#1678 Trump's Total Dominance Over the Republican Party and the Resistance Efforts Already Underway (Transcript)

Air Date 12/20/2024

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left Podcast. Now, there's no denying that things are about to get bad. Trump and company have had years to prepare for their next turn in office, but those preparing to resist also have the benefit of past experience, resulting in a response to Trumpism that looks very different this time around. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes and about 50 minutes today includes Citations Needed, Boom! Lawyered, Democracy Now! The Majority Report, The Daily Blast, The Impact Report, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Then in the additional deeper dives half, there'll be more in three sections. Section A, immigration intimidation. Section B, bending the knee, and Section C, resistance.

The Shallow, Power-Flattering Appeal of High Status #Resistance Historians Part 1 - Citations Needed - Air Date 12-3-24

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah. Well, Gaza just explodes the whole liberal resistance myth in many ways, and it has baleful effects in forcing, basically [00:01:00] decent people to wind up supporting actions like the expansion of the military industrial complex and uncritical support for proxy wars. 

Basically, as you said, it started in 2016 as a reaction to Trump. Some of it's understandable, people had a reaction to Trump. Trump does seem to be outside of expected decorum and protocols. And so there was this natural tendency to cast him as outside the mainstream, but the number of scholars and pundits who position themselves as intellectuals, immediately jumped on this bandwagon of positioning Trump as some kind of authoritarian or a fascist or compromised by ties with Putin and Russia. I mean, there's so many iterations of this argument and, some of them may have some basis in fact. And certainly Trump is an authoritarian, there's no doubt about that.

But what it does [00:02:00] by talking about it in a certain way, is that it obscures and denies the fact that everything that they say Trump is, has deep roots in U. S. history and culture and politics. And you don't have to look at Putin to understand the rise of Trump. You have to look at Bill Clinton and U.S. historians who had access to MSNBC and were very prominent in pushing a narrative, are totally incapable of doing. They're totally incapable of understanding how, say, Clinton's militarization of the border or the crime bill or his terrorism bill or his end of welfare bill or NAFTA, led to Trump and Trumpism and basically what sociologists calls the de-pacification of society with the deep polarization that's happening in the United States. You don't have to look outside. 

And then, of course, this is then expanded and extrapolated where domestic pathologies within the United [00:03:00] States then become civilizational, becomes about the West, right? That, this struggle over territory in the Ukraine and the expansion of NATO becomes existential as writers like Applebaum and Snyder would have it. And it's really a way to deny the culpability of domestic actors, political elites. As I said, you don't have to look to Russia for foreign influence. If you want to look at foreign influence, and this is where Gaza just explodes the whole liberal resistance narrative. You could look at Israel and AIPAC. They've had a much more direct bearing on the shaping of domestic politics and political culture than Russia has. 

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: I want to hook into this because I think some people they listen to this and they think, okay, like y'all are just being a bunch of hipper than now leftists, but there's actually a prescriptive element to this, which I want to get into, which is the goal is to prevent future Trumps, [00:04:00] then you have to understand the antecedents. This is not just an academic exercise. That this has real world consequences about how a 2025 #resistance may be different than the #resistance of 2017. And that the 2017 one leaned heavily into this. And again, because big donors loved it. Reid Hoffman, all these kind of democracy think tanks, the high minded stuff, all the sort of rebranding of Bush-era neocons. It had a hook of this kind of Russiagate lawfare thing. And I, again, I don't think there's anything wrong with investigating Russiagate initially because it's, there's some weird shit that happened, but ultimately it kind of was a big nothing burger and wasted a lot of time and resources and it pumped money and influence into some of the worst people on earth.

That there is a prescriptive element to this, which is, okay, how do we prevent the 900 Trump clones coming down the right wing conveyor belt? You have to really understand the initial causes to really have a long term actual quote unquote resistance. Why is understanding this history and Trump's [00:05:00] antecedents necessary in terms of orienting opposition to his frighteningly appealing message?

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that The way that it's framed by, Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or resistance historians shut down and preclude coming up with a more comprehensive, robust strategy for defeating Trump. It's a fact that you don't beat fascism by calling fascists fascists. That's not how... I work mostly in Latin America. And it has its share of fascists. You know, they don't have a fascist debate. Who isn't a fascist? They call the right, they call the conservative right fascist and the left defeats it usually when it can, in those moments when they win electorally by offering a robust social democratic program that speaks to the material conditions of people's lives. And just the way so much of the political discourse, look [00:06:00] already the autopsy of the 2024 election is taking shape you know it's basically you know blaming this micro voting group or that micro voting group or whether you know whether woke is a strategy or not. But nobody talks about what actually wins elections or at least what could shape the political terrain in a way and might entail losing elections until the terrain is reshaped is pushing forward a robust program of social rights and universal welfare programs.

I mean, when they pick Tim Waltz to be the vice president, I thought that that was where they were going. I thought that was what the Harris campaign was going to do, because that's basically what Minnesota did coming out of that former labor tradition. They passed a whole series of, not means tested, not tax credits, but universal programs like, everybody in school eats breakfast and lunch for free, no matter what your [00:07:00] family's salary is. And, you know, it took a long time to get to that point, but they got it through. But then this is what circles back to Gaza. Gaza put a lot of limiting pressure on what kind of campaign Harris could run.

She couldn't run a center left campaign, the kind Biden ran in 2020 and beating Trump by a slim margin. The whole kind of running on a campaign of Trump is an authoritarian and Trump is a fascist. And it's, and the choice that stands before us as fascism versus democracy is such an abstraction. It didn't mean anything for most voters. And it pushed. the Harris campaign into basically rehabilitating, turning the 2024 election into a celebration of the Cheney family. Which is just, amazing. So you see the way that this liberal resistance narrative that sees all evil as coming from outside the United States, that doesn't see it as, see it as an attack on the [00:08:00] institutions and society that we have rather than emerging from the institutions and societies. 

Can Trump Really End Birthright Citizenship? - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 12-12-24

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Donald Trump reiterated his intention to end birthright citizenship, saying that he is quote, 'Absolutely planning to halt birthright citizenship on his first day in office." He called the practice ridiculous and claimed that the U.S. is the only country with birthright citizenship, which 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Excuse me? That's not even true. I mean, look, I know we don't expect the man to tell the truth on anything, but that's just, I don't know. There's a country called Canada. Has he heard of it? Tariffs, buddy. 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Right. It's just factually inaccurate. And he went on to say, quote, "We're going to end that," (birthright citizenship) "because, it's ridiculous." And that quote, "If somebody sets a foot, just a foot, one foot, you don't need to on our land, [00:09:00] congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America," which actually is not what birthright citizenship is. It's not as soon as you dip a toe on to the American border, then suddenly you're a citizen.

Like you really have to be born here. You got to escape the uterine Bastille on these shores and then you're a citizen. It's not just, oh, I got a toe across the border. Woo. Woo. I just. He also suggested that he might attempt to end birthright citizenship through executive action, stating, quote, "We're going to have to get it changed. We'll maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it." 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: It's going to be such a ridiculous four years. Just. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about what birthright citizenship is. But you hinted at it, right? It's not like dipping a toe in. 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Right. I got my toe across the border. Woooo I'm an American now! 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Birthright citizenship automatically grants citizenship [00:10:00] to individuals born in the U.S. irrespective of their parents immigration status or citizenship status. It's a right guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the United States constitution. That amendment that we're going to be talking so much about in the Trump administration. And it states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside."

Pretty straightforward. Applies to anyone born. On U. S. soil, including children of undocumented immigrants. And it's based on the concept of jus soli, meaning the right of the soil, which grants citizenship based on place of birth. And it contrasts with citizenship acquired through other means, such as naturalization or jus sanguinis. It sounds sexier than it is. It's citizenship by blood. [00:11:00] 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And birthright citizenship is not a new, it's not a new concept. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: No.

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And the attack on birthright citizenship is based on a willful misreading of case law and legislative history, specifically the phrase that you mentioned, quote, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

And to get into this, we're going to have to talk about a case from 1898 called Wong Kim, called United States versus Wong Kim Ark, right? In 1898, the Supreme Court confirmed the principle of birthright citizenship, meaning if you're born here, you are a citizenship here in this case, Wong Kim Ark. And we should just go over the facts of the case a little bit.

Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to Chinese parents who had been living and working in this country for a long time. He left the United States and then was denied reentry into the United States under the Chinese Exclusion Act. And if that sounds super hella racist to you, it's because the [00:12:00] Chinese Exclusion Act was super hella racist. It excluded and restricted Chinese immigration and prohibited immigrants from China from becoming naturalized citizens. Now Wong Kim Ark challenged the U.S. government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and he won. Right? In a 6-2 decision, the court decided that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States because he was born on American soil.

The court specifically clarified the meaning of the phrase, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, right? The court held that setting aside Native Americans, who have their own sovereign and sovereign tribal immunity or sovereign tribal status, and excluding diplomats who also enjoy sovereign immunity in the United States, the 14th amendment extends citizenship to everyone born here. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: It's such a simple concept yet the United States tried to argue that a person of Chinese descent [00:13:00] is not a citizen of the U. S. even if he was born in California. Because his parents were 'subjects of the emperor of China' and that their kid, Wong Kim Ark, was not subject to the political jurisdiction of the general government of the U.S. and the Supreme Court said no. It just said, no, the Chinese Exclusion Act could exclude or expel Chinese people born in China, but could not be applied to citizens, irrespective of their race or color. 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: This case has been settled for about 125 years. So the question becomes, what are the chances that the Supreme Court is going to upend it? Because at the outset, people really seem to believe that it is unfathomable that this country would end birthright citizenship. But if it actually did, it wouldn't be unfathomable. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary because it would be following in the footsteps of other countries, like in the UK, where the right of the blood, that sanguine is sexy language, supplanted right of the soil [00:14:00] when it comes to granting citizenship, right.

In England and in Ireland and other places that have seen this really expansive growth of anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise, citizenship was changed so that it would be tied to blood and not to soil in order to prevent immigrants from just, you know, stepping a toe on the soil, having a kid, and then having that kid be automatically a citizen.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Yeah, I mean, the question of whether or not the court is going to up end precedent at this point, with this court, we're still asking that? 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Right.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I mean, come on. And so Trump could completely YOLO birthright citizenship in an executive order that would land the case before the Supreme Court pretty quickly. He would test the loyalty of the people that he installed on the Supreme Court. This is a reach. I mean, Dobbs and Rowe was a reach. Birthright citizenship and just going for it is a reach of a different magnitude. But don't, I [00:15:00] mean, you know, don't challenge Trump on that because he seems pretty intent to doing it. And, to get the court to go along, it would require a tortuous reading of the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, right? And this would have to go against that straight textualist stuff that they love, that's their, like, juice, right?

Rep. Delia Ramirez- Trump's Immigration Plans Are -Un-American, Unconstitutional & Undemocratic - Democracy Now! - Air Table 12-11-24

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Ramirez, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can start off by talking about this promise that the mass deportations will begin in Chicago? And what will happen to the Chicago mayor?
 

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah. I mean, Tom Homan decided to come not just to Chicago to make those promises, but he came to my very own district, the district of Guatemalan immigrant — daughter of Guatemalan immigrant and congresswoman. And I’ve got to tell you, the level of disrespect is clear.

But I will say to you [00:16:00] that a number of us have said it very loud and clear. You can come to the 3rd District. You can come to any part of the city and the state of Illinois. In Illinois, we understand the impact and the contributions of immigrants, and we will do everything in our power to protect the families that have created the fabric of our country.

I mean, look, I know that he’s going to try to target the mayor, the governor, myself and others. But we also recognize that when he’s talking about deporting, he’s talking about deporting people who have been here decades — decades — and raised children, put them through college. And it’s absolutely unacceptable that he begin thinking about and targeting cities like Chicago, where we understand that we have thrived in the way that we have because of its immigrants.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about Homan, who Trump has dubbed the “border czar,” saying that he would prosecute the city’s Democratic mayor if he impedes them? How exactly, do you understand at this point, people are going to [00:17:00] be rounded up?

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s really difficult, because they keep saying they’re going to do this, they’re going to do that. He’s talking about, on day one, he’s going to end birthrights for U.S. citizens. And we know that it’s constitutional, he can’t do that.

The reality is, what I think he’s going to probably attempt to do is attempt to take and deport people who are already in detention centers. I mean, look, if we’re talking about people who have a criminal record and have a felony, they’re already in order of deportation proceedings to be deported out of the country. I have a feeling that what they’re going to end up doing is going into detention centers and begin the deportation. But, of course, no one — no one — is safe under Donald Trump. And so, I could imagine that they’d attempt to go to courthouses or where people have appointments, people who are abiding by law every single day, whose only crime, according to Donald Trump, is to have entered this country unauthorized [00:18:00] or have overstayed a visa because of our broken immigration system.

In the state of Illinois, we passed legislation years ago, actually, in his first presidency, stating that in the state of Illinois, through the TRUST Act, we would not have ICE working closely with local police to deport families and individuals whose only crime is to be undocumented in this country. I suspect that we will continue to do that work under Governor Pritzker and under Mayor Johnson to ensure that families and individuals are protected, in a time where we know that we’re trying to understand the jurisdictions of what he can and can’t do. Clearly, Donald Trump doesn’t know what he can and can’t do. And so, really making sure that people like me, a daughter of immigrants, is protecting them and is working with organizations and legal organizations to do so will be incredibly important in this moment.

Can Trump Really End Birthright Citizenship? Part 2 - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 12-12-24

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And I also think it's important to remember that immigrants in immigration court are not entitled to lawyers the way that you are if you're convicted, if you're [00:19:00] prosecuted for a crime. You can hire a lawyer. But if you don't have the money for it, or if your case hasn't grabbed the attention of an immigrant advocacy group, then you may very well be deported to a country you've never been to. And then you're wandering around the streets somewhere trying to figure out how to get back home. 

And, we have to talk about how undergirding all of this is just, it's just racial animus, right? We got to talk about how this is being driven by the white nationalist forces in this country that are scared of being replaced by "furriners," and are trying to make sure that they can increase the domestic supply of white infants. These folks have embraced the idea that the United States belongs to white people. When it comes to Black people, it's I guess "we can stay since we didn't really ask to be here." But when it comes to "invaders," these "illegal aliens" that are "invading the border," "people who are coming to this country and taking our gerbs," if you remember that South [00:20:00] Park episode, right? Well, the United States has to protect itself from these invaders, right? The working class, the white working class needs to protect itself from these furriners taking their gerbs.

That's what these people think. They think that white genocide is a real thing. 

So there's a really big push to make sure that so-called "anchor babies," which is probably one of the most offensive terms that I can think of -- "anchor babies" won't take over the country. This is a blatant effort to whiten America. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: It absolutely is.

And to do that, conservatives have to rewrite the 14th Amendment so that it applies to certain people and not others. Like Amani, what is the 14th amendment? You like to say this all the time. 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: It's a Black ass amendment.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And they have to rewrite it so that it favors certain people in this country over other people in this country. And that has real implications when it comes to fetal personhood, right? [00:21:00] 

So if citizenship is tied to your parent rather than your place of birth, for example, it's that much easier to redefine life starting at conception, because it's not about being born per se, but about where you come from, right?

It's not the expulsion from the uterine Bastille, right? It is absolutely a return to determining ownership via pregnancy and birth. And I don't know, man, that sounds like fetal personhood. Life begins at conception under the 14th amendment to me. 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Yeah. And just to get back to the "how" of it all, like how would this play out? Let's not forget that an executive order isn't the only way that conservatives and Trump can attack birthright citizenship. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Mm hmm.

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: A constitutional amendment would get it done. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Oh Christ.

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: As would a constitutional convention under article 5 of the Constitution.[00:22:00] 

And right now, there are millions and millions of dollars being poured into an effort to mount a constitutional convention. And we're talking people like the Koch brothers, the Mercers, right? All of these muckety-muck rich people have been gagging for a constitutional convention for decades.

And I wouldn't be surprised if ending birthright citizenship and implementing personhood were are the main features of a constitutional convention. And what has to happen for a constitutional convention? Well it's kind of unclear, but 34 states have to apply in some capacity to ask for a constitutional convention.

And here's something funny I read in a law review article recently, that there are some conservatives who are trying to argue that when states like New York back in 1798 applied for a constitutional convention, that that application [00:23:00] translates to 2024. So if they get a bunch of states that want to have a constitutional convention in New York, it's like "we're out, because we're not into personhood and birthright citizenship," they might look back to an application made in 1798 when New York was trying to call for a constitutional convention for some other purpose and say, Oh, no, that counts. That's where we're in the upside down, where they're just finagling the rules and the institutions in order to come out with the result that they want.

And I just have to say, I've been saying it on BlueSky quite a bit: If your job depends on institutions holding, then you are unlikely to be able to admit when these institutions have failed. I got into a friendly back and forth with a law professor out of Texas. It started aggro, but then I pulled it back because I'm trying to be nicer now.

But you know, I said, Look, I'm sorry, but you are a professor of law. Like, how can you do your job if you don't believe in the institution that you are teaching these kids about? [00:24:00] And I understand why that is, but also I can see that you may not be able to understand how badly things are going, because your job depends on trying to prop up these institutions that have already failed.

Centrists Signal Capitulation After Trump's Victory - The Majority Report - Air Date 12-16-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So much of Trump's ability to do what he's going to do is going to be a function of two or three things. One, the pliability of the 270, 80 judges and justices that he put on the courts four years ago. The willingness of the Senate and the House to capitulate to what he wants. 

Now remember, there's only going to be a two-person majority in the House and there are two of those people who voted for impeachment. Who knows where they are today in terms of these things. And of course everybody he's appointing all around him are there specifically because they are people who will say yes to him and never say no And you really [00:25:00] don't need that much talent at those jobs if you want to bring the wrecking crew in.

So this stuff is gonna be important. And how do you maintain discipline for a House member? It's not that hard because you don't have that much resources. Maintaining discipline for Senate members are trickier. And we know Elon Musk has already been out there saying If you don't approve all and rubber stamp all of Trump's appointees, I'm gonna marshal the forces to primary you, because he's got the money.

Here is, No Labels, their -- 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: No Labels?

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: --name of an organization.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: How are they still around? Weren't they supposed to field the presidential candidate this time around and nothing came of that? 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well thank goodness. But their buddy Joe Manchin was in sitting with Trump and Vance right after he had sunk the [00:26:00] ability of Joe Biden to appoint and control the National Labor Relations Board until '26.

But here is, at No Labels, Lisa Murkowski. And addressing the idea of why won't any of your fellow Senators laugh a guy who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse, of being so drunk that he can't even function at functions for that matter. And the guy who has no particular experience in running the world's largest essentially institution by on a dollar amount, in the world.

Nevermind the anti-vaxxers, et cetera, et cetera. Here's Murkowski. 

LISA MURKOWSKI: I think it's going to be hard in these next four years, because you have [00:27:00] an administration coming in that has had an opportunity to see how things work, what didn't work. And now we've had four years to think about it. And the approach is going to be everybody toe the line, everybody line up. We got you here. And if you want to survive, you better be good. Don't get on Santa's naughty list here because we will primary you. We are seeing that play out in real time right now with the nominees. The nominees who have just been named, there's been no committee process on any of them. They're just doing their courtesy calls right now. And my friend, Joni Ernst, who is probably one of the more conservative, principled Republican leaders in the Senate right now, is being hung out to dry for not being good enough.

And you're getting -- 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, except for -- this is where Sam gets to take a little victory lap -- Ernst caved, or I would say folded [00:28:00] very quickly and basically because she has, she's a survivor of sexual assault and she's running in 2026, so she's up for reelection in 2026. She said, Oh, maybe I'm walking back my disapproval of Hegseth as a sexual assault survivor.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: The irony of this conversation is that she's not mentioning the billionaire Elon Musk who would finance these things. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Mm hmm.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, which makes it virtually impossible for any of these Republican senators to get any, maintain and even pretend that they have independence. Usually what you'll see these senators do is pretend that they have independence or pretend that they have a contrarian view. And then reasonably get there. 

What we're going to be in, they're all going to be in the mode within, I think, several weeks of running over each other to be [00:29:00] seen as conforming with the president's wishes. And what's really interesting about this too, it strikes me, is that there is probably no single organization, political organization -- I wouldn't know if I would call them a party, but, something like that -- that is more associated with a higher concentration of its constituents being billionaires or multimillionaires. The dynamic that she's not mentioning is that there is such an enormous amount of money being controlled by certain individuals, that just with a switch, that money can flow literally overnight. There's no fundraising that's going on. There's none of that. Elon Musk will just dump $40 million into any one of these races and completely capsize anything. And she will not bring that up, because everybody who is invested [00:30:00] or involved -- well, it's really the same thing -- in No Labels is just Elon Musk with a little bit less money.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It opens up a whole can of worms for them because Republicans are always kowtowing to the interests of capital, of the donors that are funding their campaigns. But it's a little more crude in this instance because Elon Musk is basically just acting as a mob enforcer for Donald Trump in the form of -- instead of punching people out, or beating them up, it's about money, we'll take you out, we will take you out of your seat if you don't abide by his wishes, and it's less associated with a specific industry group. It's more of like bend the knee to the monarch, to daddy. And Elon Musk thinks that he'll be able to be the number one power player and even the shadow president in this administration. 

There was just a story in about Tesla, I guess in Reuters, that Trump is [00:31:00] looking to scrap car crash reporting rules that has been hindering Tesla, because their cars are crashing all over the place and killing people.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And I just want to make one more point on this. Both parties are beholden to money. But what's playing out in the Republican party now, which is slightly different, and this is a problem we have society wide, is that there is such massive concentration of wealth that you don't even have competing interests amongst the money.

Money is always going to dictate our politics as it's structured right now, for the most part, not always, but, but for the most part. But on the Republican side, it's not even just money. It is a person. Literally a person, like you say, who is just Trump's enforcer. Now, of course, he gets his beak wet too. It goes both ways. But we're going from an oligarchy to just like a full on monarchy. And this is just Trump's little [00:32:00] Duke who has the army. And that's what's going on here. 

Pay attention to this because at one point these centers are going to stop even pretending that they're going to issue some type of independence. I mean, honestly, the only person I think who's in trouble is Tulsi Gabbard, because she's had a couple actually decent votes in the past. I also think she's done. And so they have an easy, ready made excuse. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Maybe RFK if Mitch McConnell keeps pushing the polio stuff.

Trumps Rage at FBI Takes Dark Turn as GOPers Signal They Wont Resist - The Daily Blast - Air Date 12-13-24

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: Making that even worse and more difficult, the Times reports that figures like Steve Bannon and JD Vance, behind the scenes in particular, are in a frenzy of anger over GOP senators who are exercising their advice and consent role and scrutinizing Trump's nominees as they're supposed to. These MAGA figures are operating from the premise that Trump can't afford a defeat now, so they're whipping up the rage of the MAGA masses at these senators. And there are signs [00:33:00] that it's working, Will, with opposition softening to the insanely unfit Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for defense secretary. The same thing is going to happen with Kash Patel, but Patel is being picked expressly to put Trump above the law and use the law against his enemies.

Will, where are Republican senators going to come down on that? Will they be just fine with it? 

WILLIAM SALETAN: So Greg, I used to be at The Bulwark, the pony guy, which meant that I was always looking for the pony under the pile of you-know-what. And so I was the optimist. And I've been cured of that. I've been thoroughly cured of it by, among other things, the election we just had.

But the behavior of Republican elites, of Republican politicians, senators in particular -- I don't think there is anything in the track record of these people on which to base any optimism about their behavior. 

This is fundamentally now an authoritarian party. It has successively abandoned all of the elements of what used to be the Reagan [00:34:00] Republican platform. These were, whether you agreed with them or not, they were principles, they were ideas. And it has become the party of doing whatever Donald Trump wants. And so this pressure from Bannon and others to approve any nominee Trump puts forward, it is, part of that. 

And it is notable that the message is not necessarily anything in particular about the qualifications of a given nominee. It is simply that Donald Trump chose this person. They can be a Fox News host with no administrative experience and a serious drinking problem who is in denial about his drinking problem. They can be a guy like Patel who has expressly declared that he is going to prosecute and punish Donald Trump's enemies, to put that guy in charge of law enforcement. It's an insane proposition. But the ethos of today's Republican party, and I'm sorry to say including just about all of the senators, is do whatever Donald Trump wants. And that's what we're [00:35:00] seeing. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: Well, you could even add to that. Another reason that MAGA is pushing for these figures are because some of them are pro-Putin.

And a third reason that they're pushing for these figures is because they will put Trump above the law. It's not just that Trump has said, I like that person. It's also that MAGA believes that they can be trusted to put Trump above the Constitution and to carry out whatever orders he, and by extension MAGA, through the kind of MAGA God-King, want carried out, right?

WILLIAM SALETAN: Right. Absolutely. I fully agree with that, Greg. And the term that codes for that in Republican parlance is "Deep State." And Deep State, you hear this as the bureaucrats who don't serve the people. Well, in Republican terminology and Republican ideology today, serving the people means serving Donald Trump. And the fact that Donald Trump just got reelected unfortunately reinforces this narrative.[00:36:00] 

So the idea is: anyone who stands up to anything Donald Trump says is part of the Deep State and those people have to be purged, those people are in the way, and that somehow they have a mandate to do whatever this guy says because he was elected, and that's pretty much what they're going to pursue in every agency.

The Shallow, Power-Flattering Appeal of High Status #Resistance Historians Part 2 - Citations Needed - Air Date 12-3-24

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Yeah, I think that's such a critical point. And as a historian yourself, I'm curious about what you think about this, this idea that the Monday morning quarterbacking of the 2024 election as we're seeing it play out, and as we will continue to, I'm sure, in this Applebaum-esque contextualization of authoritarianism personified by Trump and Trumpism, uses history, uses context in a certain way, while, similarly, shutting down a vision that could be different. So it's looking at history and the consistency of history rather than the change of history, and as [00:37:00] a historian yourself, who's documented, whether it's slavery in the United States or imperialism and colonialism in Latin America and elsewhere, what do you see as the lessons that are consistently not learned, yet pushed forward by ostensibly what's going to be the resistance, the center liberal resistance over the next four years that don't seem to be learning from the past. They maybe recognize the past, they maybe harken back or they contextualize Trump within a certain kind of past, maybe a Cold War past, yet refuse to then use that knowledge to look to a different future where maybe doing the same thing is maybe not the winning strategy, but rather have a different way forward. 

How do you see the kind of historians take on the past and their analysis for the future playing out across our media?

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, clearly the biggest mistake, the biggest thing that they miss is you don't defeat fascism by calling [00:38:00] fascists fascists, you defeat them by offering a political alternative. We all have ideology. They have ideology, we have ideology. But if we deny that we have ideology, and our ideology should be a social democratic ideology in which everybody's equal, everybody deserves a dignified life, and the government, should be capacitated to deliver effective means for people to survive catastrophes and to survive the routine traumas of just everyday life, through social security, through to national health care, through rapid response to climate change catastrophe, flying squads, whatever that might be, there's a whole slate of positive actions one could imagine in a progressive policy program that would defeat fascism. 

Maybe not the next election because, you have to push the window, you have to push the Overton window back to the left. Like they've done so long. All of these things that the Republicans are doing, they lost election after election running [00:39:00] on them until they started winning, and the Democrats have to do the same.

In terms of history, there's two ways of thinking about history. I mean, there's a lot of ways of thinking about history, but history as analogy, it's always 1938 and, and we're always in danger of being Neville Chamberlain giving away Czechoslovakia , and we're always ready with pea and we can't do that. Or there's history as cause and effect. Like, how did we get here? What were the things that were done in the past that got us here? And cause and effect is never a simple process, there's multiple chains of causes and effects that lead to the present, but certainly one of them we've talked about is the transformation of the Democratic Party, the de-alignment from a party that had overwhelming working class support to a party that supported WTO, NAFTA, all of the stuff that we talked about in the 1990s.

And even if they are the lesser of two evils, and they still, on some platonic ideal, [00:40:00] represent the closest thing the United States has to the social democratic polarity of politics, the reality is that, the Democrats have become a party of the suburbs, a party dominated by consultants, by wealthy donors that has no political imagination, that all reform is talked about in terms of tax credits or means testing. There's no big vision. There is no vision of the future.

If there's one thing that we can learn from the past, how one defeats fascism, is that you have to have a vision for the future. What's going to happen after you defeat fascism? FDR had a vision for the future, he was the world leader in confronting fascism and his vision for the future was a social democratic future. And that's what people fought for. And the fact that none of these people who are on the fascist gravy train, publishing their books and whatnot and talk about that, talk about, you need an ideology to defeat an [00:41:00] ideology, and you have to know what your ideology is. You have to know what your morality is. You have to know what you care about. You have to have an alternative. And they offer no alternative. 

Ravi Mangla on Building Community Power From Political Communication to Climate Action at Working Families Party - The Impact Report - Air Date 11-25-24

RENE YOPER: So hopefully in the coming days and weeks we will have a clearer picture of the "how" and the "why" Americans voted for who they did, and Ravi I know you have a perspective on this, so we look forward to hearing more from that. But before we hear it, I'd like to share something with our listeners that deeply resonated with me that I read from the Working Family Party's website, and it's your belief statement. So I will take a moment to read it. 

So it says, "we believe together we can make the future and build a country where everyone can thrive. We believe that no matter where we come from or what our color, most of us want the same thing. We want to earn enough to thrive, not just survive, and leave a better future for our kids. We want healthy food and clean water, [00:42:00] safe neighborhoods, and a safe world. We want to be free."

And in reading that, I immediately thought about our, the Bard Graduate Programs of Sustainability, our definition of sustainability. And simply stated, it's shared well being on a healthy planet. So I was like, okay, direct correlation there, makes so much sense. So just wants to share that with our listeners as the backdrop for our conversation, and as we jump in, Ravi can you help us to understand who the Working Family Party is, what you all exist to do, and then after that, Jackson, can you share from your perspective, why this conversation is an important one to have, and especially in the context of sustainability?

So, Ravi, over to you. 

RAVI MANGLA: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so grateful to be here and talk a little bit about the Working Families Party. So we've been in existence for 26 years now. We were founded in 1999 as a independent political party. And in those early stages, we were made up [00:43:00] of a lot of labor unions, a lot of grassroots activists, a lot of people who felt like neither party was representing the interests of working people. So they came together to try and create a multiracial, working class political party. 

And in New York State, we have something that's called fusion voting. A candidate can be cross endorsed by multiple parties and run on multiple party lines. So it allows us to be a third party and an independent party without playing the role of a spoiler.

And we consider ourselves a quote, "non-delusional third party", which is that we never want to hand power over to the Ravi, but we want to be able to advocate for the issues, for the values that really matter to us. And fusion used to be popular and commonplace in many states around the country. And as working class people and progressives started to gain too much power, it was banned for many states. So currently, only a [00:44:00] handful of states, New York, Connecticut, Oregon, I believe, are states that still have fusion voting where a single candidate can run on multiple party lines. 

And what that means is, for us, we advocate for certain values. We've been big around climate investments, climate protections, and a transition to full renewable energy. And when a candidate receives a significant portion of their votes on our line, it means that those issues are important to voters. The values that we are espousing are important to voters, and for that candidate to continue to receive the votes that come through our party, they should be standing up and fighting for those values.

So it's a very interesting political system that does not exist in many places, and there's not a lot of education in New York, frankly, to really educate people around the fusion system. We run up against questions all the time. If people vote for a candidate, [00:45:00] for instance, in this past election, we had Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as our candidates on our line. If they're voting for those candidates on our line, do those add towards the total vote? And yes, they do, but voting for those candidates on our line is espousing that you want them to fight for economic equality, for deep climate investments, for racial justice, for criminal justice reforms, for things that create true equality and level the playing field among working people in this country.

So that is a little bit about fusion and a little bit about the Working Families Party. As my director, Mo Mitchell, often says, we cook with what's in the kitchen. In many states, we engage and try to intervene in what we think is the most strategic way where we are not splitting the vote, we are not inadvertently handing power to the right, but we're able to advocate for our values within the rules of the system that we're in.

[00:46:00] So that's a little bit about us. 

Blue state governors network to erect firewall against Trump's threat to democracy - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 11-19-24

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: So, Donald Trump has been adamant that his plan to put millions of people in camps and start deporting whole families, start raiding workplaces. He says that will all start on day one at noon as he's being sworn in on Inauguration Day, January 20th. 

If they're really trying to make that happen, you'd have to start preparing well in advance of the inauguration, right? But that means so does the work to stop him from doing that. Today in federal court, the ACLU filed their first lawsuit, seeking more information about Trump's plans to deport millions of people from this country once he takes office. As far as the ACLU is concerned, now is the time to sue. Now is the time to try to expose those plans in order to try to stop them from being carried out. Go time, in other words, is not the moment Trump becomes president; go time is now. 

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of that state's legislature, asking them to appropriate more funding [00:47:00] for California's state legal challenges to federal policies in the next Trump term. The Democratic governors of Colorado and Illinois, Jared Polis and J. B. Pritzker, they're leading another group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. Essentially, it's a network of governors who are agreeing to pool resources and work together to try to oppose the policies of Trump's White House. The group's top staffer is Julia Spiegel. She says that when governors of different states come together, they can become "essential force multipliers".

and firewalls against threats to our democracy. Joining us now is Julia Spiegel. She's the founder and CEO of GovAct, which oversees this new Governor's Safeguarding Democracy initiative. Ms. Spiegel, it's nice to meet you. Thanks very much for being here. 

JULIA SPIEGEL: Great to meet you. Thanks for having me. 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Can you help me and our audience understand some of the practical ideas behind how this would work? The idea is Governor's Safeguarding Democracy, but what does the group actually plan to do? [00:48:00] 

JULIA SPIEGEL: As you noted, Rachel, Governor's Safeguarding Democracy was launched by Governors Pritzker and Polis last week, but also to your earlier point, the work has been ongoing for several weeks. What the governors are doing in coordination with governors across the country is working together to pool their resources, the best expertise out there, the best staff to make sure that they are prepared for all the possible contingencies, whatever may come, but also to make sure that the state institutions of democracy are delivering for the people in the states. And that's really the central premise of what Governor Safeguarding Democracy is doing. 

And just to note, this isn't a novel or new method. It was actually pioneered by Governor Newsom in the aftermath of Dobbs, when Roe was revoked by the Supreme Court and Governor Newsom rallied other governors together and a whole host of them have worked collectively for two years now to work across state lines to protect reproductive health care, including doing novel things like stockpiling abortion medication that hadn't been done previously. So, we've taken that model and are really building it out now around safeguarding various [00:49:00] contours of democracy. 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: You know, Julia, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you tonight is because even before this initiative came about, you have talked about the fact that governors have power when they come together. And we think of ourselves as either atomized, 50 different states, or the United States as one big thing. But you've talked about this idea that governors in smaller groups can be, as you say, both a firewall and a force multiplier. Can you talk more about that, about how a dynamic between a small group of governors, or maybe a medium sized group of governors, can be more effective than any of these governors could be on their own?

JULIA SPIEGEL: Governors have these extraordinary powers, some of which are very public, like the bully pulpit, but they also have [this] other suite of tools like the budget, signing legislation, executive authority, agencies that they oversee and run. That in and of itself is this wealth of authorities, but it's so much more powerful and impactful when those authorities are paired with each other across state lines.

There are lessons learned, practices that can [00:50:00] be adopted from one state to another, and coordinated strategy that can be undertaken to make the whole so much greater than just the sum of its parts. So that's really the premise of this work and that Governors Polis and Pritzker are leading now in the democracy context, but across a range of offices and are eager to work with anyone who is engaged in the work of safeguarding democracy. 

And I do want to note, Rachel, this work is critical no matter who sits in the White House. It's really about nurturing, supporting, and protecting the institutions of democracy. Either way, that work was undergoing years ago, and it should be undergoing years from now. 

Note from the Editor on the importance of scheduled maintenance for democracy

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with Citations Needed looking at the historical framework that led to Trump. Boom! Lawyered discussed Trump's threat to birthright citizenship. Democracy Now! looked at some of the impacts of mass deportation. Boom! Lawyered looked at the big picture of White nationalism in Trump's policies towards immigrants. The Majority Report examined to the political dynamics in Congress, keeping Republicans in line. The Daily Blast described how the boogeyman of the deep state is [00:51:00] being used to threaten anyone who opposes Trump. Citations Needed highlighted the importance of having a strong alternative to fascism rather than just calling it out. The Impact Report explored the benefits of fusion voting with the Working Families Party. And that the Rachel Maddow Show looked at some of the efforts already underway. To resist Trump's agenda. Through the courts and states. 

Those were just the top takes, there's a lot more in the deeper dive section. But first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here discussing all manner of important, interesting topics. And a reminder that our winter sale on membership is currently going on. They're 20% off until the end of the year, so you can support independent media and get the bonus show for yourself, or as a gift for the holiday. Discounts and gifting are available both on our site and through Patreon, so whichever you prefer, go for it. All the relevant links are in the show notes, or just go to BestOfTheLeft.com/support. 

There, [00:52:00] in addition to all the members and the gifting and all of that, you'll also find bookshop.org, they do dead tree books, and libro.fm, they're the sister site that does audio books. Both are certified benefit corporations that help support brick and mortar bookshops, while still providing an online. Book shopping experience. In short, they're are decidedly non evil compared to most of the other online bookstores. And shopping through our links. It helps support the show as well. Again, head to BestOfTheLeft.com/support or follow the links in the show notes to grab a membership for yourself or as a gift, particularly while they're on discount. 

As always if regular membership just isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, just a couple of quick thoguhts to add on today's topic. This week's bonus show, I think is quite relevant to [00:53:00] this discussion. We dive much deeper into the topic of why the left needs to put more focus on fixing the government, rather than just defending it. And this is coming from people who understand the instinct to defend. With the right laser focused for decades on calling for the government to be torn to shreds or drown in a bathtub, it is understandable why the reflexive reaction would be to defend rather than to look critically at parts of the government. What can we do to make things better to serve the people? The instinct is defend, defend, defend. I think the same dynamic is playing out with the Democratic party. For many, present company excluded, I'm sure, the focus has been on defending and propping up the party while resisting calls for change as though any change could be destabilizing and a threat to the Democrats' electoral prospects. Well, with an across-the-board loss in the Presidential, Senatorial, [00:54:00] and House elections this year. I can think of no better time to start looking inwardly to find what reforms and improvements could be made to improve the electoral prospects for the left. 

We've heard already today about the Working Families Party and fusion voting, and there's going to be a bit more in the Resistance section of the show, still to come. As part of the prep for today's episode, I give a little deeper on fusion voting and I came across this passage about the role of political parties that I found actually sort of refreshing. 

It says, "Parties are the essential infrastructure of a healthy representative democracy, just as roads and bridges and railways and airports and electricity grids are the infrastructure of a modern economy. Similarly, we want better roads and bridges, not merely because we enjoy driving. Rather, we say we want better infrastructure because of what else it makes possible—a thriving economy not bogged down by potholes [00:55:00] and closures and traffic snarls. The same is true of political parties. We want better political parties, not for their own sake, but because parties are the institutions that connect citizens to the government. When they function poorly, many citizens feel disconnected and isolated."

I'll link to the full article. It's a long piece about fusion voting and the benefits of it, that's just a tiny, tiny piece of it. But, calls for reforms. Shouldn't be seen as adversarial or accusations. "The party is bad and your bad and you need to fix it or you need to get out of there." That gets people on the defensive and even more determined to defend the status quo. But put into that framework I just described about it's just being infrastructure, reforms should be seen as normal and necessary maintenance. All [00:56:00] systems need tune-ups, all those elements of the sort of structures of the economy need maintenance, so we should understand that parties. Kind of need that same sort of regular maintenance as well.

For the Democrats, the last of the two major parties to sort of, half-heartedly continue to work on upholding democracy, one of the reforms they should be supporting is fusion voting. The major parties have worked to squash the idea in the past to protect their duopoly on the system, but for a party that makes it claim to support democracy and has a major image problem at the moment, supporting a mechanism like fusion voting that allows in third party energy without running into the problem of the spoiler factor in first-pass-the-post elections, fusion voting can actually be the answer to multiple problems. 

For the left, or anyone [00:57:00] supporting a more robust and dynamic democracy, fusion voting is just the mechanism. And particularly for the left and Democrats who desperately need an injection of progressive economic focus on benefiting working people, it's the Working Families Party that is the organization that would stand to benefit from the expansion of fusion voting to new states where they could help put pressure, healthy, much needed pressure, on Democrats across the country. Just some scheduled maintenance for democracy to keep it running smoothly. Or, you know, maybe to bring it back from the brink in the event that Trump doesn't drive the whole system completely into the ground. 

SECTION A - IMMIGRATION INTIMIDATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we'll continue to dive deeper on three topics. Next up, Section A - Immigration Intimidation, followed by Section B - Bending the Knee, and Section C - Resistance.

Rep. Delia Ramirez- Trump's Immigration Plans Are -Un-American, Unconstitutional & Undemocratic Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Table 12-11-24

AMY GOODMAN: Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. How would President Trump get around [00:58:00] that?

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Well, look, first of all, this whole day one thing he likes to say so that he can get all the hits he can is ridiculous. It is a constitutional right for anyone born in this country to have U.S. citizenship. And as you heard previously, it is the 14th Amendment. You can’t get around the 14th Amendment. He would have to go to the Supreme Court, which, in this case, unfortunately, he has already stacked with his very conservative, only-do-whatever-Donald-Trump-says Supreme Court justices. But that means he can’t do it on day one. And if he wanted to do it through congressional action because in the House he has one-vote majority, first of all, it would be very difficult even if it was just by one vote. But, Amy, it would require a constitutional amendment, that requires two-thirds votes for that constitutional amendment, and there is no world that this Congress would give him those numbers. So, look, it won’t happen on day one.

But the idea that he would say this is so un-American, unconstitutional [00:59:00] and undemocratic. Think about it. Millions of us, we are doctors, service members, members of Congress. And you’re saying you’re going to take their citizenship away from them? We should be asking ourselves as the American people: First, U.S. citizens who are first generation, then who is next? Who is American enough for Donald Trump?

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about who’s next. During a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Trump’s pick to be border czar, Tom Homan, said that mass deportation campaign could also target U.S.-born children born to undocumented parents. He was being interviewed by Cecilia Vega.

CECILIA VEGA: We have seen one estimate that says it would cost $88 billion to deport a million people a year.

THOMAS HOMAN: I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.

CECILIA VEGA: Is that what American taxpayers should expect?

THOMAS HOMAN: What price do you put on national security? Is it worth it?

CECILIA VEGA: Is there a way to carry out mass [01:00:00] deportation without separating families?

THOMAS HOMAN: Of course there is. Families can be deported together.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there is Homan saying of course there’s a way not to separate families that are of — that are both legally in the United States and not: Just deport them all.

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Amy, it’s so interesting — right? — and hypocritical. Tom Homan’s ancestors are not originally from this area, from this region, from the United States. When his ancestors came — and I’m sure the Statue of Liberty was welcoming them — they didn’t have to go through a bunch of paperwork to enter this country. Some would argue that in that time borders were very different. Some would even define it as even more open borders. Give me your tired, give me your hungry, and we will take them in, and we’ll make this country the beautiful country it is.

It is cynical to me for this man to be the same man that says he represents a future [01:01:00] president that cares about families and saying, “Simple. Have them get deported with their parents.” They have nothing else, these children, than the United States as their country. They are as American as Tom is, as American as Tom’s parents are, as American as Tom’s family is. And yet here he is: “Simple. Just go ahead and have them deported.”

This is a moment for Democrats and for people who remember how this country’s economic opportunities were built, those that perhaps their parents came in the early 1900s, Italian Americans to New York, or those that came 25, 30 years ago or now, to ask themselves, “What kind of country are we? Are we going to say that children whose country is the United States, we’re going to send them to go die in a country that they don’t know?” This is a moment for us to be fearless and courageous, to take a stand for every single person [01:02:00] that Donald Trump is attacking, if it’s trans kids, if it’s women, if it’s immigrants, because he’s coming for every one of us that he believes and he deems not American enough.

AMY GOODMAN: What can President Biden do in these last weeks of his administration that would protect undocumented immigrants?

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah. Well, look, I think there’s a number of things and a number of executive orders, that you perhaps have heard from a number of advocacy groups, that have been sent to him. There’s renewals of DACA that could be done. People who have DACA and maybe their appointment is in February or March, why not just make sure that they’re renewed, if all the paperwork is correct. There is no criminal record, by the way. If you are a DACA recipient, you have to have a clean record, no criminal background. Already we vet all those things. Give those automatic renewals. Extend protections for people who are already on parole. Extend the TPS for [01:03:00] those that are about to have their TPS expire. There’s a number of things we could be doing. We still have the White House. And if I’m President Biden, I am working every breathing moment between now and the change of power to protect as many Americans as I possibly could.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’re not President Biden, so do you know what he is actually doing?

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I am not President Biden. I am very clear and aware of that. Look, I understand that they are looking at a number of things. I don’t have clear direction on what those are and what has been, in fact, approved. But I’ll guarantee you, Amy, I’m calling his office, and I’m calling the secretary of homeland, on a regular, every single day. There is no holiday party here that I’m interested in. I am interested in making sure that we’re extending the protections to as many people as we can as we still have the White House and the Senate.

Can Trump Really End Birthright Citizenship? Part 3 - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 12-12-24

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And, but here's my question.

Doesn't originalism, right? Like Sam [01:04:00] Alito and Thomas and all these conservatives are just dry humping originalism, right? And it just seems to me that originalism. Cuts against the outcome that they want here, right? Because now in this post Dobbs, post Bruin, that's the guns case from New York, right? Where everything has to be rooted in history and tradition.

Doesn't it seem like ignoring 125 years of case law that says if you're born here, you're a citizen. How does ignoring that jive with this originalist. Interpretation. Right? Like, do they really just say, well, we weren't being invaded by the Chinese in the 1880s and we're being invaded by Latin Americans in 2024.

And that's how it's different. Is that really just what they're going to say? 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: What would the founders think? Think, Imani! Honestly, it really doesn't matter because you're expecting them to make sense when [01:05:00] they're only concerned about outcomes that match the conservative agenda, right? Like, think about that man, James Ho, for example, only for a moment, okay?

James Ho has done a 180 on birthright citizenship in this video. In this issue in 2006, he wrote a paper where he mounted and that originalist defense that you're talking about of the well established interpretation. The birthright citizenship says that if you're born here, you're a citizen and argued the only way it could be restricted was through a constitutional amendment.

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: But I mean, was James Ho sitting on the Fifth Circuit in 2006, or was he just writing papers? He was just writing papers, man. He wasn't really consequential. Cut to 2024, he's, you know, a, he's a big, a big, bigwig, I guess we'll call him, on the Fifth Circuit, and he's now claiming that Yes, his original, originalist interpretation of birthright citizenship, this thing that he wrote about in [01:06:00] 2006, that still made sense.

That makes sense. But at the time he wasn't thinking about an invasion, right? And that's what he thinks is happening now. That's what conservatives think is happening now. We are being invaded. And here's what he said, quote, Birthright citizenship is supported by various Supreme Court opinions, both unanimous and separate opinions involving Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and others.

But birthright citizenship obviously doesn't apply in case of war or invasion. No one to my knowledge has ever argued that the children of invading aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship. And I can't imagine what the legal argument for that would be. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I can't. I can't. I mean, invading armies. So you and I know this is psychophantic bullshit.

It is. But he's laid out the legal argument, and every conservative judge in the federal judiciary has their [01:07:00] marching orders. I mean, can't you see this James Ho sitting down and writing an opinion that says, Arc is distinguishable because here we are at war on the border and we are trying to beat back an invasion of criminals and Hannibal Lecter types and those stakes weren't at issue back in 1898.

I 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: can. Absolutely. I mean, if you think about population demographics, when white folks were freaking out about the number of Chinese immigrants around 1880, the percentage of Chinese immigrants in the U. S. population was about a quarter of a percent. Right now, the immigrant, immigrant population is about 15%.

So it's just a different level of scale. And I think that that's more than enough for the Supreme court to hang its hat on. Because even though the same nativism and racism and xenophobia drove the Supreme court's decision in Wong Kim arc. One can argue that opposing that sort of nativism and racism [01:08:00] is rooted in the history of this country, right?

Like, there's a counter argument that this is an emergency unlike the founders had ever faced or would have ever conceived. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Yeah, and as the conservative legal movement is wont to do, they're breadcrumbing that argument already, right? And so we can expect to see that as the buttress for whatever Trump pulls.

So now that James 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Ho, Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho, is worried about his name, right? How does Trump ensure that a case challenging his executive order on birth right citizenship ends up in the Fifth Circuit? Could he? Like here's a crazy thought, could he issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship and then immediately seek a declaratory judgment in the fifth circuit, right?

A declaratory judgment is when you just say, I want to know what the law is. I'm not really suing anybody. I just want some clarification. Could he do that? Or is he going to just. Forget about [01:09:00] even trying to go to the courts and just immediately start up raids in Texas, say Amarillo, Texas, so that anyone who sues him saying that, you know, you can't deport me because I'm a citizen, they end up before Matt Kazmarek, or Reed O'Connor, or any of those Trump You know, 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: what is this, what's the process here?

I mean, that's an excellent question because we're trying to game play strategy on rewriting the 14th amendment by executive Fiat. And if you've got the wherewithal to try and do that, I don't think you care very much about the process beyond that. Right? Like the point is the chaos. So engage in mass deportation efforts, maybe a lawsuit gets filed, you know, I saw folks on blue sky saying like that first person who gets swooped up, man, they're gonna sue for an injunction, maybe, 

IMANI GANDY - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: right?

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - CO-HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Maybe they are. It depends on who we're targeting, right? [01:10:00] And in the meantime, none of that lawfare matters because we are terrorizing. People, including U. S. citizens and separating families and engaging in a domestic terror campaign. So there doesn't necessarily even have to be a judicial blessing to cause a lot of harm.

Richard Wolff Trump's deportation plans will destroy the economy - The Real News Network - Air Date 11-23-24

RICHARD WOLFF: The Department of Homeland Security says there's somewhere between 10 and 12 undocumented, million, undocumented immigrants in the United States. So as an economist, let me make one thing clear. We are a rich country of 330 million people.

The economic problems we have, which are severe, could not ever have been caused by 10 to 12 (million) of the poorest people on the planet. The notion that the immigrants are a cause of the problems we face is stone cold ridiculous. It may be a clever [01:11:00] scapegoating, it may work to get you votes, but it has nothing to do with reality.

Number two. There are certain industries that concentrate undocumented immigrants. Agriculture is a big one. The restaurant business is a big one. Construction is another big one. And then there's a whole host of other industries, but those are the big ones. In those industries, undocumented immigrants are a major part of the labor force. Not only that, they are a more important cause of the profitability in those industries than their mere numbers would tell you. Why? Because an undocumented immigrant can be and is regularly abused by the employer. For the obvious reason, which if you have any contact with these folks, they'll tell you ten [01:12:00] different stories, I've heard them all. It's Friday afternoon. Everybody's going to pick up their check at the front office before they go home. Jose arrives. He stands in line, waits for his check. The boss says, Jose, we've had a terrible week. We didn't make the money. I can't pay you this week. But if you come back next week, I can be sure to pay you.

What is Jose gonna do? Answer. Nothing. He dare not go to any government office. Because he's an undocumented, he can't show a paper, he can't show a residence allowance, nothing. He's terrified of going anywhere near the labor office. There's nothing he can do. And the employer knows it. The employers look for these people because of this. And I'm not going to here, take your time and mine to talk about the abuse, sexual and other, that this situation invites in all the ways you don't need me [01:13:00] to tell you about.

Okay, now let's imagine you deport them. First of all, that costs billions, because you're talking about 10 to 12 million people. You have to house them, you have to move them, you have to feed them in the process, you have to deal with the umpteen million lawsuits that will immediately crop up around all of this. This is going to take time, and it's going to cost personnel, and it's going to be an immense expense. But that's the least of it. Here comes the big one. Every one of those industries is a crucial player in the inflation level of the United States. Who's going to pick the lettuce? Who's going to pick the fruit? Who's going to do all that work? Who's going to clean the dishes in the back of the restaurant? Who's going to clean up at the end, you know, the evening when the patrons of the restaurant go home? Well, the answer is you either close the restaurant, and that has economic consequences, or you [01:14:00] close the farms, and that's really not an option, or you're going to have to hire Americans.

And Americans won't be afraid to go to the labor office if you don't pay them. So you're going to actually have to pay them. And you're probably going to have to pay them a good bit more than the immigrant for all the reasons you normally pay immigrants less than native workers. Which means the cost structure of these industries is going to take off.

And you know what they're all going to do? Those employers, they're going to raise their prices. They're going to want to do that to recapture the extra costs that will come. And the government has not proposed anything that will substitute here. 

I've heard one professor tell me, oh, we don't have to worry, AI will take care of this. You know what AI does? It makes people like you and me superfluous. But are we ready to go and wash dishes at the back of the [01:15:00] restaurant? Are we ready to pick apples? Really? You're gonna cause social upheaval. You're gonna cause inflation. Mr. Trump can't do that. Inflation is half of why he got elected. How can he turn around and then be the person who has to go on TV and try to explain why he promised to deal with inflation, only it's gotten worse? And he won't be able to tell the truth, it's because I'm deporting everybody, because then the argument will be as clear as day for people. So you're gonna have to watch now as the various cabinet secretaries, bizarre though they are, have to undo what it was he's promised.

SECTION B - BENDING THE KNEE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B - Bending the Knee. 

Trumps Rage at FBI Takes Dark Turn as GOPers Signal They Wont Resist Part 2 - The Daily Blast - Air Date 12-13-24

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: So, Will, I want to go back to your big point about how we can't forget this.

Um, let's go big picture. As you write, Trump was not exonerated in any sense. [01:16:00] In fact, the administration of justice is not being permitted to run its course. A jury won't actually hear the evidence against him and pass judgment on it. So, he's not exonerated because we didn't get the process. But here's what's disturbing.

Trump has the story exactly backwards as we said, but in a very real sense, he gets to say what the story is. His victory ends the prosecutions of him prematurely. Uh, and he can just say that he was exonerated. He will pardon who knows how many of the January 6th rioters. He's gonna just rewrite it all as kind of an outpouring of patriotism.

January 6th as we understand and know it. A violent criminal insurrection against the country is just getting disappeared. Do we have any recourse here? Well, 

WILLIAM SALETAN: it's going to be a challenge Pardon me. I'm listening to you and i'm thinking well when you put it that way I mean It's true that we we have this ideology of democracy in this country and all of us at the [01:17:00] bulwark uh and new republic and everybody we all fully support this but Just because you've won an election doesn't mean everything you say is true.

And so we're going to have a difficult time sort of getting that message out. But it is, it is still true. This is what happens in authoritarian countries, right? That the government puts out a message about what happened in the past. They just rewrite the history and everyone, because they control the media in that case, people just end up believing it.

And all of the great literature about fighting authoritarianism, there's always that this is, this is one of the great struggles. And I believe what. It was what Orwell said, right? You have to see what's in front of your face. It's a constant struggle that they're going, they are lying already about the past.

The claim that Trump was exonerated, that, uh, the FBI is evil, that the raid on the search actually of Mar a Lago was, was without warrant, which is total bullshit. Um, and especially Greg, what you bring up about January 6th. I [01:18:00] mean, he said, wasn't it in the Time interview, he said he's gonna like, right away he's gonna start pardoning these guys.

That he's gonna try to turn upside down the story of January 6th. And I remember thinking during the hearings that, um, you know, Liz Cheney and that, that, that committee, I thought they were just beating a dead horse half the time. They just, but in retrospect, those two years that they were able to tell the truth and the documents they were able to put together, the evidence they assembled, that's all going to be extremely important in laying a groundwork for us to maintain, you know, the little candle of truth that they're trying to blow out with all this, with all of the, the lies about, you know, about what happened.

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: Yeah, I agree 100%. It was really a very important moment for those reasons. Let's finish up on Kash Patel for a sec. If there's any hope of being able to kind of hang on to the right side up story and not let it get erased and replaced by [01:19:00] the upside down story, part of that, not all of it, but part of it is going to reside in these Republican senators.

I, I understand that you're very pessimistic about, um, where that could all go. Republican Senators really look as if they probably will, um, green light Cash Patel and probably Pete Hegseth too, potentially. Don't know about RFK or Tulsi Gabbard. I think that, uh, Uh, Tulsi Gabbard's going to be a tough one, but anyway, we could really have Kash Patel.

And what happens though, when they actually start to prosecute people without cause, prosecute Trump's enemies without cause, can't we make Republican senators own that at that point? 

WILLIAM SALETAN: Yeah, I think we can make them own it. Um, the, uh, the, the outer limit of the question that I, that you're getting at is, is there some.

Is there some point at which reality intrudes, uh, you know, they're, they're going to try to do what the, what authoritarian regimes do, which is [01:20:00] to lie their way through everything. We have a model for what's going to happen, which is what they did in the last few years. Jim Jordan and others, uh, tried to make, uh, the villains, the heroes and vice versa.

They, they, uh, they're going to, uh, They're going to be prosecuting the investigators and the prosecutors who looked into Donald Trump and his various accomplices. Um, I don't know how far Patel's going to take this, but is there a limit to the lies they're going to be able to tell? Um, and I, I guess that remains to be seen, but, um, we're all going to have to do what we can to, you know, to, to marshal the truth and to remind people of it.

Cause it's so easy to forget. I you and I, we're like, You know, political nerds and we keep track of this stuff. But we saw in the election that people weren't paying attention to a lot of this and, and, um, we're going to have to just sort of keep these stories alive. Um, but as to your question about the Republican Party, Greg, I just, I, at this point, I expect nothing from them.

I honestly [01:21:00] think that when the history of this time is written, if we are lucky, we If the good guys win in the end, the Republican party under Donald Trump will just be viewed as an authoritarian party that did whatever he wanted to. And that's going to include about 50 of these 53 senators. Um, And I, I, I expect them to wave through Patel and, um, Kelsey Gabbard and all the, and all the others.

And maybe, maybe if we're lucky, what happens is Patel then undertakes some assault on the rule of law that is just so obvious that, uh, or they just screw up. deportations and it's a logistical disaster. A totally plausible scenario. At that point, do people turn against Donald Trump? I don't know. And I don't know the answer to that, but the thing that worries me most is the lying and the, the ability of a president with an entire party behind him to spread a narrative that is just [01:22:00] complete bullshit.

And whether that will overpower all of the assembled, what we used to call mainstream media and all of the truth tellers. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: Well, I got to say, it seems really grim when you put it like that. We're going to have a lot of work to do. Um, and you know, the truth of it is that the outcome is uncertain. Yeah. Yeah.

I sometimes, 

WILLIAM SALETAN: Greg, I think about, uh, what would happen, I'm not enough of a Batman aficionado, but I think there are various versions of the Batman story where like the Joker becomes mayor of Gotham city. And that's where we are, man, that the Joker is the mayor and you know, we're, it's going to be a completely upside down, bizarre world for the 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: next four years, at least.

ABC News Sudden Surrender to Trumps Rage Stuns Experts Disturbing - The Daily Blast - Air Date 12-14-24

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: In your piece you write that Trump is adopting a standard authoritarian tactic in a more general sense, which is to prepare the public to accept an authoritarian role for the state. It seems like we're seeing something similar, uh, right here. Uh, can you talk about that broader tactic? 

ANNE APPLEBAUM: So, yeah. I mean, Trump, during the election campaign, used all kinds of [01:23:00] language from calling his, his, uh, his opponents enemies of the, of the people or enemies of the state, uh, calling immigrants vermin, uh, using language that hasn't really been part of American politics before.

Um, he issued, uh, endless threats towards individual journalists, towards the media more broadly, towards particular judges, towards. various enemies. Um, and of course he kept doing that and has been doing it even more loudly since the election. And some of the purpose of this is not just, you know, letting off steam.

Um, what he's doing is making other people afraid to criticism or to criticize him or afraid to hold him to account. So he's creating around himself this atmosphere of anger and menace. Uh, and It looks like in a number of cases it's succeeding. And, um, you know, ABC is one example. There are a number of other examples from Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post, um, you know, to, uh, you know, to, to the, to [01:24:00] the head of the LA Times of other news organizations or news owners saying, right.

You know, let's back away or let's not pick a fight or let's concede something in advance because they, they don't want to be in the, in the, in the, involved in some kind of open fight with the president. And it's particularly notable that this is happening in the case of news organizations whose owners have other businesses.

So that would be true of the LA Times, the Washington Post, and also ABC, which is owned by Disney. So they have other businesses. They have lots of interests with the federal government, um, they have regulatory issues and that it looks like they're making concessions in advance so that they, so that they don't run into trouble down the line.

And, um, since I, I can anticipate what your next question would be, which is, Is this a pattern and is it something that we've seen before, uh, in other declining democracies? And of course, the answer is yes, it is. Um, that the, the [01:25:00] way in which it's not so much censorship, but media control and intimidation works in a place like Hungary or Turkey, uh, is not just government censorship.

You know, the government doesn't tell people what to write. Instead, the government finds ways of putting pressure on the owners of media, sometimes on journalists, Um, in, in order to make them, um, think twice before they say anything critical. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: Well, in fact, the larger story here with ABC News really underscores what you're saying there, the story you're, you're telling there.

Um, remember, uh, during the campaign, Trump viciously attacked ABC News in particular for fact checking him during the one debate and, and at the time, Trump threatened to retaliate for that against ABC by revoking broadcasting rights. By the way, I should note that the New York Times reports that ABC executives have met with Trump transition team officials at Mar a Lago.

God knows what was discussed, but here's what we have. Trump [01:26:00] attacks ABC for telling the truth about him. Threatens direct retaliation if he wins, Trump sues for defamation, now ABC decides not to fight even though news orgs do this generally, um, and instead will donate 15 million dollars to something that lionizes Trump.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Um, it, it, we'll see how other news organizations, um, react, uh, and it's going to be particularly interesting, uh, those that are smaller, that have. that have fewer conflicts of interest, whether, whether they'll be able to hold out. But, you know, many people assumed in the past that, you know, the news media in the U.

S. was too big and too diverse and too complex to be intimidated the way The Hungarian news media is a Hungarian news media by comparison is a little, is tiny and, um, you know, and, and, and weak, but we are, this is a moment when, um, for other reasons, the, the business model of much media [01:27:00] is, is in trouble.

Um, a lot of them are either unprofitable or not as profitable as they were a lot of both broadcasting and, and, and newspapers. Um, you know, it's not true of everybody, but it's true of many. And you have an enormous amount of churn and uncertainty. And at this particular moment in history, um, it means that, that, that owners are, are more likely to be wary.

You know, if we were at a moment when the media was making lots of money, as it, as it once did in the past, or when it was expanding and everybody was hiring, It might, things might feel different, but right now it feels like things are shutting and closing down and staff are being let go. And I think that adds another layer to the, to the current circumstance.

It has nothing to do with Trump, but Trump is able to take advantage of it, clearly. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: So, on Friday, Trump had this to say about the media during an appearance on Wall Street, and I think it goes directly to what you're saying. Uh, listen to [01:28:00] this. 

DONALD TRUMP: We did a good job. We had a great first term, despite a lot of turmoil, uh, caused unnecessarily.

And, but the media's tamed down a little bit. They're liking us much better now, I think. If they don't, we'll have to just take them on again and we don't want to do that. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, DEEP STATE RADIO: And this looks to me like Trump knows that the media is in a vulnerable and precarious spot and he's really putting them on notice to a greater degree that more of this is coming.

 

The Shallow, Power-Flattering Appeal of High Status #Resistance Historians Part 3 - Citations Needed - Air Date 12-3-24

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: You know, and this kind of gets back to the classic Chomsky critique when the U.S. does something objectively authoritarian or violent or evil is painted as a deviation from the natural state. Whereas when these bad guy countries do it, it's existential to their nature. It is their true essence. And it gets to what you've been saying, Greg, about Trump being seen as an individual who has been pathologized with, fascism and authoritarian tendencies, if not deeper than just tendencies, but that it is an individual pathology, and not [01:29:00] one that reflects the pathology of a nation state, unlike, say, Russia, China, Iran, which are pathologized as entire entities.

And so it kind of gets us back to this idea of trust in institutions and how the assumption is that these institutions that we have here are noble and just need to get back to what they once were, if this individual infection is removed from our nobility. Can you talk about the need of these pundits and this perspective to pathologize an individual rather than zooming out and looking at the historical context of our entire society and how we got here?

GREG GRANDIN: There's a political theorist named Corey Robin, who, I mean, he's been making this argument for almost a decade now, since 2016, that what that misses, focusing on the institutions and holding up the institutions and positing a kind of, Trump as a [01:30:00] violator of proceduralism and institutionalism, what that misses is that the way repression in the United States and exclusion and anti democratic political culture emerges out of the institutions that we have profoundly anti majoritarian institutions, anti democratic institutions, the Senate, the filibuster, the electoral college, the judicial system, the Supreme Court. None of these are particularly, expansive tribunes of expanding democratic rights. The way that the United States has maintained power, and the way power functions, is through the institutions.

So right there, there's a kind of original mistake among these liberal resistance historians and posing Trump to the institutions. Trump is, those institutions are primed to work and deliver on the Trump agenda without violating their function. I mean, look at the Supreme Court. So there's that, and then yes, there's a [01:31:00] way in which Trump is seen, and nation states are seen, as outside of the virtuous circle that the United States and only a few other nations comprise, and in some ways is a kind of, there's scales of degradation, scales of decline. At the beginning of the Cold War, when the United States searched around for trying to figure out how it could justify support for authoritarian regimes while fighting the Soviet Union, justifying the Cold War, it came up with the dichotomy, it's associated with Hannah Arendt, but other people, other philosophers and political theorists also kind of contributed to this idea that there was a distinction between totalitarianism and authoritarianism, that authoritarianism allowed civil society to function.

So it allowed the possibility of change and democratic movements to challenge the autocrat, [01:32:00] whereas totalitarianism eliminates civil society and leaves no buffer between the total state and the masses of people, and there was no space for democracy to take root. And therefore it had to be contained and counted.

That was basically the ideological framework that justified supporting Somoza in Nicaragua or the military regime in Argentina or Pinochet in Chile. But opposing Fidel Castro in Cuba, or not to mention the Soviet Union, and of course, this is the framework that is highly ideological and that had no real bearing on the facts on the ground.

But it was at least it was something of a justification. Then Jean Kirkpatrick rehabilitated is during the Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the United Nation, which was elevated to a cabinet level post. And, she rehabilitated that argument. to justify the Contra War and Reagan's Central American policy.[01:33:00] 

But there's long been a way in which the United States found ways to justify complete support for Saudi Arabia, say, and complete opposition to Iran, and that's where we are today. I mean, I, we're locked in this kind of, foreign policy that makes gestures towards civilizational struggle, towards defending the West or defending universal values.

But the hypocrisy of it is so glaring. During the Cold War, you could point out the contradictions and the irony and the hypocrisies like somebody like Noam Chomsky did, the decade after decade after decade. But the Cold War, the ideology corresponded somewhat to the reality in terms of what the United States stood for. And I'm not carrying any water for Cold War United States but compared to now, right, where the United States has [01:34:00] completely gutted itself, basically the United States came out of the Cold War and treated itself as if it was an occupied nation and its citizens were belligerent.

That's what the Clinton administration was. It basically, in the past soldiers came back from wars to a country that was building itself, building its social capacity, building its roads, its bridges, its social compact, expanding, however imperfectly, the promise of liberalism to more and more people. But starting with the first Gulf War, soldiers came back to a country that was literally taking itself apart. Physically moving factories from Detroit to Mexico, but also taking apart its social contract.

And that's the context. That explains Trump and where Trump is. And meanwhile, as all of this was going on, the political class continued with the same rhetoric of exceptionalism, the same soaring rhetoric of freedom and liberty, and the [01:35:00] hypocrisy became more apparent, I think. And I think that that's the space that Trump fills. In a way he's turned us all into a nation of, or at least half of the nation from citizens into basically the Joker, where they see the only response to the bullshit is to tear it all down. 

SECTION C - RESISTANCE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section C - Resistance.

Ravi Mangla on Building Community Power From Political Communication to Climate Action at Working Families Party Part 2 - The Impact Report - Air Date 11-25-24

JACKSON THOMPSON: Yeah, when Renee read the mission statement of the working families party, I, I feel like that is something that would resonate with everyone beyond political ideology.

It's about equity. It's about living a good life, basically. But one of the biggest takeaways from this election has been that the Republican Party has essentially become the party of the working class. And there's the same party that's advocating for tax cuts to billionaires that's endorsed by the richest man in the world.

So it's a bit of a shock. So I'm wondering where that disconnect is, why working class people are moving to the [01:36:00] Republican Party. And away from a party literally called the working families party. 

RAVI MANGLA: Very good question. I would say that, uh, the working families party, for instance, has continued to grow. We've had a greater number of voters on our ballot line with each successive cycle.

We've continued to add. new members and new registrants as years have gone on and as people become disgruntled or dissatisfied with the two party system. So we found a lot of room to grow, but the right has been able to peel off many working class voters, and a lot of it is by communicating by messaging in a way that really resonates with people.

Sometimes it means preying on people's fears or using social issues as wedge issues, To try and drive people apart, and that's a scary and dangerous thing, and what we need to do as a working families party, what Democrats need to do, what anybody who is in a pro democracy movement needs to do to fight back [01:37:00] against the right.

Is to be able to be in spaces with working people another quote from my director Mo Mitchell. If you're in a room, uh, where everyone agrees with you, you're not in a big enough room. So, how are we also getting into spaces and having conversations with working people and getting outside of our bubbles?

And how are we messaging and communicating in a way that really shows that we are fighting for working people? A lot of time, our messaging can be very wonky. It can be very tied up in One thing I was told when I was, got my start in communications was that Democrats will tell you a recipe, and Republicans will just give you a cupcake.

That's right. And it's something I think about all the time, and we need to be better about it. Baking a cupcake, presenting something that people can see and know what it is immediately. 

JACKSON THOMPSON: That's the follow up question that I had was one of the big [01:38:00] focuses of democratic messaging, particularly in this election, was the threat to democracy.

And then we have other overarching themes of climate change and these big problems that are big problems, but are they too big? Are they too big for the average voter that is more concerned, potentially, with putting food on their plate or paying rent or paying their bills? I 

RAVI MANGLA: think that's absolutely true.

And one thing we've found from polling and message testing around climate is that when we message it in a, in terms of the big picture, the kind of catastrophic impacts, it can actually be very paralyzed and could be very hard to act. And it could be very hard for people to know what to do. And when we message it in terms of, pollution in your community of, of heat waves.

I think about last year when the wildfires in Canada brought smoke into people's communities and they could see and feel the worsening impacts of climate in a very real [01:39:00] tangible way. We need to be messaging it in terms of things that people are interacting with every single day, and sometimes when we zoom out, it becomes very difficult to grasp onto.

So, I fully agree with you that for us, we want to always be messaging of terms, in terms of how is this impacting me on a day to day basis. And speaking in the kind of micro and not the macro of job reports or employment numbers or how many degrees Celsius the planet is warming, how do we actually connect it with people's lived experience?

RENE YOPER: That's something, Ravi, that deeply resonates with me and I always say, and Jackson, I'm sure you've heard me say this several times in class, I always say, so what? So what? There's, we talk about all of these big, grand, big things, and at the end of the day, what is the so what of it? What does it mean to me?

What does it mean for my family, for my community? And then ripple outwards. But if we cannot answer the simple, so what, [01:40:00] I feel like folks are lost. You'll be lost. So what? And then now what? What do I do with, now that I know the so what, now that I can answer the so what, now what do I do with that information?

Interesting. Jackson, do you want to ask any other questions or shall I bring us to a close? 

JACKSON THOMPSON: I guess the last thing that I want to ask is how do we make our voices heard? We at the Bard MBA are constantly talking about how to make business more sustainable, how to improve the world and people's lives through sustainable business.

We talk about big things like macroeconomics. We have facts and we have ammunition that we can use in this fight. To maybe disprove or downplay some of the rhetoric that's out there and that's just us and there are a lot of informed people out there. But how do we cut through the noise? Are there specific organizations we should get involved in?

Should we be doing our own podcast? There's so many people talking, but like, how [01:41:00] do we make our voices heard? 

RAVI MANGLA: That's a fantastic question and I think what you are doing by having a podcast, by being able to use your platform to talk about these ideas is. Fantastic. It is great, and it's what we need. I think people should join organizations.

Like, if we are all going off and doing things independently, we're never going to build the power that we need to be able to push back, to be able to create a, majority. So finding an organization that resonates with you, and I'm not telling you what that organization needs to be, but something where you can be in community with people who share your goals, share your values.

I think that's very important. And I also think that people do not often know how accessible their elected officials are. I won't say that every elected official is accessible, but you can call up your elected official and say, I'd like to set up a meeting with five of my friends. And grab a group of people [01:42:00] and be like, here are some of our concerns.

We're constituents, we live in your district, here's what's going on right now. And being able to tap into, bring your community into those spaces where decisions are being made. And, I, even though I work in the Working Families Party, we connect with elected officials in a professional capacity all the time, I still call up my congressional rep about what I am dissatisfied with or what I am happy with.

Usually every week, I will make a call to my rep's office, and I think it's also important not just telling them when they're wrong, but what you like. If you see them fighting for something that you really like, that you appreciate. I think that feedback is good and I know from working with government staffers that they are always collecting that information from constituents and passing it along.

That is not the be all end all, but is a very simple thing that people can do during their day [01:43:00] that does not take too much time or energy.

RENE YOPER: And so, speaking of recommendations, Ravi, what advice could you give to future policy makers, right? We're in the business of education over here at Bard, and so we're, we have policy graduate students and as well as business students.

So what advice would you give to future policy makers? 

RAVI MANGLA: My advice is think generations ahead. It becomes very easy to make decisions in the moment, to get caught up in the politics of the moment. And to do things because everybody else is doing them. And to think forward to the future and how my decisions now, how the policies I'm pushing now, are going to impact people five or ten years down the line.

I think that if we take a long sighted view of things, how it's going to affect the next generation and the generation beyond that, we would not be grappling with many of the problems that we are dealing with today. So my best advice is to take a long sighted view of things. 

Congressman Calls For Seoul Style Protest Against Trump Inauguration w- Rep. Mark Pocan

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Also curious your thoughts on, on what just happened in Seoul, [01:44:00] South Korea.

I, I'm gonna rant about this in the next hour. My take is that, um, Yoon, President Yoon, uh, declaring the state of emergency, and then failing, and now he's facing calls for his impeachment. Um, that the reason he failed is, Because in April, the Parliament was taken over by the opposition party, kind of their equivalent of the Democratic Party.

He's kind of their equivalent of the Republicans. And, um, so he didn't have the political power in Congress that he needs. Trump doesn't have that problem. And, uh, although he did run, you know, as a xenophobe and, and as a Basically a woman hater. I mean, you know, his, his, he's, he's referred to as South Korea as Donald Trump.

Um, he never really got the, the members of his party to come and, and, and bow down and kiss his ass the way that Donald Trump has this steady stream of people coming to Mar-a-Lago, um, you know, to, to, to get on their knees. And I'm, I'm, it [01:45:00] just seems like. Probably Donald Trump is taking the lesson from this that, you know, he needs to really solidify his power before he declares a state of emergency and starts, you know, having the military take over the promote your thoughts.

REP. MARK POCAN: Well, don't forget that he's been through this before, right? So he's learned some lessons from what he couldn't get some things done in the last presidency, which I think is a is one of the problems, right? He's more prepared. He's come out with all his cabinet picks much earlier. Now, granted, he's actually getting some resistance.

Which given how wild these pics are, you know, it's it's such should be expected, but you know, given how little people will speak out against Donald Trump within the Republican Party, it was a little surprising, but we need more of it. Um, but you know, they're going to have the ability to move some stuff.

Now, the good news, Tom, is I think now with the most recent member of the house Republican caucus being kind of grabbed for the administration or for other pics that he's They can't lose one member in the first [01:46:00] several months of the year on any bill or else they can't pass it if they're going to continue to operate the way they have, which is they have to have the votes to pass any legislation.

So a window of getting things done legislatively is going to be gone right in the beginning. And then by the second year, of his administration's election year. Usually people proceed a little differently because they can lose the party in charge often loses and fall. So at least the window is tightening for legislative action.

But you know, we know there's going to be executive orders and other agency actions that we're going to have to be able to respond to. So I'm still real nervous. Um, I think we all should be. I think we should be ready to buckle up. It's going to be a wild ride. But I think most important once everyone One is over the anger and the sadness of what happened at the election.

I want people to be ready to fight because we are going to have to have everyone organized. The inauguration day is also Martin Luther King day. What a better contrast. I think we need to highlight that. And I don't know of a national group organizing around this yet, Tom, but what a great day to organize in contrast to [01:47:00] the inauguration of Donald Trump to organize around the country around Martin Luther King jr.

Day. I, I just. I hope that something can happen around that front because we need people to be ready and active to try to stop his agenda. 

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Yeah, I'm with you. You say fight, what do you mean? 

REP. MARK POCAN: Um, to fight back on every single thing that they do. That's an overreach, you know, like right now, putting someone from Fox News head of defense was obviously ridiculous.

We may now be succeeding on that. Matt Gates was just a bad pick because of Republican internal politics. But this one actually, um, Pete Hegseth, I think is even more important. It's really important in that, um, it really is showing a really bad pick for an important position shouldn't happen, but we have Tulsi Gabbard and we have, uh, maybe RFK Jr.

and some others too that aren't the best picks, but he's going to do executive orders right away, and he's going to do things that are going to hurt people across the country, so we need to be able to stand and put pressure on our elected officials, uh, and, uh, and the media to, to really try to put [01:48:00] pressure on Donald Trump, so we've got lots of work to do.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Yeah, that's another statement. Uh, and, and, uh, as a member of the press, I'm, I'm very concerned about, uh, you know, they're, they're both him and Musk saying that they're coming after us, but we'll see how it shakes out. We'll see how it shakes out.

Biden Can Stop Trump's Political Prosecutions By Pardoning EVERYONE

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Last night I was on Dan Abrams show nine o'clock Eastern six o'clock Pacific time on News Nation. And in fact, we opened the show and it was a debate between me and this person, I'll just leave it at that, who was arguing that Democrats want to blow up the rule of law by pardoning the people who are in Trump's crosshairs.

And that will forever prevent any investigations of Joe Biden or anybody and his crime family, etcetera, which is nonsense. The simple reality is that Donald Trump is not a normal president. And won't be, has promised not to be, a normal president. If Mitt [01:49:00] Romney was about to be sworn into the White House, I would not be having this conversation with you. I would not have written this op ed for hartmanreport.com. And in fact, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Mitt Romney is an old fashioned Republican, the kind of guy who wants tax cuts for the billionaires, deregulation for companies, of course. Who thinks that social programs, is horrified by the fact that only about half of Americans earn enough money to pay taxes.

He's not concerned about how much they earn. He's concerned that, the lower income Americans don't have to pay taxes. And he does. But, he doesn't want to tear down the republic. He lost an election and gracefully said, I lost. Barack Obama's, second term is here. God bless him and I wish him well. And he showed up for the inauguration. Mitt Romney was a normal guy. Donald Trump is not Mitt Romney. 

Donald Trump has said that he wants General Mark Milley executed. He said he wants to see how [01:50:00] Liz Cheney would feel if guns were pointed, nine guns were pointed at her head, and if she was in front of a firing squad. He just on Sunday, said she should be in prison. As well as everybody else in the January 6th committee. Benny Thompson, the chairman of the January 6th committee, has come out and said, "Yeah, if he gives me a pardon, I'll take it." And I think that's true of everybody else on the committee. 

Now, giving everybody a preemptive pardon is not going to prevent investigations. Contrary to what my debating opponent last night on News Nation had to say it's not, in fact, I fully expect that both the House and Senate will be having investigative committees that will be looking into the crimes of Democrats during the Biden administration. It's going to be a crap show. It's going to be it's gonna be a circus. Of course, I mean, Republicans have to do this because they have nothing else. They don't want [01:51:00] us talking about what they're doing to Social Security. They don't want us talking about what they're doing to Medicare. They don't want us talking about how they're going to gut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and strip healthcare coverage away from millions of people.

They don't want us talking about how they're going to get rid of the banking regulators and dispose of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that has recovered some 20 billion dollars from financial institutions that have ripped off average Americans. They don't want us talking about any of that. They don't want us talking about ending net neutrality. With Brendan Carr now, as the starting in January, starting as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, they don't want us talking about the crimes that they're committing basically against democracy. What they do want us talking about is, Oh, my God, you mean during the Biden administration that happened?

And, of course, "that" will be spun as something just, way out of proportion from what it really is. And if you think I'm exaggerating, if [01:52:00] you think this is not a legitimate concern, that when, if you think that when Elon Musk says, my pronouns are prosecute Fauci, but he's just joking, if you think that there's no need for these preemptive pardons, then I refer you to Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was facing some 40 years in prison. And David Weiss, the inquisitor who had been appointed by Bill Barr and Donald Trump during his last term, and who Merrick Garland stupidly allowed to continue in his job after Joe Biden was inaugurated, David Weiss, was prosecuting him and they worked out a plea deal.

I mean, well, let me actually, I'll give you the details in just a second. But they worked out a plea deal where Hunter Biden didn't have to go to jail. He just had to admit that he screwed up, that he broke the [01:53:00] law. That he didn't pay his taxes and that he checked the box on form 7430 70C, the federal form that asks if you're a drug user when you want to buy a gun.

And here's what he was charged with. Millions of Americans every year, an estimated 20 million Americans actually, buy a gun and fill out the federal form and check the box saying I do not use illegal drugs when they are in fact using pot. And in obviously in many cases other drugs as well. But pot is the most common one, the 20 million Americans using pot because it's legal in so many states, or available everywhere. None of them have ever been prosecuted, one guy, well, with one exception, one guy was prosecuted for just for checking the box.

Now, about a hundred people a year get prosecuted for checking the box, as an added, as an addition to their sentence. But they are always being [01:54:00] prosecuted for things like running guns, or ghost guns, or whatever, for bigger crimes, and they're just looking for ways to keep them in jail longer. So they use the check the box thing. The one guy who was prosecuted for checking the box and checking the box alone, although this started with a drug bust, he was smoking pot in a state where it was illegal, it was in Louisiana. His name was Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr. And his case was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

So this is a non-crime, basically, that Hunter Biden was charged with. And yet David Weiss wanted him to go to jail charging him in a way that could, that could be the outcome. That was charge number one. Charge number two was that he didn't pay his taxes for two years. The federal government actually has a program where if you are an addict and you don't pay your taxes, you get a pass on going to prison if you pay your taxes in full and you pay the interest on the taxes that you owed, and it's a pretty high rate, and you pay [01:55:00] massive fines for having not paid your taxes. Hunter Biden did all of those things. The IRS recovers billions of dollars a year from people who didn't pay their taxes, and then when they got nailed by the IRS, they pay up, they pay the fines, they pay the interest. And everything is good. They have to plead guilty to having screwed up, but everything is good.

But David Weiss wanted to send Hunter Biden to prison for that, too. If they're going to go after Hunter Biden, who had nothing to do with politics, he was never elected to anything, he never crossed Donald Trump, he didn't investigate Donald Trump, he didn't prosecute Donald Trump, he wasn't Jack Smith, he wasn't Alvin Bragg, he wasn't Letitia James. If they're going to go after Hunter Biden, they'll go after all these other people. And so I am of the opinion that It would be a good thing if Joe Biden, President Biden were to preemptively issue blanket [01:56:00] pardons for all of these people who were involved with prosecuting Trump, investigating Trump, Bob Mueller, everybody on his team, the people at the FBI who raided Mar-a-Lago Jack Smith and his team, all the members of the January 6th committee, and anybody else. And the 50 or so people on Kash Patel's enemy list that he published in his book. Pardon them all.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in, I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now! Boom! Lawyered, The Real News Network, The Daily Blast, Citations Needed, The Impact Report, and The Thom Hartmann Program, further details are in the full show notes. 

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So, coming to from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name [01:58:00] is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to you twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.


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  • Jay Tomlinson
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