Loading summary
Transcript49 lines
- [00:00]
Charlie Sykes
Close your eyes.
- [00:01]
Grow Therapy / Advertisement Voice
Listen to Monday.com feel the sensation of.
- [00:05]
Charlie Sykes
An AI work platform so flexible and intuitive it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com, start for free, and finally breathe.
- [00:15]
BILT / Jerry Insurance Advertisement Voice
It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without Bilt, it's time for a change. BILT is a loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense. Rent. I don't like paying rent, and I bet you don't either, but BILT makes it feel a little better. BILT is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you monthly with points and exclusive benefits in your neighborhood. Let me explain. With bilt, every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases and so much more. And here's something I'm really excited about. Starting in February, BILT members can earn points on mortgage payments for the first time. Soon you'll be able to get rewarded wherever you live and unlock exclusive benefits with more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies and other neighborhood partners. Personally, I'd use my built points for travel. Turning rent into flights feels like a win. It's simple. Paying rent is better with bilt, and soon owning a home will be better with BILT too. Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com acasta that's J-O-I-N B I L T.com acast make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.
- [01:29]
Grow Therapy / Advertisement Voice
There are a million reasons people start therapy A breakup, burnout, A new job, A new year. Whatever your reason, there is one place to start. Grow Therapy meets you where you are with support that actually sticks. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th. Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, GrowTherapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Visit growththerapy.com startnow today to get started. That's growtherapy.com startnow growtherapy.com startnow availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [02:53]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. Look, before we get started, I would want to say this, that this has been an incredibly difficult weekend. It's been an incredibly difficult period of time. And if you are feeling that there's something broken, if you're feeling that things are harder than usual or that you're seeing things that are more difficult to process, you're not alone. Seriously, I think that this is one of these periods, and in American life, or in our personal life, where we're looking around and we're going, okay, I'm living in a country that I don't necessarily recognize. I never thought that I would see many of these things. And of course, I'm referring to the latest shooting in Minneapolis. Look, let's make this very clear. You've all seen the video of what happened. And I think it is absolutely crucial to realize what it is that we are seeing, that despite the Trump administration lies and smears about this, we. What you are seeing here is the murder of an unarmed American citizen on a city street in this country. And what's irrefutable from these videos, all of the different videos that you are seeing, is that Alex Preddy, who is an ICU nurse, is holding a phone, not a gun. He has never seen brandishing or reaching for a gun. That's number one. Number two, a federal agent actually pulls a gun from his waistband. Apparently, during the struggle, he is disarmed. The gun is no longer a threat to any of the officers. The shooting occurs after the weapon's been removed and Mr. Preddy was disarmed. And then they fire 10 shots, 10 shots, five of them after Alex Preddy is lying motionless on the street. Now, despite all of this, we know what the Trump administration has said. Stephen Miller said that he was a domestic terrorist, a would be assassin. Kristi Noem has put out a version of the facts that bear no relationship to what the whole world is seeing in these videos. Now, look, part of this is, you know, how can we be surprised that this is an administration that lies? Donald Trump has been lying, like most people breathe, for more than a decade, actually, many, many decades. And he has created this infrastructure, people who will lie for him. So should we be surprised that they're putting out this alternative variation of the truth well, this is different, perhaps, because we know what we saw with our own eyes. And what the Trump administration is asking us to do is ignore the evidence of our eyes, ignore the. The facts, ignore what we are seeing. Now, does that work? I don't know. Part of me thinks this is a breaking point, that what you are seeing here is so horrific that people are going, this is not America. Unfortunately, it is America. But it offends their innate sense of decency. The darker view is that Donald Trump has spent more than a decade convincing people that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. And maybe, as Jonathan Chait suggests, that was a prophecy because almost to the day that he said that back in 2016, almost to the day, his agents are shooting someone on the streets of Minneapolis. And he's hoping that his supporters will not either believe what actually happened, believe the evidence of their eyes, or even worse, that. That they simply will not care. So we have a lot to talk about on this Tuesday morning. Oh, wow. And to try to make sense of all of this, we have a special guest. Kathryn Stewart is the author of Money, Lies and Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. First of all, thank you for joining me, Catherine.
- [06:54]
Kathryn Stewart
Thanks so much. It's great to be here.
- [06:56]
Charlie Sykes
So, you know, one of the questions that we're always asking ourselves, did we. Did we ever imagine that we would be in this moment? Did you ever imagine that as an American, we would have the kinds of scenes that we have before we started taping? You said you were watching a video, another video of ICE up in Minnesota. Can you just explain that to me, what you were seeing?
- [07:16]
Kathryn Stewart
I was just watching a video of ICE operations in California, actually.
- [07:21]
Charlie Sykes
California.
- [07:21]
Kathryn Stewart
Great American citizen. A woman with two very young kids is sleeping in her bedroom. Again, an American citizen. They blow off her front door with explosives. They shoot out her bedroom window. Her kids are completely freaked out. They demand she comes out because her husband had. Was really sort of in the wrong place at the wrong time, who is also an American citizen, by the way, and he's been accused of, I don't know, hurting government property because there was some clash. And, you know, one of these I'm really. Was like a wrong place at the wrong time kind of incidents, but this kind of terrorism of American citizens, I mean, it really. We gotta thank the Don't Tread on Me crowd for all of this. You know, for years we were hearing about government overreach and.
- [08:15]
Charlie Sykes
Wow.
- [08:15]
Kathryn Stewart
And we're seeing. Is really something that we've never seen in Living memory.
- [08:21]
Charlie Sykes
You know, it's interesting you mentioned that, because there was that long. You know, there was that thread that ran through American conservatism that was libertarian. You know, don't tread on me. You know, the individual rights that the government were jackbooted thugs, and we have to have a Second Amendment in order to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government. And yet here we are. You know, and one of the things that I struggle with, and I think a lot of people are struggling with, is how did we get here? We, you know, many of us grew up in an era when we thought of Americans as kind of the good guys. Right. And your book is. And a lot of your work is kind of a meditation on that. Money, lies, and God. So it is interesting how all of these things tie together. You have the politics, you have media, you have money, you have the role of. You have the role of religion. But so when you were watching Minnesota over the weekend, just give me your thoughts as a scholar, but as an American watching as that all played out, the killing and then the immediate rush to judgment and the lies and the exploitation of it, just how did you process this last weekend?
- [09:33]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, first, this is not really just about the depredations of one man. It's really not just about Donald Trump. Trump is the consequence of a movement that has really never believed in democracy in the first place. Unfortunately, it preceded him and it will long outlast him, but he's really given it rocket fuel. And another thing that struck me is that. Well, first, I want to dial back for a minute. I mean, did any of us think anything less of a movement that actually spread lies about the 2020 election, organized its people, and then stormed the Capitol and assaulted Capitol Police and sought to execute a coup? I mean, this is a movement that has a history of acting out in violent ways in order to enact their will. I also thought about the hypocrisy. I mean, there are so many levels of hypocrisy. But let's just talk about the fact that. I mean, let's talk about the fact that City Church was a church where one of the pastors is an ICE agent, and there was a protest stage there. And then the maga, right, you know, jumps and says, well, this is an affront to our religious freedom, and these people hate Christians, et cetera. And yet, at the same time, a little bit after protesting the murder of Renee Goode, around some 100 faith leaders peacefully protested and protested a sort of violent tactics of ice. And yet they were all arrested. And so we don't hear any cries for their religious freedom. But, you know, when a bunch of protesters, you know, don't hurt anybody, just go into a church and try and shout this guy down. And the interesting thing about that church in particular is that one of the pastors is. Has argued, is now a MAGA darling, because he argues that empathy is a sin. And that is representative of a kind of the form of religion that maga. The MAGA movement calls Christianity. It's antithetical to the way most American Christians understand their faith.
- [11:49]
Charlie Sykes
You know, when I first heard that, that there were Christians who were saying that, you know, that that empathy was, Was. Was. Was a problem, you know, my, My. My reaction was, wait, I'm not sure that Christianity means what you think it does. I mean, that sounds like Nietzsche. It doesn't sound like Christianity. But let's unpack some of this because there's so much going on here. So I want to go back to the whole culture of lies, because on one level, we think, look, we have marinated in these lies for more than a decade now, where we have a president who lies like most people breathe, and he's now surrounded himself. He's created an infrastructure of people who are willing to mangle the truth in his service. So what a surprise. They lie about everything. They lie about big things, they lie about small things. War, peace, you know, all. All of these crimes. But when this was first starting to happen, I started. I tried to break it down. And I want to get your take on all this. There are people who don't know they're being lied to, right? There are people who are so deep in this, they don't know who are being lied. Or there are people who may know they're being lied to and they don't care because it's more important for them to be on the team. And then there are people who believe all of this stuff, and they, like. So, I mean, they actually enjoy all of this. So our whole idea of our relationship to truth and lies feels like it has been bent and broken over the last decade. Could you talk to me about that? Because it used to be that if you were caught in a lie, it would be career ending, or if you were caught in a falsehood, people would want to correct it. And it feels as if that's like a bygone era now.
- [13:31]
Kathryn Stewart
You know, Frederick Douglass, I'm going to paraphrase here, he said that tyrants fear nothing more than free speech because truth is the enemy of all oppressors. When truth is in peril, democracy is in peril. And this is one of the reasons why the movement relies on lies. They want to separate a large sector of the American public from the facts because they know that the truth is inimical to dictatorial power. It makes them easier to these folks who have, have been lied to. It makes them easier to control. It makes them fearful. And they can take all those fears and hurl them at a perceived political enemy. So lies have become a really critical feature of the anti democratic movement broadly. And part of that is really control of the media and the suppression of critical voices, which is really among an autocrat's favorite tools. Right? So think about places like Russia or Hungary or China, like these and other oppressive governments have always sort of converted their information media ecosystems into propaganda operations. They manipulate and control people in order to get them to go along with an agenda that's going to divide the population, which makes them more, you know, harder to organize against autocratic or dictatorial power and also vote in ways or act in ways that will help enrich that political and financial elite that sort of funding the movement.
- [15:07]
Charlie Sykes
Let's talk about this moment and I want to talk about, I want to talk about money and media in just a little while because of course this is one of the big threats of our time. But this moment that we're in right now, where you have kind of the latest big lie from the Trump administration that this man, Alex preddy, was brandishing a 9 millimeter gun and he was going to massacre, he was gonna massacre police officers. Stephen Miller says he was going to assassinate them. The whole story of Kristi Noem and then you have all of this videotape. So we are not at the point now where the regime can control all of the flow of information. And what's extraordinary is these analyses just completely destroy the government lies. And yet the Trump administration seems to be doubling and tripling down on telling Americans, ignore the evidence of your own eyes. I mean, this is a real test, isn't it? Because it's almost like the Jedi mind trip. You are not seeing what you are clearly seeing. Every American, everybody in the world can see this man, this 37 year old ICU nurse being executed, shot in the back of the head in broad daylight on a Minneapolis street. And here you have the government of the United States all in on this. No, let me tell you a completely different story that is refuted by the video evidence. How does that. Well, give me some sense of, of that rather interesting tension.
- [16:31]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, I think George Orwell had some really good quotes about this. I mean, they lie out in the open, they lie blatantly because they want people to think the truth doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is the will of a dictator. And that is how dictatorships work. I mean, disinformation is as old as politics. Right? But we're at an absolutely new level and this has been a long time building. And this is where the infrastructure of the anti democratic movement comes in. The movement is leadership driven, it's organization driven. And we can divide the organizations into categories. We have a range of think tanks now that were created to promote a string of falsifications about things like Covid or the oppression, supposed oppression of conservative Christians, et cetera, that promote ideologically driven talking points and have echoed President Trump's lies about the 2020 election. There's a legal advocacy sphere that has basically put hardline ideologues on the Supreme Court that will go along with just whatever Trump wants. Has said that he can't be prosecuted for anything that he does if he can claim it's within the, you know, part of his presidency, which is really unprecedented. I mean, we had a revolution several hundred years ago to throw off the power of a monarch and establish a democracy, but they don't seem to see it. So there's all these other features of this anti democratic movement. There's, we all know about Fox News and how they just tow the sort of MAGA party line, but even off to the right of Fox News, there's a whole disinformation sphere of podcasters and youtubers. When I was researching Money Lies in God, I went to several gatherings called Reawaken America. For those of you who don't know what that is. It's a pro MAGA gathering that took place in mega churches all around the country, drawing each one, drawing thousands of attendees, featuring people like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone and Mike Flynn. Usually one of the Trump kids showed up to speak. So it's very Trump affiliated. And you walk in there and they're echoing every single conspiracy you can imagine. It's a great replacement that they, you know, the evil woke liberals or whoever are all communists. And they, they're trying to control every money, you know, every dime you ever earned. They're trying to change your gender against your will, et cetera, et cetera. And, and the one big, like not everybody intending believes in every conspiracy, but it's designed to really confuse people and inculcate them in fear and make them think that Donald Trump is, you know, a saint who never did anything wrong and he's a white hat fighting the black hats and all this other kind of stuff. And so the kind of conspiracism conspiracy environment has been a long time building and it has helped lead us to where we are today.
- [19:41]
Grow Therapy / Advertisement Voice
There are a million reasons people start therapy. A breakup, burnout, a new job, a new year. Whatever your reason, there is one place to start. Grow Therapy meets you where you are with support that actually sticks. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US Offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, GrowTherapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Visit growtherapy.com startnow today to get started. That's growtherapy.com startnow growtherapy.com startnow availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [21:02]
BILT / Jerry Insurance Advertisement Voice
Tired of your car insurance rate going up? Even with a clean driving record, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI Acast today.
- [21:35]
Charlie Sykes
Well, let me just read you from when your book came out in February, the New York Times had a very, very positive review and began this way, given that Money Lies in God was mostly written before the November 2024 election. The book reads as an eerily prescient guide to the phantasmagoria of our political moment. That's pretty good, but it is a measure of the upheavals of the last few weeks. This was written in February a year ago. It's a measure of the upheavals of the last few weeks that even the book's author, the journalist Kathryn Stewart, failed to anticipate some of the early surprises of the second term. And I think that a lot of us felt that way, that, okay, we'd been warning you and warning you how bizarre it was going to be, and yet there were some shocks when it actually happened. So what were the things that surprised you the most? Because again, I try to, and I say this on the podcast live, try to distinguish from what, what we knew, what was old, same old, same old, and what's genuinely new and shocking. So what were, what were some of those early developments that a little bit, you know, even, even with your very clear prediction that surprised you?
- [22:44]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, we've always known that they were engaged in a radical project to remake America all along, but it's shocking to see it actually happening. And today they're really ditching any pretense of restraint whatsoever. We've seen the elevation of movements like the crec, which is a religious movement. Doug Wilson is a pastor that's really prominent in that movement and his voice has been really elevated within that movement. Pete Hegseth attends a church that's affiliated with CREC and is a big admirer of his. He's so extreme. He doesn't think women should have the right to vote. He advocates incredibly extreme positions about imposing a very reactionary religious view on all of society by force if necessary. It's this idea that some Americans have a right to rule and others have a duty to obey.
- [23:40]
Charlie Sykes
And these are people now have places. See, this is the thing. It was. You kind of knew that they were opening the door to the folks from the fever swamp. But it was like all the sluices opened up, right? I mean, the most extreme characters. The Times review notes that you make mention of Darren Beatty, this White House speechwriter who left back in 2018 after he was linked to white nationalists. And I'm familiar with Darren Beatty. I mean, this guy is way out there, got a long track record of being a bigot and yet he's got a job, he's got a top job at the State Department. I mean, the fact that guys like that are being, are being green lit is just crazy.
- [24:23]
Kathryn Stewart
I know if you looked at the Twitter page of the Department of Homeland Security and other government run organizations, I mean, they're being run by these, these gripers, these white nationalists and people who hold the most extreme views. The racism is so overt. It's overt in a way that's quite shocking because for tactical purposes, the movement really made an attempt for some years to at least in, you know, in its optics, racially diversify in order to draw along, you know, peel off the voters of color that they could. And they really focused on Latino voters and were very successful. I mean, between 2016 and 2020, the Latino vote overall shifted between 8 and 10 points in favor of Trump and even further in 2024. And now look what's happening. I mean, people who are Latino or American citizens are. This poor lady had the front door of her house blown off with her two kids sleeping upstairs and the bedroom window is shot out. I mean, the way they're being treated is just disgusting. But we are seeing the optic. I'm going to use the F word. You know, I often, I've resisted it because, you know, sometimes authoritarianism goes down a little better.
- [25:43]
Charlie Sykes
But you got to use the F word. I mean, Jonathan Rauch broke. You know, Jonathan Rauch has been arguing. No, come on, guys. Charles, they don't use, you know, don't call him a fascist. You know, great article in the Atlantic that I would strongly urge people to read. He goes through Jonathan Rousey. Yes, this is fascism. And he admits he's changed his mind on this. And he goes through with all of the receipts. And I'll tell you one of the real tells of this that you're talking about these scenes of brutality. The fact that the administration, DHS and ICE have been turning these into their own, like, music videos, these sizzle reels of the, you know, heavily armed guys, you know, breaking doors down, rappelling from helicopters, and the fact that they then include Bible verses quoting the Sermon on the Mount while showing these brutal scenes. I mean, you want to talk about the intersection of all the things that you write about in your book, but I think that's. I mean, what do you make of quoting the Sermon on the Mount while you're doing a music video of ICE agents rappelling into helicopters to break down doors and blow open windows? What world are we living in?
- [26:52]
Kathryn Stewart
I call these guys reactionary nihilists because they deny there's any truth or reality in the world as it actually exists today. They deny there's any value in that world. At the same time, they're sort of playing. It's like they're playing a video game. It's like this is all a game to them. Optics often rely on snark and a kind of, you know, stick it to the libs vibe, a sense that nothing really matters. And haha, it's just a joke, but it's not right. I mean, look, fascism, I think is better understood as something that happens to a political system, not something that necessarily starts off as like a full fledged program that receives support of the majority of voters. Right. Who lent their support to it. So this movement has a number of different groups and pieces sometime working at odds with one another and sometimes, you know, working together, but they end up reinforcing each other and it leads to consequences that I think a lot of the people who lent their support to this movement. Right. Don't anticipate and don't want. So I think a lot of folks now are kind of looking at this stuff and saying, well, I'm not sure this is exactly what I signed up for. And they're right. You know, I think a lot of the voters who cast their vote because they wanted, they didn't believe in abortion. They were told, well, you got to vote for the pro life candidate or who, you know, cast their vote because they thought this movement, you know, they believed their lies when they said, we claim to stand for the American family. I don't think they were aiming for fascism or authoritarianism. I think they were really just making a statement about themselves and, and what they value. Right. But with their efforts, they have led support to this, this agenda, this authoritarian agenda.
- [28:46]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and as you've pointed out over the years, though, one of the through lines is they want power. I mean, your previous book was the Power Worshipers, which is about Christian nationalism. And this has always been one of the things that has puzzled me about how do you say you're Christian and support all of this? Power is obviously one of the commons. Now you divide many of these groups into five main categories. The funders, the thinkers, the sergeants, the infantry, and the power players. Let's talk about money, and let me go at it this way. One of the surprises for Me in Trump 2.0 was the role of the billionaires and the oligarchs and all the tech bros who lined up behind Donald Trump. I think that there had been an assumption that if you were really, really wealthy, that you had fuck you money. But then rather than saying fuck you to the administration, what Donald Trump apparently understood was that if you had a lot of money, you had a lot of things to lose. So the, this concentration of government power allied with these massive concentrations of the funding power. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Because that's again, something that I don't think people thought of in the old days. I think maybe people thought of the Silicon Valley might be A guardrail against the overweening state. But. But this alliance between big money and big government. Just talk to me about the funders and how this all works.
- [30:23]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, over the past five decades, look, the movement has this dense organizational infrastructure. The strength of that movement is in that infrastructure. And over the past five decades, enormous sums of money have flowed into it. And I want to talk about the funders for a second. You know, it includes people like these tech bros who have, you know, sort of lately come to it. It includes people like the Corkerys, like Sean Filer, members of The Betsy, the DeVos Prince family, juggernaut Barryside, so many others. Here's the thing about. So some of them are Jewish, some of them are Catholic, a lot of them are Protestant or evangelical, and a number of them are atheistic or seem to believe in nothing more than money. What unites them is that they want policies that benefit plutocratic wealth. They want low taxes for the rich, minimal regulation of government for their monopolistic businesses. The movement has sort of set itself against environmentalism because a lot of these folks are involved in businesses that are polluting, and they want to be able to pollute freely without regulation. So, you know, some of them claim to be, oh, you know, we're capitalists. We just want to let the markets do their thing. Same time they're seeking privileged contracts for their monopolistic businesses. And then people like Elon Musk are seeking billions and receiving them in taxpayer subsidies. So they're drawing the policies that benefit the rich enhance plutocratic wealth. But also, here's the thing that justify plutocratic wealth, because a lot of these very rich people live in bubbles, right? They live in, you know, walls, like little, you know, walled compounds. But over the high walls, they can sort of hear the voices of their critics saying, you know, you know, maybe you should pay your taxes like everybody else instead of sending it to an offshore account. And they don't like that. It's sort of a narcissistic injury. So they're drawn to ideologies that not just increase the wealth, but justify it. But they know that these policies, if put to the American people in clear ways, they will not be approved. So that's where the culture wars come in. And that's why they pour money into these disinformation operations and other features of the movement that function as a giant voter turnout machine. And that's. Look, if you can get people to vote on a single issue or two or three issues, you can control their vote. So a lot of the Machinery of the movement is focusing on getting the little people, the rank and file, or the foot soldiers, as I call them, to, you know, vote on issues like abortion or same sex marriage or other related issues.
- [33:10]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, no, then those, those were cutting edge issues. Now I agreed with the, the writer in the New York Times who said, you know, your book Money, Lies and Gods covers a lot of territory, but your exploration of right wing ideas I thought was really interesting. So for example, you have a chapter called, you know, smashing the Administrative State. And you know, and again, anyone who's been around conservative politics knows there were, you know, long standing plans to replace, you know, the, you know, the Leviathan state. There was a lot of interest in privately controlled, corporate managed, you know, alternatives. And you devoted an entire chapter to the Claremont Institute, which again, we've talked about on these podcasts. This is this very influential and very right wing California think tank. How influential are they? You go back to, they were influenced by political philosophers like Leo Strauss, who's kind of mainstreamy, and Carl Schmitt, who is decidedly not mainstream. I think he's best described as a Nazi jurist and yet apparently has some influence on one of the most influential of the maga era right wing think tanks. Is that overstating it?
- [34:23]
Kathryn Stewart
No, not at all. I mean, I cover Schmidt much of the movement. I cover, Look, I call the religious right and the New Right the power couple of American authoritarianism. In this book, if you look at a document like Project 2025, which was organized by the Heritage foundation and with, with the support of over 100 other organizations, which, some of which are more on the Religious right side, others are more on the New Right side, you can kind of see the melding of these two elements of the anti democratic movement. The interesting thing about Carl Schmitt, he was a Nazi political theorist and this critical, you know, he come up with a lot of ideas that are sort of in practice on the New Right today. But I think the most salient idea that he came up with that we should consider is this idea of the friend, enemy distinction, the idea that you're with us or you're against us, and if you're against us, you must destroy by any means necessary. And this is something that the, this administration has. It's a sort of mindset that they've cultivated over time. You know, I'm an investigative journalist. I go to a lot of these events. I go to a lot of strategy meetings and gatherings and sometimes I'll see Trump speak at them. And at some of these gatherings, he'll say things like, you know, the most dangerous enemy we face is not our foreign enemies. As dangerous as they may be, the most dangerous enemy is the enemy within. And you know who we're talking about and they're speaking about anyone who's not with maga, including Rhinos. I see people at some of these events with rhino hunting T shirts showing firearms, you know, Rhinos standing for Republicans in name only. Great. So it's not just sort of liberals and progressives and moderates that they're calling the enemy. It's also insufficiently Republicans who are insufficiently slavish to this this movement.
- [36:31]
Grow Therapy / Advertisement Voice
There are a million reasons people Start therapy. A breakup, burnout, a new job, a new year. Whatever your reason, there is one place to start. Grow Therapy meets you where you are, with support that actually sticks. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 2024 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans including Medicaid in some states. Visit growththerapy.comstartnow today to get started. That's growtherapy.com growtherapy.com start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Is your dog's food created to maximize your dog's quality of life or to extend the food's shelf life? It's time to make the switch to sundaes. Sundaze was founded by a veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman, who got tired of seeing so called premium dog food full of fillers and synthetics. So she designed sundaes air dried real food made in a human grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care you'd use to cook for yourself and your family. Every bite of sundaes is clean and made from real meat, fruits and veggies with no kibble. That means no weird ingredients you can't pronounce and no fillers because your dog deserves food made with care, not in the interest of cost cutting, you just scoop and serve. No freezer, no thawing or prep, no mess, just nutrient rich, clean food that fuels their happiest, healthiest days. So you get more of them to share together. So go right now to Sundays for dogs.com acast30 and get 30% off your first three orders. Or you can use code acast30 at checkout. That's 30% off your first order at sundays4dogs.com acast30 or use code acast30 at checkout.
- [39:10]
Charlie Sykes
So why did the. You know. Yes. I mean you. So you have the funders who pay for the thinkers who come up with these ideologies that have suffused maga. But there were other streams and I guess this is the question I have is, you know, back in the day there were other streams of conservative politics that were more libertarian streams. There were the people who were the more reformists who why were they defeated by the MAGA folks? And again, you would have asked me 10, 12 years ago, I would have said there was a very, very robust infrastructure that funded not anti democratic, but pretty pro democratic, more classical liberal conservative thinking. I mean, you had people like very prominent writers like Charles Krownhammer or George Will or you know, in many cases the pre Trump National Review who were not part of this tradition and yet have been completely brushed aside and blown away. How did that happen? Because they had their funders like the Koch brothers, for example, you know, demonized by the left. But the Koch brothers feel like they were kind of in a different tradition and they had huge amounts of money and yet they're not players in this world anymore, are they?
- [40:28]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, they are in terms of the data operations. So funded i360, which is a very sophisticated data operation, plays a role in the voter turnout machine. But I wouldn't call them necessarily Christian nationalists. In fact, I'm sort of hesitant to call anyone a Christian nationalist unless they are adhering openly to certain kinds of statements. I will say that they have lent their support to a Christian nationalist agenda, you know, whether they knew it or not. But listen, I think conservatism in America as you know, has had plenty of internal divisions, right. And contradictions, but it's consistently returned to a few core convictions. One is that the government is always a problem. So remember Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the nine scariest words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And then you had sort of anti tax activist and fanatic over Norquist said something to the effect of, I don't want to abolish government, I want to drag it into the bathtub where I can drown it or something like that. Right? So I think this conviction, frankly, was always a cover for those who did not want any representatives of the people to interfere with their private power and their privileges. They didn't actually want small government. They wanted a government that answered to their interests. Right? So the opposite of the extremes of deregulation that they champion is not really a free market. It's crime, kleptocracy and misrule. Think about the Claremont Institute folks and the folks on the New Right who are talking about smashing the administrative state. And then look what we have. We have this huge administrative state. We have goon squads with badges, badges and paychecks. And look what Musk did with his 19 year old minions. Just sort of smashing and burning. We've seen now the data that didn't actually save the government money. You know, he defunded USAID and shrunk a bunch of agencies so they're no longer, they're totally dysfunctional. USAID is, you know, effectively gone. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of the world, world's most vulnerable people, have died as a consequence, but yet the money's been diverted to other things. I mean, and meanwhile, we have a president who has completely engaged in unprecedented grift and self enrichment for himself and his family that is complete. It's, it's. Think about Warren Harding or, or Richard Nixon. Warren Harding's Teapot Dome. This is like. This makes it look like childhood. And when Richard Nixon tried to subvert the Department of Justice and was released on secret tapes, his own party, the Republican Party, said, you've crossed a line, you can't do that and you have to leave. And now Trump just sort of tweets it out in the morning to Pam Bondi on Twitter. Everybody can see it. He announces he's doing it and nobody in his party does anything. The wheels have fallen off. The party that once called itself conservative, I don't think it has a right to call itself conservative.
- [43:38]
Charlie Sykes
I agree.
- [43:39]
Kathryn Stewart
It is radical.
- [43:40]
Charlie Sykes
No, I agree. And in terms of just sort of the towering hypocrisy of all of this, you know, the party that claimed that it was in favor of small government, that it did not want government to pick the winners and losers of the economy, look at where we are right now. We not only have this massive leviathan state out of Washington where all power has been consolidated in Washington D.C. and all power in Washington D.C. consolidated in the person of the president, who chooses to which companies he punishes, which companies he lets in on the grift. A federal government, a state that is involved in virtually every aspect of American life. The attacks on free speech, on the media, telling universities what they can and cannot do, bullying universities, going into museums. The extent I'm trying to think about what conservatives of your would think about it, say an Obama administration which was dictating the kinds of things that museums around the country would include and would not include, or that we're doing the kinds of things that we're doing, they would recognize this as an overweening, you know, out of control, centralized government that conservatives claimed they were against. And right now, we have never seen a federal government in our business as intensively as this government is right now under the banner of the small government Party, which is like, I'm sorry, mind blowing for me.
- [45:07]
Kathryn Stewart
It's true. I mean, also, another consistent theme of the Republican Party or the conservative movement has been this idea that traditional values are under threat and have to be restored. And that's been a kind of rallying cry of the Christian nationalist movement that is in recent years kind of dominated the Republican Party. And they claim that they stand for the American family, but they're driving support for policies and politicians that are making like that. It's making it harder for American families to succeed, not easier. It's resulted in a sort of further upward concentration of wealth. So people at the tippy top are doing just fine, but people in the bottom 90% are really struggling, and that's increasing resentment. The movement is very good at tapping into those resentments. And some of those resentments are frankly justified. Justified. People see that it's harder than it was for their parents to kind of get by, harder to sustain their families and. And try and get a better future for themselves and their kids. But the movement, what they do is they'll harness those resentments and then hurl them at their perceived political enemies. And this is something autocrats always do. They always find scapegoats, people to blame the for for rather than look the sources of the problem.
- [46:26]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and of course, that was the first thing that Donald Trump did when he came down the golden escalator was to find the scapegoat he was gonna blame for all of our problems, those Mexican rapists. And nothing has really changed. But, you know, going back to the Christians with their character matters, again, this is one of those things turned on its head. Christians claim to be concerned about traditional values, traditional morality, and there's Donald Trump, a guy who is a convicted felon, whose personal life is, I mean, where do you want to start? You know, the grabbing women, the things that he has, you know, publicly stated that he has done all of those things. And yet they are willing to basically say, you know, the same people who said the character really matters when Bill Clinton was president are the least likely to say the character matters when it comes to the convicted felon and sex abuser who is sitting in the White House right now. Guy who pays off was convicted of paying money to a porn star. And this has not moved the needle. So I guess the question look, looking forward, you said something at the beginning of our conversation. What we're seeing now is not going away. Even when Donald Trump goes away. It's hard to imagine Donald Trump going away. But just talk to me about that. What will endure? What can be fixed? Big questions.
- [47:50]
Kathryn Stewart
Well, should our. I left my crystal ball in the other room. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what's going to happen. We don't know when he's going to go away or what the America, frankly is going to look like in a month or a year or 10 years. But only thing we can really count on is change. And at some point this movement is Donald Trump will not be in power and his allies will, will have gone away. And we need to prepare for that now and start thinking about the dysfunction that has allowed this to happen in the first place. I think that, you know, it would be good to start thinking now about how to mount a pro democracy movement that has some teeth. I think for a long time this is a movement that was engaged in a war against democracy and people on the sort of pro, the pro democracy who would be, should be in the pro democracy coalition or frankly unaware of it or unwilling to sort of face it. There are plenty of people with a lot of money in this country who support democracy, but they tend to invest their money differently. The right investor money in people and organizations, organizational infrastructure. And on the sort of moderate liberal side, left model, liberal progressive side. Money tends to go to technocratic solutions thinking. I mean, look at what Biden did. Oh well, there's all this unhappiness in the red states. Let's invest in, you know, projects in those states. Let's invest in infrastructure building, let's invest in green energy, people, jobs and then they won't be so resentful of their black neighbors or whatever, you know what, or the liberals, the woke, whatever. It didn't really work, did it? I Mean, people are not that rational in the way that they vote sometimes. I think about the fact that the DNC had a lot of money and they threw, I think it was a couple billion dollars at TV ads at the last minute. I think if a fraction of that money had been spent on infrastructure building and going after low propensity voters in the way that the right does, for instance, that or people who were inclined to sit out the vote, which happened in 2024, a lot of people declined to vote and sat it out. And we see the consequences of that. I think that we would have been much better served.
- [50:17]
Charlie Sykes
So let me ask you this, though, and play a little bit of devil's advocate, because we talk a lot about democracy. What if democracy gives us fascism? What if, in fact, the people vote for this? Donald Trump got most of the vote. If you would have had a referendum in the American south back in the 19th century, democratically, the public would have endorsed slavery. So democracy is not the answer to everything, is it? I mean, I know we use democracy as kind of a shorthand, but is it possible that we've reached a point in American culture where the American people democratically are going to say, yeah, we are okay with all of that. We are okay with the cruelty, with the brutality, with the unfairness, with the kleptocracy, with the suppression of the people we don't like, and we are willing to vote for it. Is that not democratic?
- [51:15]
Kathryn Stewart
You know, the principles of democracy are pluralism, equality, the rule of law, and justice. The principles of equality also include the idea that our law should be deliberated in public by representatives of the people and that they should apply to all citizens, including our leaders. These are beautiful principles, and they're worth fighting for. Of course, our democracy is imperfect the way that it's. Especially with the flood of disinformation that we've seen, we're going to need to think about how to take that on. But, you know, we can talk about the imperfections of democracy, but the principles of a democracy are. Are the principles of. You can have your beliefs, but we need to deliberate policy on the basis of rational principles that we can agree upon. These are principles that are worth fighting for. And for those like people on the New Right and others that say that democracy no longer works. Look around the world. We have, you know, examples of all kinds of autocratic government. I mean, there's a reason people have wanted to move from all over the world, people have wanted to move to America. Why? America has been seen as a beacon of Freedom and a place where no matter who you are or where you're from, you can actually get a toehold and make a better future for yourself. And that's an idea worth fighting for.
- [52:35]
Charlie Sykes
You know, and this again comes back to where we started, why truth matters. The truth is really the oxygen of democracy because as you point out, I mean, part of this anti democratic attack is the idea of demolishing the very possibility of reasonable discussion. If you treat politics as an extension of war by other means, that sort of thing, that if in fact, in a post truth culture where people go, I don't know what's true, I don't care, I'm just going to be part of my team, then you have demolished the ability to have that kind of rational discussion and you cannot have a democratic society without it. So, I mean, this does come back to this whole question of the commitment to being able to know what's true and to be able to deliberate in a reasonable way. Right. I mean, that is the heart of the project and the threat.
- [53:25]
Kathryn Stewart
That's true. And I think that if you put the facts to most Americans and the way that they can understand them, they will come out on the side of democracy and truth.
- [53:36]
Charlie Sykes
You hope so. The book is Money, Lies and Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Kathryn Stewart. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it very, very much.
- [53:49]
Kathryn Stewart
Thank you, Charlie.
- [53:51]
Charlie Sykes
And we will continue to have these conversations. You know, thank you for listening to today's podcast because do I need to remind you? Yeah, apparently I do. We are not the crazy ones. Thank you. AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world, complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when FIN goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard. And if you're not happy, we'll refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at fin.AI.
- [54:48]
Grow Therapy / Advertisement Voice
Hey, this is Paige from Giggly Squad. We all have way too many subscriptions and bills and no good way to manage or track all of them. But now we have Experian. It's the best place to manage your finances because you can connect all of your accounts in one place, track all your spending, and you can let Experian do the work of finding ways to save you money January is the perfect time to get your finances in order. It's the perfect New Year resolution. Let your big financial friend Experian do the work for you. So get started today with the Experian app. Now.
- [55:20]
BILT / Jerry Insurance Advertisement Voice
If you're not using Ironclad for contracts, you could be leaving millions on the table without knowing it. Every contract holds renewal dates, pricing terms, and obligations you can't afford to miss. But good luck finding them when it matters. Ironclad's AI instantly surfaces what matters so you can act before opportunities slip away. That's why they're trusted by OpenAI, L', Oreal, and Salesforce. Find the savings hiding in your contracts@ironcladapp.com podcast that's ironcladapp.com podcast.