President Tsai Ing-wen's National Day address

 

Good morning.

I. Resilience through unity and international pandemic cooperation

Today is the 110th National Day of the Republic of China. Every year, on this day, we gather together to celebrate our nation's birthday.

On this solemn occasion, we pay tribute to our forebears who called this land their home. Though they arrived in Taiwan at different times, they all dedicated themselves to our beautiful homeland. Today, everyone living in Taiwan is a part of this community in which we share a common destiny. Together, we have passed one test after another.

Beginning in May this year, Taiwan faced its greatest challenge since the outbreak of COVID-19. Over 800 people in this country have lost their lives to this disease. These people were our family, friends, and members of our shared community. I want to take this opportunity at the start of my speech to express my sincerest condolences to their families.

During this outbreak, we were also reminded of the great self-discipline and virtue possessed by the people of Taiwan.

No matter how hot the weather, everyone has remembered to wear face masks. Wherever you go, everyone uses their phones to scan QR codes for contact tracing, and maintains social distance. And when vaccines arrived, everyone followed our government's plans for an orderly vaccination drive. I truly appreciate how hard everyone has worked. The government does not take this cooperation for granted.

I want to extend a special thanks to Hon Hai Technology Group/Yonglin Foundation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and the Tzu Chi Foundation for working with the government.

I also want to once again thank our doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel for their hard work. Most of all, I want to thank all the people of Taiwan. At this difficult time, it was our unity that protected our country, and our collective dedication to democracy that protected our beloved homeland.

Aside from helping ourselves, we have also received help from our friends across the international community. At a time when the international community continued to face a serious pandemic and vaccines were in short supply around the globe, Japan, the United States, Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland all extended helping hands.

And, except for Lithuania, which will soon establish a representative office here, all of these countries are represented here today, an embodiment of this year's theme of "Broadening Democratic Alliances and Making International Friendships." I want to invite everyone here today to join me in showing our deepest appreciation to the representatives from these countries.

The Taiwanese people have a beautiful tradition of never forgetting how others have helped us. The face masks we sent out across the world last year showed that Taiwan can help. And the vaccines they sent us this year are vaccines of friendship.

This is a virtuous cycle, and I can assure the international community that Taiwan will continue to contribute to the world and expand this virtuous cycle further afield.

Over the past year, the pandemic impacted domestic demand, but it did not affect our overall economic growth prospects.

The global shortage of semiconductor chips has highlighted Taiwan's importance in supply chains. And a changing situation in the Indo-Pacific has once again brought attention to Taiwan's key position in the region.

Taiwan-Japan ties continue to flourish, and our relationship with the European Union has grown closer. We resumed talks with the United States under our bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). And we applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

In Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, and Brussels, Taiwan is no longer on the margins, with more and more democratic friends willing to stand up for us.

We believe we have the ability to work with like-minded partners to contribute to the international community. Taiwan today is no longer seen as the orphan of Asia, but as an Island of Resilience that can face challenges with courage.

II. Unprecedented challenges amid a complex regional landscape

But the more we achieve, the greater the pressure we face from China. So I want to remind all my fellow citizens that we do not have the privilege of letting down our guard.

At this moment, the global political landscape is undergoing drastic change. Free and democratic countries around the world have been alerted to the expansion of authoritarianism, with Taiwan standing on democracy's first line of defense.

As a result, amid this evolving global landscape, the Republic of China today finds itself in a situation that is more complex and fluid than at any other point in the past 72 years. Every step we take will influence our world's future direction, and our world's future direction will likewise affect the future of Taiwan itself.

The situation in the Indo-Pacific region is becoming more tense and complex by the day. After taking complete control of Hong Kong and suppressing democracy activists, the Beijing authorities also shifted away from the path of political and economic development that they had followed since "reform and opening up" began decades ago.

At the same time, regional order is being challenged in the South and East China Seas. The routinization of Chinese military activity in Taiwan's southwestern air defense identification zone (ADIZ) has seriously affected both our national security and aviation safety.

In contrast, democratic countries are working to strengthen our broad-based, mutual cooperation in order to respond to regional and global developments. The G7, NATO, EU, and QUAD have all highlighted the importance of peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, while expressing concern over whether China may unilaterally undermine the status quo of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

I want to reiterate that Taiwan is willing to do its part to contribute to the peaceful development of the region. Our position on cross-strait relations remains the same: neither our goodwill nor our commitments will change. We call for maintaining the status quo, and we will do our utmost to prevent the status quo from being unilaterally altered.

I also want to emphasize that resolving cross-strait differences requires the two sides of the strait to engage in dialogue on the basis of parity.

We hope for an easing of cross-strait relations and will not act rashly, but there should be absolutely no illusions that the Taiwanese people will bow to pressure.

We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us. This is because the path that China has laid out offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people.

III. Building consensus around four commitments

The Republic of China came to Taiwan in 1949, 72 years ago. Over these past 72 years, we have gone from poverty to prosperity, from authoritarianism to democracy, and from uniformity to diversity. Slowly but surely, we remade the Republic of China (Taiwan) into what it is today.

Admired around the world, what we have today is the result of the work of many generations. No one group can take sole credit for this work, nor should any one group be denied credit for what we have all achieved together.

During the August 23 Artillery War of 1958 in Kinmen, our brave troops fought side by side, without regard for where one another came from. Party affiliation does not divide those working in Taiwan's crucially important semiconductor industry. Cheng Nan-jung's (鄭南榕) father was from China. Larisa Bakurova (瑞莎) hails from Ukraine. Wen Chen-ling's (温貞菱) mother is a Filipina of Chinese descent, and her father is part Hakka and part Japanese.

Recently departed baseball star Wang Kuang-hui (王光輝) was a member of the indigenous Amis tribe.

We all get upset when our national flag is not displayed. We all get angry when Taiwan is suppressed. These are ups and downs that we all share. In this inclusive country, nobody is judged based on when they arrived, nobody is held accountable for the deeds of their ancestors, and nobody is excluded from our shared community because of where they came from. As long as we respect and appreciate this land and what it stands for, Taiwan will always welcome everyone with open arms and bring people together.

The past 72 years of development have transformed the face of our nation. But throughout this transformation, our resolve to uphold our sovereignty and defend our homeland has remained unchanged.

This conviction has been key to ensuring Taiwan's stability and preserving the fruits of our democracy. Over the past 72 years, our military's dedication to protecting our nation, as well as our understanding of why we fight, have been rooted in that conviction, which has been passed down by generation after generation of Taiwanese.

This resolve has never been limited to a single political party or faction. Kuomintang Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), Taiwan People's Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), and New Power Party Chairperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) are all in attendance today.

Your being here at this event is one of the beautiful scenes in Taiwan's democracy. There will always be competition between political parties. But whenever our nation's dignity or the future of our people is at stake, we come together for the sake of the Taiwanese people to defend our sovereignty and our free and democratic way of life.

Let us here renew with one another our enduring commitment to a free and democratic constitutional system, our commitment that the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other, our commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty, and our commitment that the future of the Republic of China (Taiwan) must be decided in accordance with the will of the Taiwanese people.

These four commitments are the bottom line and common denominator that the people of Taiwan have given us. On the basis of this shared foundation, we have a responsibility to seek an even broader consensus, so that we can be united in the face of future challenges. We all share the responsibility to ensure that the young people and future generations of this land can continue to live free.

IV. Cooperation across society to resolve our differences

Since taking office in 2016, I have worked to diversify trade, promote industrial innovation, transform our energy sector, and develop and bring in new talent so that everyone can see how Taiwan's economy is changing for the better.

Over the past few years, in response to changing global economic circumstances, we have facilitated the return of many overseas Taiwanese businesses and accelerated our industrial transformation, reversing the slow economic growth, capital outflow, and talent drain caused by the past 30 years of over-reliance on a single market.

Today, Taiwan's economic performance is back in the lead of the Four Asian Tigers, attracting global attention and proving that we can create a more resilient and self-reliant economic development model.

We have adopted a new economic approach in which we are no longer dependent on a single market. This is the key to consolidating Taiwan's global economic standing and playing a more important role.

My fellow citizens, a world of opportunity awaits us. We must persevere on this road so that Taiwan's economy can continue to grow and thrive over the next 30 years.

In addition to transforming our economy, we have overcome many obstacles to implement a number of reforms. We have expanded our social care system, made diplomatic breakthroughs, and are now in the process of carrying out national defense reform. The results of our years of hard work are gradually becoming clear to our citizens and the world at large.

Many have asked me what we want to do for Taiwan in the years ahead. My answer is simple. In addition to boldly carrying out reforms and building a stronger nation, we want to establish a solid and lasting foundation for our nation's future development by giving the Republic of China (Taiwan) the capabilities, and the social stability, to face the uncertainty and challenges of a new era.

We must also address the longstanding and divisive issues on which we have struggled to reach consensus. On these issues, we must work to forge consensus, and find solutions that are broadly acceptable throughout society. Only by resolving these longstanding disputes can Taiwan move forward without looking backward.

We must respond to national development needs by making necessary adjustments to bureaucracy, local institutions, national land use, regional development, and other important governance issues, so that we can optimize government efficiency and most faithfully reflect the will of the people.

Of these issues, constitutional reform is one we must face head-on. Our Legislative Yuan has established a Constitutional Amendment Committee, with the current round of amendments based on the Constitution of the Republic of China and designed to preserve our free and democratic constitutional system.

Knowing that there is a very high threshold for passing a constitutional amendment, I want to make an appeal across party lines, given that the issue of constitutional reform is a matter of national governance. I call on everyone, regardless of party affiliation, to set aside your predispositions and engage in a serious review of constitutional issues, so that we can find common ground.

The work of transitional justice is also testing our generation's wisdom and courage, as we seek to heal the wounds of the past and discern historical truth.

In addition, we must consider the direction of our national energy policy.

No nation can maintain economic momentum with an inconsistent energy policy. We have already aligned ourselves with the international community in announcing our goal to work toward net zero emissions by 2050. We also need to work with all sectors of society to draw up a roadmap that will help us stay on top of relevant developments and assess risks early on, so that we can build a more flexible and responsive power supply network. This is key to both our competitiveness and environmental sustainability.

Dealing with these important issues is the only way to lay a foundation for long-term stability and leave a better country for future generations. In the past, differences in party stance or political identification often turned discussions of the methods and approaches needed to solve these issues into endless ideological battles. These disputes are of no help to our nation's development, and only compel us to waste our own energy without making any progress.

This is why, during my next few years in office, I want to draw on the dynamism of our society to look for ways to solve these issues together. By facilitating cooperation between society and government, we can work to find common ground among different ideas, gradually resolve difficult issues, and build a firm foundation on which to guide our national development.

V. Engaging the world with pride and confidence

2021 has been a year of many challenges, as well as many heartwarming moments. This summer's Tokyo Olympics saw Taiwan's athletes turn in record performances. Today, on our National Day, I want to express my gratitude to all our athletes and their support staff. Thank you for helping Taiwan shine on the international stage.

During the Tokyo Olympics, the Taiwanese people once again realized a sense of shared belonging. I know some people have admitted that, out of fear of jinxing our athletes, they avoided watching our athletes in action, and instead did all their cheering in silence. I also heard that some people were so nervous watching the archery competition that their hearts were beating even faster than the competitors'.

This is what it means to be part of a community. A community is an invisible bond that ties us all together, letting us share our happiness and our sorrow, our glory and our pain.

During the men's doubles badminton gold medal match, I am sure that when the word "in" appeared on the screen, there were more than a few Taiwanese who erupted with joy, and even shed some tears.

We had waited so long for that moment, for Taiwan's achievements, Taiwan's confidence, and Taiwan's courage to be seen and appreciated by the world. This summer, that moment arrived.

Over the past few days, many people in Taipei stopped to look up at the planes rehearsing for our National Day Celebration. What they were looking at is our Air Force, which keeps us and our country safe.

In addition to our Air Force, many other military units were practicing for our National Day Celebration on the streets of Taipei. Dredging engineers, members of our Chemical Corps, the motorcycles of our Military Police Command's Quick Reaction Company, and many other combat vehicles that we rarely get to see all passed here before us on Chongqing South Road, fully equipped and ready to deploy.

Many were busy taking photos, perhaps unsure which units these are, or what the equipment is called, but with a certain sense of security. These are our troops-our troops who safeguard our homeland. When disaster strikes, they come to the rescue. When our sovereignty, territory, freedom, or democracy is threatened, they defend our country with their lives.

One of the most heartwarming images of 2021 was of the Mirage 2000 fighter jets sent by our military into the skies above Taiwan to welcome our Olympic heroes back home.

Our athletes and troops are all national heroes. I sincerely hope that my fellow citizens believe in the greatness of Taiwan, believe in the importance of Taiwan, and believe that our community of 23 million people can stand proud on the international stage.

Let us move forward with confidence and pride, as masters of our own destiny. Let us embrace our global role, and make Taiwan a Taiwan of the world. I wish the Republic of China a happy 110th anniversary, and good health and many happy returns to all my fellow citizens. Thank you.

The Affairs of Our Society with Matthew Cooke

Part One: Manufacturing the Carnage

Donald Trump is an autocratic nightmare wrapped in incompetence, made in the USA 

Intercepted 

An Intercepted audio documentary series offers a comprehensive analytical history of the Trump presidency. Featuring in-depth examination of Trump’s extreme agenda, the roots of US history and the policies of Trump’s predecessors, the series seeks to analyze the question: is Trump the worst president in US history?  

Donald Trump is often portrayed as an aberration of U.S. history, an outsider who seized power and is intent on destroying democracy as we know it. In the premiere episode of “American Mythology,” we examine the ways that Trump has proven to be a particularly dangerous autocrat who doesn’t believe in any semblance of a democratic process. But that story cannot be told without also exploring how various U.S. systems and the policies of Trump’s predecessors carved the way for many of his most dangerous actions. Featuring interviews with lawmakers, journalists, activists and dissidents, world renowned historians, and constitutional scholars and lawyers on the front lines of scores of battles against the Trump administration, this episode offers an overview of how the Republican Party has embraced Trump as a Trojan horse to ram through its most extreme — and long-standing — policy agendas. It also probes the role of Democratic Party leaders in facilitating some of Trump and the GOP’s most dangerous policies and lays out the stakes of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump is already calling illegitimate.

Jeremy Scahill: This is Intercepted. I’m Jeremy Scahill coming to you from New York City and this is part one of an Intercepted special, “American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump.”

JS: Where does the story of the presidency of Donald Trump begin? 

Shepard Smith: Pennsylvania goes to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the president of the United States.

Bret Baier: In an Electoral College victory that virtually no one saw coming a year ago, a few months ago.

SS: A week ago.

BB: Even yesterday.

Joe Scarborough: A complete earthquake. This was an earthquake unlike any earthquake I’ve really seen since Ronald Reagan in 1980. It just came out of nowhere. Nobody expected — I mean —

JS: Technically, the Trump presidency began on a dreary, cold day, January 20, 2017, when Trump gave his infamous American Carnage speech in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump: This American Carnage stops right here and stops right now. 

JS: But the story of this presidency doesn’t begin on that day or even with the 2016 campaign.

DJT: You know you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

DJT: He’s a war hero ’cause he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK? I hate to tell you.

DJT: Uh, I don’t know what I said. Uh, I don’t remember!

DJT: Database is OK. And watch list is OK. And surveillance is OK. If you don’t mind, I want to be — I want to surveil — I want surveillance.

JS: The story does not begin with Trump’s offhand threats to run for president over the decades. 

Rona Barrett: If you lost your fortune today, what would you do tomorrow? 

DJT: Maybe I’d run for president. I don’t know.

DJT: Somebody has to help this country. And if they don’t, the country, and the world, are in big trouble.

Oprah Winfrey: This sounds like political, presidential talk to me. And I know people have talked to you about whether or not you want to run. Would you ever?

Larry King: Donald Trump, the multimillionaire real estate developer is sounding more like a politician these days than America’s most grandiose and controversial builder.

DJT: I just want to tell you —

David Letterman: You act like you’re running for something.

DJT: No.

DL: We’ll do a commercial. We’ll let him think some of these over and try and get…

JS: There is value to exploring the specifics of Donald J. Trump’s personal path to unprecedented power. There is no doubt that his journey to the White House, amidst claims of outside interference and aid, was an extraordinary achievement with far reaching implications. 

John Roberts: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear.

DJT: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear.

JR: That I will faithfully execute.

DJT: That I will faithfully execute.

JR: The office of President of the United States.

JS: Beyond his inflammatory rhetoric, his systematic lying and crude nature, Trump is most relevant to this story because of what he facilitated and the incredible opportunities he gave to some of the most radical right wing forces in U.S. politics, as Naomi Klein predicted in the early days of his administration. 

Naomi Klein: I think here’s a worrying message of kind of like, it’s so outrageous. The hypocrisies are so intense that obviously people are going to see this. You know, Trump ran as champion of the working man, and he’s going to stand up to the corruption and billionaires in Washington. And then just fills, you know, his administration with them. And there’s — like some people seem to be expecting that there’s going to be sort of a spontaneous revolt of Trump’s base. And what scares me is that as the economic facade falls away, the racism, the sort of weaponizing of race, and the weaponizing of gender becomes all the more important because that’s all they have to offer. The economic stuff was obviously a sham. But they’re going to feed that to their base to make sure they don’t lose them. What we need to understand is how misogyny and racism are used to advance this agenda.

Protesters: This is what a feminist looks like.

Lead protester: Tell me what a feminist looks like!

Protesters: This is what a feminist looks like.

JS: The policies the administration began fast tracking from the first moments in power had long been high on the wish list of the leaders of the Republican Party, and Trump — more than any of his predecessors — dared to shout the quiet parts out loud, broadcast them on Twitter, and proudly embrace them at virtually every opportunity. Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude Jr.:

Eddie Glaude Jr.: Think of this moment as the decline of the empire, that something is dying while something is trying to be born. Donald Trump represents an exaggerated version of the rot that’s at the heart of the country, that he’s a reflection of something that’s here. In some ways, all of the contradictions of a particular economic order, of the kind of exploitation of white fear, combined with a deepening sense of precarity made Trump possible.

JS: In assessing the Trump presidency, there are two significant tracks we will explore. First: The ways in which Trump is, in fact, a particularly dangerous autocrat who doesn’t believe in any semblance of a democratic process. And second: The ways in which various U.S. systems and the policies of Trump’s predecessors carved the way for many of his most dangerous actions. 

NYU Professor Nikhil Pal Singh argued early on in Trump’s presidency that understanding these dynamics was essential to confronting what was to come.

Nikhil Pal Singh: But the idea that sort of we somehow just kind of flipped a switch and got Trump in this kind of weird way that doesn’t try to think about a longer story that takes us through some of the failure of reckoning of the Obama years, and, of course, the pathway that the Iraq war put the country on. And even before the Iraq war, the pathway that the Clinton-era mass incarceration project put us on, you know, I think makes it really difficult for us to make sense of what’s happening right now and to make sense of the forces that Trump has been able to mobilize.

JS: You cannot separate the past from the present. How Trump is specifically dangerous is, in significant ways, a direct product of the system and nation that produced him. History and context matter. As journalist and writer Chris Hedges pointed out, Trump did not come as a surprise apparition in the night. 

Chris Hedges: We’ve personalized the problem in Trump without realizing that Trump is the product of a failed democracy. Trump is what rises up from the bowels of a decayed and degenerate system. And you can get rid of Trump, but you’re not going to get rid of what the sociologist Émile Durkheim called that “anomie” that propels societies to engage in deeply self-destructive behavior.

JS: Upon taking office, the Trump administration immediately dispensed with any great effort to make serious legal or moral arguments when issuing policy edicts. It was clear that Trump and his team intended to assert sweeping executive powers while at the same time ferociously subverting Congressional oversight. Not just on national security matters, but in virtually every tangible way. Employing this strategy, Trump has proven remarkably effective at ramming through an extremist agenda–one that had been developed for generations by powerful factions within the Republican party. 

Mitch McConnell: What we need is a president who, after getting sworn into the office, sworn in, goes into the Oval Office and starts undoing as many of these executive orders and regulations as he possibly can as rapidly as you can, thereby taking the foot off the break and putting it on the accelerator. That’s what the country needs.

JS: Yet, from the beginning of Trump’s presidential run, many establishment Republicans laughed at him, denounced him, and failed to take his prospects for winning the nomination of their party seriously.

Lindsey Graham: Well, I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a minute. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you like this guy. I think what you like about him, he appears to be strong when the rest of us are weak. He’s a very successful business man and he’s going to make everything great. He’s going to take all the problems of the world and put them in a box and make your life better. That’s what he’s selling. Here’s what you’re buying. He’s a race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He’s the ISIL man of the year, by the way.

JS: Trump defeated the establishment elite of the Republican Party, from the dynasty candidate Jeb Bush, to popular Republican governors and senators.

DJT: The RNC told us we have all donors in the audience and the reason they’re not loving me — [audience boos.] The reason they’re not — Excuse me. The reason they’re not loving me is I don’t want their money. I’m going to do the right thing for the American public. I don’t want their money. I don’t need their money. And I’m the only one up here that can say that. Eminent domain, the keystone policy —

Allan Nairn: Trump was constantly denouncing the rigging of the system. His basic message was the system’s rigged. Our system is a killer system and it’s corrupt. All of which is true, except the rigging took place in the opposite direction, which he portrayed. But it’s uncomfortable for the establishment types to hear that, especially coming out of the mouth of their own candidate.

JS: Journalist Allan Nairn pointed out that Trump almost had to force the institutional Republican Party to recognize the incredible gift he would be giving them by seizing power.

AN: Trump dragged a rightist revolution into power. It’s the Paul Ryan agenda which could never have gotten elected in its own right because it’s anathema to most Americans. But Trump, with his genius for unleashing the beast in white America, touching these deep chords of racism, succeeded in turning a crucial number of previous white Obama voters into Trump voters, and this is a Republican Party that is one of the most radical mainstream political parties in all of American history, perhaps with the exception of the, you know, pro-secessionist Democrats at the time of the Civil War. 

And they’ve been in there, they’ve been implementing a rightist revolution, doing the massive transfer of wealth in part via the tax bill, but also an important part by systematically, agency by agency, trying to gut the constraints on large corporations and the oligarchs, regarding the environment, their treatment of labor, their ability to discriminate, their ability to commit fraud without fear of being sued by the public, increasing the rights of rich individuals to intervene in politics, decreasing the rights of collectives of working people to intervene in politics, like the Gorsuch-led Supreme Court decision. And, now, as the Republican Party has evolved to the most radical extreme, they happen to have control of Congress and the Supreme Court. 

And they’ve been going around rigging the system so that a diminishing minority can hold power and continue to govern, just as Trump was elected with a minority of the votes, they’re trying to set it up so that through a long list of tactics, including purging of voter rolls, voter suppression shortly before Election Day, gerrymandering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, smaller and smaller numbers of people can win elections and retain power.

JS: It is probable that none of the GOP’s preferred or even more establishment candidates could have beaten Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton won the popular vote by three million ballots and narrowly lost a handful of states tipping the Electoral College in Trump’s favor. So sure were Democrats, media pundits — and even top Clinton campaign operatives — of Clinton’s victory that many laughed at the idea Trump could win, and only a few took the idea seriously.

Keith Ellison: All I want to say is that anybody from the Democratic side of the fence who thinks that — who is terrified of the possibility of President Trump better vote, better get active, better get involved because this man has got some momentum. And we better be ready for the fact that he might be leading the Republican ticket.

George Stephanopoulos: I know you don’t believe that, but I want to go on —

Maggie Haberman: Sorry to laugh.

KE: You know, George, we had Jesse Ventura in Minnesota win the governorship. Nobody thought he was going to win. I’m telling you, stranger things has happened. 

JS: For the Republican power brokers, Trump was a messiah that they chided and scorned when he first appeared.

Ted Cruz: Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK. Now, let’s be clear. This is nuts. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. Everything in Donald’s world is about Donald. But the man is utterly amoral. 

JS: Now most Republicans, including not so few who once laughed at him, prostrate themselves before him every minute of every day.

TC: I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific. I think he’s brash. I think he speaks the truth. He has a way of speaking that gets attention and I credit him for focusing on an issue that needs to be focused on. I’m not interested in Republican on Republican —

JS: It didn’t take long for the GOP to pivot to Trump. And from the beginning, he has functioned as a fixer for the most corrupt, extreme, and dangerous forces in U.S. society while personally profiting off of the presidency. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on authoritarianism, described this dynamic.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: One thing I find interesting, which recurs in the past, is Trump this charismatic figure. And they come along every so often. You’ve mentioned some of them. And they seem to coalesce the kind of anxieties and frustrations of a given historical moment, but the conservative elites — in this case, GOP — back them and not other people, because they believe that they can use them as a vehicle to do the things they’ve been wanting to do for a long time — the racists, the voter suppression, all the things that the GOP has been trying to activate and was very frustrated it couldn’t do under Obama, right? This is a kind of mutual using of the authoritarian and his backers, right? And so, many of the repressive, authoritarian-minded things going on, right now, are being introduced by the GOP.

JS: The most devastating dimension of Trump’s time in office, on a policy level, is how the Republican establishment utilized Trump as a Trojan horse for its extreme agenda. Like many of his buildings around the world, Trump did not create the agenda, but his name is emblazoned everywhere. This Trump-branded GOP quickly became a clearing house for realizing the wildest dreams of the right-wing hitmen in Washington. 

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: People ask me all the time, “Trump is such an embarrassment. Why do the Republicans put up with this?” 

JS: Princeton University scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor:

KYT: If you look beyond the chaos that is generated from his Twitter account, it’s easy to see why the Republicans put up with this. Whether it’s the historic tax cut, the rapid and utterly frightening transformation of the judiciary, the tinkering with the machinery of the state is creating the kinds of changes that will far exceed the tenure of the Trump Administration. We’re witnessing a virtual coup within the confines of the Supreme Court in the ultimate validation of the strategy of dealing with the chaos, the lack of civility, the inattention to political norms, all of the things that people have said that this administration represents while missing what is actually happening under the hood.

JS: Trump has had his signature moments, often through edicts or executive orders, but much of his agenda has been outsourced to craftier and more sophisticated lobbyists, special interest groups and lawmakers. And the president has often been content to serve as the carnival barker for the masses obsessively checking his ratings and Twitter feed in between golf outings and watching the FOX News morning and evening lineups. While Trump overtly appeared incompetent and boorish, consumer advocate and former independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader warned that it was a mistake to underestimate the combination of Trump’s strengths working in concert with the radical GOP agenda.

Ralph Nader: People who think Trump is stupid may be right in terms of his understanding reality and history and the things that we would like presidents to be alert and smart about, but when it comes to street smarts and timing and the jugular? You can’t find anybody more proficient.

JS: It is difficult to overstate what has been accomplished during this presidency. The consequences of the sweeping re-molding of the federal courts with hundreds of lifetime appointments and the extreme right-wing stacking of the U.S. Supreme Court under Trump will reverberate for generations to come. 

Mitch McConnell: And working together we’re changing the federal courts forever! Nobody’s done more to change the court system in the history of our country than Donald Trump. And Mr. President, we’re going to keep on doing it. My motto is leave no vacancy behind.

JS: It will also place crucial human rights in the crosshairs and potentially play a decisive role in what Trump is virtually declaring will be an attempted theft of a presidential election.

DJT: This scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam. The scam will be before the United States Supreme Court and I think having a four-four situation is not a good situation if you get that. I don’t know that you get that. I think it should be eight-nothing or nine-nothing. But just in case it would be more political than it should be, I think it’s very important to have a ninth justice.

JS: At this moment, the most lethal aspect of Trump’s presidency has been his colossal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

DJT: Now the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat. It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear. It will go away. You know, you know it is going away. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.

JS: Beyond the mounting COVID death toll, what Trump did in these four years in power will inflict incalculable damage on tens of millions of people across the U.S. Trump’s administration has attacked workers’ rights, women’s rights, immigrant rights, civil liberties and freedom of speech. He has proudly waged war on the climate and often waxed on about how proud he is of increasing the use of the most destructive sources of fuel, production, and energy.

Wade Crowfoot: If we ignore that science and sort of put out head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.

DJT: OK. It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.

WC: I wish science agreed with you.

DJT: Well, I don’t think science knows, actually. Tom, please —

JS: Trump’s financial policies and tax cuts have showered money and profits on powerful corporate interests and the wealthy, while the already abysmal U.S. healthcare system has been further gutted and simultaneously oiled up for record profits, while millions suffer from inadequate or no health coverage and massive health-related debt. In an interview in 2018 on Intercepted, famed dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky highlighted Trump’s ability to simultaneously please radical factions within the GOP and corporations while convincing his voter base that he’s their protector from the elites.

Noam Chomsky: On the domestic scene, Trump is very effectively managing both of his constituencies. There’s an authentic constituency of corporate power and private wealth and they’re being served magnificently by the executive orders, legislative programs that are being pushed through which represent the more savage wing of the traditional Republican policies — catering to private interests, private wealth, and dismissing the rest as irrelevant and easily disposed of.

At the same time, he’s managing to maintain the voting constituency by pretending, very effectively, to be the one person in the world who stands up for them against the hated elites. And this is quite an impressive con job. How long he can carry it off, I don’t know.

JS: Rutgers University professor and journalist Juan Gonzalez said that Trump had kindled a movement that was already developing within the country before his election.

Juan Gonzalez: I look at Trump as one of the biggest small businessmen in America. Because the right-wing populism always comes out of the small business community. It doesn’t come out of the globalized public corporations that understand that they need a world in which trade and goods are flowing freely without barriers.

And Trump as a protectionist represents the small business groups within the society, but except that he is a billionaire small businessman really. He was always an outcast among the capitalist class of the United States. In that sense, though, he’s tapped into the tremendous insecurity that exists among the great sectors of the American population over the impact of unfettered globalism on their lives.

So, he has wracked his form of populism and his “America first” policies, and in that sense, he’s been able to use patriotism as a way to further ensnare some sectors of the not only small business people who are obviously benefiting tremendously through his policies, but also the more well-to-do sectors of the American working class. Because there has always been a sector of the American working class that benefits from the existence of the imperial power of the country. So they have rallied to his call.

JS: But on a raw level, it is clear that a significant sector of Trump’s base was inspired by the nativist rhetoric and causes that Trump claimed to be championing, replete with all the greatest hits from locking up Hillary Clinton to the birther conspiracy to old fashioned racism. He offered a prognosis that saw America as a place that the undocumented immigrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the Black people have all ruined. Trump promised them he would end all of that and “Make America Great Again.”

DJT: The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.

Audience: Build the wall! Build the wall!

JS: On the campaign trail, even before becoming president, Trump used his substantial platform to embolden and encourage racists and xenophobes, while encouraging police and military forces to act extrajudicially. 

DJT: In the good old days, this doesn’t happen because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily. In the old days, they didn’t come back. I can tell you that. They were gone. They were taken out. They were gone.

DJT: And they — I don’t know, rough up — he should have been, maybe he should have been roughed up. 

DJT: I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself or if other people will. 

DJT: We’re not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.

DJT: Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Ok. Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees, I promise. I promise.

DJT: I said, “Please don’t be too nice.” Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, the way you put their hand over? Like, don’t hit their head, and they’ve just killed somebody. Don’t hit their head. I said you can take the hand away, OK? 

JS: Yale historian and fascism scholar Jason Stanley said Trump’s embrace of the police and “law enforcement” as a class, while also cultivating support among militia-type groups, is a common tactic in authoritarian political movements.

Jason Stanley: The fascist state’s refusal to condemn the extrajudicial violence has a particular linguistic role because the state licenses it by not explicitly condemning it. But at the same time, the state uses its extrajudicial nature to say, “Look, we’re not the extremists. Look, you can see the extremists — they’re out there.”

It’s important to the white nationalist movement to have the people in ties and suits in government. And they need the extrajudicial violence on the street to say, “That’s not us. Look, just look at how we’re dressed versus how they’re dressed.” But you can tell the links between them, not just because of the clear overlap in language — minus a few words. Instead of white nationalist, you just use nationalist.

Instead of adding Jew to globalist, instead of saying, you know, “It’s the Jews that control the press. It’s the Jews that are behind lax immigration laws,” you say it’s the globalists. And then you don’t denounce the extrajudicial violence. You know, you denounce it in certain extreme cases where you just have to, but you leave it crucially ambiguous at times. And then that has this licensing effect.

JS: Trump’s administration has taken a chainsaw to the very concept of rule of law. Under Jeff Sessions, and more so under William Barr, the Justice Department has simultaneously served as Trump’s private law firm and has been wielded as a judicial howitzer whose fire is aimed at weakening and ultimately destroying the notion of checks and balances that are at the core of constitutional democracy. This is how Rep. Barbara Lee described the threats when I spoke to her just days into Trump’s administration:

Barbara Lee: I’m very terrified with regard to what we see taking place. And the signs are there. When you talk about shutting down the media, putting out their alternative facts, banning dissent and opposition, criticizing people who are exercising their First Amendment rights; trying to get people to believe, really, the distortions that they’re putting out there. That, to me, is very scary. It’s very dangerous. And you see also the corporate and military consolidation of the public sector. You see efforts to privatize schools. When you just look at the nominees, you see very few people with experience in the public sector. And so when you have the corporate sector merging with the military sectors, and when you have cabinet officials who have historically said they want to dismantle the cabinets and the agencies that they’re running, that I’m very terrified that we are beginning to see an erosion of our democratic values and an erosion of the public sector.

DJT: I’m going to continue to attack the press. Look, I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest. I will say that. OK, thank you all very much.

JS: Donald Trump’s war against journalism began on the 2016 campaign trail, as he railed against fake news and sought to stir up anger and potentially violence aimed at journalists. 

DJT: A lot of these guys — look at all the cameras back there. A lot of the people back there are totally dishonest people. Probably libelist stories, or certainly close. In the newspapers, and the people know the stories are false. 

DJT: The media, totally, totally, totally dishonest. But they don’t do that because these newspapers and the media are totally dishonest people, folks. Remember that. Totally dishonest.

DJT: They too are part of a rigged system. The media is totally dishonest. They’re a rigged system trying to deny people the positive change that they’re looking for and they deserve.

DJT: Such lies. Such lies. Such fabrication. Such made-up stories. Now the Times is going out of business pretty soon, that’s the good news. But such made-up stories. Such vicious, made-up stories. 

DJT: I would never kill them. But I do hate them. Some of them are such lying, disgusting people. It’s true. It’s true.

JS: Trump’s rhetoric was a dangerous escalation. At the same time, there was a tendency in media coverage of these attacks on the press, to ignore the records of Trump’s predecessors.

James Risen: The Obama administration was by far the most anti-press administration we’ve had since at least Nixon. They — as you know, they conducted more leak investigations and did more leak prosecutions — more than all the previous administrations combined. And they targeted journalists in ways that no other administration ever has.

JS: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist James Risen fought a multi-year battle with the Bush and Obama Justice Departments as they sought to force him to testify against an alleged source. As Risen predicted, Trump would soon do his own weaponizing of the Espionage Act and prosecute leakers and whistleblowers with a vengeance.

JR: What Obama did makes it much easier for Trump to do what he wants on leaks. They have created an environment and have left it for Trump that makes it very easy to subpoena a reporter and then force him to testify. The only alternative right now is for a reporter to go to jail to protect their sources. When the Democrats are in power, they hate leaks; when the Republicans are in power, they hate leaks. I think Trump has just taken that language to new heights.

DJT: It’s so important to the public to get an honest press. The press — the public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now maybe I had something to do with that, I don’t know.

JS: On questions of war and national security, Trump has often spoken in contradictory directions: On the one hand, he lambasted the Iraq war and the unending nature of the so-called war on terror. 

DJT: The Iraq war was a disaster. It was a mistake. We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, thousands of lives, wounded warriors who we love all over the place. What do we have? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Iran is taking over Iraq as sure as you’re sitting there, and that’s the way it is. We get nothing.

JS: On the other, Trump vowed to bring back torture, murder the families of suspected terrorists, steal natural resources and to ignore international law.

DJT: Bomb the oil, take the oil. Bomb the oil, take the oil. Just take it, right?

DJT: We should have kept the oil. Keep the oil. Keep the oil. Keep the oil. Don’t let somebody else get it.

JS: When he took power, Trump had inherited a multi-decade, at times bipartisan, campaign to undermine Congressional oversight of the executive branch while expanding the unilateral powers of the presidency. This was one of the major career missions of people like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Henry Kissinger. It is also true for the current attorney general, William Barr. They are extremist disciples of the theory of the unitary executive. 

Charlie Savage: Out of those notions of a presidency that’s beyond the reach of Congress to regulate come things like the torture program, like the warrantless wiretapping program.

JS: Charlie Savage reports on executive power for the New York Times. 

CS: And not just the notion that these steps were necessary as a matter of policy to deal with the threat that became apparent on 9/11, but how they chose to put those policies into place, which is to say in secret without going to Congress to ask them to change the law to make torture legal, to make warrantless wiretapping legal. But to just say the president, as commander-in-chief and head of the unitary executive, is not bound by laws that prohibit things like that and he can just secretly ignore them.

JS: Building on the programs of his predecessors, Trump soon gave the U.S. military and CIA expanded and secretive lethal authorities across the globe, while loosening or removing the minimal restraints that existed over such forces, including in the killing of civilians. And he placed at the helm of the CIA Gina Haspel, a key player in the CIA’s secret black site torture program.

Kamala Harris: Do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?

Gina Haspel: Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you refer —

KH: It’s a yes or no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I’m not asking: Do you believe they were legal? I’m asking: Do you believe they were immoral?

GH: Senator, I believe that CIA did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country given the legal tools that we were authorizing.

KH: Please answer “yes” or “no.” Do you believe in hindsight that those techniques were immoral?

GH: Senator, what I believe sitting here today is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

KH: Can you please answer the question?

GH: Senator, I think I’ve answered the question.

KH: No, you’ve not. Do you believe the previous techniques, now armed with hindsight, do you believe they were immoral? Yes, or no?

GH: Senator, I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army Field Manual.

KH: OK. So, I understand that you — you’ve not answered the question, but I’m going to move on.

JS: Donald Trump largely telegraphed the type of autocratic and corrupt administration that he intended to run. No one who watched his endlessly televised campaign speeches could claim to be taken by surprise. 

Amy Goodman: And then you have the media part of this right, where you have the unending Trump TV? Not the new Trump TV but all the networks Trump TV when it came to Donald Trump they showed more footage of his empty podium waiting for him to speak than they ever played of the words —

JS: In assessing Trump’s impact and path to power, it is also important to look at the nature of political opposition to his candidacy and, ultimately, his administration. And for the institutional elite of the Democratic Party, that picture does not look good. 

Nancy Pelosi: One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party. The country needs a strong Republican Party. It’s done so much for our country. And to have it be hijacked as a cult at this time is really a sad thing.

JS: Democrats have voted to give Trump sweeping powers of war and surveillance while simultaneously calling Trump the most dangerous president in history, accusing him of being a Russian asset and claiming he is destroying democracy as we know it. They have repeatedly engaged in performative resistance to Trump on cable news.

Chuck Schumer: What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States. Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.

JS: For most of Trump’s time in office, Democrats prioritized the Trump-Russia investigation over almost all else. And the New Yorker journalist Masha Gessen consistently warned that this strategy was distracting from other dangers and would likely backfire. 

Masha Gessen: My basic problem with the Russia conspiracy theory remains the same, which is that it’s like the one size fits all theory that tells us how we got Trump, which is that he’s a Russian agent, and that gets us out of the really frightening and complicated task of understanding how Americans voted for Trump, right? And it also creates this idea of how we’re gonna get rid of Trump, which is that magically — again and I keep using the word “magically” quite consciously because there is no straight line from any amount of Russia revelations to an impeachment. Not to mention that there’s no straight line from impeachment to actually getting rid of Trump. But magically, people believe that if the Russia collusion or the Russia conspiracy is proven, then that will somehow get rid of Trump, and the national nightmare will be over.

JS: The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi ultimately did impeach Donald Trump. But only on a narrow set of charges related to Ukraine. Her tenure as Speaker of the House under Trump ultimately led Shahid Buttar, a progressive constitutional law advocate and attorney, to challenge her for her Congressional seat.

Shahid Buttar: Nancy Pelosi affirmatively took off the table all of the strongest charges against the president. The impeachment absolutely did not address his human rights abuses, or his incitements to violence, or his lies to the public and policy makers; or his documented, unprecedented corruption, and theft from the American people — his self-enrichment at public expense. It is constitutionally prohibited and the reason Nancy Pelosi, I think, did not allow that charge to proceed is that it is a bipartisan offense.

JS: Ralph Nader is widely and often blamed by Democrats for George W. Bush’s victory in 2000. The same happened with Green Party Candidate Jill Stein in 2016. Nader, who has emerged as a tenacious critic of Trump, argues that the Democrats must also be held responsible for Trump’s ascent.

Ralph Nader: And the Democratic Party could not landslide the worst Republican Party in history since 1854? The most ignorant, the most corporate indentured, the most warlike, the most corporate welfare supportive, the most bailout-prone Republican Party, anti-worker, anti-consumer, anti-environment? Why don’t they look in the mirror? The Democratic Party is the main scapegoater in American politics. It’s never their fault. It’s never Hillary’s fault. It’s always a Green Party fault. It’s always an independent candidate fault. They’ve lost two presidential elections since 2000, even though they won the popular vote, because the Electoral College took it away from them. There’s a major national citizen effort to have an interstate compact to neutralize the Electoral College.

The Democratic Party is not supporting of that. The Democratic Party doesn’t want to get rid of the Electoral College. They’ve lost twice to the Republicans. And that meant George W. Bush, and that meant Donald J. Trump.

So this scapegoating is nothing more than a sickness of the Democratic Party that cannot unleash new energy. It’s a sick, decrepit party that cannot defend the United States of America against the worst Republican Party in history.

JS: It is easy, and these days accepted as common sense, to view Trump as an aberration of U.S. history. An uninvited guest who somehow cheated everyone to take power from the real adults. But it’s a mistake to divorce the ascent of Trump and the policies of his administration from the corporate dominated electoral process in the U.S. and the myths of American exceptionalism. Here is Pulitzer Prize winning historian Greg Grandin.

Greg Grandin: Well, in the history of U.S. administrations, he is exceptional. And that’s one of the things that I was also trying to get at: The argument that Donald Trump either revealed a deep racism, a deep settler colonial barbarism, or he represented something completely unique and exceptional to the United States. He is unique in the sense that he is presiding over the end of the frontier, the end of expansion, the end of the invocation of endless growth as a solution for domestic problems. I would say there is no other example that is equitable, that is comparable. A lot of people like to talk about Andrew Jackson —

DJT: Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was — he was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, and he was really angry that — he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, there’s no reason for this. People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War. Think about it. Why? People don’t ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could, why could that one not have been worked out?

GG: Trump talks about Jackson as his favorite politician, and certainly Trump represents a settler colonial racism. By that I mean an embrace or trumpeting of the notion of freedom as freedom from restraint. But Trump is presiding over a country turned inward. Andrew Jackson came to power as the United States was moving out into the world, and that moving out into the world took place on the back of Indian removal, the expansion of chattel slavery, war with Spain and Mexico, and an enormous amount of violence. Trump is presiding over, in some ways, the end of the project. 

Trump, in some ways, is the worst of both worlds, right? He represents the racism of settler colonialism in its most extreme form. At the same time, he rejects out of hand because of the political coalition that he represents, any kind of public policy that might lead to a more solidaristic and humane policy options. So we have a really kind of a perfect storm of some of the worst trend lines in U.S. history.

JS: If we are being honest — and we must be — this presidency has its roots in the unvarnished story of the United States empire. It is, in fact, the product of that history.

As election day draws near, Trump has taken his attacks on the democratic process to unprecedented levels. He’s already calling the election results a fraud. He’s waging a voter disenfranchisement campaign and is openly encouraging violence from neo-Nazi and white supremacist paramilitaries and official law enforcement alike. 

DJT: Do you want to call them — what do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name.

Chris Wallace: White supremacist —

Joe Biden: Proud Boys. 

DJT: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.

DJT: Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization. I proudly received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Troopers Coalition, the International Union of Police Associations, and law enforcement organizations and departments in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada —

JS: Donald Trump has openly threatened to remain in office even if he loses the election. He refuses to guarantee a peaceful transition and has suggested he might even serve a third term.

DJT: And we’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that we’ll negotiate, right? Cause we’re probably, based on the way we were treated, we’re probably entitled to another four after that.

JS: The dire threats to the democratic process were not invented by Trump or merely the results of Russian interference. As constitutional law expert Shahid Buttar said, the groundwork for this had been laid over many years.

SB: The near-term consequence of a president refusing to leave the White House, he can steer the rest of the events to support that narrative, even if there isn’t a legal basis for him to stay in office. Another way to say this is that the coup undermining the legitimacy of our elections happened a long time ago. You don’t need a computer to hack an election. You don’t need a Russian state intelligence agency to hack an election. You can hack an election when a right-wing Supreme Court invites right-wing state legislatures around the country to start attacking voting rights and that happened years ago. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the crucial enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which were its teeth before. And in the wake of that measure being struck down, it basically opened a floodgate by right-wing state legislatures to restrict voting rights and undermine democracy and the opportunities for their constituents to participate in elections.

DJT: In 78 days we’re going to stop the radical left. We’re going to win the state of Wisconsin. And we’re going to win four more years. And then after that we’ll go for another four years because, you know what, they spied on my campaign. We should get a re-do of four years.

DJT: And after we win four more years, we’ll ask for maybe another four or so. You know, whenever I say that, I watch — look at all that news back there. Look at all that fake news. When I say that their heads explode. 

JS: The threats posed by this history and Trump’s presidency cannot be overstated. It is a truly perilous situation that Trump is presiding over. We have produced this series in an effort to examine how we got here and to aid the effort to ensure that it never happens again.

This has been part one of an Intercepted limited documentary series, American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump. Over the next week we will be releasing an episode each weekday focusing on a different aspect of the Trump presidency and digging into the history and context of the actions of this administration. Make sure to tune in tomorrow to part two of this series where we’ll be taking an in-depth look at Donald Trump’s policies on immigration.

Michelle Obama speech at the Democratic Convention | Joe Biden For President 2020

 

Good evening, everyone. It's a hard time, and everyone's feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting.

I've met so many of you. I've heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country's promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I've been able to live that promise myself.

That's the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids.

There's a lot of beauty in that story. There's a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.

I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency. And let me once again tell you this: the job is hard. It requires clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen—and an abiding belief that each of the 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.

A president's words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job.

As I've said before, being president doesn't change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that their votes didn't matter. Maybe they were fed up. Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn't be close. Maybe the barriers felt too steep. Whatever the reason, in the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.

In one of the states that determined the outcome, the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct—two votes. And we've all been living with the consequences.

When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side, we had a record-breaking stretch of job creation. We'd secured the right to health care for 20,000,000 people. We were respected around the world, rallying our allies to confront climate change. And our leaders had worked hand-in-hand with scientists to help prevent an Ebola outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.

Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we've turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.

And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation's highest office.

Because whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy.

Empathy: that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. The ability to walk in someone else's shoes; the recognition that someone else's experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don't stand in judgment. We reach out because, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is not a hard concept to grasp. It's what we teach our children.

And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation to carry forward the values that our parents and grandparents poured into us. But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another. They're looking around wondering if we've been lying to them this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.

They see people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe. They see people calling the police on folks minding their own business just because of the color of their skin. They see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn't matter what happens to everyone else. And they see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.

They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for a photo-op.

Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation. A nation that's underperforming not simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that's not just disappointing; it's downright infuriating, because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.

And I know that regardless of our race, age, religion, or politics, when we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, we know that what's going on in this country is just not right. This is not who we want to be.

So what do we do now? What's our strategy? Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, "When others are going so low, does going high still really work?" My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that's drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.

But let's be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we've got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.

And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.

So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

Now, I understand that my message won't be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I'm feeling. You know I hate politics. But you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.

So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don't make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.

I know Joe. He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic, and lead our country. And he listens. He will tell the truth and trust science. He will make smart plans and manage a good team. And he will govern as someone who's lived a life that the rest of us can recognize.

When he was a kid, Joe's father lost his job. When he was a young senator, Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter. And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son. So Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe knows what it's like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own.

His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.

Now, Joe is not perfect. And he'd be the first to tell you that. But there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow—we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.

Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school, see a doctor when they're sick, live on a healthy planet. And he's got plans to make all of that happen. Joe Biden wants all of our kids, no matter what they look like, to be able to walk out the door without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed. He wants all of our kids to be able to go to a movie or a math class without being afraid of getting shot. He wants all our kids to grow up with leaders who won't just serve themselves and their wealthy peers but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.

And if we want a chance to pursue any of these goals, any of these most basic requirements for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden in numbers that cannot be ignored. Because right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. They're closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. They're purging voter rolls. They're sending people out to intimidate voters, and they're lying about the security of our ballots. These tactics are not new.

But this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We've got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden. We've got to vote early, in person if we can. We've got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they're received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same.

We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we've got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.

Look, we have already sacrificed so much this year. So many of you are already going that extra mile. Even when you're exhausted, you're mustering up unimaginable courage to put on those scrubs and give our loved ones a fighting chance. Even when you're anxious, you're delivering those packages, stocking those shelves, and doing all that essential work so that all of us can keep moving forward.

Even when it all feels so overwhelming, working parents are somehow piecing it all together without child care. Teachers are getting creative so that our kids can still learn and grow. Our young people are desperately fighting to pursue their dreams.

And when the horrors of systemic racism shook our country and our consciences, millions of Americans of every age, every background rose up to march for each other, crying out for justice and progress.

This is who we still are: compassionate, resilient, decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one another. And it is well past time for our leaders to once again reflect our truth.

So, it is up to us to add our voices and our votes to the course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, "When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something." That is the truest form of empathy: not just feeling, but doing; not just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.

And if we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.

Thank you all. God bless.

Trump Wants to Destroy Organised Human Life: Noam Chomsky

NOAM CHOMSKY : "Trump's ideology consists of two letters : me"

We Knew Disease X Was Coming. It’s Here Now.

We need to stop what drives mass epidemics rather than just respond to individual diseases.

By Peter Daszak

Mr. Daszak is a disease ecologist.

In early 2018, during a meeting at the World Health Organization in Geneva, a group of experts I belong to (the R&D Blueprint) coined the term “Disease X”: We were referring to the next pandemic, which would be caused by an unknown, novel pathogen that hadn’t yet entered the human population. As the world stands today on the edge of the pandemic precipice, it’s worth taking a moment to consider whether Covid-19 is the disease our group was warning about.

Disease X, we said back then, would likely result from a virus originating in animals and would emerge somewhere on the planet where economic development drives people and wildlife together. Disease X would probably be confused with other diseases early in the outbreak and would spread quickly and silently; exploiting networks of human travel and trade, it would reach multiple countries and thwart containment. Disease X would have a mortality rate higher than a seasonal flu but would spread as easily as the flu. It would shake financial markets even before it achieved pandemic status.

In a nutshell, Covid-19 is Disease X.

Even as there are signs that the epidemic’s spread might be slowing in China, multiple communities and countries have now reported sustained transmission in their midst. The number of confirmed cases has exploded in South Korea in recent days. In Italy, villages and towns are on lockdown, Fashion Week in Milan has been disrupted and festivals are being canceled while public health authorities search for patient zero to identify who else is likely infected and may spread the disease in Europe. Iran appears to have become a new hub of transmission. The looming pandemic will challenge us in new ways, as people try to evade quarantines, and misinformation campaigns and conspiracy theorists ply their trade in open democracies.

But as the world struggles to respond to Covid-19, we risk missing the really big picture: Pandemics are on the rise, and we need to contain the process that drives them, not just the individual diseases.

Plagues are not only part of our culture; they are caused by it. The Black Death spread into Europe in the mid-14th century with the growth of trade along the Silk Road. New strains of influenza have emerged from livestock farming. Ebola, SARS, MERS and now Covid-19 have been linked to wildlife. Pandemics usually begin as viruses in animals that jump to people when we make contact with them.

These spillovers are increasing exponentially as our ecological footprint brings us closer to wildlife in remote areas and the wildlife trade brings these animals into urban centers. Unprecedented road-building, deforestation, land clearing and agricultural development, as well as globalized travel and trade, make us supremely susceptible to pathogens like coronaviruses.

Yet the world’s strategy for dealing with pandemics is woefully inadequate. Across the board, from politicians to the public, we treat pandemics as a disaster-response issue: We wait for them to happen and hope a vaccine or drug can be developed quickly in their aftermath. But even as Covid-19 rages, there still is no vaccine available for the SARS virus of 2002-3, nor for HIV/AIDS or Zika or a host of emerging pathogens. The problem is that between outbreaks, the will to spend money on prevention wanes, and the market for vaccines and drugs against sporadic viral diseases isn’t enough to drive research and development.

During its World Health Assembly in 2016, the W.H.O. set up the R&D Blueprint to bridge this gap and announced a priority list of pathogens that most threaten global health and for which no vaccines or drugs were in the pipeline. SARS made the list, as did MERS, Nipah, Ebola and other rare but serious diseases caused by epidemic viruses. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — a global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organizations launched at Davos in 2017 — stepped up to the plate and sourced funding to develop vaccines and therapeutics against some of these.

To escape from the Age of Pandemics, we’ll need to treat them as a public health issue and start working on prevention in addition to responses. Our first goal should be to broaden our armory against potential mass epidemics. When some of us added “Disease X” to the W.H.O.’s priority list two years ago, we wanted to make the point that it’s not sufficient to develop vaccines and drugs for known agents when the next big one is likely to be a different pathogen — a virus close to SARS, say, but not close enough that the same vaccine can work against both.

As Covid-19 strikes today and a spate of other pathogens are ready to emerge in the future, we continue to butt up against nature. Scientists estimate that there are 1.67 million unknown viruses of the type that have previously emerged in people. Discovering and sequencing them should be a priority — a simple case of “know your enemy.” In the aftermath of SARS, research on coronaviruses originating in bats has discovered more than 50 related viruses, some of which have the potential to infect people; this information can now be used to test for broad-action vaccines and drugs. Scaling up this effort to cover all viral families, as the Global Virome Project proposes to do, is a logical first step toward prevention.

A radical shift is also needed in the way that tests, vaccines and drugs are designed so that entire groups of pathogens are targeted instead of individual pathogens that are already known. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States is working on a universal flu vaccine that would cover all known strains of influenza; a universal coronavirus vaccine, an Ebola-virus vaccine and others will also be needed.

With a smaller investment, we can also try to get ahead of pandemics by working with communities in hot spots of emerging diseases. Disease surveillance should be focused on farmers, rural communities and anyone who has extensive contact with wildlife, to look for unusual illnesses, test for novel pathogens and work with people to develop alternatives to high-risk activities such as the wildlife trade.

Pandemics are like terrorist attacks: We know roughly where they originate and what’s responsible for them, but we don’t know exactly when the next one will happen. They need to be handled the same way — by identifying all possible sources and dismantling those before the next pandemic strikes.