It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 155

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.  Trump's Constitutional Sheriffs Remember, Remember, the (Other) 5th of November An Election Episode feat. Robert Still Don't Panic: An Election Response Trump's Deportation Plans You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone    Sources: Trump's Constitutional Sheriffs https://politicalresearch.org/the-insurgence-sheriffs Remember, Remember, the (Other) 5th of November https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/real-story-of-bonfire-night/ https://www.ajc.org/news/on-luther-and-his-lies https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/guy-fawkes-bonfire-night/index.html https://deadline.com/2024/10/lilly-wachowski-anarchists-united-grants-1236161483/ https://www.autostraddle.com/lilly-wachowski-interview/ Trump's Deportation Plans https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/MIGRATION-DEPORTATIONS/akpeoeoerpr/ https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/title-8-and-title-42-statistics-fy22 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-trump-would-crack-down-immigration-second-term-2023-11-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pledges-10000-extra-border-agents-fight-with-harris-over-immigration-2024-10-13/ https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/mass-deportation https://www.ice.gov/identify-and-arrest/287gSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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.

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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 you can make your own decisions. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it happening here, and the it that is on everyone's minds right now.

This will be dropping two or three days before the 2024 election, possibly two or three days before everyone's life changes substantially. We have no way of knowing. I'm not optimistic or pessimistic. I have no idea what's going to happen. But one thing that everyone ought to be aware of, whether or not Trump wins, is kind of, to put it bluntly, the man has shooters. And some of those shooters are literal shooters in that they are local sheriff's departments, people who call themselves constitutional sheriffs. This is an organization that's really got off the ground in 2012

and for more than a decade has been making inroads with elected Republican leaders, with Republican influencers, with groups like the Oath Keepers. And these are guys who in brief believe the sheriff is the only, you can kind of get two versions of this, but generally either the sheriff is the only legitimate law enforcement authority in the country, or the sheriff is the highest legitimate law enforcement. I've heard it both ways in the country. And kind of the reason for this basically is a lot of people in rural areas that are more conservative do not want to have to listen to or follow the laws made by people in cities.

And more to the point, they believe that the country has been taken off of a good track by dangerous liberal communist types. And, you know, they want the ability to use force against you know migrants against the undocumented against people they see as criminals against left-wing protesters and this is kind of a way for them to argue that they have a right to do it without any restrictions now the whole story is much deeper than that and to talk about what i think is one of the most important subjects to be discussing right now, because, you know, people laugh a lot about like the gravy seals or whatever, like, you know,

all these different kind of out of shape militia dudes, the kind of silly fumbling that we saw a lot at January 6th, you know, which I think is a mistake just because January 6th was still quite dangerous. But when we're talking about these guys, these are not just like random yahoos. These are people who have the force of law behind them. They're armed, they're organized, and they're quite dangerous. And to talk about how dangerous they are and where they came from, I want to bring on a wonderful journalist, investigative reporter, and PRA research director, Chloe Cooper, who has co-executive produced a podcast on the constitutional sheriff's movement called The Insurgents, which is a co-production of Political Research Associates and Quintero Productions. Chloe, I think I got that all right, right? That was awesome. Yes,

you did. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So let's talk about this. Where do these guys, I gave a little brief overview, but like, where do these guys come from? And, you know, what are we seeing from them in the lead up to this election? Like, what are they, what are they going to do, do you think? Yeah, I mean, I loved the overview that you just gave. I think that was such a, like, great way to approach this all. So the leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is this guy named former Sheriff Mack. And he was a sheriff in Arizona. But one little important detail to note is that he actually kind of got his bearings before that in Nevada. And he was courted by someone who was basically in very close company with the John Birch Society.

Always comes back to them. I know. He actually becomes a sheriff partially because of some of the ideas that come out of the John Birch Society and some of this kind of like emerging trend that in some cases is actually like skeptical of the federal government, skeptical of state governments. Yeah. And then they start to build out with sheriffs in different parts of the country. At times, I would say the network has really ebbed and flowed. But a couple of things that have been important to note, like throughout the six years of researching this network of sheriffs that I think is really important, especially in advance of the elections. One is that sheriffs who are aligned with this have really embraced

this idea that you can deputize anybody. Yeah. So in some cases you have oath keepers and other militias going to the sheriff to say, hey, you want to deputize me. But in other cases, we've actually followed sheriffs who are going into churches and saying, we're deputizing all of you. Great. Sheriffs in Virginia, when the state passed a law that was like a law for some gun restrictions, saying, don't worry, people, we're actually going to deputize you. Yeah. That way you can have whatever gun you want and carry it anywhere.

Yes. Yeah. That way you can have whatever gun you want and carry it anywhere. Yes. Yeah. And also what we started to see is that during the former Trump administration, he was really actually courting sheriffs around the country. And I think he started to see networks like CSPOA as like part of his ground troops. And so I think that there is a potential danger in sheriffs that are part of this formal network called the CSPOA or other sheriffs, because there are hundreds more that just have aligned with their way of thinking about things, just playing this role of deputizing more people

and creating this kind of idea of like a super citizen or people who are kind of aligned with a far right way of seeing the world and then getting deputized to be part of the kind of ground troops for that. Yeah. So that's like one thing. And then in addition to that, there's also CSPOA itself teamed up with this group called True the Vote, which has mostly since been discredited, but it's been one of the loudest groups in the country that has been spreading this idea that the 2020 election was stolen and has been actually working with county sheriffs to try to investigate voter fraud at the local level. But in some cases,

also working with sheriffs to align with vigilante groups on the border, for example, to intimidate people from actually voting. And so there's kind of, I would say, like a multi-pronged series of potential risks and dangers that could play out, particularly from this network in the coming weeks. One other quick thing I'll note is that one of the very latest things that we saw, and this actually came out of a close kind of colleague in the movement, Devin Burkhart, who works at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, is that he came across a plan that the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association put out in Florida.

And the plan is to essentially resurrect kind of sovereign citizen style groups in Florida, militias, citizen militias, in collaboration with sheriffs, to do kind of old school style, like intimidation of election clerks, of people involved in the election process. And they plan to try to hold tribunals if, for example, the certification of election goes in the direction they disagree with. Yeah. And now as a hardcore leftist, you may find like, how, what do you actually think about voting and whether that actually changes things and all of that. And I'm like, I've had those, thought bubbles in my brain for a long time also. But I think what I've started to see is that constitutional

sheriffs, to me, represent, and also the groups of people who have aligned with them, are actual, not just white nationalists, but people who are neo-Confederates. And I think of it more of like a neo-Confederacy, and that what we could see is something like sheriffs actually coming in confrontation with potentially even police and mayors and governors and them representing a different kind of politic, a different type of way of seeing society. And one person also talked about how the constitutional, what are they really referring to? Are they referring to, you know, what is it, the organic constitution? Essentially, before slavery was abolished, before women had the right to vote, before the Native Americans had the right to vote.

And so if that's the case, that that is actually the kind of constitution that they are upholding and representing, then they are actually been quite successful in building out different alliances around the country within a somewhat prominent law enforcement institution that has very little accountability. Yeah. And I, so this is, this is where I kind of wind up in conflict with both liberals and a lot of leftists is I think that the leftists who say like, there's no point in voting are wrong, for the same reason that I think people who say there's no reason for civilians to be armed. I don't happen to agree with that.

And I don't happen to agree with it because I think if somebody who wants to kill you has a weapon, and you have the ability to either match that weapon or take it from them, then that's probably what you should do for the sake of your own survival. And handing over complete control of the state, the military, and the police apparatus to the far right is handing them the most powerful weapon anyone has ever made. And I just don't think that's wise. Now, at the same token, the thing that kind of liberals will bring up a lot, which is that like, just vote, just get out and vote. Well, we've been doing that. And Democrats have overwhelmingly outperformed conservatives in

elections this century. And it hasn't been enough. And it hasn't been enough in part because these people don't care about the law. You know, there's a moment in your podcast where I, you know, I like you have an expert on who's kind of talking about the sheriff deputizing, you know, 70 people or whatever in this small town and being like, well, he's not actually allowed to do that. Like, you know, the actual letter of the law does not give him the right to be doing this. He's misinterpreting the Constitution. But the reality of the situation is that, like, he's allowed to do whatever he can get enough people with guns to back him in doing. And that's that's honestly the the root of all politics is how much force can you bring to bear, you know, in order to support the reality you want to support. Right. Like that's that is how it all works. with all of these different anti-democratic strategies they're trying is that no matter what they do and no matter how far against the constitution against the rule of law they take things they will have the force to support their version of reality and i don't know

i don't know how we thread this needle right the easiest thing is like well maybe if kamala has a really resounding victory there just won't be much for them to fight on. Right. And they'll kind of back down. But even if she wins in 2024, which I think is the better of the options that we've got, these people aren't going away. And in fact, I think you are going to see challenges at local levels. I think it's not impossible that we wind up with like an anti-Pope style situation with the presidency. Whereas like Trump holds his own inauguration and a bunch of state and local leaders say like, no, we're not recognizing the Harris administration. Donald Trump is our president. Like there's a lot of weird shit that could wind up as the result of this. And I just don't see us getting out of this purely through electoral methods.

And I don't know what, I don't know how else we handle it, right? Because you also get into this situation of like, okay, well, we're going to send in the police to crack down on these sheriffs that are breaking the law. Well, what if the police don't want to do it? What if the police are more supportive of these sheriffs' departments than they are of, you know, their elected leaders in the state or at the federal level. You know, what if the FBI, as has happened in the past, what if the feds are unwilling to go up against a bunch of heavily armed, quote unquote, patriots, you know, like we saw in, you know, some of the Bundy shit from about a decade ago, right? Like, what if, what if the people who are

supposed to handle this for the citizenry in a situation that abides by the law abrogate their responsibility because they're scared? You know, who backs this up then? Wow, okay, you just put a lot out there. Sorry, sorry. I was like, I wanted to respond about a minute ago, and I was like, oh, one more. I apologize, that was my bad. No, that was so great. I think, okay, a couple of thoughts.

One is that I think that far-right movements are very much mobilizing within the government right now. Or you could say maybe fascism is trying to mobilize within the government. Yeah, absolutely. And so I think we have to grapple with that really seriously. And so in terms of anti-fascist strategies, I don't know what could that actually look like right now, but you have to grapple with the reality that many far-right movements have made serious, serious headway into not just former president, but into state legislators, into the judicial system, into sheriff's departments. Yeah. And so we are seeing a major fissure right now. So I don't know how to respond completely to some of the questions around electoral politics. Neither do I. Yeah. But I think those are really important questions that you're posing. And then just to go pivot back to my Neither do I. Yeah. practicing over the years. And it is about this idea of both nullification or interposition is

what they call it. So these constitutional sheriffs, one of the tactics that they have used over the years is to get sheriffs around the country to not enforce state laws. Right. And so you had a whole wave of sheriffs around the country supporting sanctuaries for the second amendment, second amendment sanctuaries. Okay. So they said in their own County, we're not going to enforce gun restriction laws. And again, think about that. However you will all good. But they're saying, we're not going to enforce it at the County level. Then you had all these sheriffs around the country being like, we're not going to enforce lockdown orders. We're not going to enforce mask mandates. What are they practicing? They're practicing the muscle of exactly what you just talked about.

Right, right. Yeah, I think that's a great way to look at it too. Yeah. Independent of what's happening at the federal government, independent of who wins right now, there is like a confederated situation happening in the country. And these sheriffs and also others have been very much in those muscles. So it's not just kind of the militias that will back these sheriffs that are interested in that type of strategy. There is the whole like all these different movements that come out of the Christian Reconstructionists all talk about interposition. So the idea of getting sheriffs, other elected officials within the local magistrate to prop up and kind of protect your politics regardless of the state or federal. And so now we have this interesting moment where you've had in recent history, you know, a former

president that actually aligned with some of those politics. And then you have a bunch of state legislators that align. And so I think understanding some of the strategies, that's important. It's important to understand that you may have sheriffs that are backing this and they may not always align with the police and they may not always align with the governor. And so it's going to be a little different than what we may often think of as like systemic white supremacy, where all the state and law enforcement are lock and step together. I think looking at the civil war, as you've done so many different times, is actually really important.

Like, how does this reflect patterns that are more similar, actually, to, you know, the Confederacy against the North or those, or, you know, these types of other moments in U.S. history? I'm going to throw to ads and then I'll come back. Okay. So, yeah, everybody, here's some ads. We're back. I wanted to ask, are there cases you can think of, of like some of these guys, these constitutional sheriffs

who have been voted out and like forced out of office and had kind of these some of these like policies that they've been pushing reversed like do we have do we have any kind of case studies of times sheriffs went you know hard into this ideology and actually lost power as a result of it so actually in episode four it touches on it briefly, but it's a really interesting and kind of rather both in some ways inspiring, but also disturbing case study to some degree. the former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona. And he is one of the people who really champions this program called 287G, which allows sheriffs to basically deputize their office as ICE, federal ICE agents and work with ICE. So he pilots that in Mecklenburg County and then is basically picked up by ICE and kind of helps try to spread it all throughout the South. Something pretty historic and incredible happened in some ways in 2018, where you had

Black organizers, immigrant rights organizers push for this whole campaign to oust him and a number of other close by kind of real white supremacist sheriffs in North Carolina. And they were successful. And there was a sheriff that ran and a number of black sheriffs were elected in the state. And some of the sheriffs ran on not complying with ICE and ending this program called the 287G agreement. And it seemed like this historic moment, this historic win, in the immediate aftermath of that, as opposed to in moments where you have sheriffs saying, we're not going to enforce the lockdown order. And essentially, besides some reporters reporting on it, nothing happens. Instead, what happened is that within a few months of this sheriff ending the 287G agreement,

the federal government comes in and issues pretty massive ICE raids through the county and actually, you know, ends up locking up over a hundred different people, many of whom got deported. Pretty soon after that, you had a number of other sheriffs in the state, including this one constitutional sheriff who also had aligned with another large anti-immigrant network called the Federation for American Immigration Reform, essentially organizing in the state for the state to push back and push an entire statewide mandate that all sheriffs comply with ICE. So that's not really an uplifting story. Yeah, actually, not quite. I think what it demonstrates in a tough way is more about this kind of like when sheriffs claim all of this autonomy at the local level, which they seem to actually in many cases be able to practice kind of like when sheriffs claim all of this autonomy at the local level, which they seem to

actually in many cases be able to practice kind of quite well, you know, when they say they want to enforce the statewide gun restrictions or mask mandates. Again, from what I understand, and I've been in touch with some of the like leading constitutional lawyers who are trying to look into it further, almost nothing happens. But then if you have, let's say, a sheriff in this case, you know, not enforcing, ending the agreement with ICE, there's a pretty serious and significant backlash. There has also, though, been, you know, there was an amazing campaign to eventually get Sheriff, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio out that took like a ton of organizing by immigrant rights organizers in Arizona. And that was pretty incredible and sustained. And there's been a lot of good stuff

written about it. So it's not, it's not, not the case that people have built campaigns and have been able to unseat their sheriff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's good to know because I much prefer the slow disassembling of this in a world in which they don't just get full power and start going after people with the wrong signs on their front yards than any other option here. It just, it seems like it's one of those situations where the deck is very much stacked in their favor, right?

In part because of how long I think this problem has been ignored. Like, it's really just now. I'm so glad that y'all's podcast is out because I still don't think there's nearly enough attention on, like, what these sheriffs are doing, because this really is, it's so fundamentally anti-democratic in a way that is also has a great deal of legitimacy in the eyes and ears of at least a lot of the people living in these areas, right? Like this is not just some Yehu declaring himself, you know, a militia. It's not like the state of Jefferson movement saying like, we're totally going to secede from California. These are guys with real power. So I guess kind of where I,

where I'd like to close by is asking, do you see a shift in rhetoric from these people from like 2020 to 2024? Like, because I, I feel, I feel like right now the rhetoric is much more aggressively anti the enemy within, whereas in 2020 it was much more focused on gun rights and going after migrants. But I think you would have a better sense of that than I do.

So one thing is that immediately following 2020, there was some effort on the part of CSPOA to start to slightly distance themselves from the Oath Keepers. Yeah. CSPOA and the Oath Keepers, I mean, the former Sheriff Mack, that was the founder of CSPOA, was on the board of the Oath Keepers. And Stuart Rhodes, who's been charged with seditious conspiracy for his role planning J6, has been working closely with CSPOA for the entire time that CSPOA, for the most part, has been around. So they were working really, really, really closely together. So there was a little bit of a shift after J6 where CSPOA tried to distance themselves from the Oath Keepers. But I would say that the other thing that you touched on is also true, as opposed to focusing so much on kind of nullification of

any sort of creating, you know, second amendment sanctuaries or those types of things. They've really leaned hard into investigating election fraud and kind of stop the steal style rhetoric. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And they've really leaned hard in a very frightening way into more like really harsh and horrible anti-immigrant rhetoric. Yeah. And so, you know, back literally at their 2024 spring CSPOA convening, they're talking about the great replacement theory. They're talking about doing every single thing in their powers to make sure that there is not election fraud. They're talking about, you know, making sure that, I don't want to use the terms here, but that undocumented people don't vote in the elections and those types of things. And then what was really frightening in this plan that I

spoke about briefly in Florida that the state director of CSPOA released is that they are actually embracing more far-right views overtly in that plan than they have in any other time, actually, since they were formed. So they're explicitly quoting, for any of your nerds out here that follow this stuff, this guy Matthew Trujillo. Yeah. And he openly advocated for political violence and was one of the people who actually justified violence against abortion providers in the 1990s. They quote him numerous times when talking about setting up citizen militias to actually essentially target election clerks in the event that they are not happy with how the elections turn out. Yeah. So there is a shift, I would say, in like in multiple directions that that some of which are very, very much just in line with Trump and the Trump campaign to some degree. And some of which are already kind of, you know, plans for a different type of insurgence at the local level in the event that things don't go in their direction.

Yeah, I'm going to throw us to ads once more and then we will come back and kind of close ourselves out. So everybody, have an ad. back. So Chloe, yeah, just kind of in closing, what are you kind of keeping your ear to the ground on as we, as we near election day? Like what are kind of your, do you have any like particular sort of red lines that you're keeping an eye out for from these people? I am looking closely at Florida and whether some of the plans that they've actually laid out in Florida might happen. I'm also keeping a close ear to battleground states where it seems like a number of these militias are kind of activated, aligned with some sheriff's departments. And I want to particularly see if there's any type of cases that kind of show up in terms of either voter intimidation or those types of things. And it's just been dawning on me more and more that a

number of the people who are in the CSPOA network are actually in battleground states. And I just wonder to what degree that's a coincidence or not. I think I'm just trying to kind of get a sense of how also some of the framing from these sheriffs continue to shift and whether they actually become activated, whether they're posses or citizen militias that become kind of mobilized as they did to some degree in 2020.

Well, that's what I will be keeping an eye on too. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for putting together this podcast series. Everyone listen to The Insurgents Sheriffs, co-produced by Political Research Associates and Quintero Productions. Again, that's The Insurgents Sheriffs.

You can find it wherever podcasts are found. Thank you for coming on. Everybody check this out and hopefully we will have a drop of the podcast in the Bastards feed so people can listen in on that too. Thank you so much, Chloe. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you listeners.

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. Thank you. 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. 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

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. 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, 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 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, welcome to it could happen here a podcast taking place on a day they will live in infamy and set a country ablaze i am of course referring to guy fox day i'm your host via wong with me is james hi i'm here yeah i'm excited i'm excited to share with people some of our national traditions in the

united kingdom yeah and so as a person from the country who won who won the revolution i I'm excited. I'm excited to share with people some of our national traditions in the United Kingdom. Yeah, and so as a person from the country who won the revolution, I get to do the British episode because you should have fucking beaten the French. Yes. So, all right. The thing about the gunpowder plot is that like another event occurring on November 5th, there are no heroes and everyone sucks shit. Yes. So, in order to return to a time of heroes and to get the context of what the fuck is going on here, we're taking a digression because I am never going to get another chance to talk about this part of history unless I write a Martin Luther episode.

So we're going all the way back to the origins of the split between Protestantism and Catholicism. Good. But Martin Luther. Yeah. So I was raised a Lutheran. Okay. So I got a very, very sanitized version of who Martin Luther was. And then I read about who Martin Luther actually was.

And I was like, holy shit. Yeah. Different dude. Martin Luther actually was and I was like, holy shit! Yeah, different dude. Martin Luther, and this is the part also that doesn't really get talked about in the sort of Lutheran tradition because Lutheran... The Lutheran tradition is not a revolutionary tradition, shall we say that.

The thing that Lutheran did when he started Protestantism by accident was accidentally kicked off a genuine full-scale social revolution in Europe with his attacks on the Catholic Church. He was not trying to do this, but he very quickly has, has in fact accidentally done this. And through the sort of breach that he'd opened and like the iron clad walls of Catholic monarchical rule came the German peasants wars. And my favorite dude in

this entire period of time, uh, Florian Geyer. I don't think I'm actually familiar with Florian. Good name. Oh, this guy rules. This guy fucking rips. Okay. Geyer is a knight who, there's a lot of debate about this, but the sources that I've read a long time ago when I was reading about this guy

says that he is the only like they are the only like knights like mounted knights in like the entire history of europe to defect and join a peasant revolution oh they're these guys they're like the black knights or something yep yep the black company yeah yeah he fucking rules yeah it slaps so the the german peasant wars kick off and he he enjoys the peasant revolution with this sword that is supposedly inscribed with the words, neither cross nor crown, which is just unbelievably based.

He fucking proto anarchist. Yeah. Yeah. And his thing, he came in the black company, which is part like it's part nights, part like peasants just basically run around Thuringia and kill the shit out of nobles and priests and like spread the spread and spread the glorious fire of the peasant revolution.

What a hero, yeah. It's awesome. I found a picture of him. Strong chin as well, I will say. Powerful jawline. Yeah, and he has an interesting sort of conflicting legacy. So he gets killed eventually because the giant peasant revolution is eventually destroyed. and we'll talk about martin luther's role in that in a second but he has this interesting legacy where he's taken up as a national hero by like every kind of non-establishment faction of

german politics so he's like like there's an ss division named after him oh dear he's also like one of the heroes of east germany yeah i can see this yeah and like this is one of these things we're like in like in like 20s germany you will have communists social democrats and the nazis all singing like the same songs about this guy yeah you know he's one of the few sort of redeemable figures in german history yeah yeah because he fucking rips yeah and this is what happens with national myth making right you just take this thing and make it plastic it's like you mold it to whatever you want it to be, whatever you want your national story to be. Yeah, yeah.

And this happens with Mokno in Ukraine. This happens with... We talked about this on Margaret's show, and we did a bunch of episodes about anarchism in Korea. And they do this with a bunch of Korean anarchists, too. They become national state heroes. And it's like, well, okay, this guy would have absolutely shot you. This is one of these things where it's like like if you

if you if you were to show if you were to show this guy the ss you'd be like what the fuck get my sword out again yeah it's time to it's time to start the killing again yeah and very specifically gary is like he actually had known Martin Luther back before he, like, joined the peasants. And, like, specifically the fact that they're, like,

these peasants are, like, sacking castles and killing priests and, like, the ruling class very specifically makes, is, like, the fact that the ruling class

could conceivably be in danger is the thing that convinces Martin Luther to become, I think I've made this argument on the show before but i think he is at very worst like the second greatest kind of revolutionary in my in like the last four or five hundred years because i i hold that the greatest kind of revolutionary is the one who starts the revolution and then realizes holy shit i can't control this and i don't like where it's going and then immediately turns kind of revolutionary to kill everyone who was involved no not like that yeah yeah yeah yeah so the product of this

is that martin luther writes this book kind of long pamphlet called against the murderous thieving hordes of peasants and aligns himself with the princes yeah and you know, so this is the start of what is eventually a century. You know, there's a couple of centuries of religious war in here. We're going to get you. But this is in a lot of ways, I think, the beginning of the reproach ma between Catholicism and Protestantism. Because sure. Yeah. Because class is more important. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually weirdly is an extremely important part of the story of Guy Fawkes Day. Yes.

The other thing that Luther's up to in this period is trying to outflank the Catholics on anti-Semitism, which is pretty hard because this is the early 1500s, right? We are like 40 years out from two Spanish monarchs expelling the

jews from spain yeah so like 16th century anti-semitism is like peak i don't know it's hard to exactly like tier list the like periods of anti-semitism but like right like the holocaust holocaust is obviously number one and then like this period, the Komunitsky Polgrom and some of the stuff in late 1800s Russia are the worst periods in human history for this. Yeah, this is pretty horrific shit. And Luther decides that he's going to outflank the Catholics and anti-Semitism.

And so he writes this book called On the Jews and Their Lies, which is like... Yeah. The first version of this book called On the Jews and Their Lies which is like the first version of this that I wrote had a joke here about how it could have been written by Hitler but then I did a little bit of reading about it and was like holy shit this

specific thing was used by like Nazi Lutheran pastors specifically to justify the lead up to the Holocaust in like 1938. So that's great. Yeah. How cool. Yeah.

So this is, this is, you know, this is the sort of formation of like what you could call like the, the Protestant kind of revolution against the sort of social revolutionary forces they kicked off. Right. Well,

the antisemitism like hardline stuff is a bit later, but there's, there's one more kind of big uprising, which is very funny which is the the anabaptist and moonstar who formed this like oh yeah pretty base democratic commune that eventually kind of turns into like a sex cult thing but like in a way that's more like people realize they could be poly than it is like normal sex cult yeah it's people it's people like like emerging from an extremely constrained

like socialized sexuality I guess yeah and you know this is like this is you know

those are the two sort of periods of like high of like the highest levels of class conflict that are the result of the Protestant

Reformation and this kind of ends with Munster when they all get killed by by the monarchies and this kind of ends with munster when they all get killed yeah by by the monarchies and this is something about the european peasantry that i i don't know maybe one day i'll do a project on why the european peasantry was so much worse at doing revolts in the chinese peasantry because the

chinese peasantry knocks off dynasties all the time like the chinese central government is like a hundred thousand times more formidable as a force than like any of these dipshit like holy roman empire principalities but the chinese peasantry did it anyways the dirt that i don't know but the german peasantry fought hard it doesn't go great for them yeah i mean the entirety of the european society is structured along like the state monopoly on violence and how oh yeah feudalism is like the sine qua non of feudalism is having the ability to kill all your peasants yeah and it's it's a it's a it's a system and i think this is something that like you know this is the there's reflection of this you see in sort

of like fantasy a lot right where like people will write monarchies and then you'll get like or like he's using like science fiction right we're like people people understand what's bad about a democracy because you've all lived in one and you know all the ways that it sucks but because most of us like haven't lived under an actual monarchy you don't yourself man well okay even then even then like compared to this shit, like, people don't understand how just hideous this shit is. And this is going to play a role. I mean, this is like, again, this is like the thing that starts the French Revolution, where the first time that, not the first time, but like, when people actually, like, start beating the monarchists seriously, people have this tendency to remember, like, the violence of the French Revolution.

It's like, yeah, there was a lot of shit that was very bad, but also, like, these people, these people that they are fighting, these are people who for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, anytime anyone has, like, even dared to talk back to them has just fucking murdered them, their families, and everyone around them.

Yeah, like, as horribly as possible. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, as the process of them holding on to their fucking deranged hereditary power system. And the consequence of this

is that once these revolutions are put down, sort of Protestantism versus Catholicism, like, it's not fully this because it's like there are sort of popular-y, I mean, not in a good sense, but there are sort of popular e i mean not in a good sense but there

are sort of like more mass like catholicism versus proselytism stuff but like a lot of it politically becomes the domain of like princes who are either sort of running wars that are like nominally religious based although like go go go look on what what side France enters on the 30 years war in about 20 years. When France enters on the side of the Protestants to figure out exactly how much. But this kind of conflict becomes this kind of more, the actual politics becomes centralized in the ruling class. The metaphor that popped in mind to me is one that will make sense to about four people. class yeah the metaphor that popped in mind to me is one that will make sense to about four people but it's kind of like the way that all politics became centralized in the bath party in syria over the course of like the 60s and 70s like all where like you have this mass politics but the

only politics that matters is the military and the military factions the military fighting it out like that's kind of what's happening here is that like all these princes are sort of centralizing religious power but this means that like religious wars quote-unquote and conflict becomes the domain of like these coups and counter coups by like princes and they're like noble factions and shit yeah and that's where we find ourselves in the year 1604 at the beginning of the gunpowder treason and before before we get that uh do you know what else supports the gunpowder treason 17th 17th century? Yeah, definitely Chumba Casino. Yeah, they're really

major funders of the gunpowder treason. Yeah, it's okay if you lose your money at Chumba Casino, guys, because they're trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament. We are back. We are back to the past. We're back to, I guess, the future of where we were several seconds before that.

So England famously became Protestant when King Henry VIII wanted a new wife and the Pope wouldn't let him get a new wife. Yeah, another new wife, right? Like, was it? No, this was a new wife. wife wait there's a rhyme for this divorce but yeah it's divorce but had it survived yeah yeah yeah i think yeah it was the first divorce because after that he just went he went ham on the wives and through this incredibly silly chain of events uh they leave the catholic church and become protestants through Anglicanism, which is Catholicism light. Yeah, and I think it's more Catholicism light. Lutheranism also gets described as Catholicism light,

but I can emphatically state there was a major difference because I was raised Lutheran, and I fucking have no guilt whatsoever. It rules. No guilt. Zero. I feel bad about nothing. It's awesome. It's no shame catholicism church of england is is more or less catholicism minus pope yeah yeah and obviously they differ over time because yeah because it's just the drift of of history they evolve differently yeah yeah but

but then but this this starts like actual a series of kind of horrendous religious conflicts inside of the UK. We're just like a bunch of random people get killed because once princes become the people controlling religions, everything gets unbelievably stupid really quickly. Yeah, it's just a vehicle for like elite fucking ambition. Yeah, they can pick a faction and use that to get a little bit higher up the ladder. So there's like there's a series of coups and counter-coups to attempt to reinstall Catholic rule or get rid of Catholic... And it's all really boring. It's so boring. I cannot emphasize...

Let me tell you, Mia, I did that in history in school for years. Somehow I overcame that to get a PhD in history, but that shit was dull. It's hideously boring. Which is insane because Bloody Mary is involved in this and it's still boring. Oh yeah, there's a lot of beheadings, the princes in the tower, famously with the little dead children. A lot of murder. Yeah, but boring murder, which is staggering. How do you make murder boring? Easy.

You do this shit. Yeah, Shakespeare wrote some good plays about this shit for those of you who are interested yeah go go consult that yeah i don't know so by 1604 a group of guys that would eventually extend to like 13 catholic guys start to form a a frankly not very good plan to do a coup and appoint a child king to restore Catholic rule to England.

Or child queen. Yeah. They love a child king. So this plan has Okay, I'm separating it out into three stages. I don't know whether it's fair to, but I'm doing it. So part one, use a bunch of gunpowder to blow up the English parliament.

Now, there's something that's very important to understand what's happening here. This is not a parliament in the sense that we understand it today. This is not like a representative body. The parliament is basically an assembly of nobles. It's the instrument

of power of the English aristocracy, which is one of the greatest forces for human evil in the entirety of human, like the 300,000 year history of humanity. Yeah, we don't have it. Britain doesn't have a universal franchise until after 1832. So like, yeah.

And this is 1605, right? Like, and throughout that whole period, the power of sort of the aristocracy like weighs, but this is, they are unbelievably powerful. I see they don't have a universal manhood suffrage until later, 1848. Before that, every constituency has its own franchise rules, which makes parliament even fucking weirder. You have some that are like proto-democratic and you have some where it's just a guy. And he just shows up to parliament and represents himself yeah it's great yeah so you know this part of the plan the blowing up the

parliament plan great we love it we support destroying the english aristocracy uh yeah always great get the king why not it's gonna was it gonna be at the state opening of parliament i i think i it was it was going to be at some session of parliament where the king was going to be. And that was part two of the plan. Yeah, the state opening of parliament. Yeah. Fun fact, Britain still does this. Incredibly antiquated, like barbaric country.

Yeah, this is where the... We need China to conquer the UK and establish civilization there. Like, failed it. They're like, Britain couldn't even do a bourgeois revolution. Do you know howain couldn't even do a bourgeois revolution do you know how easy it is to do a bourgeois revolution like sun yet sen pulled it off britain has the most established fucking aristocracy in the world so oh my god at the british state opening of parliament which still happens to this day right incredibly like antiquated procedure they search the cellars of parliament before and to check that

no one else is trying to blow them up like this is now part of the uh part of the uh and like there's a whole there's like an exchange of hostages uh like like there are all these things that are built in from bizarre episodes in british history they they send someone from parliament to buckingham palace to be like a hostage for the duration of the ceremony. It's incredible. This is the stupidest system. The British system,

I think functionally, it is a more advanced democratic system than the American system, but in terms of the way that its procedure works, it is like the American Constitution, which is like one of the most reg it's like procedure works it is like like the american constitution which is like one of the most regressive constitutions like a constitution that failed to enshrine one person one vote yeah right like that constitution looks like fucking star trek compared to like

watching the stupid ass king hauling around a scepter. Yeah, some dude bangs on the door three times and then, yeah, sausage fingers gets in there and reads his speech. Yeah, so part two of the gunpowder plot is to kill the king who's going to be there too. This is also great. We like killing the king. Cool Zone Media is a pro-killing-the-king

media establishment. Yes, Regicide rules. We love it. It's great. Part three is to install a Catholic theocracy to replace the Protestant one, and we simply do not love this. This shit sucks.

That's where we diverge, sadly. Yeah. This part's very bad. V for Vendetta may have misled you about the intentions of Guy Fawkes. Yes, and we'll get to V for Vendetta, because that's an important part of the closing of this story. So the plan falls apart.

The plotters get betrayed. Guy Fawkes, who's the guy who's supposed to light the gunpowder, gets caught and tortured, which is really funny because you'll read accounts. I'm going to read a bit from an account from the somewhat dubiously named EnglishHeritage.org that is like, they're just quite pretty good on this. Yeah, they own lots of big old houses and stuff like uh if you want to go and see like a manor house you're

probably going to give them some money to go in like it's it's not like as bad as something named english heritage could be i guess it could be a lot more racist in an open and explicit way yeah yeah now but like the thing about this, like, they don't actually describe what happened to him during his interrogation as torture, even though they tortured the shit out of this guy. Oh, yeah. Like, the king was there while they tortured the shit out of this guy. Yeah, yeah. Very unpleasant, I imagine. Yeah, yeah.

And so, eventually, like, all the plotters are, like, either captured or killed. And I'm going to read this from that English Heritage article. Quote, Each was found guilty and sentenced to a traitor's death by the grisly ordeal of hanging, drawing, and quartering. Oh, yeah. Hung, drawn, and quartered. The men were hanged. It's so bad.

I loved this shit when I was in school. You don't understand how great this is for, like, eight-year-old boys. Yeah, but, like but Jesus fucking Christ. So they were hanged, cut down while still alive, castrated, dismembered and beheaded. And then their bodies were cut into quarters and displayed for all to see and for birds to feast upon. According to all accounts, all faced their fates bravely. So this is something that is genuinely important to understand because we're going to get to the french revolution part of the story very soon these people are fucking deranged they're like they're psychopaths like they just they do this as public entertainment

oh yeah like they hang people and then cut them down and castrate them and then dismember and behead them while they're alive like they do this like for fun yeah isn't this the opening scene of uh the discipline and punish by foucault doesn't he describe yeah yeah yeah and like you know like this is this is the thing you have to remember about the french revolution is that like these are the people who rule europe for like 700 years oh yeah or like these motherfuckers. And so, you know, they stop the gunpowder treason, no one gets blown up, and November 5th

immediately gets declared a holiday. But it's not really the same holiday as we have today. I'm going to read again from that article. Since 1673, and up until the 19th century, some crowds have paraded an effigy of the Pope through the streets, strung up above a bonfire.

This symbolized continuing prejudice towards Catholics. Which, again, like, you motherfuckers weren't Catholics until like fucking seven seconds ago. Like, what is wrong with you people? Like, you were all Catholics until your king decided to make a fake pope so he could get divorced. Like, what the fuck? Yeah, the anti-Catholicism goes pretty hard. Like, for a country where you were all literally Catholics until the king decided you weren't. Oh my god, I hate Christianity so much.

This shit sucks so badly talking of parades have you uh have you read about the uh the lewis bonfire in sussex no okay they like they go super hard for bonfire night they also like i think it was the same day or something that some protestants were burned at a stake there oh great uh but they have this big parade where they like they drag like i think it's burning barrels of like pitch or tar oh my god possibly those are the same thing uh they have like i'm gonna invite you to google lewis uh lewis bonfire just just tell me what the first image you see is oh jesus christ oh no no! That's a parade of burning crosses! Yeah.

Oh no! That's correct. Yeah. Oh jeez! What you're going to see is a burning crosses. Jump scare! So they don't just burn Guy Fawkes in Effigy. They have these big sort of, every year they'll have like the person of the year they're going to burn. So like, Effig effort that they've burned include David Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson, and Seb Blatter. Like some of it goes surprisingly hard. Like I think at some point, like there's like a formal,

like they've been investigated by the police for multiple times. Nearly all of them are against politicians. You know. We probably should mention they also burned a Romani caravan once, which is pretty fucking terrible. Yeah. All right. Speaking of burning David Cameron, do you know who else burns David Cameron?

Is it the goods and services that support this podcast? Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. support this podcast yeah great yeah yeah we're now returning uh let's go back to that thing i was reading about what happened to to them them hanging the pope yeah so the last this symbolized continuing prejudice against catholics however during the french revolution english and irish catholics fought for britain which found itself on the same side of the

pope and perhaps because of this in around 1800 guy fox seems to have finally entered the picture as the boogeyman of bonfire night rather than the pope fox was barely mentioned in 5th november sermons in the 18th century and his name doesn't feature in the titles of books or tracks before 1800 but after that date his name began to feature in the titles of books or tracts before 1800. But after that date, his name began to appear and Fox seems to have quickly become a central character in English popular culture, often portrayed as a dashing, doomed anti-hero.

Yeah. And this is a reminder that Protestantism versus Catholicism is a fucking joke. The ruling class has always had one religion, counter-revolution and when their asses are on the line, Protestant terrorists and Catholic Supreme court justices can work together

just fine to make sure you can't get a fucking abortion. Yep. So, you know what, what we have here, and this is an interesting thing in the sense of like, like Guy Fawkes becoming the guy that Guy Fawkes day is about and not like the Pope is literally an icon

of sort of like, of kind of revolution. Yeah, that's a good point. Like specifically against the French Revolution. But it's interesting because it's like this eventually seems to kind of have backfired because Guy Fawkes kind of like becomes the central figure, right? But then, and this is something that

like this article also mentions that I want to go into more. Everything sort of changes again about this when the movie V for Vendetta gets made? Yeah, it's very strange. Yeah, and let's actually, before we do V for Vendetta, can you talk a little bit more about what people do during Guy Fawkes Day? Because it's fun. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So it is fun.

It is a nice, like a little, as burnings in effigy go, you know, a fun one. At least what we used to do, I grew up in a more rural area, is we'd all, everyone would, if you had like wood or you chopped down a tree, you know, on your land

or you had old furniture, you'd all bring it to one place, right? Big field, you pile it. And it's fucking high. It's like a couple of stories high by the time. Damn. And then you go down on the 5th of November, everyone gets fireworks. highland you're with it's fucking high it's like a couple of stories high by the time damn and then you go down on the 5th of november everyone gets fireworks this is where i'll tell my fireworks

story very amusingly when i was younger uh everyone in my village club together to buy one of those fireworks displays you know where it's like a box and you light one fuse and they all go off yeah oh shit so we've set that up my dad and his mate and uh we're in the van there we've lit it and then we've we're sort of standing there like ready to go um and unfortunately we've placed it upside down bouncing off the ground and then it flips on the side and it just we're now behind the van it's fucking smashing the van. So yeah, what you do is you get fireworks, you shoot them at your friends,

you shoot them in the air. You have a massive bonfire. And this is November in Britain, right? So, you know, days are short, nights are long, everything's wet. So you're using a lot of petrol to start the bonfire, like, you know, irresponsible amounts of flammable. You just have a huge fire. And then if you have old clothes, at least I'm sure it's different if you grew up in like a more urban setting, what we would do is we'd get our old clothes, tie the bottom

of the trousers together, tie the wrists together, and then you stuff all that with straw, the bedding that you have, right right and then you put a head on it uh it's like a bag like a plastic bag or flower bag you draw a little face on it and that's your guy um you can go around to people's houses and ask for a penny for the guy that's that had sort of become quite old-fashioned by the time i was a child but you make these guys and then you take them down there and then you put them on top of the bonfire before you light it.

And everyone watches as he catches on fire and burns to death. And you have toffee apples at the other thing. Ooh, that's fun. Apples which are dipped in toffee. Yeah, I used to like it.

And you have sparklers, you know, which is, you know, a little sparkler on a stick. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. It's got something for every age. You're a little kid, you have a sparkler,

and then once you get to 10, 12, you can shoot fireworks at your friends. Really, it's something for everyone, I guess, unless you're Catholic. But that's the thing, though. Catholicism and Protestantism... It's secularized. Yeah, they've been united

in the single great British religion of counter-revolution. So now everyone can celebrate Guy Fawkes Day together day together yeah it's true and it's supposed to like reinforce the state and be like if you fuck with the state we will burn you which v for vendetta kind of i guess messes with a little bit but uh yeah and and this i think it's actually a really interesting process because i think guy fox now is most known for the Guy Fawkes mask, which was one of the symbols of Anonymous

and one of the symbols of... Yeah, but it wasn't before that. Yeah, yeah. And part of how this happens is a character named Guy Fawkes in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. And V for Vendetta is not about a Catholic plot to establish the Catholic rule in Britain. This is about effectively the government

of the UK is going to have in five years when they just completely descend into fascism. We're not that far away now, to be honest. It's about that government getting overthrown by an anarchist revolution. It's like this because Alan Moore is a leftist.

It's made by the Wachowskis of Matrix fame who are also trans leftists. We're going to close on them, actually. But, you know, sort of what happens here, right, is, like, this mask becomes a symbol of, like, kind of, like, really altogether detached from the original figure of Guy Fawkes. And, like, through the form of this movie, like, this becomes the symbol of, like, the 2011, like, Occupy Cycle revolutions everywhere. Yeah. this becomes the symbol of like the 2011, like occupy cycle revolutions everywhere. Yeah.

And like, like one of my most sort of like harrowing memories, like coming up in that movement was of this, like 2014, everything's going, by 2014, everything's going to shit. Right. Like the Syrians of war is kicked off.

The Rabah massacre in Egypt has like slaughtered a bunch of protesters and Egypt's like just under full military rule. And there's a, like there are like palestinian kids like wearing guy fox masks and there's like this image that haunts me there's a video and an image of it of this kid is like this kid's like 17 maybe like 16 17 like wearing this mask and he walks around a corner and his really sniper just fucking shoots him in the head and there's this picture of him with like this just like mask with a hole in it next to his face and he's just like lying there on the floor and it's like one of the things that is like the reason why the way i am now is because of that shit yeah and you know in some sense like he's becoming weirdly an enduring danger to the state in ways that he would be extremely pissed about. Which is very funny to me.

It started as a graphic novel, right? It was a graphic novel before. Yeah, yeah. It was an Alan Moore graphic novel. Comic books. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to close on the Wachowskis.

And specifically, I wanted to shout out. So again, like the Wachowskis made the movie V for Vedetta, which is the thing that like popularized it and is in a lot of sense, responsible for the aesthetic of the 2011 revolutions. And she's founded a new project called Anarchist United. I'm going to quote from an interview with

her, quote, it will be a studio wholly owned by a foundation. It's owned by this 501c3. The 501c3 provides grants for artists and young filmmakers with marginalized points of view. Hopefully those people will create stuff, bring it over to the studio. The studio can make it and then fund the foundation.

So you create this evergreen operation that can hopefully exist outside of the studio system if necessary. And so they're making a bunch of trans shit, like they're adapting Gretchen Falcon Martin's Manhunt, which is like the most trans femme ass like book of the last, like,

like it's a book about trans misogyny and it's getting, and we're getting it fucking adapted. So yeah, it's really cool. And yeah, like I think, I think, I don't know that that's the thing I want to close on is like a note of hope

of like, even the most deranged kind of revolutionaries actions against the state can sometimes ricochet around 400 years later and turn into like a revolutionary movement bounce back into transform films and uh it's like um i often think about hunger games like yeah the hunger game symbol i've i would love to interview the lady who wrote hunger games i think she's quite like she doesn't like the media attention so much from what I've heard. But like that became the symbol of the like around the Milk Tea Alliance, right?

In Hong Kong, Myanmar, obviously, even in Thailand. Yeah. And like, it's fascinating how these things have these cultural and like, yeah, they sort of bounce around. It becomes a bit completely different from what they were. Yeah. And, you know, it's this weird thing, too, because, like, The Hunger Games is born of Suzanne Collins, like, flipping channels between coverage of, like, watching the bombing in the Iraq War and reality TV. Yeah. I remember reading that. And you watch, like, this rebound of this, like, the intense reaction of this cultural

moment to 2003 2004 like the like the one of one of the peaks of of american like kind of revolution rebounds around and suddenly a bunch of like a bunch of a bunch of revolutionaries of bm bar are doing the like fucking two figures thing yeah yeah doing the cub scouts yeah and so you know this is one of these things where like you know who knows where your story one day is going to end up in Rebound 2 but

if we survived this we are promised that this year was the beginning of the golden age of leftist trans cinema so let's fucking get there more

and yeah if you're in England enjoy burning shit tonight yeah if you're in America who knows maybe same also enjoy burning shit tonight. Yeah. If you're in America, who knows?

Maybe same. I'm going to enjoy burning shit tonight. Yeah. Woo! 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.

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, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. 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 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. Blacklit 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. 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. 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. You wake up before dawn.

This was once abnormal for you, but ever since the election, you've found it harder and harder to sleep. You just barely drifted off when the sound of shouts wafted in from across the street. Reflected sirens bounce off your bedroom window. Through a fog of sleep, you reflect on the last few days. Voting went better than you'd feared. It's what happened in the days after that's kept your spine at a constant eerie tingle. Several Republican-led states are refusing to certify their election results. Most analysts say the blizzard of lawsuits launched on behalf of Trump have no chance at winning, but that didn't

stop the candidate from declaring victory and promising to carry out his own inauguration, no matter what the courts decide. It's all absurd, laughable, but you live on the border of a majority-red county, and your sheriffs just announced support for the real winner of the election. Your local PD have been notably silent, while right-wing provocateurs online have started circulating allegations of election fraud that the sheriff has promised to look into. That was yesterday. Today, just after five, you're jolted awake in your bed by the sound of breaking glass and screaming. You stay low and crawl to your front window to peep out across your yard and into the street before you. Three police cruisers are stacked up

in front of your neighbor's house. You can't imagine why. You know, he did some volunteer canvassing a few weeks back. He volunteered at a voting precinct. Could they be there because of that? You try a few different search terms on social media to puzzle out the truth. It looks like a few people around the country

are reporting similar raids, but most of the posts register as deleted before you can click on them. There's more shouting from inside your neighbor's house, and within seconds, a pair of burly deputies drag him out in front and into a waiting squad car. It's dark outside, but you think you might see blood on his face. Your heart starts to pound. You feel the urge to call someone. But the cops are already here. Who else is there? As your mind races, one of the officers stationed outside turns back and looks towards your window. Recognition sparks his eyes. He sees you. He starts to walk over.

You turn back, drop the shades, and with a pounding heart, retreat to your bedroom. Maybe he won't knock. Maybe he just wanted to scare you. Maybe. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Robert Evans, and back in early 2019, I released the first season of this show. It wasn't a daily news and politics podcast back then. Instead, it gave a focused argument for why a new U.S. civil war was more frightening and possible than you might guess. Over the last few years, that belief has become, unfortunately, mainstream. It is no longer fringe or unique to talk about a new civil war as a real possibility. There was a blockbuster movie earlier this year

based around presenting what it called a realistic picture of such a possibility. I'll leave my thoughts on that for another time. A Marist poll from earlier this year showed that 47% of Americans consider a second civil war likely or very likely. This is a massive shift, considering where things were when I wrote the podcast series in 2019. That number includes an expected 53% of Republicans, but also 40% of Democrats and 41% of Independents. Depending on how you want to see it, I've either been vindicated as much as is possible for someone in my line of work, or I've played an outsized role in creating a particularly dangerous egregore in the collective unconsciousness of our nation, effectively

talking this possibility into being. I'm really not sure either way. My conscience has been troubled on that matter ever since the first episode started coming out. If you'll remember, midway through the first season, we dropped an extra episode I hadn't initially intended as part of the run, just trying to stop people from panicking. And ever since, I've kept that as a particular goal in my head. However you want to, you know, think about this, the first season of It Could Happen Here undoubtedly helped to make my career. Today, Sophie and I run an entire network that employs several dozen people, career. Today, Sophie and I run an entire network that employs several dozen people, largely on the strength of that series. And yet, I have no issue telling you that I don't have any idea how election day is going to go. You know, we've had a lot of polls lately that seem much better for Harris.

A number of pollsters are starting to shift. You know, there's a good chance that they were hurting in the direction of Trump because they didn't want to underestimate him again. But there's also a good chance that that Seltzer poll is an outlier. And now these guys are hurting in the direction of Harris winning because they don't want to be embarrassed. I really have no idea what's going to happen. My official stance is that it's probably pretty close to a coin flip, although maybe one that favors Harris now, you know, more than one that favors Trump. Whatever happens, I don't know what's going to happen, let alone what's going to happen the day after. And as I sat down to write this episode, which

is going to air on the day of the election, I went back and forth as to where the focus should be. I did consider doing another Don't Panic style episode. Perhaps that would have been the call. You know, depending on how today goes, people might either be listening to this and, you know, relaxing or listening to this and in a heightened state of panic. You know, it really depends on where things are and where things are in the counting of votes by this period of time. My reasoning on what I decided to do is pretty simple, which is that I think there's a good chance we either know or have a strong inkling of how this election is going to shake out by the time this episode airs. And at the time I write

this, the indicators do look better for Harris than for Trump, enough that I'd say the election leans in her direction. And so I think there's a lot of value in talking about what might happen in the aftermath of that if Trump tries to protest the election results and if he goes particularly trying to protest by force. And if that's the case, if that's the direction he lands in, I think these shooters that we have to worry about, and I mean that in the figurative sense, right? You know, people who support him, people who will put skin in the game in order to try to force him into office. I think they're different than they were last time. I don't think the threat here is that a bunch of proud boys and the like raid the Capitol next January. I think the threat here has a lot more to do with licensed law

enforcement officers who have already declared themselves in the tank for Trump. We ran an episode just the other day about the constitutional sheriff's movement. There's a lot to say about that. One in four law enforcement officers today report to a sheriff. They make 20% of all arrests in the country. Earlier this year, Wired published an article on the far-right sheriffs ready to disrupt the election. It focused heavily on Dar Leaf, who sits on the board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or CSPOA. Leaf, a Trump supporter and sheriff in Berry County, Michigan, has spent the lead-up to this

election investigating the 2020 election. He's tried to seize voting machines and run militia training courses where he offers to teach potential jurors, homeschoolers, ladies and gentlemen, how to form an ad hoc posse, each member armed with, quote, a standard AR-15 type military grade weapon and at least 500 rounds of ammo. Speaking of 500 rounds of ammo, you probably can't buy that from our sponsors, but here they are. We're back, and we're talking about a constitutional sheriff who sits on the board of that organization named Dar Leaf. Leaf has already promised to have his posse patrolling stations in Berry County to watch for evidence of fraud and illegal immigrant voting in what's expected

to be one of the swing states this election might hinge on. Deeply reported articles like that Wired piece have warred in my own personal paranoia with troubling accounts on social media. The day before the election, which is when I wrote this, I came across a post on the Pennsylvania subreddit from a Philly voter titled, My Dad Just Got Harassed by a Police Officer About the Election. Quote, He was driving down the old Lincoln Highway when a trooper stopped him and asked him if he was voting tomorrow. Trooper, will you be voting tomorrow? Dad, that's none of your business. Trooper, who are you voting for tomorrow? Dad, none of your business. Trooper, oh, so you're illegal. Now, the poster's dad, who is Hispanic, stated that he didn't have to answer that and asked if he was being detained. The trooper let him go. But later, according to

the poster, this happened. When my dad went to the precinct, there were three other people there to report the exact same story, election harassment at a traffic stop. Turns out the officer or officers doing it aren't even from Bucks County or Pennsylvania. They're New Jersey state troopers, wild to cross state borders to harass people driving down the highway. In the lead up to the 2020 election, we were all deeply worried about the dangers of different far-right groups, militias, and organizations like the Proud Boys, who wore right-wing death squad patches and threatened to throw leftists out of helicopters when their god-emperor won re-election. Today, most of those figures are either a spent force or something that cannot act on its own, reliant upon the backing of groups like the aforementioned

constitutional sheriffs, or being empowered by a Trump-controlled White House if they want to have any hope of being directly relevant again. The positive side of this is that it allows us to triage our fears. The downside is that independent paramilitary actors are, in fact, something we can easily combat as individuals and communities. Portland proved that when it eventually won its five-year street battle to oust these sundry right-wing groups from constant occupations of the city. When groups like the Proud Boys cross the line into outright violence, it is legal to meet them with defensive violence, and they can and have been beaten this way. That's simply not something the extant left-wing community defense organizations and political

groups in this country can say and do against, for example, law enforcement entities hell-bent on executing a purge against the left. In rallies prior to the election, Trump has often merged promises to prosecute his political opponents, us, with promises to use ICE to deport 20 million illegals and to send in the military or federal law enforcement to clean up cities. I want to quote now from an article in the New Republic reporting on a rally earlier this year in Wilmington, North Carolina. Today I am announcing a new plan to end all sanctuary cities in North Carolina and across our country, said Trump. No more sanctuary cities. As soon as I take office, we will

immediately surge federal law enforcement to every city that is failing, which is a lot of them, to turn over criminal aliens, and we will hunt down and capture every single gang member, drug dealer, rapist, murderer, and migrant criminal that is being illegally harbored. The article goes on to note, Trump has previously vowed to militarize U.S. law enforcement to restore law and order to our cities, which he claimed had become cesspools of bloodshed and crime under President Joe Biden. Trump has argued that additional federal funding and forces would help supplement supposedly defunded police departments, but that extra help would only go to cities that complied with ICE. Now, this is scary stuff,

and it would necessitate some sort of response if it were to happen, but I don't really know how to tell you to organize against it right now. There are so many unknowns that one would need to factor into any plans. I could theorize about underground railroads to help people avoid deportation or to avoid being raided for their past political activism. And I could base those theories on, for example, how activists in Nazi Germany helped hide people from the Gestapo. But those heroes of yesteryear existed in a world where the technological tools available to the enemy were primitive beyond compare to what exists today. Perhaps the most chilling article I read this year had nothing to do with ICE or right-wing paramilitaries and everything to do with the technology that has been standard among law enforcement for years.

to do with a technology that has been standard among law enforcement for years. License plate recognition systems, like Motorola's DRN, use optical character recognition technology to identify the text of a vehicle's license plate and put it in a searchable database. The policing implications of this are obvious and not all negative, although it's far from clear if they actually work, too. The idea is that if someone carries out a drive-by shooting or assaults a woman on the street or is seen fleeing some other form of dangerous crime by someone who gets the car make and model and maybe the first couple letters of the plate, DNR's database of more than 15 billion vehicle sightings built from automatic recordings of license plate reading cameras on police cruisers and tow trucks and the like might well help identify and stop someone before

they hunt or kill again. Now, there's serious reason to question whether or not this system actually works this way. I'm not claiming to take a stance on this one way or the other. I'm not an expert on this. But the issue here from a privacy standpoint, when we imagine what might happen in a future Trump-dominated government is that you can't train a system like this to only pay attention to license plates, nor is there any benefit to Motorola in doing so. And recent investigations conducted by a private detective with access to DNR's database for her work

have shown that someone with access to this database can search based on more than just license plates. They can look up signs supporting political candidates and match them to front yards and thus to people's addresses. They can find individuals who were captured by these cameras. And there are, again, billions of these photos wearing, for example, Planned Parenthood shirts. This is not an idle fear. This is a weapon that could very easily be used by the enemy within months of you listening to this. This is also a weapon that, in an event like the one I forecasted at the start of this episode,

could be used to crack down on activists and voters in counties that are loyal to Trump in some sort of national schism situation. Police officers already misuse databases like this with comic regularity. In 2022, a different Wired investigation showed that hundreds of ICE employees and contractors had been caught abusing similar databases made via license plate recognition systems. Some had used them to stalk citizens. Stuff like this pairs forebodingly with threats made by emboldened pro-Trump cops earlier this election season. I'm talking about something that happened in September, when Ohio Sheriff of Portage County Bruce Zukowski posted a screenshot of a Fox News segment criticizing the current president over his immigration record and the impact of Haitian

migrants on Springfield, Ohio, from an article in the AP by Michael Rubicam. Likening people in the U.S. illegally to human locusts, Zukowski wrote on a personal Facebook account and his campaign's account, when people ask me what's going to happen if the flip-flopping laughing hyena wins, I say, write down all the addresses of the people who had their signs in their yards. That way, Zukowski continued, when migrants need places to live, we already have the addresses of their new families who supported their arrival. Now, as the full context of that statement makes clear, Zukowski was not technically threatening Harris voters. But it's pretty much impossible for me to take that as anything but a threat,

just one dressed up enough for plausible deniability in an environment where the future ability of Zukowski and those like him to punish Democrats is still unclear. And we're going to talk more about that. But first, here's another ad break. Now, I don't mean to make it sound like that there's nothing that can be done to fight against technological tools and the arsenal of repression like this. But I have no doubt that if the Republicans do take total power, they will

read any positive election result for them as a mandate to punish the left and purge the people Trump has already repeatedly called the enemy within. And I worry that in the event of any sort of national schism, either where there's an extended period of time where Trump is claiming to have been the winner, or if there's a situation where he just has himself inaugurated in Florida and you have a bunch of these counties and states around the country sign up for Trump, that the first thing we'll see law enforcement do in these areas is punish the enemy within, especially if they declare themselves on a war footing with the rest of the country. These are all things that are maybe not the likeliest possibility here, but they are

something to keep in mind and they are something that represents a real danger at this point. I don't think anyone who's paid attention to the kinds of things the Republicans have been saying lately can deny that. Now, it is important to remember that whatever plan these people try won't work as well as they hope. We've been watching them for years, and if there's one thing you know about all of the people around Trump, it's that they're fuck-ups. That doesn't mean they can't win. It doesn't mean they're not dangerous. It just means that they're going to make mistakes. Now, those mistakes aren't going to be survivable for everybody that we care about, which is something that should be on your mind. Bruce and most of the Trump-aligned police,

local and federal, still feel a need to couch their threats in deniable terms, though. But many on the far right have been less careful. And one thing we've seen as this election has lurched closer to its conclusion is a lot of people, people like particularly Elon Musk, have absolutely taken their masks off. Now, I think this had a lot to do with the fact that Trump was looking more like the favorite a couple of weeks ago, and they felt like after years of, you know, having to do what Bruce did, having to cover up their outright eliminationist impulses, they no longer had to do that. Now, obviously, some influential people on the far right have been masked off for much longer, and this is something that should concern you as well. One of the most sinister examples of this is Jack Posobiec, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer whose recent book, Unhumans, is framed as a secret history of communist

revolutions. From an article in Mother Jones, quote, they, they being Posobiec and his co-author, claim, for as long as there have been beauty and truth, love and life, there have also been the ugly liars who hate and kill, and these people of anti-civilization have always gone by different names. Communists, socialists, leftists, and progressives. The pair contend that these folks, be they the Bolsheviks of Russia or the BLM activists of this decade, are better called unhumans. It's a hard-edged message. The foes of conservatism are not merely misguided souls pushing the wrong policies, but people who seek to annihilate civilization. They rob and kill Posobiec and Lissac, his co-author maintain. They don't believe what they say. They don't care about

winning debates. They don't even want equality. They just want an excuse to destroy everything. They want an excuse to destroy you. Now, Jack has been a laughable character for much of his career, but his outright eliminationist rhetoric has had an audience in the halls of power. J.D. Vance himself provided a blurb for the book, claiming it shows us what to do to fight back. Steve Bannon, meanwhile, wrote the foreword. Now, I started this episode with a fictional vignette, imagining what might happen if Trump chooses to contest the election without right force, and he might. The good news is, I think that such an effort would be doomed to fail. If he sticks to the courts, trying to refuse certifications and kick the election to the House is a better chance at succeeding. And

it is possible that isolated thefts of ballots and arrests of poll workers could play into a broader effort like this. But doing so is a big risk. My gut tells me that moving so openly, resorting to violence first, creates a situation in which the Biden administration and the incoming Harris administration would have to respond with force. There would have to be consequences. And given that they currently control the arsenal of state power, I think they would win even in the event that you have all of these sheriffs break for Trump and some sort of insurgent situation develop. If that were to happen, having backed this insurgency would put Trump in real jeopardy, and it would put a lot of his backers in jeopardy as well.

It might even force consequences for provocateurs like Posobiec and even Elon Musk. Backing an outright violent coup is almost the only thing I can imagine putting Musk behind bars. There are pieces of this logic train that I find comforting, but there are also pieces that aren't. Many of us, me included, made the mistake of assuming that after January 6th, 2021, Trumpism might finally be a spent force. He'd gambled too much and he'd lost too big. But despite the existential threat he presented himself as being, the Democratic Party and the Merrick Garland Justice Department largely chose

mercy for the main players. I suspect anything short of armed insurrection will see a similar reaction from them this year. I don't believe Musk's fears that the Democrats will throw him in prison if Harris wins are real. I'll read that instead as his own predictive justification for the violence he'd like to support against his political enemies. That desire won't go away just because Trump rides off into the sunset and the Republican party has to go searching for another Fuhrer. If we defer their dream, it will simply sit under the floorboards and fester, waiting for the next opportunity, and that won't take long. Kamala will inherit a broken

system and a world where climate change and conflict are on the rise. Low-information voters, less literate by the day, will continue to swing back and forth. The feral beast we've heard growling all year long will surge forward, all the hungrier for being made to wait. If you've kept up with our election coverage this year, you've probably noticed that we haven't endorsed any candidates, and I haven't wasted any time advising our listeners to vote. I happen to be someone who does think a Harris win represents substantially less harm than a Trump win to a lot of people, but I don't think that the folks who listen to our podcast are waiting for me to make that decision for them. I don't agree with the anti-electoralist side of things on every matter, but one place where I do agree with them is that a Harris win won't fix what's broken. It represents the historic equivalent of jinking out of the way in a dogfight. Necessary,

maybe, but not something that guarantees future security. Hey everybody, Robert here. I've changed location, so sorry if it sounds a little bit different. I'm currently in a cabin waiting out the election, trying not to think too much about it. But I wrote a new ending to this because I just thought that what I had there was incomplete. Now, when it comes to what does work in the long run to beat these people, my mind is drawn back constantly to perhaps an odd place, a 2011 article in the scientific journal Nature titled The Evolution of Overconfidence. Now, the gist is that this was an attempt by two scientists to solve the evolutionary mystery of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It seems to be extraordinarily common for people who know very little about a subject

to overestimate their competence in it. This is probably why so many Americans think they could win a fistfight with a bear. Such a phenomenon seems profoundly maladaptive. How could overestimating our abilities provide any kind of benefit to evolutionary fitness? The explanation devised in this paper is that overconfidence is beneficial more often than not because in a hypothetical situation where two organisms are competing for a resource and evenly matched in the event of a fight, the organism that is more confident is likelier to reach for that resource. If they do, one of three things can

happen. They fight and win, they fight and lose, or the other organism backs away, insecure in its chances of victory, and they get that resource without even fighting for it. Such a scenario favors the overconfident individual, so much so that it might explain why many of us seem to have a built-in tendency to irrationally judge our own capabilities. Now, I first became aware of this research almost a decade ago when I started work on my first published book, A Brief History of Vice. At the time, I found it interesting because it posited a likely adaptive basis for a kind of bad behavior, and that's what my whole book was about.

In the years since, though, I've come to see it as the fundamental underlying explanation for how fascists win. It's well established that fascist regimes and individuals themselves are bad at threat modeling. We can bring up examples as varied as the invasion of the Soviet Union or that proud boy who got shot in Portland after picking the wrong fight, and of course, January 6th. There are many examples to choose from, but as often as they fail, the success of these movements is also based entirely on their willingness to dare and the fact that liberals in particular are often too frightened and cautious to confront them. We are still dealing with Donald Trump and his foot soldiers

in 2024 because no one quite had the guts to confront him to the degree he needed to be confronted. Doing so would have meant taking unprecedented legal steps and risking right-wing backlash that likely would have included acts of terrorism. In the end, most people with any say in the matter chose to either back away or, at best, pull their punches until after the election. On other episodes of this show, our correspondent Mia and I have talked about the actual path to destroying the far-right's organizational and electoral base. We are up against a coalition of used car dealers, supplement salesmen, multi-level marketing ghouls, sheriffs taking blatantly unconstitutional

stances on their own power, and churches that by any decent measure lost their justification for tax-exempt status years ago. These are all forces that can be targeted and neutered through the courts and the legislative system, with consistent activism and pressure applied to elected leaders. Sitting here, I think that the odds the Democrats embrace such a strategy are exceptionally low. But we do have to try to make them. Because when you're sitting across from a monster, one that's fattened on overconfidence, and you see him start to reach again, the only sane response is to swallow your fear and take a swing.

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 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 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. 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 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons hit play on

the sex positive and deeply entertaining podcast sniffies cruising confessions join hosts gabe gonzalez and chris patterson rosso as they explore queer sex cruising relationships and culture in the new iheart podcast sniffies cruising confessions sniffies cruising confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. 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. 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 Welcome to It Could Happen Here. On today's episode, we have Robert Evans, Harrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, Margaret Kildroy, and I'm Sophie Lichterman. This is the post-election episode. Robert. Yeah, it happened here. Is happening.

Has continued to happen here. Yeah. Yeah, this has been a podcast from the beginning about things falling apart, which is a great business to be in, I guess, because they keep doing that. I want to start by kind of talking about yesterday's episode, the one that I dropped before the election, because I thought a lot about what to put out on the day of the election. And I kind of made the call, which, I don't know, regrets the wrong word. I made the call yesterday that like, okay, we've got this new poll from Seltzer. People are starting to feel like some of this late breaking news is good for Harris. Some of the pollsters are hurting back in that direction. I probably should do something to kind of like pump the brakes on enthusiasm and remind people that even if she wins, there's still a lot of dangers out there, right? Because that's what

I saw as like the big threat model is Harris is likely to win and then people are going to forget about these constitutional sheriffs and all these different kind of like right-wing ghouls that will still be a problem if we don't take care of them, right? If we don't do anything to actually like hamper their ability to exercise power. So I wrote that episode with that in mind. And it turns out I was being overly optimistic. And I think I was being overly optimistic in part, you know, I tend towards pessimism, which is why this show exists in the first place. You know, one of the things that's happened is we've gotten bigger and more people have listened is whenever like shit happens in the world, we get bombarded on the subreddit and

just like in emails to myself with people saying versions of like, I don't know what to do using language that's like very worrying sometimes about how hopeless they feel and so i've kind of felt a growing responsibility to like spread calm and hope and i think that merged to a degree with the you know after my dad died this desire to like not just be sad and a doomer and i think it led me to have i guess more, more of an optimistic, like I forced myself into an unreasonably optimistic frame of mind just because I thought that was the responsible thing to do. And I guess I'm kind of like evaluating that now, like what should I have done differently, you know, if I'd been in a more logical state of mind? And I guess the answer is, I don't know how to be in a more

logical state of mind. Like the problem is there's so much, you know, you've got this hyper object of a political realignment happening in our country in this very dark direction. You're also trying to deal with, and I'm sure everyone listening is dealing with versions of this on their own, you know, people you care about getting sick and dying and, you know, losing jobs or having to start new ones and embarking, starting to become a parent or whatever. Everybody's got all these massive things in their own lives. And trying to keep a completely rational perspective on the political happenings in this country while remaining unaffected from the way in which your own life is going to color your optimism and biases is probably a hopeless cause to some extent, which I guess is part of why we're here to try and as a collective offer people our most reasonable sort of averaged opinion about what's going to happen. So I guess that's what we're going to try to do here. That's what I've got to start with. I mean, hope is illogical, but it is necessary. And I think that's really where we have to start. I'm going to toss over to Margaret real quick. About hope? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Margaret, fix this for us.

I will. Just to say, just to say, I woke up today with some hope. And I think a lot of that is from my friendship with Margaret. And I don't think there's a better person to talk about that than her. Yeah, Margaret. I appreciate that. I often make the joke about the fact that I named myself Killjoy in my 20s

and then became a professional optimist. But I think that, and I think that actually it could happen here. I think folks here do it really well. Sometimes determination is almost sometimes the right word instead of hope, right? Because, or like optimism isn't always the right word because you're like, well, bad things are happening and they're going to happen and they're going to keep happening. Right. And so sometimes we look at like, like climate change, for example, which is the broader problem, you know, you're like, well, no matter what we do, it's going to get worse. And so the immediate electoral problem in front of us, like no matter what happens,

it's going to get worse before it gets better. But we need to stay aware of that and stop pretending like the bad things aren't coming while then still looking at saying like, well, what can we do? And for me, the thing that I focus on, I have a therapist friend who talks about how agency is the opposite of trauma, you know, and that the more that we act with agency while bad things are happening, the less that they destroy us emotionally. And so I think that focusing on what can we do is just incredibly useful and necessary. And also, the fact that things are in turmoil right now, and that means lots of bad things are happening, the old status quo is gone.

We saw that with the defeat of the Democrats. Their whole thing is that they doubled down on the old status quo. And people don't want that. People want something different. And Trump offers something different, a very horrible nightmare thing that's different. And the Democrats did not offer something different.

And so I actually think in a weird way, we are in a good position to, on a grassroots level, build something different and say that people want something different. And I think that by working towards something different and better, well, it's the best way to keep our own spirits up you know yeah thanks thanks magpie i absolutely agree james what's your perspective here yeah like it goes without saying that like trump's proposed border policies are horrific and his proposed migration policies are horrific harris's were also bad i think like that doesn't mean that that trumps acceptable or the same. They're not. But also, I think having spent as much time as I have with refugees, having spent as much time as I have with people who have gone through things that are horrific,

and state hostility, state violence, civil war, etc., I have a lot of hope that, like Margaret said, there's this quote from Derutu that probably isn't real about how we're not afraid of ruins and we've lived in ruins our whole lives and we'll build our future in the ruins of the old world. But when I think about the next four years, the state will be absent or hostile right now.

Absent at best and hostile at worst. It's been that way at the border for a very long time yeah and we've built our little community and our little world and like when i am sad when i'm despairing when i'm scared i think about the things that we did in the last year right we fed tens of thousands of people by ourselves and in doing that we demonstrated how powerful we are in the absence of the state because the state wasn't there or the state was actively hostile we were able to step in and from nothing we were able to build something that took care of people who needed to be taken care of and that like we're not special or unique you know we didn't have like some

incredible structure here before people just showed up to help people. And like more people will need to do that now. And that will mean that there are more people in difficult places who need help. Right. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it. If we can do it, you can do it. And having done it has made me less, I just i'm not as scared as i would be if i felt like i was on my own or if i felt like that we can't deal with this because we can and i know that because we have and i want obviously that's something we're going to focus on right we have between now and the middle of january i've no idea how many weeks or days that is, but it's a lot of time to organize. And it's a lot of time to put aside some of the differences we might have, some of the petty disagreements we might have, some of the shit that people have said on Twitter.com and get together and organize and build a way of taking care of each other that doesn't rely on the state.

Because that's always been what we needed and we need it now even more so yeah speaking of what we need now here's some ads oh robert tonal tone bad what else what else was i supposed to do what else was i just can't stop him that was just physics there was no other way for that to go. An object in motion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. That was like the oceans forming after the moon hit the earth or whatever happened to make oceans.

I don't know how oceans came about. Don't ask me that question. They call him Robert Tectonic Plate Evans. All right. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, where it is happening here and Robert still can't help himself to make strange ad transitions. Garrison, what do you got for us? Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I am not an optimist. And I also put a lot of work into not being a doomer. I try to be pretty realistic about a whole bunch of my thoughts and analysis on this sort of thing. And I tend towards survival as kind of one of my main priorities. And I'd like to talk a little bit about kind of some of what we actually saw on election night and maybe some small misconceptions going around. Mainly this kind

of idea that the country has like wildly swung to the right. Like people have like overwhelmingly, like more so than ever before, have voted for like far right figures, have voted for far-right figures, have voted for far-right bills, basically wanting this complete nationalistic takeover. If you look at the presidency, the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate. And I mean, the final count is still coming in. We are recording this Wednesday afternoon. It's noon on the West Coast right now. And Trump has almost the same number of votes as he got in 2020. I think it's a little bit under at this point. Now, there is some demographic changes. Certain groups may have leaned more towards or against Trump than in past elections.

But the final, like, averaged popular vote number is at this point pretty much the same. Now, kind of why this has happened, why he's still kind of sweeping all of these swing states, is we've kind of had a collapse of trust in the Democratic Party. And you could attribute this to a lot of things. I don't think it's a single thing. It is obviously a confluence of events. I think one of the big things is like 9% inflation is kind of hard to beat. If people, to Margaret's point earlier, they're looking for something different. And Harris meaningfully was not offering anything substantially different. She's the VP, right? She has that legacy. I don't think Biden could have done much more to alter the inflation, but that doesn't matter. People feel this, and that's very strong.

And there's other reasons why people have kind of lost faith in the democratic party or aren't as willing to come out in as high numbers uh as we saw back in 2020 and and crucially but back in 2020 in a lot of the swing states the vote was very close although the popular vote swung pretty heavily towards biden in a lot of the crucial swing states in some of the states he was only like 20 000 votes ahead like it was it was it was it was a pretty tight race in some of those states yeah now the other thing i'm kind of seeing which kind of reflects this idea that like the country hasn't wildly like the average people haven't wildly become a more fascist it's that even in states that have elected trump they have also passed like a decent number of progressive initiatives, including abortion

rights. Voters in Arizona and Missouri approved ballot initiatives that will serve to protect abortion rights until like further laws are in the books. And in Maryland, in Montana, Nevada, and New York, where abortion is legal, and Colorado, where there's no laws restricting abortion, they all passed measures that enshrine those rights into law. Now, Florida, unfortunately, was not able to do this due to the super majority rules. Even though majority people did vote for this in Florida, they did not reach the 60% threshold. So that did not pass in Florida. But 57% though. Very close. It was close and it was an outright majority. Yeah, so people are

willing to vote for these types of things, even if they're unwilling to vote for a Democrat at the top of the ticket. And like this is something that is worth considering when trying to figure out what exactly happened here and consider why people have kind of lost faith in the Democratic Party as a reliable institution to improve their lives or represent the things that they believe in. The Gaza issue being kind of the prime example of this in the past year. One other thing I was thinking about this morning when trying to kind of look forward and imagine what the next four years would look like, specifically with the concern of figures like Elon Musk and RFK Jr. being put into pretty important positions of government, right? The idea that RFK Jr. being put into pretty important positions of government,

right? The idea that RFK Jr. is going to be in charge of the CDC and determine public health policies for the country is a very worrying prospect. Having Elon Musk in a senior advisory role in some kind of governmental department of efficiency doesn't sound great. But as I was having my coffee next to a beautiful river in the mountains of North Georgia this morning, I was thinking about Steve Bannon, because my brain is just fucked up like that. But specifically, how Trump used Steve Bannon to get elected back in 2016, even though Bannon's actual tenure at the White House was quite short-lived for whatever reasons. Like, personality

clashes with Trump happen all the time, and he loses friends and advisors at a pretty frequent rate. And I think because Trump is just, like, petty and, you know, ableist and a bad guy, he might just find RFK Jr. and Elon Musk annoying to be around. Considering RFK Jr.'s speech impediment and Elon Musk's apparent neurodiversity, Trump just might not want to be around them. So even though he did utilize both these figures to get elected, albeit slightly later on in the campaign, it took a while for Musk to kind of worm his way into Trump's orbit, I am not convinced that they will have direct access to Trump for very long. Now, this could happen, but if you look at Steve Bannon, who was similarly a worrying

figure, he did not last very long besides Trump. So something like this could happen. Now, I don't think it'll happen the exact same way. Elon Musk has been positioning himself to have the government be reliant on him for contracting, and he'll probably continue to exist in some form in that regard. But in terms of his, like, direct influence on the White House and controlling sectors of government, this won't necessarily be a four-year thing. I think that is most of what I had on this topic. I guess the other thing is like it it turns out in harris's efforts to kind of court independence and court like republicans that largely that largely failed massive failure massive failure i mean again it turns out when you have a party

that's running as kind of like a mini fascist party and then you have another party that's running as just a conservative party we've got dick cheney yeah it's not a solid opposition party like why like this hasn't worked for like the second time in a row the the stats are almost identical to 2020 on this issue of republicans uh voting for the republican party um in fact it was slightly few slightly fewer of them voted republican back in 2020 more of them voted republican in 2024 i think it's by about one percent trying to court the conservative vote means that the conservatives are going to vote for conservative maybe we should have an actual opposition party if you believe in electoral politics yeah no i mean like the the the lesson people should take from trumpism trump did not get where he is by courting the conservative vote.

Trump took over the Republican Party and made it the Trump Party. And like that is what worked. Right. Like and that's that's the actual lesson. Like the reason why Dick Cheney was fucking doing appearances with Kamala Harris was because conservatives, what we had known as conservatives prior to Trump coming to power, largely are out of the picture, right? Like the new crop of guys are all weirdos that have molded themselves in the image of Trump since his rise to power right yeah and one of the things that is like the lesson is not we need to make our own trump um although by god some people are going to take that lesson out of this the lesson is that sure you have to come to people with a vision right like you don't come to people by saying well what if we put a republican in our cabinet right what if it's basically the

same as this last thing that you're not really that happy with, but instead with more Cheney, right? It turns out that doesn't drive voter enthusiasm. And hey, like that's, you know, I'm hitting the libs pretty hard because this is like the most catastrophic failure of any political party in living memory, right? So they do deserve to be hit, but it's not like the left accomplished anything, right? Either electorally or otherwise, right? There is no organized national left-wing movement that is worth talking about in any kind of building power way. Like it simply doesn't exist. And ignoring the blind loyalty

that people have for Trump was a mistake. Yeah. Not considering, like targeting that audience. It doesn't seem like all of the january 6th uh ads did anything at all nope did fuck all i mean in fact in fact statistically they did they did nothing they did they did nothing to hurt trump yeah right if trump gets essentially the same total number of votes they didn't do anything to to hurt him like that like that strategy was not six that was

not successful yeah you have to offer something and just the large swath of like electoral nihilism that the that the democratic party keeps keeps running up against continues to be its most like existential threat robert gare and i at the rnc talked to a variety of people who did not give a flying fuck about trump's record of course not all they cared about was no no they had blind loyalty to him i posted this on twitter.com and i'm thinking specifically of the woman that was like compared trump's evil for lack of a better word oh sometimes he's ridiculous like my. And that blind loyalty and the Democrats were going to fucking flip those people. That was not going to happen. They took a gamble.

Wasn't even really a gamble. They took a gamble on the wrong crowd. And like that, that's not effective. But, you know, it's not really here or there at this point. It happened kind of like now what? Yeah. We haven't really heard from Mia much. i'm gonna i'm gonna shoot over to mia yeah and i mean i think i think where i'm at is that okay we're in this moment or one of our biggest advantages is that we're not the democrats

right this has been a fairly comprehensive referendum on the failure of the democrats to offer anything we also like screwed up offering a better world right yeah this is you know if you look if you look at what happened to 2020 and you look at the places that we actually sort of like i mean took power is a strong word but like there are places we ran the cops out and we screwed up making those places like a world that was like ideologically compelling enough to spread and like we're not going to get like a third do-over of that right we have to be able to sort of like when the moment arrives we have to be able to actually create a world that is better enough than this one that we can move but that's not impossible yeah i think what we have right now is we have a period of time before trump takes power and we have this time to sort of quash our beast we have this time

to organize we have this time to plan and i i think i'll be at least part of what we need to do and we'll we'll get into this more like in other episodes and probably later too you know there's there's there's the obvious tasks of organization. There's getting people involved in things. There's getting into meetings. I also think, and this is something that's, I think easier to do like literally immediately is that we've been fighting

completely defensively on the cultural front for four years and it's been a complete disaster and we need to have a large scale cultural offensive. There needs to be something other than fucking tick tock Mormonism. Like we need, we need to have a large-scale cultural offensive there needs to be something other than fucking tiktok mormonism like we need we need some alternatives to trad wife shit we need alternatives to this like terrible like the the fucking man fluencer sphere there needs to be something else we need to create that very very fast yeah anarchist trad wife stuff like Mia. Jesus Christ. That's what's going to save us. All right. Yeah.

Everybody, everybody go buy a sundress right now. Get out there. Both of you to assume we don't have them, Robert. And I'm going to, I'm going to pull Robert Evans in speaking of buying things.

It's time for our last ad break. all right we're we're back and i i do want to get i do want to get into you know a little bit more specifics of what can we do now and i just want to say a fucking lot the cards are on the table it's gonna be a busy four years. Yeah. You know, I attended Margaret's book signing last week, and I've attended lots of our events. And one of the questions and Q&As, and one of the questions that gets asked all the time is,

how do I get involved? How do I find, how do I meet people? How do I do these things? And, you know, I want to get into that. I also want to give some very basic tangible advice you know don't post stupid things on the internet if somebody tells you we need to go out and engage in revolutionary activity maybe sit at home right now you don't want to come into this thing with a criminal record nobody nobody is making good plans right now. Go make good ones. Don't just reactively show up

and follow someone with a clipboard in the streets. Don't post actionable threats on the internet. Don't post that picture of that comedian that gave that really funny joke. Just don't do it. There's no reason to. It's not cool. Yeah.

Like, don't. If you know what, if you know what comedian I'm talking about, you'll get it. You'll get it. If you're going to, you know, get messed up, use substances in order to cope with things, log out of social media on all of your devices first, you know? Sounds like that's some advice you were giving yourself. I'm sober as a church mouse, Sophie.

Just coffee and clean mountain air for me. A very basic recommendation that I have for people is to get Delete.me. Yeah. It is worth the investment. It is a good product. That is what I'll say. Yes. Delete.me is a service that helps purge aspects of your public record from the internet, right?

There's a lot of different sites. You have been involved if you are a person who participates in the economy from the internet right there's a lot of different sites like yeah you have been involved if you are a person who participates in the economy through the internet right if you buy things through the internet your shit has been leaked right their you know tagline is your private information is no longer private right and so essentially what they do is they scour the internet and remove your personal data from online. And they don't do that once. They continuously do it.

This is like a fantastic plug for the product that you're not paying us. Yeah. Let's just say that Trisha Scientology could not find me. Hell yeah. I will say there is some alternatives to Delete.me that are trying to get up and running. We might do a full episode on data removal in the future. Yeah, we definitely should. It does require you to also do manual inputs. There are certain sites

that delete me when they send takedown requests to data brokers. Certain sites will not comply. You have to send requests manually. It's pretty simple, but they will give you a list of certain sites as well to go through this process manually. But I think the last thing we

want to talk about is we have 75 days to prepare for stuff. We have 75 days to prepare for the next four years. In some ways, it's going to be like 2017 to 2019 again, which was a very busy time. All of the right-wing ghouls that have been hiding

under the rocks the past few years because of the liberal DOJ will probably start coming out of the woodwork. There's going to be a lot more stuff going on. And those of us that are here were able to make it through those years. Some of your friends probably weren't able to.

And it is up to us to take care of each other to try to ensure that ourselves and people we know have a better chance of making it through these next four years. And I think think kind of lastly i'd like to kind of just go around talking about like what that will look like and how to kind of start that process especially during these first 75 days like brunch is over brunch has been over for a while brunch brunch should have never started yeah but brunch is over now so what can

what can we do in these next 75 days it's uh share your black coffee with friends time share your black coffee with friends maybe cork the champagne yeah yeah yeah cork the champagne keep drinking that orange juice though you don't have enough vitamin c or when you and your anarchist trad wife friends get together for brunch, just make sure to actually talk about real radical things you can do. Because if you already have a way of gathering with your friends, you should just turn it into talking about more than just how your day is. Absolutely.

Yeah. I feel like I need to put on the record that what I said, that what I was trying to say is we need feminism, not anti-trad wife. I don't know how that was conveyed i was trying to recruit you into my trad wife cult no thank you for clarifying me up but that was very much understood um but being being a little bit literal right now is is not bad yeah gare so true i just think about like the ways that I've found my people

and the way that I have made my community. Obviously, like the taglines of, you know, talk to your neighbors and things like that are absolutely important. But the recommendation, you know, obviously joining orgs are great. Sure, that's a great talking point, but that's not really how I met my community.

The people that are essentially my family now, I met by going to content and different creators shows and music and different events where we had mutual interest, even if that meant that I had to drive pretty far and found people that liked the things that I like. And it turns out a lot of the people that like the things you like believe the things you believe. And if they don't, they're usually pretty open to hearing you out. Yeah. And I think it's super important to listen to your friends. And also, like I've said this quite a bit,

support your friend's weird hobby. Yeah. That's super crucial. listen to the people around you and it's not easy i had basically no friends for a very long time because i did not have the right people in around me and it took a lot of effort to find my core humans. I mean, I'm not recommending this, and several of us did do this. I moved to a different state. You save up for it.

It's definitely not an affordable thing to do. Definitely not an easy thing to do. But I don't know where I would be without those people. And I love them. Yeah. Politics and culture do go hand in hand in so many ways. And kind of cultural engagement and ways to kind of grow your social network, And I love them. like personally who people like know you know going into these next four years i guess like the the biggest thing i was kind of thinking about last night is like yes these next four years are going to suck and in many ways it'll just be like everything will just get slightly worse um but like i know that myself and those i know like immediately around me

will be fine like we we will be okay things Things will be worse, but we already have networks. We already have community. We have these things built up to take care of each other and provide the things that we need. And this is something that we'll be talking more about in kind of the next few months. Like we have that and that's taken effort. That doesn't just happen by itself.

It requires effort and requires resistance to this idea of like community nihilism, this kind of belief that community is not a real thing, that doesn't actually exist, which is a very privileged thing to believe because there's people out there who rely on this and will continue to rely on this even more in these next few years. But there are those without that, and that's the people I'm most concerned about. It's queer kids, it's trans kids who do not have those networks, do not have those communities, people who are isolated.

Like that is who I am most concerned about. And I understand the impulse to kind of isolate and just go online because that's safer than having to go out into the real world, or at least it feels safer. But I don't think that's actually real. I think that leads to its own forms of detrimental harm so like it requires like a getting off discord and like a going

into your community and trying to make friends which can be scary but it is like incredibly crucial I think we should talk about like joining actual orgs as well I think some other people on this call can speak more to that and like the utility of those as well but I think first and foremost like even getting a network of

friends outside of orgs it's also a very it's a very good it's not even crutch it's just like a life support system that is going to be super important yeah yeah i i'd like to throw to margaret for a second because she looks like she really wants to say something oh and i don't actually disagree with anything that you're saying. No, not at all. It's absolutely crucial. I wanted to just say that, like, I think there's actually a weird blurriness in the lines between an organization and a friend group, right?

Totally. And the problem isn't necessarily subculture. The problem is a sort of, if we have this idea that there's a hegemonic subculture, like, in order to be a radical, you have to be part of our clique, right? And that's a problem. Whereas, if whatever clique you're already part of, or any subculture. Like in order to be a radical, you have to be part of our clique, right? And that's a problem. Whereas if whatever clique you're already part of or any subculture you're already part of, you turn that radical. I think that is, you know, it's what Sophie was talking

about. But then yes, there's a lot of people who have no access to any of that. And some of it, as I think you're saying is, well, if you only hang out with your friends on discord, like maybe it's time to start meeting up in person. And even if that's very complicated to do. But I also think that there's a huge importance to open-door organizing. When I say orgs, I don't mean like go join PSL or any authoritarian cult, right? Or that there should never be one organization that says, this is the strategy that we have to use to fight this. But instead, if you get together with the people that you want to get together with and say, this is the problem we're dealing with, how do we deal with it? And that is how you can create an organization. And if you do that, many of those organizations, I would hope, would have

open door policies and be public because there are so many isolated people who want to be involved, who don't have any kind of like cultural cachet with which to get into a more subcultural group. I think this is why churches are very good at recruiting, unfortunately, depending on the church, but like, because you can just show up and they'll be like, okay, you have a community now, right? And that is what people desperately want, I think right now. And we have to be careful. We don't want to just be like, oh, therefore we should replicate what they do. But I think that overall, what our movement needs is instead of gatekeepers, we need ushers. We need people to help people find their way into the movement, to help bring them in and figure out

like, hey, what are you good at? Or what are you interested in being good at? Here's how you can apply it. And I want to really quickly use a case study that happened from the last Trump election that I think was actually fairly useful. I was living in a small town, a small city with a fairly vibrant anarchist community. And when Trump was elected, we called for anarchist assemblies and they were open door and they were places where you don't get together to plan crime, but all of these different mutual aid groups would come and bring representation. People would say, this is what we're working on. This is what we can use help with. And they weren't decision-making bodies. They were information-sharing bodies. And a lot of different groups spun up out of it that are

still around, like herbal clinics and different mutual aid organizations because we just said, Hey, everyone who cares about this, let's get together and talk about what we want to do. And I found that to be an incredibly useful thing. And it's like the kind of thing I would pitch to people, um, is not necessarily. And if you're not an anarchist, don't do it as the anarchist thing. Yeah. That's what I'm, that's what I care about. That's what I'm excited about. Yeah. I just wanted to offer to offer like first of all like get outside if you can like touch grass i know touch grass can be very condescending and i don't mean it like that i just like i was feeling stressed last week and i went off and i climbed to the top of a mountain and i sat there by myself for a while and it was nice and it was so quiet i could hear like this little hawk's wings beating

and that was really good for me that's what i like to hear it would not have changed the outcome one bit if i had stayed and sat on twitter.com for four hours instead of doing that so i want you to all take time for yourselves and do things that kind of make you feel hopeful i want to build off what margaret said there are so many skills that all of you have that you could share with someone. I think when I started being an anarchist, it was largely because I was going to a bike co-op. And people shared their skills with me and I shared my skills with them and we all shared our stuff with each other.

And I worked out that we could just rely on other people for that shit. And it didn't need to be hierarchical or based on some transfer of material goods people just want to help each other and a lot of people have messaged me saying that like they know that i participate in mutual aid and they want you to if you can't see it then you have to start it and that's okay you can change the world if you make a cooler full of sandwiches and give them to people who are hungry i guarantee if you start doing that shit you will find other people and they will say hey what are you doing oh i'm feeding people why because they're hungry can i help yes it's

that easy and like we can build from there we don't have to agree with them on everything first of all but we we can build from there and I think it can be really scary, but like now is the time to start. Not once things get worse, you know, four, eight years ago was the time to start, but we can't go back. And I want to kind of finish up with that, that like we can't go back.

I don't care where someone was yesterday. I don't care where they were last week. I don't care where they were last year. Like all that matters is where they are now. and we can build forward from here we cannot go back and change things and it is not worth doing endless recriminations it doesn't matter it's happened it's on us to decide how we react now and you can react in a way that strengthens our communities and that builds ways of taking care of each other, which aren't ways of controlling each other. That's all that you need to do to make this so much less despairing, so much less terrible

and so much less deadly for some people. And I know that we're doing that here. Check in on my friends. I'm in the Dallian Gap. I'm checking in on my mutual aid friends and if you don't have that i want you to build that and i promise it's not something that's out of reach like you can do it yeah i want to add one last thing i think a lot of people think they don't have skills you do have skills the thing that i did when i started

organizing was i moved chairs around so that people could have meetings by moving chairs and i helped take care of people's kids. And I helped put posters up. People can do things. You have things that you can do. And it's time to lock in. That's what we have from here. It is time to lock in. It's time to organize.

And it's time to get prepared to fight. Yeah, this is just the first episode after the election in the coming weeks, coming days, coming months. We're going to go into very specific detail on things. We are going to provide different information and resources and continue to defend against disinformation and misinformation. And this is a fucking daily show. We will be getting into all of these topics, especially in these next 75

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And part of that is understanding what is going to happen and how it is going to happen and absorbing that knowledge and what you can do with it. So today, James is going to tell us about Trump's plans for migrants. Yep. Yeah. I guess in terms of what's going to happen we don't know right trump said a lot of stuff in his first term and kind of didn't stick the landing a lot of it

he tried but they're more experienced now and i think crucially they have a much more favorable supreme court and probably will have an even more favorable supreme court by the end of this term so a plan to deport up to a million people this year was one of the very few concrete and tangible promises that the trump campaign made right they they had a lot of vibes nasty vibes uh but like in terms of like we will do x by y this was one of the very few now trump tried to deport a lot of people in his first term, right? The one consistent part of his policy ever since he rode sideways down an escalator in 2015 and then shit-talked Mexican people has been anti-migrant policy. He didn't really stick the landing on mass deportations

in his first term. In fact, Biden deported more people in 2023 than Trump did in any year of his first term. In fact, Trump also fell behind Obama in terms of deportations per year. None of that means that he won't be able to do that this time, right? I'm just trying to put some numbers on his promises last time. So I want to look first at how he could go about his promise in his second term, right? One thing that he said he will do is use title 42 again so if people have not listened to the series i did last may or june in on title 42 i would like to direct them there title 42 as a reminder it's a public health law and it's public health law that in this interpretation allowed cbp specifically border patrol to

immediately return people to me Mexico without processing them first. Sometimes they call it catch and release. What it resulted in was these are not technically deportations. But when Trump says something, I don't think he's considering 42 expulsions if he's going to bring back title 42 reaching that 1 million per year number is pretty easy in fact that happened in 2022 again under biden right so if if he considers those to be deportation so that's within his 1 million per year goal it's reasonable that he will reach to say that he will be able to reach that and he'll be able to do that with the current infrastructure right without massively upgrading uh cbp ice ice detention facilities immigration judges all those things yeah so like if we consider those to be deportations

and one million a year is very much something that we we might well see do you know where we're at this year or it hasn't been released yet? I don't know. In 2022 was the last stats I could find. I linked to the CBP. If people want to look at the, the title 42 and title. So title eight, it's the immigration law under which people are normally received,

right? Title 42 ended in May of 2023, May 11th, 2023 with the end of the COVID-19 emergency, because the reason they were using public health law as immigration law was because of this health emergency right now obviously it was used extremely cynically for instance there weren't exemptions for vaccinated people but nonetheless that's why they were using it and when the federal emergency for covid19 ended so did

biden's excuse for using title 42 that i will link to the cbp data center in the notes so people can see title 42 versus tight late over the last few years as i pointed out last week the u.s can also fund deportations of migrants further south and it's done this in panama i had a series from there last week people hadn't listened to it i would love them to do so but the numbers that they've been able to achieve there are pretty low and i don't think that's really going to meaningfully impact his target so let's talk about what everyone is most afraid of which is mass deportation to people who are already living in the united states right that is definitely what his right-wing trolls have been sort of hyping up certainly over the last few weeks right the idea that they are going to come to your house and find you if you're an undocumented person in the united states so to talk about this i want to

talk about first of all like the real nuts and bolts of how he would be able or if he would be able to do this right and i draw very heavily here on a report by the american immigration council who did some calculations on the cost of a single ice detention right the cost of a single ICE detention, right? The cost of a single raid, the amount of agents that will be required to meet this kind of capacity. And there are two models that they use. And those are the models I think are most relevant. If we look at people who are in the United States without permanent legal

status, we make an estimate for numbers. We're looking at about 11 million undocumented people that's not going to be perfect but if we if we use that as a ballpark and then 2.3 million people who have entered since the end of title 42 and they're on various forms of bail or parole or bond and and they don't have a permanent status here either, right? So we're looking at somewhere in the region of 13 million if Trump wanted to deport all of those people, right? Now, to do that, he would need to massively expand ICE detention facilities.

About half of ICE's staff aren't, contrary to what you might believe about ICE, kicking in people's doors and deporting them. Half of ICE's staff work for something called Homeland Security Investigations. It's not that those people don't do deportations, they do, but they mostly focus on human trafficking, drug trafficking, transnational crime. Now, sometimes those people also do deportations. People might be familiar with the big HSI raids on certain employers who are employing a

lot of undocumented people those still result in deportations but that's not their primary tasking and hsi has historically preferred not to do the deportation work because they feel that that makes it very hard for them to do the other work of like monitoring human and drug trafficking because evidently migrants are going to be scared to go anywhere near hsi if they know the hsi could deport them right so they're not they're not going to talk to them now it would be very easy for trump to retask those those agents right that would obviously undermine what is done to prevent drug trafficking and human trafficking whether or not he cares is a question that's uh yeah i don't know i think i

probably have an answer for that but i guess i'm for debate somewhat so trump has already called in addition to potentially re-equipping those hsi agents he said he wants to employ 10 000 more border patrol agents right now bp agents can do deportations but it's not bp agents who are coming to your door in chicago and coming after you right that that's ice immigration and customs enforcement he's also said he wants to give border patrol agents a ten thousand dollar retention bonus and a ten percent raise just to put it into perspective there are 20 000 bp agents right now so that would be about a 50 increase right this is not something he can do quickly they need to go through the academy they need to be recruited trained background check

etc border patrol has a lot of waivers right now so like you can we can waive requirements other law enforcement agencies would have for you to work for them if that makes sense right be at a ged or a college degree or another language or whatever they are offering waivers a lot right now they can increase that number of waivers to recruit more people right but that would still take a long time so the estimate the American Immigration Council has is that to remove all of those 13 million people in that sort of in the one mass deportation as opposed to the million people a year scenario, would require between 220 and 409,000 staff. Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is a lot of people. So, I mean, like, for comparison as to how many that actually is, the United States military active duty is about a million people. Yes, that's a comparison. Not the army, not the navy, the military. Yeah, all of it. This would put DHS at like substantially more personnel than like the Marine Corps, right? Like, yeah, not that people don't want to do. It's just like it is actually we've talked a lot about how there are not guardrails on Trump like there were last time. That is true. And that is a very realistic thing to like be worried about and scared about but that we're not just talking about guardrails we are talking about a logistical hurdle it is not a simple or necessarily possible thing to make an agency like that that much larger and have it actually function like right like just this is just physics we're talking about here yeah it's the same with anything if cool zone suddenly received a hundred billion dollars from jeff bezos and he said do anything you want with

it we could not scale up to half a million employees like there is simply we have we have absolutely no capacity to handle that yeah yeah like i think what people have to remember is that every door kicking ice agent needs enablers, right? They need paid. They need health insurance. They need human resources. They need training. This would take a very long time. Sorry, it's 1.3 million or so.

Okay. I think it's a little less. That's 2017 data. So it probably is closer to a million now, but slightly over a million. But that's close to half. Right. Yeah. That's in addition to what they already have.

Yeah. 409 plus whatever they have. It would also, of course, mean substantially increasing their investigative capacity because most deportations right now, when ICE arrests someone, happen when someone else has already arrested that person. So the person who's in detention federally or on a state level for something else that they did and they're undocumented, that's when ICE can take them and deport them right so they'd have to also increase their

ability to search out and find people not saying they can't but you can't take you know fucking tim pool bring him into ice he's not going to instantly know how to find people where to find people right so like this this will take time there's a practical constraint on him doing this even if there aren't other constraints within the balance of powers so stephen miller dude with the giant head i'm sorry but you're gonna have to be more specific when we talk about like conservatives who are about to come into power who have like a weirdly huge head yeah okay that's like find me a californian who has strong opinions on gluten yeah that's me i'm probably yeah yeah so stephen miller is he is the guy who's crafted a lot of trump's nefarious uh border policies right it was miller who who took out title 42 and i want to talk about this a bit later one One thing that Miller did effectively,

I don't want to say well, because it was objectively horrible. But one thing that Miller was good at was finding this obscure piece of public health law and mobilizing it against migrants, right? I think if you'd spoken to me in 2015 and said, what do you think Trump's going to do against migrants? I wouldn't have said, I'll be Title 42 of the United States Code, you know, that regulates public health. He or people within his team were very effective at finding that and using that effective enough that the biden administration kept it for three years after the trump administration did it for one year right and so miller could find some some niche kind of law what he wants to do is use the national Guard from cooperative states, right? Yeah.

And to use the National Guard from cooperative states in states that are not cooperative and where local law enforcement would not cooperate, right? So some quote-unquote sanctuary states, and there's probably an overstatement, they don't, in theory, refer undocumented people they arrest to ICE for deportation, right? Now, what federal fusion centers do is allow for that even if it is a sanctuary state actually but in theoretical terms a sanctuary state would not at least contact ice about every undocumented person they arrested right so miller's plan is to use a national guard again like that's not what the national guard does right now they're not really trained up for doing that either right i've seen plenty of national guard folks on the border i fuck what i'd say

it's a bunch of scared 18 year olds right who are trying to get money for robert and i have met texas national guard soldiers on the border their kids their kids yeah now to be fair that's not saying they're they're like innocent or inherent. Like every group of soldiers who has done any good or bad thing, and often, but usually both at the same time, is a bunch of scared 18-year-old kids. Yes. That's been the case for 10,000 years.

Yeah, that's true. Anytime you have conflict reporting, it's always shocking how young people are it's always just like oh okay all wars are fought by children there's no non-child soldiers with the exception of i mean that is the weird thing about the ukraine war right yeah like i remember the first time i wound up at the front there it was like oh this is actually it is actually old men fighting this war old men who repeatedly told me it's either me or my kid shows up here and i already fucking lost my soul in afghanistan yes like i literally had that interview with people yeah yeah yeah it's crazy to me people

who fought in afghanistan and i'm fighting again yeah i mean i think those guys are probably out now this i'm talking about in 2050 yeah 2024 it's 40 years later i'm sure they're too old now but robert talking of uh of being too old i unfortunately am not too old to be obliged to transition to advertisement so that's what we're going to do you're being too old, I unfortunately am not too old to be obliged to transition to advertisement. So that's what we're going to do. You're never too old for that, James. In fact, the older you get, it's kind of like how if you reread Moby Dick at different points

in your life, it's a completely different novel. Every 10 years, different book. Same thing is true with Ulysses. And the same thing is true with these advertisements. That's right. Save them, record them on your home device, and every couple of months,

listen, and you'll learn something new from Chumba Casino. Every time. All right, we're back. And I hope you've downloaded that Chumba Casino advert for later. In the event of a grid down scenario, you could have a whole library of those to listen to.

So talking of obscure legislations, we did, right? Trump and his team have mentioned this thing called the Alien Enemies Act. It sounds like Alien Ant Farm, but it's not in any way related, sadly. Not nearly as good as Alien. For one thing, its cover of Smooth Criminal, terrible yeah no nowhere near the same standard that's a joke for people who are over 30 yes anyone who tries to dance to that alien ant farm song today not only has to think about the fact that michael jackson was definitely a pedophile but also their knees no longer work yeah it's a lose-lose.

Just sadly shuffling along. I can no longer skate properly. Moonwalking while crying, taking ibuprofen. No, I was at a streetlight show in Portland that was all millennials. And every time, like the pit was crazy, but also it sounded like a cement mixer

when everybody's knees got going. They're doling out ibuprofen on the way out. So you're going to need this tomorrow, Sandra. So the Alien Enemies Act, it hasn't been used since the United States used it in the Second World War for internment camps, right? used it in the second world war for internment camps right which at least for many of us is a part of national shame i guess like a pretty terrible fucking thing that united states did obviously for some folks in the trump administration this is something that they're kind of aspiring to i guess trump has said that he would like to use this to deport gang members that's not really what it's for and like even sources within dhs have pointed out that they would have to prove

that these migrants were sent by a foreign government right or someone that the u.s is at war with this is going to be hard because like if we look at venezuelans who are representing a larger and larger proportion of migrants since the elections there they will actively shit talk the government of their country at the first opportunity i have met hundreds if not thousands of venezuelan migrants in california and in the dalian gap and uh yeah you're not going to find people who who you can plausibly say were sent by maduro that way yeah but miller's pretty good at finding these obscure laws and ways of doing things so we would be foolish to write this off entirely but i don't

think that will make up the bulk of these mass deportations so i want to go to that american immigration council report which i'll link in the show notes right assuming a million deportations a year which is what jd vance said to the new york times that's the sort of steady deportation scenario as opposed to the mass deportation of 13 million people scenario, which a steady one is more realistic in terms of practicality, right? The cost of that, assuming that 20% of undocumented people decided to leave on their own, would be about $88 billion a year, which is a large amount of money. We'll talk in a little bit about what you could get with that money.

A one-off mass deportation would cost about 315 billion the detention costs alone for that one-off mass deportation of 11 to 13 million people would be 167.8 billion dollars which is probably why private prison group geo group stock soared this week right if trump wants to deport people the average deportee is detained for 59 days before they're deported and so they are going to massively have to increase their capacity right now uh their current detention contract includes a minimum of 29 790 beds between like increases and other facilities they have access to in early 2024 according to the american immigration council they detained 39 000 people astute listeners will notice that

11 million and 39 000 are quite quite disparate as numbers go so uh yeah i mean you're talking about a huge percentage of like if we'll get into this later but in california texas and florida it's between five and six percent of the population are undocumented right um you're talking about building prison cities if you if you were to detain that many people in one fell swoop again that takes time but in this case it's private sector actors like geo group they can tend to move a little bit faster right so yeah to put that cost in terms of things that the government could do with the money instead right a decade of 1 million deportations a year means foregoing 40 450 elementary schools or 2.9 million new homes or funding the head start program for 79 years

a single year of mass deportation would cost nearly twice the National Institute of Health's annual budget, or 18 times the global annual expenditure on cancer research. So I guess that's shit that we could have instead. But that's not all, because undocumented households, contrary to what you might have heard, pay taxes. If we deported every undocumented person in the United States, we look at 2022 numbers, undocumented households paid 46.8 billion in federal taxes and 29.3 billion in state and local taxes. That's a huge amount of tax revenue foregone, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

That, again, that won't be the end of it because some industries like construction and agriculture rely heavily on undocumented labor. And if you're worried about the cost of it because some industries like construction and agriculture rely heavily on undocumented labor and if you're worried about the cost of your groceries now if people voted for donald trump because their eggs cost more shit will cost an awful lot more if we deport the undocumented people working in agriculture right sectors of that industry do not function economically without underpaid migrant labor and this is something that migrants are very aware of actually i broadcast an interview with one of them last week where they know that

they will be underpaid because they're undocumented but they still think that that's worth it for them to be safe right so forgoing that i don't think trump has not proposed a solution to this right like these sort of this long-form thinking is not what he does, certainly in his speeches, but that would have a massive impact on the economy. What he would also need to do is persuade the countries that these migrants come from to take them back. And that has historically been something

that has been extremely difficult. The State Department doesn't see the sort of process of persuading people to to accept migrants is really within its remit and it certainly sort of bristled at having to do this the last trump administration i think a mass deportation like this it would trigger some nations refusing to take people back for instance venezuela right venezuela is already not taking people back from panama you at the u.s funds deportations for panama venezuela and panenezuela is already not taking people back from panama you at the u.s funds deportations for panama venezuela and panama ceased relations after the election in venezuela

and panama rightly claiming that that was a fraudulent election and as a result panama is now looking for a third country to deport these people too if the u.s attempted to deport potentially millions of people to venezuela again there's no guarantee that maduro has to accept them back right i can hear a lot of people saying how is that allowed to not accept to take them back yeah i mean it's international law is is like it's a unicorn like you know if everyone agrees that they see it and they see it but it's not real right so like who is going to make them i guess like like whether it's allowed or not is kind of immaterial maduro is not allowed to steal the election right you're not allowed to

abuse human rights migrants are allowed to cross any country they want and claim asylum anywhere that they feel safe but like here we are so yeah in theory the country should accept its citizens back in practice will it i don't know certainly it becomes like a bigger issue when you have millions of people right and if we have millions of people deported back then like if we can't deport them where are we going to detain them that gets back to the cost of detentions right talking of costs should probably cover the costs of our podcasting set up here by by pivoting to adverts again yeah we are back and for the final segment here i want to talk about who trump could pursue with

these deportations, right? There's two major groups. The obvious starting point would be the 2.3 million people who crossed between January of 2023 and April of this year before Biden signed his asylum ban. To be precise, that's 2,264,830. Those people don't have permanent immigration status. Those are the people who you've heard from on this podcast who were in hakumba right the people who we've interviewed for the last year and a bit now they have various immigration status but none of them are permanent none of them have permanent residency all of them are obviously registered right they normally have a notice to

appear in court which would make them easy to find and potentially easy to deport the other group of people are the undocumented migrants who have been here for longer than that many of them have most have been in the country for more than a decade they're working they often have citizen children right because of birthright citizenship most of them pay taxes most of these people have some form of revocable legal status. So that might be something called a temporary protected status. We talked about a temporary protected status last week as well, but it applies to people who are already in the country when it's granted and it allows them to stay for a designated period of time while it's not safe to deport them

to their home country. Let's say there's been a war or a natural disaster, right? It's not safe to deport them, but it gets renewed two months before the end of that period. Let's say there's been a war or a natural disaster right it's not safe to deport them but it gets renewed two months before the end of that period let's say it renews every 18 months and you find out two months before the end of that period if it's not going to be renewed if they didn't renew those tps's those people could either change status or would become undocumented right the tps has existed since 1990 and there are about 860 000 people on tps right now the other major category that people will probably be more familiar with are dreamers people who came to the united states as children and are undocumented but they benefit from

something called darker deferred action for childhood arrivals and about 834 000 young people benefit from this which allows them to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation trump did try and go after this in his previous term in 2018 he ended up in a two-year court battle uh which sort of finished up with naacp versus trump and that ran out the clock on his term and biden reinstated daca but again because people have to register for daca their whereabouts are easier for someone like ice to potentially find then after that we have people who entered without being detected uh we have people who overstayed their visas those people might be harder to find right the the model of the undocumented migrant people have in their head it's like comes across the border with carpet shoes sneaks past a BP checkpoint and then lives in the United States without ever

encountering migration authorities that's actually not the majority model but those people do exist and they would be harder for ICE to find potentially. Trump has also vowed to end parole programs that allow Ukrainians and Afghans to enter the usa and work i would think that some of those would be pretty unpopular people have been much more broadly in solidarity with ukrainian migrants than they have with other migrants from other parts of the world they'll say but it would be an easy one again for him to end right the last thing he's really said he wanted to do is to end birthright citizenship yeah that is i spoke about this before in our agenda 47 episodes that's pretty clear in the 14th amendment they have some kind of fringes on the flag legal theory

around this but like i would think that that would require a constitutional amendment but who knows because he might have both houses and the supreme court on his side so he might just be able to get away with doing that this obviously wouldn't rescind citizenship from people who previously have said children who are citizens talking of people who have children or citizens there are about four million mixed status families in the united states so this deportation plan could potentially separate parents from children children from parents children from their older parents who they take care of it could destroy these families right deportations always destroy families i've seen this happening myself and it's horrible the states where this would most likely happen the states with the highest undocumented population

in california texas and florida california thus far retains its sanctuary policies texas florida very much do not right yeah and so those would be the states where there will be the highest risk of this happening uh that's between five and six percent of their population and that's kind of where i want to to finish up today i've got some more stuff i wanted to say about his border policy but i think i'm going to save that for another episode because the border and immigration are different things right and i think sometimes this is something that a lot of legacy media doesn't understand. They have immigration reporters who report on immigration law,

the stuff I've spoken about today, but the border is not somewhere that they go and it's not something that they cover very well. If you've been listening for a while, you'll know that I've spent a lot of time at the border, on the ground, in the mountains, in the deserts. And that's something that we've covered in great depth here and i'm really happy that listeners have a really complete understanding of it would california actually be able to enforce being a sanctuary state or no yes in the it's law

enforcement doesn't have to call ice right the federal government cannot compel local law enforcement state law enforcement to do its work. That is very well established. Again, nothing's off the cards when you have both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. But again, that would take time and it would take a court battle. So what they can do now is not report those people, right? Not say, hey, we got someone here. He came in because we found him with a bag of weed.

He's undocumented. You know, he was driving 35 and a 30 he's undocumented these are things that people who are undocumented have to worry about right like for yeah for those of you who don't have undocumented folks in your life like it's a speeding ticket it's the most minor it's not paying a parking ticket and ending up in court right like this shit is so minor to so many people but it could tear someone's life apart and so i want to like finish up by saying that yeah texas and florida are going to be the places where we see this yeah five percent of the population is a large amount of your population. If he even attempts half of that, people are going to see this. It's going to happen in your community. Now, I'm not saying he will, but if it does,

the time to start organizing to protect people you care about is now. Be that with donations to groups like Alotrolalo, who have successfully sued the Trump and Biden administrations for migrants' rights. Be that with organizing such that your undocumented friends don't end up in court because they couldn't pay a parking ticket, right? Even if that means you paying someone, giving someone 50 bucks for a parking ticket so that it doesn't ruin the rest of their life. Whatever it is, the way that we prevent this is through strong communities.

We have to start putting those now i know we've said this a lot this week but we're probably going to say a lot for the next three months like a lot of people have reached out to me since the trump election which was two days but also like seven years ago because that's how time works saying that they want to participate in mutual aid at the border i would love for you to come and join us of course i would and like i think people have heard a lot about a mutual aid setup because it's something i do a lot but that i don't want you to come here and do mutual aid tourism like i want you to come here and understand and learn what we do and then do it yourself or just do it yourself like there was a time when this

didn't exist and people started it right and you can start it too and like i'm not going to tell you like the specifics of what i think you should do because i don't know i don't know what the legal environment will be i don't know what the legal environment will be in your state but whatever the legal environment is it will be better if we have strong and cohesive communities to look after one another right if you're looking to donate your money i've said it before alotrolado are where i would suggest it it's a-l-o-t-r-o-l-a-d-o.org they've done really valuable work in defending migrants rights in court haitian bridge alliance would be another great example of that will you link that i'll put them both in the show notes yeah but the way we confront this is together and it's super important that now in the next three months if there are undocumented people

in your life so you check in with them right that you talk with them about what the best plan is we don't know what's going to happen I've outlined some scenarios here none of them may happen right we don't know yet but we have these three months and we'd be foolish not to use them. Yep. Yeah. Talk to your friends, begin organizing. The solution is not despair. The solution is community. And I know it can be really easy to despair. And if you're listening and you are undocumented, I understand how petrifying this is. And just know that we're all thinking of you and hopefully there are people in your life who are there to help you and to help you get through a difficult time. 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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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. 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 musica, 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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex 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. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy, Elianian 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

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