A Geek History of Time - Episode 59 - NWO and the Contract with America Part II

Episode Date: June 13, 2020

And while we have a through line that states, Authorial intent means dick, right? I don't want to have to have the same haircut, you have dad. Sorry, I'm pretty... Harry, mother fucking tub. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha You know, it's like, you can probably choose something. Ah! Oh! Oh! So it was this before or after the poster and you vomiting all over the couch? For those of you that can't see, Ed's eyes just crossed. It is fucked up.

But it's not wrong. Where we connect, Nurtory to the Real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a seventh grade world history teacher teaching in the virtual realm for now while the plague ravages our land here in northern California. And I'm also the very happily married father of a two-year-old little boy who in the last two days at daycare has learned how to milk a cow and make butter. You were raising them right because you're going to need that shit.

Go down the road, Cormac. Pretty shortly after civilization falls apart sometime the next, I don't know, 90 days at this point, looking at the timescale. Hold on, you feel so good. I haven't know 90 days at this point looking at the timescale. Hold on, you two are so much going to take that long. I've always been a talk-eyed optimist that way. So, you know, and who's sir are you? I'm Damien Harmony.

I'm a high school Latin teacher. I'm a high school history teacher up here in Northern California. I am a father of two. One who is about, well by the time we hear this, she has turned eight and had a family D&D game than California. I am a father of two, one who is about, well by the time we hear this, she has turned eight and had a family D&D game from across the country. By the time we will have heard this, my son is ten, loves the Clone Wars, and I bought a bow and arrow, and it's coming in the mail, and I need to buy hay from your wife.

Straw. Straw. Sorry. You have a hand on the hay. Yeah. So I need to buy that so that we can set up a target behind the house because I want them to have skills they're going to need. In that, you know, buy your estimate something closer to like 65 day window.

Yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's my plan. So, and it's also it's reversible. So it's left hand right handed. So I can show them with me. And then I can have them do it.

Mirror. So, yeah. So, yeah, that's, may you live in interesting times is the worst curse I've ever heard. Pretty much, yeah, that, you know, I got to say the Chinese were really good at that stuff I that that that that understated there's there's something about the Confucian tradition of education area edition and

I don't want to say cynicism because Confucius was the opposite of a cynic. He was just such a passionate idealist in so many ways. I mean, sexist is all fuck, but immensely idealistic. And so I don't want to say cynical, but there's a certain weary, you know, kind of underwing, real politic. Would you say that, because I've heard Jean Paul Sartre described as a stern optimist, would you say he's that or just more of a world weary idealist?

I'd say world weary idealist. I don't know if optimist is really appropriate for a confucius based on the admittedly limited reading I've done. I think Lao Tzu was more of an optimist. You know who was not a world-weary idealist. Who would that be? Pat you cannon. No. No. Pat you cannon was a raging asshole.

Yeah still is still is still is. Still is. I mean yeah. Yeah, shouldn't use past ends in this case. Well, which will be a good deal. Again, you're a cock-eyed optimist, though we would like to. Yeah. So you want to jump into the 1990s with me? Let's, let's buy all means jump in the 1990s. So if you recall, hold on a second,

hold on a second. Let me go put on my swimming cap and my goggles, because that water is filthy. Yeah. I was going to say I didn't know you swam. Yeah. In the 90s. Yeah. You know, you do what you do. Yeah. So, but anyway, that would be a big ask. The election of 1992 had been a lot more, as we had discussed before, it had been a lot more of a realignment than it had initially been thought.

Yeah. So, after the fact you can look back and go, oh right, the fault lines go deep instead of like, yeah, it's just a thing we'll paper over. The Northeast had a bunch of traditional swing states which went Democrat and then stayed that way for more than 20 years. The South, despite a few swing states going to Clinton,

would forever be Republican states after that. They were red. With a few exceptions for the first Obama election. So Clinton wins and the right is aggrieved and the lines are now drawn. And Newt Gingrich looks at this and he sees a path to power. Oh man, look on your face. He sees a path to power and it's a fertile field. And he absolutely figures it out. So Newt Gingrich made his bones be crushed. And... May his blade chip and chatter. Yeah. Uh, and God, I just, I'm, I'm remembering Newt Gingrich during 2016 when he said, uh,

feelings are facts. And it was just this little rhetorical trick that he did. The fact that people do have feelings is a fact, but that is not what he meant. And he left the door wide open for all the fascism. Well, okay. So here's the deal. Um, I, I think a meaningful case could be made that

Gingrich is the Gurbals of our particular moment in time. I yeah, yeah, bodily he's much more the Gary. Yeah, but yeah, but actually I think you're absolutely right until intellectually speaking I think you know Gengrich being you know a university professor and and you know having though those Intellectual Bonafide's and and his his outlook on the great game Yeah Absolutely and knowing that well, and yeah, you're really salient

actually, because of what I'm about to tell you. Okay. So he and Dick Arming. There's a name. Jesus, yeah. And there's also Colin Powell, like, just. Yeah. But Dick Arming cribbed a bunch of stuff from Ronald Reagan's State of the Union speech of 1985. And then they took a bunch of stuff from Ronald Reagan's State of the Union speech of 1985.

And then they took a bunch of that and combined it with things that the Heritage Foundation think tank had come up with. And they came up with something called the Contract with America. And this was their response to the victory of Bill Clinton. Now say what you will about both parties, but I gotta say, when the right loses, they jump into that game. The left is a coalition force and the Democrats are especially bad at this, but they respond to polls and the right, they move polls. Oh, yeah. but but they respond to polls and the right they move polls.

Like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's wildly different. Well, well, I think I think a big part of it has to do with the fact. I mean, again, as you point out, the left is the left is a coalition kind of kind of entity. You know, it's a conglomeration of a whole bunch of different movements. Yeah, you know, and in a whole bunch of different, different, uh, interest groups and a whole bunch of different, all that kind of stuff, the right, certainly in this country, and I think kind of universally, um, the, the forces that we identify as rightist, which is to say,

wanting a powerful, powerful, powerful centralized government, wanting liberality in terms of markets, pushing for a free market and lack of regulation of business, but wanting to have lots of control of individual citizens. Yes. Yes. Those forces are united by the fact that they are all across the board.

They all have that core set of interest, and we're talking about industrialists and we're talking about people who are ideologically authoritarian, who have a dim view of humanity or at least of the unwashed masses and want to keep everybody under control. And then, and then, yeah. And as you mentioned, privilege, the privileged classes of society that tend to make up the right. They also want to make up the rules so that they can stay in. Yeah, precisely. They want to reinforce that.

And so that motivates them very strongly when they see that they're positioned or when they perceive. Yes, I want to say see, I want to say when they perceive that their position is somehow threatened or their privileges or their their perque was it. I want to add a little word in there before you say position. Their rightful position in their mind. Yes. Yes. Yes.

There's a level of this. Like this is mine, how dare you? Yeah. Yeah. They, they, because then they can be victims. Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, immensely.

And, and so they, they take that victimhood onto themselves and they, they are galvanized. Yes. onto themselves and they are galvanized for varying reasons but to the same ends. Yeah, that's really good. And stuff like this happened. And they're very brand specific. And they're immensely brand specific. And they, you know, I remember in the 90s, dimly, because it was a long time ago, but, you know, I remember in the 90s,

dimly, because it was a long time ago, but you know, when I was a calo youth, you know, growing up in a Reaganite household as we've talked about in the past, one of the things we always talked about, you know, one of the things I always heard, I won't say that we talked about, but when politics came up, one of the things that always got mentioned was,

well, you know, you know, Democrats, people on the left, liberals, whatever term you wanna use, are so tied up and identity politics. And you know, they gotta be African-American. They gotta, you know, we gotta label everybody. We gotta be, I'm a- I'm a- I'm a-

I'm a- I'm a- I'm a- I'm a- I'm a. I'm a high-f Canadian American. And, you know, what, what it took getting away from my parents and being in the working world and having, you know, a shit-ton life experience for me to figure out was, man, everything the right does his identity politics. The differences, their identity, has been the default. Yes. And therefore, the rightful space. Yeah. And, and, and, and, you know, you talk about rightful, and, and I've, I've mentioned this before in, in January of 1993,

my senior year of high school, I stood in my journalism classroom on the day Bill Clinton was inaugurated for the first time and watched the inauguration there in my journalism classroom and I see it. Because this this this this Parvanu this this this Hick this sh- you know yeah shyster was probably a word it could be a time slake willing this this this oil can just just used car salesman was was taking you know the oath of office that should have gone to you know, his opponent that should have gone to Bush. Right. And there was genuinely this very, very powerful sense of anger and grievance. And yeah, just, just, you know, and it was, go ahead. I was gonna say that wasn't just your response. That was the Republican response

to the Bill Clinton's victory. Oh yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I'm saying is, I was part of that tribe. And that's, so I, I, you know, I have friends now who don't get the conservative mindset in our current day and age. And I'm like, no, I can explain to you. Yeah, because I was there. Like I know, I know what this is rooted in.

And, you know, and at that time, they were, they had not been the majority in the house and for 40 years. And they, they suggested this is. Oh, yeah. So 92 is not since 50 and they Gingrich and army suggested that if the Republicans became the majority they do a bunch of stuff right away and this was announced about six weeks

before the midterm elections like imagine having just a short six-week election cycle and those yeah in, yeah, in 94. Gingrich and the Republicans stayed away from divisive topics and only went after things. This is very clever of them. That 60% are more of Americans wanted and they adopted that into their, their plank. They promised essentially eight major reforms

and that they would bring them all to the floor. Okay, and so here's what those was, eight, r, one. Require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress. So this is the idea. And what you're seeing here is the elite have, there's this divide that they're still playing off from what you can and said. There's the elite and there's ordinary us, right? And so they're like, oh yeah, this, this should apply to everyone. You know, we are not the elite, this includes us.

So really good bunting and trimming on their plank. Two, select a major independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste fraud and abuse, which again, on its surface sounds great, but it's automatically begging the question that there is a shit ton of that going on. You get well easily making it. Yeah, I mean, there there was, but I would point out that it was Congress that tried to throw in the volume

to amendment telling Reagan to stop sending money to another country. Yeah, three. Cut the number of House committees and cut committee staff by one third. I have a huge problem with this because I do think that in order to take care of the general welfare that you should actually be able to expand, but they're talking about cutting it because they have the idea of like, well, it's keep it simple. Let's keep it basic. Let's, you know, let's, let's pair things down because the American, you know, money. Well, okay.

And one, they come out and find it. And the other thing is that you got to remember this is also, I think the beginnings of the K Street Mafia. Yeah. And for those in the audience who don't know what that inside baseball term I just used means, there are a number of very prominent lobbying firms, most of them conservative leaning with their offices on K Street in Washington, DC.

And collectively they are referred to flippantly as the K Street Mafia, a term they've actually adopted to refer to themselves in the way that people do. And I don't remember which of them it was. But one of the godfathers of this mafia is famous for having said, I don't want to eliminate government entirely. I just want to make it small enough to drown it in a bathtub. That sounds very manifold. And I know that man of fort was one of the biggest lobbyers at that time.

I don't think it was. It was some other guy. I offstop in my head anyway. But so, so the thing is, it's really convenient for them to frame this as this, hey, we're going to simplify things, we're going to streamline everything when from the very beginning, like what they didn't mention to most of the American people and the thing that got a left out of the question that that could have you know what would have shifted the needle in terms of level of support is you know they're they're they're they're they're doing that not merely you know to simplify things and streamline things make things you know

it's your to handle they're doing it because no no no no we want the government not doing shit right because if they don't regulate then they don't regulate us and our friends. By the way, it was Grover Northwest that said it. Ah, thank you. Yeah. Yes. Because who else, right? Yeah. Limit the terms of all committee chairs, which I go back and forth on term limits.

Five, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee. Six, require committee meetings to be open to the public. All right. Cool. All right. Seven require a three fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase. That sounds like a great idea until you realize tax increases typically can help money get to the poor. So there's a lot of there's I mean, okay, from from from an ideological, you know, redistribution standpoint number one, yes. But but strictly from a we've got a country to

run assholes, kind of level like, okay, we have to make sure the Canadians don't come over the border and kill us all. Yes. We have to make sure the Canadians don't come over the border and kill us all. Yes. We have to maintain our infrastructure. We need to make sure that goods, if you're such a fucking capitalist, this is what continues to boggle my mind about people who say they're physical conservatives, but they don't want to spend any money on capital improvement projects.

Right. The things that would actually grease the skids really well. The things that would actually grease the skids really well. And it should be something, and it is, at least, when people are talking about it and on paper, everybody says, well, yeah, we want to support infrastructure to da da da. But the moment you say, well, we've we want to support infrastructure to doh doh doh. But the moment you say, well, we got to raise the money somewhere. All of a sudden, everybody with an R in front of their names like, well, we're not going to raise taxes to do it. Right. Which is funny because by this point, taxes had, you know, on the top top earners

had shrunk by two cents. Well, well, yeah, well, yeah, because we're post Reagan. So yeah, all of that has been has been chopped to the bone. You know, and, and yeah, so. And the final step to guarantee the final reform was to guarantee an honest accounting of the federal budget by implementing zero baseline budgeting. So again, you have to justify and fight for and scrape everything and it becomes a zero sum game instead of like, hey, this is a good idea. We should really invest in this, you know, well, what's it going to cost us? It's

going to cost us some money, but we really need to invest in this, you know, which, which, you know, the thing is anybody who who knows the inside baseball of economics and knows how economists actually talk to each other and how policy walks actually talk about this stuff. What they're actually saying is we're not going to do kinds anymore. You know, we're not going to do kinds and we're not going to do prime the pump. We're not going're not gonna do Keynesian anymore. Right. We're gonna you know they they have this idea and and I don't know Where exactly it started because because Eisenhower didn't do this You know Teddy Roosevelt certainly fucking didn't do this

But but Republican somewhere along the way got the idea that you could run the federal government of the United States, the way a family runs their budget at home. Well, it's a really easy metaphor. Well, it is. The metaphor is good for ideology because they are the family-based thing. And by the way, the family-based thing is inherently patriarchal, especially at that time, with the father as the overlord and everyone else is working for the benefit of the family. And it keeps the woman in the home. Like it all ties into their ideology.

That idea of family values is, I think, quite honestly, very much inherently what we, what you can find in mind-comp. Like the idea, and I'll even go back further, you can find it in auto von Bismarck's blood in iron, because he talks about the soil and the blood in the soil, and it's the fork, and it's all that kind of stuff, and it starts with the family and the family unit,

and that's where a man has his control, and that's what they base their society on. And that is inherently, anytime I hear somebody saying family values, I know where they would have stood when people were being carted off. So, this guy won. This method won and set about with this legislative effort. And it's not uncommon, by the way, for people to get a little bit sticker shock and then

vote the other party in when someone else wins. But it was brought about partly due to the culture wars. And that's really important, because now they've got a button that they can push every time to get past people's like, well, you know, I made more money before. And it's like, yeah, but you want them gays to be gay. You want them gays running things.

Right. And you want them to make your girl kiss other girls right So want him to force a boy and your daughter's bathroom? Yeah, never mind the fact it wouldn't actually be a boy it'd be a trans girl, but like whatever raddak so yeah, and so There was also an icon in the White House that they could point to in order to stoke that same culture war. And this was also partly because, yes sir.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but early on, it just like looking back, I laughed at the absolute fuckery involved in that because it's uncle Billy yeah for fuck sake the guy the guy that they're pointing to as you know leftist shitan incarnate right is is is is I mean he's an incredibly intelligent guy and he is immensely educated but he's a past master at playing, you know, a good old boy, you know, and his whole external, like, like his whole persona was so very, like it Like it was part of what I detested about the man so much at the time was he outwardly was just such a complete Arkansas hick.

You know, and they were able to flip that around. Yeah. And turn him into this figurehead of they want to force abortions on everybody and they want it, they want to, you know, I mean, just all of the, like, no, like, do you, do you see who it is they're pointing to? I mean, like, if there's any president in the modern era that I could actually imagine drinking moonshine out of the back of somebody's truck. Yeah. Like, is there anybody else you could imagine?

Like, no, no, Bill Clinton, like, we're done. And yet, and yet, he's the elite. Where the ordinary is he's the elite. Like, I mean, yes, he was. I mean, actually, but he's a good worker. Like, he mean, yes, he was. I mean, actually, he was. Like, he straight up. Yeah, he came from a trailer, essentially, in his childhood, you know, a single mom. I mean, you know, he should be, you know, the right wet dream in terms of you know white guy from what is now a predominantly red state

who you know bootstrapped himself into the highest office in the land he he was what Donald Trump wishes he could rewrite his biography to actually be. rewrite his biography to actually be. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So the other factor besides this icon that would stoke the culture war despite it being inherently contradictory to reality. And by the way, I don't think that's accidental. I think that ability to recreate reality to what you want. That's what I'm talking about. They move the polls. The other thing that enabled this was the fact that

power mattered a lot more to New Gingrich as its own end. As a result, this effort leads to Republicans getting control of both the House and the Senate. So in 94, they may not have had the presidency anymore, but now they have the legislature. And they said about using it the best way they could. Okay, so that's 94. 95 comes. And with 95 comes a really a bunch of really culture, war-e-sounding legislative efforts, okay? The use of language becomes more severe, and it sets a tone of absolutism with its morality.

So here's a few things that they tried to pass. The Fiscal Responsibility Act. Sounds good. Sounds good. Bakes the question, but sounds good. Requires a two-thirds vote to pass on a balanced budget. It's interesting that they're now asking for that with a Democrat in charge, and there's no cold war to spend at Udels and Cash on, and it also didn't pass by the way.

Did I mention that this was supposed to be an amendment to the Constitution? No, sir. Yeah. I had blocked that from my memory. The next one is the Taking Back the Stre act. Oh yeah, remember this. So that one is where you build a lot of predators. Oh yeah, that too. You build a whole lot more prisons, you provide more police, you loosen restrictions on evidence gathering, and you make the death penalty a lot more death guarantee. So you text assify the rest of the country. The personal responsibility act.

You like that, didn't you? These guys. The this cut cash and welfare programs in order to discourage teen pregnancy and out of wedlock birth. in order to discourage teen pregnancy and out of wedlock birth. Now, I'm no scientist, but science kind of shows, and I'm no economist, but economics kind of shows, that if you give money to the lower groups on the social economic ladder, especially on the economic ladder,

you give them that money. They actually rise up, and it helps everybody. Turns out when you go from the ground up, it all springs up. Well, I want to say I think it was Will Rogers, who I'm trying to remember, I think it was Dewey off top of my head who first tried to give this who in running against Truman tried to to push something like you know supply side economics and

Will Rogers said at the time, you know, this doesn't make any sense, because you know, for a fact, if you give a poor man a dollar, it's going to wind up in a rich man's pocket by the end of the day. But if you give any money to the rich man, it's just going to stay right there, or words to that effect. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, that money trickles upwards. It doesn't trick, and he's, he's the one who actually came up with trickle down economics. I was going to trickle down at the rest of us, but that's not how it works. And he said, you know, give the money to the little guy, and you know, it's going to wind up in the rich guy's pocket by the end of the day anyway. Yeah. You know, and, and it's, which can complete the cycle because you

tax the rich guy at a much higher rate. Not so he's hurting, but so you give it to the little guy. So he can then give it's almost like capitalism isn't a necessary thing. It's just this thing that we put on top of everything. Because yeah, well, yeah, I'm going to have start track, but you all want predatory capitalism. So the personal, well I'll quibble about whether or not we can have Star Trek, but I think we'd wind up with the culture first. But anyway, so the personal responsibility act also prohibited welfare to mothers under 18.

It denied AFDC. Do you remember AFDC? I do. Aid for families with dependent children, which is later turned into TANF, which is temporary aid and something. I've got it written down somewhere else. Denied that to mothers who have more kids while they're on welfare. So you were fucking for fun. Sorry.

Well, yeah. So yeah, it's, it's, and I remember the Reagan idea of like welfare queens, by the way, which is a complete and total sham and a conard. And it wasn't. It's a, it's a, it's a fiction. Yeah. But what I, what I wanted to say was, I remember at the time getting into an argument about that, all of that, from my very male, very middle class white guy standpoint point with a female friend who was an on and off on again off again girlfriend during high school and then in college but getting into a really really heated argument where you know she essentially she pointed out you know what hadn't occurred to me which was, you know, you're literally taking money away from poor children.

You're literally starving little kids. And that was the first window. I think that got opened into my own, my own outlook on the rest of the world was having it, having it put to me that pointedly. And then seeing, I remember there was a political cartoon that showed Newt Gengrich telling a woman with several children hanging around her, well, you know, you had them carry your problem. Right. You know, the kids are crying and hungry and, you know, and he's got whatever the title

of the bill, you know, the act. Personal responsibility act. Personal responsibility act rolled up in his hand in the cartoon. I was like, yeah, that's not a good look. It also gave food vouchers instead of cash to women. So this is limiting where and where they could spend it, which is limiting where they can go, which is just, I mean, again, you're impoverishing these people more. Created a two years and out system for welfare, lifetime limits to five years on AFDC, later TANF, and it passed by a slim margin in the house and overwhelmingly in the Senate, Clinton vetoed it, but then in 96, he passed another law, like he signed off on another one.

The next one is the Common Sense Legal Reform Act. Again, listen to these words, right? In an effort to limit the amount of frivolous lawsuits, when I, oh, these are the ones that pissed me off because it absolutely fucks the little guy. This act put restrictions on punitive damages and it weakened product liability laws and it instituted the loser pays provisions for court cases.

Every one of your safety regulations is written in blood. Yeah. It's a line that comes to mind here. You know, the woman in the McDonald's case, that's like, yeah, suffered third degree burns. Not only that, but before she was burned, McDonald's was aware of the fact that their practice of serving to go coffee at such an immensely hot temperature had caused damage to other people. caused damage to other people.

And despite the huge award that was given out to her by the jury at the time, because apparently the photographs of the burns she suffered were a complete horror show. Yes. And there are any insights that were thought it required scatographs and other things. Oh yeah, I mean, like massive medical bills that she needed to get compensated for and

and and and You know she wound up walking away with significantly less money at the end of it and then and then that case wound up getting taken and turned into the the the marching song which is the four the second time they're like hey let's let's do a reform that fucks things over and by the way let's use a woman as an example

because the same thing with welfare queens but yeah it was the marching song for for for and I for yeah and and you know I remember when I when I went to get my paralegal certification you know taking tor mega-hat-wearer, but generally, you know, 70s Republican kind of instructor that I had in that class. So the silent majority type? Yes, silent majority type. She was clearly affected when she talked about that case and when she talked about torque reform, and it was like,

well, okay, if she's this pissed off, then considering the source, there's got to be something going on here. And anybody who is actually a legitimate toward attorney is going to tell you that's not how this ever worked. Right. Like, yes, there are people who file frivolous lawsuits, but there were already mechanisms that there have been mechanisms in place. And it's one of those, you know, look at the slice of the pie that is those.

It's insignificant compared to the amount of good that actually allowing the little guy to sue the big guy for the fact that the Pinto blew up, you know, stuff like that. The Senate went against this by the way and Bill Clinton vetoed it, but a similar bill gets passed over his veto a year later. Yeah. Now there's more, but you get the idea here, right? And notice how nicely this is being sold to the people. It's, you know, again, I'll go over the names of what we just did. The fiscal responsibility, the taking back our streets act, the personal responsibility act, the common sense legal reform act. And it's everybody who's in favor of it is the same people that it's actually fucking

over. But it sounds good. Branding absolutely matters. And Gingrich captures this as did Buchanan. They capture a brand and they run with it. Because those same ordinary Americans wanted plain spoke and traditional values that aren't driven by liberals and elites. So even if it's fucking them over, well, I can understand that.

I could have a beer with that guy. Meanwhile, when in fact they wouldn't let you within 10 paces of them, fucking them over. Well, you know, I can understand that I could have a beer with that guy, you know. Meanwhile, when, when, in fact, they, they wouldn't let you within 10 paces of them, but well, no, the economy that Clinton had inherited was broken by Reagan. It started to get repaired by Bush. And then Clinton took the baton and really ramped it up, actually. Yeah. Bill Clinton and Al Gore weren't considered real southerners despite the fact that they were really from the south and really had southern accents.

Tennessee and Arkansas for God's sake. Like, yeah. Like, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's take a moment to just say Arkansas and Tennessee. Like, I mean, you know, we're not talking about Louisiana and Alabama. This isn't like deep south, but, but still, this is, this is, this is Bible belt, southern, you know, and, and.

And Clinton was really similar to these, to demographically, to these audiences too. Oh, yeah. But Gore was considered the rich man on the hill. He was a career politician. His dad had been a politician. He had a huge tobacco farm, all of that's true. No, plantation owners, yeah. However, neither man was considered Southern by 1996 when the NWO took over WCW.

And now we get back to the wrestling. Yes, now here's why Clinton was from Arkansas like you said. It's a deeply Southern state culturally and mentally And I don't mean that actually is an insult. It just that's their mentality. They identify themselves as the core of the South Yeah, well and and you know going back to what we about, about regionalism all the way back to, talking about regionalism in wrestling and all of that, religiously Arkansas is very much in the same Pentecostal cathartic Christianity, blood and and you know the idea of You know just having your revival meetings Yeah, and well vengeance you know and and and the cathartic

And the cathartic redemption moment of being reborn, of being born again. Right. It's a cataclysmic event. It's not something you work toward. It is something that you maybe hope for, and then it either happens for you, or it doesn't happen for you, and it's this, again, bloodletting, and you don't want that. Or if you look at the wrestling in that era, very bloody. Like, I'm sure you remember guys named the Bushwackers.

Yeah, we talked about it. We mentioned them briefly talking about serenity. Yeah, that's right. They were previously known as the sheep herders, and they were one of the bloodiest Like you go back and you look at the bushwackers zoom in on their foreheads and you'll realize oh, that's a shit ton of scar tissue Because they had the bloodiest matches in that oh from from from pulmonary razor blade. Yeah, yeah, so I'm proud of myself for knowing that

As you should I just want to say yeah good-hose to you for that. Having picked that up. I've been learning. Yeah. I've been learning. So Bill Clinton came from fairly poor folks, but his family also had a really long history of being cool with people of all races in the South. And his grandparents would sell on credit to anyone who needed, did not matter their race.

He had deep roots in believing in racial equality. He memorized the I have a dream speech. He memorized it, and that's a long fucking speech. Despite being from the south, his intelligence and his ambition carried him all over the world. He went to Georgetown University until he graduated from there in 68. He got a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and I think he was one of the first, because it was a guy from Arkansas. And he went to Oxford. He didn't finish his post-grad degree there, which was actually really common for people in his age cohort at that time.

He came back to the US, figuring that he'd have to deal with the draft. Although he'd received educational deferments in 68 and 69 because he was being educated in Oxford, and he was taking part in rallies against the war because he he saw that this is a dangerous and terrible war. He was one of the southerners without being one of the southerners. He was one of the southerners without being one of the southerners. Okay. And then he went to Yale. See? Yale, which is the place where nobody from the South would ever go. Nobody would ever trust anybody who came from Yale.

Like imagine somebody from Yale, like, and like having grown up in the south I'm sorry who Buh Oh, yeah, yeah, but that's the older bush. I mean he came from like No, no, no, Connecticut. No, so he's not W. W. Yeah, but no, he's from Texas. That's hardly the south. I mean really It's Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, he did go to you I mean really Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, he did go to you

How much did he play up his bullshit text this accent? Yeah, and his his desperately want to be running ragan cowboy Yeah, I'm on yeah, no yeah So and and his and his come to Jesus moment after having been a massive party boy coke fiend alcoholic like Come on, mm-hmm. Yeah, and yeah, no, he went to Yale. Yes now, but he's one of us because I could have a beer with him It's this weird fucking. Yeah know. I know. I know. It's a recovery. Alcohol like no. Yeah. Well, and he wouldn't have like partied with common folk. Like he's no, he wouldn't have common folk. Cause on top, on top of everything else, he's a

bush. Yeah. There, there is close to regeneration of money. General, yeah, there is close to genuine aristocracy as anybody in this tree gets. Actually, you're closer, I would say, because his grandfather helped hide Nazi money and helped get going the business man's. Cool. business man's. So, what's what's an attempted coup? Right. Amongstep class friends. I mean, really, it really is a good point. And if we're going to, if we're going to talk about, you know, anybody, you know, hiding, hiding Nazi money, having ties to Nazi, we're going to have to bring the Kennedies in too. True. I mean, that cuts across both aisles. That's true.

We got to get totally Karl Marx on that, because that's a classic. I know. You know, but anyway, continue. OK. So I just have to say, fucking bush. Yes. Like, if you're going to talk, you'll come on.

I see it at that just to see. I know. I know. So is the audience. I know, but that just to see I know I know So is the audience I know but I had to so Clinton got his juris doctorate. He's not a lawyer, but he did yet the JD And because he knew he was going to go into public service and Eventually he would land back in Arkansas. I had to cut a whole bunch of stuff out about his courtship with with Hillary It's adorable though. Well, okay, Yeah, hold on. Okay. Hold on.

I'm gonna stop you there. Okay, because I'll tell you I'll tell you right now if you're going to tell me that you're gonna talk about all the reasons why he wasn't considered really a southerner. Oh, I'll get there. I'm going to include marrying Hillary. No, I'm gonna get there. I'm just just not going to talk about their courtship because it's yeah. So he becomes the second youngest governor of Arkansas ever. I think he was like 34, 36, something like that. He was a political mover and shaker from very early on. And he was a force in the Democratic Party for quite a while. He was also as centrist as they come. You see, you could be in in the Democratic Party for quite a while.

He was also as centrist as they come. You see, you could be in the South, you could be a Democrat if you were a centrist. And he helped people economically, but he also pushed for reforms of assistance programs. So essentially, he's helping poor white folk and putting a visible cap on poor people of color. And that's what's getting him votes. He fought for at the same time, social equality, but he also fights to deregulate businesses. So there's this wonderful thing that I heard once a friend of mine who lived in the South. She said, you know, Damien, the

difference between Californians and Tennesseans. Is it Tennesseans don't mind having black people for neighbors, but they don't want them as their leaders and Californians don't mind having black people as their leaders, but they don't want them for neighbors. And it was way truer than I wanted it to be. Yeah. Having lived in both places.

It's yeah. Yeah. So he's playing both sides in a lot of ways. He was good for the economy. He was good for business. And on several fronts, he was good for the marginalized. He wasn't going to get them all the way there, but he would set an environment from which they could jump further, perhaps.

But by 96, the South is fully convinced that there is a culture war on, and that Bill Clinton was the godhead of the opposite culture. He was part of an internationalist new world order, NAFTA, that would come in with its northern values and make a mockery of tradition, and all that was good. They had plenty of ammunition. First, there was talk radio. and make a mockery of tradition and all that was good. They had plenty of ammunition. First, there was talk radio, big in the 90s. Bill Clinton was the best thing for talk radio because despite the fact that the Republican party had gained control of the entire legislature, they still had a president whom they could focus on

and drum up their base with. And since he had the same affliction as Kennedy did, being a letch, it was really easy to whip up culture war fury against Clinton because good ordinary people stick to their wife's sister. This is Arkansas. And yet the economy was also going well. So it's this weird thing of like, okay, that guy really hate him. Can you name a reason? Because he fucks other women. Okay, cool. But he's also really good for the economy. How do you answer to that?

Ah, my brain exploded, you know, and that's yeah. And people have to choose whether to go for their own good or for a guy that they hate. And there is the underlying idea that anything he tried to do to help anybody in the working class was going to people who were not deserving. was going to people who were not deserving. Yes. This is part of the fetish of Rush Limbaugh and everybody in that ilk. Now it's nowadays it's more Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Right. But there was all of this.

I mean, now if you go back in the way back machine, and you go to the archives of the Rush Limbaugh show, the shit that came out of that guy's mouth was so blatant. I mean, to us nowadays, it was just so blatantly racist. You know, and then about a medal of freedom winner. All right. I will not have you just fuck that with a cattle broad. I know. No, I'm sorry. Any any any such award given by the current junta is going to need to be reviewed by a panel after this is all over. Mm-hmm. Because like I don't care if it's the congressional medal of honor any award given

by this president is suspect at best. Oh yeah. Especially something, especially something like a presidential medal of freedom, which is the closest thing we have in this country to a knighthood, which is, you know, a token symbolic cultural like, no. You've had a wonderful impact on our culture. And that's, yeah, Rush Limbaugh has that. Yeah. So I'm not done. Oh, okay. Goddamn it, I'm not done. You know, the stuff that came out of his mouth,

I mean, you know, he got away with it in the 90s because it was 30 years ago. But like, no, seriously, it was blatantly racist. Yep. His characterization of Jesse Jackson, anytime he talked about him. Oh, yeah. Let's disgusting. And the only reason I wasn't disgusted by it at the time was because I was only just recently starting to come out of my shell from being, you know, slightly at the right of Genghis Khan.

And, and, and, and, you know, nobody was really saying, man, that's, that's ugly at racist. Like, you know, because, because the way in which we, we had that dialogue hadn't evolved to, to, to what is now. But like, you know, and it was always in these terms of their, their, their just going to give money out to, you know, everybody. And, you know, these people weren't deserving. And again, like you say, it was all rooted in the welfare queen myth. And it was all, it was all built around the same issue that's been pointed out that lower class, lower lower financial order, white people in this country tend to have, especially in the south and those regions, which is, well, you know, any assistance I'm getting, I'm getting

because I need it and I deserve it. But my next door neighbor over there, he's a lazy fucking fucking he doesn't deserve it and he's you know what's you don't be one of us he's not a real American. Well I'm not even talking about if it's if it's somebody of a different color or a different race or different anything I'm just talking about like if your next door neighbor is getting stuff well you know he's a lazy so and so but I deserve this the the selfishness. Mm-hmm. Nice to hear your saying. coalesces, really strongly around race, but it isn't just race.

It really does granulate in way too many cases down to, I deserve this, but that motherfucker doesn't. You know, it's the dark side of the independent streak of the scotch-eye-rish, you know, taken to an extreme of not having any fucking empathy for anybody. Yeah, I deserve salvation. And y'all can go to hell. Yeah, basically.

And it is a fetish for so many people on the right end of the aisle that well, you know, people who aren't deserving are gonna get this. Well, okay, but what about all the people who aren't deserving who need it? Well, you know, we can't have it. It's more important than we make sure that people,

you know, we don't wanna be giving anybody a handout. Right. It's like, well, okay, but if we show you that economically, it's actually better. Doesn't matter. And that's what kills me. It's like it's divorced from reason. So you have Bill Clinton being able to be the icon that they can whip up their people against. And at the same time, he's actually good for the economy. And he's good for the Republican legislature to get

their shit through because he's such a centrist. Secondly, there were tremendous changes happening in our culture. In 1992, Planned Parenthood versus Casey was decided. Now, this is not on Clinton's watch, but it's so close to it that everybody's kind of absorbed it. And they thought, you know, it's one of those, even though it's worked its way through the courts for six years, you know, it happened on his watch kind of thing. So even though he hasn't necessarily put anybody on the court yet, he gets tagged with it. And this is the case that essentially reaffirmed Roe vs. Wade. And it implemented the Undo-Birden standard, which is the one standard that, quote, has the purpose or

effective placing a substantial obstacle in the path of women or of a woman seeking an abortion of a non-viable fetus. Essentially what it says is that it cannot be allowed to restrict a woman's access to abortion. So this is what they talked about when they talked about abortion on demand. That was in the summer of 92 Clinton is not elected yet. It's during the campaign. And Pat Buchanan says a month later that abortion on demand would be what would happen if Democrats won. Well Pat, it already was decided. It is jurisprudence. It was decided by the way,

by a court that was largely stacked by Ronald Reagan and George Bush because it's the right goddamn thing to do for citizens seeking liberty. In 1994 Shannon Faulkner enrolled in the Citadel. This is a southern, you know, I gotta say, I love how many southern military academies there were and how it meant nothing to the Civil War? Did fuck off for them. Well, okay, hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Um, any, any military historian who specializes in looking at those issues will tell you that the officer corps of the Confederate Army on average knew their shit somewhat better than the officer corps of the North. Now here's the deal. So all of those military academies did have an effect. However, the South had no industrial-based speak of. They did not get any international support because they were rightly looked at as households. I'm trying to find other vocabulary to describe it, but like, I've had enough to drink. I'm going to drop the filter. In the end, they didn't have the resources. They didn't have the organization, and they didn't have the political unity. Right. You know, because the union was all doing everything under federal, you know, direction.

And the individual state armies of the Confederacy had problems with their command structure. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia, is depicted as being like this equivalent to Grant. In some ways, in some ways, he kind of was, but the amount of actual like real authority he had, I mean, if you want to give him credit for anything, the kind of the gift he had was that he was able to get these guys to stick with him and follow orders to the extent that they did in the first place because based on the structure of the way the Confederate military was was on paper organized, he didn't have the

same kind of authority that Grant did. So, you know, anyway, I'm kind of getting off topic here, but yeah, they had all of these military academies, and it did have an impact, but not enough. It's basically what I'm quibbling over. And they still lost, and people can still die mad about it. Big willy-tea clearly didn't burn enough shit. Yeah. So Shannon Faulkner in 1994, at me Confederate assholes. Sorry, carry on. Shannon Faulkner.

She enrolls in the Citadel, which is a Southern military college in South Carolina. So there's a big problem there. Yeah, she's a woman and she's the first one to ever try to attend college there as it was in all men's college. And since they got state money, they had no right to deny her based on her gender. That was a violation of her civil rights. It's pretty cut and dry, but consider in 1994 what it represented. Bill Clinton was already the president and people were openly critical of how smart and active his wife Hillary was.

He had appointed a woman as the attorney general, and he actually tried to appoint two other women, but they ended in some very embarrassing problems for him. But Janet Reno becomes his, what do you call it? The Attorney General. Take no shit Janet. Yes, and just a side note for Janet, she died the day before Trump got elected. Fuck, no, lucky woman. No man, we need her.

Well yeah, that too. For the first time ever, you had a woman as an attorney general. So like people are losing their shit about how womanified everything's become. And she oversaw the disaster at Waco. And she did. And she fucked that up. So the idea of a woman being involved at tough manly things had that had previously been on mail was already per problem for a lot of segments of the population. And then you add on

top of that fact that this is South Carolina we're talking about. There were bumper stickers that showed up all over South Carolina said 1,952 bulldogs and one bitch because she dain't to try to join a military academy. There were death threats, manly ones, of course. In 1995, a judge ordered that Faulkner be made to shave her head, like the other cadets. Despite this not being the actual practice in the actual fucking military, so part of me is like, like yeah y'all should shave your heads if that's the thing

But the other part of me is like wait wait what's the military doing y'all should be doing that since you're a military academy You're prepping them for the military So what the fuck? I'm okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna come down as a centrist on this one I'm okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna come down as a centrist on this one. Mm-hmm. If the if you are signing on to join that institution and you know that that is the tradition of that institution, then that's part of what you're signing on for. Now if they made up the idea that everybody has to shave their heads just to try to dissuade her, then that's bullshit. Fuck you all. But they didn't.

Well, what you're also getting into is an all-boys college. So if so fact though, as a woman, you should not be even trying then based on that. I see what you're saying in that regard. I see what you're saying. But I think there's there there are shades of equal rights versus special treatment. And yeah. And you see where which side South Carolina is going to come down? Yeah, well, yeah, of course, I mean, South Carolina, obviously, no, South Carolina. No. Tell me if this sounds familiar. US Marshals had to escort her onto campus in August of 95.

And in a week, she washed out. She did. She got heat exhaustion after four hours of physical training, along with four other cadets who were men, and they ended up in the infirmary. When she left, it was because people were vandalizing her parents' house. Someone had threatened, of course, in a man people were vandalizing her parents' house.

Someone had threatened, of course, in a manly way to kill her parents. The male cadets openly celebrated that she washed out when she had left. I couldn't find any word on their celebration about the other 29 males who also had the same physical problem. Well, of course you couldn't. In 1996, the US versus Virginia settled the issue once and for all. Okay, so you had that attempt and then she couldn't make it. Ha ha, look at that, women.

Janet Reno, you know, she's too manly and she's not manly enough. It was a seven to one decision in the Supreme Court that, um, that stated that the Virginia military institute, all these Southern military colleges and they still did. Yeah. Uh, they, they don't have the right to discriminate based on gender. Uh, Scalia dissented because, of course he did. Scalia, Uh-huh

The rest of them agreed with Ginsburg making it a seven-wonder ruling Guess who had to recuse himself because his son actually went to the VMI Who Thomas See wait, I know yeah, Clarence Thomas recused himself because his son went to the VMI Yeah, Clarence Thomas recused himself because his son went to the VMI. Okay, so Thomas recusing himself in the case of some conservative issue, this doesn't surprise me at all, but Thomas's son attended VMI. Yes. An institution that was originally founded specifically to train young men to be militia officers in the event of an uprising by black slaves.

I don't see the problem here. Sorry, just my irony meter is kind of, you know, ticking madly. Yeah. Okay. This school was given monies by the state. Well, okay. So the ruling was that the school, many Thomas.

Yeah. Oh, any school given monies by the state or federal government could not discriminate against people who were applying their based on sex. You don't get to. Yeah. Women get to go in the military colleges from here on out. The VMI thought about going private actually to get around that because of course they did. But that would have actually set a really scary precedent. And the Department of Defense said that if you do, the DOD is going to take away all of your ROTC funding from the VMI.

So the VMI bucket. Wow. Yeah. So if you can, in here in 1992, talking about a culture war and traditionally exclusive institutions of education are having to open up, the military no longer being allowed to openly ban gay service members as well. Clinton had originally wanted to follow through on his campaign promise, which he had made, and the exclusion in the military entirely.

There were several studies done to get the opinions of experts on sociology, sexuality, and psychology. Now, when you get experts who are experts about these things, that's really easy to paint them as liberal leaders. Yes. Well, yeah. And within having been an ROTC cadet, my first two years of college in, you know, 93, 94 and 94, 95, I was kind of seeing this unfolding. And I will say the non-commissioned officer corps of the US Army, if the NCOs who were part of the training

cadre at UC Davis were any indication of the broader population as a whole. Unsurprisingly, this was a very strong socially conservative streak in the culture of the military. And I think the reason, part of the reason the policy turned out to be, don't ask, don't tell, as opposed to, no, no, no, no, no, let them all serve, period, is because within the DOD there were concerns that there would be significant unrest. Well, yeah, you're absolutely right.

And I'm not saying that's legitimate at all. No, I'm just saying that's part of what someone might do is the worst thing you could do for yourself. Make them be the violent pricks and then deal with them accordingly. So it's looking with all these efforts of Clinton to get expertise and stuff like that. It looks like liberals versus ordinary Americans again. It looks like elites versus the rest of us. Clinton receives huge pushback specifically from the Marine Commandant General Carl Mundi who was was because it was of course the Marines. Of course it was. Which I mean aren't there jokes about why the Marines are on the boats anyway?

No it's usually the Navy, but yeah. No, it's because why does the Navy carry Marines on their ships? It's because sheep would be too obvious. Oh yeah. Oh shit man, I grew up in a Navy house. I never heard out before Dear God the Navy for fucking sheep You know wow being the dominant partner in a homosexual relationship. You still homosexual and any any opportunity a rag on Marines Oh my god, all right true so Clinton gets pushback from Monday and who was at the time on the joint cheese of staff.

And he did what Centristu, Colin Powell, suggested compromise to him. Don't ask, don't tell. And Clinton went with it. But here's the thing, like now we look back and we're like, how could you do that? But at the time it was either that or nothing because it was too much because America's fucked. But now, and even at the time though, even with Don't Ask Don't Tell, all the traditionalists are saying, look, this elitist liberal president is forcing gaze upon everyone.

They shove them down our sweaty, waiting throats. You know, and it just, there's so much fucking fetishization that, so, and, and, and nobody, nobody, of course, in our audience can see it because this is an audio media. But, but while Damien was saying his bit about our sweaty waiting throats, there was, there was a back and forth motion going on with a clenched fist in one hand that was just Like one of us is a stand-up comedian ladies and gentlemen can you tell who's who?

So With what Buchanan said in 96 Yeah, homosexuality is a huge hot button culture war issue sexuality is a huge hot button culture war issue. And despite very fucking gold water and actual conservative one that I find alarmingly scary, he said you don't have to be straight to shoot straight. He's a very good water. Alarming. Yeah. He's an alarming individual. Yeah. This is the guy who advocated music tactical nuke and and Vietnam for God's sake. Right. And he straight up says, no, look, we look at the experts

and you don't have to be straight to shoot straight. Let's, you know, people want to serve, they get to serve. Well, here's the deal. The thing is very, very gold water for all of us being, you know, fucking crazy pants, very gold water, was genuinely a conservative. Yeah, intellectual conservative, who, yeah, enough of the of the of the William F. Buckley, you know,

school. Yeah, who was a huge problem, but yes, yeah. But I mean, you know, there's there's actual, there's actually principles involved. Yeah, that that go beyond, I got mine, fuck you. Speaking of principles, the 2000 Republican platform, clearly stated, I bought mine, fuck you. Well, that too, that was a page, that was the back page of the, okay, but what it said was, we affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. That was their platform in 2000 towards W. Bush endorsed that. And that's the shift that we're seeing

despite evidence, despite expertise, no expertise. That's a fucking liberal conspiracy. Now, as ordinary folks have to deal with that. And that's the shift you see in the mid-90s. With talk radio, culture war, galvanizing people into thinking that their own intransigence was proof of other people polarizing. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, what it all comes down to is it is the triumph of our innate national anti-intellectualism. You know, it's the weapon I know it. Yeah, well, yeah.

And prior to that, you could be an expert and still, you could like, you know, be personally conservative and still vote for very liberal things because it benefited you. Like, you, that I got mine actually was better back then. Well, not only that, but you could be conservative and being a conservative meant something different. Being a conservative meant you were not a progress

for progress is sake. Let's do this thing because it's new. You care about social cohesion. You care about liberty cohesion. You care about liberty. Which is fine. And that's because that's a trade-off, and I can understand and see where people are coming from with it. I disagree, but I get it.

I also studied the French Revolution. Yeah. You know, you believed that, okay, look, if we're going to make changes, let's make sure that the right change is to make. And if we don't have to make a change, you need to justify to me why we should. Right. You know, and that is conservative.

But that also includes, I'm that kind of, I mean, deep down in the depths of my soul, I'm that kind of conservative, but the thing is nowadays that makes me a fucking communist, apparently. Well, because it includes within it, and this is, I'm going to get right back to what I was saying. It includes within it a willingness to change based on the evidence. And that in trans against becomes part of the brand. And I'm in Transagence, I am going to Clearly other people are polarizing. Look now it's a two-week-well-sides

It's like no you ran to the right and people are saying where you're going Yeah, so true conservatives with the intellectual backing like you said with thinking are on the Wayne reactionaries are on the on the the wax on the on the rise. On the wax, yeah. Waining. Yeah. And more importantly, political tribalism is really picking up. And now anything that the Democrat president does becomes fodder for people to run against. And that brings us up to the election of 1996. And that'll bring us back to the NWO taking over in our next episode. But right now, I want to call out to producer George, who has just started playing Dungeons and Dragons with his family. And they just had their very first, I want to say episode.

They had their very first adventure tonight, and I'm looking very much forward to hearing how the rats of water deep went for them. As am I. Yes. As am I. So we're running hard against the the the timer. So I'll ask you to reading next time. Okay. So yeah.

So I don't know how to end it without asking that, to be honest, um, take away social media. Oh, yeah, take away. Yeah. But what a clean so far in a the just just how clear in retrospect, the path is to where we are right now.

Unfortunately, up to and including the the and I'm going to date us right now by saying this, but the events in Minneapolis in the last few days. And we hadn't even dreamt of social media existing back in 93, 94, 95, but the shit people are saying is is an echo of the kind of shit that people are saying, you know, back then. And, you know, I have, I have, there's a whole rant that, I don't know, I might not be able to prevent myself from getting into an internet next episode about this. But, you know, the, what you just said a minute ago

about the rise of political tribalism and the right literally running to the right and then telling everybody, well, you know, they're being divisive, is like, you know, Ronald Reagan, like honest to God, if Ronald Reagan were to rise from the dead today and look at the Republican Party, he would be gobsmacked. Do you think so? Cause I don't think he's a very principal person. I think he would say, Oh, that's where I need to go.

No, here's the deal. Here's the deal. I think he would, he would be shocked. Not necessarily by the underlying underbelly of the ideas involved, clearly because welfare queens, but the blatant level of hatred. You know, everything, everything he did, as ugly as it got, was dogwistled. And he did not ever say anything. He didn't let himself rant the way that our current president does. That's not a fair person. Well, you're comparing somebody who was a very, very selfish and frankly awful human being

and an adult to a man, baby. All right. Yes. Well, okay, Eisenhower, if we go back further. Okay, there you go. You know, I mean, I do, if Eisenhower an hammer, we're going to try to run for office now, he would be derided as a rhino and our current president would be campaigning against him actively. Oh, yeah.

You know, and like, let's talk about, you know, who's actually a conservative and who is a hateful racist white supremacist wacko? If my grandfather, who was a died in the world Republican, voted like you know, would have voted for Bush II if he'd been alive to do it. If my grandfather were alive today, he would be a shamed of the man who's in the White House. And my grandfather grew up in Iowa and spent most of his adult life in the South and carried all of the unfortunate racial biases that implies, but he was not hateful, if that makes sense. It does. He grew up in a hateful time, and so he had average values for that time. But he was not specifically hateful.

He was, I was, he was, he was institutionally, he racist, and he carried negative ideas about people of color, but he didn't, he didn't, he, he, I think was happy to see that I didn't carry those prejudices. And I think seeing what the Republican Party looks like today, he would be gobsmacked as much as he carried those ideas subconsciously. The way that our current president chooses to talk and the way the Republican party has behaved would piss him off. And rightly so. You know, and I mean, but now looking back at what happened in those years, you know,

it's now, it's now really too obvious how we got where we are. That's it basically. Okay. Where can people find you to ask you more about your grandfather on social media? You can find me at eHBlake on Twitter and you can find me at MrBlake on Instagram. How about you? You can find me at duh Harmony, two Hs in the middle, either on Insta or on the Twitter. You can also find me every Tuesday night starting in June on Twitch.tv, four slash capital puns, doing my pun show for the fourth year in a row.

Cool. And every Sunday, unless technology gets in our way, at Twitch.tv, I tell you, twitch.tv forward slash calling it in the ring where we talk about surprisingly wrestling. And, anyway, you can also find us at where? Geek History Time on the Twitter, as well as our website Geek History Time. Geek History Time. Well, until next time, I'm David Harmony. as well as our our website geek history time geek history time dot com well until next time i'm dating harmony

and i'm a playlock and until next time keep rolling twenties