Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and fourteen percent of Republicans say they would take action to overturn the election of Trump loses. In case you're wondering, that's a lot of people. We have such a great show for you today. The Groundwork Collectives executive director Lindsey Owens comes to talk to us about price gouging and how Vice President Harris, if elected,
will fight it. Then we have Democracy Forwards Sky Perryman on how her organization is pushing back against republicans constant overreaches. Then as a bonus, we have a portion of our conversation at Democracy Forwards event at the DNC with Congresswoman Becca Balent, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and Congressman Maxwell Frost. But first we have the host of the Lawrence O'Donnell Show, ms NBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Fan favorite and also my favorite, Lawrence.
You're not supposed to say you have a favorite. When you're in the business of inviting guests, Ask me who my favorite is your favorite?
Guest on my Shaw, who's your favorite?
I don't have a favorite. See, by the way, Molly, this morning's lesson in parenting. Okay, if you have more than one child, you're supposed to know this and hopes.
They're all your favorite. Correct, And right now again, yet another day of unprecedented times? Do you get ever? Do you ever get sick of living in sort of unprecedented times?
I've been sick of it every single day since Trump went up to about twenty four percent in the polls in twenty fifteen. Before that, it was a joke, he was. He started at three percent in the Republican primary polls. He doubled that to six, and I think then double that to twelve. And I'm pretty sure that was the point when I declared authoritatively on Morning Joe, well, of
course he's never going to get higher than that. And so once he got up there and he was like running in second place to Jeb Bush, that was sickening. And so it's been sickening ever since, and so tired of it. And I don't think this is too dramatic a frame to use for this, because it's a kind of necessary frame for how the human mind copes with a long term oppressive struggle. And it's like asking somebody, you know, in World War two and you know, nineteen forty three, are you sick of this?
You know?
And they're you know, and there's two and a half more years of World War Two. And I mean people.
I don't mean the soldiers. I mean like people living in the United States, you know, who could not buy gasoline because it was rationed, or they could not buy tires because that was ration and you couldn't and America stopped manufacturing new cars, and there was all sorts of collective countrywide kind of stress and varying degrees of deprivation because of World War Two and because of this nut Hitler what he was doing to us without ever having
reached this country. What you will find from people who lived through that is that most days they were laughing and joking and living completely normal lives and never actually living without that horrible feeling of what we were going through and what was at risk. And so this no, I never get used to this horrible Trump era, which is the single worst era in American electoral politics and
American electoral history. It's not you know, the worst era economically, or the worst era or the worst era, you know, in a foreign policy or war challenges and things like that, but it is the single worst era of American history created entirely by politics.
Yeah, you know, it's such an important point that this is an electoral nightmare and could perhaps end in you know not and it could very likely end in a non reelection of Trump, but either way it's possible. But I do think it's really important that the sort of sword of damocles is of Trumpism has really been there the whole decade almost.
Yeah, And I now find myself saying things, you know, on my show to audience members who may not be aware of how weird it all is. You know, if you're twenty four, how long have you been paying attention? By the way, if you're twenty four, have you begun paying attention?
Right?
And I would say, if you're twenty four and you never paid attention before at all, like you never paid attention to the elections, and you didn't vote in the last presidential election, the one thing you're aware of about this presidential election, the one thing I guarantee you every twenty four year old is aware of, is Donald Trump saying from his crazed you know semi straight jacketed condition
there in Florida on Sunday morning. I hate Taylor Swift. Yeah, And so when I was talking about that the other night, I had to say, thinking about that twenty one year old or the eighteen year old, and oh, by the way, the fourteen year olds, that you have to understand, Presidents do not use the word hate as a verb applied
to a human being, right, you know? And I just said, you know, because I know, having lived long enough and listened long enough, that you're not going to find it, you know, if you search everything Jimmy Carter ever said, or Bill Clinton ever said, it's never going to be I hate a person. Right. I have studied a great deal of the World War two era, and from my study, I would say to you, off the top of my head, Franklin Roosevelt, president of the United States, never said I hate.
Hitler, right, though he had every reason too.
Right. Yeah, And that's how rare that is. Winston Churchill I found yesterday once said that he hated Hitler. He said that once, okay, and he said it in a pretty elegantly phrased you turn and was apologizing for the use of the word at the same time. And so
it's things like that. It's moments like that where you have this opportunity to remind people, and even you know, the forty year olds working on my show, it had never really crossed their minds when I was saying to them yesterday, find me an instance of a president of the United States saying I hate a person. Go ahead, you have the world Wide Web. You got a couple
of hours. Find me one. And the best they could come up with former President George H. W. Bush when he was seventy eight years old, just like Docald Trump saying I hate Saddam and then in his Connecticut Yankee way kind of immediately apologizing for the use of the word hete But one of the things, one of the contexts to remember about that is that there had just been uncovered a Saddam, an alleged Saddam plot about somehow
trying to assassinate his son, President George Reash. So it was kind of, you know, that was the one slip in the previous presidential history of dignity, avoidance of hate as a verb, And there wasn't the slightest ripple of surprise anywhere when Donald Trump, you know tweeted I hate Taylor Swift. And by the way, I know it's not on Twitter, and I know Twitter's not called Twitter anymore. Sorry, I'm not changing my language.
Yeh, good for you.
So no one was even slight surprised, and no one even really thought it was a big deal, And that is a tragic corruption of presidential and post presidential discourse.
Yeah, you know, the fact that the office of presidency has been so genteel in a certain way, even though there have been definitely things done. Presidents have done things in this country and towards Americans, even in the House, well, the House of Non American Activities was not presidential, but certain things, like you know, the way they've treated ethnic groups in this country. I mean, they have done things, but they have always presented themselves in a really genteel way.
And Trump is stylistically different, but he's also ethically, morally profoundly different.
Right, Yeah, And it hasn't really been a matter of gentility. It has been a matter of best strategic practice. So let's go to the example of Franklin Roosevelt never saying I hate him Hitler And oh, by the way, there's no record of him saying it privately. It's very clear he did. When you get into his private the things he did say privately about Hitler, he absolutely would pass the test of hating Hitler and certainly hating everything Hitler did.
The reason not to say it is not some aristocratic gentility. The reason not to say it is that you don't want the mother in Missouri thinking that her son at that time is being sent off to war and possibly die in a war with Germany because you hate Hitler. Right, that war has to be about something other than you personally hating Hitler. It must be, and so it was
about something other than personally hating Hitler. And at the same time, you know, we were allies in that war with the second worst dictator on the planet, Joseph Stalin, and you had to embrace that struategic balance in order to win World War Two. So if you think you can kind of flippantly say I hate Hitler while your teammates with Joseph Stalin temporarily, temporarily and strategically to save the world, by the way, that's you know, you got
a problem. And it's also President's understanding that no matter what job they had before this, whether it was governor or senator. The weight of their words now as president or a post president is just really profound. And they have all been in awe of that, you know, that weight of those words that they that they must live by, and you know, you see it to a point of timidity.
For example, in George W. Bush, right, the only living former Republican president who lives in absolute silence, absolute and total silence, and all any decent person wants him to do is to say, you know, don't vote for Donald Trump and here's why. And he won't even do that. And I do think that may be of the of the negatives in George W. Bush's legacy which are profound, That one, I think is the one that you can really take very seriously as an identifier of the dimensions
of that person's conscience. And when you listen to what George W. Bush's vice president has said, and you listen to what the daughter of George W. Bush's vice president has said, and if you listen to their words, it is morally indefensible for George W. Bush not to say the same thing, unless and only unless he actually wants Donald Trump to win.
Yeah, when Dick Cheney has become the arbitrary. I mean he you know, has become the moral compass of the Republican Party, which he has at this moment. Can you talk about I wrote a piece about this because it
just struck me as so blatant. But the lie about Ohio, Springfield, Ohio, the lie about Haitian immigrants who are there legally, who Trump wants to deport to Venezuela, that lie is just yet another one of these things they do that autocrats do, I mean, so blatant, so transparent, but also I mean, talk to me about what your take on that was.
Well, you know, I think one of the more important things to know about it is that it's not new in America or in other countries. They said this about the Irish and you know, the eighteen fifties in Boston and New York and they were lying then and literally by the way, literally you know, the eating of dogs and that that sort of thing, that specific thing has
been used at many times in our history. And you know, when you look at the things that Hitler said about Jews, they were that and worse, you know, and much worse, like they'll eat your children. Yeah, So it's a thing you know what these bad people immigrants. You know, in the Germany case, the Jews that Hitler was talking about it certainly at first were not immigrants. They were actually you know, born native residents of Germany, but they were
the demonized group. And here the demonized group are the immigrants, and now specifically Haitian immigrants, you know, not randomly chosen from the potential immigrant group. You know, you've got a solidly black group of immigrants that he can identify that way. And it's extremely deliberate. And because Donald Trump is not has not once in his entire political career tried to
convert a voter who he doesn't have already. He doesn't care how stupid it looks to us, and how evil it looks to us, and how stupid it looks to you don't know, women, suburban voters in Ohio who you know, know for a fact that it's not true. He doesn't care about that. He cares that it energizes the people who share his hatreds. And that's the currency he's been trading in from the start. Can my hatreds win the
electoral college? Do my hatreds? Are my hatreds shared by enough people geographically distributed in a way that will allow me to win the electoral college, not win the most votes. That's not the campaign. He's not in a campaign to win the most votes. He's never won the most votes. It's the electoral college. And you know, in twenty sixteen they were distributed in such a way that could allow
for that, and so it's horrific. And of course, you know, and of course, because you know, Donald Trump is the clown writing this history. Clown history, of course, would hand us the situation where within days of Donald Trump saying that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, the federal prosecutor who is now investigating the latest accused
assassination attempt of Donald Trump is a Haitian immigrant. He arrived in this country when he was sixteen years old, not speaking much English at all, got into public high school in Miami, graduated, joined the Marines immediately after graduation, eventually got back to college and law school, works in the US Attorney's office for a couple of years, goes
into private practice in a prestigious Miami law firm. And now we have a fifty four or so year old Haitian immigrant exactly precisely who Donald Trump says is poisoning the blood of America. That's who's in charge of the investigation of the latest person to get near Donald Trump with a gun.
Yes, and these people who Trump accuses all of this stuff of are actually the reason that the American economy is doing better than almost any economy in the world. I'm wondering if you can just we don't have a ton of time, but I want you to take a shot at this. Why do you think that JD. Vance uses all the same tropes as Trump and somehow can't make it work for him.
Well, I think it's a wonderful experiment that we've run a couple of times now, and JD. Evans is the latest example of it, which is that trump Ism is not transferable. It is not There's not going to be another one. The seventy eight year old Trump is going to expire from politics and there will not be another one. No one is going to be able to stand up there. Mike Pompeo thought he was the guy who was going to be able to do this. You know. JD. Evance
clearly wants to be the guy. You know, Donald Trump Junior wants to be the guy. There is not going to be another guy. They're going to have to proceed in a Republican Party without Donald Trump and without any policies and without any wild guess about what do we do next? Because it has been nothing but a cult of personality, you know, absolutely nothing. But and as strongly as FDR held his grip on the Democratic Party such that he won, you know, four presidential elections in a row,
it was never a cult of personality. It was a program of policies, the most advanced and set of public policies in the history of the presidency, directed at domestic governance. And so when he died in office and Harry Truman took over, Harry Truman, who had absolutely no following in the United States of America, won the next presidential election when, by the way, everybody predicted he was going to lose, including every single reporter on the on the Truman campaign train.
They liked the guy, but they were sure he was going to lose. And so it was kind of that election of Harry trumpan was kind of proof, Okay, this wasn't a cult of personality. As much as FDR was loved and so We've never seen an actual cult of personality take over one of the political parties, so we don't have any idea what happens to that party when that personality leaves that stage.
Yeah, well we're going to see, right, or maybe we won't.
He's seventy eight years old. We are going to see.
Yes, Thank you, Lawrence, Thank you very much.
We have even more toward dates for you. Did you know the linked projects? Rick wils did a fast politics Bali jug Faster heading out on tour to bring you a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh at the Regent Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest. We'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September, and on the twenty second we'll be
in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October, we'll be in affiliate City Winery, and then DC on the second at the Miracle Theater, and today we just announced that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as we get through this election and hopefully never hear from a guy who lives in a golf club again,
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Lindsey Owens is the executive director of Groundwork Collective. Welcome to Fast Politics, Lindsay Owens, Hi, thanks for having me explain to us. You are an expert on price gouging. Explain to us how you get to be an expert on that and what that looks like and what you do. Yeah.
So, I run a think tank in Washington, d C. Called the Grammar Collaborative, and we focus on policies that
build an economy that works for everyone. And for the last few years, the biggest topic in the economy has really been inflation and high prices, and as part of that work, we have really spent a considerable amount of time digging into the research and the legal theories around price gouging, price fixing, profiteering, all of the things that have sort of worked against bringing costs down for families over this last few years.
Explain to us where we are right now in the kind of price gouging cycle, you.
Know, really beginning with the pandemic. One thing that we saw over and over again is you know a number of companies and you know some individual Americans as well, started gouging on essentials. You may remember that we saw a lot of examples of guys hoarding PPP and their garages and selling it, you know, at a very high price point. We saw companies spiking the price of essentials.
We have an example recently where the New York Attorney General came to a settlement with Walgreens over price gouging
on baby formula. Remember we had that baby formula shortage, you know, a couple of years back, and you know, Walgreens took advantage of it and really hiked the price point of baby formula, and Tiss James, the new Attorney General in New York State, deployed the regulations that new York State has on the books against price gouging to settle with Walgreens and basically deliver ninety five hundred cans of baby formula back to New Yorkers. So we had
a number of examples of this. We see price gouging in food and agriculture quite frequently. I mean there we have the impact of natural disasters, and pandemics and other diseases are quite substantial in food and agriculture. So we've had examples of Calmine, one of the largest egg producers in the country. There was recently a jury trial that found them guilty of price gouging during the bird flu.
So of course, you know during bird flu, you know, we had fewer eggs, but they weren't just charging more because there were fewer eggs. They were also really fanning the flames of the shortage. So they were exporting eggs to keep the number of eggs in the US lower, and they were also culling the flock right to keep the egg production down and keep those high prices going for longer.
So it's sort of like every company has become OPAQ.
Yeah, I think that, you know, in a version of the world in which disasters are more frequent, we're going to see the kind of activities of disaster capitalism. Price gouging is one of those hallmark activities more frequently and
more forcefully. And I think you know, when it comes to essentials, the things that matter most to families, keeping a roof over their head and food on the table, it makes a lot of sense for lawmakers at the state level and at the federal level to take a look at what additional tools we might need to curb this really excessive exploitative behavior.
So one of the things that Robert Reich has said on this topic is that part of the reason why price gouging is such a problem is because of monopolies. Is that true, and if so, explain.
Yeah, it's absolutely true. Look, if you want to charge high prices, it helps if there's no one across the street charging lower prices. Right at the end of the day, if you are looking over the shoulder and competitors are nipping at your heels, it's tougher to run away with
these really high prices. And so competition, while not a panacea, is a really important check on excess corporate power, and companies with a lot of power have a lot of market share, and they also have a lot of pricing power, and pricing power is really what you need if you want to push pricing to anti competitive levels. So it's not just price lounging that you can execute more seamlessly if you have a little size and a little pricing power.
It's also price fixing, right. If there are fewer people to coordinate with to set prices, it is easier to fix prices at a higher level. It's also the case that sometimes companies are just pricing anti competitively, or pushing prices just a little above where they would be otherwise in a competitive market. We might not think that constitutes sort of true price gouging, which usually is triggered by
an emergency, usually really only applies to essentials. We're not really cracking down on price gouging and luxury handbags, for example, but we do see anti competitive pricing throughout the economy, and a great example just really this week, we've seen the Federal Trade Commission blocking the merger of Kroger and Albertsons. Kroger trying to buy Albertsons, and you know, in twenty two states, these are competitors. Kroger and Albertsons compete for shoppers.
And what we've learned throughout that trial, which you know, many folks have attended and journalists have covered, you know, really well, is that Koger and Albertson has basically admitted that they've been pricing anti competitively because of their size.
And so I think, you know, while we wouldn't call that price gouging, it's just another way, another kind of countervailing pressure that we've seen during this period of high inflation that really cuts against getting prices back on the level.
So can you explain to us how tariffs would be inflationary and how they would make prices more expensive?
You know, so President Trump has proposed this sort of broad based, across the board twenty percent tariff, and the basic idea is that you know, companies in the US would have to work over more to import goods from abroad, and that you know, the fact that companies you know inside the US are paying more means they're going to pass those higher prices along to consumers at the endpoint, at the point of sale. And so it's almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which broad based traff like
those that President Trump is proposing won't increase prices for Americans. Now, I think there are more narrow settings in which targeted
and curated tariffs can make a lot of sense. President Biden is pursuing tariffs as well, in particular around electric vehicles, to really prevent China from sort of dumping in the electric vehicle space and making it hard for the US to build its own electric vehicle industry, which is you know, nascent and burgeoning and was a big part of what the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act aimed to do. So I think there are good reasons for well targeted tariffs.
There are economic reasons for them, there are national security reasons for them. There are resiliency reasons for them. We want to be a country that has a strong manufacturing base here. We learned the hard way on the eve of the pandemic when there were a lot of things that we couldn't make in the US that we had to import, and we couldn't import because of the pandemic.
And so I think, you know, there's a lot you can do with tariffs, but the type of broad based tariffs that President Trump is proposed will surely raise prices broadly for American families, But can.
You explain sort of what Harris's plan is to lower inflation and also more importantly, to hit these prices like the eggs and the meat and etc.
The Vice President laid out an economic agenda in a speech in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and it was really her first speech, you know, letting the American people know what she would pursue visa via economic policy if she were elected. And she basically said that she was going to be laser focused on lowering costs for Americans. And so she talked about bringing down housing costs using
a few different policies, including building three million homes. She talked about cracking down on price fixing in the rental
market a couple of weeks ago. We really saw the wisdom of that approach when we learned that the Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against real Page, a Texas based real estate technology company runs an algorithm called yield Star, which helps corporate landlords in large markets in the United States price fix and by their own admission, Real Page is increasing rents anywhere between two and seven percent above
competitive levels in major markets. So she talked a lot about housing prices, but she also talked about food prices, and she proposed effectively a federal price gouging ban. So, you know, nearly forty states have price gouging laws on the books, right. These are kind of plane vanilla laws that have been on the books for decades in many states that prevent companies from exploiting crises to gouge customers.
So they basically have four parts. Part one, they're triggered by some sort of crisis, you know, a natural disaster, a pandemic, a period of economic uncertainty. Part two, they really apply only to necessities. Again, you're not going to see someone cracking down on price gouging for luxury items. The third component that these laws typically have is a
hibit unconscionably excessive. That's a legal term price hikes. So companies who are charging two three percent more during a pandemic are not going to be, you know, brought to justice for price gouging. These are really price hikes, you know, well in excess of ten percent usually. And then the final component is that you know, lawmakers have to take a close look to ensure that price hikes can't be
justified by underlying increases in costs. So if you're raising prices because you're selling diapers, and diapers the main ingredient in diapers is wood pulp that comes from timber, right, that's the absorbent paper, And the price of timber is up, and you're just passing along your rising costs the input costs of timber. You're not going to be looked at for price gouging, right, So you really need all four
of those components in a price gouging law. And that's what you see commonly, you know, throughout the United States and in most states and red states and blue and so what the Vice President proposed in her speech is
a federal statute that would ban price gouging. You know, obviously she didn't lay out a huge amount of detail in a short speech, but I think it would probably look a lot like the state laws, and it might look a lot like a piece of legislation currently in the Senate that Senator Warren has, which is basically a federal price gouging ban. And so you would imagine something modeled closely after Senator Warren's proposal. And I think the federal version of this policy makes a ton of sense.
At the end, of the day. A lot of the disasters that we experience, a lot of the uncertainty that we experience in the economy, you know, happens at the national level, not the state level. A lot of the companies that we've seen engage in price gouging are not operating only in one state. They're operating across state lines. This is interstate commerce. And so I think it would be really helpful going forward for the FEDS to have a tool, for the Federal Trade Comission to have a
tool to take a look at price gouging federally. So I think it's a pretty common sense piece of legislation in some ways, a bit of a vanilla piece of legislation. But obviously, you know, the reaction to it was quite strong.
One on the podcast were fans of hers, But I certainly know a lot because I live in New York. I know a lot of business people of venture capitalists, investment bankers, etc. Who are truly threatened by her. Can you explain to us sort of why they're threatened by her or why stuff like this is so threatening? And if you think that there's a way to thread the needle to have a responsible capitalism, that puts its finger on the scale in a way that helps workers, but that isn't wasteful, thoughtless.
Yeah, I think that's a good question. So I'll take the first piece first around, sort of why why Senator Warren elicits such strong reactions in the business community. You know, I worked for Senator Warren for several years in the Senate in Washington, and I think that Senator Warren has two things that motivate her. The first, I would say is she really does have a theory of what a healthy economy should look like. And it's a pretty clear
and strong theory. Right, It's an economy where the workers who power the economy are doing well. It's an economy where the consumers who's spending powers the economy, are doing well. It's an economy where caregivers who's unpaid labor keeps the economy afloat, are doing well. And it's an economy where where companies have to play fairly, right, they have to play by the rules. They can make a profit, they can compete with each other, but there has to be
free and fair competition. She also has a clear theory of what's wrong with the economy and why the economy doesn't look like the healthy economy that she so desires. And there, I think the answer is fairly clear, which is that in the United States context, for years, companies, through do regulation through tax cuts have really amassed outsized power in our economy such that they're not actually competing anymore,
they're just controlling. She has supported, i think, in some ways and omnivorous and sort of I would say policy tool agnostic approach to fixing that problem. I mean, she really supports any prescription, any surgery, any procedure that will help get the economy back to a fair place that's
working good and well for workers and families. And so she supports having people like Lena Khan at the Federal Trade Commission using every tool that the Federal Trade Commission has to build that healthy economy, whether that's suing to block the merger of Kruger and Alberton's, whether that's dusting off regulatory authority at the FTC for the first time in decades and issuing a rule to ban noncompete so that workers can vote with their feet when they want
to leave a job, whether that's building the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to ensure that consumers a cop on the beat, as she used to say, or someone advocating for them in the mortgage process, in the credit card acquisition process. Right, So she really supports that I think omnivorous approach. She really is willing to turn over every rock, use every tool in the toolkits, sort of whatever metaphor you want
to profer to build that economy. Look, I think it is fair to say that many companies in the United States have benefited from the exact opposite approach, which is to say, a government and Congress who has mostly let companies do what companies want to do. Whether that's an FTC that rubber stamped mergers for decades, whether that's regulators captured regulators in some cases who didn't pick up any of the tools that they had to use to make
the economy more fairic poor consumers. Whether that's Congress whose greenlit tax cuts under Democratic and Republican administrations. Right, we have Reagan pushing tax cuts fifty years ago, we have Bush pushing tax cuts, but we also have Obama extending Bush tax cuts. Right, So I think we I've been sort of working and rowing in one direction for a
really long time. You know, the Senator, and I think many others who are inspired by her or enjoy working alongside her in this broader movement, are interested in sort of rerouting the ocean liner. And I think it is threatening to many companies to see someone who's taking this
on aggressively, but frankly also effectively. The people that she's put in positions of power in the White House, the people she's helped mentor and support in agencies at the state level, at the federal level, they're smart and they're effective. They're getting wins in the courts, they're getting wins in Congress,
they're getting wins in the administration. And so I think, you know, if you're someone who benefits from a kind of rigged status quo, then it's absolutely the case that the warrant approach is a real threat to your model.
Yeah, for sure. So interesting. I hope you will come back.
I'd love to.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we, which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future right now. We have just released the final episode of this five episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube. And if you are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone in the lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast. All five episodes are online now. We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do to this country, So please watch it and spread the word. Sky Perryman is the president of Democracy Forward. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Sky, thanks for having me always get to talk to you.
So you and I we were both at the DNC and we did a panel together. We're going to have some snippets of the panel in this podcast because there are some great things that people said, and we had some great congresspeople there, Maxwell Frost, we had Jasmine Crockett, we had beca ballot. Sky explained is what your organization does.
Democracy Forward is a legal organization that believes that people in communities in this country, all the vast majority of them, want to embrace freedom and democracy, but to do that they have to have representation in court because so many of our rights and our freedoms are on the line
in courts and communities across the country. So we represent people in communities across the country to disrupt anti democratic policies, whether those are abortion bans or voter suppression initiatives, or book bans or blacklisting companies, which is the state of
doing these days, I mean all kinds of things. And then we also defend positive policies for people that the democratic process has produced that are being challenged in the courts by far right legal organizations and organisms, including those that are behind Project twenty twenty five. We got our start in the first year of the Trump administration when it was clear that democracy and people in communities needed some additional lawyers on the on the Tech took the
Trump administration to court more than one hundred times. We reversed a lot of problematic and harmful policies, and now we have expanded our mission and are working in communities across the country to disrupt extremism and build for the future.
So I want to say that you're one of the groups that when Republicans try to break the law, and they do in the state of Texas, is a really good example. Remember they repealed ROW a year before the Supreme Court did with SBA. So when Republicans try to break the law, which is sort of their metier at this point, you guys go in there and you fight.
Yeah, when any extreme lawmaker, we're a non partis an organization, But when any abuses their power to the detriment of people in communities, we are one of the groups that has the honor of being there on the front lines. In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law a measure that would have criminalized librarians, and so we went in and were able to stop that on a pulmonary
injunction or continuing to litigate that case. Like I just said, in Texas, this Texas Legislature and Greg Abbatt have a law on the books that are blacklisting companies in the state. Even though the thing it's a pro business environment, blacklisting companies were there on the front line. And then in West Virginia, of course we are there on the front lines to help ensure medication of wortion access. So those are some examples of the types of things that we do.
Right and things that should not be partisan It's a really good point that this is about bad actors and not it doesn't matter if they have a D or an R next to their name.
Well, and the vast majority of people in this country, they don't necessarily agree on all kinds of policy matters are but most of the work that we have the pleasure of doing are things that the vast majority of people want. They want people to be paid fairly for their work. They want people to be able to raise their kids and take, you know, send them to a school where there's not going to be a school shooting, right.
They want to be able to access healthcare and not have women dying during pregnancy because of being deprived of emergency here. And so, you know, we have the pleasure of getting to really provide people in communities tools to make their voice heard and to try to make society more democratic and toward the terrible threats.
Yes, and I think that's a really important point. So why don't we talk a little bit about kind of what that looks like. So one of the things that Trump did with his policy is that you never really had policy proposals, but the people who got him into office and paid, you know, and paid for his campaign and his ads and the things that a presidential campaign needs. Those people have policies they want, and so those groups which are funded by those people put together a policy
sort of doctor are in called Project twenty twenty five. Now, it turns out the reason that a lot of these Republicans ever put stuff on paper is because it's very, very very unpopular and in some cases illegal, what they want to do. So talk to me about what that looks like for you, guys. VERSUS Project twenty twenty.
Five for US, Project twenty twenty five showed the American people what we fight against all day long, because we have known and see in our work every day that there is an ecosystem of far right extremists that do not represent the vast majority of this country, but that seek to wield a tremendous amount of political power. And we saw that in the prior administration. We saw, for instance, I was one of the lawyers that challenged the Pence
Cobok voter Commission. We're even in twenty seventeen former President Trump, you know, he was seeking to undermine our trust and election.
Can you explain what the Pence Kobok Voter Commission.
Is yeah, because it's really all that after former President Trump won the electoral College but did not win the popular vote, he did not ascribe to the notion that millions of people had actually voted for Secretary Clint And so there was an effort in the early days of the Trump administration called the Pence Kobok Voter Commission, that's Vice President Pence and Chris Kobok, to seek to undermine our confidence in our elections, to seek to intimidate voters,
including voters of color and voters who are immigrants, and to challenge the counts and the elections. And they actually set up they sought to set up panels around the country to investigate whether there was voter fraud, all because the former president was unhappy and unwilling to admit that he lost the popular vote. And so we and other organizations filed a volume of lawsuits against that commission, and actually the administration was forced to disband it are found fraud.
There was no fraud. This was a voter intimidation effort. And I always like to bring this up because we saw in those early days how this far right ecosystem, these groups that you see behind Project twenty twenty five. The former president has administration, many of whom, by the way, many of the officials in the former administration have written
chapters of Project twenty twenty five. We're just sort of deeply uncomfortable with the notion that the vast majority people do not support what they believe in what they are peddling to the American people, and so to us, Project twenty twenty five is a manifestation of what we've known forever, which is that there is this ecosystem that is seeking to shape American policy in regressive ways, in ways that are unpopular and that are harmful, and that are often unlawful.
And at Democracy Forward, we have put together a people's guide to Project twenty twenty five, which you and I have talked about before. Your listeners can get it at democracyford dot org that really breaks down what is in the document for people to understand a lot of this. They try to hide this extreme and not you know, in sort of policy language or nine hundred pages, hoping
that people won't understand. The encouraging thing is that we know people are rejecting Project twenty twenty five and a Democracy Forward, we want to make sure people understand and I think this was one of the highlights of the conversation you and I had the pleasure of having in
Chicago with our friends from Congress. But that product twenty twenty five is already happening in states like Texas, you know, Representative Crockett talked about that, in states like Florida as Representative Frost.
And Oklahoma too, right and Oklahoma right.
It's happening in these states with anti democratic leadership, and it's also happening in the courts that these a lot of these people, a lot of these organizations are legal organizations, and they're going into court to try to win in court what they can't win among the American people, whether that's seeking to ban medication abortion, which we've seen, whether it's seeking to undermine over time or minimum wage protections.
So this is really a movement that's afoot in many different ways in our society.
Can you expec ex blame to us how Congress works sort of in tandem to organizations like.
This, Yes, And this is a good opportunity to also highlight an organization that I have the pleasure being an advisor for Demand Justice, which also co hosted the panel with us Molly, you'll remember, yes, And there are a number of things that Congress can do, and I was really inspired to hear some of our congressional leaders mention it. I mean, first of all, many of the things that these far right organizations seek to do in court, Congress
could try to overturn through clear lawming. So that's in all instances. Unfortunately many instances now these legal organizations are claiming Congress has no power, which is something we're trying to raise the alarm bell around. But there are things that can be done through legislation. You've seen that President Biden propose and no Person above the Law constitutional amendment, which is something that would require state to do as well.
But another thing, and this is where demand justice comes in, and I thought was a great part of the conversation we had, is that many people think that they think that our courts are untouchable and they are a coequal branch of go They don't exist above the law either, And so one thing that Congress can do is to ensure that our courts are operating in ways that serve everyone, to ensure that there are enforceable ethics codes at the Supreme Court, which there are not currently to ensure that
the justices that are at the Supreme Court or operating in accordance with ethics and not taking you know, gifts and failing to disclose them or other ethical problems that
we've seen. And they have a lot of power to control the way the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, operates, and Congress has done so in the past, and so I thought the conversation and you know, was really great in terms of highlighting and a lot of the members of Congress highlighted the tools that Congress itself has, which means that we the people have to fix some of
this extremism. And this Project twenty twenty five that we're already seeing alive and well in communities and courts across the country.
Can you explain to us what it means to put together binding ethics code, like how that would work for the Supreme Court.
There's a range of ways that ethics codes can be enforceable, but right now there's just no oversight. The Court is sort of seeking to self police itself, and they've assured, you know, Justice Roberts assured Congress that it could do that. And then we've had a whole host of a number of examples of where ethics codes have been violated conflicts of interest. There's a real concern, and so I think that, you know, both through legislation as well as through continued oversight,
it's really important. And so President Biden has recently proposed an enforceable code of ethics and has urged Congress to do that. There's a number of people on Capitol Hill, both on the Senate side and on the House side,
working very hard. And then we have some members of Congress have just had it and they want, you know, they are seeking to investigate, and of course, you know, Representative you know AOC filed impeachment charges in order to raise I think awareness about the level of unethical conduct that we're ce.
Do you think there is a world where you can get the past? I mean, how would it work? It would be a bill, Yeah, I do think.
So, what we know about the American people is that while they may have some disagreements on policy, the vast majority support freedom and support democracy. The vast majority of people oppose restrictions on our freedom and restrictions on a vision of our constitution that protects that freedom. You've seen that in geographically diverse, you know, states across the nation
that are voting on abortion freedom initiatives. And we also know that the Supreme Court's favorability rating is nearing historic lows at this moment because of the range of problematic conduct that we've seen out of the court. And that's really a problem for democracy. By the way. You don't want you don't want people to not have confidence in
their courts. And so I think that there are a number of impolling has shown this, you know, is there are a number of policy solutions that can help fix the quandary that we're in where our courts are not working for everyone, and some of our courts are reversing rights,
not protecting rights that are popular. And so a lot of the work, I think is around education and making sure that people and communities understand these are things that their representatives have the power to do and to consider, and ensuring that those people in communities are making their
voices heard. There is a recent campaign called Moms for a Fair Court that I am my personal capacity and a part of, but a lot of other Shannon Watts, Fatima Goss grades, you know, many women are joining and are part of that are really highlighting the importance in our families and our communities on fair courts. And I think more of those types of efforts are going to be important to show the support that these basic protections have.
I mean, most people think the Supreme Court is already under an enforce code of ethics, and we're shocked to learn that it is not. And so these are not proposals that should have a problem if there's a political will to get them done right.
It's a really good point. And Roberts's really just sort of fallen asleep at the switch, or perhaps this is what he's always wanted. Can you sort of explain to us what you can do in a state where the state legislature has done craziness. I'm thinking of Oklahoma. Talk to me about sort of one thing they've done and how you and organizations like yours have pushed back on it.
Yes, I mean, well, a number of these states, and you know Oklahoma is one, Texas is one, Florida are passing laws and their legislatures that are deeply unpopular even with their own people, because their legislatures are now a function of gerrymanderd congressional districts, and the example that I
always give of that Molly is people forget that. In twenty eleven in Mississippi, in the state of Mississippi, far right interests came in to try to pass a personhood ballot initiative and put it to the vote of the whole people, and it was rejected. And they the legislature in Mississippi, which is you know, forced the functioning of many years of jerrymandering, had to pass the law that fundamentally became the law that led to the Dobbs decision
out of their legislature. Because even in Mississippi, when you put these things to the people, they don't have work that they like. And so I think in some states where ballot initiatives are an option and don't have to be referred from the legislators, in Texas, they have to be referred from the legislature, so people have, you know,
even further hurdles to have their voices heard. But I think that's why you're seeing the rise of ballot initiatives in the fight for ballot initiatives in these states right, allowing people to actually vote on the issues when their
legislatures are failing to protect these things themselves. I think in addition, though, the courts are a huge counterweight in these states, and we find that even in states with extremely far right leadership and where the courts are elected, that litigation continue us to be a way to disrupt
the anti democratic activity. We win in difficult places all the time, and we also are able to provide opportunities for people to make their voices heard through raising awareness of the unlawful activity that these states are engaging in. And so I think, you know, there is a deep level of hope in what we call the hard places here at Democracy Forward. We believe that's what the fight
for democracy is all about. It's not just about federal work, although that's important too, It's also about the state and local community work. And we see in our work every day the hope that can exist when people in communities have the tools they need to fight back, which is what we are we really try to put people with.
Yeah, I think that's really important, but it's also how much of an effect does the Supreme Court zealotry have when you're doing legislation.
We know that the US Supreme Court has emboldened a real era of extremism that it sort of came from it was shaped out of an era of extremism, and extremism by the way that deprived President Obama and the American people of present Obama's final nominee. We have to remember how we got to this court then immediately ushered in the confirmation of two justices, and then of course later very late in the Trump term, just a month before the election, quickly moved to confirm the third justice.
And then they even confirmed justices after Trump lost, Federal justice after Trump lost. So we have to remember that. But I think that you know, look, we know that the Supreme Court is a reality, but what we've also seen is some of its extreme behavior is so extreme it's been rejected by the Supreme Court. You know, in the myth of pristone case, just this last term, the Court nine zero said that the case never belonged in the court. That tells you how extreme the Fifth Circuit
has become. When this Supreme Court is knocking that down. And we know that that's not the end of the fight on mif of pristone. But I just remember that. But the other piece is I think that in many instances, it shows people what's at stake, right, the need to get engaged at all levels of government. It's not just
about your court case. It's also about making sure that members of Congress, which is why I really appreciated the conversation we had in Chicago understand the role that they play and the role that we the people play in making sure that our laws represent us. And so there are famous, you know, cases where Congress has had to legislate after the Court has struck something down to correct
what the court has done. And then of course we know that there is just work to be done in this country to restore legitimacy to the Supreme Court so that we don't have historically low and ury concerning favorability ratings of the Court, which is something that Congress can do too, by ensuring that the Court is not above the law and has to operate consistent with ethics. You know, the consideration of term limits is important, thinking about jurisdiction
is important. So all the tools that Congress has, Thank you, Sky, thanks for having.
And now for a special bonus, we have portion of the conversation that we had at Democracy Forwards event at the DNC with Congresswoman Becca A. Lint, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and Congressman Maxwell Frost.
Project Plane five.
Is really Trump's plan, and so this is if Trump went. Maybe Trump doesn't want to do this, but the people who are.
Actually gonna be in charge will be.
And so that is why we're focused on it, because it really is the groundwork for what we're gonna do to unwind a lot of our rights. And I'm gonna start with Representative Crockett because you.
Are an oversight tell us.
About her many A viral video has come ProView on oversight.
Talk to us.
About your own oversight project twenty twenty five.
Is like, really, how can you fight against this? Talk to us about what Oversight's job is. Also, talk to us about being on oversight.
Didn't Republican polers right now that it's so controlled by the far right.
So mollys to asking about Overside.
I just want to make sure that everyone knows that actually the three of us actually.
All started on Oversight together and none.
Of us thought over side, and the three of us actually all wanted to go to get to tradiiars and Becca is the only one that needs no graduating.
And because it's this year, so Max and I are still on overside, saw all three of us. That is what we were. That was our introduction.
Can you explain why they wanted judiciary or oversight?
So I think for each of us it's probably a little different, but it's probably still all in the same judiciary For me as an attorney, obviously it's a safe space for me, and doing civil rights works on a lot of promote business work.
That's where that legislation work.
Cool.
I will assume that Rebecca being a huge advocate for the LGBUSI a community, that's exactly where all of that legislation comes through.
As well as most problem though that because I mean he started organizing in the streets around gun by lice and mass shootings and just getting guns off our streets.
And again that legislation goes through judiciary, so.
A lot of the things that in fact, I want to say that probably this freshman class had more requests that served as the freshman representatives to leadership. I honestly think the judiciary was the most requested committeed of our class, which really speaks to the things.
That actually brought us to Congress. We have just an amazing bitch of.
Freshmen who really care about the social issues and fairness and equity, and so these are the things that we fight towards, these things that brought us there.
But to quickly kind of give you an idea of.
What oversight does, because it obviously doesn't deal with judiciary, a guess which seems like it kind of sorder because we spent lots of time talking about the same stuff. So of course, if you if you go way way back, our very first hearing involves Hunter Biden and his.
Laptop and his news. And then the very first thing that's not really what oversight is. It is.
That's actually cor Marjorie Upsets, unsets with somebody's package. But nevertheless, you know, so old Side is really supposed to do the things that I think most Americans care about.
Right when we think about the.
Conversations that are happening about the war enforcing my dollars are going overseas.
We really are supposed to make sure that there's no.
Misuse, waste, or fraud in governments, whatever that is. And so we oversee all of the federal agencies and we are supposed to be the anyway basically how they're performing, and come up come up with legislation it will allow them to perform better.
For the American people. Unfortunately, literally that what we've been doing.
If you have tuned in to the drama that happens on overside, we have done everything but what we should be doing. In fact, they have used this committee really more so to push their political agenda. And because president who was the president, well that was their agenda. So it was all about in teaching the president, and then it went to the teaching May Orgust, and then it went to let's.
Jail our attorney general.
And so honestly, the day that Marjorie and I had our biggest spec because that was not those expect that we were there and we were supposed to be discussing whether or not we should hold the Attorney General of the United States and contents and potentially jail.
That is what the hearing was supposed to be about.
But the Republicans decided to take the field trips to New York you're with.
And go hang out with their fearless orange slavior and in the criminal court room is where they were. So we did not have our hearing at ten am like were supposed to.
Instead, they called this.
In at eight m and Marjorie was still stuck on Judge Marshaun and what happened at court. And so that's kind of how the beginning of the evolution because as it relates to projects, when twenty five, I think a lot of the bad actors have probably come in front of us.
Another committee that I started.
On this organization from the federal governments, and so I've had the Heritage Foundation in front of me more than once from and I'm also very familiar with them, and I'm Rebecca is as well because she works in the state legislature. And when you say things like Project tween twenty about governor here, that is because when you think about things like who's heard of crt oh no, yeah, right, So that was a whole gimme make at a gang.
It just cleared right, right, But that was a gimmick and a ganger that came out of the Heritage Foundation that was making a move to make sure that we could delete certain portions of our piecetivity.
Right.
They handed down this legislation in state houses all throughout and usually it was in the Republican led houses that this legislation would come through. Same thing with the six week abortion of bands. As we've seen throughout the country.
They called it a Heartbeat bill in Texas.
But again, this all happened and this was free docs, So I I just wanna be clear that this has been underway. What they decided to do is basically say you know what we're gonna play in your places, and like you don't see what you see.
It's over one.
Thousand pages and it's laying out everything.
That they want to do.
And for this idea of Trump separating himself, there is no daylights.
He turned Trump at Projects twenty twenty five. And I'm not saying that just because I'm a proud immigrants.
I'm saying that because over thirty people that either worked on his administration or worked on his campaign are the authors of this right, So therefore there is no daylights. I will stop there because I'm like a lease have great things to add, and I'm sure we'll dig in a little bit differ.
And I would also like to add that his name is mentioned. Trump's names mentioned three hundred plus times in.
The document, which is a pretty good sign that it's back.
You have done so.
Much more for LGBT two protections, this Project twenty twenty five, which I think Jasmine has a really good point is already here is square a laye coming after your rights?
Yeah, it is here. And I want to just say I have no idea when I got.
Cheated on unitionary that I would see the kind of hatred and vitriol and demonization directed at my community if we arey transcrimuted it.
And it sneaks into hearings that aren't not even about anything related.
To gender identity or sexuality. And it has become so clear to.
Me that they want to make it so that there is a very narrow definition of what a legitimate American is.
That's what it's about.
It's about who who belongs and who doesn't.
And one of the most hateful hearings I was ever part of was when the man who was now Speaker.
Speaker Johnson was on that committee. He was on.
Undistry, and he held essentially a fate hearing on the dangers of trans Americans.
That's what it was.
It was hours and hours of hatred.
And so a man who purports to me a Christian is conducting a hearing specifically on that, and I just have to highlight for you one of the most poignant moments was looking at one of the witnesses that we called.
Right, So when you're in.
A hearing on judiciary, the majority gets to call the bulk of the witnesses, and we get to call usually just foreign our tutors.
And in this instant it was a.
Conservative Republican Christian mom of a trans kid was our witness and she is sitting there being robby by these people because of the way that she showed up for her child.
And that's what I'm talking about here.
So it is constant, and I hear from constituents a lot, which is do they understand what it feels like for us to have our own government talking about us.
People, human beings, citizens.
And says hateful, hateful terms. And so I didn't know that that would be a lot of the work that I.
Have to do on judiciary, but it is. I'm proud to be able to do that work. But as you said, it's already here. And when you look at what they want to do in Project.
Twenty twenty five, before I was in Congress, I before I.
Was in politics at all, I was a teacher.
I taught middle school love that Hell's Gate prepare me for commerce, and they was Project Trade twenty five two they want to criminalize teachers and linemprarians when they are.
Simply trying to create.
In their classrooms, in the whole libraries of support of the environment for all students.
And that's what I want people to understand.
That it is an incredibly narrow definition of who gets to belong there, who is an American and this attack specifically on who are in trans people.
This was set up before this term started.
Republicans got together and said, well, essentially we've lost the.
Battle for saying sex marriage right.
The country has moved on everybody then to a lesbian wedding.
Okay, we've all helped.
People move with you all, we've all all be there, not as sary. So they said, what can we fire the base up on, and they settled on trans people And it is despicable.
Maxwell Frost, you are a young person.
I'm sorry I shouldn't say that because I was young one anymore.
How to get young people fired up?
Like, how do you transmit this enthusiasm and we're seeing it now more than gapocrats have ever seen it, or at least recently, And how do you translate this into registration voting and almost more imprely, you know, pushing back.
On Project twenty twenty five.
That's a good question because there's so much energy.
Right now behind Vice President, behind the work that we're doing. The questions like how do you take that energy and put into real life action and actual votes? And what I was I still am an organizable when I wasn't organizing.
What I'd always tell my organizers and I've worked for our lives is the true testament of our work isn't when if there's a shooting that happens and everybody cares about gun violence and everyone wants to talk about it, everyone wants to volunteer, and everyon wants to donate the media to talk about it.
The true testament of our work is how strong are we when no one gives a damn? When no one's talking about how.
Are we preparing ourselves for these Unfortunately, I hate to say this, eventual moments that happen in our country where there will be millions of people who are looking around as saying that's not right.
What can I do?
That's when it's our job as organizers, as people to do this work to give people a political hope, to show people how they get a harness that energy towards the.
Future that they want.
And if we hadn't prepared ourselves and our infrastructure to take those folks in, we could lose out on that moon, right. And the good thing about this moment that we're in, I feel like we are prepared as a movement, and this campaign is prepared because there are gonna be folks.
Who are very fire up about the vice president who walk.
Into an office who warn't off yours want to make bote caws. Like two or three days after the president passid Baton, I went to I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, for a few office openings and se.
These events we're supposed to have like seventy five people of peace. I pull up the first one at four hundred and fifty people at I just be like three oclos.
The next one, it was supposed to be like a post guard party with twenty people. One hundred and twenty people people doing postcards in their cars because there wasn't room and people were just so excited.
But here's the thing. And as someone who used.
To do a lot of like pro organizing, sometimes our volunteer basically was a little old.
But being in those rooms, it was actually very diverse.
There was tons of high schoolers there who came there weren't groups of high.
Schoolers who came together to do it together.
And that shows that our movement, the Vice president, what you're doing has gotten to the culture right, and that's when you have truly untapped movement. Potentially, think about any of the social movements in our country's history that have actually made a big difference. They all have combined and really blurred the lines between civics and culture right.
And so that we say on my campaign is like finding.
Ways to bridge the gap between pool and consciousness.
When you do that.
And it's not and it's authentic and it's not like a printage.
Things, I remember the remark for our lives, Like, I'm at the rally.
In Orlando and I'm running into friends that like hate politics.
They never cared to have it, and I went up to them. I was like, why why do you call them? I'm curious?
Are like, you know, one person, my friend Will made a comp again with my friend's culture right, Like I felt like I knew to d or all my friend's work, go, that's culture Ario and Brande told me it's different.
But when we do that we really have attacked potential and we have that right. That's why it's up to us.
But now the harnessings we're not going to win this race no matter what right it's gonna because we do the work.
Nothing's gonna be handed here.
And those decent moments when people feel validated, whether it's funny or exciting.
Or this and that, and this moment's making the culture. It's impactful. It brings more people in, right like when Chad when that happening and brought new people in right.
Right.
But there's probably a.
Lot of like YouTube pages and people like that who gave it on this like not like politicize, but now they like, oh god, they're saying there seems she has going.
On right like and like those messages getting cross little by little. I think a lot of times in politics we've put.
A lot of fresh ourselves where like this one conversation needs to change this person's.
Life, and they're there are knocking doors and put on the you know, because they're right and with Biden going with Hares.
And everything like that.
But the reality is and is this work.
I feel like we need to feel ourselves to work that we' as a part of somebody's time.
Right, and it could be that pivotal moment for them, and it might lead to that pivol And I think as long as we're like rounded and bad, we were all working on this team together. So I'm really excited about this moment.
Young people are.
Scared about the Project twenty twenty five.
Obviously it's like a laundering list of a lot of conservative talking points and platforms and policies that a lot of us know of. But the scariest part for me is a subvergent of democracy and the fact that the right wing is wising up. Like in twenty twenty, seventy percent of gen Z voting for Democrats and half the Genzkenu voting, So they see that. I guess young people don't like fascism and so they want to change the way young people could think.
That's why that's one of the reasons that they're so focused on education.
That band looks changing what's spoken about intentionally marginalized public education, so everything is privatizing, it's even more control over what students get. But I think it's really having a backlash effect because it's not they're not changed to the spies.
It's signal and they're going after work.
There no moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly Jung Fast Who would have thought that Justice Roberts was actually conservative?
I would have thought it, Yes, we all would have thought it. But some people seem to have been tricked. Yes, it's true. I guess some people didn't think he was a completely in the tank for Trump. But in New New York Times, Peace, which had a lot of leaked documents and interviews with people from the court, show that actually John Roberts is the man behind the curtain. He is the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, just like
we thought he was. And our moment of fuckery belongs to the guy who pretended to be a centrist but is really as brainwormed as Alito and Thomas. Your man, Justice Roberts. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.