Chapo Trap House - 474 - Obama Admin Speedrun feat. Osita Nwanevu (11/23/20)

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

We’re joined by The New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu for a look into Obama’s legacy, his lasting grip on Democratic politics and culture, and how Biden’s administration might feel like a speed-run of his former boss’s 8 years. Then, we vibe out to some of our future Secretary of State’s groovy tunes. Read Osita’s piece on Obama’s new memoir in TNR here: https://newrepublic.com/article/160285/obama-promised-land-trump-biden

He said jump Okay All right, so to kick things off Chris, can you queue up that John Kerry clip? I just want to I just want to get in the right mindset Need to see this again. I'm John Kerry and I'm Reporting for duty He's back he's back he's back Chris you should edit this in you know, just as a warning Like if you're a woman

Fair warning at the beginning of the show. We played some audio that will cause your ovaries to explode He's a five-star pimp as all there is to John Kerry He's right. He's dripping. He is welcome. Welcome to our new climate. This is our John Kerry and welcome to our guests for this week Ossetia, Nuevo of the New Republic Ossetia. What's going on? Not much not much. Thanks. I have me on well We figured you you just had a you said a piece coming out now in the New Republic about Just the looking back on the Obama years and now that we're you know in the era of Obama restoration and Joe Biden is doing the Obama administration speedrun Hopefully you can get through all eight years and everyone who served in that government in the next four

So but so that we can get president my pillow guy I'm in like I want to I want to talk to you about some of this stuff in Obama's memoir some of this stuff about You know just sort of how I don't know I'd be interested to see how we hear how much you think it's still Obama's party about what we could like Expect for the next four years, but before we get there I just do want to check in on the status of team Trump and the legal action to stop the steal going on I don't know if you've been following this a Sydney Powell no longer part of team Trump She is no longer representing the Trump campaign

I think I believe she's representing various private lawsuits, which are amassing a huge trove of information about the stolen election and She's not telling the information to judges because like every lawyer knows you don't present evidence to a judge Oh, yeah, no dumbass you judges. Yeah, no you you present Oh, you like a you just you tell the judge what you're going to do so that they can either reject your case or hear it out But like they the idea is to just buy enough time to get all the documents so that the Supreme Court hears you That's when the you unlock the fucking document case you go in front of a judge anyone Anyone other than the Supreme Court in any case all you're really doing is going don't believe me. Just watch if you show if you show

Evidence if you show evidence to a judge they put it under their robe and no one gets to see it again So you better you can't give it to them. Just hold on to it. Yeah, you better be sure you'll win I just like that. Yeah, that's what that's what's going on here It should be noted that like basically three days ago The GOP is official Twitter account was like meet Sidney Powell. She's on our team. She's got the goods She's she's really she's gonna release the Kraken and then three days later They're like Sidney Powell is no longer affiliated with the Trump legal team the crack and died Yeah, the Kraken died and I think it probably has something to do with her argument in court that the

Republican governor and Secretary of State of Georgia literally colluded with Hugo Chavez to steal the election for money So I think that mean might be why they're ditching her But I don't know oh see to have you been following the the Trump legal the Trump campaign 2.0 the legal campaign I've been trying to man, and it's been hard. I just we're in a place now where The argument on the right now is that Brian Kemp is too into democracy like that's where things have gone in the last two years You know I watched a little bit of that press conference in a couple days ago where there was some like oil or liquid exuding from Like Rudy Giuliani scholars. It was like the ex files. It was the black oil from that like the alien post It was leaving him. It was leaving

That was excess testosterone Of course, of course, but like you know, I think at that conference They were trying to invoke Hugo Chavez and suggesting that there was like a huge Plot connected with Venezuela in some way to steal the votes and in that kind of environment I don't know how you fire somebody for being Too unserious like I don't know the actual grounds We know for a fact that Trump gets very mad at his underlings when he sees them on TV and he doesn't think that they looked good Yeah, yeah, I watched the little Rudy Giuliani

a press conference the second half of it anyway and By the way, like I started watching it after I saw the memes about his face dripping This is his face coming off him and I just thought oh shit I kind of on and he wasn't talking anymore, and I just assumed well. He'll have dubbed them off by now He's not talking anymore. Oh, no, they're now they were like they kept going He never he didn't notice it to like right at the end and I saw her talk and she sounded like a crazy person Yeah, no, she it's not just the content of what she said was exactly talking about her saying like there went the Venezuelan guy Hugo Chavez like whatever the words don't we're not talking about words were like people watch this like dogs do it's about tone

She sounded like a crazy person. She sounded like somebody in front of a bus station with newspapers in her boots Yeah, had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states That it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system That's when they came in the back door with all the mail-in Mail-in ballots many of which they had actually fabricated with identically matching perfect circle dots for Mr. Biden It was also like the aesthetic choices the press conferences were interesting like obviously there's Rudy and his

like the soy sauce he put in his hair But like Sidney Pollock's like Her Deceased director. She was like Brian Kemp. She Brian Kim Fuck his brains out, you know, it's like life goes on and then it doesn't right Yeah, her outfit was like a leopard print cardigan Yeah, that was her fancy lawyer outfit It was just it was a bad look and I think Trump's gonna keep Giuliani around forever because it's like

You know, we talked about how Giuliani is the court jester for America now And I think Trump likes having like a slapstick guy like that around but Sidney Powell just She's not gonna get anything done. Um, oh god. No. Yeah, she's she's actually very ill I mean, okay, so she okay, so Sidney Powell I mean, did you guys see the thing where Tucker Carlson is now being accused of being a member of the pizza gate child Pedophilia conspiracy because he had Sidney Powell on her his show and just simply asked her What is the evidence for this massive election fraud?

She was just like Matt said don't believe me just watch and just for asking that question Tucker Carlson has now been is now on the enemies list and I guess like it's so perfect how that works, too Because the the the QAnon like excommunication process with any celebrity or politician works the same because if you turn Your baleful QI on to someone and look at them through the Q lens and they're rich and a connected person in this country You will find the same connections to pedophile sickos that every other fucking rich person that you think is a pedophile has And so you'll be like aha because it was always there You just weren't looking because you thought he was on your side. Well, I mean, I think that Carlson has been trying to walk This very delicate line from the beginning of this thing. I mean my take on this whole

charades for really months has been that if Trump actually lost We were definitely gonna see all that we're seeing from him directly this idea that the elections being stolen There's a lot of fraud But my take has been that the Republican Party is not Invested enough in yes, Trump being president again to materially help him in any kind of way So they'll definitely you know say oh we should you know take these little cases seriously and so they're shenanigans or a footer Whatever, but they were never going to actually at least a critical mass of them and the most important people were never going to actually Do that what we've taken to let Trump avail here

So Carlson has been one of the people who's been put out in front with the task of talking people down Yes, we know that you're mad. We got to look into this, but you know, maybe maybe he actually lost He's essentially trying to sue the temper tantrum, right? Yeah, right. There's been an interesting I guess everyone speaks the same language now of trauma Yeah, giving people time to heal and Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson is like he's sort of the tough load therapist for the maggot people where it's like, I know I know it was very unfair Yeah, your time take your time to heal, but yeah, no, I mean QAnon, I mean first of all, I think QAnon is an actual deep-state project

Like if you were going to invent a conspiracy theory that was meant to discredit other more credible conspiracy theories I think it would look a lot like QAnon and beats the gate, but um, it's also it takes two to tango and The reason people are into QAnon is because it's sort of like the last spasm of so everyone knows this is ending whatever this is we know it's ending and one response is that you drown yourself in gifts and You know like the president hanging out with Jonathan Van Ness or fucking whatever And you don't have anything to back it up, but a new day is coming. It's morning in America or

you believe in this sort of fortress America coming back and a sort of merger of bircherism and Reagan will rule forever And QAnon is just it's like the last in that type of brain that wants that it's the DMT vision before you die Yeah, and it's not like I I there is nothing you can really do to get anyone out of it. You can't It's the world where JFK didn't die. Yeah, there's nothing you could do to fact check out of it or like deep platform out of it It's just like that's what happens when this comes to an end that like 30% of the country just believes in magic now Yeah, that's what happens. Sorry. You can't do anything about it. That's one of the reasons. What why it's bad to have an empire

Yeah, sorry on the on the other side. You have a democratic base that is to almost completely in some degree of Delusional denial about their relationship to the Democratic Party that is as psychically twisted as any kind of Q cosmology Yeah, the way that the average Democrat views the party that they vote for is as Delusional in its relationship to reality as a fantasy about underground pizza child-eating dungeon Now you're sure you're not experiencing democracy foreplay right now. Is that what you're trying? I am not I am not I'm not I'm not edging towards democracy Although I give that lady credit the lady who said that she's can't wait to have the democracy orgasm on Inauguration day at least she's imagining that this like

Libidinal dance that she's doing with politics is a spectacle and part of her life is gonna actually end in an orgasm What the hell are the rest of us getting out of it? a back row Tony Blinken Well, I want to talk about well, let's let's let's let's go back in time now because I mean I know you guys have been seeing this part one of Obama's Memoir is out and I know you guys have been looking at a lot of the same excerpts that I've been looking at and I think this would be like a good time to like Discuss like just based on the excerpts I've seen in this book and then Oceada's piece about Obama in his years

Like how Obama sees himself and like how the party sees itself as being a sort of like who's leading who? Here and the the first excerpt I want to talk about is This pretty incredible excerpt where he talks about the Iran Iraq war Iran Iraq war in the 80s And I'm just quoting here He says Iraq's attempted 1980 invasion of Iran and the bloody eight-year war that followed a war in which the Gulf states Provided Saddam Hussein with financing while the Soviets supplied Khomeini's military with arms including chemical weapons Accelerated Iran sponsorship of terrorism as a way to offset its enemy's military advantages. Okay The Soviet Union not only did not supply Khomeini with chemical weapons

It actually provided weapons to Iraq during the Iran Iraq war and it was America who supplied Iraq with the chemical weapons that were used on Iran Oceada, do you think Obama just isn't aware of this or like you think he's think he's this is just an error in His knowledge or is this like a conscious like lie on his part or is it impossible to say? I think it's difficult to say I mean, I think one thing that we are being reminded of not just with Obama, but with Biden In the last few weeks is that these are people who just get most of their worldview from people like Tom Friedman New York Times on that page

Freedzikaria that entire nexus of commentators who are shaping the way elites think about American foreign policy I think that Obama and Biden are people who genuinely trust those voices and have genuinely sort of derived a worldview from the things they hear From that cohort. I mean people I think they're something called the national interest and it's served by these people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know I don't know whether I don't know whether it's an actual lie or or something else but I do think that there is a level of uncritical acceptance of particular narratives about American foreign policy

On a Biden's part on Obama's part in the Biden's part as well I think that they genuinely trust the stories that they've been told and you know Well, like one of those stories would be like, you know the Iran or rock war bat was bad because both sides were you know, selling arms to every side and that like You know America's role in that and who we were selling arms to is large is just sort of elided and There's a line you have in your piece in the New Republic about Obama that I thought was really Really interesting and on point or like you talked about how Obama like he has this genius way of talking about politics where he presents himself as sort of demystifying

Like the the processes and nature of our political system But is actually doing the complete opposite like he he mystifies through this pretend Demystification and I was wondering if you could like explain a little bit more. Yeah I mean, I think that so I wrote that in reference to a speech that Biden made Last week where he talked about deciding to cooperate that our problems in Washington are a consequence of Brentton crowds and Republicans simply not making the right choice and the right choice being we're gonna set aside our differences and come together and whatever And this this was sort of him being or trying to be the adults in in the room and suggesting that There is there's a level of personal like that our problems in politics are a matter of personal temperament

Right and then not making the choice to collaborate with people on the other side That to me reminded me a lot of the speech that put Obama on the national stage in 2004 his Democratic National Convention speech Where he talks about well, we're not actually the blue states the red states were the United States and it's framed as like Oh, this is like the answer like we've been fed this lie that there are actual real divisions in American life But really if you get past all that the hard truth that you will come to understand if you're a smart person is that We should all hold hold hands and make things work for the country or something like it's it's this weird way of presenting a message as a kind of I don't know a secret key to unlock everything right and the thing that is clarifying that actually just ends up puzzling people or sort of stupefying people even more because it's an even more

radically Unreal version of what is happening than the thing that you're trying to dismiss defy in the first place if that makes sense Yeah, and I mean and another thing you point out is that in his own writing Obama makes it clear that he's he's not unaware of like Critiques from his left or whatever being essentially if all things are being equal correct At least vis-a-vis like, you know healthcare reform or things like that and there's another example where he's quoted Talking of Biden's recent comments that like, you know, I know how to deal with Mitch McConnell because we've been friends for years And Obama was like well. Yeah, Joe knows Mitch McConnell. They've known each other for a long time, but they're not friends

So he's like I mean you think he like is he is he trying to give Biden some fucking advice before he takes office? I don't think so. I so I read that in other portions of the Of the excerpts where he's being candid about certain realities I honestly read that as him trying to save face for posterity like I think he cares a lot about his own legacy and He's aware enough of where things are going just sort of as a historical trend line to know that 20 30 40 years from now People are going to look back at his presidency And his way of thinking about politics and they'll understand that it was nonsense It was bullshit

And so he asked a signal now that he's aware of that so that history judgments on him isn't isn't as harsh as it would Otherwise be so he has to include things in his memoirs and in his writings and his speeches We acknowledge his reality now. I don't think it's him signaling to Biden as much as it is him sort of trying to Give himself like an insurance policy for his own public reception down the line. Yeah, and the key to understanding Obama I feel like has always been he cares about his legacy in how it will appear on in you know retrospectives and

Movies and everything like that in the cultural memory years from now He he doesn't people whenever people talked about Obama fretting about his legacy After Trump people on the law for go. Oh, that's bullshit. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything And it's like no he does care about his legacy But in this very in a way that's only focused on media consumption. Yeah, yeah That is his entire existence is to be talked about in the media the same way it is with Trump only he wants it to be approvingly Yeah, he wants to he was and he has the same detachment as we said from like actually governing the Trump does like he's totally Trump Obama just glided through the presidency because he always just assumed he wasn't actually in charge of anything

But he was going he was learning something He was he was he was having the promised land delivered to him And it was gonna be then reflected in an audience like affirming that and so as soon as he gets out of office All he cares about is is his legacy and becoming a goddamn fucking Netflix producer and content guru because that's literally the end goal of like everybody in the educated classes in America now It is to mythologize yourself for others even though you never fucking did anything. Yeah, Obama I mean the way he looked at the presidency itself actually very similar to Being a reality TV star. Yep. Yeah

Yeah, I mean one of the things you point out in the piece Ossida is that like Obama said like in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg He was like, you know Who's your ideal reader for this book and Obama said it was like a 20 a 25 year old who was like interested in politics and like Wanted to do good in the world or contribute in some way And I think you pointed out like for anyone who's 25 now and interested in politics like Obama's presidency Was the example that like turned them into like psychopaths or listeners to podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely Um, so I don't know where he's finding this. I mean, I'm sure that there are people who are still, you know Who are gonna go into the by administration really excited to have a democratic revival who are really young and hoping that they're going to get

Some position somewhere on a campaign that means something and like I think that codger of people Still exists. It's just much smaller now And so the 25 year olds who Obama is mostly contending with are people who have been radicalized by the failures of the last 10 years And again, I think he knows that so like His appeal to that Portion of the public and his bill to posterity is creating the space in the memoir who actually says well Yeah, it was kind of true that like the pharmaceutical industry like owned the Democratic Party And yeah, that was why we didn't do a public option, right? Like it's him. It's him acknowledging

again reality because he knows that The narrative is kind of collapsed and he has to create a space for himself where he's still going to find respect in the future And that means acknowledging certain things not because he hopes that Biden actually learned from any of it But as a sort of self-preservation of his own legacy, I mean as long as you're talking about preserving his legacy But I mean cutting against that at least that that's that 25 year old in terms of things that absolutely nobody wants to hear There was another excerpt about it where he talked about his inauguration and the protests that greeted George W. Bush as he left office and he writes here quote I felt quietly angry on his behalf to protest a man in the final hour of his presidency seemed graceless and unnecessary

More generally I was troubled by what these last-minute protests said about the divisions that were churning across the country and the weakening of whatever boundaries of decorum Had once regulated politics I mean he's talking about a guy that killed a million people in Iraq And he's just like it was graceless of people to fucking boo him on the way out the door I mean who like again, who is this for because that's not for the 25 year old young Democratic Progressive activist or whatever. I mean this is the old people all you have to be a man for all people, right? Like that's yes again In a way that like we were just talking about Tucker Carlson being sort of the guy who has to manage the Republicans

It's like a constituent scene now. I think that everybody in who's a major public figure Really always, but especially today has to sort of ride these like intrinsic divisions within their respective constituencies So Obama wants to be liked by the 25 year old. He wants to be liked by the Washington establishment He wants to be liked by sort of generic Democrat suburban voters and the memoir is supposed to appeal to as many as those people as possible Even if there are sort of contradictory messages and contradictory ideas within them The hope is that all of that will be sort of brushed aside subsumed by Obama as like an icon and somebody who like Is this transcendent figure at the end of the date no matter what you think about him? But yeah, like the Bush thing if you read it on its own is not going to appeal to I don't know

Like I think that even generic Democrats at this point. I mean, I guess there's been this revival of Bush's legacy and and there are people who entered into that but you know the idea that protesting a a Public figure is somehow in decorous now. I think is this kind of an idea that's gone by the way side I don't know that anybody really thinks that way about Politics anymore really even even people who are disapproving of like yelling at Trump officials who are eating in restaurants like they were in 2018 like even that's kind of half-hearted and isn't really as full of An ethos as civility was in the Obama era

Yeah, like the idea that it's in decorous or something or for like average citizens to voice their anger publicly at a president It's like, you know, hey, I punch up not down. Yeah, I'm speaking speak of a move out Don't move out. Here's here's another here's another excerpt This this one actually struck me as like the most jaw-dropping and telling in the book and it's where he's talking about His old his old friend Reverend Reverend Wright and I got to say during the 2008 campaign like that was like the fucking That was the starting gun that should have let everyone know that this guy was full of shit Is like how easily he fucking through Reverend Wright his own fucking Minister under the bus for like, you know, he just says here

There were times when I found Reverend Wright sermons a little over the top in the middle of a scholarly Explication of the book of Matthew or Luke he might insert a scathing critique of America's drug war America's militarism capitalist greed or the intractability of American racism Rants that were usually grounded in fact, but bereft of context Often they sounded dated as if you were channeling a college teaching from 1968 Rather than leading a prosperous congregation that included police commanders celebrities wealthy business people and the Chicago School Superintendent so I mean what like what's he saying here like Reverend Wright saying things that are correct factually But are wrong in the context of saying them to people who are well off and like so somewhat celebrated

I mean my thought about Reverend Wright for a while now has been That Obama's relationship with him actually mattered people sort of tried to dismiss it in 2008 is like oh This is like a smear and it's it's trying to do racial demographic and it was that but like it did Substantively matter. It mattered substantively in the opposite way that the conservatives intended It was not a signal that Obama was like a secret radical Whatever it was a signal that Obama was somebody who was definitely exposed to radical thought and Consciously rejected it and that matters a lot and you know, this is like the thing That's important about people have laughed about you know the long-lost socialist passage and like trying to get people

To date him in college with with Foucault whatever And it's funny, but like it also like again should conquerors art sense of Obama as somebody who is not Unaware that you can make radical more radical critiques of the way things are He's somebody who has been exposed to all of that and for whatever reason is consciously decided that he wanted to go a different way in his politics And that's that's that's that's where Reverend right means to me I mean he's somebody who I think Obama sort of glommed on to Because it was important to be connect with a black church to make it in politics in Chicago, right?

And after he performed that function. He was no longer useful. So as long as he was performing that function He was willing to sit there and listen to Talk about the drug war and American foreign policy and all these kinds of things while not really taking in any of it And really taking any of it seriously Even though I think there are a lot of people in this or most people like congregation probably did take it very seriously and We're willing to harbor more radical critiques of The way things were so I don't know I think that right is Again, I think another window into who Obama actually is and and the way he thinks about things and and you know

I don't think you can credit I don't think you can blame Obama's politics or his presidency on it and a sort of I naivete about Capitalism whatever else like he understands the critiques and is decided to reject them. Yeah, Obama is I mean He's been an operator his entire professional life. He always has been I mean Reverend Wright was not an unknown quantity in Chicago. Yeah, and especially not in Chicago political circles people knew what he was about He was I mean Reverend Wright's all is a very interesting and

Kind of benevolent figure because another guy from Chicago who people try to tar the left and Democrats with Farrakhan uh Farrakhan exists because there aren't enough Reverend Wright's that is to say he's the specter of like non-liberal or non-democratic or non-Christian black politics that only exists because any everything else in that space has been You know literally assassinated by the government or marginalized or just like put out of existence And Reverend Wright is like one of the only options that people had one of the and one of the only good options people had Obama knew what he was getting into but he

When he needed to be seen going to that church He was seen doing it and I actually think the right controversy when he became a national figure I think that actually helped him with what he sought to accomplish Which was getting the cosine from the Democratic establishment and like David Geffen he was his own sister so exactly right He wanted to show those people that he would shiv this fucking guy this guy who kind of did a lot for him He wanted to show them you think the Clintons are ruthless look at what I'll do you haven't even given me anything up front yet Really look what I'll do for you. Yeah, I'm not going to flinch when you hand me the adrena chrome At the ceremony. I'm fine. I know what I know what's going to happen. Obama is I mean I

Think he may be a more cynical person than Hillary Clinton because Hillary Clinton. I Think she kind of believes in this bullshit like whatever like weird meritocratic Liberalism and like you know the best test scores rise up and help cement the power Institute democracy over the world I think she legitimately believes that I think she legitimately believes in the people around her and the the the Importance of Clinton world and I think the fact that so many people went down with her ship and she down with theirs shows that

Obama sort of only believes in his historical projection He's someone who's been living almost his entire life at this point in the third person. Yeah, exactly That's it is that he is he is detached for completely from politics because I think that the difference to him in the Hillary Clinton Is I think Hillary is at the end of the day. She's a wig She believes in human progress and that she is helping it occur Whereas Obama I think it is he's too conceded about himself to allow himself to believe something so Naive so he accepts the that he probably accepts like the the basic truth of like a lot of radical critiques of Of capitalism, but he says but the crooked timber of humanity cannot be made straight the Neburi and like

Tragic notion that we are we are doomed by our own human, you know Deficiencies to this veil of tears and in this world We can only do so much and then therefore everything he does his entire career of just taking all popular discontent with this buckling and just and and wheezing monstrous exploitation system and Smoothing it over and and doing whatever it took behind the scenes to to Recapitalize the economy on the backs of regular people and then Getting a gloss on it making it look progressive and making it look like two to millions of Americans making it look like progress and making it look like

Oppression to millions other and never feel like yet anything to do with it because it was gonna happen anyway And wouldn't it be better for someone like him to be in that room than someone else who didn't have his exquisite soul and ability to like to grow and and and and be enriched by these experiences Yeah, people I always think back to the early Obama days when people would Imagine if they were conservative as imagine Obama as big brother or Hitler in some cases The most horrifying character from our cultural imagination that Obama most reminds me of is Patrick Bateman Hmm, just a fucking Empty vessel who knows exactly what buttons of affect to push for whatever group of people he's around

Who is aware at his own emptiness? You know what he is? He's a fucking prestige TV anti-hero Well, so you guys sort of a literal don Draper was a literal Reality t-chief TV Cretan and Obama is a figurative and it has to be figurative because these are the these are the smart people This is the smart party. This is like the the smart political tendency He is a an allegory for a prestige TV anti-hero and Hillary and Hillary is like sons of anarchy She's like, yeah, fuck you. I'm loyal to the Anthony

Because the cooker for the 90s the clips are for the 90s They weren't there to get in hip with like, you know, because with the new shit after the Sopranos model There's just like blundering around Kurt Sutter style. Yeah Well, as long as you're talking about the Sopranos see that you do you do make reference to Obama's recent comments about sort of historical Conceptions of American masculinity as personified by Clint Eastwood John Wayne and Gary Cooper, which does I mean I've we've I think we've clocked this before on the show does mirror precisely Tony's comments to Dr. Melphie about you know

What what happened to Gary Koopa the strong silent type now? Everyone's bitching a Sally Jesse Raphael and I also like that you point out that all four of those men that are held up as like the Kind of template for traditional American masculinity and like these values that Trump supposedly espouses were all died in the wool reactionaries for their entire career Eastwood included I mean east was the only one that's still around but I mean he's probably the most I mean But like he the idea that Clint Eastwood was like more right wing than Jimmy Stewart or fucking Gary Cooper is bullshit Like if anything, he's probably like less Reactionary than those guys certainly same as Trump probably. Yeah speaking

Yeah, you know, and I read that quote the first thing that came to mind was that the pile up so those apprentice where? You know Tony was talking about What what were fictional representations? This is a crazy thing like these were these are people who've played fake people And presented an image that was directly at odds with the society that they were actually Entertaining right there was a much more cruel and violent society than our society today in a lot of ways Yeah, because the images that we have carried over from that era and the people like Obama and people like Tony Soprano fictionally Inherited, you know Those people who are too young I guess to have lived

In the 30s in the 40s like I guess except is real those images on some level and believe the people actually Lived up to them and then Trump you then come to understand is an aberration because He's deviated from this bottle of masculinity You know, I think part of what this brand is is doing is telling you that look like you can sort of Harken back to and idealize this this model of masculinity of reserve and quiet and whatever and also be like an emotional wreck and extremely vulnerable and extremely like Violent yourself and kill people and it doesn't really and wind up in therapy Exactly so whatever story you tell yourself and however much you think you're measuring up to a Gary Cooper

Like that those images were not real and they were you know, they were they were if they were idealized They were idealized because they were at a remove and at a place of real distance from What people were actually doing and probably what people human beings are actually capable of So I don't know. I thought it was very odd that he invoked those people not just because of the you know their own politics, but you know the mood in the Democratic Party and on the progressive, you know identity politics Left is always or it's recently been, you know We should abandon that way of thinking about the world and these kinds of heroes and understand them as fake

James Baldwin when he debated William F. Buckley in 1965 had this great line where he said, you know I spent my youth rooting for Gary Cooper against the Indians only to realize at a certain point that the Indians were me, right? Yeah, and Obama apparently doesn't have like that kind of an understanding of what these figures were and what what they meant to people And then Buckley said if you call me chief sitting bull again, I'll knock you in the jock. Yeah I always so I always loved the Gary Cooper line in the Sopranos and Because it's like it's a multi-layer joke It's like on on its face. It's ridiculous because it's like Why isn't anyone like an actor from like 60 years ago who give it like?

What are you talking about? But the joke of that it goes deeper. It's that Tony is actually like the most self-pitying Cribate like everything is done for Tony's personal validation. There's no difference between Tony at his core and like someone who writes mediums First person essay mediums about you know, how how hard it is to have like a fucking philosophy PhD or whatever What's interesting Obama reflecting that line is that is actually something I don't think about Obama at all that he feels sorry for himself I think Obama is in awe of himself, but I think Trump like Trump is the most similar to the guy saying

the Gary Cooper line Trump's entire thing is that sort of Tony Soprano model of projecting this type of masculinity kind of But really just feeling bad about yourself and wanting your own personal validation But Obama is an interesting figure to me in that way in that I think Someone posted Nixon's concession speech From 1960 today and it was they noted that for its time. It was considered an incredibly fucking just Embarrassingly emotional display that no politician should behave that and now that's really if he did that today

He would be praised for Being emotionally subdued compared to everyone Everyone just goes about in public feeling bad for themselves whether they command armies or They're the head of the Treasury or whatever everything is about how bad can you get people to feel for you and Felix and all the time a great Wind is carrying them all the time. Yeah, we go about self-pity, but yeah Obama if I could pick one thing besides his obvious charisma and like It is sort of easy at which he speaks at which he's around people

I think it's the fat why people are still so into him I think it's the fact that he doesn't appear sorry for himself in the way that literally Yeah, everyone else. He's a winner. Yeah Yeah Obama like the difference in Obama and any other like Like off for off brand version of him is that he did it, you know, and he's able to just well That's coast on that. That's what I want to long-ass time Yeah, I just like Beto Beto Beto tried the Obama thing, but they don't so fucking. No, he's a loser

He's a fucking loser. Well, he is he's It being a loser to him is his genetically part of his identity as like being Irish Yep, and those two you find a lot of them a lot of things again. Nevermind. I should have said that Well, I mean, I guess that's that's that's that's that's that's that's the like the last question I want to go with a C date here because I mean at the end of the day Obama on like, you know Many of his clones or like many other figures in the Democratic Party is is a winner And it's like it's not the Clinton's party anymore because like Hillary fucking lost and Obama is like the closest thing the Democrats have like as a figure at that level as a guy who fucking who won and he won

He's like pretty pretty handily both times So like it's you know, his template for how to run an election how to run a campaign How to manage the sort of Democratic Party and its various constituencies and how to tamp down their expectations and sort of coast by on personality, but also as a template for how to I guess I would say negotiate and scare quotes here with the Republican Party And I guess what I'm asking to see that is if we're looking at the Biden administration is just like a speedrun of Obama part, too I mean, do you do you see this going forward? How do you see Biden the sort of borrowing from the Obama model of how to be president?

well, I think that all of the sort of we're going to try to work with Republicans and and Who to the center and not seem so crazy all of that is going to stay in place. I will say that that Obama Joe Biden is not a winner and and we know that in part because Obama himself seems to lack faith in Joe Biden I mean, there's this there's a stuff when he was thinking about coming in where people were saying well Obama has said he doesn't really want Biden to come in and embarrass himself and so on like there's not a lot of faith I think within a Democratic fucking up. It's a Joe Biden

What? Yeah, so, you know, he's not a winner I don't think that Biden is somebody who's politics you can even kind of superficially record like he's of a generation that is going away Maybe we see in 2022 a bunch of like random 70-somethings Running in primaries on view on the Biden avuncular sort of model. I don't really think it can be done. So it's just weird Stopping point. I think for the Democratic Party's directory I think the people that the party really wanted to carry things forward were people like Kamala Harris Yeah, people like Pete Buttigieg, etc. Then won't hunt. Yeah So, you know, I think it's it's a weird time to be an aspiring

Democratic Politico because you've had this interloper come in and and seize this thing But you know, I think you're right that the Democratic Party does Every generation try to find the figure that they're going to sort of put in front of themselves as the model They should be trying to emulate that's what happened with Clinton. It's what happened with Obama And the ground is kind of open now because there's been this interruption of the process when somebody of the previous generation coming in and and interrupting and sort of Blocking people off and this is what you're seeing in the house

by the way people are complaining about the fact that people like Pelosi and Clyburn and Hoy are sticking in there and they're not letting that the younger moderates come in and Present themselves as the new leaders of the party. There's this across-the-board kind of gerontocracy that is I think toppling or stopping careers and and from the moderate's perspective Cramping their style and you know, I think the next the sort of the next four to eight years is going to be the story of how the Moderates come in and try to disrupt that and put new people forward if you're on the left

I don't think any of it's really of much interest to you. Oh, yeah Yeah, it's all internal house bullshit. Yeah, so Catholic intrigues. Yeah, unless you have a fantasy teams for this shit, which I really sincerely hope you do not Excuse me by my my the hill.com fantasy league is doing quite well Very grim. All right. Well, we'll leave it there with you. I see it I want to thank you for hanging out with us for a bit if people would like to Find more of your writing or takes where should they go? If you go to the New Republic just New Republic comm or my Twitter accounts Ossita one of you. No spaces

Yeah, I imagine if you're listening to this show you probably I've already seen one of those two things at least already All right. Well, we'll go check it out We're gonna take a quick break and then Matt Felix and I will be back to vibe with you further Ossita. Thanks a lot Awesome. Thank you. Cheers. Yeah, thank you. Whatever happened to Gary Cooper the strong silent type That was an American. He wasn't in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do To what they didn't know was once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings that they wouldn't be able to shut him up And then it's dysfunction this and dysfunction out of this function my fun goal You have strong feelings about this. Let me tell you something

I have a semester and a half for college. So I understand Freud. I understand therapy as a concept But in my world, it does not go down Can I be happier? Yeah. Yeah, who couldn't? Do you feel depressed? Do you feel depressed? Since the ducks left all right a part two of the show, let's uh, let's just vibe you want to just like kick it off with that Tony Tony Blinken Yes, let's rock it. All right. Yeah, let's let's say Tony Tony Blinken Park Tony Blinken 182. There we go. Yes We're going so yeah, all right, so this is this is Joe Biden soon to be secretary of state

Tony Blinken who's like, you know like Secretary of a secretary of state of relaxation and coolness This is like pretty pretty chill yacht rock. This is this is lip service by a blinkin Little plan. Oh, I get it. Yeah. Oh He's copying Elvis Costello's song title So I don't know if I feel about that lip service by a blinkin Was the last time we had a studly secretary of state Mike Pompeo

Oh god, he's right there. He was a real person. Yeah, oh my god, this is like south of the crystal cave It's it's better. It's a little better than that He's got an interesting voice. Yeah, yeah, it's it. Yeah, it's like a sort of like a D swag Roy Orpison Surgery to remove his swag. I drove all night just to get to the Brookings Institute Lip service tonight. It's not like getting top. I figured out I figured out what this is like I There we go, you're not exactly what that's like um, I

Used to be fun in the mid 2000s to like read storm front Because they like they were they were like 60 year old foul Nazis as opposed to like 19 year old Nazis Who have like a lifetime of that ahead of them? Yeah, and they were just mostly just like pathetic fucking losers like guys who were like Like just claim adjusters for 40 years and we're like, I'm gonna repopulate the white race any day now and they're like 50 It was just like losers like people who try to get their kids into Naziism and fail and like their family wouldn't talk to them But the funniest threads to read on storm front were the ones that are like I have a question Uh, can you be can you be into what prod and still enjoy enjoy Moana? Like people are afraid of enjoying like non-white

Entertainment and this is like if someone on storm front was like I do a Chris Isaac, but he sounds a little bit too black for me So I made my own Chris Isaac with a more white sound That's exactly what this is like Apparently Tony Blinken is like he's a he's really he's a steely Dan guy, you know He's into season to see Lee Dan. It's just like that's a very specific type That is a white flag. That is a very specific type of dude. Everybody likes steely Dan has to at least get one Jot into the old Warning list. You got to watch and Matt was it you're saying like he's in and he's in it

He's in another band with a guy who used to be like in the doobie brothers who then became an arm control expert This guy's name the guy's skunk Brewster. I think his name is and he was in the doobie brothers. I think and he After that became an expert on missile defense and ended up getting becoming a consultant for the defense department on Star Wars and he rocks out with tone Abe Lincoln here in in the group that they jokingly referred to as coalition of the willing Wow Everyone's having fun. Everyone in Washington, DC always having fun and just to think you'll have to see them have fun Don't we just to think that band Viet Cong had to change their fucking name because people complained about it I know these assholes coalition of the willing. Hey, I did you check out their new latest EP. You forgot Poland

We forgot Poland the new EP from coalition of the willing. Yeah, I get yeah It would be I guess it would be cuter if Joe Biden didn't whip up support for the Iraq war amongst Democrats Yeah, but hey, who am I to say what are the one of these people always say about Trump? The cruelty is the point. Yeah, huh. No in this time No, what see that's the thing is that when Republicans do it the cruelty is the point when Democrats do it the crew Cruelty is an unfortunate side effect. Yeah, that's the only side effect It's just two sides at the same point is how you feel about it who you blame for it It's who you're rooting for in the little punch Judy show, but at the end of the day

That's it the the the the cruelty is there just like how there's no real difference and Tony Blinken Having a consulting firm that helps companies navigate Pentagon consulting projects Contracts, which I mean doesn't that sound like self-dealing a little bit? Yeah, that sound like the exact same thing We got mad at Betsy DeVos and Mike Pompeo for yeah, but no, it's just he didn't know he was doing it I know you guys saw that that fucking twerp from from Vox be like Tony appears that Tony Blinken has participated in society Like he's like just like doing like the the worst fucking internet meme ever about you know

Oh, you live in a society But on behalf of a guy who fucking left public service and just cake up on the defense industries fucking dime and fucking like Michael Michael Mike, this is a guy who bitched about Michael Flynn going to an RT dinner. Is that just living in society? Yeah, what's the difference? He's got a big idiot son. I mean my god, you know how many times he's been fired for bedbath and beyond They cannot keep him. He's got credit card debt. He buys commemorative chess sets Sitting around gaming and like buying pay-per-view. We have broadband and he still buys fucking pay-per-view. I Have to feed his it my idiot child. I can't go to a fucking banquet Next sit next to Jill Stein and collected some rubles and that's I raising my son. That's the thing

Tony Blinken and his problems. They're not individually important and The most useless question that people have asked is oh, who would you guys be okay with what Bernie guy would you be okay with? No one no one that Joe Biden would ever pick. That's why I didn't vote for him. That's why I didn't support him That's why I didn't give a shit about this entire thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah There's no one that Joe Biden would ever pick and now that would ever get confirmed by the Senate that he's likely getting due To his own failures and even if it was somebody you may be like in in abstract if he picked them It would be because they would be frozen out of any actual influence, right? Exactly, he would have final say so that's it that it's not it's not a useful question

Joe Biden's never gonna pick a guy who's like alright day one. We're getting rid of NATO That's never gonna happen, you know, you might as well say what are you gonna do when Joe Biden gives you the ability to fly? Because it's just as useless as a fucking question But my point is the same point that we've had since Trump It's that all these households do the same fucking thing and that they are equally delusional This delusion that Tony Blinken has and that Joe Biden has that we can Rebuild the prestige the American Empire that we had in the 90s or even the 60s by you know Having lunch with that yahoo the right way

It's equally deluded is anything else. This isn't coming back The most realistic idea was to have someone that would negotiate our exit. Yeah, now that's not happening Well, I mean that's never fucking happening I would say like the the the actual difference in Tony Blinken and Mike Pompeo is That Tony Blinken is in favor of the Iran deal and was a big proponent of it and says that he may try the The the the Biden administration may try to like I don't know Re-enter the Iran deal and like by the way if you're Iran Why what the what what the fuck like reason would you have to like fucking trust America at all?

On any diplomatic level. Yeah, I would tell him to eat shit And number two is that unlike Mike Pompeo Tony Blinken doesn't wholeheartedly believe that the rapture will happen in his lifetime But I mean aside from that I mean from what I can what I've read about Tony Blinken's career as a sort of you know Democratic Party Apparachuk and foreign policy guy is that he was in favor of the Libya intervention He was critical of the Obama administration for not using enough force in Syria and still defends Joe Biden's vote for the Iraq War as Quote a vote for tough diplomacy not war. That wasn't just that wasn't just him defending it

He was Biden's top foreign policy advisor when he voted to go to war So he wasn't just saying he did all right. Yeah, invading by voting to invade Iraq He was telling Joe Biden vote to invade Iraq Yeah In the same token we have Avril Haines coming up as DNI Haines testified in favor of Gina Haspel defending her her role in CIA torturing She had a role in redacting parts of the CIA torture report Her official job one of her official jobs with the CIA was

Investigating the CIA to see if they invested to see if they had hacked into the computers of legislators who had questioned Michael Hayden Who knows what she found but if the CIA picked her to do it. What does that say about her? Yeah, you're getting You are getting the worst aspects of Obama term one foreign policy because we're gonna But the thing is is because we're gonna be feeling they're gonna be like we have to reassert America now Because they all feel like Trump weakened our strategic position in all these spots So they're going to have to in their own minds Be aggressive on all areas it because they have to shore back up or are

Standing instead of you know a lot because we have actually like NATO has been Undermined by by Trump. That's one actual like long-term effect of his presidency Accidental Ophish idiotic pull-in-a-shadow shop Idiocy but a real effect they want to reverse that they want to reverse all the undermining that Trump did all over the world of American Credibility and that's going to mean carrots and sticks flailing around The other thing that I think you should look out for during this first by the term knowing what we know about his foreign policy team it is going to be very late Roman Empire and that is to say that Avril Haines is gonna be running her own five-dom

Hey, or a horse will be running hit their own five-dom. Yeah. Well, that might be better than Avril Haines, but Blinken will be running his own five-dom John Kerry will be running his own thing And they'll all be running their own thing because there's no one they can really report back to you need a final say on a matter You call the White House at 9 p.m. Oh, Joe is taking his nighttime milkshake He's gonna be asleep. He's gonna be asleep for 17 hours What are you okay, okay, so hands. Yeah, okay, so Haines wants to hands wants to give a bunch of guns to these Azerbaijanis, okay Fucking Blinken Blinken has client has like, you know, let's say

Make an interesting. Let's say Blinken has Qatari clients with his consulting firm They come they come to a head here. Who wins who wins? Is it like is it like when the Pentagon and the CIA's rebels would fight each other in Syria? Maybe maybe a lot more of that get used to seeing that get used to seeing a lot of Shake-ups in the world. Well, I mean, this is coming after Of course, you know a based Trump's foreign policy of I mean, I mean he successfully I think neutralized people like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliot Abrams after putting them in charge of his foreign policy So, you know cheer kudos to the boy

By the way, I meant to say Saudi Arabian clients not Qatari. Okay. I guess like the other other cabinet pick It's Worthy to talk about is fucking of course Rahm Emanuel who I'm hearing today as a stop to angry progressive activists won't get secretary of transportation But it'll just be a put in charge of like negotiating trade deals with foreign countries or something something much less important than Transportation secretary, but I mean come on though. I mean like Democratic partisans out there who have been saying squawking for like I don't know six to nine months now that It's everyone's moral duty to vote for the Democratic Party because that's what black women do are gonna shut the fuck up real quickly

That that Rahm Emanuel like one of the worst fucking people on the planet The guy who covered literally covered up a murder of a black teenager for the Chicago Police Department Come right back inside sir right this way and I guess just like oh But because well because black people still voted for Democrats overwhelmingly like they've they co-signed that you know Like so that that's good And if you complain about that now or bring up the staggering hypocrisy of putting a gut like a guy like Rahm Emanuel back in charge It's somehow on you or it's like you're the one being racist or I don't know

It's just colicky or something. It's just like you know get with the program kids in cages. We're all fat Black lives matter. Yeah, exactly. Well cruelty is the point the point of Rahm Emanuel is like This is looking down all the you know the more official the more officially co-signed Black lives matter groups the ones that were you know The ones that were branded to be co-opted by the DNC not the larger movement at hand The ones who asked for even just something from Joe Biden like that pathetic open letter That one branch wrote After endorsing Biden and to go you're gonna tell us what to do. Fuck you

Here's Rahm Emanuel. Fuck you. It feels like we know what the thing is you can't do anything about it Yeah, what are you gonna do like fucking post more about a complaint about it lobby down or just like or or just get angry at other people Who point it out? Yes, or who just say yeah, like this is it or just say you're complaining about this now You you fucking bought this. This is what you promoted like you did nothing but attack like anyone who fucking spoke out against this as being like If not actively helping Trump or on the other side then just sort of foolishly undermining I don't know like some sort of I don't know hopeful progressive vision of the future But with their with your you know these these asks that you keep making of the Democratic Party And it's just like it feels it reminds me when you say the cruelty is the point it reminds me of the Kavanaugh

Confirmation hearing when I was like well there. Well, I mean they're obviously gonna pull this guy I mean this is just insane right and it's like no They wanted to get him on the Supreme Court even with that cloud of suspicion over him Because they wanted to prove to everyone that this shit doesn't matter and they're like yeah Yeah, if we if we want to get if we want to guy get a guy credibly accused of rape on the Supreme Court in full view of everyone We're gonna do it because we can and you can't stop us. What are you gonna do vote again? Like vote for the other guy you'd vote more fucking complain more write a letter to your editor We don't give a shit. This is all sewn up and like putting Rahm Emanuel right back and fucking the Democratic

Administration is the Democrats version of that then they're saying everyone like oh like yeah complain more about it What are you gonna do vote Republican? Fuck you you get nothing exactly It's to further beat people down. It's the same reason why they killed Jeffrey Epstein in front of us. What are you gonna do about it podcast? Yes, the answers. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We will yes We will we're gonna fucking do we are gonna podcast and it's gonna be dank It's gonna be chill. There's gonna be good Japs and jokes. We're all gonna have a good time. Yeah, that's true I think it's a good place to wrap it up for today. I just like to wish everyone a preemptive Happy Thanksgiving no matter how you're spending it this year whether you are all alone or you are going to

Create a super spreader event that will lead to an American Holocaust because oh you just have to have you just have to have those Candidams gotta gotta gotta eat those green beans. No, I'm just kidding. I really don't give a fuck what anyone does for Thanksgiving this year Yeah, I really don't there's nothing stopping anything. We're we're doing come on We're we're we're defeated as a nation like really yes, the white flag has been waved Yeah, we we've all surrendered at this point like stop trying to negotiate for better terms We've surrendered. It's it's denial people are working through their Kubler Ross It's like all the people who are you know really They're really hoping that like personal behavior is gonna write this ship

There they think that you know the mask tantrums are emotional and that they are very childish But at a certain level you're failing to face reality in a similar way I mean that doesn't mean you just do whatever you want But it means this thing of like making a part of your personality yelling at everybody else Like making that your contribution to the common good. That's not doing anything That's not doing anything except making you feel like you're a better person. Well, I would like what you think is right But do it. Yeah, that's not part of it. I mean, no, I just to sincerely though Spending this this holiday weekend whether you're spending it by yourself whether you're spending it in sheltering in place

Or whether you're spending with family no matter what you're doing for this Thanksgiving I just want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving and a happy holidays and I hope you spend it with us listening to your favorite Listen to your favorite podcast. Here's a philosophical question for you that I'm gonna leave you with This is this will be taught in any 400 level philosophy class If you are going to Thanksgiving solely to hold your uncle accountable for voting for Trump does that Does that invalidate that you're super spreading by traveling across the country? I think it cancels it out. Yeah, it leaves you. Yeah, zero. Yeah. Well

Sound off in the comments Well, yeah, like I said have a have a happy Thanksgiving everyone and keep holding people accountable Hold yourself accountable hold others accountable. It's it's our it's our new watchword for the end of this year and for 2021 We're gonna be holding them a 21 will Toppo trap house of accountability toppo trap house hold them accountable your accountability, baby Everyone's gonna be so fucking accountable. They won't be able to handle it. It's the most important thing you can do Yep. All right Until next time guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Good night. Peace. I

Thank you.