Autocracy in America Ep. 2: The Pollster Who Sensed Democracy Was Faltering
I’ve long posited that far-left overreach provokes far-right gains.
Last week, Anne Applebaum and I announced that I’d be hosting this season of The Atlantic’s Autocracy in America podcast. This week, I’m bringing you episode two, featuring pollster Frank Luntz.
I’ve long posited that far-left overreach provokes far-right gains (and on and on, cyclically). How can America break the cycle? We discuss in today’s installment! You can tune in here.
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Kumara,
I think that it’s going to break immediately after the inevitable catastrophe of epic proportions that Trump’s ineptitude and malevolence is going to cause and exacerbate.
And the winner of the 2028 presidential campaign, if the U.S. is still a democracy and humanity has not become extinct because of Trump, is going to be someone like podcaster Joe Rogan.
Instead of having a fake populist as President like we do now, we will have a real populist as President.
Gary,
I thoroughly enjoyed this interview with Frank Luntz. And he made many good points.
But for him to suggest that there is moral equivalency between the contemporary Democratic Party and Republican Party is total bullshit. Trump and the contemporary Republican Party pose an existential threat to the United States Constitution and our nation’s 249-year-old experiment in democracy. Democrats do not.
That is why many Republicans and former Republicans like Bill Krystal, Steve Schmidt, Dick and Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake, Adam Kinzinger, Joe Walsh, Geoff Duncan, and many more endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024.
Trump has zero desire to work with anyone who is not completely subservient to him on everything. And he has sought retribution on his imagined political enemies from both parties. Conservative Republicans like Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs who refused to go along with his flagrant lies and egregious abuses of power.
If that does not require a formal non-violent resistance, please tell me what does.