2020 is just about over, but it wouldn't be the Year From Hell without more drama and dysfunction. Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the bombing in Nashville, the dangers of a conspiracy theory culture, and the looming, not to mention unnecessary, danger of the government certifying the electoral college results. To become a patron and unlock exclusive content (including the upcoming early-premiere of the Muckrake Podcast's first audio documentary A Certain Route To Failure Part 1: A Crisis of Confidence, head over to http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
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When we assess an event for a domestic terrorism nexus, it has to be tied to an ideology.
It's the use of force or violence in the furtherance of a political, social ideology or event.
We haven't tied to that yet.
So you're not going to have all the protections that working people need.
And then on top of that, you may be looking at a government shutdown in the midst of the most difficult moment in modern American history.
It is insane.
It is really insane.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Sexton, here as always with Nick Haussman.
For the last episode of the Muckrake Podcast of 2020, say goodbye to this just absolute bullshit year.
Let us hope... Keep going, I love it.
Let us hope that 2021 will be better, kinder, healthier, saner, something.
But before we get to that, unfortunately, we have to deal with some ugly business today.
We're gonna talk about the January 6th looming situation.
I don't even know what to call it.
Before we do that, however, we do have to talk about the bombing in Nashville at 630 a.m.
Christmas morning.
We have found a person of interest.
It seems like this is the person who perished with the bombing.
63 year old Anthony Warner of Tennessee.
A really weird situation that apparently injured three people but a massive RV bomb was set off outside I think notably of an AT&T building that disrupted telecommunications for a while.
Police arrived.
There was a weird mechanical computer voice telling people to steer clear, interspersed with the music, the song Downtown by Petula Clark, a 1964 song.
A really weird, bizarre thing.
I'm hearing a lot of things from security people.
I have a lot of thoughts on this.
Nick, what did you think when this thing happened?
You know, the worry here is that it is some sort of like run through, a dry run for something in theory.
But then again, if the guy is going to be in there and kill himself, it could very well just be some insane person.
I don't know what to make of it.
It kind of feels like a lost episode, you know, from the show Lost, especially because of the Petula Clark, you know, downtown playing.
It kind of feels like the end of days.
That's what it almost feels like.
Where now, these are the beginnings, the markings that, you know, I'm sure the Bible talked about an RV blowing up with this music playing.
But like, this feels like... I missed that in Sunday school.
Yeah, you might have not heard it, but That's what it kind of feels like.
What is going on here is just the beginning sequence of something insane, and it's definitely very concerning.
And I noticed that you didn't call him Anthony Quinn Warner, because I feel like we need to always call them by their proper names when they're mass murderers, or when they do mass craziness like this, right?
Or not?
Well, as Jared Yates Sexton, I have to say that I'm all for getting rid of the three-name identifier part, but that's neither here nor there.
I, you know, I'm glad you brought up a couple things there, too, which is, you know, when this happened and the details started coming out, and this is important for us to think about, this thing with the computerized voice and the Petula Clark downtown song, it feels like a movie or a TV show.
And the reason it feels like a movie or a TV show is because we are so steeped in movies and TV shows That a lot of the time we try to recreate them in our lives, and we have a hard time thinking about that as Americans that, you know, we're affected by that stuff.
This is one of the reasons, by the way, that we do our Patreon bonus episodes, you know, talking about movies and popular culture.
I mean, I think what you're going to find is that this is a person who probably consumed popular culture that led to him trying to Behave like he was a member of the popular culture, right?
I mean like you end up trying to reproduce it It's like a weird postmodern sort of a moment.
I also think unfortunately that you're right I don't think it was necessarily that he was part of a group.
I've been talking with a lot of security people They don't seem to think that he was part of a group and if he was that it wasn't a terrestrial group that it was more of like an online sort of conspiracy theory culture But I think we are going to see more of this.
And we've talked about this on the podcast.
Like, if you tell everyone that the deep state is controlling everything, elections don't matter, there was a, you know, they stole the election or whatever.
Meanwhile, if this does turn out to be a 5G related conspiracy theory bombing, well, that's conspiracy theory culture.
That's what it leads to.
You have to have soldiers and heroes and messiahs who go out and fight the conspiracies.
And this is what happens when people get radicalized, when they get alienated, when they get polarized, all that stuff.
This is what happens.
Unfortunately, this is what we've been warning people about, and this is where it's going.
So, you know, the RV was parked outside AT&T and it did disrupt a lot of services briefly.
They've seemed to got up all back online.
But I'm not so sure that listeners are aware of the 5G conspiracy that you just referenced, which, you know, is a whole other component of this, which makes QAnon look, well, I guess it's part of probably part of QAnon, but it makes it look like Sunday school.
Do you want it?
Well, it's so that's the thing is like QAnon has blown up so much that it now just umbrellas Yeah, everything right if you actually go there's a really interesting graphic and obviously this is a podcast so I can't bring it up and show people but there's this graphic now that shows like the QAnon universe of thought and it's Nick it's everything from There are invisible alien armadas around the Earth.
And I don't know if you've been following it.
I think you pick fights on Twitter.
I go and observe and study right-wing extremists.
We gotta self-flagellate however we can.
And what that what I'm seeing now is it's like these people are like, oh, it's a direct energy beam weapon.
It was actually a missile.
Don't believe the hype.
It's a conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
The 5G.
Do you do you want to explain the 5G thing or should I?
I mean, I just can remember reading an article about it and how, yeah, they're just they think it's about like it's killing trees.
And there's evidence of this, the 5G network.
I think mind control is really the center of it, if I'm not mistaken.
Is that even close to being right?
I mean, that's half of it.
So the 5G thing, and as we always try and do, like we try and be honest brokers, we try and give information to people, it is important to note the reason why the 5G thing is what it is, is because there's always a nugget of truth to things in conspiracy theories.
We don't actually know what Wi-Fi and cellular networks do.
You know, every now and then you'll see something pop up that talks about, do cell phones cause cancer?
Is Wi-Fi, you know, causing sickness?
All this stuff.
And we don't exactly know, but you know, we're going full speed ahead, whatever.
That does not mean that 5G is, a lot of people think it created the coronavirus.
A lot of people think that it's just, it's like mind, or brainwashing people.
A lot of people think, like you said, it's killing trees, it's making people sterile, it's making people crazy, all this stuff.
That is the conspiracy theory that there is this new technology, which by the way, you know this as well as I do.
We've been on this earth long enough.
When new technology comes out, a conspiracy theory is right there with it.
Every time.
And it seems like this is probably either adjacent to something like QAnon or it probably is within the umbrella of QAnon, is what we're going to find.
It's either right next to it or it's within it.
And of course, we don't want to be unethical and speculate beyond it, but we do understand that this kind of stuff is what radicalizes and pushes people to do weird shit like this.
It is weird that we don't seem to have a missive or a, you know, a tome, you know, I was surprised no one went to like maybe his Facebook page and found all this stuff.
I was going to look it up, but I just figured someone already would have done that and they would have gotten rid of it.
So, you know, there's a pattern generally, you know, with guys who do this kind of stuff.
I mean, if I'm not mistaken, like Timothy McVeigh laid it out where we knew what he stood for.
when they did this whole thing.
And then the fact that he decided to be part of the bombing and actually kill himself as the only victim of this is definitely a little bit different, I think, and indicates to me in my very amateur analysis would be somebody who's just mentally unstable.
But there is also a big push that this is terrorism.
Yeah.
And by the way, it seems like there are some details that are coming through.
And this is important to put it in the context.
The rumors are that he was terminally ill.
And, you know, this is one of the things that you end up finding is one of the reasons why somebody would carry out a suicide attack in a terrorist attack is that they simply don't have anything to lose anymore.
Right, like they're either going to die, or they've lost everything, or I don't know, they live in a country where they are alienated, they don't have careers, and they have nothing to do, so they might as well give up their lives in order to be heroes, right, or whatever they think they are.
By the way, it's important to point out Him having this thing that tells people that there's a bomb getting ready to go off, he thought he was a hero.
You know what I mean?
Like that is what happens when someone thinks, and that's the thing that people don't put their selves in the shoes of these people.
Terrorists think they're heroes.
Like they really do.
They believe they're doing the right thing.
It might seem radical or whatever, but terrorists think that they are heroes.
And I'm calling him a terrorist because it's important because he is.
And we have a real problem in this country.
Do you read any of these headlines that have been coming out over the past couple of days?
Um, I don't know.
Let's find out.
Oh, Nick, he's, he, obviously he was quiet.
Yeah, I saw those.
He was nice, Nick.
Yeah, unassuming.
Yeah, unassuming, all this stuff, which by the way, all those things are code words for white.
They're white, right?
Because, and this is really, really important, and there's a couple of things we can take from this before we even learn all of the particulars.
First and foremost, it's why do people do things like this?
They live in an alternate reality, they think they're in an invisible war, they don't think they have any other chances, they have nothing to live for or nothing to lose, and they become radicalized and alienated.
But we also need to take a look at the way our culture deals with this.
Our media does not want to call white people terrorists.
Those are unhinged individuals, right?
But if it's a person of color, there's something wrong with that community.
And we really need to take a look at that community and make sure that we have a paternal instinct to try and bring them in, or they need to be warred against, or police and law enforcement need to take another look at them.
It's a really screwed up little system, and I think it's pretty indicative of where we are and why we can't make things better in this country.
Without question, if it's white then it's a mental illness and if it's people of color then it's terrorism, generally.
Do you feel that that's independent or simply unique to the United States or does it happen in other countries?
That's a Western civilization type thing.
But I will say that white terrorism in America is its own particular strain.
Like, white Americans are really afraid of being left behind.
You know what I mean?
Of anything that could possibly ever change, that could possibly take away some of their power or some of their wealth or their influence.
And as a result, it's war.
And we have a media that is I mean, I'm sorry, but the media doesn't want to talk about white supremacy.
They don't want to talk about past genocides and ethnic cleansings and all that stuff.
So they're terrified of it.
And in fact, these people who don't want to discuss it are actually perpetuating it.
You know what I mean?
Like, they could discuss this stuff.
They could really get to the core of it and have an honest conversation.
But they're incapable of it, or they're unwilling.
And both of those things are damning.
Well, what makes you get to the terrorist side of things versus a guy who is, you know, maybe has a month to live and wants to go out with a, well, a bang.
A bang.
Well, he put his RV, which by the way, an RV bomb.
You know what I mean?
I thought it was a meth lab that had blown up originally when I first heard it.
Well, like an RV, like, you outfit your RV to blow up.
Like, if you want to go in, like, let's say, for instance, that he wants to take out, like, a telecommunications infrastructure, right?
Which, by the way, in and of itself, that's terroristic, right?
It's to cause discord and disarray and chaos.
But on top of that, it's also the spectacle of it.
We, you know, we were talking about this When was it, Nick, that the white militias were breaking into the Michigan legislature?
Was that?
What is time?
Yeah, that was August, something like that, maybe?
Maybe.
That was that was around the time where they were doing the Rio America stuff.
What a year, by the way.
Oh, yeah.
Well, last last episode of the year.
What a what a fucking year, Nick.
2021.
Let's go.
Let's go.
2021.
Yeah, we you know, you don't You don't break into a legislature with semi-automatic weapons and camouflage gear unless you're sending a message, which is, do what we want you to do or else.
And you don't set off a bomb that levels a city block.
If you're not sending a message, you know what I mean?
Like if you want to take down a telecommunications network, go in and like screw it up or something or cut some lines, but blowing up and making a giant spectacle of this thing with all the panache that he did, like there's an inherent message to it.
I agree I mean you're right on top of the thing where he had to somehow you know create this computerized you know voice and I don't know exactly how because it didn't sound like unless you can say hey Siri say this I don't know how you could you do that he had obviously big speakers that were mounted he had this RV apparently the neighbors said he had had it for years and years this was not like anything he bought to do this as an old rundown RV
So I mean I can follow that that makes sense to me that it was above and beyond because you're right if it was a guy who was on his last legs and you know wanted to end it all you know the conventional notion would be he would just do it in the privacy of his own home.
or something like that right and and not not that way so I can just thank goodness that nobody else got injured or too badly and nobody certainly nobody got killed thank God thank God and thank God for these police who took it seriously because I think that there was a little interval if I'm not mistaken from a countdown to zero and then it didn't blow up exactly at zero so there could have been a notion of oh it's just another whatever so thank God that they did that they clear the area and and no one got killed
Well, the really frightening thing, we've said this before so many times, and unfortunately, it's like the people in journalism and politics and on social media, which we've got to turn these people off.
That's one of the things.
We've got to stop paying attention to a lot of these people who are just like, you know, well, we dodged a bullet with Trump, sure, but, you know, everything's fine.
Don't worry about it.
Everything's kosher.
Everything's great.
In this situation, We absolutely are very lucky a lot of people didn't die.
I mean, this was a massive explosion, and thank God that you actually have law enforcement doing their jobs and making people safe and taking it seriously.
He's going to be held up as a hero, and he's already being held up.
Like, for the people who don't think it was a false flag, they think it was, you know, an opening salvo in a giant war.
And the worst that it gets in this country Not just politically, but economically.
As both of those things start to decline, you're going to have more people who don't have anything to lose, who believe these conspiracy theories, who probably are active right now on a QAnon board in your neighborhood.
You know, these things are just going to propagate.
And unfortunately, this is true, they spread.
You know, when you actually, and that's part of the act of terrorism, is you have an incident that inspires other people to carry out their own plans and their own agendas.
And if you have a country that is a failing state, like America right now is a failing state, unfortunately you see more and more of these things.
But Jared, the stock market, it's breaking records again.
It's doing so well.
We're not a failing state.
We don't have a bad economy.
Come on.
Yeah, everything's fine.
I mean, just everybody's operating like gangbusters.
Unemployment is getting back, you know, we're gaining jobs every month.
You know, I can hear, that's the voice, you can hear fucking Marco Rubio saying, or Dan Crenshaw, you know, and they're very measured, you know, you don't understand, Jerry, that it's very complicated how economics work, but we've generated all these jobs and record low unemployment for different, you know, races, and it really is a great place we're in right now.
Yeah, doesn't it feel great?
I mean, what a successful 2020, everyone.
We really kicked COVID's ass and kept the economy going.
What a great moment.
What kind of economy do we live in where even President Trump Who has never cared about anybody else, wants to give people more money because he realized the stimulus wasn't enough, right?
Now, for whatever reason, we talked about this before, his motivation, but at least he's right on the merits of the argument of it.
And if we really were doing that well, then we wouldn't be sitting here talking about bailouts and having to give people money so that they don't starve during the holidays.
It's insane.
I, one of the things that I, one of the very, very few things that I appreciate about Donald Trump, and by the way, RIP to the Trump administration.
Pour one out for, for just a real one.
Just good luck, assholes.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to refer to him as President Trump.
I hadn't, I don't ever do that.
And I, it slipped out.
Well, thank God this thing.
And we got to talk in a minute about, you know, there's still an opportunity here to pull off a coup, which I don't think people are actually taking seriously.
But, you know, one of the things that I actually do appreciate about Trump is what he's really good at is understanding where both parties in the political structure, where they lie, You know what I mean?
Where they, they just, where they don't come through on what they're saying and where they're not actually taking care of people.
And it's not like he intends to help people.
He just knows where they don't intend to help people and he can seem good, right?
That's why he was, that's why, one of the reasons he became the Republican nominee is he came out and he's like, oh, these other Republicans are lying sacks of shit.
Like I'll, I'll do what they're, what they pretend that they'll do.
This $2,000 thing, he never intended to make this thing happen.
But almost immediately, and this is the really important thing about Trump, is the mask always drops with Trump because he's like, give the people more money.
And both parties were like, oh, I don't, I don't know about that.
I don't know.
You want the government to... I don't know.
I don't know about that.
It just becomes clear that there's a consensus economically, which is important.
It gets worse because he signs the bill.
And then he says he's going to do a line-item veto of the bill that he just signed.
That would take work, Nick.
Yes, but it's out of order.
You don't sign the bill and then decide to, like, scratch things out as you want to do.
And I think that he doesn't understand that.
I mean, he's clearly displayed a real lack of understanding of government as it is anyway.
But I think, because a lot of it's bluster, and he wants to just sort of whip up the people who are listening.
I honestly think that there are very fundamental things he doesn't understand and cannot understand, and this one might very well be one of them.
And by the way, I've said this before on the podcast, but I would be remiss if I didn't say it.
Nick's ability to set the table for a perfect transition on topics is one of the most underrated abilities in all of podcasting, because it's important to point out that Trump's inability to understand how government and power actually work Might be the only thing that keeps us from oblivion at this moment.
Not that it won't happen in the future.
Like, go back to what we've talked about before, which is that the fact that the president of the fucking United States of America floated the idea of a military coup in order to overturn the election and hold on to power.
Here's the thing, Nick.
He asked it as a question.
He was like, could we do that?
And then someone's like, no, no, we should not do that.
Instead of, I want you to do this.
Those are different things, right?
Like how Trump approached it.
We were talking before we started broadcasting, January 6th, which is when the Senate certifies the Electoral College, is this really ugly looming moment that it shouldn't keep you awake at night, but it should probably make you wake up in the middle of the night worrying a little bit, to be frank.
The fact is that Trump, somebody has told Trump that this could be a moment that something could happen.
And it's obvious that he thinks something will happen on January 6th, but he would have to work to make it happen, Nick.
He would have to study it.
He would have to talk to people.
He would have to plan.
He can't do that.
He's not interested in doing that.
He's not like that line-item veto you were talking about.
He has no idea how to do a line-item veto.
He would have to ask somebody how to be president, and that's just not going to happen.
But the failing of his brain is he can't do it anyway.
He doesn't have the capacity to retain that kind of information in detail.
So that's also the big part of it.
So they can't brief the guy because he's not smart enough, however you want to approach that.
to retain this information as it is.
That's why he can't ever concentrate for more than a few minutes.
And then he just gets upset and starts yelling and all these things.
So there's no question that there's a real concern here for what's going to happen in this archaic method of certifying the votes that had not even been glanced at probably in the Constitution for hundreds of years until now, because we have to remember that there are people behind Trump because we have to remember that there are people behind Trump that are smart and are diabolical and have been doing some certain things that Trump never would have thought of, but he might have a dismissive like, we need to disrupt this You figure it out and
And so these guys go back and they study these things like the post office.
If we can, you know, muck with that, that'll really cause havoc and we can shed doubt on the elections.
By the way, Merry Christmas everybody who had to deal with shipping disruptions because the President of the United States of fucking America tried to steal the election.
Yeah.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Oh, by the way, not just that, this is actually the The chef's kiss of it all.
For all of you people who could not be with your family because Donald Trump couldn't bring himself and couldn't make himself care to fight the pandemic while you tried to send presents to your family that didn't get there for Christmas because the President of the United States haphazardly, sloppily tried to steal an election.
Like that's legitimately all the stuff.
Now, so here's what's happening.
I actually dug up the Constitution.
You know, it's a bit of a national treasure.
Wait, did you steal the Constitution?
You're a n*****.
Did you hoard it in Mission Impossible?
Are there better movies than those?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
Those may be the best movies of all time.
I swear to God.
The classical treasure movies?
At least the one of them where he's driving and he wants to throw away the map but he holds it up and he runs the red light so the red light camera gets the picture of the map and then he gets rid of it.
And then he has his buddy hack into the system to get the picture of him speaking.
That's genius to me.
That's not like this Wonder Woman 84 that no one should ever get close to watching.
Please do not waste your time.
But nonetheless, I got my hands on it.
Oh, did you watch Wonder Woman?
No, I don't participate in comic book culture anymore.
Okay well don't wait the first one was great by the way second one not worth it now so I got my hands on the Constitution I was trying to study this and we might need a scholar to come on because again the language is archaic and it's vague and not always easy to focus but let's just you know we can walk people through a little bit of what the the process is because it's interesting yeah before before we before you walk the people through and and and I think that's an important thing to let people understand first things first and and and
This is something that I truly and honestly believe, and this isn't a hot take.
The Constitution is so outdated and so messed up.
And I'm not saying this to be controversial.
The Founding Fathers failed in a lot of ways.
Their political imagination was so limited.
They thought that white wealthy men would be perfect repositories for power and that if they could just create a government that served white wealthy men and kept the rabble from revolting, everything would be fine.
As a matter of fact, we have to point out that the Electoral College, which has created this scenario, was a backstop.
This situation that you're getting ready to outline for our listeners is a backstop.
It's a break-in-case-of-fire type situation.
Which is, if the people, who by the way they thought were stupid and irresponsible and shouldn't be anywhere near the presidency in terms of electing it, if they messed up on the vote, they could just break the glass and they would take care of it.
Right.
And now, now we have to sit here on our asses and be like, God, I hope that this arcane thing doesn't come through.
Number two, very, very quickly.
I just, I firmly and honestly believe that the constitution needs either rewritten as a whole or needs to be radically changed in a lot of different ways.
And this thing right here, this archaic shit that we're getting ready to talk about is one of the reasons why.
And I wouldn't even have to go so far as saying we have to change anything.
I just think it needs to be updated, the language, to how we speak today so that it's clear and understandable what they were even trying to say back then.
You know, obviously... Oh, we're getting into Antonin Scalia territory.
Oh, yes.
That's a dangerous thing.
We're speeding toward the Second Amendment like a bullet.
Yeah, that's right.
Now, but so you read this thing and, you know, it's interesting because, and please jump in here because I want to make sure I get it perfectly right and I don't know if that's going to be possible, but, you know, so, you know, back in, you know, for all these, all this time, the electors would come and they would present the votes.
And yet, by the way, you're supposed to certified mail your, the votes.
This is what it says in there.
By certified mail, you're supposed to send them in to like the three different places.
The, the president of the Senate, which is the vice president of the United States, and then the, uh, the speaker of the house.
It's important to point out that this entire situation is set up and was created at a time where, while these votes were being sent in, there were people dying of dysentery.
There was like a three-month period of trying to ride your horse into the Capitol.
You know, you probably had a couple of duels on your way in.
You had to fight a bar.
You know, like, this is like the shit that people were dealing with back then, but yeah, absolutely.
So, okay, so normally they'd open up the envelopes and they'd go A through Z on the states and they'd say, okay, this is who they pick, this is who they pick, and are you keeping the tally?
Great, okay, who gets the most votes?
Great, this is who's president, that's who's vice president, doom, we're done, it's easy, right?
But there is a clause in there or a caveat that allows for an objection to this process.
And it has to be that one member of the House and one member of the Senate together have to, in writing, submit an objection.
Now we already know that Matt Gaetz and Nestor had decided that they're going to be the ones who, that he's going to be the one to sign on the House side.
I believe I heard him say it.
I think we got a Senator.
Is it Ron Johnson?
Is it going to be Thune?
The only one that I know for sure is that incredible incoming Lion of the Senate, Tommy Tuberville.
And it turns out, and this is such a nice thing, it turns out that he could very well cost his state and his constituents a ton of money and jobs by doing this.
Like, it's just, it's Republican Party 101.
It's amazing.
Okay.
So, as a result, if this objection comes in, then Mike Pence, the President of the Senate, will say, okay, you gotta go to your respective houses and powwow for two hours, and no longer than two hours.
In fact, I think you have to take the two hours, but you can't go longer than two hours.
Again, this is hilarious.
Like, they're just coming up with shit.
Oh, by the way, do you know what time they're supposed to meet?
It's very, it's interesting because a lot of this thing is, it's the first Wednesday after the second Monday of every whatever, but this one gives a hard and fast date.
January 6th.
No matter if it's a Sunday or if it's a Wednesday, it doesn't matter.
And it says 1 p.m.
And I, you know, I'm just reading into this, because I'm like, this is interesting.
Why wouldn't it be 9 or 10 a.m., right?
First thing in the morning.
You want to get it wrapped up to go drink.
Yeah, right, right.
Literally, that is a big part of it, is they want to get the business wrapped up so that the gentlemen's club can go out and gentlemen's club.
Yes.
I mean, that's a big thing, is it used to be, we'll take care of the rabble and then we'll go do this.
Real important though, A couple things you just said, and you just nailed exactly how this thing is supposed to go.
I love these articles.
There's one I read the other day, which is like, yeah, the Republicans are going to try and steal the election, but it won't work.
Well, first of all, awesome.
Great.
I'm just glad that we know that one of our major parties is going to try and steal the election.
Everyone's just like, ah, I mean, what are you going to do?
That's what happens.
But then all of a sudden it's like, Yeah, and then they go and they have their meetings where they try and talk about this thing.
And it's like, well, it'll be a limited meeting and then we'll get done.
And it's like, will it?
Will it?
Because I know that the House is going to have that.
You're telling me the Senate is going to go?
Because last time you told me not to worry about the process, Mitch McConnell was holding up a Supreme Court pick.
And people are like, don't worry, it's just bluster, it's just putting on or whatever.
We don't have a clue what's going to happen.
We don't have a clue what these people are willing to do.
Everything we're talking about are social constructs that are only as good as our abilities to defend them.
And the Democrats aren't willing to defend them.
They're not good at it.
We as a culture aren't good at defending them.
God knows what Trump thinks is going to happen.
More recently, I'm not so sure we would have predicted that the Senate would have, in an impeachment trial, no witnesses and have a sham of a trial.
We would have thought at least they'd call like a couple of witnesses.
Even if it was friendly to them, they'd call them and have them speak, right?
So you're right.
We don't really don't know what they're going to do.
And I would like to, if it pleases the Muckrake court, I would like to enter into evidence.
This was a Twitter thread that was posted by Rasmussen.
For those of you who aren't aware, Rasmussen is one of – it's a rightward leaning polling group.
Leaning?
Yeah, I'm trying to be fair.
They're a rightward polling institution.
But they are included in the major counts.
You know what I mean?
Like, they're still a quote-unquote respected polling institution.
At least they were until yesterday, and they just decided to get wild.
So yesterday, Rasmussen on Twitter, and this is amazing, this is a Twitter thread.
Tweet one, come January 6th, what we're talking about, the day to certify the Electoral College.
Come January 6th, Then there's a quote, Nick.
I don't know if you've seen this.
I'm going to read the quote and then I'm going to give you the attributed speaker of said quote.
Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything.
I mean, it sounds profound, doesn't it?
Oh yeah.
Go ahead.
That is none other than Joseph Stalin!
Joseph Stalin!
I know.
It's hard to believe, huh?
That was good.
That was good.
I was not expecting that.
Then it says, come January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will be presented with the sealed certificates containing the ballots of the presidential electors.
Real fast, by the way, Nick, Joseph Stalin didn't really do anything bad as a leader, did he?
When I was in high school I had to do a debate and the title of the debate was, was Stalin justified in murdering 40 million of his countrymen in Russia?
murdering 40 million of his countrymen in Russia. - Tens of millions of people.
He also instituted purges.
He also instituted secret police.
I mean, the fact that they even thought that this was appropriate is incredible.
Didn't they say, in the second tweet, this is where it gets even spicier.
At that moment, the presidency will be in his hands.
Mike Pence.
The presidency will be in his hands.
And there is nothing stopping Pence under the plenary and unappealable authority vested in him as President of the Senate from declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states.
Yes, there is a lot that requires him to do that.
That's the problem in the Constitution.
It then says, if they are, as more than 70% of Republicans believe, certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open and count them?
Now, this is where the Constitution gets, you know, discusses this because what they refer to are as long as the electors were duly appointed properly, whatever they present needs to be accepted, right?
That's sort of what I get out of reading this.
That is... But I just want to point out, I don't think that's... I think they're wrong.
Except for what they're doing is they're breaking not just norms, but good faith.
Right?
They're saying, hold the government hostage and see what happens.
They're floating that.
They're floating that.
They're putting that... We're just raising it up the flagpole and seeing who salutes.
No one ever does.
That's what they're trying to do.
That's Rasmussen.
But by the way, let's just say it's pretty clear he can't do that, but he does it.
Who is supposed to be the one who's going to enforce the Constitution?
Mitch McConnell?
You're right, this is a little bit of a scary thing here.
But it gets even more convoluted because, you know, they wanted other electors chosen who were then going to give Pennsylvania to Trump.
So they might argue that it's those people they wanted chosen because of what you said, because it's a disputed election, that should be the rightful representatives of those states.
So this is where it gets a little scary if they're going to try in good, quote unquote, good faith to argue that.
And if anyone would ever listen to that, I don't think that they would.
But this is where it gets scary.
Now, the other thing is, both the Houses have to agree on these objections for the Vice President to do anything about the objection.
So, imagine a scenario where it doesn't really fit right now, but thank God, because the House is pretty thin as far as that margin for the Democrats.
But imagine if it was a Democratic president who wins, but the House and the Senate were Republican and were going to stay Republican.
They could take the election away from him.
They literally could in this scenario, and it would be completely and utterly legal.
Why would any Republican presidential candidate for the rest of modern history ever concede an election?
Why?
Why would any of them?
Why?
Just say that it was stolen.
That's it.
That's a norm now, is to not concede an election.
I don't know if you saw it before we got on here, Trump just posted what appears to be a campaign video.
Like, it's December 28th as we're taping this.
There's no reason for anyone to do that.
The Republican Party is not going to win a popular vote for presidency, probably for a while.
Like, that's not going to happen in its current configuration.
It looks like, as long as it's someone like Trump, that they're not going to win the Electoral College again, unless they find somebody who's able to improve on Trump.
Why would they ever participate in good faith politics again?
And all of these institutions we have, it's exactly what we've talked about now for months.
The good faith of it The norms and the laws and the Constitution, they only work if people participate in them and abide by them.
If people stop, it's over.
There's nothing else to do.
Goodbye.
Go home.
You win nothing.
Which is why we need to abolish the Electoral College.
It has to go away.
And we need to rewrite at least the section that I went through, Article 15 of chapter whatever, I don't even know how you look at this, 3 U.S.C. Chapter 1.
They have to redo this whole thing because, again, when you said in the beginning, I mentioned it, it reeks of this good old boy, don't you worry, we're going to take care of how this is supposed to go kind of thing.
We've been a banana republic the whole time, and no one's realized it because no one's quite acting on it.
But again, it's like, what happens if Trump won't leave the White House?
And we've kind of discussed that.
Well, you know, who is the police ultimately?
Who are the people that are supposed to do this and have the power to enact what it says in the Constitution?
Because again, If Trump wants to shit on some of these things, it's going to be really fascinating and perhaps very troublesome to get these people to actually do what is required of them.
And then what?
And then it's a civil war.
So, a couple things here, because you're dead on right about all that, and that's the important thing.
One of the things, one of my... What do you call it, Nick?
It's the new year, you have...
Thoughts?
Yeah, resolutions.
Resolutions!
It's not like I'm a liberal arts professor and teach writing.
Resolutions.
One of my resolutions in what we are doing and what I'm doing in terms of political analysis is in 2021, particularly as we are staring over a cliff and we're looking at the possible abyss of what could be coming down the pike if we don't fix this shit.
I'm going to be focusing more on not just diagnosing, but also solutions.
Like things that could be done, whether or not they're going to actually happen or not, but actual thoughts.
I want to germinate seeds of ideas and invention is what I want to do.
Well, I'll tell you what.
You want to get rid of the Electoral College?
I'll tell you how you do it.
Trump has already given us the beginnings of a plan.
People have populistic anger.
They're tired of elites and powerful and wealthy people.
It just so happens that Trump gave them somewhere to throw their anger, right?
So I'll tell you what, let's use the bully pulpit and while we're getting rid of the electoral college, let's sneak some shit into the Constitution that guarantees people Jobs.
Houses.
Healthcare.
Education.
Let's say that we're having a people's revolution and we're going to do it the right way.
You know what I mean?
Like, let's just start packing this shit together.
And actually, that reflects really closely what happened with the progressive movement at the turn of the 20th century.
That's how we got direct election of senators.
That's how we got suffrage.
Like, just lean into that shit.
Let's clean house.
Let's make this thing better.
Well, it's funny because, you know, I'm picturing like a mob of lefties and a mob of right-wing people screaming at each other from across the street.
But at some point, someone on the left side is going to say, and, you know, this Constitution is full of shit.
And the other person on the right is going to be like, yeah, you're right, it is.
We have to rewrite this.
And you're like, what?
Wait, what?
And all of a sudden they realize that we kind of want the same thing.
We've always been on the same side.
It just so happens that the nationalism and the racism and the misogyny keeps us from having a conversation because they're very prone to fascistic ideas.
But if we can start to realize that the people up here don't give a fuck, which by the way, I think the pandemic has helped people along on that.
Like, I don't know about you, by the way, again, it's our last show of 2020.
I have been moved so far left this year.
I never expected to be here where I'm at in December of 2020.
I have moved so far left in all this and it didn't hurt watching corporations and the wealthy not just Now, here's the irony.
with hundreds of thousands of people dying, but they're just like, shovel them into the mall, man.
Throw them in.
Just do it.
And I was just like, you know what?
Fine.
I recognize who these people are.
I'm done with this shit.
That populist streak can be ruined.
Now, here's the irony.
I couldn't get this to play exactly when I wanted to because guess what?
YouTube put an ad on before this.
Guess who the ad was for?
McDonald's.
Oh, McDonald's!
So, I missed my duty of perfect accompaniment for your description.
Turn it up!
This is how we say goodbye to 2020.
to 2020.
Yes.
Well, comrade, I hope there are quarter pounders to come.
Yes.
Well, you are absolutely right.
And I think that, you know, what you had said is probably the most clear, the clarity I've heard in our year and a half of doing this is, is it's the misogyny and the racism.
And I think it's a nationalism that really just gets in the way of, of what we, what we can actually agree on, which might not be a lot of things, but there's enough things I think that we could agree on if we couldn't, if we didn't have to deal with those three things.
The misogyny and the racism and nationalism, and lately the fascism, which is all that stuff brought together, it's just a way to keep people from actually talking about what's wrong.
You know what I mean?
It does.
And all of a sudden it's just like, oh, you want to know who's to blame?
It's people of color and women and people out there.
And it's like, no, it's not.
We've been plundered by a ruling elite class.
And I'm glad that you said this a while ago.
It's almost like from the very beginning it was it was this coup.
It absolutely was.
We had a bunch of white, wealthy men who got in a room and decided how to rig everything in their favor.
And now, it's becoming more and more obvious, which is what happened with them.
They looked at the monarchy and they said, this thing is a sham.
Why are we sending all of our money and our resources to England?
We can do something different.
Well, guess what?
This car is running out of gas.
Let's put some different gas in it.
And that argument that really took hold in the 1700s, it's the same argument you kind of hear about China now, right?
We're sending everything to China, they're taking advantage of us here, and it's kind of interesting how they're using the same kind of rhetoric to try and stir something up.
I don't even know what that is.
Oh, that's the future, Nick.
That is, listen, I, did you ever, um, sometimes I forget that there's a little bit of an age difference with us.
Did you ever get the Weekly Reader when you were in school?
Um, the Weekly Reader.
I think, well, yeah.
Well, what is it?
Tell me what it is.
It was like the little magazine when you were in elementary school.
Oh, no.
No, I thought you meant like, no, I don't know what that is.
Okay.
The Weekly Reader was like a little magazine, had like some current events in it and stuff like that.
And you'd get it every couple of months or something like that.
Dude, I was in elementary school and like, there was like this one article, I'll never forget it.
It was like, there is almost certainly a war that will happen between the United States and China at some point, or eventually in 20, it probably said like 2022 in my mind, right?
It was like, there will be an economic showdown between the two eventually.
That's where we're going.
We've always been going there.
And it's important to point out that Trump carried out this trade war with China while trying to get them to help our farmers in order to get himself reelected.
But I have to tell you that the Democratic Party had a couple of days there where they were like, the real problem is China and how they dealt with the coronavirus.
And Trump wasn't hard enough on China.
Like, that's absolutely.
And what you have is internal frictions are always redirected outward.
And that's what we're going to be looking at over the next couple of years if we don't fix our shit.
We have to fix ourselves internally or else that fascism and nationalism is going to lead us down some really ugly paths.
Aww.
That's a nice way to join a joint.
So, or we just don't worry and we're just happy.
And we just continue consuming.
By the way, what another natural transition.
We've recorded the audio documentary.
It's in the can.
It is.
It's in the can.
All that's left is some editing.
Letting everyone know the audio documentary series.
It's going to be a four-part thing that we're calling A Certain Route to Failure.
First episode, A Crisis of Confidence.
In the can.
Editing is going on.
Nick, who is Just tireless.
In all things.
In all things tireless.
Through rain, sleep, thunderclaps, all of it.
Oh yeah.
Just absolutely getting after this thing.
A quick notice that if you are a patron over at patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast, we're going to give it to our patrons first, a couple days early.
We'll release it after that to the audience at large, but if you want to get ahead and listen to that when it first comes out, I think it's going to be special.
I'm really excited about this thing.
Oh yeah, it's coming out.
It came out great in the raw version of recording it, so I can't wait to sweeten it up.
Yeah, and again, this is all about where this country has gone wrong.
It's going to have history.
It's going to be entertaining.
I think it's going to sound really good.
So that is patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
If you want to get an early version of that in order to sate your interest, hold you over, In the meantime, everybody, we are not going to have a New Year's Day episode.
This is the last one for 2020.
We're going to come back.
Like I said, I'm rededicated to the idea of coming up with solutions, not just diagnosing the problem.
You know, we've built up a really cool thing on this podcast, a really nice community that takes care of each other and supports one another.
I want to figure out where to put this energy.
I want to figure out how to make this thing better.
I want 2021 to be better.
How do you feel?
You want it to be better.
Yeah, I just know it won't be better for another couple of months, but then I feel like it will be once we get through the year.
Well, by the way, here's the thing is Christmas is going to be a problem for another month and a half because everyone's going to be interacting and whatever, and then we just had that, and now Mardi Gras comes up.
Something keeps coming up that we have that is going to screw up everything for everybody else.
Well, that's the problem in a country that has a holiday every month.
Yeah.
Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday is going to become a spreader.
Oh, man.
Yeah, I know.
It's like, well, you know, I really do care about people, but it's it's St.
Patrick's Day.
I got it.
I got to get with my bros in Chicago for St.
Patrick's Day.
Well, we hope you all stay safe for New Year's Eve.
Here's to 2021.
Fuck 2020.
Fuck 2020.
I'm sorry to be controversial.
I can go away.
Terrible, terrible year.
There's been some good stuff here and there.
I want to celebrate the good stuff.
Let the bad stuff slip away.
We will come back in 2021.
Do not Do not fool yourself.
We're going to we're going to come back and do this thing the right way in 2021.
So if you need us until then, no, no emergency podcast.
I'll just go ahead and knock on some wood over here.
