00:00:00.000U.S. Senator Elisa Slotkin told an audience at the University of Chicago that she wants investigations of Trump administration officials to send a deterrent message.
00:00:10.120Young people considering jobs in the Republican administration, she said, should wonder whether joining it might buy them a ton of problems.
00:00:17.640Slotkin described her proposal as accountability for corruption, but listen to the threat embedded in her political strategy.
00:00:24.500make public service under the wrong president so frightening that talented young conservatives
00:00:29.260never enter government. She said the quiet part out loud, and conservatives would be foolish to0.98
00:00:34.660ignore this. She wants to effectively criminalize serving in a Republican presidential administration.1.00
00:00:41.920She wants to make democracy illegal. The peaceful transfer of power depends on losers believing1.00
00:00:47.760that they can survive defeat and return to fight another election. That assumption is eroding
00:00:53.120quickly from the bush gore recount to birtherism russia gate and the battles over the covet era
00:00:59.360voting rules every disputed election has taught americans to question the legitimacy of the next
00:01:04.920result a political system can't endure indefinitely when losing means permanent exclusion financial
00:01:11.540ruin or the threat of persecution when no one really believes that elections transfer legitimacy
00:01:17.960and no one ultimately believes that when they leave government they'll be okay they'll just
00:01:22.240be safe and become an average citizen, then you end up in a situation where a representative
00:01:26.520government simply cannot exist. I mean, eventually the incentive to win at any cost overwhelms the
00:01:33.020willingness to accept defeat. The ballot is supposed to decide who holds office, not which
00:01:37.760faction gets to use the state to erase its rivals. Donald Trump accelerated that deterioration because
00:01:43.360he inspires a particular derangement in his enemies. Progressives convinced themselves that
00:01:48.240Trump was a fascist dictator preparing for a thousand-year Reich. Nothing could be further
00:01:52.360from the truth, but they portrayed ordinary political disagreements as existential emergencies
00:01:58.060and justified extraordinary tactics as necessary resistance. The campaign to stop Trump continued
00:02:04.320after he left office. His opponents pursued lawsuits, criminal cases, and ballot changes
00:02:09.620designed to prevent his return. Conservatives watched the machinery of politics become an
00:02:14.300instrument of destroying the opposition the law may permit a particular lawsuit or prosecution
00:02:19.800that doesn't mean americans would be comfortable watching every political contest turn into a
00:02:24.860criminal investigation trump also survived two assassination attempts in 2024 the atmosphere of
00:02:31.680political hatred should disturb anyone who expects elections to settle disputes without bloodshed
00:02:37.700instead much of the left treats trump's second administration as an even more terrifying
00:02:42.660prospect because he learned something from the first. Personnel determines whether a president
00:02:47.900can govern. The specter of Cheeto Hitler now excuses an endless war against anyone who might0.75
00:02:53.960help him. Trump entered Washington in 2017 without understanding how thoroughly permanent
00:02:59.780bureaucracies could frustrate his agenda. Officials who considered themselves guardians of government
00:03:04.760against its elected leader resisted him from within. This time he's pursued loyal appointees
00:03:10.900and executive action aggressively progressives understand that a republican administration
00:03:15.440staffed by people committed to its program is harder to neutralize than one staffed by its
00:03:20.360enemies so the fight has shifted from trump himself to the americans willing to serve him
00:03:25.480that's what makes slotkin's remarks so revealing young graduates already face a difficult choice
00:03:31.320between a prosperous private career and the headache of federal service now imagine telling
00:03:36.920them that four years of the Department of Justice or Homeland Security could lead to crippling legal
00:03:41.800bills once Democrats regain power. You don't need to imprison every conservative official, ruin a
00:03:47.400few careers, and the next generation will learn to stay away. An opposition that can't recruit
00:03:52.340competent personnel can't govern, which is exactly the point. No matter how many elections you win,
00:03:58.140you're always going to be hobbled and ineffective. Trump's greatest failure may be his refusal to
00:04:04.120impose meaningful costs on those who abuse power against his movement. Anthony Fauci is still not
00:04:10.280in prison. Officials who conservatives believe weaponized investigations have escaped
00:04:14.900accountability. Radical activists continue to operate while prosecutions of political violence
00:04:20.220remain uneven at best. In repeated games, cooperation only survives when defection
00:04:25.780carries a price. Tit for tat is not a pleasant rule, but one side can't endlessly punish the
00:04:31.620other while expecting restraint in return. Without consequences, bad conduct becomes a winning
00:04:37.460strategy. The danger reaches beyond staffing as well. Researcher Jenica Pounds, better known
00:04:44.680online as Data Republican, has published recordings and documents that she says reveal preparations
00:04:50.420for a constitutional crisis involving a network called the United Democracy Alliance. According
00:04:56.840to her account former military intelligence and diplomatic figures have discussed scenarios in
00:05:02.280which contested elections executive branch action against protests and defiance by democratic
00:05:07.720governors could trigger a challenge to federal authority they didn't just talk about how this
00:05:13.140might happen they actively planned how they could trigger this data republican interpreted those
00:05:18.520preparations for what they obviously were the groundwork for a seizure of power her account
00:05:23.740describes proposed political red lines, including a federal response to mass protests that would
00:05:29.580become triggers for confrontations between governors and Washington. You can try to tell
00:05:35.080people that these recordings are just contingency plans, but I mean, what kind of idiot are you if1.00
00:05:40.060you actually believe that? That distinction grows pretty thin when political operatives begin gaming0.99
00:05:45.480out how governors might seize power amid a constitutional crisis. Elections are supposed
00:05:50.800to settle who governs. Planning to declare Washington illegitimate when an election or a
00:05:55.820response goes the wrong way raises the stakes beyond ordinary opposition politics. Conservatives
00:06:02.540can't afford to treat that possibility as some kind of abstraction. They should examine the
00:06:07.920recordings, demand public answers, and prepare to defend those institutions. No sane person should
00:06:14.100welcome domestic unrest, obviously, but we also shouldn't hide our heads in the sand. The problem
00:06:19.660doesn't go away because you close your eyes really hard. A country in which each election
00:06:25.000threatens imprisonment, confiscation, and violence would become unrecognizable. Americans have spent
00:06:31.240generations assuming that partisan combat ends when the ballots are counted. That bargain can't
00:06:37.240survive if each party views the other as an enemy to be destroyed. Conservatives should demand
00:06:43.240lawful accountability for genuine wrongdoing, defend constitutional procedures, and refuse
00:06:49.100the comforting fantasy that decorum alone will restore the old rules now i want to be really
00:06:55.580clear some people will hear the democratic process is breaking down and that means i should just
00:07:00.480walk away from politics don't worry about anything none of it matters anyway it's not real
00:07:05.980that is exactly the opposite of what i'm telling you none of this is permission to withdraw from
00:07:12.060politics it's a reason to become harder to exclude that means you need to vote recruit candidates
00:07:18.060build institutions, win local offices, know your sheriff, know your neighbors, and the people
00:07:23.840responsible for keeping order in your community. Cultivate lawyers, administrators, and young
00:07:29.760professionals willing to serve despite intimidation. We need people who are serving in these
00:07:35.300bureaucracies, serving in these institutions that understand what time it is and are fighting for
00:07:40.180every last inch of power. If the system is fraying, the worst response is to abandon every position
00:07:47.180of legitimate authority while the other side is organizing democracy may not survive in the form
00:07:53.320that americans remember but the power conservatives build now will be the best thing that they can have