1124: Trump Loses At Supreme Court, Handles It Well

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Lovett. Today on the show I talked with Jerusalem Dempsis, journalist and founder of the Argument, an independent liberal media company. We covered a lot of ground. The Supreme Court's tariff ruling against Trump, the Argument's new controversial poll on trans rights, why Democrats have been losing ground on this issue, how we can get it back. We talked about housing affordability. We talked about the role of resistance cringe in fighting fascism. Love talking to Jerusalem. The word from the producers in the room is that they are, quote, obsessed. So let's jump in. Hey Jerusalem, good to see you.

1:43

Hey, nice to see you too.

2:21

So we are both reeling from having just watched Trump's response to the Supreme Court's ruling rebuking his emergency tariffs. Let's start with the ruling itself. Jerusalem what was your response to how the court ruled on Trump's tariffs?

2:23

I wasn't super surprised. I mean, I just thought, though, this is where it was going to go. Like, obviously, there's some kind of, like, you know, there's. There's a level. There's a level at which you're worried that the court has gotten so partizan that maybe they will just, like, stop adhering to, like, even the most normal expected jurisprudence. But this is where I think most people thought it was going to go. I think most markets assumed it was going to go in this direction.

2:40

So, yeah, there are a few on the court that are still base partisans. You have Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas ruling with Trump. Kavanaugh seemed to be frustrated with the fact that the court doesn't have an answer for how to deal with the roughly $200 billion that has been collected. But it's usually not. You know, you don't. If a bank robber has a bunch of cash in a pile, you don't often say they get to keep it because it'd be so hard to figure out who it belongs to.

3:01

I mean, like, this is honestly, like, sometimes how, like, the Supreme Court does work in ways that are, like, are kind of frustrating. Like, we don't. I don't think anyone really thinks an ideal world that the Supreme Court or courts in general should be in charge of legislating. These people aren't actually policy experts. Like, hopefully they're legal experts, but they're not, like, policy experts. And, like, you can hear them sometimes in oral arguments, trying to become it. And, like, I have some sympathy for the fact that they're being put in this position because presidential administrations, in particular this one, are forcing them to make decisions that should have been legislated by Congress. But at the same time, it's just like, yeah, like what? I don't know. Like, what should they do about it? Like, that's like asking me what they should do about it. I probably know more about this than some people in the Supreme Court because they're not economic policy people. But, like, I agree, like, this is the main unanswered question. Like, I am someone who had to personally pay tariffs to, like, get my wedding dress sent to the United States of America. Like, hundreds of dollars that I was not expecting to pay. It's like, am I getting a refund? Is that happening? I don't think so.

3:38

So, Yeah, I paid 30 bucks on a rug yesterday, and, like, I literally paid it yesterday. I'm, like, so fucking pissed if I'D waited one day, like, I might have got. I'd want to. That's $30. I'm gonna get that $30 back.

4:31

You're being held up to. Like, you get an email that's like, we have your package. Send us this money right now. Or I was like, I don't even believe.

4:43

Like, am I being scammed? Like, you get an email that says you're. We will not give you this rug unless you pay US$30.

4:50

Yes.

4:57

So people were also saying that this was the court potentially saving Trump from himself. And yet you have Trump in this press conference, obviously attacking the judges quite personally, but then saying that this is a ruling that is terrible to disgrace, it's a disaster for our country. But also, it doesn't matter because I can impose tariffs through other legal means. How do you square that circle?

4:57

I mean, Trump loves in every conversation to, like, have his cake and eat it too. Like, it sucks that you did that, but it doesn't actually matter at all. And, like, who cares? Like, we're going to make America great again also. America is also great. But we're going to keep saying make America great again. Because mag is a great slogan. Like, you can just. This is how he, like, constantly wants to win, win, win it. But, like, on the merits, like, it has always been the case that there were more. There were legal pathways for Trump to impose tariffs. I mean, most legal pathways would have involved going through Congress, and Congress could actually engage in and take on that authority that it's kind of allowed the federal government to have or allowed the executive branch to have for many years now. But there are other less dramatic pathways that were available to Trump. The difference is those ones don't let him do what he likes to do, which is to say, I'm gonna switch on tariff today by this amount and I'm gonna take them off. And like, that kind of instability is like, I think a part of how Trump likes to do politics and how he likes to make deals. And that, I think is important that we can take that away, because that was really destabilizing for both businesses, but also various countries who had no ability to make any kind of, like, long term economic planning. If they thought, okay, well, tariffs are this today, but quite literally by 5pm they could change. That is now. That is now not possible.

5:26

Yeah. It also seems part of this is the court did avoid really getting into what constitutes an emergency or not. And there seems to be this reluctance across different rulings by the Supreme Court, by lower courts, both for Trump and Against Trump, a reluctance to engage with the complain meaning of these terms because the courts don't want to say we can tell the President what an emergency is or isn't. And yet when the president stretches the bounds of this definition, like, we do not have an emergency with the Swiss, based on the president not liking the Swiss leader's voice or whether or not he's given a gold brick or not, or whether or not Mark Carney gives a speech that Trump likes or not. Like, even if you want to give the President an expansive space to decide what an emergency is, at a certain point, the court does have to say the word has some meaning. Like, you can't just use it to mean anything you want.

6:42

I mean, this is the problem, right? Is it, like, there's a level of discretion that especially the Supreme Court is used to giving the executive branch in interpreting what Congress has given the inter. The executive branch powers to do. So, like, Congress passes a law, and the executive branch has to interpret that law. Okay, they say, like, you have to do this health care policy, but they don't write out, and this is how you should allocate the money. And these are the ways that you should, you know, you know, write the equations for who gets to qualify. You have to have some interpretation. Otherwise, like, government couldn't function. Like, how could you even run a massive bureaucracy? And that sort of logic works when everyone is, like, generally acting in good faith about, like, what words mean and, like, how they should be used and what did people try to try to use those for in the past. But when you get to a point where someone's clearly just wanting to ram through their policy preferences, regardless of the plain meaning of the statutory language that exists, then the court has to intervene. And I agree with you that, like, it's now getting to the point where it's like, okay, we need Supreme Court to say, like, this is an emergency, this is not an emergency. We're drawing these boundaries. But also we also need Congress to do that, like, at the same time, like, yes, I'm annoyed at the Supreme Court, but, like, all of this comes back to the fact that Congress refuses to reassert its role as a co. Equal branch of government. They have decided, like, all right, I guess we're gonna cucked by Trump for the next, like, two years, and I guess I'll continue happening forever. And that's. Yeah, that's where we are.

7:48

So what happens now? Trump is not going to be able to do the same kind of queen of hearts, off with their heads tariff Implementation, but he does have the ability to put tariffs in place. What do you think happens now? Like what are the economic impacts of this?

9:14

I think it's, I think he's going to try and I mean he just announced this in the press conference. Like I didn't, I didn't take notes on the specific numbers he was saying, but he was, he's going to be re implementing these tariffs through the existing authorities that are, that require a lot more process to go through but like are legal. So I expect that we will see significant tariffs being levied on, you know, in the exact same format and structure. Really it'll just take longer. It'll have to go through, go through the normal administrative processes in order to get there. The economic impact of that because it will take more time for them to actually be felt seems unclear. You already see a bunch of other countries really attempting to build bilateral trilateral, multilateral trade agreements that exclude the United States in order to sort of develop, you know, supply chains, different markets that don't rely on the United States anymore either to like get those goods and services or, or to be a place where they can sell their goods and services. That's like a real loss for them obviously because the US is a massive market that you know, has a lot of value for people, but it's also like a long term loss for us like if the rest of the economy, global economy, like decides to figure out a way to like replace the US market with other, either emerging markets or other, other existing markets like China or anywhere else, like that's really bad for the United States. And so you know, this is something where like the long term picture relies on what the choices of a bunch of different actors are gonna be. So I think anyone who's like really prognosticating about like couple years from now what this looks like. I don't really know how you, how you would know that, but I just, I don't think it's gonna be good for us. I think it's clearly gonna be a bad situation.

9:31

Right. Like if in the short term we aren't paying the tariffs cuz we pay the tariffs obviously. But whatever the kind of realignment that's happening will not stop because he's, first of all he's already promising to put them back on. Also a lot of these are long term plans that have that every Trump can put tariff, take tariffs on and off in a week, but companies and countries can't change their trade policies in days or weeks.

11:08

Exactly.

11:31

Before we go to break, there's a brand new episode of Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. It's out now for Friends of the POD subscribers. Dan breaks down a new CNN poll that takes a look at where voters have shifted since the 2024 election, talks about Gallup's decision to no longer do presidential pollings, and a bunch of other great questions from Friend of the POD subscribers. Subscribing also unlocks access to POD Save America Only Friends, our new subscriber Exclusive Show Open Tabs the behind the scenes newsletter from PSA editor Reid Churlin, who's hearing me do this promo as we speak and loving it. Subscribing not only gets you access to a bunch of awesome subscriber only content, it gets you ad free episodes and it helps support Crooked Media as an independent progressive media outlet. So please, please become a subscriber. It's the best way you can support what we're building here at Crooked Media Media. So if you're listening, pause, subscribe to Friends of the pod@crooked.com friends and then come back and hear the rest of the episode.

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14:11

So I want to switch gears because one reason I wanted to talk to you today is the argument, which is the independent media company you've launched put out a poll and the headline on the poll was the trans rights backlash is real. This caused quite a firestorm on social media. So let's just start with what the poll found. Can you just walk us through the top line results?

15:21

Yes. So it's actually a very, very long poll. So I'll draw out, I think what was causing a lot of controversy because we were trying to pull on a bunch of different issues regarding gender that we haven't even gotten to fully explore. But the poll centers on these questions of policy and also people's views, their own personal values about how they think gender roles should function. And it finds a bunch of depressing things like one Thing that it finds is that what used to be a majority issue, which is that people didn't really want to see bathroom bills. They didn't like the idea of, like, the government getting involved in what bathroom people were using. Now you see that's flipped. You see the majority of Americans saying that people should be required to use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth. And you also see this on a couple of other policies, too. So on questions of allowing puberty blockers for minors, the majority of the public does not want that to happen. Even when doctors and parents have consented, they still don't want kids to be able to have access to puberty blockers. We also asked about allowing gender surgery for minors when deemed medically necessary by doctors with parental consent. This is a very rare thing. This has not happened very often, but it's even more unpopular than allowing puberty blockers. But the good news in the poll, I would say, is that when we ask specifically about protecting kind of more core civil rights questions, like banning discrimination against trans people in hiring and housing, that's a place where the majority of the country is in favor we should not have discrimination in that way. And it's a much bigger margin, too. You have like, 63% of people saying they want to ban discrimination against trans people in hiring and housing, whereas you have roughly like 56% of people saying they don't want to allow puberty blockers for minors. So, I mean, like, this is something that I think, you know, our takeaway is largely, there is a real backlash here. When we compared it to polls, you know, from a few years ago, you do see more of the public turning against these issues that are core to the LGBTQ rights community. And you also do see that this is happening across subgroups. So one thing that we wanted to do, because I was interested in a bunch of different gender questions and I wanted to see real subgroup analysis, but like, in a lot of polls, like, the numbers are so small, it's like you can't really make decisions on this. So we paid extra to have this be a 3000n poll rather than a 1500 person poll, which would allow us to actually look at subgroups. And what you can see is that across subgroups, including people who were Harris 2024 voters, you still see this backlash happening against trans people. Obviously, it's much worse in more conservative subgroup demographics, like Trump 2024. It's something where you see across the board, a real shift happening. And it's even more concerning because it's happening at a time where the Democratic Party, I think, is doing very well in polling. Like in our poll, the Democratic Party is plus six. This is not actually meaningfully affecting the chances of the Democratic Party's ability to regain the House this year. But on other issues, like immigration, you've seen that thermostatic opinion shift happen. You've seen people viewing what's going on with ICE and the interior enforcement horrors, the killings that are happening in Minneapolis, and they're like, okay, I don't like what's happening. My views are shifting towards the Democratic Party on this issue, but we don't see that with this issue, which I think is notable.

15:50

So what is your interpretation of that? Like, what do you view as driving the shift?

19:18

I think a few things are driving the shift. So first, I think when you think about the issues that have always been kind of perennially more popular for civil rights movements in this space, it's the core issues on discrimination. Like, people, even if they disagree with you and how you choose to live your life, they don't really think you should get fired for your gender, your sexuality. They have an aversion towards the government engaging in that way. And the. But the LGBTQ rights movement, particularly the trans rights movement, has been more focused, or the debate has been more focused, that is, on issues that are less central to that. It's been focused on things like sports and whether trans women should be able to play with CIS women in sports. It's been more focused on whether on children and what they should be taught in schools, et cetera, in places where I think that people view that as less central of an issue. And the reason for this, I think, is there's a bunch of reasons. I think one is that, I mean, there's been, like, hundreds of millions of dollars spent to focus attention on these issues because the right understands that this is the country they live in and that they want to be able to focus on issues that make this more difficult for trans people to get, you know, greater access to civil rights. So you see this with. In 2016, when the bathroom bill is being debated in North Carolina, Republicans, like, saw that. Like, the right saw that. They saw how businesses turned against them. They saw how regular people in a state that is not blue were horrified by this decision to, like, try to police who was going into what bathroom. And I think that they took this lesson and were like, okay, that's not the place to put a bunch of our energy. We're gonna put it over there. But I also think there's like, secondarily, there was a lot of, you know, when you think about the decisions being made within the progressive side around what things to focus on, at some level, there was a conceding of that being the core debate. Like, there was constant focus on trans visibility and on. On these questions of what to be taught in schools. And in a way, I think this has to do with a different amount of money being spent in these spaces. I tried to figure out how much exactly was spent, but it's very difficult because some of it's being sent with dark money or whatever. But largely, you can tell way more money is being spent on the right than on the left here. But I also think it's very reasonable that people were concerned with the Democratic presidents in power. We have the ability to do visibility for people to make them feel better about. There are people like them in high places of authority, and that's like, a reasonable impulse to have. But I think that people misjudged how far the country had come on these issues. I think that we saw a lot of horror by people who are on the right on this and who are more socially conservative about bathroom bills. And a lot of us, including myself, interpreted that to mean that attitudes had shifted more fundamentally about whether people were okay with gender nonconforming people. But, like, those two things actually don't always move together. Like, you can be really opposed to people acting differently than the birth they're assigned at sex and still think they shouldn't be discriminated against. And then when you see, okay, well, they're not just asking not to be discriminated against. They're asking me to, like, you know, see them in positions of authority or whatever, that triggers, I think, much more bigotry in the public than. Than otherwise. And so I think both of those things played a role in. In this backlash.

19:28

Yeah, you do. Like, in the numbers, you do see that. That what Republicans understood is that this was just not deeply felt yet. Right? Like, this was just. There was a lot of room for persuasion. And it does seem like Democrats were on a stronger footing when they were talking about freedom from government control. That's how the original debate around bathroom. The bathroom bill in North Carolina was just like, get out of the bathroom. We don't want the government in the bathroom. Like, we. When we were talking about trans issues here, like, we. We focused on just leave trans teens alone. Like, just leave people alone. And when I was looking at your poll, like, the framing around the questions, right, like allow gender surgery for minors when deemed medically necessary. And this is also around supporting or opposing national laws, enacting these kinds of policies. Like, like, is there part of this that's just a framing issue? Like, if you ask the same group of people a question that was more along the lines of, do you believe the government should be able to ban parents and doctors from determining the best healthcare decision for their kids who are trans? Like, you could conceivably get a different answer. Right. Like, do you agree with that?

22:44

I mean, wording matters a lot in polls for sure. So one thing that we do at the argument is after we've drafted the questions, we sent them to an independent review panel that includes both Democrats and Republicans to review our language for bias to make sure that we're not just doing a push poll. And, but even with that, like, even with that, there's no, like, perfect way to ask this.

24:05

Yeah.

24:24

One thing that I'll point out is that there are other polls with different wording that have found very similar trends. And so even if you, you know, you might think like, okay, well, the wording moves this way or that way, that's something to keep in mind. But on top of that too, like, you want to test language or policies in various types of wording because the goal is not just to can you get the public to agree to one specific type of how I frame an idea? It's okay, when they approach this idea, how it will be presented to them in public, how will they react to it? Because Republicans and people who are more conservative on this issue are not going to try to figure out the most liberal sounding frame for talking about these issues. They're going to use language that is way more hostile than what we're talking about in this poll and way more loaded and way more likely to make people feel uncomfortable with the idea. So if even in this language, which is, should you even allow someone to do something even. And to me, like, we got feedback from some people that it's maybe we're loading the poll too much in the progressives favor by putting in that. But that's only when doctors and parents consent. And like that that addition was considered like, okay, well maybe you're pushing it a little bit too much to try to get people to agree with you. And so, you know, even in this framing, you still see this shift, I think is really concerning.

24:24

Yeah. I'm not asking because I want to get to the backlash to the polling itself, but the reason I ask is also like, I'm trying to understand what directions Democrats should be going in making an argument. And to me, the argument has to be around freedom, that we're on a better footing when we're talking about freedom. But at the same time, I think what, what's here is, like, what is very clear is whatever views that people have, like, they're not that strongly held even now, right? Like, this is an issue where people seem to be open to persuasion. And I, and I want to understand why Republicans have done such a better job of the persuasion. It does. Like, if you. These, these issues, right, like treatment for minors, bathrooms and sports, like, that is where Republicans have focused their energy, but it's also where Republicans, it seems, have a more genuine passion around it. Right. Like Democrats, whatever position they're taking, like, their hearts are not really in these issues. Like, this is not something they're passionate about. They seem to scared to be on the wrong side of the populace of, like, the public, but also scared to be on the wrong side of activists. And the end result is you have Democrats advocating a range of positions with a lack of real enthusiasm. And then you have Republicans hammering this from like, like, with, like, their base, like, fully behind them, like, excitedly pushing this narrative. And, and I just, I'm curious how, like, you wrote a piece basically against what you described as thoughtless moderation, which is between ignoring this data or, quote, throwing trans people under the bus. And I'm just like, what is the third direction here? Like, what. What do we do if not those two options?

25:45

Yes. No. So, I mean, I think that there's a clear answer in this poll. A large majority of Americans do not think you should be able to discriminate against trans people in hiring and housing. I would expect that those numbers stay solid when you look at other kinds of public accommodations, too. So, for instance, like, can you refuse service to someone because they're trans? These are things that I think most people would find to be unacceptable. And that's actually not the law of the land right now. Like Iowa, for one, has just repealed legislation that they repealed gender identity as a core protected part of the Iowa Civil Rights Act. They're trying to stop localities from being able to even enact their own protections at the local level. The Supreme Court, through Bostock, has protected trans people in hiring and employment decisions. Obviously, that requires a federal government that wants to enforce that kind of civil rights law. And even under a Democratic administration, it's very, very difficult to enforce that sort of thing from the federal government side. It just requires people complaining, and then the government can eventually kind of maybe put in a lawsuit. And so I think that there's like, a lot of room here for the trans movement and for liberals to, like, focus on these issues and make hay out of the fact that they're trying to strip people of their ability to rent an apartment if they are trans. That's what it means to strip someone of discrimination or other ability not to be discriminated against in housing. Those sorts of things, I think are really, really solid footing. And I am not, like, you know, I'm not like, saying that there's like, there's like an obvious step one, two, three here, but I think from an orientation perspective, like, there needs to be a lot of this, There needs to be a lot of effort to make clear that just as you know, in previous civil rights movements, trans people are not asking for special treatment, they're asking for equal treatment. Like, the right to do the exact same thing everyone else is. The right to make decisions with their doctors about their own health, the right to make decisions with their kids about their kids health. Like, who is better positioned to know what kinds of medical decisions your kid should have other than you? Like, in a society, like, we often, we always say, like, okay, your parent can sign off on whether or not you get a boob job, whether or not you get a nose job. Like, all these things, like, we have to defer to parents to make those decisions. And like, these are areas where I think there's actually a lot of sympathetic stories to be told. But I think that starting with clear examples of discrimination in places where people who already disagree with you think that there should be protections, winning there, I think, is the important part on actually winning more hearts and minds. And I don't think this is easy because you don't control everything everyone says, like, other people are going to talk about bathrooms, other people are going to talk about sports. And that's hard, but I think that's the only place to go.

27:36

Yeah, I think that that's largely right. Like, to me, it's like you have to have a larger story you're telling about LGBT rights that starts from a place of freedom and equality. Right? You start from freedom and equality for all people. And then you have to turn around the idea that Democrats are focused on this, because the truth is, why did. Why does Kamala get tagged with this? Because she answered a question on a survey. Now, that survey was written by people who seemed more interested in their survey than winning. Whatever. There's a lot of problems on the Democratic side. She also was part of a group of Democrats who became completely unable to have a worldview that might be in conflict with. There's a lot of things that led to what happened in 2024, but the ability to tell a story that basically says, we are for freedom, we are against discrimination, and we are not the ones obsessed with trans people. These freaks on the right are obsessed with trans people. We want to get out of people's medical decisions. We want to get out of. Of people's bathrooms. We want to let people live and be free. Like, to me, like, if you can start from a place that says that, then, by the way, people might trust you a little bit more when you disagree with them and say, actually, you know what? Like, I actually think even if you, You. You're not sure about, like, what should be happening with trans teens, I'm not. I don't agree with you. I want to leave that to doctors and parents. Even you don't agree. Or, by the way, on sports, like, like, you want to talk about, like, NCAA top competitive athletes. I just want trans kids to be able to play sports with their friends. Like, like, I think sometimes this idea, like, there's so much. I think there's a lot of anxiety on the part of people that care about these issues and on the part of trans people around, like, feeling like Democrats just are not reliable, that they don't have the credibility as fighters. And so there's no space to have this debate because the Democrats are not seen as, like, kind of tough, strong representatives who they can count on, even if they don't always see it eye to eye. And it seems like what we need to do is kind of build up some trust. And that starts with, like, having Democrats willing to kind of, like, take a strong, clear, pro trans position that also has popular support. And, like, but I don't know, like, right now, it just does feel like there's still this tension where if you even want to have this conversation, you are pretty well, like, attacked as being kind of, like, unsafe to the movement.

30:19

Yeah. And I mean, I think that there's, like, to separate out things. Like, I think I understand why trans people would be extremely sensitive to this and are, you know, I have, like, no critique for people who are afraid about their civil rights being taken away and are upset about anything that makes them feel that that might happen or might push people to do that. But I think that, like, when it comes to people who have decided to become activists, whether they're trans or not, if your decision is that your goal is to enact electoral change, you need to stop thinking about elected officials as your friend or people who are gonna be loyal to you, Especially when it comes to rights movements where you're unpopular. Like, I do not care how nicely I am treated by any elected official. I don't care if they like me. I don't care if they feel loyal to me. I care if they feel beholden to my interests. Because there's actual power and persuasion that we've built. This is difficult work. And it's not the work of an election cycle. It's the work of like many, many years and maintaining that cultural power. And that's about convincing enough people in real life to be on your side. It is not like we've seen this with abortion rights. It wasn't durable to just protect us through the courts. Like, women in many places across the country do not have the right to their own body in situations of potential death because they were protected only by having convinced five people on the Supreme Court. That's how you convince people on that issue. And. And it's really important to realize that, like, that is a type of protection that's important. We want legal protections that happen through the court system. Like, those are not things to just give up on. But mass persuasion in a democracy is always going to be the most powerful thing, whether or not Democrats stand by trans people. If this issue becomes salient in an electoral way, which I don't think it is right now at all, but if it does become salient, it's gonna rely on not on Democrats. Courage, really, which, I mean, like, some people make decisions on how courageous they are. It's. It's on whether that's popular or not. These are representatives of the public. And if the public is telling them, I don't want you to allow minors to get puberty blockers. And there's 60% of them saying that to them in their districts. Like, that's not about just courage on the Democrats part. It's like, how are we convincing people to have different views such that we allow our elected officials to do that? Now, I think that there's, like, a fair point to be made here that, like, elected officials are not just, you know, automatons that go, like, what is the most popular thing? And let's just do that thing. And I think that's clearly happening right now. The Democratic party's position on trans rights is way to the left of the country right now in a way that I think is correct. They are right now holding the line. They're not Democratic politicians proposing bills or supporting bills right now to try and strip trans people of the rights that are unpopular in the public. Like, that is something I think people should have some sort of, you know, take heart in the fact that there's been a real holding of the line on the specific rights. Now we have seen shifts in language, I think, in ways that people are right to be, you know, paying attention to. I think Seth Moulton is one of these people and also, of course, Gavin Newsom more recently. But even while their language has shifted, like, California is one of the safest places in the country to be a trans person. And so is Massachusetts, where Seth Moulton is an elected official. And Seth Moulton himself has, like, voted in favor of legislation to protect trans people. So I think this is something where, like, people need to be really focused on outcomes here because there's, like, actually a real long road ahead in trying to move the country in a better direction on this issue.

33:12

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38:18

I want to talk about cringe. It's time to talk about cringe. You and I are aligned on the topic of cringe. There's a lot of people that see what happens at a no Kings protest. They see the signs about, you know, like, that make fun of Trump. They're very earnest, they're very sweet, they're very Hamilton. And people call it cringe. And you wrote a great piece about it, about cringe being born of insecurity and fear. What is the role of cringe in the resistance to fascism in America in 2026?

38:33

Cringe is just normie behavior. And if you don't win the normies, you've just lost. Like, normie is the average person. So, like, anytime you're in a movement and it's too cool, you're losing. Like, it's like. It's, like, too cool. Like, not enough people are with you. If the losers aren't with you, if the moms aren't with you, if the grandpas aren't with you, like, it's, like, not going well. So when you look at mass movements that have actually succeeded, like, the idea that there wouldn't be some element of, like, I don't know, people dressing up in weird ways or, like, having signs that are, like, okay, like, I guess you almost got there. But there's something a little bit weird about that. Like, that's the kind of thing that you expect to see. And I also think too, like, I don't know, I've reported on a variety of protests, including no Kings protests in places across the country. And I think that, like, on social media and on, like, you know, you know, TikTok or whatever, if you're just, like, kind of scrolling your feed and you see these signs divorced from conte and divorce from the person, it maybe seem a little bit more embarrassing or weird. And when you're in person, you're interviewing people, like, these are people who ask them about their signs. What does this mean? They often actually have quite moving stories about why they're doing this, what brought them there. I talked To a very old man, I think more than 80 years old, in Berkeley, California, at the last no Kings protest, who said he had never protested in his life until this moment. And he felt really awful about that and that he had realized what he needed. He was on his own. He didn't have friends with him. He has family with him. He's like, I needed to go do this because I realized I can't be a part of the silent majority. And I don't remember what his sign was, but I remember it's the kind of thing that people would have cringed at that would have been like, oh, gosh, it's written terribly and it doesn't look nice and it's not whatever. And so I think that things can play different on social media, and that's important to think about. But, yeah, yeah.

39:11

Well, I'm interested in cringe because I feel like cringe. It's about. It's a description of a feeling you have when you see something, right? You cringe, you're embarrassed. It's a. It's a secondhand embarrassment of a sort. And it feels like we're com. We combine a lot of different things into what that is. Like, one is just being uncomfortable with earnest displays of emotion, right? Just someone who doesn't seem embarrassed of their feelings, which seems like a very like. And cringing at that seems like very high school, very afraid of what the cool kids are going to say, right? Like, that's part of it. But then there's also, I think, like, when. When people say that Chuck Schumer is cringe, right? Or Nancy Pelosi is cringe, that's actually, I think, more of a valid. More. It's more worth thinking about what that is. And that's not just, oh, that's an embarrassing display. It's. That's a performative display that goes beyond their actual either views or prerogatives.

41:01

So, I mean, I think what's happening there is when people say, like, People say it's cringe. That, like, I don't know, like, Nancy Pelosi, you know, wore a kente and put her fist up in the air on the ground, whatever, right? Like, I think that, like, when people say that's cringe, what they're saying is like, I can't believe someone who I had to. Who I voted for or is on my team is, like, doing something so embarrassing. Like, I think it still is internal. And I think the root of the problem there is that people are thinking too much of politics as a source of identity. Like, if Nancy Pelosi is. Isn't cool, that has, like, nothing to do with me. Like, I don't. Like, like, whether or not I'm cool has no, like, Chuck Schumer has no bearing on it. Hakeem Jeffries has no bearing on it. Like, it's like, not relevant to, like, my own self perception of myself. But as we've gotten into a place where politics is not just a, an arena to win specific material gains, but actually a reflection of who you are as a person and what kind of person or what kind of vibe that you yourself hold. And we see this in a lot of places. Right. Like, I was just. I don't know if you're watching Love is Blind right now, but I just watched Spoiler alert. I don't want to, like, give anything away. Are you into Love is Blind?

42:00

I'm not. For the dear listeners, there's about to be a spoiler for Love Is Blind this season. I haven't watched this season earmuffs in the studio.

43:07

Yeah. So spoiler alert for Love Is Blind. But like, like, there's one. There's one of the men in the couples is asked by his fiance's dad, like, who did you vote for? And, you know, he's like, you know, he, like, he's like, oh, yeah, I would have. I didn't vote, but I would have voted for Trump. And you know what I mean? And like, this sort of thing coming up in reality TV shows as dating as, like, now, it speaks to his person's entire character, which, you know, I think that's reasonable to, like, view that, like, values shift. But, like, that wasn't, like, normal even, like, 15, 20 years ago for, like, politics to be so central to, like, like, these cultural shows and movements. And I think that to me is a reflection of the fact that we've lost a lot of other ways that we describe ourselves. And politics is now the place where people derive a lot of meaning instead of, like, whether it's church or the kind of. Whether you are a part of a club or whatever. So you see this associational decline happening in life and, like, we've moved all of that energy towards politics. And as a result, now I'm, like, really concerned if people associate me with something cringe that like, you know, elect official does and, like, you should free yourself of that.

43:17

So I want to make. Yeah, I agree with that. I do think it's more. I think it's more than that. I think it's more than just identity, because a lot of what Republicans do would be cringe to us if we were Republicans, but we're not. And so there is a little bit of the narcissism of small differences. Lydia Paul Greene wrote something about the Indigo Girls. That cringe implies a naivete that gets coded as feminine, a silly belief that human beings, through sincere effort, might actually improve themselves and the world. And I do think there's a kind of cynicism that undergirds this, which is like, if you. You're not jaded enough that you don't understand how the world really works, you don't understand how. How broken things are, you're too hopeful. Right. Like, I do think that's part of it too. What do you think?

44:22

I know. I agree. I mean, I think that there's like, anyone who really works in politics, whether it's as a commentator, as a journalist, as an activist, you know, we're much more ideological than the average person. And by that I mean we have like a. You know, we think about policies and our worldviews as connecting in, like, very consistent ways. Whereas when you talk to, like, most voters, like, they'll say a grab bag of things that you're like, well, how do these things go together? Like, how do you support this? And also that, like, you get. You have to tax rich people more if you want Medicare for all. Like, you know what I mean? Like, why aren't these things more consistent? And you see this in polling as well, where people often will hold very inconsistent views in ways that seem like they don't make sense. But, like, we are actually the weird ones for being so ideological and consistent. And so why I say that is that I think that when you are someone who's like, an expert in your field and whether that's like, politics or whatever it is, and you see someone who doesn't do that a lot, kind of just like get on the ice for the first time, you're like, oh, my God, that's not how you move the puck. Oh, God, that's like, not how you shoot a basketball. And like, we're like, oh, God, that's like, not how you do politics, but in politics, like, yeah, maybe we're the experts, but, like, everyone has the same voice, so you don't. We don't get to tell people how to be.

45:13

Yeah, there's like a. I like my, Like, I'm working towards a theory of cringe that ultimately lands at being anti. Cringe is in the same way, like a Rockefeller was offended by the strivings of people who had Made their own money. That there's a kind of class aspect to this where like look at all that trying and look at all that effort. Like, like with the kind of image in there which like, sort of like as if all politics is in performance for a 32 year old white rich guy who has a very dark comedic aesthetic and who has seen it all and done it all kind of a thing. And like, who is that? Well, that's a, that's a, that's a kid who went to NYU because they had the money to go. Like, who, who exactly real. Who is that high school kid? Who's that popular kid you're worried about? What do they look like? What are their equities? I don't think they're poor. I don't think they're poor.

46:25

I mean, I will say this. I think that the class aspect is like, maybe to me less central than the age aspect. Like we're now in a moment where young people, because the democratization of social media, because of the like, you know, just the shifts in culture that have allowed people, young people to have more access to a microphone, which, which are good, but that means like they're like entering politics and realizing, oh my gosh, politics is dominated by like 50 year old white people. And like that's so embarrassing. And cringe and like when it should

47:28

be dominated by 43 year old white people.

47:58

Exactly, exactly. That will be our utopia. But I mean like, I think that it's like just, you know, young people always think older people who are older than are cringe. Like that's just like how life works in every generation. Yeah, but like now they now have the ability to go online and like buy the thousands and go like, ew, what is this? And it's like that's like, like politics. Like please go to a rally, like go to a local government meeting. Like that's what it is. They're in control of all the power. Like, please.

48:00

Speaking of old people being in charge and having all the power, I do want to touch on housing. So Trump signed an executive order aiming to, quote, stop Wall street from competing with Main street home buyers. This has long been an issue on the left. The effect that private equity has had on the housing market. It seems like Trump is trying to co op this issue, but at the same time, the critique of this argument is this doesn't actually have that big of an influence on the effect of housing. What do you make of that Trump announcement?

48:39

This is like been my like hobby horse for years, John. Like, I feel Like, I have to, like, experience, like, do, like, deep breathing, like, like short inhalation, long exhalation, like, you know, like, stay calm. I mean, this is one of those things where I think the media has done, like, a severe disservice to the public in informing them about things that are important, like institutional investors, whatever you think about their ability to engage in the housing market, like, just putting that aside, are, like, definitionally like a tiny percentage of the housing market. I just pulled up an article I wrote earlier this year called Everybody Hates Renters that, like, you know, we have a chart in there that shows this. Mega investors made up 2.2% of investor purchases of investor purchases in June 2025. So in June 2025, mega investors made up 2.2% of Investor purchases. That doesn't even include all the purchases that are non investors. There's, like, this is, like, a tiny, tiny amount. Even in submarkets where you hear things like, oh, wow, like, 30% of homes were bought by investors. When you hear that headline, what that is saying is not private equity coming. It means anything from someone who owns, who's buying a second home, someone buying a home through an llc, a small investor who's a developer in your area who's now renting out apartments or multifamily units. Like, all of those purchases count as investors. So, like, I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, because I could go on this for forever. But part of the problem is that there's been such a focus on this issue, and it is obviously because private equity, institutional investors, these are like, easy punching bags because people hate them already across the political spectrum. But as a result, it allows Trump to sound like he's doing something meaningful on an issue that's actually very important to people. Housing affordability, housing access, homelessness. These are issues that people are very, very attuned to, particularly since 2020 when we saw prices skyrocket across the entire country. And this is not gonna meaningfully affect anything about people's ability to afford housing. And it is really, really disappointing to me that actors in the media have allowed this story to spread to the point where now, yeah, he gets a lot of political win and say, like, yeah, we ban institutional investments, the housing market. I'm like, all right, you didn't even do that. And also, it's not gonna do anything.

49:12

It's not gonna make a difference. So let's talk about what could make a difference. I'm curious where you think we're at in the great YIMBY housing wars that began with the, with the last like couple of years. So California passes SB 79. This is to allow building towards around transit. A huge victory for trying to address California's massive housing shortage. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has been fighting it tooth and nail. Karen Bass, our mayor, came out against it. The city planner just put out a document with all the ways they're going to try to screw with the implementation of SB79. It feels like nationally the politics of this really have shifted. I think there's been a big debate. People are even, you know, from Donnie to the abundance world, people are getting behind the need for more market rate housing and getting rid of rules that prevent people from building. And yet one of the biggest cities in the country in a Democratic bastion, we seem unable to address it.

51:28

What do you think?

52:27

This is one of the most difficult policy issues to make progress on because it doesn't just require convincing a bunch of people, which I think successfully has happened. You now see across the political spectrum, like Mamdani is a YIMBY champion. You have like even Trump voters in Arizona and Trump elected officials in Arizona and Texas who are passing YIMBY policies, Montana, et cetera. And so, you know, that is great. And I'm like super happy that we've moved this far in this direction to be in favor of building more housing. But like the central critique has always been that there are so many veto points to actually getting housing built. Like you can convince like the majority of people that actually there really should be an apartment building on this block. But if you allow there to be, whether it's loopholes and how people can sue, you allow discretionary approval process in local government. So like if local government doesn't have to just say like, okay, you passed all the rules, you did all the safety checks. This is the homes that have been approved there. You're not building in an environmentally like dangerous area. All that's good. We've given you your permit, good to go. Now instead they can say, well, you've passed all those things, but we're just gonna sit on this for a while and we're Gonna like have 15,000 more hearings and we're gonna demand more information. And like when they do this right, like it can seem facially very neutral. You just hear like, oh, they're just asking for more information. The community's upset, they want to know more what's going on. But that delay, like housing delayed is housing denied. Like because of the fact that you have made developers, affordable housing developers to private Market developers. Wait, you are increasing the cost of housing? And I think that people don't realize it. I mean, in Los Angeles in particular, I did a story a few years back about affordable housing developers in Los Angeles. Affordable housing developers have a much harder time with maintaining control over land in order to build housing on it over successive years. Because affordable housing developers are often like getting their financing from a bunch of different mechanisms. And like though there are different rules for how that that money has to be spent and what time period reporting or whatever. And so when they have all that lined up and they go to the city and say, we have all the financing, here's all our permit, we'd love to build some affordable housing for homeless people. And the city says, well, let's just hold on for a little bit. And then the financing rules change. Now they have to get it re upped or the interest rates shift such that the financing no longer pencils out for that project. Those projects just disappear. And the city never has to say, actually we don't want that anymore. In Los Angeles, we've seen this prop Triple H, which passed, I don't know, a decade ago now, which was in Los Angeles meant to. It was a billion dollars for affordable housing. I mean like, like so much of that has yet to be actually spent. And because, because people don't want to fix these problems.

52:29

Yeah, the. There was just some money that LA returned because it was unable to spend it in time. Just free money that they were given for local development projects just sort of gone. You've started a media company. Final topic, the argument. What have you learned in your transition from being part of a larger media company to starting your own?

55:18

So many things, John, so much. I'd never managed that many people before. Now we have a great team. Now we're 10 people. The argument magazine is going strong, but at the same time management is just like. It's a whole different ballgame. I had no idea how much stuff I was making my editors or managers do for me in the past. I am now like reflecting. I actually reached back to my old editors and I was like, hey guys, sorry about that. And they're like, it's a circle of life. But I think one of the coolest things that I've learned about this is. And part of the reason for starting the argument, which is meant an argument really focused on political liberalism and how to reinvigorate it and really make it meaningful to people's lives by focusing on the core issues, whether those are economic, material, growth, whether it's gender and family, which is. Is, you know, what we were talking about earlier today or about AI and technology and society and how technology policy should interact with society. These big issues, like, what can liberal ideas actually say to them is something that I think there's a lot of hunger for. Like, people are not just looking for a technocratic answer to their question. They're looking for a framework that can feel like ideologically true to them and feel like it's actually speaking to the. The broader questions they have about meaning and where they get it from and what politics is supposed to do and what it's supposed to be like. And there are, I think, a lot of people who are unsatisfied both by the kind of like, moderate just kind of like skewed the median voter like, angle that a lot of politicists felt like, and also like the way that progressivism felt for many, much of the 2000s and the, you know, the late aughts where it felt like you're not allowed to, you know, engage in meaningful debate over questions over which there's a lot of uncertainty or these are. These are not places where you can actually, you know, have reasonable disagreement without just shutting down the conversation. And that's why we're called. The argument is like we platform a lot of different views in contention with one another. And I constantly publishing people that I disagree with. And, you know, we have this column called Mad Libs where I just argue with people. And I just think that, like, that's really important, important to do because most people don't have my views. I'm like, not an average voter. They don't agree with me on a lot of stuff. And if you don't figure out ways to talk to them, then you're either consigning yourself to, okay, maybe I can hold on to New York and Los Angeles and live in my safe haven and, you know, fuck everyone who can't make it here or you're consigning yourself to losing forever. And that's something that I'm not willing to do.

55:43

Well, that's good news because everyone can't move to Los Angeles because we can't build a fucking house for people to live in here.

58:09

So Jerusalem, way to bring that around. That was great.

58:16

Jerusalem Jems is. I'm such a fan. Thank you so much. I just want to sum up where we're at just because we covered a lot of topics. One, tariffs bad. But he's probably going to be able to do it anyway to cringe good, cringe good. 3. We have to be able to talk about why we're losing ground on trans issues if we want to protect trans people. 4. We have to build houses. Yes. And 5 argument's good.

58:20

Argument's good. Argument's great. Argue with people.

58:49

We covered a lot of ground. Jerusalem, this is so great. Thank you so much.

58:52

This is so fun. Thanks for having me. I'm such a fan of the show. I'm glad to be here.

58:55

And that's our show. Thank you so much to Jerusalem Demsys for joining. John, Tommy and I will be back in your feeds with a new episode on Tuesday morning. And that's it.

58:59

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America EAS.

59:09