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Aug. 9, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:32:59

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #454

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Time	Text
	Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
	Welcome to the Podcast of the Low Ceasers for the 9th of August 2022.
	I'm joined by Trigonometry co-host Francis Folster.
	Hello, Carl.
	Pleasure to be here.
	I was going to call you Sargon, but you don't go by Sargon.
	No, not anymore.
	But no, thanks a lot for joining us.
	And so we're going to be talking about the genealogy of the Dark Brandon meme, Trump getting raided by the Feds, and how they don't like it when you send illegal immigrants to Democrat-run cities.
	But before we begin, if you're interested in seeing Francis Foster live, he's doing a live tour in October.
	So you can go to francisfoster.co.uk and check out where he's going to be.
	And you're actually going to be in Swindon.
	I am actually.
	I am there, or as it's now called, because you're here, the home of the alt-right.
	So I'll probably be going to that.
	I was until Francis Foster called me a Nazi.
	LAUGHTER Well, not the first time you've been called a Nazi on the internet.
	That was going to be the last either, you know?
	I actually got called an alt-right incel by a comedian.
	Thanks, Mum.
	Yeah.
	So you're an alt-right incel.
	Is Constance an incel as well?
	Yeah, yeah, we're both incels, mate.
	Even though he's married and I'm in a long-term relationship.
	Yeah, I get called an incel occasionally.
	Okay, I'll tell my wife.
	You know, sorry kids, I'm an incel now.
	Anyway...
	Let's begin with a brand new meme that has been hitting the internet, which is the Dark Brandon meme.
	I thought we'd go through how this has come about and why it doesn't make any sense, but also it shows the kind of cultural paucity behind what the Democrats are doing.
	But before we start exploring the latest meme on the internet, you might be thinking, hang on a second, I thought you were meant to be doing highbrow content?
	Well, we do, over on the website.
	If you want highbrow content from us, go over to latesties.com and watch our analysis of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground.
	There you go, feed your big brain for a bit, because now we're going to talk about memes.
	So I can see what's going on.
	So, you may remember that in 2021, Joe Biden was not very popular.
	And you got the F Joe Biden chants that were at college football games.
	They started going viral.
	And this sort of picked up and it happened a lot of times.
	And this was quite a bad look for the Biden administration.
	You don't really want organic groups of people at sports games saying F you because it doesn't look good.
	And so the regime media, which is what I'm going to call the mainstream media, decided to try and cover this up.
	And so at one particular event, there was a chap who was being interviewed by a journalist, and the crowd started chanting, F. Joe Biden.
	And she said to him, oh, look, they're chanting, let's go, Brandon.
	And that's how Joe Biden got known, got the moniker of Brandon.
	And so this became very popular with Republicans because I think they don't like to swear.
	No, they don't.
	I noticed that when I was in America.
	Every time you dropped a C-bomb, whereas in Glasgow, I get you a round of applause.
	Yeah, exactly.
	They're very funny about it, aren't they?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But so they don't like to swear.
	So now they can say, let's go Brandon instead of F Joe Biden, which they picked up and pretty much ran with.
	And then this ties in with a meme called Dark Maga.
	Now, Dark Maga originated from Time Magazine readers.
	Oh, really?
	No.
	Okay.
	But kind of, right?
	Because the Maga folk believe things that are false, as we have to say on YouTube, 100% categorically false.
	There was no tampering in the election in 2020 at all, which is why this Time Magazine article is a conspiracy theory.
	In which they admit to it.
	They say there was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes.
	This is the Time Magazine article, one that curtailed the protests and coordinated resistance from CEOs.
	Both surprises were a result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans.
	The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO published on Election Day.
	Both sides would come to see it as some sort of implicit bargain.
	We disavow Time magazine's conspiracy theorizing here.
	We don't believe that anything happened with the election, even if Time magazine is claiming that it was.
	But there are people in the MAGA camp who believe that it was.
	And so they felt that Donald Trump had been hard done by in some way.
	He'd been cheated.
	And so the sort of narrative arc of Donald Trump, they feel, needs to come back in what they call dark MAGA. And I find this to be a really interesting write-up of it, right?
	This is basically calling for Donald Trump to return to power and take revenge on his enemies.
	We don't have to comment on this, I don't think.
	Right, okay.
	So, it's interesting.
	So, do you think Trump is going to...
	Do you think, number one, he's going to run again?
	Yes.
	Yeah, so I agree.
	I was talking to a few people who know he said they say he's going to run again.
	Do you think he's going to win if he runs again?
	Well, it depends who they run him against, I suppose.
	Biden isn't going to run again.
	I think we know that much.
	I don't know.
	He said he was.
	I mean, he says a lot of things that don't make sense.
	He absolutely does.
	The thing is, who are they going to put up against Trump, if not him?
	It's a very good question.
	I don't know.
	People were saying Pete Buttigieg.
	I mean, I'd like to see it, actually.
	I think that Trump would crush him.
	Do you think Trump would?
	See, the thing is with Trump is there are a lot of people, even on the right, even in the conservative right, not just the libertarian right, the conservative right, who are very anti-Trump.
	They don't like Trump.
	They think he's too divisive a figure.
	They think he's fundamentally toxic.
	They would much prefer a Ron DeSantis to actually run because they feel he's more unifying, less toxic, and he will calm the culture war and the political situation down.
	I think there are a lot of pundits who think that.
	But when it was recently polled, the GOP was polled, Ron DeSantis was on 24%, Trump's on like 70% or something like that.
	It was a massive lopsided thing.
	I think that Trump still holds the hearts and minds of Republicans in America.
	Really?
	Because even Matt Walsh, who is very much on the right, Daily Wire, stole what he came out and said that he would prefer it if Trump stood down and he thinks that's the right thing for him to do.
	So there is a movement on the right who don't want Trump.
	They saw Trump as necessary in 2016, but they think it's time for somebody else now.
	The Daily Wire have always been pretty tepid Trump supporters, though.
	Ben Shapiro didn't like him at all.
	No, Shapiro hated him.
	Yeah, the rest of them.
	I think Michael Knowles is pretty much the only one who kind of seemed quite warm to Trump.
	None of the rest seemed to like him.
	But it seems that Trump still has the hearts and minds of the And the thing is, like, it's only a couple of years ago, if we cast our minds back, to how great everything was.
	Like, you can say what you like about Trump as a person, but what he was presiding over was, you know, record low unemployment, record low fuel prices, you know, global stability, actually, you know, making peace deals across the Middle East and things like this.
	Like, things are actually going really well under Trump.
	And it's remarkable that within two years, Biden has crated this into the ground.
	So...
	I mean, part of the problem as well, Carl, I mean, let's be fair, I'm no big fan of Joe Biden, but COVID has had a massive part to play.
	Sure.
	You know, bailing everyone out, the lockdowns, etc., etc., etc.
	So he has been given quite a tough hand.
	Now, he hasn't played it well.
	Afghanistan was a complete disaster.
	And I still have no idea.
	We interviewed on our show Colonel Richard Kemp, who said that they evacuated from Afghanistan at the height of the Taliban fighting season.
	Yeah.
	And not only that...
	And they took the troops first, and then the civilians afterwards.
	It's like, why would you do this?
	Yeah, which is military 101.
	That's the first thing you learn at Sandhurst, is you get the civilians out, and then you take the military out.
	You don't need to be in any way trained to know, well, you send the military last because you want to get the things that can't protect themselves out first.
	I mean, you don't need any kind of training for that.
	And so it seems to be the height of incompetence.
	Or ideological, maybe.
	Because, I was going to say Brandon, Biden, he's got the sort of left-wing line on foreign intervention, where it's like, oh, the US military evil in all circumstances.
	It's like, well, maybe, but also maybe there is a justified use for them.
	Agreed.
	But don't you think that a lot of Americans and a lot of British people here have been scarred by Iraq?
	Oh, yeah.
	And deservedly so, let's be honest, because it was lies.
	Oh, yeah, totally.
	And it's all BS. And it was obviously just the neocon imperial project that I don't support and never have supported.
	So you are completely right.
	But the thing is, it's not just COVID that Biden has messed up on.
	In fact, we'll get into a bit more of what he's done wrong in a bit, because...
	Like you say, it is a bad hand, but it's one that he inherited the solution from Trump for.
	Because, I mean, at the time, Trump was getting like a million vaccines out a day and things like that.
	And then Joe Biden came and go, yeah, we're getting a million vaccines out a day.
	It's like, yeah, but that was already in place when you took over.
	So, you know, it's...
	He actually was given quite a good hand, even though it was a crisis.
	It wasn't a tragedy that he had to go in and try and pick up or anything like that.
	And he's just completely ruined almost everything that he's touched.
	And it's not to say that Trump isn't a divisive person or an arsehole or anything like this.
	He's all of these things.
	Of course he is.
	We all know.
	Not even his own daughter would deny the fact that he's an arsehole.
	But he does make fairly good decisions when it comes to governance.
	Look, Trump did very, very well when it came to overseas.
	Yeah.
	When it came to overseas.
	He was the first one who, you know, highlighted the issue of China.
	Nobody on the Democrats wanted to do that.
	He was the one who was...
	There were many people who believed that Putin wouldn't have invaded if Trump was...
	I'm one of them.
	I'm firmly one of them.
	I mean, when he had his intervention in Syria and he sent the...
	He airstruck the airbase.
	And everyone's like, oh my god.
	And everything's silence.
	The Russians are like, okay.
	The Syrians are like, okay.
	Everyone's like, okay.
	We'll just be quiet then.
	And it's like, yeah, good.
	You need that.
	You need to have the guy in the top being like, I'm going to do stuff.
	You keep mouthing off, you little...
	You need to have that sort of firm hand.
	And Trump was it.
	Biden is obviously not it.
	Because the reason Biden was elected, as you know, was ABT, anyone but Trump.
	Absolutely.
	I disavow the Time article.
	We totally do.
	Despite rumors to the contrary, I actually do think that's probably quite a strong argument in favor of it.
	There's definitely going to be a lot of people who are like, I'm just sick of hearing about Trump in the media all day, every day.
	Anyone but Trump at this point.
	But I guess they didn't realize how bad it would get.
	Well, this is it.
	And a lot of Americans that I talk to, friends, family, etc., when they came to vote, a lot of them voted for Biden.
	I'm like, why?
	And they were just, we're sick of the divisions.
	We're sick of the rancor.
	We just want some kind of stability and to not have a different news story about what Trump said on Twitter literally every single day of our lives.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You know?
	And I think there was an exhaustion.
	America was exhausted at that point.
	Yeah, I think that's probably true.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, so the Dark Maga meme is kind of a vengeance meme.
	And that's the essence of it.
	It's a feeling of an incomplete narrative arc.
	There's a story that they thought was playing out with Donald Trump, who's going to save America, and this was unfairly prevented.
	But that was obviously not true.
	But this is why this meme has taken hold, because they're like, look, in 2024, he's obviously going to run, because Trump is just a giant walking ego, and obviously can't stop himself, right?
	He can't stop himself.
	He's got to come back and take revenge, and they're like, great, let's make the revenge meme-worthy.
	And so it is out of this, the The synthesis of the Brandon meme and the dark MAGA meme that we get dark Brandon, which is really dumb.
	If we can go to the next one.
	So this is the White House Deputy Press Secretary, Andrew Bates, posting the...
	So the dark MAGA meme, as you can see, is like Donald Trump.
	He's going to come back with a vengeance.
	And so it's Joe Biden with glowing eyes with the caption, your malarkey has been going on for long enough, kiddo.
	It's like...
	Who's malarkey?
	What are you talking about?
	Dark Brandon is crushing it.
	What, the economy?
	Like, yeah, well done.
	You know, you've got nothing to brag about.
	Like, Joe Biden is absolutely cratering.
	If I was Joe Biden in his administration, I'd be like, look, we're going down in flames.
	What the hell is wrong with you?
	You know, this is absolutely not the, like, again, the Deputy Press Secretary.
	In the White House is posting this.
	It's like, are you intentionally trying to destroy the country?
	Because that's what it looks like from the outside.
	And then we've got the next one.
	The White House Director of Digital Strategy.
	What are you doing?
	Like, Joe Biden is just making mistake after mistake after mistake.
	And you're like, yeah, this is all intentional.
	But I think the problem is, so I went to the comedy cellar in New York, and a comedian made a joke.
	And bear in mind that this is New York, that he liked Joe Biden's latest look, or as they call it on the streets, the open casket effect.
	And it got a huge laugh.
	I'm not surprised.
	It's funny.
	Oh, you see, look.
	No, I'm not denying.
	It's a great joke.
	I can't remember the comedian's name, otherwise I would credit him.
	But it's a great joke.
	But the fact he said that in a blue state, in one of the bluest cities in the country...
	In a comedy audience, which tends to be on the whole, and I'm talking from a UK perspective, a little bit left-leaning on the whole because it's creative, it's artsy, etc.
	And it got a huge laugh.
	Because we all know.
	We can all see.
	The guy can't seem to put his jacket on.
	Well, we'll get to that in a minute, if that's alright.
	Yeah.
	So this was rather amusing, because these memes, a lot of them came from 4chan, and if you steal something from 4chan, you get Nazi imagery in it.
	Again, you can see Andrew Bates has posted this.
	Can you get this picture up?
	So Andrew Bates, that's the White House Deputy Press Secretary, that's the Dark Knight Rises.
	But instead of a bat in the background, it's an imperial eagle.
	Yeah, that's how you know they stole this from 4chan.
	Yeah, that's the Nazi eagle that's represented against the skyline.
	Well done, Andrew.
	Tweeting out Nazi propaganda.
	Good job, mate.
	Yes, and again, the whole meme doesn't make any sense because the fact that he's wearing an eyepatch there is when it was punished Trump, as in, oh, Trump had been unfairly dealt with and therefore he's in the meme of punished thing.
	Well, Brandon is the current president.
	He hasn't been punished in any way.
	It doesn't make any sense.
	But you have got him in front of a Nazi eagle, so well done.
	Looks great.
	Andrew.
	Who is Andrew Bates?
	He's the Deputy Press Secretary of the White House.
	Okay, well, he's a moron then.
	Yes.
	Posting out Nazi memes like a genius.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, so yeah, I mean, the National Poll's part of an article being like, yeah, this is Nazi imagery.
	You are stupid.
	What are you doing?
	And the thing is, the whole Dark Brandon meme was actually created as Chinese propaganda.
	So the Democrats have adopted Chinese anti-Biden propaganda.
	We can get to the next one.
	This is the origin of it, as you can see.
	It's from a Chinese account.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And the White House has co-opted it after it was filtered through 4chan.
	Made Nazi!
	It's just like, what is wrong with you?
	And so this is one of the clips of the memes going around, and I don't know if this is meant to be pro or anti-Joe Biden.
	Let's watch.
	It can't be bargained with.
	It can't be reasoned with.
	It doesn't feel pain, or remorse, or fear.
	And it absolutely will not stop.
	Ever.
	You are dead.
	To all those of you who voted for President Trump, there's no way out. .
	See, is that pro or anti?
	I think it's anti, isn't it?
	I don't know.
	You won't be safe in Biden's America, didn't you?
	Wasn't that what they said?
	Yeah, but this...
	It's meant to be aimed at, I think, MAGA voters.
	And so it's just one of those things where it's like...
	This is the sort of stuff that the White House Deputy Press Secretary is putting out.
	And it's just like, okay...
	But the thing that I don't understand is, and I'm not an expert in American politics, but it's a widely known fact that a lot of Bernie voters or people who would have voted for Bernie when Hillary in 2016 was elected as a leader of the Democrats, they all went to Trump.
	Yep.
	It was something like 20% or something.
	Yeah.
	Quite a large number.
	Quite a large number.
	So there are people there who you can persuade.
	Oh, yeah.
	Who you can say, look, you voted for Trump.
	Here's why you should vote for Biden.
	A lot of Trump voters voted for Obama.
	Yeah.
	A lot of them.
	And so it's very...
	Exactly.
	Why are they taking this strategy?
	Like, what is this?
	I don't understand why alienating people or demonizing people, you know, and we had the same thing here with Brexit.
	Why do you demonize people just because you disagree with them?
	And even if you think they made a wrong decision, surely you are human enough to actually understand that we all make mistakes if you believe that people made a mistake.
	And if they made a mistake, there's a chance.
	Well, isn't that interesting that they kind of harmonize the concepts of making mistake with being immoral, right?
	Being wrong is also to be a bad person.
	Yes.
	And that's exactly how the Democrats tend to frame everything, through the filter of experts.
	Yeah.
	And so if you don't just genuflect before the current expert, then you're an immoral person.
	Yeah.
	And it's like, no, I'm maybe just wrong.
	Yeah.
	And which we all are.
	Many times a day.
	And the experts have been.
	Of course.
	Multiple times.
	Yeah.
	And we're not going to say how the experts, because I don't want to get your channel or the rest of it.
	But we have seen time and time again that experts have been wrong.
	Because you know what?
	We're all fallible and we all make mistakes.
	Shockingly, experts are human too.
	Yeah.
	But that's exactly the point, though, isn't it?
	You're exactly right.
	It's like, you know, if...
	Why won't they approach it with more human touch?
	You know, why take this adversarial...
	And like, you know, is this...
	Again, if it wasn't his own staff, the White House Deputy Press Secretary, the Director of Digital Strategy, like, these are not inconsequential positions.
	No.
	Tweeting out, like, these warlike memes, you know, this is...
	Oh, Trump's divisive.
	It's like, really, is this Chinese Nazi propaganda, not divisive?
	From the official guys.
	Well, this is the problem.
	It's where people become so entrenched and both parties are so polarized.
	And that really has an effect on the country as a whole because then you just start to see people who think differently or vote differently to you as the enemy.
	And once that happens, what's going to happen to society?
	Well, it's got to be civil war, isn't it?
	Yeah, and that's really what I'm worried about.
	And it's both sides who are stirring the pot.
	And then you get people on the dissident, right?
	You know, I'm not going to name names.
	So we're just like, yeah, there's going to be a civil war.
	I'm repeating it and repeating it.
	And you're like, you're not doing anything to help the problem either.
	You just start being in a Wetherspoons going, there's going to be a fight.
	There's going to be a fight.
	Well, you know what?
	There probably will be a fight now.
	Yeah, with this kind of attitude on both sides, you're definitely going to hit fight.
	But this is the problem.
	I do think that the pathologization did begin with the Democrats.
	I do think it did.
	Although I think you might be able to trace it to the Libertarians and Obama.
	There was the Tea Party against Obama, which is a Libertarian uprising against what they viewed as communism coming from Obama.
	So maybe you could trace it to that.
	And there was also, I can't remember the name of it, where they were trying to prove that Obama wasn't a real American.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But then you could also go further and say, well, look at the left's reaction to George Bush.
	When it came to Iraq, it was nothing but demonization.
	And don't get me wrong, I was against it too, because he was obviously wrong.
	Uh, but the, but the point is this, you can see that this is a spiral that spiraling out of control now and everything like, I think it's coming to end of Republic sort of territory, you know, this sort of like the end of full of the Roman Republic, you know, I think that we're getting into this sort of territory with America now, unfortunately.
	I think part of the problem is, as well, is that we're glossing over 2008, where there was widespread corruption, widespread fraud, but who paid for it?
	It was the ordinary taxpayer.
	And the people who actually created the financial crisis...
	They got bailed out.
	They got bailed out, and they just moved on with their lives, and they're absolutely fine.
	And the ordinary person...
	Let's put that in the process.
	They didn't move on with their lives.
	They sailed off in their yachts.
	Yeah.
	That's the right way to frame it, I think.
	And as a result, people look in it and go, well, it's clearly one rule for them and another rule for us.
	Which it is.
	Yeah, which it is.
	And then that means that people don't buy in to the system or the idea of a republic or a country because they don't see themselves as having an equal stake in the country.
	And when you see the people leading the country pathologizing the opponents as evil that can be eradicated in some way and endorsing this idea, it is truly dangerous, I think.
	Truly dangerous.
	When anybody ever asks me about Trump and they go, what do you think about him?
	And I always say, Trump is a symptom of the sickness in America.
	That's totally right.
	That's what it is.
	That's all it is.
	Because you had a group of people who felt that the system didn't represent them.
	And you know what?
	They were right.
	But as a result of globalization, they saw their work, their factories go over and just get shipped over.
	The hearts and souls of their community get ripped out.
	They were demonized.
	They were told that they were privileged, that even though they had nothing, that they were still worthy of mockery and all the rest of it.
	Well, they're white supremacists.
	They're privileged.
	They're evil.
	They're Nazis.
	It's like, God, man.
	Yeah, and they were told this time and time again.
	And that is what happens when you demonize people, when you don't address their fears, you get Trump.
	Because if people within the mainstream don't try and solve a problem, you're going to get someone from outside the mainstream coming in and saying the words, these people don't represent you, I will.
	And that's exactly what Trump did.
	Yeah.
	That's exactly what Trump did.
	And he won.
	Yeah.
	You know, you can't say, you know, that'll never happen or it won't work.
	No, it did happen and it did work.
	Yeah.
	You know, so anyway, so these memes, like, posting Biden in a position of particular strength, I think is rather remarkable because I don't think Joe Biden is in a particular position of strength.
	And they're easily co-opted, as we can see in the next one.
	Because, sorry, we can go to the next one.
	You can see, oh well, Joe Biden's been pictured sniffing a lot of kids.
	So, hmm.
	Yeah, makes him look a little bit worse.
	But also, let's just check in with Dark Brandon, shall we?
	How he's been doing.
	Yeah, that's right.
	He can't get his coat on.
	Because the wind's too strong.
	Compare that to the meme.
	The evil, powerful overlord of America needs his wife to help him get his coat on.
	You know, when you see this, and you know, when you see, do you remember the clip when I was in America, when this started to go viral, you know, and then he fell off, he dropped his glasses, I mean, everyone drops their glasses, I certainly do.
	Not evil overlords who are going to crush the opponents, they don't drop their glasses.
	But you know, when you see him fall off his bike, and then people were mocking this, I'm like, you're mocking an 80-year-old bloke, you're basically mocking a granddad.
	I remember putting a post about this on Ghetto.
	It didn't go down very well, but I was like, look, this isn't it.
	This isn't it.
	I don't want to be...
	I didn't feel comfortable with essentially mocking an old man having an elderly moment because he could have been seriously hurt.
	He could have fractured his hip.
	I just don't think somebody of this age...
	I know this is going to sound ageist.
	I don't think somebody of this age should be present.
	I just don't think you have the energy or the mental faculties to be able to do the job effectively.
	I don't understand why they can't get somebody who's younger, fitter.
	In all of America, is this the best?
	Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
	And that reveals the oligarchy, though, doesn't it?
	It does indeed.
	It's not that Joe Biden is the best.
	It is that he is at the top of the pyramid.
	And he spent his life working through the oligarchical structures that underpin all of this.
	You know, that's the myth of, oh, well, you know, little Jimmy could grow up to be the president one day.
	No, no.
	He's going to have to be a party man for his entire life.
	And then when he's an old man, he'll get the presidency.
	This is something I never appreciated about America.
	I never understood.
	But you go to Washington, and it's basically a city of bureaucrats.
	That's what it is.
	I never realized that.
	Washington is Whitehall, but bigger.
	It is the permanent bureaucracy entrenched in this weird pyramid that I can't even imagine wanting to try and enter into.
	It's just awful.
	Every single day, it's lobbyists, it's interest groups, and it's just politicians on the phone raising money.
	No.
	Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
	And the reason Trump was created and the reason we have Biden in is because of that system.
	Because it doesn't represent ordinary people.
	That is exactly right.
	So anyway, let's carry on and just have a quick round-up of how Biden's doing.
	Not well.
	Lowest approval rating...
	Ever, pretty much.
	Probably since Abraham Lincoln in the South.
	38% approval rating, which is way lower than Trump, with disapproval being something like 57%.
	Again, lower than Trump.
	So if you can have all of the media on your side and still be that disliked, you're probably doing something wrong.
	And that's because he's definitely responsible for the gas price hike that he tried to blame on Putin.
	In fact, the New York Post has got a great way of summarizing this.
	The problem is that Biden is in the grip of a pro-scarcity ideology that demands humankind return to relying on 100% renewables like we did before the Industrial Revolution.
	That's right.
	That's exactly right.
	They view petrol as being evil.
	And of course, because of the coronavirus lockdowns, Biden was like, hey, I'm going to give you free money.
	So the inflation's through the roof.
	Annual inflation rate of 9.1% in June, the Department of Labor said.
	That's terrible.
	It is.
	You know, we had a very interesting guest on my show Trigonometry called Peter Zahan, and he was saying what you're actually seeing.
	He said, look, Biden and Boris at the time...
	They're responsible for what's happening.
	But there's bigger forces at play, which is what we're seeing is the end of globalisation.
	Oh, let's hope so.
	Yeah, and he was saying, but look, as a result of the end of globalisation, everything is going to become a lot more expensive.
	If you want things that are made in your country, in your area, you know what?
	You're going to have to pay a lot more for them because American workers or British workers are going to be expected to be paid far more than their Chinese counterparts.
	That's a really great point as well.
	We've kind of been addicted to the low prices provided by globalization.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I can buy anything cheap and shit from China, I shouldn't swear.
	But this is the thing, and we're addicted to this cheap tat.
	It's like, okay, but why do you need that?
	Why do you even have it?
	Wouldn't it be worth paying a bit more to get something decent that will last you for a few years rather than for six months or how long the Chinese clock is going to last you?
	Of course.
	And we've become addicted to these interconnected networks where we can get gas from Russia and we can get cheaply made stuff from China.
	But the problem is, not everyone is going to be an ally.
	As Putin has shown.
	Yeah, as Putin has shown.
	And what you have now is Germany in hock to Russia because they provide them with all these natural resources.
	So if Germany stand up to Russia and Russia turn the tap, I mean, Germany's screwed.
	Well, they've done that.
	They did that to themselves.
	We're closing down the nuclear power plants.
	Honestly, I've said this so many times.
	The French must be laughing at the Germans so hard right now.
	They must just be your idiots.
	But anyway, so this Bidenflation, as they've been calling it, is obviously not good.
	And it's probably going to kill people.
	It's probably going to be directly responsible for deaths because apparently nearly 98 million Americans are delaying medical cap because, of course, in America, you have to pay for your medical cap directly.
	And so this means that basically I've got a thing, a spot I want to go get checked out.
	Well, it's going to cost me money.
	Money's a bit tight at the moment, so who knows?
	So there's going to be knock-on effects from all of this.
	It's all going badly.
	And so Biden's team putting out these memes of Biden looking really strong and tough.
	Not good optics, in my opinion.
	Moving on.
	So Trump got raided by the feds.
	What do you think of this?
	I think it's a very dangerous move, if I'm being honest.
	Because...
	I don't think there's anybody who can look at this and not see it as political.
	I don't understand how anyone can look at this and go, this isn't a Democrat administration trying to discredit a former president.
	They're using as many smears as possible.
	And I'm going to make this clear.
	I don't like Trump.
	I'm not a fan of Trump.
	I think he's very divisive.
	I think actually in many ways he's the last thing America needs.
	What we need is somebody who is going to be able to help to unify the country.
	Take the pressure out of the country.
	Just cool things down a bit.
	I don't think that Trump is that person.
	But when you come along and you start to do these things to a former president, it looks like they don't have any ideas.
	They don't have any ideas to solve the problems in the country.
	And as a result, what are they going to do?
	They're going to go and smear a former president to make him unelectable because they see him as their biggest threat.
	Well, it's very South American, isn't it?
	Aye, aye, aye.
	Yes, it is.
	I can do that because I'm racist.
	No, because I'm half Latin American, so it's fine.
	But this is the sort of thing that happens in Latin American countries.
	And this is actually a part of the peaceful transfer of power.
	It's knowing that the new administration isn't going to persecute the old administration.
	That's a key part of the peaceful transfer of power.
	And like you say, it looks overtly political.
	It looks very much Banana Republic stuff.
	But before we get into this, if you want to support us, go to lowseas.com, sign up for a five-hour month, and go and watch our latest epochs, which is on King Knute, who definitely persecuted his political opposition.
	But it's really good, actually, because King Knute's a fascinating, probably the greatest Viking to have ever lived.
	Do you know, that entire part of history and the Anglo-Saxons, I went to...
	Where was the old English capital?
	I did a gig there.
	Winchester.
	Winchester.
	Have you been to Winchester Cathedral?
	I don't think I have, actually.
	I would really recommend it to people watching.
	If you're interested in Anglo-Saxon history, it's fascinating because they tell the story right the way through the Anglo-Saxons, all the kings, how Winchester became the capital.
	It's fascinating.
	Yeah, and we've been doing a long series on the Anglo-Saxon before the Norman Conquest, because, like you say, it's just really fascinating stuff, and it's actually kind of hard to find.
	It is.
	We're not taught about it in school at all.
	No, and it's really noble as well.
	There's a lot going on, and I really enjoy it, so go and check out that.
	Anyway, we've got to get back to it.
	So...
	I think that this is just a further consequence of the January the 6th hearings, in which Attorney General Merrick Garland made a really interesting observation.
	Now, I don't know about you, but this, to me, just seems like a trumped-up show trial.
	I mean, I was watching all of the events that happened on January the 6th, obviously, because it was a major event, and Trump definitely said, march peacefully and patriotically to make your voices heard, and then he tweeted out multiple times, go home, you shouldn't be in the Also as well, Trump does need to take a modicum of responsibility because the rhetoric before that was inflammatory.
	Stop the steal and essentially...
	Yeah, he did.
	But when it comes down to it, he did say peacefully and patriotically and he did tell people to go home.
	And I think that if you were going to plan a coup...
	It wasn't a coup.
	And anyone who says it's a coup is ridiculous and doesn't understand the meaning of the word coup.
	Exactly.
	You would have brought some guns.
	Yeah.
	I mean, the fact that you're in America and they didn't bring guns, that's pretty shocking.
	Yeah.
	Like, come on.
	Republicans didn't bring guns somewhere.
	Oh, they're committing a coup.
	No, that was not a coup.
	But anyway, so this is what they're trying to penal Trump.
	And you are right, you know, Trump was being very incendiary in his rhetoric.
	There's no doubt that he was.
	But when the time came, he, you know, stepped back from the ledge.
	And so, okay, fine, you know, that's fine.
	But anyway, so Merrick Garland said that he's concerned that prosecuting the de facto leader of the Republican Party would politicize the Justice Department in the same way Trump himself often did during his presidency.
	But yeah, well, that's a good reason not to do this, in fact, because like we just said, this is a part of the peaceful transfer of power to make sure that you don't turn into a banana republic where people try and seize power merely to persecute their political enemies and Well, that looks like it's happening now, actually, because Trump got raided by the feds, and that's not good, right?
	Feds probably shouldn't be raiding the private property of ex-presidents.
	I don't know why I have to say that.
	No.
	And it's an antagonistic gesture.
	It's an antagonistic gesture.
	Without warning as well.
	My worry is we have got very severe problems in America.
	And what happens in America dictates what happens throughout the rest of the world.
	Yes.
	They are the leader of the Western world.
	And when you have politicians in power who...
	Don't appear, and I think that's a very kind way of putting it, I'm going to be honest, to have the solutions to problems within the country that worries not only Americans, it worries the rest of us.
	Because without America, we're all screwed.
	And there's a great meme I've seen going around, which is a guy holding a sign saying, this is America, if things go sideways here, no one's coming to save us.
	Yeah, and it's true.
	Isn't that just the best?
	That really puts the nail on the head for me.
	There's nowhere else where you're going to get freedom.
	Sorry, we're not free in Britain.
	You're not free in Canada or Australia or New Zealand.
	No one's coming to save you, America.
	So you've got to figure this out.
	Are you saying Liz Tross isn't going to save America, mate?
	My God.
	The Democrats are in exactly the position the Conservatives are in.
	They've got a popular leader.
	Oh, well, get rid of him.
	Okay, well, who are you going to have?
	Oh, God.
	So it'll be the American version of Liz Truss that takes over after Biden.
	Yeah, no, everything's terrible, basically.
	But anyway, so moving on.
	So yeah, the FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago home to find classified material, they claim.
	Because Trump earlier this year had to return 15 boxes of documents that were, quote, improperly taken from the White House, the National Archives and the Record Administration.
	It's like, sure, but did that require an FBI's unannounced raid to do that?
	That seems like a vulgar display of power, doesn't it?
	You know, you could have probably messaged him and said, Mr.
	President, we need that back.
	We're going to have to get that back or legal proceedings will be taken against you or something like that.
	No, you instead sent the FBI. Well, this is it.
	There are ways to do this.
	This isn't it.
	No, it's not it.
	It's inflammatory.
	It's sending a statement.
	It's done purely to discredit Trump.
	And the reality is, is if the country wasn't in the state it was, if the Democrat Party wasn't in the state it was, if problems hadn't been allowed to fester for as long as they were, if working class people didn't feel as desperate as they did, if the divide between rich and poor wasn't as huge as it is in America, You wouldn't have Trump.
	And this problem wouldn't occur.
	Honestly, I put a lot of the blame on the sort of patrician elites in the coasts.
	In Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York.
	They just down their noses.
	They can't stand the people in the middle of the country.
	They can't stand them.
	And we have the same problem in this country.
	We absolutely do.
	People outside of London hate London.
	Yeah.
	For good reason.
	And people in London hate the rest of the country.
	And they talk about equality, blah, blah, blah, diversity, whatever.
	All these little buzzwords that they use.
	But they openly sneer at working class people.
	Yeah.
	And we've seen it with the Democrat politicians, the Labour politicians in this country, have abandoned the working classes.
	And the political situation is now what it is, largely as a result of them.
	Yeah, I think so.
	I really think that's accurate.
	But anyway, so going off to the next one, we, again, just more information, because this all happened very recently.
	So two sources familiar with the matter have told Axios here that it was related to documents that Trump took from the White House that may have been classified.
	We don't know if they are.
	We don't know if they've actually got any documents from him at this point.
	The purpose of the raid was, they said, because the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Trump had any documents.
	It's like, right, and that had to be done by force.
	Did it?
	Hmm.
	Hmm.
	And apparently the FBI cannot issue a search warrant without approval from a federal judge.
	That means the Justice Department, which is engaged in multiple investigations of Trump and its allies, has probable cause that a crime was committed and that evidence exists at Mar-a-Lago.
	Maybe.
	But again, it looks really political.
	Really, really political.
	It does.
	You know, and I don't think...
	And I can't believe I'm saying this about politicians who are all Ivy League educated, whatever, you know.
	You just go...
	Did you not think that this was going to be seen as an inflammatory attack?
	And did you not think that this was only going to aid the division in this country?
	Yeah.
	I mean, imagine if Trump had raided Obama.
	Yeah.
	Good God.
	Everyone will be like, what are you doing?
	You know, what are you doing?
	And the thing is as well, right?
	Okay, let's say that Trump comes back in 2024 on this big wave of resentment against what the Democrats have done and how they've screwed the economy and how they've treated their opposition and wins a tremendous victory.
	And Trump's got now, like, because the Democrats have got, you know, the House, the Senate and the presidency.
	What if Trump gets those?
	Okay, well, you're going to be like, oh, well, don't weaponize the institutions against us.
	Why the hell shouldn't I? You did this to me, and this is the downward spiral into Banana Republic.
	But you see, this is why I think that it would be better if they had a Republican Party without Trump, because I don't think Trump actually has the personality to be magnanimous.
	I don't think he's going to go in and go, you know what?
	Let's call it a second.
	That's a great point.
	Let's call it a second.
	You know, things are getting really nasty, but for the sake of America, let's just take a moment, let's all breathe, and let's try and move forward together as a nation.
	He's not going to do that.
	No, because you're going to have Steve Bannon in the background going, crush them.
	Yeah.
	But the thing is, again, I have real trouble being like, yeah, that's not justified.
	It is justified.
	These people are scum.
	But look at what they're doing.
	Right.
	But the problem is, is if you do that...
	You make things worse.
	You make things worse.
	And this isn't about Trump.
	This isn't about the Democrats.
	This is about America.
	This is about ordinary people who...
	This isn't their fault that the elites have gone nuts.
	Yeah.
	This isn't their fault that, you know, the electoral system doesn't work for them.
	No, and the elites going nuts, I think, is a real problem here.
	Because it seems to me the elites basically hate their own countries at this point.
	Yeah, they do hate their own countries.
	That seems to be the mindset of the...
	And they're all left-wing elites.
	In London or in the coastal cities, it's the left-wing elites that hate their countries.
	You see, I have a problem with the term when people go left-wing elites.
	To me, they're not left-wing.
	Oh, right.
	They're not left-wing.
	Because if you look at true...
	Can we say globalists then?
	Yeah, I would say progressives, if I'm being honest.
	Because to me, progressivism and being left-wing are two completely different things.
	I think in many ways, I'm actually quite left-wing when it comes to economics.
	I believe that things need to be done.
	We need a stronger taxation system to tax big multinational corporations like Google, like Amazon, who get away with not paying their fair share.
	This seems to be tapping into the sort of Scrutonian kind of conservatism, where it's like, well, look, the purpose of the people at the top is to actually look after the people at the bottom.
	And so we shouldn't allow Russian oligarchs to be able to buy up our capital city.
	We shouldn't allow international corporations to exploit our working class.
	Exactly.
	I believe in all these things, and I think they're very important, because what happens if you continue to have this huge gap between rich and poor, society worsens.
	It does, and the stats and the data bear that out.
	So I think there's a lot of people who should be paying more tax in order to make society better for everybody.
	But these people, they're not left-wing.
	They're not.
	They are progressive.
	They're globalists.
	It's a different thing entirely.
	We'll call them the progressives for the sake of argument then.
	But I think it's because they hate their own countries.
	They've come to despise them.
	They've come to loathe the average person in these countries.
	And I think that's untenable.
	I mean, you're ruling over a bunch of people you hate, and like you say, you sneer at, you're contemptible of.
	There's something wrong with you at that point.
	Not those people.
	But anyway, so this obviously means that they think that Trump has done something wrong by taking documents to Mar-a-Lago.
	But the thing is, apparently federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations, but it is possible that Trump could argue that as president, he was the ultimate declassification authority.
	And so Trump could say, well, I declassified them.
	That's why I took them.
	And so essentially, he might have a legal risk, but he might have an out.
	Just so...
	So anyway, let's get to Trump's statement on it, because that's what we all want to hear, isn't it?
	Oh my word, what did he say?
	Oh, it's a regular Trumpism.
	Of course it is.
	But he's not wrong, right?
	These are dark times for our nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago on Palm Beach, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.
	Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.
	After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.
	Is he wrong?
	I'm in agreement.
	I'm in agreement with Trump.
	There you go.
	Let's get me cancelled again from the comedy industry.
	He just writes in a really funny way.
	Yeah, he does.
	This is a problem with Trump.
	He is very funny.
	Yeah, he is.
	He is funny.
	You can't deny that.
	You can't deny it.
	You know, there's people who go like, you know, they have legitimate criticisms as I do of Trump.
	But you've got to be fair.
	He is funny.
	I think part of the reasons comedians hate him so much is because he's funnier than them.
	Yeah, look at his stand-up, basically.
	You know when he's doing his rallies and he's got like, you know, 50,000 people there?
	He's just riffing.
	Yeah.
	He's just riffing on whatever's going on, whatever's on his mind.
	And it's hilarious.
	And it's like, you wish you were that good.
	Yeah, and look, the thing is with comedians, comedians by their natures are disruptors.
	That's what they do.
	They come in and they disrupt.
	They take an idea and they subvert it.
	And if you look at Trump, particularly when it came to the primaries, that's what he did.
	He came in and he disrupted.
	And what he did beautifully, he gave nicknames to all the different candidates.
	So aggressive with it.
	What was the one for Marco Rubio?
	Oh, Little Marco.
	Yeah.
	Little Marco.
	And immediately, when that came in, that's all you could think of.
	Oh look, there's a little Marco.
	Lion Ted.
	He had them all.
	He had them all.
	It was really great.
	Yeah, and that's why he was so effective.
	Because he is, at heart, a stand-up comedian.
	Which is why he should be nowhere fucking near the levers of power.
	You don't give any amount of power to a comedian.
	But he did a good job.
	You can't deny he did actually do a good job.
	He did.
	There was a lot of good that he did, particularly with his overseas policy.
	And the economic policy, I thought was good.
	I mean, there is an argument that actually what he did is he stored up a lot of problems for the future when it comes to the debt situation in America.
	But my worry was he's too divisive.
	He's too divisive on one side.
	We've got success and glory.
	And on the other side, we have Democrats.
	I mean, he sent people mad.
	Yeah, he did.
	That is a genuinely legitimate concern.
	He did send them mad.
	He sent people mad.
	Even people who were like super rational and logical, like the Sam Harris's of this world who was like, listen to my app.
	Yeah, yeah, I know.
	Let's all breathe.
	And then Trump came and he went, nah, nah, I love Sam Harris.
	I think he's a worthwhile voice to have in any public debate.
	A lovely man, by the way.
	We're getting him on the show.
	The episode's coming out in a couple of weeks.
	We interviewed him.
	Excellent.
	And he's brilliant.
	What a sweetheart.
	Great guy.
	But his approach to Trump was just really short-sighted, I felt.
	Yeah.
	And it's like, look, you've got to take Trump as, like you say, the symptom of the problem.
	Yep, absolutely.
	Don't take Trump as, like, you know, on his word.
	You know, take him as a kind of phenomenon that's happened, you know?
	Anyway, let's get back to the latest Trumpism.
	He says, To be honest with you, I think he's right.
	Because Trump's polling is remarkably good at the moment, because obviously people are like, wow, it wasn't like this under Trump.
	And that's a strong argument.
	And it does seem to be a weaponization of the justice system.
	And he says, such an assault could have only taken place in broken third world countries.
	He's not wrong.
	And then he gets a bit more Trumpy.
	Sadly, America has now become one of those countries, corrupted a level not seen before.
	They even broke into my safe!
	What is the difference between this and Watergate, where the operators broke into the DNC? Here in reverse, the Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.
	And he goes on, obviously, and mentions that, look, Hillary Clinton didn't get broken into after she had confidential emails that she had acid-washed and deleted after being subpoenaed by Congress.
	She didn't get anything.
	Yeah.
	It's so obviously partisan, it's so obviously one-sided.
	It's genuinely a tragedy.
	And like you say, it's driven them mad.
	It's driven them mad.
	Trump sent them all nuts.
	He just did.
	He just did.
	When we were on Joe Rogan, Rogan made a great point.
	He said he drove them so nuts that they abandoned the rule book and they were willing to break the rules to get rid of him because that's how insane he sent them.
	Yeah, that's exactly right.
	Because they had nothing to compromise with them on.
	He was like, no, I'm pro-America and you're anti-America, so, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you know, of course they're going to go nuts.
	But I went to, in 2019, I went to a comedy and economics festival called Kill Economics in Ireland, which is actually very good.
	And they had all these very famous economists from around the world coming to discuss what was going on in the world, blah, blah, blah.
	And these were all liberal left, apart from a couple, economists.
	And they were talking about America.
	And they were saying, well, look, you know, this has just managed decline.
	This is what America is in now.
	We have to accept this.
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	I hate this attitude.
	And here's the thing.
	You have someone coming in going, you know what?
	We're going to make America great again.
	Now, to an ordinary layman who is not aware of everything going on in the world.
	Who are you going to believe?
	And what's a more enticing message?
	Is that of like, well...
	Bit of managed decline?
	Can I sell you on it?
	No.
	No, you can't.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Exactly.
	Anyway, so let's carry on with the politicisation of America's institutions.
	You may remember Project Veritas got raided...
	We interviewed him on the show, James O'Keefe.
	Yeah, we interviewed him as well.
	Again, I'm not saying that James O'Keefe is not a conservative activist, but he is also...
	I mean, that's a fair way of putting it, yeah.
	Well, he is.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Which, I'm not saying he's not that, but...
	They can have Democrat activists who do the same thing as Project Lawrence.
	Of course they can.
	There's nothing wrong with them doing that.
	In fact, it would be good to have both sides doing it to each other so we, the public, who aren't engaged in either of those parties, get to see it all.
	But you don't see it from the other side, and it makes you wonder why, really, doesn't it?
	But the point is, there was a comment from the Committee to Protect Journalists who said this.
	They were like, look, the FBI's recent raids on the organization's founder and its associates represents a concerning overreach by law enforcement.
	This was only last November.
	This is less than a year ago.
	You know, and so it's like, look, the FBI did this to them, did it to Trump.
	Who's next?
	Where can they go from here?
	And again, it's the point.
	Project Veritas wouldn't exist if people had faith in mainstream media outlets.
	If the media did their job.
	If the media did their job.
	But it's not even if the media did their job.
	If the media weren't as overtly biased.
	If you knew that what you were reading in the media was fair and honest and accurate...
	Can you even imagine?
	But it isn't.
	And we all know they're lying to us.
	The mask has slipped.
	We don't believe them anymore.
	We know that they have lied to us for years.
	And as a result, you get people.
	And look, we interviewed James.
	James, I believe, I liked him when I met him, but he's partisan.
	Let's just say it.
	He is partisan.
	But James wouldn't exist if you didn't have a media that wasn't That wasn't at least trying.
	Yeah.
	Because we're all biased.
	Let's be fair.
	Oh yeah, that's fine.
	There's nothing wrong with having a bias.
	The problem is when you're not fair.
	Yeah.
	When you're not fair and you don't actually, when your own side have done something wrong, when you ignore it or what you do is you misrepresent, that's when people go, you know what?
	I don't want any part of this.
	It's why the BBC in our country is going down the toilet.
	Oh yeah.
	Because people know they've been spun a narrative.
	Yep.
	But anyway, let's skip to Ron DeSantis' statement on this.
	You can see people protesting and counter-protesting and things like this.
	So this is very clearly, obviously, a partisan.
	I mean, look at the CNN is fake news.
	You don't get to this point if you don't have a long history of lying to people.
	I mean, CNN is just probably the worst culprit for it as well.
	But anyway, so Ron DeSantis put up a statement saying, the Raid of Mar-a-Lago is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime's political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves.
	Now the regime is getting another 87K for IRS agents to wield against this adversary's banana republic.
	I mean, the Hunter Biden thing, if it wasn't so obvious...
	I mean, I take it you've followed what's happened with Hunter Biden.
	Yeah, so...
	Are we talking about Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden story?
	And the stuff that's come off the laptop.
	Of course, of course.
	He is an absolute train wreck.
	And then the connections that go from Joe Biden to Hunter Biden to this Chinese company whose name escapes me to taking 10% for the big guy.
	It's like, look, it looks like this family has been getting money from the Chinese Communist Party.
	Yes.
	And like you say, Twitter suppresses this.
	The media suppresses this.
	The IRS doesn't have anything to say about it.
	Where's that 10 million coming from?
	Whatever.
	The FBI have got nothing to say about it.
	In a normal world, that guy would be in jail.
	Yeah.
	And he needs to be in jail for his own good, because he needs help.
	Yeah, he does.
	He needs help.
	He's an addict who is out of control.
	Yeah.
	Ted Cruz put out a statement about this as well.
	And again, these are right-wing political politicians, but they're not wrong when they say this.
	The FBI raiding Donald Trump is unprecedented.
	It's corrupt and abuse of power.
	What Nixon tried to do, Biden has now implemented.
	The Biden admin has fully weaponized the Department of Justice and FBI to target their political enemies.
	With 87,000 new IRS agents, they're coming for you too.
	You know, Congress must demand answers.
	We need hearings, we need subpoenas.
	Dems in charge will refuse, but the American people deserve to know why Biden is using the FBI as his political enforcers.
	Tin-pock dictators do that.
	That's not how America works.
	His same Department of Justice ignored Hunter Biden, who filmed himself committing multiple felonies, ignored Hillary Clinton, largely ignored BLM and Antifa rioters, ignored dangerous protesters outside justice homes, and ignored Epstein's clients.
	Why?
	But...
	This is the problem as well with people who pick a team.
	And this is when people go to me, are you right?
	Are you left?
	Or whatever else.
	And I have some opinions that are left and I have some opinions that are on the right.
	Because the moment you pick a team, this starts to happen.
	You start to say about your own team, oh, that doesn't matter.
	Let's just look at that.
	And you stop being fair and you stop being honest and people look at you and they know that you have no integrity and they start to lose faith in you and they start to lose faith in the party and the political system.
	The politicians we all admire are people like Robin Cook, who saw what happened with Iraq and went, I want no part of this, I'm resigning.
	That's why people liked Corbyn.
	That's why he nearly won power in 2017, because they knew that he had integrity.
	2019, he shut his mouth, even though he voted for Brexit, and we all know he voted for Brexit, and he shut his mouth about it, and he was like, let's do a second referendum, and the entire country went, no, fuck you.
	Because you're being complete, you're lying.
	I morally disagree with Corbyn on almost everything, but at least I respected that he stood by his guns.
	Absolutely!
	And then when it came to Brexit, I was just like, Jeremy, I don't even have that respect for you now.
	I know you voted for Brexit.
	I know you've been going on about Brexit.
	You sounded like Nigel Farage 20 years ago.
	He was a hardline Eurosceptic, as was all the left-wing of the Labour Party.
	There is a very coherent argument that you can make that Brexit is a left-wing policy.
	They're all Eurosceptics.
	Absolutely.
	And the fact that Jeremy Corbyn bent the knee on it, I was just like, right, Kate, I don't even respect your integrity now, Jeremy.
	Having said that, he was against vaccine passports, so...
	As was...
	But everyone should have been!
	I know, I'm in agreement with you, but the Conservatives, weren't they?
	Loved it!
	No, I know, I know.
	They were like, what do we get more laws?
	Puts them in!
	I know, I know.
	It's just awful.
	Anyway, let's move on to the final segment, which is weird how the Democrats have got a bit of a double standard when it comes to immigration.
	They like the idea of illegal immigrants.
	That's not in my backyard, thank you very much.
	And that seems to represent and summarise a great deal of progressive policy, frankly.
	It sounds good on paper, but when it arrives in your area, you're like, well, hang on a second.
	This isn't what I asked for.
	I wanted it for you.
	You know, I wanted it for you.
	You were the one who was supposed to deal with it.
	But you see, this is what middle class liberals are like.
	They write and they tweet and they say things like, no borders, but they want a wall around their house.
	Do you know what I mean?
	They'll go to Glastonbury and go, tear down the wall or whatever it is.
	There's a literal wall around Glastonbury.
	You have to pay to get in.
	We need to build bridges, not walls.
	You're saying this in a walled area.
	Yeah, of which you cannot go to Glastonbury unless you're middle class because you can't afford it.
	Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
	So you get to sit there with all your white middle class liberal mates spouting these progressive ideas which you don't believe in.
	And not just, like, they're progressive fantasies.
	Like these utopian John Lennon style, like getting stoned and being like, yeah, wouldn't it be brilliant?
	Yeah, but it's not.
	It's just not like that.
	So shut up for the love of God and get your head in the real world.
	Yeah.
	Do you know, we interviewed this guy called Rob Henderson on the show.
	He's currently...
	He's a fascinating guy.
	Grew up a mixed race guy.
	Grew up in care homes in America.
	Got adopted by a blue-collar family in California, in a very poor part of California, in a working-class town.
	Can't remember...
	He joined the army when he was 18, fresh out of school, didn't do very well in school because he went to a crap school.
	And then he ended up going to Stanford, I think it was, and he's now doing a PhD at Oxford.
	And he terms these ideas luxury beliefs.
	And they're luxury beliefs because the people who espouse them, the people who vocalize them, It's a luxury because to them it's never going to affect them.
	It's never going to hurt them because they have the money to be able to pay their way out of it and buy their way out of it and not have these problems affect them.
	But ordinary poor people, working class people These beliefs are going to hurt them, and they're going to hurt them really badly.
	That's why they're a luxury.
	They can't just move away from them.
	Yeah.
	But anyway, before we begin on this one, if you want to support us, go to lowcids.com, sign up, and watch our Cyberpunk Dystopia Episode 2.
	So I do this regular thing where every time in my social media feed, something that just strikes me as being literally, you know, like a Blade Runner-esque cyberpunk nightmare, and some individual thing that contributes to it, well, I just save it.
	And after a while, I've got like four or five pages of these things, and I look at it and think, wow, that's actually terrible.
	And that's what I cover in these Cyberpunk dystopia streams.
	I've got number three working on it at the moment.
	It's going to be awful.
	If the future is anything like the things we're being shown now, it's going to be terrible, man.
	I've got a slight hope because the metaverse looks shit.
	Yeah, right.
	It looks terrible.
	You're putting billions into this and it looks like you're using sprites from the Super Nintendo circa 1996.
	Yeah, and I don't want a giant headset on my face all day.
	Yeah.
	You're going to have to do a lot better than the metaverse if you want me to be involved in any of this.
	Look, people think that I'm being facetious when I make this point, but I'm not.
	You know when I know the metaverse and all that will take off?
	When porn adopt it.
	Good point.
	Because when porn adopts a new technology, that's how you know the new technology will work, and also that it's going to be successful.
	Loathe as I am to give them ideas, it's got to be sort of like a holodeck from Star Trek.
	You just walk into it and then the thing exists and you can interact with the thing and then you walk out.
	That's what it's got to be for it to work.
	I'm not putting the goddamn VR headset on my head for eight hours a day or something like that.
	That's ridiculous.
	Only a nerd with no friends and someone who lost their virginity at the age of 29 like Mark Zuckerberg whenever he got married...
	Is that real?
	No, I don't...
	Would come up with something like the Metaverse.
	Only if you were a complete nerd would that seem appealing.
	Yeah, I can't even imagine...
	For everybody else, just why?
	I'd rather go out in the sun.
	Yeah.
	But anyway, so it turns out that in 2021, and we think we have a problem with illegal immigration in Britain.
	We do, but they have a much worse problem in America, where we get some of the 50,000 illegals coming across the channel a year.
	They've got 1.7 million illegal border crossings.
	And here's the interesting thing, because, again, I find this actually racist, in that a lot of people on the left believe, and someone who comes from a Latin American background, believes that Latinos will automatically vote Democrat.
	Ah, well, you know, what are they, Catholic or something?
	Don't you want abortion up until birth on demand?
	Well, here's the thing, you know, if you're a Cuban and you grew up under communism, it happens to be a little bit of a red pill.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Oh, yeah.
	Like, number one.
	And number two, a lot of these people do not like...
	Illegal immigration.
	Because they had to do it.
	They had to come to the US. They went through the immigration system.
	They played by the rules.
	And all of a sudden, they see people coming who didn't play by the rules.
	And do you know what?
	It really pisses them off.
	Well, yeah.
	Now, I saw a poll about this.
	And it was something like 67% or 65% of legal Mexican immigrants to the United States.
	Just one of the illegals deported.
	Of course they do.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Why wouldn't you?
	Send that scrounger back home.
	Screw them.
	But here's the thing, and you look at this, and you just go, the reality is, this shows that there is a migration system, or immigration system, sorry.
	It doesn't work.
	There should be an immigration system that works.
	So people who want to go and improve themselves, and who want to go to America...
	They should be vetted.
	And America, because it's that country, should then decide how many people they bring every year, the type of people that they want, and then the people who they decide they don't want should be sent back.
	Goodbye.
	Yeah, and that's how every country should work.
	It's totally just.
	It's totally just.
	And look, in an ideal world, if we were talking about a utopia, of course that's not the way it would exist.
	Of course not.
	But why are we even countenancing concepts of utopia?
	There's no utopia.
	I mean, utopia, the word, means nowhere.
	It literally means nowhere.
	It doesn't exist.
	And you're exactly right.
	The country that people are coming to, it gets to decide who it takes and how many of them it takes.
	And if it says zero, then okay, you go home.
	If it says 100 million, then you take 100 million.
	It's up to them.
	It is up to them.
	Now, there's also the flip side of the argument, which goes, and to be fair, I do have some sympathy with this point.
	Look, America has gone into places like Iraq, etc., etc., etc.
	I think you've got a bit of a responsibility there.
	But these aren't Iraqi refugees.
	So anyway, this is an amazing amount.
	Most of them are, of course, single adults.
	Half a million or so are families with children, and 147,000 are unaccompanied minors.
	So God only knows the problems that these people have encountered on the journey.
	Yeah, on the journey.
	And the thing is, a lot of these people are coming from South America, so they're not even from Mexico.
	But anyway, the FBI director gave a warning about this, saying, well, look, this is a significant security issue, and, I mean, it's a staggering number of people.
	I mean, literally millions of people crossing into America from the southern border.
	And he said, look, the Biden administration is insisting the border situation is under control, but he disagrees.
	And it's obviously not.
	And the thing is, Biden, again, I don't mean to keep hammering the point, but he seems to be actively making America worse.
	He seems to be deliberately destroying America, right?
	So Biden dramatically reduced migrant prosecutions, let's go to the next one, by nearly 80% in 2021.
	Now, what kind of message is that to people from South America?
	If you get a message, you find out, oh, well, Biden won't prosecute you.
	Trump would have deported you on the spot, but Biden won't even prosecute you if you happen to get across into America.
	So that's going to incentivize hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to come.
	That's an incentive.
	Because they're not stupid.
	They're people, right?
	Yeah.
	So they're like, right, okay, with the Rwanda policy, having an effect on reducing the number of markets, they're like, okay, well, I'm not going to risk it.
	But if I know that Biden's just going to let me in, well, then we're all going to try.
	Why wouldn't you?
	Absolutely.
	So, the problem is...
	Immigration and immigration policy is a taboo.
	It just is a taboo because people equate it with racism.
	They equate it with discrimination.
	But in the real world, and if you're operating in the real world, you need to have these discussions.
	You need to have caps and limits on immigration, whatever you decide.
	And the immigration system needs to be enforced.
	It also needs to be ethical as well.
	People need to be treated humanely.
	but it needs to be enforced and it needs to be fair and all these other things.
	But primarily it needs to be in the interest of that country.
	Yes, and that's the thing, isn't it?
	Everything Joe Biden is doing here is not in the interest of America.
	It's in the interest of foreigners.
	And it's like, look, you're not the president of foreigners, Joe.
	You're the president of Americans, so you should be operating in their interest.
	I mean, he tried to order an end to Title 42, which is something that Trump brought in, which just meant they didn't even have to be processed.
	They can just be kicked out of the country, which is sensible when you've got this many people.
	You can't process millions of people, right?
	Just shove them back out.
	We know that they're not like legal migrants or anything.
	Shove them back out.
	And Biden tried to order an end to this, but legal challenges from Republicans have temporarily kept in place.
	But the thing is, when the institution is trying to end this thing, it sends a signal to the people on the ground saying, look, don't worry about it.
	It's not an important thing.
	So it's going to have a retarding effect there.
	And if you get to the next one, so you may remember that when Biden came into office, he called for a 100-day moratorium on all deportations.
	Yeah.
	And he's the guy who gets to enforce that by signing an executive order.
	So he was like, we're not going to deport illegal immigrants.
	We're not going to charge illegal immigrants.
	And Trump's process to try and stop illegal immigrants from coming, we're going to try and overturn that?
	Because here's the thing as well, is that when people see these stories...
	Their tolerance of immigrants decreases.
	and they start to think that, you know, oh, everybody is here illegally when it's not true.
	There are lots of people who go through the system, who go to America because they want to improve their lives.
	And there are also people, like where my family's from in Venezuela, where if you're a journalist, my cousin literally had to flee for his life as a journalist under Maduro's government because they made it quite clear that if he continued to criticize the government, it wasn't going to end well for him.
	So he had to leave literally overnight and he had to go to Uruguay is where he is now.
	He's working in a university as a professor of journalism.
	But there are people who need to leave the country and who could potentially go to the United States, help the United States, create it and make it an even better society.
	But the problem is, if you don't have an immigration system that works, it's not good for anyone.
	And one of the groups of people it's worst for are the immigrants themselves.
	This has consequences.
	You may remember last month that 53 migrants were found dead in the back of an 18-wheel truck, baked alive due to the heat.
	What an awful way to go.
	And it's just Joe Biden has been like, right, we're not going to prosecute you.
	We're not going to deport you.
	Nothing's going to happen to you.
	Just come.
	And they're like, great, I'm going to get in this truck.
	And then, you know, imagine going in a truck, an un-air-conditioned truck in Mexico for like eight hours or something like 10 hours.
	God!
	And this is, you know...
	Crammed in there with 50 other people.
	And, you know, and this is a problem with, you know, progressives talking about migrant crossings and they're just like, you know, no human being is illegal.
	It's so stupid.
	Which sounds like something Jeffrey Epstein would say.
	LAUGHTER That's a great point.
	Yeah.
	And they go, no human being is illegal.
	And the problem is, the people who are making money out of this are criminal gangs.
	They're human traffickers.
	They are making hand over fist because people are so desperate.
	And I have a lot of sympathy with people wanting to get the hell out of a country like El Salvador, where the system doesn't work, where there's no way of you getting out of poverty.
	They will do anything they can to get into a country.
	Yeah.
	But if you don't have an immigration system that works That stops these people entering.
	Then you're allowing criminal gangs to profiteer off the desperation of others and the misery of others.
	And they're not doing it.
	And that's what happens.
	You're also retarding that country's possibility for political change as well.
	Because these sort of energetic people are like, no, things have to change here.
	Or I could leave and go somewhere nicer.
	Obviously you can leave and go somewhere nicer.
	It's a lot easier.
	But if they say, sorry, we're not accepting people from wherever you are, then okay, well, okay, I'm not going anywhere then.
	So am I going to try and work for change here?
	Yeah.
	So no, the people who would have worked for change are being drained out of these countries.
	So the countries stay as the corrupt hellholes that they are.
	So you're not making anything better for anyone.
	And obviously the people at home hate this as well.
	And so the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, was like, yeah, okay, well, I don't agree.
	I think some people are illegal when they turn up in my country, unannounced and without the protection of law.
	And so he's like, look, we're just going to send these to New York then.
	If you like illegal immigrants so much, maybe you should have them.
	And this has been very amusing to provoke the reaction.
	So he's shipped about 4,000 migrants to the District of Columbia and New York.
	But this is a problem, Carl, because then people become political pawns.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Well, I agree, but at the end of the day, they've got to learn their lesson.
	I do see what you mean, but you just go like...
	We're not being humane here because these are people as well.
	And as a result, they're then being caught up in just this political football between red and blue.
	That's true.
	You know, and you just go, if we actually had a system where we could process, where we could actually, people who are genuine refugees, maybe we can allow the X amount in, then we wouldn't be having this.
	Instead, what we have now is these 4,000 people who have come to this country and then they're just being sent back and forth.
	Yeah, but I mean, they came illegally.
	They did come illegally, but is this...
	Look, this is just a political game now.
	It is, but at the end of the day, these people are going to keep saying, oh, bring in more, bring in more, and keep...
	I mean, again, he's a Democrat.
	He's totally in favour of Biden opening the borders.
	It's like, okay, well, you're going to have to deal with it.
	The people in Texas who want closed borders, oh, they're racists.
	They're just racists.
	They're bigots.
	They're scum.
	Building a wall because, oh, you just hate Mexicans and South Americans.
	No, it's because there are real problems that come with this.
	And so, no, you should deal with it.
	If your rhetoric is, bring them all in, okay, well, here you go.
	And this is great.
	You've got to do it.
	You've got to make them own the consequences of their own policies.
	Because otherwise, they're never going to learn.
	They're never going to change their mind, in my opinion.
	And you are right, you know, they're playing, like, political football.
	Well, sorry, you know, you shouldn't be here in the first place, in our opinion.
	But Joe Biden made it so you can be here.
	So, okay, well, then you can go to those areas and they can deal with you.
	So he sent, you know, not even that many, actually, to New York.
	Again, 4,000, we've got 1.7 million.
	That's a tiny number, really.
	But Eric Adams described it as horrific.
	Which is amusing, I think.
	It's like, yeah, so suddenly, now it's your problem, and you have to deal with it.
	Because, I mean, imagine Texas.
	It's got millions of illegal immigrants.
	There's, you know, like, weighed under the burden of having to deal with all of this.
	And this guy sat there, you know, 5,000 miles away going, pfft, not my problem.
	You know, no human's illegal.
	F you, man.
	You know, you deal with it.
	And so the guy's like, you know, oh, you're using them as political pawns.
	Like, you're also using them as political pawns.
	Agreed.
	Right?
	So don't, yeah, so don't sit there like, you know, oh, you're doing it, right?
	But also, he's like, well, we're going to need federal assistance.
	It's like, well, then Texas needs federal assistance, doesn't it?
	And then Biden's going to have to give lots of money to Texas to help with this.
	And so, if you can get to the next one, in fact...
	You see, this is what happens when you have systems that don't work.
	Oh, completely.
	That's what it is.
	But who opened the border?
	Look, I agree.
	I agree.
	You know, and so I don't want to just say, oh, Republicans good on these instances.
	But honestly, the Democrats are just so bad.
	Like, you know, when it comes to say like George Bush and the Iraq war, no, Republicans bad.
	Don't like what they're doing.
	Don't like it.
	Democrats are right.
	Don't go and invade Iraq.
	Yeah, there's no justification.
	Bin Laden had nothing to do with Iraq.
	George Bush admitted it.
	Don't do it.
	You're wrong.
	You're wrong.
	And they lied.
	And they lied.
	But when it comes to, say, this issue with the border, the Democrats are wrong.
	Don't open the border.
	They're just wrong on every count.
	And the Republicans are the ones who are actually like, okay, well, something's going to have to happen.
	So, you know, if it was the other way around, I'd be like, the Democrats are right on this completely.
	Build a wall and stuff like that.
	But they're not.
	So...
	Every country needs immigration policies.
	It's not racist.
	It's such a stupid thing to have to say, but it's true.
	It is true.
	Even countries that all the liberals love, not liberals because, again, that's the wrong word, that the progressives love, like New Zealand.
	New Zealand has some of the most stringent immigration policies in the world.
	But they all love Jacinda.
	Well, they're completely locked down when it came to COVID, so no one came in and out of the country.
	I don't even know.
	Was it over a year?
	Yeah, it was a year.
	It's only just opened up.
	It was literally like North Sentinel Island immigration policy.
	Do you know what North Sentinel Island is?
	It's like the last remaining indigenous place near India.
	It's a small island near India where there's a group of very dark-skinned natives on there.
	And the only pictures that we have of them, because it's a thickly wooded island, is of them brandishing spears and arrows.
	And what they do is, if someone lands on the island, they just kill them.
	So they just kill whoever turns up on the island, and that's the kind of border...
	A bit racist.
	Well, you would say so, but it's also quite based.
	I quite like that as a border policy.
	But that's what Jacinda was adopting.
	It's like you're just not coming in, and it's like, okay, well...
	That's fair.
	But anyway, so I think Abbott is completely right to play this political game, because they've been doing it.
	So, okay, fine, play the political game.
	And he says this, right?
	Because of President Biden's continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies, the state of Texas has had to take the unprecedented action to keep our community safe.
	Totally fair.
	In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city.
	I hope that he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief.
	You get what you deserve.
	You made New York a sanctuary city.
	You bragged about being so pro-refugee and pro-immigrant.
	Well, go on then.
	Well, here's the thing as well.
	And let's look at it in the UK. Our economy does very well as well of undocumented migrants that they can pay whatever very low wages to.
	I don't know if I agree that's the economy doing well, though.
	Well, do you know what I mean?
	Business owners do very well at it.
	Well, sure, yeah.
	You know, business owners, you know, there's a lot of people who don't, you know...
	All my guys are undocumented.
	Yeah, exactly, as they should be, mate.
	You know, it's a free market.
	But, you know, so...
	The problem is...
	It's kind of slave labour though, isn't it?
	It is.
	I don't agree with it.
	I don't agree with it.
	You're getting people who are working for very incredibly low wages.
	Thinking, was it Leicester with...
	What was the woman in Leicester East who had like 10,000 slaves working in a factory?
	Claudia Webb.
	Claudia Webb.
	Do you not remember?
	No.
	I know that she allegedly threatened someone, or she threatened someone.
	She would say, be acid.
	Yeah, but she was presiding over, I think it's Leicester East, where they found that there were 10,000 modern-day slaves working in factories in there.
	And she was presiding over it.
	And it's like, really?
	That's evil?
	Yeah, it is evil.
	I would say.
	But that's the sort of thing that happens with illegal immigration.
	It facilitates evil.
	You know, it's wrong all the way down.
	And so, again, he's just right to say, look, you wanted this.
	Again, it's all the progressives who want this.
	And, of course, Adams was like, oh, this is unimaginable what he's done.
	It's like, it's what you're in favor of, as long as it's not in your back garden.
	That's what it is.
	And just to finish this off, Biden is, of course, building the wall now, because it turns out that walls work.
	All of that, oh, walls don't work.
	Oh, walls are nonsense.
	Walls are racist.
	Okay, but the walls are back.
	Biden is building the wall because Trump was right, and Trump was just copying Bill Clinton, where he's like, look, the wall's a good idea.
	We should do it, and you should.
	But yeah, so they're going to complete the border project.
	It's on the south wall in Arizona.
	Good, and they should.
	But here's the thing.
	Rules only work if the systems in place work and make sense, and people enforce the rules.
	If they don't, then there's no point.
	I mean, that is completely true.
	The problem is, like you say, it is a kind of stopgap measure, right?
	It's a way of preventing a certain problem, but that's not the cause of the problem.
	And at no point are the causes of these problems ever being addressed.
	But at the end of the day, you've got to work within the system you're in, don't you?
	Well, you need to make sure and you need to amend the system from the inside to make sure it is as fair as possible.
	Nothing is ever going to be completely fair.
	Nothing is ever going to be totally fair because also human beings implement the system and human beings aren't fair, as we all know.
	We have blind spots, biases, whatever else.
	But there are people who want to enter the country who have a legitimate reason for doing so, who would actually benefit America or maybe they're refugees for whatever reason.
	This is all true, but you need a system in place to be able to sort through that.
	And it's in the interest of America.
	Just going, open borders, again, utopian.
	Sounds great on paper, not in real life.
	I don't even know if it sounds great on paper, but the progressives have lost the plot, in my opinion.
	But this is why, because the answer is in the name, Carl.
	What is a progressive?
	It's someone who wants progress.
	And where are we going?
	And every day, we're progressing.
	But progressing to what?
	They want utopia.
	They think the human being is actually, if you keep adjusting and keep tweaking, we're going to get to the perfect human being, the perfect society.
	But the reality is, we're human.
	We're flawed.
	We're feeble.
	We have our biases.
	We have our dark elements.
	It's why we love Shakespeare.
	Why is Shakespeare still relevant?
	Because it speaks to the human condition.
	Greed, lust, envy.
	See, that's a very conservative view, that there's a kind of fixed human condition.
	But I think it's probably true.
	Of course it's true.
	Otherwise, why would people read Shakespeare?
	Why would people read Chaucer?
	Why would people read literature from hundreds of years ago?
	Why is the Iliad still worth it?
	Yeah.
	It's literally 3,000 years ago.
	And when you're reading it, you can still empathize with those people.
	Of course.
	Because they're human beings just like you.
	When you read about the story of Paris, who...
	Because of love or lust or whatever it was.
	Steals Helen.
	Yeah, steals Helen and throws an entire civilization under the bus.
	That talks about young love, impetuousness, and also not really thinking about the consequences of their actions, which is what all young people, in particular young men, do.
	That's a great point.
	Let's go to some comments, because we've got lots of comments.
	I just had a quick question to Carl regarding his experience of lawyers.
	Can we skip the video comments, John?
	Sorry, just because we would normally do video comments, but we've gone over time a bit.
	So, Master of Parsnips says...
	I know him.
	Oh, do you?
	This is Dan the Pub.
	Yeah.
	No, he's a big fan of trigonometry.
	Oh, is he?
	Yeah.
	Says, thanks for the great conversations, gents.
	Well done, Francis, for not ducking behind the parapet and giving us your point of view.
	I think that's...
	Yeah, a lot of the comments are reflecting that.
	It's great that you're just honest about these things.
	Because, I mean, again, a lot of the time when you're talking to just, you know, the sorts, they can't admit that there's a problem.
	You know, they have to pretend that there's no problem.
	It's like there's no need to do that, you know?
	One of the most profound points we ever had on, I ever heard on one of our interviews was from a conservative journalist called Ed West who said, the reason freedom of speech is so important is unless you're willing to discuss a problem honestly and openly, you're never going to find a solution to it.
	Totally true.
	And it's so true.
	Because unless you're willing to go, here is the problem and all aspects of the problem.
	And I realise this bit is very difficult and icky and we don't want to talk about it.
	But you know what?
	We've got to.
	Because if we don't, we're never going to solve it.
	You could solve every other aspect of the problem, but if there's one that's just in this blind spot.
	And I tell you what, the great example of this for me is the housing crisis.
	Like Julia Hartley Brewer, like Tom Howard and all of the left.
	Do you think Julia's all left?
	No, no, no, no.
	She was in line with the left on this subject.
	Where it's like, oh, we need to build more houses.
	It's like, okay, for who?
	Because the Conservatives let in over a million immigrants last year.
	We're a much smaller country than America and a million people.
	It's like, that's why we have a housing crisis.
	And it's not just that.
	But you could solve all of these other problems, but the demand will still be the million people.
	That will be that one segment that no one can talk about.
	And so there'll still be a housing crisis.
	And I'm like, well, I just don't know what the problem is.
	We're building loads of houses.
	We're doing all of these things.
	We've fixed all the problems.
	But it's the demand.
	And they can't talk about it.
	It's the blind spot where Julia and these left-wing journalists, none of them could mention it.
	It's like, come on, that's obviously a thing.
	Of course, it is part of the problem, and I think if you're not honest about it, that's the truth of the matter.
	But it's also as well, Thatcher started this whole thing by selling off the council's housing stock, and nobody in successive governments, whether it's Conservative, whether it's Labour, has replenished it.
	They simply don't build enough houses.
	I mean, that's the truth.
	But we wouldn't have to build so many houses if we didn't have so many people moving here.
	Yeah, agreed.
	Because our birth rate is actually below replacement rate in this country.
	Of course it is, as it is in much of the West.
	Exactly.
	And so we're building houses for foreigners.
	Yeah, but it's also part of the problem is as well is that we're simply not giving birth to enough people.
	No, we're not.
	And we have in this country, particularly now, in fact a lot of countries do, we don't have enough people for the jobs.
	We have a labour crisis.
	Yeah, yeah.
	An ageing population.
	An ageing population.
	So what we do is then we get people, freedom and movement, the brightest and best from all of Europe to come here.
	Well, theoretically.
	Actually, it's mostly non-Europeans.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And so as a result of that, in order to fill these positions so we can keep artificially low wages...
	Yep.
	No, no, that's exactly right.
	I mean, and the thing is as well, if I were a young person, I'd feel like I was being stole from because that is the point.
	Artificially low wages.
	I should be paid well because there should be demand for my labour.
	But instead, you've brought in a bunch of people from overseas who have reduced the demand for my labour.
	And so now I'm being underpaid because of a progressive immigration policy.
	I'd be furious if I were young.
	Of course.
	And again, you can't blame people who come over.
	No, no, it's not their fault.
	And who come from Poland or wherever else or whatever country who want to come here and work and send money back.
	I'd do exactly the same thing.
	Exactly.
	I can't blame them in any way, shape or form.
	It's not their fault.
	And most of the time when you meet them, they're nice people.
	So it's not like they're like, oh good, I can hurt the British by moving over there or something like that.
	It's not nefarious.
	It's just the consequence of a particular policy.
	It's a system that doesn't work.
	That's exactly right.
	Callum says, question for you guys, which is worse?
	Trump run America or Biden run America?
	I think the numbers are in.
	I just worry that when Trump comes in, Callum, everybody's going to go mental.
	That's a genuine concern.
	If America loses its mind...
	What's going to happen to the rest of the world?
	I don't know, Callum.
	I just hope that there'll be somebody on the right who's a bit more sensible, a bit more moderate, who can calm things down.
	There won't be.
	I mean, we're fucked either way.
	Yeah, we are.
	And this is what we were talking about before the podcast.
	Everything's looking quite dark, to be honest.
	You know, I don't see a positive future in our future.
	Anyway, enjoy it while you can, Callum.
	Yeah, it's not good news.
	And I gave a speech at Nick Buckley's free speech conference the other day, and it was very depressing because I was just like, look, we're facing bad times, you know.
	There's just nothing good on the horizon.
	JJHW says, in fact, this is a good point, all of this talk of Trump returning in 2024 assumes that the USA will be a coherent country in 2024, and this is no longer a given.
	I'm sure 2024 is a bit too soon.
	It's a bit too soon, but also I would say as well, it's striking a note of optimism.
	You know, when we interviewed Bill Burr on the channel, Constantine said to him, you know, America's more divided, and he just went, nah, it's just the internet.
	That's fair.
	And I think there's an element of that.
	When you go out and you go to the shops, you chat to the person, you buy a coffee, it's not as bad as it seems online.
	So let's just keep that in mind as well.
	But I think the problem, right, is that politicians are allowed online and journalists are allowed online.
	Honestly, politicians should be banned from Twitter.
	I think Twitter should be banned.
	Oh, I agree.
	If you want to save society, Jack Dorsey should just delete the app.
	I think he can't now, because he's not the CEO of it.
	But if he truly wanted to save the world...
	Yeah, totally.
	Totally.
	You should have been like, look, this was a huge mistake.
	I'm really sorry.
	Yeah.
	I shouldn't have done this.
	Yeah.
	You know, I didn't realise the Pandora's box I was opening.
	I'm going to close it down.
	No one understood it, to be fair to you.
	No, no.
	This has all been a giant social experiment.
	Yeah.
	And look how it's gone.
	Yeah.
	Terrifying.
	But honestly, though, I really think, if nothing else, politicians should be banned from Twitter.
	If you get an elected office, Twitter should be like, we just don't have you.
	Sorry.
	Yeah.
	Because it's bad for you.
	You know, you've got to go and talk to your constituents.
	You don't need to talk.
	Because then you don't get like AOC, you know.
	Yeah.
	Who's like the constituent for Democrat Twitter.
	It's like, shut up, you know, go away.
	So Omar says, people underestimated Trump's popularity in 2015 and 2016.
	Since he presided over such a successful economy, I wonder if that's what normies suffering from a Biden economy will remember when it comes to next voting.
	Few people pay attention to the news and fewer still to politics.
	A significant number of voters will only remember four years of booming economy versus four years of elitism, inflation, and so vote accordingly.
	And that's probably true.
	I think it is true.
	I think ultimately, you know, there's going to be a lot of people who are struggling in America.
	There's a lot of people in Western economies.
	I used to teach and I saw these families and I saw these kids.
	For most people, if you get to the end of the month and you've paid all your bills and you put food on the table, that's a win.
	You've won.
	Yeah.
	And when inflation goes up, gas prices, cost of living crisis.
	It's just terrible.
	It's just terrible.
	There's going to be a lot of people who work every single day, five days a week, and they're not going to be able to pay their bills.
	And when that happens, things are going to get nasty.
	And seriously, I can see it.
	When they're sat there with a hungry stomach and kids who can't sleep because they're hungry, they're going to think back to what was it like under Trump?
	It wasn't like this.
	It didn't have to be like this.
	Anyway, let's carry on.
	Henry says, the Dark Brandon meme just proves that the left can't meme is one of the longest running memes ever.
	That's true.
	Colin says, wasn't the whole reason for the January 6th witch hunt inquiry to prevent Trump being able to stand in 2024?
	Now, I mean, they haven't officially said this, but it's obvious that that's the case.
	Hmm.
	I mean, they obviously don't want Trump to be able to stand.
	Yeah.
	And they're doing everything they can to do that.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And it's like, look, the Democrats, I think they should just man up and take the L, frankly.
	Just accept that Trump's got something that a lot of Americans like.
	I think also as well, it just shows a paucity of ideas amongst the Democrats.
	They're completely ideologically bankrupt.
	They don't represent the people they purport to represent.
	The party doesn't really work.
	They don't have anybody who can come along and capture the imagination.
	There's no new Obama coming, is there?
	No.
	If Bernie had been elected, he would have stood a much better chance of actually doing something, I think.
	Even though I disagree with a lot of Bernie's policies, he would have been a lot better than Hillary Clinton.
	I remember I went to watch Chris Rock, I think it was in 2012, right?
	I just went to see his concert, and he did a bit about Hillary, and he went, I've got no problem with a woman being elected, but does it have to be that woman?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That's exactly it.
	It got a huge roar of laughter and a round of applause, and that was in 2012.
	Yeah.
	It was a Democrat's fault.
	They went for a candidate like Clinton.
	They've only got themselves to blame for this.
	It's the oligarchy.
	Yeah.
	It's the coastal oligarchy where they've got no choices.
	Yeah.
	And luckily for the Republicans, Trump just, like you say, you know, just demolished them.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely demolished them.
	It was just like, right, okay.
	And I was loving it, to be honest.
	Yeah.
	At first, I wasn't a Trump supporter because I was just like...
	I remember, in fact, when people first told me Donald Trump's running, I was like, what?
	You know, the apprentice guy.
	And then just after a while, it was like, okay, he's actually getting somewhere here.
	So anyway, Matthew says, the U.S. is not going to be unified by a president.
	It needs a devolution of power from the federal government to the states.
	If you want to lower tensions, then you need to make the federal government less powerful.
	What do you reckon to that?
	enough about it I'm going to be honest with you but then then what then what does that mean that immigration between states is because that's part of the beauty of America that's actually what I really love about America you know like take Joe Rogan Joe was in California he didn't like California didn't like the way it was being run he didn't agree with it he moved to Texas yep And he's now much happier as a result, and he's enjoying his life a hell of a lot more, and I think so his family, and he's thriving out there.
	That's great.
	That's the beauty of America, that you can be in one state, you go, well, you know what?
	I don't agree, for instance.
	You can be in Arkansas.
	I'm kind of a lefty liberal.
	I don't really agree with abortion laws.
	I want to therefore go and move to New York.
	Mm-hmm.
	That's a beautiful thing about America.
	Where can we move if we don't agree with the shit show this country has become?
	Belgium.
	But that's worse!
	I know!
	There's nowhere to go!
	There's nowhere to go!
	You know, that's why under COVID, I was actually really considering getting the hell out of this country, and we actually had talks with the rest of the guys at Trick, because we were looking at the way this country was going, and it was insane!
	And it was even more nutso in Scotland than Wales.
	Yeah, England was by far the worst of it as well.
	Yeah.
	You know, like the Scottish and the Welsh, I don't know how they cope with their progressive governments.
	I would be up in arms.
	I can't stand it.
	The fact that, you know, I don't know whether they brought, but they were openly discussing it.
	Maybe the law came to pass.
	You can be arrested for things you say at home.
	That's insane.
	It's mad.
	It's insane.
	And they just went, yeah, this is right.
	And then every two years they go, freedom, let's have another referendum.
	Can you imagine?
	If I was in Scotland, I'd be like, look, I was in favour of Scottish independence until that made me realise that I would be ruled by Nicola Sturgeon in perpetuity forever.
	And if there's one thing I don't want is to be ruled by an unrestrained Nicola Sturgeon.
	Yeah.
	Like, God.
	But, you know, and this is the issue.
	You know, this is the problem.
	Is that, again, it's emotion over actually what will it mean for Scotland to be independent?
	It sounds great.
	Good luck to them.
	Yeah.
	Fuck the English.
	Fuck, you know, fuck the Tories.
	Fuck Boris.
	Bah, bah, bah.
	Oh, you go right.
	Great.
	But what does that mean?
	What is the real world consequences?
	And they don't want to think about it.
	But I hate to say it, we're out of time.
	So, folks, go and watch Francis' show.
	Did you have a link up again, John?
	Yeah.
	Did you close it?
	It's alright, don't worry about it.
	But yeah, go and check out France's show.
	It's going to be October.
	It's going to be good, I imagine.
	Yeah, I like it.
	It's going to be good.
	Yeah, it is.
	It's going to be good.
	It's basically, I don't do the circuit anymore because I don't have time.
	You're going to get an hour of my best stuff.
	Stuff that I used to open with comedians and like Eddie Izzard and all the rest of it, right from up to the week.
	So it'll be just an hour of really good jokes.
	I'm not going to lecture you.
	I'm not going to be like, Trump bad.
	I'm also going to have a great opener.
	You're just going to have an hour of solid laughter, and you're going to have a night where you forget about all the crap that's going on in your life, and we're going to laugh together.
	Awesome.
	Right.
	Well, go see that, and we'll see you tomorrow, folks.

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