Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 137: Keep On Pushing
Episode Date: March 12, 2020Real dengue bois T&T look at a timeline of the far future and then try to understand our current moment. Not edited for clarity or brevity because where's the fun in that. Patreon: www.patreon.com/tr...illbillyworkersparty
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Sorry boys, my ass is plump fool.
You're not getting in there with your penis again.
Oh, fuck.
You want to hear something?
I was surprised Sanders is with Trump.
I was surprised Sanders is with Trump.
The, um...
God damn, dude, that was the darkest shit. I was surprised Sanders is with Trump. The, um... God damn, dude.
That was the darkest shit.
I was surprised Sanders is with Trump.
Arrow, get down.
He's just not at the wheel, is he?
Arrow, get down.
You can't get up there, baby.
You gotta get down, baby.
Arrow, get down.
Alright, hold on.
Let's start over.
Okay. We can't have smacking on the pod, bro. Sorry, man.. Let's start over. Okay.
We can't have smacking on the pod, bro.
Sorry, man.
All right, from the top.
Here, let's smack it.
Action.
Action.
Oh, Will.
So.
You want to hear something comforting?
Anything.
Please, anything comforting.
In 100,000 years years earth will likely have
undergone a super volcanic eruption large enough to erupt 400 cubic millimeters 96 cubic miles of
magma for a comparison lake erie is 484 or 116 cubic miles now what's the What's the timeline they're thinking on that?
100,000 years.
God damn it.
Too long.
It's too long to wait.
There's a Wikipedia page called the timeline of the far future,
and it's got all the good stuff on it.
The timeline of the far future.
Yeah.
In 500,000 years,
Earth will likely have been hit by an asteroid of roughly one kilometer in
diameter.
In a million years.
How many years?
500,000 years.
In a million years, Earth will likely have undergone a super volcanic eruption large enough to erupt 770 cubic miles of magma.
Okay, I got to ask a question.
I got to ask a question.
What do we got in the 10, 15 year range?
That doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter, Tom.
On a long enough timeline, none of this matters, really.
Trust me, in 50 to 400 million years,
50 to 400 million years is the estimated time it'll take for Earth
to naturally replenish its fossil fuel reserves.
So if you're into fossil
fuels, just wait around
a little bit and...
And I am.
Well, I guess
all those friends of coal guys weren't lying
to people when they said that it's a renewable resource.
On a long enough timeline,
they're not lying.
You know what they say about the long run, though?
They used to love to say that
they did well that's that's god's renewable resource yeah god's all right it's it's weird
how they branded natural gas is natural gas you know what i mean like it makes it sound like it's
something natural that's just out here floating around with everything else.
It's a free radical, bro.
Two million years.
Vertebrate species separated for this long will generally undergo allopatric speciation.
Evolutionary biologist James W. Valentine predicted that if humanity has been dispersed among genetically isolated space colonies over this time,
the galaxy will host an evolutionary radiation of multiple human species with a diversity of form and adaptation that would astound us.
We're hosting an intergalactic kegger.
This would be a natural process of isolated populations unrelated to potential deliberate genetic enhancement technologies.
Damn, bro. I want
a genetic enhancement technology.
I want a genetic enhancement technology,
but for one specific thing.
You know what I'm talking about.
Your ruptured asshole?
Front side. The size of your dick.
Front side.
I knew it could only be two things.
I'd have a mega huge cock if they ever developed that.
I would have a fortified asshole.
I would take that over a mega huge cock at this point.
Not me.
I would leave my asshole unfortified.
I'd have a mega huge cock in that one.
Interesting choice there, Mr. Sexton.
But we'll do what we can to make sure that it happens for you.
choice there mr sexton but we'll do what we can to make sure that it happens for you 10 million years estimated time for full recovery of biodiversity after a potential
holocene extinction holocenic i don't i don't like that prefix at all even without a mass
extinction by this time most current species will have disappeared through the background extinction rate,
with many clades gradually evolving into new forms.
Bro, humans are going to be true freaks in five million years.
What are we going to look like, even?
We're not going to resemble our current form at all, are we?
No, no, no, no, no.
What are we going to look like? Well, seeing as how we've evolved sentience to mean that we are all now,
we have no shame and we're willing to be horny at all times everywhere.
I would imagine we're probably going to have cocks all over ourselves.
Foreheads. Yeah, forehead cocks going to have cocks all over ourselves. Foreheads.
Yeah, forehead cocks.
Forehead cocks.
Our fingers will just be cocks and balls.
Yeah, yeah.
But I don't know, though.
I mean, we are in an anti-horny age.
Aren't we?
Don't you think we're kind of like in a...
Everybody's too depressed to bomb.
That is a thing i completely understand i wasn't i'm not
saying this to disparage anybody that's asexual or anything like that because i think it's perfectly
valid but i went through a period where i kind of got it you know were you empathized with the
asexual community i just had no interest in it was this this a dry spell? It wasn't even a dry spell so much as just I was completely disinterested in sex.
That happens to me about once a month.
It's called depression.
I didn't know that that's what it was, like rearing its ugly head.
It'd be a year and a half later before I start having panic attacks.
Like, oh, wait, that's what it is.
Right, right.
But, yeah, no, it's not always good to be
virile and horny sometimes it's good to just reflect yeah you're right chill in the cup reassess
700 to 800 million years from now the death of most plant life will result in less oxygen in
the atmosphere allowing for more dna damaging ultraviolet radiation to reach the surface many animals
may be driven to the poles or possibly underground hell yeah these creatures would become active
during the polar night and hibernate during the polar day due to intense heat and radiation
much of the land would become a barren desert plants and animals would primarily be found
in the ocean you you think in some ways that zoonotic illness is like you know
the much talked about covid 19 that's going around and different things and you know the original
coronaviruses that camels gave us oh geez yeah do you think in some ways it's like the animal
kingdom pushing back against our hegemony a little bit it's like a check against like just unfeathered
like human decimation of their natural planet here's what will really bake your noodle my guy
what are what are viruses it's not it's not life i know they're just these little they're like codes
they're like little floating codes yep they get in there and change the dna of everything yeah we
don't really have a way to classify what viruses are.
Yeah.
They're just, you're right.
They go in there, they infiltrate their own little DNA into yours.
It's your DNA set. They just start hitting a bunch of buttons like a goddamn cat crawling across the keyboard.
And then it fucks you up for a little bit until they leave.
Viruses are good.
I mean, they're very efficient at what they do.
Listen, folks, many more people are saying it. The viruses, they got their DNA set. are good leave i mean they're you know they're very efficient at what they do but listen folks
many more people are saying it the viruses they got the dna sack they get in your dna sack
they fuck shit up they they're very efficient they'll be here long after we are folks
that's true but in another way little bitches also they're kind of weak because little bitches
can't even handle soap and water and fucking heat that's true they they hate they're good but fragile it's because
their lipid uh fatty bilayer is very fragile it gets can't hate them for that no mine is too
if your lipid fatty bilayer was fragile you heat me up to 400 degrees, I'm going to wait, too. Exactly.
Soap and water.
I got that all day, baby.
Rinse me.
I don't know.
That shit does dry you out.
It does dry you out.
7.8 million years from now, humanity has a 95% probability of being extinct by this date.
Could not come soon enough.
Could not come soon enough. I want to have Mike Pearl on pearl on here's the guy that wrote that book up
there it's called the day it finally happens and he proposes some interesting scenarios in that
when he talks about the day the internet goes down like um like crashes like the internet
just well not like at home like the whole internet the algor united states military right created the massive modem sitting on the north pole gets
unplugged exactly exactly what do you think that looks like that'd be devastating well i tell you
what it looks like because i've seen what it what it looks like um when your internet ever go down at home i'll tell you exactly what it looks like it's annoying for about
an hour well um i just went to the doctor and their whole fucking computer system was down
they were doing everything by paper everything was in disarray they had no records in the middle
of a fucking pandemic pandemic the the funny thing is is contingencies always like so the big you know
i've been telling you about the grid i've been reading a lot about the grid but you know you
remember the massive blackout in 2003 that knocked out massive portions of the northeast
basically the entire northeast grid was more was in and out for about two weeks. I feel like I remember that, yeah.
It all happened because a tree limb outside of Akron, Ohio,
sagged a little too low onto a power line
and a software bug in a power plant in...
A virus.
Yeah, it didn't detect it.
And so they didn't know.
And so soon enough, enough like they started to have
it um you know it started to cause like chains of outages and uh and before you know it you had a
massive like the entire state of ohio became an electricity sink all electricity you know as more
and more um power plants were sort of switching off to try to um contain the
problem all electricity just started becoming concentrated in the state of ohio it's like they
had unreasonable power and the rest of us were kind of shut they had unreasonable power interesting
yeah anyways things happen man i mean it mean, it's like, it surprises Sanders when it went with Trump.
I mean.
That's another thing that nobody could have predicted.
Sanders going with Trump.
Sanders going with Trump.
His face.
Mr. Biden, what do you think about, what were they even asking him?
Dude, I've, okay.
So let me tell you exactly, because I can, I have an approximation of what was going on with Biden
because I have a little bit of hearing loss,
and sometimes I overcorrect.
Just like when I don't hear people,
but I kind of act like I did.
And I kind of like have that kind of like...
Biden didn't understand the question at all.
He was just mumbling some...
I was surprised thaters go with trump
if i were the dnc i would plead everything he's i mean i'm the stutter things legit okay like i'm
i'm not i'm not pouncing on him for saying i'm an obiden bomb a democrat like i do little slips
like that yeah that's that's normal that's like just like aging okay what's not normal is i'm running
for u.s senate in south carolina and if you don't like me you can vote for the other biden
right that's not normal mixing up your wife and your sister not not normal also very problematic
um in one sense like from a woke standpoint or like it'll get you in the doghouse standpoint Not normal. Also very problematic. In what sense?
Like from a woke standpoint or like it'll get you in the doghouse standpoint?
There's nothing about that good.
This is right though in a Kentucky joke if I was one of those self-hating people.
About incest.
Yeah.
But that would make you a lazy comedian.
I'm not a lazy you don't want
to do that yeah so we just won't make a joke at all and you won't get to laugh how's that
sound everybody that's good you don't get to laugh at all so anyway i just understand the
biden's gone people the guy that was barack's buddy like i'm speaking to the liberals right
now he's gone he right now what's happening is there might as well be a non-sentient thing with
the biolipid fatty layer it's like driving the wheel but it doesn't speak english it doesn't
speak english it doesn't it doesn't have like cogent thoughts yeah and uh not good i was surprised sanders went with trump
then dude they all but shoved that motherfucker in the back of that suv
right he goes and. And he turned around
just like all disoriented.
He goes,
I just don't understand.
I don't understand.
No, he goes,
I'm surprised.
I'm surprised.
That's all.
I'm surprised.
Jesus Christ, man.
Well, here we are.
Here we are on Wednesday,
the 11th of March. We're both surprised that Sanders went with Trump. And, you know, it's one of those days where everybody says the sky's falling if you are a Bernie supporter.
um but before we really dig into the nuts and bolts of this just keep in mind that less than half the states have voted right like there's still a lot of delegates up for grabs delegates
up for grabs there's you know it's like in denmark or in holland that time when the little
boy stuck his finger in the back saved holland i'm still not sure what this anecdote is and i have never been sure i'm saying there's
still time to stick our finger in the back so i'm getting that i see what you're saying um
so there's still plenty of race left but there's really not plenty of racism left to be
to be delved out plenty of verbal abuse of women on Twitter to be done.
That's right.
But seriously, because we have a primary that is so staggered and undemocratic, it's entirely
possible that Sanders may be cooked.
We may not get to vote for him here in Kentucky, which would be
a real big, I mean, I'm going to write him
in regardless. We're writing him in to the end.
But it would be a real tragedy if he
went out even earlier this time than
he did in 2016.
I mean, because Kentucky's one of the last
primaries, and I remember getting to vote for
him in 2016.
So it's,
but, I don't know, the way these these things work it's kind of like stocks like
you know if you start to lose faith in the candidate then it's kind of like a feedback
loop and then people stop wanting to go volunteer and other stuff me personally i'm not like that at
all i mean i'm cut of different material well here's the thing that i and i pointed this out on twitter is uh you know i've made several donations to the senders campaign and pithy
amounts like 69 cents and six dollars and 90 cents and four dollars and 20 cents and even on one
occasion gave 69 dollars that was tough i'm not looking for a pat on the back for it it's just
the kind of guy i am right but for. But I want my money's worth.
You know what I'm saying?
You got a war chest.
These people fucking hate us anyway.
Let's just go to the end.
Let's go to the convention.
We might as well.
If nothing else, just to piss them off.
Everybody that's going to vote for Biden is going to vote for Biden anyway.
Yeah.
Biden is not, I assure you, Joe Biden is not winning any new voters from this day on till
fucking November 7th or whenever it is.
What classifies as a new voter?
Someone who's a Bernie voter currently?
Or you mean like a...
I just mean like the people that are Bernie supporters that are going to vote blue no
matter who are going to do that.
Yeah.
The people that are Bernie or bust, they're going
to do that.
I just don't think there's many people that are like,
oh, I don't know what I'm going to do
if Biden's elected.
I know what you mean.
I think most people are...
It's the same thing with Warren shit.
They've already decided.
Everybody before they supported Warren knew
who their B was.
We just don't change that much.
Right, right.
So, you know, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm trying to develop a new theory of this, and I'm, I don't know.
Point is, is I think we should just ride it out.
I think we should make some noise at the convention.
I think we should try to it out i think we should make some noise at the convention i think
we should try to compete everywhere we can compete still and not give up the not give up that maybe
because it's still doable you know what i mean it's like there's still enough but i think that
i think the thing here is this is have you seen like i don't know i mean and granted i know this
sounds batshit conspiratorial but i don't really give a fuck because if we if the if the fucking clinton
knights can have their crackpot theories so can we right have you seen like all these like the
discrepancies in the exit polls versus like yeah i was talking with somebody about that the other
day when i was canvassing come on bro it's very fucking you mean to tell me bernie sanders in the negative every goddamn time
so the exit polls but mike bloomberg's polling in the 20s by exit polls do you mean
like the issues that they support the the issues that people well i don't i think it's just who
they support going in versus how the votes turned out right Right, right, right. I know what you mean.
Yeah.
So you mean to tell me 20% of people that were devoted Sanders voters in California went in there, and when they left, they were not Sanders supporters?
Hey, man, something happens to you in that voting booth.
I can tell you.
I mean, yeah, you get delirious for staying in line for fucking seven hours and relying
on people to send you pizza and water.
Right.
You get very dehydrated.
Yeah.
You're holding in pee, so you start to get a bladder infection.
Yeah, I guess Bloomberg makes some sense.
Yeah, you know, you get a UTI, so it starts fucking with your cognitive capabilities.
And then before you know it, you're walking out saying, I'm surprised.
Sanders win with Trump. It's a surprise. starts fucking with your cognitive capabilities and then before you know it you're walking out saying i'm surprised was it sanders women's trump it's just surprised it was surprising but here's the thing man here's the thing man okay i'm telling you there's something
i think there's some chicanery i think there's some chicanery? I think there's some malarkey, too. There's a healthy dose of malarkey, too.
Listen, two plus two still got them four.
I'm telling you.
I swear to God, Joe Biden couldn't fill up my apartment.
If they held a Joe Biden rally here, I'm convinced we'd probably have like, we'd probably have 60 people turn out.
Yeah.
I mean, it would be okay.
They would pack up my apartment, but that's about it.
Anything much bigger, they wouldn't and meanwhile we got bernie coming out here all right he's selling i mean not selling out but he's like packing out arenas you know holding
these big like looks like goddamn pentecostal tent revivals we got a bunch of people out there
not dissimilar because we got a lot of people at those looking get healed too but how does that translate okay how does that translate how do you throw these massive events
and yet you get dusted it's just it just there's just there's something else afoot i'm sorry and i
know what the liberal oh well you're just sowing the seeds and you're no better than trump like
fuck y'all y'all spend the last two goddamn years talking about Russians.
And Mueller.
Shut the fuck up.
Yeah.
Well, so, okay.
So, we can say that maybe something is amiss, awry, something, someone's pulling some strings behind some curtains.
Listen, I think there's, I i mean there's other things afoot
too like we were talking about yesterday like you know perhaps that people relate to politics
through tv and other like sort of media forms and maybe we didn't spend enough there versus on the
ground or whatever the case may be i mean there's other things right but i'm just saying like to me that just doesn't account
for all of it well bernie beat hillary in in michigan yeah when he wasn't supposed to
well last year you know what i'm saying i know exactly what you're saying um so there's a few
ways to look at this there is the the the method that you just laid out, the conspiratorial method.
They're pulling the strings.
They're pulling levers.
That's what I'm here for, man.
I believe in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and all that.
So there's that.
Then there's the diagnosis issued by Eric Levitz in the New York Magazine.
The New York Magazine.
And his diagnosis is basically that,
and he's not the only one,
I've seen other people say this too,
that what Bernie did wrong was position himself
as the outsider anti-establishment candidate,
but didn't fully commit to the role
and sort of needlessly antagonized
the democratic establishment when he should have been chasing after reliable votes and reliable
voters um and this is kind of the underlying premise behind the whole war and unity thing
too it's basically that like if you want to win you have to build a coalition
and uh whether it's bernie or i'm sorry whether it's bernie and warren or bernie and biden
a coalition has to be brokered at some point to actually push you over the line um to see
your progressive you know policies or whatever become enacted i uh i think i think there's a
lot of contradictions in that one and i don't know if I really agree with that one either
Here's my diagnosis for what happened
Alright, finally
I'm getting some serious analysis
You want the serious analysis?
I'm just basing this off of
My minuscule experience
Canvassing and phone
Or, I'm not phone banked
I don't like talking to people on the phone
i don't do the phone i either do it in person or over text um but you know texting and canvassing
um and here's what i think it is here's what i think i think this is part part of it i think
that most americans conceive of politics as just this other realm or this other stop on the sort of civic tour of duty
they see lawyers in the court systems they see the military they see uh politicians you know
you know they see church life the hospitals you know what i mean like there's all these
institutions of civic life in this country and they just see politics as just another entry in
that they don't really one two that and they have a strong body of evidence for doesn't yield much
of a return that's exactly right they themselves not only does the democratic party establishment
not think of politics as something that can make people's lives better but i think most people in this country also don't think of politics in
that way they just see it as a given sometimes it's corrupt and fucked up sometimes it does
some good things like you get some better health care but overall it's generally i think most
working people believe that you're at the whims of just whatever's happening at the time.
Right.
Yeah.
Because, like, on Monday, I canvassed the Price Hill neighborhood in Cincinnati, which was a working class neighborhood through and through.
Heavily integrated, racially integrated neighborhood, too, which was very surprising.
A racially integrated working class neighborhood.
neighborhood too which was very surprising a racially integrated working class neighborhood and i never i didn't hear any overall predispositions one way the other i had plenty
of people who said that they were going for bernie but i had an equal amount of numbers
say they were undecided and then i had a handful say that they were going for biden
but mostly it was either undecided um or which means they might not vote too which means they might not
or might not be able to vote well that's i think that that's the thing um and so like that just
tells me that like again people i mean if they're on this list too that means that we've they voted
in the past and have engaged in democratic party politics in the past. So that just tells me that they're just kind of like,
whatever, you know,
maybe they're voting because they associate Biden with Obama
or maybe they associate Bernie with better policies.
But I don't even really think that that's it.
I think it's just that like,
gun to your head, who are you voting for?
Yeah, the reality is, and I think Matt Crispin made a good point on Twitter,
he said that Republicans condition their leaders and Democrats condition their voters.
I think most people are conditioned to think that, you know,
whoever the Dem is is who we need to vote for,
and just don't feel compelled to turn out in primaries.
Yeah.
Which, as tracks with, like like our theory of sanders anyway is that like he's gonna have a bigger uphill climb
getting through these primaries versus the general where she would almost certainly beat trump i'd
say that's definitely true just anecdotally from the people i talked to the vast majority of them
didn't know there was even a primary yeah in ohio next tuesday you know what i mean yeah yeah so it's like that explanation for things would explain why people's ideologies
are so incoherent and weird talk to this one woman who was a bloomberg supporter and is now
a hardcore bernie supporter yeah i mean this person just was living changed by her material
circumstances in the span of a couple weeks no she was like living in an apartment complex you know what i mean it's just again i think it's just like you see politics almost kind
of like people have pointed this out before as kayfabe or theater or something like that and
then you know and then you sort of like measure your own immediate circumstances according to
that and you're like well i mean gun to my head you know like it's it's also just sort of a
bushwalk conceit just historically i mean that's just i mean that's just on the face of it true
because black people didn't get the right to vote till my mom was 11 fucking years old
right you know what i'm saying it's so like there's still that sort of well thing of it too
this is the thing that people keep saying is pointing to biden's success so far is that he's
managed to mobilize the black vote in a way that bernie hasn't you think that that's true i have no idea i mean i haven't looked
at the numbers either i have no idea i mean if i do know this though it's you know if that's true
then that would mean that bernie running against the democratic party is a detriment to him
because if that's true then that means that those black voters,
and someone pointed this out on Twitter,
see the Democratic Party as almost a sort of bulwark against either white supremacy or as the party that delivered voting rights and all these other things.
And so that Bernie running against that threatens that.
Threatens that.
I mean, particularly with an older generation, and I can see that.
Yeah, but I would need to see the breakdown of the age groups.
Yeah, I don't want to comment on that, because I have have no idea but i think that there could be some sense to that and
also just like and you know we mentioned this on the other episode there's so many impediments to
working people voting anyway just that that strangely the democrats have never really
engaged and never really also too have never really engaged things like gerrymandering and all that kind of stuff.
And like a serious why.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And I find that interesting.
People that would otherwise they're there.
There's like they're doing next to nothing to remove hurdles for people that otherwise would vote for even their just tepid agenda.
Well, I think that you have to.
We were talking about this the other day or to almost sort of
expand the umbrella of what's under voter suppression because i would put disillusionment
under voter suppression a lot of people i talked to the other day were just like i'll tell you i
was talking to this one guy and we were telling him about bernie he was mostly on board but
his girlfriend was in the room and was like it's all just rigged anyways she was like yelling at
us through the door and it's just like how do you really engage with that because it's all just rigged anyway. She was like yelling at us through the door. And it's just like, how do you really engage with that?
Because it's like on one hand you want to tell him, it is,
and that's why we all need to get together and vote for Bernie.
But on the other hand, it's like.
That's a tough sell.
Yeah, because, you know, he's got stuff he's got to do.
Yeah, like he can't take time out of his life or work schedule or whatever
to go vote, you know.
And it's like, I don't know, man.
The funniest response I got, though,
the funniest response I got was this woman we were talking to,
and she said she was undecided.
And we were like, you know, what issues are most important to you?
Like, what can we say, you know,
that would make Bernie's policies more uh attractive to you and she just looked
at us and she said well fix this damn city we're like we gotta give us a chance for it i was like
i don't really know what bernie's platform is on fucking cincinnati but i can check. I'll check. I'll get back with you.
I mean,
again,
I don't know.
It was just after canvassing on Monday and then watching the results roll in Tuesday,
it all kind of made it sort of soften the blow a little bit.
Cause I kind of was expecting it to go the way that it did on Tuesday,
just because it just,
the whole premise of the sanders theory
of change was that you're activating all of these working class people who are either disaffected
from the political process or have even never really engaged with it at all it doesn't seem
like that was really playing panning out and also too i mean and also too that could be by virtue of the primary
too i think that's a huge part of well i i i don't think this that theory of change is is not real
but i think too that a lot of people's first entry into first foray into politics is probably not
going to be a democratic primary well dude think about this do you know what i'm saying yeah it's hard the staggered nature of this primary means that um it's a long like war of attrition a slog and so
it's like if you wanted to set up a ground game in a state like kentucky you wouldn't even be able
to start until mid-april because you don't even know if you'll even be in it in mid-may you know
what i mean so it's like if if everything went all at once like in say fucking may or right before the convention you know then
you'd be able to establish a few months of a ground game and organizing but just going out
and parachuting in and canvassing it's it's instructive i i encourage everyone to do it
because you learn a lot but it's not really like deep organizing i'm going to use i want to point to another system
that's also rigged and flawed and because also there's a lot of child brain fucking libs in my
mentions uh you know talking about how we're just pouting and taking our ball and going home now
so i won't speak to them in terms they can understand so i'll use my own sports analysis
here the democratic primaries really primaries in general,
are sort of like the college football playoff system.
Yeah.
Like you play this long, physical, grueling season, right?
And those that endure to the end are usually rewarded
and get to play in the playoff or whatever, which is four teams.
But let's say that your quarterback gets mono in week six.
You know, you have a bad showing somewhere in some marginal state, you know,
early on, Iowa or Nevada or wherever.
Yeah.
That hurts you going forward.
That hurts your momentum going forward and hurts your case going forward.
Yeah.
Into places that you could win.
You know what I mean?
Like, Bernie's absolutely going to win West Virginia.
into places that you could win you know what i mean like bernie's absolutely gonna win west virginia i could tell 538 like so they said they had like bernie at like minus 24 there and i can
tell you on the face of that that's bullshit right there's no prayer biden wins west virginia he's
just it's just not gonna happen i i would i'm going to hedge here and say it could happen but
i'm just saving you a little bit of ass okay a little bit of space well i just think
i just think the conditions are not right for biden when west virginia that to your point now
that it seems like he looks like the odds on favorite then maybe he might win west virginia
man i mean he is dude i'm telling you i mentioned this last week do you think he's completely
divorced from obama in the world call yeah like completely divorced from Obama and the world in coal?
Yeah.
Like, you don't think that voters in the coal states would hold that against him?
No.
I don't.
Interesting.
No, I think Uncle Joe is like, despite all of his... He's not winning by 24 fucking points in West Virginia.
I don't think it'll be a blowout by any means.
Yes.
But I think he has a very real possibility of it.
Yeah.
Dude, again, we have amnesia in this country.
We have this blurred nostalgia.
Well, and even that, this goes back to what I was saying earlier.
If you see elections as just another sort of civic institution,
a duty that you go to, like you go to the fucking military
or an institution like schools or anything like that,
then that means your image of America is static.
And that means that it's not this dynamic process of change
moving towards some sort of event horizon of liberation.
That means that it is static
and that we are all involved in this experiment together.
It's the whole American dream melting pot.
It's all the American ideologies.
The city on the hill where the light's always out.
And it's always been that.
It will continue to be that.
Right.
If that's the case, if you view your immediate circumstances through that lens,
which I'd be more than willing to bet most Americans do,
because it's been drilled into us from a very young age,
then, like, you know, you don't really see uh i don't know i
think that in 2016 those states that went hard for bernie over hillary were voting anti-hillary
they're voting against the clintons they're voting against this you know biden in this whole race has
never said anything remotely bad about coal he may go to these auto workers and argue
with them to their face you're full of shit man yeah man hey jack you're full of shit you're full
of shit jack you wanna go outside with me this is a surprise sanders with bernie man
when are we gonna get that when he had diverses
bernie from sanders and starts referring to them as two different people?
One thing Bernie absolutely has to do is he's got to stay in for this debate.
Like, you hear the people crowing.
He's got to stay in for this debate.
And he's way too nice to make light of Joe's obvious cognitive decline.
Yeah. And he's just going to try make light of Joe's obvious cognitive decline. Yeah.
And he's just going to try to rally him on policy.
Yeah.
Really what he should do is just make him draw a clock.
I think that it would be insane for him to drop out before that debate.
And honestly, I think he's got a great chance after that debate.
Because people need to see them one-on-one.
Yeah.
And that might have a lot to do
with it people actually do sort of watch debates or at least a lot of the people that i've talked
to so far um you know so that might have a big thing but what i'm you know you know the thing
you might have a big thing but like if i could just return to this idea once again the the path that
bernie is carving out here is razor thin it's so hard to thread the needle between america
billionaires are destroying america oh no billionaires are destroying society on one hand
and on the other hand like what is society you know we that's the thing that
he's never really asked like we've never really interrogated what it is that is slipping away from
us that is deteriorating all around us it's just kind of like a given that like oh this is the bad
thing and it's happening so like if he doesn't ever venture into that territory it can never
intervene into that idea of america that everybody has you
know what i mean instilled into them but now what's weird is is we're starting to see signs of
that oh we've never faced an epidemic pandemic in this country well no it's the spanish flu no one
in the social media age no i mean you know there's hiv and there was uh swine flu right i mean just i'm talking about like you know in the
twitter da da da swine flu i wouldn't consider a pandemic you don't think so no i didn't get
swine flu ergo not a pandemic we were young strapping lads when a lot of people around me
got swine flu really yeah we have of course i do comport myself as a hypochondriac in a way that
would reduce my chances anyway by washing my hands 18 times a day.
I guess we haven't really had a large-scale, globally integrated pandemic since the Spanish bird flu.
I mean, I don't know.
Was polio?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm probably being uncharitable.
I'm just saying, like, typically, we don't think of these things. We think of these things as just something that magically dissipated our shores. You know what I mean, I'm probably being uncharitable. I'm just saying, like, typically, we don't think of these things.
We think of these things as just something that magically dissipated our shores.
You know what I mean?
Even though you can tell with climate change, we're seeing, like, people getting dengue in Louisiana.
Places like that, you know, stuff that used to be in South America or Latin America or wherever, you know, warmer places.
But it is, I don't know these here's the dog ears my man
you think it's real bad i think it's i think it's gonna get i hope i hope i'm wrong about this too
i'm not doom saying at all i don't want i'm not going back to being black peeled it's just
one it's just bad for me but two i don't think that i mean you don't think you accomplish
anything but just you know everything's fucked and doom and gloom, so why even try?
But I think we are heading for some challenges.
And I think we need each other more than ever now, you know, and, you know, win, lose, or draw, this Bernie thing, I think we have to keep our coalitions together.
I think we have to keep being in the pocket for one another. I think we have to keep our coalitions together. I think we have to keep being in the pocket
for one another. I think we need to
figure out what's next
and not slow down
because, god damn.
I mean, Joe Biden
is going to be a disaster for climate.
He is.
Well, I mean, and it's entirely possible.
I mean, let's say the country
goes into a deep recession
i mean and the voters hang it on trump's neck and they vote for biden that's something we've
talked about like if everybody's saying that biden for sure loses to trump under the right
circumstance i mean i generally agree with that but under the right circumstances that's not
guaranteed no like nothing in politics is guaranteed and it's funny like this has been a
hard lesson i've had to learn it's just because i've gone through moments in the past few weeks where i've been totally
triumphalist and just been like we're about to steamroll these motherfuckers i was like i was
like two weeks guys like usain bolt crossing the finish you know he broke the world record
and he was so far ahead that he could turn around and pound his chest as he's crossing
the finish line that was me that was us and he broke
the world record doing that we're like we're gonna fuck it stupid these assholes i saw fucking i saw
chuck roca on the on the fucking uh facebook live or something saying we're gonna win 47
and i mean i didn't believe it but i was yeah, Chuck. I saw you last night just staring into the mirror just saying 47 out of 50 primaries.
But listen, for all this, for all this, listen, the reality is it's going to be an uphill climb, but we have outs well look regardless of whether bernie wins goes on to win the presidency or not
there's one you know one consistent factor through all this is that
um there's one remaining truism throughout all this which is that the rest of our lives are going
to be spent trying to unfuck every bad thing that's happened in the last,
specifically in the last 20 years, but really in the last like 250 years.
There's the time.
You know, because regardless, if he wins, then that changes how we try to do that.
And if he loses, then that changes how we have to do that.
But regardless, as millennials, as our generation,
But regardless, as millennials, as our generation, we have been assigned the historical task of making sure that that happens.
That we, again, that we dedicate our lives.
We're building a bridge to the 22nd century.
That's right.
That hopefully, that we can maintain and the world's not, you know, it looks like something out of Mad Max.
Again, it's not great.
It's definitely not comforting to hear,
but I'm sorry to break it to you.
That's just the cards you were dealt.
That's in history that happens.
Sometimes you are bound.
Sometimes you are bound to your historical circumstances and you don't really get to enjoy the life.
And so it will be given up to sacrifice and tragedy and defeat
and sometimes victory and fulfillment and all these other things.
But regardless, Bernie, win or lose, we are consigned to that fate.
That's still a lot.
It could be a lot.
Our lows could have their complement of highs if we could elect Bernie and whatever.
Right, right.
But no.
Yeah.
So I mean, I'm already, call that whatever you want it.
I think probably six months ago, people were calling it nihilism.
And I'm seeing that come back now.
People online being like, I beg of you, do not go into nihilism. i'm seeing that come back now people online being like i
beg of you do not go into nihilism do not go into doom saying and it's like okay just because i
my thoughts on the electoral process may not be i may not have a hundred or a thousand percent
faith in it does not mean i'm on nihilist stretch stretch that doesn't mean we're giving up all i said i'm still fucking
going canvassing next week yeah regardless yeah i'm good listen that's my stance man like i've got
i've got skin in this and i don't give a fuck if james carville pisses and moans till the fucking
cows come home or near a tandem says all this that in the third i say we hold the fucking gun to
their head and we keep we stretch this as long as we fucking can get our money's worth they hate us
anyway yeah there's no amount of groveling or being nice or whatever that will make them like
you yeah that's politics too and and i have to tell myself this sometimes too because when you
when you experience a defeat or something like that you start thinking like oh what did we do wrong were we not conciliatory enough to them were we not nice
enough don't fall into we did the eric levitt's thing and be like oh were we you know did we not
chase after the traditional part democratic party voters enough and all this it doesn't
fucking matter it does not fucking matter uh it remains true that foreign working people do not
participate in the electoral process to the extent that they do.
It's probably not going to make a whole lot of sense to you, but that's what organizing is.
I don't know what else to say about it.
It's like, I guess the hard facts about how we, you know, persuade people, the particulars,
that is another question.
I really don't have any answers for you there.
Wow.
But regardless, it remains true.
But the thing is, and this is why I encourage everybody to go Canvas,
no matter how long Bernie's in this, you should go Canvas because it's like,
I personally think Canvassing is mostly pointless.
I don't think it's really how you win i i mean it's probably good in some ways i mean you get out the vote and everything else
you remind people that there's a primary but but i think that you're not you're not you're not
doing any you're not doing yourself any favors by not getting out there though you know no i think
that you can learn well joe biden is but you can learn a lot about america and if you're trying to change america you need to
learn a little bit about it you need to learn a little bit about it and that that is also that's
not just like talking to people that's also just like literally experiencing for yourself how
everything is spatially arranged to make collective action
as difficult as possible everything is so atomized it's like it is and i hate to use the biblicals
because that's just my only reference point but it truly is like the tower of babel yeah
after 1848 um louis napoleon completely changed the streets of paris because in 1830 and in 1848,
the people were able to mount these,
you know, they call it mounting the barricades.
But, you know, they were able to mount these
really effective street insurrections.
Yeah.
And after that, Louis Napoleon was like, wow.
Let's change the architecture.
We'll change the architecture.
Yeah, exactly.
And so it's like, you forget that that's a thing that the
rolling class does and so like when you go out there in canvas you're like oh shit man like
everybody is so disconnected from that man yeah it really is nothing is an accident and so again
it helps you to see that in action but it also you're helping break that down and you're talking
to people and um maybe i've got the podcast to bring, but I love talking to people.
I just fucking love, like, you know, just asking people a bunch of questions.
You know, like having them explain it in their own terms, like why things are the way they are.
Whether they want to talk to me or not, you know.
Single mother of four gets off her shift as a waitress.
Terrence is like, hey.
Hey, good night.
Listen, what's your thing?
What do you think about Marx's critique of the Gotham program?
Right.
First thoughts.
First thoughts.
It's a quick read.
Right, right.
Yeah, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
But another thing that we have to remember
that like in all great battles,
retreating and reassessing is a thing
we can't throw all of our fucking bodies at the fucking whatever and just hope you know in a that's
nihilism that's a form of nihilism just like saying no doomsdayism everybody shape the fuck up
walk headlong into the fucking fire you know what i mean like uh that that is a itself a
form of self-defeatism it's also bordering on fascism yeah like you know we can we can reassess
we're trying to win this uh in the long run um but you know the thing is is that the sanders
campaign brought us all together in a shared
common cause for a time and uh that was really good and beneficial um and we shouldn't let that
go yeah and and you gotta hold on to it as long as you can and if you can't or if it goes away
or if you fucking um suspends this campaign dude my fucking thing my brain has not been working since he spins the
thing dude i've not been sleeping at all i've been up all fucking night reading the goddamn website
and news i've been reading the fucking news man and that means no sleep. That's all right, man. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well,
I mean,
so I,
anyways,
um,
I,
I,
I've got no triumphalism or words of inspiration this week.
Like we maybe have had last week.
We are,
we are now in the phase of podcasts.
All of us collectively,
every leftist podcast where none of these episodes are going to be
decipherable. All right. All right. All right. right they're not they're not going to age yeah people listening
to this two years from now be like who the fuck chance went to cincinnati one time was talking
single moms hitting on single moms what was that yeah um but uh you know what we're doing it for you the people we're turning over our our um
platforms for uh you the people that does not mean you get to come on our show do not ask
if you are of the people does not mean you get to come on i'll let you come on get this guy but anyways um so anything else anything else we didn't cover
and all that this is neither an uplifting episode nor a down pushing and that's and and honestly
i don't say that just reflects the reality we got a lot to be hopeful about we got a lot to
be depressed about yeah so it's just uh yeah that's pretty it's fine to fill all of it that's pretty accurate
but like literally what the fuck i mean you've got biden not doing any ground game organizing
at all and still beating bernie in michigan you know what i mean like not doing any
on the ground man it's i'll tell you it's you, it's just like the way this shit is set up.
It's the reason why they call these primaries with 1% reporting and that kind of shit.
It's to sway the public perception of people that are A, still at the polls, B, getting ready to go to the polls in the coming weeks in terms of like who's viable and who's not.
And so a lot of this stuff is a concerted effort to paint Bernie as not electable because,
oh, well, it's basically a virtual tie in Washington.
No, the fuck, we know Bernie's going to win Washington.
Right.
Right?
It's the same shit like in Texas, which surprisingly helped me.
They called it for Biden, even though we've got millions of votes uncounted for.
That was a very close election, and people should be absolutely agitating for recounts and deeper scrutiny
that's another thing we should we should scrutinize the fucking shit out of every contest
that looked like we really should be agitating that is another form of agitation right just
even if we got beat by six million goddamn votes in Tennessee and there ain't six million people in fucking Tennessee, we want a goddamn recanvas.
I want every vote count I want to know.
Everything but every goddamn polling station that was pulled.
Right.
And seriously, if we start seeing enough inconsistencies, I want Tom Perez on a spit.
I want Barack Obama on a spit.
Yeah.
I hate them all and i want them off
well if if that is the case if bernie wins loses this do you think it's um
they're they're already calling us crazy well you might as well go for broke
no i'm i'm with you do you think it's proof, though, that people chose Biden's policies over Bernie's?
No.
No, I don't think at all.
I think Biden needed a lifeline.
He got Jim Clyburn in South Carolina to vouch for him or whatever, give him that endorsement.
He got that, swung a lot of momentum in the South.
Probably a lot of people in the South are Republicans that vote as Democrats.
I mean, that's just a thing that happens.
I mean, look no further than Eastern Kentucky.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So, you know, I don't know.
I mean, we could sit here and kick around theories all day, but, you know.
Well, I mean, it is also equally plausible that a lot of people who voted for Bernie in 2016
saw the way that they did him in 2016 and was like,
fuck that.
Like they're just going to rig it against them again.
Yeah.
And just fucking,
and they might not be wrong.
I signed up for the black pill and then went for Biden,
which it's like Tanya has said before,
like you can't really blame anybody at that point.
I mean,
if you've,
if your day-to-day
life is just grinding immiseration i mean you don't see any way out you don't see any
hope for the future just take the bottom pill because it's yeah or the trump well that's what's
gonna happen uh again trump wins this nine times out of ten unless there's a recession unless there's a recession
which there might be it's kind of looking like there's going to be yeah um but even then he
still might win it even if there's a recession he still might win it well but man i don't know
though bro because look voter turnout is way up this year and in 2018.
And I'm even going to say this.
I'm even going to fucking give you a real black pill, my friend.
I'm even going to say it's possible Amy McGrath might beat Mitch McConnell.
Think about it.
What did we say?
I bet if you rewound the tape of the trailbillies back to a year ago maybe
maybe about nine months ago we said we live in hill world we live in the world worst world
imaginable so you have to go out and game out i just saw it man i just saw it i just saw it
amy mcgrath standing on the steps of some place and everybody's cheering and she's pulled the
the worst person in the world has pulled the greatest electoral upset yes because that's that
in some ways would that not be consistent with everything we've seen the worst person in the
world pulling off the greatest upset and then the same with biden could you imagine bro it's entirely possible the most insufferable people affluent liberals
now run the world yeah and and they're persuaded that they're on the right side of history but
their policies differ in no meaningful way no like ice is not going to disband nor quit being as no you know no evil as they are i mean
we're still going to be an endless warfare this is what jamie diamond's still going to
jamie diamond and mike bloomberg are going to control the the world bank and the imf and the
treasury yeah this is what kind of irks me so badly about the eric levitz's of the world and like that thinking that
um we have to build coalition we have to build a left liberal coalition is that at the end of the
day i do fund and this is really scary and frightening but it's something that i don't
think a lot of us really want to grapple with myself included it's very terrifying but at the end of the day
the conservatives and the liberals are our enemies and we can't lose sight of that fact
that's also they have way more in common and they have a lot more in common yeah they have
and and let's make no mistake about this let's make no mistake about this
for all for every liberal that's in my mansion is telling me that i'm callous because i
would not vote for joe biden or something, that I think about this, think about that.
They don't see that the Democratic Party is so callous as to not give a significant chunk of their keyed-in electorate even the most minimal demands for them to live a dignified life.
demands to for them to live a dignified life but also that they're so reckless that they're willing to run this guy who stands for nothing with cognitive decline against a guy who stands for
nothing with cognitive decline stands for nothing with cognitive decline but it's funny
has great rhetorical gifts in some ways well i mean you saw those numbers like that you saw that graph that's
been going around twitter of the voter turnout in michigan where it's like 80 81 81 18 to 35 18 to
35 year olds and then like 70 65 and up yeah you know what i mean it could not be clearer that there is a fundamental
contradiction here that the democratic party will not be able to resolve they will not be
able to resolve and the funny thing is is they really fucked themselves out of a key demographic
that they lean on like there will be no more barack obama's bro it that's why you saw van jones
last night on cnn losing it made a great point right it made a great point but it's he's making
a great point because he's lamenting the fact that he just watched his party throw a lot of
fucking people throw the future away yeah right you know why because fundamentally they're a death
cult they know there's no future that's exactly right they're a death cult they know there's no future
that's exactly right they're a death cult just exactly like the conservatives are
so that's why they're playing the short game because they know there's no long game there's
no long game man and that's why there's no left liberal coalition yeah how can you coalition with
people that are in a death cult yeah like can't be reasoned with they can't be reasoned with no and so it's scary because it
illuminates how few of them there are of how few of us there are as compared to them but at the
same time it's also kind of i don't know i find it kind of illuminating and promising it's knowledge
you know and anytime you gain insight into your
social material circumstances
that makes you a better
radical and a better
activist. I don't know. It means
that you've got
a better grasp on
reality. Which is
more than we can say for the people at the top.
They may have the resources
but we've got the knowledge, man.
Got the knowledge, man.
Because knowledge is power, bro.
Yeah.
Have you ever heard that?
Are you familiar with that saying?
There's something with that, man.
Jesus Christ, man.
Should not have a fucking media platform.
But yes, man. Should not have a fucking media platform. But, yes.
Yeah, that's why you see Van Jones bellyaching that, you know, we just fucking threw away an entire generation.
Because they know that the gun to their head is fucking loaded.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, are you looking at me like that because you got to go? No, I don't know yeah yeah well um are you looking at me like that because you gotta go
no i don't know what i do but um no that was just i was just lost in thought
well um you know i hope that this does not make you discouraged because you definitely should not
be discouraged uh i've been myself i've been been on what you would call the left really since,
I think the first time that I remember feeling like,
the first time that I remember referring to myself perhaps as a leftist was Occupy.
And so if you rewind the tape back to that moment,
it's like we have lost so many times since then, not just at the national level, but if you rewind the tape back to that moment, it's like we have lost so many times since then.
Not just at the national level,
but if you're like me
and most of your politics over the last decade
have been at the local level,
then you've lost a lot at the local level as well.
That just happens.
And so, I mean, I was, you know.
I've literally lost a lot at the local level.
Yeah, you have literally lost.
I'm one in three.
The only one I won was on coin toss
so i didn't really even win that so i mean there is a lot of losing um if you are um on the left
but you should not fetishize that you should not hold it as a badge of honor um you should just
take it to to mean that we have even more resolved than these
people do these are the softest fucking people in the world and um we've been through a whole
lot more than they have you know what i mean they don't ever have to feel uncomfortable
they can just stumble down the steps i'm surprised sanders is with trump you know and so uh this is so funny
man it's like this yeah say i don't like sanders because he's a career politician what the fuck
you think joe biden is and he's not nearly as principled yeah well again no this i just cannot
stress this enough we've said it multiple times over this show,
but Bernie is great, and I love him,
but it's the same thing with Jeremy Corbyn.
They're just vessels for classes and a generation's
political aspirations and dreams and hopes and fears
and all this other stuff,
and if that turns out to be a dead end,
then we'll say thank you we'll
slap him on the ass lightly you know like you give a ball player going into the dugout i'd love to
give bernie a pat on the ass yeah i'd love i'd prefer to give him one in victory yeah exactly
but even in defeat even in defeat whatever but i mean but don... Again, we can't let up. There's a lot of fucking...
A lot of...
Game left.
Yeah.
We've got to quit saying it like it's past tense,
like it's already a foregone conclusion.
Yeah, because that was most of the takeaways on Twitter today.
They're saying it like it's past...
And on Facebook, too.
Like, it's sort of past tense and stuff.
Yeah.
It's just like...
And that's why I cannot recommend going canvassing enough.
Even if it's fucked we keep going
yeah yeah because here's the thing people again people um in the working class neighborhoods
people in the working class and stuff they aren't aware really of this media narrative that like
biden is the one maybe they are i don't really know but i also don't think they really give a
shit all right so still go canvas as long as as there is a Bernie campaign, absolutely hit the streets.
Go talk to people.
And yeah, there's still a lot left.
But there's still fucking New York, Ohio.
Listen, as long as there's women to harass.
Coal miners to make go code.
Yeah, to make go code. We're're just gonna keep doing what we're doing there um so so don't give up um you'll get the rest soon maybe maybe not
if not we're out there with you all right well we'll see you on the streets or whatever bye