Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is August 22, 2023. It is the day before

the first Republican debate two days before the former president of the United States does his

fourth per block. And we are joined once again by Professor Emeritus Tom Nichols. I'm sorry.

Tom Nichols, a staff writer for the Atlantic. How are you doing, Tom? It's been a while.

I'm good, but I'll thank you not to laugh at Professor Emeritus. I don't know what the Emeritus

thing. It's sort of like Professor Old Guy, Professor Exats exactly what it means, Professor Crank.

Let me tell you what I was thinking this morning that I wanted to talk to you about. I wonder

whether or not there are millions of people who may be much younger than us. Who do not realize

how surreal our times are? Who have grown up in this time of crazification and looking around

and going, yeah, this is the way things are. I mean, political parties can be political cults.

And yeah, somebody who is being arraigned on racketeering charges and 91 felonies, of course,

he's going to be surging in the polls. And it's like, this does happen on a regular basis,

right? We have presidential debates and the front runner doesn't show up because he's in a jail

down in the Atlanta posting a $200,000 bail and the judge is warning him not to intimidate or threaten

witnesses. I mean, Tom, even you and I, once in a while, that we have to step back and go,

okay, the full insanity of this moment, you and I have been doing this now for seven, eight years.

I don't think we ever thought it was going to last this long. I don't think we ever thought

this stupidity would seep so deeply into our culture. I think once a day, once a day, I have to

step back and say, this can't be happening. Yeah, right. And it's going to keep going. And you're

right, you know, that for younger, of course, you know, being a professor emeritus, everyone is

younger than I am and you, you know, if you're 25 or 30 years old, yeah, for most of the time that

you've paid attention to politics, oh, this is just normal. This is just how it is that we don't

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