It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 137

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

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You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech, brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming.

This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards.

That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. whenever you get your podcasts.

CallZone Media. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode, so every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want.

If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Sage of the YouTube channel Andrewism. So today, I wanted to really draw attention to the strategies of resistance that have marked the stories of the African diaspora. Of course, the diaspora is widespread and diverse. You could find or scatter hundreds of millions in communities across the globe, largely due to the impact of the Trans-Saharan, Transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades, as well as voluntary migration. Many millions of stories could be told, but very few of those stories have been told so far.

My focus is really on the African diaspora in the Caribbean today and what strategies they used in their struggle and how those strategies could potentially be utilized today in our contemporary struggle. So for some context, in case you just arrived on Earth, a couple years ago, enslaved Africans suffered truly deplorable conditions from the moment of capture, through the passage and the seasoning process, until the last of their days on the field of the plantation. Yet, in spite of their deplorable conditions, enslaved people endured.

Resistance endured. It was both inevitable and constant, as even their enslavers recognized. Resistance, of course, began in Africa itself. Enslaved people often fled to escape local captors who were seeking to profit from the demand for slaves. Entire villages would sometimes relocate or fortify their settlements to avoid capture. Rebellion was common among captives as they waited to board ships during the initial loading and even on the high seas. Tragically, or perhaps bravely, some chose to resist by taking their own lives, either during the journey or during the brutal seasoning process upon their arrival in the Caribbean.

On the plantation itself, resistance took many forms tailored to specific circumstances and opportunities, but acts of defiance were a constant throughout the history of slavery in the Caribbean. While not all forms of resistance were as overt as the famous revolutions and rebellions, each act played a role in shaping plantation society, undermining the institution of chattel slavery and ultimately hastening its demise. We can classify these acts of resistance into three key categories, non-cooperation, confrontation and prefiguration. Non-cooperation involves the deliberate refusal to comply with those in power, using both overt and covert methods to protest against oppressive conditions. Confrontation is about direct and assertive

engagement with oppressive forces, aiming to disrupt or undermine them. And prefiguration refers to the deliberate organization of future social relations, institutions, and practices in the present, envisioning and enacting a better future. It's important to note that these categories, of course, often overlap. In the dynamic struggle against slavery, non-cooperation, confrontation, and prefiguration intertwined, embodying the seeds of revolution. Throughout history, in fact, wherever people have faced oppression, these forms of resistance have emerged. The era of slavery in the Caribbean was no exception.

Acts of non-cooperation were perhaps the most common form of resistance on the plantation. Non-cooperation took many forms, often subtle yet impactful. Enslaved individuals would act carelessly, feign illness, or pretend ignorance. These tactics slowed productivity and provided plausible explanations for accidents. By sabotaging tools and machinery, they further disrupted the operations of the plantation. Arson was another method used to strike back against their oppressors, causing significant damage to property and resources. oppressors, causing significant damage to property and resources. Securing extra meat through covert animal slaughter was a way for the enslaved to supplement their meager rations and exert a small measure of control over their own survival. And of course, running away was

another powerful form of non-cooperation. Individuals and small groups would escape for various reasons. To find psychological relief from the relentless oppression, to reunite with loved ones, to find psychological relief from the relentless oppression, to reunite with loved ones, to protest their harsh material conditions, or to carve out an alternative way of life within the oppressive system. These escapes were not just about physical freedom, they were acts of defiance that challenged the foundations of the plantation system. Modern-day activists and workers often engage in similar forms of non-cooperation to challenge capitalist structures and state authority. Just as enslaved people would

intentionally slow down or damage tools to reduce productivity, modern workers might engage in slowdowns, work to rule actions, or even deliberate sabotage, which also falls into the next category of action. These actions aim to disrupt the efficiency and profitability of capitalist enterprises, often as a form of protest against unfair labour practices or to demand better working conditions. Pretending ignorance was, as I mentioned, a common tactic among enslaved people to avoid the harsh demands of plantation labour. We might look at the quiet quitting folks who do the bare minimum required for their job, refusing to go above and beyond in order to avoid burnout and to resist the expectations

that seek to exploit them. Running away from plantations despite the severe consequences was a powerful form of non-cooperation that sought to reclaim autonomy. In modern times, though not equivalent, strikes and walkouts serve a similar purpose. Workers leave their positions to protest unfair conditions, risking financial stability to demand systemic change. In the plantation era, acts of confrontation involved direct assault on the system itself. Like I said before, the plant has lived in constant

fear of revolt, and this fear was especially heightened during the Christmas season. What seemed like benign dances and festivities often disguised rebel oaths of secrecy. Poisoning was another feared form of confrontation, a subtle yet deadly alternative to open rebellion. The mere threat of conspiracies and plots, whether real or imagined, kept the colonial regime perpetually on edge. Colonial legal systems were primarily designed to manage colonial property, which included enslaved people. These laws were harsh and allowed for severe punishments for any perceived transgressions.

Enslaved individuals could face brutal consequences for unauthorized movement, large gatherings, possessions of weapons, or practicing secret rituals. Mastering the art of subterfuge was thus crucial for survival. What does that tell us about navigating our current legal context? While planters tried to sow discord among the enslaved by facilitating ethnic division, by separating African-born from Korean-born, from dividing domestic and field labourers and splitting skilled and unskilled workers, the enslaved people too back-manipulated plantation politics. They carefully studied the personalities of their

white overlords, subtly provoking divisions between bookkeepers, overseers, and owners. Anansi, the spider trickster, a popular West African folktale character, became a hero, inspiring strategies of disguised satire, trickery, and deceit. Yet despite their cunning, many rebellions were quashed before they could even begin, and those that did spark were often brutally suppressed. The divisions fostered by the planter class between Creole and African enslaved people hindered revolutionary efforts. While all revolts sought greater power and freedom, Africans typically desired all-out war and the establishment of an African lifestyle apart from their colonies. In contrast, many Creoles, the Caribbean-born Africans,

aimed to modify the system to gain the rights of free-wage laborers. Such conflicts helped foil revolts in Barbados in 1683, Antigua in 1736, St. Croix in 1759, and Jamaica in 1776. What does that tell us about the risk of unresolved divisions when undertaking revolutionary action today? In the past, enslaved people used secret meetings and covert planning to organize revolts, often disguised as social gatherings. Today, activists can use encrypted communication or parties as staging grounds for political activism.

Today, poisoning may be off the table, but it's evident that property destruction, including arson, has persisted as a means of protest. The efficacy of that method of protest is perhaps situationally dependent, but it certainly sends a message. Activists of today must confront legal systems, just as enslaved people in the past needed to when dissent chafed against the status quo. There's a time and place for court battles and bail funds, but they're not lasting means of resistance.

We do need to brainstorm more permanent means of liberation from this legal system. Finally, just as Anansi the Spider Trickster served as a symbol of clever resistance among the enslaved, we need stories and symbols that can just as potently empower. There was a time when Guy Fawkes' mask served as a powerful symbol of resistance. As a creative species, our symbolic species will always need those signals to guide and encourage us, to give us safety in numbers and a sense of solidarity, even if such symbols alone are not inherently liberatory.

Finally, acts of prefiguration may seem less viable under their grim conditions, but even if they could not build the socio-economic autonomy that characterizes robust, modern prefigurative practices, enslaved people still managed to create networks of support and resilient cultures that offered respite in a world that sought to strip them of their humanity. Mutual aid was truly the name of the game. In the face of social death, they cultivated ties of real and fictive kinship. Since biological families were often torn apart by callous slaveholders, with mother-child units being the most common familial arrangement, many enslaved

Africans extended their concept of family beyond biological kin. These networks of fictive kinship provided emotional support, protection, and a sense of belonging, helping to preserve their humanity in the midst of suffering. An example of this resilience can be seen in the rotating savings and credit associations that developed among enslaved women. Despite their marginal earnings from market activities, they pooled their resources and rotated lump sums of money to each other in acts of mutual aid, all without their master's permission. This practice not only provided financial support, but also reinforced the bonds of community and cooperation. but also reinforce the bonds of community and cooperation. Similarly, today's marginalized communities create networks of solidarity,

mutual aid groups, and community centers to support each other in the face of systemic injustices such as poverty, discrimination, and violence. Such communities also often redefine family to include chosen families, providing emotional support and care outside traditional family structures, particularly within LGBTQ plus communities and other marginalized groups. Today, grassroots organizations and cooperatives continue the tradition of economic cooperation, empowering marginalized groups through economic solidarity, microfinance initiatives, and community-based lending. But it's important that we don't look at these actions in isolation. Confrontation alone is not enough. Non-cooperation alone

is not enough. And of course, prefiguration alone is not enough. So let's look back at diasporic history to those who did bring those actions together, sometimes successfully. Maroonage, the act of enslaved people escaping plantations to establish independent communities, defined the maroon experience. Deep within forests and nestled in the mountains across the Caribbean, thousands of Maroons forged their own path, shaping history through resilience and defiance. As runaways, they were inherently non-cooperative. As warriors, they directly confronted plantation society. And as community builders, they aimed to prefigure a better future for themselves and their descendants.

to prefigure a better future for themselves and their descendants. Maroon societies varied widely, shaped by local geography, available resources, and their relationship with colonial powers. They thrived in rainforests and mountainous terrains, which offered natural defenses and facilitated guerrilla warfare tactics. Led by captains charged with defense, Maroon settlements prioritized vigilance, fortification, and constant readiness. They communicated with neighbouring communities, practised evasive manoeuvres, and engaged in both defensive and offensive strategies. Prior to the Haitian Revolution, François Macandale and his network of enslaved and Maroon allies struck fair into the heart of Saint-Domingue. enslaved and maroon allies struck fair into the heart of Saint-Domingue. They targeted plantation owners with acts of sabotage and arson, challenging colonial authority with daring raids and strategic strikes. Beyond warfare, maroon communities were self-sufficient, producing or acquiring what they

needed through raids, trade, or cultivation. They traded with pirates, merchants, and other maroon settlements across islands, while hunting, fishing, and farming for sustenance. Yet, their precarious existence often necessitated careful population management. Some communities struggled with maintaining numbers, while others cautiously accepted new recruits, balancing growth with the risk of attracting colonial attention. It's unfortunately not all good in the history though. Despite fierce resistance, some Maroon communities opted for peace treaties with colonial powers, ensuring their survival over generations. However, these treaties often came at a high cost,

ceding autonomy in exchange for relative peace and limited rights under colonial rule. The 1739 Treaty in Jamaica, for instance, imposed British control over the Maroons, restricting their land rights and obligating them to capture and return their fellow escaped slaves. While many Maroon communities ultimately succumbed

to colonial pressure or were unable to remain hidden, some, notably in Jamaica and Suriname, endure to this day. Regardless of their fate, all Maroon communities defied the colonial order, asserting the independence and capability of enslaved Africans to conceive and pursue freedom. What lessons can we take from their struggle? How can we apply their strategy in our resistance today? The struggle of the Maroons offers us some useful lessons, in my opinion. When they succeeded, it was through strong community ties and solidarity.

They built networks of support and cooperation that were crucial for survival. Today, we need to be fostering unity among diverse groups facing systemic oppression. Building alliances across different communities strengthens our collective power and our resilience against common adversaries. Another lesson we can glean is that the Maroons adapted their strategies to the local terrain and resources available. Similarly, modern resistance movements can benefit from strategic adaptation to current socio-political landscapes. This includes utilizing technology for communication and organization, understanding the media and digital as well as the physical landscape, as well as adapting tactics to fit specific contexts. Because not every tactic is going to make sense in every situation and we can't be going through the motions.

Also notice the Maroon community sought to establish self-sufficiency as much as possible in their struggle. They could not adequately resist if they were still fully or mostly dependent on the beasts they were fighting. They needed to be producing their own food, goods, and resources. Otherwise, any all-out confrontation would be suicidally premature. decidedly premature. We, as movements, need to prioritize building sustainable practices and self-reliant economies that reduce our reliance on oppressive systems. We cannot confront these systems if we are still dependent on them. We will not succeed if so. The maroons were also flexible. They shifted between defensive and offensive strategies

as their circumstances demanded. Modern movements could benefit from maintaining that kind of flexibility in tactics. We cannot be all offensive and we cannot be all defensive. We must strike a balance. Finally, though this is projection on my part, I believe some of the Maroons would have had long-term vision. Despite their immediate challenges, I believe they maintained a long-term vision of freedom and autonomy that sustained their resistance over generations. Contemporary movements can benefit from a similar long-term perspective,

recognizing that meaningful change often requires sustained effort and commitment across time. That's all I have for today. All power to all the people. You can follow me on YouTube at Andrew Azam and on Patreon.com slash St. Drew. Peace. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy

and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeart

radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money?

I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single

year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and

see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters.

From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology, I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. Hi, everyone. It's me, James. And I am joined today by Kirsteen Zitlau, who is a border water drop volunteer. We've done some water drops together and also an immigration lawyer. And we're going to talk about ICE transferring people in their detention and generally the sort of post-arrival process that migrants, asylum seekers specifically

face when they come to the United States. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So I think to start out with people, when I speak to them, like in my day-to-day life, are very unaware of the situations that migrants face when it comes to obtaining legal representation, right right so maybe we could start off by just explaining like this isn't like if you're accused of a crime in theory it's a civil proceeding but also they'll lock you up but you don't get a public defender assigned to you right so can you explain someone let's say someone comes through the hole in the fence in hakumba right they get detained at the oeds we give them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and

then they get taken out, processed. What happens after that? So from when they come to street release, in terms of their legal representation, how does it work? Yes, so I'll address the street release folks as well as the people who are then taken to ICE detention. Yes, yeah. Yeah, so I'll start with the street release folks. So they, well, first, anybody who irregularly enters the United States, not at a port of entry, is subject to detention,

not just by border patrol, but by ICE. The fortunate situation, I mean, sorry, the lining, the silver lining of this, you know, entire awful situation is that there's so many people coming that there's not enough detention space

to detain everybody. And so hence the street releases. So the people can then go directly to their family. They will go with a notice to appear, which starts their immigration court proceedings, which was issued by Border Patrol. So immediately they have to navigate the immigration court system, starting with the fact that the notice to appear might have a false date on it, as far as their court date. So that's the first issue. So what does that mean when you have a false date on it as far as their court date. So that's the first issue.

So what does that mean when you say a false date? Like if they show up on that date, the hearing won't be happening. So there's been a trend over the years to put to be decided as a hearing date on their notice to appear, which is the first document that says, hey, you're now being put in immigration court proceedings. We'll send you a later notice to your address that you gave us of when you're actually going to have that hearing, or rather the court will. So the immigration lawyer bar pushed real hard on this issue and said, no, this is BS. You need to put a date and time. The reason they weren't is because they didn't want to take the time to

coordinate with the courts to make sure that there's actually a judge on that date and time that they assigned. So to satisfy the legal requirements that we've pushed for, they often will just put a fake date and time. So in other words, they haven't done anything to verify whether there's actually a judge sitting at some court that day or time to hear their case. Yeah, they're just making it up. So this is exactly, so this is of course incredibly confusing and very dangerous because they basically need an attorney immediately to explain this concept to them because they, first of all, won't know how to look for when their actual court date is, which is a link that I don't think Border Patrol ever gives them. And then if they miss their actual court date, then they will, of course, be ordered deported and then ICE is after them.

And really, they have no other options at that point. So really the need for an attorney arises immediately. And often immigrants have been robbed. They've paid all their money to transnational criminal organizations. And an asylum case is costly. So they have a right to an attorney, as you said, but only at their own expense. So this is a tremendous challenge off the bat, as you can imagine. Yeah. And then just to further sort of go down that pathway, the attorney is paid for their

own expense, but without an attorney, they may not be able to obtain a work permit, right? So a hundred percent. I mean, navigating the process on your own is as an immigrant, it just, it seems basically impossible to me. I mean, there's so much that even us as attorneys struggle with that it is, and it's evolving all the time. So even if you manage to submit your asylum application by yourself, the process, and then later submitting the work permit form and knowing where to send it and how to navigate USCIS,

that's, I mean, like I said, it's difficult for us. I mean, let's just say I got a work permit with somebody else's photo on it the other day. So, you know, so it's a total mess. And to have an immigrant even navigate that process is, it just seems impossible. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have not applied for asylum, but when I renewed my green card, I did that myself. And English is my first language. I have a PhD.

I'm used to paperwork. And it was both scary and complicated. Exactly. And when your whole future is resting on it, it's extremely anxiety-inducing. By design, too. I mean, they haven't updated forms to become a resident since, I mean, like the 30s or something. You're a member of the Communist Party. Exactly.

Exactly. And it's all just to make it as difficult as possible and the wait times and everything else yeah so how about the folks who go into ICE detention so these are typically people well I mean that's just the thing these days there aren't the typical people who go into ICE detention it's kind of it seems to me that certainly there's people who are mandatory detention, where if they have a prior deportation order or prior criminal or immigration history in this country, they will probably be detained. But I've also noticed a lot of racial profiling in the detention. I have a few black clients right now in detention.

And if they were white, I'm absolutely convinced they are not even white, but Latino, they would have been released already. So and one of them is a black Muslim man from Kenya, and he's been called a suspected terrorist by ICE for six months or more that he's been in detention with zero proof whatsoever. And so they'll just hold them for that reason because he's a black Muslim man. So these are often people with very meritorious cases like for example this man was an opposition party leader and recruiter back in kenya so these people just need i mean whether they win or not win their case or not can hinge on just being able to get representation you know because he's very intelligent and and probably would have been able to put together a good case on his behalf. But the stats about people winning cases detained without attorneys is very, very low. So yeah, so then they have to work with a family member on

the outside, obviously, to get a hold of an attorney. Not a lot of attorneys or all attorneys do detained work because it is so difficult to start with. I mean, access to your client is just so limited. And getting evidence, I mean, they have to have a reliable family support network on the outside, essentially, to help them get evidence from their home country. I mean, how else do you do that detained? And so it's a lot of work coordinating as an attorney and so forth. So San Diego County saw that need and actually started a great program. I'm not exactly sure when it started, but apparently they weren't getting enough applicants.

And maybe it's been around for a little bit, but they didn't know about it. And they set aside like $5 million to specifically pay attorneys to represent people detained in Otay Mesa, which is, of course, the big ICE detention center in San Diego. which is, of course, the big ICE detention center in San Diego. So that caused there to be more attorneys, or slightly more represented people at Otay Mesa, which was great. Because typically when I go in there, this is just anecdotal evidence, you'll see a handful of attorneys, maybe a couple, maybe at most like five. And then you see all the detainees, the immigrants sitting there,

and there's clearly more than there are attorneys. So I read a, I read a stat by the ACLU that it's like something like 70% as of 2021 did not have attorneys in detention centers. Right. So they just won't be represented throughout that process. Exactly. And certainly, like, God forbid, you're a Muslim. If you're a black Muslim man, you're like at the intersection of things that are going to have you sent straight to jail. Exactly.

Just to briefly explain for people who aren't familiar, when we talk about ICE detention, what are we talking about? Like what are the conditions and who is often operating these detention centers? Excellent point. So these are for-profit detention centers. So it is operated by ICE in conjunction with two large companies called CoreCivic or GeoGroup. And if you're not familiar with these companies, Google them and you will immediately be horrified. Yeah, so it's a horrifying state of affairs. Essentially, one of the biggest things, and one can Google this right now,

is the wrongful death suits and payouts. So literally, the business model is to allow people to die detained as a cost of business rather than give them proper medical care or take them to the hospital and so forth. And they will pay out and they do pay out millions to families. And I've seen this in action. Not that any of my clients died but just the the gravity to which the health situation has to be in order to have a prayer of getting them out yeah it's um it's very sad like i think one thing that i come back to now like four years ish into a biden administration is that like on one of his first executive orders was he's going to end for profit prisons. And he never did shit about the ICE detention.

Like right from the outset, there was like these people do not have the same right to the people and we don't care about them as much. Exactly, exactly. And at this point, too, it's like given that he's done a 180 on anything that was pro-immigrant or that he said he was going to do at the beginning, you kind of start to wonder, is he just being paid off by the same people, by a geogrupper core civic? You know, they contribute millions of dollars to whoever's running for president for good reason. So it makes you wonder from that aspect as well. Yeah, like it certainly, it was in his immigration reform bill, right,

to increase the amount of ICE detention facility beds or cells or whatever how would you want to put that hopefully this advert that we're about to pivot to here is not for core civic or geo group but if it is fuck them amen all right we are back and we're going to talk about this process of price relocating detainees so this is something that you've actually uh you've done an interview about recently right there's a piece written about it yes yes i did two interviews about it just because it's an issue very close to my heart for several reasons. Detained work is very, very difficult. And just the fact that few attorneys do it. I mean, more have now in light of the county program,

but still it's very emotionally draining too. You see, you literally see the decline of the person in front of your eyes, both mentally and physically. And it's just, it takes a lot out of you. So these people need and deserve representation and like i said are often detained unjustly and have strong cases that they could actually win so basically these people deserve representation and need it the most i mean they're

basically the most marginalized out of any immigrant there is. So for ICE to suddenly start transferring, mass transferring, I might add, represented detainees when they never have in the past and they haven't their own memo from 2012 that says they shouldn't do this, except for exigent circumstances, you know, like some and they describe it as some medical issue or something severe that requires it. It's just, it's pretty obvious that this is just direct retaliation or just designed to get attorneys out of Otay because there's been more of them in there and we tend to make a stink and we tend to, we tend to ask, hey, why haven't you given a decision on my client's request to be released? And what's going on here? And we tend to send a lot of emails advocating for our clients. And we tend to be pains in the asses. And before this happened, I noticed that ICE was just not responding at all. Whereas I had some relationship with the ICE agents that are at the detention center. Just to back up, every client is assigned to a deportation officer. So you technically have

somebody from ICE to communicate with, and they're supposed to be in charge of the person detained, you know, whether they're released or whether the treatment, like any, they're their point of contact. And so even under the Trump years, you'd be able to, yeah, you might have to follow up, but you'd be able to communicate with a couple of them or some of them would do you know and so i noticed in the past year or two that this is it's just been kind of this scorched earth approach where they just won't get back to you or yeah and and um they're also not responding to requests to have people released for just months and months and months, despite attorneys asking. And so it doesn't surprise me that the timing of this and that they would do this now that I'm reflecting back on this, as well as the county program. There's more attorneys at Otay Mesa now. happens is if the person is transferred, which they've all been transferred to places like,

I think Colorado is probably the best option, but generally like Louisiana, Mississippi, things like that. Texas is where my clients are currently. So these are places where you can imagine there's A, not a lot of quality immigration attorneys and B, not a high chance of winning your case given the nature of the judges that are there. Yeah. I've heard migrants articulate to me that they would not want to be in the Fifth Circuit. Exactly. Come here in the Ninth Circuit. Exactly. They're getting sent right back to the Fifth Circuit there.

Exactly. And that's where my clients are now. And one judge from Otay decided, who scolded me for suggesting that this was even by design, he told me to act more professional. He didn't say anything to the DHS attorney about what his client was doing, but told me to act more professional. Changed venue for that client.

I was talking about the Kenyan client. And so we're now in El Paso. And thank God he has a strong case. But even then, I wonder, because that's, I mean, if it's well known amongst migrants, you can imagine how bad it is. Yeah, totally. If it's reached someone if it's well known amongst migrants you can imagine how bad it is yes i mean so it's just it's ludicrous that you have you know people pretending like judges you know just like this had to happen when you have you know 70 percent of people you know

at least that's slightly dated but still i don't think the percentage is that, even if it's 50%, why not unrepresented people? So to do this, it's just a very obvious, like, fuck you. I mean, it's just, there's no other way to justify it. Yeah, and like, when that happens, right, so you have this gentleman from Kenya who's been transferred to Texas, that then, you then have to travel to texas right for his hearings to talk to meet with him yeah so that's the whole that's the whole big battle and i have i have two different clients with two different experiences so so he i will either have to appear via Webex from my home. But then the judge now has two people remotely

because my client's not in El Paso either. He's detained in Anson, Texas, which is a blip about three hours away from Dallas or something. So they, and this is also by design, right? They put all these detention centers in the middle of nowhere because God forbid the public sees that people seeking asylum are in prisons. So anyways, so both of us are going to be remote if that's the case. So, I mean, I think there needs to be some personal contact. And maybe if I can have some communication with the DHS council, I have to go to El Paso to give my client the best chance of something. Otherwise, we're both faces on this video with a with a fifth circuit judge you know so the other flip side of the coin was that i have another client who was transferred and his trial is literally around the corner it's next week so yeah he was transferred four weeks

before his individual hearing so i filed something scathing saying judge please don't consider changing venue this is you know yeah he's been detained long enough. He's a 21-year-old, by the way. I mean, so DHS sheepishly filed something. So Council for ICE filed something saying, okay, well, we agree to that. We just asked that he could appear via WebEx from Anson, Texas also, right? So now he's going to be a face on a screen, but I can be at OTI. But still, I mean, these are all significant disadvantages.

I mean, judges are evaluating immigrants to see whether or not, in their mind, they're, quote, credible. That means do they think they're lying or not? That's very hard to do on a video because you're looking for body language. You're looking for subtle things, you know. And also, it's just like the human aspect of it is very important. You know, it's easier to deny asylum to somebody on a screen than it is somebody sitting in front of you. You know, there's so many there's so many small aspects.

And so ICE claims like, oh, well, you just you can communicate just fine. You know, you can give me it will offer you calls and even video calls. And I'm like, OK, you don't understand anything about being an attorney and what it means to actually represent clients. At the person's final court hearing, they are asked to swear to the contents of not only their asylum application, but also all evidence they filed. And so how on earth can you show them and sit with them to show them the do in person. So it's just this whole concept that you can even adequately lawyer remotely or over the phone. It's just not possible. Yeah. And especially for people who are less, you know, like I spent less time on Zoom than we have in the past four years.

Exactly. And a lot of these people are traumatized, you know, and are, like, as an attorney, you need to build rapport with them. And you do that by meeting with them in person. Otherwise, they might not share vital information with you, you know. And honestly, the family of the 21-year-old mainly hired me to be with him during his final hearing. And so now I can't even do that you know just to just to try to calm and and you know these people are petrified they've been through so much and now they have to talk about all of it in front of this american judge in a robe and from a prison yeah and i have to be their only ally is not even with them yeah and like there's understandably in a lot of countries saying something on a phone or on a call might be a risk, right? A hundred percent. You know, it takes a, I'm not saying it's not a risk doing it in this country, but like, yeah, all of these things stack up against them.

I spend most of my time telling my clients like, hey, what we discuss on the phone is attorney client privilege. Like nobody could use this even if they try. client privilege like nobody could use this even if they try and it doesn't calm them down because it's just they think they're being recorded probably from their experiences and in their home countries and frankly i don't even know if we're being recorded i just know that it can't be you are it can't be used you know i mean so yeah there's so many things that go into representing somebody who's detained and ice knows all of this full well. So this is a very deliberate choice. And it's something we haven't seen before, like ever.

I mean, everybody's pretty shocked by this. Yeah. When did it begin? I want to say a couple months ago. But this mass transfer they did that sparked us to talk to the press and so forth was over Memorial Day weekend. So they like to do that too, I've noticed, over holiday weekends. Because last year they were trying to deport a couple of my clients,

even though they had things pending. And they tried to do it over the weekend. And so on purpose, right? And so the client's families would call and be like, hey, he's being printed, like processed for being deported. And so we immediately, yeah, I had to do this twice a year ago so i had to send two emails basically documenting and ceasing the ice attorney being like hi they have a pending xyz case it is unlawful to deport stop what you're doing immediately but like had we not been notified

over the weekend and sent that email right they would have been deported despite having a case. So this is the type of stuff that regularly happens. But it's very ballsy to me to transfer like, I think it was probably like 100 people or hundreds or something, you know, I mean, over Memorial Day weekend, you know, and of course, oh, their memo, by the way, also says they're supposed to notify the attorneys. You know, I mean, I heard from frantic family members who are like, why the fuck am I getting a call from Anson, Texas? Yeah, right. What's going on here?

Oh, oh, and this is rich. You'll appreciate this. It wasn't even one transfer. They first went to Eden, Texas, which is another lovely place in Texas. And then a week later, we're moved to this place called Blue Bonnet because they have to give them pretty names, right? Detention facility at Anson. Yeah. And so I had arranged a legal call at the first detention facility and then had to, like, do this process all over again. And they ask you for everything but, like, your DNA

in order to prove that you're their attorney, you know, to get this legal call. I mean, I spent two weeks just trying to figure out where my client was. And these are two. Imagine, this has sucked up, like, all my time since Memorial Day. I mean, there's other clients I've been struggling to get to their cases. Thankfully, I haven't had too many deadlines, but

I mean, it's been brutal. Yeah, that sucks. Talking of brutal, unfortunately we have the brutal obligation to transfer to ads for a second time. So we're going to do that, and then we're going to come back all right we're back so we've heard about how ice are transferring people across to different uh different parts of the united states what i wanted to talk about now was another recent development which was joe b's executive order, not the very recent one on parole in place.

People have seen that. But this one, quote unquote, closing the border. Can you explain? We haven't really seen that impact on the ground yet. But can you explain these people are supposed to get essentially a document forbidding them from reentering for five years. Correct. And it's not just any document. It's the worst document. So it is an expedited removal, which is a fancy term for a deportation order that when issued by Border Patrol, CBP carries with it a five-year bar. And so that means you're not admissible in any way,

shape or form to the United States. And if you try to re-enter during that time period, or even at any time, irregularly, you will then be put in what's called withholding only proceedings. And that essentially means you are no longer eligible for anything, not even asylum, just a very, very difficult form of asylum, which is called withholding or protection of the convention against torture, which is also very difficult to win. So those are the two things you're stuck fighting. And then you are also mandatory detention.

So there's no possibility of you getting out unless you win your case, which is, of course, very, very difficult. So I haven't seen this play out. You know, like we're saying, it's relatively new. It's pretty fresh. Yeah. But I can imagine, based on my experience and based on what all of us know, that people aren't going to have any idea what this is. And plus there's desperation and other facts.

I mean, they just came to the dairy and they around and try again and end up being in this withholding only posture, which means they're now really screwed in terms of having a way difficult time winning any sort of relief and definitely detained. Like they will not be released. I've had clients on occasion, like every blue moon be released. But the way ICE is acting these days, I don't think it'll happen. So one of the thoughts I had is this justifying additional detention centers. If we're now having going to have probably more of those types of people. But it just in general, I don't see there being a shortage of people they can detain. So I think. Yeah, no, I think they Yeah, i don't think that we have an option in november to vote for a person who isn't going to build more prisons for refugees

100 100 which is which is why and i think that's something very you know it can be you can take it and be like okay i'm so depressed you know blah blah there's nobody to vote for like you know because basically biden has done you know gravitated so far to the right i call all the stuff that they waved at us in 2020 so trump will do this biden has done exactly right and so i don't even know that i call them trump light but i don't even know if he's trump light anymore he's like more like trump medium or almost there you know so um that's racist speeches exactly trump minus the racist speeches exactly so it's just i mean so the way to look at this is that like literally we are their only hope i mean the government here is not only like not only gonna not save them from anything they're in creating all these situations putting them in

more peril so it really behooves us to find all the different grassroots organizations. And there's so many of them that we can help and donate and volunteer our time to because that's literally all these people have. Yeah. So let's talk about that a bit, because that's something both you and I do is we participate in water drops and migrant aid of various kinds. Welcome stations are the thing we've been doing recently. You know, you and I were out a while ago now. Time just kind of collapses on itself um but uh we were out in a place near the border you we were there when we met the two mauritanian dudes who carried the chinese exactly yeah yeah it was so beautiful right yeah it was such a wonderful like obviously it's pretty bleak that this guy's unable to use one of his legs properly and yeah therefore two people who don't share a single word

with him had to carry him but it's these two mauritanian men we met i'll just rewind to tell the whole story yeah we were driving down the road and we kept meeting groups of mauritanian refugees coming north and we were able to help them by giving them water and quick interruption by the way i looked up mauritanian and unsurprisingly they have female genital mutilation, child labor, and basically any, like, it's just horrific. Capital punishment for gay people, right? Exactly. So these people were very, very nice. Just wanted mostly a bottle of water and, you know, how far until we can surrender to border patrol, which is what they intend to do.

And they kept saying, like, there's a guy with a broken leg. And we were like, oh, shit. But that's potentially fatal in this place that we're at um they just keep saying go down the road you'll see him so we keep going down the road and we come around the corner and there's two guys sort of each and then the third guy in the middle of them with like his hands over both their shoulders right and they're sort of humping him down the road and it turns out this chinese man only speaking mandarin had he had like a brace or like a like an external fixation on his leg like like bolts through his leg and uh couldn't walk and these dudes have been carrying him for two days and they couldn't speak the same language

like they uh they didn't they weren't able to communicate and it was yeah the most humane thing and it made me just so ashamed like these people in a time of desperation for themselves have taken the risk to help other people yeah and then here's our government just being like screw you like you don't belong here we're going to put you straight in prison or especially these these are mostly muslim african men from mauritania right they're generally sort of that that will be one of the more persecuted demographics and perhaps you can talk about like how you got into participating in water drops and how other people could do so or any any form of like direct mutual aid as opposed to like advocacy yeah yeah

absolutely I mean I think I think the main thing to take away is that it's easier to help or participate than one would think. You know, I think you look at this issue of immigration and it's so overwhelming right now. And it can be a bit like, oh, God, you know, what can I possibly do? Or, you know, and even if I'm,'m you know what difference am I making you know and it's just like I have the same struggles working as you know an immigration attorney because you're just like god you see just the vast need and you know you focus on the person in front of you you know and not to sound cheesy but that's the life you can affect and so we're and all of us collectively have an impact more than we know you know so I think that's just the first thing to share.

So don't, don't feel defeated and, and think that, remember that if you have 20 extra bucks a month to spare, for example, like if you donate that to supplies for migrants, then that literally allows the work of water dropping to continue. And, you know, that's the other side of the coin. If we can go out all we want, but if we don't have money or supplies to drop, then nothing gets done, you know. So if you live in any part of the country, really, you can find a reputable organization, you know, or BRC is a collective. I volunteer with Borderlands Relief relief collective and um every cent goes directly to the supplies that we drop and that's a very it's a huge tangible source of help all of our supplies are consumed as you know within a week or so we think you know so it's just there's so many different ways to participate.

There's organizations that allow you to talk to detained immigrants, like Freedom for Immigrants. There's different ways you can help if you want to communicate with them. There's also Detention Resistance who works with the people mainly in Otay Mesa to help just provide even a source of support, just someone, a human being to talk to who can help them with little things like writing letters or putting money in their account to be able to contact family members. I say little things, but those things are huge. Because if you can imagine being an immigrant in another country and you're in a prison, but somebody in that country or a few people are showing you love. I think at the end of the day, whether you're officially deported or went asylum or whatever, those are the things that stick with people. Because I know that they're going to remember that probably for the rest of their lives. Yeah.

And I think it's the least we can do to be welcoming. Exactly. The state has failed to do so. Exactly. That's why the welcome stations that we do are so beautiful too right because it's just i mean what we were doing that day when we we met those two people or the three people rather and it's just like they get a they get a help a loving helpful person as their first exposure to the united states and then you know i said instead of border patrol which makes them take off their shoelaces and treats them like you know yeah like

their criminals exactly exactly yeah and it's nice like i've exchanged my numbers with those people Instead of border patrol, which makes them take off their shoelaces and treats them like, you know. Yeah, like they're criminals. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And it's nice. Like I've exchanged phone numbers with those people. And they're like, oh, you're the first American I met. You'll always be like my first American friend. Someone said the other day.

And I thought that was really sweet. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. I think about that all the time with my clients. You know, I'm just like, God, I feel so fortunate to meet all these people, you know, from different countries. And I'm embarrassed to say that I have to usually fortunate to meet all these people from different countries. And I'm embarrassed to say that I have to usually Google where the country is. It's awful.

I don't know what our geography education was, but let's just say I didn't get much of it. But just where am I going to meet people from Belize, from Kenya, from Trinidad, from Chad, and be able to really share life with them to a certain extent? Or I know their most vulnerable and awful experiences. you know and be able to really share life with them to a certain extent or or you know i know their most vulnerable and awful experiences i know their family you know or about their families about them and it's a really beautiful thing so it's just um you know unfortunately so to have to interact with them in a prison is just you know it's just uh it's just ridiculous you know but so that's why those welcome tables are i think so just pure and precious because at that moment there's no bullshit involved yet there's no u.s government

it's just humans interacting with humans yeah totally it's really nice like it's one of the better things that i like to do and yeah if you're in a place where you can do it you should do it if you're not it would be great if you're using your money. I am going to read, as we finish up, a plug for the Sidewalk School, Matamoros and Reynosa. I just want to, like, they are in desperate need of money right now. They do amazing work with people on both sides of the border.

I've been on a panel with Felicia for UCLA that you can find if you're good at Googling things. It's on YouTube. It's the Allied Community Arts Brigade at UCLA hosted the panel. So if you search that and board a panel, I'm sure you'll find it. If you want to know more about the Sidewalk School, I recommend it. And we're joined there by people from Border Kindness and Alotrolado,

which are both excellent organizations working on the border here. But the Sidewalk School are working with refugees and asylum seekers on both sides of the border in Matamoros and Verenosa, so in the Texas area. And they desperately need your money, if you would like to support them, you can go to gofund.me slash 06CDOC76. And we'll include that in the notes of this podcast as well. Kirsten, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you, James.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez

story as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k?

Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse

to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, películas, and entertainment

with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes.

You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a show that today is very urgently about things falling apart in Kenya and how to put them back together again. I'm your host, Emile Wong. put them back together again. I'm your host, Mia Wong. What you're about to hear is an interview about the Kenyan protests that was recorded on Sunday, July 23rd. At time of recording, it is now Tuesday the 25th, and in that two-day span, the situation in Kenya has gotten significantly

worse. Kenyan police are firing live ammo into crowds of protesters. They've killed at least five people today. That number is expected to rise as more protesters die in hospitals. The government has deployed the army and shut down much of the internet in an attempt to stop news from getting out. On Kenyan TV, political leaders called the protesters criminals and a threat to national security. Meanwhile, protesters made good on their slogan Occupy Parliament by storming and then partially burning down the parliament building as politicians continue to meet their demands with bullets. What we've seen today is terrifying. Cops shooting live ammo into churches, cops opening fire on people waiting for medical care. Meanwhile, to the fury of the protesters, Kenyan troops arrived today in Haiti to begin a US-backed occupation of the country. We spent this interview largely discussing the local Kenyan political

elite, but this is also an international crisis. Much of the impetus for the brutal tax increases on basic goods came from an international monetary fund bailout deal that required Kenya to increase its taxes to 25% of the country's GDP. Thus, Kenyans are being robbed twice. Once by the Kenyan political masters of the cops shooting them in the streets, and again by the IMF and their neoliberal wealth extraction program. As the struggle continues, let us now turn to our interview and to a more optimistic time in the movement to get a real understanding of what the protests are about. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the here is currently Kenya. Yeah, I'm your host, Mia Wong, and we are going

to talk about a bunch of protests and a bunch of very, very, very interesting sort of political developments in Kenya that I think have gotten very distressingly little coverage in the sort of like Anglophone mainstream media. And with me to talk about that is Justine Wanda, who's a stand-up comedian, a political satirist and a writer who's created fake work with justine about well basically all the stuff that we're going to be talking about today are things you will see on this show um justine welcome to the show thank you so much for having me how are you doing uh you know this is this is one of those morning recordings so i'm a little bit unhinged, but it's okay.

I'm really excited to talk to you. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you. Yeah, so I think the place to start here is, can you talk about, so these protests are about an upcoming finance bill. So let's talk about what what actually is this bill and what's in it okay so for me to be able to talk about the finance bill i have to talk about the finance bill that was passed last year yeah go for it so in 2023 we had a finance bill

that was passed and most of the the finance bill last year had something called the housing levy, which basically requires every single Kenyan who's employed to remove a little bit of their salary to go directly to pay for an account where they'll pull the money to build Kenyan's affordable houses. where they'll pull the money to build Kenyans affordable houses. And in Kenya, housing is not especially a crisis in like rural areas because most people have their own personal homes. The issue is usually the urban centers where housing is actually very expensive and it's very poorly infrastructured.

Like there's no water sometimes. There's no electricity in certain parts. Like people have done a lot of illegal collection connections so last year the bill was kind of rammed through and there was so much public participation actually in the beginning that was like a lot of people got angry about the bill forcing people to take money out of their pockets to contribute to a fund that didn't seem like they had a plan and a lot of politicians were actually on tv and everyone was watching every interview and they're like you don't make any sense we don't understand yeah it's like what is that money for

um we're not sure but we know we want to build you houses how are you going to manage the money who's going to be in charge of the money how is this like every single aspect was met by like some form of deflection or like a lie just like a lot of there wasn't any accountability in the in what they were telling us and even the person who was in charge was like on tv he was sweating he looked like he was lying though who was that so everyone was like if this is how you're speaking about it when we aren't giving out money what will happen after the fact but the bill sailed through and one of the elements that was in that bill that wasn't even in the news was that avocado farmers in the country will start be charging us that uh will be charged a certain amount of money on their produce and they have to produce receipts on this every single day what like if yes if you sell like an avocado one avocado or like a bag of

avocados you have to do a breakdown of like your sales and like provide receipts to the government and then like you're charged for it oh my god and yes and the mps this like earlier this year were like when the bill usually like sometimes it takes a while for the the closures to come into effect it takes like maybe a couple of months so the the amount the farmers are supposed to get charged was supposed to go live on, sorry, in February or something. So in February, farmers are getting attacked by like the Kenya Revenue Authority.

They're being told you need to provide these receipts and everything. And everyone is like, I don't understand because we weren't informed. And then the politicians who did not read the bill but passed it were like oh we didn't read the document it was too big what yes baffling exactly so like that kind of information was what that was what was on the news just before they introduced now the finance bill 2024

so it's like we know you didn't read the one from last year you passed a bunch of uh um bills that you didn't understand the impact of it in the long term so why would should you why should kenyans trust you with this new one and then they were like no we have the best economic interests at heart and then everyone was like but the bill you passed last year to increase revenue didn't work. So if it didn't work, what makes you think having a bunch of new taxes is going to work? And they couldn't answer that. And now this finance bill 2024 wants to introduce a motor vehicle tax, where if you own a car, you pay like a certain amount, like I think 2.5 percent that's one of the valuation of your car and you pay it to your insurance company every single year wait to the insure what what what wait wait wait hold on so what why why is the tax why is this being paid to

the insurance company what because that's that's what people are asking it's like we understand because insurance in kenya is mostly run by private entities all of us know exactly what they're doing so it's more of like a way to privatize and get money into people's pockets so we can't see and then end up being stolen and there will be no accountability but they say it's easier because the insurance companies already handle this kind of stuff so it's on top of your insurance on top of like the insurance you pay for your car you pay the motor vehicle tax as part of that and i'm like that's ridiculous we don't trust you with our money on any given day why would you think we would just to suddenly with a bunch of money being run by a private firm somewhere because they're not going to show us their books yes

it seems like a part of this too is just that the sort of tax infrastructure is isn't very like the tax collection infrastructure isn't very good because you would think that that wouldn't be that hard for the government to just collect but instead we have like a like an ottoman style tax farming situation so i love it you say that because like that's how that's exactly how it feels like everything is run it's very we are the smartest people in the room we can't make the wrong decision but you've made the wrong decision again and again and again. And now we're like, we want to see the approach. We want to understand how this is going to work

in the face of unemployment, in the face of, like the country has not been in good economic trajectory for a while now. And those economic shocks can be felt. A lot of people are closing down their businesses. A lot of people are downsizing, which means it's less people employed. Even the beauty industry, which is mostly like run on imports because they're charging so much import duty. The beauty industry can't even stand on its own.

So people are not just buying less makeup. It's like people who have those stores and any of those kinds of businesses can't even have the person who comes to get the job daily. It becomes a bit of a problem. So everyone is like, if you're going to charge us more, you have to have an infrastructure that works for us. Yeah. Yeah.

Another tax that they're adding on the finance bill is the import duty fee to sanitary towels, wheelchair, tires. Because Kenya doesn't manufacture a lot of stuff. So you find the pad manufacturing industry in Kenya, like sanitary towels, only 2% are manufactured here. A big chunk comes from outside. And they want to increase the import duty on that. That means the parts in the market are going to be

even more expensive. Yeah, and that's something that that's not a luxury good. You just need that. Yeah. Everyone was like, okay, I guess we'll just have to stop having periods

it's like that that's what you're saying like we're gonna have to magically yeah we're gonna have to figure out magically with nature to just stop having periods because you guys want to tax us in this particular way and it's it's not just like the small things, because like the problem with the Kenyan space, especially with sensitive issues. So our third president, his name was Mwaki Baki, was one of the first presidents in the world to remove VAT on sanitary towels. Like he was seen as like someone who's setting an example

for so many people. And then the fact that this is happening when this country was seen as like a trendsetter to like not just Afghan countries, but other countries around the world when it comes to like very important goods, it was felt like we were going backwards and not in a way it's not like we didn't have an example to follow we actually did have a set

precedent on like how an economy is supposed to work so everyone who's grown up in this particular environment so they felt safe and protected by the government and like the government taking the lead on very important issues with like you can't say building kenya buying kenya is a top priority for you when even electricity costs are expensive yeah because even this bill adds like a fuel levy tax it's it's going up by seven shillings, which is way too expensive. So you pay for your fuel, but most of the charges on the fuel is just the levies and taxes. And they're adding a little bit more. It seems like from the way that these are being structured,

one of the things with direct sales taxes, is that they're incredibly regressive. The people who get affected the most by it are the people who don't have that much money versus something like doing, you know, versus doing like an income tax on like the people who are the highest owners. This is this, the burden of this falls entirely on people who are poor and can't afford it. Yes, that's I think it's very scary to think a lot of our politicians because they get paid with taxpayer money. And what they did when during when they were writing, when they were contributing to the budget, they were like, we want we want this and this amount to be added for this and this thing. But the problem is, like, when you look deep down what they're're looking for they don't want to pay taxes off of their salaries they want to find a way for taxpayers to pay for part of the taxes that are being added so that they don't have to lose money yeah and every yeah everyone is like we know you're budgeting for corruption we can see you we can see you still and we don't want to be part of that and now to them it feels like we're being aggressive because we want we want them to be held accountable for their very punitive for the punitive measures that they're sending to like

regular kenyans as you said a lot of sales taxes affect everyday people and we don't know how else to stop it and i think that's why the protests are so they're catching fire and everyone wants to be out in the streets yeah and we are going to we are going to come back and talk about the protest in a second but first i here here are some products and services that are i don't know probably also being taxed. But. All right. And we are back. Yeah.

So, okay. I think, I think people should have like a decent understanding of the fact that these taxes are... These are taxes on basic commodities that people need. And that's one of the easiest ways to start a protest movement is to suddenly make it too expensive to live. So let's talk about how these protests sort of started and how they've been being organized. My issue is that we can't really say how the

protests started but there was a lot of anger by kenyans online because kenyans are chronically online like especially the younger generation a lot of people have cell phones a lot of people are not tuned into the news really but the information sharing happens where like when a clip from the news is cut put put on TikTok, people see it. This is happening. So people get angry and then they share it. So what happened with the finance bill? People would cut very little clips from the news and then someone would help put it in context. So that's where my channel comes in, where I'm not just using the news clips.

where I'm not just using the news clips. I'll provide evidence. Like I've gone through the finance bill and then even consult with people who are in like, like ask lawyers on Twitter, like people who have resources and understand the law or like what that would mean

for everyday Kenyans. I would literally reach out and it got to a point where I am now in communication with the right channels. Like you can directly ask how this would impact people. Like if they tax bread more or like refuse to make it easier for suppliers to get items for the supply chain, how does this affect everyday people?

So that helps bridge the gap of information. And now with more people critically, not just looking at the news, but finding the evidence for themselves really have helped us get to a point where when you share we are protesting about this issue this is where we're going this is what's happening this this will happen in a town so like nairobi had its own occupied parliament um reject the finance bill demonstration. It happened in Mombasa too. It happened in Nyeri, Eldoret, all these smaller towns where people were like, but there are people from rural areas.

They won't really care. And I'm like, you don't know that. Yeah. And also something that's really magical that's happened. A lot of Kenyans were like, okay, maybe there happened a lot of kenyans were like okay maybe there are a lot of kenyans who live in rural areas who don't have media that doesn't cater to traditional listeners like people who only speak certain languages uh so vernacular stations uh so people started using tick tock to do direct translation it's like this is the script yes this is the

script for the uh for the finance buildings that the taxes being added this is the script yes this is the script for the uh for the finance bill these are the taxes being added this is the tax on bread this is the tax on your on your vehicle this is the tax that will happen on like period and sanitary pads and diapers and everything so someone does the whole breakdown in their vernacular language and they share it on their family whatsapp groups because kenyans love whatsapp that's why if you want to do anything propaganda like you can easily do it on whatsapp the forward messages are crazy so because like whatsapp is mostly co-opted by aunties and moms and people who love to share please go to chat share share this to seven friends people took that mandate where they send it to their moms and then have it shared like seven of their friends

who don't understand maybe what the finance bill entails. And that is really changing the landscape of like who gets to interpret the bills, who gets to understand how it influences them. And it's been very, very effective. So people who are passive are more understanding of like why everyone is on the streets. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like, it almost seems like there's kind passive are more like more understanding of like why everyone is on the streets yeah yeah and it

seems it seems like it's it almost seems like there's isn't there's kind of a i don't know it's like a tiktok think tank that's been sort of doing this valuation that is being spread through that's that's really cool i'm just saying it's absolutely lovely to see because like tribalism has been a tool that's been wielded especially during elections to make kenyans look like they don't care about each other and they can't go beyond their differences and this time it's like yeah we do have language barriers but we're going not going to let that affect us negatively we're going to figure out a way through the noise before they start co-opting those spaces and start saying, oh, Gen Z kids are lying or millennials are just started getting money.

So why would they care about taxes? And so everyone is making sure those spaces are not corrupted. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like a really sort of incredible popular education thing that's been sort of powering this. Yeah. So I want to, I guess talk about um one of the things

that i i i think maybe kind of breached the i don't know calling it like the great firewall is exactly right but it's like i think one of i think one of the parts of this that has gotten a little bit of play in in the sort of media over here has been the police response which has been terrible yeah if you talk about what the cops have been doing okay in in kenya protests historically protests have always been extremely violent like um during the moi era people used to get beaten up a lot. Moi was our second president. He was in office for 24 years. So he was a power holder.

I'll use those words. He was a power holder. He didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay in power for as long as he could. And to counter anyone who would go against him, people were tortured. People were disappeared. People were disappeared. People were killed and dropped in

forests. Many families couldn't find their members, especially if they went out to protest or do anything. That's why Wangare Mathai's story was one of the biggest environmental champions the world has ever seen. Her story was so unique because

in the face of the most brutal dictator this country has ever seen her story was so unique because in the face of the most brutal dictator this country has ever seen she showed up and like she didn't just disagree but she fought back and she did she used the same tactics that people are using now she informed the very ignored part of the population to get the information across that if they start taking away your land and cutting down your trees and you won't be able to farm you won't have anything this is this whole place is going to be a desert in a couple of years so everyone was panicking because like land is a very sensitive issue yeah and that's what why the movement worked so well because she was not speaking not she was not just speaking against authority but she was going to like the

people who were going to be affected the most and during those protests she was beaten up her hair was like yanked off her head it was very yeah it was very graphic and very painful like you watch those videos and they're like who does something like this and And now it's being replicated. Sorry, it was replicated again throughout his presidency. But throughout the years, a lot of civil rights movements and all the community-based organizations came together

and they would still protest about stuff. But the issue, it had moved on from large protests to even smaller protests being, like they would send the police to beat up people who are speaking up about any issue. And usually because like you're in smaller communities, there's no way to track. So if someone dies in Kibera and it's a slum area and it's mostly disenfranchised. The community organizations there know they try and find justice for the family, but because our police are mostly held, you can't hold them to account because they work for the state,

it's very hard to get any form of justice. But this time, was it last year when people were protesting about the cost of living and i think it was just shortly before the finance bill 2023 passed people were protesting people were out and they were angry about everything and people were beaten up um someone lost their two-year-old child because the child was beaten by the police yeah yeah and like there's a woman who lost her son because usually when you're at protest sometimes there are people who are passing by but because you're there and the police are there they end up even if you're not yeah you're not

part of the process so there's a woman who ended up losing her son last year to the protest and her adopted son too and then this this year like a couple of weeks ago she died in a flood in madari so kenyans online yes kenyans online keeps seeing the terrible nature of like how state violence keeps continuing so this time when the protests were being organized everyone was like make sure you're peaceful don't carry any stones because like can you just not throw stones there you're like you carry stones you won't even pick up tear gas and like throw it back and everything and this time everyone was like just make sure you're very peaceful only use your voice protect each other like a lot of the announcements around the protests are like, make sure it's peaceful

so that they don't have an excuse to say that you are out in the streets doing something illegal. You don't attack shops. You don't try and force yourself into anyone's premises. And what happened that was very beautiful this year is the establishments, like the one I'm in right now, was helped protect citizens who are protesting. So kids would be out of the city, they'd start getting tear gas and they would open the door.

People would come in and they would close the door until the police got away. So you find establishments are working to not just protect people, but also to be part of showing this is our premises. also to be to be part of showing like this is our premises it's not been looted it's not been destroyed because destruction of property apparently is a bigger problem than you losing your life so yeah most people felt they were safe at the protest and they also felt like they were seen by other protesters so it was largely peaceful, very well-coordinated. There's information on how to get medical help or in case you're arrested, how to get legal assistance. So every single element was like,

we're not just going to ban out of like going into the streets, but making sure everyone returns home safely. A lot of the protests in the past were they got a little violent because maybe some of the protesters went rogue and obviously the politicians love to use bad actors where they implant a bunch of people who go and destroy business premises and then it looks like the protesters didn't come there to actually protest. They were there for their own selfish reasons. So this time, what happened is like a lot of the protesters were given the right information on how to stay peaceful. It's like, these are the streets to use.

These are the meeting points. These are the contact people for in case you get injured, there's this medic. In case you get arrested, these are the lawyers. get injured there's this medic in case you get arrested these are the lawyers in case your friend disappears make sure they have a live location on so we can track them and everything so it was widely successful because that kind of peaceful and well-coordinated move navigated towards spaces that were ignored before like the safety of everyone was a priority and because our leaders can't really find who started the protest because it's mostly like a group who led the movement they've started abducting who they feel like are community leaders yeah yeah so i i guess that that's something i wanted to ask about was like has

has the police response actually been any less bad this time than it's been with other so this time on thursday they shot yeah they they shot into a crowd and one of them ended up shooting a 24-year-old and he bled out he died his name is Rex Masai and then another kid was also shot his name is Evans Kiragu was also shot and I think they were trying to like get him help and everything but he died yesterday I believe and there are still other protesters who are yet to be found and then yesterday morning there's a very popular twitter personality who was disappeared like they kind of abducted him yeah yeah but then kenyans held a space online for over six hours and they're like they were dragging government officials they're like if you people don't return this particular person we will find you like it was very like it was particularly funny

because Kenyans you would think this younger generation people don't have have concentration issues no one is going to listen to us speak but like everyone was like online and they were paying attention to like every single speaker just to keep the space longer holding space for the person who'd been uh taken and he was found his lawyers the lawyer sorry the lawyers in charge found him and they went and like they went and got him and he went back safe but obviously you can see he was visibly shaken his twitter name is crazy Nairobian yeah and then now today they took one of the doctors was organizing for a blood drive in like um in a certain up market area they just picked him out and like no one has been able to

find him until now so people are still advocating to like get him back. And a lot of big personalities are making phone calls. Lawyers are showing up. They're like, if you see this particular car, if you see it in your location, try to inform us, share the information. So everyone who's online is trying to get the right information to make sure that that doctor is brought back and yeah ironically that doctor is actually unemployed because the the government is refusing to hire new medical personnel because like it's too expensive when we see them

like driving around in new cars our president even has like very expensive shoes and everyone is like your shoes could literally pay like three doctors salary yeah just hire hire the right people yeah but like kenyans are pushing to make sure everyone is safe and everyone who's lost especially big twitter influencers and big media personalities and influencers are coming together to make sure they use their platforms to help find anyone who's not, who's been disappeared or been abducted. Yeah. Where do you think the movement's going from here i know actually well actually i think i think i've lost track of what reading of the bill they're at right now was i thought it was the third reading

or it's a it's at the committee stage so at the committee stage they go through the every single clause and they try to justify why they should keep it or whether they're going to disband it but everyone is just like we don't want any of this because some of the bill is if there's a there's a part of the bill that i didn't mention where the kenya revenue authority is supposed to go through kenya kenyan's personal data to see if you're dodging taxes and I'm like that's ridiculous because a lot of people in Kenya are supported by a family member so you find if I have money I'll send it to my kids and then my kids might forward it to their friend who is probably in trouble so if it looks like I have money coming in it's probably maybe because of like a family contribution, a personal contribution.

So they want to charge more taxes on that. And it actually makes no sense. So it looks like they're tracking how much money you look like you have. Yeah. It looks like they're tracking how much money you look like you have. And then they want to tax you on that. Or like say you're evading taxes. And it's scaring a lot of people because once that happens it feels like there's no safety in anything you have so i i guess so from from

there so is is the strategy right now based around sort of trying to get these i try to get the committees to just like to have this bill sort of die there or a lot of us are trying to make sure the bill doesn't go any further than it is and everyone is tracking the mp so what happened even before the protest people started sharing their mps numbers every single person would find like a member of parliament's numbers and we're like if you if this is your relative please give it to us if it is your side chick or whatever like whatever way you relate to this person because it's government officials their numbers should be public anyway citizens should be able to reach them yeah and because they they wanted to hide behind their big big cars and big houses who were like, okay, we're going to find you where you're at

and we're going to text you and we're going to tell you to vote no. And most of the employees were very dismissive. They were like, the party that's backing me is the one that got me into office. It's like, no, people voted for you. You should represent their views. So a lot of Kenyans held the line where it's like, I don't you you should represent their views so a lot of kenyans

held the line where it's like i don't care what your boss is telling you or what party this is you have to vote with us so a lot of mps who were shamed online some of them had to convert like they changed their votes incredible bully works yes we're so happy we're like yeah we should do this more often so that's really that really gave hope to a lot of kenyans who are feeling like maybe their work isn't amounting too much but we lost we lost that one battle a lot of us ended up losing the button to the second reading because many of the MPs were so there's this fund called the CDF fund it's the constituency the constituency development fund

that MPs kind of use it like their personal bank account so members of parliament yeah members of parliament will get the CDF fund and then they'll use it to go and like... So it's supposed to actually take care of bursaries or any county emergencies directly affecting constituents. But what MPs do is they wield it as a personal bank account. So it's like

you have to do a lot of asking and a lot of performative nonsense for you to even get some of the money. And a lot of people don nonsense for you to even get some of the money and a lot of people don't actually end up getting the money so what the budget makers did they decided to top up the cdf fund so that more employees have more money and usually they just pocket that money so they were like okay i feel like we've my budgeted corruption has hit the account i don't need to do the right thing so this is just literally a bribe exactly it's like the the best way is like and they're like

no i'll have more money to take care of the constituents it's like no you'll steal this money anyway you guys are not any you you're not going to grow a conscience today just because you have more money. So most people are trying to get the parts of the budget rescinded and put into efforts that go directly to education and healthcare, even if it's directly to the school instead of the individual.

So that will help cut down on that kind of corruption that a lot of MPs run with. And I think that's scaring some of them. And we're hoping to get more people to push their members of parliament or any nominated representatives to recognize that uh all these items that they're voting for is not just going to affect us but it'll affect them

and the money that they're hoping to steal so if you're going to steal from us incredible um yeah is there is there anything else you want to add before you wrap up yeah i'll say usually when a lot of stories in like the african continent are covered it's usually like africans vote for bad leaders and well that is true most of the time people don't feel like they have an option yeah and like i you know if you you listeners statistically are probably either an american or a brit so like you you you know exactly what that's like like you have like a someone who just you have trump and he's like a front runner right now so yeah because a little

so on tiktok something happened i think yesterday or something where people were like how did kenyans vote for this person he has such a very dark criminal past and and everyone was like, have you guys seen yourselves? Yeah. There are no high schools. Everyone makes very foolish mistakes and all of us look like we don't know what to do to make sure people like that don't ascend into power. Because group things sometimes gets us to very dangerous places. It happens everywhere.

No one is any less affected if someone who you hoped would lose gains power like you you're all in deep trouble like no one is on a higher pedestal than the other all of you can actually lose a lot and one of the things that we are trying to remind each other is we're trying not to get to this space so what uh kenyans are trying to remind each other we are trying not to get to this space so what Kenyans are trying to propose is a direct manifesto where any person who's running has to have a clause in their manifesto

that is going to even be turned into a policy and law where if you steal any money or you go found doing anything corrupt you have to remove yourself from office immediately, there's no bargaining to do whatsoever you have to remove yourself from office immediately, there's no bargaining to do whatsoever

you have to leave office immediately and then we're going to seize all your property like anything the rules yeah if you're going to get into power make sure the salary you're getting is enough if you have any ambitions

let them die now do everything before you get into office the salary you're getting is enough. If you have any ambitions, let them die now. Like do everything before you get into office. And I think that's so encouraging to see because everyone is not just looking at the now and like all this bad taxes and the bad leadership that we have, but also looking to the future of like, how do we make sure we don't get here again?

So that's really encouraging to see everyone is making sure that they hold people to account across the board like if you're protesters make sure you're safe make sure you you know this information but also for the future this is what we want so it's not just like removing bad taxes but if we're going to pay taxes are they going to be used and how are we going to make sure that the future of the country is being protected by collective interest and not just like individual worship which has been a very very big problem uh in kenyan culture because like over here musicians are barely celebrities but a politician would walk in here

and people would lose arms and legs to just say hi. So we're trying to make sure we fix that too. Yeah, so I guess if people listening to this want to try to help support the protests, are there steps or things they can do and places they can go to find more information? Because a lot of it is group organized i have to find the the information i could send it to you yeah yeah we can put in the description of yes i don't know from the top of my head yeah no worries because i'm still and like most people would like to individual because a lot of

we have a lot of mobile money transfers which are usually direct to the person so that it doesn't go through various channels and then people end up misappropriating or stealing so if community led so i'll have to find the information and then share it. Cool. Yeah. And okay. If people want to find you on the internet, where can they do that? So on Instagram and TikTok, it's fake walk with Justine, like at fake walk with Justine, like the full handle.

On Twitter, it's at official FWWJ. So it's official FWWJ, which is just people who just in official people for justin yeah we'll we'll get we'll get that in the description too yeah yeah i do have my personal account but i don't know if i want to give that yeah no worries yeah no i can still give it it's at justin wonder j-u-s-t-i-n-e-w-a-n-d-a yeah cool yeah justine thank you so much thank you so much for coming on the show talking about this has been great thank you so much for having me and letting me like just run my mouth for a couple of years yeah and good good good luck to you all hope you fucking hope you stop them

and bring them all down i really hope we do if we don't it's gonna be so sad yeah but thank you so much yeah yeah of course and yeah this has been a kid here and uh you too can go make your politicians lives miserable. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five year old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

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available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money?

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a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where Robert Evans is lying down on a couch because he just feels exhausted from sleeping 11 full hours. Garrison, you were much younger than me and don't seem to feel exhausted because you just woke up after staying up all night. Did you? Yeah. No, not as exhausted.

I hate you. Do you? Yeah, no, not as exhausted. I hate you. Do you know what is exhausting, Robert? Elections? The 2024 presidential election. The 2024 presidential election. Yeah, I hate it. I hate it, Garrison. I hate it, but also I have made a commitment.

I have made a commitment to making a prediction about the election this year and sticking to it, even though it's going to make everybody angry. And I have a good reason for doing so. It's because I want to try one of the rarest drugs that exists in the world today, that Nate Silver shit. See, everyone's been wondering since like 2020, what's up with that guy? Did he like lose his mind? Was he always kind of like out there and we just didn't notice because he got lucky a couple of elections in a row?

And the answer to that is no. Nate was a pretty reasonable guy. He comes out of like not politics. He only got into politics in 2006 because they banned online gambling, and he got angry about it. And then he accurately predicted the 2008 and 2012 elections.

Which wasn't hard, to be fair. Which wasn't hard. No, it was not. I mean, he got all the states right, but it was just a matter... Because people have pointed out he didn't seem to be nearly as accurate in 2016 or 2020. There's a degree of fairness to that, but 2008 and 2012 were our last non-smartphone elections, where there wasn't this big demon of social media kind of hiding behind everything and

making everything a lot weirder. And I think part of, you know, I think what ultimately caused Nate's madness, though, is that in 2016, he did pretty well. He, like, laid out, there's a 29% chance of Trump winning, and when he, like, explained what that chance was, how Trump might sweep the blue firewall states and whatnot, it's basically what wound up happening. And as, like, a reward for being more or less correct while the election was

going on, all of the Democrats hated him because the news sources they liked said that Trump had only a 2% chance of winning. And then when the election was over, it became like mainstream kind of reality to just say, yeah, Nate fucked that one up. He finally screwed up. And I think that mix of things is what's driven him insane. So I've decided to predict that there's a 29% chance that the election is basically the same as 2020. And now, unlike Nate, I don't have any kind of math to back that up. It's just a gut feeling. But i'm calling that now because i want people to get really angry at me now and then ideally when i'm right they'll get even angrier at me and then i can go insane on social media and just gladly become completely unhinged and see what it's

like to be nate silver the ultimate high garrison see i thought you were gonna say you thought there was a 29 chance that n Nate Silver would just completely, completely lose it and do some like, like, uh, yeah. Do a major act of terrorism. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. That's what I thought you were going to say. Yeah. He drives a double decker bus into the, into the Lincoln Memorial. God, that's my,

that's my hope. He storms the 538 headquarters. Yeah. He's going to take it back once and for all okay so today we're going to be talking about election polling uh the debate is is very very soon here in atlanta georgia and as a little bit of a preparatory measure, we want to go over some of the actual poll numbers for the 2024 presidential election. I like to start with this Iowa poll from Seltzer and Co. Now, Iowa is a weird one, right? Iowa has gone red pretty consistently the past two years, although 2020 was closer than 2016. In 2020, Trump won the state by 53.1% to Biden's 44.9%.

But the numbers right now are much, much worse for Biden. Not good. No, it's pretty bad. Trump is leading Biden in the general election in Iowa by 18 percentage points. And third party candidates, including Kennedy and the libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, are receiving a combined 15% support. It's pretty bad. It hasn't been this bad in a while. Now, people like to use this specific Iowa poll as kind of a barometer for the Midwest in general. And that's, you know, not completely accurate all the time, but it is something that people do consistently point to as a general barometer for Trump's possible success in the Midwest. Now we have Minnesota.

Which is key because one of the most, probably the most viable path to Biden winning involves holding that quote unquote blue firewall, which doesn't include Iowa, obviously, but it does include Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which are generally within the margin of error in most polls, but looking very sketchy for Biden compared to how he would like them to be at this point. Wisconsin's not looking great. Minnesota, according to a SurveyUSA poll from just a few days ago, Biden is up six points. Yes, yes. Michigan is, I think, the one I was saying is a little closer. Yeah. So that's kind of the situation with this poll.

I'm not going to get into any of the more specific numbers because the numbers in this Iowa poll are going to be actually pretty reminiscent of more of the general election numbers, which we're going to get into. Especially when we're going to start factoring in things like the conviction and Trump's popularity among independents, which could very well be a major deciding factor in this election. So I'm going to quote from Forbes here, quote, Trump leads Biden by one point, 50 to 49 percent in a CBS poll released Sunday that comes after a streak of surveys found Trump's lead has slipped since his felony conviction in Manhattan last month, including a Fox News survey released Wednesday the 19th that shows Biden up by two points, a three-point swing since the network's May survey. This was among a streak of five polls since mid-June that show Biden beating or tied with Trump, unquote. So Biden has made some considerable progress in the polls in the past month. Biden and Trump are now tied

in the Morning Consult's weekly survey, as Biden has now been leading Trump by a point for two weeks in a row. A month prior, Trump was way, way ahead of Biden. And the two are also tied in the Economist YouGov survey released last Thursday, as well as a PBS Marist poll from Tuesday the 18th. Yeah, and there's a couple of things. I mean, like, it's easy to say that's probably due to the conviction, because that's the biggest thing that's happened since then. But I also think there's a decent chance that some of that is just the result of the fact that Trump is now definitely the nominee, which was a little more up in the air previously. So now people are kind of forced to consider what that really means. But it does seem in general like there's been

motion and like things have been moving in Biden's favor since the conviction. So I don't think it's wrong to say that probably overall, the evidence suggests helps Biden at this point. Yeah. And the Fox News survey is really interesting because they have this, they have it on a graph here. And you can see Biden steadily moving upwards on the graph very consistently. And Trump has largely flatlined, if not, is actually kind of moving a little bit down. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also moving quite down, which is not completely surprising, considering the whole brainworms thing. He's going to be the most interesting thing. I mean, not the most interesting thing, because whether or not Trump wins could mean

whether or not we are able to continue doing what we do. But RFK is kind of the most interesting thing for me in terms of like, are is it going to is there going to be any kind of evidence that there's actually real hunger for a third party, which everyone keeps talking about. It's this constant topic of discussion in US politics, but it never happens. And people were getting very... RFK is obviously a bad guy to pin your hopes on a viable third party on. But I am interested to see if it... Because there's a decent evidence that the primary chunk... Because when you factor in RFK, Biden's lead doesn't go down, right? Because RFK is really popular among a lot of the independents that Trump is already strong with. And so the big question is like, is he going to drain votes from Trump or just kind of fizzle

out? And I think right now the smart money is kind of on fizzling out, but it's a little hard to say. Do you know what we can say for sure, though, Robert? That Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the primary sponsor of this podcast. God, I hope so. I really hope we start getting some RFK ads on here. Look, folks, if you're not sure whether or not you want to vote for RFK, we get it. Obviously, this is a big choice, but our recommendation is head down to the Gulf of Galveston and shove your head in that Texas coast water. Get a couple of amoebas rattling around on that brain of yours, and then see how you feel about RFK Jr., you know? All right, we are back. Let's talk a little bit about independence because this voting block will basically be the deciding factor in this whole election. So that PBS Morris poll that found Trump and Biden tied also found that Trump has lost six points with independence

compared to their poll taken just before his conviction last May. And Biden has gained eight points with independence and now leads Trump by two points in that category. And similarly, the Fox poll also shows Biden leading by nine points among independents. And that's a massive shift. That's enough of a shift that I wonder how much polling methodology, maybe to explain for it, were they just polling these people? Were they polling them badly before or are they polling them badly now? Because that's quite a lot of movement. We'll talk a little bit about polling methodology here at the end,

because it might, yeah, it is certainly the polling methodology produces a large degree of the numbers. A lot of these polls have a margin of error of about 3.5%. But this finding is consistent across almost every single poll being done right now. A political Ipsos poll from mid-June found that 32% of independents say they are now less likely to support Trump after his conviction, with 21% saying it would be an important factor in their vote. Yep. And I did, this is the, when we were talking in the group chat before the conviction, I made a note a couple of times of the fact that there's a sizable number of Americans who are not what you'd call high information voters, but just feel really gross about voting for a felon. And I think these are the kind of people who are independents a lot of the times. They're not people who think much about politics. They're people who make- They're not as partisan typically, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they can kind of make a swing gut decision on either of these guys in a moment. And

if you tell, well, he's a felon, that matters to some people. There's like the, this frustrates a lot of like high information political analysts. The fact that so many Americans just kind of like make almost random decisions, like flip of a coin calls about what to do, but. Which is also what makes polling very hard is.

Right. But all polls also indicate that this will probably be a much closer election than 2020s. And in an election this close, small shifts among independents could very well determine the outcome. Now, I'm going to quote from that political Ipsos report on their own poll. Quote, quote, a plurality of respondents in our poll, 38 percent reported that Trump's conviction would have no impact on their likelihood to support Trump for president. 33% of respondents said that the conviction made them less likely to support Trump, while only 17% said it made them more likely. These results were worse for Trump among respondents who said they were political independents. 32% said that the conviction made them less likely to support,

and only 12% said that it made them more likely to support Trump, unquote. And that same poll also found that 9% of Republicans say they're now less likely to support Trump. Yeah, which is massive. And that actually makes me want to bring up one of the guys, the analysts I've been reading, because this is actually the – to the extent that there's any real basis behind my 29% chance things work out basically like 2021. Uh, it's this, this, this fucking dude, Helmut Norpoth. Norpoth is, he's one of these guys who's built a model. Like you get these every now and then, like, because they're, they're, they're great content for TV news dudes. Like, oh, this guy's got a model predicting the election.

they're great content for TV news dudes. Like, oh, this guy's got a model predicting the election. His model predicted the last 40 elections properly, even though they like ran them through after he knew how the elections were going to go. And I don't know how fair that is. Helmut actually did accurately predict a couple of like the last, he's had his model going, the primary model for like the last seven elections, and it predicted five of them correctly. Now, one it got right was 2016. Although it predicted how Trump was going to win wrong, it got that he was going to win right. I don't know how much credence you want to give that. And he fucked up in 2020. Although, you know, the fact that there was a pandemic, then I'll give him a little bit of grace. The other one he

fucked up was 2000. But he called it for gore. So yeah, well, I'll read from his website describing like how this works, because it's relevant to what you're talking about in terms of independent voters. And it's also relevant to what I think is another major factor and who's going to ultimately win, which is likely voters versus like, if I feel like it, I'll vote. Because Biden's lead jumps substantially when you consider likely voters. Correct. Whereas Trump does very well with like maybe voters. And I kind of don't feel like this is going to be a high turnout election, right?

No. That's what I am seeing. We have some data on this that I'll talk about later. Yeah. Yeah. And Helmut's model works that way. So, quote, the primary model gives President Joe Biden a 75% chance to defeat Donald Trump in November. This forecast takes account of the performance of the two candidates in the early primaries. Biden won the Democratic contest in those states by far larger margins than

Trump did in Republican ones. What also benefits Biden in the general election is an electoral cycle that favors the sitting president. In a nutshell, a White House incumbent facing no significant challenge in primaries almost always wins reelection. As for the Electoral College, the most likely outcome of the 2024 election predicted by the model is that Biden will get 315 and Trump 223. And basically – so part of why I think this guy's probably a hack but it's kind of interesting is he's looking at how they performed relative to each other in their primaries. And there's a degree to which you can say like, well, primaries are absolutely not general elections. But what it does show is relative

how much Trump's support has faded from Republicans. And Trump actually did considerably less well in the primaries than he did in 2020, right? Totally. There was a degree of actual hunger to vote for Kerry Lake, who I think is the Arizona candidate who was running against him. And he showed weakness in a number of primary states that was not there in 2020, which suggests, along with the polling you showed, that 9% of Republicans are less likely to vote for him after the conviction, an amount of weakness in his base that could be

pretty meaningful when we get to the election. And I don't think it's been taken into account enough by, for example, folks on the left looking at how much everybody hates Joe Biden, which is also a very real factor. But I think that people are kind of denying the degree to which a lot of folks who should be his base don't like Trump anymore. Yeah. And this is one of the weird things post the conviction. There were some pundits who were trying to make an argument that somehow the conviction would actually make Trump a more popular choice, which maybe works if you're like a contrarian. But it doesn't really make much sense.

Maybe it works if you're a contrarian, but it doesn't really make much sense. And if you look at the approval ratings for the conviction and the verdict, they fall pretty well on party lines. It's really going to come down to independence. Everyone who's going to vote for Trump, who really, really, really want to vote for Trump, are still going to vote for Trump, right? That's how it goes. Absolutely not. And they will buy the I'm voting for a felon hats that Facebook keeps trying to sell me for Trump, right? Like that's, that's, that's how it goes. Absolutely not. And they will buy the, I'm voting for a felon hats that Facebook keeps trying to sell me. Absolutely. Right. Like those are not the people that are in question,

but there is a large number of other people who do not own a mega hat who are actually, you know, questionable in who they're going to vote for. On this note, I'd like to, I'd like to quote again from Forbes quote, polls consistently show the conviction is a low priority for most voters in deciding who to actually cast their ballot for. The Politico Ipsos poll found that 53% said it's not important to their voting decision, while 61% in a Reuters poll released last week said it won't impact their vote, unquote. Now, one of the clearer shifts that we have seen post-verdict is a sizable increase in Biden voters who list stopping Trump as one of their main reasons to do so. We have numbers from March to now is that the main

reason for supporting Biden in March, we had 47% saying it's to oppose Trump. Now it's 54% saying it's to oppose Trump, which I think that number will only increase the closer we get to the election because people don't want Trump to be president again, even though they don't like Biden. The other thing with these numbers is that the percent of people who say, I like Biden as reason for supporting him has decreased since March. Yes, yes. It has decreased by 4%. Of course, because he's not likable and he's he shouldn't be president still but

trump is even like and people understand like i i that is the number one thing when i go out of like my the bubble of my friends and whatnot and talk to family members or just like have conversations with like uber drivers or whatnot about politics i have not heard a single person state a reason for they want to vote for Biden that is more important than I don't want Trump to be president. That is everyone that I encounter, basically. Like, obviously you have other people, but it is weird to the extent to which

that's what this election is going to come down on. And I kind of think it's evidence that like, of a failure and strategy in Trump's part, because I think he probably could do better if he were to focus on allaying those fears that he wants to become a dictator, as opposed to harping on, like one of the things that's interesting to me, he's campaigning very heavily in Wisconsin right now. He's already made like two visits just to Southeast Wisconsin in the last two months, because Wisconsin is up for grabs, right? Every poll I've seen basically is within margin of error. It's either guy's game, and it's a critical state. And Trump is hammering Biden on

crime in Wisconsin, right? Like, look at how your dibs have done, look at how much more violent the city's become. And about 1% of registered voters in Wisconsin consider crime a major concern in a presidential election. And part of that's because like violent crime has dropped and like massively in Wisconsin and nationwide over the last year. And I do wonder the extent to which because Americans views on crime are not based on how bad crime actually is. But I also wonder if people are start are like the the degree to which that's a voting concern for people is fading because it has dropped so much yeah and i i'll be curious to see if kind of trump's strategy of hammering the democrats because they're bad on crime is going to prove to be a serious misstep well even even fox news has

had to do recent segments talking about how there actually has been a drop in crime, even though Americans feel like it hasn't, which is a quite funny little tidbit. We're all looking for the guy who did this moment. Now, I do want to get through a few more conviction numbers. I'm going to quote from Politico's report on their own poll regarding the importance of the conviction in people's vote. Quote, 22% of respondents said the conviction is important to how they will vote and that it will make them less likely to support Trump. Only 6% of respondents took the other side of the question, saying they are more likely to support. A nearly identical net negative effect showed up among independents, with 21% saying they are less likely to support and 5% saying they are more likely.

Unquote. Now, of those who say the conviction is important to how they will vote, 7% of Republicans say they are less likely to support Trump. So that's an interesting number. And only 13% say they are more likely. And like, come on, those people were always going to vote for Trump anyway. 40% of Democrats, of course, say that they are less likely. Now, 28% of Republicans say that the conviction makes them more likely to support Trump, but it won't affect their vote. And among those who said the conviction isn't important to how they will vote, 40% said that it has basically no impact on their support of Trump. Most of those people are independents. Now, Politico also asked respondents if they thought the prosecution was brought to help Joe Biden.

And most, around 51%, disagree with the claim. But 43% agreed and said that the case had probably been brought to help Biden. And these results are roughly similar among independents. So still, most people don't think so. And there's people who have, you know, suspicions. Not super surprising. Now, Politico notes that these figures might be movable, though. These are not necessarily locked down opinions. As, quote, roughly a third of all responders and independents said that they still do not understand the details of the case well, unquote.

Glorious. Those are not really set in stone and uh politico also notes that there's a number of upcoming events and variables that could change the public's opinion before november you know including all of the ongoing efforts by political operatives to influence people the public perception of both the conviction and just you know the election in general the debates obviously too the debates uh as well as trump's sentencing in Manhattan on July 11th, which could possibly entail a period of incarceration. Probably not.

But if it did, that would certainly impact these numbers. And also Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's testimony before Congress on July 12th. This could impact the numbers regarding how many people think this case is legit versus how much people think this is just purely like a political move. But still, about half of adults do approve of Trump's conviction. The AP did a poll with the NORC a week after Trump's conviction, but before Hunter Biden was convicted on that federal gun case. And US adults, it seems more likely to support Trump's conviction than they are to disapprove with at least 48% saying they approve and just 29 somewhat or strongly disapproving and 21,

you know, not approving or disapproving. To quote from the AP, Republicans are less united on the verdict than Democrats. Roughly six in 10 Republicans disapprove while 15% approve. The other two in 10 and neither approve nor disapprove. Overall opinions on Trump have barely budged. About 6 in 10 US adults have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, which is in line with from our findings in a poll conducted last February. 4 in 10 have a favorable view of Trump, when also largely unchanged since February. The numbers are equally poor for Biden. 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of the Democratic president, while six in 10 have a negative one, unquote.

Yeah, this is very much unique in races that I can recall, a race to the bottom, like who can alienate, who will alienate less of the base, right? Yeah, no, polls consistently are showing that there is historically low voter enthusiasm. Both candidates have very low favorability ratings. And an NBC poll found that 64% of voters say that they are very interested in this year's election, which is a 20-year low. So not great numbers. And a new CBS poll found that among young Americans who did vote in 2020, only three quarters say that they'll definitely do so again. Now, this poll also does show that Trump's support among young voters has been almost

unchanged since 2020. Yeah, he's done about 2% better, which is fairly minimal considering how much Biden's lead is among that group. But overall, young voters do believe in generally progressive values pretty consistently, including support for a ceasefire. And that's, I mean, part of the reason why we may not see, which, you know, could be catastrophic for Biden because 2020, a lot of his win came in the fact that he did deliver so much of that, like so many young voters came out, turnout was so high, and they overwhelmingly supported Biden. There is also,

I mean, kind of a reason why that might not wind up mattering, which is where Biden, I mentioned earlier, Biden does really well among likely voters, much better than he does among the general electorate. And this is part of a shift among white voters with degrees. We get a lot of talk, and this has been significant, especially like Latino voters shifting towards the GOP has been a really important story too. But this one does not get talked about as much. In the four years since Biden took office, white men with degrees have shifted 24 points towards Biden, and he has gained 19 points among white women with degrees, which is like a huge amount of his support. And also, that's one of the groups that's likeliest to vote. Like the strength that Biden has gained among kind of middle-of-the-road, leaning conservative suburban voters is potentially going to be a decider in

this election. Yeah, and according to the New York Times and Siena, the polls do seem slightly skewed in Trump's favor, actually, this year, mostly by disenfranchised voters who may not participate in the upcoming election. An analysis they did found that Biden had led the last three of their polls among 2020 voters, but trailed among registered voters overall, which is basically exactly what you're saying. You know, Garrison, speaking of likely voters, are, I don't know, that doesn't really lead in. Here's the fucking ads.

Look, you don't get a good one every time we do this, folks. There's too many. You are likely to listen to these ads there. Fine. good one every time we do this, folks. There's too many. You are likely to listen to these ads. They're fine. So we are back. Is polling actually useful? Is this actually useful anymore? The answer is kind of. But, you know, people have gotten really, really anti-polling in recent years. You know, the 2016 election certainly contributed to that. Although if you look at the actual 2016 polls, it's kind of it's kind of interesting.

In 2016, Clinton generally polled much higher than Trump for the duration of the race, though in late July, the two were neck and neck, with the gap closing once again in late September. And the week of the election, Trump was on average trailing by less than 3.5% behind, which is often in the margin of error for these polls, and pollsters usually consider something under 3% being a toss-up. Now, this is 3.5%. So still, it was trending towards Clinton, and there is reasons why, in terms of their polling methodology, that was flawed. But the polls were actually a bit closer than I think what public perception seems to remember of the 2016 polls. Yes. And this is part of why

the public memory of 2016, and to an extent 2020, and to an extent every election is so bad, is, you can't emphasize this enough, people are dogshit at understanding what polls say, right? They are really bad at understanding uncertainty. One of the things that, I hate to keep going back to the Nate Silverwell, but I think he's a fascinating case study. And one of the things he pointed out after 2016, the minute you have a forecast where there's less certainty, people don't like that. The minute you have a forecast that doesn't have a Democrat winning, they don't like that very much. And it's to point out like he kind of started to become a heel as soon as he started showing that like Trump had a real shot

at winning. And as his forecast continued to show kind of weakness among Democrats, it got people angrier and angrier. And that's most of what makes people determine whether or not something is a credible source on the election. And that's kind of why a lot of this is like a doomed effort is because people consider an expert credible if they are saying something they want to hear. Because most of what people want in terms of election polling is to feel reassured that things are going to be okay, right? And that's, you're kind of, it's always like a confirmation bias game. And it's also one of those things where, like, the instant you do well, if you are legitimately a

rigorous, you know, expert and you predict things correctly, you're going to suddenly be this focus of so much media attention and have so much money and job offers thrown your way that it will inherently drive you mad, which is part of why, again, I am predicting a 29% chance that things are basically the way they were in 2020. So I can get all that sweet, sweet CNN money if I wind up being right. 2020 so I can get all that sweet, sweet CNN money if I wind up being right. I am curious, Garrison, kind of in that line, because as our official poll expert, you kind of came into this,

I don't think, with a strong set of biases about what would happen. When you actually started drilling down into the numbers, did that change at all your impression of what was going on this election? I think I thought that the numbers for Biden would be slightly worse. I think that's kind of the general feeling. And that has been, you know, what the numbers have kind of looked like in my cursory glances the past few months. But looking more into kind of polling science, what these pollsters are saying, the gap is usually within this 3% that it feels like it's going to be a very close election. It'll be much closer than it was in 2020. Polls thought that 2020 would be a much, much more obvious win for Biden.

It was a closer election than what people thought. But this, I think, will be even closer. So it's going to be a tricky one. We're going to be kind of on the edge of our seat come election night. Which is what no one wants to hear, right? No, no. Especially since you have a lot of people who want to hear Biden is doomed because they have, for generally good reasons, come to despise Biden over the last four years. And they just want to know that the things they're angry about matter.

And all I can say to those people is, I don't know that like the things they're angry about matter and this the thing that i all i can say to those people is like i don't know that anything matters and i do think there's a really good chance i think this is basically a coin flip uh yeah and i think you know polling is is is going to look very different this year because trump is not the incumbent i think there's a lot of other factors that are contributing to the polls. And pollsters have adjusted a lot since 2016 to make sure that more Trump support is accounted for both in 2020 and in 2016. The error did not come from overestimating the support of Clinton and Biden. It came from underestimating Trump's support. And this has been fixed for via a number of methods. You know, there's certain theories people have had,

like the quote-unquote shy Trump voter theory, which is kind of largely disputed, saying that, you know, people... Certainly by this fucking point. Yes, no, saying that people who, like, support Trump are too scared to tell pollsters that they support Trump. Quite silly. It's essentially blaming poll errors on people just lying to pollsters because they're too nervous.

There's a lot of other stuff. We have adjusted for white non-college educated voters because people who have a college degree are more likely to respond to polls. All this does get adjusted for, especially since 2016, because that was the main cause of the polls kind of being fucked up that year. So what exactly happened in 2020 then, if these things like the non-college vote and the shy Trump voter theory were sort of adjusted for?

Well, a few things happened. The pandemic, one, you know, made certain polling figures a little bit unique. The election also featured the highest number of voter turnout in decades, something that we're probably not expected to see in 2024. In 2020, the national polls were too favorable to Biden by 3.9 points, state polls by 4.3. by 4.3. I'm going to read a report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research analyzing 2020 election poll errors. Quote, if the voters most supportive of Trump were least likely to participate in polls, then the polling error may be explained as follows. Self-identified Republicans who choose to respond to polls are more likely to support Democrats, and those who choose not to respond to polls are more likely to support Republicans. Unquote. If this was indeed the issue, it was probably made worse by Trump in 2020 by being very disparaging to polls, making his base probably less likely to honestly engage with polling metrics. And both in 2016 and 2020, there was large, large postmortems among the polling community trying to figure out how to improve. And 2022's polls were more accurate than any election since 1998, with almost no bias towards either party.

So that is a good sign in terms of the accuracy of polls. Yeah, in terms of this not being nonsense. Yeah, correct. So a pollster named Nathaniel Rakich said, quote, polls true utility isn't telling us who will win, but rather in roughly how close a race is and therefore how confident we should be in the outcome. Historically, candidates leading polls by at least 20 points have won at 99 percent of the time, but candidates leading polls by less than three points have won just 55 percent of the time, unquote. And that kind of lines up with our current situation, right? That kind of lines up with our current situation, right? Biden was, even though the polls were slightly skewed towards Biden in 2020, he was so far ahead that most of the polls,

in terms of saying who would win, were still correct because Biden was just so far ahead. This time, that will not be the case. That's not what the polls are going to say. The polls are going to show this being a much closer race. And that, I think that is what it's going to be come November. So yeah, that's kind of the lowdown of the current polling situation. I'll be curious to see what the numbers are post-debate and especially after the sentencing in July. Yeah, we'll see. And I should note that Nate Silver just released his official forecast

today. And it's almost the opposite of that weird German man who gave Biden a 75% chance of winning. Nate gives Trump a 65% chance of winning. So we are going to see which of the election pundits who make their entire living off of gambling on elections winds up getting to be feted on all of the talk shows in like January of 2025. That'll be exciting. That's the real toss up, honestly. That's the real toss up. It's. That's the real toss-up. It's Helmet versus Nate, baby. Who's gonna win? I kind of think they both might be conmen.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Toot, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going

to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit. The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers

and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field,

and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

Oh, yeah! That wasn't the opening of the podcast. Okay, thank God. Or unless it was. I guess it was, because we were recording. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. Harrison, I had to open an episode about a terrible, terrible piece of voice acting history

with some horrible voice acting of my own. It was the only right way. It's true. It's true. There has been some really bad voice acting going around lately. Yes. Oh, boy. So do you know what we're going to talk about today, Robert? We're going to talk about the South Park of X.

And I know what you're all wondering. What the fuck is X? Did you guys, is that a placeholder? Did you like type in a placeholder because you forgot the name of, uh, what this is the South park of or whatever? No,

no, no. We're talking about Twitter. We are talking about the first animated sit slash com on X slash Twitter titled The New Norm Show. Not to be confused with the 2022 low budget movie, The New Norm. This is a new animated project from the great minds over at Dave Rubin Incorporated. Yeah. And that was so bad, but also so insightful that I did a whole bunch of drugs and wrote about

2,000 words about this project. And uncovered some kind of shocking things that we will slowly get into. I first just want to go over the mini pilot itself. Because right now, the only thing that's out is this three minute or so little mini

pilot. And we'll get into why this is the only thing that's out right now. But I first just want to do kind of like a short play by play. And it will be short because, again, it's only three minutes. Yeah. Of what happens in this new perspective animated sitcom that they want to air on Twitter.com, now known as X. Yes.

So I think the first thing you need to know about it, you know, besides, you know, the Dave Rubin-ness of it all, it looks like early 2000s Flash animation. Like really bad early 2000s Flash animation. It's not good. It's not good. None of the characters can like really express things. No.

And the perspective is always a little bit off. Yeah. It looks like something like a moderately competent person could have animated in this course of an afternoon if the people paying them did not actually want anything that looked very good. Well, and I think that is kind of what happened. They posted one video showing the animating process, and it does look like just one person did it in like a day.

So anyway, it starts with an older man sitting in a living room chair scratching at an ankle monitor he reaches for a beer only to find that it's been wokefied with rainbow packaging the man reacts in horror and his more liberal daughter remarks progress it's the new norm and then a pandering country music theme song plays which we will play for you later just because it's so bad we We're going to have to. I want to start just because this is the first shot of the episode, and it was the first thing in the episode that made me very angry, and it's how small his feet are. Especially if you're going to have-

He got them Rob Liefeld feet. He's got the Rob Liefeld feet. And this is particularly a problem because the ankle monitor doesn't look like it's going to be a one-off joke. Because he doesn't just have an ankle monitor. He has like an evil Amazon Alexa that looks a little bit like it's got some HAL 9000 DNA in it. Yes. That every time he says something that's not woke enough, it yells at him. It yells offensive, offensive. Yeah. something that's not woke enough it it it yells at him right it feels offensive offensive yeah

yeah the the the fantasy progressive government that is in charge in his uh in this cartoon world has forced him to wear an ankle monitor because he's not woke enough and so i'm guessing that's going to be a recurrent bit and if the fact that he has this sentient ankle monitor is a recurrent bit his feet shouldn't look like the ankle monitor should always be falling off of them. No, it's so loose. It's so loose. It's really bad animation, right? Like, I'm not even saying that's a good bit, but if that's your bit, you have to actually design the characters to sell the bit, as opposed to me constantly thinking, how is that fucking ankle monitor staying on his goddamn ankle?

Anyway, whatever. The character was not designed with the ankle monitor in mind. That was a later edition. So, anyway. After the theme song, the man addresses the audience. He says, I'm the old Norm. I want normal beer. God damn it.

I just want to point out, is this like the only character that gets an introduction? We don't really learn almost anyone else's names except for one other character which is just great great for like a pilot anyway so he steps towards his front door and the ankle monitor starts beeping he blames his liberal daughter for being put on house arrest for quote-unquote threatening the school board which he says he did because the school was quote brainwashing kids into thinking girls aren't girls and men aren't men his daughter says sometimes they're neither or both or dressed like dogs anyway his wife comes home oh god yeah there's a real furry obsession in the in this

this show i guess we'll talk about that later too because this was birthed years ago this is not like a modern current take on wokeism but his wife comes home and with her is someone wearing a covid mask sporting a pink mohawk and here i'm going to play our first clip what's that warning offensive actually that is one of my pronouns also they them and me you're non-? How do you know that word? I learned it in school. That's why I'm locked up. Norm, the judge agreed to conditional parole. What condition? Where's my room? That's staying here. Chaz is part of a new government program. To re-educate homophobic, transphobic, racist.

Charlie, finally, someone normal. I don't understand. You're black. Did that just black whisper? You're his friend. And boss. So something that isn't fully conveyed just through the sound is that when the daughter finds out that this new person is non-binary, she gets like big, big like lovey eyes.

Yeah. And the black boss character, he is played by failed politician Larry Elder. Oh my God, that's Larry Elder? Yes. Yes. Oh, that's funny. That's Larry Elder? Yes. Yes. Ah! Yes. Oh, that's funny. That's so funny.

He's just there to show that black people like Norm, right? Yes, exactly. The progressives actually are racist for not liking Norm because the only black person they're going to put in this show thinks that he's rad. It's just a normal thing that you do if you're a right-wing hack making a low-budget cartoon. It's just a normal thing that you do if you're a right-wing hack making a low-budget cartoon. He is wearing, by the way, a Washington Redskins hat and shirt. And shirt! Discontinued four years ago.

Yeah. And his first, his opening line in the show is him coming in and saying, I come over here to escape woke. Yes. Yeah, one thing I do think is interesting is that both this character, because Larry Elder makes a note that like his son is about to transition and is at least non-binary. They don't really know what any of this means. So a little bit of the script is unclear as to what these kids actually, how they identify. And obviously Norm's daughter is, I don't know if she's non-binary or just like into like generally queer, but like that

is the impression you're left with. And again, if you actually were someone who was kind of conservative or conservative sympathetic, like Mike Judge making like a cartoon, you could actually get some mileage out of the accepting the idea that like, okay, you've got these curmudgeonly older people and you've got their kids who are way more open about this kind of stuff. And there's room for plots, as King of the Hill did pretty well, that kind of lampoon the culture in general, but it requires a little more self-awareness. Again, if there was a little bit, you might wonder, what are we saying if we're the people making this right-wing piece of propaganda that all of the young people feel very differently about gender than their parents?

Well, yeah, that's why Norm keeps saying, I'm the old Norm. I want to hear. And the show is called The New Norm. Not to be confused with the 1999 ABC sitcom starring Norm MacDonald called The Norm Show. It's literally right. It's literally in the name. It's about, you know, how these people cannot accept that times change and they

slowly get outdated social beliefs. Anyway, every single time that Norm addresses the non-binary character, referring to them as pronoun or that, his little AI Amazon assistant just bleeps out offensive offensive chas is here to re-educate norm in non-bonary studies

i'm allergic to dogs it's okay billy is an emotional support dog and non-binary. Oh, okay then. Good dog. Just amazing voice acting in that clip. And with a helpful laugh track so you know what is a joke and when you're supposed to laugh. Which is so embarrassing for an animated sitcom to put on a laugh track. Like, oh my god. Oh my god.

It smacks of desperation because nobody really liked, nobody misses laugh tracks laugh tracks are like if you have a live studio audience you know a laugh track kind of like makes sense this is this is an animated sitcom it's like if there's a laugh track on like rick and morty or like the simpsons like what the fuck are you doing yeah anyway the two men sit down to watch sports and larry elder uh laments that a non-binary person is present in the room and starts complaining about his child. I come here to get away from woke.

Trouble at home? Ah, my boy, or whatever it calls themself now, is thinking about transitioning. Reggie? Try Regina. Transitioning to what? Another fumble. Whatever it calls themself now, amazing pronoun usage, another fumble. Now, Norm tosses the gay beer to Chaz, the non-binary character.

Chaz. Chaz. Chaz fumbles the catch and says- And that's not even, that's not a gay Zoomer name. Chaz is like something, like that's very Gen X Chaz. Yeah, totally. Well, again, because this is all made by Gen X people. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. Chaz fumbles the catch and says that they can't drink because they're not 21. And Larry Elder replies, y'all influenced my boy to cut off his junk, but draw the line at beer. lies y'all influence my boy to cut off his junk but draw the line at beer and then chas hides behind the couch to call upper level government operatives who are advising them on this re-education assignment i i gotta before we get into this i want to start with what doesn't make sense about that bit which is that if chas was straight edge right and they were kind of sure and if they actually knew anything about like the real sort of cultural kind of divides

that are coming in around Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they could have made a point that like, yeah, this generation of kids doesn't get drunk and do drugs the way like millennials did. And that's an actual like cultural cleavage point. But Chaz is not straight edge. Chaz is just saying,

I cannot legally drink beer. Which no gay person has ever said. Which no gay, but like the fact that- Unless they're straight edge, yeah. Larry Elder then comes in and says like, oh, this is a characteristic, but it wasn't like a characteristic of you queer Gen Z kids.

But the queer Gen Z kid did not express that as like a characteristic of his identity. No. He was just stating, this is illegal. I can't because it's illegal. Yeah. Very funny. Yeah.

Anyway, anyway. When Chaz is conference calling with this upper level government, we have this general in like a kink dog mask who barks. And there's a trans woman admiral who says, find a way to break him. Maybe we can fix the country. find a way to break him. Maybe we can fix the country. I believe the Admiral is a really transphobic character of US Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine.

And it's not even a good character. It's just bad. No, it doesn't look like her at all. There's also another character, which Robert identified as a possible hate crime and tasked me with locating who this person is. And I believe with about 100% certainty that this is a character of Sam Brinton,

who was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy. Are you kidding me? For the Department of Energy. Now- Ah, these people are so fucking conservative social media brain what are you fucking come on brinton may be well known to some of our listeners

as being let go in late 2022 after being linked to a series of airport luggage thefts one of the funniest things that's ever happened this person could not stop stealing luggage from airports so much that they got fired from the department of energy that's amazing this this goes back to like 2018 years god that's funny years of airport luggage thefts it's so funny but again if this was a good comedy thing they would have some kind of bit like maybe maybe they would be holding like a like a like a you know like a collection of luggage but no they're just they're just they're just standing behind the progress pride flag like that's it like it's not funny yeah because again because the actual funny thing about this would be to have like your government character be someone

at the department of energy who got taxed with this through some sort of incoherent dei narrative and also a character trait is they are always stealing luggage and like bits around that over time but they just they threw all these people in knowing that like the 200 people who are as right wing online as them would get who all these were as opposed to doing the thing that you would do if you were actually making a show for mainstream consumption which is like make fun of people that the audience will recognize. Throw a Joe Biden in there, right? Like, obviously, you're doing this in 2024.

Like, where is anyone that someone who's not completely lost their mind to this stuff will recognize? And this is the climax of the pilot. It's so bad. After Chaz has this little phone call, the fake camera zooms back to show a fake animated studio audience and the Bad Country

theme song plays once again and now I will play it for you because this section is both so pandering but also oddly genuine towards the end. The new world ain't the same as the old one. Everything's changing and I don't know when. This whole night in Maryland, thank God for Elon Musk. And his shitpost means X is the home for free speech.

When the song goes, thank God for Elon Musk and his shitpost memes. Oh, yeah. X is the home for free speech. An unvoiced animated Elon Musk pops through the door for no reason. And he's, someone on Twitter took a screen grab of the Elon Musk

and said they gave him that Innsmouth look. And he does look like one of the fish people from Innsmouth. It's not a flattering caricature. I think it's meant to be. It is. Because like, it's, I don't know. This is a really interesting moment

because this is where it gets like, kind of like genuine jess hawkin wrote the part that blows my mind about this video is the elon musk cameo where the bitterness and resentment of the video melts away into still believing in santa claus and it gets it gets just so weirdly genuine with this with this like the kind of heartfelt saccharine elon musk ending well speaking of genuine Garrison, the main thing that's genuine is our love of these sponsors. Okay, we are back.

So after watching this pilot, there's a lot of questions to be asked. Why is there a fake animated studio audience? You know, pretty bad. My friend Ellie Ehrman pointed out, like, why is the protagonist so unpleasant even in their perfect fantasy world? And also, why is the word sitcom hyphenated in the title? Something that you don't do. Just a lot of baffling things so there was there was a mix of reactions to this you know some of the blue checks on twitter were kind of

lapping this stuff up one person with the username amazing gaming productions wrote i know some people are critiquing it but my fiance and i laughed at a couple points it's a good start i hope you continue to work on it we need all of the indie material we can create. And included in this tweet is a picture of a very poorly drawn avatar saying, Hi, my name is Indie David. I'm here to fight Goliath Mainstream. Oh my God.

Oh my God. Amazing Gaming Productions is a Gamergate 2 themed gaming company who wants to create anti-woke games. They've done nothing. They just post really bad artwork. And I cannot overstate how bad this cartoon is. Why is the neck that wide? Why is his neck so wide and so long?

For how bad the TV show's animation is, this reply was just so bad. I had to point it out. Just incredible. Now, Dave Rubin, the possible, alleged, potential, most likely creator of the show, does air his work on

Blaze TV, you know, by Glenn Beck. And even other Glenn Beck employees could not help but point out how terrible this is. Logan Hall, writer for Glenn Beck's The Blaze, wrote, quote, TV shows on leftism, the cringiest, most unwatchable, nauseating trash ever created. TV shows on conservatism, somehow even worse. And one of the most brain poisoned conservative cartoonist, George Axapolos, basically like a discount stone toss, wrote, quote, South Park had edge.

This has as much edge as uncooked sourdough. Between this and the Daily Wire's limp cartoon, they may as well be flushing money down the toilet. He then went on to say, give me a small team, a million dollars and total creative control, and we will make a cartoon pilot that will melt faces. So again, he just wants to get his own TV show. But a whole bunch of these, you know, kind of right-wing cultural critics

were not enthused with this outing because it's really bad. So I want to get into kind of who is behind this. Now, the full I hesitate to say creative team, but the people behind... Let's just say team yeah the team behind the

new norm show not to be confused with the fox two-season documentary show the new norm um have been have been largely kept secret possibly out of fears of humiliation yeah that's how you know it's a good show but we at least do know some of the voice cast right larry elder plays the token black conservative who only exists to affirm that the main character isn't actually racist. Now, I doubt Larry Elder has much involvement beyond lending his voice. And the other two confirmed voice,

again, I hesitate to use the word talent or even actor, but the other two voice contributors are Dave Rubin and J.P. Sears. Now, I believe these two could be much more critical to what makes up the comedy of The New Norm Show, not to be confused with the Oatly Oatmilk series of online puppet shorts titled The New Norm and Al Show. Now, I assume most people listening to this are familiar with Dave Rubin. Like many of these right-wing influencers, he's a failed comedian turned

political podcaster who's been positioning himself further and further to the right over the course of the last decade. Now, J.P. Sears was a quote-unquote holistic life coach who turned kind of into like a YouTube skeptic type satirical comedian. And while trying to parody new age woo and conspiracy theories, J.P. was peddling his own pseudoscience and adopting more and more conspiratorial beliefs. Over time, JP and his comedy began moving further and further to the right, but the COVID-19 lockdown was kind of the breaking point

where he went all in on anti-vax, COVID-19, and January 6th conspiracy theories. But I think there has to be at least one other contributor, you know, behind like the art and design of the show. And I can't figure out who that is. I scrolled through all of the tweets to try to find out if this account had another name. I can't find out who exactly this other person is. There is there is one mystery, one mystery component.

But one one interesting thing I did uncover is that the new norm show, not to be confused with the 2012 TV show, The New Normal, has been in production in some form for over four years. They've been working on this for over four years. There is one frame from a video titled Character Sketch Evolutions posted on September 19th of last year. And this shows project files stretching all the way back to January of 2020. They've been working on this since january of 2020 early sketches of the daughter feature an antifa and transgender tattoo on her left arm um also she has a keffiyeh and posters that read vegans for palestine all all in 2020 artwork wow yeah yeah wow that's that's kind of fascinating because the the daughter character

in the published pilot is just wearing like a hoodie and like a beanie there's there's none of that like some bracelets that have like a there's at least one of her bracelets has a rainbow on it which i think is the only queer signaling or like kind of it really signaling of any kind that we get and she has an apple watch because lol gen z but yeah otherwise her design is completely boring like there's nothing going on and i found this other this other thing that is maybe a little bit you know uh uh behind the scenes look at what this may have been so last march this account posted a little comic strip saying, a look at how it began as a comic strip.

So possibly this may have originated as not being an animated series, but instead an online webcomic, which might explain a few things. And also that I assume the mystery contributor that we don't know probably was working on the webcomic and then kind of roped in more and more people. One would assume. But I am going to read out the webcomic and then it kind of roped in more and more people to do the animated series. But I am going to read out this webcomic just because it is fascinatingly bad. Oh my God.

Oh my God. Norm says, For 20 years, our address was 7 Columbus Ave. Now it's Colin Kaepernick Drive. That's his daughter saying that. And everyone thinks, I feel so. The mom says, fancy.

The daughter says, woke. And Norm says, sick. And then a whole bunch of news crews show up at Norm's front door. They say, what's it like to live in the most woke address in town? And Norm says, I refuse to call it Colin Kaepernick Drive. It's Columbus Ave. The news media says, any last words before the angry mob shows up? Should we call the fire department for you? And Norm says, I thought you snowflakes defunded them too. It's not even a... No, no one was talking about defunding the fire department.

Not true. Anyway. It's like, it's just not even a joke, right? Like the, there's not like a release of tension or anything with like the end bit being like him saying, why would we call the fire department? You defunded. It's not it's like it's not a joke. No, like the last series of panels are even more disconnected. Yeah, they are back inside. The door is closed. Norm says, Chloe, which I guess is his daughter's name, never said in the pilot, Chloe, why must your generation change everything?

And then the doorbell rings delivery the mom answers the door and says sorry wrong address this is now colin kaepernick drive ben affleck boulevard is two streets down where james woods parkway used to be my god that's what is that even that is that even do you really like is, is it? Okay. James Wood just fallen. They replaced it with Ben Affleck Boulevard. If you could, if you were someone who was like kind of conservative, but not completely brain poisoned, you could actually get some good bits out of like, they changed the name of this street from Columbus Avenue to Colin Kaepernick Drive. Now, the smart way to play off of that would be to make it very clear that the town

has a bunch of existing issues with inequality and racism that they have not dealt with in lieu of changing the name of a single street and pretending things are better. And you could actually, like, there's things you could do with that where you're actually making comedy. the fact that the escalation is rather than sort of like examining this world and like why shit like this gets done uh just to kind of like make these like um performative gestures instead it's like and next they're going to replace james woods with ben affleck very very good do the gen z kids do the progressives like ben affleck? Does anyone feel all that strongly about Ben Affleck? No, we have to start naming streets after Ben Affleck. Also, why would there be a James Woods Parkway? Anyway, whatever.

Yeah, who's naming a street after, name a thing James Woods has been in. Oh my God. So the marketing of this pilot is almost as baffling as the pilot itself, right? There is a few slogans they, they,

they, they like to use. First of all, the South park of X, which is already just brilliant. It's legalize humor. Very, very funny.

And make America funny again. They will often just tweet these phrases out with no context. And sure. Why not? The home page on their website reads quote the new norm not to be confused with the ongoing podcast series the new norm is an animated sitcom for our woke world an edgy yet family-friendly comedy that shines a funny light on today's most divisive issues and gives americans a safe space to come together and laugh. Just fantastic stuff.

Great, great. I love, again, I made a comment about this, but I love that they're calling this the South Park of X, because the South Park guys would never put a cartoon or anything else on X, because they actually make things that are commercially successful. And so real companies will buy their shows. Whereas if you're putting something on X, it means that there's no money in what you're doing. It means that your show is going to be monetized alongside those ads for games that don't exist that just show like little action cartoon characters

leaping into the legs of like very horny drawings of gorgons and shit and actual straight up pornography because there is no money on x family friendly it's so funny now there are a few reviews that they post on the new norm website bill maher says brilliant dave rubens has beautiful larry elders has relevant timely and funny i'm in and kevin's literally in he's one of the voices so is dave rubin um and kevin sorbo says all in the family for our time wow uh robert well what is all in the family because i am a zoomer i need to explain a couple of things. All in the Family was a groundbreaking sitcom show

from like 15 or 20 years before you were born. Even longer than that. I mean, it was like the 70s, right? Yeah, oh shit. It was like 30 or 40 years before you were born. Yeah, it's way, way before my time. It's before your time. Yes, yes it is.

And Kevin Sorbobo do you know who kevin sorbo was even robert i grew up watching christian movies i am intimately familiar with kevin sorbo oh okay okay but not why he actually got famous he was hercules yes in a show that again predates your existence and is now just 10 or 15 years bad christian actor now yeah these reviews are funny not only because two of these people giving reviews on the site are literally in the pilot but also let's look at the bill maher quote brilliant do you think bill maher has seen this pilot no i don't he hasn't no do you know why of course because underneath the text that says in quotes brilliant it says brilliant bill maher hbo real-time host and then in much smaller text

it says speaking of the show creator's previous work featured on hbo he's just talking about dave rubin being interviewed on his show at some point bill, Bill Maher said brilliant to Dave Rubin. And now they're using this as a quote, endorsing the show. Man, I kind of, I feel like, so like again, 15 years or so ago, back when he was still alive, Roger Ebert shared one of my articles that I wrote for Cracked. And I kind of want to take his feedback on that and claim that, like, dress it up as feedback for our podcast. Roger Ebert loves the show that was made 10 years after he died. Well, he doesn't, but he said something nice about something else I

did a long time ago. So I think he would support this show. Speaking of the show creator's previous work, it's amazing. And we will return to the Kevin Sorbo quote about all in the family for our time. Because again, this isn't even just a parody of all in the family. They're taking certain elements, but not actually satirizing them. They're just kind of doing them again. And do you know what we're going to do again, Robert? Go to ads? We are going to do again, Robert? Go to ads? We are

going to go to ads. We're going to transition, which the people who make this show would really hate. Okay, we are back. I have a few the from the marketing of this that you're gonna love robert back in september the new norm shows twitter posted this picture it's a very bad cartoon oh my god ben shapiro tucker carlson and joe rogan what are these it has one like and text just says who is your fave i love how small they made Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan. Oh, and there is another image of Norm, the titular character, saying, thank you, Chaya Rychek and Elon Musk for the freedom to say amen. Now that the word amen was undemonetized.

So most of their marketing kind of looks like this. It's just, it's talking about other more popular right-wing content creators or just praising Elon Musk. That is most of the marketing for the show. It seems their primary marketing strategy seems to be sucking up to Elon Musk to attract attention from him and his fan base. Now, I haven't seen anyone else talk about this yet, but the new Norm show,

not to be confused with the new Norm MacDonald show, actually released their first video project last March. It was titled, Elon Musk X AOC AI Animation, unquote. What? With show creator Dave Rubin saying, the future of animation is AI. The video starts with an AI image of Elon Musk in a black suit

with voiceover of Norm addressing Musk saying, Hey Elon, check this out. We cut to a congressional deposition where AOC is questioning Elon Musk, who's wearing a spacesuit, about him replying, quote unquote, true to a meme posted by Norm saying that AOC is hot, but not smart. Mr. Musk. Call me Elon. There's a slow motion love heart sequence of Elon and AOC staring at each other. And Elon says, I have a hands-on approach to the world's population crisis.

You'll never get your hands on me. I'm boycotting you. Then go f*** yourself. God, he looks like a cherub in that spacesuit. What is happening? So yeah, here's AI Norm and AI Elon Musk

sitting in this courtroom. Now, Norm says that it's because of Elon's reply, quote, that millions of people saw my post. So in this little to no effort AI short, they straight up lay out their intentions behind all of this clamoring for Musk's attention and approval, right? Their goal is that if Elon Musk can see their stuff,

maybe he'll spread it and it will be popular. That's the entire intention. Why does Musk look like a nine-year-old boy, though? Oh, yeah, he does look like cherub Elon Musk, absolutely. But this is their entire strategy, right? It's to make content that they hope Elon Musk will see and then boost so that people will give them money. That's the entirety of the bit.

In the replies to this AI short film, everyone who expressed that they liked it, saying, like, so funny, or just like a laugh emoji, the Norm account replied to every single one of these tweets with a thumbs up emoji. That's it. Oh my god. That's it.

Like, sometimes with a flaming thumbs up, sometimes with a regular thumbs up emoji. But replying to every single tweet, they just did a thumbs up. It's so lazy, like, they just did a thumbs up. It's so, it's so lazy. Like, like content goes out.

That's some intern who's getting paid by their, like, or if they're getting paid or whatever, however, they're getting evaluated. They want to be able to claim that they were doing lots of work. So yeah, they're just going through and thumbs upping every post.

That's my wild. So this is all kind of reminiscent of the daily wires own animated comedy mr bircham right now mr bircham we talked about in our in our uh in our daily wire episodes earlier this year but it was it was pitched to fox like over a decade ago um they even made a 10 minute animatic fox passed and so did every other network and streaming service also declined to pick up the project. Until it came across Jeremy Boring's desk a few years ago. And Jeremy Boring said, Adam Carolla, that's who the kids love these days.

So yeah, they greenlit the show, and it is now airing on the Daily Wire+. But most of the jokes are super outdated, because again, this was pitched 10 years ago, over 10 years ago. So there's a whole bunch of just, like, vegan jokes. Like, it's jokes that maybe would have been transgressive in 2011.

And, of course, there's, like, a few updated jokes thrown in there, but, like, not many. So in terms of the new Norm show, not to be confused with the many other projects with the same title, only the three- minute pilot episode is out right now, right? They are soliciting more money. And that's the main drive of putting out this pilot is that they are spreading around this donation link like crazy. They've explicitly said, when does the first episode drop? Soon, but sooner if y'all give here with the donation link. Yeah. soon but sooner if y'all give here with the donation link yeah two other tweets read quote support this show to animate the first season and support this show and help fight the woke mind virus with laughter unquote i don't think this will actually ever get made because no one's

gonna support this because it's garbage this is like that red ape family nft cartoon exactly which i'm still heartbroken about is trying to get you know like unfortunate souls to donate money to this and uh i don't think the right-wing billionaires are going to be funding this the same way they fund other daily wire projects so this seems kind of dead in the water this seems like it you know not much thought was put into it it It's lazy. It's also completely stealing a Simpsons joke from 1999. This is the big thing I discovered. So I've been trying to watch more 90s Simpson lately. Good for you. Good for you. Solid move. And as I was watching this three-minute pilot, something started to feel a little bit familiar.

And then I read the Kevin Sorbo review review all in the family for our time and i realized something this whole show is just stealing a cutaway gag from a 1999 simpsons episode about a fake sitcom called all in the family 1999 in which a new more woke and inclusive version of the original show is airing on tv and here's a collection of images robert uh in my google document that shows early concept art of norm looking exactly like the main character of yeah down with the cigar yeah it's literally the picture of him in the chair looks traced it is the exact same there is a diverse cast standing next to him exactly the woman's study major in her birkenstocks exactly got a rabbi

in there as opposed to the uh which is some 90s diversity comp but like and i remember that bit too which is like a it's actually a because there were conservatives writing on the Simpsons in the nineties. One of the, uh, John Schwarzwalder was like a famous libertarian. Like he's a, uh, uh,

but he's also like funny. And so they made a good bit about like PC, like the, the, the rash of like overtly politically correct shows, right? Like it's, it's,

it's a, it's a fun little aside joke that Schwarzwelder was enough of a comedian to know is good for about six seconds. Exactly. And I will play those six seconds right now. And at 9.30, All in the Family 1999. Oh, geez, dude. It got me living with an African-American,

a semi-American, and a woman American there. And I'm glad. I love yous all. I love everybody. I wish I'd saved my money from the first show. Yeah, see, there's a couple of different jokes there. There's multiple jokes in that three seconds or so. It's such a good layered joke on the part of The Simpsons.

It has the parody of Archie from All in the Family kind of being like offensive in an old-fashioned way uh you know bemoaning that he has to be around all these people but also saying that he loves everyone and the way that these kind of shows like to play both sides by showing the main character is still good natured despite his faults and then he flips again saying he's he's only come back to do the show because he needs money. The bit doesn't overstay its welcome. It lasts only like 10 seconds. And yet is infinitely more funny than the entirety of this three minute pilot.

And Dave Rubin actually thought he could just rip off a short obscure Simpsons joke and stretch it into an entire show and no one would notice. So I was really happy to find that this was just stealing an old Simpsons joke really poorly too. And because I've been watching more older Simpsons, I've also realized that a lot of the jokes in Lady Ballers are also just completely

stolen from Simpsons, but ripped of the context that makes them funny. So all of these right-wing cranks who are trying to produce this comedy stuff, they're all just kind of going back to old Simpsons jokes that people hopefully have like forgotten and are injecting them without the actual humorous context into all these anti-woke projects. And it doesn't work.

It simply doesn't. For one, it's plagiarizing. And the second and like secondly, it's it's just bad. But yes, I will. I will post some of these comparison pictures on uh on my twitter at hungry bow tie if you want to see the uh the shocking shocking solid work that was a fine investigation garrison because i you're definitely right like this is this is a carbon copy of a of a cutaway gag about all in the family that's so

even fucking funny even the background house is the same look they have the staircase in the same the windows are literally in the same the door like it's identical everything is in the exact same position it's wild i know they sent this they sent this to an animator like they sent that screen grab to the animator that's so funny god this the simpsons was such a good show in its golden years that people are still trying to incompetently rip it off and again they they compare themselves to like the south park of x south park even did a much better job of ripping off the simpsons and making that be the focus of an episode that like everyone rips off the simpsons

because of how long they've been going on. Like, yeah, anyway, whatever. They were smart enough to remove the cigar in the final pilot, but all because that would be just so obvious. But all the concept art that they've posted on Twitter, like half a year ago, has him with a cigar wearing a white button up shirt. And it looks, it is almost traced. It is like his arms. his arms they threw on the vest

clearly to distract it's it's phenomenal so yeah uh amazing stuff from dave rubin he i guess shouldn't have quit interning at the at uh at john stewart back in the 2000s maybe maybe he could have had a better life but instead instead we get this so great job, Dave Rubin. I wish you only the best in your future creative works. Yeah, this is what's going to get him that plush writing gig on the Rick and Morty season. I don't know, whatever the next one is. I'm sure he's on the cusp. Oh, he's close to breaking through. I can feel it.

Yeah, yeah. All right, well, I'm good. I'm going to go watch some classic simpsons again thank you for reminding me hey we'll be back monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at CoolZoneMedia.com slash sources.

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