Ta-Nehisi Coates: Obama's Legacy in a Trump World

Hello, and welcome to the Buller podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I have an exciting guest for a pre-taped Juneteenth show. I'm going to the Bayou tomorrow. So we're taping this on Thursday afternoon. So if Donald Trump, I don't know, decides to invade Cote d'Ivoix or something between now and then. We'll get to that on Monday. show. In the meantime, he's a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. He's a Sterling Brown

endowed chair in the English department at Howard. He's an author with a bunch of works, including We Were Eight Years in Power and American Tragedy about the Obama presidency. And it's Taunhaecey Coates. Hey, man. Hey, hey, hey, thanks for having me. Welcome back. You wrote a bunch of other books. You wrote too many books to list them all. And I hate when people do that. You don't even got to list any of the books, honestly. Well, I just picked out one because it's relevant. today. As we're taping the festivities at the opening of the Obama Library are ending. We've had some speeches from the former president, First Lady, and others. I may play a clip from in a minute.

I assume you do have Obama legacy takes, and you wrote the book. It's been a bit now. And so, you know, there's been more time to kind of stew in the aftermath. I'm just wondering what hops to mind today on the opening of the library. Does he watch this show? Because if he does, I have to yes, I have to tailor my remarks. I have no evidence that he does, which is unfortunate. Because I've been trying to get him on. I've been trying to get him on. And I don't know why he won't do it.

But I didn't think he has some friends who listen. So if you're hearing this now, I would love to have him on and have a growing respect for him every year. Tana Hanzi might be going the other direction. I don't know. We'll hear. No, I bet he does listen. This is this is this is his sort of podcast actually Kind of which is why it's upsetting is not on

I agree with you Right No this is a sweet spot man Do I have what was the question again Updated legacy thoughts And he's opening the library Oh yeah no I mean my my thing on him is pretty much You know what it was at the time

And it was that Only like Barack Obama could have been the first black president Only somebody like him could have been the first black president. And what I mean by that is someone who had the kind of historical background wherein they had been in intimate spaces with a white parent, white grandparents, who had treated him as equal, who were not racist themselves, and I guess he would say extended white family also, raised in Hawaii, which is not to say that Hawaii is like, you know, a non-racist paradise,

but certainly a place, you know, I've been to Hawaii and the black, white dynamic is not the major thing going on there, you know, as it would have been in Chicago, you know, had he been raised there. And so what I've thought is that that just gave him a very, very different perspective, you know, and allowed him to see the best and, you know, the largest, you know, voting population in this country. I think he communicated that. And I think there really was no, you know, other way that you would.

we're going to see a black president. Unfortunately, I think the downside of that was, I don't think he could have imagined the past 10 years. I don't think that was really possible for him. He could imagine Trump winning and then Trump winning again too. I mean, maybe about 24 he could imagine it happening again. But I certainly think the first time, you know, he just could. How does that lack of imagination?

like what did not having that ability to imagine that? Because I guess that was me too. How did that leave his presidency, like poor or reflect on his presidency? I think he did not see the vulnerability of it. It's so much harder to build things than it is to destroy things. And, you know, Trump excels at destroying. Doge was easy. That's easy.

You know, you went to president. You just bring somebody in it, you know what I mean, to destroy. Obama killed. Well, they didn't save any money. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's be clear. It's not easy to save money. money, but I never took that as the intent. You know what I mean? I never took that as the true

intent of those to begin with. But Obamacare is hard. Whatever you think of it, that was hard. You know what I mean? Pulling together a consensus to, you know, help and build something that's going to be enduring. That's really, really hard. And I think, I just don't think there was an appreciation of how easily, you know, things can be rolled back. And so if you had that appreciation, and like what types of things, what do you have done differently, do you think? Like, I guess the reason why it strikes me is because when I was working on a profile of him

at the end of the presidency, like, you know, he said, you know, in the, and I'm sorry to keep mentioning this, if he does listen to this show, I know he's probably tired of me saying this over and over. But he said, he said, look, Trump can't win. He said the American people, he said they go for like they are generally,

People who, you know, maybe are not, you know, as activated, become aggravated by this thing, you know? And I just think his way was, can I find the candidate or can I find the nominee who the people that hate my guts will accept? And I just, I don't know that he ever just understood the extent to which, you know, he was loath by the opposition party, you know, and how active and how powerful. you know, that hatred was, you know? Well, I was going to skip this clip, but since you mentioned that this is the type of thing that Obama would be into, this podcast, I feel compelled to prove you right by playing

something that he said earlier today at the library. Let's play the clip where he talks about how great Mitt Romney is. And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty, and honor. Those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives. These are not, these are the values and traditions I believe in. And they are not Republican or Democratic values. There are American values we.

can all share regardless of party. Values every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold. Values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in, no less than I did. It is our greatest inheritance. You can see why I'm loving them more and more every minute. All right, what did you make a fact? I mean, I, you know, I think I want to like, what shall I give? I think like the one has to be sympathetic, first of all, to the work of electoral politics, right? And to the position of a president. And so, and like this is what I'm, you know, was kind of alluding to earlier. Like his politics can't be my politics and be who he is.

It just can't. You know, he can't get up there and say what I think. And I don't have an expectation either, by the way. You know, like, I just. So on some level, I guess I understand. in the politics of saying things that way. I am compelled to also say in my role, did the past, and I'm speaking, you know, very conservatively here,

did the past 10 years of the Republican Party not happen? Is that not what Republican values are? Like, I mean, was J6 not that? Nominated them three times. Yeah, I mean, three times. I mean, so at what point is this a statement about who people are and what people are? And you also have to say that like Mitt Romney tried to go work for Donald Trump. Like that's not all of who Mitt Romney is, right?

Like I get it. I get it. That's not all, you know, he's done other things that, you know, are worthy. And so, you know, I don't want to. But that's also, you know what I mean, part of the story, you know? And so this is not, you know, so much a slam or Mitt, right, as it is to reflect the complication of it. I guess to me, like, you were asking what is the danger in this? And what I see in that is still not quite, this is, you know, my critique or my worry, still not quite grappling or not

quite understanding, like, how bad it is and where we are. But there is, you know, a part of me that believes. Lots of people who appeal everyone's better angels. I think politicians should do that. Right. I actually do think like this kind of like when Trump, you know, during COVID said, well, it's only going to hurt blue cities. Like that wasn't just bad for blue cities. That's bad for like that. That is how you get 50 years from now, like a civil war.

Like, like it starts with that. You know what I mean? And so like I guess, you know, like I'm, I'm conflicted myself in that if I'm being honest. Yeah. You know? No, I hear you. I'm also conflicted out because it's like I hear those words and I did not. I had the opposite initial reaction to you, which is kind of like, yeah, I love that.

Like, yeah, you're right. Mitt Romney and John McCain, we're honorable. That's nice. And then I heard you talk and I was like, yeah, but also fuck these people. You know what I mean? And I don't know. You know what I mean? And maybe there's a way to do both.

And it's a little more artful. I don't know, not to nitpick the speech making. But like maybe there's a way to do both. Also, most people are complicated. Like, you're not, like, they have been honorable. Like, there are moments, you know what I mean? You can be where they really were, you know, honorable. And, you know, so I don't know.

Look, look, Tim, as a, as a writer, I am, I guess, much less interested in the heroism or the particular weakness or dishonor of certain people. And I'm more interested in the structures that make them possible. You know what I mean? I can't sit here and give 10 minutes on why Mitt Romney sucks or why John McCain sucked or why I can't. You know, they're probably very honorable. Bill Clinton sucks. He threw in some Democrats in there too, by the way. Joe Biden.

I think, you know, people are a product of situations, you know, wanting anything. I want to play this other clip because it does tie more directly to your article that you had in Vanity Fair that we're going to dig into, which looks into, you know, what an ex-black president could look like. looks into Kamala Harris' campaign and in particular her relationship with activists in Gaza and how that interplay negatively impacted her campaign. As a lead into that, though, Obama does start talking about foreign policy and tries to contrast

himself with Trump and his views on foreign policy. And I think that the way he does it, he talks a lot about the structures that you're talking about. And so I just want to listen to that and get your reaction to whether this is a workable framework anymore for how the world should work. And what I heard on every continent as president is that when America, when American foreign policy lives up to our highest ideals, when we champion human rights and democracy and the sound stewardship of our planet, when we take the lead in eradicating disease and feeding the hungry and educating children, when we encourage, cooperation between nations instead of trying to dominate and bully and squeeze every advantage just because we can. And most of all, when we show through our example here at home, that even a country is big and diverse as ours can make democracy work, it turns out all nations, including

our has become more prosperous and secure. And the world gets a little bit brighter. It's the case for benevolent globalism, benevolent hegemony, I guess. Yeah, I mean, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. I mean, that's probably generally true. The complication for that is, I mean, and this is what I spent much of the article doing, is, and I didn't notice, you know, when I certainly, you know, the last time I really

wrote about at length, you know, about President Obama. I did not have the requisite knowledge and understanding of the amount of times and a degree to which we have not actually done that, though. And I actually think one of the things that we're really avoiding on the foreign policy front is the extent to which Trump is actually an extension of some of our worst impulses. That that actually might be the area where he's most American. Ben Rhodes has a piece that I won't quote from. It's in New York Review of Books. It's a review of Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. I really am gay McNamara. It's a review of his biography. And one of the things that Ben, who, you know what I mean, was in the Obama administration as close as anybody to Obama foreign policy. But when he comes

to at the end of that is that, you know, we have basically allowed ourselves to believe that our, you know, mythology of good intentions was enough. But as it turns out, around the world, they remember other things. Yeah. You know, and I don't know that we grapple with that enough. Yeah. It was interesting. You laid it out a lot in the article. I don't know, you and Julian Casablanca struck on the same page because when the strokes were playing at Coachella this year, they did a little thing that they put up on the video screen all the people we fucked over over the seas

from the CIA like over the last 40 years and then I was like reading your list and I was like it's kind of similar to what the strokes were playing at Coachella going through all of our worst hits all the Alan Dulles' worst hits but I thought about

it feels like the case that you made there and Ben Rhodes's change of heart as evidence of this is that like the narrative on this domestically is changing. And like when you're last on, we were talking a lot about the power of narrative. And I do feel like, I don't know, I feel like had Harris won the narrative that Obama kind of

lays out there, like, you know, the best of what America has done makes up for our failings and that we're a force for good in the world was still kind of the dominant one, you know? Like there were people who discreet, obviously, but it was still the dominant narrative. And it kind of feels like to me, certainly on the left, but even in the kind of JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, wing of the Republican Party, that that narrative is being challenged and it might be hard to really ever get it back. I think that's true. And I think what I think I haven't seen a polling on this, but and perhaps I'm being too optimistic about this. But my general sense of Americans is, look, they may not understand the details of this or

It may not be up on, you know, what argument is being made for what. But I don't think we love foreign wars in general. In general. Now, we do it. That's not to, you know, exempt, you know, the country of it. And then, like, Iran is so, it's so dumb. Like, it's so so dumb. The war.

The war, sorry, not the country. Oh, my God. Well, I mean, the country does some dumb things, too. I mean, so do we. It's not just America. It does dumb things. Of course. Of course.

A lot of countries do dumb things. Yes. The war was so dumb. But the war was so dumb that it's hard to mask it. You know what I mean? Like there's not any, you know, sort of, you know, narrative. And Trump didn't try really hard by the way to provide much. It's just the violence.

But here's where I want to push people a little bit. A right was dumb too. Right. Right. Right. It was dumb too. And look, there's a strong argument that Libya was actually dumb too. That doesn't make Gaddafi a good guy.

You know what I mean? That doesn't make him okay. But, you know, Obama himself says that's the biggest mistake of his presidents. You know, he himself, you know, says that. And so, like Gaza was a lot of other things besides this, but certainly dumb is one of those. You know? And so in that respect, I think we let ourselves off a little easy. And I think it's easier to accept.

Like when you talk about like the narrative changing, it's easier to see it with Trump because he's so profane. You know what I mean? And brags about, you know, violence and talks about Indian civilization. No, no, no, no, no. Because he doesn't believe in any of that, right? No, no. And so that, you know, lays it a lot more bare.

That's right. That's right. And so I think that makes it a lot easier for people to see certain things. Hey, y'all, we're just doing some upgrades out in the back porch. It's looking better. It's a little cozy. You're looking a little less like a college frat house vibe. But now we need some additional furniture to be able to really tie the room together, so to speak.

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of the Harris campaign. So I was at, I was there in 24 and what I was aware of immediately was the fact that, you know, Fainle-Henman was being praised and, you know, everybody, you know, she was on everybody's lips. But what I remembered is that actually the Democratic Party did not, you know, ultimately seated a segregated delegation and did not allow her integrated delegation to be seated. That was the end result. There's the end result of Failing back in 64 or whatever was. Excuse me, of the struggle in 64, that the Democratic Party actually didn't do the right thing. And the reasons why it did not do the right thing is because Johnson was deeply afraid of losing the Deep South, which he ultimately did, by the way, or many of the States in the Deep South, I should say it like that.

And then at the same time, you know, I was watching this group of Palestinian Democrats and people who are sympathetic to, you know, Palestinian cause there who were not asking, you know, for delegates to be seated. many of them were already delegates, but were asking for a speaker. And, you know, I was made aware that there hadn't been an Arab-American speaker on the stage since 1988. And so what I saw is I was watching this praise of this person who had been, you know, pushed out of the frame in 64 and was being claimed as his hero was another group of people being pushed out the frame, too. That was, you know, like my initial thing. And then after, you know, doing the research, what became clear to me was that Fannie Wilhelm was not just a champion of black folks in Mississippi and not just a champion of black. folks at all, but a champion of human rights spoke out at a time against the Vietnam War when, you know, it was still not popular within the civil rights movement.

Then, in fact, she was not the only black woman that did that, that Coretta Scott King spoke out against the Vietnam War at a delicate moment and against Johnson, you know, at a very, very delicate moment before her husband did, much to the angst of the SCLC. And I guess I was struck by the contradiction of praising people who in their time, were radicals, or seen as radicals, I should say, but not really living up to the example. So in the article you talk, and there's a moral critique and kind of historical critique of the Harris campaign's lack of grappling with Gaza. There's also a political critique, which is basically that it simultaneously could have been the right thing to do and politically salient for her to align herself more with the protesters who were concerned about what was happening in Gaza.

Before I give any pushback to that, I guess do you want to just explain that point of view? I mean, look, I'll just take it from hers. I mean, look, I heard from numerous people that she pulled folks aside. And, you know, disproportionately black women told me this. And she pulled them aside and said, and this is before she was running, by the way, before, like, Joe Biden had dropped,

and communicate her deep discomfort, you know, and her deep feeling and empathy. And when I talked to them afterwards, their thing was, I don't know why she didn't communicate this publicly. So let me just start from the perspective of what my reporting told me was like what she presented publicly was not what she actually believed. Now, I could be wrong about that. I could be wrong. But this was told to me, I heard this numerous times. It's not like something that I just heard from one person.

And so the first thing is, I would say, is were you true to your own beliefs? And were you true to your own beliefs about the value? you of human life, human life, excuse me. Secondarily to that, are you being true

to the people you claim? As I talked about, you know, with Fannie Neumhameh, you know, and Koretta Scott King. And the third thing is, Tim,

you know, I can't give an ultimate verdict on whether guys are lost her the election or not. And I can't give a verdict on whether they would have won her the election.

But I do want to say this. There are some things worth losing for. And there are something, that people will remember you differently when you lose for them. And I just think that had Kamala Harris lost, and that was certainly a possibility,

simply because she echoed and stated the beliefs as they were communicated to me, I think people would think about, and I'm just not solely talking about Palestinian-Americans, I think the party would think about her a lot differently in this moment. I guess I have two thoughts on that. One is, and this goes to kind of this broader question about, like, harm reduction and candidates, you know, and I was on, I was on Dan Savage before election. He asked me, come on.

And he was like, I'm hearing from a lot of my listeners. He's a gay sex advice person. And he lives in Seattle. He's like, I've got a lot of progressive, yeah, activist types. And he's like, I'm hearing for a lot of my listeners that they might want to set it out because they're mad at Harris about Gaza and they're mad at various things. And he's like, I want you just kind of talk it out with me. And during that conversation, you know, he was making the point that like, okay, I've had to be a harm reduction voter my whole life, like up until just now, right? You know, like in the 80s, my friends were dying, and I was voting for the Democrat because they were less so.

And I voted for Barack Obama when he said I shouldn't be right to we get married and we'd have to go through the whole list. You know, and so he was, I think, rightly kind of frustrated with this notion that people were not going to do that. In this case, when the stakes were so high and the gap between the two candidates was so great when it comes to harm. or potential harm, even including in Gaza, by the way. There's no sense that Trump was going to be any better. And so when the stakes are that high, does that change that question at all, that calculus of whether there are things worth losing for? Yeah, I mean, look, I voted for, you know what I mean?

And I told people, and I went in front of, you know, majority Muslim and Arab-American audiences and had to explain myself, which I did, which I did. And pretty much what I said is, look, we, you know, as a black, Black Americans in general have not had the luxury of voting in presidential elections for people that, you know, we felt fully saw our humanity. And that is just what it's been for us. Having said that, I'll never forget, man, I was in, and this is not the only time this happened, but I was in Houston, Texas. And I was, you know, with the group of Palestinian Americans, very, very accomplished group, by the way. And the woman's house who was hosting me, beautiful, large, large mansion.

And she sat next to me. She said, you know, I'm from Gaza. 200 members of my family have been killed. And she said, I don't go outside anymore. I don't talk to my neighbors about this because they think it's right that my family be killed. I think there are two separate questions. There's one question for, you know, people like me about like what we should have done with our vote. and the answer to that, you know, for that, to me is very, very clear.

You know what I mean? We should have voted for Harris, you know? I feel the loss of some measure of my humanity, or I felt the loss of some measure of my humanity by turning to this woman and telling her, you have to vote for a member of the administration that was shipping bombs for this to happen.

You have to now, you know what I mean, have a conversation with your family, to tell them why you, Tim, I couldn't do that, man. I couldn't do that. And I got to be honest with you, if I were in her shoes, I don't know what I would do. I don't know, because I think the thing we also have to face is everybody didn't make the decision that we made.

Everybody didn't make, like, they're Palestinian Americans and Arab Americans who made the harm reduction decision. In fact, Kamala Harris won the plurality of the vote. So most of them did, you know what I mean? Like the plurality of them made the harm reductionist decision. Yeah. You know what I mean? But look, I get it.

I mean, the thing I would ask you is, and the thing I've been asking myself is, man, at what point do we stop doing this? Like, at what point, what is the point where we stop saying to people, this is the most important election of your lifetime? And you must accept things that, in this case, you must accept the murder of your family members, the killing of your family members for the greater good. Like, at some point, like, we have to figure out how to have a different kind of politics. Now, maybe that's not when you go in the voting booth, but I feel like we go in the voting booth and then there's no discussion of it afterwards. It's just, you know what I mean? We ramp up for another four, another four, another four.

Yeah. And it's like, when are we going to do something different? You also tell the story of Dima Shomily and people should just go read the article. I mean, you tell some just really heart-wrenching, like, brutal stories about people who had gotten out to Gaza and what happened to their family. And I do think that colors the conversation. And I think people would be better serve by just reading the whole article. My answer to your question is like, yeah, never.

It's never going to be a better politics. And like you just have to accept it. Like we live in a system. You think never? You don't think it's possible? Well, I think better things are possible. I think better things are possible. I'm not the meme that's like, oh, that person, you know, they think better things are possible.

fuck them. I think better things are possible. I think we can improve. But like we live in a country of 30 million people. Like there's like I don't know. I look at the way people communicate now with AI and the internet and how easy it is to manipulate people and how frail we all are and how much fragility, you know, all of the demons that we all have inside of us that we're trying to navigate. And it's just like the idea that like we're going to be able to get to a place where you can organize a country this diverse, this big in a way that is like totally pure. I just think is kind of a fantasy. And I think that...

Wait, but there's never a totally pure. I just want to separate myself about it. There's never a totally pure. That makes sense. But like, I don't know, man. I just think that the 2024 election is such a strange prism with which to throw this complaint on that I'm tired of people telling me about like every four years

it's the biggest election of our lifetime. It's like, sorry, it's the only election that we've had in any of our lifetimes where one of the candidates was a legitimate threat to end the sister. of government that we have. Like, it was the only one. And so, you can tell me, like, oh, we can look back at 2012 or whatever and say, that was a silly thing to say between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

And it was our 1996 between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, it was pretty silly. Also, we don't predict a lot of things. I don't know, 2000 looks pretty important. If we start to play in the counterfactual game, I mean, Al Gore wins that. We probably don't go into Iraq. And who the hell knows, we don't have Trump probably. You know, a lot of little block. fall a lot of ways is the meme where the person touches one block and then something crazy happens at the end of it, right?

You know, like, who knows what happens about Al Gorewin? So, I don't know. I just, I am sympathetic. Like, obviously, I would not look at somebody who has had 200 people die in their family and say, you should do this. I'm going to tell you what to do. I think we can also just, like, say that the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was like the clearest choice that we've had in a long time. And we're probably not going to have a better one after that, I don't think.

Look, it was clear for me. It was clear for me. But one of the reasons why, well, I want to say two things. Sure. It is certainly logically possible that every four years, it really is the most important election of your life. That is certainly logically possible. But what I find is that we have a level of sympathy for certain groups of people and not for others. And in this case, I mean like non-voters.

and so like for somebody that's just trying to live their life and go through their day, I guess I understand how at a point that message stops resonating. Right. You know what I mean? Like at a certain point, they just stop, you know, they stop hearing it. But the second thing, you know, I want to say is like the choice was clear for me with my particular history. But one of the reasons why, you know, I went.

through the history of those events in that article is because I was trying to reconstruct the memories of other people. That is to say, if you are an Arab American or you're a Muslim American, you're Palestinian American, and you're in this country in 2024, and let's say you're 30 years old, what you remember is you remember Iraq, you remember Afghanistan, you remember innocent wedding parties being hit by drones, you remember Abu Ghent. Greb, you remember ice. You know what I mean? Like, your memory is, fuck, man. These people have always over there. Like, I get calls from my relatives.

You know what I mean? Like, there's violence over there. I come here and the cops are like spying on my mosque. Like this, it's just constant. Yeah. You know, it's constant. And it was constant for my parents too. And it was constant for my grandparents. And now here we are with, you know, and I can't, I don't have a stat, you know, in front of me. But, you know, with the killing of the, you know, you know, the largest amount of children, you know, of any war, you know, in the 21st century. And I see all of y'all waving these flags for Ukraine.

And then it's me and I can't even speak at the convention. Like, where am I in this party? Where is my life? Where are the lives of my family members? And in this case, look, I'm with you. I'm with you. Kamala Harris was the right choice. Yeah.

But I feel like I can also say that and say, we got to do a better job. Like we have to do a better job making people feel like we see their humanity. And I don't think we did a good one. You know? I think that's a totally compelling critique. And I think a critique that unites the fact

that like Kamala Harris didn't provide motivation to people and just takes us back to Obama at the top, I guess, provide that aspiration or that reason to believe that she would help make their lives better. I think that's a legitimate critique of the campaign. I think it ties to other things besides Gaza. You know, there's other things happen, though. There's also the evil side of this.

We were talking at the top. But sometimes my critique of the Gaza folks, not the people there, but like the pro-Palestine activist crowd, the uncommitted crowd, that like, it's kind of, in retrospect, it's easy to be like, well, she lost because of this, this my pet issue, when like all the advertising that went against her was about trans surgeries and prisons. So it's like, well, maybe it was that. Trump campaign didn't think that's why you lost. Like, Trump campaign thought you lost because there's other stuff, right?

So it's complicated. But I do think, I think that you make a compelling point about how to how to think about these things from the perspective of people that, you know, are coming from a different history. Can we go back to something that I just, I'm interested in? Because I'm not interested in because I necessarily think you're wrong. You may well be right, man. And so I just want to start with that. Because I don't have a real answer to this. But I want to go back to this, the extent to which things can get better.

Okay. It's not some of this, the fact that, you know, and I don't mean it's any sort of pie in the sky sort of way, but that in other democracies, not every other democracy, but certainly in other democracies, you're not necessarily, you know, put into not just two parties, but a presidential system that is not really representative of, you know what I mean, of everybody in the country equally because of how, you know, the electoral college and how, like, like, I just think if some of those structural things were different, I think people might feel differently about their politics and about their vote. Yeah. I have two thoughts in this. One is I do think in this place my like original, my former, it's been a while now, my former Republican, like my Salt Small C conservative comes in.

This Edmund Burke in me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, shit can get a lot worse, actually. And maybe just like focusing on making things incrementally better, making incremental positive change is a safer bet than like trying to make big structural change and not seeing what the unintended consequences are going to be and not being able to predict that, oh, we moved this thing, but then this other thing over here actually made it easier for the, you know, authoritarian to grab power, whatever. So, like, that is an impulse

within myself that doesn't always right. It's just, that's just one. The structural part of this is, like, obviously true, though. This goes back to that kind of narrative question about America and the force for good in the world and how we're the best democracy. I mean, one of the priors that I've changed a lot is like, our system is fucked, actually. And we're, we're going to, we're When we started to start other, I mean, Iraq, for all the horrible things about the Iraq war, shout out to the Iraqis, they've had nine peaceful transfers of powers. They're on a longer streak than us right now. And like, what did we do with their system?

We didn't give them a system with like ours. We gave them a system more like Germany after World War II. You know, we learned things about like the nature of the system. And I do think that's right. Like I do, I do think fundamentally that's right. But it's like, okay. Well, A, how do you get the motivation to change that? And B, if you're like, let's say you're 2028, this takes this 2028, where you talk about kind of how Gauze will be a litmus test issue in 2020, this is something I really agree with you on.

But let's say that that person, whoever it is, has said and done the right things on Goss and has presented themselves in a way that people will leave them, that is an authentic view. And then they say, I'm going to get in there in 2029. What I'm going to do is instead of fixing the health care system or dealing with inflation or dealing with your particular needs, what I really want to spend my. first year on is we're going to do fundamental structural democratic change. We're going to expand this. We're in court. We're going to, you know, whatever, you know, empower that Congress. We're going to, whatever.

I expand the house. Like, we're going to do all these different things. I think most people just be like, I don't, I think that that's really challenging. Like, somebody has to really get in there and say, I'm going to eat this one because, because people are going to feel like I'm out of touch. And this is some, you know, concern of the elite. And so I think that's where I get kind of pessimistic. The challenges feel such that I don't know that we have another option.

In other words, look, I understand that the conservative instinct, and to some extent I share it myself. Look, what I don't want, A is for another 9-11, and B, for another 9-11 where we stand around and look at each other and say, why would someone do this to us? you know, I feel that we are doing things in the world and we are empowering things in the world and we are empowering forces in the world that endanger us and endanger humanity. If everything Barack Obama said is true about the positive aspects of America that, that, you know, people follow us and da-da-da-da-da-da-and all of that, what is eight years of Trump done then? Because the inverse of that is true, too.

you know what what is you know that you know long history that you know i tried to outline an article what did it do what has it ceded in the world and and you don't need to believe that the united states of america is somehow a uniquely evil power to grapple with that it doesn't require that but i don't know how we have a future going like like pinning our entire lives it feels like every four years around these presidential elections. Like it doesn't feel like a good long-term plan. Rhodes and I talked about this last time that he was on. And I think he's really good on this,

which is you can simultaneously be able to talk about the way that our role in the world has been pernicious to a certain extent and that we need to redeem ourselves and reconsider exactly what our engagement is in other parts of the world. that doesn't mean we completely retreat, but like reconsider that. And simultaneously recognize that like there are malign forces out there that would like to take that power. And that it could get worse.

And this gets back to my small C. You know, it's like one thing. It's like is a Chinese system? Is a Chinese run world going to be better? No. I guess the people in Hong Kong, right? Like as the people in Guangzhou, you know what I mean? Like ask the Uyghurs, right?

So like that complexity is there. But I don't know, man. I do think politically there is more space for kind of. reconsidering this than before. When I look back at some of my silly Republican stuff in the past, like the one thing that was the silliest was when we made fun of Obama's apology tour in 2008. Right, right, right.

Which was like really like 95% Rara, Erica, if you got to look at those speeches and 5%. Like, you know, but we made some mistakes here. And I just think that people are looking for a different narrative. I know the one that's more in touch with their, experience. Okay, this is your third time on, or it's every six months. I'm going to get to see you again at Christmas, which is nice.

Yes, I look forward to it. I want to end with the NBA, but I do. I feel like it's incumbent on me to at least do one question of woke revisited every time you're on. Okay, I'm going to respect our people. I think about it a lot. Okay, last time we were on, I brought up to you white fragility. And you were like, fuck you.

Everybody brings up this book. You can't make an entire movement answer for this book. You can't. So fast forward, though, since then,

James Talarico has become the nominee for Senate in Texas. Good man. I interviewed him a couple months ago. Good, dude. Heart in the right place. Yeah. And one of the show, I was like,

did anybody even read this book quite for Jolie? I don't know if you read the book or not, but here's something that he said in 2020 that it's going to be on TV screens in Texas this fall. White Skin gives me and everyone. white American immunity from the virus, but we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing systems like a white hood to be contagious. It's like, man, this is how the fascist getting charged, man. We're telling like a working class white dude in Texas. Can we back up? No, no, no, no. Actually, the problem is,

the problem is not that. I'll tell you what the problem is. Okay. Don't talk about human beings diseases. Okay, thank you. Don't do that. Don't do that. Just don't. Just don't. Just don't.

Just don't. Look, I don't, look, I bowed to no one in my criticisms of white people. You know, like, I don't pull any punches. I don't. You can't talk about people as diseases. Like, I just object to that. Like, if it was just, you know, us and our, you know, that woke sort of secret society we have, you know, when we don't let certain people in.

and I'd be like, man, you can't do that. What was the circumstance in which he said that? Was he running for office? He was in office. He was in the state legislature. Let me pull this up. This was during COVID. This was during COVID.

And he was talking about it. And he's like, one of the ways that we fight the disease is by saying Black Lives Matter. I mean, it's a fucking Portlandia episode. I don't know. Can you read that to me again? just read it one more time for me. Yeah, sure. Ans, if we could pull up the next tweet,

I thought I would have, the goddamn Elon Musk has ruined Twitter search. You know, it's actually gotten worse. It makes a conservative argument. He's ruined a lot of things, but like he's really ruined Twitter search. Okay, if we could find a follow quote, but here we go.

Here's the quote that he said, James Taylor. Who we love. White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus, but we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing symptoms

to be contagious. It's like a COVID metaphor about how with COVID you should mask. Even if you're not showing symptoms, you can still spread. Like, I actually don't understand what now I don't understand what it means. So there's this virus of white supremacy

and racism out there. And you're immune to it because you're white. That's the metaphor? Yeah. And like you could spread it. We'll read it to you from the start. So that was the second tweet in the thread. The first one was about a lot, Arbery, RIP.

And he said he's the latest American killed by the virus of racism. So racism is the virus. Racism is the virus. All right. And white skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing symptoms.

We don't have to put on a white hood to be contagious. The only cure is diagnosing the virus within ourselves and taking dramatic actions to contain the spread, two weeks to stop the spread of racism. The first small step is proclaiming loudly and unequivocally that Black Lives Matter. I mean, the guy's heart's in the right place. You hate to like dump on a bit of a fire. Yeah, I mean, okay, actually hearing it, I understand a little better. It's still not what I would say, but for other reasons. Certainly I've seen in other discourse that racism is a virus. Okay, let's just start there, right? I actually think the error in that is the notion that white people are immune from it. Because I actually think one of the most, you know,

compelling aspects of, you know, my heroes and the writers that I've loved and that I've modeled myself after is the notion that nobody gets out of this unscathed. I mean, look, let me make this very literal for you so that it's not, you know, just, you know, Tana Hasi being nice to white people or whatever, trying to say something, you know, nice to Tim, or whatever. I do say nice things or Tim. I'll take it. Whatever. I can take mean things, too. Listen, I believe that if there were one singular force that I had to identify

to explain how Trump becomes president and why he's been president for years, I would tell you white supremacy in a second, right? I would not tell you that white people have been immune from the effects of that. In fact, I would tell you to counter.

I would tell you that actually it makes us all very, very vulnerable, you know, that it hurts all of us ultimately. And I don't, like, I don't mean that symbolically. I mean that literally, like, it literally endangers everyone. It is in danger so much. Listen, January

6 wasn't just an attempted cool. Like, it was an attempt to overthrow the democratic will of a lot of white people, actually.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it was like, like, there were white cops who got beat up, you know? And like, you know, just as a matter of basic truth, I think it's important to say that. Yeah. For politics, politicians is probably even more important to say it. But I think as a basic truth, it's like it's really important to speak in that way not, you know, because it's accurate first and foremost, you know, but like the damage to this democracy that's been done, which will not be healed quickly. The damage that was done by Doge, which will not, you know, be healed quickly.

Yes, white supremacy is an explanatory force for how this was able to happen. but the notion that somehow white people are immune to it is just not I mean I feel bad for him a little bit you know because as I think my way through it you know I think I'm kind of being a little too hard on them are you I think I think you're I think I think I can't I like it I'm gonna tell you what it's like you man if you're running for office you can I don't like there's no your first instinct was correct honestly I'm sorry you could not tell anybody that they got a virus inside of them because of the color of their skin You can't, even if you're doing it out of good nature.

Like, you can't. A lot of people, it's complicated. We're both very educated people. You're a tenured professor. We're trying to translate this. Like, you're just a fucking white kid whose dad beat you. And like, you can't get a good job. And you're like, man, this guy wants to be my representative, but he thinks I got a virus inside of me.

It's just like, and I just think that there was like too much of this kind of mindset happening. You know, a lot of times had a good intention. and it's not, you know, the worst people, the white supremacists are worst. But like we got a, you got a self-critique. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I don't disagree with the critique. I don't disagree with the critique. It's not a thing I would, first of all, right. And it's certainly not a thing I would advise a politician to say. Having said that, I often find one of the privileges of any, you know, for any sort of group is that ignorance, right? Like ignorance of other people, okay?

Like when you are, regardless of whether you're gay, regardless of whether you're black, regardless of whether you're a woman, you have to know the people who, you know, rule things and run shit. Like you have to know their culture and their history better than they have to know yours, right? And so what that means, you know, when you talk about race is white people suddenly become aware of things. You know what I mean? Like they, then it's like, holy shit, this was all around me. And I didn't realize this. And, you know what I mean? You said, okay, so how do I talk about this?

And maybe you don't always have, A, there's no guarantee you're going to have the best people around to help you talk about it. B, you know, you yourself, you know, don't necessarily have, you know, the vocabulary, you know, to articulate it. And so I just, I guess the reason why I want to be easier on him is because Tim he was trying to figure it out. He was trying, and we're all on a journey. He was trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I'm trying to figure it out. But I'm also, you know, trying to not have a maga dictatorship in the country. And it'd be nice if there'd be some people who are trying to figure it out that don't make it as easy as possible on the bad guys to hit him over the head with that. What do you think he should have done? Like, how do you, like, okay, so I just, if you switch places with him, right? So he's just, he's figuring out, like you want to, like, Amad Abbey's been killed. And you are not, it's only within, you know, the recent history of your life that you have started to see these black people killed on camera and just shocked. You're like, oh my God, the cops do this?

like how do you speak to it and then at the same time you know and I have to get asked about the stuff like the thing that I always come back to Jeb had a lot of stuff we disagreed with so there's one thing he said that I liked which is that the job of government is that you know we're trying to make sure people have an opportunity to live a life of purpose and meaning and like that's a good North Star nobody ever lives all the way out to it but I like I would frame it up like that man like Amad Aubrey needed the chance to have a life of purpose and meaning we did we failed them we didn't protect him and and the fact that he was black contributed to that

and we got to do better. We got to make sure the people are accountable. We got to stop. You know, I don't know. And we like have a more of a positive, aspirational way of talking about it rather than a wagging your finger at the white people who aren't doing good enough. I don't know. I mean, everybody deserves a finger wag from time to time too. So this is not like a hard and fast rule.

But I don't know. I wouldn't have talked about the virus inside. There's an inside there. You know, the thing is like one of the things. that, and I'll agree with you on this, is I do think we as a movement, you know, for those of us, you know, are within that woke movement. I still use the word, so I put myself in it. We got woke Bill Crystal now. You've won him over. There's converts everywhere. We're working on some merch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm here. I'm here. I live here. I'm not going to abandon it just because

it got taken. But I do think one thing that would be more useful is when we use language, that as you and I just did, takes five minutes to figure out what it's actually trying to say, we probably have a problem. That's not a rule for the benefit of white people actually. That's actually my rule as a writer.

Like, as a writer, when I write things and, like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I got it, but it took me, then I have to rewrite. You know what I mean? Because so much of our job actually is communication. I think there were a number of, us during that period who felt that it was not our job to explain things to other people.

And I will say that, yes, for a lot of people, it was not your job to explain to other people. If you're a writer, if you're a politician, I'm sorry, it is. It is. That is part of your job. It is part of my job is to, and I had some conflicts about this myself. But yes, part of my job is to explain things to white people. It's not my total job. Sure.

But that is part of my job. And it's actually honorable work. Because what do you want? Do you want people to remain ignorant? Is that what we're saying now? You know? And that's good. All right.

Do you see Zohran Mamdani today? I didn't, man. I didn't. I'm going to leave people with it. I'm going to leave people with it. He was so fucking good. The Republicans are so lucky he was born in Uganda, man. If that guy was born in Queens,

they'd be in a world to hurt. Well, maybe it's good he can't run though because maybe he'd be different if he wasn't. Yeah, maybe that's true. He was good talking about the Knicks.

I don't know. You don't have any next deep thoughts for me? You want to leave people with? No, man, I mean, I'm happy they won. I was a New York Knicks fan before I was in New Yorker because I was a LaTrell Spreewell,

you know, Alan Houston fan. I was Patrick Ewing, John Starks, you know, Charles Smith. This was part of Zorro on speech. This is how, you know, if you want to talk to a middle-aged guy and get them to feel emotions, all you do is just name-name athletes.

And Zohran Mamdani did that. It's not the part I'm going to play, but there was a period of like two minutes where he was just like, and when John Stark's dunked on Yao Ming and let's know free well and insanity and he's just like naming people, man. And it's like, that's good.

That's a good speech. Yeah, yeah. All right, brother. Well, I appreciate the time as always. We'll leave people with Zerron and we'll see you at Christmas, all right? All right. All right. Thanks, Tim.

All right, thanks, Tim. All everybody go check out his article in Vanity Fair. We'll be back on Monday with Wilkville, Crystal, see you all then. Peace. But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team, that they just don't get about this city. It is in that point four percent that we go to work.

It is in that point four percent that Jalen Brunson, the same guy that so many said was too small, proves that not only is he good enough, he is the new standard for greatness.

It is in that point four percent that OG Ananobe watches the ball float from the top of the arc and start running toward the basket fingers reaching towards the heavens. It is in that point four percent that Carl Anthony Towns

finds the strength to mourn his mother and still pull in rebound after rebound, make block after block. It is in that point four percent that Jose Alvarado shows every kid. Growing up in public housing that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs. It is in that point four percent that Mitch breaks his finger before game one and says, go get the tape. It's in that point four percent. That Josh Hart gets rebounds that break teams.

The McCall Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick. That Landry Shamet pulls up from downtown. That every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise. That Mike Brown keeps this team believing.

Most of all, It's in that 0.4% that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible. We find a way. We win. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.