Maddow: ‘Republican Base Is Enthused About’ Making Trump a Dictator

PSAKI: “...and the author of ‘Prequel: A Fight Against American Fascism,’ a terrific book about World War II era history, my friend and colleague Rachel Maddow. We’re not going to make you use your voice too much, but thank you so much for talking with us this evening. So, Rachel, let me start there. I have been sort of saying tongue-in-cheek that this is his closing message, talking about — this is Donald Trump’s closing message, talking about Viktor Orban as he’s campaigning a little bit here in New Hampshire. But you have studied authoritarians quite a bit, you’ve talked about them quite a bit, you’ve educated all of us quite a bit on it. Is this really about winning votes in the New Hampshire primary?”
MADDOW: “Well, first of all, Jen, I apologize for my voice. I’m grateful for you having me here. I’m trying to hold it together health-wise so that I can have a voice for tomorrow night’s coverage because I’m so excited to be part of that. That is why I sound like a mess right now. On the Viktor Orban thing, listen, I think there is a very simple reason that Trump is making that a closing argument in what could be the last contested primary, and that’s because that is really what he is offering. I mean, this is the special sauce. Donald Trump is not leading the Republican Party and leading the Republican field of candidates because of his youthful vigor or because of his policy preferences or because of his eloquence. None of that is going on. What he is offering is what he both sort of inherently offers, and now more and more explicitly offers, which is, ‘If you pick me, that will be the end of politics. You won’t have to deal with politics anymore. You don’t have to deal with contested elections, you won’t have to deal with contests or divisions when it comes to power. You will have a strongman leader and I will just do what I want. Won’t that be a lot simpler?’ That is what he is offering. That strongman model is what the Republican base is enthused about. That is something that sets him apart from every other Republican candidate. And I think that we’re naive to think that he’s tricking people into picking him and then, surprise, he’s gonna act like a dictator. What he’s offering is strongman leadership, the end of politics, the end of election, or the sidelining or domesticating, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat says, of the judiciary and the Congress. He will be the man in charge and he’ll get it done. That’s what he is selling and that is what they are very eagered by.”
PSAKI: “It seems very much like that. I do think of him as a marathoning orator, but, you know, everyone has a different view on Trump and his strengths. But, Rachel, the question that I sometimes think about, I know you’ve talked about it for a minute, is how did we get here? I mean, how did we get to this stage where you have this person who has such a control over a political party? But even beyond the politics of it, that appeal of the strongmen argument, this worship of dictators is so appealing to such a large swath of the country.”
MADDOW: “I mean, I think there’s ways — first of all, we should be humble about it and recognize ways that there aren’t very many 250-year-old democracies in the world. Democracy is hard. Most of the world is governed under authoritarian governments and there’s nothing magic about the American populace that makes us immune to the promises of strongman leadership. I mean, that’s part of why I have done the history of some of the things, like in the ‘Prequel,’ talking about the lead-up to World War II to talk about how susceptible Americans were to the same kind of authoritarian messages that were working on the population in Germany, that were working on the population in Italy, in Spain. I know it’s a cliche to note it, but Hitler was elected, right? Mussolini didn’t have to literally March on Rome, it was a figurative thing because he was installed into the heart of the government. So these messages, they have appeal. There are ways that you can drive a populace toward them. You can denigrate the government, you can say that government itself is the problem. You can make it so the legislative Branch never works and is seen as an object of ridicule, pity and hostility, rather than as one of our three branches of government. You can challenge the rule of law and say that judges are all biased against people like you and that the legal system doesn’t work for people like us and that we should denigrate the courts and the law and a legal system in a way that falls down partisan and authoritarian lines. I mean, all of those things help. Flirting with the kinds of conspiracy theories that make people look to mythical fantasies for solving their problems instead of actual government work, that helps. Flirting with paramilitary violence, where you bring violence into political sphere and people are too intimidated, normal people are too intimidated to engage in normal political behavior, all of that helps. All of that sort of shoves the populace towards authoritarian messaging as the only solution, as the only thing that will help.
PSAKI: “That was dark and real and honest and authentic, just like you are about these issues? What are the other lessons from history about what might work or what is effective? I’m thinking, we talked earlier in the show about the protests in Germany. What works? What can be done in this country to push back on this movement?”
MADDOW: “I mean, the history works I think on a couple of different levels. It’s interesting to me, watching those protests in Germany this weekend, couple of things about that struck me. One is, the reason those huge crowds, like, 1.5 million people turned out in Germany, crowds so big in some places, crowds were so much larger than the permitted marches, the police had to shut them down for security reasons. The reason people came out in Germany was because of reporting from a secret meeting where the far-right party in Germany, which is polling very strongly in Germany right now, had secretly discussed mass deportations of migrants in Germany; millions of people, all deported, all at once. It was exposed in a sort of bombshell investigative report, but, you know, that is what Trump and Stephen Miller are offering openly. Maybe people are not out in the streets for it because it wasn’t bombshell reporting, they just said that’s what they wanted to do, but that policy that the far right AFD Party is working on in Germany is exactly what Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are talking about doing here as soon as Trump is put back in office. I mean, they are literally talking about putting millions of people in camps in the United States. A revelation like that in Germany got Germans out by the hundreds of thousands, more than a million over the weekend saying that this is Nazi stuff, we can never see that coming back in the civilized world. Whereas we just absorbed it as something that Trump is going to do. Then there’s also what those crowds are asking for. They are asking for the German courts to ban AFD, to ban that party as an anti-Democratic Party. Germany has some history with that. In the post-war years, 1952, they banned parties that wanted to use the democratic process to come back in and dismantle democracy. They haven’t done it since then, but they are ready to do it now with this iteration of the far right. And we are obviously considering that with potential insurrectionist being back on the ballot in multiple states.”
PSAKI: “Very much running for office. History repeats itself, as you often remind us, but also there’s kind of history or live things happening around the world that are important for us to also watch. Now, finally, we have to rest your voice, Rachel. We know you could talk about this all night. But what are you doing for yourself? Do we need to send you chamomile, lemon, ginger, echinacea? We will deliver it to you. Everybody needs you leading the coverage tomorrow night.”
MADDOW: “I mean, I just have the thing that everyone else has, you know? Like, I had Covid for the first time ever in October. It took me a long time to get over it and I had some other things. Now I just have this cold that it seems like everybody, at least on the East Coast has. And I’m a terrible patient, I have like my daytime goo and my nighttime goo, and then I just sleep and drink tea and it never gets better. But, yeah, if anybody out there has the secret sauce, I will take it. But in the meantime, I’m just trying to rest.”
PSAKI: “You heard her. If you have secret sauce for her, we are going to collect it and we will give it to her so that she can be here leading the coverage tomorrow night. Rachel Maddow, thank you as always. Hope you feel better. Take care of yourself tonight. Looking forward to seeing you for our primary coverage tomorrow night.”