The David Pakman Show - 2/16/23: Nikki Haley already crumbling as anti-trans bills sweep country

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Neil Vallelly, Lecturer in Sociology and Rutherford Foundation Research Fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and author of the book "Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness" joins David to discuss neoliberalism, capitalism, utilitarianism, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3lKUu7O -- Anti-transgender bills sweep the nation, becoming the latest moral panic among conservatives -- 2024 Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley appears on Sean Hannity's Fox News show and is unable or unwilling to cite a single policy difference with her opponent, failed former President Donald Trump -- 2024 Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley's first campaign event goes bad quickly, even involving radical right wing Pastor John Hagee -- 2024 Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley hilariously demands a cognitive test for politicians age 75 and over, and Donald Trump happens to be 76 years old -- Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is now copying how Donald Trump says "China" -- Failed former President Donald Trump slams his 2024 Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley in a strange campaign email -- An increasingly desperate Donald Trump claims he only hired Nikki Haley as Ambassador to the United Nations in order to help South Carolinians by getting her out of her Governorship -- Arizona Republican State Senator Wendy Rodgers claims that Kari Lake will soon be instated a governor -- Voicemail caller asks David how he celebrates Christmas, despite the fact that he is Jewish -- On the Bonus Show: Sex-trafficking investigation into Matt Gaetz dropped, new childhood obesity guidance raises worries over eating disorder risk, Lauren Boebert has a 2024 challenger, much more... 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com 🍎 Little Spoon: Use code PAKMAN50OFF for 50% OFF at https://littlespoon.com 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Anti transgender bills are sweeping the country. Right wingers are obsessed. This is what they call a culture war. We call it a campaign of persecution and a move in the continued authoritarian direction that these right wingers have gone in for some time. But it is anti transgender sentiment that is now fueling much of what we are seeing among cultural right wingers. I don't even want to call them cultural conservatives. Cultural conservatism might be like, oh, I don't know. My wife makes dinner four out of seven weeks, four to seven days of the week or whatever. This is not cultural conservatism. This is something very, very different. And Vice has a report on new data released by the trans legislation tracker. There are it's February. There are already twice as many anti trans bills making their way through state legislatures

as what we saw in twenty twenty two. And in fact, this legislative session that started on January 1st, this calendar year of legislation has seen more than 350 anti-trans bills introduced in 36 states compared with 170 in all of 2022. We are six weeks into the year. So last year was a record breaking year. And this year is already doubling it. And only six out of 52 weeks through the year, anti-trans bills are being proposed at the state level. We are seeing them at the national level. We are seeing municipalities push this stuff. And this includes everything from proposed legislation in Wyoming, which would equate

gender affirming care to child abuse, despite the fact that every serious medical authority has said, oh, no, no, no. Gender affirming care is good. It improves outcomes and well-being. We have seen bills that just try to narrow and codify biological definitions for man and woman. And so far, three different states, we've seen this in Tennessee, we see it in South Dakota, we see it in Utah, have already passed bans on gender affirming care. The South Dakota bill that was passed into law has an element in it which can force trans youth to detransition, at least as far as the state is concerned. In Oklahoma, there's a proposal for a bill which would ban gender affirming care. If you're under 26, there was a bill attempted in North Dakota, but it

failed, which would fine teachers if they use the pronouns preferred by the trans person. Trans person says, you know, I go by she even though I was born biologically male teacher says, OK, I'll do that. Teacher can get fined based on the bill that fortunately failed in North Dakota. So this is a very serious issue. And this is a serious issue, even if you are someone in my audience. And I know that there are some of you who aren't yet really totally sure where you land on all aspects of what's going on in the trans community. And let me tell you, you can say, as I do, we still got to figure out when it comes to some sports, when we're talking about trans women, really. Because remember, even the sports issue, you've got all trans issues.

And then within that, you have issues related to sports. And then within that, you have issues related to sports. And then within that, you have issues related to trans women in sports. And then within that, it's only some sports. Nobody's getting all shaken up about, oh, you know what? There's a trans woman who wants to play with the women in chess. I've not heard anybody bring that issue up. It's some sports, only trans women. OK, so this is a very, very narrow issue. You can take the position that you're not yet sure how that should be dealt with. That's totally fine, while still recognizing that the ninety nine percent of all of this legislation that's being proposed is dangerous and it's the new scapegoat. As we

talked about, you know, I did an interview for some of our other platforms with a drag performer earlier this week, which we're going to be publishing for you soon. And in that interview, we talk about how the tropes have shifted from many of the ones used against gay men 15 or so years ago when I started interviewing some of the homophobes. They've shifted a lot of the same stuff over to trans people. And it's, oh, you know, sexual assault and pedophilia bathrooms. You've got to be worried about the bathrooms. This is just shifting the hate to target trans people and their families. And one of the things that we're seeing. And it's horrible that this is happening is in some states,

Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, we are seeing families with trans kids moving, moving out, moving out of the states altogether. And this is potentially going to go in a very, very dark direction. And one of the reasons that these bills are dangerous is that they really push the boundaries of demonizing trans people by codifying that this is a group that's a problem. We need to pass special laws because this group is so problematic and this is going to expand. And we know it's going to expand because it is expanding. It used to be just about bathrooms. Now it's about what are teachers allowed to say if they don't want

to get fined? It's about so many things beyond that. So I'm putting it on your radar. This is all to fix problems that really don't exist. The issue of, oh, people will pretend to be trans to go into bathrooms to spy on people in stalls. It's not happening. It's not happening. And that's against the law, no matter what your gender identity is. And it is not an issue. It just doesn't exist. And then lastly, this anti-trans group, it's not a group in the collective anti-trans movement also wants many of us to believe that gender affirming care is harmful. But there is extensive research from medical governing bodies, the American Medical Association, American Psychological, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics.

They have endorsed gender affirming care even for minors. When you go through the correct protocol now, the right will say they're chopping off the breasts of prepubescent women. Well, they're not women and they don't have breasts if they're prepubescent and it's really not happening. And when push comes to shove, they really struggle to present any data that suggests that this is an epidemic. But it doesn't matter. It's about what can you trick people into believing. So we're going to follow it extraordinarily closely. And it is just as scary as it sounds. Not exactly small government.

Nikki Haley crumbles like a pumice stone. Is that a good analogy? I don't know. Metaphor. She was asked three times by Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity. Can you tell me how you differ with Donald Trump on policy? And she was either unable to or unwilling to do that. This is amazing to see. Let's get right into it. I told you based on her campaign launch video on Tuesday that Nikki Haley seems to be making the argument. I'm like Trump, but younger and a woman, which, by the way, is identity politics, which we'll talk about later. But it really seems like she's unwilling or unable to draw any policy distinctions. Let's take a look at this.

If you had to delineate where, say, you and President Trump differ on issues, where would you start? Well, first, let's say in reference to what be, you know, the thought of me getting into the race makes the liberals heads explode. And so I welcome that because it shows we're doing something right. Well, but you're not needing to convince any liberals right now. You actually need to convince Republican voters because you're in a primary, Nikki. You know, when it comes to what we're looking at now, listen to the first 20 minutes of your show. Look at everything that's wrong in this country and tell me we don't need new leadership. But the difference is we need new generational leadership. OK, so that's so far all we have is we need

a different generation of people. Trump, 76. Nikki Haley is, I don't know, at least 25 years younger than that, I would guess. And so so so far, the argument is we just need someone younger. We have to leave the status quo. We have to leave this chaos behind and we've got to start talking about the future. You need a Washington outsider that's going to come in and say, yes, I understand that families are having to pay more to make their grocery bill. I understand that they are worried about their children who may never get back from what they lost during covid. I understand the fact that when someone's factory leaves town, he's worried that his future went with it.

So this is verbatim stuff. Trump says so far, not a single policy difference. Understand that you should not have Americans looking up at the sky and seeing a Chinese spy balloon looking back at them. This is insanity. And what we need. Remember, she's running against Trump right now. Not Joe Biden or a lot of changes.

First of all, we've got too many politicians in D.C. that are past their prime. We have to have. So again, just there's too many old people that's in Congress. We need to see competency tests for any elected official over the age of 75. We'll get back to that, by the way. That's interesting. We've got to stop the spending addiction that is happening, that is causing inflation to go up. And we need to start realizing that we don't need our politicians getting on TV and talking. We need the people in D.C. doing and we need to spark a fire up under them. And that's what I'm willing to do. And if you are tired of losing because we've lost

the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. We're doing something wrong. If you're tired of losing, then join me. I know you all notice this, but there is not a single policy difference cited there with Donald Trump. This continued. Sean Hannity tried it again. Let me go back to my original question, though, because, yeah, which you didn't answer, by the way, anybody that is looking or seeking a nomination, it's you're going to be

comparing and contrasting your policy positions, your views, what direction you want to take the country with your competitors. Right now, there's there's former President Trump is the only other candidate for the nomination. We expect many others, maybe even Mike Pompeo, who was on earlier in the program today. Where do you see if you see policy differences beyond what you mentioned, which are generational differences? What's what specific policy areas would you would you say part with Donald Trump? Now, by the way, good job by Sean Hannity. Right. Well, good job, because Hannity has already decided he supports Trump. It's Trump's friend. So he's actually doing like what we might call a real interview. What I am saying is I don't kick sideways. I'm kicking forward. Joe Biden is the president.

He's the one I'm running against. OK, that's code for I'm not going to criticize Republicans. I'm going to criticize Joe Biden. She's not running against Joe Biden, that's code for I'm not going to criticize Republicans. I'm going to criticize Joe Biden. She's not running against Joe Biden in order to run against Joe Biden. She has to defeat Trump. And what I'm saying is you don't have to be 80 years old to be president. We don't need to have these same people going back again. We need something new. We need a new generation of fighters.

We need people that understand whether you're American, your average American is coming from and we shouldn't be afraid to fight for that. And that's what I'm willing to do. I'm not going to kick sideways. I don't. Speaker 1 I'm not going to kick sideways. She's not going to criticize other people that she is running against and who she has to argue she is a better choice than that's going to be very tough to win then. Now, as interesting as this is, their voters don't care about policy, so it might not. You know, they sort of are having the last laugh in the sense that we look at this and we go, she's not articulating a single policy difference to Trump. I don't know that she has to to win a

Republican nomination. That's the sort of sad thing. She maybe just does have to say the stuff that she's saying. I don't know. Hannity tried once more to take the country with your competitors. Right now, there's there's former President Trump is the only other candidate for the nomination. We expect many others, maybe even Mike Pompeo. OK, and so I'm realizing that that's the clip we actually already looked at. OK, so multiple attempts there. And she doesn't draw any policy distinctions.

This was obvious from the campaign launch video. The campaign launch video contained no policy distinctions and just her saying it's time for a new generation. This is apparently what she's going to run on, plus identity politics, which we will talk about a little bit later on. These clips, if you want to check them out, are found on our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show and also the David Pakman show. Now in Spanish, you can find the Spanish YouTube channel at David Pakman dot com slash Spanish. It's a new year. Many of us are trying to make new positive changes. Here's something really simple that could be a game changer. Our sponsor, Athletic Greens. Every day I take a scoop

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Just a scoop of AG1. I love the travel packs, which let me take AG1 wherever I go. I have the big pack of AG1 at home. And when you go to athleticgreens.com slash Pacman, you'll get five free travel packs plus a free year supply of vitamin D, which I use during the winter. That's athleticgreens.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Imagine for a second that you try logging into your email account only to find that your password was changed an hour ago, and then you get notifications of activity from your

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restrict certain apps, set screen time limits, set focus times when you need them off of devices. Go to aura.com slash Pacman to try it free for seven days. Your login credentials might already be floating around out there and aura will tell you instantly for free. That's a u r a dot com slash Pacman to try aura for free. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's talk a little bit more about just a wacky first 48 hours of 2024 presidential campaign for former ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Really a very bad first couple of days. Day one of her campaign videos surface wherein Nikki Haley defends the Confederate flag and wrongly claims that states can just choose to secede from the United States. Day two, which was yesterday,

Nikki Haley holds her first campaign event and plays the exact same type of identity politics that Republicans claim to be against. I'm a woman. I'm a minority. I thought Republicans told us identity politics is bad or is it only bad when the left does it here? She invokes her own uniqueness racially to claim the country's not racist, which is a really popular line among Republicans. In doing so, not only does she play identity politics, she kind of seems to prove the country might be racist. Take a listen to this. Joe and Kamala even say America's racist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Speaker 5 The American people know better. My immigrant parents know better.

And take it from me, the first minority female governor in history. America is not a racist country. You know, I'm not sure. First of all, overt identity politics, just the exact type of identity politics that they attack all the time. Let's put the hypocrisy aside for a second. Hypocrisy knows no bounds at this point with these people. I don't know that when you say we elected the first minority woman governor in 2011,

that it's the strongest evidence that the U.S. at least wasn't a racist country. It seems like a little bit late in the game to be able to make that case. By the time that the country was hundreds of years old, we finally elected the first minority female governor, which proves there's no race problem in the United States or gender problem. No woman president ever. First woman VP, not until 2020. These are not particularly compelling data points, to be perfectly honest with you. Nikki Haley continuing to play the same identity politics that she says is bad when other people do it, saying, may the best woman win. I will simply say this. May the best woman win.

Pretty clever line, guys. The crowd not exactly reflecting and saying, wait a second, I thought we were supposed to be against that type of identity, Paul. No, the crowd simply cheers. One other interesting note, she kicked off this event with a prayer from extremist pastor John Hagee. I'm not even going to waste your time with a clip, but I will briefly mention that John Hagee runs the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, extremist lunatic, long history of saying crazy stuff. He said Hitler was sent by God to usher in the state of Israel. He said Hitler was a half breed Jew. He called the Catholic Church the great whore. He has said insane things about abortion and 9-11, all these crazy things.

And Nikki Haley started this off by saying, I still want to be Pastor Hagee when I grow up. I start I've got to give a shout out to the people who took the podium. But by the way, plagued with audio issues, the entire event for me to Pastor Hagee. I still say I want to be you when I grow up. Thank you. Beautiful and very, very muted clapping at that moment. Everything about this event was pathetic, humiliating and hypocritical. But there was one really funny moment from this event, which I want to actually devote a little bit of time to during yesterday's pathetic campaign launch rally for Nikki Haley's 2024 Republican primary run. She did say one thing

that's really funny, which is she demanded a cognitive test for any candidate that's over 75 years old. It just so happens that Donald Trump is 76 years old now. I think she's only talking about this overtly when it comes to Joe Biden. But it's a pretty interesting way to also draw a distinction with the guy she's running against in the primary. Take a listen to this. We'll have term limits for Congress. And mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old. Now, I love this because obviously the big meaning of it is Joe Biden is 80 and the right loves to talk about that.

And one of the main arguments that Nikki Haley is making in this just nascent primary campaign is that she's younger, that she is from a different generation. But we all, of course, know that Trump's brain has glitched very badly over the last six years. And there are real questions about Trump and cognitive tests as well. And Trump would also be subject to one. So I believe that although the. Of official meaning of this cognitive testing is a signal about Biden, you all know that Nikki Haley is also using it to talk about Trump. I don't know whether the people in her audience realize that, which makes it particularly funny.

Now, the fact remains that she can talk about cognitive tests all she wants and whether 80 year old Biden or 76 year old Trump, who would be 82 and 78 at the time of the next inauguration, I think roughly she can talk about that all she wants. She's still drawn absolutely no policy distinction from Donald Trump. And in order to face Joe Biden, she first needs to win the Republican primary. And at this point in time, it's not clear what her argument is for why anybody should vote for her other than I'm younger than Trump. Maybe that resonates with the Republican Party at this point. I don't know.

It's going to be a real question. My guess is that by Monday, maybe by Tuesday, we will have some polling in the Republican primary. that is from after Nikki Haley's announcement. She went in polling three percent as a non-candidate. We'll see where she ends up Monday, Tuesday. Speaking of non-candidates, Ron DeSantis from Florida. We know that he's adopted a lot of Donald Trump's mannerisms and speaking, including this accordion hands thing that Donald Trump does very often. He also now seems to be copying how Donald Trump says China. This is like really, really weird. China. Yeah. There's a video that was much publicized yesterday of Ron DeSantis taking questions at a digital Bill of Rights event, And he seems to be copying Trump's pronunciation of

China. Take a listen to this. Speaker 4 So that's that's there. You also have the role of China in. Speaker 1 Oh, what a weird what a weird society we're in. Let's let's take it from the top. Speaker 4 So that's that's there. You also have the role of China in tech with things like like tick tock. And this is something there. If you look at the tick tock that they use in China, China, it's much different than what they're trying to do in the United States with China. It's all China. By the way, it's really funny hearing Santus talk about technology to Santus, talk about technology and foreign policy. He sounds genuinely clueless,

very wholesome, patriotic in the United States. They're trying to inject as much garbage into this as possible. Yeah. Isn't that bizarre? Like this is not the biggest issue, but it is very strange. Very, very strange. And Trump has a long history of saying China in a really odd way. Let's say China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China. So anyway, I'm thinking that this might be really funny until we realize it kind of isn't and the world is crumbling again. But for the time being, this is an insane Republican primary. It hasn't even really started. And it's crazy. Donald Trump already attacking Ron DeSantis slash Meatball Ron going after Nikki Haley in new ways, which we will talk

about a little bit later. We have Ron DeSantis mirroring Trump, but not yet announcing, even though he's leading Trump in some polls while not being a candidate. Nikki Haley announces early she's only running against Trump right now, and yet she can draw not a single distinction between herself and Donald Trump. It's February, not of 2024, of 2023. So this is going to be a bonkers primary. And if nothing else, I'm glad you'll all be here with me to observe it all. We will have these clips that I played for you on our Instagram. You can find that by searching Instagram for David Pakman show. We're going to take a very quick break. Neil Vallely will join me after the break. Maybe not a name, you know, but a guest requested by many of our viewers and listeners.

It will be a fascinating conversation. And then we'll be back with more of the events of the last 24 hours. We'll listen to a voicemail or two. Much taking place today on the show. Glad you're with us. One of our sponsors today is Fume. Fume is on a mission to accelerate humanity's breakup from the bad habits that consume far too many of us, including ones that harm our health. Fume is a natural diffusive device that uses plants and behavioral science to trade out your negative habit for a positive one. Fume is not a vape. It's a non-electronic device designed to transform your negative habits instead of pods filled with potentially harmful chemicals like a vape. Fume uses cores infused with plants like peppermint

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You can find the info in the podcast notes. It's great to be joined on the program today by Neil Vallely, who is a lecturer in sociology and Rutherford Foundation research fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand. I hope Otago is the right pronunciation, Neil. The latest book is Futilitarianism, Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness. I really appreciate your time today. Thanks, David. Thanks for having me.

So maybe to start with, Futilitarianism, I think many of us could intuit we're talking about there is something futile about the way we've organized much of our economies and the world and society and culture. But what what did you what do you mean by the term? Speaker 5 Yes, about the term, it really came to me as in the process of writing the book. The book initially started out of a series of protests against cuts to humanities division at my university. And I originally started thinking about, it was really about the kind of futility or the uselessness of the

humanities within the kind of contemporary university structure, the way that it's constructed as useless, that if you do humanities or arts, you can get a job, so on and so forth. But then I started, the more I looked into that, the more I started to realise that this idea of uselessness, of utility, kind of spread out much further into kind of everyday life in the 21st century. So where I got to a few utilitarianism basically is many of many people might have heard the word utilitarianism and on a very basic level utilitarianism is that you maximize utility for the greatest good of the greatest number. Essentially so each individual, every decision they make they maximize their

own utility and this should lead to a kind of majority happiness yeah and basically my argument for utilitarianism is that we've got to a point now where each individual is trying to maximize their utility and that might be by getting the education um getting further training, getting into debt to start a business or so on and so forth. But in doing so, it actually leads to the greatest unhappiness of the greatest number because we're entirely individualized, atomized. So it's a kind of inversion of the utilitarian code. And this is the state that I feel like we now live in, that the more we maximize utility,

the more it leads to the kind of deconstruction of the common common good. There is an inevitable sort of interplay here between the concept of utilitarianism, the capitalist systems that to differing degrees, most modern what we might call Western countries, although the term Western is maybe not the right one. Neoliberalism as well. It's hard to get out of including the sort of media culture and the way in which most people are learning about the world, so to speak.

All of these things seem completely interrelated. And maybe one of the things that has changed or maybe has become evident is that the preferences and path that one increasingly takes is less self-directed than we might imagine and really more prescribed by all of those other systems that I mentioned. Yeah, that's a really interesting point, actually. And it's the kind of one of the great kind of contradictions of the kind of neoliberal period is that everything is about, you know, personal responsibility, self-care, picking yourself up by the bootstraps and making the most of your own life and yet as you make the point is that actually the decisions that we're making supposedly as kind of free individuals are actually prescribed to us that there's a certain structure in place that forces us towards certain decisions so for instance as a small example I talked about the university at the start there is that the way that universities

are constructed particularly across the you know the global north is is towards kind of getting a degree that can get you a job so if that's kind of rhetoric that comes out from you know kind of public discourse from media and so on so forth most most individuals are then looking at university through that lens and so they make decisions on what they study based on you know can i get a job at the end of this that seems on the surface like an individual decision right and yet it's entirely prescribed within this kind of structure um and i think this is an effect of neoliberalism and i think more recent studies of neoliberalism have started to tease this out and initial studies of neoliberalism were often about the kind of, you know,

it was all about the kind of free market, the rollback of the state. Individuals were kind of free to do whatever they wanted, free to operate how they liked in the market. But more and more we've come to realize there's some brilliant studies of neoliberalism is that actually neoliberalism isn't about the rollback of the state. It's about a very different form of state intervention and the role of the state has become to encase the market to protect the market from democratic decision making and the the early neoliberal thinkers often talked about this um at the walter littman colloquium in 1938 where

the kind of first big meeting of the neoliberal intellectuals in Europe. And they talked about the liberal thinkers of the 19th century, as opposed to a kind of new liberalism, a neoliberalism. And for the 19th century, laissez-faire kind of free market liberals, they used the analogy of a road.

And they said, if there are no rules on the road essentially people will just keep driving into each other they'll crash and so on and so forth so what they they saw neoliberalism as a kind of highway code almost that you set the rules of the road and people can drive when people are driving they're driving to where they want to go they're seemingly making individualized decisions but there's this over um this overarching structure that guides the way that they drive. And that's how they envisage the market economy in a neoliberal society. It's not everyone go for their life, do whatever you want.

It's that there's this overall structure that guides people in a certain way. But people still feel like they're making individualized decisions. But it's actually guided by a certain method, a certain structure. When in the book you write about the useless and repetitive behaviors that can become a trap of neoliberalism, absent any context, what I would imagine there would be one sort of story that fits that is you go to school to get the job and then you take out debt to get the car and the house and the credit card and you get a slight raise. So you take on a little bit more debt and it's sort of like this endless rinse repeat. And

by the way, you're basically buying the stuff that media messages tell you you want or you should want or whatever the case may be. Is that one of the mechanisms that you're talking about? And what else did you mean by it? Yeah, very much so. So that's certainly a good example. And I, you know, I work with with lots of students who are kind of increasingly wondering what is the point of what I'm doing here? You know, they look at their, for instance, their parents generation and we might have gone to university particularly say here in New Zealand they would have gone to university um for free and also would have been given a you know a scholarship so they would have been paid essentially to go to university and now these these students are coming out they're paying

massive fees to go to universities they're all getting into debt to do so. And then they come out the other end in debt to a kind of depleted job market, where a house, the house market is absolutely crazy. You know, in New Zealand, the average cost of the house at the moment is a million dollars. So, you know, kids coming out with that much debt are not going to be able to afford to buy houses. So there's this kind of sense that all the things that we're supposed to do, all the things that we've been kind of told will lead to a kind of good future for us are suddenly crumbling. You know, if you go to university and get a degree, you're supposed to come out and get a steady job and be able to kind of live,

you know, be able to get a house, be able to do all the things that we associate, you know, in the kind of live, you know, be able to get a house, be able to do all the things that we associate, you know, in the kind of Western or global, the global North, as kind of a good life. Suddenly none of these things are available. And so many people are in debt and they get in more debt and so on and so forth. And it's this kind of endless cycle.

And yet we're completely trapped in doing the same things over and over again. There are no way, it seems like there's very little few ways to get out of of that trap of thinking this is what i have to do i have to go to university or i have to get through further training i have to do so on and so forth to live this good life in the future and the more we do it the more things like our collective economic and social conditions get worse and And that's the trap I call in the book, the utilitarian condition. We get stuck in this kind of endless trap. And there really aren't.

I mean, genuinely, there aren't that many ways to completely get out of that. Right. I mean, when we think about them, there's there's the idea of the total off grid life where you essentially leave, leave modern society as the case may be. You have to figure out a way to meet your basic needs and to really do that without touching the standard kind of corners of the economy that you're talking about. It's extraordinarily difficult. Another one would be, well, you do it in a hyper driveway for a short period of time such that you make enough money that then you could exit in a sort of different way.

I don't I mean, it's it's genuinely quite difficult to not be part of it at all. Yeah, yeah, very much so. And, you know, in the introduction to the book, I make a distinction between futility and nihilism. And I think they're like they're the example you used of, you know, going off grid and so on and so forth it's a sense that you're right like there are a few options the only options we have are to try and escape from it a very few people can yeah you might be able to move off grid but then you're kind of outside of society on that level you can't you can't influence you can't um shape the way the world runs you just and that to me is a form of kind of almost like a passive nihilism.

It's like, I'm accepting that this world that we constructed is meaningless and I'm going to sit outside of it. Yes. And then there's more kind of active forms of nihilism. Like the example you use is that you go hard, you try and invent something, you do and so forth. But even entrepreneurs, I guess, like the kind of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are trying to exit from contemporary capitalism. They're trying to get beyond the kind of mundane kind of existence that the majority of people have to live in.

There's two forms of exit there, but those exits don't actually do anything about changing the kind of fundamentals of that society that we're mostly stuck in. but those exits don't actually do anything about changing the kind of fundamentals of all that society that we're mostly stuck in and the reality is for the vast majority of us no matter what kind of situation when we have to we only have the kind of structures of society that are available to us and we have to somehow make the best of that and it seems like that's getting harder and harder and harder and there is of course a kind of generational politics in that you know we're increasingly

we're seeing that a kind of new class politics emerged in the 21st century of basically people that own property and particularly housing and people that don't and that often falls in generational lines and for a younger and this book often often I do say in the introduction of this book is a kind of is a kind of recu recu for a sort of doomed youth in many ways. It's for it's for a kind of younger generation of how individuals can choose a different path. But then there's another question of how can society be changed such that the default path is what changes? And it seems I mean, are there any actions that can accomplish both or is it really you have to decide I'm going to be within it completely but try to change it or I will try to exit personally?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I feel like the former is our only real option. And so I make a kind of a call in the book that we need to turn essentially to one another, that actually, especially on the left, you know, post 1989, post the fall of the Soviet Union, I, the kind of, there's been a kind been an inherent sort of distrust on the left of collectiveness, of collectivity. I think particularly probably up until the 2008 crisis, and I think since then we've seen the return of, you know, particularly in the US or the UK, parts of Europe of kind of democratic socialism, the idea of a kind of collective subject, of a collective political subject. And then in the conclusion of the book I construct

a kind of, I guess it's a theoretical idea of this collective subject and I call it the futilitarian. And it's a kind of risk for a development of the precariat. So the precariat describes a whole group of people who exist in kind of precarious lives, whether that's their working conditions or even just their living conditions. And there's often, these people aren't, you know, like the traditional idea of a union, which I think is also extremely important,

and there is obviously a resurgence of a union. But's often you know people at work in the same conditions and they share the same lives in many ways certainly the same working life the precariat is actually a more disparate collective subject it can be people working in uber drivers but can also include you know casual lecturers at university people who who don't who are living in kind of precarious conditions and for me the futility area is a kind of extension of that it includes the people who live in precarious lives or a precarious situation but also so many of us who actually on the surface look like we're in quite secure conditions still experience this deep sense of futility in what we're doing and i feel like actually this shared experience of futility across different scopes of

social life can actually be the thing that can if we recognize it in one another we can use it as a way to to build a kind of political a collective political subject that can actually confront um the kind of the way the world works if if if we accept if we see um our if we see futility in one another and we go actually i experience this form of futility and of course some people experience much more extreme forms of futility than others in the same way that some people experience much more extreme forms of precariousness but that doesn't necessarily mean we can't somehow recognize it in one another and try and realize and i think part of the problem with contemporary capitalism and particularly its neoliberal mutation is that we're we're expected

to see everything as a reflection of our failures essentially so anything that doesn't work anything we end up in debt we we can't get a job so it's because we we in some way are broken we somehow haven't um haven't done the right thing and what i really want what i'm kind of pleading really in the book is to see that actually these experiences of futility are not personal defects. They're completely logical experiences of the kind of capitalist system in which in which we live today. The book is fascinating and slightly depressing, but only in the way that gets you to really think about things. The book is Futilitarianism, Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness. We've been speaking with the book's author, Neil Vallely, lecturer in sociology and Rutherford Foundation research fellow at the University of Otago,

New Zealand. Really appreciate your time and your insights today. Well, thanks so much, David. One of our sponsors is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting smoke and vape oils in your lungs? Zypix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zypix toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zipix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zipix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes. They might be able to help you, too.

If you're a smoker or a vapor, give ZipX toothpicks a try. Your lungs will thank you. Go to ZipX toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPIX toothpicks dot com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. So almost immediately after Nikki Haley's announcement that she's running for president through the Republican nomination in 2024, the Trump campaign put out a confusing and bizarre campaign email attacking Nikki Haley. And what's really fascinating about this email, which we'll look at in a moment, is it attacks Nikki Haley for being too much of a leftist, but also for being too extreme on the right.

It is as confusing as and bizarre as everything we have come to expect and see from the Trump campaign. Take a look at this. So the first lines are first. It's called the real Nikki Haley. First of all, Trump's going to tell you who the real Nikki Haley is. OK, it starts by saying Hillary Clinton is an inspiration to Nikki Haley. In a 2012 interview with The New York Times, Nikki Haley said the reason I actually ran for office is because of Hillary Clinton. So here it wants to tag Nikki Haley. It wants to trash Nikki Haley by saying she's really not a conservative because she was inspired by Hillary Clinton. Of course, it ignores the uncontroversial reality that you could disagree

with Hillary Clinton's politics, but see Hillary Clinton's success as an elected official and public servant as someone who is a woman as inspirational. That's not super controversial, but she's not really on the right. She's on the left because she was inspired by Hillary. And then in the next sentence, Trump slams Nikki Haley for supporting Paul Ryan's plan for entitlement reform, which threatened Medicare and Social Security, saying, quote, Haley praised Ryan's Medicare proposal at the time and said lawmakers should examine Medicare and Social Security spending to address federal debt. Then quoting

Nikki Haley herself from 2010, saying what they need to be doing is looking at entitlements. Look at Social Security. Look at Medicaid. Look at Medicare. Look at these things. Let's go to the heart of what is causing government to grow and tackle that. They're playing that Nikki Haley is too extreme in what she wants to cut and in the government spending she wants to reduce, which is normally an attack that the left makes on the right. So Haley's a leftist and Haley is too far right. It's not coherent. But in the defense of Trump, Haley's campaign isn't very coherent so far. And Trump's attacks on her are also not coherent. But Nikki Haley at some point might want to articulate what policy is she actually running on. Now, I say she might want

to articulate it because, as I said earlier in the program, it's not clear that she needs any policy in order to win a Republican primary. Trump had some policy statements in 2016. Most of them we all knew were never going to be achieved. He wasn't going to replace Obamacare and he wasn't going to build a wall that Mexico was going to pay for and he wasn't going to do all the things he claimed. It didn't really matter. It's not clear that these Republicans care about policy enough to hold it against Nikki Haley. But at a certain point, she'll have to come up with something that at least she can put on her Web site. And that hasn't happened yet. It's all incoherent. And this is exactly what I would expect much more of in this Republican primary, continuing his attack on Nikki Haley. I now want to highlight for you a truly hilarious and also completely unbelievable and kind of self-owning

statement that Donald Trump made about Nikki Haley. Let me back it up. Nikki Haley worked for Donald Trump's administration. And what I mean by that is Donald Trump made Nikki Haley ambassador to the United Nations for the United States. And Trump has a long history of saying, I hire the best people that I that's one of the things I do. I hire the absolute best people. It was a joke. Trump hired some of the worst people and regularly had to fire them and claim that they were actually bad people. And he was somehow duped or they were good, but then became bad. Or, you know, he's had to explain how did you hire all these bad people? Fine. So one of the issues here is how is Trump going to attack Nikki Haley, given that Trump was positive enough about Nikki Haley to hire her and make her part of his administration? Well, Trump's new line, which

he is talking about, of course, on his platform, Truth Social Central is he hired her to be an ambassador to help the people of South Carolina by getting her out of South Carolina. This is I mean, it's truly amazing stuff. Trump posting to Truth Social, quote, The greatest thing Nikki Haley did for our country and the great state of South Carolina was accepting the position of United Nations ambassador so that the incredible then lieutenant governor, Henry McMaster, could be the governor of South Carolina, where he has done an absolutely fantastic job. That was a big reason why I appointed Nikki to the position. It was a favor to the people I love in South Carolina. This is, of course, absurd gaslighting. Think about what Trump wants you to believe he thought

of. Trump was sitting there when he became president thinking to himself, OK, let's see. Nikki Haley is a terrible governor. I want to help the people of South Carolina. So the way I'm going to help the people of South Carolina is I'm going to make Nikki Haley ambassador, even though she's a terrible elected official, just to get her out of South Carolina in order to help that state by making Henry McMaster the governor. This is idiocy. Nobody would believe that this is what Donald Trump did. But the real story here is it's only February of the year before the election. It's not February 2024. And it's getting this insane. It's February 2023. And it's already completely bonkers and insane. This is going to get way crazier and just wait until more people get into this race. There is a very sick woman in Arizona. Now,

not not Carrie Lake, not Carrie Lake. I'm talking about state Senator Wendy Rogers. State Senator Wendy Rogers, 48 hours ago, said Carrie Lake might still be instated the governor of Arizona. Now, I want you to answer honestly. Really tell me. Do you believe Wendy Rogers believes any of what she's saying or does she have to keep saying this stuff because she started saying it and it would be embarrassing to her to have to admit that she was wrong. Take a listen to what she had to say. Remember, Carrie Lake ran for governor in Arizona. She lost in that her opponent, Katie Hobbs, got more votes. Katie Hobbs is now the governor of Arizona. Even if for whatever reason, Katie Hobbs resigned or died or whatever, it would actually be

the secretary of state of Arizona that becomes governor. Arizona doesn't currently have a position lieutenant governor, although they are creating it starting in a couple of years. But here is what Wendy Rogers said. And I get asked this all the time, especially up to you, my district on various rural radio stations. Senator Rogers, the radio stations must be so rural that the people don't understand

how government works. You represent four other counties other than Maricopa County. What hope do you have of getting any of this legislation passed? And my answer is twofold. Number one, I was voted in by 27 percentage points to do the very thing that I'm doing, which is represent my constituents and make sure that my voters were not disenfranchised. And number two, they weren't. You never know everything that will happen in terms of Carrie Lake being instated as governor. And I get asked this. Yeah. Also,

I'm waiting to see if maybe the Eagles actually won the Super Bowl on Sunday. You never know. You know what I mean? In a couple of months or maybe in a year, we might learn that it was actually the Eagles who won, which is really, really wild. My my headphone has just popped out of my ear and it's going to be hard to hear the following clip if I don't put it back in. There we go. So do you think she believes this? Do you think Wendy Rogers believes this? Or do you think it's part of the grift? Now, here's a reminder. The very same Wendy Rogers a couple of months ago or when was it? December, I guess. December. She claimed that Carrie Lake was the governor elect of Arizona. She wasn't. And we had the same question then. Does she believe

this problem? And we need to get to the bottom of all of this. And I just telling you, we're not having it anymore. We're done. As Kerry said. As Kerry said, you're messing with the wrong people. Right. Is Kerry Lake the governor elect of Arizona? Yes. Is there any doubt in your mind? OK, so just so you know, there's no lieutenant governor in Arizona. The secretary of state is next in line if anything should happen to the governor. Death, resignation, impeachment, whatever. Starting in twenty twenty seven, the lieutenant governor is going to become the would become the governor upon the death, resignation or removal from office of the governor of Arizona. And then it would presumably go to the secretary of state. So who thinks that Wendy Rogers genuinely believes that any moment you

might see the instatement of Carrie Lake as governor of Arizona and who believes that Wendy Rogers knows she's lying. But this is just the nonsense that she feels she has to say for whatever reason. Let me know in a YouTube comment. Send an email to info at David Pakman dot com. Send a smoke signal telegram, however you want to get in touch. I'm curious what you think. I genuinely don't know. I lean towards Wendy Rogers knows this isn't true. There's no possibility of instating Carrie Lake, but maybe I'm wrong. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. I don't know what I must have said to cause this, but someone called in and asked about how I celebrate Christmas.

Hi, David. I know that your Argentinian heritage is very important to you and you're teaching your daughter Spanish and all about that. Right. So I was curious, what does your holiday tradition look like? Is this an Argentinian Christmas or Hanukkah or a combination of all those things or more of a traditional looking American Christmas. I'm just curious about what it what it looks like or maybe there's a specific tradition

you embrace. Yes, I embrace the tradition of Asian food on Christmas. I am I'm Jewish, so there is no Christmas celebration in my house. My daughter will not be celebrating Christmas because we aren't Christian and we don't celebrate Christmas. So it has nothing to do with being Argentinian or an American citizen or any of those different things. The tradition on Christmas is a Jewish tradition where I believe even though the default is often Chinese food, I believe Indian food is absolutely fine on Christmas. I've never gone for like Thai or Cambodian or Vietnamese food on Christmas, but I think it would be fine. It's really whatever's

open. But typically it is either Chinese food or this particular Christmas. It was Indian food. So that is going to be the tradition. And yeah, I don't know what I might have said that would have made someone think I I celebrate Christmas, but I'm glad to answer questions about Indian or Chinese food at any time. We have a great bonus show for you today. The sacks, the sacks, the sex traffic saxophone, the sex trafficking investigation into Republican Matt Gaetz is being dropped. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Yep. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Matt Gaetz will not be charged. We will talk about it. New childhood obesity guidance is raising concerns over the risk of eating disorders and the Democrat who nearly unseated Lauren Boebert,

Adam Frisch, has announced he is running against her again in twenty twenty four. It came down to just such a small margin. What can we do to really be sure we remove Boebert in twenty four? Is it wise for Adam Frisch to announce his candidacy so early or not? We are going to talk about all of that on today's bonus show. I would really love for you to become a member, not just because you'll get access to the bonus show, but because we do depend on members to fund the program. Our primary funding source, the plurality of our The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. you'll get access to the bonus show, the commercial free audio and video feeds of the show invitations to the members only town halls and access to the members only soundboard. When I play the clips, nuclear collaboration, right? Yes, that is a frickin predator right there. That soundboard we make available to our members. So all great benefits to take advantage of. Sign up at

join Pacman dot com. And remember, if you have a parent, a friend, whatever, who could use some American political commentary in Spanish, the Spanish YouTube channel has launched. It is at David Pacman dot com slash Spanish. We're working on our first thousand subscribers there. It's an exciting new project. Make sure whoever it is that would prefer to consume this sort of content in Spanish rather than English is aware of it. David Pakman dot com slash Spanish. I will see you on the bonus.