Quinta Jurecic
speaker
199 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Quinta Jurecic’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
The Democrats held the Senate floor for, I think, 30 hours to try to prevent, or at least delay, rather, Russ Vogt's confirmation. These are signs of a party that is responding to to genuine outrage among the ranks of its supporters and is trying to take some role in stepping up. Now, because the party is a minority in both chambers, there are real limitations to what it can do.
But I do think it certainly shows that the Democratic Party is responsive.
2025.
Democracy is an idealistic project.
And if cringe means believing in things in a corny way, you know what? Fine. I'll be cringe.
Trump is very good at presenting an image of himself as a figure of overwhelming force. I think that he really honed that on The Apprentice and I think Americans are primed to think of him in that way. I think that...
In his current iteration, he has really tapped into a desire to kind of see someone as the manifestation of, you know, the people, the voice of the people, the figure, like Hegel says, right, you know, the figure of history astride on the horse. This kind of, like, yes, I would argue fascist image of the unstoppable leader carried forward by this popular energy. And that image is very appealing.
I think we've seen that it has real cultural appeal, not only to Trump supporters, but also to a lot of people in politics, in the media and sort of various elite institutions of American life who seemingly are really swayed by that. And you see that in the kind of desire to go and interview people at diners, right?
Like this really persistent idea that Trump speaks to something deep in the American psyche that must be revered. And the fact is, that's not what he is. And I'm telling you things that you've written yourself, but he is a weak president. He won his first election. He did not win the popular vote. He lost the popular vote a second time around.
The third time around, he won the plurality of the vote in a... year that was strongly anti-incumbent across the globe. He squeaked by and his party felt well short of where it could have been in the House of Representatives. That is a mark of weakness.
Exactly. And there's also, you know, we're still waiting for the full sort of voter file data to come out. But the initial information I've seen seems to indicate that he won the popular vote by a plurality in significant part because a lot of people who had voted for Joe Biden stayed home.
There is a real instinctive desire on the part of a lot of powerful people to kind of yield to this image of Trump as the man on the horse who is the manifestation of history. And that isn't what he is. And if people act like he is that, they give up the opportunity to prevent him from becoming it. And I think that this is why that initial...
silence on the part of opposition figures and the initial desire on the part of, you know, various companies to kind of roll over and show their belly or, you know, run to Trump and kiss the ring and show their acquiescence to his authority was really damaging not only for the people who those actions immediately affected, but to the kind of civic fabric of the country.
In the sense that if people see that other people and other people in positions of power who are more powerful than them are already giving up, I think it is easier to say, oh, well, it's all over. What is there to do? And the counterpoint is that when you see someone stand up, I think that that can be really galvanizing. Maybe that is cringe. I think, you know what, it is, yes, I'll say it.
It is cringe insofar as cringe is an expression of idealism and real belief in something as opposed to the kind of nihilism, you know, LOL, nothing matters, that I think Trump is. is really trying to grind into the fabric of American civil society. And I think this is why things like Brian Driscoll at the head of the FBI has had such a galvanizing cultural effect.
There was a New York Times story about memes being sent around inside the bureau showing him as an Orthodox saint. or, you know, a challenge coin with him on it. We saw also the Episcopal bishop who sort of responded to Trump at the sermon at the National Cathedral saying, you know, please have grace, hold off on your cruelty.
That seeing people stand up and speak up for their values and do the right thing matters not only for the individual people that those folks might be protecting, but it matters because it gives other people courage. And it matters because it shows that... if you do not agree with what is happening in this country right now, that you're not alone.
I think it is an escalation. Previously, what we've seen is an executive branch that is engaged, I would argue, in a power grab, functionally, against the legislative branch, which is so far succeeding insofar as congressional Republicans are completely unwilling to lift a finger to do anything to stop it.
And given that they're in the majority in both chambers, there's really a limit to what congressional Democrats can do. And we've seen that power grab run into a brick wall, really, in the courts. There have been—I can't even keep track of how many court cases, how many injunctions, how many temporary restraining orders have been issued at this point, but there are a lot.
And so the Vance tweet is sort of hinting at this other aspect of this power grab, that the executive might try to, I would argue, usurp power not only from the legislative branch, but from the judiciary as well, by kind of saying... You can't make me, essentially. I'm the executive, and I get to do what I want. Now, I will say J.D. Vance is a smart man.
Showing 141–160 of 199 · page 8 of 10
← Previous
Next →