One of the stories we've been talking about now, really for the last five years since the
Trump era started, but even in particular in the context of the January 6th riots,
which are sort of like the culmination of a peak of complete non-thinking,
anti intellectual, radical violent extremism, the question we've been thinking about is
sort of like, how far back does this go? When did this start to infect the American right wing?
And there are people who wrongly believe either that Donald Trump created this extremism,
and that's that's definitely not true or that the extremism started in the last five to 10 years and
Donald Trump merely coalesced it, which is like five percent closer to the truth, but but still
very much not accurate. And James Rosen wrote a really interesting piece in the Hartford Courant
called Republican Embrace of Extremism Began Long Before Trump. And you can
read about it. And in the piece, James Rosen actually goes back to talking about
1994 and Newt Gingrich as a congressman at the time of becoming speaker of the House and how that
was sort of a seminal moment in the radicalization of the Republican Party. And I think to a great
extent that's true. But the stage was actually set even before that and would go back, I would say,
to the 1980s and Ronald Reagan. And you don't see the same. I mean, listen, there's no doubt that
Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Trumpy and radicalism stormed the Capitol in this type of
stuff that was not around in the 80s and that was not even around in the in the mid 90s when
Newt Gingrich took over. But it's a progression. And this is why I've been arguing that it's going
to take realistically a decade, maybe decades. I don't know. I mean, maybe eight to 10 years
minimum to make a big dent in this, because it's been building for so long. And we've interviewed
over the last over the last eight years, I've interviewed people on all aspects of this
conspiracy ism, anti intellectual ism, religious radicalization, cult like mentality, educational
issues that lead to people being susceptible to this stuff, lack of media literacy, all of these
different things are sort of charted parallel to the political story that is that has taken over
on the American right. And if you really want to, you could go back to the civil rights era.
You could actually go back to late 50s, 60s, civil rights era and Roe v Wade era where I don't know,
I it's almost like when you get to 60 years, it starts to become harder to tell the story
in discrete steps. But you could even say it started then. But certainly in the 80s,
with Reaganomics and the start of the spread of in the more academic side supply side economics,
but the way that that infected many on the right with these sort of faux libertarian ideas that
become very authoritarian when the outcomes are not what they want. Stories about welfare queens,
free riders on insurance, social welfare and insurance plans and this type of thing
in the 80s that primed the pump for Newt Gingrich to come in in 1994
and go to the next level. And Newt Gingrich in 94 certainly starts to make the Republican Party look
more like the radicalism we see now. This led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton and and very
similar sort of persecution type radicalism from the right. This then combined with continued anti
intellectual ism to give us George W. Bush and remember that the non-thinking right of today
blows the non-thinking right of the Bush era out of the water. But Bush was really the guy
that started this. Oh, this guy's kind of dim sort of stuff where we said, you know,
a lot of these people really aren't thinking and they are being manipulated by religious ideology.
They're being manipulated by misunderstandings about not only cultural but also economic
issues. The idea of education as right as left wing indoctrination started to grow.
Then you get Obama and Obama as the first black president. A half black man started to take
the anti intellectualism and the radicalism and the misunderstanding of economics and the lack
of media literacy and coalesce it with racism that still then was sort of beneath the surface,
although it was coming out the number of death threats against Barack Obama,
birther ism, etc.. So by then it was it was really starting to bubble up and look
like the modern thing. And then comes Trump and like, think the. At this point, right,
we go back to Roe v. Wade and the start of radicalization of the more religious right,
you go to the civil rights era and you start with the radicalization of the more overtly
racist you get to the 80s and you add unthinking Reaganomics. And then Newt Gingrich comes in in 94
and gets us the next step. And then Bush and then the racism under Obama and then in comes Trump.
And Trump really doesn't have to do much at that point other than to make people feel
good or comfortable going public with all of this stuff that has built up comes down the escalator,
as he says, and talks about Mexican rapists and some, I'm sure, good people as whole countries
making fun of a, you know, person with a disability, all of this different stuff,
and then it just explodes. So it's actually notable. And I encourage you to read the the piece
and by James Rosen in The Hartford Courant. It's actually notable when you look at it how little
Trump had to do with the radicalization itself, but how perfectly timed he was to just drop in
and coalesce it. Now, the Republican Party, remember, didn't want Trump at the beginning.
They wanted they wanted the radicalization, but they wanted it to happen with someone that's
more polished, like a Mitt Romney. Remember the evangelical grifter's who in 2012 were saying
Romney's the chosen guy? Some of them ended up like Mike. Mike Lendell from my pillow believe
Trump is the chosen by God guy. So the Republicans did want this type of radicalization. They believe
it's good for fundraising. They believe it's good electorally, but they wanted it with someone more
polished, like a Mitt Romney. We kind of forget about that because Romney and Romney lost and
Trump Trump won. And early on, the Republican Party didn't want Trump. Eventually, he was
able to commandeer the party. He said a lot of the quiet parts that were sort of quiet under Obama,
although increasingly less so out loud, and the establishment people early thought Trump
was destructive to the party. Trump was bad to the party. But they eventually got you know,
they acquiesce now. They were right that it was bad because ultimately the Republicans lost the
House in twenty eighteen and the Senate in twenty twenty and the White House in twenty twenty. But
the main takeaway is that Republicans embraced extremism well before Donald Trump.