Republicans Have Won

by it. Not surprised to get pushedback, because everybody doesn't always agree with me, and that's totally fine. I think that the reality here to me how I saw that debate is one I've said this before. Debits are nothing more than political theater. Therefore, certain class of folks like myself who really are into the nitty gritty of politics, right, I do not think that the average voter turns into a debate and says to themselves, well, I'm going into

this undecided. Even though we know that CNN and MSNBC and others love to put up these voter panels after the fact that say, oh, have you been swayed because they say that they're undecided. I believe that that also is part of the political theater. I think that most people tune in because you know, they want to see a good head to head, They want to see a matchup.

But most people go in with like you would go into a sporting match, right, like you have your team that is in mind, and you you know who you're supporting, and you just want to see if they do well. So last night, for me, I mean, what I will say is that Tim Walls has said before that he was not a good debater. Do I think that he was not good? Do I think that there were any disastrous moments? No, but I do think that he absolutely

left things unsaid. He treated Advance as if he is normal and normalized and sinewashed, helped to sainwash his extremism. And what do I mean by that? We all have heard the tapes of JD. Vance going on these right wing, misogynistic, toxic white male podcasts where he has said the infamous lines of about childless cat ladies and postmentalpausal women and the need to be ruthless in your pursuit of power and banning abortion and IVF and all of these things

that we know. So when you're going head to head with JD. Vance and you're asked questions about reproductive care and what your administration is going to do about that, like this is an opportunity for you to remind regular voters who are not necessarily like watching cable news twenty four hours a day or following what is going on by every moment, that this man is not to be trusted. He may speak in complete sentences right and have an even tone, but he is the polished up version of

Donald Trump and Project twenty twenty five. What he did successfully was give a normalized face to extremist ideology.

repeated here tonight? Would have been my response. That being said, you lay out what your plans on and just say, let me remind the viewers at home the jd Vance absolutely did call for an abortion ban. Jd Vance has absolutely spoken demeaning ways about women, about childless women, that the only value that you can have as a woman in this society is to procreate. Right, ask him right now what he has said that we have all heard

on various podcasts. That is the kind of energy. And those are the responses that I wanted because I wanted to make it very clear that although he is younger and more coherent than Donald Trump, that he is actually a lot more dangerous. And so when I see articles from New York Magazine like he is smart and slick with regard to jd Vance and the and I know that Republicans have won. And why do I say that?

Because how would you applaud somebody for being smart and slick when nothing that came out of their mouth was the truth. Anyone can sound smart and slick if in fact, you don't fact check, and you don't dig deeper, and you don't ask any follow up questions, and you allow what they say to just stand and leave it up to the American people to be the sleuths, to be the detectives, to unpack the things that the media should

be doing for them. He had the audacity in the middle of that debate to say, after he's once again smeared legal immigrants that are living in Springfield, Ohio and was told that, yeah, they're actually here on temporary protective passes, so they are here legally, and that his response was, I thought you weren't going to fact check, so you just got up here expecting to be able to lie because nobody is going to check you. And therein lies the strategy of the Republican Party. So when given an

opportunity to show the American people who JD. Vance is, I think that Tim Walls did not do that job. By agreeing with JD. Vance, by trying to seem reasonable, right, you made it seem as if the Republican Party is reasonable, and we know that they are not. They are an extremist, white nationalist cult that is weaponized religion and fear in

order to build and spread their agenda. They have taken hold of the Supreme Court, of Federal judgeships, of classrooms of governorships, and have in many cases in states like Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and others have operationalized Project twenty twenty five. What they're trying to do with this election is nationalize it.

So any opportunity where you are given to showcase to the American people just how dangerous this group is, but instead you're offering like some nice guy sentiments, I think is problematic. And that's what I said, and I stand by that. Do I think that it was a disaster. No. Do I think that it swung the election, you know,

one way or the other. Absolutely not. But I think that any time that any Democrat, particularly during this heightened election season, has an opportunity to be in front of a microphone, you need to remind the American people how fucking dangerous this Republican Party is and not sit there and normalize it as if this is just oh well, if we lose, you know, we'll just get them again in four years. That is not what's going to happen.

And so if you were watching last night and you knew nothing about Project twenty twenty five, and you knew nothing about any of JD Vance's stances, then you think that, ah, you know, this is just an election between I mean, like, you know, the Romney type of Republicans and like Obama Democrats. That's not what the fuck this is. So I think that it was a missed opportunity on the part of Tim Walls to showcase just how dangerous, deceptive, and disgusting

the Republican Party is. Coming up next, dear friends, my conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, who apparently has needed his own doctor because has had an unfortunate accident recently with softball. Jonathan, welcome back. What has happened? Did you break it your wrist? I broke it.

of my glove. But it turned out he knocked my bone out of my hand, not out of it, but yeah, so I cracked a metacarpal one of the bones in your hand. As you know, I love sports like more than anything, and now you're I can't do sports for two months. And so I'm open to any listener's suggestions about like, should I do dual lingo? Should I?

as imperfect as it is.

there are uncontrollable things. I mean, as we're speaking today, that dock workers are going on strike, it's going to be potentially a four point five billion dollar a day blow to the economy, and all this stuff happening with the teamsters and where they stand, and are they trying to hurt Harris with some of their actions and things like that, and so you know, of course support the rights of labor to better wages and conditions and security, but just doing this right now to me is just

like such a variable that undercuts the economic message, which is such a core message for Harris. And so I hope that that resolved because that's a variable. And then it feels like there's a very real chance that that Iron Israel situation is going to escalate considerably as we speak today, and that is another variable that is just you know, massive, and so all of these things are there are just so many things that can happen honestly in the next two hours, let alone the next thirty days.

And so again, part of the anxiety is like the things you can't control, and so I just want to roofy myself and wake up in two months, you know. But I know that right now everybody needs to be focused and present.

They are combative. They are thoughtful and strategic and funny, and they're using all different modes. She's on podcasts, they're on social media, they're doing an HBCU tour, They're doing all of the right things. And I think that where my anxiety and my frustration lies right now is that the concerted effort by both corporate mainstream media, different entities. Elon Musk on Twitter, like there are so many powerful forces that do not want demandocracy to continue. And I

think that for me, it's like the people. It isn't just about Oh, people need to get out and turn out the vote. Yes they do, but the forces that are at play it's like nothing I've ever seen. I think that both people are energized to do the work, and you're seeing that, but there's also the reality that the Peter Tiels and the Elon Muss and the Heritage Foundation are all on the side of ending democracy.

And so for me, the scary part, I mean, beyond like all these huge forces, is like, what's happening in a place like Italy, for example, where like people slowly, Oh of course we imprison protesters. Oh of course we don't give birth certificates to kids of gay parents. Like, just every little thing that's happening in Italy right now is leading to more power for authoritarians. They're changing the judicial system, they're changing the way that prime ministers are elected.

It's very similar to what Nittanyahu has been trying to do over the past year in Israel, which is changing the judicial system, cement power for extremists in Russia, which is a totally different example, but there's a rise of kind of nationalism among youth, and so it's kind of like the everyday ness of this that I also find like we're a moment now where the US can either lead to turn back against these bigger trends, which I sure hope we do, or we're going to succumb to

all these larger currents, which is people understanding the world in a way that they haven't understood it in a way that hasn't been the case since the thirties, right, that hasn't really been the case in our lifetimes.

matters right now? Jonathan, Like, one of the things that is striking me is the fact that we just had Hurricane Helene that devastated Asville, North Carolina. That is a mountain city that is elevated well above sea level and has now succumbed to the forces of climate change. And yet there are people inside of that state that readily vote for representation from people who don't believe in climate change.

And so I keep coming back as we get closer to the election to your book Dying of Whiteness, because I'm just like, I don't think that there is a way to convince white women in the Midwest that the Handmaid's Tail doesn't have to be their future, like that they can choose to actualize their own power. If I'm relying on democracy to survive by convincing racist white people and white women with internalized misogyny to choose their own power. I think we're fucked. I don't know your thoughts.

identity to somebody who then believes in climate change. I came to understand, like how how that was my expectation because I already believe in climate change. But people would ask me when I was doing the research for the gun stuff, if something happened to you, would you start carrying an AAR fifteen every day? And I'd be like, no, there's nothing. There's nothing that would make me carry an air fifteen every day. And so these issues are so deep.

There's such identity issues for a lot of people that I think part of the issue. And I'm not trying to sound like overly simplistic or whatever. But it's almost like you think about it, like somebody gets cancer or gets hit by lightning or something like that, they become more religious. They don't become atheists or something like that. Like people fall back on their belief systems in moments like this, and so I don't know, it's hard to say, like what does it take to get people to change

their mind at a time like this. So I guess I'm just saying that my research makes me realize, like the more desperate people become, the more ideological they become a lot of times, and so I'm not surprised that something like a massive catastrophic flood like this doesn't mean that people are going to change their view. They're probably going to double down on what their view was before. But it is just sad because I mean not just sad,

it's horrible and it's catastrophic. I don't know. I guess I idealize other points in time, But it's just that all of our political issues are such deep identity issues, Like it's just so predictable that the whole country is deadlocked on their identity issues. And then there's like forty five people in the metal who are kind of decide the entire damn thing. So I know we're all feeling like beat down, but man, the next month is a

really important month. So everybody, like, you know, drink a protein drink and keep fighting because it's really there's so much at stake, and so I just think picking ourselves up off the floor right now and continuing the fight. It's really a tug of war right now, and we got to all show up for it.

So it's that kind of day after where all of a sudden it hit people how different their life was about to be in a orse sense. And what I learned from that Israel research before was that centrists showed up and liberals at the rate that they always had, but the right was really energized and all these hidden ways because they smelled power and owning the libs and

all this kind of stuff. And so it's just that feeling of just a chemical feeling that your life is never going to be the same, that the paradigm and the framework that has governed the way you see the world and the way you understand it is never going to be the same. And I imagine that beyond any day to day thing, it would just be something like that, we're living in a totally different paradigm right now.

over the last eight years, it's already churning. That's where I feel right now, which is there's an opportunity to stop it, but I don't think even I have recognized how many billions of dollars and forces there are to push against the will of the people.