

Discover more from The Bulwark
Leading The Bulwark…
Can We Get Along Together After Trump?
Brian Karem: Let’s learn from the example of Daryl Davis.
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Tim Miller on Trump's Insane Coup
On today’s Bulwark Podcast, Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes to discuss Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the Art of the Steal.
Banana Republicans
Megan McArdle of the Washington Post joins the crew to discuss the Keystone coup, how Biden should try to heal the nation, and what to do about Coronavirus.
For Bulwark+ Members 🔒
The Future of the GOP Livestream
Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Sarah Longwell, and Mona Charen held a discussion on what the future of the party is.
Remember: Whenever we have a livestream, the video will be archived on the post with the log-in information. We’re going to be doing livestreams between now and the Inauguration of President-Elect Biden, and afterwards. You can get access to them if you’re a member of Bulwark+. If you’re not:
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Trump Tax Write-Offs Are Ensnared in 2 New York Fraud Investigations – Danny Hakim, Mike McIntire, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, The New York Times
Will the Coronavirus Wedding Model Outlive the Coronavirus? – Mary-Rose Sheinerman, Tablet
Census Bureau finds processing problems amid deadline sprint – Michael Macagnone, Roll Call
Romney on Trump election tactics: ‘Difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action’ by president – Jordain Carney, The Hill
Republican Senate signals it will confirm Biden Cabinet – Burgess Everett, Politico
Here’s How Hugo Chavez, Dead Since 2013, Became Responsible for Trump’s Election Loss – Will Sommer, The Daily Beast
In Today’s Bulwark….
The Real “America First” Foreign Policy Starts Now
Ben Waldman:With a new team at the Pentagon and the freedom of a lame duck, President Trump may be about to indulge his most dangerous foreign policy desires.
How to Wage an Ideological Conflict with China
Nicholas Romanow: If the United States is to fend off the challenge from the Chinese Communist Party, it must recommit to its own ideals and values.
Wonder Woman Heads to HBO Max
Screen Time with Sonny Bunch: Matthew McConaughey's 'Greenlights' reviewed
🚨 OVERTIME 🚨
We made it to Friday! I may have run out of parmesan cheese last night, but the Rigatoni with White Bolognese was a success. If you’re not doing a big Thanksgiving dinner, consider it as an entree.
Trump’s new lawyer is Q-Anon adjacent. What else would you expect from somebody representing Michael Flynn?
"It’s over, Johnny!” The last free episode of the Sub Beacon podcast is upon us. What was a podcast that started at TWS, and later migrated to the Washington Free Beacon, is ending their run as a free podcast. Were it up to me (it’s not, obviously), we’d call it the Sub Bulwark since 2/3 of the show is now here at The Bulwark. But if you love this cult classic pop culture podcast, don’t worry! It’s moving to Patreon.
This was one of the first podcasts I ever produced, and I was worried it would go away, but I’m glad to see it live on.
Time to stand up and move on… In The Detroit News, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, and Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell argue:
The continued refusal to acknowledge the election results risks corroding our democracy by literally hollowing it out. If we no longer believe in our own system — with our local elected clerks following the laws — then our ability to choose our leaders is at fundamental risk, as is our system of governing. This isn’t about any one person. This is about maintaining the system that our Founding Fathers designed, and that defines us as a nation.
House Hunters… My neighborhood was on the HGTV show House Hunters last night. I don’t watch housing shows, but HGTV even got a drone to do a flyover of the community.
Ultimately, the recently married couple opted to buy in our community. Celebrities: they walk among us!
Condi kneecaps Scott Atlas. Turns out Stanford’s faculty is getting fed up with the President’s unqualified COVID-19 czar. In a resolution condemning him, Rice said Atlas has gone “well beyond the boundaries of what is appropriate.”
Axios scolds the media… Again. At Washingtonian, Andrew Beaujon takes the scolds to task:
Jim VandeHei, co-founder of the Arlington-based media company Axios on Friday offered some unsolicited tough love for something called “the media”:
The media remains fairly clueless about the America that exists outside of the big cities, where most political writers and editors live. The coverage missed badly the surge in Trump voters in places obvious (rural America) and less obvious (Hispanic-heavy border towns in Texas).
Admonitions like this come with some depressing frequency from VandeHei, going back to a godawful series of articles he and Axios co-founder Mike Allen wrote at Politico, notably one that scolded “the media”—by which they meant two East Coast newspapers—for how they played stories about President Obama and his then challenger Mitt Romney in their print editions. VandeHei and Allen called an article about Romney’s equestrian activities “more voyeuristic than relevant” and managed to overlook that their own East Coast publication had already published six items about it. (Politico later aggregated criticisms of the column in a separate blog post.)
As Walt Kelly once sketched:
Reminds me of The Simpsons:
In Georgia, it’s over… Of course, not without some Trumpian drama, but consider these results certified:
RIP Lola Bistro. Cleveland celebrity chef Michael Symon is closing his flagship restaurant, Lola Bistro. The Cleveland Scene reports:
“If someone could tell me that this will all be over, whatever, pick a month, then you plan to make it to there,” he says. “But no one knows. I’m fortunate to be friends with some of the smartest people in the business and nobody has an answer because you don’t know what the future holds.”
The end of an era in Cleveland dining.
That’s it for me today. Questions, thoughts, comments? You know how to reach me: swift@thebulwark.com
Remember, you can sign up for Bulwark+ here:
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I’ll be back on Monday, where I will have more holiday gift ideas. Stay safe and I’ll see you then.
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