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Charlie Sykes: "First They Came For..."
...Charlie Sykes made a podcast today:
"Seriously. What makes you think they won't come for you, too?"
watch:
...I found this timely and interesting because of Charlie's highlighting of Donald Trump's playing himself out of position by throwing the script away and having AG Patel go after ultra-conservative Bolton for daring to criticize the king of the gold-gilded palace on Penn. Ave., instead of someone on the list of libs, political rivals, critics, and those who dared prosecute their crimes, who they intend to drag through their mobbed-up DOJ with investigations and possible prosecutions.
Charlie is a former conservative talk show host who has long been outspoken and direct about his opposition to Trump, and I think it's notable how Trump's insecurity and zeal to hurt those who he thinks gain ground criticizing him led to this attack on someone almost everyone in town regards as a conservative icon.
There's been a sense that many who are watching Trump's regime's attacks on critics and those protesting this administration and president, many of them critics of their policies and actions, have been relatively sanguine about it all, taking apparent comfort in the fact that the targets of the government abuse either aren't them, or are against someone who holds a political position they oppose.
Yet, it's becoming increasingly clear to not just Democrats, minorities, immigrants, and others who have been directly targeted and attacked, that the aim and intention of Donald Trump is a consolidation of power over ALL in this country; not just the ones folks may have antipathies towards.
The danger in just standing by and either gawking or cheering at the government crackdowns and takeovers of people other than us is a false sense of security that we're in the protected group of Americans. They're clearly not.
Just as Donald Trump's campaign promises to just deport the 'worst of the worst' turned into mass deportations of even those who had been granted citizenship and visas; going so far as to challenge and threaten the birthright citizenship of all of us residing in the U.S., even suggesting deporting American citizens; there isn't a line he won't cross in his daily creep forward militarily occupying the nation, and imposing his politically compromised, autocratic rulemaking on Americans using the force of our own government we pay for against us.
Interesting to see conservatives already forming battle lines against Trump's totalitarianism, this one ostensibly motivated to speak up and out by this attack landing in his own backyard (of course, Charlie Sykes caught on well before most on the other side of the ideologial spectrum from Dems managed to vocalize their dissent).
(excerpt)
___John Bolton has been one of the most consistent and and substantive critics of of of what Donald Trump is doing.
In fact, just last week, he was saying how stupid his handling of Vladimir Putin was. That that the entire Alaska Anchorage summit was a complete fiasco, and a fubar wrapped up in a clusterfuck. Um, so the timing of this is rather extraordinary that they would go into his house looking for um, I don't know, classified records.
Look, I don't want to get in too deep into the weeds. A lot of people are going to be doing the parsing like how is this like Mara Lago? How is this not like Mara Lago? Isn't this just payback for the investigation into Donald Trump and how hypocritical it is that MAGA is all upset about the possibility that John Bolton might have absconded with certain classified documents?
Um yeah. Um you were the same folks that thought that there was no problem with Donald Trump. Let's leave that all aside because let's just cut through the shit here because what's going on has nothing to do with an actual national security investigation.
As I wrote as I wrote over the weekend, this is about revenge. It's about intimidation. It is about fear. It is about what Donald Trump has been saying his presidency was going to be about and it's what Cash Patel signal.
Look, Cash Patel wrote a book about the people in the deep state that they would target. And for reasons best known to them, the Republicans in the United States Senate, as you all know, rolled over and said, "Yeah, we have no problem with a complete nutbag like Cash Patel running the FBI, um along with Dan Bonino."
So, what do we get? We get these retaliatory investigations. Now, I'm I'm I'm willing to, you know, step back and wait and see. Let's see the evidence that they have. You know, maybe this is a legitimate law enforcement investigation, but that's not why this happened on this Friday in late August.
This is sending a message that Donald Trump is going to be doing what he said he was going to be doing. And again, this is not going to be isolated. you know, expect this to be one of many, maybe the first, maybe not, many searches, investigations, grand jury, uh, hearings, uh, possible indictments.
And keep in mind that that's not just that. I mean, these criminal probes are bad enough, but, you know, they bookend all of Trump's other threats out there. You know, the threats, the lawsuits, the attempts to extort, and he's gone after critics in law firms, academia, and the media.
So, this is part of the larger campaign and as Gary Kasparov has pointed out, you know, Donald Trump does not need to throw everybody in jail. Um, what he needs to do is make their lives as difficult as possible. And any of you that have gotten letters from lawyers, threats of lawsuits, you know, the cease and desist letters, uh, you know, preserve all of your records, know that even if you're like, "Bring it on. I can handle it." there is that residual fear that is that complication.
And in this particular case for John Bolton, you have FBI agents going into his home and his office. So John Bolton is is not is not weak. He is not timid. He's a very very very tough guy. Um and he's been through a lot, but trust me, there's going to be a moment at 3:00 in the morning where he wakes up and goes, "Holy crap, what's going to happen? What is going to happen?"
And that's exactly what Donald Trump wants. That's part of the authoritarian model that Donald Trump is following. Make as many people frightened and concerned as possible. So, keep in mind that this is not a drill. Um, and we're certainly not naive enough to think that we haven't hit bottom yet.
But one of the points that I wanted to make uh when I wrote the piece about what makes you think they're not going to come for you next was was you know everybody's focusing on things like the troops in the streets of Washington DC and the raid of John Bolton's house. But there was another story last week that I really wanted to underline.
I know that some people are going to think, "Oh, this is more Trump derangement syndrome." By the way, could I comment on Trump derangement syndrome for a moment? I keep thinking the number of things that have happened in the last 6 months that if I had predicted them last August, if I would have said, well, you know, Janine Piro is going to be US attorney and Cash Patel is going to be the um FBI director and Dan Bonino is going to be running the FBI and Pete Hegsith is going to be the secretary of defense and RFK Jr. is going to be the secretary of health and human services and he's going to gut um all the vaccine research. people would have said, "Oh, come on. You know, this is just Trump derangement syndrome."
Actually, Trump derangements, the Trump derangement syndrome is seeing all this and going, "Yeah, you know, what could happen? What could go wrong?" In any case, uh I know that there are people who say that, "Well, just because they're going after John Bolton, Charlie Sykes, why are you saying that? What makes you think they won't come after you next?"
Well, it's it's other story in part. And I really want to stress that it's important not to get numbed by this even though we know that lots happened so far because it's going to get worse. You know, the the Washington Post just recently wrote, "Look, the president's broken one of the chief taboos of an independent justice system. He's using it to attack his political enemies."
We we know all that, okay? We know that Donald Trump doesn't make a really strong distinction between the public and the private sectors. I wrote a piece called uh the emperor of everything. Donald Trump doesn't make a distinction between his powers as a limited government official within limited government.
Remember when conservatives used to believe in limited government? The right-wing doesn't. And I think that that's a distinction.
So we know that Donald Trump feels that he has the ability to get revenge against anybody using government power or using the private sector. And we've seen that again with the law firms with media companies and the media companies some of them are faced with government retaliation at Paramount CBS. Some of them were just faced with lawsuits uh liel cases that they could have won easily but they did not want the the hassle.
Okay, so that's just the context for for this. I wanted to make sure that people saw that story that broke about the administration planning to review all 55 million foreigners with US visas to see if they have any violation.
Now, on the surface, it's like we just want to make sure that they're not overstaying their visas and they're not criminals and they're not, you know, right, the usual sort of thing. But don't gloss over the details in all of this. This is very much a BFD. And and my my guess is that a lot of people are going, "Well, I'm not a visa holder. I'm a US citizen, so I'm not really going to worry about this too much."
But listen to how the Trump regime is going to go about vetting, surveilling, monitoring 55 million visa holders. The reviews will include new tools for data collection on past, present, and future visa applications, including a complete scouring of social media sites made possible by new requirements introduced earlier this year. So, this is not new. This is not just a proposal. They are actually doing this.
I mean, I hope people caught that. The federal government is going to be surveilling all visa holders social media accounts and they'll be reading it all. Everything they write, everything they post, everything they think. This is speech. This is protected speech.
Now, Marco Rubio has already started deporting people based on what I think arguably is protected free speech. And there's a lawsuit, Gary Kasparov and others are are behind this lawsuit, challenging Rubio's power to do this, but they've already begun doing it.
The new rule, new government rules make it mandatory for privacy switches on cell phones and other electronic devices or apps to be turned off when an applicant appears for a visa interview. So much for search and seizure. So much for privacy rights. They're requiring this.
And again, we're talking about visa applicants, not not US citizens yet, but keep in mind that they're already doing this. This is back to the AP story. The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro Palestinian or anti-Israeli activity.
What this points to along with other signals the Trump administration is sending such as detaining people and revoking student visas for participating in protests the government deems anti-semitic or sympathetic to groups like Hamas is the increase of social media and this kind of surveillance to make very high stakes determinations about people.
Okay, can we pause on that point for just a moment because the Trump regime is looking for politically unacceptable thought and speech? Now, first they came for the pro Palestinians and a lot of Americans didn't care because they're not pro Palestinian, right? But my question is who's next? What other kinds of speech will be banned? Because we see how this creeps. We see how this expands.
I mean, so will visa holders or applicants who criticize Trump's immigration policies, will they be rejected? I mean, what about posts that criticize Russia or support Ukraine or point out that slavery was really bad?
So, what happens if somebody comes in and they look at their phone and they say, "Yeah, we think Trump is an authoritarian or we think that Trump is trampling on rights or we think Trump is a racist." um will they use those comments uh to deport or to deny visas?
I think you have to be naive to think that that won't happen. But here's my point. Here's the big point and the point where that that I really want people to think about that this is not really about immigration and it's not about foreigners and it's not about visa holders alone because and I and I wrote that I cannot stress this enough. I want you to think about this.
A government that has the capacity and the power to do this to 55 million visa holders, the capacity and the power to do this, to scrape through your social media to know what you've been thinking, what you've been reading, what you've been saying. That government is powerful enough to do that to the rest of us as well.
If they have the capacity to do that to 55 million people, what makes you think that at some point they will not try to say, "Well, what else can we access here? All we need to do is label somebody a criminal or label somebody a traitor or label somebody as some sort of a dissident and let's do the same kind of thing."
So, I asked people, look, if the Trump regime has the ability to monitor social media accounts, and they do, and they are allowed to do that, um, search for politically offensive content. Try to imagine, and I think we've had a failure of imagination before, but try to imagine now a Trumpified ICE, FBI, or DOJ, how they might want to use that against Americans, including you, including including me.
Now, I understand the push back I'm getting, but but Charlie, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. You know, um what about the Constitution? What about the due process? I mean, what about the courts? These things will all protect me, right? And maybe they will, but are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that all of those guard rails will hold? Because haven't we seen this over the last few months? How many of those guard rails have fallen?
If I would have told you that we were going to be snatching people off the streets and renditioning them without due process to a gulag in El Salvador, that we would be sending people to the Sudan, you would have said, "Oh, Charlie, that's the Trump derangement syndrome."
Now again, we're not talking about American citizens, but we are talking about people who once were assumed to have certain sets of rights that are now big question mark. So Trump's already come for the migrants, the law firms, the universities. He's come for government employees, political opponents, critics in government.
He's already come for critics in the media. Just ask uh, you know, ABC or CBS. So, what makes you think that he won't come for you next? Now, I'm not necessarily saying that they're going to knock down your door or that there's going to be an, you know, you wake up one morning and there will be ICE agents at your door or the FBI at your door.
But what about lawsuits? What about IRS audits? What about other things that would intersect with how you deal with government? And again, I think one of the problems that we've had in confronting this era has been our failure of imagination. And I want to go back to what Gary Kasparov said. I think in our imagination, we're thinking, "Oh, okay. Will there be tremendous resistance or push back?"
Well, or we're thinking there need to be mass arrest or it's not really an authoritarian state until we have tanks in the street. No, it's an authoritarian state when you are afraid. when you think I was going to say this or I was going to write this, but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't maybe I shouldn't criticize the president. Maybe I shouldn't say these things when you start to self censor because you can't have a cop everywhere, right? But you can get inside everybody's head...
And again, this is one of those moments where we have to ask ourselves and and I want to keep just coming back to this point. I'm sorry to keep repeating myself, but if they can do this to 55 million visa holders, that means they have the capacity to do that for the rest of and yes, I know it's be it's kind of old and it's almost become a cliche. It's something you've probably heard for many, many, many years.
But as I was writing my Friday newsletter, I was thinking about that famous quote from Martin Nemler. First, they came for the socialists, and they did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and they did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and they did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
And that's what I think that we have to think is that as we go through and you go, "Okay, they're doing this to migrants. I'm not a migrant. Okay, they're doing this to visa holders. I'm not a visa holder. They're doing this to lawyers and hey, [ __ ] all lawyers, right? I mean, didn't Shakespeare say, "First we kill all the lawyers. Who cares about the lawyers?" And then they went after the universities and okay, so the universities are fat and arrogant and too expensive. So, you know, and they're cave they're caving in. I mean, you know, Harvard can take care of itself, right? Um, one after another. Then they came after the media. you know, and ABC and CBS and others, and there will be more.
Trust me, stay tuned on that one. Um, and then the question is, you know, once you've broken down all of these barriers, once you've done all this, really, how confident are you? And and I guess this is this moment where we need to not be hysterical, but also not have the failure of imagination to understand it could happen...
I want to make another point about uh something that happened this week. Um, the goldfish punditry in in memory by which I I was inspired by Ted Lasso. Those of you who read this know this, but you know, Ted Lasso said, you know, the happiest creatures on earth are goldfish because they have a memory of only 10 seconds. So, you know, when bad things happen, they they forget about them. And it did occur to me that a lot of our politics seems to be goldfish uh goldfish politics that people forget things.
___John Bolton has been one of the most consistent and and substantive critics of of of what Donald Trump is doing.
In fact, just last week, he was saying how stupid his handling of Vladimir Putin was. That that the entire Alaska Anchorage summit was a complete fiasco, and a fubar wrapped up in a clusterfuck. Um, so the timing of this is rather extraordinary that they would go into his house looking for um, I don't know, classified records.
Look, I don't want to get in too deep into the weeds. A lot of people are going to be doing the parsing like how is this like Mara Lago? How is this not like Mara Lago? Isn't this just payback for the investigation into Donald Trump and how hypocritical it is that MAGA is all upset about the possibility that John Bolton might have absconded with certain classified documents?
Um yeah. Um you were the same folks that thought that there was no problem with Donald Trump. Let's leave that all aside because let's just cut through the shit here because what's going on has nothing to do with an actual national security investigation.
As I wrote as I wrote over the weekend, this is about revenge. It's about intimidation. It is about fear. It is about what Donald Trump has been saying his presidency was going to be about and it's what Cash Patel signal.
Look, Cash Patel wrote a book about the people in the deep state that they would target. And for reasons best known to them, the Republicans in the United States Senate, as you all know, rolled over and said, "Yeah, we have no problem with a complete nutbag like Cash Patel running the FBI, um along with Dan Bonino."
So, what do we get? We get these retaliatory investigations. Now, I'm I'm I'm willing to, you know, step back and wait and see. Let's see the evidence that they have. You know, maybe this is a legitimate law enforcement investigation, but that's not why this happened on this Friday in late August.
This is sending a message that Donald Trump is going to be doing what he said he was going to be doing. And again, this is not going to be isolated. you know, expect this to be one of many, maybe the first, maybe not, many searches, investigations, grand jury, uh, hearings, uh, possible indictments.
And keep in mind that that's not just that. I mean, these criminal probes are bad enough, but, you know, they bookend all of Trump's other threats out there. You know, the threats, the lawsuits, the attempts to extort, and he's gone after critics in law firms, academia, and the media.
So, this is part of the larger campaign and as Gary Kasparov has pointed out, you know, Donald Trump does not need to throw everybody in jail. Um, what he needs to do is make their lives as difficult as possible. And any of you that have gotten letters from lawyers, threats of lawsuits, you know, the cease and desist letters, uh, you know, preserve all of your records, know that even if you're like, "Bring it on. I can handle it." there is that residual fear that is that complication.
And in this particular case for John Bolton, you have FBI agents going into his home and his office. So John Bolton is is not is not weak. He is not timid. He's a very very very tough guy. Um and he's been through a lot, but trust me, there's going to be a moment at 3:00 in the morning where he wakes up and goes, "Holy crap, what's going to happen? What is going to happen?"
And that's exactly what Donald Trump wants. That's part of the authoritarian model that Donald Trump is following. Make as many people frightened and concerned as possible. So, keep in mind that this is not a drill. Um, and we're certainly not naive enough to think that we haven't hit bottom yet.
But one of the points that I wanted to make uh when I wrote the piece about what makes you think they're not going to come for you next was was you know everybody's focusing on things like the troops in the streets of Washington DC and the raid of John Bolton's house. But there was another story last week that I really wanted to underline.
I know that some people are going to think, "Oh, this is more Trump derangement syndrome." By the way, could I comment on Trump derangement syndrome for a moment? I keep thinking the number of things that have happened in the last 6 months that if I had predicted them last August, if I would have said, well, you know, Janine Piro is going to be US attorney and Cash Patel is going to be the um FBI director and Dan Bonino is going to be running the FBI and Pete Hegsith is going to be the secretary of defense and RFK Jr. is going to be the secretary of health and human services and he's going to gut um all the vaccine research. people would have said, "Oh, come on. You know, this is just Trump derangement syndrome."
Actually, Trump derangements, the Trump derangement syndrome is seeing all this and going, "Yeah, you know, what could happen? What could go wrong?" In any case, uh I know that there are people who say that, "Well, just because they're going after John Bolton, Charlie Sykes, why are you saying that? What makes you think they won't come after you next?"
Well, it's it's other story in part. And I really want to stress that it's important not to get numbed by this even though we know that lots happened so far because it's going to get worse. You know, the the Washington Post just recently wrote, "Look, the president's broken one of the chief taboos of an independent justice system. He's using it to attack his political enemies."
We we know all that, okay? We know that Donald Trump doesn't make a really strong distinction between the public and the private sectors. I wrote a piece called uh the emperor of everything. Donald Trump doesn't make a distinction between his powers as a limited government official within limited government.
Remember when conservatives used to believe in limited government? The right-wing doesn't. And I think that that's a distinction.
So we know that Donald Trump feels that he has the ability to get revenge against anybody using government power or using the private sector. And we've seen that again with the law firms with media companies and the media companies some of them are faced with government retaliation at Paramount CBS. Some of them were just faced with lawsuits uh liel cases that they could have won easily but they did not want the the hassle.
Okay, so that's just the context for for this. I wanted to make sure that people saw that story that broke about the administration planning to review all 55 million foreigners with US visas to see if they have any violation.
Now, on the surface, it's like we just want to make sure that they're not overstaying their visas and they're not criminals and they're not, you know, right, the usual sort of thing. But don't gloss over the details in all of this. This is very much a BFD. And and my my guess is that a lot of people are going, "Well, I'm not a visa holder. I'm a US citizen, so I'm not really going to worry about this too much."
But listen to how the Trump regime is going to go about vetting, surveilling, monitoring 55 million visa holders. The reviews will include new tools for data collection on past, present, and future visa applications, including a complete scouring of social media sites made possible by new requirements introduced earlier this year. So, this is not new. This is not just a proposal. They are actually doing this.
I mean, I hope people caught that. The federal government is going to be surveilling all visa holders social media accounts and they'll be reading it all. Everything they write, everything they post, everything they think. This is speech. This is protected speech.
Now, Marco Rubio has already started deporting people based on what I think arguably is protected free speech. And there's a lawsuit, Gary Kasparov and others are are behind this lawsuit, challenging Rubio's power to do this, but they've already begun doing it.
The new rule, new government rules make it mandatory for privacy switches on cell phones and other electronic devices or apps to be turned off when an applicant appears for a visa interview. So much for search and seizure. So much for privacy rights. They're requiring this.
And again, we're talking about visa applicants, not not US citizens yet, but keep in mind that they're already doing this. This is back to the AP story. The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro Palestinian or anti-Israeli activity.
What this points to along with other signals the Trump administration is sending such as detaining people and revoking student visas for participating in protests the government deems anti-semitic or sympathetic to groups like Hamas is the increase of social media and this kind of surveillance to make very high stakes determinations about people.
Okay, can we pause on that point for just a moment because the Trump regime is looking for politically unacceptable thought and speech? Now, first they came for the pro Palestinians and a lot of Americans didn't care because they're not pro Palestinian, right? But my question is who's next? What other kinds of speech will be banned? Because we see how this creeps. We see how this expands.
I mean, so will visa holders or applicants who criticize Trump's immigration policies, will they be rejected? I mean, what about posts that criticize Russia or support Ukraine or point out that slavery was really bad?
So, what happens if somebody comes in and they look at their phone and they say, "Yeah, we think Trump is an authoritarian or we think that Trump is trampling on rights or we think Trump is a racist." um will they use those comments uh to deport or to deny visas?
I think you have to be naive to think that that won't happen. But here's my point. Here's the big point and the point where that that I really want people to think about that this is not really about immigration and it's not about foreigners and it's not about visa holders alone because and I and I wrote that I cannot stress this enough. I want you to think about this.
A government that has the capacity and the power to do this to 55 million visa holders, the capacity and the power to do this, to scrape through your social media to know what you've been thinking, what you've been reading, what you've been saying. That government is powerful enough to do that to the rest of us as well.
If they have the capacity to do that to 55 million people, what makes you think that at some point they will not try to say, "Well, what else can we access here? All we need to do is label somebody a criminal or label somebody a traitor or label somebody as some sort of a dissident and let's do the same kind of thing."
So, I asked people, look, if the Trump regime has the ability to monitor social media accounts, and they do, and they are allowed to do that, um, search for politically offensive content. Try to imagine, and I think we've had a failure of imagination before, but try to imagine now a Trumpified ICE, FBI, or DOJ, how they might want to use that against Americans, including you, including including me.
Now, I understand the push back I'm getting, but but Charlie, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. You know, um what about the Constitution? What about the due process? I mean, what about the courts? These things will all protect me, right? And maybe they will, but are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that all of those guard rails will hold? Because haven't we seen this over the last few months? How many of those guard rails have fallen?
If I would have told you that we were going to be snatching people off the streets and renditioning them without due process to a gulag in El Salvador, that we would be sending people to the Sudan, you would have said, "Oh, Charlie, that's the Trump derangement syndrome."
Now again, we're not talking about American citizens, but we are talking about people who once were assumed to have certain sets of rights that are now big question mark. So Trump's already come for the migrants, the law firms, the universities. He's come for government employees, political opponents, critics in government.
He's already come for critics in the media. Just ask uh, you know, ABC or CBS. So, what makes you think that he won't come for you next? Now, I'm not necessarily saying that they're going to knock down your door or that there's going to be an, you know, you wake up one morning and there will be ICE agents at your door or the FBI at your door.
But what about lawsuits? What about IRS audits? What about other things that would intersect with how you deal with government? And again, I think one of the problems that we've had in confronting this era has been our failure of imagination. And I want to go back to what Gary Kasparov said. I think in our imagination, we're thinking, "Oh, okay. Will there be tremendous resistance or push back?"
Well, or we're thinking there need to be mass arrest or it's not really an authoritarian state until we have tanks in the street. No, it's an authoritarian state when you are afraid. when you think I was going to say this or I was going to write this, but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't maybe I shouldn't criticize the president. Maybe I shouldn't say these things when you start to self censor because you can't have a cop everywhere, right? But you can get inside everybody's head...
And again, this is one of those moments where we have to ask ourselves and and I want to keep just coming back to this point. I'm sorry to keep repeating myself, but if they can do this to 55 million visa holders, that means they have the capacity to do that for the rest of and yes, I know it's be it's kind of old and it's almost become a cliche. It's something you've probably heard for many, many, many years.
But as I was writing my Friday newsletter, I was thinking about that famous quote from Martin Nemler. First, they came for the socialists, and they did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and they did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and they did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
And that's what I think that we have to think is that as we go through and you go, "Okay, they're doing this to migrants. I'm not a migrant. Okay, they're doing this to visa holders. I'm not a visa holder. They're doing this to lawyers and hey, [ __ ] all lawyers, right? I mean, didn't Shakespeare say, "First we kill all the lawyers. Who cares about the lawyers?" And then they went after the universities and okay, so the universities are fat and arrogant and too expensive. So, you know, and they're cave they're caving in. I mean, you know, Harvard can take care of itself, right? Um, one after another. Then they came after the media. you know, and ABC and CBS and others, and there will be more.
Trust me, stay tuned on that one. Um, and then the question is, you know, once you've broken down all of these barriers, once you've done all this, really, how confident are you? And and I guess this is this moment where we need to not be hysterical, but also not have the failure of imagination to understand it could happen...
I want to make another point about uh something that happened this week. Um, the goldfish punditry in in memory by which I I was inspired by Ted Lasso. Those of you who read this know this, but you know, Ted Lasso said, you know, the happiest creatures on earth are goldfish because they have a memory of only 10 seconds. So, you know, when bad things happen, they they forget about them. And it did occur to me that a lot of our politics seems to be goldfish uh goldfish politics that people forget things.
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