#49 — The Lesser Evil
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per Minute
164.71379
Summary
Andrew Sullivan joins Sam Harris to debate the lesser evil: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They discuss their differences, their friendship, and what they have in common: they are both critics of both of them, and they both believe that Hillary Clinton should have been elected president in 2016, and that Donald Trump should not have been in the race at all. They also discuss what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century, and the benefits of meditation, and how it can help us understand our relationship with God and the world. Sam and Andrew discuss the value of meditation and the role it plays in our understanding of the world and our relationships with God, and why we should all incorporate it into our daily lives and how we should practice it in a meaningful way. Sam is a writer and blogger, and is a frequent contributor to The New Republic and The Daily Dish. He is also a contributing editor at New York Magazine and writes great longform pieces at The Weekly Standard, and he's published several books, including The Conservative Soul, which I link to on my website, including "The Conservative Soul" and "The Righteous Soul." He's also a regular contributor at The Huffington Post and The New York Times Magazine, where he writes for the New York Review of Books. and The Nation, where I write about the culture and culture, as well as the New Republic, and The Atlantic, among other things. He is a friend and colleague of many other prominent journalists, including Alex Blumberg, a fellow, Andrew Sullivan, a writer, and a fellow blogger, to whom I go back and forth with me. . to discuss his views on many things, including his thoughts on politics, religion, spirituality, and Buddhism, and much more. The Making Sense Podcast, and to whom he's a good friend, and his advice on how to get the most out of your day to day life and the things you should be doing in your spiritual practice. Thanks for listening to the podcast, and for your support of the podcasting experience. Please consider becoming a supporter of Making Sense in the making sense podcast. -Sam in the comments below. Thank you for listening, Andrew, I hope you enjoy the podcast and tweet me on your thoughts on the podcast! if you like what you're listening to this podcast, and if you're looking for some tips on how you can help make sense of it.
Transcript
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Well, this is another election-related podcast.
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As many of you know, I've come out strongly against Donald Trump.
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And the only way to really do this is to support Hillary Clinton.
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But what I want to do in this podcast is attempt to reach those of you who view any criticism
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So I'm going to spend a long time here speaking very critically about the lesser evil, Hillary
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About both Clintons, in fact, because they come as a pair.
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And I've enlisted Andrew Sullivan to help me in this cause, because he certainly knows
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Andrew has been a very prominent journalist and editor.
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He ran the New Republic for many years, and he's written for more or less everybody.
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He's a frequent political commentator, and the fact that gay marriage is now legal in this
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He was also one of the first prominent bloggers, which he did for 15 years at The Daily Dish.
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He is now a contributing editor at New York Magazine and writes great long-form pieces there.
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He's published several books, including The Conservative Soul, which I link to on my website.
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And what we attempt to do in this podcast is sympathize with those of you who hate the
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Clintons and don't want to see them return to the White House.
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I'm worried that if you only listen to half of this podcast, you'll go vote for Trump.
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I don't think you've heard two people who support Hillary Clinton do this.
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And then we go on to argue that the lesser evil is still, in this case, the only good you can do.
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Some of our listeners will be aware of our connection.
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But for those who aren't, you and I have debated each other twice in print.
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And the first time was about religion well over a decade ago at this point.
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And both of those exchanges are on my blog, so people can find them.
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But one of the great things about our debates, from my point of view, is that they were fairly
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I mean, the first one in particular, if I recall, was pretty barbed, or at least I was pretty
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And yet they really became the basis of a friendship.
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And I mean, you and I don't see each other that often.
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And in my experience, that doesn't happen all that much in public debates.
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And I really, it's very valuable to me that our communications, while we started out very
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far apart on certain issues, really were, in the aggregate, totally civil and better than
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I mean, they really became the basis of a real connection, which is fantastic.
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I've always, however I disagree with you, I've always respected and enjoyed what you've
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And I think for someone with religious faith, I think that your challenges have been important
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and certainly not ones that any believer should shrink from.
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I think that they're things that we should consider and think about.
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And I've always, you know, I've always detected in you an openness to dialogue above everything
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And that's increasingly, as I get older, the more valuable that is.
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And also, I must say, as you know, your support for my, what I would call my spiritual development,
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I don't know quite what label you put on it, but you were very helpful for me to understand
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better what meditation is and what Buddhism has to offer.
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Even though I'd had some encounter with it before, your encouragement and your example
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has definitely helped my life and I hope helped my thinking process.
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I really view this conversation as being in two parts and there's a connection between
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But I want to talk about why it is becoming so difficult or seemingly so difficult to
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And the two parts of this conversation, the first is politics, which, as you know, is about
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And the second, I want to talk about, you know, what you just alluded to now is just
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And this could, in some measure, explain why our politics have become so toxic.
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And I want to talk about how you stepped away from your online life a while back.
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And this article you wrote in New York Magazine entitled, I Used to Be a Human Being, which is
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really a wonderful article, which I'll link to on my blog.
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Let's get into that and spiritual practice and the kind of contemplative issues you have
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around, you know, what the internet is doing to the human mind.
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Maybe just take a moment to describe your political background and leanings so people
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Well, I grew up in England in the 70s and 80s and was a Thatcherite.
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Not only was I a Thatcherite, I must have been, I wasn't must have been, I actually was the
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only boy in my high school in England to have a Reagan 80 button.
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Um, and so I, I really was, um, a sort of member of the right in good standing in the
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seventies and eighties and, and to a great extent, the nineties, even though I supported
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Clinton in 92, um, uh, at a time when it was possible, I think, to be interested in ideas
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and arguments about free markets, about the sclerosis of the European welfare state, about
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government ownership of the economy and direction of the economy.
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And so it was kind of recruited as a, a, an up and coming right wing intellectual, uh, as
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Um, I went to Oxford, um, where I, uh, honed some of those thoughts.
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Um, but I, my, my study at Oxford was in history and French literature, so I wasn't a political
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major, but I did that in coming to Harvard when I did a PhD in political science at the
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Um, and my supervisor, my dissertation was Harvey Mansfield, um, a renowned Straussian, uh,
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Amazingly, uh, he seems to have completely, uh, avoided, um, any sort of aging.
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He does have a painting somewhere, but he's, he's a real character.
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Um, and, uh, but I wrote my dissertation, not on Strauss, but on the English political
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philosopher, also understood to be a critical influence in 20th century, uh, small C conservatism,
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Um, so I come from a, what I, I still regard myself as an Oakeshottian in that sense.
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And as much as to have a suspicion of, of government control of too big a state sector, uh, a respect
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for tradition, for how a society evolves organically, um, for pragmatism in politics, and for skepticism
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Uh, and my dissertation was actually upon an implicit esoteric religious doctrine in Michael
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Um, and then, uh, going into America, uh, I supported Reagan in 84, supported Bush in
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88, um, but supported Clinton in 92 on the grounds that while I do believe that it was
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important to correct for some of the overreach of the left in the seventies and eighties, my
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core commitment is to a civilized and, uh, open society.
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And that requires two parties that share in the responsibilities of government and, and
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take turns in power in order to correct the abuses and difficulties and, uh, overreach of
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And so it's important for me as a small C conservative that, for example, the democratic party come back
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Um, this is, this is the moment when really my first drift from the right began the idea
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that I could support Clinton over Bush and Perot on the grounds that he was more in touch
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with in 92, uh, an emerging culture and society that was more diverse, more forward looking
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And obviously on the question of gay rights, uh, uh, at least before he was elected, uh,
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Um, and so I think I placed myself in that sort of liberal Republican slash conservative
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And when I edited the new Republic in from 91 to 96, I was definitely regarded as a conservative
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influence on that magazine, even though that magazine was at that point, a kind of blend
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I, I also defended that magazine's core liberal ethos, even though I didn't fully share it.
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Cause again, I felt a responsibility, that institution within American politics and culture.
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Um, so then I went on, excuse me if I'm going on too long, just to my trajectory.
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I, I, I found Clinton by 96 to be so ethically and morally despicable, um, that I actually supported
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Bob Dole in 96, uh, on the grounds that I did not, I, I actually believe that given his conduct
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in office so far that it was simply a matter of time before Clinton sabotaged himself and
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the country, which turned out to be, uh, uh, unfortunately a true, um, in 2000, I was really
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I had a great deal of respect for Al Gore, but I liked at least candidate George W. Bush.
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I liked the, uh, compassionate conservatism to some extent.
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I liked the ability to reach out to, uh, demographic groups that had not been properly part of the
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Um, and thought between a moderate right candidate and a moderate left one, I didn't see a big
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It turns out of course, that I was completely mistaken about that.
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And in the, I think in the partisan and polarizing moment after nine 11, I kind of went off the
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deep end and, uh, supported the war and supported Bush largely out of a horror at what Islamist
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fundamentalism was threatening against core Western values and the mass murder that they
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were perpetrating in the name of fundamentalist religion.
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Um, I'm also, I should say, you know, just to fill in people, uh, Roman Catholic, I still
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Um, and, but grew increasingly concerned with also the trend towards a fundamentalism of a
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different kind within the Catholic church under Benedict, uh, the 16th.
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And to some extent, John Paul, the second, anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just trying to give
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So then, but then I turned against Bush, um, and the Republicans because of what I saw as
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a inability to, uh, effectively conduct a war and to effectively realize that they had made
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a terrible error for me, the fundamental issue in that conflict was the, the use of torture
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by the United States, uh, which I found to be a step to take us outside of civilizational
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boundaries and also a period of time where I felt the constitution was essentially in abeyance.
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And I was so repelled by that, um, that I supported a man.
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And I really didn't like very much John Kerry in 2004 and then came to see Obama as actually
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what I believe to be the moderate center right president that I'd always wanted, but even
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more thrillingly, um, able to bring African Americans more fully into that center and into
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American public life and really found in Obama, um, the kind of politician I really could admire
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as one of the first people to really seize on him and support him and became really in
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my blog anyway, uh, a sort of key part of the Obama coalition, which I continued through
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Um, so that's where I am, a sort of Obamacan, as it were, a moderate conservative that actually
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thought in Obama that we had a moderate conservative president of really unimpeachable character,
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considerable moderation reason and, uh, extraordinary eloquence.
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I still think he's an extraordinary figure and I think we still need him quite badly, especially
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over the next few months when things could get really scary and he's calm, his ability
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I think is one reason why in this incredibly fraught period, uh, his approval ratings are,
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I think he will be understood, especially if Hillary, obviously if Hillary wins this election
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as the, the Reagan, the liberal Reagan, the Reagan of the Democrats, uh, and the silver
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lining, I see, we can talk about this some more about the current moment, which otherwise
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seems to be the darkest cloud I've ever seen in American politics.
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The small silver lining is that it might be the final repudiation of the most ugly, disgusting
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Um, in other words, that this might be the true long game when a, when a president is able
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to win two elections and then actually get his opposition to recognize their failure and
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That's yet to be seen, but at least that's a small sliver of hope that I have out of this
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really dystopian electoral landscape that we are now looking at.
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So I have a, an agenda for this part of the conversation that I want to make explicit
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for our listeners because, you know, I've said many terrible things about Trump on this podcast
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and I'm, I am sure I will say some terrible things today, but this has revealed some very
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disconcerting things to me about my audience and about just the, the possibilities of communication.
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The first is that just, there's just the fact that there's a significant number of people
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who follow me, who are Trump supporters and who are amazed that I'm not one too.
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And I can only assume that this has something to do with how hard I've been on Islam over the
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years, but I continually hear from people who claim to have loved my work and to have read
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my books, but now have lost all respect for me because I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.
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And, you know, one person just wrote saying, you know, it's, it's too bad Hitch died when
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I mean, so these, these, these communications are very pointed.
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And the most, the most annoying thing about that one is honestly, the fact that this person
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is certain that Hitch would have voted for Trump, right?
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I've talked about that on the podcast, you know, even with all that Hitch wrote about the
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Clintons, I think there's absolutely no way he would have voted for Trump.
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But the problem is that no matter how clearly I spell out what is wrong with Trump and describe
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my endorsement of Clinton as the lesser evil, right?
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I'm accused of being rankly partisan and totally dishonest and of ignoring all that's wrong with
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And this really bothers me because, I mean, there really is, insofar as I can know my own
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mind, there is absolutely nothing partisan about my endorsement of Clinton.
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I could easily imagine a Republican who I would vote for over her.
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And there's just not much you would have to change about this, you know, generic Republican
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so as to make me vote for him or her over Clinton.
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I saw your, your most recent appearance on Real Time talking about Clinton and Trump and,
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you know, given your background and given that you're in touch with, with what has been wrong
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with our system and, and the way in which the Clintons in many ways crystallize what's wrong
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with our system, it seems that you could be the perfect person to help me try to bridge
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Because what I want us to do is to talk honestly about what's wrong with the Clintons, to give
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it as sympathetic a view as possible of why people hate them with such passion and why
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people hate the system of which they are a very clear expression.
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And then make the case why none of that matters in the current election, because people are
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just missing just how, how terrifyingly unqualified Trump is and on every conceivable level.
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And they're not only missing it, they're missing how clear this is, right?
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So in any case, you and I are speaking on the morning after the third presidential debate,
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you know, where the evidence of the difference between Clinton and Trump was not in short
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So just, let's, let's just start with the issue with the Clinton.
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I mean, so why did you break ranks with Bill Clinton and, and, and give me a sympathetic view
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of why someone would not be happy to see the, the Clintons back in the White House?
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I mean, I, I, um, they're about the pursuit of power by almost any constitutional means
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There, there's a lack of integrity to both of them.
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It seems to me, um, I witnessed this firsthand.
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I was editor of the new Republic when Clinton first became president and the new Republic was
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under my editorship actually championed the Clinton candidacy.
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One of the first, um, Sidney Blumenthal, may God forgive me, was my campaign correspondent
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And you saw with Sidney when I actually caught him faxing pieces to Hillary in advance of
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their publication to check that he'd got every single spin, right again, shows just who
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Um, they're operators, um, they're at the center of a web of, we used to call it clincest of
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friends and colleagues dedicated to the advancement of each other.
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And I, for one, for example, in the early nineties was one of the first advocates of marriage
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equality and for military service for gay people and to watch them kill us in that period and
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And then to portray themselves as pioneers of gay civil rights, the sheer chutzpah of these
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people when they were actually not just against marriage equality, they did everything in their
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power to kill off the movement for marriage equality.
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And I know, cause I was, in my ways, one of four people in that movement at the beginning.
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Did you ever hear Hillary Clinton on fresh air with Terry Gross trying not to admit that her
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opinion on marriage equality had changed for about 10, 10 minutes and getting more and more
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Well, that's part of what drives you crazy about them is their refusal to tell the truth, even
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about themselves, the, the constant spinning, the constant refusal to really be accountable.
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And this also goes to Bill Clinton's history of sexual assault.
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One of the things I'm proudest of at the new Republic was, was running an editorial defending
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Paula Jones's right to have a say in court, uh, which was greeted by the democratic left
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The way in which honest alleged feminists were prepared to sacrifice every single principle
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they ever had to advance this man who was essentially, uh, one of the, you know, one of the most
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horrendous offenders in dealing with women sexually just staggered me at the time.
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Um, and Hillary Clinton, of course, in full knowledge of her husband's history of sexual assault and
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harassment, uh, went to town in defending him and trashing those women.
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All of that, the Trump campaign has re-aired, uh, is true.
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Actually, one question there, because I'm not as familiar with the history as I might
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be, I certainly, I certainly haven't waded through all the relevant biographies, but many
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people think that Hillary was legitimately deceived by Bill on many of these points.
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And certainly, let's say the, the, the Lewinsky scandal that she had bought his lie that nothing
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had happened and then, and you could sort of see the, her reaction to the truth emerging
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It's not true with Kathleen Willey and others who are beginning to come forward.
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Um, I, I, I think to say that Hillary Clinton was not aware of her husband's, a tendency for
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sexual assault and objectification and demeaning and degrading treatment of women is, is, is,
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She sat for 60 minutes in 92 brazenly lying about her husband's affair with Jennifer Flowers.
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Um, almost everyone around her acknowledges this.
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Um, and yet she stuck with her husband and not only this, but at the very beginning, this,
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this, this pioneer of feminism decided that her career could only really get off the ground
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if she married a, uh, an up and coming governor and hitched her wagon to his.
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It's not what many pioneering women in politics have done, which is why I think it sticks in
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the craw to see her and why so many people have not been able to embrace her as the first
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potential woman president, however much we might want to see a woman, woman become president.
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Somehow the wife of a former president who trashed women on the way up and who herself
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never did the feminist thing and pioneered her own career and her own, uh, life in politics
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And always arguing, always arguing that whatever we do, however we behave, we are so much part
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of the greater good and the Republicans are always so evil that anything we do is justified.
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And that's of course is how they have succeeded largely because every time the Republicans have
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opposed them, they've done so on despicable and overreaching grounds.
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I mean, impeaching a president the way they did was such a grotesque overreach and the
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way they poured into, uh, Bill Clinton's private life was just appalling.
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And I think the American people decided, no, if we have to pick between this, uh, charlatan,
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philanderer liar, and these fanatics, then I guess we're going to have to put up with the
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And in some ways that's the story of their entire career.
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Um, and somehow they've managed to, uh, to always do that, to play the lesser of two
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I drew the, even though I believe that he was a hideous person, I don't think he should have
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It should have been taken as a vote of censure would have been perfectly acceptable and would
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But there again, you get the sort of sense that not only do they want to just survive by hook
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or by crook, jettisoning principles, trashing the constituencies they're supposed to support,
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they, they want to turn around and be regarded as civil rights pioneers for women or for gays
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Do you think you're being, or possibly being too cynical here on a few points?
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So for instance, what about the possibility that Hillary stuck by Bill through all of this
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and, and obviously got married in the first place to him, not based on some Machiavellian
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political scheming, but just, this is the person she's in love with.
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She has accepted his flaws in a way that may harken back to another generation, you know,
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And she was just all in with him and realized that in some purely pragmatic and obviously
00:27:16.620
not honest way, since they're on the right side of history on most of these issues, since
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they have the right goals for the country, this is how the sausage gets made.
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You got to get on 60 minutes and lie about this meaningless affair that you don't care about.
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And you're the wife, you're the one who's supposed to care, or you're the only one who's
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And you have to lie because this is going to torpedo your political career and your husband's.
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And it matters because the other side is wrong on issues of consequence for millions of people.
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Is there a way to sympathize with her in that moment?
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And I don't doubt that she did fall in love with Bill Clinton.
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But at the same time, I think it would be naive to believe that their marriage was entirely
00:28:08.920
It was also a political partnership and in which she used that partnership to gain political
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power in a way that I think was fundamentally illegitimate in the first Clinton administration.
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If we had elected two presidents or a co-president, she would be ineligible to run right now.
00:28:30.080
She wants to be, you know, the advocate of a clean system in government and against campaign
00:28:39.540
But there she is making millions of dollars in ways she didn't need to off very many banks,
00:28:46.460
off many entities, and many foreign governments that are just despicable.
00:28:50.660
Uh, you can't, there's plenty of ways to excuse what they did and to justify it.
00:28:56.740
And they provided those excuses and justifications.
00:28:59.160
And, and in many cases, as I said, I supported Clinton in 92, but over the long run, these things
00:29:04.900
do change you that if you sacrifice your integrity repeatedly, even if every single time for a little
00:29:14.820
The cumulative effect of this is to render you incapable of taking any principled or moral
00:29:23.860
People, when they say they don't trust her, they, they, I think most people have watched
00:29:29.380
closely and they know that, yes, she will switch around.
00:29:35.820
Uh, she will be pragmatic around principle in a way that cumulatively gets to be disturbing.
00:29:45.280
Every, no politician is, you know, Martin Luther King Jr.
00:29:48.760
You know, they're not, we have to accept that, but there's something particularly sustained
00:29:54.340
and merciless about her sacrifice of principles in pursuit of power.
00:29:59.940
And I think to be skeptical about that and also to believe that that kind of figure can
00:30:05.180
never actually reach people and persuade them in moments of, of difficulty or crisis, that
00:30:11.800
there's someone that they can look to, there's someone they can trust.
00:30:17.120
She doesn't have that with the American people.
00:30:21.360
I think if she were president, and I think she probably will be at this point to actually
00:30:24.600
sit down and really be the president of all the people in a way, for example, that Barack
00:30:28.280
Obama could and did, however hostile people are to him.
00:30:33.540
People do actually think of him as having integrity because he actually does have integrity.
00:30:37.640
Now, he's a hard act to match, and that's why he beat her.
00:30:42.940
But here again, you've been in the White House for two terms as first lady.
00:30:55.580
What you do in her case was to try and prevent any rising star in the Democratic Party from
00:31:00.320
ever challenging her, holding on so that it's her turn, holding the entire party hostage
00:31:06.560
to her own fortunes, squelching possible new blood in order to get another term in the
00:31:17.100
And at some point, look, I don't want a saint, but there was something consistent about this.
00:31:22.960
Uh, and it's, it's typified, for example, by her, you know, claiming to be an avatar of gay
00:31:28.900
rights while her husband signed the defensive marriage act, doubled the number of people
00:31:34.120
And then crucially, I'll give you two examples.
00:31:37.120
One ran advertisements in the South touting in 96, his exclusion of gay people from marriage
00:31:45.540
And subsequently, and I'll tell you this, when I went in, I was testifying in Congress, uh,
00:31:52.540
And we were ready to go in and make our case that very morning, the Clinton justice department
00:31:57.600
set, put out in a completely unnecessary guidance that they believed that the defensive marriage
00:32:02.840
act had no, no constitutional problems whatsoever, just to kick us in the gut to kill off this
00:32:17.240
It's the personal experience of this to be personally lied to.
00:32:21.020
To be told, as I was personally told by George Stephanopoulos, that they would in don't ask,
00:32:26.880
don't tell, completely ensure that no one was subsequently fired.
00:32:31.600
And yet they doubled the discharges from the military and did nothing about it.
00:32:35.720
And to sign the defensive marriage act for Bill Clinton to do that while he's making a
00:32:43.980
At some point, you just have to say, I, I, there's something about these people.
00:32:48.620
There is something about these people that is not trustworthy.
00:32:51.840
There's something about these people that in the end will defend themselves against any
00:33:00.960
And I, I certainly understand why you have to make compromises.
00:33:04.620
There's something about the relentless willingness to sacrifice any core principles that they have
00:33:10.720
that has rightly made us, many of us deeply skeptical of them.
00:33:15.580
I also think, just leave the moral and ethical question.
00:33:19.360
I just don't think she's been that good in public life.
00:33:22.180
I just don't think she's a very good, not just a very good politician, which now even her supporters
00:33:27.480
acknowledge and as a candidate, terribly weak candidate in many respects, but not very good in
00:33:33.400
When you ask her, what has she done in 30 years?
00:33:38.840
She has one good argument, I think, which is the S-CHIP program, which really did give
00:33:43.280
children greater health security, health insurance options than they had before, which I think
00:33:53.420
She also, by bungling health care reform in the first term of the Clinton administration,
00:33:58.700
made health, you know, expanding health insurance of people less likely for another 20 years.
00:34:04.260
As Secretary of State, she supported, the only ways you can see her actual input, she supported
00:34:10.240
Libyan intervention, which, if you've supported the Iraq war and say you've learned the lessons,
00:34:17.220
which is the best way to think of what she said, although she's took a hell of a long time
00:34:22.220
admitting it, and only admitted it when it would help her politically, one points out.
00:34:27.680
But then to admit that you did something stupid by deciding that you're going to remove a dictator
00:34:32.780
in a Middle East country without planning for the aftermath, and then do it entirely one
00:34:38.320
more time when you're a Secretary of State, creating chaos in Libya.
00:34:43.440
Although many people have pointed out that there was at least one relevant difference there,
00:34:47.040
which is that you had a significant popular uprising calling for intervention in Libya,
00:34:56.360
I mean, the Shia were constantly, and the Kurds were constantly asking for intervention,
00:35:01.060
I think even now, America's intervention in Libya is still popular.
00:35:06.660
I mean, it's still, it's like 70% of Libyans think that it was a good thing.
00:35:10.640
But it is, it is a chaotic situation where ISIS has gained ground.
00:35:15.320
Um, I think there was bad judgment on her part.
00:35:19.880
And I think it's one of the greatest, uh, mistakes.
00:35:23.260
And even now, she is attempting to get us militarily involved in, in Syria.
00:35:28.760
She's learned very little from her own mistakes.
00:35:37.360
And I think you could see it in the debates for her to actually defend her record,
00:35:40.880
to point anything that really, she made a difference that wasn't itself disastrous.
00:35:45.320
Well, there were a couple of great moments last night in the debate that, I mean, she,
00:35:49.920
I think you share my view that she just destroyed him last night.
00:35:56.520
But in ways or, or by techniques that also don't recommend her for any kind of award for
00:36:05.020
I mean, she, so, you know, there were two moments where I was really flabbergasted that,
00:36:14.220
The one where he asked her whether she would give back the 20 or $25 million that the Clinton
00:36:22.240
And, and that just, he just kept talking there and, and didn't give her any space to reply.
00:36:29.340
And also she didn't really, she didn't address at all his claims about Bill Clinton's sexual
00:36:35.500
But you could see in those moments how compromised she is ethically in that she just, she really
00:36:43.100
She can't just give a, a straightforward defense of what he's pointing to there.
00:36:48.560
And she just has to hope that nobody notices and the topic changes.
00:36:52.360
This is an election, which weirdly enough became a core issue of sexual assault and the
00:36:59.080
And she's the first woman candidate, the president, and she's barely been able to say a single
00:37:05.240
thing about it because of her, because of her being, and she recognizes this, utterly
00:37:14.200
She's also utterly compromised by telling all sorts of private audiences that she believes
00:37:20.300
in open borders when she's now advocating to fend off Trump's attacks, that she's actually
00:37:30.500
Because I've seen that WikiLeaks email and my reading of that is certainly much closer
00:37:36.780
to what she suggested in the debate, which is she's, I mean, either she was talking about
00:37:42.280
energy and trade and just used the phrase open borders to signify just the free flow of
00:37:48.320
goods and information and electrons, or she was talking in a much more utopian style of,
00:37:56.620
you know, we all want to live in a world where there is open borders and just the free flow
00:38:01.820
But she was not claiming that she wants unchecked immigration to the United States.
00:38:12.880
Um, and I do think, but again, the rhetoric she's using to a particular group, which she
00:38:19.420
then did everything she could to prevent being aired precisely because she worried about the
00:38:24.580
discrepancy, at least in the rhetoric between her private rhetoric and her public rhetoric,
00:38:32.040
There is, and the rhetoric she gives to the bankers when she's inside and when she's talking
00:38:37.200
about reining them in on the outside, you know, there's only, again, one instance of
00:38:42.920
this might be one thing you can slough up, but this is a, this is a lifetime of doing this.
00:38:48.540
And the other thing I would say is that is her offhand remarks when she's caught privately.
00:38:53.560
So for example, in these fundraisers, these gay fundraisers, by the way, where she, you
00:38:59.040
know, she calls, uh, millions of people irredeemable, uh, in an election.
00:39:05.740
Now, not only just pragmatically, I think that is stupid, but it's you, the attitude,
00:39:12.600
the condescension, the dismissal of, of lots of people.
00:39:16.760
Um, even if there are plenty of people, obviously in this alt-right Trump movement that are just
00:39:23.000
foul and despicable, but no one's irredeemable.
00:39:27.180
Well, I think there, there are people who are, I mean, just judging from my communications
00:39:31.480
online and in my inbox, I think there are people who are irredeemable for all practical
00:39:36.860
purposes in terms of getting them to understand what's true in the world.
00:39:42.680
I was just talking to Peter Singer on a previous podcast.
00:39:46.860
You know, I hear from people who claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.
00:39:52.600
It was engineered by the Obama administration to justify him coming to take our guns, right?
00:39:58.220
But to say that half of his supporters are in this category, which he then had to walk
00:40:04.740
back and she withdrew and retracted what she said, half of it.
00:40:08.080
Look, yes, there are irredeemable people in that mix.
00:40:11.500
There are also deplorable people, but to dismiss half of his supporters, that's, that's 20% of
00:40:18.280
Um, you see, I think what the Clint, the Clintons really don't fundamentally believe in the American
00:40:24.180
They think the American people cannot really adjust or accept the arguments that they really
00:40:32.020
Uh, they think they're bigots and racists, uh, Neanderthals that have to be lied to in
00:40:40.780
Don't you think the support for Trump and, and we're going to segue now into talking about
00:40:47.380
Yeah, I, I, I actually, I want to bash the Clintons a little bit more, but.
00:40:50.800
Well, I just want to give you, I just want to insist, you know, anybody listening to this,
00:40:55.100
I am passionately in favor of her winning this election passionately.
00:41:00.140
Even though I have no illusions at all about what a wretched example of the worst kind of
00:41:09.440
I don't mean, well, not the worst kind, but a kind of low level systemic liberal condescension
00:41:15.140
and arrogance, as well as money grubbing corruption that, uh, that really is disgusting.
00:41:22.360
I, I'm, I'm still completely without any qualms supporting her for this, for this election.
00:41:29.280
Believe me, I, I would not have led us here if I didn't know we were getting to that punchline
00:41:34.140
because my goal here is not to reduce the likelihood that she's going to be the next
00:41:38.580
president, because I really do feel, and I think you feel as well, that we are witnessing a,
00:41:43.720
a fairly frightening moment in American politics.
00:41:47.540
I think it's the most frightening moment of my adult lifetime.
00:41:50.600
But to take a few more whacks at the lady, when Trump said, are you going to give back the
00:41:55.620
money to the Saudis, the 20 million, I forget if it's 20 million or 25 million and, you know,
00:42:00.100
the other Gulf states have given a ton of money to the foundation.
00:42:11.620
What you can say is, look, yeah, I took $20 million for however many dollars from a disgusting
00:42:19.640
And, you know, that's, yes, if you want to really raise big money to help people who are
00:42:26.280
living and dying with HIV in Africa, you'll get it, take it from whoever.
00:42:33.980
But to say that, she'd have to say the Saudis are despicable.
00:42:38.620
I mean, whose vote is she afraid to lose if she speaks more honestly about Islam and Islamism
00:42:45.740
and the spread of jihadism and the Saudis' role in doing that and the necessity to achieve
00:42:56.260
I mean, why can't she speak basic human sanity on this point?
00:43:00.720
Because it would give her some political liabilities as president with respect to the U.S.
00:43:06.900
relationship with Saudi Arabia, which she wants to keep open.
00:43:10.160
She can't, characterologically, can't take a clear moral stance on these questions.
00:43:16.500
That's what people say when they don't trust her.
00:43:18.340
They can feel there's an obvious answer to this, but she can't do it.
00:43:21.980
Like, for example, on border security, she actually, if she wanted to go at Trump and
00:43:27.080
say, look, I'm in favor of tough border security, I believe in that.
00:43:32.420
I voted for many things that beefed up the border.
00:43:36.000
I mean, this metaphor of the wall is one thing.
00:43:42.140
Because she then worries, well, that will alienate some Latinos that I have to keep on
00:43:47.540
She couldn't make a distinction in the convention between legal and illegal immigrants, which
00:43:55.240
One of the things that Trump has been able to use because she doesn't want to offend this
00:44:04.180
Uh, and, and, and that's, that's, that's what drives you crazy about them after a while.
00:44:16.940
And, and, and it's that constant hedging, that constant leaving, abandoning any sort of
00:44:25.440
So for example, on Obamacare, she could not say, which she should say, what we have to
00:44:31.320
do to make this work is to beef up the individual mandate, to make sure more healthy people are
00:44:37.380
And the government's going to have to do that to make this work.
00:44:40.340
Now she won't do that because that would possibly alienate some people just as, uh, and so she
00:44:45.640
won't, she won't, doesn't want to alienate the Saudi government.
00:44:50.240
And so we end up in this sort of calculative muddle in the middle where people don't trust
00:44:56.500
And my worry is that if you don't trust her now, how are you going to trust her when,
00:45:04.100
Well, I, you know, I mean, I think it's a dangerous, I mean, I don't, I, I, I'm, we
00:45:07.660
can talk about this, but I, I, I'm fearful of her presidency in the sense that I'm not sure
00:45:12.480
she has the ballast to hold this country together at a time when it seems to be careening
00:45:17.120
Well, one, one thing that's causing it to fly apart is this is the way it seems to me
00:45:22.900
based on my communications with people and just what I read online.
00:45:26.940
We're living in just a totally balkanized epistemology where people are getting their
00:45:34.260
information from sources that you just have a kind of the Breitbart universe and the New
00:45:41.440
And they almost don't share a worldview on any level.
00:45:46.480
Occasionally some fact will cross the boundary there and remain a fact, but the role that
00:45:51.880
conspiracy theory plays in our world and the way in which it is potentiated at every point
00:46:00.960
I mean, you find, you know, like the WikiLeaks emails in my reading of them thus far is that
00:46:05.720
there's really not much there that is surprising.
00:46:09.320
I mean, I like, how did you think the sausage was getting made and what did you think the
00:46:13.400
private communications in a campaign would look like?
00:46:17.200
I mean, there's not, there are things there we wish wouldn't be there.
00:46:20.240
We wish people wouldn't operate this way, but there's nothing there that I've seen that
00:46:24.940
is fundamentally shocking or that tells us something we don't know or that is, or didn't know or
00:46:30.380
that, or that would be disqualifying to her candidacy.
00:46:34.700
What's shocking, however, is that people's private correspondence can be hacked and delivered
00:46:40.760
And I think, and I think the ability for politics to function at all, for government to function
00:46:49.680
Any organization has to have something that's private so that it can actually function.
00:46:58.760
The Trump phenomenon is also a point in her favor.
00:47:00.960
To go back to the comment you made a few minutes ago, that one of the things that is odious
00:47:05.160
about her is that she believes you have to have a public and private conversation, which
00:47:10.440
are distinct because the people can't handle the truth.
00:47:14.620
There's so little appetite or ability for honest reasoning that people will seize upon
00:47:21.040
your words, like the way she was using the phrase open borders in context, as opposed to
00:47:29.940
And you'll never become president or you'll never achieve the office you're seeking because
00:47:35.980
people are stupid and cynical and the truth will be used against you.
00:47:47.120
He actually did articulate what he wanted to do in his speeches, in his State of the
00:47:56.500
Although we don't have his private email communication from his campaign.
00:48:00.100
No, but we do know that he had confidence not in lying to the American people about who
00:48:07.740
Um, and he won two elections and he is, you know, ending with an approval rating that's
00:48:15.520
I think the Clintons give up before they even start.
00:48:19.480
And I think they've learned this from being hazed essentially in the, and, and coming of
00:48:25.020
that generation of Democrats who, especially during Reagan and Bush really believed that
00:48:34.820
And therefore the only way to advance themselves was to do all this stuff on the hush hush.
00:48:40.700
I saw this particularly with gay rights where they refused to make strong, clear arguments
00:48:47.500
Some of us were out there trying to make the substantive arguments, believing if we made
00:48:51.820
those substantive arguments and the American people would come along.
00:48:55.080
And you know what they did, they, a third of the American people changed their mind over
00:48:59.180
15 years because we didn't adhere to this idea that the American people are essentially
00:49:06.300
a bunch of idiots and also bigots that you have to, you have to, in order to be, to advance
00:49:14.020
reasonable goals, you have to somehow dissemble because the people can't be trusted.
00:49:21.300
They come from the view that no one really agrees with them there, but they have to do
00:49:25.020
this by stealth and they have to have one conversation inside the tent and another conversation
00:49:31.080
Now, not that, that is, that is not what Barack Obama has done or has said, and he's been
00:49:37.080
But actually in defense of Clinton or, or to impugn Obama as well, he's done it really in
00:49:43.440
the identical way she has on the topic of Islam and jihadism.
00:49:48.300
This lie that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing to do with terrorism and
00:49:56.780
And I mean this, I've talked about this on the podcast many times, that there certainly
00:50:04.020
And it may in fact be true that it is politically prudent or just geopolitically prudent to lie
00:50:11.720
But it is a lie and everyone knows it's a lie and the experience of being lied to on
00:50:17.900
that point, especially in the immediate aftermath of some terrorist atrocity is so galling.
00:50:24.980
And the difference is that Obama has explained candidly why he won't say, for example, radical
00:50:30.940
jihadist terrorism because he thinks it will make it harder to defeat radical jihadist terrorism.
00:50:36.680
Now you can agree or disagree with that, but he said that, that he's simply just at the 11th hour being pushed.
00:50:45.840
I mean, for after years of, I mean, he said it in a way, I found his defense of the way he talks about
00:50:51.100
this fairly infuriating because it was a really bullying, hectoring, sanctimonious attack on people
00:50:58.320
who just want an honest discussion of the issues.
00:51:01.100
And I think, I mean, I certainly can argue that we would empower the moderate Muslims and the reformers
00:51:07.520
in the Muslim world much more if we just had an honest discussion about the civil war that's occurring
00:51:18.300
I do think that the role that you and I have is different than the role of a president running a war.
00:51:27.500
And there are in, in wartime, there are some things that you don't want to give the enemy
00:51:36.720
And one of the reasons, for example, I'm for Clinton, not Trump is that I think a Trump victory
00:51:41.800
would empower jihadist terror in a way that, that would be terrifying.
00:51:48.200
And that, and that his then response to that would be incredibly destructive of our constitution
00:51:58.100
So in some ways, I think, and the fact that she referred to Lincoln in some of these respects,
00:52:05.200
that there is a balance, especially in wartime, which is what Lincoln was dealing with.
00:52:11.480
It's what actually any president of this country, insofar as jihadist terrorism is in some way,
00:52:18.080
has declared war on us and who we are, is going to have to have some wartime cavilling
00:52:25.740
of the truth, just as happened in the Second World War.
00:52:28.900
There are, there are some things that are allowed in that context, I think.
00:52:32.280
Now, I agree with you, it's frustrating, and I don't think it's actually very helpful.
00:52:35.560
But I think there's a legitimate argument for it, and I think Obama finally did explain.
00:52:42.540
It's also true, of course, that just saying these words doesn't actually help us develop
00:52:48.280
a strategy, although I do agree with you that it, I think it would help air the real differences
00:52:53.540
between many Muslims and what this disgusting, terroristic, and violent impulse is, and ideology
00:53:02.720
But the other problem is that it has, at least from my perspective, given us Trump.
00:53:09.100
Obviously, there are other reasons as well, but it is one of the main ones that has brought
00:53:14.160
Trump to the very threshold of the Oval Office, because, I mean, I'm hearing, it is the most
00:53:20.060
common thing I hear, and again, I get a fair amount of this from my erstwhile readers and
00:53:27.120
listeners, there are many single-issue voters out there, and the issue is Islam, terrorism,
00:53:35.620
immigration, insofar as we're talking about Syrian refugees coming in who are going to be
00:53:44.140
These are not people who are worried about Latinos coming to pick our fruit.
00:53:50.140
I mean, the migrant crisis in Europe is a disaster.
00:53:53.300
I mean, as much as your heart breaks for the people who are coming out of the hellhole of
00:53:59.720
Syria, who you would just want to help and who are never going to become jihadists, what
00:54:04.600
is happening in Europe is really horrible for...
00:54:10.180
And Merkel, you know, bears a huge amount of responsibility for that.
00:54:13.960
Um, uh, and I think, for example, some of that is precisely why the UK left the EU, um,
00:54:36.960
Um, we have two vast oceans, but yeah, I do think that not addressing this from a, a really,
00:54:44.220
uh, constructive, clear-minded and positive way does allow someone like Trump to gain
00:54:53.480
credibility because people want to hear someone telling the truth.
00:54:57.220
Just as it's important that it's true that many people are in this country, especially those
00:55:04.200
without degrees with, uh, are, have, do have their wages depressed by mass immigration,
00:55:10.040
especially immigration that is not in any way legal or documented.
00:55:16.740
Um, and when he says we're either a country or we're not a country, he's right.
00:55:21.380
And it frustrates me that not addressing those facts will lead to extremists and crazy people
00:55:34.000
Uh, and that's, that's deeply, deeply concerning.
00:55:39.280
So, so let's begin to segue into why none of this matters.
00:55:44.360
Given, given all her flaws, what do you think Clinton will actually do, you know, with respect
00:55:51.520
to immigration, with respect to jihadism, which happens.
00:55:55.460
So, so for, you know, my, my argument against the people who whinge at me about Islam and
00:56:01.000
jihadism and Clinton's lying about it, my argument is that clearly she knows where the
00:56:07.800
jihadists are and she has been prosecuting or has played her part in prosecuting a war
00:56:14.000
If you're a liberal, perhaps to a fault, right?
00:56:16.880
Sounds like you are that sort of liberal, at least on that point, you, you think she's
00:56:20.360
too interventionist, probably too eager to fly drones over foreign countries, whether
00:56:25.500
acknowledged or not, and you're too eager to bomb jihadists and not think too hard about
00:56:33.400
We could talk a lot about the wisdom or not of intervening in, in the Middle East at this
00:56:39.560
point, but it seems to me that there's no question she understands that we have a problem
00:56:45.540
with jihadism, that securing our country against terrorism and against the spread of Islamism
00:56:56.060
And if you wander too far afield here, you get into the, you know, the conspiracy theories
00:57:01.100
about Huma Abedin and, and just how she's just in the tank for the Saudis and the fact
00:57:08.300
that Clinton has taken money from the Saudis and the Qataris and all the rest into the Clinton
00:57:14.420
Foundation will make her somehow unable to prosecute the war on terror.
00:57:23.600
I mean, precisely because she's such an operator, she's perfectly capable of taking money for
00:57:28.720
them and not feeling any moral obligation to uphold them in future.
00:57:35.080
And, and, and just, I mean, this is a point that I was surprised she didn't make in the
00:57:38.180
debate because she's, she's being often slimed and, and even slimed by Trump himself, this
00:57:43.520
billionaire or, or pseudo billionaire for being completely beholden to the billionaires
00:57:50.240
who give her, who given her money, both for her campaign and for her foundation.
00:57:54.480
And yet she's explicitly promised to raise taxes on them.
00:57:58.340
Why doesn't she say, listen, if I'm so such a puppet of the billionaires, why can I promise
00:58:03.480
now prior to the election that I'm going to raise taxes on them?
00:58:08.520
The good thing about having no principles and no core loyalties is that you can, you can
00:58:15.480
Um, and, uh, but again, she doesn't want to quite advertise that she has no principles
00:58:21.840
So she's again, slightly constraining herself on those, on those issues.
00:58:26.880
Um, but yeah, and, and, and vice versa, if Trump is the real tribune of the plebs, why
00:58:33.080
is he giving all these people a massive tax cut?
00:58:38.460
Don't you think there's something a little more sympathetic we can say about her at that
00:58:43.140
point though, where she, it's not just that she has no principles.
00:58:46.220
It's just that there is, I mean, to take the foundation as the narrow case, she will take
00:58:51.580
money from even odious people because she actually knows she can do good with it.
00:58:58.920
And she, and her heart is in the right place insofar as what she wants to get done in the
00:59:04.660
I mean, if she, if she had all the power, what do you think the world would look like?
00:59:07.960
It would not be a world of shocking inequality and children, you know, working, you know,
00:59:13.780
in sweatshops, it would be a world very much like the one you hope to have realized at some
00:59:20.480
It's not that her heart's in the wrong place on these issues.
00:59:27.200
Why not take the Saudi money and use it to deal with the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa?
00:59:34.840
Uh, and, and the one thing I don't like is the personal money grubbing.
00:59:40.640
Oh, you mean, so just the personal enrichment through speeches, the personal enrichment
00:59:44.360
through speeches to people and organizations and regimes that are really disgusting, right?
00:59:56.480
Well, I mean, and Bill Clinton has been especially egregious there.
01:00:00.020
Did, I mean, do, do you know the stories of him asking to give speeches?
01:00:06.480
I forget which regimes they were, but, you know, obviously the wrong ones, you know, with
01:00:12.040
terrible human rights records, he, he wanted to give his, you know, $400,000 keynote somewhere
01:00:17.740
and sent something like three appeals to the state department to get this okayed.
01:00:30.580
I mean, just like the next $400,000, even when you've made whatever it was, 48 million
01:00:36.500
in a period of four years on your speeches, it's just, he's just got to grab that, that
01:00:41.740
I mean, these people have never seen a check they didn't like.
01:00:45.220
And it seems as if they, they can't just be well off.
01:00:51.500
They have to, they have to hobnob with some of the most wealthy individuals in the world.
01:00:58.780
And they want to compete with those people and be in that, that league again.
01:01:04.740
I'm not, we're not electing saints, but there's something unseemly about their money grubbing
01:01:10.080
and their, their ability to accept massive conflicts of interest in order to enrich themselves.
01:01:19.540
I forget the name of the charity, but you'd remember the, that model who was hit in the,
01:01:24.500
the Asian tsunami and who's, I think, lost her boyfriend or fiance.
01:01:27.860
And then she started a charity, I think, for Indonesian relief, you know, tsunami relief.
01:01:33.720
And this got a fair amount of press at one point and they held a fundraiser for her charity.
01:01:39.860
And I think it raised like a million dollars and Clinton was the keynote.
01:01:43.720
But then it comes out that he charged $500,000 for his keynote.
01:01:50.400
So, I mean, I mean, it would never, it's like he, he, he's already, he's already,
01:01:56.140
and maybe this money went to the Clinton Foundation.
01:01:58.420
Let's say that's the best case scenario, but he's already fantastically wealthy.
01:02:03.760
He's ostensibly supporting this charity that's just struggling to be born.
01:02:08.640
And all he has to do is show up and give his speech.
01:02:18.280
That tells me like everything I need to know about him.
01:02:23.380
I mean, when I, if I am speaking, you know, like in a couple of weeks, I'm, I, you know,
01:02:27.080
I'm going to speak with Richard Dawkins at a benefit for the, the Center for Inquiry and
01:02:33.940
It would never occur to me to ask to be paid to do that.
01:02:39.980
It's like, there's something, it's like, let's get every last dime, no matter what you, you
01:02:47.380
There's an, there's, there's an extremity to them that takes, even if you were to, even
01:02:52.940
if I were to concede the point that ex-presidents should be able to, um, make a huge amount of
01:02:57.740
money off, uh, you know, private speaking to private groups.
01:03:01.380
There is, there is simply a degree with which they are, let's put it, let's put it, you know,
01:03:06.540
they, they are money grubbing, uh, in a way that, that really does leave one's jaw open
01:03:15.560
And you look at someone like Jimmy Carter, who, who, who has behaved in such an exemplary
01:03:25.540
I think one of the reasons our democracy is in such terrible straits.
01:03:29.220
And the reason that people are so cynical about it is because they see these public officials,
01:03:33.920
uh, trying to use public office for their own personal enrichment.
01:03:38.380
And that is, it may be in any individual case defensible, but collectively and politically
01:03:49.940
Well, the, the, the revolving door that people talk about is obviously corrupting where you
01:03:54.520
have senators who become lobbyists, who become senators, who become lobbyists.
01:03:58.880
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