Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. Elections are always coming up, some sooner than others, some today as we're publishing. So we thought we'd take a look at the state of our democracy and elections and what we must do to maintain them in the face of the greatest direct assault on our institutions we've

seen in our 250-year history. For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing

our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes takes by Jamal Bowie, Robert Reich, The Majority

Report, Democracy Docket, The Rachel Maddo Show, All In with Chris Hayes, Zaid Tabani,

and Zoran Mamdani. Then, in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in four

sections, Section A, Maga Politics, followed by Section B, General Politics, Section C, Progressive

Politics, and Section D, Zaron Mandani.

But first, a reminder to check out our new show solved on the best of left YouTube channel.

We're really proud of the show we're making, and you're going to get real value out of it.

And you checking it out actually helps us find new viewers on YouTube.

So thanks in advance for all of your views, likes, subscribes, and comments.

That's all on the best of left YouTube channel, linked in the show notes.

And now, on to the show.

A few of you have asked me to comment on Steve Bannon's promise that Trump will be president in 2028. And I have a couple things to say. The first is that I would assume that Trump would be president in 2028 because his term will not have been up. The only way he's not going to be president in 228 is if he, you know, drops dead. He is an old man after all. But I know what Bannon's talking about. Bannon's talking about this idea that the

president can run a third term. He says they have a plan for it. And my other thought here is I think

people should give strong consideration to the possibility, just the possibility, that Steve Bannon is

full of shit, that Steve Bannon is someone who just says things to provoke. And that Steve Bannon, who once explicitly said that

his goal is to flood the zone with shit to disorient everyone to disorient his opponents,

specifically might be practicing what he preaches here when he talks about this. So I would,

first of all, urge people to not give too much credence to Steve Bannon.

Bannon is not some genius. He's not some devious scheming visor. He's just a guy. He needs

treat him as such. The other thing I'll say is that I think a very plain reading of the

...