Trump and the Death of Shared Morality in America
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This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
The Opinions
Hi, I'm Robert Siegel in conversation about politics with two of the smartest guys I know when it comes to politics. E.J. Dionne, longtime columnist, author of a great many books, and now an opinion contributor to The New York Times. Good to see you, E.J. Always good to be with you. And the equally prolific David Brooks, who joins us for the last time. As of this hour, are you still a New York Times columnist?
I am still a New York Times columnist, but this is my final act of journalism with the New York Times, which is great for me and even greater for the future of the New York Times.
Well, we'll hear more about that later. I don't think either of you will be surprised to know that we're starting with Donald Trump. We're almost a month into the second year of his second term as president. And both of you in recent weeks have written columns in which you have found some important change or some important landmark that this presidency has passed. And in a little while, I'd like to hear from you, David, about that. the coming Trump crack-up that you've written. But we're going to begin with E.J., with you, and what you've called, when we look at all of the attempts to expand executive authority and other abuses, you call it regime change.
Yeah. And I think that overlooking that, overlooking how much he is actually trying to fundamentally change and destroy, really, the traditional American system is something we have to face up to. And I think the country as a whole really did after the shootings of Rene Good and Alex Preddy. There have been Police killings, there have been mishaps, but the country has never seen an entity like ICE operate completely outside the law in this way. And there were a whole series of other things that happened, a whole series of corrupt pardons building on the extraordinary pardons he gave to all of the people involved. in January 6th, Justice Department really being destroyed and using it for investigations of political enemies from the chair of the Federal Reserve to Governor Walz in Minnesota to Mayor Frye.
And we can go on and on. Tariffs by fiat on our allies. the weirdness over Greenland and threatening, again, our allies with tariffs just by fiat. I think that we saw in what Russell Vaught has written about radical constitutionalism before he became the head of OMB for Trump, a real desire to fundamentally alter the regime. Yeah. I think that the country has really started to come to terms with that danger because of the acceleration of events over the last month and a half.
Regime change has a very permanent ring to it, don't you think?
It does. And I think if you're asking me, will he succeed? I think that the good news over the last month is the rising opposition that this is called forth from the country. I know two recent special elections in Texas and last Saturday in Louisiana, where there were, these were Trump districts. There were 30 plus point swings away from the Republicans. He is throwing away all of the constituencies, the swing constituencies who came to him in the last election. So I'm not saying he will succeed at this, but I think he has become more and more aggressive at it. And we need to face up that this is not just some guy doing one random thing after another. This is somebody who is setting about in a systematic way to destroy institutions.
David, you wrote a couple of weeks ago that we are in the midst of multiple unravelings and heading for a coming Trump crackup, which means?
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