Ezra Klein
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
If you do accept the premise, and I do accept the premise, that we are in an interrenium between wars, we are in a very messy and deranging fight because there is no settled set of answers in American politics, no settled set of questions that both sides take and sort of have agreed on the boundaries upon. So when you think about the Democratic opposition right now,
If you do accept the premise, and I do accept the premise, that we are in an interrenium between wars, we are in a very messy and deranging fight because there is no settled set of answers in American politics, no settled set of questions that both sides take and sort of have agreed on the boundaries upon. So when you think about the Democratic opposition right now,
it is still processing in its own ways 2024. And it has learned, I think, certain lessons that are relatively consensus at this moment among its leadership. Democrats had in fits and starts gone too far left. They really, really politically screwed up and substantively on the border. They got crosswise on like trans edge case issues that they never should have allowed to define them, right?
it is still processing in its own ways 2024. And it has learned, I think, certain lessons that are relatively consensus at this moment among its leadership. Democrats had in fits and starts gone too far left. They really, really politically screwed up and substantively on the border. They got crosswise on like trans edge case issues that they never should have allowed to define them, right?
Like trans swimmers in NCAA sports. There's a set of things that I think they all believe, but they don't know what comes next. One thing that I have heard many people on the right say is, is look, it's you guys who expanded the federal government's control of all these institutions.
Like trans swimmers in NCAA sports. There's a set of things that I think they all believe, but they don't know what comes next. One thing that I have heard many people on the right say is, is look, it's you guys who expanded the federal government's control of all these institutions.
It's you guys who made it so all these universities are so dependent on federal grants, who built this gigantic nonprofit complex that was living off of USAID and NIH and so on money. an idea of leverage over all these different parts of society.
It's you guys who made it so all these universities are so dependent on federal grants, who built this gigantic nonprofit complex that was living off of USAID and NIH and so on money. an idea of leverage over all these different parts of society.
What Chris Ruffo, I think, believes himself to be doing is basically retracing what the liberals did and seeing how that is a leverage for what he now wants to do. He's just like, to him, he is like a counter-revolutionary following the revolutionaries. Is there something about that? Or I see the other side in liberalism right now where they sort of want their own Elon Musk.
What Chris Ruffo, I think, believes himself to be doing is basically retracing what the liberals did and seeing how that is a leverage for what he now wants to do. He's just like, to him, he is like a counter-revolutionary following the revolutionaries. Is there something about that? Or I see the other side in liberalism right now where they sort of want their own Elon Musk.
They want their own strong central leader, not a strong man in the way that Trump wants to be a strong man, but there's a sense of like, oh, I need somebody who can come and break my own China. What, as the opposition tries to define itself, not just reconstitute itself, are there yet lessons for it to learn?
They want their own strong central leader, not a strong man in the way that Trump wants to be a strong man, but there's a sense of like, oh, I need somebody who can come and break my own China. What, as the opposition tries to define itself, not just reconstitute itself, are there yet lessons for it to learn?
Rufo understands himself, strangely, as a moderate.
Rufo understands himself, strangely, as a moderate.
That is his self-conception.
That is his self-conception.
When you're working through the question of in which direction is this going, you said you don't love the checkmark approach. Mm-hmm. But we all need our markers along the path. What are you watching? What if it went one way would leave you somewhat more comforted that the system at a core level is holding, even as Trump is scoring victories?
When you're working through the question of in which direction is this going, you said you don't love the checkmark approach. Mm-hmm. But we all need our markers along the path. What are you watching? What if it went one way would leave you somewhat more comforted that the system at a core level is holding, even as Trump is scoring victories?