TRIGGERnometry - Communist Spies in Hollywood? - Michael Malice

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Michael Malice is a Ukrainian-American anarchist, author, and podcaster. His books include Dear Reader, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook and, most recently, The White Pill. He is the host of video podcast "YOUR WELCOME" and was the subject of Harvey Pekar's 2006 biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story. Check out our last interview with Michael here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQJy_7C8Gts&t=2109s SPONSORED BY: MUD\WTR. Save $20, get a free sample of creamer AND a free frother when you visit https://mudwtr.com/triggernometry SPONSOR: https://GETSUPERBEETS.COM Use Promo Code: TRIG to get a free 30-day supply + 15% off your first order Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Joseph Stalin got the nuclear bomb from communists, working in the US. So this idea that there was this sort of like witch hunt that was completely baseless, never quite made sense to me. It's not that they're saying, have you had communist ideas? They were asking, were you a member of a secret organization taking orders from a foreign power intentionally designed to destroy your current political system

and implement a totalitarian dictatorship based on violence? Michael, it's so awesome to have you back. We've had you on the show a couple of times. And I will be honest to me, when we were coming to Austin, we were like, we've had Michael on. You know, we've probably talked about a lot of the stuff that we could talk with him about, blah, blah, blah. And then...

It's a wrap. It's a wrap. That's it. We've found that well. It's not a deep well. We have drained his intellectual balls. That's it. There's nothing left. But then we went for dinner,

and we just had the most incredible conversations about all sorts of stuff. And we found out that your balls are indeed still quite full. Yeah, they are. Full of intellectual. You are welcome. No, man, but it was awesome. Are they half full? Are they half empty?

I'm trying to be serious. Let's find out. And we talked about lots of different things. And I was sitting there the whole time thinking, why are there no cameras here? Because it would have been even more awesome if we had that recorded. There's no way that conversation could be aired. That is true. But we're going to try to do the part of it that we can do on camera.

Okay, okay. Okay, so I should take my pants off now. And also, Melissa Chen was there. Have you had her on? She's terrific. Yes. We've had her on. She is the most difficult guest I've had.

And I've said this to her face and I've said it publicly. Like every aspect of having her on my show is a pain in the ass, even though I adore her. Why was it a pain in the eye? She was complaining about the thumbnail and then she was laid and it was the whole thing. The guy to reschedule three times. I kind of admired the deep aspect of it to me. Someone as beautiful as her complaining with a thumbnail drove me crazy. Really?

Yeah. You're a knockout. You know you're a knockout. Yeah, I mean... Just like you, Michael. Well, I am an underwear model. You're an underwear model. Yeah, sheathunderware.com.

Go to Sheath and use promo code malice for 10% off. It's the underwear that has a separate pouch for both parts of your male anatomy. Right. Can we concentrate? Michael, put your pants away. It's true. I know you've been told that many times before. It was created by a guy from the Iraq War

because it was hot down there over there. Okay. How do we segue from that to a serious... Michael, let's talk about McCarthyism. Sure. I mean, that is a hell of a segue. It's a segue. It's a balzy topic.

There is. I did it. One of the things that we're talking about at dinner is there's lots of stuff that we have a conventional narrative about. Yes. I think, I'm going to cut you off just. No, no, no, you help yourself, man.

Because I think everything has a conventional narrative. And at a certain point when people become what's called red-pilled, you have that moment where you're like, oh, crap, like literally everything I've taught is a narrative. Now, the narrative might be true, but it is still a narrative because humans communicate not through reason, but through stories. Yeah. That's a really good point.

Stories are very powerful way of getting people's attention. and actually of misleading people. Absolutely. And also, because we are emotional thinkers, not rational thinkers, and that applies to all of us to some extent. So when you have a story that kind of makes sense and makes you feel a certain way, it's going to be far more persuasive than it charts and graphs,

which can often be faked anyway. And also, as well, with a story, you can make it incredibly simple. It's the story of good and evil, you know, the hero's journey. Whoever the hero may be, we identify with the hero, and therefore it becomes emotional.

and we don't want to look at the nuance and complexity of the issue. Is that passive aggression? No. The subtitle of the white pill is a tale of good and evil. So yeah, you're kind of dropping my mask. Good and evil does exist. But the reason I brought up McCarthyism, I always had this deep suspicion about that thing

because when I was researching my book and long before that, frankly, like Joseph Stalin, the most evil dictates in the 20th century. Or now. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, what off, it's a, it's a killoff, it's a, yeah, but yeah. It's a camp off, I don't know, right? Camp off is something very different, mate. Well, I don't go to that many gay parties. Anyway, um, that many.

Just enough. Just enough. Just the taste. Just a little flavor. Yeah. I mean, Joseph Stalin got the nuclear bomb from communists working in, in the US, right? So this idea that there was this sort of like witch hunt that was completely baseless. that McCarthyism was about hunting down people who weren't at all communist, et cetera.

Never quite made sense to me, but I'd never bothered to look into it. So we're sitting there over dinner, and I was like, Michael, given that we're talking about destroying narratives, tell me about, and you were just like, bleh. I did throw up. You literally threw up, sickening. So tell us about McCarthyism. Well, first of all, I had a quote from my book, The White Pill, I don't have it in front of me, but there was a playwright, Molly Thatcher, Molly Day Thatcher, I think what her

name was and she goes, there were no witches. Like the term itself is intellectually dishonest. But there were, she goes, no, tried to talk to someone the left and tell them that there were no communists in the unions, in Hollywood, in politics, who were working systematically under orders from a foreign nation to implement a violent overthrow of the state and implement a, you know, a totalitarian dictatorship. She goes, they know better because that term is intellectually dishonest and ridiculous. And Arthur Miller, who wrote The Crucible to, which was kind of an analogous to the McCarthy era, years later, was like, we didn't have it in our framework that all these things that we hated about Hitler originated in the Soviet system, the secret police, the camps, turning families against each other. I don't have the laundry list off to my head.

It's also in the book. But Arthur Miller was like, like, all these awful things that we hate about the Nazis, they got from, or had at least the preceding. them in the Soviet system. So the term itself, McCarthyism is also intellectually dishonest because McCarthy was a senator. The House on American Activities Committee was in the House, and that preceded him to some extent. And the question wasn't, it's portrayed as people were just members of this party. It's not like they were like Francis.

Were you ever a member of the Green Party? this was a criminal organization under foreign control, engaged in terrorism and violence and all sorts of horrific. And espionage. And espionage, all sorts of horrificity. But it's portrayed as just basically instead of voting D or R, you're voting C. They don't believe in voting. The whole point is to destroy democracy.

And they were influential in getting Hitler into power in Germany because we're not going to lie with the, the, Leftist Party, the Socialist Party, and they called them, was it called them Social Fascists, or whatever the term was? I forget what the term was. But so it's, and it's just interesting because this is the one time in the U.S. Where leftists were canceled, and it's portrayed as the second worst thing to ever ever happened in America other than slavery.

And from their perspective, it is. Because this is, and again, this isn't leftist in the sense of we need health care for the poor. You know, people who can't afford college should get a handout, and it's going to, earn back for the society because, yeah, we're paying for their schooling, but they're going to become doctors and engineers. This is better for everybody. This is a violent totalitarian ideology discussed in secret, and with consequences, as you saw, such as, you know, Stalin getting the bomb and things like the Korean War and all sorts of other things. I think as well, Michael,

that there is a little bit of a gray line to me, which is people are allowed to believe ridiculous things. Sure. You know, I don't think that we should, I mean, this, again, this is a gray line. For example, there are people who describe themselves as socialist and as somebody who has seen socialism close up and seen the horrors of socialism. I think that they are demented and stupid, to put it bluntly. However, I don't think they should have their professional opportunities curtailed just because they identify as being socialist. So to me, there's always a gray line. Contailed by whom? Sorry? curtailed by whom?

Could tell by whom? But so, for instance, if you... Are you going to hire Klansmen? Are you going to hire Klansmen? There's not many of them in South London, man. Are you going to hire someone from the National Front? Am I going to... No, they don't exist anymore.

But do you see... Look, let's stop playing games. No, no, no. I'm not playing games. No, no, no, no, no, I'm talking to him. No, no, no, no, but there was a very... This is like a circular firing... Yeah.

But there was a very... That's the Polish communist. Yeah, but there was a very interesting case about 15 years ago, with the BNP was still the British National Party, who were our kind of version of the far right, there was a teacher who was fired for being a member of the British National Party.

And to me, there's always that grey line. Do you see what I mean? There's different to when the government does it and when you do it privately. Yeah. It wasn't that you was illegal for you to hire a Hollywood screenwriter who was a communist, and they often just changed their names

that had no consequences, if not were, you know, valorized for their courage. in the face of adversity. Lillen Helman went to her grave and apologetic for her defense of Stalin. And again, it's not that they were simply, I like communism. This is, I want Stalin to have control over America.

This is the, they're trying to create a gray area where, in my view, there is none. And I agree with you that if someone's a teacher, you know, this is something we need to worry about. Because it's like, if the government's just picking and choosing, who could be a teacher, so on and so forth. But McCarthyism, broadly speaking, although it does speak to the government committees that were investigating this, it also speaks this idea of, do I want people like this working for me? And if I discover that they're secretly doing this and putting their ideas, their demonic ideas into my films or my books or so on and so forth, do I want this person to my payroll?

I think that's a, that is not only a legitimate question, it's an unavoidable question. Because everyone listening to this, there are people whose views they would find so abhorrent that they would never hire them. Right. Michael, maybe it's helpful at this point to actually, given that not many people know history, particularly of that period, to actually explain what happened during that so-called McCarthyism. What was actually being done? Well, I mean, this is kind of a long, so, okay, there's just so many moving parts here, and I'll try to break down. as efficiently as possible. The thing, and I'm going to start with the present day,

and this is why I'm just anticipating all the pushback because it's just very maddening and frustrating. So boomer conservatives have, in the same way that the definition of a racist is someone winning an argument with the leftist, right? So the definition of a communist is someone who boomer conservatives don't like, right? And they'll tell you with a straight face

that Joe Biden is a communist and all this other stuff. Joe Biden is a corporate hack. He does not want the government running all industry. And most people who in America are left of center, let's suppose the Democratic Party, are not Hillary Clinton's another example. Maybe she is totalitarian tendencies, just in a personality-wise, she's perfectly happy to have Wall Street run everything.

The communist and Wall Street are not friends in the sense that they are content to have Wall Street run everything. They want the state to run everything. And you might kind of try to evade the issue and be like, well, at the end of the day, it's just the same. It's really not the same. It's having a monopoly as opposed to having, you know, enormous corporate control. There's certain distinctions.

I'm not saying either's good or is bad. I'm just saying they're not interchangeable. So as a result of this, they can't wrap their heads around. Some of the biggest anti-communists were hardcore leftists. Harry Truman, you know, is a great example of this. He became president after FDR. And though they were kind of shaking hands with Stalin to fight Hitler, that quickly fell apart after World War II and the Cold War happened.

You know, it was Churchill in, I figure it was in Nebraska maybe. He gave some speech in American College, and he coined the term Iron Curtain. He said Iron Curtain has fallen over Europe. And the good guys were on this side and the bad guys were on that side. And what's shocking to me and one of the reasons I wrote the White Pill

is it is completely indisputable that for decades this was the central foreign policy issue for everyone on earth. You know, you had the communist second world, the Western First World, who's going to win. And, you know, it was not at all obvious or it was not at all clear that the West was going to win. Sputnik was a great example of this. They got satellite into space before we did. This was proof that the Soviet system is great. And, you know, when Germany was divided

into East and West, it's like, all right, this is kind of proof of concept. And North Korea was doing better than South Korea until, I think, the early 80s because they were getting subsidies from the USSR and from the Soviet Union. So what happens is you have the Korean War very quickly, the early 50s, right after World War II. And we were, you know, we had BDE, right? Because we won World War II, even though the Russians, like, lost so many more people than we did, like, we merged unscathed. Like, America became the undisputed leader of the free world.

And then it's like, all right, now the fact that the Korean War was a draw, this really changed that narrative. This is why the Korean War in America is still called the Forgotten War, because what's the story here? Like World War II is a great story. Good guys versus bad guys, and we kind of don't talk about Stalin, right? World War I, okay, it was a disaster, it was a mess, but it's like the narrative kind of is like, don't get involved in international affairs if you don't need to. You know, what a tragedy, so and so forth. Korea, Vietnam is more talked about what happened here and the reaction as opposed to why are we there to begin with.

We had our ass's hand to us. You know, what happened. When they teach the Vietnam War here, they don't really teach about what happened to Vietnam after. It's just like, we were there. You know, we were kind of routed. And like, now let's talk about something else. It's very, there's no follow-up.

And this happens a lot with media narratives. A good example, I remember, even I don't know the conclusion to this, just to kind of start a sidebar. I remember Greece was having issues with their national debt and deficit, right? And the EU and Merkel were putting pressure on them. And you had this far left party. We're like, we're going to repudiate the debt. We're not going to pay it back and the EU's like we're not going to do you can't do that and they got voted in and then everyone just stopped talking about it like there was no follow-up here by the way of what happened after that

parliamentary election where that far left party got in anyway So as a result of this kind of international rivalry There was it was discovered that during the 30s and there's a great book about this called the red decade To what extent communism really captured the hearts and minds of Western intellectuals. It was much worse in Great Britain than the States. Much, much worse. Because what you had people who were openly talking about, like, look, if we can't get it democratically, we're going to get it through revolution and things like this. And this guy was, I think, the chairman of the Labor Party. So you had these congressional investigations. They found

lots of stuff. They also accused perfectly innocent people or people who had communist sympathies. And in many cases, you know, their lives were wrecked. So this is just a test. in my opinion to some extent to the inefficiencies of government and Congress is not really interested in finding truths Congress is interested in grandstanding but that term McCarthyism applies to many disparate concepts that are conflated together and thrown away and it I agree it is important for people to have access to ideas and to be able to hold whatever ideas that they want but I don't think anyone believes with a straight face that no matter what ideas

as someone has, they should never, you know, not be fired from their jobs. Maybe government is a different situation because that's a free speech issue, it's your First Amendment issue. No, it's a very interesting point that you raise. And it's something that I really struggle with, because if you believe in free speech, then everybody should be able to, you know, they have the right to their ideas. But yet, if you are pragmatic, you realize that some ideas are so abhorrent that you wouldn't want to let this person with incredibly abhorrent ideas through the front door.

But the key is it's not that they're saying, have you had communist ideas? They were asking, were you a member of a secret organization taking orders from a foreign power intentionally designed to destroy your current political system and implement a totalitarian dictatorship based on violence? That's not the same as being a member of the Green Party or being a, you know, a member of a socialist party. Yeah. Michael, and then what happens in the 60s?

Because the narrative is, and this is the alternative conventional narrative, is that Western Communists sort of realized that communism, in terms of dividing people by social class,

wasn't going to work in the West. The workers were not going to rebel against the bourgeois because they all sort of thought, you know, the American dream is everyone thinks they're going to be a millionaire one day, so why would we tax millionaires type of thing? And then in the 60s, they kind of go,

okay, we'll find a different way to divide people and we'll divide them along race, we'll divide them along sex, we'll divide them along sexuality, etc. Is that, do you buy that or is there a different? But I would just edit that slightly. It's not that we will divide them, it's that people, instead of being divided by class

and irrevocably divided by class, the whole point, there's this concept under Marxism called polylogism. which is like, you know, oh, you're a bourgeois, you could never understand my working class thinking because we're fundamentally inherently different on a metaphysical level, which is why Lenin was like, all right, we just got to slaughter these people because I can't fix you. Like, you're a member of the bourgeoisie and you will die a member of the bourgeoisie. They don't really, like, stick to it entirely because there were lots of, you know,

these kind of champagne socialist, limousine liberals, caviar communists, who, like, they perfectly welcomed in with open arms, but that was kind of the approach to be like, well, there's just some people there's no reasoning with. And that is true, broadly speaking, but it doesn't sort out by class at all in practice. So then, as you saw correctly, James Lindsay is the king of this, his book, Race Marxism, they took that polylogism and they applied it to different kind of identity politics. And it's been enormously successful, and you can see it every single instance, what you see, As a black woman, it's like, well, hold on a minute.

I mean, that's a nonsensical way to precede a sentence because the claim is, do all black people or all women or all black women think this? No, you're one data point. So I'm not in position to speak as a Texan or as someone from Ukraine or as a Jew or as a former New York or as an American. To some extent I am, but to say that like, well, as an American, blah, blah, blah, it is a bell curve and is a range. But it's presented as each person kind of becomes the emperor of their own little niche.

And it also is a very effective argument technique because, well, you're a white man, you can't understand what's like to be a black woman, which is true to some extent. You can't understand that experience 24-7 living that lifestyle, but you can certainly understand that person's ideas and be amenable to having life be better for them and hear them out. And it's also a very, very, very effective. trick in order to silence people of your own race or background who disagree with you? Yes. Because you're like, I'm the spokesman for this person.

And then if this person challenges me, well, then you're a traitor to this group. Well, I think people underestimate to what extent this is metaphysical. So in this kind of discourse, race is something that is a state of grace. So in this worldview, Bill Clinton is literally black, and Clarence Thomas is literally not. It is a mind, so race isn't just literally the color of your skin. It is a set of ideas and class and all these other things that get packaged into it. So, yeah, when they say that Larry Elder, is this a very notorious example, who ran for government in California, was called the black face of white supremacy.

They weren't being ironic or anything like that. This is really kind of makes sense given their premises. It is. I remember watching this documentary on a heroine of mine who is Rachel Dollazale. Okay. Did you see when she got trolled on cameo? Oh, yeah. They actually bought me a cameo for my 40th birthday from her.

Yeah, it was a very nice touching moment. But there was this really... We should dig that up and play it. Oh, of course. We do have a special... This is a video message for you, mate. Have a look at this. Hi, Frances. This is Rachel Dolajal, and I just wanted to wish you a very happy birthday.

Happy 50th. This little shoutout is from Squirrel, and I hope that you have a very, very happy birthday, do something fun to celebrate, and also best of luck for your exam that's coming up in March this month. So I hope that you do well. I hope that you're studying goes well for that exam too and most importantly happy happy birthday there you go mate your favorite brown bird wish you a happy 50th what is my fucking life there was this really interesting moment in her documentary where it obviously came out the truth the truth came out as it always does that she's not black and she was doing a talk in front of these black students and this girl put her hand up and she went, you're not black because you haven't earned the right to be black.

And that to me was so interesting because it's not an immutable characteristic. It's something that you have to earn. You have to suffer for it, which to me is a completely bizarre way of approaching race. Why is it bizarre? Because if in their subculture or this worldview, suffering is valourious, which is, you know, it's kind of an amazing generation of the Christian ethic. So of course, it's going to be like, I've suffered, therefore I'm more virtuous than you. It makes perfect sense.

It does. It does make perfect sense, but when you think of race as a mutable characteristic, then it doesn't make sense. But they don't use language to communicate. They use language to manipulate. So it's irrelevant. So let's talk about that because I think that that fundamentally is what pisses me off the most about what's going on.

Words have meaning. Depends, I mean, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but in one context, Yes, another context, no. So you say that they're not using language to communicate, they're using language to manipulate. Right. Why? Why do people manipulate? Yeah.

For power, for status. I mean, this is, you don't need my insight into this. Right. So how do we deal with that? Well, this is the part we talked about at dinner that I think. I think in all seriousness, the way to deal with it, and I don't think you're, there yet, I'm not trying to be mean, is once you understand that, many things will grow clear to your understanding, right? You stop getting frustrated when you see like, oh, how could

you say that Clarence Thomas isn't really black, you know, or so and so forth? I got Wade, who lives here in Austin. She's from Africa. She's a great entrepreneur. She's very, very dark. And when you talk to her about this stuff, she kind of loses her mind because she's just like, you know, this makes absolutely no sense. I'm a very dark African black woman. And you're telling me that I'm basically white. You're from America. I'm from Senegal. Like, I'm from the motherland.

I still have an accent. So, you know, their argument is language itself is always a mechanism for powerful people to maintain power. So if it's good for the goose, it's kind of good for the gander. And they don't always realize that they're doing it. But then there's all these little kind of mechanisms like white fragility, white rage, right? So unless you sit down and submit entirely, like you, are validating white supremacy. I just read this book. There's this great woman, Sarah Rayo, S-A-I-R-A-R-A-O,

and she's from the Indian descent, Indian subcontinent. And this is her partner, Regina Jackson, and they have these dinners called Race Together. And you pay them $2,000, and white women come, and they just tell them how horrible they are and how they're, all of them are Nazis, and you have to decolonize every space. And it's really exactly almost like the military or cult programming. They just sit them down and berate them. And when the women start crying,

it's just like, well, that's just white tears, which is your defense mechanism to not do the work and maintain your powerful position. And then they were like, it's funny because in this book at one point, they're like, you know, you betrayed your own gender

because 53% of you voted for Donald Trump, who's a known regist, blah, blah, blah, But then voting for Hillary Clinton, the Democrats are the same as the Republicans. I don't know what they're supposed to do as a white woman. Like, you don't have any good options. And that's really smart from their perspective, because if they're running the table and no matter where you go, you lose, well, the House always wins. Right. Yeah.

So what it sounds like is you can't actually win the argument. Because it's not being done in good faith. Because it's not an argument. It's a battle. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Very well said.

That sounded more like intellectual, emotional, BDSM than anything. I actually tweeted that out that if I was not joking. I put on my Freudian hat and I said, this is unsublimated BDSM. These women should be reading 50 shades of gray and not Ibram Kendi because it's very clearly that they're getting off on some way of the degradation and the masochism. Right.

It's serving some purpose in their psychology, these white women. So come back to the argument. So what that says to me is the idea of the marketplace of ideas is kind of that's not going to work here. Well, that's not true. There's lots of, in any marketplace, you're going to have shitty products and you have products. For example, liquid death is just water. But people buy it because it's got the cool label. It makes no sense.

But they pay a lot of money. So a lot of times you want the packaging instead of the product. Yeah. We actually went into a store here. And one of us, what's liquid death? And they're like, it's just water. Yeah. I was the first time I, because I thought it was some kind of cool beer.

And I'm looking at them just like, what the, I'm just like, good Lord. I mean, it would be a good name for water in Venezuela. Why is that? Is it poisonous there? Completely contaminated. But, um... Thanks for cheering us up there. Yeah, yeah, I thought so. I thought that'd be funny, it's just depressing.

But it's... I always, I thought of this, I wrote this, how essentially identity politics is just the weaponization and monetization of white guilt. It's in part, yeah. And you just think, it just shows how, Actually, the point that you said originally, emotions are stronger than reason. Yes. It's completely true, because you look at all these people, or a lot of these people,

who are afflicted by whatever you want to call it, mind virus ideology. They're all very intelligent. They all went to the best university. It's easier to train a smart dog than a dumb one. You have to have a certain amount of intellectual heft to engage in the mental gymnastics to keep a ridiculous philosophy in your mind. And it also is a point of pride was a tortulian, you know, I believe because it's absurd. I think that's kind of a mischaracterization of its actual views.

But the point being, it makes you feel, it's kind of any kind of mystery religion where you initiate into the faith and you understand things that the normie's regard is absurd. You know, that is something that is a point of pride, not a point of shame. You have access to secret knowledge or hidden knowledge. Yes, and you understand things that everyone else could never understand because to them would be ridiculous. Right. So it's a status thing. So, on the one hand, that sounds pretty bad. On the other hand, you think we've gone past peak woke now.

Yes. I can prove that we've gone past peak woke. Okay, again, I'm getting triggered because I'm appreciating the reaction. When you say something is not as bad as it was before, they hear, oh, it's not a problem anymore. Right. So it's like, you know, like I had cancer and I have the flu. Oh, so you're saying the flu's fine?

I'm just, peak woke is past. I'm not saying woke's not a problem. I'm not saying cancel culture is not real. I'm not saying this is okay. I'm not saying we should. Can I interrupt you that? Do you know what pisses me off

about the world that we live in? Is that whenever you want to say something, obviously, you know, whenever we want to say something now, we have to do all these fucking 50 caveats, whichever side is going to get triggered by what you're saying. Because the average human mind,

is a series of mouse traps, and those mouse traps are triggered when they hear certain phrases. Yes. So you know perfectly well, there's certain phrases and certain constructions that people have preloaded speeches,

and you know what those speeches are going to be. So I think people who have the kind of work that we do and travel in the circles that we do, we know exactly what certain things will trigger certain specific, mindless reactions. Yeah. But anyway, peak woke, woke is still a problem, But I mean just to explain for those people who might get triggered the idea of peak work is

You know workness gets worse worse worse worse and worse you get to the point where it's at its maximum and we are now on the down slope in your opinion I don't know if it was at its maximum but it could have gotten worse but I'm saying it's not as bad in current year as it was two or three years ago and I can demonstrate this easily Because there were many people there's a I can give you one person I personally helped get Roseanne Barr back on Twitter. Roseanne Barr was canceled. They literally canceled her show. They killed off her character. She's been declared a racist.

She's been read out of polite society. She's got a successful podcast. She's back on Twitter. Companies are advertising with her. They did not succeed in canceling her. There's lots of other people who were just vanished. And the whole point of cancel culture isn't that like, just you're fired from your job.

It used to be this person is red out of polite society. You can, they're radioactive, you can't engage with them. Paula Dean is back on YouTube. Kurt Metzger, a comedian buddy of mine, had this great bit because he did the research about Paul Dean because she got her life ruined because I think it was a court filing. She acknowledged that she had used a racial slur, right, at one point in the past. And Kurt did the homework and he goes, what happened was like in the 70s or 80s, she was a bank clerk and she was like robbed a gunpoint.

And that's when she used like the N word, right? And Kirk goes, they should build a statue to her. This is the most progressive old Southern white lady ever because she had to be traumatized into saying this. He goes, they should build a statue and bring kids around and the statue should say she only said it once. Because she admitted this, her life was ruined,

but now she's back, it's not as back as what she was before. And that may be not an example in that regard, but there's lots of people, Trump is a good example. Like even 2015, 2016, 2016, This person's evil, literally Hitler, the cover of the daily news had him, he said, Antichrist, like, where do you go from there? There's lots of people who, you know, he's back on, he has access to Twitter and so on, and YouTube and other agencies are now admitting, okay, we're not going to be as heavy

on the disinformation because you don't need a majority, you just need an alternative. And having Elon, having Twitter, and having a space where this shit's not going to fly, right away you don't have that monopolistic or oligarchy where you have like four or five agencies control in the whole market and the rest of them are like, all right, there's no point in us putting in these resources because it's not going to accomplish our goal of having this kind of hegemonic control over the microphone.

And what happened to Rosanne? Tell everybody how that went down. Well, she was tweeting about Valerie Jarrett, who was an advisor to President Obama, who was born Iran, who is passing. You know, she's African-American. And Roseanne had this tweet about the Iran deal. She goes, Planet the Apes and Muslim Brotherhood had a kid,

had a baby equals Valerie Jarrett. And Roseanne's light, it's like, oh, you're calling a black woman an ape and so on and so forth. And this is someone who's a lifelong leftist who fought very hard for, you know, black rights, civil rights, and was known for this. But on her show, the character became a Trump supporter. And one of her writers even explicitly said,

this shows humanizing Trump supporters. Right. So this was something that had to be stopped. So, you know, they cancelled her within minutes. The rest of the cast threw her under the bus. People who had their homes because of her, you know, who knew her for many years. She lives here now. I've become friends with her, which is one of the greatest things ever to talk to, like Roseanne Barr and hear her to do that laugh. Was her show as her popular in the UK as I was here? Yes. Yeah. It was. It was put on kind of like a 6pm slot, but it was still a huge show. Yeah. And then she had the Theo Von incident as well.

That was my fault. I'm not kidding. So when I did my books, The New Right, I had never encountered literal Nazis before. Okay. And when I, or Holocaust deniers. And what I learned is there are very few Holocaust deniers. The Holocaust deniers are people who say the numbers are exaggerated. But I was like, wait, wait, wait. You're saying like only like 200,000 people died, including many children. and like, I'm like, wait, what? I thought, like, okay, if they're going to say no one died, that makes more sense to me ethically or emotionally

than, like, the numbers are exaggerated and like lots of lots of people. There was only two million, I mean, come on. It's really crazy. Who hasn't done that? I mean, stop whining, get on with it. Who hasn't been there? So when I talked to them,

what was fascinating is that they thought that the Holocaust never happened but should have, right? Everyone's going to take that clip now and ruin my life. She thought she is very Jewish. She identifies, a rabbi and she's like well i never said i was a good one um so she's on the o vaughan show talking about things that are kind of you're not allowed to say she goes yeah joe biden didn't get uh uh uh joe biden didn't get 81 million votes and six million jews didn't die in the holocaust but they should

and they took that clip and they rosean bar holocaust denier and it was insane to me to watch how quickly they got thank god for twitter because the community notes which is a feature for people don't know on Twitter is if someone posts something disingenuous, the community can add a note to it to provide context. And immediately the community note said, this is part, she's being sarcastic, here's the full clip, this is a discussion of things that you are not allowed to say on social media. To equate questioning an election with questioning the Holocaust is also a complete intellectual dishonest.

But it didn't take. Whereas a few years ago, this would have absolutely wrecked her. Do you know when in the UK, when I think we reached peak work, is there was a two-time male rapist called Adam Graham in Scotland. And the moment he got convicted, he developed prison onset gender dysphoria. I would do that. And then he got put in a female prison. And then there was understandably uproar because, you know, she is now a woman and you're putting this two-time male rapist in prison. And then there was a very famous interview with the Scottish First Minister at the time, Nicola Sturgeon.

Oh, I love her. She's also trans, basically. Just throw that haircuts, you know. Yeah, exactly. Transmixed with a potato. I thought that was Irish. No, she does look like a potato. But then they were saying to her, well, trans women women.

And she went, yes, yes. And she went, well, what about Isla Bryson? And then, yeah, but Isla Bryson's not a woman? So goes, oh, so in the context of a prison, then trans women aren't women. She went, yes, but... Trans women are women, but in the prison context, there is no automatic right for a trans woman. So there are contexts where a trans woman is not a woman. No, there is circumstances in which a trans woman will be housed in the male prison estate.

Is there any context in which a woman born as a woman will be housed in the male estate? Look, we're talking here about trans women. And I'm now asking about women born as women? I don't think there are circumstances there, but... So it's different for trans women? Well, yes. And I'm not... So they're not equal?

That is not, there is a risk assessment process done for trans women that takes account of the nature of the crime. Clearly, significant concern arises out of sexual crime and whether it's appropriate for them to be in a female prison or a male prison. And you could see it slowly crumble in her brain, and then there was this other beautiful... No, I got to... Was it crumbling in her brain, or was it crumbling?

Like, how do I weasel my way out of this? I wonder. I actually genuinely wonder because I do think that I have seen this happen with people particularly when I'm debating them or whatever where you can see that glimmer of

like oh what I'm saying doesn't make any sense suddenly it sort of starts to click. I remember I was talking to my college roommate about discrimination laws and I said in Las Vegas or in Nevada maybe not Las Vegas prostitution is

legal or in I don't remember exactly. And I said, what if you had a woman who was racist, escort or prostitute, and she wouldn't want to have sex with black people, would legally you force her to? And he's like, oh, I have to think about that. I'm just like, okay, I'm out. You know, but it's just, it's amazing when people are in, it's almost worse when they're logically consistent, because then it's like, do you not even hear where you're, because

sometimes, you know, if you follow your logic and you end up somewhere in the wrong place, you're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need to check my work because this conclusion is something I'm not comfortable with. But when you have this kind of, you know, thinking, they just bite the bullet. And that's what makes it scary. Yeah, indeed. And then there was question time, which is our most prestigious debate program. They were talking about this particular case. And a former guest of the show, Ella Wheelan, said to a member of the Scottish Parliament, member of the SMP, the ruling party, they went, is Is Is Is Is Ila Bryson a man or a woman? And she went, and she went,

Is Is Isla Bryson a man or a woman? And then the Scottish MP responded with the words, They're a rapist. And you just heard this groan from the audience. I think most people at home will have noticed that you kept saying the individual. But I mean, you have to ask beg the question, is Adam Graham the double rapist?

Who now calls myself, Ila Breson? Fine, if that's what he wants to do. do a man or a woman because the question at hand is not whether this rapist should serve a sentence for rape it's whether this individual is a man or a woman and therefore which prison he or she goes into so what is your answer is this individual a man or a woman I'm sorry this individual is a rape no no we know that I want to know is this individual a man or a woman The First Minister was asked this question today at First Minister's question time. She gave the response

that she didn't... If you'll let me speak. She gave the response that she didn't know enough about the individual in question, I would say likewise. But I think the most important thing in this case, we have to be very careful because we trust the Scottish Prison Service to make these judgments on behalf of Scottish ministers. That is their role, that is their job. And it's also worth saying

to the point in relation to reviews. There are two reviews underway at the moment in Scotland, one in relation to the case it was previously discussed. You have an answer to the question. tomorrow and the second is being undertaken by the Scottish Prison Service and will report directly to Scottish ministers. It is absolutely essential. We trust the Prison Service

to make these decisions to keep our prison population safe. I have answered the question. No, you haven't. You haven't. But can I just say, Fiona, if I can cut it, the reason why, I think this is... Well, should we give Jenny one more chance to answer the question? Carry on. Yeah. Because the audience

hear your answer. I really would. This individual is a rapist. That is the most important thing. Now, listen, the reason why this is such an important question. It's because, you know, as Kelly said, this is not, this is a discussion that is not just about the situation of prisons or rape crisis centers, which are very important places that are sex-based for a reason. And there's a kind of, it's remarkable to me that politicians in this country in Scotland and Wales and in England seem to be, have given up

on the, you know, belief in reality that sex is real and that it's irrefutable. It's really important because if politicians and a government cannot deal in reality and in truth and deal with facts that are based on the things that we all understand, then why would you have any belief in anything they say? Why would you have any belief in the justice system? Because the one kind of group that we haven't mentioned so far is women, and it's women who are being made to pay for it. But it comes back to your point, which is they use language to manipulate.

And if you use language to manipulate, then truth isn't real, right? There is no truth. Well, truth is not relevant. So it's real, but it's not relevant. Right. Because it's unpalatable. No, no, it's because it's not the way the conversation is being had. It's not about the truth.

It's about who wins the power game. And you see this on social media at the time. People are interested in seeking, like people try to argue with you. They're not looking for, you know, let's kind of have this, you know, a, not socratic, but just like have a debate and will come out. of it some version of the truth, it's more like they just want to one up you or play gotcha. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that all said, we're past peak walk. What does that mean for where we're going? I am very hopeful for the future of many aspects of the West. Canada, I think,

is in the short or medium term, hopeless, but I would be giddy to be proved. wrong because a lot of times it's easier to come back to the light when it's really, really dark. You know, like sometimes the relationships, if the husband is only a little abusive, you stick it out for like a very long time because you could tolerate it, but then like once he gives you a black eye in many cases, like, all right, now it's a wrap. So it's like boiling the frog. It's like people are comfortable with a certain amount, but maybe there's a point where

it's a breaking point. So maybe Canada actually is more hopeful than the States, although my money would be on the States. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, I am completely. I'm in agreement with you, there is a caveat in that I think if Trump gets reelected, it's going to flare up again. What will flare up? The wokeness.

I don't think so, and here's why. I think the anti-Trumpism will obviously flare up to an enormous extent, but I think the wokeness, there's wokeness in the activist class, and there's wokeness in the elite, right? And the elite only care about wokeness insofar as it maintains and controls their power, right? But back in 2015-16, you could not stop from hearing in the states about refugees welcome, we need more Muslim immigration. That Linda Sarsour was this Greta Thunberg figure that they just brought her out every five minutes and she's a spokesman for this whole movement. That's completely vanished and completely gone away.

You literally never hear them talk about this. This was a total victory by the right, but since so many people on the right here regard themselves those perpetual victims and just only want to complain about whatever the leftists are talking about right now and they live in a perpetual present they've completely forgotten that this was a battle they've totally won so the wokeness is blowing up in their faces because my Karen who's the swing voter in america the suburban mom when Karen is seeing what's going on with these schools she's going right like hard right so they'll be more than happy to throw this um over the side of the boat if it doesn't serve their purposes. Now, the activists won't be happy, but I don't know if you guys

are aware of this. Biden and Kamala Harris get elected, and the heads of BLM were public complaining that they wouldn't take their calls. So they didn't even have them like some kind of like, oh yeah, go meet with Kamala Harris, we'll have beers, photo up. They wouldn't even bother returning their calls. And this is public. So I think people underestimate because so much of social media and political media is just about like right versus left, how little behind the scenes, to many people, this actually matters and how much of it's a smokescreen. That's very interesting. And it was always going to be, once you started to involve people's kids in this, there was only ever going to be one. I mean, I said this from day one, the trans thing

will be what breaks us, because you start messing with people's kids. I mean, I told you a story about a fan of our show over dinner, who's kind of a default liberal, I don't think particularly interested in politics, but a daughter comes home from school one day, very expensive school in New York. And he was like, Mommy, am I a girl? Am I a boy, rather? And she goes, why? And she goes, well, I play soccer, don't I? And once you get to that point. And I said no, you're a foreigner. Once you get to that point, you're going to, you're going to lose a lot of people. I'm not trying to be a contrarian, but I do want to, I think this is just an important point to the audience. I think people underestimate to what extent privileged, especially white women,

are willing to sacrifice their children for the altar of status. And for them, having a trans kid is like winning the lottery, right? And you laugh, but it's really the case. It's very disturbing. They're the only ones bringing their kids to drag shows because for these affluent white female liberals offals, a man in makeup is like the second coming. And they're showing dad or their husband or whoever

how enlightened they are, because this is what corporate media tells them. So they can't wait to bring their kids and show how, you know, with the program they are. So they are a menace. And this, in my opinion, is Munchausen's by proxy. You know, they're torturing their kids for the sake of status and accolades. Yeah. But their minority is my point.

Sorry, France, just to finish. Sure, but it's, it's powerful. No, no, it's fucking awful. But what they are doing is red-pilling a hell of a lot of normies. And it's also redpilling to the extent that you realize this isn't a conversation, right? Like if I sat down with you and we're friends and I start talking to you about how you're going to raise your kid, this isn't a conversation. If it doesn't get to violence, like you think in violence, your first reaction is like, what are you talking about? Like, this is crossing a line that is so sacred.

It's ridiculous. So I think that is healthy in the realization that this is not a discussion. When you're when you're you can discuss like marginal tax rates you know social safety and so and so forth When there's such an asymmetry in the consequence of discussion Very quickly it's like this isn't something could just be left to the hopes that I win a debate Because maybe I mean articulate or so and so forth And maybe I'm you know, don't have the the class of the money to back up my position But if you're even risking my kid my only reaction isn't to continue the conversation

My reaction is I have to get my kid away from you. Yeah, yeah Of course. And you see some of these big Hollywood actresses and they've got two trans kids and you go, there is something deeply amiss here, deeply amiss. And it becomes a status symbol. And you think to yourself, this is a society that has lost its moral compass. Well, the other thing that is never discussed in this context, which I think is very important, is it is very widely understood that if a woman is pregnant or going through menopause, right? These are hormonal changes. It affects the psychology.

No one argues. Ask any female, ask who's pregnant who've gone through menopause. They'll laugh about it. It's like, oh my God, one day I'm crying, one day. And it's part of the human condition. Males who take testosterone, steroids. This is heightened aggression, muscle mass, all these other things that happened. The idea that, okay, I'm a male or female,

it doesn't have to be a kid, and I'm going to take hormones, and it's only going to have positive mental consequences is insane. Because, again, taking out the trans issue, when human beings, hormones are changed, it affects behavior. Hormones are how animals, and humans are animals regulate behavior in many regards.

But this is just completely not talked about, the focus is on the surgery, but it's like, if you take these pills or these injections, it's going to screw with your head. So this whole idea that, like, imagine saying, what percent of pregnant women, you know, have suicidal ideation? I don't know what that number is, but it's not going to be the same as non-pregnant women. They're going to have some sort of disorder thinking.

Maybe it's not suicidal issue. Maybe it's depression. Maybe it's anxiety. Postpartum is obviously very much a real thing. And I'm sure hormones have a part to play in that. But this effect of hormones on the psychology no one talks about, and it's extremely germane to the issue at hand. Yeah. And also, the thing that I'm not.

I really worry about Michael is this. If we are correct and we're past Pete woke, brilliant, that is something to celebrate. What I worry about now is the backlash, because there's a lot of people who are very, very angry. Yeah, we talked about this, yeah. And they don't want justice. They want revenge. Oh, yeah, I want revenge. Oh, no, no, no. I thought you meant like the growing homophobia. Yeah, yeah, but this is what I mean. This is what I mean. This is going, well, you know, you liberals, wanted gay marriage, this is where it's ended up. So now, I'm going to get mine. Yeah, it's, it's, I remember, I've talked about this somewhat recently. I remember, I only recently was reminded of what New York City was like in the 80s when the AIDS crisis

was decimating largely at first in, you know, the gay artistic community. And there was this sense of kind of glee and like you asked for it. And one thing, I was, I just watched this great mini-series called Angels in America, which was very award-winning and... Tony Kushner, is it? Yes, and had many accolades. And there was this... And the thing that disturbed me the most, or not the most, but was knowing that many of these young men, because what happens is January, you have a cough and you're diagnosed, December

you're dead, right? And you're not just dead overnight. You go senile first, and you're covered in Carposy's sarcoma, which are these little spots. So it's very clear who has it towards the end. And then your friends are all getting it. And it's just this kind of sense of paranoia. Many of these men went to their graves thinking this was God's punishment.

Because why is only me and my community getting this? You know what I mean? We're very much being singled out. And it was only when kids started getting it through blood transfusions, when bisexual men were spreading it to women. Then it became kind of more of like our problem instead of their problem. But that sort of thinking is coming back. And I don't know if it's inevitable, but if you have this intersectionality and this insistence

that trans and gay and bisexual and lesbian, it's all one-packaged deal, well, for most people who are binary thinkers, well, if you're forcing me to choose between the kid stuff and everything else and hating it all, well, kid stuff's not an option, so I'm going with the hatred. Yeah. So any kind of nuance in this regard is lost. and I think a lot of people saw this coming, and it's very disheartening, to say the least.

And I talk to quite a few gay men because they watch a show, and they said there's now a real split within the gay community. I hate that term, but let's use it between older gay men and younger gay men, because there's a lot of older gay men who can see the backlash coming. They remember. Yeah, and they're there going, we're stroking forces here and you need to be aware of what is coming. And because of the younger gays haven't seen it, they've got no idea.

Right, because you're 20, you're 25, your entire world was like seeing pride flags everywhere and channels dedicated to you and oh my God, you're so fabulous and all this other stuff. Whereas, you know, people who are much older, they're like, you know, I remember when I was in high school, arguing with my dad because Rupal wasn't out. And I'm like, you don't know that Rupal's gay because they're not. The logic was, gay's bad. This person's, same with actors and steroids, right? Steroids are bad, this actor is a good person, therefore this actor's not on steroids.

You know what I mean? All these guys who just become jacked overnight, oh, they're not on steroids. They just have special exercise, no one else is doing. So it's coming back. It's clear. Social media, people say Twitter's not real life. Social media is how you can tell what's going to be in the corporate press and corporate media in five years.

I mean, it just feeds, it's the predecessor. So it's coming down the pike and I don't really know. what to say or do about it. There's also an interesting thing which obviously there's been a big spat between Elon and the ADL about anti-Semitism. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say that all sorts of I'm using inverted commerce here but hate speech is more visible now on Twitter. That's because they're doing less moderation and it's probably the price you pay for having less moderation.

But it seems to me like that is an issue that's also potentially part of the backlash. How so? I see a lot of people quite openly talking in a way that is... Oh yeah, I see what you're saying, yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think the ADL is a very evil organization. No, no, I agree. In the instance, I agree. Yeah, yeah.

But just more broadly, I think there's a lot of talk on the right, by the left. I mean, 90-Semitism is a bipartisan position. Oh, no, right. So I agree, because their perspective, which I don't think they're entirely incorrect, is if you're choosing, if you're forcing me to choose between the ADL and being anti-Semite, a lot of them are going to choose to be anti-Semite. Because the ADL, in my view, and it's pretty indisputable, are complete disingenuous. A high rate check who runs lives of TikTok is an Orthodox Jewish woman, and they try to get hurt canceled in favor of trans rights. So you're not really fighting for protecting Jewish people and the right to speak. you just have a hard left gangster mentality, you're going to pick and shoot.

And how it works is, and I'll be delighted to point out this technique, because once you figure out techniques that corporate journals use, not only do you see it anywhere, it becomes less efficacious. So it'll be like, you know, Jeff Smith, who was regarded as hate monger by independent watchdog groups, and they'll have a hyperlink. And you click on the link, and it's always the ADL or other. Poverty Law Center. So they work hand in hand. The ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center label people as radioactive or Klansman or Nazi, then the journalist could be like, I'm being objective.

This is my source. I'm not saying it. They're saying it. So they feed off each other like a snake eating its own tail. I use the word snake advisedly. And once you see this, every time I encourage people watching this, click that link, it will invariably want to be one of these two organizations that are used as a source. I mean, and that is so dangerous. That is. That is. is so dangerous because the way that we casually fling these words around without... Don't say we. I mean, we is society. But there is no society, there's just us.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Point taken. Thank you, Mrs. Sachin. No, but I'm serious that when you use that word we, I'm not in a community with these people. Yeah, okay, agreed. So when you see those people throw those words around, as if they don't have very, very real meaning. Right. What they've done to the word Nazi is a crime. To decouple Nazism from anti-Semitism is so a historical and intellectual dishonest. And also, when you use things like climate-demeanor, to piggyback of Holocaust denier, you people have no shame. Because, again, they don't use language to communicate, but to manipulate.

And it's also as well, you don't have an understanding of history. You have no understanding. Yeah, they do. They don't care. Don't you get it? They don't care, Francis. But it's also, there's an ignorance tied into it as well, because all they want to do, is it surface level. A lot of it is...

No, all they want you to do, they're trying to manipulate their audience to get them to do what they want. It's not that they don't understand, they don't want you to understand. Don't you get it? They don't think Trump's a Nazi. His daughter converted. That's not compatible with Nazism when your daughter converted to Judaism. This is what I keep saying, Michael, because it's like, I mean, you're right. I mean, I am persuaded by what you're saying because if, I keep saying this, if you thought Donald Trump was a Nazi, Trump was a Nazi, if you actually thought he was Hitler, the day he got elected, you would pick

up at your rifle. Of course. And you would take to the streets. And you would organize to overthrow that government by violence. Yes. And brag about it. If you are a moral human being, that is what you would do. Yes.

Right? But they don't. And they call people Nazis, but they don't act in relation to them as if they're Nazis. All they do is it's a tool. It means our group. It means bad person. Yes. Our group is even better.

And the fact that they've done that to that word, which has a very specific and a very important meaning, it's a fucking crime. Yeah. It's a crime. Yes. Yeah. Okay. You've convinced me. Good.

Gillotines. We're on camera. Yeah. Ha. The. There was a lot of guillotine talk over dinner. Yeah, there was a lot of guillotine doing. Yeah.

Say again? None of guillotine. There was talking, but none of doing it. No. By the way, there's a book from the 80s, like a children's book, called How to Build Your Own Gillotine, right, like a toy model, and I bought it and I put a picture and they pulled it from Instagram. This is all a metaphorical discussion. Yeah. So, Michael, when you say they, like, and again, this is, because these are new concepts. I mean, this is what I'm trying to figure it out as we talk. What percentage of people do you think, or what?

Who are the people who are manipulating with the express intention of victory? And who are the people who do you think just aren't looking under the metaphorical car bonnet at this stuff and just following blindly? Under the hood. I got you. I'm an anglophile. It's almost impossible to figure out from, this happens to you guys and me as well. People who see you are, watch your podcast, read your Twitter, social media,

writing, they think they know you intimately. Yeah. It's, sometimes, I constantly, a great example of this was when you were on my podcast and I was clowning you, traveling, trolling you, because you didn't know who Dave Smith was and you were saying he's a nice guy and he's a very close friend of mine. I'm like, oh guy, this guy's terrible and you keep doubling down and I keep clowning him and it was this great awkward tension. And then when I revealed, I'm friends with him, you know, became clear, it was a very fun,

funny moment. Every so often you get a comment and just like really resonates with you for a long time, commenter said they're lying these guys all hang out together constant and clearly knew who Dave Smith was a blah blah who were they trying to fool first of all you're in england and we're here so we're not all having daves in jersey we're not all hanging out so that's literally physically impossible but in their head since podcasters are psychologically a set and you can conceptually think they're all together therefore in real life they must also be a set together so therefore this is this genuine so we it's it's not knowing how many

of these corporate journalists are just useful idiots, how many of them, you know, get what's going on, it's very hard to determine if we're not impossible. But I think the issue is this is systemic. It starts at the universities, is promulgated through the corporate press, and then reaches politicians. So the politicians are actually, even though they're the ones implementing this stuff, are in a certain sense the least metaphysically evil, because at a certain point, like, let's suppose I was a Democrat, right? And I thought Trump's an idiot. I thought this guy had no business

in the White House. You know, he's terrible. But I didn't think there's any room to impeach him over it. It's just one phone call that's a moron made. I don't have that space as a Democratic congressperson because all of my constituents have heard for years from CNN, Trump, Russia, Trump's the devil, Trump's the devil, Trump's the devil. So it's conservatives, I think, often have it backwards. It's the universities and then the corporate press that are wagging the politics is downstream of culture yes right so i'm curious the one thing i'll just give let me just quickly of course i i had this poll and i'll encourage anyone listening to this to ask themselves the same question if you had the supreme court right

and sometimes when you give people too bad choices they give me some good choices i'd rather have nine rannpoles would you rather have nine random democratic senators or if you're on the right or nine members of the new york times editorial board And when you put it in those terms, I think it's really clear who would be much more reasonable, who would be looking at the law, and who would be more of a jihadi without the testosterone. One of the things that used to bother me and perhaps still does, and what I'm hearing out of you is kind of taking me out of that space is, I hate hypocrisy.

Sure. And all of us are hypocrites to some extent because we're all human and no one is perfectly logically, really consistent, blah, blah, blah. However, I think election interference is wrong. I think election denial is wrong. I thought that in 2016, when Hillary called Donald Trump an illegitimate president, and when the mainstream media were pushing the idea of Russia collusion, et cetera, and I thought it in 2020, right? But for some reason, most people don't see that.

And I still can't quite understand why. Well, there's no such thing as a legitimate election. Because if I want you to be my accountant and I want you to be my doctor Somehow if a hundred million people agree with me I get it unless there's a hundred and fifty million people who disagree makes no sense So if you're going in and saying I want this person to be my president the fact that it should be contingent on a popularity contest Makes no sense that's a different point Let me just let's just feel more sense a more sense though and it's an idea that's so absurd that the only reason we even take it seriously as hypothesis is that we're trained to the contrary since kindergarten Go ahead.

Fine. But you're answering a different point. I know you're not a fan of the way that the system works, right? My point is something else, which is people apply different standards to their own, I mean, I'm saying it as if it's some kind of big revelation, some most obvious thing in the world. People apply a different standard to their own tribe versus the algorithm. And they're correct to do so. Why is that?

Because I, you can make jokes about me and say mean things to me. and pat me on the, and you know what I mean, and be condescending to me because we're pals. Some rando comes up to me and talks to me like that. Who the hell are you? So, of course, we have different standards for our people as opposed to the outside. No, but that's not what I mean. I think of it as a sporting game, right? I mean... It's a war.

Because if you lose a baseball game, who cares? But for this system to work, it has to be treated on a long term. We play an iterative game where, You lose this one, I accept it, you accept it. Then I lose the next one. We both accept it. And then it works. No, it doesn't work.

It just one side just dominates the other. So it works for the winners. Why does one side dominate the other? Because if you have an election and you have 60%, I have 40%, I don't have anything. Right. But if you look at the history of the U.S. of the UK, the left and right kind of they switch over time. No, they didn't.

The Democrats had, first of all, Democrats and Democrats, Republicans don't always port to right and left because you'll have the right-wing Democrats. Democrats in the U.S. had Congress for 40 years. They had it from 1954 through 1994. It's just, it did not switch at all. The presidency did switch back and forth, but you from FDR through Lyndon Johnson, the only Republican there was Eisenhower and he was basically indisputably a leftist. There's nothing particularly conservative that he did whatsoever. So it's not at all, it's only recently that there's. there's been any kind of right of center renaissance on the national level in terms of Congress

has relatively recently since the 90s. So it's not, it's not, it's different for you guys with the parliamentary system because it's a binary choice. You're going to have the Tories. But, and I will bring up again, Mrs. Thatcher, because the whole point in the 70s was you had the politics of consensus. So you had, you know, Ted Heath from the Tory of the Tories and then you haven't, was it, Kinnock, who was who? Kinnock was later. Kinnock was later. Who was before Kinnock? Alice or someone? No.

I don't remember who it was. Whatever. You had the labor guy and they just had, what, two elections in 1972 or something like that? And they basically had the same policies. It was at Ted Heath, the conservative, who brought in like rationing and, you know, not having electricity. And Thatcher comes in, she goes, I'm not for the politics of consensus. I'm for conviction politics. I'm going to, you know, say F you.

And if you don't like it, don't vote for me, but we're going to have a different point of view. That is not the way the post-World War II political discourse was had. It was very much consensus, let's work from the middle. In retrospect, it was kind of this quasi-socialist center-left middle, but that's the way it was. And I don't, why am I switching? I want to win. Why am I letting my opponent win half the time?

The system is set up. I can tell why you're not married. But I make the joke. But I have to say that way of thinking does prevent you from cooperating with others? And cooperation is necessary. I don't, I disagree. I think my way of thinking is a useful long-term approach, because if you have a dedicated, radicalized minority, they are going to punch way above their weight.

And we can see this just as we discussed earlier with the gay rights movement, because in the 90s, It was completely anathema. You cannot speak of this even in mainstream television. And now if you go to Times Square, and I'm sure Piccadilly, it's rainbow flags, you know, from pillar to post. Yes. So this was a small group. Yes.

Who had intense convictions, and they won resoundingly. They also had disproportionate cultural power as well. That's true. Yes. Yes. But what we're talking about in terms of my joke about this, I can see why you're not married, And any relationship with other people requires give and take on both sides, whereas you want to win every time no matter what.

Yes. I always get which doctor I want, unless he's busy. I always get which lawyer I want. I get whatever I want in the store as it does everyone else, assuming you could pay the price. So this idea that in politics I'm not going to get what I want all the time is nonsensical. But in order for you to get what you want, you would have to be voting for someone to represent just you.

Or you have to abolish the system that allows. allow someone to rule over me. Tell me more. So this whole democracy is just an obscenity that must be destroyed. And I'm very heartened that every metric is showing that people's faith in these long-held cultural institutions is not only being destroyed but in an extreme direction. All right, Michael, I want to hear all about why the destruction of democracy is great, but we've done over an hour. So the rest will be on locals. Head on over there to see the rest of this conversation. Where has anarchism been successful in history?