← The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
A Stark Warning About the 2026 Election, with Robert Kagan
00:41:55
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- [00:00]
Susan Glaser
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- [01:38]
Susan Glaser
You know how they used to have the prizes in the cereal box? He's like, look, I won a Nobel Prize, Mom.
- [01:43]
Jane Mayer
You know, there is a word for this. If you do this in the military, it's called stolen valor.
- [01:49]
Susan Glaser
Well, is it stolen if she gives it to you?
- [01:52]
Evan Osnos
I mean, stolen pacifism. Is that what you get from a stolen Nobel Prize, by the way, when the Nobel Prize committee is trolling you when they have to disown the transfer.
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Susan Glaser
Oh, man.
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Jane Mayer
I mean, in the other part of.
- [02:04]
Susan Glaser
This, and the framed, Freud said it.
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Evan Osnos
Was all about the transference. Is that what he meant? It's giving.
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Jane Mayer
Also, of course, it's made of gold.
- [02:12]
Robert Kagan
Yes, good point.
- [02:13]
Jane Mayer
This is not.
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Susan Glaser
We're transferring.
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Evan Osnos
I have a hunch, though, that even Midas would have been like, you know what? It's kind of pathetic for you to.
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Susan Glaser
Keep it your prize.
- [02:19]
Evan Osnos
Yeah, you keep it. You keep it.
- [02:26]
Susan Glaser
Welcome to the political scene from the new yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in american politics. I'm susan glaser, and I'm joined by my colleagues evan osnos and jane mayer. Hey, evan.
- [02:36]
Evan Osnos
Good morning, guys.
- [02:37]
Susan Glaser
Hi, jane.
- [02:38]
Jane Mayer
Hey, susan.
- [02:44]
Susan Glaser
You know, aren't we cheery and upbeat?
- [02:47]
Evan Osnos
It's just like it's an illusion. Here we are.
- [02:50]
Susan Glaser
Here we are. Another week. It seems like a year 2026, but that's really because the news is almost imposs to keep up with. We're watching multiple crises unfold all at once. We have domestic authoritarianism, the collapse of international norms, the threat of new wars. And our guest today warned nearly a decade ago that this moment was coming. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an author and historian. His books include the Jungle Grows Back of Paradise and Power. We want to talk today about his insights going all the way back to the spring of 2016 and his powerful essay, this Is How Fascism Comes to America, published before Donald Trump even won the Republican nomination officially today. We're going to ask him how he was able to see that coming in 2016, what surprised him since, and whether American democracy can still pull back from the edge of. Bob, welcome to the show. We're very glad to have you here.
- [03:57]
Robert Kagan
Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you all.
- [03:59]
Jane Mayer
It's great to have you.
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Susan Glaser
So, Bob, in May of 2016, not only before Donald Trump was elected, but before he even formally received the nomination of the Republican Party, you wrote a piece for the Post that was the first to use the F word in regards to Donald Trump. And I just reread it before this conversation this morning. It's called this Is How Fascism Comes to America. I want to just read a little bit from the end of that piece because I think people will be shocked that you wrote this nearly a decade ago at this point. The clarity and the power of it, I think is still framing for a conversation that we want to have with you today. What you wrote is that if he wins the election, his legions will likely comprise a near majority of the nation. Imagine the power he'll wield then. In addition to all that comes comes from being the leader of a mass following, he will also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command. The Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that lay down before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more Humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today than he has been his entire life. Does vast power uncorrupt? This, you concluded, is how fascism comes to America. Not with jackboots and salutes, but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac, tapping into popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear, falling into line behind him. I really. I get chills reading that now. Can you tell us about the making of that piece and why it is that you were able to see that at that time?
- [06:07]
Robert Kagan
Well, the part of it that's been hard for me is I never understood why everybody didn't see it, quite honestly, because it was very apparent what was happening, obviously. By the way, the only thing that I was probably wrong about is that there are the jackboots now. But, you know, that was failure of imagination on my part, I guess. Look, the two things that are relevant and I think which were obvious then, was, first of all, that he personally is a megalomaniac, which is to say he seeks power and not just in order to accomplish things, or not really even in order to accomplish things, but in order to dominate. He is about domination. People talk about him like he's transactional or whatever the transaction is. You admit that I am dominating you. And he has managed to get pretty much the entire world, except for the leaders of the other two empires, basically to accept his domination. That's what the tariffs are about. That's what his domestic approach is about. So you have a man like that, and then he placed himself quite deliberately in front of a movement that has always existed in America. And it is a movement that is fundamentally at odds with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is a movement that is fundamentally about white Christian supremacy. They have never accepted the idea of human equality. They were very frank about this throughout most of history. Certainly the slaveholding south and then the south for 100 years afterwards. What we never anticipated after World War II, when these people were vanquished effectively by World War II and the Great Depression, and that whole conservative movement basically went off to the fringe, but it never went away. When Trump came along, how did he introduce himself to the world politically? He introduced himself with the birther conspiracy about Obama, which was a direct call to white Christian supremacists in the country, and they have followed him ever since.
- [08:17]
Susan Glaser
Just one other quick thing on this, going back to 2016, you mentioned sort of the history of it. And I think to me that's been my theory of the case about why you have always been so clear eyed is that it's the historians rather on some level than the political scientists who, who were able to see the moment in some ways most clearly. So many people have a time horizon that's too limited. Sort of this kind of like exceptional post World War II moment in American history. Rather than looking back. Where does that history, and you're working on a multi volume history of the US and the world over the centuries, where does that history perspective put us now 10 years later?
- [09:04]
Robert Kagan
Well, the project is virtually complete. I think it's important to understand that again, while Trump is only interested in power and domination, the movement that he heads, if you read their leading ideologists, if you read Adrian Vermeule at Harvard, if you read Patrick Deneen, and all this also comes out of the mouth of Russell Vaught and Stephen Miller. They are very frank about the fact that what they're hoping to do is overturn the Founders government. Not just liberalism, not just late left liberalism, not just AOC or whatever. We're talking about the Founders liberalism. They understand perfectly well that the founders created a system that which is in favor of liberalism, which is to say in favor of equality of individual rights and a hostile to efforts to subvert that and return to a world of hierarchy. They want to return to the world of hierarchy that existed before the American Revolution where everybody knew their place, you know, starting with God and then starting with the chosen white race, et cetera. And so we are continually surprised. Well, I don't even know if people even realize it, the degree to which this is a project to overturn the Founders government.
- [10:32]
Evan Osnos
Bob, you mentioned a moment ago that this process of the fascist eclipse is, as you said, virtually complete. Virtually is an important piece of that description and I wonder if you would flesh it out for us. Having imagined and predicted many of the steps that we've now gone through, what are you most mindful of and most concerned about that may be coming next?
- [10:58]
Robert Kagan
Well, what's coming next now is perfectly clear, which is that what we're seeing in Minnesota is both a dress rehearsal, but also an effort to desensitize the country to the idea of using overwhelming force by the federal government to effectively invade states, especially Democratic states, and take control. And I think it is clear to me that what we're looking forward to, there is no chance in the world that Donald Trump is going to allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections because that will be the end of his ability to wield total power in the United States. Therefore, it seems to me perfectly obvious that where we're heading in 10 months will be sending ice in, provoking riots through their brutal behavior, which the administration is encouraging, and thereby providing a justification, well, at least a phony justification for the deployment of the Insurrection act and then, if necessary, seizing ballots, which is what he wanted to do in 2020. They couldn't unless they got up on the rooftop and said, we are going to subvert the 2026 election. They could not be more obvious about what their intention is.
- [12:20]
Jane Mayer
Well, Bob, in your analysis, which is absolutely chilling, you mentioned that this strain has always been here in America, in American history, but it has been, for the most part, outside of the slaveholding South, a minority, or at least since then, a minority movement. How do you see the majority reacting to this? Do you see, in particular, if we're focusing on 2026, what do you expect will happen there? Is the majority going to go along?
- [13:00]
Robert Kagan
Well, that is, unfortunately, the problem. I can't say this with any specificity, but I believe that this is TR. I think 40% of the country is down with it. I think they are. 40% of the country will say, yes, let's have a dictatorship led by Donald Trump. That's his approval rating now, after he's made it perfectly clear how he's going to behave and what his intentions are. So whether it's 40% or 35%, I don't know. They will be down with it. Another 30% at least, will be either disbelieving until it's already happened and then even then, questioning whether it's really happened or indifferent or not really that troubled by it. Okay. I mean, I'm now talking about Republicans, who we used to refer to as traditional Republicans, who are absolutely going along with this. And, you know, I think it is absolutely the case that the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress, John Thune and Mike Johnson, are willing to support dictatorship if it means that they get to keep their jobs. And they are certainly not willing to risk their jobs in order to prevent dictatorship. Meanwhile, you have the elite in this country as completely rolled over. They've either rolled over or they're participants. If you want to ask me what's shocking about what's happened, it is how easily Trump has been able to do everything without facing the slightest resistance from very powerful people, very rich people, even now, Evan, you asked me why. I said virtually because the question is, why isn't it already over and I think it pretty much almost is already over, but it's virtually because at any time, if four Republican senators had the courage that to stand up to what's happening, Trump would have a really big problem being able to do what he wants to do. But there is no courage in the Senate, even among people who pretend to have courage. You know, they get up and they say, well, we're going to block the. We're going to try to invoke the War Powers Resolution. And then three days later, they're back off of it again. And so this doesn't have to happen if the elites in this country step forward, and not just elected officials, but previous powerful Republicans in the foreign policy establishment who've been utterly silent throughout this entire period, even as the world order that they claim to support is being destroyed. And maybe we'll talk about that in a few minutes. The failure of the elite is, to me, the most astonishing thing. The founders would be in disbelief, quite honestly.
- [15:47]
Jane Mayer
I just want to ask one corollary question, because we're talking about the failures of the elite and the leadership of the Republican Party in Congress. What about the Supreme Court? Is that something that you think could still put the brakes on this?
- [16:02]
Robert Kagan
There's no indication of it so far. There are certainly at least two or three members on the court right now who also will favor this dictatorship. It is in accord with their political philosophy, which is contrary to the founder's vision. It's clear to me, and the others seem willing to go along. I don't know at what point point we expect them to step in. For one thing, the minute a president starts declaring national security issues, which is what they will be doing. The court always tends to back away, as they did in Korematsu, for instance. So you can't tell me the court has frequently throughout history supported oppression, supported in the south, dictatorship. I don't know why we should be shocked to see the court doing it again.
- [16:52]
Susan Glaser
Yeah, no, that's exactly, unfortunately, where we are right now. We kept waiting for a decision that never came. Never came. So we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll look at how Trump's authoritarian impulse is playing out on the world stage. The political scene will be back in just a moment.
- [17:19]
Sponsor/Announcer
Are we living in a new world.
- [17:21]
Robert Kagan
Of strength, power, and force?
- [17:24]
Sponsor/Announcer
Well, that's what President Trump's advisor, Stephen Miller, Sundays.
- [17:27]
Susan Glaser
The recent US intervention in Venezuela suggests. We may be moving into a new world order. So every day this week, the global story is joining forces with Our BBC podcast friends around the world who have unmatched reporting expertise in in their regions. What is a sphere of influence? Who's got one? And if you're not a predator these days, does that mean you're prey? Listen to the global story on BBC.com.
- [17:52]
Sponsor/Announcer
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:58]
Susan Glaser
This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out odoo@odoo.com that's O D O O. Okay, Bob, so let's talk about Trump and the world. This metaphor of yours, which sticks with me, of course, is this idea of the jungle grows back. In some ways, Donald Trump is the jungle. We've heard this incredibly stark enunciation of that principle from the very beginning of this year. That interview that Stephen Miller did on CNN in which he said, essentially, since time immemorial the world has been governed by sheer power and the law of might makes. And that's the world we're going into. So many people, when Trump first came into politics, they looked at his America first rhetoric and they said, well, he's going to be a neo isolationist, but as you pointed out, in fact, he's been a sort of not only a unilateralist, but basically a narcissistic unilateralist. I think that's the phrase I've been using. It's a foreign policy of me, me, me. And where is that going to take us? I mean, is he going to get us into a full fledged war?
- [19:36]
Robert Kagan
Well, eventually, but I don't know. In the near term, I don't know if there will be an actual war. When he tries to take Greenland, which I think he is almost certainly going to do, I think it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the fact that we now have European countries who are members of the NATO alliance sending troops to defend NATO territory against possible aggression by the United States. I mean, just to say that is to understand the degree to which the world we've known is now completely shattered and will not be repaired, by the way, ever, in my view, until there's some global catastrophe, which then leads to some kind of reset, which means that the world that we're entering, it's the world that existed before 1945. It's the world that existed before the United States became the guarantor of global security, with dozens of partners and alliances around the world. If the Europeans haven't figured it out yet, I think they have. They now must understand that they have two aggressors on their flanks, One in the east with Russia and one in the west with the United States. And if they do not want to become a collection of fiefdoms of one or more of the three empires, they are going to have to come to the realization that they need to be able to be self sustaining in terms of security, which means substantial rearmament, not marginal rearmament, but really completely reconfiguring their societies in order to become great powers again. Or they can become subjects of one or more of the three empires. I think when that happens, we're going to see a return to the multipolar world, which many people seem to have a very romantic concept of. But, you know, in the 19th century, which was one of the best managed multipolar worlds in history, there was a major war, a major war between two or more great powers almost every single decade between 1815 and 1914. So imagine a world in which the United States, Russia, China, and I will say Germany and Japan and India and who knows how many, because now the message to the world is you're on your own. You are in a world of aggressive powers, and you better become an aggressive power, or at least a power yourself. We have the prospect of just moving into a period of repeated major conflicts, which is the world that exists. There were two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Americans have fallen into this dreamland that all began after 1989 and the end of history. And they cannot imagine all those things that happened back in the past with Hitler and imperial Japan, et cetera. That was all like a weird thing that happened that can never happen again. We are now in that world again. And I can only say Americans could not be less ready for it.
- [22:50]
Susan Glaser
Can I just say, talking about the eastern flank here, for a second here, I listened to you talk about the multipolar world, and it's just haunting to me because the people who saw this the most clearly actually were the Russians. Bob, as you know, when we arrived in Moscow at the end of the first decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was the Russians who were talking about a vision of a new world Instead of the the US Monopower. They were the ones who went around the world. They went to China. They went to India and they said, we're looking to rebuild a multipolar world. And that was their phrase used by Yevgeny Primakov in the late 1990s. It was their vision for a foreign policy in which Russia would reassert its historical role, not of the Soviet Union, which Americans were obsessed about at the time, but of the Russian Empire. They were thinking back to the post Crimean War, and how did Russia get back on its feet after an embarrassing defeat? And so I listen to you and I think, okay, what does that mean for Vladimir Putin now that his dreams are coming true? In a way, his vision of the world is now made manifest by Donald Trump.
- [24:01]
Robert Kagan
Yeah, I mean, we are moving back into a spheres of interest world. And again, I am astonished at the number of American foreign policy intellectuals who seem to welcome this. The level of ignorance is astonishing to me. But if you ask, what is the natural Russian sphere of interest? It certainly includes the Baltic states. That goes without saying. It also means the end of Poland as an independent sovereign state. Russia has always insisted on the full domination of Poland whenever possible. Stalin was insisting on it during World War II in negotiating with the Americans and the British. And then, of course, he got it at Yalta. Ukraine is the beginning of the restoration of the Russian sphere of interest. What is China's natural sphere of interest from the Chinese point of view, surely it includes, obviously Taiwan. It includes all of Southeast Asia, and honestly, it includes Japan and Korea too, who at least have to be subservient, not independent. Which means, by the way, Japan is already reacting to this. I think it is only a matter of time before Japan engages in a major military rearmament, including with nuclear weapons. I think Korea will turn to nuclear weapons. The European states are going to have to rearm individually. I would like to think there would be a European United army, but I don't think that's in the cards. Poland will need nuclear weapons for the reasons that I've stated that their worst nightmare is to live between a rearmed Germany, which I think is coming, and Russia on the other side. I could go on, but I think we are used to a world that is pretty pliant. You know, we spent all these years complaining about the post Cold War world and the forever wars. This is gonna seem like a picnic compared to the world that we're now entering.
- [25:52]
Evan Osnos
Well, I know that there are some listeners who are climbing out on the ledge as they listen to this, but I'm not willing to give them relief quite yet because we need to talk about what the impact of a war abroad would mean for the conditions in the United States that we started talking about. You wrote not long ago that a war with Iran, for instance, would be, as you put it. There is nothing more perilous to American democracy right now than that prospect. Play that out for us. What would a war allow a president like this to do?
- [26:24]
Robert Kagan
Yeah, a war with anybody. And honestly, part of me believes that the Venezuela intervention was very much driven by domestic motives. I never understood why Stephen Miller. Well, I do understand, but I don't think a lot of other people have thought about why Stephen Miller. Miller was such a big supporter of this operation. The administration is trying to militarize American society. They are trying to make the military. Well, first of all, is his personal weapon. It's his military. That's already true of this sort of Basij that he's created with ice, which is a paramilitary organization that is essentially like any fascist military organization. It reports strictly to him. The Justice Department, the CIA reports strictly to him, et cetera. And I think, you know, he's trying to get Americans used to the idea that it's about military power. And so we're killing people overseas. We're wielding that power, this great weapon of ours. And our military is, in fact, outstanding and unbelievably capable, as they showed in the Venezuela operation. They could do this to a lot of states. And by the way, there may be beneficial results in some cases. This is not, you know, I would like to see the Iranian regime overthrown, you know, but right now, the last and as Lincoln said, best hope, and now I would say the only hope for the survival of liberalism in the world, that battle is occurring right here in the United States. And this militarization of American foreign policy has domestic purposes. I mean, in a simple sense, obviously, again, if we are at war, it gives the executive branch, which already has enormous power, even more power, and the courts can do nothing about it. I really do think that being in a state of war provides opportunities. What if people protest against the war is already a domestic terrorist. If you yell at anybody, this is going to be another reason to silence protests in this country. It's all part of the oppressive apparatus. And of course, we've seen historically examples of how there was no question, by the way, and God forbid I should make this analogy, but there's no question that one of the things that Hitler was trying to do with his wars was to toughen and regiment Germany on the inside. He did not think that the German people were ready for the task he had before them, but which also included the purification of the German race, et cetera. All these things were tied. The wars and the domestic oppression were all one and the same. It's very much a model that I see playing out right now in this country.
- [29:10]
Jane Mayer
Is this the foreign policy or even the domestic policy that MAGA voted for, do you think? I mean, there was talk, I mean, you said that people expected him to be a non interventionist and there was to some extent talk when Trump was running that he was running against stupid wars, supposedly, and that he was going to focus on the war at home, making America great again. Do you expect any kind of backlash against this within his own coalition?
- [29:41]
Robert Kagan
I mean, there have been some obviously occasional complaints here and there. Tucker Carlson, you know, is out there opposing this stuff. But, but look, maga's devotion to Trump is complete, as we all know. Their number one interest is in going after the people in this country that they hate. And Trump is always doing that for them. So I have no confidence that MAGA is going to rise up. And it's a suggestion that they have foreign policy principles which are meaningful to them. But that's not what this movement is about.
- [30:19]
Susan Glaser
So we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, talk a little bit about where this might all lead and what it means for American democracy. The political scene will be back in just a moment.
- [30:37]
Robert Kagan
Right now we are living through some.
- [30:38]
Jane Mayer
Of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlamagne, tha God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [31:14]
Susan Glaser
Bob, I've been thinking a lot, as I'm sure you have, about how crises like this end in American history, the cycles of it. And I feel like the frames of reference that we've had have been wrong. Joe Biden had this notion that there was some possibility of a return to normalcy, a sort of a status quo ante that obviously no longer existed. And that in some ways was what brought down his presidency, the failure to deliver on an undeliverable promise. I've been thinking about McCarthyism and this idea that there was a sort of have you no decency, sir? Moment that would just let the air out of this collective delusion. I don't think those analogies apply. And I'm just curious, what are the ways in which you're thinking about how this might end, given the collapse of the elites that you're talking about, which I think everyone here has been nodding their heads very vigorously at these points. How do we think about models that might lead to the end of this? What are other ways that we might come out of this?
- [32:19]
Robert Kagan
Well, history is unpredictable. And I mean, events are unpredictable and fickle and all kinds of things can happen that are hard to predict. I'm not really willing to go out that far. I think it's far enough to know it's far enough right now. In fact, I think it's too far for most people to imagine that what's at risk right now is literally our democracy in the sense that I don't think Trump is going to allow free and fair elections in 2026, much less in 2028. We are in the crisis. We're actually well into the crisis that people have talked about as being speculative. We are there. So myself, I can't think past, what, 10 months from now, quite honestly. By the way, you didn't ask this question, but I'm going to say the Democratic Party is not exactly covering itself in glory at this moment. The reluctance to go after ICE in Congress on the part of many so called moderate Democrats when the history of this collapse is written. Let's not have the Democrats off the hook here because the things they're worried about are from another era and have made them weak, much weaker than they need to be at this moment.
- [33:34]
Jane Mayer
Can you elaborate? What are the things they're worrying about that are making them so weak?
- [33:39]
Robert Kagan
They don't want to defund ICE because it reminds people of defunding the police, which was very unpopular. They're worried about being on the wrong side of crime and immigration, which are what Trump is using to impose the dictatorship. He's using inherent American concerns about immigration. He's using what is now a long tradition of fear about rising crime rates, et cetera, all of which is of course racially coded. And he's playing on that. But the Democrats are very timid in response to that. They're afraid of these issues. And so the one thing that could be done right now that is very important would be to defund ice, by the way, that would also be politically smart. It's quite unpopular. I don't know whether anybody's noticed that people are not happy about what's happening. And yet the Democrats are still timid about it. It's really quite pitiful.
- [34:32]
Evan Osnos
Under that same heading of things that could be done and should be done. I think when you were correctly predicting what was to come after the 2024 election, one of the things people asked you was, well, what do I do? I'm an ordinary citizen. What can I do? What does history tell me I can do? And I would pose that question to you now. What do people who are out there saying, I am concerned, I am terrified, I want to do something. What should they do?
- [35:03]
Robert Kagan
When I get asked that question, my answer is always, do what you would do if you were upset that your property taxes were being raised. I mean, contact your elected officials, send letters to their offices, go to their offices. You know, Americans know how to make their views known when they're really upset about something that they care about. Look, the no Kings movement I think, is important. I think there needs to be much more of it. But it's going to be increasingly dangerous. Let's face it. You know, it's already become dangerous to protest, but I don't know what choice there is. But also, we have elected officials who are still under the illusion that they're running for office in a Fair election in 2026 play on that. They need to hear from their constituents in a very loud way. I would also say what the average citizen could do is one thing, but again, the cowardice of the American elite is just astonishing to me. In many cases, it's about money. They don't want to lose their money. They're making a lot of money right now. Prominent Republican foreign policy icons of one kind or another are all working for consulting firms or they are all heads of think tanks that have funders who are pro Trump and they don't dare. But it's not even that they're in physical danger. They will give up nothing of what they have in order to save this country. So I just get tired of being asked what people can do. Everybody. What everybody can do is utterly obvious. And they've done it a million times when they actually cared and weren't afraid. So I guess that's my answer.
- [36:44]
Jane Mayer
Can I ask you just a personal question for a minute about what it's like to have been a Cassandra, the Cassandra who called it right when nobody really wanted to hear it. And I know that you resigned from the Washington Post after they declined to make an endorsement in the last election in 2024. You have had to take a personal hit in terms of your job. What's it been like.
- [37:15]
Robert Kagan
Well, I was like this to begin with, but I'm more like it now. I've become a fairly solitary person as people. As people who know me know. And, you know, I'm just trying to do my work and say what I need to say when I think it's appropriate to say it. And I'm past the shock and disappointment of so many of my longtime friends and colleagues at one time or another who have refused to see what's happening or been supportive of what's happening or. I mean, you know, I was part of a. I never really felt that part of it, but I was part of a conservative movement which has just turned out to be a disaster, you know. And so you keep your friends close, you know.
- [38:02]
Susan Glaser
Well, Bob, it's also true that you have spoken out consistently and clearly and powerfully. And to the extent people are not playing the roles we envision for them in our society, I don't think anybody can say that about the incredible power of the clarity that you have brought to this moment. And I know that's why we all wanted to have you on the show today and why we're really grateful, although terrified, by what you had to say today. I'm not sure that we'll sleep better, but I know that we all benefit from having that wisdom right now. So I just want to thank you. I think this was a really important conversation.
- [38:40]
Robert Kagan
Well, thank you very much. I don't want anybody sleeping well. This is not a time to be.
- [38:48]
Susan Glaser
Don't sleep well.
- [38:48]
Robert Kagan
This is not a time to take anything.
- [38:50]
Jane Mayer
Well, thanks for waking us up.
- [38:53]
Susan Glaser
Thanks for waking us up. That's right. Thank you so much.
- [38:55]
Evan Osnos
Come back again, Bob.
- [38:56]
Robert Kagan
Okay, thanks.
- [39:03]
Evan Osnos
All right.
- [39:04]
Susan Glaser
Well, that was great.
- [39:04]
Jane Mayer
I loved the historic context you put it in in terms of American history.
- [39:09]
Evan Osnos
But also not just American history. I think the point about the 19th century, I think this ties into something we talked about in previous episodes, this idea that Americans have no memory of what a world is like in which every country is in it for themselves.
- [39:25]
Susan Glaser
And that they're in this dream fantasy palace of thinking that history end in 1945, basically.
- [39:30]
Jane Mayer
But, you know. But it's just so strange that it's a combination of Americans having no memory. But at the same time, I mean, there are these strains in American history that keep reasserting themselves despite the fact that people supposedly don't remember. It's as if there's something passed down through the generations.
- [39:49]
Evan Osnos
I think, though, we're sort of burying the lead here in one sense, which is that. Look, Bob, Kagan's been right about a lot of things, and he says very clearly and soberly that he doesn't think Donald Trump will allow himself to lose in 2026. So within the calendar year, in other words, we will have an election that is not an election. And that's what he foresees. And I think we have to take that prediction seriously.
- [40:16]
Jane Mayer
I agree. And that what you're seeing in Minneapolis is, as he put it, a dress rehearsal. It's meant not only to impose control, but to desensitize the rest of the country.
- [40:27]
Evan Osnos
Very important word.
- [40:28]
Susan Glaser
Well, I think it is. And, you know, in all the chaos of the first couple weeks, what I've noted that people have not written about, really, is Donald Trump attempting to have already an executive order about elections and how the midterm elections should be run, if you notice, because it's not the dominant note, but it's a sub note. But in many of these appearances in the first couple weeks of this year, he's also talking about Mallon ballots change the way we run elections. That has actually been something Trump has already been talking about at the beginning of 2026 that hasn't gotten attention because he's busy kidnapping the leader of another country and threatening NATO and things like that. And so I think he's telling us that's the part. Why was Bob right is because he listened to what Trump himself and his followers were saying all along. And so many people have had so many excuses for why they didn't. They'd rather be surprised over and over again than to listen clearly and to take action based upon it.
- [41:33]
Jane Mayer
He's also told us that several times and again yesterday, that he's interested in invoking the Insurrection act to go along with that.
- [41:44]
Evan Osnos
I think it's worth reminding people this, of course, was last invoked in 1992. George H.W. bush was president. This was during the LA riots. And the world that was existed at the time, the climate of politics was utterly unrecognizable from what it is today. The person who was in the presidency, I think there's a, you know, anybody who imagines, oh, wow, this has been, you know, used 30 times in American history. That should not be a comfort here.
- [42:12]
Susan Glaser
Well, and importantly, it was with the eager acceptance of local officials. The last time a president invoked the Insurrection act over the objections of state officials was Lyndon Johnson during the civil rights era. So, again, there really actually isn't any modern precedent for doing this over the objections of the states and cities in which this active duty military would be deployed.
- [42:37]
Jane Mayer
I was actually living in LA in 1992 when the insurrection act was invoked. And it wasn't even controversial.
- [42:45]
Susan Glaser
No, of course not. And by the way, interestingly enough, Bill Barr was the Attorney General at the time for George H.W. bush. And it was Barr who was one of a handful of officials who most fervently argued against Trump invoking the Insurrection act in the summer of 2020. So it was too far even for Bill Barr. But now, of course, we live not in the world of that, but in the world of Stephen Millers and Pam Bondies and Kristin Noel.
- [43:13]
Robert Kagan
And I want to add to that list Kavanaugh.
- [43:16]
Evan Osnos
Kavanaugh, but also John Thune, Mike Johnson. I mean, what was so interesting in hearing Kagan's diagnosis was if you had four Republican senators who decided, you know what? We're out, that that could stop the train on its tracks. And as he said, as long as you have somebody like John Thune and Mike Johnson who aren't going to risk their sinecure, then that doesn't happen.
- [43:42]
Jane Mayer
And the only reason I mention Kavanaugh is there's a terrific inside piece by Adam Liptak in the New York Times that focuses on a footnote written by Brett Kavanaugh, Associate justice of the Supreme Court, mentioning that maybe they couldn't deploy National Guard the way they have, but if the president invoked the Insurrection act, it would be fine. You're sort of seeing a little flashing green light there.
- [44:10]
Susan Glaser
Well, that's the problem. All the flashing green lights, when they should be flashing red, let's just say for us, they're flashing red. Courtesy of Bob Kagan. I hope that people really get a chance to listen to this full show today. Cause it was really important.
- [44:24]
Evan Osnos
Yeah, but not before you get in bed.
- [44:27]
Jane Mayer
All right.
- [44:28]
Susan Glaser
Well, This has been the Political Scene from the New Yorker. I'm Susan Glaser. We had research assistance Today from Alex DiLeo. Our producer is Nora Richie. Mixing by Mike Kutchman. Steven Valentino is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week. From prx.