The MeidasTouch Podcast - Let's Get Serious with Anat Shenker-Osorio

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast the brothers have an incredible guest, Anat Shenker-Osorio! Anat Shenker-Osorio has led research for messaging on issues ranging from clean energy, to immigrant rights, to reforming criminal justice. Anat’s podcast, Words to Win By, explores how organizers, messengers, and activists mobilize, persuade and win progressive campaigns and how we can adopt these strategies for a more inclusive future. Her podcast is part of Wonder Media Network, a mission-driven, women-founded podcast network! The remainder of the episode, the brothers spend discussing Lauren Boebert’s latest Islamophobic attack on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the Omicron variant discovery and Nancy Mace & the GQP playing politics with people's lives. If you enjoyed today’s episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank you for listening! SUBSCRIBE to Anat's podcast 'Words to Win By': wordstowinby-pod.com DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: SOLE: https://yoursole.com/TMT ADAM & EVE: Visit https://adamandeve.com and use promo code MEIDAS Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun.

And make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Offer valid on standard browsers, U.S. only. When I heard about Date My Age, I thought, really? But there I was in my empty, quiet house, my laptop on the kitchen counter, and I typed in my name. Looking for a man between the ages of 40 to 60? Sure, why not? Date My Age is different. With verified profiles, you can feel safe and secure to explore meaningful connections with interesting and mature singles. Date My Age made it really easy. I could join and view online profiles for free.

All of a sudden, my empty house wasn't so quiet anymore. I got so much attention, it just made me feel seen and alive. Date My Age helped me start a totally new chapter in my life. Find a friend, a lover, a partner at Date My Age. Get 60% off when you join at datemyage.com today. That's datemyage.com to connect with thousands of singles worldwide. datemyage.com Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast.

Ben, Brett, and Jordi. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hope you spent time with family, friends, colleagues, or were just able to take a little bit of time off, reflect, regain that energy because we have a lot of work to do. Now is not the time to slow down to save our democracy. Now is the time to put our foot on the gas pedal and really start getting to work. And Brett and Jordi, what I found over Thanksgiving with a lot of the news that broke, particularly news that our partner Patriot Takes broke about Lauren Boebert and others. We see this with Congresswoman Mace, a Republican also, with some of the statements that she's made, is this following juxtaposition. Democrats are a party that takes things seriously. Politics is serious. And I understand that

with the Trumpism, this idea of trying to turn politics into WWE. And I think a congressman who came on our show talked about how Republicans, they're like professional wrestlers. Congressman Swalwell. Swalwell, you got it. Not taking it seriously. But Democrats, we get serious. Independents who vote for Democrats, we take things seriously. We take education seriously. We take the pandemic seriously. We take the economy seriously. And when things inevitably, when problems arise, because problems are going to rise in a global financial system, the same way problems arise in your day-to-day life, there may be a health issue. There may be a business issue that you have.

But the Republicans, they just whine about the issues and cry and complain and blame the others. And what Democrats do is we actually solve the problems. We try to address them. We take things serious. Get serious. That's the motto of the Democratic Party. Brett Jordy. My mind is blown for a second because did you just read the tweet I recently sent before you did that rant? I didn't. I know you didn't. And it's freaking me out because we're on the exact same wavelength right now, because what I was just thinking is, you know, I think so many people expect that presidencies are going to be like a utopia and problem free. And that completely doesn't exist. It doesn't exist in your life personally. It

doesn't exist in the country as a whole. And presidents and all politicians, everybody out there, and whether you have a job, whatever it is, whatever you're doing, problems are going to arise, right? Presidents, bosses, employees, your family members, they should not be defined by these problems that arise, but how they react to those problems when they arise. And every time we have a crisis hit our country, like the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 or inflation issues, supply chain issues, anything that we see come our way that is a challenge, it makes me even prouder of the fact that I voted for President Joe Biden than anybody else. Because looking at it, I really don't think there's anybody else who is better equipped and more experienced

to handle these challenges that we face right now. And on the flip side, like you said, Ben, there is nobody more ill-equipped to handle the challenges than the Republicans who don't want to do anything about it and, in fact, want to make all these things worse for you, for your family, for their cities, for their town. They're pro-COVID. The Republican Party is pro-COVID- They're pro-COVID. The Republican Party is pro-COVID. They're pro-COVID. They're pro really anything that hurts regular people and gets them attention

and gets them on Fox News. That's all they want. They just want attention. They want to be on Fox News. They want some retweets. They want some Twitter clout. That's really all they care about at the end of the day while Democrats are putting their heads down and are doing the work. And look, Brett, you could play this clip of Nancy Mace, right? Oh my God. Have you seen this? She's a Congresswoman from South Carolina's

first congressional district. And she goes on Fox News and she claims that, she basically implies that vaccines are less effective than natural immunity. She plays down the need for people to get vaccinated. She praises Governor DeSantis for his anti need to get vaccinated. And so when she speaks to her supporters on Fox, she's basically walking them down a path that's going to harm them individually, that's going to lead to their death. I think the difference between the GQP and looking back at, let's say, smallpox, for example. Smallpox was very visible. When you saw it, you could literally see the smallpox on people. You could visualize it. And there's something about it where if your immediate family member is not dead because of COVID and you've been blessed not to have a death in your family, for the GQP who don't really care about the living, they're just ignored that that's a thing. At the end of the day, every death is tragic. The purpose of government,

the purpose of a collective community is to try to save people from dying is one of the main points of it. And so the fact that they just so utterly ignored death is shocking. Brett, play the compare and contrast of Congresswoman Mace so you could just see how striking it is. And before you get into it, I just want our listeners to know this was within two hours. She was on Fox and then she immediately was on CNN after. So yeah, she's wearing the same outfit in both clips. That's how you know they were so close.

These were weeks and months apart. This was within a two hour period. Here's Nancy Mace on Fox News. One of the things that the CDC has not done and no policymaker at the federal level has done so far is take it into account what natural immunity does. And that may be what we're seeing in Florida today. In some studies that I've read, natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future COVID infection than a vaccination. And so we need to take all of the science into account and not selectively choosing what science to follow when we are making policy decisions.

So a couple of notes before we head to her on CNN. First, this whole natural immunity business, what natural immunity means is get COVID. So quite the risk to tell all your constituents to take. Natural immunity means everybody go get COVID. Everybody go get sick. What if you die? Oh, you know, okay, too bad.

Whatever your casualty, who cares? Who gives a shit? But everybody get COVID and then maybe you'll be better after the fact. And the facts are, you know, she's talking about selective science. The facts are that natural immunity is helpful in some circumstances.

It's nowhere near as helpful as a vaccination and natural immunity also wanes much quicker than a vaccination, which provides much longer lasting protection. So Nancy Mace here is also being obviously incredibly deceptive, disingenuous, and is leading her constituents and everybody who is watching Fox News down a path towards death. To be honest, we might have to put a disclaimer on that clip so we don't get booted off YouTube. Like we need to put a disclaimer. Yeah, we need to put a disclaimer on her. Let's go. And here's Nancy Mace on CNN just hours later.

So is that part of something that, you know, back in your community, you are actively encouraging everyone else to get vaccinated, especially now with this new development about the new variant? I have been and I've been a proponent of vaccinations and wearing masks when we need to. And we had the Delta variant raging in South Carolina. I wrote an op-ed to my community. And I've worked with our State Department of Health. I've run ads encouraging my district to go and get vaccinated.

And when we have these variants and we have these spikes to take every precaution from washing our hands to wearing the N95 or KN95 masks more than the medical masks. There is a statistically significant number of people that are protected from COVID when they wear those masks. That's right there why people hate politicians in general. And I think that's why the Republican Party is so awful. I mean, to go on Fox News and then CNN and say two conflicting statements, say two, give opposite advice to the people, depending on who you're trying to please, because you care more about your political fortunes than you care about actually helping people.

Everybody, we have a way out of this pandemic. It's called getting vaccinated. It's being respectful. It's wearing a mask when you're in crowded places. Let's follow these rules. Let's get through it. No matter what variants come, it's going to be the same thing over and over and over again. And Republicans, what they're trying to do is they want to use COVID as a means to hurt the Biden presidency. They are using a deadly disease to be political and to try to score political

points at the expense of the lives of your loved ones. That's simply what they're doing. It's incredibly cynical. And it's kind of like if you are sick sometimes, sometimes you just don't want to go to the doctor. Sometimes it's very uncomfortable, right, to go and make the doctor's appointment, to show up, to sit there. It requires work. It requires energy. What the Republicans are saying to a sick person basically is, those doctors, you don't need to go to them. Just trust yourself. Just sit there. Just sit there at home. Be sick. It's a pain in the ass. Don't listen to the Democrats who are trying to tell you, go out there and actually do something about the sickness. Just stay at home. And that's just an incredibly

problematic ideology at every single level. But that's why going back to the theme of this podcast, we need to get serious about politics and about issues. Now, someone who's clearly not a serious person, and these are basically the standard bearers of the GOP. These are individuals who would be in leadership positions. And they already are in House oversight committees with respect to Lauren Boebert. Marjorie Taylor Greene got removed from her committee assignment. She was removed from the education committee. That's why after her going up to victims of school shootings, the Republicans put her on a committee that oversees education after mocking the families

who lost loved ones. But Lauren Boebert was out campaigning in November. And while she was out there, she did this. And this is kind of a theme with the GQ peers. They act like they're standup comedians who are always open mic night. Yeah. Always open mic night. Not funny. You know, they're trying to pretend to be Donald Trump. Like they're trying to do like his shtick and his rap and he does it incredibly offensive, but he's kind of gets away with it. You know, these other GQ peers just try to copy that routine. So they go up there with the mic. They think they're hilarious and it's not funny at all.

And it doesn't even land with the base. It doesn't even land with the people they're telling the jokes to who's supposed to be their audience. And so Lauren Boebert at this event goes after Congresswoman Omar. She goes after Pete Buttigieg. She goes after everybody. But what she did with Congresswoman Omar is just so incredibly despicable, Islamophobic, racist. I mean, and just play the clip that Patriot takes unearthed. night on the house floor was not the my first jihad squad moment uh so i was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers and he and i are we're leaving the capital we're going back to my office and we get in the elevator and i see a capital police officer running hurriedly to the elevator i see fret all over his face and he's reaching and i'm like the door's shutting like i can't i can't open

it like what's happening i look to my left and there she is ilhan omar and i said well she doesn't have a backpack we should be fine so we only had one floor to go and i was like, do I say it or not? And I looked over, and I said, oh, look, the Jihad Squad decided to show up for work today. So Omar obviously denounced those comments. A ton of Democrats denounced those comments. A ton of very high-profile figures all denounced those comments. And I think one of the most illuminating things and so predictable, right,

guys, is that Representative Omar said, first, the story was totally made up. And also that every time Lauren Boebert walks past her in the halls of Congress, she puts her head down and walks away like a little scared, you know, person because that's who they actually are. Like when they're actually confronted, when they're actually face to face with human beings, they can't engage in that confrontation. They are too weak. They are too afraid. And I'm glad that Representative Omar called Boebert out for that because all these people at the end of the day, they're cowards. They're cowards. They're cowards. They're cowards who hide behind their keyboards, who hide behind their ultimate safe spaces in these tiny rooms with their 10 supporters telling these offensive jokes.

And that's who they are. We talked about it on the Legal AF podcast. It's why they're afraid of the court system. And it's why they lose in the court system because when they have to take these horrible, despicable, racist theories, statements, conspiracies, where in a place, in a forum where facts actually matter, they get obliterated. They're not for that forum. And so they've created these echo chambers and they've been amplified by the Fox News of the world to create these safe spaces and these other right-wing GQP echo chambers to spread this disinfo and to spread these theories. But at the end of the day, they are cowards. It's one of the shocking things. It's like for all these people who were out there on Jan 6th on the right to claim it's a false flag operation, to claim it's, you know, oh, it's the left is behind it. And we're going to talk later in this podcast between this bizarre back and forth between Lin Wood and Mike Flynn, where they literally look like they're Furbies talking in some other language.

But they're basically they're basically blaming the QAnon on left and progressives. And it's like, own your shit at the end of the day. It's like you did the January 6th thing. So you're going to blame it on the left and progressives. If you believe this shit, then just fucking own up to it and say you did it. That's what's so that's a fundamental aspect of being as part of Trumpism. And we saw this with Donald Trump because he's a chicken shit. And the followers, the Lauren Boeberts of the world and the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, it's this performative chicken

shitness. And when confronted with the truth, they run from it. They lie. They make up these fake stories the same way Donald Trump does. Well, sir, sir, someone came up to me and said, sir, they make up and lie about things because they're not serious people. Play the other clip, Brett, that Boebert said in the same whatever you want to call what she was doing about Pete Buttigieg. Meanwhile, you have the secretary of transportation, good old Mayor Pete. He wasn't even put in charge of the supply chain crisis. No, someone else was tapped for that because Mayor Pete is still at home trying to figure out how to chest feed. Somebody ought to tell him so he can get back to work. And look, again, false. He was overseeing everything. This question was asked. And

it's one of the things that little Deuce, Deucey asked Saki and Jen Saki said, what are you talking about? I speak to him every day. And we, he is addressing all of these issues. It's not like Pete Buttigieg is the only person who works at the department of transportation, believe it or not. It is a large organization with lots of people who are able to work on it. And overseeing that's just one aspect of what the Department of Transportation does.

There are other departments that also do it. And then again, going into this attack that's homophobic, this attack that is just completely bizarre and strange, and then goes after what fundamental aspects of people needing leave to take care of their children. And it it's just so horribly offensive. before we go to our interview for today. Patriot Takes, just doing such incredible work, the way they were able to unearth this, how important it is. There's a lot of news outlets out there that are funded by billions of dollars, lots of ones that are funded by millions of

dollars. And I'll tell you, Patriot Takes is not funded by millions or billions. It's funded by small grassroots donations. I wish and hope it was funded by millions and billions of dollars. It could do a lot more research. It could get a lot more of this out there. But just think about what Patriot Takes was able to accomplish there. Yeah. And the Patriot Takes clip made it to all those mainstream media news stations. They all used it in their reporting. So it made it to CNN, to MSNBC, to every local news station around the country. And now there's uproar and there's a call to censure Lauren Boebert and remove her from her committees. Because believe it or not, Lauren Boebert actually has power in our Congress. I know it is upsetting and scary to hear. And when

you hear what committees she is on, you're even going to be like, how is this even possible? She's on the Natural Resources Committee. She's on the Budget Committee. She's on the Subcommittee for Indigenous People. And she's on the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife. So if you want to put the pressure on Congress to censure Lauren Boebert and kick her off these committees, you could go right now.

Patriot takes a set up a petition at bit.ly slash censure Lauren Boebert and kick her off these committees, you could go right now. Patriot takes a set up a petition at bit.ly slash censure now. That's bit.ly slash censure now. And here's the deal. A lot of people are like, won't this make her a martyr? Won't she like being censured? You know what? I'm tired of people being afraid to do things because you're afraid

of their reaction on the other side. These are not good faith actors. Lauren Boebert is already a hero to these people. All I want is for people to do the right thing at the end of the day. And if the right thing comes with them being able to raise money and donate, so be it. I mean, let's take arresting Donald Trump, for example. We all want that to happen, right? Absolutely.

Wouldn't that make him a martyr? Wouldn't he be able to raise money? The sad thing, there would be a whole coalition of people on the left who would say that. There'd be a whole coalition of people who are like, oh, great. So now he's arrested. So now he's going to make millions of dollars. No, just do what's right. Do what's right in all situations.

Stop worrying about what people said. I also want to talk for a second about the phony apology that Boebert made. She said, I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community. I offended with my comment about Representative Omar. And she said she didn't want to focus on this unnecessary distraction that she created. And listen, Lauren Boebert, not really one in the weeds on policy. And there's never an apology should never start with,

I am sorry if anyone was offended. Apologize for what you said once, like Ben said, own up to it. And then we have Politico chiming in with the inevitable headlines, which are like, this is like a real headline that Politico ran with. It was like, Lauren Boebert's Islamophobic, homophobic comments.

Is this a problem for Democrats? The mental gymnastics that Politico does these headlines, man, they are such fucking trash. Oh my God. It's like we joke about it every time one of these situation happens. And then like 12 hours later, it's an actual headline in the New York Times or in Politico.

It's absolutely mind blowing. Anyway, I'm excited to bring in our guest. Our guest. I'm excited to bring in our guest coming up next. Anat Shankar Asario. She's a messaging expert who has a new podcast, Words to Win By, which explores how organizers, messengers, and activists mobilize, persuade, and win progressive campaigns and how we could adopt these strategies for a more inclusive future. But before we get a knot on the show, I want to tell you about Soul.

Let's go. Let's go. Today's program is brought to you by Soul. They are a sustainable orthopedic footwear company that seeks to bring peace where the ground meets your feet. I know we've all been using our sole inserts in the shoes that they sent us and been rocking those flip-flops they sent us. The sandals, the sole.

I wear them all around the house. I wear them every place I go. Cause you know, 85% of the population will have one or more foot related elements in their lifetime. So sole actually created a foot bed, which is a great place to rest your sole. That's affordable, customizable, and improves people's everyday foot comfort

Hey, here's the thing you're on your feet all day long You want to be comfortable when you're walking around and you don't want any issues now or later in life and soul is the ultimate Way to just have comfort all day long and prevent any problems from arising and millions of customers rave about the product Two-thirds of sole customers have two or more pairs of footbeds, me included. And once you have that comfort, you know, improved pain relief, performance enhancement, and you get the injury prevention benefits of sole, you'll want to put them in every single shoe you own. What's super cool about sole also is they created their own recycling program called recork. So they actually collect and upcycle wine corks to make their products. So far they've collected over 125 million wine stoppers that get ground down and reused

into the company's own footbeds and shoes. Circularity exists, guys. And hey, next time you're drinking wine, you could be like, yeah, I'm doing some good here. I'm making some shoes here for Seoul. Seoul has an amazing offer for first time customers. You could get 50% off through your yoursoul.com slash TMT. So you could try Soul for yourself. That's yoursoul.com slash TMT.

We're so confident that you will love them, that we'll also offer a 90-day money-back guarantee. It's very hard to go wrong. The Midas Touch offer is applicable to all items in the Soul store, be it footbeds or footwear. So go to yoursoul.com slash TMT and get 50% off today. And I love soul. I just want to give the Ben endorsement of soul.

I wear my soul sandals everywhere. And so it's, and it's actually been a game changer for me. And so Ben talks about these things all day long. I said, when are we going to do the soul ad read? Because I really love the soul and I really do talk about it all the time. So definitely check out. So get your pair, take some photos in it. really do talk about it all the time. So definitely check out. So get your pair, take some photos in it. We can chat about it. We can talk about it whenever.

Then we'll talk to you about it for hours, actually. We are joined by Anat Shankarasario, who's led research for messaging on issues ranging from clean energy, immigrant rights to reforming criminal justice system. Anat's podcast, Words to Win By, explores how organizers, messengers, and activists mobilize, persuade, and win progressive campaigns, and how we can adopt these strategies for a more inclusive future. And the podcast is part of Wonder Media Networks, a mission-driven, women-founded podcast network that I love. And I want to see more podcasts coming from them and love seeing women-driven podcast networks. So Anat, thanks for being on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored. So Anat, one of the things as we go through like the Virginia results and the post mortems, people like to blame every time you see these. Well, it's because of progressive messaging. It's because progressives talk about race. It's because, you know, we need to focus more on a centrist message. When you're seeing the data out there, when you're speaking with polling, is that accurate? Or it seems in my view to kind of cut against what people are actually saying, which is people support progressive policies out there. And so what are you seeing with the polling data? Yeah, it's hard to know where even to begin, but let me start by just noting that politics isn't solitaire. People do not form their opinions about Democrats based on what Democrats say or even what they do.

And the messages that we put out into the world do not exist in a vacuum. People are constantly hearing from our opposition. And so this idea that we could have some kind of race neutral campaign, that assumes that we get to set the terms of debate when in fact, what we know is that the right wing is going to be race baiting all day, every day. That is their strategy. It has been their strategy. They have worn it on their sleeve since Lee Atwater, Nixon's advisor, announced that that was going to be their strategy in order to retake the South. So this idea that somehow we can be silent about race and the race conversation

just disappears is a pure fallacy. And so what happens when Democrats in Virginia or elsewhere are ham-fisted or sort of tongue-tied about race. What happens is that all our voters here is the racially coded invectives from the opposition, meaning that our economic promises just can't land. And so what we see in the data over and over again is, first of all, messages don't occur in a vacuum, and you can't persuade unless your messages are also offering a rebuttal to the opposition. And then the second thing that we see, and it's not possible for me to emphasize this enough, it's one of the biggest frustrations I have with the way academic research is conducted. When you test for persuasion in the rarefied atmosphere, in the laboratory of a survey, you are paying people for their

attention. That is literally what you're doing. And so, they are a captive audience, and they are listening to your ad, or they're watching it, or they're listening to your little text, and they are rating it. And they are conscious of the fact that they are rating it. This is what we call in-channel testing. Now, in the real world, that's not how people consume political information. They consume it with seven other tabs open, making dinner, the kids are yelling, they're half paying attention. So, what testing for persuasion fails to do is recognize that if your words don't spread, they don't work. And if your base is unwilling to carry a message, if you find this magical milquetoast message that is the most persuasive thing, but no one in your base is going to say it, then the middle's not

going to hear it. A message that nobody hears is by definition not persuasive. And so a lot of what happens in polling and the reason that I do message testing differently than most mainstream polling happens is because you have to attend to the problem that in order for the message to work, people have to hear the message. And if you're not testing for that, persuasion is irrelevant. So is there a way, though, that it always seems, though, to be progressives or Democrats, we are forced to offer the rebuttal to whatever the agenda is that the right is setting, whether that's critical race theory that they bring up, whether it's Big Bird or Sesame Street or their kind of anti-vax

messaging. Can progressives, though, set the terms of the debate and how can progressives do that? A hundred percent. I'm so glad you asked. So my rule number one through 5,000, something like that, is say what you're for, say what you're for, say what you're for. What you fight, you feed. I often like to make fun of progressives and say, if we'd written the story of David, it would be a biography of Goliath because we like to talk about our position all day long. And I understand why, right? I'm also a person in the world. And so I understand that itch that we want to scratch. And I'm happy to go more into the nature of that itch and how progressive activists actually differ cognitively from progressive base, people who are unengaged but share progressive ideals, which is not how it

works on the right, which is one of the hindrances that we have. But yes, we absolutely have to set the terms of debate. And in the places that we have won, that's what we've done. Let me just take one case in point. Let me go back in the day, but then I can also come more forward. In 2018 in Minnesota, we folks across the state in a really big coalition ran a race forward, proudly progressive campaign with which we took the Minnesota house and swept all of the national seats, right? Governor, Lieutenant Governor, AG, et cetera, that we called greater than fear. For those of you who know Minnesota, you know that the rural parts of the state are called Greater Minnesota. That is how they refer to the countryside. And that is where the concentration of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, because of the Somali refugee population that has settled there,

that is where the locus of all of that right-wing invective was really, that's where they were trying it out the most, right? All the crappy things that they were saying about that population. And so greater than fear was a proactive, what we are for, the tagline was in Minnesota, we're better off together. And basically the lessons of winning campaigns in Minnesota, in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, where we recreated this strategy in 2020, is to make a full-throated race-forward case for your values, and then, second, not first, to call out the opposition for what they're doing and how they are intentionally dividing by race and by place in order to aid and abet their plutocracy.

That is the formula. So the formula is first you say what you're for, and I can illustrate that in language. And then second, you call out the opposition, not just for what they are doing, but you ascribe motivation. You explain why they are doing it. That's what allows audiences to both understand what is happening with race and why at the end of the day, that's actually going to screw you over, right? It's basically point your finger at the bad guy, not the brown guy. Because as long as they convince you that Juan is taking your job, when in fact Juan is standing in front of Home Depot trying to get some day labor and doesn't make public policy because does not have the authority to make public policy, you don't notice that Jeff Bezos took your job. And that's the name of the game.

And so I'll let you, if you can illustrate, let's talk through some of these issues. The podcast is called Words to Win By. Let's talk about what are these issues to win by. I mean, I see what's polling, whether it's with respect to economy, healthcare, education. It seems the progressive ideas are words to win by. So maybe if you can apply it to the example that you just gave, some real world issues that you think are winning issues for progressives and Democrats. Yeah, great. So let's talk, for example, about raising wages. And then I'll talk about education because that's hot button.

So on raising wages, our first sentence, again, stating our values up front is something along the lines of no matter what we look like, where we come from, most of us believe that people who work for a living ought to earn a living. So we state what we're for in a higher order value, explicitly naming those differences that are sort of there. And then in the second sentence, we say, but today, a handful of corporations, or but today, some billionaires and the politicians they pay for, try to turn us against one another, dividing us based on what we look like, where we come from, or what kind of job we do, hoping we'll look the other way while they hold down our wages,

deny us benefits, and refuse to contribute to taxes like the rest of us. By joining together across our differences or by joining together and voting for leaders who believe in and reflect the very best of every kind of American, we can make this a place where we can all thrive. So more or less that kind of three-part structure is what is effective. On education, rather than being on defense about critical race theory, it turns out in poll after poll after poll, both ones we conduct and ones that are done publicly, Brookings and American Values just put out a poll where 84% of people agreed with a progressive proposition on teaching race and disagreed with the conservative proposal. We see this over and over.

We make a proactive case for the kind of education we want. So again, we say, across race, across place, or whether we're white or Black, Latino or Asian, Native or newcomer, most of us want our kids to learn the truth so they can reckon with the mistakes of our past, understand our present, and create a better future. And then the second sentence, again, that ascribing motivation sentence, but today a handful of politicians are trying to turn us against public schools, lying about what our teachers teach so that they can continue to deny resources that all of our classrooms require and endanger our children by lying about vaccines and opposing masks.

We see through what they're trying to do, and we stand with and for every kind of kid and for an accurate and honest education that we know our kids are courageous enough to have. It's that kind of thing. Brett, we just got to go through more issues because I think this could be, because this is how the Democrats are going to win. Let's hit build back. Ask another one, Brett, but that's unbelievable. I mean, it sounds so simple. It is simple. Okay, so let's go to, okay, I'll throw out like, you know, what CNN and MSNBC and Fox News and everybody is talking about right now.

It's inflation, supply chain crisis, gas prices. How do we message that President Biden and that progressives are the best ones to lead us through these things? Yeah, I love this question. I love this podcast. We're going to keep lobbying you to baseball. I want to keep hitting him out of the park. We call this stump the chump. This is where I have to make up messages from scratch. So the inflation fight right now is like textbook. I mean, textbook bang head against wall for me example of when you allow your opposition to set the terms of debate you have lost before you started speaking. If we allow the focus to be on why goods are so expensive instead of why are you

so broke, which is the conversation we should be having, we are screwed before we started. So what we should say instead of gas is like this, gas isn't like this. In fact, what we've seen, and I promise I will answer the like, what is the message? I'm just very incensed about this. In polling, where we've done message testing and we have tried, and by we, I mean not me because I wouldn't try this because I know it's dumb. When progressive pollsters try different permutations of an explanation for inflation, it's the global supply chain, it's OPEC collusion, it's increased demand, which is what always happens when you're bouncing back from a pandemic. Whatever answers they try, they get a middling result.

People are like, maybe that's true. But what happens in every one of these, and this isn't a randomized control trial, so like a very good, strict methodology. What happens is regardless of the explanation tested, support for Democrats drops. Basically engaging in discourse about the whys of inflation, just bring top of mind to the listener. Yeah, things are too fucking expensive. That's fucking frustrating. The fact that you've provided me an origin story does not make the gas price lower. And so I'm still annoyed at you. The fact that prices are up because of X, Y, and Z, the fact that it's a global issue,

it doesn't matter because I'm still feeling the pinch of it. So I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That doesn't, you know, I'm still handing over my credit card for what I feel is an exorbitant amount. And I don't really care about the reason why, because my pain point is not curiosity about the explanation that is not alleviating my pain.

So what do we say instead? We say, and again, this would need to be copy edited because I'm inventing all of these things off the cuff. And if I were writing them, I would short it. No, this is great. We would say something like, whatever our color, background, or zip code, we all want to be able to care for our families, buy our loved ones gifts this holiday, and have a future where we feel secure and can thrive. But today, as ever, a handful of corporations and the politicians that are backing them have placed life and health completely out of our families require, care for our children, schools we're proud to attend, higher education that is affordable, health care that doesn't make us sick when we think about the bill. And then they hope to distract us by getting us to focus on the more current hardship of the

gas and groceries that so many Americans are struggling to buy. By joining together and demanding that every single one of our lawmakers act in our interests and make the most expensive items affordable to us, we can ensure a better future for all of us with wages we can live on and a future we're proud to pass on to our kids. That's the kind of thing, but obviously I would tighten it. No, I mean, I love this game of not quite word association, but improv messaging, which I think is really cool. And I'm starting to really understand too how you're going A, B, and C, putting all those things together in a way

That helps people actually understand what's going on So what about the Build Back Better Act, you know right now build back better act is heading to the Senate Has so many great things for Americans. I really think this is an actual Life-changing thing I mean, you know we talk about all the distractions going on every single day and Big Bird and Ted Cruz said this and Fauci that and all the chaos coming from the right. But this bill actually has the ability to really

help people and do the things that you were just describing in terms of, you know, child care and paid leave and universal pre-K for the first time in our history. So how do we make sure that people know that this is what progressives are fighting for? And how do we also make sure that, I mean, I've seen it all too much, the Republicans don't go once it passes, and like the infrastructure bill just passed, and go, hey, we got you broadband. Hey, we got you this, when they voted against these provisions. Yeah. So the first thing that I want to say about that is that another precept that I try to convey really, really often in my messaging

is that we got to stop selling the recipe and start selling the brownie. And what I mean by that is that we shouldn't be taking our policies out in public. Our policy is not our message, right? That is for insider rooms. And so even something wildly popular like paid family leave, which by the way, is a phrase I cannot stand because you are not paid to leave. That is not the reason that you are paid. And for those of us who have ever had a newborn, you know that being paid to leave. It's paid time to care. And in fact, that was a frame flip that we made in Australia when we successfully defended and then grew the policy. There used to be four countries that didn't have paid leave. Australia was the other industrialized country that didn't have it besides us. They left us far behind. And so we get to hang out by ourselves in that slot. But I digress because I hate the phrase paid family leave for that reason, but I understand the ship has sailed. Anytime we can use more imageable

language, we should. So what does that mean? Instead of paid family leave or even paid time to care, we say you're there the first time your newborn smiles. Instead of saying universal health care, which is wildly popular, we say you get to go to the doctor and you never get sick thinking about the bill. Instead of saying raise wages or raise the minimum wage, we say everyone is paid enough to care for their family. So anytime you have the room, the first rule is say it in a way that people could draw a picture of it rather than the name of the policy. Now, to the broader point of how do we do this, one of the hallmarks of the media, and

you all know this better than anyone, is that they feed, they thrive, they manufacture, and they report on conflict. That is sort of their understanding of storytelling. And so we're not going to change that, right? We don't have a magical pill to alter that. That is how the media understands coverage. And so what we need to do rather than lament that and allow the story to be, you know, Democrats in disarray and the progressives are fighting with the centrists and so on and so forth and Republicans this and there's this conflict and that conflict.

Instead, we say, yeah, there is a conflict, same conflict we've always had. It's between the absolutely nauseatingly rich and the rest of us. And every single lawmaker standing on our side of this divide is a Democrat. Every single lawmaker who wants to make sure that our kids can get and stay well, that our parents are cared for and can retire in dignity, that we can do our jobs with the respect that we deserve and a fair return on our work, every single one of those lawmakers are Democrats. And by standing strong together and passing Build Back Better, we can make this a place where every single American,

no matter what's in your wallet, can make a better future for our families. Now, there's a handful of politicians that are on the payroll of big pharma and big oil that want to stand in our way, but that's nothing new. Any step toward progress we've ever had in our history has always been met with massive pushback and massive resistance. By seeing through their lies and their attempts to divide us, we can have lawmakers that we elect to govern in our name and pass bills that act in our interests. This messaging is so great, but with Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber, do progressives have the equipment, the channels to get the message out? We try and might as touch to build that, but sometimes we

frankly feel outgunned. Yeah, you are outgunned. We are outgunned. Hopefully you heard that not as a condemnation of you. That was a commiseration that was not intended as a critique. Oh no, we're well aware. Okay. Yeah. We are outgunned. However, a few things. We know that the number one most persuasive tool in our arsenal, and the right understands this very well, is something that we call social proof. Social proof is the middle school theory of messaging. It's where people do the thing they think people like them do. So why do they, for example, take issues that are wildly unpopular? The fight that they decided to manufacture around critical race theory, when you actually

pull it, like I said, accurate, honest education, teaching the truth of our history, even overt questions about should we teach about the legacy and ongoing role of racism in our society has vast majority of support. It is not a persuasive issue. Why do they pick it? They pick it because it is the way they keep their base engaged and enraged. And when they keep their base engaged and enraged, because they understand, as Frank Luntz once said, I dial for the red meat. I am looking for the thing, not that is most persuasive. I am looking for the thing that my base is going to want to repeat endlessly because that is the way that we reformulate what is true in the world. So what happens with these middle-of-the-road

people? We have had a fundamental misapprehension of how they work. We have been told, and this is true not just in the US, I also work in the UK and Australia and other places, they also have this misapprehension of labor voters, for example, that the middle, they want some sort of moderate solution. That does not hold up in the research. In fact, what they are is what I like to call the good point people. They go like this. Good point, but also good point. But yeah, good point. Whatever they hear repeated most frequently becomes, quote unquote, common sense and the way the world works. There's no other explanation for why the rapidity of change in public opinion around marriage equality, for example, which happened in land speed time. Or another example, if you look at how Black Lives Matter and the protests were polling during the uprising after George Floyd's murder in the summer, astronomical, right? Support for BLM, way up, support for the protests. Why? Because social proof is real.

As much as I'm a messaging person, there's nothing that we can say that is as persuasive as what people see other people doing. So when people see people marching in Minneapolis or in Portland or in Cleveland or in you fill in the blank, they're like, oh, I think that what people like me think and what people like me believe is this. And so that must be what is right. The same thing happens when middle of the road parents who aren't particularly politically plugged in are seeing these vitriolic parents like in Loudoun County in Virginia. They don't exactly know what's going on, but they're like, oh, it seems like parents are really mad about this thing, parents that kind of look like me. Whereas parents on our side of

the divide, who are the vast majority, they're not out there. They're not present. They're not visible. And so what's concluded is this must be what people like me think. And so how do we compete? What is it that we do? We have to actually do the work of organizing. We have to actually do the work of understanding that a message is like a baton that has to be passed from person to person to person. And if it gets dropped anywhere along the way, it is by definition not persuasive. And so, yes, of course, we need to have incredible, well-done, popular media like you all and others are providing. But we also have to understand that organizing is the only route to messaging. And unless we are out actually in communities and this is how we won in Wisconsin, this is how we won in Michigan, Wisconsin is the

first episode, it's also the state that I happen to be from, that we covered. And just the unsexy work, let's face it, Georgia, the runoffs, the unsexy work of going door to door to door, phone to phone to phone, text to text to text, talking to people. The many can defeat the money when the many are united. Jane Carasario, thank you so much. If there's anything we can do, I mean this sincerely too, to kind of help amplify the message in addition to just this podcast, whether it's if you send us clips, it's incredibly important what you discussed today. And there's a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are big supporters of Midas Touch who want to know, okay, great, you got me pumped up. You got me excited. Well, also give me the skill set now of how to form these arguments,

how to actually combat it. And this interview and speaking with you is not just descriptive, but prescriptive. And I think it's been incredible for our audience to hear this. So we're here as a resource with our audience, however we could be helpful. And we thank you so much for your time today. Yeah. One easy thing. The podcast website is very complete. So it has messaging guides. It has message testing.

It has ads run. And then my own website, asocommunications.com, we work open source. So anything that we make, any ad that we create, any messaging guide, we only work with clients that let us make everything public for free. So there are messaging guides there on honesty and education. We are just about to put out, for example, new digital ads. There's messaging guides on how to talk about basically everything. Because as you said, it's exactly what you said. We are trying to be a resource. Well, everyone's hearing it live as we're discussing it because we really want to, you know, we're definitely going to take you up on that. Let's figure out how we can get that messaging out to the most people possible. And everybody, please check out a Nott's podcast, Words to Win By on the Wonder Media Network. And thank you so much for your

time today. No, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I'm not going to lie. That was one of my favorite interviews that we've done on this. That was a totally different interview than we traditionally do. That was awesome. Yeah, I agree with you, Jordi. I thought, again, it wasn't just descriptive of the problems. It was prescriptive and her messaging solve the problems. And we have to point the finger at what the problems were. And you noticed with the rhetorical, logical device that she used, she also showed who the problems were. The problems were big oil. The problems were greedy billionaires. The problems were, here are the people creating the problems, not here is what the problem is. You know what that was like? That's like when you have a great rapper

and you throw them a word. You're like, Skittles. And then they work it into their rap or something. We were just tossing topics at her and she was just one after the next, boom, message, message, message. And I think what I want everybody to take out of it is just how she turns everything into relatable ways and messaging is going to be fluid messaging is going to change that's what happens but understand that when you're speaking with people about issues i think she's exactly right that it's not about policies it's not about like well this percentage of like we can't speak to people like that we need to be directing as to how actually these things are going to improve people's lives and what they actually mean and what alternatively the republicans are not going to be doing and how they're going to be making your life worse so it was like brett let me know what it's like what it was like

i'm eating skittles as i deliver riddles as i be playing the fiddle listen up everyone oh don't i like i like your rap look ben just like put on a whole other outfit for the that was uh that was really fancy and wait i just just to get off of that really good taking our listeners like to get away from whatever that was lifting up the hood of the Midas touch podcast car when we ask guests to come on the show and go out to guests we don't like super over prepare them for what we're going to talk about. We just simply say, hey, we want to talk about the current events, the new cycle of that week, as topical as possible to make sure that we're on message for the audience. So Anat literally had no idea where this conversation

was going. She had no clue that we were just going to start tossing her back. Just like Ben didn't know that I was going to throw out Skittles before he went into his rhymes. But anyway, let's talk about some, I was just trying the problem with Skittle is that after fiddle and after riddle, I'm thinking to myself, just don't use the word diddle. Like there's no, there's no good usage for the word diddle. What about little? I don't know, but I was just thinking, all right, don't say diddle. Don't say diddle. Anyway, have you seen this new push? So it kind of goes from the interview that we just had, though, that this is how the GQP believes that they're going to own the libs by courting anti-vaxxers, by giving them unemployment insurance and extending unemployment insurance benefits. So the GQP,

which is against unemployment insurance, they're always against extending the benefits. But when it comes to promoting anti-vaxxers, they'll be like, here you go. Here's unemployment insurance. Great way to own the lips. Yeah. And Florida, Iowa, Kansas, and Tennessee have changed their unemployment insurance rules to allow for workers who are fired or quit over vaccine or testing mandates to receive these benefits. So they want to extend unemployment benefits to the unvaccinated. This is just the latest in a series of GQP pro-COVID policies that are aiming really to extend this pandemic as long as possible. It's like the social safety net is okay as long as we're promoting death. As long as we're promoting disease and making sure that this pandemic

is endemic and is with us forever. And- They're not serious people. That's the point of this- Well, I want to go back, actually. This is a perfect example of going back to Mace from earlier. They don't care whether they keep their constituents alive. They just need them alive long enough to vote in 2022. So they're going to placate to their audience. They're going to placate to this base,

even if it fucking kills them. And they don't care if it kills them. They just need that vote in six months. The sad thing, a lot of their voters don't even care if it kills them. On their deathbeds, they'll be calling it a hoax or their family members after their loved ones die will still be clinging to their beliefs that covid is not a real thing and now of course there are new variants because you know there's not everybody has vaccines in the world and the virus will naturally mutate so now there's this omicron variant president biden spoke out forcefully this morning about preparing for the omicron variant. President Biden spoke out forcefully this morning about preparing for the Omicron variant. The one thing I would just say here is I would just say, proceed with caution. Truthfully, nobody really knows a lot about this variant yet. They just know that it's spreading

at an incredibly rapid rate. There are some anecdotal things coming out of South Africa that say this may not be as vicious of a variant as Delta may be a lot milder. There are some other reports that contradict that a little bit. The truth is I don't think anybody at this point knows. And this is what the GOP, this is what the right, this is when they thrive. When science is new and developing and we are learning new things about a disease, that's when they start pointing to, oh look, contradictions. Oh look, the science changed. Yeah, because we're learning new things and we're developing, we're researching. Everybody

is figuring this out. So I would just say, you know, I wouldn't get into a panic about the Omicron variant, but I would do everything you can to keep you and your family safe, which means get vaccinated, get the booster, take advantage of it. I mean, there's literally life-saving things out there that could prevent you or severely limit your chances of you having a reaction to this variant. Go get it, take advantage of it. And there's an article, Brett, from the Washington Post called the rights emerging hoaxification of the Omicron variant. And it basically talks through how all these GQ peers are saying that the Omicron variant is a hoax. They're saying that it's part of the plan of Democrats and progressives to try

to win the 2022 midterms by focusing on mail-in ballots, by claiming this Omicron. You know who said it? And here's the craziest thing. Ronnie Jackson, who was actually the doctor to, he was like the White House physician. To Obama. To Obama, who's become this big GQ peer as he's gone through the issues that he's had. But he says, here comes the midterm election variant. They need a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to cheat during an election, but we're not going to let them. It's just the most ridiculous kind of thing in the world because everything through their prism

is that Democrats somehow control every issue that goes on in the world. I mean, this is a variant that I think was discovered in Botswana. The Democrats don't have a lot of power in Botswana. I'm sorry, I hate to say it. Everything is a conspiracy to them. They've never met a conspiracy theory that they do not like. Just don't listen to these fucking morons. These people are out of their mind. This thing is-

Not serious. They're not serious people. This variant is spreading. These variants are serious. The disease is serious. These people who are trying to kill you, they are not serious people. Ignore them at all costs. As of now, as of recording, this variant has been detected in at least 16 countries, including

Canada, France, Hong Kong. I mean, it's something, it's almost certainly already in the United States, even if we haven't identified it yet. I mean, I'm sure we'll identify our first case here very soon. So let's just take this seriously. I mean, President Biden said we should be concerned, but not panicked. I think that that is a healthy way to proceed. Let's not live our life paralyzed by fear, but let's take necessary precautions to prevent this virus from affecting our lives. Only in America can you have a political party like the GQP, where there is a variant of a

serious disease that is internationally recognized, try to blame that on another political party, and to claim that it's a hoax, and to claim that it's trying to take away your freedoms, for people to say we need to take a virus seriously. Again, the GQP, an unserious conspiracy theory-laden party. We're going to talk about this Lin Wood and Mike Flynn back and forth. They're queuing on civil war. Before we get into the Q civil war, could we play the Fauci clip on Face the Nation? Oh. When he was asked about Ted Cruz saying that Dr. Fauci, the man leading our efforts against COVID-19, should be prosecuted.

That's what Senator Ted Cruz said. And let's hear how Dr. Fauci took on this incredibly unserious person in the Senate. Senator Cruz told the Attorney General you should be prosecuted. Yeah. I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted. What happened on January 6th, Senator? Do you think that this is about

making you a scapegoat to deflect from President Trump? Of course. You have to be asleep not to figure that one out. Well, there are a lot of Republican senators taking aim. Of course. From President Trump. Of course. You have to be asleep not to figure that one out. Well, there are a lot of Republican senators taking aim at this. That's okay. I'm just going to do my job.

And I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying. That's why they call him No Fucks Fauci. No Fucks Fauci. Fucking Fauci bombs, baby. I mean, I call him that. I just made that up. But maybe we could all start calling them no fucks Fauci. But it's about time that he took on just these craven, cynical people in Congress who, like he said, are using Dr. Fauci as a scapegoat for all things wrong in the world. politicians when a new variant pops up and they go, I thought President Biden said he was going to crush the virus, while they themselves are doing everything in their power to keep this

pandemic going as long as possible. They are the ones keeping this pandemic going. They're governors in these red states that are pushing for natural immunity, that are encouraging their voters not to get vaccinated. They are keeping this pandemic going. And we in this country have such an abundance of riches when it comes to the vaccine. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Everyone who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated, and yet we're not even over 70%. It is so sad. And that's why these variants keep popping up. It is so sad. Ben. Adam and Eve, do your read, kiddo. Wow. Okay. Wait, what's behind you guys?

Happy Hanukkah? Jordy has left the building for some reason. I don't know. Jordy has disappeared and he's going to put on a robe because Jordy thinks he has to put on robes when he does the Adam and Eve read. It's primarily an audio podcast. Primarily an audio podcast, but Jordy changes into a bathrobe. Jordy changes into outfits like a Jordy's now wearing a bathrobe.

Jordy's now wearing a bathrobe and his hat is backwards. Hey, let me ask you a question. Are you getting enough? I bet you love more though, right? Well, adamandeve.com wants to give you more with 50% off just about any item plus free shipping on your entire order. So what do you have to do to get your 50% off one item and free shipping? It's not hard. Just go to

adamandeve.com. Select any one item. It could be an adventurous new toy or anything you desire. Just enter offer code Midas at checkout and you'll get 50% off almost any item. Go check out adamandeve.com today, right now, this second. Select one item and get 50% off, including free shipping when you enter offer code Midas. That's M-E-I-D-A-S, Midas, at adamandeve.com. And look, we've all heard about supply chain issues and delivery issues almost every day on the news. So don't wait on your Adam and Eve order. Shop now, shop early while supplies last. And hey, I have an Adam and Eve story if you brothers want to listen to it. Do you guys want to hear about my Adam and Eve experience? Is it going to be quick?

Just the episode's a little long. All right. Well, I'll just say this. Adamandeve.com does not disappoint. We'll leave it there. Okay. AdamandEve.com does not disappoint. We'll leave it there. Okay. Jordy, thank you for that ad read. Okay. Let's talk about politics. You can take your robe off, Jordy, and put clothes on. Let's get serious, Ben. Yeah. Let's get serious. I think my episode is let's get serious. Let's get serious. All right, Brett, walk me through because I'm not even sure I fully understand this Linwood. Ben, I've lost the plot. I have no idea what's going on.

The plot has jumped the shark. This show has jumped the shark. I have no idea what is going on in the world of QAnon. But I do know that Michael Flynn, who was like the QAnon star boy, who did the QAnon oath of allegiance with his family and has been one of the biggest, biggest hypers of QAnon to date, was caught on tape by fellow Q-er. What do you call these people?

Lin Wood calling QAnon a disinformation campaign. I think he blamed it on the Democrats and the CIA and the liberals. Of course, QAnon came from the Democrats. No, shut up, the idiot. And then he also called QAnon nonsense. Now this sent shockwaves through the QAnon community and Lin Wood- Basically the Republicans at this point.

Yeah. So this sent shockwaves through the Republican Party. And guess what? This isn't just speculation. There is video from Lin Wood secretly recording Michael Flynn as he made these statements. We'll try to play just a little bit. Was it video or was it audio?

Audio, audio. It's audio. It's audio. The QAnon movement really is a movement that spun out of your digital soldiers. i'm tired of these qanon people attacking me maybe i don't know that but you know some of them i think it's a disinformation campaign i think it's a disinformation campaign that the cia created that's what i believe now you know i don't know that for a fact but that's what what I think it is. I think it's a disinformation campaign.

There's actually a very interesting article today that was sent to me. I'll send it to you about how the QAnon movement has failed and all that. But I find it, you know, total nonsense. And I think it's a disinformation campaign created by the left and the types of people that can create something like that are the kinds of people that we train for certain, you know, with certain skills in the CIA. And I'm aware that the CIA doesn't. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it was. Yeah, I'm aware the CIA does programs where they'll give you 75% of the truth and wrap it in a package that makes you look crazy. You guys just look crazy.

Michael Flynn was a United States Army Lieutenant General. Dude. He was a national security advisor. Dude. To the president. He was the national security advisor. Dude. This guy had real serious power over our military. Lin Wood, not just some offbeat kook, which he is,

he was the president's attorney, the president of the United States. These people had serious power. These people are complete and total nut jobs. Have you ever heard anything so crazy in your entire life? The thing is, though, they created, though, something now that is far beyond any one person. Like Michael Flynn denouncing Q, all that does is it makes all those crazy people who he's been feeding these past couple years, makes them attack him. Because now he's going against their beliefs, their entire way of life. So this is just completely dysfunctional.

I think you have multiple weird factions of QAnon forming, and like Trump both supports Flynn and Trump supports Lin Wood, and they hate each other, and there's like a whole weird web that they are weaving that makes no sense because QAnon makes no sense whatsoever. Wasn't Lin Wood at one of the CPACs or whatever and he was making cues with his hands on stage? He goes, it's a cue.

These people, I want to be clear though, they're competent. Like don't let them get off on like, oh, I'm crazy. You can't put me on the, no, they're competent people. They're just fucking lunatics. I mean, when you hear that conversation though

with them talking, I mean, this is a private conversation that they're having. Obviously, Linwood's recording Mike Flynn, but they're having a con. This is the types of conversations that they have. Just imagine the type of conversations that they're having with Trump and like how bizarre and bizarre they're going. I mean, it's really, really, really frightening. But look, let's go back to the theme of the show. The theme is we need to get serious. The Democratic Party is a serious party. We had Anat Shankarasario on to tell you how we take that descriptive diagnosis and turn it into actual action. We're going to be speaking more with Anat, certainly after that episode. I want to definitely dig deeper into her research, her podcast, and what she's doing nationally and internationally. And Anat was such a great

guest to have. Before we close out the podcast, also want to let everybody know, Jordy, we extended the Black Friday to a Cyber Monday sale for the merch, eh? Let's go. We totally did. Go store.midastouch.com. And we are still running 30 to 40% off your favorite items on the Midas Touch store. And I had the Midas Touch Twitter account when I tweeted it out. I had the password. Yeah. I don't know who approved Jordy just like, oh yeah, 40% off items. It's a real thing that happened. I went a little bit crazy. I started making decisions. I got the Midas Touch Twitter account and I did a tweet from it. It was like one of my amazing emoji tweets where you make them with all the slashes and dashes. And Brett was not too happy.

Remember Brett, when there was AOL and people had the macros, I think they called it, and people would do those designs in the chat rooms? Yeah, we brought that to Twitter. ISCII, is that what it was called? It's like a computing term for back in the day that people would make. They would take these encoding language.

So to finish my story that I'm telling, Brett took the password away from me, and I had it for 48 hours, and it was totally worth it. Jordan's lost account access. You have to prove to him that it was worth it by going to store.midastouch.com right now and still getting some great merch. So please, please do that.

And one more thing. I have a bone to pick with some of my followers. A very slight few. And I'm not going to call anyone up by name if they do listen to the podcast, so don't worry about that. But here's the thing. You have to check your purity tests. And this is what I mean by that. It was Hanukkah, the first night of Hanukkah yesterday. Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate uh and so I did a tweet of a well-known Nazi getting just like just punched so hard in the face and it was awesome and everyone knows who this Nazi is he's a legit Nazi I'm not going to say his name because I'm not going to bring him up on our platform but he like hiles and he organizes he organized quote-unquote hate uh protests that are actual hate marches. And he actually got in a lot of trouble for that. So he's a legit Nazi and he refers to himself as such.

And anyway, I post this video, great video, 95, 98% of people were like hilarious. Love it. Happy Hanukkah, Jay. I'm like amazing. But then there was a few who were like, delete this. This is not right. This is not okay. And this is what I have to say to that. When your purity test has you on the side of defending a Nazi, getting punched in the face of defending the Nazi, you got to change the batteries out of that purity test. What was the criticism of it? I'm missing the story. No, they didn't like that I posted a video of a Nazi getting punched in the face. They thought it was too violent. And so here's my thing.

Your parents, our grandparents, they fought wars to eradicate Nazis. Don't give Nazis a fucking safe space where they just breed and multiply and become more Nazis. That's what the internet does. So when they see you defending the Nazis, you're doing something wrong. And that's all I got to say to that. Usually the end of the Midas Touch podcast is a time where we thank our followers. Jordy uses the end of the Midas Touch podcast. It's festive. It's full of festive. Jordy goes in his most passionate speech yet to date on the Midas Touch podcast, condemning certain of his 2% of his followers. I still appreciate you. Change the batteries out of your purity test. Yeah. I'm going to reel us back in for a second.

It's a big week in Congress. There's a lot that needs to be accomplished. Congress is going to have to avert another government shutdown by this Friday. They're going to work to advance the National Defense Authorization Act, and they are preparing for possible passage of the Build Back Better Act and another hike of the Build Back Better Act and another hike of the debt limit. Doesn't it feel like Congress is like a student who always waits till the last minute to deal with all their issues, always waits till the night before the test, before the essay is due to turn it in? But we have all that stuff this week. It's going to be a big week for Congress. Things moving smoothly in the January 6th committee. We got former Assistant

U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Capitol Right Committee is to vote on contempt charges for him this week. It's expected and likely that Mark Meadows will also be referred to the DOJ. That's all the updates we have right now in the January 6th committee. And I'm sure we'll have a lot of news coming at you this week. And we'll, of course, be keeping you up to date with everything that's going on. Love it. Thank you so much for making the Midas Touch podcast a top podcast. Thank you also for making Legal AF a top podcast. Thank you, everybody, for supporting the Politics Girl podcast, which is crushing it week after week. Thank you, everyone, for supporting Zoomed In. Maya Culpa, thank you for supporting the new Midas Touch partnership with 5-Minute News with Anthony Davis, which I absolutely love. And we'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Thanks.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty!