MAGA’s Heir, the Bumbling GOP Smear Squad, and Trump’s Cheese Problem
The Bulwark · C · trust 33/100
Jim Swift October 3 Upgrade to listen 3 minutes 269 8 39 Happy Saturday! This week: Joshua Tait examines the man who would inherit MAGA, Will Saletan takes on the Republicans smearing Jack Smith, and Mona Charen explains how corruption killed Trump’s populist image. Plus, Catherine Rampell on a trade war that isn’t even helping the cheesemakers, Ben Parker and Mark Hertling on Hegseth’s remaking of the military, and Will Sommer gets the script for the Daily Wire ’s latest pro-ICE movie. We’re a month out from election day, so… buckle up!
A LONG TIME AGO in what feels like a galaxy far, far away, I used to compare JD Vance to Anakin Skywalker: Once a hardscrabble hero with an angry streak, he succumbed to the lure of the dark side, becoming the vicious and strangely religious enforcer of an evil emperor. If the emperor were gone, perhaps Vance would reveal he wasn’t beyond saving. As Luke Skywalker says about his father, “There is still good in him.”
Jack Smith and the Republican Smear Squad Will Saletan · Sep 30 IN HIS TESTIMONY before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Jack Smith presented Republicans with an opportunity. Smith, the former special counsel who investigated Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, distinguished Trump from the Republican party. He …
Trump’s Populist Image Is Dead Mona Charen · Sep 30 AS PREDICTIONS OF A BLUE WAVE swell, it’s worthwhile to remember that polls are sometimes wrong, that surveys have tended to undercount Trump voters (though they have been better in midterms), that professional prognosticators can err, and that Allan Lichtman is only
Join Receipts Who Cut The Cheese? Trump Did. Catherine Rampell · Oct 2 IN HIS OTHERWISE INEXPLICABLE trade war with Canada, U.S. dairy was supposed to be the one industry President Donald Trump was actually helping.
Bulwark Takes Command Post: Hegseth Takes an Axe to Generals, Admirals and Military Education Benjamin Parker and Mark Hertling · Sep 30 Ben Parker and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) give their takes on Pete Hegseth’s reported plan to cut twenty percent of the military’s general and flag officers, and what that could mean for military leadership, congressional oversight, and civilian-military relations. They also discuss Hegseth’s push to remake Department of Defense schools, including curriculum changes and book bans, as well as growing concerns about the Pentagon’s handling of military casualty reporting.
False Flag The Daily Wire Is Quietly Shooting a Pro-ICE Movie. We Got the Script. Will Sommer · Oct 1 BEN SHAPIRO AND THE DAILY WIRE are desperate to crack Hollywood. But Shapiro’s most recent foray into film, the anti-Muslim Run Hide Fight: Infidels, was hardly The Odyssey. Sitting at a meager 20 percent among reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has inspired Shapiro’s fan…
Join 🚨 OVERTIME 🚨 Happy Saturday! Depending on where you live, it may be “fake fall” which means that means playoff baseball is here! And if your team is out, it is never too late to join the Cleveland Guardians bandwagon. Good luck to all of our World Series contest entrants!
Pastor Carl Ruby testified before a Senate forum earlier this week. (You can watch the whole thing here .)
Later today, Pierre Damas Bel will be remembered and celebrated before his burial. You can pay your respects (and support his family) here . Dave Chappelle, who lives in nearby Yellow Springs, put together a tribute/fundraiser for the Haitian Community and Bel, it’s worth a watch .
And our amazing Bulwark community? We’ve raised $455,000 directly for the Haitian Support Center…. so far. Other groups have joined us to support them, and between their generous donations and our show proceeds, we’ll have raised well over half a million dollars for this worthy organization. A week ago, it was half that. I can’t thank you enough for stepping up for my neighbors.
Catch me on Eventual … I joined my old friend Alex Keeney and Doug Campbell on Eventual to talk all things Ohio.
A Catholic Theologian Signs Up for Mass Cruelty… Yet another thinker puts his faith in the service of monstrous deportation policies, writes friend of the newsletter Gabriel Schoenfeld at The UnPopulist.
You Can Get Away, But You Can’t Truly Escape… Matt Labash on Cape May, storm winds, bad news, and the things that follow us wherever we go.
Bulwark Book Club pick for October: The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865–1915.
Mona Charen, JVL and the author Jon Grinspan will discuss the book with Bulwark+ members on Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 1:30 p.m. ET. More details in this post.
Adopted St. Louis man discovers… his biological father is a Grammy-winning artist ( KCTV).
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