Ezra Klein: Don’t Believe Him

11 Comments Post your own

1. bethree5 says:

   February 8, 2025 at 10:21 am

   WOW! Spot on, inspiring, bracing. And, oddly, reassuring.

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2. jdcasey12013 says:

   February 8, 2025 at 10:32 am

   Thank you, Diane. That podcast was excellent – gave me new insights …

   Judy Casey Colorado Springs

   >

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   • dianeravitch says:

     February 8, 2025 at 6:02 pm

     Judy,

     My grandson, a freshman in college, tells me that Ezra Klein podcasts are admired by his generation.

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3. VICKI FRANSON Owner says:

   February 8, 2025 at 11:37 am

   Judy, I had read the Ezra Klein article but decided to listen to the podcast. It is very powerful and even more so when you hear him say it! Thanks for sharing! Vicki

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4. Duane E Swacker says:

   February 8, 2025 at 11:46 am

   I hate it when they have music in the background which for me with my hearing loss comes out in the foreground. It distracts from the message.

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5. retired teacher says:

   February 8, 2025 at 12:54 pm

   “The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness.”

   If the media are not going to do their job, Democratic leaders need to abandon their easy chairs and go on the offense by resisting, obstructing, slow-walking and challenging. They need to cause a ruckus that will drive media attention to them so they can fire back with repeated on point messaging. Democrats need to learn how to use the press to their own advantage like the so-called conservatives do, and they must exploit Trump’s weakness.

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6. Catherine King says:

   February 8, 2025 at 3:32 pm

   Just one clue–when Trump says, “everyone knows it,” or “they all like it,” or similar all-inclusive statements, red-flag it as smoke around a big lie. He’s setting his listeners up to hear a false idea of acceptability that will help secure the power that he seeks but knows he cannot legitimately have.

   Calling out the lie is like pointing out that the king in the parade has no clothes. CBK

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   • dianeravitch says:

     February 8, 2025 at 5:16 pm

     Trump moves the Overton Window every day.

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     • Catherine King says:

       February 8, 2025 at 5:59 pm

       Diane: Yes, but I also think a nuance of what he is doing is trying to move the country’s heart and mind over to a more than less acceptance of what he is doing–down the scale.

       This is why (I think) Ezra was saying that his referenced scholar/historian would be more afraid of Trump if he went slowly–because, by going slower, he could do what the ultra-conservatives have done to public education over several decades to the most well-meaning teachers and lovers of children’s education and the Constitution (stole education for privatization, right from under our noses).

       Whereas, instead, by going so fast, he has certainly knocked people back on their/our behinds, but also shocked people into realizing what’s going on (allusion to Marvin Gaye) and so to feeling reactionary and intense about rejecting and repelling him, Musk, Maga, and the horses they rode in on. (Trump thinks everyone is as reactionary and shallow as he and Musk are. Fortunately, his and Musk’s spectrum of personality defects is getting them in more trouble than they can know. (But that Vought guy, he has the look of unfiltered hate in his eyes.)

       Another allusion to the slowness that is needed in cultural change (but not always as manipulatable as they think) is the idea of history and the long arch of justice. Whatever happens, history still bends back towards its remote metaphysical and probably spiritual form: justice and, of course love. CBK

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7. quikwrit says:

   February 8, 2025 at 4:22 pm

   THE COURTS ARE POWERLESS — Trump doesn’t care about court rulings, investigations, or injunctions. To Trump, they are just pieces of paper that he will simply ignore, just like he’s ignoring the twice-issued injunction against his spending freeze, and just as he will ignore every other court ruling that conflicts with his actions and objectives.

   The courts have no enforcement power and rely on the federal Justice Department to perform the enforcement. Trump, America’s top enforcer and ruler of the Justice Department, won’t enforce any court order against his actions.

   HAVE YOU NOTICED? — Trump keeps a large portrait of President Andrew Jackson nearby in the Oval Office. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Jackson’s plans to ignore the rights of Native Americans and take away their land, Jackson said in effect: “Well, the Supreme Court has ruled — the Court and what army will enforce it?”

   And then Jackson ignored the Supreme Court, forced the tribes off of their land and sent them to concentration camps on a death march that’s today known as “The Trail of Tears.”

   Even Trump’s toadies on the Supreme Court today are of no importance to King Trump because he will ignore them just like Jackson did if they dare to rule against him. The Court has no army…but Trump does.

   OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM HAS A FLAW: It relies on a President to be a lawful person. When the President is a scofflaw criminal, there is no justice enforcement in America, and there is rampant injustice.

   THE COUP is happening right before your eyes every day now and it will not stop because of court orders that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on since they are not backed by any enforcement power.

   Our republic is being rapidly dismantled right in front of us, and there is no way to stop that from continuing.

   Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined in their wildest vision that America would ever have a scofflaw criminal President. But that’s today’s reality, and it means that all those lawsuits and the courts are useless in dealing with Trump.

   So, what WILL work to save our republic?

   New, unconventional tactics are required to save our republic.

   The all-too-conventional Democratic “leadership” that got us into this mess is incapable of getting us out of it.

   THE GRUMPY OLD DEMOCRATS in Congress have been blown away by the impact of the high-tech mantra “Move fast and break things” that was used both in the 2024 campaign and is being used now.

   Just as the stodgy generals of the Allies at the start of WWII were run over by the Nazi Blitzkrieg that broke all the conventional rules of war, the Democrats were run over by Musk’s high-tech rule-breaking minions.

   While no-tech Democratic Party “leaders” are still asking their grandkids how to download apps, the whiz kids of the Musk army ran right over them.

   It’s loooong past time for new DNC and congressional leaders who actually know what they are up against in today’s high-tech world…their grandkids can’t teach the current clueless “leaders” in time.

   OUR REPUBLIC NEEDS an up-to-date Democratic version of Musk and his high-tech team to go to war in the ether against Musk and his minions and against the Trump Administration.

   This war to save our republic is not going to be won in the courts or at the ballot box. The world has been irreversibly changed by the Internet and high-tech and entirely new ways of fighting political battles must be strategized quickly and put into action.

   Our republic is failing fast, and Trump’s campaign pledge to his minions that if they voted him into office, they would never have to vote again means that before the 2026 elections roll around he will have suspended them…and the courts are powerless to stop him without his Justice Department and without Congress.

   What our republic needs right now is a pro-republic person who is the equal of Musk both in terms of high-tech savvy and money who can quickly recruit a national team of talented techies to wage war in the ether, which is where the battle for our republic will be won or lost, not in the powerless courts.

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8. speduktr says:

   February 8, 2025 at 7:46 pm

   I keep waiting for someone in Congress to find a locksmith to break into these buildings that no one has the authority to bar them from.

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