00:22:27 · Max Read, Ezra Klein
[00:22:27] S1: I wanted to... Sorry. No. [00:22:28] S2: Go ahead. In California, there's a proposition to to do a a a wealth tax to... On the very, very wealthiest California residents, which would not be that many of them, couple 100 people. But it was gonna be a sort of hard to administer tax, and there was fear of having, like, billionaires flee California for, say, Texas, and it didn't pass. So in this sort of, like, election in which anti billionaire sentiment was very, very, very constant, The argument that, you know, sort of potentially driving some of them out of California would be bad for California actually won, which struck me as a as a little bit surprising. If you had told me the... Like, how badly Republicans would lose election if I knew that a week ago, and you said, what's gonna happen to the wealth tax? I'd be like, oh, that'll definitely pass. It didn't. [00:23:11] S1: Erin, I wanted to ask you about this because, we talked about it last week, and you've done a lot of reporting on this. And I'm wondering how you sort of account for this result in what was otherwise very clearly anti billionaire election.
00:23:23 · Erin Griffith
[00:23:23] S4: It feels a little bit like a California thing where people might just be tired of the politicians kind of throwing together a plan that doesn't seem fully thought out and saying, just trust us. We'll figure this out. And so I think there was enough messaging that introduced doubts to this, basically saying it's not like... I mean, the messaging from the prop... The anti prop 40 groups were, this is poorly written. It... They're just gonna lose all the money. They need to do a better job of this. It's not sustainable. It's a one time thing. I I guess that kind of, like, resonated with people. And, honestly, it's the one thing that the billionaires I've seen and the and the tech right that we're talking about is, like... Are clinging to this more... Or this this week now where they're like, if they can't pass this kind of, you know, billionaire tax in a blue tsunami in California, it'll never win anywhere in the country. And I don't think that's true. Ezra, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. But I think think I there'll be more attempts at bat at this in the next few years while they'll they'll just try to maybe position it a little bit differently or or or find ways that will resonate with people a little bit more. But I I think in general, people are just kind of, tired of of, like, half hearted props that are that are thrown out there, and this one got a lot of criticism for that.
00:24:32 · Ezra Klein, Max Read
[00:24:32] S2: Yeah. I agree that the California prop has, like, first, the problem that Californians have begun to be skeptical about propositions just full stop, correctly so, speaking as a Californian. But the... I do think the other issue with it was that there was a specific concern that would disadvantage California. I mean, I think it is meaningful that Gavin Newsom did not support it. And to the sort of comfort the tech right is taking this, I think it's gonna be basically table stakes in 2028 for Democrats to have a a a wealth tax proposal. And the argument for a national wealth tax is a lot stronger than the argument for a state wealth tax because, you know, they they may say they will, but they're not actually gonna move to Ireland or, you know, wherever it might be. You know, Argentina. And so I [00:25:21] S1: think history of people moving to Argentina when things go south in their country. [00:25:25] S2: So, you know, you're gonna have Gavin Newsom with a wealth tax proposal, I think, for for that election. So the idea that this is gone as opposed to it is going to move to the level at which is better administered, which is like the full force of the IRS and, like, the full jurisdiction of The United States is is more the way I understand the the situation.
00:25:25 · Ezra Klein, Max Read
[00:25:25] S2: So, you know, you're gonna have Gavin Newsom with a wealth tax proposal, I think, for for that election. So the idea that this is gone as opposed to it is going to move to the level at which is better administered, which is like the full force of the IRS and, like, the full jurisdiction of The United States is is more the way I understand the the situation. [00:25:46] S1: Yeah. I wanna talk about one more billionaire. Pour one out for Vivek Ramaswamy who lost the governor... The governor's race in Ohio. I mean, Vivek is more or less a tech billionaire. He was ascendant in politics or seemed to be. He was one of the two faces of Doge. And now he's frankly humiliated and probably should be ashamed given the the the final ad of his campaign involved putting, his opponent, Amy Acton's mother, on TV to call her daughter a liar after Acton had, said that her stepfather had abused her as a child. I'm wondering if if this race stuck out to you, if if if this... If as a figure, what what what you remember about his his rise and his fall, or if it was... If if if he was just a singularly bad candidate regardless of the tech halo around him. [00:26:35] S2: Look. The the vacant... And and for that matter, JD Vance [00:26:38] S1: Yeah.
00:26:38 · Max Read, Ezra Klein, Erin Griffith
[00:26:38] S1: Yeah. [00:26:38] S2: Are the kinds of MAGA politicians that tech right actually wants. They don't want Donald Trump with all of his all over the placeness. Right? They want these guys who are actually their guys and can go to their conferences and, you know, talk knowledgeably about the kinds of highly cerebral reactionary policies that the the right likes, the tech right likes. [00:27:04] S4: And they also, like, they don't have to convince him. Right? They they can just... Like, they already agree. They don't
00:27:08 · Ezra Klein
[00:27:08] S2: have sell on it. Both of those guys is they're bad politicians. And the and Ramaswamy here, think, has, like, a particular arc where he could have lost this election in an honorable way, and he decided to lose it in a maximally dishonorable way. And it was just a grotesque, awful, immoral thing to do that covered... That should cover Ramaswamy in shame. But I would say that... I I see this sometimes with Vance. I see it with Ramaswamy. I see it with a bunch of Republicans where they kinda speak Trump with an accent, that Trump has this cruelty to him, this outrageousness. But because it's natural to him, he actually knows where the lines are. He knows how to deliver it in a way where people don't take it exactly that seriously. Like, he's done some stuff that is pretty gross in his time, quite a lot of stuff that is very, very gross, but he has a finesse to it that these guys who are mimicking him as if they are like a like a like a GPT three level LLM. Right? Like, smart, but without any art to it whatsoever, has, like, no feel for the situation. And then it just comes out horrible. Right? Like, horrible and cruel, and it's like a silent room, you know, where nobody's laughing. And and that's that race. And, you know, Vance runs into this kind of problem too. Right? Like, dogs and cats thing is, like, a example of this for JD Vance, where they... I think they think they're doing what Trump is doing, and they don't understand they're not. And the thing here about them, speaks to maybe to to kind of tie this a little bit to our main conversation here, a big problem the tech right is gonna have. The tech right could only really survive as a factional player in a broader Republican ecosystem in which they're completely, like, inhuman and bizarre views about how to treat other people were not dominant. Right? They could have a lot of influence, so they were the smart players in the coalition. They had a lot of money. But ultimately, the thing was run by this guy with animal charisma and, like, magnetic cunning. And when you kind of reverse foreground and background here and put them and their people in the front, it goes really, really badly. Because what the noncollege white working class is looking for is not Vivek Ramaswamy. It it is just not the not the brief. And I don't think this is where, like, the politics is going.