TRIGGERnometry - Emily Molli: Independent Journalism and the Hong Kong Protests

Episode Date: January 5, 2020

Emily Molli is a journalist and co-founder of Subverse: http://YouTube.com/subversenews Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod 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 (@failinghuman) 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

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is a show for you. If you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, you don't pretend to be the experts. We ask the experts. As you can see, we're not in our normal environment. We're recording this of the Battle of Ideas, which many of you are going to be. So come and say hello if you're around. And our brilliant guest this week is a journalist and the co-founder of Subverse Media. Emily Molly, welcome to Trigonometry. Hi there. Good to be here. It's good to have you. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us.

For anyone who doesn't know who you are you are, how are you where you are? What has been the journey that brings you to this very chair? Oh, wow. Okay. So I'm an independent journalist. I co-founded Subverse News, and I've been doing a lot of on-the-ground reporting around the world. In the U.S., I cover certain topics. One of my main focuses is social movements. So within the U.S., I've been covering sort of the rise of white nationalism, Antifa and then around the world, I've also been covering things like the Hong Kong protests, the Yellow Vest Movement, and then also the Catalan independence protests.

And you mentioned earlier when we were talking just before that you were covering the Donald Trump election campaign in 2016. You were not a credentialed journalist at the time. So you had to wait in line for six hours and you found yourself chatting to people and finding out what they've used were. And as part of that, you could kind of see his election. coming. Yeah. So that's quite an interesting thing about actually journalism where you actually talk to people. It's quite unusual these days, isn't it? Yeah. And it really illuminated to me just how much of the press in general kind of sits in a bubble and in, you know, you could call it an echo chamber where they're bouncing the same ideas off of each other and they're not really

getting the sort of real world view of normal people. So I followed pretty much all of the candidates in 2016 and by just sitting in line, standing in line, with people and chatting with them about what they care about, their main issues, you kind of get a feel for what they pay attention to, what they don't care about. A lot of the Trump supporters, I know, I didn't really care about what the press was saying about Trump. In fact, I think it made them like him more. But, yeah, it was also just being able to see how unenthused a lot of people were about Hillary

Clinton as well, seeing how, like, extremely enthused a lot of people were about Bernie Sanders and then you kind of had sort of, I guess, lukewarm sort of enthusiasm for other Republican candidates. So yeah, it was a really interesting experience talking to people. And Emily, so we're talking about how there's this disconnect between the mainstream media and the people and the mainstream media were famous in that they didn't predict and they didn't see Trump coming. Why do you think they're so detached? Is it because they come from one part society or? Well, that's a really good question.

I think a lot of journalists now come from a lot of the same background. You know, a lot of them go to school for journalism and get taught by the same people. Not everyone goes to school of journalism for journalism, but I think the more you have people who spend more of their time around journalists, and this is another thing that's pretty true about Twitter is like a lot of Twitter is just journalists talking to other journalists. and yeah, I mean, it is people talking and reaffirming each other's beliefs, and when you have people disagreeing with their viewpoints and opinions, and there must be something wrong with that person because everyone else in their bubble agrees with them.

So I think it is, I mean, even after Trump was elected, you saw a bunch of these media outlets saying, oh, well, we need to go into Middle America and talk to people and figure out why this happened. And it's like, well, you could have done that before. And then maybe you wouldn't have looked so foolish. And what did they miss? So you talked about people's enthusiasm, but what were some of the issues on the campaign trails

that were enthusing Bernie supporters? Why was Hillary not interesting to people? Why was Trump so popular with the people that you talked to? I think a lot of it had to do with economic issues, not so much social issues. A lot of the people who were more Bernie supporting, the younger people were more interested in social issues, as well as student debt, which is just a huge crushing problem for young people in America right now.

But for Donald Trump supporters specifically, I do believe economic issues and then some social issues like addiction, like the opioid epidemic. A lot of people just think the status quo was putting them in these situations where nothing was improving, nothing was really changing, and how do you change things? you get somebody who's a total outsider in charge, and I think that's really what they wanted. And, you know, there was sort of this attitude towards the press where a lot of people felt like they weren't being represented fairly, and so when you see them misrepresenting Donald Trump or the things that he said, they felt very, you know,

they felt a lot more in touch with what he was saying and how he was treated than other candidates. And what's interesting about the mainstream media is that they've made mistakes, and, you know, in a way we all make mistakes. of course we do, but what seems baffling with them is that they don't seem to have learned from their mistakes. In fact, they just seem to be doubling down. Oh, my God, yeah. CNN is like the perfect example of that. But you have to kind of look at their

incentives at that point, too. They had the Trump bump during the 2016 election, and then after he was elected. That sounds like a sex position, doesn't it? The Trump bump. Come on, baby, we're going to do the Trump bump. Sorry. But yeah, they say. saw that it was profitable and so they doubled down they kept talking Trump Trump Trump and you know

a lot of other outlets followed suit with that it got more clicks it got a bigger it got a bigger audience and I don't know I just it's not sustainable though at a certain point people do want to hear about real issues again and unfortunately a lot of real issues

have been going uncovered or just have been minimized because everyone is so focused on what Trump tweeted and do you think part of the problem as well is that the media, and I've seen it because I've worked in radio, is that the media are terrified because their traditional ways of funding themselves monetizing, they're evaporating.

Yeah, I absolutely think that's the case because now it's more of a click economy. And we've seen that failing. You see a lot of media outlets in the U.S. digital outlets failing and laying people off and being bought up, like consolidating. And I really think, you know, you put your... eggs in the advertising basket rather than focusing on what your community, what your audience wants, and will support you for, which I think is why so many more people are turning to subscription-based options. And yeah, there just needs to be better options out there for people.

Do you think that's not partly a problem, though? Like, we have a lot of subscription-based services in this country. And what I always feel is it forces people, you know, people have limited amount of money. So you end up, like, buying a subscription to the one newspaper that you agree with and they just keep feeding you the same stuff that you like and then you end up in even more of a bubble than you would nearly would have done. Otherwise known as a Guardian model. Well, the Guardian actually asked for donations. I'm actually, I'm actually talking about some of the newspapers I've written.

You know, the Telegraph, the Spectator, if you want to read a lot of that, you have to pay. And, you know, if you're not going to buy a subscription to 10 different outlets, which most people are not, you end up with the Guardian, the Spectator view or the Telegraph view or the whatever view. All great newspapers. Please keep getting my articles into your newspapers. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.

And that's where I think, like, one of the issues is just how, yeah, I think it's just, it needs to almost be completely reworked as an industry. I don't believe in putting important news or just news in general behind a paywall. But if people want, like, behind the scenes content or, like, if they want more in-depth analysis on something, that takes more time, it takes more work. and I think some people are willing to throw down $3, $5 a month for some of those extras. 30 pounds for a mug, you never know. But, you know, with the clickbait thing, it's interesting to me to get your perspective on it.

I feel like the mainstream media, they're dying so quickly that they are desperate for clicks. They have now become the clickbait medium. And it's us who are doing new media that are actually doing long-form content in our case or on the ground reporting in your case, really giving people a completely different view of what's happening. Do you think this is going to continue? Do you think the mainstream media will at some point go,

actually, no, we've gone too far. We need to start doing things the way. Because their brand, really, it's like substantive reporting historically. Yeah. And they are killing their own brand by doing this click-based stuff, aren't they? Yeah, I think it just needs to be

completely reworked the media landscape and how it funds itself and how it, I think a lot of, like a lot of newspapers, at least in the U.S., I think like the New York Times specifically, has kind of ostracized a lot of their own audience by doing ridiculous clickbait. Yeah, and I think at that point, they need to take a look at what they started as and what they've turned into and kind of figure out how to return to their roots of actual journalism rather than telling people what to think.

But I'm not sure if there, I think you see a lot of outlets who are taking, taking cues from new media, doing long form, doing podcasts, and trying to spread their content that way. I don't know if it's sustainable for them to do that as well. I think, I think we're just seeing in general people are gravitating towards new ways of digesting information and how they find it. And yeah, it does cause the problem of echo chambers again still. But yeah, you have sort of a saturated media market with commentators and I don't think mainstream news outlets can necessarily compete with, with like long-form

YouTube channels or podcasts. Like Joe Rogan, for example, like pulls millions millions for his podcast. A lot of people go to him for information rather than because I'd rather hear Joe Rogan just shoot the shit with people. They're not going to get that from a media outlet. So they try to do things like podcasts and long-form discussions, but I'm not sure if it's going to take off the same way

as some other channels would. And Emily, it seems to me that we live in an age where people are more distrustful of mainstream media than ever. Yeah. Is that because of the internet? it's just hyperboilize that? Or is it actually that people more and more just switching off and thinking to themselves? You know what? I do not want to engage with this anymore. I think there's sort of a combination of if people see something in the news that they know

isn't true, then it's kind of a disillusionment factor there. Like I know for me specifically, I used to take, when I was younger, I kind of took the news at face value because you're, you trust them to tell you the truth. And then when I started covering things and then seeing things in person and then seeing it reported in a totally different way, then I was like, okay, well, I guess I can't trust it anymore. And I think especially when you have misrepresentations of what people say, you lose a lot of people that way.

But I also think there's sort of this bias towards, you know, whether it's partisan media where people don't want to believe it or, yeah. But I do think for the most part, a lot of outlets have. ended up shooting themselves in the foot just by reporting misinformation or disinformation. And it's also the style of conversation. I mean, I remember the Cathy Newman and Jordan Peterson into it. I don't know if you called that. Yeah.

And the Channel 4 argument, if you're a producer, there's go, look, we did this great thing. We got 20 million views on YouTube. Isn't that brilliant? I mean, we've just got a huge audience that we've attracted. But most people who watch that will never watch a Kathy Newman interview ever again. That's a perfect example. Yeah, no, and exactly. It's like, they'll probably look at that and be like, wow, look how much controversy that generated and got us a bunch of views.

You know, bad press is still press. But again, they're not realizing how much of the trust they lost from their audience by doing that kind of thing. And tell us about subverse news, which is the organization that you co-founded. What is the antidote that you're trying to offer? What's your angle, if you like? We just pretty much try to report straightforward. facts with context that shows what matters in a situation. We don't cut up interviews to make people look stupid.

We don't do combative or advocacy journalism. We pretty much will interview people and let them say their thing. For the most part, we'll obviously fact check if somebody is spouting nonsense, but at the same time, I think there's some merit to hearing people lie. And even if they don't know they're lying, if they're just basically talking about talking points, for example, like a lot of protests we cover, a lot of people will echo back just the talking points

that they hear in the media and stuff like that. But there are some other situations where we can point specifically to somebody lying and saying this is actually what happened. But we're basically just trying to come back with an approach that gives people information to make up their own minds. Sounds like a gateway to the far right.

And on that note, that is something you have been looking at, haven't you, looking at the far right? Yeah. Is there a rise in the far right now? Very much one of the narratives that have been parroted in the mainstream media, is that we have seen a rise in white nationalism, the far right?

Is this true, particularly in America? I would say in America, I don't think they ever really went away, but I think we're seeing them more active in rallies. And recently, it's been kind of hyper focus of some outlets just saying, oh, you know, this is far right. This is extremism. This is white nationalism. And I think people really do a disservice to those actual problems when they will pretty much throw the label out on anything that they kind of suspect of being like alt-right, even if they don't really know what that means.

there are a lot of issues in the U.S. with white nationalism, white separatism, and just white supremacy in general. But I don't think it's as huge of an epidemic as a lot of people try to make it out. I think after, you know, a lot of it is reactionary where there were like white Lives Matter, White Lives Matter rallies that were white nationalist groups coming out and just trying to almost be antagonistic. A lot of them do, a lot of them do just want to cause controversy and hope that Antifa will show up so they can get into a street fight with them. And it's worked. And so, I don't know, I think they're getting a lot more attention than they should. And I think they're actually probably, they're probably finding it easier to recruit with people throwing around terms like

alt-right, white nationalists, because they're making it sound, somebody who isn't necessarily that extreme will say, oh, well, they're calling me a white nationalist anyway, maybe I should, like, maybe I should go with that group that they might not be all that bad anyway. So people are being pushed into it is what you're saying. I think by using the terms irresponsibly, I do think it is a recruiting tool. And I So we both work in comedy Which is very woke and you know

Social justice or the rest of it Now a lot of people have told me That Donald Trump is a white supremacist He's a white supremacist President is a he's a sign that we have a rise of the Nazis In the US Would you agree and what are your opinions on this Because this is a narrative that is being pushed forward

I hear it all the time too Yeah people equating the the Make America Great Again hat to the KKK hood. I think that is a gross oversimplification of, I don't doubt that, like, I don't know, I don't know him personally, but I also think, I don't think he's gotten, I don't think he's even been endorsed by a whole lot of white nationalist groups,

because. It's too extreme. But there are some things that he said that people will try to jump on and be like, oh, look, he's supporting white supremacists, he's supporting white nationalists, but there's things that he does that white nationalists and white supremacists don't agree with, like, mainly things with Israel.

But yeah, I don't know. I think it's a really gross oversimplification to call him a white supremacist or a white nationalist. All right, and what about on the other side? Because, as you say, there are issues around white supremacy in the United States. There's residues of that that is happening. you do see them to showing up armed and being violent

and as you say, hoping for Antifa to turn up. But what about on the other side? What about Antifa? What are they doing? What is your reading of them? Because you've reported on this quite a bit. So it's interesting because I've covered Antifa in various countries and the U.S. one is kind of, well, I want to say,

I'll try to be nice, disjointed and disorganized. And I don't know exactly what they're aiming to achieve, but the ways that they're doing it by intimidating people, harassing people, I don't think that is an effective way to do whatever they're trying to do. There's, I don't know, I think a lot of people are searching for meaning right now because they don't have either they don't have much going on in their life to give them meaning. And when you put a cause in front of someone, you say, hey, let's be anti-fascist. Like, yeah, of course.

Like, why wouldn't you be an anti-fascist? Nobody in their right mind would be pro-fascism, I believe. But when these kind of movements get co-opted by people who have either, I guess, I guess I'm still trying to be nice. But I want to say issues where they really succumb to mob mentality. harassment, vandalism, of people who aren't against them even. Yeah, I think in the U.S., especially, they have some issues. And we see some of their violence. We've had Andy Noe on the show, for example. Do you think they're a terrorist organization in Tifa? I think you have individual members who are using tactics that you could call terrorism to achieve a political end. I don't know. I don't

even think they can be considered an organization in themselves because just because you fly a flag doesn't mean you're part of an organization. But I do think there are individuals who are using extremely, extremely like harsh tactics to intimidate people, to cause harm to people. And I would call those probably acts of terrorism if they're trying to achieve a specific political means. But again, I don't even know if they know what they want as far as demands or what their goals are. Well, anarchists being unsure about the goals. And people on the left being disorganized. I don't even think a lot of Antifa are even anarchists.

I think a lot of them are trend, like a lot of them will try to be communist or socialist. I don't even know if they understand a lot of the systems that they endorse. But it's kind of just a trendy thing for a lot of people, it seems. And it does seem to be something that people put on a Twitter bio, anti-fascist. And then like you said, it sounds good. It sounds like something that you should be, we were all anti-fascist, don't we? Right, yeah. I would assume that's well.

Speak for yourself, man. But do you think part of the problem is what happened with things like Charlottesville, where people think that there is a purpose for this movement? Yes, I think there are specific things people look at like Charlottesville or they see if somebody ran over a bunch of protesters. And, you know, that's another thing. It's just you have these certain situations that will give legitimacy to people who think this movement

is a good cause. And in a lot of ways, a lot of people's hearts are in the right place, but the tactics that are being used aren't necessarily effective or for the good of whatever movement they're trying to push. And so we've been talking a lot about, you know, Act of journalism and going in on the ground. We interviewed Melissa Chen and it was a brilliant interview.

And she was saying actually it's very, very difficult to find out what's happening in Hong Kong. Because unless you're on the ground, then things become distorted. And obviously, it's difficult to get what the real message is out of China. So could you explain to us what is actually happening in Hong Kong? Okay. So these protests started back in, I believe, end of May or early June, when an extradition bill was proposed. And the extradition bill was a lot of people in Hong Kong

saw that as a veiled attempt to be able to extradite people from Hong Kong to mainland China. And just with people feeling like China's been encroaching on the rights of Hong Kongers, it sort of broke the camel's back. That was sort of the final straw for a lot of people. And so they started protesting. And it's funny because what could have been put to rest very easily,

they ended up withdrawing the bill formally. anyway, not too long ago. But if they had done that months ago, this wouldn't have spiraled into what it is now. Now they have five demands. There's been incredibly harsh police brutality. There's been basically every single week there's been protests and they've had up to half a million people marching in the streets and pouring rain in extremely hot weather. And it's just incredible determination on the part of these protesters, incredible organization. And it's funny because you're starting to see other movements take tactics from the Hong Kong protesters because of how effective they've been in just staying unified and staying on message.

I've never covered anything like it. It's extremely well organized. And it's not the kind of solidarity or unification you see in a lot of movements. It's a lot of people will try to co-opt it and push their own messages, but they have their five demands now. Which are what? So they want full withdrawal of the extradition bill, which finally just recently happened. They want dual universal suffrage for the legislative council and I think one of the other, I can't remember what the other government body is, but they want to be able to choose their own leaders

rather than having the Chinese Communist Party choose who they can elect from. They want the classification of rioters to be dropped. Because basically in order to protest in Hong Kong, you have to apply for a letter of no objection. And if you get that letter of no objection, then you can protest. But what they tried to do to stop the protest was not issue any of the letters of no objection. So if they don't, then they get charged with rioting. The riot charge can put you in prison for up to 10 years.

So they want the classification of rioting, of riots to be dropped. They want amnesty for the arrested protesters. How many is that? I think that's, oh, and the last one is they want an independent investigation into the police for the conduct that they've been using. They've been using expired tear gas. They've been using excessive force. They've been firing tear gas in enclosed spaces, which is extremely dangerous.

They've been targeting journalists. when they enacted the anti-mask law, the idea was that you're not allowed to be wearing a mask when you're protesting. But they were supposed to make exceptions for people who need masks for work, which would be journalists. However, they were still abusing that. And even people who weren't protesting, they would arrest them for wearing masks or they would intimidate them. They told journalists that they couldn't wear a mask and threatened to. to rip them off. And yeah, it's just really no accountability on behalf of the police.

And basically the government has been running defense for them and trying to justify all of the tactics they've been using. And it's just, it's kind of gone out of control. The public in Hong Kong has sort of turned against, like, one of the main things that a social movement needs is public support. and one of the best ways to squash a movement is to turn the public against them. It's extremely hard for them to do that when the police are also harassing, intimidating, and brutalizing regular citizens, not just protesters.

So even if they do try to put undercover police into the protests and have them either beat people up, throw Molotov cocktails, or cause general chaos, the overwhelming majority of the public support is still with the Hong Kong protesters. Like there was, one instance, they were trying to kettle the protesters and basically, instead of, because they couldn't run away, they were basically cornered and a bunch of residents opened their doors to let them into the building and hide them.

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the protesters of violence of, you know, you know, vandalism or the rest of it. Is this true? Is it? The vandalism is interesting because it's very targeted. It's mostly targeted at pro-Chinese companies, companies that come out against the protests, and then companies that are owned by the mainland.

I'm sure there's been a couple here and there that they have mistakenly targeted some, and they actually will release an apology, which is really sweet if you think about it. And, yeah, there has been violence where people who, who will go and either they've had issues with people going and taking photos of the faces of protesters. And of course, in that situation, a lot of people fear retribution from the government.

So they'll ask if they don't get the person to delete it off their phone, they'll usually beat them up. They'll spray paint them. Same thing if they find people trying to tear down the Lenin walls and people who have run and almost tried to run over protesters. Actually, some people have run over. protesters and they pull them out of the car and beat them up. So yeah, there has been violence

from the protesters as well. And how do you see this going? Because it seems that it's been organically, like you said, happening and growing and mushrooming. Surely China, great human rights record, are not going to let this go and keep growing because it undermines their authority. Yes. And I think it's, you can't really put this genie back in the bottle at this point. So I do think they're waiting for something and then they're going to, yeah, they're going to come down pretty hard on it. There's various ways they can do that. A lot of people have been speculating already because at the People's Liberation Army barracks, there's been footage of people within the barracks dressed up like protesters running around as if they're training to

like be undercover protesters. There's also the emergency ordinance. powers that can pretty much deport foreigners, journalists, and it will enact all kinds of, it's basically martial law at that point. The anti-mask law was part of an emergency ordinance, so it kind of shows that they're not opposed to using that. So I'm worried it is going to be a pretty brutal crackdown, and that's why a lot of the protesters are asking for help from other countries, but I mean, they're up against an extremely powerful government, and I don't really know how well that's going to go. And what was it like for you being on the ground as a foreign journalist in this kind of environment? You kind of get royalty treatment, which I am not used to

as a journalist among protesters. It's wild. Like, they really take care of the press there. I'm sure I also had sort of Western privilege. If they saw I was from the U.S., they were like, oh, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for covering this. People would always come up to you, offering you water and food and if it starts raining they'll come over and put your umbrella over you until you can get your rain cover out it's they they really know how to how to use public opinion to support their cause and again it's like also jokongk and these people are just very nice they are extremely polite yeah um so yeah it's it's i i get i feel spoiled every time i go over to cover things and they you know it's they're really just grateful people are paying attention to it they

really want, especially America, they just want some help. And it's amazing that you say that, the way they treat, because they're grateful, because I suppose they realize that they put their lives on the line here. And, I mean, that's the definition of bravery. And then, you know, the nicer they are too, the more welcoming, the more likely there is their messages to spread. But it's not looking like a lot of Western countries are supporting them. No, but I think there's a lot of economic interests in Hong Kong, so I think once those things start to be threatened, then Western countries will start paying a bit more attention.

But I think right now, a lot of countries are just not. I mean, it's kind of crazy. Like in the U.S. you have a couple lawmakers who will pay attention and express their support for the protests. However, there isn't a whole lot more being done. The U.S. Congress is trying to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, but that's kind of just like a broad condemning of human rights violations. The other one that they're trying to pass is the Protect Act, which would ban the exporting of non-lethal crowd control rounds to Hong Kong because of it being misused. So those are just two things that are kind of,

being done, but I don't know how much else is going to be done unless money starts getting involved. It's quite interesting that Donald Trump is very much at odds with China and has been since he started running. But it's not an issue that he's talked much about, is it? No, in fact, it was kind of strange because a lot of people in Hong Kong will express their want for Donald Trump to do something. And then on the Chinese National Day, October 1st, which was one of the largest protests in Hong Kong. They called it the National Day of Morning. Donald Trump tweeted, congratulations to President Xi Jinping on 70 years.

And everyone was kind of like disappointed at that point. It's like you're congratulating Xi Jinping on a communist regime. It's like, and meanwhile, all of these, you have a lot of protesters in Hong Kong, like waving American flags and expressing support for Donald Trump or expressing support for the U.S. in general. And it's like, I don't want to, I don't want them to, they're already disappointed. I just want to tell him, like, don't hold your breath for him to get involved.

He's not really paying attention. He said something the other week saying, oh, well, you know, it's not as bad as it was at the beginning. It's like you're obviously not paying attention because it's way worse than it was at the beginning. So, yeah, I don't know if he's going to end up doing anything about it. I guess, you know, he ran on the platform of America first. Exactly, yeah.

battle with China is of America's interest as opposed to Hong Kong. So people in Hong Kong, Hong Kong shouldn't hold their breath. No, no, I don't think he's going to do much. And on that, uplifting, I was going to ask you about the style of reporting that you do, which is a lot of it is on the ground kind of, I'm here. There's an argument to be made, this kind of, I don't know if it's, do they call it conzo journalism? Is that, or did I just invent that in my head? There is a Gonzo aspect, but I think Gonzo is a little more, I think there's a little more advocacy in Gonzo journalism.

Okay. So, well, with your style of journalism, is there not an argument to say that by its very definition, like, eyewitness testimony, is extremely unobjective, right? The person who is right there in the moment when something happens actually doesn't have a broader objective perspective. Do you see where I'm going with this? Yeah, yeah. I mean, before I was doing this, I was mostly doing raw footage. And the thing about that is you really can't lie if you just let it play out. You trust your eyes more than you trust people telling you what's going on.

I think that's kind of what our audience appreciates is that we just let the footage and the people do the talking and not telling our, using our own conjecture or our own analysis to sort of push an agenda or anything like that. And because honestly, like at the end of the day, that was really kind of what disillusioned me with the media was seeing something with my own eyes and then hearing it reported in a totally different way. So a lot of people say, oh, you know, it's boring, it's very monotonous and stuff like that. But a lot of people really appreciate that and, you know, are willing to take a little bit of monotony if it means they get the truth. And we've seen now with these protests with, you know, Hong Kong, Catalonia. Yellow vest. The yellow verse, absolutely, in France.

And it just seems to be, there just seems to be these uprisings. Is there more of this happening, or are we just becoming more aware of it? I think this point in time right now, there's a lot going on. And everything is due to different circumstances. But at the same time, I feel like we see it a lot more just because of how technology has progressed. And we're able to see on Twitter the protests happening in Lebanon and Iraq and all of these other places. and a lot of people do want to draw a connection and be like, oh, it's just the whole world's going to shit.

And it's, you know, there's some truth to that because there's all kinds of, you know, there are individual circumstances in these different countries that have made these happen. And then you kind of also just have to look at just a global scale, some of the trends. You know, a lot of it has to do with standard of living, unemployment, economy. And, you know, a lot of people are not having to do. with their governments for different reasons. Like the reason that the L of us are unhappy with the government is different than why people in Lebanon are unhappy with their government.

And so you kind of have to look at those individual situations to... And do you think the reason they've been able to mobilize so effectively is because of social media, whereas before it would be so much more difficult to communicate, to mobilize, to organize, but now with social media, it's easy. Oh, it's super easy with social media. However, there are a lot of movements that still have issues. with things like Facebook taking down their events, the LOS in particular. That's why in Hong Kong they've been using Telegram,

and Telegram has actually come up with new features to help them organize and stay secure during the organizing of their protests. So in Hong Kong, they have a bunch of different telegram channels that tell people they spread flyers, they tell people what's happening, and you do also have to realize also have to realize that, of course, people are going to get into those and try to spread propaganda or, you know, fake information. They've had issues where, you know, they have police creating their own telegram groups and then trying to spread false information that way. And it's funny because they actually figured it out because they were using Mandarin instead

of Cantonese. Oh, right. That's a pretty big mistake. A little bit incompetent. I was going to ask you, are you planning to be covering the 2020 election campaigns in a similar way to the way you covered 2016. Yeah, it'll probably be more in more in depth because 2016 I was mostly talking to people and writing the occasional article and doing mostly photojournalism. This time we're going to be doing a lot more video interviews with people and yeah, it's going to be a lot more in depth. I look forward to watching that. That'll be very interesting and what do you make of the situation now? I mean, I'm by British standards in the center politically and I look at the what

the Democrats are talking about. And I'd vote for Donald Trump over any of them. Well, not any of them. I mean, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard are the kind of outsiders. And if they were to do well, which at this point seems unlikely, then they'd certainly get my vote. But, you know, Elizabeth Warren talking about the rights of transgender Mexican illegal immigrants.

You're just like, it's not where ordinary people are at. what do you make of the stay of the Democratic Party and the upcoming 2020 elections? Yeah, they've got a big battle coming up. And the question is, like, who can actually stand a chance against Donald Trump? And, I mean, I've got my opinion of who I don't think stands a chance. And it's really, it comes down to, is it somebody who's going to play his game? Is it somebody who's going to play the populism card? Or is it somebody who's going to try to rise above it?

is it going to be is the DNC going to make the same mistake and try to rig it for their establishment candidate and are they not like you would assume they'd be smart enough to know that who's an establishment candidate at this point is it Joe Biden yes but Obama won't come out and support him

yeah but I don't think it's just by I think they're still waiting to figure out who their establishment candidate is because I don't think Biden you know even though he's polling pretty high right now I just don't think people think he can win I think there's a lot of I think whoever's going to win needs to be able to pull back the votes that went from Democrat to Trump last time, or not even to Trump, but people who just didn't want to vote for Hillary, or who just voted against Hillary,

because that was a huge issue. Like, there were so many people who just didn't want Hillary for a lot of reasons. And I think if the Democrats can't understand that they're doomed to the same mistakes. And so I think whoever has a chance is going to have to, be able to take some of those votes that went to Trump, either out of protest or out of economic reasons that the Democrats were ignoring. So I think it's not going to necessarily be a, the person who stands a chance isn't necessarily going to be pretty far left.

I don't think Americans in general will get on board with that. However, we're talking about doomed to make the same mistakes. Is it fair to say that they're making the same mistakes all over again? In fact, they seem to be making them harder. Yeah. And worse? It blows me away. It's like they either don't want to learn or they're just clinging to what little they have left.

I don't know. I think they are going to make a lot of the same mistakes because they're just so used to their status quo. I'm curious, there's probably eight or nine candidates currently in the race. I think Beto Rok draw off that this morning. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So you talk about. bringing back the voters who either didn't vote or voted for Donald Trump.

Conventionally, the argument has been that Bernie Sanders speaks to a lot of those people, actually, in the Rust Bell, et cetera. He's just had a heart attack. I'm not sure you come back from that during a presidential election campaign. Yeah. So who are these people that you think might bring some of those people back? I think Yang is hitting a lot of the economic issues that people care about. I think Tulsi is hitting a lot of the foreign policy issues that people care about.

This is like a centrist bubble right here. I think Bernie Sanders hits a lot of also economic issues, but I think people aren't necessarily going to agree with him on some of the social issues stances he takes. I think, I mean, in America, it's just this whole health care system thing is, it's a mess. Like, I don't think anybody really knows what they want out of it, and they're scared of taxes going up.

they don't know if it's going to work and it's it's a mess so I don't I really don't know who would be the one other than like people who can can speak to the same economic issues that Trump was talking about well let me put you on the spot before we ask our final question which is it sounds to me like you think Donald Trump's going to win again I think uh I think uh he's in a pretty good position to if uh if the Democrats make the same mistakes yeah and penultimate question before we're asking the final question. It's a bit of a tricky one, but how should the Democrats attack Trump? I don't think they should focus on attacking Trump, honestly.

I think they give him more power that way. I think they've got to, I don't want to say ignore him because you don't want to ignore somebody who's in a position of power to, you know, you can do a lot of, do a lot of, make a lot of moves that make a lot of changes. can affect a lot of people, but I don't think attacking him is the way to address the problems and to actually get support behind the other side. It's like, I can't remember which cartoon. I remember watching where there was this the monster, and the more rockets you fired at him,

the bigger he got. It's a bit like Donald Trump, isn't it? He always loves a high brown comparison. We are nothing, if not an intellectual channel. He made a dick joke earlier in this interview, so don't use that. Anyway, we've got one more question for you, Emily, which is the same question we ask all, I guess, which is what is the one thing that no one is talking about, though we should be talking about? And you took a deep breath, as I said it, so I'm now full of anticipation.

Oh, man, there's, I mean, there's just a lot in general with, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I cover is just social movements, things that the US media doesn't tend to cover a lot. But it sounds like you're having a lot of conversations with people who talk about these things. I think it's, for the most part, there's, I mean, I can talk to what a U.S. audience probably would want to hear more about, and that's kind of issues with lower economic class and how they're being largely ignored by certain political. It's not just America that one. Yeah. It's a big issue in this country.

Yeah. things like addiction, the pharmaceutical industry, like really messing people's lives up is a really huge issue. And that's actually one that I really want to tackle going forward in my work. Well, we'll look forward to seeing that. And if people want to follow you and your work with Subverse News, where do they go for that? So Subverse News is at on Subverse on Twitter. It's also YouTube.com slash subverse news. They can follow me at Mooms Molly on Twitter, M-O-M-E-S-M-O-L-I.

And yeah, I mean, we've also got a website, subverse.net, where they can see our videos and our articles and catch up with our coverage and keep an eye on it. Well, thanks for coming on the show and we're going to follow your work very closely. Cool. Keep up with it. Thanks for watching, guys.

We'll see you in the week's time on another brilliant episode. Take care. See you next week. Sitting side by side, a Mai Tai in your hands, and the sounds of Hawaii around you, you almost forget you're on a plane. And that's the point, because when you fly with Hawaiian Airlines, it's hard to tell where your flight ends and vacation begins. Hawaii starts here.