Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Alex Jones is mad at Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for distancing himself from Project twenty twenty five. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: little buddy, He's going to do all of it. We
Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. Kurt Anderson
Speaker 1: stops by to talk about the fun little pranks he
Speaker 1: played on Donald Trump and how the memory haunts him
Speaker 1: to this day. Then we'll talk to author and scholar
Speaker 1: Ruth ben Guillatt about the bad week the far right
Speaker 1: is having across the globe. But first we have the
Speaker 1: host of the Origin Story podcast, our friend in the UK,
Speaker 1: Ian Dunt. It is with great pleasure, joy and honor
Speaker 1: that we have a reason to talk to one of
Speaker 1: my favorite people, Ian Dunt, and he's looking pretty smug
Speaker 1: right now because the UK has, for the first time
Speaker 1: in fourteen years, elected a government that doesn't want to
Speaker 1: destroy itself discuss let's go.
Speaker 2: Congratulations Ian, Thank you very much. I think what I'm
Speaker 2: experiencing is joy. It's a strange feeling and it's been
Speaker 2: around for about four days now, and each day I
Speaker 2: wake up and be like, what the fuck is going on? Like,
Speaker 2: what is this strange feeling I have in my breast?
Speaker 2: And I think it is I think it's optimism, it's joy,
Speaker 2: It's a sense of happiness, boardline euphoria. I just don't
Speaker 2: know how much longer this can go on for, but
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I can do like another two or
Speaker 2: three months of this feeling.
Speaker 1: So explain to our listeners what happened. I want the
Speaker 1: election blow by blow. Your polls understated the left, So
Speaker 1: I want you to start there and get going.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know about that, to be honest.
Speaker 3: I mean, we had some polls, especially.
Speaker 2: Towards the end, these MRP polls, that were suggesting an
Speaker 2: even higher degree of decimation for the Conservative Party. So
Speaker 2: the end result came in in about kind of the
Speaker 2: middle zone of our polling. I think some of us
Speaker 2: had almost convinced ourselves that we wanted it to get
Speaker 2: even worse for the Conservatives. We were almost disappointed by
Speaker 2: the result. They ended up getting just over one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty seats. We'd sort of dreamt, what if they
Speaker 2: get less than one hundred. Maybe this is the final,
Speaker 2: you know, final stake through the heart of the vampire
Speaker 2: that is the Conservative Party. It isn't right. One hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty seats. That's the worst result that party has
Speaker 2: ever had. I mean, it hasn't performed worse than that
Speaker 2: since eighteen thirty two and we had the Great Reform
Speaker 2: Acts and started to introduce democracy. I mean, basically, that's
Speaker 2: as bad as it gets. And not just that. Not
Speaker 2: only did Labor, the main opposition party and now the government,
Speaker 2: the center left party, have a very very very strong evening,
Speaker 2: by far the best electoral evening has ever had, but
Speaker 2: the Liberal Democrats, another center left party, also picked up
Speaker 2: seventy one seats. So what you're looking at now and
Speaker 2: Parliament has just sat for the first time since the election.
Speaker 2: I've literally just switched it off to talk to now,
Speaker 2: is by far the most left wing parliament that this
Speaker 2: country has ever had. And to be honest, I haven't
Speaker 2: checked this, but I think you could start looking around Europe,
Speaker 2: you could start looking around the Western world, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure it would be probably the most left wing
Speaker 2: parliament that's around right now in a democratic country. It
Speaker 2: is an absolute triumph for progressive forces in Britain.
Speaker 1: Right, tell me what it was like that day because
Speaker 1: Labor has not been in power for fourteen years, so
Speaker 1: and it's been you know, the head of Lattice woman,
Speaker 1: the thin guy from California and the guy with the
Speaker 1: bad hair. I mean, it's been a string of some
Speaker 1: really bad prime ministers to discuss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's definitely like the worst collection of
Speaker 2: human beings you could have running a country at any
Speaker 2: given time. And you know what, even like they were
Speaker 2: like this to the bitter end, to the bitter bitter end.
Speaker 2: Even in the last week of the campaign, a scandal
Speaker 2: broke that the people around Richisunat the Prime minister had
Speaker 2: gone as soon as they found out when the election
Speaker 2: date was, but before the public knew, had just gone
Speaker 2: down to the local bookies to make a bet on
Speaker 2: when the election was like the most tawdry, low class,
Speaker 2: low grade form of corruption, like the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that if you were in like some tiny Latin American
Speaker 2: dictatorship and just be like, well, obviously I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: That's just too cheap. But it were prepared to do
Speaker 2: it at the height of the Conservative Party. So they
Speaker 2: were committed to the role that they had to give
Speaker 2: and they followed it through to the very end. But
Speaker 2: what's extraordinary about these years, right is you know what
Speaker 2: they're even doing in now, like swella Brotherman, one of
Speaker 2: the right wing figures in the Conservative Party is currently
Speaker 2: in the U of Bes at one of your batshit
Speaker 2: festivals of you know, the far right where they want
Speaker 2: to ban you know, I don't know, you know, embryos
Speaker 2: or whatever it is that they're up to at the moment,
Speaker 2: and she's currently talking about how one of the reasons
Speaker 2: we lost is because I didn't fight hard enough against
Speaker 2: taking down the rainbow flag wherever I saw it. And
Speaker 2: what she's really extraordinary, brother a is It already seems
Speaker 2: like a bad dream to be governed by these people
Speaker 2: with such tiny moral and intellectual characters. But it's more
Speaker 2: than that that their fundamental confusion was just thinking a
Speaker 2: lot of voters like them kind of raised their eyebrow
Speaker 2: at things like that of the rainbow flag, you know,
Speaker 2: political correctness or whatever. But they really don't want government
Speaker 2: ministers to just talk about that all the time rather
Speaker 2: than fixing immigration or healthcare or education. And yet that's
Speaker 2: the trap they fell into, just talking about this pub
Speaker 2: nonsense over and over and over again. Like someone's soul
Speaker 2: sifting itself slowly through a drain, and now finally it's done.
Speaker 2: That sense of palpable anger against them has just fully
Speaker 2: expressed itself, and it's ended up with a situation where
Speaker 2: Labor are triumphant to an extraordinary degree, to the kind
Speaker 2: of degree that you would expect that they're almost certainly
Speaker 2: be in power for longer than ten years.
Speaker 1: So can you explain to me? This is the aftermath
Speaker 1: of a number of really shitty governing decisions, but one
Speaker 1: of which I think is Braxit, and many people one
Speaker 1: of the favorite things that my European friends have liked
Speaker 1: to say to me. I think you may have even
Speaker 1: said this to me, is that you can undo Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: but you can't necessarily undo Brexit. So where are we
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard, it's really really difficult to undo it.
Speaker 2: And before you were even thinking about any of the
Speaker 2: logistical problems of undoing it, you have to deal with
Speaker 2: the electoral problem, which is that Brexit split the Labor
Speaker 2: Party right down the middle right, and actually it split
Speaker 2: the Tory Party to a certain extent as well. Those
Speaker 2: liberal Democrat votes that I talked about earlier. There's seventy
Speaker 2: one lived MMPs. Those are mostly people that were in
Speaker 2: typically conservative constituencies, but conservative remainance pro European conservatives. You're
Speaker 2: basically they're never going to vote for labor, but they
Speaker 2: will vote for a sort of center leftist, you know,
Speaker 2: top button done up liberal Democrat party, and that's what
Speaker 2: they did. But for labor, it just cut them through
Speaker 2: the heart because it was once you go into a
Speaker 2: cultural war territory for labor, it's just death. You've destroyed
Speaker 2: its electoral coalition. And Labour's electoral coalition is progressive, very
Speaker 2: very liberal, highly educated white collar workers with much less progressive,
Speaker 2: much more socially conservative blue collar workers, you know, for
Speaker 2: meving like in class industrial baits. Once you start turning
Speaker 2: politics into something that's no longer about economics but is
Speaker 2: about culture, that electoral coalition falls apart. So Keir Starmer,
Speaker 2: the labor leader, his main mission throughout this period is
Speaker 2: essentially kill the culture war. Just eradicate it, Do not
Speaker 2: allow it to take purchase. Do not get involved in
Speaker 2: conversations about you know, trans people in toilets or statues
Speaker 2: of you know, colonial figures that are being pulled down,
Speaker 2: or Brexit or any of these other key note issues
Speaker 2: that trigger cultural war conversations. Just kill that dead and
Speaker 2: focus on the meat and potatoes of what politics is, education,
Speaker 2: health care, public service delivery, taxation, the economy. Bring politics
Speaker 2: back to a reasonable conversation. That's pretty much what he
Speaker 2: succeeded in doing.
Speaker 1: So that is exactly the same thing that happened in France,
Speaker 1: right you see.
Speaker 2: I think there's a bit of a difference right with
Speaker 2: mccron and Starmer in that regard, because mccron is quite
Speaker 2: proudly open. He would explicitly say I am the opposite
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump. I'm the opposite of Marine Leapen. You know,
Speaker 2: I represent the open world economy. Now, that's the kind
Speaker 2: of message that someone like me desperately wants to hear
Speaker 2: from the Keir Starmer. Starmer will never give that message
Speaker 2: hours He's not involved in I'm one side of the
Speaker 2: open closed binary. He's involved in open closed is not
Speaker 2: a thing. We're going back to right and left. We
Speaker 2: have an electoral coalition that can win on right and left.
Speaker 2: That's the debate that we want. Open clothes can absolutely
Speaker 2: get fucked for Starmer. So's he's actually subtly different to mccron.
Speaker 2: Even though they're both called centrists, he's actually quite meaningfully distinct, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, and so interesting
Speaker 1: is that they just decided to sort of give up
Speaker 1: on the stuff that you and I both think are
Speaker 1: really important and just get power, which, again on the
Speaker 1: liberal side, you know, there's always a lot of like,
Speaker 1: why don't democrats do that? Or why don't liberals do more?
Speaker 1: Stuff like that is a sort of craven political calculus
Speaker 1: which might be needed to win elections, but doesn't win
Speaker 1: you France, right.
Speaker 2: You know what, here's the thing, right like, and I
Speaker 2: get for Sarch to do with it too. I want obviously,
Speaker 2: what I want is for case time had to come
Speaker 2: out tomorrow dressed in a European flag going hah, fuck
Speaker 2: you guys, I lied the whole way through and now
Speaker 2: we're going back in. Right, of course, that is what
Speaker 2: I want. However, if he'd done that, he would not
Speaker 2: I don't think who would have won the election.
Speaker 1: Well that's the calculus, right, right.
Speaker 2: And then yesterday the Rwanda plan was killed. Rwanda was
Speaker 2: a scheme to take asylum seekers and send them to Rwanda,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't to process them in Rwan. It was
Speaker 2: to send them there, regardless of whether they were found
Speaker 2: to be a legitimate asylum seeker, a refugee or not, or.
Speaker 1: Even if they were from Rwanda.
Speaker 2: Right right, Well, you know what the fund of the
Speaker 2: irony is. We grant asylum to people from Rwanda when
Speaker 2: they asked for it in the UK, and yet here
Speaker 2: we are sending people to Rwanda, going, oh, it's perfectly
Speaker 2: say to send asilum teacause they obviously it isn't demonstrably
Speaker 2: not by virtue of your own judgment. Now that is
Speaker 2: just a moral corrosion. Rights, that's the soul of a
Speaker 2: country just fucking disintegrating in front of your eyes. Now
Speaker 2: it's canceled, and you get it from the far left,
Speaker 2: the Corbyn left, which I don't want to say it's
Speaker 2: like the Sanders left in the US, because I think
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders is a far superior, much more intellectual and
Speaker 2: moral unba.
Speaker 1: Sanders is in the tent whereas Corbin is not.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: They are kind of allies and they clearly both admire
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: But Sanders is crafting legislation whereas Corbin is.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, but go on, yeah, so the Corbyn guys.
Speaker 2: The far left in Britain are by far the most upset.
Speaker 2: They're much more upset than the Conservatives, you know, because
Speaker 2: to see the center left come in is like their
Speaker 2: worst nightmare. They don't even really recognize that a right
Speaker 2: wing exists, you know. It's sort of their only real
Speaker 2: emotional and intellectual preoccupation is the battle within the left
Speaker 2: in Britain. It's the battle for the Labor Party rather
Speaker 2: than the battle for the country.
Speaker 3: And they're terribly upset.
Speaker 2: But you sort of think, look, can you honestly not
Speaker 2: realize now what there is to be gained by making
Speaker 2: compromises and yes, by being really pragmatic and practical and
Speaker 2: just thinking not about your ideals or your conscience. But
Speaker 2: what does it take to win? Like, what does it
Speaker 2: take to get those guys, to get the Conservatives and
Speaker 2: just bury them in the fucking ground and try and
Speaker 2: undo some of the damage that has been done to
Speaker 2: this country and to his reputation and to his moral
Speaker 2: standing over the last fourteen years like purity, Political purity
Speaker 2: accomplishes nothing, but if you win, you can scrap the
Speaker 2: Rowander scheme, which is what we finally see. And for
Speaker 2: that I have to say, I am just tremendously grateful,
Speaker 2: even though I accept that I myself am not hugely
Speaker 2: inspired by the kind of you know, political ideology that's
Speaker 2: been put forward by kit Start.
Speaker 1: So he really is just a sort of very moderate centrist.
Speaker 2: He's an odd guy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: He uses words which political people don't use.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: One of these words is service, and the the other
Speaker 2: one is dignity, and it's odd, right, Like, as soon
Speaker 2: as someone in this country, I know it's slightly different
Speaker 2: in the US, but as soon as someone in this
Speaker 2: country uses the word class, we know who they are.
Speaker 2: They're are socialists. If they use the word liberty or freedom,
Speaker 2: we know that they're a liberal. If they use the
Speaker 2: word tradition, we know they're a conservative. His language is rhetoric,
Speaker 2: doesn't really fit into any of the normal categories. So
Speaker 2: for a long time we all thought, you know what,
Speaker 2: he's just a kind of Hallmark's card nothingness. He's just
Speaker 2: saying these kind of sort of harmless sort of banalities. Really,
Speaker 2: but it's not right, I don't think once you start
Speaker 2: reading about his life story, I mean, he was a
Speaker 2: human rights lawyer when he came out of university, and
Speaker 2: he was living with his friends above what was basically
Speaker 2: a brothel, was a sort of massage partner, and one
Speaker 2: of his friends came back and found out that he
Speaker 2: wouldn't and he really telling anyone. He'd just been offering
Speaker 2: this free legal advice to the women who worked in
Speaker 2: that shop. When they were quite startled by it, he went,
Speaker 2: would these women just have to be treated with respect? Now?
Speaker 2: Take that and then think about the way that he
Speaker 2: talks about football. He was really into his football, but
Speaker 2: when he talked talks about local football teams. He doesn't
Speaker 2: really talk about the sport. What he says is that
Speaker 2: a local football team is the source of a town's pride,
Speaker 2: sense of dignity. He has this constant focus, especially through
Speaker 2: people's work, especially when they're in manual labor, that they
Speaker 2: should be treated with respect, that they should live a
Speaker 2: dignified working life where they're paid enough to have a
Speaker 2: dignified life. In the way that they organize their family
Speaker 2: and their local community. So all of that it is
Speaker 2: kind of meaningful, you know, And I think it's it's
Speaker 2: a really from an American position I think would be
Speaker 2: considered really quite on the left. I mean, he talks
Speaker 2: about himself as socialist, but it's always framed in these
Speaker 2: terms of dignity for the people and service from the
Speaker 2: government to the people. And that's the kind of language
Speaker 2: that he uses, and I think it sounds quite harmless,
Speaker 2: it can see. Always actually a pretty left wing agenda.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, interesting a level left wing agenda, you do, I know,
Speaker 1: you do? Tell me what else is happening there, Nigel Farage,
Speaker 1: that fucking.
Speaker 2: Guy go, Yes, the human dust spin with the smell
Speaker 2: of ash.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if Roger Stone more slightly
Speaker 1: more legitimate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's as if you know, you're sat on the couch,
Speaker 2: as you say, and your fingers go down as you
Speaker 2: get bored and goes under anything. You just feel this
Speaker 2: really kind of wet, sticky, disgusting old substance somehow attached
Speaker 2: to your finger. And that's basically what Nigel Faraja's soul
Speaker 2: looks like. So he is the leader of the Reform Party.
Speaker 2: It's a very very right wing party. Although to be honest,
Speaker 2: you know, the same thing has happened to the Conservatives
Speaker 2: parties that has happened to the Republicans, which is it
Speaker 2: has absorbed so much of the populous right that it
Speaker 2: really is quite hard to tell the difference between them.
Speaker 2: But he is further to the right than the Conservative
Speaker 2: Party and there is no meaningful liberal conservative tradition within him.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He managed to secure for the first time five seats
Speaker 2: in parliament. He's never been able to get into parliament before.
Speaker 2: He's got a foothold. We are much more like the
Speaker 2: US than we are like Europe in terms of our
Speaker 2: electoral system. You know, the proportional representation electoral system that
Speaker 2: you get in every other European country would allow a
Speaker 2: populist right party to have pretty hefty representation all the time.
Speaker 2: We're not like that. We're first passed the post like
Speaker 2: you guys do, so they never really get a foothold.
Speaker 2: They have this time, and incidentally, so did the Green Party.
Speaker 2: The Green Party used to have one MP and that
Speaker 2: has four MPs. What you're seeing is just this desire
Speaker 2: to break away from the two party binary to basically
Speaker 2: a much more European idea. You know, a hard right party,
Speaker 2: a Green Party over here, and some smaller centrist parties
Speaker 2: in the middle. That's happening. You can see the desire
Speaker 2: in the population, but the electoral system doesn't quite.
Speaker 3: Let it out.
Speaker 2: Really, it doesn't represent it in seats. He's got his foothold.
Speaker 2: He will use it to spread absolute fucking poison in
Speaker 2: the House of Commons chamber. But again I have to say,
Speaker 2: you know, the Conservative Party have been dealing in that
Speaker 2: kind of poison for years now, right, It's not.
Speaker 1: A huge, huge stretch.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's been nearly a decade since
Speaker 2: Theresa May, after the Brexit vote, said that if you're
Speaker 2: a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere,
Speaker 2: where you would almost sort of allude to this idea
Speaker 2: of oh, if your mixed race, if you've got mixed nationality,
Speaker 2: if you speak multiple languages, you're not really one of us,
Speaker 2: you know, not properly one of us. That hutred nativist
Speaker 2: rhetoric has been deeply embedded in the Conservative Party since Brexit.
Speaker 2: Now Nigel Farage is its perfect embodiment, you know. I
Speaker 2: mean he even looks the part as well as sounding
Speaker 2: the part. But the actual proper distinction, the sense of
Speaker 2: there'll be a real sense of deterioration, isn't there. What
Speaker 2: you get is probably the most frightening thing for the
Speaker 2: Right in Britain, which is a formalized split on the
Speaker 2: right flank. Typically speaking, that always happens on the left.
Speaker 2: The left, because of its internal battles, its need for purity,
Speaker 2: constantly cuts the vote up, just like it did it
Speaker 2: even in this election over Gaza. The right is always
Speaker 2: very unified. There's a monopoly there from the Conservative Party.
Speaker 2: The Conservative monopoly is now gone. It is split with Farage,
Speaker 2: and sure there might be a little bit more poison.
Speaker 2: I accept that, but at the same time it also
Speaker 2: suggests that the Conservatives are going to find it very
Speaker 2: very hard to get back into power right.
Speaker 1: Because they're not as a line. So again, the one
Speaker 1: thing that I keep wanting to go back. You formed
Speaker 1: a coalition and you were able to win, and that
Speaker 1: happened in France, and that happened in the UK. Right,
Speaker 1: I mean there was to a certain extent coalition put together.
Speaker 1: Flea is just say yes. Even if I'm wrong to
Speaker 1: say yes.
Speaker 2: I mean yes, as you know, I will just do
Speaker 2: what you ask of me. Really, we agree all to
Speaker 2: this stuff that I say before before we record. I'm
Speaker 2: just what is wrong? You are basically correct, and I
Speaker 2: think that there is something to be said there for
Speaker 2: being able to put aside the idealism your perfect outcome
Speaker 2: and just gunning for the best outcome you think can
Speaker 2: be achieved. I don't want to understate the amount of
Speaker 2: hostility between centrists and left wingers in Britain at the moment,
Speaker 2: because it is big. There are a lot of left
Speaker 2: wingers who would frankly rather have the Tories in than
Speaker 2: Keir Starmer. But it's true that there is an electoral
Speaker 2: coalition there and it worked. I mean, thinking about the US,
Speaker 2: the thing that concerns me is this is where I
Speaker 2: think the limit is of what can be learned from
Speaker 2: what's happening in Europe right now for the US, which
Speaker 2: is I just think it's very hard to kill the
Speaker 2: culture war in the US because it's grounded in centuries
Speaker 2: of ideas around religion and race, which just don't exist
Speaker 2: in the UK. You know, we don't have that history
Speaker 2: with race. We don't have any talk of religion at
Speaker 2: all in our political life over here. And so Kia
Speaker 2: Starmer can kill the culture war, I mean, I think
Speaker 2: very clearly Biden has been trying to do the same
Speaker 2: thing in the US, but it's just much harder to
Speaker 2: do because the baseline, the pre populous basefline of how
Speaker 2: politics is conducted has much more cultural kind of wedges
Speaker 2: in it than we do in the UK, so it's
Speaker 2: not instantly obvious to me how you kind of map
Speaker 2: across what's happening over here in Europe to what could
Speaker 2: happen in the US.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you're better off than we are. Look, I
Speaker 1: get it, I get it. I hear it, I hear
Speaker 1: it loud. Yes, I know.
Speaker 2: I've been waiting years, you know, I mean I've had
Speaker 2: four years. If you would biteen while I suffer, and
Speaker 2: I've just needed this moment. You have to let me enjoy.
Speaker 1: Smug a friend, Ian, you are my north star or something. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: Please enjoy it. You'll be something terrible will happen soon.
Speaker 1: Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
Speaker 1: look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
Speaker 1: new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
Speaker 1: with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
Speaker 1: and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.
Speaker 1: Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil Geniuses and the
Speaker 1: co creator of command Z. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Kurt Anderson I usually don't introduce people in a very
Speaker 1: long winded and an annoying way, but I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it with you because I think of you as one
Speaker 1: of the people who saw.
Speaker 3: This all coming, and by all you mean what You.
Speaker 1: Were the person who coined the phrase short fingered vulgarian.
Speaker 3: Ah that, yes, and you.
Speaker 1: Were the person who cooked up the idea of sending
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump checks for three cents.
Speaker 3: Well, I and my partner and my theft did all
Speaker 3: those things. But yes we did.
Speaker 1: Yes, So you knew somewhere that we were going to
Speaker 1: end up with this guy discuss.
Speaker 3: I'm a prophet, Molly, and I'm compared to talk about
Speaker 3: my prophecies. No. He started the Climate magazine in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six. You know, Donald Trump right away at his inception,
Speaker 3: as a well known person at that moment, seemed like
Speaker 3: a perfect person to satirize and cover with ridicule as
Speaker 3: we did, and as a bully, as a liar, as
Speaker 3: a guy who is our first issue. We quote him
Speaker 3: saying I could solve the nuclear problem with Soviet you
Speaker 3: needed an hour and a half. Maybe I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: need an hour and a half. So he's that guy
Speaker 3: now in nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven, and back
Speaker 3: then when you know we were doing spot he was
Speaker 3: a ridiculous buffoon purely, of course, he used a little
Speaker 3: ridiculous buffoon and not.
Speaker 1: The head of the Republican Party and not the.
Speaker 3: He of the Republican Party. And of this you know
Speaker 3: what else? Can we call it? Proto fascist movement that
Speaker 3: is in our nation? Yeah, so we picked him and
Speaker 3: there he is here we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about the checks for a minute. Just explain
Speaker 1: the check because that's an incredible little prank that ended
Speaker 1: up saying so much.
Speaker 3: It was fun. We did all kinds of like serious
Speaker 3: journalism by serious journalists about Trump and other people, but
Speaker 3: we also did these fun things, and often they were
Speaker 3: kind of very very long cons essentially of nachs on
Speaker 3: whether Johnson newd New England go to work for Rob
Speaker 3: Reagan and George Bush. And we didn't go after Donald
Speaker 3: Trump specifically on this one, which made it so beautiful.
Speaker 3: But it worked out and it took us a year.
Speaker 3: So anyway, we set up this fake thing called the
Speaker 3: National Refund Clearing House and got the addresses of all
Speaker 3: these rich people. Well done, rich people. It's fifty eight
Speaker 3: of them, I think, and sent them a letters saying
Speaker 3: we're very very sorry you have this refund of a
Speaker 3: couple of bucks rebucks coming. Here's the check. Or to
Speaker 3: eighty nine it was like an autumn ount, so okay, fine,
Speaker 3: and you know half of them maybe or more cashed it.
Speaker 3: This was three bucks whatever. And then to the ones
Speaker 3: who did cash them, we said, okay, oh, a month later,
Speaker 3: here's another check for an additional refund, so we're very
Speaker 3: sorry we didn't get the soap. Only of them would
Speaker 3: cash that. And we went down and down and down
Speaker 3: until we got to thirteen cents, and uh keep saying,
Speaker 3: here's another check from the National Ferry winning National refund
Speaker 3: and clearing House. And there were two out of the
Speaker 3: fifty eight people who endorsed and cashed these tiny thirteenth
Speaker 3: cent checks, one of who was a non Kushogi, the
Speaker 3: Saudi arms dealer, who was about to go bankrupt at
Speaker 3: that time, and the other one was Donald Trump, who
Speaker 3: also was about to go bankrupt, as it turns out,
Speaker 3: and then before he made his comeback and is who
Speaker 3: he is, but yes, the fact that he did, and
Speaker 3: then when it is one of his recent adjudicated cases.
Speaker 3: The Swermy Daniels hush money case, the prosecutors actually used
Speaker 3: his ragging about that check cashing from thirty four years
Speaker 3: ago to show that he bragged about it in one
Speaker 3: of the books he published and didn't write, saying, look,
Speaker 3: this is one of micromanager. This is where a great manager,
Speaker 3: I know every dollar that comes and goes, and the
Speaker 3: spy made fun of me for it, but like, I'm
Speaker 3: proud of it. So there you go, and that was
Speaker 3: part of the prosecution's case. It gives him like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he knew about the checks stormy obviously because he was
Speaker 3: bragging about it when he cashed the thirteenth cent check
Speaker 3: third years So yeah, it was a great It was
Speaker 3: a great, great full cot because again her hulks or
Speaker 3: prank or exposure because we weren't going after him specifically,
Speaker 3: he just won the contest.
Speaker 1: You know, I think a really good point here, and
Speaker 1: also exactly what we're talking about is this idea that yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that moment that they used in the trial
Speaker 1: where they talked about him knowing every single thing that
Speaker 1: happened in the business, was actually very meaningful and useful
Speaker 1: because you know what they were saying was that he
Speaker 1: didn't know.
Speaker 3: Yes, And when you say we were on this guy
Speaker 3: and we saw in the future and all that, that's
Speaker 3: not true. But we were clear out of it about
Speaker 3: this guy that the rest of most of the rest
Speaker 3: of the media at the time was just you know,
Speaker 3: celebrating effectively and building up and raising up. So but
Speaker 3: it is extraordinary, like an impossible work of fiction, like
Speaker 3: so much of real life these days that you know,
Speaker 3: here we are thirty four years later, and this thing
Speaker 3: we did, part of our our cats making against him
Speaker 3: for years became an element in his prosecution and conviction
Speaker 3: as well as our You mentioned the short figured bulgarian,
Speaker 3: which is the main epithet we attached to him every
Speaker 3: time we mentioned it. Once we came up with it
Speaker 3: and not an idiot. And then I practically spit out
Speaker 3: my coffee at the television when I was watching a
Speaker 3: debate in twenty fifteen or sixteen at which Marco Rubio
Speaker 3: brought that up in a presidential debate, and so I
Speaker 3: thought like, yeah, holy cow, I mean, what has God
Speaker 3: what these jokes we were making to get under his
Speaker 3: skin and successfully get under his skin decades earlier, were
Speaker 3: now part of the national discourse and thing and comments
Speaker 3: of consequence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is the thing about Donald Trump. So
Speaker 1: you have now known this person as a public person,
Speaker 1: probably longer than any of us, and had a longer
Speaker 1: relationship with him. Here we are. She's sort of down
Speaker 1: but not out right. Right now, he is a prejumptive
Speaker 1: Republican nominee because the Convention hasn't happened yet. He has
Speaker 1: taken another whack at the presidency. The Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: given him everything he could ever want in a laundry list.
Speaker 1: He's polling really well. You know, he has a chance
Speaker 1: to get back in there and punish all of us.
Speaker 1: You're going to get mo with me.
Speaker 3: Well, I've been hoping we could share a bob.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, you know it's that's up to cash Patel.
Speaker 1: That's not my wheal husband. Yeah, I'm curious if you
Speaker 1: could tell us how you think you beat this guy.
Speaker 3: He's amazing, I mean, you know, I mean really cool
Speaker 3: together with facts was what we did say. No, this
Speaker 3: guy is bankrupt, he's a failure. We were saying back
Speaker 3: back to Nadian on and ninety so that was a
Speaker 3: way then. Now it didn't beat him. We as I
Speaker 3: sometimes say we tried killing Hitler in the crib, but like, eh,
Speaker 3: he went on, as did Trump. So it's hard. And
Speaker 3: as we found out with the media, the news media
Speaker 3: in starting in two five fifteen, where he was his
Speaker 3: whole act, which is in every in most possible respects,
Speaker 3: unlike any previous existing politician, is what got him a
Speaker 3: movement and support and did not do you dismiss him
Speaker 3: as people did. Obviously you know in the press he
Speaker 3: can't win, He's not going to win, He's going to lose,
Speaker 3: and then what do you do? And and so it's
Speaker 3: he's playing by this whole set of other rules and
Speaker 3: always has Still it is, so it's hard. I don't
Speaker 3: think there's a master plan of this is how you
Speaker 3: beat him, although you can't do it normally. I mean
Speaker 3: I don't. For instance, in twenty seventeen, after he won
Speaker 3: and we were saying, oh, what's who's going to run
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, I thought, oh, the person running a
Speaker 3: great possible Irani gives a miss. Senator Al Franken, who
Speaker 3: as a former comedian and as a performer and as
Speaker 3: a very very smart, smart US senator, could have done
Speaker 3: a great job of he would be an effective taker
Speaker 3: on of the nonsense on his own terms. And you know,
Speaker 3: people say, oh, it's all our show. No, he failed
Speaker 3: one debate, but it shouldn't all be a show. Debates
Speaker 3: don't matter. True, true, true, it's all our show. That's terrible.
Speaker 3: But as I've been writing about for many, many years,
Speaker 3: it has become more and more of a show. Oh,
Speaker 3: since television was invented, and since John F. Kennedy beat Nixon,
Speaker 3: and on and on through Reagan, Clinton, Trump. So you know,
Speaker 3: it is what it is. Don't complain about it, deal
Speaker 3: with it. And I think one of the ways to
Speaker 3: deal with it is in addition to the conventional ways
Speaker 3: of talking about elements of Project twenty twenty five and
Speaker 3: all the things that you know need to be done
Speaker 3: to have you know, to have some versions of swinging
Speaker 3: wild than showmanship, but all those things that are part
Speaker 3: of what presidential politics has become. So you know, and
Speaker 3: of course what people including me, are worried, not worried,
Speaker 3: that President Biden simply can't pull off, is in addition
Speaker 3: to that stuff. These days, the more conventional ways of
Speaker 3: performing a debate where your deranged, maronic, ignorance, lying opponent
Speaker 3: gives you five, ten, twenty giant opportunities to waive as
Speaker 3: many other Democratic candidates could have taken advantage of and
Speaker 3: this guy couldn't.
Speaker 1: My question is more, what are the things you've seen
Speaker 1: in your experience with Trump that you think this Democratic
Speaker 1: Party coalition against fascism could use?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think there's anything magic. There isn't an
Speaker 3: al Franken esque character among the potential candidates who could
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: But even like, as you're running against Trump, what does
Speaker 1: that look like? You know, like, what are the ways
Speaker 1: to get him?
Speaker 3: I think it's not as hard now as it was
Speaker 3: actually in twenty sixteen or even twenty twenty. At this
Speaker 3: point we've seen every trick in his playbook. Back in
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen and sixteen, it was what what is this?
Speaker 3: This is not the way politicians act, this is this
Speaker 3: is unprecedented. Well, eight or nine years later, everything is
Speaker 3: precedented that he does. It's a familiar stick and a
Speaker 3: familiar run of greatest hits. So I think in a
Speaker 3: certain way, if you have a skillful presenter of the
Speaker 3: case against the fascism and against making abortion and contraceptives
Speaker 3: and all pornography as a project twenty twenty five wants
Speaker 3: to do illegal. I think that's a decent messenger of
Speaker 3: that who's also appealing in all the ways that presidential
Speaker 3: candidates have to be appealing. It's not that hard of
Speaker 3: a thing. I mean, that was right. That has been
Speaker 3: the strategy. The strategy of the Biden campaign is this
Speaker 3: guy is so horrible and so phenomenally horrible, and people
Speaker 3: don't like him except for his cult. You know, he
Speaker 3: needed it be Well, I think that's true if you
Speaker 3: have a you know, fully empowered. Yeah, but that's not
Speaker 3: what I so I'm not saying, what do you do?
Speaker 3: I mean, run a normal campaign against this crazy, dangerous,
Speaker 3: dislike person.
Speaker 1: He won against Hillary Clinton, right, I mean he didn't
Speaker 1: win the popular vote, but he did win the electoral college,
Speaker 1: so he can win.
Speaker 3: He can win. Yeah, yes, And I thought he could
Speaker 3: win when people were saying, oh, it's a slam dug.
Speaker 3: You know, it's only a twenty three percent chance according
Speaker 3: to the date Silver forecast in two those sixteen and
Speaker 3: I used to say, are seventeen percent or whatever? Of
Speaker 3: course he's going to lose. Well, I always said to
Speaker 3: myself at that time and to friends, well, you know,
Speaker 3: Russian roulette one and six chances, only a one and
Speaker 3: six chance you die. Well, you know it's a one
Speaker 3: and six chance. So yes, he can win. And obviously
Speaker 3: from the polling data, and he has been president and
Speaker 3: the country did not fall. You know, there are all
Speaker 3: kinds of ways in which people who are inclined maybe
Speaker 3: kind of sort of to vote for him beyond the cult,
Speaker 3: which you know, he has many millions of people beyond
Speaker 3: the cult who have voted for him and will vote
Speaker 3: for him again. Well, on the other hand, now on
Speaker 3: like twenty sixteen, everybody has had the experience of him
Speaker 3: as president and how the chaos and division and too
Speaker 3: much attention on his hyjaink so all the rest that
Speaker 3: produces most people don't like.
Speaker 1: No, it's not popular. I mean, this is part of
Speaker 1: what's happening here is these are unpopular ideas. I mean.
Speaker 1: One of the parts of Project twenty twenty five which
Speaker 1: is shocking to me is the removal of no fault divorces. Right,
Speaker 1: A no fault divorce was a way for people to
Speaker 1: get out of a divorce without it being about you know,
Speaker 1: because of the way it worked was you had to
Speaker 1: have a reason to get divorced in those countries, so
Speaker 1: it would have to be abandonment or abuse or annulment.
Speaker 1: You know, there were certain sort of faults and you
Speaker 1: would have a person would be at fault. And the
Speaker 1: idea with the no fault divorce was that you could
Speaker 1: get out of a divorce without blaming someone just because
Speaker 1: you didn't want to be married anymore. And this cut
Speaker 1: down domestic violence. People got divorced. It was really so
Speaker 1: good for the community and for America. It was signed
Speaker 1: into law by Republicans' favorite Ronald Reagan, and they want
Speaker 1: it gone well.
Speaker 3: And who is leading that? Whose agenda is this? The
Speaker 3: guy is on his third wife and lord knows how
Speaker 3: many mistresses, which is you know, one more of those
Speaker 3: gobsmacking ironies that are there. And the thing is about
Speaker 3: let's get rid of no fault divorce. Oh, let's get
Speaker 3: rid of pornography. Once again, ironic at the very least
Speaker 3: about this. The Libertarian Party, the Freedom Party of Republicans
Speaker 3: wanting to use the law and the heavy hand of
Speaker 3: regulation make divorce heart. Don't have pornography all the rest
Speaker 3: of it. Maybe do a lot of contraception, definitely, don't
Speaker 3: allow abortion, all those things. Which people sometimes for reasonable reasons,
Speaker 3: to disapprove of abortion. Well, can I get it why
Speaker 3: people do to disapprove of pornography, I totally get it.
Speaker 3: But all these things that are cultural problems, if you will,
Speaker 3: or issues or the way culture has changed. These right
Speaker 3: winners want to use the heavy hand of the state
Speaker 3: to deal with which doesn't work, won't work, can't work,
Speaker 3: and you know has until the social conservatives arose and
Speaker 3: took over. The Herritage Foundation and the Republican Party to
Speaker 3: some degree were not part of their act. Really, I mean,
Speaker 3: it was rhetorical. But now the nuts are, you know,
Speaker 3: more and more in charge that ever. You need to,
Speaker 3: you know, get past those to abiden to wobbly and
Speaker 3: demented or at Parkinson or whatever, and just focus on
Speaker 3: look at what these people want to do. You know,
Speaker 3: look at this Project twenty twenty five thing that half
Speaker 3: of whose authors of the nine hundred pages of very
Speaker 3: specific proposals are former Trump advisors and employees in his
Speaker 3: previous administration. Like this is no joke. They'll go for this,
Speaker 3: and okay, yeah, he will understand that, Oh we don't
Speaker 3: want to, you know, have a national ban on abortion.
Speaker 3: That's bad politically or oh no, we don't want to
Speaker 3: outlaw pornography because my entire you know, male base are
Speaker 3: porn pants whatever it is. You know, he understands that.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean this new Trumpist maga deep state
Speaker 3: that he's going to try to install won't pursue all
Speaker 3: those things. So the Dobbs decision to overthrow Roe v.
Speaker 3: Wade was a thing obviously that look, it really happened.
Speaker 3: They can really do this. They did this, and for
Speaker 3: the people who are affected and horrified and whose lives
Speaker 3: are changed, that is to say, women by this awful
Speaker 3: diminution of freedom. Okay, that did that, but it can
Speaker 3: happen to this thing that you care about, and this
Speaker 3: thing that you care about, and that's what you know.
Speaker 3: The case has to be made that this isn't just hysteria,
Speaker 3: you know. And I'm somebody, as you know, Molly, who
Speaker 3: tries not to turn up my step panic dial to
Speaker 3: ten or eleven and to stay calm. Well and like,
Speaker 3: oh no, it may not be the end of the box.
Speaker 3: Well we have been before. And the metaphor I used
Speaker 3: is at the edge of the abyss. We here we
Speaker 3: are again, and here we are really are because as
Speaker 3: we has said, and it's true, there are many many
Speaker 3: more experienced, competent, prepared people in the pack of Christian
Speaker 3: nationalists and white supremacists and all the rest of his
Speaker 3: crew who are ready to go. And there's all kinds
Speaker 3: of overheated hyperbole, But as President Biden often says, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not hyperbole, it's not hypherberlely often it's not anymore
Speaker 3: piperple about the threat face And you know, so I
Speaker 3: want the Darky Candy to be able to make that
Speaker 3: case clearly and without all the other stuff that, unfortunately
Speaker 3: President Biden will have to spend the next four months
Speaker 3: dealing with then and everybody worrying about. Is this the day, Kurt.
Speaker 1: Anderson, We're at a time.
Speaker 3: We love you though, all right, happy to talk as ever.
Speaker 1: Ruth ben Gillatt is the author of Strong Men, Mussolini
Speaker 1: to the Present and publisher of the sub Stack Lucid
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Too Fast Politics, my friend, Ruth ben Gillat.
Speaker 4: Hi, Ruth, Hello, delighted to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have you. I'm such a fan
Speaker 1: of yours and the moment we are in is a
Speaker 1: moment that I feel we need to talk about authoritarianism,
Speaker 1: and that is why I sent up the bad signal yesterday.
Speaker 1: I hope that's okay.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's literally around the world. Of course, the life
Speaker 4: and death matter, and we see what could be coming
Speaker 4: our way too.
Speaker 1: I want to first start with good news because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of Democrats are pretty stressed right now.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty freaked out, and so I think for the
Speaker 1: people who stopped me on the street and are really upset,
Speaker 1: that we should first talk about the humongous, shoemongous victory
Speaker 1: in France. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not just France. I've been maintaining for a
Speaker 4: while that we the world is experiencing the start of
Speaker 4: an anti authoritarian wave. And I've been tracking the protests
Speaker 4: around the world, and you know, Chile, look what happened
Speaker 4: in Poland, in Iran, even in China there was the
Speaker 4: lockdown protests. Countries are having the biggest protests they've ever
Speaker 4: had in their histories, or the biggest their mass nonviolent protests,
Speaker 4: or the biggest protests they've had in like thirty years.
Speaker 4: Israel too, right, Israel, exactly, people turning out, and so
Speaker 4: in Poland this was you know, recently they got rid
Speaker 4: of their far right government. They had a campaign based
Speaker 4: on optimism and hope and they exposed corruption and they
Speaker 4: had a mass rally that was the largest rally since
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine. That led to the largest voter turnout
Speaker 4: for thirty years. So what's happening in the UK where
Speaker 4: Labor had a historic victory. And now the French. It
Speaker 4: was very important with the French. They did everything right.
Speaker 4: You have to have unity, and they also had a
Speaker 4: recall to a very emotional symbol, emotional movement, which was
Speaker 4: the Popular Front of the nineteen thirties, and they called
Speaker 4: their coalition the New Popular Front and this was like
Speaker 4: a winning recipe.
Speaker 1: So tell us that, since you are a very smart historian,
Speaker 1: tell us the history of the Popular Front.
Speaker 4: This was, you know, in the nineteen thirties when you
Speaker 4: had the Spanish Civil War going on, which was a
Speaker 4: kind of you know, it was a Franco the fascists
Speaker 4: versus the international left, and so Spain became a microcosm
Speaker 4: of this larger fight against fascism. And you had in
Speaker 4: France the Popular Front, which was a unity coalition, you
Speaker 4: know that that was designed to beat off fascism. In
Speaker 4: France but also in Europe, and so I was very
Speaker 4: interested because we know that politics and authoritarians have been
Speaker 4: much better than democrats in using emotions, in using symbols,
Speaker 4: and so it was very interested and happy that in
Speaker 4: France they called the New Popular Front because that appropriated
Speaker 4: the whole anti fascist heritage which was already there and
Speaker 4: is very lively in France because they also had like
Speaker 4: years of Nazi occupation in doing World War Two. So
Speaker 4: they did everything right and they had this victory. So
Speaker 4: it shows the world. It shows us that there are
Speaker 4: things that can be done, that there's a momentum in
Speaker 4: the world for anti authoritarianism. People don't want to live
Speaker 4: with their rights taken away, with plunderers, with abusers. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot to be hopeful about in the world
Speaker 4: if we could apply it here.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so let's talk about that, because when I
Speaker 1: watched that election go down, what I was struck by
Speaker 1: was the coalition that was put together to defeat the
Speaker 1: far right. So why don't you explain to us exactly
Speaker 1: sort of the minutia of the two election system.
Speaker 4: So it's a two step election and other countries have
Speaker 4: this too, and you have the first round, they had
Speaker 4: a week in between and then you had the second round.
Speaker 4: And the advantage, of course, is that the first round
Speaker 4: everybody got very scared because indeed the National Rally Party
Speaker 4: of the pen and I call them Barbie and Ken,
Speaker 4: this twenty eight year old Jordan Bardella, who was immediately
Speaker 4: made the face at twenty six years old the leader
Speaker 4: of the National Rally Party very smart because fascism has
Speaker 4: always been a movement of youth. So they did very
Speaker 4: well the first round and in the interim week that
Speaker 4: was what everything came together and people realized that this
Speaker 4: was real. So they had like a reality check and
Speaker 4: that's when they did this unity coalition. And it's very significant.
Speaker 4: And the lesson is that even people who don't get
Speaker 4: along normally can band together when there's the threat of fascism.
Speaker 4: Because the French left is famously divisive, they don't there's
Speaker 4: many different parties and factions even within parties, and they
Speaker 4: don't get along. But they did. They acted strategically to
Speaker 4: beat off this larger, you know, evil that could come
Speaker 4: from this homophobic, pro putin racist party. And so this
Speaker 4: was this was something to watch and think about as
Speaker 4: it relates to us.
Speaker 1: Can you just explain a little bit about Marie Lupin's
Speaker 1: relationship to fascism, because she said that the sort of
Speaker 1: Orbon and Putin were her jam Remember that she said
Speaker 1: it many times, but yes, if you could, yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay. So Marie lepen is a very interesting figure
Speaker 4: who unites the past of the right and the way
Speaker 4: it's looking today because she became the head of the
Speaker 4: National Rally Party because her father, Jean Marie Leapin, was
Speaker 4: the founder of France's kind of official neo fascist party
Speaker 4: that went back, you know, many many decades. He was
Speaker 4: vowedly neo Nazi. He was a supporter of Nazism, and
Speaker 4: so it's a very male environment and she was able
Speaker 4: to come up in the ranks and then become the
Speaker 4: head of this new National Rally Party because of this heritage.
Speaker 4: And that's why I looked very suspiciously upon her very
Speaker 4: smart appointment of this totally unknown twenty six year old
Speaker 4: Jordan Bardella as the new face and the new leader
Speaker 4: of the National Rally Party because just like Maloney in Italy,
Speaker 4: these people who have a connection to fascism and are
Speaker 4: now in this day supporting Putin and supporting Orbon and
Speaker 4: people who are taking forth those authoritarian values and programs
Speaker 4: and actions. In the case of Putin and Ukraine, they're
Speaker 4: trying to have it both ways. They're trying to be
Speaker 4: faithful allies of these authoritarian forces, but they're also trying
Speaker 4: to shake off slightly their fascist pass. So Bardella again,
Speaker 4: he was twenty six, now he's twenty eight. He's supposed
Speaker 4: to be the fresh face and clean hands of the
Speaker 4: French right. But this is where the left, in calling
Speaker 4: their movement the New Popular Front, got cut straight through that.
Speaker 4: So names matter, symbols matter, and so they didn't. They
Speaker 4: didn't do as well as expected. They came in third,
Speaker 4: and so this is a very very important thing. And
Speaker 4: we're seeing this again. We're seeing this even in its
Speaker 4: own form with Putin, who obviously connects to communism, not fascism,
Speaker 4: but at some level authoritarianism in the world. They do
Speaker 4: the same things, whether the left or right wing. He's
Speaker 4: the new face of authoritarianism and he's now a right
Speaker 4: wing leader, but he's rehabilitating Stalin. Alexi Navalni died in
Speaker 4: a prison that was the Polar Wolf prison in Siberia
Speaker 4: that was actually built by Stalin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is craziness. So the Popular Front
Speaker 1: was this idea that they would fight against Stalin and
Speaker 1: the Nazis.
Speaker 4: Well, not again Stalin against Hitler. The original Popular Front
Speaker 4: was a coalition in the nineteen thirties to beat off
Speaker 4: fascism within France and also stand up during the Spanish
Speaker 4: Civil War when the whole of Europe was divided against Hitler,
Speaker 4: against Mussolini, against fascism.
Speaker 1: Let's take that lesson here. What would that look like here?
Speaker 4: It's difficult to have an analogy because we are.
Speaker 1: We don't have a coalition government. No, I mean that
Speaker 1: would look like the center and the left coming together.
Speaker 1: We have more people in this country, just like in
Speaker 1: the world, who want democracy than fascism. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So the United States, as we all know, is a
Speaker 4: bipartisan system, and that's been a bit of a liability
Speaker 4: in this situation. If one party becomes an autocratic party
Speaker 4: and is a giant party, the people who within that
Speaker 4: party who don't no longer identify because they've become autocratic
Speaker 4: have nowhere to go. But that said, this is a
Speaker 4: huge country and it's very important that the left and
Speaker 4: the center, all the progressive forces right now band together
Speaker 4: under the banner of Democrats and have that unity and
Speaker 4: get out the vote. And the Democrats also need to
Speaker 4: be far better about having an emotional appeal. And we
Speaker 4: know that, you know, just saying you have to fight fascism,
Speaker 4: you have to protect democracy, it's too abstract. And so
Speaker 4: that's why, and Maali, you've talked about this very convincingly,
Speaker 4: very well that reproductive rights is an issue that's concrete,
Speaker 4: it affects everyday life. And that's why even Republican women
Speaker 4: are uncomfortable with the GOP's stance on this. But there's
Speaker 4: ways to center and emphasize that this is an existential
Speaker 4: fight against fascism in our country. I mean, they want
Speaker 4: to deport fifteen to twenty million people. I'd liked everyone
Speaker 4: to realize this is more than the population of Sweden,
Speaker 4: of Belgium, of Cuba, of Haiti, and it is ten
Speaker 4: times the size of Operation wetback in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 4: This is a recipe just that alone, without all the
Speaker 4: other things. They want to do a Project twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five to create an autocracy. This is a recipe for
Speaker 4: mass suffering, mass repression, mass chaos, do you really want
Speaker 4: that or do you want to stand up for our
Speaker 4: rights for freedom? And so there are many concrete issues
Speaker 4: that we can find to message this, but the key
Speaker 4: is unity of all progressive, all anti fascist forces in America.
Speaker 1: One of the things I was hoping that we could
Speaker 1: talk about here was when you do a deportation squad
Speaker 1: like this, what that means is concentration camps. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that?
Speaker 4: We think alike. I've been worrying about this because my
Speaker 4: book Strong Men is about the history of authoritarianism. There's
Speaker 4: a chapter on violence, so I had to become very
Speaker 4: familiar with the history of concentration camps in their various forms.
Speaker 4: One of the lessons is that regimes can start by
Speaker 4: targeting one group or talking mainly about one group, and
Speaker 4: then that justifies their building of this depressive infrastructure, the camps.
Speaker 4: But be assured that once those spaces are ready, other
Speaker 4: types of people go in there. So with the Nazis,
Speaker 4: we talk about, oh, of course the Jews. But Dakau
Speaker 4: was built in nineteen thirty three because they had no
Speaker 4: more room in prisons. They were warehousing people all over
Speaker 4: the place while they built Dhaco. And why was that
Speaker 4: there were hard you know, Jews were infantesmally small part
Speaker 4: of the population. It's because they were targeting all the liberals,
Speaker 4: all the left, gays, Jehovah's witnesses. And so the lesson
Speaker 4: is they may be talking in America about deporting and
Speaker 4: thus sweeping up and detaining undocumented immigrants, but once those
Speaker 4: spaces are ready, and they'll capitalize on the US already
Speaker 4: being the largest jailer the private prison system, other types
Speaker 4: of people will be there because they're talking about that
Speaker 4: openly too. They're talking about investigations and trials, Liz Cheney
Speaker 4: having a televised trial. Guess who does that. This says
Speaker 4: on my book Kadelphi. Kadelphi had televised trials. So other
Speaker 4: types of people will end up in those spaces. And
Speaker 4: so if you think that you don't have to get
Speaker 4: out the vote and vote yourself and unify with the
Speaker 4: Democrats because you're not an undocumented worker, or you're not
Speaker 4: a gay person or transgender, that is incorrect. Historically, many
Speaker 4: many more people will be affected, and with fifteen to
Speaker 4: twenty million people on the move swept up, the US
Speaker 4: will become like a police state. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, and you know who's going to end up in there?
Speaker 1: You and me, baby, like we're you know, we may
Speaker 1: be white women, but we will end up there just
Speaker 1: like everyone, you know what I mean, like enemies of
Speaker 1: the state. Go on, Yeah, totally. In fact, Trump's a
Speaker 1: thuggish spokesperson. Stephen Chung really doesn't like it when you
Speaker 1: call out.
Speaker 4: These references to and similar hilarities to Hitler into Mussolini.
Speaker 4: And so when Trump made that speech talking about people
Speaker 4: as vermin and by the way, there he was talking
Speaker 4: about lots of different people. He said Marxists and liberals
Speaker 4: and fascists and all kinds of people like Stephen Chung.
Speaker 4: And I was interviewed and I said, this is the
Speaker 4: language that Mussolini and Hitler used. And Stephen Chung was
Speaker 4: the Washington Post went to him for a comment, and
Speaker 4: he said, those who make those references will find their
Speaker 4: entire existence crushed when Trump returns to the White House.
Speaker 4: And crushed means rounded up or sued. Yes, this is
Speaker 4: the modern autocrats method of psychologically exhausting people as you
Speaker 4: sue them.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: So there's many ways that many, many types of people
Speaker 4: will feel the heavy hand of the Trump administration if
Speaker 4: we do not band together and vote for the Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And I want to pause for a
Speaker 1: minute and talk about that for a second. So Stephen Chung,
Speaker 1: who is Trump's spokesman, heard that you said that this
Speaker 1: was the language of Mussolini, and then he threatened you
Speaker 1: with the language of Mussolini. Am I right?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: I was interviewed by the Washington Post along with my
Speaker 4: colleague Tim Naughtily and I love him, yes, and we
Speaker 4: both pointed out that this is exactly how Hitler and
Speaker 4: Mussolini spoke, and the Washington Post went to him for
Speaker 4: a comment for the same article, and typically he did
Speaker 4: not mention us by name. He just said those who
Speaker 4: make these assertions, but it's obviously was us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, that is
Speaker 1: just a pretty scary thing when you're accusing someone of
Speaker 1: having these autocratic impulses and then they respond not by saying,
Speaker 1: of course, we wouldn't do that, that's not true, instead
Speaker 1: by saying, in fact, we're going after you.
Speaker 4: Yes, and the purpose of it. And I always step
Speaker 4: back even if it's about me, because I've also been
Speaker 4: mentioned very right before Bannon went to jail, I was
Speaker 4: mentioned on his War room show I step back and
Speaker 4: look at you know why these people do this, because
Speaker 4: they've done this throughout history, and it's not only designed
Speaker 4: to get me and my colleague tim to be quiet.
Speaker 4: It's designed to make everybody think twice before speaking out.
Speaker 4: And it's the same reason that the Turning Point USA
Speaker 4: has Professor watch List, which you know has individual I'm
Speaker 4: on their individual pages congratulations with unflattering photos. They've made
Speaker 4: my hand look like a claw, and so all of
Speaker 4: this is designed to make you self censor because that's
Speaker 4: what regimes wants you to do. You're doing their job
Speaker 4: for them if you just stay quiet and look the
Speaker 4: other way.
Speaker 1: Right, stay quiet and look the other way, which reminds
Speaker 1: me of Timothy Snyder. What was it?
Speaker 4: Don't o bay in advance? And I think of that too,
Speaker 4: because we're seeing so many sectors of society line up
Speaker 4: for Trump and the same sectors that lined up in
Speaker 4: the nineteen twenties and thirties for the original fascists, as
Speaker 4: in the big business elites, financial elites, like when the
Speaker 4: CEO of Blackstone, Steve Schwartzman said a vote for Trump
Speaker 4: is a vote for change. I thought, really, it's January
Speaker 4: sixth the kind of change that is going to be
Speaker 4: good for the business community, because authoritarianism is bad for business.
Speaker 4: It creates situations where businesses can be plundered. Right now,
Speaker 4: they're all excited because Project twenty twenty five and the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court are acting to take away regulations so that
Speaker 4: you can plunder the food supply, the water, you can
Speaker 4: do anything without regulations. That's why they want to reform
Speaker 4: beyond all. Compare the Department of Commerce. But that's not
Speaker 4: going to be good for business. So these are people
Speaker 4: who are lining up to get on the good side
Speaker 4: in the same way that's always happened. And it's a
Speaker 4: depressing spectacle.
Speaker 1: Oh, depressing spectacle. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ruth Bendia.
Speaker 4: It's always a pleasure, no moment O.
Speaker 3: Jesse Cannon my junk fast. I know we're not supposed
Speaker 3: to speak yell of the dead, but God, let's just
Speaker 3: listen to this clip the Primar audience for what we're
Speaker 3: going to say afterwards.
Speaker 5: Of national attention and in case we have forgotten, because
Speaker 5: we keep hearing that twenty fourteen has been the warmest
Speaker 5: year on record. I asked the chair, you know what
Speaker 5: this is. It's a snowball. And that's just from outside here,
Speaker 5: so it's very very code, very unseasonal. So here, mister president,
Speaker 5: catch this.
Speaker 3: One of the dumbest things to ever be done on
Speaker 3: the sudit for and that's a fucking high bar.
Speaker 1: So he had a snowball, which was supposed to prove
Speaker 1: the climate change wasn't real. Well, he died on a
Speaker 1: day that it's eighty nine degrees and ten thousand degrees
Speaker 1: humidity in yet another of one of the hottest years
Speaker 1: on record. So you know, we don't ever want to
Speaker 1: say anything bad about people who die, but I think
Speaker 1: we should all agree that you know, this guy did
Speaker 1: more harm than good and he is our moment of
Speaker 1: ouck ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
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Speaker 1: for listening.