TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Another Something is Possible feat. Ettingermentum

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

For this week's bonus, we're joined by US politics observer Josh (@ettingermentum), who runs the Ettingermentum newsletter. We're talking Bidenism, Starmerism, Bidenism Without Biden, the UK now having two parties who refuse to govern, Third Way guys advising the Labour Party on how to be more right-wing, and much more.   Check out Josh's newsletter here: https://www.ettingermentum.news   Get the whole episode on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/106159350   *EDINBURGH LIVE SHOW ALERT* We're going to be live at Monkey Barrel comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe on August 14, and you can get tickets here:  https://www.wegottickets.com/event/621432 *MILO ALERT* Buy Milo’s special ‘Voicemail’ here! https://pensight.com/x/miloedwards/digital-item-5a616491-a89c-4ed2-a257-0adc30eedd6d *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

The problem is that he's like a new rich person because like the old rich people or like the sort of rich Tories that are sort of like asset rich but kind of cash poor I think are very different from like people like him who probably like is kind of a new rich guy for whom like the Tory party was sort of the avenue in which like perhaps back in 2010 or like in the 2010s is like the avenue that people like them sort of go to the upwardly mobile kind of consultant class who sort of want to try and do kind of technocratic politics because it's like a little bit different and it reminds them of like the secondment that they went on when they were doing their grad scheme or whatever. But now he sort of found himself at like the death knell

of this party that whose only kind of thing that they've got left is nostalgia. Right. And I think that's kind of the, this is not to sort of give this guy credit or anything, but it is just like, I feel like his job and I, I, one of the commentators actually sort of said this where they were like, look, the Tory party is like fucked, but he should sort of know that like, you know, his job is to sort of be present at these kinds of events that very traditional Tory voters kind of, you know, AKA like old pensioners and stuff like find very, very important. And so for him just to be like, fuck that, this isn't me, this isn't my life. You know, I'm rich, fuck this shit. It's cool. It's cool. That's a real affront to, I think like people who are sort of notionally Tories and for whom all they have left is like nostalgia

bait to kind of be a prime minister, but it just does not give a shit about any of that. And like, I don't think it's completely, I don't mean it's completely wrong, but I think it's just like, you know, yeah, he's sort of in a place where he clearly just doesn't want to be in. And it's very funny that he's not seemingly like by accident, he's kind of making that very apparent. Yeah. I think my favorite part of the D-Day thing was that even that he didn't show up, but he had to like give some like an emergency, like an interview, like response thing. And his response wasn't to

apologize, he was like, yeah I already did a bunch of that type of shit before that, I already spoke with all these people, so just fucking get off my back, I guess if you're pissed off I'm sorry. He's like a male manipulator about it, but like... ALICE I'm sorry, you're mad. KM Yeah, exactly. ALICE Exactly. I'm sorry, you're mad. Yeah, exactly. I think the billionaire thing is a really particular detail as well, too, because he could have had such an easier life, I think he knows this now, I think he's found this

out, he could have had such an easier life had he just, like, been a donor, had he just bought politicians, which in this country is insanely cheap to do, we've seen how little they sell themselves for. It's a 1300 pound membership to the jockeys enclosure at Newmarket Racecourse. Exactly, exactly. But instead of that, because he wanted to be a politician, because he wanted to be Prime Minister, and was willing to knife Boris to get there, now he's trapped in this kind of endless misery.

And it's really funny as well, because to do that for the trappings of power in the US, I get. Right, like, you get fucking Air Force One, and the Secret Service, and, y'know, finger on the nuclear button, all the rest of it. Yeah, dementia these days as well. Dementia. Guy bringing you infinite diet cokes. It's kind of cool to be President of the United States, I can see why someone

would want to do it, right? But to be Prime Minister? You get what out of that, exactly? It's like an arguably top 50 most powerful job in the world, behind a big CFO of Amazon or something. Yeah, exactly. You get to be in a motorcade of like, three Land Rovers, I guess. You get to write a letter to one of our three nuclear submarines saying like, oh, fucking nuke Russia

if we all die, or whatever. And then, as punishment, I think this is the other thing that I don't think- You get to go on loose women. Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing that he didn't kind of comprehend getting into this is, once you are Prime Minister, you are stuck with it because of a slight movement towards the presidential, which means that now, every November, for the rest of his life, he is gonna have to go to Remembrance Sunday, go to all the shit that he didn't want to go to now, with the guy whose job he took, and Liz Truss. And I think that is a sort of a karmic punishment.

KM Are the guys who beat him by 400 seats. ALICE Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's gonna have to be sharing a quiet word at the Cenotaph with Keir Starmer, who has just absolutely destroyed his legacy, or whatever legacy that could have been. ZACH Because that's the thing, he thinks he's above all of this. You're not. You're down here with the rest of them. They don't even wear Laurel Piana. He so easily could have been, but he chose to forfeit that, you know,

which is a bizarre, hubristic thing to do. Yeah. What to meet Emmanuel Macron at a D-Day. To go get ignored at COP26? To be the third most important... No, the fifth most important person on the Security Council? What the fuck did you do it for? Yeah. It's so cool that he did it after the whole List Trust thing, because it tried to succeed Boris, I kind of get it. He was kind of taken up by a personal scandal, not like any economic collapse or whatever. It was arguably kind of salvageable. It was like you're going to be an incumbent in a post-COVID, post-Ukraine world, which is not desirable, but you can kind of maybe make something

out of that. But doing it after trust when she just fucked everything and they were down about 30 points. It's like, you got to be like a real Iron Man to want to do that. And what's really fascinating about it to me is that there is a world where he comes out of this actually kind of respected because at least within the parties, like they love to give kind of like respect and like kind of credence and even admiration towards like people who just ate shit for on behalf of the team. Like that happened with like Sergeant Shriver when he like became the Govher's running mate in like 1972. He was always very-

And Duncan Smith is still kicking around. Yeah. Like always very kind of- Yeah. Writes great books. Posse Grandi. Yeah. Well respected as party man. Like Shriver was able to run for president four years later and got a moderate amount of traction. Like the fault is clearly with someone else, like Boris or Truss, you can come out of this and still kind of have a career in tech, you know, very safe seat. Even if it was your fault, like David Cameron's Foreign Secretary now, like he did the comeback.

Yeah, exactly. So, like, being able to become your own unique fuckup relative to Truss and Boris is just really remarkable. It's just, statistically you'd think they would've gotten somebody kind of good by now, because they've gone through so many people. Yeah, I mean, I guess the problem is that you have to recruit from British people and Tories, which are both very limiting benches. I guess the other thing about this too, right, I'm trying to think about why Rishi Sunak entered politics, right? And as far as I can tell, it wasn't to actually achieve anything, there wasn't a specific

policy legacy that he wanted to stamp his name on, like, it wasn't even a Milton Friedman thing like Trask where it was like, I'm gonna destroy the fucking economic orthodoxy. As best I can tell, in the kind of dying minutes of his leadership, when he gets the chance to throw whatever he wants at the wall, his answer is, like, banning smoking. Which is fine, I guess, but like, was this what it was for? Like, you could have lived in California untroubled by any friction in the rest of your life. Yeah, it's so weird. Like, go that hard. He's basically kind of like a centrist, like, his whole persona is like, oh, I'm a Tory, but I'm not a Liz Truss person. Like, then what

are you doing this for? You don't have like any vision. Like what's the point? I'm a Tory, but my bathrobe is clean. I respect toweling. I'll tell you exactly what I think it is. I think that Rishi Sunak became so Americanized that he forgot that all of the trappings of British power are just a curtain,

back behind which sits the normal guy who's the great and powerful Oz. I think he forgot that this is not a place that it is cool to be in charge of, and I think he only found that out upon getting handed the keys to what turned out to be quite the lemon of a car, basically. ALICE Yeah, like, genuinely. Having a bunch of conversations with other hedge fund guys in New York, with like, being Prime Minister, that sounds cool, I guess, and then you knife your boss to get that job,

and your response is like, a kind of shitty apartment. He and his wife have decorated horribly, and in which presumably, since Liz Truss hasn't had time to unpack her stuff, he has left you like an upper decker in the toilet." RILEY That's the thing. You have... Why I think that this is... Rishi Sunak is actually one of the most interesting British Prime Ministers for a long time, is that it shows how free you are as a billionaire, and how much more like a normal person the

Prime Minister is than a billionaire. And he is forced. He's forced to go to work meetings he doesn't want to go to. He's forced to live in a relatively small, relatively normal flat. He has to decorate himself. He can't have his mansions. He can't have his servants. He can't go to fucking Bohemian Grove. He can't be like... He can't just be hanging out with his billionaire friends, comparing the wine collections that they don't even touch because they don't drink. They just want to accumulate it. He's not doing any of the collections that they don't even touch because they don't drink they just want to accumulate it. He's not doing any of the stuff that they like.

He's just dry on adrenochrome at this point. Because he has to live like a regular guy. And it is so funny to watch every single fucking day. I take it back, there is a third bright spot to this election. Yeah. It's funny that if the Prime Minister went under the leader express the overwhelming it back, there is a third bright spot to this election.