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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss recent polling of even Republicans who seem to disapprove of the unilateral (read: illegal) maneuverings that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been doing to democracy writ large. Trump started a firestorm by announcing his plans to gentrify Gaza, and has unleashed war against any type of not-even-recent progressive advancements.
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of My Creek Podcast.
I'm Jared G. Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Houseman.
Nick, how are you doing, pal?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well.
How are you doing?
I'm doing okay.
You know, we're going to talk today about a lot of bullshit that's been happening with the Trump administration.
I mean, a lot of our shows now are going over these things, giving context for it, and just sort of dealing with the flurry of it.
But I'm feeling like I survived a couple of weeks of constant onslaught.
You know, like attacks and being overwhelmed and being flooded.
I don't feel good, but I do feel like I'm starting to get my feet underneath me, if that makes sense.
Okay, good.
I'm worried.
I'm starting to feel like it's all settling in.
Everyone's sort of like, you know, shrugging.
Oh, I disagree.
I mean, we're starting the show talking about how that's not the case.
I mean, all right, I'm open.
Please convince me because I know that there are people out there that are making noise.
Sure.
You know, we've got the silent majority out there we've got to convince.
We've got a lot of people that we've got to talk to.
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Again, every one of these shows at this point is just jam-packed and important.
But today, Nick, we have so much stuff to go over in terms of what Trump and Musk are doing.
But I wanted to start with a little bit of a hopeful note.
I've been saying for the past couple of weeks that I had a feeling that there was going to be a growing backlash against what is happening.
We're starting to see a glimmer of that.
Around the country, tens of thousands of Americans rallied and protested outside of state capitals, in front of the Treasury, outside of the agencies that have been under attack.
It seems like there's going to be a lot more protests that are starting to take shape.
Also, a poll has just been released that shows that support of Elon Musk taking an active role in the administration.
Sure, Democrats and liberals are against it, but there has been over a 20-point drop with Republicans who originally wanted Musk to take a huge role in this administration.
It appears that there is a building backlash here.
It appears that there is the beginnings of a movement that is going to push against this stuff.
I do think that there is a reason to be hopeful over what we've seen over the past few days.
Yeah, maybe I'm expressing some FOMO because we had one in LA. I didn't even hear about it.
It's weird.
Whatever circles were going around, and it looked like it had a decent turnout, but it feels like we need to get better at organizing these things.
It was better, I feel like, in 2016 when he first won.
And that's maybe what the piece I'm sort of...
Frustrated with or whatever, but we have to get better and remind ourselves how we did it then and increase that size because you're right.
The show of force that we need to have out in the streets right now is crucial to swaying some of those minds and we need to have that more organized and more often.
Well, I want to start and I want to talk about why what you just said is exactly right and why maybe some people haven't heard about these things.
I want to give some advice to people listening to this.
If you are planning on going to a protest, if you are planning to go out and stand up against this, and I do think that you should do that, I want to remind people of basic common sense of modern protesting.
Make sure that your phones are locked.
Have your face ID turned off while you're at the protest.
Have your phone on airplane mode.
While you're at it, keep all of your contact numbers that you need.
Keep them physically on your person in case you are separated from your phone.
If a law enforcement officer wants to talk to you, shut up.
Don't give them more information beyond anything that they ask.
Know your constitutional rights.
Know your protections.
While we're at it, Nick, there was a total lack of media coverage of this.
It really did not show up in any of the major channels or major platforms.
And I think there's a couple of reasons for that.
I think one is that corporate media now sees opposing Donald Trump as a ratings failure, right?
Because a lot of people who have been opposed to Trump, who think that he is dangerous, they've quit watching cable news.
They've quit tuning in.
I mean, CNN and MSNBC have both cratered.
A lot of the newspapers have lost subscriptions because of how they've been covering these things.
It's sort of an all-or-nothing mentality.
On top of that, they think that Donald Trump speaking and making controversial comments and creating scandals and controversies, they think that that is going to drive ratings and clicks and attention.
So this thing, it needs to grow, and eventually over time, it will start to build momentum upon itself.
And you will start to see that this will become one of the defining narratives of the moment.
Right.
But what's going to happen then, as we've seen it indicated from the past, is that they're going to outlaw protesting.
See, that is what we need to talk about, because there are a couple of elements that are taking place here.
On top of these protests starting to gain a little bit of purchase, we also have now heard that DOGE is planning on trying to get rid of the Department of Labor and the Department of Education, which I... We always need to set the table, Nick, and get people back on reality.
The Department of Labor and Department of Education are on the cutting block.
There's a real potential of them being illegally gotten rid of.
And I got to tell you, if that happens, if you think that America's unions, labor unions...
And worker collectives, that they're not going to show up if that happens.
And if you think educators, some of the most sort of composed and logistically talented people in the country, aren't going to come out, I've got other news for you.
And what you just said is something we need to keep in mind, which is, and I want to be honest about it.
I do not want to paint a rosy picture.
Yes, authoritarians, when they are met with popular protest, they oftentimes get violent, and they will oftentimes use law enforcement and the legal system as a weapon.
We'll talk a little bit more about that later.
There is a real possibility that if there is a popular movement against this administration and the authoritarian takeover, there is a definitive possibility of there being actual clashes and some pretty dire circumstances.
And let's talk about the Department of Labor for a second and how that represents unions because...
Remember, there was kind of an epic push and pull and tug of war over those votes in 2024, and whether or not they're going to get an endorsement of unions, and traditionally the Democrats had gotten that, but then there seemed to be a whole movement towards Trump, which kind of made sense to us because it seemed like there's probably a growing faction of union members who are...
Very conservative in response to that strong-arm tactics that Trump is using or espousing.
But I got to tell you, I don't even know this is going to be a moment of clarity for those people realizing how much of a jeopardy their voices are and their bargaining power is.
Because obviously, someone like Musk, who represents all of that big business, can't stand unions.
They get in the way of all their bottom-line cost-cutting measures.
My worry is that as we project what all these measures are going to do and how unpopular we all believe they're going to be, I don't even know if it's going to turn the tide against Trump in any significant way.
Well, one of the lessons that we have from history is that authoritarians always push the envelope.
They can't help themselves.
And by the way, we are dealing with a very particular generation.
of authoritarians.
Musk and Trump have pure unbridled id.
They do not consider what they're doing.
They're doing all of this in an aggressive, quickened, accelerated way, in part because they think they need to get it done before there's anything resisting them.
But Nick, what happens is that every time that you start pushing these things and you start attempting these things, it always creates an organic countervailing force.
So for instance, Let's talk about the Department of Labor and the Department of Education.
Real fast, let me ask you for clarification.
How is the state of organized labor in the United States of America right now?
You know, it felt really good and very strong as Amazon and we were finding more people being able to...
It was building speed, right?
Say it again?
It was building speed.
Yeah, it definitely felt that way.
But it was like the numbers are lower than they've pretty much ever been, right?
They've been decimated.
How's public education in the United States of America?
It's failing.
It's grotesque.
In a liberal democracy, particularly one that serves the interests of the wealth class, you have to have things like the Department of Labor and the Department of Education to at least give the facade of people being represented, of these things being given respect.
If you get rid of them...
All of a sudden it becomes very clear, oh, the deck is stacked.
And what happens is it's a sudden realization of, oh, this thing that all this time I thought there was some kind of way that things could become fairer or that I could even be represented.
When those things get wiped out, if they go ahead and they touch the third rail here, there will be a reaction to it in some shape or form.
What that reaction will be or what it will amount to, that's the question.
But every time that authoritarians and the wealth class push for these things, there is a reaction that organically comes about because it takes away that sort of illusion that liberal democracy gives that, you know, there's a possibility of being represented or being heard.
The ace up the sleeve of Trump, though, is it the sleeve?
He probably had the ace up somewhere else.
But the problem with that is that they're going to blame the Democrats no matter what, and they're going to be able to foment that anger and channel it in a way.
That's the question.
It will just continue to develop this dedication to this cult.
The pieces are fitting together in a way much more rapid than we ever thought they were going to be.
I mean, they wouldn't even wait the requisite 30 days to fire an attorney general across the board.
And all they would have had to do is that.
30 days.
Big deal, right?
They didn't even want to wait for that.
So, you know, whatever this battle is for the hearts and minds of the country is shaking out in a way that makes me nervous because it seems like the only...
The area that the Democrats or the progressives could increase their numbers would be on the very new voters and the younger people coming into the new electorate.
But then you realize why they're getting rid of the Department of Education and they're trying to basically create a toxic country.
They want to create toxic people.
You know, by getting rid of DEI and getting rid of things that would cause people to have empathy for each other.
And that's what makes me nervous is that they're going to be able to control the kids into the electorate when they're 18 and then start voting.
Then we have an issue.
We have to have some way to stop this cold.
So I just want to say a few things very, very quickly because I want to get this all on the record.
First things first, what you just brought up is exactly right.
And I want to point out to everybody, for clarification purposes, we have covered the right wing and their paranoia and conspiracy theories for years.
Have you noticed that they're doing everything that they were accusing Democrats of doing?
Okay.
That entire time is just sort of setting the foundation.
That is what's happening.
The indoctrination, the creation of like a state that is supplicant to their whims, right?
The second thing is...
The fear that you're talking about, like that this stuff is coming into place, that is well-founded.
But you'll notice that when you have that type of fear, you have choices about what to do with it, right?
You can either say, there's nothing I can do about this.
I need to take care of myself.
Or it's like, oh, wow, my back's against the wall.
And when your back's against the wall, the question is, what are you then going to do?
And many people become very, very desperate.
The third thing, and I'm just putting this out there because conditions the way they are right now, it is ripe for this popular pushback.
It is ripe for a countervailing movement.
My worry is something that would galvanize nationalism.
Such as a terror attack, some type of war footing, something along those lines.
That is the type of thing, some type of major emergency that goes ahead and inspires like a rabid nationalism and sort of a fealty to elected leaders.
That is something that worries me.
And right now where we are without that, in the absence of that, I do think that we are going to see a clash here.
The question, once more, is what it leads to.
And there are multiple avenues.
We can talk more about them and the possibilities that exist.
But right now, the conditions are there.
Okay, now you frighten me more because...
Oh, no, I agree.
I'm not saying that to, like, fear monger.
I'm saying that those are the conditions and authoritarians are well aware of it.
That's the type of stuff that sort of excites that fear, you know, fight or flight sort of feeling and also sort of the supplication.
I totally understand that that is really disturbing to think about.
Well, look how 9-11 played out, and we had about a week and a half of George Bush being conciliatory to everybody and making sure we're all Americans, and that was inspiring, and there was something there.
This will not happen with this administration because, A, they would never take responsibility for any kind of attack, even though it would be on their watch.
Well, Bush didn't either, for the record.
What's that?
Bush didn't either, for the record.
Right, but the problem is it would be actively blaming the Democrats, who are not in power, for any of these shortcomings.
We just saw this with the plane crashes, and they're trying to blame everybody else for this, and again, can increasingly foment the anger towards progressivism, just for the sake of being progressive.
That kind of hatred is really powerful and troubling because...
You know, I don't know how you, I don't remember we ever really talked about 9-11 necessarily, but like, you know, there are people who sort of feel like they look the other way or there's ways that perhaps could be manipulated by the government.
And if you don't think that this government needing some sort of galvanization event like that would be part of that, like, I think that you're insane if you don't take that as a possibility.
Well, and so that brings us, unfortunately, to where we have to discuss.
What the Trump administration has been doing.
We'd really appreciate it if you could give it a try.
