Garland Nixon: The Implosion of MAGA and Why Americans Are Turning on Trump
Garland Nixon, a former ACLU National Board member turned MAGA critic, traces the movement’s collapse from Trump’s 2016 populist promises—like troop withdrawals—to perceived betrayals: pro-glyphosate policies, endless wars, and blind support for Israel. He warns U.S. military overreach against Iran could trigger Strait of Hormuz closures, risking economic ruin or credibility loss, while Congress acts as "staffers for the Knesset." MAGA’s fracturing base may reject midterm incumbents, but Nixon fears America’s empire is unsustainable, with deindustrialization and chokepoint vulnerabilities threatening irreversible decline. [Automatically generated summary]
I think that they are getting technological assistance and military assistance from both Russia and China, but we could go into that for a number of reasons.
I think the United States, I fear, has bitten off more than they can chew.
If, in fact, they say, okay, boom, we're at war with Iran, and within a day or two, gas goes through the roof, which is pretty much what's going to happen.
Americans will put that together and they'll say, wait a minute, why are we taking these dangerous actions that are not in the interest of America whatsoever?
It's absurd.
Welcome to today's interview here on BrightVideos.com.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of this platform.
And as you know, we are uncensored freedom of speech platform.
And I'm so thrilled to be able to welcome a first-time guest here today, but it's someone who I have listened to hundreds of times over the last few years.
And I've grown to really respect his analysis.
And he joins us today.
His name is Garland Nixon.
And his YouTube channel is GarlandNixon or GarlandN, if you want to know the actual call sign there for it.
But welcome, Mr. Nixon.
It's an honor to have you on the show today.
Well, thank you for inviting me.
It's certainly an honor and a pleasure to come on your channel.
I've watched your stuff before.
I really like it.
Well, thank you so much.
And what I just want to set the context here that I love your analysis.
I love your opinion.
You and I might in the past have been in different political circles, but seemingly today, none of that matters.
It's not about left versus right.
It's about we the people versus this total corrupt system, it seems.
But what's your big picture take?
You comment on what I said or take it somewhere else?
Well, I would say this, and a little bit with my background.
You know, like so many other people, particularly over the last few years, I've developed and changed.
You know, I at one point was a Democrat and, you know, and I always thought that that was the way to be.
You know, I was a Democrat and I thought this is what I believed in.
At one point, I was with the American Civil Liberties Union for years.
I was with the ACLU.
I was on the National Board of Directors.
I thought they were doing good stuff.
And there was a time when the ACLU people may remember the Skokie when we did, when we took on cases that were controversial, when we took on cases that everybody was pissed off at us.
You know, my favorite was at one point there was a case in Maryland where the KKK wanted a permit to march.
And the state, as a city of Annapolis, said no, and we said, we'll sue.
You have to give it to them.
And I went on news all over Maryland and DC explaining why people got mad at me.
And I said, God, it has nothing to do with the KKK.
It's principled.
We have a position.
And this is about the First Amendment.
This is about the basics of the Constitution.
And it doesn't matter who it is, right?
And to me, that was principled.
Exactly.
Well, you know, the ACL, you went to just doing woke stuff.
And I quit during COVID when they like literally, our legal director wrote an article advocating on behalf of, you know, vaccine mandates and stuff like that.
And I said, we're supposed to be the people that challenges this stuff.
And I resigned in protest when I left the ACLU.
But again, here's my point: I think.
I always had my principles.
I used to be a Democrat.
And then like Bernie ran and I thought, okay, well, I'll support Bernie.
And they stole it from him.
I said, I'm out of here.
I always had my principles.
And as the organizations around me changed and they no longer reflected my principles, I didn't stick with the organizations.
I got the hell out of there.
And it's like we're seeing now there's so many people who are conservatives.
They may be a socialist.
They may be a libertarian.
They may be anything.
But when it comes down to it, like we believe in the Constitution, we believe in certain freedoms and we believe that we should stay out of a lot of wars, different things like that.
And it's no longer the issue of who's left and I don't even know what left and right means anymore.
I know, I know.
It's all dissolving.
That's just so extraordinary.
In fact, I want to segue to asking you then about, you know, what you just described, the ACLU really pivoting and changing its focus.
I think clearly that's also happened with MAGA.
You know, MAGA, what Trump is doing is absolutely in contradiction to what his base believes and what he promised on the campaign trail.
Clearly, this is the case.
And Maha, you know, it's becoming a joke.
It's all pro-glyphosate now.
Let's eat more herbicides and let's have more wars.
You know, you could take a clip of Trump of everything he promised.
We're going to bring our troops home.
We're going to cut the budget of the Pentagon.
And now it's the exact opposite.
So what's your take on what's happening with MAGA at the moment?
I think, so my take on MAGA is this, because, you know, probably know I was with Fox News for years, right, for many years, starting about 2010.
And I watched the development 2009, 2009, 2010.
And that's when the Tea Party formed.
And the Tea Party was actually an economic, you know, they generally formed as a result of economics.
They were pissed at the, if you remember what they were really angry about, it was the bailouts.
They were unhappy with the bailouts, like so many people was.
And they never really got representation.
They put a bunch of people in in 2010 and most of them just kind of sold out to the system and they were looking for something new.
I think Trump came along.
This is my opinion.
I think Trump came along.
He took Tea Party and that kind of Tea Party spirit, that upset, angry spirit.
And he kind of commandeered that and gave it a new name and gave it a new, you know, red and white hat and stuff like that.
And he was saying things that I even thought were good.
Not necessarily a Trump fan, but I'm like, yeah, I like that.
That's a good thing, you know.
And he was upsetting the system.
Oh, man, that was a lot of people got a really good feeling.
And, you know, I think what ended up happening is he gets in, and eventually you see what we saw with the Tea Party, what we see with so many people when they get into Washington.
You know, either what they were saying was a fraud in the past or the pressures of Washington changes them.
And now I think what you have left is some people who are hooked on the politics of personality and they love Donald Trump.
Whatever he says is okay.
But I think, you know, I have a lot of friends that are or were MAGA people that are really upset because, like me, they had a set of principles.
Right.
And now they feel like, well, these are not aligned with my principles.
And I don't care if I voted you or supported you yesterday.
I got my principles.
I'm staying with my principles.
And I think that's what we're starting to see.
That's a really critical point.
And I would hope to live in a country with people who are driven by principles, not by personalities.
And I tried to encapsulate this because I was not happy with, you know, Kamala and Biden.
And now I'm not happy with Trump.
And I tried to encapsulate this.
So I tweeted out.
I said, here's the difference between the two parties.
You might chuck out this.
I said, under Democrats, everything is fake and gay.
Under Republicans, everything is real and terrifying.
It's like it's getting real.
You know, ICE agents are shooting Americans in the streets.
So neither one of these choices are really what I think most Americans want.
Israel's Dilemma00:15:42
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I think you're right.
And, you know, if you look in history, there was like parties like there was one called the Progressive Party.
There was the Bull Moose Party.
And in the past, what would happen would be when the parties became started to get too much alike, that other parties would start to arise.
And what the parties eventually did, though, historically, was they came up with all of these ways to stop third parties from running, stop third parties from forming.
You see that people who try to run the Democrats are suing them to get them off the polls and so they can't run.
Like what they did to Bernie.
Exactly.
And so they come up with all of these elaborate rules and RFK Jr., you know, they come up with these elaborate rules.
The two parties will work together just to ensure that nobody else can come in there with an alternative perspective because then both of them will be exposed.
You know, it's just, and just now I think people are really starting to say, look, you know, you got a red shoe and a blue shoe on, but the guy that's wearing his shoes is running in the same direction.
Yeah.
So true.
So true.
So, but let's expand out now beyond domestic politics and let's look at the international scene because I've heard you comment on the situation in the Middle East quite a bit.
I tend to agree with your assessment.
I think you're right on.
What do you make of the situation right now with the Navy poised in a very threatening posture, but Iran refusing to capitulate?
You can't blame them.
So what's your take on it?
We're in a very difficult situation because the United States military has argued how powerful they are.
But they'd attack a small country or something like that.
Or in a proxy war, they would supply a proxy army.
They haven't gone head to head with a peer or near-peer competitor.
So now we have a very powerful country.
Militarily, I believe, they've demonstrated that their missile power is quite impressive.
They have home field advantage.
Let's not forget, you know, you're going halfway across the world to fight this guy on his home turf.
He has no supply lines.
He's home.
He's firing everything.
He's hiding.
He's ducking.
He's firing stuff from various mountain ranges.
You don't know where it's coming from.
I think that Iran has a lot of advantages.
I think that they are getting technological assistance and military assistance from both Russia and China, but we could go into that for a number of reasons.
I think the United States, I fear, has bitten off more than they can chew.
And I think there's another important issue here, and that is, you know, traditionally, like we'll have prices of gas go up or some kind of inflation.
And Americans won't add that to foreign policy.
They won't say, man, our schools are crappy and our roads are going to hell.
But they don't think, well, because we're spending money on 900 bases and all this other stuff.
They don't put them together because they happen too far apart.
If, in fact, they say, okay, boom, we're at war with Iran and within a day or two, gas goes through the roof, which is pretty much what's going to happen, Americans will put that together and they'll say, wait a minute.
Gas is $12 a gallon and I can only buy it on odd days because of my tags, because there's not enough gas at the station.
And that happened because we just attacked the country.
That will change the dynamics of politics in America in a way that and the horrible thing is, I mean, it's dangerous.
Who knows?
If Russia and China's floating around, it could be nuclear war.
Why are we taking these dangerous actions that are not in the interest of America whatsoever?
It's absurd.
Well, yeah, it is absurd.
And I think it's clear that we're taking these actions in the interests of Israel, obviously, and at the expense of the American people.
And, you know, I've often said no blood for Israel.
I don't want U.S. soldiers to go die in some foreign conflict at all for any other country.
I mean, if we're defending our shores against an invasion, I get it.
Yes, of course, we have a right to defend ourselves.
But fighting somebody else's war overseas makes no sense.
What do you make of the fact that there are allegations that the sailors on the USS Gerald R. Ford are flushing mop heads and shirts to clog up the toilets to make that aircraft carrier essentially unbattleworthy, or if that's a term?
What do you make of that?
You know, it wouldn't surprise me, and it certainly reflects a larger issue in the military, a larger issue in the United States, and that is that people are weary of war.
People are war-wary.
We're not out there fighting it, and we're war-wearing.
Can you imagine how the people who are out there whose lives are on the line?
You know, when we talk about an aircraft carrier going down potentially, that's theoretical to us.
It ain't theoretical to them.
It is their lives.
They have wives and children and parents and stuff.
You got people who are looking at it saying, they're going to send me out here to get killed.
And I sign up and they say, yes, you can be in the Navy.
And guess what?
You have six months tour of whatever.
We're not at war.
And they're like, all right, six months.
All right, we're going to send you over there to go into another war.
God only knows how long that'll be if you even come home alive.
I think the people, it's furious.
And it's a sign that even the military is becoming unstable.
We know our politics are unstable here.
We know our economics are unstable here because we don't have an industrial base.
We no longer have industrial capitalism anymore.
I don't know what this kind of a monopoly financial where everybody makes money on asset-backed securities and derivatives and we don't make anything anymore.
But even our military is becoming unstable.
That's the sign.
And let me ask you this.
Can you fight a war if the people that you're asking to fight it don't want to be there?
We got problems, big problems.
It would be insane.
It would be politically suicidal.
And God only knows how many lives will be lost if the absurd decision is made to arbitrarily attack a country.
And you know, and I believe in laws too.
I believe that a country has a right to self-defense.
What the hell are we going halfway across the world?
Yeah, this country over here could potentially throw some missiles at Israel, which they seem to have no proclivity to do, but what the hell?
We'll go attack them anyway.
And, you know, it's like we're stooges for Israel.
Don't even get me started there.
I guess somebody will throw me off the air for being anti-Semitic.
But you know what I'm saying?
I'm pissed.
No, we are stooges for Israel under this current administration.
That's self-evident, I think.
I mean, anybody who would argue against that isn't paying attention.
But you've led me to a deeper question I want to ask you about, which is that Trump's posturing of this military seems to be really all just a negotiation tactic.
Now, the U.S. can launch hundreds, if not thousands of different cruise missiles and other missiles, whatever, and bombs in one wave, or maybe over a few days.
But after that, we're out of ammo.
We can't manufacture a lot of this.
We don't have the rare earths from China.
We don't have the supply chains.
Even if we crank up the manufacturing, it's way too slow to replenish that.
All those destroyers and frigates and whatever, they have to go back to port and reload before long.
It's kind of like a one-punch fighter.
Do you see it that way too?
Yeah, you know, it's exactly what it is.
I mean, we do not have really, if you're honest about it, the United States does not have the capacity to fight an offensive war like that, a defensive war.
Sure, if anybody attacks your country, everybody that can pick up a gun will defend their country.
And it's, you know, much easier to defend your country.
But do we have the ground troops?
No, we don't.
Do we have the industrial capacity to maintain a war?
You know, if you notice the language that the U.S. always uses, that our politicians and our media always says, we're going to strike Iran.
They didn't say we're going to go to war.
Think about it.
Iran says, if you touch me, we're going to war.
The United States says we're going to strike them.
The term strike implies a one-time hit, but the other guy gets a vote.
I tell you what, if you're walking down the street and some guy walks up and strikes you, you've got a fight on your hands.
So we're always talking about striking people.
Why?
Because that's all we can do.
We're like the big muscle guy at the gym.
That the only thing he's planning on bear hugging some guy if he gets in a fight or punches the guy.
But there are people that will run circles around him until he gets tired and then push him over.
Right, right.
We don't have the capacity to actually fight a war.
Our country is built to, quote, strike a country where a bunch of people have sandals and no air defenses strike you, but we can't go to war with you.
And we now have countries that are set up to defend themselves for a long, long time and we can't do it.
How do you get in that fight?
I think that Trump has walked himself right into a trap of his own making.
And in fact, I want to ask you, what is the risk of loss of credibility of the United States as a world power?
If either one, Trump backs off and doesn't strike Iran, then he loses credibility.
Two, if he strikes Iran and then Iran retaliates and either damages an aircraft carrier, shoots down a B-2, shoots down a stealth fighter.
If there are really any losses of aircraft or ships or 500 U.S. soldier casualties, then the U.S. Empire also loses credibility in that case.
And I don't know how he can thread the needle on this and strike Iran, keep his word, have no damage on our side, and then run away.
I don't think that's possible.
What do you think?
I agree.
That's an option.
You know, I always tell people, you know, I've had one daughter and I raised my daughter.
I always said, look, you know, when it comes to decision-making, and she started to be a preteen, I said, always remember something.
Any decision you make, think to yourself, what is the worst possible outcome?
And am I ready for that?
If somebody says, oh, we're going to get in a car and go drinking, ask yourself, what's the worst possible thing?
You know, because that's how you got to talk to kids when they become teenagers, you know?
And you got to make them think, what's the worst?
Well, I guess they could have an accident and kill themselves.
Are you ready for that?
No, then you don't want to get in that car, right?
Here's my point.
2002 Operation Millennial Challenge, the United States did this operation where it was a war game against Iran.
Oh, I know this one.
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, with General Von Riper.
They lost in hours.
And then they had to change the rules and go back.
Now, I'm not saying they would lose in hours or would lose at all.
I'm not saying anything.
I'm saying this.
That is a scenario that's possible.
If you ask me to plan it, Garland, what do you think could happen?
I'd say, well, this could happen.
Now, one of the options that we have to keep in mind is potentially we could get our butts kicked and we could use a ship, a couple of planes.
In theory, we could lose a ship or we could lose a couple or we could lose them all.
We could lose a lot.
What happens if we have significantly underestimated the power they have and we come out and say we're going to strike them and missiles come out that we ain't ready for that and we got ships going down?
What happens if China has given them those DF-21 or whatever they are, carrier killers, hypersonic with the 2,000-mile range?
And we're only a 2,000-kilometer range.
We're only 1,000 kilometers away.
Why?
Because we don't think they have a thousand kilometer ships.
Oops, we underestimated all of our ships get sunk.
So the worst case scenario is unimaginable.
And might I add, best case scenario, our best case scenario, when they close the Straits of Humuz, our economy goes completely in the tank.
That's the best case that could happen.
Worst case scenario is a complete collapse of the Western economy.
Should we be taking those kinds of chances for Israel?
Yeah, exactly.
So that leads me then to the Tucker Carlson interview with Mike Huckabee, the ambassador to Israel.
Now, this interview, which aired last week, maybe it was Friday or Thursday, but by Saturday, I think it's 14 Arab nations or Gulf state Arab nations had already denounced what Huckabee said, which was that he thought Israel had the right to take all that land, including a big portion of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Jordan, everything, right?
He said it out loud.
He didn't apologize for it.
And Trump hasn't fired him yet, you know, or recalled him.
But I'd like your assessment on this.
How much did that turn the Arab states against the U.S. and its presence against Iran?
In other words, before many of those countries might have said, you can use our airspace or we'll share maybe intelligence or satellite or whatever they have.
Now, do you see that region really backing away from America because of Huckabee's statement?
Or what do you think?
I think it's a combination of things, but I think the Huckabee statement might have been one of the straws that breaks the camel's back.
I certainly think that there were a lot of people who, some of the Gulf states and some of these royal families that operate on behalf of the West, felt as though that they were secure, felt as though we don't have to worry, Israel will never touch us.
And what Mike Huckabee said is, no matter what Israel wants, whatever they say they want, they get.
It also reminded me of Ted Cruz, when he was asked, I think it was Tucker Carlson that was like, hey, why did you join a Congress so I could represent Israel?
Israel?
Yeah.
And so when you're looking at the Huckabees, you're looking at them.
You're looking, where are the Democrats?
Are they an opposition party?
Who in the Democrats are opposed to this?
None of them.
They're all in favor of it.
They're all the same party.
And we have a government that represents Israel.
It is Donald Trump.
It appears now that he's the vice president of Israel.
And our Congress, they're not even members of the Knesset.
They're like the staffers for the Knesset, the coffee and errand boys for the Knesset.
That's what we have.
True.
They keep traveling there to get orders.
To see which one can smooch the most, smooch behind the most.
They've traveled there.
It's like a religious pilgrimage, but not to the Holy Land, to their gods and masters in the Knesset.
Like, oh, we have to go there and we have to show everyone what obedience we show to the Israeli government.
It's just sickening.
As an American who says, okay, Americans voted for you because you lied to them and you told them you were going to stand up for what you got an American flag going.
Take that American flag off of your clothes.
I mean, who are you fooling?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So what does this mean politically then?
Because we have Trump is collapsing in many polls.
He's retaining the support base of pretty much the boomer Christians.
And I don't mean that in a derogatory manner.
It's just descriptive.
But it's the older Christians that still support Trump.
Almost nobody else is maintaining support, especially not independents, not Latinos, not anybody, right?
I mean, it's just collapsing.
The midterms are coming up.
So, Garland, what do you think are going to be the implications of this in the coming midterm elections?
Well, there were a couple of things.
What's important to first take into account is this.
Sick of the Status Quo00:05:14
Donald Trump won because he had a very rare coalition of voters, right?
He had people who were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I knew people.
I talked to people who said, I'm voting for Trump.
I can't stand him.
He's a jerk.
Oh, he's a moron.
I heard people say things.
He's a racist.
He's this.
You voted for him?
Yeah.
Didn't like him.
Couldn't stand him.
Didn't think anything of him.
Had nothing but bad things to say about him.
And they voted for him.
Why?
Because the things that he said, they felt were in the best interest of America, ultimately.
And I thought to myself, that's a practical vote.
You're not voting emotion.
You're not voting because you like or don't like somebody.
You're saying, I'm looking at Kamala Harris and the Democrats and what they've been doing.
I'm listening to what this guy says.
I like what he says.
If he does what he says, I'll be happy.
I'm voting for him.
To me, that is the most practical vote.
I like to see people vote for.
Um, the things that they, you know, for the, for the things that they want to happen.
And now Trump has lost that whole coalition and it comes across just like, oh well, I got your vote.
It comes across, you know, very cynical, I got your vote.
Who cares now?
And that it comes across now like okay, my real masters are my funders and Zionist billionaires and, you know, the Israeli government, etc.
And it and, and I think one of the things that's happening now is people are completely losing faith in the traditional political institutions.
I think they watched the Bidens and that group for four years and they said, my god, the Democratic Party, I don't know what it, whatever it's become, but it's an ugly monster.
And and they didn't feel much better about the Republican Party.
But when Trump came in, they thought he was something different.
Yeah, now I think there's just anger and cynicism, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of these people, be they some MAGA people that actually are MAGA people that are running against incumbents.
You know, the Thomas Massey type people who are running against incumbents, be it people who are running against Democrats, either as independents or as Democrats, who are like, i'm sick and tired of this crap.
You know, maybe some outsiders are win will win, but right now we got to get there.
You know, we got to make it there alive.
That ain't the easiest thing in the world to do.
You know the direction we're going with this warmongering.
Well, that brings us to sort of my end of empire questions for you and that i've.
I've heard you speak about this and I, I think, just just to set this up.
I mean, you sort of hinted at it right there that people are losing faith in the institutions.
But I would take it one step further.
I would say it looks like the?
U.s empire is in its final days.
Actually, I can't really point to anything that's a success story.
Not the currency, not the education system, not industry, not banking and finance, not government, not media.
I mean really nothing.
I I can't think of anything other than just the independent people, the innovators, the will of the people who are fierce, you know, independent people who are homesteading or living off grid or whatever.
Yeah, we've got plenty of those people.
I'm one of them.
But as far as the nation itself, do you think we're in trouble as as a constitutional republic?
Well, i'll start it here.
I think the?
U.s is the equivalent of you know you've heard the term out on their feet, like some guy gets punched.
And when you see a slow motion camera, you see his hands drop and you know he's already unconscious and he, just like a lumberjack, hits the ground right.
I think that's where the U.s is.
I think it's out on its feet.
I think the U.s appears still to be the United States, like it used to be, but I don't think we are what we used to be.
I don't think.
I don't know if we ever were.
Who knows?
But no, in my opinion, we're absolutely not a constitutional republic.
We are not a democracy.
None of those things right now, because it's clear the government in no way represents the will of the people.
It seems to me the government looks at the people with nothing but contempt.
And so that's not what we want or what you need to have a successful country.
It has been deindustrialized.
We don't have an industrial base anymore.
The country doesn't create the jobs like it used to so that average people can make a decent make a living.
So I think the United States is not, it's something different than it was before.
And it's on its way down.
And now what these people are doing, you know, you just wonder, I say to myself, I've been saying this for a while.
Look, we're going to keep screwing around until we hit the wrong guy.
And this whole thing's going to go out the window.
Yeah, we're going to punch Venezuela or whoever, you know, punch this guy, do some proxy wars.
One of these days, you're going to punch the wrong guy and he's going to knock you out.
And I fear that the U.S. has just been inevitable, that we're going to start the wrong war at the wrong time.
If we go here now, you know, our economy is already in trouble.
Our economy is hanging by a thread if you look at the markets, et cetera.
I don't think our economy can take a hit from the close of the Gulf of the Straits of Hormuz.
I don't think we can take that hit.
And I think that hit will either collapse the economy or damage it so bad that we're not able to recover in the foreseeable future.
It could be decades.
Absolutely.
Part One: Economic Crisis00:00:48
All right.
Stand by.
I want to remind our audience, this is part one of my interview with Garland Nixon.
And his YouTube channel, which I encourage you to follow, is just Garland Nixon, as it sounds.
And his handle there is GarlandN.
You can find him there on YouTube.
And then that will link you to his other pages and his other interests and so on.
This is part one of our interview.
We will be publishing part two separately.
And you don't want to miss that.
That's going to be at brightvideos.com.
So Mr. Nixon, please stand by.
We'll wrap this up and then we'll continue with part two.
And thank you all for watching today.
Take care.
Pink Himalayan salt.
One of the purest and healthiest salts on earth.
Non-GMO, certified kosher, lab tested and trusted.