Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central's America's only
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Speaker 3: This is the Daily Shot with your host Short Steward.
Speaker 4: Showtime wavering to Dawn Show.
Speaker 1: My name is John Short. We have a fabulous show
Speaker 1: here tonight.
Speaker 5: I'm not you know what I'm not gonna do tonight.
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna overthink it. Honestly, I'm just gonna come
Speaker 6: out here like Pacino.
Speaker 1: At the Oscars.
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna mumble a few words there and eventually
Speaker 6: you'll figure out what.
Speaker 1: I was getting at.
Speaker 4: It's fine.
Speaker 6: The big event we need to talk about, it's the
Speaker 6: Oscars of politics, the State of the Union address.
Speaker 1: Last Thursday night, Joseph raising A.
Speaker 4: Biden the club.
Speaker 6: He had the unenviable task of having to lay out
Speaker 6: his vision for the nation whilst also demonstrating that he
Speaker 6: is not too old, not too tired to be the
Speaker 6: President of the United States, and that he wouldn't rather
Speaker 6: just tie thousands of balloons to the White House and
Speaker 6: had to paradise balls. And so President Biden entered the
Speaker 6: House Chamber, navigating through our divided Congress and barely barely
Speaker 6: barely getting past the bridge troll who guards the bodio?
Speaker 4: What say you, sir?
Speaker 1: I say to the American people, when.
Speaker 7: America gets knocked down, we get back up. My message
Speaker 7: of President Putin, I've known for a long time is simple.
Speaker 7: We will not walk away betting books.
Speaker 2: It's wrong.
Speaker 4: I say, stop it, stop.
Speaker 7: It, stop it, stop it, pass universal background.
Speaker 1: Check, Send me to border Bill.
Speaker 7: Now, the state of our unit is strong and getting stronger.
Speaker 6: Which one of you princks wants to fight? Put up
Speaker 6: your dukes Biden's back, baby. I know that all the
Speaker 6: haters have been out there talking their shit.
Speaker 1: He's too old, he's too weak. He can't make it.
Speaker 1: He won't be understand. Oh, I see you haters. I
Speaker 1: know who you are really.
Speaker 6: You know. We said in rehearsal, can you give me
Speaker 6: a prettier mirror at boy boy?
Speaker 1: Did they deliver?
Speaker 6: That? Is?
Speaker 5: Of course?
Speaker 6: By the way, the state of the Union was just
Speaker 6: the Democratic message. Would that message survive? Would that message survive?
Speaker 6: A concise and intelligent rebuttal, go ahead of it? What
Speaker 6: happens to happen on Thursday? I should read the whole thing,
Speaker 6: though I should. Would it survive a concise and intelligent
Speaker 6: rebuttal from the GOP or whatever it was that Alabama
Speaker 6: Senator Katie Britt.
Speaker 8: To the batman, Our families are hurting. Our country can
Speaker 8: do better. President Biden's border policies are a disgrace. Mister President,
Speaker 8: enough is enough, end this crisis and stop the suffering.
Speaker 8: We see you, we hear you, and we stand with you.
Speaker 6: If you're if you're going to stand with me, could
Speaker 6: you stand a little bit further away. I imagine one
Speaker 6: of her kids just came downstairs and was like, I'm sorry, Mom,
Speaker 6: I just came down to get a bowl of cereal.
Speaker 6: I didn't realize you were losing your mind. I'll come
Speaker 6: back when the Zannies kick in.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: Look, everybody's had a bit of a go at Senator
Speaker 6: Britt because her rebuttal was objectively terrible.
Speaker 1: But there was one moment in a rebuttal that didn't.
Speaker 6: Get as much attention that I thought was quite interesting.
Speaker 8: We are the party of hard working parents and families,
Speaker 8: So I am asking you, for the sake of your
Speaker 8: kids and your grandkids, get into the arena. Never forget
Speaker 8: we are steeped in the blood of patriots who overthrew
Speaker 8: the most powerful empire in the world.
Speaker 6: Two things, One who smiles when they say the line
Speaker 6: steeped in the blood of patriots? And number two, this
Speaker 6: is just one more entry in the report publican mythology
Speaker 6: that they are the inheritors of the American revolutionary tradition,
Speaker 6: that they somehow are more american y than non Republican Americans.
Speaker 1: We are the party of the real American.
Speaker 5: People, real America, where people work hard, they're patriotic.
Speaker 9: They don't want to transform America like the Democratic Party
Speaker 9: wants to.
Speaker 6: Do this liberal bubble in New York or you know,
Speaker 6: in California that don't understand where real Americans are at.
Speaker 3: The Democrat elite very simply hate America.
Speaker 1: I don't think they hate America. They hate room temperature.
Speaker 1: Yoga is really Yoga's posed to me very hot, just
Speaker 1: out of curiosity.
Speaker 6: What is it about the Republican Party that makes it
Speaker 6: Americanier than the rest of us.
Speaker 5: We're the party and ideol of the Constitution.
Speaker 8: Every decision that I make starts with asking the questions
Speaker 8: is this constitutional?
Speaker 5: I believe in this document.
Speaker 6: I carry it with me next to my heart because
Speaker 6: I refer to it daily.
Speaker 9: As we all know, the Constitution starts with the three
Speaker 9: most important words outside the Bible, we the people, the
Speaker 9: power of we the people, We the people.
Speaker 5: The Constitution. We believe in it. They do not.
Speaker 4: Why do you rip it up?
Speaker 1: That was your copy. You said that that's what they do.
Speaker 1: When you did it, you ripped it off like.
Speaker 6: Shinad O'Connor is like I believe in the Pope. But
Speaker 6: oh yes, it's an article of faith that Republicans love
Speaker 6: the Constitution. They give speeches in front of the Constitution.
Speaker 6: They cover their buses in the Constitution. They dress up
Speaker 6: like the people who wrote the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Do you communists with your unconstitutioned buses and zero cornered hats.
Speaker 6: That's why these patriots love Donald Trump, for he alone
Speaker 6: will restore the rule of law in our constitutional republic.
Speaker 2: Trump's lawyer claimed the president has a legal license to
Speaker 2: murder his American political rivals.
Speaker 1: Just gonna just gonna check my get them. It's gonna
Speaker 1: check time.
Speaker 6: I actually keep my heart next to my constant.
Speaker 1: To that's how important. My hands are shaking. I'm some nervous.
Speaker 6: I don't see anything in here about assassinating your political rivals.
Speaker 6: Here it is hold on, I asked, it says the
Speaker 6: president must faithfully execute. Well, I think we're done here. Sorry,
Speaker 6: the laws of the land. Never mind why. I don't
Speaker 6: want to be a nitpicker, but I do not remember
Speaker 6: the assassination episode of Schoolhouse Rock under the constitution, wouldn't
Speaker 6: you get in some trouble for that?
Speaker 10: I feel that as a president you have to have immunity.
Speaker 1: Very simple.
Speaker 6: Yes, it is the bedrock American constitutional principle. The president
Speaker 6: must be above the law, out of reach of the law.
Speaker 6: Look forget the constitution accountability. So the law of the
Speaker 6: land is basic magna cartas shit. Keep a tiny magna
Speaker 6: carta in my you know what. I'm sorry, this is
Speaker 6: just a flip book. Hold on, Oh, dog's never going
Speaker 6: to catch that car. Maybe they like Trump because he's
Speaker 6: more of a Bill of rights guy.
Speaker 1: President Trump attacking the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
Speaker 11: You take the writer and or the publisher of the paper,
Speaker 11: a certain paper, you know, and you say who is
Speaker 11: the laker national security?
Speaker 1: And they say we're not going to tell you. They say,
Speaker 1: that's okay, You're going to jail.
Speaker 2: And when this person.
Speaker 6: Realizes that he is going to be the bride of
Speaker 6: another prisoner. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who won.
Speaker 6: Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, though obviously,
Speaker 6: as with any right, there is some wiggle room for
Speaker 6: non consensual aspect. Don't blame me, that's Jefferson. He said that,
Speaker 6: Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Look it up. Hold on, let me get But that's
Speaker 1: the press, the press or the enemy of the people.
Speaker 1: How does Trump feel about freedom of assembly? He says,
Speaker 1: can't you just shoot them?
Speaker 6: Just shoot them in the legs or something, And he's
Speaker 6: suggesting that we should do that.
Speaker 1: We should bring in the troops and shoot the protesters.
Speaker 1: The commander in chief was suggesting that the US military
Speaker 1: shoot protesters. Yes, in the streets America or Nations capital.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 6: Well, they'd still be freedom assemble, just the assembly would
Speaker 6: be more of a pile. But that's just hearsay from
Speaker 6: Trump's secretary of Defense at the time.
Speaker 1: Look, how about the Fifth Amendment? Due process?
Speaker 6: Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully
Speaker 6: expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.
Speaker 1: What the fuck are we doing?
Speaker 6: You know, I'm pretty sure that shooting a guy on
Speaker 6: suspicion of stealing a pair of Khakis violates not only
Speaker 6: the Constitution, but the Ten Commandments and the Gap Employee Handbook.
Speaker 6: All right, I promise you that is the end of
Speaker 6: the things in my jacket. Now we've had our fun
Speaker 6: dancing around the former president's rather eccentric interpretations of our
Speaker 6: country's founding document.
Speaker 1: May I offer you something more explicit.
Speaker 6: I only want to be a dictator for one day.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, that is how it starts. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying anybody has.
Speaker 4: To do the arm salute.
Speaker 6: Let's just start with a few people doing the arms saluke,
Speaker 6: and we'll see if the armed salute catches on. Ignoring
Speaker 6: the Bill of Rights, tearing up the Constitution, pining for
Speaker 6: a brief stint as a dictator, well that settles it.
Speaker 6: When the good, patriotic, constitution loving real Americans hear Trump's
Speaker 6: disrespect and disdain for our sacred constitutional principles, they will
Speaker 6: be outraged.
Speaker 5: I'd really have Donald Trump is a dictator for four years. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: this country needs a dictator. I hate to say that,
Speaker 5: but it's the truth.
Speaker 8: He could stand on the front steps of the Waite
Speaker 8: House and commit murder and I'm with you, but he.
Speaker 1: Says it and I'll go with it. And if he
Speaker 1: wants to be a dictator, then so be it.
Speaker 6: This is it the Thomas Nast cartoon, Patriots festooned in
Speaker 6: American flags co signing dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Remember we the people? You know.
Speaker 6: There's more words after that, right, smaller font, still binding. Look,
Speaker 6: if you want to love Trump, love them, go to
Speaker 6: the rallies, buy the sneakers. You want to give him
Speaker 6: absolute power. You want them to be the leader uber aalis.
Speaker 6: You want him to have the right of kings. You
Speaker 6: do you, but stop framing it as patriotism, because the.
Speaker 4: One thing you ft out, Sail.
Speaker 6: Is that Donald Trump is following the tradition of the founders.
Speaker 6: He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity his words,
Speaker 6: not mine. That is monarchy shit, and it's your right
Speaker 6: to support it. But just do me a favor for
Speaker 6: historical accuracy. Next time you want to dress up at
Speaker 6: the rallies, wear the right colored coats.
Speaker 1: That's what you are.
Speaker 10: And I just want to call you out, and I
Speaker 10: want you to know we see you.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 12: You no, when we come back to scylet Stephen Levitt,
Speaker 12: he will go on down the tall figure out.
Speaker 1: What about the doll till I got tonight.
Speaker 6: A professor of government at Harvard University. He is the
Speaker 6: co author of two best selling books, How Democracies Die
Speaker 6: and Tyranny of the Minority. Please welcome to the program.
Speaker 6: Stephen Levitzky, sir, let's go.
Speaker 1: What are bad boy? The book is called The Tyranny
Speaker 1: of the Minority. What is so? You wrote How Democracies.
Speaker 6: Die, a recipe to kill our democracy, and now Tyranny
Speaker 6: the Minority. What is Tyranny the Minority about?
Speaker 11: Well, we wrote How Democracies Died many years ago, now
Speaker 11: before it seemed so imminent to some of the Americans
Speaker 11: that that democracy is in danger. We wanted to write
Speaker 11: a book that described for Americans what it looks like
Speaker 11: when a democracy gets into trouble. I studied Latin America.
Speaker 11: My CA author Daniel studies Europe and the interwar period.
Speaker 11: So we've we've seen democracies getting in trouble. We've seen
Speaker 11: the democras die, and we wanted to describe to Americans
Speaker 11: what this looked like so they would be worn. After
Speaker 11: we wrote the book, we got a lot of questions
Speaker 11: about what the hell do we do?
Speaker 5: How do we get out of this?
Speaker 1: Mess.
Speaker 11: And so the book is an effort, first of all,
Speaker 11: to better understand how we got into this mess, but
Speaker 11: also to think a bit about how to get out.
Speaker 6: So how when you're talking about how we get into
Speaker 6: the mess, the Constitution is really our you know touchstone,
Speaker 6: is that the document that actually got us into this mess.
Speaker 11: The Constitution, i should say, is a brilliant document.
Speaker 1: Is the world's don't head, sir.
Speaker 11: It is the world's oldest written constitution. Has done us
Speaker 11: a lot of good, but it is also part of
Speaker 11: the problem today. We a majority of Americans support democracy,
Speaker 11: A majority of Americans support the really interesting experiment with
Speaker 11: multi racial democracy that we are evolving into in the
Speaker 11: twenty first century.
Speaker 5: A majority of Americans, every day since Donald.
Speaker 11: Trump came down the Golden Escalator have opposed Trump. But
Speaker 11: we have a constitution that protects, that enables, and that
Speaker 11: empowers an authoritarian minority party.
Speaker 5: And that's problem.
Speaker 6: But isn't that The very nature of the Constitution was
Speaker 6: the contradiction at its.
Speaker 1: When it was being written.
Speaker 6: All men are created equal, black people are three fifths.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a mathematical equation that from the get
Speaker 6: go was absurd.
Speaker 11: It was absurd Now, in some fairness to the founders,
Speaker 11: the elites across the world were on democratic in the
Speaker 11: eighteenth century, but over the course of two hundred plus years,
Speaker 11: democracies across the world have gone about fixing the original citizen.
Speaker 6: So you're saying that the Constitution was a balance between
Speaker 6: that ideal and the practicalities of well, how do we
Speaker 6: let the southern states who have less population not be
Speaker 6: steamrolled by a pure democracy?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: It was a couple things.
Speaker 11: First of all, it was a document created by people
Speaker 11: who feared democracy, who feared the majority rule, because the
Speaker 11: majority rule didn't exist in the world.
Speaker 6: What did they think if it wasn't kings, what did
Speaker 6: they think it was going to be?
Speaker 1: They didn't know.
Speaker 11: They were in completely new terrain. There had never been
Speaker 11: a republic like this before. We'd never had an elected
Speaker 11: leader before. The electoral college was a third choice. It
Speaker 11: wasn't Madison's first choice. Madison designed a system that would
Speaker 11: have looked more like Europe's parliamentary democracies.
Speaker 5: That was shut down.
Speaker 11: A number of folks in the Convention pushed for direct
Speaker 11: election of the president, which is what all other presidential
Speaker 11: democracies in the world today do.
Speaker 5: That got voted down, just out because.
Speaker 6: Not even for a unitary executive, didn't they push for
Speaker 6: the executive would be a panel, would be a group
Speaker 6: of individuals.
Speaker 11: There were that was that was one suggestion. But so
Speaker 11: they were, they were, they were scrambling, right, they did.
Speaker 11: They couldn't they couldn't reach a majority, and they didn't
Speaker 11: know how to elect a president. So the electoral college
Speaker 11: was an improvisation as an experiment.
Speaker 6: Was it an improvisation to bring a compromise to the
Speaker 6: southern states? Is that because the North and smaller industrialized
Speaker 6: and the South and the smaller states, Right, Look, so
Speaker 6: this was the compromise to bring the union together.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean this was this was a really tough problem, right,
Speaker 11: they wo'd We had thirteen colonies that were and there
Speaker 11: was a fear that they that they were apart, that
Speaker 11: there might be civil war, that there might be violence.
Speaker 11: The Articles of Confederation had failed miserably, and there was
Speaker 11: a real fear that if if we didn't hang together,
Speaker 11: the Brits or the French would would would would come
Speaker 11: in and make things very difficult for us. The whole
Speaker 11: project could be blown to bits. So these guys had
Speaker 11: to forge a compromise, and they made concessions that were
Speaker 11: imperfect in fact, George Washington, let me just say this,
Speaker 11: George Washington, just weeks after the Philadelphia evensu wrote a
Speaker 11: letter to his nephew describing the Constitution as an imperfect
Speaker 11: document and saying that it would be up to future
Speaker 11: generations to improve upon it.
Speaker 6: But do you think it's strange then that a lot
Speaker 6: of the Constitution really is a practical matter, sort of
Speaker 6: a pragmatic document that is very much nuts and bolts
Speaker 6: of how do we do this mechanically, logistically, and yet
Speaker 6: we infuse such almost religious dogma. We almost view the
Speaker 6: founders now in a kind of a fundamentalist way of
Speaker 6: it was spoken through them from God. It was they
Speaker 6: were absolutely sure this is scripture, right.
Speaker 5: We didn't always see it that way. For much of you.
Speaker 11: As history, Americans, both politicians and American citizens of all
Speaker 11: types have worked to make our system more democratic. The
Speaker 11: expansion of suffers, construction reforms, the progressive Euroa.
Speaker 6: Oftentimes that was brought through violent upheaval.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Civil War is what brought that about.
Speaker 6: Suffragette, even the Vietnam War when they lowered the voting age.
Speaker 6: If there hadn't have been the draft, people hadn't have
Speaker 6: gone to Vietnam, I don't think you would have seen
Speaker 6: the expansion of voting to eighteen year olds.
Speaker 11: Constitutional reform is tough, it's costly, it takes work, but
Speaker 11: we've done it throughout our history. And it's really only
Speaker 11: the last fifty years, only in our lifetimes, that we've
Speaker 11: kind of stopped thinking about how to make our system
Speaker 11: more democratic. We stopped doing the work of improving our democracy.
Speaker 6: Let me ask you, and this is a slightly different
Speaker 6: point than some. Maybe it's the design of the constitution
Speaker 6: that allows for rural states to have maybe an outsized influence,
Speaker 6: especially in the Senate, which is a relatively minoritarian body
Speaker 6: to begin with, one person can blue slip something that
Speaker 6: people can constantly stop things as one person and that
Speaker 6: person is always and Paul no. But is there also
Speaker 6: an issue that, as the world changes so rapidly, is
Speaker 6: democracy foundationally an analog system and that in an increasingly
Speaker 6: digital and fast world it's unwieldy even in its best iteration.
Speaker 1: And is that what also.
Speaker 6: Gives a kind of shine to the idea of dictatorship
Speaker 6: or authoritarian principles where things can be mobilized more quickly,
Speaker 6: decisions can be made. You know, democracy is painstaking. It's
Speaker 6: a grind, it is.
Speaker 11: And this is not the first time we've been around
Speaker 11: this bent right in a century ago, whether it was
Speaker 11: the Russian Revolution or the rise of fascism, during a
Speaker 11: period of dramatic change, industrialization, the entry to the modern era,
Speaker 11: people looked around and said, yeah, Stalin, that that works better,
Speaker 11: Hitler Mussolini, that.
Speaker 1: The trans run on time.
Speaker 11: Turns out in the long run there are costs to dictatorship,
Speaker 11: and that dictatorships don't They may shine for a while,
Speaker 11: but in the long run you don't much like the results.
Speaker 11: So we always have to be Uh, we've got old
Speaker 11: institutions and we constantly have to be thinking about how
Speaker 11: to improve them. But the basic idea of electing our
Speaker 11: governments and electing our governments in a context in which
Speaker 11: we enjoy a wide range of individual liberties, I don't
Speaker 11: think that's.
Speaker 6: Outdated, right, That stays no matter what the kids say
Speaker 6: on I'm going to say Instagram.
Speaker 5: I think the kids are kids get a bad rap.
Speaker 11: Sometimes they are among our strongest defenders.
Speaker 1: Well, you teach them in college, so you see them.
Speaker 1: I see them. I find them to be fascinating.
Speaker 6: You know, there's there's always that Millennias or later or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's I don't find that another one.
Speaker 11: You're going to save are emerging multiracial.
Speaker 6: Day better, somebody's got to the trinity of the minority.
Speaker 1: It's noble right now. Stephen Levitski, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here.
Speaker 4: Hi, everybody that goes over tonight.
Speaker 1: Before we go, we're gonna check in with your co
Speaker 1: host for the rest of this week. Does he lie again?
Speaker 1: Michael Costa? Everybody burn so excited? What do you guys
Speaker 1: get planned for the week? John will be the latest
Speaker 1: possible legislat Democrats. I'm hoping we'll to other social media
Speaker 1: for the Biden campaign. You guys are gonna be doing
Speaker 1: that all week, but talking at the same.
Speaker 6: Time, of course, not John, that would be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to it. Does he like to get out?
Speaker 4: Everybody?
Speaker 9: Week?
Speaker 4: Hope?
Speaker 1: Week? Here it is a moment is out?
Speaker 8: And what does President Biden do well? He bans TikTok
Speaker 8: for government employees, but creates an account for his own campaign. Y'all,
Speaker 8: you can't make this stuff up.
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Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast now