December 13, 2024, 9:22 PM UTC
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This is an excerpt from the Dec. 12 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
We’re in some strange times these days. In one sense, the daily news coming out of Washington concerns the normal process of American governance, particularly the transition from one presidency to another. That’s the kind of thing you would expect when the White House changes parties after an election.
Some elected Democrats are acting as if everything is normal. You may remember last month when President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a friendly chat by the fireplace.
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman now says he supports making Elise Stefanik President Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations because he supports her stance on Israel. . Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis praised President Trump’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And many Democrats are paying lip service to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut spending.
I’ve seen this movie before. Wealthy people favor a powerful president. But this is not what it used to be, and Trump is different.
Essentially, the message from some National Democrats and other prominent figures is, “The people have spoken, and now we’re going to get on with the business of governing under the Trump administration.”
There’s a similar vibe from industry giants. Tech billionaires are popping up everywhere trying to curry favor with past and future presidents. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund after meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Not to be outdone, I learned that Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is also donating $1 million to the inauguration. Bezos said he looks forward to working with the president-elect. “If you’re talking about Trump, I think that’s very interesting,” Bezos told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Dealbook Summit last week. “I’m actually very optimistic this time around. … I’m very hopeful for him – he seems to have a lot of energy for reducing regulations. In my opinion. If I can help him, I will.”
Again, I’ve seen this movie before. Wealthy people favor powerful presidents. But this is not what it used to be, and Trump is different. What makes this capitulation to Mr. Trump so disturbing, angry, and alienating is that it ignores the gaping wounds in American democracy. It’s just sitting there, festering, while everyone goes about their business as usual.
Just four years ago, one of the country’s two major political parties made a major departure from the democratic governance consensus, refusing to accept a peaceful transfer of power. But now, those wounds appear to be healing. This is because in the last election, the Republicans who withdrew happened to win, and the Democrats accepted the result because they believe in preserving democracy.
But the wound has not healed. The problem is not resolved. Trump is as committed to big lies and insurrection as ever. In an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” President Trump refused to recognize the 2020 election and renewed his promise to pardon the January 6 riot.
Additionally, President Trump is conducting a loyalty test to see if those working in his administration also support election lies. A recent New York Times report detailed the interview process at the Trump transition office.
Interviewers asked applicants which candidates they supported in the last three elections, what they thought about the events of January 6, 2021, and whether they thought the 2020 election was stolen. They had the feeling that there was only one correct answer to each question.
For at least one would-be Trump employee, these questions don’t even need to be asked. Kari Lake, who President Trump wants to lead the government’s national media network, Voice of America, is perhaps the politician most closely associated with the Big Lie other than Trump himself. In addition to claiming that Trump won the 2020 election, Lake also claims that he won the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, which he lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs. .
It’s not exactly clear whether President Trump will be able to install Lake as head of VOA, but he certainly intends to try. And Mr. Lake is likely to use all his power on all fronts to push election lies and create a domestic version of Russia’s notorious state media agency.
Lake, perhaps more than anyone else, believes in the core tenet of the modern Republican Party: elections are only valuable if they are won.
We are actually seeing this happening in North Carolina right now. Mr. Trump won there last month with a significant Democratic vote against him. In the governor’s race, Democrat Josh Stein defeated Republican Mark Robinson by 15 points. (The man reportedly frequented a pornographic forum called Nude Africa, where he allegedly referred to himself as a “black Nazi.”) )
Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson, who was gerrymandered from his seat, also won the race to become the state’s next attorney general. This means Democrats have won two of the top jobs in North Carolina politics squarely. But North Carolina Republicans aren’t happy about that.
Lake, perhaps more than anyone else, believes in the core tenet of the modern Republican Party: elections are only valuable if they are won.
Republicans lost their supermajority in gerrymandered state legislatures last month. They are now in a lame duck session before that supermajority leaves. In this waning moment, they just pushed through a bill that overrode the governor’s veto and stripped power from newly elected Democrats and gave it to Republican officials instead.
The Republicans lost the North Carolina election but gave themselves power anyway. Believe me, if the Republicans had lost the presidential election in November, they would probably be trying to overturn the election at the national level as well.
That’s a gaping wound. The rejection of democracy is still alive and well. Just because Democrats agree with Trump on the issue of Israel and cutting government spending, simply kneeling down to Trump will not solve the problem. My strong belief is that everyone who tries to lead us to normalcy by acting as if everything is normal is in for a rude awakening.
Contributed by Alison Detzel.
