Chapo Trap House - 798 - Iowa Carcass feat. @ettingermentum (1/15/24)

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Well, here we are, Iowa Caucus day 2024. Considering we all took several points of permanent sanity damage this time 4 years ago, what’s insane this year is how on rails this whole thing is. Nonetheless, our elections correspondent Josh (@ettingermentum) returns to update us on the state of the races for 2024. We look at how Biden’s long-term hyper-commitment to Israel affects his chances, Trump’s advantages and disadvantages in his ‘24 campaign, the RFK Jr. of it all, and the race for #2 between the rest of the GOP candidates.. Find Josh’s newsletter here: https://www.ettingermentum.news/ Tickets to Talking Simpsons at SF Sketchfest on 1/24 here: https://sfsketchfest2024.sched.com/event/1VUtV/talking-simpsons

Music But that's about it. I don't know if you count Alan Wake 2. Oh, yeah, well I don't, I don't, maybe we could have a 10 minute segment. I just think that'd be fun. But currently my ranking is, I have Reagan at the bottom, because he has nearly destroyed the video game industry. Trump's second worst. I don't know who's in the middle, but I know that Shrub is at the top. Just for context, because he started recording mid-sens.

This is ranking presidential administrations by what video games came out under them. Yeah. Yeah. Shrub, obviously, like, he has the benefit of his tenure, you know, running through the PS2. But Obama is the end of Obama's first term, the worst post Reagan. Yeah.

That Obama was what made me consider doing it by terms, which is way more work. But I think Obama really has to be separated by the first and second term because the first is nuts and the second is so bad. The second is like every bad triple A video game trend ever. Every bad modern trend ever. that make your character slide across the floor for 50 feet. Yeah. He was the Assassin's Creed, like the shitty Assassin's Creed president. Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong though, but during W. Bush's 10 year,

we got Grand Theft Auto Vice City and Halo Combat Evolved. All the Halo, all the classic Halo. We got, yeah, we got, in one year, we got like MGS 2 fucking GTA 3 like Silent Hill 2 in 2004. This is probably why he beat Carrie MGS 3, GTA San Andreas. Like, oh, those are low. Half-life 2 in that same year. I can't describe what it felt like to play Half-Life 2 on a Sony Vio while using an iTunes

gift card your grandparents gave you to either accidentally buy most of singing album for the G-Sees Rocks O Final album. I'm going to do some research. I think he did some fatal politics type shit where he like rigged it like the video game industry to reelect him. But he, um, it's not like fatal politics because his second term is really good too. The rainbow six games. I'm going to sell the.

All right. All right. All right. I'm going to sell games. All right. Okay. We got to officially start. By the way, you're listening to a chapeau trap house, uh, attempting to ring content out

of the cruel and futile spectacle of US electoral politics. It's Monday, January 15th. Okay, that's a rift for you. I'm actually going to be writing this. No, but welcome to the show. It's Monday, January 15th. It mirror at like, I don't know, probably like as we are recording this right now, the people in Iowa are beginning to caulk. They're caulking up Iowa tonight. It's negative 50 degrees. The heart machine has been turned up full blast.

But maybe there's a story. Maybe there's a story we can we can we can ring out of this. There's some juice to be squawed in. I do like the characters, but I guess I just want to begin today's episode by the way joined, of course, by Josh at Injurementum. Welcome back to the characters, but I guess I just want to begin today's episode by the way joined, of course, by Josh Etnjermantham. Welcome back to the show, Josh. Yeah, it's good to be back. Oh, I guess I just want to begin the show. It's just like talking about probably the least juice primary that's ever occurred.

I mean, this thing is on rails. I mean, there's no, there's only characters. There's no stories to be had here. And of course, it's all taken place under the backdrop of right after we started recording a stop recording or last episode, US and Great Britain begins missile strikes on Yemen. And I guess I'd like to begin with Yemen today before we get into the election. I don't know.

I mean, it's just Biden expanding this conflict into a regional war to help facilitate Israel's total liquidation of the Gaza strip. How do you think this guy, how do you think this is going to play out, fellas? Yeah. Well, I, for the past couple months, I wrote a bunch about the stuff, like how you guys have covered it too. I wrote a bunch about the war and Gaza and the background for that. And the more I wrote about it, the more I kind of was drawn the specific character of Joe Biden.

I don't want to, it's very important to realize how bipartisan the pro-Israel policies are. You don't want to make it out, Biden's a single person doing this and everybody else is really reasonable. But he is really crazily biased. He's like, I think somebody described it as like an obsession of being pro-Israel.

Like I caught him, I think, in one article in Israel, Boo. And I think that that's actually kind of insulting to real weaboo's, because even they don't obsess over Japan this badly. Like the sheer length and the sheer like intensity. And do weaboo's, I was just, sorry, do weaboo's, do they support the Imperial Japanese military? Because like, that's the equivalent.

Some of them. Okay. Well, some of them do, but to reach Joe Biden's level, they would have to get like unit 731 tattoos. Yeah. Biden's like the Mishima, but like if Mishima lived in Delaware, but for his own. Well, I mean, like I could actually,

Mishima provides an interesting example for a way out of the Democrats electoral woes, if you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. But I mean, I guess like, I mean, and I read your piece about like, you know, like how his failure in Palestine is the failure of administration.

And you lay out a lot of examples about how other administrations have, you know, in the past like well as you quite correctly put it out Like still supporting Israel 100% did attempt to did you know like sort of bring them to heal at various moments I mean there and there's a famous example that I didn't know was about how Joe Biden specifically undermined Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State to tell Matt and Yahoo like don't worry about what Hillary is talking about We got your bill. Yeah, you can play a crazy game to figure out which politicians buy it and it's up making it look really reasonable and like statesmen like with how just insanely pro Israel he is.

Like the first one that I kind of focused on in my article was John Kerry. It's like, okay, that's a little funny. He's like the kind of this goofy centrist also, but it makes sense. He's also the VVA W guy. He has these weird personal kind of little quirks. It kind of makes sense that he could have gone this little personal crusade. But Hillary was the one that really shocked me. If you guys know what I'm talking about, there's this great mother Jones article by Noah Lennard that was published about a month ago about Biden's history on being like basically one of

the top Zionists in the US government for half a century. And there was this one incident in 2009 where that in Yahoo announced a major settlement at Spanchenwald. Biden was visiting the country in Schillery, Killery Clinton put Netanyahu on her death list. She said that like if he doesn't reverse that decision, she will, there will be like unherited consequences for the bilateral relation. And Biden goes up to Netanyahu while this is happening.

It says, I don't worry about it. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna smooth it over. You don't need to, like, and she wasn't able, she threw it completely under the bus. That was Hillary Clinton. Yeah, he's supposed to screwed Hillary from the right. Reading your piece, Josh, I just like, in assessing like, what is it about like Israel

that Biden is so fixates on? Like I just couldn't help get the impression that he's like, was born a Dixie Krat but came into politics. And that was out of fashion. And he just sort of has channeled all of the Dixie Krat instinct into just supporting Israel. And the way he talks about Israel and the way he,

the way he just like, as you saw in the White House statement today, marking 100 days of this conflict, like not a single mention of all the Palestinians who have been killed thus far. Just simply, we've got to bring home the hostages. It's such a bizarre personal thing. One thing I've thought about is maybe his Catholicism kind of plays a role in it, like his, like that,

like he talks, he has two stories that he's talked about for like 50 years He always talks about go to my air is my time. I'll go to my air for 50 years It's like when he met go to my air in 1973 is part of a delegation from the Nixon administration and she like said like St. Wisdom to him and he was totally like like one over by it and now he's a knockout Mac Yeah, I'm for days Yeah, and he hasn't changed his mind. We turn her upside down. She looks like a sexy lady.

Yeah. Uh, Josh, the other example you used the, there was a insane, I think this has been widely shared, but the example of Joe Biden freaking out Minachem Bacon at like his bloodlust. Yeah. Yeah. This is a really crazy stroke. In case you don't know, Manacom Bacon was a terrorist. He ran a terrorist group in the 1940s.

Shout out Eli Lake. Yeah. Yeah. He had a Manacom Bacon shirt. Friend of the show. Yeah. I look great. He's been going nuts lately.

But I gotta say, just as a slight digression here, I'm really enjoying the reappearance of Eli Lake. A guy I haven't thought about in probably five or six years. But no, when Israel and the United States are really opening up the throttle, Eli is back there right up right front and center saying, I demand a boycott of South Africa until they're being state apartheid. He has a crazy intensity. He is leaving nothing, holding nothing back. It is really something else. But the other story Biden always gives to his plan to support for Israel

is that his dad told him about the Holocaust when he was a kid and he was like, damn, that's crazy. And that kind of like getting to that point where you're thinking about like the trauma that he got from his father who was probably born in like 1879, it's like, what are we doing here? I would, I would love, I would love to hear Joe Biden's dad explain the Holocaust.

Yeah. If I had a time machine, I'm not like, I'm not preventing Iran Contra, I'm not helping Napoleon win Waterloo. I'm not doing any of that. I'm listening to Joe Biden's dad, the only white middle class guy who, you know, just did not fall out in the 1950s. Somehow things got worse for him. I would love to listen to that guy explain

what he thinks happened. Does he think that they threw all the Jews into a mol as barrel perhaps? Yeah. Find out. Yeah, this was before like the internet. So he was getting this all from like the news, like newspapers. He probably like said some, it obviously left a great impression on him. But yeah, so he's been nuts on this for decades. Like there's another great sort of anecdote

in the mother Jones story where he gave a speech at A-PAC that was so intense he was like screaming and beating his chest talking about like how much he was always going to support Israel and it supposedly made the A-PAC attendees really uncomfortable which is a feat. I can't imagine how we've done that. This is definitely one of those like white boy shocks by ordering imperfect Cantonese type things. Yeah. Gentile surprises everyone. Yeah, outer goons them all.

Yeah, it was like, it's like the emotional intensity, the best way I can describe it is showing up to a suicide vest, still like a Chinese restaurant and yelling in Chinese, but how much you love them. Like, if we could to clip it here, I'll try to link it after the episode, but he goes crazy. He's like screaming at the top of his lungs

like in this clip. What makes them think that in the midst of an election campaign, in the midst of a so-called peace talk in the midst of a so-called peace talk that we can publicly vilify a nation. Do you think that Shimmer in the middle of a reelection campaign is going to say, man, Cooper, man, Cooper, man, Moxima, Cooper? I am sorry, I am sorry, I am hardly sorry, I will change my mind, reelect me. The other one is like, yeah, there's a Monocle Bacon story

where he goes to Monocle Bacon and he's like, yo, if they invaded the US, if like they did that shit to us, I would fucking kill everybody. I would not leave anybody alive. I killed the children, I killed the women, I'll kill a shit. I mean, Monocle Bacon like had to be like, yeah, let's not what I believe.

I think that you can't kill innocent people. He had to tell us the Israeli press that. Well, I mean, we see now the repeated assurances that they're focusing all their efforts on lowering the intensity of the atrocities taking place. But I just want to make two points about the air strikes on Yemen. The first is a head one for the New York Times.

Much of Houthi's offensive ability remains intact after US-led air strikes. The strike's damage to the group's ability to carry out complex missile and drone attacks, US officials said. But identifying targets has proved to be a challenge. Next story, courtesy of the Washington Post, Navy SEALs lost its sea. The Navy SEALs lost its sea. The Navy SEALs lost its sea after a ship boarding operation went around your Somalia last week were dispatched to look for suspected Iranian weapons bound for militants in Yemen, which has become a

staging ground for repeated attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Two service members were missing. We're preparing to board the ship in a rough seas when one of them slipped from a ladder. The second sailor, sealing their comrade fall into water, dove into help. The official set on condition of anonymity to describe the early assessments. The incidents occurred Thursday in the Gulf of Adden, Aiden. So that's how it's going so far for the coalition

to protect shipping containers. But like, Felix, I guess I'm just like struck this week by like the sheer arrogance of some of these people demanding that like we have a coalition of the Wic willing to protect shipping lanes but just the sheer arrogance that they think that they're going to intimidate the Yemeni people with a couple of airstrikes and to not doing this and also to echo our good friend Shamus that flat refusal by our government and media to say why they're doing any of this they're like oh they just they just hate these boats so much.

I mean, like, I don't think there's any phrase that, you know, this originated as a phrase that guys and Michael Hudson would find on Facebook would say, fuck her out and find out. I used to be delighted when I saw that because it meant I would see one of the guys Michael found, like, there was this great guy who every time people in this town got mad at him he would take a picture of him laying face down in the field to symbolize that everyone wanted him dead. That was the kind of guy that used to stay

fucked around and find out and now it's like for people who who have, they are collecting unpaid internships, like a guy in a prison gang gets teardrop tattoos. They, like, the moment that they were like, yeah, we're doing an operation, you know, Amazon. A Sparody Guardian. A Sparody Guardian, which you might as well call an operation, Amazon Prime. Just, you know, oh, well, the, the hoothies fucked around, and now they're about to find out. And it has been one of the most nauseating displays I've ever seen, mostly because

of, yeah, just the willful ignorance that you and Scheme has pointed out. But also, just I would assume that these people, I will generously say that I think they're probably aware that there has been, let's generously call it a conflict in Yemen for the, you know, last near decade. More adequately, you could call it hell on earth inflicted by a Western and Gulf coalition, but I don't think they know that the depths that the Saudi-Zue and of course America assisting the whole thing has inflicted on them. I mean, it has been a complete strangulation of Yemen for nine years. Just outright starvation, some of the worst food insecurity on the face of the planet.

The only people who seem to be doing triple tabs besides Israel regularly, but I just can't imagine that the Navy seals, you know, doing three-stuigest stuff in the sea are going to be the thing that causes answer a lot to throw down their arms. And even more farcical, I've seen a lot of invocations from the Globe emoji set. A lot of invocations defending the quote legitimate government of Yemen, who they're like oh my god. Controls like, they're just like, oh like the the Houthis aren't Yemen, they don't represent Yemen, it's just like no no, no, merely the vast majority, the population and like where everyone lives in that country. And then the rest of it is controlled by like,

Saudis who live in hotel rooms. Yeah, I mean, like, I just, I don't know how this ends. I mean, I guess like it could be one of those things where the Navy screws around for like a few weeks and declares victory. That seems like the best possible outcome. But yeah, I have no way of calling this because they themselves don't even really think that they're doing deterrents here.

Yeah, there was some a tweet by James Strodivus who was on Twitter and he summarized the recent strike by saying, the good news is that no one is injured the bad news is that they obviously have not gotten the message to cease and assist probably going to require additional military strikes to discourage them it's literally just saying them like no uh... colon like what we'd say

the michael strikes didn't work time for more missile strikes they have no they have no they have no fucking clue what they're doing other than to just like we have to keep supporting Israel. And I guess that leads us to the Iowa caucuses and the miserable state of contemporary, the state of our democracy. But I want to be, I want to begin with the Iowa caucuses by just acknowledging that like, this is a race for second place, you know, But I guess I was begin by saying, and you know, I want to preface this by saying, whenever I say this, people always assume

it's because I want him to be president, or I think he's cool. And only the latter is true. But Trump, in my opinion, is cooking right now. He is cooking up some marvelous shit. And I got two words. This is how I know, this is how I know Trump is in fighting shape right now.

Food and phantom, those two elements combining. He's showing up, given he's showing up with big boxes of pizzas for the firefighters. Whatever Trump is around food, he's rare and to go. And then even better than that, he is filling, filling rooms in Iowa right now, full of corn feds, and blasting the movie soundtrack not the Broadway recording of Phantom of the Opera to them the Gerard Butler version of

Phantom of the Opera not the original cast recording the man is ready to go he is unstoppable I can't scream, but you're not something like you knew before. Is your eyes yet to see the stars? It's so loud. He's a huge... He's a huge Broadway guy. Yeah, like huge. Yeah, huge. It's like one of the most important things in his life.

Yeah, but you can't psychoanalyze him without having Washington move like the cats several times. No, his victory speech, he's gonna come out to cats. He's gonna be negative 50 degrees. People are gonna be losing digits. They're gonna be going insane. But we haven't done, we haven't really talked about Trump recently, but Chris, you have curated just some quick hits of some recent fire

from Donald. So let's just take a look and just some of the energy he's bringing these days. Okay, this is from the presentation he gave that he was led into by that very same phantom music. I could read that telepompter all day long. Biden can't even read the teleprompter the other day, Matt. He's given a thing, he's a news conference because he hasn't had one in about six years or something.

You can't have it, you can't have a news. Say, Pixar, hey guys. Bill from NBC, NBC, OV, uh, so did I ask him a very simple question like about vanilla ice game. But then they actually asked him a question about a border or something. So it goes, they ask him a question, Bill from NBC, they ask him a question.

The border is very strong. It's very normal and things are going very well on the border. Thank you very much for the news kind of thank you. And then he walks into a wall. I mean, he's this is vintage form for him. Yeah. There was a headline I saw the other day that really like felt like something out of 2015. It was Trump sounds off on the Civil War. Again, it goes after John McCain and criticizes magnets. That is.

He was once again, once again, shitting on John McCain. Yeah. I've got him on the Civil War. I actually really like this one. I don't want to make, because she also said, you know, they asked her about the Civil War, what did it start, how did it start. She didn't use the word slavery, which was interesting.

I don't know that it's going to have an impact, but, you know, I'd say slavery is sort of the obvious answer. I'm supposed to, supposed to about three paragraphs of bullshit. She just talked nobody knew what she was talking about. You was totally right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I let you do the magnets thing because I don't know where he was going with that.

Yeah, I have the quote. Yeah, where he said, yeah, this is when the magnetic elevators think of it magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets and that's the end of magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets and that's the end of magnets. He's like, this is them. They're not shit. They ain't shit. I don't know if it matters. I like the heat, like, that his instinct was to say, like magnets aren't like, they're overrated. Yeah. I mean, you may like their adhesion to one another, but get them wet.

Nope, fall apart worthless. I don't think that's even true. I think it's true. I don't think so either. Yeah. Yeah. I think they still work. When the magnetic elevators,

think of it, magnets. Now, will I know about magnets as this? Give me a glass of water. Let me drop it on the magnet. That's the end of the magnet. So why didn't they use John Deere? Why didn't they bring in the John Deere people? Do you like John Deere?

I like John Deere. Oh, Chris, do you have the other one where he calls Wattings and DC a rat and festive chitole? I do have that, yes, once I can. We'll fly it, then we'll get into Haley and to say this I We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation horribly what we have a capital That we all learn right now. It's a

threat infested graffiti infested I always forget about graffiti infested as well and the poppy gets when he was like our nation's capital is a shithole. They're like, woo! Alright! Yeah. So that's that's that's Trump. But like Josh, is Nikki Haley like is she the is she the favorite to be number two tonight? Oh yeah. Well, the big thing that came out that like I this was like at the former people like who like make a living of a fault Like she's making fun of people for caring about this There was the Selsar poll the famous poll that the people to judge people spiked in 2020 because it showed Bernie ahead

It came out this is like a pollster that it's like basically like black magic level They're always right in that state like they basically get the results early. They showed a Haley ahead of Trump, obviously, really far ahead of them, both at 48%. But Haley was in second place at 20% of the Sanctus was like 13. So like odds are, unless there's some crazy thing with turnout because of the weather, that will be how it goes and that will be a really crushing blow for the Sanctus. This was supposed to be, this was like the state he was investing in. It was not supposed to be one where Haley would do well, but like coming in third is just like, it's beyond terrible for him. But the interesting thing is that Haley is doing this with the coalition that does not like her, does not care about her,

and is not even really Republicans. They have the lowest enthusiasm levels of any candidate in the race, and half of them say to the vote for Biden over Trump, but that is still a larger demographic than DeSantis has. Oh, man. And I guess the point you make about Nikki Haley is that like, I mean, she's obviously not running for president. She's, but she's doing a good job

of running for increased stature in the Republican Party because she is feeling that kind of position of being like, oh, I'm not Donald Trump, I'm a responsible Republican, but remains well-liked by Republicans because she has avoided talking about Trump, or is it like, is it, how is she positioned herself in that way?

I think that what she has gotten, which I think is really remarkable, I think she's one of the, probably the more successful politicians over the past year, given where she started, is that she set herself up very well to be the, I told you so candid in case Trump loses, because if Trump ends up losing the Biden somehow,

if that happens, Haley will be the person who will just be able to say, oh, I told you so, I said he wasn't electable, I said he was opposed, to who made the deficit too big and was it nice to where allies, I would have won. And she, well, she's right. She probably would have won and that circumstance. So that is like the thing that will position her very

strongly going into like 20, 28 or beyond that. And the thing is, is that was, is what the Sanctus was supposed to be. The worst case scenario for the Sanctus if he didn't just outright win, is that he would be the future guy in case Trump loses. He doesn't even have that anymore, partially because Haley is going to outdo him, like very likely, outdo him, and partially because he's actually not even polling better than Trump. His numbers have been consistently worse than Trump over the past like six months, which is he is managed to make himself the least liked politician in America without having governed America.

But you say he hasn't done anything. I mean, you're like, whatever happens in this Iowa caucus tonight. Like, I mean, the last time we talked about you is like, whatever happens in this Iowa caucus tonight, like, it's just, I mean, the last time we talked about you is like, we said it was going to be the last time we're going to talk about Rondasantis, but whatever happens in Iowa, like the headline is, Rondasantis America's biggest failure. Yeah. I created an award that I will use for the foreseeable future called the Rondasantis

Award for Political Failure. That wasn't very like, probably like hard to guess who got it last year, but I want to commemorate that because like I posted like I think before coming on this the New York post headline the from the midterms last year that just said, DeFuture. And like I feel like people could see that as me making fun of them. But that was warranted. He did he came into the last year in such an amazing position. He did legitimately really well in Florida. He looked like he had like a really strong profile.

And now he's just like the awkward guy who nobody likes. And like it's just, it's personally his fault in a way that you rarely see at this level of polarization and politics. It's, you don't usually see people's personalities have this level of an impact, but he was just that uncompaling to people that he broke through. And you could tell the tension like building,

and the tension building, and that like evidence of which, I mean, like the lengths with which he was willing to go to degrade himself to like appear two inches taller. Or capable of talking to a human being, like a pure two inches taller. Oh, yeah. Capable of talking to a human being. Like, I mean, the lifts, the cowboy shoe lifts, they had a walkin' bowlegged, like Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I don't know how tall the Sanctus is. I think he's like five, eight or something. Trump is six, three. So he's actually probably lucky to Trump in a show up at the Bates that would not have looked very good. So, I guess it's like, Haley there, but how about a VVAC? You know, like, is America's VVAC moment also rapidly drawing to a close?

That was really disappointing because I thought that looked really interesting for a bit because he was like polling. He was like, I think he and Haley were the only ones who understood that they couldn't really win this year and like the point was just establishing a profile. And Vivek actually looked really good there for a moment. He was pulling like over 10%, but the debates killed him. He was so annoying in debates. I think like people, there were like some surveys that like, whole people before and after and he consistently had worse numbers after the debates. He like hurt himself. So a griperism is not like for now.

Yeah, because like that's kind of what was interesting to me about Vivek because he, this was sort of the first, you know, you could make like masters out to be one of those early luft-waffa jet airplanes that was like three three feet long and looked like it would explode the moment it got off the runway. He was the prototype in like a very the only internet candidate. He is only focused on internet shit. Vivek was the refinement of this and it looked like he was actually like, you know, obviously yeah, no one thought he would win the whole thing, but it seemed like he was doing very well at positioning himself to either be like, you know, the head of the party in 2028 or to maybe be like, you know, Trump's like the anti-woke disinvestor. Exactly.

Yeah. And. Investor to Harvard. like the anti-woke disinvested or exactly yeah and Ambassador to Harvard. Yeah, he did the he did the internet thing better than anyone has ever done it Like I sincerely believe he sat down and studied his gruyper's yeah, he collected them all But yeah, the moment he he got out on the stage. It was just, yeah, everyone realized, maybe he was a little too good at the internet stuff. Yeah. And he also, he got out internet it. I think the, like in any history of this, the I edge to you, Vivek has to be an important part of his story because he, like, never had

a response to that. Yeah. And that was a real grassroots movement. I've been interested in Vivek's recent strategy of making the case to voters that he stands with Donald Trump 100% but that they should still vote for him. I like that the reason he's come around on is that they should vote for him to save Donald Trump's life

because having him being president will kill him or the deep state will assassinate him. So he's like vote for me. Like I'm young, I'm, I'm spry. And you know, like I can withstand either, you know, the ravages of age or an assassination attempt. Yeah. There was a clip of like him talk to an old woman and like a very like kind of whispering to her, like, look, we love Trump, but they're not going to let him do it. They're going to take him out. and it was so morbid. I look, he's so, like, if he legitimately believed that,

I would love him because it's like, it's like, are you carry you from Yakuza? You're so self-sacrificing. My life isn't worth that much. I'm gonna dive in front of the bullet for Donald Trump. But I mean, yeah, just he's just a great operator. That is the, that is, I will say the best response anyone has come up with for the question of like,

okay, if you're, if you agree with Trump on everything, why you instead of Trump, that's pretty genius. Yeah, they're gonna actually kill him. They hate him too much, but not me. They're like, I'll be able to sneak by them. Yeah. He could have been a really perfect figure for our times because he had the money in the exact way, some bullshit like zero percent interest rate like biotech company. Yeah. He had one of those companies where they're like, they leaked to the press like, oh, in preliminary trials,

we found a way to either annihilate colon cancer in people's bodies or give it to somebody. We found a way to give it to your employees. Wait, is there one of those companies where you can mail them your shit and they'll tell you if you're at risk for colon cancer? No, he's at run 23 to me. So going into New Hampshire, it's just going to be like, that's the real shit. That's actually like micro-dosing a real election there. That one, Haley actually does have kind of a chance to win because Christy dropped out and supposedly like 80% of Christy's voters want to go to her because she's the rhino candidate.

And I think we're at the point where no matter what happens, Trump will get his LBJ in 1968 moment there. Because even if he doesn't, when he looks like he's only attracted with by 10 points maximum, which would be an earthquake, if there was any other state in the country that was New Hampshire, there's no other place that is similar to it in the Republican primary. So, Haley could actually have a pretty impressive showing there, but there's no other places that are similar to it. So, her ceiling looks really limited. Winning a state, like if she ends up winning there, that would be pretty impressive. I think like she'd been the media obviously, loves her. They blow her up a lot.

But she's, I think she's already set herself up quite nicely. I don't know if Trump will make her his VP, but if Trump loses, she is in a good position, which is like a lot, like I'm pretty big accomplishment for somebody like who hasn't been in public office since 2018. The New Hampshire is like, in some ways they're the dumbest voters in the nation because they vote exactly along the recommended lines of like

US news and world report. Yeah, they are really annoying. I do not. Oh my god. Yeah They're I remember we can't this new hampshire. It's just like the New Hampshire primary is like several hundred thousand people who all think themselves independent, but really just want to extract confession extract concessions from anyone who talks to them Because it's like once every four years, it's just like, oh, everyone has to look to think about New Hampshire. Historically, they are fucking inferior. They're like, oh, well, let's vote for Amy Klobuchar now.

It's like, you know, fucking kill yourself, shut up. They're like, they're the waltier phrase of American debate. Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. That is, yes. There's a flinty stubborn, just like willing to prosecute any grievance or grudge, trying to marry off all their daughters, you know, but just basically wants to ring as much out of anyone's attention as possible. Yeah, it was kind of perfect that they like John McCain.

And like, and controlling that bridge is like being the second primary. That's it. That's the thing they have. John McCain was like the moddy for it. That's the thing they have. John McCain was like the moddy for them. That was their perfect fucking guy. Yeah, they loved him. They made him a national figure.

It was nuts. Yeah. Uh, we cannot sell, we cannot sell New Hampshire off to China quick enough. Yeah. I don't know what they'll do with it, but they said it. Yeah, they're also a state where Biden is doing bizarrely well, like right now. He's up there by like 10 points They don't fuck with Trump. They don't like him. Well, yeah, probably just that probably because they have long they all have long memories about like the repeated insults the John McCain's work time

Yeah, I think I'm I'm basically being tortured by that actually be it. No that no that's weird though because Trump did amazing there in 2016, which was sort of like that's when he was hot off the trail of He lost in Iowa. They were like, oh, let's be clever. Let's look for the guy who lost who we're so fucking smart Like I hate them. I hate them so much. They're awful like I remember like Iowa I remember walking away despite like how fucked up the Iowa primary was and how they they did the day of Corby A. Towel trick to Bernie. They I remember watching interviews with caucus goers in 2020 and like the Biden people who who were get losing in like ninth place.

Yeah. They were losing to like right ends and I watched the Biden voters in Iowa. They were just like, well, we'll just see how this shakes out. And it was just so delightful and charming to me. There's this insane clip. I don't know if I dreamed this or not, but it was on CNN, like live coverage of the caucuses. And they were like going to different groups of these voters in this one place.

And the Biden group was all like these guys, they were 17, just like screaming and hollering, like a bunch of fracas. Like, yeah, we love Joe. Like they were like, he was a elaborate bit. I want to know where those guys are now. I have not stopped thinking about that. Yeah, I, I, it does suck. And I think the Democratic primary,

New Hampshire kicked Biden off the ballot for moving the ring of the primary, making South Carolina first. So that, you would think that would be like a possibility for Dean Phillips or something to like just win by default there, but the stupid cut voters there are probably gonna write in by into it anyway. So lame.

I mean, like we have got to have a primary system where all states vote on the same day or every year it's a lot of us, we just mix it up because I'm so sick of these corn feds and these New Hampshire or these New Hampshire rights. I don't even know what you call them, just like not even good enough to be a Stephen King character

because they live in New Hampshire. This, yeah, the way that the presidential primary has laid out, it is like a Ubisoft game trying to pad for length. It is the open world system of politics. Yeah, Nevada's the escort mission. Yeah, South Carolina's sock. They kept up glitching.

Joe Biden at Wal-Hax and South Carolina is fake. South Carolina was so glitched out that Pete Pete Warren in the black vote. Yeah. So, like, you know, like this thing is on rails. It's going to be Trump Biden, you know, another grim, horrible reenactment of how stuck and miserable everything is. Like, look, my instinct right now was like, just eyeball test, what I'm seeing from Trump, I think this guy's cruising into a second term. However, Josh, I do want to acknowledge

that I think you have a good point about the limits of the kind of campaign Trump is running now in 2034. And it's like, just like, rather, you talk about like, he's choice to focus on basically just like grievance and anger rather than like many of the issues in which he has a quite a You know significant advantage over Joe Biden. Yeah, so if you look at like polling right now Trump is preferred over Biden on pretty much every issue besides abortion Which oh wow could make you and like protecting democracy or ever they phrase it

But he's especially preferred and this was what I think is really interesting on foreign policy. He has a big edge on Biden over almost every foreign policy issue because, um, and this is another really significant part of that that I'll get to later because people think of him as more competent than Biden, which is harder for people to really kind really wrap their heads around because that wasn't the dynamic at all in 2020. But you have to, like, the other stuff is saying the most people think that buy it is too old to be president. They think that, like, he doesn't have it. He's, like, 81 years old.

He, like, physically is not up for the job. They think that Trump is more spry and energetic and with it. So they think that he'll be more like a capable of projecting strength and managing crises. And every time that there's another war that happens, the more this reputation gets solidified, the Ukraine thing dragging on looks mixed by it and looking competent. The Israel thing erupting makes them look even worse, the war expanding makes them look even worse. So it's like it's a very bizarre way of thinking about it, but Trump

would actually be best if he tried to steal Biden's own branding as the kind of quiet competence Victor. Like he's the guy who you just like put in there and you hear about mean tweets, but generally stuff is kind of peaceful like it was during his first term. I don't think he can conceptualize himself in that way because he's so hooked up to all these internet dark Maggis shit that like make it this like black and white thing where like Biden is like a demon from hell Most people don't like really think about Biden that much or they're just thinking that he's generally not good at being president and The Trump presided over a more like peaceful kind of successful Presidency until COVID happened and the part of that is that people are starting to see him

actually as a moderate again. People used to see him as very conservative and ideological during his late presidency, which is why I think he did so poorly. But now people see him as kind of like this new Trump who like is corrupt in press and like power hungry. But he's like a bad cop who gets shit done. It's like a classic kind of 2000s prestige media archetype. Like he's Tony Soprano.

Walter White. Yeah, but he's Walter White. And like literally they see him as like a torture genius. If that's how the media invotor sees Trump, it's really bizarre, but you have to kind of get into like this different headspace. And Biden focusing on the economy, which is like, and raising the salience of his worst issue and looking totally out of touch, really helped with that. So all that stuff kind of

can together to change the polling from a slight Biden lead to now what we've seen like small to moderately robust Trump leads. But the biggest thing holding Trump back is how right-wing he is and how right-wing his record is. So you have some states where there are more suburban and more kind of affluent, like kind of soccer mob voters, like Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Trump is pulling extremely well right now. He's actually pulling very poorly in northern industrial swing states. He's out right down in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

He's doing better in Michigan, but that's like the polling there is like, it's a bit strange, like you kind of have to use some common sense there. And the really great thing about that is that if Trump totally sweeps all of his 2020 states, wins Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, he loses. Michigan was constantly in Pennsylvania. He loses by a single electoral vote, 270 to 268. It's going to be a squeaker. That's for sure. But like, I guess just like, when you present the case for why the public has essentially a fixed view of Biden, as I'm sorry a Daughtering old fool and if you want to go further than that One who is not just presiding over but helping carry out probably one of the most evil things that's ever

I've ever had the displeasure of being alive to live through or experience in some Remote distant way, but like they like the way Democratic partisans talk about this is that they're just like, oh, people are so stupid, it's so unfair. How could you possibly think this about, that Trump is more moderate than Biden or that he presided over a more peaceful country or better economy? And it's just like, turn on your fucking TV.

I know you can like make quibble with each one of these things, but like, look at the fucking world right now. And it's not just that like all these wars are happening. It's that like we're being humiliated in all of them. We're being humiliated right now. I mean, the Ukraine thing is a disaster. But Israel especially, like they're they're pissing in our mouth right now and on the world stage. And Biden is just like, oh, I'll have a stern talking to them again tomorrow. I mean, even if you don't like, even if you're not like,

especially motivated by the morality of this issue, just as like the stewardship of state, of the American state and our military, how can you, how can you expect the average person to look at what Biden's doing right now and be like, a, okay, we love it, more please. Yeah, and that's the thing that like people try to make this a question of the economy,

like, oh, people are just distracted by TikTok. They don't realize all the good that Spideon's done. And yet his numbers on the economy are bad. But it wasn't inflation that made him so unpopular. It was how we butchered the fall of Afghanistan, which was one of his better decisions. But it be looked like a competent bozo, couldn't like get stuff like you couldn't manage things. When things weren't like a bit like less hectic in 2022 there was really only the Ukraine war going on which people kind of agreed on

his position with his numbers went up and he was at the start of 2023 he actually had a lot of momentum but he totally crashed and burned and it's fallen to record low approval like worst numbers of his entire presidency as the international situation is deteriorated over the past number of months. He's below 40% now. He's trailing the Trump in the polls. And if Trump went on like a new Trump kind of thing where he, I think that he has benefited a lot from siphoning himself off in his own social media app where people don't see him. He's kept himself out of sight, out of mind. And he obviously is very easy to go after. Like, he's not like a formidable candidate.

But if the Biden people keep on talking themselves into a circle and just acting like we're entitled to people believing that we're good, this is an obvious choice. Like, they're gonna give a huge opening for him to present himself in a way that actually is compelling to people, but she never has been able to. He's always been very unpopular. Is there any, I mean, I know like one of your other big losers in all this is Kamala Harris.

But like, is there, is there any chance that like he does the thing that basically he said he was gonna do when he was elected is just be like the one term caretaker president. Get rid, you know, we stop Trump, but I'm gonna hand it off to like someone younger and like who can, you know, or just like, I've done my job. I got us out of COVID or whatever, and I got rid of the Trump. Is there any chance that they just get him

to the convention and then he bows out and they give it to like, I don't know, Michelle Obama or Hillary or something? No, I, there doesn't seem to be any indication that he seems really committed to doing this, which like it sucks because you have to actually kind of consider his own personal psychology here, which, again, is very humiliating. Like I don't like having to think about the inside of this guy who is elected during the

Nixon administration any more than I ever should. But like, there's not, like, one guy, actually, I don't know if you guys have talked about Dean Phillips, but he is, like, this random is like this random like total like back venture around of a congressman who torpedoes his own career to wanting to run a campaign saying that Biden was too old and people didn't like him and he was probably going to lose and he's been told lay shut out by the Democratic establishment. They make fun of him constantly, which I always find very like this tasteful because it's like yeah, this guy who's down by like 30, 50 points in the polls, probably going to lose, like, you don't need to brag about it all the time. He's trying to make a point that could

be something you could try to do. He at least, there's some kind of like pathos to what he's doing and he's correct. Well, if you're not, his campaign was just given a million dollars by Bill Ackman. And that guy knows how to pick winners. So Dean Phillips, the herbal life of this campaign. But Josh, you're right. It's like, whether it's like their attacks on candidates that obviously are not, or just protest candidates that are not like a threat to Biden's, you know, getting the nomination,

it's just like they're sheer arrogance and indignants that anyone who wants a candidate different than Biden. Like for any reason, I mean, like, yeah, I saw one, I saw one Democratic mouthpiece describe Arab and Muslim voters refusing to vote for Biden as could a temper tantrum. Yeah. And like, I mean, that's really how they feel about Biden. And they just like, it's just the anger

with which they react to people is like, not even like someone like me who says if you vote for Biden you're lower than dog shit in my eyes. But like just someone who's just like, you know, maybe you could be doing a better job or like, it shouldn't we have another candidate to vote for? Or just like, maybe I'm not like 100% thrilled about the job he's done. Yeah, and like, it's been very interesting if they keep like that attitude because right now Michigan does look like it's going to be the state that will decide the election. Oh man. Oh man. I can't wait to see some of the outreach that's going to be done. I can't wait. I can't wait to see the, it's a lot of, a lot of meetings with community leaders.

I'm sure he's going to be very happy to go out there to meet with him this week. That's going to be so that should be great. Looks like what? Okay, the outer hour is going to work. I think he's going to say to them. I think it's going to work. I think he's got it. Yeah. Well, as long as we have the Democratic primary, I don't know, is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

you're still running as a Democrat? He's got in the battle in Utah. He's going to pull Steve ahead. Okay. Well? He is. He got in the battle in Utah. He's going full steam ahead. Okay. Well, tonight is, of course, Martin Luther King Day. And I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the story about RFK Jr. Defense Kennedy administration wiretap of Martin Luther King. It's just sort of like, once again, Robert F.

RFK Jr. Who is he running for here? Like, who is the, who is the ideal Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voter? Where he's just like, oh, like like oh like yeah like we were right to wire to we were right so and if you read the article it's just basically he's saying that Jay Groover wanted to destroy Martin Luther King for being a communist so we allowed him to wire tap him to prove that he wasn't a communist that kind of fire our care I get it I get it I get it actually I know I kind of fire RFK. I get it. I get it. I get it, actually. I know I kind of get his point.

I mean, yeah, it's moronic and I mean most of all like a lot of RFK's positions needless. You know, this was not a thing that like no one, not even RFK's idiotic voters were like, he needs to have a position on the wirecapping of MLK. Yes, like I need to know where he stands on this. Yeah, that his dad did. Yeah, it's like, Moronic needless, honest.

Interesting, and honest, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That is the thing that is hard for people to cut. People have kind of saw like that he's polling at 20% and have just kind of swept that is the thing that i've is hard for people to cut people to kind of thought that he's pulling at twenty percent and if just kind of swept that under the road like okay we can't really consider this is a bit too much but i think it makes us a lot of sense in a lot of ways because we're basically have to and come and spice of like

one clip of an rf k video actually made a kind of click for me where he was saying like by the nantrumper talking about like how much they've done for this country but i've been around places and it actually sucks. And I was like, oh, I kind of, I get it. I kind of get it a little bit. Yeah, yeah. He's like, he has a certain appeal to like people who claim the same thing keeps happening to them at different restaurants and their yellow m at you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay, I can see it. And that, honestly, that's at least one fifth of Americans. Yeah, if you're not really committed to either party

and you're one of the a lot of people who disagree with both Trump and Biden, and you don't want them to be elected president, he's going out there. He's like, the one thing that he just talked about constantly that I also think is pretty smart is housing, where he's like, housing was bad under both Trump and Biden. They don't have a solution for it.

It's like, you know what, that's kind of true. That's correct. Like, you suck, but like, that's right. Like, it was bad. It did suck. Like, stuff has been pretty miserable. I guess one more note about Martin Luther King Day. I believe today was the much touted announcement

of Charlie Kirk's take down of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Act. I'll be looking forward to seeing what's in that. Yeah, he did it. No, he did it. Yep. So for some taking down the statue on the national ball. Yeah.

Yeah, I got a better perspective if he did a good job. Well, best of luck to Charlie on that. I'll be waiting to see what he came out with. I get in respect if he get a good job. Well, best of luck to Charlie on that. I'll be waiting to see what he came out with. But I don't know. I guess it's just like, or I don't know, final thoughts going into like, just a truly depressing spectacle

of a trope Biden general election. I mean, is this gonna be a record low turnout election? I mean, I guess this is why I am committed to not voting in this election because I think it's like the only rational moral choice one can make and I think like I would like to see an election where the majority of Americans don't vote. You're not gonna help get the RFK party get federal funding. I mean look If it breaks it off and Biden's sold ass all of them. Yes. I hope he does. Yeah Well, the thing is is that that's frustrating about it, is that they could be really

killing it here. Like, there's polling out there that shows, like, well, Biden's down by eight in Michigan, the governor there, Whitmer is up by five. The New York Times polling had a generic Democrat up by like 15 points in every swing state. They're really pushing really hard for Biden. And I think you just have to kind of assume they know something that we don't, which is that he's gonna become a really, really good president

in his second term. He just needed some time to like, on the job. And but he's gonna be like, LBJ next time around. Like he's gonna be doing statesmanship. I knew it. Yeah. Or a camel I could. Camel would be like the greatest president of all time is something I've thought about a

lot lately. I think that that would be a great way to end this past 25 years. We're like the vent diagram lady gets in there and it's just instantly just like a like master of the Senate shit like solves every like solves the Israel Palestine crisis. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You think this is in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. I love that idea. Her is almost like a tino figure. Yeah, or like HW Bush or something. Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of like Kamala ordering the last US troops out of Okinawa. Yeah. Like it's like a coordinating a new era of the end of the empire. Yeah.

Nationalizing health care and stuff. Yeah. That would be the greatest ending. Yeah. She like uh, she creates like Israel Stein. She likes to somehow pulls off that deal that Gaddafi wanted to do where they eliminate Switzerland. Yeah, that's the same thing. We said eliminate Switzerland. She creates like a new world order or something. It's like the Camelot era. She does Gaddafi's United States of Africa. Yeah.

She never communicated through email. That was the truth. All right. Well, let's wrap it up. Let's see what they're for today. If you're if you're in Iowa right now, caulking, just just stay caulking, stay warm. Don't, but just don't stop the caulc. Josh, thank you for joining us. People want to read to read more Josh and and Germantom. They should

check out your sub stack. links will be available in the show description. Yeah, it's going to be a crazy year. We had a good 2023 more lists or yet, I'm going to get back on the art of losing. It's the place to be for the election. I was right in 2022. I was right last year.

Hopefully, I'll be right again. So we'll see if that happens. Do you have any more subjects in the art of losing pipeline? Blake Masters is the one that I'm always keeping on. I'm gonna probably work for years on a Bernie one. I'm gonna have to do some deep studying for that. It's gonna be like 50,000 words. To Sanctus Coda will be good.

I already have the Biden one written out in my mind. I think in general, I was really leaning towards Biden losing for the past couple of months because his people are it's like He's running the Hasbara campaign like it's the same people who are like in charge of that that are in charge of it His thing it's like yeah, there's no way they could do this But when I was writing the Chris Rufo article like two weeks ago I kind of realized that the perfect ending has to be these people somehow losing the Joe Biden so I'm kind of on that

to be these people somehow losing the Joe Biden. So I'm kind of on that now. Okay. All right, gang. I actually have a quick plug. I will be in San Francisco next week, Wednesday, the January 24th with the Talking Simpsons podcast as part of San Francisco sketchfest. Links to that will be in the description.

We will be at 730 Wednesday, January 24th, spending 90 minutes trying to sell the audience to get in on the ground floor of an exciting new urban transportation project related to the Simpsons. So, if you're in San Francisco, come through next Wednesday. Yeah, one last thing. I think we're about ready to announce this now.

Sometime in spring, Josh and I and our friend Spencer, we've been working on a very exciting project for this show. We are, I've alluded to it before, but it is a very exhaustive deep dive into the history of conservative media. All your favorite guys, Stephen Crowder, Jeremy Boring, Roger Er, people that a lot of you were too young for, like James Dobbson, everyone who's ever put on a dress, everyone

who's ever put an Amazon air tag on their wife I've really the life of a guy who took out every senator who ever investigated the CIA and sound that is actually like Jimmy Stewart Yes, all died in parallelization and pain all of these guys all of these guys and more We will delve into the star making process of the conservative mega star We will we will cover the careers several and we will reach a conclusion that I believe a lot of you will find very interesting. This is a six-part series and we, yeah, no, we cannot wait. Yeah. Excellent. Love to hear it. That is the semi-official announcement of a Felix Josh mini-series sometime in the spring. We'll also have movie mindset, season two, sometime, coming up.

And we will have a special video mini series coming up. I think pretty soon too, all this on the Patreon and more. We're sticking with the mini series model what into this year. So stay with us. It's the future. It really just works. To the moon, everybody.

All right, until next time, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye Sing once again with me please do it My power Oh by you grow stronger yet And though you turn from me to glance behind The front of the opera is there inside your mind is there inside your heart.