Will Saletan and Scott Lincicome: A Crime Boss Has Taken Over
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Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a two-parter today. I added a bonus segment with Scott Lincecum, who's a trade expert, to talk about the tariffs that are imminent and already rollicking the stock market. But first, it's back for the old-timers, for the OGs. You might remember Will Salatin Mondays. Well, they're back right now. Bill Kristol's on vacation. I'm here with my colleague... Will Salatin. What's up, Will?
There's no vacation from Trumpism, Tim. It's just everywhere you go.
No, he's been texting me. There's definitely no vacation for him mentally, but he does get one day off the podcast. Can I start with something positive, though? Go ahead, man. I don't know if you'll find it positive, but I'm feeling good about a couple of things this morning. All right? Tell me. Here's number one. this is a shit show. This is a total shit show. And I knew it would be a shit show. We told everybody it would. But, you know, there was always a chance that Trump would get in there and, I don't know, decide not to do anything, right? And just kind of bleat and get people to call him sir and not actually do anything and take credit for things that were already kind of percolating positively from the Biden administration. That was one option that could have happened.
But instead... We have JVL this morning in the triad predicting a stock market crash. And all the topics we're about to go over is them messing things up. I don't know. Can we not have some pleasure in that? Knowing that they're as bad as we thought they would be?
This is where we are, that like the good is bad? Yeah, yeah, that's where we are. Tim, is it schadenfreude or is it that you think that there's something salutary about the pain that will lead to healing?
I know, I'm not about healing through pain. No, thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's partially schadenfreude. It's partially just kind of like the, you know, solace and knowing that you are correct. The solace and knowing that... We weren't leading people astray. There's something to that. There's a little bit of joy in seeing other people's pain. But the bad people, the MAGA people, there will be some collateral damage, unfortunately. That's not what I'm happy about. But just their failures is kind of giving me a little joy. No, is that wrong?
Well, I don't know. It's a little bit of the tree falls in the forest problem. If you and I are right, objectively, that this is insane and destructive, but the Republicans keep winning elections doing it.
Yeah.
What consolation is there in that?
I don't know. Personal validation. Yeah. All that matters is solipsism. All that matters is having my own brain. Okay, I knew that you'd be on the other side of that, but I figured some of the listeners would be on my side. I'm enjoying it. There's another thing. It was related. I don't know. Ezra Klein, you might have heard of him. He's kind of a minor columnist, and we might have him on the pod again soon. He had a piece over the weekend that said this. Trump is acting like a king because he's too weak to govern like a president. He's trying to substitute perception for reality. He's hoping that perception then becomes reality. That can only happen if we believe him as part of a longer monologue about just like, this is not actually the actions of somebody who is going to take over the government in a gradual and effective way.
These are the actions of somebody that doesn't know what they're doing and is trying to continue the fraud that he's perpetrated on the country for a long time that covers up his fundamental political weakness. What's it to you to Ezra's positive spin? These are the last two positive items of the podcast. Just saying.
Yeah, I don't know about this. First of all, on the perception versus reality thing. Look, look, one, you know, at some point, reality only matters if it intrudes. And, you know, we went through this election where the reality was Trump was an idiot and he was going to do all this damage. And he created a perception that, I mean, you saw the polls. People believed he was a good president.
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