I give more credence than the excellent panel to the consequences of Biden’s decrepit state. For four years he was rarely seen in an unguarded situation. And when he did appear, it wasn’t pretty. This had ramifications for democrats. 1)Dem Leaders knew of his condition but failed to get him to step aside early enough for others to seek the nomination and be vetted through the primary crucible. Harris would not have survived that process. 2) Because they waited they were stuck with Harris. Woke politics had much to do with the unwillingness to dump her. 3) they were left with an empty vessel as the democratic nominee. I guess that matters little when the primary campaign mantra of my democratic friends is “Trump has to be defeated at all costs.” 4) Dems tried to hide how empty she was by hiding her as they did Biden in 2000. Persuadable voters, however, weren’t snookered this time. 5) Many persuadable voters were not swayed by claims that Trump is a ”threat to democracy” especially when they witnessed the democrats undemocratic method of presenting their “choice.” I guess when your only campaign platform is “she’s not Trump” it matters little who you run as a candidate.
Relatedly, I am amazed at how many of my democratic friends had no issue with how they ended up with Harris foisted upon them. They deny being lied to about his condition. They excuse the delay moving him out and provide some interesting excuses (e.g. despite his presently low approval rating “he’s the only one to have defeated Trump.”)
Another excellent conversation. However, I think there were three MAJOR factors completely overlooked as part of this conversation. First, world-wide, the parties that were incumbent during Covid were taken out of power. It didn't matter left or right governments, people around the world were very displeased with whoever was in-charge in the post-Covid chaos (really mostly during the periods of inflation and supply chain chaos). To me, Trump's win was more a reflection of this than anything else. Second, while the left was probably too hyperbolic and hysterical on the fascism messaging, the truth is that most of Trump's rhetoric and tactics ARE out of the authoritarian playbook. I know this is going to sound elitist, but to anyone who has studied history, the parallels are too scary to ignore—even if he might be just "joking" about it. I would love to hear a real conversation about how people on the left are supposed to re-center the conversation to core issues while also resisting Trump's authoritarian tendencies. Third and last, while Trump certainly did an effective job on centering the conversation on inflation, taxes, and immigration which most people care about, a lot of us on the left are frightened by the reality of the Project 2025 agenda of Christian nationalists. There is no arguing what's on their agenda, it's been printed. And there is no arguing that the architects of the plan are many of the people who will be influencing Trump and running the administration. I think it is incredibly naive to say "oh he won't do any of that." The right members of the Supreme Court certainly seem aligned to it, and despite the majority of the country opposing the Dodds decision, were still able to overturn Roe V Wade. Christian nationalists are minorities in this country now with disproportionate power and influence.
Lesson 101. Trump didn't over perform. The polls were wrong. Massively wrong. Trump's performance was fact and reality. The polls he supposedly out performed were just the opposite.
You need to change your perspective to that of reality Bari.
It’s hard to take seriously FP’s claim to non-partisan journalism when you let a Trump acolyte get away with such blatant campaign parroting while only talking to lukewarm Democrats. There are plenty of examples in this podcast but the two that most annoyed me were (1) asking Batya about Elon’s statement that if the Dems won there would be no more elections and not pushing her to actually answer instead of deflecting to Oprah’s support of Kamala, and (2) nobody challenging her on saying that she didn’t understand why women over 50 who were too old to get pregnant would be so supportive of abortion rights - apparently your entire panel is too young to remember the woman’s rights battles in the 60’s and 70’s that allowed women to make decent progress then and why those warriors wouldn’t want to retreat from their victories.
Frankly I am more and more disappointed by the lack of depth and empathy in the FPs reporting lately. And I’m afraid the election will not improve the situation. I hope I’m wrong.
I see non partisan on FP as a willingness to print both sides. I'm not sure if there are any truly non partisan writers out there to have even one article on here. There are those who can control their partisanship most of the time.
For Brianna and Peter- had to break it to you, but you are republicans. By the next cycle, the republicans will be identical to the democrats, circa 1980-1999.
I'm surprised you didn't note what Trump did was similar to Clinton's "triangulation" strategy in 1992 and 1996 to take Republican positions to moot the advantage on popular issues.
The democrats will never change until they break the public employee unions. Given that group's penchant for taking up Progressive causes (why does Randy Weinberge rant like a lunatic on every woke issue?) and examples like Chicago issuing a multi-billion dollar bond to fund teachers' unions pensions, they will be an anchor on democrats' election prospeccts. However, the pull of these unions with their pay to play strategy of funding democrat politicians will be much too strong to overcome. I expect the republicans to demagogue the pension issue in the next election cycle (social security is going broke and public employees retire after 25 years at 75% of salary) to great effect. It will take them a generation to make the change and gain back public trust.
Finally got around to listening to this. A fine and respectful conversation until almost the end when Bari’s TDS rose again and she repeated the usual hoaxes and smears of Trump and gave her weight to the lawfare against him. So tiresome. She can’t let that go, and I always feel like she definitely agrees with the “half the country are either fascists or stupid” stuff.
Of course, Trump won with less votes than 2020. Kamala obviously had a lot less. Many people I talked to including me didn’t vote this time at least for President. My own belief is that Trump had poisoned the eco system with 2 years of non stop media coverage. Everyone was just worn out. Throw in the Biden problem and im surprised that Trump didn’t win by much more. The whole election was a case of idgaf.
It was disappointing that there was no discussion of foreign policy, a president’s primary responsibility, other than one panelist approving the sloganeering critique of “ forever wars.” Lord knows how Trump will, or Harris would have face/faced the most dangerous array of America’s sworn enemies since the end of the Cold War and perhaps since WWII. This failure of leadership was one of many reasons I couldn’t begin to vote for either candidate.
As always, Honestly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a question though. I admire Brianna Wu's thinking and I hope to hear more of it. That said she has said on at least two occasions that I recall that she fears that President Trump will keep her from receiving certain medication that she needs. Is this truly the case? Is this medication not going to be available or does she mean that she has to pay for it? I'm respectful of trans people but I'm not sure I ever voted for paying for it.
Brianna Wu isn’t a woman, he’s a white man whose given name is John Flynt. He had doctors surgically castrate him and invert his penis so he would more resemble a woman, so now he needs to take hormone pills. He chooses to take large static quantities of estrogen and testosterone blockers, instead of the male levels of testosterone that his body needs, so he can look as feminized as possible, even though disrupting the endocrine system like this gives him health problems. Its a tricky question: do we pay money to make people very physically ill, so that they like how they look more? The other problem is that studies show that transgender people’s mental health isn’t good long term even after receiving these procedures. Currently, gender dysphoria is the only body dysmorphic disorder that we are being asked to treat with alterations to the body. It is common consensus that all forms of BDD should be treated with talk therapy coupled with exposure, and that altering the body to relieve the distress actually fuels the disorder longterm. Theres no evidence that gender dysphoria is fundamentally different from any other form of BDD- eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binging, body-part specific dysmorphia, racial dysphoria or species dysphoria, etc.
Thank you for this reply. May we infer that Mrs. Wu (by whatever name) will continue to have access to the hormones that she needs to maintain the feminized version of herself as long as she can get a doctor to prescribe them? So does that mean that her "fear" just comes down to money? That puts a rather different spin on her concern that Donald Trump's election will prevent her from receiving needed medication.
It’s not clear what the Trump administration has planned for transgender procedures, whether that’s stopping coverage and treating it like other cosmetic procedures which are legal but out of pocket, or making it illegal to prescribe wrong-sex hormones, castrate healthy gonads, etc. Messing with your hormones can be very dangerous, bc taking the wrong ones for your body means things like elevated stroke risk, heart attack risk, diabetes, dementia, etc, which then need to be payed for by taxpayers. Side effects of drastically altered estrogen or testosterone can be suicidality, mood disorders, and elevated propensity for physical and sexual violence. All hormones are mood altering, so messing with someone’s hormones to the extent that transgender people do can trigger or exacerbate mental illness or behavioral problems. So I doubt it will ever be something people can legally just buy and take with no prescription or regulation. Doctors are supposed to have to assess patients before they prescribe them and some hormones are considered controlled substances. Transgender procedures are an ethical grey area with no clear pathway forward, regardless of who’s currently in office, bc the doctor is being asked to essentially induce an endocrine disorder and it’s accompanying cascade of health problems in order to cure a mental illness. Trying to cure mental illness through body modification is extremely controversial and was considered barbaric and archaic up until about 10 years ago with the rise of transgender activists. So: could republicans create policies that take away Mr Wu’s estrogen, and testosterone blockers? Maybe. He calls that “taking away his healthcare,” I call it “taking away state-sponsored self harm.”
People are making more of this than is there. Trump won because people are angry about their grocery bills. They blame inflation on the Biden administration and think Trump can fix it. What they don’t realize is that when inflation levels off, prices do not go back down. That’s why we aren’t buying new cars for $750. Deflation is rare and usually accompanies economic calamity. Trump’s behavior after the last election should have been disqualifying but the Senate is populated with cowards. People will apparently forgive anything in pursuit of cheaper prices. Sure the Trump diehards actually believe the stolen election fantasy but the people that swung the election know it was a pack of lies, know he betrayed his oath of office, and just don’t care. I get voting for a Republican over a Democrat. I don’t get renominating a traitor.
The Dems made a huge mistake by underestimating women and assuming that the only thing that college-educated white women like me care about is abortion.
I care about my daughter not walking into a bathroom where there’s a man dressed as a woman or my daughter playing a sport and not being ousted by a biological male. I care about my white son not getting pushed aside because he’s not female or a minority. I care about the economy. I care about free speech. I care about national security. I care about Israel defeating Islamic terrorists.
I don’t care what Queen Latifah thinks. I don’t care what Jimmy Kimmel thinks. I don’t care what my Facebook “friends” think.
The View and MSNBC just continue to feed the histrionics. Columbia University canceling classes and Northwestern offering post-election cocoa, cookies, and crafts (I wish I were joking) for distraught college students doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. It scares me. It makes me wonder what this generation is going to do when faced with real challenges.
Retreating to safe spaces to whine is not an option for real adults!
Me exactly!! Son and a daughter too and same feelings. There are a lot of us (clearly) but no one is allowed to talk about it without being shunned, so then the left was absolutely shocked.
Let me help you all, The fact that you just don't see this speaks loudly. Trump won because he loves the American People and wants to do what is right for them. There is not one Democratic politician and many of the RINO's in DC that actually like the deplorables/garbage people in this country.
If the MSM just was even handed with their coverage in regards to him then he would have won in 2020 in the same landslide he just pulled off. Harris has been a fraud her entire life. I know how much Bari loves Tucker C. but he had two guests that knew Harris back in CA when she was young or when she was the Atty Gen and understood the details of what she did then. You would had found out that she has never earned anything without using the oldest trick known to mankind.
Gimme a break. There are plenty of legit reasons to criticize her. It's absurd and offensive to suggest that she uses sex for power. It's a tired old trope that people (mostly men) use to suggest that women can't get ahead any other way. No one wants to hear that kind of drivel. Come up back when you have something interesting to say.
so your not aware of her affairs with Willie Brown the Mayor of SF and the king Maker in the California Democratic party at the time? He placed her on multiple Boards that payed six figure incomes for part time work and her co workers who work with her at the time claims she never showed up to do the work, She was also Montel Williams Concubine. None of this is unknown if you get your news from other sources besides the MSM.
I give more credence than the excellent panel to the consequences of Biden’s decrepit state. For four years he was rarely seen in an unguarded situation. And when he did appear, it wasn’t pretty. This had ramifications for democrats. 1)Dem Leaders knew of his condition but failed to get him to step aside early enough for others to seek the nomination and be vetted through the primary crucible. Harris would not have survived that process. 2) Because they waited they were stuck with Harris. Woke politics had much to do with the unwillingness to dump her. 3) they were left with an empty vessel as the democratic nominee. I guess that matters little when the primary campaign mantra of my democratic friends is “Trump has to be defeated at all costs.” 4) Dems tried to hide how empty she was by hiding her as they did Biden in 2000. Persuadable voters, however, weren’t snookered this time. 5) Many persuadable voters were not swayed by claims that Trump is a ”threat to democracy” especially when they witnessed the democrats undemocratic method of presenting their “choice.” I guess when your only campaign platform is “she’s not Trump” it matters little who you run as a candidate.
Relatedly, I am amazed at how many of my democratic friends had no issue with how they ended up with Harris foisted upon them. They deny being lied to about his condition. They excuse the delay moving him out and provide some interesting excuses (e.g. despite his presently low approval rating “he’s the only one to have defeated Trump.”)
Thank You Bari well put together and it even sounds like hyperbole/Trump…even “better than Napoleon” :)!!
Another excellent conversation. However, I think there were three MAJOR factors completely overlooked as part of this conversation. First, world-wide, the parties that were incumbent during Covid were taken out of power. It didn't matter left or right governments, people around the world were very displeased with whoever was in-charge in the post-Covid chaos (really mostly during the periods of inflation and supply chain chaos). To me, Trump's win was more a reflection of this than anything else. Second, while the left was probably too hyperbolic and hysterical on the fascism messaging, the truth is that most of Trump's rhetoric and tactics ARE out of the authoritarian playbook. I know this is going to sound elitist, but to anyone who has studied history, the parallels are too scary to ignore—even if he might be just "joking" about it. I would love to hear a real conversation about how people on the left are supposed to re-center the conversation to core issues while also resisting Trump's authoritarian tendencies. Third and last, while Trump certainly did an effective job on centering the conversation on inflation, taxes, and immigration which most people care about, a lot of us on the left are frightened by the reality of the Project 2025 agenda of Christian nationalists. There is no arguing what's on their agenda, it's been printed. And there is no arguing that the architects of the plan are many of the people who will be influencing Trump and running the administration. I think it is incredibly naive to say "oh he won't do any of that." The right members of the Supreme Court certainly seem aligned to it, and despite the majority of the country opposing the Dodds decision, were still able to overturn Roe V Wade. Christian nationalists are minorities in this country now with disproportionate power and influence.
Lesson 101. Trump didn't over perform. The polls were wrong. Massively wrong. Trump's performance was fact and reality. The polls he supposedly out performed were just the opposite.
You need to change your perspective to that of reality Bari.
It’s hard to take seriously FP’s claim to non-partisan journalism when you let a Trump acolyte get away with such blatant campaign parroting while only talking to lukewarm Democrats. There are plenty of examples in this podcast but the two that most annoyed me were (1) asking Batya about Elon’s statement that if the Dems won there would be no more elections and not pushing her to actually answer instead of deflecting to Oprah’s support of Kamala, and (2) nobody challenging her on saying that she didn’t understand why women over 50 who were too old to get pregnant would be so supportive of abortion rights - apparently your entire panel is too young to remember the woman’s rights battles in the 60’s and 70’s that allowed women to make decent progress then and why those warriors wouldn’t want to retreat from their victories.
Frankly I am more and more disappointed by the lack of depth and empathy in the FPs reporting lately. And I’m afraid the election will not improve the situation. I hope I’m wrong.
I see non partisan on FP as a willingness to print both sides. I'm not sure if there are any truly non partisan writers out there to have even one article on here. There are those who can control their partisanship most of the time.
I HIGHLY recommend anyone who enjoyed the points made in this episode to listen to Dan Carlins commentary on the topic. He spoke on it in 2016, but it matches this cycle to a T. 'The Revenge of the Gangrenous Finger' https://open.spotify.com/episode/0f0IcLW7jKOYJOlGgyD4rR?si=vUSk4Bx8TPKji0WFL4tHsw
Start at the 8 minute mark and give it 10 minutes
For Brianna and Peter- had to break it to you, but you are republicans. By the next cycle, the republicans will be identical to the democrats, circa 1980-1999.
I'm surprised you didn't note what Trump did was similar to Clinton's "triangulation" strategy in 1992 and 1996 to take Republican positions to moot the advantage on popular issues.
The democrats will never change until they break the public employee unions. Given that group's penchant for taking up Progressive causes (why does Randy Weinberge rant like a lunatic on every woke issue?) and examples like Chicago issuing a multi-billion dollar bond to fund teachers' unions pensions, they will be an anchor on democrats' election prospeccts. However, the pull of these unions with their pay to play strategy of funding democrat politicians will be much too strong to overcome. I expect the republicans to demagogue the pension issue in the next election cycle (social security is going broke and public employees retire after 25 years at 75% of salary) to great effect. It will take them a generation to make the change and gain back public trust.
Finally got around to listening to this. A fine and respectful conversation until almost the end when Bari’s TDS rose again and she repeated the usual hoaxes and smears of Trump and gave her weight to the lawfare against him. So tiresome. She can’t let that go, and I always feel like she definitely agrees with the “half the country are either fascists or stupid” stuff.
Great episode as usual.
The only thing that kept this as close as it was, is Donald Trump.
Without him running next time, and without any change in strategy, the Dems are going down even harder.
Of course, Trump won with less votes than 2020. Kamala obviously had a lot less. Many people I talked to including me didn’t vote this time at least for President. My own belief is that Trump had poisoned the eco system with 2 years of non stop media coverage. Everyone was just worn out. Throw in the Biden problem and im surprised that Trump didn’t win by much more. The whole election was a case of idgaf.
I thought this was a good discussion.
Both sides got their say and debated respectfully.
All parties agreed that the democrats can only blame themselves for the loss.
It was disappointing that there was no discussion of foreign policy, a president’s primary responsibility, other than one panelist approving the sloganeering critique of “ forever wars.” Lord knows how Trump will, or Harris would have face/faced the most dangerous array of America’s sworn enemies since the end of the Cold War and perhaps since WWII. This failure of leadership was one of many reasons I couldn’t begin to vote for either candidate.
As always, Honestly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a question though. I admire Brianna Wu's thinking and I hope to hear more of it. That said she has said on at least two occasions that I recall that she fears that President Trump will keep her from receiving certain medication that she needs. Is this truly the case? Is this medication not going to be available or does she mean that she has to pay for it? I'm respectful of trans people but I'm not sure I ever voted for paying for it.
Brianna Wu isn’t a woman, he’s a white man whose given name is John Flynt. He had doctors surgically castrate him and invert his penis so he would more resemble a woman, so now he needs to take hormone pills. He chooses to take large static quantities of estrogen and testosterone blockers, instead of the male levels of testosterone that his body needs, so he can look as feminized as possible, even though disrupting the endocrine system like this gives him health problems. Its a tricky question: do we pay money to make people very physically ill, so that they like how they look more? The other problem is that studies show that transgender people’s mental health isn’t good long term even after receiving these procedures. Currently, gender dysphoria is the only body dysmorphic disorder that we are being asked to treat with alterations to the body. It is common consensus that all forms of BDD should be treated with talk therapy coupled with exposure, and that altering the body to relieve the distress actually fuels the disorder longterm. Theres no evidence that gender dysphoria is fundamentally different from any other form of BDD- eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binging, body-part specific dysmorphia, racial dysphoria or species dysphoria, etc.
Thank you for this reply. May we infer that Mrs. Wu (by whatever name) will continue to have access to the hormones that she needs to maintain the feminized version of herself as long as she can get a doctor to prescribe them? So does that mean that her "fear" just comes down to money? That puts a rather different spin on her concern that Donald Trump's election will prevent her from receiving needed medication.
It’s not clear what the Trump administration has planned for transgender procedures, whether that’s stopping coverage and treating it like other cosmetic procedures which are legal but out of pocket, or making it illegal to prescribe wrong-sex hormones, castrate healthy gonads, etc. Messing with your hormones can be very dangerous, bc taking the wrong ones for your body means things like elevated stroke risk, heart attack risk, diabetes, dementia, etc, which then need to be payed for by taxpayers. Side effects of drastically altered estrogen or testosterone can be suicidality, mood disorders, and elevated propensity for physical and sexual violence. All hormones are mood altering, so messing with someone’s hormones to the extent that transgender people do can trigger or exacerbate mental illness or behavioral problems. So I doubt it will ever be something people can legally just buy and take with no prescription or regulation. Doctors are supposed to have to assess patients before they prescribe them and some hormones are considered controlled substances. Transgender procedures are an ethical grey area with no clear pathway forward, regardless of who’s currently in office, bc the doctor is being asked to essentially induce an endocrine disorder and it’s accompanying cascade of health problems in order to cure a mental illness. Trying to cure mental illness through body modification is extremely controversial and was considered barbaric and archaic up until about 10 years ago with the rise of transgender activists. So: could republicans create policies that take away Mr Wu’s estrogen, and testosterone blockers? Maybe. He calls that “taking away his healthcare,” I call it “taking away state-sponsored self harm.”
I have the question too.
People are making more of this than is there. Trump won because people are angry about their grocery bills. They blame inflation on the Biden administration and think Trump can fix it. What they don’t realize is that when inflation levels off, prices do not go back down. That’s why we aren’t buying new cars for $750. Deflation is rare and usually accompanies economic calamity. Trump’s behavior after the last election should have been disqualifying but the Senate is populated with cowards. People will apparently forgive anything in pursuit of cheaper prices. Sure the Trump diehards actually believe the stolen election fantasy but the people that swung the election know it was a pack of lies, know he betrayed his oath of office, and just don’t care. I get voting for a Republican over a Democrat. I don’t get renominating a traitor.
The Dems made a huge mistake by underestimating women and assuming that the only thing that college-educated white women like me care about is abortion.
I care about my daughter not walking into a bathroom where there’s a man dressed as a woman or my daughter playing a sport and not being ousted by a biological male. I care about my white son not getting pushed aside because he’s not female or a minority. I care about the economy. I care about free speech. I care about national security. I care about Israel defeating Islamic terrorists.
I don’t care what Queen Latifah thinks. I don’t care what Jimmy Kimmel thinks. I don’t care what my Facebook “friends” think.
The View and MSNBC just continue to feed the histrionics. Columbia University canceling classes and Northwestern offering post-election cocoa, cookies, and crafts (I wish I were joking) for distraught college students doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. It scares me. It makes me wonder what this generation is going to do when faced with real challenges.
Retreating to safe spaces to whine is not an option for real adults!
Me exactly!! Son and a daughter too and same feelings. There are a lot of us (clearly) but no one is allowed to talk about it without being shunned, so then the left was absolutely shocked.
Let me help you all, The fact that you just don't see this speaks loudly. Trump won because he loves the American People and wants to do what is right for them. There is not one Democratic politician and many of the RINO's in DC that actually like the deplorables/garbage people in this country.
If the MSM just was even handed with their coverage in regards to him then he would have won in 2020 in the same landslide he just pulled off. Harris has been a fraud her entire life. I know how much Bari loves Tucker C. but he had two guests that knew Harris back in CA when she was young or when she was the Atty Gen and understood the details of what she did then. You would had found out that she has never earned anything without using the oldest trick known to mankind.
What's the oldest trick?
the oldest profession of mankind
Gimme a break. There are plenty of legit reasons to criticize her. It's absurd and offensive to suggest that she uses sex for power. It's a tired old trope that people (mostly men) use to suggest that women can't get ahead any other way. No one wants to hear that kind of drivel. Come up back when you have something interesting to say.
so your not aware of her affairs with Willie Brown the Mayor of SF and the king Maker in the California Democratic party at the time? He placed her on multiple Boards that payed six figure incomes for part time work and her co workers who work with her at the time claims she never showed up to do the work, She was also Montel Williams Concubine. None of this is unknown if you get your news from other sources besides the MSM.