WEBVTT - How Trump’s Bill Weaponizes Power | A Conversation with Anne Applebaum 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.080 And Steve Schmidt with the warning here and please to 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.720 be able to bring with you today for conversation and 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.520 apple bomb from warsaw and welcome. 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:11.680 Oh thanks for having me. 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:18.320 So we were just talking for a moment before people 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:25.480 started joining about how unprecedented what we are seeing form 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.080 in the United States. And this has happened, this has 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:33.280 been made law. And so when we look at Trump's 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:41.560 perversely named Big Beautiful Bill as a propaganda package, it's 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:48.360 so gigantic, so immense, it was unfathomable and scale and 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:52.919 size and cost and damage. One part of it that 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:58.640 was stopped was the public land sell off and that's 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:04.440 an interesting go going forward detail and learning from how 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.319 you stop Trump because that's the only area where they 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.720 were stopped cold. But this Philly adds so much to 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:19.160 the debt if you care about fiscal issues, it demolishes 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:26.440 indiscriminately and without much thought, the social safety net. It 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.440 is corrupt with regard to the tax code, inverting it 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:37.759 very much into a regressive code, greatest transfer of wealth 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.800 from the bottom to the top in American history. Rural 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:50.760 healthcare will be decimated by this. There will be massive 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:58.400 amounts of hospital closures, a lessening of access. But all 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:05.240 of those things not very long from now and forever more. 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.360 As bad as they are, this bill will be remembered, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.880 I think, for a singular thing, this bill, without much debate, 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:24.040 without any great speeches of denunciation and dissent that will 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:30.880 linger in the congressional record. This funded a federal police 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:35.800 force which has never existed in the United States. It 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:42.280 is by I think any reasonable definition, and you are 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.280 a sober, serious person, and you can correct me if 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.000 I'm wrong, if it doesn't meet the definition of a 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:54.880 secret police force. Given that these people are masked, they 0:02:54.919 --> 0:03:03.639 are badgelets. The totality of this is a budget that 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.960 would put it in the first rank of global militaries, 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.799 comparable depending on how you count the money, to the 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:21.799 French military and nuclear power, with aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:33.680 expeditionary capabilities. The sector lead was being interviewed ice in uniform, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.960 full combat kit, in front of an armored vehicle, and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:44.640 he said, and I'm quoting very close, but not precisely. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:50.000 He doesn't work for Karen Bass. He doesn't care what 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.520 she says or the people in California say. He's with 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:58.320 the federal government and the federal government is there to 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.840 stay and that's the new norm. And yesterday the new 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.160 normal was five armored vehicles in the middle of the 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:13.080 day tactical plan code named Operation Excliber supported by the 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.240 US Army Federalized Forces, and they invaded MacArthur Park and 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.400 the OPS orders talk about the threat assessment that this 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.640 is the place where MS thirteen came to life, and 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.480 they should expect to be in combat. And there's assessments 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.800 about the civilian casualties and the elementary schools next door 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.839 to it, and it is all madness, of course, But 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.599 I don't think your average American has a handle yet 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:50.560 on how transformative this legislation will be any amount of money. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:58.200 And when I talk about transformation, here the transformative pieces 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.279 of legislation in the last eight years. You had the 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:06.120 GI Bill, you had Medicare and Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.520 the Voting Rights Actor, you had the Interstate High Commerce 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.800 Interstate Highway Act. Those are your most transformative pieces of 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.520 changing the landscape the complexion of the country until this. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:27.600 And so how do you think about the constitution of 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.159 a federal police force that is now the largest law 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:37.520 enforcement entity in the United States? Every single person who 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:42.440 made a speech twenty four years ago warning about the 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.960 Homeland Security Department has been proven to be profaned. 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:55.000 How do you see this? So you are right to 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.400 point to this as the thing in the bill that 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.799 has the the greatest possibility to do the most long 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.760 term damage to democracy and to freedom in the United States. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.560 What worries me about it is you've already you've named 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.799 as well, is that it's the first time I've seen 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.680 how the Trump administration could get around the problem of 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.640 divided power in the United States. So, in the US 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.599 we have checks and balances. We all know that, you know, 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.920 the courts and Congress are supposed to check the president 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.560 and so on. But there's always been an additional layer 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.640 of check of restraint on the federal government. And that 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.640 additional layer has been the power of states that actually 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.880 a lot of our laws are made locally or at 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:48.080 the state level. State governors are very powerful in our 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.360 political system. That's quite different, by the way, from a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.279 lot of European countries where there aren't local entities with 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.000 that kind of with that kind of power and control. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.920 And so any attempt to you know, create a national 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.760 programmer do nationwide arrests on any kind of large scale 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.600 was always going to be stopped at the state level, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.400 and it's I mean, one of the reasons I suspect 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.920 why it's never been tried. What worries me the most 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:20.040 about this, this ice police force, whatever it's going to 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.360 be called, is that it seems to be designed to 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.200 overcome that. As you say, it's a force that, at 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.080 least so far as it's been used, it's people who 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:38.600 are dressed like military combatants, carrying military grade weapons. Many 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.480 of them have had their faces masked so we didn't 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:47.200 know who they are. They are going into residential neighborhoods 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.320 where they are carrying out mass arrests of some kind. 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.040 For the moment, I suppose most Americans are telling themselves, well, 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.120 it's only it's directed to legal immigrants, you know, so 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.680 I'm safe. But once you have a force like that 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.560 in place, what's to stop you from using it in 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.040 other ways against other kinds of people. And we've already 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:14.000 seen people being accidentally arrested. People who are citizens or 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:15.880 who have a right to remain in the United States, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.440 We've seen them already be arrested. We've seen this force, 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:26.000 you know, you use violence against ordinary people are who 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.360 are simply standing in their way. And once that begins 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.040 to happen, you know, you what worries me is this 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.880 feeling of you know, people will get used to it. 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.720 They'll become accustomed to it. They'll stop seeing it as 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.840 unusual or strange. They'll begin to assume that it's normal 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.040 that the federal government should have that kind of power 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.280 and be able to wield that kind of violence. And 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.640 then they'll begin to make excuses. You know, so, Okay, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.679 it's only illegal immigrants, all right, it's only people who 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.200 violated the law in some way, or it's only people 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.439 who've come up, you know, who've deserved it. They've done 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.000 something bad to the president or to the federal government, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.600 or they're protesting in some illegal way. I mean, you 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.120 can you know this is a this is something that 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.079 we know from history. You know, there's a there's a 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.000 kind of mission creep that you get when you have 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.040 that kind of power, when you have that kind of 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:22.040 government power. And that's what worries me the most about 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.320 this police force, whatever we're going to, whatever it's going 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.640 to be called. I suppose the other thing that worries 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.520 me is the I mean, there was there were actually 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.360 people making speeches about it. Hakim Jeffreys had that long 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.839 soliloquy in Congress, and I've heard other Democrats, other members 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.000 of Congress have spoken both about this ice and about 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:44.840 the bill and the damage that the bill is going 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.959 to do in a lot of places. What to me 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:53.120 is disturbing is how many is Republicans, senators and congressmen 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.320 who are going along with this even though they clearly 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.000 know what it is, and they clearly know that it's wrong. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.760 You know, people have made fun of Lisa Murkowski because 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.640 she's a Senator who has seemed to understand the dangers 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.400 inherent in the bill, and she took a trade off 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.360 supposedly because of some deal about Alaska, and she decided 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.679 to vote for it. But actually, I mean, look at 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.080 the rest of them. I mean, you know, all of 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:22.680 everybody who voted for it is responsible for changing the 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.880 nature of the relationship between the states and the federal government. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.880 You know, everybody who voted for it is responsible for 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.720 the cuts to healthcare for poor and poor working people. 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.880 It's not just people who a unemployed, it's people who 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.120 who who work and don't make a lot of money. 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.679 They're all responsible for it, and they have done and 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.920 they have said remarkably little, even even people you know, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:51.160 you think of someone like Ted Cruz or somebody you know, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.520 you know somebody who they're there. There are people who've 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.120 who've made great drama in their careers about defending states' 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.240 rights and defend the rights of Americans, and you know 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.000 that have seemed to be advocates of free speech or 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.439 sticklers for the Constitution, and you saw them all cave. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.079 And I have to say, even though I wrote a 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.280 book about this, I wrote a book called Twilight of Democracy, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.160 which was about why people are attracted to authoritarianism. I 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.439 wrote a cover story in The Atlantic a few years 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.680 ago that was about collaboration and collusion. So I've thought 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.400 about the subject a lot, and I've written history books 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.440 that touch on it, and I still don't get it, Like, 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.080 I still don't see why if you're a Republican senator, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.160 you know, someone who has an enormous amount of power 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.880 and one hundred people working for you and a lot 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.560 of job security, you know, you get elected for six years. 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:43.680 I still don't understand why you have to vote for 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:44.680 something like this. And I. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.000 Look forward to hearing more people explain it to me. 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:56.280 Tom Tellis is a perfect example of this. And there's 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:01.360 nothing that brings me closer to public and youurysm than 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.200 when I hear a version of what he said, which is, well, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.640 I just haven't had the freedom to vote. 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.920 The way I wanted, and you know, I've had to 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.920 do this. But now I'm going to retire. So now 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:22.160 I'm finally free. And I sit there and I think, huh, 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.440 you're You're a United States Center. You can do whatever 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.680 you want? And where does that come from? 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.400 I mean, I can, As I said, I've tried to 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.800 explain it. Some of it is a desire to be 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.760 part of the movement. You know, they feel this movement 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.960 of history. They think they feel it, and they want 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:48.560 to be part of it. They don't want to stand 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.560 apart from it. Some of it may be in the 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.200 case and this is very sad in our country. Some 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:58.320 of it may be personal fear. I mean they are 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.240 you know, we now know that people. You know, if 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.040 if you're if you're a senator and you vote the 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.040 wrong way and you go home to your state, you'll 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.200 have people threatening you or your family. And we know this, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.800 among other things, from Romney's autobiography where he or his 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.000 biography Sorry it was written by my colleague, where Romney 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.600 describes talking to colleagues in the Senate who say, well, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.680 it's all very well for you. Mit, you're rich. You know, 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:25.000 you can afford security and I can't. And so there's 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.360 there's there's that aspect to it. A lot of them, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.439 I think, and you can, you know, Lindsey Graham is 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.120 a great example, but there are others a lot of 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:37.240 them tell themselves a story about how if I stay 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.880 in this system, if I remain on the inside, I 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.400 can be influential, you know, if I if I remain 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.280 in the movement, I can talk to Trump, but I 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.560 can get something out of him. I can get something done, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.120 you know. So there's a there's that kind of story people, 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.640 which is which is not at all different from the 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.359 kinds of stories people told themselves. And you know, occupied 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.920 France or or you know, or indeed Communis occupied Poland 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.400 you know, if I remain in the party, if you know, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.400 I can do some good. I mean, there's that version. 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.680 Most people don't like to think of themselves as being 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.439 bad people, so they have a they'll have an explanation 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.640 for it, you know. So it's that combination of fear 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.920 and and and and, as I said, this feeling that 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.800 you know, the crowd is moving and I need to 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.240 stay in the crowd. But but I but you know, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:25.960 I can, But I can, as I said, I can 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.640 give you these explanations, and I can point you to 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.720 earlier moments in history when when people made excuses like that, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.080 and I can quote you from them. And you know 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.600 a great book by Cheslow Milos called Captive Mind, which 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.560 is about exactly that it's phenomenon in communist Poland in 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.840 the nineteen forties. But even then, I look at I 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.080 look at people in the US Senate, as I said, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.080 these are you know, many cases. These are wealthy people. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.840 They have you know, they have enormous support, They've been 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.920 elected from their states, they have huge staffs. You know, 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.400 they don't have the nerve to push back against any 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.080 of this, or even to go through the bill and say, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.160 do we need this measure? Do we need that measure? 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:07.800 You know? 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.160 Or or or do or do work in groups to 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:12.880 change it. I mean, it's it's even as I said, 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.520 even though I can I can give you rational explanations 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.680 it's still harder to understand you. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:23.400 You. I'm not trying to quibble with something you said, 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:28.160 but you use the tense that hit me, and I 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.840 want to I want to talk about it. You said, 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.240 the Republicans in the Senate who are going along with this? 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.400 When are we across the line where they have fully 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.680 gone along with. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:46.400 All of it? 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.000 And so I and I and I asked you this 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:56.640 question about where that boundary is because the second thing 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.760 I want to talk to you about it is, and 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:06.920 just foreshadow the question, is you and I came out 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:12.880 of the I think fair to say the right of 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:20.240 senator line as it existed an American politics, and every person, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:29.040 most every person like all of them right, not right, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:34.160 not ninety nine percent right. There is an infinite testinably 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:44.840 small number of people and kid singer Liz Chain in 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:53.200 Apple Bombs, Steve Schmidt, small small, small, small number of 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.640 people who have operated at very high levels in the 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.360 American government, in the republic Party, in the political establishment, 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:09.960 who did not get in line with this. And so 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.080 for us and I think you have to be careful 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:20.159 about judging people, the voters too much judgment of the 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.760 voters who got conned in had a bad choice. But 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.840 I have a lot of judgment towards a lot of 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:33.119 these people because we all were supposed to believe in 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.679 the same thing, and we were all in the same places, 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.720 in the same meetings, where we were in a business 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:49.520 that required belief until it became completely hollow in an instant. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.760 And as somebody who grew up in New Jersey that 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.440 the person who rose to the top of the political 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.280 culture personality it threatens the Republic is Donald Trumps just 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:06.760 another layer of icing of farcical absurdism right on top 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.879 of tragedy, on top of tragedy, on top of what 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:15.240 I don't I don't know, but I don't get a 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.000 chance to talk to a lot of people right who 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:23.879 are in that space. But literally every person right that 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.399 in that political space that we've known, said Lindsay Graham. 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.280 I spend an enormous amount of time with Lindsey Graham, 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.680 with John McCain in a presidential campaign, lived with him 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:41.919 for a year and a half. And how do you 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.400 feel about that? Is it? Do you ever feel lonely 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.320 about it? Do you do you ever? Because because you 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:54.679 have certainly held the line about what it is that 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:59.840 you said, it is that you believe in and so 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:01.359 very lonely place. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.800 I suppose. I mean, I'm lucky. I'm not in the 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.280 US all the time. I have a wide range of friends. 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.240 I was not in politics the way you were in politics. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.840 You know, I'm a I'm a writer and a historian 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.359 and a journalist rather than a you know, a person 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.119 who works on campaigns. But I did have a period 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.440 of realizing that I would have to make new friends. 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.479 I mean, and literally, I'm I'm often asked, I you 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.800 know this this phenomenon that we're describing, which it's sometimes 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.000 called polarization, you know, as people split apart and a 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.280 part of the political spectrum becomes radical, and you know, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.920 it includes your former friends. I have had a lot 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.199 of conversations with people in other countries who have had this, 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.719 and they asked me for advice what do I do? 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.919 And my advice always I think it's maybe it sounds superficial, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.199 but I say, make new friends, and so I you know, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:57.840 in my case, it all started a little bit earlier. 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.679 It's a longer story, but you know, I began looking 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.280 for new friends and new contacts, and I realized that 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.760 the world that I had lived in for a long 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.040 time wasn't the same that had in my case, divided 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:15.000 in multiple countries in very bitter ways. And I found 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.639 people who aligned with me, you know, and I moved on. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.000 And so I can't really say I feel lonely. I mean, 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.720 I actually feel surrounded by a lot of people who 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.439 agree with me. And it's interesting. Some of them, you know, 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.720 are people like you who come from the right, or 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.480 who worked in the Republican Party, or worked on the 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.440 Polish right, or worked on you know, were part of 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.000 the British Tory Party. Some of them come from there, 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:41.960 and some of them came from what used to be 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.960 the left, you know, people who I would have disagreed 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.160 with about all kinds of things, you know, ten years 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.119 ago or twenty years ago, and I might not have 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.080 spoken to or I would have thought they were wrong 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.280 or they were on the wrong side of something that 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.600 I thought was important. But what I what I've found 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.840 over the last several years, is that there are these 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.399 set of fundamental values that matter more than whether you 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.800 think taxes should be high or low, you know, or 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:11.600 whether you know, what's your opinion on how healthcare should 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:13.560 be structured. I mean, there's something there's some things that 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.840 are much more basic, and I found that that those 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:21.159 basic beliefs I find people who have them in different 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.240 parts of the political spectrum, and those are now my 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.920 friends or my colleagues, you know, or my or my acquaintances. 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.000 And so no, actually I didn't feel lonely. I feel 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.520 like there are a lot of people, again not just Americans, 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:37.160 but a lot of Europeans also who feel who who 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.400 see the same kind of threat, this threat of extremism, 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.200 the threat of autocracy taking over their political systems, and they, 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.120 you know, and they and they've joined together to try 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.240 and think about what to do about it. So that's 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:54.119 that's how I feel. But again, I wasn't. I wasn't 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:55.719 in the same world that you were in. 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.160 Had Off hit in nineteen thirty hits his high water 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.320 mark thirty eight percent of the vote thirty two, the 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.680 Nazis are around thirty percent. They have been kept out 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:15.840 of government, violence explodes all over the country. Hitler is 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:20.439 made chancellor. There's one other Nazi in the in the 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:25.440 German cabinet. And then and in that fall of thirty two, 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.040 Hitler gives his speech in Dusel Dwarf to the industrialists 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:33.919 which you know, loosely was the equivalent of the Chamber 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.960 of Commerce. And he and he basically, you know, concedes, 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.600 I know I'm not very popular here, but you don't 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:48.080 have anything to worry about with me. The Communists, on 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.200 the other hand, will kill all of you. And really 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:58.119 he lays out this proposition to the broad middle of Germany, 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:03.040 and he's institution that don't like the Nazis. You have 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:09.280 the German aristocracy, you have the German military, which is 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:15.119 comprised a lot of aristocrats, you have the German clergy, 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:20.320 and you had a total collapse of the center. And 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.320 I think this is where Germany and the United States. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:25.919 And we don't really talk about this very often, but 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:30.240 American soldiers who fought in World War Two came to 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:33.920 understand the country that was most like America was Germany 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.960 and that to this day we ethnically we have more 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:43.640 Germans than any other population in the United States by 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:49.760 by ethnic heritage. And Germany was never a country that 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:55.240 was susceptible to a dictatorship of the left, but a 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:59.320 dictatorship and the threat of the left was enough to 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:06.720 create a fascist government in the United States. What Trump 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:10.439 has benefited from is the stigmatization of the Democrats, some 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:14.720 of the extreme policies, being able to define them as extreme, 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.280 being able to define them as left. Trump loves that 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.680 a Democratic Socialists as. 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:23.040 One in New York. 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:27.119 He would love to run against a Democratic Socialist in 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:31.280 the general election. I don't think a socialist candidate could 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:34.880 ever be elected in the United States. I think they 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.080 was ever conceivable for them to take power in Germany 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.720 almost one hundred years ago. But the threat or perception, 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:47.160 the propaganda that they could is enough to create the 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:52.680 fear that Hey, and the fundamental message of the Nazis 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:57.119 was we're going to kill them. We're not going to 0:24:57.280 --> 0:25:01.280 kill you, They're going to kill you. And there's a 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:05.520 lot of that that's inherent in the Trumpian In the 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:13.800 Trumpian message, what does a centrist democrat, the tradition of 0:25:13.840 --> 0:25:17.960 a John Kenny, what does somebody have to step up 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:22.639 and say to really get your intention in this moment 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:26.119 where you're like, wow, that person just hit the nail 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:30.119 on the head. What they said was what was needed 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:32.800 to be said in the context is because I don't 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:34.040 hear it really anywhere. 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:38.920 First of all, there is a there is a really 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:43.359 important difference. So actually, at the time of the Hitler 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:47.120 takeover of Nazi Germany, there had been a communist revolution 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:50.480 in Munich, and there had also been a real, a 0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:56.199 genuine bullshic revolution in Russia which was throughout you know, 0:25:56.240 --> 0:25:59.199 in nineteen twenty actually launched a war and tried to 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:02.040 invade Poland. And was I mean, it was like a 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.439 real threat. There really were communists and they were and 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:10.199 they were totalitarians, and they were you know, bloody and 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:14.040 war mongering. And so when when Hitler said that he wasn't, 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:17.840 I mean, you know, there was there was something real 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:21.160 that people were genuinely afraid of her. The weird thing, 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:25.400 weird thing about the United States right now is there 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:28.800 is no equivalent of the Bolsheviks in the United States. 0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:32.040 There is no you know, bloody tyrants who are about 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:35.600 to invade America. You know, when we talk about democratic 0:26:35.680 --> 0:26:37.760 socialists in the United States, we're talking about people who 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:41.960 believe in things like universal health care, which is I'm 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:44.560 talking to you right now in Poland, which is I 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:47.760