Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 411: Awakening The Warrior Spirit

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Catching up on the latest news after a brief hiatus: Charlie Kirk memorial and everything therein; Kamala's new book about the 2024 election; and debating whether or not democracy really can survive Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

I haven't done this in a minute you remember how to play. I'm a little rusty for sure I've not talking about the yips I might have the yips a little bit we've not talked to like there's so much to cover so much has happened that like um like dude

I had surgery last Monday and I shit you none the last thing I saw before I went under was this clip of Eric Trump saying I just ran into a Jamaican man outside, and he said, I am Charlie Kirk. He said, it was like, did he do a Jamaican accent?

He's called it broken English. Everything going to be iry. I'm Charlie Kirk. I get, I, I, um, they had already given me the like, chill out drugs. And so I was already kind of a little loopy. And so in my mind, I was like, is he saying? You were also doing a Jamaican patois. Yeah.

What if you woke up over speaking Jamaican patois? Yeah. I was like, is he implying that the Jamaican man was saying that he was the reincarnated Charlie Kirk? Like, Charlie Kirk's spirit inhabited his party? Like the guy who pretends to me, like, what is it? Is it JFK son or something like that? That'd be at the Trump rallies? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Or is it more of an I am Spartacus situation, except for a guy that said that he couldn't eat with his hands because he scratched his ass too much. And that was the least defensive thing he said. Wait, that's what Charlie Kirk said that? He tweeted it out one day. I have to say, though, as the son of Jamaican immigrants. I love that.

I love that Eric Trump just picked a Jamaican. You could have picked any nationality. But I like it because Jamaicans are, not notorious, I guess, are famously known for being the happiest people on Earth, you know, so. Oh, yeah. Wait. What happened to you, though? I know.

Are you the only... You fell through the cracks. I'm the only depression, Jamaica. The only depression you make it. Everything not going to be, Irie. Everything's not already. Every little thing, going to be real bad. You should do that.

You should just be like the counterpoint of Bob Marley, become a reggae artist, but you just sing about everything being awful. That's a really good bit. What's that word, an adedonic? Anadonic, Bob Marley? Anhedonic. Anhedonic.

Smoking weed only makes him more so. Did Charlie Kirk say that? Because he, you remember when there was that scandal about Zara and Mom Dani eating with his hands or whatever? It was like racism, obviously. But people were saying like, you know, we eat with forks here in America which we obviously don't

but like did Charlie did Charlie Kirk say that because did Charlie Kirk say he can't eat with his hands because he scratches his ass too much? Is that where that came from or is that one of his old tweets from like 2012? I think it was I think it was like a 2014

joint. You know before he had reached a critical mass of racism but maybe you know well he was still kind of shit posted Yeah, I just, I mean, a lot to cover, lots of catch up on on the Charlie Kirk thing, but yeah, I just, I was like, you know, obviously before going into surgery, like, you're like, well, this could be my last, I might never wake up. And it just, I thought it was appropriate that the last thing I saw was Eric Trump saying, like, I ran into a homeless Jamaica man on the street side and he said he loves Charlie Kirk, he's a great American, I am Charlie Kirk. It's like, that's beautiful.

But yeah, dude, I, um, all right, like, there's a whole bunch of stuff to cover. Like, I, we haven't actually talked about anything going on really substantively in over a week and a half. So like, I, you know, or almost two weeks, I guess. Like, so like, you know, last week was honestly. One of the craziest weeks in, you know, the late empire, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's, it's, uh, well, just since you've, uh, went under the knife, uh, he's been petitioned for sainthood and been nominated to be put on a coin. A coin, dude.

So, uh, things have, wait, is the progress rapidly. Well, Tom, you'd send us an article and is, like, the picture that they used, I'm getting, I'm assuming it's a mock-up, why did they put like a wig on him, you know? They made him look like a 17th century like colonialist or something, you know what I mean? Dead bad, I guess I didn't pay that much attention to it, let me say.

Well, they got him out here looking at. Oh, I think that's, that's, um, I think that's a photo of the young Thomas Jefferson here. Well, that's an easy mistake to make in fairness, though. It is, it is. They have a similar of physiognomy.

Yeah, they should put a powder, wig on old gums like that'd be pretty tight yeah well there will also be maybe some cornrows you know you know how

you know how like it was said that George Washington had wooden teeth and it turns out he actually had dentures made out of slave teeth like they're going to have like similar things about Charlie Kirk's gums you know what I mean I'm not sure what yet

but I'm open the ideas of like some crackpot theories about why he's doing that maybe he's a xenomorph possibly you know he does that thing and then they just kind of protrude a little bit yeah yeah as a general rule if a man's never been able to take a toothy smile picture he shouldn't be embossed on a coin i've got the i have the opposite problem my teeth are too big like i have receding gums you know yeah you have you you look You've got piano team. I'm all team.

I'm all team. Alton Gaginstein. Yeah. You're right, Tom. They're going to come up with some, like, he was so honest. He was so honest, he was chopping a tree when he was a young boy, and it fell on his. Charlie Kirk could never tell a lie. Yeah, it fell on the top of his head and the chin, and it stretched both out so far that, like, his gums got stretched out.

He paid a horrible price for his integrity, also known as horse syndrome. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Don't fade the charlie. Yeah. No, it's big. Wait, go ahead.

Do we, no, I was just going to say, are they, do we, I don't know if we talked about it, but are there any updates on the motivations of the shooter? I just feel like, like, there's still the lionization of Charlie Kirk, but no one's actually talking about the motives of the shooter. You know, like, I feel like you would, I mean, maybe I've missed it, but I feel like people would be pouring over his social media, you know. friends and family would be saying things about it but uh this seems like it got pretty swept under the rug man well the there was the memorial

and as i said on twitter astro world festival for like gerbils you know i'm saying it's like 90 000 people there no honestly what it reminded me of is when they inducted stone cold steve austin in the w w e hall of fame but the pat the pageantry was like a very a straight line across those two things I just I don't know if pyrotechnics had a funeral was the move or not I mean that's a good question

because for me you know I've always said I want my funeral to be depressing as fuck you know I don't want any of that like hokey like let's share fun memories about them like no we're gonna talk about

how much we miss him and how the world will never be the same again everything is awful for you know about the worst moments in his life actually The world's quarter for his absentee. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean... Not the coronation of his wife as, you know, the next grand potentate of the universe. Yeah. Ugh. So it's hard to say, like, I guess one part of me is, like, you know, Pyro Technics at a funeral is pretty dope. But, like, on the other hand, you know, I mean, I saw... Yeah, if you're like Jimmy Superfly Snooka, maybe.

Uh-huh. Not a fucking podcast or internet troll. A lot of, you know. Bootsie Collins or something. Bootsie Collins, yeah, you could pull it off. Yeah, yeah, there's a couple of guys that can pull it off. Charlie's not one of them. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you know, so like we didn't even talk. Yeah, we haven't talked about the memorial. We've not talked about like everything that's happened since roughly September 14th. And I'm still recovering from surgery, by the way, all right? So, like, I, you know, I'm not on the top of my game currently. Your head feels like a shoe with a rock in it still. Yes. Like, you're rocking your shirt.

Exactly. Just little fragments in there just kind of rattling around. Uh-huh. I can't really, like, steer this conversation in the way I normally would be able. That's all, we'll all put you on our shoulders. Um, but, like, I will say this. There was a poll that came out on September. 22nd, Charlie Kirk net favorables. He currently is sitting at plus one percent

to favorably. Wait, so does that mean he became even less popular after he was killed? Pretty much. I mean, generally, like, you would expect, like, even a heinous individual, like, Henry Kissinger probably, like, had his favorability ratings. Seven to 11 percent. Right, right, right, right. Um, but like plus one percent, like here, here it breaks it down here. Um, you know, among the GOP polled obviously plus 69% favorability ratings. Um, of course. Among independence, though, negative 11% and among Democrats, negative 60%. Did they, did they think he did die hard enough? Like, I don't get it. I'm still doing the math there and I'm, I'm not sure how he ended up

in the, in the pink there. Still, for my fuzzy little math, looks like he's still in the red by negative 3%. But I don't know if they give you like a little boot. When you're dead, they can't, by law, put you in the negative. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, you know, they'll be sanctioning, they'll be imprisoning the people that did this poll soon. So, you know what I mean?

Well, I mean, I think this is just a lesson that one should live their life in such a way that you're not polling in the negatives, you know, when you die. I mean. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. It's like, and I said it, I think, on our Patreon episode a few weeks ago, but like, after he was killed, like, the dude has so much online bile that, like, you couldn't, you couldn't sift through it just within a matter of three or four days and find his worst clips. Like, it's like one of those things where, you know, over the course of the next month or so, like the absolute worst clips you can imagine of him are going to. start filtering out and you know what I mean so it's like I think the majority of Americans are like yeah I don't really fuck with a guy I mean dude even even people even people

who supported him you know he was friends with Candace Owens um sorry to steal this tweet but I thought it was really fucking funny um she said I can't process this you know talking about his death and then somebody quoted like oh Charlie Kirk literally did not think you could process this because you don't have enough brainpower to do it as a black you know what I'm saying so it's like at every at every tweet that he had I mean it was just it was just it was just Like you said, Towns, it was complete vile for every situation, for every event, for every demographic group of people. So, I don't know, man. No, the best majority of Americans look at his death, like, I mean, at the least, they're completely indifferent to it.

But, like, I would say most of them are like, no. He's in the positive. He's in the positive, only really through some fuzzy math and just the sense that everybody just has a little tact about people that get struck down in their prime. that's the only thing keeping him above the bar just for the fact that like we were saying on the Patreon a few weeks ago it's like even if you hated him even if you whatever it's like

a lot of people are just uncomfortable with like wishing ill upon a recently deceased man just for karma reasons like I don't want to step outside my house and get hit by a bus because I was dunking on Charlie Kirkman really the only reason I displayed even a modicum attacked as because I'm not kind of believing trees falling on you when you take a victory

like. But, you know, I think that yeah, I think Candace Owens also when she described the proceedings as fake and gay. Mm-hmm. Of the memorial? That's what she said? It's fake.

I think she was just talking about the whole Charlie, the ecosystem happening around him right now. Like, what's... I see. I guess suggesting that he's got fake friends. I mean, his wife forgave the shooter. No, no less than 72 hours after the event. That's something that I can applaud if, you know,

you work through that in therapy over the course of many years. But a couple days after the event. Well, yeah, I mean, it's like, it's easy to forgive a patsy. You know what I'm saying? It's free. Right, right. Yeah. she's like sorry i didn't get the memo you know it uh missed my mailbox that charlie was supposed

to get hit so i'm sorry just the way that it's being used is interesting i mean well okay without getting too far in that direction you had mentioned the quote he said about brain processing power about black women erin and um that like you know i i don't know if y'all saw this, but like this Washington Post op-ed writer named Karen Ataya, I don't know how you pronounce her last name, was fired

for pointing out that Charlie Kirk had said that. Using his own words. Using his own words. Like the multiple people are getting fired. And then like, you know, J.D. Vance and people were like celebrating like the fact that many people were getting fired for talking shit about him. And it's like

it's like, I, I've pointed this out on Twitter, but like every, what really strikes me about the Trump administration is that, like, how they have come in over the last nine months saying they're going to create more jobs in any other administration, but everything you hear from them is celebrating people losing their jobs. Losing their jobs and talking shit. Like they, from tariffs to whatever, they love people losing their jobs. I guess no coincidence.

The only man I've ever heard of polling worse than Charlie Kirk after death is. J.D. Vance when he was announced as the VP candidate. I think he, he debuted at negative 14% when I think the average was like 32% favorability when they announced a VP candidate. Did you guys see though? I mean, I've seen people trying to amass like a list, you know, of people who are making fun of Charlie Kirk online, you know, and amassing their tweets. These people love getting people fired for their political views, man. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, well, I mean, you know, that brings up the Kimmel thing. I mean, it's already kind of come and gone

because Kimmel's back on the air, but that was kind of interesting. What did he even say? He said, what he said was, I can't quote it verbatim, but the gist of it was that it seems like the Trump administration is really going out of their way

to prove that it wasn't them who did it, or that it wasn't a right winger who shot Charlie Kirk. That's what he got fired for, which is really astonishing, or suspended. did for uh and you know at first it was like the who's this guy that runs the FCC um Kerr was Brandon Carr yeah like they it was interesting because like for a few days there they were trying to basically make the case that like will look Biden and all of them you know clamped down

on free speech as well so like that gives and also corporations have the right to fire anybody they want to um but it's like you know and not it's pointless to even argue about this stuff but like yeah of course Biden did clam down on free speech you know famously on college campuses and stuff but um but like I guess there is a slide difference in the sense that I don't think that they were using the FCC to like um go after you know late night talk show host so I don't I don't know I mean, it's just kind of a race to the bottom there, obviously. But, like, it did feel for a few days, like, oh, we're kind of substantively in a new zone here. Right, right, right.

I mean, where even, where even I think liberals might even support these decisions, right? You know what I mean? Because, I mean, I guess they argue about, you know, the sanctity of free speech, too. But they're also all about decorum and civility, you know what I mean? And wagging the finger, you know? so I think in essence they kind of like I mean this is something a tool that they would use themselves maybe you know yeah it's a weird it's a weird overcorrection to like woke scolding you know what I mean that like like I feel like it's funny because it's like I was thinking about this even with the Charlie Kirk stuff yesterday it's like these guys have spent a decade and a half really even before the the peak woke era we'll call it okay that they would call it like celebrating like do you remember when like people used to get george Zimmerman to sign skittles packages and shit yeah dude just christ you know what i mean like these guys have been like making like many

celebrities out of people that do like right wing violence for 15 20 fucking years people were dressing up in Halloween costumes as Trayvon martin wearing like a hoodie and like having like including some people in the current administration yeah you know what I mean and then like I mean, you got Kyle Rittenhouse. I mean, the list goes on and on, really, if we wanted to look at it. But those are the two, like, biggest examples. Wasn't Daniel Penny, too? The guy who, uh, the guy who, uh, the guy who, uh,

in the subway here in New York? Yeah. Daniel Penny. Yeah. Yeah. If you looked hard enough, there's probably, uh, you know, yeah, there's many other examples like that. But it's like, it's, it's like what they're mad about is like people nominally on the left,

having an aversion to their uplifting of people like George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse and all that kind of stuff. And they're like, you're taking this opportunity to do a victory lap on those people. It's like, it's your, your people's violence that set this whole thing in motion. It is not, you know what I mean? Right, right. Yeah. It's not instigated by the left, you know.

No, not in any, like, way, shape, form. What skin has the left got? There was the one guy that shot an ice agent, like, or not an ice agent, immigration. agent before like, it might have been a nice agent, I don't know, like seven or eight years ago or something like that. And the guy that shot Steve Scalise might have been a Bernie canvasser.

And it's like exactly one person would have missed Steve Scalise and it appears to be Donald Trump. We literally do not have shooters. No. We do have shooters. Well, their argument on the speech front is that

like the left is authoritarian and has waged this campaign against free speech for the past 10, 15 years now. Which is like, I mean, there are some truths to it in the sense that, like, I mean, I don't know. Just in the sense that, like, there is this feeling among, if you've ever been in, like, left organizing spaces. And I'm not even saying, like, this is true. within like places like DSA today or whatever because I don't I don't know I'm not involved there but like in my in the past like I have been in left organizing spaces where like speech is sort of like heavily uh like if you step outside the bounds of something that's

considered like a kind of like dogma or or something then like you will get any kind of doctrina language then yeah yeah you can you can get kind of dog piled on or right you know at least It's all like prefigitive politics, right? Yeah, and it's the whole Mark Fisher Vampire Castle thing. But, like, there's a world of difference between, A, J.D. Vance and none of these people are going in those places. So, like, why are they fucking care? But, like, B, also, there's a world of difference between that and, like, the government doing it. You know what I'm saying?

It's like, that's, I don't know. And also, again, I don't even think leftist organizing spaces are really like that anymore, not like how they work. 10 years ago, for example. Like, during, like, peak woke, right? 2014 to 2018, right? Like, that's... Maybe we could see that's peak woke, or 2020, maybe. But, I mean, I don't...

I don't know, though. I mean, I'm not... I like the idea of peak woke. Yeah. JD's probably a victim of the same thing I was when I had noted that I was wearing moccasins one day and somebody called me down for it. And I guess that happened to JD

and left an indelible imprint on it. Me, I thought it was a mildly unfair critique of my sartorial choices. J.D. thought it was worth, you know, assuming power over the whole globe. Well, there was the one time that I was at a bar in a liberal North Carolina city that I won't name. Well, there's only two. I think I've been to one of the recently And this white guy Started doing the worm

And this white lady Called him out for cultural appropriation And to this day That's the funniest Subterranean creatures To this day That's the funniest thing I have ever seen And that's the thing

Like I kind of have like the Eric Cartman position on woke It's like Why would we get rid of woke? It's the funniest thing ever Like, woke is hilarious. It's so good. It results in funny things like that. That's great.

Is he still, like, invertebrate valor? Like, I don't understand. Fish food, valor. Break dancing is, if you are white and you breakdance, you're culturally appropriate. Oh, okay. So the verb is specifically black? Okay, I get it. All right.

I'll be honest with you. I've never seen a black person do the worm. And I think they would have the good. tell you to stare away from it. Brother, I came out of my mom doing the worm, brother. I'm sorry. I was like, oh, shit, about to drop him. About to drop him.

Shit, if I don't, I'm never going to get out of here. I don't know why right-wingers don't find that stuff hilarious. Like, that's, like, it's, yeah, it's like, why would you want to end that? Like, that's the funniest thing that we've ever, like, woke is the funniest thing we've ever done is this society. Why would you want to end that? Yeah, the woke reach is about the best thing you can encounter in a day-to-day life. Yeah.

And they've taken that from us. They've taken the woke reach from us. Oh, my God. There's two things that give me great pleasure, just like instant, like light up my dopamine receptors. It's when somebody does a woke reach and I get a little chuckle out of it. And when somebody's getting ready to play the worst cover of a song you've ever heard and the camera captures them reaching to hit record right before they just, what I call the troubadours reach. Somebody reaches to hit record on their phone and then they get ready to do the cover. I love when that happens.

I don't know why. Yeah, dude. Oh, man. Man. Yeah, I've seen some great woke reaches in my day. I'll be able to regal my grandchildren with woke reaches. Like the time I was at a party in 2016 and I was making some banal, you know,

overtired, overly tired point about like, I don't remember what point it was in the election cycle. It was before they had actually chosen Hillary as a nominee, but I was at a party and I was like, oh, you're going to start seeing this like Hillary comeback narrative start to emerge in the media. And this girl thought I said Hillary Comebag

Narrative And she called me out in front of the whole party And like lit into my ass For like five minutes before I could even like I was like I didn't say come bag But But since you said it I mean that's not bad

I have to go ahead to tell you I briefly dated this person She broke my nose with a copy of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. Mm-hmm. For the horrible crime of taking a call during a very informal, normal dinner.

Damn. We can cut that out. That's bringing the proceedings now. Which will, my story, my story of the world? No, no, no, my story. My addendum of getting in the face with Steve Jobs. Sorry, anyway. Yeah, it's just uh anyways to um you know we could sit here and talk about the woke reach all day but uh we've got

you know other matters to attend to um like for example on the charlie kirk note NBC news military leaders consider recruiting campaigns centered on Charlie kirk um the idea would would be to frame the recruiting campaign as a national call to service possible slogans that the Pentagon leaders have discussed include Charlie has awakened a generation of warriors You know

And this also comes at the same time That I don't know if you all saw this story This is from Oklahoma But Oklahoma becomes the first state Where every single high school Will have its own turning point USA chapter

So Oh my fucking God dude Well I mean I guess they could just kill two birds of one stone and, you know, the change my mind, like, kind of a table, instead it would just be a recruiting table, you know? Is that because there's that one guy that's like the, the, he was ahead of some organization and they caught him looking at porn and had to fire him, and now he's like, went and vowed to destroy the teachers' unions because somebody caught him looking at porn

or a meeting or something. What kind of porn is what I want to know? That's a good question. and I shudder to think. But it's a funny thing. It's like these guys get caught doing something mildly embarrassing and their, you know, response to it is like, I must crush, make everybody's life measurably worse

because I got embarrassed doing something I shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Well. They call me looking at furry porn. You can look at, I got to tell you, though. You can look at porn. Perhaps one of the granddaddies of the woke reach. Okay. This is what, this is, listen, this is why we should have,

have just, listen, I know it would have been a horrible loss for free speech, okay, but sometimes you've got to intervene in there and check that First Amendment, like when the Church of Satan wanted to build the Baphimed on the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol. Yeah? Yeah, I remember that. Okay, everybody thought that was sophomoric, South Parkish fun, okay? But it has absolutely prompted these people to become the most vile people in history to make up for that, you know?

All right. Now, me and myself, I don't have any problem with it other than I think it might have been a bit of a poor aesthetic choice. Well, yeah, because Satanism is cringe. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Also probably would have gone with a different arch demon than Baffement, you know. Yeah. Who would you have rocked with? Which archdemons you rocking with these days?

Which is the one? And from what canon? What's the one that possessed the little white girl from The Exorcist? Oh, is that Pazoo? Captain Howdy. Captain Howdy. Captain Howdy. Oh, dude, speaking of the Exorcist, yeah, I'm just going to start, I'm having a hard time. 30 minutes into the show, I'm realizing, like, I might have come back to work too soon.

My fucking shit hurts so bad. I got, I guess I got... You forced yourself out there too early. I did. I came back to work too soon. But when I was recovering from surgery, I watched William Friedkin's Sorcerer. And I was reading the Wikipedia page on how they made it. And apparently during the scene where they have to drive the trucks over that swinging bridge.

Hey, no spoilers, man. I'm not going to spoil whether they make it across the bridge or not. Okay. but they went to the jungle in Mexico and like all the villages around there started freaking the fuck out because the director of the exorcist was there and I mean

I thought that was pretty tight what kind of sick twisted mind have we led in our country yeah dude one of the history's funniest funniest people and curmudging all-American

you know Yeah, dude I think it's funny making Sorcert or Iraqs Because one of the main characters Is a Palestinian who bombs A civilian center in Jerusalem And that makes him an anti-hero

Because he like has this collection of anti-heroes That have like done bad things And it's like Okay, that's actually a good thing no brother Yeah, that's a straight I believe that's called hero hero Yeah. Yeah, I don't know how to feel about this all of a sudden.

You're right, though. Sorcerer is the ticket. I got a, I'm not so sure just circling back to the military recruitment cries. I'm not so sure that they're leaving one on the table. It's gold. Which is? Zesui, Charlie Kirk. You know, if you wanted to add a little French flair to it, you know.

I also don't know how convincing or galvanizing Charlie Kirk is as like a recruitment figure. You know what I mean? I mean, it's the guy again who had set up the table like the great debater, you know. Is he inviting you to fight? Like, I don't understand it. I don't understand how that works. I'm going to tell you something, though. Bitch-assness is a currency, though, in today's society.

And I don't give a fuck how much I sound like an old get off my lawn, man. I'm sick of fucking athletes. Like, the Chicago Cubs guy, that, like, the Cubs are in the middle of a fucking historic run. And this motherfucker abandons his team to go to Charlie Kirk's fucking Astro World proceeding. Uh-huh. Like, when they need him, you know what I mean? Like, that kind of shit, man. Like, in this world, I'll tell you something.

You got a veritable who's who of, like, formerly great comedians that are all going to Riyadh for that Riyadh comedy festival. there's just no there's just no we have it's not even that we lie in as bitch assness it's just that there's no penalty for it anymore and it's almost looked at as a virtue it's rewarded actually

yeah that's what I'm saying like if you're called out in a room of 40 people for saying the Hillary comeback narrative like you gotta take that in stride brother you have to see the humor in that situation it's like if you're called out for anything in front of a room full of people

like you know you got to take it on the on the chin man because if you live in the era of the call out it's gonna result in some funny fucking shit like obviously every now and then it'll blow back on you but you will get to see some of the funniest things you've ever seen in your life so like stop yes just get rid of the bitch-assness just embrace the call out what happens is that you lead to preemptive callouts you know kind of what happened to you Terrence, you know. Oh, it was something you didn't even say. Exactly.

What do you mean? What happened? Oh, the cum rag thing? Yeah. Yeah. Like, how do you hear that? That's almost like hearing chasing waterfalls and thinking they're saying Jason Waterfalls.

It's a guy with the name Jason Waterfall. I think the way, I think it's like. Which I did in fairness. I think it's good. But also, I'm stupid. I think back then, like, you were looking for any, the callout was pretty, you know, that was currency that cashed pretty. well so it's like if you had even a little bit of like a of an opportunity if you saw if someone

exposed their jugular so to speak you fucking took that shit like uh you had to get in there yeah so really truly bitch assness never left like bitch assness was alive and well in the woke area it's just changed forms it's just went from light to dark uh-huh something it's the it's cop culture it's this is what happens in a culture that lionizes cops if you see something say something ass mentality you know what i mean right right the ride is just as bad really worse honestly no 100% dude 100% yeah um the terence was terence frozen in time can you hear me yeah yeah we do man my connection is unstable apparently and my face hurts because they saw it into it they they carved my bone down is what the doctor told me yeah

nobody can see you here but you you don't have a nose anymore Yeah, they saw that shit. Like Voldemort. Straight off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there was something I was going to say. What were you talking about before bitch-assiveness and the comedians in Riyadh?

There was something I was going to say about that. Say, sweet Charlie Curt. I still think that's got laid. It's also similar themes. The two, you know. Dude, there's like, there's like, um. Speaking of filmmakers And

you know Some paranoia here I don't know if you guys knew this But the Brian De Palma Nick Cage movie Snake Eyes Has a A politician named Charles Kirkland

Getting shot in the neck in public While a boxer named Tyler The Executioner Was pretending to fall in the ring Now I've seen that movie by the way That movie is pretty good The opening shot, the opening scene of that movie is a fucking master class dog

It's like a 10 minute long cut It's so fucking tight dog Snake eyes. Snake eyes, 1998 Oh my god What did they know? Well it's De Palma dog Like he's fucking he's tapped in He's always all of his

I watched, that's another movie I watched When I was recovering body double With Melanie Griffin Very fucking good The Palma, the palm is almost the, yeah, the pinch on of the cinema world, I don't know why. Very good paranoid shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Perhaps you've heard of a little movie called Scarface. Huh. I hate that. I have heard it. That's me right now. I'm scar, I'm literally scarred. It's Tony Montana. Uh-huh.

Yeah, I don't know. The reason that they're trying to use Charlie Kirk to recruit the middle. military is because recruitment has been down for so long. Like, they can't get anybody to recruit. It's kind of why they want to juice up the birth rate. So they're going to use the guy that got killed, got shot. He got shot to death as a recruit. If you joined the military, this too can happen to you.

Tough sell, honestly. When I was a kid, I wanted to see Michael Jordan on a Wheaties box. You know what I mean? That made me think I could fly and dunk. You know what I'm saying? what does charlie kirk make you think you can do be annoying and die i mean that's like that's like a like a organization uh trying to encourage you to donate blood and using like jason you know what to say it with a hot vampire vampire vampire yeah like what the buck

oh man yeah it doesn't make a lick of sense but also too you know uh i'm wondering though i'm wondering though i wonder if there's going to be like So something I've been talking about informally in my conversations, even at the gym the other day, I said this too, like a brief round of jeers to some of the guys I go in there. I don't go in there with, but they're there usually around the same time I am. I said, boys, I said, this goddamn NFL media landscapes got two right-wing for me. I can't even enjoy it anymore. And they just looked at me like, it's like, this is as good as it's ever been.

What are you talking about? It's like, you know, they fired like, they basically fired all. like the black analysts you know what i mean or reassigned them or whatever and now it's just like a variable who's who of like uh fucking you know barstool washouts and stuff like that and guys in the manosphere yeah they're just on there like you know doing boisterous antics and whatnot but like there's just that current in the world right now and charlie's emblematic of that you know obviously but like there's just like a you know a um i don't know what you put it's like the most annoying guys in the world run everything like everything and it's sucking

the the the life out of everything as a consequence you know yeah 100% i mean it's that's such a good point though tom it does because the right is ascendant you know i mean it's empower you know i mean that's why charlie's death is so sally you know you know we lost this great hallowed figure of the right you know which proves that like you know um we're on the up and up you know we're winning too hard this is why they have to kill us Well, let me ask you, though, like, doesn't it feel, I don't know, there's several different threads here. Because on one hand, I look at that poll about Charlie Kirk's favorability ratings. And I think that, like, the vast majority of people in the U.S.

Probably don't like Charlie Kirk. Okay, let's just start from this premise. They share the same opinion of him that William Friedkin, the aforementioned William Friedkin, shared of Al Pacino's opinion of him. And it's that he doesn't give a flying fuck through a rolling donut what Al Pacino thinks about. I like that. What did he say, what was the context of him saying that, by the way? Oh, I guess Pacino was upset about how cruising came out. like

he just like didn't like I guess some things to do with the movie or whatever and then I think it was who was the guy that did drive oh

Nicholas Vant what's his not you know I'm talking about yeah something Reese or something I don't know yeah a mid-rate director

who gives it fun Nicholas yeah whatever asked you about me so I don't give a flying fuck through a rolling donut what how Pacino

thinks of me that's so tight I also don't give a fine fuck what Al Pacino thinks of me I've never cared what Al Pacino's thought of me ever I'm not gay The first fuck

What Al Pacino thinks of me I hope he likes me I hope he likes me I hope he will damn um um where was that going with that

uh see man I'm telling you. I came back too soon. I can't. This is the worst. It's going to be the worst episode we've ever done because they sawed my shit straight off. That's all right. I had a thread there. Why are we talking about William Friedkin? What were we talking about prior to that?

I totally. Bailey Freikin, Sorcerer, Exorcist. I love this. I love this shit. Is that sweet Charlie? That's sweet Charlie. Oh, okay I was

Al Pacino's opinion Brian de Palma somehow I love this shot Okay here's what it was Don't you think that like I do think I do firmly believe this I think that the vast majority

of Americans One free health care One access to abortion Support unions you know want a separation of church and state wants you know rights for LGBT people all this stuff Pat McAfee off the air

want Pat McAfee off the air I don't give the fuck what anybody said I guess what I'm saying is they broadly want these left wing things and then let's take it even further the majority of people on the planet want an end to Israel to the Zionist entity

why is it so fucking hard for us to get from point A to point B. If the majority of people want these things, why is there a breakdown in the mechanism to realizing them? You know what I'm saying? To deliver these things? Listen, I got a little insight into this, and I'm going to bring it back to sports for a second.

But a friend of the show, Jacob Baccarak said something that I thought was particularly salient, and he said also the word salient in his assessment of this. But you know how like the UFC's doing this big pageantry shit at the White House, or they're going to hold the first fight there and everything. Yeah. I got to see a little... Yeah, yeah. Isn't it supposed to be next year?

I think so, yeah. I got to see a little bit about how... I think that was part of the ballroom deal that Trump's building when they asked him, how are you managing with the death of your assassination of your friend, Charlie Kirk? Very good, I think. Have y'all seen this? He's trucking his ballroom. I'm built.

So, he said something. And I saw this when I went to a UFC fight in Las Vegas about two years ago, where it was, It was, there was the thing happening, right? Like, I got to see a man get beat so badly he had a seizure in the middle of the ring. There was that kind of stuff, day rigor with that kind of thing. And, you know, and I love blood sport. You know, it's not something I'm proud of, but I do love it and celebrate it. Okay.

However, Jacob said something to you. It's like he said that he gets the salience for Trump's base. You know what I mean? And that is his base. Trust me, when Trump entered the arena and when I was at that fight, you have motherfuckers falling out like passing out I'm talking like grown men passing out

like it was Michael Jackson playing 80,000 in Budapest in 91 you know what I'm saying like you remember when motherfuckers used to pass out at big concerts like that and they'd be so overwhelmed or they'd get miscellaneous unks to shoot poison on stage

Trump gets miscellaneous unks to shoot poison at these UFC fights I'm telling you I swear to God there are great old men that would suck him off if you're giving half a second, half a chance. Okay. So,

Backerack says that like, but like something is, something is kind of off about it because for this perceived growth in like UFC's popularity, it's still extremely niche. Tennis is more watched in the U.S. than UFC is. Really? Yeah.

If you can believe that. And yet, and yet, It's got outsized influence, right? And I think that is related to, they've almost figured out in like sports and culture how to wield outsized influence like proportional to the people

that are actually into the shit. That's what I'm reeling about about like the manosphere term of all this stuff. Do you know what I mean? Still very niche stuff. You know what I mean? And this is coming from a guy that's at the far end of niche, okay?

So I'm not picking on that out of hand or like trying to make that sound like sour grapes or anything because, you know, I'm not a household name, although I think we all agree. Your last name does have a word in it that is a household word, though. And it's true. A lot of people say that. A lot of people say that. A lot of people say that.

I thought y'all meant ton, but okay. Tone. I thought you talked about tonnage, but I don't you. But, I mean, I'm articulating this very crudely because, again, I'm stupid. But I think there's something related to the exact same. mechanism that that basically uh you know 120 million people vote but like a very small amount of people like get to decide who you vote for you know what i mean yeah or like our elections are not decided by like uh the the will of the people or like a even like a super majority of

the people or anything like that it's decided by the will of like very few people yeah i think And I think it's the same thing. Like, and I don't know how or why that's allowed to proliferate, you know, like to your question, Terrence. But there is something about that where like when the right takes power, because these people have been so adept at being extremely unpopular yet remaining relevant and viable. Right. But they've managed to like make inroads in culture, whereas like two years ago we were talking about like, oh, they will never do that. The right can never do this because they can't or they can't mean. or they can't they're not funny or whatever it is and lo and behold while those things are true

they still have figured out how to like you know achieve like a outsized level of cultural relevance not only in politics obviously but media sports etc etc yeah it's i mean i mean i know i'm just repeating exactly what you said but it's just the it's just exercising or extending that minoritarian rule into culture you know what i mean to make these ideas seem incredibly popular when they're actually not yeah well it's yeah it's the um it's the adam curtis thing about how like today's leaders no longer have to figure out how to build coalitions and governed through a majority rule what they instead do is they figure out how to use media to manipulate and and give the illusion of a popular support to their policy

and it's weird it's like when you say the right wing is ascendant I don't think and I agree but I don't think that that's true in numbers in quantity

I don't think the majority of people on the planet or the majority of people in the West are right wing and one right wing policies I think that they've just managed to essentially sort of steamroll through

very feckless and weak liberalism to kind of achieve and get what they want. But like something I've been thinking about is that like in my neighborhood over like a few weeks ago,

I sent Tom a photo of it, but like all these like posters started appearing out of nowhere. Dude, it felt felt very Eddington-esque, very pension-esque. All these posters appeared out of nowhere that had these very vague messages on them that was just

like released the files and then at the same time there's all this chalk art on the sidewalks that was like down with tyrants dictators suck like this very like just milk toast bog standard like liberal thing

messages like pray for Ukraine that kind of stuff obviously nothing about Gaza or Palestine and there's some and there's like you know another no king's protest planned here in like two weeks and it's just like still doing this shit well yeah not only that but now you have to scan a QR code to register to go there so yeah um there's this there's this podcast i listened to called the farm and he's got a really good episode like two weeks ago about how

um the the LLC that was set up to basically sponsor the first no king's protest in utah or whatever like a few weeks ago, like, nobody knows who owns that LLC. It's like they, they, they, they, they were able to utilize, like, a, um, a murky, like, a law in Wyoming that allows for anonymous, uh, you know, incorporation of, of, of, of, of entities, of institutions. And, um, and so it's like, it begs the question, like, who's behind these no kings protests? Like, these are all, like, again, it's, it feels very Eddington-esque or very pension-esque, like, who's behind these like you know very vague milk toast liberal protests like I don't know it feels like obviously it's very astroturfed just like the right is but um I guess my point is that like

even the pussy hat march had more juice than this like this shit is so juiceless it's exhausted I guess it's like the right wing and I'm kind of making a joke here kind of not but the right wing it's like um you know uh when they take political power um in all their you know institutions right um they end up uh instigating false flag attacks you know but the liberals they do false flag protests perhaps yeah and also i think they also do their own false flag attacks as well i think january 6 was one such yeah did y'all see this Lula at the U.N. the other day was like basically just like talking about like people that are anomaly on the left like how do you like how could you let this happen like essentially you know

what I mean this is a man that was imprisoned by you know what I mean and like he had the exact right read I think about that sometimes too it's like they basically could have buried Trump under the jail right and because they were afraid that would set such a poor precedent to go after American presidents. They were afraid that basically Bill Clinton and Joe Biden might have to face some consequences for their crimes. They were

like, oh no, well, we'll just kind of let this slide. And they let this man run, you know what I mean, and do this again, again. When Biden's victory was predicated on the notion that we could never let this happen

again. And they still found a way. I mean, well, I mean, I was just looking it up now just to make sure. But Lula is like on the right tip there because apparently... Well, I bring that up because he buried Jaron Bolsonaro. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Well, okay, I'm glad you brought this up, Tom, because another movie I watched while I was recovering was Robert Altman's Nashville.

The city of God. No, I've not seen that movie since I was in high school. I wonder if it holds up still. I wonder if it's good. Yeah, that's good. No, I watched Robert Altman's Nashville, which feels kind of like a spiritual predecessor to Eddington in a way. Mostly just by how it ends. It kind of becomes clear.

It makes you reevaluate the entire two-and-a-half hours leading up to that. But, like, you know, I think Nashville is kind of, like, widely considered to be a movie about the kind of enwee and listlessness of America in the 1970s after Watergate. People disillusioned with America. I mean, like, you had the bicentennial in 1976 just one or two years after the Watergate scandal. And, like, people were trying to find sort of, like, meaning in America. like institutions and cultural forms and ultimately like kind of came up short but at the end of the day we could also come together and sing and all this um but it's something i've been thinking about because like obviously over the last week or two the moves that the trump administration have been making are i mean the rolling stone described it as america's or trump's most authoritarian week yet i mean i I was kind of thinking about that because, like, his attempt to fire that attorney in, the U.S. attorney in Virginia for not bringing, what was her name, like, Leticia James or whatever, that prosecutor in New York, like, that's, that's a scandal on the magnitude, if not greater than Watergate, right? Like, that's a fucking huge scandal. But it just doesn't matter anymore. And I think this kind of gets at what we're talking about. Like, you've got a math. We're just too desensitized in the media ecosystem for that to even chart. It's like a joke we've made several times amongst ourselves

is that Vince Foster basically killed himself for enough Because a low-level political scandal like that Not only would it not chart today Yeah But it would just, it probably wouldn't even be reported on Well and I think also I think I think a lot of Republicans

In the 70s were kind of A guest at Nix at Watergate Right? Like I think even they were You know not and you can get into like what watergate was if nixon even really did that or if he was framed in the in the yankee cowboy war whatever but like i um but one thing's for sure he was he's he's supported gay rights if those types um but i think there was a broad consensus that like that was not chill that like america still had institutions and norms and you had to like but like you

started to see the you know um destabilization of that and people kind of growing more and more disillusioned with that to the point that now you know fast forward to 2025 and you get one of these types of scandals you know every other tuesday and it doesn't fucking matter and a large part of it is because a large part of the american public wants that like i don't think it's the majority but it's as we were saying a second ago it's the people who like the ufc stuff It's like a sizable chunk of American life. Well, and also on the left, we have our own version. And when I say the left, I'm talking about everybody from obviously centrist libs all the way up to, you know, whatever.

But we had the own thing with that where, like, they've sort of made politics like a spectator sport. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like people on the right tune in to UFC in a similar fashion that people like, like, live. tune in to like CNN to see them bicker and argue on like whatever programs are on there now. I'm not watching forever. But like, you know, it's like, it's two sides of the same coin in a way. And it's like sort of defamed like what media's role is as a watchdog in society, right?

Because now everybody wants to look for spectacle first before they look at information. Like we're bitching, like when we're talking about like post information society, like that stuff was in motion a long time. before things got this bad. Yeah. Well, I think you're starting to see a breakdown in, like, did you all see this story? I don't know. This is all working towards an article, by the way, that I want to read in Politico. And it's too long for me to get into the finer details of it.

I'm just going to skim it. But there was an article that I had sort of bookmarked to talk about. And, of course, now I can't find it. But it was in the New York Times, and it was about how, Here it is. New York and other states form health block as answered to Trump's policies. Northeastern governors, like their peers in the West, want to shore up public health and issue a stamp of approval for vaccines. So it's like New York and several other northeastern states are forging a regional public health coalition to issue vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts.

In a rebuke to the Trump administration's shifts on health policy. this comes at the same time that Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California formed their own public health block so basically it's like they're forming a kind of like CDC or Health and Human Services Department of their own and I think that like you know

there's been much much has been made about like a coming civil war or a national breakup or whatever but like this is definitely the you know initial stages of that i mean as people pointed out it's like the kind of headline you would have seen in a video game about like the steps leading up to like a virulent zombie virus that kills like three quarters of the population um like obviously the u.s is breaking up in a in a real

sense because i don't really see how um for example the they'll have elections in 20 28, right? Like, I just don't, I mean, I've joked about it, but like, yeah, they're going to do the Charlie Kirk Act of, you know, Memorial Act of 2026 where they have to indefinitely suspend elections. Like, I just, we've kind of sanded down those norms and expectations so much that I just don't really see how you claw it back. Like, even the Supreme Court now, the Supreme Court is literally reconsidering gay marriage. So once you start rolling that stuff back, like, there's no, there's no way to, once again regain it anytime soon, right? Like that becomes a rolling, a downhill rolling ball, snowball. It does feel like we're in a post-reform era, and I mean, I'm not probably the first person to make this point, but I just can't imagine any sort of institutional reform happening, one, not because people don't want it, but because the institutions themselves are just incapable of being reformed, you just have to throw it all out, you know what I mean?

Yeah. I think it's like, yeah, and that health stuff shows that we're, we already are balkanizing. And so when people say, like, there's going to be a civil war or whatever, it's like, no, it's not going to look like the last one. We are just going to balkanize, but we're already seeing the attendant violence. Like, I think when people talk about the years of lead, you have to see it in the context of that balkanization. Like, that, like, everyday ambient violence is meant to accompany the balkanization because

you're going to need large population transfers for that to actually work. and that kind of stuff happens in a, you know, a balkanizing political situation. Which is also something, also that the libs, to not let them off, the lives were teasing for a long time. Remember, there used to be books like, better off without them, and it was all about how we should just let the South secede,

and there was like all kinds, like those sort of, like, yeah, I guess at the time they were meant to be kind of humorous, but, like, also kind of hinted at, like, you know, the lib message of like all these places are just sucks on our resources and like why do we like continue to help them out with no serious analysis of like the history and how it also works the other way and what like these sort of reprobate places actually bring to you know other places that are considered you know you know tony cultural centers or whatever yeah that's true I mean, they are just as sort of culpable in it

as the conservatives. They wanted it. They just didn't want it to be like, you know, mediated by 100,000 fucking brown shirt, ice deputized fucking, you know, dip shits. Yeah. When I'm glad you brought up the Bolsonaro Lula thing, because like as you said to me on the phone the other day,

it's like if this country was serious, it would not have let Trump run again. Like, just a guy that stills the election, you can't fucking let them try to, I mean, let's be real here. Like, what did you think he was going to do when he got in power again? Right. I mean, but it goes, I mean, I know this is like something that, you know, we talked about before years ago and people have brought up, but the Democrats and they're

kind of, they're just lack of daysical sort of attitude about impeaching him, you know? You know what I mean? Like, it just, it seemed as if they wanted to run the Pied Piper strategy again, you know, because he was the perfect candidate to win against you know what i mean so let him run again and he actually won well you see fucking what's his face of california gavin what's his name newsome yeah like it's like on the talk show circuit now sort of teasing out his run he's like but i'm afraid there's not going to be an election in 2028 if we don't really wake up to all this and it's like there's so like everything from like the way that they've kowt out on this charlie kirk

core shit like every senator unanimously approved like we're talking burney we're talking aOC we're talking even the nominally you know good ones quote unquote you know what i mean like still voting for that like it just shows an intense position of fear yeah you know what i mean yeah nobody's trying to galvanize a base nobody's like trying to like uh make a serious go at like an alternative party or even trying to repair the democrats like they're just sitting around talking about, oh, are we going to run a Cory Booker, Andy Beshear ticket, or are we going to run a Kamala

Pete revenge ticket? And it's like, what is fucking wrong with you all? Like, are you not seeing your donations plummet and nobody taking you seriously? Yeah. It's like I was saying, it's just exhausted. It's like I've never

seen anything quite like it. Like, just the sheer exhaustion behind a statement, like, Dictators suck, down with tyrants, like, release. No tyranny in my USA, by. It's just, yeah, it's so tired. Like, it's this widespread acceptance that, like, it just can't be any other way.

Which is, again, what I find so bizarre, seen as how the numbers would seem to bear out that all of these progressive policies are widely popular. and yet cannot gain traction and you tell me that's just because of institutions you tell me that's just because like I mean obviously like the elephant in the room here is the Democratic Party like genuinely all of those things

could be realized if you had a Democratic Party that wanted to harness that rage and anger and I know this is well-trodden territory obviously but watching it happen in real time is one of the strangest, most disillusioning things I've ever seen.

Just the widespread just defeat and acceptance of the defeat on the behalf of Democratic leadership like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. I mean, it's um... Did you say what Chuck Schumer was on TV? I know you like to watch television, Donald.

Well, here, put the remote down and come negotiate with us. And then you got Akeem Jeffries, a man whose entire life is Adam Curtis B-roll. You know what I mean? he's like he's like the personification of that Stalin meme the Stalin linen meme where it disappears he's just like the disappearing guy like I wanted to read this article, though, again in political, though, again in Politico, this touches on a lot of these themes. It's a very short, or it's a very long article, but I'll try to make it as short as possible. Um, it's called American democracy might be stronger than Donald Trump.

Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, but the country has a few attributes that make it more resilient than you might think. Really? Okay. This is from a guy named Jonathan Schleifer. He's a former senior researcher at Harvard Business School, also served as editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review. Um, okay. Uh, for the last 10 years, we've been hearing that. President Donald Trump will preside over the end of democracy in America.

In liberal circles, that assertion is often accepted as fact. For many, the proof is in the evidence from other countries' democratic declines. A whole genre of American political writing is issuing this warning. Perhaps the best known entrant is How Democracies Die by Harvard Political Scientist Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Zablatte. The authors mention a few democracies that fought off authoritarianism, but overwhelmingly recount just what the title says, how democracies die. But Trump's authoritarianism

resembles that of dangerous populists who failed to kill democracy. This is what he says. Careful studies that never seem to get much press find that only about a fifth of dangerous populists actually killed democracy, including in different regions and across different time spans. If you're serious about weighing the Trump threat, you should be asking what makes the difference between countries where democracy died in countries

where it survives. Okay, like it's a very strange stuff because I don't really know how you define like the death of democracy. Like I guess in my opinion, democracy is already thoroughly fucking well, we know it dies in the dark and that's really only the only thing we know

for sure. That's true. And also too, I would question like even I mean I know there are characteristics, you know, of democracy that you point to. But I feel like even the definition of a democracy changes, you know, over time. You know what I mean?

Like, what do we assume is democratic and what's undemocratic? You know what I mean? Exactly. Right, because you've got different kinds of representational government, which he points out here, which is very amusing. I'll get to it in a second. But basically, the first part of this article is him saying, look, yes, some democracies die. However, America has three main advantage. that will prevent its democracy from dying.

Okay. One, none were nearly so rich. Two, none were nearly so long-lived. Okay, that makes no sense. We were only... What are you doing wrong? Okay. Okay.

And three, none had a legal establishment tracing its genealogy back to the Magna Carta in 1215. Bro, bro. Well, honestly, listen, three unimpeachable points. bro it's just it's just that america has this immutable characterist character to it you know yeah which is unchanging and undying you know i would surmise that there's a lot of empires that have come and gone that pop the had the same level of hubris you know what i mean like well surely this can't end we're the what i insert whatever dynasty you know what i mean yeah um

the first subheader here is fucking hilarious it's a picture of a bunch of gold bars with the letter Trump stamped on it, the name Trump stamped on it, and it says, wealth is good for democracy. Rich democracies rarely die. As the political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote in 1959, the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy. Yeah, but I mean, isn't there even just a whole fucking argument going back to like the fucking ancient Greeks about how like influx of violence of.

money and wealth, you know what I mean, and like the outsized influence that the elite have. So how could a country that is incredibly rich, you know, you know what I'm trying to say? Like when this economic system is inherently undemocratic, you know? Well, I think that something that he fell to consider is the Marxist observation that the rate of profit tends to decline. And so what that means is that once that process begins, the elite switch their investment strategies and their outlays of capital from production to rentier activities and finances or financialization. And so basically what that means is neoliberalism, a hollowing out of every last vestige of, of, of, what makes you know what creates surplus right like so again like every you switch to rent your activities the rent goes way up people are forced out of home ownership everything

you look at your credit card statement every month and you want like why that subscription i've not used since 2021 why is that still getting taken out yeah everything has a processing fee attached to it now you know what i'm saying like every every aspect of it is meant to like suck Entire society with fees that are not attached to any added value. Yeah. Well, it's like I sent to the group chat. You know what? They had the ticket master guy, like the head of ticket master that was like,

I'm getting raked over the coals for $800 Beyonce tickets, but like a badge of honor is paying $70 grand for courtside tickets to the Knicks. And it's like, brother. And everybody just thinks this way now, you know? Like everybody just thinks this way. like we were talking about like a little bit and when we were talking about on the show on monday like young particularly young men but everybody in this country thinks that if they're going to build wealth the way number the only thing left for them to do is to build to buy a rental property

and become a landlord or make it air bn bs or whatever like so even like the only promise of building any kind of wealth in this country is not tied up in any sort of social security or even in investments anymore because like Jesus Christ, it's not like the U.S. economy is encouraging any, you know, goodwill. But rather through joining, if you can't beat them, join them with these, getting in on these rentier activities. And it's a sign that a society's out of ideas. So for whatever you want to make of AI and all this shit,

like the immateriality of everything that we're seeing that's for like propelling the economy forward or whatever for the time being, It's all vapor, man. There is nothing. Well, and also, the psychosocial effect of rentierism is, like, what is the best metaphor for it? It bleeds you dry. It's not a sudden traumatic event that, like, makes you want to revolt and overthrow the people who did it. It's vampiric.

Like, it exhausts you slowly over time to where, like, sort of like feudalism. like you get to a point where you're like well what is even the point of trying to change any of this like all my life is so exhausting and you know i have no resources and it's just like a slow social death it's hard for you to even piece together a kind of like coherent narrative about why any of this is even happening and so it's like right it atrophies it will yeah you know it's the little saying we've said many times on this program is you know you can shear a sheet many times but skin him only once but now it's almost like Like, if you don't let us shear you many times, we're going to skin you once. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right, right. It's like, it's violence making you engage in the rentier activities as, as a patron, you know? 100%.

Um, okay, so then he goes in and talks about all these other weird things, like a, a V-DEM database, which provides literally hundreds of indicators of governance on a scale from Democratic to autocratic. I don't they political science used all these weird like dude I love I love like I love when you know people point out democratic um undemocratic states in this way because I'm here in George in Atlanta at the what is it the center for human and civil human and civil rights when you go upstairs at the very top um after you've gone through the civil rights era and other other movements you see that there's like this map that's actually sponsored by Wells Fargo, I'm pretty fucking sure, or some bank. And it has like, it's color-coded to show you which countries are democratic and which are undemocratic. And of course, the United States, right, is seen as a democracy. Meanwhile, all these countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are deemed undemocratic, you know. And again, sponsored by a fucking Western bank, you know.

It's just like, come the fuck on, dude. Oh, my God. So goofy. Yeah, I mean, again, this kind of gets into what you're saying a second ago. It depends on how you even define these things. I would make the argument that we have already lost democracy. We never really ever had it. We may have had it for like one week in like 1967 or something, right?

The year of the music died. Yeah. Okay, here's the second point about why America is unique to. withstand the autocratic onslaught of Trump presidents are better for democracy than prime ministers um

U.S. democracy has another strength it's presidential. The conventional wisdom used to suggest the opposite. Concerned more with the emergence and consolidation of democracy than its survival, theorists saw parliamentary systems as more secure. But I guess recently, military coups are mostly out

as ways to seize power. So I guess he's saying that like military coups were more common in societies that had presidencies but people don't do that anymore we don't get classic hoonters anymore oh so he's saying that because it's not happened in a long time there's no risk in staying with the system that tends to produce military junta's yes exactly yeah okay i'm going to go ahead and put this out here we're going to have to change some things up i think i'm going to make my first bid national politics i'm going to campaign to be the first prime minister of the united states

I'm leaving to go to a parliamentary system That'd be a cool thing to be known for, you know That would be tied, dude First PN Someone should do that, yeah Also, I just like I like the word minister I've always liked it

I think that like having that in governance Yeah, prime minister seems Yeah, I like the ring of that A little bit better to president Can I always have Like a Duke or something? I've never been like a Duke Yeah

Yeah Okay, then he has this little side tangent that says Trump is less popular than successful autocrats So that's another reason why he's Why we have reason to hope Which I guess is true in the sense that like we were talking about a second ago Like most people aren't really fucking with him Like especially honestly I think his biggest fuck up was the tariffs

Like tariffs and killing USAID because USAID was nothing if not a massive handout to farmers. So like, you're fucking shooting yourself in the dick there. Also get in front of the U.N. and say, I'm saying, I'm really good at this. And you're letting all your countries go to hell. Not really winning you a lot of goodwill in the international community. But then, here's his third thing. This is about the Magna Carta.

This is why we're unique. And this is why we... This ought to be good. This is why we won't have autocracy and why we shouldn't fear Trump. The Supreme Court still has power. Oh, my God, God. I also say, the Supreme Court

completely patted out by his toadies. Almost completely patted out by his toadies. People who were chosen who served for life, by the way. Yeah. Who served for life. Having that wildly tilted, in his favor is somehow going to curb

autocratic tendencies? And who, by the way, have basically supported everything he's done so far. Like the deportations, the am I getting something confused? I think that they ruled

it constitutional for, okay, this is true. They ruled it constitutional that law enforcement officials could basically kill you? Well, yes. But also, like, racially profile you if they thought you were in this country illegally.

You know what I'm saying? Like, they've ruled everything basically constitutional. And, you know, again, they're reconsidering gay marriage. You know, I don't. And also, also, I'd bring up to kind of circle back to an earlier point, too. Like, this is what we're talking about. We talk about democracy, right? Like, are undocumented people included in this democracy?

Of clearly not, you know? Right. What are you fucking out, dude? Yeah. Experience shows that if all else fails, the judiciary is the last bulwark of democracy. Is that the first one to get taken down? Isn't that historically the first institution

to get taken down by would-be dictators? Dog, there's federal judges in Texas that are seriously considering the legality of bringing stoning back. Oh, yeah, brother. Like, cutting off limbs for, like, you know, stealing a candy bar from the, you know, the grocery stores, huh?

They're bringing back drawing and quarters. But, yeah, sure, the judiciary. Yeah, the thing is, is that these political scientists, I don't know, it's a fascinating look at how, if you don't incorporate materialism into your analysis,

you wind up in this weird position where you think that laws, it's almost like a natural law position, which is like, it's but it's strange it's like they can't really come to terms with the fact that all law is determined by power that like you and again like you saw this in reconstruction and i've pointed this out before but like during reconstruction you had congress literally ruling that like the courts in the south that were saying um that uh you know um um

that we're saying that like you know reconstruction was illegal and that it was that it was unconstitutional for the government to take over state governments Congress just said fuck you like okay that's cool you think that but we're going to send the military in to break up your court like it's not like power is whatever you want it to be if you have the power and that's the thing with these trump people and Stephen Miller and stuff it's like it's scary and it's terrifying but they are right in the sense that like if you have the power you can make it whatever you want to be you can like go after your enemies you can ban free speech you can do all these things uh because that is what power is it's not and also too also too you could argue that those institutions that they're using with their power to they're they're wielding their power with you can say that these institutions are inherently anti-democratic or reactionary you know yeah it just makes their job that much fucking easier for them to do that you know that's why like all this stuff like every time i see libs freaking out about like oh this is unconstitutional trump can't do this

He can't run for a third term. You know, he can't limit free speech and all this. And it's like, dog, they can do whatever they want. And this is why it's like, it's like fair game. You know what I mean? I disagree with it. I hope it doesn't fucking result in my head getting chopped off. But like if the, if the, what is the phrase you like to use, Tom?

It's no fun when the rabbit gets the gun. If the shoe was ever on the other foot, you better fucking believe I'm doing the exact same shit to them. So fair game, fair game, you know. 100% But unfortunately That's not the world We live in So

And it probably won't be Any time soon Um So anyways I think that's the That's the point I don't There's really nothing else

In the article I wanted to I just wanted to bring it up Because it highlights This kind of like central It highlights this thing And you saw it in that New Yorker

Isaac Chotner interview With Cass Sunstein Just how like liberals They're just they're completely out of ideas. Like liberalism to them is just like, it's just vibes, man. It's just like,

whatever you want it to be, man. Like, we can bring people that carpet bomb Cambodian to the tent. You know, it's fine. Dude, I swear to God I would walk into oncoming traffic before I told somebody in an interview that, you know,

he might be controversial, but he did show up to my Star Wars book release party and had some nice things to say about it. Seriously. That is astonishing. I told him on Twitter, I was like, you were one of the stupidest motherfuckers

I've ever seen and he blocked me promptly. Like, he's like, well, screw you, buddy. That's your bad for his mental health. That, I mean, that's astonishing. Like, his definition of liberalism in there was like, um,

it was basically like, you know, liberalism is for people that think people have rights but it's also for people that think people don't have rights it's for everybody yeah it's this amorphous sort of like one-size-fits-all like and honestly that's why we that's why we're in this position to begin with you know what I mean you know they don't know how to willpower because they don't want to willpower over everybody you know what I'm saying mm-hmm liberalism is that a big one-size-fits-all foam finger that people wear it like games and stuff you know liberalism is trying to have a big

temp but for nine guys well yeah you see it in the charlie kirk thing it's essentially when we've pointed this out before liberalism carves out exceptions to the paradigm of rights you know what i'm saying so it's like for example like human like palestinians aren't human beings that deserve rights. Immigrants aren't human beings that deserve rights. But like... Trans people's rights...

Benjamin Net Yahoo! Liberal. Right, right, right. Like, like, trans people... Right, exactly. But, like, you know, pressed on it, like, they will say that, like, you know, black Americans deserve rights,

but only up to a certain point. They won't, like, you know what I'm saying. Like, they're pretty... They can be wishy-washy on that. Or Latinos or anything like that. But, like, once those... Once those groups then start trafficking in other, for example, of like a Latino becomes an immigrant, then they don't deserve rights. Or if a black person becomes a left-wing agitator who disagrees with, like, police violence, then they don't deserve rights.

But right-wingers do deserve rights. You know what I'm saying? It's like anybody that thinks it's okay to basically mark a black person for premature death because in their minds, they have. less brain processing power well they still deserve rights that person still does it you see this in the again the charlie kirk thing is also he gets a holiday named after like that what you just said terence was like every fourth thing charlie kirk said and they're like let's give him a holiday yeah and every democrat in the senate supported it yeah well well berny senator see october 14th that's charlie kirk day also too i

think that you saw if i don't know if y'all saw but um kamala did and interview with Rachel Maddow, right, where even Rachel Maddow was kind of like, wait what? Where she was talking about, I guess, in Harris's new book, she talks about the decision to not pick Pete Buttigieg as her running mate. And even Rachel Matt Maddow, who's like, is gay, just sitting there like, okay, so you didn't pick him because you thought it would have looked bad on the ticket, like a black woman and a young gay. You know what I'm saying? This is a democratic, like, this is the last Democratic frontrunner who's coming out and saying that like eh i don't think people are ready to see like a gay vice president you know we need

a white hunter yeah just like okay so clearly you do not if you were to actually win and become president like i don't know how uh lgptu people would fare under your administration you know what i mean her recent appearances is one of the most pathetic cowardly exhibitions displays i've ever seen in public from a politician basically going out there and being like Biden thought that Palestinians weren't human beings Meanwhile she's like wouldn't allow a Palestinian to speak at the DNC It's like it's dude it is the most craven thing It's like no wonder fucking so many people hate you

It's got nothing to do with you being a woman or anything like that Or being black yet Yeah it's because you're fucking craven Or being a thrill-seeking what was it A thrill-seeking pot smoking thrillsoking thrill-seeking The real secret is what a dad said. Yeah, it has nothing to do with that, you know. I love when they do these tours, though, and it's like, I don't think I could think of a book more destined for the,

maybe Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, but I can't think of a book more destined for the Goodwill book section than this Kamala Harris book. Oh, yeah. Where I found my copy of What Happened by Hillary Rodden Clinton. Or if I did do it by O.J. Simpson. Sitting next to each other on the show. History's too great. What If books? Explaners. Yeah, I, uh, it's just, it's a good example of how, of how cooked American liberalism is.

But no one seems to really, I mean, I get, I do see a path forward. If, and I don't know, I might take some heat for this, and I could be proven wrong, but if there are elections in 2028, I do think that maybe Andy Bashir, someone like him could win, just in the sense that, like, I do kind of think that Americans might be getting a little fucking gas, a little exhausted on the constant, like, Trump every week, there's a fucking assassination. Every week, like, tariffs make, you know, your fucking bananas cost $8 million. you know what I mean it's just like it depends how addicted people are to the spectacle and how relatively unscathed they come out of it remember yeah the only thing I agree with you I think

John Waters could win this election next time but like but there's also the Tim Walts rule you know what I mean it's like oh like everybody thought his Midwestern folksiness and the fact he was a roughhune football coach and a hunter

and a dad and all this stuff was going to carry the day and then in the end nobody gave a flying fuck through a rolling donut. See, it's good, I don't know. That is good. It is really good. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Like, so much of American politics is decided by this nine-month window in which our spectacle becomes so visceral and titillating and, you know what I mean? Like, all these things that, like, we kind of, like, lose ourselves for a little bit. And so I could see a situation where the J.D. Vance, Erica Kirk, ticket. definitely wins over a fucking Kamala and Buttigieg ticket or whatever um but i don't know i mean then again you talk about you talk about that ticket i just think i i do wonder though gays on each ticket the first all gay debate yeah i do want i do think though like i just

don't, I just don't think that like this stuff like Tylenol, for example. I just don't see that. Like they're overplaying their hand in a way. Wait, what do they say about Tylenol again because of autism? Is that they're saying? Yeah. Yeah. We're getting something for all of their sort of strategizing and they're sort of like slipping on a banana pill and getting their foot in the door in the process and like allowing this all to take hold. And for as evil as they are. And for as good as they are at wielding those powers and in fairness, you know,

pulling those pushing on the norms and all that kind of thing. They're incredibly fucking stupid. Yeah. So, don't underestimate their ability to fuck it up either. Yeah, I just,

um, my, obviously like, I have a few ways to kind of check the temperature, one of which is obviously Mountain Eagle Speed your piece. but another is Facebook and like when I'm walking into Facebook and seeing like conservative family members and stuff being like

you know the title and all thing is like a step too far it's like because it's every like that's that's kind of an interesting data point that's 1990s conspiracy theory thinking right there you don't say yeah

yeah that's like yellow five makes you dick small or something or if your face if your hands the size of your face you got cancer. Well, it's just like Tylen. Acetaminophen, by the way, the fucking

press conference on that was one of the funniest fucking things ever. Trump trying to pronounce acetaminophon. He was like acid, aceto. I would love to be, I would love to be disavowed of any notion of what people think of me

like that. I, like, I envy like those malignant personality types just and they're not really caring what people think about it. I know, dude. it'd be so nice meanwhile I get like one negative comment in my inbox has to on it for three days

yeah but yeah no you see the minifin is like the only painkiller you can take when you're pregnant just don't think that's like if your whole thing is like wanting birth rates to go up and wanting people to get pregnant more

but like you have to like suffer through every shitty fucking part of it like I just don't So that your baby supposedly doesn't get autism? Like, what are we talking about here? Part of me thinks that is kind of like part of their calculus too. The emiseration, I think, is kind of part of the point. I do too.

I do too. But I think the thing is is that the people who want that kind of stuff is so numerically small. The fucking, the bad shit crazy medieval peasant mindset people is like very minuscule. You can see these people in action if you go to your love. local supermarket. And at the checkout aisle at the end, when they have all these tabloids like US Weekly with Bat Boy on the cover. The people that buy those magazines, it's a very, very slim majority of people. It's like 12 guys, basically. I mean, on that note, did you see Megan Kelly's talking, Megan Kelly talking about how like the, the Jezebel magazine curse on Charlie Kirk

is what got him killed? Like, it's just like it's, she like, she prayed, she said she prayed with Charlie and Erica Kirk the night before Charlie got shot because the the witches at Jezebel put a curse on him. That's like, dude, no one believes that. Nobody, I mean, I'm sorry, but maybe some people still read Jezebel, but do people really even still read Jezebel? That's like a 2016 thing. It's like the root.

Nobody reads that shit either. Black people don't read that shit. I know that. all right um well we could have closed you standing because my face hurts really bad and old t ray came back to work a little too soon i think uh but um we didn't even talk about like the ice shooting that happened yesterday oh the actual legit false flag yeah well i'm just waiting to see what new evidence emerges so we'll talk about that on monday i want to i want a thorough investigation before i opine you know yeah i need to see whatever i know that's what i'm going to

get out of a Patel ran agency, so. Totally. Yeah, we need to wait to see the manifesto written inscribed on the bullet itself, you know. Yeah, dude. Yeah, I'm waiting for increasingly, like, esoteric and lengthy messages on the bullets. It's like fucking entire paragraphs. Be funny if somebody framed Cash Patel for shooting and just put runes on the bullets and vaguely, vaguely.

Nordic sayings or what I have. See ya in Valhalla, brother. It's like Cash, I'm sorry, man. We've got to look into it. The evidence suggests.

Who's using these bullets of? Van Helsing or some shit like that? Like, how is the average American metabolizing this? That like every fucking week there's now a shooting with like messages engraved or written on bullets? Like, is anyone buying this?

What was the movie that spawned that meme? I don't even know what the movie was. It was like the snowman. It's like you could have done something about it. Yeah, I gave you all the clues. I gave you all the clues. That's what the handwriting on that bullet looked like. Also, this begs the question of,

where did this tread to start of inscribing messages on bullets? That's a fairly new phenomenon. Yeah, it's fairly new, it feels like. It started with Luigi. Yeah, I guess that Luigi is the first person I ever heard about, allegedly doing it. And according to our friend Frank Hurricane, it's this was a plot point in one of the saw movies

so like which which totally tracks with like how stupid things are yeah yeah so like it started from a movie franchise and then drifted over into the this sort of false flag world or whatever I don't know man it's just I could I don't know man it's like the the shooting yesterday of the ice van i think it killed one ice detainee which is like crazy i mean it's fucking awful can you imagine somebody is so mad at these ice ages they killed the people they've detained

yeah yeah dude none of it fucking adds up obviously like there was no law enforcement agents were in were thankfully no law enforcement agents were harmed in the process in the staging of this false plan there was an article in the new york times about how like um the shooters political, like people once again found his online presence and he had tons of messages about South Park and marijuana but like no

Oh my God, are you fucking serious? Dude, yeah, but had zero... He loved South Park. But had zero messages, like zero political beliefs and yet he wrote anti-ice on a bullet which by the way, can you even write on a bullet

like with a big pin or a sharper? Maybe with a Sharpie. but like I cash potel better hope this whole sort of fucking thing works out for him and Trump doesn't tire of him and fire his ass or something because this man is going to spend the rest of his life get with people going upside his head down Broadway in Nashville

like that guy like that guy they were flogging in the river in Nepal last week like he's going to get his ass kick so bad for the rest of his life he's such a fucking nerd loser just his permanent thousand yard stare is a that's not that's like a yeah it's bad disturbing

it's like you look in hells and yards in one direction about 85 in the other inward 85 diagonal oh man God I hate that son of a bitch oh shit man

I don't know I just once again I just like I just so badly when I know like how the average American is processing the, like, the obvious, like, the, like, the, okay, it can't just be a coincidence that all these fucking shooters are politically incoherent, have all engraved messages under their bullets,

spent a lot of time online, like, come on, man, like. Right, right, right. Who are you fooling? What do you think you're fooling? Yeah. And there's evidence he's left by really posted about South Park. Conveniently, South Park back in the news for the first time in fucking 20 years. anti-ice is a really funny message to put on a bullet by the way

like you wouldn't put like fuck ice or something you bet like um i'm anti-ice heavy echoes of blacks rule yeah 100% fuck all right um I'm really sorry listeners

that uh this was at best a C-minus episode from your boy but um uh you know i guess all things considered i i did better than honestly i did worse than i expected i was like i'm feeling pretty good this is fine this is all right you did better than charlie kirk he's dead fair enough there is that but if you'd like to support us please go to the patreon the link is in the show notes and plenty of content over there

hopefully I'll be back on Monday I guess we'll see how I'm feeling this may set me back doing this episode may set back in my recovery re-agravated his injury out four to six weeks yeah

but no I mean go to the Patreon you'll have something on Monday regardless even if it's just Tom doing a soliloquia yeah All right.

Well, thanks to listen, everybody. And we hope you all have a good weekend. And be well. Stay safe. Thank you, y'all. Adios. Peace. Thank you.

...you know, ...beau... ...would... ...you... ...that... ...and... ...and... ...it...

...and... ...and... ...and... You know, Thank you.