'Brazen corruption': Heather Cox Richardson HUMILIATES Trump but sees a 'VIBE SHIFT' away from MAGA

[0:00] What Americans really are doing in this moment is recovering their agency, [0:04] remembering that, you know, they don't want to just watch an image of what it means to be a [0:10] president, that actually there is joy in the creation of a community that is safer. There's [0:17] joy in the creation of getting, you know, your college degree. There's joy in the creation of [0:22] a new business or of a stable family or of health. And that joy of creation and creating a government [0:29] that reflects those things. That's a vibe shift. Hi, everyone. If you make a list of the people [0:40] you admire most, and then you ask those people who they admire most, chances are extremely high [0:47] that this week's guest is at the top of that list. Heather Cox Richardson is the voice of this moment, [0:53] not because of how loud she screams. She never screams about the excesses or the horrors, but [0:58] because of the meticulous way she lays brick on top of brick on top of brick to remind us of our [1:05] story, our history, her flaws, and our identity. At a time when Donald Trump is trying to erode and [1:12] erase all three, I find her essential at every turn, but especially this one in which Trump's base seems [1:18] so hardened that his brazen corruption and theft from them and the American people doesn't seem [1:24] to face them, to say nothing of his audacious attempt to claim without evidence that his 2020 [1:29] defeat was due to fraud and interference. So without any further ado, because I have a million [1:35] questions for her, this is The Best People. And this is our first ever, back for a third conversation, [1:42] three-peat guest, Heather Cox Richardson, historian, podcaster, and writer of one of the biggest [1:47] substacks in the country ever. Hello, my friend. [1:50] Such a pleasure to be with you again, and you're very generous, but the people who matter in this [1:55] moment and the ones that I represent are just ordinary people, I promise you. [2:00] But you ask 10 ordinary people what they read first, and it's you. [2:05] Well, I think that that is a reflection of the fact that my project is really different than many [2:11] people who are out in the media in that I came to this from teaching. Like, my agenda is to protect [2:17] democracy. It's not any of the other agendas that you might find out there. And so I just reflect back [2:22] to people what they are shining on me. I want to ask you how you keep the faith and if you ever feel [2:32] yours waver. The way you keep the faith, I think, is by having a profound belief in American democracy, [2:40] and I do. And I want to point you to the Declaration of Independence, because when the founders [2:45] of what was going to become the United States of America produce that document, they start with the [2:52] idea that they hold these truths to be self-evident. And that's not simply a well-phrased turn of an idea [3:01] there. What they are saying is that they believe there are the laws of nature and of nature's God—they put [3:08] those in that introduction as well—that say people have certain natural laws under which they [3:15] function. And among those, not all of them, but among those are certain rights, including the right [3:22] to have a say in your government and the right to determine your own future. And if you really believe [3:28] that that's what humans gravitate toward, that in fact that is a natural law or the law of nature's [3:34] God, it's a question of getting to it, not a question of whether or not it's a real thing. [3:39] And I actually really believe that. My experience in life has been that what human beings want is the [3:45] ability to determine their own future. Not all of them, but the vast majority of us. And if you believe [3:51] that's what we're working toward, we are going to win. The question is whether it's going to be in an [3:55] hour, you know, in five years, in 40 years, or in a new millennium. One of the things that I think I [4:03] attached to as sort of a former political operative was that at that time, about a third of the country [4:10] was with them. A third of the country was against them, and a third of the country didn't know how [4:13] they felt about that idea. Exactly. And those numbers are pretty common, actually. And as you [4:21] well know, that when you get a reactionary right-wing movement, it does have a natural floor. That is, [4:28] it's never going to drop below about 22%. That's about as low as it gets. Those people are always [4:34] going to be in the tank for the reactionary movement. But the people that need to get on [4:40] board are those people in the middle who don't really know where they stand. And I can talk about [4:45] times in American history where you had a very similar situation to where we are today. The rise [4:49] of the Republican Party came directly out of a moment such as this in the 1850s. But what you are really [4:56] doing when you are participating in democracy or in politics right now, or really in any kind of an [5:02] advocacy organization, is trying to get people who otherwise aren't involved in that movement. And part [5:10] of doing that is creating this larger sense of self-determination. And you see that around you all [5:17] the time right now. I mean, how many people do you know who said, well, I never paid attention to [5:21] politics. But have you seen, and I get that all the time from people. And we're also seeing so [5:27] many people saying, well, I'm also running for office. I'm getting involved now. It's really [5:31] exciting. And it's something we desperately need in order to adapt American democracy to the 21st [5:37] century, which needs to happen. Yeah. I mean, some of this, right, is about your gaze, right? And I feel [5:43] like so much of the gaze is focused on that floor that you're talking about. Just explain why that's an [5:48] error. Because the hardened 22%, I think Trump's numbers are about 30%. So it's just a little bit [5:54] above that number below which he'll probably never fall, is the subject of so much obsessive coverage. [6:01] And it distorts the reality that the vast majority of Americans are in agreement that the Iran war is [6:08] a bad idea, that ending democracy is a bad idea, that shooting people on the streets because of the [6:14] color of their skin is a bad idea. And yet the vibes are all that we're completely polarized. [6:20] You know, that always jumps out to me as well. Because again, if you think about the things that [6:25] people on the Democratic side are calling for, they're wildly popular. So, you know, every time I [6:31] see this idea that somebody is far left when they're talking about universal health care, when [6:37] like 80% of Americans want that, that sounds pretty centrist to me. Similarly, common sense gun safety [6:43] measures, you know, wildly popular, over 75%, I think, you know, you look at those things, and you [6:49] see them described in the media as being the far left, that kind of makes my head explode. Because [6:55] the actual left is not interested in the preservation of liberal democracy, because they think that it is [7:03] too corrupt either because of racism or sexism or classism ever to have a fair society. And I look at the [7:09] people who are operating even in the Democratic Party across the spectrum, nobody's calling for [7:14] that. In fact, the things that they are calling for are less dramatic in terms of economic fairness [7:20] than Eisenhower did. And Eisenhower was a Republican president. [7:23] That's so interesting. Yeah, yeah. [7:25] Well, think about the 1956 Republican platform, which is far more dramatically weighted toward the consumer [7:35] workers, women working, disabled people working than the farthest left Democrat operating right now. [7:45] And look at the fact that in the 1950s, the top income tax bracket was 91%. You know, unless I've [7:51] missed something dramatic, I'm not seeing anybody calling for those sorts of numbers right now or [7:56] anything near that. So there is this weird thing in the media where we have gotten skewed toward the idea [8:03] that a far right presentation of our common experience is the norm. And I do think that [8:10] that has been a political project. And it's been a political project since at least the 1950s, when [8:16] you get in 1954, for example, the book McCarthy and His Enemies by William F. Buckley Jr. and L. Brent [8:22] Bazell suggesting that the only real Americans are those people they call conservatives with a capital C, [8:28] even though they're actually quite radical. And everybody else, Republicans, independents, [8:32] Democrats, everybody else is what they call a capital L liberal to make it look as if it is some [8:38] sort of a branch of communism or socialism. And that insistence that they are the only true Americans [8:46] really became part of the project of those movement, because they were a political movement, [8:51] conservatives. And gradually, over the course of the 1980s, with the end of the Fairness Doctrine, [8:58] and then or even before that, with the 1971 Powell memo suggesting that those people who thought that [9:04] way had to take over the American media as well as universities, and then with the end of the Fairness [9:11] Doctrine in the late 1980s, and then of course, with the rise of the Fox News Channel in 1996, [9:16] you get this concentrated propaganda, really, that has so skewed our understanding of what it is to [9:26] represent the American middle or American liberal democracy. You can see it has skewed what is expected [9:35] behavior. And what I mean by that is look at the way that the media has covered Donald Trump's evident [9:42] lack of lack of mental acuity, versus how they covered Joe Biden, who has been a was a gaffe machine [9:48] from the moment he first set foot in the Senate. And even before that, anything that he said that was [9:54] even vaguely out of line, they jumped all over Trump is a walking word salad. And they're acting as if he [10:03] is simply well, that's Trump, because there is this bias suggesting that Republicans naturally [10:09] have the right to govern and the Democrats have to overcome all sorts of pieces that the Republicans [10:15] don't. And that's something I think the independent media is being pretty good at pushing back on. [10:19] Not because they have an agenda in so much as the fact that we are so badly skewed now [10:25] to this weird right wing look at what's actually happening in the United States. [10:31] I do want to drill down on two things you just said. One, I led with Trump's, [10:39] and I know you talked about it as well, comments at NATO. [10:42] Is the ceasefire done? Is the MOU dead? [10:45] It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them [10:53] anymore. They're scum. I told the story yesterday. We had 111 [10:57] missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. They were shot at the aircraft. [11:03] Do you have a question for President Putin? [11:09] Do you have a question for President Putin? Not so much for Putin. [11:13] I guess we're both old enough to remember when an American president's words [11:18] didn't just move markets, which seems to be Donald Trump's only concern, but used to change borders. [11:25] It used to change how a country protected itself militarily. It used to change alliances. [11:30] He literally described Japan as an Islamic Republic. He confused, while sitting next to him, [11:37] Zelensky with Putin. He spoke in ways that were so deeply alarming. I sort of joked that you needed [11:43] Rubio next to him translating with a feed at the bottom to say what he really meant was. But they've [11:51] either diminished his import so much or downgraded his words so much that people seem to wake up the [11:59] next day, as you said, unfazed. Yes. And that is a reflection, I think, of America's falling standing [12:07] in the international community, which is something we could absolutely talk about. But I will say that [12:13] certainly presidents have misspoken in the past, or they have made mistakes in the past, because they're [12:19] people, right? But one of the things that you can do is overlook those things if the policies behind [12:28] them are solid. You know, you look at the policy, at least that's what a historian does. You listen to what [12:33] people say, but you watch what they do. And one of the things about the way that Trump is appearing on the international [12:39] stage is there is no there there. It is entirely, you know, like one of those balls in a pinball machine. [12:49] He's absolutely all over the place. So if you look at what's happening in Iran right now, for example, [12:53] you know, he's clearly finally discovered that the Memorandum of Understanding he signed on June 17th [13:01] at Versailles, which, you know, I don't think you can walk away from that in terms of our international [13:06] understanding. The fact that he signed it at Versailles, where the Germans surrendered basically [13:13] everything and agreed to pay reparations after World War I, he didn't understand the significance [13:19] of that. But I would lay money that Macron, the leader of France did. So he clearly has figured out [13:28] that that Memorandum of Understanding pretty clearly gave Iran room to run with the idea that they had the [13:34] right to control the Strait of Hormuz. And most of us called it out the night of saying, wait a minute here. [13:40] This doesn't look real good for us. So now he's declared that that is off. And yesterday I got up in the [13:46] morning and there was his tweet saying that that was off. We were going to blockade Iranian ports again, [13:52] which is an act of war. And and and and the United States was going to to defend the Strait of Hormuz. [13:59] But everybody had to pay us 20 percent of their cargoes, which is which is off already. [14:04] I saw that, too. And I think that's since been called off. [14:07] Yes, he called that off, saying that people in the Middle East, leaders in the Middle East, [14:11] had told him they were going to invest in the U.S. so that wouldn't happen. [14:14] This is crazy pants stuff. It really is. And so today we've got people out there saying that we're [14:21] now on our fifth day of rebombing Iran. And now some Republicans in on Trump's list of loyalist allies [14:31] are saying we're going to go after civilian infrastructure, which is usually a war crime, [14:37] like an international war crime. And the bottom line is Trump can't get out of this war. And so we're [14:44] ping ponging all over the place here. And it is a sign, I think, of the degradation not only of our [14:52] international standing, but also of our presidency and his determination to take over the system for [14:59] himself. And you can see this again with the Iran war. The fact that Trump's people simply informed [15:04] Congress again that they had started a new set of strikes against Iran, therefore, in their minds, [15:10] restarting the 60 day clock that they have under the 1973 War Powers Act, which says that after 60 [15:18] days, you either have to get the approval of Congress, you have to withdraw your troops. [15:22] Well, the first 60 days expired on May 1st, and they did some machinations to try and say, [15:27] no, no, no, no, we're not actually at war. Now he's declared it's a whole new war, [15:31] so he doesn't have to include Congress. I mean, this is just, I mean, I'm speechless. [15:37] What do you think the lack of people in the streets protesting our involvement in this war means? [15:47] I think that if you are at home, the Iran war is kind of at a low boil. What you see from it is, [15:55] although it's not popular at all, but what you see from it is rising prices. And those rising prices of [16:01] gasoline and especially of things in the grocery store, that you cannot look away from. That is [16:08] everywhere. So you're seeing an awful lot of that. And now that ICE and Border Patrol have been funded [16:13] again, the arrival of ICE into different areas across the country and the subsequent shooting [16:20] and killing of people from those communities, that's something that's getting people in the [16:24] street in a way that, you know, I can get all upset about the War Powers Act because I really care [16:30] about the separation of powers and the following explicitly of the laws. But it's easier, I think, [16:39] for somebody who's working a couple of jobs and got a couple of kids running around and so on to be [16:45] much more concerned about the cost of fresh produce than it is to be concerned about whether or not the [16:53] president has followed the War Powers Act. Oh, and let's not forget the outbreak of this foodborne [16:58] illness that's causing explosive diarrhea across the country. I mean, as somebody said, Brian Butler, [17:05] I think, said, if Obama or Biden had turned the country into, and this is not his term, a flying [17:13] poop factory, you can believe it would have been headline news in every possible place. And here it's [17:20] like, oh, yeah, we got several thousand people with this terrible foodborne illness, in part because [17:27] the administration stopped tracking the spread of that disease last July. You know, no one is making [17:35] it headline news. Well, people are talking about what they should do about salad. Like, is it safe to eat [17:42] salad? Is it safe to give their kids fruits and vegetables? And I think, like, you don't even have to [17:49] wonder what they would do to Biden when there was a shortage of baby formula. It was all that was on [17:54] the news. And you now have, as you said, a diarrhea causing bacteria in produce. So there's stories in [18:03] low, I always check what's in local papers, and it is in every local paper, how to safely eat produce [18:08] this summer. Why do you think people aren't tying the destruction of the federal government, which they [18:14] bragged about and did in front of the cameras, with the inability of the government to tell us where the [18:19] diarrhea causing bacteria is coming from? Your identification, not just of the problem with [18:27] produce or wherever this is coming from, but also with things like the vitamin K shots, without which [18:36] newborns run an 81% higher chance of having catastrophic bleeding, which finally, certain [18:43] members of the administration have come out to say, yeah, you should get your vitamin K shots in your [18:47] newborn. But you're seeing a lot of places where the federal government used to protect American [18:54] families and are no longer. And people are speaking up about that, and they are having results from [19:01] doing that. But that being said, one of the things that is really interesting about this moment, and I [19:07] think presents a dilemma for Democrats, by the way, is that the cuts that the administration has made are [19:13] the cuts that the Democrats have been warning about for a very long time. And we kept hearing [19:17] things like, well, they'll never do that. You're fear mongering. That's not going to happen. Well, [19:22] it's happened. Yeah, we're like post fear mongering. We're in post fear mongered America. [19:26] But if you think about how we got the progressive era, and how we got the New Deal, we didn't get it [19:31] from people like me saying, hey, you know, I really think that we're not following such and such a law. [19:36] We got it from women saying, they're adulterating our milk with formaldehyde and chalk. One of my [19:43] favorite examples of why we get the regulations we do during the progressive era is that when, [19:49] you know, you always hear that thing, don't take candy from a stranger. And if you are post 1950, [19:55] you think about, you know, the guy in the van, right, they're going to take you off and do horrible [19:59] things to you. We actually get that during the progressive era, because candy sellers that you didn't [20:05] know would paint their candy with lead paint. And so you didn't take candy from a stranger, [20:12] because you needed to know that the pretty decorations were not lead paint on suckers, [20:19] you know, on the candy suckers. That's fascinating. I didn't know that. That's amazing. [20:22] So this need of ordinary Americans to protect their families in ways that the federal government did [20:30] until Trump 2.0, I think is creating a different kind of politics where, again, people are saying, [20:37] perhaps I don't care whether or not the administration is doing something untoward in [20:42] Venezuela as it is. But I do care about the fact that I don't have health care anymore, [20:48] that I can't buy gasoline to get my kid to a soccer game, that I can't buy food, that I don't know how [20:56] I'm going to pay my rent. You know, those sorts of things are a different kind of politics. And as [21:01] I say, I think presents a problem for Democrats, because certainly at the state level, Democratic [21:06] legislatures and Democratic leaders want to protect the people within them from the cuts to SNAP, [21:12] from the cuts to Medicaid, and so on. But the more they protect people from that, [21:17] the more people can say, yeah, it was just fear mongering. They weren't really going to do it. See, [21:21] I, you know, my SNAP has come back, even though that's not going to happen. So, [21:26] so I think we're in that moment where we're trying to figure out what the politics of the next era [21:30] looks like. And part of it's going to come from ordinary people at home going, [21:34] hey, wait a minute, I used to be able to trust the food that was in the grocery store, and I can't [21:38] anymore. I mean, here's one for you, though. One of the things that really jumps out to me, [21:43] and I don't entirely know how to think about it, is the degree to which the Trump administration has [21:49] absolutely destroyed the credibility of the American government. So that in the past, when, [21:55] when any officer of the government said something, you know, I was always of the opinion of trust, [22:00] but verify, right? You would see what they said, and then you would go find the documents and see [22:04] if they lined up. And every, every leader always puts spin on it. Sometimes there's such spin that [22:10] it's absolutely disingenuous. But I really realized the other day, when that picture of Mitch McConnell [22:17] came out, my first reaction was not trust, but verify. My first reaction was, it's got to be fake. [22:24] And then I went to learn about it, you know, and that idea that we can't trust anything the [22:30] government says anymore. I'm just shocked at how fast that has fallen apart. But there's a couple [22:36] of interesting things that come out of that. And one of them, I think, is when I was thinking about [22:40] why I felt that way, just as a human being, not as somebody who knows Mitch McConnell or studies [22:47] or anything, there's like some, some smell tests, right? Where you use your common sense to say, [22:53] is this plausible or is this not plausible? And in a way, because the administration has become so [22:59] untrustworthy, a lot of people seem to be applying the smell test to a lot of areas where we might not [23:05] otherwise have done it. And with luck, that will become part of our larger conversation about really [23:12] big policies, as opposed to whether or not Mitch McConnell is functional. I don't think Mitch McConnell [23:17] is dead. I think that that would be representing that he is alive when he is not. I assume breaks [23:23] at least some laws of fraud. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. But I also thought the timing was really [23:29] interesting because it was right after the sudden death of Lindsey Graham. And it struck me that the [23:33] Republican leadership was trying desperately to say, hey, we still got people over here. [23:38] So I, I think that at some level, his heart is still beating, but I'm not expecting him to show [23:44] up at my doorstep and invite me out dancing anytime soon. Yeah. I mean, look, I, I saw Scott Jennings, [23:51] the MAGA guy over on CNN post about a 20 minute conversation he had with Mitch McConnell. It was the [23:58] first time I became suspicious about his health. Until then, I just, I was sort of willing to, [24:03] to, to, to go along and accept that he was convalescing somewhere. I became suspicious [24:09] when Scott Jennings posted about a 20 minute in depth policy conversation he'd had with Mitch McConnell, [24:14] because I thought if it was what Scott Jennings said it was, why didn't he call into Fox News and [24:17] have the conversation in a way that would show him able to talk about all those things. And so I, [24:24] I think even to the degree that you think you can wall yourself off from this post-truth [24:29] moment, this is one of the parts of my brain that is now suspicious of just about everything [24:36] that the real MAGA propagandists say, especially as you point out, when their motives are so [24:40] clearly to prop up having more power than they do. Well, so I actually find this really interesting [24:48] because one of the big ways you change American politics is sort of by changing the bigger conversation. [24:54] Like, what are we talking about? Which side looks like the winning side? And when you think about [25:00] the way that I think you and I both reacted to Scott Jennings or to that photograph, you can see [25:05] people being like, ah, we don't believe that stuff anymore. And it reminds me of the Republican Party [25:12] after the great crash. When Hoover is in office, President Herbert Hoover is in office, and the [25:19] leadership keeps feeding material to the American people, but also to the American media going, you [25:24] know, our numbers are fine. There's really not a problem. There isn't a depression. Everything's [25:28] great. And every time they do that, people push back so strongly that finally a member of the [25:34] administration grouses publicly, you know, every time we say anything positive, the stock market [25:41] drops another two points. And as if that this is somehow a plot against them. And the New York Times [25:47] responds by saying, listen, if you think people are reacting negatively to you talking, what you should [25:53] do then is to shut up. Yeah, they're literally saying you guys are done. And when I think about that in [26:00] this moment, what we are struggling over going forward into the midterm elections, but also beyond [26:05] that, is which side looks to the American people like a winner. And I'm watching the many things that [26:12] the administration is doing right now to try and assert their dominance. And it just feels like you're [26:17] watching one of those cartoons where the claws are going down the side of the cliff. And I'm not [26:22] saying they're not dangerous. Yeah, and it's sliding down the glass. That's perfect. I'm not saying [26:27] they're not still incredibly dangerous. But the minute the American people turn and say, [26:33] why don't you just shut up? That's the minute all the momentum in the country changes. And you know, [26:40] we saw it with with Herbert Hoover. We've we saw it in the late 19th century. There's no reason to [26:47] think we couldn't see it now. Do you think we're near it? Oh, I've given up trying to guess what the [26:53] American people are going to do. I will tell you we're a lot nearer than we were at, [26:58] you know, before the 2024 election when, you know, as you and I both commented, Trump was promising [27:05] everything to everybody. And I can't tell you how many interviews I did where I was saying, you know, [27:10] you can't be both wet and dry at the same time. And that's what he's promising people. [27:14] And they're they're falling for it. They now realize you can't be both wet and dry at the same time. [27:20] And a lot of them are really tired of what they got rather than what they voted for. [27:26] The question will be whether or not they can paper that over until at least the midterms or [27:32] whether they will simply stop our ability to vote them out of power. And that's clearly the struggle, [27:38] the race that we're on now between between now and November 3rd. [27:42] Well, so they've sort of previewed a speech that Donald Trump will deliver to the country [27:51] that will include this logic that the election in 2016, in which I won, was real. The election in [28:00] 2020, in which I lost, was fake. I mean, what is your sense of how much the country will accept [28:10] in terms of this lie that may become the backbone of making it impossible for people to have their [28:17] votes counted in the midterms? So first of all, I'm a prophet of the past, not of the future, [28:22] which makes my job really easy because I can always tell you what happened, but obviously not so much [28:27] what's going to happen. But one of the things I always do in a situation like this is what I [28:31] call playing the other side of the table. Like, I know I can make guesses about what I think is going [28:37] on with the rest of the people, but one of the things to watch is what Trump and his loyalists [28:42] think is happening. And the fact that he is giving a prime time address on Thursday. Now remember, [28:49] the reason that he feels the need to do this is that from the minute he got into office, [28:54] he has been calling for major changes to the American voting system, including the federal [28:59] takeover of the state voter rolls. And I believe he's lost well over 10 times. It's 15. Repeatedly, [29:09] he has lost on that in front of judges on occasion that he appointed, right? So he hasn't been able to [29:15] get his hands on those voter rolls, which clearly is a huge problem for him. So then he's gotten rid of [29:23] certain members of committees that protected the vote. I mean, he's trying one thing after another. [29:28] And the fact that he is now going for a national address to the American people to say, [29:36] oh, look, you know, it looks like there's been this terrible fraud. I'm going to have to do [29:41] something huge in order to combat that happening in 2026, which is the whole point after all. [29:46] That suggests to me that he is desperate. And the question is how much people will put up with, [29:51] how much will state, it's Republicans at the state level pushing back against him as well as Democrats. [29:57] And I'm always looking for the pressure points. The pressure points right now for the American [30:02] people are how do you pressure elected officials to do the right thing, to stand by the laws. And one [30:10] of the ways you do that is by saying, look, Trump's making bank off his time in office. He's corrupt as can [30:16] be. The reason he wants to win the midterms is because he does not want there to be any investigation [30:21] into what he and his people have done. Do you really want to be on the side of those people who [30:27] have given us every indication they're breaking the law with things like that corollary or addendum to [30:33] the slush fund that said that neither Trump, his sons, the Trump organization, or any of their associates [30:40] could be held criminally liable for any audits from the IRS happening before, I think it was May of [30:45] this year. You don't do that if you don't think you're in real trouble, right? So the thing to do [30:51] is to really call out those people who haven't yet broken from him but might like to have a future [30:58] political life who ought to recognize that hitching yourself to the Donald Trump star right now [31:05] is, you know, not politically astute because the minute that he ceases to have his enablers around [31:13] him, it's not going to be pretty for them or for the people around them. Why do you think the corruption, [31:20] which registers so negatively with the American people, the account that he's made two billion [31:27] dollars, he has made more money as president than he ever made as a private citizen, why do you think [31:34] that doesn't repel more Republicans? You tell me why you think Republicans are still sticking with [31:39] him because I think you can say there are those people who have committed crimes and, you know, [31:43] we could make perhaps a list of some of those who don't want those looked into, but that's a small [31:49] minority. So a lot of his sycophants around him stay because they know they would never have another [31:56] chance with anybody in an administration that was merit-based. You know, Pete Hegseth was never going to be [32:02] secretary of defense under an actual merit-based system. But then there are a lot of people who [32:08] seem to be simply hoping that all this is going to pass and go away. And I do not understand. I feel like [32:16] watching American history, if you were a Republican right now who wasn't dirty and who was smart, you [32:24] would step up at this moment and say, they have corrupted the Republican Party. I'm going to take it back to [32:32] its noble roots because it has quite noble roots. And I'm going to call for the things that [32:38] Republicans called for in the past that nowadays have an 80 percent approval rating. I mean, it's [32:43] Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower who really put in the hard work for universal health care before [32:50] the Democrats picked it up and made it happen. So to me, that's like an express train to the presidency [32:57] into future power. And I do not understand why they're not doing it. What do you think? [33:01] Well, I think the last time we talked, Trump had had a party at Mar-a-Lago where they were like in [33:08] martini glasses. And the opulence and the aesthetic was so over the top. And I remember really digging [33:19] in and trying to understand why he kept saying this sentence, the country's so hot right now. [33:24] And the reason he kept saying that was because he's only around the members of the Mar-a-Lago, [33:30] you know, private club who are people that may feel that way. Now, what has changed between those [33:37] displays of opulence and what we understand now are two things. One, the Iran war has made everything [33:43] expensive for everyone. People are pissed off about gas prices, even if they're not particularly price [33:47] sensitive to the amount that it costs to fill up their gas tank. They're just mad. They see it, [33:51] they fill up, they pay more. They're mad. Same with groceries. But the theft and the grift, [33:58] there is no appetite anywhere in the history of this country for people being sucker punched. [34:07] And to know they're being sucker punched, I have never seen the modern Republican Party stick around [34:14] for brazen corruption and criminality. And so I don't have an answer to why they stay for this. [34:21] Well, so I wonder if it's worth thinking about. The Republican Party has an ideology that is deeply [34:27] ingrained in Americans' DNA at this point, and that's never going to go away. But I was thinking [34:32] about this as I was working through a project where I was trying to be politically inclusive and [34:39] recognize that I didn't have any and would not have any MAGA supporters working with me. And then I [34:46] looked at the list and realized that some of the people on that list were quite staunch former [34:52] Republicans who are now, funnily enough, to the left of a number of people in the Democratic Party. [34:58] And what it reminds me of is, again, the 1850s. What happens is, as the Democratic, in that case, [35:06] party becomes more and more beholden to a very small group of elite slave owners, less than one percent [35:12] of the American population. As that happens, the Democrats who were involved in the party for [35:19] other reasons, and there were a number of reasons that people joined the Democratic Party in that [35:23] period, left. They formed their own organizations. They came up with all these different ways of [35:30] engaging with politics, but they leave behind the extremists. And so what you end up finally [35:36] getting, and I think we are not at this point yet in the United States, is they make the connection [35:43] between a very small group of people running the country, running the government, and the fact that [35:49] they are losing economic prosperity and economic mobility. And one of the things that Democrats really [35:57] have not done yet, or those of us who are articulating the problems with our country right now, [36:03] is linking that corruption to the price of lettuce, because they really are the same story. And that [36:12] same story is also the story of democracy. If you have a country that works for the good of an [36:19] authoritarian or of an oligarchy, they're going to concentrate wealth and power among themselves, [36:24] and they're going to charge you more for the products that they produce that you need. [36:27] And at the same time, you're going to lose clean water and clean air and health care and the ability [36:34] to make rent and educate your kids and so on. But you're also going to be watching them revel in [36:41] extraordinary corruption, because they have all the wealth and the power, and they've gotten rid of [36:45] the rule of law. And one of the things that was so genius about Abraham Lincoln was, and the people [36:51] around him, not just him, but the people who were articulating a vision in the late 1850s, [36:56] was they brought all these things together and said, if you want to be able to get a job or to [37:02] be able to work your way up in the new state of Illinois, you need to make sure that the enslavers [37:08] don't come in and buy up all the great property, and then you're just going to have to work for them, [37:13] and you're going to work for pennies. And you're not going to be able to say in your government, [37:17] because you're going to have to do what they say. And as you do that, all of your hard work is going [37:23] to go into their pockets. And that's what they articulated in such a way that, you know, [37:28] the majority of Americans got behind the idea of getting rid of the elite enslavers. They had [37:33] other issues amongst themselves, but that was really what inspired people to take a stand against [37:39] what they called the slave power. Well, you see Ossoff trying to tie the two together. [37:44] Ossoff's doing it very well. He ties together the personal corruption of Trump and his family [37:49] and the economic anxiety slash despair of the American people. Do you watch politicians and [37:59] have a sense as to who understands history better than others and who knows how to deploy those [38:03] lessons better than others? I do, but I actually don't think it's necessarily the history so much [38:10] as their connection to the people. Because it's not like Lincoln invented this out of whole cloth. [38:17] The people invented Lincoln. The people invented William Henry Seward. And similarly, the people [38:25] and his advisors, including his wife, made FDR. I mean, literally, FDR was, you know, socially [38:32] conscious, but the son of a very wealthy family. He reflects what people shine onto him. So if you've [38:38] watched John Ossoff, the senator from Georgia for a long time, as I have, you can see that his [38:46] language has changed a lot. Another person to watch is governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, who is, [38:55] you're watching them change. And you can see it in people who change and make an overstep and then [39:01] back away. So if you watch somebody like Gavin Newsom, governor of California, there are times when he has [39:07] gotten out over his skis and you can watch him pull back. Because these are politicians, they're [39:11] watching what people respond to. And that being said, the lessons of the past really matter. I mean, [39:19] this is literally what historians study. How do you change society? What makes, where are the pressure [39:25] points that change society? And if you look at somebody like Lincoln or FDR or whomever, and you watch [39:32] what they said and how they conveyed to people, what the problems in their society were. [39:37] And crucially, when they did it, you can't come out too far in advance of the vast majority of people. [39:43] You can get them there, but only in small increments. What the radical right calls the Overton window, [39:49] right? If you watch them and you watch them as they are doing it, the people who manage to wrap [39:55] all that together are becoming really good speakers. And as they do that, you watch people [40:00] gravitate toward them. And that's exactly how it should be. That's the way a democracy should work. [40:05] And I actually find it very exciting to watch the new voices coming up. We're in a profoundly [40:11] important moment in American history and everything appears to be proceeding as it does in a moment like [40:17] that. Is it moving in a direction to get us out of this moment? Well, Nicole, I'm going to go back [40:24] there to what I started with. If you believe that humans really are wired, if you will, to want to [40:31] achieve human self-determination, then sure. I mean, we got a lot of things going on. We got the fact that [40:37] with modern medicine and modern transportation, the people who are in Congress, many of them, [40:42] were born before the Declaration of Independence. I'm sorry, I'm being flippant, but come on, you [40:48] know? We got a lot of mechanics of our democracy that don't work anymore because they were frozen [40:55] in a different time. I mean, there's a lot of things we will have to overcome. But can we do it? [41:01] You know, we've always done it in the past. American democracy had to adjust to the westward [41:06] movement of the country in the 19th century. It had to grapple with industrialization. Does somebody [41:12] like Andrew Carnegie really act as if he is equal to one of his workers in his factory? We had to [41:19] deal with that. We had to deal with globalization that brought us to the Great Crash and the Great [41:23] Depression. And that was not an easy thing to come out of and to figure out. And then after the war, [41:28] we had to deal with the idea of a world that now had nuclear weapons. Now we've got to deal with [41:34] climate change and with the rise of AI and the internet. I mean, that's a huge, huge change in human [41:40] history. Are we going to be able to do it? Well, we've always done it in the past, so it looks pretty [41:45] good from where I sit. We could just as easily fail. You know, democracies are on the ropes right now. [41:50] And that's what we're working so hard to push back on. But I will tell you, I got to get up in the [41:57] morning tomorrow and do something. And if my options are to throw my hands up and say, well, yeah, [42:04] I'm going to let Elon Musk run everybody's lives for eternity, or I'm going to work to defend those [42:10] laws of nature and nature's God that humans have the right and the self-evident principles behind [42:17] that, I'm going to get up and be on that side rather than on the former. [42:23] That answer is why a lot of people hope that you would throw your hat into the ring and run for Senate [42:28] in Maine. And that answer is why I wouldn't do it. Because if you believe, as I do, that the way you [42:36] change American democracy or American politics is by adhering really closely to those enlightenment [42:45] ideals of reasoned argument and a nonpartisan attention to what those details are, the minute [42:54] that I become a candidate for office, I lose all that. So there was a lot of pressure to join the [43:01] race. But there are many people who have that skill set that I don't have, I've never run for office. [43:09] But that position I have as somebody who has been extraordinarily well trained in what I do in [43:16] research, people forget this, but that was actually what I was known for was my research. And the [43:23] incredible training I've had to enable me to convey that research to people who don't otherwise do it, [43:29] in order to put me in that Senate race, you would lose the skills that I do have and that I actually [43:37] think are upstream from politics rather than downstream. And to me, it was just never a question [43:43] that I love the state of Maine and I love our political system. But to me, it just was never a fit. [43:51] It was just never a fit. I want to ask you about one more Maine question. [43:56] ISIS abuses have taken hold in your state and taken the life of one of your neighbors. And I wonder [44:04] what you can tell me about how you think the people of Maine will respond and how they are responding. [44:09] What we have seen so far is really interesting because people who are still MAGA are saying horrible [44:18] things. And it's worth, always worth remembering that Maine has a long history of radical reactionary [44:28] politics. But those people who were MAGA are really still MAGA and really cheering on the policies of the [44:40] Trump administration without any sense that, you know, what I keep hammering on is once you have said that [44:46] there are certain people in this country who are not covered by the rule of law, it's only a question [44:53] of time until you get included in that. You don't get to say, those people aren't included, but all [44:58] these other people are, because once you've admitted the principle, then anybody is game. And I learned [45:04] that from Abraham Lincoln. That literally, that's where I learned that concept. And he was right. That's why [45:09] he made the arguments he did. And people, even virulent racists in the North, came around to back him [45:15] politically, because they got it, they might not have liked black Americans. But they understood [45:20] that once you gave up that principle, people were going to come for them as well. So you see that. [45:25] But you are also seeing the other side of, I suspect people anywhere, coming out and saying, [45:33] these were our neighbors. And that's the same impulse that forced an Aryan compound in Maine to give up, [45:41] you know, a year or so ago, because they thought that because Maine is such a white state, [45:45] they'd be welcome here. And they weren't. Because there is that sense that if you are in here, [45:51] you are one of our neighbors. And it is maybe exaggerated, perhaps because every year Maine [45:58] has such an influx of tourists, so that we do have this sense of being from here. And if you're not [46:04] from here, you're literally, we call it from away. And that outpouring of support is there as well. [46:11] One of the things that I did think was interesting, though, is in some of the reports, [46:15] I saw the number of people saying, you know, we just never thought it would happen here, [46:19] it doesn't happen in Maine. And what was interesting about that was first, this idea that somehow Maine [46:24] was going to be protected. But coming from here, I thought that was really interesting, because in fact, [46:32] many of us know people who have died from gun violence. And I am one of them. I have known [46:38] a couple of people who have died from gun violence. But I just thought it was interesting, [46:42] because what I heard in that was not the guns, we're kind of accustomed to guns, [46:49] as any rural place would be. And as I say, I think a lot of us have known people who died from gun violence. [46:55] But the idea that guns coming from the government, that's a whole different kettle of fish. And that, [47:03] I think, is maybe a nuance that might have been lost on people who weren't from here. [47:08] Hmm. I want to thank you for being so generous with your time. I want to ask, [47:13] I mean, what you wrote about the parks. I'm from California, and Yosemite is my place, [47:18] and I just cried reading that. Will you say something about the parks? [47:22] Well, what do you think about this, though? Is like, why do people watch this happening? [47:27] I don't know. And still like Trump? [47:29] I mean, it's where my despair comes from, I think. I don't understand it. It feels like a cult. It feels [47:36] like covering a cult. I think that's right. So, I mean, I think you look at the many ways in which [47:42] this administration is taking away from us things that we thought, that we thought we had, but also [47:48] think that we deserve as part of our heritage. Yeah. That's, I think, what I find the most [47:53] heartbreaking, because we can claw back a lot of what this administration has done. But you can't claw [48:00] back everything. And some of what they are doing is irretrievable. And a piece of [48:06] that's about the lands that I did not put in the piece you're referring to. People tend to forget [48:11] that during his confirmation hearings, Doug Burgum, who is now the Secretary of the Interior, [48:18] kept talking about the national debt and how people keep looking at the national debt, but that's only [48:25] one half of the ledger. So the other half of the ledger are all our untouched public lands, [48:31] and that those can be used to raise money to cover the national debt. And many of the fights over [48:39] drilling in the West are really fights over the fact that a lot of the state budgets of the Western [48:47] states are underwritten essentially by fees over drilling in those lands. And if you take that land out [48:58] of drilling, you hurt the bottom line of those state budgets. And because of the capital intense [49:06] industries in those states, what you're saying is it would cost people who have a lot of money [49:13] and corporations in those states a lot of tax dollars. And I think people miss that connection. [49:17] But when I think about the fact that we are dramatically cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations [49:24] through measures like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of last July, through those Trump tax cuts, [49:30] and then also through the George W. Bush tax cuts, when I think of that and think that essentially [49:36] they're saying, let's take Americans' birthright, you know, let's take the lands from indigenous people [49:43] and turn them into cash so that some rich people don't have to pay taxes. [49:49] I just think that that, I mean, maybe it's a metaphor for the entire idea that they're taking [49:57] our science and research base that we have built since World War II, the finest in the world, [50:04] and turning that into cash for people's rich people's pockets. And I look at that and it just seems [50:10] just sort of the almost Shakespearean or even biblical, the idea of selling your birthright for a mess of [50:17] pottage. And it breaks my heart. But that's what we're doing here is trying to make people understand [50:23] that once that stuff is gone, some of it can never be found again. [50:27] What do you make of the way that that side has changed the vibes? [50:34] There was a lot of talk of a vibe shift, of the Manosphere and the vibes in MAGA being, [50:42] you know, the better party. Do you feel like the vibes shift has moved toward the pro-democracy side? [50:48] So you know what's really interesting about that? One of the things that you see in the 1950s [50:57] in the United States is the argument from somebody like William F. Buckley Jr., who in 1951 wrote a book [51:04] called God and Man at Yale, in which he tried to argue that Yale, just saying Yale in 1950, which is [51:11] when he was there, was what he would call a liberal institution that was destroying American identity. [51:19] Well, what he meant by that was that the professors at Yale were embracing the idea of reason-based [51:28] argument, which is after all what the Enlightenment and the United States is based on. And what that meant [51:33] was they were looking at economics, for example, coming out of the New Deal and saying, yeah, [51:38] we actually need to have business regulation. We need to have a basic social safety net. It [51:42] actually is good for the economy if we invest in infrastructure. We need to have equality before [51:47] the law. And they like the idea of a rules-based international order to stabilize the world so [51:51] we wouldn't have World War III. And he insisted that this was indoctrination. And by the way, [51:56] they were also secular. They believed that people should choose their own religions or not, [52:01] that that was not something that the government should be involved in. And the position Buckley [52:05] takes is that we have to start from the premise that the government should not do any of those [52:10] things and that we must be a Christian organization, a Christian government. And because we keep putting [52:18] this proposition in front of the voters, and they keep voting for that stuff that the Yale professors [52:22] talk about, we need to push back on that not by engaging in the Enlightenment by saying, [52:27] here's our reasoning and our reasoning's better than theirs. We need simply to push these ideas [52:32] by whatever means necessary. That we need to spread this ideology. It is not a reasoned ideology, [52:40] it is a set of beliefs. It is a set of fundamental truths, he believes, that simply have to be embraced [52:46] from the beginning. You can't argue about them. And I've always thought of that as being the sort of [52:52] beginning of that movement conservative project that says, we're going to push our agenda, not with the [53:00] use of facts and not with the use of any kind of real argument, but rather by creating a worldview that [53:08] makes people feel comfortable and noble and makes them want to be on our team. And you can see this with [53:14] the rise of Reagan. When he springs to power in California, media people laugh at him because he [53:23] makes stuff up. And they think it's really funny. And they don't get that he's creating this worldview. [53:28] One of the things that Trump was always was a salesman. And in many ways, he was the culmination [53:36] of that worldview that was based in image and not in reality. I mean, his whole identity was based, [53:45] when he went into public office, was based in The Apprentice. And the guy who created The Apprentice [53:49] said, you know, we made that up. And the reason that we put him in the centerpiece of that was [53:53] because we tried to get real businessmen. And they actually were attending to business, [53:57] so they didn't want to do anything with us. They didn't have time. And he was the only guy [54:01] who was free. And, you know, that idea that he created and embraced a TV show, really. [54:08] Yeah. And Susie Wiles, you know, people have identified her, who's the chief of staff, [54:13] as producing a reality show every day in which Trump has to win at the end of every day. [54:19] You know, people loved that. People got on board that as late as 2024. And now we are watching what [54:25] happens when you have this hologram, really, take over aspects of our lives that really matter. [54:33] And you're watching, you know, the end of the freedom of the seas in Iran, which means that the [54:39] free exchange of goods, which has made America so wealthy and kept our prices so low, that sure looks [54:44] like it's going away. And now we're seeing, you know, the rollback of healthcare, the rollback of [54:50] abortion care. And so women are dying. You're seeing, you know, children who are unable to eat. [54:58] You're watching reality crash into image. And some people, I think, will never let go of that image. [55:05] They love what that looks like. They loved who they were during it. But governance and life is actually [55:12] a lot of hard work. And that, you know, have the vibes shifted so that people are souring on that [55:19] image? A, I think, yes. But B, I would suggest that what Americans really are doing in this moment [55:26] is recovering their agency, remembering that, you know, they don't want to just watch an image of [55:32] what it means to be a president, that actually there is joy in the creation of a community that is safer. [55:40] There's joy in the creation of getting, you know, your college degree. There's joy in the creation [55:45] of a new business or of a stable family or of health. And that joy of creation and creating a [55:52] government that reflects those things, that's a vibe shift. When you think about that and you think [55:59] about what we could create, all of a sudden the world looks a lot brighter, I think. [56:04] You are one of my favorite people. You are definitely my favorite person to talk to. [56:10] You've been more than generous with your time at a time when you've got a lot going on [56:14] at home and at work. So thank you so much. [56:16] Thank you. It's always a pleasure, Nicole.