With the Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump beginning, Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss leaking reports that Democratic managers are feeling pressured into expediting the proceedings, the opportunity for using the event for good, and fascist propaganda that's been used in support of the disgraced former president. To unlock exclusive content, bonus episodes, and get an early listen to The Muckrake's first audio documentary, become a patron at http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
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Before coronavirus, when Trump ruled, when Trump shoved the elites aside and was the dear leader of the country, he restored our great military, the sign of all authority.
We see people weeping in joy at seeing their leader in adulation.
We don't see democracy here.
Now we see these new pickup trucks rolling off.
We see people weeping in joy at seeing their leader and in adulation.
We don't see democracy here.
We see a single leader.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the McCraig Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Sexton, here as always with Nick Halseman.
Before we get going, a couple of programming notes.
Scheduling interferences, discombobulation.
We are going to move our Patreon live Q&A show to February 18th at 8 p.m.
or 7 p.m.
Eastern.
My god, I almost did it again.
What is time?
What is time?
So it'll be 7 p.m.
Eastern on February 18th.
We will be taking questions for that show and hosting our patrons from patreon.com slash muckrake podcast.
Also this week, and we're getting ready to talk a little bit about fascist propaganda because what else do a couple of friends do?
They hang out on Skype and they talk about fascist propaganda.
Over drinks.
Over drinks, here we go.
So, we are actually for this week's Weekender Show, which will air this Friday, and again that's for patrons over at patreon.com slash monkerickpodcast.
We're gonna do a little bit of a movie watch.
A little bit different.
In the past we've done Forrest Gump, we've done It's a Wonderful Life, and this time, Nick, what are we watching?
Well, it's going to be a documentary entitled Mussolini, fine di una dittatura, which would be... I'm sorry, one more time for the good people?
Fine di una dittatura, which would be the end of the dictatorship of Mussolini, and a description, I suppose, a deep dive into the propaganda that they used to get him there.
Yeah, and I have to tell you, I've seen this thing, and for those who are going to go ahead and watch along with us, and that's available over on Amazon Prime.
It is in Italian, so you can get the subtitles on Amazon Prime.
It's also available on YouTube.
I'm not sure if it has subtitles, but that's neither here nor there.
Just a warning, watching Mussolini come to power and watching himself sort of consolidate power and support around him, it's gonna feel pretty relevant and unsettling.
So get ready for that.
But one more time, Nick, what was the name of that? - Fine di una dippatura.
- That is F-I-N-E-D-I-U-N-A-D-I-T-T-A-T-U-R-A, and that's on Amazon Prime and on YouTube.
And the reason that we're going to be talking about that is because the former President of the United States of America, Donald John Trump, is set to go on trial in his impeachment, his second impeachment, by the way.
We gotta make sure that we make clear which impeachment.
This week, there are already headlines that are coming out about what to expect from this.
There are already, there's some tussling There's some tug of war among the Democratic Party and how they're going to handle this.
Of course, the Republican Party has already decided to close ranks around Donald Trump.
We might have a couple of Republican senators vote to keep him from running from office in the future.
But we're already hearing from the Democratic Party.
And Nick, I want to get your opinion on this.
This was from a Politico article, which, of course, it's in Politico.
Because where else do you turn to hear about palace intrigue?
And the headline already is political playbook, Democratic impeachment managers feeling muzzled.
So we're going to get a little bit into that.
But I just want to hear, Nick, very, very quickly, what's your what's your immediate gut reaction to that headline?
I mean, the notion that they would have screamed and yelled at the Raptors about having witnesses in the first impeachment trial.
And then the potential to kick this can down the road or not have it at all, not have witnesses or a very abbreviated trial is just all sorts of troubling.
And one of those things that people seem to like to do in this country, just sort of, we'll just forget about it.
It'll just go away.
You know, the damage won't get worse.
It'll just be, we'll forget about it and move on.
Yeah.
It's, I have to tell you, and I think you just nailed You just nailed it right on the head, man.
It is really upsetting.
And, you know, we were part of a chorus for a while who were screaming about the first impeachment, about the fact that there had to be witnesses and the Republicans worked their way around it.
It's not great to now be in this situation and not really worry about it.
To share this, and for those of you who, you know, keep track of this stuff, but maybe don't know about the inside baseball.
Politico is a publication, and you know, just to put it out there, I have been published in Politico.
Politico is a publication where Washington insiders talk to one another basically on background and articles.
This is the water cooler of Washington DC politics.
This is where they talk about where the sausage is made.
And I'm just going to share a little bit from this article.
Several of the House impeachment managers wanted firsthand testimony to help prove their case that Trump inside the January 6th riot are sources to tell us.
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Biden administration officials have been eager for the process to move quickly, we're told.
It's been a source of frustration for some Democrats privately.
Trump, these people have noticed, is already on the rebound politically.
Is he, by the way?
Is that accurate?
Is he on the rebound, Nick?
I don't know.
When the minority leader in the House of Representatives makes a field tee call to him and his place of residence, that might mean something.
I mean, that's really nothing new, but that is not a bad point.
They say that they are afraid that people are going to be back in Trump's corner.
And here, this is just upsetting.
That's why there's been talk among the managers about calling individuals who could change minds.
If not the minds of 17 GOP senators needed to convict, then perhaps a slice of the GOP electorate that still supports Trump.
Some of the ideas floated.
Having Capitol Police officers tell their stories about fighting the mob, or inviting Republican officials in Georgia who were pressured by Trump to overturn the state's election tally.
I don't know, man.
Certain other Senate Democrats argue, however, that they don't necessarily need witnesses since Trump's crimes were in plain sight and documented in video and tweet.
I don't know, man.
This sucks.
What sucks worse, honestly, is they're going to waste four hours tomorrow simply debating the constitutionality of the trial itself.
That is the most, and that tells you everything.
As far as I'm concerned, the Democrats control this process.
Why they would even allow this and waste four hours of the process on that is ridiculous.
They already had the vote.
We know where these fucking Republicans feel about the process of it, and that's what they do.
Republicans don't ever get into the substance of what the thing they're talking about is.
They'll argue everything else around it, attack the process, and refuse to acknowledge the substance.
It's disgusting.
It's intellectually dishonest.
Wait, Nick, point of order.
Why haven't you said the Pledge of Allegiance?
Before you said any of this.
Why have you not already pledged fealty to the government of the United States of America?
You know why?
Because I said it when I woke up this morning, okay?
That covers me for the whole day.
I want to believe that so much.
No, they will spend so much time arguing this bullshit, and then meanwhile it's like, I don't know if there's enough time to actually talk to the people who were affected by this and saw their friends killed.
Now, by the way, and I would love to be able to say, look what happened in the House part of the first impeachment when they brought in Fiona Hill.
No, not Fiona Hill.
Fiona Hill?
That sounds weird.
Anyway, you know, she was for the Russian expert who was in Ukraine.
Anyway, it was very powerful what she had told us and explained to us.
Fiona Hill is a pop star.
No, who's the Fiona Apple?
Fiona Hill.
Anyway, and that was powerful.
So you'd imagine that they could bring other witnesses who were there watching Trump.
Just cheering on this crowd and really excited about what was happening, that would be powerful too.
But again, it wasn't powerful to anybody who already wasn't predisposed to, you know, hate Trump as it is.
So I don't even know anymore.
I don't know anymore.
Because again, there is a point that we know that these Republicans are not going to vote to convict beforehand.
And so like, what is the point of doing this whole thing anyway?
- Can I, Nick, would you be interested in hearing a poll? - Yeah, well, okay, and I'll explain why, okay, go ahead, give it to me. - The latest poll from the Associated Press says that 56% of Americans say Trump should be convicted and barred from holding office again.
And that's compared to 43% who says they should not.
To quote Dom Del Luiz in the History of the World of Part 1, nice.
Nice.
Not thrilling, but nice.
No, no, listen.
It should be a lot more.
But to get a majority of people in this country to agree on anything is incredible.
Yeah, I mean, the only problem is, well, you map them out, where these people are, right?
And you'll see that there is a vast majority of, or a huge swath of the country that are I just want to share with you, while we're on the subject, another poll that was released by the AP.
There's no pressure on that.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's what's so frustrating about that.
I said, what would that number have to really be before they feel that 80 percent?
I just want to share with you while we're on the subject, another poll that was released by the AP.
Nick, it says here that 16 percent of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well.
Yeah.
I mean, I sense that if you were to sit down with even like, you know, even the regular Republican who was, you know, happy with the tax cuts and judges and those things, maybe thought that Trump was an asshole.
If you sat down with those kind of people, I think that they would have a hard time connecting these two things.
I agree.
And this is the larger problem.
I think that the issue here, and this is what really Sticks in my crawl.
How about that?
I haven't said that something's stuck in my crawl in a while, but this sticks in my crawl.
Did you say crawl or craw?
Crawl?
Isn't it Crawl?
I'm from Southern Indiana.
I don't know.
Maybe.
If my Brady Bunch history, you know, it's stuck in my craw.
Let's pull back the curtain here.
We had to have a discussion before we started this show about how you were going to say the name of the documentary.
Because I couldn't even.
Finne De Una Dittatura.
That's pretty damn good.
I'll give it to you.
I'll do it.
I was reading it off a note card, you know.
Here's the problem with all of this.
This is going to be, and I understand that Donald Trump isn't president of the United States right now, this is going to be the main ring of American Circus for a while.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's a big story.
We've never had this happen before.
On top of it, like, just spea... And by the way, at this point, I'm even talking from a craven standpoint of, like, a Politico article, right?
People are going to watch this.
There are, like, Donald Trump equals ratings, just to quote Zucker and Moonves, right?
This is an opportunity for the Democrats to actually point out not only what happened on January 6th, But to actually go ahead and determine the narrative and reality of American politics at this moment.
What the message they are sending, and this is really sad but it's also true, the message they are sending people is, oh this is a symbolic thing.
This was just something that, you know, we needed to do.
We needed to give him a metaphorical, symbolic, yeah, tut-tut or slap on the wrist or whatever.
They're not treating it like the President of the United fucking States sicked his supporters on his own Vice President And the legislative branch, which is what actually happened.
And this is why people don't trust politicians.
This is why people don't trust the news.
This is why people don't have trust in institutions or democracy, because they know that there is a game being played.
So this goes back to what we always say.
Not only is it the smart thing to do politically, which, by the way, fuck that.
Quit worrying about politics.
It's the right thing to do, which is to actually carry out the prosecution of Donald Trump and point out that this was an actual crisis.
And on top of that, really quickly, I know the Biden administration doesn't want to take away from their agenda.
How else do you show that you have an agenda that should be embodied besides show that the guy before you was a dangerous criminal and that you need to change things?
This stuff isn't hard.
I mean, we've already heard Biden say he's not going to give Trump access to top secret information as a courtesy anymore, which is something.
There's so much to unpack there.
You might hear me jotting down on my notes furiously on my keyboard.
Apologize.
But here's the thing I think we're going to find out in the defense of this trial by the Republican or the Trump lawyers, whoever they may be.
Did they call you yet or no?
No.
Listen, I have some engagements.
I couldn't make it.
I would, you know what, I would love to go out there just as sort of like a devil's advocate.
You know what I mean?
To be like, no one has been more persecuted than this man.
It's just an indictment of our, whatever, in general.
Anyway, all right.
You know I just watched Animal House 2 and I'm forgetting that line but here's the thing I think they're gonna they're gonna argue is that the the mob thing it was a spur-of-the-moment it sort of happened and everyone was like kind of got swept up in this in this moment of patriotism whatever they got out of control you know a little bit whoops among us Nick haven't been swept up in a moment of jubilant celebration patriotic jubilant celebration and not a Try to pull off a coup.
Like, who among us?
I just did that last summer.
It was great, man.
So yeah, of course.
Yeah, so that's the thing, man.
That's what they're going to try and argue.
Now, if you look at the court documents already, there's a number of people who are, I mean, first of all, their lawyers, the people who are being arrested for insurrection, You know, they're going to have to do whatever they can to get out of this thing.
And a lot of them are saying, yeah, Trump told me to do it.
I'm just listening to Trump.
He's the one who did it.
That's pretty damning evidence.
This is probably why you're going to want to have some witnesses come out here and testify to that extent.
No shit!
Get some people to come out and say, you know what?
I was inspired by the weird-haired motherfucker who told me to do this!
He said, march on the Capitol!
And by the way, it's all part of the game.
Because their game is, I gotta get myself off on my own case, so I'm throwing anybody under the bus I can.
But you know what?
I believe them anyway.
I believe that they truly believe what they were led to believe.
Hold on, Nick.
I will not sit here while you impugn the American judicial system that has, for years, used criminals to turn over on other criminals in order to avoid consequences.
I will not have you sit here and talk about the judicial system like that.
Forgive me.
I will throw myself on the mercy.
That is not a precedent in America.
I just want to point that out.
Yes.
Well, let's talk about America.
Let's talk about something about what democracy means, because you just mentioned that people don't believe democracy is working.
Let's check that number again.
16.
Is that good?
Is that good when 16% of your population believes that democracy is working?
Yeah.
If your name is Mussolini, it probably is good.
Femme de una dittatura.
Dittatura like Mussolini.
So yes.
But here's the thing I think we've gotten over.
With enough time, what we've lost sight of is a lot of the Republicans seem to think that they know better.
We talked about this ad nauseum about how all these policies are worth whatever we have to do to get them into place because everything will be better once we get that happening.
And if we don't, apocalypse.
Right.
Just done.
That's it.
But what they don't ever respect is that democracy is supposed to represent the will of the people.
And every one of these policies that they want to put in go directly against what the vast majority of America believes in.
And that is what we've lost.
So yeah, you might want to say that democracy isn't working, but I feel like a lot of the Republicans have sort of completely twisted what they think democracy means anyway.
And so now here we are where we don't even know what it's supposed to mean and what it's supposed to reflect.
I mean, I like to think that the majority of Americans understand that.
But the bottom line is, like, if we were living in a country where 65% of the people think that we should be separating kids from the border, and that we should not have abortion, and that everyone needs more than two guns, like, I would probably end up having to move, right?
I would move from this country.
And I'm already discussing moving from this country anyway.
But, like, at some point, if that's what democracy calls for in that country, that's what it is.
But thank God that those numbers aren't there.
They're not there at all.
And by the way, this brings to mind a quote from, you know, I've been dealing a lot with a lot of philosophers lately and doing a lot of research.
It reminds me of a quote from a great philosopher, which is, Andy Bernard does not lose contests.
He wins them or he quits them because they are unfair.
That is the essence of what is happening right now, is that the Republican Party is not popular.
The Republican Party is actually really, deeply, deeply unpopular.
They don't have any numbers on their side.
At all.
Like, you could probably ask right now, like, I can't even, like, Ronald Reagan is probably the one Republican who's above 50%.
And that's only because his entire legacy has been propagandized.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's the only person who even comes near there.
They cannot win elections.
They are not on the right side of any polls.
And so as a result, they've tried to destroy the entire democratic system.
The Democrats know this.
The Democrats are well aware of this, like for all their talk of unity.
And by the way, I'm sorry, I have to do this.
We're recording this on Monday, February 8th, the day after the Super Bowl.
Did you watch the Super Bowl?
I watched 10 minutes.
It was terrible, terrible, like display football.
Did you watch the commercials?
Barely.
I really just turned it off.
I got bored.
Did you watch the Bruce Springsteen commercial?
No, and I love Bruce Springsteen.
Listen, I love Bruce.
I love Bruce.
Like I could sit here, I could talk for a couple hours about how much I love Bruce as a human being, as an artist.
Have you ever been to a concert?
No, I've never actually been.
Oh my God.
I hear it's amazing.
I think he, I think he's a beautiful person.
I love, man, his, his one man show where he talks about personas and playing characters I thought was just prescient and genius and his albums are like way up there in my favorite things.
The Super Bowl commercial with Bruce Springsteen, to sell Jeeps by the way, Was disgusting.
It was a disgusting piece of propaganda.
Where it's Springsteen driving a jeep to the middle of America and talking about finding the middle and how America needs to find the middle.
He goes into a church, which by the way has like America behind a crucifix.
Which by the way, that's not everybody, Jack.
That's like a particular message to a particular group of people.
Christian nationalists.
But he says, we just need to find the center.
We just need to find the middle.
The middle doesn't exist anymore.
And not in terms of what we're talking about.
You can't split a difference with the Republican Party because you still end up in authoritarianism.
They're so far gone.
And that argument has to be destroyed.
We have to get rid of that idea.
The Democrats have to make an actual appeal to Americans because Americans know it.
They sense it, their instincts tell them that something stinks here and that it's dangerous.
Because that's why they're saying 53% think Trump should be convicted and never allowed to run for anything again.
It has to be the truth.
It has to be that this is an actual crisis and we can't just sleepwalk through this thing.
We can't play games with it.
Well, one of the reasons why there's no more middle is because the middle constantly moves.
There isn't a middle because, you know, where the middle was 20 years ago is not where it is now.
And part of me wants to think, I was talking to my wife about this, is that like the Republicans, when Nixon was impeached, the Republican Party would probably be considered Democrats now?
Nixon would be a Democrat now.
Right.
So by that rationale, you would think that in this day and age, the center has moved to the right.
Unbelievably far to the right.
Right?
Yeah, exactly.
And even though it feels like we're making progress and sure there's things like gay marriage that have been approved and those things are being more and more accepted, It definitely feels like that that middle has been inexorably yanked by the extremism on the right in a way that that's not supposed to happen.
We were on another progression for a long time until Watergate.
I suppose, yeah, until Reagan takes over from Carter, and here we are.
It's been a 30-year drift, and it's pretty remarkable.
Oh, it's absolutely crazy, and the idea that we're going to find a center, which is... And this is actually one of the problems, is the Democratic Party, and this is one of the reasons why they're doing things the way that they are.
They have a political class of consultants that get paid so much money, Nick.
They get paid so much money to lose elections and then go on TV and talk about elections until they get hired to go lose another election.
Or, God forbid, they win an election and then they sit in these offices and dream up reasons to not use power.
Like, that's what's happening on the left.
And they are all concerned with one voter, and we've talked about this before, which is a white person in Dayton, Ohio, or Akron, Ohio, who, you know, consider themselves a little bit liberal, but they're a little bit put off by, like, civil rights and, you know, like, people of color.
So it has to be a little bit racist.
It also has to be a lot Reaganist.
A lot of capitalism.
In fact, by the way, we have a documentary that's getting ready to come out.
When are we doing that?
You know what?
You tell me.
It's ready to go.
We can drop it whenever.
Okay, let's give it to the Patreon people like Wednesday or Thursday.
What do you say about that?
Yeah, we could drop it.
Well, let's see.
We're going to have the live show on Thursday for Patreon people.
Maybe we drop it before that so we can react to that.
Oh, I like that.
Okay, we're gonna talk about that.
If you want to sneak peek at that and hear the whole thing before it's released to the public at large, that's patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
See how we just wove that in there?
That was nice.
And you know, I had meant to say it about two minutes ago, and so we got there anyway.
Yes, but the documentary is on Jimmy Carter and his malaise speech, but how it really was Just a touchstone for everything that's happened since then.
It was a moment where things could have been better.
And a moment where America could have got its shit together.
But unfortunately we didn't.
And then the Republican Party went so far right, it's like the scene in Jaws where they've got the fish on the hook, right?
And it's just going to town and, you know, everything's going so fast it's threatening to break.
The Republican Party is so far out in the fascistic right.
And it's not even to the right anymore.
It's its own thing.
And, you know, we were talking about this and one of the reasons we're going to be watching Fine di Una di Tura is because not only have they moved into fascism in terms of ideology, even in their presentation at this point, they cannot help but portray themselves as neo-fascists.
Yes, there is this notion that a certain segment of populations across the board, especially in free societies, sort of gravitate towards that.
What they value in the strong man who is going to take care of us and kick ass and do the right things, Ultimately plays into the notion of dictatorship and fascism.
It really does.
And there's nothing more triggering to those kind of people when you point it out, by the way.
It's really, the reaction is not good.
And I don't, I mean, listen, who wants to be called a fascist sympathizer or whatever you want to call that?
But it's like a hard truth that sometimes they need to, you know, face before they can change.
You know what's interesting about this is, you know, I was watching a lot of Nazi stuff today, as one would do on a fine Monday.
Yeah, Nazi propaganda.
We have to study this stuff.
That's one of the reasons why I want to go over this video with people.
Like, we treat all of this as if it's something you should lock in a box and never even look at, and we've done that so much that we've actually sort of, like,
kept it out of sight to the point where like when we see it and again everybody knows it like there's something deep inside of us that starts going hey this is fascism this is fascism but we don't study it so we're not prepared for it and we can't explain it and I think we have to be understanding of these things and and it's but it's beyond words it's not just like somebody's saying something it's a lie or whatever it's the production values and so Fox News of all people has cornered the market on these things when they share certain photos
And then they change backgrounds.
They've been accused or whatever.
It's journalistic malpractice when you doctor a photo.
But they do it all the time.
With Obama, they would do it and make it look murky and grainy and sinister.
Music, cues, they do all that kind of thing.
Would you be surprised to hear that Goebbels innovated a sound that would play on the radio before they gave updates on the war effort?
And that's one of the reasons why before – boom, boom, Fox News Update.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, listen, when I played guitar for my daughter going to sleep every night when she was really, you know, two and three and four, I actually tried to do that.
Like I play like certain chords or notes just because like maybe that'll sort of, you know, put her in that trance and go to sleep earlier because she never went to sleep that early.
So yeah, but it's very powerful.
The The medium of video or film is really powerful and we're still like certainly the the Nazis were in the infancy of that you know they really had no one had really developed interesting editing styles that can you know really be provocative enough to convince people's minds on a on a subconscious level.
I mean they were getting there they right you see some evidence of it.
And who did they take notes from?
Woodrow Wilson, Edward Bernays, and the Committee of Public Information that helped America going into World War I and then helped corporations post World War I to sell products.
They thought that the only reason that Germany lost World War I was because their propaganda wasn't good enough.
So they use those ideas, those thoughts, the work of Sigmund Freud, who is Bernays' uncle, to create their own propaganda, and which has more or less led to this entire genre that is now being aped in all of these different places.
And that's the same rationalization that they have for Nixon for why he lost because he didn't have his own propaganda.
So here's what you do when you look at a lot of the correspondence especially early in the war from Nazis.
You know you can read it in a sense that like they were just desperate to win and they were really dedicated to their to their process of winning and their cause.
But what you really read is that We have to win because what we are doing is so atrocious and heinous that if we lose we are going to be prosecuted in the Hague and it's going to be the most horrific war crimes of all time.
And that, when you read it and you read those words in that context, it sounds exactly like what the motivation for Trump was to win this election.
Because he's so afraid of being prosecuted for all the crimes that he committed while in office, that of course, that was what was motivating him this whole time.
It's the same thing that the Nazis were.
And that's the scary thing, that's an acknowledgement that what they were doing was bad.
They didn't believe this was sort of in the name of Germany, And this is like, we're the true, the chosen people, you know, cleansing the world of whatever.
They knew how wrong this was, and they knew the only way to get away with it is to win the war.
And this is one of the amazing things, is this goes back to the conversation we've been having about Trump and all the people around him, which is, is it a grift?
Is it a coup?
Is it real?
Is it put on?
Yes, it's all of it.
At times, they know that they're doing awful, illegal things.
At other times, they're like, maybe we are the chosen race.
Maybe we are, you know, the conquerors of the universe.
And they create all these mythologies that go ahead and convince people to follow them, but occasionally they get high off their own supply, and they're just like, absolutely, this is what we should be doing.
And it's important to point out, and one of the reasons we're talking about this is, I mean, they were playing Trump fascistic propaganda before this whole thing.
There is just an absolute lineage, and people who are listening, I assume, either hung out with us watching the Republican National Convention and saw some of that fascistic movie making, or has seen one of the many videos that Trump, back when he had a Twitter account, would always promote, which showed him in front of flags, it showed him from like a certain angle, right?
It showed the people who might destroy America, and showed him looking strong, like he would support America against all of its enemies, Absolutely.
All of this stuff, this neo-fascistic appeals, it's been present throughout the last few years and it has just been festering underneath the surface.
Absolutely.
And so to talk about the propaganda, this all sort of spurred a conversation from a really great article we read by a guy named Paul Stanley over on JustSecurity.org where he breaks down the video.
That was Jason Stanley, wasn't it?
Jason Stanley?
Paul Stanley is the guitarist in Kiss, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, maybe he's sidelined.
Dude, I would love, I would absolutely love if Paul Stanley came out as like, I am really against fascism.
People don't know that about me, but I am really anti-fascist.
I would love it.
And that would be a nice, you know, Gene Simmons, I think, is a pro-Trump guy, so that'd be a nice little balance in the KISS universe.
By the way, speaking of propaganda, KISS, you know, 100%.
As a kid, I would like, their playing cards, I would love, I wouldn't eat the gum because I was afraid it was laced, and even a seven-year-old, but the playing cards were like, we cannot go further.
You didn't eat the gum in packs of kiss cards because you were afraid it was laced with drugs?
Yes.
And that was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old mindset.
I don't know how I developed that, whatever.
I probably saw some weird movie once about something.
That's amazing.
But the point was... The enigma of Nick Halsman just continues to grow, and I love it.
I, for one, am here for it.
But the point was, I got to, you know, into college without knowing a single KISS song, but remembering that I was a huge, like, KISS fan as a kid.
I mean, their makeup was alluring.
Their marketing was incredible.
Yeah, because it wasn't about the music.
I mean, hey, we all now know I want to rock and roll all night and party every day, which is, you know, hey, An anthem.
But I really was not aware of like the music itself at that time, which is crazy.
But let's talk a little bit about this video they showed just before the insurrection that was pointed out as pure propaganda and insightful.
Insightful, is that the right word?
Inciting of the insurrection.
I want to ask you though, because he breaks it down shot by shot really well, except for one shot he missed.
He didn't mention.
I'm kind of curious what your take on it is.
They have a still frame of text of Women for America First, which I think was part of the sponsor of this whole thing.
And then, to me, I think it was a mistake, but when you keep watching this thing, it will flash on for the briefest seconds, Rudy Giuliani's name.
And when I see flashes like that, that instantly tells me, oh, they're doing something here subconsciously, because again, it was only a few frames.
It wasn't almost long enough to read.
I, you know, hey, I'm a speed reader, but like, maybe people didn't do that.
What do you think that they're trying to do with having those two names, Women for America first, and then Rudy Giuliani as a flash right after that?
Do you have any feelings?
don't know what the strategy is but i do have to tell you after examining the film and spending the last few years really really diving deep into trump media and the things that are produced there are people in that sphere who really truly honestly believe that they are doing some important fascistic experimental shit like they are really pushing this thing so i have to
and by the way an important thing to remind people because maybe this is someone's first time listening to the podcast one of the reasons that the right is so filled with conspiracy theories and always saying that people are engaged in conspiracies is because they're engaged in conspiracies or if they were in power they would be engaged in conspiracies that's I think I figured it out, by the way, just to answer my question.
is indoctrinating and brainwashing people and I bet they're putting in subliminal messages we probably need to put in subliminal messages and then they go I mean that's what's behind this whole thing is it's that projection of their own insecurities and fears I think I figured that by the way just to answer my question he was speaking maybe next but again I couldn't even pause it quickly enough to get it to get to that frame I I had to literally drag it because it's that quick.
So it could be a mistake, again.
But there's not many mistakes here because clearly they were understanding how to manipulate.
Even the shot, they have a very tight close-up of his eyes, of Trump's eyes.
They're dead.
You can't see them because of the shadows.
It's right out of The Hunger Games.
It's literally out of The Hunger Games.
You'd see it in that movie or whatever these post-apocalyptic movies are where you have these dictators.
So I wonder if it's like the freeze-dried version.
They're literally studying that stuff and trying to do it.
Somebody and this is happens across the board the last four years during Trump's administration There's always been somebody infinitely smarter than Trump behind a lot of these things the diabolical nature of these things and maybe one day we'll get like a whole like more of a book about it and they'll blow up and I don't know exactly what that means, but obviously the real issue here is that it's not just Trump.
He was allowed to do this.
Even silence is complicitness in this by a lot of these Republicans who didn't want to say anything but allowed it to happen.
And that's probably as damning as anything else.
Well, and we'll talk more about this when we do this special episode with Mussolini Fine di Una di Tura, but one of the things that has actually happened is that There have been so many propaganda films that have been influenced future films and filming techniques.
Like, for instance, Birth of a Nation, right?
The really, really racist lionization of the Ku Klux Klan.
Which, by the way, was inspired by Woodrow Wilson's histories and was used to create a new lost cause narrative and perpetuated Confederate mythology in America that we still deal with.
Also, though, and you were talking about watching some Nazi shit, undoubtedly some Liefenstahl, right?
And Liefenstahl's, like, these, and by the way, if y'all haven't watched, like, Triumph of the Will, like, you should.
Like, you actually should watch it in order to study it and see how the propaganda works.
Not to lionize it, not to want to be it, obviously these people are fascist fucks and fuck them.
But if you actually watch it, one of the things that you start to notice via Liefenstahl's, um, sort of ideas, Is so much of it is still in use today.
The low angle shot, the heroic shot, and we all know this and think about it in your mind's eye.
And by the way, this is used everywhere.
It's not just Fox News.
It's not just with Trump.
It's a picture of politicians that happens from a low angle that shows them towering over you and looking powerful.
It has an incredible psychological appeal.
Now, that is used everywhere, but I have to tell you, Fox News has turned it into an art.
The subtle changes and decisions you were talking about that they make are absolutely intentional.
They are propaganda.
And what we're watching is an entire generation that, first and foremost, has been influenced by people who have been influenced by fascistic filmmaking and propaganda.
But also, I have to tell you, around Trump, there are some people who are probably like, man, Maybe those guys didn't do the right thing, but they had some good ideas.
You know what I mean?
Like, there are some people who really probably don't think they're fascist, but they are absolutely fascist.
And we can't deny the power of this media.
You know, film and video and the way you can manipulate these things, again, it could go to the subconscious.
I mean, we saw it, we even saw it in a movie like Fight Club.
Where he splices in, you know, genitalia in the middle of a family movie, and they actually have a funny shot of a kid.
Like, they don't know they saw it, but they did see it.
They cried.
Yeah, it has an effect.
And there's no question you can do that.
That's the real fear here.
I guess the way to combat that is to educate so we know what we're seeing.
And that's like what people who are like in the 70 and 75 year olds and are watching Fox News, you know, they've been conditioned for their entire lives if a guy is sitting behind a desk with a tie and it's well lit and it sounds right, Then he is telling the truth.
You know, the Walter Cronkite syndrome.
You know, because they're old enough to do that.
Now, it doesn't excuse them because they're also old enough to have lived through Watergate.
They should know better.
We've already done this before on a lesser scale.
I mean, I can argue, we have to figure out whether who was worse, Nixon or Trump.
Are we going to say Trump or are we going to say Nixon?
It's like trying to pick like who's the greatest of all time in the NBA, right?
I think it's exactly right because there's different skill sets there.
I mean, it's just a different thing.
I mean, you got to say Nixon actually thought that he was doing the job for the good of people and Trump just absolutely did it to make money and gain power.
I mean, like, it's a weird combination.
So because of OSHA, we'll give it to Nixon as a better president.
I don't know.
He basically was well on the proto-Trumps.
But I will say, I think this is important to say, the appeals are this, and this is one of the reasons why the Republican Party has gotten where they are.
They don't have any principles.
They don't have a legislative agenda.
Their entire point is that they tell the voters, you have to vote for us.
Or the country will be destroyed, your guns will be taken away, your family will be enslaved and murdered.
And by the way, white people.
That's who they're talking to.
This message at the rally before the coup attempt at the Capitol told people, this man is a hero.
And they are trying to take him from you.
They're trying to steal the country.
And the whole point is that they were trying, and Trump is trying, and all these people were trying, to put them up to the point where they would change things, but not necessarily burn down a building or kill people.
Guess what?
You can't play those games.
Those games have a tendency to turn back around you and have deadly consequences.
They've been playing with fire this entire time.
That's the point.
Now, we all remember that Donald Trump said, if I lose this election, the stock market is going to tank, right?
And again, like, people might not want to hold them to that kind of standard because, oh, it's just the stock market or not.
But just FYI, you know, on November 4th, was that when the election was?
The 4th?
You know, it's at 27.8, and now the Dow Jones is at, you know, 31.3, the highest ever.
You know, again, Independent of anything that the president usually does anyway.
And then we certainly have our own issues now with how the manipulation of the stock market is going.
Oh dude, the stock market has told us that Donald Trump, an instrument of exploitation, was used to its highest purpose.
They used him to deregulate, to redistribute, and they got the most out of him that they possibly could before they booted his ass out.
Let me ask you this because redistribution of wealth is an interesting thing I was thinking about this morning.
I believe that a society is better when the wealth gap between the, you know, the top and the middle and the bottom is smaller than, you know, probably like what it was in the 50s when we wanted to make America great again around the 50s.
Do you believe that?
Or do you feel like it doesn't necessarily have a direct effect on society's value if these, you know, CEOs of corporations make, you know, 10,000 times what their lowest workers make?
Well, listen, I think it's a valid question, but I also think that the question takes out of account a couple of things.
So, like, it's hard to talk about the 1950s without talking about the fact that, like, The economy was humming in part because people of color and women and LGBTQ Americans were being exploited, you know, and they were being held down and people's rights were being trampled on.
And that's one of the reasons why the economy worked so well.
That's right.
You know, like, like, I mean, the economy as it is basically is a temperature reading of how well people are being exploited.
So, you're right that it would be better if the wealth gap was closed up and it was closer between all people, but that also goes ahead and throws out the notion that you don't need a wealth gap.
You know what I mean?
And that those sort of differences and disparities are made up anyway, and that they've basically been created to control people.
I mean, that's part of the problem.
But I hear what you say.
I do think that within the current system, of course, inequality should be, like, brought down to a narrow gap if possible.
Right.
I mean, you know, and then people argue, oh, well, you can't, like, limit the incentive to make money from people because then they won't do their jobs properly.
But it's like, at some point, you know, it just seems like it works better for everybody.
I would, you know.
Would you?
OK, so here, real fast, and we got to bring this thing in for a landing, but I will say real fast, You and I, we work our asses off.
Like we do.
We work all the damn time, right?
We both have a couple of jobs.
We put our all into those jobs.
If economic uncertainty was taken away from me, I wouldn't stop.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I would probably have better mental health and I would feel better, but like, I would still want to do things and do them as well as I do because I care about what I do.
Right?
Like, that's the crazy thing.
And I'm actually, it's funny we're talking about this right now.
I'm studying the formulation of capitalism in my research, and all of the people who are formulating the capitalistic international system think that human beings are shit, and they're all awful, you know?
And they're like, human beings are sinners, they're beings of utter depravity, they can't be trusted, you have to create a system that engages with their worst selfish instincts, right?
I mean, that's Adam Smith all the way back.
And that's just, I don't buy that.
I just, do you?
I don't think that's the way it would work.
Right.
I mean, it's the Republican argument.
Well, we can't just give people money.
Well, then they're not going to work.
They're going to be welfare queens.
They're going to be all these things.
They're going to be, you know, lazy, you know, whatever you want to say that are all the tropes of racism.
And yeah, I believe that the majority of people have pride in what they do and want to earn what they get.
And if they, if they're in, like, have you ever made a bad decision in your life?
Me?
You know?
It's like we've all done that so many different times and some people have really, really got, you know, made a bad choice or maybe not even made a bad choice.
Maybe just because of the way with their situation that they were raised or brought up in.
Like they just have never been above the eight ball or in front of the eight ball and, you know, a little bit of assistance would go so long, so much farther than anyone else to help them.
Dude, and on top of that, like, what we're talking about, and when people say that people are lazy, it's because they don't like doing what they're doing.
They don't care about it.
They're being made to do it because of circumstances.
Like, if you actually lessened, like, economic anxiety or, you know, economic sort of vulnerability, people would go find jobs that they want to do.
They would go find employment that they would want.
And to bring this full circle, this is important, and this is the reason why fascism exists.
This is the reason why it happened in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and why it's back.
And that's because when the system gets so out of whack that everybody is miserable and everybody is vulnerable, you need some people who are willing to go out in the streets and break some fucking necks.
Or else, you might have a conversation about how to change things for the better.
The entire point is that fascism happens because capitalism reaches its late stage where you can't continue to make an argument for it.
I think it was Confucius that said, the world needs digitiggers too, Danny.
And that is definitely the other argument to that as well.
You're right.
I mean, not everybody can have a job that they like, right?
I mean, and that very well may be true, but if you have a job that you don't like, at least you should be able to not starve doing it.
And by the way, just to go ahead and plug what we're going to do on Friday's Patreon-exclusive show, and again, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast, Nick, I just want to go ahead and tell people who are going to go ahead and watch... What?
For what?
The documentary!
The name of the documentary.
Oh, the name of the documentary.
Forget me.
Fine di una dittatura.
And that is over on Amazon Prime and YouTube.
And go ahead and watch that if you get the chance before the episode.
What you are going to see...
is you're going to see ditch diggers who are being made to dig ditches.
But guess what?
They don't mind it because they're doing it for the country.
They're doing it for the grand spirit of the country, right?
They're being made to do something that they wouldn't want to do anyway, and being convinced, much like, who was that American icon?
Tom Sawyer, convincing everybody how much fun it is to paint a fence.
Which is the entire point, is a bunch of people who are digging because they've been convinced that they're doing it for a larger fascistic purpose.
Right, and just feeling Russia did this, and the Soviet Union did this, Cuba...
Is another one of those again, which is basically what Soviet Union West And so yeah, we've seen we've seen and I remember my parents went to Cuba and you know 15 years ago And they were just blown away by how like they seemed happy Living in the squalor that they were living in and they couldn't figure that out.
I mean it was interesting thing but again, it's in the name of you know, the greater society, which, by the way, I'd like, there is a notion of communism I like, but when it's exploited like that, and people don't all live in a way that is commensurate with, you know, you have the really wealthy elites, and all those societies will still have them anyway, and then people living in complete and all those societies will still have them anyway, and then people living
One of the biggest discoveries I made while working on American rule and doing the research I'm doing for this current thing, which is, it doesn't matter what economic system we're talking about, right?
Because Capitalism, communism, socialism, whatever.
Almost every time they are perverted.
And they're just a front.
This is how everything operates.
And then meanwhile, the wealthy and the powerful become more wealthy and more powerful while people suffer.
That's the problem.
But when we start to learn that and figure it out, we can make changes.
GameStop, baby!
GameStop.
All right, everybody.
Again, we're going to do our live question and answer session on Friday, February, or Thursday, Friday.
Good Lord, that's hard to work your head around.
We're going to do it Thursday, February 18th at 7 p.m.
Eastern.
And all you have to do to be a part of that is go to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
It'll be nice to hang out with everybody, take some questions, do our thing.
This Friday we will be watching... Fide de una dittatura!
And you can find that on Amazon Prime and YouTube.
Go ahead and watch that.
We'll have a discussion about fascist propaganda.
And I promise you, if you watch this thing, it will make a couple hairs stand up on end.
Because you're gonna recognize some stuff.
I'll just say that.
In the meantime, here's hoping that Donald Trump actually gets held accountable.
My God, it needs to happen.
But I am so pissed off about this whole thing already.
Until then, you can find Nick over at Can You Hear Me?
