From Oligarchy to Autocracy: The Erosion of American Democracy with Thom Hartmann
The erosion of democratic ideals in America has reached a critical juncture, as articulated by Tom Hartman in his compelling new work, "The Last American: A Broken Man, A Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink." In this episode, we engage in a profound discourse about how the very machinery of democracy has been compromised, leading to a disturbing normalization of authoritarianism masquerading as populism. Hartman delineates the troubling trajectory that has unfolded since the Reagan era, culminating in a political landscape increasingly dominated by oligarchs and the pervasive influence of money. As we traverse this narrative, we confront the pressing question of whether this moment signifies the terminal decline of democratic governance or merely a stress test for its resilience. Join us as we unpack these critical themes and consider the potential pathways for rejuvenating a democracy that, while beleaguered, still possesses the capacity for renewal if we dare to confront the realities that have brought us to this precarious state.
The discussion unfolds with an exploration of the precarious state of American democracy, emphasizing the gradual erosion of its foundational principles, rather than an abrupt collapse. Tom Hartman's insightful commentary traces the trajectory from the moral compromises of the Reagan era to the current oligarchic tendencies that have infiltrated the political landscape. His latest literary work, 'The Last American,' serves not merely as a critique of Donald Trump, but as an examination of the systemic machinery that facilitated his rise to power. Hartman meticulously dissects the influential roles played by billionaires, propaganda networks, and overtaxed civic institutions, which collectively allowed a brand of authoritarianism masquerading as populism to flourish. He cogently argues that democracy has been insidiously privatized and commodified, rendering it a form of entertainment rather than a civic duty, thus necessitating an introspective recognition of what has transpired, if there is to be a path toward restoration.
Takeaways:
- The podcast illuminates the precarious state of American democracy, suggesting that the flickering spirit of democratic ideals may soon be extinguished.
- Tom Hartman asserts that the erosion of democratic values in the United States has roots tracing back to the Reagan era, culminating in the current oligarchic governance.
- Hartman's new book, 'The Last American,' explores not only the Trump presidency but the systemic machinery that rendered such a presidency inevitable and even expected.
- The discussion highlights the transformation of democracy into a performance of populism, driven by billionaires and propaganda, rather than genuine civic engagement.
- A critical point raised is the notion that America's democratic decline was a gradual process, rather than a sudden collapse, underscoring the need for systemic reform.
- Hartman emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the factors that have led to the current state of affairs in order to rebuild a more equitable and robust democratic system.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
There's a moment every democracy reaches when the institutions still stand, the elections still happen, but the spirit that animates them begins to flicker.
Speaker A:Tom Hartman has spent a lifetime tracing that erosion from the moral compromises of the Reagan years to the full blown oligarchy of today.
Speaker A:His new book, the Last American A Broken Man, A Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink, isn't just about Donald Trump.
Speaker A:It's about the machinery that made him inevitable.
Speaker A:The billionaires, the propaganda networks, the party structures, and the civic exhaustion that allowed authoritarianism to dress up as populism.
Speaker A:Hartman argues that democracy in America didn't collapse overnight.
Speaker A:It was privatized, hollowed out, and sold back to us as entertainment.
Speaker A:But he also insists it can be rebuilt if we are willing to name what broke it.
Speaker A:Tom Hartman joins us now, broadcaster, author of more than 40 books and one of the most enduring voices in American political media, to talk about how we got here and whether the title of his new book is Prophecy or Warning.
Speaker A:Welcome, Tom.
Speaker B:Hey, Oliver.
Speaker B:Or Taylor.
Speaker B:Excuse me.
Speaker A:It's okay, no worries.
Speaker A:I've been called Tracy, so with a name with Taylor Darcy, people will conflate the name and I end up being Tracy.
Speaker A:So there are worse things to have been called in life, in my opinion.
Speaker A:So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker A:I sincerely appreciate your time.
Speaker A:I wanted to start with not Trump himself, but the word last.
Speaker A:When you call him the last American president, are you warning that the office itself, the democratic idea of accountable power, may not survive what comes next?
Speaker A:Or is last your metaphor for the end of a certain kind of America we thought we knew?
Speaker B:Well, kind of both.
Speaker B: alking about running again in: Speaker B: He's passing out Trump: Speaker B:He could pull a Putin, you know, Putin.
Speaker B:The Russian Constitution limited the president to two terms.
Speaker B:And so for his third term, he had his vice president, Dmitry Medvedev run for president and Putin ran as vice president.
Speaker B: in: Speaker B:So I think all of that's kind of unlikely, really.
Speaker B:Arguably, what the, what the title references is, as you said, you know, the presidency itself being so distorted by the Trump time in the White House that we wouldn't recognize it as a normal American presidency as it goes forward.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think, you know, the, the value of acknowledging it.
Speaker A:I've talked about this to people and I said, you know, the Founding Fathers never envisioned that we would have quite the malignancy that that existed, you know, to one degree or another.
Speaker A:They had some honor, and they never thought that someone.
Speaker A:That we would have three branches of government that would all succumb to the dishonor that the current regime, you know, provides.
Speaker A:And so they didn't build this type of safeguards into the Constitution that would have anticipated that.
Speaker A:They anticipated checks and balances, rightfully so.
Speaker A:But what they didn't anticipate was when the checks and the balances were.
Speaker A:They basically, everybody agreed on not following those checks and balances.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I think that we have to face that and go, okay, is this the end, or is this a stress test?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What can we put in place going forward to help reduce the likeliness that this.
Speaker A:If we're able to get out of this, that it'll happen again.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, what can we do to prevent it from happening?
Speaker A:What constitutional amendments, just like we did during Reconstruction, that we can put into place that will allow us to prevent a Donald Trump from hurting the country after this?
Speaker A:I'm not suggesting I have any of those answers.
Speaker A:I'm simply saying we need to acknowledge that that's where we are.
Speaker A:You trace Trump's psychology back to his father, Fred Trump, and to Roy Cohen's mentorship.
Speaker A:Two of the men were definitely defined by their cruelty and control.
Speaker A:How did these formative relationships shape his view of power?
Speaker B:Well, his father, according to his niece, who's a licensed clinical psychologist, was a psychopath.
Speaker B:Psychopaths are people who do not experience the emotions of other people.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They basically think of themselves as the only real human being in the entire world, the only person who's genuinely capable of experiencing, you know, emotion, particularly emotions like love.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And so they view other people as objects to be moved around in the.
Speaker B:In the grand game of their lives.
Speaker B:And his father was also brutal toward Donald.
Speaker B:So here.
Speaker B:And his mother, who was a Scottish immigrant, the Trump men seem to like to marry immigrant women.
Speaker B:His mother, during the summers when he would come home from the military academy that his father had sent him to because he was unmanageable in school, his mother would leave the country, she'd go back to Scotland for the summer all alone.
Speaker B:And so basically, he grew up without a mother and with a father who was, you know, a brutal psychopath who drove his older brother to.
Speaker B:To basically commit suicide with alcohol in his 40s.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And so I think he ended up just a very, very badly damaged person, you know, with this giant empty spot in his soul and his heart, and that's why he's constantly seeking affirmation and approval and love.
Speaker B:It's why he has a cabinet meeting and he goes around the room and everybody has to tell him how wonderful he is.
Speaker B:And he has a meeting with a bunch of billionaires, you know, and business leaders, and they go around the room and everybody has to tell him how wonderful he is.
Speaker B:And, you know, when he sits down with world leaders, well, you know, he calls up Putin and Putin tells him how wonderful he is over and over and over again.
Speaker B:Putin's an old KGB officer, you know, intelligence officer.
Speaker B:He knows how to manipulate people.
Speaker B:And then he meets with Zelinsky, and Zelinsky wants to talk business and he's like, oh, you didn't tell me how wonderful I am.
Speaker B:You know, screw you.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:So, you know, we've got this very weird dynamic of this very damaged person in the White House who is not acting with the primary question being what's in the best interest of the nation, or what's in the best interest of the people of the nation or the long term interests of the nation, but rather, what's in it for me and how can I get more love and adoration and money.
Speaker B:Money has kind of filled the space throughout his life that normal people have with, you know, affection and love and family and trust and friendship.
Speaker B:And for Trump, he's not capable of those things.
Speaker B:Whatever humanity was in him when he was born, it was beaten out of him by his father.
Speaker B:And then Roy Cohn, who was another psychopath, who taught him how to be a high functioning psychopath, how to function.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of those out there, by the way.
Speaker B:Good psychological studies find that psychopaths appear among CEOs at about three times the rate of the normal population.
Speaker B:So, you know, it's possible to be a high functioning psychopath.
Speaker B:In fact, in fact, actually, most high functioning psychopaths are very, very charming.
Speaker B:They're, they're, they're able to get, you know, other people to do things because they've figured out, you know, that these chess pieces that you manipulate these other human beings, you know, here's how you get what you want out of them.
Speaker B:And so, you know, that he's running our country based on that.
Speaker B:And it's, it's just doing incredible damage to our niche.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, government was never meant to be run by a business person.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Business being for profit.
Speaker B:Well, they're different things.
Speaker A:Yeah, they very much are.
Speaker A:I teach business law at a community college down close to me.
Speaker A:And one of the things that I talk about is that, you know, the shareholder primacy rule, right?
Speaker A:That the profits above all.
Speaker A:And while that has value in capitalism, it doesn't have the same value in government where there should be considerations made for people.
Speaker A:The fact money should not be the main thing that driving.
Speaker A:And I talk about it in the context that everything comes back to money.
Speaker A:Government makes decisions based on money.
Speaker A:And I'm not saying it shouldn't be a factor, but it shouldn't be the sum all of all factors that go with, with decision making in government versus in business, that is the sole factor.
Speaker A:Businesses live and die by that.
Speaker A:And so you have to make something profitable, understandably, to guide and to produce well thought out, well products.
Speaker A:But when you have companies like Ford that make decisions based upon profit, where they would rather the Pinto kill hundreds of thousands of people rather than do the right thing and replace the Pinto part for $11, that's a bigger issue, right?
Speaker A:That's a bigger problem because now we're choosing money over life.
Speaker A:And I always bring it back to, you know, capitalism is fine as long as it's not toxic.
Speaker A:Toxic being hurting others for the pursuit of profits.
Speaker A:So do you see that authoritarianism in America more performative than ideological when it comes to Trump?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, let me respond to what you just said.
Speaker B:I think that when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in the, in the case where Horace Dodge was suing Henry Ford back in the day and ruled the, you know, that shareholder primacy should be job one, essentially, there's never been a federal rule into that effect.
Speaker B:And everybody just cites the Michigan Supreme Court case.
Speaker B:I think that that was wrongly decided, frankly.
Speaker B:And historically, companies have had multiple shareholders.
Speaker B:A company has an obligation to its stockholders, of course, but it also has an obligation to its employees.
Speaker B:It has an obligation to its customers, and it has an obligation to its community.
Speaker B:And those should be given equal weight, in my opinion, under law.
Speaker B: trying to bend the law in the: Speaker B:So government, on the other hand, has a singular mandate which is, you know, provide for the general welfare, you know, domestic tranquility and all that.
Speaker B:The stuff that's, you know, outlined in the Constitution, particularly in the preamble.
Speaker B:And government uses money to accomplish those in some cases, uses power to do other things, you know, but this whole idea that you need to run government like a business is just Literally insane.
Speaker B:I mean, it's just, you know, businesses are designed to produce products or services and generate profit out of that.
Speaker B:I mean, that's.
Speaker B:That's how you structure a business.
Speaker B:And government is not designed to produce products or services.
Speaker B:It's designed to serve people.
Speaker B:And the debate, I think, with regard to government really needs to be, where does the commons begin and end in the United States, We've decided.
Speaker B:And, you know, and the commons.
Speaker B:The commons is the stuff we all collectively own.
Speaker B:It's through our government.
Speaker B:That's why the early states were called commonwealths, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Virginia.
Speaker B:And it's the commonwealth.
Speaker B:It's the shared wealth of all the people.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And, you know, this is the stuff that conservatives derisively refer to as socialism.
Speaker B:So what we have a broad societal consensus about is that it's appropriate to have socialism with regard to our army, our military, that the government runs.
Speaker B:That even goes to the point of, you know, feeding and housing and clothing people, the soldiers, and providing medical services at no cost.
Speaker B:It's okay to have socialism with our police departments.
Speaker B:It's okay to have socialism with our fire departments.
Speaker B:It's okay to us, to a large extent, to have socialism, you know, with our public roads and stop signs and things like that that we enforce for public safety.
Speaker B:It's okay to have socialism to a certain extent with our public school system, but it's not okay to have socialism with regard to our colleges.
Speaker B:It's not okay to have socialism with regard to healthcare.
Speaker B:We stand alone among all the developed nations in the world in that regard.
Speaker B:The 34 OEC countries, the 34 richest countries in the world.
Speaker B:Out of those 34 countries, about a half million people every year go bankrupt because somebody in their family got sick.
Speaker B:100% of those bankruptcies are in the United states.
Speaker B:Among those 34 countries, there's about $2 trillion, $1.7 trillion in debt as a result of people wanting to go to college.
Speaker B:100% of that debt, or virtually 100% of that debt exists here in the United States.
Speaker B:So these are the debates that we really should be having if we're going to have a conversation about, you know, running government like a business and all that, all that sort of thing.
Speaker B:Now, to your question about authoritarianism, we have shifted over the last 44 years, really, since the Reagan Revolution, into a form of government, you know, from.
Speaker B:From basically a constitutionally limited, representative democratic republic into an oligarchy.
Speaker B:Oligarchy is where the wealthy basically run both the economy and the government.
Speaker B:And To a large extent, this was the result of a series of Supreme Court decisions.
Speaker B: The buckley decision in: Speaker B:These decisions ruled that money is speech and corporations are people.
Speaker B: e Citizens United decision in: Speaker B: McCutcheon in: Speaker B:And the consequence of these decisions has been that, like in business, money has become a primary driver of.
Speaker B:Of individual behavior.
Speaker B:The problem with oligarchy, and I think you can make a strong case that really since certainly since the Bush presidency, that virtually, but I would argue since the Reagan presidency, virtually every major decision that has been made has been made at the behest of big money, of either the morbidly rich or giant corporations.
Speaker B: f you look at the period from: Speaker B:I mean, we got Social Security, we got Medicare, we got Medicaid, we got food stamps, we got subsidized housing, we got public schools, we got basically free college education.
Speaker B: with the Morrill act back in: Speaker B:Since Reagan, I've been running a contest on my radio show for 23 years.
Speaker B:You can win the prize, which is an autographed book, if you can name one major piece of legislation that was proposed by Republicans, that was written by Republicans, that was passed by a Republican House and Senate and signed into law by a Republican president whose principal beneficiary is the average working person.
Speaker B:There literally isn't one.
Speaker B: None since: Speaker B: Prior to: Speaker B:Did we get the Wagner act, you know, the right to unionize?
Speaker B:We got the minimum wage laws, we got 90% top tax bracket, 60% top corporate tax bracket.
Speaker B:All of these things that benefited the average person.
Speaker B: that has been happening since: Speaker B:That's the classic characteristic of oligarchy.
Speaker B:And the problem with oligarchy is that it's a transitional form of government.
Speaker B:Oligarchy never lasts more than a couple of generations.
Speaker B:We're two generations now into this oligarchy and really one full generation into full blown oligarchy.
Speaker B:Particularly since Citizens united, it's been 15 years.
Speaker B:And the problem with oligarchy is that eventually the people look around and go, we're being screwed by these rich people.
Speaker B:We're not gonna take this crap anymore.
Speaker B:And they rise up.
Speaker B:And then at that point, the oligarchs have two choices.
Speaker B:They can go in one of two directions.
Speaker B: ey can either, as they did in: Speaker B: ing the game of politics from: Speaker B:Or they can say, no, we're not going to tolerate this uprising.
Speaker B:We're going to crush it with an iron fist, which is what the oligarchs in the Old south did.
Speaker B: When the south in the late: Speaker B:And then that oligarchy turned into what today you would call a fascist state.
Speaker B:And anybody who resisted the power of the hundred or couple hundred families, plantation families who owned the south, you know, white people were lynched for rebelling against them.
Speaker B:So it looks like Trump's inclination is to come down with the giant fist or the iron boot.
Speaker B:To quote Grover Cleveland's second Inaugural or second State of the Union address.
Speaker B:And he says, as we look at these trusts and combinations of great capital, we see an iron heel upon the neck of the average working person.
Speaker B: th century and is: Speaker B:It's really worth reading.
Speaker B:State of the Union Address.
Speaker B:So here we are.
Speaker B: n system like we had prior to: Speaker B:Those are the two directions you can go.
Speaker B:Hungary went into oligarchy and then became autocracy.
Speaker B:Russia went into oligarchy, then became autocracy.
Speaker B:Turkey.
Speaker B:The list goes on.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And about a quarter of the time that transition to autocracy happens in wealthy countries.
Speaker B:When they slide into oligarchy, about three quarters of the time, it doesn't.
Speaker B:The people push back and fight back.
Speaker B:And so far, that's been our history.
Speaker B:We've been through three cycles like this wonder in the Revolutionary era, one during the Civil War era, and one during the Republican Great Depression era.
Speaker B:And it's an open question right now whether we're going to end up with a strongman form of Government run by Trump and his lick spittles or whether the people are going to resist.
Speaker B:And to a large extent, the fate and future of that's going to depend on whether the Republican Party continues to cower before Donald Trump.
Speaker B:And I think that's why he pardoned George Santos the other day.
Speaker B:George Santos had committed financial crimes.
Speaker B:He was not convicted of all his lies.
Speaker B:He was convicted of actually stealing money from people.
Speaker B:He stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from people, and he was ordered to pay $350,000 back to people and also a $230,000 fine to the government.
Speaker B:And now Trump says he doesn't have to pay any of that.
Speaker B:This was Trump's way of saying to every Republican in office right now, if you stay with me, if you kiss my ass, if you do what I say, if you praise me to the ceiling and never stop, then nothing will stop me from making your life wonderful.
Speaker B:I'll even bail you out of jail after you've been convicted of a jury, by a jury of your peers, of major cr.
Speaker B:Felonies.
Speaker B:On the other hand, look at Jim Comey, former FBI director and lifelong Republican.
Speaker B:Even if you're a lifelong Republican, if you defy me, I will destroy you.
Speaker B:And that's the only thing that's holding together the Republican Party right now is fear and, and reward.
Speaker B:You know, it's a carrot stick thing, but the reward is power and money, and the, the fear is the loss of both and Donald Trump's vengeance.
Speaker B:So, you know, I don't know where we're going to go with this, but that's the great paradigm.
Speaker B:You know, those are.
Speaker B:That's the kind of binary choice.
Speaker B:I lay that out in the book.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think it's interesting, though, that had it not been for Comey, Trump probably wouldn't have gotten his first term.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a great irony.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:It truly is.
Speaker A:Because you look at it and you go, because Hillary, I believe, was well on her way to win that election.
Speaker A:And then he released the, the, you know, that final report 11 days before the election.
Speaker B:And, you know, she dropped three points in the polls that day.
Speaker A:She did.
Speaker A:She did.
Speaker A:I watched it and I was.
Speaker A:My, my words were, oh, shit.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, like, for lack of a better way of saying it, that was what it was.
Speaker A:Because how do you, how do you come back from that?
Speaker A:You don't.
Speaker A:There's no way that the, you know, unfortunately, what works for Trump does not work for anyone else.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, Trump would have risen three points in the polls.
Speaker A:If that would have been the reverse situation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But Hillary died three points in the polls that day for her.
Speaker A:And it's really interesting, this double standard media and a lot of people have Trump has said multiple times, of all the things he gets away with, they don't call him Teflon Don for nothing.
Speaker A:And it's really sad because he's one of the most deplorable, despicable people you could possibly imagine, yet he's given more free reign and latitude than anyone I've ever, ever heard of.
Speaker A:And it's like, what happened to morals, values?
Speaker A:I would never want my children to grow up thinking that Donald Trump was someone to aspire to.
Speaker A:And yet we have that in the Republican Party and maga, for the most part, thinking he's the best thing since sliced bread.
Speaker A:And you just have to shake your head and go, but how?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like the rest of us rational human beings.
Speaker B:I think he hates the same people they hate.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's a valid point.
Speaker A:That's a valid point.
Speaker A:He hates the things that they hate.
Speaker A:And he's all about the money, all about the power.
Speaker A:And that's what they respect.
Speaker A:They don't respect empathy, understanding, patience, any of the virtues that supposedly this was what John Fugelsang and I talked about, anything that Christ actually taught.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, they call themselves Christian, but they don't act it.
Speaker A:They don't show.
Speaker B:Not even close.
Speaker A:Not even the same ballpark of it.
Speaker A:You know, I guess part of this is that as we see that money rules in his world, you know, with the crypto scams and everything that's going.
Speaker A:I mean, he's the only president that's ever become richer by being president rather than poorer by being president.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Jimmy Carter almost went bankrupt being president.
Speaker A:And I mean, the rap that he got by.
Speaker A:It's just such a fit of irony that the Democrat lost.
Speaker A:And yet here we have Trump that is doing worse and is winning.
Speaker A:And you have to shake your head in disbelief and irony all at the same time.
Speaker A:Wanted to move on and talk about.
Speaker A:You've written that the United States has functioned as an oligarchy for generations, something we just talked about long before Trump.
Speaker A:What do you say is new about this iteration of oligarchic power?
Speaker B:It's that for the first time, the defiance of the law has become, you know, a feature rather than a bug.
Speaker B:You know, Nixon defied the law and got busted and got his hand slapped and had the good grace to resign office.
Speaker B:And several of his, I think about a dozen of his Senior officials, including his Attorney General and his.
Speaker B:And his attorney, you know, John Mitchell and John Dean went to prison, and Nixon could have gone to prison had Jerry Ford not pardoned him.
Speaker B:The crimes that Nixon committed are tiny compared to the crimes that Trump has committed.
Speaker B:Just right out in front of all of us, even in his first term.
Speaker B:And then, you know, stealing all those classified documents when he left.
Speaker B:And now you've got these.
Speaker B:The Epstein questions about when he ran the Miss Teen USA or he owned the Miss Teen USA pageant.
Speaker B:Was he using that as a device to funnel, you know, young girls to Jeffrey Epstein?
Speaker B:Is that what that was all about?
Speaker B:You know, is that why he's trying so desperately to cover up the Epstein files?
Speaker B:I mean, nobody knows, right?
Speaker B:Well, actually, probably Cash Patel and BM Bondi.
Speaker B:No, but, you know, they're not telling, so, you know, we'll see where this goes.
Speaker B:But I really think that that's the defining feature.
Speaker B:And to an extent, to a large extent, actually, John Roberts and five other right wing, bought off, paid off, well, bribed members of the United States Supreme Court have facilitated that by saying that Trump can commit any crime he wants.
Speaker B:I mean, to quote Sonia Sotomayor, he could order SEAL Team 6 to murder Joe Biden.
Speaker B:And they would do it, and they could do it, and he could not be held to account under any circumstances.
Speaker B:He would never suffer any penalty for it.
Speaker B:If he could do that, he could do pretty much anything.
Speaker B:He can tear down the East Wing of the White House, which is illegal, by the way.
Speaker B:He can steal money.
Speaker B:He can take a $2 billion bribe from the United Arab Emirates, where they gave that money to his two sons, and then give them hundreds of thousands of top secret chips that are never, ever supposed to go to China when the United Arab Emirates has a joint defense treaty with China and they share technology.
Speaker B:So, and those are just two of, you know, literally hundreds of examples.
Speaker B:He can violate the Hatch act, you know, and sell Teslas from the front of the White House.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:I mean, it's just insane.
Speaker B:The law breaking the naked criminality that Trump does.
Speaker B:And then, you know, anybody asks him about it, he just basically gives him the middle finger.
Speaker B:If it's a reporter, he tells them they're terrible reporters, or he refuses to even let their news agency ask him questions.
Speaker B:So that, I think is the defining characteristic of the Trump presidency is not just lawlessness.
Speaker B:We saw that in his first term.
Speaker B:But lawlessness that he is proud of, essentially.
Speaker B:And that his people, who are charged with administering the law, largely Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel are essentially co conspirators with, or at the very least, you know, turning their, Turning their eyes away.
Speaker B:And, you know, we, you could argue that we saw some of that with John Mitchell around Nixon, but other than that, this is new in American history.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Do you think there's any point at which Trump will be held accountable?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I suspect he will either die in office or when he retires, if he retires.
Speaker B:I, I don't expect him to.
Speaker B:That he will figure out ways, if nothing else, will pardon himself.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:You know, he, he's made a career of not being accountable for anything.
Speaker B:He's done this his entire life, basically.
Speaker B:He's always thought of himself as above the law.
Speaker B:See, you know, this is the thing about psychopaths.
Speaker B:They don't think that they're normal humans.
Speaker B:They think that they're superhumans.
Speaker B:They believe that their lack of empathy is their superpower.
Speaker B:And to a large extent, that's true.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:I was hoping that the Epstein files would put a bigger dent in MAGA than what.
Speaker A:Than what it had, because for the most part, they were coming out against it when they thought that only Democrats were in the files.
Speaker A:And then with Trump being who he is, and it's kind of obvious at this point he's there somehow some way, you know, that they would.
Speaker A:Now they're like, oh, no big deal.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like, and you have to evaluate that and go, so why was it important before if it's not important now?
Speaker A:And why are you so willing to sell your, you know, any modicum of integrity whatsoever for the sake of.
Speaker A:I mean, I thought that was something that as a, as a civilization, Right.
Speaker A:Like, I don't just mean, you know, politically.
Speaker A:I mean, as a civilization, we could come to agreement on that.
Speaker A:That is bad.
Speaker A:And yet we have a complete party that is like, nope, that's cool.
Speaker A:We don't mind at all that we have pedophiles in our government and in positions of power.
Speaker A:And yet that was what they were very much campaigning against.
Speaker A:That, I thought, was our bottom.
Speaker A:I thought that was our.
Speaker A:Okay, once we hit there, Mag is going to break and the fever's going to break, and eventually.
Speaker A:And it just keeps on being.
Speaker A:There's no bottom.
Speaker A:And it's rather sad because I thought people had more integrity and were better than that.
Speaker A:We're more decent.
Speaker A:That we could agree on that as a human race.
Speaker A:That and cannibalism, you would think would be areas.
Speaker A:But I don't know, maybe that's next.
Speaker A:Maybe they're accept that someday.
Speaker A: What do you think of Project: Speaker A: attention knew about Project: Speaker A:And yet people still were apologists and saying probably not.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like, and you're like, okay, except for the only thing that, that Trump is consistent with is, is lying.
Speaker A:That's his one thing.
Speaker A:He's consistent.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He claimed he didn't even know what it was.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And now he's bragging about it and.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:And that's the other part was, is that anything that's malignant he embraces with absolute impunity.
Speaker A: gnancy with impunity, Project: Speaker A:How do we deal with that?
Speaker A:How do we move forward?
Speaker A:How do we push beyond accepting that as a foregone conclusion that it's going to happen?
Speaker A: he way through all of Project: Speaker A:And we're what, 10 months in.
Speaker A:What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:And you know, that was arguably the beginning of this project to roll back the New Deal.
Speaker B:The consensus, you know, the thinking of these people was that the New Deal was socialism, that it was going to drive America toward communism, that we really shouldn't have unemployment insurance, you know, that that's a form of communism, that we shouldn't have the minimum wage.
Speaker B:It's a form of communism, you know, unions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:And so 54, I think, was the starting point.
Speaker B:Although in 51, Russell Kirk wrote his book the Conservative Mind, arguing that this needed to happen, that we needed to roll back the New Deal.
Speaker B:And that's still considered the bible of the modern conservative movement.
Speaker B:Then it picked up speed in 71 when Lewis Powell wrote his famous memo to his next door neighbor and best friend and the President of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Eugene Sindor, saying that basically, you know, Big business and wealthy individuals have been on the sidelines since FDR slapped him down in 33.
Speaker B:And it's time to get back in the game.
Speaker B:And we need to take over the courts, we need to take over the universities, we need to take over the media and create our own media.
Speaker B:We need to take over Congress, of course, you know, politically everywhere.
Speaker B:We need to control public opinion, we need to build think tanks, we need to have our own universities, et cetera.
Speaker B:And, and then the next year Richard Nixon put him on the Supreme Court.
Speaker B:And, and then in 78 he actually authored Lewis Powell, authored the First National bank vs. Bilotti decision, which was the one where they said not only is money speech for the purposes of the First Amendment, but that corporations are persons.
Speaker B: that had been said before in: Speaker B:I wrote a book about it called Unequal Protection.
Speaker B:But you know, that.
Speaker B:And that echoed through our history, but it had never been as emphatically stated and carved into law as it was with the Bellotti decision.
Speaker B:And that was when the real project began.
Speaker B:Out of that in the late 70s and early 80s came the heritage foundation, the Cato Institute, which was formerly the Charles Koch foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Speaker B:Every single state now has a State Policy Center, a giant think tank that produces local propaganda, you know, all funded by this network that arguably began with Fred Koch back in the 50s.
Speaker B: the New Deal that started in: Speaker B:We're more than halfway there.
Speaker B:We've gone from a third of us being unionized in 81 when Reagan came into office, to around 7% today to freeze the minimum wage.
Speaker B:It's still a $7.25 an hour in most former Confederate states, which is, you know, not even close to a living wage.
Speaker B:It was actually a living wage when FDR passed it back in 34 or 35 to destroy Medicare, to privatize Medicare.
Speaker B:That's the whole Medicare Advantage scam.
Speaker B:As an effort to privatize Medicare, to privatize Social Security.
Speaker B:That's up next on their agenda.
Speaker B:You know, to basically take all of these programs and undo them and turn them over to the so called free market, which really means just put them under oligarchy control.
Speaker B:And you know, I think it's important to note that the Roaring Twenties was a period of peak oligarchy in the United States.
Speaker B:F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about it in Great Gatsby, which is most people's understanding of that era.
Speaker B:And that's the world that they want to return us to.
Speaker B:You know, when women had no rights.
Speaker B:And they're fairly explicit about this.
Speaker B:You recall, you know, Charlie Kirk, you know, talking about how, you know, women should just basically shut up and, you know, just do their job in the kitchen, in the bedroom.
Speaker B:When minorities, racial minorities were secondary or the tertiary in the caste system of the United States, when great wealth was independent of authority, essentially, when it could rise above the law and defy the law.
Speaker B: And Project: Speaker B:And that's what they're doing.
Speaker B:And when you understand it in that context, it all makes sense.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's an important thing to note, is that this has been going on for years.
Speaker A: you know, yes, it was Project: Speaker A:What said.
Speaker A: You said like: Speaker A:I remember, correct.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:71 was the pal memo.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which is.
Speaker B: bly the foundation of Project: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So in.
Speaker A:In other words, and.
Speaker A:And part of what I want people to understand is that the decisions that we make today have to influence what's going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That we can't just show up to the party late and expect to be able to overcome these issues that.
Speaker A:That have been being implemented.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We can't codify things that need to be codified in an instant.
Speaker A:We need to get people into place that will make those decisions or that will help make those decisions in order to do that.
Speaker A:And that starts today.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: Like, that doesn't start in: Speaker A:I think there's a.
Speaker A:There's an unfortunate educational deficit it.
Speaker A:In the country where, oh, I just show up to the polls and I elect the person that I want.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And rather than thinking through it and going, okay, well, no, I need to make sure that the people that are in positions in school boards, in local elections are in positions to make good choices that we want to be made too now.
Speaker A:So that in seven years from now, eight years from now, 10, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, they're in positions to make choices that will help us move forward as a society as well.
Speaker A:Codifying roe, universal health care, all of these different types of things that the New Deal started.
Speaker A:But we need to keep going and keep pushing and making those happen for real.
Speaker A:Because otherwise, if you just Take it election by election.
Speaker A:We're always going to get whooped.
Speaker A:We're going to get trounced by the people, people that are planning and that are going to show up and do this stuff.
Speaker A:Now, that being said, certainly, I think the no Kings rally that just happened was certainly beneficial to our country in that the MAGA was kind of losing their minds over it and saying some really stupid things.
Speaker A:And then they came back and said, well, it was just a bunch of old people, old hippies and stuff.
Speaker A:So you go from once calling us some Hamas terrorists to it's a bunch of old white people and you look terribly inconsistent to anybody who's not maga.
Speaker A:And I think that that's a valid.
Speaker A:That we're moving in at least an oppositional right direction.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: ople that are Comparing us to: Speaker A:Or we've had the lone cowboy that would save the girl and ride off into the sunset.
Speaker A:And for better or for worse, and I'm not suggesting that's accurate.
Speaker A:I'm simply saying it's an acknowledgment that we've never really wanted to submit to authority since the foundations of the nation.
Speaker A:And that was where we've come from.
Speaker A:And I think that when we push it and say, okay, it's not the same thing as Germany because we've never been in the submission category.
Speaker A:We've always pushed back on things and we've always kind of been the rogue, you know, to one degree or another.
Speaker A:I mean, we're the only country in the entire world that's dropped a nuclear weapon on another country.
Speaker A:And if that doesn't say anything about us, I don't know what does.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Tom, your book is excellent.
Speaker A:I started reading it, I wasn't able to finish it, but are there any last minute thoughts that you have that you'd like to share about where we're at and where you hoped that we could be headed?
Speaker B:There was an old saying, if everyone lit one little candle, what a bright world this would be.
Speaker B:I think that each one of us has the ability to awaken at least one other person in our lives, whether it's a co worker, a family member, a friend, you know, somebody you meet at the grocery store in line.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:That'S the work that we have to be doing.
Speaker B:We have to be sharing this message of what's actually going on if we're going to see change happen in this country.
Speaker B:So, you know, Tag, you're it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's so important.
Speaker A:You know, that's actually one of the reasons why I started the podcast was because I felt like that my best use of my abilities is in these types of interviews and situations.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Bringing my voice to that, letting people know that there's someone standing up for them, that I'm not okay with the way that the immigrants are being treated.
Speaker A:I'm not okay with the way that the trans and the LGBTQ population is being treated.
Speaker A:I have an uncle who is gay, and this idea that he is somehow less of a citizen because of who's in office is not okay by me.
Speaker A:And so I want to be that ally for these people because I'm in a position, using my white privilege, if you will.
Speaker A:I'm in a position to help and to voice and let them know that they're not alone, that they're not.
Speaker A:That they have a friend.
Speaker A:They have someone who's willing to stand up and say, this isn't okay.
Speaker A:And even if I'm able to let one person know that there's hope, that not all.
Speaker A:Forgive me for saying not all white people are evil or that we all want to see them put in internment camps and concentration camps, that that's not who we are, and they're still good.
Speaker A:And so hopefully helping them get through the tough times that they're having to endure that while I didn't cause, that they still have to live through.
Speaker A:So thank you so much, Tom, for your time.
Speaker A:I sincerely appreciate it.
Speaker A:Where can people find you if they'd like to reach out to you?
Speaker B:My daily writings are@hartmanreport.com and the information about our radio and television program is over at Tom tv.
Speaker B:Thom tv.
Speaker B:And Harbin Report has two ends on Harbin, so those are the best places to find my stuff.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:And thank you, by the way, Taylor, for having me on your.
Speaker B:On your podcast.
Speaker B:It's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you.
Speaker A:You're very welcome.
Speaker A:I appreciate you coming.
Speaker A:Thank you.
