Amanda Carpenter and Evan Gershkovich: Trump's and Putin's Authoritarian Projects

Tim Miller (0:12)

Hello, and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller, coming at you live from Washington DC. The Bulwark HQ, so Charlie XCX last night. Segment one, we've got the Charlie of the Bulwark diaspora. Stick around for segment two, we have Evan Gershkovich, who has a new book out, This Cursed Beautiful Land, about the 500 days he spent in a Russian prison targeted by Putin when he was reporting in the country. It's a really great conversation, so do stick around for that. But first, formerly of the Bulwark, she's now a writer and editor at protectdemocracy.org. Their substack is, if you can keep it, it's Amanda Carpenter. What's up, girl?

Amanda Carpenter (0:45)

Hey, I think I should be complimented by being compared to Charlie XCX, but I'm not totally sure. That said, I do need some advice. My daughter wanted me to take her to a concert. Her favorite band Weezer is in town in DC, so we're going. I have not been to a concert probably in 15 years, so I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, but I think the vibes will be high and I'm very excited.

Tim Miller (1:07)

Where is Weezer playing?

Amanda Carpenter (1:08)

At Capital One Center in DC. So we're driving on in on Friday night.

Tim Miller (1:12)

They're still selling out the arenas.

Amanda Carpenter (1:14)

The shins are going to open and Silver Sun pickups.

Tim Miller (1:18)

Look at this. Weezer Blue Album, when I was in fifth grade, was the first CD I bought. I'd bought tapes before that because we're old. But the first CD I bought was the Weezer Blue Album, Say It Ain't So. Maybe we'll take people out with a little Say It Ain't So.

Amanda Carpenter (1:33)

Let me inform you of this. My kids who are middle school and high schooler, they all like to collect CDs like vintage albums now. So she does have the blue CD. My son is into gorillas.

All these bands are big right now, and they all have CD collections that they're building out like old timey things that sit on their shelves. 90s nostalgia. Live with that one.

Tim Miller (1:54)

Just put me in the grave. Okay, you all have a great time. I'll send you to, she'll have a great time. Reno's bumping there, doing some renovations. It was good last night. Same spot. We're kind of already doing a vibe check. So let's start with that. Because you have to schlep in to Capital One Arena from the boonies.

You're out there in Trump country. I do like to just kind of do a check in with you. Like, what's the sign? Like, are you seeing signs, you know, the hats, hat count, you know, small talk at children's sporting events, catching any vibes?

Amanda Carpenter (2:23)

I've got to say, the signs have not been out. It is very low key. We ran a 5K on Saturday night, which was a fundraiser for a local sports team. My son dusted me, which is just embarrassing because he's 13 years old, has not trained and just demolished me. So that's good and bad in many ways. But the local Republican Party was sponsoring it. And it was just no signs about anything, just the elephant, like kind of old school. So I was a little bit like, oh, is this going to be like a MAGA thing?

No, low key, quiet, vibes are low.

Tim Miller (2:56)

Now not to brag about. It gives me just a slight worry about the polls. It kind of cuts both ways, right? On the one hand, midterms are all about turnout and enthusiasm. So if the Democrats really enthused to answer polls, that means they're going to be enthused to turn out. But I'm a little worried that the MAGA crowd is just kind of embarrassed right now. These here, the Sincera's Focus groups, and they get a political poll and they're like, I'm not going to do that today, but maybe they still vote. I'm a little worried that there's kind of a little undercount happening. We'll keep an eye on it. I want to do the Protect Democracy side of the midterms first.

Since we've been Hopium-pilled lately on the podcast, I want to start with the Hopium side of it, which is they have a ton of failures on this front, and they've been trying to rig the midterms or at least put their thumb on the scale or influence the midterms.

Basically, as soon as he got in, redistricting, flop, the mail-in voting takeover is a flop, election lies, a bunch of other stuff. Just kind of wondering, like, what your assessment is, having been kind of monitoring and fighting all these efforts.