From the transcript, emphasis added:
AMY GOODMAN: And so, here we are, moved into the sixth year of the war with Iraq, longer than the US was involved in World War II.
GORE VIDAL: Yes, incredible. That was such a huge operation on two great continents against two modern enemies. And we’re fighting little jungle wars for no reason, because we have a president who knows nothing about anything. He’s just blank. But he wants to show off: ‘I’m a wartime president! I’m a wartime president!’ He goes yap, yap, yap. He’s like a crazed terrier. And look where he got us.
I didn’t realize—I think I’ve always had a good idea about my native land, but I didn’t think that institutionally we were so easy to overthrow, because it was a coup d’etat, 9/11. The whole went crashing. And when we got rid of—when they got rid of Magna Carta, I thought, well, really, this wasn’t much of a republic to begin with.
It's true, this really wasn't much of a republic. The WWII Japanese internment camps were a giant clue. Then there was the erosion of civil liberties (piss in a cup or you don't get a job; piss in a cup or you can't sing in the school chorus; tanks with battering rams crashing into the houses of suspected drug dealers) caused by the War Against Drugs during the 70s and 80s. And then, voila, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, and kiss your habeas corpus goodbye.
No, the United States was never a strong republic.
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