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Episode Summary 

It seems forever ago, but it has officially been 10 years since Donald Trump announced that he was running as a Republican presidential candidate in 2015. A lot of terrible things have happened since that time, but if you think in terms of the issues that have propelled Trump politically, his two presidencies have been a “lost decade” for his own supporters.

Trump done almost nothing to help the people he promised: Food costs are higher than ever before, unauthorized immigration has remained low, and health care is still out of reach for far too many people.

Instead of trying to create his own policies to bring jobs to blighted heartland areas, Trump and Republicans are trying to close rural hospitals, terminate disaster-preparedness funding, and cancel the green jobs programs that former president Joe Biden enacted that mostly benefit Republican-voting areas.

Despite promising to be a completely different kind of politician, Trump has been a total pawn of the far-right activists who began flooding into the Republican Party in 1964. Less than six months into his second term, aside from his tariff obsessions, Trump’s policies are barely different from those of George W. Bush, right down to the Middle Eastern wars, the billionaire welfare handouts, and the harsh cuts to anti-poverty programs.

At the same time, however, in the past ten years, Democrats have also barely changed a thing. Despite losing multiple times to Trump and his congressional allies, the national Democratic Party has continued to be governed as a gerontocracy, and instead of copying Republicans’ billion-dollar investments in advocacy media, Democrats have instead spent almost all of their funds on old-school television ads and door-knocking efforts, hoping that Americans will magically make the connection between Republicans and their very unpopular policies.

All of this got me thinking about doing a podcast episode to mark the political milestone, and after reading the Trump 10-year retrospective that Paul Campos posted at the Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog, I realized I needed to invite him and his colleague Erik Loomis onto the program for a live-streamed discussion of the topic which we recorded June 19th, two days before Trump decided to launch airstrikes against Iran.

The video of our conversation is available. The full audio and transcript are available only to paying subscribers.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Ten years of Trumpism as America's 'lost decade'

07:59 — The historical context of Trump's rise

11:18 — Why Republicans are both isolationist and imperialist

19:21 — Democratic leaders haven't changed a bit in response to Trump

28:18 — Right-wing media and the doomed quest a 'liberal Joe Rogan'

39:04 — Republicans spend billions on ecosystems, Democrats do not

48:09 — Economic vs. social justice is a false and damaging choice

58:50 — Conclusion

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About the Show

Theory of Change is hosted by Matthew Sheffield about larger trends and intersections of politics, religion, media, and technology. It's part of the Flux network, a new content community of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing. We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet.