We Happy Few
Plus: Why are Trump staffers still beating up on Ron DeSantis?
Tomorrow is a notable day: the date of the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, and the two-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Happy Friday.
The Friends We Make
We had a Bulwark all-staff meeting yesterday. In person.
That doesn’t happen so often. In this age of text and email and Slack and Zoom, there’s not much need to be physically present in one place.
And in any case, we live scattered all over the United States. And Canada—a fine nation whose destiny is surely to become a part of the United States (by mutual agreement on both sides, of course).
But this isn’t a missive about geopolitics. It’s about us. Not “us” as in the Bulwark staff. But rather “us” as in the broader Bulwark community.
Or indeed “us” as in the even wider Bulwark-adjacent community—fellow democrats (with a little “d”), liberals (with a little “l”), and conservatives (with a little “c’), some of whom may not have even heard of The Bulwark, but who believe in freedom and democracy and the American experiment.
As we sat in the conference room discussing our growing roster of articles and podcasts and videos, I thought back to the founding of The Bulwark, on a bootstrap out of the ashes of The Weekly Standard just over five years ago.
And then I thought about a piece that we published on October 15, 2020. It arrived unbidden from James Carville, whom I’d first met in 1992 when we were on the opposite sides of that presidential campaign (spoiler alert: his side won), and whom I’ve known since as a friend and perhaps the best strategist for a party whose candidates and policies I’d mostly opposed for three decades.
But we were now on the same side.
The piece was headlined, “A Crusade for Something Noble: Americans are coming together to save our Republic. And it means something.”
It was a tribute to all who, coming from different political places and personal backgrounds, were working together for freedom and democracy.
Here’s a taste (but do read the whole thing, as they say):
I know it’s difficult for so many of us to feel hope in this moment, which seems so incomprehensibly dark . . . [But] I see a light ahead . . . A unified and electrified coalition of Americans, coming together like our country did in World War II, standing united to send a message that will be heard around the world to all those who look with expectant hope to the America that led the crusade more than half a century ago . . .
What this moment has done for all of us . . . is that it has given us . . . a sense of common purpose. Common purpose of which we will be able to recall forever: that when our country and our Republic were on the brink of collapse, when our fellow Americans needed us, we took a blow torch to our past differences, our former conflicts and our old rivalries, and we fought together.
I can say with certainty that in all my years, joining in this crusade to take America back from the brink of destruction is the greatest thing I have ever been a part of in my life.
I remember how moved I was when James’s piece showed up in our inbox. And it came to mind at yesterday’s staff meeting because its message is as true today as it was three-and-a-half years ago.
At the meeting, several of us remarked that they were looking forward to a time when we could be less preoccupied by the moment we’re in, by the struggle in which we’re engaged. It can all get a little exhausting. A return to some kind of normalcy would be nice.
But as we said to each other: Beware! The time for that is not yet!
And that’s fine. Though we may occasionally be weary warriors, we’re happy warriors. Our spirits are high. The fight’s a good one. It’s a fight worth fighting. And it has the important added benefit of being a fight in which you make good friends along the way.
—William Kristol
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Back on the MAGA Hitlist: Ron DeSantis
Donald Trump is going up against just one opponent, Nikki Haley, in tomorrow’s South Carolina primary. But some of his top advisers spent a chunk of their week savaging a throwback foe: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Here was senior advisor Jason Miller: “We looked past Rob’s [sic] half-hearted endorsement and the bullshit trip to South Carolina to try to stay relevant, but if his popping off continues, Thor’s hammer will return.”
Here was Trump spokesman Steven Cheung: “Ron tucked his tail between his legs and he should have scurried off into the shadows of obscurity. Now that he’s dipped his high-heeled toes back in the water, he might just find out our shovel can dig a lot deeper.”
And here was senior advisor Chris LaCivita: “Chicken fingers and pudding cups is what you will be remembered for you sad little man.”
It was a remarkable amount of ire to direct at a guy who dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump more than a month ago—not to mention one who remains hugely popular with Republican base voters.
What did DeSantis do to earn this displeasure? He told supporters on a Wednesday call that he wouldn’t be interested in serving as Trump’s vice president, one day after Trump had confirmed to Fox News the Florida governor was on his shortlist for the job. More than that, he suggested Trump might make his choice based on “identity politics.”
“I would want somebody that, if something happened, the people that voted us in would have been pleased to know that they’re going to continue the mission,” DeSantis said. “I’m not sure that those are going to necessarily be the criteria that Donald Trump uses . . . I have heard that they’re looking more in identity politics. I think that’s a mistake.”
What DeSantis meant wasn’t totally clear—although it’s perhaps notable he was the only white guy on the shortlist Trump floated Tuesday, which also included Sen. Tim Scott, Rep. Byron Donalds, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Gov. Kristi Noem, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
But it’s safe to say Team Trump’s objections had less to do with DeSantis’s apparent “won’t someone think of the whites” posture and more to do with his willingness to offer public criticisms of the frontrunner’s decisionmaking at all. It’s a reminder, if you needed another one, that there’s only one criterion for being a member of the MAGA movement in good standing: a perpetual willingness to kiss the ring.
Catching up . . .
Biden announces more than 500 new sanctions on Russia after Navalny’s death: Politico
Trump frames election as battle against ‘wicked’ system bent on attacking Christians: New York Times
Haley performs better against Biden than Trump, polls show: NBC News
More clinics in Alabama stop IVF treatments after court ruling: NBC News
Trump wants to seem moderate on abortion. His would-be advisers have other ideas: The Atlantic
Florida surgeon general defies science as school tries to contain measles outbreak: Washington Post
ICYMI: George Conway Explains Why The House GOP are Lowlifes
George and Sarah discuss the Georgia case against Trump, Trump’s $400 million+ judgment, and the FBI informant who lied about Hunter Biden.
Listen to the podcast / Watch on YouTube / Ad-free for B+ members
Quick Hits
1. Whistling Past the Impeachment Graveyard
Don’t miss Joe Perticone on the House GOP’s heroic attempts to pretend the disintegration of Alexander Smirnov’s accusations don’t affect the strength of their impeachment case:
Last week, the Justice Department charged an informant named Alexander Smirnov with lying to the FBI when he told them, among other things, that Joe Biden had sought bribes from Ukrainian officials while serving as Barack Obama’s vice president. The core argument underwriting the GOP probe collapsed the moment Smirnov was taken into custody at a Las Vegas airport last week.
But none of this stopped Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the Oversight Committee chairman, or Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the other two chairmen in the probe, from continuing the spin.
Republicans running the inquiry quietly deleted references to Smirnov from interview request letters in their probe while insisting nothing has changed about their case.
2. The New American Nihilism
Some grim reading from the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson on Americans’ apparently unslakable thirst for political chaos:
Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why people share conspiracy theories on the Internet. He and other researchers designed a study that involved showing American participants blatantly false stories about Democratic and Republican politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. The subjects were asked: Would you share these stories online?
The results seemed to defy the logic of modern politics or polarization. “There were many people who seemed willing to share any conspiracy theory, regardless of the party it hurt,” Petersen told me. These participants didn’t seem like stable partisans of the left or right. They weren’t even negative partisans, who hated one side without feeling allegiance to the other. Above all, they seemed drawn to stories that undermined trust in every system of power.
Petersen felt as though he’d tapped a new vein of nihilism in modern politics—a desire to rip down the Elites, whatever that might mean. He wanted to know more about what these people were thinking.
Cheap Shots
I was touched by Mr. Kristol's tribute to James Carville and positive acknowledgment of him as both a person and a former political rival. It is the kind of warmth and honesty that all too often is lacking in American politics anymore. It helps that Carville is a thinker and a person who has a gift for speaking truth, and in ways that the average person can relate to. I'm not convinced that anyone from within the MAGA camp ever will attain that lofty perch after the dust someday has settled. It feels like a bridge too far when the movement is so grounded in anger, hatred, resentment, and grievance rather than any actual substantive program to make most people's lives better.
That said, there also is no small irony in the fact that nothing has been the same in the GOP since Carville's time, 30 years ago, when the party traded in a substantial share of its goodwill in order to attack and demonize the Clintons personally, as if a Satanic force that had to be eradicated more than merely political opponents whom they sought to defeat. It is genuinely cringeworthy to remember, much less hear again, the anti-Clinton screeds that Rush Limbaugh and others used as a prop to propel themselves to higher levels, and mostly for purely personal gain -- not unlike some modern-day right wing talk radio hosts, no? The level of anti-Clinton vitriol and resentment, well above and beyond normal political differences of opinion, remains stunning to behold in hindsight, and the lasting nature of how it rewrote the rule book on political engagement came to full fruition with the ultimate Clinton hatred in 2016, when Hillary's presidential campaign became the lightning rod that foisted upon us the person who still occupies so much of our time and attention and concern now.
One wonders what alternative universe we might be living in today if G.H.W. Bush had defeated B. Clinton in 1992. Or for that matter if his veep and target by association, Al Gore, had managed to wind up on the other side of a Supreme Court ruling versus George W. Or even if there had been a President McCain instead of a President Obama. And especially if some guy named Donald thus had remained merely a lower-level scam artist and B-list celebrity.
Mr. Kristol, I disagree with you on many issues but whenever you were interviewed, I would listen to what you'd say. You would always have a valid argument (in the debate sense of the word) for your position. I first heard about The Bulwark from you and Charlie on MSNBC. I thought that this might be the place for me. A place where not everyone agrees but they treat each other with respect. Thank you for The Bulwark and for bringing on the contributors whose work I may not have read elsewhere!