Podbit · The Rest Is Politics: US
Anthony Scaramucci asked bluntly: can a Jewish candidate or a gay candidate win the US presidency today? His honest answer is no — despite Josh Shapiro and Pete Buttigieg both being exceptionally qualified. On America's 250th anniversary, this is a sobering verdict on how far equality has actually come.
Where this was said
At 36:17 · chapter starts 33:20
The conversation deepens into the question of electability and identity. Katty Kay sets up the Josh Shapiro problem: he is a formidable governor of Pennsylvania with strong executive credentials, but his position on Israel — supporting US military aid while being critical of Netanyahu — is no longer viable in today's Democratic primary. [1] — Anthony Scaramucci "Anthony Scaramucci asked bluntly: can a Jewish candidate or a gay candidate win the US presidency today? His honest answer is no — despite …" 36:17 She contrasts him with Jon Ossoff, the Georgia senator who has been sharply opposed to blanket military aid, and notes Ossoff is gaining momentum while Shapiro's numbers face headwinds. The Israel needle, she argues, can no longer be threaded. Scaramucci goes further — he asks the direct question: can a Jewish candidate win the presidency? His honest answer is no, and the same goes for Pete Buttigieg. Both men are clearly qualified, he says, but the country isn't there yet. On America's 250th anniversary, Katty Kay delivers a sobering coda: all men are still not created equal in the eyes of the electorate. The hosts then discuss Joe Scarborough's Monday monologue — which Scaramucci generously calls phenomenal — and his claim that Netanyahu has damaged the Israeli brand in America. Scaramucci reflects more personally, drawing on his visits to Yad Vashem and the historical assimilation of Jews in Germany, to ask whether it is fair to see Netanyahu as a disaster for that brand. Both agree it is fair. Kay adds the generational dimension: the Democrats now going to the polls have only ever known Netanyahu, and they associate the entire state of Israel with his actions.
Katty Kay argues Josh Shapiro is a superb candidate in almost every way — but the Democratic Party's shift on Israel makes it impossible for him to hold the position he currently holds and win a 2028 primary. The New York results this week made that clearer than ever.
Katty Kay argued that Josh Shapiro, despite being a strong candidate otherwise, will struggle to thread the needle on Israel in today's Democratic Party and may be unelectable in a 2028 primary.
Anthony Scaramucci said that despite their qualifications, he believes neither a Jewish candidate nor a gay candidate could currently be elected president of the United States.
Democrats swept New York City's primaries with democratic socialists. Republicans will use that footage in every suburban district from Iowa to Pennsylvania. Katty Kay's warning: the voters deciding the midterms are not in Brooklyn — and Democrats risk handing the GOP a perfect script while celebrating in Manhattan.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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