Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 873: Portland’s ‘War Zone’ Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

This episode of Cognitive Dissinence is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Gloryhole Studios in Chicago and beyond. This is cognitive dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence.

To any topic that makes the news, makes it big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's skeptical. political. And there is. No, welcome at. Today is Thursday, October, the, let's call it about 15th, 16th, somewhere around there. I didn't look at my calendar. I would say, yeah, probably, what is that, seven days from now? So 16th? Yeah. So here we go. We're halfway through it. We're halfway to Halloween, Cecil. We're 10 and a half months into the administration. And if you're hearing this, we've not all been annihilated yet. So that's the good news. I am wondering, because we're recording a show

today about a story from the Atlantic along with a few other ancillary similar stories, right? And the story is Portland's War Zone is like Burning Man for the Terminally Online. That's the story that was written in the Atlantic. We'll have some things to talk about with that particular story. But I wonder how much and how different things will be in seven days. I don't know how different things will be. You know, we have seen this story itself is almost out of date now. And it's, you know, where this story was published relatively recently. Yeah, this story came out seven days ago, October 2nd, and we're recording. And the thing is that, like, the situation on the ground, I think what's interesting about

this story, and part of the reason I wanted to talk about this is that right now in Portland and, you know, less so in Portland and other places, the violence that is taking place. And we saw this during the George Floyd protests, right? The violence that is taking place is largely one-directional, right? I'm not saying entirely, but largely one-directional. And that is a wild overreaction by the police, by the militarized police forces that create conflict and violence. Absent the police in these situations, there would be no violence or there would be relatively little violence. The protesters in Portland from this Atlanta article are in, like, fucking, like, silly costumes.

You know, they're, like, fucking dressed like Pikachu and, like, chickens and shit. And they are outside of, like, the ice center in Portland. There is some stuff that is not quite as innocent, but by and large, not much. But the amplification of tensions is not occurring because there is this tension that exists preexisting in the city, but because these peaceful protests, which are our rights, our First Amendment right to engage in, are being met with violence, are being met with authoritarian crackdowns. So, like, this feels to me, Cecil, like, and I don't know how to say this because I believe in protest and the right to protest and I believe in the First Amendment and the right to peaceably

assemble and petition your government for a redress against wrongs, all of that stuff. but part of me is like, are we playing into their hands to some degree by giving the government something to fight? Do you know what I mean? I do. And I recognize the nature of this as a feedback loop, right? So what's happening is that they escalate and they want to escalate because what they want to do is move in more troops into this, into these areas. What happened in Portland was they, the people were outside this ice facility, right? And then they started just hanging out outside of there. They had some tents put up. They started spending literally all night out there. And it became essentially a everyday protest outside this ice facility.

Did they impede people going in occasionally and coming out? Yeah, that's what they did. But that's protest. That's how protests work. Right. So nothing major, nothing that would require a national guard, nothing that would require use of force by the people who are there. But if they do use force, which is shooting tear gas into the groups, using pepperball guns that are these basically paintball guns filled with pepper spray that hit people and not only hurt when they hit, but then also release that pepper spray essentially around that person when they hit them to debilitate them and cause them injury and harm, those are being used by the people

who are holding those facilities. That is a feedback loop to try to egg the public on to try to attack them, right? Yep, yeah. But I also recognize, and I think that the, like, one thing that you can't do

is make it easy for them, right? So the other option is, do nothing. Well, if you do nothing, then you make the deportations easy. You make them coming going easy. You make their, you normalize their activity, all those things are bad. That's bad for the United States.

If you normalize the activity that ICE is doing right now, traveling around, looking for people who look vaguely Mexican and then arresting them, that is a real bad thing for the United States.

It's really bad. And they've been taking people who are actually citizens up into these drag nuts that they're creating. In Chicago, it's happened multiple times. They raided a part building the other day in Chicago

with Black Hawk helicopters repelling outside of the helicopters to come down zip tying people elderly, young people carrying them out of the building. There was blood on the floor that people

like were taking pictures of. These are not peaceful, simple ways in which they're going to collect people. They're breaking into apartment buildings and they're filming it and they're putting fucking cinnamon music underneath it. to put it out as propaganda.

We can't, there's no way to just be like, well, I can't stop it, so I'm not going to do anything. So we can't do that. We have to, in some ways, feed into this feedback loop. But I think the most important thing that we can do is try to feed back into that feedback loop as peaceful as possible.

Because if you don't, what they're going to do is use every opportunity to show that this is dangerous and we need to move the National Guard, Yeah, man. And like the video, the video that you were just referring to, just to add a little bit of additional color to that, the video that you were just referring to that they added the cinematic music to and all of the rest of that stuff. They also use that as an ICE recruiting tool. Yeah, it's a recruiting video. That is a recruiting video. So think about who is now being recruited. Yeah, who's the target. Right. So somebody, the kind of person who watches a video like that and says, yeah, I'm clicking on that. I want to be a part of that. That looks exciting. That looks fun. That looks like I want to, I want to be part of this, this authoritarian police state as long as I get to be on the side that's winning, right?

There is a kind of person that they are aiming that messaging to, and that really fucking matters. Yeah. That really matters. And you're right, because I, you know, I brought up that question because I've been wrestling with it, not because I actually think that the answer is don't protest. Yeah. It's because I don't, I think the answer is like, we have to be on our side scrupulous, ridiculously diligent to only protest in the most peaceful ways possible, right? I actually think that we're in a place where even mild civil disobedience,

which has always been fundamental to protest, I actually think we're in a space where that is the wrong answer. And I don't usually say that. But I think that we are at a place now where it's like, we need to be able to protest this stuff. We have to do it. We have to show and get in the way and we have to make it difficult. We have to create publicity. We have to show a thousand iPhones a minute on these thugs as they carry out their work. That is essential.

That is more essential than it's ever been. Last week, it became more essential because both Apple and Google both pulled from their app stores, the many of the apps that allow citizens to track where ICE is. So there were apps like Ice Block and others that allowed citizens to track and share the location information for Ice when Ice was spotted. That is something that really helped to keep people informed and safe. Apple and Android both pulled those from their app stores just last week. If we fuck up at all, that's the excuse they need. right if we fuck up even a little bit

if we are even a little bit a toe out of line if we are even a little bit violent the standard for our side is perfection that's unreasonable that is entirely unreasonable as a standard but that is the standard

and what that does though too is it makes your protest into something that is like here's your protest you can protest in the designated protest zone so we can sufficiently ignore you the reason why protest works and why protests should work is to try to there's a perfect line in this where someone says someone's talking this this article is basically saying that a lot of the people that are at this particular place that are standing outside they're there for lots of different reasons and so this person sort of tries to document several of the reasons why they're there in my opinion this article both sides a little too much makes it seem like like some of these things

like some of the people who are there might not be serious and this isn't a serious thing. I hate that, by the way. I fucking hate that. It is a super serious thing. It is probably the most serious thing you could be doing right now and to hand-wave that away

is journalistic just fucking negligence in my opinion. To go to this place and interview the craziest people you think you can find to make it seem like it's the craziest thing happening to diminish it makes it seem really terrible.

So I just want to say that and get that out of the way. But I definitely think, like, when you listen, when they talk to people in this article, one of the things that comes up is one of the people says, hey, man, I'm doing this so I can waste their resources. If they have to waste resources on me, they're not out destroying my community. So if I can waste resources here, I'm doing a good thing.

If they push you off to the side and they don't have to waste resources, right? if you don't impede them when they're coming in or make them know that you dislike what they're doing or stand outside of their facility all the time and make them have to constantly watch you, right? There has to be more people on duty. They got to pay more people to be there. They've got to do all these extra work.

Then that's bad for them. But if they can easily just shove you off to the side and not have to pay attention to you, that's easy for them. And to make it easy for them is bad for us. And so, like, you're in a really difficult spot by trying to, like you suggest, trying not to agitate them

to bring in the National Guard and at the same time, make sure your presence is known enough so that it stops and slows their pursuit of other people in your community. It's a difficult, like, it's literally an impossible spot. Yeah, I was, like, I was, I was reading the articles associated with today's show

and I was thinking, this is, this is Sisyphian. This really is Sisyphian. It really is. It is both absolutely you cannot put the bolder down and you will not get the boulder up. That is what is happening right now. And the reason for that is that you, there is no possibility of expending resources at the rate that the government can expend resources. It's impossible. The ISIS budget was tripled, tripled. Yeah, it's so much more than anything now. It's just an, it's an insane amount of money. Their, their budget is now greater than

the combined budgets of all the police forces in America. I just read something like this morning about that. It's insane. So we're at a, we're at a place where the militarization and the scale of ice has grown to a place and they're, and we're using it in ways we've never used it before. And the same is true of the National Guard, the willingness to use military and paramilitary forces against our own citizens. Like your point about these folks in Chicago, like, we don't have to carry our fucking papers around. Right? I don't have to. There's no law that says that at any time, if I am walking down the street, somebody can stop me and demand my fucking papers. You don't have to have papers. Like, think about the IDs. Cecil, what ID do you carry other than a driver's license that guarantee that show, there's a meaningful government issued ID other than your driver's license? Nothing. Same. It's not required that you have a driver's license. You're not required to drive. ID is not required. You know, there's no law that says you have to have a state ID. or a driver's license, you don't even have to possess one.

The idea that, like, ice can stop you and demand that you show that you are a citizen. How the fuck am I supposed to show I'm a citizen? What am I supposed to have on my hands at all, like my birth certificate at all times? I could have your birth certificate, Cecil. Yeah, because it doesn't have a picture on it. It doesn't have a picture. Like, we don't have national ID. That's what people like these fucking right-wing nut jobs don't seem to understand.

You don't want to live in a fucking world where the fucking police state can at any time demand your goddamn papers. We don't even have papers that we've all agreed are acceptable to submit upon demand that show that you're a citizen. What makes me a citizen is the fact that I was fucking born here. That's it. That's the whole thing. I happen to have things like a power. Now that I'm a 47 year old man, I happen to have documentation that I've accumulated, but all of it was optional. None of it was necessary.

There is no requirement for this. So, of course, they're going to snap up citizens because they don't have a mechanism at the point of arrest to ensure, to even check, to even know standardized what they're going to fucking ask for. So there's going to be people who are arrested and essentially kidnapped. It's an illegal detention fucking kidnapped by the police state because somebody thought they were brown in a place where being brown got you in trouble. That's what's happening right now And it's fucking insane Yeah And you know

Going back to this article They're talking about how very specifically You know You're talking about how they're doing These practices that are It's like impossible It's essentially impossible For people to comply with some of these things

Right The same is true When it comes to the protesters Right What we're seeing We talked about it on our previous show We talked about the AI slop That's coming out

where they're showing people getting sprayed in its AI. They're getting maced or whatever in its AI. But there's real incidences of people getting maced. They tear gas the Chicago police this last week. How fucking nuts is that? So the Chicago police come out. They're over by one of these ice facilities.

I might have been Broadview. I don't know. They were out in front of an ice facility or something like that. They were protesting. the border patrol is acting and starting to really push back against the crowd. So the police come to try to slow it down to sort of stand in between

the protesters and the ice facility people and the ice facility people just gasped the police along with the protesters. And one thing you have to understand, and this is something I heard on one of the podcasts I listened to, one of the reporters said, Look, often in almost every single experience I've ever had during a protest, the people who will spray or shoot those bullets out, they will warn you well in advance that you are doing something that will receive some sort of retribution, right? You're doing something now that we need to stop.

So we are telling you, stop the thing or we will shoot you, right? There has been none of that from these people. They in fact sit on top of buildings and just pelt people with pellets because they're sadistic fucking psychos that they hired because there's literally no fucking bar to entry, right? And there's also understand this. There's no accountability for these people. Who was it? Who hit you?

I don't know. Some guy with a fucking mask and no name badge. How the fuck would I know who it was? And they're doing that very purposefully. They're very purposely covering up who they are, not telling you, not having to show you who they are. Because when this is all over, we can't go after these fucking Nazis

and fucking weed out which one was the sadistic fuck because they're all sedicistic fucks because they're hiding who it was. Yep, ma'am. Yeah, man. And like, remember too that like these are our rights. These are not privileges. It's not the government doesn't let us do this. This is a right that we have.

If the government is going to take away your right to protest, to speak, to peaceably assemble, to ask your government for redress of wrong, if they are going to take away your rights, which are part of your identity as a citizen and as somebody who lives here in America from the First Amendment, if they're going to take that away, what the Supreme Court has said is that there has to be the highest possible necessity for the government in order for them to do that. that. Right now, the government, I was just listening this morning, the Supreme Court is hearing a case where they are going to decide that conversion therapy is now, it will be illegal to make that illegal, right? So they're going to say conversion therapy, gay conversion therapy, and gender conversion therapy, these things are now going to be, we are not going to be able to have laws against these things. It's almost certainly going to happen based on how the oral arguments went. And one of the things that they always hear when you hear about the impinged, of free speech. And free speech advocates will say the same thing, is that if we are going to impinge upon the free speech of the citizenry,

the government has to have the highest, strictest scrutiny, right? So there has to be something that is so overwhelmingly necessary for the government to do because otherwise all of it should favor your rights as a citizen. It's the same amendment

when it comes to gathering for protest. It's the same one. the first one. So if the government is going to say, you can't do it. Beautiful Anonymous changes each week. It defies genres and expectations. For example, our most recent episode, I talked to a woman who survived a murder attempt by her own son. But just the week before that, we just talked to the whole time about Star Trek. We've had other recent episodes about sexting in languages that are not your first language or what it's like to get weight loss surgery. It's unpredictable. It's real. It's honest. It's raw. Get beautiful anonymous

wherever you listen to podcasts. They should have to apply the same principle, right? That there is an overwhelming necessity by the government to stop you from doing this thing. You have a right to do it. So if we're taking away your right, there needs to be an overwhelming need for it. They've not shown that at all. Instead of what they're doing is shooting fucking reporters with paintballs and pepper spray and fucking like kicking people like fucking drag netting people out of these things and disappearing people into vans and all the rest of it. And these are peaceful protests. These are not violent protests. These are not protests where there's chaos. They're being described that way by the dishonest right wing media and our fucking liar and chief president.

They're being described as being violent, militant, Antifa, World War II is what Trump has said about this. But like if you read any of the on the ground reporting, and this article is a great example, it's mostly just people in costumes gathering together to try to show their support of the immigrant community in the United States and their refusal to allow fascists to create an authoritarian police state. That's what's happening. They're not burning buildings down. They're not hurling bricks everywhere. They're not hucking molot of cocktails into the air. They're not shooting fireworks at people. None of that stuff's happening. That's not happening.

We have another article. These protests were described as low energy. Yep. They were chill vibe protests. And we have a right to do it, Cecil, except now we don't. Yeah. Like, where's my second amendment guys? I know, man.

Where the fuck are you guys at? Because those people have been talking that shit for so long that if the government comes in and tries to do some overreach, don't worry, we got your back. We're going to make sure that nobody takes. takes those rights away. Well, man, guess what? There's some serious impinging rights going on now and it's going to get worse. One of the things that's happening and happened in Portland was this last week that the president said, I'm going to send in the National Guard. They immediately sued. Trump, an appointed judge by Trump said, no, you're fucking not sending the troops here. There's no

emergency to do it. So you're not doing it. Then Trump said, that's fine. I won't national that guard, I'll I'll wind up nationalizing the guard from California that's already nationalized and send it over. And then in an emergency like midnight fucking meeting, she had to call a hearing. And then the Trump

guy is having to tell her why that's different than nationalizing the Oregon National Guard to go after that. Why is that different? And he couldn't explain himself. He couldn't explain himself whatsoever. So she said, no other fucking state can send their people here either.

You can't do that. So he was blocked for sending it there. But then he just, even though he's blocked over there, he's still sending it to us. And he sent, he didn't mobilize our Illinois National Guard to send to Chicago. He mobilized the Texas National Guard. And they got on. Not only did they send a lot of people here that were, that they got from the border. They sent them directly here.

Now they're sending their troops to deal with the problem that they started. Yeah, man. Yep. Look, people talk a lot about, oh, my God, is there going to be a civil war? Is there going to be a civil war? I have wondered and worried, is there going to be a civil war? Let me tell you how, if we're going to have a civil war, let me tell you how it happens. Trump sends the Texas National Guard to Illinois.

J.B. Pritzker says, that's illegal. I'm going to mobilize my Illinois National Guard to stand in front here. And now we're going to have a National Guard versus a National Guard. Now we have a military and a military swearing off. That is how a Civil War happens. That's a real civil war. It's not going to be your jackass fucking uncle in butt-fuck, you know, Illinois who's got a bunch of guns in his closet. That's not how that's going to happen.

It's just not. But the way that it happens is that there is a crossing of state lines of military forces that have been federalized. A state feels that their state's rights have been impinged upon. They then mobilize, as is their right, they then mobilize their National Guard. Now we have a potential clash between two branches of the military. military, and that is how this shit kicks off. This is the fucking Tinderbox world that we're fucking living in right now. I can see this happening.

If cooler heads do not prevail, this feels as, this feels as, like, tenuous a moment in some ways as the, like, teetering of the Cuban missile crisis. I'm not saying it's a nuclear exchange possibility, but what I'm saying is that, like, The tensions do feel that real right now. I hope that Democratic governors understand that we cannot face, we cannot risk facing off our National Guard versus Texas's National Guard. I hope everybody understands that that will create exactly what I'm describing, which is an actual Civil War.

But my guy, I can see it. Sure. Like the path from here to there, it's not fucking occluded by clouds, man. I can see how easily it happens. And then, like, you know, you read history and you read like, oh, you know, like the fucking revolution, like somebody fucking shot. And as soon as that first shot was fired, it's chaos. And that's how wars kick off.

And I just feel so much like, how close are we? How close? We got to do three years, two months more of this. Yeah. And every day is a brand new, every day is a brand new someone jumping on their side of that, that teeter totter to tip it over. Yeah. Every single day.

And this story goes a good job of pointing out that there's agitators on the right that are trying to push this and kick this off too, right? So these agitators come out and what they do is they film as much as they can try to provoke, get the person yelling at them and film them so that they can send that to all their followers to say, look at how violent these people are. Look at how rabid these people are. Look, I got punched in the head. Well, it was before the camera was on. but I got punched in the head, right? And now I'm going to do an interview on Fox News because I'm the honey badger mama

or whatever the fuck it is. And I'm going to do an interview on Fox News. I'm going to make it to the big time just by getting fucking socked in the face for being an asshole to a bunch of people that I shouldn't even be around counter protesting because they literally don't have any power in this situation.

They don't have anything to do. So like I'm coming in to fucking needle them while they're down. I'm coming in to kick them while they're down and shove their fucking face in it. And then I get fucking socked in the nose and now I'm the fucking victim. And I'm gonna go on Fox News

and I'm gonna get a shit ton of followers because I'm the Honey Badger Mama and I'm out here showing people what's what. And that is literally what is happening. It's not just the government, right? It's all these fucking clickbait Instagram fucks that are going there and filming everything and trying to stir it up too.

Here's the thing. In a week there's going to be another No King's protest. Right? So from this release of this recording, it'll be two days. There's going to be counter protesters there. They're going to try to agitate you into attacking them. They're going to try to agitate you so they can film you so they can spread it to the rest of the dumb fuck, empty fucking magic eight balls out there that want to fucking hear this stuff and get filled up with it.

That's going to happen this weekend, guaranteed. And like, you know, I also want to point out that you're 100% right and the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy could not be. more real? You know, these people are being described as violent when they, you know, show up to these protests and they carry a flag. You know, they are being described as, you know, Antifa violent activists and agitators and all of this stuff when they show up and they've got think about fucking, these are the same people who are making all the apologies in the world for the fucking January 6th rioters. Yeah. Right? Who showed up specifically carrying staffs with flags attached to them to use intentionally

as weapons, which we know because there's fucking ample evidence that there was an organized effort to get those weapons into the hands of people en masse. We are living in a world where the actual capital building was stormed by people like ants on an ant hill

and we are talking about a remuneration fund for the people who were arrested in that violent overthrow attempt of our government. That is a true fact. of what's happening right now. And at the same time, there are federal soldiers standing in front of other federal buildings saying, if you stand too close to it, we get to pepper spray you.

We get to use chemical weapons of dispersal to violate your First Amendment rights. This is not the same. It's not one to one. The Second Amendment guys always say the same things. You brought this up before. They always say the same things. If you ask them, what is so important? I remember having this conversation a hundred times until I got bored of it.

What is so important that despite all of the statistics to the contrary, that you feel like you've got to have a gun in your home or multiple guns or access to weapons as means of protection, not for hunting, not for sport, but as means for protection? Why is it so important to you? And to a one, they will tell you that it is to protect their rights from a tyrannical government. Yep. when the Second Amendment does not exist to support everybody's First Amendment, not only were those Second Amendment guys lying, but nothing exists to protect it. We have no protections anymore. These are, what has happened is that your First Amendment right has become a privilege,

which will or will not be afforded to you at the whims of whoever happens to be fucking in charge right now. And that is now how it works. And the standard for nonviolence is perfection. Well, that's an impossible standard when you multiply it by thousands and thousands and thousands of people. That's not possible. It's not supposed to be the standard. That is not supposed to be the standard. My rights should be not relative to somebody else's bad actions in the crowd, right?

So that's not how that's supposed to work. The rights of journalists should not be impeded. But they are being impeded. They are actively being put down. These are not violent protests. Trump is going on true social and talking about, you know, Portland is a war zone. He talked about Chicago saying that like if you compare this to cities in Afghanistan, it is more dangerous than than cities in Afghanistan. Chicago, I don't mention it, Chicago was this year again by Condi NASS Traveler was ranked for the ninth year in a row, America's best city.

These are just factually It is It is a fucking amazing city It is the best city It is the best city in America Period Yeah it is It will eat the fucking lunch

Of every other city in America For almost Nine years running man There's a There's a world view That is being A spous that is saying Things don't have to be true

To matter anymore And like you These protesters show up I swear to God man Like if they don't do anything, they'll just make AI videos of them doing shit. Yeah. Or they'll just shoot them with fucking pepper spray until they

do, Tom. Right. Yeah, that's true, man. Or they'll throw fucking, they'll throw, like, here's the thing that, that is, that is crazy to me, is that there isn't going to be any accountability after all this is over. None. What makes me, what makes me live it is that a bully

can bully you and then never be accountable for it afterwards. That is something that, that just courses through me and it's fucking, It's magma in my veins. It makes me so furious that someone that a whole administration can get away with bullying you and putting you down and attacking marginalized communities the entire time they're in office, physically, mentally attacking them throughout their entire time,

and then they're going to walk away clean. What I'd love to see is the next person who's running for president and who's running for Congress says something like, I'm going to look through all the records of who was involved in all this. And they're going to be held to account for all the bad actions that they did. Because while their name is gone and they're covering up their face because they're cowards, I guarantee there's some way to track who that person is. And you find out who that person is.

And then you just, you make sure that they are punished after this is all over for their excessive use of force that literally is trying to inflame the population of the United States. They are doing their best to start the war that you were talking about. These are people who are trying to start a civil war. They want to destroy the other side in a way that is dangerous and that will literally take lives. They would be more than happy if that conflict erupted. They wouldn't even blink twice.

In fact, they would be giddy if something. like that happened. So these people are dangerous people. And I, and just, there's a part of me that is just really just wants to make sure that somebody pays attention to all this. And if there's ever a moment of sanity after this, those people need to pay for the things that they've done to try to tear down the democracy. They have to pay. After all this is over, somebody's got to be held to account. We can't do what Merrick Garland did. You can't do what Joe Biden did this last time. You can't do it. They have to fucking eat it for a little while after this is over.

Because if they do, then they're going to want to set the clock back to where it was. Yeah, that's it. That's it, dude. They've got to, look, nothing changes until something changes. They have to live in fear. Yeah, right? They have to live in fear of doing the wrong thing, of violating your rights, of breaking the law. They have to live in fear of doing that.

The problem is that everybody is now living in fear of accountability. everybody is now living in fear of transparency. Everybody is now living in fear of doing anything that doesn't support the current regime. That's where the fear equation is working now. Fear matters.

Like fear is a real thing that matters. Like we have to, there's a reason some people don't do bad shit and it's not because they're good people. It's because they don't want to go to jail. They don't want to get caught. And that's a real thing. It's a fucking simple-minded, fucking easy. But there's a lot of fucking empty-headed magic eight-ball dip shit motherfuckers out there

and we have to have disincentives for those guys, right? It's not the high-minded moralists that we've ever had to worry about. Those fucking people were never going to do the wrong thing because they're driven by a life of internal values. It's the fucking external values only people that we

really have to worry the fuck about. And right now, we're in a place where they have out all the power. Yeah. They've out all the power. Well, when we get the power back, if we get the power back, and the guys, there's no fucking guarantee that that ever happens. None at all. There is a possibility now that we've just broken it and that this is how it is now forever, or at least generations and generations.

Like that's a real thing. I need everybody to kind of like consider like fucking wrap your fucking heads around. Like if we do get power back, Cecil is a million percent right. If we don't restore order in a way that says you should be afraid. to prop up a banana republic. It should, you should, fear should course through your fucking veins like acid every day that you don't take your oath seriously. Every day, because these people's lives are ruined now. It's just going to happen again.

It's going to happen again. The groundwork has been laid. Everybody now understands how you can play the game, right? Everybody's now figured out, oh, wait, you know what? We set the rules, but if we break them, nothing happens. It's a big fucking deal. You can't unwind that clock, man. You can't unring that bell.

That's a, it's a huge deal. There's a couple of things I want to bring up. One is, what is people's, I'm curious about the audience right now. You're curious about your answer to this too, Tom. What's your, this is broken, maybe I should flee moment. You know, I wonder what people's,

this is broken, maybe I should flee. There's a big part of me that wants to leave the country right now. There's a huge part of me that's like, this is an easy time. You could probably just pack everything up and just go. But I don't want to because I feel like I'm seating.

I'm saying to them, you win, right? You win. If I leave, you win. So I feel like I don't want to do that. But there's another part of me that's like, fucking just go. Just go somewhere else. Like you can just go somewhere else

and exist somewhere else and find a way to get by another way other way other than you're doing. doing here in the States. And I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on, one, on leaving if you leave, and two, when do you? Because I've been thinking like this, everybody's been saying this, and even J.B. Pritzker's been saying this, that the reason why he wants to mobilize these National Guard troops and actually have it be normalized is so that during the elections he can intimidate people and not get impeached in his second part of his term. So he cannot get impeached

when it comes along a second time here. When there's a chance that he can, if he loses a ton of, if there's a bunch of, you know, a big swing in the Senate and House, then he could have some real dangers moving into his next portion of his term.

And so he doesn't want to deal with that. He wants to have smooth sailing the whole way. And if he can intimidate people to not come to the polling places or just seize results and change them, that can be a huge, he can basically just decide what happens. So if there's midterm fuckery,

we're in a huge problem. That's where I've sort of sit. Midterm fuckery is just like, that's essentially the end of America. We're in a different place now. This isn't a miracle like you knew. It's America. I think we might even be there now.

But I'm just curious what other people's sort of stopping point is. What is your thought on that? Like, where do you stand? Where do you stand when you hear this and think, where is my point where I think it's broke and there's no fixing it? You know, we talked about this off to the side

a week or two ago. I've actually been thinking about this. And for me, the problem for me is that legally I can't go anywhere. I've got four kids and we've got custody agreements that say I can't leave the state. You can't leave the state. So, like, Haley can't leave the state because she's not allowed to for her custody agreement. I can't leave the state because I'm not allowed to for my custody agreement. That said, like at some point, like, if the anarchy becomes high enough, you have to fucking go, right?

You have to go, but, like, that violence, unfortunately, for me, that violence has to become fairly imminent. So I have to look at a world where I think, like, okay, the chances of, the chances of me or my family getting, like, physically hurt soon or rounded up or something soon are high enough that they exceed, like, my legal repercussions, which are severe if I leave. I can't just pack shit up and go and nothing happens to Tom or Haley, you know. It's a big fucking deal. So we're fucking stuck, man.

Yeah. We're stuck. We are absolutely stuck. And because I can see a world, even locally, where civil war type shit does kick off, I have really begun trying to think about how do I protect myself and my family in this event? Like, what kinds of things should I be stocking up on or safe? guarding or stockpiling, like, to the point of where I feel absurd, I feel like a fucking crazy prepper. I do.

And part of the reason I feel absurd is because I recognize that if shit kicks off and it's bad enough that it affects me out here in the suburbs, that there's probably nothing I can have in my house that matters. You can't prepare for. What do you prepare for? Right. I've been thinking the same thing where I'm like, do I prepare? And then I'm like, prepare for what?

It's not going to be red dawn. Right. What are we talking about here? Yeah. Like, I don't know, like, so, so we're in a situation that's crazy, but I am curious what people think. So if you, if you have an idea or a thought on this, both on when it's time and what do you do, I'd love to hear from people, send a message in, because I'd love to read some of these. Maybe even we have a whole show where we just talk about what people have written in, that might be something that we do. I also want to bring up to, like, this article, because I got to roll back to this article again, because I'm really, I wasn't really super happy with it when I was reading it.

Yeah. One of the things that they do is they interview two people who are being disturbed by this protest, right? So they go out of their way to find a couple of people who live nearby and who are having an issue because it's loud at night. And they're both on the side of like, we should stop this protest or at least get more people out here. And I, what what boggles my mind is, is that we're giving, they're giving journalistic time to someone who's not looking at the, the whole picture and thinking about this entire protest in a selfish way and they're giving them space in this article to give that grievance out into the world. And I'm like, what does that help? How does that help anybody to put that out there that some people don't like it because they live nearby? Yeah. Hey man, why don't you get, why don't you get fucking ass over tea kettle over the fucking ice facility that's in your fucking neighborhood? Yeah, man. Why aren't you out there with them protesting to say, get this shit out of you. Take it somewhere else. Instead, it's in your neighborhood and you're mad that it's in your neighborhood. But you're going to

attack the protesters who are out there protesting against people getting snatched in their neighborhood. Yeah, Matt, like, here's the thing. Those people didn't just suddenly live in a neighborhood where the ICE detention center or whatever was three blocks away. They've lived there presumably for a long time. The reason it matters now is not because of the protesters. The reason it matters now is because of what ICE is doing that we have to protest against. Exactly right. I would be mad, right? Like, if there was, if the street in front of my house was thronged with protesters, I would feel less safe. I would, I would feel less safe because I would be less safe than if those people weren't there. Just because crowds of people are not safe

things to be around, right? So maybe I'd be less safe because the cops are going to show up and fucking spray my house accidentally with fucking bullets or tear gas or whatever. But I would be mad at the conditions that created the protest. I would not be mad at people who are protesting. I would still have, so like, I get it. I don't want to be unsafe in my home. I understand feeling like shit. I hate being unsafe in my home.

The solution is like, let's not have a tyrannical authoritarian government with a fucking military force hunting people in the street. Maybe that's the thing we should stop. Yeah, maybe we should avoid doing that. what do you think of I really again J.B. Pritzker coming out this is an Illinois thing

not talking about Portland now there was a story that we didn't cover in the main show but the story is Trump says Chicago mayor and Illinois governor should be jailed amid national guard tensions

this is from the New York Times there's a quote from the Trump he says Chicago mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers Governor Pritzker also he put on a social media post

So, but, but to, in the response, Pritzker says, you know, look, Trump's calling for the arrest of elected officials. This is full-blown authoritarianism. He's called him. He said in the past that he has dementia. And he also said that he should be, he should be removed through the 25th Amendment. And at one point, he held his arms out to the camera while he's being interviewed. And he's like, come and get me, Trump. Come and get me.

Come and get me. Come and arrest me. I got to say, that's the right response to have to somebody like this. He's not doing anything I think that is. I think he's doing all the right things to push the buttons but not go to a place where Trump would have. Trump is going to look like a buffoon no matter how that plays out, is I guess what I'm saying.

Yeah, here's another scenario, sorry, here's another scenario where this shit kicks off. Because again, I've been thinking like, how does this happen? If it goes hard south, how does it happen? Trump has already absolutely taken executive. control over the Justice Department. That's not supposed to be a thing, right? They are supposed to be separate.

The Justice Department is supposed to do what the Justice Department is going to do, and the President is not supposed to interfere other than, like, the appointment of officials. They're supposed to be relatively independent body. It's no longer the case when we know it. So here's another scenario that happens. J.B. Pritzker gets wind that federal agents are showing up to arrest governors across the state or across the country.

Democratic governors across this country are going to be arrested in mass, you know, in Illinois and in California and in New York and in Minnesota and whatever. And so all of those governors are like, well, fuck that. We're mobilizing our forces to protect, you know, our government from being seized by the federal government. State police versus FBI. Yep. Now you've got a civil war again.

We're real close, man, because there's like a lot of scenarios. where bullets start flying. Like, we're real close. I think it's the right. I think Pritzker is doing the right thing. I absolutely can see Trump trying to mass or, I feel fucking crazy, Cecil. This feels fucking crazy.

But we've got three years, two months. I can see. I know, man. It's a long time. You got to think about this. How long do you have to run the clock out? You have so long to run the clock out. You're not even going to get close to a reprieve for another 14 months.

Yeah. Not even close. Not even close, right? It is not inconceivable at all that the Justice Department issues extraordinary warrants for a number of sitting governors for some trumped up bullshit. And federal agents are en route to pick them up. And we have a hostile takeover of blue states. Yeah. I can see it, man.

I can see. And I can see the Supreme Court blessing it. I can see it. I don't disagree. You know, this Supreme Court has been, they've been so, you know, it's funny because you see this judge in Portland, you know, in Oregon, not in Portland, but she gets this thing that comes in front of her that says, I'm going to mobilize the National Guard, and she says, fuck off, there's no emergency.

Get that shit out of here. Writes a decision that really genuinely says this is super overreach of the president. He should never be able to do this. And it's really a decision that I think she thinks is going to be something that is going to be used for a long time, right? This is something that is now going to set a precedent that will be used for a long time. And she's a Trump-appointed judge, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that whoever he appointed is on his side. But I haven't seen a ton of that from the Supreme Court, right?

He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court. And I haven't seen a lot of what this person is displaying in Oregon on the Supreme Court. the Supreme Court. This judge in Oregon has so much more guts than the people who are picked by Trump to do the biggest job in the land. Those people are sycophantic cowards. The person in Oregon is doing real work as a person who was appointed by Trump. That's right. That's right, man. The judiciary at the federal level has been far more honest and has far more integrity than the nine pieces of shit, well, six pieces of shit that are sitting on the Supreme Court right now. Those people exist only to serve the president. That's it. That check and balance

has fucking checked out. Yeah. Has completely checked out. So I don't know what happens next, man. I don't know. I can see, I can see a Supreme Court. Here's the only, here's the only saving grace that I can see. I can see a Supreme Court recognizing that at a personal individual level, they stand to lose from economic and political chaos and I can see them perhaps interfering if that chaos becomes

extraordinary. That's all I can hope for too is that really rich people are inconvenienced because the moment the really rich people are inconvenienced, they're going to pull their strings and they will hopefully straighten this marionette up. Yeah. But if they don't, then we're just, if they're afraid, then we should definitely be afraid.

Absolutely, man. This is why honestly, like, we should bring protests to rich neighborhoods. Yeah. Let's make them inconvenient, let's inconvenient the ultra-wealthing. Yeah. This weekend, no kings. Get out there if you can. I'm going to get out there myself.

Get out there if you can because it's important to show a solidarity with all the people across the country. There's going to be, you make it a huge protest. Get out there. Hold your sign. Show these people that this sort of thing isn't something that, everyone agrees with and the larger the numbers, the bigger that number looks to everybody. And it's not just to us, right? It's not just us reinforcing us. It's us showing the rest of the

nation that this is something that they should care about too. So everybody out there who's apolitical, everybody out there didn't vote, there's a lot of people out there that aren't part of the MAGA movement. They need to be shown that this is an important thing and they need to stand up and stand with us. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll be back on Monday with a full show. We're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics' creep. Credulity is not a virtue.

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