#456 — American Fascism
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Summary
Jonathan Rauch joins me to talk about his new article, "Yes, It's Fascism: How Trump Is Trump's Greatest Secret Weapon." He explains why he decided to use the term "fascism" and what it means to him.
Transcript
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Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're
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Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore
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it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're
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doing here, please consider becoming one. Hi, I'm here with Jonathan Rauch. Thanks for
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joining me again. Happy to be here. So let's jump right into it. You have recently written
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yet another important article for The Atlantic where you can often be found. The title of this
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one is, Yes, It's Fascism. So that got my attention. I'm sure it got other people's attention. Like you,
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I've resisted using this term because there were obvious historical associations that didn't quite
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and don't quite map onto our current circumstance under Trump 2.0. But the resistance has seemed
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more and more pedantic as the months have rolled by and the overreach and indecency of this
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administration has become more and more obvious and unignorable and odious. Well, let's just start
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with your misgivings about it, which you expressed to some degree in the article, and yet you've
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overcome them. How did you decide to finally pull the trigger on this terminology? And what are your
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concerns about doing so? Well, it was painful. I'll tell you that. This was the article I had hoped
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never to write. A year ago in The Atlantic, I wrote an article saying that Trump was not a fascist.
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He's a patrimonialist. And that's a style of government that you find not only in states,
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but in the mafia, criminal organizations, cults, political machines, where the state is in effect
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the personal property and family business of the leader. And in that situation, the head of state
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will go rampage through the bureaucracy, cutting through rules and replacing people with personal
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loyalists. And then things get very corrupt and they get very incompetent. And that's clearly what
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we were seeing. And that, I think, uncontroversially applied to Trump. But patrimonialism, it's not
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ideological. It's not especially aggressive. It's not interested in the use of force or taking over
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other countries, for example. And it could have just been about Trump and enrichment. And I thought
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initially, that's probably where things were headed. But over the course of the last year,
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and specifically over the course of the past few weeks and couple of months, we saw the emergence
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of so many properties that are associated with fascism that, to me, it became perverse to withhold
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the label. So I finally dropped my resistance, sat down, thought of all the things I could think of
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that are usually associated with fascism. There's no standard definition or bright line in-out kind
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of status. And I had no trouble coming up with 18 of them. And at that point, I threw in the towel
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and I said, we got to name this thing. So yeah, I want to walk through those 18 or many of them
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as you present them in the article. But let's just linger on patrimonialism because it's certainly bad
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enough, right? This has taken us to a place, you know, if he were merely a patrimonialist, he's taken
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us to a place that we don't want to be, or at least shouldn't want to be, despite the fact that
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half the country still seems to be cheering. So when you talk about patrimonialism as an approach
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to governance, in this case, where the state and its, you know, where America, let's not speak so
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generically, America and her policies, her institutions, you know, everything is considered
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effectively Trump's personal property to be sold off for personal advantage. And we've seen him do
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that with the tariff policy. You know, he slaps a 46% tariff on Vietnam. And how does Vietnam try to
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get that tariff removed? They greenlight a $1.5 billion resort deal for the Trump family. There are
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now scores of examples like this. And the Trump family has enriched itself to the tune of at least
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$1, $2, or $3 billion, depending on which account you favor. But there's probably more than that
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that's happened. I mean, this is all just absolutely despicable and destructive of our standing in the
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world. And yet, this was a stop on the train before we reached fascism. I just wanted to emphasize
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that, you know, whether or not someone agrees that you're naming this correctly, we shouldn't lose
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sight of, you know, all the ground our country has lost and is losing under this president.
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Yes, it was more than bad enough when it was patrimonialism. We've never seen the U.S. government
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turned into the personal property of the leader where, you know, he dials up a prosecution or he
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accepts gold bars and then bases his tariffs, you know, based on stuff that people give him. And that's
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the opposite under patrimonialism. The opposite of patrimonialism is not democracy, it's bureaucracy.
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Because what they want to do is weaken all the tendons in the bureaucracies that make government
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competent because you don't want experts. Experts are loyal to ideals and professional standards. You
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want people who are loyal only to you. So you wind up with appointments like, I don't know,
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think of your incompetent Trump appointee or think about how they fired all those people who watch
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over nuclear weapons only to have to hire them back. So you destroy the government's competence
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with patrimonialism. What you don't do is reorient the direction of the government in a way that's
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ideological or aggressive or organized. And that, I think, was, as you say, the next stop on the line.
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So there's a difference, and you acknowledge this difference in your piece, between having a leader
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and his enablers who are fascists or aspiring fascists or, you know, fascistic to whatever
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degree, and having the full capture of government and society by a regime that is, in fact, fascist.
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And you wouldn't say we have succumbed in that final sense, nor do I think you think we're likely
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to succumb. And so this is not going to look like Hitler's Germany, even in the worst case scenario.
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So to be clear, what you seem to think now is that calling Trump and his enablers,
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and many of whom are far more ideological than he shows any sign of being, calling them fascist is
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It seems more or less unavoidable. I'd actually like to get your take on whether it's advisable,
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because there is a school of thought that says, look, it does no good to use this word.
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It's just a generalized slur, and it will get people's backup without accomplishing anything.
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I felt that part of what Trump is so good at, I think you've actually mentioned this often on
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on your show, Sam, is throwing up so many distractions and outrages on any given day that
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our minds can't stay tuned on the big picture of what it is he's doing, and that people need these
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labels. They need these boxes to put things in, in order to be able to keep their eye on the bigger
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picture, and that fascism is now the appropriate box, and in fact, maybe the only appropriate box.
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So that's why I thought this was important. Others may think it's premature. I don't know.
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Well, so I pulled up a definition of fascism. As you point out, this is a term that is pretty
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loosely defined, and you can, you know, it has blurry borders. There's no question. But here's
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one definition. I went to chat GPT for this. Fascism is an ultra-nationalist, anti-liberal political
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project organized around a promise of a national rebirth, a cleansing restoration after a story of
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humiliation and decay. It rejects pluralism as a sham, treats opposition as an enemy rather than
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as a rival, and elevates coercion, often outright violence, as morally necessary to purge internal
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quote, traitors and reassert collective greatness. In its mature form, it becomes a leader-centered
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mass movement that fuses with the state, corrodes neutral institutions, and renders genuine political
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competition functionally impossible. So all of that resonates with the current moment. I mean,
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the only piece that has not been achieved, but I don't think it will be for want of trying,
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is this final line of, you know, renders genuine political competition functionally impossible,
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right? So it'll be very important what happens in November around the midterm elections. One could argue
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that not all of these variables have been fully achieved, but there's certainly been movement
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directionally across all of these domains. And so you put this in slightly different language in
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your piece. So let's just kind of run through your 18. We might not get to all of them. And let me know
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if you want to skip ahead to any that you more favor, but let's just start with the first one,
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The first thing I should say, if I can have a word of preface, is that there is no bright-lying,
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settled definition of fascism. Even fascists don't agree on what fascism is. And in different
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countries over many years, it's taken different forms. You know, Japan looked very different from
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Franco, who looked different from Mussolini, who looked different from Hitler. So my method here
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was to assemble characteristics that most people would agree are, first of all, consonant with
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fascism and second of all, dissonant with, incompatible with liberal pluralism. And I think
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everything on this list fits that bill and everything on this list fits Trump and the direction he's
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trying to take the country. It does not fit the country as a whole. We'll come back to that. But we
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don't live in a fascist state. We live in a mixed state, hybrid state, with a liberal constitution
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and a fascist leader. That gets complicated. Okay. So what are the things we're talking about? About
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half the items on this list, you know, more or less, are things that are new since his first term,
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or things that have gotten so much worse that we have to recontextualize them. Others are old,
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but now looking back, we can say that they fit into fascism and the demolition of norms is one of
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these. You know, he starts his campaign in 2016, 15, I guess, with trolling, with extreme insults,
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with making comments about a news anchor is apparently her period, with insulting John McCain
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and saying he's not a war hero. Insult after insult. And we think this is just because he's some kind of
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crazy person or he's mentally unbalanced. But this is what you do if you're a fascist and you want to
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dominate the dialogue. Because liberals, people like me, people like you, who are kind of trained
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to be civil and tolerant, we can't function in that space. We just become dumbfounded in that space.
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We don't compete there. And fascists know that. And it's why something Hitler says in Mein Kampf is,
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it doesn't matter if they laugh at us or ridicule us. All that matters is that they can't stop
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thinking about us. And that's what they're doing in the context of fascism.
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Yeah, it's interesting. And recalling Hitler in this context is relevant. It has been the case
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historically that fascist figures present, certainly before they achieve their aims, they present as
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comical figures. I mean, they present as clowns. They present as easy targets of ridicule, right?
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So the cultural machinery of satire gets working against them. But in these cases where they
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succeed, the satire proves ineffectual, right? So if you look back in the late 20s and even early 30s
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in Germany, Hitler was very often portrayed as a buffoon, as somebody who was not going to achieve
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his aims, quite obviously, because he was so comical and tawdry and norm-breaking. And that
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was clearly, clearly has been our attitude toward Trump all the while. I mean, on some level it still
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is, because I do think he lacks some of the things that proper demagogues like Hitler had. But the fact
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that he's so entertaining and so seemingly harmless because he's just a colossal jackass on some basic
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level causes many people to, I think many people hearing this conversation will feel that we are
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at every point exaggerating the danger, exaggerating the harms already committed. Because when you take a
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look at this guy and what he, and the things he says, there's something deeply unserious about him
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as a person. I mean, this is why we have, you know, his defenders effectively, I mean, the main defense
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of him for now going on nearly a decade is, or has been, you know, take him seriously, but not literally.
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I mean, this is the first time in my lifetime where I've noticed people, serious people, seemingly
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serious people, telling everyone in sight not to care what the president of the United States says he's
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going to do, as though that could make, ever make sense. And yet that's been the attitude. It's just
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like, oh, he doesn't mean it. You know, he's not going to take Greenland. Oh, he just, he and his
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director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, just accused the previous president, President Obama,
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of treason, which is a killing offense in most cases. That's not serious. You don't have to listen
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to any of that. He's just playing around, right? And so there's something about the lack of seriousness
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that is the style of presentation here that is, it's a pattern. It's not just Trump.
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Well, it's a historical pattern. You're correct. Hitler was seen as a buffoon in the 1920s.
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Mussolini was seen as this kind of strutting pop and J. Actually, even Hitler wound up thinking
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of Mussolini as something of a buffoon, but Mussolini was not a buffoon. In fact, he was a
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brilliant guy. He was a former journalist. He had been a socialist before he became a fascist.
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No coincidence there. These are smart people and they are intentionally and deliberately
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manipulating the public discourse and dialogue. First, to hijack people's minds so that you think
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about them all the time. Second, to move the grounded public discourse to an arena where
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liberal Democrats, you know, small d, cannot compete. And third, to show that they're in control
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of what can and cannot be said. All the stuff your mom taught you about what you can and can't say,
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throw it out the window. They're in the driver's seat now. And that's the message you get.
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So the second point you raise, the glorification of violence. Now, this, I think, has not been pushed
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nearly as far as most people think it must be pushed to justify any kind of analogy to
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what they consider fascism. And this is one place where I even wonder whether Trump is the sort of
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person who's capable of this. I mean, you think of, you know, the Night of Long Knives.
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It's a finally secured Hitler's power, right? So this is a night where Hitler, having become
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chancellor, decides, all right, the SA has too much power, is not totally aligned with the SS and the
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army. I need to keep the conservatives on board. And so what we're going to do in the next 24 hours
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is murder, you know, the top 200 people or the 100 to 200 people in this organization who have been
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my loyalists all the while. So what people think about here when you mention violence is
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the propensity to actually start rounding up people and killing them, right? So now that's,
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I must admit that, you know, as sinister as some of these guys seem to me, people like Stephen Miller
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and J.D. Vance, you know, who seem far more ideological and on that level dangerous than Trump
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himself. It is hard for me to imagine the murders, right? So tell me what you're referencing here and
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Well, remember, this list is not about describing America as being right now in the end state of
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fascism. It's not. I don't think it will be. In fact, I'm slightly more optimistic on that score
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than I was a few months ago. I'm instead looking at the characteristics of the rhetoric and the
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leadership. So one of the hallmarks of liberal democracy, of course, every government has to use
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violence. But it's important whether they do that reluctantly and as a last resort and whether they
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will try to de-conflict a situation, talk it down, minimize the use of violence, or whether their
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rhetoric and their actions are suggesting, no, this can be a first resort. You can be standing on a
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street corner and holding up your phone as a peaceful protester in Minneapolis and then hurled
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to the ground, be swarmed by federal agents, and then be shot multiple times. And the government's
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reaction to that will be that you were some kind of... What did they say about Mr. Preddy?
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A terrorist, an insurrectionist, bent upon massacre.
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Yeah. And when you see that, and when you see people being dragged out of cars, and when you see
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the kind of rhetoric that Pete Hegseth has been using, there's an article about that, I think,
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in The Atlantic, I think just today. When you see memes that are displaying violence in hortatory terms,
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you know, people rappelling from helicopters to assault apartment buildings in the United States,
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when you see sharing on government platforms of a children's comic book character with a machine gun
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shooting up boats, killing all the people in them, and glorying in that, reveling in that,
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saying, isn't that great? That's incompatible with the kind of society that our founders were trying
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to build. Yeah. Yeah. I did a section of a podcast on this already, but I remain astonished
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that the Second Amendment devotees in our country, the many millions of them for whom, you know,
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the right to bear arms is the central plank of their civic religion, that they've been so acquiescent
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and really just so blind to the implications of the Preti killing, because what happened in the
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immediate aftermath of that killing, which we saw from at least three different sides, and you can see
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he never reached for his gun, and his murder was totally gratuitous. It was a pure repudiation of the
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Second Amendment, and everyone from the president and the vice president on down, to Kash Patel and
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Kristi Noem, and everyone who got in front of a microphone in the aftermath of that, spoke to
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the country as though the Second Amendment doesn't exist, right? I mean, they basically said in so many
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words, and more or less all of them said this, that if you're in possession of a firearm anywhere near
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federal law enforcement, that is very likely a death sentence. You know, don't do that. And that's not
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what something like, I would say, at least 10 million Americans have been saying is the most important
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thing in our country for as long as I've been alive. And we've, you know, for as long as I've been
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alive, we've had millions of Americans over there on the right who have been buying guns, training with
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guns, cleaning their guns, talking about guns, coveting their neighbor's gun. It's all been about
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guns, and it hasn't been about guns for home defense. It's been about guns because at some point in the
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future, we could have a tyrannical government that would, will begin to infringe upon our civil liberties,
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the most important of which is our ability to defend those civil liberties by recourse to the
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Second Amendment. And here we had a guy who was practicing his First Amendment rights to assemble
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and speak freely against the behavior of ICE, and he was forced to the ground, disarmed, and then
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killed. And then you had the, you know, the director of the FBI, among others, get on television and speak
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as though the Second Amendment doesn't even exist. Where the hell are the conservative gun owners on
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