The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1004: Wes Moore: The System Doesn't Work for a Lot of People
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
Trump is a vessel for frustration over the status quo, but he is not a vehicle for a solution—since he has no idea about how to make things better for anyone besides himself. He's made clear that his personal interests come before the country's, and he's willing to trade away the superpowers that made America the globe's Dream Team. The Democrats need to seize the moment to argue for a smarter, more humane way to do efficiency. Plus, the Maryland governor shares his disgust over DOGE's disrespect of veterans and discusses his commitment to elevating boys and men. Gov. Wes Moore joins Tim Miller. show notes Richard Reeves on Moore's commitment to help boys and men New York magazine on David Shor's 2024 election data
Chapter 1: Who is Gov. Wes Moore and what is his background?
Chapter 2: Why does Wes Moore emphasize progressive patriotism?
And so now we're three years later, Trump's back in there. Kamala tried to do a little bit of this. It was a pretty patriotic campaign. I'm just wondering what you think about that. Is that still a fruitful path? Is that still something you're trying to do? Like, where are you at on that?
yeah i mean it's definitely something that i'm doing but we're doing because it's authentic yeah you know what i mean and that's i think got to be the key thing is that people need to know that you're real about it and that you're sincere and the reason we talk about patriotism is not because it's going to win you electoral points it's because you believe it. And I really do.
I believe in this country, flaws and all. I believe in the fact that there's no way you can understand a journey like mine or a journey like my family's and not say there is something special and unique about the United States. and something that I was willing to fight for, willing to lay my life down for. I come from a whole family of people who believe in this country.
So I do believe that we have to be able to embrace this mantra of patriotism. I believe that we can't allow other people to just simply bastardize it the way that it oftentimes happens when it comes to when you're looking at how a lot of MAGA World and Donald Trump and them talk about it. But I do think it's about not just blindly accepting
this country or talking about this country as if its history doesn't matter. I actually think patriotism means saying, no, I'm not going to just sit down. I'm not going to just take it. I'm not just going to allow someone to take the country in the wrong direction. I'm going to fight and I'm going to fight for it. And I think that's actually the most patriotic thing that you can do right now.
I want to pick up a couple of those points. But for people who don't know you, who are being introduced to you now, you reference your background and how this is tied into your background. So talk to us about that. You're a veteran, you know, growing up. Give us a little TLDR on Wes Moore's life story.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm I was a kid who, frankly, when people talk about the breakdowns of this of this country and the inequality of this country, I explain to people like I was born into it. You know, some of my first memories was literally watching my father die in front of me because he didn't get the health care that he needed.
that some of my first memories was watching my mother not get her first job that gave her benefits until I was 14 years old. First job that gave her reliable hours. And this was an immigrant single mom who came to this country and eventually went on to get a master's degree. and still did not get her first job that gave her benefits until her son was 14 years old.
I had handcuffs on my wrist by the time I was 11 years old. I joined the army when I was 17. I wasn't even old enough to sign the paperwork. My mother had to sign the paperwork for me. I went to a two-year college. So there was nothing about my life that said, oh, he's one day going to be the 63rd governor. of the state of Maryland.
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Chapter 3: How does Wes Moore view the current political landscape?
Yeah. And frankly, it's not like Trump ain't warn you because he told you he was going to what he's going to do. And he's actually executing on it right now. And so I just feel like we have to remember this. That what we also have to do is it's not even just about the people who went from, OK, how does a person go from Clinton to Trump or Biden to Trump or Obama?
Like, let's talk about the fact that there were tens of millions of people who just decided not to vote because they do not think this system works for them. And the reason I know who they are is in many cases, they're actually my family members. You know, I remember when I first ran for governor, I had to convince members of my family to vote for me when I was running for governor.
And it's not that we're not cool, like we're cool. It's that I had to convince members of my family to vote. You had to register to care, to get an assistant. And even the ones who are registered just to go out. because it's like they don't see how this system works for them. And the truth is, it hasn't.
And that's why I think we have to be real, real careful about somehow spending our time defending a status quo, when for real, for many people, the status quo never worked for them. So how are you, you're defending something that's indefensible. That's in many ways, that has been Trump's genius, is that Trump has been a vessel for the frustration He's just not a vehicle for the solution.
He's going to tell you what's wrong, but then he's not going to have an offer or an idea as to how to make it better.
Let's talk about this in practice because you're living a good example of this. I think the Democrats are in a tough spot on this because I hear you when you say the Democrats can't be defending the status quo. Obviously. It's not what people want. You just have to listen to voters. Voters don't want politics as usual. They don't like the status quo.
They don't think the status quo is working for them. But then Trump gets in there. And he's like, we're just going to willy-nilly fire all these government workers. We don't care about any of these institutions. We're going to tear them all down. And now you're there in Maryland. A lot of those employees work in your state, right? Some of those institutions are headquartered in your state.
And so you've got to defend the institution from these attacks from this guy, but also not be the guy that's defending the status quo. How do you do that? That's tough, right?
Yeah, but I don't think you have to defend the institutions, right? For me, this is not about saying, oh, everything about the institution is right and you all are not getting right. This is about saying, like, listen, I believe that there are certain things within these institutions that needed adjustments. I actually agree with you.
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Chapter 4: What are the challenges and solutions for housing in Maryland?
Chapter 5: How does Wes Moore plan to improve efficiency in government?
And I was listening to that and I just, I wonder what you think about that because I know that they do a lot of flag waving, but to me, I don't see a lot of evidence that he loves the country flaws and all. I think he's somebody that loves himself.
I don't know how you can claim to love this country or drape yourself in the flag when you're so disrespectful to Americans. Loving your country does not mean loving the ones who supported you. And loving your country does not mean lying about its history. or masking entire segments of its history. Loving your country does not mean defending some of the people in the country.
Loving your country means having a firm understanding that this country's arc has been deeply uneven. But the reason that we've been able to make progress is because we've had people who are willing to believe in the hope of all of us and not just some of us. It's difficult to look at the policies that we're seeing in place when their baseline is division,
when their baseline is separation, when their baseline is going back to these old political tropes about what can you do to separate us? Because if you separate us and divide us, you have a better chance of winning fragmented elections. And that's what I think that this goal is. This is not about bringing us together. This is actually just about power.
It's not really about making us stronger either, right? You know, also, I just like look at how he's dealing with Canada and Putin, right? The trend across all of these things to me is who sucks up to him the most, right? And that's different. That's different than loving the country, right?
Do you think he even sees a difference now that he's been president twice between the country's interest and his interest? I don't think so. There's no evidence of that.
No, and I think it's very clear about whose interests come first. Yeah. And think about it. You can't argue that you believe in American competitiveness when you're directly going after many of the things that make America so competitive in the first place. You're going after things like our institutions of higher education. our research grants, the NIH. Let's be clear.
One of the things that makes America so powerful is the fact that we have some of the best research institutions in this country. One of the things that makes this country so unique is the fact that you have people who are coming from all around the world, the world's best and brightest, who want to come to the United States to learn,
to train, to get their degrees, to start their families, and to build. It's the reason why our immigrant communities have been some of the strongest contributors to the United States. One of the United States superpowers is the fact that we are this beautiful melting pot of the world's best and brightest who all come here. We are the globe's dream team.
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Chapter 6: What are Wes Moore's views on the treatment of veterans?
and moving more men into agencies, into areas, being like teachers and nurses and places where we have massive shortages of men in those areas. It does go back to making sure that we're supporting the juveniles and our young men who are involved in the juvenile justice system and getting them back onto a right track.
And so we're thinking really broad-based and holistically about it, but I have an exclusive focus. If we do not address what is happening with our young men and boys in the state of Maryland, The state of Maryland will never succeed. And I really do believe the state of Maryland is going to lead on this issue.
Yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts on the cultural element of some of this, because I'm for all that stuff that you said. I think that it's important the government do what they can on the edges. I think that we need more men teachers. And I think that would make a huge difference in the lives of young men to have more men teaching in schools and to have that kind of role model.
But I don't know, man. Part of this, I think, is part of the problem with men is that there is like this sense of status loss. Like as the women have started to succeed more, as women are doing better in school, and there's this ego element to it, right?
That's like, oh, man, now I'm depressed because it's harder for me to date because the girls in the dating pool, they're succeeding more than I am or whatever. And I don't know that getting them a job, all respect to nurses and teachers, but I don't know that getting them a job as a nurse or a teacher,
And for some of these men is going to solve that, like that more deeper problem of status loss, of falling behind, of not making the kind of money that their dad or granddad made. I don't know. What do you make of that? I hear you.
And I think there's a lot of truth to that. But I think we've stopped even trying. And I think that that's noticeable too. I think that we have stopped being curious. We've stopped caring. We stopped asking. And we look at so many times with young boys where we do not ever even really evaluate what was happening. I mean, I'm thinking about it for me, right?
Again, I was a kid who had handcuffs on my wrist at 11 years old. What'd you do? That time I was for tagging.
Oh, tagging.
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Chapter 7: Why is America's diversity considered a superpower according to Wes Moore?
fundamentally getting rid of this whole kind of way of categorizing everybody yeah i i think what it is it's just it's being honest that every well all anyone's hoping for is to be seen you know i'm not asking to be a category i'm not asking to be a campaign platform i'm not asking to be a talking point do you see me or not Do you care about me? Do you care about my future?
Are you actually interested in removing the barriers that in many ways have been intentionally put in front of me? The reason I had handcuffs on my wrist when I was 11 years old is because I came up in a community that was over-policed and we knew it. A community that this was the way that young boys were dealt with. was criminalizing.
That we came up in a framework where we knew that for a lot of the young boys who were learning differently than the young girls when they were coming up, that we were then either punished or medicated. without understanding that sometimes it just takes a little bit more time and understanding and acceptance.
Came up in environments where, you know, the reason that we want to recruit more men into the classroom, also partially because that a lot of the kids who are inside those classrooms are kids who are coming from single parent, oftentimes women only dominated homes. And so some of the first examples and role models
that a lot of these young boys are gonna have of how a man acts, talks, walks, et cetera, could be that teacher inside that classroom. And so these are the type of things that I think we just have to have a measure of honesty about, that introducing and celebrating this idea of masculinity or whatever we wanna call it, it's not a bad thing.
But I do think we have to be honest about the problem in the first place and actually have a real sincerity about ways we're going to address it and not a motivation of what can we do to increase voter rolls.
All right, last thing on this. Some of the listeners of this show are, you know, particularly if you're like me, if you're white, you didn't know a lot of black folks, you're liberal, you fucking hate Donald Trump. You look at Donald Trump, you're like, this is a racist bastard.
You're like, I don't know, man, this guy's out here saying, oh, you got to say to black, you know, people want to feel seen. How did Donald Trump make them feel seen, right? And if you just look at the numbers that David Shore did analysis this week, 18, 19, 20, 21 year old black men according to his data analysis, went for Trump narrowly.
Even if that's wrong, even if it was 60-40 for Kamala, that is just a drastic change. And these young guys then decided something about Trump appealed to them. And what was it? How do you explain that?
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