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March 10, 2020 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
56:12
Trump in the Time of Coronavirus

Between generous squirts of hand sanitizer, co-hosts Nick Hauselman and Jared Yates Sexton discuss the complete bungling of the handling of the coronavirus pandemic by the Trump Administration, how Trump and others like him have never intended to actually address problems of any kind, how the inhumane economy worsens these situations, the growing attack on Joe Biden, and whether that hand sanitizer even works in the first place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Anybody, right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test.
They're there.
And the tests are all perfect.
Like, the letter is perfect.
The transcription was perfect, right?
This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.
I like this stuff.
I really get it.
People are surprised that I understand it.
Every one of these doctors said, how do you know so much about this?
Maybe I have a natural ability.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that instead of running for president.
So I told Mike not to be complimenting the other governor because that governor is a snake, okay?
If we came up with a cure today and tomorrow everything is gone and you went up to this governor who's, you know, not a good governor by the way.
If you went up to this governor and you said to him, how did Trump do?
He'd say he did a terrible job.
Welcome, everybody, to today's episode of the McCrake Podcast.
I have one question for my co-host, Nick Halseman.
Exactly how much hand sanitizer are you going through right now?
I can't get it.
I went, I've been to a couple different places to buy it and I don't have it so I'm stuck doing the old washing my hands.
The problem though is I really want hot water.
I want to like scald my hands and it takes a long time for that to happen like in my house for whatever reason right now.
I'm sure most people in the country in the cold weather it takes a long time so there's all that water being wasted but that's my only hope right now is just through, is just scalding hot soapy water.
Yeah, I just traveled and first of all, I just gotta throw this out there.
I have never seen in public restrooms men washing their hands as voraciously and vigorously as this.
I love it.
Keep it up, guys.
Keep going with this.
I don't care if there's a pandemic or not.
Just keep going.
Keep this momentum going.
So that's number one.
Number two.
Hand sanitizer has become just this, like, hoarded thing.
It's really unbelievable.
So, like, while I was out and about and traveling, people would, like, break some out and suddenly hands would just be there.
And I think it's important that we talk about the fact that, like, so first of all, we have to say coronavirus is, like, a serious thing.
I mean, like, this is not messing around.
It's not a hoax.
It's a real deal thing.
But how much scarier is it dealing with something like this when there's nobody in charge capable of making a decision, handling problems, or even projecting the air of confidence?
I mean how much scarier is this thing knowing that like not only is there not somebody at the wheel but there's like somebody deranged like messing around with the car while it's driving down an embankment?
Well, there's a couple things happening here.
First of all, the image of people reaching out slowly with their hands for hand sanitizer is a very, it's almost a comforting feeling, right?
This is like hands across America way back in the day.
People might not remember that.
If you also might remember, there's a movie recently called Us that focused on Hands Across America and turned into this cold, diabolical scheme with all sorts of, I'm not going to ruin it, but there's others underground who are reliving our lives underground.
And that's, by the way, connected to what you're describing right now and who's in charge.
There's this whole other underbelly projection going on from the president, and it's insane And you know, what's almost frustrating to me are the people that really want to just be like, oh, it's overblown.
This is not as serious as everyone's thinking about.
It's not, you know, everyone's getting hysterical for no reason.
That makes me, stirs up as much emotion in me as Trump would do on a typical day anyway.
Well, if we're going to talk about this thing, let's go ahead and start and get some ground rules in here, because one of the things this podcast tries to do is, it tries to sort of reframe how we talk about things and look at things.
First things first, from a top-down viewpoint, like, you know, there haven't been thousands who have died yet, and maybe that is not enough to convince people.
Like, one person dying unnecessarily, it sucks, and it's wrong, and it's a tragedy, and not just that, but like, There are people right now who are, you know, they're having to go to the hospital.
They're having to rack up medical bills.
It can ruin their lives.
There are people who are upset, that are afraid.
It's messing up all kinds of things.
And by the way, it's also messing up the economy.
Our economy has cratered.
And by the way, you'll notice that I said that last because that is the least important of all these things.
First, we got to consider humans, human life, and then eventually what it can do with the economy and all that stuff.
But this is such a giant, giant mess.
And there is no one within our government capable of dealing with it.
And the reason is, and I've been stating this over and over, and this is something we have to talk about and we have to get to.
Movements like Trumpism are not about governing.
They have no interest in governance.
They have no interest in actually passing legislation or making people's lives better.
Like when the coronavirus lands at the White House right now, Donald Trump is just like, how's this going to hurt me in my re-election?
That's the only thing that he's worried about.
How's it going to hurt the economy and hurt my re-election?
He doesn't care how many people die from this as long as nobody knows it's from that.
I mean, there's a reason why these tests aren't everywhere.
They're not interested in dealing with this and solving problems.
Trumpism is about, you know, taking festering prejudice and using it to destroy the government and further power and profit.
And so this thing is exactly the opposite of what they're designed to take care of.
And it shows.
It's been a total disaster.
Well I take that one step further and the real motivation for Trump to have this all sound a lot less intense and less dangerous than it is, is so he can win the election so he won't go to jail.
I truly feel like his prime motivation at the moment to win re-election is that they won't get prosecuted for all of his crimes once he's out of office, which we can do Well, there's no other motivation besides self-empowerment, self-enrichment, and self-preservation.
That's the frightening thing here.
presidency right now.
And I don't know if anybody else wants to acknowledge that, but I think it's prime motivation at this point.
Well, there's no other motivation besides self-empowerment, self-enrichment, and self-preservation.
That's the frightening thing here.
I mean, there was this moment, I don't know if people saw it, but like when he was at the CDC, it was this really bizarre moment in If you watched the whole thing, I mean, good luck.
And by the way, we haven't even talked about the fact that the Republican Party is probably infected with coronavirus because of CPAC, which is just poetic justice.
I just touched my face.
I'm gonna have to throw on a little bit of hand sanitizer real fast.
You just kissed your fingers.
I did.
This is, I gotta learn to live in the new age, Nick.
So, you know, you watch this thing at the CDC, I say as I actually, you know, sanitize my hands, and Trump is out there and he's talking about how all these people, all these scientists keep saying, I don't know how you know so much about this.
And then he tells everybody that he had an uncle who was a scientist.
Almost as if somehow or another, genetically, all of his information came down to him.
And there's this moment in the middle of it where he's like, he says, these people deserve a lot of credit.
But I want people, I want our listeners to go watch this.
It kind of blew my mind, and I felt like something had gone wrong in my brain.
When he says, these people deserve credit, and he's supposedly talking about the scientists at the CDC, he starts pointing at himself.
And he says, these people deserve credit.
That's all he cares about.
He doesn't care if people die from this thing.
He only cares, and this is, by the way, this is the root of the big problem in all of this stuff.
The self-serving of Donald Trump isn't just that he's greedy and that he's selfish.
It's that he's greedy and selfish to the point where he literally cannot afford other people humanity.
Right?
There's not even the beginnings of empathy.
So something like this isn't actually about curbing a disease.
It's not about curbing an epidemic or a pandemic.
It's about, oh, how's this going to affect me as a person?
And what happens if people feel bad about it?
Like, I didn't do well.
So at this point, it's just a public relations campaign.
Right.
And what's going to eventually happen, and people need to know this, Authoritarians like Donald Trump will immediately, anytime that they are discovered that they've done something wrong or made a mistake, they will find scapegoats.
And in this case, they're going to talk about biological weapons from China, and they're going to talk about immigrants.
Mark it down, be ready for it, because he's not capable of keeping this thing in check, and that's exactly what's going to happen, and it's going to be a really dangerous, bizarre, frightening time.
It's just, it's coming.
I can go one better on that press conference he had at the CDC, because not only were they talking about how many testing kits are going to be available, he then tries to go back in time and say, yesterday everybody could have had one if they wanted one, and today they could have one whenever they wanted one.
And by the way, remember, there was a batch that went out that didn't work.
And they're perfect.
The letter.
The transcript.
Well, first he says the letter.
And I think everyone – it wasn't quite long enough for people to sort of stand there and be like, what letter?
And then he goes the transcription, which is another – his vocabulary is so bad.
The transcript of his call to the Ukraine – I mean – excuse me, to Ukraine was perfect.
It's like not only is he so – does he suffer from malignant narcissism, which is a really problematic thing to have scientifically or psychologically when you're a leader.
But it's – he also makes these connections with things that don't have any connection.
That's what's so frightening.
Maybe because there's only a very few things going on in his mind at once anyway so it's like they're just sort of all there's only like the four things in his mind and they kind of connect that somehow on his own so that's where it gets kind of crazy about this kind of thing where it's like how are you what are you thinking about here we're supposed to try and get people to to be calm and also to solve problems and he won't even admit that there's a problem.
So there's something going on there, which you're exactly right about Trump and malignant narcissism.
These are things that lead to authoritarian behavior.
And I was trying to explain this to people earlier today.
You know, we have this thought in our head that for whatever reason, authoritarians are people who wake up in the morning, they jump out of bed, and they're like, it's time to be evil.
You know, I'm really going to do some awful things.
But the truth is that authoritarians, they don't think that they're evil.
They think that they're not just right.
They're the only ones in the world who are right.
And everybody else is just so stupid and so incompetent that they're in their way.
That's the reason that they get rid of democracy.
Because it's like, you are impeding my ability to make things better.
That's why every authoritarian that rises up in power, they get a little bit of power and then they start dismantling everyone around them because they say, well, I can't do what I need to do because people are in my way, right?
So that's what Donald Trump does all the time.
That's why he keeps attacking democratic institutions.
He doesn't understand what a democratic institution is, right?
And they always, always hate experts.
They hate experts and scientists and people who understand more than them because they think that they just intuitively understand everything easily.
That goes back to what he said at the CDC.
He just has a natural intellect and instinct for these things.
That is better than what any of these doctors have to say or experts.
And that's what we saw when he was talking to pharma leaders.
And the pharma leaders are like, we might be able to get a vaccine next year.
And he's like, oh, next month.
That sounds good.
I like that.
And it's like, no, you have no idea what's going on here.
And on top of that, not only do you not know what's going on, you lack the ability to understand that you don't know what's going on.
Which is actually so much more dangerous than the ignorance, right?
It's the willful ignorance.
And by the way, if his uncle was some sort of super genius at MIT who served a record number of years, I think it's safe to say that whatever that was skipped a generation.
Well, it also speaks to, and by the way, this is, I promise I'm bringing this thing around, I'm bringing the car around to park it.
Like, that also speaks to this thing, and if you ever pay a lot of attention to Trump, or you go back and you look at his history, or you look up his family, his family, they're deep believers in genetic superiority.
Like, they believe that certain people are born better than other people.
That's one of the reasons why he'll tell you that he's a genius and he understands things and all that.
You know, it's the idea that it moves back and forth.
Well, the other flip side of genetic superiority is that you start looking at the people who aren't quote-unquote superior like you and you're like, well, nature says they should die.
You know what I mean?
Like, look at the people that he probably thinks are dying from coronavirus.
He probably thinks that these are people who are weak.
He probably thinks that these people are poor because they're not capable.
And that's the mindset of a person like Trump, right?
Is that these people who are suffering and these people who are in the middle of this thing, they kind of deserve what's happening.
And for him, when he goes to sleep at night, he's like, how dare these people die and besmirch my name and hurt my re-election chances.
And I know that sounds bonkers and out there only because it's bonkers and out there.
I mean, that's his mindset.
That's how this guy goes through the world.
And that's who is in charge of all this stuff.
Donald Trump said he was surprised to understand or to hear that people actually died from the regular flu.
Said that.
And then he's also trying to claim that he's got some special ability to understand this stuff.
Do you realize that his grandfather died from the Spanish flu?
His grandpa.
His grandpa died.
Was one of the early people who died from the Spanish flu.
Probably for the same reason.
His grandfather probably said, ah, it's nothing.
I'm going to go out and work and I don't feel that or whatever.
And then boom.
Speaking of saying it's nothing, can we talk about the fact that the Republican Party, which has been going on Fox and talking about how Democrats are building up the coronavirus to be this big giant thing and how which has been going on Fox and talking about how Democrats are building up the coronavirus to be this big giant thing Don't change anything about your lives.
You have Matt Gatz who...
For whatever reason, I thought it would be hilarious because that dude is really funny to pose for a bunch of pictures of himself in a gas mask as people are suffering around the world and eventually are going to suffer and one of his constituents just died.
What's the punchline with Matt Gaetz then?
The whole punchline is that all of these idiots were at CPAC which is where a bunch of self-righteous willfully ignorant Republicans get together and and they're just like worshiping guns and corporate power and you know bending their knee at the altar of the the Trump altar.
All of them end up at CPAC Where all of them are talking about the Democratic folks probably yucking it up and being like, yeah, those Democrats are washing their hands.
Give me a kiss!
They all end up Getting exposed to a person with coronavirus.
And then, let's just take this, this is great because this is breaking news on the Muckrake podcast and by the time people hear this they will have always known.
Several of them have been in close proximity and physical contact with Donald Trump, the President of the United States.
And it is just, it's this thing where it's like We live in a world where everybody can deny quote-unquote basic reality or everyone has basic realities.
You know what has a basic reality?
The microbial virus world.
You know?
They don't care about Breitbart.
They don't care about what Exxon pays to make people think that there's no climate change.
Like, at the end of the day, the microscopic world doesn't give a shit what your altered reality is.
And these people... And by the way, I don't want anything to happen to them.
I'm not one of those people.
I'm not like, yeah, watch them go down or anything.
I hope they recover and hopefully have a moment of reckoning and understanding and healing and they'll come around, which they won't, but I would, you know, I'm not rooting for that, but the delicious irony of these idiots who have lived in these realities where they profit and they gain power, just, it's really, it's almost too much to fathom.
It's almost too much to wrap your head around at the moment.
Let's talk about some facts real quick because this minimization of the virus, that it's like the flu or whatever, like here's the thing, this is so much more contagious than the regular flu.
It isn't crazy.
So all the hand sanitizing you're doing Jared, you know, it's probably just something, it gives you something to do.
Because it's not really... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Nick.
Sorry Nick, I couldn't hear you.
I was, I can't hear you over the hand sanitizer that I'm putting on.
Yes.
So, you know, it gives something to do, but it's not really... There's so many other ways, especially with airborne, with droplets, that you can get it.
It can live on surfaces, too, although I guess, in theory, if you, you know... But once you touch it, touch your face.
So it doesn't... That's one big issue here.
And also, this isn't necessarily about, like, you know, infirm or old people dying because they get it, and that's why they're dying.
This is a serious problem for, you know... I know one of the people has it now in L.A.
I haven't seen him in a long time, but I know who he is.
He was in Italy, and they came back.
The whole trip got it.
There's a whole bunch of Norwegians now, I think, that might have been connected to that same ski trip in Italy.
This person is early 50s, completely healthy.
Fit as fit could be for his age, and for anybody's age.
And he's hospitalized.
It's serious.
He's, you know, very trouble breathing, can't even really speak much without coughing all the time.
You know, it got worse as he's getting out of the hospital.
So this is not something that you want or it's not something you can just shrug off as being like even the regular flu.
And that's the other issue here is that, you know, the minimization of this, of the seriousness is so troubling to me.
And I'm wondering if you feel like it goes along political lines.
Does this sort of break?
Because I had a guy out here in my house working in the back who's like, oh, it's nothing.
This is like five days ago.
I have never been sick one day in my life.
And you know, the guy was wearing like the Oakley sunglasses and he's about 50 something and he's got like the slicked hair.
Like, you know, I just got the sense he's, you know, probably Orange County Republican, whatever.
But I'm wondering if you feel that same way where this is breaking down among political lines as far as who's taking it seriously and who's not.
Oh, absolutely.
First off, I'll go ahead and start there and say, you know, our listeners might remember that when I was out covering the Iowa caucuses, I got just waylaid by the flu.
And, you know, I look back and I'm like, is that what happened or whatever?
I was like bedridden for
Days and you know I had those moments where it's like I and I like to think about myself as like as myself as like a hearty kind of guy and and I don't get sick that much and I I was like lying uh lying in this hotel room on Super Bowl Sunday I was like this is how people die of the flu right it's just like the up and down fever the problems uh breathing it was awful and nasty but I want to put something out there real fast before I get around to this big question which is America is absolutely primed
For a pandemic.
And it's prime for a pandemic because our economy puts people at risk.
Because the economy doesn't care about people.
People aren't given sufficient health care, so they're not out there getting preventative care.
They don't have sufficient health care, and so they're not going to the doctor when these symptoms start showing up.
Not to mention the fact that the tests aren't out there, obviously.
But also, people are kept insecure in their jobs so they can have lower wages.
And do you know what that means?
They're gonna go to work when they're sick.
They don't feel like they can self-quarantine and that they can miss work because they might lose their job and they might lose their entire lives because of that.
Now, all of that goes into a political paradigm here, absolutely, which is Republicans want to believe, and being a Republican right now in 2020 is an identity, right?
You're not a Republican right now unless you want to believe something about yourself.
It's almost like being an Oakland Raiders fan.
It's like, you know, if I'm wearing the silver and black, it means screw you, man.
Rules don't matter.
If you're being a Republican right now, or you're wearing a MAGA hat, or you're supporting Donald Trump, it's basically telling the world that you don't care about other people's feelings and that you are strong and other people are weak.
When you look at something like a pandemic, people just shy this stuff off.
It's scientific, right?
You can't see it, so you can't feel it, and you just have to understand science at play.
You have to understand that, like, everybody gets sick.
It doesn't mean that you're somehow or another weaker than other people.
Right.
It's just something that happens.
It's a natural process.
Those things are the complete opposite of what it means to be a Republican right now.
And on top of that, it is a moment where anything that could happen right now that would make people feel bad about Trump or question Trump or his authority, they have to throw it out wholesale.
Right?
And so obviously, if there is a thing that's out of control and Trump can't control it, then in their minds, which is all about following the leader and following authority, then they have to believe this thing is just a big giant hoax to try and make all this stuff happen.
Which is, unfortunately, going to lead to a situation, again, where when this thing gets out of control and more people start dying, and unfortunately they will, and Trump is going to bungle it, they're going to start looking for conspiracy theories They're going to start blaming immigrants and vulnerable populations.
And that's how authoritarian movements work.
And that's one of the reasons why they don't believe this stuff is because they're so steeped in that authoritarian mindset that they can't get out of it.
And meanwhile, Trump had already gotten rid of the emergency response team for pandemics as it is, or 80% of that team.
And, you know, and then you hear him say at some point a few days ago, oh, we can get those people back in a second if we need them.
It's like, that's not how that works.
You can't just uproot people and bring them right back after getting rid of them.
These are career public servants who are dedicated this way to what the science is.
And then meanwhile, you have Trump just denying in front of these people what they're saying.
It really is troubling.
Now, here's another, you can add another layer to this.
They've already been trying to dismantle Obamacare and get rid of people's health coverage.
We can't get the testing anyway.
When you do, it seems like it's really expensive.
I can't quite get a handle on what it is across the border, you know, if it really is $3,000 a test or not.
But the bigger fear, from what I understand looking into this a little bit deeper, is that, let's just say they cover the test.
And let's just say they are hospitalized because they get it.
It is unclear to anybody if it's going to be covered.
And then certainly, even if it is covered, the high deductible plans that so many people have been forced into will end up bankrupting them anyway.
Because you're talking about any treatment for coronavirus will be super expensive because you'll be in the hospital.
And that's another issue here because once you start getting into the tens of thousands.
And by the way, I just watched a YouTube video which described what exponential growth is and how this works with numbers.
So the idea being that Hollywood can predict how much money a movie will make over its entire run based on the first four hours of its open.
And it's within almost exactly accurate.
Well, in the same way, you can predict where this is going to go and how this is going to grow up until a point where it starts to level off and then slow down a little bit.
And none of these numbers indicate that that's going to happen any time in the next month, which then means you're talking about it could be 100 million people who get affected. - Okay, so a lot of things to unpack there.
First things first.
None of the projections show that this thing is even going to slow, even under good management, until at least probably summer.
Right?
And that's if there's good management.
And one of the reasons is because this thing doesn't really enjoy heat that much.
Or, you know, viruses most of the time don't enjoy heat.
That's an entirely different thing altogether.
Let's talk about the economy.
And I want to put this out there, and I know that there's people right now who are like, Economics!
I don't want to talk about numbers.
What I want to talk about is how this thing is constructed, okay?
So this whole thing, I've been screaming this from the rooftops, the economy and the way that it works is not set up to be stable.
It is a giant panic machine, and what it does is it skyrockets and people make a bunch of money, and you have to be one of the people who gets out before it hits its peak and goes down.
We might be in the down period, but let's also talk about something.
The reason the economy is in trouble right now is not just the logistical problems of coronavirus.
The economy is about confidence.
It's about reality.
It's about how you perceive reality.
The economy is in trouble right now because they have no faith in Donald Trump's ability to make any of this work.
They do not believe that he can curb the coronavirus.
They don't think that he can help the economy.
And so all of a sudden everyone's just like, I gotta get out because we're on the way down.
Okay?
Well, let's say for instance, Okay, on one hand, you have this economy that's set up where people can't get healthcare and they can't do all this stuff.
It's also set up where it's going to fail because people are afraid of coronavirus and, you know, all of the faith behind it.
Another reason that everyone's scared is because no one has healthcare to be able to pay their bills.
So what happens if health care bills ruin your ability to go out and buy food?
It ruins your ability to go out and buy TVs and cars and all that stuff, right?
You're going to pay medical bills instead of spending it and throwing it in the economy.
The economy goes down.
Nothing about the economy as it is wired actually works for anybody besides the people who are at the top who are enjoying the ride and they're like, oh, I better jump off now.
Everybody else down here, all these pissants, are just being, like, treated as fodder.
And that's why when you turn on the news, it's like, oh, it's been a bad day for the economy.
Oh, and also 20 people died.
It's like, oh, I start to see what we're doing here and what this has always been about.
And I wrote about this on The Muckrake.
Like, this is one of those things where you suddenly have startling clarity.
About how inhuman this economy is, and how unreal it is, and how unstable it is.
And it's one of those things, if I was a Democratic candidate right now, you would have to haul me off the TV for screaming, the economy doesn't trust Trump, and the economy is not wired to help people, and it puts everyone in danger during a pandemic.
And those are three truths that everybody should be screaming from the rooftop.
Right.
And what you're saying now is you're slowly filling in the toilet with all these different nuggets about the economy, right?
And it's getting full.
I'm about to stop the toilet up for you right now because...
Well, you can at least say, oh, well, if we're going to really have a problem with recession, we can just lower the interest rates.
Thank God we can do that to slow this down.
Well, guess what?
You can't do that because they're already pretty much at zero as it is.
Oh, well, thank God the oil prices are still okay where you can keep an economy floating that way.
No, we just had a huge run on that where a barrel, the actual barrel that you can buy is worth more than the oil that goes inside the barrel.
Okay, yeah, keep squeezing some more PRL.
That'll give you something to do with your hands while you're listening to all this stuff.
So, you know, we're in a real problem here because now the Dow closed 2,000 points down again today.
So you're now approaching some of the all-time big, that actually is the all-time biggest as far as volume goes, a drop of all time.
Then again, you know, back in 29, there was literally the Dow was at like, was like 50 or whatever, like it wasn't even like a number.
You know, if you want some context here, during the Great Depression, when the stock market crashed at the end of 1929... So glad you brought that up.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
Listen, we have symbiosis here.
So, within a week, the Dow lost 30% of its value.
Now we're approaching that and I asked a buddy of mine who's in this business about that and whether he has any concerns and of course he's like well that was there was also a bank solvency issue back in 29 which we don't seem to have that issue now but you know we probably said that in 2008 as well and look where we are now
So even if we don't have a solvency issue with banks, you know, okay, maybe no Great Depression, but certainly I don't think anyone's going to argue that we're not going to have some really serious issues.
Oh, and by the way, I didn't bring up supply lines in China that are completely disrupted.
And by the way, it's not just, oh, the next washing machine you want to buy for your house.
We're talking about medicine that they make for everybody in the world.
That's really where we're going to have a problem because China can't get back on its feet for a while.
This is where we are.
And now that toilet is – there isn't a plumber in the world that's going to fix that.
Yeah, let's – if you're listening to this in your car, you might want to pull over for a minute.
I use the I use the metaphor all the time on this podcast that our economy is set up like a runaway train, right?
It's always hurtling down the track as fast as humanly possible and everyone's just hoping it makes the next turn, right?
But knowing eventually there's going to be a turn that it doesn't make.
Now, that's by design.
That's how this thing works.
You brought up the Great Depression.
The Great Depression started because, in a big way, you had a train that, you know, was hurtling down the tracks, and eventually it was not going to make the turn, and everybody just knew that was what was going to happen, and that was the nature of our stock market.
That is the way it's always worked in America.
Well, right after the Great Depression, what happens with FDR and this new type of economy that we start having, is the government's like, hey, okay, I understand you need that train.
We're gonna maybe put a couple of brakes on it.
And maybe we're gonna put somebody on the train who knows something about trains.
You know?
Who can, like, make sure that the train makes the next stop.
And just in order to, you know, smooth this thing out and get rid of the instability.
Well, in the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan and the people who basically had their hand up his back as a puppet, because he didn't understand any of this, you know, people were giving him cartoons and movies to try and teach him about the economy, and he's like, oh, that's okay, I don't work very much.
He basically pushes for Reaganomics.
You know, top down, whatever you want to call it.
And they take the brakes off the train.
They look at the dude who was supposed to be on the train, watching this whole thing.
And they're like, hey, you're kind of a stick in the mud.
You're out of here.
And all of a sudden we're hurtling down the tracks again.
Well, guess what happens?
There's always one curve up ahead that you're not going to make.
And it would be smart to pull back a little bit.
Find a speed where you can make all the turns.
Why do they exist?
Why could they be disrupted by what's going on in China?
that.
There's always been one curve coming.
And guess what?
This thing has all of the ingredients to be the curve that the train jumps.
And what you just brought up, and this is something that no one's talking about.
So logistics lines, right?
Why do they exist?
Why could they be disrupted by what's going on in China?
And here's the answer.
The people at the top who made a ton of money and were so wealthy and powerful, they looked at Americans and they said, you guys make too much money and you want too much health care and you want too many benefits.
We're going to go to another country.
And we're going to find a country where people don't work for as much money.
They don't need benefits.
Some of them are slaves and they're mistreated.
They don't need, you know, a 40-hour work week.
We're going to go over there and we're going to make stuff and then we'll bring it back and we'll sell it to you on the cheap and everything will be fine.
You know, America is not going to decay and fall apart.
That's why the logistics are falling apart.
It's because the neoliberal order is not set up to work forever.
It's really unstable, and if you find that turn that a train's not going to make, it hops the turn.
And we are looking at a moment right now that that turn could very, very well be up ahead, and no one's ready for it.
Well, here's the thing.
If you want to look at who would be best suited to help us through those kind of times to ensure... Donald Trump.
Donald Trump.
He is the one to help us through that moment.
I'm sorry.
And also to ensure that, you know, finally, maybe once and for all, normal people don't get screwed by the economy when these things happen.
There's only one person in the world I could pick that would be the best suited for doing that, and that would be Elizabeth Warren.
Who's dedicated their entire life to trying to protect everybody else and the normal people from all of these wild swings and everything like that that only the richest people end up benefiting from.
Which is a nice kind of set way because we haven't discussed her and what she's going to do amidst all this because we're waiting for her endorsement of somebody.
Do we want to get into that right now?
Yeah, we can.
It's a bummer, man.
I mean, you know, I'm gonna throw this out there because one of the things that happens, you know, we are members of social media and we watch this whole thing happen.
I am just beyond tired of watching people fight each other to death on social media about candidates.
Uh, particularly right now when we're facing all this stuff and with Donald Trump.
So I'm just gonna throw this out there.
Just because I'm about to say some complimentary things about Elizabeth Warren doesn't mean that, like, I don't appreciate other candidates.
Also, like, I can say appreciative things about Bernie Sanders and also recognize that he has a toxic base that occasionally harasses people.
I can look at Joe Biden.
I can say appreciative things while understanding that he has been problematic and that I have concerns about his policies.
Those are things that we can do.
So if you're listening to the Muckrake Podcast, we expect you to come here and have a mature, honest conversation that is, you know, outside of ad hominem attacks.
Yeah, Elizabeth Warren is the candidate of institutional economic reform and basically has been within the system for a very long time trying to make some of these things better, trying to make sure that that, you know, metaphorical train has some brakes on it.
You know, Bernie Sanders has very much like, you know, galvanized people with anger towards that thing and is talking about a revolution and how to change it.
Seeing people with good ideas and, you know, and some actual plans fall out of the race, it's a real bummer.
And I also think, since we're here telling the truth, It's problematic that the Democratic Party and the people within it like to talk all the time about diversity, representation, and respect for different types of people and opinions, and we have now ended up with every person of color and every woman out of the race, and I think that speaks to a larger problem within the Democratic Party, and that is where I, you know, I get online and find people yelling at me.
So, there.
Okay, well, I mean, lots of good... And by the way, Illinois either declared a state of emergency or a proclamation of emergency.
I'm not sure what the difference is, but they're now freaking out about this.
We did mention that Italy is pretty much shut down.
The country cannot travel anywhere, and they quarantined a whole city.
So, just, you know, to get back to that for a second, this is really getting crazy.
Now, to go back to Warren, because I've been having some thoughts about this really quickly, you know, obviously she needs to pick the winner.
Because anybody that promises her whatever she wants to get the endorsement means nothing if they lose the general election, right?
Or I'm sorry, yeah, if they lose general or they lose even the nomination to be a Democratic nominee.
So that's where I think she's at.
And it sounds ruthless.
It sounds like all against ideological lines.
It's sort of all bottom line kind of stuff.
You know, she certainly wants to advance her ability to get things done.
So I'm not surprised that she'd be sitting there thinking, OK, I got to really figure out who would win this over between Bernie and Trump, between Bernie and Biden.
Wow.
Right.
But why?
Are you saying wow, because Elizabeth Warren, of all people, wouldn't do that?
No, it was the Freudian slip of going from Biden to Trump.
That was a moment there.
Yeah, right.
Which, by the way, we're going to have a segment here in a minute talking about this thing, but it is a weird moment.
No, she's more or less a kingmaker.
I think everyone... Don't touch my face.
Oh, good lord!
God, Nick!
Gotta get my Purell.
Okay, so this is the most neurotic episode of the Muckrake podcast that I hope that we will have in a very long time.
I mean, I'm still in travel mode, which is just like moving through airports and being very, very cognizant of every possible surface that you could possibly ever come across.
So there's that.
No, I think that...
I think people are still obviously supporting Bernie Sanders, and he has a very large base.
But the conventional wisdom at this point is that Biden's momentum is going to take him across the finish line.
And what's going to happen with Elizabeth Warren, I have literally no idea.
If she went and endorsed Biden right now, it'd probably be a nail in a coffin.
If she went and endorsed Bernie Sanders, I'm not really sure what that would end up being at this point.
But yeah, it's a really sad state of affairs.
And I think people have a reason to be upset.
I think she got froze out by a media that is obsessed with horse race, dichotomous races, and also, you know, has inherent misogyny.
And I think she's also a victim of, you know, a hangover from Hillary Clinton's run in 2016.
I mean, there's a bunch of stuff here that I think a lot of people need to take a look at and should be concerned about.
Well, that reminds me, I have a, can I pick one of your bones?
Is that right?
I got a bone to pick?
I got to pick one.
I love it.
Here's a thing I've been seeing a lot of, and a lot of the media gets blamed, and I know you on your soapbox really kind of angrily calling out the narratives and the electability issue and how the media plays into that.
And I do feel like, and we saw some pushback in South Carolina about this, that if you push too hard on that issue, then you sort of take away Uh, the notion that the voter themselves do have some information and they actually do vote on their own issues versus just what the media is telling them.
And so, you know, granted, I even said that on Twitter and someone came back to me saying, oh, you mean the same voters who, you know, elected Trump, you know, and who constantly, and by the way, this is why I'm always running against, constantly vote against their self interests and, uh, and, and what would be good for the country in some weird ideological formation.
So.
Yeah, it does exist, but I do want to make clear that, you know, if you are going to get out there and vote, generally, you know, that's a lot of energy to do, especially in some of these places where it takes seven hours to do a vote.
I just feel like a lot of those people are somewhat informed and are not simply just sheep that are being pressed by, you know, a bunch of ads that have been spent.
I want to be firm that I am anti-sheep theory.
What I would say is this, and I was actually saying this to a class before we started talking.
I think one of the defining problems of modern society is the individual's reluctance to believe that they are affected by outside sources, right?
So like there's this relationship, and this is like the person in society, there's a relationship between a person and what they feel and what they think and everything outside of them, whether it's Friends, or movements, or media, or whatever you want to call it.
And they're constantly moving between each other.
But we get really confused about which parts are authentic, right?
And which parts are internal.
Like, you know, I like to tell people all the time that it's like, oh, advertising doesn't affect me.
The hell it doesn't!
Advertising is really effective and it understands more about me than I understand about myself sometimes.
So, like, that reluctance actually keeps me sometimes from being able to understand why I'm doing a thing or, you know, why I'm purchasing a thing, why I'm voting for a candidate, any of those things.
But as humans, especially Americans, Americans are bad about this.
We like to believe that we are like captains of our own destiny at all times, and that nothing could ever affect us, and propaganda would never work on me, and these appeals would never work on me, or the media has no effect on me.
Well, that's fine.
Maybe the effect is less than maybe I'm on my soapbox beating about, but it's still there.
Right.
And so I think one of our main political problems, and Trumpism is absolutely the essence of this, we lose track of why we do the things we do and what it is that's being, how we're being manipulated versus our original thought.
So I think you're right.
There are people who definitely went out and they were like, this is the right thing to do.
But I think you have to look at the outliers in this situation.
I mean, the bounce that Biden had after South Carolina is almost unheralded.
Like this is a really bizarre thing that like Most people can't account for and most people sat there and I talked to a bunch of experts and a bunch of analysts and everybody's just like Everybody's just like this is a really bizarre thing that people are going to be looking at and writing about in journals and books for years and the only thing I kept looking at from every angle trying to find it and the media insistence on Biden versus Sanders is really the only thing that shows even a portion of what happened
So I think you're right.
I think people have obviously beliefs, and they have candidates they support, but I think we have to also take a look at the outside influences.
All right, fair enough.
But don't forget, he won a bunch of states where he didn't even campaign, didn't spend any money in.
Didn't have an office in.
Right.
So, but okay, so the argument could be, well, the national media kind of whipped up all that extra, you know.
And by the way, that is true.
Like, I was watching something on maybe MSNBC, and they literally aired one of the campaigns Ads, you know, for free on a news show.
Let's look at what they're airing now.
And it struck me as like, that probably shouldn't be OK, you know, because they're not airing the other candidates ad to talk about that or the latest ad.
So that's that's fascinating to me that they did that.
And I kind of want to say it was Biden's latest ad, but it might have been Bernie's.
I can't remember now.
But, you know, that there's all sorts of things that we need to start putting in place to make it to, you know, to at least try and have the appearance of impartiality over this thing.
Yeah, there are things that we have to put in place to fix this because it's a major, major problem.
But I want to point to that with the narrative and what we're talking about and the things that happen in the way they influence.
So, I'm a fiction writer by trade and, you know, a political journalist by action.
And one of the things that I'm always seeing is this inherent narrative.
We always have inherent narratives in everything.
So, like, it's not just writing a story or a novel.
It's also, like, media coverage, right?
And in order to show you how this happens, I just want to You know, gesture over here to Britney Jean Spears, right?
And any number of people like Britney Spears who we have had as celebrities, right?
We push them up the mountain, and they're the best thing ever, and then they get to the top of the mountain, and then we just destroy them!
It's like a sacrificial thing, you know?
We destroy them and watch them destroyed, and then what happens, Nick?
Oh, they're coming back up!
Oh, they're making a life for themselves!
And we just go through these narratives in that way.
What's happening with Biden right now, and we're watching a course correction in that narrative, right?
And this goes back to exactly where you're at and something that we need to talk about and prepare people for.
It was like, oh, Biden's going to be the one who takes on Sanders, and he's the Democrats' best hope, and he's most electable.
Well, Republicans have already seized on some stuff, and I don't know if our listeners have seen it yet or if they totally have, you know, put it out.
The line out there is that Biden is in cognitive decline.
And we can have arguments about age and all that type of stuff, but they're projecting on him the problems of Donald Trump.
They are doing, he's in cognitive decline, he's corrupt, he has corrupt dealings in Ukraine, he's creepy with women, you know, he's racist.
And by the way, everything that I just said describes Donald Trump.
They're going to run against Joe Biden as being who Trump actually is.
And the media is already picking up on it.
And left-wing, center media, all of them, they're going to follow.
Because that's what they do.
And that's what we're looking at right now in what the potential presidential matchup is going to be like.
Right, but to me, someone's like, great, those are your issues with Biden?
Well, you clearly have no problem with those issues, since the guy that you support has them all, so what's the difference at this point?
You know, like, that's almost what I feel like at that point, you know.
Now, let me ask you this, like, is this a stuttering thing, or is it cognitive decline?
Because, you know, when Biden starts saying, oh, Biden-Obama administration, and he starts saying that, you know, he supports the Trump administration when he can't get the words out, I don't know anymore what the deal is with Biden.
And at this point, because again, Trump is so bad, we need to just get him out.
I've now gotten to the point where you were railing against, which is that electability thing, which is why we shouldn't have, you know, appointed Biden to do this.
But either way, if Biden diminished can get him out somehow, we can prop him up and then have other people around him.
I guess it's what we're going to have to do.
I have no idea.
I have no idea whatsoever.
I was, like I said, I was traveling over the past week or so and there, you know, you have moments where, you know, if you're in this political game, you do simulations in your head.
You know what I mean?
Like you play it out.
It's like move by move by move, which is...
It never actually works.
I mean, we found that out in 2016.
It's almost worthless when you actually do that stuff.
And then, all of a sudden, I started talking myself into, like, an Eagleton situation.
So, in, like, 72 with McGovern, we find out that Thomas Eagleton, his VP candidate against Richard Nixon, um, you know, had electroshock therapy, and had a history of depression, and it sunk McGovern.
It wasn't the only thing that sunk McGovern, let's be honest, but, you know, it was a big thing.
And all of a sudden I was like, oh, what if there is a decline or whatever?
And then all of a sudden I was like, what am I doing?
Why am I conforming my thoughts to something that is obviously being crafted by the Trump re-election campaign?
And it happened immediately.
You see it happen with Trump.
You see it happen with surrogates on Fox News.
You see it happen with Sean Hannity.
You see it happen with Donald Trump Jr.
And it is collaborated and it occurs.
So the only thing that we can do, I think, is keep track of what that narrative is.
But that doesn't mean our media is not going to follow for it.
Because look what they do all the time.
Hillary Clinton was sick at a 9-11 memorial and they were like, yeah, she might be dying.
That's true.
She might be near death.
And that was like in, I think that was in, yeah, it was in late September or early September.
My God, I'm having a hard time with the calendar.
That was in September and they played that for months.
And they had experts come on and talk about whether or not she like was dying while running for office.
She looks pretty good to me.
I don't know for everyone else.
She would laugh and they would say, that's a seizure.
Right, right.
But that's where we're going with this thing.
It's not like Trump's going to fight fair.
It's all about projection.
They're only talking about this stuff because they know it's what's wrong with Trump, right?
And that's what they always do.
The corruption and the conspiracy is over there because they know deep down that they are corrupt and they're engaged in conspiracies.
It's just, write it down.
That's where we're going.
I think they totally are aware of it.
I don't know.
I mean, I have interacted with somebody closely who, you know, we talked about this before, like the torque that must exist in their psyche to be able to handle all these different positions at once.
But deep down, I think they don't.
I think they can't.
You know what I mean?
They can't go there.
They cannot allow that to happen.
And in that same way that Trump cannot admit that anything is wrong and everything is perfect is the same muscle that keeps them from making the connections to like, wait a minute, Donald Trump, you know, has these things too.
I just think they can't do it.
So whether they do or not, they just can't.
That's an interesting conversation.
I think we could have a whole show about this.
I think all the time Real fast, I think all the time about this book.
It's called Behold the Pale Horse.
And anybody who's ever heard of this, this is like the granddaddy of the modern American paranoid conspiracy theory community.
It's by a guy named Bill Cooper who died in a shootout with like federal agents.
And, you know, it was like the guy, he was like, you know, the grandfather of Alex Jones and was there during the Patriot Movement and all this stuff.
Anyway, Behold the Pale Horse is a story.
It's all about, you know, governments creating diseases, engaging in conspiracies, Illuminati, aliens.
And he says in like the first opening chapter, he's like, I know that there are conspiracies out there.
Because if I had the ability to be in a conspiracy, I most certainly would be in a conspiracy.
It would be the smart thing to do.
So I think you're probably right that there are parts of them that have no idea that they're engaging in these conspiracies and corruption.
They think they're just doing the right thing.
And then, meanwhile, I think a lot of it is, again, projection.
It's the idea of, oh, I have these feelings and it's where my mind goes, so obviously these people would go there.
So it's probably a spectrum.
I think that's probably right.
I mean, what pops in my mind, too, is when they interviewed people who had hosted Russian-sponsored Facebook get-togethers in 2016 for Trump, and when they explained to them that, you know what, this was actually a Russian propaganda thing, to the camera, to the interviewer, to his face, they said, no, that's not true.
It couldn't be.
It's not right.
And they're like, ma'am, we have the, we know who you were discussing, we know who organized this thing.
an American, you were duped.
And they just simply just shake their head and say, no, that's not right. - But that's what we were talking about, right?
Which is the idea that people are being influenced outside of themselves and are in complete denial that they could ever be influenced.
- Right, that too.
Okay, so there's no solution, Jared.
Now I'm that guy.
We're all those people.
We're all in this together. - I hope, well, oh my God.
We're all circling the drain together.
Hold hands, hands across declining America.
Yeah, I don't know.
It has to start somewhere.
I have so many conversations with people who are looking for silver bullet solutions.
Do you know what I mean?
They're just like one thing that we can do and it will take care of everything.
I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
And if we can reject media who treat stories like this, I think that's a start.
I don't know.
What do you think helps?
I think it's, by the way, this is sort of explaining why maybe we need Biden to do this.
We need the weigh station in between Trump and onto something that's more progressive.
Wait, time out, time out.
Is this an official muck rake Nick Halseman endorsement?
Well, listen, I'm not going to endorse Bernie.
Breaking news everybody!
There you go.
So, yeah.
I mean, if you follow my Twitter following, it's like, you know, all I do is engage with Bernie bros who are upset with me for saying that, you know, Trump is going to destroy Bernie.
And I certainly can't argue against some of the things that we're seeing Biden do that seemed really concerning the way he is trying to, you know, communicate and really struggling.
And so, but again, it still feels better, obviously, than we can't have Trump going into office again.
So we need something.
So I think that this is where we're at, where, you know, it's too much of a shock to try and go to Bernie.
So we need something that kind of shepherds us, you know, more slowly across the board.
Now, that might not be fair.
It might not be the way, like, even Martin Luther King wanted it to have happened.
But, you know, I think so.
I'm glad we have Nick on the board.
We know where Nick stands.
We have Nick on one side of a line.
I think that's good.
I think that's healthy for a podcast.
I think keeping people informed and keeping that stuff out there, I think that's good.
I am not taking a stand on this because, I'll be honest, I am really conflicted by a lot of different things in this situation.
And it's what you're talking about, more or less, which is, I have to tell you, I understand the idea of electability even though I rail against it all the time.
I understand that people say that, you know, we have no idea how people are going to react to Bernie Sanders' revolution and, you know, radical ideas about the economy.
I'm also really really terrified about this idea that if we just get rid of Trump everything will be better because it will not Trump and again I try and say this every podcast Trump is a symptom of a much larger disease and that disease has been in the American body politic for a very long time and the more that we deny that it's there the more that we give rise to oh oh we didn't even talk about this I mean Eric Prince is out there like
Eric Prince, who is the brother of the Secretary of Education and, you know, tried to sell his mercenary force as the Afghanistan Fighting Army, is out there recruiting people to spy on liberal groups and undermine civil liberties.
But, you know, if we just get rid of Trump, all that stuff just goes away, right?
So I think that we have to... I'm conflicted, because on one hand I'm like, oh, we really do need a giant, massive change.
On the other hand, I do understand being afraid of how electorate will deal with that.
So I'm somewhere in the middle and well, that's not even necessarily true, but I'm just not going to be out there with how I'm feeling about it or what I'm thinking about it necessarily.
But yeah, I think you're right.
I think that we have to address this stuff and we have to start taking it out by the root and seeing what's happening and make things better one way or another.
I have to say this coronavirus thing.
And the stock market going down the way that it is, it tells me that Trump's re-election is not as baked in the pie as everyone thinks it is.
I think everyone thinks he's going to win a re-election, but it is obvious that he does not have the confidence of people who are in charge and who are powerful.
And that's...
I don't want to say that it's hopeful because a lot of people are going to be hurt and a lot of bad things are going to happen, but I think right now we are in a really unstable time.
Right.
A really unpredictable unstable time because if things keep getting worse, it's not like this guy is going to be like, I made a bunch of mistakes.
I hope you'll forgive me.
But the time right now is, that lack of confidence you just said, from even the Republican side and Trump, has no bearing on whether they're going to vote or not.
They'll still vote without confidence.
That's the problem.
And that's where we're getting into tribalism and all the different things, where they simply will never vote for the other side.
Although there is now a new faction of never-Trumpers who are Republicans, who are hell-bent on, they'll vote for Bernie if they have to, which is encouraging, but it's not enough of them.
But hey, listen, it's my anniversary today.
Happy anniversary, honey.
Love you.
I'm not gonna let that drag me down into the toilet too much until tomorrow.
But, you know, the show must go on, Jared.
You've had a really interesting end to this podcast.
A great late third.
A lot of things happening.
Making endorsements, reaching out, making shout outs.
It's wonderful.
I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna bring us in because that's as good of a place to end as any.
I mean, that's a hopeful note.
Nick Halseman, my co-host.
I'm Jodey Sexton, and we just want to say thank you.
It has been so great and so rewarding to have people reaching out.
I've been getting some really good messages lately from people, and they're very kind.
And I think people appreciate that we're having in-depth conversations that go beyond headlines.
It's what we're here for.
If you appreciate it, reach out to us on Twitter.
I'm at J.Y.
Sexton.
He's at CanYouHearMeSMH.
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