Vanity Fair senior staff writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest column catalogs the sweeping impact that Donald Trump’s second term in office has had on American life and reckons with the profound damage the administration has done to the country’s institutions. Speaking to Mark Guiducci of Vanity Fair, Coates explores how Trump’s shameless behavior and flagrant disregard for norms have made him a “visionary” politician of this era. Why have much of the opposition and so many institutions failed to check the president’s power? “A heritage, a tradition, a legacy is not a thing that just kind of sits there and protects you. It has to be cared for. It has to be improved upon,” says Coates. “Maybe some of us got it in our head that these are not things that have to be fought for.” When it comes to the fight for the future, Coates wonders if Trump’s ability to see new political possibilities can be repurposed by other politicians and movements, like that of the Democratic Socialists of America. “You don’t have to root your imagination in the darkest fears, the rage, in the resentments of Americans,” he says. “You can perhaps root them somewhere else.”
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Director of Photography: Paola Oliveros
Editor: Sam Swanson
Talent: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Host: Mark Guiducci
Senior Producer: Michele O’Brien
VP, Global Audio: Steven Valentino
VP, Global Content Strategy: Daniel Kile
Executive Director, Video: Ella Ruffel
Production Manager: Peyton Hayes
Production Coordinator: Rose Kershner
Gaffer: David Djaco
Audio Engineer: Pran Bandi
Researcher: Alex DElia
Fact-Checker: Alex DElia
Composer: John DeLore ; Allison Leyton-Brown
Post Audio: Pran Bandi
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0:00 Writer vs. intellectual
2:32 Trump’s unique power
7:12 Institutional accountability
12:08 Lessons for the future
17:34 Journalism and movements
20:01 Reframing political vision
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