Hey hey folks, welcome to the Man of Steel. This is Michael Steel. Yes, this is the Man of Steel podcast and a lot of good stuff happening out there. We want to get into today. We've got a real good good guy on board. It's going to help us dissect and understand exactly what the hell we saw happen this week across the country with the vote.

And that little bit of a dramatized press conference yesterday help us kind of figure it out. The one and only you got to know him. You got to love him. Max boot is a historian best selling author foreign policy analyst and when he's not busy doing that stuff. He's a columnist for the Washington Post. He's got this great book out. We highly recommend you pick it up. The corrosion of conservatism. Why I left the right.

The right max boot welcome to the man of steel podcast brother. Good to have you. It's a pleasure to be on. So so max. There was this little thing called an election on Tuesday and apparently a lot more people showed up than people thought which show up number one. And they sent a message. I thought in fact as I looked at the election going into an and trying to dissect exactly what I thought it would be and how it should play out.

And but more importantly what people should be looking at I focused on two questions one. What kind of country do you want?

And two what kind of leaders you want to run that country. And it seemed to me at least Republicans, Democrats, Independence, citizens started to answer that question a little bit. You think?

I think they did although I would say Michael that the answers were sometimes contradictory in a mixed message. I mean I was you know somebody who is a never trump conservative like you I was hearted to see what happened with the races in the in the House of Representatives where there was a real rebuke to Republicans who joined with with Trump and trafficking in racism xenophobia hate mongering conspiracy mongering.

All those characteristics that we saw play out especially in the last few weeks of the campaign and of course Democrats lost Democrats won the majority Republicans lost the majority.

And so that's what I was hoping to see what happened but on the other hand I have to admit I mean deplorable as this might be Donald Trump's tactics did seem to work in some Senate races and some supernatural races in places like like Georgia and the United States.

And I think that's a very interesting point because what you saw in many respects was the suburbs defect from the president from the president. So you had those center right center left individuals independent types move away from the president.

But that base held and that base held largely because the president in the last 10 days or so really double down on those elements of his campaign and his presidency that he thinks works the racism the xenophobia the sense of other coming to get you and take from you.

You land your property your country or whatever why was that what is is that base really that locked in and with the with the suburbs behaving the way they did what does that tell tell you about the future I mean you're talking about a country that's roughly a 40 60 split in many respects but I kind of think there may be a little bit more to that other side than we like to acknowledge that that number may be closer to the future.

The number may be closer to 50 50 as opposed to 40 60.

I think it depends on on the election and on the candidate. I mean I think it was really a good news bad news story because as you say the suburbs did reject a lot of this Republican hate mongering I think it really backfired for Trump in those districts and cost the Republicans the majority but again in a lot of the red states this kind of history about the caravan was embraced and by the way fascinating how as soon as the election happened.

Fox News and Donald Trump stopped talking about the caravan the military military rescinds there they had this operation faithful patriot and whoops on Tuesday that's not anymore there's no more operation never mind you can go about your lives you're not going to be you're not going to be raped and robbed by this caravan of invaders.

I love it yeah that was the one thing and it's so funny because you couldn't you didn't hear a peep about caravan at 12 o'clock 1 a.m. It was like no one ever had the conversation but it says a lot about how gullible folks are too and how desperate they are to believe something to fulfill a narrative that they've either written in their own mind or or think really exists out there and the president has been successfully playing that up and I think he did a lot of that to sort of solidify that.

Not his congressional base vote because I don't think he gave a damn about them he doesn't care if we lose house I think he saw the Senate as his as his wall he needed to have that Senate in place because Lord knows what could come down the pike where he's going to need the Senate especially with respect to Mueller but there's also we've got Supreme Court nominations and of course when you know Justice Ginsburg had her fall a lot of people like oh my god I'm not going to be a judge.

Oh my god get her some bubble wrap you know I'm saying no no no you you need to sit down and stay still you know because potential appointments down the road so the president I think sort of looked at this election not so much certainly not the way the Republican leadership did like the NRC see they're out there trying to you know get Republicans elected to the house he saw it more as I don't care who's in the house my transaction is with the Senate particularly when you look at where he went.

On with those 11 visits they weren't in battleground districts they weren't in places where the president probably could have helped some Republicans keep their seat but rather in states where he really needed to to show up the Senate the Senate either to take a Senate seat like in North Dakota or to shore up a Senate seat somewhere else.

Yeah and he got his firewall no question about it I mean I thought that the chances of a successful impeachment in the Senate were remote before and now they're just astronomically remote because there's a larger Republican majority and I think they feel more tethered than ever before to Donald Trump.

I mean I again I admit to being a little bit disappointed with the results all of the aspects of it that I appreciate it I mean I'm very happy to see that there will be some accountability and push back in the house and I think that's especially important in terms of the Mueller and trying to protect his investigation but you know there was no change in the linkage between Donald Trump and the Republican Party I mean they've become completely synonymous and I think the election ratified.

That that marriage and so this is really not the Republican Party anymore it's the Trump Party and you know I hope people are happy with that.

Yeah and I want to get into that in a little bit and sort of peel that onion back and we can both have a good cry about what happened to the party that we joined many years ago and how it's so easily so readily capitulated to the fraud that was perpetrated on them but we'll hold that thought.

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