The Long Game

Brendan Buck worked for two Republican Speakers of the House: John Boehner and Paul Ryan. He's now a partner at the strategic comms shop Seven Letter. I first met him when I was writing about the rise of the Tea Party a decade ago, which feels like much longer than that. We talk about some of the ways that American politics is structured to make it hard for politicians to do what they know is right, including telling the truth to their own supporters. Brendan thinks that is one of the main reasons we are in this mess, bc the GOP in particular has lied to its own voters for many years, telling them that the government is all bad and that the Republican party is not fighting hard enough for them. This is the first episode of 2021. Almost exactly a month ago, in mid-December, on the last episode, John Dickerson of CBS News said that the failure of Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell to rebuke President Trump's lies about the 2020 election had done "real damage" to American democracy. At the time, one of McConnell's top advisers, Josh Holmes, mocked Dickerson. "It's genuinely astonishing how little the media knows about American politics today and the American electorate. They still operate as though they're Walter Cronkite telling you "that's the way it is" when in reality over half of America believes, with cause, nothing they say," Holmes tweeted. In another tweet, Holmes said that "media isn't relevant." Steven Law, another close McConnell adviser, tweeted in response that Holmes' rebuke was "the wake-up call the American media needs but will never hear as they get left further and further behind." I'm most interested in looking forward to solving problems. But this dismissal of sober warnings about the danger of lying to the American people, and of authoritarian behavior, is a lesson going forward. What happened at the U.S. capitol last week: THAT is the wake up call. Going forward, there are legitimate considerations among Republicans for a variety of strategies to rid itself of the influence of Trumpism. Liz Cheney represents the faction that seeks to directly confront it. Kevin McCarthy may have coddled and encouraged Trump's lies about the election, but he did take some initial steps toward telling Republican voters the truth -- long overdue -- on Wednesday. McCarthy opposed the impeachment vote, but he called for the House to censure Trump and rejected the alternative reality that many Trump supporters live in. McCarthy forcefully and clearly said that Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election, he rejected false conspiracy theories about Antifa activists assaulting the capitol, and he held Trump responsible for the violence."The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding," McCarthy said. It remains to be seen what happens in the U.S. Senate when they take up the impeachment issue likely near the end of next week. What I'm praying for between now and then is an uneventful and peaceful several days during which Joe Biden will be inaugurated the next president. But whatever the strategy is going forward, we have learned a painful lesson. Leaders who engage in endless lying, show clear disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution, and express clear authoritarian leanings, must be confronted and stopped. This was the animating idea that sparked the creation of this podcast in 2017. If the Republican party had done this in 2015, America would have been spared so much pain... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Dickerson is a correspondent for 60 Minutes, a political analyst for CBS News, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and one of the three hosts of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast, which incredibly has been going for 15 years. He was previously the host of "Face the Nation" and a co-host on "CBS This Morning." John's most recent book "The Hardest Job In the World: The American Presidency," looks at the history of and expectations for the office, and says America's process for picking presidents is badly broken. "We encourage impulsive, winner-take-all displays of momentary flash to win a job that requires restraint, deliberation, and cooperation," he wrote. And Americans have gone too far in seeking always to send an outsider to Washington to disrupt the status quo. "Our presidential candidates go through no apprenticeship process to test whether they have governing qualities ... We're not simply judging a book by its cover, we're judging a bomb-defusing manual by its cover." And so in this episode I ask John about why he thinks we should acknowledge that presidents do sometimes have to lie or mislead, and that we need to have intelligent criteria for analyzing whether someone is lying in a way that is constructive or destructive. We talk about how he thinks primaries should change, and how our political debates need to be completely overhauled. And we discuss Trump's attempts to overturn the election, and Mitch McConnell's long-delayed recognition of Joe Biden's election win. The weeks of saying nothing while Trump misled millions into believing the election was stolen has done what John calls "serious damage" to democracy. We end with a few thoughts on Advent. Thank you for listening to this show. I hope you have rest and peace over these holidays. My family and I celebrate Christmas, and I wish those of you who do as well as Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, andd Happy New Year. Outro song: "Summer's End" by John Prine Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matthew Sheffield fought against liberal bias in the news media for years. He grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon family, one of 10 children. His street preacher father watched CBS News. And in the late 90's Matthew started getting into blogging, as we called it then, mostly pointing out examples of media biased. He started a site called Rather Biased, inspired by CBS News' famous broadcaster. And in 2005 he and his brother started Newsbusters. A few weeks ago, Matthew wrote out a remarkable thread on Twitter, where he wrote that he "was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being 'unfair' to conservative views." And Sheffield doesn't dismiss the notion of liberal bias in the media. "There is still much to that argument," he wrote, "but eventually I saw that I was missing context." After Sheffield went to work at the Washington Examiner, where he was the newspaper's first online editor, he says he realized that "U.S. conservatives do not understand the purpose of journalism." "I didn't understand that journalism is supposed to portray reality," Sheffield wrote. The Examiner was the first place where Sheffield says he saw the kind of standards that differentiate "actual media and reporting institutions" — that may have inherent or even conscious bias — from right-wing websites for whom partisan bias is the north star, the guiding principle. "Truth for conservative journalists is anything that harms 'the left.' It doesn't even have to be a fact," he wrote. "I eventually realized that most people who run right-dominated media outlets see it as their DUTY to be unfair and to favor Republicans because doing so would some how counteract perceived liberal bias." "Most conservative media figures have no journalism training or desire to fact-check their own side," he added. After his time at the Examiner, Sheffield oversaw the polling operation at The Hill newspaper, and has also been a staff reporter for Salon. Sheffield is writing a memoir about his upbringing and is host of a podcast called Theory of Change. He's also working on launching a new online venture which he says will be called Flux. Sheffield believes that much of the mainstream press doesn't write empathetically enough about most conservative voters. "The tens of millions of people who vote Republican are not deplorable. They are misled," he wrote. "And the mocking and tribalistic coverage that lefty media often engage in only makes things worse." Outro music: "Californian Soil" by London Grammar Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the most common defenses of President Trump's attempts to overturn the election results is that he was undermined for much of his presidency by the media and the so-called "deep state," primarily through the Russia investigation. In essence, it's revenge, and if millions of Americans are deceived into thinking that the election was stolen and that American democracy is destroyed -- despite any evidence at all of this -- then that's collateral damage to getting even. The latest example of this came from Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax. "For two years, the liberal media pushed this Russian hoax theory, and there didn't seem to be any substantiation at the end of the day and it was a pretty compelling, gripping story — controversial personalities, things happened, sparks were flying," he told the New York Times' Ben Smith. Obviously, it's wrong to put vengeance or ego or whatever is motivating the president ahead of and above the welfare of the nation and our future. But even on the merits, what are the facts? Was the Russia investigation a "hoax," as Trump says? What exactly happened with Russian interference in the 2016 election? Is there any legitimacy in comparing the Russia probe to Trump's refusal to concede? To untangle all this I spoke with Eli Lake, who is a nationally syndicated reporter who writes for Bloomberg View on national security matters. In the world of legitimate journalism, to distinguish it from the hacks and bad faith actors in partisan media and punditry, Eli has been among the most critical of former FBI Director Jim Comey and his handling of the Russia probe. He has also been very critical of the FBI's handling of former National Security Director James Flynn. Most recently, Eli wrote a column about Trump's pardon of Flynn, titled, "Trump Was Right to Pardon Michael Flynn" "It's tempting, in light of Trump's failure to accept the results of this year's presidential election, to wave away the evidence that Flynn was railroaded by the FBI and the Justice Department," Lake wrote. But, he concludes, "Every American deserves the same protections under the law — even those who work for Donald Trump." Eli has debated the Flynn portion of the Russia inquiry elsewhere. He and Ben Wittes did a lengthy back and forth on this a few months ago, and I recommend you listen to it. I mention that only to say that there is a way to interpret the context of the Flynn case differently than Eli does. But I think he has made a compelling case that Flynn was, as he put it, railroaded. And that's the thing. If I have one take away on the Russia story, it's that it is highly complicated, and it's not easy to reach clear conclusions. It's the opposite of the election, which is an easy call in black and white. There was no cheating that impacted the result, Trump is lying about that, his legal team has produced no evidence of fraud, and he is attacking democracy in what looks like will be a clumsy, failed, but nonetheless autocratic attempt, to use a term from Russian-American writer Masha Gessen, who has called Trump's actions an attempted coup. In January of this year, Lake published a nearly 8,000-word article summarizing the sprawling and complicated history of the Russia probe, which he characterized as "a cautionary tale... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Fetterman is the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, and the former mayor of Braddock, PA, which is just outside Pittsburgh. He and his wife Gisele and he have long been involved in community work, helping those who are in need, and that ethic characterized their time in Braddock, where they still live. Fetterman stands out, and always has. He's 6'8", bald, goateed, tatooed, and usually wears Carhart jackets and shirts -- the kind of clothing more often seen on those who work in construction and the like. Go google his wikipedia page. His official portrait shows him in a gray open-collar shirt with pockets on both sides -- he looks more like a skateboarder than a politician. As mayor of Braddock, Fetterman drew attention for his focus on revitalizing the dying town of Braddock, which had been hollowed out by the death of the steel industry, much like vast parts of that region. Now, Fetterman has become a regular fixture on MSNBC by virtue of his clever and forceful criticisms of President Trump's attempts to overturn the election. Much like Trump, a good bit of Fetterman's persona is playing out on Twitter. We talked here about the way that the Republican party in Pennsylvania made sure that it would take days to count mail ballots, giving Trump cover to make baseless claims about cheating. Fetterman called that "orchestrated." But he also surprised me by sort of defending Republican leaders in the legislature. Instead, he pointed the finger at the president and at his supporters. The most telling moment, to me, was Fetterman's comment that we are entering a post-truth era in our politics. Trump is making incredibly serious charges without any facts to back him up. Fetterman is very frank that this is just the beginning of a period where people can say or believe anything, regardless of what the facts are. That's the most serious problem now as we leave the Trump presidency behind. And in fact, we start our conversation in a back and forth over why it's been reported, falsely, that Fetterman calls himself a Democratic socialist. This is also on his Wikipedia page. And it's an example of why it's important to check these things, and verify them. Outro music: The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Theme Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The purpose of this episode is to help us think about how do we talk to people who are either confused by conspiracy theories or committed to them. How do we interact with family members who are in one of these categories. In just the last week I've had confronted these circumstances in my own life. I don't think I did very well. One of my biggest mistakes was trying to argue over text and email rather than in person or over the phone. And I talk here with Marianna Spring, who in March was assigned by the BBC in the UK to start reporting full time on the issue of disinformation and conspiracy theories. We discuss how to know the difference between a real conspiracy and a conspiracy theory, what the distinguishing hallmarks are of a conspiracy theory, and how to talk to people in these two groups: those confused by conspiracy theories and those committed to them. There are real conspiracies that have been uncovered in the past, like the Watergate scandal, or the CIA's domestic spying program during the in the late 60's and early 70's, or the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, or the use of extraodinary rendition and torture of military detainees by the U.S. government after 9/11, or the tobacco industry's deceit of the public about the health effects of smoking. All came to light through investigative journalism, the courage of whistle-blowers working with the press, or state-sponsored inquiries. Tools like Freedom of Information requests have been crucial as well. None of these things were uncovered by people who believe in the kind of conspiracy theories that are defined by the following characteristics: Negative evidence - the absence of evidence is the first tell-tale sign. It is the first chess move of a conspiracy theory, because it serves to prompt the obvious retort from a skeptic: "Where is the evidence?" This response is then used to paint the skeptic as close-minded and potentially even part of the plot to suppress the truth. "Errant data" - conspiracy theories will often rely on obscure and complex analyses, many times of the statistical or analytical variety, that offer a veneer of sophistication but which are usually hot air. A highly effective master plan. A conspiracy theory asserts that there are no accidents. Everything is intended. Of course, that's not how reality works. There is a shadowy, often nameless villain or group of bad guys pulling the strings. Circular reasoning, or contradictory claims, are often part of a conspiracy theory Knowability skepticism - if you hear someone saying that we can't actually know for sure what happened, that's a hallmark of conspiracy theories. And finally, conspiracy theories are self-reinforcing or self-insulating. Reality itself -- the existence of a plausible explanation, even if there's evidence for it -- is part of the plot, because that's "what they want you to believe." ---- About that Giuliani press conference. Andrew McCarthy at National Review explained this the day before the Giuliani press conference in a column published Wednesday: "Realistically speaking, the legal battle over the 2020 election is over. As I explained over the weekend, from President Trump's perspective, that battle is beset by a fatal mismatch between (a) what his campaign is in a... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Applying conservative principles doesn't mean just keep flipping through the 1980 playbook until you find the right tax cut," said Oren Cass, executive director of American Compass. Cass, 37, is an up and coming conservative thinker who got his start in politics on Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Cass was an associate at Bain and Company, where Romney had worked before starting Bain Capital. Cass held a senior policy adviser position in 2012, when Romney became the GOP nominee. Since then, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, has credited Cass with inspiring some of his proposals on reducing poverty. Cass was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, before starting American Compass. His 2018 book, "The Once and Future Worker," has received praise from conservatives and from some on the left as well. Cass says that many on the right have been "lazy" in relying on tax cuts as a one-size-fits-all solution, and that Republicans should do more to align themselves with organized labor. "I think there are huge problems with the way labor unions operate in America but the idea of labor unions, the idea that we should want workers to be able to organize, to have collective representation, to bargain on an equal footing with their employers, conservatives should love that," he said. Outro music: "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life," by Monty Python. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Alberta is chief political author at Politico and author of the 2019 New York Times Bestseller, "American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump." We talk about what comes next for the Republican party in the wake of an election where it showed promising trends for the future, but in which the party's leader and the sitting president told lie after lie about the integrity of the election, dragging some of the leading figures in the party with him. Tim's recent piece, "The Election that Broke the Republican Party," is here. The interview with Democrat David Shor in Politico about challenges facing the Democratic party is here. Outro music: "House of a Thousand Guitars" by Bruce Springsteen Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mindy Belz has been with World Magazine since its founding in 1986. It's a publication aimed at evangelical Christians, started by her brother in law, Joel Belz. Emily Belz, Mindy's daughter, is also at World now, and has worked at the New York Daily News and The Indianapolis Star. Mindy has spent 20 years covering the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria. This is a story that truly did get overlooked: before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, there were about 1 million Christians in Iraq, living out a version of the faith with incredibly ancient roots. Many Christians in that region still speak Aramaic, the tongue that Christ himself spoke. But 17 years later, the Christian community in Iraq has been decimated by violence and intimidation. Only about 100,000 Christians remain there. The faith there has almost become extinct in terms of sheer population size. Mindy and I discuss a little bit how much decisions made, or not made, by the Bush administration, are responsible for that. Mindy's book on this topic, "They Say We are Infidels: On the Run from from ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East," came out in 2015. I recommend it. The suffering of this community there, and in Syria, is tough to comprehend. I first thought of interviewing Mindy when I saw her tweet something last May. It was in response to protests against COVID restrictions. "For 6 yrs I've reported on Christians chased from their homes & churches by ISIS, seen their testimony, steadiness, care for one another. How utterly disheartening to watch the American church come apart in a 10-wk shutdown. They shall be known by their demand for their rights," she wrote. So, I read her book, we talked about that issue, and then we discussed why her experience in the Middle East led her to make the comment. And we get into the contrasts she sees between Christians who have truly endured suffering and persecution, and those in America who claim to be persecuted because of restrictions on church gatherings, and in the article I wrote for Yahoo News, I get more into that, and there's some very relevant commentary from David French, who says that religious liberty is up for debate in this. But he has some interesting criticisms of people who have charged out and disregarded public health guidance, like the gatherings organized by Sean Feucht, and contrasts it with churches who have gone out of their way to comply with public health guidance and have sued, and won, only when that was their last option, like Capitol Hill Baptist in DC. Mindy's bigger critique of American Christians is two fold: they have no idea what real religious persecution looks like is one part of it. But she also notes the narrowness of demanding rights to do whatever one wants while disregarding the impact of not wearing masks and distancing on those who are most vulnerable — which is not just the older but also people who are poor and on the margins, those without health insurance who are going to avoid going to the doctor or ER if they get sick until it's too late. And she contrasts this with a vision of the common good that characterizes Middle East Christians. Now, part of the reason people dismiss masks and distancing is because they are following Trump's lead, but also because they are listening to those who dismiss scientific consensus. And this gets to the matter of critical thinking, and that's where Emily comes in. Emily wrote http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie Camosy is a professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, and has written several books on the issue of abortion and the politics of abortion. What I appreciate about Charlie is that his main theme, or one of them, is that there is nowhere near as much disagreement among a broad majority of Americans on what to do about abortion politically as we think. Charlie was on the board of Democrats for Life until February, when he left the group, and the party, saying it has become too inhospitable to those who oppose abortion, or those who just want to reduce it. We talk about that decision, and also about why he is deeply opposed to joining the Republican Party or supporting Donald Trump. We talk about how Europe is a model for how America should approach abortion, and what it might look like for the pro-life cause — if that's what it should be called — could build a coalition that's not captive to any one political party. Camosy's books include "Resisting Throwaway Culture," "Beyond the Abortion Wars," and "For Love of Animals." Outro Song: "Can I Believe You," by Fleet Foxes Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.