Summary What Liberals Get Wrong about the Right with Corey Robin - Factually! - 236 (Youtube) youtu.be
13,326 words - YouTube video - View YouTube video
Adam Conover Hello, and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me again. You know, we have all different types of folks who listen to this podcast and watch on YouTube, people from all different walks of life. I'm very proud of that.
Adam Conover But I'm gonna hazard a guess that if you're listening or watching right now, you're probably not a hard right winger. Right? Gonna go out on a limb and guess that you're not a theocratic conservative. You're not 1 of those people who's trying to kick the trans kids out of the bathroom. I've been doing this for a little while, and I know my audience.
Adam Conover Now for those of us who are not those people, who are not on the far right of political discourse in this country, it's really easy to caricature those who are. You know, the far right can make for easy comedy. You know? They're outlandish, cartoonish, and bizarre. Make fun of Lauren Lauren Boebert for, you know, grabbing the guy during the Beetlejuice show.
Adam Conover It's funny, but it's often a real mistake to do that because right wingers are in fact real people, and understanding how they think, what their influences are, what their principles are, why they do what they do, and why it seems rational from their perspective. Well, that's very important, and we make a mistake when we do not treat them with that level of, frankly, respect. Take Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, for instance. He's really easy to caricature. I've done it myself.
Adam Conover You could talk about him as a cranky, corrupt old man. He doesn't even bother to ask questions. He just always votes on the side of the people who wanna erode some basic right or take rights away from people who've had them for a century. But that's an enormous mistake. Because Clarence Thomas is not just some random old man who's doing shit because he hates you.
Adam Conover He actually has a judicial philosophy that is rooted in the intellectual currents of the world that he grew up in. And to understand him and, more importantly, to understand the broader right wing movement and why why it does what it does. You have to analyze those currents. You have to look into them. You have to do the basic respect of taking them seriously if you want to fight back against them, which you might want to do depending on who you are.
Adam Conover And today, to help us understand those currents, we have an absolutely incredible guest on the show. But before we get to him, I I just wanna remind you that if you wanna support this show, you can do so on Patreon. Head to patreon.com/adamconover. $5 a month gets you every episode of the show ad free. And if you love stand up comedy, I hope you'll come see me.
Adam Conover I just announced some brand new tour dates. I'm going to New York, Chicago, Boston, DC, Portland, Maine, Nashville, Atlanta, a bunch of other places, head to adamconover.net for tickets and tour dates. And now let me introduce today's guest. His name is Corey Robin, and he's a political theorist and a professor of political science at Brooklyn College. I have been reading his work for years, and he is 1 of the most insightful, thoughtful, and provocative thinkers writing today.
Adam Conover His books include the enigma of Clarence Thomas and the reactionary mind, conservativism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump. He is an absolutely fascinating thinker. I love this interview, and I know you will too. So let's get to my conversation with Corey Robin. Corey, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Corey Robin Thanks for having me.
Adam Conover I have been such an avid reader of your writing for ever since 2016 because you, I think more than anybody really, try to understand the conservative, the right wing, the reactionary mind that you have a famous book called The Reactionary Mind. But, you know, that sort of politics, where it comes from, and I think that's really unique because a lot of people who, either officially or unofficially are associated with the left don't put that effort in. Why do you do that? Why do you think it's important?
Corey Robin It's a good question. I think, you know, in a way you just answered it, it's because a lot of people on the left don't Don't do that, and there's a lot of misconceptions about the right. A lot of thinking that the right is just stupid that they don't have any ideas, and I feel like that has hampered the left in its ability not simply to understand the right, but also to combat the right. So I feel like Understanding the enemy is is is is important.
Adam Conover What do you think is most often misunderstood by people who would characterize themselves as enemies of the right?
Corey Robin I think the first is that the first of all, they think the right is stupid. They think that the right is National or doesn't understand what it's doing and that the right doesn't have a real set of values, that it's all pure power all the way down, that they don't have principles, that they don't have a coherent ideology. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. I'd say the 2nd biggest is that Insofar as anybody even thinks about the right having a tradition, that it's a tradition that remains unchanged, that that that there's that they're static.
Adam Conover Mhmm.
Corey Robin And that has is really not the case. The right is very adaptive. They've evolved through time. They are Historically, great students of the left. They develop a lot of their ideas in response to the left, cribbing from the left, imitating the left.
Corey Robin So There's a lot of things that the left doesn't know about the right, that, you know, as I say, have made it very hard for the left to deal with the right in in in a Smart way.
Adam Conover So my questions I was trying to come up with a question, and then it led me to wait. Hold on a second. What is the right, like, at all. Right? Because I was like, okay.
Adam Conover Well, the right the reason people think it's static is because it's associated with traditionalism. Right. And with the old ways, the old ways don't change, or at least we don't think that they do, so, therefore, it would stay the same. But then I started to go, wait. Is that a a a good way to to say?
Adam Conover Okay. So, yeah, how would you even describe the because there's so many ways to break down what the division is.
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, I think the most The the right begins in 17 nineties in reaction to the French Revolution, and you see there the template for what the right remains despite all the changes across time. And what the right has always been since the beginning is a counter movement, a reactionary movement against movements for freedom and equality. The right really believes in its heart of hearts that there are people that are some people that are better than other people and that those better people ought to rule, and that The job of the right is is to defend the right and the prerogative of those people to rule, and I think that's basically been the principle of the right since the beginning. How it does that is a story of improvisation and change, and and that's why it's it's it's more complicated.
Adam Conover Now I imagine there might be other theorists who would describe it a different way, but that's your different. Yeah. That's your original.
Corey Robin Think, though, you know, you mentioned earlier that the right is a A theory of traditionalism that the right is about free markets, that the right is an opposition to state power. All of those accounts Have been what many other scholars and and and writers about the right have emphasized. My argument is that none of those things characterize the right across time. They might be temporary approaches of the right, but they don't explain the right across time.
Adam Conover Now when you say it started in France during the French revolution, I I've I've heard that before. And, actually, like, Is it the the right and the left is, like, co corresponds to a particular legislative body in France? Can you tell me
Corey Robin Yeah. The legislative assembly. You know, the the the the There was the the left that sat on 1 side of of the assembly and the right side on the other side, and that's kind of where we have the origins. But the 1st great, And, you know, conservative thinker who really led the opposition, to the revolution of France was Edmund Burke, who was an Englishman. And I think That there and then tells you something very, very interesting, that the right was from the very start an internationalist movement.
Corey Robin It wasn't it wasn't
Adam Conover a local or a nationalist movement at all. Its greatest defender was
Corey Robin somebody who wasn't British movement at all. Its greatest defender was somebody who wasn't British at all. Another little interesting thing about Burke, he became the spokesman for, for for England. He himself, however, was an outsider. He wasn't English.
Corey Robin He was Irish, of kind of vaguely care Catholic parentage on 1 side of his family. So this is another really important feature of the right that we've never really understood, which is that its most forceful, You know, political and intellectual spokespersons are oftentimes outsiders themselves, which leads to a whole interesting question. Like, how can these people who are outsiders be the defenders of insiders. And I think that's been the secret of the right is it's managed to kind of provide this outsider gloss lives on what is in the end a very establishment, defensive hard old power.
Adam Conover I think if you look at American politics, You can probably find a lot of examples of that. Absolutely. But what what I'm curious about is what you just you described as being the soul of the right movement of, some Some people are better than others. Those people should be in power. And there's also sort of general opposition to any kind of progressive movement towards equality, etcetera.
Adam Conover That, to me, doesn't sound like something that would be limited to France in the year since. That sounds like it would be something that would lurk in the human heart. And I would wonder If, you know, oh, if we go look at the history of imperial China, can you find, oh, there was a right there and there was a or etcetera? Or do you or or or did something genuinely new happen in France
Corey Robin for you? New did happen, which is that the French revolutionaries, declared themselves that that that the the there were revolutions in the ancient world, but revolutions were always thought to be a kind of a cyclical, repetitive process. And what the French revolutionaries famously declared as this is the year 1. We are beginning something new here, and that this is a universal principle that everybody, you know, in the rights of man, that everybody is entitled to rights and freedom of equality. And what may so what makes the right different then and very modern is that that people like Burke, people like Joseph Demistre was another great counterrevolutionary in France, understood was that the world had irrevocably changed.
Corey Robin You could no longer rely upon a static sort of eternal God presiding over the great chain of being that the natural world did not provide life, a a kind of a support for the political world that in order to defend things like hierarchy, in order to defend inequality, you had to come up with novel, new adaptive arguments that that also spoke to a mass audience. Life. This was no longer a world of just aristocrats. And so what makes the right to me so interesting and so distinctive and modern is that they are defending privilege to a mass audience, and they develop a mass movement on behalf of privilege. That is new, and that explains a lot of the things that we find so puzzling about things like Trumpism and and the modern Republican party that they speak this populous language, that they speak in the language of outsiders, and yet, of course, they're the party of millionaires and billionaires.
Corey Robin And, you know, Donald Trump is by no means, you know, a poor a poor man or anything like that. That is in the DNA of the modern right going back to the French Revolution. Again, just, you know, Joseph Demist. He you know, when he talks about returning the king to power, This is not a king who is the, you know, a spokesperson for God. This is not a king who is a defendant.
Corey Robin He's just some dude. He Some dude who has gone to the school of hard knocks, who has seen adversity, who has been overthrown, who has experienced that sense of losordone, of what it means to be an ordinary person.
Adam Conover Wow. And
Corey Robin that's what connects him. And so there is this
Adam Conover That was the pitch for that re restoring that king.
Corey Robin That was the pitch. And it was this this pathos of this man, you know, a kind of a man who had been knocked down into the street. Edmund Burke, famously in 1 in 1 of his, defenses of the establishment. You know, he says, you know, I don't I don't he's addressing what we would call today a kind of limousine liberal, the Earl of Bedford, or I think that was the Earl of Lauderdale. These to the man are born defenders of the French Revolution.
Corey Robin And Burke, you know, he he's got that resentment of the outsider. You know, he said, I I wasn't like you guys. I wasn't just given a pass. I had to you know, you checked my passport at every turnpike. You never would let me in, and I'm the 1 here defending, you know, this this this the true aristocracy.
Corey Robin And it's And it's that weird fusion of the outsider, the Arabist, the person who had to work their way up who becomes the strongest defender of the established forms of power.
Adam Conover And that is so similar to politics today where you've got the The the wealthy person on the right saying, I'm I hate the lee, liberal elitists in Hollywood, the, the the folks who kept me down, who always laughed at me Yes. And here I am, that's this sort of weird psychosexual back and forth between the 2 of resentment and Yes. Lust and envy and hatred, was present in the French revolution and is present now.
Corey Robin Yeah. And it's a straight through line.
Adam Conover But I see your point about how the right was new in the French Revolution. Because in the example of imperial China or anywhere else, maybe you would have had people who felt in their heart that that that feeling that some people are better than others, but they were in power. Yes. And nothing was gonna dislodge them because it was part of a structure or any kind of aristocracy in any other country around the world. But once you have Democracy, now you of any kind, now you need to make that case to people.
Adam Conover You actually need a movement where you didn't before.
Corey Robin Exactly right. Exactly right.
Adam Conover That's Fascinating. I wanna get into the word reactionary again in title of, 1 of your most famous books. And there have been there have been times in my life When I'm you know, I've gotten more involved in politics in LA where I live, and there are times where there'll be a movement brewing, and people will go, those people are right wing. And I go, No. They're not.
Adam Conover They're not right wing because they're all Democratic party people or some you know what I mean? You can tell it's not right wing, but there's something else. It's not quite Servative. What is it? And I find myself reaching for the word reactionary.
Adam Conover These are people who say, the the city is falling to pieces. Throw all the homeless people in jail. You know, like, That sort of Right. And and it all seemed apt to me because they're having a reaction to something. Yeah.
Adam Conover And so I found myself feeling for the word, but I've never had strong academic understanding of of what it meant. So how do you use it?
Corey Robin Well, I mean, as you point out, but the idea of Action is that it's born in response to something else. But I think we have to make a really important distinction about reactionary thinking and reactionary politics. It is reactionary, but it's not reactive. And and that might sound like a very academic kind of a distinction, but but what I mean by that is, you know, you punch me and I flinch. That's a reaction.
Corey Robin That's Automatic that's reflexive. That's unthinking. That's instinctive. Reactionaries, however, have been punched. Right?
Corey Robin They lost The old regime in France. The slaveholders were divested of all their privileges. The corporate oligarchs during the no the new deal, These are people who have seen their world destroyed and lost. So they have, they are reacting to something. But what's interesting about the reactionary is they witnessed that experience, and they the first thing they do is to say, why did this happen?
Corey Robin What did we do wrong. So there is a what happens from that is that there's a kind of critique of the established powers. They say they say there's something about us that allowed this to happen.
Adam Conover Right.
Corey Robin And so what we need to do If we are going to defeat this movement that has defeated us or recover power is we need to examine ourselves and recreate ourselves and our regime In a way, by taking from what the revolution or the reform movement did successfully, cribbing from it, and and and changing our, you know, changing our kinds of arguments. Now, in in the French revolution, as I said, you know, the idea was to build a mass movement for for monarchy, Kind of a democratic movement for monarchy, if you will, and you see that over and over again. After the civil war, the slaveholders, actually, even before the civil war, excuse me, John c Calhoun, who's 1 of the great defenders of the US slaveholders, He talks about creating racial hierarchy as a way of getting around distinctions between rich and poor. With us, he says in the south, There's no rich and poor. There's just white and black.
Corey Robin That's the major distinction, and it's a way of creating a kind of a mass movement for privilege. Life. So so what reactionaries are is they are responding to a real challenge, to an overthrow of of their power. But it's a 2 step whereby they have to reconstruct the old regime, get rid of all of its rotten corrupt elements that they think have led to its their own decline, and then borrow bits and pieces from the opposition that they're dealing with.
Adam Conover You're describing the Trump movement exactly.
Corey Robin Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, just so people don't think I'm I'm kind of describing the right in light of Trump. I mean, I wrote all this in 2010, 2011 before, you know, I mean,
Adam Conover all week. Frankly, the height of in the US, the liberal Yeah. New order where, oh my god, there'll never be another republican elected again. Race in America has been solved. We're in the shining light.
Adam Conover Oh, the Affordable Care Act was just passed and all this stuff, and we didn't know what was coming Yeah. You know, 5 or 6 years down the pipe, but it's exactly what happened that, you know, all the the the white people who had been depo you know? Right. They've been deposed by the, not just white people, but the, the The the previous group that have been deposed by the Obama regime, like, came back, but also took on that populist message that, like, we're doing it for the people, and we're against the elites, and we have to drain the swamp and all of that.
Corey Robin Yeah. Exactly. I mean, all those movements draining the swamp. You know? We have to take on the Republican Party establishment, and, you know, we have to identify a new enemy.
Corey Robin Yeah. This is exactly it's a it's a perennial process of reinventing hierarchy, in the wake of some kind of a defeat or challenge.
Adam Conover I and I can see it. Again, I think it does apply to the example I was using of local politics because you have situations where, for instance, you know, people who really like it when folks they don't like are locked up and thrown in jail, and that doesn't happen anymore, or the jail system is overwhelmed and it can't happen anymore. They said something's been taken from me, my my comfortable city street where I never had to see any poverty. I wanna fix that. And then they adopt, they do adopt the language of the sort of progressive movement where they they say things like, it's not compassionate to let people live on the street.
Adam Conover That's not compassion.
Corey Robin Right.
Adam Conover No. I wanna get people housed. They never say what they actually wanna do, which is, again, put people eventually, you let these people talk long enough, they'll say, why can't We just find some cheap land in the desert and and they can live there.
Corey Robin Resettle them.
Adam Conover Yeah. Yeah. Like, in a, like, in a camp where they're all, like, concentrated in 1. Is that what you're oh, you you don't and you never actually get that far. But, like, it's, you sort of see people sort of fall down Yeah.
Adam Conover This path. But in in your view because sometimes I think, again, it's a personality trait that causes people to behave that way. You know? Like, I I live in the same neighborhood as some people. And, you know, if, it sort of feels to me sometimes, hey.
Adam Conover If an if an encampment pops up on your corner or someone shot on your block or some something happens. Right? You you don't actually know how you and your neighbors are gonna react because you've never had that tested. And so sometimes it feels like it sorta comes comes out of you. Or if you're not 1 of the people who comes out of you, you're like, did did so these people have a chip in their head that was just activated.
Adam Conover Right? Sometimes it just feels like there's this transformation. Do you feel that there's any sort of, you know, truth to that that that it's a personality thing, that that you either arrive at or you're born with or something, or is it because what you described was hierarchy when Yeah. People who are on top and their their position is removed, and it it causes them to think this way.
Corey Robin Yeah. I don't think it's about personality because I think I I think the I mean, when what you were describing earlier, like, the the the the there is a there is a truth that, you know, if Progressive movements are doing their job right. Some people are gonna experience a loss. They are gonna experience a loss of power, a loss of privilege.
Adam Conover They were hoarding it before.
Corey Robin Yeah. And and And and it's not to say that that's, an unjust thing. It it is just, but people don't like it when they are divested of the things, that they have. And I don't think that's a a a specific personality trait. You see it in all kinds of social groups All across the world in different ways.
Corey Robin And so I think it's really important because when we start focusing on personality or psychology, We start moving away from the world, from the material world, and we start moving into people's heads. Yeah. And and and the truth of the matter is is that, you know, lots of people have been swept up into reaction. 1 of the most interesting things about the history of reactionary movements is that many of their strongest recruits and leaders Originally came from the left. That was certainly true of European fashion.
Adam Conover Happens today.
Corey Robin It happens you know, it was the whole neoconservative movement where people who were on the left. And so what are you gonna say that they had, you know, a different personality, you know, 20 years before? No. The personality is the same, but the mix of material or material reality and political possibilities are have been such that they make that migration. So I think it's I try to really stay focused on ideas and and material realities as opposed to individual psychology.
Adam Conover Yeah. And it, I think it helps you understand if you're involved in politics at all. You're thinking about, hey. Where do these movements come from just to understand that, well, If we make a change, right, that disempowers some people, which unfortunately is is what we might need to do because, some things in this country might be 0 sum to some extent, and someone might have too much of something, and we're trying to give it to other people. That is always going to create a movement like that, that it's that it's unavoidable.
Adam Conover You're going to have there's always gonna be a backlash. Backlash has always come, and, they're very powerful, and you need to I mean, a really revelatory thing for me was reading Rick Perlstein's book, Nixonland Yeah. A couple years ago, which is the story of backlash Yeah. And a story that was never taught to me Yeah. In Flash Yeah.
Adam Conover And a story that was never taught to me Yeah. In you know, about the history of the sixties. And I read it. I was like, this is exactly what's happening now, and it's very clear This is gonna happen anytime you have a civil rights movement of any kind. You're gonna have enormously powerful backlash, and you just gotta be fucking ready for it.
Adam Conover And if you're not, you're gonna get swept away. Like and if you think it's just, oh, it's just bad people. It's just stupid people. They those are the ones who feel that way. You're missing something.
Corey Robin Yeah. And if you look at the history of the United States or of Europe And all the mass movements for equality. There was not a single 1, that I can think of that did not generate incredible amounts of opposition from the defenders of the old regime. And the only question was, how How able were they to capitalize upon a a wider scale of resentment on behalf of their own defensive privilege and power? Like, that's the real Dynamic.
Corey Robin And I but I you know? And then the other side of the point is the 1, you know, that you just made, which is, you know, left the left have to always be prepared. And there is, in fact, a fairly small window to make the kind of changes that you want to make, and the key is to institutionalize them. Mhmm. Because institutions, state institutions are a lot harder.
Corey Robin As Ronald Reagan discovered, you know, time and again, trying to get rid of Social Security, It proved to be, you know, the cornerstone of the New Deal. It proved to be an extraordinary difficult thing, to get rid of. So It's not enough just to have a movement. It's not enough just to sort of do the right things. You want to institutionalize these things in such a way that they're very hard to undo.
Adam Conover Yeah. You have to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act and then build a bunch of concrete ramps everywhere that, like, people people are gonna have trouble taking out. You can't just say, hey. Guess what? We're gonna hold you accountable for x y z.
Adam Conover You need to put that shit in place. Before we go to break, I just wanna ask, though, you know, we're talking about these these social movements, civil rights movements. I've, a a sign that always stuck I wish I could remember the 1st person who who put it to me this way. But that, you know, the hardest thing about making civil rights progress in America is, you know, we can get white people to read the book, and we can get them to agree, but can we get them to give up anything? Yeah.
Adam Conover To give up any amount of power or any amount of advantage whatsoever. Even just sending Sending your kids to a public school instead of a
Corey Robin private school.
Adam Conover Like, just that amount of giving up a little bit of something, and, that seems to be the essential ingredient in actually making progress. But as you describe it, that's the actual thing that causes the political backlash to occur that can potentially sweep away all the progress. That seems to me a very pessimistic Yeah. View of how this works, because it means that the exact thing you wanna do is always going to cause a huge reaction in the other direction. Is that Are you pessimistic about that, or how do you view it?
Corey Robin I I I'm I'm less so, and because in part because I feel like the left has, internalize particularly when it comes to issues of race. Mhmm. Because I think there is a weird way in which the left thinks There's some kind of almost instinctive biological desire of white people to hold on to their own. And the truth is is that the creation of white people as white people who wanna defend their privileges. That was a project that took an awful long time.
Adam Conover Right.
Corey Robin It doesn't just happen automatically. What I'm more impressed by I mean, you could you Let's take the story of slavery. The United States had had probably the largest sort of slave economy, I think, in the modern world in terms of, you know, money and all the rest of it. But what it also had that never gets mentioned that never gets mentioned is the largest mass movement against slavery In the modern world, the United States was 1 of the few societies. The rep people don't know this about the Republican Party, but it really formed as an antislavery party, and it won an election.
Corey Robin And W. E. B. Du Bois famously said that the destruction of slavery was authorized by the vote. You know, the British monarchy, the British Empire got rid of slavery, you know, through imperial rule.
Corey Robin In France, it was a, you know, an extraordinarily violent A slave rebellion. But, you know, the Republican Party was an inter a multiracial party made mostly of white people, and all of them understood that, You know, coming you know, the the the project was to extinguish slavery 1 way or another. You know, I look to movements like that that are interracial and that are dedicated to the destruction of a form of privilege, and how I think we have the left has a lot to learn from how those movements did that. And just quickly because I know we're gonna go to a break, 1 of the things they did was to not make this just a moral thing about your virtue, that just you know, we're good people who are. But to connect
Adam Conover I don't buy slave made stuff. I get the yeah.
Corey Robin Exactly. Because, you know, that's what 1 group of abolitionists did, and they didn't get very far.
Adam Conover Yeah. Yeah.
Corey Robin You know, the secret of the Republican Party was to make this about no. This is in your self interest. This is we're gonna create a whole new set of institutions that you will benefit from, And, you know, that's a whole complicated argument. We don't need to get into that, but but I think that's something that the left really can learn from.
Adam Conover That's a really fascinating store. I mean, the story of abolition is I think about it all the time because on the 1 hand, it was amazing that it worked. On the other hand, took 400 years or so. It took more than twice the amount of time that slavery has even been, you know, ended in in the United States. There were there were abolitionists hundreds and hundreds of years ago who who were born and died, and then their kids and their grandkids were born and died before slavery was ended.
Adam Conover But at the same time, maybe that's an optimistic story because, like, you know, the the faith was kept. And for all those, you know, 100 of years, Must have been, hey. This will never change. We'll never end this. This is our economy is built on it.
Adam Conover Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And there are so many issues today that I know Activists are fighting for that people have that same relation well, we're not gonna, you know, abolish the police. Pick whatever it is you want. That that's a fantasy.
Adam Conover Well, You know, 44 100 years from now, maybe we're, you know, maybe we could get there. When we get back, I wanna ask you more about some of the today's right wing political figures, and get your view on them. But we're we'll be right back with more Corey Robin. You know, nothing is worse than losing all of your data. If you're anything like me, even just the thought of losing years of photos, videos, and personal projects makes you freak the heck out.
Adam Conover And if you're like me, you're ready to take steps to make sure you don't lose any of it. Well, when it comes to saving data, Backblaze has got your back. They have helped restore over 55,000,000,000 files for customers. And now you can get unlimited computer backup for Macs, PCs, and businesses for just $9 a month. And on top of the peace of mind that your data is safely backed up, you can access your backed up data from anywhere in the world using the Backblaze web app or access your backed up files on the go with both Ios and Android apps.
Adam Conover If you own a business, well, Backblaze isn't just great for personal use. You can click on business backup in their navigation and start backing up your business data to ensure that nothing slows you down. Backblaze has been recommended by The New York Times Magazine, world PC World, Life Wired, Wired, Tom's Guide, 9 to 5 Mac, and by me, Adam Conover. I've been using it for years, and I tell everyone about it. The best thing about it is you never get a space exceeded message.
Adam Conover They never tell you you run out of space. They guarantee all of your stuff for the same price. It is awesome. And if you are interested in checking it out for yourself, you can start today with a 15 day no credit card required free trial by going to back blaze.com/factually. That's backblaze.com/factually, and start backing up your stuff today.
Adam Conover You know, the year is never more hectic than during the holiday season. With travel plans, work projects wrapping up, and if you're in a household, it's sometimes even hard to remember what's for dinner or if anyone has remembered to feed the dog. If this sounds like your home or the home of someone you know, this holiday season is a great time for the gift of organization with the skylight calendar. The Skylight calendar is a smart touchscreen calendar and organizer for all of your chores, groceries, and to dos. It automatically syncs all all of the different digital calendars and events your family uses and shows them altogether on 1 beautiful touchscreen display.
Adam Conover Skylight calendar is the best way to give your family peace of mind to enjoy the things that matter most. It works by syncing events from already existing calendars you have, including Google, Outlook, and Apple calendars. You can also add events directly using the touchscreen or with the free Skylight mobile app. And multiple view options to choose from include day, week, or month views, or or you can set it to schedule view to see a few days at a time formatted in hour by hour blocks. And events are color coded so you can visually map out your family's plans for the week into beautiful color coded time blocks.
Adam Conover If you're having trouble keeping track of chores with the kids, well, the chore chart feature keeps things fun with a progress bar that updates when kids check off their chores. And when they complete their chores, there's an emoji celebration. Oh, I love emoji celebrations. Parents will love how This helps teach their kids responsibility and time management. And as a special limited time offer for our listeners, you can get $15 off your purchase of a Skylight calendar when you go to skylightcal.com/factually.
Adam Conover To get $15 off your purchase of a Skylight calendar, just go to skylightcal.com/factually. That's skylightcal.com/factually. Okay. We're back with Corey Robin talking about the reactionary mind, right wing politics, the movement, and its history. Let's talk about some of the figures that we deal with today.
Adam Conover What do you say to people who argue that, you know, Trump is somehow different than Other figures in the conservative movement. You know? That there's, oh, there's regular conservatives or regular right wingers, and then Trump is something so Trump Trump is something altogether new. You hear that argument a lot.
Corey Robin There are things about Trump that are new. I think what's interesting to me, though, is that the things that people focus on as new and novel are in fact very much part of the DNA of the right going way, way back. So for instance, the use of racist populism. That's a very old story about, about the cons the modern conservative movement. And what's ironically significant about Trump in just that regard alone is how Diminishing the returns are of racist populism.
Corey Robin Mhmm. So we forget about you know, Richard Nixon was 1 of the real pioneers of the kind of the backlash politics You brought up earlier Rick Pearlstein's book, the silent majority, which was a white majority. And what we forget is that Richard Nixon was reelected with something like 55% of the vote. It was, that's, you know, close to what we call a super super majority. Yeah.
Corey Robin Donald Trump never received even, the majority. He lost, both of the the elections in terms of the popular vote. That is significant, And I know sometimes that can feel like cold comfort, but I think if you start looking at the trajectory, the things that we are most fearful about Trump in in terms of those types of things, show diminishing returns. What, what's
Adam Conover Like like, how how so? Like, you mean, in terms of Election interference, that kind of thing. Like, is it it's working less well over time? Or Yeah.
Corey Robin I mean, I I was just thinking particularly about race, populism, and that kind of thing. And then, the the election interference is a pretty fascinating thing because, again, we forget this, but, you know, the modern the modern conservative movement, Irving Kristol, who was 1 of the great sort of intellectual godfathers, he said, you know, the task of, neoconservatism today is to turn conservatism into a mass democratic movement of the majority, and they really tried to do that, and they were successful at it. The reason now that we see all of this, reliance upon the senate, reliance upon the Supreme Court, reliance upon gerrymandering, all of what, you know, would consider what are called by political scientists, Counter majoritarian state institutions.
Adam Conover They usually are undoing democratic stuff that the voters voted for. Exactly. Right.
Corey Robin That is a novel feature of the Republican Party precisely because it is losing rounds in in in in democracy. And And so 1 of the things that used to drive me crazy when Trump was elected was a lot of progressives and liberals in the kind of resistance movement, you know, defend the constitution against Trump. Well, the truth of the matter is the Republican Party and Donald Trump depend more on the constitution than any other political party, any other group in the United States because where does their power come from? The electoral college, the the Supreme Court, and and traditionally, the United States Senate. These are all creatures of the constitution that were they not to have those, constitutional supports the Republican Party would be a far more diminished, political operation.
Adam Conover Right. If you're leaning On those are almost institutional crutches in a way that are holding you up, that you can buttress your power with versus a movement that is If you have the power of the people on your side, if you have a majoritarian movement, you actually can overrun the banks of whatever the institutional barriers are. That makes me think about I I don't know. In my in my union work, there's always conversations about like, oh, do we need this or that in the contract to get our power? It's like, well, actually, if you have all the members working together, it doesn't matter what's in the contract.
Adam Conover Doesn't matter what labor law says. You if you have the power, then you can do what you want. And so that's a good point. If you're leaning on the rules Right. Then you that's maybe an indication you don't have that much power.
Adam Conover Power. And so you argued that the Modern conservative movement is a lot weaker than a lot of people think it is. That's 1 of the reasons why YOES. Exactly.
Corey Robin And then, you You know, I mean, a couple of things. Yeah. As I say, if you look at the electoral returns both at the level of the presidency and in in in congress, you see a diminishing amount of popular support. But then the the other important half of this, which I feel, like, is maybe starting to get a certain amount of attention, But did not get nearly enough under Trump was how I mean, we forget Donald Trump for the 1st 2 years in power. The Republicans had the had all the elected branches of the federal government.
Corey Robin And the truth of the matter is, despite a lot of the scary rhetoric that came out of Trump, they were They were unable to accomplish, so much of their legislative agenda.
Adam Conover Tax cuts, and that was about it.
Corey Robin That was tax Cuts and the and the Supreme Court appointments, which are important.
Adam Conover Yeah.
Corey Robin But compared to what George w Bush or Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon, the kind of achievements that they were able to enact, it's been it was astounding. So now we see today this this whole fiasco with this the speaker election, life, where they can't you know? And and and people are like, oh, well, you know, they've they're just incompetent. The truth of the matter is that's the way they were. They were like keystone cops when when they had All the power, and they had all the power.
Corey Robin And so I think, you know, it's it's both the diminishing electoral majority, popular majorities, The increasing reliance upon constitutional apparatuses that that benefit, you know, white rural types of people, and then finally, the their inability to translate whatever, electoral returns they do get into any kind of, into any kind of, legislative or, you know, or political action. It's it's just been astounding.
Adam Conover They can use it too, in the case of additional appointments, buttress more of that sort of rule based power and, like, keep themselves in power longer. I guess the counter, I would say, is, like, that that sort of weakness based, you know, clinging on to power, that can last for a long time. If you look at You look at, like, the the, you know, white, Democratic Party in the South Absolutely. That was ruling it was an apartheid state. You know, there's a entire area where it's being ruled by white people, and then the senators from those states ran, you know, basically ran the entire federal government because they were they voted in such a block, and that you know, there was, You know, American government couldn't even couldn't even get an anti lynching law passed for, like, a 100 years.
Adam Conover Yeah. Absolutely. Can have a lot of power.
Corey Robin Absolutely. And there's, you know, there is no doubt about it. The the reason I stress this, though, is to give people a sense that, you know, these people that the the right is actually far more vulnerable, far less able to kind of control the political discourse than they once did, and And that's an opportunity for the left. Whether the left is able or willing, to take it, that's a whole other, you know, kettle kettle of fish.
Adam Conover What would it mean to take it?
Corey Robin I think what the left needs to be doing is to not just simply, you know, pass some good pieces of legislation. It needs to do what we periodically see in American politics, which is to a kind of a a vast realignment kind of politics, where you're not only Creating a sort of a permanent when I say permanent, I mean, for several decades, a majority electoral majority. But you're institutionalizing changes, the The kinds of things we were talking about earlier that are just very hard to undo and that are not just good for people, but create real forms of power. I mean, you've Brought up periodically your work in the labor union. I mean, the Wagner Act really was Right.
Corey Robin Not just something that was good for workers and fair and whatever. It completely transformed the American political universe.
Adam Conover And it institutionalized worker power. Exactly. So now there is worker power built in into the American political system, and it can't be removed easily.
Corey Robin Yeah. Easily. Exactly. And, I mean, and that's what I think we're trying to Apple with right now is what would be the kinds of things. I mean, you know, this is why things like voting rights are so important.
Corey Robin This is why things like labor Law reform are so important, and this is why things like creating, new states in the union to undo the kind of Republican. I mean, these are I get it. These are very tall order, you know, and all the rest of it. What has stopped it? Well, the refusal to get rid of the filibuster by a couple of senators, that are Democrats.
Corey Robin And, you know, the United you know, we we progressive movements have faced, you know, Far bigger mountains than, I can't even remember her name from Arizona. So Kyrsten Sinema. Yeah. And what's his name? Manchin from Yeah.
Corey Robin From West Virginia. So, you know, in a way, it's if it went so tragic, it's comical. You know? Like, these little fleas are, you know, sort of in the way, and that's all that's Stopping it. And so I I kinda feel like, you know, this is just something that the left should be able to kind of figure out and and work its its way around.
Adam Conover Well, I think maybe the Obama years are a good example of what happens if you don't do this. If you just you put things into place. I mean, the Affordable Care Act, in fact, did last to make us an example of what you're talking about, although, you know, insufficient in many ways. But if you don't put those structural you don't, like, hard code it in. Exactly.
Adam Conover You can end up with you know, there's the famous, well, now now now more famous, you know, case of, like, right after, you know, reconstruction when, oh, we had, you know, black senators and and elected officials all across the South for, you know, 8 to 10 years, and then it was all washed away by, you know, the tide of of white backlash, that can that that is what will happen if you do not sort of entrench those
Corey Robin Entrench them.
Adam Conover Those gains. That is really fascinating and a really a really powerful lesson. Let's talk about Clarence Thomas. Your most recent book is about Clarence Thomas. He is somebody who is often, caricatured very I mean, the character caricature Ivo has received of him is, oh, he he never speaks.
Adam Conover He's which which sort of the implication is that he's sort of thoughtless and lazy about it. He just is, like, reflexively, originalist and and just says no to everything, etcetera. You make the case that there's something much deeper going on with him.
Corey Robin Yeah. So, you know, the basic argument of my book is that Clarence Thomas, he well, He has, he was originally a black nationalist on the left, when he was a younger man, and
Adam Conover we talked Panther?
Corey Robin Oh, yeah. Supporting Malcolm x and the Black Panthers and, you know, Black Power, the whole the whole the whole bit. Wow. And What's interesting about him is as he moved to the right in the 19 seventies, he kept a lot of those tenets from his time on the black nationalist left. So first and foremost, he really is what we call a kind of racial pessimist.
Corey Robin He believes that black people are kind of a permanently beleaguered minority who will never get a fair shake, from white America. He believes that white racism is pretty much incurable. And these aren't just things you can find from when he was, you know, 18, 19 years old. These are things that you find when he's a full, A member of the Reagan administration. These are things that you actually find in his Supreme Court opinions.
Corey Robin Wow. So, you know, just a a side note, you know, 1 of the things that used to drive me crazy. I mean, it's precisely what you show. He doesn't think, and he doesn't whatever. And meanwhile, he's got this Body of jurisprudence, which is extremely large Right.
Corey Robin That nobody ever bothers to pay attention to. You know, you wanna hear what the man thinks, like, Go read the goddamn opinion.
Adam Conover He's constantly writing separate dissents, right, where he's like, well, I dissent along with everybody else, but I've got a different dissent, so I'm gonna write my own little essay. Clayton.
Corey Robin And and and and also for years, if anybody knew anything about that, they would say, well, he's just this crackpot. Well, lo and behold, those little dissents, often become the majority opinion. Perfect example is he was the 1st, modern supreme court justice who claimed that the right to bear arms was a personal Individual. Right. And he does it in a footnote long before justice Scalia issues the Heller decision.
Corey Robin Wow. And so, You know, this is the way he operates is is to to to, you know, plant his flag. He's got an army of clerks to end up becoming very influential. He had more clerks in the Trump administration than any other Supreme Court justice.
Adam Conover Wow.
Corey Robin We know a lot now about the Federalist Society and all of these kinds of things, and he, you know, helps create this intellectual infrastructure. But, again, I think just go back to where we began with all this, you know, this the the foundation of it is this really hardcore pessimism About the possibility of racial progress. And this is what I think is important for the left because I think the left oftentimes has a version of that kind of racial pessimism, and then we think that's a Progressive position. Well, in fact, that kind of pessimism about the possibility for political transformation, That is the heart of, right wing thinking. Albert Hirschman was this great, political scientist economist, political scientist.
Corey Robin He wrote this book called the rhetoric of reaction, about 30 years ago, and he said there's 3 types of of of of reactionary argument, But 1 of the which she talked about was the rhetoric of futility. And he said this is the most devastating conservative slash reactionary argument there is. This that there is No point to trying to make change whether it's economic change, racial change, gender change, because these kinds of inequalities, for 1 reason or another, are sewn into the fabric of Humanity as a whole. And that what you're really trying to do is change human nature, and that's just not possible. And this is in a way Clarence Thomas' and about, about the possibility of black freedom.
Corey Robin The the the consequence of that for him is that, what you should do instead is cultivate a particularly kind of powerful black man, a black patriarchal figure, much like his, grandfather who who essentially raised him, and that if you empower these black patriarchs, these black powerful men, they will sort of preside over they will take care of their own. And, that is his vision is this kind of, powerful, you know, and it has a lot of, by the way, correspondence in some of the writings of Malcolm x, in some of the writings of, of the black power movement, which was, you know, at times fairly misogynistic, fairly patriarchal in its approach. And, so that's really the story of the book is how this guy begins as a black nationalist of the left, Moves to the right, but holds on to certain kinds of ideas about black patriarchy, about racial pessimism, And about the impossibility of political transformation. This is why, for instance, Clarence Thomas on the vote right to vote. You know, he It's a hard thing to say, but he really does not believe that black people should, engage in voting, essentially.
Corey Robin He he he thinks this is a misbegotten enterprise and that what black people should concentrate upon is building up economic wealth in their communities, particularly black men. And that is the path Not towards transformation. He doesn't believe in transformation, but towards, black survival.
Adam Conover And he said this more or less exclusively? Yeah. Yeah. And so this would be, for instance, I assume he voted for, you know, the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act Yeah. Where all of these, you know, states in the south are no longer under Strict scrutiny, which has allowed a lot of so so he so he literally is just like, yeah.
Adam Conover I mean, voting isn't really very helpful, So so don't stress about it.
Corey Robin Exactly. And this goes back to 1 of his first this was a concurring opinion because he was part of the majority, but this was in 19 92, I believe, in the spring of 92, just after he had been, brought onto the court. He wrote a 100 page concurrence called in a case called Holder v Hall where he really, again, sets out in in very careful detail, his vision of Of the Voting Rights Act and that, the idea of black people collectively having power through the vote is essentially a misbegotten enterprise, and not really the path, that black people should take.
Adam Conover Wow. I mean, what I love about this analysis is how much it cuts through So many, you know, simple political stereotypes that we have about, I mean, first of all, Clarence Thomas already violates 1 of those stereotypes which is that black people always vote liberal Yeah. Which is a very obviously false stereotype, but, you know, also that, You know, that political project is somehow fundamentally progressive, etcetera, by actually understanding, a, what it means to be right wing or to to adopt that mindset. And then looking granularly at, like, what his politics actually is, you can you you really come to a much fuller understanding that, like, ex explains us.
Corey Robin Yeah. And, you know, I have just nothing against Hollywood people, but I do believe that, like, this Please. But there is, You know, it's interesting watching a kind of increasing politicization in the last 10 years, you know, on the Hollywood Liberals and Hollywood Left. And, you know, It's a real missed opportunity because, you know, you guys are influential. You have, you know, power and all the rest of it.
Corey Robin But I I do feel like There's a lot that is missed about the right, and there's a lot of comforting, kind of fairy tales in a way that are told about the right, and or someone like Clarence Thomas, that just just miss the blueprint. And, like, that's the thing. Like, these guys have really thought this through. And it it's it's sort of interesting actually when you think about it because someone like Clarence Thomas moving to the right, when he did that, that was you know, it was not a popular move. Yeah.
Corey Robin This was a very you know, this is a a minority position, you know, of of a of a very besieged kind of small group of people, To make it, you know, to make it in that world. Like, they really had to think this stuff through for themselves. Like, it does it wasn't just handed to them. So the notion that somehow or another that these people are stupid and, you know, just were not thinking all the rest of it, it it just doesn't speak to the facts. It's you know, They didn't come to power, you know, in some kind of subterfuge way.
Corey Robin What's what's most amazing to me is This was all there, clear as day, and, you know, a lot of people on the left ignored it.
Adam Conover Yeah. I mean, life, even movies, that cover politics that I liked. I think about, the, the the Adam McKay movie about, Dick Cheney, And, yeah, it's a movie I quite liked, but there's a line in it where, you know, the characters it's like Rumsfeld and Chaney or whatever are talking, and they're saying, like, You know, what do we believe? And 1 of them was like, we don't believe anything. Bah.
Adam Conover And I, you know, I watched that going, yes. They did. They they did. They did. They still have beliefs.
Adam Conover This is I mean, you know, that's It's a comedy, and it's, you know, it's a it was a bit of a fictionalization. But, you know, there's there's almost no depiction of what Politics actually is on, you know, film and television, or or just the idea that people, especially in Obviously, watch a movie watch things like Veep or, like, house and cards or etcetera. No 1 believes anything. It's all cynicism. I'm like, no.
Adam Conover But people really do. They are motivated by their beliefs.
Corey Robin Yeah. And I think the problem that a lot of liberals have is that they associate having beliefs and principles with being virtuous.
Adam Conover Lives. And, so anybody who they believe isn't behaving virtuous can't have principles whatsoever. They're just a cynic. Exactly.
Corey Robin And that is, you know, just As my English teacher in 9th grade, missus Damon used to say to me, you know, you are so wrong, you couldn't be further from the truth. And, you know, that really is just a very wrong headed, assumption that I I if, you know, if I could do 1 thing, it would be to disabuse people of that idea. Yeah. Somehow or another, the good guys are the ones who have principles. And, you know, you see this a lot whenever anybody On occasion from the right votes the way the left wants.
Corey Robin So, you know, Gorsuch, you know, in his opinions about indigenous people or LGBTQ rights, Suddenly, they say, oh, he got principled. Yeah. You know? And what are the odds that, you know, on that 1 thing he got principled, but then he's not principled? It Just doesn't make any sense.
Corey Robin Yeah. Or when John McCain voted the right way on, Obamacare. Right. Oh, you know, it's the last heroic act, you know, for you know, come on. It's just that's not the way people are.
Adam Conover Well, John McCain is enough of a storyteller about himself that that perhaps he's done. It was it was literally for that reason. Yeah. But in that case, it wouldn't have been out of principle. It would have been cynical because he was trying to tell a good story with his big thumb down
Corey Robin and everything. You know? Yes. Exactly. It was a very dramatic Hollywood kind of, story, and he he did like theater.
Adam Conover Well, what I like about what you do here is that you For someone who, you know, overtly associates themselves with the left, you pay much more respect to those on the right because you are paying them the respect, but also paying yourself the respect of assuming that they are intelligent people who actually believe things and have some thought behind themselves. And so, you know, you're you're, I I say you're paying yourself respect because it's, I I think, less lazy, and it's more, you know, from the top of your intelligence to assume that anyone you're talking to, has, has a thought in their heads, but, like, it is, it's it's almost a little bit, radical of a way to of a way to treat those folks. I mean, how how do you What kind of reaction do you do you get to these arguments?
Corey Robin You know, initially, there was a lot of resistance. You know, when my The reactionary in mind first came out. It really got attacked, by liberals. They really hated the argument. I think with time and with Trump and certain things now, I think they resonate more.
Corey Robin The Clarence Thomas book, was better received, but I know there's an awful lot of people, you know, who really I mean, I I I thought it was interesting because it came out right on the cusp black lives matter. Oh, even the sort of 2nd wave of black lives matter, and and a kind of the racial reckoning where we were supposed to listen to black voices. And, you know, I would say, like, okay. You know, you wanna listen to black voices. This is the most powerful black person In the United States.
Adam Conover Yeah.
Corey Robin This is the most powerful black person in the United States. And, you might think he's only speaks for himself, but the truth of the matter is he doesn't. I mean, I used to get was amazing to me when I would give book talks. I would have a lot of people who were black would come up to me who who are younger, and they'd say, you know, you you sound like you're describing my father. Mhmm.
Corey Robin And I never really understood this, but, like, that's exactly how he sounds. You know? So clearly, there is a constituency in among African Americans who are not a united, politically unified group of people any more than any other, you know, a group of people. But I do think there's been quite a bit of resistance, on this because, you know, I think Clarence Thomas is like a particular villain for Or the left. It goes back to the Anita Hill thing.
Corey Robin And, you know, people don't wanna think that, you know, their cartoon villain can think. It's it's it's just it's a really it's it's very hard for for reasons I mean, I have to say, I I think I'm pretty good at understanding People whom I disagree with, but I think this 1, I've never really been able to get. Like, why is it that you think Yeah. You know? And especially Like people who are in, like, the theater, like, you know, the greatest villain in in in all theater, Iago, you know, was quite a brilliant Shakespeare's, Othello, you know, quite a brilliant kind of a guy.
Corey Robin But for some reason, you know, we just we don't like to think our villains are smart, and
Adam Conover I don't are real life villains. We like, we like a fictional villain who's smart.
Corey Robin That's true.
Adam Conover But in real life,
Corey Robin he's Gruber or somebody like that. Yeah.
Adam Conover Yeah. Or, you know, I don't know. Darth Vader. Right? He's like a great he's great at everything, and he's, in fact, almost a hero.
Adam Conover But in real life, maybe it's too frightening to believe that The person who opposes you is is a real person with who is perhaps smarter than you, more committed than you are. Often people don't wanna believe the frightening thing. Somehow, it reminds me of the opposite conclusion, which I remember, you know, in the years after September 11th, I knew a lot of people who, you know, were like, Bush knew, and, like, he let it happen because it was all part of his master plan. Right.
Corey Robin And I
Adam Conover was like, I think it's more frightening to to believe that. No. He had no fucking clue that the people who are running the country are just, you know, ignorant Right. You know, conditional humans the way the rest of us are. That's a more frightening thing to to contemplate.
Corey Robin That's true too.
Adam Conover Yes. Did did you feel at all writing about Clarence Thomas as a as a white author? Like, was did you ever have any, culti, or or worry that, like, maybe I'm missing something about, you know, the black culture that he grew up in?
Corey Robin Absolutely. I mean, you know, I think you'd you'd have to be kind of, you know, foolish Yeah. Not to go into a project like this with a certain amount of Humility and and carefulness. And so, you know, I work really hard. I mean, I work hard on All my books, but I really worked extra hard, you know, to make sure, that I got this, you know, that I got this story right.
Corey Robin And, you know, what's interesting about, you know, Thomas is, you know, he's partially a reflection of sort of southern black culture where he grew up. He's partially A reflection of his sort of northern academic training, and he's also, you know, a supreme court justice. So there's lots of different Communities of you know, that you have to kind of get a handle on. And, I mean, I I was fortunate because I've got a lot of help from, You know, various people who really are experts in this stuff much more than the but much more than I am. But I think what was gratifying is that I I really do feel like, more than anything else, you know, black readers, and people, you know, in audience really, you know, connected.
Corey Robin I mean, they they hate Thomas. It's not like they came away from this, you know, saying, like, I'm a I'm a Thomas guy. But But
Adam Conover they connected to it. They were like like, there there is truth in here.
Corey Robin Yeah. And there's there's intelligibility where before it was just sort of opacity.
Adam Conover Yeah. That's really powerful and valuable to be able to give people. What what do you, you know, feel that the story of Clarence Thomas tells us about, you know, overall American life. And, actually, I I gotta bring us in for a landing here. What do you think about the moment that we're in and and where you think things might go over the next couple years?
Adam Conover What do you hope people do over the next couple years?
Corey Robin Well, I I I won't make any predictions because, you know, often my predictions turn out to be wrong. But
Adam Conover Well, you know, sometimes it's fun to make a prediction and just be like, I'm putting a marker down. I don't know. I'm putting it on black. Let's see what happens. So you can do that if you like, but I'm just I'm just curious how you analyze the moment that we're in.
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, I I I feel like we're sort of in a stuck moment because it's very clear to me, as I've you know, we've talked about that the the the right, the modern right is, you know, is is is probably at its weakest stage that it's ever been. And I know It seems very counterintuitive and kind of, you know, just for the, you know, what's the word? Contrarian for the sake of it. But, You know, I think there's an awful lot of evidence for this.
Corey Robin What has been my great frustration is is that you can't beat Something with nothing. And I feel like the left has had a very tough time, and I don't just mean the Democratic Party. I mean, you know, I'm very, supportive of Democratic DSA, Democratic Socialists. You know, that's kind of my politics. We've had a very tough time Coming up with a, a kind of an overall political story
Adam Conover Yeah.
Corey Robin That would win a majority, and not just these kind of very bare majorities, but the kind of majority you need, in order to really make the sort of transformational changes. And I'm not sure why that is.
Adam Conover There's been no Roosevelt new deal Moments.
Corey Robin No. We haven't had it there. And, and and I don't point any fingers. I just think we haven't figured this out yet. And and and the real problem is is that we're and I don't like to talk this way because it it's it's sort of goes against the grain for me.
Corey Robin But Because of climate change, I think we're in a bit of a, you know, climate
Adam Conover race against the clock.
Corey Robin Yeah. You know, we we don't have the luxury of what, and it sounds strange to say this, but, you know, the American left leading up to the the Roosevelt moment, you know, they went through there was a lot of trial and error there. There was a lot A failure. Failure is the story of every popular movement. The question is not whether you fail.
Corey Robin It's what you do with the failure, what you learn from it, what how how you build on that. And I I believe that. I think that's true. The problem we're in right now is we there's not a lot of margin, for failure. And so I I were so that's that's my, you know, profound prognosis for where we are.
Adam Conover In terms of that political, you know, that message or it's even bigger than a message, though, the political project that is going to be able to create a majority. I mean, Bernie Sanders tried to do that quite hard. That is like what you're describing. I can look back at his 2 campaigns and say he was trying to do that. He had the headlines.
Adam Conover He had the program. He had the rallies. He had a movement, a genuine movement that, You know? I mean, you mentioned the DSA came out of like, it it was it turned into a semi durable political movement. But, You know, sometimes when I look at it at that movement, I say, well, he was squelched by the powers that be, and sometimes look at it and say, it didn't quite have the juice.
Adam Conover Yeah.
Corey Robin It did.
Adam Conover You know? And Yeah. And which do you think it is and why?
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, it was certainly you know, there was an effort to shut it down. There's no doubt about it, but, but it didn't quite have, have the juice. And and I think the real problem is is that, that kind of, you know, Democratic socialism is still too reliant upon, you know, kind of younger voters in cities overwhelmingly. And, You know, you're just gonna have to be able to break out of that if you wanna take on this as a as a mass project.
Corey Robin And I and I think there's something else about it, which, A friend of mine, the labor historian Steve Fraser, has been talking about a lot. I mean, you think about Bernie Sanders. You know, there there is something very backward We're looking about the left. Think about our you know, a Green New Deal, a New New Deal. If you're even socialism itself, you know, these are ideas that are more than a 100 years old.
Corey Robin Our frame of and and I don't know what that means for now, but the thing about the New Deal itself was it was is this radical experiment in green new deal. Exactly. It was new.
Adam Conover But when you say green new deal, you're it's not new anymore. It's a 100 years old.
Corey Robin Yeah. And and I I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. If it had worked, I would have said that was great. It but it does tell you something. I think there's a certain kind of timidity.
Corey Robin There's a certain uncertainty and a looking back, that's, you know, which all movements do this. There's nothing strange about Looking I mean, Edward Bellamy, 1 of the great utopian thinkers of the 19th century labor movement, had a book called Looking Backward. So they all do that, but they do that as a way of kinda catapulting forward. And I feel like there's a looking back today that's a crutch. And what that means in practice, I don't know, but it tells me, we're we're not there yet.
Corey Robin And, the only question is, you know, how much time do we have to get there?
Adam Conover Is there something that you could see arising to Break the log jam. I mean, is it a, you know, a a visionary, you know, once in a generation political figure? Is it a new intellectual movement? Like
Corey Robin Well, I I I I don't know about the intellectual figure or the or the political figure. I mean, for me, the the greatest moment there have been 2 great moments of Promise in the last where are we? 2023 in the last 7 years. 1 was that the wave of teacher strikes, in 2018, 2019 that were all in red states, in West Virginia, in Oklahoma. And that was to me the first sign of breaking out of this red blue dichotomy, and they won.
Adam Conover Yes.
Corey Robin And they won.
Adam Conover And there were wildcat strikes.
Corey Robin And there were wildcat strikes. Yeah. And it was you know, the teachers are, you know, both beloved and hated. Right. They're public sector workers, and I, you know, I saw there the beginning of something.
Corey Robin So that was 1 moment. And the other moment was when Bernie won in Nevada Mhmm. Which was, you know, this huge moment for, Latino left kind of immigrant, younger workers.
Adam Conover There's a labor victory too.
Corey Robin There was a labor victory. The union's there. And, you know, people forget About the new deal, the 1 aspect of it was it was all a lot of new younger immigrant workers. You know? 1924, we cut off immigration in this country.
Corey Robin But there were people who had come in 1920, 1918. Their children came of age in the 19 thirties, and those were the people, Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans. They were the people who built The New Deal. The the New Deal, the modern Democratic Party. And they were, they were purse they they were they were outsiders.
Corey Robin I mean, we think of them today as white ethnics, but they were once. Life. Right? They were the children of immigrants. They were the, you know, the the refuse of Europe.
Adam Conover They were Catholics. Exact they were Catholics. Exactly.
Corey Robin And so So when I saw in in Nevada, all those young, housekeepers, casino workers. Right. Who are talk talking about, you know, T. O. Bernie, you know, uncle Bernie, you know, and I just thought, like, this is the future.
Corey Robin What it does. I don't know, but that is the future. And I, you know, I I feel like those 2 moments to me are kind of what what The sparks of something.
Adam Conover That is a really powerful vision, and it's a great I'm I'm not gonna ask you anymore because I don't wanna fall back into pessimism. I I really like ending on that note. Okay. It's been fascinating talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on, Corey.
Corey Robin Enjoyed it. Thank you very much.
Adam Conover Well, thank you once again to Corey Robin for coming on the show. If you wanna check out his books, head to factuallypod.com/books. That's factuallypod.com/books. When you do, you'll be supporting not just this show, but your local bookstore as well. If you wanna support the show directly, please check us out on Patreon.
Adam Conover Patreon.com/adamconover. $5 a month gives you every episode of the show ad free. For $15 a month, I will read your name on this podcast and put you in the credits of my video monologues. Most recently, I wanna thank Richard McVay, Celine Dragon, Glammo, Michael Frasco, Lee Dotson, Emily Wilson, and God King engineer of beaverkind. Once again, love that name.
Adam Conover Can't get enough of it. Wanna thank my producer, Sam Raubman and Tony Wilson, everybody here at Head Gun for making the show possible. If you wanna come see me do stand up in a city near you, head to adamconover.net for tickets and tour dates. Chicago, New York, DC, Portland, Maine, Atlanta, Nashville, Philly. Oh my I'm going to Philly again.
Adam Conover I love going to Philly. I'll see you there, Philadelphia. And until next week, we'll see you next time on Factually. Thank you so much for listening. That was a head down podcast.