Politix

More than seven million Americans marched peacefully in the streets. Republicans are palpably spooked about it. And courage is proving contagious: In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How Trump’s king-like abuses are, for the first time in a decade, becoming hard to distinguish from kitchen-table issues;

* Whether, given the galvanizing power of No Kings, Democrats should pivot to the theme (away from health care) and make a national scandal of Trump’s demolition of the White House to build a palace ballroom;

* The importance of message amplification in getting people to care about anything when their day-to-day lives are unaffected by political scandal.

Then, the Democratic establishment comes for Graham Platner with…some pretty explosive opposition research. How much grace does he deserve? What does he need to do to earn it? And how is it that people make decisions about what is sincere and insincere when it comes out of the mouth of a politician. All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Halina Bennet’s report from No Kings DC.

* Brian’s piece, from December 6, 2024: The New Gilded Age Will Be Streamed.

* Seth Masket on the political class’s over-interpretation of gaffes.

* Graham Platner responds to the oppo dump on Crooked Media.

The government shutdown just crossed the two-week mark. If you take Donald Trump and his people at their word, it doesn’t seem like it’s about to reopen. But they are also huge bluffers. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Has Trump hit upon a (legally dubious) way to keep the government “shut down” indefinitely?

* Which signs suggest he’s digging in and which suggest he’s bluffing?

* Are we about to test, once and for all, whether anti-authoritarian politics are more compelling and more galvanizing than cost-of-living politics?

Then, Republicans are desperate to shrink down and smear No Kings protesters en masse. Can this be interpreted as a sign of weakness? Is it a cunning, if ill-intended attempt to tip the country into civil unrest? How close to 1.000 does a non-violent resistance movement have to bat to keep the majority of the public on its side?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on the median experience of tyranny.

* Matt argues the authoritarian menace has arrived.

* Brian makes the case that if the current equilibrium devolves into violence, we’ve seen enough to blame Trump.

* Erica Chenoweth on civil resistance.

As anticipated in last week’s episode, the government did indeed shut down, and as of this recording Congress remains at an impasse. At the same time Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are trying harder than ever to foment street violence in blue cities and maybe even martial law. In this episode, Brian and Matt discuss:

* How the GOP’s ongoing Epstein coverup is prolonging the shutdown and making it likelier that they “lose.”

* The esoteric Beltway metaphysics of who gets blamed for government shutdowns.

* Why Democrats are winning the battle of public opinion despite Beltway consensus that they are to blame.

Then, would it really be “winning” the shutdown to force Republicans to renew Affordable Care Act subsidies, without securing any new constraints on Trump’s abuses of power? Would Democrats shut down the government again to have another fight centered more closely on Trump’s authoritarian abuses? Is the dictatorial overreach bad enough now that Democrats should simply withhold their votes under any feasible set of concessions? And which prominent Democrats are doing resistance politics most effectively.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt argues that “authentic” politicians are mostly just acting.

* Brian argues that “non-sequitur politics” are a bad basis for fighting fascism.

* Bharat Ramamurti imagines how Democrats could force Trump closer to compliance with constitutional rule.

Donald Trump has crossed an important redline: He ordered his administration to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, fired the prosecutor who told him he had no case, and installed a lackey who did as ordered. In this episode:

* What distinguishes the (weak, losing) Comey indictment from past abuses of prosecutorial power?

* Why Comey shouldn’t try to get the charges dismissed on selective prosecution grounds, and should instead demand a speedy trial.

* If Trump thinks his revenge tour was “litigated in the election, might a humiliating defeat at the Comey trial be the beginning of the DOJ’s new role as tip of the spear of Trump’s retribution campaign?

Then, on the eve of the government shutdown, Brian and Matt look ahead to likely end games. Has the Democrats’ confused posture in the standoff doomed them, or can they reorient everyone in the party to make arguments they can really commit to long-term? Will the public’s presumptive sense that Republicans are to blame for government shutdowns insulate Democrats from backlash? And, as long as they’re keeping the House shuttered to prevent votes on releasing the Epstein files, will Republicans be able to exploit their advantages in this fight?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian argues that if Democrats want a big fight over health care, there are ways to engineer one without shoving it into a fight over the annual budget.

* Matt argues Hillary Clinton should have demanded here day in court during Trump 1.0 because the email scandal was bullshit.

* Brendan Nyhan on the Comey prosecution precedent.

* Josh Marshall on the power dynamics of the shutdown fight.

With the firing (and then unfiring) of Jimmy Kimmel, the right-wing crackdown in the name of Charlie Kirk seems to have bumped up against real limits.

In light of the week’s developments, we discuss:

* The schisms within MAGA that were on display at the Kirk memorial;

* How those schisms fused with resistance backlash, forcing ABC and Disney to rethink their decision to take Kimmel off the air;

* Whether this is a sign that society as a whole has reached the limits of authoritarian abuses it’s willing to tolerate.

Then, Brian and Matt zoom out to ask whether public rejection of a free-speech crackdown can help form the basis of big-tent Democratic unity, from Zohran Mamdani in New York through (maybe!) Geoff Duncan in Georgia. Is Duncan the best candidate in the Georgia Dem gubernatorial primary? Should Democrats back him for the abstract value of proving the party welcomes heterodox voices? And what does progressive uneasiness with Duncan, like establishment Dem uneasiness with Mamdani, tell us about the meaning of solidarity?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian thinks the Kirk crackdown moved Democrats closer to an appropriate fighting posture.

* Matt on the crackdown as classic overreach;

* Jessica Valenti on why abortion represents the least productive grounds on which Democrats might moderate.

* Geoff Duncan explains his conversion to Greg Sargent.

Donald Trump and several of his top officials have promised to unleash a partisan crackdown in Charlie Kirk’s honor, even as the notion that Kirk’s assassin was in league with the institutional left becomes more far fetched.

In light of the week’s developments, we discuss:

* Our personal reactions to the Kirk murder, and the contours of the overall public response;

* What we know about the GOP plan to use it as a pretext to crack down on political dissent;

* The differences between using free speech and believing in free speech; the related differences between good-faith debate and propaganda.

Then, is MAGA’s seamless fusion of partisan propaganda with state functions actually a source of political power for the GOP? Between Trump’s sinking poll numbers on issue after issue, public rejection of his immigration crackdown, and spiraling, trollish foreign policy, is there any reason to believe Americans won’t reject a speech crackdown, too? And if the administration is embarking on a losing abuse of power (even if only to generate yet more propaganda) is there any good reason why Democrats shouldn’t fight them by seizing the mantle of free speech?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt’s extremely conflicted take on the looming government shutdown.

* Brian on the GOP’s recursive cycle of abusing power to generate propaganda to justify further abuses of power, and how to respond;

* The extensive fallout of the propaganda-driven Hyundai factory raid.

Another government shutdown looms, and, thus, so do more angsty struggle sessions over what Democrats should do, and what effective opposition looks like. In this episode, we discuss:

* How does mounting bad news for Donald Trump—bad jobs numbers, defeats in court, and revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein—affect the politics of a shutdown?

* Who’s got the better bead on how Democrats should proceed, Matt, Brian, or Ezra Klein?

* Why there’s a hidden danger in Democrats’ inclination to demand extraneous concessions—like renewed funding for Obamacare.

Then, how might the lessons of a [knocks on wood] successful shutdown fight help ameliorate ongoing fight between different factions of the Democratic Party, including progressives and abundists? Can they find common ground over their shared interest in making the Democratic Party more responsive and faster moving? Or are progressives too suspicious of strange bedfellows to ever support policy-making coalitions with Republicans and business interests?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian’s shutdown piece.

* Ezra’s shutdown piece

* Matt’s shutdown piece.

* Brian’s response to both.

* How to understand recent data revisions.

* Brian’s abundance flowchart for an intra-Democratic truce

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This week, we indulge all the speculation and look ahead to politics if and after Donald Trump dies in office. For instance:

* Is a movement that claims the mantle of making America “healthy” sustainable in a world where the obese 79 year old president croaks after his health secretary takes vaccines off the shelf?

* Does JD Vance have the juice required to consolidate all the pro-Trump factions (many of which hate each other)?

* What becomes of Democratic politics? Can the emerging anti-Trump politics of Democratic presidential hopefuls work against a post-Trump GOP?

Then, what’s all this got to do with Democratic propaganda? We discuss a recently unearthed progressive effort to subsidize Democrat-friendly viral content creators, which has already driven bitter recriminations across the online left. Is the problem here message or medium? Would anyone be complaining if the people involved had agreed to be open and transparent about their partnership? Or is subsidizing heavy-on-politics content an altogether mistaken concept?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on the cursed establishment effort to fend off Graham Platner.

* Matt also wants to let Graham Platner cook.

* Paige Cognetti will run against Rob Bresnahan in a key Pennsylvania bellwether.

This week, a close look at two troubling authoritarian provocations from the Trump administration: Friday’s dawn FBI raid of John Bolton’s house in Maryland, and Monday’s purported firing of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We discuss:

* How Matt managed to leave his microphone in Maine.

* What Trump seemingly hopes to accomplish by making an example out of Bolton.

* Whether opposing the retributive prosecution of a crank like Bolton represents a good test of how to build a unified front against fascism.

* Also, what the fuck is going on with Trump’s bruises and cankles?

Then, do the Bolton and Cook abuses provide the broad left any openings to peel off Republicans who might see Trump’s consolidation of power as a threat to their own ambitions. If he’ll go after a stalwart Republican like Bolton, why wouldn’t he go after certain Republican presidential candidates? If overlook Trump’s harassment of Cook, what leg will they have to stand on when 2029 Democrats purge Republicans from government, mine their federal records, and have a big fat precedent to point to.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt on the economic downside of personalist autocracies like the one Trump is building.

* Brian makes the case against liberal rectitude politics, which make it so hard for the whole, unified party to stand up for itself.

* HEADLINE: Trump, 79, Smears Right Hand in Makeup Amid Cankles Cover-Up.

Donald Trump’s federal occupation of the capital continues, but the context has worsened. It now unfolds alongside Trump’s seemingly related efforts to: 1) gerrymander as many red states as possible; 2) unconstitutionally void and rerun the Census in a manner that would benefit Republicans; and 3) assert unconstitutional control over the time, place, and manner of elections.

In this episode we’ll discuss:

* To what extent is Trump’s desire to subjugate the residents of blue cities related to his long-established desire to cheat in elections.

* Are Democrats outmatched in the gerrymandering arms race?

* Have the opinion makers who discounted Trump’s threat to the 2020 election reverted to complacency once again?

Why is Trump acting so spooked about the midterms? And what is to be done? Should congressional Democrats resist these power grabs during the government shutdown fight? Should Democratic governors send their own national guard troops to DC to magnify the contradictions? What kinds of resistance tactics from DC residents would work best to either deescalate the situation, or make it blow back against Trump?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian says it’s gut check time for Senate Democrats: Will they take Trump’s abuses of power head on when the government-funding deadline nears?

* Matt: Let’s fix the gerrymandering problem with proportional representation.

* Via National Security Counselors, Should Wes Moore (or someone) send blue state national guardsmen to DC?

* No comment….