Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 121: We Called It

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

All the hottest and best takes about the Kentucky governor's election

yep yep one two one two so anyways that's when i was uh in new york and i was um realized that everybody there the the most popular way to do drugs there now is in your dickhole yeah oh hey hey listener sorry i didn't see you there sorry i didn't see you there. Sorry, didn't see you there. What's going on? So that's what you learn in the city. That's what I learned.

Yeah, that's what I learned. Well, I got some telly, New Yorkers. I've been getting loaded in some completely stupid ways as long as you bunch of motherfuckers were shitting green. I used to I used to abuse dip. You ever done this?

Of course. You you ever stuck it in your armpits or between your toes? No I never did that. It's pretty it's pretty

it is 100 as gross as it sounds but you get fucked up i was at walmart earlier today and there was one of those little dip packets on the ground uh skull bandit pastures yeah but when i was a teenager my dad used to say that was like pussy shit the the pastures yeah yeah there was an era of uh it's almost like working in a union coal mines it was like looked at as like lesser less lesser than no because he used to dip or used to still does just dips this i think it's a copenhagen long cut long cut yeah well bob i was a fine cut man so if you calling terrence a pussy then well i got some choice words for you there long cut you were doing fine cut that's horrible dude fine cut is god disgusting it just gets like you like swallow

a little bit of it just gets all in your teeth and shit. Yeah, it's bad. Oh, yeah. It's bad. Oh, yeah. I kind of miss dipping, though. It was a nice head buzz. I used to dip. I used to dip in college.

I did, too. I thought, that's the dumbest shit. Mm-hmm. But I liked it because when I would like work in the, I'd like, I used to hang tobacco for a little bit. I just need, you need something to keep your mouth wet, but also like for the I used to hang tobacco for a little bit. You need something to keep your mouth wet but also like

for the camaraderie of the guys. You know what I mean? They all dipped. To be accepted. Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. They all dipped chawl though.

Oh, like tobacco? Yeah, out of the pouch like Levi Garrett. I never graduated to that. My grandpa did that. Red man. Yeah. The highly offensive that. Red man. Yeah. The highly offensive.

Highly offensive. Did you ever meet my uncle Bulldog? He used to be the garbage man in Whitespur. I don't think so. Yeah, I told you he used to be in the motorcycle gang, but he was famous for just, he would dip and all this stuff, and he was famous for just always having a dribble

out of his chin, mouth. Like everywhere, everybody always talked about Bulldog would just, stuff, and he was famous for just always having a dribble out of his chin, mouth. Like, everywhere, everybody always talked about Bulldog would just, you know, he would just... Have one dribble. It would just all come out of his mouth, and he would have it on his shirt and everything else. It was just like, when I was a kid, I used to think that shit was so gross, but it was kind of his trademark. Wait, now you think it's cool? No, no, no, I mean, I don't think it's... As a kid, I would probably think it's cool, but now I would think it's gross.

Well, I thought it was gross, but I thought, like, that's the height of manhood. Like when you become a man, you just get gross. And I wasn't completely wrong, really. You weren't. You do. There is something about being a man. You do. The older you get, the creepier you get.

And it's not your fault. It's just the heavy hand of time makes you creepy. Just your, yes, by virtue of existing past the age of about 60. The natural course of things takes your vivaciousness and it also makes you creepy. Destroys you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Right. I'm kind of sick. I don't sound very good in the headphones.

I did learn a hack today, though. What's that? It's for all our listeners out there without health care. I don't know. I guess maybe not every community has a free health clinic, but we do in Whitesburg not every community has like a free health clinic um but we do in whitesburg and it's not a free health clinic what it is is they just want to make sure people don't have aids so trying to curb aids yeah so that's you can go in there and you get tested for stds for free um well i went in there if you ever want a. If you ever want a quick, if you ever want a free dose of antibiotics,

go into the free clinic and tell them that you suspect you may have had contact with chlamydia in the last few days or weeks or whatever. They'll give you just one massive dose of azithromycin or whatever the fuck it's called. Right in the ass. Z-Pak. And it's all. Right in the ass. Zipac.

And it's all free, baby. I even told a lady that. I was like, I don't have healthcare and I just didn't want to go to the doctor. And she's like, okay, I'll give you a shot. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody understands that. I've been trying to sign up for healthcare now because the enrollment's open.

And dude, it is fucking ridiculous. Well, and the upshot of your hack, too, is if you did have chlamydia, that's gone down time. You got all your problems taken care of. Yeah. You're also contributing to the creation of superbugs. Well, I just haven't been able to shake it. The world's going to be so hot, it'll just kill them off. That's right

the bacteria you mean yeah yeah yeah yeah well um fuck what was i gonna say um okay so election day yeah well this is election central baby yeah this is for all the first off let me just go ahead and say something to the haters and the losers i had a couple of comments being like oh y'all didn't believe nanny bishu is gonna win y'all caught that one wrong first of all i say to you who cares but b two it's like no we didn't like we literally said on that show matt jones we've been going back and forth about this we know it's going to be tight maybe it's bev and maybe it's b no we didn't like we literally said on that show matt jones we've been going back and forth about this we know it's going to be tight maybe it's bevin maybe it's bashir like that is exactly what happened except it went to bashir three it's not over yet

yeah yeah you'll be eating crow as soon as bevin steals this motherfucker it's entirely possible that bevin will steal it he's trying very hard to steal it. Yeah. The headlines are how the Grinch stole the election. God damn it. Well, in Kentucky. Played me a little green suit. In Kentucky, there's a law that says the Senate can basically decide the election, right? If it comes down to it.

Right. If they deem that there are enough irregularities or there was some chicanery, which every election there is. Guess who runs the Senate? Robert Stivers, you fat, bloated fuck. So I could see a scenario. I could easily see a scenario in which they basically bow up to Bashir,

and Bashir's like, oh, okay, well, if you say so. I'll let you have it, Matt. It was a good contest, though. I mean, I'll say this. I'll just go ahead and say this. I won't be the cool guy. I'm glad Bevan's gone. I won't be the cool guy.

I'm glad Bevin's gone. But also, let's just temper our expectations for Andy Beshear. And to his credit, he said, week one in office, I'm going to restore voting rights and undo Bevin's Medicaid restrictions. And if that happens, happens, good on him. But, you know, a couple of hurdles to jump before that. Well, okay, so let's lay out the, how should we structure this? Maybe we should lay out the facts of the election and then lay out what everybody's saying about the election. Right.

Okay. So let's saying about the election right okay so let's say let's let's start from the beginning uh in uh 1823 kentucky became a state our good friend alex to show his great great great grandfather was among its first governors It was carved out of the Virginia territory among land that white people said natives did not inhabit. They said it was a native hunting ground. A lie we perpetrated well into the 21st century. Have you ever heard the fact, I'm square quotes here, that meat is an indian word for blood in the ground dark and bloody ground dark and bloody you always hear that right right i don't know if that's true or not um a lot of things with kentucky and i guess probably most states of the founding of this

a historical country are probably mostly apocryphal right well um if you were a hack political writer and you were looking for some sort of like um i don't know analogy or something cheesy pun right to uh indicate that this was a very vitriolic election you could say that the election was very dark and bloody because it was um it was pretty competitive in my opinion or i don't know it was it was very vitriolic right it was a pretty a lot of mud was slung yeah um and um so about a million and a half people voted in this one, which is about, I mean. There's about eight million people in Kentucky, I think. I think there's like four million, I believe. I believe there's about four million.

A million and a half people voted in 2015 when Bevin was elected. Only about less than a half, less than a million voted, I believe. Bevin got about 500,000 votes, and his opponent, Jack Conway, got about... Yeah, you're right. It's four and a half million. So that's a pretty decent turnout. Yeah. About a quarter of the population. Yeah.

So, yeah. In 2015, Bevin got about 500,000 votes, and votes and his opponent Conway got about 400,000 votes. By contrast, in this election... More than half a million extra people voted. Yeah, right. So each of them got about 700,000 votes. Something like that. I mean...

About twice of the last election combined. Right. And so it was a difference of like 5 000 votes in the end yeah which the libertarian party candidate john hicks basically john hick and looper he moved to kentucky and ran as a libertarian they basically split that vote because they took about 28 000 votes yeah they were gloating about it on Facebook. Did you see that? Man. They were like, we'd love to drink the delicious tears of Matt Bevin losing.

We'd love to be responsible for that. You know why? Because Bevin fired his lieutenant governor, who was like a libertarian guy. That's why. Wait, no, it was, who was it? It was a woman. Yeah. She was like the first black female right uh yeah she was like a darling of the libertarians yeah yeah wasn't bevin at one point kind of riding that tea party wave a little bit i thought he was too and then he just kind of jumped off and became a trumper he became a tr Trumper for sure. And so they took great pride in having thrown this election for Bevin.

All right. So I don't know. That could tell you all kinds of things, right? Like the big thing in the discourse right now is like why Bevin won and what happened here. Or I'm sorry, why Bashir won. what happened here or i'm sorry why bashir won why bevin lost really yeah yeah really that's right you framed that right and and you know what happened and so um there's a there's a few sort of extenuating factors you have to bring in here um one is that the republicans had a field day on tuesday yeah they cleaned up in pretty much

every election except the governor's race right there's even a republican attorney general now yeah um so bashir is completely isolated yeah both chambers of this of the legislature are republican the attorney general is republican he is uh has his work cut out for him basically i think well in response to that because like a lot of people that's another piece of evidence here too whenever the haters and losers are saying y'all didn't call it right it's like oh i couldn't imagine why we thought bevin might have won this thing just look at the fucking down ballot seriously it's one two something that it's occurred to me is that these statewide races are like the top of the ballot statewide races are definitely going to favor democrats anytime voter turnout's good.

Down ballot's a free-for-all. I feel like, for some reason, I feel like Eastern Kentucky never truly factors into stuff like Attorney General and stuff like that, just because I don't know why. I just like, I didn't really see any Greg Stumbo signs. No. Which is strange

because he's from Eastern Kentucky. I didn't know until voting day that he was running. No. Which is strange because he's from Eastern Kentucky. I didn't know until voting day that he was running. That's what he was running for, Attorney General. I mean, I know he's like the incumbent. I know he's like the Attorney General, but I didn't know that I guess to this. Attorney General is Andy Beshear. Right, or yeah, that's what I'm,

excuse me, I'm sorry. I didn't know what he was really running for until like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah maybe yeah like a month before i was like i kept seeing daniel cameron signs and i was like right who who's this guy what's he running for and then like he's like the young black guy that's like i guess he's the youngest and first uh black secretary of state of kentucky right and Or are you talking about the Attorney General? Attorney General, Secretary. It's Allison Lundgren-Gimes. She is very much white.

And, yeah, it's just like, I don't know. I think, I don't know. Stumbo took his, Stumbo should have ran for governor. Yeah? You think you could have won? I don't know,

but I would just love to see the stuff. I miss Stumbo in Kentucky. for governor. Yeah? You think you could have won? I don't know, but I would just love to see the stuff. I miss Stumbo in Kentucky. He's good for content. He's so good for... Like, when he was like, said, I'm a Democrat because of the Bible, and then just started talking about, like, the donkey and the rooster that preached. Jesus rode into Bethlehem on a donkey or something like that. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, do you remember that speech? Yes, I do. And to his credit, he never broke away from me. I mean, not to his credit. Let me back up a little bit. But he never, he didn't deny Barack Obama thrice before the cock crowed. He was an Obama guy. He was.

They used that against him. You're right. So, yeah, I guess you could say, oh, the Trillbillies,. You're right. So, yeah. I guess you could say, oh, the Trillbillies, they're doom and gloom, whatever. I'm glad they were wrong, blah, blah, blah. Also, just let me say to this person, I don't really think you're a hater or a loser. This is just a game. A hypothetical person.

Yeah, this is just, yeah. Yeah, this is just, yeah. Like, the thing is, is Bevan really lost by not a whole lot. You know what I mean? And got greater voter turnout than he did even in 2015. And that's pretty crazy for an incumbent, I feel like. Where did the voters come from? Because here's the thing,

Where did the voters come from? Because here's the thing. The other night when I was emailing with Jamie from Antifod, I was like, my hunch is that Trump's not getting any voters. You know what I'm saying? He's not adding any voters. But Bevin did. Yeah, he did. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if that's... I think people knew what the stakes were. I mean, like, Trump said it himself. I mean, this is pretty lukewarm analysis. I was listening to... I don't know. We'll get to that in a minute. But Trump said it himself, you know, like,

listen, you can't... If Bevin loses, they're going to say that this whole thing is – you know what I mean? Trump, it was the biggest loss of all time. Right, right, right. And so I think that – I don't think that – so, okay. So maybe this would be a good point to pivot to, like, the coverage of it. would be a good point to pivot to like the coverage of it because most of the coverage i've seen in it from from like the resistance or from the liberal media or whatever like for example the new york times has that uh mikey barb's uh podcast the daily i saw you screenshot that post that i listened

to the whole episode they were he was trying to tie impeachment to the gubernatorial results in kentucky their their thesis was that yeah impeachment is what made this election so high stakes like they said that it wasn't a competitive i'm not listening to this but what's the rationale before i'm not gonna i'm not gonna dunk until i hear all the facts from now on they didn't really supply any hard evidence for that. They basically said the guy he had on, his name was like Jonathan Martin or something. He's like a New York Times political correspondent. He said that it wasn't a competitive race before impeachment,

but impeachment raised the stakes. That has nothing to do with anything. Well, I'm glad you said that because I listened to that and I was like, well, fuck, maybe it did. I mean, for me personally, impeachment didn't even factor into my... If me and you didn't think anything about impeachment, my hunch is that most voters in Kentucky weren't even, that wasn't even a calculation. Yeah, I mean, for me, I mean, for you to think that, you have to do several things.

Okay, first of all, the first thing that's wrong with that is that it was competitive before impeachment. It was just as competitive before it was. We've been talking for months how this is going to come down to the wire. Exactly. Really? Right. So on the face of it, the facts are already wrong. Granted, for the longest time, we did say,

yeah, we think Bevan will edge Andy Beshear out, but we never said, Bevan's gonna fucking blow him out of the goddamn water, motherfucker. And then we're like dead wrong. We have been consistent on this. I may have, I don't know. I may have said Beshear's gonna get his ass kicked. Well, only in response to saying

bevin saying six to ten points and i said i don't see that happening and we haven't talked about that on the the show of matt johns where it's like right this is gonna be tight but i'm not betting one way or the other right well okay so like the facts quant quantitatively the facts are wrong but then for me it's also like what do you think states are for like what purpose do you think they serve and like you've hit it right there right like what like i don't think that people understand that a major animating factor of this election was the pension crisis and the public sector workers right who bevin just constantly fucking vilified and just talked mad shit to the whole fucking time like i like the the guy he had on on this podcast was working from this idea that like his operating thesis on here was

also jonathan martin uh follows us on twitter really yeah so you should brush it up john these little dose of uh reality yeah john so um but no, like his working thesis was that all politics have been nationalized now. Like there are no local politics anymore. Everybody's running on the Trump game. I can get there with you. I can get there with you. But, but the thing you leave out of that equation is this. It's what do we say all the time about power?

Where are the resources mined? Right. What does the individual state produce? Where are the jobs at there? What are people doing there? Right. And what is the role of a governor? Right.

Like, it's not a coincidence that the first debate held in the state was at the Paducah Chamber of Commerce. A governor's role is to do two things attract capital to his state number one and number two is make the workers in that state as exploitable as possible as subordinate to whatever product that your state is producing right exactly and so like i don't think that i i just i'm just not buying it that like all local state politics have been like this nationalized thing where like they've just been blown out and expanded to only be this ever ongoing debate between Trumpism and whatever. I've agreed with that assumption a lot. Here's the strange thing about this.

This was the election that made me reconsider that notion. Weirdly. Just because I know the dynamics on the ground. I know what was happening with the teachers and the pension crisis and everything else. I know that everything else is going on here here something i want to talk about a little bit is how you were you texted me earlier and you said the conventional wisdom in certain places is that

andy basheer was running on like the sort of like clean energy future like just transition stuff right right and what's interesting is i mean he's probably just paid lip service that kind of stuff but this was the first election i can remember where coal didn't come up gold did not come up at all hardly this is bad news bears for the coal industry. Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating. I hadn't thought of that before. That's usually like the big cudgel. Yeah. And honestly, probably why Bevin did a lot more poorly in eastern Kentucky than he has in the past. Even an election like Andy Barr, who ran against Amy McGrath in the 6th district.

In Lexington. They were fucking talking about coal. They were jousting about coal. Right, but this governor's race. an election like andy barr who ran against amy mcgrath in the sixth district in lexington they were fucking talking about coal they were jousting about right but this governor's race isn't that so banal like you got nothing else to fucking talk about that you all you two you two fucking idiots are sitting here bitching about something that has no bearing in your day-to-day life of the districts you're running to represent right no except for like the handful of coal millionaires that live up here. Right. That's a really good point. And I think the reason is, I think Bevin has written off Eastern Kentucky really from the beginning.

With a few exceptions. But like, for example, he's totally ignored the Martin County water crisis. Huge blow to him you know it's just it's i mean there's just a lot of eastern kentucky things and he's not even remotely concerned himself with right he he knows that his base is western kentucky in the agricultural areas and northern kentucky which curiously he did poorly yeah he got his ass kicked apparently that's that i mean we were talking about the mountains and as the mountains go this election is going to go and i think there's some truth to that and i think part of that is like i was saying earlier you have these surrogates like

rocky adkins who finished second in the gubernatorial primary uh who got out there for andy in like strong democratic north northeastern kentucky counties elliott county which is the most democratic county in the country period uh rowan county other places in sort of that maysville wherever up in that sort of you know rocky country pike county even partly boone wasn't it well that's like i'm talking like east northeastern kentucky but northern kentucky like the cincinnati suburbs is like bevin hotbed Hardly. Boone wasn't it? Well, that's like, I'm talking like east, northeast. Northeast, Ashland. But northern Kentucky, like the Cincinnati suburbs, it's like Bev and the hotbed.

Should have been. I think. But in Boone and Kenton County? Yeah. In Grant County? Bashir won by like 20%. My theory on this, and I don't have a whole lot of hard evidence for this, but my theory is it's the public sector.

Where do public sector workers work live like they are middle class nuclear family having mortgage owning voters they vote yeah public sector workers vote yeah they are the if there's anybody who's the middle class it's that it's that and they live in the suburbs for the most part. Suburbs of where? Cincinnati. Fucking Cincinnati! Sorry, I had to do it one last time. So that's my theory, but I don't have any fucking evidence for that. But it is, because it's interesting.

How the fuck did those counties go so hard? Democrat. I'd love to know. Anybody that lives in northern Kentucky, please clue me in on this because i mean among the worst most vile conservatives i've ever met came out of those counties i'm serious like just like wide upper like upwardly mobile kids who's like dad like worked across the river at fucking Western and Southern financial group managing hedge funds or whatever. The kind of guys that just are sitting around

and go out of their way to use a slur. Right. Just to see if you'll squirm a little bit. Right. Let me go let my dog in. Hold that thought. Okay. Anyways.

The Northern Kentucky conundrum. The Northernentucky my cousin's wife is a teacher and i'm curious because she talks all the time about how like they live up there and she like she teaches in ohio and she talks about how like the teachers unions are strong up there and all this kind of stuff and i mean, that has no bearing for Kentucky. I just can't. What I mean by that is I don't know how much sort of fervor they would have whipped up up there amongst the teachers. It seems like it would probably be much stronger than what was happening

in other places in the state. But does that account for such a huge swing in a place that's super Republican? I don't know man i mean there's all kinds of different ways you can look at it like i mean this is the same place where the kid heckled the elder nathan phillips right but i mean but there's kids like that everywhere but yes you're right i mean there's all kinds of like i've tried to look at this from all kinds of different directions so maybe maybe it helps to, like, zoom out for a second and, like, kind of, like, look at all various class interests at work here. First of all, you have to understand that, like, most every other state, the working class is mostly disenfranchised or at least disaffected from the political process.

They have no, like, sort of outlet. Or they have no sort of political vehicle for their own interests and empowerment. The Democratic Party is not really courting them. I don't know. I mean, I guess they kind of do, though. Like, they do go after the sort of union endorsements and stuff, courting them. I don't know. I mean, I guess they kind of do, though. They do go after the sort of union endorsements and stuff, like the Toyota plan and stuff like that.

I guess more than the conservatives. Police, the Attorney General of the Police. Are Democrats... No, Andy Beshear got it. Really? And that's also, too, the one thing I want to say when we're talking about, like, progressives being the governor. Bevin didn't get the endorsement of the... Andy Beshear got the FOP endorsement.

Holy... That's a whole other dimension, pal. Well, so that's the thing. Like, there is also the fact that, and this might account for the whole Northern Kentucky conundrum, Bevan was very, he was just like, he was just so mean-spirited, right? Like he was just such an asshole. The guy is a huge dick.

Yeah. Like no decorum, no nothing. That only works for one guy. Uh-huh. I'll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count who that guy is. Our big wet boy. Yeah.

So like I could see plenty of sort of, I could see plenty of people, moderates or whatever, sort of like waffling and just being like, well, you know, he's just a little too tacky for me. Plus, this is- All those same people are going to go vote for Donald Trump. Well, yeah, because like-

Because he's got the gold mansion to match the tag. Right. Because look, Andy Brashear's dad is Steve Brashear, who governed Kentucky kind of like Bevin, with the exception of like the medicaid expansion and a few other things and the and the most shallow gesture ever restoring voting rights on his way out the door knowing full well bevin would right yeah so like the the thing is is that plenty of people that was only five years ago plenty of people still remember steve beshear it's not that hard for them just be like okay this bevin guy's raising too much of a fuck fuss like let's just fucking get devoted son in why not

it's like things weren't things were more or less the same under beshear so god uh you got to something that's something i want to talk about after we get done with this but anyway yeah you're right and the other thing is too that progressives or socialists or whoever that are claiming this as this big victory for democracy. Since when have we been into familial dynasties that get FOP endorsements? You know what I mean? Like, come on. I mean, like, yeah, I'm glad Bevan's gone, but let's keep it in perspective. I think that people think that...

One of the things that's so frustrating about all this is, like, yeah, having the people... Let me think about this for a second. One of the reasons why I am so skeptical of what you would call electoralism, it really has nothing to do with anything that's happened since 2016. This skepticism was fully created during the Obama years. Yeah. During years in which Democrats were ascendant, right?

which democrats were ascendant right and like reigned supreme and didn't do jack shit governed things more or less the exact same as the republicans with the few exceptions of style or whatever but he had but but mcconnell stifled him mcconnell stifled him nah he had a mandate for at least two years like what did he do cash for clunkers okay so like there's a few things that the media is saying okay uh one is that yeah this was a referendum on impeachment which as we've established i'm gonna go ahead and tell you that's that's that's 100 wrong this is not a referendum on impeachment. No. The one thing I will give you, possibly, is, and it's our buddy Molly from Twitter brought this up today. I thought it was good.

I retweeted it. Is that maybe Bevin trying to steal this election is like, like sort of like a taste of things to come if the Trump election is tight next time. Uh-huh. To see if he can steal it see just to see what they can get by with right it could be a dry run for that but i don't think this is a referendum on the impeachment a test balloon for a coup a test balloon for a coup wasn't that a test draw man 2016 my god that was so good um trust the autocrat my theory is that the reasons that the reason the

sort of political journalist class keeps saying this is that it's just another way to keep them relevant if they can shoehorn impeachment into every single fucking political story then they get to continue on with this thing just like they continued on with the Mueller report like if impeachment wasn't going on they'd be saying that this election was a referendum on the Mueller report yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever the national bus thing is whatever's going to draw our eye to their reporting exactly on this because this is what they're going to report on every day until something every day until the senate nah, we're not going to kick him out of office. Right.

It's like inconceivable to them that like people vote for the interest of the like polity that they exist in and that affects their lives on a day to day basis. Right. So it's like, so yeah, not impeachment. Although, I mean, sure. I'm like anything. There are plenty of unicorns out there. I'm sure you could find a voter who's like, buddy, they're trying to impeach Trump, and I've got to pull the lever for Bevin as a result.

But, like, just say that out loud. Does that even make sense to you? Yeah. I've got to fucking vote for Bevin because they're trying to impeach Trump. So, I mean, granted, okay, Republicans are stupid as shit, so. Yeah. Yeah, also, that's another thing I want to say

If you're a Republican You may not know this But you are A card carry member Of a homicidal Genocidal Racist Death cult

You might want to Reconsider some things I'm not saying Join the Democrats Or anything like that But like I want to Let's quit acting like Y'all are good people

No You're stupid as shit You're at least Tacitly a bad person or anything like that. But, like, I want to... Let's quit acting like y'all are good people. No, you're stupid as shit. You're at least tacitly a bad person, even if you are not a bad person. Is your dog in trouble? No, you're so dumb. You're so dumb. She's, like, saying, like,

fuck my couch. She's grinding dirt into the couch. Get down. Down. All right, so then there's that. So then I guess the other thing that we've been hearing a lot is that this is proof that McConnell can be beaten in 2020. Right. People are saying that, more and more people are saying this, folks.

The Democrats' lukewarm style of governing is back. And it's all the rage. People love it. They want more and more of it. What do you think about that? That's the thing I want to stick a pin in to talk about. Are we headed back, staring down the barrel of banality and just run-of-the-mill uh trapezoids and earned income

tax credits and well i'm trying to quit using the phrase neoliberalism but it's just such a good catch-all for all i know what you mean i mean as i've said before if you grant that we live in hell and in hell nothing ever gets better things just get worse and worse and worse until we all die or go to the next level of hell. Hey, buddy. The worm die if not, which I think you are. If that's true, then what that means is that, yes, there is no political alternative, truly, and that that kind of politics really will gain purchase again. And we're just going to be stuck in the same fucking cycle

that we've been stuck in for 30 fucking years now. Yeah. Which is like nothing is inevitable, right? Like it's on us to make sure that that doesn't happen, right? But the reason I point that out is to say that you have to make a choice then. If you grant that, if you don't want that to be the case of this never-ending cycle of that, then you have to stop letting yourself get your hopes up or get excited or inspired by a guy like Andy Beshear. Because he is just as much your enemy as Matt Bevin.

He may not sound like it. Because he's not saying the bad things. And he seems to care about working people or the environment or whatever. But he is actually your enemy. He left me a dog biscuit. Did he? I was contractually obligated to vote for him he left sally a dog biscuit on the front stand i voted for him of course i voted for him because like it's a net

positive that bevin loses right but but let me ask you a question how much of that vote had to do with the fact that you know bevin's whole world is tied up in his power as governor. And to see just an absolute total piece of shit like that defeated and squirmed and cast down. Yeah. You think that was a big... It's more exciting to me than... ...earning, expanding the earned income tax credit or something. That probably had a lot to do with it.

I mean, yes he he like very obviously cares what daddy trump says about him right right and so if if daddy we've destroyed that relationship and he's gonna make us pay right so you can take pride in that at least um but my larger point is that we have to break out of this cycle of um back and forth between these fascist eco-fascist whatever republicans on this side and just these milquetoast do nothing tepid like yeah like liberals neoliberal call them whatever the fuck you want yeah on the other, but they're not making things better. By being locked into this dialectic, they don't actually break us out of anything.

We just keep going further and further down the fucking hole. And not for nothing, if you're a Bernie person, it's not the best thing in the world that guys like that are getting purchased again. I mean, granted, it's preferable to Bevan, thing in the world that guys like that are getting purchased again i mean yeah that's what i mean it's preferable to bevin but if that greater trend continues that's not something we should be encouraged by that's the point i'm trying to make is that like the resistance libs are still a significant political force in this country and that's another thing i want to dispel real quick too is because i've seen a lot of people say oh a lot of people think andy beshear was like a

like our revolution like bernie candidate and he wasn't bernie just endorsed him because of course he was going to endorse him right you know what i mean right this is a big race big you know with national implications because particularly because we got mcconnell on the horizon we got the trump presidency thing on the horizon and um so yeah like let's let's stop there like you know i to my knowledge bashir bashir has not endorsed medicare for all or any of like the core stances of a sort of bernie movement so no you know i mean he said he's gonna get rid of the medicaid uh waiver yeah it was medicaid waiver but but yeah to my knowledge right and so um and so when people you know like and also i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off i just i just want to say this

real quick and also that's another problem is that we can't say definitively whether what he's for or not right and there's a reason for that is because kentucky democrats like just like matt jones said last war when we had a podcast like their goal is to make it through these elections without taking a stand on anything. Right, right. So we don't really know. He's made vague things like he's going to stand up for teachers and working people and all this stuff. But every fucking Democrat says that. Yeah.

But it doesn't mean shit. Yeah. And so this is what I mean. When I say this critique of electoralism was formed in these years, the thing is that at some point you find yourself trying to compromise or reason with those people or at least build a coalition with them. And I'm just trying to tell you that if you're truly trying to advance the interest and power of the working class, these people are dead end.

Because what have they done? They've shown time and time again that they're going to throw the working class, these people are dead end. Yeah. Because what have they done? They've shown time and time again that they're gonna throw the working class under the bus. Yeah. Because that's the nature of neoliberal governing and neoliberal politics.

It's also just far easier to do that in this system than not. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Like you actually have to go out of your way to stand up for important

working people in a real way, not just pay lip service to it yeah but just throw them under the bus it's just like clockwork oh yeah the system yes the system rewards that and your own sort of longevity and sustainability in that system requires you to do it yeah and so um and so that's that's the thing that's the basis of this critique of electoralism. It's just that, like I said, you have to make a choice. You can't keep doing that. Because, like, step far back enough to where you can remove yourself from the images of the people doing this.

Like, you see a system that, like, what it does is, like, you have people like Obama and Beshear or whatever who pave the way for the Trumps and the Bevins. Yeah. That's the nature of the system. Right. Of that sort of dialectical relationship. Well, we always talk about this sort of ebb and flow and how like sometimes the Republicans take the ball and sometimes the Democrats take the ball. The reason the Republicans ever get the ball is because the Democrats prefer that way. Yeah.

They prefer to do nothing. Right. You know what I mean? Like, if they can piss away four to eight years of the presidency, that's fine. They know they're going to get it back with some big gains and all that stuff because that's the nature of the system. Here's what we should really be asking ourselves,

and particularly those who are diehard believers in electoralism. Why do the most unpopular people on the face of the earth that you could pull any 10 motherfuckers off the street and ask them what do you think about this guy and eight out of ten of them want to take them out back and shoot them in the fucking head right stay in power it's because the democrats are content to be the loyal opposition right they're content to uh be differ in no meaningful way from like just these absolutely craving individuals and then they have the audacity to just like act like like people like from places like where i'm from just have the audacity there's aren't aren't bright enough to vote the right way right you know what i Yeah. Well, it reminds me a lot of the election

with Doug Jones and Roy Moore. This election mirrors that perfectly. It does, because you have people, like well-meaning socialists, leftists, and progressives or whatever, celebrating it as a win. And it's like, if you step back, what you see is, yes, it's a win in the sense that like this obviously repulsive figure lost.

But that win makes sure that those other people also have continued relevance and power. And this is why I say like if you're trying to shatter this, you need an external force bearing pressure on the system whether that's sort of united like working class movement of unions or or tenant unions or whatever or even like a bernie movement like you need some sort of external force bearing pressure on it but you cannot i believe that you can't coalition with it i don't i don't think that you can reason with it or coalition with it because the point is to shatter it right and to break it into out of that bring apart bring in something new right and so um yeah it's fun on a personal level to see this piece of shit bevin eat shit because that's fun because he sucks ass but it does like don't get it twisted this is no

great win for socialism or democracy or whatever for the working class and for working people right right that's the thing you just need to constantly be asking yourself at all times does this advance the interests and power of the working class yeah that's your litmus test as a socialist that's what it means yeah so unless you think we're just being haters or just doomsayers and doom and gloom and all this stuff listen I hope Andy Beshear foments a god damn peasant

revolt and where you get you know full automated communism in Kentucky in two years but check back in with me in two years and let's talk about it. And let that, and let that, let,

let, let every, let every man in person be known by their deeds. And we might be wrong. We may, he may turn out to be a burner. We could be entirely wrong,

in which case you can get back in the mentions and say, you're doom and gloom. Fuck you, you dumb piece of shit. You were, you were wrong about common Dante Bashir.

And I'll, I'll acceptar. And I'll accept that. And I would welcome that. But my hunch is that we might be disappointed. Well, so, like, this brings us to the next topic, which is can McConnell lose in 2020? Does this mean that McConnell will lose in 2020? And so there's a few things i want to say about this um i think it's entirely possible he could lose because as we were talking about the other day this is the first time that mcconnell will be on a presidential

ballot since 2008 he's he is as vulnerable as he's ever going to be right he is his public support or whatever the fuck his polling numbers are just about where bevins were um and a lot of people turn out to vote in presidential elections and i know a lot of motherfuckers who were like fuck mcconnell but love trump and so he's already got that going against him plus all the other people turning out to vote against Trump. Well, you can see this. You can see that McConnell's aware of this because McConnell in all of his slifferiness knows when the winds change and what he has to do.

Right. Two years ago, McConnell would have never fucking showed up to a Trump-Bevin rally. Right. Not a prayer. Right. And to see this little motherfucker waddle out there it's funny because he's like he's been exposed you know what i'm saying yeah like this is his

whole thing and it's always been his thing is to sort of read like and and you have to you have to be good at forecasting if you're that un-fucking-popular you manage to stay in power right and just to illustrate this like and you should go read that fucking New Republic Nihilist-in-Chief piece Alex Perrine did on Mitch McConnell. I think it just perfectly sums up McConnell's politics. But McConnell was so craven that he tried to make Bush abruptly pull out of Iraq because he thought it would threaten his power if we stayed in Iraq.

He thought it would threaten their chances in the midterms. The 2006 midterms, I believe it was. That should, well, for one, that should tell the average person one thing, that our wars are not about protecting this country. They are as flippant and fucking just casual. Loosey-goosey, like we will invade anywhere we think we could make a buck off of right it doesn't matter how many people we slaughter or anything else how

much fucking pain and suffering we rot in the world it doesn't matter okay that's one thing and then the other thing too is just like i don't know i don't know i don't know where i was going with that no no you're going with it the first thing is that it's very flippant or whatever but the second thing is that yes it just proves that like he doesn't really believe in it in anything in anything he believes in his power and not ever seeing it challenged what he believes in is constructing a system in which wealth is funneled upwards for eternity he believes in capitalism he is truly the sort of political genius of capitalism he is the political genius and so ask yourself does it

even matter if he loses in 2020 or not i I'm going to go ahead and say no. This is the thing. When Matt Jones was on our podcast, he said that I think that if Mitch is out, you get an entirely different Senate because he wields so much power. And I don't really agree. Like he's done so much already.

He's created a judicial system that enshrines his specific sort of framework he what he's done is he it's almost like like a fucking uh disease that you just pass down and to your family and try it's like he has infected this system in perpetuity right exactly with his brand so this is exactly and so the system itself has to be fundamentally upended and changed to get that virus out of it defeating mitch mcconnell is just and i think it could be done i even think matt could beat him but that is just that is just one piece yeah no you have to remove the entire fucking virus. Yeah. At this point.

Yeah. It's a longer term project than just unseating them. But that is obviously the first step. It's a reordering of the system itself. It's what we were talking about earlier. It's the working class becoming empowered and shattering this system. The system. We have to change the economic system. We have to change the way the entire world is ordered

to defeat Mitch McConnell. Exactly. It's not enough to beat him in an election. No, exactly. As much as that would give me great pleasure for the same reasons that... For the same reasons that it's fun to watch Bevan lose. Yeah, yeah.

It's fun to watch pieces of shit lose. But it's not... I don't know. But we can't rest on our laurels at beating Mitch McConnell. Right. It's a short-term sort of like dopamine rush, a short-term little high. But it does ultimately nothing.

Enjoy it. I mean, like I said, it is fun. But yeah. I mean, it does something. But I'm saying it's just like there's a lot more work to be done. You're right. No, I mean, it's blood in the water, at least. Well, for one, I mean, it signals that you're actually a viable political party again. Or you could be if you wanted to be.

Right. But even at that, it's like that does that really mean that much yeah i don't know because like imagine if amy mcgrath does win imagine if mcgrath does beat mcconnell are they are they a viable political party or is the system just doing its thing where it needs to vacillate sort of back and forth and to be able to pave the way for the fucking next mitch mcconnell i'll tell you this i'll tell you this if we have a situation where we have joe biden amy mcgrath and andy beshear i'm you know let me tell you something i'm moving to canada i know you know how people make that threat like when like these reactionaries are in power

yeah i'm moving to canada if we get fucking oh four politics back in and it's the order of the day again yeah i'm telling you that i'm abandoning this country i will stay here if if you elected fucking satan himself as president and just a hit parade of the worst people that have ever existed in every piece of I would stay and stick it out because at least you got revolutionary potential. Yeah.

No, this is what I'm talking about. These people are the ultimate boner killers. I saw this in 2000. I mean, I saw this in the Obama years. The way that it sucked all the fucking radical revolutionary fervor out of my friends. Because we all knew that they would not do shit. They would listen to us and entertain us and welcome us into their fucking agencies and offices and lobbies.

But they wouldn't ultimately, at the end of the day, do jack shit. So what did we do? We became complacent. We'd rather go to brunch we'd rather that's the thing we kind of were actually we're going to a lot of brunches i'm saying like we became complacent and we be in and the nature of the system was shrouded to us it was an illusion which is what liberalism is at the end of the day it is just a very fancy little shroud you place over your eyes well it does the it does the job of making you think you're on the right

side of history while also uh relieving you of your duties of having to do anything exactly that's what it is it's a salve yeah and meanwhile the working class becomes more and more miserated. Yeah. So, again, it goes back to that question. Don't ask yourself, what would Jesus do? WWJD. Ask yourself, this is not even remotely similar. Now, listen, the only question you need to ask yourself is, what is your commitment to poor and working people? Right.

That is it. That's right. Does this advance the interests of the working class does it build working class power does it reorder does it does it attempt to reorder society in such a way that poor and working people are the ones in power right and if the answer is no maybe reassess reassess if it's anything but a resounding yes then we need to be where and listen you know we can talk about bridges to you know the world we want to see and all that stuff but man you can build a fucking 60 000 mile long bridge if you got enough fucking workers you know what i mean like right

you can just keep doing that shit right so yeah so i mean so yeah so the question of mcconnell in 2020 maybe maybe yes maybe no i mean depends on who runs against them but ultimately it's a much bigger issue than that and um so yeah yeah yeah let's say that's the thing in the thing in electoral politics that i that gives me some some semblance of hope is when we're talking about okay what could we do to reorder the judiciary first of all that kind of stuff like what could well like like you know we've talked about this a million times who's out there that's for abolishing the senate who's out there for abolishing the States? Like that kind of stuff. That's, you know,

but I mean, but again, like we're so gaslighted that if you come out and say that, you might as well tell people you're a fucking astronaut. You know what I mean? Really? I'm sick of that. I'm sick of that. It's just like,

but you know, to be fair, like I feel like we are at least maybe having a puncher's chance of getting universal health care. And that seemed like a parlor debate, you know, even 10 years ago. You know, it's possible. So I'm feeling much more pessimistic about that. But that's just because I'm trying to set up for health care right now and it's not happening. No, dude, it's so expensive.

It's so fucking expensive. Yeah yeah but that's the thing if by if biden if these people are ascendant right now there's a battle within the sort of democratic party this is the same battle that happened in the 80s the jesse jackson and the rainbow, you had two paths. You had neoliberalism, and you had Jesse Jackson's sort of like democratic socialism, which, you know, very close to Bernie's. And we're having the same exact thing now. And if neoliberalism wins again, if the Biden wing of that wins again, like it did in the 80s, then no, we're not getting Medicare for all. We're not getting any of that.

Any of those things that do empower the working class. And so, again, that's just the facts. I mean, nobody short of Bernie is going to give Medicare for all all we even fucking know elizabeth warren isn't nobody no decent person needs to look any farther if you're written this this rice that's just that's just the truth of it yeah if you're i mean i'll i mean i will say this like if if you are here are your two options. It's Bernie or accelerationism.

And honestly, most days of the week, I'm full on board with acceleration. I mean, I don't have fucking health care anyways. Those are the way forward. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So it's like, it's one of those two things. Maybe the two aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe we need one to get the other. Yeah, maybe we don't need to to take our foot off the gas if we do get burning right but the point is is that something has to change um

and yeah i just can't keep living like living like this and a lot of people can't either yeah and so um so yeah so anyways that's that's that's kind of a big picture look on the election, but I'm just, I can't fucking, you know, like I said, soak it up that this piece of shit Bevan lost, but now that Bashir's a Democrat, a good Democrat, and by that I mean a dutiful Democrat. So anyways, is that about cover it, Tom?

What else? I mean, does the media said any other outstanding things about this that we need to cover that we didn't cover that you can think of? Well, I mean, one thing I do want to say is that if there is something else that came out of this,

One thing I do want to say is that if there is something else that came out of this, it is that in a place that's so insular as Kentucky, that's so self-referential like some of these communities, particularly like where we live, like the one piece that this national narrative is missing is you can't underestimate how much sway local power brokers have. Yeah. And I just wanted to say that in conjunction because I think the one,

and I don't even know if it's necessarily positive. I guess it's positive in the sense that Bevin was unseated. But if you look at, again, like the Rocky Atkins influence in certain eastern Kentucky counties, I think that could be a lesson to draw from the Bernie people, that you need to actually invest in the ground in places like here

and figure out how power is constructed and who you can get in your coalition to flip places that, you know, Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden or whoever Pete Buttigieg is not going to bother to do. Because they just think people are enamored enough of their own income tax credit that they're going to vote for him anyway

if they're going to vote for a Democrat. Right, because we know that Biden is absolutely not going to do shit for places like West Virginia. I mean, like, I don't even know. I don't even mean that, like, policy-wise. I mean, like, they're not even going to try to do a ground game. No, no, no, no, no.

They're going to write places off. Right, right. I mean, which is, I mean, like, all politicians do that. That's part of politics. But, like, the point you're trying to make is that if you're trying to try to win, you can't. Well, I'm just speaking strictly about Kentucky. It's because it's what I know. Kentucky absolutely could go for the Democrats in the presidential election.

I don't know about Alabama. I don't know about Mississippi, other places in the South. That's a question for people there. If the nominee was Bernie, because I don't think Kentucky's going to go for Biden. Kentucky's going to go for Trump. Yeah, yeah, right, right. But if you're saying if the nominee was... If the Democratic nominee was Bernie Sanders, okay, or whoever it is.

But Bernie, I mean, actually has policies that resonate because of the legacy of the New Deal, blah, blah, blah. Something I've said a million times so let's just say for the sake of argument for our purposes it's bernie bernie absolutely could i mean he would care i mean assuming that you know the pussy hats don't come out and protest voting he would probably carry lexton and louisville and if he could get a solid number of counties in eastern kentucky which basheer proved you can he could win he could he could win kentucky kentucky could be a swing stat right well the thing is here and this connects back to what we were saying earlier is that the square peg that you have to put into the whatever the fuck it is is that most people don't vote um because they're disaffected from the political process or

whatever well also when you're talking about eastern kentucky you're talking about uh the overwhelming majority of the working class in eastern kentucky are working low-wage jobs that have brutal hours and the last thing you're thinking about is going to go punch a vote in. Definitely don't vote. So you've got to figure out a way to get those people invested in the system and get them registered and whatever and make sure they get out. Well, and this is part of the sort of critique of electoralism again. It's just don't put all your eggs in that basket

because it's sort of structurally designed to not be able to win with people like bernie and so the whole critique the whole time also but also bernie's the only person that's going to do that exactly it's going to do the legwork joe biden's not going to fucking do that right joe biden's going to skip right over kentucky right i'll work in pennsylvania where right and so the point is the point i'm trying to make is that no work in Pennsylvania or wherever. And so the point is, the point I'm trying to make

is that view it skeptically and understand that, you know, if it doesn't happen, well, it has to happen, so we need to make it happen.

But at the same time, just understand that there are structural issues here. I don't even know what the fuck. I mean, we've said all that can be said.

My brain is fucking done. Anyway, to put a bow on it. Yeah, we called it. Yeah, we nailed it. We totally nailed it. We fucking got it right, and no one can convince me otherwise. Oh, yeah, something people wanted us to comment on that i don't even know where you stand

is that that jackson kernian dude oh the warren bro he's a worm yeah he's the guy that they that had like the white face paint on with like the blacked out eyes with the warren sign that was going around it's the guy with like the globe thing next to his name and he said the crazy shit yeah he's a warren guy yeah he's a warren guy damn i didn't even i mean like i kind of thought he was a troll in front of maverick will be i don't know fucking god but then he i think he said something about like you have to he's like it's totally permissible to talk or to um he said he unironically thinks it's okay to shit on rural america but do you think he was being ironic or is was he unironically unironic hard to say man there's too many filters actually i agree with him there um please unironically, shit on rural America.

All you want, if you're a Biden, if you're a Warren supporter. If the Warren listeners are out there. Yeah, that's the way forward. You should definitely do that. You should do that. My man, go for it. It would actually work really well for you. Those are the type of guys, if he's not some kind of troll.

If he is some kind of troll, I mean, fuck fuck him but if he like sincerely in earnest believes that stuff he's one of those type of guys i'd like to just blindfold and just drop off and fucking roxanna somewhere just you know what i mean they think they're so goddamn smart find your way home buddy you know what i mean well there's our offer to you, Jackson. Take him snappin'. All right. Thanks for joining us this week. Please sign up for the Patreon. We have content there every Sunday.

P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Drill Billy Workers Party. And, you know, like like I said $5 a month you'll get an episode every Sunday I sound so bad I sound so yeah I'm just stuffed bro

I'm fucking stuffed yeah donate so we can get Terrence not only out of jail, but we can keep him in fucking sore throat lozenges. All right, well, we'll see you soon. See ya.