0:01

G'day, humans. Welcome to

0:03

the safe space for dangerous ideas. Here's

0:06

a dangerous conundrum to find

0:08

yourself in. Imagine if you felt

0:10

that you were entrusted, not

0:12

only with ensuring and upholding the

0:14

fate of your political party, but

0:17

of American democracy itself,

0:20

saving the Republic from a

0:22

slide into a soft,

0:24

squishy authoritarianism, the likes of

0:26

which countries like Hungary and

0:28

Turkey have been dabbling with. That's

0:30

the concern that a lot

0:32

of senior Democrats face in the

0:35

United States. They regard what

0:37

the Trump administration is doing as

0:39

being fundamentally inimical to the

0:41

American Democratic project. So

0:44

how do you respond? There seem to

0:46

be two factions at the moment on

0:48

the left in America. The

0:50

whole thing feels fairly moribund and

0:52

stale and apathetic in terms of

0:54

how it's approaching pushback to the

0:56

Trump administration. But it does

0:58

seem split nonetheless between those who

1:00

feel they should stand up for

1:02

a very, very long time in

1:04

the Senate and give grand speeches

1:06

against Donald Trump or those who

1:08

feel they should be jumping onto

1:10

social media all the time and

1:13

slam dunking him rhetorically. on

1:15

the one hand versus on the

1:17

other hand a school of thought

1:19

that says this administration is not

1:21

going to be very popular anyway

1:23

let it play out don't risk

1:25

injuring yourself by being seen as

1:27

a party of pontificating losers instead just

1:30

stay quiet make

1:32

yourself a small target and let the

1:34

Trump show collapse in on itself

1:36

eventually. Democrats cannot

1:38

just offer resistance to Trump, of course.

1:41

They do need to offer an alternative at

1:43

some point, but how exactly they should

1:45

is the question for today's conversation. Whenever

1:47

I need a vibe check of the

1:49

American left, I turn to

1:51

today's guest, David Pakman. He

1:53

hosts one of the most watched progressive

1:55

YouTube shows in the world, the David Pakman

1:58

show. It has over three million subscribers. Some

2:00

of his episodes get... million plus

2:02

viewers. His latest book

2:04

is The Echo Machine, How Right

2:06

-Wing Extremism Created a Post -Truth

2:08

America. And just a reminder

2:10

that you can now subscribe to the premium

2:13

version of this podcast on Spotify and also

2:15

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Now you can do it with one click

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episodes, you can do it from right inside

2:31

your Apple Podcasts app. That being

2:33

said, you should come to Substack if

2:35

you can be bothered, because this episode

2:38

was actually recorded as an appearance that

2:40

David gave on my live sort of,

2:42

I suppose, new television show, Zeps Live,

2:44

which airs on Substack every Tuesday night

2:46

at 9 p .m. Eastern time in

2:48

the United States. Well, it goes to

2:50

everywhere, but that's the timing

2:52

in the United States. And I wanted to

2:54

get David on the line to discuss

2:56

our criticisms of the president, what

2:58

he sees the threats as

3:00

being the curious spinelessness of congressional

3:02

Republicans and why Trump has

3:05

such a hold over them. how

3:07

the Democrats can recover and

3:09

the topic on which David and

3:11

I routinely disagree when we've

3:13

spoken in the past, which is

3:15

how much of the left's

3:17

woes are caused by purity tests

3:19

and social justice dogmas. You

3:21

can follow David's YouTube show. You can

3:23

tune into my sub -stack show for free

3:25

every week by registering on the sub -stack.

3:27

I hope you enjoy the one, the only,

3:29

David Pakman. I've

3:34

been trying to tune it out

3:36

for the past couple of weeks

3:38

and It's it's it's hard. It's

3:40

tricky. It leaves me with a

3:42

heavy heart for my for the

3:44

Americans for whom I feel so

3:46

deeply Can you give me a

3:49

snapshot of where your head is

3:51

and where I Don't know how

3:53

you how you are personally responding

3:55

and how one ought to respond

3:57

Well, I mean I think If

3:59

you have a platform to talk

4:02

about this, your response might be

4:04

different than if you didn't. So

4:06

my response may not necessarily be

4:08

the obvious or logical one for

4:10

voters who have real jobs for

4:12

a living. And I think my

4:14

situation maybe is a little different.

4:17

But I think my areas of

4:19

focus are... creeping authoritarianism,

4:21

wannabeism, and we can

4:23

talk about the desire versus

4:25

the reality and how

4:27

much that matters. Rule

4:30

of law increasingly irrelevant

4:32

when we say, you

4:34

know, the Constitution guarantees

4:36

X. Guaranteed in

4:39

what way? I mean, if an

4:41

administration ignores court orders, what

4:43

does it mean that something is

4:45

guaranteed by the Constitution? It's

4:47

increasingly sort of a question

4:49

mark. And the number three,

4:51

economic chaos. You know, the tariffs

4:53

are on, the tariffs are off,

4:55

whether they're on or off, there's

4:58

the general question of, is the

5:00

U .S. even a reliable party to

5:02

any kind of agreement if it's

5:04

by the whims of whoever is

5:06

in the Oval Office. So those

5:08

are kind of the three 40

5:10

,000 level things I'm thinking about. So

5:13

the tariff of tariffs and economic

5:15

chaos going in back in reverse order

5:17

the rule of law and ignoring

5:19

court orders and all of the first

5:21

one Creeping authoritarianism and how do

5:23

you define that? Well increasingly

5:25

a government that is

5:27

by the one person

5:30

in the Oval Office

5:32

for him and his

5:34

friends rather than for

5:36

the greater opinion of

5:38

the 340 -something million

5:41

who vote and expect

5:43

that the norms checks,

5:45

balances, and kind of

5:47

framework, which would be

5:49

the judiciary, the Constitution,

5:52

the Bill of Rights

5:54

as the primary law

5:56

of the land. It's

5:58

increasingly secondary to what

6:00

is convenient for the

6:03

dear leader. Right. And

6:05

the politicization of the bureaucracy

6:07

of the public service would probably

6:09

fall under that rubric as

6:11

well, right? The idea that because

6:13

they're technically constitutionally in the

6:15

executive branch, that means that every

6:17

single postal worker and environmental

6:20

scientist who works in the public

6:22

service or in the NHS

6:24

or something, has to display personal

6:26

fealty to the leader of

6:28

the executive branch. I,

6:30

in some ways, have been

6:33

feeling lately, David, that maybe

6:35

the third tranche of those

6:37

concerns is a distraction tool

6:39

from the first two, especially

6:41

from the second one. The

6:44

idea that the United

6:46

States can just grab people

6:49

off the street and

6:51

fly them to Gulags in

6:53

friendly countries abroad with

6:55

no recourse, no appeal, no

6:57

habeas is much more worrying

7:00

and the idea that the

7:02

government would ignore court orders

7:04

in so doing I think

7:06

is way more threatening to

7:08

the long -term survival of

7:10

liberal democracy than any economic

7:12

damage that could be done

7:14

by the tariffs and I

7:16

fear or wonder or suspect

7:18

that maybe that is partly

7:20

the point of the tariff.

7:22

I'm basically with you until

7:24

everything but the last thing

7:26

only because the last thing

7:28

requires some coordination and kind

7:30

of calculation that I'm unsure

7:33

if this administration is really

7:35

capable of. I think that

7:37

it's certainly serving as a

7:39

distraction. You know, the distraction narrative

7:41

always ends up with people arguing about

7:43

what's the real thing and what are

7:45

all the other things that are meant

7:47

to distract from it. And ranking by

7:49

seriousness, I do agree with you. Trump's

7:52

been talking about the tariffs for

7:54

much longer than could have been

7:56

predicted that these court orders would

7:58

have come down and that would

8:00

have been ignored at this point

8:02

in time. So I think that

8:04

the timeline on the tariffs predated

8:06

the other stuff in a way

8:08

that makes me suspect Trump didn't

8:10

plan it quite so, so precisely.

8:12

No, I take your point that

8:15

I'm not my position would not

8:17

be that he sat down the

8:19

day before he was sworn in

8:21

and wrote out a list of

8:23

how he's going to strategize things

8:25

and that the tariffs are an

8:27

ingenious way to distract attention while

8:29

he sees his power. But more

8:31

that in his almost 80 long

8:33

years, he's developed a terrific Carnival

8:35

Barker's aptitude for understanding the show

8:37

and almost a magician's level sense

8:39

in eight sense of the redirect.

8:42

And so he's his gut pulls him

8:44

in areas where I think he whether

8:46

it's conscious or not, he is just

8:48

masterful at being able to get away

8:50

with things whilst. dangling, jangly objects on

8:53

the in his other hand so that

8:55

you don't pay too much attention to

8:57

the other thing that's going on. In

8:59

other words, he wants to be playing. It's

9:02

like Reagan said, when you're explaining, you're

9:04

losing. He always wants to be playing on

9:06

the terrain that is strongest for him. And

9:08

like this whole thing about

9:11

like, you know, rooting out people

9:13

who aren't loyal to you

9:15

in the public service, it just

9:17

doesn't play well. It doesn't

9:19

it doesn't sound. Spicy

9:21

it's not like interesting whereas creating

9:23

economic havoc is definitely gonna dominate

9:25

the front page and it's possible

9:27

that he just instinctively goes towards

9:29

things that are gonna dominate the

9:32

front page. Send people into

9:34

a tizzy detonate a hand grenade that he can

9:36

then go in and clean up set a

9:38

scenario for him to be the hero set a

9:40

scenario for him to be the emperor to

9:42

whom all of the other world leaders have to

9:44

come begging. You know he he

9:46

knows how to put on a show and

9:48

then while the show is going on. He

9:51

can also do a bunch of

9:53

other shit that isn't gonna make the

9:55

front page. You know what I

9:58

mean? It's like I don't know whether

10:00

that's a better or worse diagnosis

10:02

of his psychosis than if it was

10:04

You know for if there was

10:06

forethought to it No, I think

10:08

that's basically right and there's two kind

10:10

of important currencies I think for

10:12

Trump. One is the perception of

10:15

being manly and alpha and tough

10:17

and also loyalty. Those are important currencies

10:19

to Trump and the tariff stuff

10:21

really covers both of them in

10:23

the sense that it's putting his

10:25

fellow Republicans in a position to have

10:27

to maintain loyalty through policy. that

10:29

clearly many of them disagree with.

10:31

Some more vocally like Senator Rand

10:33

Paul, who has just said, no, at

10:36

the top level, I'm against tariffs as an

10:38

economic tool. So the loyalty test

10:40

is very much there. And then

10:42

also this idea of the countries came

10:44

to me with tears in their

10:46

eyes, ready to negotiate. And I was

10:48

so big and tough, and they

10:51

capitulated, and now I can pause the

10:53

tariffs. That's the other currency, the

10:55

strong alpha. So it fits perfectly for

10:57

both of those. Yeah. And

10:59

so then the, what are the

11:01

priorities for the left? I mean,

11:03

I feel we can get into

11:05

the causes of where the United

11:07

States finds itself politically. Actually, just

11:09

before we leave the authoritarian question,

11:13

you know, you I know have an

11:15

international background as I do. So neither

11:17

of us sees the United States entirely

11:19

through the prism of someone who has

11:21

family that stretches back many generations in

11:23

the United States and where it's the

11:26

only. place in the world, you've lived

11:28

abroad. The

11:30

whole point of erecting

11:32

the kinds of political systems

11:34

that have been the

11:36

most successful was to constrain

11:38

and protect the people

11:40

from people like Donald Trump

11:43

and from would -be authoritarians.

11:46

It should come as no surprise that

11:48

people like him sometimes ascend to

11:50

the executive, like that's just going to

11:52

happen. One

11:55

hopes that the founding fathers and the

11:57

constitution and the norms and all that is

11:59

able to withstand such people. It

12:01

strikes me that the judiciary is

12:03

still capable of doing that in the

12:05

United States. It hasn't been wholly

12:07

corrupted. But the third

12:10

branch of government, the legislative

12:12

branch, is completely missing

12:14

in action, is totally derelict

12:16

in its duties because

12:18

it's controlled by what they

12:20

seem to regard as

12:22

being the president's party. the

12:24

Republican Party rather than

12:26

a bunch of loosely aligned,

12:28

independent Congress people and

12:30

senators who are working for

12:32

their constituents. Do

12:35

you understand what's happened there, apart from

12:37

the obvious answer that Donald Trump bullies

12:39

people who step out of line? But

12:41

is it a collective action problem that

12:43

everybody would be able to stand up

12:46

to him in some way, but nobody

12:48

wants to make the first move? Is

12:50

it that they're all on remitting cowards,

12:53

why aren't they pushing back? I

12:55

think there is cowardice. I think

12:57

it's primarily self -interest. And

12:59

what I've been thinking is likely,

13:02

and I've been talking to others

13:04

about recently, is that if and

13:06

when it becomes clear that Trump

13:08

no longer has anything to offer

13:10

them, and that crossing Trump presents

13:12

much less of a risk to

13:14

their own reelection. I do

13:16

think you're going to start to see

13:18

more Republicans peel off. Now, whether

13:20

that happens after the midterm elections in

13:22

2026 or whether first we need

13:24

to see does Trump hand

13:27

the baton to JD Vance

13:29

successfully, and so MAGA is

13:31

going to kind of persist

13:33

as the movement controlling the

13:35

Republican Party. I think it's

13:37

primarily self -interest, which is

13:39

right now it still feels

13:41

risky to publicly just say,

13:43

this guy's been bad for

13:45

our party. And the

13:47

policy he's pushing is wrong. There's

13:50

nothing that resonates with the so

13:52

-called constitutional conservative here. There's nothing

13:54

that resonates with the fiscal conservative

13:56

here. I just think it's too

13:59

early and the risk feels too

14:01

great for Republicans to really do

14:03

that in any significant number right

14:05

now. But why does it... It's

14:07

less and less of a risk the more

14:09

of them who do it, right? I mean,

14:11

I'm surprised that... Well, look, I'm not privy

14:13

to what's going on behind the scenes. But

14:16

I'm surprised that there hasn't

14:18

been a quorum of somewhat moderate

14:20

Republicans who have come together

14:22

and said, look, let's just do

14:24

a collective action here where

14:26

all together, all 20 of us

14:28

or all 30 of us

14:30

say, we're

14:32

not going to be voting for any. Money

14:34

to pass through the government we're gonna vote

14:36

with Democrats to shut the government down unless

14:38

we're able to amend tariff powers the tariff

14:41

powers that the president has to ensure you

14:43

know even if it's just a bunch of

14:45

common sense reforms like there has to be

14:47

a 180 day notice period before tariffs are

14:49

amended or they can only be amended you

14:51

know twice a year or something on particular

14:53

country something to give the markets certainty like

14:55

the most minimal possible things that you could

14:58

spin on Fox News as being still Trumpy

15:00

but just. prudent and nobody seems to have

15:02

come out and said, like, this is what

15:04

we want and we're not going to allow

15:06

the government to continue until we get it.

15:09

I have not seen any evidence for

15:11

decades that the level of, I

15:13

guess you would call it, spine that

15:15

would be required for that is

15:17

something that exists in that party. And

15:20

this is not, I'm not even

15:22

making criticism or praise of Democrats right

15:24

now. I'm simply answering your question

15:26

of why haven't 20 Republicans or 30

15:28

Republicans done it? I mean, what

15:30

when have they done it on anything

15:32

as significant as this when it

15:34

comes to crossing their own party? I

15:36

just don't know. We'd really

15:38

have to ask them because it feels like it

15:41

would be so foreign to the way they've operated.

15:44

I'm not sure that's

15:46

true. If

15:48

you gave me five minutes, I

15:50

would go back and think

15:52

about the George W Bush trying

15:54

to privatize social security or

15:56

something like that. When

15:59

you remove Trump from the equation,

16:01

there are ructions within the Republican

16:03

Party. I'd

16:06

have to go and refresh

16:08

my memory. I know Bush

16:10

sort of paid lip service to the

16:12

idea that private industry could do better with

16:14

that. But I don't recall any serious

16:16

legislator. no, no, no, they tried. No, he

16:18

really wanted it. He wanted the re -election.

16:20

I'd to refresh my memory. You may

16:22

be right. We had this famous quote about

16:24

how, like, you know, I've won re -election,

16:26

I've got a mandate, and I've earned

16:28

political capital, and I choose to spend it.

16:30

And what he wanted to spend it

16:32

on was privatizing social security. It was like

16:34

a big thing in 2000. What

16:37

was that, five, I guess, or something? And

16:39

there was a revolt within his own party, and,

16:41

you know, it didn't come to

16:43

pass. But I mean, I'm just sort

16:45

of... I'm just thinking, I'm just trying to

16:47

question whether or not it's true to

16:49

say that the core of the problem is

16:51

that Republicans always act in lockstep with

16:53

a Republican president, or whether there's something suey

16:55

generous about Trump. I don't

16:57

think it's always, but if your last

17:00

example's 20 years ago, then it's frequently,

17:02

I guess, is maybe better. Well, I

17:04

haven't been, well, I haven't had, that's

17:06

the last Republican presidential term that wasn't

17:08

Trump. That's true. Yeah, that's fair. That's

17:10

fair. Yeah. So then let's

17:12

move on to the Democratic side

17:15

of politics. I was fascinated to

17:17

see the spat between Casio Cortes

17:19

and Chuck Schumer like over whether

17:21

or not to shut down the

17:23

government. Some weeks ago, like what

17:25

is the appropriate response? You know,

17:27

I've heard sort of The the

17:29

old guard of democratic wisdom the

17:31

car bills saying that you know

17:33

just let the let the administration

17:35

implode it's gonna get really unpopular

17:37

things are gonna. You know

17:39

side swipe it the beginning

17:42

of any administration is a period

17:44

when. The players are calling

17:46

the shots and eventually reality will catch up

17:48

with them there will be a pandemic there

17:50

will be a terrorist attack there will be

17:52

an economic crisis there will be something or

17:54

other. And they will

17:56

be shown up and people will. voters will

17:58

retaliate and, you know, just let that

18:00

play out and don't try to put yourself

18:02

in the line of fire. Then

18:05

there's another school of thought which says,

18:07

we don't have the luxury of that.

18:09

Mainly because of the first two reasons

18:11

that you articulated that risk of authoritarianism,

18:13

the risk of stacking the public service,

18:15

the risk of ignoring judicial orders and

18:17

so on. And like when democracy is

18:20

on the line, you have to go

18:22

into that. And I find myself completely

18:24

torn. Really? I just sort

18:26

of, I agree with whoever the last person

18:28

who spoke to me about it was. Tell

18:31

me what I should think. As far

18:33

as the entire shutdown fiasco?

18:35

Well, as far as what kind

18:37

of, what do you think

18:39

the most efficacious form of resistance

18:41

is likely to be? The

18:44

small target or the

18:46

big attack? I'm

18:48

sort of an all -of -the -above guy, but

18:50

let me address the shutdown piece for

18:52

a second, you know. G'day,

18:55

humans. Well, if you've listened to this much

18:57

of the episode, then you must enjoy it,

18:59

presumably, unless you're just listening for masochistic reasons.

19:01

So you should listen to the rest of

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20:12

see you in the next free episode, I

20:15

guess. Take care.