Chapo Trap House - 416 - Operation: Guaido (5/4/20)

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

We pledge eternal fealty to our beautiful "boaters." We also take a deep dive into an amazing bungle in the jungle, and examine Joe Biden's digital strategy of emulating c.2013 Upworthy. [sorry about will's audio in the beginning, we had a bit of a Zoom goof but it gets fixed halfway -ed.]

Okay, greetings friends. Hello. It's Chopo back at it. I'm kicking off this week to my steamed co-hosts. It's Matt and Amber joining me as always. Question to begin this week's episode. I'm just going to open it up to the floor here. Have you now or have you ever let down our beautiful boaters? Never, never, never. Wouldn't think of it. Would you even consider such a thing? Strike me down before God, before I ever let down our beautiful boaters.

You're going to have to explain this one to me? That sounds like someone who's been letting down our beautiful boaters. Honestly, if you're not even aware that there are beautiful boaters, it raises the question that you might have been letting them down this whole time. I'm not saying, I never claim to not be negligent of boaters, beautiful or otherwise. Wow, she's admitting it all. Or otherwise or otherwise. Wow, wow.

I'm not a role model, okay? We might have to have a discussion here. This is brutal. First of all, I just want to get things just officially as like show policy, show statement before, for the angry tweets and emails that are coming in, all boaters are beautiful. Absolutely. I respect them all and I would never let any of them down. The boaters in particular that formed in Armada to support our president and the lockdown that happened this week, they're exceptionally gorgeous.

They're beautiful. They're beautiful. We love the boaters, don't we, folks? We love them. They're beautiful. Amber, the boaters thing refers to a misdiv from our president this week that said, thank you very much to our beautiful boaters. I will never let you down and it included a video clip of the boater Armada.

Yeah, here it is. Here it is. We're seeing the boats and we love them, don't we, folks? We love our beautiful boaters. All I can think though is just like, man, they got the right idea. I want to be on a boat. Oh, boating is the way to go. Yeah.

I do imagine. It is sort of socially distant. It's true. As long as the people on your boat are people that you live with and you're already quarantining with. I'm not boating with strangers. I'm not a boat slut. How dare you even suggest such a thing?

Yeah, Natalie Wood over here. I like to imagine Trump hanging out on one of those boats because they're fine boats, but he is not a boatsman, certainly. And I can't imagine him enjoying. Oh, he would hate a boat. On a rate, on like one of those, you know, what are they called like crafts? I don't know boats, whatever those things are, those little, the little, uh, pontoon, like, yeah, a party boat.

Like there's a Weber grill with a bunch of cold hot dogs on it and there's a cooler full of a lukewarm PBR. He would be in hell. He would not enjoy the building at all. It wouldn't be luxurious enough for him. No. He, I don't even think though he would like, like a yacht, he would be like, it's moving too much.

He owned a yacht. There's wind. I don't know what he ever went on. I think you probably like just have to own one as a, as someone who wants to be a beautiful boater. But I bet he hated it. Yeah. Uh, parenthetically, the, the yacht he owned was once owned by Richard Maxwell, uh, just

Lane Maxwell's father and the, the both that he mysteriously disappeared off of the edge of, uh, after he got found out to be a, uh, a crook and a Israeli super spy. That's not a joke. That's all true. Sorry. I mean, Robert Maxwell, I mean, I know I'm going to contradict what I said earlier. I mean, not a beautiful boater. He was not the most beautiful of boaters, certainly.

There are more beautiful boaters to be found than Robert Maxwell. I mean, he was certainly let down by those like him and massage. Yeah. Am I six? Yes. Uh, the P two large, all those guys, they really let down a Robert Maxwell. Anyway, um, so yeah, just, just kicking things off this week, um, just supporting our nation's beautiful, beautiful boaters.

Like I said, they're out there to support the president and to end this lockdown. And I get, when I get grabbed by some, uh, execution squad of dirty land lovers and they put me up against the brick wall, I will say to them before they pull the trigger, I regret that I have, but one life to give for the beautiful boaters. Well, I mean, you know, so this was a, like I said, this is an armada of beautiful boaters that was, um, organized to support the president and to protest the, you know, ongoing, uh, tyranny of, you know, quarantine conditions being imposed on them from the big government that Trump is in charge of.

Uh, but like, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you guys noticed this weekend here in New York and finally got warm out, it was like 75 this weekend. And I just feel like we, I don't know, as a culture or just sort of unilaterally have all decided to just kind of give up on social distancing and quarantining and whatnot, or at least just really half asset from this, this point out. And I don't mean there's any like wellspring of like authentic, uh, hold on a second. No you idiot. Stop it.

Well, people are taking their cues from a government that has just realized that if it wants to keep the markets going, uh, it's going to have to create a situation where people are more comfortable with much higher levels of fatality than they're used to. 9-11 every day has to be sort of normalized. And I do love the idea that Republicans, that Republicans are, are saying, yeah, 9-11 every day. That's actually good. And not only that, they're like, they're justifying it by saying like, well, look,

like it's just, these people are over 60. So it's like not as big a tragedy if like, they're not even supposed to be there. Like they weren't really people, but it's like that's, if you're, if you're, if you're past a certain age, it's sort of like, you know, it's like what Rahm Emanuel was saying, or no, Ezeka manual was saying like the other week, you know, it's just sort of like, it's not as big a tragedy if you die because, you know, you're closer to the end anyway. And it's not like, you know, it's not like a beautiful, a beautiful boy on a beautiful boat where it's just dropping dead in the prime of his boating career.

We wouldn't want that to happen. Well, I mean, it's a dehumanization process that you use everywhere. I mean, that's how you justify something like having the most prisoners in the world. They deserve to be there. Now you have a situation where the economy doesn't function by market principles unless we're out shopping and dropping dead at much larger numbers than we used to be. So they have to be in that same, not to the same degree of like non people as like prisoners, but they're less than, and that in our mind is what makes it okay that now they're dying

and we're not doing anything about it. I don't think it's that people have dehumanized or like, you know, or they think that that's an acceptable level of death or whatever. I think that like prisons, this is a very, this is a situation where a lot of people don't have to think about it because it's not in front of them. Like there aren't bodies in the streets. Most people don't know someone who died of COVID yet that might change. Like this is something that's largely out of sight and out of mind.

Right. And that's what I'm saying is that that is being built so that when it becomes real, the horror will have less force because we will have dehumanized to the extent that now it's acceptable because as John Cornyn said, look, they're all fat and old anyway, which is hilarious coming from a guy whose rest of his career is about saying actually stuffing your face with corn slurry until your heart pops at your son's, you know, 15th birthday party. That's actually American freedom in its finest and you are wrong for looking down on it.

Now because it threatens the market, actually those behaviors are signs of sin and you deserve God's judgment for participating in them and it's the same behavior and it's the same like preexisting condition, but at one point it was something that helped the market function because people were out going to Texas Roadhouse and they were, they were ATVing. Now they need to go back out there and so some of them are just going to have to take one for the team. And you know, like this is not idle speculation. This is courtesy of the New York Times just today.

It says here, the Trump administration projects about 3,000 to daily deaths by early June. Yeah. That's a 9-11. 9-11 every day. Okay. We had hot girl summer. Now it's going to be summer of death. You guys, summer of death.

Make it happen. Let's make it fabulous. I'm calling it. I'm coordinating it right now. It's summer of death. No, it says here, as President Trump presses for states to reopen their accountants, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1st, according

to an internal document obtained by the New York Times, nearly double from the current levels of about 1,750. The projection is based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in a chart form, and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Way to go, FEMA. I guess that's what they're doing these days. Heck of a job, Brownie.

Can you put that in chart form for me? Yes, can you give me a chart that forecasts, quote, about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from 25,000 cases now. The numbers underscore a sobering reality, while the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed, and reopening the economy will make matters worse. There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow, the CDC warned. The projections confirm the primary fear of public health experts that are reopening of

the economy will put the nation right back where it was in mid-March, when cases were rising so rapidly in some parts of the country that patients were dying on gurus and hospital hallways as the healthcare system grew overloaded. So yeah, they're pretty much aware of it, and I don't mean like, you should not, there is no actual groundswell of support for reopening the economy. If you look at polls on this question, it's like, if you phrase it like, should we reopen the economy, like, you know, given the current state of where we're at with this virus in our public health system, people like, I think 6% of people say, yes, yeah, definitely, let's

do that. And of course, like the people at the, you know, the protests at the capitals and state buildings and whatnot, they're getting a lot of the coverage, but I think like the push to open up the economy again and get everyone back at their eating at the bad food restaurants that they love so much, Jacob Backpack, that one, is only coming to me to rope back, because you know, this is their money, they own it. A lot of people really want to go back to work, right, but I'm just, I'm just saying like, I'm just looking at the opinion polls, I've seen that like, if you said, yeah, sure,

people want to go back to work. Yes. Yes, safely. They do. Yeah. Yeah. These people are saying, fuck it. Let's be legend.

Exactly, what I mean is like the pressure to open the economy back up again, even knowing full well and, you know, among themselves that it will mean 3,000 people dying a day. Yeah. I don't think there's any big fucking like appetite among average, you know, normal Americans to be like, yeah, that sounds like a good deal to me. Like let's get back out. It's a leading, well, yeah, but it's a leading indicator, but it really shows like public opinion is just a lagging indicator of what they're going to choose to do anyway because

we have so little participation in it. Like these people are bored in there. They really matter. Yeah. They're bored in their McMansions, so they can go drive their boats around in a circle or carry their AR-15s like a big baby bottle in front of the state house. It's just a tantrum. It just is like, I respect a certain amount of comfort and ease in my life as an American

and now I don't have it. This isn't the country that I expected to be and my president's in charge. What the fuck? They have to transfer that to anger at state governments, but it's just them dealing with their frustration. The thing that's going to make them do this is that the economy doesn't work without the price inputs of people going in and working in it from the point of view of retail because it's a service economy.

We have to have people serving and being served for the American economic flow of money and goods to work. So we have to reopen. We could change that. We have the computing power to do like war communism under COVID, but that would undermine the markets too much in the long term. So we have to reopen. It's inevitable because there's no countervailing political force among people to say no.

So that's going to happen and these people, these guys don't mean, they don't represent an actual number of people, but they represent an inevitability basically. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's funny because I mean, I know this is like the oldest hack, like easiest hack trick in the book to do, but I mean, if anything, you just have to like tip your cap to it. If the situation were reversed, like Republicans can get probably 30% of this country like insanely mad about like one undocumented immigrant, like killing someone in a drunken driving

accident. That's like one person. And they're like, okay, like we need to move heaven and earth and use like the might of the state, like stop even one person from dying because like an undocumented person hit them with their car or something or murder them. But now they're just saying, yeah, like 3000 people a week. All right. Let's do it.

Like that's manageable. That's okay. And it just, I don't know, like, could something, could someone like an opposition party or someone running for president like make more of an issue out of the fact that they're just literally telling everyone. You would need an alternative though is the thing. You would need to say not just we should stay indoors because we know what that means. That means more job losses, more disruption of people's ability to stay housed and stay

fed and stay safe. You need to say we stay indoors and we provide direct provision of stuff. And we're doing UBI and we're like track and tracing. You have to have an alternative. If the question is stay where we are and have the economy collapse or go out and accept 3000 deaths a day, that is the rational choice between those two options because the other one will lead to even more in a relatively short term, even more human misery. There has to be not just at the level of we should stay indoors.

That is not the relevant question. The relative question is okay, if we're going to stay indoors, how do we keep feeding ourselves? How do we keep the lights on? How do we keep things running? And that is a question that demands answers that no political formation of any kind of influence in this country is in a position to make. Yeah. I think that's, I think you get it exactly right.

And like, like I said, like the fact that there's not like, you know, people like are not clamoring to like, you know, expose themselves to this disease so they can go back to work or whatever. Or like, if there were an alternative, they would be in favor of that. But I just think like, whether it's articulated or not, I think people just sort of have realized now that this is going on for like three months and like looked at the experiences of other countries that like, oh, well, we blew our chance to do anything like meaningful that might like stop this thing or like save lives.

So we're just going to like, fuck it. Right. Because we all, most people. Our country is not South Korea or like capable of doing like the level of testing or, you know, like they could get a handle on flattening this curve. So they're just going to be like, well, look, we can't have it. It's not going to happen. So we might as well just accept it.

Because we're broadly divided into two groups of people. There's one group of people who do not believe that politics changes anything because they've never seen it change anything in their life. And so for them, like there is no political dimension to this. It's just something to survive. And then there are the people who do think politics matter, but who have mostly for the vast majority of people on both sides of the partisan divide have made it entirely a symbolic and emotional thing.

Like that it's all. And so what that means is that when things are bad like this, they assume for this, they also, they have the same assumption that things can't be fixed, that people who don't believe politics matter have, but that's for different reasons. The person who doesn't think politics matter results like, of course, they're not going to fix it. They're politicians. They have vested interests that are going to keep this happening that to do the things

that would make things better would violate too many other principles they hold. But if you are invested in politics and think they matter, I mean, you have to like basically delude yourself to some degree because of how little politics actually has changed your life. So in that, but those people, they blame the other side of the divide. People think we can't have nice things because Trump's in charge and Trump people think we can't do it because of the evil governors who are trying to undermine Trump. Everyone is in agreement basically that there can be no improvement, but for different reasons.

Some of them are closer to reality than others. Honestly, the more to which you're invested in politics, the less likely you are to understand what is actually making it so that we can't fix anything. But the fact that we can't fix anything is true is being observed by everyone just filtered through a different lens. And if you accept that, that America is just not the type of country that can do things anymore or is really interested in helping people or just doing like I said, doing the kind of things that other countries have done to get a handle on this.

And if that's the case and you're not going to get any relief from the government other than like a $1,200 check, then fuck it. Let's just go back. We're going to go back to our restaurants and bars and being able to go outside because like, you know, this shit people, I mean, it's just driving everyone insane. Yeah. Yeah. No, like people are losing their minds.

This is not good. The only people who are enjoying this are psychopathic, antisocial people. Like people are not wrong for recognizing that this is not merely an inconvenience. It's like psychologically and socially corrosive and you're watching like whatever different businesses close down every day. It is a decline and it is upsetting to be a part of. And the really sad part is that when we do inevitably get forced back out by first the need to collect a paycheck, like those poor people who are forced now in like basically

a gunpoint in states like Georgia to work in their 50% capacity allowed restaurants that nobody is going to. Which are going to fail because you can't, the margins on restaurants are so small anyway. Like it's just idiotic. But the thing is, is that the pressure that's going to bring everybody else out eventually is just boredom. As Amber said, they're just going to get too caged and they're going to say, fuck it. I'm not probably going to die.

And then that means what, and what's most insidious about that is that then what's going to happen is people are going to be start dying. They're going to be dying in the streets and most people are going to blame other citizens or in some percentage, they're going to put all the blame on themselves and other people instead of the system that demanded them go back out because it refused to change. Or China. I think that's a lot of pressure, a lot of, thank God for China to be the vent for all of this.

Like everyone has this cognitive discipline. Everyone is dealing with this degree of cognitive dissonance of living in the greatest country in the world that can't handle a relatively something that should have been not gotten this bad and they have different ways to explain it. And China is a very helpful way to vent off any cognitive dissonance about this happening in what's supposed to be a great country or the greatest country. Oh, it's China. Have you noticed the people like that are very insistent on not believing, believing

China's numbers and their ability to flatten the curve? It's almost always liberals. And I realized that like, first of all, why are you still talking about China shut up? But I've realized that they have the same attitude towards a pandemic that I do towards ballet class where I just go in and I just, my goal is to not be the worst person in the class. So we're watching China and just being like, we've completely given up, or the liberals anyway, have given up on the idea of like reducing death beyond like basic like personal

consumer choices. The only thing they want now is for more people to have died in China than America so that they don't feel embarrassed. I mean, I think that I think that's probably I think that's true that the right wingers know a lot of talking about China as well. It's a great enemy and also they're like, it's communist as well. It's like communist China. And you know, like it's it's it's a tactic I think will work beautifully because I mean,

I saw this like just the other day that there is like, you know, like an like an actual memo among like, you know, Trump surrogates and sort of conservative messengers or whatever. It's for when they go on TV and are confronted with any of like the horrible record of Trump's response to this crisis, they just immediately ignore that and just start talking about China. And just like red China is covering it up. And red China is responsible for spreading the disease in the first place, if not outright manufacturing it in like a weapons lab and releasing it to like tank the global economy and her Trump's reelection chances.

Like I think that is that's how they're going to talk about it. And I honestly think it's going to work. I mean, to a degree, it's a question of the degree. Yeah. But I mean, like, I mean, I don't think it will work with everyone. It's fairly obvious what they're doing. But like, I think you're right, Matt, like there's this there is going to be at some point is just like huge reservoir of people's anger at the situations that they emerge from

quarantine and finding themselves in or are in right now. And that anger is going to need to go somewhere and it's going to need to be expressed in some way. And obviously, if people have given up on, you know, blaming the government or their own country, I mean, like China is the perfect fucking excuse. Shit. Matt Stoller just got a fucking little hard on there thinking about this because yeah, I mean, that there is a real, there is a real possible scenario where this thing does enough

damage and is destabilizing enough at a social level that war with China is basically the only restabilizing choice that the government can make some sort of like escalation of conflict with China to draw away the social pressure. Because otherwise the liberals are the others guys are going to be like, these damn libs are the reason I can't go out back and they're going to start doing something and someone's going to start doing something because if things get bad enough. So that's the question really, and that's what we don't know, and that's why it's so hard to just sit on this knife's edge and wait to see which direction we fall off of.

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's very dark to think about, but I don't want to belabor it too much on, I've actually, I've actually preferred some good news. Oh my God, that exists. What is this? Okay. So like this is just to maybe like a little, a little survey, a little cleanser for all the, all the bad news in the world. And I'm glad Felix has joined us for this one because I think you guys are going to like

this one. Okay. Headline. X Green Beret led failed attempt to oust Venezuela's Maduro. Oh yeah. No, I, uh, no, this guy, this guy rocks. Yeah. This guy is a very cool character.

Yeah. So I'm just going to read you. This is from courtesy of the AP. It says here, the plan was simple, but perilous. Some 300 heavily armed volunteers would sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicholas Maduro.

This is weird. I got everybody else getting deja vu. This is reminding me of something, some sort of event that happened on a beach somewhere involving an animal, some animal. I don't remember some sort of livestock. I can't wait for the Trump Oliver Stone JFK movie where it's just like, like, like, it's just the war of the asexual gay guys, the good asexual gay guys and the bad ones. Yes.

It's just a bunch. All the bad guys are just bronze Tommy Lee Jones is standing on the beach, but so are the good guys. Yeah. They're also, also are that they're also the every, everyone is like that. Everyone is like a non specific. That is just an old bitchy queen like Bob Hoskins is Jaya Edgar Hoover in Nixon, another Oliver Stone movie that's terrified of gay people.

Yeah. You know, it's like the bad guys will be Tommy Lee Jones dressed like the Roman God Mercury and the good guys will be Tommy Jones, just in a very blousey suit leaning forward in a very awkward angle holding a cigarette weirdly with the holder. Yeah. And the difference, the difference between the two, like the deep state guys who are like that and the good guys who are like that is like the good guys hate Graydon Carter. They think his Oscar party is dog shit.

They hate it. There's a 20 minute just like Dante's inferno asks tour of just the hell world of a great Carter Oscar party and it's just, it's depicted in just Stygian nightmare imagery. Yeah, like James Jesus Angleton is like, we have to keep Graydon Carter's Oscar party a secret because he was actually, she served onion rings there. It was a huge embarrassment. The deep state had to hide it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Had to hide it. That's why we have to assassinate the president. And because it's Oliver Stone, this will be the Graydon Carter Oscar party sequence will be sort of like interspersed with edited in footage of like, I don't know, the me lie massacre. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That famous photo of the Vietnamese child running from napalm attack. And don't forget homoerotic weightlifting.

Yeah. Clips are trying for the will and then like a few clips of like a sort of like a Native American like rain dance ceremony. Yeah. Yeah. Oliver Stone has done a lot for the Native American community, but just randomly pointing them in his movies and being like, Oh, do you think about that? The royalties from all those film reels that he edited in, I'm sure is helping out.

All right. So going on here in this field, this sort of pseudo Bay of Pigs operation here, it says, the ringleader of the plot is now jailed in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Oh, what? Okay. Wait. Are you telling? See that wave.

And I led to believe some shady right wing mercenary that we've employed to overthrow a socialist government in South America is also involved in drug traffic that does not make sense. Now, brother. Now I've seen everything. So it says here is now in jail in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Authorities in the U.S. and Columbia are asking questions about the role of his muscular American advisor, a former green beret.

Yeah. This is the guy I love. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking Pete Bondurant over here. Yes. Tiger camp. Yeah.

This is like a James L Roy. This is L Roy shit. Yes. Yeah. Here's my favorite detail here. It says. This is Soy James L Roy. You didn't go with James L. Soy.

It was right there. You just left it on the ground. Well, you picked it up though. You picked it up though. So it all worked out. So here's my favorite detail. It says. And dozens of desperate combatants who flocked to secret training camps in Columbia said

they had been left to fend for themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic. Damn. You joined a right wing death squad and then you don't even get PPE. I mean, what the fuck? Do we care? Do we care about nothing? Do we value nothing anymore? They should form a union.

Form a union and then all blow each other's brains out. They don't form a union. They kill each other. It's an ultimate suicide after joining a union. That's yeah. Well, then just join one of those grad student unions. That's very similar. It says here, the failed attempt to start an uprising collapsed under the collective

weight of skimpy planning, feuding among opposition politicians, and a poorly trained force that stood little chance of beating the Venezuelan military. You were not going to take out Maduro with 300 hungry untrained men, said Ephraim Matos, a former in the US Navy SEAL who trained some of the would-be combatants in first aid. Well, okay, well, you're saying you're not going to take out Maduro with all these untrained men, says the guy who trains them. Yeah. Maybe it's your fault, dude.

Hold on a minute. That's a real cell phone there. Have you been considering that this particular ex-groom beret has only been up for four hours and his back has hurt? Well, this is a Navy. This is very, very le poor. Well, the green beret, the green beret in the story is just like awesome. He's just like an insane law.

He's just an insane liar, but the guy we just talked to is a Navy SEAL. So we can presume that during the time the Navy SEAL was supposed to be training the hapless defectors, he was just like literally just pickpocketing that because there's nothing the Navy SEAL loves more than larceny. The green beret loves lying. There are two things the green beret loves, is lying and dying, lying and dying, usually murdered by SEALs when they uncover their crimes. Yeah, green berets, green berets show up, green berets show up in the war zone and they're

like, I am the continuation of Alexander the Great. I am. Yeah. And, and, and then they instantly die. Yeah. They walk in, they walk into the wrong tent and there's three Navy SEALs with a bunch of blood that they stole from their fellow soldiers that they're going to sell on the black market.

And they're like, Oh, we're going to murder you now. And they're like, what? What's up? Yeah. That's it. They're lucky. If they're unlucky, they like just literally just call in a fucking F-16 strike on themselves and they're like, I am, I am the Thermopylae.

That's what he calls the 300. Like the Thermopylae. Yeah. The Navy SEAL, meanwhile, is stealing literally everything at the forward operating base. Yes. And that's what this guy did. So I guess you're, uh, this bizarre untold story of a call to arms that crashed before it launched is drawn from interviews with more than 30 Maduro opponents and aspiring

freedom fighters. I love it. The AP just slips it out of there, aspiring freedom. They never, they never give up. They, I love this coup attempt because it reminds me like Syria was just like the media operation was serious. It was just like, it was like a low boil for like two years. And then eventually they just fucking gave up.

But this, like Venezuela with the state department and CIA is just like every few months they try, they try it again. And this time, like they've totally given up. They don't give a shit, but every once in a while some, the copy in an AP story or something, it does show that, you know, like a year ago they were told to refer to the Venezuelan opposition as freedom fighters, but they've just totally given up on this one. They just, they, when they did one go and it was the dumbest man in the country saying I'm president and they're like, all right, fuck it.

Yeah. They're really a lot like, they're like how reluctant husbands getting dragged to couples therapy every like four months and just not saying anything and stewing and then not going back until they just get not nagged into it because like they came home with a, with like perfume on or something. Yeah. So it's as planning for the incursion began after an April 30th, 2019 barracks revolt by a cadre of soldiers who swore loyalty to Maduro's would be replacement Juan Guaido,

the opposition leader recognized by the U S and some 60 other nations as well as rightful leader. Contrary to U S expectations at the time, he Maduro aides never joined with the opposition and the government quickly quashed the uprising. I mean, this is again, straight out of the like state department CIA handbook where it's just like, and then the people will join us and the people will rise up. This is another really great detail here. It says a few weeks later, some soldiers and politicians involved in the failed rebellion

retreated to the JW Marriott in Bogota. I love that part. The fucking war at Zevon song. Jesus Christ. I fucking love that part. Sent lawyers guns and room service. I love they got like all of the, all of the mercs that they sent into Venezuela are in a Colombian jungle right now, dying of coronavirus food or water or like half of them have been

probably tortured to death and the guys who planned it, they're just like, well, we retreated to the conference room at the Marriott where we're chilling with the wind of wizard right now. I wonder why when these guys pull their moves, the people don't join them. I mean, they're so caught that there's, they, they, they admit such a sense that you could, they could be trusted that they're not going to let you hanging at the first sign of trouble. Did you hear about the guys who like, this was earlier, earlier, earlier in the failed coup attempt news, the guys who were in Colombia, the mercs who were like, yeah, they were supposed

to pay our rent and they like didn't, all right, they're getting kicked out of their apartment. Oh, you hate to see it. Death squads are going on rent strike. Y'all, we need to go found me for the death squad. It's just like, it's just a perfect like 21st century coup attempt because it's like, like the intelligence community or all that, like they were competent. The brutal way they could do these, it's so terrifying.

Like what they could do with mass information and just the, the communications abilities we have now, it's a terrifying idea. What they could do just in toppling governments, but what it actually is, it actually mirrors everything that's bad about now. Everything is sort of shoddily done. It's the cool equivalent of like a cloud restaurant or dropshipping scams. Yeah. But the thing is sometimes it'll work if they push against a rotten enough door, if they're

going against a regime that hasn't successfully built popular legitimacy, it could actually work Bolivia. But it's still, it's still very shoddy and, and, and very depressingly oafish. And that's what makes it even more depressing when it actually succeeds. So it says here, for this occasion, conference rooms were reserved for what one participant described as the Star Wars summit of anti-Maduro goofballs. Military deserters accused the drug trafficking, shady financiers and former Maduro officials seeking redemption.

Well, okay. This is, this is, though, I like that aesthetic detail because as we remembered from our reviewing of the prequels, a lot of those sets did look like shitty hotels. Like they all look like, they had flame retardant carpets and yeah, it just looks like shit. Awful sconces. The Jedi council room did look like the, you know, the, the conference room they reserved in the JW Marriott in Bogotá, Colombia. Totally.

They're really putting me in the scene is what I've done. It's just like vaguely sci-fi. There's like continental breakfast, stale bagels. I get it. Bad coffee. Wato is there. Oh, Wato's always there. Wato.

You saw it in the background. Like the cigarette smoking man. Like the cigarette smoking man. Well, I mean, really, I would say our Wato now is Gwato, but no, they're the same character because Gwato, Gwato is, he's the greatest scammer of all time. He fucking. Okay. We're, we're, we're going to get into the scam.

They'll be like, dude, oh my God, the, the fleece that this guy just, you know, the fucking con that this guy just ran is legendary. Sorry. Yeah. No. So now we get into, I think the hero of this story and it says here, among those angling in the open lobby, again, of the, the Marriott and Bogota was Jordan Goudreau, an American citizen and three-time bronze star recipient for bravery in Iraq and Afghanistan, where

he served as a medic in the U S army special forces, according to five people who met with a former soldier. Those he interacted with in the U S and Columbia described him in interviews, alternately as a freedom loving patriot, a mercenary and a gifted warrior scarred by battle and in way, and in way over who is this poet that they asked for a description? The AP, the AP really surprises you sometimes. It's wonderful. Uh, this former creeper is a five star pimp.

Yeah. No, it says, well, I mean, like I get the positive and I get the negative, but like the, the third one, it just sounds like a, like a character description for like a, a pitch, you know, read it again. Well, the thing is, half the articles written now for magazines and newspapers are basically veiled pitches to be Netflix series. Yeah. Amber, I'm going to read this again for this, for the purposes of this listener, co-host,

imagine that we are all on cocaine together in Los Angeles, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm just spitting rapidly at you, your Netflix and you're going to give me $300 million to do this. Okay. So check this out. Check this out. We're talking about, we're talking about a freedom loving patriot. He's a mercenary, but he's also a gifted warrior scarred by battle and in way over his

head. Yes. I'm going to go on. I'm not going to go on. That's the elevator pitch. Here's the copy for you. Put this on the autoplay trailer format. Two former special forces colleagues said that Goudreau was always at the top of his

class, a cell leader with superb intellect for handling sources, an amazing shot and a devoted mixed martial arts fighter who still cut his hair high and tight. How about that for a character? That's gold, baby. That's money in the bank. Yes. Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Chris Evans. The Crises.

Get in there. And you know what? They would do it too. They would just throw money at us because they, because they over at Netflix are also on cocaine. Oh, big time. Yeah. That is the house the cocaine built.

Were you aware that Goudreau was a devoted mixed martial arts fighter? I was. No, I was. I mean, that makes sense though. I mean, like mixed martial art, there's this thing called, I'm not going to go into whole things of what army combat is, but it's like, it's what the, it's what the army calls their MMA. It is funny that they call it like a different thing.

So like that's like our craft, my God. That's such a, it's such a like six year old thing. Like you just have MMA and you're like, actually it's called combatives and it's different because it's for the army. It's a tactical version. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I don't know.

He probably gets signed to the UFC. There have been more ignominy. They love troops. I'm assuming. Well, they, they would have these events every year that were called UFC fight for the troops that were held at a military base and they were awesome because they were, I think it was because the fighters were like, I got to put on a show for the troops and they would just, it was the most violent outcomes you'd ever seen.

We're asking who could have predicted, who could have possibly predicted the troops would get their favorite thing, which is like a bald millionaire from Las Vegas coming out there and being like, you guys are the real fucking fighters. All right, Matt, are you ready for this detail? Hell yes. It's going to, it's going to activate your pineal gland. I guarantee you at the, at the end of an otherwise distinguished military career, the Canadian born Goudreau was investigated into that.

Okay. Stop right there. I know what you think. What are you thinking? I think it's motherfucking Bonderant. I think it's big Pete Bonderant. Immediately. Big Pete Bonderant.

He's he's French Canadian. He's a Jesus Christ. I wish you were told. I wish. Right out of fucking James Elroy. French Canadians, the most powerful race. Oh, you can't get more powerful. It's a French Redneck is the most powerful, syncretic force in the West.

You've syncretized like because like there's people are like Western man splits off into like to fractal like versions of each other like shadow figures and they're the redneck and let the soy based creature and the fucking come back why is the embodiment of both simultaneously. It's the fully embodied Western man. And that's the two most powerful polls. Yeah. They're like like the French guy is the most alpha of the soy guys. Yes.

Because they're the most developed soy guys because the French guys started being soy before anyone else. The French guys got the French started getting soy in 1789. They had a head start on everybody. So they're the most soy. So they're the most advanced, the most confident and the most powerful and alpha soy people and West and American and North American rednecks are like the most powerful like troglodytic like non non soy people.

It's a fusion that is like it's the mask is steel. It could cut through anything. But they're extra firm tofu. Yes. They're the greatest. They're the great. My experience with French Canadians, they have literally changed online gaming because they're so racist that they change reporting mechanisms in every platform.

All right. So like more details from this guy's life story are incredible and like honestly we should write and pitch a fucking like Netflix show about this guy like a movie about this guy's life. Like like it would be a version of Americans, the version of American Sniper that we've always wanted to see film about the real Chris Kyle, the guy who was a fucking psychotic liar. Yes.

The funniest character of all time because he was an actual Navy SEAL who lied about being a Navy SEAL. The most that is the most unnecessary Valor. Yeah. It's like being a bank robber who kites checks who says here at the end of an otherwise distinguished military career, Goudreau was investigated in 2013 for allegedly defrauding the army of $62,000 in housing stipends. Yes.

Wait a minute. Was he like, was he secretly living in a Lakinta or something? What was going on? Well, he's staying at the JW Marriott. So it says after retiring in 2016, he worked as a private security contractor in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Following the Chris Kyle template pretty fucking closely. And if I have to think for even half a second about what he was doing as a private security

contractor in Puerto Rico, following one of the worst human hurricanes in the industry. Yeah. So I'm not, yeah, I will not allow my mind to wander. Like best case scenario, he's like shooting people who emerge from the tree line near like a power station that he's supposed to be going. Best worst case scenario is like Oregon trafficking. Yeah. Yeah.

He is either like anyone who looks at the Lin-Manuel Miranda compound, they're getting started between the eyes. Worst case, yeah. He's actually getting people to potty look on lens. He's got the hook. He's got the Adrena Chrome pipeline. Okay. All right.

So another detail here is just go after, so he goes, in 2018, he set up Silvercorp USA, a private security firm near his home on Florida's space coast to embed counter-terror agents in schools disguised as teachers. That was his first, that was his first grift after the retirement of Manila Jack. This is a Danny McBride film. This has to happen. No, see, I was thinking 90s rom-com, right? Like like that Drew Barrymore movie where she goes back to high school and it's basically

a pedophile, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. After defrauding the US military out of $62,000 in housing stipends, his first thumb sort of run at the grift was setting up a private security firm to embed operators in schools designed as teachers. I mean this is like, yeah, like 21 Jump Street, never been kissed, there's a lot of ripe possibilities where this could go. It says here, the company's website features photos and videos of Goudreau firing machine guns in battle, running shirtless up a pyramid, flying on a private jet and sporting a military

backpack with a rolled up American flag. Silvercorp's website touts operations in more than 50 countries with an advisory team made up of former diplomats, experienced military strategists, and heads of multinational corporations, none of them named. It claims to have led international security teams for the President of the United States. Goudreau, 43, declined to be interviewed. In a written statement, he said that Silvercorp cannot disclose the location, cannot disclose the identities of its networks of sources, assets, and advisors due to the nature of

our work, and more generally would never confirm nor deny any activities in any operational realm. No interference should be drawn from this response. Okay, he said he would not participate with this interview with the AP, or a comment on their story. However, thanks to a journalist here on Twitter, his name is Giancarlo Fiorella, he has found that this guy was doing interviews with Latin American, like South American media, and there are some even fucking better details that he's giving up in these interviews.

So it says here, in this interview, Jordan says, and again, this is coming from Giancarlo Fiorella on Twitter, Jordan says in the interview that the opposition did not hold up its side of the contract. And as such, he's free to talk about it. He says here, he pulls out a contract during the interview that he says was for general services to help the liberation of the country, quote. General services, memo, that's what it says on the memo, quote, I'm just the guy who is trying to help out a group of people.

I'm not a mercenary, I wasn't paid a cent, and as such, I've never seen such backstabbing. So he was... These hoes ain't loyal. Jordan went on to say there are 60 men living in a cemetery in Colombia that is the remnants of his mercenary group, and the Colombian government didn't know about them. And then he said that the Venezuelan opposition hurt us more than helped us, in part because they didn't... All right, so that one sounds like a pitch for a sitcom.

All right, guys, there's 60 guys, and they're living in a cemetery. No, they're living in a cemetery. In a cemetery? Yeah. Like, you gotta end like that. I liked... So, every part of this stood out, but like, my first impulse, given that this guy is a green beret, was that he's completely lying.

Like, they probably lived near a cemetery, I presume, or like, lived near something that they think is a cemetery, but is in fact, like, a completely different thing, just like a tree part. It's a dog walk. Right, it's a dog walking place, but he's just like, yeah, we live among the pillars of death. Like, I know that like, the image that he wants is that they all live in mausoleums, and like, at the end of a long day of war, like, they sit down next to the corpse in the mausoleum.

They're like, you probably had your battles in your day, compadre, but I'm a different soldier walking a dark path. But that's not happening. That's not happening. No one lives in a cemetery. Like, shut the fuck up. Actually, I hate to bring this up, but living in cemeteries is incredibly common in the third world, because there's some of the first facilities to receive any kind of infrastructure,

like clean running water or electricity, so there's a whole documentary about it. But these guys aren't doing that. I don't think this guy is, I mean, like, first of all, anytime you throw in the word, like, a word like, backstabbing in there, like, you're a real housewife or something, everything you said prior to that word is a load of shit. Yes, yes. But I'm just saying people do live in cemeteries. Well, yeah, but not these guys.

No, nothing that, guys, he's just mad at his fake friends. Yeah, yeah. It's really backstabbing. So, going on here, Jordan said it would be easy to topple Maduro with enough money and that he's just got to, he's just got another two texts. By the way, I can totally do a kickflip. So, it says here, it would be easy to topple Maduro with enough money and that he, quote, just got another two texts from guys who are going to start striking targets.

So, I love that, yeah, I love that. I love just, like, operating sent com from my, from my Verizon phone, just like, like, striking targets, it usually means, like, you have a full team, but it's just, like, two assholes. Like, is he just throwing cherry bombs at the presidential palace? He's siphoning gasoline out of army jeeps. Those are the actual operations that they're carrying out. Sir, sir, we have put sugar in the gas tank of Maduro's wife's vehicle.

In my, in my head, this guy has a blackberry. Yeah. Is that a, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, going on, he says, he says the opposition never paid him his retainer of $1.5 million and that probably wouldn't have been enough to do the whole thing. He says, says the opt kept promising to, the opposition kept promising to pay him week after week.

And Jordan says that the operation this morning was the full extent of the invasion as per the contract, and it's all they managed to muster. And he says, this was the operation, this was the only operation, this was it, he said. He went on to say that, of course, the operation, of course, is still ongoing and that cells are activating across the country. And he's getting messages from around Venezuela from people saying, I've got 20 guys with guns who want to fight. So, he's got guys sending, he's like, when he says we have cells that are striking targets

inside Venezuela, he means he's getting texts from guys with like the target emoji in it being like, yo, what are we going to do, man? I've got, I've got, I know a couple of guys who have a gun. This is just an Ohio guy. They are being like, bowled over by an Ohio guy. This is amazing. So, it gets even better. He says here.

Quebec is the Ohio of Canada. So that's true. It gets even better. He says, I've been a freedom fighter my whole life. This is what I would, this is what I do. And then ask why an amphibious attack via La Guiara, instead of something more simple, Jordan answers, are you familiar with Alexander the Great? It's the Ohio guy.

He says, Alexander the Great struck deep into the heart of the enemy at the battle of Guagamala. That's the attack directly at Caracas. And he says, my only wish is that I was on the ground fighting and that he is presently trying to rectify that. He stresses that there is ongoing fighting and that several other groups in the country have activated. So, I mean, just sort of like the, Giancarlo does a little too long, didn't read at the end.

Apparently, Juan Guaido signed a contract for him to overthrow the Maduro government for $292 million. He failed to pay the $1.5 million retainer within the first five days. So, this guy, Jordan Goudreau, got no money and then still put together an amphibious assault because he thought that was what Alexander the Great would have done. I mean, this guy, this guy... He was known for that. Honestly, like if Trump isn't aware of this man, he needs to be made aware of him and

he needs to have like a Rose Garden ceremony giving him the Medal of Honor. Underweb for there were no more Wyndham rewards points to collect. No, I mean, really, we have to get to work on this right now. Oh, no. I would write this. We are leaving money on the table. I would write this. We get Danny McBride, obviously the lead, obviously.

No. It's amazing. Yeah. We could write this. This is just... Imagine the, you know, the trailer for it, Alexander the Great, heard of him. I would, I have a different idea for this. I think like the easy thing is like movie or miniseries, but I think like you can make

this a series where it's just like he defrauds like a different NATO member country every week. He's like Saul Goodman, but for like the deep state. Exactly. Exactly. Like a different member of Five Eyes gets completely fleeced every fucking time by him and his gang of imbeciles. He goes, he goes to New Zealand, but Felix here, he's the one getting fleeced.

It's Guaido is fucking running a scam on this asshole. He's long. Levels. Everyone's stacked. Everyone's scamming. Everyone though. Yeah. Yeah.

Guaido is just the king. Yeah. If you get scammed by him, no shame. He's the greatest scammer of all time. Yeah. It's like what's up in Chalabi was the king scammer of the Iraq war, but people were also lying to him, you know, and the people who he was lying to were lying to everyone else. Everyone was had his hand in each other's pocket.

What I like about Jordan here is that like, yes, like this is, like he is a like a pure lying guy and like each one of his, his schemes and ideas are more harebrained than the last. But the fact that he went ahead with this fucking idiotic amphibious assault on Caracas, despite not even getting paid his retainer, shows me that this guy is in it for the love of the game. He loves, he likes, he just loves being a freedom fighter. All great con artists at some point believe the con. That's what makes it effective.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, we've talked about that. How the most powerful type of guy is the snake oil salesman who believes in his own snake oil. Yeah. That's the best guy.

No. Yeah. You, you can't truly sell anyone unless you truly believe in it and this guy does believe in it. He just loves being a mercenary. Yeah. Just loves it. Well, he doesn't even, that's what I love.

He like refuses to even say he's fully a mercenary. Yeah. No. He says, he says, I'm a guy looking to help a group of people out. Yeah. I'm just one guy trying to help a group of people. That could be any job. That could be a plumber describing their work.

Yeah. It's so big. You're going to have to get more specific and then you land on the definition of mercenary. Yes. Look, I do have some things for some people. What are the things? They involve guns. Yes.

Who are the people? They are people who pay me. Yes. I like to refer to myself as a conditory, like pitch your mercenary. So you can see, you can see why I'm pleased to share this story with you guys. You know, a sort of array of sunshine amidst our sort of the dark clouds that have gathered. I have to say that I will be thinking about this man's shenanigans and antics and what kind of hilarious stunts he can get to on a weekly basis from now on.

I would definitely watch this on a premium streaming service. Oh, think about the episode where they try to defraud Germany and they get like Germany's bureaucratic culture makes it too difficult. Yes. It's too formal. And like they don't, they don't, they don't go to paperwork. They bury him in paperwork. Yeah.

Like they can't, they don't really process like, like figurative language. So they can't really get like his big sweeping statements because they're too literal minded and he goes to New Zealand and tries to convince them that he can like take a dinghy full of guns and like liberate Tasmania from Australia. Yeah. But he actually just does it like alone. Yeah. And then he accidentally, oh no, he accidentally becomes the Hobart mass shooter.

Oh no. He actually, he does, he accidentally starts the second emu war and loses it. Yeah. He goes to Australia and like whips up the government to do something about the emus and then like through a bunch of shenanigans and mistakes and him getting scammed by people and him scamming other and ripping it off, it ends up with just him in a technical driving around the outback, trying to shoot birds. It's like the end of Agua, the wrath of God.

Yeah. And not no spoilers, but at some point the bird gets the upper hand. Of course. Yeah. The first war is the upper hand. Okay. No, no. The Australian birds will have the upper hand until Jordan Goudreau makes his most important

alliance of all time, the domestic house cat. Australia, they have no natural resistance to that. Okay. So here's another really funny thread to this guy's, you know, the operator is a boarded operation here, is that like all last week, guys like John Bolton were tweeting, I'm reading this here just from his Twitter account, to this day, the significant foreign military president in Venezuela denies the will of the people. The strongest possible sanctions must remain until the peaceful transition of power and

Juan Guaido, Venezuela's rightful interim president and the Venezuelan people are firmly in control. Morning is coming to Venezuela again. And I just like to think that like when they were tweeting this, they were like, he was thinking like, yeah, we've got this. The operation is commencing right now. People don't know about it, but you know, I know, I'm in the know. The guys, they're doing their amphibious assault.

It's going down. And then they just end up in a cemetery in Colombia and like the planners are stuck in a fucking Marriott Hotel being like, oh, wait, these 300 guys weren't enough to start a fucking uprising against Macintosh Maduro. So yeah, that is a, soon to be a major motion picture, courtesy of Cabo Trap House of Productions. Yep. All right. And if you try to, if you try to see it, we will sue you.

Yeah. You know, just because we put it out on the podcast, like now on broadcasts of it. Oh yeah, I know. We will come down with the hammer of God. If you try to, well, yeah, if you do that, if you do that, I'm hiring silver for USA. Absolutely. You will be chemically intervened with your, your, your, your, your battle space is about to get real kinetic homie.

Real kinetic. All right. I got one. On Alexander. Yeah. Okay. I got one more feel good story for you guys. All right.

And this comes courtesy of Politico headline. The Biden campaign faces a mind boggling challenge. How to make Joe go viral. The XVP small digital team has a, I have an idea, uh, cough on him a little bit. See what happens. The XVP small digital team has a tall order going up against Donald Trump, who intuitively understands what clicks. So I, I, I, Matt, you queued into like one of the other, one of the funny things about

the headline. How do we make Joe go viral? I don't know, like let him shake hands with people, let him leave his house. Yeah. Um, but I also like the campaign faces a mind boggling challenge, uh, Joe Biden's mind. It's boggled. It's badly boggled and it's a challenge. Um, but now like this is about, uh, things on the digital side of the Biden campaign.

And it says here, how does a campaign take a 77 year old man who admits he, he needs his granddaughter's help with his cell phone and pitches himself as a sober and reasonable and make him go viral. The perplexing challenge has become a consuming focus of Joe Biden's campaign as it tries to finally up its digital game to compete against the count challenger who not only understands intuitively how to generate clicks and buzz, but both say massive and sophisticated digital operation to amplify his message. That massive and sophisticated digital operation are just like Zoomer teenagers who do all this

shit for free, who just make Trump based on, on Reddit. Yeah. Cause they, cause the love of the game. So far Biden's poultry digital team of about 25 people, dude, imagine what a sweet job that is. Think about how much money there was 25 people. Oh my God. You get like a hundred thousand dollars for a month to make like a flash game where Joe Biden pushes a hoop with a stick. I would love to make, I would love to make a Joe Biden.

You're the man. Now dog. You're the man. You're the man. Now Jack. Yeah. See here. You're the man.

Now Jack. That would be great. He's so meanable. His digital team about 25 people has decided to mostly eschew the combative fair preferred by the president's campaign in favor of uplifting content designed to inspire the rub as no one understands better than Trump is that the social media platforms and the algorithms that power them reward bombast and conflict amid the collage of newly published sacrum videos posted on Biden's Facebook page.

It's the Trump bashing ones that usually have the most views, but Biden's campaign is betting that this strategy, which reminds one of Upworthy, the go to site for feel good news, has the better. Where are they now? Has the better Facebook changed their algorithm and destroyed them overnight. That is how fragile that is how fragile their like position in the media space was. All that Cheshire did was like carry the two and their algorithm and their entire company disappeared.

How does that? How's that going to work for getting people to vote during a pandemic? It's like also just like positivity does not thrive on the Internet. No, because everyone's miserable. That's where they put their misery. It's a misery box. Yes. It's a hate and misery box.

So like the idea that you're like, okay, I'm going to grow this, this little orchid on the top of a freezing mountain. Like if that's ridiculous because everybody feeds their hate misery into the box and then they hate the things they see on it and that makes them feel better. Yes. Yeah. It's a poison tree that bears poison fruit. I mean, Amber, that's one way of looking at it.

But as the article proceeds, the Biden camp actually has a very different idea of what people do. They got a lot of wild ideas about some stuff. You kids like pong still? In recent weeks, the campaign has been testing that vision. They posted a compilation of coronavirus acts of kindness with the tagline, when we're told to stay apart, we still come together. Okay.

That sounds like breaking quarantine. Yeah. That's bad advice. Well, not if you do it in a circle, Jerk. Yeah. No, that fundamentally doesn't understand how politics, like does Joe, like we were talking earlier, the alternative to everyone dying is Joe Biden is a party that has an alternative, right?

They have an alternative to everybody just going back out and dying. So you have to have some sort of like emotional response that's going to get you to do something like vote and being like, oh, people are nice to each other. That's not going to do it. You have to be like, these motherfuckers are doing something wrong and now you'll vote. I mean, I'll do it right. And instead they guess, I think there are impressions that people will be like, you know what?

That was nice. Yeah. I think I'll go out and vote. Yeah. You know? So the thing of this episode on, they could be pushing out viral videos about how the fucking the White House and congressional Republicans want 9-Eleven every day. Yeah.

You think that you have to have an alternative, though, and they don't. They don't have an alternative to 9-Eleven every day. Their alternative to 9-Eleven every day is like Katrina every day. Yeah. 9-Eleven every other day. Yes. There we go. Casual 9-Elevens.

Casual 9-Elevens. That's politics, baby. That's the slow boring of hard boards that we love. Let's listen to some other of this awesome content. It has pushed out posts that attempt to replicate Biden's trenchant one-on-one moments with voters, such as a live-streamed digital rope line. Sure. Yeah.

I thought that they outlawed those Delaware in 1951. It says here, it hosted a Soul of the Nation Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of his announcement for president and a Biden brunch telling supporters that Mamosa's optional but encouraged. Look, Jesus Christ. How about Fetnil instead? Don't you like that? Don't you like that?

Doesn't Joe Biden like not drink? No, he doesn't. Yeah. He doesn't drink. I think it probably mixes with his other medications. Yeah. Yeah. I would love Joe Biden combining his Adderall and alcohol.

He would create some great ones. Anytime you see someone who just writes a very ill-informed thread that just betrays they only took one college-level course on the subject but are presented as an expert, even what that is, IPA plus Adderall. That gives you a kind of media he did to write a thread where you could deadly. He's a common web god. Yeah. Yeah.

So I would love to see Joe on it. I would love to see what kind of media he develops. This next graph is really good because it gets to the heart of what they think the internet is. And it says here, quote, empathy is just as good at getting engagement. Biden's digital director, Rob Flaherty, said in an interview. The suburban... Okay, listen to this phrase. The suburban Facebook empathy moms that we think about a lot, those folks are just hungry

for the contrast between the darkness of Trump and the goodness of Joe Biden. DJ, run that back for a second. The suburban Facebook empathy moms that we think about a lot. Remember when we did the show in 2016 and I had that bit as a Frank Lenz consultant and I said something like cross-bow wine aunts? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

That's up there. Right there. I got to say, suburban empathy moms is up there. I'm sorry. Suburban Facebook empathy moms. I'm sorry. Facebook empathy moms. Suburban Facebook empathy moms.

Which is going to be like a porn hub tag in five minutes if it isn't already. By the way, I pity anyone who has a non-empathy mom. I'm sorry. I have empathy for you. That sounds terrible. Your mom should have some empathy. My Lord. A little bit.

Yeah. Biden's struggling among the raised by psychopaths demographic. But yeah, I mean like, yeah, this is there... What's interesting is like, this is their digital strategy, which is just coming up with the most dog shit content imaginable that makes the people creating it, they're like, oh, you dumb dumb. This makes you dumb dumb feel good because like, hey, it gives me a little fire in my belly to think about the soul of the nation having endless mimosas with Joe Biden. That's not an ask though.

You're not owning anyone with your vote. You're not going to get people to vote with that because now if you're not promising to change anything, which we agree neither one is going to do, you're going to have to say vote to own someone. That's what most people vote for is to vote to own someone. That's not owning anybody. You're just going to stay home with some chamomile tea. You're not going to rally people to get to the polls, especially as I said, during a

fucking pandemic. They're treating it like a publicity tour for like a middle of the road kind of starlet who's promoting like a rom-com. Yeah, it's like a Reese Witherspoon vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to read it also again. So she goes on the Tzzei show and gets drunk with Hoda or yeah.

So just to hear, I just want to read this sentence again. It says, those folks, the, again, suburban Facebook empathy moms that we think a lot about. We love them, don't we? We love our empathy moms. We love them. It says, those folks are just hungry for the contrast between the darkness of Trump and the goodness of Joe Biden.

How did I know that he's good? Where's the buy-in for the, like the non-affiliated voter on Joe Biden being good, that he's not president? But I mean, like, I would, but that's the thing, it's just the, like, there's trying to say, don't you want to watch the Biden show? Yeah. But the Biden show is going to be boring. It is going to be boring.

The Biden show is a warning television. Most people don't watch morning television. Yup. I am. I'm the only one who like, I think that could be a very successful pitch to Americans. It depends on how bad things are and how much we blame China versus Trump. I mean, that's going to determine who wins regardless of what any rest of this bullshit is.

Like, none of this is going to matter on depending who wins. Who wins is going to be like, how bad things are and how we blame them. Felix does have a point because like all of the people who just want Obama, they just want things to be normal again. They just want Obama back or whatever. They're like, oh, there's a new season of the Obama show where, you know, he left, but you know, Biden is picking up and that was a pleasant show. That wasn't upsetting all the time.

I think like just wanting to feel normal again is an incredibly powerful feeling. And I think it's one of the most powerful feelings in America. It's certainly more powerful than any type of like righteous rage or indignation. Like anyone who rightfully feel that way, right? Well, I'm talking about people who would like, they've been out of work due to COVID with no safety net to call them, like to catch them. But like, those people are usually like, they don't even, they're completely disavowed of the notion of fighting back for a billion reasons.

One is they're too beaten down by just how difficult their lives has been. Another reason is just, it's not part of American culture. It just isn't. It just isn't. We don't have really any part international myth of fighting back against the virus to be in that way. I think that of the people that vote that just not wanting to think about this shit will be the dominant force potential, right?

But the problem is going to be that's that segment of the population. Those people already have priors. They're already hit. They have a team for the most part. Even the independence who are just, they don't really understand their own ideology. They still vote dependably one way because they have more like identification with one party over the other. And that means that the people left who want, I mean, yes, people want it back to normal.

But the people left who are going to vote in November who want to go back to normal and have that equal Obama being president and having warm associations with that collection of symbols around Obama being president and all that stuff and thinking that was good. That is a smaller chunk of people than it was who elected and reelected Obama. They weren't even able to get Clinton across the line because Clinton's pitch was, let's keep it like this and it wasn't enough. That's going to be even fewer people because people have either died or just lost any enchantment to this process.

Well, I think, I think the thing is, is that like Felix is right, is that like this kind of a strategy does work on people who have already bought tickets to the Biden show. It might get them out. It might get them, it might make them slightly more likely to remember to vote. That's it. But the thing is though, that's it. That's the only people left to vote. And yeah, I guess it's going to come down to like, which, because it was such a, it

was so close last time, it's going to be the same thing. Where are those like marginally-motivated Biden voters? What states are they in? Right. I mean, I just think that's like, it could potentially be a lot more Americans people think. I think that like people would be shocked and disappointed what people's priorities are politically across the nation.

I also do think that, yeah, it does come down to how much people blame China versus how much they blame Trump. The China thing is particularly a dagger for Biden because he's particularly weak on China. Even the like, he's incredibly easy for the Trump people to attack on China, especially through Hunter. So if it looks like it's going more that direction, he's not going to win. He's just not because he's very weak and has a lot of that baggage there. But I don't know, this is one of those cases where both the funniest outcome and underestimating

or while properly gauging the electorate tells me that a Biden win is a lot more likely than people think. I guess the question is, who are the people you're referring to? I say it's 50-50 because we don't know how, because we have a crisis. This is a crisis election. Crisis elections are lost by incumbents basically every time, unless they're able to sufficiently offload responsibility to enough people. Those are the open questions.

So it's a 50-50 race. I think anyone who says it's more than a 50-50 race is investing too much faith in one element of that that we don't know how it's going to be even a month from now, a little longer than that. Right. Right. I'm not saying, right. I'm not saying I'm saying for sure about it.

It's going to win. I'm just saying it's more likely than people will think, than people will give it credit for. Well, that's again, like I think a lot of people think Biden's a shoe in, like liberals. Well, those people are, those people are just insane. Sure. Those people are just fucking idiots. But I mean, I think you got to say there's probably a similar lack of connection to reality

to some MAGA person in the face of an unprecedented 9-11 everyday pandemic that their guy presided over saying, oh, he's going to kill Biden. That's also. Yeah. Yeah. That's also insane. Right. It's also fucking idiotic.

Yeah. Like it's a 50-50 race. Man. What a thing. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And anybody who's trying to call it now is just like a crank.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You're just a crank if you're doing like for sure. No, it's going to happen now. I just want to read a few more clips from there about the digital content strategy. It says here, Flaherty added that if we did what the algorithms told us what to do all the time, it would be punching Trump in the face.

While that will always be part of the toolkit, a negative first approach wouldn't create the Stan culture or avid follow up campaigns need to develop. Oh, no. I don't need to hear that. So I. I think we've, I think we've found a theme today for the show, which is just insane liars who believe they're on bullshit. And that's this guy is the same thing as our French Canadian green beret.

Yep. He's putting the shit out of the Biden campaign, but he still completely believes it. Oh, he believes all of it. He believes all of it. He thinks that, you know, people will make Joe Biden fan cams. What? The weird thing is, the weird thing is though, and I would point this out is that he does kind of touch something that is correct, which is that going totally negative with no positive

offering is a failing strategy. But when people say like a positive like offer, it's like it has to be the offer that's positive. It's not that you're nice. Exactly. You're giving them politics. You have to have, it's like, if it's going to be on the realm of the symbolic and both parties are in agreement on enough basic stuff on how to relate to this crisis in this moment, that it will be on the level of the pure symbol, then, then resentment and anger and, and picking

an enemy is a much more effective tool if you're not going to offer actual things for people. Well, especially if you're talking about online, like in digital content, how to create a, and how to create a, you know, engaged network of people on the internet who are willing to, you know, argue on your behalf or share these dog shit fucking videos or memes or whatever. It says here, one more credit here says, the way you win online in 2020 is by building enthusiasm and enthusiastic online communities that talk and bring people in.

True. But it says here, Biden's campaign, which has several older operatives at the top, didn't count on winning the internet in the primary. Bernie Sanders social media team was about the size of Biden's entire digital operation. Many of Biden's attempts at clicky content revolved around the former vice president's affinity for aviator sunglasses and ice cream and the viral moments Biden did have, meeting a supporter operating the elevator at the New York Times or his emotional anthem about faith and loss at a South Carolina.

No one remembers the shit. I don't remember any, I don't know. The shit is passing through people like Alestra chips. The people who remember this are like 50 year olds who just post like clip arts of hot cocoa giving you a digital, giving you a digital toast today, like you don't, like there are people that remember this, but you just, none of them, like the thing is, it says, but the thing is like it's Trump. So every time Trump whips his people into a frenzy with like a dumb tweet that's perfectly

calculated to reify all the conflicts that he likes, it's the, it's the, it's the aggregation of them. You don't have to, you can't pick out specific ones. When you're picking out specific ones, it's because you're trying to build an argument that doesn't make sense. And they argument that trying to make sense here is like, we can make Biden, he can make him, we can make him dabble. And it's because the problem they don't understand is I'm sorry, like, yes, stand culture is

clearly cynical and at a certain point it becomes self, self perpetuating and just PR. But it's the, the word of stand, it's like, it starts as fan, as if you were a fan of someone for something they did. Like those K-pop weirdos who everyone's terrified of, they like the music like people like Beyonce, people like Bernie because of his policies. There are no Biden fans to stand him and you need some stance to start the movement real people invested in Biden, it can't be pure, it can't start with a PR campaign. The PR campaign is built on top of an actual base of support which Biden doesn't have.

Well, do you remember what happens at the end of the song, Stan? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Stan kills himself in his girlfriend. Stan is elected president of the United States. Well, that is, that is what Biden's voters did. Yeah.

Illinois. That's it for you, Joe. Yeah. I just like the fact that Vodka dare me to vote. Yeah. What they like about Biden is like, what he represents in terms of like preventing things that they thought were worse, i.e. Bernie or Trump, not by himself. He's totally like, for as himself, he has no characteristics that they have emotionally

attached to and that's their real crisis and there's no fixing it. Can I, can I just add? I'm on Joe Biden's Facebook page right now and just thinking about this. These video numbers are dog shit. 55,000 views for something posted two days ago. Oh, that's not terrible. That's not terrible. 88,000.

I mean, some things here almost crack a million, but you know, Donald Trump's Facebook page triggered is hosted by Donald Trump Jr. That's a million views a week ago. I mean, I was half a million of those because it was an epic episode. Also the video titles on this are just better. We are the king of ventilators, winning, winning, it's tiger blood all over again. All of this is just a political recapitulation of the Charlie Sheen phenomenon. It's the same dynamics at play.

Just on Matt's last point, I haven't, I haven't given an update from Pod Save verse in a while. I have to say that one of the saddest things I've ever heard on that program was from a week ago, which is them earnestly being earnestly saying what their listeners can do now is now is the time where we stop posting what we don't like about Donald Trump and start posting what we do like about Joe Biden. Oh, you know what, because they're telling people to stop posting. That's true. They should stop posting.

Whatever you cannot, whatever that was, you cannot speak. You must pass over in silence. Biden really is the perfect avatar of America. Oh, yeah. He's a million years old. He's only in the position he's in now because like he was just, he's just been there the longest and now everyone's like, look, yeah, he probably raped, but you have to say what you like about him.

Like it's perfect. It's perfect. He's the perfect American. Also totally incompetent. Oh, yeah. A complete fucking. Who rose to a level. Really mad, really angry, hair trigger, incapable of doing absolutely anything.

And he rose, he rose to the level of his supreme incompetence, which is the fucking almost being president. Yeah. I mean, like if he wins, it's like not even in the hands of the pod save guys. It's just like in the almost sometimes, uh, impenetrable mind of the American voter who just sees all this, like, doesn't know like who Tara Reed is. And it's just like, I don't know. It was like, it was epic when he got mad, like he wins.

And that would be kind of the perfect American story. Yeah. Dr. Jill is Edith Wilson. Yes. It would be the perfect like end to an American tragedy. And then that's the end of the empire. Larry Kudlow is Fed Chairman and it's just, it's just a tech fascist nihilism until the end of time.

Look at that, Matt, when we were talking on stream about how like the story of Joe Biden is almost a tragedy, like, isn't that the perfect tragedy? He finally gets the job that he fucked up so many times trying to get. And then that's the end of the American empire and the end of the United America. Oh yeah. No, it'll collapse. It'll break up. Yeah.

He'll still be in the White House though, but like his writ will run. He'll be like the, he'll be like, uh, how they call Hamid Karzai, the mayor of Kabul. He'll be like in charge of the, of the, of the like the Delmarva, uh, like control zone, but he'll still think he's president. Oh yeah. I think of it more along the lines of that Twilight Zone episode with, uh, the bookworm and at the end, nuclear war hits and his glasses breaks and he's like, it's not fair. It's not fair.

Biden gets to be president, but he's not lucid enough. Yeah. So he's just like, it's not fair. Well, specifically the way I was thinking about it is like, so like there's a specific way if I, if this is wrong, please correct me, but dementia tends to act first on short term memory. So you remember old things more than things that are in front of you. So that means you could have Biden in the White House.

He doesn't have enough short term memory to be aware that he is president, but he knows he's in the White House and it reminds him of all the times he was in the White House as VP and Senator when he was pissed that he wasn't president. And so his time in president is, is him being tormented because in his head, he's just in the White House, he's not in charge. And so like he makes a decision cause somebody pokes him with a stick and then he forgets it, but he still remembers that, ah, the White House, I've never, I never became president. Yeah.

And the whole thing is just a torture. I, I love, I love that. I love that idea, Matt, because like in that scenario, I suppose like Barack Obama or the DNC would be like Joe Pantoliano and Memento, just sort of point Biden in a direction at Sammy Jenkins and get him to kill him or like, yeah, just like here's the, here's the signature strike list. By the way, I, I just about that pot save thing of now think about something nice to say about that is, that is HR, Felix likes to talk about the HR application of politics.

That is an HR trick. If you're going to like give one of your employees a demerit so that they don't get too hostile and they listen to the constructive criticism, say a nice thing first, just keep a compliment part of their work. Sandwich. Yeah. God. I mean, like, you know, I wish this wasn't happening here, but this is so funny.

This is so funny. I mean, it is. It is. This is hilarious. Like all these people who like, since 2014, we're at like, oh, like all their posts before 2014 were like, I've got, I'm the, I'm the AIDS gay guy in the Holocaust, like Michael Lee in black. And then from 2014 on, they were like, uh, when it comes to bodies, the spaces can be

the most affecting thing and then now they have to be like, you could rape and be a good person. It's like the perfect full circle thing. It's this guy who doesn't know where he is. You have to do this HR exercise where you say a good thing that he did that he doesn't remember doing. And crucially though, if you're talking about his career in government, he has never done a good thing.

Not even one. He's like never, not even once been on the wrong side of pretty much everything. It's one of the funniest fucking things to ever happen in this country. Well, I mean, the funniest thing that could happen would be him winning and then just the collapse of America, just turning into like five different states. I'll just, I'll leave you guys with this. This is the last thing I'm going to read from this article. It just says here, speaking of those, remember those viral moments of Biden talking to someone

in an elevator that we all definitely remember, he said like the power of those moments were that they were unscripted. So they were like, okay, how do we, how do we recreate this? And it says here, those organic moments helped inspire the empathy content strategy Biden's advisors say. I will just leave you with that phrase, the empathy content strategy. I'll just say, I'll just say a good indication that you're not actually experiencing empathy for anyone or anything.

Is that if you put the words content strategy right after it and more broadly, if you are experiencing it online, guess what? That's not really empathy. That is a dopamine trick version of empathy. Real empathy is for actual human beings, not the simulated computer people. But to Amber's point about how the internet is a hate and misery box, I think you can experience organic moments of sadism in spite. Yes.

Because you're the only real person on the internet. Every time you're on the internet, you are the only real person. And so the only real fun you're going to get is by making other people miserable because you don't get any of the reciprocal like sense of peace that you get from making someone night, making someone happy in real life because there's no personal element to the transaction. It's just pictures, it's just images. And if that's the case, the only pleasure, the only real pleasure you can get is making other people miserable.

There we go. That is the choppo content strategy right there. What do you say? Wrap it up for this week? Let's do it. Yes. Okay. Put a big old bow on it.

Love you, boys. And Amber. Love you, listener. Bye. Bye-bye. It's time. Thank you very much. You