openpolitics.com

Joe Biden won the US presidential election with 306 electoral votes. But incumbent President Donald Trump has yet to concede, and the Republican Party seems to be at a crossroads after four years of Trumpism. What direction will the GOP take going forward?
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson offers a very bleak outlook into the GOP’s future. He says ‘the Republican party has sold out itself to Trump’ and what follows Trump will be more dangerous, because it will be more sophisticated.

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trump supporters rallying for him again
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they won’t accept that their president
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lost the elections
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and they’re determined to keep him as
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their leader
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around 73 million americans voted for
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trump
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making them a formidable force of force
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that also
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threatens to run out of control
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he loves america he loves america he
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does not quit on america
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and that’s why america will not quit on
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him
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i’d like trump to start a new party if
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he wanted to
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the republican party is changing real
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fast so we’re
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we’re gonna be represented by the
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soldiers the veterans uh the
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hard-working people of this country
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not by the corrupt politicians that sit
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up here and get fat on our money
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and steal everything from us
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there are many who want to take the
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republican party down a more
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moderate path to strengthen their case
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they talk about this man abraham lincoln
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he was the president who won the civil
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war and ended slavery
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and he was a republican he is the man
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anti-trump republicans turn to when they
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want to invoke
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reason and moral values into present day
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arguments
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the lincoln project is a political
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action committee
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set up by former republicans to prevent
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donald trump
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being re-elected i want to hear their
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thoughts on the future of the gop
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from rick wilson one of the co-founders
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how could donald trump happen
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well donald trump was not just about the
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republican party it was about american
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culture
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and this is a country that has become
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largely addicted to
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and mediated by reality television and
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so
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the man they saw on the apprentice for
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14 years
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on television looked competent smart
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steady brilliant negotiator great deal
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maker great businessman
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of course we all know in the real world
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that was never
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even close to donald trump’s actual
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character or who he really is
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as a person and a leader but that was
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something that
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between fox and reality television
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republican voters were insulated in this
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uh sphere of irreality of fantasy
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and so donald trump uh reached the
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republican
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presidential stage at a moment where
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where republican voters had become
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increasingly isolated from reality of
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any kind
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and had become increasingly addicted to
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the kind of defiant
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uh oppositional nature of
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fox news and of their own facebook
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groups and their own online
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communities and as those moments um
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you know evolved in the 2016 election
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it became harder and harder for actual
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republicans who had
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you know the ideological predicates of
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the past limited government
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personal responsibility you know strong
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international relations and good
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relationships with our allies
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all of those things were washed away
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because donald trump
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gave them entertainment and
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i mean you you are a former republican
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was there any sense
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how dangerous it could be letting him
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in well i was screaming about how
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dangerous he was since 2015
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and by the by the middle of his
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administration by around 2018
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there had been a massive schism in the
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party there were only two types of
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people left
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those who understood how dangerous he
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was and would speak
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and the vast majority who understood how
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dangerous he was and wouldn’t speak
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you know there’s there’s a secret here
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that most republicans the vast majority
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of the elected officials
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do not like donald trump they are not
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trumpists they are afraid of them
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but they don’t like him they don’t
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regard him or admire him
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now i will say that that doesn’t fix the
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problem
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because with donald trump there is never
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a limit to which he will press these
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folks as we saw this week in america
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where
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17 republican attorneys general in the
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states
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um went out and and pushed hard
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to to have the supreme court invalidate
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the 2020
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election now these people they’ve
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abandoned
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all of their you know former political
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and ideological predicates
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for trump uh and so what you’ve seen is
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a radical transformation of the gop
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into the trump party what what should
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the gop
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do with all these trump supporters i
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mean 73 million voted for him maybe not
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all trump supporters but
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you know i mean what should what should
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the
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the gop do luckily it’s not my problem
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anymore
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you know good riddance um but look
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they have to have a painful
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reconciliation with what they have done
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there has to be a look back at the way
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they have corrupted the party on trump’s
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behalf
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and until they do that i don’t think
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there’s a real solution
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going forward because he has been such a
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transformative figure
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the republican base vote the republican
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the ordinary republican voters there’s
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only one thing they hate more
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than a democrat and that’s a republican
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who hates donald trump
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and so they’re going to be driving the
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party further and further into the
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trumpet space which is authoritarian
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which is nationalist which is highly
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regimented around the obedience to the
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dear leader
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you know it has frightening historical
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precedence and what i worry about as a
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former republican and knowing the sort
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of character of the people still in the
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party
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i’m worried about the more competent
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smart
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presentable version of trump that’s
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going to come down the pike in a few
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years
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that to me is um
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an enormously concerning uh impact of
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trumpism
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what could come out of that asking as a
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german
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well yeah what could go wrong as i like
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to say
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um yeah those sort of things as i said
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there are a lot of historical precedents
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that are not good
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um and not just the german precedent
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there are many many other nations
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um that that have gone down this
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authoritarian statism
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uh and it always leads to an abuse of
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power it always
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at the minimum two abuses of power uh at
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the maximum to the worst case scenarios
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and and i’m afraid that trump has
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conditioned a generation of republicans
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to believe
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that if they don’t get their way that
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they don’t need to work within the
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constitution of the united states that
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they can go an extra constitutional
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extrajudicial extra political route
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which may involve violence
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which may involve the generation of of
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enormous risks
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for the future of one of the world’s
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longest running and
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most robust democracies rick um
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i talked to republicans i have the
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feeling that they are not understanding
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what is going on
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no a lot of them when you’re talking
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about reconciliation but
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from what i i mean experienced the last
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couple of days
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working on this piece i think that they
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don’t quite
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get it no they they don’t understand it
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and they don’t understand that that
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without donald trump
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as the figurehead of their party they’re
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going to lose a meaningful number of
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their own voters
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those voters have become members of a
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trumpist movement a faction
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if you will and that’s not going to go
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away
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his son will pick up the mantle when
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donald trump dies or his daughter
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or people that imitate him very closely
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uh will pick up that mantle and there’s
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nothing that can be done
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about that because the republican party
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has sold itself to trump
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there is no institutional republican
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party left to push back against trumpism
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what does that mean politically for the
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united states and for the rest of the
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world so to speak
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well it means that we have a that the
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emergence of a third party
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in the us is is upon us and that party
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is not
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an american party that party is
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dedicated to authoritarianism
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that party is dedicated to the worship
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of a single family
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um that party is is oppositional
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to anything that gets in their political
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way and that opposition manifests itself
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in ways that are not traditionally seen
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in the american political space
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look the american political space has
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long had a center left
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and a center right and and the the edges
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of both parties
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were not terribly influential and there
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was always a tug of war
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between those center left center right
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voices now
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we have a voice on the extreme right of
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trumpism
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which is um which is driven by again
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that oppositional defiance
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of traditional norms and values and laws
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it’s driven by a hatred of immigrants a
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hatred of
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various races it’s driven by a hatred of
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the elite the educated the experts um
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and that’s a recipe for a country
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that has a major political party that
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does not look like anything we’ve had in
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our history
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there’s never been a true large scale
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i mean we had you know george lincoln
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rockwell
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you know and then we had some of the and
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you had lindbergh in the bund
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back in the 30s that was growing into a
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political force
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but they never manifested at the level
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that the trumpest party is manifesting
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itself
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and that’s something that is that is
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concerning a lot of americans who
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believe
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regardless of their ideology whether
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they’re conservative or progressive or
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whether they’re
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moderate or they’re liberal it’s
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concerning a broad spectrum of americans
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to say
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you know this is a pathway that leads to
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a very bad outcome in this country
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and the concern is rising and it’s right
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to be it’s right to be rising
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and that’s why our group the lincoln
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project has stayed in this fight
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we we know that defeating donald trump
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was only the first step
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trumpism is a more dangerous and more
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pernicious movement
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than anyone could have accounted for
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even a couple years ago
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but it has this very powerful allies in
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the media it has a very powerful ally in
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facebook which allows
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all these these alt-right and
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proto-fascist and
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and and openly fascist groups like the
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proud boys
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to to organize and to use it as a
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bullhorn and to proselytize and
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and to propagandize the american people
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and so we’re seeing
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uh an enormous risk that what follows
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trump is is more dangerous
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because it’s more sophisticated than
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donald trump ever was
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last question rick um what should uh
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the western world learn from this
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example
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you know how dangerous is it when you go
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to bed with the devil as we say you know
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sure and get out of it so what what is
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your message kind of you know
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well look there is there is a clear
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message for for folks in europe
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uh especially because there is a rising
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uh tide of rescission from the
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democratic norms
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that define sort of the atlantic charter
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field and the the eu’s
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uh original mission that recision is
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happening
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all over europe i mean you have erdogan
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in turkey who
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is essentially a dictator um you have
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people
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um who are very alt-right who are who
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are trying to
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you know put on a suit and tie and it’s
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not just the clownish sort of le pen
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types it’s you know people who appear
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presentable who say some of the right
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things
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but who are part of this global
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alt-right movement this global
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this global rising tide will zombasha in
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in albania of all things there’s a guy
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who you know looks presentable he
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doesn’t come out you know wearing a an
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armband
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but the things he says and wants to do
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are enormously dangerous
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if you’re going to look at modern
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european democracies or modern or modern
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western democracies
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writ large and these risk factors have
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appeared in
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asia in south and central america in the
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united states obviously
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and across europe and that’s one of the
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reasons that again our group is fighting
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so hard
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to to in america now
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increasingly abroad to face these kind
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of challenges
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from this from this far right uh
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racially inflected movement
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that has grown i mean look if you look
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at the governments of albania and poland
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and hungary
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you are not looking at things that that
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that the post-war
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consensus would have recognized um as
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embracing the values that that we all
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believed
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shaped the western civilization in the
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in the years after world war
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ii and in the years after the collapse
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of the soviet union
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and so it’s enormously troubling it’s a
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fight that we’re in now and we’re going
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to be in for
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for apparently quite a long time are
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there any leaders in the republican
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party who could kind of take over again
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do you see any figures there may be
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leaders in the republican
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party but it’ll be a smaller party i
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mean look there are guys like mitt
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romney
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and adam kinzinger uh and and some of
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the folks in georgia
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who have said no the president not you
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know was not cheated
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um but that courage is
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is very rare few and far between
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i mean when you’ve only got uh 27
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members of congress in the republican
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side who have acknowledged that joe
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biden won the election
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you’ve got a much smaller party than you
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once had so
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as the conservative side splits the
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trumpist party will be
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two-thirds to five-eighths uh of
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of what was the gop and there’ll be a
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smaller romney sort of republican party
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and that’s not an effective um that’s
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not an effective political party at the
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national scale
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at that point that’s a disturbing
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outlook
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yeah i don’t sleep a lot so and did you
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see like
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how do you schedule how do you kind of
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see the next kind of two years or so
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evolve
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what’s going to happen well i think
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you’re going to see an awful lot of
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republicans
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trying to destroy joe biden’s
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administration very quickly
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they’re going to use legislative tactics
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in the senate particularly
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to deny joe biden the ability to do
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coveted relief
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or health care relief for our hospitals
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and doctors and nurses who have suffered
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so badly during the course of covet
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you’re going to see them block his
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appointments as much as they can
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so their idea is to train wreck
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joe biden’s administration the first two
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years
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so they can recapture the senate at the
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same time you’re going to see a whole
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crop
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of new trump-ist style candidates
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emerging tom cotton josh hawley marco
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rubio mike lee
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ted cruz they’re going to all be running
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for president in 2022
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and you’re going to have donald trump
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and his he’s on paper running for
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president
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but you’re also going to see his son
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preparing to run for president 2022
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so there will be a strong set of
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incentives to keep driving that
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authoritarian statism and and that that
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sort of new
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fascism message of trumpism in the next
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two years to four years
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because that is where the republican
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base has been transformed and that’s
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where those people will go and run to
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try to get their votes
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rick thank you very much i hope we can
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talk again in some
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i would love to that’d be great this is
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an ongoing conversation in the world
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absolutely i’d love to i’d love to see
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because this is kind of well this is
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what we experience as you said in many
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other countries as well
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so stay safe thank you very much you too
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great to talk to you on this i’ll talk
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to you soon