April 06, 2023

21. Trump Arraignment in Manhattan, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tennessee Assembly: Many Different Battles – One Conflict

1 hour 9 minutes

It’s hard to keep track of everything that’s happening in the struggle against the reactionary assault on democracy, on so many levels, all at the same time. We go through some of the big stories of the week and reflect on how to relate them to each other, where to direct our attention, how to process it all. We start in Manhattan, where, finally, Donald Trump had to turn himself in, was arrested, had to appear before a judge on Tuesday – and it was all… rather ordinary and boring, exactly the way it should be. We tackle some of the misleading narratives surrounding this case: Why it is indeed “political,” but not a political witch-hunt; why the actual “test for democracy” is the fact that a major party radicalized to the point where it elevated this man to the presidency and won’t break with him even now.

We go to Wisconsin next: On the same day Trump appeared before a judge, Janet Protasiewicz was elected to the state Supreme Court, giving liberals a majority for the first time in 15 years. In a functioning, healthy democratic system, no single state court election should have so much riding on it, but here we are. And once again, just like in the 2022 midterms, a clear majority of voters in a purple state was mobilized for democracy and abortion rights, while Republican fear-mongering over “crime, crime, crime” fell flat.

Finally, to Tennessee: What’s happening in the Tennessee Assembly is a reminder of the increasingly authoritarian measures Republicans are willing to take to punish those who dare to question their dominance. Republicans are trying to expel three Democratic lawmakers who had the audacity to protest in solidarity with an ongoing demonstration of thousands of citizens, mostly schoolchildren, demanding action to protect Americans from gun violence.

These are just some of the stories of this week – how can we make sure not to miss the forest for the trees? Clearly, we must not direct all our attention to Trump. But is the ex-president’s fate just a distraction from what *really* matters? That’s also not the right takeaway. Crucially, we should not separate Trump from the broader political conflict – neither to spend all our energy on his outrageousness nor to ignore his role as the manifestation of the American Right’s anti-democratic radicalization. Ultimately, the challenge is to pay attention to the underlying reactionary political project, to the multi-level attempts to entrench traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth, to the increasingly authoritarian measures to prevent multiracial, pluralistic democracy.

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This episode was produced by Connor Lynch

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