A Geek History of Time - Episode 245 - On-Screen Hatfield & McCoy Depictions Part VI

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

I'm saying that we were getting to the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them. Because there were way too many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story art. Where should I be? Or there's beast. I should step over here.

Uh, yeah. At some point, at some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you like and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look. And are swiftly and brutally put down by the minute men who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good, Amy. And I'm also glad that I got your name right this time.

I apologize for that one TikTok video. Men of this generation wound up serving a whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff. Oh yeah. And actually in his case, it was pre-war, but, but you know, I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. Fuck it. 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect and are the two real world.

My name is Ed Raylock, I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. I'm also the father of a five year old boy. And as I am sitting out here on my back patio to record this evening, I'm noticing for the first time in a long while just exactly how much stuff how much stuff my son has. And like one of the, one of the things I have struggled with since becoming a dad is being worried about whether I will be able to or if I am succeeding at providing for my son all of the things that I want him to have. And I'm sure you know being a father yourself, there are those moments where you really, you really wonder or you really feel like you're just not doing it. Like, like you, you feel like it's not, you know, it's not working the way you wanted to, you know. And now I'm actually sitting out here looking at all of this stuff.

And I'm like, you know what? As far as material side of things, which I worry about, we're doing okay, because oh my Lord, this boy has so much stuff. So, you know, I feel pretty good about providing for my son emotionally. I feel, you know, fine about, you know, not fine. I spend less time worrying about his emotional needs because I work very hard at that. But I always feel a little inadequate. And I don't know what it's rooted in. But yeah, anyway, my son has so much stuff, like Holy cow.

And yeah, that's just that's kind of what has struck me sitting out here. Um, while we've only been talking, how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in Northern California. Um, and today, uh, I was helping my son, uh, to mince garlic. I'm the sous chef when he chefs. Um, okay. And we have a garlic mincer, which is, you know, a hand pressed one, right? Right. Okay. My son does have cerebral palsy. So gripping things is harder for him. He has low, low tone, essentially, and hypertenicity. So there is tight, but weakened. So that's just a reality that he has to deal with. weakened. So that's just a reality that he has to deal with. Okay. And so for him, the mechanics of squeezing these things together don't necessarily make sense.

So he was, so it's a, you put it in the crook of your hand and you just squeeze it against your hand pad, right? And you're squeezing boom, you've got your garlic mints. He was using thumb and forefinger. And I was like, no, no, you've got to use all your hand. And so he did thumb and his forefingers. And I was like, no, no, you gotta use all your hand. And so he did thumb and his forefingers. And I was like, no, no, no, look. And I took it and I grabbed it.

And I said, now try like that. And I showed him. So he does, and he's having a hard time. He said, use both hands. And so he holds them both together. And I'm like, no, put these hands behind and hold it and basically, like in a sword position. And he's trying and then

he slides his fingers out so it looks more like he's playing a clarinet again. And I said, do it like you're choking a snake. And so he tries and he still struggles, but it kind of has some success. And then he asks, he's like, have you choked a snake before? And I said, I choked a snake all the time, son. That's why there's only two of you. And it takes them a couple of seconds. How venomous was the look your daughter gave you? She, no, when I make like jokes like that, she can't help but like bark out laughing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Those aren't the ones that she elbows me for.

Oh, it's more of like, oh God. You know, like, so and William is like, he starts laughing really hard too. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Right. I can, I can hear my wife shrieking at me for making like in another, I don't know, four or five years. Yeah. And the temptation strikes to make a jump like that front of my son. I can hear my life shrieking.

Oh, you know, oh, my God. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Well, you know, that would, that would not, they would, like, I can think it. And I can, I can tell her later. Right. I can, I can go to her and go like, well, you know, I could tell it. And but like, that would, that would not.

I could hear her voice right now. You better not. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I could hear her voice right now, you better not. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah, I, I, I, I, I would like to say that this is the one of the silver linings to being a single parent, but I don't think there's a person alive who

knows me who thinks that that would have stayed my hand. Yeah, no, everybody. Yeah. I, I could hear, I could hear producer George audibly shaking his head like, yep. So, uh, well, that'll be the high point emotionally of the show. You ready to dive into some really depressing murder? Oh, fuck. I realize that we are finally doing what all successful podcasts have done. And that is doing true crime. Oh, I know. Wow. I know. I'm also disappointed in us. You're not wrong. Um, yeah. And yeah, I feel Toddry. Yeah. Um, in, in a way, and here's the deal. This is the really funny part. The fact that we both have that reaction to that realization, mm-hmm. Just proves what a couple of pointy headed academics wear. Well, and why this

will never be a successful podcast? Yeah, why we're just not going to make money off of this thing. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, when're just not going to make money off of this thing? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So all right. When last I left you, there's a straight to DVD movie in 2007. And it was a horror movie, a horror movie. Now here's, here's the interesting thing. Sure. And I've been, I've been thinking about this because, because the fact that,

that that was a horror movie about a forest demon named Bumpkinhead. Right. Like you do. Like you do. But you know, these historical events took place in Appalachia, which I'm just going to say basically is no shit, the spookiest part of the United States. Oh, yeah. Like, like Appalachia and the middle of the deserts of the Southwest, I would, I would argue, probably have the, the reputations for being no kidding, like that's where all the hinky shit happens, right? Sure.

You know, if you look at internet culture, it's like, oh, yeah, no, if you, and I don't even remember what it was, I was reading earlier today, but on a thread on the internet, somebody was saying, oh, yeah, no, I live in Appalachia. And no, the kids don't get to play outside until dark. Like no, it just does not happen. You know, you, you be inside before the sun sets. Because spooky shit, right? Right.

Um, and, uh, so it kind of makes sense that at some point, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about it. I'm kind of amazed that it took as long as it did. Hmm. Further, I have field McQuayfield to become the backdrop for a horror film, simply because so much of the folklore from that part of the country has this, like as an amateur historian,

folkloreist anthropology type person, like this fascinating ghost you know, ghost spirit, spook, lore that is this amazing blend of what you get when you have Irish and Scotch Irish immigrants moving into the same area and intermarrying with freed African, you know, former slaves. Sure. Who bring each bring their own very rich full floor with them and it turns into what there is now. And so, and don't forget the people who already lived there. Yes. And, and the Lord of the Native American, yes, the Aboriginal folks there, the Native Americans living there. You know, and like, of course, it became the backdrop for horror movie. Why didn't it happen sooner? Well, and I would think topographically there are some things

that play here too. You have lots of rivers, you have lots of forests, and you have a fuck ton of caves. Like you've got all those things happening. And then you have people who are fairly unaccountable to society living in the spaces between towns. Yeah. So you've got that and you've got wilderness, you've got creatures. I just realized that with my adding in the Native American folk, indigenous peoples to that area, we just described the three basic ethnic components that made up the Malungian people who live out of that area. I don't know much about Malungian folk, but dark hair, tawny skin, bright blue eyes, thicker lips, broader noses.

It's because white supremacists are hell of a drug, if you were a mullungin, you would claim whiteness as much as you possibly could. And you would fear them attracting you into being not white or being indigenous or being black. It is rumored that, in fact, Babe Ruth, if you look at his features, was of Mollungin descent. It is also possible that Warren Harding and Abraham Lincoln both had Mollungin descent. There was a whole dive I did actually on that ethnic group, a few years back actually. But it was just kind of interesting to see who gets to be white, who gets to be American, who gets to be.

Yeah, yeah. And having him play out literally in human beings. If you just look up a picture of mullungen folks, you'll see precisely what I'm talking about. And it looks like several people that held high office who came from that area. But yes, you do have lots of caves and shit. And I wonder if that's also not true for the Southwest. I mean, you had a lot of escarpments and caves and stuff like that. Yeah. And a lot of a lot of empty space and a lot of places where you're living,

you and your family are living miles away from the nearest person that you know lives there. Right, right. And nature does weird shit. Yeah. And so do people on accountable to other people. Yeah, there's a true. Yeah. And speaking of the Americans, Southwest, you also have a place where freed black people could flee to, where destitute white people could flee to, and where natural resources were extracted at a very high degree. So both these places have a lot of these things in common. It just depends on the humidity you want, you know, the

erudity. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. There's a podcast called, Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. There's a podcast called, oh, what is it? I think it's monsters of Appalachia or What is it? It's Oh God old gods of Appalachia. That's what it is. Oh, yeah, Gabriel Cruz and I were talking about it. He really likes it And it's it's essentially like deep deep horror like Kathuluthulhu type horror, but appellation. Oh wow. Yeah, that it worked. So I recommend that to people later. All right. Cool. Yeah. So anyway, 2007, you have pumpkin head. So you know, and again, you brought up very specifically West African ghost stories, you know, the several traditions that lead to the Loa pantheon.

And that's if that's a term that could apply to it. I think as a as a form of shorthand painting with a broad brush, it's broad brush. It's pantheon. You know, yeah, kind of, yeah. But you you have, you know, DeHomi traditions, you have, you know, a lot of West African traditions being forwarded over and then colliding with fake culture amongst the Scotts Irish. So yeah, and then of course, with the animism and the ancestor reverence that that pervaded the indigenous folk who lived in that area.

So yeah, that makes sense, makes a lot of sense. But in 2012, we finally get to really the mini series that got me thinking about this, Hatfields and McCoy's and with Amperson and, right? Yeah. Kevin Costner's unwitting audition for Yellowstone. Yes, yes, where he starts playing old grizzled shitty guys or patriarchy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really the history channels last gasping attempted anything historical because by this point, UFO Nazi archaeology and abandoned loot shows were taking over. Yeah. In April of 2011, Barack Obama announced that he would run for a second term as president. And in fact, there were no serious challenges on the Democratic side with only seven states

fielding any other possible names. So if you've ever thought in the last six years that, wow, it's really weird that they're not even going to have a primary on one side. You had de facto that several other times when there have been other people on, you know, who are going for a second term. Now, I say de facto that because I do think it does matter that you still have a primary system within a party and a two party duopoly. But, anyway, no, no, there are real names. By April of 2012, he had secured the delegate majority needed for his party for him to run for president under their banner. This was unsurprising, of course. Barack Obama

had courted emerging groups of voters too. He didn't campaign very much for this so-called independent vote. So he actually is making it a parcher from the Clintonian triangulation. His campaign hired a tech industry folks rather than political folks. In short, he ran the first modern campaign and successful campaign, capitalizing on what he'd already done to win the first one. He was the first to do things in his 2008 campaign. And I covered a lot of that in the V series.

So I'm not going to be labor at the point. He also Obama used nearly double what Mitt Romney, his main opponent on the Republican side, had used in June of 2012 alone. And it's that campaign, that campaign, the Romney campaign, the Romney effort, the Republican race to see who would get to lose to Obama. I think that's the real secret where that tells us why this series existed at this time. Really? Oh, yes. I think it's the Republican campaign. Ron Paul, Buddy Romerer and Rick Santorum of the WWF and Santorims combined for roughly 1.5% of what Mitt Romney used in June of 2012. And so when you say when you say you, you talked about the amount of money spent?

Yes, money spent as well as staffers, staffers efforts on the internet. Okay. But largely, I'm speaking in money, like we're going to simplify, yes, money. It was obvious that both of both Romney and Obama from the quality of their campaigns and from the tone that they took quality of their campaigns and from the tone that they took from the debates that they were the front runners. Also, Newt Gingrich was in those debates with Romney, Roma, Centorum, and Paul, despite the money issue, while Roma actually didn't make it into the debates, largely because he couldn't get the 5% from multiple national polls that were needed to get to the front to the stage. So as the field was shrinking, Romney took, or not Romney, uh, Gingrich took over Romer. Romer raised more money. No, Gingrich got more press. Okay, well, because Gingrich was

was a name. Yes, the people recognized. Yes. Whereas, Roamer, who's who's this Schmuck? Like, yeah, in fact, when I when I started doing this research, to kind of look into this, I'd forgotten about Roamer. I had forgotten about Roamer. Yeah. And and talking about him right now, I remember, I vaguely remember the name, but I couldn't put a face to it. I can't tell you what state he was from even. Yeah. Okay. All right. So don't feel bad.

So a lot of these debates on the Republican side featured Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum going after Newt Gingrich for being a part of the government. Right. Because your your your your your your your run. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah.

You're running. You're running for the most important elected office in the government. And you're going to do that by trying to vilify anybody who's served in government because government is bad. Well, and again, Santorum, if I recall correctly, is a senator from Pennsylvania. Yes. And Romney had been the governor of Massachusetts.

Yeah. But it's Gingrich, who's big government. Gingrich, who's big government. It's not even you can't even say, oh, well, he held federal office because I'm pretty sure Santorum was a center. Yeah, but he was. Yeah, he was. No.

And also, you know, his name got intentionally, by an engineered poll, got turned into slang for a sexual, not act, but by product, yeah. Yeah. That's neither here nor there. He was the third highest ranking Republican Senator in his final term. He re what? Yes. Yes. Wow. Yeah. And yet, this is after Gingrich for being a Gingrich, Gingrich who famously was, I mean, you know, the petulant man, baby, who, who

the penulent man, baby, who, who shut the government down because, you know, he didn't get enough attention from the president at the time. Like, come on. Like this is the guy you're going to call big guy. So they're attacking him. It's face. Meanwhile, Gingrich in the same debates is attacking the press for protecting Obama by asking Gingrich about how shitty he'd been to his dying wife and his other wife when they were asking him questions about his character. Um, famously, he got cheered roundly for that. But yeah. So his, his defense against like, Hey, you were really shitty to your wife while she

was dying and you were shitty to your next wife, too. Do you think that since presidential candidates should have some form of character? Do you think that's a problem? Would you like to respond to that? He said, no, I wouldn't. And I think it's a shame that you're protecting Obama by attacking me this way and everybody sees it. And he got massively cheered by the audience. That is Trump meets Ubu Roy level nonsense. Well, I genuinely think that this campaign paved the way for Trump is because gang rage. I can believe that the the the bar was movable. You could jump on it. You can you could reach up and tug it down. Yeah, hard. Yeah. So, but like did did anybody like beg the quitter ask the question he was begging, like, how is that defending Obama? No,

because he was going for sound bites because he was trying to get his name cue up so he could sell more books, because that's really why people run for president. Trump famously did not expect to win. Like, if you read the books about the campaign, he was trying to lose so that he could, but trying to lose closely so that he could then create his own network to show. Oh yeah, it was all a money grab. It was all a grab. And yeah, yeah. And and if you, and if you look at him. I know the hell was the speaker of the house that was showing him around. Banner? I can, uh, no, no, it was after Banner.

Um, Ryan. Yeah, Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan. Yeah. When Paul Ryan was showing him around, you know, during the transition and And Trump just has this look on his face like, what the fuck am I doing here? Oh, Melania famously cried when he won. Yeah. Yeah. So, oh my god. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, they're, they're Ron Paul, another federally elected legislator who also is going after everyone for being hawkish. At least he had a leg to stand on there. Um, he also went after Mitt Romney

for being a corporate shell, which is fair. But then he also went after most folks for being part of the big government. Again, Ron Paul, I the representative or senator from Texas. Yeah. So Texas or Tennessee? He was from Texas. Rand Paul is Rand Paul. Rand Paul. Sorry. Rand Paul. We can tuck you. I'm sorry. Yeah, I can tuck you. Right. Okay. Sorry. So in the final two debates, it really turns into everybody knows it's Romney versus Gingrich. Romney is the business successful polite and predatory conservative. And Gingrich is the legislative fire brand who changed the way that American governed because of his efforts to secure power. And he was a mean and nasty shit heel to

both of his spouses and coworkers alike. And nobody liked but many who voted for him appreciated because he was more upfront with his agreement at a black man being president. That's lovely individuals. Yeah. at a black man being president. That's lovely individuals. Yeah, both men were attacking each other and then attacking Obama. So just this is these are the two guys that are vying for the ticket to go go fight in Washington. The business successful polite but predatory guy and the other guy who's an asshole verbally and in all other ways.

Now, these fit with certain mythologies that people have. Anyway, Gingrich opened the Tampa debate by defending his record as speaker of the house. He repeated a prior claim that he had made before that said, quote, when I was speaker, we had four consecutive balance budgets. I checked the fact checking on that. Two of those balance budgets occurred after he left office.

Domney went on the attack immediately in the early January debate in Tampa, disgracing Gingrich for his record, claiming that, quote, at the end of four years, he had to resign in disgrace. It is more complex than that, but broad brushes and all. So Gingrich then tried to defend his work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, since this was January of 2012, those two entities certainly drew a lot of criticism for how badly they'd helped fuck up the housing market. Newt Gingrich sought to downplay his work for Freddie Mac, which was a government-chartered mortgage company by saying it was a government-sponsored enterprise just like credit unions

and rural electric cooperatives. However, the list of government-sponsored enterprises that he worked with was vanishingly small and it did not include credit unions or rural electric co-ops. So while he's claiming their legitimacy, he didn't work with them. You didn't know you worked, you worked with this one, which is the shithead shelf. Yeah. It would be like us saying that we have a podcast, which is kind of like radio, like what you would hear on Howard Stern. That doesn't mean that we are terrestrial radio or satellite radio or successful

in the way that it's successful, like making money. Yeah. Yeah. So housing had tanked by all measures in 2009, then deer being April of 2009. In fact, that was largely what helped Obama across the finish line in the first time that he ran, which was the repudiation of the government and the party that had been in charge in the last half of the 2000s. By January of 2012, the housing market was still bouncing quite a bit, but overall the trend was climbing back up. It was still down one up to down one up to kind of thing, but it was climbing. So any connection to housing for a politician running for office in 2012, especially prior

to the long climb up that would still be a couple of years out, was the bog of stench kind of issue. Now, if you add to that, Romney's calling out of Newt Gingrich for lobbying on behalf of Freddie Mac, or Freddie May, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Newt Gingrich, of course, had to get nasty in order to score some points back. And this continued late into the January debate in Jacksonville. And by the time they got to Mesa, Arizona, the debates were largely Romney polishing his image and Gingrich trying to keep the faith of his supporters by being a bigger prick. Wow.

I wonder what that resages. Mm hmm. I feel for shadowing here a bit, a bit. Now a fun fact, newsmax media was going to sponsor a debate in December 29th of 2011 in Des Moines, Iowa. Guess who the moderator was supposed to be? Not on Trump. Yes, Donald Trump.

Fuck you. What? Yep. Oh, shit. Really? Yeah. Now, I say supposed to because it didn't happen. Yeah.

In fact, the only candidates who accepted the invitation to participate were Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Wow. To put that in context, Michelle Bachman refused. Michelle Bachman, the prototype of the gal from Denver. What's her name? God damn it. I know. I forgot her name too. Yeah. Lid in out of my head. Thank God. Yeah. The one who claims we related to to Stan Lane. Yeah. Lauren Bober. Yeah. Bober. How do you know? So you think yeah, Bober. Yeah. Crazy. I'd brew net fire brand who hates black people, but makes it about the American people.

Oh, allegedly. So Rines Prebus, who had been the head of the RNC, he said that Donald Trump as a moderator would be, quote, problematic. And quote, what a guy knew in rights, mm-hmm says something like that. Mm-hmm. That means something. It does. And like, dude, yeah. Uh, I don't know if you know this, uh, but he was also the white house chief of staff under uh, Donald Trump. I know. of the White House chief of staff under Donald Trump. I know.

I know because because he went from problematic to, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, I'll take your money. All of these, all of these assholes, every single one of them. The only, there are only a few Republican leading lights, who get any credit for consistency at all. Yeah. Um, Romney is one of them. Yes. Like Trump is a joke. He doesn't belong here. He's dangerous and bullshit. a joke. He doesn't belong here. He's dangerous and bullshit. Like all the rest of them, all the rest of them. But even he has to have dinner with him. Remember, yes, he gets the ring, and then Trump embarrassed him by being like, no, I'm not going to have that guy on my staff at all. Yeah. And I dare say Romney thought that he was going to be the adult in the room.

say Romney thought that he was going to be the adult in the room. Yeah. But still. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah. And again, you could say McCain also did that too. He stood on principle. But another principle McCain stood on was swearing that if Hillary Clinton got elected the first day, they would impeach her. So yeah, even the people who stand on principle when it comes to Donald Trump That's the best thing we can say about them sometimes and that's a real low bar Well as as Gingrich proved you can grab that fucker and just yank it down Do the opposite of salmon watch level. Yeah. Yeah, You could pull it down to where you can't see it. Yeah.

So, okay. So, Gingrich and Santorum accepted, Bachman refused. Previs said what he said. Ron Paul's campaign delivered a refusal statement, actually, said, quote, Mr. Trump's participation will contribute to an unwanted circus like atmosphere. Again, say what you will about Ron Paul. He does have an image that he maintains of being principled. I don't think he honestly keeps that image, but I get closer than most, which again, low bar.

John Huntsman's campaign followed up. And I had to think John who, but John Huntsman. Yeah, representative. I think so. Yeah. He followed up and he says, we have declined to participate in the quote presidential apprentice debate with the Donald. Remember Donald Trump called himself the Donald for a while? Wow. So now I'm trying to remember. Mm hmm. This is in, is this is in 2012 versus 2011. This is the 2012. Okay. Yeah. Huntsman was a governor of Utah. That's what it was.

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So. So what we're, so this is, this is 2012. Technically, it's 2011 December, December, was when this was booked for. So all these guys are refusing in the beginning of December. Now when was it that Obama famously embarrassed Trump at the rest club earlier in 2011? Okay. Okay. So that that establishes the timeline and why Donald Trump like gave a shit. Yeah. Got it. All right. Now Donald Trump never wanted to take such well-founded criticism said, quote, few people take Ron Paul seriously and many of his views and presentation make him a clown like candidate. I am glad he and John Huntsman, who has been in who has inconsequential poll numbers, or a chance of winning, will not be attending the debate and wasting the time of the viewers who are trying very hard

to make a very important decision. You know, even even when it's your voice delivering that, still hear it in the, the cadence of everything and the tone of everything just makes me want to reach through the internet and slap somebody. Rick Santorum, one other way from Ron Paulder John Huntsman, he said, quote, I'm not defending new Matt Newsmax's decision to put Donald Trump in there. If you look at the debate, where Jim Kramer is screaming at people, maybe Donald will surprise us both. And what he was referencing was Jim Kramer, uh, in the November Auburn Hills Michigan debate that CNBC

hosted, where eight people were debating and talking over each other and wouldn't answer questions. It's also famously the one where Rick Perry couldn't remember which three talk departments he promised to abolish, one of which he began in charge of. Also Jim Kramer wasn't moderating that debate though. That was John Harwood and Maria Barry Toma, but do go on, Mr. Santorum. It's a moot points since Trump himself pulled out as moderator on December 13, 2011. All right. All right.

So you've got a Republican primary field that is just finishing up in February of 2012, suffering from something called the Gary Johnson rule, which was a slate magazine's attempt to explain how the debate rules seem to have been specifically constructed to keep him out and more broadly to focus instead on only eight acceptable establishment endorse candidates and no outsiders. So that's all going on. Okay. Meanwhile, over on the history channel, the history channel, uh, which it started in the 1990s and came onto the cable field in 95.

History documentaries were all over the place. My junior high school, no, I wasn't in junior high. I was a junior in high school, pardon me. My junior in high school heart was all sorts of happy. And of course, this came with some limitations. They didn't have the rights to say PBS American experience documentaries or other such things. But the documentaries they did have the rights to were pretty solid, I would say. But they were also very world war two focused. And at first, this wasn't bad from a marketing perspective, consider who had access to cable

during the day in 1995. But eventually, they get dubbed the Hitler channel because of the programming willingness to cater to its audience. And after a solid decade of this, they began to expand their programming to things like modern marvels of engineering, the history of machines, lots of tech type stuff. And I certainly skewed away from that because I've never really big bit been big into that. But every once in a while, it would be like, oh, cool. That's what the Bismarck looks like. Now, by 2008, the history channel leaned hard into rebranding themselves just as quote history.

So not the history channel, just history. History. Yeah. While skewing away from history at the same time, it's kind of like when we decided to start calling him the Secretary of Defense instead of the instead of Secretary of War. Yeah, right at the time we stopped ever fighting a defensive war. Yeah, that's when we started not declaring war, but certainly not paying defense. Yeah, same thing. So they're rebranding themselves. They're expanding into mythology, which, okay, I can dig,

which also leads to UFOs and aliens and possibly disasters, the history of superstitions. Especially as 2012 drew closer. I started talking about secret societies, alternate history, dinosaurs, nature, and that's because the learning channel got into the dwarf throwing channel. This discovery channel kind of fell away from animals and more important myth busters all day every day. Yeah. True. So, um, so yeah, uh, it, you know, they're, they're getting into true crime over on history. Uh, this rebranding coincided with the Democratic primary contest of 2008 heating up, by the way, from January, 2008 through March of 2008, 51 of the 80 different caucuses, primaries and state conventions were held deciding between Obama and Clinton, with neither

getting any kind of a runaway victory at any stage of the campaign by that point. And what was wild to me was that history was not really using this time to bring out documentaries about primaries or elections, or any of the truly historical things that were happening for the Democratic ticket. But since the advent of the Osborne's the simple life, Hogan knows best and so on, the shift away from produced and scripted documentaries had already been keening history toward a more reality based product and away from a history based product. And that tickles me to no end because like I said, it's when

Secretary of War turns to Secretary of Defense, right? And then they're claiming we're defen- we're fighting for defense by declaring these wars, but they're not wars. So very similar. If I recall correctly, of Secretary of War was a man named Kenneth Royal. So he was our final Secretary of War. All right. He was an asshole. Uh, okay.

I mean, you know, look at the job. Yeah. But I mean, there's other people who are like, yeah, war is fucking terrible. Let's get this done with, right? All right. But he did the wrong thing for the right reason. And then he did the wrong thing for the wrong reason. He argued for the defense of Nazi spies and saboteurs to be carried out in civilian court. I actually think his reasoning was right here despite the fact that they're Nazis because, but he was saying, no, we don't do secret trials. Even if the president orders secret trials, that's not okay. And he even wrote a note to Roosevelt to tell him to reconsider and listed his

reasons. So again, I think he did the wrong thing for the right reason. Okay. He was overruled at every level. And I say this is the wrong thing because Nazis don't get a defense because they're Nazis. But again, being anti-secret trial, I could understand that part. The other time at the end of his career for which he lost his job as Secretary of War is that he refused to implement executive order 9981. Do you remember which one that was?

Integration in the armed forces? Yes, sir. Okay. He also refused to let the documentary on Nuremberg see the light of day because it conflicted with American policy at the time, which is deeply disturbing. That's twice he's come out kind of standing for Nazis. Yeah. And again, I think the context in which he stood for them. Again, I disagree with him standing for Nazis in any way, but okay, cool. Yeah, I get your anti like I will I will let you hold a sign saying no secret treat or no secret

trials. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, the second you start shouting that you know, these Nazis deserve anything approaching civility. Yeah. I'm going to turn my side on you. Okay. Fair. So history was beginning to focus on a more non-historical content around this time, around 2008. Ice Road truckers. You might remember. I do. Was that that early? Yeah. Axe man. And pond stars were all garnering for attention and criticism for the network. Forbes ran articles criticizing it for ancient aliens and other pseudo historical and pseudo scientific sensationalism. And this would continue for years and history seemed to continue with its programming choices. And really, I think the branding and the programming being in conflict with each other was the

problem. If they changed their name to something else, and I don't think it would have been a problem, you know, like we kind of go back to the the the Hogan trials, right? Yeah. People couldn't get the idea of K-fabe. Yeah. And the result was they were very confused that Hulk Hogan had a 10 inch penis, but Terry Balea, who was on the stand talking about being Hulk Hogan, did not have a 10 inch penis. So, if they changed their name, something else wouldn't have been a problem, but this is also around the time

that they began to produce their own video game content. Trying to get in on that sweet, sweet video game money. I counted 10 produced that were produced from 2006 to 2007. Four of them were first-person shooters. Two of them were Civil War first-person shooters. One was a World War Two and one was a Vietnam-based first-person shooter. There was World War One dogfight game. There was one real-time strategy civilization type game based in Egypt and one episodic runner video game based on ice road truckers and three real time tactical strategy games, one of which or one or two of which were civil war. lazy because documentaries are not objective. They're simply not objective. The thing that you choose to put in front of us is making an editorial choice, right? Yeah. But because the early days of the history channel were saturated with black and white, grainy footage documentaries, this carried

the idea of objectivity to the audience about the various subjects of the documentaries. Right. So it's, it's sold. It's a piece of history. Therefore, it must be accurate. It must be objective. I can remember one that was a, a propaganda film on the Battle of Britain that they showed. And I'm like, oh, this is a great propaganda film on the Battle of Britain.

It's told from the British perspective, I'm in favor of the British when it came to the Battle of Britain. But it's clearly propaganda. Yeah. Yeah. So the audience was like, okay, cool, these are documentaries and these are objective. And it kind of trained us to think that black and white footage made an objective documentary. Okay. Yeah. And I think people accepted those as uninterrogated facts. And so many of the reactions to history showing shows about dwarf hoarding UFO hunting grandchildren of Nazi inventors who were seeking.matrix printed ASCII erotic of Mesoamerican temple blueprints were people telling on themselves for not knowing how documentaries work in the first place. were people telling on themselves for not knowing how documentaries work in the first place?

You know, the funny thing is that whole combination of things you just mentioned would be word salad in any other context. Very true. But like, no, I could follow that whole chain. Yeah. Yeah. that whole chain. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Chuck Grassley, I think you should look himself in the mirror with this. Anyway, history is an unfortunately named network that changed with the times and forgot to rebrand itself successfully. And I don't mind in network changing with the times. I do mind it holding on to legitimacy that it once had. So we get to May of 2012. History released its first scripted drama. Now in America, because it actually had released the Kennedy scripted drama in international markets. Yes, really? Yeah. Okay. He didn't get to see that. Why not? I don't know. I could not hunt down why that was. I think it might just have to do with the fact that the Kennedy family has more impact here than it has.

Okay. Then it has Okay, okay So the Hatfields and McCoy's come out in May of 2012 It was a star-studded well-produced and seemed to Ken a well-produced affair that seemed to Ken a lot closer to the actual history of what happened Though tons of compression of events and characters happened as well as a lot of speculation on motives that ran throughout it. But it definitely was a genuine effort at making a good series, one that was compelling to watch. So it was not the ABC 1975 one.

Oh my god. It was not our hospitality. It was nothing like what we'd seen on TV. It was not Rosanna McCoy. It definitely painted the main villain as being Perry Klein, by the way. They kind of represented him as a, have you seen the series, by the way? I have actually, when, when my wife and I And when my wife and I first started dating at one point, when one of the first times that I stayed over, I assume stayed over. Gotcha. One of the first times that I stayed over her place, we watched it.

We sat down and that was our Netflix. As it were. And she had already seen it. She had it on, I think it was on DVD. And the first time Perry Klein showed up, yeah. The first time Perry Klein showed up on screen, she said, oh, this guy, this guy is a shits derer right here. Yes. It was the way that it was a smash curl. I mean, it was very competitive, and it was the, the like nasal smoothness of his voice and his out of place accent, it sounded more Georgian. Yeah, it was, it was a remarkable bit. Yeah. Of, of characterization. Yeah. They agree. I agree. Um, so he's this true shicer of a lawyer for folks who have seen it, right? Oh, yeah. And he's trying to defraud the very cany hat fields, like almost immediately. And then he's playing

on an intransigent McCoy, uh, who couldn't let go of his anger at devilance hat fields for betraying their oath to the Confederacy because the oath mattered. His devilance, right. Yeah. You know, he abandoned his post. Yeah. Um, and he did so to come back home and further his own plans, right, which included, um, you know, timber land and stuff like that. Meanwhile, Perry Klein is playing on McCoy to further his own plans, uh, which is to marry, uh, Rosanna McCoy, who was many years his younger and his semi-close cousin according to the series. Right.

Yeah. In reality, the only relation I could actually find that was Perry Klein's sister Martha, who married Randolph's brother Asa Harmon along with three of his other siblings who married McCoy's and his own daughter who would end up marrying a Hatfield Yeah The series also painted Tolbert McCoy is a very hot-headed man unrelenting and illogical illogical the most of the time with that kind of charisma that bullies people into coming along with him It portrayed Ellison Hatfield as the nicest of the Hatfield brothers, the strongest physically and the most willing to make peace.

So his death was all the more shocking and dramatic when he was specifically forbidding good liars and another relative from getting in the brawl, which turned naifee out of their view while Ellison was fighting off two other McCoy sons and ended with his being shot in an unreasonable escalation. Nancy McCoy was portrayed as the scheming and vindictive type, the kind of carving out the archetype of the Ozark witch that we saw elsewhere. She had a heart filled with hate and her sexual craving of bad Frank Phillips was primal and driven by his murder of Hatfields. Jenna Malone did a

phenomenal job. Yeah, no, everybody involved in that act of the hell out of it. Oh, yeah. There's not a single person. The only person I would say that was in any way wouldn't was Rosanna McCoy. And I think that came down to bad directing quite honestly. And I would agree. I would agree. And Bill Paxton actually succeeds in making Randall McCoy sympathetic. Very. Like, like, like the pathos is strong with this one. Yeah. Yeah. Bad Frank Phillips was portrayed as this CD and ambitious, ruthless man, whom Randall McCoy despised because he was in it only for the money. There was no honor in what he was doing.

Randall McCoy himself, by the way, Randall is short for Randolph, but everybody turned Randall into Randall. But Randall McCoy, like I said, above was in Transigent, but he was deeply moral and he just kept getting bad break after bad break. To the point where he externalizes his frustrations into a borderlander clanders disdain for anyone who doesn't measure up to his morality and sense of duty. The avatar of that, of course, being both Rosanna and Devil Ants Hatfield. Devil Ants was the reluctant and unwavering protagonist

and seconded by Cap who was also kind of wooden as characters go, to be honest. Yeah. He didn't do much other than the right thing, you know. Uncle Jim was a rabid dog who was only only tender to a dog. And he spent most of the time being a badass bully who was capable of tremendous violence and trying to always steer things toward that violence. Tom Baringer just did an amazing job with that. And then of course, there's John C. Rosanna. She was seduced and heartbroken, having been her father's favorite. Now she's dead to him, like to the point where he's screaming as he's like throwing her hope chest into the ground that he dug a pit in. And I think he burned it. I don't remember. Because the fire, no, because it was raining. And he's just, you know, broken up about the fact that she's a virginity to Johnson.

So, yeah, the relationship between Randall's inability to abide by her sleeping with Johnson and her grief over his repudiation was almost as painful as Johnson's inability to fit into his own family. And of course, he followed his dick everywhere instead. Um, yeah. The portrayal of John C as a complete hymnbo. Well, like just, just a complete, he's, is, is like, you you know at the same time like there's a real like he Absolutely plays it so well that actor plays it so well that he is a fish out of water in his family

He he doesn't abide by these these feuds. He just doesn't get it. He's got too much love and is dick to have that much hate in his heart Yeah, yeah, so he has a wonderful monologue about that. Actually, he talks about how despite being a Hatfield, he just couldn't bring himself to hate like the rest of his family could. And he spoke regularly to Rosanna about this. And then later to Nancy about moving, moving specifically to Oregon. The whole series shows his naivete, and it's just painful because he kind of highlights how ridiculous a feud is for humans

who are just trying to eek out a living. Yeah. Now, a fun fact is that one of the three producers, a guy named Darryl Fettie, had dated a Caroline McCoy in the 1970ss and he became infatuated with her family's feud. Okay. Which is a little weird, to be honest. A little weird. But he does this to the point where he played Tolbert McCoy in the Jack Palin's version. Oh wow. Okay. Cool. And when Kevin Costner said, yeah, we'll let you help produce. It actually helps him realize a dream. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Now critically and commercially

this movie or this TV series was a huge success. It became the highest rated basic cable series ever. In fact, the only thing that trumped it on cable was a 1993 edition of Larry King Live that featured Al Gore and Ross Perot debating NAFTA. Wow. That drew more than 16 million viewers. I'm, I'm amazed number one that this thing was, was that miniseries was in fact that big a deal. And that the only thing bigger than it was something that walkie. That was exactly my thought too.

Like wow, like considering how many people had cable in 93 and you still got 16 million people viewing a debate between the vice president and a also ran for president. A year after the presidency has been decided is just something. So yeah, we can have we can have an episode just on that. Yeah, like I nominate you. I put it enough suffering. Yeah. Yes. You have. There's no no argument for me. So so people ate this shit up. It leading into the summer of the Republican National Convention, which was held late in August in Tampa, Florida, with the motto, a better future.

Like really? That was what you could come up with. Yeah. Yeah, okay. In fact, the theme of the the the R&C was such that they were directly trying to marshal their voters and constituents to repudiate Barack Obama as president. They didn't say four years of a black man as president enough, but it was pretty close. Each day of the convention had its own theme. Monday was we can do better themed. Tuesday was we built it. Wednesdays was we can change it. And Thursdays was we believe in America. Yeah, okay. Now, all of this was while they were bolstering the SWAT and regular police in Tampa, the federal

government gave a grant of $50 million to Tampa to ensure that there was no violence from the people that directed it or no violence from the people that would direct it toward the RNC. I'm going to say that again, the federal government gave a grant of $50 million to the city of Tampa, an American city, people largely by people, Americans who live in Tampa, Florida, to ensure that there was no violence from those people, be they tampons or others who traveled to make trouble, directed at the RNC. trouble directed at the RNC.

Yeah, I am. I, I feel like there's some very, very selective, um, selective isn't the right word. I feel like there is a divergence of paradigm going on there. Go on. Well, even even back in 2012, it was pretty clear that the biggest threat to Americans in terms of certainly any kind of domestic terrorism is is is fascist. Oh, what? Good one. Well played, but but like right wing violence, has been hugely on the fucking rise. Yeah, through that time. And in fact, you'll see a peak in 2014. Yeah. And, and they're saying, like, well, you know, we're going to protect the RNC. Right. I don't think they're the ones that you need to worry about being the

targets of violence here. And then let's just dig in this little more. They chose to go to Tampa. They could have chosen to go anywhere else, but they chose to go to Tampa, which is fine. They can have their convention wherever they want. But then as soon as you get there, you're like, oh, shit, we need federal money to protect us from the people in this town. It's like, what the fuck? All right.

What was going on in Tampa? Nothing that I could find. In fact, Mary Mulherne, the the fuck? All right, what was going on in Tampa? Nothing that I could find. In fact, Mary Mulherne, the city council member of Tampa, stated that she was concerned that the money would be spent on security cameras and armored vehicles. She said if she was worried that the city would quote, be militarized, end quote, she suggested, get this. A city council member suggested that some of the money should

be used on a homeless shelter. Could you imagine what the fuck? Yeah, I don't know that she got reelected. I probably not. Yeah, I'm God damn Florida. And it turns out that the city of Tampa Tampa instituted a six day ban on panhandling. Okay, you've been given it was $50 million. You said, yes, you've been given $50 million by the feds for security. Okay, we'll walk past that. All right, fine. And you can't walk past that without without a placard in the Lanier, sir. You better go, damn, heavier Lanier. It's this generations. Do you have a flag? You have a flag? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, right.

Yeah. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights.

No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights.

No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. No rights. So like David or Johnson 50,000. And yeah, you've, you've been, you've been given this amazingly large amount of money and obscenely large sum of money. Yes, this, this just ridiculous obnoxious amount of money for security. Yes. And you're going to institute a three day ban six day six days. Sorry. Because the duration of the RNC. Yeah, right. Right. Right. As long as as long as these corporate white men are here, no panhandle. Right. Because Obama has impoverished America so much that we can't understand to look at these people. I'm here for the common man. Get the fuck away from

you ugly dirty peasant. Yeah, I'm here for the common man. Fuck off peasant. That right there, right there. That's Lauren. God damn bober right now. Uh-huh. That's that's the entire GOP today and the only and the only difference, the only difference is they're not even trying to put a mask on it now. Right. Well, because masks are for posse. for posties. Yes. Right. I mean, here for the common man, fuck off, peasant. Like, it doesn't, yeah.

So I'm still, I'm still wrestling though with, yes, you are. It was so many things, really. But where, I really want to know what the decision tree was there, like, like, like, administratively, like, how did that go up the chain? And who made the decision that no, no, we're going to give the 50 million to them because we got to protect the RNC because, you know, God knows they're in Tampa, Florida. Right. Like, okay, if the RNC had the shows to be, yeah, the place they chose to be, but like, Florida, right? Like, okay, if the RNC had this, yeah, the place they chose to

be, but like if, if for some bizarre reason, if, if we were in bizarre a world, and the RNC decided that they were going to hold their convention in the Castro district of San Francisco. Sure. Then okay, maybe, maybe you might need to worry about some people showing up to be disruptive and and and cause trouble. They wouldn't be violent. Right. Like that's not a thing you need to worry about. There might be milkshakes thrown and pie thrown. There is a history of queer folk pying people. Yeah. Yeah. Food, food being weaponized there. Yeah. But like, it's not like their protesters in Chicago. Yeah. And it's not like which by the way was the DNC. Yes. What was the DNC? And it's not like it, it isn't like, you know, the Democrats deciding that they're going to go to

curvil Texas. No, no, no, no, curvil Texas, which notably had a storefront for the KKK. Just going to say it was a laundry. Get your whites wet. I wish it was anything like clever. No. No, um, friend of the, yeah, anyway, I had the opportunity to visit curville a number of years ago. And yeah, so if, if, if, if like, the democratic party decided, no, we're going to hold our convention here. Then okay, now you're going to need to worry about some people showing up to kill people. Right. Like you are legitimately going to need to worry about the physical safety of delegates to that convention.

You would have had to worry about that back when I visited curville in 97 You would need to worry about it a whole lot more now But it boggles my mind That somebody thought the Republican national convention would need protection in the Bible belt Well, it's not like the Bible belt. I mean, it's it's half a Florida. So yeah, okay. It's made way down the shaft. Yeah, all right. And by all accounts from people I know who've been there, it's near the taint. And by all accounts from people I know who've been there, it's near the taint. Um, I mean, it's what it's wrinkled.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, I'm supposed to say not that wrinkled. It's floored. Everything's flat. But, um, no, but the amount of old people that live there. Yeah. Okay.

Fair. Very scroll. Like, like, of all the places where the Republicans would need to worry about that shit. Like, really? Right. And again, God damn sure that y'all chose it a month ago or a year ago, you know, like this was not news to them.

And so for them to think that there is a, and it's, this is 2012. This is not 2020 where there was the gendup fear of an organization so dastardly and at the same time week as to exist but not exist called antifa. Oh, yeah, that word hadn't even like unless you were part of a specific subset of the music scene. You didn't even know who and unless you were out there getting stabbed by Nazis when you were telling them they weren't welcome here, you did not know that. Yeah. So, yeah, but, but that's, and she said, hey, can we get, you know, can we get some of that money used for the homeless shelter or, or maybe not do this ban on panhandling? The assistant chief of police, Mark Hamlin, told her that such an allocation was doubtful,

which I love that the assistant chief of police is telling the city council member that the federal money is coming in would not be going to anything that the city council member was suggesting. So the money ended up being used to deputize more police, expanding surveillance technology throughout the city and buying a new armored SWAT vehicle, even the Heritage Foundation, even the Heritage Foundation took issue with the police state atmosphere in Tampa that week. When when a heritage foundation thinks you're being a little too flashy, you've ain't fucked up. Like, wow. Yeah. So additionally, Newt Gingrich, after releasing his delegates a week prior, right, to go and vote for Mitt Romney,

set up something called Newt U, which was a series of public policy workshops for delegates. The aim was to deepen the message of the convention's platform and give them talking points and the backup that they would need to make their case forcefully. Gingrich used the day's themes in greater detail and gave delegates an opportunity to dive deeper into those issues that were touched by the themes. Each class was open to credentialed convention media, as well as activists and party officials at the convention.

They were actually held at different campuses every day, forcing delegates to move around and to attend more, and also allowing one timers to come and participate in one that was near them in the Tampa area. So from an organizational standpoint, it was pretty cool. In terms of fuck, what he did, well, we can do better day on its face could simply be that Obama has been in charge for four years and we'd like a shot. Okay, cool, but also the dog whistles, right? We white folks can do better than that up at the black guy who dared to take over our White House by giving the majority to vote for him. So that was day one. The next day, we built it. Oh my God. I can't call this a dog whistle. It's a fucking foghorn. It's a dig at anybody who did labor in this country, whom they'd identify as un-American. So Latine, it's a dig at Obama's quote,

you didn't build that speech in Roanoke, Virginia, in July of 2012. Remember, he pointed out that everybody helps everybody in this country and that's one of our strengths and that your individual excellence was only possible because everyone else who came before you laid down the sweat to make the infrastructure possible that allowed you to accomplish your excellence. Of course, that pissed off everyone who was born on third who thought they'd hit a triple.

It's one of my favorite phrases about those people. Yeah. It's got also other layers because it's mostly a white convention of people who don't want to credit black people for the labor that they historically put into building this country. Literally. Yes.

Literally. Yes. There are fingerprints on bricks all over Washington, DC. They literally built it. Oh, and in Florida. Yeah. You want to talk about St. Augustine for a second? Yeah.

I really don't want to. Yeah. I mean, either. But I mean, it's, it's that kind of shit like I'm running out of beer as it is. I don't have enough to drink. But we built it is just wow, right? Um, add another layer to that. We built it conveys a sense of ownership and propriety. This is ours. We built it, which, oh, like, in other words, what do you do with that White House? We built that. Yeah, it's, it's, and I'm sure because this is, this is newt. And, and we know him of old. Well, this is also the full on RNC. Each day was decided by the RNC. He was just capitalizing on it by having campuses

give them talking points on each part. No, you got no way. I, I, yeah, but I'm saying, you know, because, because he's, he's the one organizing this particular part of this whole thing. Yeah, this is the new. Yeah, I'm sure that the new you, like, wrapped itself up in colonial imagery and the writing of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence Island that founder crap because that is virtue signaling and it's a really convenient mechanism for being a complete white supremacist shithead. Yeah, it's trying to hide behind virtue.

Well, so it's this idea that I have, or this concept that I have, I don't have a name for it. I haven't been able to steal that from anybody yet, but I look forward to it. But how can you sound racist to the right people and still not sound racist when you want to shrodinger it?

Yeah. So I mean, what I'm talking about is dog whistles, but like at the same time, you want racists to realize that you're being racist. At the same time, you've got the deniability of like, we built it. This is America. Any American can build it. When really everybody who's racist knows when you say American, you mean white Christian. Yeah. So yeah. And then there's the next day, which was

we can change it. Now, obviously, the thing that comes to my mind immediately is the laws to protect queer folk, people of the global majority in America and women. Again, for the intellectually lazy and dishonest, those who are willing to choose to believe in the K-fabe, it's optimism. Like, we can change this country to, you know, but not together. Notice it does use we, but it doesn't use a word together because that sounds like socialism. Yeah. What the hell? Or even worse reaching across the aisle. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we can change it. We can kick that guy. Yes. Out. Interloper. Yeah, that thief in the night. Yeah, and I really need, because I mean, you've already hit on this, but I need to reiterate for anybody who did not grow up to the right of Chinggis Khan, like I did. Mm hmm. Um, there really genuinely was, and I'm sure remains, a sense of entitlement to the executive

branch of the government in this country amongst Republicans. Yeah. Why? I don't fucking know. I believe in actually. Well, the math, actually. Yeah. I mean, if you really look from 1968 through 2020, there have only been one Jimmy Carter, two Bill Clinton and three Barack Obama,

three presidents from 68 to 20. And, you know, yeah. And then, you know, so. And they all have the audacity to get a majority vote. Like, who the fuck does that? Come on, nobody since the first bush. Yeah. So, you know, I guess, well, yeah, that entitlement of this is our this this sense of like how dare you? Really is a A thing. Yeah, but it's not just I You know, it for those of you who are listening outside of the United States

Or those of you who you know come from different backgrounds. Honestly, this is Austria. This is for you. Thank you. Yeah, especially those of you living in fucking. Don't think I don't see you. Fucking thank you. Yeah. But this is not just Damien pointing this idea out.

There is this sense of ownership or entitlement. No, no, I can speak from personal experience that this is an emotional thing that I am now, like I want to go back to 18 year old me and smack him hard repeatedly across the face. Like no, you dipshit, no. But anyway, sorry. So for people willing to believe in that K-Fabe, this is optimism. We can change it, right?

It's honestly, it's the right version of hope and change. So if you say, we can change it, sounds racist. It's like, oh, really? So what was hope and change then? And it's that very lazy gotcha kind of. Yeah. But, but the we and we can change it is exclusionary. Despite its inclusive connotations, we can change it once we get to power. And given their platform, the right people. Yeah. And given their platform position on expanding the 14th amendment to apply to the unborn,

given their platform position of bastardizing the idea of human rights to apply to fetuses in order to remove human rights from women and given their platform position of applying a guest worker program's infrastructure, primarily at seeking out and locking up the, quote, bad ones, it's seeking out and locking up the quote bad ones. It's not exclusive. It's not inclusive or particularly honest. Well, no. And by the way, those were

their platform positions 2012. Oh, yeah. Now they've gotten worse since. And then we come to we believe in America. That's the final day. That's the final thing. We believe in America is a shout out to the religious right highlighting their faith in white nationalist Jesus as opposed to the straw men that they've made liberal elites out to be We believe not them. We believe like Ronald Reagan before us. Not that Jimmy Carter poser who wishes he was a good Christian like Ronald Reagan See who wishes he was a good Christian like Ronald Reagan. See, even though I know we're being drippingly sarcastic, like, like the venom, the venom coming off of your fangs is, is visible across the internet to me right now. is visible across the internet to me right now.

Even knowing that hearing you say that makes me want to punch you, because you're the ones like, how very fucking dare you. Yeah. So you get Mr. Carter's name out of your goddamn mouth right now. Like as as someone who works very hard to be a genuine follower of Jesus, of Nazareth, like you, you stop talking about Saint Jimmy that way or so help me. God. Like the man isn't even dead yet.

I'm just telling you, yeah, have some more respect for James James Carter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we believe, right? We believe in America, whereas Obama wasn't even born here. And and again, the rage. Yeah. but that's what's happening in 2012. The Dredge report had rejected the long form of Obama's birth certificate just a year and a half prior in April of 2011. The White House even had his birth certificate posted to its website that year. This has never happened to a president in the past. And two months after this convention, Donald Trump himself, one of the main Bertha Barkers

offered to donate $5 million to the charity of Obama's choice in return for the publication of Obama's college and college transcripts and his passport applications before October 31, 2012. All this, while at the same time, a woman named Orley Tatis, a professional lawsuit bringer and dentist, was filing lawsuits to challenge Obama in primaries and general elections in New Hampshire, Georgia, Alabama,

Indiana, Mississippi, and Kansas. All of these, because she and others like her truly believe in America, not like those other who don't. So that was the final day. I'm not supposed to carry hatred in my heart. I can't hate these people. Yeah. Orally, tattoos can. Yeah.

These allegedly a giant piece of shit. So happy as she might actually hunt down this podcast. So now all that I have talked about has happened after Hatfields and McCoy's came out on cable. This is right. Right. Yes. But I think it's important to see what was happening before during and a bit after because there was a tremendous amount of clannishness going on. There was a huge amount of us over here are the only good ones and them over there are always causing trouble because at its core, that's what the thesis statement of this mini-series was.

Right or wrong, you're going to stay loyal to ourselves. We're going to keep ourselves safe from those who aren't like us. And if you look at the demographic breakdown of who watches the History Channel historically, you'll see some overlap with who was at that convention and who was voting with Mitt Romney, a full 50% of the history channels viewing audiences 55 and older and

only 24% is college graduated. A fact I found stunning 71% own their own homes must be nice. Um, and 60% are men. Yeah. All right. Compare that compare that to the 2012 election. Majority of the men voted for Romney over Obama. 52% men voted for Romney, 45% for Obama. A majority of white people voted for Romney, 59% Romney, 39% Obama. A majority of 45 to 64 year olds voted for Romney 52 to 47 a majority of the 65 plus voters voted for Romney 56 to 42 or 56 to 44. I'm amazed I'm amazed amongst that age group. It was that close, frankly, I was stunned that that number was lower than white people. Yeah, because demographically, there's fewer people 65 and older who are not white.

That's true. Because of how we made sure that healthcare doesn't get how we apportion healthcare in this country. Yeah. A plurality of the some college voters voted for Obama 49 to 48. Very, very close. A majority of college grads voted for Romney 51 to 47. Oh, college really include people way older than you and me. That was a good point. Yeah. All right. Majority of conservatives voted for Romney 82 to 17. Yeah. Big shock. Yeah. But wow. What a spread. Yeah. And anybody making over 50,000, a majority of them voted for Romney. 52 to 46. And again, I'm a little impressed that it was as close as it was. What with like taking all of all of the rest of the identity politics and everything out of it, strictly based on, you know, boring economic tax, shit.

Right. I would, I would expect, you know, more of those folks to have been voting Republican. But all right. Now, I will say this. I do need to give Mitt Romney credit for one of the things he said to Obama in the debates. That Russia was our biggest danger. Yeah. Obama whipped on that one. Made fun of him. Got a lot of points for making fun of him.

Ron, he looked like a crackpot. So there's that. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a failure imagination on the part of a whole lot of policy wall. Yeah. At the time. Now in prior iterations, the story of the Hatfield, McCoy, if you feud was something to base a narrative on. A story that is the familiar basis for contemporary or fairly recent labor history, but to ultimately go your own way with it, right?

Like our hospitality in Rosanna McCoy. This is the background story and now off we go, right? Or since it wasn't anyone's intellectual property, it was a way to fill time on a failing time slot like Hatfield's in fields in the quiz movie. Just lazy. Yeah. Just lazy.

We need to, we need to make sure we file this, you know, or in short form, it was grist for the look at these groups, depending on the cultural desire to see people in that region of the US is backward and uneducated and as punchlines unto themselves. Yeah. It was cultural shorthand for I'm better than them, right? Right. Right. But now in 2012, it's absolutely making visceral. And I mean that in all the ways, the deepened divisions that were showing no signs of slowing.

And it was drawing on that cultural subliminal trauma. Also, duck dynasty had just come out, in case you want to look at these, these roofs still, right? In case you wanted to make, make this culture a harmless thing, probably an answer to the success of swamp people, which itself was a history channel thing. Reality TV show on history channel. Yeah. Now, in addition to all of this clannishness, channel thing. Reality TV show and history channel. Yeah.

Now, in addition to all of this clannishness, we cannot ignore the inherent violence of this particular iteration as well. There's all sorts of men doing bad things to other men. This violence and at one point cow whipping, Jenna Malone. Mm hmm. Yeah. now this violence, which is what makes the story what it is, is a deeply masculinized violence. And it's coming out at a time when conservative Americans and Republicans, because those are different groups, um, they are deeply resentful and distrusting of the government, as well as a time when boomers are becoming less and less centered in the American story. 16% of Republicans or Republican leaning Americans said that they had faith in the government in October of 2012, and that was up six points from the prior year. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I'm not talking fringe writers. I mean, straight up moderates through

conservatives. And by the way, if we're only looking at white folks, that number actually drops to 8% in October of 2011. And it holds steady at 16% of 2012. Wow. And since 2002, the percentage of Americans who had confidence that their children would enjoy a better life than they would was dropping steadily, crossing the 50 50% threshold about a year after the series came out. Wow. Yeah, which is really wild when you stop to think that Barack Obama, a man whose father would have been regularly refused at restaurants in certain states was able to become president. His opponent in 2012 talked about how he himself was the son of a man who sold paint out of his trunk in the same state that he'd become governor. And that's Mitt Romney's dad. Now, despite that parallel testimony of upward opportunity, so you've got one whose father would have been

refused seats and now he's the president and another whose father sold paint out of a car and then became governor of it. You have a lot of upward mobility in both stories. Most Americans and a vast majority of white middle-aged middle-class male Americans were increasingly frustrated by the lack of perceived power over their own destiny. It's like we found the worst way to do a good thing. Michael Dimcock or no, not Dimcock. What a great name that would have been. Michael, Michael Dimock of Pew said in 2012, quote, there are people struggling. And what you're seeing, especially right now, are people who feel like they played the game the right way, like they did what they were supposed to do. And the rules they thought they could play by and be okay, have changed

on them somehow. Now, my own commentary is that white people were really upset that they were finally being treated like somebody who wasn't white. They didn't know that they were upset about that until Donald Trump let them be okay with feeling that way. But there was so much agreement because of the housing market collapse, because of the endless wars, because the banks got bailed out, because everybody else, you know, everybody lost their house except for the banks who caused them to lose their houses. And only one person ever was arrested for it. Um, yeah, you have all that agreement. Um, and really what's happening is white people are being brought to a level that they thought

didn't exist unless you had done something wrong. They believed it was meritocracy that was keeping them on top, not sheer dumb fucking luck, not generational wealth, even though you grew up before. Because your generational wealth was not having generational poverty. Yeah. So a TV show about a poor family feuding with a richer family, but with the poor family coming out on the less sympathetic side of the narrative, seems just about a perfect fit for these demographics.

A good way to get eyes on your product is to play to their frustrations and their disgusts. They're frustrated that they're closer to the position of the McCoy's. Tradition isn't working for them. Faith and God doesn't work for them, and they're getting screwed by Richard folks,

Richard folks who are others. Those folks over there across the river. And they secretly wish for the ability to disdain such folks like the Hatfields do. And since nobody around is powerful enough to help folks get the recompense they deserve, you got to take matters into your own hand. get the recompense they deserve, you got to take matters into your own hand. Now, at that same time, Brock Lesnar returned and was a monster beating the shit out of John Cena repeatedly. That's the power. Daniel Bryan turned heel and began shouting, no, instead of yes, that's the frustration. And the shield came out and beat up whomever they wanted. And the shield was made up of three guys. So they would always outnumber the guy they beat the shit out of.

And they brought what they deemed justice to WWE. So there's your popular appeal. All in the same year that the Hatfields and the Moise, McCoy's came out. Okay. Now, and I'm, I'm surprised that it took this long for that angle to show up. Well, I had to wait till we got to 2012. Yeah. Okay. I mentioned K-Fave a couple times during that. That's, well, yeah, that's true. But yeah. Because honestly, I think I kind of want to take a look at K-Fabe as a concept when it comes to national conventions.

Yeah, I might have to get my friend who was a press agent at one of the national conventions to come on and talk to us about it. Oh, that'd be yeah, that'd be cool. So in May of 24. Oh, you were going to say something. I'm sorry. No, no, no, go ahead. In May of 2014, the littlest pet shop came out. Okay. Okay. Um, and in November of 2015, uh, and it was basically a cartoon, littlest pet shop, it was another cartoon talked about the Hatfields and McCoy's. So moving past the, the, the, the, the, the, okay, okay. Cause I'm going to cover them all. And in November of 2015, my little pony did an episode called the Hootfields and McColts. Oh my God, really? Yeah, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle,

amended fences between the two feuding families. And by showing them that the power of friendship is hella better than winning a longstanding argument, they've, they've stopped a feud. Now, of course, it still has the, the beat parts of broken down homes out in the woods. And there's one good line in that episode that I dug because I watched that too. Um, forgiveness is an investment to happiness. And I like that. Okay.

Otherwise, it's noted by a lot of brony fans. You remember, bronies? I do. It's noted by a lot of bronies that it is actually a particularly lazy episode drawing on old tropes. And given the prior interest in the Hatfield and the Coids series, it actually makes sense that a cartoon would draw on that story just a few years later. Two other cartoons came out from 2015 to 2019 dealing in Hatfield, McCoy lore, but they literally did nothing different from what came before.

Like I said, Littleest Pet Shop had an episode called Feud for Thought, and Ben 10, when it rebooted, had an episode called Them's Fighting Words. They're really unremarkable. They don't really add to or contradict any of the points that I've made, so I'm just going to blow past them. Okay. Matter of fact, there's not that much more as far as Hatfields and McCoy's go. In general, there's a direct to TV DVD movie called Hatfields and McCoy's Bad Blood. That was the trailer that I showed you a few weeks back with Christian and playing a governor who was trying to stop the families from feuding. And you know, and here's the thing, like showing that story from the point of view

of like anybody in authority who was trying to stop the bloodshed. Could be a good film. It could be a really great film. Yeah. Giving us a new take on the whole story. Right. But oh my god, that looked so awful.

Yeah. It was so awful. And I think what it was. Later looked, looked unhealthy. Yeah. Like, I think what it was was there was a production company that, you know, basically put some money into getting some stars in it, wrote a real shitty script and was like, how many people will buy this one off of Amazon by accident?

I legit think that's what happened. That's depressing. Yeah, because if you look at when it came out, it was around the same time as the DVD for the history channel one came out. And it just, yeah, I almost couldn't finish the trailer. I didn't even try with the fucking movie. Yeah, I said it to me and I was like, okay, well, you know, I had to take a look at this thing. And I didn't even have the sound on. Right.

And I couldn't get through the trailer. Right. It's like four seconds. And I got 40 seconds going. I had the same feeling watching this trailer as I did getting through the second hour of King Kong when I watched it when my brother came back from Iraq. I turned to him, I'm like, how goddamn long is this movie? And he just turns to me, he's like, it's Peter Jackson. It's like, goddamn, I had to. Son of a bitch. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, NBC developed a pilot that seems to be a modern retelling of the story,

starring Rebecca DeMorne as the evident matriarch of the modern Hatfield family. And it was supposed to focus on the rigid and unyielding patriarchy, stemming from long term and outdated opinions of each other, passed down to each side. It never aired. Thank God. And finally in September 2019, yeah, it was dog shit. I'm sure. Again, it was a pilot that never aired like that. Yeah, that's a tell you plenty. Tell you plenty. So finally, we get to September of 2019. American experience put out a documentary called The Fute. The opening graphic for the trailer was the river splitting two hills just as we've seen in the cartoons. But for the documentary, it starts literally starts with the Bugs Bunny opening fanfare

with an historian analyzing the cartoon for a little bit. And he says at the outset that the feud, quote, created the stereotype of the hillbilly in the American consciousness. Yeah. And they really focus on the use of the media as a tool of propaganda of the industrialized interest to to justify their exploitation and their planned harm of rural America. And I do mean planned harm. This was produced pre pandemic. And there was absolutely a great amount of effort put toward explaining the Trump populism in the context of city versus rural values as being his wedge issue. And I can recall multiple podcasts in the prior year that spoke specifically to that very

divide between rural and city. And they explained it as something that elite liberals failed to get and that the bubbles that they were living in were allowing them to both disdain and ignore rural America and their agreements. I specifically remember one podcast talking about a factory town that no longer had the factory and what that did to the people living their psychologically and why it turned that place so red.

And if you remember JD Vance's hillbilly, LG came out in June of 2016. By June of 2017, it was a New York Times best seller because people were looking for a way to explain Trump's victory. for a way to explain Trump's victory. Rod Dreher, an American expat living in Hungary, so be careful. Because why would you choose there? Well, he praises Victor Orban, so we have our answer. Because Orban made Hungary an example of what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness." And he encouraged Christian Americans to start segregating after the Oberg fell decision

and that Vance's book, quote, draws conclusions that may be hard for some people to take, but Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has never that he has that has been extremely hard one. Um, so that's praise of the book from a guy who thinks Victor Orban is is really good. It's is peachy keen. Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, historian Bob Hutton, an actual historian said that the book ignored existing scholarship on poverty and appellation. And it was pinned to eugenics as an underlying assumption and relied on circular logic. He called JD Vance's book a work of self-congratulation. Now he's an historian. He's also right about this. And I don't think that mattered.

He's also right about this and I don't think that mattered. No, yeah, because of course it did. Yeah. Yeah, just the story that JD Vance is telling is replete with survivorship bias. Also that. Like on top of everything else. Yeah. is replete with survivorship bias. Also that. Like on top of everything else. Yeah. And you know, the, what he, there's a trap when we're teaching our students

about primary versus secondary sources. There is this trap that's easy to fall into. Of if it's a primary source, it's automatically a better source than a secondary one. Right. And JD Vance is obviously a primary source here, but the thing is, if you only relied on eyewitness accounts of what the battle of the psalm was like. You'd never have any understanding of what the fuck actually happened in the battle of the psalm. That's true. There's a lot of like, I look left and look right and was surprised that I was still standing. So yeah, and yeah, you know, um, and, and you need to have a wider view.

You need to look to longer-term analysis or for that matter, different historical context, like JD Vance, nothing against his life story. Right. And what he experienced and what he experienced, you know, what he experienced, but there are other forces at work that as one individual living one lifetime, he's not in a position to see, right? You know, and, well, and he didn't do the work. Like, yeah, the story pointed out, like, okay, dude, the data is out there. Like, you

could find that shit. And you could use that shit to make a powerful point. And to challenge your own assumptions and actually write a book worth a fuck, but instead, it's a book that like people in the rural areas are like, ah, see this guy gets me and that liberals living in cities Also loved because it seemed to line up with and Draher explains this. He says it seems to line up with the criticisms that of it By trained experts in the field that Vance wrote a memoir on Essentially liberals liked it because it plucked the way,

or plucked at the way that they wanted to see themselves. They like the liberals love thinking that there's a colorblind meritocracy. They love, they love that Obama was a post-racial president. That's what good liberals love. They think everybody deserves to get the same chance and therefore they do. And Vance's book kind of pushes that and allows liberals to be like, yeah, see? And he made it.

And he rose up from, it feels like the same way that Lenin felt about Stalin. Like look at this peasant. He is the guy we're fighting for. Look at how high he's risen. That same kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Look at how high he's risen. Yeah. That same kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Look, look at how that went for literally everybody. Yeah. But I was point out that J. Vance is a very powerful figure. How are you, Jenny? Uh-huh. So, uh, you? Yeah. So, Vance is, but it rhymes. Yeah. Vance's book largely pointed out how people in Appalachia did not get the fair chance

that everyone else thinks that they got instead of realizing that, you know, instead of people realizing like, oh, I got an advantage chance because other people got a disadvantage chance. That's not fair. That's not even equal, but people are like, see, it's a meritocracy because look how well I did. Um, and Vance is like, yo, you left plenty of white people behind. And so liberals are like, Oh, no, there are people that did not get the fairness that we thought they were getting. I understand poverty now. Um, and it lets them think that they're the real liberals since they grew up poorer than East Coast elite liberals too.

Okay. Yeah. So the book was wildly popular explaining why Trump won, right, especially in 2017. Vance wrote in 2016 that quote, what unites Trump's voters is a sense of alienation from America's wealthy and powerful. And that's hell the true. Yes, but it's not complete. Right. Exactly that. So it's what you do from there that really, really helps paint the picture. So essentially white working class porpoe who felt betrayed by bush and ignored by Obama found an avatar for their frustrations and their impotent rage in Donald Trump. And in an interview with USA Today, JD Vance plainly stated that what so many were saying

in 2016, he said, quote, I love the way Trump criticizes party elites, but really dislike the candidate himself. I'm definitely not supporting Trump, but I probably won't vote for Hillary either. She just seems like she doesn't care about the people I grew up around." And then a lot of them went into the voting booth and voted for Donald Trump anyway or they stayed home in protest. And this aped the solutions that Devil Lant's Hatfield and Randall McCoy reluctantly came to in the 2012 mini series. Grim gruff can't trust nobody but my own gun and my and my own self. That mentality made the series so attractive to so many of our

age and older because of that sense of alienation. The law will not help us. Even the law abiding Even the law abiding, Val, wall, Hatfield broke the law. The second that he saw that the law wasn't working. Devilance said something about the law, not working, that he would take care of it himself. Rannell said that the God was a better law and that the laws of men would be inferior. And then when that all failed, he pointed out the failures of the law. And Vance himself went from

speaking against Trump to openly embracing Trump and his endorsement in a bid for Senate. And he won the Senate race in 2022 by a full 6% against Tim Ryan. And he won the Republican primary when state Senator Mike Dolan announced Trump's claim of a election fraud in 2020 or denounced. Sorry. Yeah. So Dolan said like that's that's not what happened. And JD Fence primary.

So the exploitation of that region and its people, whether it's industrial, propaganda, or just for the sake of entertainment, remains a constant and dependable thing, specifically because all three are really just shades of capitalism, which profited mightily off of the feud that captured the imagination of the country during times of upheaval or times of challenge to the status quo. And it made us the American people who don't live there chuckle at the absurdity of all of it in the times of overall consensus. So when we did come back together, we could just chuckle together about them. Both of these things were in service of a shittier and more exploited, more exploitative ideology.

Yeah, I can't find anything to build on that with that's... You've summed it up very succinctly there. Except episodes later. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, when you tie it all up in a bow like that, this is kind of what I mean. Yeah. You are, you are as always very methodical about, you know, laying out all the proofs, but then you tie it together very well. Um, yeah, I think the the weird level of again, cartoonification of rural white folks in most of these not all, but most of these renditions of the story is worth paying attention to. I think for for those of us of a, you know, coastal elite kind of bent, it's worth being aware of and doing some self examination of our own bias. You know, I say that. It occurs to me that this is the second time that I've brought up stop making fun of people that we think are dumb. Yeah, you know, when I did idiocracy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, in the wake of of Donald Trump taking the White House, you know, everywhere

all over. You know, fuck that. He didn't win the popular vote. Fuck that. Taking it back. Yeah. But, but in, in the aftermath of him winning the electoral college and, and taking up residence in the White House. There was all of this on the center toward left.

There was all this hand-ringing about, you know, how did this happen? What were the mistakes we made? And then from the right, I really distinctly remember and acquaintance of mine, who was that one time a friend, getting very preachy about, well, you know, maybe now you learn that you shouldn't spend so much time up on your high horse, you know, disregarding or talking down to people. And I'm horse, you know, uh, uh, disregarding or talking down to people. And I'm like, you know what, you're not one of the rural white people they're all talking about. You live in a suburb outside of a major metropolitan area. Right. In the

second largest state in the country. Fuck you. No. I, you know, I've had family members who are like, you're just as bad as, you know, they have a friend of theirs who's very rightist. And I used to go toe to toe with them like at family options. And I remember straight up just standing up to him. Like, dude, quit trying to lecture me on shit. You only have a passing understanding of you wanted to bait me, bring facts until then shut the fuck up and sit down. And only have a passing understanding of you wanted to bait me, bring facts until then shut the fuck up and sit down.

And he's a guy who's a generational. He was, you know, a, a, a, a, a parent figure. And I remember that parent figure looking me going like, nice job. Because you know, I've always gone along to get along with family and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I just had enough. I had that same family member, uh, send me an

email about like, you know, why Hillary's gonna lose. And it was, it was just a joke, but it was because you can't run with a cane because cane was the guy, uh, the, the VP. And I was like, well, it's not really a joke. And also like, this is a pretty dire fucking thing here that you're joking about. And I got, I got a message back saying like, you know, ever since you started being a comic, you're like this arbiter of what's funny and what isn't. It's a really bad look and it's really shitty of you. And I was like, fair point, fair point. Okay.

No problem. I can get my own ass about things. Absolutely. And then he says, you know, you're becoming like the leftist version of that family friend. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to accept your both sides as them there. But, you know, calling me calling me out for arrogance when it comes to what true comedy is, okay, fair. Cool. Maybe I've been smelling my own farts when it comes to, you know, my particular taste, but bullshit on the other part. And that combined with one other incident

that happened, I pretty much lost contact with, you know, I send a text on birthdays. It's about it. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's a damn shame, but it's like, Trump winning was a fucking indictment. It wasn't proof that you were right. It was proof that we're all fucked. It's proof that you, that wrong one. That's what it is. And it's not a, oh, you shouldn't make fun of the rurals. I agree you shouldn't make fun of the rurals. You shouldn't call them the rurals.

But there's this layer of like, and see what happens. It's like, that's like saying to you what happens when you scream for help and the mugger attacks you and stabs you. It's like, shouldn't it call for help then, huh? It's like, that kind of shit. I'm like, no, that's, yeah. That's this kind of where I was, where I was gonna go with this next is like genuinely no kidding.

Trumpism is a shitty political philosophy. It's like genuinely no kidding. Trumpism is a shitty political philosophy. And it's based in cruelty. It is based in making the right people suffer. We talked about that before. We have. We have. And it's not, it's not a philosophy for serious people. It's not a philosophy for anybody

with any, any modicum of empathy or, or fellow feeling for your human, for your fellow humans. It's not a philosophy that's dependent upon democracy. No, really. It it is. It's anti-democratic. It is. It literally, I mean, didn't get into power through democracy, got into power through, and then the clarion call became, this is not, you know, like when they were during 2020. It's like, it's not a democracy, it's a republic. And it's like, you don't know what those words mean.

Number one, number two, Yeah, there's a problem when the democratic process doesn't actually bear out the winner. Like, simple arithmetic should be the thing that guides it, and it's not. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's, yeah, there's this weird thing though. Like, and again, people disdain rural folk. And that's not okay either. And it's not, a lot of people were trying to explain what happened. I remember the next day in November of 2016, what happened? And I remember a lot of people were like, well, it was this, and I remember, you know, a lot of people were like, well, it was this, it was this, I was like, no, this was a failure on,

on the side of the Democrats. They thought it was a walk on. It wasn't a walk on. You've had a party that has been abandoning organized labor since 1970 in small part or in large part and only doing lip service to them. And eventually they're going to stop showing up for you. And in that wasn't a see what happens so much as, you know, policies where you ignore people's agreements and you ignore the things and you dismantle the things that empower the majority of the workers, you allow that and you are cutting your own throat politically because you don't have the ability to rally people around a cause of hatred. That's the other side.

I have a friend who described it as the right are dogs. They need a leader who on occasion will beat the shit out of one of the dogs and keep the pack in order and the left are cats. And you gotta get a bunch of different kinds of food out if you want to keep those cats around. I keep going to keep the treat bags crinkling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not wrong. Yeah. But I feel like I took a ran ran from you with it. What what other? Well, yeah, no. I think I think those are those are all important points to develop out of it. Yeah. But yeah, it's, this is an example of, you know, we can, we can look at this media to see what got us here. And, and to kind of analyze what, what are the trends that led us to this point? The problem is, this doesn't, this leaves us stuck here. This doesn't give us a road map for like, okay, well, what do we do to fix it? Right. You know, and that's, that's what we need to

try to figure out. I guess. I don't want to look to this medium for for a fix because the fix is hanging somebody who has diminished mental capacity. So everybody can stop hating each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, Richard Dawson's dead. So we can't have another family feud to fix this. So yeah, well, we could, but it'd be Drew Carey riding it like no, and he's fine. It's just not going to work. Yes. This is totally wrong sectionalist. Yeah.

Not, yeah, not going to do the trick. Speaking of Rust Belt. Yeah. Yeah. It's sad to see that we've gotten to this place. And I'm going to, I'm not going to be able to watch the miniseries now without having this in mind. But yeah, we got to stop making fun of people. But we also, we also need to hold them accountable for being shitty. I think it's still okay to make fun of people who hold power. I don't think it's okay to make fun of

people who don't. Yeah, I, yeah, that's, that's an important distinction. Yeah, we shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't have been punching down and we need to stop or sideways. Yeah, we shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't have been punching down and we need to stop or sideways. Yeah, or sideways. Yeah, I mean, I were sideways. Some of that guided my, my foray into making puns instead of doing other jokes. Other other jokes. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I stopped wanting to make fun of people. I was like, can I do a set where I don't have anybody who's You know look at this asshole over here. Yeah Yeah, and the answer is yes, I can Yeah, but then the audience doesn't laugh

Joking they laugh just on the way home Oh Cosway Oh, yeah, cause way to bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, what do you want people to read this time? What I want people to read this time since we're talking about a saga of multi generational revenge. I want people to find and read the Kurosaki Corpse Delivery Service by Aiji Otsuka. It is a horror manga series and it is about the karmic weight carried by the dead and the main characters, the troop of college students who are,

the Kurosagi Corp. delivery service, help the dead fulfill their final wishes and unburden themselves of this karmic weight. And when we're talking about this story that has carried over so many generations and is so heavily entwined with you know, unrequited or tortured love and, you know, long-, simmering hatred and murder, it just, it put me in mind of those concepts. And yeah, it's a great series. It manages to be at some points genuinely scary

and a lot of the time really darkly funny. And so very highly recommended. Kurosaki Corp's delivery service by A.G. Oatsuka. How about you? Yeah, that reminds me of a movie called Heart and Souls with Robert Downey Jr. And Kira Sedgwick and Tom Sizemore and Charles Groden and Alfred Woodard, actually.

It's the second time I saw her and Robert Downey Jr. together. She was in the Avengers Age of Ultron. She handed him the picture of her son. Oh right. Okay. But that movie was what he called it. Robert Downey, Jr. He's followed around by four ghosts who died because the bus driver swerved, I think, to miss his mom or something. And so they were all pinned to him. And they were supposed to spend all that time

working on what they left undone and he was, you know, he was hit, but they instead just, they didn't know that, they didn't get the instructions, they were just his buddies, and then they realized that them being his buddies was fucking with him, because everyone else is like, you don't have four imaginary friends. And so they all abandoned him, um, which led him to be kind of an empty suit of a person and stuff like that. And the little boy who plays the young, young one, you know, like the eight year old being abandoned breaks your fucking heart when he's like begging them to come back. Um, and then, you know, he figures out,

you know, they, they show back up and, uh, he figures out how to make all their lives better. Um, just kind of reminded me of that. So if anybody wants to watch heart and souls from, I think it's like 1994 and 93. Um, I think it would have been, I think I was talking about it. What's that? I looked at it while you were talking about it and it's early 90s for sure because River Downing Jr. is very young. Yeah. Well, it's before he did, uh, is before he did natural born killer. So it's got to be like 93 or earlier.

Oh, okay. Um, but, uh, what I'm going to recommend for reading is the true story of the Hatfield and McCoy feud by Lawrence D Hatfield, who as best as I could figure out was the son of ransom Hatfield. And I couldn't figure shit out as far as his relationship to any of the people like the Oh, really? Yeah. I had the hardest time like tracing it back. I kept running into ceilings. So he is related. I don't know quite how it's got to be some sort of distant cousin kind of thing, but he I want to say he's he died in the 1940s. It's an old book that's been like reprinted.

It's really short from like 70 something pages, but it is an original work from back then. I cannot speak to the truthfulness of it or the historiography of it, other than to say that it is a piece of history. Cool. Yeah, I think that that is why it's worth reading. I'm not going to say that it's in any way accurate or well done, but it is a piece of the history that came out.

I want to say just before the Cold Wars did in terms of when and time it happened. So let's see, I know that I can be found on March 1 at the Comedy Spot and every first Friday there after, if you go to saccomedyspot.com, you can find tickets for capital punishment starting March 1. So please come to that one and then start making the time to come to the subsequent ones. So you can come see me slinging puns. Where can they find this podcast? Well, this podcast can be found on the Apple podcast app or on Spotify. You're listening to us right now. So you found us somewhere and that might include our website, a by putting himself through watching so much bad media over the course of his research. The 1975 film alone is worth several stars just by itself.

But if you go to our website, you will find our archive and pick any one of any number of topics that may be of interest to you. If you don't like one, then there'll be two or three others that I'm sure will spark your interest. And yeah, right now, that's the best place to find us. I'm not going to talk about any social media accounts because I don't know how much longer the places they are will exist. So.

All right. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s. I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.