Pod Save America: Status Quo Defenders, Manipulative, and Shouldn’t Be Trusted

Below is a surface level critique of Pod Save episode, “The Electoral College is &#$%ing dumb.” On the pod is Jon Favreau., Dan Pfeiffer., Jon Lovett with an interview of Rep. Lauren Underwood.

What’s on the line up?(00:13)

News: Why Dems are embracing abolishing the electoral college (just doesn’t fit our age anymore) and the filibuster (to pass big legislation), then Trump’s new strategy on the Mueller report (turns out Trump didn’t need a strategy, report was a dud), then on to a look at the candidates in the 2020 Democratic Primary.

First, who are the Pod Save guys? What gives them credibility? The Pod Save guys are self-described “Democrats”. They aren’t just any democrats, they are democrats who worked in the White House with Barack Obama. In addition to giving them an air of credibility, the political history of these guys lends them a certain political-rockstar status, which in my mind is kind of paradoxical for reasons below.

Each co-host’s experience in the White House with Obama is what gives them credibility in the eyes of most. Their experience makes them insiders close to an ex-president. It’s not nothing. However, in my eyes, I just see a few privileged guys who were part of an administration that was relatively ineffective at governing. Had Obama and company been more effective, we wouldn’t have wound up with Donald Trump as President. They didn’t govern well. End the wars? Fuggetaboutit. That would require taking on the Pentagon, they were too weak to do that. Also, they never rang the alarm when the Opioid Crisis hit under their watch. The meth crisis? Little more than a peep.

Admittedly, I’m a softy, I happen to believe when a substance is destroying 100,000+ lives per year out in the country, you should at the very least run nonstop PSAs and allocate billions to deal with it. I could be wrong, but I just don’t remember this happening. The US Government could come up with trillions overnight for the biggest US banks and other banks around the world, according to Adam Tooze’s book Crashed, but somehow were unable to find the will power or pecuniary in the Congressional or Executive purse for addicts or underwater homeowners.

There are many more areas where Obama and his crew’s legacy can be called into question: drones, lack of homeowner bailout, bank bailout, coddled billionaires and Silicon Valley, inequality soared under his watch, etc. One reason we have Trump in the White House today is because of the Pod Save types, which begs the question: why listen to people who have a demonstrated history of being kind of bad at politics and wielding power? At the very least, it’s a legitimate question to be asking.

They entertain more than they inform. I do have some praise for them. The entire show is a well-produced piece of propaganda. The politics the propaganda projects aren’t real politics. They’re TV politics. It’s about the speed, the conflict, the snappy one-liner. Favreau maintains a lightness during most of the taping. It is good propaganda. They have a set of messages they want to convey to their viewer and they do that. The problem is that the worldview and messaging they are transmitting isn’t the best understanding of current US political arena or modern geopolitics. I mean honestly, if these guys were good at politics, they wouldn’t be hosting a podcast right now: they’d be in the Clinton White House.

Into the news (1:13)

Short Summary: Small “d” democratic reforms. Electoral college. Adding SCOTUS seats & reforms. Statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C. Getting rid of gerrymandering. (2:02) Why is this happening now, rather than any other time prior to this election? (2:30) D. Pfeiffer goes into something about “fundamental flaws” in our system.

They both seem puzzled that people who pursue power don’t all act like they are on the set of the West Wing. Pfeiffer raises the issue of minority rule and the anti-democratic rules and norms that Republicans have embraced in the last decade. All true. It’s just strange that Pfeiffer and Favreau seem confused or in a state of shock or disbelief at the state of minority rule in the US. It’s partially due to the fecklessness of the leadership of their corpocratic heroes: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. One made tens of millions off of US politics (Clinton’s speeches and foundations); the other on his way there (Obama’s Netflix and book deal and his foundation). The grift takes time, ya know? Hard to be a working people’s party if the leaders are just grifting the presidency into obscene wealth. It’s corruption, plain and simple. This is also essentially what the Pod Save guys are doing with their media enterprises. It serves two functions: 1) they have enough of an audience to monetize their media outlets and probably get paid somewhat handsomely to do so; and 2) they are able to influence the debates in US politics.

Filibuster (4:44)

The filibuster doesn’t fit the moment we are in any longer. It should be done away with if it poses a problem in the future in regards to passing big social legislation.

(5:09) JF: “That is the situation in our country right now. You have one party that has established minority rule. So the majority of people in this country, when they go to vote, their voices are not being heard like they should…And if we let it continue this way and we don’t do anything about it, it is extremely unlikely the Dems will win 60 votes in the Senate, will never pass progressive majority legislation…and lose the court for a generation.” (paraphrased).

J. Fav here breeds anxiety and fear in the viewer. He’s scared, so you should be too. Again, their reading of US politics here is just myopic. We are very possibly in a period of transformative change, change that looks to make their type of politics irrelevant. They seem to think that we might have a series of events play out like Obama had play out. We run on big ideas like in 2008, then the winner can’t get anything they passed through the legislature. They think like this because, due to their own artificial political constraints, this is basically what happened to the Obama Administration in 2008. He ran on a platform that almost anything could be read into, and in fact almost anything was. From a version of the ACA to Medicare for All. His campaign’s healthcare lingo of “universal coverage” and “universal access to quality care” weren’t codes for actual universal coverage. Their campaign laced a tremendous amount of ambiguity in their narratives in 2008 so they could quickly retreat from any positions that run against the party’s corporate overlords. Post 2008, Obama put himself in the “centrist” straightjacket and hundreds of thousands of people have died prematurely because of it. This is the same straight jacket the Pod Save guys are in and the one they are trying to tie their listeners up in.

The Big Sortor Something Like That

Favreau gives a semi-historical presentation of the Big Sort that’s been taking place over the last 30 or so years. As NAFTA and WTO policy has destroyed manufacturing in the Midwest. The manufacturing decline also destroyed a large number of communities in the Midwest; Detroit and Flint are some examples. Another smaller scale example is Cairo, IL, where I’m from. Take a trip through Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Central/So. Illinois, etc. for other examples of the social and economic ill brought on by the leadership of both major parties of the day. Anyway, there have been some studies that suggest that migration patterns due to deindustrialization might’ve further entrenched Democrats in the Coasts and Republicans in the Midwest and Rural America.

I’ve always thought this idea of entrenched Red or Blue states was bullshit. If the Democrats get rid of the Pod Save types and get people in power who are seriously going to challenge and wield power, then rural red states would absolutely flip. A party full of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warrens, Richard Ojedas, AOCs, Ilhan Omars, and Max Roses of the world will garner more working-class support throughout the country than the corporatists (Beto, Biden, Buttigieg “The 3 B’s”) can garner from middle class voters. Whoever is going to make life easier for workers and will fight for workers, is going to have workers show up and vote for them. The Democratic party of Clinton and Obama, I believe history will show, has drifted pretty far away from the party of FDR and LBJ. Modern American workers know this. It’s likely why many don’t vote. It’s hard to argue with an American poor or working class person who rationalize not voting to date. American workers really haven’t had a party fighting for them for quite some time. Too many trade deals to work on or create propaganda around a startup culture to the point it becomes pure PR myth.

The politics of the Pod Save type, so-called “centrism” or “third way” politics, is what has created such cynicism in politics today. The Democratic party they represent really stopped representing poor and working people through law and policy decades ago. The American working poor and poor have felt their very real lack of representation for decades. Today it’s just crushing people, with tens of thousands of addicts perishing every year in relative silence. Multiple years of 50,000+ fatalities due to opioid overdoses is a crisis in an absolute since. It was not treated as such under neither Obama nor under Trump. I don’t foresee the Trump Administration taking any big action on this, he’s basically a misanthrope surrounded by billionaire knaves, so no surprise here. Raising questions about the quality of life of poor and working people or opioid addicts isn’t really any of their forte.

Middle Class Democratic Party or a Working-Class Democratic Party

The biggest difference between me and the Pod Save types is that they want to figure out the proper messaging to get enough soccer moms to help them squeak out a 50% + 1 election victory. Because their goal is to do as they’ve always done. They want to get power in order to have power, not to govern. I want politicos who are going to get into power and use the levers of state to break up big tech, mobilize our society to deal with climate, and to pass meaningful taxation on the rich to reduce inequality and begin to repair the social bonds broken throughout our society due to decades of austerity for the poor, and an especially savage last ten years in this post-Great Recession globe. The Pod Save crew aren’t agents of change. They’re careerists looking to remain on top. They want to give glossy speeches about the past and the future, rather than divide power more equally in the now.

But Are They Really Progressives (6:50)

After a short monologue about everything that Republicans are threatening by being authoritarians and a minority rule party, he turns to Dan who says: …”Obviously we are biased, we are progressives, and we want progressive policies to be a part of this country, buuuuut we have to take a step back and take a look through a ‘nonpartisan’lens…” Pfieffer then posits a generation of minority rule due to anachronistic election rules. Pfieffer then says Rs after 2008 started to change the rules rather than expanding their base. JF: a general thrust to expand the vote. “We changed that…” Followed up with lots of fear about minority rule of the threatened majority.

First, there is no nonpartisan issue. All political issues by definition are partisan; it’s why an issue is political. Even aside from this, there is a greater issue of human subjectivity. Human beings are inherently subjective creatures. There’s this complex internal world we possess and never really know, and a similarly complex external world we experience and never really know, and then there is the fact that these two unknowable experiences are happening in as just as complex social settings. Even the most controlled and orderly society is still utter chaos, order being little more than an illusion. Therefore, agreeing on what is and isn’t politically an objective truth is problematic, to say the least.

Second, are they Progressives or are they Democrats? Can they be both? Yes. This helps me get to a larger point. I believe they are actually going to be viewed as “conservative”, or even rightwing, by the time the history of this era is written. People I’m in lock step with want to move U.S. politics well past what these aristocrat wannabes are comfortable with today. Hence, at some point, if the emerging left takes power and acts, peeps like the Pod Save types will probably serve as an opposition to people in power with beliefs similar mine. The conservatives of today are going to find much more in common with these legacy trust fund dudes over me and people pushing ideas I think must be implemented to properly address inequality and climate.

Third, just be aware and skeptical of their scaremongering.

“Then we changed that…” (8:40)

Here Favreau walks through a history of political and social movements without really acknowledging these things were actual movements. How did African Americans get the right to vote? A civil war and decades of struggle. Women? They took the streets and demanded their rights. Favreau’s summary of events is almost magical. Something was bad, then “we changed it.” Not sure if he just doesn’t know these things, or if this nonchalant attitude serves some kind of role in propagation of their message. He says that there is a general sweep towards greater freedom for a greater number, what I’m saying is he’s either intentionally or unintentionally misleading his audience as to how these changes have come about throughout history. And lemme tell ya, the peeps driving that change, they were often revolutionaries and likely would be way “left” of DSA today, not friends with the Pod Save crew.

Theory of Change and Gridlock (11:10)

JF: Do voters care? If not, how do we make them care? Dan Pfeiffer: people probably don’t care. Poses: what is your theory of change?

JF: Says that what drives people crazy is grid lock in Washington.

Side note: When was the last time I thought about gridlock in Washington? I really can’t recall. A long time ago or maybe never. Shit that I think about: “When is DC going to do something about climate? When is DC going to do something about healthcare? Why is DC giving billionaires a tax break? Why did DC launch a war into Iraq in 2003? Why are we still in Iraq in 2019? Why is nothing still being done with climate? Why are we still pretending the opioid epidemic isn’t a Big Pharma engineered genocide on U.S. soil with over 50,000+ victims dying a year, a result of a failed war on drugs? Does anyone give a shit that the US average lifespan has declined over the last few years due to drug ODs and suicides, many of which are veterans and people negatively affected by NAFTA and WTO agreements? Why isn’t anyone doing anything revolutionary about climat….ahh, fuck it. Time to revolt.”

The main point here: no one is really angry that nothing ever gets done per se. It’s more so the fact that a lot does get done that benefits the rich and well-to-do, and even when stuff doesn’t get done, it still benefits the rich and well-to-do. People are angry that the rich, by way of lobbyists in DC, have rigged the our economy and politics so very much in their own favor over the last 40 years. It’s not hyperbole to say that Big Corporate America owns every State Legislature and our Federal Government. These are just not controversial statements. In fact, there are empirical studies validating this belief. This is just an example of Favreau downplaying the level of corruption in DC. He wants to get back to being an active participant, of course. It’s just an example of Jon erecting artificial boundaries of discussion. If the original premise you start from this this flawed, so is most the conversation to flow from those flawed initial assumptions.

Jon openly expresses fears about over promising then not delivering, saying it will deepen people’s cynicism, leading to the rise of more rightwing populists. He’s giving a theatrical performance at this point (12:17). He’s saying we need to prove we can bring the change we campaigned on. “What’s your theory for how you’re gunna get your agenda passed?” JF asks. Again, most of these points just aren’t important (to me) up to this point. We are at some stage of a Sixth Extinctionand they are talking about relatively unimportant political insider baseball. I don’t think most working-class people give a shit about a theory of change, they want elected officials to fight the rich and powerful to make their lives better. They are hitting all around the edges, but not quite willing to dig in and acknowledge the depth and breathe of our problems today. Segment ends with a call for more polling, because of course it does. Polls are how these guys understand the world…polls polls polls. Nothing is true unless it polls well with these guys!

(12:35) When JF is covering some of the ideas and reforms he brings up: Warren, Buttigieg Inslee, O’Rourke, and Harris. Again, it’s all about the framing. Have they done an episode thanking Senator Sanders for pushing the entire party into this kind of talk today? I’d listen to that. An honest Pod Save episode would be titled: We Fought Sanders Every Step of the Way, But Finally We Acquiesced and Adopted Almost All of Sanders 2016 Platform. That’d be an honest look at what’s really going on in democratic politics in the US today. At the end of 2020, you could probably run an analysis of candidate names spoken, I’d almost guarantee, until Sanders starts winning states, you’re going to see these guys push: Buttigieg, Harris, Biden, O’Rourke, and others of their ilk, but you’re less likely to hear about Sanders, Gabbard, Yang, and Warren, as Biden collapses Warren will be their last hope to project their failed political hopes on, so you’ll likely hear more about her as the race ripens.

(14:30) Dan Pfeiffer: Says something to the effect that “if you don’t have a plan on how to get your big plan done, then you’re going to lose…Somebody who can get something done is pretty important here.” This was the segment mentioned above that ended with a call for polls polls polls.

Credit where it’s due (around 16:00). They talk about norm breaking. I agree with them here. I think screaming at Trump every time he breaks social or political norms is silly, we do ourselves no favors. I subscribe to Corey Robins analysis of the current moment. He makes the claim in The Reactionary Mind that we are in the midst of a big political realignment. He thinks Trump is a weak presidency and Republicans are weak. I mean, democratically, they are a minority rule party; legislatively, they’ve won office due to some bullshit rules from the slave era in America. Keep in mind. It takes roughly 65,000,000,000 to elect a president. There are roughly 120,000,000+ who don’t vote. Most of those people likely have a hard problem making ends meet. This reality is what make Yang’s campaign so interesting. If there is any campaign that can activate those who don’t vote, it’s a direct appeal to give them $1,000/mo and Medicare for all. IMO, Yang, Warren, and Sanders are all running big, bold policy campaigns to improve the lives of the many — American workers. Almost 20 mins in and not an analysis or promotion of any of them. Brief mention of Warren, but plenty of pushing of Kamala and Buttigieg. Just pointing it out. Editorial decisions regarding who, and who not, to talk about matter.

I could go on to analyze the rest of the video, but this would run on for several more pages. And, I believe, I would just continue to tear apart what they produce, leaving myself in a state of anger and disgust. Like where they spend time covering Mueller, a report that came up negative with Russian Collusion. How many times have the Pod Save guys talked about Russian election hacking? There are other issues to discuss.

These guys are representative podcast protectorates of plutocrats. They all likely come from upper middle class or even wealthy backgrounds. They’ve all engaged in Aaron Sorkinesque — The West Wing style politics for most of their adult lives. They don’t have a real theory of change. They’ve just set themselves up to be a powerful force from the sidelines, as they are very effective as setting artificial boundaries of acceptable (or reasonable) political debate in the mind of their viewers. It’s insufferable talking to religious Pod Save folks. My hope is that enough people wise up to their propaganda and seek better political information from a more honest show or…perish the thought…a book or two!

Honestly, I’ve never understood listening to Pod Save when there is other better, and arguably great, political commentary being laid out in the podcast world. I’m not just talking about on the left either. Self-described “neoliberals,” “centrist”, or not on the left, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Sarah Kliff produce the Ezra Klein Show and Into the Weeds for Vox. Both are self-described neoliberal “policy wonk” (a term that increasingly means nothing) shows. Also, Slate Money, EconTalk with Russell Roberts, and FT’s Alphachat all produce excellent market analysis from a quasi-rightwing/“centrist” perspective. All of these shows subscribe to a failed neoliberal ideology and they all have financial interests tied to legacy power from that failed era, but they do often present decent analyses of political and economic topics.

The heavy hitters though, the pods pushing the best ideas (both ideological and practical) are on the left. Shows such as The Dig with Daniel Denvir, Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill, Citations Needed with Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi. And, if you’re looking for lefties who are steeped in the theoretical and practical aspects of modern American politics, then see David Sirota’s journalistic work; David Harvey’s online or printed works; Yanis Varoufakis has several great books describing the world in which we live; Katie Halper’s work is pretty phenomenal; David Graeber has done more to redefine and empower heterodox economists than just about anyone in the last several decades; Naomi Klien likely needs no introduction; Corey Robin is a solid political theorist; Marc Lamont Hill who offers insightful social commentary and was booted from CNN for his views that Palestinians deserve emancipation. The list of prominent thinkers on the left or left adjacent stretches quite a bit, a non-exhaustive list follows: Matt Taibbi, Cornel West, Chris Hedges, Matt Stoller, Keeanga Yamata-Taylor, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Richard Wolff, and Slavoj Zizek. The bench, if you like sports metaphors…is deep.