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This is not a literal transcript of this conversation between Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson and Atlantic writer and MSNBC contributor Tom Nichols.
It does, however, reflect the spirit of the exchange:
Wilson: Welcome Tom Nichols. You have a new book out repeating what Liberal bloggers have been saying for +20 years. It is a work of genius and people should buy it.
Nichols: Thanks. And speaking of Liberal bloggers, you know what the entire Republican party reminds me of?
Wilson: I think I know, Tom, but you tell us what you think.
Nichols: They remind me of the radical Left during the 1960s.
Wilson: That is so true. They are in every way exactly as awful the Weathermen.
Nichols: Remember the 1960s? Remember how stupid the Left was?
Wilson: So stupid. And so wrong.
[COMMERCIAL FOR HANGOVER REMEDY]
Nichols: And the 1970s? Remember how stupid the Left was during the 1970s?
Wilson: I'm glad you mention that because the are so much like the crazy Republican party that just sorta happened and that we had nothing to do with manifesting.
Nichols: True. None of this is our doing, so let us dwell further on how clownish and wrong the Left was in the 1960s.
driftglass: Rick, you were born near the end of 1963, right?
Wilson: Birthday's coming up soon!
driftglass: And Tom, you're just a couple of months younger than me. December 1960, right?
Nichols: So?
driftglass: So I'm fascinated by how both of you front as if you had diamond-sharp memories of events that happened before you had finished 4th grade. And furthermore, you had both been so deeply, politically scarred by those events that you flung yourselves into the arms of Ronald Reagan.
Wilson: Speaking of Reagan, wasn't he awesome!
Nichols: Y'know, a few years ago my daughter's grades at college in her political science class went from "meh" to pretty good, so I asked her what happened? Was she studying harder or something?
Wilson: Studying harder is awesome!
Nichols: She told me no She just figure out that if she said bad things about Reagan every now and then, her professor would give her better grades!
Wilson: She broke the elite Liberal college code!
Nichols: Yeah, elite Liberal colleges are the worst. As bad as the Extreme Right! Like the Weather Men! But don't worry, she didn't become an America hating communist or anything. Just did it for the grade.
Wilson: Whew. That was a close one!
driftglass: You know what else is fascinating? How both of you talk as if the 1960s happened last week and you can remember it all in horrifying, Technicolor detail. How every discussion of what is happening now in your recently-former political party, always veers into your seething hatred of shit that happened back when Walter Cronkite was on teevee and America was still sending men to the Moon.
But your memories of what was going on in Republican party -- your own political party -- in all the decades since the 1960s are somehow always very hazy. Nichols has even said repeatedly that, since he grew up in Massachusetts, he had no real awareness of what was happening to his own political party until five minutes ago. To to him, the past is hippies... Reagan... yadda yadda yadda... OMG, Trump!
You wanna know the difference between the SDS and the GOP, other than the 2.5 human generations that separate them?
[ANOTHER COMMERCIAL FOR HANGOVER REMEDY]
Wilson: Where were we?
Nichols: Reagan. And how awesome he was.
Wilson: He sure was, wasn't he?
Nichols: He sure was. And how wretched and spoiled these kids today are.
Wilson: Elite Liberal colleges are ruining them.
Nichols: And another thing. Liberals are alla time dinging us for saying "Gummint is the Problem."
Wilson: I know, right!
Nichols: But we never said that! Never! All we ever said was we wanted gummint small-ER, and more efficient.
Wilson: Where do these Liberal get these crazy ideas?
Nichols: I dunno, brother. The Utne Reader or someplace.
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." -- Grover Norquist, whose insane anti-tax pledge was at one time virtually mandatory for every Republican running for national office.
Nichols: And you know what else? Mike Johnson sure seems like a creepy weirdo.
Wilson: He does seem like a creepy weirdo. You knows what he reminds me of?
Nichols: The Left in the 1960s?
Wilson: Exactly!
Nichols: Also, what the hell happened to the Republican party of our youth?
Wilson: It's a giant mystery, brother. Well, thanks for coming in, and everyone within the sound of my voice should buy his book. What's the title?
Nichols: Thank Rick. The working title is called "Everyone But Us Are Morons."
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