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And yet we've got 23 states, this movement's got 23 states.
So it's not something that they're not awarded to being inimical to our democracy and inimical even to their interests, and in that case, I mean state interests, which has always been a mantra for my party, the Republican Party, but seems to always get discarded as soon as the federal power is needed to fulfill something they want badly.
Paul Jay
So what do you make of your party? You still call it my party?
Larry Wilkerson
Now, I tried to. There are a lot of people out there, a lot of young people out there who are frankly, a lot of them are telling me now they voted for Biden. They watched the Lincoln Project or they even, in some cases, like in Ohio, participated in the Lincoln Project and they voted for Biden and they didn't necessarily hold their nose. And they aren't expecting great things from the Democrats, they're expecting the same feckless leadership that the Democrats have provided in the past. But what they are expecting is a return to some sort of calm, some sort of relationship with our allies that's not antagonistic and some sort of international feeling of, "the United States is back and can lead again,". That's what they're welcoming. And then, of course, they want to see their man take over after that.
But these young people are very, very disinterested in and even angry with the Republican Party, and I'm not just talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz and a host of other Republicans, and mostly I'm talking about local Republicans in places like Boise, Idaho, in places like Atlanta, Georgia that people were disgusted with, Republicans are getting disgusted with. So that movement is going to change the Republican Party, whether it be positive or inthe middle or negative, I don't know. I hope it'll be positive, but it is going to change the Republican Party and I'm going to hang with it until the grave comes and try to help them.
Paul Jay
I think the problem here is that the substance of what Trump stood for policy-wise kind of worked for them electorally and they did get 80 million votes. They won did well at state levels and these, you know, what they call dog whistles that worked for Reagan. It's essentially Reagan.
I was talking to Larry off-camera about watching this Showtime series called, The Reagans, which I think is really worth watching, and I'm going to be interviewing the director in the New Year.
But it's very clear that the Trump campaign is a carbon copy of the Reagan campaign and the Reagan politics worked really well. The real difference is Reagan and Reagan's people were able to manage him in a way that he always more or less looked presidential and Trump never really did. But the substance has actually worked for them right from the Reagan years on. And I don't see why they would change that except try to get someone to be their federal standard-bearer who's not a crazy man.
Larry Wilkerson
Let me tell you what most of these young people will tell me. Male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, what most of them will tell me, they are sick and tired of refighting the Civil War, they're
sick and tired of the racism in their party, they're sick and tired of the prejudice and the bias in their party, they're disgusted with a lot of these people and they're disgusted, even more so with the exploitation of these things by the Republican leadership. They want that gone. They know that it will take a decade or two to get it gone, but they are dedicated to getting rid of it, eradicating it. And that, I think, is the biggest motivation. Now, you confront them with the fact that they're, I won't say 80 million because some of these people are there for other reasons than being bigots or prejudiced or racist or whatever, but a lot of them are. And the Republican leadership, like McConnell and Cotton and Cruz, they know that the core of that is that, and that's why they stay with it because, without that core, they could never win another election in this country, ever. And so the young people want to get rid of that, too. They hold no truck with this current leadership, Tea Party, libertarian, Republican, mainstream, or whatever. They want it gone, they want it gone and done away with.
Paul Jay
Aren't they a real minority, and why are they even in that party?
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