Ravi Gupta: Power-Hungry Politicians

Ravi Gupta:

I think they do buy their own BS by and large. I think it's like the frog in the boiling pot of water or whatever.

Like I think you make some decisions consciously knowing, “Hey, like I'm going to put up with a little bit of indignity here and there. I'm going to cut some corners. I'm going to say a couple of things I don't believe.”

But the story you tell yourself is, “I'm doing it because when I get to this position, I can do the things I care about.”

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

My guest today is Ravi Gupta, a fellow host here on the MeidasTouch Network, and an old friend. He served in the Obama administration. And before that we were classmates at Yale Law School where Ravi became close friends with another Yale law student, Josh Hawley.

I wanted to reconnect with Ravi to talk about how ambition can corrupt someone so completely. I, myself lost a good friend to that same kind of ambition and have been wrestling with how to understand what makes this happen to someone that you think you know.

Sorry to make it so personal, Ravi, but I think it's important to understand people like Josh Hawley who sacrifice everything in the pursuit of power. Thank you so much for joining us.

Ravi Gupta:

Yes. And Ken, who are you referring to? I'm just curious.

Ken Harbaugh:

Eric Greitens. Eric Greitens and I-

Ravi Gupta:

Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

Ken Harbaugh:

We go a ways back. I think a few listeners of this show, watchers of the MeidasTouch Network will know that. But it's almost Shakespearean in the depth of that tragedy. I've known him since I was 18 years old. He is babysat my kids.

I didn't intend to make it that personal for me, but it is heartbreaking to see someone go down that path of ambition and power and sacrifice everything in its pursuit.

And you are seeing that unfold in real time with someone that you once looked up to. Right?

Ravi Gupta:

For sure, yeah. My background with Josh Hawley is I came to Yale Law School in the same class that you did.

And we have a mutual friend who I won't name because I'm sure he wouldn't like to get dragged into this, but who is a little bit more on the conservative spectrum and also did a Bible study group. And we all were in the same building together.

And we were one Ls. And as it works, the three Ls kind of mentor the one Ls. And there were a lot of members of that three L class like Karen Dunn and others who were critical to my future careers, whether it's on Obama campaign or elsewhere.

And very quickly, I was introduced to Josh when he was a three L through that mutual friend.

And I was always like a Democrat and kind of a like everybody knew me as that, but I really prided myself because I come from a family that's split politically of just having like not judging anybody by their politics and trying to have a diverse group of friends in every respect.

And he and I became friends and we would've lunch together. We wound up in a couple classes together, like Brilmayer’s Conflicts of Law, and he would send me his notes and give me advice. And I remember he even met my mom a few times and I think they became Facebook friends.

And it's like he wasn't like my best friend in the world, but he certainly was among the upperclassmen who I was closest with. And even in the years after we graduated, I kept in touch with him. We'd have lunch every now and then.

And obviously his turn, if we want to call it that, in that Senate race or really even before that when he was AG was disappointing to say the least.

I mean, we can get into it, but he was playing a game, I guess, and I was bummed out because he's somebody who has a lot of gifts and it was a bummer to see him use those gifts in the way that he's using them.

Ken Harbaugh:

When does that game become character defining? Because I think it starts out as performative. It starts out with someone like Josh Hawley rationalizing to themselves the things they need to do to gain power to then be able to do good. The things they need to do to get votes to then be able to do good.

But in the act of performing, in the act of pretending to be something you're not, in the act of playing that game, I feel like it changes you. I've seen that happen to other people that I care about.

And I'm wondering, looking at Josh Hawley now, and those in his orbit who are really the drivers of some of this insanity and intolerance within the Senate and the breaking of all these norms, I wonder if some of them are buying into it now.

I had a commanding officer who used to talk about drinking your own bath water. If they are actually buying their own BS.

Ravi Gupta:

I think they do buy their own BS by and large. I think it's like the frog in the boiling pot of water or whatever. Like I think you make some decisions consciously knowing, “Hey, like I'm going to put up with a little bit of indignity here and there. I'm going to cut some corners. I'm going to say a couple of things I don't believe.”

But the story you tell yourself is, “I'm doing it because when I get to this position, I can do the things I care about.” Like the story you tell yourself is that you're still in pursuit of some larger aims.

Rare is the person (I mean, they do exist, Trump is certainly one of these people) who doesn't tell them a story at all about how they're doing any good in the world.

Like Josh Hawley's probably sitting around and he's probably talking to his wife. They're probably rolling their eyes at like the crazy thing Trump did or whatever. And they're just like, “Well, this is what it means to be a transformative leader, is that you have to make certain choices in service of power.”

And Hawley, I'm sure, (I mean, he wrote a book about Teddy Roosevelt) probably sees himself as this historic figure. And I think he's like willing to breeze past a lot of ethical lines to become like this president.

I'm sure he looks in the mirror and says, “I want to be president of the United States.” And he wants to be like some kind of transformative figure. And like what's unfortunate is he has gotten very far, very fast with the strategy.

Ken Harbaugh:

It's that sense of grandiosity and historical mission that I think imbues a story like this with a degree of dangerousness that run-of-the-mill ambition doesn't have.

And when you have people like Josh Hawley and the person I referenced earlier thinking that they have a special role within history to fill, I mean, it can excuse all kinds of compromises and eventually outrageous. And I think Josh Hawley's raised fist is a great example of that.

I didn't know him. I mean, I met him like I probably met most people at Yale Law School, but didn't know him like you did. Did he always have that sense of himself as a man of destiny?

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, he wouldn't talk about it. But you know the difference, like in law school and whenever you're around a lot of people who are ambitious, there's certain people who maintain their level of authenticity and humanity. And they're still ambitious, but you can have like an honest conversation with them and you don't feel like their guard is always up.

And Josh was always somebody who I felt like had his hair perfectly coiffed and spoke like a politician even when he was in his early 20s. He carried himself that way as somebody who was very guarded and very calculating.

And so, in a way, in looking back, like I was and am an idealistic person, and so, I never really sized people up that way.

But looking back, certainly the signs were there that this is a guy who was calculating and a bit of a climber, even in a level of magnitude that set him apart from people that we went to law school with.

Ken Harbaugh:

His religiosity (and I talked to other people in that Bible group) seemed sincere then. I don't know about now. But he did seem to be fervently dedicated to his faith, which is in a lot of ways something that I admire, but increasingly in politics, it's something I fear.

And I'm going to tie it to something that's unfolding in Ohio right now, where we just passed this massively important ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights in our constitution.

But republicans in our state legislature are saying things like no amendment can supersede God's will for his children.

And that kind of religiosity, when the bearer assumes a divine mandate to override democratic norms and traditions, that's really dangerous.

And in Josh Hawley, you've got someone who not only has this personal delusion of grandeur, but you get the sense that he thinks God is talking to him personally.

Ravi Gupta:

I hesitate to question somebody's faith, but I do have questions. Like either he doesn't believe it and he's playing a game because he knows he has to present a certain front to get elected.

Or he is so slippery and so thirsty for the office that he'll interpret the scripture and his religion in ways that defy logic and the text and the tradition itself. Either one of those two things is true.

I mean, I have an opinion of which of those two it is, but it's probably not solid ground because I'm not in his head. But he either is profoundly like astray on what any fair reading of scripture says or he just doesn't believe it.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, let's not make it ad hominem with respect to Josh, because I'd love your overall take in how the Christian militancy of the GOP today is affecting their political prescriptions.

I mean, you have in the person of Mike Johnson unanimously voted by his caucus to be Speaker of the House, an actual Christian nationalist who says that we don't live in a democracy, we live in a biblical republic.

How do you feel about the way the overt religiosity of the Republican party is driving policy prescriptions?

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, I mean, from a tactical perspective as a Democrat, it gives us a huge opportunity because it's wildly unpopular with the American public. I mean, it's a political gift, but a moral threat like at the same time. Those are two sides of the same coin.

Obviously on abortion, they overstepped and they're paying the political price for that. And unfortunately, women across America are also paying the price for that.

And the more they do that kind of stuff, the more they're like the Tucker Carlson of 1996 version of the Republican party. The part of the Republican party that Ben Shapiro tries to …

Like the Ben Shapiros of the world will put on the flannel shirt and pretend like they're populists. But whenever given the chance, they'll lecture us on our personal decisions.

Whenever they do the latter, when they expose themselves like that, that is a tremendous opportunity for us as Democrats or even independents to remind the American public that these are full-blown extremists. And that entire part of their agenda is unpopular.

And it's why you see people like Beshear win, it's why Youngkin got crushed in the state legislative races. It's why we overperformed in the last midterm elections is because all that stuff is unpopular.

Ken Harbaugh:

What makes me think that Josh Hawley and the other really smart politicians around him are opportunists and cynics and not true believers, is the way they moderate when they get crushed at the polls.

The true believers seem to double down and say, “The reason we lost is because we didn't go hard enough on restricting women's rights.” And you're hearing people say that in Ohio, they're not the best politicians. Josh Hawley is doing the opposite.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, I didn't see that. What is he saying about abortion? I didn't even realize he was walking it back a little bit.

Ken Harbaugh:

I mean, he is talking about leaving things like that up to the states. He is definitely walking away from national abortion ban language. And the hardcore zealots are going all in for national abortion ban.

You see this from Josh Hawley as well on workers' rights in the aftermath of the UAW strike. Here's a senator who was fully on board with right to work legislation in Missouri until he got on the populous bandwagon, and now, is singing a different tune.

I think that is suggestive of a political philosophy that actually is not rooted in fundamental values, but in the political wins.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, it's really fascinating. He's done in a way, a smart thing by like this brand of his that is this sort of substantive populism.

Like if Trump is kind of emotional populism within the right wing, Hawley is like, “I'm the intellectual.” He's like, “I'm going to be the guy who could tell you like about antitrust law and the First Amendment.”

And he's playing this part where he's saying, “I'm going to defy expectations and the chattering classes in DC even if they hated me throwing my fist up, are going to take me seriously as an intellectual.”

Even Lawrence Lessig wrote a piece in Slate this week about Josh Hawley's First Amendment jurisprudence. And I respect Lessig a lot. I've interviewed him a couple times. He's saying like maybe Josh Hawley's the only hope for like true campaign finance reform.

And he might not be wrong. I mean, you need whoever you can to pass that and you definitely need Republicans. But this is what Hawley wants. He wants to be able to say, “I'm different and I'm willing to stand up to the special interests of both sides of the aisle.”

And honestly, like if I divorce myself from like him as a person and his lack of consistency, I'm like, “Fine. Like I welcome that, I guess.” Like I have to treat each position he has …

I think like because the part of me is like if I try to treat every politician with a level of like scrutiny over their morals, and like their consistency, and their motivation for what they do it, that would be a rabbit hole that I'll never come out from.

So, I try to put aside my personal sort of disappointment with him and say, “Well, like if you're serious about that, I hope you are.” We'll see how serious he is when this stuff actually comes close to passing.

Right now, he pays no price for it because he could say these things that are never going to pass, and it just becomes a part of his identity. I think the key will be like if this stuff ever gets close to being law, will he put some muscle behind it?

Ken Harbaugh:

I guess at some level though, you have to be able to trust a politician when they say they believe in something. And when they reverse on something as basic as right to work or union rights, it suggests they aren't trustworthy. And why would you trust them with your vote?

I love the phrase substantive populism. I don't know if you just coined that, but that does seem to be the lane Hawley is trying to fill. And in some ways because he has to. I mean, his pedigree doesn't scream up by your bootstraps populist. Right?

Ravi Gupta:

He's trying, he's trying.

Ken Harbaugh:

He's got to be the academic version of a populist given his background.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. And you got to remember, I do think that this Roosevelt infatuation he has explains a lot about him. He wants to be the trust busting Republican. He wants to be the guy who goes after the big business and all of that.

And I think he senses, and he's probably not wrong, that the right frame for that is he's going after woke corporations. That's how he frames it to the right.

And he's not winning over converts in the sort of grass tops, like the Wall Street Journal has run multiple pieces attacking him. But if I'm thinking of this like without any emotion and I'm just a political strategist, it's not a dumb strategy. Like I actually think this sets him … you want to set yourself apart.

And my sense is he probably regrets how out front he was on January 6th. He will never say that, but my sense is he regrets it. But he didn't walk it back which I think is a moral failing.

But I think he's like, “Alright, well, I got to keep myself relevant for 2028, how do I do that? Well, this is my best opportunity.”

It's like use your strength upon strength. Your weaknesses are always going to be your weaknesses. And he's never going to be that guy.

Like I have no love for JD Vance, but JD Vance plays the part of the authentic populists. Like the, “I'm actually from that town,” populist, which your audience will probably know better than I do how true that is or not. But he does that so much better than Hawley.

And actually, if I'm Hawley, I'm more threatened by Vance than anybody because Vance, who I don't know Vance. I actually hold him in an even lower regard because Hawley never did the tour of like, “Oh my God, I'm like so disappointed in my party and I hate Trump and all this kind of stuff.”

Like Hawley like barely touched the surface of that. Vance made that so much part of his identity when it served him, and then he immediately jettisoned it.

But Vance is a huge threat to Hawley because Vance at his best can both be the guy who's from the community. And he certainly presents himself in a way that is much harder to, especially for somebody like me who didn't serve in the military, didn't come from that area, to call that out. You can, Jason Kander can.

But then he's also like, I wouldn't say he's at the level of a Hawley, but he's got enough intellectual horsepower and certainly he's a more literary figure, boasts his book, but he's also just a better storyteller and he has a better sense of the moment.

I think he's a more serious politician than Josh Hawley is. And if I were Hawley, I would be very threatened by that.

Ken Harbaugh:

I suspect at least one member of the audience is screaming at their computer now, because of the elephant in the room, which is Yale Law School. Let's get that out of the way.

Ravi Gupta:

Well, yeah, it's crazy. Vivek Ramaswamy too. So many people in our law school actually interesting, not a lot of Democratic candidates, I guess, but the … I don't know, I honestly don't have an answer for you. Like it's-

Ken Harbaugh:

What am I talking about for those who-

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, you and I went to Yale Law School together. Vance went to Yale Law School, Hawley went to Yale Law School, Vivek Ramaswamy went to Yale Law School. I'm sure there are others, but it's embarrassing, honestly, like it's an embarrassment to the institution.

And our dean of the law school said, never let your skill exceed your virtue. And these are to a person, people who skill exceeds their virtue. And it's a huge disappointment.

And what they would say to us is, “Oh, I have never run.” But like they would say like, and they do this to Jason Kander explicitly, I'm sure you got this, which is, “You guys are just sore losers.”

I'm like, “Man, I don't know.” Like any other human being on this earth, it's like you try to be the most authentic version of yourself you can, and you try to be the kindest, most ethical person you could be, and you want to be successful. You want to do all those things.

You want to make your family proud. Like you want to balance your ambition with being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say like, “Hey, like I am the hero of this story.”

And I imagine that those three, and I would probably rank them … ranking them would be a fun exercise. But I think those three have a hard time looking themselves in the mirror.

I would say Vivek, we haven't talked about, I think he is the worst of the three of them by far. Like I think the three of them are all horrible in their own ways, but Vivek is like truly out of bounds, I think. Like he's like not even in any way connected to a reality.

And the thing is, he hasn't been as successful of those two. Obviously, he's not a senator and he's been getting killed in this primary. But he was able to become a household name.

And I just got back from India where he's kind of a celebrity there. It just shows you this is the era of politics we're in right now.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. Well, I think that probably was his goal to be a household name. And in that sense, he has succeeded probably beyond his wildest dreams.

But it speaks to that character challenge that these three men have utterly failed. Which is, I think you referred to it as the look in the mirror test.

But it's this idea that the holding of power is really worth it. And how many members of Congress have you met, Ravi, (I've lost count) who can't imagine themselves as anything else.

And I think that's what it really comes down to in the case of someone like Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz, thank God there's one Harvard grad in the mix.

Ravi Gupta:

DeSantis too, I think, right? Isn't DeSantis?

Ken Harbaugh:

DeSantis is Harvard law, that's right. They can't imagine themselves without the entourage. And the thought of leaving that behind causes them to do anything, including selling their soul to hold onto it.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, I think that's it. And I think the trappings of being an elected official … and you mentioned the entourage. I talk to Jason about this all the time. And I think so much can be … in New York, you see this with each office people run for, they get bigger security detail or whatever.

And these little things, like people are still teenagers at heart, they want the cool stuff. They want the bigger office, they want the cooler car and the security guards and all that around them, and they're willing to do almost anything to keep it.

And I think the other thing is, the risk of politics, and I've spent a decent amount of my adult life coaching candidates is you have to visualize losing and you have to visualize walking away.

Because otherwise, if you're not willing to walk away at any point and risk losing and have an alternative path for your life, then you start to do things either to get into office or while you're in office, that are morally compromising or you just lose and you become devastated.

Like I've seen so many people who … you've lost races, Jason's lost races. I think both of you handled it fairly well. I've seen a lot of people who never got over it.

And I get it, but you have to be able to visualize that loss because like if you're not willing to run and lose, especially for you guys, you're running in very tough areas, like the odds are stacked against you.

If you're not willing to run and lose and visualize what that's going to be like, then you shouldn't be running in the first place. Because in a lot of cases, that's the most likely scenario.

What you guys did was you were against all odds, and you're going to give the coach talk and all that, but in the end, like there's a lot that's out of your hands.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. I knew that you coached candidates. I did not know that that was a piece of the curricula, which I think is fantastic because the members of Congress that stand out to me are the ones who have a line.

I had this conversation with Pat Ryan recently who asks himself all the time and asks other prospective candidates, “What's your go no go point. Like what lines or line won't you cross?” And we see what happens to people, what happens to a party when they don't know where that line is?

I thought as so many people did that January 6th was the go no go line. It turns out, if that's not the line, there is no line and this party will go anywhere in its pursuit of power.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. It's why Romney, Kinzinger, Cheney … Jason and I have been in a perpetual conversation back and forth about how much credit we give to those people. I give them a lot of credit.

And the reason why I give them a lot of credit is because the experiment has been run and we know how much outliers they are.

And to me, that is admirable because sure, I would do differently, but I'm also so far from the position that they were in that like you can't judge me based on the statement that I would do things differently. Like you have to be in their position.

It's like saying, “If I were in Nazi Germany, I wouldn't be with the Nazis.” It's like until you're there and you make that decision under that amount of pressure, I should get no gold star for that.

And for those folks, they really jeopardize their careers. And there's a lot of things that I think they all have done that I disagree with, and I think moral stands that I wish they would've taken, but that's a big one. And they all paid us pretty serious price for that, especially Liz Cheney.

And I admire that. I'm not one of those democrats who's like holding some like impossible standard. I think that what they did was pretty courageous.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm with you. And I've actually come around on that because as a fierce partisan on big issues like reproductive rights and climate and things like that, I've been angry at the Kinzingers, and the Cheneys, and Romneys of the world, but one of the toughest things you can do is walk away from your tribe.

And you said they sacrificed their careers to do that. They also sacrificed in a very real way, their personal safety and the safety of their family members.

I mean, Romney was paying, what, $5,000 a week (granted, he can afford it) for personal security, but others haven't been able to afford that.

And I'm not going to betray any confidences, but I know a Republican member of Congress whose family was very credibly threatened in a public place. And nevertheless, he held the line and voted against Trump.

And yeah, it's easy for us to judge a Republican who votes against us on the issues we care about. But the fundamental issue in our society is preservation of democracy. At least it is right now. Because if that goes, none of the other issues matter, we can't litigate them.

But if we lose a fight over abortion, as long as we have our democracy, we can keep winning hearts and minds and Cheney, and Romney, and Kinzinger and the others. I know some listeners are going to hate that I say this, but they are heroes for at least defending democracy.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. I'm a big tent democrat, and actually, I would even say I'm a big tent person, period. Meaning that I wouldn't even ask these people to be Democrats. I just ask them to vote with us for democracy, both within whatever legislatures they're in. And then when candidates like Trump are on the ballot …

That is my one issue right now. I have a lot of other things I care passionately about, but nothing happens on any of the stuff we care about if the democracy isn't preserved. And we're once again barreling into an election where it's all on the line again.

Probably in ways that are even more significant than ever before, because Trump on a revenge tour is as dangerous as he could possibly be. And if he's able to survive all these indictments and win re-election, like I don't want to be alarmist, but like where do we go from there?

Ken Harbaugh:

Let me challenge your conditional statement there. Even if he doesn't survive the indictments, there's a lot to be worried about. I think too many people in our camp are putting too much faith in the potential successful outcomes of these prosecutions.

I'm not sure that gets us clear of the danger. There's nothing in the constitution that says that a president can't be running the military from prison.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. And actually, to clarify what I meant, I meant if he survives those cases and becomes president. Not that the cases will prevent him from becoming president, but the combination of those two is very dangerous. It'd be like a drug lord running the country, El Chappo from prison or something.

It's all scary. And this is just our defining characteristic of our generation. And look, like every generation has their calling.

And the way I try to frame it positively is we can't control what hand we’re dealt, but in a weird way, if there is going to be an era like this, I'd rather live in this era than like the ‘80s and ‘90s if we were the equivalent age, when honestly like there wasn't the same kind of fights over the future of the country. These things only come along every once in a while.

Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement. And I'm not saying these are exactly on par with that, but this is a serious threat to the country. And when you're trying to frame it positively, it's like, “Well, okay, we get to be tested as a generation.”

And there are different ways that you could show leadership. Like you don't have to be in Congress or the Senate to stand up and say this isn't acceptable and to do everything you possibly can.

And then when you're bouncing your grandkids on your knees, you could tell them about, “Hey, like I helped save this democracy.”

Or if you're in my mountain hideaway in Costa Rica hiding from the US authorities under the Trump dictatorship, we could be bouncing our grandkids on our knees up there in our jungle hideaway. But either way, we could at least say we fought the fight.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, that seems like a desperate search for a silver lining, but I guess I'll take it. And I don't think we'll be the ones volunteering their stories. I really do feel like this era is something our grandkids and great-grandkids are going to be talking about and wanting to learn about it. It is that historic.

Nobody really knows how long a democracy can last because we've already lasted longer than any democracy in history. Do we get another few hundred years, or is this it? And it really is in our hands, and that is epic. In every sense of the word, that is epochal.

So, yeah, in a way, I'm glad to be living through this time with at least some ability to influence outcomes.

I want to bring us full circle because when it comes to threats to democracy and undermining democratic norms and the institutions that uphold them, I think no one gets more credit than Josh Hawley.

He encouraged the insurrectionists, he objected to the certification. I think you're right. At the time I suspect he thought he was just making a name for himself and looking back had really no idea the forces he would unleash.

But now, you have a Senate that is falling apart. I mean, it bears almost no resemblance to the Senate of just a few years ago. You have all of these one person holds in complete disregard of the reason they exist and the decorum that usually governs them.

And just today, I want to roll this clip. We had a fight nearly breakout on the floor of the US Senate. A US senator challenged the head of the Teamsters to a cage fight on the floor of the Senate. Roll the clip. And then I want your thoughts.

Did you get a chance to watch it?

Ravi Gupta:

Oh, yeah.

Ken Harbaugh:

Ravi, I don't know what you could possibly say about that other than … and we're living in an era where the one body of government that used to be the cooling saucer is an embarrassment for us all.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. I mean, what republicans would say is you had the caning incident in the 1800s and all that, and there were fights. But like come on, like we're supposed to be better than previous generations. And nothing in recent memory resembles this.

Now, there's a couple interesting things about this clip. One is just the presence of Bernie Sanders is fascinating to me. It's so hilarious to me. I've never been a Bernie guy, but it is hilarious that that was Bernie in that room.

Two is, this obviously is a reflection of the fish rotting from the head down or whatever they say. Is like when you have the leader of your party bulldozing any norm and being such a selfish, aggressive character, then it gives license to everybody underneath him to do that.

And then the Teamsters guy like needs to bear some blame for this. You shouldn't be telling sitting senators you want to fight them. But I would put those three in that order.

I think that when you're a president and then senator and then Teamster president, like your responsibilities kind of rank in that order, but it doesn't make anybody look good.

And I think there was a previous hearing where there was a female labor leader on a panel when these two had fought it out before and were accusing each other of stuff.

And I think either she or somebody made a comment about the incident saying, “This is why we need more female labor leaders because this is clearly stupid.” Like nobody comes … only Bernie Sanders came out looking good in that exchange.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. Although the funniest criticism I heard of Bernie was that he should have let him fight.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. I mean, that's what Jason and I kind of said, but my sort of … I said this as a joke, but I have to really think about whether I actually believe it because it's possible I do. That letting them fight would've been better for our democracy, because it would've been the honest reflection of where we are.

Like actually having them fight would reveal … because nobody's watching this hearing otherwise. Like what people aren't seeing is that there's not other senators sitting at the table in a critical hearing. What people aren't seeing it's just two of them sitting there, from what I could tell, Bruce Sanders and this guy.

What they're not seeing is like the holds that you're talking about. Like I don't know how many Americans know about Tommy Tuberville's unconscious holds on military personnel.

You'd almost want this fight so that people can have a moment to say, “Whoa, something's out of control here in the Senate. And actually, I can make it tangible for you.” Like I almost think that would've been better.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. I don't know. But when Bernie Sanders said, “You're a US Senator, act like it.” What I began to think was, “Well, maybe this is how US Senators act.”

And it made me so sad because I guarantee you, this Oklahoma senator is going to go back to his state and turn this into an ad, or he's going to be high-fived by his buddies at the shooting range. Because they think that that tough guy act makes a man.

This is something else we need to talk about with respect to Hawley. He's offering a prescription to young men across America for what manliness is. I mean, he even wrote a book about it.

And it is just so sad to me that this vision of masculinity is being sold by the most powerful men in the country.

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah. I mean, this is in line with this sort of there's a spectrum. Obviously, the Hawley, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate. To be clear, I don't think Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate are in the same vicinity of each other.

But like this whole internet culture of speaking to the young men out there. Like the problem they're trying to address is out there. There is a problem.

And I'm sure you've talked about it on this show is like there's declining statistics in all sorts of alarming ways about young men in this country. And the GOP is preying upon them.

And what I found interesting about Josh Hawley's book is that he, on the one hand is like, “You're not the victim, yada, yada, yada.”

And then he precisely says in his book, and we did a whole segment on Majority 54 about it, he then proceeds to blame the liberals and everybody else for the problems of the young men sitting in their metaphorical basements.

And I'm like, look, whatever your problems are, and like we're young men, like we should all be coming together as a society to say, “What can we do?”

And the sad part is there's a version of Josh Hawley that could play a meaningful part of that. Like well, what could we do?

We could break up these mega corporations that are consolidating industries, cutting off pathways of employment for people, hollowing out middle America making it harder to get by.

We could talk about how this generation, the younger generation has become less affordable to buy a house, or to go to college, or to get healthcare and all that. That stuff is all getting in their way.

We could talk about national service. Which is something I'm sure you're passionate about. Like whether people serve in the military, or they become doctors, teachers, social workers. Why haven't we had an expansion of those programs at a time when we're talking about student loan debt.

Like why isn't there a group of people at the table hashing out a deal to say, “Alright, like let's actually push through robust student loan cancellation.”

But do it forward looking too, and say, “All these people go into these critical jobs. Let's expand. Like there's small programs that do this, but let's make them robust and say, if you become a teacher, you serve in the military … like make the GI bill more generous and then make it available to people who don't serve in the military too.”

And then you can have people from all over the country who are young people, we can pull them off the metaphorical couch, get them critical training, get them into jobs that we need.

I just got back from Mississippi earlier this fall where there's a critical doctor, and nurses, and teacher shortage. Let's send people out there, get them jobs and then they could rub shoulders.

A Staten Islander could rub shoulders with a person from the Bronx, and a person from the Bronx with a person from Abbey, Alabama. And one person at a time, we could build this shared empathy of each other in this country.

I don't know, I'll get off my soapbox, but like these are the kinds of things that these folks should be getting involved in if they truly care about the plight of young men in this country.

Ken Harbaugh:

I agree with you a hundred percent. And I mean, there are so many aspects to masculinity, and in my mind, none of them are performative. None of them have to do with packing heat, carrying a gun around, or fist pumping insurrectionists.

And I think it's telling that Hawley literally launched his book Manhood at the Stronger Men's Conference that opened with, I don't know if you've seen this, but you've got to-

Ravi Gupta:

No.

Ken Harbaugh:

You've got to look it up. Maybe I'll cut to it here. It opens with a Jesus or Chuck Norris lookalike (it's hard to tell) driving a tank, crushing cars flanked by flamethrowers, and he's got UZIs that he's shooting into the air.

And that seems to be the vision of masculinity that the right led by Josh Hawley is selling today. And it's just depressing.

Ravi Gupta:

Oh yeah. I mean, the thing is like I mean, I don't know how to put this, but Josh Hawley wouldn't have ranked as the thousandth most masculine person I knew in New Haven at that period of time. And so, he seems like a strange vessel for this.

And what masculinity is or is not is such a complicated question, but I think of it as like … and also, I think that like what liberals should be comfortable with is acknowledging the importance of it.

And Scott Galloway, and I think some others have eloquently talked about this, and I do think that there's a need for people who are centrist and liberals who are willing to acknowledge the place that masculinity and young men have in this world.

And like the obvious thing to say is that the biggest problem has and will always be for the rest of our lives, discrimination against women. Like that is obvious. But that can coexist with the problem that young men have today.

And there are different problems in many ways. Some of them rhyme or whatever. But I think it's important for more voices on the left and the center to speak to young men and make them feel like they're heard.

And I do think that there's some room for that. There's more room for that. And I think we just need to build counters to that, that uplift people instead of making them feel like they're victims.

Ken Harbaugh:

Agree as well. We've got a project in the works, hope to be able to share more about it soon. Any interesting topics or guests coming up on Majority 54 or with anything else you're doing?

Ravi Gupta:

Yeah, I would say they're twofold. One is well, this week on Majority 54 or whenever you air this, like we basically hit whatever the topics are of the week. So, that's always a great listen.

And we kind of have been having a perpetual debate. Last week we had one about whether Biden should run again. And Jason and I were on different sort of corners on that one. So, people could listen to that.

And I think what people will find is that it was a more candid conversation than I think a lot of like sort of the big left-wing politics are willing to go.

But on Lost Debate, which is like my kind of non-partisan podcast, we've seen huge growth of our audience over the past few weeks just because I've been doing a lot of content on the Israel Palestinian conflict and people can go to that feed at Lost Debate.

And what you'll see is, if you go back a couple episodes, I did a four-part series on the history of the Palestinian Israeli conflict, which are the most listened to episodes we've ever had.

And there's a part one, and I call it the unbiased history, even though like nobody's unbiased, but I give my like as objective as to take as possible. So, I go to unbiased history one, unbiased history two. I do a history of Hamas.

And then I've started to do contemporary episodes on what's going on now, where I start to share my opinions.

But with the history, what I tried to do is make it so that if you're listening to it, you wouldn't know what my opinion is about the conflict if you did listen to it. So, those have been really popular. You can go check those out at the Lost Debate Show.

Ken Harbaugh:

Awesome. We will put that link in the show notes. I'll check it out myself.

Ravi, as always, great catching up with you.

Ravi Gupta:

Thank you, my friend.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks again to Ravi for joining me. Check out the show description for links to Ravi's podcasts and make sure to follow him on Twitter @RaviMGupta.

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter @Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

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