Sarah Longwell & Doug Jones

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And in a five to four ruling, the Supreme Court says that Donald Trump's likely unlawful ballroom construction can continue. We have such a great show for you today.
The Bulwark Zone, Sarah Longwell stops by to talk about Trump's record breaking disapproval and her new book, How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. Then we'll talk to former Senator Doug Jones about his run for Alabama governor against Florida resident Tommy Tuberville. But first the news.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:45)
So Molly, this whistleblower at the postal service is warning that the ballot system could fail.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:54)
So 30% of all Americans vote by mail. And Donald Trump would like 30% of all Americans not to vote because he knows how it's going to go and it's going to go bad for him. The good news is that we have whistleblowers. The good news is that there are people who are not partisans, who are just want American democracy to continue. And you know, this is something I've said before, and I think it's like we don't spend enough time talking about this, but like you can't go from normal to authoritarianism. Like this quickly, we have checks and balances still. As much as Trump has tried to get rid of some of those checks and balances, we still have some left. And that's very sad for Trump, but it's good news for us.
And so here's what happened. We had somebody in the post office. He went to this really great organization that helps whistleblowers. Remember, Donald Trump fired a bunch of inspector generals. He did things in order to make it so that it was harder for people to do things like spot crime and report crime.
And that's what this person did here. They came forward and they have gotten, you know, Blumenthal's office. And now we are going to see much more oversight in the post office. And we're going to see that the courts are not going to go along with this. So, all of this is to say that everybody needs to vote as hard as humanly possible.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:24)
Yeah. So, there's a whole lot of messaging bills and fun stuff going around Congress.
One is got a little poison pill of the Save Act in it. Another is a bunch of dems voting to condemn socialism. I'm just wondering why we are doing this in the general. What are you seeing?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:41)
First of all, so this is a GOP's anti-socialism bill. And what they're trying to do is make candidates who are trying to win in red states say they're socialist or say that they won't disavow socialism. Look, the house is back for a very short window. Mike Johnson knows he's going to lose. He is fucking panicking, and they're trying every weird thing they can. The point is, what is socialism? Is socialism health care? Is socialism having the city pick up your trash? Is socialism paving the street? All of this stuff is like nothing means anything and words don't even matter. So there are people in this country, and I think of looking at you, Elon Musk, who consider socialism to be like food safety, you know?
And as we've recently experimented with food safety, you know, by the way, every time I eat something now, I think like, is this going to make me sick in a month?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:36)
Literally, I got a stomach ache from a thing the other day that should not have given me a stomach ache, and I was like, oh, good. Is this where it ends?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:44)
There's a lot of fucked up shit going through the house right now, and that is because these are all messaging bills. They're not going to go anywhere. They're trying to make it so Republicans can win. It's all just absolute theater, and it's theater for no one because no one cares.
I mean, fine, vote against socialism, whatever.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:06)
Yeah, I just wish we'd stop giving into letting them control this conversation and just move on to issues.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:12)
Well, there's two different things here, right? There's letting them control the conversation and then letting them control the house. And right now, they have the gavel, so they can do whatever they want. It's very stupid. And the point here is that this condemn socialism resolution has the Save America Act hidden in it. So the idea is if you vote against it, they can be like, oh, you wouldn't condemn socialism, whatever. It's beyond stupid.