Aaron Retica
Appearances
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
If the model is Viktor Orban in Hungary, right, in his early stages, he was able to make that economy work and get a kind of popularity from that that has been able to sustain him over time. Erdogan in Turkey, like there's all kinds of examples of... authoritarian or semi-authoritarian rulers using that to deepen their rule.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
But I do want to talk about, you mentioned the attacks on Democrats again, like wokeness and the role it played.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Many Democrats have spent a lot of time, including on this show, talking about the excesses of all kinds of left stuff among the Democrats. Here's the problem. That's not really what they see. They see a black general, and they're like, DEI, you're gone. They see a woman admiral, they're like, DEI, you're gone. So what is the attack on wokeness and how it fits into the speech?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
And why is he even talking about it? Well, he's talking about it.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
I want to push back on that a little bit because to me, the Trump obsession with hierarchy and gold and class is That way of looking at the world, right? What they want is a world where people know their place and don't step out of it.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
But the obsession with purity, right, which we even know he has at the level of germs, when you have a person talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country, as he famously did during the campaign. When you have this hierarchy mixed with the purity, very bad things can come from that. So let me put it this way, right? You have... Going back to this idea of the split screen, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
You have real America, fake America, real Americans, fake Americans, real men, fake men, real women, fake women, real news, fake news, all those things, right? So you're circling on a much smaller world. And that was evident in the speech at the end, the peroration at the end, right? They go on about, you know, American energy, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
And the only mention of Native Americans, the people who were here, was his jibe about Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
So I do think that there's a certain idea of America that is retrograde in its deepest sense that they're trying to restore that's not accepting of the expansion of rights that began in the 60s and the 70s.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Dominance was a central theme of the speech. It's been a central theme since they came back into power in January. Can we talk a little bit about that part of it, right? So there's dominance over the people within your clan, but we're also now talking about, as he said in the inaugural speech, expanding the territory of the United States. And he brought it up again last night.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
We're going to retake the Panama Canal. There was a bizarre section about Greenland.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
So how do they use this rhetoric and make it reality, right? They're doing it in some ways, right? Even the ridiculous... Contra-temp about the Gulf of America and the Gulf of Mexico, right, ended up having real-world consequences for the Associated Press, right, because they wouldn't toe the line, and now they're out.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a cross between the Andrew Jackson that he supposedly idolized in the first administration and, as everyone's been saying, including him, and he mentioned him again last night, William McKinley—
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
who, could he hear all this, would be surprised to find himself as the center of the movement of anything. But what is the fusion between those two things, right? It's domination over the environment, which we haven't talked about, but that's a huge part of what they want to, right? We're going to drill a baby drill. We're going to have gas. We're going to cut all the timber, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
And that's part of that frontier spirit that you're talking about. We're just going to cut the trees down. You have, in Jackson's case, the... or case of the president defying the Supreme Court. And Jackson, of course, he didn't fully not do what the Supreme Court said, but he basically did ignore them, and hence the Trail of Tears.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
So I think it's some kind of mixture of the Jacksonian democracy, right? And he always makes his little gestures toward that. And this McKinley idea that you protect America with tariffs, which then allows you to build up your dominance. There was a lot of chatter about the return of manufacturing to the United States. And those two things, I do think it's a 19th century model for sure.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Speaking of reality not having the structure that you want it to have, I do want to talk for a minute about the one Democrat he apparently likes. And that's Robert Kennedy Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., It's all connected to this like pro-system, anti-system idea, right? I mean, you, in defending semiconductors, right? Again, you have to explain.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
There's a long chain of explanation to show what supply chains are. And in Kennedy, he is in some ways the perfect embodiment of this whole thing because it's the rejection of expertise on the one hand and the rejection of government and destruction and all this. So do you... Think he can bring in like everyone who's against the system?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
So even these moms who are against vaccines and is there a way for him to make that a coherent way of dominating America and dominating the world?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
I mean, this is the perennial problem of Trump is like, how do we situate, like, what is this thing, right? It's like, on the one hand, that speech is not unlike the one he made when he first came down the escalator in 2015, right? It's the same enemies, the same allies. That part of it is static, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
We could have a whole show about this, but falling outs among elites and the manipulation of populist sentiment, that is in some ways the whole story, right? Always. Whether it's any aspect of American history, like that's a big one, right? But we're going to have a gigantic experiment, which, you know, huge swaths of the government are
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
And we're going to slowly find out which of those things mattered the most, right? Or maybe not slowly, maybe quickly. But it isn't just that people will be like, okay, that system was actually better than I thought it was. It's also got to be some sort of democratic renewal. And I do not mean the Democratic Party here. Whatever one says about how they're pushing back, it's not doing enough.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
The people who have to push back, they have to come from civil society. They're going to have to come from, if I can use this word, newspapers. They're going to have to come from churches, unions, all that kind of stuff. Even if you don't want to be part of the resistance in some sense, the Trump administration is making it so that you don't really have a choice.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
You may not be interested in politics, but politics, unfortunately, is going to be interested in you. Exactly.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
What really alarms me about all of this is that the lying is controlled in the sense that he knows what he's saying is not true. The Social Security part of it was a good example.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Okay, well, that seems like a good place for us to wrap it up. Ezra, thanks a lot for coming out.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
There are not. And of course, you're put into a ridiculous position when I have to say there are not millions of dead people getting Social Security, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
But there aren't. And so why is he saying that? And he's saying it in part because he wants you to be ground down so far that you have to listen to that and take it. And a lot of it is actually about, it masquerades as dominance over the Democrats, but it's really about dominance over his own party. Absolutely. Right. So what is he doing? Like, what's happening there?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Thanks. Hi. Yeah, let's plunge right into it. What did you make of the spectacle? What did you make of the speech? What were they trying to do? What was he trying to do? What was happening there?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
Right. They can be picked off. But of course, it's not just a rhetorical strategy, right? This flood the zone strategy is also how they're operating government itself. So getting back to reality. They have attacked, I mean, I can't even, again, it's like impossible to even say all the agencies that they've cut slash cut people. They're radically transforming the government.
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
When we were first talking about this after the inauguration, it was clear they were going to do some of this, but I don't think very many people understood the full extent of what they were going to do and that the Republicans are now having to swallow, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
We keep having to wait, you know, well, one or two people will say something about Ukraine or one or two people will say something about Medicaid. By the way, speaking of Steve Bannon defending Medicaid, you know your movement is in some trouble when Steve Bannon is like the conscience of it, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
How does the rhetoric of the speech correspond to the reality they're trying to impose on the United States?
The Ezra Klein Show
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
But what's great about this is like you came here to hear about politics and instead you're hearing about Ezra Klein's TV taste.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
So even law is a deal. We're going to propose – X number of things. And even the debate is a win in a way. Right. That's what I was going to say. Right.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
He says he doesn't want wars, but he did say, and this was really the biggest difference, right, from the first time around, territorial expansion. Europe went unmentioned in the inaugural address. But as you said, he did talk about the Panama Canal. There's obviously been a lot of chatter about Greenland. What's happening here? He's talked about Canada. He's talked about Mexico, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
So it's the North American continent plus whatever we want to do in South America. And Mars. And plus Mars. Plus Mars. Exactly. So it's manifest destiny, a man of destiny, and whatever we call the destiny of Mars. Right. What do you see him doing with all of this?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Right. So on one side, you have like, right, Stephen Miller and Stephen Bannon and all those people. And on the other side, you have all these tech people.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Let's stay with the tech people for a minute, more than a minute. There they were, right, in the front. Governor Abbott of Texas was in the overflow room. Governor DeSantis of Florida was in the overflow room. A message was clearly being sent.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
If you're fomenting a coup, I guess is how I'll put it, right, you want to seize the presidential palace and you want to get the Congress and you want to seize the means of communication. And there they were, right, in the front row. So what's happening there is an understanding of how much the means of communication and attention, as you're always talking about it, is that the key now?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
And Trump sees that so that the fusion of popular culture and political culture is totally complete, throwing the pens, as you mentioned, out into the crowd. Joe Rogan was there. What do you think?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
A lot of jujitsu done there. Yes.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
There's these studies that show that if you write about, or post, I should say, about the Uyghurs, the embattled, Muslim minority in China, you will disappear on TikTok, whereas on other platforms, right, it shows up.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Even if you believe in some kind of futurist AI paradise, just seeing them lined up there, it's so far from, as you were saying earlier about the manufacturing base, it's so far from the guy in Ohio, right? It's literally the three richest men in the world, and they are all men. Lined up like that, I have to say I found it totally grotesque.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
And I'm less sympathetic than you are also just to all this, you know, like the futurist aspect of it makes my, you know, I fear it more than.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Okay. The distinction I always like to make – and I stole this from someone, but God knows who – People always talk about taking power, but you don't take it, right? You make it. And this is how it's made.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
No, it definitely didn't. So speaking of ominous, let's talk about the pardons, right? A sweeping 1,500 people. I mean, that's a rough number. The people who actually were caught committing violence, they had their, I don't know if they were commuted, but I think they were at a time served. Lots of people just had the cases swept out.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
That's an extraordinary—again, I'm going to say we have to stop for a second and just think about that. So a bunch of people, right, who tried to change the electoral procedures of the United States, make January 6th into a thing when it had been more purely ceremonial before that— under the threat of violence, all those people have been pardoned.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
So it's sort of obvious what the message is being sent there, but I want to talk about that, right? He's got a little army there.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
You're right. People who hurt other human beings, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
And so much for support for the police. Doesn't extend to the Capitol Police.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
The first time around, Trump was, you know, the I alone can fix it guy. During his inaugural address, he actually said he had been put here by God to make America great again. So what do you make of the Trump theory of the divine right of presidents or specifically the defined right of President Trump?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Oh, thank you very much. Great to be here. So where do you want to start? Let's start with the big question. I mean, there's a million things to talk about. But let's start with, we have a better idea today, 24 hours into the second Trump administration, what they mean by making America great again. So what's great? What are they trying to achieve?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
You said proposed, but of course, that's the crazy part, right? It is an executive order. It's proposed in the sense that they know it's going to be fought.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
They would say that drill, baby, drill and what they're going to do with gas and energy is one of the things that's going to affect prices in a way that will make people happy, right? That would be their argument, presumably.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Okay, so let's take these things one at a time and let's stay with birthright citizenship because this is, even though we knew it was coming, even though they told us it was coming, it's still worth stopping and just... talking directly about what this is, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
So they're talking about the most obvious thing, which is the children of undocumented immigrants would not automatically be American citizens, but they are also talking about, and you referred to it, what some people are calling the Kamala Harris clause, which is that if you're a student here, a graduate student, a medical student, whatever, and you have a child here right now, that child is automatically an American citizen.
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
That's out in their executive order. I'm really struck by the way you said proposed as though it were legislation. They know there's going to be this battle. Do they intend to actually end? I mean, they intend to end birthright citizenship, but do you think that they think they can? Or is this like the new Roe?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Like, is this something that they're going to always have on the edge of expectation that actually can't be done, that they can motivate their base?
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
Right. So the case you were referring to, Wong Kim Ark, from 1898, if I'm remembering correctly. I won't go into the details of the case, but the gist of it is, guy was born in San Francisco, went to visit his parents in China, tried to come back to the U.S., was blocked, eventually was granted the right to stay here because he was a citizen. The court that decided that...
The Ezra Klein Show
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
was also more or less the court that decided Plessy v. Ferguson. This is not like some kind of Warren liberal court, right? So even if they imagine that they have some sort of capture of the Supreme Court, which they do, it is a little hard to imagine them doing that. But again, we don't know, right? And as you say, that maybe they're just – maybe it's all horse drag. Everything's a deal, right?