Robert Kagan and Marianne Williamson: Slipping Into Dictatorship

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Glad to welcome back, contributing writer at The Atlantic, and senior fellow at Brookings. His most recent book is Rebellion, How Anti-Liberalism Is Taring America Apart Again? It's Bob Kagan. How you doing, Bob? I'm good. How are you? I am well. I should have mentioned the top of you got a double header today. We got Mary Ann Williamson and segment two, kind of just natural, a natural pairing, Kagan and Williamson. People have been saying that to me. I want to start with your latest in The Atlantic. It is titled America versus the World. I guess the thesis here is about how Trump and his cronies are openly celebrating the end of the post-World War II, the Grand Bargain, and talking about how unfair that was to us. Now we wasted so much money on it, and it was too expensive, and we're going to take an advantage of, and they have a new plan, and a new plan that we're going to come to regret. How's that for the thesis? Is that so? Yeah, that's about right. I mean, they are reflecting, I think, a broader American sort of ignorance about how unusual the role the United States has played in the world since the end of World War II. How unusual the way other powers have responded to the United States, in the sense that they've been willing to let the United States be the strongest power in the world to place their security in American hands. That's just unprecedented in history, and it made for a very special kind of international environment, and one very beneficial to the United States, and where Trump is now taking us is back to a world that looks a lot more like the world that existed before World War II, or leading into World War II, a multipolar world where everybody's fending for himself, and that's a much more dangerous world for the United States. Let's do that little history lesson, because I was intrigued by that in your article. There's the period of what they called the long piece in Europe, where we had some version of what they're talking about with a more multipolar world. And that piece wasn't quite as peaceful as the piece that we've had in the post-World War II, I guess. Yeah, you can read a lot of articles by Trump sympathetic writers in foreign affairs these days about, hey, we can go back to a nice, you know, the concert of Europe and the multipolar world and the great powers all work it out. And the problem with that analogy is if you actually look at the 19th century, yes, it was a, as these things go, it was a better managed multipolar world than, say, the beginning of the 20th century, but it was still the case that practically in every single decade of this long piece, there was a major conflict involving two or more great powers, you know, conflicts that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and disrupted economies. There was the Crimean War, there was the Franco-Prussian War, et cetera. And if we were actually to replicate that kind of world today, we would be having major wars involving Russia, China, maybe Japan, Germany, the United States, pretty much once every decade. And I just think, again, people are so used to the broad piece among great powers that we've enjoyed since the end of World War II, that they just don't realize that a normal world is one where great powers are frequently in conflict. The pitch that's coming in those, I kind of even hate to give them credit at the writing in journals, you know, because it's kind of like monkey throwing poop at us. That's a letter on the chalkboard. We're saying, wow, very impressive. You know, it's not deep intellectuals in the mega foreign policy movement, but basically their pitch here is, is that we have a spheres of influence type situation where we get to take more influence over what's happening in Central and South America. And the Chinese have their sphere of influence in Asia. It's unclear exactly what the Russian sphere of influences and where Europe fits into all that. But let's kind of play that out and what that looks like in your vantage point if that actually came to fruition. Yeah, I mean, the first thing to be said is that our in that scenario, the American sphere of influence is a remarkably poor, not particularly well developed, not very industrial part of the world while their spheres of influence include the major industrial centers, the most powerful economies in the world, etc. People talk about spheres of influence without really understanding what they're talking about most of the time. So what is Russia's sphere of influence? If you think about it historically, and I mean, historically going back to the Tsar, it's not just back to Stalin, etc. Russia's natural sphere of influence definitely includes the Baltic state, so they will no longer be independent, they will be under Russian control, almost invariably throughout history for centuries when Russia has enjoyed its, what it regards as its appropriate sphere of influence, Poland has ceased to exist. It's either been partitioned between Russia and Germany or Russia and Russia, or it's been totally subsumed under Russian control. So if you're a poll, if we grant Russia its natural sphere of influence, they cease to be an independent country. And the same is true in Asia. I'm sure if anybody who looks at Chinese history will say China's view of its natural historic sphere of influence includes all of Southeast Asia and Japan and definitely Korea. So when people talk about spheres of influence, they're basically selling out all kinds of very significant populations of people who currently enjoy their freedom and independence to put them under the thumb of Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. They're very generous with other people's countries and sovereignty and territory. But also, aside from the horror that that would mean for those countries that are subsumed under those empires, the United States gets the worst part of this deal. Maybe the best part for vacationing. I don't know, China's got some good vacation territory. And how you feel about Machu Picchu and Patagonia and places like that. And also, it's a great step forward back to the 19th century when the United States, at the end of the 19th century, it already accomplished basically hegemony in the Western hemisphere. And we have enjoyed it ever since, by the way. So I don't even really understand what they think they're accomplishing in that sense. The big groups that are kind of left out of that conversation, as you sort of did your Carmen San Diego going around the globe and talking about who would have influence over what? Western Europe, Canada, Australia, are much natural allies. You write that the Trump supporters seem to believe that these allies and others, such as Korea, will just kind of go along with this. Be happy with the American approach. They're going to continue to tag along, subservient to us while we cut them loose strategically, extract steep economic tribute from them, and seek to establish concert with the other powers that threaten them. It seems like they probably won't be on board for that bargain. We heard about that from Mark Carnegie recently, but I assume others will increasingly check out from that deal. Yeah, I mean, right now what you're seeing in Europe is the same kind of several stages of grief that we've been going through in the United States, which is to say a lot of denial at first. A lot of, can we go back to the way things are? Maybe in 2028, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that some of the more astute of them understand that it really is over with the United States, and they need to start taking care of themselves. And in the first term, various Trump Bs like H.R. McMaster used to write America first, doesn't mean America alone. It's definitely going to mean America alone, in the sense that we are not going to be buddies with Russia and China. They will continue their fundamentally hostile and aggressive view toward American leadership in the world. And we are going to lose these allies, and they are going to go from being in the Allied column in many cases to adversaries to the United States. Because one thing that I think people are not focusing on is most of these democracies, public opinion is incredibly hostile to the United States right now. And it's only a matter of time before political leaders in those countries have to respond to this sort of increasing bitterness at the United States. Americans sort of think that everybody in the world were just sort of put up with whatever we do, but it's not true. And if you tariff, it just the tariffs alone and let alone the threatened aggression against Greenland, which is Allied territory, the tariffs alone are infuriating. And back in the day, decades ago, tariffs were regarded as an act of war. And so we have basically committed at the very least exacting tribute for our great leader with these countries, and that's going to create all kinds of bitterness. In the past, when there was anti-Americanism in Europe, for instance, which there was, the governments were like, we are not severing our relationship with the United States because they are providing protection for us. So what did the leaders do when we've made it clear we are no longer providing protection for them? And in fact, we are generally hostile to them, which after all, the Trump administration from Trump all the way down throughout the State Department is making clear how hostile they are to Europe. So what do we expect them to do? They're not going to be our buddies. I've got to mostly side with you there. Maybe a little ungenerous towards a charming master. I don't think we're going to be alone. And we've got some key allies still, El Salvador, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, who owns half of Trump's business. Maybe Honduras, if they do the crypto city, Honduras, and I'd be on there. No, it's really pretty good. It's extraordinary. In the article I mentioned, this very, I think he's a great Chinese strategic thinker, his name is Yanshwe Tong. And he has written a lot about how the difference between the United States and China is not military power and economic power because China can eventually acquire those things as it has been doing. But the big difference, as he wrote some 10, 12 years ago, was that the United States had something like 50 allies and strategic partners around the world and China had essentially none. Maybe a little Pakistan, maybe a little North Korea, and what you've just described is the new America, where we also have no allies around the world, except for El Salvador and Honduras and whoever else Trump has seen fit to help get into office around the world. So it is very much going to be not only America alone, but as I try to suggest, it's kind of America against everybody. You can't abuse everybody and expect them not to want to abuse you in return. One thing that is very opaque to me is how China is actually viewing all this. And obviously they have their own internal political issues. As always, they're dealing with, they're like, we're some, you know, another spade of purges recently. You know, so it's not like, you know, they're firing on all cylinders in China. But it's hard for me to think about like, how they look at this, whether it's kind of like, let the US keep botching this and we'll try to have some reproach them all with Canada and other countries and not do anything rash. Or maybe it's like, this is our opportunity to start being more aggressive. It starts for me to figure, what's your sense? Well, I think it's more the latter. I mean, yes, I think they want to benefit from all the nations we're alienating and it gives them an opportunity. They're a little ham-handed in dealing with that. They're not really great at sounding like you're a generous leader that everybody would want to side with. But nevertheless, people have to do what they have to do. And so they are benefiting from that. I'm guessing, and I think if you look at what she has been doing and the way people interpret these purges, he may well believe that the United States is not going to be like this forever, that it will eventually revert to its old self. And which means that there is a brief window of opportunity to really accomplish major Chinese objectives. And I'm not a synologist, but the synologist that I read have been speculating that he purged at least one of these generals because they were being too cautious on a Taiwan scenario. And that Xi Jinping really wants to, as he has said, really be ready to move in 2027. Xi Jinping has said that we're seeing great changes in the world unseen in a century by which he basically means America and retreat. And I think both he and Putin may see the next few years as a window of opportunity. And so I think there's a very reasonable chance that we will see a contingency, whether it's a blockade of Taiwan or some other version of a take over sometime in the next couple of years. The other output from all this is what our first-while allies are going to do. And I mean, this is something, while it's hard to predict exactly what China's strategic imperative is and when or if they decide to move on Taiwan, et cetera. It seems like our allies, former allies, Germany, Japan, Korea, other European countries are going to have to do military build-ups and start to think about their own security minus the United States, no matter what happens, right? Like even if the wheels start to come off the Trump train and it looks very clear that some internationalist Democrat is going to be the president in 2029, you can't look at what happened and think we are satisfied being this needy towards the US for our security. That is the right thing for them to do. Now, it's a challenge for them, obviously, because they have for so long depended on the United States for all kinds of things, intelligence and control of the oceans, which they are not even close to being able to replicate. So it's going to require a significant transformation of these European economies and even their societies and whether they're up to that, I don't know. It would be foolish of them. After we have elected Donald Trump twice, and by the way, it's not like this is Harry Truman, Dean Atterson's Democratic Party, let's not forget. I mean, this wasn't exactly a Democratic party that was sort of really showing American global leadership. I mean, when Ukraine was invaded, Biden did the right thing, but he didn't do it very forcefully or aggressively. So the notion that you're going to come back to post World War II and then the whole America is not true. And by the way, just really quick one thing on the Democratic Party, just worth putting, I think you accurately analyze the nature of the Biden era Democratic Party and the kind of limits on their willingness to engage in the world. It seems to me like the average Democratic voter, though, looks at the Hillary Biden Kamala era as being too interested in foreign meddling. And it seems to me like totally natural that some Democratic politician in 2028 emerges running more towards some version of, we should do less foreign adventures on, we should be more focused on peace and not have, whatever this bipartisan establishment blob running the party. I think that's probably the likely pivot for the Democratic Party in 2028. But look, let's face it, the national consensus on foreign policy in both parties had gotten to the point where everybody thought we're doing too much out there, why are we engaged, the Soviet Union is gone, et cetera. That's been happening since the end of the Cold War. So that is a reality. And let's not forget also, when it comes to trade, it was the Democrats who began the major hostility to foreign trade. They were the ones who wouldn't pass a trade bill. They were the ones who had to abandon Hillary Clinton's own negotiated partnership with Asia, et cetera. And so Trump in a way is late to the party on protectionism. So I don't know that if the Democrats come back in 2028 that they're going to get rid of all these tariffs, didn't Gretchen Whitmer say she kind of likes tariffs a little bit. And Biden kept some of the Trump tariffs in the first year. Traditional standards in the postwar period Biden was a pretty protectionist president. So they'll probably get rid of the stupidest ones, which is nice. And there is some unique elements to Trump's protectionism, just how stupid and corrupt it is. So there's some stupid and corrupt ones they can get rid of. There's corruption and there's vindictiveness. And I didn't like the way the Swiss president talked to me. So they get tariffs and tariffs and all that kind of stuff. So sure, we'll have a more rational protectionist system under the Democrats. Anyway, let us get to the point where we have a different administration in 2028. I don't think we're going to have fair elections in 2026. So and by the way, the world needs to understand that too. They sort of can't believe it's hard for them to believe the United States is actually slipping into dictatorship. And as that becomes clearer, that is also going to have an effect on the way the rest of the world views us. At least when we were a democracy, there was sort of shared values, even if we were not behaving as responsibly as we could be. But when the United States is dictatorship, I don't know why we would expect European or Asian countries that are not dictatorships to think kindly about us. Let's go to that question about 2026. You've been, I think, on more the leading edge of the alarmism on this, which I like. I'm always interested in hearing alarmist takes. You said this, I think it's to the New Yorker. There's no chance in the world that Trump is going to allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that will be the end of his ability to wield total power in the United States. I guess my quibble with that would be the words gonna allow himself. I think that he obviously would like to rig it. I'm just not so sure he's very good at that, but expand on your concerns about the midterms. Well, I mean, first of all, when we say things like he's not very good at it, we've already pocketed the fact that one year, they destroyed the federal government. I mean, it's really quite an accomplishment. I think historians will look back on this period and say, wow, boy, I tell you what, Stephen Miller and Russell Vaughn, that's world historical stuff that they done. They took a democratic system and basically dismantled it in one year. We are used to the fact that the Justice Department is now a wholly own legal service for going after Trump's enemies. We've been turned on. Okay, but they're very bad at it. This sort of thing. They're better at some things than others. They're really good at dismantling the government. They're good at the immigration, you know, shit. They've struggled at the taking over the DOJ. I mean, they're trying really hard, but like they keep stepping on rakes. Nobody's in jail yet, but we're free. You and me are free. Don Lemon is back out of jail. Jim Come is okay. So far, I'm just like, we're at so far. We're 14 months into this thing, so give it time. But no, I think that we need to take it very seriously because I've seen Minnesota as fundamentally not about immigration and deportation. I see it as deliberate intimidation and bullying by the federal government of a state. I think that the purpose of ICE is in fact to create protests and riots so that Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act and send, you know, the military into protect are the ballots, et cetera, and then they get handed over to the Justice Department to see whether there was, I mean, when Trump talks about nationalizing the elections, which he's now done two consecutive days, it's not like this was a throwaway. He clearly has this on his brain, whether he's able to completely pull it off or not, it doesn't have to be pulled off. It just has to be a mess. If all we have are undecided elections because the federal government thinks that something was done, there was a little skull duggery going on in Georgia or in Los Angeles, et cetera. So we really need to take a good look at that. What could happen is weeks can go by, well, they take a look at that, months can go by while they take a look at that and you don't ever actually seat a new Congress. And that is an even a direct attack on the Constitution. It's more, everything's a mess. What do you expect us to do? And here's my question for you, who is going to stop them? Is the Republican Party going to stop them? The Republican Party is the party of dictatorship today. I wish people would start talking about that more openly because they've sort of the Republican congressmen have sort of getting away with, well, that Trump he's doing stuff. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don't want to talk about it. The fact is everybody knows Trump is trying to create a dictatorship and the Republicans are down with it. The leadership of the party is not going to stop him if it costs them their job. So they are down to it. It's the party of dictatorship now. So who's going to stop these guys? The court and Supreme Court? I'm going to feel that question. I look, I think that for starters, the people are going to stop them because they're going to get shlonged in the house probably in November. And I was in your boat six months and talking to Mark Elias about this. And I was like, I'm not concerned about them, whatever, seizing the ballot boxes and having an actual fake election. I am worried about there being an election and then doing what you just laid out, which is stalling and delaying and challenging everything in the courts and not seeding people. The issue is that they tried to rig the elections through gerrymandering so they could give themselves more of a cushion and absolutely failed, totally backfired on them. And we should shut out the people in Indiana and others, some handful of good Republicans left out in the provinces. And so now they have this tiny majority. I get to seat majority basically in the house as it stands right now. So to steal a line from Trump, I just think it might end up being too big to cheat. And if they end up losing by 20, like what, they're not going to seat 22 people, maybe they won't do that. But like we've seen in the past from them that they tried to cheat, they tried to cheat and then like in certain times they backed down, right? Like Doug Masteryano didn't, nobody stormed the Harrisburg Capitol after Josh Shapiro beat him by 17 points. Like if Josh Shapiro beat him by one point, I bet people would have stormed the Harrisburg Capitol. You know, so I do think that stuff matters. And I think that the Supreme Court also matters. Like when it's been close calls, they've been giving it to Trump. When Trump has done like totally insane stuff, well, I guess maybe you wouldn't say the immunity for Trump wasn't a close call, but there have been times that the Supreme Court has rebuffed him. So that would be my reaction. Well, I mean, good luck. I would say good luck, America. Yeah, yeah. Just take ice for instance. Let's say ice goes into Los Angeles County and three weeks at a head of the election and is just doing in Los Angeles what it has been doing in Minneapolis. Are people who are non-white going to feel safe going to the polls when they know that whether they are citizens or not, they could wind up being sent off to some Texas detention center and then released and told to find their own way back home? I mean, it's sort of a euphemism to talk about voter suppression. What they're really talking about is frightening the hell out of everyone who is not a white American from coming to the polls. So there'd be that element. The purpose of ice is to spark riots, I believe. That's why they encourage them to be as brutal as possible. It's not an accident. There's so much talk about how, oh, they're not trained. If only they were trained. This nonsense, they want them to do this. They're encouraging them to be brutal so that there will be protest. This is definitely the Stephen Miller playbook so that they will be brutal. And therefore, spark riots, which then, if you do get into the Insurrection Act territory, historically, the court has been very reluctant to question the president's judgments about national security. That's how we got the Korematsu decision about Japanese internment. The court was not going to question the president's judgment about national security. And that was Franklin Roosevelt. So when Donald Trump says, hey, there's a national emergency. There is foreign power involvement. I'm sure Tulsi will be there to tell us about how there's foreign government involvement. I don't trust the court in that case to overrule the president's judgment, especially this court. At the end of the day, and this is the thing that I think we're just been really slow to pick up on, at the end of the day, things are about power. We keep hoping that the American spirit and the American institutions and all those things, all those wonderful things that we believe in are the things that are going to protect us. These guys are wielding force and they have a near monopoly of power. And you have to ask, what scruple does Trump have that is going to prevent him from taking these elections and messing with them in any way that he wants to? So I don't know. I'm not as optimistic as you are, Tim. When did someone say that on this podcast before? Can we get that clip and let's clip that? Clip and save. I'm not as obvious as to, I love you. That's great, Bob. I love having it. I'm so disappointed. Sometimes I feel like I'm totally deranged. And it's like, I like hearing from people that are like, no, actually, you're not concerned enough. I like that. That's important. It's important ballast. I'm quite serious. I really do. I know you're just offering it. Just really quick before you just let me say, here's the area where I don't know if I call it optimism. I'm just saying that the forces of political gravity still exist, I guess. And that's why I'm just saying it's not totally hopeless. And for example, I agree with your assessment about Minneapolis. They wanted to spur riots. It is intentional. The people that killed Renee Good and Alex Preddie, none of them are the new Dean Kane recruits. All of them have been around for 10 years. And so I agree with you. The people in the Minneapolis haven't done it. And Trump backed off a little bit. Now, not a ton, not a ton. And so it's not not to be excited about it. I'm just saying that they can be pushed back. And there are limits to their ability to be totally shamelessness and how they're going to seize power. And they're extremely shameless. But he has, Trump has demonstrated that he has only so much appetite for pain. I agree that if I were Steven Miller, I'd be very unhappy with Trump right now, because the proper response to what was happening was just shut up and this is who we are. And Trump does have a weakness as a dictator, which is at certain points, he doesn't like to have people mad about something and the optics are bad. And I'm hugging. I think, God, Fred didn't hug him. It turns out, right? Like if he had a more loving father and didn't have that empty hole in his heart, maybe he could have been a worse dictator. And the Republicans are very amusing about this, which is we're down with the dictatorship, but can it be less messy? Not let's not be murdering people in the streets. That's unpleasant. We get bad mail from our constituents. But otherwise, they're down with it. And by the way, have you noticed that basically 40% of the public is also down with the dictatorship? I mean, it's not like you can't know anymore what Trump's intentions are, how he's behaving. And yet he's still, I don't know, roughly, whether it give or take, he's at roughly 40%. That tells us something about the limits on him as well, right? And again, not to repeat myself, but I just think we don't really understand about what it means when they have all the power. All right, everybody, when you're doing a morning podcast, you don't want to deal with the hangover. But sometimes the news is such that having a little refreshment at night is useful and needed. And that's why I've been turning to our friends, our sponsor at Seoul. Seoul makes feeling good, simple. They make delicious hemp drive, CBD and THC products, like gummies and drinks, I'm a beverage man myself. With precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable, feel good effects. Seoul is the alcohol alternative that puts you in control of your mood. They're best sounding out of office gummies deliver a customizable calming buzz. They have a one and a half milligram microdose for a gentle lift to a 15 milligram Bob Kagan dose that gives you a deeper, more elevated experience. As I mentioned, I also got those out of office beverage. I got good flavors, tastes great. It gives you a smooth social vibe and a refreshing alcohol-free drink. Give yourself the gift of a healthier, unwind. Right now, Seoul is offering my audience, 30% off your entire order. Go to getsold.com and use the code, the bulwark, that's getsold.com promo code of the bulwark for 30% off. Real quick, two more things for you, let's you go. I think that in addition to being on the cutting edge of alarmism, you've also been, I think, the least bullish of all the Neocon intelligentsia about Trump's Middle East policy or maybe the most hostile to it or less interest, at least interested in what he's been doing over there. Particularly with regards to Iran, this is still ongoing, Kushner and Wicoff, we're supposed to be in Istanbul Friday for talks with Iran, but Iran will be in Oman, we'll see what happens, there's been some encounters and the gulf of various ships and drones. A lot of folks are pushing for Trump to be more aggressive in Iran. You wrote a couple of months ago now about how alarming that is to you, just for domestic purposes in particular, but just give us a quick summary of your view on what's happening there. Well, there's two things. There's the foreign policy side of it and then there's domestic side of it. I'll just dispense with the domestic side quickly. Why was Stephen Miller so gung ho about Venezuela? Is he concerned about oil? No, for him, it is about domestic politics and the more that you can say, we are at war with someone, the more power the president theoretically has domestically. So there's that. There's also the fact that I think that there's no question that they are trying to militarize American society in many ways and it goes with the use of the military abroad and also the desire to use the military at home. We've become an increasingly militarized society under Trump and that's deliberate on their part. So let's go bomb people, let's go kidnap people. It just shows how strong I am Donald Trump. It shows how our military is the greatest institution, et cetera. And I'm a big fan of our military and I'm sorry that they've been put in this position but they are now a potential weapon against democracy and Trump wants to use them that way. So that's the domestic side of it. On the foreign policy side of it, I'm sort of amused in a way. We are now back to the 1990s when the Clinton administration and others including people like Don Rumsfeld and Richard Pearl, they thought they could solve every problem by bombing. The notion that you can accomplish things on the ground simply by bombing places was demonstrated to be wrong in the 1990s. And Trump hasn't shown unusual courage internationally. The reason we used ground troops in Iraq in 2003 was that bombing Iraq didn't accomplish any objectives as we learned. And so my question is, what are we accomplishing from bombing Iran? And by the way, I would like to see very much this regime fall. I pray for the Iranian people that this regime falls. But if you ask me, does Trump actually give a hoot about democracy in Iran or the people of Iran in Venezuela? He turned the government over to the next in command of the dictator that had to be removed because he was so terrible. So who are they going to hand the government over to in Iran in the event that Iran actually falls? But I'm even skeptical that bombing is really the solution to anything right now. So until you show me an actual plan with an actual outcome that I can imagine, I just think Trump, this is all about Trump. It's about his glory. It's about, look at me, I can bomb places, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm just not that enthusiastic about it as some people are. Last of you are ahead of the game on leaving the Washington Post. You popped out of there. I got a year ago. Maybe the last time you were on on your own volition, they're firing a bunch of people today getting rid of local news. I guess they're going to lean into more glowing Melania documentary coverage. But I just wonder if you have any thoughts on the on the last today. Well, it's funny because I resigned the day that he announced that he was not going to endorse Kamala Harris. And it was not because I carried a great deal about endorsing Kamala Harris one way or the other, but it was clearly to me a sign of where he was going, which is that he was going to knuckle under to Trump. That very same day, I feel like this is under reported. The very same day, the post announced that the Blue Origin executives, which are Bezos' space program, met with Trump on the side of one of his events in a clearly orchestrated me, Quid Pro Quo meeting. And so none of this is really surprising. And the fact is he couldn't care less about the Washington Post, obviously. I don't know why he won't just sell it, to be honest. But he took it over as a kind of charity when he was thinking he was a good guy. But now he's just thinking like he's an oligarch in the Trump entourage. So the post is a victim of that. Bob Kagan, thank you so much, man. You got to be back more often. I need somebody to check me. All right. You need a wake-up call to answer this one question about it. Yeah. All right. Up next, Mary Ann Williams. MUSIC and their romantic journey that they're trying to deal with. And therapy can help you find your way. Therapy can help you find what's weighing your relationships down and find ways to brighten them up again. I mean life is long, baby. Life is long, you know? Everybody's going through some bumps. Even if you got great marriages, great long term relationships, you're never gonna get through it all without having some thoughts cross your mind, you know? And it's important to walk through those, either in a couples environment or by yourself can be super helpful. Therapy's been great for me on the work side of things, but you know, the same applies on their relationship. When it comes to better health, they got quality therapists who are working according to a strict code of conduct, they're fully licensed in the US, they help you match with a therapist that works for you. If you aren't happy with your magic and switch to different therapists at any time from their tailored wrecks. So, sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash the bulwark. That's betterHELP.com slash the bulwark. All right, we are back. She's an author, activist and spiritual lecturer. She's also run for president of these United States on the Democratic ticket, Delayed Welcome to the Show, Mary Ann Williamson. How you doing? I'm good and thank you so much for having me on, some honor to be here. I'm excited. So here, I want to tell you the origin story of you coming on. I received an email and the email said this. She writes, I love your willingness to examine your consciousness. And I heard you say recently, you want to have more guests on who may have different views. So I'd like to suggest you talk to Mary Ann Williamson. Few took her seriously as a presidential candidate, but she learned some things. I think she'd be interesting, Cheryl, in parentheses, one of your boomer granny fans. And so Cheryl, I listened to a good suggestion. And I got that, I forwarded it to everybody. I was like, this is exactly right. We should have Mary Ann Williamson on. So thank you. I'm just curious kind of at the biggest picture how you're seeing things now. The state of affairs. I don't think it's hyperbole to call them catastrophic. Yeah. It will go down in the history books as one of the darkest chapters in American history. I hope that those history books will be written when there is still an American democracy. I think there will be ultimately. I don't think it's going to be quick. I think this is a deep cancer and the bones, as it were. It will take time. I think we'll ultimately come out on the other side better than ever, but not real soon. That's what I think. You do think we'll come out the other side? Why? I think some generation of Americans will rise up. I don't know if I, as a boomer, will say it in my lifetime. This could take up to 20 years. But I do think this. I think that there is in the DNA of this country, a spirit. And you see it on the streets of Minneapolis. Most of the institutions, which we would have looked to to either prevent this horror or have stopped it by now, have either been so corrupted to be nullified or have themselves fallen. But what has not fallen are the people of Minneapolis. That is our Lexington and Concord. These are the heroes of this moment. And the reason what they have done is so important. It's because they have created a template. They've not only stood up in Minneapolis, but they've created a template so that when and if Tom Homan takes that show on the road. And I don't know if you know it's just come over the wires. You know, they are taking 700 ICE agents out of the city. I don't know if you've seen that fact yet. But if there are things that ICE is doing for instance, that the people don't like, then the people are showing in Minneapolis and hopefully will show us where it to happen that they will not take this. It's the character of the American people that will save us now. I agree with all that. And I was making that same case to Bob Kagan just three minutes ago. I kind of want to learn a little bit more about why you wanted to get into the Democratic presidential nomination the two times. Like what were you seeing that you felt like the more traditional candidates in the Democratic Party were missing? Like why did you feel like you offered something different? Because I have traveled this country in my work for over 40 years. And my work has put me very up close and personal with the deepest human suffering. And what I saw as human suffering in the 80s to things like AIDS, the crisis was the exception and not the rule. By the end of the last century, I saw way too many people all over this country for whom the crisis was the rule and not the exception. The problem wasn't just that they were diagnosed with cancer. The problem was that they didn't have health insurance. Or even if they had health insurance, I was so underinsured that they could afford to go to the doctor, but they couldn't afford the tests that the doctors said that they needed. And I heard that horror story from doctors as much as I heard it from people. I saw up close the economic despair, the chronic economic despair. And I saw who was making the decision in the Democratic Party. These are people who rarely leave some value. These are people who rarely leave the Hamptons. These are people who are so in sconce in Georgetown and the Upper East Side of New York or Tribeco or Bel Air. They didn't have a clue. And they thought they were so smart because they understood the mechanics of modern American politics. They had no clue as to the mechanics of evil. And if they had even had a rudimentary knowledge or even thought that they needed to have a rudimentary knowledge of world history, they would have known how unsustainable it is. To have that many people living with that kind of chronic economic despair, when you have that much misery, human misery, in masses of people, it becomes a petri dish out of which all manner of societal dysfunction and personal dysfunction is absolutely inevitable. That includes attraction to a political strong man. That includes ideological capture by genuinely psychotic forces. You don't have to be a sociologist to notice. You can have a seventh grade understanding of every revolution in history. And what I saw was the unbelievable arrogance of those who didn't think that they owed it to the party or to the American people to even listen to voices beyond the narrow, mechanistic 20th century. Let's just treat the symptom. Let's not have any broader view of what's really going on beneath the surface. And I knew that that was a prescription for disaster. And I knew in 2024 that what the Democrats were offering would not be Trump. I had seen up close the rage. I had seen how in 2016, two candidates in 2016 said to the American people, your rage is legitimate. Your pain is legitimate and it's valid. Two people told them that. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump only one of them meant it. Correct. And what I saw in 24 was that this rage had only multiplied and that telling people that the economy was really doing well and these incremental approaches towards people 60% of whom paycheck to paycheck. I don't think that the people who are making the major decisions in the Democratic Party really viscerally understood or took the time to even try what it means in the life of a family, a man and a woman or two men or two women, to live paycheck to paycheck. That means you're one disaster away from living in your car. And so as a friend of mine said, I went to hear Trump speak. He said, I wanted to just understand. And he said that when he left the rally, what he heard in his heart was, people will go with false hope before they'll go with no hope. So I saw it and I kept waiting for some Democrats to talk about it. So I thought, well, I will. Nobody else will. Were you for Bernie in 16? Oh, absolutely. I'm on 16. Yeah. Yeah. I guess my more generous interpretation of the Democrats is, I think that a lot of them do understand the pain that people are going through, but their answer to it was very white paper oriented. Like here's the, here's the list of my bullets for how things will get better. And that there was not an emotional connection. And it's like, who is the last Democrat that like really demonstrated an emotional connection with people's economic pain, like that was of the nominees? And you kind of have to go back to Bill Clinton, I think, right? I mean, like Bill Clinton, I don't, you know, people might not like his policies or whatever. He can quibble over, like his, him and Bernie's policies were very different, of course. But, but Clinton was good at making people feel like he heard their suffering and wanted to do something about it. I feel your pain was one of his, yeah, one of his famous lines. I think that's, I think that's true. But I think that also during the Clinton administration, and by the way, I agree with you. There are a lot of certainly Democratic voters. There are a lot of Democratic politicians and they're demonstrating it now. My condemnation was of a small group of elite who are making decisions at the top of the heap. And if I have any problem with all the people that you're mentioning, is it that we're willing to go along? Of course, I mean, I'm a Democrat. I remember, and I agree with what you're saying, although it was under the Clinton administration, that the Democrats turned into a party that more than not said, we do feel your pain and we want to help you up until the point where to go any further would challenge our own donor base. Thus began the Arab incremental change. I feel like a lot of times folks come from your critique of the Democratic party and a lot of the Bernie left types critique of the Democratic party, do come back to that, which is like you're too enlegged with your corporate donors. And I think that there's kind of like two elements to that. I think that they were very enlegged of the corporate donors sometimes on economic issues, but also too responsive to them on social matters as well. I mean, like the, there is, you know, the old saying about kind of like the limousine liberal, the Berkeley liberal that is like, I want to protect my own wealth. Like we don't want to build new houses in my neighborhood, right? We don't want to do too much to change the economic system, but I also like extremely left wing on social and cultural matters that are very out of step with like how the average voter in Ohio thinks about them. And I wonder what you think about that, like kind of balance, right? The Democrats, I think, felt like they were reaching the left by really kind of leaning in on a lot of cultural issues, you know, rather than on economic issues. It's not that I don't agree with you. The problem is that we're doing what I believe is done too often when we're talking about the Democratic Party. You're talking about the decision makers. You're talking about the elected officials, but not necessarily the base of the Democratic Party. And that's a mistake that interestingly enough, the Republicans do not make. The Republicans have the more elitist policies, God knows. But they have a strangely more egalitarian relationship with their own base. Everything that you're talking about, we talk about the Democrats, I guess, these people up there. And what I learned running twice and traveling this country for over 40 years is that the people, and I think this, this is to me the great possible tradutiveness moment, is that the problem is not with the American people. The American people are decent. The American people are smart. And the American people, it's a true is almost psychology that people hear you on the level that you speak to them from. To me, the problem with the Democratic Party is that number one, and I certainly saw this up close, it was willing to compromise its dedication to the democratic process and its own ranks. And it was unwilling to have a deeper conversation based on the real principles not only traditionally of the Democratic Party, but of the country itself, starting back with the Declaration of Independence. It stopped talking to the American people about the things that matter most. And that is how we lost people. The American people lost our emotional connection with the principles on which this country is founded. And that, to me, that is the story that the Democratic Party should see itself as the keeper of. And stay with that and stay with the traditional principles of the Democratic Party and none of this other stuff would have even mattered. Probably just like from a strategist standpoint, speaking about your second run when Biden was the incumbent, probably would have been better for Biden to actually debate other Democrats and be on stage and for us to see firsthand where he was rather than waiting until it's with Trump. It's probably better for us to walk him around the block a few times before the Trump debate. Let's talk about that. CNN was having all these town halls. They would have it for the Republicans. They wouldn't have it for the sole Democrat at that time, even when my poll numbers were higher than Chris Christie, the Vecra, and the Swami, et cetera. But it wasn't just about one individual. It was about the fact that with those Republican debates, with those Republican town halls, the Republicans were eating above the oxygen. And the Democratic voters, which all just be quiet, be quiet. Everybody stand in line. And then when the time comes, we'll all show up to vote. That's not a democratic process. We needed to be in there. It wasn't just that Biden himself needed to go around, you know, take the car around the block, as you said. But Democratic voters needed to hear something to be excited about. The memo had gone out to the Democratic senators and congressmen. We're not having a primary. What, Ron Claim and a few people in the up top decided that, and then they spread every narrative possible to make the Democratic voter buy him with that. So you're absolutely. It probably would have been better. We have a political media and industrial complex, Tim. And they think they have the right to make the decisions for the American people. The world moves fast. You work day, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 co-pilot is your AI assistant for work. Built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 co-pilot. I want to ask about one other Democratic thing. I think take a look at the Trump administration. There's a lot of conversation. I do this because I do think it's important. I think that the Democrats lost a lot of ground with a specific demographic of men that had been voting for Democrats, voted for Obama, and then flipped to Trump. A lot of working class types talk about the manosphere and the Joe Rogan crowd. And it's true. But I do think that what is lost a little bit in that conversation is that Democrats also lost a ground with a demographic that followed you and the type of work that you did. The female voters who are more into the whatever health and spirituality kind of space got attracted to what RFK was offering. And when RFK ended up going on with Trump and bringing Maha with him, you see whatever it is. Fitness, not all this is you're not a crossfit influencer, but I mean, it's the same types of people. The wellness community. You know, you're right. You're right. Had been traditionally Democratic voters and some of them, I think, felt like they were not being listened to and they went along with RFK. And so I'm curious both of what you think that's correct analysis and what you think that demographic is thinking about how RFK is doing. Well, I think that your analysis is correct, but the first one you mentioned is equally as important as the wellness. And that has to do with men. I was living in Detroit. I was the minister in a non-denominational church, a large non-denominational church and more in Michigan during the economic crisis of 2008. And all day every day, I was counseling people. This is in a blue collar neighborhood in Michigan. Now, this is a generality. It's anecdotal, but when you're on the street as a minister at a blue collar church, you're seeing what's really going on. And I saw something very interesting, a difference between how women handle generally, women handle an economic crisis versus how men handle it. So the woman would come in. She's very nervous. How am I going to feed my kids? How am I going to pay the rent? Believe me, I saw horrible things. I saw women who were having to choose between their insulin. And if I buy my insulin, we won't be able to pay the rent. But if we're living in the car, at least my kids will have a mom. I saw this over and over. But I saw women who felt the economic crisis as something that just needed to be dealt with. It was men over and over and over again. For whom the economic crisis was a psychic crisis, a psychological crisis, an emotional crisis. And on a level of my wife will not respect me. My kids will not respect me. What it meant for these guys that her paycheck was paying the rent. I saw grown men, big grown men crying. The Democratic Party had no idea what it was doing. How it's undercutting the sense of manhood and power and productivity of men, particularly in areas like that. Who would drive you through the neighborhoods, they grew up in my father's work that that factory before him, my grandfather's work that that factory, they when I was a kid here, we used to play ball. This is what happens when your politics does not allow for any level of psychological or emotional understanding of just what it means to be human living at the effect of these things. Yeah, and I see that in my life, you just see it. Like the psychological impact of economic struggles on men, for men, it just is a fact. It's not true 100% of the time, but their self-worth and self-esteem is so much more tied to work. Absolutely. Their productivity to women, they want their feelings, cherish, men, they want their thoughts respected. For a man to feel just respected, particularly in his home, I've seen it over and over and over again. And sometimes this leads to fragility. I mean, we see this on the rich side of the scale, so a lot of these rich tech bros went with Trump because they were so fragile, they felt disrespected by the Democrats. And so they went on with Trump, and I have no empathy for that or no sympathy for that. That's a whole different thing. Yeah, no, it isn't though. It's the same psychological thing. There's just no credibility behind it. There's just, you know, they just don't, right? I don't think so. I don't think so. No, I don't. I don't. If I understand what you're saying, because if I understand what you're saying, you're referring to a bunch of tech bros, it's a bunch of... I'm talking about like, I'll say it specifically. Like Elon Musk, people say that Elon went for Trump because he didn't get invited to the White House and they didn't feel respected in his work. Yes, yes. That is who I'm talking about. And they went to the White House and they were met by a 25-year-old aide rather than Biden and everything they tried to suggest. They were told, no, no, no. Of course, they were insulted. That's real different than what I'm talking about. They weren't leaving, they're thinking, oh my God, how will I pay my rent? How will I raise my kids? Will my wife respect me? Yeah, of course not. By the way, the strategy on the part of the Democratic power elite was equally stupid. In what way? Well, what you just said, I mean, if you're dealing with an Elon Musk, if you're dealing with these big tech bros who are coming from Silicon Valley and are coming to Washington, you at least pretend to have some respect to some of their ideas. Well, some of their ideas might have even contributed to the party. I'll go back to Mahha just really quick. What do you make of RFK and what he's doing? In the past, you also had some vaccines. Got this as some of us, we're seeing measles rates go up. We're seeing a lot of fake lip service towards healthy eating with not a lot of policies that are doing the opposite. What do you make of RFK and that movement? I'm many of the things that I stood for as well. Certainly did not represent what I call certainly not anti-vaxx or anything like that. And that of course is used to slap onto anyone who has any legitimate questions at all. And I think particularly a lot of mothers, there were mothers who were biochemistry PhDs who just had questions about all of the different chemicals that went in one particular vaccine, et cetera. I don't think these women, this is an example of treating those mothers like they were stupid and they should just fall in line that was not a smart thing. I certainly don't agree with Bobby that we should not have childhood vaccines or anything like that. I think it's terrible what's happening. I heard the other day that he's talking about making the polio vaccine optional. It's outrageous. So of course we should have childhood vaccines and all of that. A lot of the things I talked about in terms of food, Bobby was also talking about. There were other reasons why my voice having been is erased and invisibilized as it was. I could not match Bobby's megaphone in terms of talking about some of these issues regarding food and so forth. I'm not saying anything to you that I wouldn't say to his face. Sure. And that I haven't said to Mark Heimann and others, nothing justifies. Nothing justifies playing along with Donald Trump in my book. Nothing would have justified going along with him and nothing would have even now. And they talk about, well, some of my friends who are highly placed advisors and so forth saying, well, we will be able to make a difference in food policy. I don't care. You're still supporting what I believe is ultimately a fascist immersion. So that's our feel about it. Do you think Bobby's genuine about that or do you think this is just another kind of male and security thing where he wants his recognition? He didn't get his recognition. Now he's got it. I don't want to comment on that. It's not for me to say. I'm not living inside Bobby's heart. Another thing that you that I think is probably telling is a contrast between what you were campaigning on in this administration is you're in some people, some people made fun of you. We can just say about the Department of Peace, this notion that we needed Army of Love, Department of Peace. And I think that it's pretty striking now to see that this administration has changed the Department of Defense name, but the opposite of what you suggested to the Department of War. I'm wondering what your kind of reaction to that all that is. We were complaining for a long time shouting about the fact that the US military budget was almost a trillion dollars. Now the new budget that Trump wants is $1.5 trillion. If you put together all of the military spending of all the nations in the world, double that. We have more. Everybody knows about the military industrial complex. This is obviously not about making America secure. It certainly isn't making America secure. Plus you add to that now if you listen to people like Jacob Silverman, that pretty profound book, Gilded Rage. Now with all the tech bros who have found the military, their new toy, you have a military tech industrial complex. Then you compare that with the constantly diminished budget that is given to the State Department. Ronitara wrote that real interesting book years ago called War on Peace. And there's one image in that book. I thought it was really interesting. He said if it was 50 years ago, the president would be meeting about foreign policy and the State Department would be at the table and the military guys would be sitting in chairs on the outer rim of the room. He said now if the president's talking about foreign policy, he has the military guys at the table and the State Department on the other side of the room, on the far end of the room. It used to be he said that if any policy was suggested and someone typed up and said, I don't know, State would have a problem with that. Then they would have to put it by State Department because the State Department was talking about diplomacy. Today if somebody said State would have a problem with that, somebody would go, ooh, we're scared. And probably Marco Rubio is playing along with those guys anyway. They've militarized our whole idea of foreign policy. Now also with the complete demolition of USAID, we're not even using powers of soft power. So anybody who laughs, this whole idea of laughing at that, there are people who have treated obviously, well, how naive to think love and humanitarian values and democratic values should be the bottom line of how we organize human civilization. You know what I say? I'll tell you what's naive. What's naive is thinking we will even have a reasonable chance of surviving this planet for another hundred years if we don't at least try. And so if anything, the current situation is showing us, their way took us to where we are. How are we doing, guys? And I think that that's opening a lot of ears. And I hopefully it's opening a lot of women's mouths so that women will begin to speak their piece more. We should be saying the wisdom of our own hearts, a little more in fearing the abject, derision, and mockery of the old patriarchal order, much less. Kind of related topic. I see posted about just the just horrible tragedy of this situation that has been following women and girls in Afghanistan. I was happy to see posted about that. So I think a lot of you on the left have been hesitant to want to talk about it because they feel like to say they're concerned about women and girls in Afghanistan in some way also means that they're like for the Afghanistan war against Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. And so their plight, I think, is not as, as at the forefront as it might have been otherwise. And what is happening to them in Afghanistan is just so tragic. And so I'm just wondering how you think about balancing that, like talking and advocating for them without necessarily banging war drums. Even before 9-11, Jay Leno's wife had brought the treatment of women by the Taliban into public consciousness. Many women, I was one, were made aware of the treatment of women by the Taliban, mainly by Maeve Leno, even before 9-11. When we went into Afghanistan, the problem was not just that we went into Afghanistan. And I have a lot of this on my substack. It's what we did once we were there. It was so terrible that, first of all, that we gave someone to the warlords and that we did not, in fact, build the democratic society. We got to the point where the hatred of the Afghan people for America was just a little bit less than their hatred of the Taliban. Then when we left, my problem was not just that we left, how we left, how we left, and all of the women that we ignored, all of the women who had helped us who were left behind. Yes, it was absolutely shameful and you're right. People on the left, in my opinion, were way too quick to say, oh, no, we had to leave. It's good that we left. Yay for Biden that we left. And when you say, but these women who were left behind, that we didn't even try to say that human rights groups and women's groups were saying, you've got to take these women with you. Even the left, like, no, no, no, we have to leave. We left, it's good. Terrible. And even now, even now, we'll all stand up for. So we'll try and do. OK, I want to leave you with this. I have one of my good friends, this big longtime Mary Ann fan, and was kind of awakening me to your audience and following a niche within the Democratic primary whenever the first, the first ran, whenever that was seven years ago now. And so I asked her what she should, what I should ask you. And she asked this. She said, I want you to ask her as a faith leader how we can wake these evangelicals the fuck up and just more broadly about the kind of role of spirituality in our society. Our job is not to wake other people up. Our job is to wake up. And if we are going to do a true spiritual healing, you know, we're living in an all systems breakdown here. And the only way we'll be able to deal with it is through an all systems response. It's like when you heal the body. Our mode of politics has been like old fashioned alopathic medicine. You didn't take care of your lifestyle. You didn't take care of nutrition. You didn't take care of exercise. You just hoped you wouldn't get sick. And then if you did get sick, you hoped to have an external remedy that could suppress or eradicate the symptom. We now have an integrative approach. You don't just heal sickness. You proactively cultivate health. We did not proactively cultivate life liberty in the pursuit of happiness. We were the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world. Americans will only be able to interrupt the horrible, devolutionary trajectory of our country at this point. If a critical mass of us are willing to look deep at all the ways that this could have been prevented, all the ways that we ourselves as citizens were too eager to just hand over our critical thinking to political parties and other elites rather than recognizing the deep devastation that was being wrought in people's lives in a 50-year slide, $50 trillion transfer of wealth, the fact that you had 17 to 90 million people who were under-enchored or unentured, that you had over a million people rationing their insulin, that you had people having such a difficult time getting into the economy, getting into higher education and other portals that might give them a better life. So right now, the issue for those of us anywhere near the left is to not worry about what other people think. The problem was not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump was a symptom. He was a symptom of the things I talked to about before that we swandered. America needs to own the fact that over a million Iraqis died. America needs to own the policies in Latin America that created such devastation that contributed to our immigration problems as an individual and as a nation. You don't heal by just pointing the blame at other people. At this point, obviously, it's not left versus right. It's democracy and humanitarian values. It's the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, versus forces of authoritarianism, a totalitarianism. But we won't win that struggle just by pointing to other people and thinking they should have done it differently. We have to really own in our hearts how we pay the weight of this. But does it require a spiritual response or just a policy response? That's just language. Spirituality simply means the path of the heart. Some people live out. It means the path of the heart. And some people see it through religious lens, some through more agnostic, some through secular. But it means that you put first and foremost, there is no religious or spiritual path that gives anyone a pass on addressing the suffering of other human beings. When you look how many people have suffered both in this country and around the world because of American domestic and foreign policy over the last 50 years. And by the way, if I may say so, two things I'd like to point out. Every great social justice movement in the history of the United States from abolition to women's suffrage to the civil rights movement were based in religious and spiritual circles. Among white Americans, the abolitionist movement emerged from the early evangelical churches in New Hampshire. Many of the women who were head of the suffrage movement were religious quakers. And Dr. King was a Baptist preacher. Their politics was based on a deep moral commitment to, I believe, what is the spiritual basis of the Declaration of Independence? That's what we have to go back to. To the moral as well as the political pillars of the Declaration of Independence, which is the philosophical basis of this country. And that's what we have lost. We've lost our emotional connection to the deep moral. You don't have to call it spiritual. Call it philosophical intent of the founding fathers as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Marianne Williamson, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And let's keep the conversation going. We can do it again another time, all right? Great. I would love to. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. What a show. The Neocon Godfather and the Department of Peace advocate. Coming together to agree that dictatorship is imminent. I mean, if we can all align and hold hands, maybe there is hope for the country. After all, thanks so much about Kagan and Marianne Williamson. We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwark podcast. See you all then, Department of Peace. Peace. The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brapp.