Chapo Trap House - 332 - Fear of a Netroots Nation feat. Brendan James (7/15/19)

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

We here at your favorite politics/fast food review podcast went to Netroots Nation this past weekend in Philadelphia. Here is our report on what we saw. Catch our live show at the Traverse City Film Festival: https://secure.traversecityfilmfest.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=460935~4d61cd53-466a-4a38-9b0c-5dd9c77930d9&epguid=8fc1333c-62a3-467a-b51c-ada73714212e& We'll also be covering the 2nd Democratic Debates live from TCFF: https://secure.traversecityfilmfest.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=460934~4d61cd53-466a-4a38-9b0c-5dd9c77930d9&epguid=5d6845f7-fad1-45f4-a148-d6945b2debaa& Finally, come to Providence R.I. to see our live play of Call of Cthulhu there: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chapo-trap-house-plays-call-of-cthulhu-live-tickets-62234533164

I know a lot of you saw the photograph of us with Representative Ilan Omar, and I regret to disappoint you, but we did not record an episode with her. We merely had a productive closed-door conversation about the need to lower the top marginal income tax raise on podcasters to enact innovation tax credits for Patreon donations, to lift the burdensome tariffs on jewel pods, to eliminate all libel laws, and to cut the regulatory red tape preventing doctors from conducting important life-saving surgery to transform content creators into kitty cats. The

public And you know for fans of the original web browser Yeah, most people have moved on to Mozilla firefox at this point, but there's still a hardcore of us Well before we explain what net roots nation is and was Why don't we introduce our very special guest making his triumphant return? It is our long-lost brother Brendan James. Hello the hound of fascism himself Well, I'm eating Burger King because I we got back and then I only had a couple hours I didn't consume any nutrients and I want to be and you still haven't want to be on top for him

But yeah, I'm kind of I'm having a whopper. We're having a good conversation about Burger King earlier Yeah, we didn't map brought this to my attention the taco. Yeah, they have a taco now, which I didn't even see that it is It looks harrowing Uh, it just looks like diarrhea smeared on a cracker Bill Oakley said reviewed it and said it was awful Yeah, Burger King has been coming it seems like they've been coming out with a new stunt every two weeks That they put a huge marketing budget into and it just sort of disappoints and pisses everyone off Yeah, they're really flailing because they did the emotion box the emotion burgers. Yes the unhappy meal the pissed meal By the way, which one did you get?

Uh, Brendan, what do you mean? Did you get the pissed meal? Did you get the deep don't give a fuck meal? No, I just got the the the one burger. It wasn't a package before we get too farfield as long as we're talking about Desperate marketing ploys that piss everyone off and don't really work. Let's talk about net roots nation boom. Wow already dropping Fucking fire out of these people Just destroying them from fucking altitude. So net roots nation is an annual political conference that is Uh, sort of hosted by the daily coast. It was originally called yearly coasts. Okay, which was that's bro. You're posting cringe You're gonna lose subscribers. You're going to lose any relevance bro. You're coast posting cringe I don't know if formally it was oh, I know it was called yearly coast

But I don't I don't think it's as I understand it's not just a daily coast thing at least not now No, no, they're a sponsor and like marcos was there It's it's like an umbrella thing for a bunch of different liberal advocacy groups Advocacy groups and originally and originally uh blogs from the wild west days Yes, and the blog and days that will and I are so familiar with as we trod the message boards of all of those Those wild political blogs for that era is what it seemed like the liberal blogs, you know, they were they were gonna do it They were gonna see the fascists. Yeah, that's amazing about like we have the new technology and people and twitter is obviously Revolutionized the way people talk about politics and to each other but at the some sense

It's exactly the same because during before twitter when it was blogs There were people write like david brooks writing Columns in the new york times complaining about being people being mean to them in blog comment sections And they called it blog blog Um, so uh matt virginal and brennan you guys you guys are there for like pretty much the entire convention Yeah, we took point on this. Yeah, you took point on this. Uh, I only arrived for like I only really experienced the last day Which was the candidate forum. Yeah, and we'll get to that and we had already peaked by then We were we were going down a little bit. We got a second peak when you came. Thank you

Um, I would say like, you know, this is the second political convention I've been to and of uh, you know in this season and I would say my my initial impression was uh, this is you know, net rich nation was not Nearly as scintillating as cpaq, which you know, let's be honest was a carnival of horror And this was just you know, a little bit more low energy Uh, a little a little bit harder to ring content out of because like I said, it would you know You know, just cpaq was just an absolute freak show. I was going into this and I got to say like I was surprised at how Not completely repulsed I was by everything in net rich nation

Well, here's the thing about it. It's the the weirdness of it is like paradoxically this seemed less coherent because The liberal bloggers have perfected the art of sounding like you're saying something but actually not saying anything at all Yeah, just sort of like pleasing anodyne patronizing pattern, right, which is why it's less repulsive Visually than cpaq a cpaq is people we went into the fucking cpaq gallery and it's the alliance for fucking carbon dioxide domestic uranium mining just like just pitching What about what if we just annihilate earth and just turn it into a just a blasted hellscape

Or we're all living in fucking bubbles and here you'll get something like the defend oxygen coal No, like there was I saw I saw one boot that was just like eat healthy They were just like the vegetable Yeah, that was because cpaq is also another thing where it's just mask off. They have corporate sponsors uh, the main the main Space area was sponsored by this outdoor company and they had a huge display of all the stuff you could buy there All like the tactical gigas and carabiners or whatever And then there was also an insurance company that had commercials in between the speakers and in the main hall area

Uh No corporate sponsors here here all the corporate sponsors were laundered through the nonprofits who who sponsored it But yeah, the only thing you saw was like eat vegetables. Yeah, and uh, we're jumping into the sort of the actual on the ground Uh, so why don't you guys like why don't you why don't you three? Why don't you like just take me through you know? What I didn't get to experience and net worth nation and well I'll you know go to my grave kicking myself for missing out on Well, the first thing was that by the time you got there the uh town hall bit where everyone had their little booth and tent Uh and cards that they were giving out that was basically dismantled the healthy food people were still there and I think the uh

bling Resistance bling thing was still there left wing bling left wing bling. Yeah Uh, I was a lot of which was incoherent the jewelry they had because I almost got some but then I realized This just would confuse people instead of showing where you are like one was uh It was a g.o.p. Elephant with a coat hanger Which I understand what that means but you have to think about it because otherwise I just see a g.o.p. Elephant thing Oh, you're a republican right but the the implication was that it's uh back back alley abortion will be caused by the g.o.p And therefore that's why you're wearing the coat hanger around your neck with an elephant

But you have to work backwards from that. I thought it was just republicans who really love mommy dearest Then there was the but the talking about kind of low energy moribund and sort of obsolete Sense that you got while you were there was there was that booth with the term limits guy Yeah, well, he was just that was he was one guy in a suit Sitting there and just said term limits. Yeah, like dot org and it's like ask me about term limits and no change my mind come up from the whole time And it just made you give you that idea of just like no one knows what to do They're just like throwing shit out of walls. Yeah, it's like what about term limits?

I don't know. You got a better idea. I actually saw we went to uh, uh They had a bunch of happy hours one night And you know you could dip in and they were sponsored by different orgs and companies Uh that are trying to sell like election related software and things like that and one of them It was some, you know meet and greet and I just said, uh, what's your idea? And that really did feel like the the slogan of of net rosaceous like anybody. Yeah, what do you got? Yeah We're here now What disappoints me when I hate it about the term limits guy is he's just a cowardly reformist

You want the real shit you go to the militant real term limits? What like you get one day in office Uh, and then I'm trying to think I mean that that was again sort of right off the bat We we we caught the flavor of it because as we were walking through all those There was a guy like reading from like kind of giving a talk But there were really there were like three people there. No one was paying attention And I just overheard him going, you know an in chapter five I explain how rush limbaugh was incredibly unfair to the president It's just kind of like that's 10 years ago man

Like we if that's what the the the panel is just sit there And I'm not kidding a brandy sifter thinking about Oh, they kept talking about those 57 states. Yeah, just to be complete I'm just gonna show will the picture of the sad turbo of hits man. He is a very sad man Yeah, he just had that hangdog expression. He was the gill of net roots. He was very much He's got it. Okay. He's in he's in a suit that like looks like a hotel concierge But he's got both his hands in his pockets and like a downcast look on his face He wasn't even trying to like ring people in he was like, oh, come on. I got some turbulents to sell you

Let me tell you. Oh my god. If you got if you got these senators and they only got six years Oh, buddy. Let me tell you that would be so much different. Come on. Just stop for a second. You're a child my child I need to see one, you know The music man type turm limits pitchman just going from town to town with a song and dance Another interesting thing was like I remember this one booth And I don't think we're like identifying any particular people because these weren't bad like evil mutants Like a c-pack but I remember one Booth was uh

The John Quincy Adams Society And I think that was supposed to be about like having a more strategic foreign policy. I think they're actually doesn't really get intervention Yeah, that's like that's what I'm saying. No, that's what I mean But in that kind of it doesn't really get the blood going, you know, John Quincy Adams doesn't get you ready to run through a brick wall Yeah, and and then the other thing we kept noticing is a lot of more groups than you think had names that sounded like right wing Coke places because it was a lot of like the free speech project. There's a free speech tv And like freedom for prosperity, which I'd never heard of before freedom to prosper Right was about debt student debt relief. Yes. Uh, yeah, they're just like except patriotic millionaires patriotic millionaires

That really confused me I think was it Ryan Grimm who pointed out that these things aren't named for People they're named for donors. Yeah, so they're pitched to the rich people who might cut them checks which we should mention uh To to get into this Uh netted route you had to actually pay 175 minimum minimum and we were there, of course free as media But uh, so right off the bat. It's not really a grassroots. I I actually paid 175 for each of us Solidary, but I just want to say just to to put a cap on the whole initial sense of lack of vigor and ideas

More abundant when we when we were walking in front of the convention center and there was a guy handing out pamphlets for his Presidential campaign. Oh, yeah, so this guy was running as a democrat I forgot his name and he had a glossily printed out thing with his his priorities And he was handing him out, you know one of these one of these cranks So you love to see zero, but I looked at I took it because I want to know hey crank Sign me up. I want to hear what crazy shit you were your why are you running? You know and he said here's the four issues that we're dealing with in this country one traders president in league with russia two

climate change three Ever widening inequality, and I was this is just boilerplate democratic shit Why are you standing in 90 degree heat handing out these pamphlets for your presidential campaign? And one of your bullet points isn't the nsa stole my penis Why are you doing this? I mean even the cranks are out of ideas. Yeah Yeah, well, here's here's here's my favorite thing. We passed this so a brief treat report. Uh, there were treats in the town hall area Uh, uh, there were funcical funcicals. Yeah sponsored by who was it a raw story? I think yeah raw story gave Gave ice cream sandwiches out, which is nice. I got a funcical. They were delicious. Uh, so uh treat judgment bro

Yeah, no, I hadn't had a funcical in a while Coffee wasn't bad. Uh, so as we were enjoying our treats. Uh, we found uh, this is uh, like a like a dry erase board or whatever And uh written on is what is the greatest thing you hope organizing can achieve? And you know, everyone writes their answer and uh, it's stuff like this ending climate change. That's good. Yeah Changing systems of infrastructure. Okay Empowerment for new american majority. Uh, yeah, hell. Yeah increase voter engagement. Okay create conscientious and empathetic systems and institutions Create intersectional planets

Create intersectional planet. Here's my favorite one. And this is my favorite 90s woke hip hop. That's my favorite dailess soul song Uh, here's my favorite one and this was so important to the writer that they uh, uh drew a box around A box around it put stars just like the names in the jeffrey upstate black book Bring the left and the right together Sure, sure. Why not? So those are those are the goals all the political tendencies come together and have a huge party So, yeah, it was so that's taking the pulse of the people

So just to take the pulse the temperature test of the type of person who was going around enjoying the treats Which where they're at meanwhile at cpaq. They had the same thing What do you want with what do you want to do? What do you want the movement to be and it was just like, you know, uh blood blood rain? Yeah It was just people putting like it was elder symbols. Yeah. Yeah, it's just incantations You know, it was like it was a total eclipse. But like in the like, you know in in the center of the eclipse It was just a hand reaching out. Yeah Open the crimson-eyed

Pyramid of half Sutter cane had a booth Yeah But yeah, so really unfocused whereas I wasn't at cpaq with you guys But I imagine it was a hive mind of just pure and unadulterated love for the great leader and maga as a project Oh, yeah, well, maybe some peripheral like theocratic kind of irrelevant Yeah, like the constitution party. Yeah, but they were kind of like different. What's interesting about cpaq And we got to see this first hand like like you said man, like this is all funded by oligarchs all of it Uh, but there is you know an actual rift in that movement between like the old school like cpaq and server libertarian types

The guys who like Ron ran Ron Paul back in the day. Yeah, and the young nazis Yeah, and uh, you know, you you you saw that in the reaction to the israeli ambassador for instance And in never station like in the past there had been like, you know, real conflicts people like protesting going up on stage and stuff like that Now it's like nobody just even has the energy to get mad at each other Even though there are like real rifts within this great orange menace that must be defeated at all costs Yeah, trump both if you like him and hate him it's his existence is just A dissolving conflict. Yeah, and creating two relatively

undifferentiated sides We should also not forget that comic book page that we saw. Oh, hell. Yeah, it was kind of awesome We don't have it with us, but the actual dialogue wasn't really that funny. It was like, you know, a marvel looking kind of Uh page of a comic book that was really just a flyer for for some group. This was last thing stanley did election That was the elder abuse Died for truth. It's called smart election dot us. Yeah, and it starts with like It's like g r u headquarters. Yeah, and they're like we won't track suit guys are like we have bleached the whole thing

Uh, uh, we have the voting vote date. We have the voting apparatus. Yeah, and then it cuts to tyron Yeah, and tyron is also doing acts this like this kind of bird bearded bro dude And then a lady who kind of looks like aoc are like we have all of florida's voting info Yeah, yeah, and then they're and then they cut to This guy that says his name and it says a computer genius slash Programmer and he's like my god. They don't even have to hack. They could just take this data from the internet Yeah, and then there's and the bottom thing is like five guys in Superior outfits. Yeah marching to fight off the cyber invaders. Yeah, and the thing is like this is a perfect example

Like they've a way. I just love something really bad. Uh watch men for hillary That's bad. I don't i'm not shang. That's good. What i'm trying to think is it would it be watch hillary men or hillary watchmen Uh, we'll work it out when we found the organization But it's a perfect example like they even had a little graph in the middle of it showing like voter anomalies in in the georgia senate race and This is a thing where yeah, we know this is happening But it's happening because of a republican political project that is using our sclerotic political institutions to enshrine minority rule through legal means

But and in georgia they literally like they had a fucking warehouse full of Uh, uh, uh, unopened voting machines that never got sent to precincts Meanwhile, people were waiting in line for hours and hours There's no need to fucking hack anything the solution to this is political The only way you're gonna beat this gerrymandering and this voter suppression is through political mobilization But smart election dot us is proposing. No, there's an app for that. Yeah, there is a technocratic solution to this issue Because it's not coming from it's not endemic and endogenous to our political system It's an exterior cyber attack from foreign powers

Yeah, just seems like never its nation is is basically like positioned pretty much in like the Right in the middle of like trying to bridge the gap between like, you know Progressive politically engaged or even like left-wing like activists groups and organizers and pretty much standard democratic party politics basically, you know, brennan I think the point you you made Is that like a lot of like the reason it felt sort of like low energy is because like most of that like, you know The the highly motivated like online people who are, you know into politics and you know want something better All of that energy has just gone elsewhere

And it's gone to the campaign of the guy that marcos molitsis like hates and you know like sanders You know, because if you're a young person who's at net roots nation You're you're just there to network. You're just there to get an internship with a consultant Just like a seatback. I mean people who were there, you know, and we're I presume on some level, you know, happy to be there and be doing their thing Even they would say they use I kept hearing the phrase Uh, grass top or top Yeah, well, it's a

I heard multiple times and I guess they're they're acknowledging at least to each other like yeah, this isn't actually So like instead of astroturf, it's like field turf because it's like you can you know, you won't scrape your knee if it's organic It's real grass folks. But because if you say astroturf, that sounds bad Yeah, but they're they're kind of openly acknowledging that part of it But that means you're going to get something donor focused like we even the names of the organizations technocratic and You know not to put too fine a point on it But that the star of the show Canada wise is going to be Someone like Liz Warren who appeals to that professional middle class

scene that is talking about, you know plans and fixes and Wonkery and algorithmic this or that and it's not going to be the kind of You know, if you want to call it old school um political Kind of hustling that's going on say on the like at a rally At a standards rally or when Bernie went to Philadelphia outside of the hospital That's uh, you know being threatened. We'll get that up. Yeah No, because he'll uh because warren is like a tulpa created by the collective will of everyone at that red station

Because these are people who see themselves as progressives, right? But they are there. I mean net worth nation was just was created by daily cost back when the cost was the left wing of the Democratic party, but then the part the left moved way past where Daily cost was and they didn't really move then and so now they are Anti-sanders hostile to socialism. Yeah, but they don't still consider themselves progressive And so they would have if there was no warren in the race that would be a real crisis that they would have to confront Right. Are we going to just are we going to turn our back on what we thought of as the left project? And then they would have to acknowledge themselves. Well, I'm actually not as left as I thought I was

Well, it was beyond there But warren comes in there and she is this perfect gift that she she allows them to grab onto someone who they can argue Uh, actually she's as left as Bernie is and that means I'm as left as Bernie is right without having to Uh to shed their commitments to that professional managerial class keep this in mind about daily cost and You know his ill for you know, someone who's a liberal and like professors liberal values and wants to move the country to the left They Historically have not been for just left candidates. It's been it's it's it's their whole ambition is to elect Democrats It's for the Democratic Party and that means electing conservative Democrats in red areas and like oh and like there's sob to the left

Is oh, we're gonna like, you know better Democrats in you know deep blue districts but in practice, it's more like going for people like Doug Jones or I don't know think of someone from like 2008 and 2006 there was a Rahm Emanuel type candidates And of course, he's probably uh Marcus himself is probably infuriated every time he checks his own website's poll That says they all want Sanders, which isn't the same audience as It's free to log on today But that's their ambition is just to elect Democrats and that's it, you know, we we just elect enough Democrats and you know, they Hey, yeah, don't get them boys. Yeah, just like they are in the House of Representatives

And that happened that happened in 2009. We got all the Democrats We got Democrats in Idaho with like deep red districts Democrat Alaska a Democrat in the White House Democratic Senate Democratic House And uh, you know a funny thing happened. It didn't solve the problems. Yeah What did you guys tell me like so like that's some of the the scenes in the the vendors? I do I do have one other bit so uh in between like the big uh, uh, like speeches and stuff, uh, there were these workshop sessions, right like maybe they called breakouts. There's something breakout sessions. Yeah, yeah And we skipped like all of them because they're incredibly boring. They looked so bad We did catch the last one minute of one and that was I believe it was called podcasting for chain

How to Start a podcast we just poked our head in and you know, the room was pretty full actually And we just called like the last slide of this power point. Yes that just said you hear some advice for your podcasting Uh, remember use social Do you remember it said it said marketing yeah marketing plus social media and then it said consistency Yep, and then it said quality Don't leave that out. Do a good podcast that people like it's the most important part I mean we joke that there's like, you know a chalkboard and says pod means pod

Cast means cast because it really was just like oh great. Uh, I make a good show. Yeah, that's like that's your fucking slide show for me Well, I was worried about it honestly because I looked in there and the room was packed and Like the people there did not look like podcasters to me. They looked like they were about to go and start a podcast They weren't white dudes. Yeah, they were they were in uh, uh malevolent white dudes. Yeah, you didn't see stink lines Yeah, they were you know, uh going around with a cloud of dust like pig bag Uh, but I then you know, I got a little scared and I said, you know, we we should hire some guys to bust this up This is not Union thugs throw some stink bombs in there like they used to do. Yeah, no, but um, I mean good on stav for hosting that panel

But no, there would have been nudity would have been on there too Always be slurring Uh, but that was you know, that wraps up like the first daytime activities of the first day we were there Uh, let's talk about net roots nights as you know, as you know, as with every convention the real action happens at night Oh, yeah, so is it was matt and I took in a little comedy Holy shit You guys gotta tell me I felt like I was absorbing radiation into my bones. I felt like a Chernobyl firefighter We went to look at the comic. It was so embarrassing. We went to laughing liberally

Oh, so there was an event held, uh, the first big night on Wednesday night It was laughing liberally at a sports bar right next to the convention center And it was one of those deals where if you had a lanyard, you could get in they give you a drink ticket And there was a little spread of treats Uh, and then middling treats. That's a treat. They were okay. The wings were not bad. Uh, I had these little pork sandwiches that were actually Uh, Matt ate the last wing I did and I poor poor version was waiting for that to bring another wing platter out

I was waiting by the the treat table for one hour By and this is behind a clutch of people There's like people like moving past me and like jostling me and it sucks And then I'm hearing the the like barely hearing this awful tepid stand-up comedy and like that's hell That was hell to me. You're like fries dog Waiting for some fucking the thing is hot wings to come out. The thing is I dithered. I waited and you just went for the Wing because I thought wait, does this violate if I eat their treat? Does this violate my journalistic integrity? This is this is wing ball 2019 here

Uh, so it was a bunch of comedians none of whom I'd ever heard of and comedian is generous I think is yeah, I don't know only one of them actually sound had the cadence of a professional comedian They might have just drafted people I have no idea how they picked who would come up and the other problem is is that it was a big group of people There were tables in the front where people were sitting But most people were standing and mingling so nobody was like quiet nobody was quiet And they also, uh, I was told that the these people were not paid the that would make oh, uh, and uh, Honestly, they should have paid me. Well, I think it's a it's a it's a volunteer organization. That's it's activism

That's like the dsa. So it was what did they do? Um, so it was not all political humor It was kind of a mixture of political humor and then you know Spog standard relationship stuff one lady talked about farting on her husband or something like that Yeah, uh, and you know stuff about how trump is uh, the dang cheeto, you know that kind of thing We blocked most of this out. No, I honestly yeah, I kind of for my own sanity. I had to block Uh, even remembering any of these punchlines. I was because like I was not even by I was going to get a drink or something I wasn't even next to Virgil. There would be a punchline and I would physically

Wince like I would my body would contract And there's no there was no and there was no result nobody laughs Nothing no laughs for any of it and yeah, it's like part of it was it was hard to hear But like it's not like the people at the tables were roaring with after it was like the people in the front were not at one point the mc Uh, you know she gets mad that there's everyone all around is just talking and ignoring this and says, you know, uh Hey, these people here in the front row. They are watch listening patiently The people in the front are being very quiet and respectful

Yes, that's exactly what you want out of a comedy audience. Yeah respectful quiet. Uh, just endurance. Yeah, brennan You didn't go to laughing liberally. No, uh, you were at skankfest. Yeah But the real highlight the thing that stood above the this dung hill Is one of the comics was a milania trump impersonator. Yeah, and she was wearing a white dress And uh, she did us like a slavic accent And she was just talked about how her husband is a gross pervert who she doesn't like being around No, that it was like it was she actually well went blue with it as an impersonator. I mean she's passable like fine I mean, I don't just heard her talk. So how do you know what the fuck? Yeah, exactly? Yeah, just do a goofy eastern european accent

Just sound like Natasha, uh bullwinkle, but uh, this just the the jokes are just about sucking trump's dick and how she doesn't like it Yeah, and how she wants the democrats to win so she can be free so she can suck someone else's dick She said something about how very progressive about how I remember this distinctly it really it cut through the the miasma Something about how when uh, trump was down on her Her peeps looked like doritos because Oh Which the idea of trump going down on anyone absurd It doesn't even work as a concept. Yeah, uh, but yeah

He did stuff about like how he lies a lot and uh, and he's crazy But the real the real pest there is a stone Is that uh, she ended the thing with a Oh tear with a wrap don't she wrapped about voter uh outreach Yep, she she did a wrap about the need for democrats to come together to beat trump No spit spit some of those bars. All right. Well, it's hard to hear because everyone was talking No one was laughing. Yeah about how good it was this video. We probably can't use it on the show because it's like again It's just everyone's talking, but I think if uh, why don't you just put this to your ear?

And I think you can hear some of the lyrics well I remember the the because part of it is a reference to gin and juice And that part I remember rolling down the street. No walking down the streets Signing voters talking to the moderates Yeah, there it is. Yeah, okay talking to the moderates street registering voters talking to the moderates Yeah, holy shit mercifully that ended. Oh, and then the headliner the dean obedega. Who is this guy dean? Oh, I don't know how you pronounce his last name, but I I knew who this guy Uh, oh bungler. Yeah, dean. Oh bungler. I know who this guy is because he's had me booked for on twitter for like 10 years

Because I think I just added him and said you suck He's some guy who was like, I'm pretty sure he was like a consultant or something or marketer Who's just like, oh, I want a comedy career now and then he would he was writing comedy columns Like dave berry humor columns for cnn. Yeah, which I so I assume he must like have like all these connections that he's using He has an xm show on the radio and by the way, I look I'm looking up to see if I'm blocked I'm not because I'm a good boy of online And I I'll just note that he still has the triple parentheses Yeah, which is an absolute sign that you're dealing with a 1 million percent herb

Yeah, an absolute dork if they've got the fucking triple parentheses He's he's he's got very strong name and vibes from him Yeah, no, what I really enjoyed was that he actually dusted off some george bush jokes That you know like repurpose them or just no, no, he said remember bush And then he would do a bush joke in order to be like but he was still nothing compared to this guy. All right, folks It was a very clever way to pad the uh had the set. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds sounded awful No, I I wanted to hide under the galaxy Yeah

So that was day one And then day two not to like there wasn't a whole lot more going on day two But I would say that day two was the most high energy of the three I just remember that there was more, you know traffic and people walking around that's when we went on Sam Cedar's show because like most of the more I would say I guess like relevant or Some podcasts or things I knew were on the radio row And this is when Sam Cedar confused you with me, correct? And they're like we're talking with will menaker here

But that but you were only subbing in because Virgil was shitting out of his doo doo ass I was and I told okay that told me that told me like like Sam Cedar was like what Matt told you was true Yeah, yeah, 10 minutes guys and Virgil was just like Girl of bathroom and then you wait like seven minutes and then just scurry off Yeah, and then he comes up. He's like, you know, where's where's where's Virgil? Yeah, I get no no hang on hang on. I didn't like wait seven minutes. You did. No. No, that's not waiting And you were drinking coffee and like smoke this cigarette. It's just worse. You were more coffee meant Uh bathroom or coming. Okay. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. You're saying that like I'm twiddling my thumbs. That's wasted time

No, that's part of the process That's stage one where I am controlling my internal muscles In order to get the machinery going Then I went to the bathroom. So like yeah, so Sam Cedar was just like, yeah, Matt Christmas and Virgil, Texas. Where are you? He said I looked uh haggard or something when he thought I was you Oh, so that's a compliment to you. Yeah, because I looked like a shittier version of you to him But uh, yeah, and it was like right right as Sam kind of did like a you know eye contact and

and um Gestured five minutes As he did that and I clocked that I see Virgil get up and just go to the bathroom And I was like no, but you and then it just it was I said I was so I jumped in for you And I think we told their audience, uh The actual the other host is shitting so I'll be here for a second But then you came back about I don't know halfway through. Okay. I don't I don't think the audience needs to hear about that We said no, they definitely do. Yeah, it spiced up the show. It was good. But so yeah, then the second day

Uh was a little bit more lively. I thought we did Sam Cedar show And then I think that's when we saw the podcast man And then we went up to there's this like big, you know main stage. Oh, yeah, this was good where I believe the first person we saw was uh, like uh, uh Someone giving up a benediction. Yeah, who was like total Mary on mindset. Yeah, and you know Yeah, no instead of like some blood and thunder protest and psycho who that they would have a CPAC to you know Bless the swords of the IDF or whatever They had this sort of earth mother

They call her a bishop or something I have no idea what shirt she was in because she did not talk about Jesus or anything She was just about how you need to be mindful in this moment. Yeah, and remember love and it was incredibly Marianne. Yeah Yeah, yes, you need to drop out. Yeah, and there actually was something earlier in the day called the mindfulness moment That they had it was like a half hour and I didn't go to one But I peeked in and apparently it was To sort of like a meeting they were sitting in a circle and I guess you just talk about like what you're feeling in that moment Yeah, it is definitely a different vibe than CPAC. How was that mindfulness moment?

Like what we didn't go in because it looked like they were having an actual private conversation. Yeah, well, that's uh, Well, I mean it's for everyone. Well, I don't know. I'm a media person. They might not like that I come in and I'm just like I have my I have my one-year mindful coin And they had uh, they had a thing. Well, and then I said I've got a shit on my doodoo ass And uh, they were very mean about it and I don't know why and I told I explained the process They had they had think called yoga with Reggie every morning. It was like a cliche It was like if you were going to pretend like what would be the repu- dem liberal CPAC. Oh, yeah, the fucking yoga Yeah, it was. It literally was. So so we saw a bit of the the Marianne mindset orb

Energy and then the first speaker was that uh, billionaire or millionaire. Yeah, we we saw a couple speakers And then we got born left. I like one was a a woman from Planned Parenthood and she sounded very good and on the ball Another was housing. I think yeah housing housing PA But the the the real highlight was This anti-poverty billionaire whose name I can't remember for the life of me. I've never heard of him before But he was the absolute worst speaker Just a complete dog shit of everyone that we saw there He actually looked like he should have like he looked like a lesser

Fallwell brother like he had that kind of goatee. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very like, you know, you're in like the D league of You know, uh, mega church ripoff pastors, but he's apparently some millionaire who's made it his anti-poverty his Yeah, his mission which you know lol about that. Yeah, obviously. Yeah, and at the end he just he's doing the spiel about how And this is perfectly emblematic of the whole. Oh, absolutely He's does a spiel very passionate and there's always very passionate And it would and the reason that it wasn't totally horrible the way c-pack was is that when people were describing the fucked up problems We got it was always very inside. It's like yeah rousing. It's like, yeah, we have a crisis We have monstrous inequality and poverty and then he goes

You know you can pick up your take out your phones and if we can get what was it end poverty? Yeah, everybody take out your phones right now And type on twitter and type in hashtag end poverty And if we can we can get this trending right now It's one of the most embarrassing and then 30 seconds later He tells everyone get up on your feet and chant with me and I've got a video of it And I think this audio was good. This was excruciating to actually And this is within 30 seconds of doing another gimmick that fucking failed and made everyone confused and aggravated

By the way, here's what he looks like will if you want to describe that to the audience Yeah, he looks like um like a youth pastor that would like would skateboard or something like that Yeah, here's the here's the here's the the 30 seconds of hate Poverty and poverty and poverty Lover Say it for the people who are every paycheck to paycheck Think about the people who don't have health care or care about you And poverty

Oh, no Oh, no Really bad. Oh, no Yeah, they are posting creeps to the timeline. You said that like out loud at the thing I love how we're on tape laughing I don't think poverty's definitely definitely not looking like out of touch podcast millionaires right that moment Cackling at this poor guy who just wants us to stop him up. Well, he's not poor. He's exactly Well, no, I think it's poor schmuck whose entire conception of how you end poverty was just asked like one was one of his suggested solutions was we lower prices

Yeah, it's just that is liberal bullshit. That's all that money can be used to buy goods and services Yeah, so he rocked and then uh, we kind of you know, again This was a thing as you said that uh, I felt throughout and going into the third day as well Is that there would just be stretches where as matt said a talk or a uh speaker wasn't necessarily Bad or saying anything. I mean there was some stuff that was lib Dumb dumb stuff, but sometimes there'd be quite good stuff But it was just boring because you're like, yeah, I know this and this isn't going to change anything this this like isn't a

You know historical summit of some grand left coalition It's a bunch of professionals who are just here to network and like bloggers and comments Yeah, I just wanted to do every talk kind of boiled down to someone should do something about all the problems It was because the moment it got to a prescriptive phase it just disappeared in the thin air I think it was it's it's anesthetizing. That's what it is. And that's why I loved that was my favorite speaker by the way that uh, and puffer yeah, it was great Because I mean at least that had the crazy energy of c-pack. Yeah, you know just a little bit of just like dory gold showing the infinity spot gems

Like okay, this is nuts. I'm with that if the whole thing had been that it would be entertaining and great Yeah, and I think that's what we thought might be the best version of it is a lot of like parodies Yeah, of a lip thing, but it was just it was a little more tepid than that after that happy hours Yeah, we ran through every single happy hour of which there were I think seven Yeah, and we got a drink at each one with our free drink tickets Oh, we didn't always get free drink tickets and people can walk around asking Where do you get the drink tickets and I don't know but the drinks were expensive? So I mean yeah ludicrously price and we got loaded and then we went to uh

Well loaded and uh, so you know brief uh brief party run down here We went to the one that mad alluded to earlier of it's some um Some campaign software. Yeah, it was baffling. There were two of those. I think you know They asked us to uh, you know sign up with our email addresses for a yeah, they'll be sending an email to Burt come They know I for Virgil gave them my email and I gave them his email So they actually did end up getting both of our emails But it's like nobody there is a political candidate. So why are you even doing this event? I guess like they might get hired for a campaign and then they can play

Hey, I got this thing for this software that we should use for the election. Yeah, it was grim I signed us up for a uh, um a six month trial Subscription for that software is I don't know. I mean I felt bad because I drank a drink there and you know That's how they get you felt obligated you sign up for the company that that that crafts the uh It does like a wonk and congressional mods for doom 2 levels Uh, we went to the Demos one Which uh, they started talking so we look we got we hire tailed. I know thank you Uh, there was another one that seemed religious in some way and then just no no, I didn't notice that uh, and then but uh

The one party that absolutely whip was the uh move on happy hour. No, no, I'm sorry not move on Act blue the act blue happy hour. Yep, uh where I don't even know if this story is interesting enough to tell But um, I you're waiting line to get a drink and the guy in front of me was just like something young A bro if you will uh talking to another bro guy saying yeah, I'm expanding my team this year You know that kind of shit and uh, you know and he so he asked for a drink He just points at the drink what he wants and he points his lanyard and says yeah act blue Yeah, I told we have a tab we get the drinks for free and almost like I don't know what you're talking about And she asked the other person who says uh, no you got to pay for it as she's pouring the drink and the guy says

No, no, I'm just walks away. We paid $175 at that point. So well, he know he was there because he worked for Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, it sucked and then we did very poorly and quiz Yeah, well, okay now here is where I enter into this story because at exactly this at the same time on Friday evening Uh, Catherine and I were getting a train To Philadelphia and I'm you know standing there in front of the the big board at you know, probably the most Cursed location in all of Manhattan Penn Station just a fucking rat hole awful shit Uh, and my phone rings And it's it's one Virgil texas calling me and I go hello

And he goes, uh, uh, uh will well, uh, where are you? Where are you right now? And I go, I'm in Penn Station and Virgil says, uh, the New York Penn Station or the Pennsylvania Penn Station And I go no the only fucking Penn Station. I'm in New York. We're getting you could have met. You're in the Pennsylvania Trying to be economical on the phone I go yo, dude, I'm in pen I'm up in pen yo so yeah Catherine and I were waiting to uh to get to get to get to get on the train on the uh the

The Xsella Express with all the other you know media figures sure with you uh dc or whatever Um, the stars are out to shine. Yeah, I was like, I was like, no, dude Like we're getting on the train now like we'll be in Philadelphia in like an hour or so And I was like, well like what's the matter or like like is everything okay? And he just goes, oh, we could just we're about to do this trivia. We really could use Here's what was uniquely aggravating about the trivia And everything has to be aggravating which is a great, you know It's a great metaphor for just how or a great symbol for for just how

Fucked up. The police is is that there are these elaborate rules for the trivia and one was you know teams must be Uh eight to ten people. That's okay. Wait for okay. First of all, that's ludicrous You know, I have a long-standing beef against You know pub quizzes where you're allowed to have more than like four or five people in a team. You had to have it You had to have fucking eight people. Yeah, you had to have eight people which um, okay, fine Whatever, that's your trivia, but you know, I just went up and said, you know, we're kind of a thing So we'll just be playing the three of us like yeah, that's fine Uh, and then they had like runners. So I guess we're volunteers or we're working for the uh,

net roots or whatever Uh, like passing out sheets and they kept coming up to us and be like, hey, where's the rest of your team? And we're like, no, no, we cleared it. It's cool Well, because the idea was you if you don't have that many people you can make friends by being on a team together Here's the thing it disadvantages you if you are a team of three and we said we accept the disadvantage So fuck off. Yeah, it was like, what's the problem? And they kept coming back. They come right back One of them had to go up and went up to the stage with the people running the trivia and like By them. Yeah, so then we lied and we said that you were coming in like five. Yeah, we lie

We said no, no, no hour for the six friends. We'll be here any minute now Virgil pulled the classic, uh, like a escape from alcatraz style, uh, ruse by putting his suit coat on a different chair So then we're a team of four and then, uh, like, uh, guys we did not want to interact with kept coming up to us Be like, hey, do you have a full team? We said yes Well, I remember with with the coat thing. I remember I sat down and you were like, huh? I was like, what you just I look over and then the coat is on the chair and I was like, that's that is brilliant And then four so we were up to four, but then like the heat was just on us so hard

And well and cath weren't coming. I just I uh, uh, so Uh, just some old man walks by and asks if you can join our team. We just said, yeah, okay It was the worst of both worlds because we didn't stick to our guns and not let anyone else in We also didn't end up having a full eight people where we could actually use their brain powers It was just us three and an old man who we didn't know and then his daughter came and you know They were decent teammates, but it was like a complete compromise. They probably actually they were helpful. They were better than they were helpful Yeah, we really miffed it, but the category the first round was on uh, incredibly, uh

stupid, uh trivia about the candidate about the candidates Uh, that we didn't know anything. I mean really we're guessing the second one was about it was some philly stuff We did well in the second round actually and then I don't even remember what the third one was more philly facts Yeah, but we were getting crushed so bad. We prepped at lunch as well. We read the wikipedia. We were we read wikipedia Oh, philadelphia. We skimmed wikipedia. Yeah, the the whole website. So we bombed and We really bombed and you know, we lost to the walk team in the daily coast that one was pretty it was pretty brutal I have to admit

Uh, you know even accepting the disadvantage, but I do want to point this out If you have a team of 10 people and most of them are strangers, how are you going to collaborate on trivia? Right because you're all drinking. How do you resolve conflicting answers? Like are you going to create an ad hoc democratic model? In the in the five minutes you have it was pre-figurative politics You know what you do is is is you build responsive institutions. Yeah, so yeah, that was bad But then uh, then it was day three and you guys actually got here

Oh, and then uh, you know, we then you know, we showed up, you know, yeah the reinforcements arrived So like, you know, the party could begin to replenish your ranks. Yeah, so the the late will medicare. Yeah The late walter medicare Um, so yeah, uh, so saturday That was that was the only day that that uh, I got to experience the the state of the state of the net roots nation Chris came off outside. Yeah. Yeah, again, like I've said this before but like yeah struck by like this it's almost like perfect half and half between activists and and organizing groups who

You know are very, you know committed to very good and decent causes One of the first things I saw uh in the convention center was like, uh, I think it was we the people Pennsylvania just did this like completely ad hoc like pop-up on narcan training right for like, you know harm reduction in like the opioid crisis, which is you know a big deal in huge problem in philadelphia and pennsylvania And you know much of the rest of the country. So I was like, you know very encouraged by that Yeah, and um, it was like, you know, it seemed like, you know, I saw some of the vendors like by them They were mostly packing up, but uh, and then we chose like a panel And it was like progressive foreign policy and I was like, oh, let's go to that one. That's sure to be horrible

Yeah, that actually turned out to be quite good. Yeah, and in fact the keynote speaker there was Representative Ilan Omar and it was actually like I was impressed like at uh how not bullshit Her and like all the other speakers were in that like they uh, I forget to do some of the other ones were but like they They made clear that um, like all these bad things that we don't like like guess what like obama was doing them too Yeah, like the problem is like not just the republicans, but like like the democratic party Yeah, it did suffer though from the same thing that all even the best stuff they're suffered from which is you It's very incisive and it gets you going when they're doing the descriptive portion But then as soon as it comes to the question of well, what do we do now?

Everything just kind of dissolves. Yeah, like the energy is diffused and it just well, especially with those There was there were some people from the ACLU or or I think that was one of the panelists and especially with they were saying Out loud like yeah, we always sue and it never works like they just were like, yeah, it doesn't actually do anything Well, I was actually like impressed at like uh, some of the willing to say like, you know I'm not saying that like shame on them like laws are like not enough Yeah, like they like you can't just rely on like the courts or like the law to protect That was like make a more decent society like you need like, you know mobilization Well, that's the thing is that the mass mobilization is the unspoken thing that is in the the un

The thing of the equation that is what we're all waiting for to change this the the math of this power dynamic right now in america is not there and You know, I think you could argue I could argue that the Sanders campaign is the germ of maybe one, but they They net roots for whatever number of reasons is not going to commit to saying yeah, there's a model here Instead, you know, you know, it's still siloed within all of these individual groups and and some some more grassroots than others some institutional all of which really deeply tied to the democratic party regardless of what they They're members and the people there might believe

And as such unable to get on board with that which leaves them really just kind of shrugging Yeah, I can't gesture to the one thing that this might make the Make the math change and keep in mind there were people there who agree with that analysis and vaguely recognize that It's just that this is the structure. They find themselves. And this is the milieu. Yeah, and as well I mean you have a guy like marcos who is he's a multi-millionaire media magnate He fucking was a founder of vox media and sold his shares and he's deeply embedded within the institution of the democratic party That's part of why he utterly loathes bernie sanders. Yeah manlet also. So, uh, I mean like, you know, so I was Impressed with the foreign policy panel

However, like, okay, like 60 interesting thing happened to curves during the the question and answer portion, which is always Oh, this is the real shit. Yeah. This is always dead um, so, uh, you know, they they line you know line up and and you know the moderator going, you know, like, you know You know say who you are if you're with an organization and like, you know, again, just please make sure to ask a question And the first guy up there There's this like, you know, old other old white man. Yeah That has, you know, passed him by and they said like, you know Now just make sure ask a question. Yep, and he begins

When I was growing up as a child of the diplomatic corps in the 1950s and 60s and it was just like from there I was like, oh, you can hear everyone in the room just sort of like, oh I I leaned over to matt and I said that guy is 100 percent going to be a crank who doesn't ask Yeah, he was like absolutely on cue. He gives he gives this long like fucking like talking about himself growing up Yeah, like, you know, traveling around the world and like basically this question was like He was like when I was when I grew up like People hated america for not being america american enough Yeah, and like how can we get back to like people hating us for the right like, I don't know

It was gibberish. He was just like, how when are we going to be loved again? Yeah, hey, yeah It was something about how like america used to be the good guy and we fought fascism and and then like now Now we are fascism. No, they're like, he said that like when people Hated america when he was growing up. They hated america for not living up to american ideals that they revered and cherished or whatever Yeah, I actually left while he was talking about what he said But I I was here at like, uh, for everyone who thinks that, you know, like choppo dude bro podcast I was really in a plan. Yeah, I wanted to ask a question and I wanted to ask some point blank like

Does anyone on stage think the cia can be reformed? Yeah, or if not, how do we begin dismantling it wholesale? Yeah, but honestly, I did a progressive stack because I was like not good You know, like I like I want the I saw you walk away and I and you know, uh, like this is not just like white guys Yeah bring a panel of not white men. Sure. They're I thought you were about to shit on your duty as no No, no, I had to I was doing well. I was I was doing a progressive stacking of both my, you know, colonned and They can coexist and and and the the the speakers Um, and then you know, the other people actually did ask questions. Well, can we talk about that one? Yeah, okay

The highlight of which was this kindly old lady Wearing a like a t a t-shirt of the full syrian flag a jersey a jersey of like yeah like a jersey They just said a sod. Yeah one on the back. Yeah, she just started talking about like she said like everyone in syria Loves this odd and like just going out and like the room just turns against her Yeah, and I've sort of got it. Felix is there. He would have just been like escort mission I pledge my sword to you, man Yeah, and uh, and and the the room like quickly is sort of like, you know Growned or turned against her in Ilan Omar said like no, no like let her finish

Yeah, and then here's my favorite encounter in the back of the room Yep, I one of my blocks that I've collected over the year fucking Ben Jacobs Yeah, that asshole used to rape with a guardian He famously the guy got like chokeslam by that dude in montana And he blocked me just simply for replying him to say that I think it's funny and good that you were assaulted So I don't know why problem. What the fuck is the problem? By the way, when he got chokes, I mean his back hurt yet. He'd only had three hours of sleep So Ben Jacobs has been shit for a long time

Like he's had a lot of like pissy comms about like Chelsea Manning like she's not a hero or whatever He was sitting in the back of this fucking panel having to listen about like palestinian solidarity Just looking like a little frog Just a little miserable little frog in the back And then of course he took the time to tweet out like Ilan Omar tells crowd not to boo assata polish this But what's so great was that that that woman she she read the room immediately because those old ladies can sometimes be Very uh committed when they when they want to like do their stem wire She's clearly used to people getting mad at her for her love of Assad because as soon as this

They started crowding. She was just like, well, I'm sorry Yeah, but she she walked up and she was just kind of this nice lady and she an eye joke. She said uh, May I borrow a cup of sarin? Jesus Christ Please stop doing uh Propaganda She found herself in a room full of white helmets. Yeah. Yeah. It was a hot style environment for But she backed out immediately. She backed up immediately and she just goes, what can we do?

Yeah, help us It was pretty bizarre, but I loved it was a highlight. Yeah, obviously. So that was awesome, but um And then it was the big thing. Okay, this is the equivalent of that amazing trump brain Orgasm that we witnessed tivo It's better than tv. Yeah, you can tv you watch it and it's gone. It's like, yeah, that's how watching a thing works You watch it then then it's over with tivo and television are two different like versions of it's watching tivo Bye. Bye. You got the tv and then you're watching it again By the way, we were cracking each other up all weekend imagining uh, trump talking about mad magazine the way he goes about creating carter

We just like yeah, alfredy newmans be very nasty boy. Bye. Bye Failing mad magazines closing in stores. No more snappy answers to stupid questions. A lot of people said my questions are very smart. Um, there's no lighter side of you anymore The fold ins can't tell what they are never can get them to work very bad So instead of him just having a stroke in front of 5000 hooting jackals It was a uh, it was a forum Um, four candidates sitting down with marcos and the co-founder of net roots nation who is I forget her name But she said that she wrote a book called like how to How to do startups. Yeah, it was a starter book. You're like, yeah, you're very techie. I mean, it's net roots forgot

Before that tech entrepreneurship. They had a they had a couple speed that shared brown. Yeah spoke. I thought he was pretty good It was weird. He like listed his professor bona fides and I was just like you remember that you decided not to run, right? Yeah, because he was giving them a pitch on like basically why he's a good Yeah, it's like, well, all right, none of us are in ohio, dude. What is this for you decided not to run for president? I think he's kind of wishing he had honestly. I mean, they like him there. He's been a friend of uh, of this this crowd Uh, but at least he has like some kind of labor buying. Yeah, he endorsed Taylor. He endorsed Taylor and he doesn't go for medica for all I know it's taken. Uh, there was a philadelphia city council woman. She was I thought it was actually the best speaker Uh, yeah, I actually hey, this is Chris. I wanted to shout her out specifically. This is new

Philly city councilwoman helen kim helen kim Who was great and had a great speech and just wanted to say hey, give her throw her a follow She's I think she's someone to watch she was she was very she was very impressive And I believe and I could be wrong in this but well the leader fact check it if uh, this is false I believe he wasn't she was endorsed by philadelphia dsa in her insurgent campaign Uh, but at minima has spoken to them and worked together on things like fight for 15 and she came out as a community organizer talking about uh, uh the seizure and and destruction in uh, philadelphia's china town and the the gentrification so on Yeah, I don't know anything about her. So I don't want to like say uh, whether she's good or bad

But she at least had some energy where it was an actual kind of you know rally She has some energy like the thing she said she was like she was talking sense So like I thought you know her best moment was when she said like, you know Facing like other like the philly democratic politicians who called you referred to me and like krasner is like The the the greatest threat to the democratic party and she was like, I'm here to tell you like that that's 100 true Yeah, and she got a great pop for that. Yeah, but then it just shows the schizophrenia this whole fucking operation That was followed by four interviews with four candidates that which were just there was another idea I do want to I do want to note this there was a another speaker

I believe it was that day who I found very impressive too who was talking about Me too and It's saying if you support me too You have to support the abolition of tipping And that was the day before that was the day before all she was really good. Oh, yeah There was one good speaker exceptional in the day before and I'm afraid I don't recall exactly Who she is okay? I can't remember her name. Yeah, but um, but but I mean it was actually another very fiery and like like focused and left leaning if not left wing fully like

Called arms and as matt said though the audience it just it didn't really differentiate It clearly didn't differentiate between her and a fucking christian jillibrand. Yeah, it just it was this weird feeling where Everyone wins and like there was no conflict. We were supposed to recognize and that was odd So, all right, it's like the marky event the candidate forum. You got christian jillibrand ulean castro Elizabeth warren and jay inslee. Yeah coming up the rear jay jay jay jay jay sherman sherman sherman Uh, okay before we get into each of the candidates today, I think we should make note that uh

marcos and the co-host had this like incredibly Just like d-list morning joe style rapport. Yeah, and like sort of bands that they were trying to do It was one of those local tv where it's like oh, and we have a monkey who can cook You know an omelet in five minutes and it's just like the banter was was uh, like they cut back and they're just like Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very uncomfortable and it it's it's stuck out like that Okay, so um, so the way they had they had um, they set up this forum Is that you know marcos would ask questions like selected from the dilly coast community? And then they would bring out local activists on stage to ask each of the candidates

A question usually related to the like activist work that they do So, okay jillibrand leads us off jillibrand I thought was like definitely the most entertaining because of uh, she was like the most weirdly and authentic and yeah an odd Empty she okay I'm like the first thing she did that is that she was just like do you mind if I stand up? Yep And she answered every question like sort of pacing around the stage doing this like politician like walking around instead of just sitting in the chair Very odd. No one else did that

But the the a great moment came when they brought out the first like you know activist question and it was a man and wife and their and their infant child And as soon as jillibrand sees that baby. She just looks like the tornado. She's just like Like she just zeroes in on the baby. She's like give me that child. I need you to close your boots Yeah, not since greg stilson as a politician She just she just just sprints over grab that baby Yeah, and the the funniest thing is that the question was about your family separation on the border pulling the kid away from the couple

Just just horrible optics that's like literally You could just take that moment word from word and put it into a veep episode. Yeah, it's like the perfect Oh, it was real veep energy. It was extremely saline. Meyers I'd say gillibrand might be the most veepy candidate running right now. I mean what is he at like 0.5 percent? Like and and she's clearly trying to go like double down on being super progressive You know, she's out there talking about reparations and abolishing ice and all this shit and it's like But and and then she's also I think her new value ad is is like sounding very empathetic So because she had what she she literally even called it herself a viral moment

Where apparently she had this q&a in youngstone, Ohio and like this young right, right this young white mother with a kid Who's like doesn't struggle with employment said like what is white privilege? I don't feel privileged my you know I'm struggling with this community drug of a and she gave this answer where she's like you You know, whatever your problems are you don't suffer, you know, your kid isn't going to get killed by the police blah blah blah and It it kind of went viral I guess like I saw it on twitter at least a few times people saying this is a good answer And she just did it again. She repeated Yeah, no, she played the hit and she also had her voice crack with emotion during it very stage

It's like it just felt it was super it was politician Like real hardcore. Yeah, just robot hours on that shit. Yeah, not to mention the fact that's fucking shitty ass Goddamn, uh Answer anyway because like this woman's like I mean it's basically just you're supposed to feel bad for other people It's like, okay, that's fine But once again, that is a privilege of relatively well off people to orient their politics around others. Yeah If you're actually, you know suffering you really if you're gonna think politics are gonna help you it has to be about helping you And yeah, but of course that kind of answer would again go over great in that room. Exactly. That's what I'm saying

Yes, and they and they loved it and they did I just I wrote down one thing that this was by far I think the best line of the candidate forum I you know For you what the question was about but I just had to write this down because it's stuck out in my head But Gillibrand said every child should have access to STEM. Yes. I remember that I think I think we all laughed like Yeah, yeah, that was that was a tough one. Do not grow accustomed to the stem You will resent its absence when I take away the t the ti 1000 calculators so you can no longer spell boobs

I just I love the idea. It's like every kid in America. Do you get a step? And then after so after that was Castro cast and here is here was the best part of Castro They brought out another activist to you know, like to come out there to ask a question They were also carrying a very small infant and then like Castro, of course was sitting down, you know as as one should And you know and nobody said anything but there was just a moment every kind of looked around because like oh, there's a baby And it's like are we established a pattern? Do you want to get like they're like they just kind of look at it like Who you want that baby? And then I don't think I like I doubt he even heard it because he was probably back there doing his other shit

So like I don't know if this is like conscious but like in the room It went over great because he just goes Right after Gillibrand had made a big thing about like, you know cooing over this baby grabbing it You know putting it over her shoulder Uh, Castro just goes look. I'm not going to do the typical politician thing of just skugging a baby And the room Snap fatality

Roasted that was kind of the only thing of interest. Uh, yeah, that's I forgot everything else. He said, uh, and then it was Warren who was the headline like You know, we've we've we've mentioned this before but like the net roots nation crowd could not have been like this was Warren country Yeah, like this is her base. This is her. Amber says that she doesn't have a real base and I don't know I'm not sure if that's true or not. But if she does, I don't think anyone would argue that these people constitute it They were just well because number station is part of what made Liz Warren and encouraged her to run in the first place in 2012 and right so focus on the um Finance consumer finance protection board, you know Warren, um, again, like I don't know if you remember any of her specific answers

I remember like basically thinking like it even again evenly divided between things that sounded were good and sensible and the correct thing to say and Pablo, yeah, and you know Matt like you you brought this up and I want to talk about it You know again it was Lisa at least to Warren and like the what's really The thing that people have latched on to and has granted her like, you know, increasing purchase in this race Is this this idea of her her plans? Yes. She's got plans folks. She's got she's got plans. She's a sign-law and basically um

and like you made the point that like that is so The idea about like, you know, the the candidate who's like done all the homework Has like, you know, everything figured out is like so perfectly pitched to that audience Yes of people, but it's also like like sort of demobilizing for an electorate in a certain extent Yeah, it's like just that that kind of thing only appeals to people who have succeeded in the meritocratic treadmill Uh, you know in the hamster wheel of you know getting a new good school and getting a good degree getting good grades and getting Being a success people who've made that a successful

move They value it even if they believe themselves to be progressive. They value that meritocracy They value people based on their ability to succeed like that as well They have actual contempt honestly for poor people because even if they mow things about uh, uh, you know systemic issues for poor people They also blame people for failing, which is why they sublimate all of their contempt for the poor people on poor whites Because they can say I don't hate every poor person because poor minorities have too many structural racism issues to prove That's why they can't succeed but poor whites with white privilege. You have no excuse

You're just a fucking loser and and any races to boot. Fuck you Yeah, uh, and if you haven't succeeded on the meritocratic treadmill, then this means nothing to you Right, look how look how detailed my plans are. I mean even on a tactical sense. It's meaningless because It doesn't get anything past especially since the fucking president by the way, doesn't write bills The president doesn't actually write right right legislation. That is the prerogative of fucking congress. You can propose an idea No, not it. No, it doesn't People writing those bills are not going to be in the white house. They're going to be on the hill Releases a budget and satellites and Congress introducing that becomes what the the yeah, but it doesn't pass

They don't pass budget. It's a bargaining position. Right. But I'm saying there's a prize It's a little I am saying is that the actual meat gets put on the bone and on the hill So the this is all beside the point and it doesn't contribute to whether it gets passed Because the fact that nobody really wanted to confront is that you can't get much passed given the structural impediments and if you have uh, if you're if you're Governing and you're pitching like warned to the professional media class to these people who have gotten good grades their whole life You are I think we could see that

I think that even polling bears us out. You are less likely to engage more marginal people people who are actually suffering more in the economy People who haven't won in the economic Crap shoot and are less likely to vote as a result of that There's a poll that came out while we were at net roots saying that uh, bernie's base is poorer more diverse by the way Uh, uh, racially, uh, and less likely to vote less invested in lower educational attainment as well and and uh, and warren's is highly educated wider and uh more successful and much more politically engaged now If your candidate is someone who engages those people you're going to lose a significant chunk of those less engaged voters

And the thing is there's no path to any kind of success Uh in traditional politics. There's no path to Uh the critical change we need that does not involve a vast increasing in the electorate Like the only way to overcome these institutional obstacles we have now from gerrymandering to the senate itself to the courts Is by overwhelming them with people. That's the only solution within electoralism that is there The the the the electorate as it has taken for granted by the both parties with roughly even share and then a little sliver of moderates Who go back and forth that will never change anything. It's by definition. Can't so that down the street

a warren a warren a warren uh nominate kind of guarantees that you'll probably win, you know Trump is spectacularly unpopular. I mean she could lose to him I wouldn't rule it out, especially if the economy stays relatively strong But she could also beat him but she's going to beat him narrowly and it's going to be the same thing Uh as like second term obama where it's just good luck and failure and that will lead then to Tom cotton or somebody else coming in when everyone gets disillusioned a burning kind of see could Mate, I'm not guaranteeing it could but it's the only possibility that could actually enlarge the elector

Significant because if burning is on the ticket then those people are going to vote and those PMC people who don't like bernie Because of bros or whatever the fuck. They're still going to vote for them because they vote every fucking time They're committed to the are you but are you but that doesn't necessarily follow? Are you confident that warren can't expand the electorate? I don't think nothing she has shown me so far Indicates to me that there's anything in her style of campaigning in her rhetoric in her policies that will engage those voters, especially since They have seen bernie and he's been the one that they identify with With breaking through the the miasma right because the reason people

Left let people with left-wing opinions in uh with lower education attainment And lower income don't vote is because they have correctly the side of the voting doesn't matter Yeah, and bernie cuts through that with his class first appeal Warren is at the end of the day with all the plan shit. She's making the same technocratic appeals to Fidgeting with stuff even if you can argue. Oh, no, this is all going to be radically changing it's still in the pitch through the technocratic lens that these people check out when they hear because it's everything they've always fucking heard before and Watching them go crazy for warren these people who

Act like they want to change things really want a president who when they get in there is going to be able to To reverse all the damage that's being done and actually act on stuff like fucking climate change and ramping inequality and everything And they're just they're setting themselves up for a failure and it's because at the end of the day Not only is warren less a compelling as a campaigner less will less able has shown at least till now less able to get these voters on her side Uh, she just is less compelling in every sense. The only reason these people like her Is because of two specific things one is that she passes a very shallow Identitarian uh, uh test because she's a woman. We need a female president and the other is that meritocratic credentialism that is part and parcel with the world That's not those aren't the only reason those are the main ones was what else those are the only

It's her from bernie then because during the obama years. She was Probably within the democratic hawk is the most outspoken outspoken critic of the president of his administration And as well one of the big things that I think most people remember about liz warren And especially why this crowd loves her is when these bankers were hauled in front of congress And she just roasted the shit out of them to their faces. So what you can who gives a shit about a fucking roast? And I mean you're talking about when you're talking about style you brought up style right, but i'm saying that style I think we can that's also why people like bernie. No, no, he didn't roasted it. He his thing was like he goes after them That's his style. He goes after them like like filibusters and stuff

He doesn't have he didn't like roast people at the dais roasting people on the dais of the senate committee That's that is the that's like the joe welsh Welch welch thing. That's the classic liberal thing of like mr. Smith moment Yeah, and then I just I don't believe that people outside of that milieu Remember any of that stuff But I just want to say one more thing about this and this is what really made me Dispondent about that entire fucking encounter is that this primary? And if it does really come down to as as virgil thinks

like an establishment candidate biden or more likely according to more likely harris and then burning warren is that if warren wins honestly Or or or or bernie wins is going to tell us whether what we're seeing Really is the emergence of like a new working class movement that people have been talking about Or honestly if this has all been a fucking mirage the entire time and all we're really seeing is a confluence of professional class guilt people guilty professional class people wanting to launder their sense of of being implicated in this grotesque neo A gilded age exploitation machine

And then capitalism's instinctive search for a more inclusive logic for its cultural hegemony Which is like oh, we need to broaden the base of who counts who can make it in this country Who's who can be you know who can go up through the ladder? And and if that and if that's the case I think war if warren gets the nomination I think that shows that oh we kind of over fucking stated what was actually happening here That so like you know that that was a warren thing that was the war Here's like just the last thing on the candidate forum And I'll say and then I'll give my like overarching feeling about you know

You know what watching it I don't know how they decided the order of this thing But holy shit that they dog j. So mean they had to like the idea that j inslee followed warren in that crowd Was ludicrous They were like okay, luismas warren huge standing ovation whole room They're practically on their feet and they're like please welcome governor j inslee and at that point we were just We tried to get a j chant going we were like we tried to get a wave going for j Yeah, but it was like can I get some jays? He gets on stage and he's just like he's like can I get some rare jays? He gets on stage and he's like

Trump is a coward and a racist and I won't be afraid to say that and it's like everyone is Streaming to the exits. Yeah, like everybody was just like streaming out of that room as he was just trying to get something going there Yeah, so j inslee Sorry dog like daily coast really fucked you over by having you follow that heater by warren And you have to think it was intentional and some like uh in some sense because you could still have I mean they would have waited for her It's not like, you know, there was some time limit or whatever where warren could have been the last one And they just chose not to do that and ensure that everyone left must have known that like she was the the by far and away

Of course, of course the biggest name so it's an entire event So and if you know that you probably put them at the end so that everyone else gets there and not that I give a shit about j inslee But you but you well for a man I Had the nervous energy of a sober alcoholic. Yeah, he really did and you know, he was talking about his accomplishments in washington state mandating universal happy hour 5 p.m. 9 p.m

A gender equality ladies nights and men's nights And I you know, I mean, I don't know he's the governor rolls up his sleeves and gets things done It's it was that's the other thing that left me kind of hollow afterwards Is that is that his the signature issue is climate change and presumably it's not really running for president He's running to be maybe eph for something in the next presidential administration, which you know go for it You know do as thou wilt is clearly the rule of the whole of the law nowadays but the contrast between

His message and the urgency of it and his delivery and his prescriptions Was so huge that you just think like I mean, how does he go through the day thinking like if you really reckon with where we are? And then this is all you can like muster in your attempt to get across to the american people what's happening Well, he I know like to your point though like about like the the prescriptions So like you were saying like that was like the big sort of fissure throughout this entire thing is the identification of these problems that we were all suffering from and the just sort of letting the air out of the balloon as soon as They start talking about what what to do or what is to be done as someone famously asked Um, what struck me watching the candidate forum and

Seeing, you know what I thought were very impressive activists who asked very good You know pointed questions about issues about, you know the housing crisis that Philadelphia almost every other major city in america or even globally is experiencing the surveillance and overpolicing of uh, poor and minority communities the um, you know The dehumanization of economic migrants and refugees along the border um, the gutting out of huge employers by vulture capitalist hedge funds, you know, yeah inequality global warming like all like all of these things

Like like all the problems are identified and the candidates I would say Gave better answers that were trained to to give things that sounded better probably than they ever have before I think largely due to when bernard sanders was never mentioned was never mentioned even once But like like they like, you know medicare for all or like they they're making Again, like what they're all speaking his language. They're all speaking about yeah We need a single payer system and then of course they fudge on the details But what struck me was that they were all identifying each of these problems and you know proposing solutions that were By turns like I said good or pablum in my opinion, but what never connected and what was never mentioned is that like

all of these problems That we're facing as a society and like the the solutions that we're using to confront them All stem from the same thing. These are all manifestations of the economic and political system We live under which is called capitalism that a word. I did not hear one time from anyone and then like all of these things are Malities of the same illness and that like this and that the counter or solution to that the actual solution is to counter The entire system right and the word for that is socialism indeed So far sanders is the only one who has you know broach that or like made a full-throated pitch for a class politics that is rooted in class interests and class conflict

And the rest of the candidates like I said at times they sounded good and they even got me clapping about a lot of the things They said but ultimately I just thought like you know, it was Missing this just giant element of like you're always just going to be chasing Solutions to problems that are going to keep happening until you it's the finger in the dike It's like oh, we got we got all these discrete answers to all these questions. Yeah. Yeah, like a month ago Um, Bernie Sanders did a speech about like why I'm a democratic socialist and I saw a lot of people in the uh mainstream of the party who are

Not really trying to be overtly anti-sanders, but kind of like yeah, I don't really get why he did that speech at all and You know seeing this and to your point will it makes a lot of sense why he did that even if it felt like kind of I don't know random at the time to just like come out and be like look. Here's my total worldview of what the problem with the system is and that is the capital T capital D The difference is that he

Is going out there and saying that I have a totalizing worldview about what is the problem is that is Actually different from every other thing that we see on the that that stage and the other thing that's different is the strategy because he is the only candidate who has walk picket lines during this campaign Uh, uh, and he uh, he's gonna take a bunch of people across the border to Canada to buy a bunch of cheap medicine And as I said the real contrast is as well these people were doing the speeches in front of the walks and and the $175 activists in the media at net roots he Waited until the day after and he is now at a protest. He was at a protest today in Philadelphia for the shutdown of

Hannahman hospital, which is a hospital last resort serves tens of thousands of people most of them Indigene often they don't have access to any health services other than an emergency room the hospital a few years ago was purchased by An investment banker who literally bought it so he could close it and sell the land which is valuable space for luxury development It is a fucking 80s movie. It's like but Bernie's gonna go out there and be like I am ready to break dance As long as it takes to save the rec center Put the cardboard down I will both pop and lock and that's Bernie and uh, Helen Gimmah We talked about who did speak to this crowd and that you know that kind of shows you the

You know the the the kind of the bleeding left edge here of what's possible in net roots nation And to that point, you know something that I heard rather frequently Not just at net roots nation But uh is well from other people that we've interacted with even interviewed on this show Who are not themselves socialists would say no if you ask them the question are you socialists? Uh, one thing you hear is you know, we're talking about the same thing. You just call it socialism We actually mean the same thing and the thing is that's a lie. That's utterly utterly false They have an absolutely different analytical framework an absolutely different

understanding Of society and the fight for resources in it and you shouldn't you know, you shouldn't know how people to get away with that What do you think guys? Well, there is one last thing We did Now, I don't want you to think we went to philadelphia just to do some goofs and gags We bad dog Wait, did she get the bun? Yeah. No, no, no, hold the bun off. She's the whopper. If I can try to steal my whopper Oh, we'll we'll catch right to eat a whopper here. That's cathard scott. I like this all the time

Oh, oh boy. We have fun here. Don't we? No, we we actually did go there to do something and that thing was defeat fascism Oh my god intergalactic speaking of cats. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that was really good timing I think this ties us up pretty well. So when we went to main street on the first day the town whole To like the the town level My potions and heal The one better that caught my eye was the gaming vendor who was selling resistance-themed board games

and uh, of course I I bought one and this was uh, the game is called space cats fight fascism And I will read you the story now. It's the year three million and the And the animals of earth's past None of our fucking children fans will get that and the animals of earth's past now inhabit the planets of the galaxy in advanced societies She's fighting fascism And even though the human species has long since been forgotten the darkest parts of their history if not A rising wave of fascism is sweeping across the galaxy

Threading to throw the interspecies galactic alliance under autocratic rule. Oh no to help grow its power The regime known as the rat pack has convinced the powers that be that all cats must be tightly controlled Or forced into feline exile But everyone knows cats don't like to be collared and they don't like to be caged And so the feline rebellion begins together a band of space cat rebels must stop the fascist forces from seizing power While building a new galaxy for all species are free Now the first thing I talked about this game Is that in it's you know fighting fascism thing it is exactly reversed art spiegelman's mouse

And that they have made the rodents the ones who are it doesn't make sense cold day turning And so it's a cooperative game, uh, you know, you have cards laid out that are the planets You know, they're you know, we each play a character who's like a badass of antifa cat Well more like a badass. Hashtag resistance cat and uh, you know, they all have home planets such as litter box water dish hairball What was that would frostnip? delightful one And uh, basically, you know, there's fascism tokens on the board

You want to remove the fascism tokens and you try to liberate this yeah, and you get for resistance And you draw like resist cards which give you abilities to like, you know Teleport to a planet plus one liberation point, right? And then there's like like like a news cards that you know another collecting news cards Which which increase the fascism track and once a fashion in track reads a certain point You lose it's like it's basically like a community chest and monopoly except they're all bad And uh, you also take scratches and that represents your your injuries from fighting the rats fighting fascism and

Uh, ultimately we we played the game and we almost lost it got we were cocky at first We you know, we we liberated a couple planets like oh, this is easy. We'll get it Uh, but then the fascist fought back as they do. It's a good lesson Uh, and then chris played the operation ratio And it's it's it's a good lesson. I think at chris actually played the winning move Liberate the fourth planet and we won the game. We put fascism away Uh, i'm going to give this game for design and like incredibly well a story immersive. Uh, i'm excited for Uh, the the series of science fiction books based on this property. Uh, maybe honestly movie rights

Uh, I just liked it because you could be a little little kitty. Yeah, I mean that too that that that's what everyone wants to be Uh, I'm going to give it a three and a half out of four stars. There you go So if you're you know in in on the lookout for a what's it called again? What's that name space cats fight fascists base cats fight fascism? So there you go. I hope uh, you you space tepkats out there in a podcast land will be fighting fascism as well All right. Uh, oh just yeah real quick. We uh, as versal alluded to the beginning Uh, we did we did get to meet congresswoman on omar. Yeah, and all I'll say about that is that would you believe it? She's actually very cool. She was she was very cool. God damn it

Oh wait, we have plugs uh really quick in providence providence providence rhoda island next month at necronomic con We will be playing call it through live Uh tickets will be available at the link in the description and also at the end of this month Um at the traverse city film festival in traverse city, michigan uh Chapel trap house. We're doing a little show and we are also going to do the uh a live uh live, uh roast of the second democratic debate

Tickets, uh, one of those is free and the other you have to pay for or not gonna tell you which and the Links will be in the description of this and we might do a screening. That's that's up in the air. Well Oh folks, that is the state of your net roots nation You've got to stop now before the cat pilfers any more space fascism from my coffee table So until next time guys once again, brennan james Lovely to have you back in the trap brother. Thanks for having me. Uh tag along and fill me Yeah, cheers guys. Bye. Bye. Bye I

I I have the beverage triad going One beer one giant water that's like squeezed in like an awkward way Why was it awkward? Well, it's just like, you know, it's never maintained an integrity. Yes. The bottle is compromised. You compromise the bottle. You squeeze it Wow, the nugs are already gone Yeah, I mean Oh, all right, uh, not so ludicrous now is it? Well, I do them in order because I just finished the red bull and now I have a job Now I'm gonna be uh, I'm gonna be

I'm already recording. Are you talking triple team supreme? Uh, did you want to do a cold open virtual? Oh, well, I thought you wanted to do the uh, I mean, I mean, uh, I mean it comes up organically Oh, okay. No. Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, I do have a brief cold open involving you all. Um, okay, hang on. I I got an idea This is a barbecue sauce, so, all right. Okay. All right.