Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 352: Willy Wonka Woke Factory

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

More developments surrounding the RNC, Trump's ear, JD Vance as VP pick, Sean O'Brien speaking at the RNC, and of course the effort to get Joe Biden to step down as the Dem nominee In this episode we mentioned Max Fraser's book "Hillbilly Highway": https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691191119/hillbilly-highway Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

I am I Was down in North Carolina recently and Went into this bar That I was telling Tom white people left to their own devices Do insane shit with culture like they do some crazy shit with gold The vibes at this bar can only be described, like I was like a forensic anthropologist.

I was like going through and tracing the DNA of all. You were the alien anthropologist like a thousand years from now. I was. I was like trying to figure out the DNA like in this specific place with the music that was playing and the way people were dressed in the way they were acting. I detected three specific strains of white subculture. One was Irish. There was like an Irish thing.

That's the big one. That's the big one. What was the big three it was Irish but like giving way to ren-fair. It was so it was like degraded like it was like US Misconception of Irish like attached to like a ren-fair vibe. It's like it's like it's like when like Japan It has like a theme park. That's American themed or something like that, you know Or it's like a mock American town and it's like an attraction You know to be like it's kind of like this weird festively of what an American town or what they think of her right? It was like Irish viewed through several different degraded iterations of

white America like Scots Irish and then obviously like a Ren fair like Spectacle Irish like it's so there is Irish But we'll give it like a one and one a like one a being ren-fair then there was pirate There was a that's the second big one The second big of the three and then the third was hippie so it was The third was hippie. So it was... I... You hit, that's the big three.

That is the big three right there. The big three of white identities. Or the white cosplay subjects, white subcultures. So Terrence, you tell the V that these three species were cohabitating in the same space? They were, and there was even its own musical genre that had been created out of it. Like you could tell this was an isolated subculture. Out of the amalgam of the three?

Out of the amalgam of the three. It had its own like musical. It was I'm tell it was unique. It was they were too powerful. That's that's that's I think what? Brother Deesus brothers Deesus mirror referred to as Pete cacosity Well, it was true. It was no it really was like yacob in the lab like New subcultures they were no no no no no cooking up

Like in the lab dog like it was crazy flick of the wrists the whole thing. Yeah, I have to um, I have to emphasize here that it Like it's um, is it would you say that hippie is a white ethnic identity hippie is a white ethnic identity, right? I would say so I would I would say so I mean, I think that if you that if you were like an alien again, or you just had maybe, or yeah, you just came and saw these people, you would think that they belong

to their own country and land, and had their own customs, which involves smoking a lot of weed. I think you can have black hippies or hippies of other colors too, but I think there's black. True, true, you know black hippies. Kendrick Lamar famously called their clique black hippie.

You know what I mean? It had to have that qualifier, because it wasn't just, you know, it had its own spin to it, you know. We talk about the white working class, but what about the white hippie working the hit the white hippie working class? Yes. Yeah, like man Like man, like I don't see my interest being represented in

R&C We need somebody to speak for us on the national stage. Yeah, he's gonna speak for us, bro He's gonna speak for us, bro? Speak for the hippie cock. Who's gonna speak for hippie cock, bro? Hippies are either like, are either like, like exceedingly like useful, you know, like they just know how to do like woodworking

and all kinds of things, or completely useless. Right, right, right. There's no, there's no like in between hippie, that's like, you know, in the middle of that. It's just like either. It's somehow useful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Crazy. You just don't see that. But you're right about that. The Irish thing I knew was gonna be big whenever I was in college and I was like, man, why is there a guy that wears a ratty Boston Red Sox baseball cap, only drinks Guinness and quotes the Boondocks Thanks, it was Boondocks. It was the twin

It was the one-two hit of Boondocks Saints and dropkick Murphys Like those and the Red Sox end in the World Series drought. That was the worst time for that to have happened If it happened today it might have went off without a hitch but then it empowered it empowered one of our most I Don't know what I would call that subculture is just well It's like what the one that I stumbled on was like Ren fair Jimmy Buffett Type Ren fair Jimmy. Yeah, it's like Rin fair Jimmy Buffett. It's like parrot heads parrot head It's like Rintard Jimmy Buffett. It's like Parrot Heads, Parrot Heads.

But the parrot is a raven, like a corvid, that is able to speak some like dead language and talks into an obsidian glass or something. You know, I wonder why that stuff has gotten so popular, like why does the Irish thing, like you know, people claim to be Irish that aren't even Irish, like how that got purchased. And I think two things are a foot here. And this might be a good

segue to talk about JD Vance because Scott's Irish thing also figures heavily into that. Right. But which are two different things too, obviously. But I feel like people have latched on, white people in particular have latched on to Irish identity because white people have completely lost their ethnic identity in the same way that like black folks have but for two very, very different reasons. Hegemony homogenized white culture and then like slavery robbed black folks of like their sort of individual ethnic identity. You know what I mean? So like we've both been homogenized in a way that's just like, you know, has like sort of, you know, so like if there's like something that has like a rich folklore to it or a good

aesthetic tradition or it's just been downtrodden enough that I can punch a ticket into the oppression Olympics. Right, right, right, right, right. And Irish checks all those boxes. I've just been downtrodden enough that I can punch a ticket into the Oppression Olympics. Right, right, right, right, right. And Irish checks all those boxes. That's true. You got leprechauns, potato famine, and slavery. The Irish slave myth. Yes, that's right. I'm a believer in it once again.

Dude. God, no, that's that's that's so true, Tom, about like this sort of homogenization and loss of identity. And I don't think you just see it on the right, right? I mean, like, you know, that's that's like a I guess like a tenant of the white right or like a concrete, like the core of white supremacy of white white, like identity politics, it's like this feeling that you're a concrete, like the core of white supremacy, of white identity politics. It's like this feeling that you're a victim, you've lost something. But you see it on like, if you wanna have that kind of spectrum,

you see it like on the left too, with liberals too, right? Like white people needing to feel not even just suppressed, but just like different, you know what I mean? To not like kind of be just absorbed into the background and to kind of, I guess, feel some sense of like control over their identity, you know? And I mean, not in a way so much like where the right is like, you know, they're waving around signs

that say mass deportations now, like we saw at the RNC, all this like, you know, just like racially coded language. It's just like, I guess what I'm saying is that liberals, they like to be like they're on that side It's about being quirky right and being weird, right? You know what I mean or saying that you're Irish I guess which if you're not Irish and you're saying that that's a pretty quirky weird thing, you know

Yeah, I just wonder like I think black folks need to take it back and here's a little here's what I think You're gonna go around bed like now. I'm gone in or I'm I've already What you are, you know, know or even more specific even more specific yeah Very tribal yeah, dude wait speaking of that speaking of what you just mentioned the jealousy this tweet going around from the RNC last night It's a picture of a woman holding up a mass deportation now Poster which were all over the ERNC last night in the past few days. Jesus Christ. She's holding up a mass deportation now poster This was tweeted by a guy who apparently was at The RNC he's a contributing writer for the New Yorker

The RNC is a contributing writer for the New Yorker second-gen Italian American delegate from Arizona husband half Navajo half Norwegian they live in West Phoenix community that's 95% Hispanic first she said she was Latina then changed her mind Hey you can't, hey there's a money-back guarantee on that I don't know if y'all noticed this but Kimberly Guilfoyle in her speech last night at the RNC said she was a Latina. She says she's a proud Latina.

She is. I mean, just the irony bit. I mean, but then it's like, it's like you have like white people claiming to be other things to be quirky, to be different, to be whatever. And then you have, I guess, conservative Latinos that seem to either want to erase that identity or completely have this sort of, how can I say it, this sort of cognitive dissonance where you can talk about... I mean, I see this too even in the Caribbean community. I hear people who are immigrants themselves talking about deporting immigrants. I'm like, yo, didn't you just get here 30 years ago?

You know what I mean? But I came the right way, though, I guess, is their logic, right? Right, it's like class warfare played out. What they're talking about are poor Latinos. Right, right, right. That's what they're talking about. And also, I think, first of all,

I need to set the record straight. Kimberly Guilfoyle actually is Latina. She's from Puerto Rico. I looked it up. So apologies already. Apologies, apologies. I've already stepped in it, man, goddamn. But second of all, I do think it is,

I do think it's kind of like, this is a very, very crude analogy, okay? But sometimes when I'm driving and the Stoplight is yellow and I run it But the people behind me also run it. I'm like goddamn motherfuckers Like this is goddamn even though I just did the thing that I'm mad at him for doing Like I think that's I think there is that principle at work there too in some in some way that's actually a really good analogy right like you know really like you're not supposed to fall like that not even I mean I guess though

even if even if you do come to this country by legal means it's still this feeling of like you got your it's filled this feeling of like I guess I don't know I guess it's like like not only did I guess, I don't know, I guess it's like, not only did I do it the right way, right? But I'm an American now, you know? Like I've almost like sort of by, cause I don't know, Frans Fennan talks about this in Black Skin White Mask, right?

He talks about the West Indian who goes to France and his body almost changes, like by atom by atom, right? And when he comes back, right, it's almost he shed all of his local indigenous roots, right? And he has these European affectations, you know? He's become a whole different person. And I just feel like you see that in like, you know, I mean, my parents don't aren't like that, you know,

thank God, right? But I have, I know Caribbean people that are like that, that talk about people coming into this country as they did, as if they're doing the wrong, as if they're not supposed to be here. And I just don't understand it. It's almost like they're for, like, you know, like there's a million people that come here,

legally, illegally, whatever, that like contribute to their community, start a business, whatever that means in America, right, whatever that contribute to the community, start a business, whatever that means in America. It's almost like nobody is like, everybody is like guilty until they become rich here. If you're from somewhere else. Or you have a house or you have any of those status symbols, right, that kind of like, that crystallize you as like an American, right? Or a Westerner or whatever that, you know what I mean?

Whatever, not even white necessarily, but just like being subsumed into like America, you know, and what that means, you know? I mean, this is also the dynamic at play with JD Vance. I was driving home from Tom's last night and they were interviewing Vivek Ramaswamy And he was talking about how similar his story is to JD Vance's and it kind of clicked for me I was like, oh shit, like they do operate on a similar dynamic like, you know, what's the back story? Just I just I just I just assumed that like a Tesla blew up and he came out of the ashes and was fully formed one day. Like a reverse phoenix?

Yeah, like a reverse phoenix. A man was formed out of the ashes of a Tesla explosion. Vivek is like a first generation immigrant. I think his parents immigrated here. And he grew up in Cincinnati. Like his thing... VIVX from Cincinnati! On his interview he was like, JD and I grew up just a few miles away from each other and had like parallel lives and we didn't even like know it. Like basically he was he was basically saying like how similar him and JD Vance are in all these different ways.

JD Vance is my white doppelganger. Pretty much. Yeah. And I do think it's a similar dynamic. It's like you do enter these elite circles with all these markers that would. The elite needs it's like, you know, poor hillbillies. It's like first generation, like, you know poor hillbillies. It's like first-generation like, you know Indian immigrant It needs like these various constituencies that it can then You know use to show that like oh the entire demographic at large is degenerate and does deserve

mass death however Because one single person in that group made it out it is proof positive that they can all be redeemed if they just work hard enough and Don't don't do any non normative lifestyle choices like being queer or taking drugs or you know Anything like that and that's that is JD's story to a tee like the guy Like I really don't think you can skip over him just like his skill Like what he has honed his life skills at is charming rich people

Yeah, specifically at Yale You know what I'm saying like charming rich people at Yale to be able to get them to give him money I guess right right yeah, yo, he's Just he's built his whole sort of career, and I guess now political career off of groveling You know pretty much yeah, you know like rolling over like a fucking dog and begging for treats. You know and belly ropes, man Yeah, I on Twitter I deleted it, but I called him a con man because that sounds like, I don't really mean it in the sense that he's that savvy

and smart and whatever. I mean, he's really good at getting rich people to part with their money, and that is, definitionally, a con man. A very useful skill if you can hone it, honestly, in this life. Yeah, I just wanna say something too before we get too far away from Vivek and JD's parallel lives. I've known it, honestly, in this life. I just want to say something, too,

before we get too far away from Vivek and JD's parallel lives. A lot of people don't know this, but I'll tell you guys this. If you zoom out on the brown arm and wide arm meeting like in the arm wrestling stance, it really is just an oil painting of those two with their shirts off joined in hands

So anytime you post that meme just know If you were to just go out a little bit further, that's what you would see be back in JD shirtless Yeah shirtless and join an arms rock hard dick Let everybody know this is what the this is what the establishment truly fears damn, dude I know this is what the this is what the establishment truly fears damn Now you just imagine you're just making me think that they each have a really bralic like right arm You know when they're shaking but as and then you go out and the rest of it's just withering from the bone. Damn.

Here's another thing I want to say about this up top, okay? I want to say this, this is gonna may ruffle some feathers, but JD Vance is a hillbilly, okay? I just wanna put that identity marker to bed. Everybody say he's not this, he's not that, he's not whatever. And it's like, yes, I mean, he comes from that stock. It'd be like me telling Aaron he's not Jamaican

or something like that. Like, I was just supposed to have, now, whether his, you know, day-to-day existence in Middletown, Ohio was that you know of somebody in Jackson, Kentucky now that's up for debate But I'm talking about like if we're talking I'd strictly identity You mean like the cultural environment he was raised in he's Scott's Irish Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah it Man, I think people I think the anti JD crowd do themselves a disservice in a way when they'd like try to

Pick apart like that notion a little bit. You know what I mean? This is a thing though, like I was texting with Tom this morning. Like how do you even explain? Okay, so there is an anti JD crown I guess we kind of, for a while, were labeled like the progenitors of it, in a way. Because this whole thing sucks ass, man. Let me just be real with you all. It sucks ass because our very first episode

was about JD Vance. I never wanted to have the JD Vance beat. This is a millstone that's been hung around my neck. I think this guy's extra Extraordinarily tedious. I don't want to talk about it anymore And in fact at multiple points over our career I've not even really I have I have called him incorrectly multiple times people are like oh you you know You know and I know your heart's in the right place I'm not trying to alienate you but people are like oh if you want to know about JD Vance here are the experts and like that is not true for me

I'm not fucking actively tried to not learn about anymore about JD. Yeah exactly like I I Have been wrong about him multiple times in fact I'm sure you can even find episodes from like 2017 and 18 where I'm like we should ignore him. He's just a writer He's got no power like he's blah blah blah and like now he's by certainly proved to not be true I don't know people protested him at an Episteadies conference in 2018 Those people had a better idea of what he represented and was going to become Than I did so I talked to them I don't you know what I mean like I don't I I am fucking terrible at this shit

I'm like a year ago. I thought Ron DeSantis was gonna be the fucking next president I'm terrible at this stuff people are like oh the Terrence the lathe of heaven Oh is like a you know calling like what's gonna happen like you're speaking things into is this no I'm not I'm a Part of that is true Words are causative, but that's strictly a cosmic phenomenon Not a scholarly name one thing. I've said that's come true nothing Biden's probably gonna drop out this week this whole time I'm like no, it's fucking no way Everything I've said is pretty much

Do not listen to me when it comes to the future anyways, Yes, but I will say though you should keep making predictions though Just because they're just because they're wrong. Yeah, sure Shooting well, maybe it's the wrong What is your head eventually? I'll be the wrong parlance to use this week, but yeah You're right Speaking of that speaking of that all right. I I wanna talk about this shooter, the assassination attempt. Because there's two things that have developed out of this that have been extremely bizarre.

The first is that the Secret Service had to give some kind of testimony, I guess, to a congressional subcommittee about it. And it turns out that they knew up to almost an hour in advance, he was a person of interest, and they even spotted him I think like 30 or 40 minutes before he even opened fire Can I just why does this happen every single fucking time dude?

Every single time we find out a days later or weeks later Maybe a month out or so that they had been surveilling this guy for fucking a year or something like that. Somebody had called the cops on this person saying that they were worried. They know about the purchases of, I mean, it's just like, not to get conspiratorial, but are you allowing this shit to, or maybe they're just like,

we don't think it'll actually happen, you know? He's not actually gonna do it. Right, I guess. By Jove, you know what I mean? He fucking shot him, dude. Well, you see, he had Biden on his radar too. Now that would have been a real error in judgment because you don't want to be standing next to, you know, you need to just let nature take its course on that one.

And apparently it is. He got, he got COVID this week, although, you know, it's not the death sentence it used to be. It's not true. It's not, not, not well, I mean, I mean, not as scary as it was in the eighties for like an 80 something year old man, though, as frail as he is, like, I don't know, man, if I, if I, if I, if I just take about those. That's true. Did you see the video of him like going around, like spreading it? Like he was a super people an hour before holding children. Did I, I cannot get over the fact that both

candidates are just out here getting their own followers like shot, sick, arrested. This is the deadliest president election of all time. Let me ask y'all a question. I mean other than just our crimes overseas right? Do you think this this this singular election that we have categorized another example of us being wrong? We've categorized as man this doesn't even feel like an election year man These guys have left bodies in their wake nothing There will be like a carbon

they'll be able to like in the way that you can like look back at like rock layers and tree fossil layers and Determine like the climate changes at the time like the but like there was a carbon dip in 2024 because they killed so many oh My god, they should just have the election over how many people they've killed, you know Well, that's what I was thinking when they were talking about like they were talking about how good Donald Trump was for the American Worker and stuff like that like last night and I was like are we all forgetting that? Millions of people died in the last months of his presence

That that should be That should be from now on since elections are done and they're obviously just like spectacle or whatever People don't even want to vote anymore That should be how you harvest votes you harvest souls like how many people can you kill? That's your vote Your kill count is your witty is your witty That's right you Shang Tsung these motherfuckers and then whoever has the most at the end of the thing is Joe's gonna be out for two weeks sick, so he's gonna be in a huge deficit when he comes back.

Okay, the second thing I wanted to point out about the Trump attempted assassination, the funniest fucking thing, dude, is all these fucking morons at the RNC putting the, whatever you would, the bandaid on on their ear like in solidarity with Trump dude This is funny to me because you know Trump hates that like he's so vain Like you know he doesn't even want to have that on his ear in the first place Right so you know that people doing that to be like we're with you mr. Trump. You know he's like

I think if they wouldn't I think if they actually want to pay tribute to Mr. Trump and the tragedy that happened, I think they should all recreate exactly how he got that scar, man. I think that if you do that, I think Donald Trump was really really I think he'll really appreciate that and he will point to you and look at you from the stage and single you out and say Thank you. He looked at me. Yes, it'll be like it'll be mad max like he looked at me Oh My god, you see the Conservatives sharing that clip of the little Ugandan boys conservative sharing that clip of the little Ugandan boys re reenacting the

Asset the attempted assassination on Donald Trump, but there's like framing it as like look how influential this moment was we have kids in faraway lands in the Imitating the bravery it's like what bravery Did you see that there is like diagrams going around of like the shooter's view PO like the shooter's POV like he had his like full brain It had like the right side of his brain was in the path of the bullet dude And all that happened is he just turned. Dude just pure luck like we're talking Milliseconds pure luck we almost saw his head explode Yo, dude, you know, you know what it is, man

You gotta give it up to Trump and his like kind of theatrical presentation because he likes to just get laid a lot He likes to move his head around He likes to become different characters if he was Biden dude, just like a corpse up there Jesus That is your I'm not even kidding, dude. Jesus, man. Jesus Christ, dude. That is so true. God damn, man. Fuck.

Just keeps wiggling out of it at every turn. There's the crazy implication for it's like, the ultimate virgin took out, you know, what people are calling the gigachad, you know? Like if you're failed by a virgin took out, you know, you know what people are calling the giga Chad, you know Like if you're failed by virgins bullet how far back does that set your movement? You know what I mean? like a thousand years man, I Don't know man. I go back. Maybe those guys would packed it up went home. I don't know Just crazy I mean

I just crazy I mean I don't know man I do not know I do have to say one last thing though to um I think you know like I wonder how much I'm a how much I'm a believer sometimes in the and the man upstairs you you know? And just like, too, like, just the bodily harm, right, that's been met upon these two presidential camps in the past week, you know? It just seems a bit fortuitous, you know what I mean? And a bit cosmic in a way that makes me maybe agree with their assessment that we live

in a simulation of terrorists. These guys are battered and on the deal. There's no question about it. But like what's gonna is Joe? Yeah, are they gonna pull Joe what's going on with I? Don't know man. It's There was like a shirking action You know your central nervous system just kind of gets put in a vice grip when you have kovat For like a couple months afterward Biden doesn't have any he doesn't have any cushion there

You know what I mean? He called Lloyd Austin the black man the black that that color fellow Did that was that was primal? He was reaching from a deep well there As his braid eats himself eats itself, you know to be his true day She's gonna go back to civil Civil War era slurs and shit like that bad Before he was even bored. She heard his grandpappy say or something man is I didn't mean that I don't know where that came from That's not in me. It's like now is programmed in you before the foundation of the earth Joe

You know something that something that I was just watching JD Vance's speech before you know here and it's like something that's like happening and this is like like further evidence that the Democrats are going the way of the wigs like Everything that the Dems could like hold a moral high ground on, like the Republicans are just co-opting or finding a way to deflect. So it's like they're not even like anti-abortion anymore. They're just giving it back to the states, right? Like they're taking like a neutral position. Like JD Vance in his speech echoed like how fucked up it was that this country sent,

you know, our young men and women to die in Iraq, like a pointless war in Iraq, which used to be like a democratic thing. But like Democrats, like they can't say anything because they are the party of Iraq in a lot of ways, you know, like all these people voted for it. Right. You know, I mean, obviously it's disingenuous for the Republicans to grandstand about it too, but it seems like the Republican Party has been hijacked by people that can say things like that. Of course, JD having been an Iraq veteran himself, can kind of speak to that. But it's like we've talked about that too.

If you want to give yourself a little credit, Terrence, we've talked about the co-optation of like the most popular democratic platforms. While the Democrats have like tried to stake out like the most, you know, reactionary positions that they can while maintaining their sort of Tony polish, like Republicans have just like trying to figure out, okay, well, like, what can we compromise on and appear to be more popular, more reasonable about while still being in a position to just, you know, keep the rich richer and all these sorts of things, you know what I mean? And it's funny to see them like saying, you know, sort of classic Democratic talking points like the disaster that was the war in Iraq and all that stuff.

But then like in the next breath be like, illegals come here and rape and murder women. Right, right, right, right. It's this weird vacillation between like, I guess these, like you said, Tom, I guess these centrist democratic, I don't know, not appeals really, because the appeals are actually like the rabid racist, like, you know,

xenophobic shit, you know, that's kind of like runs through it all. But I don't know, when you were talking, I just feels like they both switch places, the parties, but not really, though, in a superficial way, but also in some very real ways. Like, I don't know, I just I just was watching this, I guess, this rally that Biden was at where all the supporters are chanting, lock him up, about Trump, you know? Oh, nice.

And it's like, it's like just also just the gaslighting, you know, just the sort of fealty that, you know, like, I mean, I guess it's why people say blue MAGA, you know? But at the same time, like, I don't, like, I don't know, man, I don't know if this is, if we're gonna get centrist Trump, which is actually gonna be the most fascist Trump, because he's going to actually complete to its logical conclusion all of the policies that Democrats support anyway.

But of course, as a complete rabid racist, but it does feel like, I don't know, man, the parties have switched places in a way, in some ways. some ways, you know, or maybe they're, they're occupying the same space at the same time, you know, it's just that slightly different frequencies. I don't know. Well, I say all that to say that, like, if we're going to talk about Vance or whatever, like I want to deal with it on those grounds of like what he's saying, like what that portends for the country and whatever, like I'm sick of talking about fucking, in terms of like Appalachia, in terms of like where he's from or where he's not from,

what identities he has or what identities he doesn't have. I don't care about that fucking book. I mean, it's just like to me, all that shit is tired because like ultimately the identity stuff doesn't really, in my opinion, doesn't really matter that much anymore from here on out. To me, now, it's just stump speech fodder. Oh, man, I'll raise me to kick ass and take names.

You know what I mean? I don't give a fuck. And if we're being honest, nobody out here's saying honest, it really gives a fuck. It's just that he's on the national stage now and people say, okay, well, that's an opportunity for me to be paid attention to And that's that's that's what a lot of this shit is and I'm not saying that people out there don't have legitimate critiques of JD

Vance or anything like that, but like there are just people that just like You know, they don't have they don't they don't sort of have any strong position about anything They just don't like that. Oh, he doesn't speak for Apple at you or whatever, you know, and they just make They just don't like that. Oh, he doesn't speak for Apple at you or whatever, you know, and they just make Yeah, like who care? I don't care. I don't care. Nobody speaks for anybody. We don't speak for Apple at you fucking Appled at you doesn't speak for Apple at you. Fuck. Yeah, the liberal redneck doesn't speak for nobody speaks for nothing. You know, like I don't know how to go head deep to go with this because I I don't know how to go head deep to go with this because I

Don't even know if this is even interesting to people. I was texting with Tom today as techie texting with some other people like You can only understand What Tom is referring to in the context of this thing called Appalachian studies? Appalachian studies was only a field or discipline that was created in the 60s late 60s early 70s You can only understand JD is like Okay, this is really weird, but like JD and the people who? Hate him not on the grounds of his politics necessarily

but yes also on the grounds of his politics, but mostly just because of his own identity as a quote unquote Appalachian. Him and those people all come from the same discursive field known as App Studies. So much so that he spoke there. So much so that he spoke at a conference there. And the whole thing here is that JD's position from day one Has been very anti working class and by that I mean he me makes gestures to it

especially now as like a quote-unquote populist, but he made his You know voice in his platform off of basically taking the concept created by Appalachian studies, which we would call the internal colony concept. That Appalachia is an internal colony that is delimited and is bounded by these very specifically geographical and political economic features that allow it to then be exploited by larger capitalist developments, which is true, but they took that a step further and said that that therefore created a hillbilly identity that was basically subaltern in the capitalist, you know, core, imperial core.

And that's a crazy argument, but that was basically the hegemonic idea in Appalachian studies up until today, pretty much. I mean, it's still pretty much being vandals around. You still see that pop up, yeah. It is a, I don't know, man. I mean, I personally, I go back and forth on it. I do think there are structural parts of that argument

that are true. There are also parts of that argument that I don't think lend themselves well to an understanding of the working class, and in fact are used very cynically by various people to create the specter of a quote white working class. Right, right, right. I don't really think, I think the concept of a white working class is useful, especially when Du Bois, because I've been reading black reconstruction,

like Du Bois talks about it a lot, but you have to understand that like, when Du Bois was talking about it, like this was in the context of right after slavery and reconstruction in the early 20th century, when there were a lot of ethnic whites coming into the country and, you know, there was this process of class composition

where you had an actual white working class being born out of that in opposition to what was just then free black labor. Right. And that was what Du Bois was trying to dig into. Du Bois was trying to understand like, why are these two parts of the working class so at war with each other? Like they have more in common than anybody else. Like they should be in solidarity but they're at war. And he's like very methodically going

through the reasons why like a lot of northerners did not support abolition because they saw free black labor as competition with their own ability to sell labor. This was a structural feature of the early working class and therefore of the labor movement. Whether that is true in 2024, I do think it is largely still true because large parts of the white, large parts of the white demographic of the working class

are still racist. Large parts working class are still racist. Large parts of them are not racist. It's not a one to one because we don't live in 1890. We live in 2024. And so you can tease those out for sure. But white working class as it's invoked now from JD Vance, everyone from JD Vance to like the mostly liberal people in like Appalachian studies to like Barack Obama to fucking all the libs In the Democratic Party is a bourgeois

Category it is gen. It is literally deployed to disorganize the working class It's not deployed in any way to understand the working class at large and how it is composed and organized. It is instead usually deployed as a wedge to say, why working class are so unique and so different, they could never possibly be in solidarity with black workers, Latino workers. Every time it's talked about, I'm just saying it's talked about in this totally delimited form that says they are so unique and special, and this grows out of the internal colony

argument, they're so unique and special that they can never possibly be in solidarity with these other parts of the working class. I need to stress that because that is also JD Vance's argument and he says it in Hillbilly elegy he says Scott's Irish culture is one of the most unique cultures in America I mean all cultures are unique but the fact that he you know what I'm saying like Yeah, unique in that it predisposes you to gout diabetes and depression, but Who doesn't wrestle with those things yeah, and but the point the point I'm trying to make here is that

both of these blocks of ideology they they They deploy this concept in this idea in such a way as to Basically ignore the class component of it JD Vance doesn't ignore the class component because he's so influenced by Charles Murray and Charles Murray was Obsessed with the class because he was obsessed with maintaining it. He's a reactionary. He thinks that it's like a It's a natural hierarchy in Systems and we have to maintain an underclass that's segmented by race And we have to maintain an underclass that's segmented by race J early JD Vance thought that no matter how much he says in hillbilly elegy that he doesn't think that his book

literally recuperates parts of Murray's argument and then tries to Reform reformulates Murray's argument through a liberal lens. Yes, basically now inverted death argument through a liberal lens. He has basically now inverted that. So that like now now it's no longer the fault of these degenerate workers but to the extent that it is it's because they've been told that their race is bad. Their identity is bad integrated. They can recuperate it by having more baby white babies. I mean again, he does he does dog the 14 words Yeah, he gets something he missed the memo on again. Well, he will get extremely litigious against people And I know this for a fact He would he will try to get litigious against people who say that he advocates white birthrates

If you look at his statement where people thought he was advocating white birth rates He says our people let come in come on, bro Who's he talking about you're talking about people People with with ears like those that retain a little extra water Ohioans I think that he thinks that you can you can Try to address these issues through structural Policies like reshoring and industrial policy basically is what he talks about a lot a Lot of people kind of take him at his word about the whole isolationist thing the New York Times for example

said that um He was advocating an isolationist policy and then the literal next words word that he put China front and center So it's like okay. Well, then he's not advocating an item. I know it's not at all No, this is like his his whole thing speaks further to the things just don't mean anything anymore Well, that's the thing Tom. I think that what I'm getting out here is his whole thing is very is he savilly Deploys his own identity and the concept of a white working class to say that he supports isolationist policies and What we would consider like national conservative or populist policies, but we know that underneath that is In the degraded you know in the mystical you know form of outside the rational shell is

actual racialist policy like he does believe he is very much in this like You know new in our X like new reactionary world or whatever He traffics in the Curtis Yardens of the world. Like I'm not saying that Venn diagram of like the tech guys Yes, so Can I ask like a really stupid I guess basic question, but this is just something that like fascinates me It's like, you know, what's so if you have those racialist policies, you know, I mean, I know this is a stupid question. This is like, of course people will be like, yeah, I have black friends, but like, where does it come into like with his wife, right? You know what I mean? Like,

where, where, where does, where does he square or reconcile? Right. Do you think maybe, you know, is it that any, is it really, I guess this national conservatism that anyone can be an American, like which is cold for basically basically white supremacist policies, or I mean, I don't even know what I'm asking right now, but it's just knowing that he has underlying racialist policies. And pretty much believing in preserving white birth rates. believing in preserving white birth rates, like what'd he be doing the opposite of his program, of his thinking, you know what I mean?

No, it's a great question. I think the thing is is that he, like okay, the category of whiteness can be pretty much anything you want it to be. Right, right, right. And so like- It's amorphous, yeah. It's amorphous, right? And like you see this with Vivek basically claiming,

I genuinely feel, and maybe I'm putting words into his mouth, but I genuinely feel that interview I heard him last night, Vivek was basically saying like, I'm white. I'm like, you right, you realize that. Yeah, yeah. And like, maybe that's true. Amongst the elite, I don't think that like, the process of like racial formation and racial ideology

Is not as simple as people sitting down and being like all right now Yeah, like now today we decree these people are white and these people are not Can I just add something real quick in order reminds me of what he's saying? It's like it's like when OJ Simpson I think during his college days there were a lot of student protests right in solidarity with the civil rights movement, right? And there was a lot of I guess like there were questions solidarity with the civil rights movement, right? And there was a lot of, I guess, there were questions about why didn't he join that? And he said, I'm not black, I'm OJ.

Like, I'm the juice, and it's like, that is just so. I'm the juice. I don't think he said I'm the juice, I think he did say I'm OJ. I wish he said I'm the juice. I love that the American crime story, OJ Simpson, the miniseries were like David Schwimmer I think was playing Robert Kardashian is like listen

He's still gonna be the juice regardless like in private conversations with friends. He would refer to him as the juice You know it's like on census designation like are you white black the juice? But I guess it's this achievement of whiteness right you've achieved these markers that designate you as white you know I think that The thing about his what there's a whole other fucking there's a whole other thing about this all right like I Think that like JD Vance obviously if you really gave one once piece about JD I think that like Gabe pretty much nails him like I think he's Vance obviously, if you read Gabe Wynon's piece about JD, I think that Gabe pretty much nails him. I think he's pretty much got his number.

And I think a big part of that is that he'll be really elegy is a memoir of trauma. And it's unprocessed trauma though. So much so to the extent that JD Vance seems to be totally unaware that he keeps recapitulating good things as bad things for example He talks about his grandparents and like, you know the whole book he does Criticize his grandfather a little bit but also like talks about his grandparents as these like noble

Smart hard-working people his grandfather was like a Union- Ruff Hune Hill wisdom. Perfect. Yes, right. But his grandparents had to leave. There's a book. Man, fuck, I wish I had the goddamn book in front of me. But this guy named, I think, Max Fisher, about the large, like massive outmigrations from Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia in the middle of the 20th century.

That was mostly a result of the mechanization of the coal industry and yeah, Max Fisher Hillbilly Highway. Like like his parents were part of this all right and His grandparents were anyways But then he tells his story like a fuse. He tells this story a few pages later About this guy named Bob and his girlfriend Who he worked with at a tile warehouse and Bob is a bad worker. He's always like shitting on the clock basically

He's like always complaining about having to work and then eventually he gets fired and he's mad about it and so he he lashes out at his bosses for getting fired and hit in JD's line is that this is a book about a This is not a book about structural issues. Although I talk about that This is about a this is a book about people reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. I think that's his verbatim line. And what he's talking about is that this is an innate feature of the white working class. And he seems to be unaware that the same... That he's basically painted a portrait of his grandparents just in the 21st century

These are also like people who've had to migrate and take shitty work, and you know don't want to have to work to live But like he seems to be unaware that like it's okay when his grandparents did it but it's not okay when these new people do it and Well, and probably I don't know, but it's like, like is he honest and candid about sort of the win that was at his grandparents' back versus people now? You know what I mean? Like if you were like a hillbilly that went and worked for General Motors somewhere in the Midwest, in Michigan or Ohio or wherever, you got paid well And you got a pension and all that kind of stuff and like you sort of entered a different

Class altogether like all my family members that went to Detroit and stuff are like all Firmly petty booze, you know what I mean? Like even rich really and like that's a very different distinction from Somebody coming up from Mexico that's going to work a low-wage type job somewhere or something. Why is that so much more noble? Is it because you make more money? Well, first of all, I have to set the record straight. That guy's name was not Max Fisher, Max Frazier.

Sorry. And it's a pretty fascinating book. Second of all, I think that the way JD squares this is through a series of a series of like political or rhetorical maneuvers that I don't want to give a I've been working on a thing that like an essay about this for a while I don't like give away the fucking whole I don't want to spoil it because like I do think that they there's something here That is like worth exploring but I think that the way JD explains this is by doing this he went to the lab and he he combined a few conservative and liberal tropes in talking points about the white working class he used

some like anthropological data to show that like Appalachian youth are more prone to I think what he calls like resilience because they're more exposed to trauma and so it's this makes it sound like they have harder skulls or something like that it's this analogy you know this is part of the whole internal colony like epistemology that if you you can create a conception of an internal colony then you can go and start like yes, getting the crinometers out and like measuring people's brains, like their skulls and their brains

and determining like what that long standing like colonial status does to your brain. And JD cites this in his book as as proof that like Appalachian youth are they're more resilient because they're more exposed to trauma, but that also makes them more resistant to criticizing themselves and That this is why you have people like Bob Who's a bad worker because they can't criticize themselves even though they're resilient.

And this is also the story with his mother. His mother is a hard worker, but because she can't criticize herself, because she's got the Appalachian brain gene, she's an addict. And so she gets stuck in these cycles and can't get out. His mother was at the RNC last night, by the way. She's like fucking front row.

Yeah, they made her stand up and said, she's been ten years clean now And it's like yeah, and so actually be ten. It'll be ten years come December. Let's have the celebration at the White House What this is I think that this is the reason again? I'm giving away my fucking essay here fuck it There's nothing to do about at this point, but what I'm getting at here is that JD Vance took some conservative talking points like Charles Murray, which basically said that the white underclass has these innate cultural Predispositions and features that he said they got from the black underclass like well Billy bell curve essentially

It's the hillbilly black bell curve. He. He combined it with this paternalistic liberal idea that if we just educate them more and are able to uplift them, then they can be proper workers. And then combined them with this very weird, I was saying earlier, this almost third-worldest subaltern critique from the 60s and 70s of the internal colony

To basically say that they're a sort of world apart That they're so different that they couldn't possibly be like any other white worker in the United States Right and like this is how they've this is this is and that's why it's not really that much of a leap for him To go from liberal to conservative. I don't think he was ever a liberal I mean he said said all through, this is the misconception about him. I don't think he's ever been a liberal. He did say that Trump was like,

what did he say, cultural heroine or something? Like Hitler? Hitler? American Hitler or something like that? Yeah, but I don't, like, I think that's just because a lot of fucking conservatives were saying that in like 2017 and stuff.

You know what I'm saying? Right, before they all kissed the ring. right, I think too. I think too like JD Vance probably has more in common with like I think his trajectory the way to play out will be a lot like Mitch McConnell in the sense he's like his vision is probably going to like Lead this party going forward like as McConnell ages out and there's like need somebody to step in there, somebody that's invested in padding out the courts. He even said that in an interview he gave, he's like, we're going to put all of our own people in there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he's sort of going to be the ideological sort of captain, I think, of the Republicans

going forward. And he shares that same thing with Mitch McConnell, where they just sort of like try to read the tea leaves and kind of prognosticate about which you know which direction they should go in and sometimes it's off you know I mean because McConnell was even sometimes like off with Trump you know and all this kind of stuff but JD I think is corrected and realized that like this is the only guy right now that we can win with better for me to play sort of that McConnell role. Yeah. Even down to having an Asian beard wife. Yeah, I think that like, by the way,

that's a whole other thing that I find fascinating about JD Vance. That like I told Tom, like there is not enough money in the world you can pay me to go back and listen to our first episode, really to any episode prior to like 2020 or 2022 even for that matter, but um But there is something funny from that first episode which is the clip of JD saying like I'll never forget the time I convinced myself. I was gay and my grandma asked me

Do you like to suck dick JD and it's like okay, man like if you think you're gay at a young age like You should listen to this. You should listen to that. You should listen to yourself You know maybe experiment a little bit you can if you ever have that thought which I'm one of those people that does think that Most humans are you know just one or two steps away from everybody's on the spectrum brother It's not two steps or a couple drinks. Yeah, I'll see this kid a couple different breaks, and he could have been you know I missed a chance to be a good homosexual It's never too late brother I Think he's got some I think that is part and parcel of what Gabe was saying in his piece

And when I was trying to say a second ago He's got these very obvious psychological hangups that he's not even aware that he's gotten out. And this is a big fear of my podcast too. Like I've spent so much time burying myself out there in public that like people can pick up on things that I'm not even aware of about like my own, about my personality,

my psychology and stuff. Oh, they'll try to tell you about it. They may DM you about it. Yeah. But this is also the case with JD and he seems to be totally unaware of it. And I think the point is though where I'm trying to go with all of that is that like JD as a millennial,

like all of us is kind of like a bridge generation like he is You can tell like by the the the ingredients he cooks up with in hillbilly elegy and even up to now the ingredients he's cooking up with are the remnants of the decaying neoliberal project Charles Murray Koch brother shit when that's the way you contained and destroyed the working class disorganized the working class You can you can tell that he picked up ingredients from that part and then also Welded it with things he probably picked up in Yale when he had to charm rich Liberal people and like that's that's where that those parts of hillbilly ology come in

and He how embarrassed he was that he couldn't pronounce Chardonnay and how I And like that's where those parts of Hillbilly-ology come in. And he- And how embarrassed he was that he couldn't pronounce Chardonnay. And how embarrassed, like that's, that's a whole other thing. He's one of the most uninspiring, like tedious public speakers I've ever come across. Well, that's true, that's true.

Like that's why I think that his trajectory is gonna be more Mitch McConnell than like, he wouldn't be a good president. I don't think he would pull very high. I think he would be kind of uninspiring I think he would be like a kind of off strangely off-putting. Yeah, just a kind of way to align Yeah, yeah, totally but like as sort of like a you know a Schemer that like has some power in the Senate or something like I could see him being very effective in that McConnell

Let's grow totally when I think that like you have to think about it this way Has some power in the Senate or something like I could see him being very effective in that McConnellist role totally When I think that like you have to think about it this way JD Vance is this because this is the also the case with Charles Murray The elite needs hitmen it needs people that can send out there to do the ideological formation of how to disorganize the working class and I think that like if you look at like national conservatism, the whole concept of like the white working class, reconsolidating the working class

and the labor movement on the basis of like a white working class, like yes, it's fascist, it's Nazi, it's all these other things. But it is also a very effective way of disorganizing the working class at large. And if you look at everything that Holly and them are saying, like there's that thing in the compact mag this week that Holly wrote about like, That Sean O'Brien was slobbing on their knobs about. Exactly. Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters leader went and spoke at the RNC and people like Holly and I'm sure even people like Vance

We're saying like oh, you know, this is great because finally we're getting back to real working-class values And we're not having stuff like the trans flag jammed down our throats or like that one That one JD Vance tweet which is one of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen is like Universal daycare couldn't be more out of touch with what working families need it's like Okay, you you have you guys have no fucking clue what working people actually want or need and this is the thing about JD Vance He's not an actual working-class whisperer. It's not that he doesn't speak for Appalachians He doesn't speak for the working class, because his entire career has been built on charming, rich people and telling them

what they want to hear about the working class. Just see how unnatural he looks at a picket line. You know, there was that video floating around of like, I think it was some Democratic congresswoman or something was getting a jab in, but he does look like fish out of water when he's out there with workers and stuff. We, I mean, I'm adamant on this point.

We have to get rid of this notion of like, Appalachia, hillbillies or whatever. We can keep them in our private lives and our own personal picnics and cultural, go to the bar and whatever. We can have them like, you know, like lawn gnomes, you know? You can keep a couple just to, you know, for novelty's sake, but.

And I'm not saying that like you completely do away with identity either. I'm not saying that like I'm class reductionist because as we know, all these things are, they influence how you navigate the world and how you experience class. But if you go back and you read Du Bois, like the poison pill of the American labor movement

was racism, ethnicism, these like various ways of wedging and driving people apart from this very basic universal condition, which is that you have a wage relation. You have to sell your labor unless you want to starve to death. And that at the end of the day, that's what they're trying to obscure. They don't want you to see that, so they'll throw things like white working class at you. And JD Vance is very good at being the speaker of that, and that's why they need him. I mean, they need him for the long term. Not for nothing, I mean we talked about this too, but like liberalism aided and abetted his position

as that person, like to the degree that we're gonna have to hear from him every time something like this pops up, any time there's like sort of like a labor question or revolves around the white worker or whatever, we're gonna have to hear from him forever because a bunch of feckless people Gave him gave him eight dollars and let me just let me just tease out that the way that liberals aided Inabetted him. It's not that they just that they bought his book and made a movie about him the entire

liberal Assumptions of the world earlier when I said a second ago that he pulled from that Sociologist paper that said Appalachians have a very specific Brain have a thicker like a pack of sources some shit like I feel very slotted that I didn't get the resilient gene I got everything bad about being a hillbilly none of the good stuff. I'm bad at country music There's nothing I can do that's with this you know I need to point out that is a liberal assumption It's not a conservative one the idea of genetics is Ultimately at the end of the day. This is why like liberal and conservatives. They're always fucking feeding off each other They're always cooking together

They don't like that they don't like to say that they are but the idea of genetics and I think and I've thought about this a lot with the idea of addiction too because idea of genetics and I think and I've thought about this a lot with the idea of addiction too because The idea of addiction as a genetic predisposition is a liberal one because it says oh, it's not your fault It's not your fault that you're like this whereas the conservative people's fault whereas the conservatives will say it is your fault It is totally fault. It's a moral failing and it's the same fucking shit with poverty They treat poverty the exact same fucking way like liberals will even say they'll vacillate back and forth between like it's a genetic thing. It's a cultural thing Conservatives mostly stick with the cultural thing

But they will go to genetics every now and then and I think the thing is is that both of these renditions both of these stories They are intentionally devised to ignore structural reality. Because they want to engage class in any of that. Exactly. Right, right. I just want to say too, man, just like whiteness being a shifting category, if you have white before anything, you know, it's probably not a good thing.

Like white working class, like this idea that they are divorced from the rest of the working class, you know, that they have to be held up in this special high regard and scrutinized under a microscope. Handled with kid gloves, yeah. Yeah, with kid gloves. But it's just, I mean, I don't know, man.

I just kept thinking of the Hillbilly bill curve, and this idea of weaponizing that identity. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that? Do you think that? You even saw that in Power Rangers, the white Power Ranger. Yeah.

And then they came and trumped them all. He wasn't content just to be in the Green Ranger, you know what I mean? He had to go and be the White Ranger. Let me ask you a question, let me ask both of y'all a question. Do you think people buy it? Do you think like the quote white working class, the audience that they're trying to speak to, the voters that they're trying to speak to, do you think like like like the quote white working class the audience that they're trying to speak to the voters that they're trying To speak to do you think that they buy JD Vance that they think he's legit. I Think so. I mean, I don't I don't sit out writ large

No, but like just like anything in American society like writ large. It's impossible to even know but I impossible to even know. But I think an insubstantial number of people buy it. And it makes sense. Because if the argument is conflated with addiction, which that's, he is using addiction as his stand-in to show that there are these degenerate tendencies within the white working class and therefore they are separate and unique, enough people can look at their own family members and be like well You know I don't know how many fucking times I've told mom like she's got to get her mind and you know her life Right and she just keeps relapsing enough must have a fixed goal like JD said exactly like enough people

See that and experience it then they start thinking like okay. That is maybe there is some truth to that it also I think it also to like it like a lot of people take that to a logical next step and they'll say, and mostly this is because like the modern church is sort of the vehicle that the Republicans get a lot of their sort of cultural cache from. Like, so if somebody does conquer addiction, it has to be divine intervention, you know,

which feeds into the whole thing of you know Only God can actually bring you out of this and shores up their position as like, you know God's messengers on earth or whatever Mm-hmm Yeah, I think that There's several things just like floating in the ether here Another another ingredient in JD's story is like the opioid crisis as a literary construction. Like, and this is a whole other thing that would be fun to explore sometimes.

Like they all look at the opioid crisis as this external force coming from outside the process of social reproduction and capital political economy when it is like very much an internal process and in fact was the mediating force through which coal transitioned into health economy. Like and I've talked about this before but like there was a structural reason that there was a moral panic around opioids many years after the fact that plenty of people were addicted to it and crime was not going up crime was actually going down. Event that would allow you to transition formally out of the coal economy or the rust belt economy Manufacturing or whatever into the health and service economy or the fire sectors or whatever Yeah, you know like a catalyst you need a catalyst and that's all the opioid crisis was it wasn't like some I mean

Yes, it was because they were they were all these communities were flooded with insane amounts of fucking pills Because all these communities were flooded with insane amounts of fucking pills. But they needed sort of a, like you're saying, I think, a kicking off point to usher people into low wage work, but also low wage work around the very industry that created the conditions to bring them in there. 1000% built up with the health plans obtained by the unions through the trading off of their jobs to mechanization, which caused the migrations out of these places in the first place. And that's the thing that JD is using.

That's another ingredient that he's using to show that the white working class is separate unique in This whole other sort of thing outside of the working class at large the opioid epidemic That's another thing that to them is this like Transmogrifying thing that like makes you other and that makes you know what I'm saying It's like yeah, as if as if black people and hardly didn't go through the fucking crack a pandemic

Like you know where the most overdose doses in America are right now. I'm pretty sure it's Baltimore like it's fucking That's it's not like fucking rural areas. It's like right anymore It did start in rural areas and moved its way into the urban areas, but like yeah It's like opioid addiction addiction is never talked about in black communities, even though it hits them just as hard. Right, right, right. It's, yo, that's so true, man. Why is it seeing such a uniquely white thing, right?

You know what I mean? Or as if, I don't know, it just kind of reminds me of our conversation earlier about like, not, how can I put this? Not like adopting an identity, you know, but that I guess when it's happening to white people it should be noticed more, it becomes a real problem. Especially when it happens to an identity of white

that we can mold, right? And kind of like you said, we have to handle with kid gloves but we can also deploy cynically, you know? Yeah, to basically, like I said, we have to handle with kid gloves, but we can also deploy cynically, you know? Yeah, to basically, like I said, I have to stress this, disorganize the working class. Right, right. That's what Holly and all these people are doing. That's what Vance is doing.

They are trying to go, they are going to great pains. By the way, this is in the New York Times, how Baltimore became the US overdose capital. Yeah, there's more overdoses in Baltimore per capita than like anywhere else in the US right now It's like and the whole point though is to show is to tell you that like actually these different parts of the working class They have nothing in common the white working class they are

exclusively and uniquely burdened by like history and genes and culture to such a way that they could never possibly be in Solidarity with any other part of the working class. I mean, it's just it's just it's but it's um, I don't know man I don't know. I don't really know how to like You know stress it enough, but that is their cynical game here It's and and there is a there is an immediate purpose for putting JD on the ticket by the way It's because they're trying to win Michigan Wisconsin in Pennsylvania Like he said like he said those three states like multiple times in his speech

I even made the jokes about calm down Ohio. We got to win, Michigan You know, I say it's playing on the everybody's little cutesy jokes about everybody sports teams, you know Everybody's little cutesy jokes about everybody sports teams, you know Yeah, I don't know man I I think you're Tom Go good. I was just gonna say I think you're right Tom. I think you're spot-on I think he probably does have a bigger future as a kind of like Mitch McConnell figure because he Again at the end of the day their project is about how can they

Keep the working class not only disorganized, but basically annihilated But in such a way as to maintain and preserve them just enough to because they know that's where profits come from where surplus comes From so they have to maintain them in their very specifically like isolated ways I do think that like in the future and we've talked about this a lot We've we're an era of mass migration man That means that like the way you order and structure society will probably start reverting to older forms of reverting and structuring Society like ethnic in race racialist ones as we're saying fucking Israel and Gaza, so I Don't know

Yeah, yeah, it's just it's just I don't know man. It's um like it's just terrifying and foreboding knowing that at a time when the working class will I Don't know like I don't even know how I don't I don't know I'm not I don't even know what I I don't know, I don't even know what I'm expecting, some sort of like mass movement or some sort of like, you know, like increase in class consciousness. But at a time when we're having all of these crises, you know, you would like have someone

like Vance and deploy someone like Vance, right, to specifically keep the working class apart, you know, you know. To prevent that solidarity from happening in the first place, while also pretending to appeal to these people, you know. Well, they are trying to do that because, it's funny because they're trying to do it in a way that preserves them in amber in their own distinct categories.

It's like, why, when they're talking about black jobs as a joke, but they do mean that like seriously, they literally mean, I think there was one speaker at the RNC that literally said black, brown, and blue collar jobs. It's like, okay, you just gave it away how you see the work in class then basically. Exactly, exactly.

Like, no, everyone is siloed. We have the black factory, we have the white factory, and at the black factory there make things for black people and at the white factories They're making things for yeah Just mayonnaise All day long To them Aaron that's how they see when they talk about woke capital. That's how they see it They generally they don't see the process of Production is one that requires you to sell your labor in

Concert with other people from other ethnic and racial groups that the CEOs then Cynically used to play those groups off of each other so that they don't organize into a union and demand better working conditions and control Over the fucking means of production, etc They see them as going to those jobs and making literal like woke products for those constituencies yeah yeah Willie walk a woke factory is some shit like that our human what they call us during the pandemic when it was everybody decided it was time to go back to work after a couple weeks human capital stock yeah like we were like you know cows or something like that yeah that that is a good point about the racialist stuff though, because like back, like anybody

that I know from Eastern Kentucky that like went to the Midwest and like came back or something like that, you know, older people that had retired with a pension from GM or wherever, like, and had like union jobs or whatever, like they all have like, fond stories about learning a little Spanish from like the Salvadorian guys they worked with up there. Or like, you know, their black buddies that put them on to Bobby Womack and whoever else. You know what I mean? Like there was that sense of exchange. Or like, man, you have to believe this. I do this black dude curse from Detroit. I put him on Hank Williams or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, there is that sort of thing. That's how culture is made, you know, essentially. You know, anyway.

Right, it's strange. But like, they hate to see that, so that's why I think part of that is like, there is that sort of divisiveness and stuff, you know, that's, they don't want to call back to a Fonder era when like the unions were stronger and like workers had a little more power and so forth well tip to be fair like that era was Structured by the demands of capital accumulation and that's why JD is like a bridge

probably a bridge figure because he does sit on this like sort of saddle between the decay of the neoliberal project and Whatever comes next and this is I mean this is is why I'm saying he's using several different ingredients in his book that he's pulled from a variety of sources, one of which, or several of which, like I said, almost the sort of Coke Brothers Charles Murray flavor, spices that he's using, come from the era of high neoliberalism. And Charles Murray's, the white, what was it called?

The white underclass or something like that? That essay came out in like 92, 93. That was, when I think of high neoliberalism, that's what I think of, literally the early 90s, 80s, early 90s. And so that's why it's like, as we move into this new era that has all these new features, one of which is mass migration,

they will be looking for new ways to keep the working class cordoned off, siloed in their own specific chambers, but not working in concert. And we'll try to summon these like specters from either history or culture or whatever to essentially like, and this is the kind of case, this is the case with Sean O'Brien going to the RNC, sort of like dangle these Enticing You know sick benefits or successes or whatever in front of their face to make sure that they don't

Actually ask for the things that they want need like I said better working conditions better More control of their own working conditions in general more control at the point of production autonomy and Even more than that political power because we are witnessing the collapse of a major Political force in America and granted they could pull it all out tomorrow Maybe they fucking do run Kamala and it rehabilitates the whole thing. But if not The fucking Democratic Party is collapsing. And it feels like it.

They're imploding actually is what it is. And the Democratic Party has been the main thing that has kept the working class from actually trying to obtain political power. You see people like O'Brien reading the tea leaves on that too and trying to capitulate a little bit to the Republicans, especially in an era of JD Vance, who is like paying lip service to the unions and so forth. You know what I mean? Like JD Vance's speech last night,

he's like, we need to make things stronger for the American worker, both union and non-union. Yes, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like, how are you gonna go slob on this guy's knob? And he's like, we gotta take care of the scabs too. You know?

Yeah. Like, it's just and he's like, we got to take care of the scabs too. You know? It's just, it's a weak position. I'm sorry, like I know a lot of people are keyed up and was like, kind of excited about the idea of like him addressing the Republicans and like, you know, I think a lot of that is just post left brain, but like, I don't know. I just don't think you're right. I don't know. I just know I think I think you're right time. It's The thing is is you can't look at it as a binary like just because we are finally perhaps Detaching from the Democratic Party does not mean that you didn't go to the other Right, right, right because in fact their whole program for keeping the working-class

contained and under their feet is Going to be way more brutal. They're gonna. They're gonna put you they're gonna put a shot collar on you is what they're gonna do In a walled community like I don't like like like Savvy or political operators would see that like the Democrats are collapsing and oh everybody hates this fucking guy Somebody took a shot at his fucking head three days ago. Maybe it's time to start a Labour Party I mean, I know I'm serious like I know how dumb and cliche that sounds but like you have to carve out political power somehow and How else are you gonna do it?

You have to distinguish yourself from the fucking RNC and advances in the Hollies of the world and Americans relate to politics through elections It's just that's just the reality of it. You know what I mean? Like, you know That could that could be one option, you know Yeah, I mean right now right unless they start going to the electoral my preferred electoral process of just how many souls can you harvest? Well, I mean that's still I mean we're still focus group in that and seeing how that's playing with different audiences different demographics But until that happens yeah when Joe Biden is buried in the pyramid underneath the Pentagon. They'll bury him with his 30,000 Soul 30,000 sycophants I and Soles 30,000 sycophants I

Did I don't know it's just everything is in a state of? Flux and I Transitioned but to what you know I don't know if I've I don't know if I've adequately described JD honestly because he is kind of a he is kind of a big question mark to me because the big question at the end of The day is like how smart is he and like how much is he doing this? Intentionally and how much is he just being buffeted along by like the forces of history is it like is he actually smart and And adequate or is he just like a mediocrity that's been lifted up by our shitty fucking times

Yeah, it's like all we have all we have to judge him on is his book His dealings with Peter teal and his business career and his very short time in power in the Senate and now He's been the vice president vice president VP nominee for three days now like there's not there's not enough to got to go on right now You know what I mean also the group chat he's in with like 17 year old grit grippers I guess there's that too, and there's gonna be a vice presidential debate to Rick Apparently yeah between Kamala and him Bring up bring up the group chat come

You imagine say that well what about the bed in a group chat was so much 17 year old roipers and I'm heading like my aunt been like Well, he is very online too He's a classic millennial in that sense, too. He thinks that the way you arrive at ideas is not through the process of class struggle and interaction with your fellow Not not even just your fellow working class, but through other human beings in the social nexus in general He thinks like like the classic provincial upstart in a ball sack novel

He thinks that the way you arrive at perfect ideas is by talking to enough rich people Who then can either validate your own personal struggle and identity or discredit it? Yeah, and that's how he triangulates his position. I know I'm fucking fuck I'm from a rural area dog like I'm fuck I know what it means to like make it out and then try to like jockey among all these other people like going to College and being like man. I'm a fucking dumbass nobody. I'm so stupid Like I don't know about any of this stuff And then that becomes the basis of your political worldview Like I would be fucked if I hadn't met Tom, if I hadn't met other people in my life.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I would probably just be an insufferable fucking asshole. Oh, you stop there. You know what I'm saying though, it's just like, he's not met any fucking normal fucking people. Bushing over here. Right, right. It's just, I'm just saying that like, he's... That's where he gets his ideas from, and that's why his book is a, is a work of pure idealism in the Hegelian sense. It really is. It's just like there is no, you know, it is all him just chasing phantoms and abstract concepts and then reifying those into what he thinks is an accurate description of the world, but is really just a simulacra

that's like, it's a phantom, it's a specter. It's a protean. It is. Yeah. Goddamn, man. That's pretty good. Well, we've reassessed our thing about JD. I do need to make it clear, though, I've been very wrong about him many times. So I

You have to take this all Well, I mean I think I mean the thing I think is like I think you got to go deeper With it than just like he doesn't speak for Appalachia You got it. Yeah got to go deeper for it than that. I mean, that's true You have to get around that whole mental block in and of itself You know what I'm saying? He claims to do he actually does claim to speak for Appalachia Like he claimed in his RNC speech that he's a child of Appalachia or some shit some fucking cringe

Well, he said I was it said he said that you know, I come from a place and then he was like, you know, I think he, yeah, I mean, you could, you could argue that for sure, but I come from a place. I come from a place. Every, every time I come from a place, he said there was one line he had where it's like a career politicians like Joe Biden wrote the check and People from places like where I'm from paid paid for it, you know Paid the price for it or whatever Yeah, I don't know man it's um

Weird stuff weird stuff. I just want to encourage people though like I'm I'm not the JD Vance whisperer in fact I don't want to talk about it like I'm getting this episode out of the way so that we can perhaps like not have to talk About him as much because it's just not He if he was an interesting cat if he was like Trump if he was fucking dodging bullets and having like four or five different Like rebirths over the course of his life Like he would be fun to talk about if he was funny. He's not even funny. He's not funny. He's not charming He's not I guess you could say he's smart sure definitely not attractive even yeah, he's not exactly He's not attractive like there's he's not a great charismatic public speaker, so it's like what is here?

I just want to see him without the beard man and about the mustache No, no, you don't give me wookiee Bob. You ever seen Sam Elliot without his mustache or a turtle without a shell He's there like Ross do that had to op-ed this week that was like You know basically parodying the sohrab armari thing that like Trump is the embodiment of the Hegelian world spirit I would say that J.D. Vance is probably the embodiment of the Hegelian world spirit and by that I mean the utter mediocrity of the era we live in Trump is not an embodiment of the world spirit yeah he's like a holdover from a different era and a creation of the Democrats all these other things

JD Vance he has to be the embodiment of something because he is so wholly and individually boring Is that that's yet another McConnell comparison, you know, yeah, you're right he Tom that is a great comparison man He is way more like McConnell because even if the race came down to Kamala and JD Kamala would win She's way more fun right in person dynamic. Yeah interesting. Yeah, yeah, just on yeah Just on personality alone like he is not an interesting person man Any how old is he again 39? Yeah, he's a millennial man. He's a millennial man You know first millennial VP and how old is how old is Trump again like almost 80 something? Yeah, I think he's pushing 80

He's in his like late 77 maybe so he was to win a second term It's up that happened to We would be having President Vance. We would have President Vance, yeah. Jesus Christ, man. Well, if that happened, I think JD is, yeah, I think he is overplaying his hand. If he wants to stay in public life forever, the worst way to do it is to become president.

He needs to master the Senate in an LBJ fashion and then Cap it all being the president of you know in that way he might be like another Grievance ridden Troubled kid from the provinces who started out as a VP after only a few years in the Senate and then began Partner I was on well was failed in that case. Yeah, I'm speaking. That's your calling, Terrence. You need to be JD Vance's Robert Carra. Yeah, wait, I'm talking about Richard Nixon,

but yeah, sure, also LBJ. Oh, I thought you were talking about LBJ. No, I thought you were talking about Obama for a minute. Well, he's kind of like. Nixon actually is a good comparison because Nixon also was But the child of like, okay, Oklahoma out migrants to California. Yeah Yeah, and as a result he had this fucking like chip on his shoulder over his whole career and that became his entire politics sweaty dick, man and

Yeah, I don't know he's I think that if JD became president because I've thought about this like what would he even try to do first of all he would try to do hard he would try to do industrial policy like probably tried to he would probably try to put up like strict tariffs and Try to do reshoring and stuff and that I just don't think that's gonna fly man Like this is this is capitalism Like this is 21st century capitalism to where you have to reckon with China you have to reckon with the great fucking like

Capitalists like behemoth that they are and you can't just say the great dragon from the Yeah, I don't think JD Vance's president would be like it would be goofy as fuck it would just like I don't think it Would work he'd be like trying to be pulling various like based epic levers, and I just don't think that you can do that because Yeah, I was trying to do that Yeah in a way he's kind of like a kiss ass like like class kiss ass kind of thing like just wants to flex how much he knows and he does that by like you know fucking around with tariffs and all this other stuff that nobody's gonna like go for because like nobody like really kind of... China doesn't really give a fuck about the

United States anymore, you know what I mean? Like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh. They just... Oh man. Maybe that's a gross oversimplification, but what I'm saying is that like it's nerd shit.

You know what I mean? It's like poli-side nerd shit that he's gonna be empowered to try to like do and see what works, you know, it's like poly side nerd shit It's long as long power to try to like do and see what works, you know, it's long shit That's not sexy enough to run on you know the campaign one And I think that the even larger point is that like JD hates working people he kind of like here's the thing, dude JD hates working people probably because of his own Psychological traumas and life experience and you don't just get over that. Like, I'm serious, like you read Hillbilly Elegy and he seems to be completely unaware

that he hates working people for that reason. And that will infect his policies. You can't just like come out and be like on the RNC stage like, oh, I'm over it now. I'm over my sickness of hating working people. No, if anything, that hardens your resolve. Exactly! And it gives you the tools that you need

to exact revenge out of some weird twisted sense of self-hatred, you know? Well, and that's the thing, if they try to do this sort of industrial policy that he's trying to talk about, like reshoring and stuff, that can only end in them forcing right to work in every state. Because you can't do reshoring and then go for a pro-union message because the working class is diverse enough to where you will have people in the working class saying,

Fuck this, dude. We're getting worked like 80 hours a week to produce this stuff. Like, fuck no. they're gonna start organizing They're gonna start getting in you this is the dynamic of capitalism like they will start organizing and come Composing themselves into an organized political block that resists this and they're gonna have no other choice than to do right to work So they can do all the fucking calls They want to you know virtue signals they want towards unions and working-class culture and all this it will eventually Come into conflict though with their policies make that's just a fact Well, yeah, because if go I just say look at the UMW a and East and just in Eastern, Kentucky

for for example like it's the same thing that kind of failed them in the sense that like what yeah at a certain point that'll that Like Scrap that I don't not sure I believe that Well, I was just gonna say too I mean just like if you want to run on like bringing back manufacturing Like just given their politics like I mean these people don't give a shit about unions You know they don't give a shit about unions, you know They don't give a shit about I mean, dude, you would have like you would have like just a situation where Like I mean workers would have to get militant again, you know

Well, yeah, well militant in such a way like I'm talking about like like like like, you know Militant where people are like not people are organized, you know and ready to like I don't know You can scrap that too. No, no, no no you're exactly right. You can't just bring back manufacturing You can give incentives to opening up plants and stuff, but you also have to deal with the labor Like they think about this stuff in such degraded bourgeois terms. It drives me fucking crazy It's like you think it's just as easy as just giving them incentives to locate somewhere You also have to find a labor force because guess who makes the fucking profits That you have to find a labor force that you can control by the way

And then you're talking about restoring America to global hegemony you think that you can do that while giving labor all the while giving labor all the concessions that you gave them throughout the 20th century and more, and trying to keep the lid off on all their other political ambitions and other things. In a global economy that's shrinking, and you have to keep, by the way, this is also the needle you have to thread,

you have to keep American GDP at a certain level because China holds all of our bonds and they don't want to hold bonds on a fucking economy that's starting to tank because all of a sudden you got this idea that you could somehow do reshoring with a bunch of unions in a Fortis compact that you had in the 20th century based off of racial ideologies that don't exist anymore. It doesn't make any sense is the point I'm trying to make Is what it is yeah though

It's wish-making and they'll realize that once they come into fucking if they ever get into like a position of power where they can Pull those levers They'll realize that and then their bluff will be called and then before you know it the word union will be such a bad word You won't even be able to fucking say it without getting taken out back and getting more than the eyes be such a bad word you won't even be able to fucking say it without getting taken out back and getting one between the eyes. Well that's what I was that's what I was where I was going with the UMWA thing but not to pick on them I'm just talking about what coal mining became in Eastern Kentucky of buzzwords and so forth.

That's the bind right like that's what we were second saying a second ago. The reason that like... I ain't got nothing against the unions but god damn if if you get bit by spider you get to take six months off paid that kind of shit yeah I think yeah I mean that yeah without getting too deep into it right it's like that the whole UMWA thing is a whole different thing in and of itself that kind of like you're saying and just yeah, right, but it just it I Don't know man. That's um Another episode for another time. We're well over an hour and a half, but I don't know

We have a patreon if you'd like to go listen to it. I almost punted today I literally almost punted and just had an episode where me and Tom were just filibustering without having to talk about JD Vance but you know Sometimes you have to wake up and you know great history suckers History doesn't hit the snooze button in the morning, you know But if you'd like content like that Sorry, we've got really fucking like grassy and old shit on the assassination attempt on the patreon episode this week

I I didn't think I thought that people would want to hear that but I don't maybe not but like I think it's kind of interesting personally like Especially as we're finding out more and more about this guy. It's like man. What maybe he really he probably was a disaffected 20-year-old He was just like man. man you hear the Democrats floating the actually what happened was a piece of glass broke off the teleprompter and cut Trump's air dude, that's absurd I Studied the teleprompters in the videos I didn't see any fucking broken glass But I saw somebody say that he had a razor blade tucked between his fingers, and he actually

like nicked his ear. Oh yeah, he nicked his blood. That's actually what happened. Yeah, blood. But um, I mean conspiracies are gonna, you know, I think that's just a natural, healthy response to, you know, an assassination attempt. I agree. It's pretty like, yeah. It's fun to rumin you so speculate. You know you got to man. It's I

Can't stress enough. This is only July things will get crazier Getting crazier, I mean I don't I don't we're well over. I know we're well over our half, but um you know I I know we're well over an hour and a half, but you know, it's just, I mean that interview that you were just mentioning where he forgot Lloyd Austin's name and called him the black man, and like all of these, that colored fella. There's a million different better ways to have handled that.

I mean this is, as you said, it is only July going into August, and this is, as you said, it is only July going into August. And this is just going to keep happening right up until the election. Like, I just want people to know that these gaps, all this shit, the craziness is going to continue. I mean, it's just going to be exponential, you know, by the time we hit November. We might have another assassination attempt. Who knows?

Someone may die. Someone may bow out. You assassination attempt who knows someone may die someone may bow out you know who knows I? Have to yeah, just assume that like it would be crazy if it didn't get crazier if everything just kind of mellowed out Right just got totally chill man like we're just like We're just coasting till November we're chilling coasting Man all right the patreon link is in the show notes so go to click on the link and subscribe to our patreon Hope you've had a good time listening to us today Probably got a lot of things wrong, but hopefully you'll be nice to us and we'll figure it out next time Until then anything to add

No, just uh Enjoy the well I cool it's cool down here, but uh you know stay out of the heat You know cool yourselves down drink agua that's right Be cheerful. I say first then party till you die. That's right. That's right Be cheerful. All right. We'll see you later Peace