Desi Lydic

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Jon Stewart

you're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for news. This is the Daily show with your host, Jon Stewart. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. Welcome to the Daily Show. My name is Jon Stewart. Welcome, everybody. Thank you, thank you. Class is in session, everybody. Got a great show for you tonight. Former Wisconsin DNC chair Ben Wickler is going to be here later. He has a plan to save our democracy. Unfortunately, it's in book form. So no one will find out about it. No, you'll read the book. It's an excellent book. Of course. By the way, the World cup ended yesterday. Finito with Spain defeating Argentina 1 nil on the pitch in the footy, the Spain Argentina final was like a reverse shot super bowl where the players spoke Spanish and the halftime show was in English. They had Madonna and Justin Bieber and for some reason, the Muppets. Holy shit, is that the count? You got all the Muppets to choose from. Why in God's name would you make the vampire work during the day? Not only is it the bright glare of the afternoon sun, but for most of the game the score was zero. Zero. You're taunting this poor bastard. I sat in traffic for 1, 2, 3 hours for this. I'm burning alive. By the way, congrats to World cup championship Spain, Espana, clearly the best team in this year's tournament and they celebrated receiving the World cup trophy with a trophy hoist, which is traditionally. It's a moment that is shared really only by the players. A special moment that is only for the players. It is really. What the are you doing on the stage? It's for the players. God damn. Why must everything be tainted by the over inflated ego of Kenkels Muldoon? Why? Why? I will admit this afterwards, Trump had some really insightful post game analysis. I thought it was incredible. It was four times greater than any FIFA ever held. What's a FIFA? How do you hold a FIFA? How could our FIFA be four times greater than any other FIFA? And it's probably about five times. Actually. They're telling me today? Is that what they told you? You know they're telling you that because everyone around you lies to you because you were a weirdo. Can we go back a second, though? And I don't mean to. What's up with the guy behind Trump? Can we see that again? Can you bring that out? What the. Who the is this guy? Who the is this? Is this. What? Who in the world is it? Oh, my God. Is that a backup Trump? Is that. Wait a minute. Wait, hold on a second. Wait, what? Wait, who, what? Is that a backup Trump or is that Trump? Wait, is the one we've been dealing with Back up Trump or is that Trump's. Let's move on from the World cup final to something with no actual end in sight. The Iran war. The Iran war is reigniting. And as escalation continues with more intense and widespread bombing, there's no sign that either side is prepared in any way to. God. This is. You're not in this graphic. You're not in this graphic. We have talked about this. You're not in this graphic. Get him out of the graphic. So needy. Is that real Trump or backup? I don't know what's happened. Anyway, clearly the war is escalating and Americans are rightly concerned that we will be drawn even further into a war that has already cost too much in American lives and money. And so it was that Donald Trump delivered a primetime national speech on Thursday night to address this urgent situation. In mid-2018, China was working to influence the results of the US midterm elections and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot, when actually your president has done a great job. Those Chinese bastards. I'll have you know both presidents Trump are hot as and doing a great job. Blue tie is doing a little better than red tie, but still. But yes, apparently the President of the United States called this meeting to announce a new entry in his long running mystery series, 2020 Election. What had happened was with the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden. Illegal aliens and dead people are voting.

Ben Wickler

Big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analysis have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes.

Jon Stewart

Sure, that surely would have changed the outcome. I remember back in 2020 when we were all wearing masks and socially distancing for fear we would come across a Hunter Biden dick pic. So now they've settled on Maybe China did it. A theory that lasted all the way until a few minutes after Thursday night's speech when reporters caught up with John Solomon, the guy Trump hired to find any evidence that China did it. Do you acknowledge that there were no

Ben Wickler

votes changed in 2020? All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows.

Desi Lydic

Right.

Ben Wickler

I only know the intelligence community has zero evidence that someone has flipped, that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 22 or 24. The 2020 election was in fact the results as we, the American public. I'm still researching, so let me, let me. This is the first one, but there'. There is no intelligence.

Jon Stewart

Can he still see me? The man's literally backpedaling. Look, we have fun, but I'm not actually worried about our election security because we have a robust cybersecurity and infrastructure agency that monitors threats to our system. Knowing that that's a priority of the Trump administration gives me great comfort.

Ben Wickler

Trump fired a third of the workers last year at cisa. The cybersecurity and infrastructure agency.

Jon Stewart

No. Well, that news would have me shitting my pants if I wasn't already shitting my pants due to the cuts to our food monitoring system that has produced. A nationwide diarrhea outbreak. But at least we have that outbreak under control as our incredibly competent FDA has finally identified the source of the outbreak.

Desi Lydic

The Food and Drug Administration now taking back what it said about the source of the cyclospora outbreak, the FDA now says the sample from Mexico based Taylor

Jon Stewart

Farms was a false positive.

Desi Lydic

The FDA admitted it made a mistake and apologized.

Jon Stewart

Don't apologize to me. Apologize to this great nation's gaping, burning anus. You know what I'm talking about. We were talking about it in the questions before the show. Many of these people are here even though clearly have diarrhea. But you know what? It doesn't even matter. It's fine. We're okay. We can still soothe our burning anuses in the cool, crystal clear waters of our nation's Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Ben Wickler

Tonight, the reflecting pool in the nation's

Jon Stewart

capital being drained again? No, the reflecting pool's closed. Where will we wash our lettuce? You know, I'm starting to get the sense that this administration is not as competent. Stay with me. Not as competent as we've been led to believe. And it's not just the pool or the diarrhea. Trump said he was going to cut our energy bills in half. Electricity is up 18%. He said gas prices would go below 2 bucks a gallon. It's up to 4 bucks a gallon. He said he was going to stop new wars. He's bombed at least seven other countries. He said he was going to lead a boom in manufacturing jobs. We've lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. They said they would be saying Merry Christmas again. No one's wishing me Merry Christmas. In March, This country was going to enter a golden age because only qualified people would be in charge now. They promised no more of the woke bullshit that had held this country down for so long. We will terminate every diversity, equity and inclusion program. DEI is a cancer.

Ben Wickler

It's a cancer that destroys merit.

Jon Stewart

We want the most competent people. They have to be at the highest level of genius. A meritocracy. Isn't that a beautiful word? Meritocracy? Meritocracy. It is a beautiful word. Where the.

Ben Wickler

It.

Jon Stewart

Where is this meritocracy? We have seen no evidence of it. None. It's just another word like diaphanous or Jimothy. May I just say something quickly about Jimothy? Hear me out. Hear me out. I with Jimothy. I with Jimmy P. I with him. Heavy. Now, I know some of you were perhaps worried about what I might say because of my previous punch kerfuffle. Let me tell you people something. Jimothy is everything Punch wishes he could be. Yes. Yes. Look, look. Look at Jimothy. Look at him cavorting. That's his family cavorting with Jimothy when he was a baby. Look at them all. They love Jimothy. That's not my judgment. That is the judgment of the community. They have decided. Not an easy decision, by the way. I'm sure at first they were like, is that a raccoon or an ottoman? I don't know what that. But I'll tell you what, I think. Jimothy is a short king. Point is, Jimothy has merit, unlike all those that were running the government before Trump. And Trump's merry band of gifted and talented technocrats decked in to save the day. First stop for them to save the day was the economy. No longer would our nation's growth engine be hijacked by lesbians and Latin exes. No, the best and the brightest would be in charge from here on out. And the results to the economy would be immediate. I think we're off to a great start. And President Trump's going to bring back the golden age. Yes, but unfortunately, DEI had a greater stranglehold on the levers of our government than we had originally thought.

Ben Wickler

The first quarter, surely, Biden.

Jon Stewart

Oh, all right. Well, the first quarter, then Q2. That ends in April. So April is when our best and brightest finally it's coming and it's coming now. And I tell you what, it feels great. Enough about your Epstein testimony. What about the economy in the not too distant future? I think we will be back to firing on all cylinders. So May over the next three months. So the economy will be fixed by our meritocracy. Three months by August of 2025. I think we're going to really pick up in the fourth. So no later than December of 2025. I think we are at the cusp of the liftoff in 2026, 2027. That is a long lift off. Generally a liftoff is 10, 9, 8. Not January, February, March. Well, you know what? If this ever competent administration can't turn this woke laden economy around, they still have options. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of $30, you know, and maybe the $2 will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally see. That's what the competence has gotten us. That's what the meritocracy has done for us. The economy is going to boom in a month, in a year, in two years. You know what? How many dolls do you people need? Just get two and cut them. Now you got 16. Older kids get the tops, younger ones get the bottoms. Punch gets whatever's left over. This, This meritocracy talk was a sham from the get go. Remember once uber capable Elon Musk doged out the unworthy woke deep state minorities. We were supposed to have been cooking with whatever is available to use as fuel.

Ben Wickler

Doge firing thousands of IRS workers, creating chaos.

Jon Stewart

Hundreds of layoffs at the Centers for disease control, the FAA and FEMA.

Desi Lydic

3,500 jobs from the FDA.

Ben Wickler

Hundreds of senior staff at the Department of Homeland Security making cuts to the National Weather Service as severe weather moves into the south.

Jon Stewart

Laid off nearly all four federal workers who investigate firefighter deaths.

Desi Lydic

Accidentally fired some veterinarians and animal health technicians working to prevent the spread of bird flu.

Jon Stewart

You fired the people trying to prevent bird flu? Who's gonna teach birds how to sneeze into their elbow? All right, maybe Doge sending in teenage ubermensches to gut entire departments on ideological grounds might have led to some problems. But hey, at least they reduced the federal deficit. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero.

Ben Wickler

Did you reduce the federal deficit?

Jon Stewart

No, we didn't. Well, the real treasure was the friends you made along the way. Oh wait. You made no. Friends up and down this administration, we were promised meritocracy. We got ideologues and talk show hosts who, as we reignite a new war with Iran, to reopen the strait that they closed because of our original war. Throw out shit like this. Today, I'm authorizing a new screening program

Ben Wickler

for testosterone deficiency for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.

Jon Stewart

That's your idea? Hey, you can't spell meritocracy without more tea. Yeah, that's right. Watch out, Iran. We just declared war on deez nuts. Or how about Health and Human Services? How's old Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Doing with that? A growing measles outbreak, Deadly outbreak of

Desi Lydic

the hantavirus, the flesh eating screwworm, is spreading beyond Texas.

Jon Stewart

So help me God, if Jimothy gets screw worm, I will go crazy. But it's okay, folks. There's no need to be concerned that public health will suffer from unqualified, incomprehensible leadership. They've already dealt with the real problem. We cut a billion dollars worth of DEI studies. DEI research has never cured any disease. It's produced any new drugs. Okay, now excuse for a moment. That what he just said is factually wrong. That the broad nature of what they consider DEI would exclude treatments for sickle cell anemia, autism, pregnancy complication, women's cardiovascular health, and many other great advances made by the people you all consider suspect. But for you, Robert Kennedy Jr. Of all people, to have the balls to hop on board the anti DEI only meritocracy train. Mother, if your name wasn't Kennedy, here's how all your job interviews would go. It says here you are a heroin addiction who eats roadkill. Um, do you have any references? I mean, I knew Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby came to my house. I was on Jeffrey Epstein's jet two times. Welcome aboard. You know, it's insane. This whole thing is insane. It's one thing to fall short in his duty to country, but Trump's meritocracy is even struggling with the one thing Trump was supposed to be good at. Petty revenge. Like the cases he tried to bring against James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Tonight, a federal judge throwing out both

Ben Wickler

criminal cases against two of President Trump's biggest political foes.

Jon Stewart

Judge Cameron Curry finding the prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was not an attorney authorized by law to conduct grand jury proceedings. Well, you can't spell meritocracy. Well, I think actually they can't spell it. But forget lawfare. Trump's Meritocracy couldn't even do State Fair More hiccups for the Great American State Fair at the National Mall struggling to draw a crowd.

Desi Lydic

10 states or territories did not show up.

Ben Wickler

Pillars that hover above ground, vinyl wrapped

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buildings have crinkled on occasion.

Jon Stewart

The power went out in the Food hall at one point and also on

Ben Wickler

the Ferris wheel, and part of the

Desi Lydic

stage fell while dancers were rehearsing. They can't bring their own water.

Ben Wickler

First responders treating people for heat related illnesses, others huddling under a replica of President Trump's triumphal arch for shade.

Jon Stewart

Is there a better image that represents the rise of Trump's meritocracy than the MAGA faithful huddling under a plywood replica of a memorial Trump is going to erect to himself using money that should have gone to the weather services that would have warned these people about the heat wave they were seeking refuge from? Alerty oh Lord, oh great Donald Trump, bring me your heat. Stroked your board, your huddled masses yearning to rehydrate for this is Trump's America. We were told over and over again that the problem in this country is that government only exists to the benefit of the entitled DEI mooching class. But the reality seems to be that their version of meritocracy only rewards legacy, fealty and access, leaving the rest of us with the real DEI diarrhea everywhere, indefinitely. When we come back, Ben Whitler will join us in the studio. Don't go away.

Desi Lydic

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Jon Stewart

Hello, welcome back to the Daily Show. Oh my guest tonight, political organizer and strategist, former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the author of the new book this Is the Plan, how to end America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. Please welcome to the program Ben Winkler. Sir, I won it. So good. This is the plan.

Ben Wickler

This is the plan.

Jon Stewart

And let me remind the people so they may think to themselves Ben Wickler's got a plan. I don't know Ben Wickler. I don't know why he would have a plan. Talk to me a little bit about the genesis of this because you ran the DNC in Wisconsin. And for those who do not know the story of Wisconsin this century is Scott Walker and a Republican takeover of a state where they tried to rig the maps, they tried to rig the courts, they tried to do supermajorities of a relatively purple state. You helped devise the plan to fight that successfully. So talk about what happened there.

Ben Wickler

Absolutely so and thank you for all

Jon Stewart

that, for all the time we have.

Ben Wickler

So my state, Wisconsin, which has a deep progressive tradition and a deep far right tradition. Joe McCarthy's from Wisconsin.

Jon Stewart

Yes, so. So is fightin Bob.

Ben Wickler

So is fighting Bob La Follette. It's the place where workers compensation, unemployment insurance, the Social Security act was written by a Wisconsinite. All these things, great things came from our state. Progressive taxation, first state to ratify the 19th amendment and also this far right street that runs through the state's history. We zigzag sort of like the country. But in 2010 there was this huge right wing wave fueled in part by Citizens United.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

And my senator, Russ Feingold, who I'd interned for, was my political hero. He'd passed campaign finance reform to get big money out of politics. He was swept out, replaced by Ron Johnson. In the state legislature, Republicans won, had been Democratic. They won majorities in both chambers. They won the governorship. But when they came into power, they didn't just do the right wing things that they talked about. They immediately tried to rig the system permanently so they'd never lose control. They attacked unions, they basically declared war on teachers, created a teacher crisis in the state. They rigged our maps more than the country is gerrymandered right now. They passed one of the most extreme voter suppression laws in the nation. The judge said it was the most extreme anti voting law in the nation. The next election, 2012, Democrats won statewide. Barack Obama won. Tammy Baldwin won. In the US Senate race. Republicans majority in the state legislature grew even though they got less votes than the Democrats because they rigged the system so they'd never lose control.

Jon Stewart

They were rigging the state legislature, state legislature so that they would always have a majority or super majority or something akin to that.

Ben Wickler

At that point majority. They went for super majorities later.

Jon Stewart

And where's this Wisconsin Supreme Court in this right in that moment.

Ben Wickler

So Wisconsin state Supreme Court was almost evenly divided. There was an incredibly close state supreme court race in the state spring of 2011. Republicans held on to their majority by less than 1 percentage point.

Jon Stewart

Okay.

Ben Wickler

And that meant that the state had a state supreme court that rubber stamped everything they did. So basically Wisconsin, all the maps.

Jon Stewart

Everything.

Ben Wickler

All the maps. The voter suppression law. They basically allowed Scott Walker and his friends and cronies, the Koch brothers network, this sort of far right billionaire donor network to break election laws. And then they changed the campaign finance and election laws to suit their model of, of winning elections. And once they'd broken democracy, they started defunding public services. So there were suddenly people called them Scott holes after Scott Walker. Potholes in the roads all over the state. People had to spend hundreds of dollars a year.

Jon Stewart

So what they're doing is unpopular in the state. But the way that they have Jerry rigged the system, unpopularity was no longer a barrier to re election.

Ben Wickler

That's exactly it. And that's the con, right?

Jon Stewart

The con is I've written a book.

Ben Wickler

This is the Jon Stewart plan.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

So it almost worked. Donald Trump in 2016 won Wisconsin.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

Narrow margin, narrow margin, less than 1 percentage point. A lot of our elections come down to less than 1 percentage point. They had cemented what looked like, for the foreseeable future, control of the state legislature.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

And the state supreme court was so dominated by the right that in 2017, there was only one uncontested far right candidate. No one wanted to run against that person. Someone wrote that it looked like the right was gonna dominate the state supreme court.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

For a generation to come. It seemed as though they'd succeeded. And Wisconsin wasn't the only state where this happened. Take Iowa.

Jon Stewart

Iowa. Take Florida.

Ben Wickler

Take Florida. Wisconsin in 2018.

Jon Stewart

No, I'm saying take Florida

Ben Wickler

state after state in 2018. The right had a plan. They called it red map. They invested in winning state legislative races, and then as soon as they won, they used their power like getting a genie and wishing for more wishes to lock in control so that even if voters rejected them in the future, they would always have majorities of the votes in the legislature.

Jon Stewart

They could not be fired to make themselves unaccountable. North Carolina's tried to, you know, a Democratic governor, whenever they win North Carolina, the North Carolina legislature, if it has Republicans on it, makes a new law saying, yeah, the governor is not allowed to do anything.

Ben Wickler

That's exactly it. And they did. Same thing in Wisconsin. And my view, and I argue this in the book, is that Project 2025 is reheated. Project 2011. This is a nationalized version of what they've been doing in the states when they took control.

Jon Stewart

That's right.

Ben Wickler

Which is to defund public services, to rip off the public, to give tax cuts to the super wealthy and then break democracy so that when people don't like what they're doing, they have no say in the matter of fixing it.

Jon Stewart

But as we stand here today, the governor of Wisconsin is now a Democrat. The state supreme court of Wisconsin now has a more progressive majority.

Ben Wickler

5 2. Pro democracy majority.

Jon Stewart

And the legislature in Wisconsin is also now fair maps.

Ben Wickler

And Democrats have at least an even chance of flipping both legislative chambers on November 4th.

Jon Stewart

So. So riddle me this, Batman. How? Because writ large, that seems to be what is happening now on a national level. So what did you do?

Ben Wickler

So this is. I'm proud of having played a role. This is thousands of people, including the state party chair before me, who worked on the groundwork laid by the state party chair before her allies, national unions, they'd been decimated in Wisconsin. People still kept investing, kept volunteering. But what happened in Wisconsin is that we, a big. We Built a movement of people who rolled up their sleeves and decided to keep fighting. In mayor's races, school board races, in local judicial elections, in state supreme court races, where it seemed like we were going to always be outgunned and had basically no hope. We fought for all these different offices and mapped out a plan for what it would actually take to unrig the system. So that when people were like, why should I even work in the state legislative race when we know who's going to have the majority, the answer is, if we stop the Republican supermajority, then if we win the state supreme court race and flip the majority there, they can pass new maps and the supermajority can't override the governor's veto. It's this intricate zigzagging puzzle.

Jon Stewart

Which one of these is Milwaukee? I can't figure out. But how did you inspire people to not feel anxious and helpless, like they couldn't do anything? Like this was a fait accompli, what was done? Somebody had to design the idea of how you could take it back, but somebody had to activate all those regular people to get involved.

Ben Wickler

I will tell you this. When the system was built, starting in 2017, before I moved home to Wisconsin, the idea was, we're gonna find people in their living rooms who wanna be part of the solution. Ask people to get friends together and say, we're going to be responsible for our neighborhood. There's this huge big picture. We're all part of this big fight, but we're gonna start here in this neighborhood in the election that's coming up in April that no one else in the country even knows is happening. But we're gonna roll up our sleeves. And elections here are so close so often that it might be that the five extra voters we find add up to enough around the state to tip this thing by a couple thousand votes.

Commercial/Advertisement Voice

Mm.

Ben Wickler

And it actually started to work in races where Democrats kind of hadn't been focused in the same way, you know, nationally. Love, love me some Democrats. Democrats can get focused on who the next presidential candidate will be in 2028. It's 2026 right now.

Jon Stewart

Right.

Ben Wickler

Instead of saying there is a judicial election happening in a month that could determine whether the state is gerrymandered for the next 16 years.

Jon Stewart

Right.

Ben Wickler

And we brought the focus to these local races that added up in the kind of web of how American political power works in this country, that added up to enough power to unrig our state system.

Jon Stewart

What I love about the book is you get specific on what Actually on a molecular level, make up the levers of power from local to state areas and how you need to get involved. And it's very much a logistical and architectural blueprint for that. And I haven't seen something like that written in such an accessible way for people to get ahold of. And it's great.

Ben Wickler

Thank you.

Jon Stewart

Who is. But who is the Ben Wickler who is going to do that for what Democrats should stand for at the same level of specificity and connection? Because the blueprint is great. It strikes me as you've built an incredible vehicle, but the fuel is the inspiration that people get from candidates. I feel like the conditions that sparked this right wing revolution that people started to feel like government was no longer responsible in any meaningful way to the effects that their policies had on people writ large. That's the area where this fills in a ton of gaps. Who's filling in that other side that isn't boilerplate? Like, we've got to talk to them like real people at the kitchen table. And you're like, shut up. Who's doing that work?

Ben Wickler

Here's what I'll say. There are dozens of people thinking about running for president. There are amazing people running for governor and Senate and Congress around the country. They are talking, you know, a lot of the great ones are talking about they want this policy. They want that policy that will solve a problem in people's actual lives. What I try to do in this book is say if you actually want to pass policies that can stick and actually deliver for people ways that they can touch and see and feel, you have to unrig a political system that right now is built to allow a handful of far right billionaires to write the rules for everyone and face no accountability. We In Wisconsin, after 2024, Elon Musk came to my state to try.

Jon Stewart

He bought it.

Ben Wickler

He tried to buy it.

Jon Stewart

Yeah.

Ben Wickler

He tried to undo what we'd done in the state supreme Court.

Jon Stewart

That's right.

Ben Wickler

He went to Green Bay, Wisconsin. He put on a cheesehead and he said, you might not think that this election will affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will. And for him, this was demonstration that these pesky little Wisconsinites could not stand up to the world's richest man, that everyone needed to fear him. He spent more money in that race than anyone's ever spent in any judicial election in American history. And then we beat his ass by 10 percentage points and he was booted out of the White House.

Jon Stewart

I get it. See, this is what I like about this is what you present here is the theory of the case for power. You even make the case that the filibuster should be abolished. And I generally knowing how the Senate is in many ways affirmative action for Republicans and just in the way that it's established now that made me nervous. But the case you make is no, blow it up. Let them do the thing they want to do. When the country sees what it is, there will be a backlash to the poor nature of the policy. And then Democrats can come in and if they develop proper policies and can execute them competently, we'll have a chance to finally execute them.

Ben Wickler

The American political system right now is Democrats get control, they mess everything up, the country goes into crisis. Imagine 2008 flip that.

Jon Stewart

I think you might have.

Ben Wickler

Excuse me.

Jon Stewart

Thank you.

Ben Wickler

Good point. Jesus. Let me say that again.

Jon Stewart

Have you read this book Wickler? All right. Do I have to do everything around here?

Ben Wickler

Let me try again right now the way our political system works. The U.S. supreme Court has had a majority appointed by Republicans since 1970.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

And in electoral politics, Republicans come in, they get control of the federal government, they screw everything up.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

George W. Bush. We get to 2008, global financial meltdown, disastrous forever. Wars going on and on, mass death. Then you have a Democrat coming in, Barack Obama. Great. Very exciting. Some emergency legislation passes to clean up that mess. But so much of what Democrats fight for and organize for and advocate for, so much of the inspiring vision cannot pass.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

Because of the 60 vote filibuster in the US Senate passes, bills pass through the House, they die in the Senate. It's a mausoleum for the policies that people are begging for. Overwhelming majorities of the public. Things people want things like health care, things like. Sure, yeah. So then what happens? Then people are like, oh, this sucks. Democrats didn't give us. You haven't delivered. You haven't delivered.

Jon Stewart

That's right.

Ben Wickler

Let's vote for change. Let's get the other House.

Jon Stewart

But to be fair, oftentimes they don't. Yeah, but why is that?

Ben Wickler

It's because the system right now is structured to stop things from actually happening.

Jon Stewart

Oh, I'll give you that. That's for sure.

Ben Wickler

You have to change the system. It's. And this, this is my argument. It's a change of system.

Jon Stewart

So right now in Wisconsin and I'm going to move my hands as much as you. You can't out. Let's do this. You can out move me. I've long just because they're longer my chair rolls show you these chairs. John this is who writes the rules in our system. That's right. But. All right, so now you got a governor's election now in Wisconsin. Evers is out. Right. He's done.

Ben Wickler

He's serve two. Great.

Jon Stewart

You've got a system. You've got some progressive candidates, you've got some establishment candidates. The party is not backing any of the progressive candidates that have the plan. They want to stick with the establishment candidates that might not want to rock that boat. Why? Why is that? Because what you're discussing is what moderates those plans sometimes what makes it not be able to. People always say, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good, but don't let the good be the enemy of what will fix it. And that we tend to be in that position all the time.

Ben Wickler

So in Wisconsin, the way that the party works, which I think is a good way that the party works, the party says, whoever comes out of the primary, we're going to be the boots on the ground to support that person, get them through the finish line. But the party itself, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, will not put its finger on the scale. I'm now the former chair. My successor, chair Devin Reminger. His commitment is we're going to work with every candidate to make sure they know how the general election can unfold. And then we hit go. I think that people lose trust when they feel like the party is trying to decide these things in smoke filled rooms. It should be the voters who choose the nominees.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

And then we go to this with whoever that.

Jon Stewart

In some ways there's a real energy amongst, you know, the progressive candidate in Wisconsin. Would you. Would you agree?

Ben Wickler

I think there's tons of grassroots energy and, you know, there's a. Yeah, you can see it surging and. Yeah, sure.

Jon Stewart

But it feels like they're trying to not make that happen.

Ben Wickler

There are different elect. So there are currently five candidates for governor.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

I think there's a lot of candidates.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

Have a lot of big ideas. A lot of them describe themselves as definitely progressive. One's a democratic socialist. There's a variety of different views and strategies for how to get there.

Jon Stewart

Right.

Ben Wickler

And different elected officials are endorsing different people. Governor Evers just made an endorsement of one of the candidates as the democratic socialist candidate who's currently in first in the primary. She said everyone can have their own voice in this and the voters decide who's gonna win.

Jon Stewart

Right.

Ben Wickler

And that is how democracy works. The party and the structure shouldn't advantage one candidate or one set of ideas. It should be the voters who make the choice. And then we should come together and say, let's do this and let's not only win the governorship, let's win the assembly majority and the state senate majority and then actually pass the things that can unrig the system and make the

Jon Stewart

difference that we need. That's what I'm saying. That's called democracy. That's the whole idea. You're talking my language. And now, and we're in that same bullshit place now where all these new ideas, suddenly the Democrats are these democratic socialists, they're crazy. And you're like, well, but that generally their crazy ideas aren't where the energy is. The energy isn't around like we shouldn't have prisons or borders. The energy is around a belief that their economic populism. And when you call it socialism, I think it's a misnomer. Like in the same way that if you call Social Security socialism, that's kind of a misnomer. It's about strengthening a safety net for a country that has suffered too long, overvaluing capital and money and undervaluing labor and work. That's all. Millions are a million. That's it. And it's so I don't get the whole hullabaloo.

Ben Wickler

I think one of the reasons why you see some candidates catching fire right now.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

Is that they speak directly to what a total meltdown crisis we're in as a country, what people are actually experiencing in their day to day lives. And then they tell people, you can do something about this. And I, you know, I invite candidates and there are candidates who identify as centrists, you know, running in some states that are democratic socialists in other states,

Jon Stewart

it takes everybody, it takes time.

Ben Wickler

It is a big tent. And I would say that right now the most exciting parts of the tent, wherever you are in the geography, are the parts where people say, this is not working and we need to change it. We don't need to go back to something that wasn't so great before. We need to go forward to something

Jon Stewart

where there's a specificity.

Ben Wickler

Here's what we're going to do is encouraged XYZ things and they lay it out. And then again, this is the plan. When you get in power, you need to be willing to change how the system works so you can actually change the policy, deliver for people and sustain it. If the U.S. supreme Court, take one example, if the U.S. supreme Court keeps striking down everything a democrat does, anything that is intended to protect democracy from the power of big money or Workers or workers striking down workers protection.

Jon Stewart

Anti corruption laws.

Ben Wickler

Anti corruption laws. Wisconsin created the first workplace protection agency, forerunner of Wisconsin. Love Wisconsin. I know, I know, but this is

Jon Stewart

my point, you know, they will keep. Jersey's no piece of shit, by the way.

Ben Wickler

I mean, it's great every state. I mean, Wisconsin.

Jon Stewart

All right, fair enough.

Ben Wickler

But they. The U.S. supreme Court's gonna keep striking this stuff down until we reform, meaning either expand or put term limits on the U.S. supreme Court.

Jon Stewart

We gotta do that too big or go home. We are.

Ben Wickler

The pendulum swings in American politics, but what the right does is when it swings their way, they catch it and they grab it and they don't want to let it go. And you need to electrify the pendulum so that you cannot grab the thing and stop it from moving.

Jon Stewart

Were you ever a magician? I think I saw the pendulum.

Ben Wickler

What I lay out in the book is step by step. It starts at the end of the book. There's a chapter called this is the Plan that ties together all the pieces. The first part of this is the plan's plan is this week, every Tuesday, there's an election somewhere.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Ben Wickler

And most of those elections have no volunteers across the country. They have no people chipping in $27 from wherever nobody gets involved.

Jon Stewart

A lot of them are unopposed.

Ben Wickler

A lot of them are unopposed. But if you look around and find the races that actually start a row of dominoes that can affect. Affect future legislation around gerrymandering or affect money in politics in a state where people like Elon Musk want to waltz in and take over everything, then getting involved in a mayor's race here, a county recorder's race here can have a huge effect.

Jon Stewart

That's right.

Ben Wickler

But it goes from that step, something any of us can do, where the margins of victory are often, sometimes a single vote. And I list some of those races in the book, it goes all the way to then. 26. We win in states, we win in Congress. 28, we win a federal trifecta. 29, we passed.

Jon Stewart

You even deal with the backlash to all these victories to remove the power

Ben Wickler

of that backlash to break our democracy

Jon Stewart

from 2030-22 to post mortem policy, not just process.

Ben Wickler

That's it.

Desi Lydic

You have to have.

Jon Stewart

Yes. You have to actually deliver and make the difference. That's the plan. And we can do it. Every person here can do this plan. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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Jon Stewart

Hey, that's our show. Before we go, we're gonna check in with your host for the rest of the week, Desi Lydic. Desi. Desi, what do you got for this week?

Desi Lydic

Well, John, I'll have an update on the new Air Force One. They're taking it out of the service while it's being, in the words of President Trump, maxed out.

Jon Stewart

Do you mean maxed out? I guess because of the security risks or.

Desi Lydic

Yeah, exactly, John. The missile defense technology needs to be upgraded. Or in other words, maxed out.

Jon Stewart

So I'm just gonna real quick. Why do you keep doing guitar riffs?

Desi Lydic

Because, John, it's a Guitari jet.

Jon Stewart

Oh, for God's face.

Commercial/Advertisement Voice

What?

Jon Stewart

Desi, it's Qatari. Q A, T, A, R. I.

Desi Lydic

Wait, like the country?

Jon Stewart

Yes, Desi, the country of Qatar gave Trump the plane.

Desi Lydic

What?

Jon Stewart

Yes. That's insane. I know.

Desi Lydic

Why would an Air Force One. Why would we accept an Air Force One from another country?

Jon Stewart

I know.

Desi Lydic

My God. The security risk alone is maxed out.

Jon Stewart

Digitally, everybody, here it is. Your moment of your guitar played.

Ben Wickler

Wow.

Jon Stewart

So the President laid it out and I am looking ed at the documents on my iPad. They've been posted on whitehouse.gov so you can check them out for yourselves.

Ben Wickler

And some of this stuff looks very, very incriminating for possibly election officials in Michigan, FBI employees, CIA employees. I will point out also that a lot of this is redacted, blacked out.

Commercial/Advertisement Voice

You can't see the details.

Jon Stewart

Explore more shows from the Daily show podcast universe by searching the Daily show. Wherever you get your podcast, watch the Daily show weeknights at 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount.

Commercial/Advertisement Voice

Plus,

Ben Wickler

This has been a Comedy Central podcast.

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