Shownotes Transcript
WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Jackpotters, we are back. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty and this is The Jackpod, where On Point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now. Hello, Jack. Hello, Jack.
Hello, Meghna. Welcome back. Oh, thank you. Long time no talk, but I am eager to hear what you have to say since every week seems to be a very eventful one. We're on episode 75. What's your headline?
All Americans. All Americans. Okay. And is this a sporting reference or something else? No, it's a reference to a really singular Pew poll finding that virtually all Americans, that is to say 88% of Americans, including 82% of Republicans, agree on something. And what they agree on is that President Trump
must obey a court order. That is an extraordinary finding. Of the high court, that's 88%. Of lower courts, it's 78%, including 65% of Republicans. 65% of Republicans, President Trump must obey the orders of a lower court. Jack, is this a recent Pew poll?
Yes, yes, just came out. It's heartening, obviously, that so many Americans, even at a time when the courts as a whole, as we know, have lost public support. There's been a good deal of disapproval, especially of the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Americans seem to be standing by the rule of law. Wow. And, you know, there's a lot at stake here. And President Kennedy...
reminds us of the stakes for all Americans in Trump's seeming assault on the rule of law. You know, we quote Trump a lot on this show and have to. But, you know, as J.V. Last of the Bulwark points out, so many of Trump's utterances are what he calls civic blasphemies. They're just outrages against our civic values.
Our civic sense of propriety. Well, this quotation from President Kennedy is part of our, if you will, civic religion. Here's the background. In September 1962, the Supreme Court ordered University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, a black man and nine-year Air Force veteran.
Governor Ross Barnett refused to comply with the court's order and blocked Meredith from registering. President Kennedy had to use U.S. Marshals, federal troops, and the National Guard to secure the admittance of the first black man to attend Ole Miss University.
And on September 30th, 1962, Kennedy addressed the nation from the Oval Office. He could be talking to us. For our nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty, and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny. The law which we obey includes the final rulings of the courts, as well as the enactment of our legislative bodies.
Even among law-abiding men, few laws are universally loved, but they are uniformly respected and not resisted. Americans are free and sure to disagree with the law, but not to disobey it. For any government of laws and not of man, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob, however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point
where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long deny the commands of our court and our constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt. No judge would be sure of his writ and no citizen
would be safe from his neighbors. Wow, Jack. JFK, September 1962. I just want to repeat something he said. Few laws are universally loved, but they are uniformly respected. We haven't had a president talk like that in a while. But I just want to reiterate also, Kennedy had to give this speech because he had to force the compliance with the court order because elected officials...
In Mississippi, we're defying that court order. Yes, that's the background. That's quite right. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. And so he was explaining to the nation why he had done what he had done, which was to essentially force open the University of Mississippi. And he gave this statement. And, of course, it's so prescient. He's saying, you know, if instead of James Meredith, we think of one of, you know, Abrego Garcia or one of these –
people who've been sent to El Salvador or were in custody. What Kennedy was saying is everybody's fate is tied up with this. If an elected official can say no to the law and get away with it, then none of us are safe. None of us are protected from violations of our privacy and our safety even.
So it was quite a statement of really what's at stake today. Yeah, that last part of the Kennedy clip there where he says, you know, without it, basically, without the rule of law, we're headed down the road to tyranny. And then this last part, no citizen would be safe from his neighbors. I mean, that rings so true, like you said. But I think what stuns me the most about hearing this tape from 1962 was
is that it's so far away from what President Trump himself and, of course, other members of his administration, the language they use about the rule of law or the courts specifically, right? Just complete disparagement, calling the judicial bench as a whole, the federal bench, deranged simply because rulings are coming down where Trump loses. I mean, you could not get more...
flip about the idea that the rule of law is what binds us together as a society. And that idea of the vulnerability when the laws are down. There's that great scene in A Man for All Seasons, the Robert Bolt play, when someone says to Sir Thomas More, I'd cut down every law in England to get to the devil. And Sir Thomas More replies, oh,
And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper? The laws all being flat. This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast. Man's laws, not God's. And if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Mm-hmm.
Well, look, this is all Trump has long talked about the courts as he is clear. He basically views them as an extension of his will. That is not what the U.S. court system does. That's not how it's supposed to operate. Whether or not a president puts successfully puts a lot of his or her own appointees on the bench.
But I think the other big context here, Jack, and this is what you want to get to, is that this hasn't been a good run for the Trump administration every time they've stood before a judge recently, right? Oh, indeed. There have been, you know, in 100 days of this administration, 101 now, I guess, as we speak,
There have been 350 lawsuits and over 100 stays, that is, judges pausing Trump's executive orders. And 30 of those have been on the immigration question. And so, yes, and they have all, in a sense, gone against Trump. And, of course, this is reminiscent of what happened after the election, right, when 60 cases went against Trump.
That didn't faze him. He went on with his election denial, democracy denial. But the courts are standing. And, you know, Kennedy's language and his sense of his imbuing that moment with history, it comes out in some of these judges as they stand up to Trump. For example, when Trump said he could exile Americans to prison in El Salvador, he
It was a Republican appointee, Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson III. He called that a path of perfect lawlessness, one the courts cannot condone. When last week a U.S. citizen and her family were sent to Honduras, a Trump appointee, apparently right-wing appointee, Judge Terry Doughty,
said a hearing in May, quote, in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful protest. Standing, this is a Trump appointee saying, we're going to look into this. Did you just send an American citizen out of the country? And it appeared that they, in fact, did. And another judge said,
appointed by President Reagan, said, "There are moments in the world's history when people look back and ask, 'Where were the lawyers? Where were the judges?' In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable." The judge said, "I refuse to let that beacon go dark today."
So these judges, Republican appointees, many of them, Trump appointees, some of them, are standing by the rule of law. And that Pew poll suggests the American people are standing with them. One more thing about the Pew poll, though, before we get—well, actually, many more things about the Pew poll. I'm glad you brought it back to that. You said that the—
There was that extremely high percentage, almost 90 percent of Americans say that Trump must obey the courts overall. But when you dug down into like the lower court level, the percentage was a bit lower, Jack?
78% overall, including 65% of Republicans say, yes, you have to obey a lower court order as well. Now, that's interesting to me because a lot of the messaging from the Trump administration has been directed at those district-level courts, right? They're talking about how—
You know, there's not their claim is that there's nothing in American law that one judge, right, one judge can stymie the entire executive branch. And I wonder if that lower percentage of Americans who still believe in even the district court level, if that lower number is due in part to some successes that the Trump administration has had in that messaging.
I think so. I think so because it's been incessant, and surely that means that people who watch Trump TV all the time are getting that message. In fact, here's Pam Bondi speaking to Fox News. She was commenting on the arrest, the FBI's arrest of a Wisconsin judge last week accused of obstructing ICE in apprehending a woman.
a migrant. And she said, what's happened to our judiciary? It's beyond me. They're deranged, the word you quoted earlier. Some of these judges think they're above the law. We are sending a very strong message today.
If you're harboring a fugitive, anyone who's in this country illegally, we will prosecute you. We will find you. A direct threat to judges. And in fact, half of judges in a recent survey reported threats against them.
Serious threats according to the US Marshal Service have more than doubled since 2021. And then to quote from this report, "There have been multiple high-profile physical attacks on judges and their families, including homicides." And scarily enough, at a meeting in Washington in March of federal judges,
The convening judge...
worried loud that Trump may remove U.S. martial protection for federal judges. Wow. In other words, the threats against them from people outside the government are strong, and then the judges fear that in this perilous moment for their own family and security, Trump may take away the...
their protection and who's in charge of their, of their, of the marshal service. Why Pam Bondi, of course, who just said, we'll find you. So it's a perilous moment for, for judges. Perilous. Yes, absolutely. And at the same time, Americans, according to this Pew poll, uh,
Which, by the way, here's a little aside. Jack, until you brought this up, this is not a poll that I had run into in the news as much as all the other sort of Trumpian approval, disapproval polls. Right. That's so fascinating to me that we collectively as the media focused on those those underwater numbers that Trump himself had.
And and I'm I'll admonish all of us in the media, except for you, Jack, for not looking at this poll, which is so much more rich in terms of getting a sense as to where the hearts and minds of this nation are. So with that, I mean, perhaps it's perilous for judges now, but can they not look to the American people as a bulwark against, you know, lawless, a lawless executive?
Well, it suggests that they can. Now, Trump was asked about the rule of law by Time magazine in an interview last week. And the interviewer pointed to a picture, a portrait of John Adams that Trump had put up in the Oval Office and said, Adams said, you know, in America we have the rule of law, not a rule of men. Do you agree? And Trump said, well, I don't agree 100%.
He said, yes, we have the rule of law. And then he said, quote, but somebody has to administer the law. Now, this suggests that somebody has been talking to him about the action of another president. He has a portrait of Andrew Jackson, who basically said, oh, the court has ruled. Let the court administer its ruling, defying the court rules.
And that suggests that's very much on Trump's mind. And the conduct of his, the quality of the arguments mustered in court by the Justice Department in these scores of cases are really shameful. You know, it makes me wonder, though, Jack, it's one thing for Americans to tell people
pew pollsters that they believe the president of the United States must obey court orders. But it's another thing entirely to act on those beliefs, right? So I'm just wondering, at what point could we imagine Trump defying courts, and especially the Supreme Court, at which Americans might feel compelled to transform this belief into action?
Well, you know, here's some sound from January 6th, 2021, that I think frames the question you're setting up, frames the current moment. Oh, that still gives me chills. That's from the attack on the Capitol.
Yes. And, you know, the conviction of virtually all Americans in this Pew poll that with the standby of the rule of law suggests that we have found the line, that we
That, you know, this is—that here American—all Americans virtually stand. Now, before the fact, is that going to deter Trump? It doesn't look like that. In fact, Ryan Goodman and others say he's already far over the line of defying the courts. And we saw that what seems to be on his mind is, okay, you ruled, but you go ahead and try to administer the rule or execute it. Good luck with that, judge.
So, we may be way over the line now. That's before the fact. So, whether it's a missing guard rail that'll hold Trump in check, we don't know. But after the fact.
Does the fact that nearly all Americans agree that the line is the rule of law, that the line, that the supremacy of law, a government of laws over a government of men, that that has to be the basic American common ground. Does that provide a kind of social safety net, a penumbra of legitimacy for
for mass protest because, of course, mass protest will follow any open defiance of the Supreme Court. And it suggests to me that, in fact, yes, there would be at least tacit support from great majorities of the public to mass civil disobedience.
For mass civil disobedience. Really, Jack? Because, okay, look, first of all, I want to say, who's the American optimist now, Mr. Beattie? Welcome. Welcome to my world of ever-hopeful positivity. Hopefully not naive. But here, I'm going to inject a little bit of the skepticism, Jack, because, you know,
the possibility of bipartisan mass protests in this country. You said it's sort of predicated on really overt, Trump really crossing the line, I'd say, especially with the Supreme Court. But what would that crossing the line have to look like? My concern is that by basically just defying the courts by doing nothing, for example, or not following through with court orders, that
That's perhaps not a visually dramatic thing enough to spark people to go back out into the streets. I mean, look, I don't think this is a great example, but it's the only one that comes to mind. In 2020, when we had those mass protests against police brutality, police brutality has been going on for centuries, right? But it was the...
horrible visual recording of the death of George Floyd that sparked those protests. And I just don't see anything as visceral coming from a president who ignores the Supreme Court to get people to go out into the streets.
That's a very good point. But, you know, people have been going out in the streets. Ah, yes, your outside the beltway observations. Yeah, I mean, all over the country. It happens every weekend. They've been going, they've been demonstrating, you know, outside peacefully, outside of Tesla dealerships. They've been demonstrating in front of federal buildings.
They have been marching. Trump, when he went to Michigan, had to go through a drive by a gauntlet of signs deploring what he's been doing. And this is happening all the time. And it's happening everywhere. And that 82% of Republicans say obey the court. That is really heartening. Well, yeah.
So, Jack Potters, do you will you also join me in this brief moment of American optimism that Jack is that Jack is calling our attention to? Look, on a more serious point, first of all, does it surprise you that there is so much overwhelming support for the concept that the president of the United States must obey court orders in this country?
And second of all, let's pick up on what Jack left us with. What do you think it would take for Americans to then act on that belief if indeed they see the president go too far?
in defying what the judges of the United States judiciary system are ruling. So that's what we want to know. And you know how to do it. Go to your phone and tap on that On Point VoxPop app. Let us know what you think. Or if you're a longtime listener, first-time VoxPopper, go to wherever you get your apps and look for On Point VoxPop. And we would love to include you in our ever-burgeoning
community of jackpot listeners. So, Jack, we'll just take this really quick break. And when we come back, we'll have more from what the jackpotters told us from the last episode we had. So hang on here for just a moment.
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Okay, Jack, we are back. And I was delighted to know that you did actually have one episode while I was away with the inimitable On Point senior editor, Dori Scheimer. And that conversation was about tariffs. So we thought we would do something actually a little bit different this time around. We frequently get questions for you specifically, Jack, in our mailbox. And so we wanted to open up
Some of those questions. Let's start with Alicia Lund in Hayward, California. She is concerned about the way the Trump administration has been seemingly targeting immigrants for enforcement action simply based on speech that the administration does not like. I'm just wondering, what are your thoughts on these matters? And if you view the Trump administration differently?
as really escalating their attempt to crack down on speech, including critics of the administration. And do you think that there is any hope that the judicial branch will intervene in any meaningful way? It's as if she was already knowing what we were going to be talking about this week. But Jack, go ahead. Yes. And on Tuesday, the judicial branch did intervene in a speech case. A
A judge ordered the release of a pro-Palestinian protester, Columbia University student, from ICE custody. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Crawford wrote, Immigration detention cannot be motivated by a desire to deter others from speaking. Mm-hmm.
And he then referenced the Red Scare of 1919 and McCarthyism in the 1950s. And he went on, legal residents, not charged with crimes or misconduct, are being arrested and threatened with deportation from stating their views on the political questions of the day. The wheel of history has come round again.
And this judge said these arrests are aimed at stifling speech. This case is going to be litigated on that grounds. And the judge said that such an act, that prosecuting him for saying something, for speech at Columbia would be an act, it would be a violation of the Constitution. Similar argument is being made on behalf of a Tufts University student who was grabbed off the street yesterday.
And her offense was writing an op-ed in the student newspaper, which seems to be the only thing she did wrong, according to reports. And so these are two cases, I think, that are going to really get to the court on the question that Alicia raises about the speech and the administration's attempt to really scare people into shutting up. Mm-hmm.
Well, here's another question, Jack, for you, and it is also related to the judiciary. Joe is in Duluth, Minnesota, and he tells us that both he and his wife have attended protests since President Trump took office yesterday.
because they want to be able to voice their concerns. Joe's gone even farther, actually. He's reached out to both his senators and their Democrats in Minnesota, but his representative for his district in Congress is a Republican and will not meet with constituents in person. So Joe is wondering if there's more that he can do to make his voice heard, especially when it comes to the nation's highest court.
I left a message on the Supreme Court website where I said to Judge Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, what are you going to do? You need to step up. Now, I don't think he'll answer to anything I say. So the question to Jack is, what can citizens do to try to influence the courts, particularly the Supreme Court? Thank you very much. And I love listening to the Jackpot podcast.
as often as I can. Go ahead, Mr. Beattie. Oh, thank you, Joe. Well, that's a tough one, isn't it? I mean, the whole point of the court and lifetime appointment is to be beyond, you know, the tides of public opinion. Nevertheless,
Justice Cardozo said that justices are also people, and they represent public opinion. He said, the great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by. The judges are also influenced in the way we all are by the climate of opinion. And just to narrow that,
Judge Boasberg, who is the judge in the Abrego-Garcia case and who's been very eloquent on the administration defying his orders and what's at stake in the rule of law, he is in fact a personal friend or very well thought of by people on the court and a friend of Justice Kavanaugh apparently. Well, that's how things happen.
And Justice Kavanaugh would be a vote, he's a Trump appointee, could be a vote sustaining Trump. But here he has a judge he greatly respects, someone who apparently is close to him. So that's one way a judge, even a Supreme Court justice, can be influenced. But beyond that, there's nothing the rest of us can do other than to try to...
you know, to vote. Yeah. And we vote, we're voting for Supreme Court justice. Exactly. So, Jack, actually, this is a tiny tangent here, but in listening to what you were saying and then thinking about, you know, Joe's specific focus on wanting to be heard by people
the nine justices on the high court, it suddenly occurred to me that, you know, we're talking about the centrality of the rule of law in this country, that no one is above the law. And if we're going to be, you know, completely rigorous about this, the Supreme Court is not some kind of saintly body in this, regarding this particular political moment, right? Because it's the U.S. Supreme Court itself that in Trump v. USA says,
With its ruling there, it came as close as it could to saying President Donald Trump is essentially a democratically elected monarch. Right? I mean, that is the ruling that of any ruling I've ever seen coming out of the history of the courts that said, you know, maybe the president is above the law. Surely when this gets to the court, that's going to be he's going to.
You know, his solicitor, Trump's solicitor general is going to say, well, justices, you said that in the furtherance of his duty, the president, if the president does it, it's not illegal to quote Richard Nixon. Didn't you say that? And aren't these actions in sending terrorists and gang members, oh, and the occasional American, out of the country, aren't these in furtherance of his duty?
Yeah. So, you know, is he going to, will the court essentially say, well, yes, just as you've been applying, Magna, we've already given you the permission, so we can't withhold it now. That's a really scary thought. Yeah. Let me rein myself in with the help of our man with the view from Elkhart, Indiana. Hi there, Howard. This is Howard Turner. And Jack, he wants to hear your thoughts about the story we tell about
about American manufacturing, because remember, Howard has his entire working experience in manufacturing, saying that, yes, manufacturing jobs have gone away in the U.S., but they've been replaced by jobs that pay higher in the service sector.
It seems that after 50 years of offshoring the American worker as a whole, it's gotten into a better position. While it is devastating to wake up one day to find the good job you had for the last 10 years is moving away, it seems that the story should be about how the
workers successfully transitioned into a better situation. Is there a better way of telling this story? As I don't know if I'm supposed to be sad that cities like Gary, Indiana lost a good portion of its population when those manufacturing jobs left. We're happy that those families were able to successfully transition into a better job, even if they had to move away. Oh, this is interesting, Jack. What do you think? Yeah, Howard, um,
Isn't it the rub here that the people worst affected are those least likely to benefit from these things? But, you know, if we turn the clock back, this whole argument could have been made about farmers at the turn—and it was made. That was what the populist revolt was about. You're putting us out of business. The bigness is killing us, the railroads, the international market.
What do you save us? Well, you know, there were 35 percent or 40 percent of the economy then and there are two or three percent now. Terrible for the people that lost their position. But that's how that's that's that's the churn of progress, of change. And you can't, you know, simply say stop.
And, you know, people point to manufacturing, they say 8% of the workforce now used to be 50 years ago, 30%. But Larry Summers recently said, really, it's 4% of the workforce that actually does the work with their hands because the 8%, you know, counts in administrative people. So it's the analogy to farmers is really...
Technology changed. Productivity changed. The economy, the world, and the farmer was left behind. And something like that is happening, has happened to the manufacturing worker. But Jack, I think the most important point you're making, though, is that, yeah, you can't say stop, right? Technological progress will continue inexorably.
But we can, as a society, say, well, how will we help people through that transition? Right. And and this is this is yet another way in which even though I do believe in the let's say the the one aspect of the ideal of the American individual, but rampant American individualism also says, well, you know, you as the lone American will have to take on all the risks when things change.
Anyway, these questions are so interesting, Jack. I feel like there's a full-blown episode behind every single one of them. But let's move on to Kyle. Hey, Kyle, in Helena, Montana. Well, I should call him Kyle Joyner, the self-proclaimed heckler from Helena. He's looking for lessons about how countries, other countries, I guess, in history have come back from authoritarian slides.
When other countries in other points in time have been where we are, where there is a shift in the government model and a shift in confidence and a acquiescence towards going down the authoritarian path, as these things seem to be playing out in, what have those countries done about that to curve, stop, diminish confidence?
the rise of an authoritarian political power. Can they do anything about it for that matter? Or is it just they're kind of along for the ride until enough people get fed up and either vote them out or force them out? Specific examples, preferably
Not head into vague generalities, but I know I won't get that from you, Jack. All right. Specific examples, Jack. Oh, gosh. Well, you know, I try to look into this a little bit. And first of all, the all time high for democracy apparently came in 2017. We had 96 electoral democracies, only 88 now, according to International. So there's been a decline there. Liberal democracies, right?
Well, there were 45 of them 15 years ago. There are only 29 now. So...
This is a bad trend toward authoritarianism around the world. However, there are cases of countries going down, starting down that road and reversing. There were things in the 30s people found in places like Finland, of all places, that were fast on their way to authoritarianism, but
They changed. Colombia in the 2000s was heading toward a dictatorship. The president, Uribe, wanted the constitution changed to allow him to go for a third term. Trump is talking about that again. He was just doing that with Time magazine.
And the court said no, and there was a defection of elites from Ribe's party, and that was blocked. And Colombia democracy recovered. It fought off the basilisk of democracy.
of authoritarianism. And scholars of this say the crucial thing is the role of elite, non-elected players. In other words, democracy is, if it's to be saved, it'll be saved by the non-democratic branches, the courts, the military. That seems to have been the pattern in these cases where countries have reared up and recovered.
Larry Diamond of Stanford, who's a historian of this, and he points to Poland on the way to authoritarianism, a big election. There was a turnout of 50% increase in the voting of young people. In 2023, they voted out this right-wing government, Brazil.
has recovered and it's moving back closer to democracy, something like that in Thailand. So these things have happened. But here's the difference, and this is Larry Diamond of Stanford. He said, the plain and sobering fact of the matter is that there has never been a democracy as long established and liberal as the U.S. experiencing such a deep
and potentially existential crisis of democracy. Yeah. So, Kyle, some specific examples there from Jack. But the only quote I would add to Larry Diamond's analysis there that you offered, Jack, is there's a – on the flip side of that coin, I've read other analysts who say – or scholars of democracy who say –
that America's long history of democratic governance is precisely the thing that could potentially stop a complete plummet into authoritarianism because we have generations of Americans who
who know what living in a democracy is like, right? We actually, when asked, we know what we do stand to lose. Whereas for those younger democracies, like you talked about, that memory is not so long, right? So perhaps it made it easier for democratic diminishments to happen there, where their experience, the nation's experience thereof was shorter, right?
So I wanted to offer that also as a potential boon for America. Sure, and it brings us back to the statistic we started with. Nearly all Americans say the rule of law. Exactly. Yes, right. All right, so we're going to wrap up with Andrew Russo because actually a
A long time ago, back in March of 2024, so a little over a year ago. Oh, my gosh. That was episode 24, Jack. Wow. So way back then, Andrew first left us this message. I am terrified that low information voters continue to gain power and now they have the chance to destroy our democracy.
I am so concerned about this that I am actively trying to leave the United States. Okay, so that was Andrew even before the election. Well, much more recently, he contacted us again to give an update on his plans, given how he sees the state of the country and U.S. democracy now. Well, I purchased my one-way flight tickets. I am leaving.
Even saying that causes the hair on my neck to rise. Huh, Andrew. Well, he says that as a newly minted Ph.D. who teaches about the theory of disasters, Andrew thinks that the future for his family in the U.S., if they remained here, would be bleak.
We realized here that we have been fighting for our well-being, our safety, a place in society for decades. We've done everything we were supposed to, but we've rarely been able to contribute. Instead, it's always been fight. Fight for better pay. Fight for voting. Fight for this right or that right. And we're done. We are not elites.
I do not have an open door to another university and another nation because of a book or a paper I've written. We simply no longer see a future here, and we wish to make a better life for ourselves elsewhere. You'll have a long time and avid listener.
From the European Union. Hmm. Andrew, keep sending us your messages. And this definitely puts a strong pang of sorrow into my heart. But Jack, you know what I hear in Andrew? He's a newly minted PhD. And he says he's been fighting for his place in society for decades. So Andrew, send me a message and tell me if I'm wrong about this.
But I'm going to make I'm going to hazard the guess that you're not a baby boomer and that he's younger than that, because I think there's a very profound. Well, you've talked about this, Jack, this generational gap in terms of younger Americans, Gen X or, you know, obviously millennials and younger in their belief in the promise of what America is supposed to be.
versus boomers and older who, I'd say especially baby boomers, who enjoyed that promise of America. So I actually really understand where Andrew's coming from when he says it's just like we've been fighting for decades and nothing's working.
Yes, gosh. As he spoke about fighting for voting, fighting for this, fighting for that, I remember something John Lewis said, democracy is a verb. You know, it just is going to be a fight. But, you know, let's face it. There was a piece in The Times yesterday by a cyber expert reporter saying,
And she pointed out that Doge, what we call the beardless commandos of Musk, they are taking data that has been siloed in different departments about Americans. And they're pooling that data. They're pooling it in one place. And the idea is Trump will have a database to look into all of our doings.
a mechanism for the gangster state that Trump would impose on us. And it's there. It's being assembled as we speak. It's enough to make a person say, give me to the European Union. Well, Jack, I don't have a retort or a post for that. So I'll wrap up with saying thank you, as always. Thank you. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The Jackpot from On Point. ♪