Chris Beem talks with former Republican political operative Tim Miller about the party's loyalty to Donald Trump and where it might go in 2024 and beyond.
Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug!
Chris Beem talks with former Republican political operative Tim Miller about the party's loyalty to Donald Trump and where it might go in 2024 and beyond. Miller is a writer-at-large for The Bulwark and the author of the best-selling book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. He was previously political director for Republican Voters Against Trump and communications director for Jeb Bush 2016. He also appears on MSNBC and The Circus on Showtime.
Miller's book is a reflection on both his own past work for the Republican Party and the contortions of his former peers in the GOP establishment. He draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP to the Republican political class's Trumpian takeover, including the horrors of January 6th.
In this conversation, Miller and Beem also discuss alarming trends among young conservatives and how they may continue, or even exacerbate, some of what Miller observed after the 2016 election.
Jenna Spinelle
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, welcome to Democracy Works. I'm Jenna Spinelle. We have a very special episode for you this week, Chris Beem sat down with Tim Miller, former Republican political strategist and the author of Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. You might know Tim from his work with MSNBC or the circus on Showtime. But in this conversation, they talk about the moral motivations and the moral failings of the Republican Party and some of its leaders in the Trump and post Trump era. This dovetails with some of Chris's work in his most recent book, The Seven democratic virtues and, as you may suspect, many of those virtues are lacking in members of the GOP in Tim and Chris's estimation. They also talk about young conservatives and how they may exacerbate some of the dangerous trends that Tim's observed over the past couple of years. We will link to Tim's book and his writing at the bulwark in the show notes. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Chris beam and Tim.
Chris Beem
Tim Miller, welcome to Democracy Works.
Tim Miller
Is that working? It's good to be here. And I happen to be on the podcast aspirational.
Chris Beem
There's no doubt about that. But becoming more aspirational every day. But that's you know, that's why you're here. You're gonna help us figure all this out. I read your book, because it addressed a question that I think is like, front and center. Right. It's, it's a very important question in terms of figuring out where we are how we got here, and, you know, if if, even if it's even conceivable to say what we do about it. Right. So what happened to the US what happened to the Republican Party? What happened to that made, you know, 10s of millions of people follow this, you know, malignant narcissist, and, and it's in some ways that that's, that's the question of the book, right?
Tim Miller
Yeah. Well, I don't know if the question the book is the 10s of millions of people. The question book is why that why the people that knew better in the political class went along with such a, you know, manifestly incompetent, malignant narcissist. And, and so, you know, because I think that there's a lot of reading out there, I've done a lot of reading that's outside of my expertise about, you know, there's some global elements to this, like, why is populism? You know, demagoguery on the rise other places besides America? You know, what was it about, you know, the shifting nature of our political coalition's that, you know, attracted Trump, you know, that made Trump attractive to, you know, the white working class, certain demographics, right, the the question of, you know, is this economic anxiety or bigotry or a little bit of both? Right, like, so all of that stuff, I just, I tried to not, you know, go into that academic turf, this is what you This is where you guys are and I wanted to speak more towards? Okay, you know, all of that is happening. The question is, there were some people who had, who had the opportunity to make choices that might have helped mitigate all of those other problems, right, like, had a certain, you know, preponderance of people in Washington and New York, made the right decision made leadership decisions, made decisions where they were, they sacrifice their own self interest, you know, we might have been able to avert the worst of this right. You know, I think there's still been underlying problems to deal with, but, but they didn't do that, you know, pretty much everybody that I worked with, went along with Trump. And, you know, there's some obvious reasons for that, but I think there's some less obvious ones. And so I wanted to, you know, try to get at that question, which is, like, why did people who knew better, you know, who are in positions of power, be that in positions of influence in the media or positions of power and inside the political apparatus? You know, why did they go along with something they knew was so hard, you know, was so potentially disastrous, and so I did a bunch of interviews and kind of reflected on on, you know, my own career and the first half is more of like a look back at, you know, the modern Republican Party and then the second half is a look at why, you know, because I didn't do it. Why my why my peers continued to go along with Trump once he once he, you know, won the nomination.
Chris Beem
No, I mean, I think that's that's that's gets us to the to the to the nub here, right. We are not talking about the unemployed steel worker in Youngstown. We are talking about, really, the the people that the unemployed steel worker in Youngstown hate. Right, we're talking about the cultural elite, right? The coastal elite, right. These are people who are, who are not afraid, you know, about the condition of, of the trajectory of the of the country, they're not afraid about the collapse of, you know, you know, a Christian moral establishment, nothing like that
Tim Miller
These people's lives would have been completely not only just fine, but still wonderful if Hillary Clinton had become president, like, that's really the fundamental element to this, like, why was it so hard for people just to say, man, in this one case, this has gone over the line, and we just need to unite together and say no, to this dangerous demagogue, and we can live to fight another day and 2020, right, you know, not in the political consulting class, the media, even if, even if you just look at the types, there's very few of us, right, like, look at the types of people that did do the right thing. You know, Bill Kristol, who started the bulwark with us, Jeff Flake, you know, he's ambassador to Turkey, you know, Bill has a nice life and suburban DC. You know, I sure what was it was the way to maximize your earning potential and influence to go along with Trump. Absolutely. Right. But were these people at risk of any threat to their person any threat to their financial stability? Like no, I, you know, I kept when I kept interviewing, like, more like mid level consultant types, and they'd say, wow, you know, I got college, you know, it's going to cost a lot for my kids. And, and it's like, I mean, you anyone could have just said, Hey, I'm gonna vote for Hillary, and I'm gonna go work for Facebook, any of these people, right? Like, these are not people that are economically insecure, in any way. And yet, you know, they still decided to go along with this just atrocious thing, because it was the easy way to go. And it was probably the most more, it was certainly the more lucrative option. And there are other factors at play, too.
Chris Beem
Right. Right. Right. So So, as I and when I reached out to you, and this is what I said, I, you know, I see like three kind of buckets in terms of explanations. One is kind of human nature. One is kind of the Craven moral cesspool that is DC. And then three is kind of something distinctive about the Republican Party. And I wonder, I mean, I mean, I don't want to go. Are there other buckets?
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, this, I guess. So the fourth one, which would maybe fall into, you know, as a sub genre, the first or the third bucket, the thing that most surprised me, is, within these within This elite set, there was a peer based grievance, that was a lot more deep seated than I realized, and maybe some of that is human, a part of human nature. But, you know, it's not I don't know, if that's what you're referencing, right? Like this, this notion that, oh, you know, like, that I might be financially well off. But the liberals, the progressives are ascendant, culturally, you know, they get invited to all the good parties, you know, they're the ones who get who get praised and get awards given to them. Meanwhile, I'm over here, you know, being successful Sure, but like, my wife's friends hate me and think I'm a racist now because I work for Republicans and, you know, I the media is mean to me, and I don't get a fair shake. And because I'm a white guy, maybe I didn't get appointed to this board of prestige, and maybe I would have been right so I that element. Was that kind of interpersonal grievance within intra elite you know, set was was kind of the most surprising thing to me. When I was hearing for people because I was expecting the inertia Oh, this is my career. This is what I've always done. I was expecting the Oh, the Republican Party has kind of trained us that this is all big game and that the beating the LIBS is the most important thing. I was expecting the money defense, so I need to pay for my kids college. Like I wasn't quite anticipating just how like rotted the the soul was, when it came to just, you know, kind of the schoolroom cafeteria element of all this.
Chris Beem
That's exactly where I was gonna go because you talk a lot. When you when you're talking about specific people. You talk a lot about how these folks were not the most popular kids in high school or in college. Right and, and that there was some kind of, you know, just kind of this was there. stick right that they dress up like Alex Keaton, which is a reference and nobody under your age is gonna get let alone.
Tim Miller
You know barely my age I was very I think the reason I get the reference is because I was Alex Keaton it's quite an old show, but
Chris Beem
Yeah, but but you get the point is that, that these are kids in college or high school and college who were on the outside of the elite in, in, in those worlds, right. And it you know, and I have to tell you, when I was reading this, I was thinking about something my mother is in, you know, in a senior home and and she and the woman there said that the dining room there is like high school. I'm like, Oh, God kill me now on really? That it's the same kind of dynamics? And the same kind of Who's In Who's Out who's up? Who's down who's friends with who's piston who, and and, you know, I kind of get the sense from Reading, reading what you talked about, like Sean Spicer, and writes Priebus that that that because of that happening, it's such a formative moment in our lives, that it just never goes away.
Tim Miller
Here, there's just this whole, like in people of wanting something right. And I think that the thing that is bipartisan about this, and trust me, I do talk plenty in the book. And we can understand a bit about the unique Republican elements to this. But is that DC, you know, the kind of the drug that gets people excited about DC is this access to power? Right now there's a certain type of person for whom it's actual power, right? That they like being the one making the calls, but that's almost like a different psychological category. It's the being around power, the proximity to power, like that's more of the fun part, right? Because you don't have to make any decisions. It's you know, getting to go into the Oval Office, getting to tell it talk to your friends about it, getting to post about it on social media, right, like that is getting to fly on Air Force One. All of that stuff is the drug that drives a lot of these people. And, and many of them were not right, it's just the types of people that were very interested in politics and color. So we're in the speech and debate team, you know, that that got good enough grades, right, like to go into all of this, it was not necessarily a very clean overlap, usually, with the types of people that were, you know, whatever on the football team and got invited to the cool keg parties. And so, so there is this in DC, just, you know, it's most grotesquely on display during the White House Correspondents Dinner, the nerd, everybody's just so excited. It's like these third tier actors are coming from Hollywood, and everybody's like, I want to be I want to be by that I want to be with them. I want to be invited. And and there's just, you know it and so I think this is like one thing about the book that I tried to get out, I think people sometimes miss misdiagnosed, this is all about money, right? Like that people just you know, there was money to be made. And so people did it. And like, that's really more of like a New York kind of thing. The DC crowd, the access was more important, and you have this hole in you. If you don't feel like you are recognized, you don't feel like you were seen growing up, you don't you didn't feel like you got invited to things. And now all of a sudden you are right, like you're not just getting invited to the White House you're getting you're getting called by heads of studios and senators and, and media and people recognize you in the airport, because you're on TV and, and that, you know, and you're just constantly filling this hole inside of you with like all of that recognition that you never got before. Trump gave a lot of B, C D list people the opportunity to get that recognition that they hadn't gotten. And they get the added bonus of, they got to put the finger their finger in the eye of the people who they thought had been getting the recognition on earned way, you know, the Obama people and the Clinton people and stuff and it's like, now I'm the one that gets to go on Air Force One and I'm the one that gets, you know, recognized and I and I just I think it's a misunderstanding that misunderstands kind of what the appeal of that of Trump was to to the Spicers of the world.
Chris Beem
And then this, the problem is, I mean, you know, this is a hole that cannot be filled, right. I mean, and, and especially so in this case, because even though they had this, even though they were on Air Force One, the cultural elite, still didn't think it was nearly as impressive because it was Trump right and so they're that all that did was like well add to this feeling of resentment. Yes. And and to say, All right, well, then I'm gonna up the ante yet again.
Tim Miller
And this goes to what I tried to get out about like why I didn't people jump off eventually, you know, it's almost like I you can almost understand. I mean, for me, Trump was so repulsive, it was just not possible. But you can always understand why somebody could just justify in early 2017 Yeah, man, I can go get this job, I can be the spokesperson for the State Department, I can travel around the world and, and I get this job I never would have gotten for anybody else. And it's gonna make me feel important. It's gonna help my future career prospects, and, you know, it's gonna, I'm gonna get that recognition that I lacked. And then you get in there, and Trump is just, it's even crazier than they even thought it could be. And you're not getting the recognition. In fact, the opposite you're getting attacked and assaulted, and people in your life are being mean to you, and you're losing friends over it. And that does stir up that resentment, you know, in a way that kind of boomerang them into into feeling like they wanted to even grasp tighter to this thing that they weren't even 100% sure about, right to start with, right? Because it was like, Okay, now you have this bunker mentality now now. Now, it's like, I gotta prove these guys wrong even more wrong. And, and so I just when I was doing these interviews, it just was alarming to me how many people cited this kind of thing, that they're just like, I felt I don't now, it's been a little while. So I don't have this exact quote, right. But it was that it was like, someone said to me, essentially, you know, I felt like I had no choice but to hold on to the one or two things that I agreed with him about, you know, and, and block out all the rest, you know, in order to justify and rationalize, like, my need to keep doing this, right, essentially, right. It is like, I was so mad, I was so resentful to all the people that were telling me that I was a bad person for going along with this, that it almost thrust me into his arms even tighter. And that's, you know, in the second to last chapter of the book was with Alyssa Farah who I think people have plenty of have different views on some have had problems with her. But But she did leave at the very end, you know, too late for many people's tastes, including mine, but she did leave in the end. And I tried to kind of grapple with, like, why she she was able to kind of separate herself, while so many other people couldn't.
Chris Beem
That in, you know, the inherent my human nature bucket is, you know, referencing the, you know, the sunk cost bias, right, that, that when you're in when you've made a commitment to a strategy, and this can be anything, right, you know, this happens on wall street all the time. And it happens in sports, when you get a team that said, this is our strategy, we're gonna do this, and we're gonna we're gonna, even though it's obviously not working, we're not going to change it. Right. And, and so you can see that, but it's also in terms of, of, you know, this required kind of doubling down on a on a sense of personal identity. Yeah, and what tribe you're in. And so there's this, you know, deeply existential dimension to this, you know, what, what do you what, exactly, maybe it's better to say, what are you not giving up by walking away from this? Right? I mean, yeah, you still have you no resources, you still have, you know, your Ivy League education, whatever, but you you have made, you've defined yourself in terms of, you know, who you're connected to, and to walk away from that is, you know, for anybody, and incredibly difficult and, and terrifying prospect.
Tim Miller
Yeah. And this is true, this is one of the things that as I was writing the book scares me most about what's happening society wide right now, because I don't know if this was really so much of a thing. 20 years ago, in the 90s, when I was growing up, that like people, like identified themselves as part of a political tribe is a core part of their identity. And I think that they do now, but it was always the case in Washington, right? And so these people, their, you know, their their friend groups were, were based on their party, the bars they went to were based on their party, their poker nights are based on their party. The joke, but it's true. I know, multiple people who named their daughter Regan, who lived in Washington, right? So I have, like, literally your child's name is attached to this tribe. And so Okay, now you have to step away and not just to step away and say, Oh, I'm gonna go do something else with my life. Now. You know, I want to be whatever I want to, you know, own a winery or you know, trying to think about other jobs. I'm gonna go do PR for court for United or whatever. I'm gonna go to like, open up a restaurant, that's one thing, but to step away and say, No, I'm simply going out because I want to do something else. But I'm stepping away because that thing that was part of my identity is actually bad. Right.
Chris Beem
I made a choice. Yeah.
Tim Miller
Yeah, that sounds quite wrong horse, that's very challenging, right? Because then it's not just you have to accept that you made a bad choice. But you have to, like, admit it to everyone in your group. And they all made the same choice. And so now it has an impact on your interpersonal relationships, they look at you differently, right? Like I can see. So I, my life ended up being fine, right? And I read the book about how I've come out of the closet already. So I'd already made big identity changing things that worked out great for me. So maybe, maybe it was easier for me than for others. But I can see this, you know, I still feel it sometimes with my conservative family members, you know, that I feel like look at me a little differently. They were so proud of me. Right? Like they told their friends about me. You know what I mean? My great, you're talking about your mom and the thing my grandma in the, in the senior citizens home like she would, because I would go on Fox, right? Which is what they watch. So she she would tell her friends about me, right now, she doesn't tell her friends about me. Right. You know, I like that's a little things. But I had I joked that I had my the wedding, I got married to my husband. In 2018. Two years after Trump, I was always worried that people weren't going to show up to my wedding. So as a gay wedding, that I would have conservative family members or friends who wouldn't feel comfortable. To my knowledge, nobody didn't show up. For that reason, several people didn't show up, because they were former colleagues of mine that were mad at me over my trump apology. And I was like, this is we're living in the upside down here, if you would have told like high school me that you're gonna get into a gay marriage, and the people aren't going to come because because you didn't support a political candidate. You know, the whole thing is just very strange. So those are just a couple of examples. But, you know, you just project that out onto a group. You know, this tribal element is so part of human nature. And it's so intensified in Washington, that that I do think that it, you know, what might seem very easy to say no to such an obvious moron bigot, you know, carried with it a lot of weight that was attached to people's personal identity. And it reminded me of the Catholic Church, my family's Catholic, and with that, with the Catholic Church, with all with the scandal around that, right, I saw some similar parallels there was my feeling weak. So it was like, they didn't want to accept, right, that there was this bad element? Maybe there's a Penn State parallel? I don't know,
Chris Beem
You know, I mean, at some point, you know, most human beings are confronted with that problem. And, you know, and how you address it, and whether or not you know, and whether or not you just rationalize it, or you compartmentalize it, there's lots of strategies that we all have for dealing with it. Something you said, I think, is another kind of place that I that I wanted to get to, and that is, you know, when you're talking about DC, and this kind of, you know, you know, the hacks of the world, the campaign operatives, is it hasn't been forever, thus or not, you know, and, and on the one hand, you have, you know, I mean, I think it was Truman, who said, If you want a friend in Washington get a dog, right. So it's not wrong to think that this is, you know, this is a world where self interest overrides just about everything else. And these, and this is the way the game is set up. And this is how we determine winners and losers. Yeah. And so that's just how people are going to operate. On the other hand, you know, I know that, you know, stories about, you know, I mean, Reagan, and Tip O'Neill would hang out together and drink together. And there are stories about, you know, us reps getting on planes, after they had just ripped each other. And then going back home and sitting in the back of the plane, you know, just emptying those little bottles, one after another, and just, and just, it's not, it was like they were able to compartmentalize right, or at least see that as maybe part of the game. But I don't know whether that's true anymore. I don't think it's true anymore.
Tim Miller
Yeah. Well, I don't think it's true for a lot of reasons. So I would answer this by saying, look, I think that in some ways, it was always this, and maybe is unfixable, right, but there were bumpers around it, if you look at George HW Bush, who I greatly admire, right. I've worked for job who admired his dad so much, and, you know, had been have read his letters and his private correspondence. And, you know, that's been published since his death, and I haven't read any secret correspondence. But, you know, he so often did the right thing, right, like, at times, especially after he's in the presidency, you know, at times that that maybe hurt him a little bit politically. He was thoughtful and caring about it. other people and as you know, people, Democrats, the other party and would write to them and obviously his letter to Clinton was so magnanimous. But he also was at the RNC during the during the Nixon impeachment. And if you go back and read some of his defenses of Nixon, it's pretty cringe worthy, you know, it's pretty cringe worthy. But yeah. And he also hired Lee Atwater. They did some, right. So so, you know, there were these, you know, the two wolves inside him. Right. But and so like, to me, it's more of a question of, of, of whether, you know, there is there is this balance, right, and there's this consideration, right, that the politics is always gonna be a competition at some level. But you know, if you go back to the Nixon era, maybe HW didn't do the right thing. But there were very many I mean, Nixon's resignation was because members of his own party, you know, were willing to go speak out against him. Right. And so, I think that some of the things that have changed now are number one, I think in the mass media age, and I write about this a lot. The the deal, the extent to which people treat politic treated politics as a game in the lead up to Trump, really, I can went on to hyperdrive, right, I think there were, you know, you could come up with these examples of the liat waters of the world, but they were more of the exception to the rule. And I think that that became a much more widespread element. I also think that certain things about politics change, the incentives changed. Social media, cable news, campaign finance reform, a lot of the things that kind of kept collegiality, you know, the way you gained power in old Washington was really through collegiality and being serious, right, like demonstrating that you could lead a committee demonstrating that you could gather a group together to get a bill passed, right? That the way you gain power now in Washington is by being a clown, particularly on the Republican side, this is one some time where like that it's especially true on the Republican side, right, by skidding on Fox the most by you know, by by saying the most outlandish things so you can raise fundraising dollars on it. So I think that there is some through line, you know, from whatever Nick's into now about just Washington being a cesspool, but I think that we have really put it on on hyperdrive in the past. You know, 20 years?
Chris Beem
Yeah, no, I actually one of the one of the stories that came to my mind when I was reading was Michelle Bachman went into, you know, that, you know, kind of extreme, let's not say insane, but let's say extreme, US rep from Minnesota Republican, went into veiners, office speaker of the house and said, I want to be on some major, I think it was Ways and Means and and he's like, hell no, absolutely not. And she said, All right, well, I'm gonna go on Fox tonight. And I'm going to raise enough hell that you're going to do something. And I mean, it speaks exactly to your point, right, there is an there is a an avenue to power, especially in the Republican Party. Not exclusively, but But particularly, that has completely overridden the kind of status quo pattern for developing power in DC.
Tim Miller
And then you get the self selecting element to it. And I think that just really quick about the Republican Party. And I think this is two things just to understand the problem and look at where we're going. Because it's a different problem, that part of the reason it got us into the Trump World was that I think that the Republican campaign self selected really, for people that were more cynical. And I think that it was it was mainly just because people that were our pure ideologues, conservative Christian conservative types, just like aren't really the types to go get campaign jobs, right. It's just like the nature and the people that were getting Democratic campaign jobs were like, you know, West Wing, Obama, earnest, folks. Right. And so I think that on the Republican side, you saw a lot of people that like, were really almost nihilistic, you know, the chose to go into that, because it was like, I like politics and like the competition, and, you know, whatever I never had in the book about a guy who revealed to me during the interviews that they've never voted for a Republican for President, and I visit the high level of power, but he just likes the rush of it. All right. So I think that that's something a little different. Now. I think that that is getting exacerbated to a great degree. If you look at the type of people that are self selecting in to the Donald Trump party, like think about you know, I don't I don't want to insult any students at Penn State but think about the type of person who's 2022 is like I like politics. I'm maybe I'm maybe kind of ideal you know, I'm ideologically I'm forming my ideology. You know, I'm not talking about the kids that come that are super, you know, already ideologically foreign, but I want to go work in Washington. I want to go work in campaigns. That's the type of person that's going to say, Yeah, I'll go take a job for the RNC. Like during the Trump era after Trump, it's a different type of person I get it is somebody that has that has accepted that they like that, that they're cool with the trolling and the mocking, and the cruelty. And so I worry deeply about, like the self selection of who is who's choosing to, to enter, you know, right now. And I think that that's true, a bate from like, the entry level jobs all the way through candidates, right, like what kind of candidate wants to run? You know, I would say I get calls, frankly, from from people who are conservative mainstream, like, Should I run in a Republican primary? And I basically have to tell them, No, I said, You should do what you want, I'll support you, but I there is just not a path for you, unless you, you know, are willing to debase yourself, for Donald Trump, that has an effect on what kinds of people are going into Washington. So this is an ongoing thing that I think is actually getting a little worse over time.
Chris Beem
You have this pot of explanations and and, and phenomena that that are just all mixing together to make it very difficult, not not only very difficult to get out of, but also exacerbating it. Right? I mean, that, that you do have, you know, people doubling down and people feeling unable to escape. And, you know, if you look at not just here, but throughout the country, if you look at the the the leaders of the College Republicans, right now, it's a type. And and I don't see that going away, because there's no other way to be a young Republican right now.
Tim Miller
Yeah, spoiler this might be coming to a future book near you. But yeah, I hear I feel the same way I do. I'm deeply concerned about the young Republican element to this and how that's going to move over time. To the first part of your comment, question about the Democrats. I do. Like I said, I think that there's some unique elements in the self selection of the types of folks that are working in the Republican Party and the types of tactics that Republicans used and we haven't even talked about that much about the conservative media world, which is a unique beast and animal. So I think there are a lot of things about the Trump effect you know, what happened that was that was unique to the right. The things the two things that make that make me concerned you know, are one just the human nature parts of your bucket are true across human nature right inertia, you know, if some insane leftist you know, took over the Democratic Party, there would be some people that would succumb to inertia and succumb to career ism and right to come to, you know, I want to I want to wanting to have access to power, right. Like, that's not just not just right wingers who have those weaknesses. But the more acute thing that worries me is that is the tribal, the tendency to, you know, to put on your team jersey, and have and decide that everything about the other side is horrible. And so I don't even need to engage with any retrospection about it. I see this happening on the left, for good reason, by the way, I sort of things don't deserve a lot of consideration. But I, you know, I worry how one of the key rationalizations, this was not true for everybody. But there were some people who went along with with with Trump, because they had so internalized that the Democrats are bad and evil, and if the Democrats are bad and evil that justifies any action to defeat them. And I worry a little bit about the development of the inverse of that. I think that there's some things that the Democrats have some antibodies against that, for example, the left wing media ecosystem is a much more heterodox and much less. No, I don't know prompt II than the right wing. And it's also more of a diverse electorate. And I think it makes it a little harder for a demagogue to take over when you have, you know, very diverse constituencies, both both religious, you know, academic, racial, etc.
Chris Beem
All I want to say is that I think your book and your work are a real service in that regard. Not to say you can't be wrong, we can all be wrong, but But you are committed to telling the truth and even when it when it's not flattering to yourself, necessarily, at least in your past self. Yeah. So I just want to you know, I want to commend that and, you know, not just for yourself but also as an example to to All of us, I just I think it's it's the only choice we it's the only alternative we have to what what's going on is to just reflect reality as we genuinely understand that.
Tim Miller
Thank you. I'm doing my best to do that. It's very freeing. I think it is the one thing. It's it's my best understanding for why liberals care to hear from Never Trump for anti Trump Republicans is I worried that the dark angel on the shoulders because it flatters their biases. And I think maybe there's something to that. But of course, yeah, but the other reason, though, is that I think that we have a freedom to kind of to say what we really believe, without thinking about career, whatever implications, because, you know, we've already kind of shot at this point on that front. And so even so, my Democratic friends say that they appreciate, you know, that I can kind of go out and talk about this stuff within an unvarnished way, that sometimes they feel like they have to, you know, choose our words a little more carefully, right, because, you know, they're thinking about it. Who knows, like, I don't know, if the next Democratic president might call me and I, you know, I don't want something out there that is gonna make me look bad. And so anyway, I hope that the latter reason is as much of it as the former and I'm doing my best to just not to not be as people anymore, at least.
Chris Beem
Well, you know, it's a, it's a good and fortunate position that you've got yourself into, but you came by and honestly, it took a long way to get through. So anyway, Tim Miller, thanks very much for your time and for your work and for joining us today.
Tim Miller
Thank you so much, and always happy if there's a student or whatever that wants, how, you know, an intro or help or two sets. I'm happy to do it. So thanks for reaching out.
Chris Beem
Great. Thank you.