In today’s podcast for grownups, I’m joined by Peter Wehner, a former White House aide whose work can now be found in The Atlantic and The New York Times. A senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, Peter is an OG Good Guy, and I’m delighted to welcome him back. Watch on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.
Happy Tuesday.
Your daily reminder that you are not the crazy ones.
You may disagree with me from time to time (and I expect you will, because I’m not promising you a safe space here). But I’ll always try to give it to you straight.
We’ve been here since the beginning, so you know we won’t surrender or bend the knee.
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Some of the highlights of our conversation
The fear and normalization of authoritarian tactics
Trump’s unique political persona
The irony of MAGA’s embrace of tariffs
For a deeper dive into Peter’s latest work check out:
Flashback to a piece I adapted from my book "How the Right Lost Its Mind”.
Credit where credit is due: it was Roger Kimball, the editor of The New Criterion, who first pointed out Friederich Hayek’s warning in connection with the Trump campaign. “For many of us, what is most troubling about Donald Trump is not his particular views or policies — much though we might disagree with them — but rather the aroma of populist demagoguery and menace that surrounds him.” Roger Kimball wrote in May 2016 in a piece headlined “How Hayek Predicted Trump With His 'Why the Worst Get on Top'”:
Take a look at the clips of his rallies: What do we want? he shouts. “A Wall,” screams the crowd. Who’s going to pay for it? “Mexico.” Time warp: Is this the 1930s? It’s a sensation that is heightened when Trump suggests that his fans “beat the crap out of” protestors -- and don’t worry, he’ll pay for their legal expenses.
Back then, Kimball recognized who Trump was. “Donald Trump,” he wrote, “is a corrupt crony capitalist who throughout his career has supported the whole menu of ‘progressive’ causes.” In the last two years, the term “irony” has been worn out, beaten with sticks, and put through the shredder. But it is still ironic that Kimball has emerged as one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, as well as a champion of right-wing populist nationalism….
Kimball’s shape-shifting is all the more extraordinary in light of his insightful reading of Hayek’s warning about all of this. The Austrian-born economist and classical liberal, who played such a central role in the emergence of American free market conservativism, had a keen understanding of the temptations of authoritarianism….
Hayek’s chapter on “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his classic work, The Road to Serfdom, diagnosed the populist impulse that would lead to the demand for ceding power to a “man of action.”
This is “the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime.” At some point in a political or economic crisis, there “is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action's sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal....”
Hayek knew that it was in the nature of free societies for people to become dissatisfied “with the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities,” so they turn to “somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants.”
Hayek then lays out the preconditions for the rise of a demagogic dictator: a dumbed down populace, a gullible electorate, and a common enemy or group or scapegoats on which to focus public enmity and anger.
Sound familiar?
The more educated a society was, Hayek wrote, the more diverse their tastes and values will be, “and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values.” The flip side was that “if we wish to find a high degree of uniformity and similarity of outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive and ‘common’ instincts and tastes prevail.”
But in a modern society, potential dictators might be able to rely on there being enough of “those whose uncomplicated and primitive instincts,” to support his efforts.
As a result, Hayek said, he “will have to increase their numbers by converting more to the same simple creed.” Here is where propaganda comes into play.
The “man of action,” Hayek wrote, “will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”
Slogans (“Build That Wall! Lock her Up”) should be simple and relentless. “It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party,” Hayek predicted. This led to what Hayek called the third and most important element of the demagogue’s program: in order to “weld together a closely coherent and homogeneous body of supporters,” he needed to find an enemy.
It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the "we" and the "they", the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses.
The identification of scapegoats has numerous advantages, not the least of which, is that it gives the leader far more leeway than a positive agenda for which he might be held accountable.
The enemy, whether he be internal like the "Jew" or the "Kulak", or external, seems to be an indispensable requisite in the armoury of a totalitarian leader.
Immigrants, foreigners, refugees, “elites,” “international bankers,” Mexicans, or the Davos oligarchy would work equally well. For students of history, the “air of populist demagoguery and menace,” around the Trump campaign — as Roger Kimball put it, back in 2016 — was deeply troubling because it seemed to be giving shape to precisely what Hayek had warned against. It was not a path to restored, “greatness.” It was, in Hayek’s terms, the road to serfdom. And it was— and is — a radical rejection of values central to the conservative tradition.
Something’s happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear
At more than 1,300 locations throughout the U.S. — rural small towns and big cities, from Anchorage to Palm Beach — demonstrators gathered in a show of both force and breadth, wielding signs voicing their outrage over policies they alleged betrayed something fundamental about America….
By any measure it was a BFD.
Organizers said more than 600,000 people RSVPed for the events; CNN pegged the number of attendees in the “millions.” … 1,000 in Anchorage, per ADN. … 3,000 in Charlotte, per the Observer. … 5,000 in Raleigh, per CBS17. … 6,000 in Florida’s Palm Beach County, per the Palm Beach Post. … 7,000 in Des Moines, according to the Register. … At least 7,000 in Seattle, per the Seattle Times. … 10,000 in Denver, per the Colorado Sun. … 20,000 in Atlanta, per the AJC. … 25,000 at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, per the Star Tribune. … 25,000 in Boston, per GBH. … 30,000 in Chicago, per WBEZ. … In New York, the protest stretched along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue for “nearly 20 blocks,” per the NYT. … In Washington, organizers estimated the crowd exceeded 100,000 — roughly five times larger than they’d predicted, per WaPo.
After the thrill of Trump’s first two months in office, a torrent of tariffs and a big loss in Wisconsin are giving Republican lawmakers a glimpse of the grim midterm battles ahead. “It’s starting to feel a lot like 2018 with a backlash to Trumpism,” says a Republican pollster. “The Trump honeymoon collapsed with the stock market.”
Economic issues are not the only issues. Cultural issues are also hugely important to voters’ views of a political party and how likely that party’s actions are to be consistent with their interests and values. It is not the case that economic factors and issues will necessarily determine voters’ political preferences if only the proper approach can be found. Cultural inclinations are not so easily overruled.
But in truth this is what most Democrats seem to believe. They are culture denialists. That is, they do not consider cultural issues real issues. They are typically viewed as politically motivated distractions or as expressions of something else entirely (i.e., racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, etc.) They are not treated as issues that need to be dealt with on their own terms, with the corresponding need to potentially change party positions to accord with popular, particular working-class, preferences.
I see the hand of economic determinism in much of what Democrats have offered since the 2024 election. Bernie Sanders and AOC think Democrats should talk more about the “billionaire class” and “fighting oligarchy.” Ro Khanna proposes a “New Economic Patriotism” that would emphasize promotion of American manufacturing and hi-tech development across all regions of the country. Chris Murphy thinks the key to a Democratic revival is advocating the breakup of corporate power. Other Democrats suggest a relentless focus on “kitchen-table” issues (ah, what would Democrats do without that fabled kitchen table…). Even the new kid on the block, the “abundance” liberals, who have more interesting ideas, still leave cultural issues completely out of their framework. The general idea across these approaches is that focusing on economic issues will win back the working class and obviate the need to change anything else.
This attempt to magic away the influence of culture has not worked and will not work.
{Unlike Bernie] Sanders, a liberal stalwart who has held a near-monomaniacal focus on economic fairness throughout his career, AOC has picked high-profile culture war fights from the left, which Sanders largely avoided throughout his career. For example, she has vocally supported (or at least defended) controversial policies like abolishing ICE2, defunding the police, and doing away with private health insurance. This reflects much of the case that Trump made against Harris to great effect last year. Helping his cause were video clips of Harris espousing similarly controversial views—and similar clips existinabundance for AOC.
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