In the newest episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy agree that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is trolling with his plan to use the crazy vigilante “loophole” that the Supreme Court just signed off on to ban assault weapons—but they’re wrestling with whether that approach will get Democrats anything more than lulz.
“Yes, he’s trolling Ron DeSantis,” says Andy. “And I have no problem with that, but ultimately he’s trolling the Supreme Court and it’s gonna be really easy for the conservatives on the court to say, ‘Well, guns are different than abortion because the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution, but abortion isn’t. So we’ll let the Texas law stand, but the California law, oh no, we can’t have that.’
“You’re right this exposes some level of partisan hackery, but… I’m not sure ultimately what this accomplishes, other than being a troll and a message to DeSantis and other state governors who want to try this kind of thing that you’re going to reap what you sow.”
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But, says Molly, ”I think it’s good that Newsom does this because they’re already huge hypocrites and we know this, but if they’re gonna make laws and they’re gonna say states can make their own laws, make them show us all how partisan they are.” She adds: “I think the fundamental problem here is that the highest court in the country is now completely partisan. We cannot trust any of its decisions.”
“What Newsom is doing is what the Democrats in general refuse to do, which is understand that the rulebook is out the window and the Republicans threw it there,” says Andy. “And Newsom is really one of the few Democrats actually saying, ‘You know what, if you are going to throw the rulebook out the window, fine. The rulebook is out the window and I’m gonna do exactly what you do (and) I’m not a huge Gavin Newsom fan, but I give him credit for that.”
Plus former Spy magazine editor and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, rejoins the pod to talk about how, as Molly puts it, it turns out he was right about everything, including how “America has always had a weakness for exciting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.”
And New Yorker writer and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser breaks down what we’re still just learning now about the attempted coup on Jan. 6, and experiencing “the last few years of this Democratic crisis in the United States as a rolling series of the impossible not only becoming possible but happening. Yesterday, I sat at my house in Northwest Washington, D.C., and I listened to the bells of the National Cathedral toll for nearly an hour because of 800,000 dead Americans from COVID, and huge swaths of the country continue to pretend as if it isn’t even happening.”
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