It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 245

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Starting point is 00:02:30 If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to Akadap and Here, a podcast where sometimes the here is the world's largest democracy. And that, I think, I'm actually not sure how many Americans are aware of it. This is, in fact, India, a very basic fact about democracies around the world. I mean, if you're calling either the U.S. or India, the world's largest democracy, you've got to put an asterisk or a couple of them in there. Either way. We'll get to that in a second. So.

Starting point is 00:03:07 Land of asterisks. Age of asterisks. Yeah, with me to talk about the age of asterisks and maybe how to get out of it is Robert Evans. Yeah. Yeah. Asterisk on that too. Why not? Oh, boy.

Starting point is 00:03:20 And I'm Mia Long. I guess asterisk there too? Sure. I don't know. I got nothing. I got nothing. Well, what are we talking about today, Mia? We are talking about the fact that a couple of weeks ago in India,

Starting point is 00:03:32 protesters managed to accomplish something that is unprecedented in the 12-year reign of Indian Prime Minister and enemy of the show, the Butchara Gujarat himself. One Prime Minister Modi. Narendra Modi, thank you very much. Yep. I hate him. Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. The entire time he has been in power, no one has successfully been able to manage to force him to make a cabinet member resign. No. And protesters just did this. Yeah. This is the first. It's not the first because the most recent set of elections didn't go great for him, but this is like the biggest break in his armor we've seen since the Modi regime kind of clanked into

Starting point is 00:04:13 place. Yeah. And to understand sort of what that means, we need to talk a bit about why Robert was like, yeah, asterisk, that's a democracy on both this in the U.S., which is that. So Modi's ruling party is the BJP. And I would classify the BJP as, the world's largest fascist party. It has a horrifying 140 million members. Jesus, age Christ. Yeah, not good.

Starting point is 00:04:41 Very bad. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, and it's also like not the only ultra-right-wing Hindu nationalist party in India. There are also others. So, yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:50 Great, great things happening here. Yeah, this is why you've had ethnic cleansings against Muslims and other non-Hindu groups and chunks of India over the mode of years. Yeah. So they've been in power, effectively uncontested. I mean, they didn't do great in last elections, but they held on to power,

Starting point is 00:05:06 and they've been in power for 12 years now, dream which they have both transformed Indian politics and also just continued to get more and more right wing. Yep. There's something I think is worth mentioning with the BJP, which is that it's not like most political parties, even fascist ones, in that it's not like it's a political party that, like, developed a prime military, right? The BJP was developed as the political wing of a very, very far-right anti-Muslim, like Hindu nationalist parabilitary group called the RSS, which was responsible

Starting point is 00:05:38 for a whole bunch of absolutely hideous crimes even before the BJP took power or even existed. So, again, like this is a ruling party that is like the political wing of a paramilitary, not the other way around, and it's been running India for 12 years. And

Starting point is 00:05:54 as Robert sort of mentioned before, the BJP has faced some challenges to their power. They've also faced large-scale protest movements before, most notably sort of the farmers' protests in 2020 and then 2024, which were about attempts to implement right-wing market reforms to India's like agricultural markets. But they've successfully been able to maintain this policy of just refusing to dismiss government ministers in the face of protests until now. So what has actually been happening? Yeah. So these protests have been rallying under the banner of, I guess, kind of a meme organization or meme.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Yeah, it started as a joke, right? Yeah, yeah. It's called the Cockroach Janta Party, which is named after these comments they were made by India's chief justice of like the Indian Supreme Court, calling young unemployed people, quote, parasites and cockroaches. It's a little bit of a reversal of like the Hillary Clinton deplorable's comment

Starting point is 00:06:54 where this person in politics uses a derogist, niggatory nickname to refer to a group of people he's opposed to, and they kind of take it on as a badge of honor. Yeah, and because it's fascist, right? Right. It's also, yeah, fascist. The Chief Justice Supreme Court is calling them cockroaches. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:10 This party is like obviously a joke. It's like CJP, like cockroach instead of BJP, et cetera, et cetera. The main focus of these protests are a series of scandals in India's education system. and it feels kind of redundant to say like, oh yeah, like what kind of education do you get has a huge amount of, you know, sort of determinants in like what your life turns out to be and what your economic conditions turns out to be in a sort of more intense version of like the way that American standardized testing works. But there are a bunch of these standardized tests that you take that can determine a whole bunch about what your future is going to be. And I think mostly mostly, there have been a couple of big scandals recently, but the most of the most of the most of the same thing. famous one is called the Neat scandal. Neat and EET

Starting point is 00:07:57 is basically... It's India's like pre-med exam, basically. Yeah, it's this huge exam that everyone who wants to go into pre-med has to take and get a certain grade on as I understand it, basically. Yeah. So it's one of these, especially for kids who like aren't rich, it's like a massive

Starting point is 00:08:14 barrier that you have to get past if you want to like have a better life basically. Yeah. And these tests and specifically, the neat in particular, I mean, this is just the one if you want to become a doctor, but like, you know, there's a huge number of people taking these tests. I'm going to quote from Al Jazeera, nearly 2.3 million test takers across India, and at examination centers in Doha, Dubai, Singapore and Camp Mandu appeared for the neat this year on May 3rd,

Starting point is 00:08:41 battling out for less than 130,000 spots in medical colleges. So a very small percentage of these 2.3 million people who are taking this test can even possibly get a score good enough to get them into a very small number of spots in these medical colleges. And then it turns out for this year's test that the answers to the test had been leaked ahead of time and were being like sold on a telegram channels. Oh, yeah. And this turns into a massive scandal and the government forces the students to take the test again. And this is a complete disaster.

Starting point is 00:09:19 11 students died by suicide as a result of it. Good God. It's really bad. Because it's like a mix of everything you've heard about, particularly in Southeast Asia, you've got a lot of, like, fresher as a kid to do well in exams like this because there's not, both for cultural reasons and because there's not other ways legally to, like, get those jobs if your family's not rich. And also the people whose families are rich often can pay to get the answers ahead of time, which is what the leak of this shows, right?

Starting point is 00:09:47 Like, the fact that it leaks out is because people's rich kids are getting these. Yeah. Well, and also, like, if you're rich enough, you can send your kid to, like, a private college, right? Right. That's that too. You know, but if you're a working class kid, you cannot afford one of these, one of these private universities. Yeah. And so your only way in is through these tests.

Starting point is 00:10:04 Exactly. And these tests are also, you know, they're like, they're like a huge sort of extraction engine inside of the Indian economy where like, you know, one of the things that Alta Zira talks about is the story of this 21 year old kid who is one of the people who died by suicide. who in order to get through these tests, you have to go through these, like, massive, extremely expensive coaching centers effectively in order to study enough for it. And these things are, these things are really expensive to the point where this kid's family, like, sold their ancestral lands in order to be able to pay for test coaching so that this kid could become a doctor. And she had passed the test after like not getting high enough scores like the previous two times. And then he had to take it again. There's, there's stories like this all over.

Starting point is 00:10:51 deal. And it's just a nightmare. Yeah. So much of this, too, shouldn't be separated from the broader issues Ginzy and Jinz Alpha are having all over the world, right? Yeah. Like, this is part of that. Like, this is, we are fucked. We have no way of making it in the economy you've left us. And one of the tiny slim slippers of a way to get ahead is just a scam, too. Yeah. I get it. They should be pissed. Yeah. And, like, it's particularly intense in India. because there was a story recently that CNN was talking about where there's a study that showed that there's a 40% unemployment rate for graduates under the age of 25. Good God.

Starting point is 00:11:32 That is nightmarish. That's end of civilization kind of shit. Like, any sane government would be worried about a revolution in these conditions. Those are the kind of unemployment levels that got you the Arab Spring, right? Like, that's how this stuff happens. That in Facebook. Yeah. And Twitter, I guess.

Starting point is 00:11:51 Yeah. Well, yeah. Facebook playing both sides on that one. Russia. Iran. Yeah. A variety of foreign intelligence agencies from all over the world. A lot of things. Like, a lot of things. Yeah. And speaking of things that have a lot of problems, the education system as well, like there's other issues with it. Right. The BJP, again, they've been in power for 12 years. So they've installed a bunch of RSS guys like in the Department of Education. And so you get this curriculum that, in something that I think is very familiar to Americans where you're just getting all of this right-wing nationalist bullshit just like attempting to be pumped into the education system. They're doing that too. Yeah. And conditions over this are bad enough that, yeah, people take to the streets. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:39 As they should and did. Yeah. It's, I don't know, like a lot of the stuff reading this, it was like, oh, I've like been in this protest. Like, so originally these, originally the protests are, not that large in scale, but there's a big march on July 20th. That's, you know, like a march at the parliament. And there's a giant police attack on it.

Starting point is 00:13:01 That's an attempt to crush the movement entirely. And it doesn't work. It does exactly the opposite. It has, you know, a very, very familiar pattern of a bunch of people watch, like, a bunch of, like, actual literal children who are protesting, like, the answers to the test got sold to a bunch of rich kids. Then they get the shit beaten out of it. And this suddenly like accelerates the protest massively and massively increases the number of people who are in the streets.

Starting point is 00:13:29 And, you know, this eventually does the unthinkable, which has forced the government to make the Minister of Education resign. And they're also able to get some reforms. The Modi government in theory says it's going to address like some of the kind of like bureaucratic things around why it's so easy to get these questions. They also promise not to arrest any of the protesters, a thing. that is never true. Every single time you are promised this, they are always lying. Oh, yeah, yeah. But is also the thing that a government does when it is scared?

Starting point is 00:13:59 Yeah, it's a sign that they know they can't start talking about cracking heads from the jump. Yeah, yeah. And I think we're going to get a bit into more of the reason why the government was so alarmed about this later. But one of the things where I think this probably, unfortunately, was good strategic timing by the government is that these protests were sort of like crystallizing into these more general like anti-mody protests and by sort of heading it off at the past year

Starting point is 00:14:26 over an issue where like in theory the BJP also wants the test to work normally although obviously this does beg the question like okay so if it's government officials who are selling the answers to the tests like who is running the government

Starting point is 00:14:41 which is you know another part of this and another thing that is a part of this is these products and services, Robert. Oh, God, I love a good product and a good service. Oh, we're back. We're filled with the bounty of products and services, and we're ready to hear more about the cockroach jaunta. Yeah. So, again, kind of very familiar to a lot of protests that we have seen over our lives. These are very, very social media-driven protests in a way that's

Starting point is 00:15:23 also similar to a lot of the protests that have been happening in, actually, I mean, particularly in neighboring regions. Protesting like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, etc., etc. And, you know, if you watch any of, like, the Instagram reels or whatever from these, God, I don't know, it's so just depressingly familiar

Starting point is 00:15:43 in a lot of ways where it's very funny reading people talking about this because they're like, ah, it's these, like, irony, meme-driven, you know, like kids making these, like, irony-me-driven things about, like, getting the shit beaten out in by riot police and, like, you know, It's like people doing fit checks and then like getting like beaten with batons.

Starting point is 00:16:01 And it's like, oh, yeah, okay. We've all been there. I've been having a very like, I'm feeling old moment. You're watching these because it's like, oh, God, I remember these from like 2013 when we were doing the same shit. Well, that's one of the tough things too as you get older is both, you know, and this is less the case when we're talking about a foreign movement because I don't think I have any ability to influence that. when you're talking to like younger activists, it's a mix of wanting to like let them know about the pitfalls and problems

Starting point is 00:16:31 that previous generations have encountered when you see them, you know, kind of heading in that same direction and also not wanting to be like, well, just because I'm burnt out doesn't mean you should be. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:16:42 doesn't mean I should, yeah, like you shouldn't be excited about this thing just because I can't get excited anymore. Yeah, and it's like, you know, and that's always the thing

Starting point is 00:16:49 with these kind of protests, it's like sometimes you win. Yeah, and sometimes you win. And there's never, I got David Graber had this quote I forget who Yes I know the one you're talking about

Starting point is 00:17:00 Where he's he's talking about like The dealing with like The surprise of victory Oh I was actually gonna do a different one Oh okay what that one's also good But he had this quote with a revolutionary In Egypt like from the 2011 Like uprising there

Starting point is 00:17:15 And you know she had this quote where it was like You do these protests all the time And sometimes 30 people show up And you're depressed And sometimes 100 people show up And you know you're really happy. And then one day, 800,000 people show up and you kind of forgot that could happen. Yeah. And that's kind of what this is, right? Where it's like, yeah, that's,

Starting point is 00:17:33 that's exactly how it goes, right? It starts as like a bit from a dude who's not even in India at the time, right? He's at a school in the U.S. and he, but he, and so he just makes this kind of meme page and it takes off. Yeah. And then suddenly, you know, you actually have, and part of this is also like weird stuff about how algorithms work, but like part of what's been happening here too is that there's been a huge shift in the regime in India's ability to control social media, which is something they've been very, very good at up until this point. They've been really good at controlling both sort of online discourse and also have taken almost complete control over just the regular mainstream media. And these protests and like the way that

Starting point is 00:18:14 people are just sort of casually being like, hey, fit check going out to a protest and like the way that the stuff spread algorithmically and the way that, you know, you have people going out for a protests stuff, but that also mixes with just, you know, people who are going out just to film it for, like, their Instagram reels and it. But all of them, all of them end up, like, in the streets. And you get the situation where, like, the mainstream media is just, like, absolutely refuses to talk about the protest whatsoever. But then, you know, if you're like on Instagram, you're on any social media site, it's the only thing you're seeing. And this kind of weakens the control that the BGP has been able to maintain over all of these spaces. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that like they've, you know, lost control completely. You know, the BJP is like kind of in their counterattack phase right now. And you get a really bleak look at how like right wing governments with longstanding sort of right wing online bases and media bases work where. Yeah. They do these like harassment campaigns against women who went out protesting.

Starting point is 00:19:13 They sure do. Yeah. It's like all the stuff that you're familiar with, right? Like they'll show clips of people like on news channels and then people will like docs them and like start stalking. them and they get threats and... Yeah, I've heard people had to like hide and stuff. Yeah. Especially like female activists while they were during the protests.

Starting point is 00:19:32 Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, you know, it's like, it's like large scale threat to sexual violence are a very common part of this and that's God, yes. You know, that's like how these people are able to maintain power. But even as this sort of digital counterattack is happening and it's extremely brutal and it's really a mess, the control of the mainstream media is also. slipping. One of the things I learned reading about this is there's a term

Starting point is 00:19:57 that I guess generally kind of like opposition people are using with the protesters also use where they call they call the mainstream press like Goody Media which is like it's like lap and Hindi so it's basically like calling them like lap dog media instead of being watchdogs

Starting point is 00:20:12 which I love I don't know I like it a lot. Yeah I do too that's great. It's like it's good I don't know I don't know exactly how to steal that for us but I love it. It's great. Yeah. We should be thinking about that. Yeah, but part of the problem with having, you know, this kind of like incredible degree of like media centralization that, that the regime has been able to pull together is that, you know, after being in power for so long, having their narrative be like completely hegemonic for so long, they're running into like the cracks, you know, these sort of cracks forming in their nationalist messaging. because, like, they're running into the fundamental problem that you can't eat national pride.

Starting point is 00:20:58 And so if, if literally the entire media all the time is trying to ignore if these protests are happening and then also was telling you that your country is great and, like, Modi is great, and you're such a great world leader. But then, you know, you can't feed your family. That's an actual problem. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, like, normally the way that nationalists would sort of deal with this is to be like, yeah,

Starting point is 00:21:19 you don't have jobs and your economy sucks because of, like, some either immigrant group or in this case it would sort of like the BCHP probably would be doing this with Muslims. But they've been in power for so long that it's like kind of hard to do that because it's like this is your country now, right? Like you have taken control of it. And yet. Yeah. And this kind of feeds into this, you know, question at a broader level about what these

Starting point is 00:21:44 protests are actually about. Because on a very basic level, they're about education reform and they're about these tests and about the education system as a whole. But on a broader level, it's more complicated because these protests as, you know, protests often do function as a sort of aggregator of different kinds of struggle with, you know, different beliefs and motivations.

Starting point is 00:22:05 You get a whole bunch of different kinds of people in the street. I want to read this quote from an interview Frontline India did with the guy who was the founder of the CJP, which is to say just like the guy who made the meme that went viral. Yeah, yeah. That is how he got the job, so to speak. And he's done a really good job, by the way.

Starting point is 00:22:25 Like, I think he's been really responsible. Yeah. He could not have anticipated this happening, but he seems to be really dedicated to the cause. Yeah, and I want to quote him here talking about what the ideology of this party, if it existed, would be. The ideology of the CJP and many of our young people are also very progressive, liberal, secular, will be secular, democratic, and socialist,

Starting point is 00:22:46 and we strive for social justice. and he also mentions three people that he's, you know, he's inspired by. And two of them, I think, are kind of not particularly surprising given this kind of like, this is kind of what like secular, progressive democratic-y politics look like, which is, he mentions Gandhi and Nehru. But what's interesting, and what I haven't seen literally at all in any other coverage at this protest, is that the third person that he mentions is Ambidkar, which, yeah, I assume you having been there and spent a decent amount of time to India, I assume you know who Ambidkar is?

Starting point is 00:23:23 No, no, no, I don't. No, not really. Interesting. Okay. Not in a meaningful way, no. This is actually kind of a good proxy. I assume people listening to the show know who Gandhi is. You've probably at least heard of Nehru, who was the first prime minister of India. Yeah. Ambikar is a lot less well known.

Starting point is 00:23:38 He's another one of the very important sort of independence era figures in India. But he is the guy around which like the anti-cast movement rallies. Was he in the 50s or 60s? No, he, like, first starts this in, like, the 20s and 30s, and then he's alive through independence. Oh, okay, really? That era. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:56 Yeah. Yeah. He's around, like, in the era of, like, revolutionary struggle against the British. Preed independence. Yeah. Yeah. And then he, you know, he, like, survives through independence and gets to see some of that. The partition of India and all that good stuff.

Starting point is 00:24:08 Yeah. All the fun things happen. Yeah. And this is a period, you know, if you look at, like, the 1910s, 20s, 30s, this is a period both about the anti-colonial struggle and then also, like, what the struggle is going to be, right? Like, whose vision of India is going to come out of a post-independence world if there is one? And Ambikar's thing here is, yes, like, we want, like, we want independence and we want socialism,

Starting point is 00:24:32 because, you know, a lot of the people, like, Nehru is, like, a kind of socialist, right? Like, a lot of the independence activists are. But he's also in a position of we need to get rid of the caste system because he sees it as, like, as like an incredibly powerful sort of force of oppression in Indian society. And he thinks that that's not something that they should like wait until independence to deal with. And so he's a very, very important like leader in the anti-cast movement. He's probably, I think he's probably just like their best known intellectual.

Starting point is 00:25:05 I would really recommend reading his book, The Annihilation to Cast. Well, I say book. It's like not that long. Yeah. Like it's probably like my favorite thing I've read from the writers of that era. It's an address that he's making basically two. both, I guess you'd call it like more conservative pro-independence activists and then also to the socialists to be like, hey, you should also talk about cast at the same time you're talking

Starting point is 00:25:27 about British oppression and also glass. The CJP founder like mentions this because he's from a low cast background. And he goes like, yeah, like, no, like I wouldn't have been able to go to school in the United States and like have the successes that I've had in my life without Ambikar. I thought this was really interesting because it's not mentioned in any other reporting, even though it's, it's like in an interview he's said. And also, I think this is a dynamic here that is like not well understood in most places that like this is a still operative system of oppression that people are still fighting against. And that is, you know, relevant enough to be like one of the things that gets mentioned by the guy you starts this movement. And that's not to say the rest of the movement like necessarily

Starting point is 00:26:22 really is exactly this focused on it, which is one of the parts of this movement that's both why it's exceeded and also one of the kind of messy parts of it, right, is that on the one hand, this has become a really powerful vehicle for these sort of like broadly secular, like pro-democracy, like anti-mody, anti-dictatorship students. And there's always been like a fairly large like cohort of, you know, sort of like young left-leaning or leftist students. I mean, there was a whole, I don't know what you'd call it, like social panes. slash government purge against this idea of like

Starting point is 00:26:56 quote unquote urban naxels which is supposed to be like oh there's like these like urban versions of like the naxswole like communist guerrillas that are in the universities which is you know in a lot of ways very similar to but a significantly more advanced and repressive version of the stuff that like you see the Trump administration

Starting point is 00:27:13 doing in the US education system and the sort of like witch hunts over you know Palestine and stuff like that so you know you have that group of sort of like center left and left as students who were a lot of the people who started the protest movement but also there's also just like BJP kids yeah

Starting point is 00:27:29 who are in the streets because they're like yeah like we all got fucked in our tests because it's bullshit yeah yeah it's the same reason how you've got a decent chunk at least like a third of the 20 or something percent of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 are more people

Starting point is 00:27:46 who'd voted for Biden or for Hillary a few years earlier right there are people who maybe they went for this guy, but as soon as it stops working for them, as soon as, like, the fascism isn't delivering what it promises, they'll get pissed, they'll get up wide up in the streets. You don't have to like them to recognize that as a phenomenon. Yep. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:03 There's a kind of, like, third phenomenon, too, which is, as these protests go on, you get more and more of different kinds of, like, both rural and urban workers. Right? More urban workers and rural workers, but this is, you know, the thing about education protests at their core is that this is something that cuts across. like rural urban divides to an extent in the sense that like both poor rural kids and poor urban kids are still getting fucked by this, you know, by by the exam system. But then, you know, you get workers starting to join it who also have these, I think, I don't know, the way that

Starting point is 00:28:39 commentators talk about it is that they're unconnected. I think they're a lot more connected than that. But, you know, you get, you get these workers with these like cost of living crisis concerns who are also joining this protest. And I guess part of this is a girl who spent a lot of time studying and writing about Tiananmen. But this is kind of the exact class composition of Tiananmen and how those protests unfolded, where you have its origins in like this, in the specific student movement thing that has kind of specific student movement grievances that then, you know, goes into the streets around their specific demands and then everyone watches them get the ship beaten out of them.

Starting point is 00:29:21 And that brings more and more people into the streets who have their own kind of specific demands around like the economic conditions they're in. And this is a very common like composition for for revolts. I mean, it's the basis of everything from like, I mean, God, like it's part of the basis

Starting point is 00:29:37 of the French Revolution. You can look at like May 68. Yeah. Like, you know, so the revolts against Pinochet. Like, I mean, Occupy is like a lot to a large extent like this class base. Right. if you have a bunch of students who are very concerned about debt,

Starting point is 00:29:51 and then that brings in a bunch more working class people who are not students anymore. But that's also what makes it dangerous. It's a very old kind of alliance, and it's a kind of alliance that can always materialize because students and poor workers are some of the first people to feel when the economic ties are shifting. And that, like, constantly creates these kind of uprisings, right?

Starting point is 00:30:16 And, you know, they're dangerous enough that if you look at the last 30 years of Chinese politics, a whole bunch of the politics of modern China are about specifically making sure that this exact coalition doesn't form again. So, you know, when the old working class is sort of crushed with the like remains the welfare state in the 90s, like there's a very deliberate attempt to buy off the students at the same time to make sure they never make common cause. And like any time you've seen sort of student worker actions since then, there's this massive crackdown on it. because the Chinese government understands that this is a very, very dangerous political coalition. And it's a political coalition that has outlasted, I mean, literally, like, a lot of the, like, working classes that were originally in these uprisings, like, the French Revolutionary, like, artisan class, like, that doesn't exist anymore, right? Like, the industrial working class in, like, France or, like, Italy in the 60s.

Starting point is 00:31:10 Like, that also doesn't exist anymore. But you still see this, like, specific configuration of classes. doing these protest movements. Yeah. There's obviously always a lot of different motivations, and conflict against the state tends to be the thing that can solidify a kind of identity that allows you to do any kind of mass movement, right?

Starting point is 00:31:32 Like, this is like one of the few things that can, you know, fighting the police and having the state repress you and that having the state as a force you can fight against concretely that just appears when you oppose it, like is one of the things that, like, makes these kind of protest movements work. And then also underneath that, the economy is broken in a lot of the ways you saw, like, in like 2018 and 2019, which is like, I think the last big cycle of these mass protests,

Starting point is 00:31:59 where you have this economic instability. Right. And what I think is particularly similar between now and, like, 2018, was that technically speaking, if you look at the economy in India right now, as long as you ignore the youth unemployment rate, it looks like the economy is growing. Things are good. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:17 It's like the same thing as the U.S. where it's like, well, I mean, the economic indicators have been getting worse. But like, you know, technically speaking, it looks like the U.S. economy is growing. But if you're living under it, it's like, no, it's not. And there's all of these sort of cracks and ripples in the global economy. In 2018 was like this where, like,

Starting point is 00:32:35 the American economy was like doing fine. And a lot of like the major economies were in theory doing fine. But then, you know, there was a series of currency, like crises. And like there were like these economic collapses. Yeah, there's like this hyperinflation in Turkey. You get these things in like Chile. And then, you know, you start seeing these protests. You get like Haiti, you get the yellow vest.

Starting point is 00:32:54 You see like Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, God, like Iran for the first time of this giant cycle of protests in Iran. Myanmar, like even like Russia briefly goes up. And I'm bringing this up to say that like one of the things about a protest like this, right? And there's been several other ones that were a very big protests in Indonesia. over the last couple of months, these protests often, A, recur, and B, are in some ways an early warning signal

Starting point is 00:33:27 before, like, there's going to be another giant round of these kind of protests. Yeah. I mean, hopefully, right? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a decent chance of it because, like, you know, the economy still hasn't, like, hit rock bottom yet. No. And... In the way that, like, you know, you saw that in 2020,

Starting point is 00:33:46 where like, yeah, the bottom finally fell out of the economy with COVID. Furthermore, maybe this is putting it a little bit too strongly, but like the people who do not like the regime, particularly the activists, have like tasted a little blood now. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's really hard once people win, once a movement wins for it to not try to keep winning, right? That's kind of the natural instinct.

Starting point is 00:34:07 Yeah, and the BJP is, you know, obviously doing its best to suppress this. Yeah, to suppress or co-opt. Yeah. Yeah, but the problem that they're facing is the fundamental problem of all of their regimes everywhere, which is that like it's a lot harder to maintain one of these kinds of regimes when you have been in power for a long time and suddenly the economy implodes. And that's coming for India, the same way that's coming for the rest of the world. And also in very specific ways of like, you know, we've talked about, I talked about on this show elsewhere, the effects of the blockade of the Strait of Formuz has been devastating in India in a way that it hasn't been. in the U.S. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:46 And, you know, you also have, like, heat waves that are also, you know, both economically and just, like, living, devastating. There was an expression in the Hong Kong protest that they were drawing from a Mao quote, but also it's way older than Mao as, like, Mao says in the thing where he says it. But the Hong Kongers had this line that, like, a single spark can start a prairie fire. And the thing about the Indian economy is that it is throwing sparks off everywhere. Sure. And that doesn't mean that every individual spark is going to be the one that starts the fire.

Starting point is 00:35:19 But it means that as you continue to get more and more sparks, the odds that you see another one of these revolts increases. And hopefully the odds that one of these protests and one of these movements can finally knock off the fascists and, yeah, fundamentally transform Indian society rises. Yep. Or at least get Modi out. Yeah, just at a bare minimum. You know, I'll take the minimum if that's what it is. Oh, God. Okay. Well, thank you, Mia.

Starting point is 00:35:49 And thank you the cockroach Janta over in India. Good work. Hell yeah. Y'all, that is actually really nice to see. Fucking rocks. Give them hell. Proud of you. Red Bull, Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers, now at McDonald's.

Starting point is 00:36:14 Made with freeze-dried fruit. And an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants excluding Quebec. I'm Hoda Kotbby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people.

Starting point is 00:36:48 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors, and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood.

Starting point is 00:37:15 He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the I. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

Starting point is 00:37:39 We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO, rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic. of characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea?

Starting point is 00:38:04 We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysler, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song.

Starting point is 00:38:25 I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo, rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

Starting point is 00:38:48 The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stillard. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Mawba. Oh, that's fantastic.

Starting point is 00:39:11 And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was a. in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski.

Starting point is 00:39:27 I don't think she was an American pie, but I still like that. I haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Then Mary Steenberg. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little

Starting point is 00:39:42 play game? I just really I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. The past few weeks I've been covering the midterm primaries and the battle between the left and the establishment for the future of the Democratic Party.

Starting point is 00:40:08 As evidence just this month in Michigan and Wisconsin, left populism continues to be on the rise. A few weekends ago, the Democratic Socialists of America held their national organizing conference, the Socialist Summit, in Chicago, Illinois. I did not attend the Socialist Summit because instead I wanted to check in on the other side of the aisle. So last month, I went down to Washington, D.C., to attend the new liberal action summit. Or, as it's affectionately referred to by attendees, GlobeCon, named after the blue globe emoji used by liberals on Twitter, symbolizing globalism, free trade, free market capitalism, liberal immigration, and yimbism. The new liberal action summit was a three-day event with one main conference day,

Starting point is 00:41:05 filled with panels featuring policymakers, fireside chats with liberal politicians, and networking opportunities for young liberals who share a passion for center-left policies. I went to eight of the 14 panels. One of the first panels was on energy policy. featuring two former politicians turned fossil fuel lobbyists. Next, Representative Don Byer spoke about the need for AI regulation. A panel of policy advisors discussed why, quote-unquote, sloppulist tax proposals are stupid. Representative Richie Torres promoted abundance.

Starting point is 00:41:43 Congressional representatives from the New Democrat Coalition had a panel about how their caucus is fighting back against DSA, and I listened in to a live recording of Francis Fukuyama's podcast. Abundance was probably one of the most frequently used words at the conference. There was a big focus on building housing, zoning reform, permit streamlining, and a lot of speakers were nervous about the growing anti-tech backlash and the public support for data center moratoriums. Interestingly, most panelists and attendees were impressed by Zora Mamdani's reign thus far, but still very oppositional to stuff like wealth taxes, the rent-frees, populism in general, DSA as an organization, and their other candidates.

Starting point is 00:42:35 About 300 Libs attended the summit last July. They mostly ranged between their early 20s to late 30s. These are econ, Polysy and law students, young professionals, campaign staff, influencers, policy wonks, and aspiring policy walks. Just as the use of the blue globe emoji online was in response to socialists identifying themselves online via the red rose emoji, this whole conference and the org behind it is a response from young-ish liberals to rising populism in the United States, and especially the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America on the Democratic Party. The New Liberal Action Summit is put on by an organization called the Center for New

Starting point is 00:43:28 Liberalism, or CNL. C&L is a non-profit 501C4, quote, digital first grassroots organization dedicated to fighting for liberalism during the age it is most under attack, according to their website. At the summit, they were giving out C&L stickers, which they sell on their website for $5. One of the stickers reads, quote, We believe in economic growth through free markets, a robust social safety net, the free flow of people and goods, deregulating barriers to housing and employment, immediate criminal justice reform, a tech-optimist society, a tax on carbon,

Starting point is 00:44:11 freedom regardless of gender, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation, pragmatism over populism. CNliberalism.org forward slash join. The Center for New Liberalism claims to have about 11,000 members and 50 local chapters in cities across the U.S. Though, according to their website, C&L's private Slack channel has just about 700 dues-paying members of the organization. In contrast, DSA is about 120,000 dues-paying members. During the summit, I spoke with C&L's deputy director Tobin Stone, and he told me that the Center for New Liberalism is specifically intending to serve as a counterweight to the DSA.

Starting point is 00:45:01 Stone said that the populist right has their own little organizations like TPPUSA, the populist left has the DSA, and the Center for New Liberalism, to be both a political, organizational force, as well as a social body for young, center-left liberals who believe in, quote-unquote, lower-case L liberalism to meet with each other, organize, and advance their ideas. Stone did admit that most moderate Democrats are kind of dropping the ball right now. The Republicans are super unpopular and voters are expressing all these things around affordability, but moderate Dems have failed to seize this moment.

Starting point is 00:45:41 There is a big window open for Democrats, and really the only people taking it are the DSA. What we're trying to do is we're trying to say, look, no, we can be central left moderate, whatever we want to call us, but actually have a real agenda that excites people and offers an alternative to what the DSA is saying, because a lot of these current moderates, like, in some ways we'd rather have them than a DSA person at the same time. Like, the moderates can't just be sitting there doing nothing. They have to, like, be willing to take on the fights, like, fight the NIMBY's. and build more housing because young people can't afford housing anymore.

Starting point is 00:46:14 So that's what we're trying to do is, like, be a counterweight and offer a real alternative. About two years ago, CNL deputy director Tobin Stone, told the Columbia Journalism Review, quote, were Hillary Clinton Democrats, basically. Now, that was two years ago. But last month, I asked Stone, what kind of politicians does CNN want to see taking power? Say, federally, like you see people like Jake Ockin-Klos, I think when people hear him talk, it resonates. He's incredibly smart

Starting point is 00:46:43 and he knows how to talk to people about the issues that they're mad about. Jake Ockengloss headlined C&L's opening reception on the first day of the summit. Ockin-Glaas is a congressional rep from Massachusetts and a former Marine. After Zornam Dhani won the Democratic primary last June,

Starting point is 00:47:02 Akengloss wrote a blog post on Substack reading, neither Democratic socialism nor crony capitalism will deliver financialism. freedom. I propose a 10-word agenda for financial freedom for the middle class. Treat cost disease, reduce the debt, and save Social Security, unquote. Earlier this year, his re-election campaign accepted over $25,000 from Palantir, including $7,000 from Palantir's CEO, Alexander Karp. In January 2023, Akken Klaus was the first

Starting point is 00:47:37 congressman to read an entirely chat GPT-generated speech on the House floor. This speech was in support of a bill to create a joint U.S. Israel AI center for the development of AI research. And last year, Akkenklaas told Politico that it's quote unquote readily apparent that TikTok's algorithm is, quote, amplifying anti-American anti-Israel content disproportionate. Disproportionation to its actual frequency. Stone told me, quote, we need more people like Jake Ockincloss, and not all of the electeds in this room,

Starting point is 00:48:17 but like a lot of the folks here. But also, what we're trying to do and eventually want to do is like have our chapters be the group that identifies some potential candidates, unquote. Stone also pointed to state rep Jasper Martis, who became friendly with CNL through the organization's anti-tariff advocacy.

Starting point is 00:48:40 We want to see what we can do as an organization to help elevate voices like him who can be young, charismatic, and without offering an agenda that we think would do more harm than good. Do you see a point where you will not just have to kind of offer an alternative to what the DSA is offering, but in primaries, like, specifically kind of like,

Starting point is 00:49:01 like, counter them, like, directly? Yes, that is, like, part of what we want to do. We have always been and we'll continue to be willing to get directly into those primaries, whether it's supporting someone we already know and work with, like to be up here today. If someone tries a primary Jake Ottencloss, our Boston chapter is absolutely going to be out knocking doors to support him, especially if it's a DSA candidate. But then also, again, long term, we would love to be able to be the group that can identify the candidates

Starting point is 00:49:29 who can run against the DSA. We want to do the work to find those young charismatic candidates and get them to run. against the DSA candidate and offer that real return. We really just want to see an organization of five-year-olds be even bigger. We want to not just be doing this conference here in D.C., but then go over all over the country and say, like, we can go in Denver and host a whole conference in Denver

Starting point is 00:49:50 with all of our members of a chapter and talk about the work of the U.S. to elevate the pragmatic politicians in Colorado or New York or wherever. Like, that's a long-term role. The Center for New Liberalism's annual impact report for the election year of 2020, claimed that the organization made $5,500 in, quote, successful campaign contributions and gained 186 new members. That's 186 new members during the year of a highly impactful presidential election.

Starting point is 00:50:26 DSA gained over 7,000 members in just the two months after the 2024 election. And since then, DSA membership has more than nine. doubled from 50,000 to 120,000 members. Just 10 years ago, DSA had only 5,000 members, before Bernie Sanders' first presidential campaign, which breathed new life into the organization. But in order to fully understand CNL, you have to understand their deeply online origin,

Starting point is 00:50:58 because they essentially internet trolled themselves into something resembling a real political organization. Center for New Liberalism can be traced back to R-slash neoliberal on Reddit, where after the 2016 election, a new team of moderators tried to grow the subreddit as a place to discuss liberal policymaking and free market economics in response to online conversations about politics being dominated by populism, whether from MAGA or the rejuvenated socialist left following Bernie's 2016 campaign. These moderators turned the subreddit into an online community of policy wonks discussing economics, as well as neoliberal shitposting in an attempt to compete in the arena of internet politics and make center-left liberalism cool and memeable. And I don't know about you, but when I think of cool, the first thing that comes to mind is Reddit memes about liberal free market economics.

Starting point is 00:52:00 In 2018, two moderators from the subreddit, Colin Mortimer and Jeremiah Johnson, started to consolidate this loose online community into a real organization called the Neoliberal Project. They started a at-neoliberal Twitter account and launched the Neoliberal podcast. All of this neoliberal branding was sort of a troll. At the time and still now,

Starting point is 00:52:27 the word neoliberal was mostly used as a pejorative in current political parlance. So the neoliberal project's use of the term was almost this form of slur reclamation. A tongue-in-cheek, semi-ironic, but largely sincere embrace of neoliberal economic policies. To quote a 2022 article in the Washington Post, quote, Carl Nielsen, a 24-year-old aerospace engineer who leads the DC chapter, told me his brother turned him onto this neoliberal community a few years ago. and he was immediately smitten.

Starting point is 00:53:05 Quote, I was like, dude, this is it. This is where we belong. The memes were fantastic. They were doing a neoliberal shill bracket, which is a Twitter tournament where you vote to determine who's the chief neoliberal shill. That was really easy to get excited about,

Starting point is 00:53:24 so I jumped right in, unquote. The neoliberal shill bracket on Twitter is like a March Madness style bracket for Twitter users to rank which politicians, columnists, lobbyists, or influencers are the biggest neoliberal shill of the year. This basically amounts to standing figures like Ezra Klein, Matt Iglesias, Nate Silver, and the streamer destiny. The Washington Post described the organization as being on, quote,

Starting point is 00:53:55 a quest to bring market-friendly moderation into the age of internet meme politics. unquote. In 2020, the neoliberal project was absorbed into a centrist think tank called the Progressive Policy Institute. In the announcement, Will Marshall, the president of PPI, said that the young liberals, quote, fill a vacuum in our politics for a pragmatically liberal alternative to right-wing populism and democratic socialism. Colin Mortimer, the neoliberal project's executive director, is quoted in the announcement, said, over the last several years, we have built the neoliberal project into an online community of politically engaged young individuals who are pushing back against the ideological extremes

Starting point is 00:54:43 that put our country in peril. Now we are proud to join one of the most storied think tanks in the country as we develop and advocate for a radically pragmatic agenda for change our country so urgently needs. Unquote. A quick note on the progressive policy Institute. PPI was founded in the late 80s by the Democratic Leadership Council, when the word progressive referred to center-left pragmatism, as opposed to the modern connotation of the term, as used by left-wing progressives today. In the 90s, PPI functioned as the idea factory of the Clinton administration and was a big part of the shift in the Democratic Party away from New Deal, great society redistributive liberalism

Starting point is 00:55:33 towards the neoliberal politics of maximizing economic growth that defined the Clinton era. Soon after joining PPI, the neoliberal project rebranded into the Center for New Liberalism, displaying some awareness of the massive unpopularity of neoliberalism and that it might actually be pretty hard

Starting point is 00:55:57 to grow a political project under such a banner. CNL co-founder Jeremiah Johnson, who also hosts the New Liberal podcast, told the Columbia Journalism Review that neoliberal is a great word to use, quote, when what you want to do is get in fights on the internet,

Starting point is 00:56:16 but it turned out to be less great for recruiting Congresspeople to their cause. Two years after joining PPI, the Center for New Liberalism started doing their annual New Liberal Action Sucing, summit. 2026 was the fifth year of Globecon.

Starting point is 00:56:35 The Columbia Journalism Review wrote in 2024 that the Center for New Liberalism is, quote, Biden's fighters in the meme trenches, doing what they can to make his brand of politics trendy again, unquote. The past few years, the Center for New Liberalism has tried to legitimize itself beyond its Reddit shit posting and humble Twitter-troll beginnings. Earlier this year, C&L brought on Greg Schultz as a senior advisor. Schultz was the campaign manager for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential primary campaign and general election strategist.

Starting point is 00:57:26 One of the aspirations for the new liberals is helping to secure a center-leaning candidate for president in 2008. One of our big goals is definitely to influence. to our next president. And maybe that there ends up being a more compromised candidate, or I don't just think any compromises the wrong word, but like you're seeing right now,

Starting point is 00:57:46 like a lot of people are gravitating towards Alsop if he does end up running. Like people like him, but we would rather not see like a further left candidate. And we also want to see that the platform that we run on in 2028 is not, we understand that sometimes you have to have a little bit of pompous and it's kind of like sloppily that you see right now.

Starting point is 00:58:03 We're just like, oh, cut everyone's taxes. Like we want to see like a real concrete platform. forum that doesn't overpromise, can be enacted, and can maybe repair people's hope in government again. Senator Bennett talked about it earlier or alluded to it, but people don't feel like government works anymore, so we want to make sure that the agenda in 2020 is one about making government work again. Obviously, we have to workshop that message to figure out what it's going to appeal to the American people the most. Obviously, we're fighting the DSI. We are aware they're going to exist in America.

Starting point is 00:58:37 They are a part of the political climate. We don't want to take them away. But we also, like, I think it will be extremely harmful if they're in the driver's seat. They should absolutely have input, but, like, if they're in the driver's seat, the presidential election, like, we're going to lose again. And we want to make sure that we win, because obviously, if we lose again to Donald Trump or whoever his heir is, it's not going to be great for America or the rest of international institutions. I mean, I think some of those DSA people would look at. at centrist candidates going up against Trump in like 16, 24, or like, you know, more center-leaning.

Starting point is 00:59:14 And that would be very hesitant to call either of those centrists or even center-left. Like, if you look at the exit polling data from 2024, 24, everyone thought Kamala is much further, like, from the center than Trump, which is, for sure. But, like, yeah. Comlo is not center. Like, you ask anyone in this room who's worked for, we all work for a central-left-moder organization, we all. There's a reason we lost in this because Democrats

Starting point is 00:59:39 their voters thought we were too far to left. And I mean too far to live, but too far to look at touch. I think that's a good way to frame. Sure. I think that's a good way to frame. I think it's really important to understand that too far left

Starting point is 00:59:51 and two out of touch are vastly different things. And secondly, what is considered, quote unquote, left is not at all clear. Does left refer to left-wing economics, wealth redistribute,

Starting point is 01:00:07 or like the sort of performative liberal wokeism that was completely captured by corporations and the elite before being quickly dropped as Trump took back power. Because the recent batch of left-wing populists are running on economic policies to make life more affordable. Their focus on uplifting workers and the poor would materially improve the lives of large swaths of marginalized populations, way very much. more than corporations posting black squares, academic language policing, White House pride events, and Nancy Pelosi wearing a West African kente cloth stole as a scarf. A New York Times poll from May of 26 found that the majority of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independence do not want the party

Starting point is 01:00:59 to move to the center on health care or economic issues and should embrace economic populism. According to the Times poll, 63% of likely Dems said our political and economic system needs major changes. And 20% said it needs to be torn down completely. 88% said the economic system in this country

Starting point is 01:01:22 is generally unfair to most Americans. 74% of Dems oppose sending aid to Israel. Most respondents were dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. 91% had not heard of abundance. only 5% said the economic conditions were good or excellent, and 49% said they were favorable to socialism versus 22% unfavorable. Only 20% of respondents said the Democratic Party was too far to the left,

Starting point is 01:01:55 and respondents were evenly split on whether the party in general should move to the center. But most said that the party should move to the left on things like health care. A frequent topic of discussion at the new liberal action summit was how the Democratic Party can win back, quote-unquote, working-class voters. And a spoiler, they think it's by moving to the center. Something we've been talked about at the long time is winning back to support of non-college voters, working-class voters. We have a new report coming out soon that showcases how central-inements are doing much better in that regard to their progressive counterparts. We do a lot of polling both non-the-colle voters,

Starting point is 01:02:36 or working-class voters, if you will. Most of our data says that the people that vote degrees are on tend to be heavily college-uneducated, whereas it was people without degrees that voted for a quo, which, the best sweet lens for working class is not, I think, is just, has a college degree, just don't have a college degree.

Starting point is 01:02:53 The new liberals believe that DSA is out of step with the working class, and by working class, they mean voters without a college degree. Moderates will often point to high-profile races like Zoran or Abdul al-Said, where the more center-leaning candidate often, quote-unquote, wins the non-college or low-income demographic. Now, these wins are often in the single digits. In the Democratic primary, Andrew Cuomo, quote unquote, won, the under 50K a year income bracket

Starting point is 01:03:33 by eight points. Cuomo also won the highest income bracket, $250,000 and over, by 11 points, while Mamdani dominated the middle income brackets. Almost this exact same trend appeared in the Abdul al-Said versus Haley Stevens primary in Michigan. Left-wing populist candidates are doing so well with college-educated voters, in part because they're just driving such high turnout, especially among millennials and Gen Z. But center-left liberals will often use the support of DSA from possibly downwardly mobile college graduates to point towards socialism as this kind of disgruntled elitist phenomenon

Starting point is 01:04:19 that's not actually connected with the quote-unquote real working class, which again to them means a voter without a college degree. And while income level or education can be an indicator of class, just defining working class as meaning a voter without a college degree doesn't really make sense, nor does it tell you anything about the class interests of voters, because it doesn't actually point to anything regarding their place in the capitalist production process. Just whether or not you have a degree doesn't even point to what your income is, which is itself kind of a flawed way of. of understanding what working class means, which, in a Marxist sense, refers to whether you live off selling your labor for a wage, that is being a worker,

Starting point is 01:05:10 or if you own private property like a business, and make your money off of controlling other people's labor. But all that matters to these liberals is voters' proximity to higher education based on looking at election data where DSA-type candidates do very, very well with college-educated voters, and maybe don't do as well with what is categorized as a non-college-educated or maybe sometimes a low-income voter, even if the difference is

Starting point is 01:05:42 only a few percentage points. The liberal analysis of class, simply being whether or not a voter has a college degree, offers no insight into why a middle class of educated workers are moving in droves towards social democracy or some form of democratic socialism and are voting for policies that benefit people largely more poor than them instead of just supporting the center-left Democrat who would advance elite interests. To this point, I talked with Ben Rose Porter, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York, about why class analysis is important. It indicates what your fundamental interests are going to be. regarding, you know, the politics when it comes to how should the economy, how should our society be

Starting point is 01:06:35 oriented? If you are a worker who makes your money by selling your labor, you are interested in a policy that gives labor a fair deal. If you are an owner, your interests are going to be geared oppositely. They're going to be geared towards capital, towards ownership of private property and the making of profit being protected against the interests of labor. And so this is the, this, a conception of class that I think paints a much more lucid picture of the world than one that just sort of treats, you know, the poorer you are, the more working class you are. It's absolutely true that the base of the working class is always the poor, relatively speaking. I mean, the bottom strata of the working class is its source of power, and it's the better paid workers

Starting point is 01:07:20 who, while, you know, they are in a theoretical sense in the working class, they often are the ones who are comfortable with capitalist production because they're being compensated fairly well. But again, it's a kind of analysis that can't comprehend. The liberal view cannot really comprehend how college-educated people who may be securing somewhat, you know, decent and middle-class jobs. They can't understand how they are also a part of the working class and respond to the economic squeeze that happens when capital rules the economy, when capital is so unquestioned by its liberal administrators that it just it squeezes the whole of the working class. Yeah and there's these certain moments with like technological advanced like you're seeing with like AI that lead to the

Starting point is 01:08:05 deskilling of certain workers. The past 20 years adults have been telling kids to just learn coding. Yeah. Work in tech. This is like the last growth area of the economy of learn coding. And now those skills are not as useful as they used to be because an AI can do it. And there's this like proletarianization of tech workers happening that just this liberal model of the working class then can't really understand why wise people are going to maybe turn against liberalism. Capital produces its own gravediggers, Marx writes, in the manifesto, right? That, you know, the socialist project sees that there is a fundamental antagonism in the capitalist mode of production. Not only in that capital appropriates, exploits,

Starting point is 01:08:48 workers, the capital's class survives parasitically by squeezing the worker. That's fundamental to the capitalist system. Not only that, but it also is continually growing the working class. It's constantly pushing people out of their positions of property, but also out of positions of skilled labor into having to move down into proletarianized positions where you are not going to be paid as much. And by constantly doing this, it's building a class that goes against it. It's the socialist project which recognizes those antagonisms inherent in the capitalist mode of production. And it is the liberal project that is utterly blind to them, that just to the liberals, no, capitalism is good. It increases GDP, right? It leads to economic growth. These antagonisms do not exist to the extent

Starting point is 01:09:37 that you can show them to them. They absolutely refuse to acknowledge them or else to understand how they are fundamental to the capitalist system. And so they have no answer to this. You can see how these people who are themselves sort of like intellectual, you know, sycophants to the liberal institutions, they perceive like, well, if you're smart and you have the right policies and you believe the right things, you'll get taken care of. It's a very different experience from, I think, a lot of college grads who have tried very hard to do the right things and who do not have a place in the economy or a very limited place with very limited power and very limited resources. While Andrew Cuomo slightly outperformed Mamdani among the lowest income voters in the 2025 Democratic primary, come the general election in November, that ceased to be the case.

Starting point is 01:10:28 In the general, Mamdani won low-income districts by 11 points. To quote the New York Times, quote, Mamdani largely expanded on the base he built during the primary in neighborhoods across the city. He swept communities of every income level, save for New York's wealthiest enclaves where his top opponent, former governor Andrew Cuomo, performed best. In the November general, Mamdani also won districts where less than 20% of the residents have a college degree by 13 points. Though, a CNN exit poll of less than 5,000 voters showed that Cuomo did just 5% better than Mamdani with voters without a college degree.

Starting point is 01:11:17 I think it is also worth reiterating that one out of 10 people who voted for Zoron in 2025 also voted for Trump in 2024. That's something that liberals never talk about. And something else they never talk about is just how much these non-college low-income statistics graph onto age more than anything else. both Mamdani and Abdul al-Said overwhelmingly won with voters aged 18 to 45. Young people who are low-income, who maybe have not graduated college, or are in college, or maybe just graduated college, but are still low-income.

Starting point is 01:11:58 Those young people are backing DSA candidates. Those young people are not going to Andrew Cuomo in the general election or the primary election. The sort of low-income voters that are going towards either these incumbents or more traditional moderate candidates are generally older voters. And if we want to have a real discussion on how the DSA can appeal to older voters, maybe voters who are not as politically engaged as younger voters, then yeah, that is a real discussion to be had. But just breaking that down as DSA does not attract low-income voters is just completely not true. Many low-income people without a college degree are old retirees who tend to vote more conservative, even if they're registered Democrats. Another factor is the effectiveness of ad spending.

Starting point is 01:12:53 Abdul al-Said was outspent 11 to 1, and that is going to have an effect on the election results. Blanketing the airwaves with misleading attack ads can be hugely impactful in rural areas and districts with low information or less engaged voters. This same general trend happened in the June 26 Democratic primary in New York City. That election was not divided by income or race. The largest indicator that skewed whether someone was backing the incumbent or the DSA was age. By and large, younger voters, whether they were middle class or lower working class, backed the DSA candidates like Claire Valdez,

Starting point is 01:13:36 while older voters backed the incumbents, the moderates, and the establishment politicians that these voters were maybe more familiar with, that maybe has been representing their district for anywhere between five to 30 years. But what makes this whole college-educated working-class debate so absurd to me is that most of the city-based Center for New Liberalism chapters don't even seem interested in trying to appeal to the voters that they think, The DSA is overlooking. Like, if the DSA can only appeal to the people in the college jury, that's 60-70-70-person voters that we are missing, and we need to do better than that. Do you think that the new liberal should be going after, like, a totally different voting block in what DSA is trying to go after?

Starting point is 01:14:23 I don't know if that's our role. Like, most of our chapters do operate in cities where it is more college-educated things. So our role we view as, like, trying to convince the college-educated people that we have the better ideas in the more optimistic vision. Whereas then it's other groups. Like, if we have a chapter in the swing district, obviously that's what we're cool. But, like, our chapter in San Francisco is going to be focused on it. Not that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:48 So, like, I think there are groups in the same left that should be doing that. I don't know if it's horrible. So C&L has already foreclosed themselves to really only going after college-educated voters, despite insisting that their ideas are what actually can appeal to the working class. In evaluating the political potential of the Center for New Liberalism, one must keep in mind how their online shit-posting origins still influences their ideological outlook. If you recall, CNN describes itself as a quote-unquote, digital-first grassroots organization.

Starting point is 01:15:38 And on their website, they claim, quote, Our work reaches upwards of 60 million people a month. that number seems to be almost entirely based on the impressions from their account on X the everything app. These are Twitter views. So as much as CNL likes to put on their little in-person networking events, per their own metrics, the organization is essentially a glorified Twitter account. And I could just go through years of bad or offensive tweets. And many people at the summit were very concerned about old tweets made by DSA candidate Darius Avel Javier, but rather than focusing on posting, I would prefer to engage with the actual substance of

Starting point is 01:16:28 their politics and how C&L is trying and failing to place itself in opposition to the DSA in part because of how much it's focused on online edge lord contrarian liberalism. For whatever reason, be it their upbringing, class position, or type of education, these liberals have not hopped on the populist train, but still feel left out from the rest of their age peers who are all having fun with DSA, and so they have decided to define themselves in opposition to populism. It's a reactionary liberalism in response to the growing influence of democratic socialism in the Democratic party. So, in effect, their new liberal politics largely manifests itself as a form of contrarianism against popular left-wing policies, while also continuously reiterating to themselves

Starting point is 01:17:30 that left-wing ideas aren't actually popular with the working class. It's a politics entirely downstream from trolling online in an attempt to make center-left liberals cool again. I went to a bar after the summit with a few of the attendees. And a law student was passionately trying to argue why we should abolish FEMA as a federal agency and just have states pay for their own disaster response so that, quote unquote, my tax dollars won't have to go towards idiots in Florida. And like, both myself and a writer from the journal Liberal Currents had to explain from like first principles why it's good to care for poor people and care about a general public good. That's what I mean by contrarian liberalism. The Bay Area chapter of the new liberals were involved with that

Starting point is 01:18:27 pro-billionaire march in San Francisco earlier this year in protest of California's proposed wealth tax. And stunts like this march for billionaires is another perfect example of CNL's overly online irony-poisoned politics, which still display a deeper sincerity. Before I interviewed Professor Porter, I had him listen to a recent episode of the New Liberal Podcast, hosted by the co-founder of CNL, Jeremiah Johnson. The episode argued that liberalism is in crisis, but because there is no more great struggle in America. Basically, the economy is doing too good, and that's triggered a sort of postmodern crisis of meaning, resulting in voters sabotaging our own political system just to feel something. And confusingly, C&L's co-founder

Starting point is 01:19:24 proposes a centrist neoliberal technocracy as a way out of this crisis. The guy on the podcast is talking about technocrats and how one of the central liberal programs of like a revived liberalism has to be like kind of, you know, technocratic politics and a renewed, like, faith in technocratic politics. And I thought technocratic politics was very interesting because, you know, the point that, like, you need technocrats to do good policy, to do good governance, is a bit of an odd one, because absolutely you need technicians to do good policy. Like, you know, complex social institutions at the scale of, like, you know, a city or a state or a federal government. in today's world, you need people who know how to run systems and who are trained. You need

Starting point is 01:20:14 intellectuals. You need technicians in a general sense, right? You need specialized people. What's interesting is that the whole thing elides like the crap part, like techno-crat, the idea that will those with technical capacities also rule this way in which it just completely conflates the idea of technical expertise and decision-es? making at the highest level, right? That it doesn't even think that those are two separate realms. It literally is the people who can technically do the job are also the people who should make all of decisions about what kinds of jobs we do, how the whole system functions, right?

Starting point is 01:20:55 Which essentially rests on this like notion that there is only one game, right? That, you know, in the podcast you hear it a lot is essentially, you know, the unspoken aim. And for them, it doesn't need to be spoken because as they can. conceive the world, it is the only real game to be played is economic growth, right? It's just growing the GDP machine. Capital growth, capital accumulation. They do not entertain the question of what kind of a society do we want to build. Their main drive is GDP growth.

Starting point is 01:21:26 And so everything else is just sort of how do you technically do that best, right? How do you improve productivity? How do you grow the economy best? They have no concept of like that there's any kind of like political battle. At the heart of that, it's a view of politics without politics. Many of the attendees at the new liberal action summit were aspiring technocrats, often self-described as such. I think the main tendency among these overly online center-left liberals is to confuse

Starting point is 01:21:59 technical knowledge for politics, for the ability to govern. They display this deep failure to question authority, not just in like an authority, authoritarian sense, but the authority of what is true or useful knowledge. To the contrarian liberal technocrat, something like rent control is not just bad, but it's actually evil because it disrupts the market. It unnaturally alters supply and demand. And here's all these studies proving this, right? In this technocratic mode, there's no consideration that policies may have trade-offs that, yes, rent control might negatively affect the class of landlords and for-profit developers. It might alter supply, but it might be still worth doing as a measure to provide relief

Starting point is 01:22:48 to tenants, perhaps in addition to other efforts to make it cheaper to build housing to increase supply. But that sort of appraisal of trade-offs requires governing beyond a pure commitment to serving the market to just acting on what studies say is true. The liberal technocrat thinks that politics is just the application of technical knowledge, which of course is a massive limitation on what you understand politics as being and what is politically possible. History did not end in the 90s. What is politically possible changes over time, and politics is about responding to different opportunities in history. They're missing the part of history, which is class struggle, right?

Starting point is 01:23:39 It's the case that we're in a capitalist world and that requires economic competitiveness. You need to maintain a competitive production on the world stage and internally as well. Totally true. But that does not follow that, you know, you just pursue that blindly. There are very hugely significant decisions about how economic growth proceeds. The biggest one that is just completely left out by these people is the notion that in growing the economy, the wealth produced by that growth, how that's distributed. Distributive politics. These people, they don't seem to conceive of it.

Starting point is 01:24:18 The podcast you sent me, I think he literally, he says something like, you know, the biggest liberal struggle is that there is no struggle. Like, it literally just conceives the world as like there aren't really any problems. things are fine. Big citation needed on that one. He's just sort of like, things are fine. If you look at it, things are fine.

Starting point is 01:24:39 Which is just, I mean, it's just an insane thing to say. Wages haven't risen in like 40, 50 years, you know? Inequality has exploded. Life has stagnated for so many people, especially the poorest people,

Starting point is 01:24:51 which are most workers. So the idea that there is actually a realm of politics that revolves around class struggle around, you know, how wealth is distributed and how we gear our economic growth. To them, that's a, that's a separate category. And so their entire politics is a politics of technocracy. And in that, you know, I'll give it to them. I think that they probably are pretty good at the technical expertise of governance stuff. I mean, one would expect liberalism has been

Starting point is 01:25:21 in power in the United States for most of its history. So, yeah, I would expect that they would be good at technical expertise. Their critique is not that they don't know what they're doing, it's that they have totally jettisoned politics, the deciding what do you do with that expertise? How do you gear the economy? How do you consciously control where it's going? How distribution happens? Who is empowered in government and in the economy, right? This is all to discuss class, right? Which these people basically never do. This limited view of what politics is, then there's determines what the neoliberal technocrat thinks is worth focusing on and what they view as being impossible. Like how they view Medicare for all as this impossible goal, whether that's because

Starting point is 01:26:10 they think voters will never support switching away from private health care or that a single-payer health care system might even hurt the economy and therefore we should oppose it. Their extremely narrow view of what is politically possible is the main reason why this sort of young new liberal organization will never succeed in rivaling DSA

Starting point is 01:26:33 because the whole better things aren't possible mentality makes it really hard to attract young people to your cause, especially young people who are struggling. No, we can't pass Medicare for all because X, Y, reason. A rent freeze is actually evil because X by

Starting point is 01:26:50 reason. I don't know how that kind of messaging is going to attract anyone except fellow aspiring technocrats, which, yeah, that is basically the entire makeup of C&L as an organization. After the summit, an elected member of C&L's leadership steering committee got drunk at the bar and argued that child outcomes are better when certain types of fathers are incarcerated. because some study proved that the type of father who gets charged with the crime would be a bad influence on his kids. I am Adolf Hitler, commands of the Third Reich. That moment was very emblematic for this whole political project.

Starting point is 01:27:41 This person was so delighted in their own contrarian commitment to cold, emotionless, uncomfortable truths that may run counter to, what's socially accepted. Their little knowing smirk, fully aware that what they're saying is morally detestable, while self-assured in appealing to the authority of technical knowledge, right, this tendency to fall back

Starting point is 01:28:04 on the pretext that a study proved such a controversial fact, while willfully ignoring that there may be alternative solutions to the base problem here. When your main political solution to social problems is just incarceration, then you have lost.

Starting point is 01:28:25 Your politics have failed. That's GlobeCon, 2026. Next episode, I'll be doing a deeper dive into neoliberal technocracy as a counter to rising populism. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit

Starting point is 01:28:56 and an electric bird. First of flavor, the all-new Red Bull Energizers. Now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. I'm Hoda Kotbbi, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating.

Starting point is 01:29:28 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his face.

Starting point is 01:29:57 without his family, it was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them, Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters,

Starting point is 01:30:36 revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin,

Starting point is 01:30:55 legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 01:31:18 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

Starting point is 01:31:35 We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stillard. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Nova.

Starting point is 01:31:50 Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him tarot read. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha.

Starting point is 01:32:02 I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachy Sobieski. Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me?

Starting point is 01:32:16 I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play, play game? I just really. I get it. I'm trying to set. you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Last episode,

Starting point is 01:32:42 I detailed my experience at GlobeConn, 26, or the New Liberal Action Summit, a three-day convention for young liberal professionals to socialize and listen to panels about zoning reform, energy policy, and broad-based taxes. The summit is put on by a nonprofit called the Center for New Liberalism, a digital advocacy organization that promotes center-left policies and neoliberal economics. The Center for New Liberalism, or CNL, basically started as a group of policy wonks on Reddit and Twitter, making political memes during Trump's first term. But in 2020, CNN was brief.

Starting point is 01:33:27 brought into the Clintonite think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. Since then, C&L's been doing yearly summits and more IRL political engagement, in hopes of filling in the role of something like the DSA, but for more technocratically aligned, moderate young libs. The 26th New Liberal Action Summit took place in the backdrop of an ascendant Democratic Socialist left-wing populist movement, winning congressional primaries in New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and now Michigan, beating the more moderate establishment-type candidates.

Starting point is 01:34:08 A few days before the summit in D.C., the new liberal podcast, release an episode about the current crisis of liberalism, where CNL co-founder Jeremiah Johnson talks about why he thinks people are, quote, abandoning the idea that liberalism can help them and are turning to populism, whether from the right or the left. The clear trend over time is that we are getting more and more

Starting point is 01:34:41 extremely progressive members of Congress, representatives, et cetera, that we are getting more socialists and more DSA-aligned candidates, and that the far left is simply out-organizing and out-hustling the moderate wing of the party or the liberal wing of the party, however you'd like to say it. And this is troubling. Jeremiah Johnson cites the Mamdani DSA sweep in New York last June, where socialist candidates beat establishment incumbents. And this episode came out about a month before the populist wins in the Michigan Democratic primary. But Johnson does bring up the Colorado primary, where one of CNL's favorite politicians, Senator Michael Bennett, just lost his primary for Colorado governor to the state attorney general, who, to quote Johnson, quote, frankly, was not even necessarily more progressive than him, but simply rode the wave of, I'm the populist, anti-establishment, I'm more angry, etc., etc. Michael Bennett is an interesting case. In 2020, he ran for president as like the most centrist

Starting point is 01:35:59 candidate of that entire bunch and only qualified for the first two debates. He used to be like one of the least populist senators in the country, like a very CNL-type politician, who, weeks after losing his primary bid, opened the new liberal action summit with a 45-minute fire side chat with CNL's deputy director Tobin Stone. Senator Bennett's remarks earned a very tepid response from the attendees. Bennett blamed the Democratic Party for losing to Trump because they had no ideas. He talked about the need to build housing and transit from a bottom-up approach that helps regular people, not just those at the top, how his constituents in Colorado can't afford to live where

Starting point is 01:36:50 they grew up and how people in their late 20s and 30s can't get a real job. He often mentioned, quote, working people and, quote, affordability, and referred to Bernie Sanders as his, quote, friend. The whole talk felt kind of Bernie light, which was especially odd because the summit schedule said that this fireside chat was going to focus on the threat of the ascendant populist left. But to the extent that Bennett targeted populism, it was the Trumpian right-wing authoritarian variety. And like, don't get me wrong, Michael Bennett is still very much immoderate. But if even a long-time ultra-centric like him feels like he has to make overtures to progressives or populists,

Starting point is 01:37:41 even when he's speaking to the completely wrong audience, then the libs must be really feeling the pressure. on that new liberal podcast, C&L co-founder Jeremiah Johnson, asked his listeners to consider, if things continue on their current course, what the socialist movement could look like in 10 years. But just ask yourself, you know, is this type of candidate winning Democratic primaries more or less often than they were five years ago,

Starting point is 01:38:12 than they were 10 years ago? And five to 10 years from now, do you expect that they will have more energy or less energy? Because I think any honest appraisal of where we are at right now is that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party has the energy and the momentum. Their organizing infrastructure is far better, far more serious than the moderate or the liberal wing of the party. they have more people who are out there willing to do the work knocking on doors, phone banking, posting on social media.

Starting point is 01:38:53 That is where the grassroots energy of the Democratic Party is. And we can talk about whether or not the voters are there yet, but the voters ultimately follow elite opinion. Voters are not just mindless sheep that follow elite opinion. See here the 2016 and 2024 elections. They can be influenced by the power of capital, but voters do evaluate their material conditions and compare that to how different candidates promised to change or not change those conditions once in office.

Starting point is 01:39:28 There may be an elitist side of the academic left, but the unspoken assertion here that the DSA is uniquely representative of the elite as opposed to the centrist Democrats who, do not represent elite opinion and are more in touch with voters? That's patently absurd. And CNL's new senior advisor agrees. Here's Greg Schultz, Biden's campaign manager and general election strategist,

Starting point is 01:39:58 who spoke on a Globecon panel about winning back Maha voters. I think part of the reality is a Democratic Party with self-righteous, no-it-all party. And voters can feel that, and they can see it. We think we know it's better for you and your family than what you know is better for you and your family. So one is we are increasingly a party of academic elite, actually talk to the world to the real concern. So while Greg at least admits among friends that the Dems are an elite party detached from

Starting point is 01:40:33 the concerns of voters, C&L co-founder and podcast host Jeremiah Johnson remains somewhat confused as to why people just don't support the smartest policies as defined by him and are instead turning to populism. Any honest appraisal of where we are at says that liberals are losing ground to socialists in the Democratic Party. To some degree, the establishment has done this to themselves. I think it would be wrong for any analysis to leave that out. But having said that, in America, Living conditions are still quite good. Even in his explanation of why liberalism is failing, he still insists that things are actually fine.

Starting point is 01:41:21 He talks about how real median income is, quote, unquote, as high as it's ever been, which doesn't actually mean that things are going great. It's barely keeping up with inflation. But Johnson relies on this narrow batch of macroeconomic statistics to insist that, quote, America is still thriving, life is still good. Last week, I forced Ben Rose Porter,

Starting point is 01:41:47 a professor of sociology at the City University of New York, to listen to this whole crisis in liberalism podcast, and then discuss his thoughts. The mainstream capitalist order, which is to say the liberal order, as its political correlate, is breaking down, is failing. So you would expect to see a political moves away from it. There's a very famous graph of worker compensation to productivity. So worker compensation, that's wages, basically, how much of profits, more or less, is going to the workers, right?

Starting point is 01:42:23 So how much are workers compensated tracked with productivity, which is to say how much our firm's producing relative to inputs, right? Input to output productivity over time. And this is over the course of the 20. 20th century. And what you see in that graph is that for basically the whole of the 20th century, wages, worker compensation, tracks very closely with productivity. So as firms, industries produce more and more stuff, are more and more efficiently producing, are creating more and more wealth. Workers, wages, are going up and keeping pace with that. So the share of wealth between the owning classes, the bourgeois,

Starting point is 01:43:07 and the workers is staying about level, right? As there's more made, workers are getting some of that, right? And they're getting an even piece. And around 80, 81, you know, the collapse of the labor movement in the 70s and especially with Reagan, right, you see worker compensation flatline. And it basically has been inert since the 80s, since the beginning of the 80s. Productivity has continued.

Starting point is 01:43:33 to go up about the same rate. So we have been producing more and more wealth in this country, right? This is what capitalist production does. It's basically almost always growing in productivity, right? We've been producing more and more wealth, and the share of that wealth that the workers get has flatlined.

Starting point is 01:43:52 You cannot spin that as things are basically fine. That has all kinds of major effects. One of the big ones is, you know, inequality, even if we're, workers are not being paid starvation wages. Living in that profoundly, and a profoundly in equal society has all kinds of effects, socially speaking, right? It does for the middle classes, too. People who are, you know, comfortable, who are doing well, who have, who have captured a bit of that growth, because it gets worse the further you go down the line that when you

Starting point is 01:44:24 look at, like, wages for the lowest paid workers, they've often even decreased, right? But even for those middle class professionals and such who may very well be comfortable, and many of them we should stress are not. I think that when you go through and you look at the data, there's a lot of indicators of all kinds of ways in which people might not be comfortable. But even those that are comfortable, you know, they still have to live in a society that is profoundly unequal that is letting the bottom strata just rot, right? That is just letting like people die on the streets. that has an effect. Anyone with a soul with a conscience is, you know, affected by that.

Starting point is 01:45:05 Having foreclosed the idea that there is anything economically or structurally wrong with society, Jeremiah Johnson is left to conclude that this, quote, crisis in liberalism appears to be a crisis of confidence, a crisis of storytelling. So to Johnson, it's simply that the liberalism, story is no longer as compelling as the alternative populist narratives. Johnson mentions two, potential explanations for liberalism's decline, one coming from the right, the other from the left, neither of which he finds convincing. Johnson says that the right wing is promoting a

Starting point is 01:45:47 cultural explanation for liberalism's decline, arguing that liberals have moved too far to the left on cultural issues and lost voters. While the left wing offers a quote-unquote materialist explanation, claiming... Living conditions have actually deteriorated, and your statistics do not capture this, and people can tell when their lives are getting, you know, materially worse, you know, when things cost too much and they don't have as much income. And that is why people turn away from liberalism towards alternate explanations. Of course, in this entire 52 minutes of podcast, Johnson never talks about like, wealth inequality as a real problem in society.

Starting point is 01:46:32 Because someone from his self-described neoliberal economic worldview just does not believe that skyrocketing wealth inequality is actually a real problem in and of itself. But then he has to pretend to be confused as to why more and more people are, falling for this materialist explanation of why there's a crisis in liberalism and why people are not convinced by the quote-unquote story that liberalism is telling them with macroeconomic statistics. You know, the stock market is booming. Unemployment is low. Things like that don't actually indicate what types of jobs are available. Service industry or gig economy work is crushing and offers no path for a sustainable future, buying a house. seems impossible, rent keeps skyrocketing, energy costs are ballooning, all while the rich

Starting point is 01:47:26 get even richer. Even if, on average, the median wage has kept up with inflation at about 3.5% per year, there are, of course, many people who are not seeing that wage growth, and even if they are, that 3.5% is far below the 30% rise in the price of groceries over the past few years, or the 25% jump in residential electricity rates. And of course, minimum wage workers are not keeping up with inflation, let alone the massive bumps in housing, education, and health care costs. A New York Times poll from last May showed that among Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters, only 5% said the economic conditions were good or excellent. 88% said the economic system in this country is generally unfair to most Americans.

Starting point is 01:48:21 63% said that the political and economic system needs major changes, and 20% said it needs to be torn down completely. But Johnson would have you believe that the materialist explanation is without merit because DSA candidates actually get a lot of support from middle-class workers. The people who tend most to be sympathetic, to this kind of leftist story tend to be the people with the most education and the highest incomes.

Starting point is 01:48:56 If you look at, you know, the demographics of Zohran Mamdani's win in New York, he won the highest income brackets. And this is despite, you know, having kind of a eat the rich kind of persona and very, very DSA-aligned politics, And this makes me doubt the materialist explanation. As we discussed last episode, this is just patently untrue.

Starting point is 01:49:29 In both the Democratic primary and the general election, former governor Andrew Cuomo performed best in the city's highest income districts and with voters who made over $200,000 a year. But no, it is actually the DSA who are truly representative of the elite. and the richest of the rich are Zoron's main base of support. Johnson needs that to be true because, as we will learn after this ad break, he contends that liberalism might actually be suffering from its own success. Welcome back.

Starting point is 01:50:18 C&L co-founder and new liberal podcast host, Jeremiah Johnson, doesn't buy into either of the populist explanations for liberalism's decline. The cultural one pushed by the right or the materialist one argued by the left, Johnson thinks that if anything, these explanations should be reversed. He discounts the right-wing, a cultural explanation,

Starting point is 01:50:43 because the places where those progressive cultural advances have gone the farthest are in deep blue districts that are still deep blue. And as for the materialist story told by the left, If you look at the places that have actually suffered, potentially, under the liberal era of the last 40 to 50 years, I think the places you could most point to authentically that you could make the strongest case for would be the kind of rust belt towns, small towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan and so forth, where the decontest. of manufacturing, you know, the decline of the auto industry or the steel industry or whatever may have hollowed out the local economy. Now, this is a very left-leaning explanation, but the people

Starting point is 01:51:41 in those towns have not bought into the left explanation. They've turned into Republicans, is the thing. You know, the materialist argument pushed by the left is actually most applicable to the areas that now vote for Donald Trump. Yeah, that's the whole point. It's the economy, idiot.

Starting point is 01:52:06 Just flatly dismissing any materialist analysis on the basis that such analysis, as argued by the left, is actually even more applicable in places that are voting for Trump, rather than Democrats, is completely missing the entire point of the left's analysis. Trump ran as a populist, a right-wing populist, but that is, like, evidence for what the left is arguing. That is the left's explanation why those places, which used to be Democrat,

Starting point is 01:52:40 working-class union districts, why they have gone to Trump. It's because he's offering a populist solution. Now, is Trump's right-wing populist solution actually going to be a real solution to the base problems? No, because instead he's going to do economic nationalism, he's going to do tariffs, he's going to scapegoat immigrants as the reason for why housing is expensive, why the job market sucks. So he is offering a populist solution, but not a good solution. While campaigning, he was addressing the poor economic conditions, price of eggs, as opposed to the public solution. He's to the liberal assertion that things are great actually, or something as tone deaf as biodynamics is working.

Starting point is 01:53:26 Here's a better story, like a better explanation for that is just paying attention to the actual history. I'm from the South, right? The South is so much of it is the core for, you know, a kind of reactionary cultural, right-wing cultural politics. The South is also where the labor movement, the unions, were just decimated. I mean, it's brutal there.

Starting point is 01:53:47 union density is in the shitter and has been for a while. And so one way of explaining this is like, yeah, people in these places, people in the South often gravitate towards a kind of cultural, reactionary, confused politics, precisely because there's no other option. They don't have a kind of coherent socialist project. And so they go towards these other things, where there's more of a labor movement where it has held on to some degree, somewhere like New York, for instance, there is an alternative route, right? And it took us a while to get there, you know? This is a relatively new trend of the

Starting point is 01:54:27 rise in socialism, but I don't know whether this is like cynical or if he just genuinely does not conceive of how, well, yeah, it may be that these are real material stressors and pressures that are then interpreted through cultural lenses for all sorts of reasons, but that the idea that it must be one or the other, that if, well, if these, if people favor a cultural explanation, then there must not be material problems. It's also the whole thing is just fraught. I mean, like, the idea that the only place is suffering from deindustrialization or, you know, dried up economies are just Republican states and cities. That's just not true in any sense. There are lots of places where a dying economy is responded to with very left materialist analyses.

Starting point is 01:55:12 nor also the idea that, again, I mean, just very hand-wavy, like, just citation needed, we're moving past, things are fine. Outside of, like, a limited, deindustrialized red states, you know, where things maybe are a little bad, everything else is fine. Like, is the idea that in major coastal cities, everything's fine and just completely ignores that, like, service workers and the lowest rungs of workers in these places are being crushed right now, many of which have to then leave the cities they're in. And then, you know, people who may be able to maintain a comfortable income and comfortable there is, you know, a little strained.

Starting point is 01:55:53 I mean, gig work is on the rise. People are having to work all sorts of strange hours at beck and call of their employers. Alienation from their kinds of work and the ability to choose one's job is really profoundly wrong. Incomes for college graduates have dropped. So professionals, while they may be able to. to maintain a somewhat comfortable income are often still declining in that capacity. Enfranchisement in people's worlds, both in their economic world and in saying how they labor, how they work, but also in the wider political world and getting a say in how government is

Starting point is 01:56:27 happening. People feel totally disenfranchised. They are disenfranchised from those things. So it's just a very thin patina of things are fine that falls apart upon any examination. Ironically, these people represent the whole project of things are fine because we maintain full control. The other side of the coin of things are fine is we need not empower anyone else. Just let us, the technical experts, run everything. So instead of a cultural explanation or a materialist explanation for the current crisis in liberalism, the Center for New Liberalism seems to kind of embrace this sort of liberal, affluenza, as if people are actually suffering from affluence. For this, Johnson turns to

Starting point is 01:57:16 Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama in his book, The End of History and the Last Man, very famously said that he believed a man needs struggle, essentially. You know, in the 20th century, we got the great struggles of World War I and the Great Depression, World War II, and then the Cold War. And liberalism flourished under these conditions because it had an identifiable enemy to fight. It had a struggle that, you know, men and women could throw themselves into, you know, that we could defeat the Nazis, we could defeat the communists. And then he predicted that if history really did end, in air quotes, that men might struggle just for the sake of struggle. They would struggle against the very system

Starting point is 01:58:13 that created this prosperity just for the sake of having something to feel, of having something to feel useful for. The idea is, now that liberalism has conquered the globe, people don't actually require anything materially different, but will still desire for self-worth, dignity, and recognition. This is a sort of post-modern crisis of a struggle for meaning, totally divorced from a materialist desire.

Starting point is 01:58:47 But Fuguyama argues that while modern liberal democracies can provide peace and material wealth, they leave people feeling alienated by not delivering that sense of higher purpose. and that that is what leads people to nationalism or populism or identity politics because people want some sort of recognition. To Johnson, ultimately liberalism is struggling because, quote, there is no more great struggle. Yeah, there is no real struggle that this is all made up. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Starting point is 01:59:29 Like, everybody's fine. I mean, if you pursue it to its logical conclusion, it's the most condescending politics there is. It's literally just, you don't really have problems. You are just rebelling against us because things are so good and you don't have meaning other than opposing us. It literally, I was listening to that and I was like, this sounds like bourgeois revolutions of early modernity, right? This is like how the monarchy reacted to so many times you get like, you know, absolute monarchs just saying like, well, the people, there aren't really problems. You're fine. It's fine.

Starting point is 01:59:59 Just chill out. Like, I'm your king. We're doing fine. It's all good, right? And, of course, that worked out brilliantly for them. Yeah, it's the same politics. It's just, well, there's basically no struggle. People are mad because, you know, they don't have enough meaning.

Starting point is 02:00:15 I just, I don't know. How that plays out to anyone is insane to me. The idea that, you know, all of the struggle and strife in the world today is just, it's not real. It's somehow a made-up pretend we're all. doing. It's ridiculous. Johnson's contention is that things just got so good under neoliberal technocracy that it created a postmodern crisis of meaning, resulting in people struggling against the very system that provides for them to gain a new sense of purpose.

Starting point is 02:00:50 Basically, self-sabotaging by electing bad populist candidates, which then do make economic conditions worse, but then Johnson's solution to this problem is just to put neoliberal technocrats back in power, but this time be even more cynical and also more patriotic. In contrast to the United States, Johnson points to Canada as an example of where liberalism is currently succeeding, and he credits this to, quote, technocratic ability, cynical, and liberal nationalism, adding, quote, we need technocrats more than ever. I introduced the idea last episode that one of the main tendencies among these so-called new liberals is the belief that politics is just the application of technical knowledge.

Starting point is 02:01:48 You know, conflating having technical knowledge with the ability to govern well and do decision making at the highest level, a view of politics without politics. The technocratic point of view sort of works like this. It understands that like, okay, there's technical expertise. Let's say you're trying to, you know, reform tax policy. Tax policy is very complex. The way that taxes work, the way that, you know, government revenues work is very complex. So if you're going to rearrange that, yeah, you are going to need some people who understand how that work, who are intellectuals, you know, who have the technical knowledge required to make your policies work. That's a crucial part of any politics. You absolutely need that.

Starting point is 02:02:31 Any political faction that seeks to have a chance of a successful governance needs a level of technical expertise. Absolutely. But that is an entirely separate question from what does one choose to do? Your technical expertise is a key part to successfully doing what you set out to do. But politics at the highest levels, right, at the level of like party line of like what party strategy is about what are you trying to do. The technocratic view basically thinks that that question is already decided. To them, it's obvious what you should do. What you should do is grow the economy, maximize economic growth. Because in their view, that's good for everybody.

Starting point is 02:03:19 you know, rising tide lifts all boats. That's good for everybody. There is no conflict here. And so if there is no conflict here, then that's the obvious pick. And then the only difficulty is just getting people in to do that job well. And so for them, politics is just about, okay, well, our team has the people who know how to do this job well. And the other team doesn't know how to do the job well. And they have trouble sometimes even conceiving that, in fact, no, the debate would

Starting point is 02:03:49 be about what we're choosing to do. Johnson explains that liberal governance has to walk a dangerous tightrope. If you lean too far to the left, you stifle the economy and feed radicalism and extremism. Johnson points to Europe as an example of this. But if you lean too far to the right economically, people will revolt if they don't share in the prosperity. If you don't successfully walk this tightrope, then you risk entering a kind of doom loop where, you know, oh, everything seems really bad. We're all dooming. And so people are going to choose an illiberal candidate. And that illiberal candidate is going to do stupid things that make things worse in society. And that's going to make people even more illiberal, even more tilted towards extremism,

Starting point is 02:04:45 which will lead to worse candidates who will make. things even worse than before, and so on, et cetera. There is real risk of entering that kind of doom loop, and that's why it's important to actually have smart technocratic leadership. The doom loop theory glosses over the fact that Trump came after Obama. The sentiment that this technocratic leadership wasn't working didn't just come from the right, Bernie Sanders also rose to prominence by arguing this from a left-wing perspective, and the capitalist class were more threatened by Sanders,

Starting point is 02:05:27 so they mobilized to take out the threat of left-wing populism, even if that meant Trump's right-wing populism would win, because they know that the left-wing version is the one that could actually empower labor against the interests of capital. Johnson also claims that Joe Biden had big goals, but, quote, his technocratic ability wasn't there, meaning there was too much red tape prohibiting his policies from having an impact because he, quote, went about policy in a stupid way. Now, Johnson knows that calling for a technocracy isn't an election strategy. For that, he proposes more, quote-unquote, cynical maneuvering, and that liberals should

Starting point is 02:06:18 get more, quote-unquote, ruthless. In terms of running elections, he says Kamala Harris should have forcefully distanced herself from Joe Biden, or the party should have pushed her out for being too compromised due to her association with Biden. Of course, Johnson does not acknowledge that the party is very capable of cynical, ruthless maneuvering when it serves their interests and the interests of their donors, once again consider the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries and the concerted efforts to take down Bernie Sanders, something that quite possibly lost the Democrats at the 2016 election. But Johnson also talks about the need for cynical maneuvering in implementing policy. The main things he talks about seem to be flatly at odds with each other.

Starting point is 02:07:12 Because he says, well, you know, we need technocratic politics, which is to say, you just need the right policies. You need the ones that are correct to do the job well. Again, what the job is, what we're trying to do is totally like not on the table. That's a given, right? And then you just need the people who can technically do that well. But then he also says, you need some cynicism. You need to be able to just be ruthless electorally and operate politically in order to win, which seems to directly contradict. It's like, well, what should you do? Should you pick the

Starting point is 02:07:45 policies that are correct, pursue technocracy, regardless of whether or not it's popular, whether it can win elections, right, which is this whole contention is that the right policies are somehow, somehow not popular among the people? Or should you, you know, be electorally ruthless and try to appeal to the masses and win elections by perhaps, I mean, he gives an example with the carbon tax where he says, like, I think this policy is great. I think this is the technically correct policy, but you have to abandon it. Again, I'm sure if you asked him, he would say, well, you have to strike a balance between the two, but as strategy, that's useless, right? It's like, well, how should you ride a bike? Well, you don't want to lean too far left, but you also don't

Starting point is 02:08:26 want to lean too far right. You want to kind of stay right in the balanced middle. Okay, that tells us nothing. You should pick the right policies, but not so much. You need to also be ruthless and be able to win elections. Pick the right policies and win, win elections. Don't see you Stalingrad. Take it immediately. Johnson argues that the final necessary step in exiting the populist doom loop is, quote unquote, liberal nationalism. Basically, the idea that liberals need to become loudly more patriotic and reclaim and be proud of the progressive parts of American history. But liberal patriotism isn't enough to win elections, and the Harris campaign already kind of tried this? Liberals have got to be better at telling a story of how America is great.

Starting point is 02:09:21 Liberalism made America great. Liberalism is why we're all rich and successful and awesome. This is the massive contradiction at the heart of their project. They want to say, we're all rich, the economy is great, living conditions, are fine. But the newer liberals do have at least some awareness of material problems because most of the conference panels were about affordability, especially in relation to housing and energy costs. So are there massive economic factors driving voter behavior or not? How can you pretend that everything is great actually? And then also put on a whole conference focusing on how housing

Starting point is 02:10:06 and energy are way too expensive. You do know that there are material problems. What's actually happening here is that you're frustrated that people aren't buying into your neoliberal solutions to the problems caused by neoliberalism. But to the technocrat, it can't be the policies that are wrong. So instead, it must be that we are not telling a strong enough story. We need to be able to figure out a pro-growth, patriotic, muscular, liberal message that works. Because people respond to two things in the end.

Starting point is 02:10:45 They respond to material conditions. If the material conditions are bad enough, they will get mad at you. But they also respond to stories. And it's hard to identify the story that liberals tell today. At the very end of this podcast, Johnson finally admits that people do in fact respond to material conditions, but only if things get bad enough. But he also believes that the economy is good. We are rich. We are successful. So the problem has to be something else. And that something else is stories. Liberalism just isn't telling the right

Starting point is 02:11:26 stories. Again, it's not material problems. It's storytelling problems. And Johnson says, quote, the story we should tell should be rooted in two things, a return to history and a vision of abundance. Johnson truly believes that this is all about stories and not actually about politics. And this is where the technocratic version of politics hits its own massive limitations. This is where it runs up against its extremely narrow view of what politics is and what is politically possible? They're totally whipped by capital. Like that's the thing is like capital sets the agenda.

Starting point is 02:12:10 Because, you know, they, as I said, they've ceded the territory of like political decisions properly put, right? They concern themselves with the technical administration of the system, but are totally uninterested in the commanding heights of the system of like how is the economy structured. But seeding that territory doesn't mean it's neutral. It just means that, like, yeah, capital gets to call the shots then. And so capital basically says, well, here's what's possible and here's what's not, right, based very much on capital's interests, right, in order for us to maintain our profitability at the levels we would like and the ways we would like, these things are not possible. And the technocrats, they just accept that, right? Like, it's a real belief for them.

Starting point is 02:12:53 It's not cynical. You know, there is a time where with shrewder and more aware liberals, liberals who are aware of like class struggle, I think, and who, who were throwing in on the side of capital. Like, originally, like, the classical liberals as well as liberals in throughout the 20th century, right, when they really had to contend with like real socialist politics, they knew, like, they were self-conscious about, well, we are on the side of capital, right? That's the biggest difference between sort of the past ages of liberalism and this, you know, upstart young liberals. they're so in the pocket of capital, they're so at capital's bidding that they don't even really know it's there anymore.

Starting point is 02:13:36 And so they just perceive this as like, again, what capital wants is basically just the natural state of the world. What is possible, period, with, you know, like, just such an impossibly narrow historical focus on, like, what is possible. And I just don't know how anyone, like, looks at the past, you know, 100 years of history and feels they can conclude very solidly what is and is not possible.

Starting point is 02:14:00 But they just feel that what capital says is basically the natural constraints of what's possible in society. And so given that, which they take as a given, the only question is competent administration. It's a fault from previous liberals, you know, who argued for like, no, we want to empower capital over labor to a certain extent, right?

Starting point is 02:14:19 Or we want to achieve a balance between these things, usually with capital leading in some way. It's time for one more ad break before we learn how Jeremiah Johnson believes that a quote-unquote brightness loop might be the key to solving the crisis of liberalism. Welcome back. Johnson proposes the way out of this populist doom loop is what he calls a brightness loop, or basically like a positive feedback loop, which will be achieved through technologically. democracy, ruthless politics, and liberal patriotism, embracing America and our history, and loudly proclaiming, we are rich and we are successful and we are awesome. America rocks. I wonder how that's going to go over with voters who are struggling to pay bills and household expenses every month. Might they turn to another candidate who actually addresses the fact that maybe things

Starting point is 02:15:32 aren't so great for everyone? The limitations of the technocratic mindset is a big part of why center-left candidates are losing to left populists in very high-profile races. I really don't know how CNL expects to grow their organization and build momentum among young people

Starting point is 02:15:55 to advance their own candidates to claw back the Democratic Party away from the socialists, away from the populists, from the progressives, when their political project is calling for technocracy, cynicism, and liberal nationalism. How do you think that will attract and then mobilize an actual energized, motivated base? Because the only people I can see that appealing to are those who aspire themselves to be technocrats.

Starting point is 02:16:26 And true to form, that is who attended the new liberal action summit last month. in Washington, D.C. It was a group of people who identify with and submit themselves to the mainstream neoliberal order and who understand themselves through identifying with the

Starting point is 02:16:45 base structure of capitalist American society. That's where they get their self-identification and in many cases their jobs and their income. This is people who want to work in politics, who want to work as a consultant, a campaign manager,

Starting point is 02:17:00 a lobbyist or a congressional staffer. In contrast, a lot of the people in DSA don't have an actual interest in politics as an industry. In fact, they might have, frankly, aversion to electoral politics, and they're kind of involved in DSA somewhat begrudgingly, in a sense. Most DSA members that I interact with would not want to work in politics as their job, but they are doing this because they believe in it and because there's material forces that are driving them towards wanting this sort of change

Starting point is 02:17:38 versus the C&L approach of trying to base all your on-the-ground mobilization unlike other aspiring technocrats and professionals whose lives are built very materially around these politics, around doing politics. And so their efforts to promote neoliberalism, could be interpreted as a form of class reproduction, an attempt to maintain their particular position within a class dynamic. Now, of course, the socialists do have their own flock of aspiring professionals and intellectuals who are seeking roles within civil institutions

Starting point is 02:18:17 and political positions of authority. The difference lies in what political project you are a part of, what kind of class politics you're tied to, what class you're trying to. What class you're trying to. to empower? Are you intending to maintain or alter class relations? And ultimately, what does political success look like? Just growing the GDP as much as possible? Increasing the total amount of wealth? Or is it economic equality and democratic control of society and production? In their attempts to claim liberal history, right, the new liberals will associate themselves with, you know, FDR, the New Deal, maybe if they're shrewder, the great society. One of the most frustrating parts of the conference for me was hearing these lobbyists talk about,

Starting point is 02:19:11 you know, the great legacy of FDR while in another breath strongly arguing against wealth taxes, against taxing the rich. At the end of the Crisis in Liberalism podcast, Johnson says, quote, the populist left says, that you don't actually need to have any form of economic growth, as long as you can categorize people into good and evil groups and tax the evil ones and give all their money to the good ones, unquote. And I just don't think that is how they would describe New Deal or Great Society era tax rates. They would never describe those tax rates and the reasons for why they were instituted as like, we decided there are good and evil groups and they're. And they're

Starting point is 02:19:58 therefore we must punish the evil ones and give all their money to the good ones. The new liberals have to play it both ways because they still want to associate themselves with the sort of heights of liberal democracy in the United States, which they point to these eras as, but they're both fundamentally opposed to what these eras actually are, the economic policies and tax base that made those policies possible, and also vehemently opposed to the organized labor apparatus that fought for those policies. So they want to claim the legacy of those things for liberalism, but shorn of all content. They have to completely ignore both the substance of those politics and the forces that drove those politics, which was chiefly the labor

Starting point is 02:20:49 movement, and socialists were a huge part of that, but neoliberals don't want to acknowledge or promote labor because organized labor runs contrary to the interest of capital and because they know they can't compete with DSA if you're going to play that game. In somewhat breaking from Ezra Klein, C&L's strain of neoliberal abundance explicitly blames unions for why it's so hard to build housing and infrastructure. They think labor unions are bad for the economy and thus are evil,

Starting point is 02:21:27 and that the general public are stupid children, throwing a temper tantrum, sabotaging the greatest country ever by electing populists, because liberalism made the world too good. There's no more struggle, and liberals just have to tell the sheeple a better story so that neoliberal technocrats can stay in power,

Starting point is 02:21:50 that those with technical knowledge can rule. It's a profoundly undemocratic politics. You pursue it to its logical ends, and it is literally well. The people do not really know what their interests are, and in fact, we'll go against them just for the sake of having meaning, I guess. So it's up to us those who do know what the right politics are to be in charge and to basically call all the shots. And who has the authority to say that we have the right politics. Well, us, of course, right? It's why, you know, these people exist at the whim of capital. Without capital, they're nothing, right? They have this idea that they produce their own authority by having the correct policies. They know the world, and that's where their power comes from. They exist at capital's whim, right?

Starting point is 02:22:41 And if capital decides to move in a different direction, they have no authority. They have nothing. It's capital or labor. You either get your source of authority and political power from the economic powers that be, the property owners who control production and have an enormous amount of power in that sense, or you get it from the masses, from the people, the laborers, who actually power society and power all production.

Starting point is 02:23:05 Those are the two forces. This idea that correct knowledge in itself supplies authority is not only obviously undemocratic, but it's, I mean, just profoundly confused. It's completely oblivious to political reality. It doesn't believe in politics. It doesn't think there is a realm of politics. With that, though, you are forgetting that we're rich, that we're successful, that we're awesome.

Starting point is 02:23:28 Yeah, we are rich, we are successful, we're awesome. America rocks. America rocks. God, what a, yeah, he pairs that one with talking about, like, you can't be a depressing nerd and talk about what America has done wrong. I love the idea of, like, trying to set yourself up against, like, nerds being like, don't be a nerd. And then being like, America rocks. We're rich, we're successful. where all that is like the nerd line is like

Starting point is 02:23:53 this is a whole nerd conference this is like the most policy wonky will Stansell Mataglacius like nerd central well maybe you're on the football team but I have an A in math like it's literally that it's that you well we're rich we're successful and we're awesome

Starting point is 02:24:09 we won World War II we beat the communists we beat the communists where it's just very yeah it's it's hollow too I mean I'm a red blooded American, you know, there's a lot to like about the American society. But this, like, America rocks. America is awesome. Like, I don't know. Maybe there's a reason people aren't really feeling that one right now, you know? Just shouting it into the faces of the misery of the masses is not the best move. You don't think that's going to go over well with voters who are maybe not rich and who

Starting point is 02:24:43 are struggling. Yeah, I don't know, man. Look around. It's been a pretty bad, like, yeah, no, I don't, I think this God, we're awesome. As much as the new liberals are upset and confused why the political momentum is with DSA and not them, the center for new liberalism will never be able to build an organization of young libs capable of rivaling DSA because technocratic liberalism categorically rejects mass politics. So while CNL and the new liberals make a big show online, ultimately. they are just a front group for PPI, the Progressive Policy Institute, the centrist think tank

Starting point is 02:25:25 that convinced the Democratic Party to abandon the working class in the 90s, abandon redistributive New Deal liberalism, and embrace deregulatory free market neoliberal economics under Bill Clinton. So while the Blue Globe emoji people will continue to post prolifically online, I suspect that is where their political impact will largely remain. Here is a final note from sociology professor Ben Rose Porter. I mean, look, economies are hard to figure out, but I think it's just worth saying, like, what are you growing the economy for?

Starting point is 02:26:02 Right? The whole point is to provide people with better lives, you know, raise their wages, give them more power and control over their lives and their society. And they just seem to have it very reversed, where the point is to grow the economy at whatever cost. New Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers, now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor.

Starting point is 02:26:36 The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. I'm Hoda Kotbby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration, and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people.

Starting point is 02:27:06 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her, her now husband, Andrew, was the one.

Starting point is 02:27:28 He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

Starting point is 02:27:56 We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chryssel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.

Starting point is 02:28:40 I thought he was going to write. I thought you're all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo, rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook.

Starting point is 02:28:59 Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured. by some sort of technology. Danny McBride.

Starting point is 02:29:26 He loves Hovem. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Tarot Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:29:38 I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me?

Starting point is 02:29:53 I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really, I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it happening here. And in this case, the here we're talking about is Texas and the it we're talking about.

Starting point is 02:30:24 is one of America's most corrupt and evil politicians, Ken Paxton. And I'm using corrupt and evil in like an objective scientific sense. I need you to understand this is not a matter of opinion. The Vatican convened a series of scientists who did confirm that Ken Paxton has the evil equivalent of midi-chlorians in a concentration never before seen in an American politician. And to talk to me about Ken Paxton and say things that are real and accurate and not nonsense is a guy who actually reports on Ken Paxton directly as part of his professional job as a real journalist Robert Downen. Robert, welcome to the show. Thank you for having, man. Thank you for

Starting point is 02:31:05 that incredible introduction. You got to have a little fun with Ken. Okay, Pax. Yeah, yeah. First off, you want to introduce yourself, put up your plugs up front here. Sure. My name is Robert Downen. I'm a writer at Texas Monthly. I've been in Texas for almost a decade now, where I've kind of covered, I guess, you could say religion, the convergence of far-right politics and religion, extremism, et cetera, which is to say, you know, now I basically just cover the current Texas GOP because they are kind of the incubator for a lot of policy that goes national. Yeah, it is like the breeding Warren and the center of the fever swamps in a lot of ways. Yeah. You and I met a couple of years ago now at the RNC during 2024, which was a lot of fun.

Starting point is 02:31:53 And I'm kind of curious, because I don't know that I actually asked you then. When did you start kind of covering Ken Paxson? Do you remember when you first really became aware of him in a meaningful way? Yeah, I don't know if you remember this. I think we were actually in the middle of talking about it and we were at some stake joint. And I looked to my right and recognize a very large Rambo-esque bodyguard sitting next to us, who happens to be Ken Pax's bodyguard and realized that Kempax was sitting right next to us. So I don't think we were finished the conversation.

Starting point is 02:32:21 You're right. I don't think we did. fucking the RNC, guys. It's a wild time. Yes, and then I met Roger Stone. It was great. Yeah, yeah, fucking Ted Cruz walked in. What a day.

Starting point is 02:32:33 I started covering Ken Paxton probably officially in 2020, 2022, 23. Before that, I had kind of covered, you know, Southern Baptist stuff. I was really focused more on the religion side of stuff. So, like, he's always been in my peripherals, but never, you know, been a sole focus. And then about, you know, five years ago,

Starting point is 02:32:52 I guess four years ago, ish, I started really focusing on this far right movement in Texas, the billionaires behind it, who, you know, for that movement, Ken Paxson is kind of the tip of his fear. So he's been not a primary focus of mine, but, you know, someone who I'm paying very frequent attention to for quite a while. Yeah. So Ken is, he's not a Texan by birth, obviously, which doesn't matter to anybody, but some Texans. But he was, he was born in North Dakota, if I'm remembering correctly. And he first kind of comes on the scene politically in, like, 2003 when he's a state representative, right?

Starting point is 02:33:30 Right. Yeah, it is kind of the first really notable moment in the Ken Paxton saga, in your opinion. Like, when you go back to, like, where does this guy start to differentiate himself from everyone else? I think you really, to kind of understand Ken Paxton's rise, and especially the political climate of Texas right now, you have to go to. this 2009-2010 period where Texas really was on the forefront of what would become the Tea Party

Starting point is 02:33:56 movement. We started to see this huge influx of billionaire oil money in particular, these two dudes named Ferris Wilkes and Tim Dunn, who I'm sure we'll get to in this conversation. Yeah. You know, they kind of coalesce around this strategy in the Texas House in particular, where they're going to basically just accuse anyone who's not sufficiently far right enough for them as being a rhino and pump all of this money into a media and political ecosystem or you know network that kind of just becomes almost like this this way that they are holding people speak to the fire to the point where you know they are you know funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars millions of dollars to primary opponents uh for incumbent lawmakers a lot of these

Starting point is 02:34:36 uh you know these candidates are you know dead on arrival they have no actual chance of winning a primary but the whole point is just kind of like bruise up these lawmakers to deplete their campaign coffers and kind of make them second guess anytime that they're thinking about defying this political network in the next session. And so Paxton really emerges out of that, I guess, kind of movement. You know, you start to see around 2012, 2013, these groups that are funded by Tim Dun & Ferris Wilkes really start to hold him up as this taxpayer champion. And then in 2014, he launches what was kind of thought to be a long shot bid for attorney general that he ends up winning against a little bit more moderate Republican candidates with key help from these

Starting point is 02:35:21 billionaires and that kind of, you know, is off the races from there. Yeah. So this is a really, as you bring up, a really interesting thing that starts happening to Texas politically. It starts like right as the Bush years are coming to an end because obviously George W. Bush was not just the governor of Texas, but he was kind of the governor of Texas who his victories sort of heralded the defeat of the Democratic Party in Texas. in a way that it, I mean, it still hasn't recovered from.

Starting point is 02:35:49 At least, you know, that's kind of the way I often see it. And you have Bush come in and then obviously become the president. But because of the unpopularity of the neocons, Texas also winds up becoming kind of this incubator of the backlash, the conservative backlash to Bush too. And Paxton embodies that to some extent because he literally defeats a Bush as part of his rise to power, right? Like much later on.

Starting point is 02:36:15 But that is interesting to me. Yeah, I mean, I think the way to really understand the Texas UOP is for the longest time, it was this coalition of, you know, big, big business interests, specifically oil. But then, you know, you had the evangelical cohort. And they kind of existed in harmony with each other for a while. You know, there were obviously rough patches for the party. But, you know, overcoming, you know, the democratic establishments

Starting point is 02:36:40 that had ruled the state for so long, I think, kind of, you know, it's much easier to stick together when everyone's winning. But then out of the Obama years, in the post-Obombie years, you have this Tea Party movement that is, you know, really led by Ken Paxson, these billionaires to many degrees. They turn their sights on those in the party. Yeah. So, again, you have just this really, really ugly early days of what turns into a full on civil war within the party where, you know, people who in most other states would be considered, you know, the most far right member of the legislature are being branded like rhinos and freighters. And this is, you know, this isn't in the pre-trot. Trump area before that was kind of the, I guess, you know, animating philosophy of, you know,

Starting point is 02:37:20 kind of borrowing from there's no enemies to the right framework. That was something that was really, I think, defined all of what's happening in Texas first and not national. And do you do you have a sense personally of when can sort of ultra-right beliefs begin? Is this something that's always a thing for him? Or is this something that he adopts opportunistically? Is it becomes clear that that's the future of the party? Yeah, I mean, it's a really tough question and something I think a lot of us have spent a lot of time trying to figure out.

Starting point is 02:37:50 He almost is so emblematic of the direction of the Texas CHOP in general that it's almost impossible to differentiate whether, you know, he always harbored these beliefs and then translated that into political momentum towards them or if the political momentum drove him toward, you know, it's a chicken and egg situation, Alma. But I will say that, you know, starting as soon as he becomes attorney general, he really starts to use that position to, aid the political objectives both on social policy but also on campaign finance reform, you know, all these other issues really start to push the state and the state party towards the, I guess, policy positions of this far-right billionaire now. Yeah. Now, when it comes to Ken himself, his first big scandal is kind of like a bribery allegation, right?

Starting point is 02:38:38 Is I recalling? Yes. So in 2011, when he is still a state rep, he immediately, he needs. at a dairy queen with the CEO of a software company. Very Texas. As we continue this conversation, you're going to notice there's a lot of fast food. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:38:53 This man loves a fast food joint. You know what, North Texas, born and Ray, well, not born, but Ray's. So I do get that. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, so he meets this guy to Dairy Queen.

Starting point is 02:39:04 And again, this is all allegedly, this court case was, you know, settled, I think in 2024. But basically, the allegation from the SEC,

Starting point is 02:39:12 which later indicted him, was that he, was offered 100,000 shares in this new company. Ken Paxton claims that he tried to pay the CEO for the shares, and the CEO was like, no, God told me to give this to you. You can't give me any money. And then so Paxton allegedly goes on and sells something like, you know, almost a million dollars worth of shares in this company

Starting point is 02:39:36 to people without allegedly telling him that he was also an investor. So he gets indicted in 2015 on felony security fraud. And that charge is kind of hanging over his head for the next almost 10 years. And as we'll get into, it is kind of like just looming off in the distance for all of its political rise, but also plays an important part of his impeachment. But there's one other scandal that, you know, wasn't criminal that kind of predates the impeachment, which is that in 2014, as he's running for attorney general, he is at a courthouse in the Dallas area. and there's a video of this.

Starting point is 02:40:13 A guy in front of him in the security line leaves a $1,000 month long 10 in the... Yeah, yeah, this is one of my favorite K-Paxx tales. Yeah, there's this little video of Ken Paxton just kind of plucking it out there and putting it into his pocket. And yeah, so... Saw something he liked and he took it.

Starting point is 02:40:30 Pretty funny. Yeah. Oh, God, that is beautiful. And we have a lot more beautiful Ken Paxton stories to come, but first, some ads. And we're back. I guess one of the things that occurs to me just kind of as I've, every time I've looked over Ken's background is how much of his election history is ran unopposed in the primary, ran against

Starting point is 02:41:01 a Democrat who had no chance of victory, right? Like once he gets in, this isn't totally the case, but once he gets into office, a lot of his elections are almost like a rubber stamp pro forma, so to deal. Kind of, yeah. I mean, I think that I'd have to go back and look at the actual margins, but I think that he has actually historically kind of lagged behind, you know, as far as the margins he's winning by have always kind of lagged behind what other top Republicans are winning by. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:41:27 In 2018, you start to see some cracks. Yeah. And then in 2020 is when you started to see, you know, the quote, quote, establishment, Texas GOP starting to fund his opponents. And ultimately that doesn't work. And that lays the groundwork for, I guess, the kind of conspiracy theories around his impeachment, which I'm sure we'll get to. It is interesting that Ken has never been a great campaigner.

Starting point is 02:41:51 He's benefited from the Republican Party's dominance in Texas and, like, the amount of funding and whatnot that he's able to raise his result of that. But as you said, he's like lagged behind other Republicans in terms of like his electoral performance. And he has had some real close squeakers in the past, too, which is one of the reasons why, like, this current election is so interesting. But what do you think the Republican Party, the state party, starts to turn against him? What is it that does that?

Starting point is 02:42:18 Is it just sort of the weight of scandals that this guy accumulates? Because we've only talked about a couple of them. Or is it something else? I think that, again, he becomes very emblematic of this far right flank of the Texas GOP that's funded by Tim Dun & Farris Wilkes. Like, there's this moment in 2017-2018-ish where the Texas House and the Texas legislature has just gotten out of this brutally, you know, controversial. session where they were, you know, doing early versions of the bathroom bill. There was really just

Starting point is 02:42:48 acrimonious within the party. And there are these quotes of these, I guess, you know, we would call them more moderate Republicans, but again, still very right wing in any other state. Yeah. But they come out, you know, there's a famous quote from then, you know, the man who became the House Speaker where basically says, you know, we're done bashing the gays, basically trying to move the party away from these, you know, I guess, for lack of better term, culture war issues, that really the far right flank is trying to coalesce around. And I think that Ken Paxton is very much seen as a kind of emblem of that flank that for a while looked like it was on the verge of being on the outs of Texas politics.

Starting point is 02:43:28 I mean, if you go back to that summer before his impeachment, there are so many different things that happened in the lead-up to that where you're like, oh, this Tim Dun-Farris Wilkes Network looks like, you know, this is a death rattle moment for it. And instead of dying, it becomes more powerful than ever and starts exporting all of its stuff nationally. Why do you think that is? Like, how the fuck does this guy, sorry, how is this guy, though, the one who manages to, like, reincarnate himself at this moment that should have been his end? I think. I know that, yeah, there's not an answer to that.

Starting point is 02:44:01 But I guess, yeah, your feelings on it. Yeah. So before we got on, I just was like, I need to almost refresh myself. on everything that happened with his impeachment. And at the time, I was covering it, like, turn to the screw, like wall-to-wall coverage, every single second of the impeachment hearing. And I don't think unless you were paying that much intimate attention to everything that was going on, people are fully capable of understanding just like how wide-ranging and, frankly, insane,

Starting point is 02:44:31 the entire episode was. And I think because of that, it was really easy for Ken Paxton's defenders, both in the impeachment hearing and just outside in the political realm, it was much easier for them to take this complicated scandal and turn it into just a, oh, this is a witch hunt. They're going after Ken Paxton because they can't get to you. It's worth also backtracking here. There are a significant number of people because of this Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes

Starting point is 02:44:58 operation that believe fundamentally that the Texas legislature and state has been under the control secretly of Democrats for more than like 20 years. I mean, this is how successful this is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds insane, but it's the truth. And so, you know, when Ken Paxton gets impeached, he becomes, again, this stand-in for everything that these people, you know, fear about this supposed democratic rhino cabal.

Starting point is 02:45:25 And I think that that coupled with just like the complexity and often absurdity of the impeachment charges more broadly, really insulates him in a way that turns him to a folk hero once he survives the impeachment. Great. I mean, yeah, that's as much sense as I think can be made of the Ken Paxton story. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it's this whole thing, you know, and I've noticed this even just in my time

Starting point is 02:45:50 covering Texas politics is there used to be a moment where if we wrote a negative story about someone, there were maybe not consequences, but like people cared. And now it's not only that people don't care. it's to be attacked by the, quote, unquote, you know, liberal media is in and of itself a badge of honor that, like, yeah. Yeah. And I think that he really exemplifies that. They're waiting for it. Yeah. So how would you describe Ken Paxton as an attorney general, which is kind of, because obviously he's a state legislator too before that, but like he's most known and has been most influential as the AG. How would you describe his work? I think that he has done a remarkable job of advancing a once not explicit but now explicit Christian nationalist movements that is very far right in its views on immigration, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and basically every other social issue. I mean, he has used his office as, you know, at times a pretty blunt instrument in this, I guess, the lack or better term, culture war. has used it to investigate political groups on the left, has used it to advance 2020 election fraud

Starting point is 02:47:07 conspiracy theories. I mean, he named something within the hodgepodge, you know, the hodgepodge of right-wing kind of culture war issues. And I guarantee you he is used his office to things. Yeah. There's some questionable decisions that attorneys under him have made about some specific relevant cases, including a pedophile. That's one of the biggest, like, most recent scandals against Ken. I talk about this on the ED that we did a week or so ago. And one of the things that you have to like encounter looking at him is that throughout all of these horrible things that he and people have done kind of as part of his office, none of it has knocked him out. Like, and you get interesting quotes from different people who have run against him that are all variants of like,

Starting point is 02:47:48 well, I had all of these opposition files, but also we had to make a decision of like how much to talk about it because there's so much out here. And like, what more do you say about Ken if you're trying to run against him that could matter now. Yeah, I mean, I think that he has a similar, you know, ethos as Trump, where it's like, people have heard so much about him for so long that they just kind of, you know, at least amongst a lot of the Republicans, they've been able to just tune it out entirely. I mean, going back to his impeachment, which, you know, that is an episode onto itself, everything that happened.

Starting point is 02:48:18 But the people who were, who brought about Ken Paxton's impeachment were top deputies in the OAG's office. one of them was almost confirmed for a federal judgeship in like 2019, but was deemed two anti-trans at the time to survive a Senate confirmation hearing. My God. Another one of these guys went on to be a vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom, the group that, you know, has been kind of the tip of the legal sphere in the Christian nationalist movement. Yeah. So not the wokes.

Starting point is 02:48:43 No, arguably some of the most right-wing people, not argued on some of the most right-wing people in the world at this point. Yeah, they would argue some of the most right-wing people in the world. Yes, right. And I mean, we're talking, you know, like the platonic ideal of a Texas ranger. Like people who, by all extent, purposes should be people who are taking very seriously by the Republican voters in Texas. And yet he, again, because of, you know, just there's something about Ken.

Starting point is 02:49:11 I don't know. Man, it's so fucking weird. There's something about Ken. And there's also something about the sponsors of this show who we're going to go back to for a minute and then we'll return. All right, we're back. So Ken Paxon is currently running for Senate. He just defeated John Cornyn for the primary, and he's running against Democrat James

Starting point is 02:49:42 Telerico. And I brought this up on EAD last week, but it's close. And at least according to one poll currently, Telerico is ahead. One poll isn't ahead by a good bit. Most of what I've seen has them like pretty much neck and neck. There's a few big differences with this election so far and all of Kin's previous. elections. One is that he does not have a gigantic advantage in funding. And in fact, Tellurico currently has a lot more money on hand. And the other is that, at least per some of the

Starting point is 02:50:13 most recent polling, Teller Rico is actually beating him with non-college educated voters. That's the heartland for Ken Paxton. So yeah, it's very unclear what's going to happen. Again, I would say it's smarter to say this is a neck and neck race than Tellerico is ahead. But yeah, how did we get here? I mean, I think a couple of important things. One, James Talariko has, I think that he has done a good, and maybe this is just the religion reporter in me, I think he has done a good job of finding palpable messaging around Christianity in ways that like an appeal to the, you know, Republican-leaning white Christian voter of Texas. That coupled with his kind of, you know, campaigning frequently on, you know, it's not left

Starting point is 02:50:56 versus right, it's top versus bottom, that kind of stuff I think is playing really well here. The other thing about Paxton, though, is that, you know, I've mentioned Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes in this conversation a bunch of times because they really are crucial to this story. They both have basically entirely pulled out from supporting in the Senate. Yeah, that is really interesting. Ferris Wilkes, as a result of some very long story, but in 2023, there was some reporting I did about their network having, you know, meeting with Nick Fuentes and having a bunch of ties to other pretty avowed white nationalists. There was a big fallout in that network. and from what I understand, drove Ferris Wilkes out of politics entirely. And in the same time, Tim Dunn was adamantly opposed to Ken Paxton running for Senate

Starting point is 02:51:39 from everything that we've heard. And so it wasn't until literally, I think on Monday, Tim Dunn's one of his super PACs, spent $100,000 to send out text messages against Alarico that we saw any kind of movement from Tim Dunn or Ferris Wilkes in support of Paxton. And I think that that does actually kind of speak to their level of concern that, you know, they have set out all of this for almost two years now, and suddenly with three months to go, are getting engaged.

Starting point is 02:52:05 Yeah, it's really been, yeah, kind of stirring to see. I'm not resigned as I usually am in a Ken Paxton election to like, well, clearly at some point he's just going to like leapfrog ahead of this fucker and wind up back in office as he, and maybe that'll happen, but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like that's the only thing that could happen, I should say. Right. And, you know, to be fair, there's this kind of,

Starting point is 02:52:28 myth that Texas is secretly blue if it's just a voter turnout problem? That's not true. It's not. No. Texas is solidly red. In order to win statewide here, like there's a reason why Beto, when he ran here, he went to every single one of our 254 counties. Yeah. It's because you have to really turn out rural voters. And try to make personal connections with them. Yeah. Exactly. Because of that, it's easy for Republicans in the state to wave away any kind of forward momentum from a Democratic statewide candidate. But if you look at the polling in this race between Tallurican Paxton, like, Tala Rico has been polling way ahead of where Beto was, where any, you know, comparable Democratic statewide candidate has been over the last, you know, 30 years. And I think that

Starting point is 02:53:13 that kind of, you know, disbelief amongst Republicans that this state could ever elect a Tala RICO or flip blue, I think has potentially left them kind of asleep at the wheel and made a lot of them much more willing to support someone like Paxton, despite his many flaws as a candidate. So I guess as we close out here, is there anything else you wanted to say about, Ken, anything we didn't get to that you think is really important to talk about? I mean, do we have 45 more minutes?

Starting point is 02:53:45 We can talk about his impeachment, but. Yeah, I mean, gain a little bit. I'm just going to read my notes, just a few fun things. Sure. Fast food joints in all capital. Walter Jr. from Breaking Bad was somehow involved. There's a lot there. Not directly involved, but his family.

Starting point is 02:54:07 My point being, it was insane. Awesome. Yeah. Oh, man, is there any reading you'd recommend to the listeners on the Kintax and impeachment? Honestly, there's 4,000 pages of court documents. I think that's it. I mean, someone's got to do a story about it.

Starting point is 02:54:22 I mean. Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we'll hire you to do that if we came. Yeah, we'll get Walt Jr. on it. Yeah. You know, I did want to say, because it's very wrong when people think that Texas is like a secret blue state. But it's also not red in the way most of the red in it isn't necessarily red in the way that people think of it.

Starting point is 02:54:41 Because, like, I think back to my family who are like, we're like solidly red and would never vote for a Democrat. But like, my mom didn't own guns and didn't really think they should be legal and was very much like pro-abortion. She was culturally a republic. And that's like an important thing. Like that was, it's not just a belief system. It's that, that is your culture and your team. And so much of the difficulty is there are a lot of people in Texas whose values personally certainly do not align with a man like Ken Paxton.

Starting point is 02:55:10 But breaking rank is not a doable thing for a lot of them. I don't know how else to describe it. Like it's, it would be like getting someone who was born and raised rooting for the Packers to like support the Dallas Cowboys in a game against the Packers or something. Like it's that fucking. kind of mindset in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, I think that the other thing about it is kind of the ethos of Texas politics for the longest time has been this real antipathy towards, you know, D.C.

Starting point is 02:55:40 Like, one of the things is that it's always been kind of, you know, we are not D.C. And like, kind of the circus of it all, it plays here differently. There's circus here, but it's a different circus, I guess. So what you have is, like, a lot of these people, again, the other thing about Texas is just so damn big. Like, there are parts of Texas that are closer. Like there's a part of Tax Arcana that's closer to Chicago than it is to El Paso. And I think that like people really don't understand what that does the politics here as far as just like making people view politics as this really far off thing off in the distance that like it's like a libertarian almost like you don't don't mess with me and I won't engage with you kind of ordeal.

Starting point is 02:56:15 And as I think that the state has become more DCified for the lack of a better term, I think that that's starting to really test some of these, you know, some of that kind of mentality you were speaking to. And then you add on, you know, the fact that the schools here are just really in bad shape. We're doing school voucher legislation. All of these things that, like, are actually rural issues are being kind of flipped on their head. And I think that that has the potential, maybe not to flip those voters. But if enough of them stay home and you see enough energy in the cities, like, that is enough. Yeah. So.

Starting point is 02:56:45 Yeah, that is enough. And, like, as individuals, some of those people can flip on a candidate. You know, they might not flip party-wise. there's certainly a lot less likely to vote for like a Democrat for president. That may be completely out of the question. But you might be able to get him to vote for a senator or something like that. Like that's not impossible for everybody. And it certainly looks like I think he's got about four or five percent of Republican voters voting for him right now.

Starting point is 02:57:10 Yeah, I mean, he's got a lot of crossover. Yeah, which is a good amount of crossover, by the way. Like that's low and objective numbers, but it's pretty good for a candidate in Texas. Right, right, right. Cool. All right. Well, that has been a brief version of the Ken Paxton story. We'll have more about K-Pax in the future, and hopefully we'll have Robert back as well.

Starting point is 02:57:29 You have anything you want to plug before we end here? Just I'm on Blue Sky at Robert Downden. So describe to Texas monthly. For $25, you can get two years of print magazine and digital editions. So the best deal in journal. Awesome. Check that out. Please do sign up.

Starting point is 02:57:45 And yeah, we'll be back probably tomorrow. Anyway, go do something else now. Red Bull, Dragonberry, and Tropic Berry Energizers now at McDonald's. Made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details at McDonald's.cah, and participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. I'm Hoda Kotvey, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Starting point is 02:58:25 If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself

Starting point is 02:59:05 and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

Starting point is 02:59:24 You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters. over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland

Starting point is 02:59:48 locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

Starting point is 03:00:09 Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 03:00:29 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller.

Starting point is 03:00:48 The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves over. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great.

Starting point is 03:01:05 I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time.

Starting point is 03:01:25 Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. Did you understand the movie? So down to me. that you think I don't understand your little play game. I just really, I get it.

Starting point is 03:01:37 I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is It Could Happen here, an executive disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what this means for you. I am Garrison Davis. Today, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, Robert Evans, and special correspondent. Margaret Kiljoy. Oh, I'm a correspondent. Hi.

Starting point is 03:02:10 For some small things, White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt will be stepping down to spend more time with her family. At 27, she was the youngest person ever appointed to the position. Now, I don't comment on women's age or appearance. And, yeah, I don't comment on that.

Starting point is 03:02:32 Yeah, I do want to mention that when we say stepping down to spend more time with her family, this is the first time I've ever seen this where that is actually true. This is true. She did have a baby. Actually, actually legitimately doing that. And not. Yeah, I just assumed you all were speaking euphemistically about like basically fired.

Starting point is 03:02:50 She did have a baby. Not a euphemism. Actually. Trump seems to really like her. Yeah. Unfortunately. She sucks. But yeah, just to clarify, not a euphemism actually doing that.

Starting point is 03:03:03 On the ninth anniversary of the Unite the Right rally, a former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been arrested on fraud charges for payments to informants within white nationalist organizations. We talked about the indictment against SPLC, the organization a few months ago. This is the first charge against a specific individual. For some other small items, let's throw those. to James Stout. I'm going to start by saying some small things. The Texas Land Commissioner has sent a cease and assist to CBP, customs of border protection, claiming they are legally cleared state land to begin border wall construction. Quote, Texas sovereignty will not be infringed by failure to follow established protocols, said Commissioner Buckingham. Quote, my office has a proven

Starting point is 03:03:54 track record of strong border enforcement and I applaud efforts to protect our border. I am committed to maintaining a positive relationship with CBP, but we will not allow rogue actors who who breached our agreement to undermine the incredible work we do for Texas. The second quotation I've included there was oddly missing from lots of people's commentary on this because I think the people who make money from clicks or just have a relationship with clicks, which is not healthy or good for them, wanted to portray this as like Texas is going woke and fighting Trump. No, they're not.

Starting point is 03:04:26 Don't be silly. Read the thing. It's in the press release. Secondly, Al-Monitor reported that the United States was withdrawing its last forces from a bill amidst Iran's campaign strikes on the region. The United States has a pre-agreed withdrawal with a deadline of September 30th, but another source told the New Arab that they had not left and that they had relocated them closer to the consulate. So the United States will be withdrawing from this region probably relatively soon, but it seems that, At the time, they didn't leave as people had feared, but they relocated. Keeping with the theme of the United States War in Iran, CNN reported last week that the Pentagon was looking for outside the box thinking in its war with Iran.

Starting point is 03:05:14 Quote, we are looking for new and creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran. An officer in the United States Central Command's Intelligence Branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message. this is fucking spectacular, right? It sounds like a San Francisco startup trying to make like AI powered coffee or something. It's like to shake up the coffee industry. Yeah. Can we disrupt the bombing Iran market guys?

Starting point is 03:05:43 Move fast and break things in the regime of collective punishment. Yeah. It's just what we're doing now. Except that moving fast and breaking things was kind of plan A, so God knows what will come out of this. But I can't wait to see. I'm sure it'll be exciting and fun. I received news from the P.A.K. That's the Kurdistan Freedom Party, different party from PGAK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party. They let me know that an assassination attempt was made in a bill against Mukri Yosdan Panah. He's the son of their leader, the leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, right? He was injured and he's currently under medical care in a hospital. They didn't want to make a formal statement about this, either than clarifying that that had happened.

Starting point is 03:06:27 it appears someone tried to shoot him in Abil. A bill, if you're not familiar, is the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq. Then this is not the first time that I'm just going to go ahead and assume that this is an Iranian state-linked assassination attempt. I think that's a reasonable assumption to make. Not the first time that this has happened in Abil. And it is pretty clear that this is the Iranian government continuing its attempt to punish Eastern Kurdish Kurdish parties for the United States aggression, right, which we can draw a line all the way back to the reporting we did late winter, early spring of this year on people who were suggesting that there was going to be a Kurdish ground component to the United States War and Iran,

Starting point is 03:07:13 which as of yet, there has not been. This is continuing to have consequences for these parties, right? And then finally from me, I want to talk about these two executive orders. The president has written a pair of executive orders this week aimed at reducing the number of people eligible for citizenship by birthright. And basically what they've done here, and I would suggest that people wanting more context and I'm able to give here, go back to our Supreme Court special episode of ED that we did a few weeks ago, where I talked at length about the 14th Amendment and the one Kim Ark case.

Starting point is 03:07:44 They've taken the exemptions I outlined there, and they've tried to kind of stick a crowbar in there and leave them open as far as they can, would be the way that I would describe it. and particularly they've looked at the exemptions for foreign diplomats and for invading armies. So this is the one for vessels in the United States waters. Perhaps the most significant one is the one that is meant for invading armies. When I say invading armies, I want to be clear what I mean. This is like Mexico decides that 1848 wasn't the end, and they want some of that land back, so they decide to invade the United States.

Starting point is 03:08:20 They push up into San Diego, right? They're in, they've liberated Cardiff by the sea. and one of their soldiers gives birth, well, they're here. That baby would not be United States citizen because that person was engaged in an invasion of the United States, right? What the Trump administration here has gone for is adding, quote, either parent of that person is an alien enemy defined to include any member of a designated foreign terrorist organization under 8 U.S.C. 1189, or especially designated global terrorists. Now, we have to remember they have added a number of groups,

Starting point is 03:08:55 to the FTO list, and that they have attempted to define people as members of those groups using absolute bullshit criteria, like having a tattoo, right? That is the one that might be what they are going for here. If I ever had one where I suspect they were trying to use this en masse, it would be that one, using that same criteria that they earlier used to send people to Seqod, right, in El Salvador. They also added a broader way of people who have worked or work for foreign governments. They also add, quote, the person is born in a territory or territory. Water to the United States where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute. That refers to American Samoa.

Starting point is 03:09:32 Now, we're covering this next week actually in an episode with Carlos Berliozbollah, but just very briefly, there is actually a bill to remove birthright citizenship from people in American Samoa. It's not going to go anywhere, but it's a signal of where the right is out on this, which is they're trying to remove access to being American from as many people as possible, United States-American. The second executive order takes a swing at what the right calls birth tourism, right? Birth tourism has been a thing on like the VDAI tendency has been obsessed with this for a long time.

Starting point is 03:10:06 I know we'll talk about it's a lot, but you can go back to an episode in November 2024. They did with Sophie and Robert, and you can hear us talking about the rights concern with this. The phenomenon they're talking about represents generously. We define it a fraction of a single percent of babies born in the United States every year. It would already be fraud to enter on a tourist visa with the intent of delivering neutrality so that they could be a citizen. But nonetheless, this is kind of a bug bear for the right. And so they're attempting to clamp down on specifically, like they believe that there

Starting point is 03:10:33 are these giant companies sort of shipping people in to deliver their children. It's worth noting some people do come to the United States to deliver because the United States has very good medical care compared to other parts of the world, albeit also very expensive of medical care so people who might have the means to access that might choose to come to deliver or simply let's say you reside in Mexico but work in the United States and have health insurance in the United States, you might come here to deliver your baby, right? There are reasons where people might do that. Nonetheless, it is a very limited phenomenon, but it is a thing that the right has been talking about for some time, and it's not shocking to see the Trump

Starting point is 03:11:12 administration going after this again. These will be challenged in court. We will see how it goes. In other news, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is under 300 million barrels, which is the lowest level it has been since the U.S. started filling it in the 1970s. It was created in response to the 1970s OPEC embargo. The Trump administration has been draining the Strategic Reserve in order to attempt to stabilize the price of oil as a result of his war in Iran. Now, the administration has stated that it will be refilling the Strategic Reserve next year. However, paired with Trump's statement that, quote, we are low-keying it, we are only semi-negotiating with them, we are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.

Starting point is 03:11:56 It is unclear how the reserve would be refilled because the war does not seem to actually have a way to end. It is also unclear where the U.S. will succumb to likewise having no money and huge inflation in the meantime. That seems bad. Low-keying it. It's not great. It's not great. One of the things I should sort of mention is that part of the reason the economy is still functioning is that the analysis from places like JP Morgan from the financial sector has been based on the fact that this war will end and every week that it continues and every week that there seems to be no potential way for it to end. Increases the likelihood that the bankers will figure out that this war is not going to end and that everything is just like this now. So that is a financial collapse warning. I feel like that's been like everyone has just been trying to figure out, like, why has this not collapsed the economy yet?

Starting point is 03:12:48 And so I'm always curious your take on why hasn't this collapsed the economy yet? Because everything points to this should collapse the economy. Yeah. But it keeps stumbling on. I mean, energy prices are skyrocketing. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, basically, it's because it's not in the interest of the people who have money to believe that it will.

Starting point is 03:13:08 So they're still behaving as if eventually it's going to end and eventually the prices are going to come down and eventually everything from, you know, petroleum to fertilizer that comes through, the trade of abuse is simply going to be available again. And the moment they've realized that it's not, the pyramid collapses. Speaking of money, Robert. So, yeah, for my little thing today, I mean, it's a little thing in terms of how, I guess, important the story is at this point, but it's a big thing in terms of the amount of money being discussed.

Starting point is 03:13:37 Because y'all remember back when Elon Musk bought Twitter and... He what? He, yeah, he shared it. There used to be a website called Twitter, Garrison. It's before your time. It's what X became. Oh, X. Yeah, no, I love X.

Starting point is 03:13:50 The Everything app. The everything app. Yeah. Yeah. So when Musk bought Twitter, he promised that he was going to take for like $40 billion. He was going to take the company's ad revenue for about $4.5 billion, which is what Twitter made an ad revenue in 2021 to $12 billion by 2027.

Starting point is 03:14:06 Sure. And also, there'd be billions more in subscription income, right? Now, given that it is currently, I checked pretty late in 2026, actually. We're like most of the way through the year. You would expect Twitter's ad revenue to be pretty close to $12 billion, right? Like, if I'm extrapolating from $4.5 billion in 2021 to $12 billion in 2027, we should be somewhere around $9 or $10 billion right now, maybe, you know?

Starting point is 03:14:31 That's not where we are. And there's a really good article in tech dirt. And the reason why we know all this is because once Musk bought Twitter, it stopped being a public company, right? So you don't have any fucking knowledge at all about really what's going on inside a private company, right, in terms of it's like revenue and stuff. But because Musk recently folded X into SpaceX and his AI company, he had to include a bunch of revenue information. Oh. This came out in what's called their 10-Q filing.

Starting point is 03:15:01 And TechDirt has done an analysis of it that I'm going to quote from now. All of X's revenue is now misleadingly labeled AI revenue. But even then, the reporting has to admit ad revenue took a big hit, dropping 160 million compared to the first half of 2025, which is already way, way lower than when Elon took over the site, going from 870 million in 2025 to 710 million in the first half of 2026. The company tries to claim this decrease in ad revenue is because they transitioned to a new advertising platform, which impacted ad sales for a short period of time. Which is a curious explanation, given that on the analyst call, CFO Brett Johnson credited that very same overhauled ad. ad tech platform for the very slight quarter over quarter uptick and ad revenue. The same overhaul apparently both tanked the business and rescued it, depending on which direction the number was moving.

Starting point is 03:15:50 And yeah, so within the second quarter of last year to this year to where we're right now, ad revenue has dropped from $426 million to $367 million year over year. And in no way, shape, or form is Twitter anywhere close to the numbers that Elon Musk claimed they would be in right now. In the second quarter of 2022, which is the last full quarter before Elon bought the company, Twitter brought in about $1.8 billion in ad revenue. By the second quarter of 266, X brought in $367 million. Is that bad? That is a reduction of $713 million a quarter. In other words, from tech dirt, Elon has wiped out two-thirds of Twitter's ad business over the exact period in which you promised investors he'd nearly triple it.

Starting point is 03:16:36 It's just incredible stuff. That's just a good time. I wonder how much the recent drop-off can also be attributed to, like, right-wing political content, getting much less engagement following Trump taking office than what it was, you know, 2023, 2024 when that was, you know, driving a lot of traffic to the site. That's got to be part of it. Part of it has to be also that AI slop has reduced the value because we're seeing this at Facebook too.

Starting point is 03:17:02 You're seeing this across the board. Like all of them are seeing reductions. in user engagement because people don't like the slop very much. So this isn't one thing. Honestly, as funny as it is, you can't even just blame it on Elon,

Starting point is 03:17:17 although you can blame it on things Elon has championed, pretty much entirely, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah, just a fun little story. Sweet. I have one short piece that I brought today, which is in a story of good stuff,

Starting point is 03:17:34 of people doing cool stuff against bad stuff. There is a tree sit that is currently blocking construction of the border wall in Arizona. Hell yeah. Yeah, no, it's, I'm really excited about it. To quote a write-up from Crimthink.com about it. Quote, two weeks ago, one protester decided it was time to block the machine

Starting point is 03:17:54 that was about to destroy the last of our four ancient cottonwood trees that stood in the way of the wall's construction. A sheriff arrested him. He was released 12 hours later with no charge. just filed. This arrest galvanized the community. Less than two days later, friends installed a platform in the tree, end quote. And it seems to be ongoing as of this recording. And if you want more information about the group who is stopping construction of the border wall, you can read the whole piece on Crimthing.com, which is entitled, The Border is an open wound.

Starting point is 03:18:25 Speaking of open wounds, or I guess I'm going to call you our crime correspondent positive, Margaret has another story about things that are open wounds in the face of our society. I did pitch that if y'all ever need someone to come on and talk about crimes that I approve of, I am always happy to talk about crimes that I approve of. And this week,

Starting point is 03:18:46 I can bring you really positive news. Really happy news that you can file under direct action gets the goods. Because today as we record this, August 12th, 2026, two days before you're listening to it, The police in the town of Winona, Minnesota have given up. Not entirely. They announced that they will not be replacing the eight-flock license plate reader cameras that were stolen last week.

Starting point is 03:19:11 Because on or about August 3rd, well, on August 3rd, the police department in Winona, Minnesota, reported a terrifying loss. In just one night, every single one of their eight-flot cameras, their automated license plate readers, that tracked every single person who came in and out of the city that were set up in pairs along all the ways in and out. All eight of them were cut down and stolen. I said on just one night, but the cops don't actually know when it happened. It happened sometime between July 29th and August 1st,

Starting point is 03:19:42 and they only noticed when eventually the cop was like, fuck of our cameras aren't talking to us anymore. So they only noticed a while later. Each camera and its poll cost about $3,000. So it was a total of $24,000. in theft. The crime wasn't noticed for days. The WPD also said that some flock cameras in Buffalo County, which is a Wisconsin County, just up from or across the river from there, were also cut down probably on July 29th. And when the police reported this theft to social media, over 900 people

Starting point is 03:20:14 commented on the police's post, which takes more nerve. I don't comment things on politicians or police department's posts personally. Not very often. And when I do, I delete it and call my lawyer. And so 900 people commented on the post, almost universally in support of the action as reported by the Winona Post. One comment to put it, it's almost like people don't want to be watched 24-7. And so today, Winona Police Department declared surrender. They put out a press release saying how important the cameras have been for solving crime, but even more important to them than solving crime is building community trust, which they clearly have lost.

Starting point is 03:20:56 And so they will not be replacing the cameras. Flock safety is a brand name of automated license plate readers, ALPRs. At this rate, flock is probably kind of becoming the generic. Like I will run across headlines that say, flock-like cameras that will be talking about something from Axos or other places. Axon, crap. I don't remember also. Axon. Thank you.

Starting point is 03:21:18 It'll probably become the generic. I'm working on a longer piece about the revolt against these cameras, but it is getting hot this summer. red state blue state people just fucking hate the idea that they're being tracked everywhere they go cop after cop has been caught using them to stalk their exes yeah and it seems very likely that if we stay a democracy this style of surveillance will be found to be a violation of the fourth amendment because similar technologies keep getting found to be violations of the fourth amendment you know eventually they're like oh you actually do need a warrant to look at someone's cell phone data

Starting point is 03:21:49 that kind of thing you know yeah but here is a highlight reel among dozens or hundreds of other acts of vandalism against these cameras. In June, a 40-year-old man named Marcus B in Monterey, California is alleged, most of these people have not been convicted yet, or will never be convicted, is alleged to have destroyed three cameras

Starting point is 03:22:08 with his truck. He's on camera doing this. They allege he simply ran down a bunch of these cameras. He has bull bars on the front of his truck, so he just was like, I got a big-old pickup truck and bull bars, and he just knocked them over. Possibly another one,

Starting point is 03:22:22 he attached maybe a toe strap or a chain, and yanked it up out of the ground with his truck. Also in June, a 21-year-old in Alexandria, I'm just going to present the opposite kind of person doing this probably. In June, a 21-year-old in Alexandria, Virginia on the opposite coast, is accused of climbing atop a Subaru Forrester to smash a flock camera with a baseball bat on a day where at least five other cameras were destroyed in the area.

Starting point is 03:22:48 The suspect was caught by flock cameras. Houston has seen a rash of vandalism, One night, four poles were cut down and left lying in the grass with their cameras still attached. But all during July, cameras had been spray-painted and smashed and cut down in Houston. Last year, Eugene Oregon wound up canceling its flock contract after only about six months of the cameras being up due to an absolutely massive public outcry that include lawsuits, statements before city council, and at least six cameras being destroyed. At the scene of one of the crimes, the vandals left a note that read,

Starting point is 03:23:21 ha ha, ha, get wrecked, you surveilling fucks. I love these people. Maybe the most public case is that in Suffolk, Virginia, Suffolk, I don't know, where a 41-year-old U.S. Air Force engineer named Jeffrey S. Sovereigness facing felony charges for the destruction of 13 flock cameras between April and October in 2025. It is alleged that he used vice scripts to take apart the two-piece poles and then took home the solar panels and the batteries, possibly to use for camping. That's what he said later

Starting point is 03:23:54 when the cops raided his house and found solar panels there. His truck was tracked by other cameras near the scene of one of the crimes. The police put a GPS tracker on his vehicle, which is another thing that the Fourth Amendment eventually, you actually have to get a warrant to put GPS trackers on people's cars now.

Starting point is 03:24:08 His house was raided by the police. They found solar panels and batteries. He is very open about being opposed to flock cameras and refers to them as a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but he has pleaded not guilty to the actual destruction. More recently, an independent candidate for the Tennessee House of Representatives, a 37-year-old man named Adam Lee

Starting point is 03:24:26 Heimerman, is facing felony charges for allegedly shooting down four ALPRs, automated license plate readers, in two counties between July 14th and July 22nd. One of the cameras he is alleged to have shot down was like during church services, he allegedly went out into the parking lot, and there was one within shooting distance,

Starting point is 03:24:47 so he just shot it from the church parking lot. A go-fenby was set up and bailed him out of jail. Police in Long Island report that all summer cameras have been run over, spray-painted, or simply had their wires unplugged or turned around to no longer face the street. Oh, and there's also a guy in Florida who's just holding up signs that block them. He's retired. He's like a 77-year-old retired Republican guy. So he just sets up lawn chairs and sits there with signs on 10-foot-like painter's poles and just blocks the cameras. That's rules.

Starting point is 03:25:17 And when police or news report on these incidents, the posts are flooded with supportive comments, including those that indicate that people should look into jury and elification. But of course, as cities canceled their flock contracts, many of them are simply signing with other ALPR companies, like Denver, which ended its contract with flock in February, but by March had signed up with another company, Axon, for 50 cameras. So it's working, but people got to keep up that pressure legally or whatever. do whatever you want. It seems like these cameras have kind of mobilized this coalition of like the kind of leftist people who generally hate these things, different kinds of like civil libertarian from both kind of, I guess like the contemporary civil libertarians who tend to be on the left and then the kind of old school Republican like why is the state watching new people?

Starting point is 03:26:06 And then it also seems important that these are like supposed to be license plate readers, which means they've pissed off like just people who drive cars. Yeah. It's like you've declared war on motorists. Yeah. Which is demographic people that... I was reading this, 88% of Americans drive a car on any given week.

Starting point is 03:26:26 Yeah. Yeah. This and data centers are the most red-blue, a movement that just has everyone being like, no, I don't like that. Yeah. It seems like the general tech surveillance complex is just extremely unpopular right now,

Starting point is 03:26:40 and people are doing stuff about it. Yeah, which is good, because it's been going on for a while. And I'm really excited that people are doing something about it. And yeah, I'm really proud of Winona for canceling that contract. Like I know of people

Starting point is 03:26:55 who've been convicted and done time for this. And, you know, it's wider than what's being reported on. I think definitely the massive movement we're seeing around, or against flock right now is one of the biggest positive downstream impacts

Starting point is 03:27:11 of Stop Cop City, which was one of like the first movement to really put flock into focus, because Flock cameras were being first tested out on the site. Flock is an Atlanta-based company. The first kind of articles you started to see talking about Flock were often in relation to reporting around Stop Cop City or activists discussing Flock as this like a new emerging threat

Starting point is 03:27:35 like years ago, way before the public kind of realized that there's now these cameras cropping up in like every city. I think you're right. And I also think that the Stop Cops City method of being both direct and also showing up at city council. Sure. You know, I think nothing is more effective than when those two groups support each other. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:27:59 And, you know, the fact that when the cop says, don't worry, we're going to catch whoever did this and everyone's like, nah, they were fishing with me last weekend, you know? But yeah, I think you're right about Stop Cup City, building a lot of the framework with which to understand this kind of thing. Let's go on an ad break and then hear from James again. And we're back. So this week, I want to talk about a couple of immigration stories not getting as much coverage. I thought I would start by talking about some training materials for immigration judges

Starting point is 03:28:42 that Matthew Hopuk obtained by Freedom of Information Act request. They're in a drop box, which I will link in the show notes. It appears from these documents that the quote-unquote judges, they are not judges in the sense that other judges are judges, right? Judges are effectively civil servants. They receive 12 weekdays of training. What? Yeah.

Starting point is 03:29:07 Jesus Christ. Yeah. Before this, many of them will have never seen an immigration case, right? As someone who has covered immigration for a decade, like, this is the topic of Byzantine complexity, right? Immigration law is very complicated. I'm not going to do the thing where you, like, compare their training to barbers or something, because I don't think that's particularly useful here.

Starting point is 03:29:29 I think all of us can understand that 12 days of training is not very much training to be making decisions which are life or death for people, right? These can directly result in people, as we saw recently with a couple who were found tied up and shot after being deported. And there will be many more cases of that that we are not able to directly report just because no one has published them or in places where people fear to publish them, then they won't have got out, right? But we should be under no illusion that deportation and asylum cases are life or death.

Starting point is 03:30:02 Seven very complicated policy memoranda are packed into the last hour of the second day. So the FOIA has the schedule, the day by day schedule, right? The entirety of asylum withholding of removal and the Convention Against Torture are covered in a single day. And it's not the whole day. There's other stuff in that day. The materials also show that they provide templates to judges. for making decisions, and they contain some errors and contradictions regarding the law as it stands today. The important context of this is that more than 200 immigration judges have been fired since 2025,

Starting point is 03:30:37 and 250 have been hired. So there is a whole-scale change in the immigration justice landscape, and it is being repopulated with people who have very little training. They do get a slide. I was looking through the slide presentations. they do get a slide on judicial independence, but the nature of their employment is different to a regular judge, as I said earlier. And in their first two years, they're basically on like a probationary period,

Starting point is 03:31:02 and they have very little right to appeal if they're fired. This is another example of things that the Trump administration is doing that will take years to remedy, even if the next government is amenable to trying to do so. These are the people who are making decisions for thousands of people that are life or death. The second thing I want to talk about is a DOJ lawsuit against New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The DOJ says it is, quote, challenging state laws that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens. The DOJ claims that, quote, these laws unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens who are not afforded the same reduced tuition or scholarships,

Starting point is 03:31:43 create incentives for illegal immigration and reward illegal aliens with benefits that U.S. citizens are not eligible for, all in direct conflict with federal law. Now, they have been going after this for a while, right? The DOJ has been doing these suit since last year. In some Republican states, Texas is one I think of, I think Kansas may be as well, definitely Texas. In some Republican states, state officials join the DOJ and asking their policies to be vacated. So they obviously had success with those, right? In Illinois, not a Republican state, the DOJ won a case and had the in-state's benefits declared unconstitutional based on a federal statute that reads, quote, notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a state or political subdivision for any post-secondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit in no less amount, duration and scope without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident. So I would attempt to simplify that and explain it to people, but as we are about to

Starting point is 03:32:49 find out the very nuances of that text matter. I mean, this sort of law is often complicated, but I was having trouble following what that means exactly. Yeah, that's a fuck, like, if somebody wrote that sentence in a writing class I would teaching, I wouldn't be happy about it. It's a sentence that requires you to like do circular breathing to read it. Yeah. So in Minnesota, there was a case like this.

Starting point is 03:33:16 but because Minnesota uses attending a state high school to determine tuition fees, this is therefore not a residency test, right? So the residency part of that massive sentence matters. They also argued that the law says unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit, it does not say all citizens. of the United States are eligible for such a benefit. And so Minnesota was able to show that a non-Minnesota resident who did attend a Minnesota high school went to University of Minnesota was eligible for interstate tuition. So a U.S. citizen would be eligible. All U.S. citizens would not.

Starting point is 03:34:06 And so they were able to hang their hat on those two things, right? It's not about residency, per se, a citizen could receive those benefits. I was looking around for residency requirements, and it seems that some of these states may be able to make a similar case to Minnesota. Others will not, right? Some of them require residency in the more traditional, like, domiciled in a state. Yeah, perhaps driver's license registered to vote, et cetera, et cetera, right? And so it will be more challenging for some than others. Eventually, I imagine this is one of those things. We've already seen different decisions, right? And that's because different states have different laws. But I'm sure this is one of those things that will eventually find its way to the Supreme

Starting point is 03:34:51 Court in the next couple of years. Regardless, it's an attempt to drive undocumented people further into the shadows and create an underclass of underpaid labor without rights. People on the right constantly talk about assimilation. Are they used to? I think now they're just straight up doing more racist shit. But the act of assimilation will be much harder if people cannot access education, right? I am sure I have had hundreds of undocumented students come through my classroom. I'm not going to be like hands up if you're undocumented, right? There's no need for me to know that. But I know that the universities I teach at do a great deal and provide a great deal of resources to undocumented people. Our universities are better

Starting point is 03:35:32 because of that. Having a diverse range of experiences and opinions in the classroom makes your classroom better. It will make it easier for people on the right to make these arguments. that they're like stealing working class jobs, right, because people will not have the qualifications they need to do other jobs. They will end up being underpaid and exploited. These policies, I should add, were relatively bipartisan when they were passed into 2010s.

Starting point is 03:35:57 And even for the last quarter of the last century, true heads will recognize this from my show I did in 2023. Yes, my name is David Grossberg, and I'd like to know. Do you think the children of illegal aliens should be allowed to attend Texas public schools free or do you think that their parents should pay for their education? Who are you addressing that, too? I think you're first in this.

Starting point is 03:36:19 He was looking right at you. I said he was. Look, I'd like to see something done about the illegal alien problem that would be so sensitive and so understanding about labor needs and human needs that that problem wouldn't come up. But today, if those people are here, I would reluctantly say

Starting point is 03:36:38 I think they would get whatever it is that they're, you know, what the society is giving to their neighbors. But it has, the problem has to be solved. The problem has to be solved. Because as we have kind of made illegal, some kinds of labor that I'd like to see legal, we're doing two things. We're creating a whole society of really honorable, decent, family-loving people that are in violation of the law.

Starting point is 03:37:05 And secondly, we're exacerbating relations with Mexico. The answer to your question is much more fundamental. than whether they attend Houston schools, it seems to me. I don't want to see a whole, if they're living here, I don't want to see a whole, I think of six and eight-year-old kids being made, you know, one totally uneducated and made to feel that they're living with outside the law. Let's address ourselves to the fundamentals.

Starting point is 03:37:30 These are good people, strong people. Part of my family is a Mexican. That's wild. Yeah, that is famous woke immigration advocate, George Herbert Walker Bush. That's really kind of mind-blowing. It's genuinely remarkable, isn't it, to look back? This is not that long ago. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:37:49 None of us were alive then, I guess. But, like, you know, these are people who people still look to as, like, contemporary political people who they admire. Right. This is to the left of a lot of Democrats right now on immigration. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of Democrats would be scared to talk about immigration that way. Yeah. To say part of my family is Mexican, to say that, like, I would never want to be.

Starting point is 03:38:11 want to leave these children as an underclass like that? No, it's insane. Yeah. Like, I mean, like this, coupled with like the public charge rule, the concerted effort to increase this war on like the poorest most marginalized people in our country and criminalize them and push them out of public life compared to, yeah, George H.W. Bush in the 80s is wild. Yeah. Like, it's remarkable that we have come.

Starting point is 03:38:42 I'm not saying the things were great in the 1980s, to be clear. No, that's part of what makes it so wild. Yeah. These people did a bunch of really terrible shit. But, like, Reagan and Bush would both be on the very progressive flank of the Democrats with some of their policies on immigration today. I guess the way I would like to finish this segment, if we can come that far that far, then we can come back a long way pretty quickly too, I think.

Starting point is 03:39:08 Yeah. Yeah. It does take courage, especially from politicians, because as Garrison said, like, a lot of politicians feel like they're going to lose the center when in fact, like, that position was a centrist position in many voters' lifetimes. I think it just bears remarkable on how far we've come and how quickly we've got there. yeah jeez i'm still just kind of in shock i mean my my whole life i feel like the way of heard debates around immigration certainly on the republican side but also largely on the democrat side it's just pitting like workers against each other yeah and just hearing a bush talk about how uh no we should like care for these people they should be educated like why why would we want to have these people who are living here be not educated not able to actually live like a meaningful life yeah it's a it's a level of humanity that I just have not really experienced in, you know, politics in my kind of living memory, and certainly on the Republican side. Yeah, yeah. I mean, George Walker Bush spoke

Starting point is 03:40:10 Spanish, right? Was it his Walker's middle name? George W. Bush spoke Spanish. It is W. is his middle name, I think. It's a sea change since even then, right? Like, we can draw a pretty straight line from Obama's massive deportation campaign to today for whatever people think of Obama he deported a shit ton of people. Yeah, the reason they called him the deportor in chief. But like, 9-11 and then the war and terror and the Syrian Civil War, that certainly changed a discourse in Europe, right? And I think yeah, I mean, once we had little babies washing up dead on beaches and

Starting point is 03:40:45 politicians realized that that wasn't going to trigger people to get in the streets and fuck things up, they knew that they can do an awful lot and not acknowledge. Not acknowledge the humanity that George H.W. Bush acknowledges in that. The other thing that's really interesting to me about this is like this is 1980. Reagan is on stage here. And how much of this is also like a pretty determining fork in the road in some ways and like leading to like neoliberalism totally taking over how state capacity gets

Starting point is 03:41:15 completely reduced. And then you see this in like the next Bush era and, Obama and is getting accelerated with Trump is that their only solution to the problems caused by neoliberalism is not actually fixing neoliberal economics, but it has to be turning workers I guess you, Chuck. Yeah. That is the last thing that they can do because they still serve capital. They still want to do neoliberal economics, but that system has completely stressed itself

Starting point is 03:41:42 and has sabotaged the economy, wrecked housing and jobs. And so now, no, we should not actually fix those things or have the government care for people, but it's these other people who are, you know, even more poor than you that are causing all of these problems. Right. Like this pivot to scapegoating as opposed to like doing anything useful with it. I mean, even Reagan, right? Reagan Pais, the IRCA, it was a massive amnesty.

Starting point is 03:42:05 Like 2.6, 2.7 million people, something in that range. Yeah. Were effectively like legalized by the Reagan administration. And to vault from that to where we're at, as you say, like to vault from like the state trying to make any meaningful difference in making working class people's lives better to scapegroting one group so the other group doesn't complain about their own situation. It's very obvious. Every day for the past month, Fox News had a segment about the DSA's like amnesty for all

Starting point is 03:42:41 immigrants playing on their platform, right? Yeah. I'm not alone in pointing out that like Reagan did a similar thing, I think. Yeah. I'm sure lots of people have tried to dunk on them that way. But yeah, I heard like a right-wing metal song about like 23 outdoor detention. Someone sent it to me today.

Starting point is 03:43:02 One of the funniest fucking things. But yeah, for some reason, it talked about the DSA amnesty, which is a hard thing to shoehorn into a metal song. But they did it. So I guess like, well done. Congratulations. Yeah, that has become like the boogeyman of right-wing politics. I guess, like, I know I talk about this dude law.

Starting point is 03:43:22 I would love to hear from this dude. I would love to talk to this dude. The dude who was walking around Minneapolis, the day before Alex Preti was killed, with a sign that said, what would Ronald Reagan do? And he was at the anti-ice march, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 03:43:37 Huh. Seriously, like, genuinely, if anybody knows who that person is, please put that person in touch with me. No, yeah. Like, I think that is a type of person who we need to talk to right now. Yeah, yeah. And, like, not make that person

Starting point is 03:43:49 feel like they can't grow in other ways, hopefully, you know, by, oh, I don't know, maybe, maybe there's just an ironic sign. Anyway, I'm fascinated to talk to that person. It's always real sad to me to look at these things and just be like, you know, like, it's, it's not that long ago that this was a very bipartisan issue. And like, now once again, I guess bipartisan in that there is a complete agreement that people who try to come here without pass its report of entry should die in numbers that are large enough to dissuade people from doing it. And if those numbers have to increase, then so be it. And that migrants should be treated as humans without rights.

Starting point is 03:44:26 Like, the Biden administration absolutely did that too. Yeah. And, yeah, it sucks. You know, if you want to look at what the actual policy disagreement is about, it's should you use the state to carry out a full-on ethnic cleansing or should you use the state to simply commit heinous acts of violence? Yeah, it should the basis of this purge be some arbitrary line along the line from like full legal status to no legal status, right? Or should the basis of it be, as it is now, anyone we can get out, we get out?

Starting point is 03:45:03 Yeah. Unless you're on that DSA like amnesty point when I guess like that's a different point, but it's not one that like the DNC is making a, as a whole. No, I think it's useful to hold those things in distinction. Yes. At this point right now, will that change over time? Maybe will that introduce its own contradictions over time, maybe, but we will deal with those when they get there. Yeah. But, I mean, yeah, the opinion of Trump now is no, unless you pay me a million dollars for the gold card or whatever, you are not allowed inside. It's mind-boggling to think that this is the thing that, yeah, within a lot. my parents' lifetime. It was completely uncontroversial. Even like I remember those, you know,

Starting point is 03:45:46 I was in the US when they passed those tuition things. This is at the same time, right, when there was relatively bipartisan support for dreamers too. Yep. Like when it was uncontroversial that those people who have grown up for nearly their entire lives here should be allowed to remain here. And all of that shit has gone now. And then like, I guess, like, even the fact that there are some people who are so cowardly on both parties that they, they want. supported it and now don't just because they think that's the way the wind is blowing. Yeah. It's something that shouldn't go unremarked upon.

Starting point is 03:46:18 I don't know. The least qualified people to be in any position of leadership are the ones who are cowards like that. And yet we have a great deal of them in Congress. If you want to hear about some people who should have been in Congress, I have a podcast called Natural Causes. We will talk eventually about Mike Lee and why he is like this. Why does Mike Lee want to sell all the public land?

Starting point is 03:46:41 that we get to share and who has donated to his campaign to make him want to do it. But we can hear about other stuff too. This week we're going to cover cyclospora, which is the incontinence parasite spreading through the Midwest. And we're going to talk about what it tells us about the rights of agricultural labor, neoliberalism, NAFTA, and all the massive corporations between you and your crunch rep. And after that, we're going to talk about fire. If you listen to the show, you'll know that I was in Spokane last week. So I'm going to talk to some people who evacuated about what you should do when your phone starts going apeshit

Starting point is 03:47:17 and how you can prepare yourself for fire evacuations because this stuff isn't changing anytime soon. I'm going to talk to some people about how you can be a good friend to your friend who is being evacuated. And then I'm going to talk to some folks who lost their homes in Los Angeles and how they've recovered since then and what you can do to help them. And then a week after that, we're going to talk about what we can all learn from indigenous fire knowledge

Starting point is 03:47:42 and how we can better take care of our lands to not suppress fire, but to have more say in when and how fire happens. So if you would like to hear about those topics, you can look up at natural causes, wherever podcasts are given away for free, probably the same place you're listening to this one. Yeah, talk about fucking golf as well.

Starting point is 03:48:04 I hate golf. Somehow that's both the, most, at least British moment I've ever I've seen from you. Returning to the bleak present, Trump has issued an executive order on Monday about vaccines that is at the same time both extremely disturbing and somewhat unlikely to do that much.

Starting point is 03:48:30 There's sort of a few different components to this executive order. There's one part of it that is an attempt to ram through RFK Jr's attempt to reduce the amount of vaccines that children get for absolutely no reason whatsoever. RFK Jr., we've talked about this previously on the show, RFK Jr., has been attempting to reduce a number of vaccines that children get in childhood through CDC advisory boards, which is the way that you're theoretically supposed to do this. However, this was blocked in court, and as those litigations are ongoing, those policies simply have not gone through. So Trump's attempting to use an executive order to bypass that process.

Starting point is 03:49:09 It probably won't work. There is another separate part about separating the MMR vaccine into three different vaccines. So the MMR vaccine is a combined vaccine from measles, bumps, and rebella. And part of its executive order is an attempt to get those spread out. And then there's also a part that's about threatening states who don't allow religious exemptions for vaccinations in order to send their kids to school. and then a lot of the total executive order is this kind of, in some ways, grandstanding, where Trump is talking about how this is what the government says the science is. And Trump is saying the government says that the science is that the MMR vaccine is bad

Starting point is 03:49:56 and that you need three separate vaccines and that that's good and that that's what like the gold standard of evidence base in medicine is now. it's almost more like a post than an executive order. It's just him saying this is the government's position on the science. Now, this is all very classic anti-vax stuff, in particular the separating out the MMR vaccine, is just the classic anti-vaccine stuff getting back to a man named Andrew Wakefield, to a strip of his medical license after it discovered that he had been hired to produce evidence linking vaccines to autism by a group that was trying to sue the British government for damages over their belief. that vaccines were, quote, unquote, causing their children's autism. So Wakefield was hired by this group to produce a study that would support their claims. And then also Wakefield's turned out had lied to the parents of young children about the painful and invasive medical experiments he performed on them. So that's how he lost his medical licensers. A very good age bomber guide, long essay, video essay on this that I recommend watching. And Wakefield very specifically peddle the line about the MMR vaccine. His argument was that the MMR vaccine, his argument was that the MMR vaccine,

Starting point is 03:51:03 could be dangerous if they were taken together, but if taken individually they were safe. This doesn't make sense even by the mechanism of the fake condition he made up, but it made him seem like less of a full-on anti-vaxxer. And that he also did this because he was trying to get a patent to make a separate vaccine to sell them to the kids of parents who believe the MMR was dangerous. So this entire thing is a product of Wakefield's attempt to do a grift in the 1990s and the British media latching onto it and spreading it. And this has just sort of persisted as this zombie belief where in the speech, where Trump is giving, talking about him signing this executive order,

Starting point is 03:51:41 he's talking about how the MMR together is lethal, but individually they're safe, which is the stuff that Wakefield was saying in the 90s. It was never true then. It was never true now. Yeah. That's why we all died as children. I guess that's why I have autism. I don't know.

Starting point is 03:51:59 like, I did a diet, rebella or whatever. No, that's caused by transness. That's not the other way around. Yeah. So basically, we have an executive order that is the sort of persistence of this zombie grift that has transcended this guy's original grift and is now in an executive order from the president of the United States. But it's sort of unlikely that any of the stuff in here is going to actually have actual

Starting point is 03:52:28 effects on children getting vaccines, which is mostly good. Obviously, the attacks on states that don't have religious exemptions for vaccinating kids to go to school is bad, but it's really unclear how the legal mechanism for any of this would work. And another complication is that we don't have separate vaccines for the components of MMR. The U.S. does not make them. Nominally, this executive order is supposed to set up the option for parents to do that. And Trump said he would be, like, working with the private sector to allow this to happen, but this doesn't currently exist. We need another Operation Lightspeed. Yeah, it's Operation Warp Speed, but like for Antifax.

Starting point is 03:53:10 Yeah. Operation Light Drive. Yeah, and obviously every single reputable medical institution recommends that you do them all at the same time because it's safe. And also there actually does mean giving children less vaccinations, so they're more likely to show up and do them. But they have 72 vaccines, Mia. 72. Yeah, so let's make it 74. All at once, all at the same time. More vaccines. I want more vaccines. I want to catch less diseases. You should vaccinate our children even more. Like, that rules. I know. I want to get vaccinated for everything. It's like in D&D. You're like, oh, do you want protection from fire? And you're like, yeah, I want protection from fire. It rocks. Give me a Lyme vaccine. I want it. Wait, what is that? Sorry. By God, is that Mia Wong's music? Yes, it is. It is. It is.

Starting point is 03:54:13 tariff talk, we have a brief tariff talk. So tariff refunds are continuing after the Supreme Court overruled the so-called Liberation Day tariffs, but the question remains, who are these refunds actually going to? I'm guessing it's all of the consumers, right? No, no, it's corporations. And I'm going to say right off the bat that Amazon is saying is claiming that some specific consumers will get refunds. No, they're not. Like, if you believe that, I have the NFT of a bridge to sell you. Like, just, no, no, they're not.

Starting point is 03:54:52 You don't think Amazon's going to pass off all, like, $600 million to consumers in, like, an equitable and fair fashion? Come on. I just, I just, I can't take this seriously. This is one of those things where you read mainstream journalists talking about this, and it's like, okay, yes, they have to at face value, quote, the Amazon CFO and print the just obvious lie that they are telling. But I don't have to do that. No, absolutely not. They're just lying to you. Now, in reality, it has been, you know, it has been large corporations who have reaped the over $100 billion rewards from the tariff refunds, not consumers. And prices, meanwhile, have stayed high. What? Who could possibly have guessed that? Now, this obviously

Starting point is 03:55:40 allows corporations to double-dip by both receiving their tariff-repate checks from the government while also maintaining the increased prices nominally caused by the tariffs. This is because corporations are so-called price-setters. They do not, as neoclassical economics suggest, take prices from some kind of abstract market or, like, you know, the point where two curves meet. That is not how prices are set. Prices in reality are set by guys in corporate offices whose job it is to set the price, and now increasingly it is sometimes set by, you know, AI programs,

Starting point is 03:56:13 which are doing effectively the same thing, but trying to rip you off even more. Now, what this means is that, while you do have to take into account consumer sentiment to some extent, right, in terms of, like, you know, maintaining brand loyalty, once you have an excuse to raise prices, right? Once consumers have been disciplined into accepting higher prices as the quote-unquote results of tariffs,

Starting point is 03:56:38 companies can simply leave prices high without fear of backlash and reap in more profit. This is also a decent amount of the inflation during the Biden administration where there were increased supply chain costs which increased prices, but then those costs never came down again as supply chain costs decreased a little bit because corporations could simply leave the price sticky and keep like scurring you over. So the net result of the tariff-free funds has been companies leaving prices at the points they were at already and consumers seeing absolutely none of it. It's incredible.

Starting point is 03:57:11 Even Amazon is saying that they're not setting up a system for consumers to like file for a claim. Amazon will assess by themselves if individual consumers deserve a refund and then contact them individually. Oh, I trust them to do that. That makes sense. It's incredible. It's incredible.

Starting point is 03:57:31 There's a Canadian version of, the song, Dalloy Polozy, which is down with the police, so the classical Yiddish song. A Canadian guy is name I'm blanking on right now. Wrote a version of it where one of the lines is it's about the police like killing a guy in custody.

Starting point is 03:57:46 Hey, hey, Deloie Polite means the same thing now as yesterday. Out of your houses in to the trees. Yeah, but one of the lines that has always stuck with me is specifically the line at first a situation makes the lawmen look so filthy, but they investigate themselves.

Starting point is 03:58:02 and it turns out they're not guilty. And that's what's happening here. They investigate themselves and it turns out they're not guilty. Who could possibly have expected this? All power to the corporations. Who are people? That's right.

Starting point is 03:58:16 That's right. Electrification plus corporate power. Let's go on one more ad break and then discuss everyone's favorite thing, elections. All right, we are back In Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar will likely succeed Mike Wals as governor of Minnesota, winning the Democratic primary with 90% of the vote. Meanwhile, the Trump endorsed candidate for governor, Mike Lindell, also known as the My Pillow guy, has lost the primary to Lisa DeMuth, the Minnesota House Speaker. So Mike ended up losing with 32% of the vote to Lisa Dumuts, 43%.

Starting point is 03:59:14 This is a legitimate blow to the power of Trump's endorsement. And, you know, obviously, Mike Lindell's very public figure, while Lisa, you know, is an actual state politician that voters are somewhat more familiar with as a real politician and not that guy in that TV ad who thinks the election is fake. So this is an interesting referendum in the Republican Party itself on Trump's endorsement power and figures like Mike. So kind of basically picking old-style Republicans to new-style Republicans. Yes.

Starting point is 03:59:49 Like, she is like the Minnesota like House Speaker, like of the city house. I think people that they know who are local, who are not as die-hard mega, at least compared to Mike Lindell. Not saying that Lisa Demuth is a good politician, nor Amy Klobuchar, right? Right. Both of the people in this race, I think, suck. Yeah. But in looking at what the future of the Republican Party might be, the fact that Trump's endorsement here did not result in Mike winning is something that I find to be a bit interesting. Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren endorsed lieutenant governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan.

Starting point is 04:00:27 Ooh, probably a Margaret. You think so? Pegg is usually a Margaret. Well, there you go. She won the primary to replace Democratic Senate. Tina Smith, who is stepping down. Flanagan got 59% of the vote compared to the APAC-backed,

Starting point is 04:00:42 moderate House Representative Angie Craig, who earned 39.4%. So basically like a 20-point difference. ICE was one of the main factors in this race, as a lot of the races are in Minnesota, are being defined in large part by ICE following Metro Surge. Flanagan attacked Craig

Starting point is 04:01:03 for voting in support of the Lake and Riley Act and voting for a resolution thanking ICE. Meanwhile, Craig attacked Flanagan for the post-pandemic daycare fraud scandals in Minnesota regarding their state-run social services. Peggy Flanagan has also been very outspoken in support of trans rights and trans youth. Yeah, she's been fairly outspoken in her support of trans kids getting gender-affirming health care and also wearing the, like, protect trans kids' like knife shirt. I like when Margaret's don't go in the Thatcher direction.

Starting point is 04:01:38 That's right. That is good. So House Representative Angie Craig, who was running for Senate, is now out of a job after losing to Peggy. And in the race for her house seat, the former mayor of Lakeville Matt Little, who's a progressive running on Medicare for all and regulating AI data centers, just won the Democratic primary, beating the pro-Israel candidate. state Senator Matt Klein. This is 47% to 30%. Matt Little also participated in the community rapid response to Operation Metro Surge. Ilan Amar also won the primary for her re-election campaign by over 80%. But for the big election news this week, let's turn to Wisconsin, where DSA candidate Francesca Hong, who was heavily favored to win in the polls, barely lost in an upset to establishment-backed candidate David Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive, who was endorsed by the sitting governor

Starting point is 04:02:38 late in the race. And this race was so close. This is less than 4,000 votes. I think it's at 3,700 some votes right now. That's the difference. It's 0.5 percentage point difference. This was an incredibly close race. As much as the polls were wrong about this race in some ways, polls did have support for Hong about right, around 40%. Some polls maybe had her overperforming by like 2 to 6%. But the main thing that polling did not account for was the electorate getting in behind Crowley late into the race to edge out Hong. Polling had Crowley at about 22%, and he ended up winning with just over 40%.

Starting point is 04:03:23 Now, this polling was also from at least a week or more before the election. And as we'll discuss in a bit, things can change pretty late in the game in some of these elections. Now, turnout was also much higher than expected, over 800,000 votes nearing like presidential primary levels. So like Hong got a lot of votes. Just she needed 4,000 more to win the election. I think the way mainstream media is going to be talking about this race will be somewhat frustrating. The politico headline right now, is, quote, the far left hits a wall, which is interesting framing, because last week their headline following Abdul al-Said's victory was, quote,

Starting point is 04:04:08 progressives didn't get the big election night they wanted, meaning Abdul did not win by as big of a margin as what progressives were expecting, and so this is actually bad for progressives. So whether or not you win or whether or not you lose, it's actually bad for progressives, right? That is the line that media is going to take regarding this race. And again, this race was very close. Hong lost by less than 4,000 votes and did pretty well in some rural counties. These results come down to campaign strategies.

Starting point is 04:04:39 This is not a massive referendum on, like, DSA politics. And like this race was a stacked roster. There was seven people on the ballot. Over 150,000 votes were for other candidates besides Hong and Crowley, many of whom suspended their campaigns. and there's no ranked choice voting in this state. And oddly enough, Crowley himself suspended his campaign in early July before two other moderate candidates dropped out of the race for various reasons.

Starting point is 04:05:10 And so then Crowley got back into the race with consolidated support from the party establishment. Though Crowley might not like that term establishment. Here's a clip from him. I'm trying to figure out who the establishment is, right? I think that when we talk about the establishment, I don't know who that is. I'm a kid that grew up in 5-3-206 zip code. My parents was drug addicts and suffered from mental health. I worked extremely hard to be where I am today.

Starting point is 04:05:38 And so when people try to call me the establishment, I look at that as a slur, particularly as an African-American candidate. Hong was also wildly outspent, like many of these DSA or left populist races. She did end up spending $235,000 on digital and digital and in streaming ads. But she spent $0 on traditional TV ads. And an outside group

Starting point is 04:06:03 also spent about $220,000 in ads for Hong, but these ads were also digital. There was no TV ads for Hong in this race. Meanwhile, to quote Politico, quote, two outside groups backing late

Starting point is 04:06:17 re-entryant David Crowley spent a combined 3.3 million, mostly on TV, while the Milwaukee County Executive's own campaign spent nearly 900,000, unquote. So one of the takeaways from this race is that maybe you should spend money on some TV ads at least.

Starting point is 04:06:37 Now, Hong's campaign was not, you know, flush in cash, but TV ads might be needed to edge out a bit more support in rural areas where throughout election, I probably kept building a lead little by little. And I was watching Karnacki's stream last night. And that was the main way Crowley edged out a lead, is that basically every 10 minutes, he would win like 20 votes in some rural county, then 50 votes in another.

Starting point is 04:07:05 And this slowly built up to hundreds and then thousands of votes in these little small counties. Now, Hong also did win some rural counties, specifically in the northern part of the state and also a few rural counties in the center of the state as well. And the fact that Hong... did so well with no TV ads shows how good the DSA ground game was. This was a 4,000 vote difference with no TV ads, and she did very well.

Starting point is 04:07:33 She just didn't do well enough, so maybe as good as the ground game is, it might not be good enough alone. Now, the other sort of thing I'm seeing people talk about is that maybe a stronger base turnout could across this 4,000 vote gap, right? And specifically Madison and in Green Bay, where she was expected to do a little bit better than what she did. And would have something like a, you know, Bernie Sanders or an AOC endorsement rally have helped mobilize an extra few thousand votes in these areas where her kind of base is concentrated. Now, AOC and Bernie have said that for this cycle, they're mostly focusing on

Starting point is 04:08:06 congressional races, which is why they did not get involved in this governor's race. But it is definitely worth pointing out that Hong did not do as well with college educated voters as other DSA candidates have in recent past or someone like El-Said. She still won college voters, but not by like sort of massive margins that you're seeing in other races. And as I mentioned before, a lot of this race shifted pretty late when the final weeks of the primary were spent arguing about, quote unquote, electability. And this was a joint effort from both the media, from news media, and the Democratic establishment to question whether Hong is electable. if she'll be able to beat the Republican in the general, or will her like extreme views and old tweets alienate voters?

Starting point is 04:08:57 Here is the sitting governor. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers today, wading into the governor's race, as he was asked about Democratic frontrunner Francesca Hong, specifically can she beat Republican Tom Tiffany? I think she's in a tough fight. She has spent her entire campaign dealing with, not with the issues, but what's on the Twitter.

Starting point is 04:09:21 And I just find that that's not a good way to beat Tom Tiffany. In TV news and online, there's a lot of questions about her previous stances on abolishing police and outlets like Fox News and also on social media. They circulated an old clip from 2021 when she started serving in the State Assembly talking about being concerned about her son's quote-unquote proximity to whiteness. Here's a former Biden admin official, the chief of staff to the White House press office and a press advisor, discussing Hong on the morning of the election. She has no talent. She has no charisma. Her ideas, if a toddler said them out loud, would get put in time out. She's not a real person. She's actually, in my opinion, deeply unsettled. And she should really work through some of her own beliefs. And I cannot believe that we might be on the cusp of having to lift up this person who's undeserving of a seat in Congress. That's pretty wild. Also pretty wild because, quote-unquote, undeserving for a seat in Congress, Hong was not running for Congress.

Starting point is 04:10:24 She was running for the governor of Wisconsin. But anyway, much of the news coverage of the campaign during the final week and a week and a half of the race was Spence talking about this stuff and specifically talking about old tweets about quote unquote canceling Thanksgiving and how Hong, who used to work in the restaurant industry, just doesn't really like holidays. And I think the way that this really dominated the race and she was, you know, bombarded with a lot of questions, this kind of demonstrated how important message discipline is in running these races. And you do not need to answer stupid questions flatly, but you can rather use that as a way to promote or spread your campaign message, saying like, no, my biggest concern as governor is what their families will be able to afford to put food on the table and eat together, no matter what holidays that they celebrate. That would be message discipline, right? That is something that Zoron did very

Starting point is 04:11:20 well when campaigning. And the other thing I've kind of seen these past few weeks is a lot of these DSA candidates get asked about DSA's new platform. Workers deserve more, which we've discussed on the show, which is neither like a minimum nor a maximum platform. It has a lot of like immediate term things that are very, very possible in the short term that people, you know, should be collectively rallying around and pushing for. But it also has a lot of like long-term goals that the platform's own prologue

Starting point is 04:11:49 admits, like, won't be possible under our current system and would require, like, a complete overhaul of society. But the platform itself doesn't distinguish between its own, like, actual minimum and maximum proposals. All of the actual proposals are, like, in the same section. And I think this is, in some ways, opened up attacks from news media, especially hostile news media. This is both a good thing or a bad thing, right? You could interpret the platform being structured the way it is, as a way to kind of help keep DSA or some of these ideas from sliding over to the right. And having all these proposals together, it does open the Overton window on a lot of legitimately radical ideas, where now the public is debating things like abolishing the Senate

Starting point is 04:12:33 and the electoral call, it's drafting a new constitution, public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries. But the way this platform is structured opens candidates up to attack from, you know, media journalists who do not have, you know, the best interests of these candidates at heart, where they're being grilled about a lot of things that they themselves are not running on. So instead of being asked about, you know, raising the minimum wage, about ending gerrymandering, you know, ICE, healthcare, childcare, data centers, whatever, they're instead being asked about other, you know, maximum proposals in the DSA platform. And again, I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. I think a skilled speaker can navigate this and defend their own positions

Starting point is 04:13:16 without throwing DSA under the bus. But this is a sort of trend that I am noticing. I think specifically Oliver Larkin in Florida has handled this really, really well. And Chris Rab, who won the primary in Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, has also handled questioning on this really, really well. And I think Hong herself was getting better at this towards the end. To close, I want to play this short clip of Hong on Fox News the morning of the election. Are voters who fear that the Democratic Socialism could turn into communism? What would you want them to know? No.

Starting point is 04:13:53 This is a state where we still have a 233-tip minimum wage and 725 minimum wage. I think it's going to be pretty hard to turn that into socialism soon. But what we can do with this campaign is make sure that we're. We're fighting for the policies that work-in-class people first. And we're fighting for $20 minimum wage. Yeah. Interesting. The way the acre is there at the end,

Starting point is 04:14:20 just I have no idea how to react. I think that is really telling. I mean, there's just a fundamental generational divide between people who are like, that person said socialism, that should completely end their political career, which if you're over the age of about 40, is just like an axiom.

Starting point is 04:14:35 Yes. If you're an American and you said the word socialism, you're not fit. you don't belong here. And if you're under 40, you're like, shut the fuck up. I don't know. Yeah, I can't afford to, like, live at all. Yeah.

Starting point is 04:14:47 So maybe I'll support politicians or policies that might make my life slightly better. Yeah. Anyway, that is Wisconsin. Let's close with Robert and a very funny story. Okay, so on to my main story for this week, which obviously is not really my story. but I thought it was the funniest thing I read this week, so I'm going to tell you guys about it. So on July 8th, 2026,

Starting point is 04:15:14 Donald Trump was at Ankara, Turkey, with a bunch of his top aides and cabinet people, as well as his normal press corps retainers. He was there for a NATO summit, and overnight, on the 7th, I believe, he made the decision to have U.S. forces restart their strikes against Iran after, I think this is like the 4th or the 5th,

Starting point is 04:15:30 maybe the 7th breakdown in negotiations we've had. I honestly have lost track. How many times that has happened? But we started doing strikes again overnight, right? So after that decision was made, but before Trump decamped from Turkey late on the 8th, CBS News reports that U.S. intelligence detected a, quote, credible plot to fire a missile at Air Force 1. Now, for clarity, the Air Force 1 that the president flew to Ankara is what I'm going to call Air Force 1 2, because it's the Katari Air Force 1 that replaced the real Air Force 1 that Trump was given as a gift by a $400 million gift by Qatar, right? legally distinct from a bribe. I need to specify that. And I need to note, we will be talking about a lot of Air Force is one in this episode. Well, we'll be talking about three specifically.

Starting point is 04:16:19 Because, like, technically any plane the president is on is supposed to be Air Force One. Yes. That said, it says supposed to, they're all supposed to, like, change the transponder, but they don't do that in situations like we're about to talk about where there's, like, a threat, right? Yeah. So I should talk a little bit about the Katari Air Force One, which I'm calling Air Force One, too. I said it was a $400 million gift that's legally distinct from a bribe, and it was. But because all they had done was make a really nice plane, Air Force One is a lot more than a really nice plane. Air Force One is presumably, everyone who is an expert on plane says about the hardest plane to kill in the world, right? Because it's Air Force One.

Starting point is 04:16:56 The Qatari Air Force One is not naturally that hardened, right? Because it can't be. So they spent months and months and months and $750 million, retrovolving. fitting the Katari plane to ensure that it had the proper security features to transport and protect the president. Now, even though I just said that, that $750 million still did not bring this plane up. As far as I'm aware, it didn't even bring it particularly close to what the actual Air Force One is capable of. It does not have the whole suite of electronic countermeasures and stuff that the real Air Force One has. It's still not as secure. I also want to read one other note from

Starting point is 04:17:31 aviation source news about the Katari Air Force One. Plans to transfer the jet to the Trump presidential library foundation, rather than extend use to the next president after his term, add to the controversies. Yes, that's one of the most insane parts about the cutter jet, is that it's technically not a personal gift to Trump, because it's property of the government. And yet, after he leaves office, it'll be transferred to his library foundation. He's keeping that fucker. It's insane.

Starting point is 04:17:57 Which he's put nearly a billion dollars of public money into. Anyway, so the plane that he flew to Ankara, the Secret Service is immediately like, well, now that there is a credible threat, we cannot have him fly out on the Katari Air Force One because it doesn't have the countermeasures it would need. So at the last moment on the 8th, Mr. Trump announced that for old time's sake, I think was very close to his exact statement. He's going to be flying home from Akara on the old Air Force One, which we'll call Air Force One, right? So he says he's going to fly home on this thing. And as far as everyone is aware on the 8th, he does, right? He goes, takes a whatever kind of ride out to Air Force One.

Starting point is 04:18:36 He's photographed at the door of Air Force One. He enters Air Force One One, and then Air Force One takes off with all of the press people in a bunch of Trump staffers on it. Now, what we didn't know then, but we know now is that Trump was not on Air Force One One after it took off, even though he got on the plane. Because the day before we sat down to record this episode of E.D., the Washington Post published one of the funnier investigations of the second Trump era. Its title is, contradicting public statements, Trump took secret flight from Turkey amid Iranian threat. Now, CBS and the New York Times had previously reported that Trump had boarded the old Air Force one due to this threat. That was a lie. In reality, the Secret Service had Trump board the old Air Force one on camera and then put all of the normal people who would be on it on it and then sent it on its way without Trump as a decoy in case the Iranians wanted to try to shoot it down.

Starting point is 04:19:28 Any major administration visit to a summit like they held in Ankara is going to include not just Air Force One, but a couple of other Air Force marked passenger jets, which are all suitable for hosting cabinet officials and other high-ranking members of the government, but are also there for another reason, in case the president needed to make a discreet escape on a different plane. This is not the only time the president has not been on Air Force One when people have thought he was, right? The White House doesn't have a history of lying to people about this. It's more the obfuscated kind of. in the moment like they did with Bush or they'll just say we're not telling you where the fucking president is because shit's happening right now. So the fact that they did an elaborate lie and sent Air Force One into the sky full of

Starting point is 04:20:08 people as like a decoy for an Iranian missile is pretty new and fucked up. But the fact that the Secret Service was like we probably shouldn't send him out on any of the obvious Air Force ones is not really all that like weird of a moment. What is weird is how they did it, right?

Starting point is 04:20:23 And I'm going to quote from the Washington Post. In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force one jumbo jet in view of television cameras. He was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane, an Air Force C-32A via an airport catering truck you typically use to load meals and other supplies pre-flight, according to the U.S. official corroborating material reviewed by the Post. That made Air Force one a decoy with media and some White House staff aboard, the official set. And the article goes into a hysterical amount of deal. They're combing through all of the pictures of the airport on that day, and they show the catering trump when Trump would have been on it.

Starting point is 04:20:57 You can see that in the article. It's like it just looks like a catering truck on a plane, but it's really funny to know that he's just squatting in there. Unfortunately, he's got to be having the best time of his life doing this, right? Like, he's just like... I bet it was really fun. I bet it was super fun and he felt like a spy. I know.

Starting point is 04:21:14 Yeah, yeah. It's a bummer. God. But it is really funny because, like, there's a lot that's funny of this, right? And to be fair, I can't imagine any member of the White House press corps would be surprised at the president using them as a deep. in fact, before it was revealed that Trump had left the original Air Force One or Air Force 1-1 for what I guess we'll call Air Force 1-3, this happened.

Starting point is 04:21:36 Quote, asked why reporters had been instructed to lower the window shades on the plane in Turkey. Trump said that it was because you're probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags we have to deal with. Trump said that he has a threat all the time against his life and that he is number one on Iran's list. But if I go, you go, right? Trump suggested to reporters, perhaps someday you want to change professions?

Starting point is 04:21:56 He's Christ. He's really funny sometimes. I'm sorry, guys. It does feel like an 80s movie side plot. It really does. It really does. Now, the people I'd imagine might be kind of hurt by this. Are the staff members, like the members of Trump's White House,

Starting point is 04:22:12 who got chosen to fly on the Human Shield flight without being told, rather than being rerouted to Air Force 1-3, where the boss was flying? Because not all of them were. Pete Hegseth was on Air Force 103 with Trump, right? He got rerouted to the real one? but a bunch of Trump's people just found out today that he put them on the death flight to see if a missile would have.

Starting point is 04:22:32 And I think that's beautiful. Anyway, that's what I got. Margaret, where can people listen to more cool people doing cool stuff, like flock cameras? Well, you can listen to cool people who did cool stuff, which is usually about history, but lately I've been doing a lot of history that sometimes happened a week or so ago.

Starting point is 04:22:55 And it's on this very network, or even in this very feed, you can listen to Cool Zone Media Book Club, where I read a different story every week to you. Also, James's new show, Natural Cause, is coming out soon. Put a Transcoal on your couch. We reported the news. We reported the news. 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,

Starting point is 04:23:33 or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Hoda Kotbby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors, and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space.

Starting point is 04:24:05 You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia A.O. rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together,

Starting point is 04:24:28 breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guestrars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song.

Starting point is 04:24:51 Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. Rewatch on the I. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clemens. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook.

Starting point is 04:25:10 Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenbergin. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 04:25:33 This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was?

Starting point is 04:25:46 If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Starting point is 04:26:01 This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

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