Ezra Klein

I mean, you go from Obama to Donald Trump, right? There is this way in which one era feels, it often feels much more radically different, almost radically opposite to the era that preceded it.

I mean, you go from Obama to Donald Trump, right? There is this way in which one era feels, it often feels much more radically different, almost radically opposite to the era that preceded it.

In your book, you frame the rise in era of mass incarceration as another example of the deportation and expulsion impulse finding policy expression. Mm-hmm. That, in a way, looks at least facially different. People aren't leaving the country. I mean, now we're possibly going to do mass incarceration in El Salvadoran prisons as opposed to American ones.

In your book, you frame the rise in era of mass incarceration as another example of the deportation and expulsion impulse finding policy expression. Mm-hmm. That, in a way, looks at least facially different. People aren't leaving the country. I mean, now we're possibly going to do mass incarceration in El Salvadoran prisons as opposed to American ones.

But tell me about the continuities you draw there.

But tell me about the continuities you draw there.

So when you look across these different episodes, we've talked about some of them, there are others in your book, what feel to you like the commonalities of these eras of deportation and expulsion? How does the political system, or at least a faction in it, come together and say, the rights have gone too far. The community has expanded too much.

So when you look across these different episodes, we've talked about some of them, there are others in your book, what feel to you like the commonalities of these eras of deportation and expulsion? How does the political system, or at least a faction in it, come together and say, the rights have gone too far. The community has expanded too much.

What seems to connect the periods and what feels new to you in some of them or in this moment?

What seems to connect the periods and what feels new to you in some of them or in this moment?

Is Trump in the work you do after you've done books like this with the knowledge of American history you have, does it make him look to you like a more or less familiar figure? Does he feel like a manifestation of something common or does he seem very distinctive?

Is Trump in the work you do after you've done books like this with the knowledge of American history you have, does it make him look to you like a more or less familiar figure? Does he feel like a manifestation of something common or does he seem very distinctive?

It also gets at something that I think has been a very common fantasy, which is that you can destroy this tendency, right? Maybe it's if you beat Donald Trump in the 2016 election or the 2020 election. Now I think people don't hold this view anymore, but that it was something that you could crush or you could suppress.

It also gets at something that I think has been a very common fantasy, which is that you can destroy this tendency, right? Maybe it's if you beat Donald Trump in the 2016 election or the 2020 election. Now I think people don't hold this view anymore, but that it was something that you could crush or you could suppress.

You can make the things that are dominant in illiberal thought unsayable in polite society. You can make them illegal or unconstitutional. And that you could sort of push them to the margin. Having pushed to the margin, they don't really have a way back in and they'll sort of fade away and wither. And that'll be the end of them.

You can make the things that are dominant in illiberal thought unsayable in polite society. You can make them illegal or unconstitutional. And that you could sort of push them to the margin. Having pushed to the margin, they don't really have a way back in and they'll sort of fade away and wither. And that'll be the end of them.

And I think something we're seeing with Trump is that suppression can work, but then if it fails, it fails all at once. And it turns out the thing you were trying to suppress is much stronger than you understood it to be. But I do think one of the reckonings that liberalism is going through right now is a recognition that it doesn't go back.

And I think something we're seeing with Trump is that suppression can work, but then if it fails, it fails all at once. And it turns out the thing you were trying to suppress is much stronger than you understood it to be. But I do think one of the reckonings that liberalism is going through right now is a recognition that it doesn't go back.

It's not like maybe Nikki Haley just wins and then we're just done with this whole era. That it's not the sort of, the more comfortable Republican-Democratic cleavage that was around in the 90s or the 2000s to people. It's now this liberal-illiberal cleavage, which probably has much deeper roots. And there's not going to be an approach to suppression that's going to work.

It's not like maybe Nikki Haley just wins and then we're just done with this whole era. That it's not the sort of, the more comfortable Republican-Democratic cleavage that was around in the 90s or the 2000s to people. It's now this liberal-illiberal cleavage, which probably has much deeper roots. And there's not going to be an approach to suppression that's going to work.