Lovett or Leave It - The Wohl of Wall Street

Episode Date: November 3, 2018

We’re days away from the midterms and Republicans are doubling down on racist fear mongering as their closing argument. We play a game about what we can expect to see from Republicans if they’re voted into office and we try to convince some advice seekers why their vote matters! Erin Ryan is joined by Aparna Nancherla, Demi Adejuyigbe and Matt Pearce to break down the week in news.  

Hello and welcome to Love It or Leave It. I'm not John Lovett. I'm Erin Ryan. This is my second and last week guest hosting, which means that after we're done recording today, everyone here has to help me clean up all the beer cans and cigarette butts so that Lovett doesn't suspect that when he was away on business, we threw the biggest rager in Crooked High School history. Everybody swear on your class rings. Do it. Swear on your class rings. Okay. Who broke the vase? Not me. We're just going to throw it away.

Let's welcome our guest. She's a comedian, writer, and cool lady, Aparna Nanchola. Hello. How are you doing, Aparna? I'm good. Happy to be here. Yeah, we're happy to have you here. Appreciating your bold lip.

Oh, thank you. He's a comedian, screenwriter, and co-host of the podcast Punch Up the Jam, Demi Adidjouibé. Hello. How are you doing today, Demi? I'm also doing very well. Thank you for having me. Did you do anything interesting today before you came here? Just my job.

So, no. I don't know. Your job sounds pretty cool. Speaking of people with cool jobs, he's a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Matt Pierce. Hey, Ann. Let's get into it. What a week. We're just four days away from the midterm elections, and both Republicans and Democrats are kicking it up all the notches. Last week was one of the most violent weeks we've seen in some time in this country. But if you're looking for comfort and solidarity from our leaders, you are in for a hearty helping of disappointment.

Instead of taking stock of the way his rhetoric is egging on white supremacist violence, Trump is doubling down on fear-mongering as his closing argument for the 2018 elections. With no regard for the actual human lives he's taking into his burger grease smeared hands. He said he's prepared to send as many as 15,000 troops to the southern border in anticipation of the migrant caravan. This caravan consists of thousands of human beings who plan to legally seek asylum in the U.S. after fleeing unimaginable violence in their own countries, some of which is the direct result of American foreign policy. The president also says, quote, so-called birthright citizenship, which costs our country, capital C country, billions of dollars and is very unfair

to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. My dude, the Constitution ain't the apprentice. You can't scream you're fired at the amendments you don't like. Trump might as well promise all of his fearful fans that if they vote for him, he'll bring Ayn Rand's corpse back to life so they can all kiss it. The president continues to exist online as a nightmare relative exists on Thanksgiving, when he tweeted out a blatantly racist ad paid for by the Trump campaign. It shows Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican man who killed two California police officers, and ends by saying,

Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay. Which isn't actually true. Bracamontes returned to the U.S. under President George W. Bush. But when have facts ever gotten in the way of the president's racism? Trump's escalating sound and fury, which echoes Iowa congressman and Nazi tolerator Steve King's, is causing some Republicans to get a little leery. Others are in it to win it. Meanwhile, and for once, Democrats aren't taking the bait. They're pointing to McConnell's promise

to gut Medicare, Social Security and repeal the Affordable Care Act to remind voters of what's at stake, because it doesn't take a Robert Mueller investigation to realize that going bankrupt over medical bills is a much more realistic threat to the average American than being punched by a Honduran baby that is currently 1,500 miles away. And I can say that as somebody who's been punched by a Honduran baby before. My nephew, I have a nephew who is too, and he is half Honduran, and he has punched me, and it was cute. That's a real threat.

That's a real, that's an adorable threat. Republicans are relying on and will continue to rely on non-bumper sticker friendly issues like Kavanaugh was framed and stopped the caravan to keep their crusty old base afraid and therefore motivated to vote in their favor. So, Matt, you've been covering national issues for years. Are we all going crazy or is political fear mongering worse now than it's ever been? Oh, no, it's definitely worse. Over the last week, I was covering the mail bombs that were sent to all the top Democrats in the nation, then immediately pivoted to covering this horrible mass shooting that happened in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. And the thing that I think really freaked me out as a journalist

writing about this is that, you know, looking at these guys like social media profiles, like in many respects, it was kind of very similar to a lot of the stuff I see on social media all the time. So it's for me, it's like really hard to differentiate sometimes, like, who are the specific people that I need to worry about? And then who's going to stop them? Like, who's going to set the tone for, you know, saying like, this is like not acceptable behavior. Don't be a neo-Nazi, please. You know, and there was no real pause, I think, from the White House after these sort of horrible events happened. You know, it's like, I think it would be traditional under another administration where you would see a president slow things down a bit, you know, reflect on the tragedy that's

happened. And instead, you know, we're, you know, just a few days removed from these kind of traumatic political events. And Trump releases, you know, probably one of the most racist political ads of the last couple of decades. So it very much is something that I think people are correct to feel weird about. Okay, so the good news is we're not all going crazy. That's one kernel of good things. No, we're just we're accurately understanding that things are worse than they've been in quite some time. Aparna, why do you think Trump is resorting to fear based tactics right now? I mean, I hesitate to say he has strengths, but I would say one of his strengths is fear-mongering um and just alarmism

in general I feel like his general tactics are go big or go home so anything he does he has to do to the extreme so I feel like his version with fear is like the equivalent of making a hotel that's gold and putting his name on it. It has to be the most fear-mongering. Also, side note, the only things I've heard with mongering are fear and cheese. Fish. Fish mongering. Fish mongering.

Very key monger. Okay, fish. It's a key monger. I think fear mongering is the worst. As someone who doesn't partake of fish, I guess. There's no good mongering. I know. Well, cheese, I think. Is cheese mongering good?

Yeah. I don't know what a cheese monger does. I wish our president were a cheese mongering. I know. Well, cheese, I think. Is cheese mongering good? Yeah. I don't know what a cheese monger does. I wish our president were a cheese monger. I think it's just selling cheese. One thing that I think of when I'm following all this is like, wow, this fear, it's so silly. But it's worked in the past. Like, it's always worked. But fear is like, it feels like if you're doing human emotions, it's like the easiest win because it's like the emotion that's like the most reactive and it's like going to leave an impression.

Like if you, you know, you can't like, I don't know, what is a more subtle emotion? Like you can't. Compassion. Compassion monger as much. I guess you can't. You can show like a baby hearing for the first time, but it's harder. It's harder. Fear can show like a baby hearing for the first time, but it's harder. It's harder. Fear leaves more of a dent.

Yeah, I guess it's like jumping out from behind a corner and yelling something at somebody. Like you get more of a reaction than like coming out from behind that same corner and being like, I'm here if you'd like to talk. Yeah, exactly. Or if you jumped out of a corner and said, I'm here if we'd like to talk. Demi, how do you think a Democratic fear mongering campaign would look? I mean, it feels like the mongering is all occurring on the Republican side. Why do you think that Republicans are relying on it and not Democrats? And if Democrats did, what would that be?

I think it's such a Republican tactic because a lot of the Republican base currently is voting for things that the fear mongering suggests that the Republicans are the only solution to it. So I think that a lot of Republican concerns currently are things about like immigrants taking jobs, men and white people being sort of sidelined out of things. And it's like all of the Republicans are using fear to be like, these are real threats. If you don't keep us in power, then we'll fix it. Despite the fact they're already in power, then why is it not quote unquote fixed, these are real threats. If you don't keep us in power, then we'll fix it. Despite the fact they're already in power, then why is it not quote unquote fixed if these are so problematic?

And I think that democratic fear mongering currently, the closest thing I would even say is just being like, look at how bad things are. Don't you want that to be fixed? Which is not so much fear mongering as much as it is just like opening a window and being like, it's raining. Don't you want an umbrella?

And I feel like the closest thing I could think of to fear mongering from the Democrats that I could see is if they were to go all in on like Medicare and just be like, here's a bunch of photos of children that have died from lack of health coverage. Don't you want to fix that? Yeah, but that's a lot more likely to happen than like having a having an undocumented person commit a crime against you yes absolutely they commit crimes at a lower rate than people who are naturalized american citizens so i feel like you could argue the handmaid's tale is democratic fear-mongering i feel like there's a lot of i mean i feel like it happens more in kind of like

the culture war space quote unquote where you have tv shows like Handmaid's Tale or, you know, sort of like the way that we conceive of the Trump administration is very speculative about like what it could do or what it might do. And, you know, there are a lot of people, I think, of politics who would like point at like what's happening now as sort of already for them, for their perspective, like pretty bad case scenarios. So there's that apocalyptic element where everyone's waiting for like Nazi uniforms to pop up on people to like verify that, you know, all their paranoia

was correct. And, you know, like that's not really going to happen. And like, instead, we have these like things where we're sending a lot of troops to the border to, you know, stop the caravan that's like a thousand miles away. And like these threats to, you know, try to undo like the 14th Amendment through an executive order, which is like very hazy. And so there is a lot of that fear mongering. But in the campaign context, I think it happens maybe more in the media space than, you know, in terms of the platforms that people are running on. Well, that is an interesting segue into my next question. Matt, as a representative of all media and therefore the spokesman.

I'm sorry. next question. Matt, as a representative of all media and therefore the spokesman, one thing that I notice a lot on like social media, when the president says something that is demonstrably false, there's a big debate around how that should be reported. And you see different outlets that are reticent about using the word lie. Why do you think that is? And what do you think should be done in reporting things that are demonstrably false or a public figure or somebody who's, you know, made some kind of statement or sort of told the story about themselves or their office about, you know, how things happened. And then later journalists come

and dig up all these documents and say like, oh no, they actually had that meeting. And, you know, at the same time that they were telling us that nothing was wrong, you know, they had just gotten this briefing about, you know, such and such. And so that's when traditionally journalists would come out and use the word lie.

Trump came along and it was a little bit different where, you know, such and such. And so that's when traditionally journalists would come out and use the word lie. Trump came along and it was a little bit different where, you know, he was clearly saying all these very fabulistic things that were not true, like clearly not true on their face. But there's that question of intent, I think, that a lot of journalists struggle with, which is that, is he saying it because he can't remember like what the facts are? Or did he intend to say that wrong? and sort of there's been this cumulative effect i think in in media where very slowly you see journalists becoming more willing to just call them lies because i think there is a bit more of an acceptance for people like journalists to say like okay well you know he's the president he should know better

we'll call it a lie and clearly you know he's been yelled at a million times from a million different people. And so we're just going to kind of accept that, you know, he knows that this isn't true. And also they're exhausted. They're just like, I can't type demonstrable falsehood. It's so many letters. Lie is only three. And I can type it with one hand while I'm wiping tears away with the other one. But it's something that eats at, you know, these very traditional norms of journalism that at some point we're going to be on the other end of this administration coming out of it. And I think there are going to be a lot of things about the kind of journalism that we've

always known and looked at. They're going to be different. And we just don't know exactly how different, you know, Trump's whole tenure is going to make it. Does it feel like calling something a lie is such a hard and fast like declaration also that when you say it's a lie, then you're risking the people who need to hear that it's a lie being like a hard and fast like declaration also that when you say it's a lie then you're risking the people who need to hear that it's a lie being like well that's just negative now you're just talking against the president you're on their side or like you're

the enemy now well yeah and i think this is something that is very true of like the age in which we all get information through twitter and facebook where great sources the you know some sometimes like the very most frequent way for us to get information is just because it's popular. And this is something that was kind of an innovation of Silicon Valley, which is that we began to treat information as something that is sort of a quantity where its value is going to be correlated with, you know, how large it is. You know, how many people clicked on it, how many people retweeted it, as opposed to this old system that we had where there were this more qualitative human measures. And so I feel like, you know, we're all kind of like trapped in the cycle where lies travel really fast. And so there are a lot of them floating around.

There are a lot of bad actors. And then a lot of us, I feel like, now see information very much as a weapon, correctly, you know, because you see this as like, oh, this, you know, story comes out from a news outlet that I don't like because they, you know, tend to like ding the politicians that I like. Well, it's just going to hurt them. So I'm just going to ignore it because I've got all these other pieces of information that are like running at me from a million different directions. It says that, you know, George Soros was like stomping through the yard, you know, spreading dollar bills everywhere. And clearly, you know, that's the real problem. That's the main globalist holiday tradition, throwing dollar bills as you run through a yard.

I sometimes think about the president as almost like a human, like a one man social media platform where he just takes, like you were saying, like the biggest thing is the thing that gets repeated and the thing that gets spread and the thing that everybody kind of internalizes whether or not they believe it, it's there. You know, like we've all internalized all of the nicknames that President Trump has given people. Like little Marco is the name of one of the conference rooms here. Hilariously so. But we've all internalized that. And, you know, he sort of takes the biggest and the loudest thing

and he puts it all together with all the other big, loud things and then says it out loud even bigger and louder than it was before. Aparna, how do you see that ending? Like, is there an end in sight for that? For just his tendency? Yeah, just that that kind of a personality being elevated in American culture. I mean, I feel like that is an American trait, though, like if you're the loudest, most and I don't know I mean you could argue in a lot of ways that he's actually very insecure and not confident but like just the persona he gives off is like I'm gonna take up all the air in the room I'm not gonna like even I mean harking back to harkening back to like the debates with Hillary Clinton where he just like

lurked it's like he can't share space. And that's like part of being a diplomat and part of being a leader is like not just monopolizing everything around you, which seems to be his main strategy. Is there an analog of this to like stand up comedy? I wonder, you know, where it's like he does this thing where he goes out and just says a bunch of stuff on stage. And it seems like he's reading the crowd. And, you know, he'll repeat the stuff that gets the biggest reaction. Right, right, right.

Yeah. I mean, it does seem like that. And it's funny because it's something that we've, like, talked about with people before. It's like, yeah, it sounds like he's a deeply unfunny man who, like, wants to be funny. And so he stands up on stage and just can say whatever. And people laugh at him, I guess. Yeah. unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, unruly, crowds that love him and then he's like these are the things that will you know he panders in the way that he knows what will like alarmism will get them going so he's like i'm gonna do my five on the migrant caravan he's got a tight five he's got a very loose five either nobody ever gives him like that's a crazy thing but speaking of light here's something i wanted to talk to you

guys about because i think that we're coming right up to the midterms. And no matter what your job is and what you do, if you're politically engaged, it's been a really tiring however long it's been 10,000 years. It's been an exhausting 10,000 years since last week and today. Tell me one of the silver linings of the Trump era seems to be that people outside of politics and the immediate things that touch politics are now more politically engaged. So what are some positive signs that you've seen in this country when it comes to civic engagement? I think that the rise in civic engagement is a great thing. And it feels like everyone feels this responsibility to not sit down on any news or any big thing that happens like i feel like uh through the obama era whenever there was a tragedy that would be when we see a

big spike in people coming out and saying like this is a horrible thing that happened but also it was like obama came out and took care of like the statement so everyone was just kind of like yeah what he said that was pretty upsetting what happened and now it's like everyone feels the need to make statements and show support for different causes and put their money in time where their mouths are and it feels like a thing where people are coming together and realizing that they have to sort of fight this because no one else will but in that same way i feel like there's a pushback of people being like everything's bad then my little action won't do anything else or any more, which is unfortunate. But I do think that it's a net gain in that I don't think there will be a point in time where everyone decides to just be like, oh, things are good again. We can relax. I feel like it's one of those things where once you activate it within yourself, you're not just going to be like, well, now that we got rid of him, everything's fine.

Because we're sort of past the line of like now that Trump has enabled all these people even if he goes away these people still exist we still have the boogeyman out of the closet so it's just we're like the depression generation but with like civic engagement yeah I feel like if you know your grandparents like grew up during the Great Depression or whatever they are like we're saving soup cans and we're using them as planters in the spring like they had this really like save everything sort of mentality and I my children will be afraid when they see a red hat. No matter what. Oh, man.

Yeah. One of the one of the crew gifts for the show that I write for was like a red hat because we did an episode where we had like a make America great again parody hat. I can never wear it. Yeah. I can never wear it outside. I had friends that have a hat that says make America gay again. And because it's like you have to be very close to see what it says. It had friends that have a hat that says, Make America Gay Again. And because it's like, you have to be very close to see what it says.

It's like, that was just a bad idea. You have to be almost gayly close. Yes. You got to be kissing until, oh, what's that hat say? You shouldn't be kissing people in those red hats anyway. That's a good rule of thumb. Anyone listening, don't kiss someone in a red hat.

Of any kind. Good rule of thumb. If you've learned nothing else. Aparna, have you seen net positives like in civic engagement arenas well I think just like the number of people running for office who aren't straight white men has gone up by a lot and that feels positive it feels like more people are engaged in politics on a local level, both in terms of being informed, but also being like, I'm just going to run for office myself, which is different, at least. Yeah, I had a person that I used to talk to when I was writing about like politics, who was somebody who would help draft people to run for office. So they belong to an organization that would go out and be like, hey, you should run like let's figure it out.

to run for office. So they belonged to an organization that would go out and be like, hey, you should run. Let's figure it out. And she told me that it was sort of like sex in that if you go up to a man and you're like, hey, you should run for office. He's like, yep, let's do it.

Let's go to your car and do it. If you say it to a woman, though, she'd be like, I don't know. You better take me out to dinner. We better talk about this. How is this going to affect my family? And now it's, I think that, I think that, I think that.

Just like sex. Yeah. I mean, that's what I always say before. But I think that it's it's like, it was always something that had a lot more like conscientious thought around it that sometimes took so long that the women would be like, No, I can't do it. I can't do it. Oh, but now it's kind of gone away. And they're like, You know what? Yes, I fucking can do it. I'm going to. And I think some of the like, mystery around the whole process has been laid bare in a way for better or for worse. Like in some ways we're like, wait,

there's no rule that can prevent the president from doing that or saying that. But in a sense, it's made it more accessible for people to be like, well, I could do this. He's lowered the bar in a magnificent way. Matt, final thought goes to you. What do you think has come of this as a person that covers like national issues? I wake up every single day, and I wish that I could transport myself 30 years in the future so I could look back and have a conclusive view about what's happening right now. I keep having this feeling we're going to come out of this, you know, permanently changed in a lot of different ways. But the one that's really kind of been sitting with me over the last week is, you know, the way that Trump has really

activated white identity and white victimhood. I mean, I grew up in a really small town in Missouri and like 500 people. And I sort of just always feel like the Republican Party that, you know, I grew up around as a kid feels different from the one that I sort of see now and cover now where, you know, when I was younger, a lot of it was organized kind of around, you know, very Christian identity and community. And now it's like a lot of the messaging is less about, you know, sort of personal morals and, you know, values and sort of the traditional conservative movement stuff that, you know, is very, very powerful a couple of decades ago. And now it's about, you know, kind of activating this white victimhood that, you know, the brown mops are like coming to get you. And it's, you know, sort of this very stirring imagery that, you know that Trump has used to activate his supporters.

And I think it's changing the way that a lot of people sort of conceive of their politics on the right. And I don't know what the outcome of that is going to be. Thank you for the non-comfort. All of you, thank you for fucking nothing. I am terrified. No, I think that there's good to be pulled out of this, and I hope that that good can propel us to a positive outcome on Tuesday. That's all the time we have to talk about the what a week of weeks.

When we come back, OK Stop. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Now it's time for a game called OK Stop. We'll roll a clip and the panel can say OK Stop at any point to comment. So everyone, literally everyone this week is doing what they do to help get people out to vote against Trump and his minions on November 6th. LeBron wore a Beto hat to a game.

Oprah just Oprah'd the fuck out of Georgia. And Ben and Jerry's made an ice cream flavor. They call it Resist. That's not a pun. Ugh. And Greg Gutfeld from Fox's The Five has a thing or two or 17 to say about it. Let's roll the clip.

Ben and Jerry's has a new ice cream flavor dedicated to the resistance. Here's another example of how the left injects politics into everything. Remember when politics stayed in its ugly... Okay, stop. You're on, Fox News. Like, why are you complaining about... Without politics being injected into everything,

Greg Gutfeld would be an angry middle school substitute math teacher whose dreams to coach football were dashed by his lack of height. He'd be doing like movie reviews and just being like, the left made the Ghostbusters women. It's like, what do you want? Also, they did not inject politics into that. There are many other flavors.

Yeah, what's in it? Yeah. Maybe he'll tell us. Now it's all over the place. It's in sports. It's in movies. It's your dessert. That's in movies. You're dessert. That's what happens when you decide that the personal is now political.

Okay, stop. You can't. This weird notion of like, oh, all of a sudden everything's political really gets at me because everything has always been political. It's just now people want to listen. And now it's like, because it affects everybody, people are standing up and like listening to things that black people and like minorities and women have been saying for years and it's just this weird sense of like oh now the left wants to get on their high horses like we've like for ages people have been saying things and you've

just not been listening it's very frustrating that they act like it's a very new thing that happened just because of trump yeah also the personal is political is like a feminist slogan from the 70s so like oh no it's turning it's turning. It's like, no dude, it's been, the personal has been political for a really long time. I hope it just starts like stealing Jenny Holzer slogans. Look at the label. Maybe it's me, but I prefer not to be glared at while eating ice cream. Okay, stop.

Stop. Put the thing away, turn it around. I would argue she's not glaring. I would argue that is a face of peace. Did he just tell the ice cream container to smile? He did. He did. Oh, wow.

But thanks to the left, keeping politics out of regular life is seen as complicit to evil. If you don't join our mad crusade, you're the problem, too. Okay, stop. Yeah. Yes, stop. Yeah. Yes. Correct. That's all I wanted to say. This stuff tastes good, but who cares?

The company says that when it purchases this. Oh, whoa. Wait. Okay, stop. Sorry. Did he say, yeah, this stuff tastes good, but who cares? What's the point of it? You can't give an ad.

You're giving an ad for it now. People are going to go and buy this. I know. Also, like, shouldn't he be on the side of are pints of ice cream associated with showing up to things? No, they're associated with staying home on the couch, being like

I'm helping. Helping the resistance. President Trump's regressive agenda. But they should add, while also adding to your deadly obesity. Because isn't that what Ben and Jerry's does? Okay, stop. Okay, you know what? I agree with Gutfeld a little bit right now.

Because I really hate cause marketing. I really hate where it's like, buy this thing and you're supporting breast cancer research. Or buy this thing and you're helping heart health or whatever. You didn't get those pink M&Ms, did you? Yeah. But it's like, yeah, you know what? A lot of products in America that purport themselves to be helping are actually causing the problems that they're trying to pretend they're solving.

So I agree with that. But this is like the least bad example of it. You don't have to eat the whole thing, Greg. You can just eat like a couple spoonfuls of it when you're a little bit stoned and it's 10pm and you don't feel like microwaving the extra fried rice. He's eating the whole thing while face-to-face with that woman. Why does this feel so bad?

They speak calories to power. According to the NIH, obesity and being overweight leads to 300,000 deaths per year. Okay, stop. So does being a stressed out yelling man. That's second only to smoking. Maybe that's why they play at the activism.

They want you to think their heart is in the right place as they're busy clogging yours. Okay, stop. Yeah. How many writers worked on that? On just that little flip of... Just that little tip. Oh, I get it.

Hearts, huh? That's a pretty good one. Also, you can't pull out statistics like that and not point out all of the other things that he wants to support that also cause a million deaths, like guns. Right, he's yelling about ice cream and kind of standing for a political ideology that would just cover the national parks in oil if they had their way. Yeah, also older white men are like parks in oil if they had their way. Yeah, also older white men are like the face of heart disease and heart attacks. Yeah, talk to your boys. You should go with diabetes.

Get your mans. In conclusion, get your mans, Greg. That was OK Stop. When we come back, a new game. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Donald Trump, the president, we all know and loathe,

or are objective about because we're professional journalists, said he plans to use an executive order to end automatic citizenship for all babies born in the U.S. He couldn't, of course. It would take at least an act of Congress. We're right to get mad, but it's also important to see this for what it is, a ploy intended to mobilize racist Republican voters. It's red meat, bad for your colon and for the world,

but a real crowd pleaser. And while the MAGA jerks are... I helped write the colon line. I don't know why I'm like... I guess just reading the word colon out loud is just... It's like, oh, it's about the butt. Anyway. And while the MAGA jerks are chowing down on hate steaks while done with ketchup,

Trump will get right back to signing the country over to billionaires. To help us remember that we've seen this all before, we're going to play a game called Made You Look. I'm going to read you some pre-election Republican rhetoric, and you have to pick the best answer for what actually followed. Who wants to play? Me. Oh, God, there's so many to pick from.

Megan, how about you? Oh, cool. I just guessed your name was Megan because so many girls are named Megan nowadays. I mean, it's a good guess. Good thing you had a microphone. I know. All right.

So I'm going to read you questions, and then the panelists will read you answers, and you pick the one that sounds the least incorrect. Great. Okay, question one. In 1982, America was on the brink of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and unemployment was nearing 10%.

Plus, the midterms were coming up, so naturally President Reagan proposed a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in public schools. What did President the Gipper focus on after the election? Was it A? He focused on himself. After the midterms, he started going to the gym and cutting out carbs. He meditated every morning and journaled every night. He even set aside time for some creative projects he'd been meaning to get into, like writing haikus and pottery. After three months, he was finally feeling

like the real Ronald and even thought about reaching out to the country for, like, a coffee or something. It was at that moment he realized that it wasn't about his relationship with America. It was about his relationship with himself. Was it B? In 1983, he submitted a fiscal budget that included

tax cuts and increases to military spending, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. When his prayer amendment finally came up for a vote in the Senate a year later, it fell short and died. Was it C? I don't know, but whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn't AIDS. Reagan fucking sucked, you guys.

It's a difficult one. I think I'm going to go with B. And you're right. Yay. Question two. By 2014, it was clear Obama's response to the financial crisis was working. But the midterm elections were around the corner, so Republicans changed the subject to Ebola, as one does. In the U.S., only 11 people were diagnosed.

Of them, only two had contracted the disease within the U.S., and only two had died. Literally more people are killed by vending machines. All the same, multiple DLP Senate candidates made it a centerpiece of their campaigns, blaming the Democrats and demanding a pointless travel ban. What happened after the midterms? Was it A? The Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. Less than one month into the 114th Congress, the GOP-controlled House made their 67th failed attempt to repeal Obamacare. They didn't put forward any Ebola-related legislation, though. No one has

been diagnosed with Ebola in this country since a couple weeks before the 2014 midterm, so everyone forgot all about it. Was it B? Republicans won the midterms and made a giant banner that said, just kidding, and said the whole Ebola thing was a prank? Was it C? They added a new

constitutional amendment giving every American the right to bear vending machines. Another tough one. Oh, man. I think I'm going to go with A, unfortunately. That's right. I'm so positive about such a negative thing. Question three.

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump made some promises. He said he'd appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's email crimes, presumably to lock her up. He said he'd open up the country's libel Clinton's email crimes, presumably to lock her up. He said he'd open up the country's libel laws somehow so he could sue the press. He said he'd end DACA, bring back torture, build the wall, and get Mexico to pay for it. Also, he said we'd all say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. How did that all work out? Was it A?

It worked out great. Everything worked out great. And everything is great. Was it B? Okay, so great. Everything worked out great. And everything is great. Was it B? Okay, so he hasn't achieved everything he promised. But did you see that sick Bernie tweet about Michael Cohen like three months ago? You have to give it to him. Was it C?

Trump's DACA executive order was halted in the courts. He's never even tried to bring back torture. Hillary Clinton and the press remain at large. There is no wall. But Trump has passed regressive tax cuts, slash numerous federal regulations that protected our health and safety, and installed reactionary judges in the courts. In other words, he's a Republican and he has to go.

And happy holidays. And a Merry Christmas to you, sir. Which one do you think it is? Oh, man. C. That's right. And that's the game. Megan, you won. Yay. You won's the game. Megan, you won.

Yay. You won. Happy holidays. Thank you so much. All right, we're going to take a break, but when we come back, it's our last chance to get out the vote. Get out the vote or I will hate you. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. And it's time for another game. This has been a game-heavy show, guys. Because democracy is not a game, so we have to get our games in in the podcast part of our lives, I guess. Some people legitimately can't vote thanks to voter suppression, poverty, and an

inflexible work schedule, or, in Antonin Scalia's case, because they're dead and buried. It's cool, Tony. You get a pass. It would have been fine if he skipped voting if he was alive, too. He and I disagreed on everything. This is why if you can vote, it's that much more important that you do. If you're one of the lucky ones, there's no excuse. Rather, there's no good excuse. There are lots of really bad excuses and we've had to listen to all of them. So in the spirit of helping you deal with your loser friends, we're introducing a new advice column segment called

Voters Anonymous. I'll read a letter asking for advice and you as a group, and by you as a group I mean my lovely panelists here, have 30 seconds to help them get past the embarrassingly trivial barrier standing between them and the voting booth. I'll read our first letter. Dear Dr. Aaron,

okay, these people keep calling me doctor and I did not go to medical booth. I'll read our first letter. Dear Dr. Aaron, Okay, these people keep calling me doctor, and I did not go to medical school. I was even bad at college. Someone calls you a doctor, and you say, yeah, I am. Yeah. Well, I can't. I'm too, I've got morals.

Okay, dear Dr. Aaron, My friend said she can't make it to the polling place because her car exploded, and it's her guinea pig's baptism that day. Also, she can't go outside in the rain because she has witch disease and will melt immediately. How can I help her? From Suspicious in Saratoga.

Start the clock. All right, fastest solution, Gator Reverend. You can solve two problems at once. Get the guinea pig's baptism knocked out. Solve the witch disease through the power of, you know. Baptism? Yes, and then go to the polls. I think you should baptize the guinea pig in the rain, use it as an umbrella while you're

running to the polls, or use it as an umbrella while you're running to the mailbox to throw your absentee ballot in the mail. Oh, yeah. I just got my absentee ballot, so I highly recommend doing it in the mail. I also think you can do mail order baptisms now and probably witch conversions. Yeah, or Tylenol for the witch disease. Yeah. Great.

I think those are some great tips, guys. You're really good. You should have a whole advice podcast. Okay. Second letter. Hey, Dr. Aaron. Ooh, casual. Or should I say, you're welcome.

I have already bestowed upon the great state of Rhode Island my ballot, which I filled using several different voting guides plus my own intuition, so it is literally perfect. Yes, even the judges. And damn it feels good. My job's done, right? Like I already helped save democracy and shit, right? From Proud and Providence. Start the clock. They already voted,

so I'm unclear what advice to give them other than to say keep voting. See who won. I don't think it's like reality TV. You can't vote more than once. But I don't like the confidence level in their response. So I would say check your privilege.

If you have time, phone bank, Canvas, go out and volunteer. Tell your friends about voting. Just do more to influence other people to vote. Wow. Right on time again. That is crazy. All right. Third question.

Actually, a little preface to this. This is a real question that I got from a real friend. So don't fucking make fun of her. Wait a minute. These previous ones were fake? No, I got a text message from a friend the other day. And she was like, she has a friend who had this question for me. And so this is like a real person.

And I think that there are probably a lot of real people out there with this, and I have a real mean answer for it. So I'll let you guys, I'll go first, and then I will unload. Okay. Dear Dr. Aaron, I've tried everything to convince my husband to vote. He's registered, but he doesn't see it. He claims he just doesn't like any of the candidates, but doesn't just want to vote against. I've tried to help him see the connection between candidates

and actual issues and policies that affect our lives, but he just doesn't see it. Please help. I don't know what to do, and it's so upsetting to me. Signed, anonymously yours. Start the clock. Dump him. You'd have to return the china. They're married. I didn't know there was China involved

Here's Okay so here's my Take on that I think that If you have somebody in your life That loves you And that you love And they're not going to vote

Because they don't believe in democracy Tell them to vote Because they believe in you Yes Like it's a thing that they It's a tangible thing That they can do To make you happy

And if they love you They will do it for you It's like literally half a day To do to make you happy. And if they love you, they will do it for you. It's like literally half a day to prevent you from being mad at them forever. And present it that way. And it's less invasive than a kidney. And I feel like voting should always be a lesser of evils thing if you can't just be like, I don't like them, either of them. Marriage is all about compromise. And love.

But it's also about voting. Wait, are you saying it's all about compromise by being like, hey, you know what? They'll figure it out. Those crazy kids, they'll get through it. You know what? You're both sides are as omens. Take it out of here, man. I don't like this, yeah. Take it out of here.

It's give and take, guys. Sure. You're married? Alright. Stay out of this. Alright. When we come back, guys. Sure. You're married? All right. Stay out of this. You stay out of this. All right. When we come back, the rant wheel. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back with the rant wheel. You guys know the deal. It's just a bunch of stuff that people want to complain about. When it lands on a thing, we'll pretend we're surprised, and the people who entered it will complain about it for several seconds, and then we'll move on. Okay, this week on the rant wheel,

Trump's executive time, Jacob Wohl, Christmas creep, Kanye's apology, Sessions versus pastors, and I guess by extension, Jesus, Hugh Jackman, misuse of free speech. And hotels having a green choice. All right. Let's spin the wheel. And it's landed on Christmas creep. That's mine, guys.

Okay, so I live close to this place in L.A. called The Grove, which is this big, gross mall that's made to look like a downtown that's never existed anywhere, but it sort of looks like the good place downtown. I was walking there to buy a book, and the whole place was, like, locked and loaded for Christmas. Like, they had a sleigh suspended over the big courtyard. They had a Santa like McMansion that was made of like melty looking plastic. They had like Christmas music playing. This was two days ago. This is October 30th. No, no. Christmas need. Give Thanksgiving

time to breathe. First of all, Thanksgiving is like a fine wine. You pour it into its decanter and it needs to sit there for like a month. So you're ready and you're in the spirit of Thanksgiving. You can put on some like Aaron Copland songs. You can talk about simple gifts and like draw cornucopias in school and hand turkeys. I guess school is the last time I celebrated Thanksgiving. But I think Thanksgiving is an important holiday and it exists and its purpose in the American calendar was to give us a space between Halloween and Christmas. Because without Thanksgiving, Christmas will creep all the way back to Halloween. And it has, despite Thanksgiving.

We're at a point of national, like, I am more concerned, I'm so much more concerned about the caravan of Christmas cheer coming at me than I ever would be about a caravan of human beings walking all the way up from Honduras to the southern border of the United States. We need to take a stand as a country, and we need to decide we are not listening to Christmas music, we're not buying things from stores that have Christmas displays out, and we are not talking or thinking about Christmas or drinking from holiday cups until at least the week of Thanksgiving.

I will give you the Monday. I'll give you the Monday before Thanksgiving. But before that, fuck you. Okay, spin it again. I was kind of relieved that Christmas Creep wasn't a pervert I hadn't heard about. I definitely

started talking about Living by the Grove and I was like, oh no, is there like an elf there that's been going around just like, ooh. And you know what's really bothering me about it is it's so early in the calendar. Dude, wait to look in my window until after thanksgiving you pantsless elf billy christmas again spin it again and it's landed on misuse of free speech that That's me. I feel like no one on Twitter, at least the people that yell at me,

understand what free speech as a concept is because they're always just like, well, you can't censor people. You can't remove people from Twitter because that's free speech. It's like Twitter is not a government utility. The concept of free speech only applies insofar as that the government cannot jail you for saying that you hate hate barack obama or whatever it's like yeah cool i feel like people keep coming out and saying like uh our free speech is under attack because we can't say this and we can't say that and it's like no twitter if they

want it tomorrow could just be like hey we don't like anyone doing borat impressions if you do a borat impression you're off the site and that'd be fine it's their terms of service it's crazy that they are it should be yes I also fully support that rule. If Twitter were to come tomorrow and be like, hey, you've done this 56 times, you're off forever, I'd be like, I understand. Thank you for the time. But it's just this weird thing.

I don't know if it's just them arguing in bad faith or if it's truly a thing where they're like, this is free speech and it's a slippery slope, but it's not a slippery slope to be like, hey, don't be racist online. It's not a slippery slope for Twitter to come out and say hey we're gonna take a stand against bigotry i think that twitter as a network also has a host of problems that when they come out and say something like hey uh sometimes you're gonna see bigotry on twitter we can't police that and then like months

later try to uh have like twitter pride events where it's like you can't you can't take both sides of that where like bigotry will happen we can't really enforce it as part of our terms of service and then like spend the month of march uh just being like uh hey we're very happy to be supportive of uh queer people on our site and it's like you're not that supportive if you're letting it go 11 months of the year and it's just that was a different thing but free speech is only applying insofar as the government cannot punish you it you cannot it's not a slippery slope uh to get kicked off of twitter because you called thing, but free speech is only applying insofar as the government cannot punish you. It's not a slippery slope to get kicked off of Twitter because you called someone the N-word. Don't do it!

One of the best suggestions I think I've heard about Twitter is when they expanded the character count from 140 to 280, I feel like one of the best ways to police that would be if you do a bad tweet, they take one character away. If you do a good tweet, you get one back. I'd be down to 15, though.

It's like a driver's license. I like that. I would just slowly disappear like a fly and back to the future. Alright, spin it again. And it's landed on hotels green choice. Sounds like a horse name. Oh, this one's mine. It's a little esoteric. So something I learned recently is that hotels have this sort of this green choice program where if you go, some of them do, where they say, you know, you can save the environment by, you know, foregoing like house cleaning for a couple of days.

You know, you're helping us out, helping us cut emissions. One of the things I learned recently is that actually like apparently hotel workers really hate that. So a lot of the housekeepers moved from like full time work to on call duty. And sort of the conspiracy theory is that it's not really about the environment. It's actually about like cutting down on labor costs. So it's the company, you know, the company I've asked like Marriott about, it's one of the big ones that has this. And they say, you know, like they've made these sort of big cuts to their carbon emissions.

And, you know, obviously the planet's boiling us alive. So that sort of thing is important. But it's also kind of a, it's a part of the Unite Here labor strikes against all the Marriott hotels. This is one of their big issues that's like affecting affecting their work. So now I'm like, I think I'm gonna go insane the next time I go to a hotel. And I sort of look at this and I'm like, am I am I am I am I protecting the environment? Like, am I am I doing the right thing? Or did I just totally just ruin everything by riding a jet here and i think that's probably the answer very like like a thing that would be in the good place where it's like cheating you know that's not actually uh totally you actually cost i've always loved the green choice thing because i'm always like i don't need you to clean my thing i'm gonna come back and go to sleep i don't need it i don't care i never i put do not disturb the whole time and i thought i was helping right the. I don't need to, I don't care. I never, I put do not disturb the whole time and I thought I was helping.

Right. The unions apparently don't like it because it's more work to clean rooms on like day three of like my nasty self, you know,

not coming around and you know, having, being tidied up after and so it's like, it's a real like labor issue and so now, now I don't know

what to believe. Oh man. It's a real Sophie's choice. Environment or workers' rights. Yeah, I remember that part of the movie. The hotel part. Yeah. Okay, spin it again. And it's landed on executive time. So, President Trump has a daily schedule that gets released to reporters every day. And it's like, oh, he's having lunch with Mike Pence and he's high-fiving John Kelly real quick. And then he's trying to dodge a punch thrown by John Bolton and he's high-fiving John Kelly again.

Whatever. Like, it'll give out his public schedule. He's flying to a rally. about his public schedule. He's flying to a rally. One of the funny things about his daily schedule is there's always this executive time scheduled into it, which is just him like watching TV and like rage tweeting. And he does that for several hours a day. On Tuesdays, he has the most executive time. I learned from a Politico piece this week. One thing that I am concerned about, about this unstructured time where he just has his phone is like, who's running the country? I didn't think about that. I always just assume it's like when he's on his phone or like that executive time, it's like, we're all

just like, he's not running things. We're fine for an hour. Yeah. But it's sort of like if you're driving down the road and you take your hands off the steering wheel and you're like executive time, like it's cool for like two seconds. Then you're definitely going to crash off the edge of a cliff. Well, you know, Trump gets a lot of criticism for this, but I'm thinking about my unstructured journalist time. And you know what? I am also on my phone tweeting a lot

and getting into trouble. And during that time, the LA Times burns. How long is it on Tuesdays? I don't know, but he had nine hours on a recent Tuesday what nine hours it feels like in your metaphor we're telling him he's driving and he's really just in the passenger seat

with one of those my first simulation I'm going to go into executive time yeah you were definitely driving before buddy I feel like this is a missed opportunity to advocate for like a four-day work week where it's, you know, you're on your hustle

for Monday, Thursday, and then on Friday, you're like, well, you know, so it's executive time. I'm going to hang out at the office, but I'm just kind of, I'm going to do my thing, you know? It does sound like a euphemism for using the toilet, though. I definitely thought you were going to say that it's like, oh, we don't know what he does during that time.

I was going to be like, I don't want to be crude, but I think he's... I know, I thought that too. Yeah. I won't say it. He does eat a lot of fast food. Yeah.

All right, spin it again. Yes. And it's landed on Jacob Wohl. The Wohl of Wall Street. He is. Like, the idea of, it took me a while to understand the concept of, like, a large adult son, because I was like, oh, what is it? And then I looked at that Mike Huckabee Christmas card where his large adult sons were dressed

identically, and I was like, oh, that's a large adult son. The cousin of a large adult son is the fail son. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that's a large adult son. The cousin of a large adult son is the fail son. Yeah. Like this sort of just kind of floppy, useless, single minded, like ass kisser. And Jacob Wohl is that. And I think it's hilarious that he tried to plot an inept scheme against Robert Mueller. Somebody I follow on Twitter said that it reminded him of the time that the man tried to punch the Terminator.

In like the first scene of the film. And broke his own fist. And broke his own fist. Yeah, he's the platonic ideal of the fail son. That's my Duncan. Every time I see Jake Wohl, I just imagine like David Byrne in the suit that's too big. Just because I'm like, you're just a child. And you're out here just being like, I want $25 million to start a business. Everyone's like, no.

But also, someone was tweeting, I want to say it was Will Summers, was live tweeting the press conference he had with Jack Berkman today. And every single update was so funny. They kept misspelling the so-called accuser's name. They kept, like, the accuser didn't show up. There was a photo that someone tweeted where it was like, the lawyer's fly has been down this entire time. Oh, but the key line, more gifted

than Mozart. Yes. Yeah, the lawyer said Jacob Wohl is a brilliant man who is more gifted than Mozart. Maybe at basketball. Maybe at playing an offensive lineman. I bet that maybe he's probably better at playing offensive line than Mozart. Mozart seems like he may be

a little bit of a pussy. Mozart's got a pretty good jump shot. Happy holidays. Yeah, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. And that was The Rant Wheel, and that's our show. I want to thank the panelists, Aparna Nanchola, Demi Adijuube, and Matt Pierce. And I'm Erin Ryan.

That was Love It or Leave It. Love it or Leave It.