This is ramble and I am Michael Moore.
Welcome everyone. On the today's podcast, I have
with me a special guest. One of our great writers
journalists authors in this country her name is Rebecca,
Trey stir and I was going to have her on because of a piece
that she wrote recently about how much she's always disliked
Joe Biden for decades. And in this piece in New York
Magazine, she talked about the conflict that she seemed to be
having with the fact that she was being very pleasantly
surprised by much of what he was doing and how could this be?
And it's a fascinating piece. And so I wanted to have her come
on and talk about it. So she did and you will hear her
very shortly here. But somewhere after about, I
don't know, 40, 45 minutes. I switch the subject to a
different topic. And I don't know what I was
thinking. Maybe we could talk about this
for five or ten minutes and wrap up the show, but we went on for
another 45 minutes and it was, wow.
And I thought to myself, well, I've just done two separate
podcast with Rebecca Tracer. And I don't think we've done
this before in the 203 episodes that we've done of Rumble, but I
just thought we could, we Leave. These are separate podcasts and
so there's going to be a part 1 and part 2.
Part 1 is what you're going to hear right now with Rebecca and
I talking about Biden, what's going on in the country etc,
etc. And then next week, I will bring
you the part to that was a very good but difficult discussion to
have with her. And I'm going to leave it at
that and let it speak for itself when I hear it.
Weak. But we have to talk about today
is something I think it's of critical importance, in terms of
of getting Biden to do what we elected him to do and finding
the moral courage to stick to his guns, when it comes to
fighting these Republicans and you know, it's not everything
that we want obviously. And you know, he's not me,
probably not you. But man, I have this feeling
that we are, we are doing some good stuff here.
And we are going to stop these Republicans from destroying this
country in the planet. And I don't want to get to
over-optimistic about that because it's only going to work
when we all do our work. But this is a lot better than I
thought it was going to be. And I want to talk about my
complicated feelings about that with somebody else who's his
Complicated feelings about in that's Rebecca treister.
So we're going to join her in just a second here for part one,
but before we do that I just wanted to thank we have another
new underwriter and I love it when I get these Underwriters
that are doing the things that I so want to see done.
And in this case, the underwriter is a an entity
called true bill. It's actually an app if you
heard of this this is like the genius.
Yeah. Okay.
So think about this high-tech to thought man I've got a lot of
subscriptions, how many things if I subscribed to or how many
streaming services am I on? I thought was going to only join
like one, you know, now I've got I don't know how many I have
I've lost track and when you sign up, they automatically
renew you. So you never really you don't
get like a bill in the mail back in the old days, you know, and
then you can decide it's do I want another year of Newsweek?
I don't think so, and that's that, but that's not the way it
works. Now, now you You sign up for a
free trial subscription and then you go and you sign up.
And then you realize when I'm still on that, I'm still getting
that magazine. I don't even read it.
Or do I really need five different streaming services?
Seriously. Well, true bill, they came up
with this idea where they help you.
Not only identify all this stuff, you subscribe to be it, a
print Magazine, online, Magazine online newspaper, Streaming
service. They also help you stop paying
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have forgotten about and 40% of people.
Recently said that they are overwhelmed by the number of
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For the other 60% probably forgot they subscribed in the
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Let true bill the true bill app. Do the work for you and set you
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because this tells them that it was a good idea to support this
podcast and to support my voice, true bill.com Rumble.
And now let's Rumble. Rebecca Tracer.
My guest today is one of our great writers on politics
gender. Media and culture for the past
several years. Her books include Big Girls,
Don't Cry the election. That changed everything for
American women. All the The Single Ladies,
unmarried women and the rise of an independent nation.
And our most recent book was good and mad, the Revolutionary
power of woman's anger. She currently writes for New
York Magazine, where she's written some of the most
thought-provoking essays about the me to Reckoning, post Harvey
Weinstein. And her most recent piece which
I just found to be incredible and and really fit in with what
a lot of us have been taught. About here on this podcast in
the last few months and that piece if you want to look it up
and actually I'll have it a link to it right here on my podcast.
Platform H the piece is called Biden's big left gamble.
The president is overseeing a sea change in the world of
economic policy and so much hangs in the balance.
That is very true. I'm also very pleased to
finally, welcome to this podcast.
Somebody that I Meyer a great deal and love reading her
writing, please. Welcome to rumble.
Rebecca traced her Rebecca. Thank you.
Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to finally be here.
I'm happy that it has happened. Now, especially after this piece
that you wrote where you are sort of pleasantly surprised as
to how Joe Biden who has been. If I may say this on the wrong
side, mostly the wrong side of, most of the critical issues of
the past. Well, let's just give it 15
Years and how he's governing and what's been happening.
And I've said this before my podcast, that, you know, the
political winds have been shifting to the left and Biden
has been blowing along with it. I've also said to people and I
don't know this for a fact, please don't think that I'm in
Daily communication with anybody, that knows anything.
But knowing Bernie, I get this feeling that he and Biden are on
the phone. Every other night.
Like they're having some kind of You know, goodnight talk with
each other because Biden seems to have as has the country
shifted to the left that we haven't shifted, right?
We've gone left but tell me what pleased you with Joe Biden's
performance. And, I mean, how can any of us
who are of a certain age. We remember what happened to
Anita Hill in those hearings. Yeah.
What happened to Anita Hill was? Probably the formative political
or feminist experience. My life.
I was in high school because I think, to some degree, my
feeling about how Biden's doing could be framed as a pleasant
surprise. So, and I should say I was very
publicly and aggressively a Critic of Joe Biden and his
entry into the 2020s. And I wrote a probably 3000 word
argument against Joe Biden based on his history, with regard, not
only to his handling of the Thomas hearings.
But his history writing the crime bill as a supporter of
welfare reform. As a, as a former supporter of
the Hyde Amendment and a abortion opponent who had
evolved right already by 2019, but I wrote this in 2019 at the
beginning of that primary season to me.
And I, this was not a secret. I didn't, I'm not like I get to
be an opinion writer, but it's not like I had one Canada.
I preferred a lot of the candidates who were to the left
and I wrote most extensively about Is it with Warren?
She's somebody I profiled over and over again for years but and
you know I don't think anybody I write about my politics like I
was preferring the candidates who are to the left but the
person who I was aggressively critical of in print was Joe
Biden because I thought he represented our past and not our
future, and I couldn't have been more public about that and my
criticism of him persisted through 2020, through the
primaries. On the day that he was
inaugurated or at least that week I wrote in New York
Magazine, a column that was sort of coming to terms with how much
I had not wanted him to be the president.
And how grateful I was that he was becoming the president both
things were true, right? I obviously desperately wanted
him to win with every I probably had never wanted anybody to win
the presidency more on some sick level, right?
And so I wrote a piece about him on, you know, at the moment of
his inauguration in January after you know, January 6 and
everything where I was trying to reckon with some of my own Level
of relief and also sadness that this is what the answer had to
be. And in part what I wrote in that
piece was was about the kind of middling white patriarchy, the
middle-of-the-road moderate white patriarchy that Joe Biden
embodied and I wrote in that piece and it's a grim piece.
It is. It's it's wrestling with my what
I believe is the Revelation that of course, he was the person who
was going to win, right? Who should have like, all my
argument. It shouldn't be Joe Biden.
Like it was the guy who looked like the past that I mean, I
don't know, we can't run an alternate experience where it
was Bernier it was Warren or it was Castro or when you know or
was Booker like we can't we can't know how that would have
turned out but that the comfort that I saw people taking and
Biden Uncle don't Uncle Joe stuff, right?
Yeah. Permitted him to win this most
crucial of Victories and I like that's hard for me to come to
terms with because I both acknowledge that it's true and I
find it deeply deeply depressing, right?
Because a lot of what I care about is not better
representation, just for the sake of representation.
But more diverse and Progressive representation and he does still
seem like the past. And what I said in that piece at
his inauguration, is that I wanted him to take all the
energies. The kind of more activist more
forward thinking more youthful, more diverse perspectives in his
party and more broadly on the American left and put them to
use. And I sort of was a little sad
and saying, like I know that he'll get the credit, like I
want him to be FDR. I want to go big, right?
Go big or go home and take the credit.
For the work of all these other people.
And so this piece is actually looking at some of the people he
has, in fact, brought on. And so, here's my pleasant
surprise. It's not exactly surprised at
Biden himself, but a series of choices that he's made, I think
are terrific. And a lot of them are about
hiring. A lot of them are about who he's
built. His administration around not
necessarily as Inner Circle, who are a lot of the people who,
like, him have been in Democratic politics.
And, you know, over decades and, but he has staffed.
His teams and I'm writing largely in this piece about
Economic Policy teams with really creative forward, looking
young, diverse perspectives that are very exciting.
And I think actually building policy that then the questions
about whether or not that policy makes it through very broken,
Senate process, and Congressional process.
Think that putting that aside He has brought on a really
remarkable team and that makes all the difference in the world.
And so that's sort of what I'm this piece.
Is describing some of that, right?
How this process is happening and how this generation of
people who I think, do think very differently than Joe Biden
has either thought or legislative throughout his five
decade career that we've known him for right.
He actually was elected before I was born.
He was elected. I was born in E5 and Joe Biden
was elected in 72 and, and came to the senate in January of 73.
So, you know, that's what this piece is doing.
Is trying to figure out what's the match here.
Why did he do this thing? Why did he, why did he build an
Administration? And at least in part not
entirely of these really dynamic.
In some cases, forward-looking people who see government in a
different way and and some of the pieces wrestling with what
about Joe Biden leaves? A moat makes him open to that,
kind of generational and ideological shift that I think
we're seeing. the thing about Biden that has been surprising
and cheering to me because I think he very well, could have
governed in the ways that would have matched my worst guesses
about him, which would be in the spirit of the 1990s clintonian
into Obama years, you know, sort of Centrist neoliberal cowering
position of what had been until very recently, the Contemporary
Democratic party and I assumed that that was how he would
govern and he certainly It has elements of that around him, but
he has stalked his, like, his administration in some cases the
cabinet, but, but also, the kind of two and three levels down
into his administration, with really fascinating group of
people, and, and the piece that I wrote a few weeks ago is
largely about, you know, a kind of Economic Policy side of
things. I think it's in some cases, it's
true around immigration and climate will see it.
But, you know, he's broke. He's brought a really surprising
group of people. Who are a lot younger, a lot
more Progressive, a lot more diverse in their thinking, as
well as in terms of their identities.
And their ages, then then I might have expected.
And I think you can see that reflected in the policy that
they're making whether or not that policy gets through and
whether or not Biden and the senior Democrats actually know
how to fight for that policy successfully.
And if there's a path to fight for it successfully, these are
all open questions, but a lot of what he's putting on the table
Abel is a lot more Dynamic, a lot Lester than I would have
guessed. And so, the thing that I am
pleasantly surprised by is his openness to a new generation of
economic thinking, and idea, and ideology, and political, and
approach to politics and framing of the government, which I think
is really important, he's really open to new Is to cast the role
of government as a beneficial force in people's lives.
And I think that is so crucial and it's been missing for my,
you know, entire adulthood practically my entire life, from
the Democratic party is a willingness to sort of
aggressively. Say, the government is, is a
salubrious. Force should be a salubrious for
should act to bring support staff.
Economic stability, Healthcare dignity to the lives of people
in This country and and he's brought in a group of people who
I think think differently about that and he's permitting them to
shape policy. And and that's that's very
interesting to me. And so my piece was noting that.
And then also exploring what's made him open to this path and
to this sort of new generation of people.
And there are all kinds of people who have hypotheses
about, what about Biden, makes him a good match for some of
these younger people and the ideas that have come up through
Decades of Activism that's been happening sort of outside the
Democratic party and then that has, you know, taken shape
within the Democratic party electorally and has also
happened within Realms of economic theory is it's the ice
cream there is. You know I think it's I've
always felt that ice cream was one of the few things that we
have of maybe perhaps some proof of a higher power on this
because no human could ever invent something that good.
That's just an this guy is not about his ice cream and ice
cream in the cone, especially, but I've also said somewhat
seriously, that having been raised Catholic and being a
recovering Catholic, at this point, I guess, this guy, his
religion, his faith. However, he whatever, however,
he Fashions it, he's the first president in my lifetime, that
doesn't fake. Go to Church that he really is
going to mass and there's something about it that perhaps
it has been affected by the losses in his life maybe this
final loss with his his son that and so I've seen this happen
with people sometimes where they it's not just about going and
kneeling and saying, prayers and all this, but it's really about
the, how can I leave this world a better place?
And, and do it not just in my name, but my son's name and in
the others who've suffered and, and, and I, I sense this in him.
I also, it's these his other advisors, his three
granddaughters. I think that they have just
having read and seen interviews with them.
They have made their voices as young, women heard loudly and
forcefully with him about some things.
And I just, maybe it's a combination of all of this.
I don't, I don't know right now. I don't know if I want to know
because Today Rebecca today he is still.
Yeah, pushing for the over three trillion dollar what he calls
the human infrastructure, he won't let up on it.
They've told him to stop Mansion, has threatened him.
You got to stop this, I'm going home.
You know, Mansion shows up at a GOP, fundraiser this past
weekend in Texas. You know.
And he doesn't use of the modern democratic as you were.
Describing this group of people, the Democrats has Always giving
in afraid of Republicans. Afraid of the word liberal.
Remember you couldn't use that word.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So so this is the, these are the Democrats that we've grown up
with in is adults. Just just hated it and he's not
doing that, he's not giving up, he's still just an everyday
because you know, I'm like you with this and I'm like, I knew
he'd give up on that you know and then all of a sudden comes
back today. He goes hey what about my three
trillion dollars for child care and and All this other stuff
that we've got to do this is this is infrastructure to and
I'm not going to let you define it.
I'm defining it because I know this is what the majority of
Americans want. And and and I think that the way
we cannot understate how remarkable it is to have a
president pushing for that care economy stuff.
I mean and you know, I'm of the mind that the reframing it as
infrastructure is brilliant. There are lots of very smart
people who disagree with me about that but I think it's
brilliant and it is a way to take something that for years
has been siloed as a women's issue.
And in fact and sort of find a kind of unfortunately
masculinized framework that thereby legitimizes it right in
the infrastructure, but it's also correct their the systems
that need to work in order for people to live the lives, they
want to live, you know, and need to live and so I think the
infrastructure framing is brilliant.
I want to go back to the theorizing about what it is
because you said a couple of things that are very interesting
to me. So I this wasn't in my piece but
a couple people mentioned it to me and I think it's absolutely
true. The close relationship with the
granddaughters. I think is really important
because he does seem to have a lot of his inner circle in the
white house or people who've been with him for decades,
right? And a lot of guys who like him,
my guys have been around for a long time, but but he has
clearly a very close familial relationship with these young
women. The the thing you said about his
religion, of course to my mind Cuts in several directions and
it may be true that that his faith guides him.
It's certainly true that his experiences of loss, you know,
beginning with the death of his wife and child and his Own
experience in. This is probably not separate
from his understanding of the role.
That care work plays. Within the lives of family, his
experiences of raising his sons for period as a single dad up
through the loss of Bo, you know, and and his and his sons,
struggle with addiction. All these kinds of things, give
him an experience of loss pain and and what you need, and the
resources that you need at hand to rebuild and Eyes.
I think all that's, that's really true and makes him
empathetic, but he's also had all those experiences.
And, you know, remember he'd had those experiences when he
supported welfare reform, right? So if that gets us, part of the
way, but it doesn't, it doesn't take us all the way there.
And, of course, the religion itself is what led to Decades of
his stance on abortion, which I, and I have to say this among the
biggest surprises of this Administration and something,
Then I care deeply about and that I just have to take my hat
off. This budget, the proposed budget
was the first since I believe Clinton's first budget in the
early 90s that did not include the Hyde Amendment.
Now the hide will certainly go back into the finished product,
but the fact that Joe Biden who for years was an opponent of
abortion and a supporter of the Hyde Amendment, took the Hyde
Amendment out, the legislative Rider that forbids pregnant
people from from using who Avail themselves of A minute Insurance
to use that government insurance to pay for abortion care, which
is unbelievably discriminatory racist, like one of them, the
most unequal izing laws in this country.
It's foul in every way and it's just, it's been so absorbed as
as that, I believe, Barack Obama referred to it as a tradition.
And the fact that Biden was the person who submitted a proposed
budget that didn't have it in, I just have to take my hat off to
him because That that shows, change that I really admire in
that is about an ability to evolve and it's about perhaps
listening to people and taking them really seriously and
thinking about how, what? Faith compassion dignity loss.
Equality, taking a look at structural inequalities like he
says he's doing how that can reshape our ideas and lead us to
change our minds, which is what we want from people.
There are also more cynical views of this which is that
Biden. The thing about Biden is he is a
classic Shit, right? He's the guy like he is the
retail politician. He's the guy holding babies and
shaking hands in an unco Vera, right.
He's the he's that guy and that guy can lead a lot of us to
distrust him for very good reason.
But there's also something and Dorian Warren said to me, when I
interviewed him for this piece, he's like we actually want our
politicians to respond to our pressure, right?
We want them to take the temperature to put their finger
in the Wind. See which way the wind is
blowing, and it's the job of activists.
Whether that means outside sort of Street activism, whether it
means activism within a Democratic party, or whether it
means activism, within like nerd world of Economic Policy
expertise, it's our job to change the way the wind is
blowing and, and decade's worth of activism, whether it's occupy
and fight for 15 and black lives matter and me to whether it's
Bernie and the squad. And the Elizabeth Warren sort of
more regulatory approach. Whether it's this shift in
Economic Policy, thinking that I was sort of just Being in this
peace among a bunch of nerds who are traumatized by the slow
recovery coming out of 2008 who were informed by the activism of
occupy black lives matter, to rethink a democratic party's
approach to economic policy. And now, we're working within
the skies Administration. He's being affected by all that
question, all of it, right? And he's shifting and I think
that's a really important quality.
And then the the other theory that Felicia one, who's ahead of
the Roosevelt Institute, said to me, that's very funny.
And lots of people notice. But I think there's actually
something interesting that I think you might be interested in
to she said it was kind of a joke and kind of not.
She's like, he's so old. Right.
Some of the reasons I thought he was the parties past and not his
future. He's so old that he's actually
pre neoliberal, right? That he came of age, but it's
true. He came of age politically even
in adulthood amongst the remnants of a New Deal
coalition, right? He knows, you know, I mean, I
think there are there are all Of arguments to be had about his
actual commitments to labor, but he, he, he sees himself as a
union guy and he came of political age in a period where
he understood, that there was a different way for Democratic for
Democrats to govern and he was then a part of the party at a
foot soldier of the party, that decided to do it differently,
being led by Wall Street and markets over a period of four
decades, but he has the experience the lived.
Experience of a very different approach to democratic policy
making. And so some of this stuff may
not be the way I understand it. It's like it's new and he's open
to new Young ideas. And Felicia Wong's model is
like, these are old ideas, you know, and he obviously knows
that that's he talks about Roosevelt all the time.
You know the biggest portrait in his office is FDR.
That's his model. That's an old model of a
problem. Cesar Chavez and Bobby Kennedy.
I mean, Rosa Parks this write this in.
He also the thing about well, I just want to say certain go back
to this Catholic thing again. But last month, this guy who
supported the Hyde Amendment, all anti-abortion blah, blah
blah. All through all these decades
and now he's been declared an enemy of the Catholic Church by
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
They have voted to, to deny him to go to communion when he goes
to mass, they've never done that to anybody.
And I think it's because they see him as a threat.
He's probably their biggest for all.
Now, we're talking about all the bad things that the Catholic
Church does to this planet to this country to women, to the
lgbtq community Etc. They they are probably
responsible for so many deaths. If you lay At their feet, what
they did to stop any help going to people who had HIV and AIDS.
No, condom distribution was allowed.
None of this stuff. If, if you were Planned
Parenthood or somebody in, you were Distributing condoms.
In the third world using getting government money because of
condoms things, that would save people's lives.
And they have now said that he is their enemy, their personal
enemy, and they are going to deny him.
This thing that he actually Believes he believes.
That is the body of Christ and and they are not going.
And I think it's because he is and what he started out of the
gate doing here, they're not stupid and they see that his his
values are certainly not theirs and and they do care a lot more
about what they call The Unborn than the child, who is born into
poverty into everything else, hunger, Etc.
Catholic Church lost its way as an institution a long time ago.
And yet he and yet, like your grandparents, if you're
Catholic, they still show up to mass.
I don't know. I just I think that there's
there is something going on here, but I just for all, I just
want to ask you this though, for all the positive that he's
doing, there's still this maddening talk that we stay.
We have to find common ground that we have to meet in the
middle. And you wrote this apiece, it
recently titled. They've been calling for
Bloodshed the whole time talking about the right wing and how
they've supported violence for years.
Now, this is a party that has built its power on violence and
the call for Bloodshed, be it invading another country.
Being at not repassing the violence against women's act
etcetera, Etc. This is in their core belief.
And so so my question to you is, how are we supposed to meet in
the middle? Yeah, there's no middle that's
horseshit and so but here's probably why I'm not a
politician much less the president of the United States.
I mean I think it's horseshit and I think it's been I think
treating this kind of the it all goes hand in hand with Democrats
stated commitment to civility which go back, you know, like I
mean for a long time. But this whole notion that the
system worked, I mean and that is something that I will.
I'll still work up a head of steam about with Biden and his
stories of the Senate. And his, you fought like cats
and dogs on the floor with the segregationist and then you go
and, you know, have lunch or go to the gym or whatever.
Fuck that. I mean, right.
The system worked because you're the people in power in the
system and this, your, this, your the system, and your fights
actually are legislating the realities of the people out
there. So, it's working for you,
because you get your lunch right, but it's not working,
right? So I I'm allergic to the NIH.
I mean, I remember in gosh, I've lost what year were in but in
the period of the the child separation and the summer, guess
it was 2017 or 2018 you know, when you had Pelosi and you had
people calling for like Civility and stop interrupting their date
nights and dinners with protesters.
Fuck that I am. But but listen, that is a
perspective that is very much on the side of a kind of stirred
Fury and protest culture that I actually believe, right.
There's they're all kinds of different schools of thought on
this, right? But I think it's the culture of
protest and the and the interrupting of the dinners of
the people who were, who are ripping families apart at the
border, right? And the stuff that is deemed by
many, In power, including ostensibly on the side of, you
know, on in the Democratic party, right?
Definitely in the Democratic party and ostensibly on the side
of the greater moral. Good saying no, no, no we can't.
This is, we need to be civil in our discussions.
We need to work together. We need to write.
I'm on the side of fuck. That protest them.
However, I will also say that there are these kinds of
challenges in the expression of changing ideas, come in many.
A forms and some of those forms are Street protest.
Some of those forms are demonstrations.
Some of those forms are interrupting, the dinners of
administration officials, right? Some of those forms are profane
and then they may not you know that if that's not working with
that's not the system working, right?
It's not. The legislators having their
lunches together, right? In fact it's those lunches or
the equivalent being disturbed but that's part of the work of
again. Activism that happens.
In many dip takes many different forms at many different times.
You know, that's different from some of the, it's distinct from
some of the voter registration efforts the voter protection
movements we've seen happen. But yet these things are all
different, forms of expression of dissatisfaction with the
system, right? And that despite his
dissatisfaction is finding in the albiet in varied again, very
different forms. It's finding its way into that
by Administration. And so if you don't have a
culture that is mad enough to interrupt dinners for five
summers ago or when it again, I have lost time.
I do I can't tell you what year it is.
I can tell you what day it is, but I definitely know that
several summers ago or two years before having Medicare for every
person in this country for a great health care for everyone
or to we're in that year that's two years before that I don't
know the number of the Year either but I know where I'm at
right. But several years past you had
Maxine Waters, who has Has been on the side of protest and the X
pro test as a valid and cogent expression of dissatisfaction at
Injustice, you had Maxine Waters encouraging protest.
And you had a members of her own party Schumer, and Pelosi
chastising her for it, calling for civility and right.
And there are those disagreements coming from this
system versus a versus outside of a system, you know?
And and yet the outside of the system behave like things that
we saw Saw contributed to a greater cultural.
And, and so, all of us, knowing that we what's happening around
us is wrong. And there are people mad enough
to say it in whatever form it takes.
And of course, that is true, when it comes to issues.
That's that's border issues and immigration issues and its
climate and it is climate protest.
And it is the sit-in in Pelosi's office.
The first day of the that first day, congresswoman You know,
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez attends, right when she first
comes to Washington, you know, in January of 2019, right that's
protest. That happened within the system.
All of this gets to Joe Biden eventually, right?
That's part of what shifts. That's the wind.
That's that's Dorian Warren's. It's our job to ship the wind
and some of that is that impolite stuff?
It's sitting, you know, it's interrupting dinners or it's
doing a sit in a Nancy Pelosi's office or it's AOC running to To
unseat a Democrat who's been sitting in his seat for a long
time. And she unseats him and and then
she's at Nancy Pelosi's door to alongside protesters.
And I mean, this is all part of the larger system of changing
the wind. Yes, yes.
So but here's my fear, if the Senate, if we don't end the
filibuster in the Senate and for instance, get these voting
rights bills pass, nothing else is going to matter.
We, we may be on the path to being Permanent minority rule
country, does you think Biden? Does he have an end game here
with the mansions in the cinemas of this world?
If I understood the inner see, one of the things is that I have
almost no access to the inner. Like I'm taking the reason that
when I wrote this piece about what's going on within the, you
know, within a Biden Economic Policy, team talking to people
some insight and some outside his administration, I am so
distant from what is going on in the head of Joseph Robinette.
Biden. I can't even tell you right?
Like it's a he is a complete mystery to me.
He is a he's a president shaped president mmm.
I am very interested in what this President shaped president
is doing and I and I'm very open to all kinds of guesses about
why he's doing it and some of them may be sort of guessing it
like his psychology and his experience of loss or he's
really old and his pre neoliberal or he's listening to
young people, but the sort of does he have a plan with mansion
and Cinema? How could anybody have a plan
with mansion in cinema? Is my first question again.
This is why I'm not a politician and not the president because
I'm like the how do you deal with?
I mean like I'm I get sort of mad from the outside like get
your people collect. Come on Schumer, come on, Biden.
Like collect your people get them under control, right?
You know, McConnell wouldn't let this happen so but then I think
what do you do these Mansion in cinema, you know, this is a
degree of malevolence but what do you do?
How do you fight it? So I don't, I wouldn't have, I
don't have a plan, my Plum, you know, my it plan from the
outside is pull it together. People be a be a party, be a
party with a tiny majority, that is one Health crisis away from,
it's not a real majority, right? And I mean, even in numbers, it
is one Health, crisis away from a minority.
I have one idea of how I think he could do it, okay, but it's,
it is the again, it's old. School politics and not the kind
that we like but I remember Lyndon Johnson getting all those
Southern Democrats to vote for the Civil Rights bill and all of
that and he just brought them in one by one, you know?
And I don't know, he was like 65 or whatever and just powered
over them and just got out his finger and wagged it at him.
And said, this is what you're going to do, but I don't like
that. I'm not suggesting that by now.
Well, there's Also, I mean, what is what it?
Who's there God? Right?
Because I don't know, maybe I am.
It's God. Yeah.
Because whose Mansions got? Because I know what it is.
What I know. It's money money, right?
You go, you bring them in and you buy them off.
You go old school on this and you buy them, you don't you buy
them off by getting Mansion a yacht and Cinema, some resort
property in Mexico. That's not how you do it.
You, they want to get reelected. And the best way to do that is
Is just have them come in and just say, tell me whatever it
is. You need for West Virginia.
What do you need for Arizona? You talk about pork, I've got so
much pork to give you its Limitless and so what can I do?
And who would be opposed actually to making West
Virginia, better State better for its poor people.
Arizona, just say, what do you need because we need your votes
to get this voting rights thing passed.
We need to pass this infrastructure stuff and you've
got to do this. And and I am willing to give you
things that are not in this budget.
I'm going to put them in the budget and I'm going to tell all
the other Democrats. They've got to vote for it.
Just make your list. Give me the list, just give me
the list. Does this sound?
This is sound like Mike. Don't go back to those days.
Don't do that, right? Right.
No, I mean I don't I don't love that.
I don't love any of this. Right, right.
So here's the most optimistic, guess about what we can say
about what his strategy is. It is exactly how we got into
this portion of the conversation which Is, let's find common
ground. It is a fan dance, right?
And I mean, because there's part of me that's like Christ, this
can't be real, right? You were Obama's vice president,
you live through this. You know, who these people?
Like, who the opposition party is?
What are you talking about? Let's find common ground.
This is performance art here at this point, right?
I mean, I think that that's the only answer as to what is this
guy doing, right? I'm really just throwing things
at the wall. Hoping something will stick
because we cannot not have these bills passed.
They have to pass. Otherwise he will not win
re-election. A lot of people who came out to
vote this last time had never voted before and they came out
to get rid of trump. Now they've got to come out to
keep Biden and he's got to give them a reason to keep.
That's why the Voting Rights thing has to pass.
That's why these things to help children and other other.
You know, the living wage everything that makes life
better for for the average working person.
In in this country is is so important.
If this doesn't, if the Democrats don't do this, I'm
afraid that we will continue to have.
You know, when you, when the minority rule against, what the
majority want, you know, we know what that's called, they don't,
they don't have the power. The power of the country rests
with the people who believe in civil rights, women's rights gay
rights, Etc. All that stuff.
That's where the majority of us are at for that to be denied.
To Us by this minority of politicians who do not represent
anywhere near the majority of this country.
But this is this is we have been, we are deluding ourselves.
If we think that my, the condition of minority rule is a
future. This is the past, remember,
right? We have had Donald Trump is not
the first minority rule President, right?
You know, George Bush won with a minority and by the way, it was
I mean, think about how this happened, you know, Trump loses
the popular vote, he wins the presidency, thanks to the
Electoral College, which is, you know, designed originally, to
suppress majority opinion, right?
That's that's part of the Electoral colleges design is
minority rule, right? And it were has worked in a
couple of instances. He also that my the minority of
the, you know, Barack Obama a popularly elected president
twice Ice has his judicial appointments blocked by Mitch
McConnell over the course of eight years, including a supreme
court. So the Supreme Court Justices,
the court, that's going to decide, you know, and he could
voting abortion, labor climate like Health Care.
All of it r63 Court. Those justices have been
appointed by presidents in Donald Trump and George Bush who
didn't win the match. Jordy of American voters and yet
they have appointed the majority of justices.
So, minority rule is our condition over the past few
decades. That's how we are where we are.
It's how we got the court that that gutted the Voting Rights
Act to begin with in 2013, right, right?
Also remember that those justices themselves, right?
Isn't it true that a me koni, Barrett and Cavanaugh both
worked on the Bush V, Gore her Roberts and Cavanaugh.
Yeah. All worked.
Three, a third of the Supreme Court actually worked on the
legal team that helped George W. Bush, win the presidency,
despite losing the, the majority of votes.
Right, right? No, this is.
This is why when we call this democracy, Now everything has
gone upside down here. And nothing seems real.
We were joking talking about, you know, the covid fog that
we're all in but I thought I think that's just the way.
We're just trying to laugh off the fact that we that we
somehow. Once again it seems like we may
have won but we're losing and it's it's a, I mean, you've
written about, you know, the number of women have gotten
elected here in this in the last decade or so but nonetheless you
know we're only at 25% of Congress.
Is are women the through the Gender.
And and yet, and yet you control 25% of the power that historians
won't look kindly upon us for celebrating the fact that we got
25% of Congress about women. This is like anybody thinks this
job is over it's like this is anyways, I just looked this up.
I just found it here a few weeks ago that a voting Congress to
form an official January 6 commission to investigate the
uprising and And the vote was fifty, four in favor of forming,
the commission, 35 against and the 35 one, because of this
crazy thing is old, bill must have 60 votes, otherwise we're
afraid, we'll be filibustered and somebody like to talk on the
floor for 10 hours and this has got to stop.
I mean, I just, I don't know what to say.
I'm just so I'm not the only one people are livid about this,
but, you know, the other thing I wanted to say here too, is that.
So, you've written this thing about You know, you know, with
all with all the caveats and all the, you know, things that I
say, when I say these things about Biden, but I have friends
on the left, I don't know if that's surprising or not.
They were they refused to celebrate.
Anything positive that's happened.
During the first six months of this of this presidency.
I mean, if nothing else, the child tax, Edit this thing can
be huge. You have nothing else.
It's huge, it's huge. It has to be made permanent.
I'm going to like challenge residue, Laura who's been
fighting for the expansion of this tax credit for like 20
years, but it has to be made permanent and this is actually a
piece. Okay?
I'm not, I'm not speaking about the execution, there are a lot
of things, some of the people who are in deepest poverty,
there's not. I don't know that.
There's a there's a lot that has to be done with a policy.
This big and this different from anything we've seen before
around. Curation and selling it, and
making sure people know that this is happening and that they
can get access to it all, you know, there is a caveat about
it. They talk about how it'll cut
child poverty in half, and I say, you hear what you're
saying, this is why it has to be permanent.
It has to be permanent, but with all the caveats about how it
needs, and it needs to be executed.
Well, and it needs to be made completely accessible.
And people need to go into communities where they probably
are. There's not a huge amount of
awareness and and make sure everybody knows that.
Has no job requirement that. I mean it is a all of that said,
this is a remarkable piece of legislation.
People are going to be getting checks.
From the government for their children and this is crucial and
it is huge and I have that same issue.
Look, do you have friends that are upset at you when you say
something positive like that though.
Oh yeah, I mean, look part of me is upset at me when I say
something positive, I get it right?
There's I understand. And by the way, one of my you
said something two minutes ago where you said the appearance
that we've won when actually we're losing, there is such a
delicate and terrifying balance here, one of my great fear.
About the level of relief, I feel even, I felt me who hated
Joe Biden, okay. For like, he not just in the
2020 rates for years of my life, like, Joe Biden was everything I
didn't like about the Democratic party and the relief, I felt in
his victory. Scared me a little bit because I
do think that all this stuff we've been talking about the
disruption that activism the fury, the pushing everybody
being able to see how how cruel and unjust things were and and
Trump Shone a spotlight on that, right?
And and I would like, that's not like Silver Linings of trump
there, no Silver. Linings of trump, none none.
But there was an undeniable Leti about the venality.
Right, there was a visibility and And a lack of window,
dressing around the malevolence, the venality, the cruelty, the
bigotry, right? That made people aware and then
one of my big fears was, we're going to put a president shape,
president bandage on that, and we're going to feel such relief,
right? And the relief is going to be
numbing and it's going to be anesthetizing in a way.
That's really dangerous. Because it was the, it was the
being asleep that that got us to this point to begin with, right?
It, It was the passivity in the sort of like gentle feelings of
relief and I don't need to think about this anymore and I don't
need to be angry, and I don't need to be unhappy, and I don't
need to post a hundred angry things on Facebook every day,
because it's Joe, and it's going to be fine.
That terrified me that we were actually going to be too
pleased. That lots of people who, you
know, had spent, who had been awakened to how how, how cruel
so many systems in this country. Are we're going to just feel
like, well, now we fixed it and they were going to go back.
I mean the joke is back to brunch but that's was Been a
real fear of mine. And so, how do you balance that
fear and wanting to keep people Vigilant and wanting all your
friends on the left and and my friends and and and part of my
brain. That's like, no, come on.
This is not good enough. This is like what what, what
about climate where the hell are we on that?
You know what is happening. The there's a heat Dome all
these things that are not done that are so dissatisfied, you
want to stay vigilant, you want to stay angry and you have to,
because that's how you keep pushing them.
But there is also the failure to acknowledge the moments that
we've won. And I think it's Crucial or art
have one something, right? And I think it's crucial,
especially in the, in the effort to maintain vigilance and anger
to see the places where that vigilance and anger and work and
effort over decades, right? Has created some change, right?
It matter, I do agree with that. I'm very, you know, I'm just I'm
saying that because I in my lifetime, I don't want to see a
congress that's Just 25 percent women but at the same time if we
don't take time to celebrate these victories that we have
it's hard to keep everybody. Let's it we got to keep moving
folks and it's like man. Can we just like get it just a
sip of water here? Please, I'm in the desert,
right? You need to and I think people
who have been a lot of these lessons or things.
You know, so many people that I have written about over the past
few years and who I have met and talked to, and who's sort of
Awakenings to anger, I really admire right?
A lot of people who didn't think much was wrong.
There's a there's a whole population of suburban, white
women upper-middle-class. White women who were really
awoken. To Injustice during the Trump
years. And, you know, there are lots of
cynical approaches to take to that population.
There's a lot of really Earnest like, you know, this is it's a
very interesting. Group of people and ideas that I
have been reporting on and thinking about a lot, but one of
the things I found is that if you do not come from a tradition
of protest and struggle, right? If you are not somebody who has
been engaged in those fights for most of your life, and if your
parents weren't engaged, and if your grandparents weren't
engaged and if your community hasn't traditionally been
engaged and in fact, you know, has been, if you've been
complacent, if you've been part of a complacent community that,
you know, no, in fact is on the profitable and abusive end of
power and equities. There's not a great model for
how do you put everything out on the line to fight, right?
Whether that's registering voters, whether it's becoming
part of whether it's sort of out Awakening to a various forms of
Injustice and, and using your resources to fight them and you,
and whether it's just caring, it's just putting, like, like
people who care about these things know how painful it is.
How often it is likely to be the you're on the losing side.
If you're fighting from The Outsider.
If you're fighting for some the top from, you know, alongside
the bottom, right? We also have to have models for
rest and appreciation of moments of Victory, and joy, and joy,
and fun, and communion and, and community and Coalition, and the
things you get even, because there's so much lost, right?
Right. There's and a lot of people who
are new to activism who happened to have been like white,
middle-class people who kind of been asleep for a lot of their
lives, are used to levels of comfort, and also used to levels
of winning. And so, there were moments
during the Trump. Here's like, the confirmation of
Brett. Kavanaugh came, as such a shock
to a lot of people, right? Who were out there protesting
with all their heart and then he was confirmed anyway, it was
like, what? But I but that's not fair.
It's big, right? That's the experience of
protesting and justices. Often having that Injustice
confirmed for you. You know by losing and so
there's a lot to be learned for people who are new to this kind
of Engagement, but we must keep people engaged.
So we have to offer models of like yes you got to keep working
and you got to stay angry and you got it.
Keep awake. But you also got to take your
moments of pleasure, and joy and and an affiliation and and fun
because otherwise you're going to burn out.
Absolutely. It's so, I hope everybody took
that the right way. When I when I said that how much
we still have to do. Because I know, I know that most
people these days, especially during this pandemic are just
struggling to get through day by day and don't know what's ahead
fear, what's ahead. Now, we have this new variant in
front of us. What will happen?
This winter. I mean, the fear that people
have to live with now right now it's it's significant and so,
but at the same time, I'm when you, when you say that about, I
assume that you've probably taken your kids to the
demonstrations or whatever. Did this is that how you were
raised? Is that they do have parents
like that? I had parents who were is I did
not, I didn't have take me to demonstration parents, I did not
grow up. In a protest culture, I grew up
in a house that was very left. My mother had grown up like
staunch. In a staunchly republican family
on a potato farm in northern Maine.
My father had grown up in a socialist household in the
Bronx. My mother's politics had turned
left in college. And then they'd gotten married,
I grew up in a left household but it wasn't a street protest
household. It was a much more
intellectualized left household and you know, some I think the
first protest I went to was in junior high with my friend, my
one of my best friend's. Who is more of a it was a it was
a abortion rights protest although at that point it was
probably called a pro-choice, which I hate the language of
choice around abortion, but it was a pro-choice protest,
probably in 86 or something in Washington.
I can't remember what year it was.
And I went on a bus with my best friend and her mother, that was
the first sort of, you know, entry into that world.
But I grew up in a house that was very left, politically it.
It wasn't a. Let's go to a demonstration.
My first protest, actually was the same age.
You were except it wasn't, it wasn't about.
It was basically used to serve this thing called Thursday
surprised at lunch. It was all the leftovers from
Monday through Wednesday and so I we organized a walk out of the
cafeteria because we were sick of eating Thursday, surprise.
I know that's not very Noble, but it, you know, you got to
start somewhere, you got to start somewhere.
And I am so happy that we started here right here with
Rebecca Tracer today, a great writer and a great conversation
that we just had about where we're at right now in this
country, but I couldn't let it end right there.
We were not done and that's why we're going to go to part 2 of
this conversation next week on Rumble.
And I'll give you a heads up, Rebecca, as I mentioned at the
beginning, I mean, one of the early and original writers in
the me to movement and trying to deal with the patriarchy and the
men who make it miserable for women at work at school
wherever. And so, I started asking her
about that and and we got into talking about Harvey Weinstein
and she had her own run-ins with him and he had distributed a All
of my movies and we just kind of let it go.
And we started talking about it. And then that led to me talking
about a particular individual, man of what I had witnessed in
the office, many, many years ago and we named names and we get
into it, the it being the sexual, harassment and abuse Of
women and boy, I'll tie this was some conversation to have.
I wanted it to have its own episode and we talked about what
we still need to do, what we can do, what people can do, but it
became kind of a personal discussion for me, and I want
you to hear it. It's very powerful and so that's
what we're going to do on next week's Rumble.
So join me, then for part two of our episode here with Rebecca
Tracer and my thanks to our executive producer here today as
a Lampton, our editor and sound engineer, Nick Waze, and to
everybody else who supports this podcast listens to it
underwrites it much appreciated. There's a lot of work to do.
We're the ones to do it right? Yes.
So I will look forward to joining you next week here on
Rumble for part, two with Rebecca Tracer and the Harvey.
Weinstein + episode, so stay tuned for that.
See you next Thursday, this is Michael Moore and this is
humble. What's your part only heart?