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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access

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Speaker 1: to Ask Me Anything sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical

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Speaker 1: and current events, Please consider joining our Warning Premium community

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Speaker 1: by clicking the link in the description to this episode. Today,

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Speaker 1: I've changed outfits and I'm wearing my Air Force sweatshirt

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Speaker 1: in honor of the branch of America's Armed forces that

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Speaker 1: controls the most nuclear warheads that could be fired at

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Speaker 1: any second upon the order of the President of the

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Speaker 1: United States, the commander in chief. That's important to consider,

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Speaker 1: isn't it the person who has the power at their

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Speaker 1: disposal to end human civilization. Donald Trump held that power.

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Speaker 1: It frightens me thinking about it. It terrifies me pondering

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Speaker 1: that he could get it again. It. Liz Cheney talked

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Speaker 1: about it. Let's listen to her diagnose, with one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent complete accuracy, a fundamental problem in American politics.

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Speaker 2: What we've done in our politics is create a situation

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Speaker 2: where we're electing idiots and and so I don't look

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Speaker 2: at it through the lens of, like, you know, is

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Speaker 2: this what I should do or what I shouldn't do.

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Speaker 2: I look at it through the lens of how do

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Speaker 2: we elect serious people, and I think electing serious people

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Speaker 2: can't be partisan.

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Speaker 1: Notice the juxtaposition around the seriousness with which Congresswoman Cheney

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Speaker 1: delivers that diagnosis and the reaction of the crowd. The

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Speaker 1: crowd thinks she's name calling, as opposed to using a

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Speaker 1: word in the English language accurately and precisely. What the

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Speaker 1: crowd hears is a polemic, a laughline, not a diagnosis.

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Speaker 1: And that's unfortunate because miss Cheney is being precisely accurate

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Speaker 1: about what ails the country at the core. When we

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Speaker 1: elect the lowest and the dumbest amongst us to the

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Speaker 1: positions of the greatest power, when we give power to narcissists,

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Speaker 1: it reveals their character. And when we see someone like Trump,

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Speaker 1: who has exposed himself as having the rottenist character imaginable,

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Speaker 1: it says something about the national character when one of

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Speaker 1: the two great major parties in the country would ever

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Speaker 1: consider making that person their nominae in proposing that they

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Speaker 1: have the power to end humanity, that they have the

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Speaker 1: trust to possess the launch codes for the nuclear weapons,

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Speaker 1: particularly if that person had desecrated and violated their oath

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Speaker 1: of office. Now Donald Trump started talking about breaking the

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Speaker 1: tradition of the peaceful transition of power. In twenty and sixteen,

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Speaker 1: it was a radical moment when Donald Trump said, well,

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Speaker 1: the election's legitimate if he wins. Democracy is premised on

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Speaker 1: a very very simple concept. It requires both or all

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Speaker 1: of the political parties who were involved in any democratic

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Speaker 1: process to be able to be willing to lose with grace,

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Speaker 1: with dignity. The understanding that will get you next time

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Speaker 1: is fundamental to democracy. Take it from me. I was

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Speaker 1: the person who placed the phone call for John McCain

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Speaker 1: to Barack Obama so he could concede the election. The

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Speaker 1: person who mattered wasn't the person who turned to Barack

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Speaker 1: Obama at the campaign headquarters and said congratulations, mister president.

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Speaker 1: It was John McCain, and it was John McCain's supporters.

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Speaker 1: It was the Americans who were disappointed in the result,

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Speaker 1: but nevertheless understood the dignity and the majesty of our system,

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Speaker 1: and that the majority had spoken, and that they had

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Speaker 1: decided that Barack Obama had been elected forty four president

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Speaker 1: of the United States of America. Even in defeat, there

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Speaker 1: was an extraordinary sense of optimism and renewal and majesty

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Speaker 1: to have the awesome privilege to be part of the

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Speaker 1: continuing pageant of American democracy, which in this country is

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Speaker 1: not zero sum, is not life and death is not existential.

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Speaker 1: We don't put up our opponents against the wall in America,

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Speaker 1: no matter what the rhetoric of extremists who surround Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump and swim around him like masses of baitfish in

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Speaker 1: the sea. Now, people made a great many accommodations to

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Speaker 1: support Donald Trump. What every extremist and fascist cause has

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Speaker 1: ever shared in common is an alliance of convenience, where

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Speaker 1: conservatives have looked at and said, the gravest threat the country,

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Speaker 1: the nation is facing is from the left, not from

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Speaker 1: the fascist standing next to you. Now, the question that

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Speaker 1: I raised was when the inevitable became obvious and clear,

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Speaker 1: who would follow alarm, how many members of Congress would

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Speaker 1: follow in the Trump's seditious waters, who would cross the rubicon?

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Speaker 1: And this is the thing to understand. Once the rubicon

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Speaker 1: was crossed, it cannot be uncrossed. It cannot be under

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Speaker 1: any more than the events in Russia that we've seen

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Speaker 1: transpire over the last week can be unmade or undone.

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Speaker 1: They happened. They're real, just as the events on January sixth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, happened in the aftermath of the election.

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Speaker 1: By the score, Republican elected officials joined in the most

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Speaker 1: malicious and malignant conspiracy theory in American history that set

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Speaker 1: the stage for an insurrection. There are a thousand people

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Speaker 1: that have been sentenced to prison for their partnt and

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Speaker 1: more are on the way, and perhaps there will be

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Speaker 1: accountability and justice for the man who had cited it.

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Speaker 1: We know every detail about what happened on January sixth

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Speaker 1: because of the courage, because of the toughness, the great

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Speaker 1: and determination of Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson, Jamie Raskin,

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Speaker 1: and all of the members of the January sixth Committee. Now,

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Speaker 1: the simple fact is that the American people, armed with

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Speaker 1: the knowledge, will have to make a decision. And that decision, fundamentally,

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Speaker 1: at the end, devolves to a question around whether we

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Speaker 1: will continue American democracy. It's a staggering question to ponder

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Speaker 1: will American democracy fall to Donald Trump and a cabal

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Speaker 1: of extremists that represent a clear minority. But there seems

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Speaker 1: to be no majority that stands fairly enough, obstinate enough,

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Speaker 1: united enough to guarantee the extremists won't take power. The

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Speaker 1: question at hand politically is can an extremist minority unite

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Speaker 1: with a minority of apathy to become an extremist majority

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Speaker 1: with a coalition party of national indifference in difference to suffering,

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Speaker 1: to cruelty, to depravity, to lying and dishonesty. Now, Liz

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Speaker 1: Cheney said with Lester Whole that the question is if

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party continues down the road.

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Speaker 3: I think that it's very clear for the Republican Party,

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Speaker 3: you know, they have to choose, and the choice is

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Speaker 3: whether or not you support the Constitution or you support

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump. But those are mutually exclusive. And if the

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Speaker 3: Republican Party continues down this path and moves towards, for example,

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Speaker 3: nominating Donald Trump for the presidency, uh, you know, I

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Speaker 3: think that we have seen day after day after day

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Speaker 3: the Party go further and further down this path of

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Speaker 3: not being salvagable. And I think this single most important issue,

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Speaker 3: and I mean that the single most important issue that

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Speaker 3: faces this nation. And we face a huge array of

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Speaker 3: challenges and threats and they're very complex, but the single

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Speaker 3: most important issue is that Donald Trump never be anywhere

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Speaker 3: near the Oval Office.

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Speaker 1: Again, the point is this, It's okay for Republicans who

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Speaker 1: supported Donald Trump through the first election or the second

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Speaker 1: election to see what it is clearly that he has become.

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Speaker 1: Those people have all looked at a various set of

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Speaker 1: circumstances and have left decisively the cause of Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: What Liz Cheney did and what Adam Kitzinger did is

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Speaker 1: of profound importance, and it defines the dimensions of our

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Speaker 1: age of cowardice. In the end, Donald Trump was the

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Speaker 1: leader of a United Republican Party who all of his flaws,

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Speaker 1: led that United Party into an election. When he denied

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Speaker 1: the results of that election, and he set in motion

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Speaker 1: a declaration of repudiation for the concepts of the American Revolution,

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Speaker 1: a declaration of repudiation of American democracy, a declaration of

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Speaker 1: repudiation of the peaceful transition of power. The only two

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Speaker 1: Republicans who stood up in the country in federal elected

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Speaker 1: office and who said no were Liz Cheney and Adam Kittinger.

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Speaker 1: The entire Republican Party had rotted out and had succumbed

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Speaker 1: except for two people, and for standing up, they lost

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Speaker 1: their electoral careers. Now, what Liz Cheney is saying about

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the necessity of defeating him is urgent, necessary,

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Speaker 1: and right. But there is a caveat to what she's saying,

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Speaker 1: and it has to do with a tense in the

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Speaker 1: English language. Everything Liz is talking about is future tents.

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Speaker 1: If the Republican Party continues down this path, then this

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Speaker 1: will happen. The institution of the National Republican Party is

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Speaker 1: the threat. The magat Congress is the threat. Kevin McCarthy

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Speaker 1: is the threat today because all of them are feckless

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Speaker 1: and faithless to the constitution of the United States. They

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Speaker 1: are professional gaslighters who have paved the way for a

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Speaker 1: tyrant to come to power by coddling him when he

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Speaker 1: committed insurrection, when he has cited mayhem and violence and

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Speaker 1: death at the capital of the United States of America.

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Speaker 1: We don't live in an episodic television series where on

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Speaker 1: any given day there can be a plot turn a

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Speaker 1: point eight, where good can become and up can become down,

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Speaker 1: and down can become up. It's a children's fantasy. In reality,

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Speaker 1: what came last what drives what happens next, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: what happens last can define the future for a very, very,

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Speaker 1: very long time. The question of Why the Republican Party succumbed,

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Speaker 1: and why in the end so few had any principles

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Speaker 1: whatsoever is a question for historians, as sociologists, as psychologists.

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Speaker 1: Now the question is for political pragmatists, and it's what

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Speaker 1: do we do about it? How do we stop it?

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Speaker 1: And in this Liz Cheney couldn't be more correct. We

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Speaker 1: need to reapply the test that John Kennedy laid down.

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Speaker 1: We need men and women of competence, of character, of

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Speaker 1: judgment in positions of political power. We have created a

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Speaker 1: buffoonery in Washington, d C. We have created an idiocracy.

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Speaker 1: The American media has monetized it to the tune of

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Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars, a lie industry that is

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Speaker 1: taking away your mobility, your freedom, your country, and your

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Speaker 1: children's birthrights. And now, because this rotten era has spiraled

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Speaker 1: out of control for so long, we stand at the

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Speaker 1: precipice of one of the great crises in American history,

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Speaker 1: the unfathomable fall of American democracy to the most loathsome

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Speaker 1: of men. What an extraordinary moment we have arrived at,

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Speaker 1: What a sad moment. Liz Cheney couldn't be more correct.

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Speaker 1: And it's not a punchline. It's an observation. Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: could be seen a long time off. He could be

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Speaker 1: seen in twenty twelve we met Romney doing campaign appearances

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Speaker 1: with him. He could be seen in the nineteen eighties

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Speaker 1: when he was race baiting in New York City. Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is what he has always been, America's most narcissistic

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Speaker 1: and inflated scumbag, and now he's coming to his end.

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Speaker 1: Here's the lesson from this weekend with Vladimir Putin. Trump

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Speaker 1: looks at these people with admiration and respect and a

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Speaker 1: longing for their power. He sees the military parade in

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Speaker 1: the moment, but he never cares to look how it

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Speaker 1: always ends. Freidolf Hitler, the grubby furor of the thousand

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Speaker 1: year Reich. It was in a dank bunker with a

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Speaker 1: bullet to his head as he poisoned his dog and

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Speaker 1: his wife. Mussolini was found hanging upside down with his mistress,

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Speaker 1: beaten by partisans with sticks. Saddam Pinochet. Everyone ends up

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Speaker 1: the same, fallen, and it happens quickly and unpredictably as

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Speaker 1: their movement collapses. Let's look at Trump's idol, Putin, a

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Speaker 1: man of imponderable strength through Trump's eyes, who now appears wasted, pudgy,

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Speaker 1: small little like Trump's hands rustling through the papers of

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Speaker 1: America's secrets so he can brag and flirt with a staffer.

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Speaker 1: Disgraceful doesn't begin to describe all of the Liz Cheney

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Speaker 1: is right. We are electing idiots to the highest office

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Speaker 1: in the land and to many offices below that. But

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Speaker 1: the question is what do you call the people that

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Speaker 1: elect the idiots. Are they fools or are they something else?

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Speaker 1: We ought to talk about that too,