Transcription
A new Yuggov poll was taken. This is this is fascinating. Now, this was taken June 16th through the 18th. So, that would have been what, about roughly a week ago? And it shows that a significant and ever-increasing percentage of Americans think that the United States is already a dictatorship.
Now, I've been warning about this since, wow, since Reagan, really, but in a big way since the Patriot Act and all that kind of stuff in the early 2000s. But, uh, 24% of people, that's a quarter of Americans in this—almost a quarter in this Yuggov poll—said, quote, "The US is a dictatorship." They agreed with that. And uh, if you exclude Republicans or Trump voters, a third of Americans believe that—35%—with independents it was 30%. So only 7% of Trump voters think we're in a dictatorship, and they're probably quite happy about it.
Um, back in February—now keep in mind this this survey was done last week. So this is June. This is in the summer. Back in February, in the winter, uh, February 3rd through the 6th, they asked a couple thousand people the same question. And at that time, instead of a third of Americans or a quarter of Americans—24% of Americans—it was only 18% of Americans thought we were in a dictatorship. So, are Americans waking up? Maybe.
The way that dictators keep people in line typically is they know that a rifle shot is more effective than buckshot, right? Or than a machine gun fire. Um, if you can selectively take out just a couple of people in different industries and in different jobs, you can successfully intimidate pretty much everybody else in those industries and jobs. So, you arrest a mayor, Raz Baraka, the mayor of New York, New Jersey. You you arrest a member of Congress. We've got a member of the House of Representatives. Forgive me, I'm not recalling her name. Um, who has been arrested. You have a judge in, or a state judge in Wisconsin, as I recall, maybe Minnesota, who was arrested. Um, you have a member of the United States Senate, Alex Padilla, who was wrestled to the ground and and handcuffed. Um, you you know, all you have uh uh students at Columbia University. Uh, you know, all you have Harvard University itself being made an example of.
So all you have to do is just—you you don't have to spend a—you know, if Trump went after every university in America, everybody who had protested uh Netanyahu's policies in Gaza, or if Trump went after everybody who had attacked him or anybody who was standing up to him, you know, he'd have to spend an enormous amount of time and effort. So instead what he does is you pick these one individuals, turn them into high-profile examples. The lawyer, the American lawyer who was flying back from Paris and got stopped at the airport and interrogated for hours and hours. The Australian guy who was stopped at the airport in Los Angeles and was interrogated for hours and then deported back or, you know, sent back to Australia. You pick some people and make examples of them.
And so now Donald Trump is doing this with his own party, Thomas Massie. And nobody nobody questions Thomas Massie's right-wing credentials. I mean, this is a guy who every Christmas posts on social media a picture of himself, his wife, and their four boys, all every single one of them holding an AR-15 in front of a Christmas tree, right? This guy is as hardcore right-wing MAGA as you can get. But he's but he actually has some principles. I I realize it's hard to understand, but um, there are some Republicans who still have principles. And one of the principles that he believes is that you should follow the Constitution, at least when it comes to war powers. And so he tweeted, constitutional—what Trump is doing. It might be right. It might be the right thing to do, but he didn't ask Congress for permission.
And so Trump now, in response to this, has created a super PAC um that is going to be run by Chris Lascivita. Chris Lascivita, of course, is the guy who who supervised the swift boating of John Kerry, if my recollection is correct. It's called the Kentucky MAGA. It's a super PAC, and that that Chris Lasiva is going to run. He says he will spend whatever it takes to take down Thomas Massie, to to to primary him, to to cause him to lose his seat in Kentucky. And every and and you know, like Marjorie Taylor Green for example had posted a tweet earlier in the week in which she basically said, you know, attacking Iran, bombing Iran would be a stupid move and Trump shouldn't do it. She just deleted the tweet. Why? Because she wants to say it's a good gig. You know, lifetime health insurance, lifetime pension, 200,000 bucks a year almost. I think it's 180,000 now. Good pay, lots of perks. She gets to go on, you know, trips all around the world paid for by the taxpayer. So, you know, who wants to blow that, right?
So, here we are. We've got Donald Trump now trying to make an example of Thomas Massie. And Thomas Massie, by the way, with with Congressman Roana, sponsored this legislation that we all need to be calling our—particularly Republican, but all of our members of Congress—and saying, "Please co-sponsor this legis legislation that will require a war powers resolution before Trump can bomb another country."