MAGA Is Not as United as You Think

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’ve been fascinated by the problem Donald Trump faces with Project 2025. Trump has been caught in an awkward position, disavowing the document itself, but unable to fully disavow the people behind it. So I wanted to do an episode not just on Trump, but on the unwieldy coalition that has formed around him — what is sometimes referred to as the “New Right.” Emily Jashinsky is the D.C. correspondent and host of “Undercurrents” for UnHerd, a co-host of “Counter Points” with Ryan Grim, and a former editor at The Federalist, one of the most influential sites among conservatives today. She’s described herself as someone with “a foot in both camps” of the “Old Right” and the “New Right.” So I thought she’d be a great guide to understanding how the conservative movement has changed. In this conversation, we discuss the key differences between the Old Right and the New Right; what the New Right wants; why New Right thinkers are so interested in the concepts of “modernity” and “virtue”; and what influence the New Right might have in a second Trump administration. Mentioned: The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony Book Recommendations: Primal Screams by Mary Eberstadt The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Efim Shapiro.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. I've been fascinated by the problems that J.D. Vance and Project 2025 are posing for
0:28.0	Donald Trump in this election.
0:30.7	And the problem he's facing, I think, is that he does not want to manage the
0:35.6	coalition that he actually owns. In 2016 he didn't have to. He was a challenger to
0:41.5	the Republican Party. He conquered it by humiliating its leading politicians.
0:45.6	But he wasn't of it. And when you ask what a Trump administration would do in 2016,
0:51.7	you were taking into account a Republican Party he didn't
0:54.8	control a coalition he didn't build. That's not true in 2024. Now he does run the
1:01.4	Republican Party. Now he is the owner of the MAGA Coalition.
1:05.0	But the MAGA Coalition is bigger than him. And the groups in it, the people in it,
1:11.0	they've developed more views on more issues than
1:14.0	Donald Trump has. They have drank from weirder ideological wells than he does.
1:18.4	This I think is the problem that JD Vance has posed for him. Vance was explicitly chosen to be the future of MAGA,
1:26.0	but Vance is much more ideological than Trump.
1:29.0	He is much more woven into weird online MAGA subcultures in Trump, and he's much more woven into weird online MAGA subcultures in Trump and he's much more woven
1:34.7	into things like Project 2025 than Trump. And so Vance andoy represents where MAGA
1:40.7	is going and that's creating all kinds of problems for Donald Trump's
1:43.8	campaign because he can't really disavow his own movement. It's not credible and if
1:48.2	he wins he's going to need to govern with these people. There isn't another collection of people
1:54.7	who are going to staff his administration
1:56.2	and write his policy.
1:57.9	So I want to do an episode not just on Trump,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New York Times Opinion, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.