The Daily Beast Podcast - Buttigieg Could’ve Improved Airline Issues And Just…Didn’t

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Pretty much everyone begged Pete Buttigieg to alleviate airline issues and better regulate the airlines like Southwest. He didn’t. David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever news site, joins this episode of The New Abnormal to share his take on the Department of Transportation Secretary’s inaction, everything he could have done to stop the chaos, and all of the ways he could regulate airlines like Southwest if he wanted to. Also in this episode! Jared Yates Sexton, co-host of the Muckrake podcast and author of The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power Paranoia and The Coming Crisis, joins the podcast to break down how the right became so powerful, and why we need to get angrier about so-called “normal” Kevin McCarthy and Ron DeSantis—or else.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an interesting show we have today. First, we're going to talk to Lever News is David Sorota, who's been extensively covering the fuckery with the airlines and the regulation needed to fix them. Then we'll talk to Jared Gates Sexton, co-hosted the Muckrake podcast and author of The Midnight Kingdom, a history of power, paranoia, and the coming crisis. And he's going to talk to us about America's gradual descent into an authoritarian nightmare. But first, let's have some fun. Andy, there is nothing that I love more than my favorite gaslighting holiday for Republicans,

which is MLK Day. And why do I say that? Because it is the day that every Republican loves to get on social media, loves to get on fucking Twitter. And out of context, misquote Martin Luther King Jr. Hang on, Danielle. Oh, yeah, yeah? I think maybe I should take the lead on this one.

Oh, yes, as a white man. I just think Dr. King and I were both men. And so I think I just feel, I think it's a little more, you know, it's a little more just appropriate maybe that I handle this one. Yeah, please. Good. And you can just, you can listen and learn. I'm sorry, go ahead. Basically, that is everything that Republicans do on MLK Day.

Thank you so much for providing the example. You know, Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most radical. anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-oppression activist, which is why he was murdered, right? And it's so amazing to me that on this holiday, Republicans come out misquoting for their own fucking lying-ass needs to show that, oh, I'm not racist because we should care about the content of people's character. You are the most hollowed fucking group of people with a lacking of a moral compass. Martin Luther King talked about the arc of the moral universe, and I realized with people with no morality and values, how do you bend them? Right? I really wish, honestly,

that you weren't allowed to celebrate this holiday. Like that it was just off limits. Do you know what I'm saying? Make it the N-word of holidays. Correct. I always say, happy, pretend you wouldn't have repeatedly called for MLK to be jailed day. Yes. You have people out there who are basically saying, oh, if King were alive today, he'd be MAGA. If Malcolm X were alive today, he'd be MAGA. Like, you can't even engage with that because it's so insane. Also, you would have hated both of them had you been around when they were around. And it's unbelievable to me that you can walk around in 2023 and act like you would have done anything but call for his arrest,

that you would not have been completely in favor of the FBI bugging his phones and every other thing that our government at the time did to him, you would have supported 100%. And we have people like Ben Shapiro tweets, every MLK day we are treated to a bevy of think pieces on how the only way to achieve MLK's dream is to embrace group redistributionism and racial discrimination. MLK may have made such arguments in 1968, but that simply isn't the dream or the pathway we celebrate him for. First of all, you don't celebrate him for anything and stop for. Right. Stop for. Right. And second of all, do not tell other people what they celebrate him for. Like, particularly, you as a white person, do not tell black people what they celebrate him for. Like, it's just unbelievable to me. It is so

frustrating, but this is not just an MLK Day thing, because this happened in 2020 with the BLM protests. And it was the same thing where the people who were mad at the BLM protests. And I remember this in New York when they were marching down. I think it was the Henry Hudson Parkway. And they were tying up some traffic as one does in a protest to get noticed. And they were like, MLK would never have done something like this. They're putting people. They're inconveniencing people. Are it like, do you even fucking think before you type? It blows my mind, Danielle. I mean, they don't think before they type. But I mean, these are the same fucking. And you know, you said something at the beginning where if these folks were alive,

during MLK Day. Do you know that the majority of the fucking Senate was? Right? Like, that's how old. Like, let's just, like, let's just be clear. Because a part of our historical white erasure of history and reality in this country is the fact that we'd love to believe that Martin Luther King was like some 80-something-year-old Gandhi-like figure.

He was assassinated at 39 years old. Yeah. The man had an entire life in front of him. to live and the people, a majority of which are sitting in the fucking Senate, were alive when Martin Luther King was alive. Like, this is not ancient goddamn history. And so the audacity of these people to get up on their social media bullshit soapbox platforms and continue to spread lies, you know good goddamn well that the fucking Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Lauren Boeberts and the Paul Gosters would have been calling for the assassination of Martin Luther King just like

their fucking daddies did in the 1960s. So like, miss me with the bullshit and particularly around what they did with Byron Donald's, the black man that they wanted to pat on the head for doing such a good job during the 14 speaker votes that we had. I mean, it's just so disgusting to me. And I tweeted. I said, you know what? Dear Republicans, keep Dr. Martin Luther King's name out of your fucking mouths today and every day. Like, you don't get to own this character that you make up because he was a black radical. And we know what this white country does to black radicals is exactly what they did to Martin Luther King. So miss me with your feigned memory of who this man was and what he stood for.

And it's been pointed out by a ton of people that what they know of Martin Luther King, Jr. is one quote. And boy, do they love that quote, the one about people being judged on their character rather than the color of their skin. I'm begging them. We went through this with Harry Potter, where people had to make everything a Harry Potter reference. And the running joke became read another book. Read another speech. But you don't even need to read another speech.

Read that whole speech. Come on. Read the paragraphs right before that or right after it. I'm with you so much on this. And obviously, it means a lot more coming from you. So all I can do is support you on this. But I 100% support you on this. Shut the fuck up.

Like just. Stop talking about him. Like maybe at best, just say something like incredibly benign in Anodyne. Like happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And don't add anything to it because anything you add to it is a crock of shit. Come on. Yep. So just stop.

Just stop. You're embarrassing yourself. You're embarrassing your family. You're embarrassing your friends. You're embarrassing the people who live in your town. You're embarrassing the people who live in your county. You're embarrassing to people who live in your county. embarrassing the people who live in your state, you're embarrassing all Americans, you're

embarrassing every human on Earth. And probably aliens are up there monitoring our communications going, and they're going, come on, man. What are you doing? And they're probably going to fucking bomb us. The aliens will probably attack us because of people like you, because they're like, these people are garbage. So just shut up. They are trash. Thank you, Andy. Speaking of trash. Speaking of trash. I don't like how you said that right after my name. name. Ali Alexander. Oh, okay.

Not you. Ali Alexander comes out with an article about the fact that the January 6th committee released a before never seen transcript of Ali Alexander, which was, what was it like over 200 pages long, this man's deposition? In it is where he had sent a text to Paul Goser's chief of staff on the day of the insurrection to tell him to get him and his people out of there. The text came through at about one o'clock in the afternoon. Do you think that Paul Goser, Andy, decided then to alert his colleagues, and I mean all of his colleagues, not just the ones that he fucking likes, right? He didn't.

Do you think that they used, that they, that Ali Alexander decided to, I don't know, tweet or send a note to the FBI or anyone that said, hey, things are getting a lot. little out of hand here at the Stop the Steel Rally where the president was fully aware of the fact that his crowd of lunatics were fully armed with guns and blades and all of this shit. But he said, they're not here to harm me.

How the fuck are these people not in jail? It is amazing how they're not in jail. And as you've been pointing out, time after time after time, it's been two years now. Mm-hmm. And none of the ring leaders are in jail. I can't

answer your question as to why they're not in jail. except to say, well, and just kind of gesture at this country in general. The text that he sent were, I think you and your staff should maybe leave, this is hell out here. Yep. And I mean, the first part that I think you and your staff should maybe leave, I thought maybe he was doing a Tim Robinson bit, but he wasn't. He is literally telling Paul Gosser's chief of staff, this is hell out here. And as you said, that's bad enough that he was like texting his allies who were in the Capitol building that they should get out of there. But for Goser's chief of staff to not make like an all hands on deck alarm about that and notify Nancy Pelosi, who was the head of the house, regardless of what he thinks of her.

That's job one right there. It's like, hey, I'm hearing things from outside that are saying we should get the hell out of here. And of course, they didn't. And we all know why. And it's always important to remember that these are the same people who like mere hours later would start saying that the storming of the capital, was actually done by Antifa. Right. And these are the same fucking people who then after the ransacking and, you know,

just wreckage that was placed on the Capitol building, you know, in the building of the fucking gallows to hang the vice president of the United States. And, you know, the beating and the killing of a police officer would then tell us the next day, don't believe your lion ass eyes, Andy. This was just a peaceful protest. Yeah, it was people on vacation. I mean, I mean, they were because they were able to. go back to the fucking holiday inn after storming the capital. But like, so Ali Alexander's tweet

just in it of itself lets us know what we already knew. This was intentional. It got out of hand and these people didn't care because they had every mechanism to alert the authorities, to alert Nancy Pelosi, to send up some type of goddamn flare to make it so that people could get to safety, and they didn't. So how does that not make you an accomplice to what we know is a crime? I just don't understand what the fuck Merrick Garland is doing. I really don't. And everybody who tells me that he just, oh, well, he has the special counsel now and this, that and the other thing, it took him over 500 days. Yeah. I mean, you know I'm not going to defend Merrick Garland on this podcast or elsewhere. I'm with you on that 100%. The amazing thing about this text

is the timing. The text was sent at 1.10 p.m. This is per Rolling Stones reporting. Two minutes after that, Paul Goser got on the floor of the house and objected to the certification of the electoral college votes from his state of Arizona. That's what he did with that information. And I guess you could say, well, he probably didn't have that information yet. His chief of staff had gotten it. If I'm his chief of staff and I fucking get a text like that, I'm running up to him and telling him right away. I'm not letting him get up there and make a speech. They don't even like each other. Like his own chief of staff was like, well, should I warn the congressman? Nah, nah. Let him do his thing. They're so anti-life that they don't even try to save their own lives, except for Josh Hawley, of course, who did his little Usain Bolt

impersonation. But no, it's just amazing that none of these people are in jail. And now we have Kevin McCarthy, who apparently is the Speaker of the House, I heard. I mean, sort of. Speaker, he's like speaker light or, you know, the puppet of the house or like a Diet Coke zero speaker in that way. Like, you know. Yeah. So now he's saying he was asked at a news conference late last week about the possibility of trying to expunge one or both of Donald Trump's impeachments. And he said, quote, I would understand why members would want to bring that forward and we'd look at it. And it's just so now, like, you want to completely rewrite history.

And again, this is the same guy who back in the day said on the House floor that President Trump bore some responsibility for the attacks on Congress and took him to task for not immediately denouncing the mob. Trump should have taken immediate action. As we all know, he quickly sort of backtracked from that and went down to Mar-a-Lago to suck up to Trump. And now he wants to completely erase not only this country's history, but his own personal history of what he said and consider expunging these impeachments. And it's just like there, there is no bar. There is no bar. You cannot say, you know, it's a low bar.

The bar just doesn't exist. If the bar exists at all, it's running through the center of the earth. It's on its way to China. It is just, you cannot see the bar. And they just, again, they have no shame. They have no conscience. They have no souls. And this is who they are.

I just don't know how we are going to move through two years of this. I really don't. And I'm like, and if the American people, and look, I get it. I get voter suppression. I get gerrymandering. I get all of these things. But there are Republicans willingly putting these people in office and in charge. And the biggest things that they have done since getting the gavel is to do what?

Defend George Santos, if that's that motherfucker's real name. Right. to allow smoking back in the U.S. Capitol because, you know, I guess that's a hoax. Cancer is a hoax, too, much like climate change. Like, they don't do anything. Everything that they believe in is about erasing progress and just rolling this country back into the 1950s where we're walking around smoking cigarettes and have the ability to grab women's asses. Like, I just, what kind of madmen bullshit is this that people continue to vote for and think is like, yeah, this is my party. I honestly, I don't get it.

Particularly Republican women, white women. I just, I don't get it. I think it's just the simple fact is that when people look back at the 1950s, it's sort of viewed as the ideal time to be a straight white Christian male. And I guess sort of by extension, a straight white Christian female, although not really, but there are unfortunately, well, there are definitely men and there are unfortunately women who sort of pined for those days of, you know, the homemaker and whatever. And where that was all women were allowed to do. Again, I'm not denigrating that if it's a choice, but it wasn't a choice back then. So they've sort of glommed onto that as sort of like that to them was the pinnacle of American history. And they very much, as you said, they very much want to go back to the 1950s, except for some of them who want to go back to the 1850s. But the ones who want to go back to the 1950s, I think it's just that simple. I think they just look at that.

They look at it through the lens of a straight, white Christian man and say, you see how good things were back then? And it's like, no, I don't. But to them, that was the pinnacle of American civilization, I think. I mean, if your religion has you believe that putting your boot on the neck of black, indigenous people of color so that you can stand taller, if that is like the basis of your religion, like your religion is bullshit. I hate the fact that these people are allowed and given the ability to hide behind their religious freedom, to hide behind their Christianity.

When Marjorie Taylor Green said it, it's white Christian nationalism. Just call it what it is. Right. Because it has nothing to do with anybody's like, love thy neighbor. It has nothing to do with feed the poor. It has nothing to do with lift up those that are less fortunate than you and linking arms. It has nothing to do with that. It is a white Christian nationalism.

That is what they are for. And I feel like every day that we do not connect those dots and call it out and allow mainstream media to say, like, they have a political agenda and legitimize their bullshit. their hate is just another day that America just goes further into decline without the ability to reroute our course. Yeah, well, all those things you mentioned, the, you know, lifting up others and walking arm and arm with you, that's all socialism. You understand that, Danielle, right? It became abundantly clear over the recent holidays that our skies are an absolute mess, with many airline travelers having to deal with long delays and outright cancellations from

airlines like Southwest. Our next guest has been all over the this story and says that none of this was unexpected and is in fact in large part a failure of government regulation. Joining me now is the founder and editor-in-chief of Lever News, award-winning journalist David Serota. David, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. You really have been a pit bull on this issue. And in particular, you've been very critical of both Congress and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for ignoring warnings that exactly what happened over the holidays would happen. Let's start with, there was a letter that 38 state attorneys general sent to congressional leaders.

When did they do that and what did the letter say? So they sent this letter in August of 2022 and let's put some context onto that. Southwest last year had had a similar, certainly not as big, but a similar meltdown. And these attorneys general at the time were worried that another meltdown was going to happen because, of course, the summer, there was all sorts of problems in airline transportation over the summer. So at the end of the summer, they write this letter. And they basically say that the transportation department has fallen down on the job. Now, to be clear, they've said the transportation department of multiple administrations.

The lack of action, they said, has spanned multiple administrations. What they asked for was primarily, they had said the situation is so bad that they want Congress to pass a new law ending what's known as federal preemption, essentially allowing state attorneys general to regulate the airlines and protect consumers. This is a key point. Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation is the only American, the only person in the United States under current law who has the authority to regulate the airlines. You can't bring a class action against them. State attorneys general can't go after them if they mistreat customers. What the AIGs were saying was the Department of transportation has failed to institute tough fines. It has failed to institute tough enough

regulations to protect consumers. Please Congress change the law to give us the power to protect consumers. So in addition to that letter, there were other letters as well, right? There was New York Attorney General Tish James sent a letter to Buttigieg, as did Senators Warren and Padilla. And these, I assume, warned of similar things. Yes, absolutely. I mean, the Tish James letter came in early August, so before the other 38 attorneys general. And she actually laid out specific steps Pete Buttigieg could take right now under his existing authority. So she was saying, let's ignore the idea of changing the law. Let's talk about what he can do right now. Example, require airlines to advertise and sell only flights that they have adequate personnel to fly and

support. One of the problems in the airline industry for consumers is that these flights will be scheduled without the staffing necessary to actually fly the plane. Tish James said require airlines to provide refunds to passengers for any cancellations that result in a rescheduled flight if the flight is canceled for non-weather related reasons. And of course, Colorado's Attorney General later on, again, before the Southwest meltdown, he and a bunch of other attorneys general filed an official comment letter telling Buttigieg to finally pass a rule that's been sitting. at the Department of Transportation for four months, again, requiring airlines to sell only flights they have adequate personnel to fly, saying that the department should make clear it will impose

significant fines for cancellations and extended delays that are weather-related or otherwise unavoidable. Budigieg did none of that. Now, I want to be clear, there's this argument out there that Pete Buttigieg isn't responsible for Southwest not making adequate investments in its computer systems. Here's the problem with that argument, that Southwest executives making the decision to pay themselves $112 million. Southwest executives a decision to approve a shareholder dividend of $400 million, while not making what they knew to be were necessary investments in their computer system, they made those decisions inside of a regulatory environment. They made those decisions calculating that, hey, we can skimp on the computer system, pay ourselves big payouts, pay our shareholders

a big payout. And look, on the off chance that the computer system goes down, although it's not really an off chance because it just went down last year, on the off chance that it goes down, you know, the government says it's not, it hasn't put in place the rule to actually increase fines. It hasn't put in place any kind of measures that make what they're going to do more than a business rounding error for us. And that's the regulatory environment that Pete Buttigieg has helped create or at least helped continue from previous administrations. So it just seems to me that if you put on like your average Joe hat for a second, in the case of Southwest, you just mentioned all those things.

They're using outdated computer and scheduling systems and they've paid huge salaries to executives. They've paid dividends to shareholders. And on top of all of that, they received over $3 billion from taxpayers during COVID. So you put your average Joe hat on and the first thing that comes in your mind is what the fuck? Absolutely. And I think we have to look at this.

The good metaphor for this that I think explains this is the way we talk about, for instance, crime. When crime goes up in a locale, people blame the criminals. I mean, the criminals are the one perpetrating crime. Then they also very quickly ask for different policies or put pressure on elected officials to put in place policies that better police that crime and better deter that crime. That metaphor is important here. Pete Buttigieg in the metaphor is the only cop on the beat under current law. The airline industry is maybe they're not crimes in the sense of legal crimes, but they're

certainly abuse of customers. When customers get mass mistreated, as they were over the holidays, one of the first people that should face some pressure and accountability is the person whose job is to be the airline regulator. That if that pressure doesn't come, then the regulator probably won't. feel the need to actually regulate. That's the key here. And as you point out, not only was he not regulating, he was going on talk shows, you know, in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays and saying that everything was going to be fine. Right. A week after the 38 attorneys general

wrote to Congress begging Congress to give them the power to enforce these laws because Buttigieg and the Department of Transportation had fallen down on the job, a week after that, he goes on James Gordon show and says holiday travel is probably going to get better. That was his response was to sort of rhetorically say everything's going to be fine. Of course, everything wasn't fine. I want to raise one other point here. The reason that it's so important to have a regulator who's tough in regulating the airlines is also because of the oligopolistic nature of the airlines in this way. consumers who get screwed over, many of these consumers, many of these travelers are in markets where there aren't lots of choices. Right.

So that the consumer can't say, okay, look, I got screwed by Southwest or I got screwed by this other airline. You know what? Southwest has to fear that I'm never going to fly on their airline again. Now, maybe there's a little bit of that fear. But Southwest and the major airlines know that in many cases, they control the markets, right? that the consumer who got shit on, who got mistreated, they don't really have a choice the next time they want to travel. Point being, that's exactly why you need a tough regulator. This is a situation where it's very difficult for consumers in any kind of mass way to bring pressure on the airlines

themselves through their consumer choices because they don't have lots of choices. So what in your mind is stopping Buttigieg from what appears to be doing, like even a bare minimum of finding airlines like Southwest or, you know, maybe requiring them to have software that can, you know, track where their pilots and crews are. Why has he been so slow or just why has he seemed to not want to do anything? Well, I mean, now I'm going to put my speculating hat on. I would, I would say this. One, I think he's going to do more now because he, because this has risen to a level of a public political embarrassment and he is an ambitious politician. And by the way, that's the way the system is supposed to work, that the public gets mad and the regulator feels they have to do their job.

Now, as the Southwest debacle started, I was concerned that there would be a lot of liberals out there and that there are some liberals out there who are trying to defend Buttigieg and say, you know, he has nothing to do with this. All that does is protect him from accountability, protect him from having to do his job. It's now raised to a level of enough noise is being made that he's going to do something. Now, to answer your question about why didn't he do anything earlier, I would speculate and say this, that, look, the airline industry is extremely politically powerful. It gives lots of money to both political parties. It has a lot of revolving door lobbyists who used to work in government.

Pete Buttigieg is an ambitious politician. He comes from a pedigree, a political pedigree, out of McKinsey, which is not a pedigree in which he has climbed the ladder by pushing powerful people around. He comes from a pedigree where appeasing powerful people is the way up the political ladder. All of that is to say that the person in the job, and should be at it, person who has no experience, no relevant experience in transportation management, that that person, their pedigree is not one of a tough regulator. It hasn't been his political formula to push powerful people, powerful donors around. And so I think he was probably looking for a way to say,

look, everything's going to get better. I'm going to have a soft touch here. Hopefully, you know, maybe I'll send you a sternly worded letter. I'm not really going to piss off these powerful people. And I'm going to hope this thing gets better. Obviously, that, I guess, calculus didn't work. Yeah, it would just be nice if, you know, once in a while somebody did something before the big problem happened, especially if they had warning from all these state attorneys general and from people in Congress as well, that this was just waiting to happen. So it makes you angry that they have to wait until after the thing that everyone says is going to happen happens. You should actually,

you should do a movie about something like that. I should do a movie about something like that. Something in the skies. It works out perfectly. It does work out. I mean, I just want to echo what you said, which is, you're right. I spent the last year, a lot of the last year talking about the movie that was a metaphor, a lot of this dynamic. And I agree with you. Look, the government has not been very good writ large at anticipating problems and preemptively trying to stop those problems. The government that we have now is very, very reactive. What I'm concerned about is it seems more and more that we live in an accountability free political system. Right. I don't want to harken back to the so-called halcyon days

of the Bush administration, but hear me out for a second. I mean, I'm no fan of George Bush, right? But like, there was a time where underqualified, inexperienced person was running the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Hurricane Katrina hit. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, was a debacle. The president went out and said, hey, you're doing a heck of a job to that person. That prompted righteous and real and understandable outrage, and that public official felt that they had to resign. That actually is the system working. That's democracy working. Something happens.

The person who's in charge of making sure it doesn't happen is called on the carpet, feels public pressure, and feels they have to resign. Now, whether you think Pete Buttigieg should have to resign or simply change policies, et cetera, et cetera, my point is a simple one, that some of the anger, some of the accountability needs to be focused on the regulator to do his job. If we live in a society where something like this happens and the Transportation Secretary doesn't face pressure to do different things, that is a society that should expect these kinds of things to happen over and over and over again. Yeah, and that's where I get annoyed. And you touched on this earlier when you'll get pushback from people. on the left or from liberals who get mad that you're, you know, yelling at your own team, quote unquote. And it's like, no, that's not the way this works. You are not only allowed to yell at your

own team. You're supposed to yell at your own team when they're not doing the job. Exactly. I'll even go further than that. Let's use the Buttigieg example as a good one. If Democratic voters or liberals are not willing to hold him accountable, those Democrats and liberal voters are the most important constituency to somebody like Pete, political constituency, in the sense he is somebody who is ambitious for a future office. This point being that if the people, the voters, he most has to answer to, are not willing to put pressure on him, then that is the system of accountability breaking down. And by the way, let's be clear, this is a dynamic with Republican suit. It's both sides. Republican politicians, Republican cabinet secretaries do all sorts of terrible

things. Rank and file Republicans will defend them. The Democrats and their media outlets, they will jump on them. The point being is that facts and accountability should not be predicated on whether a media outlet or a politician perceives that holding people accountable will offend the partisan sensibilities of their different audiences, or put it an even different way. We should all be able to accept a set of basic facts. A regulator is supposed to regulate. When things fall apart, the regulator needs to face accountability. If we We can't agree on that or the actual amendment to that is that only applies if it's a politician of my party, then the system of accountability has broken down.

Yeah, absolutely. And liberals and people on the left hold themselves up as better than Republicans. So act like it. And don't do what they do and don't mindlessly defend someone because they're on your team. It just drives me absolutely nuts. And I should add very quickly, look, if this is Elaine Chow, Donald Trump's Department of Transportation running the department, transportation. The MSNBCs of the world, liberals, Democrats, they would be hammering Elaine Chow. Of course, and correctly. And correctly. That's right. But I also think a lot of Republicans would be

trying to defend Elaine Chow in the situation. And that's the dynamic that is the problem. So what, I know this, maybe this gets into a little bit of speculation, but maybe it doesn't. In your mind, what are the things that the transportation department should be doing? What are the things that Congress should be doing from here on forward? Well, Congress definitely. needs to pass the law that will allow state attorneys general and the general public to hold airlines accountable. I'll be specific about that. The federal preemption saying that the only entity that can regulate the airlines can be the secretary of transportation, that has to end. The elected state's attorneys general of each state should have some jurisdiction to hold airlines

accountable. By the way, they have jurisdiction to hold all sorts of industries accountable. That's why those offices exist. So that's one. Two, people should be able to to bring class action lawsuits against the airlines when there is mass mistreatment of passengers. That's, again, not allowed under federal laws. That's what Congress could. What can the Department of Transportation do? Look, increase the fines. Bernie Sanders, Rokana have proposed a structure of the way that those fines can be increased. And I should add, there was a regulatory push under the Obama administration. I don't think the Obama administration was all that great on regulation sort of writ large, but it did actually extract some changes from the airline industry.

It wasn't perfect, but when it comes to long delays, delays on the tarmac. So there is a track record, a history of putting in place a specific targeted regulations and changing the industry. So clearly fast and immediate refunds for canceled flights, a rule that requires airlines, again, to advertise and sell only flights that they have adequate personnel to fly, to have serious punishments for cancellations that have nothing to do with weather. That will help. It's not going to fix the problem, but it will create an environment in which, let's go back to Southwest, the Southwest executives in that environment now have to think twice when they say, okay, listen, we got two things we really want to do, pay ourselves $112 million,

pay shareholders $400 million, and we know we have this computer problem that we know we need to take care of. When they're making a decision about how to allocate money, you want them to think, well, if we don't fix the computer system, we're going to face really punitive fines. We're going to face really punitive enforcement that may actually threaten our entire business. That's what you want them thinking. So every regulation we're talking about should actually be targeted at when those executives sit down in the boardroom, when they make decisions about how to allocate resources, they have to keep in mind treating the passengers face. It really is amazing. It's astonishing that, as you said, that what Southwest chose to do with their money, and again, they got $3 billion, over $3 billion of government money slash taxpayer money during lockdown during, you know, the height of COVID. The thing that they decided not to do was to fix their infrastructure. I'm starting to think that Iron Rand wasn't right and that maybe these guys are not the engines that drive the world. I don't know. Maybe I know it's crazy. It sounds crazy even when I say it, but I'm

starting to think it's true. Well, it's not true. And I would, I would also say this. We also have to have a special view of inherently oligopolistic industries, right? You can't get around that. There are various industries, various businesses, where there's lots of competition. If a company screws over their customers, the customers can go somewhere else. That is a quote unquote, free market disincentive to mass mistreatment of consumers in industries where there is competition. But in the industries where there is less and less competition inherently. Airlines, right? You can't have a zillion different airlines. Railroads is the good example from even now, but 50 or 100 years ago. Energy companies, this is why energy companies are heavily regulated utilities because you can't

have, you know, you're not going to have 20 different energy companies for one city. You're going to have an inherent oligopoly. So the point being is when you have an industry specifically like that, that's when the regulation needs to be as tough as possible. because the consumers themselves can't create the market incentives for better treatment. That's when regulation, in my view, is most necessary. David, thank you so much for coming on. And thank you also for all the hard work and legwork that you've done on this story. You really, you've done Yeoman's work on this.

And it's appreciated. Thank you. Thanks so much. And I hope everyone will check out our reporting at levernews.com. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to chat with you. Absolutely. Folks, I am really excited to welcome to the new. abnormal. Friend of mine, this is when Twitter was really good, you know, when you can meet people

and like and connect with folks. Jared Yates Sexton, who is the co-host of the Muckraker podcast and the author of The New Book, The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia, and the coming crisis. Jared, so first of all, happy New Year to you. Happy New Year to you. By the way, did something happen to Twitter? Did I miss something? You're so cute. You know how everybody was like jumping off of Twitter and, you know, Elon Musk running it into the ground, changing the algorithms every other day. I must have missed that. I don't know. I guess I just wasn't paying enough attention. Maybe you had decided to invest in TikTok instead, as so many people did. Jared, I have just loved conversations with you. For folks, I will say that I spent an election night, midterm election night. night on the muckraker podcast and there was no other place I would have wanted to be that night

frankly than with you. But I just want to get your sense, Jared. You know, your book is titled The Coming Crisis. I feel like we are in crisis. So give us kind of your 50,000 foot view on how you basically are a soothsayer, how basically this book is you reading the tea leaves about where we are right now and where we are headed. We know, Danielle, first of all, it's very kind because I consider you a friend and I respect you so much. And one of the reasons I do is because a lot of people have been planting their heads firmly in the sand. You know, I say all the time that you don't have to be Nostradamus. You don't have to sort through the entrails to see what's happening and what is coming down

the pike. The crisis that I'm talking about is sort of even an escalation of what we're seeing right now. There's a myriad of crises that we are struggling with. We're dealing with a loss of faith in our politics, a loss of faith in our economics, a loss of faith in the status of the world, the status quo. And when that happens, history tells us, and this is what my research for the book taught me, history tells us that there is always a clash that happens as these systems start to fail and lose some of their gravity. And you sort of face a crossroads moment. You face a real reckoning in terms of what is the next iteration of the world going to look like? What is the next status quo going to look like? And occasionally in history, it looks really bad. Right.

It really matters who recognizes that the next sort of iteration is coming. Who takes advantage of that? Who makes their vision of the future a reality? And right now, unfortunately, much of the world that is supposed to be watching for this, whether it's the media, the political class, you name it, they are in deep denial and or complicit with what is happening. And right now the momentum is with the authoritarian right wing, which understands that this system is failing and that the moment is ripe for change. And so as a result, we have been lapped and lapped by an organized, well-funded right-wing internet. movement, by the way, that has its clause in almost every major Western democracy. And here in America, we are watching the consequences of what happens when a system starts to fail and when an authoritarian right-wing international movement recognizes its opportunity to change the world towards what it wants. You know, it's really incredible.

I think that when you were talking specifically about the system's breakdown, because I never thought, and maybe this is my naivete. I never thought that I would be alive to witness these overarching systems. And when I'm talking about systems, I'm not just talking about democracy. I'm talking about capitalism. I'm talking about the way in which we consume and understand information and then articulate it, right? I'm talking about the way that the world has been designed through one specific group's lens, right? white, cis, hetero, wealthy, powerful men.

And what we are seeing as these demographics are shifting, not just in the United States, but as demographics shift around the world, right, as people understand, well, wait a minute, why am I working so hard? Why do I feel like this hamster? And yet I'm making absolutely no progress. And yet these people who were once just normal, regular everyday millionaires, are now multi-billionaires. You're talking about wealth that won't be spent for generations,

on generations while other people are living in squalor and suffering. And not by virtue of the fact that they happen to be quote unquote lazy, which is the lie that we were fed, but because systems were created to make sure that they would remain on the bottom. And so I wonder, Jared, as people are waking up, because I do believe that this is a waking up, I believe that we're in the midst of this clarion call of consciousness, of waking up to the reality that maybe all the things that we have been fed are not exactly right, that they were right for some, but they were not right for all. So when we are seeing this, is it necessary for there to be a total and complete breakdown? Meaning, do we throw out the baby with the bathwater or is there an opportunity

in the breakdown? Is this a Phoenix moment, as I've said before on this show, where things do come down to ash, but then we rise anew? Well, first of all, I've talked about this book, and one of the things, and this is one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you about it, is because when you actually call out what the moment is, a lot of people tend to turn you off and just be like, oh, this is depressing. And it's like, no, it's not depressing. It's actually an incredibly fruitful moment because what has happened is that we have all been fed an incredible line of bullshit. I'm 41 years old. I grew up in the 1980s.

I was fed just a massive amount. Everything from evangelicalism, which is now turned into, you know, so-called Christian nationalism. I grew up with that, but also this myth of American exceptionalism, the idea that America was chosen by the universe or good or God, depending upon what angle you're looking at it. And also the idea that the American Empire was going to last forever, right? Yep. Which is always the uniting gravity in all of this. I had to go back even to like Rhone to understand that the way that like these hegemonic structures work is they first have to convince you that they are invincible and immortal. They're going to go on forever, which, by the way, convinces you there's nothing you can do.

And whenever these sort of like massive hegemonic structures holds sway over time like America has now for decades. And I believe that you and me and a lot of the listeners have lived in the sway and gravity of that, which is, yes, we understand things aren't the way that they maybe should be or maybe they could be better. But also, we are in thrall of a giant machine. Everything from the way the government is set up to the way law enforcement, our laws, our judicial system, our economy, those things are so large that we could never possibly do anything about them. And on top of that, the best that we could hope for is maybe we would be one of the lucky ones. We might be picked up from like, you know, in this fake meritocracy. Maybe we might become wealthy. And so as a result, maybe we shouldn't push too much against these structures, right?

Well, what's happening now? And this is one of the reasons why the right wing has been able to gain power, but also why I see an opportunity. When that illusion starts to flicker, when there is a realization that, oh, my God, like, not only is this system not set up correctly, it's set up so badly because it is really rewarding white wealthy men. And on top of that, like these hereditary structures of white wealthy men, right? We are living in the consequences of the failed illusory meritocracy. And we are living in this time where all of a sudden it's like, oh, my God, for the longest time, this has not worked the way it's supposed to, which opens up the possibility that you could find a better way for it to work. And I point out a lot that I think right now, the problem is that since the 1980s and in the 1990s, with the rise of neoliberal globalism, you have seen a redistribution. And listen, I'm going to say trillions with a T. I want to make sure, because this is an

audio format. Seven trillion dollars have been redistributed from the poorest to the wealthiest. And when that concentration of wealth and capital happens, inevitably the system starts to break down. You can trace it throughout history. So eventually you reach a point where people go, you know what, I can't even afford the old American lifestyle that I was promised. that deal isn't there anymore. It's been corrupted. It's been perverted. And as a result, you have populist anger. And populist anger can be directed towards reform and change and progress. But right now, it has been co-opted by faux populism, white supremacy, misogyny, all of this, in order for the people who have benefited from that redistribution to protect themselves and to continue

dominating culture. So as a result, things have gotten off kilter. And then, has led to a crisis. But that is, again, a possible change. It is one of those apocal moments where things could possibly get better. But Jerry, let me ask you this, because as I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking about this, this $7 trillion with the tea that you're saying, that was moved from the poorest to the wealthiest in this country, is this also a manipulation of hope? Meaning that the Republican party has been able to manipulate white people in such a way. to make them consistently vote against their own best interests. I mean, if we teach the poorest white man to hate the best black man, then we can pick his pockets. Like, we go back to that place. But even before then, if you can trick people, like you said, into this lie about wealth that, oh my God, I'm just one lottery ticket away from this type of wealth. And when I have it, I'm not going to want to pay taxes in that way. I'm not going to want to do this. So I'm going to act as if I'm

just that one Willy Wonka golden ticket away. So it's this manipulation of hopefulness that is hollow because there is no hope of being able to become the next a multi-billionaire, not when we're not really talking about how those people have assumed that much wealth in the first place. That it isn't just that we shouldn't be equating wealth, tremendous wealth with genius, because that is not oftentimes the way. Is this a manipulation of, hope. And as one of my other friends had written about Dr. Jonathan Metzl dying of whiteness, so long as I can convince people that I'm not going to give you anymore, but the person down the street is also not going to have shit either. And as a matter of fact, they'll be worse off so that you

feel better about the little of nothing that you do have, then we can keep this cycle going. Yeah. And that's the thing is we have reached the moment where in order for neoliberal globalism in this hyper-capitalist state that we're in, in order for it to continue, you're in order. you're not even going to have sort of the illusion of a fair state, right? Eventually, somebody is going to get stuck holding the bag, and the way that the Republican Party and these other right-wing parties are working, is they're now moving towards straight white supremacist authoritarianism, which is, you know what, you have been screwed, which is true.

It is actually true that this system has been wired specifically for a very, very small group of people. And by the way, the critique that the government is too close to those wealthy individuals and too close to those corporations is a hundred, percent true. That's the thing here is there is always a little nugget of honesty at the heart of these things. And I want to point out real fast, and this is something that I came to understand writing the Midnight Kingdom. I had to go back centuries to understand this. The conspiracy theories and the appeals are always the exact same thing, right? It is always this argument that the nation state or the country has, it's special, right? There's something unique about it. It has been

chosen again by God, by fate, by history, whatever, to carry out good things. Things may not be great, but they're as good as they could possibly be. Meanwhile, there are people on the outside who are trying to destroy it. Usually, by the way, it takes the form of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which is why we're seeing those things come out of the woodwork now and, you know, not even being hidden in the old crypto-fascist sense. Meanwhile, on the inside, there are leftist traders who are working with those people. And by the way, Danielle, there's another group of people, a third group of people. And these are people of color. These are women. These are gay people. And by the way, it's the same story every time. And they are, they're too dumb to understand they're being

manipulated, right? That they're being turned into a fifth column, right? That they're going to help destroy the country based on these like conspiracies. These stories are always being used by the powerful to protect themselves. And what does it do, by the way? It takes the onus off of them. It's not that they have rigged a system for their own benefit. It's that they are the best possible leaders who could possibly do anything, and they're being undermined by this insidious evil, supernatural, evil conspiracy. And in the midst of all of this, the story that is being told is this. Your life probably is not going to get that much better, right?

You're not going to get paid much more, right? But in order to keep hold of what you have, regardless, of maybe how unhappy it is or how it's killing you. And I can tell you from my experience, I come from a family of factory workers, laborers, minors, you know, prison guards. These people are suffering. They give their bodies over for no money. You know, they're living paycheck to paycheck. But the story they're being told is that if they don't fight like hell, if they don't overthrow the government, if they don't go along with a lot of these conspiracy theories and or anti-democratic actions and or just absolute blatant white supremacy, which they, you know, have sort of baked into their character and prejudices anyway, that they're going to lose what they have. And as a result, they have to protect that as opposed to looking at reform or change. And that same story has been told for centuries now. And to understand how it works and to see how it has worked is the only means by which we can actually start to fight back against it.

How do we pull back the curtain, Jared? When you have the Donald Trumps, the Ron DeSantis, the puppets like Kevin McCarthy, the evil masterminds like Mitch McConnell, when you have these people that know exactly what it is that they are doing, they may go about it in a different way, they may use different techniques. Mitch McConnell uses backroom deals and policy. Let me smile in your face why I stab you in the back. Kevin McCarthy will give away everything, including the kitchen sink, for the faux semblance of power. You have Ron DeSantis who has become Trump light,

but let me see how far I can go. I can be even eviler, right? Because I understand politics and nuance a little bit more. Then Donald Trump is just open hood off, you know, at the podium, their shithole countries, their rapists and murderers, we're great and will always be great. But it's all part of the same fabric. And we know that it works. And it's been amplified by our quote unquote foreign enemies like Russia, being able to use information, use disinformation in a way to continue on with the manipulation and the numbing, frankly, right? There's a numbing that is happening as well. We're so outraged all the time that we're just over it.

And so how is it then that those who know, like you, like myself, like people who are listening, who know the truth, how do we command the microphone? How do we decide to say, this is all a show? you are all being puppeted without being a part of the conspiracy. Is there a way to stop what has already run them up? Well, I got to tell you, first of all, I think it has to start with absolutely rejecting how people have dealt with it so far. I mean, you know, you went through that list, and I want to point out just to put this into context. Okay, Mitch McConnell just appeared with President Joe Biden the other day saying that he was a man of his word and his honor.

We know that's not true. We've seen it happen. And by the way, the amount of damage that that person has done to people of color, to women, to voting rights, you name it. That's offensive. Kevin McCarthy, absolutely problematic, Maga Republican, who is incredibly dangerous. Meanwhile, you see even liberal media institutions talking about how he's better than the Freedom Caucus that he was battling with. That's absurd. Ron DeSantis, by the way, it's gotten worse.

the amount of so-called liberals and never-Trumpers that I am talking to who have talked themselves into Ron DeSantis. I'm talking about people who have voted Democratic in these past few elections who are suddenly like, you know what? I think Ron DeSantis actually is a better, you know, better politician than Trump and is a better option and maybe we'll bring order to things. The entire point is this. We have to change the way that we look at politics. We have to start imagining actual better futures, which is part of the, problem is we have been sold a false bill of goods that things could not possibly get better,

but they might just get a whole lot worse. And as a result, like the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, you name it, they tell us a story, which is, listen, we know things aren't great, but if we don't defend the status quo, it's going to get a whole lot worse. And what happens as that happens? All of a sudden, the Democratic Party, Democratic politicians have become guardians of the status quote that everyone knows isn't working. They've been drawn not just to the center, but to the right. And what are we doing now? We are having so many conversations, Danielle, that are like, you know what? Maybe the LGBTQ population, maybe they've gone a little too far. And maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if, you know, we let these laws. Maybe that would be an olive branch. And what always happens,

whether it's fascism, authoritarianism, whatever label you want to put on it, is you start bargaining. people away. And we watched that with Roe v. Wade. Everyone expected cities to be burning. But what happened was, especially in so-called blue states, a lot of people said, oh, this is awful. Thank God they didn't come for me. And when we take a look at what's happening with voting rights, how people of color are being treated, law enforcement, violence, you name it. We bargain away the potential to make things better. I think we have to become bolder. I think that we have to remember that we are interdependent. and that if other people are suffering, we're going to suffer. It's going to take a paradigm shift.

It's going to take both a political, social, economic, but also almost a spiritual revolution to start to unburden ourselves from these limiting notions and ideologies that have been fed to us, which have been absolute bullshit and damaging from the very beginning. Yeah, and I will say as we wrap up here, Jared, that this has been the work of many black indigenous people of color, right? Which is this idea of an intertwined fate. Like this is the talk that, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King did when he was talking about the beloved community. When we are talking about the fact that when they come for one of us, they come for all of us. Until we move

out of this lie of individualism, this lie of, oh, well, I pulled myself up from my bootstraps, so you should too. It is embedded in our character as Americans to not. actually exist inside of community, right? We celebrate the lone genius and the lone creator and innovator as if it did not take a village to make innovation happen. And so I think that you're right. There is a spiritual revolution that is needed because it is so anti our understanding of American to put community before the self. And I think that we have seen what that level of selfishness has done and continues to do. Friend, I could talk to you for hours upon hours,

and I hope that we will have you back on the new abnormal again. And I want to tell people, folks, the book is The Midnight Kingdom, a history of power, paranoia, and the coming crisis. Jared, you are brilliant. You are a soothsayer, and I hope that folks get this book and figure out how we move through this crisis.

Danielle, you're too kind. you're on my favorite people walking around the face of the planet earth. Thank you so much. Can't wait to talk more. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Who on this glorious new week is your fuck that guy? Well, Andy, I'm so glad you asked.

And it is not necessarily a who, but a what, as in what entire fucking state is my fuck that guy? Well, let me tell you. So according to CNN and every. report, lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives decided to adopt Andy a stricter dress code just for women. And as part of their new quote unquote rules package, it requires women to cover their shoulders by wearing a jacket like a blazer, a cardigan, or a knit blazer. Add an insult to injury because apparently we live in a white national Christian country where, you know, the appearance of a shoulder of a woman, you know, will send men into a fucking tizzy. This was proposed by a white

Republican Republican state representative Anne Kelly. I swear to God, I don't know where we are headed. But like when this kind of bullshit legislation passes and, oh, by the way, they went even further to say that, you know, there should be a second layer over women's dresses. So we need a slip and a jacket because in America, right, somehow we're instituting what the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan, then it will be, you know what modesty looks like? Covering your face and skirts down to your ankles and women only wearing dresses and skirts on the floor of the Missouri house. Like, how far are we going to go and still consider ourselves some type of democracy? I'm just so fucking confused and disgusted. So to the whole entire state of Missouri and your Republican leadership

and you in particular, Ann Kelly, oh my God, fuck you, fuck the guy, fuck the state, fuck the woman. I don't know about you all. I don't. I think the comparison to the Taliban is app. What gets me, though, is when people say like, oh, they're the American Taliban. As if the Taliban invented this shit and as if America wasn't doing shit like this before the Taliban existed. So that's the one thing that bugs me is not the comparisons to the Taliban because they're the same. It's pretending that they're taking their cues from the Taliban or they're acting just like the Taliban. No, they're acting just like Americans. This is what this happens. This has been happening in this country from day one. And it like you said, I don't know where we're going either because you would think by

fucking God, but in 2023, we wouldn't have to deal with the shit anymore. And women, I mean, in particular, wouldn't have to deal with this shit anymore. But here we are. And every day, it's still there. Yes, it's like every single day. And just, you know, to remind folks, there is a revolution continuing to unfold in Iran. Because this is how it started. This is how the Islamic State took over.

And you want to demonize the Islamic State in this country and not look at what the fucking white Christian nationalists are doing in America. Don't look abroad and point to other. countries and say, how could they possibly when we have overturned abortion and now we're telling women in this country to cover up, to be more modest? What the fuck? Yeah, and these are, of course, the same people who will scream and yell about how Muslims want to bring Sharia law to America. It's like, no, you're doing that on your own. You don't have to worry about people coming in here and doing that in the name of their religion because you're doing it in the name of your religion here. Mm-hmm. Come on. Okay. I could do this all day with this entire

state and these people, Andy, but then I would lose my voice and my mind. Yes. So who is your fuck that guy? So my fuck that guy is also a group of people. It's in a different state. It's in the state of Florida, which is a state we don't talk about that much on this podcast, I feel like. So up in Duval County, which I believe, I only know this from my football knowledge, is where

Jacksonville is. There was a Tony nominated play called Indecent, written by a woman named Paula Vogel. And this play itself tells the story of a play that was written in 1906 by a guy named Sholam Ash. The play was called God of Vengeance. It was a Yiddish play. And it had to do with the daughter of a brothel owner falling in love with one of her dad's prostitutes. And the play opened on Broadway in 1923 and everyone involved, the cast, and I believe the producers, were arrested on obscenity charges and shut down the play.

This was in 1906. So in 2015, Paul of... Vogel wrote a play about this play called Indecent. And guess what? Florida High School, performing arts high school, has canceled the production of Indecent, as if it's not bad enough that we walk around saying those who forget history are condemned to repeat it, they're acting it out right in front of us. Again, it's, as we said, it's nothing ever changes in this country. A play that was written over 100 years ago, people get arrested and the play is banned. and then in the 21st century, someone writes a play about what happened then, and that play

is banned. And it's just, again, this shit just will not stop. And unbelievably, I guess the week that this production of Indecent would have opened was the 100 year anniversary of God of vengeance being shut down. It's unbelievable to me that 100 years later, the same shit is being fought and lost. And that's the scary part is the lost part. Like there's always going to be the people who want to ban shit. Mm-hmm.

And I feel like a fool because for a while there, I thought, well, we kind of took care of those people. And now they just, they can do their little protests, but the country has pretty much told them, fuck you, it's a 21st century. And boy, was I wrong, because apparently it's not the 21st century. And so my firm belief is that we should all say, already fuck those guys to this Florida high school. And just, you know, the entire state of Florida run by Satan. Good one. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal.

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