#461 — Dictators Always Tell You What They'll Do
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Summary
Gary Kasparov is a Russian-American chess grandmaster and political activist. He is the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and the founder of The Next Movement, a website dedicated to fighting authoritarianism. In this episode, he talks about the current state of American politics and democracy, and why he believes that democracy is in danger.
Transcript
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Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing
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of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast,
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made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing
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here, please consider becoming one. I am here with Gary Kasparov. Gary, thanks for joining me again.
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It's great to see you. So I think it's been something like five years, four or five years,
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six years maybe since we've spoken. A lot has happened, but still we were speaking under the
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shadow of Trump and Trumpism. I think each of the times we spoke, I think our first conversation
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was in 2016, and then maybe like 2022, I think that's where we are. So it's been about four years.
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Well, first, just to introduce you properly, many people will know you as one of the greatest
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chess masters of all time and world champion for many years. And maybe we'll return to the topic
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of chess at some point. But now you're currently the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative,
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and also you have a substack, the nextmove.org, which is associated with that foundation and
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where you write. Tell people, what does the Renew Democracy Initiative do? What are you focused on?
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I mean, I think we can guess from the title that you care about democracy, but what specific
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Yeah, I'm also pretty active on the other side of the Atlantic. So in Europe, where there's most of
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my colleagues in Russian opposition located. And Renew Democracy Initiative was formed in the
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beginning of 2017, after Trump's first victory in the presidential elections. It was a quite kind
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of friendly group of individuals, some of them were modern Democrats from New York, some of them were
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the group I called the refugees from the Wall Street Journal, like Brett Stevens or Max Boot.
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And I called for them just, you know, trying to figure out what's next, because I could smell
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the danger. It's probably because I was born and raised in the Soviet Union. I knew what was KGB,
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not from the books, but from personal experience. I also fought Vladimir Putin. I saw the second rise
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of KGB and how it took over my country, Russia, after we had a period of very fragile,
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so nascent democracy in the 90s. And I could see that there's some very troubling signs in America.
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So the idea of RDI was to actually point these potential problems, actually challenges to the
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Americans, because what I didn't like especially was the polarization. It's like, or you might call
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it tribalization of American politics, the rise of the extremes on both sides. And as a good scholar
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of history, I knew that, you know, that's how democracy dies, because it's not about attack
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from one side or another. It's when it's being besieged by extremists. And one day,
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these people discovered that, you know, they have no choices. What I call the, it's a paradox of the
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Spanish Civil War, you know, when just you wake up one morning and you see Franco on one side,
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the fascist, or communists on the other side, and nothing in the middle. Of course, America was not
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in 2016. Even today, it's not in the same situation, but I could smell, smell the danger.
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And the idea of RDI was to offer an opportunity for people who were not comfortable with extremes
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on either side to get together. It's what I call the home for politically homeless.
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I could never imagine in my, you know, worst nightmare that 10 years later, these threats that I only had in
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my imaginations could become a mainstream politics in America.
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Hmm. Yeah. So, uh, I want to talk about where we are at present and maybe what has surprised you
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in Trump's second term, but, um, let me just kind of set this up in a general frame because I've had
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many conversations of the sort that, uh, you and I are about to have on this podcast. I mean, many,
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for, you know, now a decade, many smart people have come on here worrying about the threat of
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authoritarianism globally, but especially in America under Trump, people like yourself and,
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and Applebaum and Timothy Snyder. And it's not that everyone agrees, you know, sets their,
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the weights in precisely the same, the same degree there, but, you know, many, many smart people
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who are, who are students of history and who have a, a spidey sense for the erosion of democratic norms
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of a sort that you do based on your, your personal history, but they can wind up sounding fairly
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paranoid to normal, uh, normal people who aren't tracking these things so closely. And I mean,
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it's true. I think that in the last year, in the second Trump term, reality has caught up to the
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paranoia to some considerable degree. And many people have noticed that things are on several
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fronts, surprisingly bad, but many people still don't. And so I guess I, I would ask you, what would
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you say to someone who even this far into Trump's second term, doesn't really feel that much out of
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the ordinary has happened? I mean, there's been a bunch of tariffs coming on and off and on again.
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There's been, um, I mean, Trump has obviously said some, uh, uncouth things, you know, he, he'll,
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he'll share tweets and memes that no president should ever touch. Right. I mean, all of that is
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deplorable, but what would you say to someone who just thinks that, yeah, sure. He's enriched himself
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and what's a few billion dollars here and there. And there's the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, right?
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So both sides are, are a little sleazy and corrupt, but nothing really is at stake here. Give me just
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kind of your big picture sense of, of, you know, how far America has slipped in your view toward
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authoritarianism. Thank you very much for this question. I'm used to be called paranoid,
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kind of crazy angle that is spoiling everybody's celebration. My first article, by the way, just,
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you know, talking about Vladimir Putin, my first article warning about threat coming from
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Vladimir Putin dated back 25 years, January 4th, 2001, the Wall Street Journal. Yeah.
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And people often ask me, how did I know? And my answer was very simple. I was listening
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to what Vladimir Putin had been saying, because there's a paradox. A lot of people just don't
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know it. Again, I, I was born in the Soviet Union, raised in the Soviet Union. I learned
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a lot about history, just not from the books, but from just real life. I saw the rise of Vladimir
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Putin and the, the collapse of the, of the very fragile Russian democracy. So the rule
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is dictators always lie about what they have done, but very often they tell you exactly
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what they're going to do. So you'd better believe them. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was published
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back in 19, 1925. And you, you can't blame him for being secretive about the plan. It was
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a blueprint, but he was nobody in 1925. Vladimir Putin, by the way, you know, laid down his program
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of recovering the greatness of Russian empire in 2005, in his speech, before the joint session
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of Russian parliament and Russian Senate, when he talked about the collapse of the Soviet Union
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being the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of 20th century. I'm just mentioning this, you know,
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just to give you a better understanding of why Trump should be taken seriously before it's too late.
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And I've been talking about Putin's threat, you know, just year after year, months after months.
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Unfortunately, even after Putin bluntly told the leaders of the free world in 2007 and the Munich
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security conference about NATO being pushed back to 1997 borders, which meant Soviet Russia recovering
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the control of the Eastern Europe as Soviet Union had. Again, no, nobody took him seriously. Then there was
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an attack on the Republic of Georgia. Again, so nobody wanted to feel that the state, that the
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temperature was rising and it was really political heat. I wrote another article, I remember in August
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2008 saying next up the Republic of Georgia would be Ukraine. People asked me, how did I know? I said,
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because I looked at the map and Vladimir Putin did it. Because again, dictator, you know, just,
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it's not just moving all, you know, just its own way forward. It's step-by-step. It's not a question
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why, it's why not. And in 2014, Putin basically broke all the international rules. The international
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law that people so often appeal now ceased to exist in 2014. He violated every treaty Russia signed,
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all the guarantees given to Ukraine. And the problem is the other side, Americans, Brits, Europeans,
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they did nothing. Despite the fact that in 1994, there was a guarantee to Ukraine for its sovereignty
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and borders by United States and Great Britain, and of course, Russia, in exchange for Ukraine giving
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up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Now, back to Trump. Donald Trump is not making secret
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of his plans. He views himself as a king. He acts as a king. And with Congress being totally impotent
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and just not acting, there's nothing to stop him. And it's not just sanctions here or tariffs here or
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tariffs there, just back and forth or few deplorable statements in the tweets. And you just mentioned
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corruption. Yes, I'm not here to excuse, you know, the previous administration. Yes, Hunter Biden was
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corrupt. But with Trump, corruption is not a problem. Corruption is the system. The way Donald Trump is
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making himself rich is just using the United States resources, United States policies, I mean,
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United States agencies. It's quite systematic. And Trump believes in it. Again, it's not that he is
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trying to make a secret. It's everything he says. And day by day, you know, he's raising the stake.
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Donald Trump was very successful even back in 2016, 17. That's when I warned Americans. He would try to
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normalize things that were abnormal. I mean, so many things that are happening now, 10 years ago,
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if you say, oh, the president could do this. Oh, no, come on. That's not going to happen.
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I remember just, you know, a year ago, I've just, it was the end of 2000, just more than a year ago,
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2024, after Trump won elections, I was on the podcast. I was a guest of Preet Bharara. And I asked Preet
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about, okay, prominent lawyer. So what about the third term? He said, no, come on. It's not going to happen.
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I said, yes, I hope it's not going to happen, but I think Trump will try it. He said, no, it's ironclad.
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I said, are you sure? Absolutely sure. I still think, you know, it will stand, but it's not
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going to stand because Trump will not try. He will try. Trump is going to try every trick in the book
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because, you know, that's the way he sees the world. We know Donald Trump doesn't lose elections.
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That's the way he sees it. And how can you not believe him when he's now mobilizing resources of
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American, of the state, of federal, federal state, of agencies like FBI, DOJ, Interior,
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to prepare, openly preparing to steal elections in November, the midterm elections. Again, it's not
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a secret. You just listen to what he's saying, listen to what is being said by his cronies,
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and look at their actions and believe them. Okay. I wish I'm paranoid, but so many things I said,
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you know, that were considered paranoid now did happen. Ukraine now is just, it's four years at
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war, four years, full-scale war. If you start counting from full-scale invasion and not counting,
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of course, 12 years from the beginning of annexation of Crimea, it's a four years of war that Europe
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hadn't seen since the end of the World War II, probably the largest war. I don't know whether you
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can compare Vietnam or Korea, but it's a massive war. And there's no end in sight. And the United
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States, this great country, this is the country that I used to see back then in the Soviet Union,
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on the other side of Iron Curtain, with millions of my competitors, as the beacon of freedom,
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the guardian of global democracy, is openly siding with forces of tyranny, with authoritarian regimes.
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Yeah. It's siding with Putin. It's openly supporting Viktor Orban. I mean, the man who is
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the prime minister of Hungary, just before his elections, where he's supposed to lose because
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we see the opposition now is gaining momentum there. So the United States Secretary of State
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is flying to Hungary to support the man who is opposing the entire, you know, European Union
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and preventing them to helping Ukraine and also corrupt like hell. He's just,
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nobody just doubts that he's on the payroll of Vladimir Putin.
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All right. So I want to get back there. I want to talk about the loss of American leadership and
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moral stature and the implications for world order there. But I want to focus on the domestic
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problem of Trumpism in America and on landmarks of the sort that you just mentioned, like the upcoming
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elections and Trump's obvious interest in declaring them fraudulent, should he lose or should the
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Republicans lose in the midterms and the prospect of, you know, his nefarious work to actually steal an
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election? He, uh, that, you know, the, uh, obviously that we know he tried to steal the 2020 election all
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the while claiming that it was being stolen from him. So yeah, I w I don't, I don't think there's any
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limit to what he would attempt there. The question is what could he actually accomplish with, um, you know,
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his various enablers and sycophants and concubines and, uh, you know, his, his retinue of enablers
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in power the second time around. But before we jump into all of that, is there anything that has
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surprised you about Trump's second term? I mean, I, you know, you, I, you've been actively worrying
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about kind of this ratchet of authoritarianism and norm busting, you know, turning in one direction
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only month by month and year by year in America. But looking back over the last year, was there
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anything that was surprising for good or for ill? No, for me, the greatest surprise was the total
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capitulation. It's moral collapse of GOP. I could not imagine just that they would, they were not
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enough. There would not be enough senators and members of the house to oppose the most aggressive
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steps of Donald Trump, like appointing unqualified people just based on their loyalty and sometimes
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craziness. And we're not talking about mass defection. It's not about dozens, you know, members of the
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house or, or senators. It's, you know, a few votes here and there. And, uh, and the Donald Trump,
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I think he just, he just measures, you know, that's this, oh, I can do this. So that's just,
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there's no resistance next step. So it's, it's like a slow motion. It's death in thousand cuts,
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but it's, it's, it's all goes, the, the, the, the train goes in one direction. And I hope,
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I just only hope that the, uh, uh, facing the midterm disaster, the GOP might act differently.
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But what is, what is the, the first, it's, it's, it's, that's again, it's the negative outcome of
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first year is that Donald Trump has already collected the, the retinue, it's maybe not an army
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of his cronies that would do whatever. So we really have a critical mass of top advisors, top
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members of Trump administration who are willing to go beyond existing law to violate the constitution
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because losing power for them could be even worse. Question is whether there is a critical mass,
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I don't think yet, but it might, you know, just go in this direction, critical mass of the second
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and third tier of, of officers of the law and, and, and bureaucrats in the agencies that would
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join this sinking ship. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, I want to keep talking about the sinking ship and
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just how far it's sunk so far, but for a second, I just want to jump ahead to a possible future where
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we clean up this mess. So just imagine in 2028, we have a democratic presidential candidate who comes in,
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you know, with the best of intentions to reset all of the norms of our liberal democracy and improve
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them and shore up the places that Trump has revealed to be weak spots. Right. So just imagine a democratic
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president who was actually committed to minimizing his or her own power. Right. So to bring the
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executive branch back into some line of a sane constitutional order where Congress can't be
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sidelined to the degree that it has, et cetera. It seems to me that given how Trump has staffed his
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government with loyalists and psychopaths and grifters and liars and, you know, confabulists
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of various sorts, you'd name some people like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, et cetera, for someone to come
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in and clean house with, again, with the best of intentions, just trying to get back to some basic
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norm of professionalism and non-partisanship. I mean, just to get a, a department of justice that is
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fundamentally non-partisan in how it works. Right. Wouldn't that be nice? All of these efforts will be
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perceived by the right, certainly the, the, whatever, whatever's left of the, the MAGA right
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in the aftermath of Trump to be nothing more than a pendulum swing back into hyper-partisanship
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of the left-leaning sort. And so I guess, so my question to you is how do we, how do we fix this
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without seeming to be just yet another iteration of, of hyper-partisan politics that is part of this
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race to the bottom? Because it will be cast that way by what remains of the Republican party.
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I think you made a huge strategic mistake talking about 2028. It is important, but it's not.
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We're going to, I'm going to go back into the morass with you. I just want to know just in a
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perfect future, like when we get to 2028 and we get someone in charge who really wants to reset things
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and can, I think a full third of our society, if not half, will perceive those efforts to be purely
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corrupt, uh, hyper-partisan, you know, cleaning of, you know, the cleaning of the deep state of the
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sort that Trump imagined he was doing or claimed to be doing.
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Yes, but it's, it's 2028 will be two years after the midterm in 2026.
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And that's, and I don't want now to preempt the political landscape that would surround the
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elections of 2028. The future of American democracy, the, the fate of this great Republic
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will be decided this November. And it's, I'm not here to bet my bottom dollar. I think that is if
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Democrats win, if Trump loses badly and fail to steal the elections, and he will try to steal the
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elections. If he's losing support, you know, among his base to go as far as he wants, which means,
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you know, just to control the whole process, what he talks about, federalization of elections,
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that's, you know, that should, that should sound like anathema to Republicans. This is the,
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the people who grew up, you know, just preaching the, the state's rights. Right now, they just,
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you know, they, they don't even sound like Democrats. They sound like, you know, socialists. I mean,
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it's just, it's sometimes, you know, you can hardly find difference between MAGA rhetoric and
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some of the far left progressives, which again, proves the horseshoe political theory.
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So 2026, you know, will be the decisive battle that will, you know, prepare the landscape for
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2028. And if it goes, as we expect, 2028 will not be a formality, but I think it's, it will offer
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a democratic contender, an excellent chance to retake power. And I may be, again, it's, there's a good
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chance. If 2026 goes well, it's probably, you know, I think this, I would, again, I would say
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there's a big chance that the next democratic challenger will not be facing Donald Trump by
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J.D. Vance. Okay. But let's say, I just, I want to answer this question. I'm going to come back to
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the present, but so let's say we, a democratic challenger faces J.D. Vance and wins. And now we
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have a democratic administration that really wants to clean house. When they start cleaning house at the
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DOJ, right. And the department of defense, right. And I mean, clean out all the loyalists. It is
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going to look to the Republicans like a purely cynical, hyper-partisan, a move of the sort that
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Trump has just made in staffing his second administration.
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I, I, look, you raised a key issue that's, I believe it is in the heart of the crisis of
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American democracy. It's a credibility. So when you have two parties, you know, it's, it's a
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dichotomy. It's a binary choice. And in binary choice, you know, very often you go not for the
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best, but for the lesser evil. And unfortunately, you know, the last couple of decades, definitely
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since 2016. So America, Americans have been reduced to the choice of lesser evil and Democrats lost
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credibility. The Biden administration just, you know, did a huge damage to the credibility of the
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whole party. And obviously when you look at Trump's campaign in 2024, it aimed at, at, at, at the weak
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spots. It talked about immigration, about transgender issues, about issues that, that helped Trump to,
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to drag many, many people in the, in, in the middle to support him. Again, considering him a lesser evil.
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So restoring credibility is the key issue, but that's, that means that Democrats should not just simply go
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to the center. Again, that's what we at RDI are saying. So this is, it's very important to fight
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extremes on both sides, but it's about, you know, just illustrating that it's, it's a healing process.
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Maybe, you know, they will have to start inviting some people just from the other side of the aisle
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in the administration. Again, I don't know what, what, what will be the solution, but it's very
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important to recognize that it's, the country should, should depart from this deadly, you know,
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deadly cycle of, of tribalization. It's me versus them. So this is, it's recovering the,
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where are the Americans? So it's, it is, it is very challenging, but I think it's doable.
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It's doable. So, and, and we can now, for instance, this is the, the latest decision of the Supreme
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Court. I think it says it was a great opinion just written by, by, by Neil Gorsuch.
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Basically blasted two, three conservative judges and three liberal judges saying, look guys,
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so how come that, you know, when Biden was in the office, you, you voted the opposite, you know,
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just using the same arguments. So restoring credibility and trust in the system, confidence
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in the system, this is very important. And I think that's, that should be, that should be the
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core of democratic programs. So they should definitely, you know, eliminate everything that
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is just, just irritates the public. I understand that there's this ideological differences,
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you know, and I may even be sympathetic to some of the views of the progressives, but it's very
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important that, you know, that we'll, we'll make, you know, the core of the campaign in 26 and
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especially in 2028 is rebuilding the system and trust in the system. Probably, you know,
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we'll reach a point where people say, look, two party system doesn't work anymore because we don't
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want us to have a choice of these two, this, and, and both parties have been infected by the virus
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of radicalism. Maybe we should look for the third party. I don't know. It's unlikely because the
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system is, you know, has been built over, you know, centuries, but clearly the challenges that
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go beyond, you know, just our disputes, disputes of first amendment or second amendment, as we could
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see now, the fight with MAGA is not about second amendment. I mean, MAGA doesn't care. This is,
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this is the, if the, if, if it doesn't defeat Trump, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's through
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second amendment, first amendment constitution. So it's Supreme court, but unfortunately this,
00:23:18.400
as you pointed out, it's not just Hunter Biden, we had many excesses on the other side, not as bad
00:23:24.060
as Trump, but they definitely fertilized the ground for somebody like Trump to show up. Trump was not
00:23:29.420
accidental. That's something that just, just, just, many people just is still considered, oh, he's here
00:23:34.760
and he, and he'll be gone. No, Trump is the, embodies the, the, all the, uh, the, the spectrum of all the
00:23:41.700
problems, uh, that American, American democracy had been facing over quite a long period of time.
00:23:46.780
And it's very important to talk about, it's not just reduction of presidential powers, but
00:23:51.320
definitely, you know, building the system of control because it's, you know, we, we have to
00:23:55.860
make sure that we will never again have the same fights about presidential ability to inflict damage
00:24:03.600
to, to order Americans by just, you know, signing just, it's, it's a new law on tariffs and ruining
00:24:09.520
American relations with our allies and openly, you know, enriching himself by making, making
00:24:15.420
both coalitions and financial deals with our enemies.
00:24:19.380
Yeah. All right. So similar question, but now focused on the midterm. So let's say there is
00:24:23.840
success in the fall, right? There's, let's say in the perfect case, we, the Democrats win both houses
00:24:29.640
of Congress and the defeat is just unignorable, uh, right of center. What would you recommend
00:24:37.500
those new members of Congress do at that point? Do you think there should be, uh, impeachment
00:24:44.560
proceedings? Do you think there should be, you know, everything that can be inquired about should
00:24:49.680
be inquired about no matter how provocative those inquiries are into the law breaking of the Trump
00:24:55.640
administration? Or do you think they really have to be careful not to antagonize half the country?
00:25:01.240
Again, excellent question is it's, again, it depends, first of all, it depends on whether
00:25:05.700
Democrats win the Senate as well. I think the House is just, it's, it's, everyone knows it's,
00:25:09.880
it's kind of fait accompli. So I think Democrats will gain at least 20 seats. I would not be surprised
00:25:15.140
if we get 30 or even more. So this is every, every indicator shows that the House election will be,
00:25:20.960
will be bloodbast for GOP. They know that. Senate is, is another story. And, uh, again, it depends
00:25:26.900
on whether Democrats can secure, you know, this is the centrist position as, uh, for instance,
00:25:31.680
if Tallarico versus, versus Paxton, I think this Democrats have excellent chance. I mean,
00:25:35.900
but if you just imagine for a moment, it's Corden versus Croquette, it's just, it's, it will be just,
00:25:40.340
you know, exactly the opposite. So it's very important. Democrat will come up with, with people
00:25:44.940
that look reasonable and will not be associated with the, with the far left excesses of Biden
00:25:50.760
administration. So now imagine they win both, you know, Senate and the House is,
00:25:56.900
I think they, they, they, they have to find this as it's, it's, it's the exact balance.
00:26:01.320
I would not say that, oh, stay, stay away from any action. It just says, no, you have to do subpoena.
00:26:07.040
You have to use the power of subpoena. You have to attack, you know, the Republicans,
00:26:11.140
uh, the current administration. So this is, it just was, it's, it was addressing their most
00:26:16.420
excessive acts of corruption and abuse of power. Definitely you have to impeach, you know,
00:26:21.440
this is people who are just in charge of DOJ and FBI, but it's as for impeachment of Donald Trump.
00:26:28.400
I don't know. This is, it's, it's, I think it's very important to understand you have X amount of
00:26:33.200
political capital and you have to spend it wisely. And I think that is Trump is not, you know, just
00:26:39.180
our main target. It sounds a bit odd now. It's about Trumpism. It's about this. That's exactly what
00:26:44.140
you discuss now. We will discuss now. It's this how to restore credibility. So if Democrats control
00:26:49.900
both parts of the call of the Congress. So I think they have to find the right, right approach
00:26:55.100
to obviously to punish those who caused so much, so much damage to American democracy and naturally
00:27:02.060
make sure that the cases of corruption will be highlighted. I don't know whether you can
00:27:06.880
investigate them or not, but that's how be highlighted. And it's not about again, going
00:27:11.180
after Trump is it's limiting the, his, his ability and ability of his cronies to cause further
00:27:17.020
damage, basically to defang the snake. So it's not just about, about going just, you know,
00:27:23.340
after its head. So the 26 will have to secure American democracy. It's quite ironic that 250
00:27:30.940
years later, you know, Americans will have to fight another mad King, you know, just for, for the,
00:27:35.020
for their freedom. But if 2026 goes well, then 2028 will have in mind. And also very important
00:27:43.100
to start, you know, just sending signals to our allies to make sure that this, these, this,
00:27:48.540
the state department and other agencies will not continue this, this very destructive policy of
00:27:54.940
destroying American alliances. Because this kind of, this kind of relations, it's easy, easy to destroy,
00:28:01.180
easy to harm. It's much more difficult to rebuild. And I, you know, I go back and forth. So for many
00:28:07.100
Europeans, especially Eastern Europeans, America today just, you know, is, is viewed as an, almost as an enemy.
00:28:16.220
I want to get there. I want to talk about the international scene, but just, I want to linger
00:28:19.740
on the domestic, the immediate domestic problem. What are you worried about happening between now
00:28:25.900
and the midterms? And I guess you could take it beyond the midterms as well, but what, what bright
00:28:31.500
line that if crossed should signal some sort of emergency of a sort that we haven't experienced?
00:28:38.860
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