GOP Loses All Power, Trump Desperate to Hold Power as Plan Backfires

0:00Welcome to I've had it weekend. We have an incredible guest and frequent guest philosopher and leading scholar on fascism Jason Stanley. Jason, Trump has now suggested that he's open to declaring a national emergency ahead of the midterms. And one thing I've learned about these fringe statements when it comes to MAGA is to take them seriously, to take them dead serious. What part of the fascist playbook are we in right now? Well, it's very characteristic for dictators to call for emergencies and special measures. I mean, this was the enabling act in Nazi Germany. Like you say that the country is under threat, all special, all normal events and normal procedures have to be called off.

0:53And you need just to seize individual control. This is what we've been expecting from Trump from the beginning. Timothy Snyder warned about it as far back as 2016. It's just the iconic characteristic. The national emergency is the iconic characteristic behavior of dictators. So they're painfully unoriginal. Painfully unoriginal. This is what I always say. It's a paint by numbers fascism we're seeing. It's boring. It demands very little of those of us who give analysis. Our main question, really, those of us who do the analysis here, is why does the mainstream media so frequently normalize what's going on?

1:50And why do they deny reality? That's the really puzzling question about the current moment in the recent past. The puzzling question is not what they are doing, because what they are doing is, as you said, completely unoriginal paint by numbers stuff. The puzzling question is, why has the media so frantically hired normalizers, promoted normalizers, suppressed most people who are trying to point out the obvious? I think I have some ideas on that. And it's because when you start looking at the list of media, MAGA people have bought it. MAGA-friendly oligarchs have purchased it. But it is somewhat comforting, Jason, when you said how dismissive you were about this national emergency.

2:38There's a comfort in that when I heard you say that and how you're like, these guys are so painfully unoriginal. Because sometimes as you're, as me, myself and my viewers are out in the world, you hear these things and it scares you. Is that the intention of floating this stuff out there to scare the electorate, to either make them descend in denialism or feel like they have absolutely no power? Is that the desired result to scare us? Well, I think that it's such a sort of clown show fascism that we're seeing that that i don't think anyone i i think very few people are like ooh national emergency it's not like the ice thug fire maybe people in germany were like oh the communists are trying to overthrow the government but that's not the case here i don't i don't think they're you know they're they're they're fascism riff what fascists do is they say the communists are about to take over, we have to declare a national emergency so the communists don't take over, then they label everyone who's against them a communist.

3:43So we're seeing exactly that, but it's so clownish and so obviously not believable. So yes, in the normal case, a national emergency is meant to create panic calling for a national emergency. Trump did that special speech about China taking over her election system, you know, interfering with the election system. He had said that about Iran and Venezuela beforehand. So that's the standard line that he rolls out. You know, it's like whoever he wants you to direct your ire towards is someone who is taking or interfering in the elections. So this is, I think Americans are kind of used to that this um what i'm most afraid of what timothy snyder has drawn our attention to repeatedly is the weakening of the sec weakening of the security state to enable an actual genuine terrorist attack so yeah you know since the entire security state is dedicated to i don't know making uh go flying people to golf you know golf courses or whatever cash patel is doing and you know Or, you know, just absolutely sort of like investigating non-existent voter fraud and James Comey's sand writing.

5:13I'm not I don't know. It looks like our national security apparatus has been kind of deliberately weakened. And if there genuinely were a terrorist attack, for example, stemming from the fact that Trump has gone to war with Iran for no clear reason. So if there was a terrorist attack from that, that would be something that, you know, Snyder and others have said Trump is sort of quasi planning slash hoping for. It's what Putin engineered his own terrorist attack in Moscow to get himself elected to power. So these are all standard moves. OK, so Putin has done this. It's been reported that Benjamin Netanyahu sent money via Qatar to Hamas in the lead up to the October 7 attacks.

6:11It's equally been reported that Egypt was saying, hey, they're going to attack. They're going to attack. and Israel ignored this. And I'm old enough to remember when they did the 9-11 commission, there was a memo that said, Bin Laden determined to attack in the United States. And so this is where it just gets mind blown because if you're raised an American, it's like your government is good. We are the beacon, the shining city. I don't think if you're raised a black American, you think that i agree i agree with you a hundred percent 100 but a white a white lady like me i was right you know pledge allegiance every day in school i you know i thought america was the best country in the world etc and you find out that these leaders get in power whether it's you know was george w bush and dick cheney who i think you know committed war crimes and we just let those there was no accountability for that and that's what incubated where we are now.

7:14And then you've got Putin that does this stuff. Benjamin Netanyahu clearly needs to be in jail. I mean, there's bribing, there's war crimes, there's all sorts of shit. He's doing all this shit to stay in power. And so this idea of some sort of terror attack is terrifying. Because right now, I think that Republicans know that a blue tsunami is coming. And the Supreme courts trying to, you know, mess with the mail-in ballots and Donald Trump's, you know, still trying to prove that he won the 2020 election, which is so stupid. And they're going to resort to something like this because after attacks like this, there's always like this rah-rah, sis-boom-bah America.

7:55So let's talk about that and put that to the top of the news cycle and explain to us what, and I've seen these videos of your friend, uh timothy snyder talking about this so kind of dive into this a little deeper so my listeners and viewers can be aware of these it's a false flag operation is that what they're called no a false flag operation is is what uh what putin did in moscow when he sort of probably by some reports or many reports arranged an apartment bombing himself blaming it on chechen terrorists So so so that was that. And I doubt that will happen here because for one thing, there's too much sort of clumsiness in this regime.

8:45And would they would they successfully do their own false flag? I mean, it would be found out within minutes. So so I don't think I'm skeptical that will happen. But, you know, Trump is extremely focused and has always been focused on this idea. He was focused on starting a war to win an election as far back as 2011, 2012. He said Obama was going to start a war with Iran. Yes. Right. For an election. So to win the election. So he's very, very clear about all this, very clear about the national emergency strategy. You know, with the China, the whole point of the special speech to the nation on China's supposed election interference, that that was that was supposed to create the conditions for a national emergency about the elections.

9:47Right. I mean, we have to be extra safe about extra safe. You know, we have to make sure to essentially control, have federal control of the elections. In other words, get put the wolves in charge of the elections. So they will stop at nothing to steal the election. They will stop at nothing. Every tactic will be tried. I don't think they'll do a false flag terrorist operation. I do not think they will go that far. I think that would be very practically, it would be deeply, deeply immoral. but I mean, beyond immoral, but politically, I don't think it would work at all. But I think, I think obviously they are awaiting, they have it all, they have a whole system rolled out in case a terrorist attack happens before the midterms.

10:40The Supreme Court is, you know, this is, I think, the biggest structural problem facing any kind of return to democracy in the United States, I mean, can't really be a return. Any kind of structure, democratic structure emerging in the United States, any kind of rule of law, Supreme Court is nothing other than a tool of authoritarianism will be for decades. It's completely illegitimate. It's, you know, a majority of just the conservative justice is appointed by, you know, during Trump during, you know, I mean, by presidents who are not popularly elected, didn't have the popular... I want to stop right there because I think this is a super important point that a lot of Americans need to understand is how much minority rule we have in the United States of America.

11:29And the Supreme Court is a prime example. Bush, the dumb one, not H.W., but W. George W. didn't really win his first election. Al Gore won that election. But the Supreme Court lied and said that he did. And then he got some appointments, one of which being John Roberts. So you have a president that didn't win the popular vote that appointed John Roberts. All of Trump's appointees from Trump 1.0, he did not win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton beat him. So these are minority rule Supreme Court justices. And I think the Democratic Party needs to start coming out and campaigning against the Supreme Court.

12:12I think we need to remind Americans, because I think a lot of Americans don't realize that these justices were kind of snuck in the back door. This is not democracy. The Supreme Court is not a democratic institution. Furthermore, Jenny Roberts, the wife of Clarence, I'm sorry, Jenny Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, Thomas, she was a huge planner in January 6. We all know famously that Alito's wife is a member of all various types of don't tread on me, militia type flags that she waves at their properties. But more troubling is these justices receive money from various entities that then appear in front of the Supreme Court and then they favor in front of them.

13:01And I think instead of expanding the court as being one of the arguments, I think we We have to say, you know, the Supreme Court needs to be completely reimagined. I mean, it cannot you cannot have these life appointments. You cannot have these justices with no ethical oversight. On what planet do you get to have a job where you don't have a fucking boss? I mean, it's insane. And I haven't really heard Democratic politicians talk about this, that everybody talks about it broadly. Oh, we're going to get Supreme Court picks. We're going to get Supreme Court picks or they're going to get Supreme Court picks.

13:39The Supreme Court is a completely illegitimate kangaroo court, corrupt as all get out that is rubber stamping fascism and this criminal, these incompetent criminals in the White House. Yeah, nothing will happen unless something dramatic is done. Supreme Court reforms. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I mean, the Supreme Court is nothing. Their prime function in the United States is to support oligarchical rule and authoritarianism and target democracy whenever and wherever it can. They are there for the oligarchs. I don't think they're 100 percent there for Trump all the time. I think they're there for the oligarchs.

14:21And so they're there to crush, to rule on the side of the billionaires, to rule on the side of the oligarchical interests against democracy and freedom. And nothing will happen in the United States in terms of fundamental reform until this illegitimate and completely anti-democratic and corrupt Supreme Court until something is done about it. And it links the minority rule point links also to the Senate. Like, you know, totally Wyoming has two senators and California, despite their massive difference in population. So, of course, you know, the Senate putting so so the whole U.S. system, the U.S.

15:09system is structured in a way that is really problematic for democracy. But the Supreme Court is the most obvious example. And you are 100 percent correct to that. Some, you know, the Democrats need to explain that clearly and cogently and explain that the billionaires lock, you know, a grip on our throats will not begin to be released until the United States does something about its billionaire owned Supreme Court. Okay, now let's shift gears. For my listeners that are familiar with you, they know, but for any new listeners or viewers, because we grow a lot all the time, Jason was a professor at Yale.

15:57And then after Trump 2.0, he and Timothy Snyder, we've been talking about now they're in Canada. And I have seen just whether it be a CEO, whether it be Jimmy Kimmel, whether it be whomever, a law firm, a university, those that capitulate, Trump, he goes back for more and more and more abuse. He sees a weakness and he goes back to abuse you more. But those who stand up to him, when they went in courts, because Trump's a coward and he's incompetent. And he surrounded himself with the biggest bottom feeder losers imaginable that are, I mean, drunk on power and low on IQ. And I recently this week, the Canadian Doug, what's his name?

16:43Doug Ford. He this I love this guy, because this is the way you have to fight Donald Trump. Oh, you don't love him. I just like the clips that I've seen. He's fighting Trump-ish. He's libertarian, pretty far right. Like, you know, so, okay. So, so, you know, I mean, he wants to remove bike lanes in Toronto for, Oh, no. No, Doug. Come on, man. But what do you think about his approach of calling Trump a loser? Let's play the clip. Number five, Kylie. There's a lot of people in the U.S. that are calling me saying, way to go. Keep going. You know, your own people, President Trump, don't even like you.

17:24And they're going to speak loud and clear when it comes to the midterms. And if I was allowed to, I'd be down there door knocking. Do you think an insult from him hurts me? Well, bring it on, buddy. I'm ready. Bring it on. You know something? I've dealt with guys like you my whole life. And guess what? You all become losers because you're a loser. Okay. So my question about this, Jason, and it is kind of interesting that he is kind of, you know, MAGA-like Trump-ish in his policies, because I think the Democratic base right now could get behind somebody who believes in democracy, but fights, who stands up to Trump in fights like that, because the Democratic Party has a job right now to build a giant tent.

18:07And it is, you're going to have progressive corporate, I mean, you're going to have corporate Democrats, progressive people that like to live out far leftist DSA. We all have to fit under the big tent. And so we have to have somebody, the most unifying thing that I see right now is somebody who wants to take it to MAGA and not bend the knee, not take private meetings with Jared Kushner on affordability, which we all know Jared Kushner could give two shits about. What do you think about these countries that have stood up to Trump, like Canada versus the countries that are, you know, somewhat cooperative and delusional about what Trump's goals are, like some European countries have been like, come on, guys, stand up to this guy.

18:49Yeah, I think we have, so, First, the situation with Canada. I mean, Trump has been so clearly bent on on subjugating Canada, either in a very similar rhetorical way to how Putin is with Ukraine, saying that that it's not, you know, like like either it'll be a colonial outpost or the 51st state. It does. It doesn't really it's not real. It doesn't really exist. So. That brings Canadian conservatives against him and Canadian. So that brings a wide swath of a coalition. Right. An anti-Trump coalition, anti-Trump coalition. And there and what you're seeing, one has to sort of. And again, this is sort of, I think, a discussion we just had with the Supreme Court.

19:37One has to think about what the billionaire oligarchs are doing and what the Trump regime is doing. They're very linked, but they're not always the same thing. So, you know, and they're working together. So the billionaire oligarchs want to divide all the countries. They want to back separatist movements. They want to back ultranationalists and far right movements. Trump is doing that, too. The Trump regime is doing that, too. J.D. Vance is obviously Peter Thiel's stoogie. And so Peter Thiel is going around like in supporting the far right in Germany. And that's the official Trump regime policy.

20:16So they're supporting all of these far right parties who say they are nationalists. But really, these far right parties want to weaken their own nations to give more power to the oligarchical billionaire class. So it's a it's a, you know, by breaking countries apart, they can't work together against Musk and Google, et cetera. So so the the so it's a more complicated situation because you have that oligarchical thing going on with backing these separatist movements and far right parties, which the Trump regime is doing as well. Now, so it play it. So these play into these complicated ways. This is there's no simple way of explaining the international dynamics that are that are not happening because you have these far right parties who are claiming like MAGA claims to be pro national.

21:14But in fact, these far right parties like MAGA are betrayers of the nation. Like MAGA is the most treasonous, corrupt movement, anti-American movement that stands against all American ideals. You know, and it's meant to destroy the United States from inside. So so you have these. So what we need to see is we need to see that these these movements that are trying to get us to blame our problems on immigrants, to blame the problems caused by the oligarchs on, you know, immigrants, on liberals, on feminists, that they're just actually movements to destroy countries and weaken them before oligarchs.

21:57So that I think is going to that dynamic is going to last beyond Trump. So so Trump, Trump himself, Trump is an effective tactic. I found when in going in I'm work, I work in a lot of countries in the press. An effective tactic is to point out that the far right party is just the Trump face of the nation. It's just, you know, working with Trump. because Trump is very despised. So so it it's a complicated situation because these far right parties in different countries are saying, we are the nationalists, we want to get the immigrants out. But in fact, they're just stoogies for Trump and Musk and Thiel.

22:46So so it's it's a complicated situation. You can use Trump's unpopularity internationally personally, against the movements he supports. You can use it strategically. Trump and America are wildly unpopular internationally. As Trump has turned America's brand into Trump, has turned the brand of America as white supremacy. It's hatred and white supremacy, the international brand. When people think America, they think hatred, intolerance, ice, racism, corruption. And so people are furious against Americans. So you see the far, Doug Ford, who's not far, who's pretty right wing. He's a Trumpist figure, a Trumpist figure in a country with universal health care that nobody.

23:38So, so, so it's, it's, it's really, you know, it's popular to be, people are so angry at America. People are so angry at Americans. People dislike Trump internationally so much that standing up to him is not just politically expedient. You can use it strategically within a country's politics, as I think the prime minister of Spain has done. Okay, let's talk about this in closing, because this is really important. So you have these oligarchs, and we know from the Epstein files. We know that Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Thiel were celebrating Brexit. They were celebrating that victory in emails back and forth to each other.

24:27We know that Peter Thiel has said that he does not think democracy is compatible with modern society any longer and that he wishes not to put his name on the ballot, but to buy politicians. We know he bought, in my opinion, He purchased J.D. Vance and installed him. Interestingly, the government of the United States gives Argentina$30 billion. And then Peter Thiel, I read reporting, he moved to Argentina. At first I thought, oh, he's scared. He's scared of the midterms. And I've since been reading that he's not. That's an experiment for him because he wants to set up this technologically run government.

25:14And I remember hearing as well, Elon Musk, through one of his ketamine benders, over the last couple of months, said something really interesting. And I wish the Democrats would play it more on attack ads. But he said, you won't need money in the future. Everything will be provided for you. So on the one hand, you have the Republican Party saying, the Democrats are commies, they're commies, they're commies. But then you have Elon Musk basically saying, hey, we're about to deliver communism to you. So these oligarchs are using Donald Trump, Trojan horse, useful idiot, because he's so easy to manipulate.

25:49He has no principles. And they control pretty much the Supreme Court because I agree with you that the Supreme Court at the end of the day is going to deliver for billionaires over Trump when those meld together. is trump and his unpopularity harming the oligarchs ambitions like four years ago they probably had a pretty good forecast globally is trump's incompetence as a wannabe dictator is that helpful for the push against all of this rising fascism around the world oh wow and i know that's a long question but i really want to understand this and what my viewers to understand this because this is all about more than Trump.

26:35There's things that are going to live on. If Trump drops dead today, these evil forces are still here doing these things. Totally, totally, Jennifer. Thank you. That is the situation we really have to understand, that it's the billionaire oligarchs who are trying to destroy our children's future, who are trying to destroy humanity. The real great replacement theory is replacing us by artificial intelligence. They actually, the sort of background ideology is they want to de-center humans to create new super intelligence. You know, we're not going to matter anymore. They literally want to destroy us.

27:14So it's not, they don't, they want to, they want us to die. They want us humans to die. And all of this, all of what we're seeing is just a mechanism to distract act and sort of tear things down so they can get rid of governments, get rid of any obstacle to their own power and their own desired future, which is destroying the world and the future so that only they, only the winners survive and the rest of us can just go die. And then the real humans will be something like artificial intelligence agents. I think that's the background deep. And so they're out to destroy governments. Trump is destroying the United States.

27:57They're backing far-right movements and separatist movements everywhere because they want to bring people. What we need to do as a world to fight these oligarchs, to preserve any semblance of a future, is work together. We need to work together as humanity to defend common humanity against climate change, against the threat of artificial intelligence, against the depredations they want to visit upon us in the future. And we can only do that if we work together, which is why they're splitting us apart. And they want to back. Everyone is recognizing you can feel the climate change get worse and worse at a very rapid pace.

28:42Everyone is feeling this. And so they want to direct our attention away from the obvious causes of this, the billionaires, and towards immigrants, feminists, trans women. They want to direct our attention away. They just do this, you know, Lindsey Graham's sister just ran again and again, men and women grew from women's sports, men and women's sports. They want to direct our attention away. As long as they can direct our attention away, we won't recognize what's going on. So, yes, Elon Musk is a Nazi, but he would have he has to be a Nazi because if he didn't try to push the politics everywhere in the world, that it's the nonwhite immigrants fault for for ruining the world, we'd recognize that it was his fault.

29:28So that is the game plan to support parties that place the blame for what the billionaires are doing on scapegoats. That's that's the game game plan. And all these ultra nationalist parties, MAGA in the United States. AfD in Germany, Alternative for Deutschland in Germany. These are all the local faces of the global elite. The Ellison's, the Musk's, that's the global elite and the global elite motile. And they're promoting these ultra-nationalist racist parties in every country. And the ultra-nationalist and racist parties are saying, there's a global elite that we're protecting you against the global elite.

30:12But in fact, those ultra-nationalist parties are the local faces of the global elite, and their job is to direct our attention away from the fact that it's this oligarchical billionaire global elite that is trying to kill us, kill our children's future, destroy the planet, and replace us by artificial intelligence. So that's the structure of what's going on. It is not going to end with Trump at all. J.D. Vance is a much more effective purveyor of this global structure of masking the role that the billionaire oligarchs have in destroying our future. Wow. I mean, this is something I think is just so important because it's so easy for all of us to think.

31:02You know, you see these tweets or memes online. I'm going to, I'm already thinking about what I'm going to wear when it happens. That's all it says. That's all the tweet says. And everybody knows exactly what the tweet is supposed to mean. And you think, oh, okay. Impulsively, you want there to be a quick fix for this. But you can tell by the... I was so alarmed in Trump 2.0 when immediately, immediately all the oligarchs went in benthany. I couldn't believe it. They were all in the... Tim Cook, a gay man. was there, you know, and it just, that's when I was like, oh shit, this is, this is bad.

31:44This is really, really bad. Well, ultimately the identity of a billionaire, Alex Karp is black, is a black man. He is? Yes. His mother's black, his father's Jewish. Oh, really? The guy that's always like, looks coked up? Palantir. Yeah. He's a, he's a black man. Wow. But ultimately, these billionaires, their ultimate identity is billionaire. So once you're a billionaire, you're Charles Barkley was once asked, why are you a Republican when you're black? And he said, I have$40 million. I'm too rich to be a Democrat. So, you know, these are billionaires. And that's their premier identity. That's their identity.