Democrats need vastly more imagination to confront the enormous challenges the country faces politically, economically, and on climate. The party can't just focus on stopping what is happening in Washington. Meanwhile, Trump can't stop insulting the intelligence of the American people, every part of the political spectrum has something to hate about the reconciliation bill, and libertarians need to speak up about a president disappearing people to a foreign black site. Plus, cracking the manosphere, what Biden could've done differently on Covid, and the era of politicians sticking to their talking points is over. Pete Buttigieg joins join Tim Miller. show notes Pete on the “Flagrant” pod on YouTube or on audio Remaining tickets for the live Bulwark show in Nashville on Thursday Plus, tickets for our live show “Free Andry” on June 6 in DC
Chapter 1: What challenges do Democrats face today?
All right. Our smug vice president has a counterpoint to you on this, so I'm going to read you his tweet. He says there's an extraordinary reproducibility crisis in the sciences where most published papers fail to replicate. Universities have massive bureaucracies. The voting patterns of university professors resemble North Korea.
Many universities explicitly engage in racial discrimination against whites and also Asians. Universities could see the policies of the Trump administration as a necessary corrective or they could yell fascism. What do you say to the vice president?
Replica, it's just ideological gibberish. I'm sorry, but like, what does that even, what does it mean to vote like North Korea? Do they even vote in North Korea? Like, what is he talking about? This is ideological gibberish meant to justify an ideological war on American universities. Look, is there frustration with the academy? Sure. I mean, I feel that.
I would love, as somebody who believes in the relationship between big ideas and and policies and politics, I actually believe that academia and American universities could be doing much better when it comes to developing ideas that benefit people. I actually think this is worse on the left.
And what I mean by that is the right, because they felt that there was a powerful liberal bias in universities, built this extraordinarily rich constellation of think tanks over the last 50 years that aren't just worrying about things like the optimal healthcare subsidy from a conservative perspective. They're worried about things like what is the nature of liberty?
Also totally random stuff like whether we're producing enough sperm in our young men.
Yeah, obviously their priorities are not exactly my priorities. But my point is they're thinking about everything from the biggest of the big questions to very specific policy things. And that's how you get stuff like... like Project 2025, a very thoroughly thought through plan, which I hate, but which is connecting their first principles as they see them to their political agenda.
Meanwhile, on the left, whether we're talking about the think tank world or whether we're talking about universities, there's think tanks that I think are tending to focus on things that are much more narrow, specific and rather technical policy questions. There's universities that are doing a lot of theories about theories that can get frustratingly abstract. So I get all of that.
That doesn't mean that it's okay for the government to go to war with the university because they don't like their politics or for the government to be watching the voting.
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Chapter 2: How has Trump influenced U.S. foreign policy?
Although, you know, there's been a show of political savvy by the Republicans setting some of these bombs to go off in 2029, which means they know that that policy is going to hurt a lot of people. They don't want politically it to happen before the election, right? This is the kind of thing that I think translates that general frustration into a terrible consequence.
I don't necessarily think that's wrong, but here's what's unsatisfying about it, right? Is that if you look at the last, there's a New York Times story, if you look at the last three elections in a trend, only the counties with the smallest proportion of college grads have turned more Democrat. It's mostly suburban counties where I grew up, suburban Denver, suburban Atlanta, and
that have moved Democrat each of the last three elections in two thirds of the least educated counties. It's been the Republicans that steadily grew their vote share in each of the last three elections. And so if you're saying that the answer is that like, well, it's just been this widening inequality gap that has turned these folks to Trump.
The Republicans aren't even really offering any solution to that, right? So like why? So there's got to be something else. There's got to be something cultural. It can't just be money. Oh, of course not.
But this is what they do, right? So I agree on the cultural part, but just to close the loop on the money part, one thing they're very good at is taking a problem, seeing it get worse, and using it, right? The more inequality there is, the better for somebody like Trump. Just like the worst things are at the border, the better for somebody like Trump politically, right?
So we've seen that pattern again and again. But I agree on the culture part too. Look, I mean, there's... Democrats have... created this impression, I think partly because of the way we feel and talk about Trump, have created this impression that that translates into the way we feel and talk about people who supported him.
And that's the thing that I think really is a cultural struggle in our party. There's this sense of condescension. I mean, if I hear one more time, like a well-off liberal doctor or lawyer saying, you know, that, quote unquote, these folks are voting against their economic interests. I just wonder whether they ever contemplated the fact that somebody could turn around and say, so are you.
There's a condescension that is imputed to Democrats that I think we really need to deal with. So much of politics is not just how you make people feel, but how you make people feel about themselves. And so much of what they think of you comes down to what they think you think of them.
And largely because of our very justified horror at the abuses of Donald Trump as a candidate and as a president. We've said and done things that make voters feel like we're talking about them when we're talking about him.
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Chapter 3: What should be done to support Ukraine?
Yeah, we're coming up on four. They keep talking about it. Although Gus, for some reason, keeps talking about being five. He's like, we'll have a birthday. And then after birthday, it'll be five. I think the most delightful part is like... how, how like there's, well, one thing I'm enjoying is that they're starting to make sense, but not completely.
Like they can tell stories, but you have to like sift through the story to try to figure out what's at the bottom of it.
Yeah.
Like, like Gus was asked, talking about leprechauns. It's like, do you know what a leprechaun is? I was like, yeah. And then he told me what a leprechaun is. It's like, it plays a trick and it takes something and then it runs so fast. And then the gingerbread man catches it and it turns into a zombie. And, um, I'm trying to derive what the backstory was to why I got to the zombie.
So there's just all this randomness. But the other thing is they're at this age, which can be a tough age, as you know. They don't quite listen. They run around. You're always worried they're going to get hurt. But everything is amazing. Everything can be wonderful. They can teach you such utter joy in, I don't know, blowing bubbles or seeing an excavator.
And I try to get more in touch with that as a grownup and remember that like we should, wasn't it GK Chesterton said we should imitate the wonder of small children. Like there's nothing like having small children around to help you do that.
So delightful. Mine right now is on words. She's seven. She's reading. We're learning the words and synonyms makes my brain teaser for me. Like last night we were doing, she was like the word season. She's like, we season the food. But also it's a season of a TV show. Yeah. And spring and summer is a season. And how do those things relate together? And do you spell them the same?
So it's just delightful.
I just had my first one of those. We were doing right and right. And Gus put it together that the word we use for the right side is the same as the word we use for correct. And I didn't have a great answer for him on how to keep that straight.
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