Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 367: The Aloha Spirit (w/ special guest Lauren Oyler)

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

This week we're joined by writer Lauren Oyler to discuss her recent piece in Harper's about this year's RNC, which we then use as a pivot to talking about Trump's cabinet appointments so far. This episode also includes important information about the t-shirts you ordered, so stay tuned until the very end if you want to hear it. Please read Lauren's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/revenge-plot-lauren-oyler-republican-national-convention-gop-trump/ And support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Okay, welcome to the show this week everybody we are joined by writer Lauren Euler who is from all right Tom and I can hurricane hurricane hurricane we used to work in that area and Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane road plug there. But yeah, no, like we don't, you know, I've been all over the state of West Virginia. I, you know, I've even thought of moving there. I've told her, I just Charleston hurricane hurricane. Lewisburg, everyone doesn't ever move to Lewisburg. Even my family doesn't live in Hurricane anymore. They move down down the road,

down the road. Once I was talking to a college and I was describing the main road like, what do you mean the main road? It's like the main road. It's fucking hilarious that your town has a main road. And I'm like, it's worse. Anyway,

every town needs a main road. Yeah. Otherwise, where do you know where everything? How do you how do you know where everything is? That's true. Is Hurricane also where they is it close to like where the October sky thing? Well, where was that at? Was that in war? Was that Mingo or McDowell? I wait, where was it? It's no, it's closer to the Mothman

Right, I believe Point plus that's that's the Mothman, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, October sky is is somewhere else Didn't October sky guy become like a October skies Beckley. Yeah, that's farther Hurricane is the cautionary tale of the guy that won the lottery and then his whole life fell apart and his granddaughter got murdered. Yes. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Jack Whitaker. Yeah. I did. I, in fact, not to sound promiscuous, but I recently recorded a lengthy podcast about Jack Whitaker, which I completely forgot about until you just said that. So if you want to talk about the meaning of that I can probably do it as well But he was he was a regular customer at the pink pony strip club

which was Problem I think Is that where all the money was? With the chapel run so not the same one out of matter. Yeah. Yeah Why did his life? the chapel round so not the same one out of matter. Yeah. Yeah. Why did his life unravel? I mean, because I mean, I guess, you know, like I'm from an oil town where I met plenty of new barish people who, like, got way too much money and didn't know how to deal with it. Is that what it was?

Well, I think he was I think there was like his kids or his grandkids like were addicted to drugs and they were like, so it's like actually not funny. And they like had some some classic southern West Virginia issues with drugs, I think. And then I want to say like he would notorious. Also, I think, you know, he would also go to the pink pony. And I want to say again I completely forgot all of this information until you just mentioned that I want to say like he would like Notoriously be there and then leave like huge sums of money in his his his ostentatious vehicle And it was it was Rob if I recall correctly

I'm so sorry. I wish I remember because there was a I read like a really long Washington Post article about him for this podcast that I did. And they were like, it was like so classist and insane this this article from like whatever year it was, I can't remember. 2000s, late 2000s. And but but yeah, I do believe there were multiple factors. And basically, like people who had met him once would like expect money from him. And he felt very guilty and he felt like he needed to sort of like, you know, sort of provide for the community. I am I.

His other problems. I can understand that if I won the lottery it's yeah Like I'm getting it all in cash, and I'm probably not in my car like it's you know Right I'm not putting that shit in a bank. Fuck. No fools. Aaron. Yeah. Yeah Yeah Well, yeah, West Virginia West Virginia, Kentucky, you know, like we're we're cooking with some familiar ingredients here but like I heard that very familiar. Black talk.

Yeah. Mostly though, Lauren, I wanted to have you on the show because you recently wrote an article for Harper's about the GOP convention, which is, you know, hilarious. It's a very funny article. Obviously, I'm late to reading it. I mean, I guess I should have had you on when it first came out. But this show, we're known for being tardy to everything. So but it actually worked out perfectly as we were talking about before we started recording because Actually kind of dovetails nicely with the

The theme of this week, which is like it's it's draft week for the Trump administration Like they are they're putting up their top drafts. Who's to say if any of them will get actually passed by the by Congress? But like also just announced today, Congress official or the Republicans officially have both chambers of Congress. So I don't know. I mean, it's feels pretty much certain that most of these pigs will wind up getting a big question.

A big question is, is, is naughty, naughty Matt Gates. Like what's going to happen with them? Because he has lots of enemies. He's made lots of enemies in Congress. And like the story is developing, you know, as we speak, which is exciting because I mean, like, it's not exciting. It's terrible. It's very bad. It's all very bad. Oh, yeah. But the moment it was announced yesterday, it was like a whole shift in the media atmosphere again, which is sort of fun to observe. And then all of his enemies are coming out, speaking against him, saying that there's like zero percent chance he's going to get confirmed and things like this.

So who knows what's going to happen? Well, I saw somebody on Twitter say Matt Gaetz is he resigned from sent from, uh, Congress as soon as, you know, he'd heard that he was going to be appointed or whatever. And they said he burned the ships behind him. That's true leadership. I was like, I don't know about that. I want to quit my day job just yet. Yeah.

But also like, uh, there's the house ethics committee was investigating him and then they just came out today and said they were going to like say something about like, the House Ethics Committee was investigating him, and then they just came out today and said they were going to say something about, like, he quit, he, like, he, he quit, it seems like he's quit for, like, a kind of overdetermined reasons. But the, I just saw the New York Times article, I didn't read it, but the headline was, like, House Ethics Committee says they were, they did have criticisms of Matt Gaetz but but I haven't opened the article because the story is developing too quickly. So I just don't think that that is the end, the end of it, certainly. And at the RNC to,

he was like, one of the stories because Kevin McCarthy was there, former leader of the House of Representatives, whom Matt Gates had helped oust. And they were like doing their whole feud thing, like at the RNC, like people were, you know, broadcasting live, like I would walk past them, and the guys would be doing stand ups like talking about about the Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gates feud. And it was, I mean, it's sort of like shocking to see him there because he's so controversial

and like not everybody there appreciated his presence. So, so, and it was, you know, he smiles like the liberal media does put up like the worst photos of him, but he is actually quite handsome and charming in real life. He looks like he looks like not Johnny Bravo, but who's the one that has brown hair? Like he does like sort of look like a cartoon character, right? Like a little bit distorted and weird, but not. He does look like a celebrity, which which most of them certainly do not. I think that like Mark Wayne Mullen also has a beef with him, which great name, by the way, great Scots, Irish name Mark Wayne Mullen.

Where is he from? I think Oklahoma, maybe if I remember correctly. Handful of places. Yeah Yeah, also it's okay. So there's several things about the Matt Gaetz thing the first of which is that like it seems like an overriding theme with Trump 2.0 It's not just like for the liberals. It's not just like the revenge thing, but the constant bombardment and reminders that the liberal path to holding these people accountable has pretty much utterly

failed. Like everybody's going to get away with it in the end. Everybody's like, you know, no, it's the Lufthansa heist. Like no one is getting caught for this. Everyone's getting away with it. And, but like the Gates thing is interesting. And again, it kind of like allows us to talk about the RNC a little bit. But like, I think truly the funniest part in your piece is the part where you're interviewing Matt Gates. And the reason it was so goddamn funny to me is because it seems like everybody in the GOP got the same talking points about JD Vance's eyes. Like, yeah,

everybody was talking about his beautiful blue eyes. They were like, I mean, this was also like, you know, this was the time when he so so at the RNC, so people might not remember because it was so many months ago, three months ago, four months ago. And your point about like, oh, you know, maybe we're a bit late to discuss this, but actually it's relevant. Ideally, if you're writing an 8,000 word piece of journalists of it, it's like relevant for a few months. And, and, you know, I was very careful not to predict who would win in this piece, which many of my colleagues failed to do. So I feel like I won the RNC piece competition, at least because I wasn't dumb enough to be like, and anyway, but after that, Kamala surged ahead and now she's going to win. Like I was just like,

I'm not going to do that because that would be stupid. So anyway, what was the question? The question was the talking points about his eyes. So they, we might forget. Donald Trump was shot at on Saturday. It was like the 13th or 12th or something Saturday, the 12th of July, 13th of July. Then on Monday, JD Vance was announced as the VP pick. The rumor at the convention floor, which I could not like confirm from anyone seriously, but basically, like, the

convention started in the afternoon, and there was like a double shift of the convention, which was like really long. And they started doing roll call. And everyone's like, nothing important happens during roll call. So I was like, I'm going to go get a burger, and then I'm getting a burger. And someone's like, Oh, one of the delegates like accidentally announced that it was shady dance at that time when I was getting a burger. So I wasn't there when they announced it. But then after that, everybody, you know, both in the convention and sort of online and in the media, like swarmed on JD Vance.

And like within three days at all of this liberal media and people on Twitter and stuff were like making it just like just just like like going down the list of like things they could come up with to make fun of JD Vance for. And his looks are like one our major thing. And so the Republicans think he's like very attractive. One man's trash is another man's treasury. You know, like he is like he looks gay. I mean, I don't really understand that, like he looks like he's wearing eyeliner thing. Right. He looks like he's wearing eyeliner. That's a style of eyelash that people have, especially men, because they they don't have to

wear makeup throughout their lives. So they have virgin eyelashes. So sometimes they have very thick, dark eyelashes. It does. It does create that effect. I don't believe he's very garlander. I will defend him on the ground. I'm starting to sound like an apologist. I'm just like, you know, like, I just believe that, like,

if you're going to attack someone, you need to have sort of a foundation for that. I wish you had a little thin. He does have beautiful blue eyes like he does have them. So if I were a Republican, I would focus on that. But there was a little bit of like fratty homoeroticism in the way Matt Gaetz would talk about it, especially because I guess they're, they're bros along with the Trump kids and Tucker Carlson are all blowing out like playing Xbox or whatever the fuck guys do. So, so they're like, but you know, he's sort of like flirtily being like,

oh, yeah, his beautiful blue eyes. It's not the eyes, actually. It's the lashes. You know, it's the lashes, the lashes. Well, I like that he's got the acumen to notice that it's just like most guys would just look at another man's eyes and be like, there's something alluring there that's drawing me in, but they wouldn't be. No, it comes out is he's fucking there's something alluring there that's drawing me in but they wouldn't be know how it comes out is

He's fucking gay, bro But like Matt Gates is like it's the lashes and he's correct. I mean I got I got pretty nice lashes, too They're just blonde or red you can't really see him now. Well. I'm just flattering myself at this point I think your eyebrows look good But I was like, good. It's not. You have a lie. You have a lie. I brought a nice. But what was I going to say? Well, he video record. We're not publishing the video. People can't ever know.

We can see Matt Gates is of the Metro sexual generation. Totally 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah. J.D. Vance. Mm hmm. What? He's what? Thirty eight. Thirty six. ThirtyD. Vance. Mm hmm. What? He's what? 38, 36, 37, 39, 38. Yeah. My age. I think he's 85, baby.

Smudging sexuals. That's another interesting thing about that you point out in the piece. First of all, which is that like vice presidential picks usually don't have national name recognition. You know what I mean? Like they're more of like a regionally popular person or, you know, like a Tim Waltz or Tim Ryan or somebody. But like so there's that he's got like the national name recognition

that that's kind of strange. And then there's the fact that like he's a millennial. And as as you point out, like he'llbilly Elegy is kind of like a classic text in millennial identity politics. But the most fascinating thing is that I didn't even realize this because I didn't watch the RNC. But as you point out, I didn't realize JD intends to be buried in Eastern Kentucky. Like he is obsessed with. He's obsessed with.

So we're Kentucky. It would be like if I insisted on being buried in like East Texas or something, just because, you know what I mean? It's like, I have no real grandparents were from there. But I mean, the thing but the thing about it is rightly so sort of like the argument that I make in the piece is that he is just doing what people do with identity politics. And he is saying my identity is Scotch Irish, Appalachian Hillbilly. Let's ignore the fact. I don't know. Do you guys say Hillbilly? I would call everyone a redneck from the hurricane.

I use redneck. I don't say that seems a bit false to me, but maybe it's different throughout the region. I say redneck where I grew up. Tom says Hillbilly. Does it seem pejorative in Hurricane? No, it just seems retro. Oh, OK. Yeah. I mean, I mean, redneck is pejorative as well. I just like I wouldn't say he'll be.

But people are really shit kicker. We have that one. All right. The Creaker. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do all the white ethnic slurring earlier. Yeah. Anyway, anyway. No one ever wants to talk to me about West Virginia. I don't know why. So I'm sort

of happy to be here. It's because it's open for business. That's right. What were we talking about? We were talking about, oh, he's obsessed with being from Appalachia. And I believe it's genuine too. I don't necessarily believe that it's just like, media persona trying to get ahead thing. Like if you have you when was the last time you guys read the book? I'm sure you read the book. I actually had to read it again a few months ago for this piece I'm working on.

So it was interesting. It was because like we read our very first episode was about the book. And so I read it like seven years ago. Yeah. But I hadn't read it since then. And it was interesting going back and reading, reading it. Because he has this real like the beginning of the book is like a real sort of sociological argument for why he counts as a hillbilly, even though he's from Middletown, Ohio.

And it's quite convincing, actually. Like, I'm like, yeah, fine, whatever. You sound like you sound like one of us to me. But what what is weird about I'm like, yeah, fine, whatever. You sound like you sound like one of us to me. But what is weird about it is like he just like does it, he just like does it like a bit too much. And in the convention speech, which I talked about in the piece, he is talking about how his kind of gesture towards the legitimacy of this identity of his is the fact that his family has a cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky, which, you know, all like seven generations of his family

will be buried there once he and Usher are buried there. Does she really want to be buried there? I don't, I just highly fucking doubt it. I bet when Usher was a little girl, she didn't really have designs on being interred in Jackson, Kentucky forever. Actually, like most people didn't really have designs on being interred in Jackson, Kentucky. Actually, like most people don't really think that much about where they're going to be interred at all these days, especially if they're from a left wing Southern California immigrant family, like Usha, I don't know. But so it's like this, my kids are going to be there. It was like, really,

it was like, it was totally off, I would say, is the nicest way you can say it. I say it in some meaner ways in the piece. But I found it really weird also because it sounded so much like the song by Daryl Scott covered by Patti Loveless, You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive, which is like the most bleak fucking folk song of all time. It was really like echoing that song. There is a kid on the Kentucky basketball team, Trent Noah, who's from Harlan. And when they did the first pep rally to kick the season off, like everybody was coming out to these like very hot rap songs and he comes out like third

or something or fourth and it comes out to that. It's like just the mood in the arena. The lyrics are the sun comes up about 10 in the morning and the sun goes down about three in the day and you fill your I can't remember how it goes. But it's like really like it sucks here. You'll die. Like, right. Really terrible. And JD Vance is sort of. But there is something about liberal identity politics, which is like, I want the suffering, the suffering that my people have experienced is my suffering, too. And it legitimizes me.

And it is actually very closely related to this impulse, even if JD Vance's version is is weirdly conservative. Right. And quasi religiousreligious. Absolutely. Okay, so there's the JD Vance thing, very weird. As you point out in the piece, it's almost like he's trying to get to the cemetery plot as fast as possible.

He needs to get there. He's like, every moment of my life is a lot. I'm living a lie every moment. And I've brought my long suffering, beautiful wife who's going to be like the star of yellow. I like to be on the fucking stage of the RNC. She had these bags under her eyes. It was so tragic. She's so nervous.

He was speech. But but you're too. It's just it is. I mean, I don't want to use the Democratic insult, but it is really weird. It's weird. Yeah, for different reasons than the Democrats say, but yeah. It is really weird. But the thing about them and the reason why they're so successful is they all like accept it. Like they don't, there's not a culture of like internal critique with the

Republicans. They like lament that Donald, you know, the sort of more normal Republicans, you know, traditional Republicans, Reagan Republicans, these types of people, they would like lament that it was happening, but they would still do it. Whereas, you know, the Dems are like, we're not going to vote for you're going to take your campaign to teach you a lesson, you know, like all that kind of stuff. And there is a sense of like, there's not a sense of ownership over the party. It's a sort of like. It's just a different thing. And so people, you know, it's not like people like JD Vance, but they don't dislike him.

They're sort of like, well, that's the guy Donald Trump picked on. And Donald Trump is always right. Right. You know, we have to listen as a as a physical president. He's not as off putting or, you know, arresting as who was Trump's Josephine over the summer, who was his mistress? What's her name? I'm trying. Lauren, not Lauren Bobert. Wait, Laura, which were Lumer or Matt Gates. Like, Laura Loomer. Laura Loomer.

Or Matt Gaetz. He's not like, I don't, I don't know. He looks like a guy that you know from the Midwest. He just looks like a guy. He looks like a guy, yeah. He looks like a guy and he is very well-spoken. And the thing is he he fits really well into I don't believe like this was like a reason why they picked him,

but he does fit really well into the theme of like, you know, we are unfairly put upon like we are big, we've been victimized by mainstream media by the mainstream, no one listens to us, everyone hates us. So the fact that like the whole liberal media was mocking him actually just works really well for the general narrative, which is like, they are ostracized from liberal mainstream society. So they have to create a new society that they can participate in. And if you watch Fox News, and when I was watching when I was there, I was watching Fox News all the time, and they were reporting a lot on the shooting, whatever the fuck happened with that. They were like reporting on

it all the time. And they would just be like, you know, they compare us to Hitler, because they say that we're Nazis, they compare Trump to Hitler, everyone, we all suffer, this man has suffered so much. And so there was this kind of like victimhood mindset. I think assassination proved that they were being actually targeted.

Yeah, that they were. Yeah. But I do think that JD Vance is often a victim of class victim of classism in the liberal media that maybe you could just criticize. You could just criticize lots of things about him. Like you don't really need to like make fun of him because he drinks Mountain Dew. Yeah, you know, also, it actually like upsets me kind of

and that was sort of shocking writing this article because I would get like really mad about it. And I was like, I haven't really processed my trauma of being from the white working class. Because these things people were saying were pissing me off so much. But he pissed me off too. So whatever. Anyway, like that the sort of like liberal tendency to like challenge his identity and stuff like that. Like he's not a real hillbilly. It's like a common refrain that you've heard, you know, and like our critique of him is just like he's kind of missing something about

that experience. Not that like he's not a hillbilly, like, you know. Yeah, no, I also just like who cares if he is like many many people from Apple watch a feel that way like think the same thing there's Tiniest claims that he'll believe them, you know out there than his Right, right, it's an interesting thing and I and and I pointed this out before, but it occurred to me after. I remember driving home from Tom's one night during the RNC, actually, I think it was. And they had interviewed they were interviewing Vivek and he was talking about the parallels between his life and JD Vance's.

And so like in the reput in the conservative imagination, like JD Vance's trajectory takes on more of an immigrant story than it does like a homegrown thing. You know what I'm saying? It's weird. Like they try to draw these. Basically, they're saying he's coming from the outside into this. And therefore that gives a authority authority on the subject that others wouldn't normally have. Do you think do you feel like an outsider in America? I actually you guys live in Appalachia currently. So do you feel that way? I so I will say I grew up in I grew up in southeastern New Mexico,

which is not as peripheral as it can get. And I do feel like sort of structurally, yes, there is a dynamic there where obviously the way the nation is run, the way society is run, doesn't really care much about what you think. Like you are basically there to pull a resource out of the ground. And so there is a truth to that. I think that there is like an outside there's a peripheral dynamic to it. But but it's weird because when you get when you talk about like the immigrant thing, like Vivek

was obviously there's a racial thing though there as well. And so it's like it's a weird conflation of these two stories. Well, I mean, do we know what did they have? What did they have experience to? That's a great question. What kind of what kind of money did they bring to the country is what I want to know. I I saw like a video going around. All right. Yeah, he's from Ohio.

I saw a video of him going around from his like high school valedictorian speech the other day. He's just like, all right, I know we can talk about Vivek in a minute. Can I want to talk? Yeah, we should talk about it. But I think like in terms of being an outsider, like I feel like I was an out. Right. Maybe so I am treated as such when it's convenient. But like I was an outsider to like the liberal coastal elite. And then I integrated into the liberal coastal elite, but I actually, you know, there is a way that like, your experiences growing up in this, in this sort of sequestered, like isolated community and also just growing up like working class or poor

are not like quote unquote valid or validated by the politics of the liberal elite, right? Whereas, you know, in the last eight years, if Vivek were, if you're an immigrant and you were liberal, you can sort of cash in on that story. But conversely, of course, Daily Vance cashed in on his outsider story,

like, tentful, like much more than if you're writing a blog post about how, like, oh, you know, my parents immigrated here and I still can't fit in, like, you know, whatever. So it's like, I don't know. Also, I do find sometimes that you can kind of shut a conversation down when people are like, blah, blah, blah about fucking class politics or whatever, like saying dumb shit and their parents are lawyers.

And you're like, yeah, well, my mom's bankrupt for medical bills. And she lives fucking like fuck West Virginia. And they're like, oh, sorry, sorry. You know what I mean? Right. Like you can just kind of you do have kind of actually more authenticity, quote unquote, than, you know, someone from New York, like, who's, who's, whatever. So, I don't really know if it's like the most fruitful comparison to make, like, if it's worth it, if it's if it's worth it, but they they do have a sort of unlikely animal friendship, those two, those two guys. Ohio is what it is. Yeah, it's Ohio. No, it's high. It's being

high achieving in from Ohio. It's like you bond you bond, like, because everyone you're like, well, we're not from California Are we we know what we know what it's really like don't we? Yes Yeah, well, okay, so I want to go back though so you mentioned the assassination attempt like it's it's this weird thing and I had this unsettling thought yesterday, but You know in our perfectly Algorithmically curated liberal media world the assassination attempt was like a blip

It just came and it went and everybody laughed about like ha ha but like reading your piece I was like, oh wait for millions of people. It was not a blip, actually. It resonated deeply in like and, you know, and we, you know, as a result of being on social media, I just said my algorithm was concurred to think that that was just a marginal event. My friend Chris said his mother in Nashville cried for three days. He's like the Kennedy assassination to her son. She didn't he didn't die. He didn't even get hurt.

He just got he got gray. Yeah. The funniest part about that, by the way, is Trump's statement at the RNC, which like your piece makes, you know, draws some of these parallels. But like we really are seeing like the Lillo era Trump like his his quote about the groceries Like the stomach being What was the quote Tom it was like the stomach stomach cries out it always does straight from a Dalila little line, but like another like

Copy and pasted Dalila quote is what he said. The ear bleeds more than any other part of the body. Yeah. And then he was like, so at least we learned something. It was so perfectly delivered. He was like, he was like, I was like, Doc, why is my ear still bleeding? And you know what? The doctor said the ear bleeds more than any part of the body. So at least we learned something. Pause. Everyone laughs.

It was the only joke of that whole horrible fucking speech. It was so long. It was an hour and like 42 minutes or something. It was like almost two hours long. His speech was a nightmare. I've seen him lay an egg, you know, on stage. Yes, he kind of puts you to sleep. He usually doesn't do that for all his words. No, it was really it was really everybody. even like the Republican, like the delegates were like texting, they were like looking around, they were like trying to see if it was okay to demonstrate

that they were not, they were not into it. Right. On and on and on and on and on. But yeah, the first 15 minutes he talked about the assassination attempt, but they really didn't want to dwell on it. And it seems like they were totally right not to, because basically what it did was unify the party without them having to do anything because everybody's sort of like rallied around the fact that they were victimized. And if anybody had ever felt victimized by any aspect of sort of liberal society, they could sort of relate to Donald Trump who was, um, you know, almost taking a bullet for them. Well, and that gets that gets it something that I wanted to bring up, because the I think that one

of the themes you're working at in this is that like there is an identity crisis at the foundation of the modern GOP. It doesn't look like it because they currently hold all the branches of government and they are Fucking whatever but like the assassination attempt. You're right did Provide them this very easy path to just because that was the theme I remember Trump saying that the theme what this at the RNC will be unity and it provided a very easy way for them to Kind of come together over this very like tenuous and almost febrile position. And it just makes me wonder like as we're going into Trump second you know administration how that will play out because I agree with you 100 percent. I think that like obviously I think both parties are in a deep structural crisis where they don't

Really have a clear idea of what their identity is But it doesn't quite look like it right now because the Republicans are flying high But I think that some of these cabinet picks, you know kind of might Demonstrate that there might be an identity crisis at the basis of this. Well, I think that the thing about the cabinet, it's like it's a star-studded cast, right? And it's similar to the JD Vance thing, which is that they picked him because he's already famous, right? So it's weird that I would know all of the names of the people in the presidential cabinet. Right. Like when they're like when they're being nominated, right?

Like that's not an usual thing. We shouldn't know all those people. It's like love they're being nominated, right? Like that's not an usual We shouldn't know all those people it's like love actually you're right. It's like john john You're right. Just said who's who like what? Yeah, but I think basically If I mean for the last like four, you know since the 2020 election People have sort of said like, you know, what does Trumpism look like after Trump, Tom Meany wrote an amazing story for Harper's a few years ago called like Trumpism after Trump or something, and he went to one of their weird conferences they have, and it was sort of trying

to figure out like, you know, following this kind of like new right split, right, which is like, all these kind of internet, inflected maniacs, like snake people that JD Vance sort of like became quite enamored of, or they became enamored of JD Vance and they sort of saw the potential of JD Vance because he is a household name and in the kind of people that you want to vote for you, which is to say like moms who buy their book, one book a year at Walmart or whatever. Right. Like that is like all those people know who JD Vance is and those are probably a lot of them swing state voters

or like non-voters or whatever. So like, I think that voters or whatever. So, like, I think that the identity crisis is like you have all these older, older, more traditional Republicans, they care about abortion, they're evangelicals, they do, you know, they're sort of like what we we used to think of as the kind of evil, like conservative Republican Party. And there's this younger wing that's coming in, and they are like chaos agents in many ways,

and it's quite hard to pin down their ideology in the same way, and it's kind of shocking if you have worked in the media for the last 10 years or 15 years, that like all of a sudden it feels like they don't really care about abortion anymore. Like they really just don't care about it. They sort of just drop it. And they also have this kind of like weird populists, like they've taken a lot of rhetoric from the Democrats actually, and kind of like twisted a little bit. But they have come up

with like a completely different platform. And the older people of the party are mad about that. You talk to them, you talk to these old, it was like mostly older guys and older women who would kind of be like, you know, distraught. They would just be like, I don't, you know, I just don't know where the party's going. It's not the party that I grew up with. Like da da da da da. And then you would also sort of talk to people who had just like become recent Trump converts. They were like, I didn't like him in 2016. I didn't vote for him in 2016. I don't like this, but now I'm sort of getting with the program. But I think increasingly that this is kind of actually a sign of, of their success, which is that they will let you be a Republican in the party,

and like the leadership, if you have a wide range of views, right? And they're sort of like, you know, you would talk to Republicans a lot of time, and then they're sort of like, well, I understand why you would think that, which is a crazy thing to say, because you would never talk to Republicans a lot of time and then they're sort of like, well, I understand why you would think that, which is a crazy thing to say, because it would never talk to a Democrat who would say, I understand why you think that. Yeah. They would say it would be like pulling teeth where they would be like, I learned from the therapist that I have to understand why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they're they're talking about tariffs.

I mean, it's like just how fast we've moved in from like libertarian to the to to now talking about tariffs in twenty twenty four. I mean, it's a very fascinating thing. And on the cultural front, I just want to say that, like, there is I think what you're kind of working towards here. And I think we've pointed this out on the show before. But like if there is a cultural divide, like I kind of see it between like the old Yale type who loved to read the cities and Aristotle and Plato and the new right to JD Vance did go to Yale and these guys are pretty well educated but mostly it's embodied in like the Greek statue

avatar people on Twitter you know what I mean it's like this the class meditations by Marcus right right you've got a degradation of the classics and how they're interpreted. But Mars with like sort of like, you know, optimization, like podcasts like Tim Ferriss World. Yes. And like, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Stitch and all that kind of stuff. They like that you can like quote it basically like they want like a little Marcus Aurelius

tweet. That's their in-roach. But kind of. Yeah. But also kind of like written in like bullet point form so that you can like easily digest it. I don't have the attention span to read. I mean, Marcus Aurelius is tweets anyway, but like, you know what I mean? Like they love a summary that is sort of indicating like deep intellectual engagement that like you don't understand, but it's like a 600 word summary of it. Exactly. Yeah, I just, I mean, I don't think that I think I think it's sort of a fool's errand to try and like articulate a coherent philosophy that's coming out of those guys at this point and the Republican Party in

general. But I do think they're de-emphasizing Trump, and they are emphasizing many different new figures, some of whom will rise to the top. And the Democrats have been hugely unsuccessful at doing that. And the very few successful figures that they have, they have squandered even Pete Buttigieg who's so popular in 2020 and is so articulate and quite quite left wing compared to like some of the other people. They just like squandered him until it's like the like last month or whatever. And he's like, I actually have to go on TV and like, be really smart and likable because you know, one is like AOC, what happened to her? Like she sucks. Like, you know, you know, it's just right. The Republicans, the Republicans are kind of like, we will let you know, we will let you run free, like do your thing. We're not going to like rein you in. But the Democratic Party

thing, we're not going to like rein you in, but the Democratic Party loves nothing more than to constrict its talent. So I just don't really see how they're going to like, put up a fight against this, because there is no ideological coherence for them to fight against, not that that works anyway, if that makes sense. I wonder if it's going to be a situation like 2012 when you had like the ascendance of the Tea Party and then that just kind of got absorbed into the larger GOP and then like, you know, they just sort of like whip the rampals of the world in line and you know, he could still enjoy his like maverick status because he'll say something, but ultimately he's just going to vote with the rest of them. Is it going to be like something like that where all these sort of, you know, internet red scare figures are just going

to kind of get absorbed into the, you know, absorbed into the party and like, yeah, sure. Like they can say like, we believe in this and that we need monarchy. Ultimately, they're just going to like vote with like the Mitch McConnell's and whoever. But in 2012, they lost. Yeah, yeah. This time they won. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, total. And they have like a sort of strong arm. Like he's like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get my people into the positions that I want them in

so that they can destroy the government from the inside. Well, so. On that note, I wanna talk about some of these new cabinet picks. All right. I've written them down along with some choice quotes from Mr. Trump himself. OK, so like right out the gate, we were just talking about Vivek and another new Trump convert Elon Musk there is talk that Trump is going to create a new department called the Department of Government Efficiency and You know you had pointed out in your piece Lauren

another part of your piece I was fucking laughing my ass about ass off about was the Peter Navarro thing about like He was like a former director of like a national trade council, but then it was like a national trade and manufacturing policy get like the Trump people love to create these new Bureaucracies despite all their talk about you know cutting more government But apparently they're going to create a new department called the Department of Government Efficiency and Vivek or Doge or Doge. It's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing.

It's like your divorced stepdad is like like like does computer shit in the basement all night every night is like made in charge of the government. It's like so horrible. No I guess the whole point about this I have a friend that works at HUD and he was like he was talking to me about the Vivec thing about Vivek's plan for reducing the size of government. Day one, anybody in the federal bureaucracy who's not elected, whose social security number

ends in an odd number, you're out. Day two, of those who remain, if your social security starts with an even number, you're in, if it starts with an odd number, you're out. That's a 75% reduction. He was like, dude, if I get fired, because if I get laid off just for this, this is the stupidest fucking purge. Oh, Vivek? laid off just for this, this is stupid. It's fucking purge

Oh Vivek, that's actual thing. He was a thing. Yeah, that's the thing he wants to do. I thought the guys were joking I thought the boys were joking around That's a Vivek policy. That's what he wants to do. That's how he made his billion dollars Yeah, no Yeah, no, and and and there's another thing here about the Department of Government Efficiency doge I just telling Tom this morning. I should have fucking known Trump would win not that I was surprised by it by any means I didn't know how it was gonna shake out, but I should have known he was gonna win when taking into account that

Trump will oversee the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 2026. And the Department of Government Efficiency, according to Trump, will work no, will end no later than July 4th, 2026. A smaller government with more efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Are you excited for the World's Fair as well? I am.

I'm so excited. Where are they having it? Is it in Hurricane? I think if they want, I read an article about it and I feel like there were people fighting for it and Iowa was saying they really wanted to have it and they already pitched it basically. Give it to Iowa. Give it to them. They're still doing the World's Fair like is it still? No he wants to bring it back. Oh he wants to bring it back so this would be like

like the yeah the reboot okay. It was in Knoxville one time right? It was in Chicago I think. I think in the bicentennial, I think it was in Knoxville in 1976, maybe. He wants to bring it back. Like this, he wants the celebration to last from from May of next year until the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in twenty twenty six. I mean, it's like, of course, of course Trump was going to be in office during the 250th anniversary of the Declari- of course! There was no other ending.

Did you read this New York Times article today about how they can make it so that Matt Gaetz does get to be attorney general for at least some period of time by using the Senate recess, confirmation clause of the Constitution, which was, which was established because in the 1700s and 1800s, you could only travel by horse. So you couldn't often meet the Senate like the Congress couldn't meet. So you couldn't often meet the Senate like the Congress couldn't meet. So you would have to have a provision for the put to allow the president to bypass Senate confirmation of certain things because they would be in recess because they would have

to travel by horse. And that still exists. Okay. Which is how Trump is going to be able to confirm some of his picks because because it's too fucking fun. Yeah, I just I supported it. So positions in it. Yeah, someone who supports banning cars and bringing back horse drawn carriage travel, we need to leave that in the Constitution at least. I think they should just do away with email. I agree. I also agree.

I agree with that, too I'll call him on the phone. Yeah, if you're gonna be a letter. Yeah, if you're gonna be an originalist be about that live That's funny. That's really funny Lauren. That will probably wind up being the case So that that that actually brings me to the Matt Gaetz thing Matt Gaetz has been proposed as Attorney General Um Matt Gaetz has been proposed as attorney general This was in the politico He's never worked as a prosecutor his primary interaction with the Justice Department has been as a suspect under investigation for sex crimes He abruptly resigned from the house

Identity politics he has lived experience That's true He he was passed over or I'm sorry there were other people passed over for this who I think we're gonna be pissed off and Ken Paxton was one of them who was like Texas's attorney general that guy is like a Full-blown fascist. So if it's coming down between the two, I think I'd rather have back gate. I take my chances with the sex crime. What about that guy? There was like a crazy guy. What was his name? His I just keep thinking his name was. I saw I eavesdropped on him at the RNC, but I can't look at my notes because they're on

my cell phone, which is recording my audio. But there was like another kind of evil guy who was who was being talked about as the the possible pick for attorney general and he was like going on podcasts all the time, saying that it was going to be like the Nuremberg trials for the the democrats who had had imprisoned all these people abandoned and stuff maybe not Nuremberg trials for the Democrats who had imprisoned all of these people, abandoned and stuff, maybe not Nuremberg trials, maybe something else. He was using some extreme historical metaphor on the podcast, threatening, no, sending people to the gulag, I think. He was sending them to the gulag, yeah, yeah, not so extreme, but he was going to send all

the liberals to the gulag who had put Steve so extra. But he was going to send all the liberals to the gulag who had made you know, had put Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro had been the cause of this. And he was very open about it. So I think like, when they said Matt Gaetz, I was like, oh, like the cookie choice, instead of instead of this guy, whose name I can't even remember. So what they do want like the thing about it is they just talked up so much at the RNC how they were going to get revenge on the people, the people who prosecuted January 6th. So I just don't really know how that Fits into this cabinet per se The Matt Gaetz pick you mean yeah, well, it's going back to what we were saying earlier. It's like a name recognition thing It's like they're trying to assemble like the Miami Heat in like 2000 and fucking tin or whatever

You know what I mean? It's like will it work? It's almost too many it's like almost like a too many cooks in the kitchen type deal They also they all want to be the star right like right Christina. I'm like won't shut up like Tulsa Gabbard It's like incredibly beautiful. So like it's just It's just like they all sort of like want to be in They want to be the one and they like so I don't really know How the one most famous for having shot a dog That puppy I think it was not a dog. I think it was a baby. I yeah, I actually read about this recently so

Kristi Noem is famous. So see that's another big thing. She was She's being talked about as the Department of Homeland Security person Which will oversee like FEMA and all bunch of a bunch of other stuff. I don't know why FEMA is in the Homeland Security, but like because of the threat from the outside. Right. The weather. Yeah. God. Yeah.

All weather comes. The ultimate threat. Yeah. See. Yes. Shot a dog. And then she also. What was the story behind that? I think she just didn't like it. I think he had bad behavior.

He had bad behavior. She didn't like it. She just shot him. I think it was like, I actually, like, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to expose my friends, but around the time that story came out, I had some friends who had to put down a very bad, badly behaved dog, like a street dog. And it was very traumatic. Did they write an essay about this in the cut?

No, they did not. And you know, I am a little bit more sympathetic to Christina on that front because I saw them go through this experience. It was a really bad dog and the vets were all like, yes, sometimes they're just really bad. They were like, sometimes they're just really bad. Yeah. You could, they were like, you could put it on, I think they said 70 to a hundred grams of Prozac every day. Like a normal human dose of Prozac is like 30 or something. Like it was like they were like, you can do that. And they were like, no, that's crazy. I think Kristi Noem seemed to delight in the fact that she kept this thing.

That's what they all but they're all trolls. They're just classic. Like I like they're provocateurs. Like she's like, I know you're mad. I mean, Mac Gates has all these wonderful quotes or he's like, get mad. I don't care. Like, and they really don't care. They really, I mean, they do care. They love it. It's like almost erotic seeming for them.

That's true. Another thing that I know Christy Note from is when she was being bandied about as a potential VP pick for Trump, she landed in hot water because she, I think she met with Kim Jong-un like off the books or something, which is like apparently not OK. You can't just meet with a foreign

leader without like clearing it with somebody. I don't know how to find out if you have a friendship. I mean, you know, does Dennis Rodman go through the proper channels and he goes over there? I mean, friendship doesn't have to be mediated by the government. That's so true, Tom. You're so right. Love is love. Love is love. Yeah. I she gave a speech at the RNC, Christie. Oh, really? And it focused on she's the governor of South Dakota. It focused on the fact that and this is another big thing for them that South Dakota is maybe like one of the only or the only state in the union that's population is growing.

Interesting that statistic might be apocryphal, but in general, I would suspect like it's generally right, even if it's like literally not the only one or something. But she was like, it's our population is growing in South Dakota. You want to know why people want to live here? Because, you, pro-natalism, blah, blah, blah, blah. Interesting. I was just there. A lot of corn. I I I fucked with that. I like do you want to move there? I kind of want to move there. Yeah. That's the sale, though, this pro-natalism.

Like they well, they were they basically like the sort of like threat of a population decline and shortage is a big talking point for them as well. And like like Vivek wrote some article that was, that was called a baby shortage threatens America's future or something like this. And then he's a short, the baby. Yeah. But they, but basically like the issue, as many developed nations are experiencing, is that the population is aging, people are not reproducing for a variety of reasons.

And the only way to sort of maintain the workforce that you need to, among other things, care for the aging population, but also like, you know, bring me my like treats when I want them and all that kind of stuff is immigration. But of course, there's nothing like nothing like Republicans ain't more than immigration. So they're in a situation where they're like everybody needs to be reproducing now. So we have the trad, we have the trad wife like SIOP, which has infiltrated like the left, like very successfully. And like all of this kind of, you know, the Republicans, they've always been tried live. So that's kind of fine. And this also kind of is represented by like a lot of the like concern for children that everybody feels,

which is like, you know, the children are being are being exposed to whatever gender ideology in the schools. And like, you know, they're they're teeth. We don't have control over what they're being taught. So they want to abolish the Department of Education because the Department of Education is like ruining our children's lives. You know, all this kind of stuff. So she was kind of like, you know, our population is growing, people are having kids. I don't know the extent to which that is true.

But she was, you know, it was like a selling point and there was a lot of like pernatalism and stuff. They of course Despite the fact that they don't care about abortion anymore. Like they're not really concerned about the unborn baby as they used to be Single South Dakota people be fucking I guess people be having kids how many people are in the first place I guess people be having kids. How many people are in the first place? Is it one of those places like Wyoming where there's like like less than a half million people or something like that? Yeah, Wyoming has what, like 700000 people or something? Yeah, South Dakota is pretty it was pretty sparsely populated.

But once again, they had a lot of corn. But there's like an issue. I don't think think they do you think it's the same as Montana like Montana has a gentrification problem So they definitely weren't having that problem The big cities in Montana like you can't afford to buy a house and stuff. It's like the number one program on television, you know That's interesting. I. Yeah. So like the Kristi Noem thing was also kind of paired with the. That Tom Hogan guy, I think that was his name, who's now

announced to lead like ice, like that guy's a straight up Nazi. Like there's just no ifs, ifs, ifs or buts about it. But but he was actually appointed by Obama back in like 2014 or something so fun little Exercise and how both parties collaborate on the same thing. There was another Let's see. We've also got Tulsi Gabbard at CIA

The article I read said one Western official said I imagine even Israel will have serious qualms on how much info they will want to share with Washington under Tulsi Gabbard. And it's like, well, that might not be a bad thing. So I don't know that much about her, but I know she sweat. She just declared that she was a Republican like this year. Right. It was like, yeah. Yeah, but she is kind of weird. She was a critical of the military when she was far left. She's in the military, right?

Like it was like she really was kind of far left. A horseshoe theory figure, if I recall from 2020, 2020, 2020 or something. Yeah, she was pro Putin. She was, she I can't, I just can't remember. All I and and now like this, I just saw that video of her being like Putin, Ukraine and Russia need more of the Alo'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm't understand how they're going to do it if she's like, what are they like? Aloha. Like, I can't I can't I can't. Right. I'm on the beach right now. I'm surfing like all of the various parts of the government will be working against each other because you'll have Tulsi doing Aloha Time, Aloha Spirit,

Island Time and then Vivek and Elon, you know, trying to recapture the glory of your 11th grade Book report type deal and you know, it's just it might be working against each other for sure I think JD Vance is like so confused. I think he just goes with who it like He just like if somebody likes him, he just goes with it for a while And what's gonna happen if they stop liking him? I mean, I have also wondered what's he going to do when they played with that for a while. Like when Trump was a little uncertain about the results, he was like they were saying,

well, JD Vance is saying this. He goes, oh, me and JD don't talk. He's like, oh, he's getting some stuff from JD a little bit. Kind of like friendship is fake. Friends Oh, he's a little bit. He was like friendship. It is fake friendship. He's like he's kissing my ass like he cares. It doesn't matter what the vice president thinks. I've ever really cares about that for a week. I feel like JD Vance is like, I don't quite understand his.

I understand his motivation, but it seems like a bit. Short sighted. He's just a good boy. He likes getting his little gold stars and pats on the head. And I think that, like, that's why Don Jr. likes him so much, because he's he's there like intellectual in the party, right? He's the one that's like, oh, I can, you know, direct you towards the

the right books and He's their bibliography basically It wasn't like part of their like dossier on him like one of the things that they had raised a red flag about is That he had he'd voted like kind of left like too often Did you see this like he? Know in the Senate like he was like it voted with like I in this year. No, in the Senate, like he was like it voted with like. I don't know what it was, but like I want to say like he was even maybe to the left of AOC on like a lot of things.

And is you know, like rhetorically, he was like in his youth and say, Mexicans vote for me or whatever, you know, in his campaign. But like when it came to voting, like one of the things that they were concerned about when they vetted him was that like he was a little too cavalier with his like all the lines. So you say, Jesse, you say, Jesse, maybe he's that you see just like he was a little too cavalier with his like all right. So you say, Jesse, Jesse, maybe he's that you see, just maybe he's a spy.

I don't think it's a subversive fifth column. He's our man on the inside bankrolling the trailbillies actually goes all the way to the top. He sent me a message one time in 2017 after somebody had said that we had eviscerated him on the show and he said I Don't know if you eviscerated me, but next time I'm in Weisberg drinks on me or something like that. It's like Like with the likable shit Really wants to be liked I

Yeah, the the okay. There's another wild card The the okay, there's another wild card Okay, this one is a total wild wild card. I would like to see Trump do some true wild card shit I would I think it would be tied if he put like college shake Muhammad at like Department of Interior He's like we're bringing him out of Guantanamo folks like he's People say he's a nasty man. He did some bad things, but he's got some good ideas He did some bad things, but he's got some good ideas. It's like a welfare to work program very unfair They should do that we're gonna do with some folks. We can't just let them rot in jail Yeah, put him to work, but the um the one that's really got

Everybody freaked the fuck out. I think genuinely more than anyone and this is the one that I support the most Paradoxically is the Fox News had to Crusader tattoo guy Pete Hegseth. That's his name Hegseth. He's a that I Read a political article about him that said he's never run an organization Larger than a small nonprofit. It's like, wait, hey, wait a second. I've worked at a few small nonprofits and I can confirm they're kind of like the Pentagon. So he's got a little bit of experience there. And they're not easy to run.

I think they're hard to run. And if you were in AmeriCorps, you know, you did take an oath to defend America against enemies both foreign and domestic, the same as as the military and I'm serious about that Oh, that is so true. Um He you're excited about him. Why are you excited? I'm excited about him because The entire military apparatus is freaked the fuck out about it and they think that he's gonna start cutting down the Pentagon You know basically taking the Vivec thing to the Pentagon which we know will never ever happen if anything this this country is pot committed to giving

all of its money to the fucking military industrial complex but um i mean you know as far as like the empire goes having that guy run the the you know everyday day to day military operations I mean that could we could be you know the Iranians we could be giving them a hand in a way you know what I'm saying. Traction situation. Yeah I wonder though if actually the Republicans are that obsessed with the military I wonder if that's actually like an old Republican thing that actually they're not obsessed with anymore.

This this younger, new generation, this coalition generation, like they don't. Can't like they they want to end the foreign wars, right? Like that is what they want to do. And they don't say. You know, like Kamala Harris could have said, I want to end the war in the Middle East. Like, you don't need to say how you're going to do that. But she wouldn't say that.

She said she wanted the most lethal fighting force. I know Trump said I want to end foreign wars. I want to end the war in Ukraine. I want to end the war in Gaza. Didn't call it that. But let's say we know whatever. Like, we know how he wants that to go. But he doesn't he doesn't say that he just says I want to end the war and so the messaging is like actually kind of

You know Anti-imperialist Listen to this Lauren the The Trump team is looking at an executive order to create a quote unquote warrior board of retired military officers to review the generals and admirals. So that could be pretty tight. A warrior board? And they're just like questioning.

It's just the department of military efficiency and they're like, you're not good enough. Like you're not good enough. Like you're not good enough. And then there's like no generals left. Or it's holograms of history's great warriors like Genghis Khan is there, you know, all these characters. Sun Tzu. Yeah, Sun Tzu.

All the yeah, all the famous. Ulysses S. Grant and then they have like a side by side with JD Vance, and it's actually just JD Vance, and it's a big trick. It's Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, fuck.

It's the beard, man. Yeah. I think what they should do is this. I think they should need to scrap Heggs, whatever the guy, the Fox News guy. And I think JD Vance needs to be like Pete Rose when they sent him back to the Reds. And he was both the coach and a player. I think he needs to be the vice president and the head of the Department of Defense,

like a college football team. Like, you know, I'm the defensive coordinator, but I'm also the quarterbacks coach. You know, right. Yes. Right. You know, and as a former Marine, as he likes to tout, you know. Yeah. I think that when he has has the reckless and experienced that would be good You know yeah, I'm with you on that sense. I think that like he the peg Seth guy He is the one of all of these that I think has the least He's the least possibility of getting actually appointed because like the military

In this country is like the last institution that has any actual vested interests in this shit and I think that yes and that's why I think that like if these guys get too out of hand it there you might even have a possibility of the military well I know we've joked about it for years but I'm still holding out hope for a classic military junta I just want to hoonta in America. I want like a six general American style. Yeah, I want six generals like running the country.

You know what I'm saying? Like that, we might get that. They might be like, well, no, unfortunately, in 1776, most people traveled by horse. And so there was a couple of there was some necessary pauses that had to allow the president to appoint unconfirmed certain nominees. So I don't know if that's going to happen. What if these guys just made such a mess in two months before like the actual confirmations came down the line or whatever it's going to be?

You never know. I yeah, who knows? I mean, you could have them all warring with each other. Is the CIA this a dumb question? Is the CIA within the Department of Defense? So like, could Hegseth be like, actually, we're cutting the CIA and then Tulsi gets pissed off and then she, you know what I'm saying? Like, is that a possibility? How did that's that's kind of an interesting question. It's a bureaucrat an interesting

bureaucratic question. I have no idea. I don't think it is. I would I would assume not. Or not. But I assume that they're working closely together. They're circling back a lot. They are. Yes. D&I and DOD. I'm sure there's plenty of overlap but. a lot. They are. Do they have to there's plenty of overlap, but 100 percent. Well, that's pretty much all we've got so far, unless I missed any. I mean, there's talk that Marco Rubio will be the secretary of state.

And I guess this Michael Waltz guys, the net national secretary or national security advisor. There's a literary tie in. Oh, is there a literary tie-in oh Is there the literary tie-in is that that guy his name is like Sergio? Gurr which I guess is Hungarian not like Sergio is not hearing but gar sounds like kind of it's it's like a Turkic Hungarian sort of sounding last name yeah, or gore maybe but I would pronounce it with a sort of European story accent, at least. Anyway, he is was the head of the publishing

imprint or outfit that published like a bunch of Trump's books. And he is going to be the head of the Office of Personnel. Oh, yes. We have a book publisher in the government now. We have a publisher in the White House. They're like, you need 30 space pages of white space in the front of your novels. If you're going to try to get them. We love a fragment, a lyrical fragment.

Obama Obama is going to put it on his list this year. What it'll be is they won't confirm Tulsi Gbert and trump will push through james patterson for another No, no, no, he's in with boclan Oh, that's true. Oh, they would never I think they've written more. I think they've done multiple damn Yeah Just breaking down what about the president getting kidnapped?

Damn man It's breaking down. What about the president getting kidnapped? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Damn, man. That's great. I like that. I like that. I hope they're, you know, expanding the net as wide as possible. That's very promising. I like to hear that we've got some publishing heft in government now. And who's going to be the press secretary?

That's going to be fun. And and and and and coms and and does and and and and will they be people who have podcasts? Who's going to be the first podcaster with direct access to power? It's got to be now. Now is the time. Yeah, we have to say that. No, you're so right.

Like maybe JD will reach across the out. Maybe he'll be like he really wants us to like him. Maybe he'll ask if we want to work in the press, you know, like, you know, the podcast for the podcast. I'd take I would I would give anything to be Trump's press secretary. It would be so fucking fun. Oh my god. Yeah, that's such a good point, Lauren. Maybe we'll have Rogan in the cabinet at some point like.

Oh, but what's the other? There's like there's like in like there's one podcast that's insane. Oh, the war Room. Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon has a podcast. There's Kill Tony too. Yeah. And there's also what's Michael Knowles. He does. It's not Bright Bar. And it's a Daily Wire, but all they have tons of podcasts, Binge Pyro. But I think the best bet is Steve Bannon himself, because he was over the summer when he went to jail He had to have his daughter take over the podcast Came out of jail and now he's back I had no idea

Yeah, where the Steve Bannon heads like this is a dark era in this podcast history, you know to me No, Maureen Bannon is her name and she it was like a group. It was like it was like a hoot of sorts of people in charge of the war room podcast for Steve Bannon and Maureen Maureen, who looks just like him. Who is in charge? And I was listening to it for the piece and I was just like, who is this woman? She's not very good at podcasting. And then I realized what was listening to it for the piece and I was just like who is this woman? She's not very good at podcasting and then I realized what was going on and she was just filling it and I believe now He's back though. I will confess now that my duties are over. I have not listened to the war room

Weeks Yeah, she was in the military and you are right. She does look a lot like just like sweaty or just yes. Yes, she's got like a big face. Yeah. Yeah, I'm against I'm against making fun of people's appearance, though, as I'm against classes of me and against our enemies. So I shouldn't say that, but it is striking like I saw her at the RNC and I was like, that's stupid. It's not her. Obviously. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Now, you're right. Let's get some podcasters in there.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, there we we do know one thing from the first administration is that they burned through personnel like the the lat, you know, the average expectancy of somebody is like three months so you know but maybe that's why they're picking all these celebs because they will not go quietly and they won't go away and they maybe they're sort of doing instead of the sort of like sycophants like Sean Spicer and like Scaramucci, who was like a wild card, but nobody knew who he was. It's like, you know, Matt Gaetz is Matt Gaetz is not going to just stop doing that. That's true. Because he gets fired. Yeah. To drag him out, kick him and scream. Who was the attorney general in Trump's first?

It was the guy from Alabama right the um He was like an old school like for you know just classic racist strong Thurman type guy You know I can't remember I think I think yeah, I think Trump turned on him as well but I think the point is is like I think you pointed this out earlier Lauren like they It seems like in the first administration They were trying to do a little bit of a like a grab bag a hybrid of like old neo cons a few new right figures but you know this time they're they're definitely going for broke and so it's just really funny that the same office Eric Holder you know West Wing you know whatever held will now be held by Matt Gates

for at least a week or two before the horses arrive at, you know, DC and tell them that where where do we think that Elon and Vivek are going to be like? Physically, are they dialing in? Are they dialing in from Silicon Valley or what are they doing? Like do they have an odd like do they wouldn't be would have a sort of like Parks and Rec situation with them Yeah, what's going on? That kind of fun? Yeah. Yeah Like a satellite office Where they have like a White House

You know satellite office in Silicon Valley like on Mad Men. They had to open up like an L.A. office. It's the same. Yes. Yes. Many questions to be answered. That's coming weeks in the coming weeks. That is so true. Well, that's probably a good place to call it. I want to encourage all of our listeners. Please go read Lauren's piece in Harper's it is highly entertaining and As I said very funny, but if people want to find you elsewhere Lauren Where can they find you and what would they be looking for? well

Evidence evidence of my my bad politics. I'm sure or evidence that I only use with the PDF resourcing or something. I am still on Twitter, which is Lauren Euler, and I'm on Instagram with a pun name, which is Law and Euler, as in Law and Order. My last name instead of order. And unfortunately, well, I let my website domain name lapse. And now laurenorler.com is a Malaysian gambling website. So if you want to find me, you're going to have to find me on social media or buy my books. My novel begins with the first Trump election. So and sometimes I find little pieces of relevance

in there even still. We're back. If you guys want to buy it. I highly recommend everyone go buy that as well. Yeah, we'll have to do it again sometime when the Trump when we have Trump third term, which will be coming. We could do we could we could come we could come at you live from the World's Fair. Yeah.

Hell yeah. We got I really hope that happens. Did you? Yeah. Trump is such a nostalgic guy. Like he fucking loves that shit. That is such a Trump thing. Like we need to bring back the world's We gotta bring back the Monopoly game at McDonald's

The boys toys the girls toys yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm sorry Jesus Christ Alright, well, thanks everybody for listening if you would like to go support us Please go to patreon link is in the show notes And you've got let me say to tears fruit. Oh you Tom has an announcement to make yeah, please If you ordered a t-shirt and you haven't received it yet, you will receive it will ship out by the end of this month Please please please quit besmirching my name on the internet Please, please quit besmirching my name on the internet. I saw I was texting my phone if you don't know me and all this stuff.

I love you all. But are they hitting up Lauren? They're eating up. They don't know today, but I was researching podcasts in order to do my due diligence and I was on the subreddit and they were really complaining about the t-shirt scandal. I just want to say, and I was like, what do you guys, I was like, what am I walking into? I didn't, I didn't, I'm like, this is not my principles. People pay for something. You got to send it to them. Right, right, right there.

Consumer affairs. Please allow six to eight weeks from the end of the pre-sale. Better business bureau is coming for this. Please don't, yeah, don't, don't, uh, drag down my BBB ranking any further than it already is. My creditors are already looking at what's coming after me. We we we are children. We don't know how to run a business. I would just not be able to do that. I'm well, this is the last time I'm doing it.

So if you didn't get a shirt, I'm sorry. We're closed for business. Only selling immaterial things from now. What it definitely brings out like the way people feel about you. It's like, wow, people really fucking hate it. They're just waiting for you to make one wrong move. If you would rather have a refund, I'll do that too. Let me just say that too.

We're praying on our downfall. Look, if it says six to eight weeks for shipping and it hasn't been six to eight weeks, then do not offer those fucking in grades a refund. If it says it, they should learn to read it. Thanks Lauren. Literacy is a huge problem in this country. It is. And you guys are contributing to it with a podcast.

That's true. Lauren Oil, our new HR person here. So that's right. Thanks. Thanks so much for making that announcement. I was going to remind you. But yes, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren, for your for your help about beating back the the Horry masses and for your excellent writing please everybody go check that out and yeah we'll see you on

the patreon in a few days adios You