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

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

1:03Timothy Snyder warned about it as far back as 2016. It's just the iconic characteristic, the national emergency is the iconic characteristic behavior of dictators. So they're painfully unoriginal? Painfully unoriginal. This is what I always say. It's a pain by numbers fascism we're seeing. It's boring. It demands very little of those of us who give analysis. Our main question really, those of us who do the analysis here, is why does the mainstream media so frequently normalize what's going on? And why do they deny reality? That's the really puzzling question about the current moment in the recent past. The puzzling question is not what they are doing, because they are doing as as you said, completely unoriginal pain by numbers stuff.

2:04The puzzling question is why has the media so frantically hired normalizers promoted normalizers suppressed most people who are trying to point out the obvious? I think I have some ideas on that. And it's because when you start looking at the list of media, MAGA people have bought it. MAGA friendly oligarchs have purchased it. But it is somewhat comforting, Jason, when you said how dismissive you were about this national emergency. There's a comfort in that when I heard you say that. And how you're like, these guys are so painfully unoriginal. Because sometimes as you're as me myself and my viewers are out in the world, you hear these things and it scares you. Is that the intention of floating this stuff out there to scare the electorate to either make them descend in denialism or feel like they have absolutely no power? Is that the desired result to scare us? Well, I think that it's such a sort of clown show

3:08fascism that we're seeing that I don't think anyone, I think very few people like, ooh, national emergency. It's not like a nice dog fire. Maybe people in Germany were like, oh, the communists are trying to overthrow the government. But that's not the case here. I don't think they're, you know, they're fascism riff. What fascists do is they say the communists are about to take over. We have to declare a national emergency. So the communists don't take over than they label everyone who's against them a communist. So we're seeing exactly that. But it's so clownish and so obviously not believable. So yes, in the normal case, a national emergency is meant to create panic, calling for a national emergency. Trump did that special speech about China taking over our election system, you know, interfering with the election system. He had said that

4:12about Iran and Venezuela beforehand. So that's a standard line that he rolls out. You know, it's like whoever, whoever he wants you to direct your ira towards is someone who is taking out interfering in the elections. So this is, I think, Americans are kind of used to that this. What I'm most afraid of, what Timothy Snyder has drawn our attention to repeatedly, is the weakening of the security state to enable an actual genuine terrorist attack. So, you know, since the entire security state is dedicated to, I don't know, making flying people to golf courses or whatever Kashpatel is doing. Or just to absolutely sort of like investigating non-existent voter fraud and James Comey's sandriding, I don't know. It looks like our national security apparatus

5:19has been kind of deliberately weakened. And if they're genuinely war, a terrorist attack, for example, stemming from the fact that Trump has gone to war with Iran for no clear reason. So if there was a terrorist attack from that, that would be something that, you know, Snyder and others have said Trump is sort of quasi-planning slash hoping for. It's what Putin engineered his own terrorist attack in Moscow to get himself elected to power. So these are all standard moves. Okay, so Putin has done this. It's been reported that Benjamin Netanyahu sent many via Qatar to Hamas in the lead up to October 7 attacks. It's equally been reported that Egypt was saying, hey, they're going to attack. They're going to attack. They're going to attack. And Israel ignored this. And I'm old enough to remember at 9-11, when they did the 9-11 commission,

6:24that there was a memo that said been law and determined to attack in the United States. And so this is where it just gets mind blown because, you know, if you're raised in American, it's like your government is good. We are the beacon, you know, the lot shining city. I don't think it raised a block of American, you think that. I agree. I agree with you. 100%, 100%, but a white lady like me, I was raised, you know, Pledge of Legion every day in school. I, you know, I thought America was the best country in the world, et cetera. And then you find out that these leaders get in power, whether it's, you know, was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who I think, you know, committed war crimes. And we just let those, there was no accountability for that. And that's what incubated where we are now. And then you've got Putin that does this stuff. Benjamin Netanyahu clearly needs to be in jail. I mean, there's bribe being there's war crimes. There's all sorts of shit. He's doing all this shit to stay in power. And so this idea of some sort of terror attack is terrifying because right now, I think

7:33that Republicans know that a blue tsunami is coming and a Supreme Court's trying to, you know, mess with the mail-in ballots. And Donald Trump's, you know, still trying to prove that he won the 2020 election, which is so stupid. And they're going to resort to something like this because after attacks like this, there's always like this raw raw cis boom-baugh America. So let's talk about that and put that to the top of the news cycle and explain to us what, and I've seen these videos of your friend Timothy Snyder talking about this. So kind of dive into this a little deeper. So my listeners and viewers can be aware of these. It's a false flag operation. Is that what they're called? No, a false flag operation is what Putin did in Moscow when he sort of probably by some reports or many reports arranged an apartment bombing himself, landing it on Chetan terrorists. So that was

8:34that and I doubt that will happen here because for one thing, there's too much sort of clumsiness in this regime and with a would they successfully do a their own false flag? I mean, it would be found out within minutes. So I don't think I'm skeptical that will happen, but the, you know, Trump is extremely focused and has always been focused on this idea. He was focused on uh, uh, starting a war to win an election. He's far back is 2011, 2012. He said Obama was going to start a war with that right? Yes. Right. Four foreign elections. So to win the election. So he's very, very clear about all this very clear about the national emergency strategy. Uh, you know, with the China, the whole point of the special speech to the nation on China's supposed

9:36election interference, that that was that that was supposed to create the conditions for national emergency about the elections, right? I mean, we have to be extra safe about we're not extra safe, you know, we have to make sure to essentially control have federal control of the elections. In other words, get put the wolves in charge of the elections. Uh, so they will stop at nothing to steal the election. They will stop at nothing. Um, every tactic will be tried. Uh, I don't think they'll do a false flag terrorist operation. I do not think they will go that far. I think that would be very practically, it would be deeply, deeply immoral, but I mean, beyond immoral, but politically, uh, I don't think it would work at all. Uh, but I think, I think obviously they are awaiting to have it all. They have a whole system rolled out in case a terrorist attack happens

10:39before the midterms. Uh, the Supreme Court is, is, you know, this is, I think the biggest structural problem facing, uh, any kind of return to democracy in the United States. I mean, can't really be a return. Any kind of structure, democratic structure, emerging in the United States. Uh, any kind of rule of law, Supreme Court is nothing other than a tool of authoritarianism will be for decades. It's completely illegitimate. It's, you know, uh, majority of just the conservative justice is appointed by, you know, during Trump during, you know, I mean, uh, by presidents who are not popular only elected, uh, didn't have the power. I want to stop right there because I think this is a super important point that a lot of Americans need to understand is how much minority rule we have in the United States of America. And the Supreme Court is a prime example. Bush, uh, the dumb one, not HW, but W. George W. Didn't really win his first election. Uh, Al Gore won that election,

11:42but the Supreme Court lied and said that he did. And then he got some appointments, one of which being John Roberts. So you have a president that didn't win the popular vote that appointed John Roberts, all of Trump's appointees from Trump 1.0. He did not win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton beat him. So these are minority rule Supreme Court justices. And I think the democratic party needs to start coming out and campaigning against the Supreme Court. I think we need to remind Americans, because I think a lot of Americans don't realize that these, uh, justices were kind of snuck in the back door. This is not democracy. The Supreme Court is not a democratic institution furthermore. Jenny Roberts, the wife of Clarence, um, sorry, Jenny Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, she was a huge planner in January 6. Um, we all know famously that Alito's wife is a member of all

12:43various types of don't tread on me, militia type flags that she waves at their properties. But more troubling is these justices receive money from, from various entities that then appear in front of the Supreme Court. Then they favor in front of them. And I think instead of expanding the court is being one of the arguments, I think we have to say, you know, the Supreme Court needs to be completely reimagined. I mean, it cannot, you cannot have these life appointments. You cannot have these, uh, justices with no ethical oversight. And what planet do you get to have a job where you don't have a fucking boss? I mean, it's insane. And I haven't really heard democratic politicians talk about this. Everybody talks about it broadly. We're going to get Supreme Court picks. We're going to get Supreme Court picks or they're going to get Supreme Court picks. The Supreme Court is a completely illegitimate kangaroo court corrupt as I'll get out that is rubber stamping fascism

13:47and this criminal, these incompetent criminals in the White House. Yeah, nothing will happen unless something dramatic is done. Supreme Court reforms absolutely without a doubt. I mean, the Supreme Court is nothing, they're, they're, their prime function in the United States is to support allegarical rule and authoritarianism and target democracy whenever and wherever it can. They're there for the oligarchs. I don't think they're 100% there for Trump all the time. I think they're there for the oligarchs. And so they're there to crush to, to rule on the side of the billionaires, to rule on the side of the the oligarchical interests against democracy and freedom. And nothing will happen in the United States in terms of fundamental reform until this illegitimate and completely anti-democratic and corrupt Supreme Court until something is done about it. And it

14:51it links the minority rule point links also to the Senate like, you know, totally. The Wyoming has two senators and California, despite their massive difference in population. So of course, you know, the Senate putting, so the whole US system, the US system is structured in a way that is really problematic for democracy. But the Supreme Court is the most obvious example and you are 100% correct to that. Some, you know, the Democrats need to explain that clearly, and cogently, and explain that the billionaires lock, you know, their grip on our throats will will not begin to be released until the United States does something about its billionaire own Supreme Court. Okay. Now let's shift gears. For my listeners that are familiar with you, they know. But for any new listeners or viewers, because we grow a lot all the time, Jason was a

15:55professor at Yale. And then after Trump 2.0, he and Timothy Snyder, we've been talking about now, they're in Canada. And I have seen just whether it be a CEO, whether it be Jimmy Kimmel, whether it be, whomever, a law firm, a university, those that capitulate, Trump, he goes back to for more and more and more abuse. He sees a weakness and he goes back to abuse you more. But those who stand up to him, when they win in courts, because Trump's a coward, and he's incompetent, and he surrounded himself with the biggest bottom feeder losers imaginable that are, I mean, drunk on power and low on IQ. And I recently this week, the Canadian Doug, what's his name? Doug Ford. He, this, I love this guy, because this is the way you have to fight Donald Trump. Oh, you don't love him. I just like the clips that I've got. I can't Trump as he's libertarian pretty far right. Like, you know, so, so, you know, I mean,

17:01once removed by claims in Toronto for, you know, no, no, no, Doug, come on, man. But what do you think about his approach of calling Trump a loser? Let's play the clip number five, Kylie. There's a lot of people in the US that are calling me saying, way to go, keep going, you know, your own people, President Trump, don't even like you. And they're going to speak loud and clear when it comes to the midterms. And if I was allowed to, I'd be down there door knocking. Do you think an insult from him? Hurts me? Well, bring it on, buddy. I'm ready. Bring it on. You know something I've dealt with guys like you my whole life. And guess what? You all become losers because you're a loser. Okay. So my question about this, Jason, and it is kind of interesting that he is kind of, you know, mag-a-like Trumpish in his policies because I think the Democratic base right now could get behind somebody who believes in democracy, but fights, who stands up

18:01to Trump and fights like that because the Democratic Party has a job right now to build a giant tent. And it is, you're going to have progressive corporate, I mean, you're going to have corporate Democrats progressive people that like to live out far left as DSA. We all have to fit under the big tent. And so we have to have somebody, the most unifying thing that I see right now, somebody who wants to take it to mag-a and not be in the knee, not take private meetings, which Jared Kushner on affordability, which we all know Jared Kushner can give two shits about. What do you think about these countries that have stood up to Trump like Canada versus the countries that are, you know, somewhat cooperative and delusional about what Trump's goals are, like some European countries have been like, come on guys, stand up to this guy. Yeah, I think we have the, so first the situation with Canada, I mean, Trump has been so clearly a bent on subjugating Canada, either in a very similar rhetorical way to how Putin is with Ukraine,

19:06saying that it's not, you know, like either it'll be a colonial outpost or the 51st state, it doesn't really, it's not real, it doesn't really exist. So that brings Canadian conservatives against him and Canadian. So that brings a wide swath of a coalition. Right, a coalition. An anti-Trump coalition. Anti-Trump coalition. And there and what you're seeing, one has to sort of, and again, this is sort of, I think, discussion we just had with the Supreme Court, one has to think about what the, what the billionaire oligarchs are doing and what the Trump regime is doing. They're very linked, but they're not always the same thing. So, so, you know, and they're working together. So the billionaire oligarchs want to divide all the countries. They want to back separatist movements, they want to back ultranational, sent far right movements. Trump is doing that too. The Trump regime is doing that too. JD Vance is obviously Peter Teel's stewge, and so Peter Teel is going around

20:10in supporting the far right in Germany and that's the official Trump regime policy. So they're supporting all of these far right parties who say they are nationalists, but really these far right parties want to weaken their own nations to give more power to the oligarchical billionaire class. So it's a, it's a, you know, by breaking countries apart, they can't work together against mosque and Google, et cetera. So, so the, the, so it's a more complicated situation because you have that oligarchical thing going on with backing these separatist movements and far right parties, which the Trump regime is doing as well. Now, so it played, so these play into these complicated ways. This is, there's no simple way of explaining the international dynamics that are, that are not happening because you have these far right parties who are claiming

21:10like MAGA claims to be pro-national, but in fact, these far right parties like MAGA are betrayers of the nation, like MAGA is the most treasonous corrupt movement to anti-American movement that stands against all American ideals, you know, and it's meant to destroy the United States from inside. So, so you have these, so what we need to see is we need to see that these, these movements that are trying to get us to blame our problems on immigrants, to blame the problems caused by the oligarchs on, on, you know, immigrants, on liberals, on feminists, that they're just actually movements to destroy countries and weaken them before oligarchs. So, that I think is going to, that dynamic is going to last beyond Trump. So, so Trump, Trump himself, Trump is an effective tactic I found when in going,

22:11and I'm working, I'm working a lot of countries in the press and effective tactic is to point out that the far right party is just the Trump face of the nation, it's just, you know, working with Trump because Trump is very despised. So, so it, it, it, it's a complicated situation because these far right parties in different countries are saying we are the nationalists, we want to get the immigrants out, but in fact, they're just stewgees for Trump and mosque and teal. So, so it's, it's a complicated situation. You can use Trump's unpopularity internationally against, against the movements he supports, you can move, you use it strategically. Trump and America are wildly unpopular internationally. Pete, just Trump has turned America's brand into Trump, has turned the brand of, the brand of America is white supremacy. It's hatred and white

23:15supremacy, the international brand. When people think America, they think hatred, intolerance, ice, racism, corruption, and so people are, are furious against Americans. So, you see the far, Doug Ford, who's not far, who's pretty right wing, he's a Trumpist figure, a Trumpist figure in a country with universal healthcare, that nobody. So, so it's, it's, it's, it's, really, you know, it's popular to be, people are so angry at America, people are so angry at Americans, people are so, people dislike Trump internationally so much, that standing up to him is politically, is not just politically expedient. You can use it strategically within a country's politics, as I think the Prime Minister of Spain has done. Okay, let's talk about this in closing, because this is really important. So, you have these oligarchs, and we know from the Epstein files, we know that Jeffrey

24:19Epstein and Peter Till were celebrating Brexit. They were celebrating that victory and emails back and forth to each other. We know that Peter Till has said that he does not think democracy is compatible with modern society any longer, and that he wishes not to put his name on the ballot, but to buy politicians. We know he bought my opinion. He purchased JD Bans and installed him. Interestingly, the government of the United States gives Argentina $30 billion, and then Peter Till, a red reporting, he moved to Argentina. First, I thought, oh, he's scared, he's scared of the midterms, and I've since been reading that he's not. That's, that's an experiment for him, because he wants to set up this technologically run government. Correct. And I remember hearing as well, Elon Musk, they're one of his ketamine benders, and over the last couple of

25:20minutes, said something really interesting, and I wish the Democrats would play it more on attack ads, but he said, you won't need money in the future. Everything will be provided for you. So, in the one hand, you have the Republican Party saying, the Democrats are commies, they're commies, they're commies, but then you have Elon Musk basically saying, hey, we're about to deliver communism to you. So these oligarchs are using Donald Trump, Trojan Horse, usefully it, because he's so easy to manipulate. He has no principles. And they control pretty much, this is a Supreme Court, because I agree with you, the Supreme Court at the end of the day is going to deliver for billionaires over Trump, when those meld together. Is Trump, in his unpopularity, harming the oligarchs ambitions, like four years ago, they probably had a pretty good forecast globally, is Trump's incompetence as a wannabe dictator? Is that helpful for the push against all

26:24of this rising fascism around the world? I know that's a long question, but I really want to understand this, and what my viewers to understand this, because this is all about more than Trump. Things that are going to live on if Trump drops dead today, these evil forces are still here doing these things. Totally, Jennifer, thank you. That is the situation we really have to understand, that it's the billionaire oligarchs who are trying to destroy our children's future, who are trying to destroy humanity. The real great replacement theory is replacing us by artificial intelligence. They actually, the sort of background ideology is they want to de-center humans to create new superintelligence. We're not going to matter anymore. They literally want to destroy us. So they want us to die. They want us humans to die. And all of this, all of what we're seeing, is just a mechanism to distract and tear things down. So they can get rid of governments,

27:29get rid of any obstacle to their own power and their own desired future, which is destroying the world and the future. So that only they, only the winners, survive, and the rest of us can just go die. And then the real humans will be something like artificial intelligence. I think that's background deep. And so they're out to destroy governments. Trump is destroying the United States. They're backing far-right movements and separatist movements everywhere because they want to bring people, if what we need to do as a world to fight these oligarchs to preserve any semblance of a future is work together. We need to work together as humanity to defend common humanity, climate change against the threat of artificial intelligence against the depredations they want to visit upon us in the future. And we can only do that if we work together, which is

28:32why they're splitting us apart. And they want to back, they, everyone is recognizing. You can feel the climate change get worse and worse at a very rapid pace. Everyone is feeling this. And so they want to direct our attention away from the obvious causes of this, the billionaires, and towards immigrants, feminists, trans women. They want to direct our attention away. They just do this, you know, Lindsey Graham sister just ran again and again. Well, men and women go from women sports, men and women sports. They want to direct our attention away. As long as they can direct our attention away, we won't recognize what's going on. So yes, Elon Musk is a Nazi, but he would have he has to be a Nazi because if he didn't try to push the politics everywhere in the world that it's the non-white immigrants fall for ruining the world, we'd recognize that it was his fault. So that is the game plan to support parties that place the blame for what the billionaires are

29:34doing on scapegoats. That's that's the game plan and all these ultra-nationalist parties, MAGA in the United States, Aftay in in Jordan, alternative for Deutsche Land in Germany. These are all the local faces of the global elite, the Alicens, the mosques. That's the global elite and the global elite, Muteel, and they're promoting these ultra-nationalist racist parties in every country. And the ultra-nationalist and racist parties are saying, there's a global elite that we're protecting against a global elite. But in fact, those ultra-nationalist parties are the local faces of the global elite and their job is to direct our attention away from the fact that it's this allegarical, billionaire global elite that is trying to kill us, kill our children's future, destroy the planet, and replace us by artificial intelligence. So that's the structure of what's

30:40going on. It is not going to end with Trump at all. JD Vance is a much more effective purveyor of this global structure, of masking the role that the billionaire oligarchs have in destroying our future. Wow. I mean, this is something I think is just so important because it's so easy for all of us to think. You see these tweets or memes online. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to wear when it happens. That's all it says. That's all the tweet says. And everybody knows exactly what the tweet is supposed to mean. And you think, oh, okay, and pulsively, you want there to be a quick fix for this. But that you can tell by the all I was so alarmed in Trump 2.0 when immediately, immediately, all the oligarchs went in the knee. I couldn't believe it. They were all in the Tim Cook. A gay man was there. And that's when I was like, oh, shit, this is bad. This is really

31:44really. Ultimately, the identity of a billionaire, Alex Carp is black. Is black man black? He is. Yes. His mother's black as far as Jewish. Really? The guy that's always like looks coax up. Yeah. He's a black man. Now, but ultimately, these billionaires, their ultimate identity is billionaire. So once you're a billionaire, your Charles Barkley was once asked, why are you a Republican when you're black? And he said, I have 40 million dollars. I'm too rich to be a Democrat. So, you know, these are billionaires. And that's their premier identity. That's their identity. And no other identity is relevant for billionaires. And when they saw Trump do this, they said, okay, we have our own Putin here. We have our own autocrat. We know the game. He enriches us with state contracts.

32:46He cuts our taxes, gives us state contracts, does us favors. And we back him, he'll end democracy. And we know, well, it will end democracy together so that we can just run things. And they need to make sure democracy ends completely ends before it becomes clear that they are the ones who are destroying our future. Wow. Jason, this is such important. These are such important conversations. So thank you so much. My listeners always eat it up when you come on. We'll have you on again soon before the midterms. And of course, if there are any major developments with the national emergency and all of the other clown show type things, you were talking about that this man tries to do. I'm hopeful that his incompetence is a dictator in-zep saving us. That's that is the hope we have. And, you know, enough Americans realizing that this is the destruction of our country. Yeah, yeah, I agree. All right, Jason, it's always a pleasure.

33:46Thank you, Jennifer.