The New York Times recently published an op-ed that framed Republicans as a threat to the nation. But then a former director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, took it another step forward: In a tweet, Hayden said he hasn’t witnessed a political force more ‘dangerous’ than the GOP. Um, WHAT!? In this clip, Glenn explains why his words are BEYOND outrageous and are terrifying, too: ‘We're on a staircase, and every step you take is going down deeper and deeper and deeper.’
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: By the way, the panopticon is a jail. Look it up. You can look this up.
It doesn't have any pictures of the guy's nose. The panopticon is a prison where the guards -- it was a circle, and the guards were in the center. And so they could see every single cell at all times and know what was going on.
It was deemed inhumane. Because you cannot live like that. This -- this is the world that we're headed towards. That your entire world will be a panopticon.
STU: I just want to point out, as you mention the surveillance that leads to imprisoning millions of -- of people that are innocent and ruining their lives in prison camps. That our former CIA director said the Republican Party was the most dangerous and contemptible organization. Is that where you were going?
GLENN: That's exactly where I was going. No, no, no, no. That's exactly where I was going.
STU: General Michael Hayden said, I agree. And I was the CIA director when someone said the Republican Party was the most extreme and violent ideology around the world, that they have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than today's Republicans. Nothing close. The CIA director said, I agree. And I was the CIA director.
And think of the -- China is just one example.
GLENN: Let me just give you this. The New York Times, Charles blow is the guy who started this. And this is an opinion piece, saying that Republicans, forget the label. That's people. Your neighbors. I would not say this. In fact, I correct people. I was just on stage this week.
In Salt Lake. And they were talking about things. And I said, look, we have to look at the people on the other side. And we look at them as the enemy. We cannot do that. There are some that will not change. They will never get it. And they will always work to destroy and overthrow and burn things down. Those people will have to be tried in a court of law. Everyone else, we cannot make them in an enemy, that we see them, our neighbors. The same way. Because they're not. They're different it. And -- and this is not what the left -- the leadership and the main thinkers, and those former CIA director. New York Times. Republicans are America's problem. We must stop thinking it's hyperbolic, to say the Republican Party itself is now our threat to democracy.
I understand the queasiness about labeling many of our fellow Americans in that way. Yeah. Only half the country.
I understand that it sounds extreme. And overreaching. But how else are we going to describe what we're seeing?
Now, so you know, I'm not a Republican. I've never been a registered Republican. I voted for everyone from Donald Trump to Joe Lieberman. Okay?
I'm an independent.
But I will be an M -- a Republican to everyone who would write something like this. So independents don't think that you're immune from this. Republicans are the threat to democracy, because of their preferred form of democracy. One that excludes and suppresses, giving Republicans a fighting chance of maintaining control. That is the danger. For modern Republicans, democracy only works and it is only worth it when and if they win. Republicans have searched for multiple election cycles for the right vehicle. And packaging for their white nationalism. Religious nationalism. Nativism. Craven capitalism. And sexism.
He said, it is -- they're running headlong, in their bigotries. And intolerances and oppressions. Okay.
So that's what they think of us. That's who we are. Now, I want you to know, that the guy who wrote that was born in 1968. So I'm four years old than him. So we've lived pretty much the same kind of life. And seen the same things.
This means, that he has lived through, I'm speaking globally. Not in America. Globally. He lived through the tail end of the Soviet Union.
And the gulags. And the torture. And the deaths.
He lived through Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. And what they're doing today, with the tortures. The disappearances. The death. Throwing homosexuals off the roof of buildings as their punishment in current day Iran.
He lived through China's Tienanmen Square. He lived through Iraq's Saddam Hussein. He lived through the Rwandan genocide. He lived through Milosevic in Yugoslavia. Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda. The Islamic State. What's happening today once again, in Afghanistan. Bashar Assad. Hezbollah. Hamas. Vladimir Putin. The concentration camps and slavery in China. And for him, today's Republican Party is worse than any of those, quote, by far. Our good Democrat neighbors who have been swept up into craziness. Craziness. We have to be able to say to them, look, you may not be a Trump person. I get that. But you're not one of these people that say, me, your former friend. Your neighbor. Your daughter, your son, who you've now said, I want nothing to do because you voted for Donald Trump. Or you're a Republican. Do you really? Because this is where we're going. It's not just that I can't be friends with you anymore. You are now putting me into a category, that is more violent and extreme than any of that.
If I actually don't stand up now, and you actually believe that, let me ask you what's the next step?
What do you do with 50 percent of the population that you now believe is worse than the people that ran the gulags, throwing homosexuals off the buildings, torturing women, using them as slaves? What do you do with people that you say, are worse than those who are maintaining slave centers and internment camps. What do you do with those people? Because you certainly can't live next door to them.
See, people don't understand, we're on a staircase. And every step you take, is going down deeper and deeper and deeper. And darker and darker.
You have to ask yourself: Okay. If I believe this, what's next?
And if they say, oh, there's no slippery slope. You remind them, that you probably were the person that said, look, I don't have a problem with gay marriage. I'm not a homophobe. Okay? If they want to get married, they can get married. Fine. But let's not change the whole system because the next thing that will be happening, is we'll say that men are women and children and pedophiles, that's their own decision. And your neighbor most likely said, you're crazy. That would never happen.
That's the slippery slope. You cannot accept people who are saying this. Put them on record right now. I'm your friend or former friend.
You have to stand against this. Because they didn't just say Republicans. They said, Republicans and our neighbors. Back in a minute.
(music)
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(OUT AT 3:25PM)
STU: Hmm.
GLENN: We were just talking about the former -- the former director of the CIA, saying Republicans are the most violent extreme political ever -- ever covered.
STU: Dangerous. Nihilistic. This is --
GLENN: Most dangerous and nihilistic he's ever seen.
STU: You -- people say this a lot. And I think it's overstated. This is one of the most unbelievable moments that I can ever remember in politics.
GLENN: Okay. So I would say -- I started saying that this morning, when I started reading this. That this is the most unbelievable thing. We say this all the time. I think we need to say this on this one. This is the most dangerous thing I have ever seen.
STU: Yeah. Think of -- a CIA director.
This is a guy who saw footage of Assad's regime. Firing chemical weapons. At innocent people, and gassing children. This is a person who knows with all sort of detail, Boko Haram, kidnapping children.
GLENN: Al-Qaeda.
STU: Al-Qaeda. The Chinese government. The Venezuelan government. The cartels.
GLENN: ISIS.
STU: In Central America.
Think of the horrible things. North Korea.
GLENN: This guy has seen it all. That's why it's more dangerous. If Joy Reid would have said it, we would have rolled our eyes and said, of course she said that. It still would have been bad and dangerous. But this guy is --
STU: Yeah. Intimate knowledge of all this. And power.
GLENN: And power.
STU: It's one of the most -- the most dangerous moment I've ever seen. This man had this power. This is incredible.
GLENN: But we would never do that. Oh, wait a minute. We have the Japanese internment camps. The entire country said, don't enter the Japanese, until an event happened. Pearl Harbor. And then it didn't matter what the facts were. A demagogue president whipped them up into power, and we interned the Japanese.