The Bulwark Podcast

We had a copy of his memoir, Big Russ and Me, which was about his father.

And I'm happy you brought up Big Russ and Me. In that moment, specifically, it does serve as a blueprint.

I come to a lot from the book The Decider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, in which they say that Roger Ailes recognized that Trump had a stronger hold over the Fox News base than Fox News.

We are joined today by Steve Vladeck, who is professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and is the author of a brand new book, The Shadow Docket, how the Supreme Court uses stealth rulings to amass power and undermine the republic.

So the reviews for your book have been very, very positive. But one person who I'm guessing is not a big fan of yours, Sam Alito is very, very unhappy with you and he's very unhappy with the criticism of The Shadow Docket.

What this charge misses, and I think what the book tries to flesh out, is that there's plenty in the court's own behavior that merits criticism.

The Shadow Docket is basically just an evocative shorthand that Chicago law professor Will Bode came up with in 2015 to describe, Charlie, nothing other than all of the other things the Supreme Court does besides the 60-ish fancy decisions the court hands down in the high profile cases each spring.

The book is The Shadow Docket How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.

See, that's what I thought was so powerful about your piece last week. Will, that is a book and people can actually get it on Amazon about Lindsey Graham, not because Lindsey Graham is so important, but as a perfect example of the way an entire movement can be corrupted, that the same individuals who just a few years ago would have looked at this and said, this is horrible, this is unacceptable, this is a violation of everything we believe in, somehow have convinced themselves that it's okay.

If you have not yet read Will's fantastic piece on Lindsey Graham, go look at it on The Bulwark or download the whole book on amazon.com. Fantastic job, Will. Just a remarkable piece of work.

Tim Mack is a former investigative correspondent for NPR, and he's also the author of Misfire, Inside the Downfall of the NRA.

I think the way we work now is better than it was. I think the way we live now is better than it was. I think the way that we approach mental health issues is better than it was.

What the pandemic did was it caused what I call the epistemic COVID crisis. People didn't know what was true. People didn't know what to believe.

I make the argument in the book that that's probably good for the United States because it is this like single continent sized market and other countries aren't so big or so frictionless, but it's definitely uncomfortable.

We also saw a massive increase in risk appetite. I write about this at some length in the book. And a lot of that risk appetite was positive, but a lot of it was negative.

So we have killed globalism. It is not coming back. I know a lot of economists and political scientists who would dearly love for it to come back. And that is wishful thinking, frankly. It is not coming back.

You've done something really amazing that I want to talk about, about Lindsey Graham. [...] You write, you know, before we start, I should tell you what this is and what it is not. It is not a rant about Graham's servility or hypocrisy and it is not a profile.

I wanted to understand how authoritarianism arose in the United States in our time under Donald Trump. And what I wanted to understand was not just Trump himself because any bully, any strongman can come along and threaten a democracy. What's important to understand is how did an entire political party fall in line behind him, the people who should have been the gatekeepers?

And he actually used the word, I don't know if you could hear it, monster, that Trump is a monster and that they failed.

The surrender to despotism doesn't happen all at once. It advances in stages, a step, a rationalization, another step, another rationalization. The deeper you go, the more you need to justify.

I strongly recommend it. I think that for people who have followed the Bulwark, this is I think one of the most important things that we have done so far.

You've done something really amazing that I want to talk about, about Lindsey Graham. But this does feel like a replay of 2016 where Republicans are about to fall in line, even though they know so much more now than they did back then and they knew a lot then.

You've been working on a massive look at Lindsey Graham. We are going to be rolling that out tomorrow. It's going to be an e-book for people to get.

I wanted to understand how authoritarianism arose in the United States in our time under Donald Trump. And what I wanted to understand was not just Trump himself because any bully, any strongman can come along and threaten a democracy. What's important to understand is how did an entire political party fall in line behind him, the people who should have been the gatekeepers?

The surrender to despotism doesn't happen all at once. It advances in stages, a step, a rationalization, another step, another rationalization. The deeper you go, the more you need to justify.

And he has a brand new book which just came out this week, Traffic, Genius, Rivalry and Delusion in the Billion Dollar Race to Go Viral.

I want to talk about this book, which I told you I read on a plane to Phoenix last week.

Your book examines the rise and fall of the social media news age through the lens of Buzzfeed News and Gawker.

Ben Smith's new book, which came out Tuesday is Traffic genius, rivalry and delusion in the billion dollar race to go viral.

I wrote the hardcover edition of Hoax and then when it was time to do the paperback, I felt like things had really changed. And I added all this material about Tucker because Tucker by then was the biggest star.

I wrote Hoax too soon. I ended Hoax in September of 2020, right before the story got great. Right before the big lie, right before the riot, right before the Dominion and the Smartmatic case.

Last January my agents began submitting to publishers the manuscript of my first novel in nine years. On the surface, I had reason for confidence. Of my 22 prior novels, 16 had been New York Times bestsellers and in general, reviewers had treated them kindly and my agent shared my assessment that this one called Trial was equal to my strongest work, whatever, you know.

The novel was repeatedly rejected by major publishers because as a white author, I chose to write about some of our most vexing racial problems, voter suppression, unequal law enforcement through the prism of three major characters, two of them black.

The core question applies to anyone who dares to write fiction, whether empathy and imagination should be allowed to cross the lines of racial identity.

I'll be eager to read Walter Isaacson's book, but he talked about it with me on a podcast.

I'll be eager to read Walter Isaacson's book, but he talked about it with me on a podcast.

Miles Taylor has a new book coming out about the danger that Donald Trump poses to the country. And listen to some of the voicemail messages he got from fellow American patriots, people who believe in America first who think that we can make America great again.

What you're doing to President Trump is disgusting. You're disgusting people. You're evil, and you're going to go down. You my friend are a piece of shit. You are a traitor. You're pushing for a tightrope. You dumb motherfucker. We will squash you like a fucking peanut bitch. You're done. You're done. So eat a dick and die.

Miles Taylor has a new book coming out about the danger that Donald Trump poses to the country.

We will squash you like a fucking peanut bitch. You're done. You're done. So eat a dick and die.

You're right, it isn't Tinker, Soldier, Sailor, Spy. It's more like Mickey's Playhouse.

Alan Bloom at the closing of the American mine, losing ground and welfare reform, Richard John Newhouse in the naked public square, Scalia and the Federalist Society.