Red Scare - Ridenn with Glenn w/ Glenn Greenwald

Episode Date: November 8, 2020

Glenn Greenwald is back to talk about the state of journalism and the fate of the election.

I You can hear us, okay Hello Yes Should we roll the the bean footage? Yeah, let's just jump into it. Okay We're back. We're back. Are we we're recording the neoliberal war room with a very special guest to celebrate the victory of our new

President mr. Joe Biden Come on while they're gay dad. Yeah, welcome back Glenn Hey, first of all, it's always so moving whenever you guys unveil that highly inventive and creative introduction to the show It's like a milestone like a monument like you see the Eiffel Tower's, you know, you're in Paris You hear hi, we're back and you know, you're on Red Scare So it's great to actually see it in action. Yeah, exhaustively saying we're back. Yeah All right, we really Don't worry, you guys have only been doing this for three years. There's no reason for

So, okay, I guess we have to jump right into it because we're running a little late because we're stupid and bad at technology And our jobs in general All right, my first question for you has nothing to do with anything going on right now But the story that was like buried in all the election coverage of the post reporting that Putin is gonna step down next year Cuz he possibly has Parkinson's. What do you think of that? It's very difficult to Assess the credibility of anything the US media says about Russia or Putin for reasons that you guys know better than I do

I don't know if that was reported by the Russian press or not. If it weren't I wouldn't really trust any of those kind of claims Yeah, I Don't know. I haven't seen any signs that he has Parkinson's. He seems pretty good to me Physically, so I don't know. Is he a one on the binary for you The one is not fuck or fuck I Would say like, okay, I'm not gonna answer that I'll get Okay, yes, you can plead the fifth you have to ease me in on a before you like Impair all my reputation and career by being on this show

Well speaking of your career, can we talk about About you leaving the intercept Yes, yes, we can Is there anything specific you like to know or do you want me to just well pound on I guess what happened? Yeah, what happened and why you chose? Substack Well, I had as I said in my the article that I wrote announcing my departure was I was already exploring

The possibility of a new media outlet because I was a very dissatisfied with the trajectory of the intercept has taken Over the past several years and what it what it's become which is wildly divergent from what I envisioned It would be when we created it and what I was hoping it would be and I also think there was a huge niche in the political and journalistic market that's being unserved for a media outlet that is not really captive to any one faction or Dogma and that is trusted across the political spectrum to actually say what's happening rather than feeding Their hyper partisan readers, whatever

Validating views they need to hear to feel good about themselves in their worldview And I thought that was it going to be what the intercept was going to be as well And it clearly is nothing remotely like that but I wasn't planning on just doing it so precipitously and Leaving behind the very large guaranteed salary I had and the expenses that they were paying primarily the really expensive legal fees that I have because of the criminal case still pending in Brazil for the reporting that I did last year as well as you know security 24-hour security that

I need but We basically the one thing that I can't stand and this is not just in my journalism career but like in life is the Sensation that I'm precluded from saying what I want to say and expressing the things that I believe Particularly by the mediocrities at the intercept that we're trying to do it but like in general anybody and once that happened with this article I wanted to write and publish about my views of the

Evidence regarding Joe and Hunter Biden's corruption It just became an easy choice or really no choice and then sub-stack is just this kind of like refuge where all of these Distident writers who have been expelled from mainstream media precincts have been able to go and The model is really successful and supportive of independence of editorial freedom And ultimately you're answerable only to your readers kind of like you guys are answerable only to your listeners

And that's a model I began with when I created my blog back in 2005, and I'm kind of excited about returning to it I mean I have to say sub-stack is the reason that I'm back on Twitter after I got banned because they helped me kind of Work through back channels and get back on but I have a more existential question for you Which is like do you think it's possible to have a media outlet or platform? That doesn't eventually get caught up and destroyed by kind of partisan warfare Or do you have like a few good years? I think there there's two I think I don't know I don't because I don't really see a media outlet that has exceeded in doing that of any significant size

Or reach so the idea of what we were exploring before I left kind of precipitously Was exactly that to test whether that's viable and I think in order for it to work two things are needed at minimum one is that everybody comes together with the commitment as Kind of the value of primacy that it won't succumb to that So it's not just like something you kind of say is an ancillary goal But it's embedded in the crux of the DNA or whatever it is that you're creating and drummed into everybody's head who comes and creates it and then comes and works there that one of the primary purposes of this new outlet is to avoid that is to prevent it falling into like partisan or ideological homogeneity and then the other thing is you know

Everybody there's all these phrases that people like to affirm like ideological independence and working with people of different views But it's much harder to do it in the reality than it is to affirm it in the abstract So I think one of the things that has to be done if you're gonna do a media outlet like that if you're really gonna say we want to be tolerant of you know, dissonant discourse and allow for Deviations from and questioning of pieties is it has to be founded by a group of people who genuinely have Very divergent views of the world, which is way easier said than done But I think if you just start off with a bunch of people who kind of see the world similarly Eventually the media outlet is gonna start to take shape around those beliefs of the people creating it if it's homogenous

And eventually it'll become more an extension of that ideology then of any place that's designed to foster free discourse Okay What do you make of the censoring of Trump in his in his like voter fraud Sorry crusade well, let's remember especially since we are Recording this immediately after Both AP and Fox have declared Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winner of the 2020 election And for people listening if I sound like I'm cracking up in my voice or whatever. I am highly highly emotional With joy, so I'm trying to get through this

But We have to remember that in the debate Before Kamala Harris dropped out without receiving a single vote in the utter wreckage of what was her presidential campaign that she tried in the debate to distinguish herself from her competitors by Insisting that Trump ought to be expelled from and kicked off Twitter And she was all like is anyone gonna join me and even like they were all kind of like doing that thing where you're embarrassed by What somebody's doing because it's so cringy at a party and you keep looking away because you don't want to have to like get involved But there is this idea there's this there is this authoritarian strain in American liberalism for sure

Because once you posit the view that the people that are your opponents and the political realm are not just People who have different views in you but are like tyrannical menaces or Nazis or a bunch of hitlers or white supremacist domestic terrorists or whatever You do start to believe that anything is justifiable particularly starting with censorship that often is the least controversial on the quickest Course of combating them and I mean it's fucking madness this idea that like the president of the United States should be censored by unelected Overlords. Well, yeah, that was that's what's happening. And I think it's just a question of days once he loses Yeah, he's gonna get kicked off Twitter. I think once he's out of the White House and you know liberals are gonna wildly applaud Do you think there's going to start a sub stack? Yeah, maybe I'll start a sub stack or hopefully a podcast or come on our podcast

Maybe do you think that there's like a chance that? Trump there will be kind of a at least symbolic movement to punish Trump after the fact once he leaves Should he leave? I mean, we also don't know for sure right a hundred percent that Biden is president or do we know? Well, I mean, I guess we're taping it after major media outlets have Projected him the winner or declared him the winner or whatever there's gonna be court cases But I think it's extremely unlikely That there'll be any other outcome other than Biden winning. I think um that I

Don't know. I think you know, there's gonna be this There's this there's gonna be some liberals calling for that who actually believe the bullshit about Trump being hit learn all that Or like a traitor or whatever like the real dumb ones but there's this you know ethos in American political life that presidents even when they committed egregious crimes like Bush did with torture and Illegal domestic spying and the like shouldn't be held accountable. They should have they should just be permitted to kind of Go off and be unmolested into the sunset and kind of like Was created that template was when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon as a way of like curing the country and healing the nation and

Moving, you know beyond and I just don't think if you're Joe Biden or the Democrats or whatever you want your presidency dominated by You know judicial proceedings around Trump Well, so on that note, I think my other question is like what what do you think we can expect from a Biden presidency? I mean probably more outsourcing of labor or more endless war like that sort of thing more surveillance people a more censorship people are saying that You know, Biden is gonna join hands with Mitch McConnell to Forgot social security

But But as somebody who literally left the Organization you founded because you felt like it was Becoming too illiberal or whatever What do you see in terms of like a Biden presidency in in two arenas mainly in that of like tech and censorship and then in foreign policy? Well, you seem even more excited and optimistic about it by the presidency And I'm very very excited To our celebratory

And the naps that we can now take the naps that we're now permitted to take because we no longer have to pay attention I think well first of all Like it's been amazing to watch just the ease with which people are propagandized when they want to be Joe Biden Has been a politician for 50 years now since 1972. I think it is when he was elected So like 45 years or whatever in the Senate and then another he is his vice president It's not difficult to know exactly what he is. There's been a picture that has emerged. That's very very clear Over that time, which is he's an authoritarian as evidenced by his championing championing of the Not just the crime bill in 1994

But he just was attacking Republicans from the right for years and years and years about the refusal to sufficiently punish drug dealers and other island criminals He's been the most loyal servant to the credit card industry based in Delaware and you know champion things like The repressive bankruptcy bill that supposedly caused Elizabeth Warren and that other than other incarnation of hers to enter politics out of anger And then of course he was probably the single most important Democrat in the Senate in 2002 And he was the chairman of the foreign relations committee championing championing the Iraq War along with Dick Cheney and George Bush and that's who he is And he's it's impossible to envision that he's going to change and then the Democratic Party itself

is captive to its funding base, which is Silicon Valley and Wall Street and all these affluent light suburban voters who just deliver them this victory by you know, in droves leaving the Republican Party and voting for them. So that's going to be the agenda And there is a question about how much Biden's really going to be in charge Is he just going to take a bunch of naps and let his brain continue to melt into mush? But even if he does that or doesn't it doesn't much matter because the people who then will still exert power pretty much share that same world view It's not like there's Bernie Sanders waiting in the wings to like take over economic policy of Biden's sleeps and has Alzheimer's

Right, like the assertion that we're all It's like Larry Summers and you know those people Well, it's funny because our friends psychic predicted They called this outcome and said a Biden was going to actually croak in two years and Kamala would be president Which is like, you know hilarious and so typically liberal that they would get this like historic representational win on a technicality Like even when they're winning they stay losing somehow. They love to do it But like, I mean, do you see like do you feel like there's going to be more tightening of the news by Silicon Valley? Oh for sure

I mean they all why was like I think one of the most chilling things to happen in American politics in the last decade at least Is when the New York Post Published that story based on documents that very few people least of all the Bidens contested the authenticity of And when you try to link post a link to that story on Twitter, you are prevented from doing so Which is like the kind of censorship tech censorship that is common in China In Iran in places that are highly repressive. It's exactly the same thing And not only was Twitter not Denounced for it, but they were supported and cheered. I mean the the view of liberals was finally Twitter has

Finally stepped up to the plate. Same thing with Facebook. They sent out this Democratic party apparatch a goon who worked for like Barbara Boxer and the DCCC, which I don't understand Why like they sent him out of all people to announce that Facebook was going to be quote-unquote suppressing this story Using algorithms to make sure that as few people as possible could actually see it A week or two weeks before an election, and then the New York Post is locked out of their Twitter account for weeks I think in part because they knew the Democrats were likely to win And wanted to curry favor with an administration that does believe genuinely That the more censorship of their opponents the better

You know, we already saw that in 2016 with whoever was questioning Hillary was like You know vilified as a Russian agent or as a Disloyal American and that is the framework that sets up censorship And now we're seeing that even more so because now you're a Aider in a better of domestic fascism or white supremacist terrorism and therefore censorship is Imperative so I think that's absolutely at the top of the agenda to further pressure these tech companies to make certain that critics of the Democrats Can be heard even less Extremely much so

Extremely bleak. I'm I'm excited I'm gonna get drunk today How can you not be excited like this? No, and I also like we were it's funny because we were talking about stuff back at the beginning The thing that's the creepiest about all of this is whole censorship trend is that the people who are Leading the way who are like the primary advocates of censorship are fucking journalists like journalists who work at cnn and nbc They have reporters who are have these beats They call them that are basically nothing more than being little bitchy tattletales

Where like they see some posts and they're like facebook this person violated your rules. Why are you leaving this post up? That's how they got alex jones a mylionopolis kicked off all these platforms and they keep doing either these two little like millennials They're so like Petulant and just you know like they're just the kinds of kids in middle school who were always raising their hands to tell the teacher That you didn't do your homework or you were cheating or whatever and like a week before the election I saw them they did some video and there was this I don't know they're the ones like a Male and one's a female kind of and they were like hi. We're reporting from the disinformation space That's what they call it like they're in a war zone, you know, they like read for channel day

And they're totally going to start whatever platform You know is allowing people to be heard and express themselves independent of those large corporate media outlets They're going to turn their guns on those and it's just a question of time before they start saying Why is substack allowing this person on he's an extremist. She's a racist kicker off Same with patreon and like podcast which they've already kind of done Yeah, it's just that what's so amazing is that journalists are leading the way in in this censorship. They're like horny for this I was I listened to some clip from tim dillon where he was talking about like But these people aren't journalists. First of all, there's like seven journalists

I think you're one of the seven michael tracy taiyibi, you know, well, they don't stand there's no They're not I wouldn't call. I think it's a little Maybe excessive to call them journalists. Yeah, I noticed, you know, like yesterday I think it was like aoc calling for a literal shitty media man list of like people who were kind of stumping for trump and then Went back on their word after he lost or whatever and I was just like, well, this is like crazy and egregious and also Pointless, but a lot of people and my men. She's were like, well, she's just trying to hold people accountable like I've seen that that phrase around a lot like

Accountability and it's like, what does it mean in this climate to hold people accountable and to have accountability, you know To deplat from them to put them on a list. Yeah Well, it's just I mean, it's also so It's so, you know, it's such like historical revisionism I actually just wrote an article about an hour ago that I published Before I knew that the election was going to be called today and I'm actually glad it coincided because And the the basic theme of it was that bush cheney from whatever liberal metric You want to choose that you think is important bush cheney was so much worse so much worse

Then this first and evidently only term of the trump administration And you could even make the case that in a lot of ways the continuation of those policies by obama Was also worse than trump as well for whatever reasons not because trump is a good person but because he wasn't able to implement anything because he's like Obese and slothful or because the resistance to from various institutions was much greater Whatever the reason The destruction and violence and lawlessness and authoritarianism and bloodshed under trump

Under bush and obama were much greater than anything we've seen over the last four years and yet not only aren't the warmongers and You know neo liberals from the bush cheney administration being put on lists like the kind a oc wants for trump supporters And being ostracized they have never had it better Like those are the heroes of the green rooms of msnbc and cnn those are the people who If liberals want to give their money away, which they often do because they're like very self-flagellating that way These are the people they give it to are like rick wilson and steve schmitt and all those fucking goons from the bush years who did torture and guantanamo

And the destruction of iraq like if you don't have accountability for those people And if in fact the calls for accountability are being led by them the whole thing is such an obvious scam Yeah, i mean Maybe in the best-case scenario she had like those people in mind But i was happy i'm happy that you made this point and i was happy that you made it on twitter that like On balance all things considered trump is a fairly like bog standard neo liberal president like he's fairly within the realm of normal But i mean would you go as far to make the case i mean i would this is kind of a rhetorical question that um trump is

No worse in the least than the last five guys like you know like reagan clinton i feel like opened They flung the door wide open for the sort of economic policies that then practically invited bush to and obama to plunges into the endless wars because they needed to manufacture a proxy economy for the one that had been Scrapped for parts right well, that's why it's also so shocking to see people celebrating basically reinstating the Previous administration that if you really think believe that trump is a bad orange fascist arguably ushered him in Or gave rise to trumpism clearly ushered at him right like clearly created the The the framework for so many people who had voted for obama twice to switch and vote for trump

And you know who are still kind of angry as evidenced by the fact that trump despite this like You know multi prong crisis of a recession of an unemployment crisis for closure and rent Delinquency crisis in addition to a very poorly managed pandemic Received a huge number of votes and made this a very close election and the democrats somehow managed to lose seats in the house That's how shitty and sucky they are and Um, you know if you just look at the war in iraq just that alone that was launched based on deliberate lies laundered through the new york times and the new yorker magazine and

You know nbc and meet the press And all of our most prestigious media institutions Which then resulted not only in the destruction of a country of 26 million people and the Implementation of a worldwide torture regime But also the deaths of up to a million people if not more As well as just creating so much instability in that region that it created the pockets of anarchy and disorder that gave rise to Isis as no less than tony blair admitted

What is like even remotely in the same universe of amorality and destruction? that trump did to say nothing of like Kidnapping and rendition and drone killings and torture and the whole like letting new warlings drown and like Letting huge numbers of people being foreclosed in order to save wall street like on and on and on Just the iraq war alone. What is did it did trump do that's even in the same universe? I know I know I keep saying this but I Kids in cages Yeah, it's like empathy politics

They're always like an appeal to like emotions and morality But I was hoping that you would go on on this tirade because I want I want some you know a man to say in an authoritative voice Here's but but but what the last five guys did a little bit of the gay boys But still very authoritative. Yeah Well, I think it's not going to take very long. Thank you Dasha. I don't think it's going to take very Long actually for there to be even amnesia about trump the way that there is with um bush

Yeah, I think it's going to be cool for leftist to say well actually Um, he was kind of funny and I liked him more than I wanted to admit at the time That's going to be the the hilarious part Well, there was already an article in the Atlantic within like the last three or four days Essentially warning everybody that something worse than trump is coming Yeah, because it would basically be the ideology of trump but in a more competent form And it was hilarious because it named hucker carlson and joe rogan as possible iterations of this like authoritarianism like joe rogan is The least authoritarian person in all of american politics, but somehow he's going to come in and impose tyranny and fascism

But you know, they're already laying the groundwork for that right like to say like, okay Look trump wanted to do these terrible things, but didn't really get to do them So in this scheme of history, he wasn't that bad But this person is going to do all the dark and evil things efficiently that trump wanted to do but failed We're only like three two years away from hearing that trump isn't as bad as this new person Yeah, I mean you can see it happening now on the online left who literally urged people for months to vote biden Like begrudgingly like, you know, they were like kind of upfront about the fact that this was not a great choice And now are kind of going back on that like publicly

It's like crazy to watch But I think there's going to be like I don't know if there's going to be like a Full-scale rehabilitation of trump to the degree of people being like well He's a great oil or of like like, you know during the bush or after bush people were like, oh He's a great oil painter and he goes to games with Ellen DeGeneres and this like sort of thing but like I think people are gonna like Start to soften on bad orange man eventually

Well, what is the liberal media going to do now that they don't have the specter of the bad orange man To legitimize themselves again Yeah, I mean that's you know the I think it's a really important question because I think there's this assumption that I think is Gonna prove to be unwarranted That with trump out of the picture everything's going to return to this Normalcy, you know the normalcy that as dosh pointed out earlier is what gave rise to trump in the first place

But people seem to have forgotten about how repressive and shitty it was and therefore want to go back to it But I think that What's going to happen is there's too many Power centers and institutions of authority that have profited so greatly from centering trump as this grave menace There's no way they're just going to abandon that they can't their survival and relevance depends on continuing to Prop it up. Um, you know, I just was in the course of writing that article. I mentioned earlier looking back at 2015 discourse and there was there's a bunch of articles about how

MSNBC hosts almost every single one of them except for like maybe Rachel Maddow was on the verge of being fired They were maneuvering to fire them all because nobody was watching their stupid shitty shows because who the fuck wants to hear like Chris Hayes whining about how like wonderful obama is um, or like how You know me mitch mcconnell is and that's you know What they're going to go back to and there's articles about the new york times not being able to pay its pension obligations And now the new york times is like this massive

Financial powerhouse because and so like things like the aclu as well because they all convinced everybody that they're about to be put Into concentration camps and the only way to stay out of the camps is if you send money into the new york times for subscriptions And give money the aclu and like watch chris hayes interview. I amy klobuchar And so what's going to happen when trump's gone? They're going to keep saying They're going to try and you know concoct this myth This narrative the storyline that even with trump out of power. There's still this fascist movement out there like You know the fbi is going to target a bunch of autistic learning disabled 21 year old white kids in Idaho who are on math to like say to an informant that they're willing to like go kill

You know Gretchen Whitmer or something and then ms mbc is going to be like look at the thread of white supremacist terrorism You have to continue to remain vigilant And not criticize Joe biden. This is really our we're still in danger. That's what they're going to try and do democracy dies in darkness um, I think also like you know You know, the the left is going to have to go back to its pre trump kind of like occupy era levels where it Pretends to not be within the fold of the democratic party and they start criticizing him and that'll be like another Kind of like micro industry cottage industry of this like media complex

That like there can't be any other way because you know, they have to lodge some Grievances about biden that they weren't you know before but my the other thing is like Trump I don't think that trump won big with minorities, but we saw that in in this election that he gained with minorities even though he lost overall I wanted to get your thoughts on that right well Well, first of all, let me just go and bash the left a little bit since you got me excited about doing it before you switch topics like The I know it's always welcome on this show, but I I just feel like very strong about it

Like is there anything more fucking cocked in the world than the did the American left? like they got so obediently snapped into line behind Joe fucking biden and like a lifelong career prosecutor Like under the pretense of pushing him and then harm reduction Oh my god, there's like that. There's this one guy. What's his name? He was like some Warren simp

Max burger he had this tweet which I found so illustrative of like the sad stunted mentality of large sectors of the left where he was like Hey guys, now isn't the time to push we're gonna be junior members of the coalition And we'll have our opportunity to push them left, but now it's not the time to do it And he was so like happy to be like he thought it was like such a like Like like fulfilling phrase like junior member of this coalition and I pictured him with like Joe And Kamala on there like Harleys and then like that little max burger had like a Warren sticker and like a like in the Safety helmet like riding on the little sidecar. Yeah on the sidecar

So happy and then like occasionally Kamala would just kick it and make him go down to a ditch for fun And then pretend she didn't mean to do it and he'd be like all thankful so like Given that they already fell one time for this like this this storyline, which is Look, this isn't the time to bash Biden and Kamala from the left and the democrats from the left because fascism Is emerging and I've seen like super tough guys on the left saying things like why How can we fight neoliberalism now if we have fascism on the rise? We have to first defeat fascism and then we can turn in neoliberalism

But this idea of like the fascist threat isn't going to go anywhere soon like we just discussed So going into the 2022 midterms, this is always how it works, you know Oh, you can criticize us after the election, but then immediately after the election it becomes Do you want Biden to have a majority in the senate or not because every time you bash him You're helping the fascists keep control of the senate And then the 2022 midterm comes everybody gets snapped into line and they're like look the presidential election is starting Do you really want josh holly or like the not cjo rogan to be able to win you need to like keep silent So that if it worked once before why isn't that going to keep working to keep the left all like cocked up and

and and compliant and and obedient Yeah, yeah, I I don't know. I mean it was so pathetic like they tried so hard to Yeah, they like tried so hard to find You know like little things that they can do to prove that they're not like near attended and the liberals that they pretend to hate Like when trump got covid they were all like I hope he dies To be like look, I'm a edgy radical anarchist liberal. I'm leftist I'm not like those liberals who are like I wish the president of speedy recovery It's like these little symbolic gestures that they desperately cling to to provide some, you know illusion of separation from

Corporateist imperialist establishment democratic politics but yeah, I mean I think it's going to be hilarious because they are like the lackeys and foot soldiers of a liberal capital and they're going to have to Um kind of distinguish pivot the brand To to maybe like gently bashing on biden and kamala for for being like carceral status or whatever But fundamentally nothing's going to change and it's going to be like this well, it'll get worse. Um, yeah, it's going to get Yeah, it'll be very gentle. It'll be very gentle Very very gentle and respectful and reverential. Yeah. Yeah. I also got a huge kick out of like, um

Pivoting to minorities. I got a huge kick of uh Uh out of paul krugman on twitter, uh calling saying that racism was trump's brand in between Um wondering how conservative people could vote for a $15 minimum wage increase and how uh liberal people could pass proposition To like he was like spinning his wheels. I don't know if you caught that exchange I think list frantic was like, uh tweeted the whole Yeah, well all this data is so interesting And you know including what you referenced like the demographic breakdown of the votes not just from exit polling which people

Are rushing to dismisses unreliable at this point And like, you know, it's not a perfect science, but it's certainly Probative and if it showed what they wanted to show they'd be citing it first But also the voting patterns the actual confirmed voting patterns of who it is that caused biden and harris to win these critical states And who abandoned them and what you see over and over is that trump increased his voting share of african americans especially latinos Asians and other non-white minority groups

He got one out of every four non-white voter in the united states the highest number Of minority votes since 1960 for a republican candidate and the reason biden's vote totals was so high Isn't because as the washington post lied and claimed today, which was that women and minorities rose up and disgusted trumps, whatever it was because affluent white suburban women Voted in droves for biden instead of the republicans that that's the democratic party is affluent white suburban And the power centers on both coasts. Yeah. Yeah, that's the party and the the working class is

Is something that the i mean remember chuck schumer in 2016 when he was asked About hillary's inability to attract working class voters said we it's fine with us for every working class voter. We lose. We're going to gain two um Suburban republicans and it didn't happen in 2016 because the hatred for hillary was too impenetrable But in 2018 and now in 2020 that did happen and the democratic party has become the party of affluent suburbanites not by accident But by design you see people being like but california. How could they have passed prop 22 when they're When they're when that's a blue state. I'm an economist They're filled with democrats. How can that be? How can democrats support uber?

Um, and it's it's hilarious. I mean like again, I I deleted this tweet because um, I I currently have a medical condition That prevents me from suffering needless stress from the haters, but I was like literally walking I walked um from uh, like uh, my boyfriend's very highly liberal enclave to my less demographically Homogenous one Chinese on my Chinese on and there was like white girls There was white girls ride and for biden and fly and flying blm flags. I took video I don't want to like put anyone's face on the internet, but it's all like affluent white people It's stunning and like, you know It's funny because tracy a couple weeks back tweeted like the funniest outcome of this election would be like

If trump gained with minorities, but lost the overall election and like that's what like Coming to fruition now. It is a little hilarious. I mean, it's it's going to be interesting to see how they launder this narrative What one of the one of the main things that has happened is that like class, you know class and socioeconomic status or professional Cloud or whatever you want to call it whatever labels you want to use to describe it Are essentially taboo for obvious reasons, which is that if you're An opinion making leader if you work at the New York Times if you went to harvard or brown or princeton or wherever You know that if class is a relevant metric

You get no oppression points. The only way that you get oppression point is by excluding class and only focusing on racial and ethnic and you know demographic characteristics or sexual orientation or gender ones and and and whatever and because class is almost entirely stripped out of our discourse you have these people at these leading media institution corporations Who pretend that they speak for this huge group of people who in reality have nothing in common with them except the most superficial Demographic attributes that don't really shape American life in any kind of overwhelming way. I'm not saying they're irrelevant They're not but they're certainly not predominant

And so you have this massive cleavage and the same thing happens You know all the time whenever people talk about like non-voters or people who vote for third parties They'll always say, you know, they always try and pretend like oh, it's just these like privileged white trust fund um You know people who can afford to not care about the outcome of elections When in reality if you look at the data of people who choose not to vote who say i'm choosing not to vote It's overwhelmingly poor people and people of color because they don't think that either party is going to improve their lives

So you get these media narratives that are so wildly at odds with the reality because the people who Are shaping these media narrative narratives are liars. They're like they're they're fraudsters for totally self-interest reason And the idea that women and people of color rose up and like voted for Kamala who they hate and joe biden Is the same thing. It's totally false. And yet that's what they need to believe. Yeah to make themselves Feel less culpable for ignoring the class aspect. I mean, it's gonna be It's sad to see all all the stuff like covet the BLM protests like even kind of like the the residual snail trails of me Too are going to be folded into this like um positive uplifting narrative of of joe biden The good guy defeating white supremacist and career misogynist donald trump and this is a fairly plausible narrative on the surface

That will like continue To you know, I think reign for a bit But speaking of fraud What do you make of the possibility of electoral fraud? Like I wouldn't insist on it, but I wouldn't rule it out either Does is it relevant? I I happen to think probably not in the long run It's very reminiscent to me of the way that Liberals spent four years talking about Russia I feel like we'll see maga people talking about yeah and

mail-in voter fraud But at the same time it all it does seem yeah, I mean, oh, yeah irrelevant, I guess Yeah Yeah, I mean until there's evidence that it makes no difference. There's is no, you know, there's going to be isolated anecdotes I mean, it is kind of interesting one thing. I think it's interesting is Last year in bolivia when eva moralis was reelected And needed to win by 10 to avoid a runoff The oas and the us and all these other countries claim that he had committed voter fraud because

He ended up When the city votes were being counted Only like eight or eight and a half points ahead and then suddenly like after a day or so the roll vote started coming in and Pushed them over the edge to avoid the runoff and they were like that's election fraud How can it be that the vote totals can change so dramatically and then like Supported a military coup that removed him after he won and installed this right-wing murderous Military hunt done his place and yet now that's like the same trump argument right is well How can the vote total so dramatically change and obviously the reason is because with the corona virus

There were huge numbers of mail-in ballots largely democratic ones because trump was bashing at the idea of mail-in ballots all year So I don't I think you're right. I actually think it's just going to be this like, you know, endless industry of Weining and inability to do any self-critique and blame everybody else and she claimed cheating to avoid accepting defeat Right. There's certain. I mean, there's certain like alarming things. We're seeing like all these kind of Democratic ballots that are like materializing A lot of them that are don't have any down ballot voting which seems weird But I don't know how relevant this is in the long run because I think trump is again like a symptom And not the disease

Well, why can't they start counting mail-in ballots until election day? That's what I Don't understand and that's what made it seem like Yeah, and then just have them already Have them already it seemed like the media gaslighting me into caring about a protracted elections like all that they didn't want to end because Because it's very profitable I mean, I do I do think we need to acknowledge it's kind of like, you know, with the whole rush gate stuff whenever I was saying

I want to see evidence but also like it wouldn't shock me or for Russia what did interfere because it's not like I put that beyond great powers to interfere in each other's elections. That's not exactly unheard of Right. We have had elections that have been stolen and the byproduct of fraud like in 1960. There's no question John Kennedy won because Richard Daley like cheated in order to give him Illinois by his control over the chicago Democratic party machine. I mean, that's pretty much like a Established fact and you can dispute whether or not That cheating really is what was dispositive

But there's no question that there was significant deliberate cheating going on and I think, you know, it you it does leave you wondering like remember what happened to you in in Iowa at the beginning of This year with that whole like crazy sleazy app that was created by those scumbag democratic operatives that made it impossible to know who won and all this like study shenanigans were going on and then like somehow Pete ended up beating Bernie in a way That was completely Like there's I live in Brazil where, you know, it's like a much poorer country than the US They can't do anything. Yeah Well in terms of like efficiency, which is one of the things that I love about it, you know, like if you call

Yeah, they do plastic surgery. Well, not that I would know I've heard this Um, but I they do do that. Well, but like, you know in Brazil the way it works is people you vote on sunday So everybody has like the day off for the most part You go it's mandatory voting You go at like seven in the morning it opens until six o'clock at night when it closes six o'clock 90 of the vote totals are released because it's done by computer You know these things called computers that just you don't have to have like these weird people hovered over like counting And it's automated and then like within an hour and a half or two hours after that the full vote total is released

And everybody trusts it and then that's the end I know and What like the fact that the united states doesn't have that leads you to believe it's deliberate Like they want to have that ability to like maneuver. Yeah, you know, it's like the dmb is like deliberately inefficient You know, it is it's like But like it made me think of all the kind of like, you know, remember like vera and that stupid algorithm like polling algorithm They had during hillary's campaign all of all the tech is like marshaled into useless bullshit and not what it should be marshaled into which is like

Efficiently counting votes. Um, I also think like, you know, people talk a lot about like divisiveness and sowing a climate of divisiveness But I think even the divisiveness is not like Um an end into itself It's like the climate of divisiveness creates a permanent state of moral fatigue that as dasha said is very profitable at the end of the day Because people keep coming back for more even as they're like run down and then trump just becomes. Oh, yeah I mean that that's a really crucial point Yeah, he's he's I mean he's he's always been a polarizing figure. He rebels on that so he fits so I mean that's the thing is You know

The people it's so it's the paradox of all of this is that the people who claim to hate trump the most are the people who Profited from him the most They're the ones who had their careers rehabilitated their shitty dumb cable shows saved their newspapers salvage Like their, you know, social media platforms exploded because there was this synergy between trump and the people who hated him and probably the best book that I've read about how this whole media Framework is designed and the way that it depends upon high levels of adrenaline and hatred and polarization is the one by Matt Taibbi called hate ink, which you guys should have on your show I've been badgering you about that for a while

I've been badgering him. Where he describes how, you know, like the front cover of it Yeah, oh Then if that's true, I'll just start badgering him instead. I'll have him on your show within like six days Can we say we're bullying him? The cover of his book it has like Oh, yeah, I'm really good at bullying Matt Taibbi I know all of his like sensitive spots from childhood that he confided one day in me And then now I like exploit them to manipulating control his behavior by traumatizing

Him if he doesn't do what I want. So just let me handle that. But anyway, the cover of his book It has like Rachel Maddow and and and Sean Hannity and it's called hate ink and it's essentially about how The only way the media can now be profitable is if they keep people separated in their camps And believing that the other people outside of those camps are vicious enemies bent on their destruction And the higher the hate levels and fear levels and you know, just like getting people hooked on all those brain chemicals are The more they want to Keep watching. I mean, yeah, like teens always hate their dad because he pays their bills, you know

He gives them the allowance Yeah, there is that kind of Synergistic relationship and that's why I think that like they're gonna be on this sugar hive or like a day, you know Where they're like Kamala just posted this video of her where she seemed like she had drank four glasses of chardonnay And she got out of her like, you know bulletproof Uh limousine and she called joe and she's like joe. We did it We and I was so interesting because she was talking to him like the way you talk to

A nursing home resident, you know in that tone of voice like joe, you're gonna be the next president You know when you call you're like alien grandpa and you're like, I'm got a new dog. I'm gonna send you a picture it's like so is that tone of voice and They're gonna be on this sugar hive for like a day or two and then they're gonna be they're gonna realize With him gone like who's gonna click retweet on our tweets and who's gonna be watching Yeah, who's gonna pay the bills and they're fucked and they know that Um, do they know that so I think they're gonna there's gonna be this like Well, they're they know that I don't think they but no, but I think they're like in a moment of like wishful thinking

Well, they just worked themselves up for so long like even if you know That what you're saying is bullshit if you repeat it long enough And you know with enough fervor you start to believe it I mean that's you know the experience of being a good trial lawyer is When your client first comes in and starts like telling you their whiny story about how they were Unfairly treated. You're like, oh fuck this person is so annoying But then like when you take the case and you start advocating for them You start to believe it and then by the time you get to trial you're like really revved up about you know writing this wrong

Because you have to be you just said it so much you're immersed in this this mindset That you know, I think that that's what they've done to themselves is they've worked themselves up into that hysteria into that fervor And so right now they believe they just got rid of Hitler Like oh look Hitler just lost the election and now he's gonna like move out of the white house because you know Like courts have said that he lost just like Hitler would have in 1939 had he lost an election Exactly the same thing And then they're gonna be like, oh my god. What do we do? You know like what what do we what's our purpose now? Yeah

Yeah I don't look forward to like the collective like quarter life crisis of all these like millennial journalists or whatever Watching biden's speech last night. He looked he had like the eyes of uh of a hostage kind of he seemed kind like very Confused in the usual way, but also I I had a distinct feeling like he was just going to be The elder abuse. Yeah You do you don't you guys get that impulse? I swear. I'm not like saying this for a fact or whatever I do you know how like if you see an old person being abused you want to call social services

Just like this instinct to protect them. Yeah, I think we probably have that in us like from an evolutionary standpoint Like the desire to protect the elderly. Yeah, I do feel like when I see that like Simone What is her name that that campaign advisor even like His wife, you know, like carrying him around And just kind of like programming him and then they give him that Adderall before the debate I think I don't know for sure, but it looks like that. That's my god It you start I feel pity for him. I like Kamala is kind of like A nurse ratchet like character. I can totally see her like pushing him around the grounds in a wheelchair

Looking like a sexy nurse and like a pillbox hat or whatever they were That's like their vibe Yeah, and if he has to like do something but he's too tired. She's gonna get she has that like tone of voice I bet that can like scare him like Joe If you don't want your Like blanket taken away Yeah, you need to get in there and do that and then he gets like all scared and goes and does it and then like gets his blanket back Yeah stern like feminine authoritarianism. Well, dang she can like dangle her bosom in front of him

I mean that is the personality type that becomes a pros think about this like seriously just stop and think about this for a second You go to law school Yeah, you go to law school. I went to law school There's a billion options you have in front of you for things you want to do to shape the society in which you live And one of the options that people have who I think only psychopaths choose Is the one where you work to try and put people into cages Proving that they're bad evil people who deserve punishment And i'm not saying I think you know, of course, there are people who belong in prison, right?

I'm not saying that no one does and I guess it's good that someone does it Correct, I am not. I don't think anybody really is but like so but what is the personality type? I What seriously that what is the personality type that makes you want to do that then like you go into court and you argue like Eight years isn't enough like I want them there for 30 Yeah That is like there's something really wrong with your soul if you do that if you choose to do that But I yeah, I do find Kamala to be to be frightening. Yeah more frightening than trump at any rate. I'll say that

Yeah, well trump's probably a Yeah, a narcissist, you know, he has his own you like you can understand what his interests are and they're Self-serving my favorite thing that I've heard anybody say about trump was like a person I chat with on on the internet sometimes Who's like well, okay, like trump is like ideologically incoherent, but he wants to be liked so bad that basically sometimes he lands on the right side of history Because he does like He wants to like own the lips so hard or be right like not having wanted a war for example like not have Right, I could think he thought that like not I don't think he wanted to avoid a war because he thought like he's some humanitarian

or pass I think he wanted to avoid a war because he views avoiding war as a Success it's like something that's like a testament to his skills as a negotiator Whereas, you know, every prior president has started a war because it's almost like, you know, the new york times when when george busch senior Fucking invaded Panama They you know celebrated it is like a right of presidential pass It's like you just have to go pick some country and invade it just to prove that you're willing to do so Whereas, you know for a long time people like oh, he's gonna where is Kamala?

I think Kamala is like very smart and very um shrewd And I mean look at how rapid her career ascent has been You know, she started off dating like the 60 year old governor of or mayor of san francisco Who was married at the time when she was 29 like no judgment But i'm just saying like that's a pretty shrewd pragmatic choice to make cool. She got a lot of benefits from that relationship Totally um from there, it's been all downhill, you know, she like ran for san francisco da and then now, you know

Attorney general has been like a very rapid ascent. I do think she's very smart and capable which I think makes her more frightening I like trump sloth. Me too. He's too fat and lazy to be a all right. You guys have to go Unfortunately be can I ask you can I ask you one more question? And for all the listeners who I know are upset. It's dasha's fault for arriving late to her own program Thrower under the best. Um, can I ask you one more question? Um, do you think there's a chance trump will pardon snowden to own the libs? on his way out It's kind of my priority to be honest like in this lame duck session is to find a way to at least get a channel to be able to

Persuade him or to communicate to him the reasons that he ought to he's obviously indicated already That it's something he's considering and I think he's considering it for all the right reasons Which is that the people who would be angriest about it like John Brennan and Susan rice and james clapper and michael hayden are all corrupt evil warmongers of the deep state who Abuse their power to target him in exactly the way that snowden exposed so You know, I think that personal experience of having been himself persecuted by the very powers that prompted snowden to come forward And the fact that they would be so angry if he did it are all good reasons for him to do it

That's the case. I want to make well. We wish you well. It's always great to see We also have like steve bannon's number. So all right Oh good. Good. Yes. I'm always welcome back on the show So I will be coming back on I told on my condition for coming on this time was that I have some sort of Contingent coho status for the times that dasha arrives late. I can take over and do the show until she gets she rolls in So I can be bothered to come to work. He's gonna censor and do platform us. Thank you glenn We'll see you in hell. Dasha is exhausted. She has to do a show once a week for an hour. She's tired. Sometimes she can't get there All right, you guys great singing great talking to you

Bye