3552 - BLS Reports Slowing Economy, So Trump Fires the Chief; Resisting Authoritarianism w/ Daniel Hunter & Erica Chenoweth

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Episode: 3552 - BLS Reports Slowing Economy, So Trump Fires the Chief; Resisting Authoritarianism w/ Daniel Hunter & Erica Chenoweth
Release Date: August 4, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode and Guests

The Majority Report with Sam Seder kicks off Episode 3552 by addressing pressing political and economic issues. Hosted by Sam Seder, the episode features Daniel Hunter, author and co-founder of Choose Democracy, and Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works. They delve into the current threats to democracy and strategies to counter authoritarianism.

Notable Quote:
Sam Seder introduces the guests:

"It's exciting to have Daniel Hunter back on, joined by Erica Chenoweth, to discuss our closing window to defeat authoritarianism."
(00:12)

2. The Current Economic Situation

The episode opens with a discussion on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports indicating a slowing economy. Sam critiques the job numbers, highlighting discrepancies and potential manipulations.

Notable Quote:
Sam Seder on job revisions:

"Contract job loss is often a leading indicator of this. We're going to start feeling the implications of tariffs."
(05:00)

3. Trump’s Actions Against the BLS

Sam Seder discusses former President Donald Trump's decision to fire the head of the BLS in response to unfavorable job data. This move is portrayed as an attempt to manipulate economic statistics to his advantage.

Notable Quote:
Discussion on Trump's firing of the BLS chief:

"Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics head who gave him bad news. Now he's shopping for a crony."
(02:33)

4. Authoritarianism and Institutional Resistance

The conversation shifts to the broader theme of resisting authoritarianism. Daniel Hunter and Erica Chenoweth explore how Trump's administration is following a traditional authoritarian playbook, targeting institutions and consolidating power rapidly.

Notable Quote:
Daniel Hunter on Trump's authoritarian tactics:

"He's been following [the authoritarian playbook] very closely, making critics out of anybody who's speaking against him."
(27:29)

5. Collapse of Law Firms and Institutional Failures

A significant portion of the discussion highlights the collapse of prominent law firms like Paul Weiss, which capitulated under Trump's pressure by agreeing to pro bono services in exchange for avoiding retaliation.

Notable Quote:
Daniel Hunter on law firms' collapse:

"Law firms quickly folded, and Rachel Cohen's public resignation became a demarking moment for resistance within the legal community."
(48:45)

6. Surge in Protests and Civil Resistance Movements

Erica Chenoweth shares insights from the Crowd Counting Consortium, noting a dramatic increase in protests since the onset of Trump's second term. This surge indicates a growing appetite for grassroots resistance against authoritarian measures.

Notable Quote:
Erica Chenoweth on protest numbers:

"By the end of May of 2025, we've observed more than three times as many protests in the US as during the Women's March of 2017."
(45:46)

7. Strategies for Resistance and Non-Cooperation

The guests emphasize the importance of nonviolent resistance and non-cooperation as effective tools against authoritarianism. They discuss training programs designed to equip citizens with the skills needed to effectively resist oppressive measures.

Notable Quote:
Daniel Hunter on non-cooperation techniques:

"We've trained over a quarter of a million people in techniques of non-cooperation, from bureaucrats to regular folks."
(88:34)

8. The 3.5% Mobilization Rule

Erica Chenoweth introduces the "3.5% rule," a historical benchmark suggesting that mobilizing just 3.5% of the population can significantly challenge authoritarian regimes. Although it's a descriptive statistic, it offers hope that a measurable portion of the population can effect change.

Notable Quote:
Erica Chenoweth explaining the 3.5% rule:

"Between 1900 and 2006, movements that mobilized about 3.5% of their population tended not to fail if they aimed to oust dictatorships or attain independence."
(77:30)

9. The Role of Media and Information Ecosystem

Sam Seder and guests discuss how authoritarian regimes attempt to dominate the information ecosystem, suppressing dissenting voices and controlling narratives to weaken resistance movements.

Notable Quote:
Daniel Hunter on media suppression:

"There's been so little collective action against media suppression that it invites more bullying and extortionary methods from the administration."
(54:22)

10. Conclusion and Call to Action

The episode concludes with practical advice for listeners to engage in resistance efforts. Resources like Choose Democracy and Freedom Trainers are highlighted as platforms for organizing and learning non-cooperation techniques.

Notable Quote:
Sam Seder's call to action:

"Get involved. Learn these techniques. Share them with your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends."
(90:22)

Resources Mentioned

• Choose Democracy: choosedemocracy.us
• Freedom Trainers: freedomtrainers.net
• Cozy Earth Sponsorship: cozyearth.com
  Use code Majority Report for discounts.

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This episode of The Majority Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current economic challenges and the escalating threats to democracy under Trump's administration. Through expert insights and robust discussions, Sam Seder underscores the urgent need for collective resistance and proactive engagement to safeguard democratic institutions.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday, August 4th, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Daniel Hunter, author, activist and co founder of Choose Democracy and Erica Chenoweth, political scientist at Harvard, co author of why Civil Resistance Works on our closing window to defeat authoritarianism. Also on the program today, Texas Democrats stop a redistricting session in Texas by denying quorum. Having left the state, Governor Abbott threatens expulsion and prosecution. Donald Trump fires the Bureau of Labor Statistics head who gave him bad news. Now he's shopping for a crony. 550 Former Israeli security chiefs say Israel not waging a just war. This as Israel kills 66, 56 more overnight and its forced starvation engulfs the entire strip. Meanwhile, back home, Israel first Democrats are scrambling to reposition Trump claims to deploy nuclear subs in response to Russian online comments. Nancy Mace to run for South Carolina's governor Elon Musk reportedly now spending millions to support Republicans in the midterms and promote the big beautiful bill.

[Emma Vigeland]

I thought Trump was in the Epstein files. Why is he still supporting him?

[Sam Cedar]

I thought he didn't like the big beautiful bill. That's true. And the Venetian becomes the last casino on the Vegas strip to unionize. And lastly, Donald Trump reassesses or reverses, I should say on ivf insurance mandates. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us on Funday Monday. Funday Monday. I love how we still cling.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

To the vestiges of back in the days where Mondays were fun.

[Emma Vigeland]

All we have is our denial at this point.

[Sam Cedar]

There you go.

[Emma Vigeland]

Like a warm blanket.

[Sam Cedar]

Like a warm blanket. Lot to get to. Very excited to have Daniel Hunter back on. He'll be joined by Erica Chenoweth. Daniel, you'll recall was back was on this program. I feel like it was in January and met him through Joshua Kahn Russell who was a fave. Joshua has been out of country for a while.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

But fascinating stuff. And we will be talking to Daniel in a moment. Meanwhile, the jobs numbers came out. I know you discussed this on Friday.

[John]

Yep.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the revisions to the May and June numbers which might have even been more dramatic news.

[E]

Well, fake stats.

[Sam Cedar]

It gives a a picture of what is happening. And you should understand this is happening as supposedly we have now net migration. I don't know if that's exactly the case, but there are reports to that effect because we're deporting so many people. And not just, it's not just deporting the people, but people are afraid to go to work. Even people who ostensibly would not be deported are afraid to show up at work. And what happens if you've got a 25 person construction crew and 10 or 15 people aren't showing up? Your job site shuts down and nobody's looking to, you know, they're looking to hire people. But I don't know where all these Americans are hiding that they're not coming out and taking all these jobs.

[E]

They're living off of Medicaid and trips to the hospital.

[Sam Cedar]

They're just down in their basement know, playing video games. But we are watching the economy. Contract job loss is often a leading indicator of this. And we're going to start feeling the implications of tariffs. We have some good examples of some clips of people who are adamant I make my product in the US we are pro tariff and are finding out that you really need to be more specific with what you're pro. You might want to be pro specific tariffs, but not just tariffs, you know, wielded around like a baseball bat. We'll get to that. But the way that the BLS works is you have two different surveys that they use to estimate and put out an estimate estimated picture of jobs losses and gains. There's the household survey and then there's a second one that more business oriented in data household survey is literally just like, hey, how many people are working in your household?

[John]

Right?

[Sam Cedar]

They might lose their job. It's literally, you know, the way we know a survey. The other is a combination of both interviews with, with employers with data that's filed and none of that data comes in in just a 30 day period. That's a quick snapshot. That's why you get revisions. We've had multiple eras of massive revisions. 2009 where things change so dramatically because of the financial crisis. During COVID we saw this and the shock of the tariffs and what it did in terms of freezing businesses I think is what we're starting to see. Not necessarily the tariffs themselves, but just simply like we don't know what's going on here. I'm not hiring anybody.

[Emma Vigeland]

Liberation and they were hoping that Trump would chicken out. So basically they've just been kind of bracing themselves but they can't offset the pain that they're experiencing anymore, basically, or delay.

[Sam Cedar]

So here is Trump speaking as to why he fired the. The. The chief of the bls. And listen carefully to how this. He thinks information has been manipulated in the past on the monthly draft report going forward. Why should anyone trust the numbers?

[F]

Well, that's.

[Sam Cedar]

You're right. No, you're right. Why should anybody trust numbers? You go back to election, election day, look what happened two or three days before with massive wonderful job numbers, trying to get him elected, or her elected, trying to get whoever the hell was running. Because you go back and they came out with numbers that were very favorable to Kamala, Okay? They're trying to get him elected, trying to get her elected. And then on the 15th of November or thereabouts, they had an 8 or 9, 900,000 overstatement reductions right after the election. It didn't work because you know who won, John?

[John]

I won.

[Sam Cedar]

Your supporters have had issues with these numbers. Okay, so he's being asked. Everybody's expecting you're going to hire a crony who's just going to lie for you. How can we trust these numbers? And he goes back and he goes, you remember right before the election, Right before the election, they came out with great jobs numbers. And then right after they came out with revisions that said they were bad, except for this sunsetting, sundowning old man. Who was I running against? Whatever I was running against. He. They. This is a clip of that same sundowning man. When Was this?

[Emma Vigeland]

From November 1st. So this is after. These are when the October numbers were released prior to the election.

[Sam Cedar]

I was just going to ask. Because it's a clip of him campaigning.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Why would he be campaigning after the election?

[Emma Vigeland]

It would be weird. Be weird.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, so it was before the election.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, well, let's hear what he says. Whether we can trust these numbers four days before the election. They have among the worst numbers ever in history. Nobody's ever heard they did 12,000 jobs. Normally you're two 50, 300,000, 400,000. They did 12. Think of it, 12,000 jobs and it's hundreds of thousands of jobs less than it should be. Think. Because they're pathetic. They don't know any. These people don't know anything. She's a very low IQ person. We don't need a low IQ individual. We just had that for four years. We don't need this. He's talking about the jobs report that came out before the election and said that there was only 12,000 jobs that were added at that time.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

I do like the benchmark of you need 2, 3, 400,000 is a normal month for job gains.

[Emma Vigeland]

I also like how he completely misunderstood the question from that reporter who was saying, like, how in the future can we trust the numbers? If you put.

[Sam Cedar]

He understood.

[John]

No, I mean, I don't know, is.

[Emma Vigeland]

He sundowning or does he just like have a reflexive, lying reaction to all of this? I guess it's a fascist necessarily Matter.

[Sam Cedar]

It could be both.

[Emma Vigeland]

It could be both. But it's like amazing, this war on like this anti intellectualism that's just like also a huge part of him consolidating power. It's the same thing with the RFK junior Appointment and all of this anti science stuff there. It's like a war on methodology and data collection. Because the, the in the podcast space, like with Rogan, the anti intellectualism is a great brand because it makes people feel like, oh, these elites, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. And Trump has absorbed that kind of mentality into his political coalition.

[E]

This is the same tendency on the right that had like that called it Jewish science in Nazi Germany.

[Sam Cedar]

I will tell you, George W. Bush was wrote into the White House being anti intellectual and going after the sort of, the pointy heads. But, but Gertrude Himmelfarb, one of the early sort of like neoconservatives, was explicit that there should be attacks on science so that there was no objective reality. This has been a long term conservative project to attack science. And of course you don't even need to be a fundamentalist Christian to want to attack science as was happening during the Bush years. Because, you know, well, intelligent design and all of this. And now we're just, now we don't even discuss it now it's just like religious freedom to teach that in schools. But this has been a long term Republican project and it is now just sort of like at its apex, we have crossed some type of sort of critical mass into it. And here is Kevin Hastert.

[John]

Hassett.

[Sam Cedar]

Hassett, who was a big McCain economic adviser. And oh my, how he must be.

[Emma Vigeland]

One of the good Republicans then, right?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, exactly. He's not going to go honest maverick for Donald Trump.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Is the President prepared to fire anyone who reports data that he disagrees with?

[F]

No, absolutely not. The President wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable and if there are big changes and big.

[Sam Cedar]

Revisions, positive for one second. What does that mean? Is he saying that they're not reliable because they're not Trump people more transparent. So why wouldn't Trump fire anybody who gives him non Trump numbers? This is really. It's disgusting. This guy's a little bit young, I think, to basically tie his hitch to Donald Trump. Right.

[Emma Vigeland]

But supposed to be only boomers who have like five or 10 years left of life and they just want to get theirs.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Go back a little bit more.

[F]

His own people there. So that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable. And if there are big changes and big revisions, we expect more big revisions for the jobs data in September, for example. That we want to know why. We want people to explain it to me.

[John]

Us.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, but bottom line, were the numbers wrong? Do you have any hard evidence that you can present to the American public.

[John]

That these numbers, these revisions that were.

[Sam Cedar]

Reported and there were plenty of revisions under former President Biden, including right before the election. Do you have any hard evidence that these numbers were wrong?

[F]

Yeah, there is very hard evidence that we're looking at the biggest revision since 1968. Look at the number itself. That is the evidence.

[Sam Cedar]

But you're saying it's an outlier is not evidence.

[F]

It's a historically important outlier. It's something that's unprecedented. So unprecedented.

[Sam Cedar]

It's still.

[F]

I've been looking at it for 40 years and I'm like, it must be a typo.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, all right, let's. This is so despicable. First of all, she should have asked him before this. Like, are you saying you don't know where these revisions come from? Like, you don't know the process? Of course he does. And he's so disgustingly slippery.

[John]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, the evidence is the numbers big. And I'm surprised. I was really surprised about that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Is that all we need from him is just to be like, huh, that's peculiar. That's a big revision. Oh, I've had a thought. I guess that's the extent of, like, the allegation that these numbers are phony. Just that it's a little bit of a larger revision than is typical.

[Sam Cedar]

I've got another piece of evidence even true. Look at the look of my face.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[F]

Whoa.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm confused.

[John]

Good.

[Sam Cedar]

Bad vibes.

[E]

This on CNBC the next day.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, yeah, this was this morning.

[John]

Just the markets seem to believe the revisions in the numbers more than they believe the original numbers. That's why you saw bond yields tumble on Friday. Are you in agreement with that? Do you think we are starting to see a real slowdown in the jobs market?

[F]

Yeah, I think that the jobs numbers were slower than we expected. I think that like one of the explanations for revisions is they have more complete data. And so I think it is likely that the revisions are a better read of the data if the data are not being manipulated. And so yeah, I would say that it's a little bit weaker. But don't forget this is before the big beautiful bill is really kicking in. And so with our eyes on the horizon, we're highly optimistic about the future of this economy. We've got the beautiful bill, we've got expensive factories, got no taxes on tips, we've got incomes going up $10,000 for a typical family and we've got all that happening while the budget deficit is declining rapidly because of the.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, we don't need to hear any more of this. He goes on CNBC where he knows the audience there knows he can't say the evidence that this revision is wrong is that it's much bigger.

[F]

Look at it.

[Sam Cedar]

Like the dang thing, I, I'm surprised. So there's prima facie evidence that it's wrong.

[Emma Vigeland]

Why didn't the jobs numbers take into account that the big beautiful bill was just pass and they should have anticipated that there will be future jobs added and not even bothered with such a bad piece of data for Donald Trump.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, actually I've. Now that we've seen the data, I feel like I am on better ground to argue a hypothetical in the future that things are going to get better. So those. I was surprised that the backward looking revisions didn't include forward hypothetical ambitions and aspirations I have. That was very strange. I mean that's weird. But notice I can smile throughout the whole thing. That's his best attribute. I'm smiling throughout the whole thing like I was lying through my teeth on national television. But now they're on CNBC and there's only 4,000 people watching and they all know that I would be full of shit if I said I didn't know where this came from. I'm just going to.

[Emma Vigeland]

And they're terrified about spooking the markets.

[Sam Cedar]

Things are looking good.

[Emma Vigeland]

They're terrified about spooking the markets more. So he's saying it on CNBC because they want to stop the bleeding once again, which has been the entirety of like this whole tariff back and forth, forth, which is Trump sees the market respond poorly and then they try to cobble together some like backstop that still allows him to do the tariff thing, which is really about like getting concessions from other countries and companies as he Wants to shake down and try to reassure the money people that everything's going to be okay.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, there's a real quality from these people now that's like, you know, in those, like whatever in an action movie where the hero gets like impaled on a pipe and they're just like. We can't pull them off because then the blood will start to gush. But in the meantime, we can just sort of pretend everything's okay and put a bandage around it that has that quality.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's our economy.

[Sam Cedar]

The job numbers are looking really bad in the rear view mirror. But the superimposed screen that I have in front, the front view mirror looks great. The Trump screen in the future when all is well. Exactly.

[Emma Vigeland]

Trump TV see numbers going up.

[Sam Cedar]

We're gonna hire a new chief of BLS and we'll never ever see numbers like this again, I promise you.

[Emma Vigeland]

I gotta say I'm a little bit concerned that your analogy for our economy is a guy with a pale and guy being impaled.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean I think that it is very likely with the tariffs that are coming with the inflation and the job loss is like stagflation. We could start to see stagflation.

[F]

Yeah, I'm going to trust my friends in the government.

[Sam Cedar]

But you know, with that said, I'm not an economist.

[Emma Vigeland]

You're right.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm just someone who can read about what happens with those BLS numbers. So when am I going on Meet the Press folks? Why do I feel like I have so much energy? Oh, in a moment we're going to be talking to Daniel Hunter Chenoweth about the closing door. We have window, I should say on fighting authoritarianism. But before we do, why a little pep in my step because of course I've been getting a decent night's sleep now it's been a little bit cooler, but not that much cooler. But I haven't had to put my air conditioning on because A, it barely works and B, I've got my cozy earth sheets which are temperature regulating. Those cozy art sheets. I don't know how it works really. I don't understand. But you know how sometimes you get some sheets like it just captures all the heat. This. It seems to disperse it.

[Emma Vigeland]

I have the duvet.

[Sam Cedar]

Does.

[Emma Vigeland]

Does the same thing. Feels really good in both the winter and the summer.

[Sam Cedar]

I will say their clothing is also something I've been enjoying. T shirt. I got these everywhere pants because you could literally wear them everywhere. They're. They got stretch, they got. But they actually look neat and they feel almost like sweatpants. But of course I also have my joggers from Cozy Earth and I have my favorite sweatshirt hoodie from Cozy Earth. But they're sheets. They're made out of bamboo. They're temperature regulating. They're guaranteed to give you a comfortable night's sleep. They naturally wick away heat and moisture from your body, helping you sleep several degrees cooler. I guess that's just a function of bamboo and its properties. I don't know. It doesn't feel like bamboo. It feels like incredibly soft. I don't know how they do it. 100 night sleep trial. You can try them during the hottest nights of the year. If you're not in love, return them hassle free and believe me, it's going to get hotter again. But you will not want to return these 10 year warranty on all betting products. Thanks to Cozy Earth for sponsoring this episode and my good night's sleep. Go to cozyearth.com use our code majority report for 40% off the softest bedding, bath and apparel. I also have some Cozy Earth towels. Yes and if you get a post purchase survey, tell them you heard about Cozy Earth right here on the Majority Report. Built for life. Real life. Made to keep up with yours. Cozy Earth. Check it out. Put the link in the podcast and YouTube description coupon. Code Majority Report gets you 40% off. Also, one of the things about starting this business was that I didn't know how to do any business stuff and so I was intimidated and wanted to keep it as simple as possible. People were like please sell merch. I'm like no I can't. It's too hard. I don't want to deal with anything like that. Eventually we had to and it was incredibly easy. You know, when you're starting off with something new, it feels like your to do list is too long. You don't want the hassle. Well, there is an easy way to set up your online store and for millions of businesses that tool is Shopify.

[John]

Hello, Hello?

[Sam Cedar]

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[F]

It feels like years.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. In Trump years, it's feeling of all age by 20, but anticipating sort of like how bad the Trump administration could be along the sort of, I guess, the spectrum of democracy, authoritarianism and whatnot. Give us an update as to where, as to where you think we are from that moment.

[F]

Well, I'll say a couple of things, and I know Erica can add a few pieces here as context. But first, it's great to be on your show. Thank you. It's bad. I think we can level there pretty quickly, but I think the nature of it is interesting. So there's some pieces to track. So one is in terms of following the authoritarian playbook, Trump didn't write it. This is not new. Other other authoritarians around the globe have sort of written these playbooks about how these things work. He's been following it very closely, hewing very closely, making critics out of anybody who's sort of speaking against you and then, you know, being retaliatory against them, doing a lot of things that you do. You investigate your critics. You give license to lawbreaking you do regulatory retaliation, you deploy the military domest federal law enforcement overreach. All of these things that we've seen are in the playbook. Some things that are uncharacteristic or less characteristic. The speed is very fast, and that's by design. The speed has been very fast in order to keep people off kilter. I think the other piece to track just in terms of where we are at the moment has been the resistance has also been very different than his, than we've often done the US and we'll talk a little bit more that. But just that he's following a playbook. He's following the authoritarian playbook. They are. They're in operation. They're moving quickly on it. And what we're seeing right now is someone who's moving very quickly, very quickly to try to sort of consolidate their power.

[Sam Cedar]

Erica, when we say that he's following the playbook, is it that it's. The playbook is so instinctual for people who aspire to this type of power or, you know, or are. Is, you know, Russell Vogt and some of the other heritage people, do they have a conference where they get together and go like, this is the playbook. And so let's follow it. Like, how does that happen? I mean, you know, like being spiteful and firing the head of the bls. If you're Stephen Miller, you know, getting the Republicans to, you know, juice the ice and to have the military come in, you know, these seem to be like, they're just, you know, childhood aspirations versus like following a playbook. But what is it? Or does it even matter?

[John]

You know, I think there's been substantial learning between the first and second Trump administrations. If you think about where the country was at this point during Trump season one, there was a lot more, shall we say, bureaucratic or institutional resistance to what he was trying to implement. There'd been substantial judicial pushback, and there.

[Sam Cedar]

Was.

[John]

His administration abided by court rulings uniformly, including when it was inconvenient for things like the Muslim ban when it first came out. They actually withdrew it after all the protests because they recognized they didn't have a legal case for it. And they revised it, put it in again. It was struck down. They revised it a third time, and eventually a much more narrow version of it held in the courts. But they were responsive both to grassroots resistance and mobilization, judicial resistance to what they were doing constitutionally and to resistance within the GOP. So where we are now is that between Trump 1 and Trump 2, is that those different points of resistance have either been weakened substantially or eliminated in the early days of Trump Season 2, which is to say the first step was basically to try to purge all the bureaucratic resistance points. And that was like the opening salvo was to try to break down any resistance within the executive branch. Then there's breaking, you know, long standing efforts to break down, break down resistance within the GOP, kind of between Trump 1 and 2, and now it's his party. And then the third piece is basically not caring whether what is being done is legal, awaiting a challenge, pushing the law to its limits and forcing the judiciary to be at war with itself. Right. So if you look at some recent analyses by Adam Boneca, who's a political scientist at Stanford, he found that something like 94% of the lower court decisions were going against Trump's moves and 94% of SCOTUS is going for them. And so that is by definition a judiciary that is at war with itself and therefore cannot contain any of the sort of executive excesses that we're seeing play out. And like Daniel said, Trump is using time to his advantage by the sort of muzzle velocity approach. But with the courts, these things can't be resolved for years. Right. So the Overton window can sort of move even while the legal arguments are being sorted out and even if some of this stuff is ultimately struck down. So has he learned from other authoritarians? Maybe? I think some of the project 2025 people imported some ideas from Hungary and other recent cases of backsliding, but I think mostly he learned from his first term and is trying to eliminate those sources of resistance as they stand in the United States.

[Sam Cedar]

So what has been, let's talk about sort of like what has been different, Daniel, from, from that time where, you know, I mean, the last time you were on, you, you walked us through or explained to us the sort of game gaming out that you were involved with, with military, you know, former military personnel, you know, a wide range of people, a lot of whom you found yourself somewhat surprised to be sitting next to in a less than confrontational way. What is there? Has there been anything that the Trump administration has done outside of the speed, which of course, you know, like you say Project 2025, they were, they hit the ground running in a way that they, they could not have even if they had done two successive terms? I think like, they were extremely, they benefited extremely from that break, essentially. But aside from the speed, have they done anything that has been different than you had anticipated? But it all seems to have gone and maybe grade their various things because it feels like across the board they've gotten their wish list.

[F]

Well, a couple of things. So I think one, yes, the speed has been, I think another thing that's been different than I, than I anticipate at least has been the degree to which it's warfare in every direction. So as opposed to focusing on two or three institutions, it's really the, the, there's been a clarion call which is we're doing all warfare all the time with everybody. There is a downside to that which they're beginning to experience, which is when you do warfare all the time with everybod, you begin fracturing up your internal base. And so it's not possible to take on everybody. And MAGA isn't one coherent whole. It is a series of different bodies that are cobbled together. And that's true for any kind of regime like this. And so one of the things that's been surprising to me, and I think we haven't really remarked on how surprising this is, how volatile that team is and how splittable it's been. So Elon Musk is the classic example of this at the moment, which is Elon Musk and him had gone in bed together. They'd made a pact. They, they were always going to be somewhat unstable as to, you know, rich guys who are ego driven. But the Tesla takedown movement, everybody who's involved in, you know, not buying Teslas telling people not to showing up in protests, that entire organ, you know, that that entity of a movement was played its role in cleaving off a whole section of the MAGA energy and specifically Elon Musk, but also a lot of people that came with it. And so I think another piece of it, and I'm not trying to be positive just for the sake of being positive, but that it is a more there exposed vulnerabilities even in the midst of, as you said, I think quite accurately, even in the midst of achieving a huge amount of victories very quickly. And so I think both of those things being true next to each other has been interesting to unfold. The other piece that I didn't anticipate and people who've been studying authoritarians have told me that this is actually fairly common is the incompetence level. So I think just remembering Signal gate and this was the moment right where wars were being organized through signal chats, so it appears the amount of incompetence in the administration is consistent with regimes who have needed to hire for loyalty above competence.

[John]

Right.

[F]

And when you do that you have a level of ignorance about how the systems work that's very strong.

[Sam Cedar]

Your applicant pool is just smaller.

[F]

It's a smaller pool. And that a result of that is this administration needs everyone to constantly believe it's being very successful. So in areas where they haven't been able to be successful at moving things forward, they change the discourse right away, rather than focusing on or having us focus on areas where they haven't been as successful, where they haven't been able to move things forward the way they wanted to. And so it's true that they've been able to move fast, break a lot of things. Their interest in sort of surviving entities, that's not what they're trying to do. They're willing to just break a lot of things to get their way, but they're also moving in a way that is, again, led by such a level of competence that they've also been very unsuccessful at achieving a lot of things they want to achieve as well.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, Erica, then I guess my next question is, is then, what does this do for setting up the future of, like, the government that this new, one big, beautiful bill is supposed to create, which is this explosion of the ICE budget, which is the thing that I think a lot of folks here are so concerned about, because if we're seeing this authoritarian playbook play out and they're moving with such speed, they haven't even gotten all the tools that they need to implement their agenda or that they're going to get or not need, but that they're going to get, that we're about to see this mass hiring effort for ICE agents. They're offering these major bonuses and does. Is there anything in the history that shows that once you kind of create these cracks, that this gives, I don't know, rise and greater ease to these Gestapo tactics that we're seeing? Is that what you anticipate?

[John]

Yeah. You know, I think Daniel's right that incompetence comes along with hiring for loyalty. It's malign incompetence, though. And, you know, one of the areas in which we see that is through the explosion of the immigration enforcement as sort of the primary arm of government repression is what I would call it. And so, yeah, having a mass recruitment drive does mean that it will draw in kind of three different groups of people who are interested in participating. One is folks who are looking for a pay raise and who are maybe already in an adjacent industry and have already kind of gone through all the hoops of deciding whether that's where they want to spend their working career or not. And so it's pretty low barrier to entry for folks who are just looking for a pay raise. The second group is people who are actually true believers, like, they're animated by this call. They view it as a sacred duty to defend the country because they believe what Trump has said about immigrants and so are going to sign up for that reason. And then there's sort of a third group of people who are, you know, more like profiteers. So this is one step up from opportunists and people who are actually quite cynical in the way that they will personally benefit from or enrich themselves. And these would be the people who are sort of the people building these temporary camps at huge number, you know, costs that line their pockets, et cetera. And so, you know, I think it's useful to think about that people are coming in with different motivations and therefore have different levels of, shall we say, tolerance for what they're going to be asked to do or forced to do. And that provides lots of opportunities for fissures and for thinking through how, like, non cooperation with immigration enforcement might play out in the country. So I think there's. In the past, it is often the case that movements that win win because they're able to sow levels of either discontentment, even with just like the lack of professionalism or other things that people, you know, they join because they are seeking these different things. And if they feel like they don't get them, they're not going to stay. We've already seen some people who were hired rapidly to help guard the camp in Everglades, and they've left already. And they've even come to news journalists and described how terrible the conditions were and how it wasn't worth it. The mosquitoes are so bad. We get one spray a day or something like that. It was too hot and it wasn't near what I expected. And so I left after two weeks or something. So, you know, we're going to see more of that play out. And it's significant. Like, those things are. What's important is, as Daniel said, like, there will be attempts to cover it up. There'll be attempts to tell a different story about this sort of righteous cause. And so it's important for people to shine a light on the facts.

[Sam Cedar]

That's interesting. It hadn't occurred to me, but almost the more money they offer, the more opportunity there is for people to come in and be disillusioned because, you know, like, $50,000 bonus, you know, maybe what I'm reading about ice is not true, or I don't follow it on Instagram. And then I get there and it's like, whoa, this is. This is a crap show. Well, I'm curious also.

[F]

And then you won't get your bonus, Sam, because you won't stay for five years.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I mean, I'll have to. I'll. I may end up being. I mean, those will probably be the people who are going to be leaking information to the press. Right? I mean, those are. That's like the perfect, it seems to me, description of somebody who's there, disgruntled. They put, you know, they're banking on this. Maybe they left, you know, another job. As the economy gets worse, I would imagine there's going to be more of those people, but I also would imagine they're going to start to like, you know, it's steal a pencil type of thing. Right. Where you make yourself feel better at work, I guess. But, Erica, I'm curious, is there anything that surprises you about this? The incompetence, I have to tell you, doesn't surprise me because I saw that at Air America when we were working for a con man, everybody, it was all loyalty. And so people who are completely incompetent were moving up the ranks because their number one job was to protect the guy at the top. And that was the only thing that they were measured against. Was there anything else that has struck you about what has happened that was unsurprising as of, let's say, January?

[John]

Yeah, I mean, in January and February, I was surprised at how many. How little resistance there was from kind of prominent civil society institutions. So again, during Trump 1, we saw kind of the corporate sphere and, and big business and whatever kind of saying, this is excessive and we want to keep a stable economy, we don't want to break things or whatever. And this time, there seemed to be much less, in fact, the entirety of the tech sector, like Waltzingen, and sitting in the front row, in front of even all of the cabinet members was such a visual demonstration of what to expect. The other thing that surprised me, though, and I think it's important to mention, is that there was all this discourse about how little resistance was happening, but it seemed like people were conflating resistance from kind of important civic institutions with grassroots resistance. And in fact, there's been a huge amount of that, much more than what the sort of common discourse suggests. And so my team at the Crowd Counting Consortium has been documenting protests every single day since the Women's March of 2017. So we have a good sense over time about the trajectory here. And by the end of May of 2025, we'd observed more than three times as many protests in the US as it happened during. By May of 2017.

[Sam Cedar]

So in other words, fascinating, because you would not know that from the news, right?

[John]

That's right. Yeah. And some days in which we've seen, like, some of the largest single days of protest in US History, not. Not any of the largest single day protests in US History, as far as I know, but among the largest. Right. And we've had multiple of those already in the first six months. So I think this is significant because it surely demonstrates a huge appetite for a way to organize a collective response that is humane and small d democratic to what's going on and a population that has more skills also and had learned from the first administration also. And Daniel and Choose Democracy were a part of this running into the 2020 election. But there have been these massive trainings, like the 1 million rising training that Daniel and several of his colleagues have been involved in over the last couple of weeks, where there's just been, like, tens of thousands of people who are signing on to these trainings to understand how they can better use peaceful resistance and nonviolent resistance to interrupt the consolidation of authoritarianism in the United States. And so I'm not exactly surprised, but what surprises me is how little people are talking about that and this sort of historic moment in which we are now situated.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, yeah, I.

[Sam Cedar]

Just along those lines, in terms of the institutions, I think we're both a little bit. Both Emma and I are both a little. What would it be? Lawyer. Lawyer. Centric. Because of our relative upbringings. I was really shocked. I mean, you know, like, we've seen it in the educational sphere. Some schools have been much more reluctant, you know, heavy hitters. But like, Columbia collapsed like a house of cards. And law firms, some of the bigger law firms in New York City collapsed very quickly. There was one or two others that then sort of. And that feels like it's turned a little bit. Although those deals still happen with those lawyers. What are the implications of that? Both in terms of, like, the educational institutions, but also the legal one has both, like sort of the optics quality, like, it sends a signal to everybody, but it also has a real sort of material quality. You know, all of a sudden, this administration full of incompetence, has, like, some of the best lawyers in the country to, I guess, deport people. What are the implications of that particular institution being having capitulated to the extent that it did.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

So let's.

[F]

Yeah, let me walk that through. So for folks who weren't tracking all these different law firms initially, there was like a number of different law firms who, as you said, began negotiating with Trump to basically say, in a way, to avoid a whole host of sort of retribution that Trump was listing, they said, we'll make a deal with you. And so they would agree to what? I think Paul Weiss agreed to $40 million worth of pro bono services and also to end their DEI programs internally and maybe a couple of other things. And as far as we know, this isn't necessarily written down. The question is still very. Live in the law community, in the legal community of what do these pro bonos, what's offered. It's not a open book where Trump can just call him up and make them do whatever. But it says where we're both, we both agree these are shared values. So I think the specifics aren't entirely known, but I also think we learn a little bit about the nature of resistance in this period of time, which is a number of law firms fairly quickly folded and painfully so. And so Paul Weiss, which is one of those who folded, there's a woman named Rachel Cohen who very publicly quit. Yeah. And so she was very clear and very articulate about why this shouldn't happen, what was wrong about this, and did the organizing job that someone does, which is you organize 300 people to sign within the legal community saying, we're not going to stand for this. And so she became actually a demarking moment in which afterwards it became much more challenging for other law firms. And in fact, there are very few law firms who capitulated after that point. And so essentially what we saw was the organizing within a community to then say, actually we're going to have a backbone. They hadn't had to practice with this. They hadn't. They were responding to what looked like quick, maybe end of their entire careers, et cetera, moves by Trump. And they developed their backbone, that principle, her act of not. I mean, she quit in a blaze of condemnation. Her act was a staunch. It was a way to heal the sort of wounds that had happened in terms of preventing the domino effect of capitulation and that practice of non cooperation, not complying. We're seeing in lots of fields now where other people who are participating. And so we could just walk around. So you talked about education. So Sarah Enama, who is a woman who was told that she had to take down a post that said, was it that everyone is welcome that she had to take down a post that said everyone is welcome because of the new DEI principles. And so she's in Idaho and she said, no, I'm not going to do it. She would refuse to comply. And so in response, she again organized her community. And so community members began wearing T shirts that says everyone is welcome. They distributed 20,000 on one day. They then began students chalked everyone is welcome outside the school. And so they were reasserting their value. And so we're out of practice. This country has not had to defend its these kinds of values in this kind of way in some time. And so there are sets of the communities who have not been involved in any kind of protest or organizing or action. And they're not necessarily going to go into the streets, as Erica pointed out, but they are going to be involved in other kinds of non compliance and non cooperation. And that's what we're seeing. And so the timepiece, the reason that they have to keep us moving very quickly as the Trump administration is because they want us to be in constant response mode. So we're not in a way that we can talk to our neighbors, to our colleagues, to our friends about how do we resist this thing. Because when we get a little bit of space and time, there is is in this country enough value held that we can say no, everyone is welcome and we can say no, we're not going to accept these. Go ahead, Emma.

[Emma Vigeland]

This is no, it's an important example. Right. But here's my cynical take on it is like, you know, she was a Harvard graduate at Scadden and that story broke through in part because I think that you had a lot of law firms that. But it's not in there. They didn't want to capitulate in many ways. And there's a lot of wealthy people that work at those firms. And so that story maybe had more got elevated by the press or the mainstream media in the way that say these mass protests aren't or you know, I will have cable news on in the background. Donald Trump's approval rating is I think the second lowest that it's been recorded in terms of the average. But you would not know it if you're listening to the main like news shows at night. It's not necessarily this major focus. So what is the challenge? I guess, Erica, I'll ask this to view when there isn't some level of money behind feels like right now our corporate media institutions are still shying away from the most poignant critiques of the administration or just the facts that would show how unpopular and how that would create conditions for mass mobilization if there was more understanding of how vulnerable they could be. With this lack of popularity, there's still this chilling effect that I think I'm a little bit more skeptical that it's going to break here right now.

[John]

I think that's. You're onto something, Emma. But I'd also say, you know, this is another part of the authoritarian playbook which is to say, dominate the information ecosystem. So we've seen similar behaviors by the administration toward the media as we saw, you know, toward law and these other sectors that you talked about, which is, you know, very early on the AP was going to be banned for, you know, refusing to call it the Gulf of America. From that, from the White House press pool. This would be an opportunity for collective action. Right. By the other, by the other members of the Correspondent. And we didn't see it. Right. And so, like, I think that's the issue is that there's been so little collective action at points when it was really meaningful that it sort of like, invites more bullying and more extortionary methods. And so what we can expect to see when there isn't effective collective action is an escalation by the administration against the whole sector and one by one, as well as everyone at once. And so I just think that this is just something to know. I mean, I sort of, in my mind, I kind of think about is there a pithy way to describe the mental framework or the mental model that could be useful for people when they are in the midst of this type of territory? And I think, I think maybe one of them is when something like that happens. Think autocracy. That's a good descriptor of. It's one of the behaviors that defines an autocratic government. But act democracy, which is to say, don't act in a way that would suggest we still live in a country in which you can expect and demand the rule of law to apply. And the reason is that if people just cave and they allow the extortion, they allow the bullying to result in concessions and accommodations and other things, we just. That's not democracy. That's not how it works. And so people need to still work democracy and push back in that way. Otherwise, you know, it's sort of like your First Amendment rights. Like, if you don't defend them, you lose them.

[Sam Cedar]

So, I mean, on some level, like the autocracies, you know, it's got that. That shark thing where it has to keep moving, has to Keep consuming people's rights to. It doesn't have the ability to say like, okay, we're good here. It has to constantly. So capitulating is only just going to open the door to more of this with. And I just want to note too, what I also found fascinating on the, on the law firm thing was that clients started abandoning Paul Weiss, which I thought was huge. And so like, let's talk about the sort of the knock on effects like within like these silos, right? Like at one point, I think the idea is that like we need to cross these sort of sectors and there needs to be some solidarity across sectors. But first everybody's got to sort of like establish some leadership within the different sectors. So if there's an opportunity theoretically, I guess to sort of like, you know, bring these things together. But, but talk about the dynamic. Erica and Daniel, I'd like both of your opinions on this of like sort of the knock on effect. Like, I'm not a huge south park fan. I remember their perspective on the Iraq war. I'm that old. But I felt like, but I, but I will say that my 12 year old really enjoyed seeing Donald Trump's talking penis. And also the idea of like them saying F you to Paramount, them saying F you to everybody there who, you know, we don't know what kind of risk there is associated with them. I mean, maybe they could lose their $1.5 billion contract. Maybe it was never that. Who knows what. What is the sort of the sociology behind that? Like the knock on effect of just watching somebody do that?

[F]

Well, I'll just take the psychology aspect of it, which is there are two different stories constantly in competition right now. One story is the story that Trump wants to tell, which is I am dominating. And so that's one story. A second story is the story of people who are being courageous and saying, we are organizing and able to push back. Those things are going to be in competition to each other. Right. And so one aspect of just the psychology piece is every time people are courageous and are able to get their voices out there. And Emma, your point that like, you know, Rachel, being well known for a number of reasons is great. But there are many thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people who are now taking risks with their careers and how they're operating in the street. There are lots of people taking risks. And one way that we can very quickly hurt our own cause is to push down those stories and say that's not enough. The alternative is for us to encourage and to uplift those stories as acts of courage, that we want more of that kind of behavior. So that's an easy thing that we can do without a huge amount of risk, even of ourselves, but is our choice of which stories we are telling. And so that continues to be why I tell just another story. Elizabeth Costello, who is a mother of five, lives in Pasadena just outside of la. She saw six people who are being seized by ICE at a donut shop. And she said, absolutely not. And so she just began pulling out a megaphone and walking outside her neighborhood just telling people when ICE was coming. And that became part of what became a structure within her apartment and neighborhood of alerting people to when ICE was coming in. These are acts of courage that individuals are setting up. And our choice about how we tell those stories, how we uplift those stories, is very important for making it possible for us to shift the authoritarian system that we're underneath because it emboldens other.

[Sam Cedar]

People, because it brings their whatever context they're in.

[F]

Yeah. So we have to actively work on protecting our own courage because again, the, the, the way we can assist Trump if we want to assist him, is by dismissing those stories. Those are very important for us to hold on to as parts of acts of courage. Take the next piece of that. Erika.

[John]

Yeah, I would just say when we think about really important moments in social movement history of the United States and campaigns that were waged that ultimately changed systems, even a lot of them didn't start out with some kind of well formulated strategic plan that was going to apply nationally or whatever. It was through people experimenting locally where they lived with different techniques of non cooperation. And then the ones that were worked started to be replicated elsewhere. And so when you said like knock on effects, Sam, what I was thinking about was the sort of demonstration effects of a powerful intervention by a community that then is picked up and used elsewhere to even more powerful effect. And the Woolworths lunch counter sit ins that started in February of 1960, where four black students went in and sat down in a place that explicitly did not serve black students in North Carolina at a lunch counter and refused to leave till it closed even though they were threatened with arrest, resulted in within four days, 300 people coming and joining them at that lunch counter. And many of them were ultimately arrested for disorderly conduct and other kind of manufactured crimes. And then within two months, lunch counter sit ins were happening in over 50 cities and towns and 13 states, including in Nashville, Tennessee, where that actually escalated into desegregation of the entire city, not just lunch counters, but department stores and Every other place of commerce. And that's an example of just people getting together and experimenting and something working and then it working in many other places and becoming like almost like a foundational memory of what the civil rights movement was able to achieve. And it even like helped create sncc, you know, that the student activists who were part of it then created this infrastructure that was able to then organize many other effective campaigns and build a whole generation of activists who, you know, labor, serve in Congress and just be like leading lights in the country's history. So I just want to say, like, you know, there are, there are these double knock on effects. The one is the fear that is brought by a sense that everyone is capitulating and no one is holding the line. But there's also the demonstration effects of people doing the thing and experimenting and not expecting them to have all the answers, but to recognize courage where it comes and, and to replicate the successes when they happen.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, as you bring that up, and I also just wanted to ask, and I assume like the Texas thing, them leaving the state to fight the redistricting is just like whether it ultimately works from a material standpoint. It is just a show of people being defiant in pursuit of a good goal is just a good sort of message for people to have. But is there, I mean, for, and I, you know, I'm not sure about this, but like, I know that certainly during the first Trump years I was, I don't know, I had a mild allergy to the idea of like democracy being threatened. Threatened then it certainly there were moments where I was like, I, you know, I don't know if we're at a, I mean, I specifically remember saying this on some TV show. Like, I don't know if we're, you know, headed to fascism, but I do know that if we were headed to fascism, this is one of the stops along the way now. Like the idea that, you know, people go travel, they feel like they got to scrub their phones to come back in. Like, that. There are companies afraid to do things that people are afraid to, like censoring themselves. Like, we're here, right? Like, this is nascent authoritarianism. Is there a challenge that's different from like, segregation was explicit? Some people I'm for it, some people I'm against it. Can either one of you, I guess, address the quality of like, like, it's sort of hard to sense authoritarianism isn't so binary that it's because it's like, like, you know, sliding into, like simmering into boiling water. There's a quality to that as opposed to the existence of segregation. And, you know, people can have. People had different, obviously pins on that, but. And people may have different opinions about authoritarianism, I think, you know, sort of, you know, we've seen from Curtis Yarvin, et cetera, et cetera. But the presence of it, like, how is there. Are there mechanisms to make that the existence of it more clear so that the idea of resistance becomes more urgent?

[John]

So, you know, this is a real trap for people in these types of times because. Exactly, as you say, there are no bright lines from which a country sort of crosses from democracy into autocracy. What happens is there's a deconsolidation of democratic institutions that happen somewhat unevenly and in parallel. And so it's often not obvious that you're in a fully consolidated autocracy until after. It's basically obvious. Right. And so. But in previous episodes of backsliding and almost too late. Yeah. Well, there's significantly less space and opportunity for effective resistance, for sure. And so in similar episodes, I guess the social science research would say there's a bit of a consensus that once a slide of the kind that we're in begins, there's something like 18 months to 2 years max before it's consolidated. That's like an average over the last 80 years or so of data, I think. And so. So it's not necessarily predictive, but if the US Followed that trajectory, like, that's what people could expect, is that it's this slow, it's a fast decline. But day by day, people aren't recognizing at any point at which they're like, aha, this is the moment in which. And you know, people were saying at the beginning of the administration, if he defies a court order, that would be the red line for me. Where are we now?

[Emma Vigeland]

Chuck Schumer was saying that. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, was saying that constitutional.

[Sam Cedar]

Crisis, you know, it comes and goes.

[John]

Yeah, well, I mean, if you trust the Washington Post reporting last week, they say that something like 30% of the lower court orders have been ignored or evaded at this point.

[Sam Cedar]

And we just confirmed a Emil Bovey, who three different whistleblowers said his policy was to f the courts.

[John]

Right. So. So we are in the trap that people fall into is they think that if it's legal, it must be Democratic. What Greg Abbott is doing right now and threatening that he'll put in charge with felonies all of the Democrats who are out of state right now if they don't come back and form a quorum so that they can pass this fundamentally anti democratic law is he is actually just using the maximal powers of his office and legal authorities that he says he has and that he may indeed have if the courts decide he has them. And so this is. It is that autocrats will jawbone. They will basically file suit or depend on suit, but they'll do what they want in the short term and worry about the legality of it later. And it may in fact be that the courts decide what they did is technically legal, but under no reasonable terms could you call it democratic in terms of its norms. Right. So it's sort of like democracy depends on people in positions of power actually not exercising the full extremity of their authorities every day of the week. Right. It requires them to restrain themselves most of the time. Because actually the Constitution allows executives to do a lot of things under emergencies. And if they manufacture those emergencies, the courts seem to defer. Right. That's what the Supreme Court is doing is it's deferring to Trump about when something is an emergency or not. And, you know, and he gets to decide because he's the president. Right. So I think this is like a very. The thing that people need to understand, I think, about democracies, it's only as good as the leader's commitment to it, who we elect. And so if people want a democracy, have to elect people who believe in democracy and who will fight for it and who are and who can express it in a way that is actually not partisan in a way. And that is one of the fundamental differences that we've got between the cast of characters we're dealing with in Trump 1 versus 2 is that there were still people in the GOP in Trump 1 who you could classify as small D. Democrats.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, okay, so I mean, there's two problems as I see it, Daniel, with this is that one, you know, I think Ben Rhodes even wrote something like this shortly after the election. Like, you know, when Harris was going around selling democracy, people were hearing like, oh, that system, that is screwing me over. And that's a problem. A, I mean, it may be a category error or maybe there's a couple of. We could. It's an entire another topic on some level. But in B, how do you articulate this or show this? Like, what actions can people like our listeners take that provide an example. And for those people who have fallen into that trap of like, well, it's legal or, you know, I mean, Paul Weiss is like, well, they're fighting anti Semitism, of course not. But have just able to justify to themselves that this is going to be better than that. Like what can people who watch this, listen to this, what can they do in their daily lives, or maybe a slightly transcendent daily life to illustrate and manifest the changes that have taken place, that maybe they don't follow the news that much. They don't, you know, how can people sort of effectively show what's going on to other people?

[F]

Yeah, well, I think one thing, and I'll just plug your show, which is one thing you do in your show, is you help people, not just take the individual awful things that happen, but we have to help people put it together with some language. So we're not just dealing with one bad thing, one bad thing, one bad thing that's coming out of the Trump administration, but it's an autocratic takeover. So just in the way that we talk about it, this is not a normal government. This is a regime and needs to be understood in that way, in the way that you talk about the Hitler regime and the way you talk about other regimes who have not operated based on normal ways of operating. So I think just everything Erica said about sort of understanding the, the totality of where we are and the language for it and, and we're experimenting with the language. I mean, I think we just got to be clear, like none of us have the answers here. We're in some new fresh territory. And so that is part of the challenge. What's the language, how do we talk about it, et cetera. I think a second thing that needs to happen that's important is any acts that signal publicly people's opposition to any aspect of this. So for example, one of the things that we've been doing, we did a, Erica alluded to a training, we did a one million rising training where we trained about 170,000 people in non cooperation techniques and tactics. And so one of the things, for example, we've been talking about has been a very intro action of just having people put up signs in your homes or in businesses saying no ice, no kings. And the logic here is there are actually a lot more people who are opposed to the general thing that's happening, whatever we call it anti authoritarianism, they don't like Trump thinking of himself, the king. They don't believe in the, the way that he's operating or the incompetence level, any number of the different pieces that he's got. And we need to signal that opposition in a broader way. And do we have the language that we're all sharing? Do we have the words? No, we don't. We don't have a functional opposition party. Right. The Democratic Party is not a functional opposition party. They are not giving us that language. And honestly, I want them to, on the one hand, and on the other hand, I'm really. I think there's a real opportunity that they're not. Because if they did it in the shape that they're in right now, it would be. I. I think it would be a version of exactly what we. What got us here, which is trying to bring us back to a Biden era that will never happen again. We are past that point. It's broken, it's gone.

[John]

Let's move on.

[Emma Vigeland]

We saw their resistance first time around, and we're back.

[F]

Yeah, exactly. So we need a new. A new thing, a new playbook. Where that comes from. I'm not clear myself, but I think we should. We should be appreciative that the Democratic Party isn't there as our leaders right now, because we're going to need some wiser, Wiser voices that aren't in that. That, that.

[Sam Cedar]

So they're not sort of absorbing the energy as it was.

[F]

No, no, clearly not. I mean, they're not in the. The forefront of any of this.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm trying to find my Chuck Schumer glasses here.

[F]

Yeah. So, but what that means is we're in a little bit of a void, and that is uncomfortable. But that means it's also a chance for us to ask ourselves, what do we want? And so I say one. I mean, you asked me, what are some practical things? So, one, talk about authoritarianism. Bring it. Bring your friends, your family, your people into the broad spectrum. It's not just one thing. It's a series two show. Visual acts of resistance. We call it kind of a social pressure campaign. That is that one that allows people to see that other people are in any kinds of defiance. So that, again, it could be any issue around trans rights, it could be around LGBTQ issues, it could be around the way he's been just targeting any number, immigrants, any number of things, showing that publicly. The third thing is getting ourselves in alignment with not. Not complying, getting our institutions ready for collective action when it comes to us. Some of us have already had that. Some of us is going to come to us. Everybody, by the, you know, years out, everyone's going to have an opportunity to not comply. Everyone's got a chance to just to be asked to do something that's immoral. Corrupt, wrong and make a personal call. But it's going to be best if you are connected to some other people. So people typically don't make that kind of resistance act of non compliance just because I'm alone doing it. They do it because they're connected with some other people, some friends, family, co workers who've already had some conversations about how do we want to defy, how do we want to not cooperate. And so I mean, on choosedemocracy us, we put up just like what are some different things that people can do? Very practically, just sort of different behaviors depending on what, you know, institution you're with. But the basic act here is get yourself ready.

[Sam Cedar]

Erica, I know you've written about three, three and a half percent, three and a half percent rule. Will you tell us about that?

[John]

Sure, yeah. So the 3.5% rule refers to just the historical observation that between the periods of 1900 and 2006, movements that were challenging their governments to oust dictatorships or create territorial independence out of colonial situations tended not to fail if they mobilized three and a half percent of their population in a peak event. And I say it's a historical observation, which is important because it's, I would say, a descriptive statistic, but not a prescriptive or predictive one, which is to say, you know, nobody can predict the future. And so it's useful as kind of a tendency to keep in mind about the level of mobilization that historically has been a critical threshold for movements against autocracy. And it's also just a descriptive statistic. So we don't know what's behind that number. For example, how many years the mobilization was taking place prior, which types of organizing strategies went into building a movement of that mass, whether there were other things happening, like whether the movement was able to elicit those defections from police or security forces in ways that really destabilized their opponents, where the business and economics kind of pillar was situating itself in that conflict. And so it's not a magic number in the sense that just mobilizing that many people one time does not create some kind of guarantee that a movement would automatically win or something. But I think that threshold speaks to broader capacity, strategy and leadership that could get a country to a place where such a substantial number of people were engaged. And I know that it sounds like a small number, but it's not. It's a very large number in absolute terms, especially in large countries like the United States. If it were applied here, it would be some, you know, around 12 million people, and to my knowledge, we haven't seen a movement in the sort of contemporary era reach that threshold. So it would be a historical threshold and would probably, if it happened, be the result of a lot of capable, sustained strategy, organizing, discipline, leadership, all of the things that has gone into making successful movements in the past. The last thing I'll say is that most mass movements that have succeeded in creating a democratic transition out of an autocratic government succeeded without mobilizing 3 1/2% of the population. So a smaller proportion of the population, quite rare to have cases that reach that threshold. So this is just to say I think the figure can be useful and sometimes giving people a sense of hope about what we can learn from past cases.

[Sam Cedar]

75% of the people. You don't need 51% of the people to affect change.

[John]

That's right. And I think what happens is that people then can identify their own agency in that number. Right. They can see how, oh, like we're just talking about me organizing in my community and being part of something big enough to have an impact without having to convince. Yeah, like you say 75% of the population or something like that.

[Sam Cedar]

I think people are surprised by how low that is. I mean, for years and years, people say, you know, you just preach into the choir. And I'm like, yeah, but the choir, actually, you know, if the choir is big enough, you know, relative to the congregation, they're the ones who are going to do all the change. They're the ones who go to the bake sales and do the car washes.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, and what is so striking to me, and I think important for people to take away from, from your work here, is that capitulation just gives them more oxygen on every issue. And it doesn't matter how that issue polls as we're with immigration, Trump, his. That was his best polling issue. And after the LA National Guard thing, it's. It's in the toilet. I mean, he's basically really underwater on every one of his key issues. And we could have maybe had a stronger opposition had so many Democrats not signed on to something like the Lake and Riley act early on and giving him these tools. Like, I just wonder if your lessons had been internalized and we know the Democrats are incapable, but just going forward, we could have maybe mounted a much stronger resistance had we not given them this all this opportunity.

[John]

The biggest moment to impact the sort of political opportunities that we have is generally around elections. And so if we, if we sort of reverse back and think about the 2024 election, I think you can see how a small minority of the population and how they show up or whether they show up is absolutely decisive. Our elections are so close or have been so close that it is a very small minority within the population that determines the outcome. If you looked at the breakdown in the way the election played out, the largest block of voters or eligible voters were the people who didn't come out to vote, followed by Trump winning by a relatively small margin over Harris. And so that's a place where you can definitely see if there had been even a small proportion of the population, a modest 1,2% of the population behaving in a different way, we would have seen a different outcome. And so it is about kind of wanting to build majorities for sure, but also the way that our electorate behaves, it requires a relatively modest number of people in the country to shift in order to build those majorities.

[Sam Cedar]

And just lastly, Daniel, So on the other side of something like this, in the event that things go well, people resist, then maybe there is the, you know, winning the House becomes some type of toehold, perhaps to police what Trump is doing to some extent. Obviously we're going to need people, just people, people, citizens to, you know, stop this at the end of the day. But what generally follows something like this, Are we going to get Biden 2.0, you know, is that going to be the outcome of this? Or is there generally, if the effort exerted to stop something like the authoritarianism we're seeing now and expect to grow, how far does that punch through the, you know, the board as it was, you know, like what happens on the other side of this?

[F]

Yeah, well, I mean, we can talk about what happened historically. So Erica referenced a body of work where they've looked at sort of, of case of democratic backsliding. That's the, the euphemism that they use in academic terminology. But when, when, you know, hits the fan like this, how often were, were people successful at doing it? And, and the piece you just mentioned is really critical, which is with no civil resistance movement, the, the democracies do in fact backslide the vast majority of times. So if there's no civil resistance movement, if we don't get in the streets, if we don't do the things we don't, all the different behaviors that contribute, 7.5% of the time, they lose, they win. Only 7.5% of the time are they able to win. With a silver resistance move, they can win over half, 51.7. So the silver resistance movement is critical. Why is it critical? It's critical because it's unhappy about how things are. And typically it's often unhappy about how things have been. And so it's not just that the movement is asking for a return to, but typically in those cases where people have been able to undo their backsliding, the democracies advance in terms of they become more inclusive, more, you know, name. Name some of those values that people are going for. They become more democratic than they were before. If they don't, they get punished for it because they then return through the authoritarian cycle again, traditionally. And so this is our moment. If you are unhappy with where we are, and I am very unhappy with where we are, I'm very unhappy with where we've been. Biden era was very. I was not with it. And this is the moment in which, yes, what you're saying, Sam, is very doable, not easy to do, but very doable, which is movements who've been able to mount a resistance, kick out the authoritarian regime, not just Trump, but the regime itself. They're then able to assert higher values for higher democracies, higher protections, greater access than we've experienced before in anywhere in my lifetime. So that's the hope. That's what we're aiming for. And experience from other countries shows that is doable. That is a pathway available to us in this time.

[Sam Cedar]

Daniel Hunter, Erica Chenoweth Are there websites that we should point people to for more information that may help them in terms of organizing or to just get plugged into either the work that either one of you are doing, etc. Where should we point people?

[F]

People go to choosedemocracy us on that. We keep a kind of running actions of what are some different things people can do if they're just looking to get plugged in either organizations that are already involved or so forth. And then we're part of a crew called freedom trainers. Freedomtrainers.net We've been training people in non cooperation. I think we've trained over a quarter of a million people in techniques of non cooperation, from people who are inside institutions or inside federal bureaucracy to people who are regular folk who are just trying to figure out what do I do in this moment in time.

[Sam Cedar]

And lastly, let me just. There's one more thing. You're training people to fight the authoritarianism. The, the, the answers that they have. These aren't necessarily exclusive of those more democratic answers, right?

[F]

I mean, they are part of it.

[Sam Cedar]

DSA member, you know, the, that part. You're teaching techniques on how to Both resist what's happening now that ultimately theoretically open up the playing field for what comes next. But it's sort of like a both and type of situation.

[F]

That's right. I mean there, there's a three stage model here which is before you reverse it and get to a new thing, you've got to stop it. Before you stop it, you have to slow it down. So there's a series of steps that we just have to get through. And so slowing it down is very critical. And so that technique of slowing it down and eventually stopping it, that is a huge piece of the non cooperation theory and practice. And then the question of where do we go next? How do we advance to be a more democratic. Those are embedded in how people are doing it. The values you're talking about. We're going to debate what kind of policies and what kind of ways who should get part of that. Those are going to be in the mix in the debate right now as we figure out what kind of society we're trying to aim for.

[Sam Cedar]

Really appreciate it and hope to talk to both of you again maybe four, five, six months, get a sense of how it's going. I think we'll have a sense, but really appreciate the time.

[F]

Thanks for your work.

[Sam Cedar]

We will put those links within the podcast in the YouTube description. Thanks again, guys.

[John]

Yeah, thank you so much. Take care.

[Emma Vigeland]

You too.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, we will again put those links in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. Get involved. Learn these techniques. You can, you can share them with the people in your tenants union. You can share them with the people who live across the hall or next door or, or in your PTA or in your kennel club.

[John]

No. What.

[Sam Cedar]

I don't know what that is.

[Emma Vigeland]

Kennel club Dogs.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Do people belong to kennel clubs?

[Emma Vigeland]

You know, your old Rotary club? Share with the Rotary Club.

[Sam Cedar]

Trying to think of like elks.

[Emma Vigeland]

The Rotary Club.

[Sam Cedar]

It's been a while since I socialized, folks, so I don't know what to tell you. But important to know these are tactics and there is a sort of like a. I guess there. I don't know if I would call it an ideology as much as a disposition. It tends to coincide with certain ideologies. But. But obviously more democracy is a good thing, actual democracy. And so these are great resources. Just a reminder, you can support this program by becoming member. Join the MajorityReport.com when you do, you get the free show, free of commercials and you get the fun half also just coffee co op. One of the things that this Texas thing reminds me of is when we saw folks in Wisconsin when Scott Walker was stripping health care from Wisconsinites and unionization the ability to unionize from Wisconsinites still have a poster in here. The Wisconsin 14 left the Wisconsin to attempt to deny them a quorum and they ended up I think like getting tracked down by state police before they left the state lines or maybe even across I can't remember what it was and brought back. We will talk about the what's happening with Texas in the fun half but whenever I think about Just Coffee I just am reminded being out there in Madison it was freezing cold in January and people marching and just coffee running into just coffee. They were handing out coffee to people free their they're situated in Madison, Wisconsin right down the road from the Capitol Co op founded on with a desire to work with folks in Chiapas, Mexico and great coffee and you can get 10% off by using the coupon code majority. So just Coffee co op. Matt Left Reckoning. Yeah.

[E]

Yesterday on Left Record we had Jasper Nathaniel of the Infinite Jazz substack on talking about his reporting on the west bank and also the Gaza Humanitarian foundation which is maybe one of the most evil organizations to spring up in recent memory. That is for [e-mail] left reckoning but it's also going to premiere for everybody as soon as the Fun Half ends today. So just, just stay tuned to the Fun half and you will be sent over to the Left Reckoning page and you'll be able to see the members content for free. So check that out and also give us a sub because we're very close to 50k actually.

[Sam Cedar]

50K. All right, see you in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out we're gonna look back and go like wow. What, what is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. What is up up, everyone? Fun Hat. No, me. You did it. Fun Hat.

[Emma Vigeland]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's go, Brandon.

[F]

Fun Hat.

[Sam Cedar]

Bradley, you want to say hello?

[F]

Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.

[Sam Cedar]

It's all the boys today.

[John]

Fundamentally false.

[Emma Vigeland]

No, I'm sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

Women. Stop talking for a second.

[John]

Let me finish.

[Sam Cedar]

Where Is this coming from?

[John]

Dude.

[Sam Cedar]

But.

[F]

Dude.

[Sam Cedar]

You want to smoke? Is Saturday.

[John]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

Hi.

[F]

Me? You?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. Is this me?

[F]

Is it me?

[Sam Cedar]

It is you?

[John]

Is this me?

[Sam Cedar]

Hello? It's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[John]

I'm going to go.

[Sam Cedar]

Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says. Of course.

[Emma Vigeland]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We bailed him.

[Emma Vigeland]

So what's 79?

[Sam Cedar]

21 challenge. Man.

[F]

I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96. I want to say 8572-103550-11389 11.

[F]

For instance.

[Emma Vigeland]

$33,400. $1900. 5 4.

[Sam Cedar]

$3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game. Actually.

[John]

You're making me think less of.

[Sam Cedar]

Wait. But let me say this. You call it satire. Sam goes satire on top of it all. Yeah.

[John]

My favorite part about you is just.

[Emma Vigeland]

Like every day, all day.

[John]

Like everything you do.

[Sam Cedar]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy.

[F]

We.

[Sam Cedar]

All right. Folks. Folks. Folks.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's just the week being weeded out.

[John]

Obviously.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Sundial guns out. I. I don't know.

[John]

But you should know.

[Sam Cedar]

People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled. I love it.

[Emma Vigeland]

I do love that.

[Sam Cedar]

Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o'. Clock. We're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Emma Vigeland]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like. What is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you.

[John]

Bye.

[Sam Cedar]

Bye.