This is a preview of The Weekender edition of the Muckrake Podcast. Please go to our Patreon to gain access to the regular Weekender episodes on Fridays.
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman recap the first 100 days of this Trump administration, surprising even themselves with things he's done that they forgot about in his attempt to impose misery and despair on the country. They also lay out "The Plan" to control jobs for the middle and lower classes as well as propaganda in the educational system.
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Welcome to the Weekender edition of the McCreek Podcast, a special episode where we celebrate the first 100 days of the second Trump administration.
I'm Jared Yates-Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Ausman.
How are you doing, Nick?
How have these 100 days treated you?
Oh, it's definitely cause for celebration and rejoiceful of how thankful we are to have a leader.
Such as Trump and as echoed by all of his cabinet members going around the table and forming into his face.
A real dear leader situation if I've ever seen it.
Yeah, even being sarcastic about it makes me feel a little bit nauseous.
We're going to be going over all of this and more.
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Nick, 100 days.
It has felt like 500, 600 days at this point.
We...
I don't even know how to start with this.
When I was getting ready for this episode, Nick, I made a list.
Of what this president, the major moment so far in the president's first hundred days.
Here's what I've got, Nick.
A flurry of executive orders attacking people, taking away rights and privileges, corrupting the government, the weaponization of anti-Semitism and anti-racist policies, resegregation of the federal government.
Can't forget that one.
Erasure of gay and trans people, wiping out the achievements of black people and women, blackmailing schools, law firms, private businesses.
Thank you.
God knows how many people at this point, we have no clue, including children, the establishment of concentration camps in El Salvador, the intentional demolition of the neoliberal global system, which we'll talk more about today, alienation of global allies, partnerships with dictators,
slashing of the social safety net in all programs, elimination of regulatory bodies, including health, water, air, and food, a rejection of germ theory.
We love to see it, folks.
Gutting the White House press coverage, ignoring the Supreme Court, undermining the judiciary.
We've seen, and it's almost hard to remember at this point, a total and utter technological and logistical coup of the administrative state and just one piece of unabashed corruption after another.
What have I missed?
Because it's really something to take a look at.
Well, you know, other than all those things, according to the New York Times, everything's great.
Everything's awesome.
We're doing great, folks.
Yeah, well, no, you left out Doge.
Well, I mean, the logistical and technological coup of the administrative state, but yes.
And how about Ukraine?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we just signed an agreement for all the minerals and resources in Ukraine, more or less, and didn't even give them security.
Abandoning them, right, basically.
They're not getting any kind of support from us anymore.
So, you know, those are kind of the other big-ticket items that are really causing ripples across the world.
And, yeah, it's a, in other words, in Trump's words, a good start, I suppose, for him.
You know, I wanted to reflect on this and sort of lay the groundwork for you and I to sort of navigate what these first 100 days have actually been, what they've felt like, and also where they're going.
Nick, I...
Looking at it, just seeing it on paper, and I've missed things.
I know.
We didn't even mention the Gulf of America bullshit.
The fact that U.S. citizens are being prepared to be sent to El Salvador, attacks on voting, you name it.
January 6th pardons.
Oh, January 6th pardons.
Fantastic.
I'm glad we forgot about those.
Nick, this is...
One of the most destructive 100-day stretches in the history of the United States of America, and I don't think that's even close to hyperbole.
Did you mention anything about the stock market?
I kind of lost it.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, the destruction of the neoliberal global economic system.
But yeah, I mean, the stock market has been more or less wiped out.
God knows how much damage has been done to the wealth and the welfare of U.S. citizens around the country.
We don't even have a clue yet exactly how much damage has been done.
When we talk all about Gen Z, who grew up and came out of college out of 2008?
Is that Gen Z?
What is that, Gen?
Millennials or millennials?
Millennials.
The millennials.
Let's talk about millennials.
All they know is like...
My generation.
Talking about my generation.
Sorry.
Millennials and, you know, I'm Gen Z. Whatever I am.
I'm Gen X. You're talking about all they know is like 9-11.
They all, I mean, you know, the housing crisis and then one after another.
I have to, I can't even imagine what someone who's like 13 right now growing up, it must be thinking about what this country's about.
Having dealt with nothing really but like Trump and then Biden.
Oh, I mean, and COVID.
You name it.
I mean, one of the major things that's happening here, and, you know, it's hard to do because we both need to take a look at current events, but we also need to move beyond the personality.
So we're framing this through Donald Trump's second administration.
But what we're effectively talking about is living at the end of the American empire.
And this is what it feels like.
And this is what an authoritarian takeover.
It is someone coming in, guns blazing, just absolutely breaking things very, very quickly, creating a system of oppression, a system of humiliation, and just an absolute demolition of everything that you could ever possibly imagine.
And you have some people who are so young that they basically, you know, came around around COVID, saw this country fail.
And intentionally fail through COVID.
They watch, you know, BLM and unrest in the streets.
They've seen this authoritarian take over and do these things.
And then meanwhile, there's the rest of us who have lived long enough, and you and I are close enough in age that we lived in a time in which this would have been unthinkable decades ago, that this would have been a twisted idea of how the direction America could go in.
But when you take a look at it, These hundred days represent the logical evolution of the things that we have gone through.
And although they are aberrations, they are not aberrations.
These are things that we've seen time and time again happen, and now it just so happens that they're accelerating, and we have someone at the helm who, first of all, isn't well, and second of all, is so awful that this shit just, you know, it happens every single day now.
We'd really appreciate it if you could give it a try.
