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Andrew Sullivan

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2020-10-30

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2020-10-30

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1. “Amen. That is the ultimate achievement of a liberal society is to have moments where we can leave politics entirely behind”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “A paywall goes up this week. And so lots of you will be in that position of choosing whether to actually back us with your dollars or not. It doesn't matter. You're welcome, whatever. But please help us. Please support us, the weekly dish. It's out there on Substack. And I'm so grateful, Sam, for you to support that. And I'm also thrilled that this conversation is the first of a series of conversations I'm having with some, I hope, some really interesting people in which we will be having the same kind of conversation, which is not an attempt to get to the truth. That's all. I just want to figure out what's true. And if that's your goal, then please be with us and help me do it.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “It is an attempt to put me on the spot every week to make sure that I'm kept onest by my own readership. And yes, I mean, we've proven that this can't happen anymore in so many media institutions that have been captured. And so supporting us really, really matters. And I'm really grateful. You've been an absolute role model in pursuing this kind of intellectual inquiry. You've helped me calm down and think seriously and be a better writer and thinker. And my readers do the same thing. And if you want to encourage that kind of discourse, please support us.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Thank you so much. I mean, one thing we do every week is that I'll write my piece, but we really will publish the strongest dissents and arguments against it and force me to engage them in a reasonable way. And no one else is doing that. It's not a comment section where people yell at you.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “What I fear most is a narrow wind that is brutally contested that leads to unbelievable dissension, violence, and the interregnum. Those are the nightmare scenarios that are in front of me. I'm just praying that don't happen. I think there's a chance with a landslide that we can get past them. But of course, you know, we don't know. We live in history. I think we've discovered that it isn't over.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Of drug and so on. And anyway, Biden is a transitional figure, but primarily a sort of binding up the wounds kind of guy. Now, I may be being naive here. I'm not saying that these forces of polarization, of tribalism can disappear, that they're going to inhere, if we get through this period peacefully. And if the decision to vote Biden is a big one so that it can't really be psychologically reversed, if it's a kind of LBJ Goldwater thing, then you can, I think, fix the thing.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “When we get past COVID, when we get past this, people are going to get absolutely the Roaring 20s. We're going to be fucking sight. We're going to be drinking everything site. We'll be doing every single one.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Inasmuch as that, yes, he could preside over this without making people afraid of a sort of leftist takeover because old Uncle Joe's in there also could be quite structurally important in terms of the economy, but also I think we want a defense of the West. We want someone to stand up and defend our way of life against the emerging powers of East Asia and Russia in ways that our current president has absolutely undermined from the get-go. And I do think that's a great opportunity for this dude. And I think, by the way, I think he should appoint Obama as Secretary of State. And send him around the world again.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “And I do think that we're going to see, and as someone who was a supporter of Thatcher Reagan and a lot of neoliberal economics for a while, I do think that it's a, and it's quite plausible argument, if you shift from race and identity to class as a Democrat, you actually have a unique opportunity to build a consensus around more support for working people, more support for people with addiction, more compassion in that context without dividing us by race and massive inequality that absolutely needs to be addressed structurally with some redistribution. So there's a moment here, an opportunity that, again, you don't see this old dude as necessarily harnessing, but I think he might be in a paradoxical way a man for the moment.”

   2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “To universally celebrate healthcare workers or those people. There have also been moments in which people have stopped for a moment of silence in memory of those we've lost. I mean, this is the other context that we're in right now of this extraordinary dislocation in which we're all living in this uncanny valley of our previous lives, in which nothing, everything seems similar, but just awfully off key. And the other thing we learn about these experiences, these human experiences, and I wrote an essay earlier this year about plagues and history, is that what they do to societies is they suspend you in midair for a minute. And they are moments in which you can actually socially, really reorganize and restructure in ways that otherwise might not happen.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “And it does matter that someone is at the top that feels like is not seeing you entirely as instrumental to his political fortunes, that might actually take a moment to be with you and to acknowledge, we have never, for example, in this country, we've never really acknowledged the deaths that we have. We could have half a million by the spring. And other countries have had moments where they've stopped.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “That's where we are. But when you're also dealing in the context of this awful epidemic, which has been socially and personally isolating, has been incredibly, I mean, we've not even lost people. We've lost people we couldn't. Visit we couldn't see, we couldn't help I mean, I lost my dad and couldn't even go to a burial, you know, and there is an open wound in this country that Trump does nothing but pour salt into. And we also have a crisis of addiction, which this epidemic has made even worse, that we're seeing the numbers of opioid addiction go up again. Is spreading again. We really do have a spiritual crisis. I'm going to trigger you. I've reclaimed that word for my own purposes. Okay. I'm with you.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Office of the presidency. I'm from a sort of traditional Irish Catholic family. It's in England and everything, but we're all roughly. I know that guy. I know that guy. And I know he's a good guy. I just know that. And I can't tell you how deep one's yearning for just some human decency in that office. And I do think they've been very effective at putting that across. I do think that Some kind of the presidency is a weird thing, it's not a prime minister, and there is a role in which the president does, as it were, bind the nation in a series in a matter of grief. And what we have been going through requires some kind of ability to understand that. I think, for example, the way Trump dismissed drug abuse, Hunter Biden, Coke addicted.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “I do think he's better at congressional engagement and management than Obama was for psychological reasons. And I do think Biden is capable of reminding many people in the middle, I'm thinking particularly white people say in the Midwest, that the Democrats aren't viscerally and characterologically hostile to their interests and ideas. And I think his religious faith plays a part in credentializing him in that way. His background does. And I think, especially in a health crisis, I think there's something about his ability to empathize with people who have been stricken with grief and illness and struggle.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Gives you a kind of platform to do that more in a bipartisan way. And I do think that's Biden's instinct. I do think he misses the old politics. Now, there are many who say don't be an idiot. The Republicans are evil that they won't compromise. They can't deal. They will probably oppose free. What they attempted to do with Biden with Obama, which is basically try and cripple his ability to repair the damage. That depends how badly they're defeated, I think, and who's left. It also depends on whether they take the same attitude to Biden that they did to Obama. And I think Biden does have some serious relationships in the Senate particularly that helps him”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “And is a somewhat canny politician and will see you'd have to die for her to succeed. I think there's still quite a chance he'll be hanging on for four more years. I don't think he's going to run again. And I do think, therefore, after the midterms, there's going to be a real fight for the future of the party. I can't imagine him running for a second term. And I do think that also gives Biden an opportunity. If you are trying to be the unifier, if you're trying to be the person who settles things down and attempts to put us back together in some way, then not having an interest in your own perpetuation for second term.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “And I was like, well, that's an obviously good point. And I waited for her to respond. She's a prosecutor. She knows the law. She knows the constitution. And she just kind of giggled and laughed. Said, oh, come on, Joe. We can do it if we try. Yes, we can. And I was like, that is not a serious person.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “The part we cut out so as not to give energy to Trump voters. Yes, I'm not that, I wasn't that, to be honest with you, there's an element of her that obviously seems to be tough-minded. And I'm certainly in favor of women in high office. And that's a plus as far as I'm concerned. There's an element to her that has seemed a little unserious, to be honest with you. I mean, I remember her in one of those debates where she said that within 100 days, if they didn't pass gun control legislation, I can't remember exactly what she said, she would enforce it herself. And I'm like, and Bryden actually, in that debate, said, well, you know, constitutionally, you can't do that. That's not within the powers of the president.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Coalition around the center. And I think that, and I actually think, and this is another debate, if he gets a really big win, I think that helps him against the left. He's going to bring in a whole bunch of Democrats into the Senate and the House who are going to be answerable to swing voters in marginal seats. And if you look at the way the Democrats responded and the way they campaigned in 2018, if that is where Biden goes, then I think it's quite possible he'll do very well.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “I want someone whose core psyche I'm pretty comfortable with, even though Biden over the years has driven me nuts and he's irritating in some ways and he's confusing and he can be, and he has been a blowhard. What's interesting to me is the Biden they've given us in this campaign is not that Biden. He is more the elder statesman come together. Let's all get along figure, elderly figure, someone who represents a past understanding, for example, of bipartisanship. And these are things that they have advertised. They put them front and forward. That matters in terms of how the administration will evolve. He's going to have enormous pressure on him from the left. But I think my hope, again, I can't guarantee this, and part of me is pessimistic, but my hope is that he can really do that. He can put together a civilized civil...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Democratic base. Pick this guy. The fact that black voters disproportionately pick this guy is encouraging to me. And it's an opportunity for us to revive a certain liberal democratic. I mean those in two small L. Terms around this rather conventional figure of Biden. I can't wait for that and I can't, I want, I so desperately want the temperature to go down. I want some of the tension to be released. I want a president I don't have to think about for a few weeks. I want...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “And that's important. It's important that the cops understand that the president is not going to sell them out at every opportunity, even though he's going to be tough in making sure that the injustices that are there are examined and rooted out. You know, I just wonder whether Biden isn't actually a better spokesman for Obamaism than Obama was, even though Obama was incredibly eloquent. There was just something culturally that didn't, that clearly didn't, I mean, I found him unbelievably inspiring and culturally enobling and wonderfully but clearly that didn't work for large numbers of people. They felt alienated to some extent. And Biden is not that. The fact that the Democrat”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Decent person in as much as he won't outrageously lie, he won't stir up racial animosities. Today, for example, he just came out very simply and said, the riots and looting in Philadelphia last night are just unacceptable and wrong, period.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Support. I do also think that Biden uniquely does not trigger white voters in the way that another Democrat might. I do think that there will be a big fight within the Democrats over who's going to win. And in my darker moments, I think Biden is just out of it and will cave and will bring in so many crazy ass wokies into the situation that it will all become terrible. I don't want to give up on that possibility. It's not like Biden has run a campaign for the center. He has not, even though he has endorsed big infrastructure spending and debt, which I think is probably necessary given the extraordinary crisis of the global economy in this epidemic. But I think in general he's quite appealing to lots of people, as we've seen. And I think he's also...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “I think there is a real opening for that kind of centrist democratic position, which is going to actually, in policy terms, be a shift economically to the left. And I think if Biden is able to do that without caving to some of the more extreme cultural and social elements in his coalition, he could be extremely successful. And so my hope is that we might move away from tribalism. I'm encouraged by Biden's quixotic but enduring belief that he can talk to a few Republican senators and get some kind of”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “There's a real opening for major infrastructure investment for green energy investment. I do think there is an appetite for repairing our traditional alliances, which could be very popular. And I do think there's an appetite for police reform, which is not framed in the terms of some sort of great reckoning with institutionalized racism or white supremacy, but which is geared towards bringing the races together around law and order and protecting everyone.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Foreign policy. It's not going to be a return to neoclassical economics. It can't be because they have become, I think, a victim of their own success. So I do think there's a possibility for a figure to emerge to say we get what you were saying, we realize this guy was out of his mind. I mean, they're not going to say it quite that boldly, but they will emphasize things like the rule of law, give and take in a democracy, those kind of values. But what I, to be honest, what I really hope is that Biden will be and present himself as being a unifying president. And that means really, first of all, finding a way to keep us and keep this economy alive during COVID, which is going to be brutal in the next six to nine months. But I do think there is a real opening for a major stimulus.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “And enforcement of immigration laws in a way that is a completely plausible and probably quite popular position and it's something that, for example, in the UK, the Tories were able to do quite successfully and win an 80-seat majority, the biggest majority in decades in the UK Parliament. And even though they're struggling with COVID, obviously that's quite an achievement. I'm quite optimistic about the possibility of a kind of adjusted conservative. It's not going to be a return to neoconservatism.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “And there is also a genuine question of how fast a population can change demographically without being counterproductive in terms of it provoking racist, xenophobic, or nativist responses when it is at what is a historic peak, I mean, not seen for another over a century of something like 14% of the entire population of the United States not having been born in the United States, which is as high as it's been since the early 20th century, after which there was a very draconian immigration law. I think those issues can be integrated into a more sensible and liberal democratic conservatism that you can harness patriotism, you can harness traditional values with skepticism towards completely free trade and with some more control.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “I'm not sure it's that hard because I think you can make an argument and I'm looking at sort of center-right parties in Europe on this. There are things that Trump identified and elevated that are real. There is a real worry about large swaths of the working and middle classes in the West being completely left behind by globalization and the power of unrestrained global capitalism.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “And he should be forced to say yes or no to that. We should know if he thinks this is an entire fabrication or if he thinks it's a real thing that somehow they got hold of this laptop. It really is Hunter Biden, but it's being distorted or manipulated. Those are two options. He hasn't been, the press has let him get away with that.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Although it seems like they have managed to squash this, I think the fact that there isn't really anything really damning in this about Joe Biden himself has helped keep this thing from not being the central. And of course it shouldn't be a central issue in the campaign. And of course. Tucker Carlson sitting down for an hour to spread this stuff is clearly not really a function of journalism, it's a function of partisan warfare. At the same time, again, I'm being squishy here, but I do think you have to, as a journalist, if this stuff comes out, you have to, for example, ask Biden, is this untrue? Are you telling us that this is a complete fraud, that this laptop is not Hunter Biden's, that nothing in this is true about Hunter Biden? Is this an entirely false flag operation? And the fact is he hasn't been forced to say yes or no to that.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “I get it. I think you're absolutely right. I think social media can do things that are really destructive. And I do think some level of responsibility from those who control that social media is important. I'm just concerned that it gets to a slightly pathological and rather knee-jerk attempt to suppress information rather than to get it all out there.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “And I do think this was cynically done by partisan people for partisan purposes. But Hunter Biden is almost certainly a shady individual. And Joe Biden's refusal. Refusal even to address the question, simply to dismiss it out of hand as a smear job, as opposed to engage in it. Similarly, his refusal, his absolute refusal to say where he stands on the question of court packing, which is an incredibly important topic, and to have been supported by the mainstream media in not answering these questions. In fact, cheering him for not answering them is troubling and certainly troubling for the future.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “A really disturbing thing, and I've seen it up close, and I've seen the pressure socially on people not to do this. And being a journalist is to be an asshole in so many respects. It is to embrace your position as the skunk at the party, the person bringing up the unpopular stuff, the stuff. Now, you can do it responsibly, irresponsibly, and I'm not saying this stuff should have been spread all over the place immediately. But I am saying The way the media has responded to this seems to me deeply unhealthy. It speaks to a rot in mainstream media and its understanding of what journalism is. And it concerns me. It really does. I understand why people don't want a last minute Comey or some bullshit distorting everybody's views at the last minute.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Is interested in writing about this. And Glenn Greenwood, who is, I think, trying to write about this in Intercept. But that you won't find it anywhere is troubling to me. And especially troubling because if we do get a change of regime, if we do get Biden in, then all these people are going to be involved not just in suppressing information, but suppressing information on behalf of those in power. And I see the mindset among my peers in journalism and it... It chills me. They really do believe that their job is to advance quote unquote social justice. It is not to get as much information out to people as possible and let them decide for themselves. And that's a...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “In controlling the news than airing it. And I don't think the Giuliani's slightly nutball interviews about this or some of the details of this. I don't think they're that persuasive. I don't think it would dramatically shift, but I don't like the idea that we have a media interested in keeping from the public stuff that might change their minds about a political debate at this point in a campaign. I just don't like it. It's not what our instincts should be as journalists. Our core instinct should be, what's here? What's in it? It shouldn't be to push it out there like Ben Smith did with the Steele dossier. It should be, however, not to say this must never be talked about. And what I've seen, I mean, the refusal to air this, except on Fox, and then there are some lonely people like Matt Taibi, who...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Media source, the way in which bringing this up is regarded as some sort of horrifying thing, whereas in fact, obviously it seems to me Hunter Biden is a corrupt individual. The way, in a legal way, most of the time, there's something illegal about the way he parlayed and peddled his connection to his father. And this is a problem. It pales in insignificance compared to what Trump is doing and has done. And it doesn't implicate Joe himself. But the way in which the mainstream media has responded instinctively to suppress this story and the way in which social media then reacted also by suppressing this story cannot but unnerve us. This is a media that is more interested at this point”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Yeah, I have done my best to read these stories about Hunter Biden's laptop. And when I think it through rather like you, rather uncannily like you, I think, well, compared to Ivanka, compared to Don Giu, compared to the unbelievable, open, proud corruption of this obviously corrupt family in the White House, this is trivial. And I think, and I do, but I do think that carefully engineered last minute partisan-oriented sudden revelations should be met with skepticism and restraint from the media. And I think that's perfectly sensible. What the Wall Street Journal did in reporting this out and telling us what wasn't there actually, that there wasn't anything there, was the right thing to do. The extraordinary attempt to forbid any discussion of this in any other...”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “I've thought about this too. I think the reason why that did have an impact is because it played right in 2016. It played right against the existing narrative of Clinton as a crook, basically, and as a very deceptive and self-interested, old-fashioned corrupt politician. And so it hit that way.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Democratic arguments about how much immigration should we have, how little immigration we should be, how should we enforce? These are completely legitimate questions for politics. And yet, We are told that anybody raising these issues or even having anything but a completely permissive view is inherently thereby a white supremacist. Now, of course, when people are being told that, that things that they just wanted to have a voice on, that they are bigots for even raising it. Of course, they're going to be more concerned and hate the people calling them bigots than the person they think might actually in the end stand up for them. And that helps Trump do what he wants to do. I think Trump is, I think, in the sense that he's dismissive of African Americans and contemptuous of and lacks any empathy or compassion or any sense really of the nuances of history is a racist, yes. But do I think he's a kind of longstanding white supremacist seeking to oppress? No, he's desperate for minority votes. He champions them. He talks about them all the time.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Does not portray this, and you also realize that the people who were critical in giving Biden the nomination were basically solid black Democratic voters who have their feet on the ground and their heads screwed on right, who understood that it is not in the interests of African Americans to have their entire neighborhoods ransacked with looting and rioting and inflames that people do want to see police misconduct held to account. They do want to see real reform. And there is a huge, I think, majority for practical common sense reforms in restraining police abuse. Absolutely. But that is being blown away by an attempt to create this sort of grand racial tribal narrative that isn't actually borne out in reality. And that's also the case with the question of immigration, where what are completely genuine and completely legitimate.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Sterling constant job of saying that what this is really about is not illiberalism, it's not the dangers of a person who can't be trusted or who is a fantasist or a narcissist or a dangerous person. They want to make this into proof that in fact all of America just voted twice for Obama is not just racist but white supremacist. And therefore they have to up the ante all the time. What's fascinating to me is that after four years of that Full use of it. It looks as if Trump is going to significantly increase, even from a very low base, but nonetheless increase support among blacks and Hispanics. And if Biden wins, it's going to be because he won over elderly whites rather than, so the actual data that we're seeing does not”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Agenda here that even I, who loath the man and despise many of his policies, I still find irritating and crude and self-discrediting.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “Oh, yeah, it's completely broken. It is broken so badly. And a function of this, of course, is that it's also incredibly boring. You look at what's happened in mainstream media and it is one endless, tedious recitation of the same prejudices and views without any, and you've seen them internally be incapable of accepting a diversity of opinion within their own ranks. It's been a terrible period for media, even though they have done incredibly well financially by pandering in this way and by becoming essentially abandoning any pretense of neutrality. They don't realize that that in itself is also an attack upon liberal democracy. And I want there to be a newspaper where I can trust. And they want to read a newspaper where I don't read every page and feel there is an obvious.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Help discredit a great deal of these institutions. I mean, I think what you read in The New York Times today is that when you read, for example, Ben Smith in the New York Times, not to get personal about this, but who's defending keeping the Hunter Biden stuff out of the press, when you realize that this is the person who published the Steele dossier without any qualms whatsoever or any context or anything other than, hey, here it is, let's have a look at it. You begin to realize just how the press has discredited itself and in public opinion also. And I must say, Sam, I mean, I look at places like CNN and I just can't believe it anymore.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “And he naturally sides with dictators because he likes them. He thinks they're cool. He thinks they're the ones that really know what's going on. So his support for Russia, or his closest Putin, were completely overdetermined. But the entire establishment had to engage in what turned out to be a three-year-long goose chase to find some obvious smoking gun which was never going to be there in the first place and has thereby”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Trouble. At the same time, he's provoked reactions within those systems that I think have been excessive. I do think, and in the media, I mean, I think the Russia obsession, the notion that we were going to prove that he is a paid agent of the former from the 1980s onwards, I mean, this stuff was a fantasy and it was, even though there were lots of troubling ties between him and the Russian path. He doesn't have any qualms or scruples about taking aid”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “And it's truosis, for example, with some of these courts that Truck down is immigration rulings, which were self evidently from the get-go within his purview. Agree with them or disagree with him that some of these legal and judicial arguments have been thrown up by some of the courts, which have eventually been shot down, have nonetheless been discredited the courts, I think, in a way that was always a danger in this. The overreaction was always going to be as dangerous long term as his excrescence. And that's what the trick is within liberal democracies, is to keep trying to keep these things at bay, because otherwise they cannibalize everything. They cannibalize the rule of law. I mean, what he's done with the Justice Department, for example, I mean, what he's done to the credibility of the FBI, which is, I think, terrible in as much as we do have to have trust in neutral institutions that enforce the law. And if the FBI doesn't have that trust, we're in terrible.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “Does not even see the system that we live in after what it is. It is simply a TV show. It is simply a talk radio show. It is simply a forum for entertainment. And yes, I can get moved each other by the entertainment. I can get really pissed off at all these crazy lefties. I can love listening to Joe Rogue. I can do all that stuff. I'm not going to keep my eye off the ball of sustaining this system. I've read enough history. I've seen enough. I've read enough literature to see what is in front of our noses, which is this guy should never have been in there, ever.”

    2020-10-30 · Making Sense with Sam Harris · #223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source