Charlie, you talk about Trump as though he were like other presidents and forget that he is impaired, mentally. He is a severely influenced by his narcissistic personality disorder. All of his behavior is typical of someone with this condition. He will never change and is driven by his feelings of revenge, retribution, need to get even with those who do not give him his due respect, etc., etc.
Trump has a group of advisors who are feeding misinformation to him. Steven Miller, Peter Navarro, Laura Loomer all have their own agendas ( project 2025) and he listens to them because he is not a very smart or well educated person! Mostly he just wants to make a lot of money and join the billionaires club.
I was ordering on the phone clothing for my grandson. The customer service representative went on to tell me that the price of clothing was not going to go up that the money was going to go to the government with the tariffs!!
I corrected her once and told her no it’s tax that is going to be passed on the consumer, which is going to raise the price of everything. She proceeded to tell me again that it is going to be money for our government.
I repeated that tariffs were taxes, passed on to the consumer. Realizing she was never going to get it I said
“ OK here’s my credit card number”
And went on with the order .
She was a lovely, friendly customer service representative who is through her job spreading the firehose of twisted distorted misinformation .
Excellent point that Charlie is making about the internal contradictions within the Republican party with the implication that these will cause the Repubs to start on that long road of losing three election cycles to finally get it through their thick skulls and maybe animate their spineless backsides that we, the people, do not want to see our entire social infrastructure dismanteled or disabled so that the wealthy can be even wealthier with tax cuts that benefit primarily themselves. (phew, that was a long, almost Germanic sentence!)
Much to respond to but I'll limit it to: 1. The "unanimous" SCOTUS order. My feeling is that a certain section of SCOTUS was rattled by the free-fall of the stock market & the mass dumping of bonds. We know Clarence Thomas, for example, is all about the $$ (and he's never hidden that). Whatever it was, I'm relieved they gave that order—but it wasn't necessarily 9-0 Charlie, it was unsigned, so we don't really know. Still, there's is an illusion of unity which at this point will do. 2. What caused the downfall of the Republican Party? Greed—and the normalisation of dishonesty during the George W. Bush era imo. Of course a bunch of other stuff, but for me, it was the culture of greed above the common good that seemed to take over post-Reagan. Anyway, good to have you back Charlie—and I like this less frenetic pace.
I wish Sykes would speak more to the money behind project 2025 and who is really benefiting from trump’s insanity on the markets. Follow the money please!
Yes, Dems lost two out of three elections to Trump, both the only times Dems ran a woman. Imagine to yourself everything was the same except Harris was a man. And in fact, when Trump ran against a man, he lost. Sexism masquerades as things like “I voted for Trump because he’s a strong leader” (implicit in this is that a woman can’t be a strong leader); “I voted for Trump because I thought he’d be better on the economy” (women don’t know how to handle money); maybe she got the money to go college or law school “on the corner” (misogyny). And on and on. This country still hasn’t been up to having the conversation about its disgusting sexism and misogyny.
Apart from the above, money is poisoning our politics. We need to get it out of elections, and we need to get rid of lobbying and have content specialists our congress people can consult when considering legislation. Getting money out of politics will go a long way toward improving people’s faith in our system.
I’m a pretty solid lib/Dem and I would say myself and most center-Left and probably a lot of solid Left as well are on almost the exact same frequency as you and the center-Right! I think it’s Fox News and other disinformation taking what the Far-Left is doing and then characterizing the entire Left (including center-Left) as what the Far-Left is doing. But I also agree, Dem leadership needs to work on better messaging and identity.
This reminds me of a true story related by Robert Atkins, Member of Parliament in the U.K.:
Kruschev was discoursing at a meeting in Russia at great length over the iniquities of Stalin, when a voice yelled “As one of his colleagues why didn’t you stop him?”
Unbearable silence ensued after which Kruschev thundered:” Who said that?”
After a long silence, Kruschev said “ Now you know why.
That...was a fantastic, thoughtful conversation/interview. I sure hope that Julian Zelizer and Charlie Sykes come together again to share their deep understanding of the issues facing us in America.
Charlie Sykes--I am so glad I found your substack. You are so not a talking head!
But, Charlie... I had a conversation with a man in the St. Louis area in the mid 80's who articulated the "gentleman's agreement" nature of our constitution. Although he did not articulate specifically, "they" were looking for a man who would violate the guardrails to accomplish their objectives. They were concerned about how they would control such a person, but the vulnerabilities within our constitution have been discussed for a few decades now. I am deeply disappointed that NO ONE fixed this constitutional vulnerability earlier.
Wondering if we’ll even have elections in 2026? If there is an obvious disdain for SCOTUS decisions, what makes it plausible to expect there will be business as usual in ‘26?
Charlie, you talk about Trump as though he were like other presidents and forget that he is impaired, mentally. He is a severely influenced by his narcissistic personality disorder. All of his behavior is typical of someone with this condition. He will never change and is driven by his feelings of revenge, retribution, need to get even with those who do not give him his due respect, etc., etc.
Trump has a group of advisors who are feeding misinformation to him. Steven Miller, Peter Navarro, Laura Loomer all have their own agendas ( project 2025) and he listens to them because he is not a very smart or well educated person! Mostly he just wants to make a lot of money and join the billionaires club.
In speaking about tariffs…
I was ordering on the phone clothing for my grandson. The customer service representative went on to tell me that the price of clothing was not going to go up that the money was going to go to the government with the tariffs!!
I corrected her once and told her no it’s tax that is going to be passed on the consumer, which is going to raise the price of everything. She proceeded to tell me again that it is going to be money for our government.
I repeated that tariffs were taxes, passed on to the consumer. Realizing she was never going to get it I said
“ OK here’s my credit card number”
And went on with the order .
She was a lovely, friendly customer service representative who is through her job spreading the firehose of twisted distorted misinformation .
They listen to Fox News and believe it! Pathetic!
Good thoughtful discussion
Excellent point that Charlie is making about the internal contradictions within the Republican party with the implication that these will cause the Repubs to start on that long road of losing three election cycles to finally get it through their thick skulls and maybe animate their spineless backsides that we, the people, do not want to see our entire social infrastructure dismanteled or disabled so that the wealthy can be even wealthier with tax cuts that benefit primarily themselves. (phew, that was a long, almost Germanic sentence!)
Much to respond to but I'll limit it to: 1. The "unanimous" SCOTUS order. My feeling is that a certain section of SCOTUS was rattled by the free-fall of the stock market & the mass dumping of bonds. We know Clarence Thomas, for example, is all about the $$ (and he's never hidden that). Whatever it was, I'm relieved they gave that order—but it wasn't necessarily 9-0 Charlie, it was unsigned, so we don't really know. Still, there's is an illusion of unity which at this point will do. 2. What caused the downfall of the Republican Party? Greed—and the normalisation of dishonesty during the George W. Bush era imo. Of course a bunch of other stuff, but for me, it was the culture of greed above the common good that seemed to take over post-Reagan. Anyway, good to have you back Charlie—and I like this less frenetic pace.
I wish Sykes would speak more to the money behind project 2025 and who is really benefiting from trump’s insanity on the markets. Follow the money please!
Yes, Dems lost two out of three elections to Trump, both the only times Dems ran a woman. Imagine to yourself everything was the same except Harris was a man. And in fact, when Trump ran against a man, he lost. Sexism masquerades as things like “I voted for Trump because he’s a strong leader” (implicit in this is that a woman can’t be a strong leader); “I voted for Trump because I thought he’d be better on the economy” (women don’t know how to handle money); maybe she got the money to go college or law school “on the corner” (misogyny). And on and on. This country still hasn’t been up to having the conversation about its disgusting sexism and misogyny.
Apart from the above, money is poisoning our politics. We need to get it out of elections, and we need to get rid of lobbying and have content specialists our congress people can consult when considering legislation. Getting money out of politics will go a long way toward improving people’s faith in our system.
Thank you Mr. Sykes. Always insightful thought provoking. What more could I ask for? Zelizer, have to look him up.
I’m a pretty solid lib/Dem and I would say myself and most center-Left and probably a lot of solid Left as well are on almost the exact same frequency as you and the center-Right! I think it’s Fox News and other disinformation taking what the Far-Left is doing and then characterizing the entire Left (including center-Left) as what the Far-Left is doing. But I also agree, Dem leadership needs to work on better messaging and identity.
Why don't they speak up?
This reminds me of a true story related by Robert Atkins, Member of Parliament in the U.K.:
Kruschev was discoursing at a meeting in Russia at great length over the iniquities of Stalin, when a voice yelled “As one of his colleagues why didn’t you stop him?”
Unbearable silence ensued after which Kruschev thundered:” Who said that?”
After a long silence, Kruschev said “ Now you know why.
That...was a fantastic, thoughtful conversation/interview. I sure hope that Julian Zelizer and Charlie Sykes come together again to share their deep understanding of the issues facing us in America.
Charlie Sykes--I am so glad I found your substack. You are so not a talking head!
But, Charlie... I had a conversation with a man in the St. Louis area in the mid 80's who articulated the "gentleman's agreement" nature of our constitution. Although he did not articulate specifically, "they" were looking for a man who would violate the guardrails to accomplish their objectives. They were concerned about how they would control such a person, but the vulnerabilities within our constitution have been discussed for a few decades now. I am deeply disappointed that NO ONE fixed this constitutional vulnerability earlier.
Wondering if we’ll even have elections in 2026? If there is an obvious disdain for SCOTUS decisions, what makes it plausible to expect there will be business as usual in ‘26?
Republicans knew what Trump is and they stood by and let it happen. Don't blame it on Democrats.
I agree
It still looks really cold though