What the Next Dark Ages Could Look Like

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

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4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cullen Murphy, editor at large at The Atlantic, discusses his latest article on how the country may be moving toward something that resembles the feudalism of the Middle Ages.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Brian Marrishow on WNYC.
0:13.9	Good morning again, everyone.
0:15.5	Coming up later this hour, we'll talk about the legal and constitutional questions around the immigration raids in L.A.
0:21.9	and deployment of the National Guard without the governor's approval.
0:25.2	The first time that that has happened since 1965, when it was really the opposite situation,
0:31.3	the Guard was deployed by President Lyndon Johnson to protect civil rights protesters
0:36.7	from Governor George Wallace's hardcore local cops.
0:41.0	Yesterday, the LAPD was deployed in part to protect protesters from the Trump-imposed National Guard.
0:48.3	Governor Gavin Newsom has now filed at least one lawsuit, and other constitutional questions may be looming if Trump invokes
0:56.1	the Insurrection Act, as he implies he might, to deploy other branches of the military, or if, as
1:02.3	many people fear, he might be provoking confrontation so he can declare martial law. How much of
1:07.7	democracy would that unravel? That's coming up. But first, and somewhat related,
1:13.2	a new article in the Atlantic notes how interested President Trump, Elon Musk, and Steve
1:18.3	Bennett have been in the Roman Empire, and it explores the possible implications for the country.
1:23.6	It comes from a historian of the Roman Empire and its relevance for today.
1:28.3	Colin Murphy, former managing editor of the Atlantic, who was on the show back in 2007 for his book, Are We Rome, the Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America?
1:38.3	It's really interesting to see how he answers his question, are we Rome today?
1:42.3	One spoiler, the headline of the new article
1:45.6	is feudalism is our future. Colin, thanks for coming on and welcome back to WNYC. Oh, it's great to be with
1:52.5	you, Brian. Thanks. And I know some listeners are thinking, feudalism, really? Isn't that a stretch?
1:58.5	Even for Trump, but hold that thought and talk about your lead line
2:03.2	that numerous people in and around the Trump administration seem beguiled by Imperial Rome.
	...

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