The GOP's Long-time Descent into Crazy. With David Corn of Mother Jones.
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2022
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It did not start with Donald Trump. In Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau Chief David Corn's new book, he details the long history of Republican Party condoning and encouraging crazy conspiracies to gain and hold on to power. It’s called American Psychosis, a Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy. It’s a great read and can be bought at your local bookstore or online here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, good friends, and welcome back to the Bill Press Pod. |
| 0:10.8 | Well, the question everyone asked today is, how did a total right-wing extremist conspiracy, |
| 0:17.9 | not like Donald Trump, manage in so short a time to take over the Republican Party. |
| 0:24.8 | In his new book, American Psychosis, Mother Jones David Korn points out that that question is |
| 0:31.6 | historically wrong. It ignores the fact that Trump didn't make the Republican Party crazy. |
| 0:39.4 | It's always been crazy. |
| 0:45.3 | Under Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes, there are always conspiratorial wackos like the John Birch Society and Joe McCarthy. The difference is that |
| 0:52.3 | before Trump, while mainstream Republicans tolerated right-ring extremists, |
| 0:58.4 | they still managed to keep them on the fringes of the party. |
| 1:01.6 | But Donald Trump not only opened the doors and let them in, he himself spread their conspiracies |
| 1:09.0 | about birtherism, the deep state, Hillary Clinton, |
| 1:12.5 | Hunter Biden, and voter fraud, among other nonsense. |
| 1:16.6 | Today, there is no longer any Republican Party. |
| 1:19.8 | There's only the extremist Trump Party, well deserving of the title David Korn gives |
| 1:26.0 | it American Psychosis. |
| 1:28.7 | Hello, David Corn, and welcome back to the Bill Press Pod. |
| 1:32.7 | Good to be with you, Bill. |
| 1:34.6 | Congratulations on the new book, American Psychosis. |
| 1:39.3 | A historical investigation of how the Republican Party went crazy. David, David, first of all, let me, |
| 1:46.2 | let me say, psychosis. I mean, that's a pretty powerful word. I'm in severe mental disorder. |
| 1:55.0 | Well, that's the Republican Party today. Well, when you are detached from reality, I mean, that's psychosis. When you don't |
| 2:04.0 | understand or acknowledge reality, when you believe something that is not real. If you look at the |
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