Politix – Details, episodes & analysis

This week, Matt and Brian take stock of the many ways Republicans have flailed since Donald Trump lost last week’s debate against Kamala Harris:

* If they’re trying to change the topic, or convince people Trump won, why are so many MAGA influencers still trying to “prove” ABC rigged the debate for Harris?

* Is the discourse they’ve provoked by terrorizing Haitians in Springfield, OH, actually better for Trump than some stories about how he lost?

* Where does Trump’s, um, weird relationship with the bigoted conspiracy-theorist Laura Loomer fit into all this?

Then, behind the paywall, Matt and Brian debate the nature of racist political demagoguery when the progenitor is as erratic and undisciplined as Donald Trump. Are Democrats too traumatized by the Trumpian immigration politics to recognize when Trump veers into politically toxic territory? Is it a political emergency when Trump manages to drag discourse back to immigration? Even when he does so by saying outrageous and unpopular things? Should Democrats be more chill, pressing their advantages on whatever issue happens to be in the news—or should they always anxiously try to steer the conversation back to safer terrain?

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 Karl Lueger, George Wallace, Donald Trump and the tired dance of the demagogue.

* Brian on how Democrats can compete with this Trumpian incitement machine instead of running a conventional campaign and getting drowned out.

* The James Fallows and Deborah Fallows Our Towns foundation, book, and documentary.

That was way better than the first one! In what may be their only debate Kamala Harris reduced Donald Trump to a smoldering mass of anger, deranged lies, and incoherent rambling. It’s fair to say everyone agrees she won, because pro-Trump influencers are already attacking the moderators.

In this free post-debate episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How Harris pivoted away from Biden’s failed debate strategy toward one designed successfully to provoke Trump into making big mistakes.

* Why her polls slipped a couple points between the Democratic convention and the debate.

* What a longer run strategy to rebuild and maintain her pre-convention lead might look like.

* Will she get a measurable bump from her debate victory on Tuesday? And, if so, how long will it last?

If you’re new to Politix, welcome! We hope you’ll continue to listen, and consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

This week, Matt and Brian assess a shocking week in politics.

* Are we really going to move on from the Trump shooting attempt if it turns out, as seems possible, that the shooter was an accelerationist right-wing fanatic?

* Will Democratic leaders use the attempted shooting as an offramp from their efforts to find a stronger presidential candidate?

* Does Nancy Pelosi still have the clout and skill to help get Joe Biden to think beyond his ego?

Then, behind the paywall—a whole bunch more. Does Pelosi’s emergence as the leader of the Dems’ replace-Biden effort make Brian reconsider his long misgivings about Pelosi’s leadership? Does Biden’s political failures make Matt reconsider his assessment of Biden’s political instinct and the wisdom of the centrist establishment? How was the public more clear eyed about Joe Biden’s limitations than liberal elites? Also, what’s the significance of JD Vance’s rise and potential vice presidency?

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:

* Pelosi lieutenant Adam Schiff: “I think if [Biden] is our nominee, I think we lose. And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.”

* Brian takes stock, after three disorienting week, of the bleak new political landscape.

* Matt on how we (including Joe Biden and current Democratic leaders) have more agency to shape future events than we’re comfortable with.

This week, Matt and Brian assess the downward spiral of the Biden campaign and look for signs that Democrats won’t just give up on the race.

* Has Biden really ruled out suspending his campaign, or is he just being pragmatic: 100 percent in until he’s 100 percent out?

* Are the influential Democrats who’ve rallied to Biden’s side speaking definitively, or have they left themselves enough wiggle room to revisit the question in the days ahead, after this week’s NATO summit?

* Is Biden world deluding itself with bad arguments and data analysis, or his advisers just vying for time while they evaluate their options?

Then, behind the paywall, we look at recent historical evidence suggesting Dems, and an alternate presidential candidate, would get a bounce simply by heeding public opinion and swapping Biden out for someone younger and in control of their rhetorical faculties. Are public impressions of Kamala Harris that formed five years ago really frozen in place? Would she be able to hold the anti-Trump coalition together better than Biden simply by dint of being able to attack, defend, and inspire extemporaneously? Could Democrats organize a hero’s exit for Biden appealing enough to tempt him off the path to world historical disgrace?

All that, plus the full Politix archive and Thursday’s live chat 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 how coffee-table historians might suddenly be the most influential people in America.

* Matt: “I was wrong about Joe Biden.”

* James Fallows writes the remarks Biden should deliver.

Just days after the first presidential debate, which has plunged Democrats into a crisis of confidence, the Supreme Court has intervened to declare that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions for any actions they take with their exclusive and plenary powers, and even presumptive immunity for their other official acts.

We’d viewed this case mainly with an eye to its impact on the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election. But that’s only because we (like most people) imagined the Supreme Court might delay the trial without radically altering the balance of power between the branches. They instead went much, much further.

With Matt on vacation, Brian welcomes former Solicitor General Don Verrilli as this week’s special guest. Brian and Don discuss:

* How the court’s ruling creates two sets of rules: One for law-abiding presidents and one for Donald Trump and his imitators;

* Whether and how Joe Biden can use this new ruling for good;

* What if anything Congress can do about it short of amending the constitution or packing the Supreme Court.

If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber to Politix, you can listen to the whole conversation by upgrading to a paid subscription.

Folks, it did not go well. Joe Biden definitively lost the first of two scheduled presidential debates against Donald Trump. Worse, he did so in a way that will inevitably rekindle questions about his candidacy, and not just from bloggers and columnists, but likely from some of the most influential Democrats in America.

In this free post-debate episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Who swapped out Biden’s PEDs for sugar pill?

* Is there anything Biden, his campaign, the White House, and leading Democrats can do to steady the ship, given the magnitude of the fuck up?

* What would the process of convincing Biden to end his campaign out of patriotic duty look like in practice.

* Would he necessarily have to hand the baton to Kamala Harris, or would he be able to anoint an entirely new ticket.

If you’re new to Politix, welcome! We hope you’ll continue to listen, and consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

Special announcement from Matt and Brian: We will be hosting a live chat during Thursday night’s debate for paid Politix subscribers. If you’d like to ride shotgun with us, or need moral support to get through the event, be on the lookout for an email invitation to joint the chat just as the debate begins at 9 p.m. ET Thursday.

In that spirit, for this week’s regular episode, Matt and Brian rattled off a few debate predictions—listen for those and see how well they hold up. But mostly this is an episode about the incoherence and opportunism of the Trump/MAGA foreign policy vision.

* Is there any way to make sense of Trump’s biggest global affairs interventions?

* To what extent has Biden been reaping the consequences of Trump’s bluster and blunders?

* What do people like J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Robert O’Brien, et al—people who want to ride Trump’s coattails—think they’re getting out of Trump’s foreign policy of self-aggrandizement and predation?

Then, behind the paywall, a longer discussion about how the nature of Trump’s foreign-policy corruption makes the world more ungovernable, even when he’s out of power. To what extent have foreign autocrats made decisions about war and trade and diplomacy with an eye toward helping Trump return to power? Is it even possible for the world to run through official channels when the leader of a major U.S. political party has a shadow cabinet trotting the globe soliciting favors and bribes? And are there signs that Trump’s autocratic partners around the world have grown wary of the risk of using Trump to advance their interests and degrade democracy?

All that, plus the full Politix archive and Thursday’s live chat 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:

* Ross Douthat’s interview with J.D. Vance.

* Brian on why right-wing leaders around might be more tempted to engage in foreign mischief when the U.S. president is a liberal Democrat rather than a Republican kleptocrat.

* Matt on the foreign policy bombs Trump set.

* Trump-loyalist Robert O’Brien admits his and Trump’s China policy failed.

This week, Matt and Brian take a wide-angle view of new data showing inflation and violent crime way down:

* Why is good economic news so tricky for Joe Biden to capitalize on?

* How can Biden remind voters that Trump handed him a depressed economy with broken supply chains, and that Biden fixed both unemployment and inflation?

* Is it fair to tag Trump with the 2020 economic collapse and crime surge?

Then, behind the paywall, we home in specifically on the crime issue, where the case that Biden saved the country from Trump’s failures is strongest: Why did murders explode in 2020? To what extent is Trump to blame for fomenting criminal activity or for discouraging fair, legitimate policing? How did Biden manage to get a handle on both sides of that equation so quickly? 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:

* Research suggests accountable police do better policing, while police facing public blowback do worse policing.

* The best data we have shows violent crime collapsing under Biden.

* This strong new Biden campaign ad could provide a template for running against Trump’s other liabilities.

* Matt reminds the forgetful that Trump’s presidency was really bad.

* Brian argues Biden should simply assert he beat Trumpflation and the Trump crime wave.

This week, Matt and Brian discuss the flood of support Donald Trump has seen from shady rich guys since his felony convictions two weeks ago:

* Why do the owners and executives of big firms feel insulated from consequences for supporting a convicted white-collar felon who tried to overthrow the government?

* Do they actually stand to gain anything from a corrupt, inflationary Trump presidency?

* Can Joe Biden use their support for Trump as a wedge to win back more blue-collar voters?

Then, behind the paywall, we try to assess what’s driving this trend: To what extent are tech and finance bros actually red-pilled, versus just cynically advancing their shared desire for tax cuts? Have they even considered the ways Trump 2.0 would weaken U.S. business, or that they might not actually be able to call in any favors with him? And what, if anything, should Biden do to clarify the stakes for both the billionaires, and the working-class Americans who stand to lose if Trump returns to power. 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:

* Politico on how billionaires learned to stop worrying and love Trump.

* Reid Hoffman on how empowering a criminal would be bad for business.

* Ryan Grim’s book We Got People on the fight between pro-worker populism, which enjoys large organic support, and moneyed interests, which do not—a dichotomy that may be crumbling.

* Brian on why these business elites are so dumb!

This week, Matt and Brian discuss the solidifying Democratic response to Donald Trump’s felony convictions, and scratch their heads a bit:

* Why are Democrats demurring when the facts are the ground are so advantageous to them?

* How consistent is this with the party’s past practice of shrugging off Trump-accountability moments?

* What if any role should data play in these kinds of rapid response moments, when Trump’s widespread unpopularity is so consistent?

Then, behind the paywall, we break down the forces within the party that cut against a unified, vigorous response: Does taking it easy on Trump really help swing-state and swing-district Democrats? How do Democratic congressional leaders actually conceive of their jobs? Would progressive leaders rather talk about Trump’s status as a felony convict and rapist, or about their policy agendas? Plus, what do Matt and Brian think a savvy response to the convictions look like? 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 various tactics and strategies Democrats could deploy to keep reminders of Trump’s convictions above the fold.

* Josh Marshall with an important reminder to Dems and the media not to let the GOP’s affected aggression in the wake of the verdict mind trick them into allowing Republicans to set the terms of the discourse.

* A New York Times focus group suggests getting convicted of 34 felonies is not, in fact, good news for a presidential candidate.