Molly-Jong Fast, host of The New Abnormal, is terrified that the Republicans are going to drag the United States into an authoritarian black hole. The party seems to be more Trumpian than ever, and if things keep trending the same way, there’ll be a lot more people in power like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert to add nails to the democratic coffin.
There is a way to stop that from happening, and for better or worse, it’s up to the Democrats, says guest Brian Klaas, author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us. But they have to be willing to step out of line and change the entire system—and not let the GOP take credit for their wins while doing it.
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“Democrats have been given power. They need to wield [it],” he says. “The idea of protecting some comparatively insignificant norm while letting the rest of democracy burn is totally antithetical to everything we understand about how to protect democratic institutions.” That, and the rest of us need to “beat the authoritarian party at the ballot box while you still have democracy.”
The alternative? More extreme people in office. In fact, it’s what Klaas’ book is about: examining why so many leaders are awful humans, with the rest of us at their mercy. It’s how we got people like Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Lauren Boebert making political decisions in the first place.
“The way you set up the system of power determines who ends up putting their hat in the ring for it,” he says. “When you have Trump as the figurehead for the party, the people who are thinking about [running for office] that are on the fence... they’re thinking they’re going to lose the primary. So they bow out. Whereas the Lauren Boeberts and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world, they’re full speed ahead.”
Speaking of the Republican Party’s most interesting figures, The Recount’s Slade Sohmer joins the podcast and roasts Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—and Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA)—real good.
“Kennedy is my favorite person in the Senate for the following reasons: This is a man who has three degrees. He went to Vanderbilt, he went to the University of Virginia, and then he went to the University of Oxford, and all he wants to be is this dumb folksy guy who constantly gets everything wrong,” says Sohmer.
Molly and Sohmer also discuss the one group whose opinion on critical race theory has been drowned out by suburban white women.
Plus! Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) leaves Molly speechless after he shares his experiences at war from his book They Called Us “Lucky”: “Once you’ve been as close to death as I have, and survived, there are very few things that scare you,” he says.
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