Know Your Enemy - The 2024 Race: "It's Showtime, Folks!" (TEASER)

Matt and Sam sit down for some rank punditry about the state of the 2024 presidential race. Subscribe on Patreon to hear the rest.

Duration: 2m
Broadcast on: 18 May 2023
Audio Format: other

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam take the pulse of the 2024 presidential race: Is DeSantis already doomed? Does Trump still have the juice? Can Biden handle a full campaign schedule? And how do you solve a problem like Kamala?

The answers to these questions and more! Enjoy some rank punditry!

Sources

Nate Cohn, "Why Ron DeSantis Is Struggling," New York Times, May 5, 2023

Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan, "Why Ron DeSantis Is Limping to the Starting Line," New York Times, May 13, 2023

Reid J. Epstein & Shane Goldmacher, "Biden’s Slow Start Worries Democrats. Aides Insist All Is Well," New York Times, May 14, 2023

Sam Adler-Bell, "The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will," New York Times, Apr 10, 2023

Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie’s' Primary," Commonweal, Mar 3, 2020.

This is why I think like the idea of describing DeSantis as like Trump, but competent. Or as the Times piece put it, "Maga without the mess." My argument is that "Maga is the mess." Like, you don't get "Maga without the mess." The mess is what is exciting about it. You wanna be a part of it because you're showing up at the fancy party and like taking a shit on the hors d'oeuvres. Like, that's what's fun about "Maga." - Sam, you made me think of the amazing Joyce Carol Oates tweet about ISIS. When she said, "Only here of ISIS is puritanical and punitive." Is there nothing celebratory and joyous? Or is query naive? But there is something celebratory and joyous about "Maga" sometimes. I hate to admit it. - Of course. - But the big rallies, all the in-jokes that lasted in Trump's mockery, the carnival aspect of it, yes. It is hard to imagine anything celebratory and joyous about Rhonda Sanis. T's Joyce's terms, right? Like, you don't get that from being a brown guy. At most you just get like the grim satisfaction of punishing people you hate. - That's a good way to put it. I feel like I probably said this on the podcast before, but Trump did create a movement. Like, he created an alternative identity within the Republican party. And maybe in America, the "Maga" identity, and that's a community-making proposition. Like, people who show up to those rallies, they're like, "I'm at home, here are all my people." Like, we object to a lot of the bases on which these people are forming solidarity, but it is a kind of solidarity. It's a feeling of belonging, right? Like, I just don't think DeSantis has that. He can't generate that kind of thing. And that's the kind of unnameable substance of what politics is really about. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

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Matt and Sam sit down for some rank punditry about the state of the 2024 presidential race. Subscribe on Patreon to hear the rest.