With reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the usa And a little bit of history thrown in.
Speaker AThis is America, a history in the Making.
Speaker AHello, and welcome to another episode of A History in the Making.
Speaker AI'm Liam Heffernan and joining me is is regular on the show, Emma Long.
Speaker AWelcome back.
Speaker BHi, Liam.
Speaker AAnd still in D.C. i am still.
Speaker BIn Washington, D.C. yes.
Speaker AThat is wonderful.
Speaker AIs it as hot there as it has been here?
Speaker BIt has been, yes.
Speaker BI think last time we spoke, I was sweltering through a heat wave.
Speaker BTemperatures are back kind of to more normal Washington D.C. summer temperatures.
Speaker BBut that still means that, you know, temperatures are in the low 30s with high humidity, so it's not as bad, but bad enough.
Speaker AYeah, yeah.
Speaker AIt's cooled down a little bit over here.
Speaker ASo we had a bit of rain as well recently, which is nice.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd I'm starting to navigate the world of gardening, which is.
Speaker AWhich is new territory for me, so I'm hoping.
Speaker AI'm trying to grow some trees, so a bit of rain is nice.
Speaker BThat's always good.
Speaker BI dread to think I've been away for, what, three weeks or so now, Just over three weeks.
Speaker BI fear my garden will be dead by the time I get home.
Speaker AYeah, well, fingers crossed.
Speaker ABut, yeah.
Speaker AWell, talking of morbidly talking of death, what about the.
Speaker ASo the war in Ukraine?
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AI think one of the biggest stories.
Speaker ALet's just cover this.
Speaker AIt's fairly recent developments is Trump appears to be doing a bit of a U turn against his campaign in that he's now promising to provide weapons for Ukraine, but it's going to be via NATO.
Speaker ASo.
Speaker ASo it almost feels like a weird kind of half compromise that we're not directly giving them to Ukraine, but we also are.
Speaker AAnd this hasn't gone down well, has it, with other MAGA folk?
Speaker BNo, not with some.
Speaker BI think there's kind of been a range of sort of responses to this.
Speaker BOn one hand, I think from supporters of Ukraine, there's been this kind of relief that American aid and technology is going to find its way to.
Speaker BTo Ukraine.
Speaker BAnd President Trump, of course, has sort of sold this as a kind of NATO are going to buy them.
Speaker BSo this isn't, you know, this isn't the Biden era just giving them stuff at the cost of the American taxpayer.
Speaker BThese things are going to be bought and purchased, and then whatever NATO members do with them, it's none of our business.
Speaker BYou know, the culture of deniability that has got American presidents so an awful lot over the years.
Speaker BBut Yeah, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, has been the, like, the biggest critic of this and sort of saying, well, no, no, no, what my constituents want to hear is that we're not thinking about foreign stuff anymore.
Speaker BWe're not getting involved in foreign things.
Speaker BYou know, Trump and all of us last year campaigned on getting out of these kinds of conflicts.
Speaker BAnd no matter how much of a distance Trump claims there is, this is still an engagement that we're, we're not going to do so.
Speaker BAnd there have been other number of other Republicans who've kind of sort of sat on the fence slightly, who kind of said it's not ideal, but at least these, this stuff is being bought.
Speaker BSo there's been a range of responses to it.
Speaker BBut, yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's kind of an interesting one in that it's rare to see people from within that MAGA crowd really kind of openly criticizing Trump these days.
Speaker BSo it's kind of interesting to see her doing that on this particular issue.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd I think, you know, because obviously, Marjorie Taylor Greene is hardly known for being a voice of reason by any degree, but she does, she does represent the opinions of a fairly hardcore faction of Trump supporters.
Speaker ASo it is really interesting that she is now being quite outspoken against Trump because, I mean, Trump has been making a lot of threats about pulling support and, in fact, funding other candidates if other people talk up against him.
Speaker AAnd, I mean, it just, it strikes me as very strange that someone who has basically built her whole career politically on the back of Trump would be so outspoken against him.
Speaker BYeah, it is odd, and I guess we'll see how it plays out, whether it continues in other issues or whether it's specific to this particular one.
Speaker BI mean, it may be that there is something about her particular constituency where she kind of feels that this is an issue that she has to.
Speaker BTo push on, because that's what she's hearing from the people that she represents.
Speaker BAnd you know that, you know that that's entirely possible.
Speaker BI mean, she's, you know, she's up for election every two years as a member of the House of Representatives.
Speaker BYou know, you're constantly, you are constantly running for election, as the members of the House will tell you.
Speaker BSo whether there's some kind of particular concern to do with where she's.
Speaker BShe's running, or whether this is sort of a bigger issue about trying to raise a profile, perhaps for a step up maybe to the Senate or to some other kind of some other kind of office, it's not clear yet, but you're Right.
Speaker BIt is kind of unusual for, well, these days for almost anybody from within, kind of high up in the MAGA crowd to be openly critical of Trump.
Speaker BSo, yeah, it's definitely unusual.
Speaker BI'm not entirely sure what, what's going on there.
Speaker BWe may see it, it may become something, it may, may sort of disappear, I don't know.
Speaker ABut this is it.
Speaker AAnd I wonder if, because this is, this is really the first time since even, you know, before 2016, since like 2015, when Trump started campaigning, that we've, that we've really started to see the potential for cracks to emerge in the MAGA camp.
Speaker ABecause this isn't the only issue.
Speaker AI mean, you've been hearing a lot about the Epstein files because that's becoming a real thing over there, isn't it?
Speaker BYeah, it really is.
Speaker BAnd in a way that seems to be surprising Trump.
Speaker BI mean, there are lots of reasons why it shouldn't do, including a tendency amongst the right wing to conspiracy theories.
Speaker BAnd also actually, Trump's own sort of language on the Epstein files.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThat, you know, yes, he would release everything now.
Speaker BIt's not going to be released now.
Speaker BHe's trying to say that something about, you know, the files, the files were created by Obama or Hillary or who knows who else on the radical left of the politics.
Speaker BSo it all kind of, that constantly changing language isn't new to Trump.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BWe've seen him defend policies that he wants to take for different reasons over time.
Speaker BBut because this one, because the issue of the Epstein files, there's something particular about that and the crimes that Epstein was accused of that seem to have got the MAGA crowd riled up.
Speaker BAnd because of this sort of leaning towards conspiracy theories that they're almost seeing what a lot of people on the left have been seeing in Trump's changing language.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BWhich is.
Speaker BWhy would you say different things about it over time unless you were trying to cover something up?
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BSo that seems to be quite a big talking point here.
Speaker BAnd Trump gave a press conference, I think, this morning, UK time, in which he's trying to kind of wave supporters off.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BHe's like, epstein's not important, he's been dead for years.
Speaker BWhy are you still talking about it?
Speaker BAnd that sort of weirdly, that's fueling the thing, Right.
Speaker BIt's a kind of, you know, people are going, well, he's sort of standing there saying, nothing to see here, nothing to see here.
Speaker BIt's odd that this is the issue that Trump supporters are.
Speaker BTrump supporters are really picking up on because there have been, you know, people on the left have been pointing out inconsistencies in Trump for.
Speaker BFor a really long time.
Speaker BSo this seems to be one where there's kind of some kind of bipartisan support for.
Speaker ABut do you think, though, that the reason why this has become a thing is because covering up, or at least just not releasing the details in the Epstein files after promising to.
Speaker AIt can look like Trump is now becoming part of the corrupt system that he spent years saying needs to be dismantled.
Speaker ALock Hillary up, lock Biden up, lock up everyone, because they're all part of this corrupt system that I'm going to change.
Speaker AAnd now suddenly he's saying, no, actually, let's keep these files quiet.
Speaker AMiraculously, only a short time after Elon Musk fell out with Trump and told everyone that Trump was in the Epstein files, suddenly he doesn't want them to be released.
Speaker AIt just, I feel like I don't really know what he gets at this point out of not releasing the files.
Speaker AI feel like if he was going to have a strategy at all, and let's say, hypothetically he was in the Epstein files, the plan should be, okay, how do we spin this so that it doesn't actually make me look bad and go ahead and release the files?
Speaker BYeah, and it's also possible that there's just not that much in them, to be honest.
Speaker BI mean, it could just be that having made a big issue of this sort of on the campaign trail before actually having access to documents, you know, they've suddenly realized that actually there's not really anything there that could be one example of that, which is kind of, it's not worth releasing because there's just, you know, not much of any interest and, or, you know, what is going to be there is going to be completely out of some kind of context.
Speaker BAnd there'd be.
Speaker BThere may be people who, you know, possibly, possibly Trump supporters, possibly others who, you know, will get caught up in it when actually there's no reason to.
Speaker BYeah, so it may be that.
Speaker BAnd I mean that.
Speaker BBut that.
Speaker BThat idea that somehow, you know, instead of Trump changing Washington, Washington is kind of impacting on the way Trump does business or the way that he has to do things isn't, I guess, going to sit well with MAGA supporters.
Speaker BAnd I think maybe that's also part of the reaction to the ukra Ukraine, the sending military aid to Ukraine via NATO.
Speaker BThere's the risk that it kind of, you know, that it seems like going back on something he said when most people, I think would say, well, yeah, you campaign in one way and then you get into government and you have to deal with the practical realities of everything that's there and all the stuff that you didn't know about.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BAnd so you have to, you know, you have to amend accordingly.
Speaker BBut I think as electorates, and you see this in the UK as well as the us, we're not very forgiving when people change, you know, change position or they change their minds.
Speaker BAnd actually, sometimes there's good reason for that.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAs people learn more things come in a different context.
Speaker BAnd, you know, MAGA isn't unusual in that.
Speaker BIt's just sort of unusually vocal.
Speaker ABut, you know, I mean, going back to you suggesting maybe Washington has changed Trump a bit, I'm not sure it really has.
Speaker AI think Trump's failing is that he has verbal diarrhea and his language is aggressive and it's threatening at times.
Speaker AAnd I think he boxes himself in, and he's now in a position where he's promised one thing and.
Speaker AAnd he's been saying for years that he's going to do this and that, and now actually, he's got too many political allies and too many people that he.
Speaker AHe kind of needs.
Speaker AIt's kind of fitting that there's sirens in the background talking about this, but he's got so many.
Speaker AHe's got so many political allies and people now that he relies on that he has to pander them and play along and play the politics game the same as every other president has had to do.
Speaker ALike when you.
Speaker AWhen you strip away all of the crazy, you know, press antics, he's no different.
Speaker AReally.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BThat's a really interesting perspective.
Speaker BAnd I didn't mean to suggest that Washington has changed Trump, only that critics may well be seeing that in these tiny little issues.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThat are coming up.
Speaker BBut, yes, I mean, you can't keep promising things to people and then not deliver if you don't want them to kind of bite back at you.
Speaker BAnd I'm sure there are backroom deals that have gone on with Trump and Trump supporters, because they've gone on with every president and presidential candidate for generations.
Speaker BIt's not like that's new or surprising to anybody.
Speaker BSo, yeah, very, very possibly that part of what is different about Trump is his methodology, should we say, or his approach to doing these things, rather than necessarily the outcome of it.
Speaker AThat's it.
Speaker AAnd I think you look at any sort of seasoned politician, and I think most presidents bar Trump have been career politicians, or at least they've come from a very disciplined background, law.
Speaker AAnd I think that teaches you to have a particular skill set.
Speaker AOne of those skills being discretion and knowing when not to talk.
Speaker AAnd I think that comes in very handy when you're playing the politics game, especially when you're the president, when no one can actually pinpoint exactly what your opinion or your stance is on something until you actually have to make one.
Speaker ATrump isn't really very good at that.
Speaker AHe says what he thinks at any moment and that can also change 10 minutes later, which can be problematic for him.
Speaker BRight, yeah.
Speaker BAnd for pretty much everybody else around, I think, in terms of trying to work out what's going on.
Speaker BBut yes, I think career politicians are very good at being careful about what they publicly commit to.
Speaker BShould we say that language of deniability or kind of smoothing things over, saying, well, maybe kind of, that they can then go back and, and kind of say, well, he didn't absolutely commit to it.
Speaker BAll of which, of course is language that the Trump supporters would say, well, yeah, that's what we're sick of.
Speaker BYou know, we want that plain speaking, we want that sort of, that sense of being told the truth and so on and so forth.
Speaker BBut yeah, you're right, it does in some ways make Trump's life more difficult when then he changes his mind.
Speaker BAlthough one of the interesting things about Trump that I think scholars will be trying to unpick for many, many years is why say Biden changing his mind on something attracts so much criticism and claims of flip flopping and not being consistent.
Speaker BTrump changing his mind on things four times a day, he's not held to account in quite the same way for that.
Speaker AYeah, but I think that's, you know, the process over the last decade of Trump really desensitizing people to that.
Speaker ABecause I think when other politicians, you know, let's take Biden is the most recent example of another president.
Speaker AYou know, he, he's very careful with what he says and, and when he says it, he's learned to be like that as a politician.
Speaker ABut then when you do have to go back on something and you do a U turn, I think it feels a lot worse.
Speaker AWhereas Trump just, there's this, it's just a constant storm of things and he says things and does things and then does something else and says something else.
Speaker ALike you just, you're waiting for the next crazy antic.
Speaker AAnd it kind of just becomes part of just the, I don't know, it's just because part of what we expect from Trump.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker BYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker BAnd maybe that is part of what covers him when he, when he does make those changes because he does it all the time on big things and small things.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BSo it just kind of becomes part of the ether.
Speaker BBut I do think it's, I don't think it's necessarily something that we can look at sort of while we're in the middle of it.
Speaker BI think it's something that future scholars are going to have to try and unpick about, you know, how it happened and why it happened and why Trump was able to get away with it in a way that others have.
Speaker BHaven't been.
Speaker BYeah, I, I just think when you're living in the middle of it, it's hard to, to get that kind of objective perspective on.
Speaker BYeah, I guess on, on why, you know, it's proved so, so potent at this particular moment.
Speaker AYeah, well, I mean, history scholars in, in 50 years time are going to have an absolute gold mine of stuff to, to work with.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BBut probably no archives.
Speaker AYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker BWe have no idea what, what the Trump admin with the, with their, their papers and records.
Speaker BSo who knows?
Speaker AYeah, true.
Speaker AAnd I guess kind of on that note, you know, thinking about some of the stuff that's been going on just in the last, I mean, man, it's only been six months since Trump was inaugurated, but in that time, obviously one of his right hand men was Elon Musk.
Speaker AAnd you know, talking of, you know, u turns sort of biting him in the butt, obviously him pushing through this big beautiful bill resulted in the very public fallout with Elon.
Speaker AAnd since, you know, I mean, there's been a lot of back and forth on social media.
Speaker AIt's so hard to actually keep up with all the insults they've thrown at each other.
Speaker ABut Musk seems to have made some sort of concrete action in, well, or at least declaration, in kind of telling everyone that he's going to set up his own political party.
Speaker AI mean, is, is this all, is, is this all just fluff or is there actually something to be worried about here with the potential of Musk setting up a party?
Speaker BI suppose it depends who you are and where you sit really.
Speaker BI mean, it's not surprising, Right.
Speaker BThese are two men with two very big egos who are used to being in control of the realms in which they, they work.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BSeeing them work together, there was always going to come a time when they were going to split.
Speaker BI'm sort of surprised that it hasn't been messier perhaps than it seems to have been.
Speaker BAlthough as Regular listeners will know I'm largely absent from social media, so maybe I'm missing some, some of it here.
Speaker BBut I mean, I think one thing that perhaps we don't know about so much in the UK is that there are a lot more parties in the US than you might think.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BYes, there's the Republicans and the Democrats, particularly at local level.
Speaker BThere are other parties that often run in local or statewide elections.
Speaker BSo the US isn't strictly a two party system if you look outside of like presidential and congressional races.
Speaker BAnd I mean there are several independents of course, who sit in the, in Congress at the moment, which doesn't make a separate party, but does kind of is a glitch in that two party system.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BAnd these parties historically have come and gone and you know, round particular issues or particular individuals.
Speaker BSo it's not unusual.
Speaker BAnd for Musk, it's not hugely difficult to say I'm going to set up a party and maybe get people.
Speaker BWhat is harder is to then have an impact on the electoral process.
Speaker BEspecially if what you're talking about is the national trying to make an impact at the national level.
Speaker BI mean, we've talked about US elections, right, Many, many times in terms of sort of not just what was happening at a particular election, but sort of the processes and the challenges and what it takes to be able to run for office.
Speaker BAnd you know, you need money.
Speaker BNo one's doubting that Elon Musk has got plenty of it.
Speaker BSo that's perhaps one less obstacle that some people might face in trying to set up a party.
Speaker BBut you also need, you need the infrastructure, you need it at state level and you need it at national level to be able to organize people, to get the kind of just the paperwork done to be able to run in elections, then you need the infrastructure to run a campaign and then knock on doors and to do all of those kinds of things, to organize the literature, to make and run adverts, those kinds of things.
Speaker BAnd that is much harder to do.
Speaker BSo, you know, yes, Musk can say he's going to set up a party.
Speaker BHe can file the relevant paperwork, he can get a few people on board.
Speaker BWill he manage to get enough to actually have an impact?
Speaker BThat remains a question to be seen as we go forward.
Speaker BWill he lose interest and you know, just sort of for this issue just to kind of fade out into the background as other things happen?
Speaker BWe don't yet know, but he can certainly set up a party.
Speaker BThe question is whether it can actually do anything.
Speaker AYeah, and I mean, we have seen a precedence, especially here in Europe, for traditional political systems to be challenged in recent years.
Speaker AI mean, who would have thought 40 years ago that the Conservative Party in the UK would have such sort of a small presence in Parliament as it does today?
Speaker ASo there is the possibility.
Speaker ABut the American two party system for the last 100 years has tightened up so much.
Speaker AI do wonder the, you know, I guess I've got a two pronged question here.
Speaker AIf Elon Musk did seriously set up a US political party, where on that spectrum would or should he position himself and then as someone who can't actually run for president himself, who would he want to do that?
Speaker BYeah, it's a really good question, particularly sort of the issue of positionality.
Speaker BOne of the reasons that the US sort of the two parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have proved to be so durable, I think, is that they've turned out to be kind of really good vultures.
Speaker BSo every time a third party or third movement has sort of threatened or arisen, they've managed to like, cherry pick the bits that fit within them and kind of subsume them under the umbrella.
Speaker BSo I'm thinking particularly of the progressive movement of the early 20th century, a lot of which kind of ends up being part of a Democratic platform.
Speaker BBut there are other sort of smaller examples along the way.
Speaker BSo with Musk.
Speaker BYeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker BWho's he appealing to?
Speaker BIs he appealing to disgruntled Trump supporters?
Speaker BWhich, you know, there may be some, but it's hardly enough to build a party on.
Speaker BI can't, given his support of Trump in, you know, the last year or so, and probably his, his role in giving Trump a push over the finishing line to the election last year.
Speaker BI can't see many sort of hardcore Democrats being attracted a Musk party.
Speaker BThere may well be voters who, you know, some of those who voted for Trump in 2016 who are kind of like, we need a different approach, we need to shake things up.
Speaker BWho might perhaps be attracted to someone like Musk.
Speaker BBut yeah, it's sort of, it feels a little bit like this is motivated by, I don't like you anymore, therefore I'm going to try and challenge you.
Speaker BAnd it's not as if, you know, it's not as if Trump doesn't have challenges.
Speaker BYou've still got.
Speaker BThere might be a declining number, but there are some moderate Republicans still around, you know, who may well fight against a MAGA response.
Speaker BThere are the Libertarians who have a tendency to find their home in the Republican Party.
Speaker BBecause of the sort of the small government hands off approach, but are not entirely, entirely comfortable within that, that sphere.
Speaker BSo, you know, then does he appeal to them?
Speaker BBut again, none of these are big enough constituencies, I think.
Speaker BSo it'll be interesting to see, I think, how if he does move forward with this kind of who he's appealing to.
Speaker AThere is a scenario though, I wonder if, where sort of center right Republicans see a sort of strategic benefit in allowing Elon Musk to bankroll them in the name of another party because they could still run as essentially a conservative party.
Speaker ABut there's also going to be an appeal there to the Trump supporters who do still like Musk and are just going to blindly believe that actually because Musk is financing it, they're going to be more right than they are.
Speaker AI wonder if there is like there's a way to play that where Musk could move to the center in order to challenge Trump effectively and actually win a lot of votes for it.
Speaker BPerhaps.
Speaker BI think they'll come up against various obstacles.
Speaker BI mean, there's the, we don't talk about it a lot, but there's kind of the nativist sentiment here, which is, you know, Musk's a foreigner and you know, foreign money in US elections.
Speaker BIt's not to say it's not not there, but, you know, Musk openly bankrolling it is kind of a very obvious version of that.
Speaker BSo it would become a target for those, those groups talking about, you know, foreigners getting involved in our elections and so on and so forth, no matter how much they might support America doing it elsewhere.
Speaker BI think that that's probably an issue.
Speaker AIt didn't put off the MAGA voters, though.
Speaker BWell, no, I suppose that's also true.
Speaker BAlthough how much they, you know, I think there's a lot of people who kind of thought of Musk's money as kind of an additional add on, despite the amount that we were talking about rather than kind of the fundamental funding of it.
Speaker BI also think that there are groups for whom Musk is just way too toxic to be involved in.
Speaker BThey might have accepted him when he was this slightly eccentric billionaire who was trying to send stuff into space.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAnd built electric cars.
Speaker BBut his move into politics, as often all moves into politics do, has, I think, alienated certain groups of people who would be resistant to that.
Speaker BAgain, may not be enough people to cause a problem, but yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see.
Speaker BI think the history of third parties in the United States suggests it's not going to get very far.
Speaker BBut what it could do, thinking about the things we've already been talking about on this episode, it could be another crack in the MAGA facade and you can only take so many of those before everything falls apart.
Speaker BSo it could be a factor along with other things and undoubtedly other issues that are going to come up over the next three and a bit years of the Trump administration.
Speaker BIt could be that things fall apart not because there's like one big implosion of one particular issue, but kind of these smaller things that eke away at it and eventually it crumbles under its own weight.
Speaker BPossibly.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AWell, I mean, I think if history has taught us anything when we look at the US political system, it's that if anything, Musk might just split the Republican vote, which is just going to make it harder for them to get re elected in what, three years.
Speaker BYes, Democrats might be thrilled.
Speaker AYeah, exactly.
Speaker AYeah, they'll be financing Musk's party to get themselves in.
Speaker AI think it's probably the best tactic they have right now.
Speaker BYeah, I think one of the interesting things, I don't know if it was reported there, but certainly here, that there was a Democratic meeting last week, earlier on this week, where Obama basically told Democrats to stop whining and stand up and fight, which I think is kind of interesting.
Speaker BObama has largely kept a pretty low profile, except at particular moments in time.
Speaker BHe was active in the election last year, but otherwise he's not been kind of at the top of the headlines a great deal.
Speaker BBut, and I don't think this was intended to be either, but sort of saying to Democrats basically stop looking for.
Speaker BI think the language that was used here, I haven't seen the speech, but was like, stop looking for the Messiah.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BStop looking for the single person who can head the party who's going to defeat Trump and lead us out of this mess.
Speaker BYou have to work at this from the grasp which fits.
Speaker BYou know, that's where Obama started.
Speaker BThat was in part why he was so successful at campaigning.
Speaker BBut it's sort of, I find it kind of interesting that someone who still has that kind of profile within the Democratic Party has basically come out and said, stop infighting, stop navel gazing, stop thinking about why did we lose in 2024 and start thinking about how you can win in 2026 and 2028.
Speaker BAnd you can only do that with a sort of positive forward looking program, not one that sort of looks backwards.
Speaker AYeah, I agree.
Speaker AI think next year's midterms is going to be really Interesting.
Speaker AJust to see if the Democrats have managed to find a way out of the pickle that they're in.
Speaker AI think it's going to take longer.
Speaker AI think I really, right now I don't see a scenario in which the Democrats get the White house back in 2028.
Speaker AI think they need to be looking at 2032 field someone who's going to be a bit of a character in three years.
Speaker AYou never know, you might just do something.
Speaker ABut I mean, this is a long term rebuild for the Democratic Party, I think.
Speaker BYeah, I think it may be.
Speaker BIt may be that someone emerges.
Speaker BI mean, Obama, for example, wasn't predicted as a candidate back in 2008 or really 2006.
Speaker BYou know, somebody charismatic may, may break through, you know, may sort of try to take the lead on this.
Speaker BSomebody perhaps we're not familiar with or we're sort of familiar with on the sidelines.
Speaker BThat's not impossible to run some kind of campaign that motivates people and kind of grabs voters across the political spectrum.
Speaker BSo those kinds of surprises may happen.
Speaker BBut yeah, institutionally, I think the Democrats don't quite know.
Speaker BThey still haven't figured out how to deal with Trump and they haven't figured out really how to deal with MAGA either.
Speaker BAnd that's the bigger problem.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BTrump can't run again.
Speaker BAnd even someone who tries to mold themselves on the Trump approach isn't going to be Trump.
Speaker BWe've seen people try that and fail.
Speaker BSo it's not really fighting, trying to work out how to fight against Trump.
Speaker BIt's about what kind of message you can get out to sort of people on the fringes of MAGA.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThose who shifted from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BAnd I don't think they haven't seemed to get to grips with that.
Speaker AYeah, I mean, I feel like the state of the Democrats at the moment, we're a couple of like steps away from seeing an AOC Bernie Sanders ticket in 2028, which would be absolutely terrible.
Speaker AI think that that's, that's not a ticket that's going to win the White House, as much as I love the two of them, but it just feels like right now they're clutching at straws and it's going to be characters like that that just stand above the parapet in a couple of years and get noticed because there just doesn't seem to be any direction in the party.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BAnd I mean, they went with Harris, who in many ways was kind of the establishment candidate.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAs vice president, even though as a woman and a woman of colour, her running and had she been elected, would have been historic.
Speaker BBut the campaign itself was pretty kind of middle of the road.
Speaker BSome would say, too, middle of the road.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BYou might say that's why she lost.
Speaker BSo maybe it is.
Speaker BMaybe it's going to take a character.
Speaker BI mean, that's what Trump is in many ways.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BIf you sort of take a step back and think, here's somebody with personality and character and, you know, has dominated as a result of that, and you can't.
Speaker BIt's much harder to argue, like the kind of rational approach when you.
Speaker BWhen you are dealing with somebody who's sort of larger than life in, in many ways.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BAnd I mean, you know, we, we say, well, he lost in 2020.
Speaker BBut I think we also have to remember that the 2020 election was so unusual because it was in the middle of COVID Nothing was really the same in that election as any other previous election.
Speaker BPeople were in various stages of lockdown.
Speaker BThe campaign couldn't run in the same way that it ran before.
Speaker BA lot of it was done digitally because public appearances were limited.
Speaker BPeople were.
Speaker BThe death toll was high.
Speaker BPeople were worried about what was happening.
Speaker BYou've got Trump talking about injecting bleach as a possibility.
Speaker BSo the 2020 election was not just Trump versus Biden.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BIt was the much bigger context.
Speaker BAnd I do wonder, without that, whether Trump might have won for all the reasons that he won in 2016 and 2024.
Speaker BI mean, I'm a historian.
Speaker BI'm much more comfortable when I deal with the facts.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThe what did happen rather than what might have happened.
Speaker BBut when you look back and really try and remember exactly how odd and unusual things were in 2020, the campaign takes on a different sort of hue, I think.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AWell, on that note, I think we're never, never short of news all the time.
Speaker ATrump is in the White House.
Speaker ASo I'm sure everything that we've discussed now will be completely irrelevant in about two days time.
Speaker ABut it will hopefully entertain you all listening for.
Speaker AFor a very brief while until we get back on the mic and do this again.
Speaker ABut, Emma, thank you as always for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker AIt's a pleasure having you.
Speaker BThank you for the invitation to be here.
Speaker AOh, no problem.
Speaker AAnd yeah, I'm sure if something crazy happens, we'll be back with another in the making.
Speaker ABut for anyone listening, you can always catch our main episodes on a Tuesday where we do actually talk about history.
Speaker ASo check that out.
Speaker AFollow the show and if you do care to support us, there are links to do that in the show notes as well.
Speaker ASo thanks for listening and goodbye.
Speaker AThanks so much for listening to America, A history in the making.
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Speaker AThank you so much for listening and goodbye.