Angry Planet - Don't Fall for Donald the Dove

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe planet isn’t going to get any less angry.This week, Aram Shabanian comes on the show again to help us work through what the next Trump presidency may mean for America, Europe, and the rest of the world.Matthew’s hippie metaphor1931 or 1939?America’s allies know it’s all on them nowNorth Korea in UkraineWho gets a nuke first?Musk diplomacyA 50% chance of nuclear war is too highMinuteman III’s for saleDon’t turn inwardThe future of newsCall of the Hat ManElon Musk joined Trump's call with ZelenskyyMusk joined a phone call between Trump and a Serbian leaderThe Donkey Kong paintingSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. I'll just start and we'll see what happens. And he, when he hops on, he hops on. People keep comparing it to 2016 in Brexit. And I think it's more like, I think those things, those comparisons are apt. But I think it's more. Like, imagine you're a hippie. And you lived through the 60s and the 70s. Okay. And your politics failed, but you've got to party for a really long time in the 70s. That's for sure.

And, you know, like, it's not so bad. You guys elected this nice, plain spoken evangelical guy from the South. And sure, the economy's tanking, but he's a decent man. And then you wake up in 1980, and you see an electoral map that's just a wash in red. and an actor is another president of the United States. And you realize that not only did your politics fail, but like the culture got away from you when you weren't paying attention. Yeah.

And that is what I, that to me feels more like what this is. And it's like I don't know, you know, maybe I'm being hyperbolic. Maybe it's not going to end up this way. but it feels like this time is going to be like the global order is about to be rewritten in ways that we are not anticipating.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, there are huge global tensions, right? And we're about to say, yeah, y'all see how that works out. Well, I don't think it's even like, you'll see how that works out. out, it's that if you're, if you're South Korea or Ukraine or any of our other allies, like, this is a pretty clear signal that, like, you know, you guys do, like, you got to take, you got to start taking care of your own shit. And like, that's going to have enormous ramifications that I don't think we're prepared for.

Aram Shabanian, we're already recording. I just started. We're just too much rage to wait. Okay. Aram, on the other hand, is, you. yawning at our rage, which is not exactly what we were expecting. I also didn't sleep last night, so I'm also very tired and angry at the same time. I slept a little. I just woke up this morning thinking, hey, this is the first day in a couple weeks where I'm

going to be able to unpack my shit and take a nice slow day, not spend any money. And then the bottom of the toilet just started gushing water. So that's another $500. dollars. No, no, it's not. It's a metaphor. Right. Well, you're a, you're a, you're a homeowner now, right? Yeah. So yeah, this is, this is the, this is the thing is like, it's always, it's shit like that forever. Yeah.

Sorry. No, I know. I just, I could have used a day break. Yeah. You know. Everyone, everyone could. Yeah. I'm going to close a door real quick. yeah, I just moved into the new place here. So I got like the new office set up here. We got the painting in the background of, I think it's, we got Donkey Kong and Sonic being crucified.

You know, because. Yeah, because you do. We all remember that moment. That's a great, I love that. I know exactly, I've seen, I love that image, actually. I'll put it in the show notes for people so they can enjoy amongst themselves. I've got a bunch of the same guy's art. I've got, there's a picture over here of Tom from MySpace, this painting of him, you know?

So going into this, well, just going into this episode just to let the audience know, we're recording on Friday, the day after the election. I have no plan. I have no show notes. Just kind of wanted to react and talk about, Aram, I know you have a bunch of thoughts about what the next. four years look like and perhaps what the next 10 or 20 will look like and I kind of wanted to get your vibe on that. I know that you had said something online, I think on Facebook a couple days ago before the election, that you're pretty sure as far as historical parallels go where in 1931 or 1933 but you're not sure which?

31 or 39. Yeah. That's what I was alluding to there is basically like, so 1931, Japan invades Manchuria, and most people don't really think of that as the start of World War II, but I think most people would absolutely think of 1939 as the start of World War II. And while the World War didn't really start until 39, the conflict that led into the World War started in 31. And 31 was really the first sign that the League of Nations was in trouble, and that the League of Nations would not be able to solve all the problems that they had set out to solve with it. but by 1939, the League of Nations was, you know, done. And so I didn't know, you know, are we, was 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine,

was that our 1931 moment? Was that the war that begins that eventually spirals into the World War? Or was that the first shot of the World War and we have yet to see the fallout? It was kind of the point I was trying to get out with that, being a bit hyperbolic, but then Trump got elected, so I don't know anymore. Well, I have a question. I'm putting my, I'm actually going to put my hand up. But, um, so if Trump is actually turning our country into an autocracy, which J.D. Vance is,

if he isn't, I heard a great theory about, uh, you know, about Amendment 25 and, and actually all this is about Peter Thiel putting Vance in power. I'm not saying that's actually true, but I love that. So anyway, I think Vance and Trump will get into a big fight and he'll get pensed, but, but please go on. No, no, no. So all I'm thinking is that maybe we're on their side. I mean, we just sort of let Russia roll over NATO. We let China take over Taiwan. And we're just cool with that.

Are we? You think that that's what Vance would would do? Should he be in office? I'm not so sure. Well, I mean, is he going to be in office? I don't know. Trump especially, I think, I mean, he, Trump has said that if he'll do, It'll be like 100% export tariff on Chinese goods.

Yes. If they invade, if, should they invade Taiwan? I think, no, there was a 60% blanket, but I don't remember the, I think he just said he would ratchet them up. If they invade Taiwan beyond that. I think Taiwan aside, I think with Ukraine alone, I think even if Trump or Vance or Trump and Vance or whoever it is that's calling the shots, doesn't want to support Ukraine. And I don't know if that's going to necessarily be the case, but I don't think they're going to give Ukraine the, level of support they need to win this war to finish it. If Ukraine loses to a certain extent, NATO's Eastern members at the very least will get directly involved. Like there's no way Poland will

tolerate Russian dominance on their border. And there's no way most of NATO will tolerate Russian troops in Kiev, I don't think. And so whether or not the U.S. is involved at that point, NATO gets involved. And then it's only a question of how long until NATO states are being hit. And I don't know how supportive Trump would be necessarily of Estonia or Lithuania, much as I would fight and die for Estonia. I don't know if our new president would. But when missiles start falling on eastern Poland and Romania, there's a lot of Polish Americans. Or there's a Rebentrop pact and we just take the other fucking half. Trump is reactionary and venal and petty.

in transactional and this is all it's all about personal relationships right right I mean who in 2016 would have said that that Trump liked the Syrian people or wanted to defend the Syrians

but then who bombed Syria twice after the gas attacks because you show him right you show him the right picture of the dying child at the right time and he's going to bomb some shit right I guess I'm just wondering

you know you say like the NATO allies what they'll put up with. What are they going to use? If I can borrow a phrase from aliens, harsh language? Oh, they're going to be.

They have shit. They're building. They've been building up. I suggest you look at what Germany and Germany have been doing. Germany doesn't have shit. They are not ready for anything. They're, what did they do?

Buy five war leopards? They're right. They doubled their defense expenditure. And then they also are reintroducing national service. They just reinstituted. conscription. Like, that's one of the things that I think is the big takeaway from this is that everybody, our Asian and European allies, know that it's on them and they're going to make rapid fucking changes. Well, I think the other thing to keep in mind here is that North Korea is

already involved in Ukraine. And so if the war escalates and there are NATO members fighting in Ukraine, fighting to defend Ukraine, what's the line between a North Korean shooting at a Western troop in Ukraine and a North Korean shooting at a Western troop in South Korea, right? Like that line gets a lot fuzzier really fast, especially if South Korea starts doing what I think they're going to do, which is bolstering Ukraine against the North Korean advances, because North Korea is not doing what they're doing in Ukraine for grins. They're not doing it for like, you know, a high five from Putin. They're getting something. And they got a mutual defense treaty, which is a guarantee that both sides will defend each

other in war. They're probably getting nuclear weapons delivery technology at the very least. They're getting training for their officer corps. They're getting training for their officer corps. They're getting a lot of stuff out of this. And so South Korea is not not immune, not ignoring that. South Korea is aware of that and knows that this has strategic implications for them as well. And so it's starting to coalesce toward, you know, roughly two sides. You know, you've got Russia, North Korea, Iran on one side and NATO, South Korea, probably. Japan on the other, not counting the Taiwan situation. That's entirely up in the air at the moment, right? That remains to be seen. If Putin gets away with what he wants to do in Ukraine,

I think the Chinese will go into Taiwan. At the same time, if NATO gets heavily involved in Ukraine and seems bogged down in America's part of that effort, I think China might also go into Taiwan in that case, too. So the world is kind of on the precipice right now. We're on the verge. you know, we've been seeing these weapons buildups for years. I mean, countries have been preparing for this for a while, even if it's not been in the news, you know, it's kind of been, the writing's been on the wall for a bit. And again, I don't think that there will be much room for negotiation. If you remember early in the war in Ukraine, when Russian tanks first rolled across the border, most conservatives in America were even very supportive of Ukraine. Like, even Trumpers supported Ukraine, and Trump himself supported Ukraine at first. It was only later when, the spin happened that they decided to be anti-Ukraine, which is to say, when missiles start falling on NATO states, I think the reaction will be a lot quicker than the spinsters have time to spin. And I think that NATO is acutely aware of that. There's also the issue of, okay, Trump doesn't want to support NATO, but does he want to pull American troops out of Estonia?

Because that's where they are right now. And if those troops start getting shot at, you want to tell me he's not going to support that? Like, that's a non-starter, you know? I guess I don't, I don't feel that certain about it. I don't feel that certain about anything that he may or may not do. I mean, I think he, we know from his previous term what he might or might not do, right, or what he did and didn't do. But he was also stuck working with Esper. He was stuck working with Mattis. And I mean, all the stuff that at least I've read is that they actually actually. did have a restraining effect on him. His next secretary of state, and secretary of defense, will probably mean, I'm assuming, mini mouse. Maybe Mickey. I don't want to get in the way. You know, I mean, I don't want to say one thing or another. And they will do exactly what he says. Right. Right. But I think that it's in the case, but in that chaos is opportunity for everyone else because you don't know, because up to a certain era, you had a pretty good idea

about what the United States was going to do and what the reaction was going to be. The odds have dramatically shifted. And rolling the dice doesn't feel nearly as bad as it used to. Exactly. Right. If you are North Korea or Russia or Iran, in, I do, I don't know if we want to get into this now, but one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot are, um, is nuclear proliferation.

Um, if you're Iran, if you're South Korea, if you're Poland, if you're Saudi Arabia and you're looking at Iran, um, what's to stop you from throwing some norms and taboos at the window and making sure that your country doesn't get invaded? Exactly. And I think that, I mean, Ukraine, there were talks yesterday that Ukraine will either pursue a nuclear deterrent or join NATO. Those are the two choices at this point. I don't see a future where they exist and don't do one or both of those things. Right. And the other thing to think about is if Trump makes good on his promise to not help NATO or to leave NATO, what does that say about France and the UK's nuclear deterrent? It says, oh, that was a good idea to hold on to that one and not rely on the U.S. for that one. And again, so that'll tell Poland and Ukraine that they should get a nuclear deterrent. Saudi Arabia, again, we'll look at Iran and

Israel and say, maybe we should have one. Who knows what Turkey will do? They've got the capacity to do so. Egypt won't sit by idly with a Saudi nuclear threat nearby. So there's like all these repercussions that come from it, you know, and that's why I'm trying to say, like, even if, even if this is like chaotic good Trump and he like turns around tomorrow and he says, you know, I was wrong. When I said they were all rapists, I actually meant they're bringing doctors and engineers. and scientists and some, I assume, are bad people. Like, he turns around dramatically tomorrow. He still doesn't have the tax to negotiate this.

He doesn't bring the people, he doesn't bring the expertise on board or the tact on board to accurately and adequately negotiate these crises, which are very, very fraught at the moment. And we're very, we're on a razor's edge. And the vibes are not good, you know? What's the leverage? Right. Like, he, that's, I, I, I,

was talking to some people about this yesterday, educated people who were saying that, you know, Trump is going to do what he can to end the war in Ukraine. He might even threaten to cut aid to Ukraine. And I just don't know how to explain to people that that won't end the war. Right. Like, even if Ukraine said, okay, we want to stop shooting, Russia would say, okay, then capitulate. Like, that's the only terms they've offered. And even if Russia said, okay, ceasefire, the war is not over. It's going to continue as soon as both sides arm back up again. So, like, we need to be realistic about this. And I don't think Ukraine would agree to a ceasefire at the moment because they've already shown that they don't respect the U.S. as their number one ally. Boris Johnson was the first person

Zelensky called on February 24th. Macron was the second. Biden was like fifth. That's not like disrespect necessarily. That's showing they recognize where the U.S. sees them as an ally and they're putting the U.S. on the same pedestal. Okay, fine. If we're fifth best to you, you're fifth best to us. That's fine. You know, they'll keep fighting. They won't necessarily fight well. They won't necessarily do well on the battlefield, but the issue at hand has never been, it's never been whether or not the U.S. can negotiate with Russia and agree like, okay, Ukraine won't join NATO or whatever with NATO. It's not about NATO. It's not about NATO enlargement. It's not about NATO encroachment. This has always been about Ukraine being a legitimate democracy and thus a threat to Vladimir

Putin directly on his border. Ukraine's democracy cannot be seen as successful because then why can't the Russian people have democracy? If Ukraine can throw off their oligarchs and their corruption, why can't we do that here in Russia? And so if there's a ceasefire and Ukraine has another election, that's an existential threat to Putin. So the war will not end with a discussion of NATO enlargement. That's a smokescreen. I don't know. It's so funny because this is one of those conversations where both sides sounds so persuasive. I mean, yeah, yeah, the NATO thing. to me actually has sounded very persuasive that actually Putin didn't want NATO on his doorstep. He didn't like a Democratic, you know, getting, I mean, getting rid of his puppet, he certainly

didn't like Yanukovych. I mean, that, that was not something he appreciated, I'm sure, in any way. But, I mean, actually, it doesn't sound crazy to me that he saw NATO coming and said, you know, fuck that shit. I mean, why is that so hard to believe? Instead of the overall, like, he's just afraid of democracy. He's not fucking afraid of democracy. you know why? Because he's got the Okrean. He's got every fucking group of people in there with like machine guns tearing down the people. You know what I mean? Well, I think, I mean, I'm getting loud now. I'm really enjoying myself. It's okay. No, it's okay. Oh. I think that fear of NATO enlargement was on his mind, but I don't think it was his primary motivating goal in

the war. And I think the evidence to that is that if you went back to February 20th, 24, four days before the war, or 22, and asked me four days before the war broke out, what's the one thing Putin could do right now to guarantee Finland and Sweden join NATO? I would have said, oh, invade Ukraine full bore. And so it's like, was Nathan Fielder advising him on his business proposals here? Like, what happened, you know, like? I don't know, man. Anyway, but, off.

So let me throw a couple wringles here. Just news that has broken in like the last couple hours. I don't know if either one of you have seen it. I'm just going to throw it out. Trump had his first call with Zelenskyy post-President elect. Did we see who was on the call? Why it was Mr. Musk. Yeah, Elon Musk was on the call.

And that cannot have been fun for Zelensky because Musk has shown time and time again that he would prefer a Russian victory in Ukraine. So that kind of sets the stage there. But more than that, I can't see. say really, Musk is kind of a, kind of a wild card in the way that you can't,

you can't ever expect what an alcoholic or a six-year-old is going to say next. It's the same level of chaos and wildness. It's not respectable. It's just a thing we got to deal with. He is definitely the world's little brother. And he's proud of that. So,

we'll see how that goes. What could, why, what could be the possible justification for having that person on the phone call. He probably said he was really interested in it, and Musk said, sure, buddy. I mean, I think the inevitable fallout between Musk and Trump is going to be hilarious, and I think it might stem from Ukraine.

I mean, like we've said, Trump is more emotional and could be persuaded by some horrific thing that he sees out of Ukraine. Musk doesn't really strike me as the kind of guy that's in touch with his emotions too much other than the reactionary volatile side. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that would see human suffering and sympathize with it. He would wonder, well, why were they on the receiving end and what do they do to deserve it? And so that's going to be a disconnect, I think, in their administration. It's going to blow up very publicly and, in my professional opinion, quite hilariously

in the near future here. Well, I also think that Musk is concerned about existential risks for all his many, many faults is concerned about some specific existential risks that Trump doesn't give a shit about. That's fair. Climate change being, you know, one of the big ones. Killer robots being, you know, Terminator-style killer robots probably being another one of them.

And I'm wondering if like one of those things comes to an inflection point and there's some sort of climate change crisis that occurs that they have a falling out over. it'll probably be something stupid or crueller and more petty than that, but, you know, another one of the points to watch as we all learn how to live in this new era. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, on that note of it being a new era and of things being very tense right now, I just want to remind anybody who's listening to this that I'm not trying to diminish your fears and I'm not trying to say that we're all going to be okay and it's going to be hunky dory. Like, it's absolutely going to fucking suck. but what I can tell you is that we've been here before. The world has been on the precipice of this in 1914 and 1939, and we went through some really, really dark times.

But some of us survived in the end. In fact, a lot of us survived in the end. And those of us who survived are going to have to decide what kind of a world we build on the other side of this catastrophe. We're going to have to decide how we do better when we rebuild this world. The United Nations was clearly didn't go far enough. The League of Nations didn't go far enough before that. So we went further with the UN.

And whatever comes after this, whatever comes after this catastrophe we're facing down, it's on us to survive and to teach the future generations what the world was like before the instability and what the world should be like after the instability. Otherwise, I don't know what the fuck we're still here for. I just don't know how far things are going to go. I mean, and I know I'm not the only person saying that. I mean, nobody knows. But I just don't know whether we're sitting on the edge of a cliff right now or it's just another. bad moment. I mean, Trump one was bad and stupid and idiotic and moronic and harmful. But, you know, we survived just like you're saying, Aram. You know, but like what people do we? People will always survive, but how much suffering is there in bunkers? Yeah, yeah. I think it's about how do we minimize the amount of suffering we have to go through to get to the next phase? Right. And I, I want to say that I don't think that it's going to be on the level of the first Trump administration. I think it's going to be significantly worse. I think that the first Trump administration ended

after four years barely. I think that if you look at history, you'll note that the vast majority of successful coup attempts come after failed coup attempts. Lessons are learned and applied, and they won't make the same mistakes this time. And so that's what we need to be wary of is that in a few years when Trump or Vance, whoever the president is by then, is slated for either replacement or re-election, what's the Supreme Court going to decide?

And at this point, I couldn't tell you. I mean, the Supreme Court is conservative, obviously, but they're not all Trumpers. And so if it came down to a constitutional issue, I can't see them all going with Trump. But that's forecasting four years in the few, future. So that's kind of dangerous.

A lot happens in four years. A lot happens in four years. A lot changes in four years. Yeah. The other thing I want to throw out there that I thought was interesting, RE Ukraine. And this is another one that just broke in like the last hour, is that the Pentagon lifted a ban on contractors,

U.S. contractors operating inside Ukraine, specifically, I think, around just the repair and maintenance of weapons. But that is another that is another like small step towards direct U.S. involvement in the war, right? It is, but I would also like to caution people and remind them that the U.S. has and has had contractors servicing military aircraft, namely F-16s in Iraq, this entire time, despite everything with Israel and Iran going on. And those contractors do sometimes get hurt and killed. And I'm not trying to diminish that. My point is just that it's a step toward conflict, but it's not when the Russian media inevitably runs away with this as this next step to World War III and nuclear annihilation, this ain't it.

The next step to nuclear annihilation will probably be something the Russians choose to do. But, yeah. This is one of the things that worries me about Ukraine pursuing a nuclear weapons program is that I do. feel like that would be justification to them to, uh, preemptively strike. Absolutely. Um, and I mean, this is something that I remember, I don't know if we had, uh, if we talked about it on the show or not or if it's just something you and I talked about, uh, between ourselves, Matthew, but, um, October of 2022, you know, fall of 2022, there were a lot of

warning signs that, that something was going to escalate dramatically in the nuclear realm. And we have since found out in recent months that indeed, DOD put the odds of nuclear war at 50-50 that month, which is way too high, way, way, way too high. You don't want your odds of nuclear war being like above 1%. So 50-50 is way too high. And there were phone calls made between Joe Biden and, you know, Xi Jinping calling on him to make statements to the Russians. And he did.

He made public statements saying they wouldn't support nuclear use, you know. And Lloyd Austin got on the phone with Shogu and told him, Basically, you know, we see what you're doing. Don't do it. Do not do this. And at one point, one of the Russian ministers, I've been reading this in Bob Woodward's new book, one of the Russian ministers asked Lloyd, you know, how dare you threaten me? You know, you can't threaten us. And Lloyd said, Lloyd Austin said, you know, I'm the leader of the most powerful military and human history. I don't make threats. You know, and I think that's kind of been the attitude that's been going through this, is that like Russia can escalate if they want and it will go very badly for them and we're ready for that. But we don't want it. to get there. You know, and that's been kind of dictating the Biden administration's response in Ukraine is that they're giving Ukraine weapons to fight the war, but they don't want to give them too much because then Russia's military might get defeated catastrophically in the field and it could escalate to nuclear weapons use. So that's why we've been trickling the aid in, which has done a lot to avoid superpower conflict. I can tell you, we are drowning in peace right now.

so. Well, and this has been a delicate balancing act, and again, we have an incoming executive that is not great at delicate balancing acts. Exactly. But again, I want to reiterate that right now is probably the scariest time of the administration, not the darkest, not the most violent, not the worst, but the scariest, because we don't know what the threat is going to look like yet. It hasn't coalesced yet. It's all, we're flying. down the freeway at 80 miles per hour on a foggy day and you can't even see what the traffic is ahead of you. Now when the fog lifts it's going to be a stormy pissing down lightning, windy, rainy, terrible day and you don't want to be driving but at least you'll know

the threats ahead of you and you can kind of adapt to them. So, you know, don't let the despair get hold of you too much right now. We're going to need as many people on the right side of this as we can. And also our emotions,

the people on the call, in the rest of the country, quite frankly, or running high right now. Extremely, yeah. And that's natural, you know, I mean, it's, I've been realizing that I'm, I'm feeling it in a way like, like the loss of a loved one. It's, it's grief, right? It's coming in stages and waves. It's, you know, this denial, this acceptance, this overwhelming despair, this fear of what

the future will hold. And I can't guarantee that it's going to be, you know, anything short of a catat. But we've been in 1945 before, and we recovered. So that's not to say, again, that everybody will be okay. That's just to say that I think the story will go on, you know. There's an ancient Armenian proverb. I am keen on dropping those on you, Matthew. It says something to the effect of, you know, we didn't start the fire,

but it was always burning since the world's been turning. It was ancient Armenian wisdom. And I think that's really important to remember right now that, you know, we didn't, we didn't start this problem. We're not the ones who ignited the fire. It's been burning for a while, but we're going to do what we can to fight it and pass it on to the next generation when we, when we're too old, you know, and that's just the human story. This call is feeling very fatalistic, which is fine. do you think that some sort of whiter conflict is inevitable or is it possible to pull back from the precipice

and reassert the neo, the neoliberal world order? Look, man, it's been a, it's been a bleak week. If you'd asked me a week ago, I told you we could probably have some good negotiations, some good faith negotiations and head this off. But honestly, the way things are looking, they're all just assholes.

they're all assholes, all of them. The Trump administration, Bibi Netanyahu, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Ukrainian, like some of the Ukrainian leadership, the Russian leadership, NATO, they're all just assholes, and that's not even getting started on, on Xi Jinping and his ilk. It's just a bunch of disconnected people who don't realize that the lives of millions, hundreds of millions of people hang in the balance right now, and they're too hung up on their old games, you know, and I don't mean to sound like a jaded leftist. I just mean like as somebody who had friends working in the Democratic campaign in the last couple months, you know, to hear things like the state Democrat office would not let their people go to a national Democrat event in their state because the national Democrats hadn't cleared it with them.

It's like, do these people that are playing games in politics realize what hangs in the balance right now? Like, do they realize how serious this is? I don't think they do. Well, I really don't. Foreign policy was notably the center of. the campaign. It usually is. It's particularly surprised.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think that anybody was really thinking about that when they were, well, maybe we were. But what I'm saying is like what Trump talked about with foreign policy was trade. Right. And trade only, right? But trade. And he'll fix everything.

Well, trade and also, not even just that I'll fix everything. His promise on foreign policy was you won't have to give a shit about this anymore. It won't be on the news anymore bothering you because it'll be over. I'm going to put an end to these wars. It was not about it going

one way or the other or any explicit foreign policy promise or path forward. Not one side winning over another. It was simply, you won't have to pay attention to this. That was his foreign policy pitch. And you are right.

like people vote on their material interests. The Democrats were dog shit at reaching people about that and had no real articulate explanation for how they were going to benefit people's material interests and people voted on their wallet. Don't forget the anger. I've got to work my way into the Trump administration because I know I know a thing or two about Trump. I know he likes a good joke. and I think that he could definitely bring about more stability in the world if we handed like a couple nuclear weapons to Taiwan. Mm-hmm. With a big key that's got a big number on it.

And then some to maybe, I don't know, give some to Armenia. I'm biased, but Armenia would be good. And then maybe give some to, you know, Kurdistan and make sure the keys are numbered, the one, two, and four. And just don't tell people where number three is and just let the guesswork go, you know. I just kind of classic senior prank on the whole world. No one will see it coming. No one will know what to do about it. And I think that's how we can fix this, you know?

Well, you know, we are, America is set to spend about $2 trillion overhauling its ICBMs. Right. We're going to do, you know, we got to decommission those old Trinity missiles anyway. And Trump likes to make a buck. That's not right. We've got to get rid of those old, we've got to get rid of those old ICBMs anyway. Yeah, men and men, men, men, two's. Three. Oh, my God, I'm terrible.

I know, come on, man. Right. And Trump likes to make a buck. So, I mean, he can totally sell those to people who want them. They're too small for the new silos. You know, what are you to do with those? You got to, you know, sell them off. Saudi Arabia already in the market. He's just going to sell them to Musk.

I mean, come on. Musk already has an ICBM company. What else? What else are we missing here? The buildup in your. up really. I mean, walk us through, okay, walk us through that. Because like that was one of the things that really caught, the two, the two defense stories

that really caught my eye, the day of the election and the day after were, um, Israel firing its defense minister telling the Palestinians that they couldn't return to northern Gaza. And then, uh, Germany reinstating conscription. Right. Um, and the reinstatement of conscription is kind of in the background of this, this wider NATO movement to, you. to revamp their response capabilities. And, I mean, NATO in 2014 started standing up there. It's like the Extreme Readiness Brigade or something like that.

It's like their group of soldiers who were ready to go at a moment's notice to defend the alliance. And it was, I think, like, 2,500 people to 5,000 people. They're upping it to 100,000. So, I mean, that alone, that's on the scale with what America went into Iraq with in 2003. You know, that's a lot of soldiers. And so Europe is aware of what's going on, and I think especially the countries in the east, they know what happened last time with the Russians, but they also know what happened last time with their European partners. Namely, sure, the war started to defend Poland, but when the war ended, Poland was not whole and was not whole again until, you know, the Soviet Union broke up in, you know, or in 1989, really, but 91, you could really argue until they were whole again. And they're aware of that history, and they're very fearful of that history.

And as we have seen in Israel, the living legacy of genocide is a very, very strong political motivator. And you have just as much living legacy of that in Eastern Europe as you do anywhere else in the world that's experienced the genocide in the last hundred years. And so now is a time for politicians of the highest caliber. to be engaging and that is not what we're about to have. Right. Do we have, are there any politicians anywhere of the highest caliber? Jimmy Carter's still around.

Okay. Come on. And he only served one term, dude. He only served one term. So Jimmy Carter, McRae. He's very handsome. McCrone.

Yeah, he's very handsome. I think that could be an asset. Everyone in his own country hates him. That was, this is one of the things that's kind of been wild to me about this era is this um and i think we may see it play out in america too we already are actually is this um anyone the incumbent always loses everyone's mad they're they don't like the way things are no one's quite sure what we should do about it except to vote the bastards out and they keep voting the bastards out and things keep not getting better

And one of the things that's been striking to me about the political pitches, and I don't know nearly as much about what has happened in Europe, the political pitches are backwards looking. Harris, we can't go back. Trump make America great again. Looking backwards. No one is articulating a positive vision of the future. Very few people have a vision of the future at all. the only ones that I can really think of are people like Peter Thiel and Musk, who are neo-futilists and have very, like, very sci-fi kind of ideas about where things are going and where they should go. I don't really hear from politicians about what's what the world could look like. Yeah, I mean, and that's actually, I've heard that it's a big part of the blame against Harris. is that she did a terrible job of articulating what she wanted to do,

as opposed to, you know, stay the course. Well, people hate the course. Yeah. So, no, no, that's, that's unfortunately another good point. We've had a lot of good points this episode. And no solutions can we should really. There's not going to be a solution. Yeah, I want to put a note here that says that when we say good points, we don't mean points that are good.

We mean. Trinch in observation. Respectable. Yeah, respectable observations about bad things. We don't mean that these are positive points. Yeah, I don't really know what to do. This is the first time in my life where I've actually turned inward after an election. Even after 2016, 2016, I thought about the resistance.

Then I thought it was incredibly stupid because in what way are we fucking resisting other than wearing pink hats and standing out in a mall? Okay, I think that's incredibly stupid, but fine, we're the resistance. Now, I'm like, you know, I really should think about losing a couple pounds. Don't do that. Don't do that. What can I do? This is one of the things that makes me so angry right now.

And now, okay. Well, tell me. So everyone is like grace for the week, maybe even for next week, too. There's got to be a period of like adjustment and morning. take your showers, take your baths, play your calls of duties. Calls duty. No, play your calls duty. Please use the right terminology.

But like there's this instinct that I am seeing and it's not just you. It's several of the friends I know as well of tuning out. I'm canceling the subscription to all of my new services. I don't want to pay attention to any of this anymore. I'm going to look away. I'm going to play a lot of video games. I'm going to drink quite a bit. Wow.

Just roast them. Jesus Christ. No, I don't, I'm fucking, I'm pet. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. Well, okay, but honestly, what do you suggest, though? So I, like, you can't, you can't turn away. And if you need to feel like you are doing something,

there are people in your community around you that need your help. Find them. do something. If like you like going to a soup kitchen and working a shift there is probably monumentally more important and will have more impact on the people immediately around you than any dumb shit we're doing on the internet or any dumb political thing that you're going to post on Twitter or any article I would ever write. And so like stay connected to the people around you and your community and fight like

for them. I think that's great advice. I think other, if you live in a community where it's hard to find like-minded political individuals, perhaps shelve the politics temporarily, and work with them on stuff that you can agree with them on. Do you live in a rural area? Right to repair is a really big deal for farmers, right? Restoration of the small and mid-sized farmers is a huge deal to rural folks. And if we can demonstrate to them that a lot of us, the left from the big cities actually kind of agree with them on that that like we also don't like it when the police show up at your house and take people away like for us it's our our friends of color for them it's listen to any country western song you've ever heard right like

there are certain commonalities in american society that we've been that have been papered over and we've been we've been taught and primed to just to just kind of react to each other and I think a lot of this comes from the the Democrat elite they learned a lesson in 2008 with Obama's election. And I think they learned the wrong lesson. They thought the lesson that was learned was that social justice and identity politics are the way to win elections. And those are important things. It's important for everybody to feel welcome. It's important to stand up for everybody. But ultimately, the American people are not all there yet. And so the majority of people who switched their votes from Biden to Trump didn't do so because they're racist or because they're

sexist. They don't have a problem with racism or sexism, but they aren't that themselves. They did it because of economic instability and other social woes. And so if we can show them that economic justice for everybody makes them stronger and that part of economic justice comes with racial justice, that's how you get them on board of these things. You can't attack it head on. The example I've been citing with people lately is Boris Yeltsin. When he ran for president of the Russian Soviet Federation, basically, he did not run on a platform of fuck the communist party and bringing this shit down. He ran on a platform of let's reform, let's change things.

And eventually it came out that he was actually saying, fuck this shit, let's bring the party down. But you have to get the people there first. And it's really difficult to get people on board with that when the majority of people are very comfortable in the current system and very comfortable just kind of going along. Well, I mean, I think if you just take a policy of peace, land and bread, you know, you can keep winning elections. Yeah. Oh, wait. That was a fascist slogan. But I mean, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a communist slogan. I thought I'd do a quick look up. But that's actually what the communists were offering during the revolution, peace, land and bread. But it worked because it's so simple.

Well, I mean, I don't think anybody ever, I mean, very few people voted for Bolsheviks. I mean, that was a war and they were very successful eventually. Absolutely. But just like, I know, I know you're. you're looking inward, Jason, and I get it. And I, like, so many of my other friends are. But, like, you, you got to, you can't. You got to resist that urge. I get it.

We're old and tired. Yeah, it's that. And it's just, you know, it's discouraging when, I mean, my day job, like, you know, I wrote a bunch of stuff. I published a bunch of stuff that other people wrote that I thought was very strong and potentially persuasive. I mean, that was like my. my job and it could not have had less impact. And it's just a good reminder. You know, it's like,

whatever you do doesn't matter. And I think that's important. I'd like to, I'd like to remind you I'm exaggerating. I'm exaggerating. But, you know, it's like, you know, you can put a lot of effort into something and do it very publicly and not get your way. And then it's hard to figure out what's next. Absolutely. Sorry, I'm on the verge of a sneeze here. So if it pops up, that's my bad. I just wanted to remind you, though, that as much as you are a journalist, um, I've also known you for some time now. And you're a historian as well. You study history. You follow history. You read about history. And so at a certain point, our other hats have to come on too, right? Yes, we're journalists. Yes, we report on what's going on. But we're also documenting and watching and observing. And we're

not just doing that for grins. And we're not just doing that for ourselves to feel better, even though I love reading history. We're doing that because we realize at some level that inevitably, people are going to ask us, what the fuck happened? How did it get this bad? How did it get this bad? And that may not be for a couple generations. We might be old and gray by that point, but people will ask those questions eventually, and it's on people like us and those listening to pay attention, to see what's going on, to stand against it where they can, but ultimately to remember the lessons of how we got here to avoid having it happen again. And I think that's part of the reason we got here is that our education on the rise of Nazism in Germany was very much in a vacuum. It was the Germans

lost World War I, and then this Hitler guy came along, and he hated the Jews, and people liked him, And so he took over. But there was more to it than that. But so many people are just like, well, the Nazis aren't, they're not marching in Nazi uniforms and saying Siegheil. So like it doesn't look exactly like it. It doesn't look exactly like it. Right. Because we think that history repeats and it doesn't repeat.

It mirrors roughly. It kind of echoes, but it doesn't, it's not an exact one to one. You know, there's like rhymes. It's like poems. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's funny.

I think that when the Nazis came to power, we'll try to stay away from Godwin, I think, as far as we can. But all I want to, or not too deep with it. All I want to say, though, is that they grew out of incredibly harsh economic times. I mean, that was one of the factors was people, like, were literally using wheelbarrows to carry, you know, Weimar bills to buy a loaf of bread. And it's funny that we seem to have elected someone who very knowledgeable people call a fascist without any of that.

You know, it didn't take that. The vibes are very bad. And the other thing is that I think it's important to understand that like they can, you know, Jerome Powell can trot out a piece of paper every quarter and tell me how good things are. And that doesn't make eggs cheaper. Yeah. And these are problems that, again, yeah, you can show people all the metrics you want, but their real world lived experience is different, you know, and that's something that a lot of, a lot of my friends didn't get and lead up to the election.

I hoped and thought that Harris was going to win, but I had this suspicion in the back of my mind that there was this groundswell growing. And I tried to ignore it because everybody was saying, you know, it's overwhelmingly going to be Harris. But as we got closer and closer to the election, I noticed that it was the same people who told me in 2016 to pay attention to the polls. It's going to be okay that we're telling me the same thing this time. And it was like, no, you guys, like something has shifted in society and that polling data doesn't work anymore.

For whatever reason, it's not accurate. I don't think polling data has ever actually worked. I think the whole thing has been a sham for a long time. Basically, since it's inception. It's wizards fighting. I don't want to hear about them anymore. Yeah, but on the other hand, also just the polls, if you looked at them as little as possible, which is exactly what I did.

The headline was always, it's neck and neck. That's all. Right. You know, Trump's up a little. He's down a little. She's up big in Pennsylvania. Well, you can, those are all, the outliers were easy to ignore if you're just glancing at the occasional headline because the vast majority of the headlines actually just said it's basically tied. Yeah. And it wasn't even that good. Right. Yeah. Exactly. I thought it was going to be very close election. I thought it would come down to a couple days after the election.

They'd decide which final state decided it. But no, it was a blowout. Like it was. Yeah. Really was. Yeah. All right. Other than we get weird here at the end.

All right. So I think we can all agree. Cancel Stephen Colbert, remove John Stewart from air. Spank, Jimmy Fallon publicly. Maybe I'll cut that one. That one's a little too. That one may be a little bit too much. That's a little grim.

All of these things are true and need to happen. Other than those very obvious policy, you know, issues, what else has to change about the media? What else do journalists need to be doing in this age? And I'm not here talking about cable news, which is just a dead institution walking with no relevance, I think. I think there needs to be an understanding that there's a place between, there exists a space between a catchy headline or a tweet and a full-length article.

Most people don't have time for a full-length article, especially if it's full of words and places and names they don't understand. We really need to have a progressive answer to the availability of right-wing media, right? The problem is that if somebody doesn't know what's going on and they ask a question and people get mad at them for asking the question, their options are either to pay for a subscription to the New York Times or access any of myriad right-wing media for free. Right. And so the answer is that like we need to have the right people backing these media institutions

with some finances, but we ourselves need to back these media institutions, the ones that do the good reporting because there are some out there. There are plenty out there that are doing good reporting right now. We need to be backing them and and supporting them. and us as journalists, we need to be understanding that just because we know the right answer and just because we know the answer to the problem and we're on the right side of it doesn't mean that the solution is at hand, right? Like, the fight isn't over when you're right.

The fight is over when you convince the other side that you're right. And so there's this almost elitist perspective, and I'm guilty of it at times too, looking down on people who don't follow these things as closely and kind of talking in jargon at them. and there's a way to talk about these subjects that is not jargony and there's not condescending and that puts it in terms the average American can understand you know yeah I know you don't want to be involved in the war in Ukraine I know you're concerned about your tax dollars but think about it this way for every Ukrainian soldier who dies on the front lines against the Russians

that's one NATO or U.S. soldier who's not being put on the front lines and they're spending 90% of that money we're giving them back in American factories putting Americans the job and think about it can you can you imagine a Humvee that's prouder than the one's marauding through Eastern Europe right now as God intended. I mean, they're living out their life dreams. So like, you know, I mean, you can sell it to people in a way that they understand that they can get on board with. It's just about finding a way to get through and remembering that, that they're not a monolith, these people don't, they're not all motivated by the same thing. And you have to say, though,

I have to tell you that like what you just said and, and I understand it, um, makes it, it makes me sad. Why? It makes me, I'll tell you exactly why. Because people, should be able to, like, dumbing things down for people. It's not, see, that it's not dumbing things down, though. Sorry, I'll let me make, let me make your point before I start doing it. No, I mean, it just seems like, I mean, what, it seems like it. I mean, we're certainly telling, we're certainly saying, you know, like, people are, I mean, they're either ignorant or dumb. That's not, that's not how I read what he's saying at all.

I see it as like, you have to, um, you, he's actually here to ask. You, well, sorry, but you have to, let me, let me speak for him for a minute. Sure. You have to, like, you have to consider your audience. It is not dumbing things down to meet people where they are. And you can speak to people, you can teach people things without being condescending to them. Right. I guess that's kind of my point is that like, and you also have to remember that the world is very complex these days.

We're very aware of how complex it is, and people are very busy. And so if I sat down with somebody and they tell me, you know, something on any level when people say, like, I heard that the police are sending, you know, sending tanks into the streets of Portland, I don't sit there and correct them and go, well, actually, that's a Lenko Bearcat. It's not really a tank. It's more of an armored personnel carrier. Just, yeah, you know what they meant. You know what they meant, right? Yeah. Or when somebody says, uh, they don't remember the name of a certain terror group, or they don't remember a, uh, the leader of a group or whatever, you don't have to,

they don't have to remember that. You don't have to say, you know, well, according to Yatars, Yajah, Samoa, Hamas, blah, blah, blah. You say, well, the leader of Hamas, which is a terror group in the Gaza Strip, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and you explain it to them that. And you make it clear that it's just the way that you talk to the people, too. It's not just the words you use, but the way you talk to them and the way that you communicate it. You make it clear to them that this is a two-way street and that I'm here to help you and I'm here to educate you. And if you're not willing to do that, if you're one of those people who says, well, it's not my job to educate them, then you're in the wrong business. No, I...

Not you, not you, Jason. I mean, proverbial. I'm not taking... Don't worry. It's okay. And, you know, I've been in the business for 30-something years and it probably is time that I'm... I don't see that. Maybe, you know, by now.

But, no, I guess I'm just trying to figure out it's like when we were just talking more generally about the media and where we are. And I was thinking about the difference between Joe Rogan. and the New York Times. Now, there are many differences, you may have noticed. But in terms of audience impact, his, you know, his 35 million people are really important. And the New York Times reaches the converted and the people who are, and the hate readers. That's who they reach. I mean, they're, and honestly, I think that's what they deserve.

I mean, I look at them now, and I'm not horribly, terribly impressed. I think that they no longer have competition, and that has made them a worse newspaper. Here's one of the big differences there, though, for me is, have you ever listened to Joe Rogan? Other than other than other, like, only a little bit. I've never listened to the full three hours. Okay. I have a decent amount. Here's the thing is like, I think this is something that gets lost when people lose their minds about Joe Rogan.

that I think is really bizarre. 90% of Joe Rogan's output is three-hour conversations of him bullshitting with dudes about their stand-up careers. That is overwhelmingly most of the show. And then every now and then he gets somebody, like there'll be a one-off with Musk or Trump or whatever. And he goes and like he asks weird questions and says stupid stuff. because he is like a comedian and entertainer,

and it's a three-hour-long conversation. Right. So, like, most of those 35 million listeners are not, are tuning in to hear him and Stavi Baby, like, talk about weird stuff that happened at Carolines. Yeah, and maybe that's actually, like, what, you know, we were talking about. Maybe that's actually the spoonful of sugar that you use to get information

to people, you know. I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, I guess I'm just saying that like the New York Times, it's just it's a different audience. It's people who actually are more receptive because they're actually enjoying themselves, you know, and it's a large number of people. And I just think that people are have so many of those different avenues that they can go down. If you don't like what the New York Times is saying, then you could just totally tune them out. You can tune out the mainstream media. Cable media is, as you said, the cable TV channels other than Fox are just disappearing up their own asses. It was really wild.

It was really, I always buy, like, cable before an election so I can kind of see what's going on. It was really wild to watch the MSNBC coverage in their panel, like, as she was losing that night, one of the women was like, she ran such a beautiful campaign. I mean, Queen Latifah came out and endorsed her. Right. And I was like, oh, my God. You people deserve to live. lose. Yeah.

You deserved to lose if that is what your message is as things are, as you were your, your candidate is being destroyed. Yeah. I mean, I think if more folks at the New York Times would just smoke DMT and then write an article, I mean,

if they haven't met the machine elves, like I don't even know, like if you haven't felt the, the, the presence of the, universe like breathing next to you in the room. Like I really, I don't know. I don't want to hear what you have to say.

We interviewed the hat man about Trump's election. Here's what he had to say. Take more bidadryl is what the hat man says for some reason. And we don't mean Lou Bega, by the way, because I guess he calls himself the hat man. And someone needs to tell him that that is not the right nickname to have. Well, shit. The next time I see the hat man, he's going to have the face of Lou Vegas. So thank you for that.

That's a high note to end on, I think. I think so. Literally, literally a high note. Yeah. All right. I'm going to go, I'm going to go talk to the machine elves. That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners is always Angry Planet is me, Matthew Goldchason Fields and Kevin

Adele. If you like the show, Angry PlanetPod.com, go there. Kick us $9 a month. It helps us support the show. we will be back again a little bit later this week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet

it's a lost episode it's one that I thought was gone that I recently rediscovered and is bizarrely prescient I'm excited to share it with you see y'all then stay safe until