Some More News - Even More News: The Painful Reality of a Second Trump Term

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Hi. Robert Evans joins Katy and Cody to break down what went wrong in the 2024 election, lessons the Democrats can (and must) learn for the future, and the importance of community during Trump's second term. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage this election season. Subscribe for 50% off unlimited access–their biggest discount through our link. Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code Morenews at https://shopmando.com! #mandopod Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free at https://found.com/morenews –Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC. Found's core features are free. They also offer an optional paid product, Found Plus. Try AG1 and get a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase at https://drinkAG1.com/morenews – That’s a $48 value for FREE if you go to https://drinkAG1.com/morenews Coffee at home, made better. Head to https://drinktrade.com/MORENEWS to receive your first bag free! Get results you can run your fingers through! For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our viewers ten dollars off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to https://Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code MORENEWS. This week only, you can take 60% off any new SimpliSafe system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is their best offer of the year. Head to https://SimpliSafe.com/MoreNews to claim your discount. Check out our MERCH STORE: https://shop.somemorenews.com   SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229...

Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is still Katie Stoll. Hi, Katie Stoll. Hi. I'm still Cody Johnston. Welcome back to the last ever podcast. Don't say that. Just kidding.

Or if you became a California State Highway Patrol officer, statey coal. Ha! I don't know. I don't know. That's not really even a joke. Not even a bit. Oh, but it made me laugh.

And guess what? That voice you are hearing is our long lost pal, co-worker. He hasn't been lost. We just have him recording together. Former host of Worst Year Ever and host of It Could Happen Here and Behind the Bastards, ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, Robert Evans.

Robbo Ovoe. Whoo! Robbo Ovoe. And Jonathan is also here. Jonathan is also here. Hi. You have to acknowledge that. Forever and always. Eagle-eyed viewers watching this on our YouTube channel Jonathan is also here. Jonathan is also here. Hi. Hey. You have to acknowledge that.

Forever and always. Eagle-eyed viewers watching this on our YouTube channel will notice that Robert's camera isn't working, but he's here. Don't worry. Yeah. We're going to put up a photo of him or an image of Hal. We don't know. We're not sure.

We'll figure that out and post. This is the part of the show where we normally say what holidays it is and it's dumb, and we're gonna skip it today, because I think that we all have a lot of thoughts. We've been processing the results of the election for 48 hours now, 36 hours, however many hours it's been. The election. Oh, my God, I forgot to... Oh. Okay. been. The election. Oh my God, I forgot to, ugh.

Okay, okay. Bullshit. It's okay, you'll get another chance, I'm sure. Maybe. Everybody watching at home, listening, I know you're going through it right now. We're all going through it. We're gonna talk about it.

I just want to acknowledge that there's a lot of big emotions, there's a lot of big opinions. We're not going to all agree with each other with our takeaways, but we will all agree with each other that the man we just elected as president is disgusting. Real stinker. Not my favorite guy. Not our favorite guy. And I want to also say, I mean, it's been making the rounds, this Jon Stewart video about in the aftermath of elections,

everybody always gets it wrong. Everybody always gets like, we confidently say, you know, like, oh, with Obama, now we're post-racial bullshit. Oh, like whatever takeaways we get, they end up being wrong. So let's create space for everybody's opinions and have respect for each other and empathy, because all of your emotions are valid. And there's a million reasons that we can point to

that we're gonna get into today. But there's lots of work to be done. And I also want to acknowledge that if you need to take a step back for a bit, that makes perfect sense. Please don't just unsubscribe, but like you have to like, which has already happened, but you have to create space for your own self and for your own journey that you're going through and regroup

because we've got a lot of work to do. Yeah, feeling despondent and not really sure what to do or say or think is completely understandable. And those feelings eventually dissipate and we'll get our energy back and we'll do what needs to be done. One other thing I want to say that's on a positive note, thank you to everybody that tuned into our live stream on election night. We have never done that before. We learned a lot about what to do and not to do.

But I think it's a real testament to our community how positive that experience was. And I was proud of all of us. And when I say all of us, I mean, you guys, our viewers, for that lighthearted energy, which helped immensely on a very terrible night. So, thank you very much, truly. Okay. Where do we start, y'all?

What's in the news? There's actually so much in the news. It doesn't look like Congress has gone as bad as we'd feared. Yeah, give me an update on that. I mean, I think what, we're losing, like, one battleground Senate state? It doesn't look like Congress has gone as bad as we'd feared. Like... Yeah, give me an update on that. I mean, I think what? We're losing like one battleground Senate state? Yeah, that's a lot of...

I mean, again, we... A lot of the stuff we're going to say might change in days or weeks. Because all votes haven't been counted and we just don't have all the information. But it does seem in a lot of cases, despite Donald Trump winning many votes and Donald Harris winning fewer votes. Very few, yes. Much fewer.

It seems like a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump didn't vote for other stuff. They didn't vote down ballot. They voted for Donald Trump and that's it. And so a lot of, and there's a lot of, you know, Senate races and different congressional districts that overperformed as compared to Harris, which I think... But we still lost the Senate, right? Oh, yeah. That's not changing.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But in a lot of cases, it does seem like it's not necessarily like a Democrat thing, but more a Donald Trump thing and this administration and the economy, all the stuff we're gonna talk about sort of thing. Well, I do think that it speaks to the fact, again, we're gonna talk about this.

Despite what a lot of people's takeaways are, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump, despite the fact that they think he's bad, like unpalatable, disgusting, a creep. All the things that you want to say about Donald Trump, a lot of people voted for him in spite of that, because, I mean, I think the big through line is the economy, which we definitely, we can get into.

And we've been preaching that here. I've been talking about this for a while now of how the Democrats need to actually pay attention to the reality of what most Americans experience on a day-to-day basis. We can't just tell them, but inflation is improving, actually, when that materially doesn't translate to a person's day-to-day basis. We can't just tell them. But inflation is improving, actually, when that materially doesn't translate to a person's day-to-day life.

Wages are up, all the things. I mean, here's part of the thing, because I think that I'm frustrated by how the discourse on this often goes, which is like, on one hand, everyone's wrong if they feel like the economy's bad. Look at these numbers. These numbers show that it's good, right?

Or you can't ignore people's lived experiences. When I think like really the more... The more salient point is, if you are trying to make a case that goes against what people currently believe, even if they believe what they currently believe, largely because of, you know, propaganda disinformation, you have to make a better case.

And you don't make a better case. And you don't make that by saying, look at these numbers. Right? Like, that's just not how it works. It didn't work now. It never really has worked. And so when it comes to like, it's a question of how are you going to message

and what are you going to promise people that makes them confident that you're the better choice for them, right? And Trump had an answer to that, and the Democrats didn't. And, like, we can sit here and say that his answer is wrong till we're blue in the face. He's giving some sort of an acknowledgement. But also, at the same time, Harris did have an answer.

Like, I know where a lot of this is sort of like, you can't chart your way out of this, you can't chart your way out of this. You can't show a chart out of this. A lot of that is Twitter stuff. I think we're all thinking of people on Twitter in a lot of ways, but like, Kamala Harris went out and said, like, we're gonna stop price gouging.

We're gonna go after prices in ways. It doesn't break through necessarily. Because they hadn't done it. In part because you can say that, but like you guys were in for four years and the prices went up, right? So why should I believe you, you know? Well, and I guess the main issue there is some,

I guess we'll get into more too, is that Connell Harris is the vice president, a ostensibly useless symbolic job that doesn't do these things. And there was this fear, it seems, around her campaign and all these advisors, a lot of Biden advisors of like, well, we can't separate ourselves

from the Biden administration, despite, since 2022, him being a wildly unpopular candidate. Terrible calculation. So it's like a bad situation for her to be in, but at the same time, it's a, there's an easy fix, which is to say all these other things you want to do differently.

Well, also, by listening to the people very loudly and accurately telling her over and over and over and over and over again, but they continually dismissed the loudest, these loud portions of her electorate that are screaming from the rooftops, pay attention, go out there. It took her a very long time to do an interview. A very long time.

Um, but I want to push back slightly, but with respect, I do think that Twitter, that there is, this is a big conversation on Twitter, but a lot of people aren't on Twitter and these are the conversations that we have on a day-to-day basis. It's bigger than that. The message is not coming through in lots of ways.

So much of it is vibes and who's in office now and you're looking at the price of gas, you're looking at a receipt and stuff. And what we're going to see in the coming weeks and early next year are all the things that have been improving that we're going to see in the coming weeks and early next year are all the things that have been improving that we can point to, continue to improve, and people go, see, we voted for Trump, things are better now.

Inflation is still going to go up. The rate of inflation is still going to exist. Like, all these things are going to remain true. And everybody complaining about it is going to flip on a dime and say that it's great now. Yeah, see enough of hammering home the message kind of in the last week or two more so of Obama inherited George Bush's disaster.

And it took him a while to turn that around into his second term. Trump inherited Obama's flourishing economy. It took him a while to turn that around into his second term. Trump inherited Obama's flourishing economy. It took him a while to tank it. That's just how it goes. But that's a specific conversation I had with someone in the mountains. That was like a, oh, moment for them.

And, but I have not been seeing that explained at all. It's just the economy's doing fine, actually. We're making improvements. Doesn't mean shit to people. Again, it's a question of just in general, like across the board, it's a question of how do you message to people? Right? Right. Like, and the DEMs, I mean, part of what's happening here, like part of why there was this realignment in 2008, you know, when Obama got brought in. Uh, and why the opposite is happening now is, back then you had a lot of the levers of culture

being operated by progressives. And that has completely fallen by the wayside, in part because they, the billionaires who fund the Republican Party invested heavily in media and heavily in quote unquote, influencers. There are guys who... There's actually a rate of like return on that investment. There's a significant return.

They're putting forth policies that make them richer. And it's much harder to do that on the left. And it was, you know, for some it was straight bribery, for most it was straight bribery. For guys like Rogan, who Rogan was not. And it was, for some it was straight bribery, for most it was straight bribery. For guys like Rogan, who Rogan was not always a conservative figure, I think it was more just that like, these were the people who were like courting him.

And he's just gonna like the people who are around him. Right? Yeah. He agrees with the last person he spoke to. Yeah, that doesn't mean like, we have to go out and get AOC to be best friends with Joe Rogan. I don't know, and for now, I don't really think that's a realistic proposition.

I don't think, I think it's, I think the, I think looking at, I think part of a mistake would be to say the thing that I'm already seeing people say is just we have to find our own left-wing Joe Rogan. That'll get us out of this. No, media is going to continue to change because it always is. The media that people listen to or are influenced by

will always be moving. It is a live creature. And there will be opportunity to figure out and to get ahead of the next thing and to try to be the people who are influencing the culture there. There's a chance to be in an offensive and there's a chance, I don't know how likely it is, cause you know, one possibility is this all goes like Nazi Germany, right?

And we're all not just out of a job, but arrested, right? That's not a 0% chance. There's another option that like, there are, you know, the people with a lot of money out there who are looking to like fund the counter swing here, do that. And maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. But what won't work is just trying to ape what the conservatives did. It's to be like, well, we got to get our own Aiden Ross.

We got to get our own Joe Rogan. That's just not, if you're thinking that way, you are thinking reactively in a way that's just going to leave you always behind the eight ball. Right? Right. And like I've seen, yeah, I've seen a lot of people, yeah, like Rogan and Ben Shapiro are the names

that I keep hearing of like, we need a left-wing version of that. And I just keep thinking like, cause also everybody was like, oh, we need a left-wing, like a Ben Shapiro type. And that's always coupled with, within that statement or like a follow-up. And the people out there now they just criticize Democrats and so what they're

asking for is a propagandist shill who lies like they're not looking for like oh we need like somebody out there's like it was like a figure that people can look to they want somebody to ignore they want somebody to go out and be like Joe Biden is actually the most spry person I've ever met. Like, these are propagandists who are dishonest. I don't completely agree or disagree with you guys. And let's see if I can articulate this well and succinctly. It's not that I think, I definitely don't think

we need like the left-wing Ben Shapiro. And it's not that I think we need the left-wing Joe Rogan either. And what I'm about to say, I don't even fully believe, but it's like we've created the... There's this, or not necessarily we've created, but there has created a culture where, like, Joe Rogan styles himself as someone

that'll talk to anybody. And really what happens is that these fringe people go on Joe Rogan and they don't get any pushback. And so then we just let a statement sit. I would love for there to exist somebody that's very popular, that does engage with conversations with people you disagree with. And you create a climate that they want to come into,

and you do pushback. You can keep a conversation, depends on the person though, in the realm, because we're just leaving this whole vacuum where someone might have the kernel of an idea. Like, I don't have a problem with discussing our food supply and agriculture. I have a problem with us discussing it

through the lens of Robert F. Kennedy, like, Jr. However, the danger of that is, if you're really doing that, as soon as you start to push back on them, they're going to not want to come on the show. So I don't even know if it's possible, but in my heart, I'm like, I wish that we could actually facilitate something like that,

because, you know, then we might actually be having conversations. Joe Rogan isn't creating meaningful conversations because he's not actually engaging with the truth. Sometimes he is, other times he's not. And anyway, so that's my point. Like again, I don't disagree or agree. And the reason people love going on Joe Rogan aside from like,

oh, it's a fun conversation is because there's no pushback. They know they can go on and say whatever. More or less, like you said, sometimes it's not the case. But... Roganins his own beast, but I feel like the reason a left-wing version of Ben Shapiro is a no-go is, one, billionaires aren't gonna wanna fund it. What billionaires gonna fund it? Mark Cuban, you have my account still. But still.

But the other reason is because we won't, we do have a little more integrity. We're gonna criticize the home team a lot in a way that he never would. The right wing was not anti-vaxxers five years ago, but then there was this groundswell of misinformation going in many conservative circles in 2020, and then they said, okay, that's our team.

We're gonna, like, hammer it home. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. We're on board. We're with you. And, like, that's our team, we're gonna like hammer it home. Like, it doesn't matter what it is, we're on board, we're with you. And like, that's not what, you know, Trump can do no wrong. Maybe once in a while, he'll be like, oh, this was not a great calculation by Donald Trump. But like, for the most part, and, you know, we did spend much of the last several years

criticizing Joe Biden with good cause. And it's like, it's like a different genre of content of like, no, this is your team and you back them no matter what. Exactly, it makes it difficult. It is like I say, like you, what they want are like paid propagandists who do not play ball in the same way. It also kind of goes both ways.

Like yes, you know, all that whole media circle is going to just fall in line and do it. Ah, Trump, whatever he said, it's good now, whatever. But also, Trump gets stuff from them too. Like, you know, JD Vans is getting things from these people too. And it's just interesting, perhaps frustrating. That's part of the appeal. That's part of the, like...

Right, that the people, these, like the consultant class in the Democratic Party and people in charge don't allow that to happen. They don't listen. And so it's just not, it's not an easily landscape to navigate unless you're willing to sort of, you know. I know that Kamala did do some podcasts and have danced around this a bit.

And I kind of am not... Only she's done on Rogan. Well, I'm asking you about that. Because at the end of the day, I don't not... If only she'd gone on Rogan. Well, I'm asking you about that. Cause I, at the end of the day, I don't think that she would have done well on Rogan. I don't think it would have helped her. But I do think that the media... Also, Trump, Vance, Dan Kamala, then Elon, like...

I'm just saying that I do think one successful strategy that they have implemented was really blasting all of these, I mean, honestly, the top podcasts in the world. really blasting all of these, I mean, honestly, the top podcasts in the world. Oh my goodness, it's almost over. Or is it? Who can say? We're still trying to figure things out. So it's a good time to visit Ground News, aka ground.news slash SMN. That's a sponsor we at the show sought out that's both a website and an app that aggregates news from around the world from the entire political spectrum

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with a C that we sent you, stinky. If the question is, could she have won if she had adopted a very different strategy that included a different media outreach strategy, sure. And maybe that would have included going on Joe Rogan, right? But that alone isn't going to... It's just like we can look at if she had back to ceasefire and a ban, you know, gone against Joe and said, It's just like we can look at if she had back to ceasefire

and a ban, you know, gone against Joe and said, I support stopping selling arms to Israel. Would that have won her the election? Now that's much likelier than going on Joe Rogan, right? It certainly, almost certainly would have flipped Michigan, right? It would have affected certain races. It would have had an effect, yes. Pin is less clear, but is it, is the odds on bet that that alone would have done certain races. It would have had an effect, yes. Pin is less clear, but is the odds on bet

that that alone would have done it? No. Would that have loan been a significant part of a different winning strategy? Sure. Well, yes, absolutely. I agree with you guys. Because you're also, like you're talking about these things,

you're also not parading around the Cheneys and talking about all this sort of stuff. Maybe Dick Cheney was a bad, maybe the guy who left office with a 13% approval rating was a bad. Maybe a bad idea. Because if you go on Joe Rogan in this environment, then she has to contend with the tension of like, everything Biden did was great.

And actually, the one thing I'd change is I'd put a Republican in my cabinet. Like, that's not a winning message. I can speak to that specifically, again, mountain conversations, of that becoming a joke. Of like, oh, you think that's gonna do it? Oh, so you like the Cheneys now? What is happening to the Democratic Party? We were all saying that.

If she'd run on executing him, it would have gone better. We also have charts that say that didn't. Exactly, we got the charts. Those charts don't matter. We have charts that show that Joe Biden is wildly unpopular for two years. And we have charts that show, I'm not gonna talk about Bernie in 2016 or 2020,

but to put maybe a pin in a pivot, because I think that there's some stuff we should talk about also. Absolutely, lots of things. The women hating of it all. Thank you, that's what I was gonna pivot to too. Yeah, but to sort of like bridge that gap and like, oh, we need influencers to like talk to young men

and stuff like that. And like, that's the whole thing we can talk about. I wanted to share a very short anecdote. It's one person and I just want to give people a little positivity. Um, we, earlier this year, did an episode called Our Men Okay. Uh, it's not, but, like, you know,

there's a whole episode about that. In the episode, we have this section about, um, this sort of resentment about women and how you treat women and view women, and how one really good thing that you can do to get past this is to literally just become friends with a woman. View women as human beings that you respect and want to meet and become friends with.

Don't have these ulterior motives of like, oh, I'm trying to like get, you know, like just view them as people. Um, and I got a lovely message from a person saying that they had this sort of viewpoint. And, uh, then they... at work, they just started talking to one of their female coworkers, and they are friends now.

Like, they're really good friends. And, uh, he's talked about how, like, she's like really improved his life, and she's so kind, and he's, like, making all these friends now because he has changed his mindset, uh, from this resentment to this sort of positive, like, oh, they're human beings, and they just want to be treated like that. And, um, I'm getting a little emotional talking about it right now. It's, uh, it is possible to speak to people

and change people's minds in this way that really improves, um, that. Absolutely. And I just wanted to share that a little. It's minds in this way that really improves that. Absolutely. And I just wanted to share that. It's the whole thing that stopped me from going, like, as someone who grew up far right and who could have gone fascist.

It's the thing that, like, it was, I talk about this a lot, but like, when I was 16, I got on World of Warcraft, and suddenly the people, the circle I socialized went with, went from a bunch of other kids in a Texas school and suddenly the people, the circle I socialized went with, went from a bunch of other kids in a Texas school in a conservative area to a bunch of women in their late twenties and thirties, right? And who had the patience to when I would say

the kind of gross shit that 16 year old boys say on the internet would say, hey, that makes me uncomfortable and here's why. And yeah, it's this thing, the left got into this, a lot of people on the left got into this very ineffective mindset of being like, well, it's not my job to educate you. And I'm not saying like it's the response of women

to go befriend shitty incel boys. But what I am saying is that like, if someone's on the verge of becoming a shitty incel boy, having people that they respect that are part of their emotional support network who are able to say in a way that's trusted, that made me uncomfortable. Right.

And be able to engage. It can, it does. It can, it does, exactly. It's just hard to combat on a mass scale because then you have like sexual abusers and these like moron podcasters and game streamers who are just loud and aggressive. And it's easy to cultivate that kind of audience.

Well, absolutely. I agree with everything that's been said, of course. I want to acknowledge, I was the only woman here, how hard this must feel for all of us. Um, I know it does. I also don't want to just chalk it up to her being a woman. Um, which I know is a reason for a lot of voters. But if you look across, I'm gonna say something positive here, which is actually...

Women won in swing states. To me, my takeaway from this is not that we can never elect a woman president. Oh, terrible take from, yeah. It's a terrible take, because that also dismisses so many really tangible lessons that we need to learn here, but we did not elect Kamala. And there's various reasons.

And one of the reasons for some people is sexism. Some of the people just didn't think that she could tough it out or whatever ridiculous reductive argument you wanna make about that. Some people hold that, that I, in my heart, do not believe that that is the main reason. It's just one of reasons.

And I don't know if that's comforting in any way. I was sitting in a Pilates class yesterday with a room full of women, and half of them were crying. And I was really grateful to be able to share that experience with them, to create space for it, because this was profoundly disappointing. I do want to explore that a little bit, because I think that, like, it's, you can't say,

all of them think this. You can't say all of them think this. You can't say all of them think this. You can't say this is the one reason, except for inflation. You can point to that pretty consistently, but. I do want to just sort of acknowledge that, and I know we're going to have some disagreements here. A lot of it, not all of it,

and maybe not the majority of it, but like a lot of it is that all of it, and maybe not the majority of it, but like a lot of it is that because it's not just that, oh, like these women won with an economic message and Kamala lost and this sort of thing. She was also running against Donald Trump. He is a rapist and a blatant vocal misogynist. You have JD Vance out there talking about childless cat ladies. You have all these other people surrounding him talking about how like maybe women shouldn't vote. The vitriol, the vile stuff I've seen just in the past the weeks leading up to this election and

all the stuff right after. We don't need to get into the details of like the specific figures or people saying it, but it is very popular. And there is this sense of just sort of mocking women and shoving their faces in the control that men want over them. Posts aren't everything, but to excuse all of the stuff that we have seen and all of that, I think, is... I'm not excusing it. I don't think you're excusing it, is... I'm not excusing it. I don't think you're excusing it,

but I'm saying voters excusing it. I think that is an acceptance in a lot of ways of the misogyny that was absolutely being spewed from the right and Donald Trump and his running mate specifically. I think that is why so many people that voted for Donald Trump hate that kind of shit. But their economic reality or whatever outweighs some of this

because that's the noise and a lot of that is insulated to online. And I'm not disagreeing with your point. And perhaps I'm arguing this because I have to hold onto that. I don't know. But, you know, because nobody liked that. Nobody, that wasn't helpful for anything.

But they excuse it because they want slightly lower gas. And I think that is a problem. And one other thing I'm gonna add about this that slightly negates what I've already been saying is that I do think it's so frustrating because we can run any old white man. You know, if you train him. Like...

2028's Bernie's year. Yeah, but you have to be overly, like the criticisms of a woman as president, she has to be strong, but kind. She has to be attractive, but not hot. She has to be, there's all She has to be attractive but not hot. She has to be... There's all sorts of things that are bullshit and order for it. So I'm gonna circle back and just say that the bar, because we've never had a female president,

is so ridiculous. But we have still had a female vice president. And we have still had a bunch of women win. And you know, yeah. So it's all of those things to me. Hey there, news fans. If you know me, you know I snarf a lot of liquids. Always at the mall, snarfing around.

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They also offer an optional paid product, Found Plus. If Kamala Harris talked like Donald Trump, it would have been a blowout, like more than it already is. Like she would have tanked, like so bad. Like the standard is just not the same. Oh, if she talked, I see what you're saying. No, I'm saying if she talked like Donald Trump. If she talked like Donald Trump, she would have won no states.

The bar is in the toilet. There's so many ifs. What I can say is the clearest thing that Joe Biden could have done that would have guaranteed a win is if he had taken that new Supreme Court ruling, jailed the CEOs of every like grocery store, and then like had the military forcibly change food prices and gas prices.

Right? Like that would have won it, you know? I'm not saying that's good or something he should have done, but like that would have done it. But that's the kind of thing, like that's what a president would have to do to control prices. But there is this Trump thing. Like, Trump's the guy where people are like,

he was business guy. He has a lever that controls prices, kind of. They want a CEO. Well, and they're just like, I'm not happy. He's the guy who's not in. Let's try it. And there's that. And before we started, have we talked about this?

Jonathan, I didn't mean to shoot this down. We started, it's like, around the world, you are seeing incumbents lose or struggle, because it's not isolated to here. These feelings, these economic pains that people are feeling, This is happening everywhere. And I, you know, was pretty confident Donald Trump was gonna win.

And a lot of people were and didn't wanna have that thought. It was really hard to figure out how to talk about this without trying to squelch hope. Got to keep hope, I was gonna say. Without, you know, shitting on the Democrats. That was like, I was running on fumes and hope the entire, like, last few months. So, so there's that.

But another thing that I feel very confident about is that four years from now, Democrats are going to win resoundingly. In between now and then, though, it really does, it really is important that Democrats change their fucking tune on a lot of things and their strategy, because a huge portion...

Like, I don't know if I want to be a Democrat. I don't want to be a Republican, but, like, I don't know what I want to be. I will probably always vote Democrat, because that's the option that I have. You can be an independent and just vote however you want. But, like, how do I... I think that I'm going to change my registration to independent, you know?

Oh, yeah. Do that long ago, yeah. Why don't you get into seasteading with me? Let's take to the ocean. We can build our own system of government there, based on the television show SeaQuest, starring Roy Scheider from Jaws. Boy, you're really painting a utopia, Robert. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. We can bring Roy Scheider back from the dead.

And you know what? We could get the Jaws 3 we always deserved. We're gonna succeed where Peter Thiel failed. We'll have a society in the ocean. We're gonna do it. It's gonna work this time. It's gonna work this time. It's gonna work this time. Do you think that Republicans feel confident that we did not steal the election in 2020, now that we didn't steal it in 2024 when we were actually physically in office and more capable, the opposite.

I've actually seen people claim that this is more evidence, actually, because there was so many votes. So many votes in 2020, so fewer now. Those people didn't exist. That's evidence they didn't exist. Not that, not the, any of the stuff we already talked about or the Wiley-Unpopped. And we just were able to fix all those election integrity issues

while Joe Biden was the president. And then they decided, not this time. We're not going to do it this time. Just won't do it this time. We just don't do it this time. That's what they would do. They would want to lose. It's a, I mean, all you have to do

is look at Donald Trump's tweet in, tweet, I mean, all you have to do is look at, uh, Donald Trump's tweet in, uh, tweet on election day, saying, uh, voter fraud in Pennsylvania. I called the cops, and then, like, actually, it was a perfect election. Nothing went wrong. Um, it's so transparent. Except for all the bombs at ballot boxes. Um, God, ain't that good.

That went wrong, in my opinion. I would love to bring up this idea of, like, because this feels different than 2016, in that love to bring up this idea of, like, because this feels different than 2016, in that there was just this groundswell of, like, we're gonna fight, there's the women's march, there's all this stuff. Obviously, it feels different. Now, it's only been a couple days, but we were talking about, before the show,

we were talking about the sense of despondence that's fallen over all of us. Maybe that will, you know, break at some point, and we'll have the energy to, like, get back into the fray. Um, but what do you think... What do you think the quote-unquote resistance looks like this time around? What's the left do? I don't think the left does shit.

Look, I'm sorry, there's not a left. There's not a left in any capacity that matters for national organizing. There are individual local groups that can mean things for people in those areas, could mean a lot for people in those areas, can mean a lot for you. But in terms of like infrastructure of resistance,

it's non-existent. None of it was ever built. The left was, the Democratic Party is what we've been talking about this whole time. The left is split between some organizations like the PSL that are basically cults, um, and like influencers and their followers, you know, which we to a degree fall into, right?

And there's not parties, there's not like a real capacity for organizing a large revolutionary party or whatever the fuck. That's a parties, there's not like a real capacity for organizing a large revolutionary party or whatever the fuck, that's a fantasy, right? It's not happening. It's also so factional and there's all this like conflict. Yeah, but people, the left as a whole can't agree which genocides are real, right? They're not coming to save you from Trump.

So I think that you need to be thinking about your community, about your neighbors, about which neighbors... Connecting with your neighbors with the caveat that all of your neighbors are not safe to connect with, right? Like, these are judgment calls we all have to make. Learning skills, preparing as communities to deal with the things that we actually can using the kind of things that we care about as people who are on the left actually can, using the kind of things that we care about as people who are on the left, actually can defend people from, which is the kinds of problems that will happen with climate change. There are ways to mitigate that, ways to help people

who are endangered in areas that are being hit by disasters out, people who are losing or worried about losing access to health care, people who are potentially going to be targeted by vigilante violence. There are ways to organize and to build community in order to increase resilience from that sort of things. In order to help people who are going to be... Eating tainted foods. ...eating tainted foods, help people who are going to be targeted for deportation, right? Absolutely. There are degrees to which people can mitigate harms.

If somebody comes up to you with a clipboard and says, do you want to be part of the revolution? That person is dangerous, right? If somebody comes up to you and says, hey, I'm looking for training to like, you know, get my ham radio license, can you help? Or hey, I'm thinking of holding a stop the bleed class. Or hey, we're trying to start a community garden.

Or hey, my neighbor is worried because they don't know if they're going to get access to this kind of medication they need. Is there a way we can try to find out how to help them? These are things that you should be doing. Yeah, I would agree with that. The rest will be interesting to see how it plays out. everybody is feeling pretty numb and despondent and depressed about just the reality of everybody voting for this guy after all this time. And again, there are all these reasons.

And it is depressing to see that whether or not they're like full MAGA or just like, I need lower grocery prices, so I ignore all the fascism stuff, or I don't recognize the fascism stuff, which is a whole other problem. And that's depressing, and I keep... I just keep thinking about some of the things that he has said he is going to do starting in day one.

The mass deportations are going to be a huge psychic shock to every person in the country, whether you are looking forward to them or not. The violence we'll see, the separation of families, the surprise that many people will see of like, but wait, but not my, not people I know. It's not the people I know, it's the people that you are. And I hope we don't also see,

in addition to people voting for all of this, I hope we don't see the people who didn't vote for it kinda not care or do anything about it. Because in order to do this mass deportation plan, they're gonna have to build camps and keep people in this place. They're either going to get rid of due process for these people, which is against the Constitution,

or they're going to be backlogged with millions and millions and millions of people that they've rounded up and they can't just send them out because we need to have due process. Or, you know, in Trump's case, like, well, we don't need the Constitution or whatever, but those people will have to go to a place, they will have to be held in a place,

and we will have these camps of people who've been rounded up. We're gonna have people who see it happening and go, I wanna help do that. I wanna sign up for the Round People Up Party. And we shouldn't let those people do it, because they really wanna do it. Yeah. He's, you know, I guess, saying,

starting with known criminals. But what exactly does that mean? Um, what is our definition? What are the, you know, parameters of that? Is it criminal just to be here illegally? Yes, that's the thing. You know? But like, I think... We could arrest criminals now.

I think the you know... We could arrest criminals now. I think the, um... Something that most people that are concerned about this issue fail to recognize is how expensive it is. Like, billions of dollars annually to do this kind of deportation. Oh, hundreds of billions of dollars. But also, not to, like...

People got a little irritated with me when I talked a bit about this, the worst year ever once. And so not to lean into their own Republican talking points, but literally, our migrant workers are such a backbone of our labor force and literally pay in to our tax system without taking benefits.

So in addition to the expense of these deportations, we're also looking at a big hit to our workforce. And anyway, so all of that is absolutely, but you covered that adequately. So I'm adding this other element to it. There are many reasons. There's many reasons. But maybe keep that in your back pocket

if you're talking to a conservative neighbor about this issue as it comes up. I know it's not the reason we care, but it's a reason they probably care. So many things they're gonna, who knows they're gonna do them or be competent at doing them or even try to do them. They're all liars and freaks,

but so many things are going to have that effect. The tariffs we've talked about before, the gutting of all of these departments in the government, all the Project 2025 stuff we've talked about that they're now like, oh yeah, by the way, we really weren't gonna do that. But people will lose their jobs because of this. And people who don't even know, they're like,

oh, I get funding from this. Oh, now that funding's gone. I don't have a job anymore. A lot of people are gonna realize that as well, I think. So obviously Trump attempted to distance himself from 2025, Project 2025. And to be clear, I don't think he personally has a lot of allegiance to the Heritage Foundation set.

I don't either. He has allegiance to the Heritage Foundation set. I don't either. He has allegiance to himself. Those people are kind of weird. Yeah. He says what he needs to say to stay in power. And I do think when it comes to, I'm not a, the adults in the room are going to stop him

from doing all of these horrible things. I am a believer in like, some of the shit he's saying about the economy that would destroy it, there are adults that he might listen to economy that would destroy it, there are adults that he might listen to about that, in part because there are adults who can come to him representing enough money that it's a threat to him. And be like, if you do this, you are going to cost

your primary backers a trillion dollars, and they won't stand for it. That is the thing about this man. Maybe, yeah. Maybe, but that's what is equally so terrifying to us and appealing to others. They're like, he's not gonna do that shit. He wants to be liked. He wants that attention.

He wants this. So he is malleable to a degree, but it would be foolish, I think, to dismiss the possibility and the reality that a lot of these people are major donors and a major part of why he was elected. And I am afraid of what elements of Project 2025 might surface. Do I think it's gonna be all of it?

I don't know. I would say probably not, but it is a very terrifying thing. I think all of this is the unknown, the fear of the unknown of what's about to come. But... And who's gonna be there? Who's he gonna start himself with?

In the doc, Jonathan, you gave us, like, some stuff about Project 25, and there was that article from Mother Jones and that Matt Walsh clip. I had seen the Matt Walsh clip. I was under the impression he was just mocking us for our fears, but maybe that is wrong. He's a fascist, he says both.

He's a liar and mocks people and he believes those things. He's both, but in that video I saw it. I was like, this is unpleasant, disgusting. He's joking, but is he serious? But he's trying to make a joke. That's the game. That's the game. And so I don't have like any stance that I'm coming down on that,

but I did want to bring that up because I was like... I was a little hot under the collar when I saw it. But then tried to tell myself, he's trying to make funny, he's just trying to mock us, I'm not gonna let myself get triggered by it. Well, like, the saving grace of all of this is that... it's Trump and several other people with huge egos, right?

It's Trump and Elon Musk and RFK Jr. And I don't think anyone believes that those three guys are gonna be running things for the next four years without any shakeups, right? Oh, yeah. Those relationships are not going to last long. Exactly. Not only that, they're highly incompetent individuals.

And we have to hope that the incompetence wins out before they can screw up too much stuff. And right, with the tariffs thing, I have to think that they'll convince him, like, this really will make inflation go through the roof and then everyone will hate you and you won't be able to run again in 2028 or be president for life more on that later. Yeah. and you won't be able to run again in 2028 or be president for life more on that later. Like the possibility of that. But like, if he does do it, people will turn on,

like he won't fix the thing. I've heard the argument that there are good ways to do tariffs and bad ways to do tariffs and that's it. And I'm like, tell me more, but I can't seem to get a straight answer about that. You can target tariffs for specific reasons, but like across the board, like, I don't even know what number he says now.

Like the number keeps going higher and changes, so who knows, but like... Well, he just says whatever number comes out of his big, big mouth. Right, but in his mind, it's like, oh, you just do tariffs. It's not like, oh, we need to target this industry or this like nation for this reason, right? It's like, it's often a negotiating tactic.

Oh, they raised tariffs on us, so we're gonna try to lower them. There are reasons to do it, but his reason is like, well, that's a simple thing I can say. I can just say that and people will love it. I don't wanna sleep on the fact that no tax on tips was probably, it's not like the major thing, but that probably was a big one for some people.

Sorry, that just occurred to me right now. Maybe, I mean, she said it too, they both were saying it. I know she did it too, but he got more of the wind from it. I just have heard it brought up. I don't think it's like the main thing, but when you were just talking about that, like, I think a lot of that's appealing to people. And that's, I mean, so much of the problem is like, oh yeah, the tax on tips. Well, she said it too.

There is a huge, it is, there is obviously a policy problem with Democrats and speaking to these economic issues in a way that are effective. Bernie can go on Joe Rogan and convince Joe Rogan instantly, like, oh yeah, I'll vote for you. He can go on Theo Vaughn and be like, yeah, these are the problems, these are what we gotta do. And he'll be like, oh yeah, of course.

Like it's so easy to do if you have conviction and the ability to speak to your convictions. Absolutely. And you really want to do it. And he really wants to do it. Exactly. So we have this tension of like, well, okay, I'm stuck with the Biden administration,

even though they did a lot of things that I'm sure people would be pointing out, like, oh, he did this, this, this, yes. He went to, he stood with unions, all the things. But the messaging is not very good. He's an old man and she is not the best communicator. Also, because at the end of the day, the union workers, the main thing that they care,

yeah, they care about the union, but they also care about the economy. These are working class people. But like the union, the union stuff helps them economically. Absolutely, but I'm saying at the end of the day, in this specific election where we're all befuddled how we can do so much for unions, but they are not endorsing us is because at the end

of the day, yes, that's important, but they also care very much. They are working class. They are feeling this too. You know? Yeah. But I am agreeing with you, it's the messaging too. But again, you save their pensions and they're like, nah Trump,

so that is frustrating when you offer the things that are good, that help, and they're still like, nah, not enough. And there's a clip from Joe Rogan when JD Vance was on, and he's such a lying old twerp, he was talking about the problem today with corporations is you have, you socialize the costs, but you privatize the benefits.

Where have I heard that before? Who talks about that? Who's talked about that? It is such a blatant sniping and grabbing of a very clear phrase and economically leftist perspective and the problems that some people have talked about that they're not going to do. He doesn't care about that. Donald Trump's not gonna let him stop corporations

make a lot of money and get away with this kind of stuff. And it's very, just very frustrating to see the messaging be implemented on the right, so cynically. And you have this sort of like scared, like timid, like democratic party, like, well, we can't do too much. We can't, we've got to tie it to this and we don't want to like go after, you know?

It's just very frustrating to see it, but. Yeah, I do agree. If it would be effective, I don't know. It's time for all the holidays. Yes, it is. Halloween just happened. It's time for all the holidays! Yes it is! Halloween just happened! There's also Thanksgiving, Blurksgiving, Glurksgiving, and the Darkness Hour.

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But the Democrats, we run on, you know, women's reproductive rights, on, you know, criminal justice reform, all sorts of stuff. But we're not really engaging with tangible things in people's day-to-day life. Those are important things, very important things, but it has been the same thing that we've been running on for a long time without introducing anything new or tangibly relevant to people's lives. I've used the example of the insurance crisis that literally nobody is talking about, the

Lumi insurance crisis. You know, Robert, insurance prices are going up everywhere. People are not losing their insurance. And this is a real reckoning that we're gonna have to have sooner than later. It's gonna start to affect our real estate market. It's good people are gonna be losing everything. And like truly, I'm begging you,

I'm begging the Democratic Party to start engaging with things like that. Talk about food safety from a different perspective than RFK. Talk about, bring back Medicare for all. We all agree. I talk to my conservative friends all the time where they say, the system is fucked.

And, and, and acknowledge that Obama did try. So we are at that point. Well, that's the other thing, like you have Michelle Obama out there, like, oh, get out healthy food, and now she's like Food Hitler. Sorry, go ahead. But she's saying get out food,

but we're talking about the food supply and different things. Without engaging with the rhetoric that's off the charts, while not important, there are actual things we can engage with. But we don't even listen. We do not listen, take the temperature of what people are saying that are vitally important to their health, their happiness, and their future.

Uh, people dying at home because they can't get health care. Nursing homes. There's so much. We haven't even scratched the surface. And, like, again, it's the communication and even taking credit for it, right? Like, during the last week or so, Obama's out there talking about how, like, you know, you got this check from Trump, but, like, you know,

Joe gave you this check and I gave you this check and stuff, and you only care about the Trump one because he signed his name. Yeah, sign your name next time. Sign your name. Sign your name next time and give him that last, like, what was it, $1400 bucks that you fucking promised? Yeah, give him the last bit that you said, yeah.

Yeah. The one thing I was gonna say, and I'm not, is this, I've had, I've been listening to a lot of good and bad takes the last couple days, but one that I've heard brought up that I'm not, I don't think is wrong, isn't completely right, but isn't wrong. I mean, I've given a lot of money to the Democrats

to save reproductive rights. And we're at a space where I think I have to accept for the time being that state by state we're going, and some people are gonna get absolutely fucked, and then we're gonna have to create, you know, support networks for people, continue to help women get across state lines and stand up and fight these fights.

But it's almost, like, sexist to assume that everybody's only gonna vote for that when we've already given... We've already done that many times over. It's lazy. Um, that's one example of it. Well, it can't just be that. It can't just be that.

Like, obviously, that's not something that they should abandon in any way, shape, form. You know, but you got to give me something more. Yeah. What else you guys got? What do you want to vent about, talk about thoughts that have been rattling around in our brains? All right, if you had to ballpark it,

maybe not a percentage, but like, what are the chances that there's a 2028 election and Donald Trump is not on the ballot? There will definitely's a 2028 election and Donald Trump is not on the ballot? Uh, there'll definitely be a 2028 election. The question is, like, will it be a free and a fair election? I kind of don't think. Like, he got what he wanted, which is... He ends on a win. He's going to be very old.

And I don't think, like... Yeah, the court cases are gone. I don't think he loves the job. I think his preference is to hand it over in such a way that there's a show election, but not even, not actually the real choice of election. Jason Pargin brought up this thread the day before. He's like, I think he is going to win. Um, and here's how I think it's gonna go.

And essentially, it's like, you got two years of him trying to do stuff, but not doing all of it. And it's kind of some it's gonna go, and essentially is it's like, you got two years of him trying to do stuff but not doing all of it, and it's kind of some water, hopefully watered down. Or maybe he does some bad shit, but after a couple years, he's old, he's crankier, he's bored, he's not running for a second. He'd be too old to get a second. I don't know if he says that specifically,

but halfway through, then the party starts to rally around Vance, because Donald Trump no longer has the juice, but Vance definitely doesn't have the juice. And then Democrats win pretty easily in 2028. And that, I think, is the most hopeful version of it. I'm not saying that. Don't you think that we've talked about how you kind of do think Vance has the juice, and people think he has the juice and

I don't think he has really like a bowl and like let me let me clarify that Big time yeah, how dare you I mean? I don't think about like I know a great show they like it that is great not the intention that I meant to go I'm not saying that he has the juice to carry I don't think very many people have the juice, if any, to do what Donald Trump does. That's true. What I was saying about Vance is that he, I, Robert,

when he first was picked, I took the brave choice of saying, after watching him speak at first, not the worst choice for Donald Trump. Because he's an average-looking guy, you know, he's younger, no morals, flip-flops, he will do what he says and maybe sanitize it to a degree that's more palatable to people. And then Vance proceeded to act like a total dipshit

over and over again, and I started to walk that back. In the last month, even if I despise the shit he said, I thought he did about as good of a job as he could have done, and that's not me endorsing the guy in his debate. Doesn't mean he's got Donald Trump's juice. Doesn't mean that he has the X factor. I meant as a vice presidential pick

to be a surrogate for Donald Trump out, I didn't think he was the worst pick. And then I ate those words for a little bit. He's very Mike Pence-y. He's just like, all right. Yeah, but less... I mean, he's not less weird. But Mike Pence has that weird, like, mother... Different kind of weird.

It's a different kind of weird, but Mike... But JD Vance has the energy of someone willing to do whatever, including bend over and let Donald Trump kick him in the stomach, and then laugh it off energy. And so that's what I meant. But I do not think he has the juice to win a presidential election to run on some populist message. I absolutely do not think he has that kind of juice.

OK, hopefully I've clarified that personally. Yeah, totally. I didn't mean to be like, but you love JD Vance. No, I know, I know. That's not what I was saying. But I'm glad you said that so that I could clarify a little bit. Yeah, he doesn't have the...

He's not Teflon like Trump. He's not... There's nobody... There's no... He's a... Trump's a cult leader. Um, and JD Vance is not a cult leader. Uh, he's not capable of doing that effectively, hopefully. Yeah, I don't even this... I mean, you know, the hope is that...

The hope is that that's how it goes. I guess my really main reaction position is that I would rather be... I would rather think that he's gonna do all the things that he said he was going to do, and that those things are bad, and then he doesn't and be wrong. Then be like, he'll probably be fine, he's gonna do this, and that those things are bad, and then he doesn't, and be wrong. Then be like, he'll probably be fine, he's gonna do this,

and then we'll have an election, we'll get rid of him, and be wrong about that. I think preparing for the bad version, because he said he was gonna do the things, and I know he's a liar, I mean, there are all these reasons, but I think to a certain extent, we need to take the fascist cult leader of America's fascist party seriously.

And not just be like, I was joking. Yes, and I do not mean to suggest that we shouldn't take him seriously. I wanna clarify that too. I don't think you already did. I'm saying the most hopeful version, which isn't very hopeful, by the way. The way I just laid out isn't like, great.

How many Supreme Court justices do you think are gonna... That's a proposition for another day. What's that gonna look like? I don't like this. So when you sit in my arm, better take her vitamins. I'll tell you that much. Even if she was to retire now... I keep seeing a lot of like, the Democrats gotta do this and they gotta do this and they

gotta do this in the last two months. They're not gonna do shit. Yeah. I'm sure you think they're gonna do that. Do you guys have any closing thoughts to say to everybody out there listening to us? I guess I'll reiterate some of the stuff I said up top, which is that it's okay to take some space right now. Yeah, we're all kind of swimming in that like,

oh, well, it's different you know, it's different than 2016 in a lot of ways. It is different. I kind of miss the energy of 2016, where I felt like a whole community of people around me that feel fired up. But I very much respect and also feel the deep, deep fatigue. I guess one thing I'll say that also might piss people off

is that there are lots of fascists and racists in our country, but it's not everyone. I don't want people to lose hope in humanity is I guess my point. Yeah, there's chance, again, people, the, people... Oh, I have one more thing. The inflation thing, I just want to say, like, I do want to acknowledge that there are varying categories of people and many are like, yeah, we like this,

and many are like, I don't like it, but I'll vote for it. And then you're like, well, I don't recognize the bad stuff. I think all those, all three of those categories are not good. And there are, you know, better ways to reach people maybe, but like, it is, I don't think that we should shy away from continuing to point out like, well,

maybe you're not a garbage Nazi, but you voted for the garbage Nazi party. That's what happened. And that means a lot of different things, but like that is what happened. And at a certain point, I mean, hopefully a lot of people sort of realize like, oh, oh, this is not what I thought I was voting for, and sort of come to terms with that.

But, you know, when the camps get made, if they do the thing that they say they're gonna do, when that stuff happens, you kind of got to own it at a certain point. That's what, not just like who you voted for, like what you voted for. Obviously, talk about all the time that I've got a variety of people in my life

that I talk to. I have planted seeds where they feel comfortable discussing issues with me and I don't shy away from saying my truth or pushing back but I and when it gets you know and there's a wide spectrum of those types of people. There are some that are more extreme that are not going to have the experience I'm about to outline. But as we see what happens, I feel in my heart that we're gonna see Trump stumble and fall time and again. Do the wrong thing. Do a bad thing.

And now I will be primed because I have given them enough grace, especially when we were in office and they were out. I will be primed to say, this is what I'm telling you. Do you see, make these connections? And that is a long game that I'm playing here, not game, but like, but I feel exhausted now, but I know that that's the work that myself individually

will be doing in the next few years. Absolutely, that's the hope that we, that you can like point out to like, remember the thing I like, point out to, like, remember the thing I said, remember the thing I said, remember the thing I said. And when you're feeling strong enough, and I'm not saying everybody needs to foster those kinds of relationships, because I think that I come out at this from a very privileged perspective,

that I'm able to even have these conversations. I acknowledge that. And so I'm not expecting everybody to do that kind of work. But if you can, I think that you, especially with your family members, with people that... I mean, I have fucking family members that voted for him and are good people. So if you want to understand where I'm coming from

with that, that's it. A lot of people do. Families, the family issue is tough for a lot of people. So you're gonna have to have... I'm just... If there are people that need to be written off, then write them the fuck off. But if there are other ones that are in the gray area,

this is your, we're gonna need you to do some work with them. And that's where I'll end it for today. Unless anybody else has a thought. Well, I just wanna, again, I wanna say get out and vote. There's still, stay in line. If you're in line, stay in line. If you're online, get offline. And if you're in line stay in line if you're online get offline And if you're listening to this and not watching it you've missed us all in our pink hats like we're gonna be

Yeah, I Got my got a giant pussy on my little Lini sign Do it all the hits Well Robert, I think all of our listeners probably know where to find you, but can you remind them, please? Uh, we have a podcast called It Could Happen Here. We cover daily news and try to provide advice on surviving, uh, these current times.

I also have a podcast called Behind the Bastards. You can find me there. Sounds good. You guys can, like, subscribe. Whatever you want to do. You know the channels. Whatever you want to do. You know the channels. Follow us. But.

Do some live streaming. I've got something to say, which is that now, more than ever. Now more than ever. We love you very much. Vote. Much. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]

For years, Tim Ballard has been championed as a modern-day superhero. The first time I saw one of the kids from the video, and it like changed my life. He was the face of Operation Underground Railroad, a movement that inspired hope around the world by rescuing children from human traffickers. However, Ballard's crusade to save innocent lives has always hidden a darker secret. Well, I think he's a pathological liar.

Beneath the accolades and the applause, a dark storm has been brewing. I mean, I can't find a time that he's told the truth about anything. Shocking allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced, casting a shadow over his once unquestioned reputation. I am host Sarah James McLaughlin, and in this new season of The Opportunist, we explore the rise and the fall of Tim Ballard. Join us this October for Tim Ballard unmasking a hero.

Subscribe to a new season of The Opportunist now, wherever you get your podcasts.