Trillbilly Worker's Party - Bonus: One For The Road
Episode Date: September 27, 2024Recorded 9/25/24. Not happy with the final product in which case we'd usually scrap it and record something new, but we're out of time to record a new one. So here's your non-canonical episode for the... week. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Aaron I know that you are lucky enough to have had your hair
regrow
Back but for Tom and I it's just only looking worse and worse and so we've made a decision
We're gonna pay for it using the patreon dollars. We receive
Legally and justly on this program. We are going to go to Turkey. We're gonna get the hair transplants.
But you know how after you get the hair transplants,
you have to wait like nine months
in secluded like hibernation so nobody sees you?
Yeah.
We're going to go just north of Turkey
to a little country you've heard of,
perhaps called Ukraine.
We're going to fight in the war for the nine months that our hair is regrowing back to its normal looking state
And then we're gonna come back from war with just flowing
Fabio on those like harlequin romance covers, you know levels of it
What I'll probably I'll probably be missing a leg Tom will be missing both of his arms
But we will have the most beautiful glorious looking hair you've ever seen
And when people ask you like when people ask you how to grow back you like well, I was defending Western values
I was defending democracy
I gave my limbs for it
But you know when God opens a you know when God closes the
door he opens a window yeah also also you had me thinking about when you say
hair transplant for some reason I was like all right what if you're like a
white dude and they just give you like a black guy from like what is the hair like
like could I donate my hair for people? I hate to break this to you we were gonna knock on your door for this
I got enough everybody now I think I could do it.
Yeah, you're in good shape.
Damn, that would be taking it all to a whole other level, man.
Like if Dolezal ever found out that you could do that level of like, dude, she would be losing it.
She'd come back with like, barley locks.
God.
You imagine? Damn, dude dude what a treat
Man
Well, yeah, that's just you know those are the sacrifices you have to make if you're trying to defend and uphold Western democracy
If you're trying to take down Putin Putin
If you're trying to take down poot Putin
There's a balding motherfucker himself. Uh-huh. That's I'd break it to the the premier. It's over for it
It is a little wispy keeps up there
Rather just let it go. Just let it go man
But so yeah, so I before we got on the horn here. I was
Just reading through the transcript of this interview that P Buddha judge did with Ezra Klein and in the New York Times and
I I'm just gonna go ahead and call it September 25th. I get a pass for this my birthday is tomorrow
So if I'm wrong, I Don't get I don't have to eat crow. I said it on my birthday almost pretty much
I'm gonna go ahead and call it though the Democrats are losing in November. There's like I'm you're calling it there
Yeah, why why is that because when you are in it when you start interviewing people to judge. That's a bad sign well
Yes Yeah When you start interviewing Pete Buttigieg, that's a bad sign. Well, yes. Not bad.
It's just, I don't know how to explain it, but the whole premise of this interview revolves
around the issue of why don't voters have trust in Democrats anymore?
And more specifically, why don't they have trust in the government anymore?
And his-
Can I just say that Pete Buttigieg is a great person
to ask someone who I'm not even sure what he's done
and his role as transportation secretary.
Right, of all the guys-
I'll tell you what he's done is he's airport merchants.
There's shits going through the roof, man.
I've not been on a flight, I swear to God,
I've not been on a flight in the last four years,
it didn't get delayed.
Not one. This is true. I mean, I on a flight. I swear to God. I've not been on a flight in last four years It didn't get delayed not one
I mean, I
Don't know there was like a harrowing story. I saw like just this earlier this week about like the
health effects of the
East Palestine, Ohio like train derailment remember when that happened like a few years ago. Oh
yeah, just I mean in obviously us and many other people were saying at the time
Like you imagine like the grotesque health effects that are going to like come out of this
But yeah, that's what's happening and like if all the people to represent the government like of all the things like when you think of
The government like what does it do? Right? It's like it wages war in the military,
it has a vast bureaucracy,
and ostensibly they like upkeep roads and bridges.
Like I just think of,
and that's transportation, Secretary, right?
Like I just think of Pete Buttigieg.
So it's like.
Ask the guy presiding over train wrecks
about the train wreck of the Democratic Party, right?
Right, well that's, okay, so that of the Democratic Party, right? Right. Well, that's okay
so that's the thing like this whole thing is like
Why don't people have trust in the government and he's and he his
immediate answer is
well a lot of our policies take a long time to
Implement and so that's why like when people don't
Automatically like come around to you like you just have to like fight the good fight
He's like he he specifically uses the Affordable Care Act. He's like in 2010. I was I lost an election
I was voted out because I supported the Affordable Care Act and it's like it really just doesn't
occur to any of these people that the reason that people hate the Affordable Hair Act
The Affordable Hair Act, the AHA
See, now if they went with that one, man
That's the program that's gonna send me in Terrence to Ukraine
Vis-a-vis, vis-a-vis Istanbul
They're gonna have a draft for like balding people
You poor bastards right there in your rope,
wanna become cannon fodder, here's what it's in it for ya.
Here's your enlistment bonus, a free hair transplant.
And they're stable.
They just have posters of like sapsid,
it's just flowing lots of shit.
Nine, yeah, nine months to kill?
Like, get a full head of hair and the opportunity to tell your family in Western Valley you fought for Western values
Then you show you know like when you get the hair transplant you're like they shave your ball
and you just got these grotesque scabs all over you where they've
Grafted the hairs and you can't wear a hat for like three months afterward is the other part of you just have to look
Kind of stupid for three months
So we're gonna show up on the front line in Ukraine, and they're gonna be like no you want to wear this helmet, son
No, no, no, I can't sorry a part of the hair transplant program
And then I immediately just go there just get domed in the head
Like the balding wretched bit become easy targets because they don't wear helmets. Yeah, that does the guys not wear an element plus
They're shiny, you know, like their hair's
reflecting back, so they're easy targets.
Yeah, I'm part of the hair,
I'm part of the hair transplant program, sir.
Get down, give me 50.
Get down, son.
You're pathetic, that's why you're here.
You're here because you're fucking repulsive to women
and you have nothing else to live for so you might as
Well live for Western values
Yeah, you can go home
When when you're doing push-ups your hair
Your luxurious locks are brushing against the ground, but until then you're here fighting
the war
It's kind of like that message, you know, the substance
we watch where it's like, the more she pushes it, the like, the actually paradoxically worse
she gets. That's what happens to us. Like we got, we got a full beautiful head of hair,
but the physical and emotional wounds of war have superseded any stigma associated with losing your hair.
Like you come back like an emaciated corpse.
But at least you have a beautiful...
No, you look great, but you just are a little worse for wear, yeah.
But yeah, no, like getting back to this, like it's just this thing, like like and I know we've talked about it lately but um
The Supreme Court held a
Like the Supreme Court heard arguments for and ruled in favor of the third case
Challenging the Affordable Care Act just a few weeks ago like the the decision finally came out and like the consensus on it I read this article in the New York Times was like Obamacare is here to stay now
like all of the legal attempts to
Stop it or bring it down have failed the Supreme Court under John Roberts has decided that the Obamacare is a
permanent fixture of American political life and policy
fixture of American political life and policy regime or whatever so and so part of like of just an accepted part of American life is that we have to
subsidize the health care industry as citizens exactly right like a permanent
fixture in American life is that we must subsidize the health care industry and
and and I think who offers us precious little in return?
Nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Not even free hair transplants.
Not even free.
I can't even have my shit laid and looking good.
You know what I mean?
Like I had to fuck it.
They really, they are really fundamentally incapable of understanding that the anger
about the Affordable Care Act is not about like the fact that we all got like better
Slightly better access to health care. We didn't get better health care
We didn't get better. We didn't get like cheaper health care
We just got a little bit easier access to it to insurance
Right that would help us go through the doc to the doctor
They'd like they fundamentally do not understand that like what we want is a confrontation
with the healthcare in
industry that would strip them of their
existence and ability to continue making profit so that we could live lives and just go to the doctor whenever we fucking want to
Like that's our that's the basis of our disagreement with this fucking
guys, I'm gonna tell you something I have a
decent middle-class income and
I have several nagging little health problems that I have to be I have to triage which one needs the most attention
You know totally yeah
Which one needs the most attention, you know, totally. Yeah
Well, it's it's I mean like I don't know like anyways the point being is that like
It's just kind of fascinating because Ezra Klein was also asking him about like the Iraq War and if the Democrats had learned anything And he was like, haha. Yeah, I mean like it's bad that we supported it
but I think the Democrats are a little too quick to criticize themselves sometimes and that kind of stuff and I
Just just across the board as just in every single policy realm and every single aspect
They just they just seem to not understand
For example, he was also talking about environmental regulations in the EPA
He was like, you know, I'm sorry, people disagree with environmental regulations,
but they don't understand that we have to have neutral objective regulators.
That's why you can't do project 2025 because you have to have a neutral
objective regulators in these bureaucratic positions.
And it's like, what is neutral about environmental regulation?
Non-party.
How is that neutral objective regulators? All Ipartisan. When you said neutral objective regulators,
all I heard was perverted backstabbers.
Yeah.
Non-partisan, basically.
People that don't have an agenda.
And it's just like.
Like jury selection.
Yeah.
Right.
Like.
It's just like...
Well, I was just going to say, for the conservatives,
I don't know.
I just kind of keep coming back to this idea that
Democrats are...
They're kind of like...
And I know that we criticize the Democrats a lot on this show, right?
And I know that I'm not...
I know that we spend way more time criticizing them
than we do the Republicans.
And I think that that's mostly just because I just take it
for granted that the Republicans are genocidal freaks
who want to kill everyone.
I mean it's just a purely satanic party.
Versus like a slightly less satanic party, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It's like Baal versus Malik, you know what I mean? Take your pick. Yeah. Yeah, it's like bail versus Malik, you know what I mean?
Yeah, both false gods, you know, but you are we throwing children in the mouth or we just you know
Spreading pestilence a disease you know, but yeah, I think that like
The conservatives see this state of affairs and they want to put people in these regulatory
positions that have like a partisan agenda, right?
And I think that like Peter Buttigieg and them don't like fully comprehend it.
Like I am actually fully on board with the same thing, but for the left like we need literal people at the EPA who are anti
coal who are literally going after polluters you know what I mean like
people who like exploit workers and don't care about work safety and stuff
like that like that is our like libidinal desire that is what we want to
see these people do we want to make sure is what we want to see these people do.
We want to make sure that bad,
we want to see bad people suffer, right?
Just like they want to see bad people suffer.
The Democrats are kind of the only people
that don't really understand that like basic dynamic
of psycho-social politics.
Right, and they don't have a theory of conflict, right?
Unless it's like punching left, right?
Right, you know like it's like these people
I mean want to execute this this the Republicans the conservatives want to execute this program and they kind of clearly
Identify enemies right and the Democrats are just kind of sitting there like being like nah
We can like mediate and manage your expectations right by not actually taking a position. You don't ever you
Yeah, I'm seeing
For the longest time I said, you know, I'm not seeing really a lot of fervor for the Trump thing or whatever
But here on the homestretch, I'm seeing
I'm seeing a little more Trump than waltz. I am definitely and Harris waltz
So it's gonna be I think it's gonna be strictly anecdotal, but I think it's gonna be a
lot closer than what folks thought it was gonna be a month ago and they thought
that she was just gonna rinse him, you know? I mean I know I've mentioned this
before and lawn signs are purely anecdotal. They don't mean anything,
but I have seen one or two Harris-Vault signs in my neighborhood now
You know that have popped up after the debate, right?
Which I don't know. I just thought that when Biden had dropped out, you know after the debate the
Trump-Harris debate that they would just be kind of like this upsurge and of enthusiasm, you know
Right that you could actually go out on the street and see but it seems like people are still kind of like, yeah, you know
actually go out on the street and see. But it seems like people are still kind of like, eh.
You know.
Hmm.
I feel the same, yeah.
And in many ways, I feel like there was this kind of idea
or feeling for a little while that the left was trying to
sort of like liquidate itself in the Democratic Party,
in the Harris-Waltz campaign.
But I really don't think that. But I really don't think that.
Like I really don't think that,
I think the left has been like mostly pretty good,
honestly, about this in the sense that like,
I just don't feel like people, like okay,
I could get out here and I could make an impassioned speech
to you about solidarity and how like,
it's incumbent upon us to show solidarity
with the people of the world that are being killed indiscriminately by Israel
But I don't even have to do that because I genuinely feel like the enthusiasm is just not there
Anyways, like I just don't I don't I don't see a lot of people just really jumping on board to support this anyways
Because there's really nothing here except it that it's not Trump and
Americans need something, man.
Like they need voters.
They got Terrence on the Harris-Wolfe's campaign shop.
They got camo Harris-Wolfe's hats.
They got the sky blue bucket hat that AOC was wearing.
The hotties for Harris.
The hotties for Harris? Oh no.
Is that what she was wearing herself?
Howdy for Harris.
Uh-huh, pretty bad.
Yeah, I also just think like, what do you need to,
what do you have like a contingent of the campaign
where it's like white dudes for Harris?
Like, I mean, I don't know, man.
I don't think that's a galvanizing message
for people, right?
I don't think, yeah, that's not really a unifying one,
to say the least.
Man, you know, the other thing too, man, is people, you talk to people and just like I'm talking
about just John Q American, right?
They're going to tell you the craziest shit in terms of like their like beliefs and values
and stuff, right?
Like you know, like we need a little pageantry.
That's I think it's I think that finally finding the connective tissue between Trump and the people that you
just talked to out in the world.
And it's that we're all like goddamn liars, you know what I mean?
I was talking to this guy this morning that came to fix my AC unit.
And turns out he's from Weitzberg.
Turns out we went to high school together for like a year.
And it didn't really, you know, nothing like that.
But he knew my cousin and all these people.
We got to talking and he was talking about, you know,
having to get like a ticket from these cops and talk to me about how much he hates fucking cops.
Because he hates cops because this guy gave him a ticket that he thinks he didn't deserve
one time then when he went to City Hall to fight it they basically just told him
to fuck off and it sort of you know ignited this passion to hate the police
in there and then he goes tell you what man when I was in there it was me and
what I call a bunch of working class stiffs.
And then he said, it was a bunch of illegals in there.
And then I was like, oh God.
But it didn't go where I thought it was going to go.
And that's not to say that what he said wasn't slightly racist.
It just didn't, it didn't air as like, you know, as bad as I thought it was going to be.
He goes, you know what happens when he said, they get these guys in here.
And I was like, oh God, please.
This is every thinking white man's dilemma.
It's like, okay, when your fellow white man's being racist,
like how conciliatory do you have to be
before you feel like you're sailing down the river
you fell on the man of a different shade?
You know what I mean?
Without sounding self-righteous too at the same time.
So he's like talking, he's like, man, they bring these guys in. You know what I mean? Right, right. Without sounding self-righteous too at the same time.
So he's like talking, he's like, man, they bring these guys in.
Oh God.
He's like, and you know, the reason these judges let them off on everything or whatever,
and I was like, I didn't know that like, like immigrants had like a reputation for getting
it easy in court, but okay.
Right, right, right.
But he said, the reason they let him off on everything
he's like it's because all these fucking powerful people bring them in here to
work them to death for no money. And I was like okay that's a little better than
I thought it was. Wipe the sweat off your brow. We can work with that a little bit.
I thought it was gonna be you know. You wouldn't believe it they give them
million dollar cash payments on the 15th of every month.
Isn't that bullshit?
Whatever.
My point, Ben, is that like, that could easily, like, went a million different ways,
but like, as we've talked about on the show, Americans just believe a strange hodgepodge of things.
And so like, they find common cause, cause and Trump who's given them like that weird hodgepodge
of things, whereas like the Dems are just like kind of just straight down the middle
like boring policy declarations that because they've abandoned the New Deal, they've abandoned
any like sort of policy as a party that like any normal person could latch onto and like
find a little hope in.
You know what I mean and
So what do we turn to we turn to artifice and pageantry and who does that in spades, but?
DJT you know
Just one working theory. Yeah, I
Mean I think you're right. I just don't have like a I don't have like I don't have a sense that people are really
That Excited they're not like that I don't have like I don't have a sense that people are really That
Excited they're not like that
worked up about it, but
It seems I mean like every election
It seems to be less about like the candidates and like their actual positions and more about scolding people
You know like at least like on the liberal democratic side,
like people saying that you don't care about Palestinians
if you don't vote for Kamala,
you don't care about LGBTQ people
if you don't vote for Kamala, you know?
And it's like, well, what is this person
actually offering, right?
Like any of these disaffected communities,
or what is, you know what I mean?
It's just sort of like, it becomes more about
like an aesthetic choice, you know? Like somebody telling you know, you know, I mean, it's just sort of like it becomes more about like an aesthetic choice
You know, yeah, like somebody like somebody telling you like why are you buying buying this brand of deodorant instead of this one?
At the supermarket or something. Yeah, right that of anything substantive
Well, they're selling chaperone down the head and that to some degree I get it cuz she's been acting a little brand new lately, but
I've seen where she's she's taking a line on
Harris is I'm not gonna support Harris. I don't support either of them and people are accusing her both sides ism I
And it's like I actually kind of agree. I'm with her on this I
She has never had a public position. I'm not with her on she's like fuck the fans. I'm like fuck the fans
No, oh also do I have to say that?
I mean, I'm kind of still this tweet
But I just like somebody was like she she was only meant to be Carly Rae Jepsen
Jepsen famous and we don't need like a news story about Chappelle Road every like you don't mean every like three times a week
And I agree with that. I'm tired of hearing about this time here. He's tired to hear anybody
I do think one kind of hilarious thing about her is that like
she kind of looks like, you know, every girl that graduate from high school,
from Weitzberg High School, you know what I mean?
And yet she's talking about the burden that she holds is like a public figure.
It's like what your whole thing is like you're like a drag character.
But you could easily just blend in like you know you hadn't put
yourself out there is like you know
honestly honestly even having seen her I
couldn't pick her out of a lineup if I
if she walked past me on the street you
know this is the thing I don't get I
beat whatever I've never also never
like Madonna walks by you know that's
Madonna you know I mean you guys walks
by you know it's I'm glad
I'm not reading the comments anymore because you two are about you guys you guys are just like you chose this morning to just walk into
Viper pill
The line of fire I frankly know well
That's what the response that lives are like kind of just like um you know getting on or about it's exactly what I was talking
About you know it's not about the fact that like like I think in that video should really she was talking about like you know
Making choices to be based on critical thinking right and knowing that both sides are bad
And I mean for the liberals attacking her it's just like well. You're not on our team right?
You know that's that they kept saying they were like oh sis. Oh, honey. She doesn't know she must not know about
the LGBT
Politics on the right which is like she's from Missouri. I'm pretty sure she fucking knows
Sure, she's brushed up against it a few times my my you know it's something. I've thought about it for a while, but like
the concept of solidarity as I
understand it is not like you just go out there and say I support X Y & Z
therefore I'm in solidarity with that person you have to actually put
something on the line you have to actually put your own skin in the game, and it's also it's also just not
transactional either you know I like I think like people kept saying things like um
Like why is it that that queer people you know support?
Palestinian rights as a Palestinians give a fuck about you right and it's like what is that? What do you mean?
You know you know what does it mean that just because
like someone doesn't like me, you know,
that I can't stand in solidarity with them
or just like defend like their right
to just live and exist, right?
Without fear, without discrimination, without oppression?
Well, it's this, how are you supposed to build
a horizon of what's
possible if you're so wedded to that specific idea that like the people you
are expressing solidarity with could never possibly see you as a human. You
were telling them I see you as a human regardless of how you feel about me. I
think that like the world has targeted you unfairly the powers that be the forces or whatever and
And the only way that I'm ever gonna be safe is if you are also safe
and that requires some sort of sacrifice and so I'm I
just
Personally, I just think it's a pretty small fucking ask just to not vote for the
Democrats.
I'm not asking you to vote for Trump and I'm not asking you to vote for a third party.
Just sit your happy ass at home.
That's all I'm asking.
Go vote for your fucking dog foreigner or whatever you're playing.
Go right in and chapel roam.
Whatever you want to do.
I just don't, just, I don't know.
Even then, I'm not like necessarily saying you have to do
This that the other I'm just saying that like if the left because you keep hearing this for years
There is no actual left. There is no actual left
Well, we have a fucking moment to prove that there is
And I've seen nobody actually
Articulate any kind of statement or vision as to how we would do that and how we would
like actually make that known.
And so we have an opportunity.
This is it.
This is the opportunity to say, oh no, we exist and we're not going to go along with
this.
Look, let me ask you guys a question is why do you think because as the election gets
closer, increasingly we talked about on the phone Terrence one time, but increasingly
you're just seeing like this, this demand that you
fall into one of two camps, right? I mean, that you'd either support that,
either support Kamala or, you know, I guess, well, I'm guessing, talking about
liberals, Democrats here, but what do you think is the impetus, the animus
behind that, right? That even from people that I respect on the left, where for
some reason, knowing all the things that they
know about American government, right, knowing the way that it works, knowing like what it's based
upon, all the criticisms that they have, they just throw all that out the window, right, to kind of
scold, you know, hammer and sickle emoji leftist online, right, about abstaining from this election.
And I've really, it almost feels like this. I mean, I don't know I'm watching the Walking Dead
So I keep bringing up the seat, but it feels like a zombie virus or something
You know what I mean?
It feels like like everyone out of the sudden the inside of their brain is being chewed out
You know where they just fall into lockstep and it's like it only seems to happen every four years, right?
It is wild. It's this weird thing. We're like I
Think I was we were talking about this on the phone recently
It's sort of like criticizing Christmas like in the run-up to Christmas
Like no one wants to hear it because everyone wants the warm fuzzy feelings and then after Christmas, it's over
Nobody wants to hear it because it's over. It's you know
We're good, and it's just like it's it's the same shit with elections is like in the run-up to them
No one wants to hear them criticize and then afterwards everyone's like but they're over fuck. What are you talking about?
At what point do you actually fucking put your foot down and say like I'm not gonna actually because this is that this is what
I've tried to do for the past several months
And I find I feel like I finally accomplished it about two weeks ago
During the DNC when I was when I was really struggling with this
but I was but like genuinely I've been trying to cultivate this personal idea that like
Nothing will fundamentally change
Regardless of who wins in November like like I mean that like I mean that in the sense that like
the Democrats have not shown us any positive vision or
serious
deviation from the way things have been since
2016 you can pour you can point towards like the
Inflation reduction act and like Buddha judge did in this thing like we're building we're creating millions of new jobs on American shores
I I don't really think that this shit is even that simple.
I don't even think you can vote for reshoring.
Like okay, yeah, but with my vote,
I'm going to get Volkswagen to like build more factories
in America, like that doesn't make any sense.
When you vote for that, that means that they are,
they are delegating this task for you to be the one
to call Volkswagen to bring jobs back to America.
Well what they're doing is they wanna bring in
all the old Nazi companies, you know,
Bavarian Motorworks, Volkswagen, Hugo Boss.
We want to bring the manufacturing here just as a preemptive gesture for where things are
going. You know what I mean?
Right.
I mean, like I saw this tweet the other day from Kamala's wins, Kamala's dubs and it was like Trump's project 2025 will deport will violently
violently deport more immigrants than any other presidential administration and
it's like we know you want the same thing you've said it right there's no
this is what I'm trying to I'm starting to say like I'm trying to cultivate this
mentality that there really won't be any substantive difference
There might be on the on the issue of the courts
Right like it seems to me pretty obvious that like the Trump people really want to destroy the judiciary
We're like rearranging it in some way that like weights it heavily towards them in all future ways
But that's already been accomplished. They've already been doing that for 20 fucking years so they've already accomplished
what they want in that room. Well dude it's like it's like we talked about right I
think we talked about um leave on the phone on the pod but watching the debate
you saw like the few things that they converged on Trump and Harris were
fracking right so continuing environmental ruination, right?
Which is kind of an end of all of them.
You know what I mean?
Like Democrats have long been a war party, right?
You know what I mean?
But like the fact that they're just punting climate is,
it was one of the few things they could hold over
the Republicans' heads, you know what I mean?
Regardless of whether they were to do anything or not.
But that would be disqualifying for a Democrat 10 years ago, you know?
Right, right.
And also too, just immigration and then when it comes to foreign policy, particularly Gaza,
it's like they converge on all those issues.
So it's like, like you said, Terrence, where's the deviation?
At least like in 2016, and I mean this is probably due to Bernie
But you had like substantial debates about a Green New Deal Medicare for all you know
And now it's like I mean even I think you had posted the post of this Terrence like the death abolishing the death penalty is
Not even in their platform anymore. You know
Abolishing the death penalty they're not they're not they're no longer
Torture Abolishing the death penalty. They're not they're not they're no longer Again, they're not torture. They're not
They they yeah under the cover of darkness. They took out the opposition to torture and death
So they're keeping all options on the table part. Yeah, by the way
Torture and pro death penalty classic neocon positions
like classic like truly like one of the first things I was ever politicized on was the death penalty and neocon positions like classic like truly like one of the first things
I was ever politicized on was the death penalty and it was like Dick Cheney and George Bush
loved the death penalty can't get enough of it love it well that's I mean we've we talked
a little bit about that convergence but like what do you think do you think that was some
weird transactional thing where it's like oh dick Cheney for your endorsement?
You know here's what we'll do. We'll lighten up on torture and death
This is that this is the thing and I pointed this out on Twitter
But like it's genuinely fascinating to me how everyone across the board on all fronts
We've all seemed to like
Denaturalized dick Cheney. It's like he does that even like and in the bushes and everybody involved with the Iraq war
It's like they don't like and I mean, I'm saying everyone
Except the left basically but like Democrats and Republicans. It's just like oh they were these old dinosaurs
That like made an oopsie
But like the fact that we don't even really talk about them anymore and even more importantly don't see them as active political actors with like active agendas and stuff like
The idea that Dick Cheney is just like sitting on his haunches in his 80s like just
It doesn't have like a dog collar or a shot collar on it like that
Like on his third heart
Collar a shot collar on a mystery shit like that like on his third heart
Yeah, the idea that he's not in some way still politically active is fucking laughable I mean like everyone tries to come back man like if you if you are
If you're in this game like us there's a reason we can't walk away
Everyone if you are if you're committed to the idea
of shaping the world, then like you're never gonna stop.
And this guy is one of the most ambitious political actors
of the last like 50 years.
Like of course, you think he's just like sitting around
and just like carelessly throwing away his endorsement
one way or the other, like fuck no man.
There had to have been some sort of like transaction there.
Is he a Nixon guy you said?
Like he cut his teeth in the Nixon White House?
Him and Rumsfeld, yeah, I think at the end of the Nixon years.
And then Cheney went on.
He was in the House of Representatives
during the Reagan years.
I think he won in 1980 with the Reagan revolution.
I mean, I know this country's moving ever rightward.
But the fact that these people aren't in delacrates and they're so easily easily
What's the word rehabilitated and not by like the right? Obviously, they've never been they've never been shut out
But by liberals right by Democrats by people who are calling them war criminals and warmongers and shit like that
You know, it's not 30 years ago
This is fundamentally like the,
the problem with not being able to articulate a vision in the future is that
you're always going to mind the past for shit. And like, you're like,
nostalgia does this trick on all of our minds where we remember things, you know,
more pleasant than they actually were. And so just to try something different,
we're widening the tent wide enough. I won't say we, I'm not, I don't want to be part of that caucus.
I just want to be clear about that.
But they are widening that tent so wide that they're welcoming fucking Iraq genocide neocons
in and trumpeting their fucking endorsements as like a sign that like of progress right saying in effect
saying in effect look at them putting like country over party isn't that great
to me no no dick change be shot in the fucking head like that's just like
seriously yeah to me the red fucking line like I'm sorry like I made that
decision a long time ago I will never get on board with anything that fucking monster is a part of.
Like, I'm sorry.
That should be the position of anybody our age.
To me, like, the gamble of, like, everybody, all of us here were probably politicized during the Iraq War years, to some degree or another,
at least in the leftward drift of our politics.
Like it blows my mind that there are people my age that were there for that, man.
That were there for these fucking military contractors rounding up Iraqis' cats and
executing them.
Raping women.
All this shit that we knew was going on, you know what I mean?
Say nothing of just the wholesale destruction of it, man.
The destruction of their artifacts all that shit like and then
We're just gonna because this fucker is fucking cretin bush can just show up on Ellen DeGeneres one day with his fucking paintings and like
You know sorry
You know fucking well look at him any like a sweet little grandpa now. No man. No
And his father may have been the most evil man to ever live I
saw I've found this article the other day from 2004 after the
scandal came out that they were torturing prisoners in Iraq and
I
Mean I was astonished first of all it was like
First of all like Bush
Immediately washed his hands of it and said he had nothing to do with it
But like then second of all like Rumsfeld like the Secretary of Defense at the time
Adamantly said not only was he not going to resign, but he was offended that even anyone would even politicize the the
the thing.
I mean, I mean, I just, I don't know man.
Like it's, the extent to which we have memory hold
2000 to 2008 is genuinely astonishing.
This is related, but did you guys see,
to be fair, I don't know the whole context,
I just saw the clip.
But, I mean, it's still kind of alarming that she said this.
But that interview that Kamala did with Oprah, where she'd said she was talking about
she's talking about guns, you know, and she said something like,
you know, if somebody comes into my home, you know, I'm going to shoot them, you know.
And then it was all, of course, crafted because, you know, the audience kind of laughs nervously.
And then she's like, Oh, I probably shouldn't have said that
Anyone who says they shouldn't have said that absolutely meant to say it right?
right that was like that was like some means tested kind of shit not means tested, but that was some sort of um
Where they just wanted to see how I would do with the voters
You know, I mean they got people in the group of people in a room and said how do you take this?
Right and it's like well, who was she appealing to right?
She's appealing to these white suburbanites that are terrified about crime and about immigration and people have the nerve to say to me
Oh, you don't think oh black woman listen
You're a fucking moron if you think that she's speaking from a place of feeling unsafe as a black woman, right?
This is why she needs a gun. She's you know what I mean? Yeah
Like my place of being a baby the most powerful woman on earth. What the fuck are you talking about?
Well, she don't got a shoe nobody she got a Secret Service dog. What are you talking about bro she don't got a shoe nobody she got a secret service dog what are you talking about I guess it's the
presumption that I would just go along with the further rightward creep of this
country the fact that like and even just seeing people like Angela Davis like
parrot this shit the fact that like you expect me to just go along with like a
further rightward creep of this whole fucking thing that like I can't have my own principles and just say that like look we're gonna have to agree to
disagree on this like I just will not be a part of this I mean not even not even for
my own conscious that it's not even it it's just for the fact that someone's got to fucking
put their foot down somewhere because like what at what point do you just keep you know
what I mean like we just keep I mean people talk to people talk about the lesser of two evils but voting for the lesser of two evils gets you the keep you know, I mean we just keep I mean people talk to people talk about the lesser
Of two evils but voting for the lesser of two evils gets you the evil
You know what I mean?
Like what do you what do you just what do you say that?
Well, you know, this is this person might not be the best candidate that we want this person's not ideal
What you're doing is that you're legitimizing and naturalizing that right word drift, right? Yeah. Well, and it's also like
This is kind of what I was getting at earlier. it doesn't even really matter what we think on that, because like, for them, if they don't put
up an actual candidate who can go up and combat these talking points from the right, it doesn't
even matter what we say or think.
Like people will just see that as not inspiring, and they just won't engage, or they won't
like participate or whatever and
I mean if you had a candidate like for example
Like someone in the Bernie mold that was running against Trump
Even that would be technically a lesser than two evils thing, but at least like it's like
we're
Potentially you would say theoretically building some sort of consensus framework for like all right we know it's not perfect it's not what we would want however politics is a kind of you know it's dirty you gotta you gotta
At least it would be like a counter consensus I guess right?
Right.
It's just I don't know. It's just I
I like the the Democrats have kind of like made their own
Disaster like they've made a disaster of their own making in a sense that like
You know, you've got Israel planning to invade Lebanon now. Did you guys know that?
Those strikes on southern Lebanon Lebanon were the most intense air raid in modern warfare? I read this article about it in the New York
Times, like the amount of bomb tonnage dropped on the square mileage and population density
is the most intense air raid seen in the 21st century in modern warfare
Which are saying something
Yeah
Brother, brother
I mean
It's just, it's just like
Why do you need to keep
Why do we anchor this Hitlerite country to us?
You know, why, why, I mean
What, what, what do you even get out of that?
I mean
I don't even know what to say
Because it's just like this country's drag
Feels like it's dragging the world into World War III,
you know?
And America is just like, no Israel has the right to exist.
It's just, yeah, Israel.
It's just like, I don't understand it.
It's not even fucking popular with people.
Nobody wants this.
Well, the thing that we've become so,
I mean, Terrence said this the other day,
but we have become so housebroken as a society
that we'll just take anything.
And like, I don't know, like our epistemology is so broke Terrence said this the other day, but we have become so housebroken as a society that we'll just take anything.
And like, I don't know, like our epistemology is so broke that like, we just don't like,
like we will just let absolute fucking like heinous things happen because we feel so powerless.
You know what I mean?
Like we feel so, cause we bought so much into this horse shit.
It started with the Iraq war and it's just gotten more intense along the same lines. Because do you remember how defeated the Republicans were in 2008?
Like if the Democrats were going to be like, like if they knew anything about consolidating
power or actually had any interest to be in a left party, like Obama would have prosecuted
all those bankers that caused the financial crisis and I don't know, maybe hung Dick Cheney, at least buried them under the fucking
jail. You know what I mean?
We're going to have to put Dick Cheney to dog crate and dump it in your daddy.
Don't like that. We'll, we'll let him, David Coppa,
fill his ass right in there with you in that four by four. But that's,
that didn't happen. It's the exact same reason that like we're,
we're our chickens are coming home and gruesome day with all this.
You can't log on to fucking Twitter without saying some sort of racist fucking bullshit that you got a way through
Because we didn't hang the fucking Confederates
We didn't hang fucking Nathan Bedford for us back when everybody was doing hangings. You know what I mean?
like you have to
The number one thing about power is when you get it you got to put down the opposition. I'm sorry
They just have to have put down. You have to.
And they always pop back up, and you find yourself
in bed with them in the weirdest situations
as we're seeing now.
Yo, that's such a good, just real quick, Tom,
that's such a good point, when you get power,
you gotta put down opposition.
When the Democrats get power,
it's like they welcome opposition, you know?
It's like, this power is-
They bring them into the tent.
Well, how about you guys just work with us now?
It's like, why are you letting the fox in the hen house?
That's the thing about the Affordable Care Act. It's about you guys just work with us now? Like why you let the Fox in the house the thing about the the Affordable Care Act?
It's like you guys had the mandate you basically let Joe Lieberman fucking
You know do a silent sit-in protests of over the whole thing
But even that would have just gotten a public gotten us a public option
You know what I'm saying like it's like another guy that should have been hung after he lost that election.
Him and Gore.
Fucking give you fucking gave that election to Bush. I mean by the time we invaded Iraq we should have said
All right, just as it just it might be a bit of an overcorrection, but Lieberman and Gore need to be put down there.
This does get into something which is that like
something I've struggled with over the course of this election like I'm not trying to rehabilitate the Democrats anymore
And I'm and I also don't even engage with the memes about couch fucking JD Vance or the weird
Weird this stuff. I am not in the business of helping the Democrats win an election
I will do nothing of the sort and And genuinely, the thing that did it,
pushed me over the line, was the genocide.
And granted, up to that point, you could've convinced me
there were still some semblance of a harm reduction thing.
But I'm past that.
I've moved past it.
I went through some sort of fucking wormhole,
I went through some sort of vortex
where I emerged on the other side.
Like I am no longer interested
in even a coalitional arrangement with these people.
Like because to me, I mean, we have sat here
for seven fucking years, seven and a half years
thinking about like 2016 and 2018
and like mistakes being made, turns not taken taken paths in the woods not taken, but it this at this point like it's it is
foundational to their very being and I think that it is obvious that since
2008 and maybe even since 2000 probably since 2000 they have wanted to move right
Honestly, probably even earlier than that I
mean obviously everything fucking Clinton was doing was pretty right wing or not even
pretty right wing it was all out like it was yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
actually that's the thing like there was not a whole lot of difference between Clinton
and Reagan right like those two regimes of policymaking and politics were basically the same
But like once you get the 2000 election once you get like 9-eleven
these these differences kind of like calcified and hardened into these almost sort of like abstract like cultural differences that get
represented in the
Concept of a red state and the concept of a blue state
Like people forget we did not have the concept of red states and blue states before 2000.
Until 2000, and that's so true.
These things became imminent after 2000.
It's kind of like, I don't know, man, I know we talked about the debate, but it's sort
of like a lot of what was spoken about at the debate and during this election and every
election, but I especially feel like elections after 2008 have been about the future, right?
Like using language about what kind of future do you want?
And I think like at least, I mean, how can I put this?
The Republicans, they have a conception of the future, right?
But it's terrifying, right?
They are warning people that the Democrats are leading us to this communist authoritarian
future that we have to beat back.
But the Democrats don't really seem, as much as they talk about the future, it seems like
that's all just wrapped up in culture.
In cultural representation and progression is this is what this country should look like
instead of what should this country do for marginalized people, right? For poor people, right?
And I don't know, it's just terrifying that they just don't have a vision of the future
besides reupholstering the past, as I always kind of say, you know what I mean?
Whereas the Republicans seem to want to take it in a frighteningly new direction, right?
Well, and it's also just true what Tom was saying a second ago, that you actually have
to use power to put down your opposition.
And the thing is, is that the people who vote for Republicans
Understand that and want it and the people on the left also understand that and want it the Democrats are the only people in the room
Who don't want that who don't understand who really do think and this is probably why they've been trying to attack right since
2000
But like I guess I may be maybe I think I kind of wonder honestly if they And this is probably why they've been trying to attack right since 2000.
But like, I guess, maybe, maybe, I think, I kind of wonder honestly if they, if the
lesson they took from the 2000 election was, well, we'll never beat the electoral college.
Like the electoral college will always favor the right.
And so the best we can do is just try to build up as many popular vote voters as possible
and like hope that that redounds to our favor every four years. You made a good point
Terrence about like we didn't have the concept of red states and blue states
like like people forget Clinton won Kentucky twice in 92 and 96 something
that would be unheard of today which that's not been that long ago you know
what I mean like in the grand scheme of things like it it's almost like the fix is in with elections now.
I'm not saying this is like some sort of conspiracy theory,
but it's like politicians don't even go places
to court votes that they think that's like,
there's just no political expedience there.
Well yeah, that didn't exist in the Clinton era.
Clinton worked Kentucky and granted I know,
but it's not like
Kentucky wasn't part of that like I mean it wasn't like West Virginia I mean, Kentucky went for Reagan. You know what I mean, but like what you're describing is that
What you're describing is that elections now are no longer even about democracy
Which is kind of the funny irony of like voting to save democracy
because literally the game in presidential elections is going to battleground states and trying to
convince a margin of like a hundred thousand out-of-work coal miners and
disaffected health care workers that they you should vote for them rather
than the other person and like the election will literally come down to
those hundred thousand people in a purple state like Pennsylvania how was is that democracy? That is not a democratic process. What's that
what's that movie man? What's that movie where for some reason it comes down to
one guy's vote to determine who's gonna be president and the candidates have to
try to court him and sweeten him, you know what I mean? To like to to to entice it to both of them. I mean that's a little bit
we're doing with like a sliver of the country, right? I
Think it'd be more democratic if they did it how I won my one time
I won an election is I tied and then we went to the flip of a sack of jewelry a dollar. Mm-hmm
I would think Trump Harris 50 yard line Super Bowl flip a sack of jewelry a dollar for I mean
I've been saying I have been saying that for weeks
I do feel like this might be a repeat of 2000 in the sense that like
The numbers they're neck and neck is this really really well. I just I still think that's
What was what is any well campaigning bid for if they're still I don't understand this is this this is another trend that like became
calcified after 2000.
We no longer have landslide elections
in this country anymore.
People forget, this was a recurring phenomenon
in American elections throughout the 20th century.
You would have landslide victories
for one of the two parties.
The closest we got to that was 2008.
With the mandate they had in 2008 like
That was genuinely because the war was so unpopular. They had just crashed the economy
they had demonstrated that they really didn't give a fuck about black people because they sacrificed New Orleans at the fucking altar and
like they really did have a mandate to finally change some of these things like for example the electoral college or whatever and
to finally change some of these things, like for example, the electoral college or whatever. And they didn't do it.
But it is this really weird thing now where it is an imminent fact of American politics
where you will just have these parties just grind away at, like in the Senate, they'll
just bounce back 51 to 49 or 52 to 48.
And in the House, it'll kind of like balance back and forth a little bit here in there and then in the
presidential elections yeah, it'll come down like two or three battleground states and
That's where the thing is decided and you're right. It's a fait accompli in every other state
So like what is even the fucking point here? Why am I supposed to care? I guess there's no inertia
There's no yeah, except except for the work for the all inertia. It's all inertia. There's no right, right
Yeah, right, right
It is it is weird. It's almost like
Okay, so here's the way I think about it. It's like so this is a weird sort of circuitous way to get to this point
I want to make but like when David Bowie went on tour
He didn't have an opening act.
I think this is probably the late 70s.
And so for his opening act, he would just play Lou Reed's Street Hustle.
At the same time, him and Lou Reed hated each other.
But he loved that record so much that he was like, this is just gonna be my opening act.
We're just gonna throw this record on and play it.
And that's kind of looked at as the beginning of where touring is now to where you used to tour to sell records.
Now you have to make a record to have something to tour on because the record doesn't make
any money.
The record is just pretense to go out on the road and get like ticket money and merch sales,
et cetera, et cetera.
A lot of people say it started with the whole Bowie-Larrie thing. But in the same way that has shifted, campaigning has also shifted to where you just sort of
condition the handful of voters you need in the key places rather than engage all of America.
And I'm not saying we're worse worse forward or whatever because like these problems existed
a long time before, but it is interesting in the sense
that like, it's created an apathy about voting
and like I don't know why they like sort of push the idea
that like we have to vote in order to be like involved
in the civic process or whatever.
Why would I vote?
Go and just take my happy ass over
to fucking Maxwell Elementary School
and show my cell phone bill
so they'll let me vote or whatever.
And punch one in for a Pyrrhic victory
that is just me exercising my constitutional rights so I can feel good about it.
You know, it doesn't mean anything.
There's no courting of my vote.
There's nothing.
Let me tell you something about this.
If you're a leftist, there's nothing for you in this election.
There's no reason to go.
We're not at the table.
They're not giving us anything.
The only thing they gave us was a nominally progressive Minnesota governor on the ticket.
It's the only crumb they gave us.
And like, he's a fucking Israel stan, like he's like, you know what I mean?
I was just gonna say, just on that note, like what you're describing is a process that I
feel like mirrors the neoliberalization of the economy.
It probably, now like looking at it in hindsight, it now makes total sense that like that becomes
the process of voting.
That like you establish your own personal brand and then you go out there and you try to activate these pre-formulated segments
of various demographics, and this mirrors in many ways,
you're right, the exact way that, like,
I'm just thinking about authors.
Authors now are not encouraged to make works of art
that are universally appealing
or universally transgressive.
They are now encouraged to make works of art
that appeal solely to their own audience members
that they've built up to a personal brand.
And that is part of the process of neoliberalization.
We have all been sort of like sliced and diced
into these various like little segments of consumers
of consumption.
And it gives us this
semblance of some sort of societal participation or feeling but at the end
of the day we are all ultimately atomized as consumers and so that's the
basis upon which we then go to the to the voting booth to like try to enact
some semblance of autonomy over our personal lives even though at the the end of the day, that's not that at all.
It's a fiction.
Well, I mean, it's it's all I mean, it just seems to be all about like conspicuous consumerism
too, right?
Like what you what you buy identifies you somehow.
Yeah.
Morals, you know what I mean?
So again, it's nothing substantive.
It's nothing it's nothing about like, well, what are either of these candidates actually
going to do for the majority of people?
Right?
It's just about, well, are you a good person
or are you not a good person,
depending on who you support.
No, you're right, it's the exact same,
it is the exact same sell of a product.
And I know that this is a cliche point,
like it has been made many times before,
but when you put it that way, Aaron, it's entirely,
the fact that I am seen as a weirdo
for having some sort of actual human conviction
with people being victimized in a genocide, the fact that that makes me weird, that should
be alarming.
Listen, brother.
I want to make it clear.
That is new.
That is not how politics used to work.
Politics used to literally be about the convictions you had, about the things you wanted to see changed in the world, the things you wanted to see
about yourself mirrored in in how the world was shaped. That is not, that's not
the case anymore. Now it is literally, you're right Aaron, it is a way to just
model to other people what you think rather than having an actual fucking
conviction. Man it's so, we're so far beyond the pale that like, you know,
and like I talk about my family a lot on the show
and like, you know, their political inclinations,
but you know, man, this was a dark moment.
We were coming back in the car from Virginia
and we start talking about the election
and I've used these words, Terrence, that you've used.
I'm just not gonna vote for somebody
who's an accessory to genocide, you know?
And like my family in the car started kind of laughing,
you know, like I was a weirdo
or something that I said was just so out of pocket. And I was just like, dude, we're talking
about like, like hundreds of thousands of people dead. And you guys are just like, kind of just like
tossing that aside the same way you just throw a napkin out the car window and just watch it get
whisked away, you know? Like as if it doesn't mean anything. It's just so insane. We've we have all sort of been deputized by like
you know the capitalist class to be like little petty tyrants herself because
like our inclination when people like say something like that is to accuse
them of being self-righteous you know what I mean? Look at not like and not
thoroughly creeped out by the idea that nothing matters in the world because we
can just target groups of people for annihilation on the whims of a handful of assholes
Look look at the way the media has treated Ta-Nehisi Coates this week
I mean, it's fucking crazy right that like they've act like they act like yes like no now
He's been brainwashed now. He doesn't have any you know what I'm saying like he's not going along with Democratic party
I saw this one blue check Zionist
I don't remember the guys they but y'all probably saw the tweet. It was like Tallahassee Cote spent ten days in Israel
He doesn't speak Hebrew. He doesn't speak Arabic. He doesn't know anything about Zionism
I'm like dog if he knew Hebrew he would probably be even more opposed to Zionism
Because every time I said every fucking time I see a tweet as I just tweet in Hebrew and I hit translate
It's like somebody ripped the page on a bike off
It's wild it's wild and here's the shitty thing about it
It's the same way that Israel tries to manufacture anti-semitism so they can just have something to point to where it's like
Oh see see this is the scourge that we're trying to avoid here
And it's like the way they do that is just to adopt being Nazis
themselves, you know, I mean people act like
rightly creeped out by that but what they're trying to do is create an association with of Hebrew with like
So they can't select. Oh, no see anti-semitism. Well, dude, did you see did you see Colombia? Did you see Colombia?
Apparently the word the term Zionist is now a term of harassment right that they've updated anti-discrimination
Discrimination policies. I'm like, but they call themselves Zionist. So
This is the thing this is the thing like I heard them talking about this on Chapo this week
and I thought I was a fascinating discussion just about like the concept of like
How how what what lines what demarcations can we draw between like how much in Israel?
Influences in guides policy right because it does invite the charge of antisemitism to say that Israel is
Running the United States in some very crucial aspects
But the way that I've started looking at this over the last few months is that
And I was really like assisted here by reading black reconstruction
Like I genuinely think that like what has happened here
I don't think it's a case of like Israel like going to them putting you know
Papers in front of them and saying this is what you have to do
I just genuinely think that like these two actors have been so intimately
Coordinated so intimately bound by patrolling the Middle East and the world through various surveillance schemes through wars
After 9-eleven, you know war on terror and everything
They have been so they've become so close that the United States governing structure has
internalized the Israeli racial ideologies about the world and
What that means is that if you start buying into that if you start and this is this again going back a few weeks ago
Like this is what I meant when I said like I'm not interested in trying to deal with the Democrats anymore
I'm not interested in even trying to like reform them
Whatever. I think that like what has happened is they have so thoroughly internalized these racial ideologies about the world that they
They know they they fully buy into all the implications of that. So for example
The reasoning you see for what Israel is doing in Lebanon now is that Hezbollah is military
militarily occupying Lebanon.
That's their reasoning for it.
Just the same way with Hamas, right?
It's the exact same thing.
Oh, they are militarily occupying this country.
Therefore that gives us the right and privilege to annihilate everyone in that country.
Everyone has to associate to them
We have to escalate to deescalating to the escalate
That's the thing and and you are a fucking fool if you don't think that that will eventually be applied to
Students at Columbia or whatever on college campuses or us three fucking recording this goddamn
I guess that will eventually become that's where this ends.
And I hope to fucking God it does not start
spreading around the world,
to where the United States and Israel
have to start going to every single country
and eliminating every person and group of people
who does not believe in the Zionist supremacist ethnostate.
You know what I'm saying?
But that is the implication of that racial ideology
and the United States government, at least at the implication of that racial ideology in the United States government
At least at the top of both parties have internalized that the only way you're breaking out of that is if you have some sort
Of alternative that's articulated
That's the stakes. That's the same
You know when I hear escalate to de-escalate you know one it makes a lot of sense that like you know cops go and train
In Israel because that's essentially what they're do
You know, yes, like the DS. Yeah
It's like what we Thomas talking about with power
It's like it realized that when you have power you put down opposition completely exactly in a totalizing way
That's exactly what deescalate that's like, you know, I'm saying deescalate to escalate or escalate to deescalate means they understand the stakes
They understand the stakes which is me you put down your enemy completely, 100%. That's what the escalation is for them.
Yeah, that's not hard to see that like, I made a dumb little joke on Twitter, but it's like,
you know, they'll just annex Detroit one day and say that like the Kiwanis Club or the terrorists
inside the Kiwanis Club, the scourge that is them were you know?
They're hiding you know a bunkers underneath a Pizza Hut or whatever
I just it's just I just wish one person
Like I mean, I just kept coming back to this over and over as I was reading black reconstruction. I
Just wish one single person in a position of power within the Democratic Party
Specifically because I don't expect the Republicans. I mean obviously like there is no hope for those people right?
They want the same thing Israel wants but like in an even more apocalyptic like end-of-history way
But like I just wish one person in a position of power would understand the implications of
the Zionists like you know ethno supremacist
worldview of that racial ideology because
You're seeing this eat away at the the base of
You're seeing this eat away at the the base of Democratic support
You're seeing it eat away at the even like these very attenuous social relations. We have left in this country
and I don't know man. It's just it's just like I don't know if y'all saw it this week
But like jake tapper had asked
like gretchen whitmer this really leading question about like whether
She condemned Rashida Tlaib's like anti-semitic comments against the Michigan AG
She didn't exactly and that's and that is what I'm talking about
like if you let this stuff become commonplace in American society and
I'm looking around and I'm seeing the Democrats as the avenue
through which this is becoming commonplace through American society
like that's what's going to wind up happen you will start getting you will
start getting that that kind of like fifth column you know like anti
subversive red scare type thing terrorism essentially and now you have
the added thing of what you were talking
about last week, Aaron, the whole Bolardian violence
technology nexus where I saw an op-ed in the New York Times
this morning that was like, the pager story should concern
us because it shows how vulnerable our supply chain
networks are.
And it's like, man, if that's the case,
if that's the case, if they can just go in
and just manufacture bombs to send to every human house,
that we are talking about the,
we're talking about a requirement
for a fundamental reorganization of rights, values,
and even more fundamentally, politics.
You have to have some sort of realignment of the political system.
I mean, just to think that the United States and Israel leading a global race war with
exploding devices, dude, like, just Jesus Christ.
It is jokershit.
I mean, that's what it is, man.
I joke about the race war a lot, but I mean that's what these people want.
You know what I mean?
That's essentially what they want.
Well, and that's, this is the thing, this is what's so fascinating about it, is that
the Israel, the ongoing genocide and their attempts to start a regional war, to pull
the US into it, is what has allowed the Democratic Party to finally break the seal on this and push the left out and
Embrace the right this is why the Tim waltz thing fucked me up so bad because that to me showed that it was purely symbolic the vice
Presidential position means nothing it's pure symbolism
It meant that they were going to try to cynically unless the progressive left left to the genocide. To our credit, I have
not seen a lot of support for the Harris-Waltz thing. But again, the left has to articulate
itself in one voice to say that, like, look, we're not going to go along with that. But
even more fundamentally, this war has forced the Democrats' hand on that. They've started
moving right. Missouri executed a man last night by the death penalty named Marcellus Williams
Who if you like and I said this on Twitter, but like if you if you find that repulsive this man
Like the prosecutors asked that he not be executed. I think like I don't he didn't even do this crime as far as I understand, right?
I didn't always maintain his innocence his family's always maintained his yeah a million people by the way signed a million people
So the people the people who was the person the family members of the person who was murdered say that he wasn't guilty
And they still fucking killed him well now
Here's the thing if you if you're morally repulsed by that you have no home in the Democratic Party
That's not their position anymore their position is that I don't think that they're I don't think that they have like a probe death
Penalty position on their platform at this point, but they don't have an anti death penalty
Exactly, not gay. So the point I'm trying to make, this is all I'm working towards, is that we are at a moment
where we're being challenged on a million different fronts to redefine humanity, redefine
rights, what it means to actually want to exist in community and create communities that are safe
and not built on, let's say, racial
or ethno-supremacist ideologies.
I mean, at a time when we should be widening that scope,
that community of humanity, you know?
And who is considered a human being
and worthy of dignity, right?
And a life worth living
we're just like kind of just just closing that right closing that and siloing off different people and
Eventually indicating them for annihilation, right?
Well, you're exactly right. And in fact the Democrats are not only closing off the aperture is closing
They are trying to peel away, yet again, more right wingers.
They are just going after right wingers
who think that Trump is nasty or gross or whatever.
Like in that thing that Buddha Jesus was talking about,
he was like, he told this story that you could tell
he thought was so inspiring,
that the woman who thought that her cat had been stolen
in Springfield, Ohio, thought her cat had been stolen by Haitian immigrants,
found the cat in the basement, and so then she reached out to her Haitian neighbors, and then they hugged it out,
and they had a beautiful moment of humanity. Like you could tell, like he thought that was a beautiful moment.
Dude, it's like the lady who posted, who first,
I don't know if y'all saw this article,
but she had first posted,
she's one of the first people
to post these rumors on Facebook, you know,
the hearsay basically, that she heard it from someone else
who heard it from someone else.
And she said she felt bad, right?
And I think this person's actually biracial too, right?
So that's one thing the news is trying,
the news is kind of putting it in this light where like,
well, she feels bad about what she did,
and it's not just all about race,
but I'm like, how is that a feel good story, right?
Right.
That's like child cancer patient runs a lemonade stand,
you know what I mean?
To afford health care.
That's the shit, yeah, that shit's intended
to be heartwarming that it just betrays the bigger problem,
or portrays the bigger problem.
No, it would be heartwarming if they were like well
Okay, they found the cat in the basement. This was all ginned up
JD someone has to pay for this it's gonna be JD Vance
noon tomorrow
Yeah, faces and draw
That would be hard one draw fat boy
That would be heartwarming I
Just you have to confront what is at issue here.
You can't just like sit around and say like,
well these people are wrong for thinking this,
but they have their reasons because of economic XYZ.
Actually talk about their lives, engage with them,
try to fucking carve out something
that would make their lives better.
I mean, there's just been no attempts to do that.
And that's why I'm extremely bullish, or, uh, bearish, I'm sorry, on the Democrats.
Chances in November.
I mean, I would love to be wrong, because I do not want a Trump presidency.
I would love to be wrong.
But I have very very very serious reservations. I'm getting the dark
like
ominous like swell of you know like you know it's like a fucking SUV episode or SVU episode like
Pulling for a secret third-way victory, you know what I mean, and I don't mean a secret third thing
I mean the actual ideology of the late Colonel Gaddafi
That's who I'm I think that's gonna set America right, you know
Totally agree. Always carry my little green book around me man
I always you know that that bad I mean Terrence is such a good point though. It's like that like
Yeah, the Democrats are more concerned with like, you know
converting right-wing to, you know, liberal or neoliberal, whatever they're,
whatever you call their ideology.
Then they are actually pivoting and changing their policies
to fortify young progressives or, you know,
just whoever, you know, that like, you know,
wants a better life.
It's like, it's insane to be channeling that energy.
And you get the results of it, right?
The results of it are, we're gonna find common cause
on Gaza, the environment, and what was the other thing?
Immigration and immigration.
Yeah.
That's when you've spent the last 20 years
trying to convert conservatives rather than like,
you know, bolstering the fucking energy
for change that young progressives want,
that's what's gonna come out the other side
and you can't vote for that.
If you vote for that, then it's like not correcting a child.
You know what I mean?
It's like not correcting a pet or whatever.
It's just gonna teach them bad habits
and they're gonna keep doing that and keep doing that.
I know we're over time here, but I just wanted to support corporal punishment
I just want to say it when I say correct
There's ways to correct child
Did I'd be remiss if I didn't bring this up did you guys see that
Israel had denied food aid into Gaza and
Anthony Blinken went in front of Congress not once but twice and
Insisted that they actually had not denied this aid that they actually had let it through I mean
We're talking we're talking about like a level of
complicity here that it's like I
Just I don't know man. I just I don't want anything to do with these
absolute like wretches like they are
They deserve to be buried under the jail like truly this is it's just I don't know and
There are no immediate answers for what to do with that
but
the thing is is that you can look to the past and see when people have
articulated something different and and that's that's it. I'm not like
different and and that's that's it I'm not like um
I'm not saying like we go out and start a third party. I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying that like
To me that there is an opportunity here for
actually carving out an alternative place in
this and
Saying like okay. We do exist as a left. These are our principles. This is how we will engage with this
This is what we want
and
There needs to be some sort of call it. I call a fucking Congress or some shit
I don't know but like this truly like you have to do something. I know there's been attempts like
Undecided and protesting at the DNC and all this other stuff but or even third party or stuff whatever but like all of that stuff is
Just window dressing or preliminary
attempts to actually articulate something that is
Something that challenges that and it's built on different principles.
And I'm not saying that you go in
and create utopian principles.
I understand how politics works.
You have to make compromises.
But there has to be some things that are non-negotiable.
Like when the Republican Party was created,
anti-slavery and abolition was non-negotiable and
From that point that's where you build out your program That's what we can talk about everything else
But the yeah start from the things you won't budge on there are some
Non-negotiable things here and for me the genocide of the Palestinians is non-negotiable
I just and I just have to you know one last thing I'll add I just have to question like why would you think?
That someone who is like so ready to supply Israel with weapons to continue this slaughter
Why would you think that this person would give you health care?
Why would you write this person would protect your rights?
Why you think that this person would make your life any better?
Instead of also at some point seeing you as an enemy combatant, right, who needs to be annihilated.
You know, I just don't understand.
I really wanna ask people that, like,
if you could vote for these people,
why won't they just drop a bomb on your house, bro?
If they are, you're right, Aaron,
they are giving money in billions of dollars,
trillion actually, right?
Isn't it like a 1.2?
Right now it's probably like a trillion dollars. it's like they're giving weapons to the people
who's operating governing policy here is Hezbollah is militarily occupying
Lebanon and therefore we get to kill everybody in Lebanon like that that
you're right like what makes you think that those people will not also internalize the same eventually the same idea about you
Not even it's not even just chauvinism. It's just you're just like you just you're an idiot
You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, just miss let right yeah
Well, this is the thing like I mean I pointed this out like a few months ago like the people who do go along with
The Democratic thing like they are smart in the sense that they know where their bread is buttered
And they just people go to where the biggest game
in town is, right?
Like, if you're vulnerable and you're targeted,
it is a smart thing to go, for example,
like if you are someone who cares and is impacted
by reproductive justice and these things,
like you would go to the biggest game in town.
But like, I know everybody might not be there yet, but like I've seen the writing on the
wall and these people ain't about that.
They don't give a shit about you.
They will say it.
They could have codified it into law like fucking 60 years ago if they wanted to, bro.
Yeah, if it was like, it's the most politically expedient thing in the world, but they have
to have something to run on. they have to have something to run on
They have to have something to constantly dangle in front of your fucking head that if you vote for these
Vulgarians then I'm sorry then you don't have a bulwark against encroaching fascists wanting to you know do what they want with your body
Or whatever it's all that's all horseshit. It's all horseshit. They're not gonna do it any fucking way
It has to stop it has to stop somewhere
I just don't
Again, it's it's kind of comical for me to say that on a podcast, but like I don't run a labor union
I don't run a third party. I don't run the DSA or PSL or any of these other fucking groups
I don't I'm not in a position of power any of them
my only organizing work has been in tiny rural communities trying to stop things like
bathroom bans and prisons stuff like that
You know like I I am not in any way like that kind of political actor
But there are people in this country who are and if you have some way to get this message to them you have to say
there has to be some articulation of an
alternative here that like has at least a modicum or a semblance of left-leaning values
and like I said call a fucking congress call some sort of fucking you know something convention
that would allow you to then articulate something new because otherwise like it's just what are we doing here we're wasting time
we're just sitting here and we're fucking yeah exactly we're circling the drain we're just gonna sit here and fucking comment on how shady it is so we're all fucking dead
like let's be serious about this
I just I just also too I just I just think that like what should alarm you again is that it's neck and neck
You know in the elections like to but like a month
Like yeah, that's it that should worry you to the point of like oh like you said Terrence like these parts these parties these two
Parties are just really just grinding against each other you know
They are and they're just grinding away at the same
constituents you know like in the aperture gets smaller and smaller and smaller like it's
Are we doing?
I don't know man. I just saw a poll. Where's like what like 48 49 some shit like that
I was just like what what are we doing here, man? Oh my god?
Yeah, whatever you I don't know. We'll see this might be another one that ages What are we doing here, man? Oh my god. Yeah. Whatever, yo.
I don't know.
We'll see, this might be another one
that ages, curdles like milk, but I hope so.
I do not want Trump to win.
I want, but what I'm hoping for is for the Democrats to win,
but like by me having no hand in it.
But like I also, I also,
I also only say that
With the contingency that there's no alternative on the table
And I am just trying to throw down the gauntlet and challenge everybody to seriously think about this
I have a platform. This is all I have I am just challenging you in your own private individual life
I'm throwing down the gaunt continent and saying we have to do something
It's not like we it's like I mean seriously is that you know we sit around and we say like what can we do?
We've tried everything we've tried everything we can to convince the Democrats to stop doing this we have tried everything except as
asserting our our own
like political
Force you know what I'm saying like we've tried it through piecemeal things like riots and strikes and protests
But like there has not been an actual
The way I look at it. We have an actual opportunity to intervene and say like we are not going to vote for the Democrats
We're gonna sit it out. We're going to fucking protest this and we're not only going to do it in some nihilistic way that we hope
Redounce to Trump's or whatever we're gonna do it in a positive way that we're articulating our own vision and I don't know
I don't know what form that did I just like I just like single say I just like how you threaded that because that's
That's what I've been telling my mom. I'm like yo, I don't I don't want Trump to win
I guess I hope the Democrats win. I just don't want any part in it, you know
I'm sitting this one out. All right. Well Brett because we're not being offered anything like you're not gonna be in corporate anything
I mean dude it's the side there's nothing on the tape there's nothing on
the table for it why would I take that deal there's nothing I have zero
confidence they're gonna do anything on women's reproductive health okay like
yeah I guess you yeah you might take a flyer on that you know what I mean
particularly if you're directly affected but my hunch hunch is this, is that they're not gonna
codify Rowan to law, that they're gonna say,
oh, it's this interesting tension and friction
and we're getting all these things,
and commonwealth use that to run for reelection next time.
You know what I mean, nothing will get done.
And then the second term might just like escape by
and nothing happens.
Like Biden could use the pen to not
codify that into law.
Biden could end this goddamn genocide to not he could stop he could bring Israel to heal to not
They won't though. That's such a good point. Dude. That's such a good point
I'll be loud over about to go over
It's just a good point because it's like vote for me and I'll do all these things right like not just me
But our party will do all these things well your party's in power right now dog
You got you got like you got a couple months left. You know what I mean your party's in power
Your party's in power, and they're about to let Israel invade Lebanon
And this is typically what lame ducks do is they just they really go for broke, and it's just like yeah
You're right, and they're not yeah, and they've said like oh, we're trying. We're working see so what was the quote from Biden this week?
Get it fucking done or something he used the f-word or something. Oh my fucking god
What I need a problem bonds by not using the pink is he's you know, he's eyeballing 2028, you know
See they just they just need to take them
They need to have that Bill Paxton energy and aliens or maybe the predator to where he just goes out in a blaze of gore
Like gory glory actually, you know, that's what you should just do man. Just do the bill Paxton and aliens or maybe the predator too, where he just goes out in a blaze of like,
gory glory actually, you know?
That's what you should just do, man.
Just do the Bill Paxton, you know what I mean?
Do the Bill Paxton to just let it off, man.
They won't and they can't
because they do not see Palestinians as human beings.
And that is genuinely what is the,
that's the crux of this.
100%.
And that's why there's been so much for against Ta-Nehisi Coates like oh shit
We lost a really effective a messenger for human rights and values in you know this really good writer and like moral
Center suddenly realized like oh shit like yeah
No, I mean, I'm not saying Ta-Nehisi Coates never saw Palestinians
as humans, but like me similarly having a similar breakthrough
that like there is a similar racial ideology at work.
That you know what I'm saying?
Like I see his breakthrough because I myself went through
a similar realization where I was like, okay,
this is more than just like, this is more than just like some like crude
Game of Empire and strategy like this is genuinely because it's colonial
It has a racial ideology structured around it, and that's what poisons the entire fucking thing
Just can't I just can't get past somebody telling him that he doesn't know Hebrew so he should have be able to speak all this
Let's read let's read Like brother, let's read, let's read, let's read the way that Israel sees nations, right? And the Palestinian people, but we have to read it in the original Hebrew, right?
It's just, what are you talking about? Like shut the fuck up. You're a fucking psycho.
I've seen that level of chauvinism about everything even Appalachia man
Like it's just like it's this weird sinister gatekeeper ism. That's like masquerading is like no actually you should know what you're talking about for you
Can't like no no we we got two eyes, okay?
Yeah, you know I mean I have like I have a soul. I have a heart right that right. I think genocide is bad
Right it in the end it may not matter anything that we said on this episode anyways because like I said I if
They just keep letting Israel do whatever the fuck at once they have basically
insured their own loss in November anyways because I
Mean you don't you don't get Israel opening up like a two or three front war in
An attempt to draw the United States the United States is sending troops by the way
It could be crazier than that they like I mean like if we're operating under the assumption that one add-off Hitler is there like
You know guiding lot
Like they might try to annex the whole goddamn Middle East you can't tell these fucking jackals dude they yeah That's so that you saw that you said a map of future of a future Israel future Palestine that dead
Yahoo had it. It's just like there was no Palestine at all you know I
Mean they obviously want the same for Lebanon like they want Lebanon
and
Or at the very least they want to eliminate every single person in Lebanon that's sympathetic to the Palestinians and then just
annex it as some sort of client state and I
Don't know man. I just
they are engineering their own defeat by not being able to
Just confront them in even the most
You know even the most feeble of ways.
And they won't even put conditions on the aid.
They won't, exactly. And so, like, they are contributing to a situation
where they're gonna get a war right in the fucking, on the eve of an election
and it will wind up tipping the entire fucking thing to the Republicans.
And so, I don't know, know man makes you feel fucking crazy
No, it does man. It doesn't it's just I don't know
Just letting this country drag us into World War three man this Cronenberg in you know this this vestige you know yeah, it's just
Yep
Well I want to plug the patreon for those of you who were asking me and Tom to weigh in on the shocking
News out of Letra County this week. We're in the sheriff
Smoked a fucking district judge in broad daylight in the middle of a courthouse
In which in what is in my estimation a pretty unprecedented and probably harrowing indication of what might be to come in all kinds of different respects
Wait hold up I didn't hear about the story at all, a sheriff smoked a judge in broad daylight?
Yeah, the sheriff of our town, the sheriff in our town, shot him eight times
Jesus Christ dude, eight times Yeah, no times yeah
There is all kinds of speculations we weighed in on all of it on the patreon
I will not be doing any of that speculating
Not within a paywall
Anytime soon so that will all be paywall content until more details emerge, but I have some theories
So yeah, go to the patreon if you'd like to hear that the link is in the show notes
Yeah, anything else to add the whole world's gone fucking mad
Boston nothing else to add but just I don't know you gotta put your foot down man
You don't have to vote. You know you don't have to you know
Nobody's good
We're just we ourselves will just keep spiraling in this drain sir sir until like the elections over and then at which point we'll say who?
It's over
I told you In the DM. I told you man like all that in the DM
I told you it's like it's like this is like um like American elections and leading up to them
It's just like a huge like edging you know it is
Exercise because you know we're just edging edging then finally you bust you know and you're like kind of feel you kind of
You have the post-coital like kind of existentialism where you look up at the ceiling post not clarity
But not even clarity actually it's not very right you're sweating and you're looking up at the ceiling because it wasn't
Filling it didn't get the nut you wanted it was like a half night. It was like
It dribbled out it didn't shoot out with force
Dribbled out it will always be like that 2000 was the first election where it was like
Genuinely like it's spelled the future elections like for the next whatever 21st century and like liberals have just been
Unable to really reckon with that
Since then they can't have a full cathartic libid no release they have to constantly just be like
edging and saving some more for the next
all right thanks for listening to this program and please go check us out on
patreon any final thoughts no that's it, man. All right.
Be good, everybody.
Yeah.
All right, well, we'll see you next time.
Adios.
Adios.