Chainsaw History - Part Two: George Wallace Worked His Wife To Literal Death

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Jamie & Bambi continue the saga of former Alabama governor George Wallace from his first term through his shooting on the presidential campaign trail in 1972. Learn more and support our podcast over on Patreon!

So, yeah, it's been two weeks later. We had to call Frank back, yeah, he didn't even call us back, but we're now in claims with Home Depot. We'll see how it goes. The saga will continue. We'll see. Well, speaking of someone who is terrible at his job, and funny enough, fridging, which I don't know if you're familiar with that particular term.

I am not. Well, as a feminist, you should learn it. It's a pop culture reference usually for movies. It is where a female character in a story is killed off generally just to provide some sort of motivation for our male hero. It was one of the complaints, despite a label liking it overall, but one of the complaints of Deadpool 2 was that Marina Bakkerin was fridge or character died at the very beginning of the movie to provide Deadpool with a lot of motivation and character development.

Yeah, but they're bringing her back in Deadpool. They're bringing her back, so it's going to be okay there, but that's the term, but you were talking about refrigerators, and think about the term fridging as we go forward, even though this isn't... Okay, I hate that term. I hate everything about that, but I love Deadpool, so points and bucking in. Deadpool would slice and dice half the motherfuckers in this story, but sadly, he is not. For anybody listening, we are Chainsaw History, a comedy history podcast where a guy who was

once a history major tells his sister a story where we both mock the people in the story and swear a lot. Fuck. I'm Jamie Chambers. This is my sister, Bambi. Hello. In this recording, we are now live on podcast feeds all over the internets. If you listen to this on one particular platform and prefer another, just search for Chainsaw

History and you should be able to find us easily now. I searched us on Apple Podcasts just a little while ago and we popped right up. So this is the story, the saga of George Wallace. This is like the Empire Strikes Back part. The saga of George continues. Yes. But we're going to actually start in this year, 2021. Back in February, the board of trustees of the University of Alabama voted unanimously

to remove the name of George C. Wallace from the physical education building on its Birmingham campus. This change was made with the blessing of the four-time Alabama governor's daughter, Peggy. So she basically was saying that, you know, despite her father, you know, rehabilitating his image and apologizing later in life, that she and her family understood that his complicated, what they call it, a complicated legacy. Complicated legacy, my ass.

That sucked. That it. So it's interesting to note that the advisory board that reviewed the names of campus buildings picked a clear side. University of Alabama system trustee John England, Jr. made it clear that one Wallace would still be honored, despite having never attended the college. It is important to note that we do not recommend changing names of buildings that honored Governor Lerlene Wallace, who was an ardent supporter of medical research and education.

Okay. So Lerlene, she gets, her name gets to stick around on what, I don't know what buildings she's on, but I mean, she's probably terrible to, I mean, that's, that's the problem. We haven't gotten to the governorship yet. Just like in part one, let's acknowledge our main sources. The first one is the biography, the fighting little judge by Jeffrey K Smith. And the second one is the documentary George Wallace set in the woods on fire presented by the American experience on PBS.

We'll have more sources and links in the show notes for this episode on our website, which doesn't exist as of this recording, but it probably will. By the time you hear this, it is chainsawhistory.com. So I will put links to all of this stuff and it's on my personal Patreon. We'll be doing all that business later. Anyway, we left off in part one, George in his moment of greatest triumph, having ridden the tide of white rage against the civil rights movement straight into the governor's mansion, which was like his original life's goal.

But if you learned about one thing about George so far, it's that nothing is ever enough. Now that he's governor, you can probably imagine where he set his sights next. Yeah, he wants to be president because he should control. Ding ding ding. Correct. He should be in charge of everything. And to give us a little bit of flavor of what the George Wallace political experience is, this is from a George and Lerlene Wallace souvenir album they gave out or sold at campaign

rallies. It is our privilege to live in a land as great as these United States. The greatness, power and prestige of our nation has come from within, from our own people. But clouds of turmoil have continued to boil on our horizon from the red-coated threat of the original 13 colonies to the Red Shattered War in Vietnam. But always America has brought forth a great statesman from her ranks to lead and speak out against these atrocities. Even like Benjamin Franklin, Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, these statesmen were

born with the ability and desire to lead and to reach such prominence is not an easy task. From the soft rolling hills of Barber County, Alabama came such a man destined to become a statesman. First as a page in the legislature of his state, then to serve as a representative of his people in the state house, then back home again as circuit judge. And then on a cold, wintery, windy day in January 1963, thousands of Alabamians cheered and America looked on as the honorable George Corley Wallace accepted the challenge as governor of the state of Alabama.

I thought that was a great, that brings us up to where he was, his own self-mythologized body and comparing himself to Benjamin Franklin, Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Oh, I just want to set things on fire. It's fine. It's so funny. It's really not. It's not even funny.

It's just gross. Just like that is just so right out there. And yes, they always played Dixie as his lead in every single one of his rallies going all the way back to the beginning. That was always his song. And of course, the Confederate flag was right there behind the portraits and it was being waved proudly. I mean, yeah, I know everything about that made me want to like rage and set things on

fire. So that catches us up to where we left off in part one, but in his own bullshitty way that he charged people money for that to go into his political coffers. So yes, as you correctly stated, George now wanted to become president of the United States. He already crossed off his the first item he'd ever had in his bucket list. And now he's like, OK, we got to go. We got to get bigger. And I have no doubt that if you become president, he would have been scheming on how he could

have, you know, I don't know, become emperor of North America before the whole world or whatever. Who knows. So as we talked about last time, George was always thinking ahead to his next election, far more interested in making headlines than policy, easily bored by the day to day grind of being executive. He focused on issues that get him column inches in newspapers and screen time on the nightly news.

Oh, that's not like any president we know. We haven't had one of those. We have not had one of those. Oh, well, everything's so new. The parallel. I mean, all I mean, going all the way back to when Trump first started to even hint about running the comparisons to Trump and Wallace have been made, even though there definitely is a lot.

Of the idea of sort of like right wing populism and and and trying going for attention fear mongering. Oh, yeah. But the difference was George actually was poor and he actually did pass laws that helped working class people, despite all the shitty things he did, there's like genuine bits of good you can find in there where Donald Trump because he truly George Wallace was the George Wallace was basically, you know, he was the enemy of the of like corporations and working class, even though he also he was corrupt.

It's it's not his cut and dry. He's certainly not a good guy in any way. Just just listen, you'll hear all that. So this was both a blessing and a curse for George as he ran on preserving segregation. Sentiment stirred up by the very civil rights movement he now had to contend with from his position of power. It's 1963 in Alabama and things are only going to get more intense. Wallace's actions during these years that would lead to his name getting taken off the

P.E. Building at UAB. Yes. And literally they said they didn't want to replace the name. The recommendation is just to call it the physical education building. So a white post office worker from Maryland named William Moore was a member of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and he made national news with a much publicized solo freedom journey in support of civil rights.

His plan was to travel on foot from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi to hand deliver a letter to the state's governor. Unfortunately Moore made even more headlines on April 23rd when his body was discovered in Attala, Alabama next to US Highway 11 with two bullets in his skull. A Washington Post cartoon apparently depicted George handing a fat redneck a loaded shotgun. I tried to find that image online, but I couldn't find it, just saw it described. A Denver newspaper said, quote, George Wallace did not kill Moore, but Moore's blood is on the governor's hands and on the hands of all those who encourage people of the South

to defy laws that guarantee basic rights to Negroes. Unquote. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, people are saying, you know, you're creating this atmosphere that is encouraging this sort of thing. It didn't help that soon after about a dozen black members of CORE decided to complete Moore's March, and they were assaulted by Ellis Bama state troopers who zapped them

with electric cattle prods and then arrested them all for disturbing the peace. Yes. I know a little bit about this. This is it's coming. A bunch of familiar stories are about to hit because this is all very famous stuff. This is all sounding familiar. We're getting into. I don't know much about George Wallace, but I do know a little bit about the civil rights.

We're getting into some of the most significant and remembered parts of the civil rights movement now. During this time, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. organized peaceful protests and marches in Birmingham, which he described as the most segregated city in the United States. And controversially included both women and children in these marches, which some people are saying, oh, you're endangering children. It's like they're only in danger if you're doing violence to nonviolent protesters, you know, that didn't seem to register with certain white folks.

If that wasn't causing enough of a headache, the attorney general of the United States decided to pay Governor Wallace a personal visit. You might have heard of him. His name was Robert Kennedy. Oh, yeah, that asshole. So when Bobby showed up, Asa Carter, you know, the KKK dude who was like his head speech writer and want to Wallace's shadowy right-hand men, he made sure there was a pro-segregationist welcoming committee holding up protest signs against their fellow Democrat.

Things like this is all spelled with K's and not correctly. Kosher team Kennedy, Castro, Khrushchev is anti-Semitic, anti-communist and anti-spelling all at the same time. Another sign said, Christians, wake up. Another Mississippi murderer. This was referring to the race riot call. Christians wake up. Christians wake up.

Oh, my God. Christians, you have to hate everybody. Why is that a message for Christians? Let's, let's think. My best door, the Explorer voice. Yes, because, you know, Jesus famously all about treating, treating other groups of people badly. Yeah.

That guy, that Jesus guy was such a dick. Why? Another, another said Mississippi murderer. This was referring to a race riot called the Battle of Oxford that happened at Old Miss when an attempt to integrate that school. Two people died as a result of that violence. Oh, yeah. Because Bobby Kennedy as attorney general was enforcing the integration laws, he was the

Mississippi murderer. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that, that, that all tracked. Another sign. So Kennedy Congo here. And finally the worst Kuhn kissing Kennedy all with K's KKK. Get it?

Okay. I'm not going to set anything on fire. So there were, so there were people holding these signs, right? As Bobby Kennedy gets out of his car to go visit George. Yeah. But that would never happen today. It's cool. Bobby and George had an intense and unpleasant meeting.

We learned. Yeah. But we've learned everything. We learned everything. Yeah. We learned to fix all those problems. This was just ancient history. Thank God.

Bobby and George had an intense and unpleasant meeting in which the attorney general tried to convince the governor to follow federal law and integrate Alabama's schools while this wouldn't budge and tried to go Kennedy into making a direct threat of sending federal troops. And Bobby is sort of like, we don't want to, we're not eager to do this. Yeah. Don't force us to have this confrontation. The meeting went nowhere.

Neither men willing to give an inch. Men's continue to get worse in Birmingham, the cops there resorting to turning high-pressure fire hoses and vicious attack dogs on the protesters, leading to some of the most famous photographs from this time period. Yeah. Because, you know, water hoses and dogs on children, that's all these ones. Yeah. Images of police brutality were all over the news and the public opinion started to shift

at this point when they saw. Because that's horrific. They're looking on the news. They're like, Jesus Christ. You're literally, you're just sicking German shepherds on children. It's. Yeah. It's horrific and despicable and yeah, the majority of most fucking people think that's

unacceptable. On May 7th, there was a violent confrontation between thousands of demonstrators and the police, leading to mass arrests. On the same day, Governor Wallace promised Alabama lawmakers, I will fight agitators, medleys and enemies of constitutional government. He accused civil rights leaders of being communists and the federal government of being too weak to expose them. Yep.

Because everyone you don't likes a communist. Yes. Marxists. It's a Marxist plot. He said that the white people of Birmingham should be commended for their restraint. Anyone sympathetic to the civil rights movement was rightly disgusted by Wallace, but to the racists, he was strongly standing up for their way of life. He was the fighting little judge, now sitting in the governor's office.

Others of other states sent telegrams to George. Disgustingly, many of them were in full support of his naked racism. But from Connecticut, he was met with deep dismay and a plea to end the violence. You can predict George's response. Mind your own affairs. I assume the state of Connecticut has ample problems to occupy your interests and talents. The next bit of horrific racist terrorism was a series of redneck drive-by dynamite bombings that triggered a race riot and burning buildings.

So just, yeah, I imagine just like shitty cars and pickups driving by and just assholes just tossing dynamite out of the windows at black-owned businesses and churches and stuff like that. The good news is nobody was killed in these series, but it caused a bunch of property damage and injuries and had to mention a bunch of fires. State troopers and other law enforcement were sent into Birmingham, leading to a violent clash that spread to nearly 30 city blocks. Yeah, some shit was going down in the sixties.

What is some fucking bullshit? Over the summer, George decided to very publicly fulfill his campaign promise to stand in the schoolhouse door to prevent integration of Alabama schools, when two black students attempted to enroll at his alma mater, the University of Alabama. Bobby Kennedy issued a restraining order to stop Wallace, who used the clever legal tactic of running and hiding from process servers so he couldn't be charged with violating the restraining order. Meanwhile, yeah, this is literally like, like incredibly important shit going on and

he's literally running and hiding from so he couldn't be served with an order. But yeah, because they have to actually physically hand it to you. What a fucking cowardly piece of shit. Meanwhile, Wallace or urged the KKK and other racist groups to stay away from Tuscaloosa. George did not want violence, you see, he just wanted to put on a good show. He planned to run for president next year. Oh yeah, did that work out? He went on television, working hard to seem quite reasonable in making his state's rights

case to the people. Pleased from the federal government fell on deaf ears. Then came the big day on June 1963. George activated 500 National Guard troops and stationed them at Armouries in Tuscaloosa. Nearly 700 state troopers and other cops were on hand to supposedly prevent violence, despite the fact that they'd been quite busy beating the shit out of unarmed protesters for months. Oh yeah.

Two incredibly brave black students waited to make history, amazing considering they were only trying to enroll in school. Their names were Vivian Malone and James Hood. Nearby were high-ranking officials from federal and state governments, law enforcement and the military. The press and the entire nation was watching. It was nearly 100 degrees when George entered the building and once the moment arrived he stood in front of the door.

I'll let this dramatic news clip tell the story. The Guard of State Police has Governor George Wallace appeals for calm and prepares to confront a deputy U.S. attorney. The federal officers are armed with a proclamation from President Kennedy, urging the governor to end his efforts to prevent two Negro students from registering at the university. The governor is adamant. He made a campaign promise to stand in the doorway himself to prevent the integration of the last all-white state university.

After the federal officers leave, there's a lull of several hours, while President Kennedy federalizes the Alabama National Guard and they move to the campus. Regular General Henry Graham arrives to tell the governor, it's my sad duty to ask you to step aside on orders of the President of the United States. The governor yields to federal authority, but promises to continue what he terms a constitutional fight. There was no untoward incident at any time during this confrontation of state and federal authority.

So George stood there, I didn't make you actually listen to a clip that had his speech in it, but he literally had a little lectern in front of him and he had a microphone and he gave his speech and then once the president federalized the Alabama National Guard and the governor went over there and told him to get the hell out of the way, he was like, yep, because he did not actually want to go to jail. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure going to jail would have put a damper on all of his political goals. As should sound familiar by now, George lost the fight but proclaimed victory.

He would lean on the image of being the man tough enough to stand up against the tyranny of the federal government for many years to come. It doesn't matter that he never once accomplished anything, but it's sort of like almost like that romanticized lost cause of the South that you still fight, just the fact that you're fighting, you know, gives you some sort of honor and makes you go, he's like, but you're not doing anything, you're not helping anyone and the two students got enrolled and you know, and then the very day they're a black students at the University of Alabama. Yeah, and guess what?

Their football team is much better for it. There was no violence that day in Tuscaloosa, but that night a field secretary of the NAACP named Medgar Evers was fatally shot in Mississippi. The murderer openly bragged about the crime, but it would take 31 years for justice to be served. The civil rights movement had a long way to go, and still does. Convinced he did great on the national stage, George became increasingly preoccupied with his upcoming presidential run.

He knew his best position would be as the serving governor of Alabama, and there was that pesky law that prevented him from serving consecutive terms. He asked the legislature to amend the state constitution to allow multi-term governors, but it ended up taking years and a lot of work for that measure to pass. Meanwhile, President Kennedy introduced a civil rights bill to Congress, and George went on a national speaking tour declaring the legislation a socialist plot to destroy free enterprise. I've never heard that before.

A socialist plot. And when her old buddy Judge Frank Johnson ordered black students admitted to previously segregated schools, George found he couldn't convince local school districts to fight federal orders. It's like weird. No one wanted to go to jail just so George could make headlines and bolster his racist image. Frank also ordered the school districts to provide transportation to black students

to create more racial balance. George railed against the forced busing and called Frank a hypocrite, which was fair enough. Frank's son attended a whites-only private school. And in fact, a lot of the Wallace speeches he would give would always talk about these liberal elites want to integrate your schools, but all their, you know, all their children go to whites-only private schools, which at the time was a fair enough criticism. But at the same time, how are you supposed to have really good education systems? Yeah.

And sorry, but it's like, you know, the rules for as much as they suck, and this is before a lot of anti-discrimination laws that would prevent even that, but at the time, you know, that's the thing, you know, federal dollars cannot go towards discriminating, or at least they should. Anyway, so George is on this speaking tour railing against the busing, especially. On one of these rants, George said something really fucking stupid and awful to the New York Times. What this country needs is a few first-class funerals and some political funerals.

George would later claim he was speaking metaphorically. Oh, metaphorically about people being murdered. Those political careers, having them political funerals, you know, not in not making a case for violence. And you know what, out to be fair, I don't truly, I don't believe that George ever wanted any kind of violence. That's because he didn't believe in anything. Because about all he wanted was votes.

He didn't give a shit. He just wanted votes. But he also certainly didn't feel like turning down the temperature just because of that. He wasn't afraid of violence. No, he doesn't give a fuck about people being murdered, but at the same time. But even if that's true, neither his racist followers nor civil rights supporters took it that way. It's like, you still said the thing, and it was bad.

On September 15, 1963, a massive explosion rocked the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, all black church, caused by 19 sticks of dynamite placed by four local members of the KKK, including a guy known as Dynamite Bob. Dynamite? Dynamite Bob. Because we're in Alabama. Humans were injured in the attack, and four young girls died. Their names were Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson, and Carol Denise

McNair. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to Governor Wallace. The blood of four little children is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder. Fair enough. That is fucking fair. Yeah.

He was fumbling with the racism hot potato and was desperate now to get rid of it. Because it's like, uh, yikes, when four little girls die in an explosion, first he made it clear he would never condone violence or the bombing of a church. Next, now just tell me if this sounds at all familiar, quote, I am not sure this was the work of white persons. It could very easily be done by communists or other Negroes who had a lot to gain by the ensuing publicity, unquote. It wasn't our people.

It was Antifa. It was, they were disguised. Yes, black communists bombed the all black church to make, um, Alabama look bad. Yeah, no, that's not how they're going to help the civil rights movement. They bombed themselves. Yes. They murdered their own children. Killed little children.

That's how, yeah, they're murdering their own children, basically. That's, that tracks, yeah, sure. Back on tour for his preamble to a future presidential run, Wallace made fun of hippies, railed against communists, spoke up for state's rights, and did a pretty good job deflecting his critics. This was George at his A game, confident and unfazed. Hey game, George. His ex-friend, Frank Johnson, was frustrated with George's continued rise.

I'm sure. I'm frustrated with his continued rise. Oh, you haven't begun to be frustrated. Uh, here's what Frank said. No matter how high you throw him, he lands on his feet just like a cat. Yeah, that, yeah. Just like, God damn it. Yeah, I hear you, Frank.

He's obviously inciting violence and being horrible, and yet he just, his, like, profile is continuing to rise on the national stage. To fuel these national political ambitions, George needed money. Luckily, being in charge of an entire state makes it really easy to make lots of it, as long as you don't care about laws, ethics, or morals. Not a problem. Yep, no. If you shock him off the window, you can be a politician.

According to his top aide, Seymour Tramell. I was George Wallace's hatchet man, and also I was George Wallace's son of a bitch. If money had to be gotten from somebody, a type of graph, or kickback, I was the man that had to do that. And primarily, the use of the governor's office was for the purpose of graft, so that we can have all of the people who did business with the state, anybody, contractors, engineers, they would have to contribute 10% of that contract into the campaign fund. And that would generate hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah, that's not illegal or anything. Yeah, here's how this is going to work. We'll give you this big contract, 10% of this is going into the campaign fund as a donation. Yeah, no, isn't that a fraud or lying on it? Corrupt as fuck. Yeah, there's crimes there. Meanwhile, George's brother Gerald had installed himself in, because all of George's siblings were involved in the state-level government, and Gerald, their other brother, Jack, said

Gerald was so crooked that when he died, they'd have to screw him into the ground. That's his own brother talking. They were so awesome. He basically was like, if you wanted to do business with Alabama, you got to call Gerald's office first and then work your way to George, and do lots of money greasing lots of palms along the way. That's just how it went. Even though George told everybody, even his own children, it's like he didn't care about

being personally wealthy. He's like either money or power are the only two things that matter, and he just didn't care about money. He just wanted the power. But so it's like this money went into the campaign fund, not his personal bank account for George. Gerald, however, was personally enriching himself. He even told the guys, like, I like the practical side of politics.

And he did this with his fingers, you know, the greasy poems. Yeah, these people are just amazing. I mean, at least one was obsessed with power, and one was obsessed with money, instead of just having one person that's obsessed with both. And they both got what they wanted, and both totally got away with it. You're gonna love this just and more assholes with names you've heard jump into this story as we keep going. I feel like I'm just gonna start going Tasmanian devil and start throwing chairs and shit

in here. Yeah, you have no idea. It was November 2, 1963, while attending the boring dedication of an Alabama high school that George was reminded just how deadly serious national politics can be. That was the day President John F. Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas, Texas. Yeah, that was not a good day. Yeah, it was a kind of sober moment, even for a guy like George. He pretty much just kept his head down.

He went to D.C. to attend the funeral, but he didn't make any newsworthy quotes. He just kind of kept his mouth shut and was sunburned. Yeah, because what the fuck did he say? Well, and now to know, it's like, you can't help but notice that if you're a controversial figure, that you might have a target on your back. And this is just the series of assasins, like, as this goes on, you know. Yeah. In the coming years, we've got Robert Kennedy gets chilled, MLK gets shot dead.

So George is, like, over the years seeing all these other important figures related to his get gunned down. So it's not lost on him that he could be shot. It was really fucking easy to murder people in the 60s and 70s. It's like, if you've watched documentaries, that is what I've learned. It's like 60s and 70s primed for murder. Yeah, and that was back, and then back in the 19th century, you know, there were no guards on the president. Because you could just walk up to the president and shoot at him. Like, Andrew Jackson would have been killed in office if that assassin's bolt guns had two pistols that wouldn't fire on him.

And then Jackson beat the shit out of the guy. It was a great story. Sadly, Jackson wasn't killed because fuck Jackson. Because he was a piece of shit. But anyway, yes, the nation is mourning JFK at this point. But this also meant that George would have to deal with a new president, another loudmouth southerner, Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ.

He's a very complicated man. He started out not great. But in terms of civil rights, though, he's a good civil rights president. Yeah, you did all right. I mean, you know. Pass him, you know. You tried. Social safety net stuff that wasn't perfect, but it was, you know, it was something.

Oh, yeah. I mean, was LBJ at least, I think he was actually a better president than he was a vice president. Well, yeah, he wanted to be the president. At least wanted to do stuff. Like him. He really wanted to make his mark. Like he would be remembered for pat for passing certain stuff. And he didn't want to, like for all of his faults and he had many.

But he wanted to do stuff. And the stuff he wanted to do didn't suck. Like it was about voting rights and and helping people. But he also, of course, wanted to keep us in Vietnam just for pure bullshit reasons and did a lot of all horrific shit and wasn't like he. Yeah, he wasn't a personally enlightened man. So I'm not going to. I'm not enough.

He wasn't great. He also wasn't. I'm not an LBJ. Apologize even though he's one of my favorite presidents. He's one of my favorite presidents that we just in terms of personality because he just have like a big dick swaggering guy who just intimidated everybody. And so we'll get to see how he interacts with George. Gonna be great.

In 1964, George made his first attempt at the White House. Each time he entered a state as a new candidate, the press and big political thinkers dismissed him as a backwoods hick, which the articulate and quick-witted George used to his advantage because you can say a lot of things about him, but he was not a dumb man. And that's the thing. And he actually came across as like the papers and people would read the newspaper. Oh, this dumbass redneck from Alabama is coming. Then they turn on the TV or the radio and they hear a guy who talking at least some kind

of sense, especially for the racists out there. And also, too, he was good at picking up even not necessarily the overt racist, but just the people within like financial insecurity, the paycheck to paycheck working class crowd who were feeling like they weren't being helped. You know, it's like George, he was good at reaching those people. We'll have to gloss over much of this race because we have a long way to go. But ultimately, Johnson won the spot on the Democratic ticket and he completely obliterated Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the national election.

And this election, of course, was when the southern states like Alabama flipped and voted red in protest against the Civil Rights Bill, giving the Republican Party a strong base of support inside Alabama for the first time since the Civil War. George was happy to have made a name for himself in the national stage, figuring he'd have another shot at the presidency in 1968. So like I skipped over a bunch of shit there. But basically George, this is where he really establishes himself firmly as a national figure during this campaign.

Meanwhile, high profile events in the Civil Rights Movement continued in Alabama under Governor Wallace's watch. When news reached George of a planned march for voting rights by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, George swore to protect the people of Alabama from pro-communist mobsters. Communist. They just can't stay away from it. If a listener wanted to do this as the drinking game where you do a shot every time you mention socialism leftists or communists.

Oh yeah, I'd be. Well, we couldn't do the podcast because we'd be passed out drunk halfway through and our listeners would be dead. Yeah, don't do that. So no, I recommend, you know, having some nice calming herb and trying not to rage too much. I mean, seriously, I feel like I need some kind of soothing medication right now to stop me from setting things on fire. So this group is.

Yeah. So you're about to recognize this one. This march was to take the protesters to the state Capitol Montgomery starting 50 miles west in Selma, Alabama. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stayed away because of credible threats to his life, leading leadership of the protest to Hosea Williams and John Lewis. So yeah, you know this story. Lots of people know this story, but here I'll give you the cliff notes. When the activists attempted to cross the bridge in Selma, they were blocked by Alabama state troopers and local

sheriff's deputies armed with guns, clubs, cattle prods and tear gas. Almost all the cops and their vehicles were emblazoned with the Confederate flag showing perfectly clear where their loyalties were and what they were all about. What happened next shocked the nation, but sounds pretty damn familiar to us sitting here in 2021. The cops snapped on their gas masks and in short order fired tear gas canisters into the crowd. Dallas County Sheriff and racist piece of shit Jim Clark screamed, Get those damn inwards and get those white inwards. It's important, but it's so terrible.

The police, almost half of them on horseback, proceeded to mercilessly beat the protesters, including John Lewis, who was knocked unconscious. It's amazing that no one was killed, but the news networks caught the violence on camera and dubbed March 7th as Bloody Sunday. Huge moment in civil rights history. And it's one of those things where George kind of creating this situation is like in some ways helped the civil rights movement because it was these being a piece of shit and putting a light on how terrible it was. It's the real version of the stuff he was accusing his enemies of like, but doing it on accident. He was helping the civil rights movement by taking all the people who were sitting on the fence. You see this shit.

It's really hard to stay on the fence. It's like indefensible, unarmed people who literally just wanted to march and they were gassed and beaten and hospitalized. Yeah, and I'm surprised nobody was killed. Yeah. I mean, that's the most surprising thing about it. George knew this was a bad look and in private was shaken and upset. Publicly, he tried to defend the violence, claiming it prevented something far worse. So the logic being we beat the shit out of these people and tear gas them to prevent them from getting hurt.

It's the... What? Yes, because if they cross the bridge, if they completed their march, there was something worse was waiting for them apparently. That's not a... What, dynamite? That's not a great... Maybe you could use the cops to stop those other people you were talking about. But that's like...

No, that's... Cops attacking white people who are attacking black people. Outrageous. That's not how that works. Yeah, just watch... Yeah, of all, like a lot of the horrific shit we saw last year in 2020 where like the white militias, the cops are just openly hanging out with them in the middle of beating the crap out of these... Yeah, I... Out of the protesters.

It's been going on this whole time. Very fine people on both sides. Yep. So as figurative temperature in Alabama continued to rise, George called on the help of President Johnson and soon flew out to D.C. for a meeting. And as you can guess, George did not do well against LBJ. Both men were bullies, but Johnson was a six foot four inch Texan with a famously huge dick, both literal and metaphorical. He swung his presidential dick around. Oh, you know, the one time it's like if you're not an LBJ fan, you at least got a root for him right now.

So in this moment, he's the good guy. Not always, but in this moment... I see your shorts, those figures, mine. LBJ, he did shit. Like, there's a famous story about one point... A big dude. A reporter asked him why they were... We were still in the Vietnam War, despite accomplishing none of our goals.

And Johnson literally just flopped out his massive dick and said, this is why. And the reporter apparently felt like that was a good enough explanation and needed no follow-up questions. Did he literally wait without his dick? That's a real... That's amazing. No, he used another thing... That's the greatest story of all time, even though it's the Vietnam War. He loved doing power moves.

Like, he would sit higher in this meeting I'm about to describe with Wallace. He sat on a high bar stool while George had to sit in a low chair. And he was already so much bigger than him, because George is a little judge and LBJ is fucking huge. And so, like, another story, when he's having a meeting with somebody, he's like, follow me, and he goes over to the bathroom, keeps the door open, and takes a shit while maintaining unblinking eye contact with the guy. And it's such a power move, like, this is how little I think of you. I can just shit right in front of you.

Don't give a damn. So that's the kind of guy LBJ is. And he would always, like, get in people's faces and use his just size to intimidate him. So he didn't take a shit in front of George as far as we know, but he did, like, loom over him and just, like, made him feel... He showed his metaphorical dick. Yeah. But the fact that he actually was, like, showed somebody his physical...

No, he called his penis jumbo and used... I mean, he would whip it out all the time. That is fabulous. That's the best story of this story. No, you never... No, LBJ, there's great ones. There's a bunch of unclassified recordings of LBJ that he would have... I mean, this is... He always had to tell his secretary, you know, turn on the tape recorder.

So he recorded a conversation where he ordered pants from his tailor. You hear him burping and cussing and talking about his bunghole and how he needed pockets big enough to hold his knife and his money. It's great. LBJ is a... He is a character. And I highly recommend watching Brian Cranston played him. He had originally played him on a one-man play based on LBJ's election campaign. Okay.

And then they did... I think it was HBO did it as a TV movie where Brian Cranston reprised his role. Even though he wasn't nearly as tall as LBJ, but he still managed to even look and sound just like him. I highly recommend it. And other than the whipping his dick out part, which they kind of talked about a little bit, but they even included some of the stuff I was talking about,

including like taking a dump in front of a guy. They really wanted to give you a sense of who this man was. LBJ, he's kind of like amazing and shitty and horrible. And accomplished some great things. It was just such a character. Yeah, he's complicated. I like complicated. Maybe that's why I have more fuzzy feelings towards LBJ.

That and this dick thing. Now it's settled. Anyway, LBJ took full control of the meeting and intimidated the hell out of George. And in that room, LBJ said something rather prophetic. George, you and I shouldn't be thinking about 1968. We should be thinking about 1988. We'll both be dead and gone by then. What do you want left behind?

You want a great big mobile monument that says George Wallace he built? You want a scrawny piece of pine board laying there that says George Wallace he hated? Fair enough. George looked perfectly miserable as they gave a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, with LBJ dominating the messaging. Violence was wrong and all Americans have the right to vote. George went home in defeat. LBJ completely unimpressed with the runty bastard from Alabama.

On March 21st, a second march from Selma to Montgomery began with security provided by 3,000 federalized members of the Alabama National Guard, which concluded in triumph for the protesters without any violence at all. A few months later, the voting rights bill was signed into law. George received an unexpected gift in the mail that really pissed him off. A membership card for the NAACP. That's hilarious. Somebody trolled him hard and he got so mad he...

He wrote a letter to them threatening to sue them if they didn't take his name off the rolls and let him know that he... That's hilarious. Yeah, it was great. Like, chefs kissed whoever did that. 1966 presented a looming problem for George. After multiple attempts, including calling a special session of the legislature, he failed at convincing lawmakers to amend the Constitution so he could serve as governor of Alabama one more time in order to springboard his presidential campaign.

He called those opposing the measure communists and leftists. Of course he did. Take a drink. But his antics and threats didn't work. George wouldn't be able to run for governor again. Then George had a crazy idea. Something that seemed at first ridiculous on its face and doomed to failure. The idea didn't go away and it became one of those,

it's so crazy we might as well try it kind of plans. Crazy like a fox. George decided to run his wife, Lerlene, in the upcoming governor's race. Now remember, Lerlene graduated high school at 16 and had taken some business classes, then spent the remaining years as a housewife before becoming First Lady of Alabama. Always shy and reserved, she was never outspoken on issues and always deferred to her husband on political matters. Lerlene didn't like attention of the press and had zero personal interest in holding public office. Her husband needed her to try this insane strategy for his own political plans.

Oh, so gross, okay. Lerlene made it clear she agreed for one reason alone. I did it for George. Gross. Heading toward the Democratic primary, there was a slate of potential rivals for the nomination, including our old friend Big Jim. Big Jim! Who was at this point past his prime and not a serious contender.

Forge. Womp, womp, womp. The state attorney general, Richmond Flowers, promised to calm down the relationship between Alabama and the federal government. But the real threat came from Ryan DeGraphenried, a racist Dixie-Krat who could easily be seen as a clear replacement for George. But one day after DeGraphenried qualified for the gubernatorial race, his plane crashed while campaigning near Fort Payne, killing him and the pilot instantly. Oh, that's terrible. You might have heard that story. It was actually up on the mountain, like our grandparents and cousins

would tell that story of the plane crash in the 60s. That's crazy. This tragedy assured Lerlene's nomination. Now, how could the Wallace program that had been so beneficial to the state and the nation be continued? The answer came and shocked the nation. He would enter his wife into the governor's race. The question now was could this gracious and beautiful lady who had served so well in the governor's mansion adapt to the complexities of a statewide political campaign? It was not to be an easy task, and the decision to run came out of love and devotion to her state, her nation, and her husband.

And in the words of this lady, known to thousands as Lerlene, the decision was reached after prayerful consideration. But the answer as to her ability came early in the campaign. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. It's a real pleasure to come back to Andalusia where I campaigned actively for my husband in 1958 and 1960. I'm back this time campaigning for myself as a candidate for a governor of the state of Alabama. Doing this in order that we might continue to carry on the policies of this present administration. My election as governor will make it possible for the people to continue to enjoy the type of administration that has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the people of our state. This administration has been characterized by honesty and progress, and I'm proud of the achievements that our state government has made in Andalusia and our home section of South Alabama.

This great section of Alabama will continue to have an administration that will recognize the growing needs for roads, improvement in education, and the needs for more industry in this section. Our administration will continue an active industrial development program that has seen more industry come to and expand in Alabama during the last three years and during the previous ten years. Our administration will continue to voice over the country the need for an awakening to the dangers of the trends that, unless they are checked, will destroy our local government, the property ownership system, and individual liberty and freedom. My pledge to you is that I will continue, with my husband's help, the same kind of state government you have experienced in the last three years, and we will continue to stand up for Alabama. And may I now at this time present to you the man who will be my number one assistant, my husband and your governor, George C. Wally. Oh, gross. I hate everything about this. She made it quite clear in every speech that she was the instrument by which her husband would continue his policies and refer to him as her number one assistant. It should be said, though, that during the course of the campaign, Lerlene not only found some of her own voice, but people began to know and genuinely like her.

Unlike her husband, she was relatable and had a kind, nurturing personality, all while being a tomboy country girl that loved catfishing and hunting wild turkeys with the good old boys. The first lady came into her own on the campaign trail, even if she found it exhausting. More on that in a minute. Her primary opponent was now Richmond Flowers, who misstepped by insulting Lerlene as a dime store clerk and housewife who never finished high school and actively courted black voters. And this also gave George the chance to jump in front of the cameras and microphones and be the gallant husband. How dare you, sir? Have you no decency and of course could flip it around because suddenly anyone who criticized Lerlene is sexist who doesn't believe that a woman could be governor. And here he is progressive.

I just hate everything about this. It's so awesome. I will not set things on fire. It's fine. Just keep going. And while Flowers received 90% of the black vote in the state during the primary, there were already some who chose the Wallace ticket. African-American attorney J.L. Chestnut remembers conversations with his mother on the 1966 election. My dear mother taught school in southern Alabama for 40 years. And she had announced that she was going to vote for the Wallace as she put it. I said, you must be out of your mind. You can't do that to me.

I'm known as one of the leading civil rights lawyers in the South. How can my mother be voting for George Wallace? And she said, look, George Wallace has built trade schools all over this state. George Wallace has raised the salaries of teachers three times in a row. That had never happened in her lifetime. She said, look, we have free textbooks in the schools. And look at the cat who's running against George Wallace. She said, I don't care what my son is, I'm voting for George Wallace.

And she did. What do you do when all your fucking options are bad? Everything's so bad. She's like, he's a racist. But they're raising teacher salaries. Which is good. And they're still continuing to pave the roads in Alabama, which were still only half paved by this point.

Like Big Jim. They're barely paved now in some parts of that mountain. After defeating flowers and destroying the Republican opposition, Lerlene Wallace became the first governor in the history of Alabama. It was historic, but her position would be short lived. You see, Lerlene had cancer. Prepare to get really. Are you fucking serious?

Prepare to get really upset. Okay, I'm prepared. Let's rewind a little bit. Jumping back to 1961, Lerlene gave birth by cesarean section to Janie Lee Wallace, middle name and honor of none other than Robert E. Lee. The doctor told George that they had conducted a biopsy on suspicious tissue on Lerlene's uterus and had found possible precancerous cells. George was adamant that his wife not be informed.

Are you fucking? Oh my God. Years went by without anyone even keeping an eye on Lerlene's health. She had no idea that George had ordered the doctors to not tell her. So he just set her up for fucking uterine cancer? What a dickhole! In late 1965, she began to experience abnormal bleeding and was completely shocked at the diagnosis of uterine cancer.

Even more shocked to find out that George had discussed her uterus with campaign staffers three years before but had never even mentioned it to her. Oh my fucking God. So he knew she was at risk. He talked about it with people that weren't her? He's like cronies, yeah. What? Was he hoping that he'd just install her in the fucking governor's office and then she'll conveniently die for him?

What a goddamn monster. He said he just didn't want her to worry and didn't think it would be anything. Oh yeah, that's his call. Oh yeah, I forgot. Until she started bleeding horribly and it was... Oh, until she had cancer and she was dying? Yeah, thanks fucking asshole. Lerlene began radiation therapy followed up by a hysterectomy in early 1966. Despite everything she was going through, Lerlene agreed to go ahead with George's plans for her to run for governor. She had literally just had the hysterectomy like a couple months before she made that announcement.

So much. Oh my God. Oh, he... yes, he is just a fucking sociopath. He is the world's fucking biggest piece of shit. Oh my God, at least even fucking monstrous pieces of shit usually take care of their wives. Fuck! So she agreed. She maintained the grueling campaign schedule for the full year, falling into bed absolutely exhausted while George stayed up late and got up early planning each move.

And with incredible determination for someone undergoing cancer treatment, Lerlene stayed the course and won the election, giving her longest speech on Inauguration Day. That same month, a Gallup poll rated her as the sixth most admired woman in the country. She would not survive through 1968. Fucking Lerlene. She gave her life for that fucking piece of shit. Literally. Wow. Back to the governor's mansion, George. Now the first gentleman of Alabama moved just across the hall from where his wife now worked.

She kept almost all his staff and appointees, nominating zero women to any positions. Journalist Ray Jenkins of the Alabama Journal had this to say. Once she became governor, she occupied the governor's office, but the real governor's office was just across the hall where George Wallace sat. One time Lerlene burst out of the governor's office unexpectedly and said, where's the governor? And the aide seemed to be a little embarrassed by this. He smiled and he says, you are the governor.

She said, you know what I mean? And closed the door and went back in. But Lerlene asserted herself just a little in her one and only year in office. She made George move so she could sit in the governor's seat at a table or a motorcade. She would make George wait on her meetings to conclude before she would speak with him. And after touring a state operated hospital, the compassionate Lerlene was determined to improve conditions and care for the mentally ill. And as an aside, years later, when he was back in office himself,

to his credit, George actually pushed forward some of the legislation that she had tried to get started and wanted there. Because that became a cause she toured a state hospital and saw that conditions sucked and wanted to make things better. So Lerlene wasn't a total piece of shit. Just George. Just devoted to a very terrible man. Just devoted to the world's worst fucking person. Poor, poor, poor. And worse husband.

Fuck. Oh my god. Because remember too, he'd been cheating a lot. Yeah, he's a fucking total, total, complete piece of shit. And he wasn't even super discreet with all his affairs. I fucking hate him in all ways. I hate him worse now than before we started. And I hated him pretty badly then.

But wow, I mean, he basically killed his own wife. What a fucking piece of shit. Because yeah, oh, we're property. We can't have body autonomy. The doctor shouldn't discuss a woman juderous with her. Let's talk to it about her husband. Wasn't even allowed to, I mean, like she not only couldn't make the decision, she wasn't even allowed to have the knowledge of her own body, which is just fucked up.

However, George's focus was not on his wife or even the state of Alabama. Of course not. It was on his fucking power mongering. But in July of 1967, Lerlene's cancer was back, forcing her to travel to Texas for more cancer treatments and surgeries. Because Alabama literally didn't have a hospital equipped to deal with uterine cancer. And so like there was a certain number of days the governor had to be in the state capital as part of law in order to hold on to the office.

And so she literally would just have to like make sure she flew back and forth with just enough to legally keep her within that zone as she got continually sicker and sicker. At this point, she seemed to realize that she wouldn't beat this illness. And even as George continued his plans with the assumption that everything would work out just fine. Yeah, that's not how it works, George. Yeah, he was in complete denial. Just too busy doing his own thing. Over the course of the year, Lerlene's health continued to fail.

By April of 1968, Lerlene's cancer had spread throughout her body. She weighed less than 80 pounds. While she had round the clock care, George was busy maintaining a public facade that she was doing well and did not spend much time with his dying wife. Even the lieutenant governor had no idea how sick she truly was or that he would soon be occupying the governor's office. In early May, George had a series of political appearances but was told by the doctor that Lerlene did not have long to live.

Family gathered inside her room in the governor's mansion. George held her hand as Lerlene said goodbye to her children before lapsing into a coma hours later. After midnight, her breathing became difficult and then stopped forever. George has quoted that before touching her hair and kissing her forehead, he said, Honey, you've been a great wife. You've been a good governor.

You've been the greatest mother of anyone. Oh, how much we loved you. Goodbye, sweetheart. And that's it. Poor Lerlene. What a fucking piece of shit. Now, just in case George didn't steamroll over the wishes of his loyal wife enough during her life,

he ignored her request for a closed casket funeral. Instead, she lay in state in the Capitol building on display in a silver casket where 21,000 mourners came to pay their respects and waiting up to five hours to see them. Because, of course, it was about the spectacle. Yeah. It's what he wanted.

Like, her last wish was to just not have anyone see her all shriveled up in the way she looked because, you know, she diminished so much before she died. But he couldn't even do that much for her. He couldn't even do that for her because he was too much of a piece of shit. Yep. He's a narcissist. He was a piece of shit to her till the end.

And a little bit after. And beyond. Following his loyal wife's funeral, George moved into the house they'd purchased in Montgomery to eventually retire in. But he didn't take their children who went to stay with family and friends. Oh, he was like, yeah, bye kids. He had a presidential campaign. He didn't have time for you.

Lerlene had only been dead three weeks when George let the world know he was resuming his quest for the White House. Didn't even make it a full month. Oh, fucking. Well, I mean, yeah, it's hard to pretend you're in mourning when you don't obviously give no fucks. Well, yeah. His first love was.

Was power. And well, in the pursuit of it. Having it didn't even matter as much to him as getting it. So George decided it was George's running as an independent third party candidate. LBJ shocked the nation by not seeking reelection. Vice for him. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the front runner for the Democratic ticket. And over on the Republican side.

Well, there was only one dick big enough to fill Lyndon Johnson's tidy whiteies. And that dick was Richard Milhouse Nixon. Yeah, that was great. So now fucking Nixon steps into this story and things get even more interesting. Because it's, yeah, because he was just awesome. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about how awesome tricky dick is. It really gives you a sense of just how George, how far George had come in his political journey. So wait a minute.

So you're telling me that, okay, so LBJ was like, yeah, I'm skipping out. Yeah, he's like a one time one. Yeah, because he took over for JFK and then had a full term. And we have a guy named Hubert. Hubert, that poor dude. He probably never stood a chance just because his name is Hubert. You want to vote for Hubert, huh? Nobody wants to vote for a guy named Hubert.

I want Hubert to be our president. So it's Hubert versus Nixon versus Wallace. And yeah, it all sounds bad. It's not great. It gives you a sense of just how far George had come in his political journey. Because you remember that when he back when he was in the Alabama state legislature, his colleagues thought of him like a socialist. And then now in 1968, Nixon was worried about Wallace stealing away conservative voters.

And that was fair enough because Wallace was running on kicking Kami ass in Vietnam, holding states rights as sacred and to put an end to the unrest in America's cities. His slogan was stand up for America. Pause for irony because in four years he'll never walk again. He won't be standing up after that. I'm about to say, will somebody please just shoot him already? Oh, we'll get there. The media dubbed him as the most serious threat to the two-party system

since Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party. George softened his language without really changing the underlying message. And gotta give George some credit. He's like one of the real pioneers of using coded language to white supremacists. Like he could wink at them, let them know exactly what he's talking about without saying things that could obviously be called like inherently racist. So he didn't, he never, he almost never directly talked about segregation. He always talked about states rights.

He always talked about not wanting the interference of the federal government and they're talking against tyranny. And you know, he knew the right things to say. He could dance around the subject. Yeah, and he helped invent that just shit that conservatives are doing to this very day. He was a pollen, like a pioneer in this area. So instead of attacking African Americans, the targets of his rants were hippies, civil rights agitators, welfare recipients, atheists, beatniks, anti-war protesters,

communists and street tufts. I love how hippies, communists and street tufts are all just lumped in together. Yes, the guy mugging people in the streets are the same as the ones having meetings about helping people and electing leftist political camps. But you know who's totally fine people is, you know, ones who dynamite children and churches and things. It's fine. Anything remotely to the left or disruptive to law and order, ding-ding,

was lumped together on the George Wallace speech hit list. His subtly racist, populist message appealed to a variety of blue-collar folks throughout the country. His campaign gained steam, pulling him as high as 20%, making him a serious threat to other party gaining a majority in the electoral college, which was George's, like, real plan. He knew he wasn't going to win the actual top spot that that was an unrealistic goal. But he felt like if he could pull away enough electoral votes and no, neither party got the majority, you know, what happened constitutionally,

it gets kicked over to the House of Representatives. Unless he were to donate his own electors to whichever candidate gave him cabinet position, adopted some of his policy position. So this was his way of trying to sway and getting in. And then after that, of course, he could pursue the next move of becoming president. So that's what he's going for. So, but George fucked up his chance to become kingmaker with a few dumb choices. Firstly, and probably less of a problem,

but still a scandal broke out because only months after the death of his beloved wife and political partner, he was banging a big breasted blonde campaign aide who was going around telling people that she was probably going to be the next Mrs. Wallace, even though she was definitely not going to be the next Mrs. Wallace. She was just a piece of ass. He was getting on the campaign trail. He was sad and trying to bang out the sad. She comforted him greatly.

The word of this unpresidential behavior spread all over the country, even as they quietly ejected the woman from the team. But what truly sunk George in 1968 was his decision to pick a vice presidential running mate in Curtis LeMay, a retired Air Force general under whom George had served back when he'd been flying air raids over Japan. The idea was to bring a real sense of strength and foreign policy expertise to the Wallace ticket because foreign policy was an area George knew he was very weak on and he didn't really know shit about what was going on in the greater world and he wanted to lock in support among veterans and score at least a million dollars in extra campaign donations from a right-wing Texas oil baron

who was like a big LeMay fan. There were rumors that one of the other contenders to be Wallace's running mate was none other than J. Edgar Hoover, who'd have been there standing next to him secretly wearing a bra and panties underneath. It would have been amazing, even though I don't honestly think that Hoover would have given up his amazing power. I don't know anything about J. Edgar. You should do a Hoover episode in there. I mean, you know, I didn't even watch as much as I loved Leonardo DiCaprio. I didn't watch that movie because I was like, who wants to watch Leonardo DiCaprio be not Leonardo DiCaprio?

So according to what biographer Geoffrey K. Smith, what George got in Curtis LeMay was, quote, Many viewed LeMay as quite unstable, particularly on the issue of nuclear weapons. The cigar-chomping, blunt-speaking LeMay had served as the real-life model for the delusional general in Stanley Kubrick's popular movie Dr. Strangelove, which is amazing. And in fact, LBJ was once referred to the general as Bombs Away LeMay. So the press was just waiting to immediately ask him these questions. The stupidity of picking LeMay was revealed within minutes of the press conference announcing LeMay as the running mate. The moment LeMay took the stage, a hungry reporter asked the former general about the possibility of using nuclear weapons to win the war in Vietnam.

Oh no. The general responded that nuclear weapons wouldn't be necessary, but, quote, I think there are many times when it'd be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. It'd just be efficient. It'd be efficient to just bomb the fucking literal life off of that section of Earth. If Hanoi didn't exist anymore, it would be completely efficient. Yeah. That's, uh, wow. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world would just throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them.

Propaganda. The propaganda of that nuclear fucking annihilation of a people is just- Nuclear war. It's great. Yeah. Because, you know, who wants to live there for 10,000 years? It's fine. Then LeMay went off on a tangent about how the fish and plants and animals were just fine after a nuclear blast, other than maybe some radioactive crabs. What the fuck? So, George tried to salvage the situation. Is this before or after Chernobyl?

Oh, no. This is before Chernobyl. This is before Chernobyl. Okay. Well, there's at least that. He's just a complete idiot. And a monster. Yay. Fucking, the propaganda can stick killer weapon. Oh my god. George tried to salvage the situation, but the general just kept sticking his foot deeper and deeper down his own throat. Finally, Wallace grabbed his sleeve and said, General, we gotta go.

Yeah. Please, stop talking. I'm talking. Stop talking. The damage was done. The press was quick to paint LeMay as a dangerous lunatic. You don't fucking say. Probably correctly. And the choice did not reflect well on George. I'm sorry, but the press did not paint him as anything if he's literally like,

there's just propaganda against the killer weapon. It's just a, just don't eat the radioactive crabs. It'll be fine. It's just propaganda. You can totally, like, live there in at least a thousand years. Picture the three-eyed fish from the Simpsons living in the radiation pond. That's not how radiation works. Vice President Humphrey called Wallace and LeMay the Bomzy Twins. Bomzy Twins.

Wallace's poll numbers rapidly sank. As they should. This combined with Nixon's Southern strategy to appeal to conservative Southern voters, which, you know, we sent strong Thurman all throughout the South to stomp on. Well, you know what? If you, if nothing else, I'm going to say this. I didn't know that when we elected Nixon that it could have been fucking worse. So at least there's that. Yay, Nixon. So confused now.

Yeah, you never know how to feel in this story. I don't know how to feel. But you know what? Again, it's like things happen for a reason. I'm glad that we didn't have that guy in office. Yep. Woo. George finished in third place with 13.5% of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes, carrying Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. So yet we went for Wallace here in Georgia.

Of course we did. George lost, but he could see from the numbers just how possible his disruptive third party strategy could potentially grow for next time as long as he didn't fuck it up the way he did this time. Like, because it's scary, like just a couple of percentage points in like two states. And he could have won, he's accomplished his goal. Well, yeah, that's one of the reasons it's like, oh, we have to put a stop to this whole like third party. Even with his fuck up, he came dangerously close to pulling off his scheme. And trust me, and Richard Nixon took notice of this.

And he, not be the last time we talk about him today. Of course not. So George was already thinking ahead to 1972. He's like, okay, I figured this out. I know how to do this next time. Back in May, only days after Lerlene had died, George had invited the Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, Albert Brewer, over to the house for a meeting. Now Albert Brewer was a loyal Wallace man who went all the way back to the time from the legislature and they had puffed him up as the candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

At the time, George would like this was only days after Lerlene had died. He was grief-stricken and all alone in the house. Grief-stricken. I mean, everybody said he was incredibly fucked up and sad. However. But he got over it fast enough. But at the time, when Albert came over, he was like half crying and he promised he would never run against Lerlene's partner and successor in the governor's office. He's like, Lerlene would never forgive me if I ran against you.

And then Brewer was like, why are we even talking about a future race right now? Your wife just died. What's wrong with you? Of course, it's because Wallace is always thinking about the next race. But guess what? George needed a strong position for his 1972 presidential run and the Alabama state governor's race was two years before. So George's promise to Albert Brewer turned out to be bullshit. Completely worthless.

Well, you know what? So were his wedding vows. So whatever. Promises are worth the paper they're printed on. Yeah. Promises are for pussies. And with his broad support and fundraising ability, George had the early advantage and might just have steamrolled over his opponent. He promised his once and future constituents that he wanted to serve the people of Alabama and would not run for higher office while serving as governor.

That was his first campaign promise. The first one he broke? Yeah. Yeah. The one he had absolutely no fucking intention. He only wanted to be governor so he could run for president again. But he immediately, because the first thing that Albert Brewer told everybody was like, don't you want a governor who just wants to be governor and is serving the people of Alabama? And he's like, I only want to serve as the governor of Alabama.

And we all know that that's complete and total fucking nonsense and bullshit. Yeah. Brewer didn't seem to have any higher ambitions. He seemed to genuinely like, you know, he's like, I'm governor and I'll keep working for you guys. I'm not interested in this other stuff. But someone even sleazier than George Wallace decided to make it a real fight. Someone even sleazier? Richard Nixon did not want George Wallace to come back with his third party strategy because he saw how dangerous it could be to him.

Yeah? And he also knew that Wallace could destroy that southern voting block he was building. So he secretly funneled cash into the Brewer campaign. Of course. Tricky Dick figured that if Wallace couldn't get elected in his own state, he wouldn't have much of a shot in the rest of the country. And in the interview, a guy working for the Brewer campaign was talking about it. He was like, to him it was the cleanest campaign contribution, even though it was all secretive. But it was like President Nixon wasn't asking for anything.

He didn't want any favors, no special, you know, access or anything. He just wanted Wallace to lose. So it was technically a pretty damn unambiguous campaign contribution. It was just done in secret out of Nixon's like secret slush fund he had for just this sort of thing. At the same time, a beloved American institution called the Internal Revenue Service launched a highly invasive audit of George's incredibly shady brother, Gerald. Well, I mean, yeah, and also... Gerald was crooked as shit, but also Nixon is weaponizing the IRS against his enemies. Yeah, which is bad.

All while reporters started printing juicy stories about how George had used state employees to work on his previous presidential campaign, George found himself suddenly on the ropes and he came in second on election night for the state Democratic primary, forced into a runoff between Brewer and Wallace. Now, in the history of Alabama, no one had ever come from behind in the runoff and won up until this point. So Wallace is like, genuinely, like, Jesus, we are in trouble. Like, we're lucky enough just to have a runoff. So George decided on a dirty, brutal and racist campaign strategy for the runoff. Quote,

I'll promise them the moon and holler and word. That is so gross. Just down the street from us at Kennesaw State University, there's a poli sci professor named Kerwin Swint. He wrote a book called Mudslingers, the 25 dirtiest political campaigns of all time. This campaign is number one in the book. Oh, my God. Noting was also the last openly racist political campaign in American history. After this, everybody toned it down.

Well, that's nice-ish. Wallace spoke to crowds about the black block vote that would take over Alabama politics for the next 50 years. He ran ads stoking white fear about integrating state law enforcement. One ad sounded like this. And this is the one I was trying to find. Couldn't find it. So I'll do my best. Suppose your wife is driving home at 11 at night.

She is stopped by a highway patrolman. He turns out to be black. Think about it. Elect George C. Wallace. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. Your wife might get pulled over by a black cop.

She might get a ticket. So, yes. That's so, yeah, it's incredibly gross and just right out in front of everybody. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm glad that things aren't as openly gross and racist. Now we try to keep that shit on the down low question mark. Thousands of bumper stickers appeared all over Alabama. They read, I'm for Brewer and the blacks.

Wallace's team also got personal and nasty throwing out rumors that Brewer was secretly gay and called him sissy britches. That's rude. They put out the word that Brewer's wife was an alcoholic. They told Alabamians that the governor's daughters were having sex with black men and that one of them was pregnant. That's just... They distributed doctors' photos of Brewer meeting with Elijah Muhammad and Muhammad Ali titled, Governor Brewer and the Black Muslims. I hate everything about this dude. Just everything.

He cannot get shot fast enough. The Brewer campaign tried to fight back, but they couldn't match George for levels of sleaze. Plus, when they tried, they created a legendary embarrassing incident in which they sent basically a spy helicopter over George's brother's Gerald's place and they crashed it in his backyard. Like, not a serious crash, just like they had to make an emergency landing. So the two guys who knew they could be spotted and easily identified as part of the Brewer team had to like run into the woods, left the camera behind, and so Gerald Wallace had the camera mounted as like a souvenir under the mantle of his house. That's just terrible. So it's just like this embarrassing black eye.

It's like that's like a legendary story in Alabama politics, political history. Nixon ultimately tossed Brewer $400,000 from his secret slush fund and came up with nothing. And the IRS audit of George's taxes embarrassingly found the feds owed him $800. Brewer lost. And in his concession speech, after which he left political office forever, he made one attempt to come back and it failed. He said, I knew from the start that if race became the chief issue, we couldn't win. And it was the issue. I'm glad we didn't run that kind of campaign.

I'd rather not win than win when the race issue. This has been the dirtiest campaign I've ever observed in Alabama. If you had to stoop to these kinds of tactics and try to advance the cause of their candidates, I'll ask, was it worth it? George was magnanimous in victory. I consider Governor Brewer and his family as personal friends, and I wish him success in whatever future endeavor he is involved in. I say that sincerely. Fuck you. I sincerely have nothing but respect for the guy who I said his daughters were pregnant and race mixing.

Oh, God. Such a piece of shit. I can't even. It's horrible. He also made jokes with the expensive Richard Nixon. So I don't know if you know this quote, but way back in... I make jokes with the expensive Richard Nixon. Nobody can...

Way back in... Way back in 62, when Nixon lost one of his early bids, he told the press, you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. It's like one of the famous Nixon quotes. Well, Wallace, right in front of the cameras, was like, well, if I hadn't done so well tonight, gentlemen, you wouldn't have had Wallace to kick around anymore and kind of winked at the camera. He would just literally float up his middle finger at Richard Nixon saying, yeah, I know you. You tried, you lost, bitch. So Wallace won this round against Nixon.

There should not be rounds. This is... So it's just so bad. Which powerful people just like playing games with people's lives for their own personal glory. It's awesome. And the very next day, George broke his campaign promise and took a flight to Wisconsin already working on the 1972 presidential election. And that was just... That was just the primary.

He didn't even wait till the general election to start breaking his campaign promises. He's like, I got this shit. And so he took off, did that, and then, and predictably, he just destroyed in November. He became governor once more by running the dirtiest campaign... Of all time. Of all time in American history. During the course of the 1970s governor's race, though, so jumping back a little bit once again, because I didn't want to muddy the waters, George fell in love with the niece of his old mentor, Big Jim Folsom.

No! No! Stay away! Stay away, Big Jim Descendant! Her name was Cornelia Snively, a sophisticated and stylish former beauty queen who was 20 years George's junior. And she was recently divorced. They dated in secret until after the general election and announced their engagement on Christmas Day. Soon they were married. And yes, I'll tell you this, Cornelia Wallace was a gorgeous and like very 60s stylish lady.

And like even like interviews of her as an old woman, she's still just like the classic Southern Belle, former beauty queen, very well-spoken, upper crust kind of chick. Well, because she was raised by Big Jim. Well, you know, Big Jim's brother or whatever, I'm not sure. Yeah, whatever, yeah. Big Jim means, but she grew up in a political family. Yeah. But she was experienced in politics and she'd known George Wallace her entire life.

Like, she had met her... Which is also gross. She was originally as a little girl and then and then again, they got reacquainted after... Yeah, but after she got grown. After she'd been married once divorced and then they started seeing each other. Wallace's political staff quickly realized that Cornelia was a big asset for George. She was beautiful and well-spoken and understood politics. She made George wash the grease out of his hair.

Like he is one of those like before like completely slick back black hair or this like this shitty looking generic suit. You know, the back in the 50s and 60s and she took, she's like, took George on as a project to fix. So suddenly she's washing his hair and just, you know, combing it with a little hairspray, putting him in stylish suits that are tailored to fit him nicely. And then she's with him in her nice dresses. And so they became kind of like an Alabama Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Yeah. And admittedly, you look at the pictures, they look great together.

Like they're a cool looking political couple. And she, of course, made sure that a good photographer taking great pictures of them. Because once again, she is a politically savvy lady. She's the opposite of Lerlene. Poor Lerlene. And Cornelia could more than see herself as first lady one day of the entire country. Oh, so she's fabulous. Okay.

I mean, she doesn't seem horrible, but at the same time, like I said, this is the, this is the environment and the kind of family she grew up in. So this is just part of her life. And immediately after re-entering the governor's office, George stopped talking about segregation and dropped racist language for the rest of his life. While he used racist sentiment to his advantage to regain power in Alabama, he knew it was not a winning position on the national stage. So suddenly he was a racial moderate again, as if the 1960s had never happened. And he basically just reset to early 1950s George Wallace that was just a moderate. Because he didn't actually give a shit. No, it was like, he was like, okay, we're going to do this one more time so we can get in.

And so we're going to go as hard as we can. And they did. So it's really, really sad when it's like, he's such a piece of shit. I'm rooting for Richard Nixon. Yeah. And at one point I remember he even said all this, that was just like a misunderstanding of my reading of the Bible. But I've since, you know, come around or just most of the time pretend that he'd always had this view because that's the easiest thing to do is just rewrite history. It wasn't until later that he comes to a true reckoning, but we're not there yet.

George had kept the political machinery of his independent party active. Something Richard Nixon had no interest in facing again and had already spent nearly half a million dollars trying to stop. It's like, yeah, he had already, he tapped out Richard Nixon's checkbook. Yeah, well, I mean, it just didn't work. Yeah. Didn't work out for him. So, but Richard Nixon still did not want this to happen. Top Wallace aid and yes, this is his real name, Tom Turnip seed.

Why would you do that to your child? Well, when your name is, you know, Tom Turnip seed senior, I guess, but that's no shit. His name is Tom Turnip seed. Gosh, I was working in Texas. I read in the paper where when President Nixon came down to dedicate some kind of a waterway, Gerald had met with some of the Nixon people, you know, it was in the paper. Four days after Nixon's trip to Alabama in May 1971, Washington columnists reported that a tenuous line of communication had been open between Nixon and Wallace. Seven months later, the Justice Department dropped its investigation of the wallaces. George Wallace announced he would run as a Democrat and not as a third party candidate.

And that was the last time our government was corrupt and horrible and everything was fine after that forever and ever. The end. It's just like, it's like Nixon's like, I don't want you to run as a third party. I won't have your brother thrown in federal prison forever if you just run as a Democrat. And so that totally happened. I'm so frustrated. I almost wish this were a live stream just so you could see my fucking face right now. Yep.

I am so enraged. Richard Nixon fucking sucked. Sucks. Everybody in this whole story just sucks. So they agree to just to just play by the normal rules of Democrat versus Republican. You can't fuck with the two party thing that keeps the status quo going so well for everybody. Oh my God. So George is back as a Democrat.

I want to break things. Wallace's 1972 presidential campaign revolved around three key messages. Opposing busing in order to achieve racial balance in schools. And to be fair to Wallace, our current president, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Called busing an asinine policy back in the same time. So Wallace certainly wasn't the only Democrat opposing school busing in the 1960s. Back in the Stone Age. Back in Joe Biden.

In 72. He was just a younger man. Number two, support the military in a strong national defense. Number three, lowering taxes. And yes, Wallace again was running as a Democrat in 1972. But this was a more polished and sophisticated Wallace. So like the influence of his wife Cornelia is really, you know, doing well for him in this run. He still pushed a populist message to the common people.

And he said something that still rings true at least to me to this very day. I'm tired of the average citizen being taxed to death while the multi-billionaires like the Rockefellers and the Fords and the Mellons and the Conagies go without paying taxes. They got billions of dollars in tax shelters. We got to close up these loopholes on those who've escaped paying their fair share so we can lower taxes for the average citizen. The little businessman, the farmer, the elderly and the middle class. I'm like, well, I'm with you with that one, George.

Yeah, it's like, okay, so not everything you've ever said was terrible, even if you believe in absolutely none of it. But this can give you an idea about why all of these like working class white people who weren't necessarily explicitly racist. Yeah, because if all you ever heard was that one speech, I'd be like, yeah, well, that's right. I'm foreign, cool. Right. And into a lot...

As long as I know nothing else about it. And a lot of these Democrat voters, all this focus on civil rights are like, well, what are you guys doing for me? I'm here working nine to five, barely getting by, and these rich people are doing all this. The same problems exist because the Democrats aren't here to fix that. No. Yeah, they're whatever.

Nobody's here to fix anything. Everybody is here to keep up these status quo. But you can see why Wallace was really catching on at this point with those people, because he's not being racist. He's actually going for the populist message, because he's like a Democrat who's a right-wing populist. It's very weird. And like looking at it through the modern political lens,

but that's what he was at the time. George won the Florida Democratic primary, doing well with the rural voters and finding his anti-communist message. Anti-communist. Speaking out against communists got him a lot of the Cuban-American support, because as we know, for people we know, anything that even smacks of socialism, a lot of Cuban and Cuban-descended people,

being under Castro made them understandably reluctant to embrace state communism, which for the record, I'm not for authoritarian communism either. I think it sucks. I mean, you know... But calling every... Having social programs is not bad. Having social programs is good. Yeah, that's where my problem is.

So anyway, two days later, so Wallace comes out really strong in Florida, and Nixon, afraid of what Wallace was, some of the things he was talking about, decided to take away one of Wallace's talking points. So Nixon asked Congress to impose a moratorium on race-based busing of schoolchildren, and George now knew he could project power into Washington, even from the campaign trail.

In April, George finished second in Wisconsin, and then a strong third in Pennsylvania. He scored huge wins in southern states, and his campaign was going strong. On May 6th, the Daily Mail in Maryland published an article about George's strong showing. That close relative we mentioned at the beginning of last episode was quoted as enthusiastically working at the Wallace campaign headquarters.

It's beginning to look like Wallace had a strong chance of the Democratic nomination, and even maybe the White House. The White House? Which is what he wanted to be in there. Eight days later, George hosted a pair of rallies in Maryland leading up to the primary. Against the advice of his Secret Service security detail, he walked into the crowd to shake hands and meet people after the second rally. So like the first rally, there was a lot more like protestors,

and it was kind of a less friendly crowd, and Wallace hung back. The second one was one of those warm, super welcoming, and it seemed like more of a laid back crowd. So when some requests came down for him to go out and shake hands, Wallace, he absolved the security, the Secret Service guy, he's like, it's alright, I'll take responsibility. He walked into the crowd. And that was probably that.

Five shots popped in the middle of just a throng of people. There were screams, blood, and chaos. Cornelia threw her body over George on the ground, instinctively trying to protect him from more gunfire. One of the Secret Service agents had gotten shot in the face, or maybe it was a cop, of his security that was around him, one guy got shot through the jaw,

another guy got shot in the chest and knocked down, so there was nobody immediately around to help George. So his wife just threw herself on top of him to shield him, even though other people were grappling with the crime. Wow, so she loved him. No, yeah, absolutely. No, they were 100% in love. I mean, he loved Cornelia as well.

In fact, kind of the stories of his cheating ways seemed to die at least during this period. But at the same time, they weren't married for very long. At this point, it was still early. And she was a young, hotty. Yeah, she was a young, hot woman. You see pictures of her, she was smoking. George Wallace had been shot multiple times.

He wasn't dead, but life as he knew it was over forever. Well, good. And surprise, this is only the end of part two. We got one more dose of George Wallace to go because I really wanted to cram that in, but then it was like when I got to this far in the script, I was like, there's so much shit left that we gotta talk about. And it's like, it wouldn't be right or fair to gloss over.

I have to do a third, George Wallace. But here's my promise to you. At the end of part three, he will be in the fucking ground. Oh, thank God. And he dies in a bad way. Like he does not have a great way to go. And it all is because of what happened here. And I wanted to stop it right here and not focus too much on the guy who shot him

because that's where we're going to open next time. Because if you think that George Wallace, this very controversial figure with these hardcore divisive opinions got shot by a guy against his ideology, you'd be wrong. He said, George, he gets shot by somebody who doesn't even give a fuck about him. Like George, he gets shot by somebody who just wants to make a name for himself. Actually very similar to John Hinckley Jr. That's gross.

But that's how we're going to open next time. We're going to talk about the month this guy spent stalking George Wallace, even though he was just as cool. His goal was to either shoot Nixon or Wallace. He didn't give a shit. He just wanted to be in the cover of the New York Times. That has to literally have been the damned if you do damned if you don't race in history. It's like, that guy's an asshole.

That guy's an asshole. Who do we vote for? I don't know. I mean, that's, well, I guess we had that in the 2016 race too. It's like, there are literally no good options here. And here in 72 and George isn't out of this race yet. He just got shot and we already know he's never going to walk again. But he's still, he is not.

You don't think the pesky thing like that is going to let him give up his presidential dreams. So now you've heard to sort of, you know, we're now to like, we first we covered all the way up until we first became covered in Alabama. And then we covered basically 10 years. You really, you know, you like, I was so waiting for this man to get shot. And it was going to be, and it was like, and I know that was going to be the end. And I was so excited about it. He is really, truly one of the most horrible pieces of shit I've ever heard about. Well, he gets knocked down and I watched behind the bastards.

I listen to podcasts about terrible people on my free time. Oh, this was hard. George sucks and he's not done. He sucks so much. Why? So now we're going to get on to his future future, both presidential and governor's races. Because he's governor of Alabama two more times after this, by the way. Oh, fucking seriously.

He's got another wife ahead of him after the Cornelia. What did he kill that one to? Fucking motherfucker. And of course, we also get to go on his image rehabilitation campaign to where we try to, he tries to convince her because there are lots of Wallace defenders. Yeah, he's going to go on an apology tour. If you start, like, I guarantee at some point, if enough people listen to this, we will get pushed back from some people in Alabama who really, like, they're like... You mean we're not going to get pushed back from people in Alabama just from this part? Probably, but I've already talked to Wallace defenders because they're like, well, you know, he came around and...

Wallace defenders. He apologized and he made nice... He apologized. Well, was he ever sad for murdering his fucking wife? Yeah, that was like, I think that's the part where I truly hated him was when I learned that part of the story. Like, it was like, he literally just took away his wife's even allowed to have knowledge, like, knowledge of her body. Like, the hands-made tale, hand-made tale version of reality would be fine with George. He didn't give a shit about his wife.

No, he didn't give a shit about anybody. It's kind of like, I love people but in that narcissistic, purely selfish way or it's still all about him. But thank you to everyone who listened to this nightmare. We have more episodes coming up soon. You can email us. We actually have an email address, so if you want to send us a note about anything you liked or hated about this episode, requests for future topics or anything else you have to say, chainsawhistoryatgmail.com. You can find me on the internets at jamiechambers.net or visit my Twitter account at jamie1km.

Yeah, you can't really find me anywhere right now, but you will soon. Yeah, Bambi has some cool stuff that we're going to do both directly related to chainsawhistory and some of her own projects. Yeah, I have some stuff in the works and I actually have a production team. In that last episode, you announced that you were going to do it. Now you've done it one sort of pilot test footage. Yeah, I mean, it's nothing that we can show yet, but I mean, I have an entire production team and pretty soon you guys are going to be able to hear all about my nifty projects with Money Hill Productions. Sweet. So yeah, we're going to have, I'm going to have my baked baking and I am now just the star and creator and I'm putting some of my stuff in production hands.

So, Ray. Yep, I'm planning on doing this. I manipulated people into doing the things that I don't like. Coming up, I'll be doing some live streams, some stuff for both fun and to raise some money for charitable causes for and I'm just like last time I still encourage people to donate to the United Mine Workers of America strike fund because there's a mine in Alabama that's going through a very long strike. They're talking about going all the way through the holidays. The people they're going up against suck and these people are not even asking for anything unreasonable. The holidays is in like Christmas. Christmas.

They are literally already thinking about how to help these people by Christmas presents for their kids. It's mid July. So I encourage everybody to either donate to their food pantry or directly to their strike fund. And if you were maybe you're still wanting to everybody to just. Yeah, you know, I, I want everybody to do some serious self care, because life has been really weird. It's been really difficult. I took a friend of mine yesterday who lost her husband to the day spa, because that was the nicest thing I could do for was get that girl to relax for a whole day. And, you know, do that for somebody else.

Be someone's. Be in tune with the people around you check in. Take care of everybody. Take care of yourselves. And I hope to see you next time. So, once again, thanks for listening. Yeah, don't be a racist piece of shit. Don't be a piece of shit.

Bye. Yeah.