Angry Planet - How We Thought the First Year Would Go

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go. I put the audio in a vault and didn’t listen to it until now.We focused on geopolitics and the American military and our hit rate for predictions was about fifty percent. Domestically, it’s been much worse than I expected. Abroad it’s been much weirder than I expected. The bit about America seeking violence though? Right now that feels spot on.Hegseth’s reforms got worse for women (vindicated)Conscription is not back (wrong)The yearning for violence when the gloves come off (vindicated)All the episodes that weren’t producedSicarioifciation continues apaceThe bigger problem was that people felt badThe dangers of boredom“Drugs won the war on drugs and then looted the armories.”Against burning it all downGreenland is still on the tableThe ceasefire didn’t last and war did not spread to Europe (wrong)Elon Musk is out (vindicated)X is still around, but it IS producing on-demand CSAM (wrong?)WWIII and mass riots didn’t happen (wrong)Martin O’Malley 2028?The Cult of SicarioSupport 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. Hey there, Angry Planet listeners. Matthew here. Welcome to 2026. It is already off to a start of sorts. We've got kind of a weird episode to kick off the year. I know there's a lot going on. There's a lot that we need to get into. I mean, if you've been paying attention to the new cycle, maybe you're finding it a little bit hard to focus just right now. I certainly am. And we're going to get into all of it. But first, I'm going to bust open something from the vault, something that I recorded with Aram Shabhanian in January of last year, January 28th, to be exact. It was his idea. We sat down and he said, let's make predictions for how we think the first year of this is going to go.

We recorded it just after the inauguration. I'd say our hit rate is 50-50 for the actual events, but kind of 100% on vibes. As I listened to back to this as I was editing it, I keep thinking about something I said about redemptive violence and how. Some people are seeking that and they want that. And, man, if that isn't proven to be hitting home just this week, I don't know what to tell you. So here it is. I know we're going to get into Minnesota. We're going to get into everything else in the coming weeks.

But I couldn't sit on this one any longer. Here it is. I get the feeling this will be kind of an informal. Yes. I don't know, man, it's just like every time something dumb happens, all I can think is, yeah, that's what we want. That's what we the people voted for because it's a free and fair election. Yeah.

So just to make sure I'm understanding the project today, we're going to put this in a vault and see what happens in a year? Okay. Like the Disney vault, yeah. Yeah, like the Disney. all the all the failed versions of myly cyrus that came before decaying down there along with this podcast episode

the graphic scenes where scar goes to town on simba's mom while he's in exile oh really i always read scar is gay he is that's why it's fucked up oh i see he did it he shoes his beard his main actually right but he had to make it real right right right

and the people. Right. Oh my God. Okay, so to put this in time for people. Jeez. It's January 28th. So we are week, we're a week in a day into the Trump presidency.

And you had come to me a little while ago with an idea. You're like, let's get, let's talk. Let's just do an episode where we'll put it in a Walt was do like a worst case scenario prediction. And you wanted to do it before the inauguration. And A, because I was going to, I was going to visit friends in Michigan, and B, because I thought we should see what happened during the first week. I was like, let's, let's give it a week and see how we feel. I am both glad and sad that we waited a week because I do feel like,

the information we have now is so... I don't know if I would have predicted it would be this nuts in my worst case. I just... I thought it would take a little longer to warm up to this. Yeah. I knew they were going to blitz us,

but I didn't know they were going to blitz us with their very dumbest. Like, I thought they were going to blitz us with, like, their most competent, put together solid plans, not like, what if we just didn't pay for anything as a plan? like it's the uh it is what is it is if um i'm shutting down all travel from

muslim countries until we figure out what the hell is going on the presidency right yeah it's it's the dumbest possible policies kind of condensed down and just just like well why can't we do x y and z so i guess we should and god knows what what what is going to have happened in a year. This may be, this could be read so many different ways. And we'll get into more like futuristic predictions here in a minute. I just kind of put people where we are in time. Like, um, there's a lot of domestic stuff that's happened. And I would say that the, the way that Trump is running the presidency at the moment is, um, I'm just going to, I'm just going to turn everything off and see what happens. Yeah. Basically, yeah. The big news story, one of the big news

stories, Jesus. As we're coming, going into this call today is that he put a pause on all federal grant payments, which has caused people in the country. And we're getting kind of conflicting reports, different senators and different hospital workers are saying different things. People have lost access to Medicaid completely. So we'll see how that works out long term. But, I mean, just how are you How are you feeling about everything just right now? I mean, it's real dumb, but

I think in a year we're going to look back on now and be like, man, things were pretty good back then. Like, I, and that's me being cynical, but that's also just realistically how humanity works. I mean, I remember paying attention to the world in 2008, 2009, and being very scared and nervous

about the way the world was going and how someday maybe we'll have peace. And wouldn't it be crazy if they broke into programming on CNN and broke the news that everything was okay? But they'll never do that. And that was back in 2008, 2009 when like, sure, there was the financial collapse, but in terms of like violence and instability, things were a little more, I mean, most people would look back on 2009 as the good old days at this point. But if you remember 2009, we were all scared of losing our jobs, you know,

there were people talking about killing Obama. There was, you know, I mean, stuff happening around the world that seemed very pressing and real. And so, yeah, in a year we're going to look back on now and think, man, those were good times. It doesn't mean that they were. But, um, you tend to forget the, the bad stuff unless it was really truly, unless it was a clear blue sky on the morning of September 11th, right? Right. And, uh, yeah, I've decided I'm going to write my 9-11 books someday from the perspective of a man in northern California. because that was among the only overcast places in the country that day.

And so the book can start with it. It was a gloomy gray Tuesday in September. You know, just to change things up a bit. And you turned on the radio and something bad had happened halfway across the country. They didn't have TV in Northern California back then. No, no, it was all radios. That was it. You know, plus your guy's kind of anti-TV.

Right, right, right. So. But, um. He's living up there. I mean. So the kind of the defense, the defense news right now is all over the place. I was trying to conceive in my head. And I may, I'm going to say this now.

And we'll bust this open in a year and we'll see how my ambitions have come. I was trying to, I was thinking of like just an angry planet project that would be just very coldly just keeping track of. American military stuff, just in a very brief newsy way. Because a lot, like, so much is happening that it's really hard to kind of keep up with. You know, Pete Hegseth has been confirmed. I'll be super interested to see if he is still the Secretary of Defense in a year. The man with the Crusader Kings 2 tattoo on his chest or on his arm, my apologies, who promised that he would quit drinking when he got the job

and his promised to return lethality and honor to the American military. They are banning transgender troops. I don't know. There's been no official word on women in combat roles, right? I know he doesn't like it. Not in combat roles, but they did a friend of mine who works for a DOD agent. sent me some information about how they basically cut all of the like volunteer support organizations that might in any way be construed as DEI.

So they have like an organization within the Air Force that was staffed by women who would volunteer and they would look for places where the organization had, was disenfranchising people because of their background or whatever, right? Not in like a frufe, we all get a long way, but in a way of like this is genuinely making the service less efficient when we do it this way, we can be better, more effective killers and more effective soldiers if we do it a different way. And they cut that program entirely. Things like that, where it's like, I know they think they're being macho men for doing it, but they're actually just, like, there's a reason we don't all just run toward the machine gun nest

anymore and they teach soldiers to think individually. It's not because, like, the woke mind virus infected the army. It's because we learned the hard way that that doesn't work. Yeah, I'll be really interested to see what the makeup is of the American military in a year, two years' time.

And if it remains an all volunteer force, because the, this is something I've talked about a lot on the show and elsewhere, the American military has an image problem and is in the midst of a recruiting cut crisis.

Some of that has eased off in the past year or two. And one of the big reasons it's eased off is because more women have joined the services. And it seems as if early indications are that the Trump administration's secretary of defense is going to make the American military a more hostile place or women. And if that happens, fewer women will join. And if fewer women join, they can't keep them. numbers up. They can't keep the numbers up for a lot of different complicated reasons. Some of it is... I'll...

I got to stop you right there and say, I will say he already has made the military a less welcoming place for women. I know this because I've spoken to women who are in the military and in the last week alone, they say that seeing a repeat sex offender, a rapist become the secretary of defense under

a rapist president, right? And they get rid of all these women's initiatives that are supposed to protect women and minorities in the military. anybody who's in the military who's a survivor. So most of the women who would volunteer for an organization like that, they all know what this means. It's basically your abuser just moved back in with you and there's nothing you can do about it. And so I can't imagine a lot of them lasting very long because I wouldn't either.

Like it's already hard enough to be a woman in the military. They made it much harder with this. So apocalyptic worst case scenario, what do you think of the possibility of conscription coming back? I mean, I think it's going to happen. Do you think it just flat out going to happen? We're going to have to. I mean, Europe is not ready for war with Russia, and that's where that's heading.

Like, I mean, as an example, you know, the Europeans, they love to mock the Russian military. We all do. They love to mock the Russian military. Oh, look, the Ukrainians sank the Russian Black Sea Fleet's flagship. They don't even have a Navy. Okay, well, the Royal Navy has five destroyers, and like three or four of them are down for maintenance right now. so they have one destroyer. They have 12 frigates, but like four of them are available.

The other eight are pretty much out of service. And they have two aircraft carriers, but not enough crew for one of them. No fixed-wing aircraft and no support ships to follow those aircraft carriers around the world and fuel them. So effectively, the Black Sea Fleet could take the Royal Navy right now. Which, I mean, it's that on every level, right? Like Europe took too seriously the idea of disarmament. They were naive in a way. with the Russians, they thought that the Russians were serious about disarming and they moved toward a more peaceful continent.

And now it's very hard to get back up and running again. Once the tank factory closes, it's not a matter of just ordering more tanks when you need them. You need to build a new goddamn factory. And that takes time, you know. And so I think between Europe's inability to defend itself and the fact that we've seen from Ukraine that, like, yes, having a tech. The technological advantage helps in modern war, but the Russians are not Saddam's army in 1991. And ultimately, if the French or the British have two or three hundred tanks each, and the Ukrainians can lose 300 tanks on a battlefield in a week, even good tanks.

Like, a first-person drone, you know, FPV drone hitting a Leclair tank or a challenger two, is going to blow the tread off just as well as it would any other tank. And that tank's now out of action. Well, if you only have 300 tanks in your whole fucking inventory and the Russians have thousands, yeah, you're going to run out of tanks eventually and you're going to have to fill that with soldiers. People with, you know, anti-tank missiles and stuff. And like, I just, I think with a war in Russia, a war in Europe going, the U.S. would be hard pressed to make a meaningful contribution to the defense of Europe while still maintaining our vigilance around the world. I mean, we can't send the whole Navy to Europe because we got to keep a credible force near Korea

and a credible force near Taiwan. You know, and like, and don't forget Iran. Like, let me, let me put this to you, though. And I, I kind of want to be like all, if anything,

the last week has taught me that like, everything's on the table, right? All, all possibilities are open to us. Uh, as we walk through this horrifying crossroads. would you need conscripted soldiers if you were not going to go to the defense of Europe? Is there any world in which Trump doesn't honor any of these ties?

I don't think so. I think he would be hard-pressed. It would be one thing if the U.S. had no troops in the Baltic states, which is not the case. we actually have soldiers in Estonia and acting as a tripline, basically. So if the Russians attack any of the Baltic states, they're shooting Americans right away. But even if those soldiers were removed, sure, the Russians could probably conquer the Baltic states, they could probably screw with Finland in a best case for the Russians scenario.

But when missiles start falling on Warsaw and on Berlin and on Paris, I think there's a visceral emotional tie between the American people and most of the central and western Europe that doesn't exist with the rest of the world that's why when Ukraine got attacked for that like two or three week period you had to be an impressive piece of shit

to not be on their side like that has changed now people have found their reasons to be pro-Russia or whatever but most people's knee-jerk reaction when it happened was very emotional and very supportive of Ukraine or if you think back to the Bata Klan attack in Paris 2017 or 2018

the Vissar reaction from Americans who just 10 years before couldn't stop telling you how much the French were surrender monkeys and cowards they were ready to go kill some people for the French right and so like I think it's one thing for Trump to say

that we wouldn't honor NATO it will be very different when the British prime minister is on TV pleading for American support in English right okay I could give you that and he himself responds as we know

look at Syria, responds to visceral imagery, right? Right. Nobody in 2016 could have told you that Trump would be the first American president to bomb the Assad regime. And then he was because he saw a video of a kid getting gassed. And so, like, yeah, he, that's, I think, partially why a lot of folks like Putin are a little bit nervous right now. They're not, they're not afraid of Trump as, like, a rival. They're afraid of how unstable he is. And that's why you're seeing a lot of these conflicts around the world kind of silencing right now. It's not because they necessarily think that Trump is going to fix things or that they believe in his fixes, but they're afraid that if he sees the wrong video, they're going to end up on the wrong side of our bombing campaign.

Tell me about the silencing. I've been paying a lot of attention to domestic stuff and have not been paying attention to the international stuff this past week. I'm sorry, what do you mean? You said you've seen a lot of conflicts around the world silencing. Okay, that's nice. Yeah, I sorry. I wrote what I had said. Yeah, I mean, you look at,

not necessarily silencing, but kind of waiting, anxiously waiting and watching. Nobody wants to make a big move right now. I mean, that's partially why B.B. is allowing Palestinians back into Gaza, I think, is because if the wrong video crossed Trump's desk, right?

Who knows how pro-Israeli would be all of a sudden? Um, but, um, I think it's important though that we, we keep in mind there are some conflicts that are, that are very much separated from us in the West that have an impact on us in the West, that it's kind of the chaos, the random factor, right? Not every conflict is quieting down. Rwanda invaded the DRC this week. And, um, last time they meaningfully invaded the DRC, five and a half million people died, um, and kicked off a refugee flow into Europe. that brought about the far right and eventually Donald Trump. So that was an outlier that nobody expected because everybody says that Africa doesn't matter.

Surprise, people who say that are wrong. I know that's a shock to a lot of your listeners who have never heard of Africa. I'm just kidding. The listeners of this program are actually among the people who I think would be the first to jump up and tell someone like that to shut the goddamn mouth because we've talked about it many times in the past. that. But you're, you are right. Like, there's a longstanding rule, uh, from the war is boring days. We have, we, we wrote about this stuff all the time, but we were always careful not to use Africa in the headline. Because it was death. Uh, immediately no one would, no one would read that story. Everyone would completely tune out.

You had to, it's this, it's, it's, it is this continent where American public attention goes to die. Yeah. Uh, you. have to figure out the exact right framing to get people to pay attention. And yeah, this is something I'm, I've emailed a couple people to try to get somebody to come on and do an episode specifically about, and now checking my inbox. No responses to try to get somebody to come on and talk specifically about what's going on in Congo right now. Right. And the reason that I think a lot of Americans disengaged from it is because Americans are good at state, interstate violence, right? Iran-Iraq war, sure, it was complicated, but we understood it

at least. We knew it was, we could conceive them. Saddam invades Kuwait. Okay, Iraq invaded Kuwait. They crossed the border with tanks with the Iraqi flag on them and took down the Kuwaiti flag. Okay, capture the flag. I got it. So when Rwanda was invading Congo the second time in the 90s, they were given advice that they should, by Robert Mugabe of all people, that they should try to internationalize the conflict, try to get a couple other African countries involved in it. And then when you invade, don't just invade, say, you're helping anti-government rebels who are trying to overthrow their oppressors.

And if you do that, it's too complicated for the American people to follow, and they're not going to get involved. You put a veneer of complication on it, and people will disengage. And it's frustrating. and I get why it happens. It's not just racism. It's, if something happens in Europe, Americans will pay attention and will kind of understand it,

depending on what part of Europe it's in, depending on how much history they have for it. Because a lot of Americans have just an ingrained European history knowledge. You grow up and you go to church, you read the Bible, you hear about the Middle East and Europe a lot, right? Even in biblical terms, you hear about it. Growing up in the U.S., you hear about Europe all the time. It's always something in the news.

You don't hear about Africa that much. And so you don't have the context to even begin to understand what happened. And a lot of history is context. I think a lot of historians mess that up in that they think you can teach people these intense, complicated issues kind of in a vacuum. And if you teach them well enough, they'll get it. And that's true to some degree. But the real way to teach people history is to contextualize it for them.

And to teach them like, hey, you know this thing you've heard about a lot and this thing that you know about right now? You know what it came from? Let's talk about what it came from. and then you go back in history and teach them. And so that's part of why we see this disorder reaction toward European issues and not African is that there's a common history, there's a cultural history there.

I mean, there's the Atlantic Ocean is in the way, but effectively Europe are our neighbors. And it's the difference between your neighbor that you know a lot, knocking on your door at 2 in the morning and saying he needs a place to crash and some guy from across town. The guy from across town is still technically your neighbor and probably a great dude.

But you don't know him as well. and when I say this, I'm generalizing the average, the average American or Western and not all, obviously. Like to me, as an Armenian, when something happens in Armenia, there's a reaction there. Most Americans don't feel, I get that. But I think that that plays a big role in it.

I don't think that that's necessarily the failing of individuals. I think that's just an evolutionary thing. The idea that you can talk to somebody on the other side of the world is a very recent human innovation, and our brains haven't really caught up with that yet, I don't think. like we get it when you see somebody die on video like you get upset but if you see somebody die in front of you on the street that's way more upsetting and it's not because you don't believe the person on the video as a human you fully recognize that it's just something about something about the way our brains work you know um now maybe in a year when trump makes us all super soldiers will understand that better um he's going to get the antifa super soldier forum serum and give it to us ironically give it to us in a vaccine Yeah, we're all going to get a bird flu vaccine That's got the antithas super soldiers

Dude, when they say that vaccines cause autism I asked them, what if there was a vaccine against autism? And it never fails to get funny reactions. What do you see? Like, what do people do? They get upset. They tell me I'm being ridiculous, which is always my... They basically, what that's what they do.

They go, oh, you're just being a fool. You're being ridiculous. You're mocking this. And it's like, I, yes, I am because you look ridiculous. That's the point. There's another bit of Trump military news. The re-institution of soldiers kicked out for not taking the jab and giving them back pay. Yeah, that'll be great for morale.

All these soldiers who have done the right thing for all these years are getting told. Well, actually, you could have done the wrong thing and not followed orders and things would be great for you. So that's good for a cohesive military. Yeah, I mean, we had one of the recent episodes we were talking about how awesome morale is going to be. The military in general under Mr. Hegsef, it's among other things he defends known war criminals in the U.S. military. Right. And the war criminal thing, I mean, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. There's like this belief among conservatives that, like,

Like, if we just go balls out with the military, if we don't do these nice things, if we just kill our enemies like the Russians did when they fought ISIS, they think, look how much more effective that is. But I think seeing the Assad regime fall proves that actually killing people that way doesn't make long-term stability. And they love to use a term with the military. They love to say the gloves have to come off, right? Why do you wear gloves in boxing? To protect your hands. protect your hands and to protect your opponent from unsportsman like damage. Right?

You don't actually want to beat the guy to death. You're not trying to hurt. It's a sport. You're sparring with them. So if the gloves come off in combat, you're saying, I don't care about the collateral damage I do to myself or my opponent. It doesn't matter. I just want to see blood.

Which is very stupid. Like, very dumb at every level. Like fundamentally a dumb idea. Yeah, but I think that I think you're onto something here that there is this undercurrent of a yearning for violence and like violent reciprocity. I think that's part of what is at the heart of, there's another episode I'm trying to put together, the Sicarioification of the Drug War, the Drug War like 3.0, the Speck-Opsification of the American Drug War. This idea that we should issue, this was put forward by Senator Mike Lee, who is a clown, but also a sitting U.S. Senator, that we should issue letters of Mark and allow people to, and allow people like Eric Prince to run mercenary companies that go ranging across the border and kill drug dealers, kill cartel members. and I've seen a lot of interviews with like spec ops guys I certainly put this because we all like not all

spec ops guys are the same but there's a particular kind of spec ops guy that loves to go on podcasts and loves to promote books and loves to promote products that they are connected with. We call those guys operators. Uh, good. Yes. Operators as opposed to just like a normal speckups guy. Right. Right. Guys call themselves operators. I see a lot of operators talking about how they should get unleashed to go south of the border and just go wild.

Um, how they should be able to hunt and kill Pablo Escobar style. Uh, do do those Delta Force raids all over again. even though prominent members of the squads that the Delta Force squads that killed Pablo Escobar in in later years have said that it was a the drug war has been a terrible mistake and we should not have done that. But I think that there is something in the American psyche right now. I don't know if it's boredom or if it's a rage at how everything kind of gets shitty every year and no one seems to have like. good policy recommendations for how to make it not shitty, or at least how to make us not feel shitty, which I think is actually probably the bigger problem, is that people feel bad,

not necessarily that things are bad for them. And they think that they can, and they think that the way to alleviate that boredom and improve their station in life is to be a part of redemptive violence, or at least, see redemptive violence performed on their behalf. And I think that that's part of what the drug war stuff is about.

I think it is too. I think it's, yeah. And it's this, and also this belief that like, we're the most powerful country ever. How dare these drug lords in Mexico, who let's be real, a lot of these people look down on,

how dare these pesky little drug lords stand up to it. It must be that the Mexican people and the Mexican government aren't trying. Maybe we have to do it for them. And it's like that's, you know, it's like a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. And I mean, these type, these operator types need to look no further than a certain bridge in Fallujah at how far that gets them. Like, it won't be long before the cartel is stringing up these posers all over the place. because guess what? The cartel? They're not a pushover. They're...

They have armored personnel carriers in, like, brigade combat team strength. Like, it's not a joke. They know what the fuck they're doing. They have armored vehicles. They have truck bombs. They have all sorts of shit. So, be my guest. I mean, whatever, but... I... It's just frustrating, man. I mean, there's the joke to be made that the...

The tacticalization of the cartels definitely shows that drugs won the war on drugs and then looted the armories of the war. But like, you know. That's good. I like that. Thank you. Thank you. The drugs won the war on drugs and then looted the armories. Yeah, they did.

Well, I mean, it turns out there's a lot of money to be made. Yeah. And when the market is left to regulate itself, it will be regulated. It will be regulated by violence. Right. Exactly. I think back on in 2011, I was an undergrad, and the former Mexican president, Vicente Fox, came to my school, which was really neat, because I went to a shithole school,

like a complete... The school is called Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon, and it's a shithole. I, R.M. Shabani, and I'm telling you not to go there. but this was a cool guest speaker they had. And he got up and he talked about, you know, Mexico and U.S. relations. He cracked a couple jokes. And then he led into talking about the drug war and the drug problems and the cartels.

And then he got really, really, really angry. Because the students kept laughing at what they thought were jokes, but I understood they weren't jokes. He was venting to us and basically saying, stop sending your fucking guns and money to my country. Stop buying drugs from these cartels. You college kid. you in the audience who do cocaine, stop it.

You're the reason this is out of control. And like, that really stuck with me that, like, our whole approach to this war on drugs has been wrong. Everything we've done with it has been wrong. We've been constantly thinking that it's a Mexican problem that's being imported to America. And really, it's an American problem that got moved to Mexico or set up in Mexico because it's outside the reach of the U.S. authorities.

but it's a product that's being sold here. You know, you don't go off to the buyers. You should go after the dealers, but if you can't go off to the dealers, because they're in a different country, you deal with, you address the issue, you address what people are looking for. Why are they seeking this product, right?

And, I mean, we've tried it on the West Coast. We legalized marijuana, and it's very hard now for me to find illegal weed because why would I? I mean, it's dirt cheap in Oregon. But the problem with it, because it's still federally illegal, is that you can't sell across state lines. So if they legalize weed in a state where they can't grow it very well, they naturally have a supply and demand issue. Oregon, weed grows very well here.

So if it were legalized federally, we could sell it across state lines and basically prop up the states that can't make their own and cut out the outsider, the cartel, that are trying to come in, right? That would push them out. But since it's still federally illegal, the only people who can sell it when they grow in Oregon outside of the state are the cartels because they're doing it illegally. So actually, a lot of these weed farms are kind of low-key run by the cartel

because by making it legal on a state-by-state basis, we haven't actually addressed the issue. Right? It's like two steps forward, one step back, at best, every time. Lately it's been like one step forward, nine back, but like, you know, it's just frustrating

because there's a lot of issues that we need to address in this country that need to be done on a nationwide basis that can't be done by individual jurisdictions like oh well they ban guns in Chicago look how well that went yeah because you can go outside the city and get a fucking gun that's not the point the point is that you like right like obviously if we do this piecemeal it's not going to work

and so that's kind of a long-winded rant long-witted rant, but I just like... It gets frustrating, man, because the real solution is there, but nobody wants to talk about it because it doesn't really... It's like you were talking about with Africa news stories. Nobody clicks on the articles. Nobody cares if you don't make it fun for them.

You know, I mean... We love to knock the Democrats who voted for the Iraq War in 2003. But the reason so many Democrats did that is because any Democrat who went against the 1991 war, across the board, lost their elections in the 90s. And then even those who survived that and then voted for the war in 2003 still lost their elections.

Like, when the American people are riled up and want a war, if you vote against it, you lose your election in somebody whose pro-war gets installed. So, like, we the people need to be asking for better things. or we're going to keep getting shitty policymakers. I think we're going to have to experience a whole lot of pain. I think so too. And I hate that because innocent good people who already know this shit are the ones who are going to suffer the most, right?

Well, yes, but I think the suffering will not be evenly distributed for sure. But I think it's going to hit people that voted for this. It's going to hit people that didn't vote for this. It's going to hit people that don't know what's going on. It's going to hit people that absolutely know what's going on. And it probably won't hit any of them in equal measure. I think there will be people that will be able to buy their way out of the suffering, but there are always us. I just hope that we can connect that suffering with where it belongs.

Right. I'm increasingly, what is it you said? think was the one thing we didn't get on the call before I hit the record button that you're increasingly cynical. Yeah, I mean, I'm very cynical lately. And I just can't help but feel every time this kind of shit happens. Like, well, this is what we voted for. This is what we wanted.

And I think a lot of Americans, we're never going to have a moment where there's like a chorus of Trumpers with their red hats. They burn their hat. And they go, I was wrong. I was so dumb. But those people are going to stop being so pro Trump soon. They're going to shut up a little bit. and they might just go back to not voting anymore.

And maybe that's best. And that sounds really shitty and cynical. As somebody who believes that everybody's voice should be heard, well, if you're not going to use your voice constructively ever, the best you can do is stay silent. There's just this, again, this sense that I see that people really just want to burn. And this is on both sides of the political spectrum,

all sides of the political spectrum, even burgeoning in the middle somewhat. people just want to burn everything down. Yeah. And I advocate against that because I think it would maximize suffering. Yes. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to, quote, unquote, like, work within the systems that are available to you. Because a lot of those levers, like, aren't working either, right?

No, we need to, we need to gut the house and renovate it, but we don't need to tear it down and soil, like, salt the foundation. Right. you know, like, because a lot of people, I think revolution has is a very sexy word in America because we were born from a revolution that went well. And a lot of people think revolution means like a rebirth or a restart. And it does. But revolution by its technical definition is a recycling. Right. And engine revolves.

So when you're staging a revolution, you're saying, let's scramble it and see what comes out. Because in 1979, when leftists joined hands with right-wing religious extremists in Iran to overthink. throw the Shah, they didn't think that they were going to get fucking shot and thrown out of the country soon. They thought that they were going to take over and make a socialist utopia. And so, like, we need to be weary and cautious of people who advocate

outright revolution and a complete destruction of the system because they're not thinking about the people at the fringes and the bottoms of that system who are going to die first. Right. Don't firebom your Walmarts. People might be sleeping in the parking lot because that's the only place they have to go. And people might need to go to that

Walmart because it's the only affordable place they can walk to that has groceries. Mm-hmm. You know, like, I, I, it's, it's frustrating because I get those urges.

I get that impulse. Like, fuck it, let's just burn it down. But you have to realize that's not helpful. And, uh,

but then at the same time, I understand why they're frustrated because there's so many folks in the center, these, you know, establishment liberals who are saying like, oh, we'll just be polite and respectful and do things by the book.

And then we'll win in four years. And it's like, you fucking assholes. They're like, if they have their way, they're not going to be an election in four years. I don't know if I'll ever forgive them. The, the mess

they made of, of this election and running this election and the, again, like a week and a day in, watching them all, like, hold their Roberts rules of orders close to their chest

and go, he can't do that. right um there's a couple that are that are screaming for blood in fighting but it's not a long list no and i have to keep telling some of my friends who are you know more establishment liberal minded than i am they'll say like well but trump can't do that i go okay but who's going to show up with the white house and put him in handcuffs if he does that yeah he is doing which agency do we call he is doing those things he's doing those things so what are you going to do stop him because guess what like you and i've talked about this before back when trump was president

the first time, he would dictate what flavor and how much ice cream guests at the White House got. And that seems like a foolish thing to focus on. But where in the Constitution does it say the president shall dictate how much ice cream guests at the White House get? It doesn't say that. But everybody went along with it because that's what he said. No, fucking don't go along with it. If he doesn't have the authority, don't do it.

But the other lesson here is that even if he doesn't have the authority, he's going to do it. And a lot of people with him are going to go with it. So what are we going to do about that? And I don't have the answer to that right now. But other than keep fighting, don't let it become normal. You know, it's that old the Tim Snyder thing, you know,

do not obey in advance. Don't accept the new normal, right? Don't accept that this is normal. Even if the mainstream media is talking about Trump's wild ideas to add American territory, read that as Trump's fascistic plan to invade our NATO ally. and keep reading it that way.

Don't let them normalize it, you know? Speaking of another political headline just today, France talked about sending troops to defend Greenland in case the U.S. got froggy and decided it needed to take the landmass by force. I think it's a great idea. I think, yeah, I mean, the problem that we're facing here is that

there's one power or two powers really that benefit from NATO fighting itself and they're not going to just stand by idly and do the right thing while we fight each other like NATO will fight each other and then the Russians will conquer everything like that's how that goes and I can't imagine why Donald Trump who is buddy buddy with Vladimir Putin would want this to happen

just can't put my finger on it. What do you think happens in Ukraine over the next year? What's your prediction? If there's a ceasefire, and it looks like there will be, there will probably be war in Europe in 8 to 12 months after that ceasefire is signed. That's NATO's assessment, because it's how long it will take Russia to reconstitute, rearm, and hit NATO. Because so many NATO states have signed unilateral defense treaties with Ukraine,

at this point, that if there is a ceasefire and then the Russians attack again, all of those states will see that as a new war and they will all respond accordingly. Russia knows this. So when they attack Ukraine again, they're going to preempt NATO. The only reason they didn't do it last time was because Putin and Biden had a phone call where Biden said, we won't destroy the Russian military and we won't let NATO deploy troops to Ukraine if you don't hit NATO states. That deal is not going to be on the table next time.

who would he hit? That depends on a lot, but I mean, at the very least, Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states. But if they're going for broke, like I think they will be, there will be missiles falling on Germany. Germany is an infrastructure node and HUB, and the Russians realize that, that more than Germany's army, Germany is a bunch of highways and train depots that NATO can use to send forces to the east. And so those critical infrastructure nodes will be struck. maybe they won't be struck kinetically. Maybe they'll be struck with cyber attacks or protests, clogging the streets, or whatever. But Germany will be unable to support NATO.

I mean, he's already sown the seeds of this. And Putin has already sown the seeds of this. And it's scary. It's really scary. In what way has he sown the seeds? I mean, look at any discussion of increasing funding for military in Europe. And it's chaos. People are mad.

and a lot of the people who are mad are getting their talking points from Russian disinformation outlets who have nothing to do but benefit from Europe in chaos. Like, AFD gets money from Putin and they're a prime example of what some outside funding can do, right? Like, not that AFD is entirely external phenomenon. It's definitely organic in certain

ways, but the Russians are going to fund these organizations, these political movements that are so chaos in Europe and make it very hard for Europe to do anything cohesively. Because remember, NATO can't act unless it's unanimous. That election is about a month from now, right? The German federal election? Yeah. Do you think AFD is going to sweep?

I hope not. I mean, they currently hold all of former East Germany, um, excluding West Berlin, which is very funny to me. It's literally just a map of East Germany, but like, Lord.

Yeah. But I have hope, and maybe it's naive that the people of Europe, Germany and then Europe at large have seen what's happened in the U.S. in the last week and are like, oh, good God, no. Let's not do that. Let's not do that, right. Especially Germany. I can't put my, I can't remember the name of it,

but there was like a very good example in German history where they did this. And there was this guy that like, and he was not. not good. He did some stuff. Yeah, I think one of our new tech guys is really into him. Yeah, yeah, you know, a lot of tech guys are. This is, this historic, this, this, this, uh, obscure historical figure you're, you're talking about.

Right. Right. Um, okay, what happens in, uh, this is like, it's so, it's so shit that like, if I was talking about it a year ago, I would just be like, nah, but, okay. I mean, a year ago, we were talking about the NATO exercise and its potential to spiral into a war in Europe. And we were both kind of in disbelief at that spiraling. And now it's like, oh, yeah, that's totally. That's the easiest way it could go.

Okay. But I want to switch the focus. Yeah. Do you think, like, what happens in the Middle East? Do you think, I think, I know that that's a broad question. Here, let me narrow it because that's way too fucking broad. do you think he will

how do I put this do the Gazans get relocated is there anyone that will take them I know he's been he's he's doubled down on it I think just today because he said that Trump specifically said that the Gazans should just be removed

and they should be resettled into the surrounding countries and that this should be the end of it let Israel have Gaza he got rebuked pretty heavily, but has now doubled down. I mean, I think it's a very dangerous thing to say with Jimmy Carter dead, because now there's nobody holding the Camp David Accords together.

And I say that as a joke, but I also mean, in a serious manner, like, if the U.S. somehow pressures Egypt to accept the Gossans, that's how the Egyptian government falls eventually. And that's how we get a non-friendly government in Egypt. Like, like we've talked to, about in the past, like these, everything is connected. And that was, other than being a reprehensible, soulless, godless piece of shit, Kissinger's biggest issue was that he didn't

understand that, because he understood that the world was a connected system. He got that. He got that all the countries play together. But he thought that some people were insignificant within that system, namely the Palestinians. And I think anybody with an IQ over like nine can tell you that Kissinger was very wrong about that, that there are no insignificant people, look at every terror group in the last 30 years that cited Palestine as their Casasbelli, right? I mean, there's no insignificant people.

And so while in the U.S., we can say, like, I'll just take this Palestinians, whatever, it's not a big deal. It is a big deal, actually. It's a huge deal. And it will have long-term repercussions for us. And in 10 years, when there's a giant war in Europe, or in the Middle East, between Egypt and Israel again, and we're going to be going, how did this happen?

Right. There's a, Kissinger picked winners and losers and assumed that once the losers lost, it was over. Right, they would just go home. Well, some of them, you know, don't have homes to go back to anymore.

Exactly. Right, exactly. And that's the issue, right? Yeah. Is that they can't go home. They live there. If you're two sides of a rebel group in the same country, going home is still that country. Mm-hmm.

it's not World War II where the countries go back to their borders. Like, that's not how civil wars work. All right. What else am I missing here? Your cat looks really healthy. There's that. Yeah, she's nice. I'm just looking at the positives.

I'm looking at the positives. Yeah, the cats are doing well. Hey, that's good, man. Yeah, yeah. Here's a strange one. Hegsteth halted new army contract awards. solicitations for programs, basically like cutting off, I think they spent like $120 billion last year on new contracts, the Army. And so they're like pausing everything for a review,

which that was very, I kind of didn't expect them to ever go looking through Pentagon funds. Yeah. And yet here we are. Right. I mean, without aging myself too much, it's like that first Jimmy Neutron where all the parents go away and it's just the kids running the town. That's kind of how it feels lately. It's like all the adults have left the room and the kids are running things and they're going, what if the fire department just let the town burn down for once? We'll see if that works. Like, they're just trying whatever fucking thing comes to their mind because apparently none of them have ever thought about this shit before. well like anybody who's thought about how the army works would know that cutting off all contracts

across the board not a great way to keep innovating and doing R&D and building our force at a time when we're going to need it stronger on the other hand the Pentagon does spend a lot of money it shouldn't right it is a giant inefficient bureaucracy

oh yeah I don't think I mean I don't know that this is the way to reform things I mean and I don't think we're even going towards reform, right? This is, this is kind of has the same, like we said at the top of the show, it's just pulling the levers and stopping things to see what happens. Right?

Just kind of, they're just, I think what they're doing now is they're just pushing the off switch on a bunch of stuff. And seeing what breaks down and what doesn't. Yeah. And it's interesting to me that this happened to, I mean, it wouldn't happen to Space Force because he stood up the Space Force. beautiful space force. But it didn't happen to the Air Force.

It didn't happen to the Navy. It didn't happen to the Marines. It happened to the Army. And, you know, maybe it'll happen next week to the other branches, right? But they're starting with the Army. I have no other, I just wanted to, I have no other commentary. Just observe it. Yeah, I mean, maybe they see the Army as the wokeest branch or something.

I don't know. They were the, let me confirm this, actually. Let's confirm how. woke the army is. Well, actually, okay, so I thought, I thought this was true.

And I just confirmed it. The Army met its recruiting role goal in 2024. Guess how? Ah, yes. A 20% surge over 2023 in female enlistment. Yeah. That would do it. and I wish I could

like at a certain point like with the Elon Musk salute at a certain point you just have to call a thing like you see it yeah right and we know that Hegsef is not great

with women no tell me about what are your thoughts on uh will in the coming year will

Elon Musk still be a part of the administration and will he be revealed? Will he own up to being a full on fascist? I don't think he'll ever own up to it. I mean, he'll own up to it in the sense that he'll probably get like a Hugo Boss like SS uniform and parade around in it, but he'll go, I'm not a Nazi. What do you mean? Like, he'll never just come out and say it. Right.

I can't see him in Trump lasting long. He's got too much of, they both have too much ego. and Musk is the world's little brother who does not know how to shut the fuck up. So, like... Yeah, he needs attention real fucking bad. He does. And I think that if Trump really wants to hurt him, he will have his men go through the list of every hardened, seasoned schoolteacher in America.

And he'll find the oldest, most jaded, cynical old lady kindergarten teacher. And she'll follow Musk around. and she'll have like an emergency alert device with her. And every time he does something stupid, she tweets it up, she messages everybody in the country, everybody stop what you're doing and look at Elon. He needs attention.

Everyone look at Elon. Hey, Elon, we see you. Okay, can we go back to what we were doing? And we just do that until the day he dies. That's, you're assuming that X is going to be around in a year. On that, I'm not so sure. Yeah, probably not.

They are, you know, he took on a tremendous amount of debt to purchase the thing. It's super funny. And now the banks that lent it to him have not made their money back and are looking to get rid of the debt and looking at selling it off at a reduced rate. Yeah. Another story that broke this week.

Yeah. Along with a leaked email from Musk that said the company is struggling. Can't break. They're, that user growth is stagnant and that they can't break even. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Yeah. Side note, this doesn't have to go on the recording, but I just thought you'd appreciate seeing this. How do today. He's in the sunspot. Oh. That's a good sunspot.

It is. Yesterday, he was in that sunspot. And then I look back like 40 minutes later, and it's just on his, ears and he's standing there kind of upset and then 20 minutes later it was gone and so was he left with the sunspot um and then in the background here i don't look you can see it i've got this is uh sonic yeah yeah yeah they're all being crucified and yep um all right give me your your biggest give me your big 2025 to see us out uh what's what's the worst thing

that's going to happen. Don't ask you that. I mean, we could be at World War III by the end of the year, honestly. Like, realistically, World War III could be started by the end of the year. I think there's going to be mass civil disturbances this summer. I think there's going to be riots all across the country this summer. And I think we'll be lucky if we're not starting World War III by December, honestly. I'm going to shoot my prediction out a couple more years.

Yeah, I thought that. I think you might be right, but the last week has felt a lot more condensed. No, no, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to also predict my worst case scenario, but I'm going to look at three, four years into the future and not not the summer. Oh, fancy. He goes for a third term. No one stops him. Democrats run Obama. And it's the showdown everyone always wanted, or that Trump always wanted.

And we live in hell and nothing ever changes. Yeah. And then Obama wins and appoints Obama to the Supreme Court, by which I mean Michelle. And then when he's not president anymore, she appoints she becomes president and Supreme Court justice. And she appoints him. Yeah. Next Supreme Court justice, Sasha Obama. Hell yeah.

And then the Supreme Court is just the Obamas. And there are a royal family. Yeah. We've got to read the book. that are on their list every year. We have to listen to their Spotify playlist. Right, right, right. Yeah.

And if you don't listen to their Spotify playlist, you're suspect. Right. Yeah, you go on the list. If you don't watch their Netflix documentaries, you're entered into a higher tax bracket. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's the new planet Earth comes out, but they used AI for it.

So like David Attenborough was able to access your Amazon list and they tailor each episode to be about how you personally are a piece of shit and killed these penguins? Yeah. Last week. They've got footage of you on the couch watching. Right, right, right.

This is your reaction to seeing a walrus die. Not a very human reaction, is it? Sounds like you're part of the problem. Maybe if you'd listen to the First Ladies slash Supreme Court Justice's Spotify playlist, you would have been more in touch with your humanity. I mean, Obama versus Trump

would be a funny election. Yeah, it would be funny, would be a word. Because he'd be 82 at that point, which I think is when his father's dementia symptoms started to like ramp up. I think he was alive for like 10 years before he died with like symptoms.

So like we'd have a, we have like a Biden style Trump running against third term Obama. Yeah. Barack Obama, Martin O'Malley. 2028. It's what we deserve. I think Martin O'Malley, I mean, there's a lot of potential.

He called Trump a fascist 10 years ago at the debates. And there's so, so much room to be made with his name being Martin O'M. And it's mom. He's mom, M-O-M. You know, there's a lot that could be done there. You know, like a commercial. It starts with a frantic child going, Mom, Mom, quick. Little Timmy fell in a well. And he's reading the 14 words. and then mom has to like help the kid out of the well, you know?

Right. And get them off of fortune. Right, right, right. America, are you tired of children running the establishment? It's time to call mom. Yeah, it would be a nice, like, counterforce because what are they, what are the, what are the Republicans saying about Trump right now? That he's daddy. He's going to take off his belt.

So we've got to get mommy in office. We've got to call mom. Yeah, got to call mom. You can feel the omentum. His slogan could be, it's time for America's O face, and they put the little apostrophe after the O, you know. I mean, nothing's off the table at this point.

No, it's really not. Like, yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. It was like back in 2009, 2010, I thought things were pretty dumb when I saw people at my community college with posters of Obama with Hitler mustaches. And things have gotten so much dumber since then. Yeah. It's only gotten so much worse.

Yeah, I mean, there's an old Dead comedy website And there used to be a slogan on that dead comedy website There's always more and it's always worse And I can't get over that All right, well, it's always more and it's always worse It's a great note to end an angry planet episode And we'll see

We'll see how this feels in a year's time Yeah, all right, that works for me, dude That is all for this episode of Angry Planet. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt and Kevin Nodell. We will be back again soon with another conversation about conflict on an increasingly angry planet and increasingly angry America. Everyone stay safe and sane. Until then.