Greg Casar
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Maybe that's how we get the votes back, man.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
It's really hard to pick just one thing. It feels like the news from yesterday. I want to come on to your podcast and rail about it. And then there's worse news today. And that's just how it's been for over 100 days. But what I've been telling folks, there was a group of fired federal workers sitting on the House steps yesterday as I came out of voting next to a group of high schoolers.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And people cuddled up and asked me kind of a similar question. Und ich denke, das Alarmierende, was so viel von dem ist, und was ich denke, dass es schlimmer wird, ist dieses Baseline-Syndesismus, dass nichts, was wir zusammen tun, immer funktionieren kann. Und was ich wirklich gelernt habe, ich bin relativ neu in den Kongress, ich bin hier nur zwei und ein halb Jahre alt.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
What I've really seen is how deliberate the extreme right-wing strategy is to break stuff and then complain about it and then campaign about how it's broken and then break it more. That kind of works alongside the law of entropy, that it's easier to break stuff than to make it.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
You know, like a two-year-old can go and shatter that microphone in front of you, but it's pretty complicated and takes a lot of people to put it together. And if people stop believing that we can make things better, Then you just turn against each other and you kind of undo the entire democratic project of working alongside one another.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And so what's alarming to me is how hard it might be, even if we figure out and we should need to figure out how to take this thing back, take our government back into the hands of people that want to make things. Just how much stuff is broken and how much of an opening they've created for people to keep cynically breaking things, campaigning and winning power that way.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Yeah, man, that's part of what I learn every day around here is that actually it can get worse.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Then what? And I hate here at the top of the podcast to be the doom and gloom guy.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
That's not part of the doom scroll. For me, one of the tracks that I think we might be on in the multiverse here, which world I think we might be in, is one where we can win the midterms and provide some check on Trump in a year and a half, which of course is critical and we've got to do. But then if we go, okay, as long as we just point out that they break stuff,
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And then we win the midterm election, which in the midterms is much more voters that read the news. And we just go and win it back that way that we kind of pat ourselves on the back, clean our hands and say, hey, we're good for the next presidential. And then we go get our lunch eaten by J.D. Vance or somebody else like that for eight years after that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And so if 100 days of this was rough, like 12 years of it to me is unacceptable. And we've got to be thinking about viel größer als nur im nächsten Jahr in der Halbzeit zu gewinnen. Es ist wie, wie lange es dauert, um den Zynismus, der am Herzen ist, mit dem wir uns gerade beschäftigen.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Nein, nein, wir können das jetzt erst machen.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Weißt du, ich habe nie den offiziellen Pin bekommen oder so. Es ist ein Geheimnis. Es gibt keinen. I think it's mostly a creature of the media.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Es ist eine Erleichterung, ehrlich gesagt, auf einem Podcast wie diesem zu sein, wo wir diese schwierigen Fragen herausflesen können. Weil oft, weißt du, du hast einen Moment auf diesen TV-Shows und du musst einfach rein. Aber ich denke, du fragst eine echte Frage, die die Leute am Abend aufhalten sollte.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Und ich denke, zuerst möchte ich dir eine kurze Anekdote über die Kampagnen für Kamala Harris in Nevada, in Sparks, Nevada, mit latinen Bauern sprechen. Und dann sortiere ich das in eine Frage über deine Frage. Cool. So, you know, I campaigned all over Texas, but then specifically went to Nevada for Harris's campaign and pretty much knew we were toast.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
I didn't know, but really felt we were toast talking with groups of Latino voters, both in Vegas and north of Vegas and across the state. But there was one time where we got together with about Three, four dozen Latino, mostly workers in the trades, be it folks doing HVAC maintenance or in the building and construction trades. And I remember a really clear conversation with one guy.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
It was a bunch of folks who said that they voted for Obama, voted for Hillary, voted for Joe, but just weren't going to be able to vote for Kamala this time. And he said, well, I just feel like you're so much more focused. When I asked the guy, like, well, what changed your mind this time? You voted for Biden hier ist just recently, he voted for Hillary.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And he said to me, I just feel like, even though Trump is terrible in so many ways, I feel like the Democratic Party is focused on not my stuff. You know, I go and work seven days a week. I pull seven twelves and then suddenly building and construction goes down for a couple months and that's just my life.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
I'm trying to figure out how to put my kid through school and I feel like y'all are focused on other stuff other than My daily life. And I push him, like I push lots of guys. Climate, identity stuff. I push him, just like I push you guys. Like, what other stuff? And he's like, you know, other stuff. And I was like, do you mean, for example, issues with gay communities?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Like, yeah, that's, you know, that's what was, that was my guess. It might maybe could have been something else, but that's why it was my guess. And he said, yes. And I think the question we've got to ask ourselves is, Why is it that, you know, President Joe Biden was like the building stuff president.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
I mean, the infrastructure law and frankly, a lot of the construction coming out of the Inflation Reduction Act were like some of his biggest achievements. How is it that Republicans were able to raise the salience so much on those cultural issues?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And what does the Democratic Party need to change that it doesn't seem like to people that our leading number one issue is one where a lot of our base voters are cross-pressured on, like you said. And what I said to him was, look, my views on LGBTQ issues are clear. I'm pro equality. I think that we should end discrimination against all forms of discrimination against all forms of people.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
But my main stuff that I work on is making sure you get actually paid overtime for the extra hours you work, that there's enough construction that you aren't out of work for multiple months and that your employer shouldn't be allowed to screw people over and sometimes not even pay them after doing weeks or months of work.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And so even if we might disagree on some of those issues, if you knew that this was really our main thing and that today's Republicans are trying to get rid of overtime pay and trying to Do all of these other things that I know you talk about a lot on your podcast. He was like, yeah, I would totally vote for that. I mean, that's easy. And so...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Für mich ist die zentrale Frage, warum diese ökonomischen Botschaften nicht durchbrechen, wenn es oftmals das ist, worauf wir arbeiten.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Und ein Teil dessen, was der ökonomische Populismus tut, ist, dass er einen starken Kontrast mit den Republikanern erzeugt, wo wir nicht nur in der Zwischenzeit oder in der republikanischen Lichtsicht aussehen, wo wir wirklich sagen können, nein, es gibt eine echte Unterschiede, was wir auf der Ökonomie offerieren. Das ist etwas wie transkollegiöse Sport.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Trump can't go and make that a major issue in our politics for people. And I want to get back to you here in one second. The last thing I'll mention on it is I'm about to go to a hearing on transfencing. On the Doge Committee, Marjorie Taylor Greene chairs it. A hearing is on transfencing.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Okay, got it. There are too many trans people sword fighting?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
According to the NCAA... In Rome, Georgia, where her district is?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
That's a good question. But there are 10 trans-collegiate athletes in the NCAA right now. There are like 30 members of our damn committee. And so it's not 10,000, it's 10. So, of course, discrimination against LGBTQ people is a real issue. But Our committee shouldn't be
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
doing this work, determining who it can and can't across a variety of sports, go and participate at the collegiate or elite level. Like, come on.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
But the hard question Democrats have to answer for ourselves is, how can we let that kind of an issue become something that a daily guy living his life in Nevada is asking me about when I sit down with him as a member of Congress who traveled across the country to talk to him. How is it?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
You know, I understand what the Republican tactics are, but how is it the Democratic Party needs to change our tactics? so that there isn't a vacuum that Republican officials can fill on issues like this.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And in my view, economic populism is our best response, which is we should be saying things that are actually interesting and controversial enough and different enough that people actually really hear us. Instead of just saying defend Social Security, which polls at like 90%, but nobody hears you, why don't we say dass es verrückt ist, dass die Mark Zuckerbergs und Jeff Bezos' der Welt sind.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
don't really pay into Social Security. They pay in like one day. But the tax rate for Social Security is way higher for you or me and way higher for a school teacher and for a sanitation worker and a custodian and HVAC maintenance guy than it is on those guys. We can save it, but maybe we can expand it and make your Social Security check higher and pull every senior in this country out of poverty.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Literally, if we just say those big guys have to just literally pay in the same rate that we pay, that's not The message, I don't think anybody could argue that that was how people felt that the Harris Campaign's core message was, was those guys are making you work more hours. They think you're working those hours to make them rich.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And they're screwing you over, not just on the job, but they're screwing you over in the government. I think that would stand out to people a lot more than kind of where we stand right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Ich weiß. Das ist die schwierige Frage. Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein. Ich bin Präsident des Progressiv-Kokusses. And it is very important for there to be some number, some part of our party that adheres to our longstanding tradition of being willing to stand for vulnerable people and causes that may not be popular yet.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
You know, it was progressives in the progressive caucus that were out there on gay marriage before it was a popular issue. It's progressive caucus members that are going to dass wenn jemand aus der Kriegsschleife aussteht und getötet wird, dass wir herausfinden müssen, wie unser Land die Menschen in dieser Situation unterstützt und unsere Fehler aus der 2.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Weltkriege nicht wiederholt, wo wir die ganzen Schiffe von jüdischen Flüchtlingen entfernt haben, um zurück in die Holocaust-Kämpfe zu gehen. Jemand muss das tun. Und ich denke, dass das eine wichtige Rolle der Progressivisten ist.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And progressives need to recognize what issues we are completely on the front foot about, because actually our ideas are more popular than the Democratic Party brand, and on which issues we're still doing persuasion. And so I'm here to admit on your podcast, on your show, that I understand that the mainline Democratic Party view and to flip a red state policy
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
People that are campaigning to flip a red state are likely going to have views on some of these social issues that are not as progressive as mine. Like, okay, that's fine. You know what I mean?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Yeah, look, I don't think anybody should run their campaign based on their Twitter replies. Well, no, of course not. Of course not. Yeah, but here's what I think. I don't think that it is just so cut and dry. Like, here's where a poll is, here's what you should just say, etc. Sure. I do understand.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
I mean, and Kamala Harris, for example, ran a campaign with immigration views that were significantly more to the center than, for example, my preferred immigration platforms. The question is, how do you calibrate your policy in a way that still speaks to your values and still speaks to your base and is still where most voters are?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
And I know that that would be, of course, a really hard question for somebody to answer that's trying to flip Louisiana or flip Texas. But here's where I think I have something to really add, which is the beginning point of your question. Even as somebody sorts that out, and as they should sort that out, if
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
an diesen ökonomischen Problemen, wir contrastieren sie nicht genug, machen sie einfach genug und machen sie glatt und groß genug, dann kann die Immigration-Konversation oder irgendeine andere soziale Diskussion dann nur das Feld dominieren. Und wir können es nicht erlauben, das Feld zu dominieren, weil am Ende des Tages, auch wenn
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Somebody more conservative on those social issues is not going to be murderous on those issues. No matter how tough you are on it, Democrats aren't going to be for freaking sending people to foreign prison camps in El Salvador without due process. Democrats are going to be for bullying people
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
eine trans-Kinder und ihnen den Gesundheitsschutz zu verzeihen und ihren Eltern zu sagen, dass sie auf einem Flugzeug müssen, um ihre Kinder zu retten. Also am Ende des Tages muss unsere Arbeit sein, um zu sagen, natürlich brauchen wir einen großen Tent.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Natürlich können wir keine Purity-Tests für diejenigen haben, die nicht in unserer Partei sind, in einer Art, in der wir wirklich exklusiv und exklusionär sind. Und ich denke, der progressive Bewegung muss lernen und darüber nachdenken, wie wir mehr Leute in unseren Tent geben müssen. Also denke ich, das geht vielleicht dazu, das Teil Ihrer Frage zu beantworten.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
But what we can't forget, and this is where maybe people once think of it as progressive, but fine, if people want to call this moderate or old school or whatever, I don't think we can have our economic ideas continue to be so incremental, so hard to understand. that it just isn't going to make much of a difference to people.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
You might get this specific kind of help if you got two kids and you make more or less than this. I just think we've got to get to a place where we say, we're going to pull every senior and kid in this country out of poverty. No, we're going to raise wages for millions of people. Yeah, we're going to crack down on corporate price gouging in a huge way.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
We're going to tax the billionaires and stock trading by members of Congress and fight for you. Das ist ökonomisch populistisch. Willst du es progressiv nennen oder willst du es nennen, was viel mehr moderne Mitglieder da draußen kämpfen? Ich kümmere mich weniger um das, was es genannt wird. Ich denke, dass wir nur nicht auf diesen Niveau des Kontrastes geführt haben.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Und ich denke, dass das uns nur mit der Versuchung, auf einige dieser sozialen Probleme zu kalibrieren, und das funktioniert nicht auf sich selbst.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Es ist wirklich wichtig für uns, dass wir nicht nur denken, dass wir auf der Rückseite und auf der Verteidigung für immer auf der Immigration sind. Wir müssen auf die Offense gehen, weil das, was die Trump-Administration tut, nicht nur abhorrent ist, sondern es ist tieflich unpopulär und falsch gesehen. Und das ist falsch gesehen von einem großen Teil der Leute, die für Donald Trump gewählt haben.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Und wir müssen gehen und mit diesen Leuten sprechen und die Leute verstehen. that eroding due process for everyday people in this country is dangerous for everyone in this country. And we can remember that it was just seven years ago where the people, Democrats, but actually people all across the country, were actually on offense on immigration vis-à-vis Donald Trump.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
People said, these kids being put in cages is wrong. Moms being separated from their kids is wrong. So we can't just go on be on defense on this issue. We have to go out there and say, look, most of the people that they're arresting in some of these raids have no criminal history whatsoever.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Law enforcement resources are being taken away from going after drug trafficking and gun trafficking and it's being turned towards arresting somebody with an autism awareness tattoo and then they're taking our taxpayer money to pay a foreign dictator to put somebody in a prison camp and then the Supreme Court is saying bring them back and Trump is saying no.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Ich meine, das ist wie, wir können nicht Angst haben, auf Offense zu gehen, auf solche Themen. Und ich denke, dass wir als Progressivisten, ich will es nochmals sagen, hier auf deinem Podcast, dass wir uns darüber kümmern müssen, diese Themen in einer Art und Weise zu kommunizieren, die nicht nur die existenten Menschen energisiert, sondern die Menschen einbringt, weil...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
I'll admit, seven or eight years ago, I think a lot of folks treated Trump as a one-time aberration. Instead of, this is actually a long-standing real challenge, which means we've got to bring more people into our tent to be able to win democratically against somebody that would like to see our country not run that way.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
It's really sad that I, but I do think that it begs the real question, man. As I head over there, it begs the real question of. How sick is it? Then you go and pick on folks that are already discriminated against, already having trouble. It's the oldest trick in the tyranny book. And we've got to find a better way to fight it. So I appreciate it.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
Thank you.