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Hi, I'm Molly JongFast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds.

We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean we don't have a great show for you today.

Wesleyan University's own Michael Roth stops by to talk about how universities can push back against Donald Trump.

But first, we have Harvard Professor and How Democracies Die, author Stephen Levitsky, here to talk about why he's a little more optimistic about Trump failing after a year into his presidency.

Welcome back to fast politics, Stephen. Thanks for having me back.

Before we were talking and you were talking about how you're more optimistic now than you were,

say, in March. I think we were all pretty freaked out by the Trump 2.0. Talk to me about why

you're more optimistic now. Well, first of all, it's Trump has done a tremendous amount of damage,

and we were seeing the beginning of it at March, and that continued almost, it's unabated and,

you know, unchecked for nine months. And it's done damage to our society, to our culture,

to our institutions, to the U.S. state, to the world, particularly the U.S. standing in

them. So 2025 was a terrible year. It was worse than I anticipated, and I've been a pessimist for years.

What makes me less pessimistic is the fact that Trump is weakening politically.

For he began to, he has suffered defeats, some defeats in the courts. He's suffered some

defeats at the ballot box. Public opinion is gradually, but importantly, shifting against him.

And he's suffered defeats within the Republican Party, which is a bad side for him.

And the principal reason why Trump was able to do as much damage as he did in

2025 is he had ironclad Republican support. He could not have done even a fraction of what he did

had he not had ironclad support in the Republican Party, basically the willingness of the entire

Republican Party leadership to abdicate their

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