It Could Happen Here - Liberal Hope Returns as Protests Continue

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Robert and Gare cover a protest at the Israeli Consulate, and Sophie time travels back to 2008 to see Obama. Chicago Community Jail Support (and bail fund): https://www.instagram.com/chicommunityjailsupport/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Some people won't give you the real talk on drugs, but it's time we know the facts.

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it takes a lot of cowardice to really stand up in this crowd but little john refusing to talk about sweat dripping down his balls in the middle of the dnc was a horrible mistake here i'm sorry i didn't know he was gonna start that way i i knew i was gonna start that way i think it was obviously in pain garrison do you know the song we're talking about no what welcome to it could happen here i I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined with my bosses, Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. Very old. Very old. Remember when Lil Jon was slightly, he was never really that transgressive.

Lil Jon's always been pretty family friendly, I guess. Somebody replied to the video I posted of Lil Jon saying, maybe the best Lil. And, you know. Ah! I have a soft spot in my heart for Lil Wayne. Not that he was good, but because he's really funny. Like, Mrs. Officer.

That's a fun song. That's a fun story about Lil Wayne pretending he had sex with a police officer. The Democratic National Convention continues inside Chicago, Illinois. Lil Wayne not yet present, but maybe tonight. People say Swift might show up soon. Well, she had a couple shows, and she could potentially get here by tomorrow.

Oh, okay. That's great. That's great. I was actually talking about Jonathan Swift, author of A Modest Proposal, but yeah. But in my heart, I really don't think she's coming. No, why would she why what does she gain from that yeah so tuesday we spent the day split up mostly with me and robert going to a protest and sophie entering the united center to watch the lib utopia just an unveil complete with an appearance so happy lil john i believe is what he's referred to as yes that is that is correct okay thank you yes just checking my sources as someone

currently wearing a mesh shirt he is in your line of descendants like this is one of your one of your sainted ancestors i don't know how i feel about that and we will we will get to the little john antics uh specifically with the state of Georgia, which made quite a show. Later on in the episode, we will be talking about that. But first, we will be talking about what me and Robert spent a good, I don't know, four hours yesterday doing. I was out for closer to eight because I went out earlier to look at some stuff I went to. There was a pro-Israel Free the Hostages event that I went to and looked around briefly. Not a whole lot to say about it other than some art that I don't fully know how to think about yet.

They had a massive – one of the young women that was abducted by Hamas very famously had like blood on her gray sweatpants. They had just like a massive two-story tall pair of gray sweatpants covered in blood but it wasn't really clear until you like got up close what it was trying to be so it was just kind of like it was odd odd visuals for the event i'll say that but mostly pretty tame there was maybe 30 or 40 people there and that was about two three blocks down from the planned site of the protest that you and i went to which was the ascensure tower which is apparently it's a it's like a mall on the inside and a metro station and also several floors many floors of office space so i'm guessing that the israeli consulate is a couple of small offices in this big building yeah so there was a protest plan for later this evening as me

and sophie were going to get lunch, I saw, like... Sophie and I. I saw... They both just looked at me deciding who I was going to give a dirty look to. I know. It was very... You were the United Kingdom, and me correcting Garrison's grammar was the German army marching into Belgium. I saw a whole bunch of police vans driving through downtown chicago

on the way to the israeli consulate and uh we showed up a few hours later for the for the protest planned that evening like usual we tried to arrive early and there was a few kind of characters bumping around the area that that a lot of media was just fascinated by. Yeah. The start of it was there was the same, there had been a Nazi lady out at the protest the day before as well. She has like bright purplish hair, carried on the first day just a cardboard sign covered in racial slurs,

loved shouting the N-word. Today she had a friend. They unveiled a sign. People confronted them. It was like a white genocide, white replacement, great replacement type sign they unveiled a sign people confronted them it was like a it was like a white genocide white like white replacement great replacement type sign with a url to a telegram channel i believe yeah you don't really have a channel yeah i think she had a friend today yes someone else with her

yeah that is shocking news yeah i mean they usually have at least one right maybe and then uh i mean kind of the at one point sort of while we were all waiting around, because it was initially just a shitload of press, some looky-loos from the local area, and a bunch of cops. A bunch of private security, too. A lot of private security, mostly for the media. There's a fun game of spot the concealed handgun, because none of these guys are very good at concealing their fucking handguns. But at one point, I'm standing and talking to another media, and I see this, like, massive circle of cameras fill up around and so i'm wondering okay maybe something's happened i get over there and i i didn't even think to like stop myself from you know using my outside voice i just shouted as soon as i got close oh fuck it's the my pillow guy which is the least news anything

could possibly be but for some reason there there was maybe like 40 cameras and reporters just huddled around this guy trying to get whatever picture or whatever interview. Letting him talk. A couple of protesters kept engaging him about Gaza, which I just don't think that there's anything to be gained from engaging the MyPillow guy, with the exception of Garrison, the way you chose to engage the MyPillow guy. I think there's really only one way to handle this. Well, there's maybe two ways. my pillow guy with the exception of garrison the way you chose to engage the my pillow guy i think there's really only one way to handle this and well there's maybe two ways you can just completely

ignore him which is probably probably probably the best that's what i did because there's there's no reason to engage with this there's no reason to give him what he wants the other option is just to completely baffle him just be really confusing so i went up and and i i i didn't even ask a question i just i just said you said mike first which i loved so funny i just want the listeners to know that after a 14 hour day yesterday i get i get back to the hotel and garrison and robert have had several drinks and garrison is like did you see my video did you see my video? Did you see my video? And what was that video? We'll play the audio here. Mike, Skibbity Biden. What's up?

Skibbity Biden. Skibbity Biden what? Skibbity Biden. Wow. Skibbity Biden. So, no, I was able to get Mike. We're pretty close. That's how you guys talk now.

I'm so proud of you. To say Skibbity Biden. Because that's the only way to handle these guys. proud of you to say skivity byley because that's the only way to handle these guys it's just like just like just really like you're not even like annoying them you're just kind of baffling because all all he wants is attention to say his little piece and trying to attract whatever media attention and you just gotta kind of fuck with them and it's it's kind of a good sign that he did that because this is not if you think about where he was in like 2017 2018 him showing up

alone no visible security escort to just kind of stand around before a protest and bullshit is like that's a man whose life has fallen apart like he has nothing left no everything he was saying i i'm able to to hear him say at 4 a.m on fox news yeah and that's that was pretty much the little pre-show circus and you know people started to trickle into the area slowly you know people in keffias you know protesters medics started to slowly slowly enter enter this little like you know block radius and then very very suddenly from like the opposite side of where everyone else was stationed at, we saw a group of maybe 50 march in all at the same time.

And this was kind of the start of the main protest. And I would say at that point, there were maybe 50 protesters scattered around within the clumps of media, most of whom ran over and joined that group. So probably around 100 or so, maybe as many as 150. And it probably grew to about like 200 over the course of the next few hours, although they started to kind of bleed numbers as well.

And I was taking notes on my little personal recorder during this time, and we put together a little kind of compilation to hear about what went down, and I'll probably cut in with some extra narration to kind of fill in the gaps. So to clarify, the audio you're about to hear was recorded over the course of like two and a half hours. We've cut this down for efficiency and clarity. So some of the sections you're about to hear, you know, may have happened a minute or two apart, but they're just gonna be mushed together to kind of help the action move along a little bit faster, not including, you know, the sections of the protest where there's 10 minutes of nothing happening. Here's a first-hand look at what happened during the protest at the Israeli consulate. All right, it's just past seven.

The Behind Enemy Lines Israeli consulate protest basically just started. A whole bunch of people in some form of block showed up in front of the building, started marching up the street very quickly. A three or four or five layered line of Chicago PD came to block Clinton Street, so the march could not advance. They're now retreating back towards the building, and they might try to march the other direction. I'm going to be on the move here, trying to take notes as this progresses. Accenture Tower is kind of a tricky spot for this sort of protest. Although it does house the Israeli consulate, from the outside, there's no obvious indicators that this building is linked to the Israeli government. And it's about two miles away from the DNC. So there's gonna be very little impact on DNC attendees all the way over here in the West Loop area of Chicago. Chicago PD is set up across the other street as well,

blocking both ways in, essentially kettling this entire protest. There's a loudspeaker. People are talking in front of the building. The purple-haired wig lady from before has moved her Nazi banner closer to this core of protesters right in front of the entrance of the building housing the Israeli consulate. All right, some of the protesters just announced that they have a couple of speakers that are going to talk in front of the Israeli consulate building as people are now sandwiched in between two streets right in front of the entrance. Speeches discussed the genocide in Gaza and the

U.S. arms deals sending weapons and bombs to Israel as part of continuing U.S. imperialism. As the speeches carried on, more and more police began to arrive. All right, it is 7.20 p.m. About nine or so white vans just showed up with tons of Chicago PD in riot gear, helmets, gas masks, thicker sleeves, not just the blue button-ups that the regular cops wear. All right, we're going to run into a line of police. People have banners, bring the war home, shut down the DNC for Gaza. Palestine flags as they are marching towards a massive line of riot cops.

There's too much media in the way. And a clash has started. Pushing up against lines. Police pulling apart the signs and banners. Sounds familiar, I bet, to anyone who was at 2020. The first clash lasted about a minute as protesters tried to march forwards into the street and police pushed them back. I was off to the side, but the sheer amount of cameras and media in the middle of this scuffle prevented either side from gaining or losing much

ground. All right, there was kind of a little bit of a back and forth. The protest line got pushed back slightly, but still in the middle of Clinton Street. Protesters telling the press to get out of the way, as many press are in between. As press moved slowly out of the way, police were able to successfully push the protest back. Chicago PD is redirecting some of their push towards the south now. Looks like some of the protesters are trying to move onto the sidewalk to get out of this massive sandwich of police. And there's maybe three or four cops trying to prevent them from moving on the sidewalk here. We'll see if they get passed.

Police have tackled some people. Police are going in for a lot of arrests. It's very combative. Police with batons out, attacking people, hitting them on the ground, tackling them. Police preventing all forwards movement on the sidewalk as well, not just the street. People are trying to get out and police are really trying to trap them. Police are squishing. We can't move.

Dude, we can't move back. We can't move back. Police are telling people to move back into nothing. They have us trapped by this building. Eventually, police realized that they could not push all 50 people into a flat wall and eased off, directing people back in front of the consulate. Police are squishing us into a very tiny corner. A small line of police is separating two crowds, mostly on the sidewalk. All right, they're pushing us back towards the building.

Action now paused for a few minutes as both sides figured out their next move. Protesters chanted for the release of detained comrades. Let them go! Let them go! Let them go! Let them go! Let them go! All right, some of the crowd is trying to regroup as police continue to push people off of the sidewalk and back into the street, I guess. The crowd has kind of been split now into four sections. Police keeping them separate, not letting them reconvene. The section in front of the building, there's a section on the corner, the section behind the police line,

and there's a section close to where people tried to march that's now been cut off from the rest of the crowd. So we have these kind of four groups. A smaller group is reforming in the street in front of the building. This is kind of the section that got trapped by the building as the rest of the march tried to move forward. And some of the people from the side have linked up with them as well. But still mostly kind of four sections separated up by police. People chanting to get back in the street. We have little squads or AGs linking up with their mates again,

linking arms, holding hands, kind of regrouping right now. Chicago PD is kind of doing the same. They're reforming their line, going back more into the middle of the street. If they did get any detainments or arrests, probably sorting those out right now as they decide what to do next. During this lull period, I was able to hear a decent amount of police comms chatter coming from their walkie-talkies as the police decided on their next move. All right, I just heard on police comms that they're going to be asking for media to leave. Interesting. They are calling for transport vans, so if they're going to be asking for media to leave. Interesting. They are calling for transport bans.

So if they're going to start doing arrests, they might try to get media to leave first, then really move in. It sounds like to me on the comms, they're calling out specific people to do targeted arrests. On the comms, they're calling out specific outfits, what people are wearing, what people are holding to move in and do targeted arrests on the crowd. Some of the descriptions are very general, like black hoodie, red hat, that kind of stuff. I really did not want to get a face full of mace, so as soon as I saw police carrying mace cans,

I, perhaps a bit prematurely, decided to don my full face gas mask. Which I then took off like 10 minutes later as it became clear that we weren't in immediate danger of a macing. Well, I don't think I'm going to see Barack Obama today. There's been enough of a pause that the anticipation keeps growing. Everyone knows what's about to happen. We're just waiting for it to happen. All right, the Palestine protesters that are in front of the building are now moving towards the Israeli counter-protesters on the other side.

As things started to heat back up, some folks in the crowd opted to exit the area via a small evac route on the northwest corner of the street. Considering the talk of targeted arrests on the police scanner, police may have been eyeing up certain people in the crowd who then got the hint about what's about to go down next. You see that group going down? Is that some people in block that just bounced? Yeah. No, I think they could spot that they were about to get targeted for arrests. Yes, I think so. Because they were being followed up by some of the sergeants. Because I honestly can't name any law-breaking other than, quote-unquote, shoving with a pass.

Sure, but I mean, you know, they can get you on something. The protest did not stay still for too long, and a little less than an hour since the last big confrontation, the crowd once again attempted to march. All right, it is nearly 8.20. The crowd that remained in front of the Israeli consulate building is now moving up again towards Clinton Street to re-engage the confrontation that happened nearly an hour ago. the confrontation that happened nearly an hour ago. There's less cameras in between the two factions, but not no cameras.

The crowd of protesters is still approaching. And they're turning. They are turning. They turned down Clinton Street. This is the movement they tried to make before, but police prevented them from doing so. And now they're so far able to exit. The section of the protest that was still facing down the riot line split up into two smaller groups and then made this same movement down the sidewalk away from the police.

The people that were traveling down the sidewalk on Clinton have now reformed on Moreau Street. And they are now marching. The police are now caught behind the protesters in the march. But sure enough, police quickly arrive to contain the mobile protest. All right, bike cops have beat most of the crowd to the intersection, but they're still slowly arriving. The intersection up here is a T-shape, so only two directions to go. Police are going to try to get them to take a right, it looks like.

Yep. All right, more police catching up. As I'm sure you can hear, bike cops coming in from both sides. Well, this is quite the pickle. Unfortunately, because of the T-shape of this intersection, this is now a little bit of a tighter pinch. They can still get out via one path on the sidewalk, but they might prefer a confrontation with some of these police. We'll see.

The march paused at this T-shaped intersection for a few minutes as they decided their next move. All right, the crowd is standing in front of this very thin line of bike cops. The police line's not very thick because they had to move kind of impromptu to adjust to the movements of the crowd. Small groups of the protest keep peeling off. They're slowly bleeding numbers. People chanting, let us through, as the police yell to move back. Police have the remaining crowd in a pretty tight squeeze at the moment. Smaller groups keep peeling off, but now the remaining march

is moving forward as the bike cops slowly back up. Looks like most of the crowd has been moving onto the sidewalk to move down the street. They don't really have many more moves to make. There's just a saturation of police in this area that the cops can adapt to any movement this shrinking crowd makes. Police are piling into the sidewalk. Police are making arrests. Police are doing targeted arrests. They're grabbing people on the sidewalk. They're grabbing people on the sidewalk. Numbers of arrests are being made. There's at least five from where I'm standing.

Police ordering media out of the way. Leave now! Leave now! Leave! On the side! On the side! Protesters are now moving back on the sidewalk, backtracking away from the police. The remaining crowd attempted to move away from the police who were making arrests on the sidewalk, but the only way left to move was back where they just came from. People are linking up with their AGs,

arm in arm, trying to move through this very, very tricky environment right now. There's so much, everywhere we go I see a new a new battalion of cops. People really just have nowhere to go. There's just police everywhere. We're just at this point moving in circles

but not like the regular march circles just on the sidewalk going back and forth backtracking, looping around. They're trying to find somewhere just to get out of this area. Mostly out of options on where to go, the protest entered a small patio terrace on the corner of the street. Protesters are now getting into the terrace of this building at 525 West Monroe. That's probably not going to end great. At this point, police have the remaining much smaller crowd,

maybe 50, squeezed in in this little building terrace corner. They are not letting any protesters leave. A shoving match has started. Police are moving in, and they're tackling, pushing people on the ground. It's almost 9 p.m. Police have one arrest now. They just dragged someone out by their hair from the crowd that is currently just completely kettled. For the first time tonight, they're providing no evacuation routes for protesters.

They are trapped on this street corner, completely surrounded, not letting anyone leave. Eventually, a small hole opened up, letting a few protesters leave this kettled patio. Robert was able to exit with this group, but many people were not able to make it through. And this little patio was where a number of arrests were able to take place, as others slowly dispersed throughout the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago. According to NBC, the police superintendent Larry Sneeling, which is kind of a great name for a cop, praised his officers for quote-unquote showing restraint when no one else did, saying that they, quote, did an excellent job responding to violence and vandalism. He made a similar comment on Wednesday,

saying that the protest, quote, showed up with the intention of committing acts of violence and vandalism, unquote. Now, there was no vandalism that was actually committed during this protest. That did not happen. I'm not sure how the superintendent was able to infer the intention of this protest exactly, as no vandalism took place. And the only violence that happened was when police started pushing people who were trying to march forwards in the street. Wow, Garrison, that was a gripping story that we're going to talk about after these services. Services?

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. So, I don't know, I guess we should probably just kind of give some final thoughts on how we felt about this protest my overwhelming impression and i i really i'm not saying this to try to be mean is that the crowd came with a lot of rhetoric about this is the protest that matters we are going to shut down the dn. We are going to throw our bodies upon the machinery of empire. And then after the first couple of hand-to-hand clashes with the police, which were

mostly just kind of shoving, people just wanted to get home. They wanted to leave. And most of the night was us following people, attempting to get home and disperse and not being allowed to by the police. Every time they would like do a big push in where they're all shouting move in unison, they're telling you to go back, they're telling you to do this or you'll get arrested. And there's always you're always surrounded on every side by cops and you know, sometimes by gaggles of media, but like, it was impossible to comply. Like I can't say that I saw any law breaking really, aside from assuming the cops called an unlawful assembly, which I did not hear. I don't know how you would have heard in most of the protests, but assuming they did, I guess that's the law-breaking.

But yeah, there was no, like, property damage. There was no riot activity. You know, people tried to march, and police prevented them with their bodies. Yep. And, you know, there's a confrontation that ensues like at that point where where the two groups meet but besides that it was it was it was people trying to march and the cops prevented them from doing so and it was a lot i got stuck at one point with a group of 20 or so people a handful of protesters couple of media and then maybe a dozen or more like i think they were locals i guess it's possible they were tourists but people who had just seen the march going down the street and thought that they might follow along and watch for a little.

And then the cops moved in so fast. We all got walled off in the courtyard of a hotel that didn't actually have street access, but it wasn't clear that it didn't. And the police repeatedly said they were going to arrest all of us. I had like a discussion with one about my credentials because he was like, those are press credential. Eventually they got a cop who could read, but another journalist got arrested. And I think there were at least four arrested.

You mean at least four journalists were arrested? At least four journalists were arrested, yeah. Because after I got out, they let most of the people in our kettle out, but they pulled one guy with a helmet that said press on it out of the kettle. I think his name was Josh Pacheco. I believe it was Josh that I was filming. Josh was definitely arrested, and he is going to be raising money because his camera was broken.

They tossed his camera's lens first onto the ground. It did significant damage. If you want to find Josh's info online at JP underscore OTG, you can find his information. I'm sure he'll be doing a fundraiser at some point. And obviously there were many more protesters arrested. The actual final number is kind of up in the air. Polices are saying that 22 people at least were arrested.

And NLG is saying it's closer to around 70. Being the National Lawyers Guild, they show up at protests to protect people's rights primarily in the event of arrests. Yeah so there's kind of some confusion here on how many people were actually arrested. I'll try to get confirmations and I'll add that in later tonight. I'll also look for a bail fund to donate as well because it is always unfortunate when journalists are arrested but it's equally as unfortunate when people who are protesting, especially for a cause like this, get arrested as well. This is, I think, something that it's worth stating.

Especially since, again, I can't say anything anyone did to precipitate arrest. It's not even like they were closing down streets because the police had closed down every street they were on before they showed up. I think the police very clearly were under orders to keep things peaceful as long as possible, largely because they didn't want the DNC and the city government didn't want the embarrassment of anything really ugly. So there were no weapons used. There was no mace used. I didn't even really see the sticks used much.

They were mostly used to push. There was very little in terms of overhand hitting. But they didn't need any of that stuff because there was no point at which they had less than a two to one numerical advantage usually more like three or four and then the people that were organizing this protest in the in the days prior were like announcing part of their intention was to specifically get beat up by police and like beat up badly and have this like generate news coverage have this you know spotlight their organization as well yeah invoking chicago 1968 and police largely like denied them that option and you know many of the participants also opted to to to not continue you know an

hours-long physical confrontation with police and instead opted to try to move around them try to evade them instead of trying to trying to push through police lines. There was a few points where the police lines that were blocking the street was very thin after people started to move around this kind of area around the consulate building. And other times the police lines were very thick. But consistently, people opted to not continue

a long physical engagement with police. Yeah, it was a discretion is the better part of valor kind of night. And I think that's the point at which the police decided we are going to arrest people. There was a degree to which it felt like they were just kind of like trying out tactics. A lot of what they were doing was splitting up the crowd, then doing targeted arrests and kind of separating, calving off chunks of it. I don't know, the whole thing, I kind of couldn, calving off chunks of it. I don't know. The whole thing I kind of couldn't stop myself from being drawn back to the whole time is

like, what is the actual utility of this, really? Because it didn't get attention. Not much. You know, there's some news coverage and stuff, but it's not a Chicago 68 moment. I don't think this is going to move any needle for anybody. And obviously, that's the goal right is to have some kind of an impact i mean everyone was saying like the stated goal at all of these protests is shut down the dm dnc and the only time that kind of happened was at the less

radical protest policed protest yesterday right when largely kind of by accident i don't know like that that i'm not trying to be like down on anyone. It just is one of those. When you're seeing the sheer weight of police and the, the numbers of protesters being generated is a hundred or 200. It just feels like you're asking people to get fucked up and damage their lives in a situation in which that's unlikely to actually lead to any of the things they want to see.

Hey, this is Gare cutting in again. The exact number of arrests is still a little bit unclear, but we have a clearer idea than what we did a few hours ago. The official number as of Wednesday evening is that 56 people were arrested. I'm going to quote from the AP, quote, 30 of the people detained by police were issued citations for disorderly conduct, according to Chicago police. One person was arrested on a felony charge of resisting police, while nine were charged with misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct, resisting officers, battery, assault, and criminal damage to property,

police said, unquote. For the record, neither myself nor Robert witnessed any criminal damage to property. I guess to kind of conclude, a protest that's going to actually like move the needle or change anything has to overwhelm like the capacity of the state system to deal with it. It has to be something that the state is not.

We saw this in 2020, right? Like just over, I'm just talking about Portland, just like overall, the George Floyd uprising was beyond what the state was prepared to handle for at least a sizable chunk, especially of the early days. It like overwhelmed the capacity of the resources the state had to respond adequately. The state, at least everything I've seen so far at the DNC, has been perfectly prepared for everything that people brought to bear. And that's really the summary I've got. We're gonna go on a quick break and then be back to hear from Sophie about the Obama Festival inside the Democratic National Convention.

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Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. And as this protest was happening in this area around, I think it's called the West Loop, Sophie was inside the DNC. And there was also people similar to the first day of the DNC who snuck in banners into the DNC. And there was also people similar to the first day of the DNC who snuck in like banners

into the DNC and unfurled them like pro-Palestine disarming Israel banners. I believe the banner from last night just read free Palestine. And Sophie, what was it like in there exactly? Was it easier to get into than the day previous? Well, it was more it was it was it was is what i'll say it wasn't as organized as the rnc but it was it was better than the day prior that's good a win is a win at this point but yeah the energy was electric as i heard multiple people say throughout the night in the unassigned press area that i was in. It felt like, at least from watching online afterwards, it gave really big 2008 energy. Yeah, yeah.

Obviously, Michelle Obama, Barack Obama are both speaking, so that kind of carries with it a little bit. But even just the general vibe just felt very 2008, that style of 2008 optimism. Yeah, yeah, i would agree with that i've been asked a lot like what the energy is compared to the rnc and like the rnc was more like a wwe event and this was more like a you know b-level pop star concert sure where everyone was very excited to be there where i only knew a couple of the songs. Sure.

That was the general vibe. But the main speech section of the event started off with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. And I watched his speech. It was not very good. He came out and was what some would describe as dancing on stage. He was questionable. His speech was very robotic. He was not good.

Well, he's the head of the dim crypto caucus, so he is part robot. But it was like people were not super into him. He was whatever. But then Bernie Sanders came up, and I was actually surprised that the crowd was as into him as they were. But not super into him.

No, no, no. no oh don't get me wrong with it nothing like nothing like the obamas later in the night nothing even like aoc it seems no they definitely loved aoc a lot a lot more than bernie i enjoyed his speech yeah he gave like one of the more like economically sound speeches talking about actual issues facing working people correct uh i would say you know a lot of the other journalists around me were talking during that time. They were not thoroughly paying attention to him, which was interesting to note. It was the same speech

that he's been giving since 2016, essentially. Unfortunately, the economic situation in the States has not changed all that much. I feel like Bernie Sanders has been giving the same speech his entire career. Sure. Yeah, and the same stuff he was calling for back then with the 1% and the billionaire class and health care and all these things that are still real issues and in some ways it feels like they were more talked

about back in like you know 2017 and the fact that they aren't talked about now is maybe you know to some degree like a failing but no he gave the speech that he was expected to to make and yeah he called for an end to the words. Horrific war in Gaza. And called for a ceasefire. One of the few this entire week. That we've heard actually say that. AOC said it yesterday. And AOC's specific line was.

Crediting Harris for working around the clock. To make a ceasefire deal. It was specifically the phrasing that AOC used. Yeah. I don't buy that super well. No. I'm not afraid to admit. Because I was at the phrasing that AOC used. Yeah. I don't buy that super well. No. Well, I'm not afraid to admit is that because I was at the protest,

I had the intention of just watching all the speeches in my hotel afterwards. And I got up to my room. I turned on CNN. They were replaying the whole night. And after Bernie's speech, I completely fell asleep. And then I woke up at 8 a.m. CNN was still on my television that

is so cursed and i turned it off and i went back to sleep so you had some nightmares on spooling your brain that did permanent damage i don't know what was being subjected to my sleeping body you're never recovering from this after birdie you know i i'd say the only other person until we get to the second gentleman doug m hoff and then the obamas later the night was you know the governor of illinois pritzker pritzker he he just was very very well received obviously by by the crowd yeah he's one of the democrat favorite men one of their favorite boys early on a favorite for the vp slot yeah he's very good at attacking trump in his speeches he said trump is only rich in one thing stupidity and the crowd went feral yeah he was definitely like the most like a mean out of many of the speech i would say though like last night was the roasting night last night was the roasting okay

okay for sure they did obama made a dick joke obama made a dick joke we'll get to we'll get to that but yeah also just like visually they have like those light up things that you have at concerts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I do before I get into taking this back into time to 2008, talk a little bit about the roll call. Sure, sure. And this is where they formally,

like ceremonially nominate Harris and Walls to be the president and vice presidential nominees. Correct. And let's just say it was a little bit different than the RNC. At the RNC, you have Speaker Johnson just telling the delegates that we need to keep order and there's a proper way to do things. And then you had people from each state come up and make speeches like this. Fighting for liberty since 1670, where the Revolution was won where in 2016 donald trump won his

first primary victory ever ushering in the trump era of american history the great state of south carolina proud to cast all 50 of its votes for president don, Donald J. Trump. And on the flip side, at the DNC, and I had several friends that were watching on TV say it was translating very well on TV. It was a little bit more chaotic in person, and certain states didn't match the same energy, but each state had a song. There was a whole playlist thing,

and that is now going around, and the energy was of a, I would say, teen choice awards. State had a song. There was a whole playlist thing, and that is now going around. And the energy was of a, I would say, Teen Choice Awards. Kamala is Brat. It was a Teen Choice Awards vibe with Garrison, the state of Georgia, doing this. We are the world! We are the world! We are the world! Come to the wall! We are the world! Come to the wall! Wow. listen wow so that's very cool sophie i will say the state of oregon did not well no that's because oregon's allergic to fun or oregon and wisconsin boy howdy did they not

bring the good vibes well that's because all you can do in Wisconsin is drink, and all in Oregon you can do is smoke weed. So there you go. After the roll call, they cut to VP Harris and Governor Tim Walz streaming live from Milwaukee. The Pfizer Forum, where we all suffered through last month. Yes, that was where the RNC was held last month, to be like, look at us us donald we're able to fill both venues at the same time we are so hip and cool um and of course the crowd lost their minds

ate it up they love her they love her so so honestly pretty good burn on it's it's not bad it was spicy i liked it it's not a bad movie a bad movie. You're getting kind of a glimpse. Ever since the Republicans are weird stuff, they've been realizing that it's actually really useful to be kind of mean in politics. Yeah. For so long, this party's been linked to, when they go low, we go high. They went low. We're going to make a compromise. Not yesterday.

We're going to reach across the aisle. Yeah. I mean, last night, it was not, they go low, mean, last night it was not, they go low, we go high. It was definitely, they go low. We also go low. And you know,

that was interesting to observe because the crowd loved it. It plays very well. It plays very well. Before the Obamas, we got a speech from the second gentleman, which is very fun to say. Kamala Harris, his husband,

Doug. Let's try that again. You can't not. No, no, no, second gentleman, which is very fun to say, Kabla Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff. Let's try that again. You can't not yawn and say his name. That's the right way to refer to Doug Emhoff. They intro'd him with a video from his son and it was

very TV movie of the week, heartwarming. Then he came out on stage and introduced his dad and there was hugging, la la la. And the crowd was the loudest it had been that night. And I was like, wow. They love families. But I was like, wow, the crowd is so loud. And then like 10 minutes later, Michelle Obama came out and I was like, the crowd was very quiet for Doug Emhoff in comparison.

She is by far the most popular Democrat in the world. There is an Obama derangement syndrome it ignites something in millennials uh and makes them really love the obama they just lose their minds lose their minds doug's speech primarily focused on painting a picture of his wife as a family family woman and talking about how great she is with their kids. He has two kids from his first marriage and they call her Momola. But she's not a real

mom, you know. Robert. Look, I've been listening to a lot of Matt. This is a real scandal. They're not her born children, you know. You can't adopt kids. You gotta stop listening to Matt Walsh podcasts when you're doing your work. I do love that the right has entirely chosen the line of attack on Kamala to be that like she's a fake mom.

She's a fake mom. She raised Kamala. No, because we're quoting Matt Walsh. Oh, OK. Is that how he says? That's absolutely. By the way, Matt Walsh was like in a disguise. They're all in disguises

doing something that doesn't matter yes matt walsh showed up in his like what is a woman liberal disguise with the with the little ponytails cowardly we didn't show white dudes for harris rnc i show up i showed up kind of it well my disguise just being a regular black suit which i also wear regularly all the time i'm pretty sure Walsh was trying to get some extra clips for his new How Racism Isn't Real documentary that they're playing ads for in theaters in front of queer and trans movies, specifically to fuck with

people. So I'm pretty sure they're here collecting some kind of footage for that, because he had a little lav mic attached to his lapel. So he's doing some kind of hijinks but yeah it's interesting to me how much of the attacks on kamala right now are focused on her family not being a real family it strikes me as kind of a sign of desperation because i'm not saying it

get any traction it's the same as like the tim wall stuff where it's like nothing's sticking that they're trying right now and i think they've just gotten so far into the their own fever swamps that they have completely forgotten how to connect with a hit which is is an interesting place for the republicans to be because that's all they have yeah so read the teleprompter he it's fun being able to see the teleprompter because you can see where they have bolded words or underlined words or capitalized words and any bold or capitalized word he really went for it and um i personally thought that was funny to observe but the crowd liked him and uh i was like wow they really like doug emhoff wow and then i was like no that's not who they actually like. Because then Michelle Obama came

out and the crowd standing ovations. I can't even tell you it was it was louder than like I've seen Beyonce at concert. Same same same exact amount of loudness. But yeah, it was just very 2008, very 2012. Her speech was incredible. What did she actually talk about? 2008, very 2012. Her speech was incredible. What did she actually talk about? Nothing. But it was incredible, is what I'm saying. She just basically talked about how important it is to do things.

Without saying anything, she was able to resonate with every single person in the crowd. Every single person in the crowd was just enamored. There's been so many bad months in a row of news and just getting constantly beat down in every news cycle and war and genocide overseas. And a lot of people, as soon as Biden stepped down, it was like a rubber band breaking and everyone just went from what this this was supposed to not happen as a convention. There were serious efforts by the DNC when Biden was still the candidate that to like, we don't even need to do a real convention because like,

what is the benefit of sticking him in front of people for longer? And they broke a pinata full of party energy. And that's, that's what this has all been inside. And honestly, not a lot of energy outside in the streets, you know, energy from the people who

were there but like i think there would have been much larger crowds if biden had stayed i 100% agree with you you know michelle obama brought back you know one of the key things from 2008 hope she said hope is making a comeback and the it. Yeah, I think that's really part of what made last night have so much of that 2008 energy. Beyond all of the pop songs, beyond the Obamas. It's this messaging of there's actually a good future to look towards. Like, hope. As long as we defeat Donald Trump, hope is available, was the main theme of the night. And then she introduced President Obama.

He came out, hammed it up, told his little jokes. He was so excited. You could tell he was so excited to be able to tell his material to that large of a crowd. He was very excited to be up there. We got, yes, we can chants. Then later, yes, she can chants. At one point, the crowd started chanting, thank you, Joe, as they do when Joe Biden was referenced.

And he directly said that the torch has been passed. There we go. And that is generally the summary of the night. Lib Topia, as I'm calling the DNC, was very excited. Yeah, that sounds thrilling. It's really making me optimistic about the future. Yeah, I mean, I am more optimistic of the future than I was. But also what I do foresee from this is that we are heading into a future, assuming the

Dems win, especially if they win by a sizable margin where they get meaner to everyone. The thing they learned from Trump is you should call people names and be shit. And that'll get turned on the left. Yes, as it already has. Yeah, as it already has. But also the left is going to continue not having much of an impact on the broader situation until people have any sort of ability

to actually get folks out and have a clear under like a clear plan for something to do that the system cannot easily, easily contain and withstand, right? Like little marches and demonstrations, not only is the police prepared for them, but the democratic party I think is increasingly prepared for how you isolate and sort of deflect attention from that sort of thing.

Like a lot of what we've seen on the floor at the DNC with the, yeah, we'll have Bernie come up and he'll talk about a ceasefire. We'll have AOC have her ceasefire. Joe will say the protesters have a point. You should listen to them. Now, you're not going to. He's not going to draw any other attention. If he were to like come down and attack or, you know, the protesters for, you know, whatever bad piece of messaging or something happened outside, that actually does draw some attention. You know, like the Dems have not just been smart in what they've signaled, but in how they've made sure

that that really hasn't become part of the story of the DNC. And heading into this, that was a huge fear a lot of people had and a huge expectation a lot of people had. It was part of the planning that a lot of the protests that came in with, that we are going to disrupt and damage this kind of coronation process in order to make it very clear that the Democratic Party has not made any meaningful movement on Gaza. And I think what we've seen here is the start of a replicable strategy that unless there's an alteration in

how people are organizing, is going to allow the Dems to continue to sideline radical voices, pushing for things that matter. Yeah, and I think one trend that we're going to see continuing, especially if someone like Kamala wins i'm starting to see a growing kind of reclamation of liberal patriotism yes there were usa signs last night and usa chance and i think this will be something i'll probably talk a little bit more tomorrow or the next day after like kamala's like big speech and if if they do win i think this i think there actually is a decent bit of like 2008 energy in like yes people. And if they do win, I think there actually is a decent bit of like 2008 energy in like,

yes, people are excited. There's the quote unquote vibe shift. But things didn't go great after Obama was elected famously. Like everything just kind of, like the hope was mostly unfounded. Like a lot of war crimes. There's a lot of war crimes

and just not that much good stuff. Yeah, I mean, the ACA mattered. There are some things that got better after it, but the whole fight to get there was so dispiriting. And I think that kind of broke Obama, the actual, like, interested in pushing radical change. And then the Republicans absolutely swept midterms to such a catastrophic extent. And I foresee Kamala getting stuck in the same thing that Obama did in terms of like, it is actually very hard to make any substantive progress that helps people. I don't know that she's going to have to deal with a Republican party that is

capable of doing what the Republicans did during like the tea party. That's just, that's a very different Republican party. And the one that exists now, the one that exists now has been lobotomized by trump um and will he he's going if he's alive he's going to run in 2028 yeah but this this kind of this growing reclamation of like patriotism we've already seen it with how like you know the nfl has gone woke all these things that have kind of been more affiliated with like you you know, conservatism or like, you know, like traditional Americana is slowly getting swept up more with like the

liberal majority. And, you know, those types of things that have kind of been gatekept from liberals for a while, especially that kind of style of patriotism. And this isn't necessarily a good thing. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that this is going to be a trend that I think is going to be increasing. And it will also lead to, I think, a bit more open hostility from liberals towards people that are more progressive, towards people more on the left, especially protesters, especially protesters who are not just doing protests that are big parades and marches. And we've already seen that here with a decent bit of conflict between, you know, more radical attendees and the big coalitions with their safety teams. We were seeing a lot of fighting over, you know, who is more justified, what's more valid, what should you be allowed to do at a protest like this. And those debates are going to continue. I think we're seeing more pressure on that front, even from liberals as well. And that's kind of

the big trends that I'm seeing right now as we're about like halfway through the DNC. Yeah. Well, I'm going to finally go to the DNC tonight. So that'll be fun. I'll show you around. Yeah, you can show me around. We're going to meet Daddy Walls. I'll take my anti-PTSD meds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll overdose on those meds. You can take me to the hospital. It's going to be a nice night, Sophie. The good news is there's two more days of this. All right. Best news I've heard in a while. I'm turning off this recording device. I'm going to go leap out of the window.

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