Heather Cox Richardson

But at the end of the day, they're actually not being able to accomplish the shock and awe that they intended to.

So I would say, as Timothy Snyder, the scholar of authoritarianism, says, don't obey in advance.

If you are in a position like someone like me is to be safe.

compared to some of our neighbors, don't say, I won't do this because of what might happen.

And you will see there, I pretty deliberately called out people with the idea that I'm not going to police my language because I have the right not to in the United States of America until they take that away from me.

Doing that, I think, is a deliberate way to say, I'm not scared of you.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

But you know what interests me in this moment is the degree to which women especially, and especially women of color and Black women, understood Trump from the very beginning.

For sure.

This is an abuser.

And it was really interesting the way that a Republican actually today said that the United States is a predator nation.

What a word, right?

And Trump keeps talking about how the United States is hot.

I mean, when do you hear that kind of language, right?

But it's really interesting because if you have ever dealt with somebody like that, you know that that's exactly right.

That if you show weakness, they come in harder and harder.

Right.

If you push back and say, ain't happening, dude, they turn their attention to somebody else.

Right.

But I thought it was fascinating that the law firms seemed to think that they were going to be able to appease him.