The David Pakman Show - 9/26/23: Biden will join picket line, Trump's brain fails badly

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Yascha Mounk, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, Host of the Good Fight podcast, and author of the new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time," joins David to discuss what Mounk claims is the left's turn towards identitarianism. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3PUQApT -- President Joe Biden will become the first president to join a strike and walk the picket line, which highly triggers failed former President Donald Trump -- Indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez's press conference, attempting to defend himself, does not go well -- Failed former President Donald Trump's brain fails during a speech in South Carolina, claiming that Jeb Bush, rather than George W. Bush, started the Iraq War, and glitching badly a number of times -- Donald Trump tours a gun store in South Carolina, and it's a house of horrors -- Right Side Broadcasting Network interviews attendees at Donald Trump's rally in South Carolina, and it's scary -- Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appears on Fox News and completely debunks host Brian Kilmeade's attempts to "prove" a Joe Biden conspiracy theory -- Voicemail caller explains that his friend is scared to subscribe to The David Pakman Show YouTube channel for fear of blowback from his family and girlfriend -- On the Bonus Show: Writers Guild and studios reach a tentative deal to end the months-long strike, Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom will debate on Fox News, the David Brooks $78 burger and fries controversy, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 👕 Laundry Sauce: Get 15% off with code PAKMAN at https://laundrysauce.com/pakman 💥 SainSmart: Get 10% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://davidpakman.com/engrave 🧴 Thanks to our sponsor Geologie! Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% off at https://davidpakman.com/skin 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🛌 Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman & use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% OFF + 2 free pillows -- 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 -- 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)-2DAVIDPSeptember 20, 2023

. President Joe Biden is going to be joining the picket line of striking UAW United Auto Workers Union strikers who have been out making demands, as we talked about on yesterday's bonus show for better pay and benefits. This is a significant action from a sitting president. I was able to find no evidence of any former president joining strikers on a picket line and the failed former President Donald Trump, the one who was impeached twice, indicted four times and found to be a civilly liable rapist. Donald Trump is triggered Lee furious about it.

And we will discuss that in a moment. CNN reporting you a W. President Fain to join President Biden on the picket line today, Tuesday in Michigan. U.A.W. Union President Sean Fain is going to join President Biden in Wayne County, Michigan. The U.A.W. is not involved with Trump's planned visit tomorrow, nor have they been in contact with Trump's team. Trump has also not been officially invited. Trump will skip the second Republican debate in California tomorrow night and is expected

to head to Michigan to address union workers. One of the most interesting elements of this to me is that, you know, if you said to me, David, is Joe Biden the most pro labor president in American history? I am not ready to make such a claim at this point in time. And for many of Joe Biden's shortcomings, certainly he has been a longtime defender and supporter of labor. I don't know that I would say he is the most pro-labor president in history, but certainly he is taking unprecedented steps to support labor, including here joining labor on the picket line. Donald Trump, on the other hand. And so the point is Joe Biden's presence, while fascinating in that it is going further than I believe any president

has gone joining a picket line. It's completely consistent with Joe Biden's background when it comes to labor. On the other hand, with Donald Trump's trip to Michigan tomorrow, it reeks of political opportunism. It reeks of Trump wanting to show up to try to ally himself with the everyday person and use it as a cudgel with which to attack Joe Biden, even though it has nothing to do with Joe Biden. And it seems completely inconsistent with the political philosophy that we ascribe to Donald Trump.

When people have been emailing me saying, David, why is it good or OK for Biden to go and not good or not OK for Trump to go? It's fine for any of them to go. But understand that Trump's presence is completely antithetical to Trump's support of corporate power when it comes to these labor dynamics. And recognizing this, the UAW did invite Joe Biden and did not invite Donald Trump, who is, as is the case in many of these circumstances, just showing up because he wants to be there and he wants the cameras to see him there. So there are important distinctions here that are practical and factual. Some reporting also

unable to find any examples of former presidents showing up and joining picket lines. The Southeast Missourian says Biden will join the UAW strike picket line. Experts can't recall the last time a president did that. And with a lot of these, you know, it's certainly possible that a hundred years ago, a president maybe joined a picket line or even longer ago. And so I think that's where we get this kind of more careful language of we're not able to find other examples of presidents joining picket lines. It doesn't mean it never happened. It may just not have been reported on. It may not be well documented.

And that seems to be the language that is being used. Now, here is Donald Trump, on the other hand, just so triggered by this posting to his platform, Truth Social Central, quote, crooked Joe Biden, who is killing the United Auto Workers with his weak stance on China and his ridiculous insistence on all electric cars, every one of which will be made in China, saw that I was going to Michigan this week, Wednesday. So the fascists in the White House just announced he would go there tomorrow. That was the only way to get him out of the basement and off his lazy a. He has been a complete

disaster for all capital a auto workers in the US. So much do that with his warped plan and mind. Oh boy. There won't be any auto workers left in three years. He is destroying our capital C country and likewise destroying the United Auto Workers when he slowly walks to pretend he is a picket caps lock on. Remember, he wants to take your jobs away and give them to China and other foreign countries. Turn your back on this corrupt and highly incompetent president, by far the worst in the industry of the United States. And shout out to your union leadership to endorse Donald J. Trump.

I will keep your jobs and make you rich union leadership, not endorsing Trump, not even inviting Donald Trump. And of course, this is riddled with lies. This is riddled with the lie that Joe Biden is bad for American workers. He may not be as good as we want him to be, but he is certainly not bad for American workers, record job creation, record low unemployment, et cetera. And then this is going into the right wing favorite. Electric vehicles are just terrible for the United States. They'll mostly be made in China.

In fact, the whole point of moving now towards electric vehicles is let's make them here. And many Tesla vehicles are made in the United States, nonunion, importantly, which many people don't like. But there is every opportunity to make the United States, nonunion, importantly, which many people don't like. But there is every opportunity to make the United States the center of electric vehicle production. Oh, but some of the components and and elements come from other parts of the world. Yes. And that's also the case when it comes to all vehicles.

And part of what these trade agreements are about is even if the vehicles are assembled in the United States, how much of the parts, what percentage of the parts and source materials can come from Canada and Mexico and then what can come from countries beyond North America? So this is not unique to electric vehicles. The point here is Trump's view would have a sleeping on what is obviously the forthcoming technology. I was friend of mine told me Porsche is moving in the direction of electrifying even its sports cars over the next few years. That is a sign.

This is happening, period. And resisting it only is going to hurt workers and hurt the American economy. So Joe Biden will join the picket line. Donald Trump will show up uninvited and probably just blame Biden when he shows up. But it will certainly be more attention to labor over the next 48 hours than we've seen in quite some time. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has been indicted. I did everything right and they indicted me. Maybe not so right. As I said yesterday, I don't care about political party. They seem to have this guy with extraordinarily incriminating evidence, coats in his closet, sweaters, pullovers, cardigans, maybe even

an argyle or what do they call it? A fair aisle sweater. Anyway, stuff pockets stuffed with cash, gold bars, incriminating Google searches the entire thing. I don't care what party he's from. There's significant evidence against Menendez. There's significant evidence against Trump. It seems that charging both of them was correct. Menendez held a press conference yesterday.

Very, very shaky. This is not exactly a profile in innocence. Let's put it that way. Here's the first clip. Menendez indicating he does not plan to resign. The Southern District of New York board charges against me. I understand how deeply concerning this can be. However, to who the allegations leveled against me are just that, allegations.

For anyone who has known me throughout my 50 years of public service, they know I have always fought for what is right. My advocacy has always been grounded in what I learned from growing up as a son of Cuban refugees, especially my mom, my hero, Evangelina Menendez. Everything I've accomplished, I've worked for, despite the naysayers and everyone who has underestimated me. I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be the New Jersey's senior senator. All right. So he is not resigning, defiant and principled in the face of charges that seem, quite frankly,

very much based in evidence. Of course, just like anyone, he is presumed innocent until proven guilty. You can make the case that allegations alone don't warrant a resignation on the basis that they are merely allegations. That's not a unique thing to say about a Democrat. But his defenses seem extremely weak. Here he is saying all that cash is just money he earned completely legally that he slowly withdrew from banks and stuffed in the pockets of his clothes.

I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet, but as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be the New Jersey's senior senator. Now, this may seem old fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. I mean, listen, it's a defense. At some point, you would think someone would ask and he's preempting this by saying it's

old fashioned. At some point, someone will ask, why did you withdraw money you earned over 30 years and then put it in the pockets of your clothes at this particular time? And the old fashioned mention is because he wants to say, you know, people of my generation, we sometimes thought the safest place for our money was under our mattress or whatever, out of the reach of what, you know, instability, Cuba, whatever. It's very difficult to believe that that's the explanation. It doesn't address the gold bars, et cetera. And here's just one funny moment. At some point, he made a statement in Spanish

as well. And as he was wrapping the statement in Spanish and walked away, someone yells about about the gold bars and the Google searches. And he just ignores him. Speaker 3 I said exactly this's something about gold bars. So listen, I mean, he has every right to mount the most vigorous defense he can mount. It looks absolutely terribly to me. The optics of a crowd of people cheering for a guy who this is not his first rodeo. He was previously indicted. And I believe that that case fell apart on. There were some I think it was a mistrial. And then they decided

not to retry the guy, which doesn't exactly glow with innocence, although obviously by the legal system, he was not found guilty, period. I don't know that I would set up people cheering for me. You've not really done anything worthy of cheering. You're entitled to a defense. You're entitled to the best lawyers you can get. And you're presumed innocent for the time being. But the cheering crowd, as if this guy is some kind of martyr, it's a little bit Trumpian in nature. So we can leave it there. We're going to follow it. As you can see, I am not in any way mitigating my opinion of what's going on with Menendez because he's a Democrat.

I don't care about that. And I know many people wrote to me suggesting I wouldn't even cover this. Obviously, I'm covering it. It reeks of rampant corruption based on the evidence I've seen. Let me know your thoughts. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We are beyond one point nine million subscribers. Two million is the next target. Well, maybe one point nine one, but two million is the next big target. Make sure you're subscribed. We'll take

a very quick break and be right back. Our sponsor, Laundry Sauce, has created the world's best smelling laundry detergent in simple to use high performance pods that get the job done. Speaker 1 and the artificial dyes and they maximize the hardworking stain fighters and enzymes to ensure your favorite clothes really look brand new. I love laundry sauce because they smell so much better than the stuff you get from the grocery store. You know, the usual suspects you get at the store. There's a weird, cheap, chemically type of smell. All of the different scents from laundry sauce have a luxurious, smooth, natural scent, not too strong. You can especially tell when your clothes are

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it would be 24 seven on Fox News every single day. I'm talking most recently of Donald Trump's latest deranged speech. This was in Somerville, South Carolina yesterday. Trump's brain glitching badly, unintelligibly ranting and trailing off, suggesting that it was Jeb Bush rather than George W. Bush who took us to war in Iraq. Trump visibly confused, glitching badly. And it didn't start well. It started with Trump being introduced as the president of the United States. Take a look at this. South Carolina, Donald Trump, for all of us, Donald Trump, president of the United States, Donald Trump.

There you go. A quick editorial fact check. Donald Trump is not president of the United States. This is not that you get to keep your title even after you're no longer president. They still, you know, former President Barack Obama, Mr. President, Mr. President, sir, this is different. This is introducing Trump as the president of the United States. That crowd may actually believe Trump is currently the president.

We've interviewed some of these people. Some of them believe Trump is currently the president in some kind of shadow way. And then it just went downhill from there. Here is Donald Trump confusing Jeb and George W. Bush. He doesn't seem to have the slightest idea what he's talking about. His brain turning to mayonnaise right before our very eyes or the season starts. We start in Iowa. We go to New Hampshire. We come down here. You know, the beauty was when I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win.

And then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points. Everyone said, what's going on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. You know what? He was a Miller. He got us into the he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? Right. Why? But they all thought that Bush might win Jeb. Remember Jeb? He used

he used the word Jeb. He didn't use the word Bush. I said, you mean he's ashamed of the last name? And then they immediately started using the name Bush. Trump saying Bush ran against me and they thought he would beat me in South Carolina. That's true that Jeb ran against him and it looked like Jeb would win South Carolina. But then he got us into the Middle East and he only ran with Jeb. I can assure you, if Joe Biden got Jeb and George W. confused in this way, it would be an explosive special on Hannity for two weeks in a row. In the last couple of weeks, Trump has warned us that Biden will start World War Two. I think we already had that one. He confused his 2016 election opponent, Hillary Clinton, with former President Barack Obama,

visibly disoriented when he confused that one. He now has confused his opponent, Jeb Bush, with former President George W. Bush, and he just keeps glitching. Here's Trump talking about cell phones. He has that kind of I don't even know what to call it, where his shoulder goes up when he gets the words wrong and he remains confused. Unravel this word salad. I dare you. And you know what? You see what's happening. You ever see the illegal aliens? One of the weirdest thing. They come in by the tens of thousands, sometimes a day, and they all have cell phones. There's a glitch. Where did they get the cell phones? Everybody has a cell phone. They're all talking to these beautiful cell phones and they're

expensive ones to the nice ones. Somebody who's into that said those are good phones and then i say who pays their bills who's paying the bills margie do you want to check that i'll give it to marjorie she'll figure that one out fast yeah no but you ever notice they're all coming in with cell phones our veterans don't have cell phones do do they? But they put illegal aliens first and everyone first. But he puts America last. He puts our military last. He puts our veterans last. He puts workers last. He puts small businesses last. If you're struggling to understand that the problem is not with you. The problem is with the messenger. Trump at another point talking about whales, whales, not the country, by the way, talking about, you know,

the mammals, whales. And the audience is just confused. It's it's these speeches are getting so confusing. Nobody can follow them. I guess this relates to windmills somehow wind farms. But you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than hitting a whale with your boat. Right. There is only. Listen up, kids. Listen up. The more you know and listen to this one such whale killed off the coast of South Carolina in the last 50 years. But on the other hand, their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. Nobody does anything about that. They're washing up a show.

I saw it this weekend. Three of them came up. They wouldn't you wouldn't see it once a year. Now they're coming up on a weekly basis. The windmills are driving them crazy. They're driving. They're driving the whales. I think a little batty.

Speaker 1 There you go. A little batty is probably the theme or slogan for this entire speech. So listen, if I'm as charitable as possible, Trump's talking about the possible negative effects on whales from putting offshore wind farms in. And certainly as adults, we can all say, how does the noise affect marine life? What about habitat disruption? What about collisions with the platforms on which the wind farms are mounted? Could a whale run into it and hurt itself? We can ask all of those questions. But what seems abundantly clear from

all of the evidence we currently have is that the impact of getting the energy from burning fossil fuels, including the pollution that's released into the atmosphere, as well as the havoc that is wreaked on habitats from the drilling of the oil or gas or whatever it is far exceeds the potential damage from the wind farms that we know. And this is the continued crusade against renewable energy. Trump mentioning his friend, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. The crowd doesn't like it. Remember, it's it's the monster Trump helped create. Trump brags about creating the vaccines. They boo. Trump brags about another Senator Lindsey Graham. They boo. He's great. He's great.

And he's my friend to Lindsey Graham. Wherever you are, Lindsey. Thank you. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. On the left. We need help sometimes. Republicans shouldn't need help on the left, but he helps me. There you go. Don't boo Lindsey. He's a good guy. Trump basically suggesting that China intentionally inflicted covid on the world because he was just so tough on them when he was president of the United States. Very strange way to get back at the US unleashing a virus that killed so many of their own people. Very strange. There's hundreds of billions of dollars.

Not one president got 10 cents from China. I got hundreds of billions of dollars from China. Right. They weren't too happy with me. Hence the China virus paid us hundreds. So COVID is a hoax, of course, which China inflicted on us in order to kill lots of people. But it's a hoax. But it's also not because China sent it this way. Finally, maybe the most humiliating moment, Donald Trump talking about how he's skipping the debates and don't watch the debates and the debates were low rated on Fox News. Mind you, Fox News decides to cut away from Trump's speech when you've lost Fox News. Excuse me. You know, things aren't going well. They ought to stop wasting their time. You know, they're wasting a lot of time with these ridiculous debates that nobody's watching. The last debate was the lowest rated debate in history.

That's a good compliment, isn't it? Right. And what was I doing, Marjorie? I was someplace else, wasn't I? Hey, another interview. We had 271 million people listening to the Tucker Carlson interview. That's an old time. So here we are back in the thick of campaign season. We are now just four months away from the Iowa primaries. And you see former President Trump in a place where you would expect to see him today. And in the days to come. There you go. And so Fox taking the criticism of their own debate as an opportunity

to bail folks, Trump's brain dead. The crowds are brain dead, as we will later see. And it is just getting sad, really. And again, if Biden did and said the stuff Trump is doing, it would be we've got to remove this guy from office immediately. And yet with Trump, they look the other way. Oh, it's his personality. It's whatever it is. They call it really bonkers stuff. And if you think this is crazy, just wait till you see what happened when Trump went

to a gun store in South Carolina either before or maybe it was after. I think it was before his speech in Somerville, South Carolina yesterday. The failed former president who's been found to be a civilly liable rapist. That's Donald Trump. He went to a gun store in South Carolina. It's all really weird. And I also want to mention during the visit, Trump said he wanted to buy a Glock. And it was very quickly reported that it would actually be illegal for Trump to do so. And so evidence of Trump saying that was deleted by his campaign. It's all a comedy of errors. But let's listen in a little bit here is Donald Trump and Marjorie Trader Green tour a gun

store in South Carolina. Listen a little bit to the conversation Trump has with I guess this is the owner or the manager of the guns. And then some of this conversation. The pistol race issue. But when you're back. Talk about pistol braces. There's 40 million, potentially 40 million

firearms owners that are felons now under Biden's pistol brace rule. What is it exactly? I have one. I don't know if we can get it. During about a decade ago, the ATF approved some pistol-based attachments with Grumman and Hanks. For a year of administration, they said, sold close to 40 million of them. People bought them as pistols.

Biden came in, one of the first things he did was he made all those people felons. Right now, we're fighting in the court, the Fifth Circuit, the Eighth Circuit. I have one. You have one. And it helps. Right. So not worried about intercity crime, all that. Right.

But regular average solid earth Americans like I think what they're talking about is pistol braces, braces that you can use. And they they frame this as a disability rights issue, which is so funny because since when do they care about disability rights? But the idea is that veterans who have, I guess it's mobility problems of different kinds. They can benefit from a pistol brace, uh, in order to better manipulate handguns. And the counterpoint is like, no, this is just yet another one of these tools that just allows guns to potentially be even more deadly.

Trump knows very little about it, even though it is true that it was a subject of controversy during his administration. This continues. And the same guy says to Trump, hey, are you going to take care of this pistol brace issue? And Trump is just like, listen, I'll take care of every issue for you. Don't worry. Can I tell the American people that if you're like, I'll take care of every issue for you. Don't worry. Sir, can I tell the American people that if you're likely to take care of the pistol race issue quickly, it's a burden. All issues, all, all issues I will take care of because that

particular one, I don't know what that one is. We will take care of that. We'll take care of all issues and take care of the border issue. We'll take care of the energy independence. We were energy independent just a short time ago. The gun store guy is like, oh, God, I actually want him to talk about the pistol brace. He's going to talk about Biden, isn't he? Think of it three years ago. We had so much energy. We were soon going to be energy down.

And now we're going to Venezuela and begging them for energy, begging. And they sell us their tar. You know, there's tar that they sell us and we refine it in Houston. So people believe in the atmosphere. They got a big problem. It's so horrible what's happening. And we'll take care of a lot of problems. That problem is easy.

We're going to take care of the whole thing for you. Don't you worry about it. OK, do we think Trump left the gun store knowing what the pistol brace issue is? Let me know in the comments. Yes or no. We'll have these clips on Instagram. We'll have them on TikTok. Why not?

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times in court that they don't. This makes them unique, works with all major streaming platforms, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon to access content not normally available in your country. Private Internet access is giving my audience a huge 83 percent discount. You can subscribe for two or three a month and get four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes today. We welcome to the program Yasha Monk, who's a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, contributing editor at The Atlantic, as well as host of The Good Fight podcast. His new book is The Identity Trap, a story of ideas and power in our time. Yasha, really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this today.

Thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to talking to you. So, I mean, let's just start with what's the identity trap? What is the identity trap that you discuss in your book that concerns you? So there's a new set of ideas about race, gender and sexual orientation that has come to be really influential over the course of the last years. Sometimes these ideas are called woke or a form of critical race theory. I find these terms unhelpful, so I talk about them as the identity synthesis. I think that's a better, more neutral term. Now, these ideas promise to make the world a better place. They promise that they are the best, the most systematic, the most decisive way to fight against injustices that are very real.

And so a lot of people are loaded into them. A lot of people are attracted to them because they want to fight against injustices that are very real. And so a lot of people are loaded into them. A lot of people are attracted to them because they want to fight against these injustices. They want to build a better world. As I argue and explain in the book, though, these ideas are a political trap. As we've seen in the last years, they often make it harder for progressive institutions to do the important work they're doing to actually serve their missions. They divide us against each other, encouraging people to see themselves primarily in terms of the groups into which they're born in ways that encourage zero-sum conflict. And ultimately, they make it easier rather than harder for really dangerous far right populists like Donald Trump to win political power.

So, you know, a trap is something that has a lure that draws people in who are well intentioned, who are smart. But it's ultimately counterproductive once you've fallen into the trap, something bad happens. This, I think, is the case with these ideas. Do you believe that these ideas are more prevalent among I mean, I guess it's it's hard to pick only one context. And as an international person, you might say, well, I'm more familiar with it here than there. But maybe for our audience, which is mostly in the United States, in the United States, are is this trap have people on the American left or American right fallen for this trap to a greater degree? It depends. It depends on what exactly you mean by this trap. So certainly on the right there, you know, has always been a form of

identity politics. You know, there's been slavery and Jim Crow, and there continue to be white supremacists who say, we're going to prioritize the interests of whites over those of everybody else. I think in ideological terms, there's a definite structural similarity here, but it's a different set of ideas. This is an idea about history and tradition and the rights of the majority and the ethnic conception of nationalism, all of which I worry about deeply and I've written about extensively in my previous books, but I think they're a different set of ideas, right?

What I do in this book is four things. First of all, I show the origin of these new ideas on the left that have taken the left from being more universalist for trying to say that really we across boundaries of culture and race have all these important things in common that we share. It's like, no, actually, we in many contexts can't understand each other. We have to defer to each other. You know, the most important thing is not our social class.

It is our skin color, our sexual orientation, and so on. So I show how this transformation happened. Secondly, I show how these ideas then became influential. And thirdly, when I critique some of the applications of these ideas to areas from free speech to cultural appropriation and so on. But what I demonstrate in process of that is that we're dealing with a novel ideology, one that I think deserves to be taken seriously. I enjoyed reading many of the theorists who helped to bring this set of ideas about, from Michel Foucault to Edward Said and Gaito Spivak to people like Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw. I think they're worth taking seriously. But they really constitute a new set

of ideas, and we also have to assess that critically. So to respond to your question, the thing that we should absolutely be worried about on the right, I think, is a slightly different set of ideas. And one thing that I think is important to understand is that these ideas actually reinforce each other. But even for superficially, you know, the quote-unquote woke, and people like Donald Trump hate each other, right? But politically, they help each other. It was Trump's election in 2016 that understandably scared people and made it harder to argue against these kind of ideas

in more left-leaning spaces. But it's the fault what these ideas now have over many institutions, which makes it more likely that somebody like Trump will get reelected in 2024. Speaker 1 So listen, I mean, as someone who is decidedly on the left, I find that you make some salient points in your book. I think the concern I have is that there seems to be a bit of a context that is not there, maybe that makes me question, for example, the prevalence of some of these ideas, the origins of some of these ideas. Let me give you like some some specific things, for example. So you talk a lot in the book about as it applies to woke and the left part. I'll speak more to that because that's where I find myself politically. There's a lot of this, you know, identity over universalism

is bad for a number of different reasons. And here are its limitations. And as someone who's on the left myself, I've said many times that when identity is used as a cudgel, as a tool to silence, as a tool to actually simply do a different type of discrimination than what maybe we're trying to solve. I'm critical of it, period. There's no equivocation. When that's the case, I'm critical of it. I also recognize that there are circumstances where identity can actually usefully inform

us about particular issues to preserve cultural heritages. Sometimes identity is useful if there is a very specific injustice we've identified and want to address. Identity may be a useful lens. And so I think maybe as I talk about it, I have two issues with the context or lack thereof in the book. One is sometimes identity is actually more useful than universalism in specific cases. And two, I continue to not find the evidence that some point to

that the left is obsessed with identity politics. Yes, we can find individual stories from either academia or from social media or whatever the case may be. But all of the polling I look at, at least in the US, Yasha suggests that progressives, Democrats, the left, however you call call us, we're worried about preserving democracy. We're worried about the economy and jobs, labor, health care, climate change. And so the anecdotes fail to convince me that this is really the direction the left has gone. So let me say a couple of things to

this. First of all, I agree with you on the polling. One of the reasons why this is a really bad idea is that obsessing over these things makes for really bad politics. That's why I say that one is the interview of to the other is yang. The way in which some of these ideas have captured a bunch of progressive institutions makes it easier for people like Trump to win because it drives people into his arms. There was a great analysis in the New York Times of the Republican electorate, and much of it is as you would expect. But about a tenth of it is people who are disproportionately young, disproportionately non-white, who are actually quite left-leaning on a bunch of cultural issues, the pro-trans acceptance, the pro-abortion, they are on a bunch of things, think of themselves as liberals or progressives on social issues. But they are so concerned about some of these ideas that they actually end up really voting for Donald Trump.

So these are the kinds of people who might put him in the White House. Now, Bernie Sanders' campaign was much more effective in 2016 when he talked about the kinds of things you're talking about, right? About universal health care and social issues and economic class than it was in 2020 when he started talking the language of some of these ideas much more strongly than he did four years ago. There's a conscious pivot that a lot of members of his campaign engaged in. So that's the first.

That's interesting. I don't actually just to interject one thing. I don't actually remember it being that way. I'm not saying it wasn't. It's just not my recollection of his 2020 campaign. But I think it's an interesting suggestion. I think if you if you look at a social media presence in 2016, you look at a social media presence in 2020, you see a market difference in how much jargon there is, how much talk

there is. And again, obviously, in America, you have to stand up for the rights of people who are marginalized and all of that is legitimate. You did that in 2016, you did that in 2020. Sure. But, you know, the word salad of different acronyms of of of of of sort of, you know, the word salad of different acronyms of sort of, you know, really just speaking for particular, you know, being, you know, embracing the activists of particular kind of subgroups and so on. A lot of that happened in 2020 that didn't happen in 2016. So just to speak to a broader point as well, though, is this happening in society? Again, I don't think most Americans want this.

I don't think most Americans agree with this. I don't think most progressives or left people want this. I'm on the left. I'm from the left. I don't want it. I still think of myself as being on the left. But in a lot of important institutions, it is happening. So let me give you two examples.

One is a woman I spoke to in researching this book called Carla Posey, who lives in the suburbs of Atlanta. She's an African-American educator. And she asked her school whether she could send her daughter to a particular teacher, a particular class that she preferred in the school. And the principal said, sure, of course, send me the name. But when Posey sent in the name, the principal kept deferring and demurring. She got frustrated and said, what's going on here? And then the principal said, well, you know, that's not the black class. That's not the class that the black kids go to.

And you might think that this is some kind of form of racial segregation done by racists on the right. In this particular case, the principal was a black woman who's very progressive, who decided that for the right kind of identity formation of these kids, for them to see themselves as racial beings in the right way, they have to be around mostly other black kids or a minimum number of other black kids. And even for the mother said, hey, I want them to be in this other classroom because I happen to like the teacher for whatever reason.

I have friends who went to the classroom. She said, no, no, I have to step in and make sure that that's not going to happen. And there is a wider trend of schools encouraging those kind of racially separate separated affinity groups in other contexts. The problem I have with that is and this is, I think, a broader issue I have with the book. You've cited an anecdote and saying this is broadly happening, but I'm not really finding evidence that it's broadly happening. And so then I wonder, you seem to be agreeing most progressives don't actually want this. You cite an anecdote and say there's more examples, but it really doesn't seem like it's widespread. I have to say that the normal strategy on this, I had a debate about this with Nicole Hannah-Jones on Twitter the other day.

She said, oh, this stuff isn't happening. OK, so are you against it? So so what? So what's the stance here? Is it over stuff? I'm against it. Yeah, no, I'm against it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Same page about that. But what I find a lot of the time is discussions is that people sort of ambiguate in this weird way between it's not happening, and if it is, then perhaps it's good. Now, I can tell you, you know, if you look at Embrace Race, one of the most influential, progressive, educational, pedagogical organizations, with huge influence, mostly in private schools, they talk about this kind of stuff. You can see, you know, a lot of the leading private schools in this country now, but are very influential, have embraced this kind of stuff. Let's go to an example of public policy,

right? If you don't like the educational example. Well, but before we move on, it's not that I don't like it. And again, I don't think that there's a hypocrisy or I don't think there's a conflict between this isn't really prevalent. And also I'm against the anecdotal stories you're telling me. It's it's it can be both. Right. It can be the issue. I have more is the context of your book suggests it is super prevalent, but we can still say it's not as prevalent as you suggest, while I am still against it when it takes place. I don't see that as a problem or as a double standard. Speaker 1 No, you're clear about that. I think a lot. Okay. Speaker 1 Ambiguate between those two. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Speaker 1 That's fine. You know, we can we can discuss how prevalent it is. I think it is. You know, we have different assessments of that. I think it's more prevalent than you think it is.

I can give you examples and so on. But but but, you know, that's it. Now, what I want to say is, by the way. No matter how prevalent it is, I think it's helpful to formulate the best case against these ideas. If you agree with me that this is a problem, let's talk about it. And I'm not somebody who's only ever talked about this, right? Like my last two books were about far-right populism, right? I like to say I'm a democracy crisis hipster. I worried about the crisis of democracy before it was cool. The way that I made my academic reputation, my public standing is by warning

about a far right populist before Donald Trump and at politics. And I wrote endless articles about how terrible he is and I continue to believe that he's terrible and that he's a deep threat. Right. So so if we think that these are bad ideas and that they're at least somewhat prevalent in these spaces, I think it behooves us to try and understand them. Right. Now, you can tell I agree with you. I think about something else. Speaker 1 The concern it's not about let's talk about something else. I think the concern is this in the United States. OK, so I'll speak to what's happening here, in my opinion, in the United States, the allegations of an obsessive identitarianism have been overwhelmingly hurled at the left where I see the prevalence actually on the right, including nationalism as a form of identitarianism, religious identity, and

the idea that some elected officials in positions of power are now saying the US either is or should be an overtly Christian country when it comes to civil government, et cetera. The real America or America first type ideology, which is extraordinarily identitarian. Tucker Carlson type statements about the browning of America and immigrants making the country dirtier and poorer. I find that there is a serious problem along these lines, but it has more power on the right. And thus, that's where we should focus, is my opinion. Well, so let me distinguish between two things. One is that the most serious problem? Yes,

absolutely. Oh, OK, good. The other is, is that the only thing we should focus on? I'll tell you one thing. When I started writing about the threat of populism, I was one of the first. You look up the People versus Democracy, it was reviewed everywhere, it was talked about a lot. It became a very prominent book because it was one of the first books out on this subject. At this point, five years later, I can't count the number of books about populism. I can't count the number of books about populism. I can't count the number of books about Donald Trump. I've written hundreds of articles about various bad things Donald Trump

has done. I continue to write them occasionally. I have to say, if after 10 years, this guy is still in power, or not in power right now, but it's still running even with Joe Biden in polls, A, I don't think one more column by me in The Atlantic denouncing Donald Trump is going to make a difference right now. No, and that's not my point. We should look in the mirror. But the other thing, this is a topic that there isn't serious books about. The only people who've written about this so far are actually people who are on the right explicitly, who do support people like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

So I think actually taking this ideology seriously, explaining where these genuinely new ideas come from, but have changed clearly how people on the left think about many of these issues. I think that that's worth it. I'm not critiquing them in a serious way. When that I think is the market that hasn't been filled, when there there's a space that is empty, where actually we need serious intellectual engagement. We do. I think a worthwhile thing. Now, this is the one book I'll write about this. I've written four books about other topics. I'm going to go on and hopefully write 10 books about other topics after that. But I just don't quite understand this kind of why you're talking about this,

not about that. Well, no, it's not. It's not that I think at the same time and talk about both sets of things. We should talk about both sets of things. I think I would say two things. One, for almost 15 years, Federico Finkelstein has been writing along similar lines to what we're talking about here. And it is it is a critique from the left. And I think his work is very important. I think he's now at the New School.

He's from Argentina, like like I am. I think it's not about talk about one thing or the other. It's that the way these conversations are framed in the US, I'm not blaming you for this, but I think it's relevant is. They are out of proportion to the nature of the problem. And so if we agree that and it's not about Trump specifically, if we agree that the overwhelming identitarianism is coming from the right, we should simply critique it in proportion to its prevalence. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying don't talk about anything.

I'm just saying I find that the conversation that is legitimate for me to write this book or not. It's not like it's absolutely legitimate. It's absolutely legitimate for you to write it and for us to have a conversation to contextualize it. I think both are totally legitimate. That's fine. That's fine. We will pause our conversation there with Yasha Monk. The full discussion will be available on the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. We'll take a quick break and be right back. I love my Helix sleep mattress. I've been sleeping on Helix mattresses for years now, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. You actually take their famous sleep quiz, takes just a few minutes to answer questions about your sleep preferences, body type,

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Go to Helix Sleep dot com slash Pacman and enter code Helix partner 20 at checkout. That's Helix Sleep dot com slash Pacman. Then use code Helix partner two zero to get 20 percent off and two free pillows. The info is in the podcast notes. Your average Trump rally attendee, particularly at this stage of the game with two impeachments, four indictments and a finding that Trump is a civilly liable rapist. The attendees are still very delusional. And we're going to look at a few examples from yesterday's rally at in Somerville, South Carolina. Take a look at

some of this. And and remember these folks vote, or at least they're allowed to vote whether they do or don't is a different question. Here's a woman at the Trump rally who was asked, what do you think about the indictments? And she said the indictments are propaganda. What does that mean exactly? I don't know. Let's see if she can explain it to us. Or indictments that he has against him. What do you think? The indictments, I think, is a lot of sorry, is a lot of propaganda. I think once it all comes into court that he's going to he's got a good legal team and they're going to debunk all that. Well, now the water. Yes, I really feel like. Yeah.

Now, of course, this ignores that at least the arguments that Trump and his lawyers have been publicly making quite literally are not legal defenses to what Trump is charged with. Oh, the documents. It's all under the Presidential Records Act. No, it's not. It's under criminal law. You were no longer president. That won't work in a court of law.

Oh, you know, whatever. I they're they're indicting me for my free speech because I said I won. No, it actually says in the indictment that that's not why you're being indicted very, very clearly. The indictments are propaganda which are going to be debunked. That I can't wait to see. Here is a guy at the Trump rally who's frustrated that at the College of Charleston, where he attended school, he was outnumbered by Democrats. All right. I study political science at the College of Charleston. I was, by the way, for those who are just listening, this guy's wearing a shirt with Trump's mugshot on it.

This is never surrender. A few right leaning people, every single one of my classrooms. But after every single class, I would have multiple people go up to me and say, hey, thanks for sharing your opinions. Thanks for that. Thanks for this. And that's cool. But we're not going to win anything unless we're all speaking up. It's one V 30 with just me.

I need at least a couple more guys here. You know, he has studied political science. There were quiet Republicans in his classes, quiet Republicans, but they weren't willing to speak up during the during lectures or whatever. I remember, by the way, having class with a few guys like this where they would grind classes to a halt simply by playing devil's advocate about everything, including things that are just facts. And this gets us back to the real pernicious nature of a society that increasingly doesn't know the difference between what sort of statement is a statement of fact and what sort of statement is a statement of opinion.

I've been deeply researching this issue because it's actually almost an entire chapter in my forthcoming book, which I've been writing and the inability to even distinguish fact from from opinion, not what are the facts, but just what sorts of statements are fact. I can imagine this guy was a real pleasure to have in class. Here's an interview with another woman. She was asked, why do you support Trump? Her answer is a little bit of revisionist history. What is it about him that brings you out here? Because when he was in there before,

everything was wonderful. And when he left, everything went to hell. Isn't that the best? The United States will be the first nation to land an astronaut on Mars. Exactly. So it was all great. And then it all went to hell. Lower unemployment now than we had under Trump. Faster job creation, more respect around the world. I don't have to do it for you, but it's this black and white thinking. Not everything was bad under Trump. I've said it. There were many elements of the economy that at least until covid hit were actually quite strong. Whether Trump had anything to do with that is, of course, a different question that if you put on these folks,

they very much struggle to answer. Here's a young guy at the rally who says he has a rap song about how Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates should be arrested for suspicion of what crime? I don't know. And I don't know that the guy knows either. Red pill, serious issues. Tell us about your shirt. Tell us about being here. All right. So I make music, rap, hip hop, R&B, different things. And I made a song talking about the twenty twenty one election and things like that, talking about red pill, arresting Dr. Fauci, arresting Bill Gates, telling everybody to wake up. We need to fight for each other. We all need to stick together.

It's not about racism, not about division. It's about sticking together and fighting. And the best way to unite the country would be to arrest Bill Gates as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci. Then we will really get beyond this partisan bickering and move on to serious stuff. The takeaway from every single one of these interviews is for every one of those four people. Remember, that's potentially four votes. We now need four of us to vote to cancel out the votes of these folks who are completely divorced from reality. It should always when Trump says something crazy at a rally and people clap,

that should be a reminder. Oh, we need to vote when we see an interview with this guy or this woman or this guy or this woman. The takeaway is, oh, we need to vote. The takeaway is always we need to vote. I am going to show you unbelievable video from Fox News yesterday. This is this is unbelievable stuff. During a Fox News interview yesterday, Fox's Brian Kilmeade tried to push the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden pushed for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin because it would be good for Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden's wallet. And as a result, Joe Biden's wallet. This is a big part of the conspiracy around the Biden crimes. And it goes like this. Joe Biden by himself decided Victor Shokin is investigating

Burisma. That's bad for Hunter and it's bad for me. So I'm going to go over there and try to get Victor Shoken fired. Of course, the truth is Shoken was rampantly corrupt. It was the official policy of the Obama administration to want him fired. And it was also the opinion of many of our allies that Victor Shoken was a corrupt problem and should be fired. This is unbelievable. Brian Kilmeade is interviewing the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and he tries to get Poroshenko to help the conspiracy theory

and Poroshenko destroys it and goes, no, Shoken was a crazy person. There was something wrong with him and he was supposed he should have been fired. And Kilmeade looks furious, furious. This is golden video. Take a look at this. I had a chance to talk to Victor Shokin, a man who says he was friends of yours who you asked to come back and help out during the transition after the previous regime. Here's what he said and why he was fired by you. Listen, Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma. There were no complaints whatsoever, no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly

put on President Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me. Is that why he got fired? Because of the billion dollars and the former vice president, now president? First of all, this is the completely crazy person. And this is something wrong with him. Second, there is no one single word of truth. And third, I hate the idea to come

to make any commands and to make any intervention in the American election. We have very much enjoyed the bipartisan support. The look on Kilmeade's face is just golden. I've got to frame this. And please do not use the such person like Shirk, Shulkin to undermine the trust between bipartisan support and Ukraine. Right. What do you mean? He's not your friend. I don't see him maybe four years or something at all.

And hate the idea to have him because he played a very dirty game, unfortunately. Okay, so that is not true. He didn't get fired because of Joe Biden. He was fired because of his own statement. And if he does not do that, next day, Ukrainian parliament will fire him with that. Speaker 1 All right. Mr. President, thanks so much. This is one of the main things.

OK, this is one of the main stories about Biden. Biden had a personal vendetta to get rid of a guy who was doing nothing wrong because he was investigating Burisma and Hunter was on the board of Burisma and it was getting paid. And Biden was also probably getting paid. The reality is it was Obama policy in conjunction with allies, as confirmed here by the former Ukrainian president. This guy was a problem.

This guy was corrupt. This guy would not was nuts. There was something wrong with him. And by the way, he was going to be fired anyway. Let's put up this picture of Brian Kilmeade's expression as this was taking place. This is what it looks like when your conspiracy theory implodes on national television. You hate to see it. Who am I kidding? You love to see it. That is an iconic moment from Fox News. It should be put in a time capsule so that in the future we can show folks the degree

to which these bogus conspiracy conspiracy theories are actually debunked when people who know something about them are actually asked about it. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. In today's voicemail. It's a sad revelation. Here's a caller who says, listen, David, I watch your show, but the reason I don't subscribe on YouTube is I don't want to get bullied by my girlfriend and her family. Listen to this sad situation. Hey, David and crew, just watch today's video. Always great member here. Thank you.

Show pleasure. Everything you do. Just want to let you know. So I see you're almost a two million. Congratulations. That's amazing. And I was listening to what David said. And I have a friend that I was talking to that loves your show as well.

And he's not subscribed. Oh, sorry. This is the friend who's not subscribed for this recent reason. Listen, I was talking to him and I said, why? And what he said was that his his family and his girlfriend may not be the same political views as him. And he's worried they would see that he is subscribed to that channel. Right.

He says he connects his YouTube to the TV in the house every once in a while. People do that. Something else with his cell phone. So I was just thinking that might be one of the reasons that so many people are watching the show and not subscribing because maybe they're worried that somebody in their life is going to see that they're subscribed to a progressive channel. Well, that's sad. And they're worried that, you know, they'll get flack for it or something. So, yeah.

Yeah. Listen, that's a really sad situation that people are essentially being scared or bullied into not subscribing because if their family or their girlfriend sees that they are subscribed to this channel, they will get upset. The reality is just by watching the videos on YouTube, they will almost certainly show up in your feed anyway, unless you've told YouTube not to show them to you. So I don't know how much it will help. But needless to say, much excitement about the two million subscriber milestone being on the horizon and the typical reactions from right wingers that it's all bots. We've paid

for the subscribers, by the way. Do you know what it would cost to set up a system with two million bots or fake subscribers? I don't even know what it would entail, but it seems to me that it would cost an insane amount of money to do something like that. It's crazy. All right. On the bonus show today, the Writers Guild and studios have reached a tentative deal. What does it mean? What's in the deal? How soon will they come back to work? Secondly, there will be a what I believe will be super interesting debate on Fox News in November just after Thanksgiving between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis. I will tell you what I think the real point of this debate is for Gavin Newsom. And thirdly, we're going to talk about David Brooks, a seventy eight dollar

airport meal. This if you didn't hear the story, I think you'll find it interesting. And some of you who did hear the story have been asking whether Pat and I were going to discuss it on the bonus show. We'll talk about it today. The New York airport, $78 burger, fries and scotch. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss it. Sign up at join Pacman dot com.