295 - Richard Wolff: Trump’s America Is OVER

Richard Wolff (0:01)

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Richard Wolff (0:56)

Mr. Trump has far exceeded my expectations in the extent of his self-destruction. The best of the American Empire is behind it. It's almost as if you could say to him, you shouldn't have promised it. No trial, no lawyer, no jury, no confronting evidence, summary execution, without anything. What am I watching? This is a political operation. You're lying. I mean, what, what are you doing? History will not judge kindly what is going on in this society.

Robinson Erhardt (1:41)

It seems to me that two years ago, basically to the day we sat down and we had a conversation that ended up being titled, The Final Case Against Donald J. Trump. And at the beginning of that episode, I asked you a difficult question.

Why going into this election should people have voted for Donald Trump, which is obviously not your position. I'm going to ask you a similar question today because Donald Trump happened to ask recently that Americans pretend he is on the ballot for this 2026 election. And I want to ask then, what are the best reasons for going to the ballots this November and voting as if he is on the ballot?

Richard Wolff (2:26)

Well, from my point of view, which is not likely to be that of a voter for Mr. Trump, I'm hoping that as many Republicans as possible go into the voting booth, imagining or thinking that they're voting about Mr. Trump, rather than about the Republican Party. And the reason for that is simple.

Mr. Trump has far exceeded my expectations in the extent of his self-destruction. I expected it. I'll tell you why in a minute, but he has really outdone himself in turning off millions of Republicans. And I'm assuming a good number of them will express that view, that feeling when they go into the polls early in November, that their disappointment, their regret, their guilt about having enabled this character, that there'll be enough of them that it'll swing the election and that he will face a hostile Congress, House and or Senate.

So that's why I hope people have that mentality. There's not that same kind of in-your-face provocation from the Republican Party. Most of the Republicans have either one of two positions.

They either decided that the wind was blowing in Mr. Trump's direction, so they became toadies, they became justifiers, excusers, supporters. They fell all over themselves to be. I watched a few weeks ago after Mr. Trump excluded several news agencies from covering the White House, that Vice President Vance, in a tortured English language essay, supporting him, you know, knowing, from the very way you could see, he was talking, that this was an odious task, but he performed it, as he always does.

So, half the Republicans, or some proportion, line up behind Mr. Trump, and the other half have been mostly, with some exceptions, but mostly quiet, not wanting to stand out, bad enough that they didn't join the chorus for him, that they want to lay low and not be self-destructive with him. And so there's no, there's nothing going on in the Republican Party to bring the voters out for or against, really. I mean, the hardcore, I suppose, if you still feel the same way about Mr. Trump as you did two and four and six years ago, maybe you'll come out now. But my guess is that their biggest problem will be an electorate that has very little motivation to come out and support him, because they don't really agree.

In my judgment, Mr. Trump was an epiphenomenon. He was a detail thrown up by a historical situation.