Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 265: 17 Easy Ways To End History

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

This week we address the true Kanye West Of The Academy: Francis Fukuyama, and his End of History thesis. Support our great show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

recording in progress I'm surprised they didn't give her a British accent like well I guess Siri doesn't have a British accent whatever I think like Star Trek I guess actually she doesn't have a British accent either whatever

recording in process recording in progress like some dude from Brooklyn recording in progress spread them cheeks spread them cheeks wide recording is in progress like some dude from brooklyn spread them cheeks spread them cheeks wide recording is in progress recording progress oh shit oh shit uh that one got me tears.

Today, we're going to do a little bit of role-playing. We're going to do cyber sex role-playing. We're going to do cyber sex role-playing. Yeah. ASL. Is that a thing that happens? When people cyber, do they do... Cyber role-play? Do they do role-play?

Yeah, I'm sure that's what streams and shit are like. I want to know this. Are there people still in primitive web 1.0 chat rooms having cyber sex? Like AIM, AOL Instant Messenger chat room? Well, not even. I'm talking like the attic, like HTML chat sites. They never got out of that that they've just been in that for been in it since like 97 96 whenever it's like being in a digital coma man you like wake

up and see like oh shit motherfuckers were there's twitter you're just totally left in the dust because and all you're thinking about is asl and somebody well people talk about no no go ahead i was just gonna say people talk about like the glory days of the internet like when you're we need to find those people because those are the people who are living the internet like pure and uncut like they're you you mean the way it was envisioned yeah the way it was envisioned? Yeah. You mean the way it was envisioned as this utopia and this like a modern day symposium of ideas? John Perry Barlow.

Yeah. I had cyber sex on the WWF chat room one time. How was that? Well, now that the more i know was you know it was probably not who i thought it was but you're gonna find someone's you're gonna find someone's list of like best cyber sex i ever had you're gonna be like number 13 on it number 13 and i used to do so like a thing that used to happen was they would say like real wwe wrestlers are going to be joined in the chat room and their names would always be like real duane the rock

johnson or real rushiki yeah but it was like the real government names so but like you could also just put real whatever and i used to go in there and say I was Sean the Heartbreak Kid Michaels. I may have solicited cyber sex as the real Michael Higginbottom. That's his real name. Put in notches under his belt. That man's going to get canceled because of my early internet. Because of you, yo. Somebody's going to go back like in 25 20 25 years

and be like yo this mother heartbreak kid i thought he was a christian yeah wrong he's an internet deviant i wonder if anyone ever tried to like pass off being owen hart like after the accident they were like you ever had sex with you ever had cyber sex with a ghost? Somebody's mind is blown and actually thought that they're hearing from Owen Hart from Beyond the Grave. And he's trying to fuck me. I wanted today to do a little bit of role playing. Please, if you would please entertain me. Aaron, you are going to be the judge You're the judge

Okay You I don't know if you've ever wanted to be a judge before But today you're putting on that black robe Putting on a robe And you're picking up your gavel I got it Putting on the white wig

Picking up the bong as a gavel. That's right. Don't knock the shit too hard, though. Don't want it to break. Yeah. That's right. And I'm going to be... What's going on here?

It's on a episode from, I think, the Patreon episode from two weekends ago. Tom and I engaged in a friendly back and forth, arguing our case over who was the more annoying group. Pre-med students or whiny, grievance-based professors? And now, I did something on that episode i don't usually do which is i hit the devil's advocate button it's like an escape it was a cowardly move i'll be honest with you but he did he said let me i said no he's not he said just let me i said no he's not why you would have played the devil, Terrence? Why you would have played the devil? And then out of nowhere, he hit it. I'm not playing the devil.

I'm advocating for the devil. You're advocating for the devil. That was my previous work. I got to where I am now because of that work. Because you were the devil was your top priority. Because of a pact you made at the crossroads. That's right. I sold my soul to be a moderately successful podcaster.

That's right. And the devil looked at me and said, Son, I don't say this often, but maybe aim higher. So no thanks. You're better than that. No thanks, Beelzebub. I know exactly where I need to be. This is my station in life.

I'm the lowest rung in notoriety. Oh, shit. All right. I'll be the judge. Okay, so we filed a case, an amicus brief, and we filed the amicus, the amici brief And we filed the The amicus The amici briefie Briefii

And You know that case wound its way Through the circuit court And the lower Ninth court The lower ninth circuit of hell Court Hell's appellate court, okay. Hell's Appellate Court.

Yeah. And now it's back before us and I wanna submit an appeal as the defense attorney for one Maitland Jones who we discussed in this episode. Professor Maitland Jones? Professor Maitland Jones, yes. Damn, this oughta be good. Yes.

All right, I'll to be good. Yes. I would submit your evidence. I would like to submit to the court for everyone to see my case that Maitland-Jones, as outlined in the aforementioned case number X249-B37. He's going for it again. I'll let you know. He's going for it again. I'll let you know. He's going for it again. I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing.

I can tell by the way he's wiggling. Objection, Your Honor. I'm doing my job. I'm just doing my job. I wouldn't even write it for it. Am I supposed to say that's sustained? Sustained. Okay, you heard him.

Mr. Sexton, sit down. Sit your ass back down. I've been sustained. I would like to submit in this case, aforementioned case, that the evidence as it is so presented to us before us today, before the court. Stave and root, ladies and gentlemen. That Maitland Jones was inexorably justified

in his punishment of pre-med students in organic chemistry at New York University. Foghorn Leghorn. Foghorn Leghorn. Oh. Mr. Jones was justified, and I'll submit to the court this article in the New York Times today. These doctors admit they don't want patients with disabilities.

When granted anonymity in focus groups, physicians let their guards down and shared opinions consistent with the experiences of many people with disabilities. I would just like to point out to the court that this article goes on to demonstrate that doctors are psychopaths. And where do they learn their psychopathy, your honor?

At the university. And my defendant, my client, Maitland Jones, was just trying to even the score a little bit. And I hand it back over to you, your honor, if you would like to call a witness or the prosecution here, this bitch-ass prosecution. The bitch-ass prosecution across from me

prosecution state your uh name for the record i can't i can't i can't practice law in these conditions he folded i am the best defense lawyer the best this side i can't challenge shelby foot in the court of law it's real bulldog uh if you want the full details of that you're gonna have to go to the patreon it's uh that's that's how law works now they going to start paywalling certain legal cases. Yeah, like precedent. Yeah.

Like you got to go to the tier. You got to go like to how much ever it is, what tier to get that shit. I wonder who the sick fuck's going to be to go pay, to get the Casey Anthony details from out behind the paywall. Yo, that's like the perfect mixture of true crime and like, you know, like reality shit, man. Uh-huh. Well, the details of that case was that Maitland Jones, an organic chemistry professor at New York University, was fired for being too hard on his pre-med students. And I just got to say, fuck him.

He should have been harder. He should have been harder, man. Should have made him quit. Your Honor, your Honor say fuck him. It should have been harder. It should have been harder, man. It should have made him quit. Your Honor, your Honor, fuck him. Fuck him. Sustained.

Oh, man. I mean, low-key though, you kinda gotta be like, I mean, no offense to any doctors out there, but I don't know, man. Not that I'm squeamish or anything,

but to deal with the human body and to deal with illness and ailments and shit, you gotta you gotta have something going on man viscerum blood and guts yeah there's got to be something going on up there so you're saying to be a doctor you have to be a sociopath is what you're saying yes that's that's pretty fascinating i'm saying yeah exactly what it's the major in sociopathy you have to see the body as just a bag of meat That you can like saw up If you would like If it so fits your

Your desires I see okay That's when they take you to like the Don't they have those parks man Where bodies are decaying and shit like that For like med students and shit to like observe It's called Nalen Stadium University of Tennessee

That's why they're so good at football. They're about to learn week after this week. Yeah, when they play UK and they beat UK's ass by 35. No, that's not what's going to happen. I'm not saying that because every year I talk some shit and they beat us. Dude, do you know that scene in Lord of the Rings where they got the army of the dead behind them and they fucking sweep through that orc camp

and just wipe everybody? That's what fucking Tennessee has with them, dog. They got an army of the dead. They play on a graveyard. They play with no honor. I'm sorry. They play with no honor. Yeah, good.

You beat Alabama, a team that's overachieved for 10 goddamn years because they've played exactly three true road games in that time. There's currently a conspiracy theory going around that the ref, like someone snapped this single call from a ref where he does the touchdown thing, and he seems to do a hell yeah after he does the touchdown like for tennessee so it's like evidence that he had he had the oh that he's favorite that he's like favorite he's a favoritism

yeah yeah i will go ahead and tell everybody pro sports are 100 fixed hmm i'm convinced man like all these fuck goddamn gambling sites getting in cahoots into business with the leagues yeah i've seen a lot i've seen a lot of things i've seen that listen i'm not a conflict of interest you would think but your honor i don't know we'll take it to court next week maybe yeah we'll take that one according this week we got to get to the bottom of the end of history oh god What exactly that phrase means. My boy Frankie F. The thing is, I'm so fucking dumb. When I sent this to you guys on the group chat, I did not know that the end of history was announced like the Pope every few years.

I was under the impression that Fukuyama just dropped this this week like yo his end of history still this time it's still doing it's real it's real this time it's like a guy who was that guy was it hal lindsey that used to predict the end of the world all the time and then every time it would come and go he'd say actually no god said it's not yet time 10 years the real time is so fukuyama's kind of doing the same thing moving the goalposts a little bit on the end of history seems like did you well i thought he i thought he came back though i thought i was confused because i thought he came back like i don't know when maybe it's like 2000s and i thought that he said i thought he said he was wrong and reneged on the end of history.

And now he's coming back to confirm it. No, I was actually right the first time. I mean, well, I don't know. If you search for it on Google, he, in 2018, said that... Actually, that's a good comparison, Tom. The prophet who's constantly wrong and has to update it. But it's weird. It's like it's not the end of the world that he's predicting.

What is it that Fukuyama's predicting? What's this cat's deal? He's a guy I always hear people talk about. I've heard this phrase, end of history. I've even invoked it a guy I always hear people talk about I've heard this phrase end of history I've even invoked it a time or two ignorantly I was like Terrence man it feels like it's the end of history man you know and Terrence is not like worried and he's like yeah man you're so right you're so right I'm like bro it's like we don't even make cinema anymore, right? We just make reboots and Marvel movies. Like, bro, it's the end of history.

And he's just like a good sport about like, damn. Well, anyway. I use that shit for everything, man. Going to the gas station, they don't got no high fries. It's the end of history. They don't got my cigarettes. It's the end of history. Yeah.

You just look at the cashier and say, you know what this means i don't got my cigarettes the end of history yeah you just like look at the cashier and say you know what this means don't you go into your wallet shake your head while you're looking at your wallet it's the end of history i have to uh for my day job i have to meet with uh deborah holland tomorrow who's the secretary of the interior holy shit. Wait, for real? Yeah, for real. For real. I guess a woman's like eight heartbeats away from the presidency, and they say, you know what? We'll send Sexton to go meet with her.

We'll send the broadcaster. Yeah, we'll send this limp dick. So I gotta go. And we're talking about land problems in Appalachia, which is also hilarious, because she's famously the first Native American person that served in a presidential cabinet. And there's something that's just going to be weird about me saying, the coal companies are destroying my land.

To a Native woman. Yeah. Join the club. But now I got a new approach. First off, I'm going to make a PowerPoint. And the first slide is going to be a wallet, like a clipart wallet with cobwebs in it. I'm going to say, Appalachia's first problem is this, Madam Secretary. It's just going to be that clipart wallet with cobwebs in it.

There's no money. We got no money. We got no jobs. We got no cash, no jobs, and no jobs we got no cash no jobs and no hope and no history apparently no history and then you know what i'm gonna turn to and say boys madam secretary it's almost as if it's the end of history iris i cede my time this is a shortcut she'd be like you know what he's right I cede my time.

He's a shirker chin. You know what? He's right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she is better positioned to know, being as close as she is to power, that if we really are at the end. Ask her if they have that at Fort Knox. If they're storing the gold and the end of history at Fort Knox.

Yeah. I'll say, listen, if I have an audience with you, I've got to ask three things. You're close enough to the reins of power. One, what's Brandon like in person? Two, my podcast co-host was unable to get the password to Fort Knox off of Governor of Kentucky. Maybe you have that information.

No reason. Edit text. Good deal. And then number three, is there no more history left? Is there no more history? Are we out of history? It seems like we're, the cupboard's running low of history. Where you at on that?

They got a manila folder that just says it's stamped end of history. You're six to eight heartbeats away from the presidency. I have not checked the line of succession lately, but surely you've had to think about this in case you know. Six were to mysteriously die overnight and there you are

on the precipice of history. If you have some designated survivor type of situation, yeah. Well, I have to obviously preface all of this conversation with the, you know, with the caveat that I've not read the book or the famous essay about the end of history. Why would you read it? Why would you read it? Why would you read it? Why would you read it?

Listen, man, we talk about things on here without reading anything, without doing any foresight or knowledge, man. It's fine. Well, you know, I mean, yeah, you're getting the tardy boy's take on the end of history. I mean, and honestly, the tardy boys are who you want to analyze if we're at the end of history because we're going to be late. So we're going to be late. History will already be over.

History will already be over. We'll be late to the end of history. People are like, yo, you know that shit ended like a while back though, right? Did not get the memo. Damn. History's just kind of got away from us. You say the top read away from you? Yeah, history's just kind of ran away, got away from us. Well, you say the top ran away from you?

Yeah, history ran away? As I understand it, his argument is not that, you know, history is static and that nothing can move forward. That's not his argument. His argument is that liberal democracy is the apogee of human social development and political development. And so there's no... The apogee as in like the top point

or the apogee environmental company we used to work for. It's the consulting firm we used to work for that paid us $6 an hour and told us to just chill out on demanding your on paychecks on time yeah it's not that serious made us kill what we eat out on the road uh but you know so like this obviously dropped in the at this week. Like, yo, Fukuyama was like, yo, the history is definitely still over. In my mind, I was like, damn, dude. Because I'm a dumbass, and I see everything in the most alarmist terms possible.

So I'm like, damn, dude. It's fucking crazy insignificant that he would say this right now like during all this ukraine stuff in this moment must be right in this moment not not so much that he's right just so much that it's significant that he's saying it said it now but i get on google to look and see if he said it at any other time since he released the first end of history in not like the early 90s after the soviet union fell and it turns out that he has actually said it at least one other time and 9-11 it was not 9-11. Would you care to take a guess as to what he said challenged liberal democracy and the end of history?

I got this. I don't think you guys will ever get it. I really don't think you'll get it. This one's kind of a curveball. This one the challenger blew up. All the texts. No. When they introduced Sprite Remix. no uh when they were they brought when they uh when they uh introduced sprite remix yeah that's right

also no but when they brought the mcrib back out in 97 season finale of the sopranos you're getting kind of warmer I guess For real it's a media shit No it kind of is He put out a book In 2018 This is in the New Yorker He says that the thing

That presents the biggest challenge To liberal democracy Is Identity politics Wow He's a chud he's not hard i think he's like a lit he's a liberal he's a liberal i guess yeah does he does he believe there's a cancel culture like what's where's he at on that well that was before i feel like cancel culture had really entered the lexicon this was 2018 um and but hold up doesn't liberal democracy allow for the like proliferation of i mean even if they're like even if they're like uh like insincere

but identity politics right the fact that like everybody like not in a like bad but you know what i'm trying to say it's like yo everybody like has a different identity in this intersectionality and like liberal democracy affords people that like you know i'm saying freedom and self-autonomy and independence and shit you know yeah surprise he's complaining about identity politics it is kind of surprising you're right i mean he kind of dude the thing is is he's kind of like the kanye west of like elite tier think tank, elite whisperer, ideology crafters. Because this is what this article says.

The demand for recognition, I keep saying Fukushima, Jesus. I guess in my mind, he does also have a kind of radioactive quality to him. Yeah, he's like the hat man. When you see him, therein follows pestilence and disease and all manner of collapse. He's like the archangel of death.

Yeah. You know, our friend of the show who I've had on before, Jimmy Fallon Gong, said he was the harbinger of hubris. I think that's a good way to describe him. That's a pretty good way to put it. He says, I think, but his argument is kind of muddled, and that's why, like, because he tries to pack too much into this argument. This is from the New Yorker. The demand for recognition, Fukuyama says says is the quote-unquote master concept that

explains all the contemporary dissatisfactions with the global liberal order vladimir putin osama bin laden xi jinping black lives matter me too gay marriage whoa whoa one of those things is not like the other dog whoa whoa campus politics, anti-immigration political movements, the election of Donald Trump. He says it also explains the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Chinese Communism, Nietzsche, Freud, Kant, Rousseau. I'm just like, dude, come on. Identity politics lended itself to Chinese Communism.

Okay, dog. It's kind of like, that's why I was kind of saying it's like Kanye. He's like, he's just okay dog it's kind of like uh like that's why i was kind of saying it's like kanye he's like he's just grabbing everything and like kanye he's like fascinated with hegel in this completely like disembodied almost kind of navel gazey sense oh my god man yeah i don't know i think is all pretty. Why is the desire for recognition or identity politics, as Fukuyama calls it, a threat to liberalism? Because it cannot be satisfied by economic or procedural reforms. Having the same amount of wealth as everyone else or the same opportunity to acquire it is not a substitute for respect. Fukuyama thinks that political movements that appear to be about legal and economic equality, gay or me too are really about recognition and respect um oh word like like the the recognition and respect so that

like i mean jesus fucking christ dude like like i hate when people talk about the shit as if it's just a culture war as if it doesn't affect people's material lives you know yeah like this is just an opinion or an attitude and doesn't affect how somebody actually lives throughout the world, man. Yeah, and then he starts throwing out Greek terms like megathelios or something. That's where he loses me. That's my eyes glaze over. I don't support that lifestyle.

Oh, shit. Okay. Well, so, anyways, all of which just to say he's, like I said, like the Pope being announced, the white smoke coming out of the Vatican, the nuclear fallout from the Fukuyama reactor has once again darkened our skies and he has once again intoned

that the end of history is still ended it's weird it's like it's almost weird it's almost like a it's almost like if a biblical preacher or like a you know what I'm saying like a It's almost like if a biblical preacher, or you know what I'm saying,

like a prophet or whatever, like you were saying earlier, Tom. It's like if they were saying that the end times are already here, and they didn't have to do a prophecy, they were just able to keep saying, no, the end times happened in the early 90s. The rapture happened already. It's already over. Yeah already it's already over yeah

it's already over you know what's gonna happen boys we're gonna find ourselves at davos or the aspen ideas institute and we're gonna be sitting there all of a sudden the lights are gonna drop and we're gonna be like what in the world what's happening and we're just gonna hear queuing up acdc's how's bows it's not just the first part you know it's just the first part and then the lights come on fukuyama takes the stage and then we're gonna be like fuck i'm gonna turn to the left i'm gonna turn to the right and i'm gonna say boys it might be the end of history it just might be the end of history yeah man so but also a real quick too i'm just kind of confused like just like thinking about this thing like even just like conceptually like so if history already ended

why you gotta re re reidify the fact that it ended? Like, isn't it already done and over with? Like, I don't get it, man. Bro, let me tell you about something called the Tribulation Period. That's what you're living through right now. That's true. You'll have to refresh my memory on that, Tom. What is the Tribulation Period?

That's after the rapture. That's after the rapture. That's if you didn't make it on the, Tom. What is the tribulation period? That's after the rapture. That's after the rapture. That's if you didn't make it on the first trip, you got seven years to get it right, but you can't take the mark of the beast. I see, okay. The two-edged sword is you can't eat without taking the mark of the beast, so.

Oh, shit. It's like getting a colonoscopy. You just got liquid diets. Right, exactly. Liquid diet. Live off grub worms And the whole time there's gonna be people trying to Make you take the mark

In this case A colonoscopy I have a colonoscopy in December and it's like weighing on my mind So it's like That's your mark of the beast Man this is for seven years Yeah A seven year colonoscopy that's a long time um yeah

so but okay all right so mark the beast uh colonoscopies keep all that in mind that this is that's the that's the raw material we're going into this with like this this is true tardy boys like we are going into this completely ill-equipped um but as i told you guys last night like it feels like this article is pure uncut ideology like truly it's dangerous to be played this is like fentanyl in terms of ideology truly carry your narcan boys playing this is like fentanyl in terms of ideology truly carry your narcan boys truly this should have a warning this should have a warning like you know like a header and a warning that this is like harmful uh-huh you know we're gonna be seizing up like your uh pd like des moines iowa pd yeah serge shit. Son, this is flour.

But I do have to say, after reading it, my first impression was very much like, of all the things I've read and seen in the last year, I feel like was the most unnerving in terms of like, yeah, we're heading towards global military conflict and breakup of the world order that will probably end all human life as we know it. Yeah, yeah. If Emmanuel the Emu and his owners don't do it first

with this new avian flu dude as a sidebar that shit was fucking crazy like to for those of you who don't know what tom just referenced like apparently the hurricane is it i? Like kicked up some fucking microbes or virus or some shit, like an avian flu that spread to this emu farm of this like TikTok influencer. And it wiped out her like entire fucking emu. Wait, this is the hot chick with emus? This is the hot chick with the emus. And she's like, there's like one.

So like when I first saw this come across the tl i was like obviously like i'm a hater and i'm cynical and i was just like oh well damn she's like you know she's obviously she's sad because her fucking you know money her friend and companions dying what they did what they didn't tell you is that he's dying from a potentially lethal pathogen that could get out of control really quickly. And she's over there, like, cuddling him in his dying moments and all the public health professors are like, no, don't. There was a photo of her, like, smooching it on the mouth and all these public. So she's patient zero then man it was a classic example of once again all my least favorite actors jumping into the same ring because it's like tiktok influencer who i obviously hate and she's smooching an emu

who's like dying from avian flu but then you get like all of the md twitter people you know the doctors who became so annoying during covid they're quote tweeting it and being like uh medical professional here. Well, actually... This is how diseases get spread. This is how you get evil AIDS. Like, yeah. Yeah, I ain't moving.

So, yeah, no, I mean, that's... How did we even get on that tangent? I don't know, but God did. I'm sorry I was just talking about signs of the end Signs of the end Yeah Loss of emu life

Yeah But well we were talking about I read this story and I was more convinced Than I've ever been of the end Not Not as he says it I mean literally The end of history the end of human history the end of the world war the end of existence yeah uh so this is in the atlantic in the ideas

section of course i mean you got you got an idea as fucking much of a banger as this, you gotta put it in the ID. There's only one place to go, boys. It's home. This is, in the Atlantic, more proof that this really is the end of history. Such a clickbait title, bro. It's such a listicle sort of title.

Like, you know, 12 crazy ways that you could do XYZ, man. More proof that this is really the end he should have done it as a listicle like 17 signs that this really is the end of history i would have been more likely to believe him man honestly um okay over the past decade global politics has been heavily shaped by apparently strong states whose leaders are not constrained by law or constitutional checks and balances. Russia and China have both argued that liberal democracy is in long-term decline

and that their brand of muscular authoritarian government is a sidebar. I love it when people use muscular authoritarian, like fucking sexy ass motherfucking muscular. Sexy ass strong man. Sexy ass strong man. Fucking vain ass motherfucking muscular. Sexy ass strong man. Sexy ass strong man. That fucking veiny ass cock. Those fucking oily ass butt cheeks. Yeah, keep that fucking veiny cock in your pants, Putin.

You strong man. You fucking son of a bitch. You fucking strong man son of a bitch. Oh, man. Their brand of muscular authoritarian government is able to act decisively and get things done while their democratic rivals debate, dither, and fail to deliver on their promises.

These two countries were the vanguard of a broader authoritarian wave that turned back democratic gains across the globe, from Myanmar to Tunisia to Hungary to el salvador okay uh pause pause just gotta point out real quick frankie that uh have you been paying attention to anything the cia has been doing over the last 60 70 years like overthrowing invited invaded almost every country that he just listed yeah exactly every every government that has been democratically elected from iran to chile to fucking you know what i mean like it has been overthrown by us yeah i mean this is why what you said last night

in chat man we were like it's pure ideology it's like no reflection no introspection no like actual looking at historical like actual facts and shit like that it's like no reflection, no introspection, no like actual looking at historical, like actual facts and shit like that. It's like, no, this is what happened. According to the victors, right? Right. Who claimed the end of history. Right. Well, and then again, and he'll get into it, but by end of history, he means that there is no higher ideal than our system. Like we've got the best, the of the fucker never seen star trek

dog like how can you say that liberal democracy is the apogee man come on son supposed to be some post-scarcity society dog that's like uh you're just having some really mediocre sex and being like this is the pinnacle baby you know you could keep going can keep digging You can explore what you like You know what I mean But that's just like Nope First time I had it I knew this was

I'd never feel this way again Over the past year though It has become evident That there are key weaknesses At the core of these strong Muscular states The weaknesses are... Sexy-ass states.

The sexy-ass, sexy-ass motherfucking states. Imagine Vladimir Putin in like a Tom of Finland kind of garb. The weaknesses are of two sorts. First, the concentration of power in the hands of a single leader at the top all but guarantees low quality decision making and over time will produce truly catastrophic consequences second the absence of public discussion and debate in strong states and of any mechanism of accountability means that the leader's support is shallow and can erode at a moment's notice.

Isn't that kind of like a contradiction in terms? Like he's saying that they're all powerful, but... But their support is actually shallow, which means they don't have power. All powerful, but made of popsicle sticks. Despite me just calling them strong in the gayest way possible honestly it's the classic fascist move yes of like you know they're both simultaneously strong and weak right exactly they're simultaneously the strongest imaginable and the weakest imaginable also too

like i mean this is like i mean this is like goes without saying but the second point the absence of public discussion and debate like motherfucker do you think like regular ass people in this country i mean sure you get to vote right in a liberal democracy but nobody gets a choice over like what the fuck happens bro you know i'm saying like where where what where our fucking military budget goes and how we spend that shit dog like what are you talking about man or just look at any number of these like starbucks employees that have been laid off for like trying to unionize or like i mean there are consequences for your actions in america i mean obviously not consequence you know you see what i'm you know what i'm saying like you get uh repressed you will get fucking the the power of various states and institutions brought down on

you um supporters of liberal democracy must not give in to a fatalism that tacitly accepts the Russian-Chinese line that such democracies are an inevitable decline. The long-term progress of modern institutions is neither linear nor automatic. Over the years, we have seen huge setbacks to the progress of liberal and democratic institutions, the rise of fascism and communism in the 30s or

the military coups and oil crises of the 60s and 70s this motherfucker again one of those things is not like the other also two military coups which military coups who got couped by whom right who sponsored that no mention bro and yet liberal democracy has endured and come back repeatedly because the alternatives are so bad. People across varied cultures do not like living under dictatorship, and they value their individual freedom. No authoritarian government presents a society that is, in the long term, more attractive than liberal democracy,

and could therefore be considered the goal or endpoint of historical historical progress the millions of people voting with their feet leaving poor corrupt or violent countries for life not in russia china or iran iran but in the liberal democratic west amply demonstrate this so we destabilize these countries and then people fleeing those countries come to the west and the west has no culpability or responsibility at all and then people fleeing those countries come to the west and the west has no culpability or responsibility at all and why people are leaving okay iran especially okay all right right right right it's it's uh this very weird like things just happen in a vacuum well bro it's like it's like history is like the zeitgeist right it's like this faceless formless thing that just like kind of just chills in the aether you know well also covers over shit exactly it

shows you what no dialectics does to a motherfucker why do you think those politics in those countries like russia and iran exist i mean we they exist because of what we did like how we meddled there exactly to make it favorable to fucking you know western capitalists to jimmy u.s meddling does to a motherfucker stop meddling motherfucker um the philosopher hegel coined the phrase the end of history to refer to the liberal state's rise out of the french revolution as the goal or direction toward which historical progress was trending. For many decades after that, Marxists would borrow from Hegel and assert that the true end of history would be a communist utopia.

When I wrote an article in 1989 and a book in 1992 with this phrase in the title, I noted that the Marxist version was clearly wrong and that there didn't seem to be a higher alternative to liberal democracy. We've seen frightening reversals to the progress of liberal democracy over the past 15 years, but setbacks do not mean that the underlying narrative is wrong. None of the proffered alternatives look like they're doing any better. All right, bro.

Also, though, it's one of those weird things where it's like, okay, also it doesn't look like liberal democracy is doing so great either so surely it can't be the end all be all exactly exactly exactly i mean the fact that one the fact that people like fascism is on the rise and i guess there are left-wing politics too on the rise but the fact that these ideas keep repeating themselves over and over and over again means that liberal democracy hasn't really worked out the contradictions of what to do with the self right you know it's still like it's still like suffering from that man yeah it's it's like this weird i don't know it's this weird admission in his own argument by like building it up so much and then presenting the various alternatives to it he winds up showing its own weaknesses

exactly but he doesn't i don't i've not read well i guess this well i guess this point is that liberal democracy it's like uh i mean there's just some bumps along the way you know it's not perfect but it's the best growing pains because we're still we're still a baby country of more than 200 years old. Right, right. Well, it's like, even in, like, okay, even if that's the case for America, like, he's also talking about the West, you know, Europe, too. And it's like, look what the fuck's going on

in Europe right now. Europe is completely fucking falling apart. Oh, God. I mean, anyways. Europe's a garden, man. Europe is a garden i forgot you're right and the rest of the world's a jungle the rest of the world's a jungle you forget the weaknesses of strong states have been on glaring display in russia president vladimir putin is the sole decision maker even the former soviet union had a politburo where the party secretary had to vet policy ideas we saw images of putin sitting at the end of a long table with his defense and foreign ministers because of his fear of covid he was so isolated that he had no idea

how strong ukrainian national identity had become in recent years i fucking hate that sentence yo can i just say that i fucking hate that sentence as a writer i hate the fact that he uses this image of putin sitting at the end of a table because he's of his fear of covid and that tries to link it with him being isolated he has no idea what's going on you know what's going on in the ground the ukraine dog that i don't know that analogy does not fucking work bro yeah you need to workshop that shit exactly back to the first draft dog yeah it could it might be true that he didn't understand i think i personally think it probably is true that he had no idea what he was really getting himself into there but like using

the image of him like being icky about germs yeah some Howard Hughes shit watching his ass with lye soap like 20 times in the bathroom to just bleed look at his fingernails he hasn't cut them in

20 years peas and jars he similarly got no word of how deeply corruption and incompetence had taken root within his own military how abysmally the modern weapons he had developed were working or how poorly trained his own officer corps was the shallowness of his regime support was made evident by the rush to the borders of young Russian men when he announced his partial mobilization on September 21st.

Putin's legitimacy was based on a social contract that promised citizen stability and a modicum of prosperity in return for political passivity, but the regime has broken that deal and is feeling the consequences. Putin's bad decision making and shallow support have produced one of the biggest strategic blunders in living memory

far from demonstrating its greatness wow dog not vietnam not the fucking invasion of iraq yo and afghanistan no no no man that was us doing liberal democracy at its peak. Yeah. And so it's fine. Listen, did we make some oopsie-doos? Sure, but our aim was always to spread the gospel of liberal democracy. Did we kill a million people and displace another million? Yeah, we did.

That is very interesting, actually. It does, on the face of it, seem kind of like a trite thing to point out. But when you actually interrogate it, it's like how can you call yourself like a historian or something and not see that as a symptom or manifestation of some larger convulsion occurring within like you know the the political economy of a nation i i don't know but it's all about everything it's pure ideology so nothing is interrelated with anything else. Everything happens in a vacuum, man. Yeah, you got to hit that Narcan, man.

We need a name. We need a name for that, like the equivalent. Mark's can. That's what I was going to say. Mark's hand? Yeah, Mark's hand. Mark's hand. This is what winning the Johan Scott Prize in Political Science will do to a motherfucker.

You win awards with obscure Dutch economist names. And that's how you know you've been tallying at the trough a little too long far from demonstrating its greatness and recovering its empire russia has become a global object object of ridicule and will endure further humiliations at the hands of ukraine in the coming weeks i don't think that's necessarily true i I mean, isn't Saudi Arabia right now? Giving money to Russia and shit? Weapons and some shit? I mean, yeah. It doesn't really, to me, look so much like Russia's completely isolated.

Well, people are hyped because they blew up the bridge the other day, right? Right, right, right. Or the pipeline. Dude, I have no idea what's going on. I'm not equipped at all to speak about this shit to be honest me neither we we made that caveat up front we were playing fast and loose but let me say that it seems like we're entering what some pundits call a multi-polar world which means that I think various state actors will not necessarily gravitate towards the United States if it's not in their interest. Just based on abstract ideological reasons. Like Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is going to do what's best for Saudi Arabia in their fucking bottom line. So if it behooves them to go with Russia or China, who the fuck ever, they're gonna do that they got no fucking reason i mean they have no ideological reason for it yeah they got no reason exactly and they have no ideological reason to go with the u.s either yeah they're just trying to get the bag bro you're right expect it uh trying to get the bag and also trying to ensure their own like long-term longevity. I just realized Fukuyama worked at the State Department in the 80s, so perhaps that's why he kind of glosses over some of the big swaths of what we've done in certain places. During Iran-Contra, yeah.

I wonder what he was doing. In fact, he worked with Scooter Libby and was, according to the wiki, he was on the steering committee of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund. Okay. Correction from earlier. He's apparently associated with the rise of the neocon movement. So he's a chud. But he is.

No, he's a chud. He's a right-wing. And as a liberal. True, yeah. Like a classic liberal. You're right. No, he says pivot. He's a right-wing. And is a liberal. True, yeah. Like a classic liberal. You're right. He's since distanced himself from New York. Yeah.

But he was one of the people, you know, one of these foreign policy ghouls that was saying, no, we need to depose Saddam Hussein and kill Osama bin Laden. That's how we're going to give everybody their pound of flesh. Jesus. Yeah, he endorsed Obama in 2008. In a 2018 interview, when asked about his views on the resurgence of socialist politics

in the U.S. and U.K., he said, it all depends on what you mean by socialism. Ownership of the means of production, except in areas where it's called for, like public utilities, I don't think that's going to work. If you mean redistributive programs

that try to redress this big imbalance in both incomes and wealth that has emerged, then yes, I think not only can it come back, it ought to come back. Interesting. This extended period, which started with Reagan and Thatcher, has been a disaster,

has had disastrous effect. At this juncture, it seems to me that certain things Karl Marx said are turning out to be true. He talked about the crisis you know what this motherfucker's doing this motherfucker's trying to read the tea leaves and trying to

judge the win and he's trying to have like just enough in every pot so he can just go caucus with whoever wins and he can always be right exactly so he can always be right yeah he's a goalpost mover yo literally that is what these people fucking do dog they just like literally like lick their finger and put it to the wind like a barometer and then they just go with whatever they think is gonna win man whatever winning argument or

winning party i guess yeah um the entire okay so going back here um the entire russian military position in the south of ukraine is likely to collapse and the ukrainians have a real chance of liberating the crimean peninsula for the first time since 2014 these reversals have triggered a huge amount of finger pointing and finger pointing in moscow um blah blah blah something similar if a bit less dramatic has been going on in china okay part of my like fucking alarmism last night was also due to the fact that Anthony Blinken was basically just fucking firing from the hip, saying that we just need to go to war with China. I mean, did you see that? I mean, that's not exactly what he said, but it was something of that. I mean, that's what he feels, though.

I'm pretty sure that they all feel that. Yeah, I go to my bookmark tabs, and I'm just greeted with that fucking horrendous photo of johnny depp yo i'm saying to tom what the fuck happened to that motherfucking dog that's a bad fall off god damn yeah blinken says china wants to seize taiwan on a much faster timeline. Which had a perennial favorite, Matt Stoller, saying that we need to fucking be gearing up for war. I don't think these people

would go to war with China, bro. This is not gonna be like, come on, dog. Y'all remember, it kinda got I guess kind of covered up a little bit. But y'all remember that ad that China ran for their military a few years ago? Yeah. It's like this kind of highly produced thing showing basically every able-bodied person gearing up for it.

Don't they have the biggest standing army in the world? Well, I don't know got like don't they have the biggest standing army in the world well i don't i don't know anything about china but i do know that nobody's fucking in this country he's going to war to fucking fight china also also too when he was talking about like uh russian pows and like the fact that the russian front is collapsing it's like yo dog like you think like in a modern american war like american soldiers fighting yo they would fucking book it in Rundog. Like don't make it sound as if that's unique about the Russian, you know what I'm saying? The Russian army. Right.

Exactly. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. The exact same shit would. Like if we invaded fucking Canada and Joe Biden was like, come on, man. You got to go fight. Go fight the Maple. Go fight the Canucks. The Canucks., come on, man. You got to go fight the maple. Go fight the Canucks. The Canucks.

The Canucks, yeah. I was like, yo, is that a slur? Hold on. Somebody mad. Yeah, it might be, actually. I don't know. I'll give it to him. Yeah.

Anyways, something similar, if a bit less dramatic, has been going on in China. One of the hallmarks of Chinese authoritarianism in the period between Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 78 and Xi Jinping's accession to power in 2013 was the degree to which it was institutionalized. Institutions mean that rulers have to follow rules and cannot do whatever they please.

That is the dumbest fucking thing that I've ever heard in my life, dog. That is just... Dog. That is like... That is false, too. That is just false. False, bro.

What are you talking about? Pure ideology, man. All right. Yeah. I hate to use the example but you know how many fucking various like sub-states of the third reich there were like various institutions like the fucking ss and the sa and all this you know what i mean like it doesn't institutions don't necessarily mean quote-unquote like cooperative decision making also too what do

you mean rulers have to follow the rules what if they don't what happens yeah what happens in liberal democracy right exactly i guess they get quote voted out right um much of this has been dismantled under xi jinping who will receive the blessing of his party to remain on as paramount leader for a third fifth five-year term at the 20 party congress in place of collective leadership china has moved to a personalistic system in which no other senior official can come close to challenging gene this concentration of authority in one man has in turn led to poor decision making the party has intervened in the economy the party has intervened in the economy wow that's has intervened in the economy. Wow, that's so bad, man.

Hoffling the tech sector by going after stars such as Alibaba and Tencent, forced Chinese farmers to plant money, losing staples, and insisted on a zero COVID strategy that keeps important parts of China under continuing lockdown that have shaved points off of the country's economic growth. Listen, this is what I'll say, man. One thing real real quick is that if china if we can learn anything from china i think it's a black bagging billionaires in the middle of the night and just disappearing them it's probably a fucking good move yeah exactly yeah i uh once again i know very little about china i am not one of these people that thinks it's actually communist or even necessarily socialist but it they did have a headline recently where yes the black bag

they sentenced him to death that would they literally that would literally be like if we sentenced Elon Musk to death. Sent him to death. Killed him. Like fucking strapped him in a chair. Like one of those like electric chairs. Like we went to Huntsville and got like an electric chair from 1914. Sizzled his ass. He kept having to sponge his head with water. we had to do it like four or five times

because it's the voltage it's kind of lost a little bit over the years the coils are rusted it's shit like that you gotta dust them off well alright fuck let's get the fire squad and who knows why they did who the fuck knows maybe that dude was like trying to do some power play

against who the fuck knows or the party but either way I mean objectively, it's probably a good thing. Anyway, objectively, it's funny that they did that and that could never happen in America. We would let the same guy just control huge swaths of the government.

Or make baby formulas and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. China, they just killed his ass. Pretty tough. I yeah, yeah. China just killed his ass. Pretty tight when you get down to it. I mean, hey. Yeah. All of which is to say that, like, if that's a sexy-ass, muscular, authoritarian state,

it kind of looks a little better than ours. I'm kind of down to fuck there, bro. Let's go there, dog. Again, I'm not saying that China is like whatever. I'm just saying that like in his own terms, like what we've got going on here sucks fucking shit. And people know that. Like, I mean, truly, dude,

like imagine what it's like to be an average American. Constantly. Buddy, I don't have to Imagine The epitome of I'm the epitome of just right down the middle Just like living paycheck to paycheck Constantly saddled by debt Being demeaned at

Every fucking step of the way by Like bureaucrats at the fucking county courthouse or a doctor or police getting fucking just murdered in the streets for fucking looking at someone the wrong looking at a cop the wrong way i mean this shit fucking sucks man there's nothing about this that's good and people people know this shit, dog. And people know it. This motherfucker says that, like, you know, I hate this zero COVID strategy doesn't work because the economy isn't. It's like, dog, we had, like, over a million people that died in this country. Called them essential workers.

Six months later, went back and said they had to go back to work and just marched them into the mall of Moloch. You know what I'm saying? Right. These people want to talk about, like, oh, there's zero COVID. They didn't want people to die. They tried to prevent people from dying. Aaron, be fair. The Kroger Corporation gave these heroes a free Pepsi.

They risked life and limb and lung to keep this economy from completely going off the rails. Yeah, I forgot about the free Pepsi policy. And the Kroger corporation recognized that hard work by giving them a voucher for a one-time free pepsi product yo dog i swear to god man these people deserve to be a prison dog um a little worse uh let's see um you know and then his next points uh china cannot easily reverse zero COVID because it has failed to buy effective vaccines

and finds a large part of its elderly population vulnerable to the disease. Well, so do we. Effective? What are you talking about? Effective vaccines. What looked two years ago like a triumphant success in controlling COVID has turned into a prolonged debacle.

Oh, and Americans do it just fine, bro. Again, you throw that out. I just, again, that is not. Your Honor, Your Honor, it's an inconsistent line of argument or some bullshit, whatever. Argumentative thinking sustained. All of this comes on... They failed to secure effective vaccines.

Like every goddamn person didn't get jabbed didn't also get fucking COVID. Exactly. Like ours is the coup de grace fucking effectiveness. That's true. They had us fucking get three goddamn shots, and every person I know got COVID still.

Got it. All of this comes on top of the failure of China's underlying growth model, which relied on heavy state investment in real estate to keep the economy coming. I fucking hate this paragraph, bro. There is some truth to that in the sense that like china i think for the first time in like 20 years is posting like uh they're they're not posting as big a percentage of growth as they have been and that could be o owing to all kinds of different reasons. Murdering a billionaire. Murdering a billionaire.

It probably takes a lot of money out of your economy pretty quickly. G spread that shit out to the Communist Party homies. Let me not be lying. I don't know. I don't know shit, dog. Basic economics suggests this would lead to massive allocation,

misallocation of resources, as has in fact happened. Go online and search for Chinese buildings being blown up, and you will see many videos of massive housing complexes being dynamited because there is no one to buy apartments in. Shut the fuck up, bro. I live in Atlanta, dog. I live in Atlanta, dog. I live in Atlanta that has one of the highest fucking rates of homelessness. And just the fact that you walk down a block and half of the homes are fucking blighted, bro.

And nobody's living in that shit. You want to talk about China has ghost cities in their belong apartments? Shut the fuck up, dude. Yeah, Francis, I just challenge you to just hop on a boat down the Kentucky River and come take a little tour of where we're at. Yeah. I mean, in this country, you're right, Aaron. It like, in this country, well, first of all, I love that sentence. Go online and search for Chinese buildings being blown up.

First of all, I'm already online Because I'm reading this shit First of all I'm not going to google Anybody anything that a guy that Worked at the state department in the 80s Tells me to Also if you wanted me to google it you could just put a hyperlink In your description you know what I'm saying In the words

You could just add a fucking hyperlink to it dog It's like the think tanker Equivalent of like your buddy in sixth grade being like go dude go online and search for boobs search for two girls crazy shit bro go to whitehouse.com that was the classic example oh but then like second of all like we blow up plenty of shit here too like how many fucking like neighborhoods have just been leveled to like make way for fucking football stadiums

or a lake or like yeah economic development a fucking cop city in Atlanta? Yes. They're tearing down a forest for a fucking cop mock city? Come on, dog. But see, when you're operating off pure ideology, you don't have to talk about any of this shit, man. Uh-huh. Because it's generally assumed that the people reading this, they either agree with it or they're not going to look this shit up, man. Right.

Oh, my God. These authoritarian failures Are not limited to China Iran has been rocked by weeks of protests Following the death of Masa Amini At the hands of the morality of the police Iran is in terrible shape It faces a banking crisis

That sounded like he was talking about People that cancel people on Twitter At the hands of the woke mob. It faces a banking crisis. Do what? I didn't mean to play fast and loose with that going on over there, but it's just coming out of his mouth. Yeah.

Well, I guarantee you he has said that in like a private salon somewhere about about like woke culture yeah it's like you know how in iran they have morality please it's almost like we have that here too we have woke gestapo we have the woke gestapo um iran is in terrible shape It faces a banking crisis Gee I wonder why I wonder if that has anything to do with the fucking sanctions We've put on them for the last 50 fucking years I'm waiting for him to say because of the backwards Muslim practice

Of not charging interest Is running out of water Has seen big declines in agriculture and is grappling with crippling international sanctions in isolation okay again you can't like that is you can't say international sanctions and just have it be like the international sanctions are just an act of god that just happened yo like dog one day we just woke up and we had international sanctions bro like we woke up and just raided today listen there's only so much man could do about new about nuclear treaties but that's like just aliens they came down and put international sanctions on them and then and then the other things aren't again aren't their fault uh running out of water declines in agriculture like the fucking climate crisis is a thing that's been happening like what

which is perpetrated by like fucking like the imperial corps like countries like the united states um despite its pariah status it has a well-educated population in which women constitute a majority of university graduates and yet the regime is led by a small group of old men with social attitudes several generations nothing like the united states at all though i hate this motherfucker i hate this motherfucker god damn i hate this motherfucker he really dropped he really dropped old white man in there he really did. He really did. He did. A motherfucker who talks about identity politics as the end of history, man. Well, he's covering all his bases, guys.

He is, man. He's like casting a white man here. He is. It is no wonder that the, which, by the way, okay, what is his current job? What the fuck does he do right now? Predict every now and then the end of history. He gets paid. He's been a senior fellow.

I'm a think tank to do that. Yeah, fellow. He's at the Rand Corporation. Exactly. Wait, hold on a second. He's a council member of the International Forum. I found him. I was a member of the political science department

of the Rand Corporation. God damn. He's also one of the 25-lane of the ray incorporation god damn he's also one of the 25 land fans he's taught it john hopkins george mason yo he might possibly be one of the most low-key evil motherfuckers ever yo he's a dumb fuck i mean he didn't kill anybody you know what i'm saying like like well i mean his ideas i don't know no he didn't kill anybody personally but he's pretty fucking evil man i kind of like his style. He's just like... His chaotic style?

Yeah, he's just constantly like... You know, you can never pin him down. Yeah, he's like maneuvering, grab it from here, take it from there. Yeah. Can't be pinned down. The only country that qualifies as even more poorly managed is one with another dictatorship venezuela which has produced

the world's largest outflux of refugees over the past decade um uh celebrations of the rise of strong states and the decline of liberal democracy are thus very premature okay we're coming to the money shot here we're in the we're in the home stretch we're in the final paragraphs um uh celebrations of the rise of strong states and the decline of liberal democracy are thus very premature liberal democracy precisely because it distributes power and relies on consent of the governed is in much better shape globally than many people think despite recent gains by populist parties in sweden and italy most countries in europe still enjoy a strong degree of social consensus it's like what the fuck how can you say that at this like there's like two that are barely hanging on barely it's like france

and in germany also also to say that like liberal democracy i feel like you shouldn't be able to say liberal democracy without adding like the bourgeois in between liberal and democracy because that denotes like a class kind of relation you know what i mean and the fact that like what are you talking about when you say that it distributes power no the fuck it doesn't not if you don't have any fucking money i mean it relies on the set of the governed. No, the fuck it doesn't. No. Again, if you don't have any fucking money. We live in a bourgeois democracy.

That's what a liberal democracy is, you dumb motherfucker. Exactly. It's a thing that you're supposed to love so much, you don't even know what the fuck it is. Yeah. God, man. The big question mark remains, unfortunately, the United States. Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. I love that this motherfucker, as a person who's focused on the American project exclusively,

America is like the elephant in the room in this piece, and he just gets to it at the end. At the very end. Just gets a couple of parting mansions. Yeah, you hear all these countries about strong states and authoritarian-like leaders. Well, what about this country that elected donald trump word okay word some 30 to 35 percent of its voters continue to believe the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen and the republican party has been taken over by trump's mega followers who are doing their best to put election deniers in positions of power around the country okay um as tom and i were talking about on sunday yeah okay 30 to 35 percent of its voters do continue to believe that

yes it was stolen or who the fuck i don't even know but a fucking significant amount of liberals also think like that what were we talking about on sunday tom like the hamilton yeah you cannot dude democrats have been trying to overturn every goddamn election that didn't go their way for the last 15 right for the last 25 years to go back to gore bush and most of them do go their way and they still won't do shit about it yeah because it's not in their interest to do shit about it so i mean i really on balance, the Republicans have been much better sports about losing than the Democrats have. That's just objectively true.

How can you say we live in a democracy when the people ostensibly who are in a position to change that democratic thing where they win but they lose won't do shit about it i mean like it's like it's like in the south right it's like here where we are it's like dog they like they complain about like these you know right wingers especially in the south place like the rural areas but they don't campaign out there right and then when they get power and they're actually able to fucking like change the way like the voter map is they don't do shit you know or they don't they don't they don't try to like tackle like voter disenfranchisement or anything like that so it's

like dog right come on man is that democracy i mean i don't know is it democracy when you get to like cut like like a part of a highway a sliver of a highway and make it like a fucking district or some shit like that you know but when it's shaped like a fucking like a t-bone or something shaped like a goddamn twilight zone swirl this this group does not represent a majority of the country but is likely to regain control of at least the house of representatives in november and possibly the presidency in 2024 the party's putative leader trump has fallen deeper and deeper into a conspiracy-fueled madness in which he believes that he could be immediately reinstated as president and that the country should criminally indict his presidential predecessors.

Well, you ain't wrong about that last one. I'm with my boy Trump on that last one, man. Send them all to jail, bro. There is an intimate connection between the success of strong states abroad and populist politics at home. Politicians such as Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour in France, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and of course Trump in the U.S. have all expressed sympathy for Putin. They see in him a model for

the kind of strongman rule they would like to exercise in their own country. He, in turn, is hoping that their rise will weaken Western support for ukraine and save his flailing special military operation liberal democracy will not make a comeback unless people are willing to struggle on its behalf struggle i wonder what he means by struggle i'm pretty sure it's not the marxist conception yeah i'd say we got two different ideas i hate to break it to you francis but people were struggling on his behalf when they stormed the fucking Capitol on January 6th that it was an expression of bourgeois democracy they were doing it in their own fucking interest

the liberal democracy that you so much love and I'm sure the United States is the best example of that right like what I like would it fucking blow your mind if I told you that like the decayed decrepit like monkeys curdled paw form of liberal democracy is fascism. Like the two are in kind of like dialectical operation with each other.

It's the gateway to fascism. Yeah, it's not fucking like there's a reason that it can't just exist in a static state that you can't like you just get there and then like that's it. You're in the glory land of fucking. and then like that's it you're in the glory land fucking well it's just well dog this whole piece i know we're about to finish it but this whole piece is like he's trying to justify the continued existence of liberal democracy even though he even mentions the fact that like it's flailing and it's like well dog why did communism and fascism arise right to deal with the contradictions of liberal democracy i know you know what i mean that means something inherently is fucked with the system if something if it keeps yeah if it keeps destabilizing and decaying like this like every 10 years bro yeah doesn't it kind

of indicate that like it's not that fucking great and you have to keep coming up with uh you know alternative systems both bad and good and otherwise to to combat it if it's so goddamn good you'd think people would just be content with it, you know? Also, struggle again. I can't believe he really just said that. Struggle. Struggle on his behalf. I wish I could ask him, like, what do you mean by struggle? Do you mean people being in the streets?

Do you mean people voting? Pussy hats. Or do you mean people just, like, having good ideas? He's talking about pussy hats. He's talking, yeah. The problem is that many who grow up living in peaceful prosperous liberal democracies begin to take their form of government for granted oh we have the form of government for granted not the motherfuckers who have all the money and shit like that dog but and this is this is the

line that fucking because they have never experienced an actual tyranny they imagine that the democratically elected governments under which they live are themselves evil dictatorships conniving to take away their rights he's like listen black people women gay people trans people just poor people generally doesn't matter what color what creed whatever you are you people have never experienced tyranny in the united states that's the thing like it's just that's what makes it so shallow it's like you're literally gonna sit here and try to tell someone who has been ground to a fucking pulp by police debt jobs low wage rent every everything and you're gonna tell them that like no actually you have rice and it's fine and that's not tyranny like yes no one is gonna buy that

and therefore your whole fucking your whole fucking project is not worth struggling for so no i don't know you i don't know again pure ideology but uh oh my god man um anyways but reality has intervened the russian invasion of ukraine constitutes a real dictatorship trying to crush a genuinely free society with rockets and tanks. Filled with Nazis, my bad. Okay. Okay, maybe not filled with Nazis. Okay, let me chill out.

Let me chill out. Okay, maybe not filled with Nazis. Okay. But, I mean, like, come on, dog. A genuinely free society, man. Every picture I see, yo, I saw this shit the other day, dog. I think we all saw it. You saw it, Terrence, where this motherfucker, this guy this guy from idaho a veteran went to go fight you yeah with the pay pay with the pay pay for the frog

patch bro like every picture you guys taking these motherfuckers there's always some like immortalized as a hero in the paper in the paper record too it is very fascinating and i can't stop thinking about it because and it i don't know man it does seem to indicate that like a lot of sort of recomposition of political thought and movement does seem to hinge on various right-wing energies and momentums in the sense that you have a right-wing government in Russia fighting a right-wing populist

movement in Ukraine. It's this weird thing where at a certain point you would think that they would be like, wait, we're on the same side here. We're on the same side here. We've got the Spider-Man pointing at each other. Exactly.

I mean, I guess it does come down to like, I don't know, like regional or ethnic identity and maybe that has a lot to do with it. Wow, Terrence blaming the world on Sloth Brain. Wow. Interesting take. Go ahead, Terrence. Go Go ahead Terrence I was just gonna say that like my point being that

You do seem to have Like various things Happening around the world Where you've got these like right wing Populist insurgency movements In sort of decaying Former liberal democracies And you've got, so you've got that situation. But then you've got the situation of like China, which is not, I mean, just for purposes

of categorization right now, I'll just call state capitalists i don't know what else else to put in like kind of trying to do things their own way and and spread their own hegemony i don't know man i just think it's very fascinating that a lot of the sort of ideology crafters and elite you know whispers and everything they see this like china taiwan russia ukraine thing as the pivot around which all you know future american hegemony will uh operate yeah well you like you said it was like a multi-polar world right and i mean like this is what makes it like sort of like i mean i guess if you're on the left right you're kind of like you know you're in a position where you're like you'll fuck the united states for sure but also i don't know if i agree with everything 100 this other country is doing just because they oppose the united

states but at the end of the day i mean you know china's not my uh my like right now it's not my perfect ideal society but uh i'd probably rather live there during the end of the world than here during the actual end of history i think i'd rather want to go into my head yeah obviously like true but that i'm at the same time i'm under no illusions that society is probably completely riven with its own contradictions and you know what i'm saying like yeah totally that's what the soviet union right like there's this twitter account that you can follow actually that like covers all of the labor strikes and unrest in china like i mean there is a working class in china and like they their labor is exploited and they just you know like anywhere else they try to gain their own power and footing against the people exploiting

their labor and then um it's just that their political economy is just a little different like how they accumulate capital the process of a capital economy is just a little different. Like how they accumulate capital. The process of a capital accumulation is just different than it is in the United States. And allocation, right? Right. Okay, we're at the very end here. Yeah, genuinely free society. By resisting Russian imperialism, the Ukrainians are demonstrating the grievous weaknesses that exist at the core of an apparently strong state they understand the true value of freedom and are fighting a larger battle

on our behalf a battle that all of us need to join even if you have pepe i'm good bro i'm not i'm not especially if you're not linking ours with the with the nazis bro i'm good also too like also too bro like the very the like i i wonder like how and you know what fukuyama seems to be the the kanye west of like uh of historians so maybe his views on palestine would jive with his views on ukraine resisting russian imperialism i hope he feels the same way about the palestinian struggle i'm gonna say i'm gonna do control f on his wikipedia page palestine no nothing actually i might be. It would be surprising.

Nah, hell no. The reincaribation, there's no way this motherfucker supports Palestine, dog. No. Well, I had to think about it. God, he's such a dumb motherfucker. I love him. I hate this motherfucker, bro. He's a dumbass.

Dumbass. I hate this motherfucker, man. It's like I was saying earlier man like i didn't realize like how harmful like i mean it's not just him it's like people like him but how harmful their thinking was during the like the 80s and the 90s after the collapse of soviet union he's probably one of the most evil motherfuckers low-key man probably man yeah well his uh work history does not very uh does not inspire confidence to the contrary it does not oh my god man yeah that was a hell of an idea man well between 2006 and 2008 he advised muammar gaddafi. So, I don't know. Okay. Okay.

Well, that's just part of that casting that wide net, you know? Yeah. Wait, wait. Actually, no. That was bad. You saw it panned out for Gaddafi. Yeah, that's what I'm about to say. He turns to bronze.

Exactly. Yo, what was the radio after that, yo? What was the year that he did that for him? 2008 was the last year. Wait, wait. When did Gaddafi get to 11? last year. Wait, wait, wait. When did Gaddafi do that? In 2011? In what, 2011? Yeah.

11 or 12? He said he sold the seats for that, man. Man. He set it up for Hillary. He set up the alley-oop. She dunked that shit right in. Yeah, he is a stupid motherfucker. Another hobby of his is sound recording and reproduction.

Dog, imagine you're in the studio with Fukuyama. You're fucking hitting lines off the board. He's chopping it up and reproduction. Dog, imagine you're in the studio with Fukuyama. You're fucking hitting lines off the board. He's chopping up his shit. What's his producer tag? Right. Oh, that's a good one. Fuck your mama? End of history.

Fuck your mama. Fuck your mama. Fuck your mama. This is a fuck your mama. If you're not down with fuck your mama beats. Fuck your mama. Fuck your mama. This is a fuck your mama. If you're not down with fuck your mama beats. Fuck your mama. Get ready for the end of history. That should be his first LP, man.

There's a little subliminal. His producer name's Ghost of Kiev. Oh, shit, bro. He explained, these days I seem to spend as much time thinking about gear as I do analyzing politics for my day job. Bro, I need to hear those Fukuyama drops, man.

I wish he would just stay to music instead. Just stay in music, man. Just stay in music, bro. This is an example where you should quit your day job. Quit your day job, bitch. Go back to the studio. Please. Yo, you know what I'm thinking?

I'll give you a suggestion for the episode art. Have y'all ever seen, I can send it to you in the chat. You ever seen, he's an Instagram account, obviously, Fukuyama, which when I found out he had an Instagram, I was like, yo, this is insane right now. But he has a picture of him shopping shopping wearing a mask a couple years ago and i think he's shopping at whole foods and he says about to rob the whole foods and shit like that dude what we need is if we need a fukuyama kanye collab for the most incomprehensible thing imaginable. They're just like,

yo, Nietzsche, Kant, Marx, Hegel, ISIS, Obama, Osama. Maybe, perhaps, perhaps, the surest sign that somebody's getting ready to take a horrible turn in their politics is if they

start echoing Hegel but completely decontextualized. Exactly. That actually probably is a truism. That actually probably is a truism. Somebody starts invoking Hegel, like, sort of divorced from Marxist context, watch out. They have no idea what they're talking about.

Turn and run. Yeah, I mean, it's like Kanye putting Hegel on his shirt, man. Yeah. God, dude. Yeah, I mean, it's like Kanye putting Hegel on his shirt, man. Yeah. God, dude. Oh, man. Alright. I'll know the one.

Yeah, I'd say we got as much out of that as we're gonna get. And, uh, so... I just can't believe, man. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for listening this week. Please go to the Patreon. P-R-T-O-N dotcom slash TrillBullyWorkersParty. Dial it back two weeks. I got there.

This took two letters out of that. P-R-T-O-N. P-R-T-O-N. Parton. The syllables of the consonants and shit? Parton. Like it was a license plate number or something like that. I'm telling you, dude,

I've been fucking, like missing letters and like reading words wrong. hard time but dude like it was a license plate i'm telling you dude i've been fucking uh like missing letters and like reading words wrong like i think i've got a fucking i think it might be it i think i've actually got a brain cove you got a brain tumor oh man cte um well go to the patreon like i said go to check out the episode from two weeks ago um dog here's here's a photo of fukuyama in the stew he's in the lab he's in the lab damn damn you know what though i will say is it is well i don't use the word encouraging heartening maybe but it is uh I guess it's nice to know that

a guy with a deranged brain like this is actually into things other than politics. He just makes music on the side. It's pretty cool. I'm not going to lie. I'm not hating on that shit. It makes him a little more relatable. It's like, dog, you're completely incomprehensible and dumb as fuck.

I get you. Just like me. Just like me, motherfucker. Oh, God, son. Oh, man, yo. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for listening to us.

And tune in next week. And tune in to the Patreon. And I won the legal battle between me and Tom. Don't let anyone forget it. What are you awarded? Are you getting an award or something like that? Attorney's fees. Restitution.

Tom has to pay me $3 million. Nice. Yeah. You'd have when you pried out of my cold dead hands, you son of a bitch. That's right. All right. Well,

we'll see y'all next time. Thanks for listening. Peace out. Bye.