PJ Vogt

I feel like where I'm actually seeing energy is, well, maybe nobody should pay taxes.

And like, I'm not saying like I enjoy tax day, but it's a place where I feel like civic.

And I've been, I feel like what I see, like no tax on tips or whatever.

It feels like it's just like, we're just sort of starting to arrange carve out after carve out after carve out.

Rather, like the feeling is like almost a kind of like nihilism.

That's where I feel like I pick up when I read what I see.

Yeah, I think what is strange about this era is, like, for the people who support Trump, but also for the people who resist him or dislike him or just don't vote for him, the way where everyone seems to be continuously mirroring each other is to say, like, the system's rigged, the institutions are crumbling, let's make it worse.

And that's, like, I don't know what you do with that.

I just notice it and it worries me.

Yeah, and you see him kind of trying to build, like, if right now so much of politics is what can you make legible on social media, on the internet, the thing that I see him trying to make legible is functioning government.

Like, the thing I see him doing pretty often is to be like, here are city workers fixing potholes.

Here is what happens when it snows.

Like, even, like, the police department in New York City the other day had, like—

confiscated a bunch of illegal, dangerous street bikes and they were running them over with a bulldozer.

But I was like, okay, they're trying to show in some way the message seems to be, I mean, this is not how they would put it, but it's a message you can read in it and I can read in it.

Like, your tax dollars are going to something.

Keep paying your taxes.

Jesse Isinger, he's an assistant managing editor at ProPublica and a staunch Republican.

If you liked what you heard here, I have fantastic news for you.

Jesse's outfit, ProPublica, just launched a podcast called Paper Trail.