Brian Derrick: [00:00:00] No House Speaker ousters.
Glennis Meagher: No election denials.
Brian Derrick: You know the fate of the 2024 election hinges on vibes. This is Vibes Only, a podcast that checks the vibes of American politics each and every week.
Glennis Meagher: And this week, we are excited to be joined by Ari Berman, Ari's Mother Jones National Voting Rights Correspondent and author of the new book, Minority Rule, the right wing attack on the will of the people and the fight to resist it.
Brian Derrick: We'll talk with Ari about his new book, the fight to save democracy and the state.
Glennis Meagher: But first, Brian and I will kick it off with an update on how Marjorie Taylor Greene and company are attempting to reconcile with Speaker MAGA Mike to please their dear leader Donald Trump.
Brian Derrick: And after our conversation with Ari, we're going to play an It's Giving, pull up our group chat and leave you with a good vibe.
Let's get into it.
Glennis Meagher: I don't like this woman. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Brian Derrick: Oh, wow. She's going straight in.
Glennis Meagher: I'm going straight in. I'm not even like, Hey, how are you? How was your weekend? I'm talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Brian Derrick: Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'm mad. What's she doing now?
Glennis Meagher: [00:01:00] So after weeks, weeks, Brian, of insisting that she'd force a vote on removing Mike Johnson, a speaker Marjorie then requested a meeting with Mike Johnson to explain.
Blur, like off ramps from that vote, like maybe we won't do that. So here are the dates they met for two hours on Monday and they also are meeting on Tuesday. So day of recording. So maybe by Wednesday there will be updates.
Brian Derrick: Can you imagine how loony you must feel when you're in the most dysfunctional house caucus of all time in the country's history and you are the problem child.
Oh my gosh, you must feel so wild.
Glennis Meagher: You know that meme that people use on the internet that's like when you're walking back into a room in a situation, it's like, Hey, and it's that's music, you know, it's that like just ashamed you caused all the drama. And now you're trying to resolve the drama. So Tom Massey.
Massey. Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey, yeah, his full name. He's a Republican from [00:02:00] Kentucky. Tommy. He showed up to the meeting with a list of potential demands. Per Politico, they reported on this, that they spoke to. Some of the demands include no further aid for Ukraine, a return to the Hacert rule, meaning no legislation is brought to a vote without support from a majority of the House majority.
So the majority of the house majority has to support the legislation before it's voted on defunding the special counsel probes into Donald Trump in upcoming appropriations, which is a committee and enforcement of the wait for it Massey rule whereby government funding is automatically cut across the board.
If no superseding agreement is reached before a set deadline, are they making up rules? Is that a new rule? Or did Thomas Massey say, you know what, it's my time to shine. They just love shut down the government.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. The press honestly loves to just name random demands after the senators and members of Congress who make them.
But like, let's, let's talk about what this is really about. This is about Republicans not being able to [00:03:00] govern as a like governing majority because they cannot agree on anything. Anything, and they have so many factions unwilling to even compromise with each other on like basic legislation that they have to rely on democratic votes to pass anything to keep the government open, to pass the security bill, to pass foreign aid, to pass anything that's been passed in the last year, essentially requires democratic votes in order to do it because Republicans, even though they are in the majority, cannot Right.
agree on anything to do. And so you have Bonnie and Clyde, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massey trying to arm wrestle Maga Mike into agreeing to things that they know aren't actually within their power. to achieve. But because there's no incentive for them to behave like adults because they feel like they're invincible at the ballot box, all they can really do is like try to get more press, try to get more power, try to essentially come after other [00:04:00] people and then extract concessions from them like committee chair mentioned.
Right.
Glennis Meagher: And you wonder if it's also to perform for Donald Trump, but
Brian Derrick: even Trump's not in on this. He's like, shut it down.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, one person close to Donald Trump told playbook that he could not have been clearer and signaling that he isn't interested in any intra party drama this election season because he knows it hurts him.
It hurts him. If Republicans are wasting American. Taxpayer dollars on Capitol Hill.
Brian Derrick: America is under a shared delusion that Republicans are fiscally responsible and like are great at steering the government towards austerity. And so it benefits Republicans to make everyone panic about Things like inflation and the economy feel like their personal savings and well being is at risk and present themselves as the savior.
It's completely divorced from our reality, which is that [00:05:00] Republicans have driven a majority of the national debt since world war two, that Republican presidents have spent much more than democratic presidents in recent history. And. They are actually not the adult in the room. They're the kindergartner throwing a tantrum and like that is what the party is functionally doing at all times.
And so Trump needs that shared delusion to last through November because if the Republican party is outed as the clowns. that they are behaving like, then nobody is going to show up to say, I want that. I, uh, that is the solution to the thing that you have made me so scared of. Because if you can't pass a bill, you can't pass a budget, you can't shrink government funding, even though you say you want to, you can't do any of these things.
Why should I turn out and vote for you again? So Trump is trying to put a kibosh on the drama and the speaker ousters and all of the shenanigans.
Glennis Meagher: Well, [00:06:00] we're still going to be talking about it every week on vibes only, because we're not going to let them get away with it.
Brian Derrick: Absolutely.
Glennis Meagher: Brian, our guest today, I'm thrilled to have on snaps Ari Berman to talk about minority rule, the founding fathers, voting rights.
He is. Uh, an amazing journalist and an expert in all things voting rights and how we got here.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. And it's important for everyone to be thinking about the bigger picture too. You did not just fall out of a coconut tree. You are a part of that, which is the larger context in which you were born.
Glennis Meagher: Yes, Brian, that's absolutely correct.
Brian Derrick: And so people need to remember that. Like, yes, we're very focused on Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but this is all part of a bigger picture that is decades, if not hundreds of years, long. And if we're not thinking about how that affects us [00:07:00] today and how we can affect it ten years from now, then we'll never be there.
able to win the fights that mattered the most.
Glennis Meagher: Totally. I think it was Jay Z who once said, you gotta play the game to make the game. So with that, let's bring out Ari. Ari, we are thrilled, absolutely thrilled to have you here. Truly. I consider you a friend. You're also a friend of Generator, so you've helped us over the last Six years, learn more about how our government actually works and you break down really complex issues in a way that is super easy.
So thank you for that.
Ari Berman: Thank you. So great to be with you guys. Appreciate it.
Brian Derrick: And we are getting you at some fortuitous timing. Um, with the release of your new book, Minority Rule, the right wing attack on the will of the people and the fight to resist it. Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write this book?
Ari Berman: Yeah, so I have been reporting on voting rights and voter suppression since [00:08:00] 2011. And as I got deeper in my reporting, I started asking myself, What's the purpose? Of all these new restrictions on voting, is it simply to try to gain an advantage or is there some larger project at play? And I realized that the larger project at play was minority rule, that basically instead of a extreme faction of the Republican party trying to Moderate its policy positions.
What they were trying to do was essentially rig all our democratic systems so they could allow this elite conservative white minority to rule despite not actually having a majority of support. They could have a minority of support, but they could have a majority of political power. And that seemed really dangerous to me.
Brian Derrick: How do you hope that this book will be? Received who is it for and what is what is your wish for it
Ari Berman: as you release out into the world? Well, it's been received really well so far and I think people are asking the question of how did we get here? And to some extent that's the question that I [00:09:00] wanted to answer in the book, which is that Yes, in many ways, Donald Trump is an accelerant to the democratic crisis that we face, but he's also a product of a broken democratic system.
So I wanted to explain how did our institutions become so undemocratic? Where did that come from and how did they evolve over time? And so I traced this push and pull between democratic and anti democratic forces, which in many ways is at a fever pitch today, all the way back to the constitution itself and said that basically there has been these debates about democracy.
And how much democracy we should have and who should be able to exercise their rights in a democracy ever since 1787. And in many ways, we're just playing out a different version of that story right now.
Glennis Meagher: Can we talk about that a little bit? I have read three fourths of your book. I have not read it all just full disclosure for the audience.
I'm not going to pretend I did read it all. I am kind of reflecting back my high school experience of reading a part of the book and then talking about it and raising my hand first in class and getting it out of the way. But what I love about your writing style is that it's so easy to read [00:10:00] and you start talking about the The founding fathers and how when they founded this country and when they wrote the constitution, they were writing it for a very specific type of person in this country.
Can you talk about that a little bit and how that's still, we're still dealing with that today.
Ari Berman: Well, Gladys, you sound a lot like my nine year old doing her homework, which you know, handing it in, handing it in with a big. Two sections not filled out and then you're saying
Glennis Meagher: that
Ari Berman: she didn't
Glennis Meagher: get a hunch because that
Ari Berman: sounds exactly, very, very familiar to me, but your nine year old is
Glennis Meagher: going to be very successful.
I can
Ari Berman: tell you that as long as she grows up to be a podcaster, she'll be fine. So what I wanted. The reason why I started with the founding is because that's really where the idea of minority rule comes from. And that's really where this whole tension of how democratic are we comes from, because we have this very lofty language in the Declaration of Independence that says that all men are created equal, and leave aside that women aren't included in that, but all men are created equal and the idea that democracy is based on the consent of the governed.
But when it came time to [00:11:00] actually operationalize all those ideas and write a Constitution for the federal government. The founders were basically concerned with protecting people like themselves, which was white men with property. And that was a very specific minority in the country. And they wanted to protect that minority to the exclusion of the larger majority, which was white men.
Poor white people, women, African Americans, Native Americans. That was a governing majority, but was not a majority in any sense of having political power. So the founders wanted to protect power for themselves. And then when they drafted the constitution, all of these other elite minority groups, whether it was the Small states or whether it was the slave states ended up getting more power in terms of the document.
And so that's kind of how minority rule started to get operationalized. And then we have these undemocratic institutions like the Electoral College or like the U. S. Senate. And those remain with us in modified forms today.
Glennis Meagher: There's a staggering, staggering stat in the book. It's by 2040, 70 percent of the [00:12:00] population is going to live in 15 states with 30 senators and 30 percent of the country is going to elect 70 percent of the US Senate.
Hold for shock! I literally wrote hold for shock. So two things I want to, uh, digest here. One is the electoral college and when that was founded or when that was created, the purpose of that being created, what was that? And then when we look at the Senate and what we're dealing with, how that is not going to actually be a democratic institution representing the full multiracial democracy that we operate in.
Ari Berman: Well, the problem is that the Electoral College was created first off because the Founding Fathers didn't want the people to directly elect the president. They were afraid that it was going to give too much power to the masses, so they wanted some way to constrain popular democracy, and they came up with this very complicated version of the Electoral College.
And it wasn't even like, Voters would elect the electors and then the electors would vote for president. It was basically like the states are gonna appoint the electors. The electors are gonna choose the president, and basically [00:13:00] you're gonna have 60 people in a room with powdered wigs choosing who the president is.
So, I mean, that's how it was originally intended. Just like, just
Brian Derrick: like, just like in 2016. Yeah, just like in
Ari Berman: 2016. And then the problem was that the Electoral College was based not on just the population of a state in terms of your electors, but it was based on representation in the House and the Senate.
And because each state had the same number of senators, regardless of population, that gave, even then, a A lot more representation to smaller, wider, more conservative states. And that's gotten, gotten astronomically worse because in 1790, the largest state, Virginia, had 12 times the population of the smallest state, Delaware.
Now the largest state, California, has 68 times the population of the smallest state, Wyoming. So the gap between large and small states has gotten dramatically larger. And then in the House, there was also the three fifths clause, which basically said that enslaved people, even though they had no rights and were disenfranchised, were treated as three fifths of a person.
So that then gave the southern states a third more members of Congress than they otherwise would have had. So the slave states and the small [00:14:00] states got a lot more power in the electoral college originally. And even as the electoral college has somewhat democratized, it's still biased because the smaller states.
The more conservative states, the wider states, still have more power under the Electoral College than larger, more diverse, more urban states. So, the problem is the Electoral College is already inherently undemocratic, but then it also magnifies the existing undemocratic aspects of our system, like how we appoint U.
S. Senators, for example.
Brian Derrick: There are two From what I can tell, there are like two components to what you're talking about right now in the unfair advantage, whether it's in the Electoral College or in the Senate. One is population growth and changes. As you're pointing out, states like California have outsized population compared to more rural states.
But the second component is Is a political geographic sorting that has happened over the last few decades, and it seems to have really accelerated really during during our lifetime, like in the last 10, 15 years, because it's we can just think back to [00:15:00] Obama's presidency, and there were Democratic senators from North Dakota and Missouri and all these other places that now it feels kind of out of reach or even unfathomable to think that we would elect a Democrat to the U.
S. Senate from some of these states that very recently there were. And so, how do we contend, like, with the bias of these institutions versus the responsibility of the parties to just run on a different message and, and make more of these places winnable?
Ari Berman: Well, I think that would obviously be ideal, but I think we have to start with the premise that these institutions violate basic notions of one person, one vote.
That not everyone's vote counts equally in the Electoral College or in the U. S. Senate. If you're from California compared to Wyoming, someone in Wyoming has far more power to choose the next president and far more power over the course of the Senate, which also, of course, leads to how Supreme Court justices are appointed as well.
So we have a system that gives smaller, wider, more rural states more power. A lot [00:16:00] more power. No matter where people live. That's just the fact of the matter. And then, of course, there's been geographic sorting. And the question is, should people be penalized for moving to the largest, most urban, most diverse states?
Or should our political system adjust to give those states more power if people increasingly choose to live there? And like, you could, you could try to get every hipster in New York City to move to Missoula, um, if they haven't already. Um, or, or to Boise. Um, but, you know, People from California are still are moving to a lot of other places.
And the problem is that California is still being treated very unfairly in terms of our constitutional system. So I think it's not just about where people choose to live. It's the fact that we have these fundamentally broken institutions that favor some places over others. And even if there were Democrats elected from North and South Dakota, the North North and South Dakota would still have way more power than it should have regardless.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. And I have to say that At least four times per cycle in the election year. I'm pitched [00:17:00] by very well intentioned Democrats that can't some billionaire just pay a bunch of Democrats to move from New York city to Wyoming. And we flip Wyoming and pick up two Senate seats, um, which is maybe not the best, uh, voter turnout.
Honestly, it's like, it sounds like a, uh, Political version of Schitt's Creek or something like a, in, in waiting
Glennis Meagher: someone Ari that I had not thought about maybe ever really, truly, I thought about quite a bit, a bit, because in this book, you talk a lot about Pat Buchanan. And I think, you know, there was this sense in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected, that this was this brand new movement, this make America great again movement.
And when you go back and look at the history, actually, No, he stole his slogan from Ronald Reagan and the policies that Pat Buchanan has started to talk about, or the cultural framework, whether it be the cultural wars that then became the culture wars, et cetera, really were started with Pat [00:18:00] Buchanan and then Donald Trump was able to enact them into policy.
Can you talk a little bit about that kind of. Journey from, honestly, the Constitution into Pat Buchanan and then Donald Trump and the MAGA extremism that we're living with today.
Ari Berman: Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to chart the story of how Trumpism became so popular because I was fascinated too, like, Where was Trump looking for inspiration?
Pat Buchanan: Today, we call for a new patriotism where Americans begin to put the needs of
Ari Berman: Americans first. How did this quote unquote America first platform catch on? And it's, it's really striking because Buchanan laid the groundwork for Donald Trump. And a lot of people aren't familiar with his, his platform.
presidential campaigns in the 1990s. But basically what he did is he mixed antipathy towards the civil rights movement of the 1960s with warnings about demographic change and non white immigration.
Pat Buchanan: Hundreds and thousands every single night walk across that border into the United States of America, ignoring our laws, ignoring our border.
We must take back our [00:19:00] cities and take back our culture and take
Ari Berman: back our country. So he basically said, For the first time of any major presidential candidate, he basically said, white people are going to be a minority in the country, and that's going to drive the Republican party to extinction because it's so defined by white voters, therefore, we have to build a wall, a literal wall against it.
I mean, he started talking about a Buchanan fence in 1992, well, before Trump started talking about a wall, Buchanan started talking about denying citizenship to. People who are born to undocumented immigrants in the U. S., he started talking about a pause on immigration, you know, things that Trump would later embrace, and he was very outspoken in his nativism and racism, and the interesting thing was he was basically pushed out of the Republican Party because he was too extreme, he was too racist, he was too nativist, so he, he, he goes out of the Republican Party, but his ideas paradoxically become a lot more popular as the Republican Party starts to radicalize against the changing demographics of the country and starts to radicalize [00:20:00] against, against democracy more broadly.
And basically, first with the Tea Party and then Donald Trump, these McKenna ideas come back. And what I argue is that if the Republican Party hadn't already, Radicalized against democracy before Trump, there wouldn't have been an opening for Trump, meaning that the Republican Party had already become a party that was obsessed with declining white power, a party that was obsessed with its coming minority status, or else someone like Trump wouldn't have been popular in the Republican Party in the first place.
Brian Derrick: So I think that we want to dive into actually a couple of the points you've made there. Let's start on Trump. So what I'm getting is that he's not the source, but he's more a symptom. Um, and you've written that Donald Trump really like lit the fuse that the, of the bomb that the founders had planted.
Tell us how exactly for the last 200 years, um, we've sort of set the stage for Trump or a Trump like figure to come up.
Ari Berman: Because minority rule is [00:21:00] embedded in our system. It's embedded in our system in the way that you can. Lose the popular vote, but when the Electoral College, it's embedded in our system that you can have a Senate where one party has a majority, despite representing a minority of Americans, it's embedded in our system that you can have a Supreme Court in which a majority of justice were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans.
So all the ingredients are there basically, for a takeover by a leader who is. Essentially willing to rig the existing systems to his benefit and then go further. And what I argue is that we already have these anti democratic elements in our, in our founding document and then layered on top of it are all of these new anti democratic tactics.
S that Trump and others in the Republican party are embracing things like voter suppression and gerrymandering, election subversion, the rewriting of history. And so that's what's really followed about this current moment is that this new anti-democratic movement is succeeding by taking [00:22:00] advantage of a lot of existing anti-democratic prejudices that are in the system, and then layering on top of this.
All of these newer anti democratic tactics. And so that's what really worries me about Trump is that he's, he's essentially exploiting a broken system for his own benefit. And one of the things I want to take away, hopefully we'll take away from the book and this conversation is that if we want to prevent more Trumps in the future, we have to do something with the system that gave rise to him.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. So To that end, what could we do? Like, what are reforms we could actually organize around and advocate for to see a change?
Ari Berman: Well, so I think, I think three things. I think number one, obviously elect pro democracy candidates to protect the rights and freedoms we have. I think number two, there's a lot of innovative work being done at the state level to unrig seemingly rigged systems.
So, I write in the book a lot about Michigan, which was a state that was under minority rule when Republicans controlled it from 2010 onward. And then citizens put initiatives on the ballot to ban partisan gerrymandering, to expand voting access through things like automatic and [00:23:00] election day registration, to enshrine reproductive rights in the constitution, to legalize marijuana in the constitution.
I mean, all of these things that, that the state legislature, when it was under Republican control, was doing. Refuse to do activists and voters just said, We're going to do it ourselves and totally transform the state of Michigan, not just to elect Democrats, but to put all these pro democracy reforms in the Constitution itself.
So another thing I'm saying is that Democrats are always so focused on federal elections, but a lot of the most innovative ideas are actually happening at the state level. And then the third thing is build A longer term movement for institutional reform could mean trying to get rid of the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Compact.
So when two states that equal 270 electoral votes sign on to this, they can then try to get rid of the Electoral College through other means or putting in place new states like Washington, D. C. and Puerto Rico into the Senate so it's at least has less of a bias towards wider and more conservative states and start talking about trying to make it easier to amend the Constitution [00:24:00] so that our institutions aren't so antiquated and held captive to these antiquated ideas.
So some of that's going to take time. I mean, some of the longer term reforms are going to take time, but I mean, there's this amazing memo that I read about by Lewis Powell. Who was working as the chief lawyer for the Chamber of Commerce in the early 1970s. And he writes this memo called the Powell Memo.
And he's writing it for the Chamber and these other business groups. And he basically says, we've lost the battle to the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, all of these different rights movements. And we need to fight back. We need to take over the courts. We need to take over academia. We need to take over the media and do all these other things.
And this is like in the 1970s. Like, this seems like a crazy idea that a bunch of, you know, businessmen in starchy suits are going to, have all this power, they start doing it. And it's like, it doesn't happen all of a sudden, right? But this right wing ecosystem is built over a 40 year period. And they're still focused on winning elections, and they're still focused on short term goals, but they have this longer term project in mind.
And what I'm saying is that Democrats and progressives, as they [00:25:00] try to win elections, need to have this longer term project in mind as well of unrigging a rigged system. Say that.
Glennis Meagher: 1, 000. Say that. Brian and I are Cut the talk. Yeah, like, we have to be more engaged.
Brian Derrick: So we obviously have direct voter suppression, especially state legislatures passing laws that make it harder for people to vote, selectively choosing which types of ID they're going to allow, such as using gun licenses but not student IDs, things like that to bias the who is eligible to vote and where and when and how.
Cool. Cool. There's another kind of voter suppression, which is creating an apathetic. electorate and just convincing people not to vote that their vote does not have power. And we're seeing a lot of that this year, probably more than we've seen in maybe my lifetime that I can remember. What do you say to voters who are people every day online around who are feeling [00:26:00] like they don't want to vote this year, that they're turned off by the system as a whole, that it doesn't and why, why should they bother?
Ari Berman: Well, what I always say is that Not voting doesn't give you power, it just gives someone else more power. So, you might think it's an effective protest, but all you're doing is empowering someone else to have a greater say in the process. And, you know, there's a famous quote from Martin Luther King, which is that voting isn't the ballgame, but it gets you in the arena.
Meaning it's the first step towards social change. So it's very hard to change a system if you're completely out of it. Now, you might need to be in it and then do other things. And I think people often feel like I voted and that's it. And that's where the problem lies. But the idea that Not voting is going to make people listen to you more.
That's going to make you more marginalized than ever. Because if you don't vote, people aren't going to ask for your vote in the future. They're not going to knock on your door. They're not going to call you. They're not going to care about your input at all. And so what I, what I always say is, [00:27:00] Do both.
Have an inside and an outside strategy. Vote for whoever best represents you. And it doesn't have to be perfect. I think sometimes we feel like we have to agree on it with a candidate on all ten things. There's often choices that we make who we're not that happy with. But we're happier with one choice more than the other.
And sometimes there's a big deal when you talk about lesser of two evils. One person can be dramatically more evil than the other. And the thing that, the thing that, with this election in particular, The thing that I'm scared about is the 2000 election redux, where a lot of people argued in 2000 that both parties were the same, the system was irrevocably broken, there was no meaningful difference between Al Gore and George W.
Bush. Well, the same people who argued that are mad as hell that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Well, how did the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade? Because of the justices that George W. Bush put on the Supreme Court. If it wasn't for those votes of John Roberts and Sam Alito. There would have not been the number, the votes [00:28:00] needed to overturn Roe v.
Wade. And so, whatever we think of Al Gore, he would not have appointed John Roberts and Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. I don't believe he would have invaded Iraq. I don't believe he would have done a lot of things that George W. Bush did. So, I feel like I'm reliving this whole thing because people, this is what's going to happen.
People are going to say, there's no difference between Biden and Trump. Then Trump's going to get in and he's going to invoke the insurrection act on the protesters. He's going to let Israel drop a nuclear bomb if they wanted to on Gaza or Iran. He's going to do all these crazy things. People are going to say, how did we let it happen?
Well, we let it happen by arguing that the two parties were fundamentally the same. I believe the system is broken. I believe the system does need to be reformed. I believe that both parties need to better listen to people. Okay. But I also think that one party is basically committed to democratic norms, and the other party basically is an authoritarian party that is not.
And I think that's the most important choice facing the nation in November.
Brian Derrick: Last week, Glenis and I were talking about how different Republicans have responded differently [00:29:00] to Trump's policy. Right word swing into like deep anti democratic rhetoric and actions, particularly in how they've responded to the big lie. We have people like Liz Cheney, who was presented with all of the evidence of Trump's crimes and anti democratic action and is like staking out a bold sort of path to keep him out of office.
And then you have people like Bill Barr. Who had a lot of the same information and would rather try to get back in Trump's good graces this week, we have more developments in the same sort of vein, one of them coming from Jeff Duncan, Georgia's former lieutenant governor, who was lieutenant governor at the time of Trump's infamous call to the U.
S. Senate. Create or make up 11, 000 fake votes to overturn the election. And he's saying that he is going to vote for Biden over Trump this November. Lifelong Republican held office in, in [00:30:00] Georgia statewide. How do you see these Republicans in this camp, in the Jeff Duncan, Liz Cheney. Camp factoring in to the 2024 election to prevent the Democratic backs backsliding that we've been talking about it.
Ari Berman: Well, I think that those anti Trump Republicans theoretically make up enough people. There's a small constituency, but it's theoretically there's enough people like that in the battleground states to potentially swing the election. The thing that worries me is that he's the former lieutenant governor.
Why is he no longer lieutenant governor? Because he said the election was not stolen. The new lieutenant governor of Georgia, who we're not talking about, is a flat out election denier who tried to steal the election for Donald Trump. And the problem that I'm having with all of the people that are standing up and saying that I'm voting for Joe Biden in the Republican party, they're all former.
Something,
Glennis Meagher: right?
Ari Berman: Former congressman. They lost their jobs. They lost their jobs because they [00:31:00] criticized the big lie. And then the problem is that all the people that are back in the big lie, those are the people that are in positions of power in the Republican party. And so the thing that, that really worries me is that the big lie seems like the ultimate litmus test for Donald Trump over whether you can or can't stay in the Republican party.
And that's just absolutely insane. When you step back and think about it, that something that is just a hundred percent not true. Has become the most important thing you can do now to prove that you're a loyal Republican. And I just think that's just yet another way in which the radicalization against democracy of the Republican Party has been so fully and totally cemented.
Glennis Meagher: Totally. So someone who is using the big lie to grasp for straws for a job is Tim Scott. Who is in the running, some argue, for a potential VP pick. I don't know if we have a clip here.
Kristen Welker: Well, Senator, will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024? Bottom line.
Tim Scott: At the end of the day, the 47th President of the United States [00:32:00] will be President Donald Trump, and I'm excited to get back to low inflation, low unemployment.
Wait, wait, Senator, yes or
Kristen Welker: no? Yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?
Tim Scott: That is my statement.
Kristen Welker: But, but is it just yes or no? Will you accept the election results of 2024?
Tim Scott: I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president. Kristen, you could ask him multiple times.
Senator, just a yes or no answer. So the American people, the American people will make the decision. But I don't hear you committing. For President Trump. That's a clear.
Kristen Welker: I don't hear you committing to the election results. Will you commit to accepting the election results?
Tim Scott: This is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat Party.
Ari Berman: Just answer
Glennis Meagher: the question,
Ari Berman: Tim Scott. I mean, it's so, it's so unbelievable. Just, it's just like. Yes is the only answer to that question. And I mean, the scary thing to me about Donald Trump is that before 2020, everyone would have answered that yes. [00:33:00] Like, we were fighting about a lot of issues before 2020, and there were a lot of differences between the parties.
But like, the idea would you accept the election results? Like, George W. Bush or George H. W. Bush or Ronald Reagan would not have said no. To that question. I'm not going to accept the election results. I mean, this is how far off a cliff we've come. And Tim Scott's another one of those guys who was supposed to be the adult in the room, right?
The new face of the Republican final, the kinder, gentler, more moderate Republican party. And he's now become a flat out election denier. So there just doesn't seem to be any bottom here. There doesn't seem to be any, any low in terms of how much lower they'll go. And I think it's clear that to have any position of power in Trump's Republican party.
You have to endorse the big lie. I mean, that is the litmus test. And that's just incredibly dangerous to democracy that that's the, that's the place we're in right now with one of the two major political parties.
Glennis Meagher: All right. We could talk to you all day, truly. Brian and I are such nerds on this and you [00:34:00] make this topic so tangible for so many.
So thank you so much for joining us today. We will for sure have you back if you'll come. Thank you.
Ari Berman: Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Giving
Glennis Meagher: it's giving, it's giving, it's giving. So we talked about Kristi Noem last week because she's a puppy killer. She did not cancel her press tour from that. She just kept it rolling.
And the newest thing from her book that everyone is grilling her on is an encounter with one particular fascist. Leader.
Jesse Watters: They're also attacking you. I guess you said you met Kim Jong Un. Did you meet him?
Kristi Noem: I've been to the DMZ, I've been to North Korea, you know, people, I don't talk about my conversations with world leaders.
And so, uh, when I looked at the book and I saw that excerpt, I decided to make the change to the content of the book and that's been done.
Jesse Watters: You didn't have a conversation with Kim when you were at the DMZ?
Kristi Noem: I don't have conversations about my conversations with world leaders. I've been working on policy for 30 years.
30 years, Jesse. And that's what most people don't remember about me [00:35:00] is I'm old. I'm a, I'm a mom. I'm a grandma. I've got three little grand
Jesse Watters: babies. So maybe you did have a conversation with him, but you don't want to talk. I
Kristi Noem: will not talk about my personal conversations with any world leaders. It just won't.
And I'm not going to do it. Okay. Fox news.
Brian Derrick: It's giving me, when I come out of the closet from seven minutes in heaven with a girl in seventh grade, and I'm like, I'm not saying it did happen, but I'm not saying it didn't happen. Didn't happen, but I'm just not going to talk about it.
Glennis Meagher: It's giving it never happened.
Brian Derrick: It never happened. And it's so embarrassing for her to go on the view and on ABC and on CNBC and like, like literally just a parade and every single interview to be like, did you just straight up lie about me and she's has no response. It's really, it's embarrassing. The whole thing is giving mortifying.
It's giving George Santos. In just the lies, the lies on top of the lies.
Glennis Meagher: Group chat, Brian. [00:36:00] The Jinx Part 2, are you watching? Did you watch The Jinx Part 1? Robert Durst.
Brian Derrick: I could not know less what you're talking about.
Glennis Meagher: Oh my god, it was a cultural movement, maybe before your time. Uh, a couple years ago, Andrew Jarecki, who directed a film, like, uh, with Ryan Gosling, about Robert Durst, who is a real estate mogul in New York City, Who's a murderer.
And then do you remember, do you remember this? And then the jinx was HBO doc docu series. He did where he admits to killing everyone and he's, he goes into the bathroom. He's still mic'd up and he he's like, I killed them all of course. And it starts burping. You don't remember this. This was like a moment.
This was like a water cooler moment that next Monday everyone was like, Oh my God. It was like all over the news. Anyway, the jinx part two. Came out and it's good. So he's like
Brian Derrick: he's a zombie and he's like selling apartments as like, what do you mean?
Glennis Meagher: No, no, no It's about Andrew Jarecki like pick cameras back up Basically, like as soon as he got [00:37:00] arrested Robert Durst got arrested the day before the season finale of the Jinx Aired where he admits to killing everyone because the FBI had been on his ass Now, we're clearly not,
Brian Derrick: I don't know that they were doing too much.
Glennis Meagher: No, the only reason that they were able to arrest him is because Andrew Jarecki, the filmmaker went to like LA PD and was like, by the way, I have evidence for this murder in LA. And they're like, Oh my God, it's crazy. It's crazy. I I'm sure there are some vibes only listeners who are jinx people. And there's a second.
Season.
Brian Derrick: I'm directing all those people to your DMs. Totally fair. The only words I understood that you said were Ryan Gosling.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, Ryan Gos and Kirsten Dunst. Are you following the internet's new Vunzikid?
Brian Derrick: Okay, this was in our collective group chat this week, and I still don't know who it is.
Glennis Meagher: No, I didn't know who it was until I Googled it, but it is RFK Jr.
's nephew, [00:38:00] JFK's grandson, this guy, Jack Schlossberg. And he is the new Internet Wonder Kid. He's he did all of these, um, character videos criticizing his uncle and they kind of took off and now everyone's kind of like, Oh, he's a creator. A
Brian Derrick: TikToki?
Glennis Meagher: No, Instagram. He's a real
Brian Derrick: Sorry. My home turf, too. Damn. Yeah.
I gotta get on it. I've been offline, guys.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. What else was in your group chat?
Brian Derrick: I did post a meme that I made about Democrats staying in office too long and got elevated Shit storm in my
Glennis Meagher: I saw that. I thought it was good. It was truly in reaction to Bernie Sanders saying he was going to run for reelection.
Bernie Sanders is 85 years old.
Brian Derrick: I think he's 82.
Glennis Meagher: Sorry. After a certain point, it's like, after you hit 30, 30, 82, like it's, it's all amalgamated. I mean, not really, obviously, but yeah, [00:39:00]
Brian Derrick: right. I did post something and I've been very consistent for years in saying if you are in a safe. Seat if you are in a, is
Pat Buchanan: Vermont safe?
Brian Derrick: Yes. Oh my God, yes. The US Senate seat is absolutely safe in Vermont, and if you are in a safe seat, maybe don't be in office when you're 90. Like, you know, just like consider it, consider retiring. Consider hanging out with your kids. Your generation is well represented.
Glennis Meagher: In
Brian Derrick: Congress. I promise. Also,
Glennis Meagher: the progressive movement is pretty well represented.
We need more. Per Ari's, you know, points earlier in the pod, like we need more progressive, uh, folks elected to state, local, and federal, um, positions, but I'm with you on that one.
Brian Derrick: We need young people in office. It is like the most underrepresented group, I think, that like, I think that's actually true. I think the most underrepresented group right now is [00:40:00] Millennials and Gen Z, and we cannot reach the numbers that we need to if all of the safe seats are being held by people in their 70s and 80s.
Glennis Meagher: Well, I would run, but I've got my eyes on the Supreme Court, so.
Brian Derrick: I can hear the smile already!
Glennis Meagher: Well, I don't know why, because I see it and it's like, it's electric.
Sorry, I can't help it. It really just brings me back. So the Biden administration has announced more than 100 million to support American auto workers and small auto suppliers. This announcement aims to ensure that the future of the auto industry is made in America by American auto workers. That's a victory.
We want more American cars and jobs and plants in. American States. Okay, one more, Brian. It's electric.
Brian Derrick: Okay, so the Department of Energy set aside 50 million from its [00:41:00] automotive conversion grants program for partnerships with states to help small and medium sized suppliers convert from manufacturing combustion engine parts to manufacturing EV parts. supply chain. Uh, this is a big deal because we need more of the EV industry based in the United States.
It's the future. We all know it. It's growing. China bought more electric cars last year than America has ever. Like, it is happening. And, uh, we need to make it in America. So Joe Biden's making it a priority. He's making it electric and he's
Glennis Meagher: bringing jobs back to, yeah, bringing jobs back to America. We'd love to see it.
Those are all the vibes this week. Thanks to Ari Berman for his important work and for coming on the show, go grab a copy of his new book, Minority Rule. And thanks to you all for listening. Keep sending us messages at vibes at couriernewsroom. com. We love hearing from you. We'll be back again next week.
Same [00:42:00] time, same place. See you then.
Brian Derrick: Vibes Only is a production of Courier, a civic media company that protects and strengthens our democracy through credible fact based journalism and seeks to create a more informed, engaged, and representative America. Vibes Only is produced by Devin Maroney with support from Courier's Kyle Tharp. R. C.
DeMezzo and Daniel Strasberger. Tara McGowan is founder and publisher of Courier.