Ep 1015: James and the Giant Screech

Episode 1015 takes apart James Carville, the "rusted-out antique device" who trashes progressives on Fox News over a single deleted Thanksgiving tweet and then pivots to backing the very candidate he just attacked, all while forgetting his own most famous line ("It's the economy, stupid"). Driftglass and Blue Gal do the math on his supposed DSA takeover panic — two national officeholders versus 257 mainline Democrats — and coin a new verb, "Carvilling," for pundits who tantrum toward MAGA cameras whenever Democrats won't chase imaginary hippies. The episode also solves a year-and-a-half mystery: why Jamelle Bouie waited so long to demolish a David Brooks column, tracing it back through Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman, and Reagan's Neshoba County dog whistle to an unwritten New York Times rule against columnists attacking colleagues in print. It's about faithless allies, decibels versus messaging, and the actual math behind a manufactured crisis.

Links for this episode: 

Driftglass on The Bob Cesca Show – https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-8-12-26/

Driftglass on The Nicole Sandler Show – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyneHDGQkr8 

Carville on CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/politics/james-carville-election-what-matters

Jamelle Bouie, full video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46tpqFxfomI 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:00

You can listen to the professional left wherever you get your podcasts on NetRoots Radio or at our website, proleftpod.com, where you can also contribute to this podcast. There's a PayPal button at our website, or you can mail us a letter andor a contribution at P.O. Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois 62791.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

This is the podcast for the week of August 14th, 2026. It's not safe for work.

SPEAKER_08 0:26

Recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance. We're sorry, folks, I'm too busy to replace Ross Duthat at the New York fucking times. It's the professional left with drift class and blue gal. And uh a big thank you this week for uh Bob Seska, Robert to his friends, uh dear friend of Martin Sheen. He now has uh intro on his show. Thanking Bob. Hi, Bob. And you know, I know a guy who knows Martin Sheen. That's how cool I am. And to Nicole Sandler for inviting me on her show on Wednesday. Very much thanks to both of them. And we we as Professional F really do appreciate the audience that you lend to us.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Yeah, both of both of them bring uh new listeners to us, and we appreciate that so much. And uh, you really are too busy to replace Ralph New Tack because you're always being on other podcasts for one thing. Way too busy as the ambassador to the Professional Left podcast.

SPEAKER_08 1:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Um, I did want to very briefly address something that Bob, I listened to you uh on my lunch hour today, uh, you and Bob. Oh, okay. Um, and Bob said something about uh why is it that people are so shocked all that somehow all of a sudden there are democratic socialists when Bernie Sanders ran as a democratic socialist for president back in 2020 the the before time, honey right, twenty twenty. And um the idea though is, in my opinion, is Bernie Sanders is not a generational threat to the democratic establishment.

SPEAKER_07 2:03

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

He's an old guy, and I think so much of what's going on right now is simply generational. I've said this dozens of times already, but really it's it's coming more and more clear, and we're gonna talk a lot about this tangentially in today's podcast. But the olds are getting, and speaking as a 63-year-old woman, um, the some of the olds are getting really upset and threatened by younger people taking seats away from them. Right. And there was a congressman in con in Connecticut, I believe it was, 15-term congressman. Yeah, 70 years old. 78 years old, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Who lost to a 47-year-old, which, you know, as I said, stares in Gen X, once again, completely passed over.

SPEAKER_07 2:49

Yep, we got skipped over.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

Yeah, totally skipped over. There's not gonna because the the boomers stayed in office until they were almost 90.

SPEAKER_08 2:58

And I think we should have almost 80, excuse me. We should not insert the Fredo complaint about I was stepped over.

SPEAKER_07 3:05

I was stepped over. No, yeah, yeah, no.

SPEAKER_08 3:08

But it it is a thing. And you know what? Here's the thing. Let me let me make it clear from a historical perspective. This is the first time in history that a younger generation has taken over from the older generation, and they were impatient, and rightly so, and the older generation was reluctant to give up power because they like power and they think the youngers are youngers are gonna screw it all up. That's never happened before in history.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

In all of history, ever.

SPEAKER_08 3:32

No.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Well, and I also think one of the reasons, A, Donald Trump is president right now, and B, people were so bitterly opposed to Obama in addition to race. Yeah, Obama was younger than they were. Not just black and a new and a new race of you know, taking that kind of power away from them, but also younger than they are.

SPEAKER_08 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

And having tr the president should always be older than me because then I'm young.

SPEAKER_08 4:01

Yeah. Whatever age I am, the president should be older than that.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

And and they're running out of runway for that.

SPEAKER_08 4:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

And particularly now, I mean, it it is, I guess it had to end this way. I guess the boomers had to elect someone who would then decay into Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_05 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Because they had to. They had to see it as yeah, we will vote for fossil remains before we will give up our vanity that we are young enough to have a president older than we are.

SPEAKER_08 4:32

You can pry power out of our cold, dead hands.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

And that's that's what's happening. I think that's really and that's happening in the media too.

SPEAKER_08 4:40

Well, and this is this is slightly adjacent to that. The the Lesco uh cave paintings in France have been translated. And on one side, there is a stick figure saying, Kids today. And the other side is a guy saying, Fuck you, old man. So, you know, it goes back for a minute or two.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

Quite a bit, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

SPEAKER_08 5:01

It's a human.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

And Socrates, in part, was murder was killed, was assassinated, or was put to death by the government for deciding the youth. Influencing young people, corrupting the youth.

SPEAKER_08 5:11

He was corrupting.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

Corrupting the youth and getting crazier some ideas.

SPEAKER_08 5:15

Yeah, can't do that.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Yeah, so anyway, I wanted to sort of I felt like that was if if Fran had been on the Bob Suska show today instead of answering phones at a medical center to get so she could have health insurance, right? I would have brought that up. All right. Driftglass, after months of I want to tell everyone about your accomplishment today.

SPEAKER_07 5:36

Yes, I did it. I cracked the You did it.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Uh you had did months of careful study.

SPEAKER_07 5:41

I did.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

And you cracked the secret to political podcasting success. I'm very impressed.

SPEAKER_08 5:48

I did. It was exhausting.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Why don't you lay that on all of us here?

SPEAKER_08 5:51

Well, I I was down in the lab. As you know, I have a podcast lab in the basement. I work there maybe 20 hours a day, and it's exhausting. But I believe, having listened to many, many, many Never Trump podcasts, I believe I've distilled Sarah Longwell's technique for criticizing the left down to four simple steps that you too can use at home, young podcasters. First, some anonymous Rando on Twitter says something to her. Second, she explains that this is why the left is doomed.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Oh no, this is why the left is doomed. Some rando on Twitter said this.

SPEAKER_08 6:21

That said this thing. And you know, I this crazy guy came up to me on Twitter and said this thing, and that's why the left is doomed. Third, third step, as I say in my book. Fourth step, buy my book. Oh God. Yeah, relentless. You know, in other words, Blue Gal. A B C A always B B C closing.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Always be closing. Always be closing.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

John Maynard Keynes from The Economic Consequences of Peace, published in 1919. It is his brutal critique of the crushing sanctions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. And it was tragically prophetic because it was about human nature. And if you look around, many of the same forces are at play in this country here and now.

SPEAKER_08 7:17

And this is the quote: economic privation proceeds by easy stages, and so long as men suffer it patiently, the outside world cares little. Physical efficiency and resistance to disease slowly diminish, but life proceeds somehow until the limit of human endurance is reached at last, and councils of despair and madness stir the sufferers from the lethargy which precedes the crisis. Then man shakes himself and the bonds of custom are loosed. The power of ideas is sovereign, and he listens to whatever instruction of hope, illusion, or revenge is carried to him on the air. Unquote. Keynes is writing about post-war Europe, but the mechanism he's describing here is universal because this is MAGA.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yep. Of course, most MAGA voters are by any standard fairly affluent. They're certainly not taking wheelbarrows of money to the store to buy bread, which is why conservative media has always had to pad out its councils of despair and madness with direct appeals to racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and of course the very big conspiracy by the gun-grabbing, baby killing, godless left.

SPEAKER_07 8:35

That's us.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Yeah. Go go listen to a little bit of Laura Ingram if you if you've forgotten. Price rises and inflation as the result of a one once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and bird flu were recast as part of the liberals' very big conspiracy led by Dr. Fauci to force people to wear masks, which would something something. Also the jab.

SPEAKER_08 9:01

Don't tyranny. The Fauci ouchie.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Yeah. And any peccadillo or glitch or stupid offhand remark by any Democrat is picked up and used, see tan suit, as further ammunition to prove that Democrats are insane and the liberals' very big conspiracy is right at your doorstep.

SPEAKER_08 9:23

You should be afraid all the time. Now, who remembers this voice from back in the good old days? Republicans, we were told, were civil and nice and bipartisan.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And mark my words, when the sun goes down on election day, Barack Obama will have America's gun owners to thank for his defeat. Now the president and his campaign advisors, they don't like hearing that. He'll say he hasn't pursued an athlete gun agenda. He'll hit the campaign terminal and he'll give us the lift service about how he's left gun owners alone during his first term. Well, Mr. President, with all due respect, we've had enough lift service the first term to know we don't need a second term. It's time for you to go. All that first-term lift service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.

SPEAKER_08 10:31

Yeah, that was the blood drunk ghoul himself, the then head of the NRA, Wayne Lapierre, at CPAC 14 years ago. And that was not a one-off speech. These were his go-to talking points during Obama's entire 2012 re-election campaign.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

Of course, conservative lunatics whispering darkly or shouting loudly to other conservative lunatics about liberal conspiracies that are going to come barging through their door any minute now can only get you so far. What conservatives always need to elevate their paranoid fever dreams into the mainline discourse are non-conservative validators, like a Dick Morris or a Glenn Greenwald. Ambitious mopes who are nursing a grudge or perhaps not as aucurrant as they used to be a hundred years ago, and who are only too happy to hire themselves out to play the sadder but wiser liberal on Fox News. Someone who will happily look into a network camera and warn of dire liberal conspiracies lurking just below the surface.

SPEAKER_08 11:40

I'm already scared, Blue Gal.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

I'm already scared. And even the Democrat will say this on Fox drift.

SPEAKER_08 11:46

Yes, that's the It's even these Democrats. I mean, you know, maybe they're the crazy ones. Have you thought of that? This is where James Carvel enters the discourse. A rusted-out antique device that still makes loud grinding noises, but doesn't really work anymore and needed to be packed off to the thrift store years and years ago. To start us off with a right foot, let's go to a wide-ranging interview of Carvel by CNN's Zachary B. Wolf, which was published on October 5th, 2024, and which included Carvel's opinion of father and daughter Cheney. Quote, this is Carvel. I always liked Vice President Cheney. We go to Wyoming for Christmas because Mary would staff him, and I obviously didn't have much political alignment with him, but I found him to be a great conversation. And I always liked Liz. I mean, she was like Mary's, I'd say, younger sister or something like that. Mary's a fair amount older than Liz is, and we would go, you know, the ways that senior staff people and spouses go to thins in Washington, to the Naval Observatory, which is the vice president's official residence.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

And he's talking about Mary Madeline, his wife, who's a Republican consultant, right?

SPEAKER_08 12:57

But they're, you know, they were the power couple 25 years ago. Um, this is from this is Mr. Wolf asking him, but do you feel like you now are moving in a weird circular way in league with the Cheneys? And this is Carvel's answer. Well, I think what I would say is I think the United States is really like in jeopardy. Like in World War II. So, okay, we were aligned with the Soviets. When you're at war, I mean, I worked very closely with a lot of old quail bush people, like Bill Kristol, the Bulwar people, Tim Miller, Charlie Sykes. Stuart Stevens called this morning. I've got to call him back. Steve Schmidt. I mean, you're not looking around asking questions. We just gotta win this thing, and then hopefully we can get back to fighting again. But right now, we don't have that luxury. Unquote.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

All right, so everybody got that. This is him in October of 2024, a month before the election, saying the stakes are just too damn high for purity tests, or even asking embarrassing questions about very untrustworthy people who spent their entire professional careers slandering Democrats, but who are for the moment mostly firing their guns in the same direction as ours. After all, we're a big tent, aren't we?

SPEAKER_08 14:18

Yeah, we're the biggest tent, the biggest tent of all. Now let's jump ahead to 2026, just a few short weeks ago, when the same guy went on Fox News the Sunday briefing to say, quote, I am not going to be in the same party with Hassan Piker. I can tell you that right now. If he becomes a force in the Democratic Party, I'm out of here. I have no intention of ever being in the same political party with that guy, unquote.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

I hadn't heard of Hassan Pike really. I mean, I sort of on the fringes sort of knew. Yeah. But I had not seen a picture of him until today. Right. Why would you? Because I don't watch stuff on Twitch very often. Sometimes Hal Sparks on Twitch, sometimes. And we used to do uh trivia on Twitch.

SPEAKER_08 15:06

Yes, we did during the COVID days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Yep, during the COVID days. But other than that, I I'm too old for Twitch. So uh in case you were unaware, James Carville, who is about 20 years past his soul by date and is still pines for the glory days of Clinton and Sista Soldia, if you remember that, and also hippie punching triangulation, is now a Fox News semi-regular. Because unlike other swamp creatures like crawfish and mud snakes, who will crawl or slither or swim away from a bright light, Carville will unfailingly crawl or slither or scamper in the direction of anyone with a bright light, a camera, and a microphone.

SPEAKER_08 15:50

And of course, Carville is especially useful to the fascist ministry of propaganda because he can be counted on to show up and slag progressives in his in his crankiest Cajun corn pond, get off my lawn voice. After which Fox News propagandists can run with whatever nonsense comes out of his mouth with even the liberal James Carville, blah, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah, even the liberal James Carville says this.

SPEAKER_08 16:16

He's their validator.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Yeah, he is. Right. So it will come as no surprise that on July 23rd, Carville agreed to appear on a Canadian podcast, which was launched three months ago by a 17-year-old named Wyatt Sharp. And apparently, this kid has been interviewing political figures since he was 14 or so.

SPEAKER_08 16:40

So whatever. But this is his this is his podcast. But this is this is his podcast. His podcast itself is only three months old.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

And he got James Carville to be on. Sure. Uh yeah. In an episode entitled James Carville on Why Democrats Keep Losing, Trump and the Future of the Party. Here is part of what Carville had to say. Quote, why do you want the name Democratic? Call yourself something else. You're not. You're not a Democrat. These people are not Democrats, he said. Why not get your own name? Why do you have to appropriate our name? Well, no, you can't. You're not a member of our party. Unquote. And he also said this quote, I think that Hakeem and other people are going to have to consider Hakeem Jeffries. Some of these people who run against Democrats, should they be allowed in the Democratic caucus? Should they be assigned committees assuming that we win the House? Unquote.

SPEAKER_08 17:49

I hate to break it to James Carville, who I thought knew a little bit about politics, but uh Democratic primaries involve Democrats running against other Democrats. Yeah. That's pretty much what you have primaries for. And this, of course, is pure clickbait for Fox News, which picked up on this non-story and ran with it a nanosecond later on the five. Quote, Carville warns Democrats may need to block far-left candidates from joining caucus. Moderate group disagrees. Carville suggests Hakeem Jeffries may need to shut members of his own party out of committee assignments. Unquote.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

If they want a Republican speaker, they could do that.

SPEAKER_08 18:27

Sure. Yeah, Mike Johnson's ready to be speaker again.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

Sure. Earlier in June, Carville appeared on News Nation. News Nation and declared that New York congressional nominee, and I'm going to screw up her name, but it's Daria Liza Avila Chevalier. Doesn't even believe in interracial dating. Now you had some background on this drift. What did she say?

SPEAKER_08 18:53

I looked it up just because I want to be thorough and bring all the facts to the table, and that is not quite what she said. In fact, this is so unnuanced that you consider it to be untrue. She was talking about dating in the black community, specifically when black women date white men. And not that they shouldn't do it, but they should examine the motives they have for doing it. Are they doing it for status or prosperity or whatever else? And, you know, check, check yourself before you hook up with someone like that. Which I think is silly and dumb, but it isn't being against interracial relationships. It is saying the community requires us to stick together, and this is a little bit outside of that zone. Again, it's dumb, but it's not, you know, it's it's a non-story. It's one comment by one person in one congressional district, and suddenly, well, you go ahead and continue.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

He went so far as to say congressional Democrats should refuse to seat her in their caucus.

SPEAKER_08 19:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

He's caucus blocking Drift Las.

SPEAKER_08 20:00

Yeah, he's caucus blocking because that's what Jesus Christ. Now, three days later on Fox News Sunday in America with Kaylee McEnney, he repeated the attack, saying he had nothing in common with someone who opposed interracial dating. Now, the striking thing here is that this became one of Carvel's headline examples of progressivism, extremism, writ large. You know, the progressive movement is nuts. Not Medicare for all, not any policy position. Instead, he got all up in his feelings and spewed them all out over on Fox in in a statement because of one House candidate regarding interracial relationships. A carvel said.

SPEAKER_04 20:38

And I take it she's a woman of color who said this. Yes. So she's speaking to her sisters, so to speak. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 20:45

And this this is internal family conversation.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 20:49

And and I like I said, I'm I disagree with it. It's none of my business.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

I, you know, I think it's well, it kind of is your business. Because of your first marriage, it's kind of is your business.

SPEAKER_08 20:58

I I I was uh was married to a a a nice black lady who I assume is a nice black lady still. Uh, but you know, that's her take on what her community needs is her business. And if she wants to spout it off, that's fine. I think, like I said, I think it's silly, but that's not my universe, and it's not for me to judge. But it it to reiterate, it's one candidate, it's one person spouting one opinion out of 250 people running for office. And that is, you know, the end of progressivism. That's why we have to be terrified. Now, Carville's other terrifying example of why the entire progressive left should be banished from polite society was Francesca Hong's old social media post about Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_04 21:45

As most of you already know, Hong had written a post calling to cancel Thanksgiving dating from the earlier pandemic era period. When the post resurfaced during her 2026 Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign, it became A major fascist media talking point. Hong subsequently said she had been referring to the holiday's history and colonialism rather than literally wanting to eliminate Thanksgiving. Her campaign eventually said flatly that she did not want to cancel the holiday. Also, she talked about being a chef and how she loved cooking the Thanksgiving meal. So this is not it.

SPEAKER_08 22:25

And by the way, she lost her election. She lost her primary. But this is where Carvel enters the story. On August 8th, 2026, Carvel used his drop by anytime you want to shit on Democrats' Fox News open invitation to sit down once again with Kaylee McEnaney, who showed Carvel a clip of Hong discussing Thanksgiving. And Carvel responded by mocking what he characterized as the progressive left's stupid idea generator. You know, because it's the entire progressive left and all of their ideas are stupid, which is a hell of a lot of weight to put on a single deleted social media post from one person from years earlier. But there was, you know, the liberal Fox operates, though. Yeah, well, of course it is. And this there was the liberal James Carvel telling the bigots and imbeciles who watch Fox News that this one example was sufficient to damn the entire progressive movement as generating ideas so politically toxic that they threatened the Democratic Party, which, once again, is exactly why Fox News puts this derelict on the air.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

This terrible threat to Thanksgiving drift glass. I mean, it's like the war on Christmas all over again. We learned nothing from the war on Christmas drift glass.

SPEAKER_08 23:39

It's worse. The war on Christmas is not meant to be one blue galley. It's meant to be continuous.

SPEAKER_04 23:43

It's meant to be continuous. But it becomes evidence of an existential crisis of the Democratic Party.

unknown 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

You could just feel the hot breath of DSA on the necks of good Democrats as the dread of them taking the whole party over. And again, this is that generational fear.

SPEAKER_07 24:03

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

And also wrecking the Democratic Party looms terrifyingly close until you do the math. And of course, Fox having this concern trolling of, you know, are the dem is the Democratic Party being destroyed by the DSA? How crazy are they?

SPEAKER_08 24:23

How how crazy are they, James Carvell? Because I got a bunch of bigots and imbeciles watching this show who are thinking about not voting for the Republicans, but you can tell them the Democratic socialists are taking over the party, and they're even worse.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

And if you if you vote for a Democrat, even if you're just so mad about high gas prices that you might just do it, you're voting for communism.

SPEAKER_08 24:45

Communism. You're like a communist yourself.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

So yourself, if you even consider that.

SPEAKER_08 24:49

So don't stay with Team Trump. That's the safe team team, right, James Carvel?

SPEAKER_04 24:54

You won't be a communist then. Yeah. So doing the math, currently the DSA, by the way, whatever that is, because there are some people that identify as democratic socialists, and then there's this DSA thing that has, in my personal opinion, some very unprofessional, not ready for primetime people in it. Yeah. And I'll just say that. But they have exactly two members who have been elected to national office. Best case scenario, if they catch every break and the wind is at their backs, they can grow maybe, maybe grow that to six people. Six in November.

SPEAKER_07 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

On the other hand, currently the number of card-carrying Democratic Party members holding national office is 257. And they are a wide spectrum of people.

SPEAKER_07 25:46

Yes, they are.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

So these rare wins by DSA members and a couple of ill-considered remarks by a couple of candidates, one of whom, again, lost her primary this week, are about as far away from real threat of an imminent takeover as possible. But again, I understand the paranoia if you are 78 years old.

SPEAKER_08 26:08

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 26:12

Yeah. No, or you're an office holder and you'd like to be in office until you die.

SPEAKER_08 26:18

Right. And the kid comes along and took my office.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

And a 47-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_08 26:23

Well, and my understand my understanding is that the guy who was displaced was a good guy, did good things, but 15 years in Congress is enough, man. You deserve a statue. 13 terms. Yeah, 30 years in Congress. 15 germs. Exactly. You're right. You deserve a statue and a high school named after you, and maybe a street. And then you need to go away because it's time to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

You know? But yeah, it's time. It's time to retire at 78.

SPEAKER_08 26:49

But but these trivial things by a couple of people out on the margins, they they carry political significance only because the fascist media ecosystem and their useful idiots like James Carvel assign it significance that is wildly disproportionate to the offense itself. So do Democrats have a messaging problem? This is a question that people are asking a million times a day. Do Democrats have a messaging problem? Not really. Democrats, as a party, we have a lot of good talkers. You have a lot of good people who are good at explaining things. We interviewed, remember, Greg Bush last week. He's really good at explaining stuff, and he's a state rep from Missouri. Missouri.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

And the super minority in the Missouri State House.

SPEAKER_08 27:37

Pop a microphone into any of these people's hands who are who are like the bench of the Democratic Party, who are the up-and-comers, the young people who are focused on doing good for their community by running for office. And you'll find good explainers all over the place. What we actually have is a volume problem. We have a decibel problem. We're like Scott Joplin trying to introduce the delicate, syncopated language of ragtime at the 1904 World's Fair, while the world's most famous marching band has been parked 10 feet away and is blasting Sousa marches at full volume. Nobody can hear us. Yep. Yep, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

On the other hand, do Democrats have a James Carville problem? Yes, they do. Definitely, because Carville and other petty relics from a bygone era either feel so jilted by Democrats for nominating and electing a tiny number of candidates that they don't approve of that they're willing to scamper over to the Ministry of Propaganda of the mortal enemies of the party they claim to care about and feed them ammunition.

SPEAKER_08 28:40

Yeah. On Blue Sky a few days ago, I suggested there should be a verb for this phenomenon called Carveling to throw a tantrum and storm out whenever Democrats refuse to chase MAGA votes by punching imaginary hippies and veering further and further to the right. Because Carville's outrage has centered on this tiny number of Democratic socialists defeating incumbent Democrats in Democratic primaries. His complaint is less about specific legislation and more about who is winning elections and what that means for the party's future, which raises a pretty obvious question that James Carville never addresses, which is if Democratic voters in Democratic primaries are choosing these candidates, who exactly does he think is taking over the party? The voters? Oh no. Oh my God, the voters are expressing their will in the Democratic Party through Democratic primaries. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

It's the voters less member than James Carville. Yeah, it's true. But never let it be said that Carvel's deep belief that progressivism spells the doom of the Democratic Party and he will collect a check for saying so. Get in the way of him jumping right back on a bandwagon. He had just tried to set on fire. This is from The Hill, August 11th. Quote, Carvel backing El Sayed against Clown Rogers. Democratic strategist James Carvel said he is backing Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed in spite of his criticism of El Sayed, and especially when compared to the Republican in the race. El Sayed himself has said the Democrats is as much of a problem as the Republicans, which I disagree with. But when I look at him and I look at Mike Rogers, who's a lackey for the entire pharmaceutical industry, who's an election denier, then I'm going to take El Sayed every time, Carvel told Piers Morgan on his Piers Morgan Uncensored Show in a clip posted Monday. Would I take him in a vacuum? Probably not. But against a clown like Rogers, who is an election denier running for the United States Senate in the year 2026, who has never once opposed the interest of big pharma, yeah, I'm gonna be for El Sayed. Unquote. And as I said on Blue Sky, somebody dropped a dime.

SPEAKER_08 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

And gave James Carville a call and told him to cut the shit.

SPEAKER_08 31:08

Yeah, somebody yanked his leash.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

And I think it was someone from the Clinton camp.

SPEAKER_08 31:13

Universe? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Somebody in that, you know, compound, the Clinton compound.

SPEAKER_07 31:19

Yeah, we have no evidence of this.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

The president and the secretary, both Clintons, are very disappointed in you, Jim.

SPEAKER_08 31:28

Could you like shut the hell up, Jim? Maybe that'd be a good idea. Yeah. By the way, in the same article, El Said got off an excellent shot that uh we give the Hill credit for including. This is the shot. Quote Earlier this month, Carville went after left left-wing streamer Hassan Piker, who has campaigned with El Said saying if the streamer becomes a force in the Democratic Party, I'm out of here. El Said.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Wait a minute. Where is he that he can be out of here?

SPEAKER_08 31:54

I'm out of here. I'm Democrat. I'm no longer a Democrat. I'm quitting the party. I'm quitting the party. Uh, you know, which we've already covered.

unknown 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 32:00

Now El Said responded to Carville's comments on Piker's stream, saying part of me is like, why does anybody still listen to James Carville? Which is a very good question. Well, because he gets paid to go on television and say crazy shit to old people. Yeah, too old.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

I'm gonna keep reiterating that. Why is anybody still listen to James Carville?

SPEAKER_08 32:20

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

That's an age dig.

SPEAKER_08 32:23

Now, uh, the last line of the article, uh, this is L Say It Again. He said one smart thing once, which he seems to have forgotten, which is it's the economy, stupid, he added, unquote. And yeah, he did say that smart thing that one time 35, 40 years ago. Yeah. Um, but why the fuck is this guy? Well, I I I know why. Because all of the people in that universe are plugged into the legacy media machine and can always find an audience, no matter how wrong and batshit they are.

SPEAKER_05 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 32:56

And because his wife, I believe she still is an editor at the imprint at one of the major publishing houses. She's in charge of like she did Dick Cheney's biography. Yeah, right, right. When you can when you get to decide. I'm not sure Harper Collins or Hatchet is one of those, but um, when you get to bless someone's book, decide if they get a book or not, that's actual power.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

That's power.

SPEAKER_08 33:21

And they are they are a couple who are all about personal power and influence and money. So anyway.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

That's absolutely true. And as I said this year, we have gone from it's the economy stupid to under Donald Trump, the economy stupid.

SPEAKER_08 33:39

To it it's the stupid stupid.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Stupid, yeah, the economy stupid. Absolutely. All right. Uh, in addition to our conservative slander megaphone problem and our Carvel problem, Democrats also have a faithless ally problem. Specifically, recently former Republicans who are nominally allies, but whose real fealty is to the both sides do it cult. These are the pundits who feel that in the face of a GOP, which has obviously gone full fascist, beating up Democrats every day for not being GOP light is the only way they can maintain their profitable, sensible centrist creds. And they are going to be the lifeboat builders for the Republican Party.

SPEAKER_08 34:22

Oh my God, yes. And of course, you know who we're gonna talk about because we've talked about him a thousand times on this podcast. I've been writing about him since 2005. First, we're gonna read you a quote from the revered legacy media conservative pundit David Brooks. Ever heard of him? Uh, in which he lies extravagantly about us liberals.

SPEAKER_04 34:42

Just we're gonna read one paragraph of David Brooklyn. One paragraph, just one paragraph. That's it.

SPEAKER_08 34:46

And there is a reason for us reading this one paragraph.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Yes, that has that doesn't have isn't entirely about David Brooks, right?

SPEAKER_08 34:53

Right. Quote Of course, the left made it easy for them, meaning MAGA, the rights, the fascists, etc. The left really did purge conservatives, universities, and other cultural power centers. The left really did valorize a meritocratic caste system that privileged the children of the affluent and screwed the working class. The left really did pontificate to their unenlightened moral inferiors on everything from gender to the environment. The left really did create a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent. If you tell half the country that their voices don't matter, then the voiceless are gonna flip over the table. Unquote.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

The problem with that quote is everything. It's all bullshit. None of it is true. And big thanks to the dozens of you who sent us the video of Jamel Bowie meticulously eviscerating it. The video runs about 10 minutes long, and we're going to excerpt just 45 seconds of it. But it's excellent. The whole thing is very good, and you should listen to it. The link to the entire thing is in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Let's put this in perspective. And let's also recognize that in this moment, the obsession with wokeness that seems to monopolize the thoughts of America's commentary class is utter decadence. A prime example of the total lack of moral seriousness among many of the people who presume to explain the world to ordinary Americans. There is a revolution happening right now. It's not a woke one, it's an authoritarian one, an autocratic one, a revolution on behalf of people who want nothing more than to smother the rights of ordinary Americans, so that they and their wealthy allies can rule unmolested by accountability or consequences. That is the challenge right now. Not some grad student who bothered you on Twitter five years ago.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

And decadent, the state of moral, cultural, or physical decline, often brought on by excessive self-indulgence and a focus on luxury, is exactly the right word for what Brooks is doing. Desperately trying to conjure an imaginary left that is so stifling and omnipotent that the right really has no choice but to go full fascist. It is the alibi of choice for conservative buffoons like David Brooks, who are so professionally obsessed with slagging Democrats over trivia or nothing, nothing at all, that they never notice their own party devolving into a mob of bigots and imbeciles. I will never forget David Brooks saying, I don't know what Rush Limbaugh says.

SPEAKER_06 37:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

Yep. And and ripe for the taking by an aspiring monster like Trump. And David Brooks didn't notice that.

SPEAKER_08 37:42

Didn't notice it. But months before Trump comes down the escalator, David Brooks is saying the Republican Party is doing fine. Everything's fine now. Sarah Palin's gone. The scary Sarah Palin thing is done. We've purged all the weirdos. Everything's great. Nothing but blue skies ahead. But here's a question. The article Jamel Bowie is quoting from more than a year ago. April 7th, pardon me?

SPEAKER_04 38:06

Really? It's over a year old.

SPEAKER_08 38:08

Yeah, it's April 7th, 2025, in the Atlantic, back during the interregnum when Brooks was getting a paycheck from both The Times and the Atlantic. So why did he wait a year and a half to critique it? Well, we cannot know for sure, of course, but we can make educated guesses. And there hangs a tale, boys and girls. There hangs an exciting tale. But first, a word from several of our fake sponsors that we haven't heard from in a long time. First out of the box, McGuffin's Muffins. Building strong plot points 12 ways.

SPEAKER_04 38:42

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SPEAKER_04 38:51

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SPEAKER_08 38:56

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SPEAKER_04 39:05

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SPEAKER_08 39:09

You will not like it. And that is how you build a cliffhanger, kids. So why the year and a half lag between Brooks' Despicable Column and Jamel Bowie's excellent critique? Well, for that answer, we're going to go back in time about 20 years to October 1st, 2007, and the publication of The Conscience of a Liberal, a book by the New York Times' very own at the time, Paul Krugman. And in this book, Krugman took a scathing look at the incident with which Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign for president. The event took place in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where, 16 years earlier, civil rights workers Michael Schwarner, James Cheney, and Andrew Goodman were murdered. And in his kickoff speech, Reagan made sure to emphasize, quote, I believe in states' rights, unquote, the legal principle on which white segregationists had based their resistance to federal laws and court decisions upholding the civil rights of African Americans. This was an unmistakable dog whistle to bigots that a new day had dawned in the GOP, that the Democrats were now the party of the evil civil rights movement, and the party of Lincoln now warmly welcomed the support of angry, racist Southerners. But this is also an assault on the Republican Party's most sacrosanct institution, the holy and inviolable memory of St. Ronald Reagan. And you know what? David Brooks wasn't having any of it. This aggression will not stand. So about a month after the publication of Krugman's book came this column by David Brooks from the New York Times, the New York Fucking Times, my apologies for mispronouncing that, November 9th, 2007. History and calumny. Today I'm gonna write about a slur. It's a distortion that's been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months. It was concocted for partisan reasons to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other, and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale, unquote. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, on and on like that for his contractually obligated 600 words. And then, in conclusion, quote, but still the slur spreads. It's spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn't even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence. It posits that there was a master conspiracy to play on the alleged clan-like prejudices of American voters when there is no conspiracy, and there's even no evidence to that conspiracy. And of course, in a partisan age, there are always people eager to believe this stuff. Unquote.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

People? People willing to believe this stuff? Who are these people?

SPEAKER_08 41:59

Good question.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Brooks doesn't say. It's like the some people say lie on Fox.

SPEAKER_07 42:04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

But the thing is, Brooks never actually mentions who the hell he's talking about. Who is spreading this terrible calumny? Brooks won't say. Now, spoiler alert, it was Paul Krugman. If you were a political nerd, you might have sussed it out, but anyone else would have been baffled. And Krugman wasn't alone. The entire liberal blogosphere showed up with receipts for this. Digby weighed in, so did Rick Perlstein, blogger Dog House Riley, Brad DeLong.

SPEAKER_08 42:40

And of course, I got my licks in back in 2007. I also brought back a terrific post from 2004 by the late Stephen Jilliard that was right on point.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

And then there was Bob Herbert, who was also at the New York Fucking Times back then. And we're going to quote from him extension extensively now for two reasons. First, because it relates to directly why Jamel Bowie waited a year and a half to take Brooks to task. And second, it is a reminder that the good old days, which our Never Trump allies are relentlessly peddling, is mostly bullshit and has been mostly bullshit for a very, very long time. So this is Bob Herbert from November 13th, 2007. Quote, writing Reagan's Wrongs. The civil rights murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County's primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at the time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community, and white supremacy was still. The order of the day. That was the atmosphere, and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and at times raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000 chanting, We want Reagan. We want Reagan. Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair. And he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, I believe in states' rights. Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it. Which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context. That won't wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon. Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans, they all knew. The news media knew, the race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew. He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about states' rights to white people in places like Neshoba County, they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, I'm with you. And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner, and Cheney were slaughtered. Let's not forget, these were Jewish young men who came down to Mississippi to register black voters and they were murdered. Getting back to the article. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation. Congress overrode his veto. Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto too.

SPEAKER_08 46:58

And I I wrote on my blog uh six or seven years ago that this is not the fourth year of the Trump administration. This was the 40th year of the Reagan Revolution.

SPEAKER_05 47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 47:09

That Trump was the logical outcome of what got launched in Neshoba County in 1980 and by Goldwater and by Nixon and the whole Southern strategy. Now, all of that, all of that that Bob Herbert wrote was amazing and accurate and true, but he never once mentioned who these Reagan apologists were or these anonymous commentators were. Spoiler, he's talking about David Brooks directly. So why the cloak and dagger, right? What why make readers guess what the hell he's talking about? Because there is an unwritten rule at the New York fucking Times that forbids its op-ed columnists from attacking one another in print. It's decorum above all, enforced through broad social media and behavioral standards that prohibit employees from publicly attacking, criticizing, or undermining colleagues on social media or in public forums. Company policy also explicitly states that tweets or subtweets that attack or undermine colleagues' works are not allowed as they damage the institution's trust and reputation. Which brings us back to Jamal Bowie. In the spring of 2025, when Brooks was troweling out this claptrap over at the Atlantic, he was still on the New York Times payroll. It wasn't until earlier this year, 2026, that Brooks finally and formally left the Times, which meant he no longer was under the protection of the Times tone and civility regime, which finally freed New York Times writer Jamal Bowie to say what he had to say. And now you know the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_04 48:45

And Janelle Bowie had been saving this up. Yeah. Oh yeah. He had to. You know, and it may very well be that it was, you know, August 1st that David Brooks was removed from the payroll at the New York Times. No, it was it was uh I mean he may have stopped writing there, but that doesn't mean he wasn't on staff. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_08 49:07

Okay. Uh I looked it up.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

Oh, you did.

unknown 49:10

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_08 49:11

Yes, and you can ask me these things. And he he left formally in either February or March.

SPEAKER_04 49:16

Okay, so he was formally no longer on the staff. Right.

SPEAKER_08 49:19

He wrote a farewell column and that was it, and he was gone. Now I assume Mr. Bowie had other things to do with his time, but at that point he was freed from the uh the need to not talk about David Brooks in the first person.

SPEAKER_04 49:33

Right. Because that's obviously as you said, that's an HR policy at the New York Times.

SPEAKER_08 49:38

It is unwritten, but it's it's very stringently enforced. And you can go back again as we did through this whole Bob Herbert uh Paul Krugman Brooks thing where they're all talking at each other, but they're not allowed to mention each other by name because you know, Papa Schulzberger will come down and spank them and maybe fire them.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

Well, and we've we've mentioned that before. I do remember us talking about that before with a Paul Krugman column. Yeah, where it was so obvious that Krugman had was directly responding to a Brooks column, but didn't say so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We have one housekeeping note, just a reminder. Uh, we will not be doing a show next Tuesday so that we can go out to dinner to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary, which is Wednesday.

SPEAKER_08 50:22

It is Wednesday, and I looked it up. And the recommended 15th anniversary gift is a blue wave in November. Also, you can join the happy couple on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash prolef pod.

SPEAKER_04 50:36

That's a lovely way to help us celebrate our anniversary. It's with a Patreon membership.

SPEAKER_08 50:42

Yes. And if you're if you're doing the math in your head and you're thinking, wait a minute, have you been podcasting longer than you've been married? The answer is yes.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

Yes, we have.

SPEAKER_08 50:49

We were podcasting together in sin before we before we uh made it formal with rings on our fingers and uh and all the all the things.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Yeah, things were things were kind of stewing at the time we started podcasting, but not quite.

SPEAKER_05 51:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

But eventually it became absolutely necessary. It wasn't because I was pregnant.

SPEAKER_08 51:09

No.

SPEAKER_04 51:09

Well, it just made no sense for us not to be married. Why are we not married?

SPEAKER_08 51:13

Why am I not married to this woman? Like now. Let's do it right now. And then again, several years later, you dropped this horrible secret on me about you having kids, but then it was too late. I didn't, I was they sprung them on me. They were in their teens. Hardly. No, no. They actually spent time up in Chicago uh with us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:31

They got to be in the condo for a while. Yeah. And we had a little bit in the snow up in Chicago and all those things.

SPEAKER_08 51:37

You took him to uh the Garfield Park Conservatory.

unknown 51:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 51:40

During the middle of winter, which is a great place to go during the middle of winter because it's warm, it has different environments. And you remember a junior dude got locked in on the uh treasure hunt.

SPEAKER_04 51:49

Yeah, it's it's very similar to when he got locked on locked in on mini golf, too.

SPEAKER_08 51:54

It's almost the same story. He can't leave without completing the entire thing.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 51:59

And it's like because there was a little treasure hunt where they give a kid a map, the kid's map, and you go around looking for the ingredient uh in a plant that goes with the thing on your map, and they give you a little like a little bit of vanilla or a piece of gum or something.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

Yeah, yeah. And he had to do all the entire map. He had to do it.

SPEAKER_08 52:16

The other kids were like, okay, we're done. This is cool, but we're about halfway through this interesting stuff in there.

SPEAKER_04 52:21

Yes, their energy level's over. No, I have to finish.

SPEAKER_08 52:25

I have to finish it.

SPEAKER_04 52:25

So then we played mini golf, and it was like, oh my god, we should have started at the ninth hole because it was hot, and he had to do all 18 holes. Gotta do all 18 holes.

SPEAKER_08 52:35

So, anyway, I it was it was that's my family, guys. That's my family. Love them all to death.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, each week we post to our Patreon page and website an internet kitty sent in by you, the listeners. This week's internet kitty is Opal. Opal likes to play in the wrapping paper and the tissue paper. Now, she's kind of a quality control manager in that regard, and you will see that in the picture that we posted. Uh, and of course, Opal, who's really very pretty kitty, eats freshly poured cat food, our fake sponsor. Whether you serve Pet Store Perfection or Dollar Store Dreck, your cat will sit on the kitchen floor or in the tissue paper and demand that the food they eat is only freshly poured.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. That's the flavor they adore. Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

And you can visit Opal at our Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash prolephpod. Nothing on our Patreon page is paywall. So feel free to go over there and look at Opal, or you can check out our website. Opal is also up there on the upper uh right hand corner of our website, prolefpod.com. And you can send your internet kitty, dog, or other pet to us at our email address, prolefpodcast at gmail.com, where you can also write to both of us. Feel free to write to us. We love hearing from you. Be aware that if you write to us at any of our addresses, we reserve the right to read your email or US Postal Service Go Postal Unions letter on the air unless you say otherwise.

SPEAKER_08 54:27

And don't forget, we still have a gourmet coffee guideline. Even here in Tornado Country, a cup of espresso is still welcome news. So if you can afford to buy an espresso-based beverage for yourself, buy one for us at patreon.com forward slash prolef pod. This isn't charity. This is in fact our job. It's how we do what we do every week, and we do it with your help and support. You can also help us continue to grow. This is a question that Bob Seska asked at his show. Like, what else can we do? It's like, share our shows with social with friends on social media. You know, give them a headset and say, listen to these shows. This is what all of us bloggers or podcasters, sorry, can do for each other is share our show with other people that might enjoy it. Um so introduce the professional health podcast to a friend. They might love you for it. And thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

Hey, Driftglass, how are the internet kitties doing this week?

SPEAKER_08 55:16

Global Gather, the internet kitties are spending the weekend doing postcards to voters' cats, which has been shown to be up to 86% effective.