1 00:00:04,320 --> 00:00:08,280 Speaker 1: How do you think about danger? Do you worry about it? 2 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:12,920 Speaker 1: Do you think you could sense it when it was 3 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:18,280 Speaker 1: near upon you? Or would you be oblivious to it? 4 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:21,760 Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about what it might be like 5 00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:25,959 Speaker 1: to be in a dangerous situation with a group of 6 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:34,320 Speaker 1: people strangers, how they would perceive the danger differently. Some 7 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:41,920 Speaker 1: would have anxieties disproportionate to the threat at hand, while 8 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:47,640 Speaker 1: others would be checked out and completely oblivious to the 9 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,080 Speaker 1: danger right in front of them. There are sayings in 10 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,760 Speaker 1: our culture and our society that seem to just roll 11 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:58,280 Speaker 1: off the tip of the tongue at the right moment, 12 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,360 Speaker 1: like hey, you got to be in it to win it, 13 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:10,160 Speaker 1: or no guts, no glory. Some of them seem to 14 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:14,959 Speaker 1: make no sense at all, especially the one about a 15 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,560 Speaker 1: frog in a pot in the boiling water being desensitized 16 00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:25,839 Speaker 1: to it as the temperature rises to a fatal boiling level. 17 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,680 Speaker 1: That was always a hard one to understand, particularly as 18 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:35,039 Speaker 1: a kid. How could the frog not want to get 19 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:38,520 Speaker 1: out of the hot pot of water? And of course 20 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,479 Speaker 1: no one actually put a frog in a boiling pot 21 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:46,280 Speaker 1: of water. To find out what is the meaning of 22 00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:52,560 Speaker 1: that story, Well, it's a warning. Donald Trump has been 23 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: the dominant cultural figure in the United States since two 24 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:05,440 Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen. It is a remarkable thing. And the 25 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,160 Speaker 1: truth of the matter is, it is not possible for 26 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:14,480 Speaker 1: somebody so toxic, so sick, so venal, to be the 27 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:18,760 Speaker 1: dominant figure in a society and not have it have 28 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:26,160 Speaker 1: dramatic implications, almost all of them terrible. And that says 29 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:33,600 Speaker 1: nothing about putting that person in charge through the executive 30 00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:38,960 Speaker 1: office of a democratic republic, as was the case with 31 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:44,679 Speaker 1: Donald Trump between twenty and seventeen and twenty and twenty one. 32 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:54,240 Speaker 1: The results of that were a disaster without parallel for America. 33 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:59,840 Speaker 1: Hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed by government and competence, 34 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:08,040 Speaker 1: donald Trump's incompetence, Jared Kushner's incompetence during the COVID crisis, 35 00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:13,800 Speaker 1: Millions and millions of livelihoods were lost because of stupidity, 36 00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:21,640 Speaker 1: because of unpreparedness. In the end, Donald Trump is somebody 37 00:03:21,639 --> 00:03:29,079 Speaker 1: who cobbled dictators, undermined American ideals, and stoked a cold 38 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:33,639 Speaker 1: civil war between the American people. And for all of 39 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:39,400 Speaker 1: that he was defeated. And then the story begins, at 40 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:43,960 Speaker 1: least the parts that will be remembered by history the 41 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: awfulness of Trump's presidency will be a blip in history, 42 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:57,680 Speaker 1: because whatever it was, it is simply a predicate to 43 00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:04,880 Speaker 1: what comes next and what is developing, what is forming. 44 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 1: What lays visible on the horizon to some and still 45 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:24,200 Speaker 1: invisible to others is a gathering threat of immense proportions. 46 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:31,960 Speaker 1: It is a dangerous storm. It is the type of 47 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:38,520 Speaker 1: storm that has been seen before, It has been seen 48 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:52,960 Speaker 1: within a human lifetime. Incredibly, Donald Trump has manifested the 49 00:04:53,120 --> 00:05:00,520 Speaker 1: darkness that so many Americans thought was extinguished, harnessed it, 50 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:09,760 Speaker 1: rekindled it, and brought it to life, and is ready 51 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:17,000 Speaker 1: to turn it into an inferno. There is a question 52 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:22,680 Speaker 1: at hand now, and it cannot be avoided. There is 53 00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:32,560 Speaker 1: a revanist, belligerent minority that can be whipped into a 54 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:42,800 Speaker 1: state of ecstasy and fervor by language that has no 55 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:55,760 Speaker 1: comparison in the modern era of American politics whatsoever. The 56 00:05:55,960 --> 00:06:05,120 Speaker 1: language hearkens back even to with time that predates Jim Crow. 57 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: Even at the heights of America's most alarming and specific 58 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:24,040 Speaker 1: and evil acts of Jim Crow racism that played out 59 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:34,000 Speaker 1: on national television, there was not an overt appeal to 60 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:44,559 Speaker 1: the lowest basis dehumanization impulses that we have seen being 61 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:52,120 Speaker 1: made like Donald Trump has made them in twenty twenty three. 62 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:57,799 Speaker 1: You have to go back even further further than Bull Connor. 63 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:03,960 Speaker 1: You have to go back to Adolph Hitler to hear 64 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:07,799 Speaker 1: the rhetoric that is being heard come from the mouth 65 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:14,320 Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. And what is so frightening is these 66 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:21,120 Speaker 1: are not musings shouted into a mirror by an adult 67 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:28,280 Speaker 1: and disordered person. This person that we are talking about 68 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:33,520 Speaker 1: is not Paul Gosar. He is not a congressional loon 69 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:38,760 Speaker 1: on the fringe of power. He is on the verge 70 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:45,120 Speaker 1: of becoming once again the Republican nominee, even though he 71 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:52,120 Speaker 1: faces ninety two felony counts for serious crimes. Donald Trump 72 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:59,480 Speaker 1: is shouting not into the wind, but to a galvanized 73 00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:07,200 Speaker 1: mass of supporters who will do anything for him and 74 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:13,800 Speaker 1: to the country for him. There is a question at 75 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:18,760 Speaker 1: hand that we should start talking about as a nation, 76 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:26,040 Speaker 1: which is are we prepared to defend Americanism from this threat? 77 00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:36,200 Speaker 1: What is the threat? It is illustrated and articulated perfectly 78 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:42,480 Speaker 1: as a matter of fact in a Washington Post story 79 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:52,240 Speaker 1: that details what a Trump rally has become, what it 80 00:08:52,320 --> 00:09:01,640 Speaker 1: is what excites, what titillates, and what motivates a Trump voter. 81 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:08,000 Speaker 1: I'm going to read from the story so you can 82 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 1: appreciate the full magnitude of the danger. The danger is 83 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:20,760 Speaker 1: close at hand now, and every American who loves the 84 00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:29,360 Speaker 1: country and has any appreciation of history whatsoever, should be 85 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 1: called right now to appreciate that it will need defending. Durham, 86 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:44,240 Speaker 1: New Hampshire Republican polling leader Donald Trump approvingly quoted autocrats 87 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:49,000 Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin of Russia and Victor Orbon of Hungary, part 88 00:09:49,120 --> 00:09:52,719 Speaker 1: of an ongoing effort to deflect from his criminal prosecutions 89 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:59,160 Speaker 1: and spin alarms about eroding democracy against President Biden. His 90 00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:02,280 Speaker 1: speech and a p residential campaign rally here on Sunday 91 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:08,960 Speaker 1: also reprised dehumanizing language targeting immigrants that historians have likened 92 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:12,640 Speaker 1: to past authoritarians, including a reference that some civil rights 93 00:10:12,679 --> 00:10:18,160 Speaker 1: advocates and experts in extremism have compared to Adolph Hitler's 94 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:24,240 Speaker 1: fixation on blood purity. And he used the term quote 95 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: hostages end quote to describe people charged with violent crimes 96 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:35,760 Speaker 1: into January sixth, twenty twenty one attack at the US Capitol. 97 00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:40,800 Speaker 1: The comments came as experts, historians, and political opponents have 98 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:45,800 Speaker 1: voiced growing alarm about Trump's rhetoric, ideas and emerging plans 99 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: for a second term, pointing to parallels to past and 100 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:58,800 Speaker 1: present authoritarian leaders. Quote Donald Trump sees American democracy as 101 00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:02,360 Speaker 1: a sham, and he wants to convince his followers to 102 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:07,359 Speaker 1: see it that way to end quote, said Jennifer Murcia, 103 00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:11,520 Speaker 1: a professor at Texas A and M University who researches 104 00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:18,720 Speaker 1: democracy and rhetoric. Quote Putin hates Western values like democracy 105 00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:25,520 Speaker 1: and the rule of law. So does Trump. End quote. 106 00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:32,400 Speaker 1: Trump quoted Putin, the dictatorial Russian president who invaded neighboring Ukraine, 107 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:37,200 Speaker 1: criticizing the criminal charges against Trump, who was accused in 108 00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:41,400 Speaker 1: four separate cases of falsifying business records in a hush 109 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:47,680 Speaker 1: money scheme, mishandling classified documents, and trying to overturn the 110 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:55,480 Speaker 1: twenty twenty election results. In the quotation, Vladimir Putin agreed 111 00:11:55,520 --> 00:12:00,960 Speaker 1: with Trump's own attempts to portray the prosecut Hustans as 112 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:09,640 Speaker 1: politically motivated. Quote it shows the rottenness of the American 113 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:17,160 Speaker 1: political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy. 114 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:23,080 Speaker 1: End quote. Trump quoted Putin saying. In the speech, Trump 115 00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:29,680 Speaker 1: added quote they're all laughing at us end quote. He 116 00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:34,600 Speaker 1: went on to align himself with Orbon, the Hungarian prime minister, 117 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:40,400 Speaker 1: who has amassed functionally autocratic power through controlling the media 118 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:46,840 Speaker 1: and changing the country's constitution. Orbon has presented his leadership 119 00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,520 Speaker 1: as a model of an illiberal state and has opposed 120 00:12:50,559 --> 00:12:56,760 Speaker 1: immigration for leading to quote mixed race end quote. Europeans 121 00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:01,040 Speaker 1: democratic world leaders have sought to isolate or for eroding 122 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:06,800 Speaker 1: civil liberties and bolstering ties with Putin, but Trump calls 123 00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:10,520 Speaker 1: him highly respected and can welcome his praise as the 124 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:14,880 Speaker 1: man who can save the Western world. In the speech, 125 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:20,160 Speaker 1: Trump also repeated his own inflammatory language against undocumented immigrants 126 00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:24,160 Speaker 1: by accusing them of quote poisoning the blood of our 127 00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:28,920 Speaker 1: country end quote, a phrase that immigrant groups and civil 128 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:35,000 Speaker 1: rights advocates have condemned as reminiscent as Hitler in his 129 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:40,320 Speaker 1: book Mindkomff, in which he told Germans to quote care 130 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:44,440 Speaker 1: for the purity of their own blood and quote by 131 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:50,800 Speaker 1: eliminating Jews. The crowd of thousands in a college arena 132 00:13:50,920 --> 00:13:56,920 Speaker 1: cheer Trump's recitation of an anti immigrant poem called the 133 00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,880 Speaker 1: Snake that he has repeated on the campaign trail and 134 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:08,440 Speaker 1: popularized since the twenty and sixteen campaign. The danger of 135 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:14,840 Speaker 1: the moment is the response of the crowd to a 136 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:27,080 Speaker 1: poem that dehumanizes people who are precisely like the grandparents 137 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:34,080 Speaker 1: of the people blood thirstily cheering, a poem that could 138 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:38,120 Speaker 1: have been recited by Joseph Goebbels at Nuremberg in nineteen 139 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,800 Speaker 1: thirty eight. In the weeks leading up to the Crystal knocked. 140 00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:52,160 Speaker 1: Anybody who thinks that Donald Trump is simply an extension 141 00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:58,760 Speaker 1: of politics as usual, a big courser, a little cruder, 142 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:05,840 Speaker 1: is a fool. Kristen Welker at NBC News did her 143 00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:12,920 Speaker 1: level best to ask Lindsey Graham to ask him, almost plaintively, 144 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:20,960 Speaker 1: to condemn the language. She gave him every opportunity, and 145 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:27,800 Speaker 1: then Lindsey Graham blurted the quiet part out loud. He 146 00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:35,200 Speaker 1: doesn't care about the language, and he doesn't care about 147 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:42,400 Speaker 1: the threat. Well, Lindsey Graham cares about is the pristineness 148 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:49,960 Speaker 1: of the demagoguery and the cleanliness of the root to 149 00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:57,720 Speaker 1: political power, no matter what. A funny, affable man who 150 00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:01,080 Speaker 1: was once known throughout the country as John caine sidekick, 151 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:06,200 Speaker 1: has become a snarling old man in the service of 152 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:12,520 Speaker 1: a fascist cause, menacing America with his indifference, his intolerance, 153 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:19,600 Speaker 1: and his blatant embrace a fascistic rhetoric. Lindsey Graham is 154 00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:27,120 Speaker 1: done apologizing. I understand that Lindsey Graham thinks he's winning 155 00:16:28,640 --> 00:16:32,600 Speaker 1: and that's why he doesn't care. But you should care, 156 00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:41,160 Speaker 1: because always the words come first, always the dehumanization comes. 157 00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:48,720 Speaker 1: Donald Trump is telling America all of us, and he 158 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:54,760 Speaker 1: is telling the world, every one of them, and every 159 00:16:54,920 --> 00:17:03,840 Speaker 1: hostile world leader who he is. They understand it perfectly. 160 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:08,960 Speaker 1: We have to stop this or we lose the country. 161 00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:14,120 Speaker 1: We have less than a year to all do it together.