Brad and Dan begin by discussing the growing case against Trump, whose seems to have clearly obstructed the retrieval of classified documents from his home. This leads to a discussion of how and when GOP elites will pivot away from Trump and what this means for the MAGA movement going forward.
They then discuss two speeches by President Biden this week. In the first, he used the term "semi-fascist" to describe MAGA Republicans. Then, last night he gave a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia where he laid out the strongest case yet that MAGA-ism is a threat to our democracy. Brad and Dan dissect what fascism is, how it has worked historically, and why it's accurate to label MAGA-ism a fascist movement. They then analyze key lines from Biden's speech and what his intentions were in giving it.
The episode finishes with a segment on the racialized environmental disaster in Jackson, MS where residents are without water. Brad and Dan show how a history of shifting funds away from Black areas of the city and ignoring failing infrastructure led to a preventable humanitarian crisis in the Blackest state in the nation.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show starts in partnership with the Kapp Center UCSB, and I'm here today with my co-host.
I'm Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
It's nice to see you, Brad.
Folks can't see Brad and they really miss out on a treat just generally getting to see Brad, but you look like it's, you know, cold or something.
But being in California, does that mean it's like, is it like 72 degrees and you're freezing or is it actually sort of cold where you are?
It's 68 degrees right now.
It is early in the morning, I will say, Dan.
So just to say, you know, like the sun has not even come up yet.
So we're both finishing week two or week one of teaching and both already somewhat tired.
I told you before we started recording here that I, in one class I'm teaching this semester, have the privilege of teaching
The book of Genesis, and in the book of Genesis we went over, among other things this week, the chapters in which God asks Abraham to show his ratification of the covenant by way of circumcision, and a very, you know, inquisitive young man in my class asked point-blank why God hates foreskins so much, and so it hit me that I'm 41 years old and did 10 years of grad school, and
My life is really apexed here, explaining, literally saying the words in class, I'm not sure God hates foreskins per se, however, and then trying to Yeah.
The grad school part contributes the per se to that.
Like that's the grad school part is that you can effectively use per se in a sentence.
So well done, Brad.
Yeah.
I think in the following sentences I used whom in the correct form, maybe the word ribald.
So it was all worth it.
It was all worth it.
All right.
Here we go, Dan.
We're going to talk today about the ongoing just seriousness and growing seriousness of obstruction.
On the part of former President Trump when it comes to the search of Mar-a-Lago, I know that we've, in the past sort of two, three weeks, we've given a lot of airspace to this.
But there's just developments this week that really kind of point us to a place where it really does look like Trump's in just serious legal trouble.
That'll lead into, I think, some really important discussion about Biden and some remarks he made this week.
He used the F word, and that is fascist, to describe the MAGA movement.
And he gave a speech last night at Independence Hall in Philadelphia that was in many ways I thought very strong.
Especially for Biden, and Biden's kind of careful, moderate kind of tone that he often takes, so we'll get into that.
And then we'll zip down and talk about the ongoing tragedy in Mississippi, in the state's capital, Jackson, and what's going on with the water crisis there.
So Dan, you know, news broke three weeks ago about Trump and the documents and the raid at Mar-a-Lago, and a lot of things have happened there, but One of the things that we've seen in the last couple days is just this sort of growing charge of obstruction that Trump and his lawyers are really putting up stone walls, and in fact, this could lead to some pretty serious legal trouble.
So, if folks have not caught up on this, if folks are kind of like confused about some of the facts there, what are some of the outlines in this story?
So as you said a few weeks ago, I don't know, I alternately feel like it feels like it was months ago and like yesterday, because as you say, it stays in the news.
And to your point, I think the reason we keep talking about it for some of the reasons we'll get to today about, you know, how this does relate to this notion of, let's say, neo-fascism.
But so it keeps ramping up.
At first you had the easy dismissals.
This is an overreach.
They're just after Trump about documents that should have been turned over, you know, for record keeping.
And then it turned out there were classified documents.
And we can recall and people can Google it, you know, Trump saying this was unnecessary.
You could have just asked for the documents.
I would have given it to you.
And then it turns out that there was a subpoena for classified documents in June.
And part of what is developing now is that one of the indications in the search warrant, the arguments for probable cause, was that they thought they would find evidence of potential obstruction of justice there.
And it turns out that they served this subpoena back in June, and Trump's lawyers and others said that they had turned over all the documents and evidence arose that they hadn't.
And basically the Department of Justice now argues, and so just this week, right?
Republicans attached to Trump, his attorneys have argued for what's called a special master saying that there should be sort of an outside figure to look through the documents and make sure that nothing that's covered by executive privilege or something like that is going in.
They took a long time to do that.
The Department of Justice says they're almost done with their own review.
Most people would acknowledge this is Trump trying to sort of gum up the works.
And so you've got a bunch of court filings back and forth, pretty dry stuff.
But the pieces that matter is that the Department of Justice has argued basically that they believe that Trump was trying to actively hide classified files, right?
Not just that they were inadvertently removed, not that they were there and they shouldn't have been, but that they knew that they were there and tried to hide them.
and evidence of this, that documents were found after the subpoena.
And Trump, as Trump does, keeps saying things and posting things and having other people say things that just kind of makes the Department of Justice case for him.
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