Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
David Kurtz: Thanks, Greg. Good to be with you.
Kurtz: Yeah. Look, the Trump Justice Department is clearly being run out of the Trump White House—and there is, at this point, no wall between the Justice Department and the White House any longer. That’s a 50–70 year tradition in custom emerging from Watergate but going back before that to try to provide some insulation from the overpoliticization of execution of law enforcement. And that’s gone now. It’s just gone. Period. Full stop.
Kurtz: Yeah, I guess I would say two things to that. One is that I think the investigations themselves are very bad and themselves corrupt because it’s an intimidation factor. It is a threat. It is a warning to others not to cross Trump. It is a notice to officials in the government now and former officials of what can happen to you if you don’t toe the line. And that is all in and of itself bad, toxic, undemocratic, and runs against the grain of the rule of law.
Sargent: So you’ve got this split screen I’m talking about here, David. You’ve got this type of thing, which is really meant to make Trump look formidable and terrifying. Don’t cross him. He’s at the peak of his power right now. On the other screen, he’s in really rough shape in the polls. A new Gallup poll finds that his approval rating on immigration is down to 35 percent, while 62 percent disapprove. And there’s been a surge in support for immigration generally: A record high 79 percent say it’s a good thing. David, given that this is supposed to be his strongest issue, I take it as a sign of serious underlying political weakness. And overall his approval is down, and the polling average is down to 44 percent or 52 percent disapproving. That’s a low point for him. What do you make of these numbers? He’s actually in pretty weak shape, isn’t he?
Sargent: Yeah.
Sargent: Yeah, and I think also this is really not what Trump and Stephen Miller expected to happen. When they started going into Los Angeles with their power paramilitary forces and so forth, they really thought the public was going to be on their side on that stuff. And it’s clear that that really is one of the things that started the downward spiral for Trump on this issue. Same with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—and that’s not what happened. We’ve actually seen the Abrego Garcia thing play a major role in turning the polls around on this issue against Trump. To the degree that this is about the authoritarianism, the abuses of power, I think we can actually conclude that that’s what’s alienating people at this point. These displays of authoritarianism—whether it’s threatening Harvard, threatening Comey and Brennan, or renditioning migrants off to gulags in El Salvador—what do you make of it all?
Sargent: It’s such a fascinating dynamic you point to there, and we’re actually seeing a really good example of it right now. As I mentioned, he’s spiraling in the polls on immigration, and yet their response is to ramp up the paramilitary displays in Los Angeles right now. They’re absolutely off the charts. You’ve seen the imagery of all sorts of paramilitary equipment on the ground. Trump forces attired in every type of paramilitary garb you can imagine. Stephen Miller just went out on on Fox News and said some really sick things. In one case, he said, “Los Angeles and California are in the middle of an insurrection against the government.” That’s meant to shock us—right—to scare us into thinking Trump was on the verge of invoking the Insurrection Act. The anti-immigrant propaganda just keeps ratcheting up and up and up as his poll numbers go down, down, down. That’s the dynamic you’re talking about, right?
Sargent: Yeah.
Sargent: Yes, I think we’re on the cusp of a level of transformation that rivals what happened after September 11 with the ramping up of the war on terror, which people may not remember this but had immensely destabilizing effects domestically as well.
Sargent: I agree. David. It strikes me that there’s a level of unreality to this transformation that’s about to happen that’s even greater than the one after 9/11. Old-timers like us who lived through the Bush era know how bad that was. I try to explain this to people. People who didn’t live through it while being politically conscious are not really aware of how deeply in the grip of war fever and Islamophobia this country was after 9/11. I want to say one optimistic thing though: What we are not seeing right now is a retake of the mania that gripped the public during the Bush years. And I think that’s a positive. Like I said, the Islamophobia, the war on terror stuff—September 11 was an immensely traumatic event as everybody knows. But what Stephen Miller and Trump are trying to do now is recreate that trauma by talking about the migrant invasion, and the public’s not going for it. I have not seen anything as encouraging lately as the sudden shift against them on these issues. They thought they could do anything with their propaganda. The public could just be manipulated with great ease, they thought, and it’s not happening. I think that’s a positive.
Sargent: On Friday, Trump visited Texas amid the horrific flooding there. Obviously that’s a profound tragedy. It’s awful what’s happening with all the children dying there. His top allies, though, gushed over him during this visit in the most absurd ways and imaginable. First, listen to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Sargent: And now, listen to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Donald Trump (audio voiceover): I do.
Trump (audio voiceover): Thank you, governor. That’s really, really nice. Thank you.
Kurtz: Yeah. Look. it’s not normal at all, as you point out. It’s horrifying to see it in such a difficult time for the people in Texas. We’re seeing the tools of authoritarianism coming into play: the misinformation, the denial of reality. I think we’re going to continue to see that pinging back and forth between, on the one hand, being super, super aggressive in their authoritarianism and then trying to paper over the consequences that come with that.
Kurtz: Thank you, Greg.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.
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