Overtime - Episode #459: Libertarianism, State Secrets, Party Futures

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Welcome back.

Thank you, sir.

Since you're the one who's rested, you'll get

even in the bullpen.

Yeah, there's some nicotine out there.

What would the Republican reaction be if a Democratic president hid their health from the public or pushed for their physician to make false statements?

Yeah, we didn't even get to that schedule, really, that he wrote his own medical report and gave it to his doctor, like that guy's a doctor.

I think

the answer depends on the flammability of Sean Hannity's hair.

We're so past where the buses run on all this stuff.

Right.

Oh, good.

I'm glad you're loosening up and agreeing with me on

bringing you around.

I'm trying to save the Republic here.

I know you are, and you're doing a hell of a job.

Okay.

Matt, does libertarianism have a place in today's political parties?

Hell yes.

I mean, the Libertarian Party, first of all, I mean, we're in an interesting moment right now where both major parties have really retreated on stuff like government spending, like holding line on interventionism against surveillance, warrantless surveillance, and other things like that.

And I would also argue free speech.

And so

we need more libertarian ideas in both parties and also in the Libertarian Party, I think.

What does Matt look like in his underwear, General?

General, how are NSA operations being protected from a president who leaks intelligence to our adversaries?

So, all right, without arguing the premise, all right.

Right.

Here's the seriousness.

You carry Ohio, you carry Michigan, you carry Wisconsin, you get the secrets.

And so if you've got an issue there, you need to talk to the voters,

not to the agency.

That's so depressing.

But that's

reality.

It would be worse if he was interested.

It would be worse if he actually read a briefing or cared about anything except whether Nordstrom is selling Ivanka's shoes.

And that's one of the challenges we have.

We have a president, Michael Gerson, one of Bush W speechwriters, said, Donald Trump lives in the eternal now.

Little history, no consequence.

The whole job of intelligence is context.

And we just fly by one another.

And the long game.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, that's why we didn't have a hot war when we had a cold war, because it was fought by your people.

Yep.

And that's a preferable way to do it.

All right.

Is there a chance, John, that current partisan divide could become so irreconcilable that America plunges into a second Civil War?

I don't think so, but you rule nothing out.

See, he's coming over to my side.

There you go.

Because historically,

we did have one.

I think it's more likely that there'll be a reshuffling of the parties, the elements that belong to the parties.

That's happened whenever there's been a failure of consensus on the central issue of the time.

So on slavery in the 50s and 60s, on industrialization at the turn of the century, on the role of the state

then in the middle of the century.

And then chiefly in our own time,

the shift from Republicans being the party of Lincoln truly to

the Democrats being the party of segregationists.

They got to stop saying that, the party of Lincoln.

The parties switch.

They completely switch.

It's just ridiculous.

But there's nothing wrong with aspiring to that.

Now, of course, the case recently is...

But they don't.

Well,

the case right now is that in 2016, it's the first recorded case of a candidate, of a hijacker boarding a plane and the passenger siding with the hijacker.

And that's what happened with Trump.

He took over the base.

They got rid of the pilots, the Jeb Bushes.

And the great moral question right now is who wants to be on the right side of history, as we were talking about earlier, and say this will not stand?

You know, to your point, it's...

I love when Republicans say they're the party of Lincoln.

Like, I love it.

I'm like, okay, now, could you act like it?

Do it again.

I mean, do it again, right?

I mean, it's just like when conservatives suddenly are all worried about about women's rights and gay rights, right?

They bring it up so that they can bash Muslims, but then when it's actually their own policies and actions, they don't do anything to uphold it, but they're like, when it's convenient.

They say it.

They use it as a fig leaf.

for their otherwise racist behavior.

Oh, we're the party of Lincoln.

It's sort of the way George Bush, remember when he was talking about his National Guard service, like, don't denigrate the Guard.

Well, in his day, the Guard was a way to get out of the service, and he took advantage of it.

When he was president, it was a way to get sent to Iraq.

So he conflated those two.

Okay.

So quickly, the question right now, it seems to me, and the Democrats are going to face it again with Sanders and Warren, and the Republicans are facing it right now, is the central issue is globalization and its implications.

And neither party, as it stands, has a coherent answer to that.

And the racism, the xenophobia are all related to the fact that people are worried that immigrants are coming in, undercutting them.

The data is not very strong on that, of course, which makes it all the more hard to make an intellectual argument about it.

Right.

Okay, Mayor, as a young Democrat, do you think the party would be better off if Nancy Pelosi announced she would endorse a younger, less polarizing Democrat to be leader?

I think so.

Speaker Pelosi, or House Leader Pelosi, will...

retire when it's time.

I think I've read this Atlantic article that talked about how a lot of the hate she gets is precisely because she's a woman and a woman with power and that she's been one of the most effective party leaders ever.

So I'm thankful for her leadership and everything she's done.

I think when it's time she's...

Oh, I'm glad you stick by her like that because like so many Democrats throw her under the bus.

Okay.

But I think to the wider point, the party does have to develop a bench.

Oh,

but it's not just age, it's ethnicity, it's sexual orientation.

That looks like...

I think we're seeing that.

I mean, there are more women candidates than ever this year by

a margin we let us.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, audience.

We will see you next week.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Ma every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

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