Source: The Analysis
Hi, Iām Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast.
As I wrote recently, Trump may be a buffoon, but the forces behind him are serious. Trump may be gone, at least for now, but many developments are driving a section of the American elites towards a more overtly coercive and racist state.
This section of the elite has been ascendant because āliberal American capitalismā is out of solutions. Had it not been for the pandemic, Trump would likely be headed back to the White House. In spite of his criminal mishandling of the pandemic, he still received 70 million votes. Obamaās economic policies favored Wall Street and produced greater income inequality. Desperation and frustration created conditions for strengthening fascist and racist ideas in segments of the working class and rural poor. It tilled the soil for Trump.
People, especially in rural America, have lost faith in traditional post-war American institutions, and evangelical and conservative religions are gaining strength. At least 60 percent of the Trump vote came from very religious people. These people have lost their ideological moorings, as have people in most of the country, and demagogues from the right, from Trump to Tucker Carlson, are staking out the anti-elitist position. I think if progressives donāt learn how to talk to people of religious faith, they canāt win this battle.
The oligarchy is aghast at the success of the Sanders campaign and the wave of progressives elected to office. They fear increasing public support for socialized solutions like Medicare for All, publicly owned banks, community control of police, and a growing consciousness that some form of socialism is a viable alternative. If Biden continues Clinton/Obama-era pro-banker economic policies, he will set the table for a more dangerous version of Trump in 2024 or maybe Trump himself all over again.
The climate crisis makes all this even more urgent. We donāt have time for compromise and reach-across-the-aisle solutions. I said, vote for Biden without illusions, because it would be a better field of battle for progressive forces. Well, the next phase of the battle has begun.
Now joining us is Matt Taibbi. Mattās an award-winning investigative reporter, the son of a television reporter and a lawyer. Taibbi grew up admiring Russian writers, which led him to spend most of his early adult life in the former Soviet Union. Taibbi returned to the U.S. in 2002 and soon began work as a contributing editor forĀ Rolling Stone. AtĀ Rolling Stone. Taibbi won the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, and heās best known for his coverage of four presidential election campaigns, the 2008 financial crisis, and the criminal justice system. Heās written eight books, including fourĀ New York TimesĀ bestsellers:Ā The Great Derangement,Ā Griftopia,Ā The Divide, andĀ Insane Clown President. His book,Ā I Canāt Breathe, about the Police Killing of Eric Garner, was named one of the yearās ten best books byĀ The Washington Post.
Thanks for joining us.
Matt Taibbi
Thanks for having me.
Paul Jay
So, I want to dig into the article you wrote recently about, you know, just which party is going to at least call itself the working-class party. I donāt think the Democratic Party ever was actually the working-class party, but a lot of people thought it was. But where are you today? Biden is now essentially going to be president. Heās had his speech where heās announced that Trump hasnāt given up, but even much of the Republican Party seems to be bailing on him here.
So just as of today, how are you feeling about this? And then weāll kind of dig more into your article.
Matt Taibbi
I think this is a dangerous moment for the Democrats because I think theyāre going to take Bidenās victory as a validation of all of their strategy for the last two election cycles, whereas, in fact, you know, itās really been disastrous. They lost to Trump in 2016, kind of inexplicably, and they nearly lost to him this time. And they suffered losses in the House, and they didnāt win the Senate.
You know, the Democrats have become essentially an upper-class, cosmopolitan party. People outside the cities just donāt vote Democratic. Itās a party of people who are college-educated and have professional jobs. People who are more working-class and rural, even though they may not have the class sensibility, they are much more much more likely to fall into the Trump camp. So, I think itās a starkly divided electorate where at this point you can almost tell whoās going to vote for which candidate based on where you are in the country, and you know what that personās background is. And that I think thatās a troubling sign for the Democrats, because I think they donāt realize it. But I think theyāve lost working-class people.
Paul Jay
Well, they certainly lostĀ ruralĀ working-class people.
Matt Taibbi
Yes.
Paul Jay
The urban working class, I think still votes for the Democrats, although I would say in this election, the urban working class voted against Trump. I donāt know how much they votedĀ forĀ Biden.
Matt Taibbi
Right, but even there, there was some slippage. Thatās the thing thatās ominous for the Democrats.
Paul Jay
Now, theyāre in this precarious position, corporate Democrats. I think both parties depend on finance and activist billionaires. So much of the Trump vote is religious that he doesnāt have to actually deliver on the economic promises. He just has to deliver on the core religious-value promises, and they forgive him for not delivering on the economic stuff, whereas the urban workers actuallyĀ wantsomething and theyāre getting disillusioned. So, in fact, much more of the urban [working-class] populations turned to Sanders in the primary. And the corporate Democrats are in some ways between a rock and a hard place: like, [if we] piss off finance, [then] Sanders gains in strength, Trumpist forces gain in strength. But they donāt have a choice other than to rely on finance because thatās who they are.
Matt Taibbi
Right. The strategy that was open to them was to embrace some version of whatever Bernie Sanders was doing. And if they had done that ā and if they had done that using all of the PR skill that theyāve shown over the years in marketing people like Barack Obama ā I think they would have won in a walk. You know, if theyād had some kind of a message that was actually designed for kind of the āemployee classā of voter.
But they didnāt do that. They went in the other direction. And they actively suppressed both Sanders and the kind of facsimile of Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, who I think ran as a bridge between the two types of Democrat. And so, they ended up having to basically run on the same platform that they ran on in 2016. And they got over the line basically because of the pandemic. You know, I mean, I think they didnāt win for any [other] reason. They did have a good turnout effort. And the logistical accomplishment was significant. But politically, they didnāt make any changes. So, yeah, they navigated a thoroughfare between Sanders and Trump successfully to get to the other side. And I guess theyāre probably happy with that. But I think it portends poorly for their future.
Paul Jay
Yeah, I agree with that. But they had a problem with Warren, who was the obvious bridge candidate, as youāre saying. As much as the Sanders crowd got angry at Warren for not backing Sanders, they would have come around to Warren and more enthusiastically than they eventually did with Biden.
But I talked to some people that know the Wall Street people pretty well, and I know youāve covered that beat a lot. And the wealth tax was just a killer. I actually sat with Tom Ferguson, who does a lot of money in politics research, and I asked him once, āWould finance rather go with a kind of fascism that Trumpās heading towards or would they put up with a Warren?ā And his answer was, āAs long as the wealth tax is on the table, theyāll go with fascism.ā And maybe it actually was a tactical mistake of hers. Maybe the wealth tax ā itās just not the time to do that, given how strong the rightwing forces are.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, but you have to run with some kind of plan like that, otherwise it doesnāt have any legitimacy as a working-party platform. What youāre describing with the reaction when people are asked, would they prefer Warren or Trump? ā most of the people I talk to on Wall Street, they see Trump as basically a clown who is incapable of implementing any kind of real political strategy except for the things that maybe the Beltway insiders already want like the massive tax giveaway that he gave in 2017 and ā18.
So, I think itās obvious that they would have preferred Trump over a Warren because they didnāt they didnāt see Trump as a terribly dangerous figure. He gave them everything they wanted in the pandemic bailout and his tax policy and military spending. And, yeah, Warrenās wealth tax was a problem because there was no way to loophole your way out of it. That was the whole point of the proposal. It was designed to make sure that companies just paid taxes on what they actually earned as opposed to what they reported or where they reported it.
And, yeah, maybe that was a mistake, tactically, but, you know, what are you going to do?
Paul Jay
No, Iām not talking about the corporate tax increase. Iām talking about a tax on individuals.
Matt Taibbi
Oh, yeah. Yes, right. But it was the same concept.
Paul Jay
I mean, itās another conversation in some ways. I thought she should have pushed the estate tax because itās a more acceptable way to get at a wealth tax than a straight wealth tax. I think sometimes many of us forget that weāre living in the heart of the empire. Weāve got to be realistic about whatās possible here. The forces of the right, the extent of the strength of financialization, the power of finance, including being able to just make up money from the Fed and throw it at a problem when you need toā¦
I guess, to put it another way, the peopleās movement just isnāt strong enough right now to deal especially with the threat of climate with such a narrow window. Thereās got to be some maneuvering here or thereās not going to be any kind of legislation passed on climate thatās going to be effective. Not that I have any great faith in Biden. Quite the opposite.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, the only thing I would say is that if the Democratic Party actually decided they wanted to be that kind of party and threw all their institutional weight behind trying to make that happen, then I think they would have had a decent chance of getting something done because they would they would have had all the votes. Not all the votes: they would have had so much popular support, or so much more than they have now, that it would have been possible.
The problem that we have right now is that the country is essentially divided into three groups. We have the Trump coalition, which is the right-populist, evangelical group. Then thereās a massive, massive section of people who are just disinterested, donāt vote and disillusioned. And then thereās a group of people who vote Democratic who I think increasingly belong to a disaffected and undermanned professional class. There just arenāt enough of those people, ultimately, to become a permanent majority in the United States. So, unless they find a way to dig into that group of people who have stopped voting, theyāre always going to be kind of behind the eight-ball electorally, I think.
Paul Jay
Yeah, and theyāre not going to get handed a pandemic every time.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
Thereās no reason ā ideologically, politically ā that Trump couldnāt have actually dealt with the pandemic. It wouldnāt have hurt him in any way with his base. He could have said, āWear masks.ā Nobody would have cared about it. Heās a lunatic.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
He just got 70 million votes.
Matt Taibbi
If he were just slightly less insane, he would have won the election and probably going away, he would have won it. Like, if he had if he had handled things with the sophistication of, like, a 13-year-old, he would have been fine. Yeah.
Paul Jay
[Laughing.] But thatās a real scary proposition because every other part of his presidency was also a disaster, starting with climate first and foremost, Iran, and go on department by department by department, unraveling every kind of social safety net and issues of carbon emission and so on and so on. A complete disaster. And I think youāre right, he would have won the election.
We once interviewed this guy in a diner outside of Baltimore, a white guy in a white area in one of the suburbs. And he said, āI think Trump is insane. I think heās a liar. I think heās a con man. And I voted for him anyway. What does that tell you about what I think of the other guys?ā
Anyway, do you see any hope that the Biden ā hereās my Hail Mary about Biden; my naivete-Hail Mary ā: he doesnāt have to worry about running again. He doesnāt have to worry about a post-presidency career. Heās old enough that he could break his own mold. You think thereās any chance heāll listen to the progressives? And I guess weāre going to find out pretty soon about who he appoints [to the cabinet].
Matt Taibbi
Oh, thereās no way that he goes that way. Biden is a creature of the Beltway. He always has been. His personal leanings, I think, politically are probably far more conservative than he lets on. He has a persona that has been carefully crafted over the years that accentuates this idea that heās from the working class, that heās āScranton Joe,ā and he has that hardscrabble background. But really, if you go back and look at what he actually believes in, the things that he seems to feel most strongly about are things like very draconian criminal justice plans, free trade, and he was by Barack Obamaās side through the very aggressive ādemocracy-promotionā foreign policy that Obama promoted all those years with drone assassination and all of that stuff. So, I donāt I donāt have any faith that theyāre going to do that.
Plus, thereās already all these trial-balloon stories in the American press talking about how Biden, you know, has to resist the Warren/Sanders wing call for appointments in Treasury and places like that, which to me suggests that theyāre already gearing people up for the idea that theyāre going to be a whole bunch of Jamie Dimon-types in government. Maybe it wonāt be exactly Jamie Dimon, but itāll be people like that.
Paul Jay
Every rational part of my brain says youāre right. [Laughter.] I guess Iām just working backwards from climate catastrophe and hoping that some rationality will [take hold]. Because if you look at his current climate planā¦ Like, I interviewed Bob Pollin, the economist. We went through Bidenās climate plan thatās on his website. And phasing out fossil fuel actually isnāt really part of what he says is the climate plan. I know he kind of got off-message and said that at the last debate, and then backed out of it saying it would take decades. But itās all based on carbon capture, his real plan, which is a totally unproven technology.
On the other hand, there does at least seem to be some recognition of how serious the climate crisis is, by Biden and even some of those circles in finance. Chuck Schumer said something interesting the morning of November 3rd. It didnāt get much coverage because it got lost in how well, at the time on November 3rd, Trump was doing and everybody went into shock. But the morning of the 3rd, when the Democrats were assuming it was going to be a cakewalk, Schumer says, āWeāre going to weāre going to do what FDR did in his first 100 days. Weāre going to be as progressive as FDR.ā Something like that ā coming from Schumer. And I think what it means is that they think they can have a massive infrastructure program, label it as āgreen,ā and it becomes a tremendous cash cow because itās not just about how much money you spend, itās, what do you spend it on and who reaps the benefit of all that spending.
And maybe thatās part of what the stock markets are so happy about right now. Because even with the Republicans, if finance really likes the package, then all they need is a few Republicans in the Senate to come on board with it. Itās going to look FDR-ish, but whether it actually does anything effective will be the fight. Now, at least thereās a fight about whatās effective. Under Trump, you donāt even have that discussion.
Matt Taibbi
Itās possible. Iām very, very skeptical that that would be the reality given that they spent the entire 2019/2020 electoral season pouring every ounce of political capital they had into suppressing a candidate who had basically, exactly FDRās politics in Bernie Sanders. I mean, he is a person who literally campaigned on returning to the New Deal, and they threw everything they had into making sure that that there wouldnāt be any kind of return to the New Deal. Bernie Sanders ran on that explicitly, and they expended every ounce of political capital they had in crushing him. I donāt think that this party believes in that kind of politics.
I think they are a ā you know, itās the Clintonian model of politics, which is very much in sync with Wall Street. So, maybe thereās something like what youāre saying, where itās a financialized kind of Green New Deal.
Paul Jay
Yeah.
Matt Taibbi
Maybe something like that, where thereās a ton of Fed spending for a handful of companies that are creating a basket of securities that you invest into that ostensibly would address the problem. But I am extremely skeptical that they care at all about the end result. So, you know, I apologize for being a downer, but Iāve never seen any evidence that this party cares about that.
Paul Jay
Well, the party is complicated because theyāve got an urban base that does want action on climate and they are fairly educated.
Matt Taibbi
Oh, I donāt mean the people [i.e., the voters who are Democratic].
Paul Jay
No, no. But I mean, they have to worry about that. The Republican base doesnāt care very much about it. But the Democratic Party as a party, if they want to win another election and if they donāt want to strengthen the Sanders wing, they canāt doĀ nothing. So, just from pure electoral self-interest, they have different interests that will drive them in that direction.
Finance, I think, sees an opportunity here, and not only an opportunity. You know, I interview Larry Wilkerson a lot and heās in touch with a lot of fossil fuel people. They know that this is coming. I mean, they donāt have any doubt that the climate science is for real. They just want twenty, twenty-five years to get more fossil fuel out of the ground before anything serious happens.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
But even this guy, Larry Fink, who runs BlackRock, has been paying a lot of lip service to the issue of getting off coal and some climate stuff. I mean, what he proposed is not serious, but thereās a recognition in the people that are putting money into the BlackRock investment fund that thereās some serious stuff coming down that might even threaten their assets. But thereās nothing that will get done that they wonāt try to find a way to make money out of. And thatās going to be more important to them than what the most effective policy is.
I just want to just add: the biggest threat of Bernie Sanders, I think, wasnāt any of his policy proposals because there wasnāt a policy proposal of Bernie that doesnāt already exist in Europe and Canada and places like that. Theyāre not capitalist-threatening proposals. I think the biggest threat of Sanders is that he wasnāt in the control of Wall Street. He found a way to raise money without finance and that they canāt live with.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, exactly. One of the most underreported stories of the last election cycle was Sanders was the leading fundraiser. You know, by January of 2020, he was outraising everybody in the party by a pretty significant margin. None of that money was big corporate money. So, there was a big proof of concept there, which ā and I think youāre right ā was what made Sanders uniquely dangerous to the Democratic Party. It threatens what their business model is.
Remember, theyāre essentially a commercial organization, and if they allow somebody like Bernie to become the nominee, they would be eliminating thousands of cushy sinecures for all the people whoād been working for the party for years in Washington. Theyād have to bring in a whole new group of people who donāt believe in what they believe in, which is taking corporate money and pretending to be socially progressive. Thatās what they do. And, you know, Bernie proved that you can be a competitive politician without the money. And thatās when I think they became particularly hostile to him: precisely at that moment when he started to pull ahead and he was raising all the money.
Paul Jay
Yeah, I agree that these parties and the whole political structure didnāt have internet fundraising in mind when it was created. Itās really threatened their control of politics.
Matt Taibbi
And just as a parenthetical: I covered Howard Dean when he first ran for president. Dean actually did something very similar. He had an early fundraising lead in 2004 all through internet-generated small contributions. And thatās when all the think tanks, the big news media organizations ā thatās when they all turned on him. And it wasnāt because he was a big bomb-throwing liberal, although he was anti-war. That [i.e., the independent fundraising threat] was the reason. That was what engendered all the hostility was the financial independence.
Paul Jay
Yeah, because this ādemocracyā has some built-In controls. One is the Electoral College, the other is the Senate, and most important is who controls the money. If you break the money control, all of a sudden it actually might start looking democratic. And it wasnāt designed for that.
Matt Taibbi
Right. And then thereās the media after that.
Paul Jay
Yeah, letās talk about that. What the hell is going to be the new business model for CNN and MSNBC? I mean, the whole business model was anti-Trump.
Matt Taibbi
Iāve written so much about this in the last four years. These companies have transformed themselves. Theyāre so far from what the traditional conception of what a news organization is that theyāre basically unrecognizable at this point.
They created a programming slate that was really based around the character of Donald Trump. Without him as a constant to react to, I have no idea what theyāre going to do because the rest of their programming is virtually indistinguishable from the stuff you would read on the Democratic National Committee website, for instance, in press releases section. There is no other independent thought that goes on in most of these news organizations. Itās been amazing to watch.
I have no idea what theyāre going to do. I think that they almost have to hope that Trump has this big domestic presence somewhere, like, maybe through a news network or something like that.
Paul Jay
Well, he probably will. Heās already started his fight with Fox.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
And they with him with Fox calling Arizona before anyone else did.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
And actually, Iāve been watching Fox more than MSNBC ā
Matt Taibbi
Me, too.
Paul Jay
āand CNN because I know what theyāre going to say. At least you get the odd surprise on Fox.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, wasnāt that amazing? There was stuff on Fox during the election ā they had people on who were supposed to be the experts in the Latino vote and were saying things like, āYeah, he won a lot of Cuban voters, but, you know, he really let down Puerto Ricans and thatās why he didnāt do well.ā Or you had Mike Huckabee on saying things like, āThereās a time to be a candidate and a time to be president, and the time to be candidate is over, and Trump has to recognize this and he has to stop talking about, you know, not counting votes anymore,ā and that sort of thing.
Fox looked more like the heterodox, challenging news network ā for a moment there ā than the traditional CNN and MSNBC channels, which, are basically blue propaganda at this point. So, it was amazing to watch.
Paul Jay
Yeah, I mean, maybe itās partly the influence of Chris Wallace, who also as an interviewer, I find far more interesting than anyone else on Sunday mornings.
Matt Taibbi
Absolutely.
Paul Jay
He gives his subjects a hard time. He actually acts like a journalist. I agree with that.
But I think itās partly positioning. Fox knows that thereās a Trump media empire competition coming with Fox. So, theyāre getting ready to trash him. And also, the news side of Fox was more reasonable. The pundits werenāt around that much the night of November 3rd.
Matt Taibbi
No, but at least there is a news side. See, thatās whatās so interesting.
Paul Jay
I mean, normally the news side [of Fox] has been awful. But now all of a sudden ā I agree with that ā they sounded like news all of a sudden.
Matt Taibbi
Right. Right. Whereas, you know, the other axis ā the CNN, MSNBC,Ā Washington Post,Ā New York TimesĀ axis ā has been moving in a direction where the news is just increasingly politicized. And itās been an amazing transformation. I donāt know I donāt know what theyāre going to do in terms of going forward now that the, you know, the great dragon has been slain.
Paul Jay
One of the things that surprised me about this vote, which shows that I bought into, I donāt know, polling or whatever it was. I always thought that Hillary could have and should have won that election, and she didnāt because she didnāt campaign in the swing states. Well, now it turns out that Biden, who did campaign in key swing states ā and yeah, he won, but won in Michigan by 140,000 votes. I mean, after four years of Trump, it shouldnāt have been close. One hundred and forty thousand votes is still close.
So, the 70 million votes that Trump gets, itās a real solid base. And I think what the corporate Dems either donāt care about or donāt know to do is: they donāt know how to get [the opportunity] to communicate. Iām not talking messaging here. Thatās another issue. They actually donāt have a distribution channel to get to those 70 million people because those 70 million people donāt watch CNN, MSNBC, they donāt readĀ The Post, they donāt readĀ The Times. They either watch Fox ā and even Fox is overrated. Tucker Carlson does an average of I think itās 4.4 million, which is great for cable. Itās not even close to network news. Network news does 20 million, 22 million. Each one of them does up in those numbers.
So, itās not just Fox. I think itās radio and itās the pulpit. They [i.e., the corporate Democrats] are not getting that they have no way to talk to those people. And they seem to make no effort to talk to those people.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah. And this is another thing Iāve written a lot about. Iāve talked a lot about this with people like Tom Frank, the author.
Paul Jay
I just had him on. He was just on. I have a piece with him.
Matt Taibbi
Oh, really? Okay.
Paul Jay
Yeah. Itās in fact the top story on the website right now: Whatever happened to America? With Tom Frank.
Matt Taibbi
There you go. He and I have talked a lot about this. Again, there has been this transformation in the news media where the voice of the working person, which used to be an integral part of the news experience [is absent.] There was always one columnist or a couple of columnists like Jimmy Breslin, Mike Barnicle ā it didnāt matter who. Every city had that person whose job it was to speak in the vernacular of the working person and to make sure that the news organizations maintained some kind of connection to regular people.
And those people have been eliminated over the years. Whatās been fascinating is to watch how theyāve been eliminated. Like, first they got rid of the sort of genuinely working-class people and replaced them, frankly, with people like Tom Frank and myself who were, you know, sort of upper-class intellectuals, but who were sympathetic to the ordinary person. Then they got rid of us.
Paul Jay
They got rid of both of you. Both of you donāt get on anymore.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, exactly. Or anybody like us. And weāve all been replaced by these Apostles of the Professional Class whose job is to constantly exalt the bottomless wisdom of, you know, the experts in America. And so, the problem with the news media now is that they donāt have any people who even have a thought about how to communicate with ordinary folks. And thatās why they keep missing things like the 2016 election and now the 2020 election, because they donāt know anybody who ā
Paul Jay
Well, actually, they kind of do. But the problem is the leaders of fairly conservative unions, and thatās who tells them what the working class wants to hear. But if they bothered getting to know people in the unions, they would know that most of the members of the union canāt stand them.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
They donāt like these union leaders and not because theyāre progressive, but because theyāre hacks.
Matt Taibbi
Right, exactly.
Paul Jay
I go into grocery stores that are unionized. And I ask, āYou know who your steward is?ā āNo.ā āDo you know the name of your union?ā I think itās the something union of something, something.ā Like, thereās just no communication between the union leaders who go for these $500 lunches and eat steaks like ā
Matt Taibbi
Right. At The Monocle, yeah.
Paul Jay
Yeah. And thatās whoās interpreting the working class for the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Matt Taibbi
Right. Thatās exactly right. Thatās how they keep their finger on the pulse of the people, right? [Laughter.]
Itās that. Itās polls. I remember hearing a story during the Obama presidency from somebody in Treasury who said that they had a presentation from a bunch of high-ranking executives of big retail companies like Target and Wal-Mart. This was in 2009. And they told them, āYou know, thereās a lot of pain out there because of the financial crisis. People arenāt going to buy that much this this holiday season.ā And the people at Treasury were like, āOh, really?ā Like, thatās how they found out that people weāre having a hard time after the 2008 crash: from a presentation by these rapacious retail companies. So, yeah, they donāt have any of that connection.
And I wrote about this sort of as a joke, but if you look at the media treatments of this race, there were so many think pieces about who Homer Simpson was going to vote for. And the reason for that is because Homer Simpson is the only potential Trump voter that most journalists even know, you know?
Paul Jay
[Laughs.]
Matt Taibbi
Itās so embarrassing on so many levels, but itās a very serious problem.
Paul Jay
The other thing they know, but I donāt get how they canāt get their head around what to do about it, even when theyāre so close to finance and everything else.
But anyway: they know, theyāve been told at least since 2004, 2005, how the Koch brothers and other billionaires allied with them have consciously, methodically, systematically created this alliance of far-right think tanks promoting hack, con-man, evangelical religious leaders. Ordinary people are not disingenuous, most of them. Most evangelicals, I think, are quite sincere in what they believe. But the leaders are hacks. And every so often thereās a sexual exposĆ©, thereās a corruption scandal. It just doesnāt matter because the narrative is they get forgiven.
I did a film once on professional wrestling, and it taught me a lot about this whole thing. You know, this idea of heroes, who are called āfaces,ā turning into heels and then turning back into faces. That catharsis is very meaningful for people because they go through that catharsis with the character theyāre viewing and identifying with.
Matt Taibbi
Yep.
Paul Jay
So, this great network has been created of millions and millions. At least 60 percent, I think, of the Trump vote is this very religious vote. It may be as high as 70 percent. But these people believe in these values with a great deal of sincerity, even if thereās a dose of white privilege or white supremacy thrown in the mix. But a chunk of those people voted for Obama.
Matt Taibbi
And a big chunk.
Paul Jay
A big chunk. Itās really significant that they voted for a black guy for president. So, Iām not discounting the racist part of this narrative. Itās certainly not the whole narrative when so many of these people did vote for the first black president. But when you talk directly to a lot of Trump voters ā and Iāve talked to a lot of religious Trump voters ā when you start talking about, āWell, how does Trump jive with the message of Jesus?ā You know, āHow does Trump walk through the eye of a needle?ā You know, the camel: they [i.e., the rich] have as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel does walking through the eye of a needle. When you start quoting the Bible and Jesus and they realize youāll have a sincere conversation with them about that, nobodyās jumped and said, āOh, Iāve seen the light because I talked to you.ā No. But it shakes them a bit.
And thereās been so little effort ā just add one more thing. The progressive candidates, they donāt just buy some TV advertising. Theyāre going door-to-door in between elections. You know, theyāre talking to people over and over. The Corp Dems donāt seem to do that. They just think you wait till the election, then you buy a bunch of TV advertising and thatās supposed to win you something.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, I talked to Marianne Williamson about this a little bit. The inability of the Democratic candidates ā not even the inability, the unwillingness of the Democratic Party to find a way to talk believably about spirituality. Itās endemic to their problem because they. They donāt have any real belief in it. They donāt have any connection to it. They donāt have anybody who knows how to talk that way. And they havenāt since, I would say, Bill Clinton. And the modern ethos of a lot of kind of progressive/liberal thinking is completely hostile to spirituality and doesnāt know how to talk about it in any way thatās meaningful.
And the reason that Trump gets those votes is because he doesnāt condescend to those people. You know, he talks to them as if theyāre not idiots, which they probably arenāt compared to him, right? But thatās not really the issue. When Democrats try to talk to, you know, evangelicals, thereās always this kind of condescending, like, āWeāre going to start talking a little bit more slowly,ā like, āWe feel sorry for you, but let me tell you where your real interests are.ā And they completely discount anything that they think where they might have very serious beliefs, whether itās on reproductive choice or anything else. They just assume that theyāre completely wrong and they donāt want to engage in any of those things
So, thatās a big problem. And I would also add thereās an issue thatās starting to arise with progressivism where the lack of a religious tradition, even among parents, has created a new kind of Democratic voter who has started to embrace politics as almost like a replacement for their spiritual beliefs. And they are talking about things like, you know, whether itās Black Lives Matter or environmentalism, but they sometimes start to sound like religious people when they speak, which I think speaks to something thatās going on that is a little on the Democratic side. But ultimately the point remains that they just donāt have a way to talk to religious people, which I think is, you know, consistent with what youāve been saying.
Paul Jay
I think what you just said is really important, and maybe thatās part of how we can talk to religious people, is that we acknowledge that pretty well all politics is identity politics. You know, I know a lot of progressives, including me, until maybe ā it took me living in Baltimore for a few years to get past this ā but I would look down on identity politics, and that itās got to be about class and so on. But thereās a reason people want identity politics. Itās because they feel their identity is under threat. If their identity wasnāt threatened, they wouldnāt go there. So, yeah, I personally believe the resolution of the threat to peopleās identity is a more socially just equal society and so on. Let me go further than that: change which class has power, really? But that aināt going to happen fast.
But when you start arguing religion and politics, and itās not like itās that different, as you say, not just for religious people, for supposedly secular people, too: you are fighting with peopleās identity, not opinions. You know, itās not one scientist whoās doing this test and another that, and letās argue about what the results are. Weāre talking the core of peopleās identity.
Matt Taibbi
Exactly.
Paul Jay
And if you donāt respect that, you canāt talk. So, you got to start with finding the common ground when talking to people. And slowly, you know, like I say, we can start talking about the message of Jesus. Iām a big fan of Jesus. Iām not religious in the sense that I donāt believe in the God, the son of God, and so on and so on. But the message of Jesus, what I believe it is, is sublime. And I mean, turn the other cheek, I mean, God, the idea of that kind of forgiveness? I mean, to me thatās understanding that weāre part of a historical process. Itās not about good guys and bad guys ā like, even Hitler, to me, heās not a villain. Heās a part of the historical process. And to me, thatās my interpretation of the message of Jesus. I think if you start talking that way, at least we can have a conversation. Except that in a lot of minds, people of religion just get demonized. āOh, theyāre the deplorables. You canāt talk to them.ā
Matt Taibbi
Which is a complete misread of the situation in almost all cases. And this is, I think, a result of just people not mixing enough. I did a book a long time ago where I I joined one of those megachurches you talked about.
Paul Jay
I went to one once.
Matt Taibbi
So, the leader of this church, John Hagee, is one of the biggest con men in Washington. But the people in the church were good people, you know what Iām saying? And my eyes were really opened by a lot of what I heard during that experience.
Just to take an example, evangelicals came an incredibly long way on the issue of gay marriage really quickly. And they did it through the prism of their own understanding of the biblical teaching, right? Like, they got there that way. And I donāt think most progressives and most people in academia in America would have thought that was possible, you know, even ten years ago or fifteen years ago. And so, itās frustrating to me that a lot of the people who are Trump voters, theyāre so caricatured and people have this idea that theyāre completely inflexible in their thinking. Thatās not really true. I think the thing that is most deeply felt by those folks is a sense of, like, betrayal and hurt, and the feeling of being disrespected is whatās most profound with those people.
And if we could find a way to not do that, I think that thatās where that the hope for a better future might come.
Paul Jay
Well, I think one place to start is when you look at the fact that 80 percent or 82 percent of evangelicals voted for Trump. Well, that means 20 percent didnāt. And that 20 percent goes to the same church as the 80 percent, and they have tea and strawberry shortcake or whatever the heck they eat at parties.
I have a friend whoās a lefty Jewish woman, lives in Tennessee, and is married to an evangelical guy. And on most political issues, they agree. And I went down to visit them. I insisted he take me to his church, and he did. And honestly ā I got to be honest ā I donāt understand how a rational person can listen to the service thatās practically promising you a color TV if you believe and donāt commit these sins. But it almost doesnāt matter what the preacher says, in some ways. The experience of being in the church with all the other people that believe, as you believe, is cathartic. Itās transcendental. It makes you it lifts you up on the wings, whatever the phrase is. And I felt that even though I donāt believe really any of it. So, the experience is cathartic and people just donāt get dramatic, emotional, cathartic experiences in their lives.
And, you know, it doesnāt matter what policy youāre talking about, if you canāt understand that ā for the same reason professional wrestling is so popular. Like, most people canāt figure out why the hell anyone would ever go when they know ā in fact, it was my film that broke the news that itās all theater. But itās still cathartic.
Matt Taibbi
Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree. I think, you know, from the perspective of conservative voters, a lot of them are very frustrated. Look, a lot of these voters spend a lot of time thinking about their spiritual lives and ethics and morality as something separate and apart from politics. And I donāt see the same thing necessarily from voters on the Democratic side. Like, itās just a different way of thinking about life. And, I donāt know, itās frustrating. Yes, evangelicals think a lot of silly things. There are people who believe in, you know, the coming apocalypse and they read books likeĀ Left BehindĀ and they think theyāre real. But, you know, thereās a lot of deeply felt stuff in there thatās important.
Paul Jay
The other thing I think is really important in this moment is not to forget how powerful that movement around the Sanders candidacy was before he lost. The movement, the motion was really electrifying: hundreds of thousands of people coming together around very progressive values, threatening the power structure of the Democratic Party.
And, yeah, thereās been this tactical truce to defeat Trump, maybe a little too much in the sense that I donāt think there needed to be as much withholding of critique of the Biden forces in order to defeat Trump. On the other hand, Iāve never won an election in my life, so maybe I donāt know what Iām talking about. I really mean that in all sincerity. Itās hard to say they should have done this and should have done that to people that have actually won elections.
But that being said. And I also donāt think we should underestimate how much finance sector and much of the Democratic Party really hate the left. The way Thomas Frank says it, they donāt dislike the left ā theyĀ hateĀ the left. But I think there is a new dynamic here because of how strong that Sanders candidacy was. Take Kamala Harris looking forward to four years from now. If she really pisses off the progressive wing of the party over this next four years, thereās going to be a serious progressive challenge to her. I donāt know whether itās AOC or I mean, thatās the way itās looking. I mean, God, what a primary that would be.
Matt Taibbi
Yes.Ā Ā And Bernie did come very close, and I was pretty plugged in to the Sanders campaign. Iāve known Bernie for a long time and talked to him a lot in the last 10 years. And I think, you know, one of the things that happened with his campaign that was just unfortunate and a stroke of bad luck is that he happened to run against a candidate who he liked personally.
Bernie is a complicated character in a lot of ways. Heās simple on the political side. He believes what he believes, and thatās and thatās what makes him so appealing to people. They can see the sincerity. But heās not a ruthless character in the same way that somebody like Bill Clinton might be. And even though intellectually I think he might have understood the necessity of going harder against Joe Biden, he just likes Joe Biden. Joe Biden was nice to him when Bernie was, you know, a backbencher Independent, once upon a time. And that kind of stuff has a lot of currency with Sanders. And there was a major difference. You know, Bernie did not like Hillary Clinton and he had a deep and profound personal dislike for her politics and her viewpoint on the world. And he was able to summon outrage that was easy to connect with over, you know, the things she was doing like collecting $600,000 in a day for a couple of speeches to Wall Street banks or whatever it was. He didnāt feel the same thing towards Joe Biden for obvious reasons. But that isnāt Bidenās thing. And Biden has a similar, slightly, kind of background to Bernie. So, that dulled the edge a little bit.
As far as what happens going forward, though, you know, I worry about that because they were so successful in kind of throttling Sanders at the end there that it took a lot of the air out of the balloon of the progressive movement, I think, here in the States. If itās going to be led by somebody like AOC, you know, I worry about that because the history of the party is that it always does one of two things with those candidates. It either completely crushes them so that they have no route forward and are never taken seriously again, like Dennis Kucinich. Or they bring them into the fold and kind of buy them off with influence and a voice, like Howard Dean. And I worry that thatās going to be whatās going to happen with the AOC is theyāre going to make her the public face of the party and have her talk about certain issues that they donāt really care about. And with that, theyāre going to make sure that she doesnāt spend all the next four years talking about all the giveaways that theyāre going to give to Wall Street and to the pharmaceutical industry So, that would be an early thing to look out for if I were paying attention.
Paul Jay
Well, Iām sure you will be paying attention. [Laughter.] But I donāt know, I havenāt seen it so far from her. Iāve been ā whatās the word? āPleasantly surprisedā might be the right word, but so far, she seems to stick to her guns. Thereās no doubt what you say is the cautionary side of it, and they will try that.
Matt Taibbi
But I mean, theyāre going to offer, you can be the next Nancy Pelosi. Thatās what theyāre going to do; thatās what theyāre going to hold out.
Paul Jay
Oh, no way. Oh, God. Sheās going to have to make a lot of capitulations before that ever happens.
Matt Taibbi
Well, itās just something to keep in mind. I think thatās a possible plotline. So, yeah.
Paul Jay
All right. Well, just finally ā and I hope we get to do this again soon.
Matt Taibbi
Mmm-hmm. This was great.
Paul Jay
But just quickly, a few litmus tests about what direction this is going in terms of transition team appointments. When he starts talking about cabinet appointments, what are you going to be looking for that will tell the tale?
Matt Taibbi
Well, Iām very concerned about whether theyāre going to be bringing back a lot of the national security creeps from the Bush and Obama administrations. If we start seeing names like Michael Hayden and John Brennan and James Clapper back in the Biden administration, that, to me, is a sign that weāre in very serious trouble. Itās not just the foreign policy issues. Itās not just the kind of continuation of the Dick Cheney, state-within-a-state, war-on-terrorism stuff. Itās the new stuff that I really worry about. Itās the growing union of politics and Silicon Valley content moderation. A lot of these folks were very influential behind the scenes through groups like the Atlantic Council in bringing about this new form of media distribution thatās now so heavily regulated.
And I think their vision of the future is dystopian. And I think thatās where Iām most worried. Are we going to see those people back in government? And, what are they going to do on issues like media, and, you know, fake news and that sort of thing.
Paul Jay
And continued growth of financialization.
Matt Taibbi
Oh, of course.
Paul Jay
As that sector becomes even more powerful, which Roosevelt described as fascism. Thereās this great quote from Roosevelt, where he says that when one section of capitalists is able to take control essentially of the state ā I described it in this article I wrote, what you were just talking about, this kind of dystopia and the financialization, which I know youāve written about, thatās a sort of systemic cancer. The malignant tumor was Trump and the forces behind him. And that tumor, in my mind, had to be removed because otherwise, you know, the patient is dead. But the fight against the systemic cancer? By no means does getting rid of Trump get rid of the cancer.
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, and not to go on about this, but the bailout that came after the pandemic started: the argument that Wall Street made at that time was essentially, the Fed has an obligation not just to stabilize markets, but basically to prop them up. Right? Like, this was a different argument than they made in 2008 when they said, OK, well, we have to make these companies whole because otherwise there will be permanent, lasting damage, you know, collateral damage to the economy. And weāll just fix it just this one time, and weāll go back to a free-market system. They actually overtly made the argument this time that the Fed needs to make sure that prices in the various capital markets stay at a reasonable level so that thereās some predictability to it, which is essentially ā
Paul Jay
Even higher than reasonable
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, higher than reasonable.
Paul Jay
So, in terms of, the stock market is crazy. Weāve got a pandemic and a depression and the markets are going through the roof.
Matt Taibbi
Right. Like, what, exactly, is the justification for that? Apart from, we have to make sure that people who are invested in ā not in the stock markets, they didnāt do it directly there. But, you know, the money-market-funds market, for instance, right? Like, why do we have to make sure that that stays at a particularly high rate? I mean, and so, you know, twenty-five years after we had ended welfare, as we know it, under the Clinton administration, weāve created this other thing, which essentially is, like, permanent Fed backstopping of the financial markets.
And they did it through Trump, but itās not associated with Trump. Itās a thing that kind of happened that the public doesnāt associate with him. And if that continues, I mean, thatās a pretty extraordinary development to commit so much of our resources to that. And so thatās another thing to keep an eye on.
Paul Jay
And then, Act Two. I donāt know when Act Two comes about ā as soon as the economy really starts to come back. Act Two will be āOh, the debtās too big.ā After saying, we donāt care how much money they create, then the austerity hawks are going to get their Act. And then itās going to be back to, well, the people are going to have to pay because the debt is so high.
Matt Taibbi
Absolutely. As they were disregarding the entire concept of debt during this period. Like, you know, they literally said, it doesnāt matter at all. Right? I forget what the Fed chairās comment was, how he phrased it exactly. But essentially, itās like, weāre not going to run out of ammunition.
So, there was no there was no ceiling to how much debt they were willing to incur to do this. But they will they will absolutely make that argument once the economy starts to come back and everybody knows whatās going to happen. Youāre right. Itās going to be some version of Greece or Italy. You know what Iām saying? Itās going to be like that.
Paul Jay
Theyāre going to talk that way. When it comes to any legislation thatās actually going to help people.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
Thereās a really interesting number I saw. I think it was from 2018, The Brookings Institution. They did a study of how much wealth is in private hands, assets after liabilities. Ninety-eight trillion dollars. And in private, American hands.
Matt Taibbi
Wow. Yeah.
Paul Jay
I mean, thatās insane and, you know, the ability to tax some of that and pay for this stuff is rather easy. If you had, you know, the political will. But theyāre going to claim thereās not enough money and this debtās so horrible. I mean, they could pay off the debt in five winks if they would just tax some of that $98 trillion.
Matt Taibbi
But then the Atlases will go on strike, you know, like in the book [Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand] and they wonāt permit that kind of politics. So, thatās all stuff worth watching out for in the post-Trump universe. I think weāre going to see more discussion of that because those changes were pretty profound when they started to happen after the pandemic. And weāll see what happens going forward.
Paul Jay
Anyway, Iām a little hopeful, even though thereās a lot of reasons not to be. I think the main thing is going to be ā and I think people will get this pretty soon. At least the more activist types. That is, you know, the Biden presidency is just the beginning of another battle. And people got to get organized. Itās really simple. People got to get organized because thereās no time for some evolutionary working out of this stuff. The climate crisis has just put a different window on time and, you know, what do we have? I donāt even know what time we have. I just know we donāt have time.
Matt Taibbi
Right.
Paul Jay
It may be less than a decade. I mean, some of the predictions are really dire. And I think the big battle is going to be against greenwashing. I think they are going to do some stuff. Itās just, is it going to be bullshit? Because I think the urgency is being understood even in the circles of the elites. But they canāt help themselves. They just canāt help themselves. They got to figure out a way to make money out of whatever gets done. And the most effective policy isnāt going to make them quick money. And thatās the big battle, and we better get organized for it or weāre kind of doomed. Whatās Chomskyās line? āOrganized human life on this planet.ā
Matt Taibbi
Absolutely. Well, weāll see what happens. You know, theyāve only just gotten into office. So, weāll see what takes place. But, yeah, very interesting stuff.
Paul Jay
Yeah. Thanks very much, man. Letās do it again soon.
Matt Taibbi
Absolutely. Take care now.
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