Glenn breaks down the controversy over Bowen Yang's comments about Jasmine Crockett. -------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update: Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook
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| Alright, there is a video that we are in the process of uploading that we'll analyze and report on and dissect what is going on in Iran, as well as the threats from President Trump and other governments to militarily intervene there, ostensibly because the United States cares so deeply about freedom for the repressed peoples of the world. | |
| I do want to cover this event as well, and I want to assure you it doesn't mean that we're now somehow going to focus on issues of celebrity culture or even wokeism, but I do think that this is an event that highly illustrates what is one of the most severe, rotting problems within the Some comments that were made, critical, | |
| mildly critical comments by two gay, very progressive comedians. | |
| Very progressive. | |
| They care a lot. | |
| They're good allies. | |
| But they made some comments about the prospects of Jasmine Crockett and her inability, in their view, to win the Senate race that she is now running for in Texas and encourage liberals not to donate money to them because it would be a waste of money. | |
| This prompted all sorts of outbursts about how they were racist and misogynist and even this term I hadn't previously heard before, which is misogynor, which is a very specific term invented by a Northwestern queer professor in 2008 to specifically refer to prejudice and bigotry against Black women in particular. | |
| That's the way that you innovate in academia as you invent new ways of describing particular kinds of bigotry. | |
| And this is, the reason why I'm interested in this is because this has been something that has been plaguing the Democratic Party for a long time, this kind of identity politics, which morphed into wokeism, that is still very much alive as these events demonstrate. | |
| And I think until the Democratic Party and American liberalism free themselves in a very aggressive way, declares themselves unwilling to be captained by this, the greatest problems in the Democratic Party will, which is basically that they stand for nothing, they're completely vapid and empty, will continue to I think most people understand that there has been this model or view or mindset in the Democratic Party that if you criticize a black Democrat, it means you're a racist. | |
| If you criticize a female Democratic leader, it means you're a misogynist, etc., etc. | |
| I just want to remind people, because I think a lot of people have forgotten this, maybe some people don't remember this history, that this actually really first emerged in full force back in 2008, when you had the single most vicious, protracted political war that we've seen in the last, say, 30 years, which was the primary fight between Barack Obama, who was a Democratic senator from Illinois on the one hand, and Hillary Clinton, who was a senator from New York, and of course, a former first lady on the other. | |
| It was one of the ugliest. | |
| Most vicious political wars I had ever seen. | |
| And a big part of it was that the Clinton campaign was calling Obama supporters, constantly accusing them of hating women and being misogynistic. | |
| And the Clinton campaign, the Obama campaign and Obama supporters were constantly accusing Clinton and her supporters of being racist. | |
| So just to remind you. | |
| Here is an article, and this, Ken, is 2008. | |
| Just to show you how far back this goes, it's written by the feminist writer Rebecca Traister in Salon. | |
| I was actually at Salon at the time, and there you see the headline, Hey Obama Boys, back off already. | |
| And the sub-headline was, Young women are growing increasingly frustrated with the fanatical support of Barack and the gleeful bashing of Hillary. | |
| That people were criticizing Hillary Clinton and obviously strongly implying, and the article goes on to be explicit, that a lot of that, if not most of it, is coming from a place of misogyny. | |
| And not only didn't that go off their way after 2008, it actually intensified in 2016 when Hillary Clinton and the Clinton machine believed that she was the almost certain, entitled nominee. | |
| And that there was an inevitability to her candidacy only for Bernie Sanders to pop up in this big movement of especially young people that galvanized around Bernie Sanders. | |
| And one of the primary themes became, yet again, but way more intense, that people who are supporting Bernie Sanders are typically misogynist. | |
| And that's the reason they dislike Hillary Clinton or impose her and don't want her to be president. | |
| And ironically, and there was no sense of irony about this, though. | |
| This theme, in many ways, was trumpeted by one Bill Clinton, who I guess had remade himself into a sort of icon of feminism after spending the 1990s and into the 2000s, drowning in scandals because of his serial womanizing, the accusations that he had sexually harassed women, had sexually assaulted them, even raped them, was still in good standing in the Democratic Party, was by Hillary's side. | |
| Trumpet these ideas that people who supported Bernie Sanders, who were called Bernie bros, even though a huge number of them were women, left-wing and liberal women, that they were sexist. | |
| And there you see this Christian Science Monitor article from 2016. | |
| Here's why Bill Clinton is attacking, quote, sexist Bernie bros. | |
| The former U.S. president's acerbic defense of his wife was not unprovoked, but it also points to a deeper frustration within the Clinton camp, namely that They believe the only reason why anybody wouldn't immediately rally around and acclimate Hillary Clinton as the nominee and the president, | |
| the only one reason could be that you oppose her warmongering, her corporatism, her establishment hackery. No, it's because she's a woman and therefore opposition to her was based on misogyny. It built in 2008 and went into 2016. And as I said, | |
| it also came in the other direction from the Obama camp. If you didn't support Obama, if you supported Hillary, It was because you were a racist. You didn't want to see a black president ascend to the White House and the Oval Office. And even in 2016, | |
| here you see a particularly hacky Democratic partisan writer named Ryan Cooper writing in the liberal journal American Press of the Week. And he says Hillary Clinton needs to address the racist undertones of her 2008 campaign. Clinton wasn't exactly a champion of racial justice in her primary battle against Barack Obama. So this has been building in Democratic Party politics, | |
| liberal politics, its identity politics that morphed into more extreme forms of wokeism in 2018 and 2020. We're every Republican, every conservative, anyone who opposed the Democratic Party was automatically a white supremacist, a misogynist. Nobody wants to be involved in a movement that uses those incredibly manipulative tactics. Very similar to how Israel supporters, ironically, | |
| who spent years claiming to oppose wokeism, now use the same exact tactic and accuse anybody who's opposed to Israel or who criticized Israel of being anti-Semitic. Just like liberals and Democrats drained the terms of racism and misogyny through their blatant manipulation and cynical overuse, So, too, is the term anti-Semitism going through a similar process, but it still is very much alive in the Democratic Party. | |
| And if you had any doubts about that, the emergence of Jasmine Crockett as some kind of political star of the Democratic Party, even though she's an absurd, ridiculous figure who believes in nothing, her only skill is creating these kind of Bravo drama moments on cable TV and talking in a very aggressive and denunciatory way about Donald Trump. | |
| But she's, you ask Democrat, what does Jasmine Crockett stand for? | |
| They can't tell you, in part because she doesn't stand for anything, in part to the extent she does. | |
| Her voting record is supporting Wall Street, protecting banks, funding Israel, defunding UNRWA on the grounds that it's anti-Semitic. | |
| She is. | |
| a lot of people think the International Black Caucus is some radical left-wing group. They long have been a very kind of establishment group. They're funded by corporate PACs. They often use racism as a tool to help corporations. That's a big tactic of Al Sharpton. And as the generations have gotten younger, | |
| A lot of black politicians have moved more and more toward the establishment line, far away from anything left wing or anything like that. Jasmine Crockett is a perfect embodiment of that, but she really just stands for nothing. She's kind of a sideshow, | |
| like a circus clown. She's very good at drawing attention to herself and nothing else. Who has been on Saturday Night Live for the last six years or seven years, | |
| became this sort of like icon of progressive justice because he's not only gay but also Asian and all those points add up and then he's a good progressive on top of it. Was there at Saturday Night Live when it kind of became peak anti-Trump. You're a very good progressive, | |
| very good ally, someone who really cares, unlike you, someone who really cares about being a good ally to marginalized communities. And he was on, he has this podcast with someone named Matt Rogers, who's also a comedian, done a few things. I wasn't really familiar with him, but he's also a good Democrat. They're both very good Democrats above all else. And they have a podcast together for some time, and the topic of Jasmine Crockett's Senate candidacy in Texas. Came up, and as you probably know, | |
| Jasmine Crocker is currently a House member from Texas and now running for the Senate in Texas, seeking the Democratic nomination. She has an opponent who's sort of young and trying to be this kind of evangelical, very humanist sort of Democrat, like religious, but humanist, putting everything into like kind of religious and moral terms. But he's a white male, | |
| and so there's already that identity politics factor when weighed against Jasmine Crockett, but she immediately became the frontrunner as soon as she announced she's ahead in the polls by 10, 15 points, even though he's been running for quite a while. And so here's the conversation, which threatened to be a career-ending conversation for both, where they talk about Jasmine Crockett. Jasmine Crockett thing? She's not going to win a Senate seat in Texas, you guys. If Beto O'Rourke couldn't do it, | |
| Jasmine Crockett is not going to do it. It's nothing against her. It's just that she is a politician and that she is very well-defined already. And I think it's my opinion that we are going to need someone who is less defined at this moment. That then rises up. I'm interested in this Tallarico guy. From Texas. Oh, | |
| I don't know him. I'm just interested in him. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, I haven't seen him before. It would be hard for them to define him as anything other than what he is, which is like a rising Democratic politician from someplace like Texas, who is like, yes, speaking a little bit to the middle, but at least he's someone that, you know what I mean? Gavin Newsom is defined. I believe Jasmine Crockett is defined. I'm just trying to win here, | |
| and I really feel differently than we did in 2016. Like, the way to win now is to, like, go with the energy. Now, that's the kind of thing that you believe if you think the only thing that matters is electing Democrats. What he's essentially saying is there has been this string of Democratic Party candidates in red states that Democrats got convinced had a chance when they really didn't, | |
| and they poured millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. People like Amy McGrath. And Kentucky and Beto O'Rourke in Texas just like put the entire fundraising machine of the Democratic Party behind them and they just didn't win because that's those states aren't for them. And so he's just trying, all he's really saying is, look, let's save our money. And to the extent we want to run a strong candidate in Texas, she doesn't seem like she's a good candidate because she's already defined and already has a negative image. Now, | |
| the most notable part about what he said is that It's factually true. Here's just some polling data, and there's a lot of polling data that shows this, where you can see her approval ratings from all voters, and Jasmine Crockett, Here you can see, has unfavorable ratings of 40, favorable of 33%, 10 % are neutral, and 16 % have never heard of her, versus James Tallarico. | |
| Who has a favorability rating of 25 % and an unfavorability rating of 9 and 50%. | |
| 49 % have never heard of. | |
| So she clearly is defined. | |
| She's defined in a way that's largely negative. | |
| And I don't really care if either of them win. | |
| I don't think that either of them are interesting candidates. | |
| But if you're somebody who actually is a Democrat, if you're somebody who cares, what he's saying there is absolutely true. | |
| She's not a good fit for Texas. | |
| The polling, Save your money. | |
| Don't put your money in her coffers. | |
| You can only imagine what kind of reaction this provoked. | |
| Massive anger among American liberals, Democratic Party hacks. And to the extent that you're more progressive, you get attacked even more because you're supposed to play by the rules. Here is just one example of a video that went quite viral. A lot of Black liberals led the way in accusing them of racism and misogyny, | |
| but plenty of good white allies wanting to show that their good white allies did as well. Here's one of the videos that was sort of one of the most prominent and passed around. Sending to Jasmine Crockett. Do not do it. I must agree. So we're loud and wrong today and trafficking in misogynoir because telling people not to support Jasmine Crockett. And admitting you don't even know the alternative is ignorance, | |
| period. She is a politician in that she is like, you know, like very well defined already. And I think it's my opinion that we are going to need someone who is less defined at this moment that then rises up. Like, I'm interested in this Tallarico guy from Texas. | |
| Oh, I don't know him. | |
| I'm just interested in him. | |
| Let's get into it, Calling a black woman Too well defined is code. | |
| It's a dog whistle. | |
| It's misogynoir. | |
| It's you saying she's too black. | |
| We hear it. | |
| We are done pretending we don't. | |
| The money lecture is nasty. | |
| Policing people how they spend their hard -earned money is arrogance. | |
| Jasmine Crockett is doing the work. | |
| Holding truth to power. | |
| Holding the line. | |
| Showing receipts. | |
| but i guess that visibility makes certain people uncomfortable she's not gonna win a senate seat in texas you guys like if vedo al-ar couldn't do it like all right It goes on and on like that. | |
| It it actually gets worse and worse. | |
| But I I there's only so much that can endure. | |
| Uh, for your benefit. | |
| But that was not some video that just I nitpicked, that nutpicked, that came from uh sort of obscure. | |
| This went viral. | |
| So many of these went viral and, not surprisingly, both of them this Matt Rogers person who said it, Bow and Yang who made, who committed the crime of agreeing have now been spending their time apologizing, taking loyalty oaths to Jasmine Crockett like this. | |
| You I know a lot of people think these kind of like woke rituals died in in in 2021, 2022. | |
| when people started realizing they have it, not within left-level politics, not within Democratic Party partisan politics. This is still the tactic of choice. So here is their kind of joint statement that they posted on Instagram. This is the statement from Matt Rogers, | |
| which was reposted by Bo and Yang. And this is what he says. Hi, everybody. I hear the response. I am taking every bit of it to heart. I promise. I'm taking every bit of it to heart. Transparency and candor matter to me, | |
| especially on the podcast. I'm a very progressive person. Very progressive person who cares deeply about winning these elections. And my phrasing was not right. I will be more thoughtful. I really do promise. I have great respect and admiration for Representative Crockett. And I regret that my words suggested otherwise. I just want us to win and I will be better at finding ways to help. And then Bowen Yang added his own comment, | |
| which was, should not have cursorily weighed in on this, understanding the platform, and will use it more responsibly. Now, the one thing I will say is that they're both idiots, independent of how racist and misogynistic and how guilty of misogyny they are. They barely knew anything about what they were talking about. In fact, Bowen Yang hadn't even heard of her primary challenger. So he's saying, yeah, don't give money to her. She's not the best one, | |
| but he hadn't even heard of who's running against her. Why would you talk about politics in any kind of opinionated or assertive way in public if you have no idea what's going on, if you don't follow anything? I totally respect people who don't follow politics, | |
| who don't want to be involved in it. That's a completely respectable choice. It's one I had made previously in my life, and I think it's by no means some kind of moral or civic obligation to follow politics. This apology, | |
| and just to show you how widespread this is, here is the entertainment journal deadline. Matt Rogers, Bo and Yang promised to be, quote, to, quote, be more thoughtful after Jasmine Crockett comments. So they give that, like, apology ritual. Now, you can blame the, like, | |
| racial and gender bullies in the liberal movement. Who demand that you never criticize someone like Jasmine Crockett because she's a black woman doing the work. Obviously, these are despicable people. But the only reason why they have any power, why any of this works, Is because you have complete weak and cowardly midgets like these two. | |
| Who, instead of saying, go F yourself. | |
| I was making an analysis about what I think is the likely outcome of the Texas race. | |
| I don't think she's a good candidate. | |
| To presume that it's because I'm racist or sexist or both, because you can't criticize Jasmine Crockett because she's a black woman is imbecilic. | |
| It's moral idiocy. | |
| I'm not apologizing for anything. | |
| That's my view. | |
| If that had been the posture of them from the start, and I remember the first time I wrote an article in 2016 about the utterly manipulative nature of this Bernie Support that's rife with sexism and misogyny because of the crime of dealing with Hillary Clinton. | |
| You have to dismiss this. | |
| This is contemptible. | |
| I remember how angry that made people. | |
| But that's the only way to deal with it. | |
| And I think a lot of people inside the American liberal movement, even the left, the Democratic Party, some of them have obviously grown tired of this and realized that this is not a healthy or a respectable way to think about the world, that somehow a powerful politician elected official is immune from criticism because she's black or a woman or anything else of her identity. | |
| even though she's a complete partisan hack and supports a sinister ideology. But there's still enough of them, especially in this world, like the celebrity world, the Hollywood world, the media world, | |
| where this still works. And I guess I am not talking about this because it did surprise me a little bit. It was like going into a time machine back to 2020 or 2021 and then just watching people like crumble. And the creepiest part was that he had a statement saying I have the deepest respect and admiration for Congresswoman Crockett and I never should have used words that suggested otherwise. On some level, | |
| I do think these people are a menace, all of them. And part of me hopes that they continue to do this because of how repellent and alienating it is. But on the other hand, I actually think it's a good thing if you have multiple respectable competing political factions that don't just immediately alienate people because of their behavior and some of their core beliefs about how you can speak and what you get accused of. I mean, | |
| I don't think anybody should change their political views or ideology or values because of how repellent they find this, but who would ever want to be part of a political movement? | |
| That has such rigid codes of speech and will spit out the most destructive accusations against you and your character and integrity for the most innocuous comments. | |
| Any sane or mentally healthy person would run as fast as they can in the opposite direction. |