Wiles and Chris Osceovido. So now he's just going to put Corey Daron. Corey's going to tell him the shadow and he can go
out and do what he wants to do. I think that Trump is going to become increasingly desperate because at a certain point it is going to occur to him that he is going to lose this race, and that that means he probably will go to jail desperate Canada, like desperate people are usually at their most unappealing.
It just is so crazy to me that we have a race where it's basically one person is running his day out of jail.
It's so insane.
We have a convicted felon, so so think about it. You're a Republican in twenty sixteen. You start out with, ah, no, no, I can't really swallow Hillary Clinton. Let's give this guy a chance. And then what do you end up? You end up defending a sexual predator who's a convicted felon.
It's been impeached twice.
Has been in peach twice, he says, any won't recognize the results of the election.
Just insane.
It just shows why character does count and the party just prove that it didn't believe in anything. I don't know any other conclusion to come to power.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was so important.
Thank you, Bally.
We have even more towor dates for you. Did you know the linked projects Rick wils that have fast politics Bali jug Faster out on tour to bring you a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest. We'll be at the Bavarium in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September and on the twenty second, we'll be in
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Daniel mccanean is the editor of Bolts Magazine. Welcome back, too Fast Politics, Daniel.
It's great to join you. It's always fine.
I always think of you as like the guy who knows local because you're the editor of Boltz Magazine and Bolts does a lot of really important local election stuff, which doesn't get a lot of coverage because we're in the post post post news apocalypse.
And there's so much to track and watch right now and in the next two months.
Obviously, Yeah, I want.
To talk about Florida, the school boards, et cetera. There were these Florida primaries that didn't get a ton of notice, but they did in fact involve a bunch of America first school board candidates, and then now some of them have advanced. These are not school board candidates, obviously, these are other elected officials or elections have advanced to the general right.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, well, I think what's important context is that the governor of Florida, you know, obviously the very conservative round the Santas has pursued it in recent years. You know, he's really wanted to leave a deep mark on the state, to transform the state, take it very far to the right, and for him, that has taken the road of being very intentional about going after county level offices all over
the state. So you're mentioning school boards, but it's not just that, it's also election officials, it's also DA's It is also shriffs and so on, And that's not something we always see from a governor. Obviously governors have levels of but the centers have been particularly intentional about it. So one way this has to taken form in recent
years is the school boards. As you mentioned obviously the months for liberty groups, the conservative groups that are trying to take more Florida's school boards have been very active in Florida. That that's the state where the Santis has also signed a lot of laws that affect what's going on in schools and with book bands and so on. And he endorsed a bunch of candidates running for school board all around the.
State really and a lot of them lost.
A lot of them lost on August twentieth in the primary. Yes, and he was hoping to take over a bunch of swing county school boards and that didn't work out in some places, it did. You know, I would say it's a mixed message, and in some places that are very conservative, it goes a long way to have the centus say please work for this person. But also, Mollly, i think
it's very important to pay attention to other offices. So you know, maybe one of the craziest thing that's happening in American politics right now is that the Centus over the past few years has just removed elected officials from office.
Yeah, we've had people like that on the podcast.
Yeah, so that, for instance, he's removed the Democrats who were elected prosecutors in Tampa and Orlando, you know, very big areas, effectively over not agreeing with them. He didn't like that prosecutor in Tampa had said he wouldn't prosecute wortioning cases, and so he removed him from office. One thing we're watching at Bolt is these people now are
trying to make a comeback. So the prosecutor in Tampa one is primary in August and now is going after this incumbent prosecute who was appointed by dissentists who replace them. But you know what's super odd is what does it even mean to run for office in our circumstances? Like when are you going to be removed? Again? Is that what elections look like in America?
Now?
It's just a very odd, very odd situation.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good point. It is so anti democratic that you could like run for something be removed by a MAGA governor. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. So Nebraska has some stuff going on with redistricting and making it harder to vote, and there's been a lot of like Nebraska facrory because of that one electoral college vote that they have talk to me about what's happening there at the state level.
I mean, this is really the time of year where you have to pay attention to, like with themening the state officials honor the radar, because that's really what everyone like, that's really what's going to decide, you know, the actual
details of the close elections. And there's really a very extreme situation unfolding in Nebraska right now that everyone should be aware of, which is is so Nebraska has laws that allow people who have finished their felony convictions to get their voting rights restored, and there was a new law passed by Republicans actually that expanded that bit to
make it a little easier. And now suddenly over the summer, two statewide elected officials Republicans, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State of Nebraska, abruptly, surprisingly, unexpectedly announced that the laws should stop being enforced, that officials who register people to vote shouldn't stop doing that, and that has thrown the voting rights of tens of thousands of people in limbo, even people who were already registered to vote
based on existing law that was in effect for twenty years. Even they are now suddenly in this limbo of wait, do I have the route to vote? What has happened? The state is now suddenly saying I don't, even though the law says that. And that's frightening for people who have been involved with them criminal legal system already, and the last thing they want is to suddenly do something potentially legal and be thrown back in prison or be
thrown back in front of a court. So our reporter Alex Bernest talked to people who are affected in Nebraska. We have an article on this on our website, and a lot of them told them, listen, I don't know what's right or wrong here, but I can't take a risk. I'm too frightened. And they're speaking to other people in this situation and that that's what we're hearing. So this is a very, very shocking situation. There was a court case a few days ago where the States Swim court
at least heard the case. But you know, in many ways, the damage is done. Even if the state smime Court steps in in a week or two and says, which this is insane, but these will have the right to vote because law says that in many ways the harm is done, the pr issue, the confusion, the fear is going to remain. And you absolutely right that the Omaha, which is obviously a city in Nebraska, they have an electoral vote that just effectively omahas and that's super important
for the presidential race. There's also a key race for the US House in Nebraska that we are all watching, so this is very important.
Yeah, there is some thought that the House Republicans are in so much trouble, and again this is a theory of the case, maybe not correct. The House Republicans are in so much trouble. They are no longer doing offense, they're doing defense. And there is some money issues. Democrats have more money, though Republicans have superpacks that are not necessarily being counted. Right today, there's been just a ton of media about ad bys and like, well, it shows
that Democrats are buying more than Republicans. A lot of the Republican pack stuff is not in those numbers, right right.
You know, everyone has a lot of money or Republican packs have a ton of money. They've obviously used it in the past in all these races, and you know a place like Omahai is going to see a lot of spending for the house rates for the presidential race. It's also very hard in this time of any campaign, any cy goal to trust. Everyone wants more money, and the leak stories about not having enough money for to create a sense of urgency. It's hartunallyxactly what's going on
at that level. But yeah, a lot of dark money obviously everywhere. There's also a lot of money now that's flowing in judge races across the country. There was just an announcement a few days ago by a Conservative pact about the money that they're going to pure into state judge races, which are also very important.
Yeah, I want you to talk to our listeners about what you think are the races that people are not covering that seem important.
Let's jump into Yeah, that's one, yeah, yeah, yeah. State Supreme court races are super important. The courts are super important, so under the radar. I think they're ten percent left under the radar since stops because they will we shoot important decisions. Auction rights which have made them more salient.
But you know, let's start with Michigan. Michigan is obviously the key swing state for the presidential race, but it also is one of the states where the part is then majority on the State Supreme Court is at issue in this fall, and obviously that's super important. There's a four to three majority right now for Democrats on the court and two seats are at play in November, and that could swing one way or the other. You know.
As one example, just a few weeks ago, the state Supreme Court issued a super important decision on a four to three vote that said lawmakers can trust immediately ignore the results of a ballot initiative. And that was a four to three decision. So that was at the same time a win for the people who want bad initiatives to have authority, to have power. It was also molly a very stark reminder of the fact that these decisions come down to very narrow majorities in state Supreme Court
and that itself is up to voters. Another state that where the majority could flip on paper is Ohio. Ohio just has a four to three majority on the court right now for Republicans and Democrats have a shot if they have a very election night at flipping the Ohio Supreme Court. You know, it seems like a stretch. Ohio has become a difficult state for Democrats, but the rewards for Democrats in terms of being able to break the Republican gerrymander would be so huge if they manage to
flip the court. And I'll also flag maybe to end, there's four judges in Florida and Arizona that have just recently this spring voted to allow abortion bands that are up for retention this year. So that's two in Arizona and two in Florida, all of which issued extremely high profile or abortion decisions upholding abortion bands and are now
on the ballot. There just isn't a lot of attention to these retention races that I'm going to imagine that a lot of people who are listening to this, who care about abortion rights and maybe are in these states, have not heard about these state supreme courts we are on the ballot. So there's just like an attention deficit around these races.
Can you explain to me how they work these states supreme court races?
That's a hard question because then terry dependent on the state. In some places, it's an election like any other. It's an election where you know there's a Democratic Republican. In some states, the party labels don't show up on the ballot, so people need to do a little more research to have their vote aligned with what they want. And then in places like Florida or Arizona, it's just a yes or no question, do you want to retain this Supreme
Court justice. So in Arizona, for instance, if the justices were not retained by voters, then the governor would appoint new justices. And the governor in Arizona right now is Democrat. You know what's really crazy, though, there's also a referendum on the ballot and Arizona in November that Republicans have put that would cancel judge elections, and it would apply to the November vote.
Oh, judge elections do people? That seems insane.
What's particularly extreme again is it would apply to the campaigns that would have just ended. So let's say a judge is not retained that day, but voters also passed this measure, it would cancel the fact that the judge
was not retained. Again, this is a referendum that would cancel from now on all judge elections, effectively giving them life tenure without any check, which, you know, you could argue whether or not be like that as a system, but the way way in which is being proposed with something else.
It's kind of crazy, right. I mean, the sort of larger framing is that these red legislatures have kind of taken trump Ism as an excuse to just do every crazy thing they've thought of. Ultimately, this is like it feels like there's sort of this like you know, going out of business fire sale, and they're just throwing everything they can against Wall.
We could just talk about Arizona for a long time as the emple of lost a worth you're saying. They was the proposal in Arizona a bill, an actual bill in early twenty twenty four that would have just given the state's electoral votes to Trump with no votes being cast. That bill did not past, but someone who's currently into the legislature introduced it and what wanted to see it pass then, and it was actually heard in the legislature. The fact that that didn't pass, I guess is good
means for democracy. But just the very fact we even having that conversation.
But it's crazy. It's a purple stay right.
The venue having that conversation just captures and Molly, the person who introduced the bill at a primary a month ago and won the primary, the Republican primary. So it's not like voters were like appalled Appaufman enough to do anything about it. So adepts of proposals we're saying, we're seeing in some places right now in the world. Where Trump loses the election in November, we could see more of that after that.
Right, there is a sense that if Trump keeps losing and again this is this fundamental problem, if Trump keeps losing, eventually maybe Republicans rethink this.
Right, I guess we shall see if you lose this. I mean, at the moment, what's happening is that conservatives who are aligned with Trump and with lives about elections are making progress still in the Republican primary, like we're talking about Florida and Ares. In both states, there's a bunch of people who just say that the election was robbed in twenty twenty, you know, echoing the lives of President Trump. We're advancing to the general election for election
offices in twenty twenty six. I mean, you know, it's a long time off. Let's not talk about it entirely now, but it's possible that come the fall of twenty twenty six will be in a situation where, even if Trump is in an office, the people who have echoed these these false conspiracy theories about elections are going to be
even more entrenched in the trenches. And that's something that is important to pay attention now because in these places the elections to decide whether they'll be in power are also happening right now.
It's not good.
It's not good if you are someone listening to this, where can you get the most bang for your book donation wise?
Well, I think people should should look at what's happening first of all in their state and local in state offices. The majority of people who are going to listen to this right now probably do have a state court race, for instance, where they are.
They may have a DA race where they are.
They may have a race for SOS, which is the office that runs elections. They may have an off for the county clerk, for a election supervisor. You know, whatever your opinions on what matters most here. So there are ways to plug into what's happening in state politics and local politics, and pay attention, you know, be informed obviously, and tell your friends about all of those elections.
Can you talk to me for a minute about Nebraska and what's happening in Nebraska, because the polls I've seen, and again I know they're just polls, and you know, but I've seen some polls that show the Democrat who was actually not a Democrat, who's an independent and rejected the Democratic label, but who is very kind of running a sort of Bernie Sanders like campaign and surgeon campaign, is actually ahead right now in the polls.
There was just a poule this weekend where the independent was tied to the Republican. Super interesting. There's no Democrat at all there. Those Democrats sort of backed down and didn't feel the candidate to give space to this independent.
I mean, I think it's a hard one because it's sort of the mirror image of Maryland, where there's a Republican ex governor Republican who's trying to live to see and I think most people expect that we've seen these movies before, and at the end of day, the gravity, the partisan gravity of the state will take over for Republicans in Nebraska and for Democrats in Maryland. But the
movie is not over till till it's over. And at the very least, it'd be interesting to see if Republicans are forced to spend a lot of money in Nebraska to sort of defend themselves. You know, there's an off chance of an upset. I mean, the Democrats are trying to expand the map because Democrats have a very tough map in the Senate. They need to win a red state or to be able to keep the Senate.
And they can't keep West Virginia that's already gone.
Yeah, and we're talking about Ohio and Montana. We're talking about those states. We're talking about Democrats for being to expand the map in Texas, in Florida and adding a Brasska to the list would just potentially add another place for Democrats to shield themselves and hope to keep the chamber.
So interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Daniel always to talk about all this, Thanks so much.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we, which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now, we have just released the final episode of this five
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Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University. Welcome too, Fast Politic.
Wesleyan University President, Michael Roth.
Great to be here.
We've known each other for a while.
I actually briefly went to wesley and though I did not graduate from their full disclosure, but one of the things I have always thought you really need and I was reading this op edge you wrote in the New York Times today or maybe it came out over the weekend about really important takes, so talk to us about You have been a college president for a while, but being a college president has sort of become a different thing all of a sudden, right.
That's what they say. I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I think that's like twenty five years that have been a college president's embarrassing.
You know.
My first day as a college president in San Francisco at an arts school, I passed that in the bathroom because I was so ambivalent about being a college president. I thought, this is there's you know, we're usually as a factory member. I thought they were just a bunch of lackeys, you know, right, barnacles on the ship of education. But that area, I'm doing it forever. I'm doing it since excuse and ate this. My teeth year at Wesleyan. It had I don't know if it's really changed. I mean,
the world has changed. People don't like education as much as they used to. Americans have always been ambivalent about education, but they have in the past, giving colleges more slack.
You know, that good stuff went on there, people thought And now I think a lot of Americans, and for some good reason, believe that what goes on at colleges is that people learn how to be condescending to folks who aren't At colleges, the university people in my kind of job, they get very defensive and then they try
to pretty much stay out of trouble. And that doesn't work because we should try to find ways to it's a cliche to make good trouble, but to do things that are not just in line with the prevailing trends, but to push back against those trends in interesting ways.
Yeah, I think that's a really important point. There is definitely the right has kind of declared war on education or on higher education or have they tell me you are like on the ground in a prestigious university. So I mean, is that what's happening. It's what it looks like to me from my purge.
But oh yeah, I mean, you know, Jade Massi has said famously that the university's are the enemy. He should be thanking us for introducing him to his wife. Is a thing about it, And only in a university with two people with such different backgrounds find each other and one of the great things about being at a university. But the right has found convenient scapegoats, and we've often had this role. We are the scapegoat for the right. And where that that was true in the sixties, he
was true in the nineties. You know, it's true now and the left is divided about universities. You know, we are kind of a pipeline for progressives with all the problems that with being a pripeline for progressive which is that a lot of people seem to leave universities these days thinking they're on the right side of history and screw those other people who don't know the right side
of history is. And that's teaching people to be narrow minded and kind of stupid, actually, But we have done that too at universities, and so there are some people on the left, or people who are at least non fully on board with some progressive programs that also feel very ambivalent about universities these days, as the languages we speak and the courses we teach seem to be further and further away from the concerns of folks who are not at universities.
Right.
I think that's a really good point, where you get removed from the actual nuts and bolts of preparing people to go out into the world. But we talk on this podcast a lot about the rise of authoritarianism in the Republican Party and how trump Ism has given birth to this kind of really nast eastrain of authoritarianism, which we're having Chason Stanley on next week, and you know, talking about this idea that they're coming for the educational institutions.
We saw that in Florida with New College. Florida also has a tenure review for professors that is quite aggressive and sets up a world where you have professors less interested in taking stands that might displease the governor. Some of this is like using this sort of protests on campus as a way to malign the institutions, right.
Yeah, I mean Jason and I have argued about this on the radio in the past. I mean, I do think the universities we don't do ourselves a favor by cultivating a kind of political group think on campus and not taking seriously, at least in some fields and some campuses, strains of thought that also can lead to change, but are not part of the progressive consensus relays.
And that's the sort of Barry Wise, you know, there's no room for conservatives on campus.
Yeah, she's made a lot of money with that argument, you know, a lot, and found a lot of rich people who agree with her. But I think there's a point to it, which is that just like when I was a graduate student in the late seventies and early eighties, you know, professors used to say to us, well, we don't hire a bunch of white men just because we
like white men. We're hiring the best people. When my colleagues turn to me and say, we're not hiring a leftists because they happen to resemble ourselves in our own political opinions, we're hiring the best people, I'm suspicious of that argument. I do think we need more intellectual diversity at universities, but I think that that's what we should
cultivate within the university. We're being scapegoaded by the authoritarian right because it helps stoke resentment at people who are thought to have privileges, and we do have privileges at universities, and the response in many universities is to become more insular, to actually turn inward and to talk our own language and only talk to one another. And that makes matters worse.
And so finding ways to create reciprocity rather than feeding resentment, that seems to me a really important task in the coming months. The other thing I'll say is that it seems to me the university right now the next two months have a profound obligation to energize their students to get out and work on campaigns and support the candidates of their choice and get involved in issues. Because the university shouldn't be neutral about the electoral system or democracy.
We should be encouraging our students and our faculty to be engaged in the public sphere. And that is something that people can find in their mission statements. But many, I think many presidents and deans are not comfortable apparently doing that and really trying to activate the political energies of their students and their faculty and staff. We need them to get involved in politics. Whatever the results turn out to be, it's going to be worse if young people just turn their backs on policy.
I want to go back to the protest for a minute, because I think some of why the Republicans are so obsessed with the protests is because protests really did help, or they think at least that protests helped Richard Nixon.
Yeah, so can.
You talk a little bit about sort of the strategy there of using protests as a way to kind of divide Americans.
Sure, the strategy is to see protests as a breakdown of order. And when you have a breakdown of order, you need the guy who says only I can fix this, And so it feeds into this authoritarianism of paranoia loop. And so the media, of course has amplified this because they cover Columbia and UCLA and UCLA and Columbia and then maybe a little bit of Emerson College. But they cover the four percent of protests that turned violent or
damaged property. They didn't cover the vast majority of protests which were bearing witness to an atrocity in the Middle East. They were bearing witness to a war that's gone out of control and to a government that has not followed through on its principal obligation, which is to get its citizens released from being hostages. So students and faculty staff, but mostly students all over the country were saying, how can our government support this war as it's being waged?
And I think at most places that was very peaceful. Now, I don't agree with many some of the demands that some of the protests are making, but that's neither here nor there. If young people ignore what was happening in Gaza, this would not be to their credit. This would be a shame and the fact that they are raising their voices to protest the ways in which United States support is enabling a war in Gaza that is inhuman by any definition. That's the credit of the students.
One of the things I thought was smart about your ampat was this idea. There's been so much written in the political and so many hours devoted to complaining about campuses being too political, when.
In fact, really college is meant to be. I mean, I ended up non finishing college too. I'm speaking in.
Principle, in a largely theoretical way, but that it's meant to be a place where people can be passionate about important things.
Absolutely, and the students are western of protests. They're protesting me. I mean, it's not like there we're all buddies, you know, and I'm on their side. I'm a supporter of Israel. I should make that clear, right.
And you're jew too, and I'm in Jewish.
And I believe that Israel has a right to defend itself. I think this work could end if Hamas had the least concern for the citizens of Gaza, if it had the least concern for their welfare. And I've written that and then there's a link to that op ed in the Times up at and so the students know that I am not one of these from the River to the Sea people. On the other hand, I think that the students have every right to make their voices heard as long as they allow the university to conduct as
regular business and its educational mission. And I have these people telling me that, oh, but the students are ignorant of history. There are a lot of people or proiser are like I am, who are also ignorant of history. I don't think history is the issue. The issue is extraordinary destruction of a land and its people that is being conducted with the support of the American taxpayer and the American government, and wanting to change that. I believe
those kinds of protests are important. I think they should be protesting in Washington. I think it's a fantasy to this. Divestment is just a fantasy that somehow endowments would sure this. If you don't buy Ford stock, that's what they're don't buy General Motors or Microsoft. This is silly that they have every right to protest. I think it's wrong. They should be trying to elect a government that will create
the conditions for a sustainable peace. AVA see about investments seems to me both naive and a fantasy about the importance of endowment.
Right though some endowments are richer than others, right, I mean, there's some endowments that are the size of a small country. But I'm just wondering if you could talk for another minute about it strikes me that college presidents have had a very tough time of it lately. Obviously, you guys are not a protected you know, you're not egrets.
We're pale very well, right.
You're very powerful people.
But ultimately it's been sort of you know, we saw the Columbia the president of Columbia leaving. We've seen a lot, you know, we saw those college presidents who testified before Congress. You know, I think all but one are gone. I mean, and there's been a lot of really annoying dinner party conversation that I've been privy to about who does a good job and who doesn't do a good job of being a college president. And what I like about what you you wrote is that you talk about like that
this is actually about students living in the world. But I'm wondering if you can talk about sort of what you've done, what you've been able to do in your campus to keep everybody safe, to feel like people had a voys and whether you've seen that in other schools or whether you've seen people struggle with it.
I think in many schools, students have been able to exercise their rights to free expression and to do so in ways that allow other people to go about their business and to continue the emissions of the university. And I think at many places that's happened. There are pressures on university presidents to please their board. Of course, because of board they reported the board and boards should, with the help of a president, have the institution's best interests
at heart. Those interests include cultivating a campus where people that feel they can protest and get involved in politics. I know at Wesleyan I have such a board. I mean, I'm very fortunate, and you know it's not an accident. Many of the board members now I've known for quite a while because of my tenure and the culture of the institution makes an important difference. But presidents, one of our most important jobs, maybe our most important job, is
to bring resources to the university. I mean, I write op eds and I write books and I enjoy doing I teach classes every semester, but you know a lot of people could do that. What I have to do is raise more money than last year. And last year we raised more money than we ever raised before. That's because that's for scholarships, is for financial aid, that's for support,
research and teaching. And that takes, you know, explaining why you lead the university the way you do and not just appealing I think to the loyalty or the sentimental affections of your alumni. And it's the end. We have an active board and an active alumni body. Some of whom you know, want me to shut down the protests, others want me to divest. But I think what they appreciate most of the time is that we're able to explain what we're doing and how it fits into our
philosophy of education. I wrote a book a few years ago called Safe Enough Spaces, where I see, you know, you don't want to make the campus so safe that nobody's going to do anything interesting or offensive, But you don't want it to be so crazy that people are poisoning to each other with drugs or getting involved in violence.
It has to be a place where people know they're free enough to do things that might get them in trouble elsewhere, or that might be offensive in some quarters, but they're free enough to do it on campus because there are relations of trust among the students and between the students and the faculty and administration. And so that idea of it being, you know, safe enough, not totally safe, and not totally say whatever you want or do whatever you want. But that notion I think helps keep the
campus conversation going forward, makes it positive. I have this idea, Molly, that over the last couple of centuries, really in the West, the notion of being a student, especially in college, is you get to practice freedom. This book called the Student, a Short History, and my conclusion is that we let students just being free. If they just rate that what they do is practice like making money only, or they just practice baseball, or they just practice I don't know, beer pong, that's waste.
They have to.
Explore being free, and sometimes you know, that's messy. But if you're at a campus where there's trust, where there's some safe enough protections, then you get to practice being free in a way that prepares you for being an adult. When you leave campus.
Yeah, so interesting. What is important is that you're looking at this in a way that is different than everyone else.
I don't know. I mean, Molly, I looked down my window at the camp end of the sprying I've made. People were calling me a murderer and a fascist. And you know, I looked at the window at these kids in their tents and with their guitars, and they're now their computers and their inheated conversations and they're singing. He reminded me of my favorite times in college too. And I don't want to be kind of Sunday to them. And maybe I'm wrong and they're right, But I also
don't want to pretend I agree with them. But I do want to protect their ability to make their voice is heard, as long as it doesn't degenerate into intimidation and harassment.
Yeah, well that's what it's about. Thank you so much for joining us, Michael Row.
Thank you, Molly. Great to be with you.
No momento, Jesse Cannon, Molly jung Fast.
There's this police called X and I'm going to tell you something a lot of bullshit that didn't happen is spread on it every day, mostly by the CEO as well. But what did you see here today?
This is a lie that comes from a fake newspaper, which is amazing. It says that in June twenty eleven, Harris was driving a car and hit two pedestrians. This is absolutely not true. It is a complete and utter lie.
Keeps getting retweeted every second.
Yes, thousands of people are seeing it. It's a complete fabrica and it is our moment of fuckery watching Elon Musk spread lies about Vice President Harris.
That is our moment of fuckery.
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.