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What Can Stop Trump—Plus, Project 2025–the Dumb Parts

On this episode of Start Making Sense, David Cole talks about citizens defending the Constitution, and Rick Perlstein comments on Republican plans for the second Trump term.

Jon Wiener

December 4, 2024

Republican presidential nominee former president Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally.(Rebecca Noble / Getty Images)

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What Can Stop Trump, plus Project 2025–the Dumb Parts | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

“Our worst enemy right now is not Trump himself, but fatalism about our ability to stop him.” That’s what David Cole says – he recently stepped down as National Legal Director of the ACLU, after 8 years and hundreds of lawsuits against the first Trump administration.

Also: Project 2025,the Heritage Foundation’s famous 900 page book, is partly “"too dumb to accomplish anything at all”–that’s what Rick Perlstein says. The rest, he says, can be read as a useful catalog of how we should focus our resistance.

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“Our worst enemy right now is not Trump himself but fatalism about our ability to stop him”—that’s what David Cole says on this episode of Start Making Sense. Cole recently stepped down as national legal director of the ACLU, after eight years and hundreds of lawsuits against the first Trump administration.

Also on this episode: Project 2025—The Heritage Foundation’s famous 900-page book—is partly “too dumb to accomplish anything at all,” according to our guest, Rick Perlstein. The rest, he says, can be read as a useful catalog of how we should focus our resistance.

The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

How LA Defeated Trump, Plus Bob Dylan’s Xmas | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

In June, Trump sent more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to occupy Los Angeles and terrorize the immigrant population. But by the end of July, almost all the Guard and the Marines were gone. Bill Gallegos explains how that happened and what other cities can learn from it. 

Also: Bob Dylan fans have been puzzled and troubled by his Christmas album ever since he released it in 2009. To help figure out what Dylan was doing, we turn to Sean Wilentz. He’s author of Bob Dylan in America, and he also teaches history at Princeton. (Originally recorded in January, 2005.)​ 

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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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