Friends, sending along a recording from the live conversation I had Friday with one of my favorite political commentators and authors, Alex Wagner. Alex dropped by to talk about her new book “The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America’s Courts” which is on sale now wherever you buy your books.
Here’s a summary of this timely and thoughtful book:
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a sharp right turn for American governance. After decades on the fringes, the conservative right had risen to power, finally poised to fashion some of the country's most pressing issues in its image. Tax cuts, aggressive foreign policy, and law and order would soon become the cornerstones of Reagan's agenda. But, behind the scenes, a select group of administration officials and ideological allies had their eyes set on something much more valuable: an institution with the power to shape the country's legal, cultural and existential identity, long after any presidential term ended.
Ed Meese, a native Californian, former DA, and aide to Reagan from his days as governor, knew exactly what he had to do to seize the Supreme Court: get as many judges on the bench as possible, and make sure they were as conservative as he was on issues like abortion rights, taxes, and criminal justice. Working in parallel to achieve the same goal were a band of fellow true-believers: Paul Weyrich, the firebrand organizer; Joe Coors, the beer magnate whose fortune funded many of Weyrich’s efforts; and Robert Bork, the towering legal intellect of the right, and an important mentor to a few young law students starting a new organization called The Federalist Society. By the end of the decade, these men would change the face of the American judiciary forever. Told with a pitch-perfect blend of journalistic rigor and propulsive storytelling,The Stealtakes readers into the closed-door meetings, public nomination hearings, and back rooms of American political power to reveal the true story behind one of the most significant moments in American history, and how it affects us to this day.
I say this book is timely for what it describes is the early stage building of an ideological movement that has become very powerful in America. After years of being out of power a group of conservatives set out to build a new politics for the country and forty years later their successors are reaping what they sowed. This story becomes important and instructive for us for it now falling to pro-democracy movement to start imaging and building a new politics as Trump and his radical allies continue to tear down the pillars of the world our party has imagined and built since WWII…….
As Alex and I discuss the silver lining in all the MAGA darkness right now is that all of us get to imagine and build something new for America and our democratic allies throughout the world. Here’s a passage from my recent raucous pluralism essay that in this election cycle we are seeing a new politics emerge in our family…..
My hope is that whatever type of Democrat you are you can see yourself in the Democratic leaders who have emerged in the past year, giving you a reason to enthusiastically vote this November. We’ve talked here about the need for the Democratic Party to evolve, grow, improve, and to build our next thing. I think we can say now looking back at the elections over the past 19 months that we are seeing a new Democratic Party emerging, something that feels fresh, different, younger, more dynamic, and just better.
In a change election it has become important that Democrats be seen as changing too. And we are. And this perception that we are changing will make us more appealing, and more likely to win this November.
Our enthusiastic embrace of vigorous primaries, respectful internal debate, and the broad diversity of this country is also providing a very powerful alternative to the dangerous illiberalism and rancid white supremacy of team Trump/GOP today. People are not happy with Trump and the Republicans.
We are clearly offering something different, and better…….
Which is why Alex’s book is timely. For it is a window in the early stage building of something new. Which is where we are now, my fellow patriots - in the early stages of building something new, something must not only be new, but better…….
Enjoy this thoughtful interview with one of my favorite commentators, consider buying her book, and keep working hard all. For we have a country to save, and elections to win all across the country, together - Simon
Alex Wagner is the host of Runaway Country from Crooked Media, a Senior Political Analyst at MSNBC, and a Pod Save America contributor. Previously, she was the host of Alex Wagner Tonight, and co-host and executive producer of “The Circus,” Showtime’s Emmy-nominated weekly documentary series chronicling American politics. She’s a former special correspondent with CBS News, co-host of CBS This Morning: Saturday, and host of the Emmy-nominated NOW with Alex Wagner on MSNBC. She has written for The Atlantic, Huffington Post, as a White House Correspondent for AOL’s Politics Daily, and spent four years as the editor-in-chief of The Fader magazine. Wagner has hosted several podcasts, including Trumpland with Alex Wagner, Crooked Media’s Six Feet Apart, and Slate’s Podcast for America. Wagner is the author of Futureface, a critically-acclaimed memoir about identity and immigration, and served as Executive Director of Not on Our Watch, a grant-making and advocacy non-profit created to stop mass atrocities.
