Midnight in America

care about America. They don't care about government, they don't care about stability, they don't care about how we look in the world world, they don't care about America continuing to hold its its standing, and so on today's show, I bring on our friend Kurt Bardella, you know, former Republican Democratic now Democratic strategists, columnist and analysts, to talk about, you know, the the disaster over the battle for the speakership that took three weeks to then anoint a basic misogynist,

white supremacist, anti Islam, anti LGBTQ, I mean, anti anti anti you know, and just apparently wants America to live in some type of biblical puritanical bullshit that they make up right, that they make up for themselves to to say that it's through the domin of toxic masculinity and the suppression of women and people of color and black folks that you know that we will be great again. Mike Johnson, So I do. I find it hard And most of the time I kind of just want to

ignore the fucking Republican Party as a whole. But I can't. We can't because ignoring them is dangerous, right. That is what happened with Donald Trump and just pretending that he was, you know, going to go away, that it was just a clown show, that it was just a side show, and that there was no real need to take seriously what this man was espousing in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,

and so here we are. It's just that everything feels so fucking serious and so consequential and so damaging, right that you just kind of want to look at where there is possibility, And I'm I'm not quite sure in this moment, I'll be honest with you what possibility looks like. Because the anger that I have for this administration while is continuing to rise over their global stance on dehumanization.

I know that I don't want this country to fall into the hands of the Mike Johnson's, the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Donald Trumps of this country. I do not want that. And it just seems as if you know, it is very much midnight in America, and that we are closer to our demise, to the end of what we've understood as the American project, than we've ever been before. That we are closer to World War three than we have

ever been before. And I do not say that lightly, right, I'm just telling you what I see and what I feel and what I know based on patterns of history.

So on today's show, I get into conversation with our friend Kurt Bardella about what he thinks about the Republican Party, what he offers that Democrats should be doing in this moment, and kind of looking in his crystal ball to look ahead to a year from now, right when we will be just weeks away from the most consequential election of our time, and what do we even think that America will look like a year from now. That conversation with

Kurt is coming up next, folks. You know that whenever I have the opportunity to bring my friends on to wok F daily. I am always thrilled, particularly when one of those friends is a former Republican who has come to the light side and left the dark side many many moons ago. At this point, now, Kurt Bardella, you know, oh you read is writing at USA Today La Times,

and Kurt, let's just start with this. It took three weeks, three different people to finally get the Republicans to actually come together with a vote for the Speaker of the House. After multiple failed attempts, the booting of Kevin McCarthy, the failure of Jim Jordan after three cycles of votes, the failure of Steve Scalise. They have presented to the American people. Let me pull out his repertoire that I wrote down. Representative Mike Johnson out of Louisiana, who was elected on

the Trump train in twenty sixteen. This is a man who has voted to steal the twenty twenty election, who believes in a national abortion ban, who opposes same sex marriage, who supported Trump's Muslim ban, who was one of the architects to help overthrow the twenty twenty election, and the list goes on, believes that divorce should be illegal is a white evangelical Christian to his core. This is who the Republican Party has put up. You tell me what people should take from that.

ascend to the speakership. And really it has been a journey for Republicans that began with the Tea Party revolution in twenty ten, that started with the initial overthrow of the traditional Republican established like John Bayner, like Paul Ryan, like Eric Cantor, and has now mowed over Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, and has now given us this speaker who is the embodiment of what the architects of January sixth we're trying to achieve in the first place, trying

to install into the positions of power people predominantly white men, with this radical viewpoint of extremism, that anyone who differs from this white evangelical casting is a threat. Yep, should be outlawed, should be made illegal. Someone who believes that the fact that we are headed towards becoming a majority minority country in the near future, that that needs to stop,

that that's dangerous. These are people who espouse it with one hand, we need to be a nation under God, and in the other use the instruments of power to inflict damage and injury upon those who have less power, who are less fortunate, who have less resources. These are the same people who talk about God but have no problem human trafficking migrants from one part of this country

to the other to make a political point. These are people who believe in quote unquote being pro life, but can't seem to muster the courage to pass laws that would stop innocent Americans from being mowed down by weapons of war everywhere that we look. This is exactly the type of country that people like Mike Johnson want, And it's not an accident that he is now the figurehead

that's presiding over one of the branches of government. And it's incredibly disturbing that someone who played such a central role in trying to overthrow the twenty twenty election is now going to be in a position where he could refuse even bring up for a vote certification of the next presidential election.

a shock to people. And I'm just curious as to why you think that that is that mainstream media will turn this man into a normal, normal politician, which by virtue of the list that I read and that you just espoused is not is anything, but they will normalize him. And so I wonder while mainstream media chases its tail to try and both sides the hell out of this. Now that Republicans have installed maga mic, what's the goal here? Right? Like,

what's what's what's the endgame? What's the win for them? Because this they wanted to cheer, right this they cheered, Where does it? Where does it go?

so be it. They don't care about those things. They are willing to do and say and perpetrate any act of harm and injury against this country because they have convinced themselves that the ends justified the means, that it is a righteous war, righteous civil war that they are inflicting on the rest of us. And even though there are more of us than there are of them, they're

going to do everything they can to silence us. You know, we see it all the time in the partisan Jerry Mandarin in states like Georgia, where they try to make sure that all the people who look like you and I do are grouped in one little area, have little representation, access to fewer resources, so that they can suppress and

silence our voices. Mike, you know Maga. Mike is just the living embodiment of that ideology, you know, in a Brooks of Brothers suit, if you will, he will get the past from media because he appears more presentable than some of the other Mada like figure, some of the other Moguli cultists. But he's not. I mean, it's it's like there's people who try to convince us somehow that Glenn Youngkin isn't dangerous because he wears a little fleece

vest once in a while. Yeah, it's like this is the trap that media falls into and sets for themselves

over and over and over again. And now they're so busy trying to curry favor and access because that's what matters more to them, the inside baseball game of it all, that they will look past all of these other very public and aren't right to range statements that he has made about women's right to choose, about linking being gay to somehow being a pedophile, and yet he has nothing to say about people like Matt Gates, who you know allegedly sleep in traffic with underage women, be that as

man like. It is mind blowing that the this far into Trump is and we're seven eight years now into this whole cycle of hell that the media continues to just fail. You know, there's that that Washington Post slogan, democracy dies in darkness. Now democracy died on your watch? Yeh, Like that's the slogan, because that's what's happened. And the normalization and the both sides and isms, the utter bullshit that we see day in and day out contributes to

that and and and legitimizes these insane figures. I saw all week long the media toss around phrases like moderate to talk about Republicans who may not be willing to vote for an election denier, and yet at the end of the day they all did there is no moderate Republican part Like, what are you? Who are you talking about? And if the definition of a moderate is someone who just believes in democracy, then you better call an AOC a moderate. You better start calling the squad a moderate

because they believe in democracy. And if that's the only criteria we're going to use, not for Republicans, and you better damn well apply that to democrats Otherwise, what the fuck are you talking about?

now facing their own indictments. Oh, that will deter people, Right, it hasn't. It has incurred, and we are just months away from the calendar year changing to twenty twenty four, to it being, yes, the most consequential election of our time, and Joe Biden's poll numbers right now, and everybody who listens to this show knows that I don't believe them,

But I got to say something. I hadn't seen the poll numbers drop below forty and they are good and well below forty percent, and I think that is not the bottom. What do you make of how the conversation, the narrative needs to shift because everything is important. We just had another mass shooting. We are facing two wars right in two different regions of the world. You are seeing the alliances develop between different axes, right different from

World War Two. So I'm just curious as to what does the case look like to make because there are so many cases and so many issues that are unfolding at one time.

right now heading in to twenty twenty four. It's either Joe Biden or it's giving the country to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and all of these extremists that are dangerous. That's the pulling question I would like to see someone actually ask, because that's the only one that really matters, because that's the only choice we're going to have. I don't give a shit if you're

excited about Joe Biden. Does your lack of enthusiasm mean you're willing to give the country to Donald Trump and the Republican Party because that's the only choice that we're facing. It is binary. It is one or the other. And I don't know about you, but it's not a hard choice for me to make to say, yeah, I'm fine staying the course with Joe Biden rather than turning our country and the range of power and a nuclear arsenal and the ability to declare war over to Putin's up

at Donald Trump. Like this should not be a hard choice to make, frankly, and I think that's somewhat the case that we're going to have to make in twenty twenty four. It's not that Joe Biden is so great, that he's so awesome, that he's so inspirational and generational. No, it's very simple. The other side wants to wipe people

like us off the face of this earth. The other side believes that you and I should be discriminated against and targeted and profiled because we look like what we look like, and we speak the truth about what's going on in this country. The other side believes that because you are a woman, you are less than a man, and that you shouldn't even be able to use the

highways if you might be pursuing an abortion. The other side believes that it's totally acceptable for you to go to school, to a grocery store, to a place of worship, to a bullying alley, to a concert, and you may not come out of that alive because you were shot with the weapon of war that they say is the

constitutional right for everybody to have. I don't know why it's such a hard choice for people when you look at that way to make Yeah, I think there's an obvious choice, and it's the complete opposite of the one that the modern Republicans are presenting to us. I think that they have made a huge political error and elevating

Mike Johnson to the speakership. I think that this is someone who is the living, breathing illustration of everything that we have seen voters reject time and again in recent years. If Republicans think that doubling down on a national abortion ban is going to somehow work for them politically, I have seen no evidence of that. They think that relitigating the twenty twenty election is going to work for them, I have seen no evidence of why that would be.

So it's the old adage of be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Maggia, extreme is wanted when they're onn of the Speaker's chair, they wanted to elevate that person to become a national figure. Now you have it, Let's see how this really goes.

aware of? Right? Because what I find is that, you know, we always joke, we say, oh, they're playing chess and they're playing checkers. They're they're playing chess and they're playing Yazi, like whatever it is is there. Do you foresee that there is another game, another pull that they are playing and banking on and we're not aware of right now?

one blunder after another. It's just going to be amateur hour, and it's going to cost him their congressional majority in twenty twenty four. I don't think that Mike Johnson or anyone in his orbit have the slightest clue what to actually do next. Now. The level of scrutiny, the colonoscopy that he's about to experience, he has never seen anything

like it before. He is unprepared for that. And while there might be a moment in time where the Republicans kind of rally around their speaker to try to wash away the embarrassment of the last three weeks, when pushed come the shove, it's the same dynamics that were impossible for Kevin McCarthy to navigate. They still exist right now. They just may not hate this guy as much as they hated Kevin McCarthy. Give it time, like someone is going to shoot their mouth up. Someone's gonna say, oh,

this guy's in overhead. We may have made a mistake. Someone's gonna float. We might have to do this again. Like, I don't think this guy can get us to November of next year. It is a certainty that that is going to happen, and we will be reliving The Republicans certainly would be reliving this Night Mirror at least one more time between now and next year.

they punt on this. Also, this is a situation where I think we'll see the elevation again of Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans starting to take a little bit more of a hands on approach since they are obviously more seasoned that they have been in the game more.

This is a guy in Speaker Johnson who's never been at the negotiating table with the President the United States, with the Senate Republican leader, with the Democrat leaders, like he has no track record, no experience doing any of this. It's one thing the mouth off to talk radio about what you don't like is going on. I think to be in the room, to be in the room where the decisions are happening, to be at the negotiating table. And that's why I say he's in over his head.

He's going to get a little honeymoon grace period. They will, they will give him a pass on whatever happens in the next three weeks. But after that that honeymoon is going to be over and they're just going to be right back to where they have happen, which is dysfunction junction.