All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 22, 2018 - Jimmy Dore Show
01:03:06
20181122_1122_TJDS_Podcast
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Get ready for an outstanding entertainment program.
The Jimmy Dore show.
I know that ring.
It's the former leader of America, the free world, and current executive producer at Netflix.
Hello, President Obama.
Oh, man, am I ever on a husk?
Well, this isn't like you, Barack.
You're the great moderate compromiser.
Can you be more specific?
I am so hot under the collar, I'm actually thinking of loosening it.
And then rolling up my cuffs to that point precisely halfway between my wrist and my elbow.
I am positively dismayed, Jimmy.
What about?
Don't get me started.
Men, take a break.
Ladies, we got to talk.
Got to get more involved.
We need more women in politics.
Not progressive women, but the bread and butter of the Democratic Party resistance.
Old white women with money.
Wow.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I'm not letting the guys off easy here either.
Ladies, take a break.
Men, you've been really getting on my nerves lately.
Guys, we got to get our stuff together.
You're violent.
Channel that pent-up violence and bullying into foreign policy.
Now, I'm not letting the women off too easily either.
Men, take a break.
Ladies?
Why do you always go to restroom and groups?
And guys, don't play target practice with those Euro cakes.
Anybody see this?
What's that about?
Tip your waitress.
That's good of you to say that, Barack.
I mean, you know, we're just not handling our business.
But what exactly does that mean, particularly after you dropped 26,000 bombs on civilians in one year?
It means we men got to take care of our business.
And ladies, I'm not leaving you out on this.
Men, take a break.
Ladies, you got to get more involved in politics.
You mean like Alexandria Casio-Cortez?
We need more moderate centrists from the Bush family running for office.
Experience is everything.
She's not related to George Bush.
Then shit canner.
Look, all I'm saying is it's time for new blood, fresh faces, and brand new ideas.
Do Feinstein, Pelosi, and Sue Collins mean anything to you?
Well, you're going to be hearing a lot more from these shiny new faces in the upcoming weeks.
I promise you.
Ladies, take a break.
Guys, these women going through toilet paper.
What are they doing?
Okay, I just got the light.
Time for my big closer.
I can't believe how much money I have.
There's always so much you can eat.
There's always so big a house you can have.
I actually said that the other day.
I'm here all week.
All months.
All year and the rest of your life.
Tip your waitresses, the very minimum they need to survive.
I've been Obama.
Yeah.
I've been Obama.
It's the Jimmy Door Show.
The show for people that are comments maybe on tearing down our nation.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper save.
It's hard to talk to you, K Value.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Jimmy Door show.
We have a special guest with us.
The author, Thomas Frank, is with us.
Here's his latest book.
It's called Rendezvous with Oblivion.
And of course, you know that I always talk about his previous book, which is Listen Liberal.
And before that, he wrote What's the Matter with Kansas?
And Listen Liberal is the book that I always credit with making me the way I am and losing me a lot of friends.
That's funny, but it's also true.
And I'm not kidding.
And it's made me a pariah to a lot of people on the left, right?
A lot of corporate Democrats don't like that I see through them.
So, and it's because I read that book, Listen Liberal.
And here he is, Thomas Frank, ladies and gentlemen.
Hi, Thomas.
You look great.
Hey, Jimmy.
You know, the same thing happened to me, by the way.
Yeah, but you know what?
Yeah, you lost a lot of friends because of what you're that book?
Not personal friends, but let's say publishing outlets.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know you have to.
Now you write for The Guardian, correct?
You still write for The Guardian?
I write for The Guardian and Le Monde Diplomatique, French newspaper.
So you can't get work in the United States after you write a book criticizing the Democrat establishment.
It's significantly harder.
You know, when I talk about Barack Obama, like I'm not that interested in talking about Trump, even though he's a phenomenon, right?
He is a political phenomenon, but only because of the failures of the Democratic Party, right?
Because the 2016 election was all about class, and somehow the Democrats lost that election.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's what Trump talked about constantly.
If you go back and look at his speeches or his TV commercials, he talks about it constantly.
And he does it in a twisted way, in a perverse way, but the message got through to a lot of people.
And the Democrats, look, the Democratic Party has one of the things that, you know, I think that having people like me criticize the Democrats, I think it's healthy.
I think it's wholesome for them.
I agree.
Because if they don't figure this stuff out, you know, there's, you know, terrible things are going to happen.
Why don't we hold bankers, you know, criminally culpable any longer?
It's not like there wasn't evidence of fraud.
There was tons of it.
They called it lie.
They called them liars' loans, for God's sakes, the stuff that they were handing out, packaging up and selling off to retirees in Germany.
But you look at the Enron case, which I think is like such an important, you know, me, I obsess over things, but I obsess over the Enron case.
That was in 2001.
Those guys went to prison.
Yeah.
And they were friends with personal friends.
Yeah, personal president of George Bush.
And he sent his personal friends to prison.
Ken Lay.
Yep.
Well, Ken Lay died before he had a chance to report to prison.
But Jeff Skilling went.
And this is like you compare that to now what's to how we reacted, how our Democrats reacted to the financial crisis and to the just this disaster.
And it's night and day.
And yeah, it's, I think Obama and the Democrats paid for that.
How did they pay for that?
How'd they pay for that?
Yeah.
Donald Trump.
I agree.
I agree.
It's like all of a sudden justice is something that only happens to working people.
So if people – It's not that justice was completely suspended.
If you lied on a mortgage application and there's a lot of people in where you're sitting, there's a lot of people around there that did.
And if you tried to play that bubble in that way, you've got an interview with the FBI right now.
Or you're cooling your heels in prison right now.
They threw the book at those people.
But if you're one of these guys that packaged, then took those mortgages and packaged them up and sold them as a bond, AAA rated to retirees in Germany, you're fine.
No problem.
And so I agree with you that that is screwed up.
And that's the kind of stuff that made my blood boil when I was reading Listen Liberal.
And people cannot make the connection between the failures of the Barack Obama and the Democrats and Trump and how we got Trump.
First, they couldn't make it.
But there's a cognitive reason for that.
It's because Trump is so loathsome.
Because he's such a jackass.
Can I say this on the air?
Yes.
He's so full of shit.
The Republican Party was down in 2008, and they should have stayed down for a very long time.
And the reason that they made a comeback in the way that they did is A, ingenuity on the part of the Republicans.
We know how they play the game.
They're very, very good at the game.
You know, these are, they are the best political, however you want to put it.
They are the best at the political game of anybody I've ever heard of or seen in world history.
They're amazing, these guys here in D.C., right?
And it's like whether it's Karl Rove or Grover Norquist or whoever it is, Steve Bannon or whoever is running the show, they are supremely good at the game in a way that Democrats never are.
Okay.
But second of all is the failure of the Democrats to tie that can to their tail in a way that they could not escape it for years and years and years to come in a way that Franklin Roosevelt really did to Herbert Hoover and really did to the Republican Party and that Harry Truman continued to do after Roosevelt was gone and that the Republicans could not escape from for decades, which is blame for the Great Depression.
And that should have happened to the Republican Party this time around and that it didn't is like I say it's testament to the power of those two things.
And it is it is I mean we are living in incredible times that they were able to bounce back in 2010 and engineer that incredible takeover of Congress, you know, the Tea Party wave.
That by itself is mind-boggling.
But then that Trump, Donald Trump comes along and steals a huge part of the Democratic base.
White working he didn't steal them.
They were given they were given to him.
There you go.
Well, yeah, yes.
Yeah.
Do you remember one of the phrases in Listen Liberal?
And it's painful now for Democrats to think about this, but it's true.
It's something that they used to do.
And it's an expression that they used to use back in the 90s in the Clinton days, Bill Clinton days.
And that is when they're talking about working class people or labor unions or black voters.
And that is this phrase that they would use.
They have nowhere else to go.
They've got nowhere else to go.
And they said this about when they said this on numerous occasions, right?
It would crop up in the reporting.
And that's what Trump did.
He gave the white working class voters somewhere else to go.
And that's, you know, that's the whole trick of what he did.
You know, and let me ask you another question, too, about, because what's happening right now with Trump and the media, and you're a person in the news media, is that Trump on a daily basis insults somebody in the press, and then the press and all the neoliberals and the corporate Democrats go crazy rallying around that press person, no matter how disingenuous or what is like Jim Acosta.
Jim Acosta is a grandstanding knucklehead who hasn't asked a good question in his entire career.
And now everybody's supposed to rally around CNN because of Trump.
Now, can I tell you an anecdote?
Sure.
So I gave a talk a while ago and it was on C-SPAN.
In the talk, I made fun of Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, gentle humor, right?
And I compared, I compared Rush's radio show to being in North Korea.
And you know how every house has a speaker?
It's not a radio.
You can't tune it.
It just, it only gets one station.
It only gets, it's just wired into, you know, and there's, and it's, you know, Kim Jong-un all the time, right?
And so I compared Rush Limbaugh to that, which really is the case if you're ever in like Topeka, Kansas or somewhere like that, where everywhere you go, they're just, he's on, right?
Well, one kid.
And we walked into one building.
Anyhow, so I made fun of him a little bit, right?
And he, he didn't like that.
And he, and he went after me on his radio show.
And he said, it's not me that's like North Korea.
He said, it's CNN in airports.
Think about that for a second.
When you go to the airport, you can't change the channel.
And it's all, he's right.
It's always CNN for whatever reason.
And that is true.
The airport is, it is kind of a North Korean, it's a propaganda environment.
We were talking before the show started about propaganda museums.
And the airports are also propaganda places for a different kind of propaganda, more corporate propaganda.
But CNN is always on in those places.
And you aren't allowed to change the channel.
And so a lot of people, when they look at CNN's war with Trump or vice versa, Trump's war with CNN, they, you know, you and I are, we follow politics and we understand that the president of the United States is a very powerful man, right?
But a lot of people are like, well, he's not on the TV all the time when I go to the airport.
That's CNN that has that power.
It's not Donald Trump that has that power.
That's CNN.
And so they look at that and they think he really is standing up to power.
And in some ways, it's like, you know, here in Washington, we know that obviously the president is more powerful than CNN, but there's this illusion that other people have.
And it's exactly as you described.
And so a lot of people look at that and they are, they're cheering for him.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's the thing that, and the thing that people can understand is that like in this CNN Donald Trump battle or this circus is what it actually is.
Because if they really, if they really cared about journalism, oh, he's attacking journalism.
If they really cared, they would say something about Julian Assange.
They say nothing about Jillian Assange.
And President Barack Obama used the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists more than all the presidents combined.
So that's how you know what Jim Acosta and CNN is doing is a circus because they don't really give a shit about the freedom of the press.
Because if they did, they would say something.
What they care about is ratings.
And that's what's happening.
And the thing that people can't get through their head, Thomas, is the same thing they can't get through their head in the Robert Mueller investigation is that maybe there's no good guys.
Maybe CNN is full of shit and so is Trump.
And maybe Robert Mueller is a guy who lied us into the Iraq war and is also full of shit and so is Trump.
And, you know, the right wing will high-five each other and get excited when Trump flips off CNN because they've spent two years pushing a conspiracy theory with no basis and evidence.
So they know they're full of it.
Which conspiracy theory?
The Russiagate conspiracy theory.
Okay.
So that's, by the way, that's a really interesting story.
And you've raised like five really good topics here.
It's a point that I make all the time.
This is a country of 300 million people.
Okay.
We have three newspapers that matter in this country of 300 million people.
Okay.
That, my friend, is fucked up.
Okay.
You know that TV news takes their leads from the printed press, from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
And the Wall Street Journal is something of an outlier.
I used to work there and they, you know, thanks to their paywall and stuff like that, they've succeeded.
this is my opinion, but they're something of an outlier.
So that leaves you with two.
New York Times and the Washington Post.
They're almost exactly the same.
They'll run the same picture on page one.
They always cover the same stories in exactly the same way.
Their opinion sections have exactly the same opinions.
This is for a country of 300 million people.
I was in France recently where, I mean, you got, forget France.
I was in Kansas City the other day.
Kansas City Star, the A section of the Kansas City Star is eight pages long.
I mean, these people can't even cover what's, they have trouble covering.
I don't want to, they try hard, right?
I like them a lot, but they have trouble covering what's happening in Topeka, let alone what's happening in Washington, D.C. It's all wire service copy, you know?
And this is every local newspaper in America.
Look at your LA Times out there.
Look at the mighty Chicago Tribune, you know, which was once, you know, in the 40s and 50s, was one of the most important papers in the world.
And it's a shadow.
It's nothing.
And this is happening everywhere you go in this country.
The voices are down to just this tiny, tiny handful of people, and they all agree with each other.
That's not a healthy situation.
Well, tell me what the consequence of that is.
The consequences is that we increasingly.
So there's an essay in, hold up the book again, Rendezvous with Oblivion.
There's an essay in there about the way the Washington Post treated Bernie Sanders.
What we know about the world is dictated to us by a very small handful of people who all agree.
They have all the same preconceptions, all the same way of viewing the world.
And it's not that they're liberal.
Okay.
They hated Bernie Sanders.
The whole liberal media bias thing is a red herring.
It's not that they're liberal.
It's that they all come from the same class background.
Do you remember, Jimmy?
I'm older than you, but when I was younger and lived in Chicago, we had a columnist called Mike Royko.
Yeah, I love Mike Royko.
Yeah, yeah.
And he was, he came from a blue-collar background.
And in fact, the column was written for blue-collar readers.
That's why I like that.
And there used to be hundreds of columnists like Mike Royko all over this country.
Jimmy Bradley.
Yes, that was a genre.
They were all over the place.
And there are, you know, how many of those guys are left?
That's right.
Zero.
Zero?
That I know of.
I mean, maybe it's some local paper somewhere there still, but there's nothing like that in the national.
There's no voice like that in the national news.
It's all from everybody comes from the same social background, the same position.
They look at things the same.
There are some exceptions here and there.
I have columnists that I like better than others.
But there's, by and large, our newspapers are, it's a monoculture.
It's a monotone.
And it's becoming more and more and more so as this world shrinks and as local journalism dies.
And so what is the consequence of that?
The consequence of that is people don't get informed.
And they hate the press.
And they hate the press.
And rightfully so.
It is something that comes to you from the coast.
Say you're reading the, you know, the Kansas City Star or something like that.
The news is something that comes to you from reporters on the East Coast.
You know, your people don't have a say in it.
They don't report it.
They don't get to interview the candidates.
I mean, they do, but their significance is so much smaller.
There's a newspaper.
There's a small town in Kansas called Emporia.
And they had a very famous newspaper there, the Emporia Gazette.
It still exists.
Their editor was a guy called William Allen White.
He was friends with Teddy Roosevelt.
He would interview presidential candidates.
They would come to his town so that he could interview them.
They'd go to a lot of small towns so that they could be interviewed.
His column was reprinted all over America in small town papers all over this country.
Voices like that are gone, Jimmy.
And that is that's that's the root of the problem, you know.
And anyhow, to get back to, I just can't stand Trump, but I can understand how it happened.
Let me just stop you for a second and just make the connection between you're lamenting the press and the consolidation of the press, right?
Where you're saying there's really only the death, which leaves it's very concentrated, you know.
And how did we get, how did we get that?
From the failing of the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton and the Telecommunications Act in 1996.
What do you know about that?
That's rare.
Not many people know about that.
Well, I read your book.
And I think you can draw a direct line from that Telecommunications Act to Donald Trump getting $2 billion in free media and winning the election in 2016.
And the media focusing on him obsessively.
Yes.
But he's also, he is, look, this is celebrity culture run-amuck.
And he is a product of that.
Do you remember Andrew Breitbart?
Yes.
I mean, Breitbart's, that was Breitbart's big theory.
Do you remember this?
That culture is upstream from politics, he used to say.
And Hollywood, you know, it was a conspiracy theory, but he thought Hollywood controlled the world, basically.
And in some ways, Trump is his, like something that he would have invented, you know.
It's like Trump is an incarnation of Breitbart's way of looking at the world.
Yeah.
In my opinion.
By the way, all of that stuff, everything I've just said is all in Rendezvous with Oblivion.
The part about the newspapers is the essay, one of the essays I'm proudest of.
I read every op-ed and editorial that the Washington Post ran about Bernie Sanders from January to June of 2016.
In other words, when he was an active candidate for the presidency, I read every single one.
And their hatred of him was astonishing.
You'd think that just at random, somebody would say something nice about it, but it never happened.
I mean, there were two or three in that whole period.
It was six to one against the guy.
And if the liberal bias thing is correct, they should have loved that guy because he was objectively more liberal than Hillary Clinton was.
But they hated him.
They absolutely hated him.
And the explanation for that is it's not liberalness.
It's the class background of these people, of the kind of people that run American newspapers and that write for American newspapers.
And by the way, the Post likes to fancy that Jeff Bezos owning them, owned by the richest man in the world.
And the New York Times, by the way, is partially owned by the third richest man in the world, Carlos.
Yes, Carlos Flimm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is he third richest now?
I think he's fallen down a couple notches.
But, you know, it's a game of billionaires again, newspapering.
I mean, there was a time, there was this golden period when it was from, say, you know, the 40s up into the 80s when it was, you know, newspapers had come into their own and we're right back to William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane.
And they're run as hobbies by, you know, hobby horses by very, very, very wealthy men.
That's where we are.
Yes.
And, you know, every problem you brought, you talked about in the last five minutes, I can trace directly back to the Democratic Party's failings, right?
So because the Democrat, it's not like the republican party stopped being the republican party they're still the republican party it's the democratic party that stopped being the democratic party and that's why there's things you could could have done they could have done to uh save local newspapers it's not impossible to have local newspapers uh or to have local news outlets you know there there are things you could do uh the european countries still have them by the way so for example one of the things this is not newspapers per se
But the French have taken all of these steps to keep Amazon from swallowing book publishing and to swallowing – sorry, bookstores.
There's all kinds of things you can do to protect – to have a culture that is healthy and that has thousands of different outlets.
So you raised a whole bunch of interesting points when you were talking earlier.
And one of the things that you mentioned was the Democrats getting – trying to get tough on the budget.
And also the Democrats'embrace of the military, which is one of the most interesting stories that nobody is talking about right now, really began – I'm sure it began long, long ago.
But I first noticed it at the Democratic Convention in 16 when Hillary was the candidate.
And they had this speech by a Marine Corps general that was kind of shocking.
It was delivered in the way that generals deliver speeches, which is to say very muscular, kind of terrifying, like Patton, that speech at the beginning of Patton.
And you look at all of the candidates the Democrats chose in the last go-round here in 2018 and so many of them with the military background.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that.
That shouldn't disqualify anyone, of course.
That should be something that we respect and that we look up to.
But what you see here is the Democratic Party deliberately trying to embrace – and by the way, they're doing this with the foreign policy intellectuals too.
Do you see how I wagged my finger at you, Jimmy?
Yes, I did.
I'm like Bernie.
The Democratic Party embracing all of these sort of foreign policy hawks here in D.C., all of these neocons coming over to the Democratic Party.
And we're watching this shift happen before our eyes.
And it's terrifying and freaky in all sorts of ways.
But another one is on the budget where Democrats are all of a sudden deficit hawks.
What the hell?
And so what this is all – but this all comes from the way we run our politics.
It comes from because they're beholden to their donors and not their voters.
The Democratic Party in the middle of the biggest climate emergency just decided to start taking money from fossil fuel companies again.
They don't represent – I did not know that.
And so this brings me back to a big bone of contention that I have with a lot of people on the left.
So there's a lot of organizations right now – Our Revolution, Brand New Congress, Justice Democrats – all filled with good people, with great ideas.
And they have the right goals that I share.
They think the Democratic Party is reformable.
And I don't think so.
And that's where we get into this debate about what we should do electorally going forward.
And now that Bernie has decided to prop up the Democratic Party and not run as a third party, even though he's an independent every year, every time he runs for senator, he still goes into the Democratic Party to run for president.
And so my thing is that third party just doesn't seem to be happening.
But the reform of the Democratic Party also is not happening.
They've only successfully primaried two corporate Democrats.
Yeah, you were telling me.
And by the way, in the 18 election, you saw – in a way that I've never noticed before – you saw the central Democratic hierarchy choosing candidates, choosing candidates and sending them to districts to run.
And doing this in a very top-down way, which has probably happened before, but I never noticed it before.
It's just that this time everybody was looking for it, and it was kind of startling.
And I agree with you, but I don't – and we've talked about this before.
I love third parties.
Populism is one of my favorite political movements in American history.
And just in game theory terms, you have to have the possibility of third parties because the two parties too often reach consensus on issues where they shouldn't.
Like the military, like Wall Street.
Like the military budget or a classic example from history is slavery.
Before the Civil War, the two parties were like, yeah, we're not going to debate this.
Or in the 1890s, they're like industrialization was happening, monopoly, capitalism, all of this stuff.
And the robber barons and the two parties are like, that's cool.
We're not going to debate that.
We're not going to debate that.
And so in these situations, yeah, you need a third party because the temptation for them – I mean it's just – it's totally foreseeable.
It's like really basic game theory that they will from time to time come together and refuse to debate the most important issue facing the country.
And in those situations, you've got to have a way of shaking them up.
You've got to have an outside force that can come along and break up their cozy little system.
But – Well, we don't – that option is not available to us now.
No.
And so in some ways you – by the way, this is one of the most interesting things about Trump is that Trump who had – remember had sort of played footsie with the Reform Party.
Do you remember that?
Yes.
And so – and he – and a lot of people were saying when he was running for the presidency – and he threatened at one point if he didn't get the nomination, he would run as a third party candidate.
Yes.
He sort of was a third party candidate in that he was not – he broke with a lot of traditional Republican positions on things.
This is in addition to him being a lout and an asshole and a bigot and a racist, right?
He also broke with them on trade, which is just unforgivable.
The other stuff they can live with, right?
The bigotry and the racism.
They can live with that.
But when he broke with them on trade, they're like, hey, wait a second.
You can't do that.
And so in some ways, he showed what is possible, that even a structure like that of the Republican Party can crack and be destroyed.
And that's really interesting.
Can it happen in the Democrats?
I think it can.
And Bernie came damned close in 2016.
By the way, in 2020, you're going to see so many Democrats running.
It's going to be a free-for-all.
So I agree with you on that.
But Thomas, get back to this third party idea.
Third parties have been successfully shamed out of existence, it seems.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, there haven't been any successful efforts larger than – I mean you have things like Ross Perot, right?
And you had Wallace back in the 60s.
Remember, he kept running for president.
But there haven't been any successful like real third party efforts.
By that, I mean building from the bottom up in a very long time.
You had some state level – like Wisconsin had a powerful progressive party.
Minnesota had something called the Farmer Labor Party.
There used to be parties like this that would rise up and take over.
And then North Dakota had one.
They were called the Nonpartisan League.
They would appear, do their damage and then – then disappear that doesn't happen anymore uh there's a lot of reasons for that but we you and I talked about this the other day, and I gave you one of the main reasons is that the two main parties have cut off, have made illegal a lot of the one of the most important methods that third parties used to use, which was fusion.
You're not allowed to do that anymore.
And it's stupid, but you're not allowed to.
So still fusion.
You could still build one at a state level if you had a strong grassroots movement.
So all of the movements that I just described, these were all movements of the left.
They're all based in either farmer radicalism, which is a completely dead force in American life, or organized labor, which still exists, but is very much weakened, you know, and it's very hard to, you know, they're so reluctant.
Let's put it that way.
They're so reluctant to act outside the Democratic Party.
You know, even though you have such a great demeanor and a nice smile, it seems like you paint a very bleak picture because we can have third parties, right?
Because they've actually made them illegal, fusion and things like that, that gave third parties power.
They're trying in New York State.
You know this, right?
New York State is one of the states.
New York did not have populism.
And as a result, they did not pass laws against fusion there.
And because of that, they still have a vibrant third party effort there.
It's called the Working Families Party.
And before that, they had the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, who were actually important players in New York State.
But, you know, we shall see.
I mean, what I'm saying is that there are places like that where you can still play the game.
And then again, look who they've got as governor.
So what do you say?
I mean, just give me a straight answer on what do you think the chances of the reformation of the Democratic Party are.
Oh, I think they're, I think it's probably better than you think.
I mean, you're very, you're, you're, you're more, I am extremely pessimistic, by the way.
And what you said before is true.
And I've been like that my entire life, but I'm not like that as a person.
I'm, I'm, you know, sunny and happy and optimistic and all the rest of it.
And I, you know, I go out and change the oil on the car and mow the lawn and do all sorts of normal things that people do.
And I, and I don't mean to be a depressing guy.
I write about history, though.
And it's like what I write about, it's, it's, it's inescapable.
What I'm describing is it really happened.
You know, I'm not making it up.
And I really care about the people that I care about.
And it's terrible to see what's happened to them.
And it's terrible.
I mean, like, look at the middle class in this country.
Look at how we're at what we're doing to them.
And it's disastrous.
And it's heartrending and it makes me really unhappy.
It makes me unhappy every time I go back home and go and visit small town America.
I just can't, I cannot believe what is happening to this country sometimes.
However, that said, I think I'm probably slightly more optimistic than you about the Democratic Party for a very simple reason.
If they want to win the presidency again, and they do, they are, well, actually, you know, let's put an asterisk after that.
We'll have another conversation about this later.
They might not want to win the presidency.
Whether they want to or not is a question.
Did you see the last article I wrote for The Guardian?
There's this great quote from Tony Blair, who's granted he's not an American, but as close to the Clintons as you can be.
And he said, even if I knew that going to the left was the way to win, I still wouldn't do it.
It's like, that's their attitude.
So a lot of them, even if they knew that's what they had to do to win, they still wouldn't do it.
But the thing is, that is what they have to do to win.
They have to go to those places.
What are now the swing states in America?
Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio.
And they have to win back a lot of those voters that working class voters that are either the white guys that went for Trump or the black guys that didn't turn out and vote.
And how are you going to do that?
How are you going to, there's only one way, Jimmy Dore, to talk about their issues, understand their lives.
Right now, nine out of 10 Democrats want Medicare for all.
They're a majority of Republicans on Mario.
There you go.
That's a good issue.
And we can't.
But we can't even get the leadership of the Democratic Party to even say those words.
Isn't that amazing?
I mean, what does that tell you?
That's a banana republic.
We're not living in a democracy, not even close to it.
So let me ask you again, do you think the Democratic Party is reformable?
Yes, I think they are.
I have to believe that.
I have to believe that.
It may take a long time.
And it means building a movement, Jimmy.
And I'm not a movement builder.
I'm a writer.
I'm a scoffer.
I started out as a guy that wrote really mean book reviews.
That's what I did.
I'm a guy.
That's how I've spent my life.
Okay.
But other people know how to build movements and it can be done.
And, you know, our national history is a history of great social movements that the peace movement during Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the farmer movement in the 1890s.
These are all like incredible, inspiring stories that succeeded to a certain degree.
And we need that now.
That's what we have to do.
Now, can you and me just snap our fingers and they'll start and it'll start?
No, it's extremely difficult, but it has to happen.
So Thomas Frank, the author of Listed Liberal, he just writes the books.
I live them.
Where do you, you live in Washington, D.C. or right outside?
Where do you live?
Yeah, I live in a suburb in Maryland.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We just got Amazon headquarters, HQ2, down in Virginia, by the way.
Oh, yeah, I know.
They're so pleased.
I know.
They're going to save you guys.
They're going to save you guys.
It's like, no, we're not wealthy enough here.
The city needs even more, you know.
See, I live in the blue-collar part of Pasadena.
I grew up in the blue-collar part of Chicago.
I didn't live in the summer.
Where did you grow up?
Where did you grow up?
I grew up by Midway Airport on the Southwest side.
I used to live in Hyde Park.
I lived there for 15 years.
Obama was my state senator.
No kidding.
I love that city.
That is a, what a, what a place.
I used to just drive around the south side, just, you know, wandering around.
I just loved it.
I loved that place.
Yeah.
It's the, yeah, yes.
My dad was a cop in Hyde Park for about 20 years.
Yeah.
He, but he worked for the university?
No, he was a Chicago policeman, but that was his beat right around there.
So I'm familiar with Tyde Park and the South Africa.
And I'm familiar with Midway Airport.
Well, have you been there?
Have you been there now?
It's a longer walk from Midway to my car than it is from O'Hare.
I know.
It's like they've doubled or tripled the size.
I don't know what they do.
It used to be very convenient.
I always show up like five minutes before my flight and somebody would just drop me off.
I'd walk in.
It used to be.
Yeah, it used to be.
It used to be great.
You could see your gate from where you got dropped off at Midway.
Yeah, I love that place.
Anyhow, that was a long time ago.
The bungalow belt.
The bungalow.
Yes, correct.
Well, Thomas Frank, everybody check out his new book, Rendezvous with Oblivion.
I would look forward to your next book about populism.
I really look forward to that one.
I'm working on it right now.
It's going to be fun.
Okay, Thomas Frank, thanks for making time.
We'll see you.
We'll talk to you soon.
Anytime, Jimmy.
Hey, you know, we no longer have an Amazon link because we're not doing that.
We're not playing that game.
But here's another great way you can help support the show: you become a premium member.
We give you a couple of hours of premium bonus content every week, and it's a great way to help support the show.
You can do it by going to JimmyDoorCompany.com, clicking on join premium.
It's the most affordable premium program in the business, and it's a great way to help put your thumb back in the eye of the bastards.
Thanks for everybody who was already a premium member.
And if you haven't, you're missing out.
We give you lots of bonus content.
Thanks for your support.
Okay, I got a phone call, but I don't recognize this number.
Hello, this is Jimmy.
Hello.
Hello, who is this?
This is Al Pacino.
Al Pacino, the Al Pacino.
How are you?
I'm good, Al.
Thanks for asking.
I can't believe you called the Jimmy Door show.
I know.
I mean, what possible reason could you have for calling in?
You're a very knowledgeable man about politics.
I want to be knowledgeable about politics.
You and I team up, work together, figure things out.
A symbiotic relationship.
Yeah, I'm not sure I understand.
Look, you got George Clooney calling into your show.
You got Finch Fawn calling it.
Oh, Schwartzeneg.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to be one of these guys.
How do I get to be one of these guys?
You mean you want to call into the show occasionally and discuss current events?
Yeah.
Well, of course.
And with a word and a will, it has transpired.
I am on the phone with Jimmy Dory.
How do you feel it?
It is hot outside.
Ah, yeah.
All right, Welda.
What do you want to talk about?
I have to admit, I'm a little behind.
I hadn't noticed that Richard Nixon wasn't president anymore until I was done filming the HBO Joe Paterno movie.
How is that possible?
What?
I've been researching roles for 45 years.
Intensely.
I've been preoccupied with art.
And politics is the enemy of art.
Okay.
But things are dire.
I need to start paying attention and formulating opinions and stating said opinions in a public forum.
The progressive movement could sure use an El Pacino.
Oh, hold on.
I haven't made up my mind yet here.
Progressive.
Maybe regressive.
Maybe progresso.
Maybe left.
Maybe left.
Maybe right.
Maybe in the middle.
Maybe on top above.
Why does it gotta be a line?
If I am informed, I refuse to be confined.
All right, then.
But I'm learning, right?
Jimmy, listen.
For the first time in my life, I own a computer.
I'm learning to use it.
It was a gift from my daughter.
So, in order to learn about politics, I turned on my laptop computer.
Okay.
Then I accessed the mainframe.
Yeah, I don't think that's how it works, Al.
And this computer told me that Russia decided our election in the United States.
That's not a lot of people say this, but that's not actually.
And that's why this clown, this buffoon, is president instead of that Hillary kid, who I thought was a wonderkind, came out of nowhere, this kid.
What?
Out of the blue.
Al, Hillary Clinton has been part of the American political landscape for well over a quarter century.
It's true.
Oh, hold on.
Wait a minute.
Is she that young lady who performed Fallatio on Bill Clinton?
No, no, she was.
Because I thought maybe they hit it off because they have the same last name.
Like, you're a Clinton.
I'm a Clinton.
And then Chatty, Chatty, Chatty.
And flirty, flirty, flirty.
And the next thing you know.
I've seen this happen before.
No, Al, no, man.
You really are behind on everything, aren't you?
Yeah, it's like I just came out of a fog bunker.
Okay, well, to fill you in, Al, no.
Russia did not steal our election.
That's just a distraction to make us forget what a horrible candidate Hillary Clinton was.
Oh, so she's bad.
Yeah, in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, yes.
So then, maybe there is something to this rumor that she has a pizza restaurant and she's turning little kids into pizza toppings and then serving that pizza to all the children or something.
No, that's called Pizzagate.
That's bogus.
But you said she's bad.
Yeah, but that.
But Pizzagate is bogus.
I'm so confused.
Did my computer lie to me?
Probably.
I want to kill this fucking thing.
Look, Al, just check in with us occasionally and we'll set you straight, okay?
All right, Betty.
I appreciate it.
Truly.
From the heart.
But I'm still going to bash this fucking machine apart.
Raphael!
Bring me my vengeance cloak.
Hey, everybody, welcome to Jimmy Dorsey.
I'm here with Ron Placone.
Hey, Ron.
Howdy, howdy, Jimmy.
Ron, you telling jokes somewhere?
Yeah, November 23rd this week.
I'll be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Tickets are still available, but they're going fast.
Oh, really?com, please.
Yeah, ronplacon.com for tickets.
Well, guess what?
The liberal donors gathered in Washington to strategize for 2020.
So after the midterms, they all got together.
And if the subheadline there is, voting rights and expanding the electorate are on the agenda.
You know what's not on the agenda?
Medicare for all.
A living wage, ending the wars.
A ban on fracking.
Also not, it's amazing.
But it's what's really amazing to me about this article is how they keep referring to these people as the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
I'm not kidding.
So this was written by Amanda Turkle, right?
And Kevin Robillard.
I don't know who that is, but I'm familiar with Amanda Turkle.
I don't know her.
I don't think I've ever met her, but I know her of her writing, and she's, you know, a top-notch writer, what have you.
She knows what's going on.
She was the one who was attacked by Bill O'Reilly.
They were tailor.
They were there.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure that was her.
Anyway, let's get into this.
So the Democracy Alliance, a group of more than 100 liberal donors who pledge to give at least $200,000 a year to a list of recommended progressive organizations.
Middle-class average folks.
Just regular people, regular proletariat, is holding a post-election briefing Thursday and Friday.
This is last Thursday and Friday.
Members of the alliance include bold-faced liberals named like Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Susan Sandler.
I'd never heard of Susan Sandler.
I haven't either.
That shows you how out of touch I am, I guess.
Yeah, I think based on the names I do know, I think that's an event I would skip, but I wouldn't be allowed in anyway.
I know, right?
Everyone recognizes that despite Trump's numerous vulnerabilities and despite being a minority president, that it's possible for him to replicate what he did, especially if jagoffs like you guys are in charge of the party.
I think it's worth throwing into reporters are not allowed at this event.
That was at the bottom of the.
Oh, was it?
Yeah, the last slide.
Oh, I tried.
I forgot to say that.
Reporters not allowed into that event.
Thanks for pointing that out, Ron.
Reporters not allowed into that event because you want to keep your progressive ideas a secret.
So Democracy Alliance formed with the idea of building up the long-term infrastructure of the progressive movement.
Boy, it's amazing what passes for progressive these days.
Progressives are supposed to be one half turn of the screw away from being a radical, right?
Mm hmm.
A, a, um, Rather than sending money to campaigns.
So they're trying to build up long-term infrastructure of the progressive movement, whatever the F that means.
I know, I'm just saying, I hope that involves actual infrastructure.
That'd be a cool start.
Does that involve roads and bridges and investing more money back home?
Nope.
Nope.
We're doing a different kind of other kind of infrastructure where we give money to corporate think tanks and call it progressive work.
Darn it.
Well, watch.
You'll see.
Over the years, the network, this Democracy Alliance, this network, has steered millions of dollars to organizations like the Center for American Progress.
That's not a progressive organization.
That's a corporatist center-right organization run by people in the Democratic Party.
That doesn't mean they're progressive or that they're left.
Isn't that crazy?
So they're worried about progressives, so they give their money to literally the opposite of progressives, the Center for American Progress.
People who want to keep a corporate stranglehold on our government.
Why?
Because they get money from them.
And Media Matters.
David Brock organization.
Well, let's be fair.
If it wasn't for Media Matters, how else will we know that Fox News is terrible?
There's no other way for us to find that out.
So again, Media Matters does like half the work they do, I like.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, no, totally.
There's some good.
And then the other half is not.
I don't like it.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Yes, that is accurate.
But in recent years, so this Democracy Alliance, these fucking millionaires who all have 200 grand to throw around each, they've been looking more toward local and grassroots groups lately.
But in recent years, really?
Really?
You mean like L.A. for Bernie?
Let's see.
Scoring a speaker spot at the Democracy Alliance conference is a big win for a progressive organization.
Progressive organization.
They keep saying that.
So that's why I wish I knew Amanda Turkle so I could send her a text.
Hey, why do you keep calling these guys progressives?
Why do you keep misusing that word?
I know you know better.
Or I should go, I don't think you know what that word means.
So scoring a big spot, a speaking spot at the Democracy Alliance conference is a big win for a progressive organization, which then has a shot to pitch itself to the donors.
Progressive organizations don't pitch itself to donors.
Yeah, and there's no reporters at the event, so they can let their private selves fly.
Right.
Like the Justice Democrats.
That's a real progressive organization.
Our revolution.
Right?
The DSA.
These are progressive organizations.
They don't take the corporate.
That's the opposite.
Yeah, that's sort of like they're founded on not doing that stuff.
Right.
Relatively few elected officials are on the agenda.
Representative Pramila Japel from Washington will speak on the progressive governing agenda, as will New York Council member Brad Lander.
Why would Pramila Jappell be there?
I don't know.
We're left to wonder.
I know.
We're not allowed in.
Not allowed in.
Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, a potential 2020 presidential nominee, will speak on using education as an issue to win in red states and develop a Senate supermajority.
Why don't you speak on using Medicare for all, the thing that's already popular in red states?
You know, the thing Republicans won't champion that actual voting Republicans actually want.
Isn't that weird?
No, we got to find something else.
Find something that's kind of hard to nail.
Education.
Yes.
Let's use education.
Well, and I bet that education doesn't mean free college, and it doesn't mean actually funding, treating teachers better.
Some platitude, just a platitude like education or health.
Innovation.
Good things, not bad.
Innovation.
On Friday, incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah, we all just needed a moment there.
Just saying his name.
We'll speak to the donors.
I did a fundraiser for that guy.
And freshly elected representatives elect Lucy Macbeth of Georgia and Deb Heland of Deb Halland and I can't pronounce that word.
Zoidel.
Zoitel Torres.
Zoital Torres Small of New Mexico will be at the conference closing dinner on Friday night.
Okay.
While Steyer won't be speaking, a staffer from his youth organizing group next gen America will be talking about getting more young people to the polls.
You know how you get more young people to the polls?
Jimmy Carter.
Offer of Medicare for all.
Oh.
What were you going to say about Jimmy Carter?
It's like Jimmy Carter.
They were there trying to take his ideas to get more young people.
How do you get more young people to the poll?
Give them something to go to the polls for.
Not just something to be against.
Give them something more than the status quo to fight for.
Sochi.
Whoa.
I was way off.
I knew I butchered it.
That was my guess, and it was terrible.
Lucy Macbeth of Georgia and Deb Holland and Sochi Sochi Torres Small of New Mexico.
I said it right.
According to Arno, I said it right.
So that's, I just saw that article and I couldn't believe how they kept referring to the Center for American Progress as a progressive organization and that these people were progressives and they were progressive infrastructure.
No, that's a corporate infrastructure.
So that's the Huffington Post gaslighting their own viewers.
When they say progress, the hard thing to post, at no point in this article did they say, by the way, these aren't really progressives.
The headline could have just been, hey, rich people still meet and talk about stuff and they don't want you to know what it is.
Yes.
That could have been like the whole headline.
No article necessary.
It just could have been there.
They could have just had a list of names and been like, it's these people.
Like, okay.
So the super wealthy who actually control the Democratic Party had a meeting about strategy, which doesn't involve you.
There will be champagne there that is worth more than your mortgage.
End of story.
End of story.
So they just look, it's a big win for a progressive organization.
They keep saying progressive.
That's what made me report on the story was that was driving me nuts that they kept.
And I know they know better that Amanda Turkle knows that the fucking Center for American Progress isn't a progressive organization.
Maybe her editor made them put that in.
I don't know what, but that's nuts that they kept doing that.
That's what drove me nuts.
It's like, hey, the rich, the rich neoliberal corporatists who actually run the party are going to get together and talk about what's in the best interest for them, which is what they did.
That is what, yeah, that's why there aren't reporters allowed there.
Yeah, yeah.
This idea we're going to build the infrastructure for a progressive that that's not no.
You see how Bernie did it?
That's how you do it.
That's how you build it.
Okay.
Oh.
Jimmy Boar.
It is I, Bill O'Reilly.
I want to wish you were yours a joy.
It's Black Friday.
I don't want to hear you pinheads with your Black Friday isn't a real holiday.
That atheist Bolshevik hospital doesn't fly with Naomi Goldberg O'Reilly's son.
Okay.
Black Friday commemorates the day the pilgrims got great bargains on Indian land for the Lord's Miracle Smallpox.
And yes, just as today, many of those pilgrims died when the mall opened that first Black Friday.
Of course, back then they died of starvation and disease.
While today we symbolically killed them through trampling or hitting them with the blender that's 60% off.
And by symbolically, I mean literally.
Now, you might say, Bill, why do we have to kill people on Black Friday?
And I would just say, who knows?
God is just like that.
He moves in mysterious ways.
He demands a few people die of internal bleeding at the mouth of a Walmart.
The rest of us can get incredible savings on flat screens and panini makers.
As is traditional, last night, I took a crap on the sidewalk in front of a Best Buy and got in a screaming match with an Armenian lady, just as our forefathers did.
Thus begins the baby Jesus' long trip out of the holy uterus.
Back in the old days, we tracked all the stations of Mary's Super Painful Labor.
Christmas Eve used to be called Crowning Day.
And we'd all wear red turtlenecks like our heads.
We're just coming out of the Marys for JJ.
These are all true things.
I'm Bill O'Reilly, and that's one to grow on.
So there's a lot of happening in Florida with the election, right?
So we told you about Tim Canova and Brenda Snipes.
So Brenda Snipes was the Broward County election supervisor.
She was caught by Tim Canova illegally destroying ballots in his race.
A judge agreed.
Nothing happened.
Nothing.
So now the governor and a senator was trying to get elected.
Same problems in Broward County.
A lot of problems counting.
Can't count the ballots.
Too hard.
Same woman, Brenda Snipes.
Now they cared about it because it affected them.
But guess what?
Brenda Snipes has done.
Just hours after finishing a tumultuous election recount, Broward Supervisor of Elections, Brenda Snipes, submitted her resignation, ending a 15-year tenure full of botched elections, legal disputes, and blistering criticism.
This is from the Sun Sentinel.
Broward's vote counting was an outlier among the state's 67 counties, taking a long time to complete.
For days, Snipes wouldn't say how many ballots were outstanding and uncounted, and her office wasn't reporting updated results as frequently as the law required.
And there were repeated hiccups during the recount period, including Snipes' acknowledgement on Saturday that her office couldn't find 2,040 vote ballots that had been included in the first vote count, but not in the machine recount of state elections.
She said she was sure they were somewhere in her office.
I think, oh my gosh, I think I left it behind that painting.
Would you check for the 2040 ballots?
They're either there or I put them in with the Kleenexes.
Are they in with the Kleene?
I don't know.
Charlie's putting everything in that.
It's probably in the junk drawer.
Did you check the junk door?
Probably mixed in with other ballots.
Most serious was a circuit, just as what I was telling you about earlier.
Most serious was a circuit judge's ruling earlier this year that her office, Brenda Snipes' office, violated state and federal law by destroying ballots from the 2016 primary election too early.
She authorized the ballot destruction 12 months after the primary instead of waiting 22 months.
So when she has stuff she wants to destroy, she can find it.
Oh, she had something?
Oh, she wants to destroy the ballot.
She's on the street.
With the shredding involved, she's on it.
But when it's a ricochet, countings.
Where are they?
Where are they?
The ballot destruction took place while the ballots were the subject of a public records lawsuit from a losing candidate.
That's Tim Canova seeking to inspect the documents.
So she steps down.
No one goes to jail.
No one's prosecuted.
No real investigation.
Our elections are a sham.
Good night.
Yeah.
Well, and when it comes to everything, I doubt she's working alone as far as corruption goes.
In fact, I'm sure she's not because, I mean, they were an issue back in 2000, which is before she was even appointed.
All right.
You're talking about the Al Gore, George W. Bush.
Yeah, they were notorious then.
They were notorious.
She wasn't even around that.
Right.
That's right.
So there's no, our elections don't have integrity.
It wouldn't pass muster if Jimmy Carter had to be sent here to monitor our elections.
He would give us an F. And no one gives a shit, but everyone's got everyone's underwear is in a bunch.
Over Russia has a meme of Bernie Arm Wrestling Satan.
That's how the Russians get you.
They're the ones really controlling our elections.
Not Brenda Snipes.
Not the people destroying ballots illegally in public.
It's the Russians.
Look over there.
What about Stormy Daniels?
Talk about that for a while.
Anything but talk about what's actually happening.
Your democracy has already been stolen from you.
We live in an oligarchy.
And if voting mattered, they wouldn't let you do it.
Oh, hey, look, we have Vince Vaughan on the line.
Hello, this is Jimmy.
Jimmy, it's double V, baby.
Hi, Vince.
How are you today?
Jimmy, I am Woozy.
I believe the word is Woozy.
Jimmy, be careful what you say.
What?
Don't say anything offensive or off-color.
Hey, you know, there's a lot more to that phone call, but we don't have time in today's podcast.
How do you hear the entire phone call?
You got to become a premium member.
Go to JimmyDorkComedy.com, sign up.
It's the most affordable premium program in the business.
Today's show was written.
That's right.
It was written by Frank Connoff, Jim Earl, Ron Placone, Steph Semerano, and Mark Van Landowic.
All the voices today performed by the one and the only inimitable Mike McRae, who can be found at mikemcrae.com.
That's it for this week.
You be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me.
▲
Export Selection