It Could Happen Here - Updates Episode 2022

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

We give updates on some of the topics covered on the show during the past few months, including the UC Strike, anti-Queer rhetoric, and the midterms.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it.

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

Hi, everyone. It could happen here, but in a slightly different way today. It's like an asynchronous presentation. And we're going to have some updates on things that we've covered. So I'm going to update on the ongoing UC strike, which at the time of recording is still ongoing. And these interviews were recorded on Friday. You will be hearing this. If you heard the day that goes out, you'll be hearing on Tuesday.

So a little more have happened. And I'll bring you some more updates after the break. Garrison is reporting on some stuff that they have covered, just updating various things. And Chris has an update on the midterms now that we know a little bit more about the results of those. So we hope you'll enjoy these updates. We want to keep bringing you these stories and not just sort of report on them and then walk away.

We are off for the rest of the week after that. So nothing from us Wednesday through Friday, but we'll have something else for you next Monday. Starting to record. If you could start off by just introducing yourself, saying your name, maybe what department you're in, something like that, and any like impertinent strike information. Be cool. I'm Amy Kahn. I use sheer pronouns. I am a second year, a PhD student in the computer science and engineering department, and I am on the bargaining team after the student research

reunion. Hi, my name is Adil Vengel. I'm a third year in the math department, third year PhD student, he, him pronouns, and I'm on the executive board for our union, UAW 2865. Amazing. Okay, great. I'm James, he, him. And yeah, I'm a journalist. Trying to feel like one. So you guys have been out for about a week now right and you look there was pretty good energy today we just finished a big rally here down by the beach

people could probably hear the ocean uh in the background which is very san diego and i wanted to know like how the first week had gone how the energy was how the bargaining had gone so perhaps you can give us a bargaining update because we haven't really talked about that yet yeah i can do the bargaining update i think that uc has really been attempting to avoid us at the bargaining table and i think that we are oh we are constantly finding new ways to put a pressure on them both uh through our bargaining strategy and through our on-the-ground organizing and actions to get them to meet us in good faith. Throughout the past year or more of bargaining, depending on which of the bargaining units you're talking about,

they have done numerous unfair labor practices and other forms of illegal and unlawful behavior and bargaining that have just generally been stopping us from reaching a fair agreement and we're on strike to show them that we're serious about or to not even just show them but to apply the pressure necessary to get them to meet us in good faith um in the past week we have made a fair amount of progress on many non-economic articles uh from various of the bargaining units non-economic economic is a blurry distinction that we think about in terms of bargaining. And the thing on everyone's minds is wages. And there, you see, has still not moved from their entirely unreasonable position

from more than a month ago for the student researcher union. And the other bargaining units are very are in a similar boat so what's their what's their position right now uh uh their a position is a seven a percent in the first year a three percent in all the years afterwards which is not that doesn't even count uh for inflation Right, yeah. It's crazy. Let alone the increased cost, like an incredibly unaffordable cost of living. Yeah, it's basically a pay cut.

Yeah, okay. So what are those non-economic issues where you've had more success? Do you want to talk about those two? Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch. I think one of the big ones where we've shown a lot of success and there's one that actually we've made some progress today

there's a lot I think there's things that make our union stronger union access and union security we've reached a tentative agreement on for most of the bargaining units i'm pretty sure um uh for a work incurred injury and illness this is something that actually uh that you see was not a budging on for a really long time for student researchers that now we're hoping that we can actually reach an agreement soon about. And we're thinking that's likely. A personal time off is another one that up until now, graduate student researchers didn't have a legal right to take days off work. And now UC has moved to 12 days a year, which is a start. We don't think it's good enough.

But we're going to see if they move to 24 is a current plan. And there's a bunch of other smaller ones. Like there's the Access Needs article. There's, I can't remember all of them off the top of my head. There's a bunch in that sort of vein that we've made a lot of progress on. That's good. And yeah, there's also some economic ones

that we've made some progress on, like a transit is a big one. But there's a lot of things, and I'm not sure how to summarize it all. Yeah, it's very complicated. But there's a lot of small things. There's a lot of small things. That's good, yeah.

So maybe you could tell us, you were telling me that you had a really good vibe with your picket line. Yeah, it's very complicated. But there's a lot of small things. There's a lot of small things. That's good, yeah. So maybe you could tell us, you were telling me that you had a really good vibe with your picket line. Yeah, totally. Yeah, talk about what it's been like for a week. Yeah, I mean, so I think the week just started off very strong. So we had great numbers on day one,

and at day one we did a massive, massive rally with everyone on campus who was striking coming. Lorena Gonzalez Gonzalez the head of the California Federation of Labor talked there it was like extremely electric and I think for a lot of people for the first time they saw just how many people were in this together with them and that just you know set the tone like we're doing something really radical we're fighting for radical change but we're all doing it in mass all together. And at my picket line especially, or I'm sure this is true of many picket lines,

but we've developed a very strong sense of community. We do communal meals that are cooked in five instant pods outside on the picket line. We've done various chill events like karaoke and trivia and stuff like that. But we also get together and do some really militant actions. We shut down a conference yesterday we've like picketed in intersections and done all kinds of stuff and it's just really cool to see yeah maybe we can talk about some of the action zine because i think um a lot of people in this country still maybe have never seen or been involved in

like a labor action themselves and certainly they don't know what it looks like at a university, which is a different place from a factory or something. So what have you been doing? What have you been getting up to? Yeah, I mean, the base level thing is we just picket in front of our buildings. So we have a picket line. We encourage people not to cross and in the hope of disrupting the natural flow of university functions. But then there are also, you know, the university has some big events, such as conferences, and now we pick it outside a conference,

and all of a sudden, everyone at the conference has to be really uncomfortable crossing our picket line. And, you know, if we're really loud, then it's hard for them to do the regular conference things, and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I like that. I want to talk a little bit about, like, what makes Strikes work generally is solidarity, right?

Between people on Strike and people outside. So we had someone from the Teamsters talking. And I covered the Teamsters Strike last year. Do you remember the Teamsters refuge workers were on Strike in Chula Vista? And it was great. People were bringing them food every day. So have you seen much of that from other unions or just from the community? Absolutely, yeah. One of the big community supports is undergrad support um

i pick a line like undergrads are just coming by all the time they just drop off some food they say just wanted to give this to you and then they just leave they just like want to help us out it's super cute and it is very uplifting for all of us and yeah do you want to yeah i think also a support from other unions and from um other members of the labor movement has been really important like one of the really big ones is the teamsters um like all of them um uh sanctioned our strike, which means that they've instructed all of their unionized workers to not cross our picket line. This means that tons of UPS drivers,

tons of Teamsters organized workers have been turning around their vehicles when they reach our picket lines and yeah that's been really inspiring to see the san diego imperial counties labor federation agreed to to cut the check for anyone experiencing acute hardship during the strike yeah which is incredible and i think it really makes us feel very strong when we have the entirety of the entirety of the labor movement at our back yeah it's good to see right like especially um if we like i'm a historian and i definitely spent eight years and a lot of money here doing history.

And when we see students and workers together, that's when we see change, right? Especially in the last 50, 70 years, whatever. So that's very impressive. I wonder, like, I'm sure it hasn't all been rainbows and unicorns. Someone was talking today about a faculty member who drove their car through a picket line like what the fuck is happening with that dude can you you can not name the person if you don't want to like i haven't heard about that situation there's

a lot going on every day i know there was one motorcycle that nearly drove through our line who were pretty sure is an abusive advisor we're not entirely sure um. There's some good news, actually. One piece of good news is that we, members of the picket line that I'm at, are basically all engineers. And I mean, I keep in mind here that I've been told by a lot of other workers in higher education that you can't organize engineers. And this morning, I over a hundred of us marched on the chair of

the material science department and she agreed to send a letter to the chancellor in support of our demands and then she did it that's great which is awesome but there's also some crazy stuff happening there are some people that are really infuriated um when they see the picket line those people we try to de-escalate and let through but overall i think uc strategy and the community strategy at large to to overcome our strike is a lot of background noise. I think that the university's main response has not been to crush our strike, though there has been some retaliatory behavior from some advisors.

The main thing is that they just try to ignore it and act like it's not happening. And I mean, we all here know that it is happening. I feel like everyone on our campus at this point knows that it is happening um but yeah that's sort of their approach and i think that's the biggest way that they try at a union bust is they don't meet with us they don't treat us fairly and they don't and they act like we don't exist yeah that's difficult and it'll i'm sure only get harder do you know if people are facing like i know people have talked about like potential

academic difficulties and sort of academic consequences i guess for striking which is obviously a concern when your academic labor and your labor for the university is sometimes sort of blurry um or like people feel like their relationship is something that goes beyond their relationship with the university. Yeah, totally. So there's kind of two aspects to this. There are some illegal things that people in the university have tried, such as, for example, many of us work as graduate student researchers.

We do research. It is our job. But because we're also students, we are enrolled in course. We do research. It is our job. But because we're also students, we are enrolled in course credits for this research. And they have said that, oh, if you don't do your research, you are going to fail these course credits, which is completely ridiculous, completely illegal, because this is 100% overlap with our labor. And we are completely legally protected in our right to strike. But another aspect of this is that many of us are students who are taking very regular classes. Yeah.

And many of these classes are still continuing. And so for these students who are concerned about their grades in these classes, this has had to take them away from the picket line at times to go to these classes. Okay. But we've tried to accommodate that as best as we can. For example, at our picket line, we do a lot of militant actions, but we need time to rest. And during this rest time, we encourage people to work on

their coursework together. We have this great community. Let's use it. Let's use it to get their coursework done, and so we can all be on the picket line as long as we possibly can. That's great. Yeah, that's really nice to hear, actually. OK, so in terms of the hardships,

I'm guessing the longer you're at, the more difficult it will get, right? And folks will obviously start to feel more economic hardship. So I want to know, I guess, how you're preparing, and then I'd like to know how people can help, too, if there's a place they can donate or show other support.

Yeah, I think when it comes to economic hardship um right now we're not even entirely sure whether the university is withholding pay they have not sent out attestation forms okay uh we think that they might at some point soon but of course um at the end of the day that's up to the university yeah to decide um if or when they do lots of people will face a fair amount of economic hardship uh the uaw does have a strike fund so all uh the uaw members on across all the ucs in our union if they show up for enough shifts on the picket line they are entitled to a 400 a week which mind you is not enough to it's not a comfortable wage but it's enough to scrape by yeah do you know for instance what someone living in grad student housing like what miramar will be

paying in rent in a month just to give people a sense of how expensive it is. Yeah, I can tell you my experience. So I live in Nuevo East on campus, and I pay about $1,000 in rent. But the year that I started here, just after I started, they hiked the rent by up to 30% to 85% in some units. So as an example, even though I pay $1,000 in rent in my two bedroom apartment,

the other bedroom is $1,300, which, you know, it's crazy. It makes sense. And I think if anyone is interested in supporting the workers on strike, especially if we do have our pay withheld, I would recommend you give to the Strike Hardship Fund. This is something that disperses to any striker that's facing any form of acute hardship,

no questions asked. And this is, if you're interested in giving, you can go to the website fairucnow.org slash support. And that's where you can give to the hardship fund. And I do recommend you do. And that's the way that we're doing with economic hardship.

Okay, very cool. In those situations. Nice. One more thing I wanted to ask about, just from my own experience as an international student, was that your situation is extremely fucking precarious and you can lose your visa for almost any reason. I wonder how international students are dealing with this

and how the union is helping to protect them. Yeah, so international students are actually quite protected in this strike. They have the same legal protections that domestic students do. And so namely, none of them can be fired for this. For labor. Yeah. And because their visa is tied to their employment, their visa is also safe. Okay.

Yeah. Nice. Do you think people still feel that sense of precarity? Because just to give an example, I was in real visa trouble and that was extremely petrifying for me, right? So I'm sure people, I'm just interested to know if they feel that sense

or if they feel protected. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It is tough in many ways. I know one person, next week, instead of being on the picket line, he has to go back to the uk to renew his visa yeah and he's all he's very unhappy about this he wants to have the picket line with everyone but yeah it is what it is and um on top of that many international students come from cultures where such activities are not as common and they're very unsure about joining it but like for the last few years, we have

been deeply committed to a movement of all workers. And so we organize every single person we can, whether they are domestic, international. We are all on strike together right now. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, so this is the end of week one. Hopefully you guys get what you want. And what do you have planned for next week?

It's Thanksgiving. Yeah, so we have three for next week it's thanksgiving yeah i mean so we have three days next week before thanksgiving break and i think we are going to go all out for those three days everyone's going to use all the energy they have and then have a cool break you have anything else yeah i think that's the plan we're gonna make uh this university regret not meeting us in good faith. Mega. All right, where can people, JetFlix, social media,

PhotoStrike, social media for yourselves or your unions? Probably one of the easiest places is you can go to either of the Twitter accounts for either of the student worker unions. I think those are the ones that tweet the most things. So you can either go to twitter.com slash S-R-U-U-A-W or to Twitter again, U-A-W 2865. And that's where we do most of our communications.

Nice. Yeah, and if anyone wants any info at all, the best source of all is just fairucnow.org. Okay. Nice. Outstanding. Thank you very much, guys. That was very good.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

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

I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

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Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hey, Garrison here. I'm going to be giving a few updates on some of the types of stories that I've covered on the show the past couple of months. And I think I'll start by talking about Port Townsend. So if you remember from the beginning of September, we put out an

episode talking about this wave of transphobic hate and organizing in response to this non-incident at a YMCA in the Olympic Peninsula. And this spawned this massive organizing effort for these transphobic rallies led by far-right people and by TERFs, appearances on Tucker Carlson, Fox News, all of this stuff. And we were putting this episode out right before a large, well, what seems to be a large upcoming rally on September the 3rd. There was Nazi, like, actual, like, National Socialist fascists coming in from out of state to join in on this. A lot of kind of local TERFs and far-right people. And the rally turned out to be kind of a bust. So that's some good news.

They did not get nearly as many numbers as they were expecting. And the community response was very, very strong. So a lot of people coming out in support of trans rights and coming out in support of trans people. So that was a nice thing to hear. I mean, and across the Pacific Northwest, there's actually been this wave of like, TER uh, of like turf, like trans exclusionary radical feminists. Like that term is kind of a misnomer, but there's been a wave of, of, of kind of these events and protest, well, not, not protests, but these events and, uh, these attempts at protests, I guess, by a few like turf influencers, they've. They've been going all around the Pacific Northwest, in

Portland, in a whole bunch of cities up in Washington. And similarly, they have been met with a pretty strong resistance. A lot of local people showing up and saying, no, we're not going to tolerate this kind of stuff, accented by the occasional pie thrown in one's face. So that's the kind of state of some of the anti-trans organizing here inside the Pacific Northwest. And I wanted to start by talking about the story and the successful counter-organizing in support of trans people, mostly because of the mass shooting a few days ago inside Colorado Springs. And because the other thing I spent a lot of this summer covering was this uptick in queer exterminationist rhetoric. And that type of rhetoric results in attacks

like what happened a few days ago at queer clubs and queer havens and queer gathering spaces. And I think some of the team is gonna talk about this probably sometime in the future we'll probably do something on it but it's still just so current and full of frustration and raw pain and the other thing we have talked about on the show the this year is efforts from groups like the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club and people who are willing to show up armed to defend queer events and queer spaces. And the usefulness of that is demonstrated here. work john brown gun club has continued to do good work in showing up to places that they were invited to uh to help hopefully help prevent things like what happened inside colorado springs

and then of course in colorado springs it wasn't the police that took down the gunman it was queer people from inside the place who were unarmed who did the job of actually having to protect fellow queer people and themselves. And similarly, since I was talking about the John Brown Gun Club in Elm Fork, other thing that I've covered is relating to those protests is the group Protect Texas Kids, read by the self-proclaimed Christian fascist Kelly Niedert. She is among the wave of far-right people that are currently being replatformed on Twitter. And it's not just bad because they have a

platform. The specific thing I've talked about with Kelly Niedert is that they use platforms like Twitter not just as a soapbox, but also as a place to actually organize these types of queer exterminationist events. This is where they actually do a lot of the public organizing and get people to come out.

Same thing with Libs of TikTok. It's not just like an amplifier. It's a place that they actually organize these types of hate campaigns. And lots of them are getting back on these massive platforms, are getting a lot of clicks. Elon Musk is even interacting with some of these people. Elon Musk has interacted with Libs of TikTok inside her mentions, just driving massive engagement. We talked about Kanye West's anti-Semitism last month, and he has continued to make pretty egregious statements that are very much in the line with very typical anti-Semitism, doing a lot of the same tropes. He's been dropped by a lot of companies who were working with him. with white nationalist Nick Fuentes from our Catboy episodes, and also with Milo Yiannopoulos. So just paddling around with openly fascist far-right influencers and continuing to make horrible statements.

He is also back to posting on Twitter. We're using a massive, and in this case, it is a massive amplifier of anti-Semitic rhetoric. And he is back and posting as of this morning. So that's kind of the state of things that I've covered. We got good news with the Port Townsend thing and how queer people have been successful in combating anti-trans and anti-queer organizing across the Pacific Northwest. We have stuff in Texas with the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club,

continuing to do that crucial work, even though some of the fascists who are organizing these events are getting replatformed. But the queer exterminationist rhetoric has not gone away. It's only become a whole lot more visceral. And that's the topics I wanted to give updates on. I'm sure we'll talk more about, you know, how to, various efforts for community defense,

like within the community and how queer people can approach that. But yeah, anyway, that's my update. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. with supernatural creatures. I know it. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now,

and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head search for therapy gecko on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts it's the one with the green guy on it hi i'm ed zitron host of the better offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tex elite has turned silicon valley into a playground for billionaires from the chaotic world of generative ai to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at

the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. For our next update, let's take a look at what happened in the midterm elections because the american election system is run by a troop of volunteer clowns we still do not know the exact margin of republican victory in the house what we can confirm is the republicans

are in fact going to gain a house majority it It is also going to be a very, very small majority. As we discussed in our last sort of election episode, this is basically the chaos mode configuration. The product of this is that Marjorie Taylor Greene and her sort of tiny cohort of weird fascists are going to be able to extract a bunch of concessions from the Republican Party. And obviously, this is only to the extent that these people actually disagree about stuff, which it is true that a lot of the sort of mainstream of the Republican Party has gone unbelievably far right. It's also true that a lot of the party leadership doesn't like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And, you know, you know, the Republican Party is still facing essentially an internal civil war.

Mitch McConnell has managed to hold off a power for challenge by rick scott who is the head of the rnc which is really funny i don't know why rick scott thought this was going to work for him like rick scott are like arguably rick scott is a single like individually responsible for the republicans losing the election because he just completely screwed up everything he was attempting to do with the rnc and like poured a bunch of money into like weird targeted like Twitter ad campaigns that just did not work at all. But, you know, we still don't know if Kevin McCarthy has enough like votes to become speaker of the house. Everything is essentially just complete chaos.

You know, we've also seen our sort of first quote-unquote concession that's been sort of wrung out of of this new house majority which is that they're going to do an investigation into hunter biden's laptop which i i genuinely i have been struggling to find a reason for any single person who is not completely fox news brain pilled to give a single shit about the hunter biden's laptop story like since it started i i don't know why anyone is expected to care about this and i you know i think the fact that the republicans the first thing they're doing upon retaking the house is doing an investigation into this stupid laptop is a incredible sign of just how out of touch these people are with just anything even remotely or

tangentially related to reality and i i think that this is in some sense an explanation of how the democrats like miraculously somehow seem to have managed to to win a like to to gain additional senate seats in a in a in a in an off your midterm election i so right right now the democrats have technically gained a majority well i guess they're technically have gained a majority the question basically is whether it's going to be a 50 or 51 seat majority pending the sort of runoff uh in georgia between warcock and herschel walker uh i don't know who knows what's going to happen there herschel walker is running ads about leah thomas so hopefully leah thomas fucking does the reaper thing and claims another mainstream American political figure. Yeah, but okay, so what does this actually mean in terms of us?

Because, you know, even if the Democrats miraculously somehow had held the House right, nothing really good was going to be happening. It looks like there's been a sort of deal worked out between the Democrats and some of the moderate-ish wing of the Republican Party to get a vote on a bill that will legalize gay marriage and also legalize interracial marriage, although a lot of fucking Republicans voted against that, which is, you know, not a great sign. But again, I mean, the thing that, you know, you can sort of see here, right? Gay marriage, unbelievably popular, see here right gay marriage unbelievably popular a lot of republicans still voting against it and again that this this is because you know insofar as the the two things we can learn from this

election one is that the far-right evangelical base that the republicans have been building really since the 80s is not a majority of the u.s it's not even close to a majority of the u.s it is you know it's it's controlled by a small group of like you know unbelievably reactionary activists and these people are completely out of touch with what normal people in the u.s like and you know this has this has positives and downsides right it with downsides that in places where the republicans gain control they're able to impose unbelievably far right agendas are able to impose massive anti-trans agendas and you know that that that's been having real consequences and especially the state

legislators that they control but it also means that it limits the damage Republicans are able to do because again like people don't actually like their stuff because it sucks the other thing that's very important about this is that again legislatively nothing is going to happen until 2024 and this means that as a terrain of struggle no matter what you sort of ideologically believe about whether or not we should be contesting elections, as a terrain of struggle, the electoral scene is dead. There is very little, if anything, that even conceivably could be done there. If you want anything to change in the next two years you're going to have to be operating outside of the electoral scene right and this isn't this is an argument we've been making sort of strategically and strategically ideologically and morally for a long time now

this is part of why we talk about dual power constantly this is part of why we talk about the kinds of community organizing that are necessary this is why we talk about sort of the kinds of community organizing that are necessary this is why we talk about sort of community self-defense organizing but this this specific configuration of of the sort of american system is one you know it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a pure deadlock configuration nothing is going to happen the only thing that can possibly happen is stuff that we do and you know there is stuff that we need to do right if we want to stop the sort of rolling republican genocide against trans people if you want to stop them from inciting more mass shootings you know if if we want if we if if you want to

stop the sort of rolling bipartisan wave of mass clearings of cancer homeless people if we want to continue if you want to actually deal with, you know, the sort of looming, ever-present horror of American border fascism, we're going to have to do it ourselves. Because even in a world in which it was possible to get Washington, D.C. to give a single shit about any of this, and mostly it's not, mostly people in Washington, D.C. vote every single time to make this shit worse. But even in that world, right, nothing is going to come out of there. All that is going to be happening in the House and the Senate is a bunch of fights over the debt ceiling and a bunch of increasingly bizarre investigations out of the Republican House.

So this is the time to take back the streets. This is the time to be forming tenants unions. This is the time to be forming tenants unions. This is the time to be doing community self-defense work. This is the kind of, this is the time to be doing the kind of unglamorous work that everyone sort of forgets about when the sort of shiny midterms shows up. But, you know, but that is the stuff

that actually genuinely is going to make things change in this country. Things have to change. We cannot continue to be going down the path that we are, right? We cannot, we cannot allow there to be more mass shootings. We cannot allow Republicans to continue to exterminate trans people. We cannot let this happen. We are going to have to go fight, and we are going to have to do it ourselves, and we are going to have to do it ourselves,

and we are going to do it alone. Because there is no help coming from the top. There never was any help coming from there. And even if there had been a will, there is now no longer a way. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com.

Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming.

This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba?

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.