Trump Wants To Be King

Summary

Podcast Summary: What A Day – Episode "Trump Wants To Be King"

Host: Jane Coaston
Guest: Ruth Ben Ghiat, Professor of History at New York University
Release Date: March 24, 2025

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

In the episode titled "Trump Wants To Be King," host Jane Coaston delves into the alarming developments within the Trump administration, highlighting actions that suggest authoritarian tendencies. The discussion begins with a vivid portrayal of the current political climate, where President Trump is actively using his personal social media platforms to criticize and threaten judicial authorities while implementing controversial immigration policies.

Key Points:

• Trump's Anti-Judicial Rhetoric: President Trump is vocally attacking judges who rule against him, advocating for impeachment through his personal social media channels.
• Controversial Immigration Policies: The administration is deporting migrants to El Salvador, labeling them as gang members, despite concerns over the legitimacy and due process of these actions ([00:02]).

Expert Insight: Ruth Ben Ghiat on Authoritarianism

Jane Coaston invites Ruth Ben Ghiat to provide historical context and analyze whether the current administration's actions signify a slippery slope toward authoritarianism.

Notable Quotes:

• On Authoritarian Intentions: "There's no doubt that what they would like to do is kill off our democracy and have some form of an authoritarian state." ([03:27])
• Comparison to Historical Figures: "Trump is more traditional. You know, that's why he loves Putin. He loves Xi, whether it's communist or fascist. He loves these dictators." ([05:39])

Discussion Highlights:

• Transition to Authoritarianism: Ghiat asserts that the administration's maneuvers—such as manipulating immigration laws and undermining judicial independence—mirror strategies employed by historical strongmen like Mussolini.
• Unique Threat Level: She emphasizes that the swift and extensive nature of these actions is unprecedented, comparing it to the immediate aftermath of a coup, which typically leaves little room for reversal ([04:30]).
• Erosion vs. Abrupt Change: The current trajectory is marked by a slow erosion of democratic norms rather than a sudden shift, making resistance more challenging ([11:07]).

Historical Comparisons and Current Implications

Ghiat draws parallels between Trump's administration and past dictatorships to illustrate the potential long-term consequences for American democracy.

Notable Quotes:

• On Coup Analogies: "It's very challenging for America because we've only got these two parties and the Democratic Party has a wide variety." ([07:05])
• Resistance and Solidarity: "Communities will save us. Your relationships will save you." ([12:56])

Key Insights:

• Limited Political Spectrum: The bipartisan nature of American politics complicates the formation of a unified opposition, unlike multi-party systems in Europe that have successfully resisted far-right movements.
• Importance of Grassroots Resistance: Emphasizing community engagement and visibility in resistance efforts as crucial for countering authoritarian trends.

Democratic Response: Rallying Against Authoritarianism

The episode highlights the proactive measures taken by Democratic leaders like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to mobilize support against the Trump administration.

Key Points:

• Massive Rallies: Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez hosted rallies attracting tens of thousands, signaling widespread public concern and desire for progressive change ([22:53]).
• Policy Advocacy: Their campaigns focus on taxing the wealthy, guaranteeing healthcare, and opposing attempts to erase American history from congressional records.
• Unity Over Division: Emphasizing that despite internal disagreements, there is a collective demand within the Democratic Party to stand firmly against Trump's policies and rhetoric.

Other News Highlights

While the primary focus remains on the Trump administration and democratic resistance, the episode also touches upon several other pressing issues:

• Venezuelan Deportations: The administration's deportation flights to El Salvador are criticized for labeling individuals without proper due process, raising ethical and legal concerns ([17:29]).

  Quote: "The bottom line is that plan was full of people designated as terrorists, number one." ([18:39])

• Tesla and Political Influence: Discusses the surge in Tesla trade-ins amidst vandalism protests and the administration's public endorsement of Elon Musk, raising questions about conflicts of interest and ethics within federal offices ([19:55]).

  Quote: "I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap." ([19:55])

• Israel-Gaza Conflict: Reports on the escalating conflict, with significant casualties in Gaza and the potential for a full-scale ground invasion by Israel, emphasizing the ongoing humanitarian crisis ([20:05]).

• U.S. Delegation to Greenland: Highlights the visit of Second Lady Usha Vance to Greenland, contrasting it with Trump's previous statements about annexing the territory, showcasing a shift in diplomatic focus ([21:58]).

Conclusion: Call to Action

Jane Coaston wraps up the episode by reinforcing the importance of collective action and community solidarity in combating the erosion of democracy. She urges listeners to engage actively in political processes and support movements that resist authoritarianism.

Final Thoughts:

• Mobilizing the 80 Million: Ghiat stresses the urgency of reaching out to non-voters and mobilizing the larger population to prevent the consolidation of power by the current administration.
• Recognizing the Threat: Acknowledging the unprecedented nature of the current political threats and the necessity for immediate and unified resistance to safeguard democratic institutions.

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This episode of "What A Day" serves as a critical examination of the Trump administration's potentially authoritarian trajectory, drawing on historical parallels and emphasizing the need for robust democratic resistance. Through insightful dialogue with Ruth Ben Ghiat, listeners are encouraged to understand the gravity of the situation and the imperative for collective action to preserve American democracy.

Transcript

[Jane Coastin]

It's Monday, March 24th. I'm Jane Coastin and this is what a Day. The show that fully supports Louie and Ophelia. Two otters that have run away from the new zoo and Adventure park in Green Bay, Wisconsin, run free. Little otters run free. On today's show, Venezuela says it will accept deep board tease. And second lady Usha Vance is going to Greenland to watch some dog sled. That's definitely the only reason she's going, just for a visit for dogs. But let's start with perhaps the biggest question you might be asking yourself, right how bad is all this going to get? And how scared should I be? Let's just set the stage here. Right now, the president of the United States is screaming on his personal social media website about impeaching judges who rule against him while the government is disappearing migrants who may or may not be gang members to a nightmare prison in El Salvador and then posting about how funny it is on social media. And the people closest to this administration all sound like Trump assistant Sebastian Gorka speaking to Newsmax on Friday.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

And there is one person, according to the Constitution, according to the statutes of the nation, who has the right to decide who can be in America, who are the aliens, who are the foreigners who are allowed into the nation, and.

[Jane Coastin]

Who we keep out.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

That individual is the commander in chief.

[Jane Coastin]

That is both untrue and extremely creepy. But this is all very, very bad, the kind of bad that at absolute best is going to take years to make, right? At worst, well, history tells us it doesn't end well. And the resistance to the actions of everyone involved here looks really feeble in the face of their constant threats. On Friday, Columbia University agreed to a list of demands from the administration, including major reforms to its protest policies after the White house cut off $400 million worth of federal grants earlier this month. But even that level of capitulation may not be enough for the Trump administration. Education secretary Linda McMahon seemed to give the White House an opening to demand more during an interview Sunday with CNN's Dana Bash.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

I believe that they are on the right track so that we can now move forward. Does that mean that the money will be unfrozen? That means that we are on the right track now to make sure the final negotiations to unfreeze that money will be in place.

[Jane Coastin]

Okay, so not yet.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

We're working on it.

[Jane Coastin]

On the right track sure doesn't sound like you're definitely getting your money back now. I am not by nature a panicky person, but I'm feeling pretty anxious right now, and maybe you are, too. So I wanted to know more about what history could tell us about our current moment, and more critically for us and for me, what we can do about it. So I spoke with Ruth Ben Guelt. She's a professor of history at New York University and author of Strongmen Mussolini to the Present. Ruth, thank you so much for joining me today.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

It's a pleasure.

[Jane Coastin]

I think it's really hard for me, and it's hard for a lot of people to tell what we're watching right now when it comes to the Trump administration. Are we watching a wannabe strongman fumble through enacting a policy agenda that will likely prove to be deeply unpopular, or are we actually watching the end of American democracy as we've known it pretty much for the last century? How have you been thinking about his second term so far?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

There's no doubt that what they would like to do is kill off our democracy and have some form of an authoritarian state. I mean, somebody who's been saying that he singly Trump is an authoritarian since 2016, and I saw his first administration as like a trial run. And so now they use their time out of office brilliantly to set everything up so they're ready to go. I also think, though, that it's going to be deeply unpopular, and I think there's going to be a reckoning that we're already starting to see. So it's both. And I do want to say this is one of the scariest things, comparatively speaking. The speed and the scale of what they're doing does not resemble how even Putin got started, or Erdogan or. Or Bond. It resembles after a coup. So that's very sobering.

[Jane Coastin]

So, I mean, you used the word coup. Sometimes those aren't reversible. Like, you can't come back necessarily every time from a coup. So what does that mean?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Well, I see two things going on, because you can see my book Strongman in the background, and there's only one guy on the COVID because there's the thing about the strongman. There's one. But here we have two guys, two damaged individuals who would like to wreck democratic governance. And so I've been trying to figure out what is old and what is new of what's going on. And Trump is more traditional. You know, that's why he loves Putin. He loves xi, whether it's communist or fascist. He loves these dictators. And so the stuff that Musk is doing and Doge was just created as a front so that he could really infiltrate government and paralyze governance and wreck America. So that would take generations to rebuild. So things just fall apart and stop functioning. And that is something that would be more difficult to fix depending on how long it goes on.

[Jane Coastin]

I don't like doing historical comparisons because it's so difficult to say, like, you know, we don't really have a lot of the same scenarios or same context that existed in 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany or, you know, talking about Venezuela or the rise of Peronism in Argentina. But can you compare the moment we're in to the rise of past dictators like Mussolini, for example? What did opposition to him look like during his rise with the. With the knowledge that the context is going to be different?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Yeah, Mussolini is a good example actually, because he was a prime minister in a democracy before he became dictator and he used that time to intimidate the opposition. And there was a huge left. That's why you're right that it's very difficult to make historical comparisons because although Maga and Trump talk a lot about the radical left, we don't have a huge left. There's no big Communist party. That's all propaganda. But one of the things that we do know is that it's very important to have unity of opposition and in places in Europe to just keep. Today, like in Poland, they were able to get rid of their far right party after eight years because six parties came together and they have multi party situations. And it's very challenging for America because we've only got these two parties and the Democratic Party has a wide variety.

[Jane Coastin]

Of types of people and they all hate each other.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

And we see Bernie and AOC out there getting tens of thousands of people and actually responding to the moment in a very empathetic and engaged manner. And then we see that the institutional part of the party, the kind of more elitist part of the party, I would say not responding very well as a leadership collective. There are individual people, Chris Murphy and Jasmine Crockett, who are fabulous. Fabulous. So it's a problem that we only have these two parties because there's no flexibility. It's like the party is a bit fossilized. And I just don't think that in this situation one huge party is very equipped to handle a crisis like this.

[Jane Coastin]

Even thinking about Trump in terms of other historical dictators, I think that that's the challenge of alleged Trump derangement syndrome. Right. That like when you point out how alarming his actions are in the context of infamous strongmen that have come before him, or even if you just say things are bad, people accuse you of being crazy. It kind of reminds me a little bit because the term comes from Charles Krauthammer talking about George W. Bush, a president the right has successfully disappeared. But sometimes even I feel crazy thinking about Trump while also trying to live my life and thinking about like, how much should I be doing talking about him or what should I be doing? Because you wanna think, what would I be doing if we were in 1920s Italy or early 1930s Germany? You know, what would I be doing? And then I'm like, but is that these moments? Maybe I'm crazy. So how do you ground yourself in these moments?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Yeah, that's such an interesting question because one thing I saw in my research is that when this happens, people are always unprepared. They always think it's not going to happen to them as a country. And then often even if it starts to happen to their country, they think it's not going to happen to me. But this is an example that I think about a lot right now. So in Chile you had the US backed coup, 1973. It's a big example in my book. So that's a coup. So it was like a surprise. And the equivalent of the gop, which is the Christian Democrats, they were conservatives, the lead of the party who had been the president of the country. So he's no naive person. He actually thought that the military junta was going to like, you know, make order and calm things down and get rid of the left and then hand back power to them, to civilians. And then later, a few years later, he starts to wake up and realize that's not the case and he starts speaking out and he was poisoned and he died. So I think about that a lot because even when there's been a coup, and so like 24 hours in, they're like taking people to the stadium and torturing them. Some people are still like, it might be okay, you know, and so here we are. And it's easy to live our lives and try and ignore what's going on, but that's going to become much more difficult. And you know, one of the main things that's important to do is have solidarity, because otherwise it's like, if I'm not X, they're not going to come for me and I don't have to care. And that is a recipe for the whole country being taken over.

[Jane Coastin]

Yeah, I keep thinking about how I spent a lot of time studying the rise of Nazi Germany and the rise of Adolf Hitler and there were so Many people, the industrialists, the socialists, all these people who were like, well, he's not going to be the problem. He's not going to be the problem. It's somebody else. It's somebody else that we don't need, you know, we don't need to worry about him. Maybe we can even use him for our own purposes. And that's not what happened. Is there a moment in your writing and in your research in which you've seen democracies tip into a point of no return, into authoritarianism, or maybe not no return, but where the road back to democracy is long and terrible?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Well, we're going down that road because it's a little deceptive today if people immediately think, if you hear fascism or because those were one party states. And today it's much more common to have. It's called electoral autocracy, where you keep elections going, you keep different parties going, and then you fix the system in different ways so that you stay in power. You also change the laws, you also change the constitution eventually. So, for example, in Turkey, Erdogan, who gets a pass and should not by so many people, he's always said, well, here we have the ballot box. I'm not a dictator. But he just passed the point of no return because he arrested his chief political rival, the head of the opposition party, and a hundred of his colleagues and removed him from office as the Istanbul mayor. And he basically took out of play the only guy who would have been able to beat him in the next election for president. So that's a tipping point. But other times, it's a slow erosion. And that's what we're living through now, a slow erosion. And then test case. Oh, let's disappear this person. Oh, let's buy off this law firm. And that's where, if resistance is not swift and widespread, other examples will follow.

[Jane Coastin]

So, given everything we've just talked about, I am scared. I've been scared. What can we do to fight back? You talked about solidarity, you talked about working together, but what does that look like for average people listening to this podcast who are, like me, scared?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

I think we've seen that a lot of the resistance is from the ground up. I think that, you know how Steve Bannon came up with partly him and others, the precinct strategy, that the right was going to conquer America from the ground up. The school boards, the town councils, and they were very successful at doing that. We've got to take back our country. I'm using a Trumpian phrase and turning it on them. I think that's important to do. I think it's really important to engage in community. Communities will save us. And we also know history of resistance. Your relationships will save you. Your real life community relationships are very important also, I think being visible and resisting and it doesn't matter if it's small scale, everything counts. I was in Penn Station, a train station, and I went into the bathroom and I saw in one of the stalls somebody had taped on Trump Musk fascism a big sign inside the stall. And because I'm historian, my mind went back to the White Rose group of students in Nazi Germany. And that's what they used to do. That's what they used to do. And I was like, okay, people see that it's something. And the last thing I would say, most of us have somebody in our lives who is what I politely say, dwelling in the disinformation tunnel. I think as it becomes more evident what the terrible fallout is going to be with Social Security, with the parallel with basically wrecking America as fast as they can, I think that there's going to be more buyer's remorse. And I think as unpleasant as it may be, I think it's time to start having conversations with these people and also people who never voted. I'm very haunted by the 80 million people who didn't vote. This bothers me every day and I think it's time to reach out to those people, to mobilize those people or at least make them aware of what is happening to their country.

[Jane Coastin]

Ruth, thank you so much for joining me.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

It's a pleasure.

[Jane Coastin]

That was my conversation with Ruth Ben Guelt. She is a professor of history at New York University. We'll link to her Substack newsletter, Lucid. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and on time. Therapy should be accessible. It's not a luxury. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it and now it's within reach, with over 30,000 therapists. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life, plus switch therapists at any time. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com wad to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com wad Feeling stressed? The American Heart association says even a brisk walk can reduce stress and improve your mood. Join us on April 2nd for National Walking Day and find tips and [e-mail] movemore with the Venmo Debit card, you can turn the mini golf outing your co workers paid you back for into a trip to Miami with your best friend, earning you up to 5% cash back. Use Venmo to pay for the things you love to do. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. Terms apply. Dosh Cashback Term Supply here's what else we're following today.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Header lines Now I've noticed in the media this week a lot of them don't have criminal histories.

[Jane Coastin]

Well, a lot of gang members don't have criminal histories.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Just like a lot of terrorists in this world.

[Jane Coastin]

They're not in any terrorist database, right? Huh? Am I a terrorist or a gang member? I would hope someone would have told me. That's border czar Tom Homan on ABC Sunday explaining how the administration is, quote, using the laws in the books to enforce immigration laws. Hohman's comments came a day after Venezuela said it would start accepting deportation flights from the US Again. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro had halted the flights in early March. In a statement on Saturday, a representative for Venezuela's government said migration isn't a crime and we will not rest until we achieve the return of all those in need and rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador. The comment appears to come in response to the Trump administration's use of a wartime act to deport hundreds of people, including alleged Venezuelan gang members, to El Salvador. Earlier this month, a federal judge tried to temporarily block the flights, but the government said planes were already in the air when the ruling was issued. The administration has continuously refused to provide the judge with information about the flights. Border czar Tom Homan said officials are confident the deported Venezuelans are members of the Trendaragua gang.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

The bottom line is that plan was full of people designated as terrorists, number one. Number two, every Venezuelan migrant on that.

[Jane Coastin]

Flight was a TDA member.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Based on numerous criminal investigations, on intelligence reports and a lot of work by.

[Jane Coastin]

ICE officers, sure would be great to have some due process just to make sure. The Trump administration has been given a Tuesday deadline to answer questions about the flights or declare the state secrets privilege, which could allow it to withhold information it considers a national security risk. Teslas are being traded in at record rates, according to new data from the car shopping website Edmunds. The site found that of all the cars traded in March, more than 1% were Teslas from model year 2017 or newer. The trade ins are not really that much of a surprise. Tesla dealerships and vehicles continue to deal with vandalism attacks stemming from apparent protests of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to slash the federal workforce. Despite the backlash against the billionaires car company, the Trump administration is still desperately pleading with Americans to buy Tesla stock. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick gushed about Musk on Fox News last week, calling him the best entrepreneur in America.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again.

[Jane Coastin]

Some government ethics experts say Lutnick's endorsement broke a law that bans federal employees from using, quote, public office for private gains gang. I say it's giving the Simpsons Monorail episode. President Trump is especially taking the attacks on Tesla personally, he wrote on Truth Social Friday. I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador. No? The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war with hamas rose to 50,000 after a relentless weekend of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. The tally was reported by the Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday. Israel resumed strikes on the Gaza Strip last week after a two month fighting pause. The Health Ministry reported more than 600 deaths since then. The Israel Defense Forces ordered residents to evacuate southern Gaza Sunday as its military is reportedly considering launching a full ground invasion of Gaza. Israeli officials said they will decide whether or not to escalate based on how ceasefire talks progress. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week this is just the beginning. Mediators from Egypt and Qatar are pushing for an emergency fighting pause between Israel and Hamas. Hamas has long said it will only agree to a deal that promises a permanent end to the war in Gaza and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops. The White House announced Sunday that second Lady Usha Vance and her son will travel to Greenland this week with a U.S. delegation. According to a statement, the visit is geared toward touring the island and learning more about its culture. One of the items on their agenda is attending Greenland's annual dog sled race. Though notably absent from Sunday's statement was President Donald Trump's obsession with owning Greenland. He's said many times that he thinks the US should annex the territory, even during his first term as president. Here's what he said during his joint address to Congress earlier this I think.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

We'Re gonna get it. One way or the other, we're gonna get it.

[Jane Coastin]

Vance and the US Delegation will arrive in Greenland Thursday, and that's the news. One more single My conversation with Ruth Ben Gyat earlier in the show. Well, it got to me especially thinking about how divided the opposition to Trump has felt. I don't know about you, but it seems like a lot of Democrats have enjoyed fighting with other Democrats more than they have, say, opposing everything that's happening right now. But that's not true everywhere or actually in most places. Case in point Denver, Colorado, this past weekend. We don't want a king in the United States.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

We overthrew a king.

[Jane Coastin]

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez joined forces to rally for progressive policy over the weekend, but it felt like they were rallying for way more than that. The duo hosted a rally in Denver on Friday, expecting 2,000 attendees. Over 30,000 showed up. Sanders said it was the biggest crowd he's ever addressed. The event was part of Sanders Fighting Oligarchy tour. The independent senator is visiting cities across the country to speak out against the Trump administration and push Democrats to fight back. Sanders and Ocasio Cortez also stopped in Tucson on Saturday, where they spoke to a crowd of more than 20,000 people. We need to be taxing the rich on the floor of the United States Congress. We need to be establishing guaranteed health.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Care on the floor of the United.

[Jane Coastin]

States Congress, not erasing American history on the floor of the United States Congress. And Sanders made a point to condemn CO President Elon Musk's efforts to downsize the federal government in what seems to me to be the stupidest way possible.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Does anybody think it makes sense that we have a campaign finance system where one man, Musk, can put $270 million to get Trump elected, and then his.

[Jane Coastin]

Reward is that he becomes the most.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Powerful person in government?

[Jane Coastin]

According to Representative Ocasio CORTEZ More than 86,000 people came to see her and Senator Sanders speak in Ariz, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. And about half of the people at their first stop were going to their first political rally. And the tour keeps getting bigger, especially as Republicans try to avoid their constituents. In Greeley, Colorado, Representative Ocasio Cortez sent a message to Republican Representative Gabe Evans, who has avoided doing a town hall. She took a picture of the 11,000 people in the crowd and reminded Representative Evans that elections still happen here. If you will indulge me for a.

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

Moment, since Gabe hasn't been around here, if we could just say hi to him for a moment.

[Jane Coastin]

Can we just say hi?

[Ruth Ben Ghiat]

See you in November. Thank you.

[Jane Coastin]

Now, currently, the Democratic Party is very unpopular, which you probably know. But why they're unpopular matters, too. Yes, a portion of Democrats want the party to moderate, while a section want the party to move further to the left. But pretty much everyone, from people getting polled to the people who showed up in Denver this past weekend to the thousands of voters and constituents going to town halls and protests, wants the Democratic Party to stand up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Even if companies don't, even if universities don't. They want the Democratic Party to stand in opposition to Donald Trump and, you know, oppose him. Because we're not just sad at what's happening to our country, my country. We are fucking mad. And sure, there are a lot of things we don't agree on and a lot of values that we might not share, and that's going to be tough to figure out. But what isn't, and what Representative Ocasio Cortez and Senator Sanders have figured out, along with thousands of our fellow Americans, is that we know what we don't want. We don't want oligarchy, we don't want Maga Putinism, and we don't want this. Before we go, hey, Wadfam, if you love true crime, check out Shadow God's banker. In 1982, Vatican banker Roberto Calvi was found hanging under a London Bridge suicide. That's the official story, but the truth is far murkier. Episode three drops today, and in it, a raid on an Italian warehouse exposes a secret far right society, topples Italy's government, and leaves Calvi scrambling to survive. Listen to Shadow God's Banker wherever you get your podcasts or binge. All episodes [e-mail] friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple Podcasts feed. That's all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review Salute the University of Michigan's men's basketball team for making it to the Sweet 16, despite me not thinking that would happen. And tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, I'm not just about how Michigan went 824 last year and this year have gone 279 and will now play the number one seed Auburn for a spot in the elite eight. Like me, what a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and [e-mail] subscribe I'm Jane Coston and sure, in the scheme of things, Michigan men's basketball isn't that critically important. But also, it is always important to remember today and every day that it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. Water Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Foer. Our producer is Michelle Aloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East Feeling stressed? Let's talk about a simple yet powerful way to boost your mental walking. April 2nd is national walking Day, and it's the perfect time to start a new walking routine. The American Heart association says even a brisk walk can reduce stress and improve your mood. So grab a friend, bring a pet or even take a conference call on the go. Learn more and get heart healthy tips and recipes straight to your [e-mail] MoveMore Cats have always acted like their don't stink. Now with Fresh Step Heavy Duty's new 30 day odor control, it actually doesn't. Fresh Step's new Heavy Duty litter fights odor three times longer than the leading brand. This is Fresh Step's strongest litter ever, giving your litter box 30 days of odor control. Step it up to Fresh Step with the new Heavy Duty Litter three times claim based on fecal malodor versus the leading regular clumping litter. Strongest litter ever is based on odor control. Febreze is used under license from the Procter & Gamble Company or its affiliates.