Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late night series "Real Time with Bill
Mom."
“All right, here we have a number of time with an author and national cost funder for the”
other times, directly feeders and she's an anchor and she's a critical cost funder for
the Indiana Best. Okay. You both have books with numbers in the title. Right? Fifteen elections?
Eight people. Okay. Let's start with you first. How did you pick which elections to include in your book about political moments in history that changed the world?
And I know that you left off 2016. We stopped at Nelson Mandela in the 90s. We decided that. Goes back to Caesar. Goes back to Caesar.
Yeah, goes back to Caesar. Go back to Caesar. The whole, yeah, world human history. And we decided that we wanted to do elections that were a little bit more in history since it's about his life.
“Because we don't have enough time in between there to judge how it's going to come out.”
And I have an idea. But we decided to give it to give it an answer. Yes, and no. I've said this before and people get mad at me on the left for saying it. But I was more along ten years ago.
We were talking about it tonight. I just, first of all, it was ten years ago. I mean, I was, you know, I caught slow-moving coup. Not that he hasn't tried. But here we are ten years later.
We still have a republic. And they're still trying to do some shit. But again, I just think he's, has less power than he ever did as president. Obviously, when not when he was out of office. Yeah, I mean, he's taken a lot of power.
He's got a lot of power. He's got a lot of power. And this Supreme Court is on his side. And that's Congress. Not always.
He's not always. I mean, they certainly gave it a lot. Perth rates citizenship they stop at the end. He's in tariffs.
Incredible immunity power.
Just not exist. Yeah, that's good point about the tariffs. They have not given him a blank check. No. But to answer your question, we decided to pick elections for, for good and bad that had major
consequential changes in society. For example, Julius Caesar, obviously. We talked about not just elections for individuals in elected office. But the Mayflower Compact, for example, which really set up a democratic institution for the people who are coming to this new land at the beginning.
And then, as I said, we all go all the way to Mandela. But we talk also about Martin Luther King. And about global elections that it off Hitler. He wasn't directly elected. But an election.
Very warm. An election in Germany in Nazi Party. Who's elected Chancellor? Yes, exactly. And then he was exactly.
They could control. In parliamentary system precisely. So that was obviously an example of an election that had enormous consequences. Not good ones. I mean, at our constitutional convention, when they created the office of the presidency,
that was completely unprecedented.
We had never been, there had been courts before, for sure, throughout history.
And there had been legislators. What there hadn't been is an executive who wasn't a king. Yeah. And the Colton is excellency at the beginning. They didn't know what else to call him.
And he said, it came up with the term president. No, I've returned. He did the right thing. Washington. I mean, they wanted to make Hamilton wanted a much stronger presidency than we even have now.
And one of the elections that we chose was the election after. Because Washington was so unique. The very tough election between Jefferson and Adams. And that could have gone a whole different way. But it ended up working out just by the skin of their teeth that they were able to sustain this democracy after Washington.
Okay. And what about the eight people you talk about? Well, I mean, my idea for my book was that, you know, when you're looking at the chart on the wall or the placement, that they give you when you're a kid of all the US presidents. You know, George Bush, Barack Obama, who?
Like, explain that.
“How when we look back 25 years from now, will we explain Donald Trump's election and his stranglehold on the Republican party?”
Which didn't just happen overnight. This was decades in the making. And, you know, you could trace it back to, you know, someone you talk about a lot. Which, who was, I think, Trump's template initially and that's, that's Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan understood the anger and, you know, the raw emotions over immigration and pitchfork pet,
who also, by the way, wanted an electric fence built along the border. Talked about building that, you know, well, before Trump was, yeah, I think Trump was still a Democrat. And this was going on. And, you know, I think that the, the story of Trump as taking over the Republican party, it needs to be seen,
Not just as a takeover, but as a real abdication by the Republican party and ...
because they weren't in tune with what their voters really cared about. Guess what?
“They don't care about corporate tax rates.”
And the Democrats made it a lot easier for them by harping on cultural issues where the country thought they had lost their minds. I feel like the, the elections were having these days are still that. They were, we're having it's like a couple that's having an argument and they're not having the same argument. The Democrats are arguing economic issues and the Republicans are, are arguing cultural issues. The Democrats are saying these guys are crooks and inflation is still high.
We can do better and we can give you health care and the other people are saying, yeah, but they want to give it a thanksgiving. They can't just find a woman, you know, and they think, you know, the WNBA should be full of men and you know, they just crazy stuff. And so they kind of opened the door for that. And let's also not forget, he didn't win.
He just won under our system, Hillary won by quite a few more votes. He did the second time with a popular, you know, we have a kind of a weird, that, I mean, that was a system that, not the founding fathers find its moment. Well, and by the way, how we got the electoral outcome. It's true, but that's, that's one of the compromises that they made in order to get the constitution going.
Yeah. There were a lot of them, including, I don't know, leaving slavery in place. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay.
Do you think Kamal Harris will run for president?
“Is there a reason to think that she might fare better this go around?”
Oh, gosh.
I mean, so one thing, one of the things that most important historical piece of information
need to have when looking at Kamal Harris's chances is remember what her 2019 presidential campaign was like. And I say 2019 because she didn't even make it into the calendar year 2020 when they were actually primary. She had to drop out before a single election because her campaign, you know, by the accounts of people who served and it was, it was mismanaged and out of money. And she never caught fire with the, with the base of the Democratic Party in a way that, you know,
I think she and a lot of her supporters expected. She would, as somebody who's a real glass ceiling shatterer, that seemed to not matter as much to voters, especially after you had Obama and then you have Hillary. You know, and so, I mean, I don't want to take away anything away from Kamal Harris as achievements, but the historical nature of her candidacy just didn't seem to mean much.
Every Watsonman shows just one or twice in a black district in Florida. And she lost her district when they jerry meant out of existence. So then she ran into district which is majority black, I think. Okay, and a lot of the people there said, the people on the left said, you shouldn't even run. This has to be a black person running in the district.
“And somebody ran against her, I think who was black.”
Yeah, a lot, there were a lot of them. Yeah, and she won. And she won. So easily. I just think that sometimes we, you know, again, it's the white people who just make too big of a bigger thing about race.
Then exist, you know, I always say, you can't be more offended than the victim.
And they like to be. In this case, it was also the black representatives who were concerned about the whole, one of the reasons that Florida made the districts the way that they did was, and also just the Supreme Court decision about Louisiana was to, from the perspective of the black representatives was to diminish black representation.
So it is often the white people. In this case, it was, it was both. But the black voters in that district decided that Debbie Watson and Schultz would represent them the best. Yeah, you know, as they so often have in, like race after race after race, where they have rejected the socialist leaning progressive candidates.
I mean, let's not forget, the reason Joe Biden became the nominee in 2020 is because black voters in South Carolina put him over the top, catapulting him past candidates that were much, much farther to the left and younger. They're more practical. Yeah.
It's a funny, the white people who are always obsessed about privilege.
They indulge in the privilege of being impractical. Can I put up a bumper sticker? Absolutely. I'm the black voters don't have that privilege. No, absolutely not.
Uh, that a you interviewed Steve Houghton this morning. I did. Do you think he could win? No. No.
No. No. I mean, you're a boar here. Absolutely. And it's just math.
The math doesn't math. Yeah. It's not because people are not fed up with Democrats here. >> They are, which they are. >> Doesn't matter. They will vote for failure over Republican
Votes aren't there.
aren't maybe more than 20. >> Right, right. >> 20 years ago. So the Republican brand back then is much different than it was a megaphot. >> That's true. That's true. That's true. That's
exactly right. >> The guy with the R by his name. This state will never, once he's gone,
“I think you'll see a difference because we do recognize failure and we do have a lot of it”
and we're fed up. We pay a lot of money and we don't feel we get our money. What is the panel think of the backlash against flocks surveillance cameras? Why is that funny? People right to be concerned about their privacy. Well, you know what, flocks cameras? I guess everybody does. They're everywhere, right? And they record everything. They record every car
that passes. The license plate. There's obviously been some things that no one could defend,
like cops using them to track their old girlfriend or a new girlfriend or X-Wars. Or work girlfriend. >> Or work girlfriend. >> That's not what I mean by workplace work. >> That's not what I mean by workplace work. They also have stopped a lot of crime. So where do you land on this? >> I mean cops make a lot of mistakes. And so those suit prosecutors,
“right? And the story, I've read about this is talking about a woman I think in Atlanta who”
cops came to her house and they were like, you rob packages from this doorstep and she's
no, I didn't. They said, yes, your car is right here. We have it on tape. She had to prove to them only because she had dash cam footage herself of her vehicle that she didn't do it, but I mean, I don't have a dash cam. I also don't have a car, but I mean, let's not forget about the abuse of law enforcement's power that's capable here. >> I have a totally different perspective in that I learned to drive in New Jersey. >> Me too. >> You. >> Yeah. >> You went to Pascal. Yeah?
I don't remember you. >> What year? >> Oh, 89. >> But, 89. >> Yeah, no, I forgot a little bit gone by.
“>> But I learned to drive. Yeah. >> I think we have some of the same teachers.”
>> Sure, I bet we did. >> Mr. Marston. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Wow. >> Mr. LaWinter and history. >> Oh, yes, I definitely have Mr. LaWinter a little bit. >> Wow. >> Mr. Mammonis? >> No. >> No. >> But so I have a little bit of a lead foot when I drive and I get so creamed by those cameras. I mean, it's not good. >> I don't think it's fair. I really, I get so much money to the District of Columbia and Maryland. It's terrible. I just need to slow down. I know. But I don't even think I'm going that fast. >> We're going to sit too wild.
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