Podcast
The Bulwark Podcast
Will Saletan discussed an upcoming e-book he wrote detailing Lindsey Graham's political transformation, tracing his capitulation to Donald Trump through his extensive public statements.
You've done something really amazing that I want to talk about, about Lindsey Graham. But this does feel like a replay of 2016 where Republicans are about to fall in line, even though they know so muc...
— Episode: Will Saletan: A New American Exceptional...
Episode: Will Saletan: A New American Exceptionalism?
Will Saletan discussed an upcoming e-book he wrote detailing Lindsey Graham's political transformation, tracing his capitulation to Donald Trump through his extensive public statements.
You've done something really amazing that I want to talk about, about Lindsey Graham. But this does feel like a replay of 2016 where Republicans are about to fall in line, even though they know so much more now than they did back then and they knew a lot then.
You've been working on a massive look at Lindsey Graham. We are going to be rolling that out tomorrow. It's going to be an e-book for people to get.
I wanted to understand how authoritarianism arose in the United States in our time under Donald Trump. And what I wanted to understand was not just Trump himself because any bully, any strongman can come along and threaten a democracy. What's important to understand is how did an entire political party fall in line behind him, the people who should have been the gatekeepers?
The surrender to despotism doesn't happen all at once. It advances in stages, a step, a rationalization, another step, another rationalization. The deeper you go, the more you need to justify.