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Feb. 16, 2021 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
45:32
The Shocking Conclusion To An Impeachment Sham

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the cowardice on both sides of the aisle as the second impeachment of Donald Trump came to a sudden and shocking end with undoubtedly some sort of back room deal. They also analyze a recent poll that shows a vast majority of Americans are in favor of a 3rd party.  Become a Patreon member today at: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
They could have had 500 more witnesses.
It wasn't going to change the outcome.
Once Mitch McConnell made it clear he intended to acquit, even despite the compelling evidence, what the House managers needed wasn't more witnesses or more evidence.
What we all needed was more Republican courage.
Donald Trump is the most vibrant member of the Republican Party.
The Trump movement is alive and well.
People believe that he brought change to Washington.
The most potent force in the Republican Party is President Trump.
We need Trump plus.
But he's not singularly to blame.
Democrats have sat on the sidelines and watched the country be burned down for a year and a half and hadn't said a damn word.
And most Republicans are tired of the hypocrisy.
There's no question.
None.
That President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.
No question about it.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm your co-host, Jared Yates-Sexton.
As always, I'm here with Nick Halseman.
You know, some days are better in American politics than others.
We have to start This week's episode, unfortunately, talking about Donald Trump's second acquittal in his second impeachment trial in the Senate.
Unfortunately, only 57 United States senators were willing to vote to convict Donald Trump of sending a mob of insurrectionists to, let me check my notes here, Nick, murder them.
In this case, we saw seven Republicans, Burr, Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and Toomey vote to convict Donald Trump as the largest bipartisan vote for an impeachment in American history.
And yet it is really demoralizing, deflating, infuriating, disturbing, and tons of other words that come to mind.
How are you feeling, Nick?
I'm mad.
I lost.
I had money on 10 Republican senators.
I only got seven.
I believe I had seven.
I think I was all over seven.
Yeah, and I think my wife had five and so she, you know, you split the difference there and then you win.
Again, we shouldn't be surprised at all of this because we knew this was going to happen.
It wasn't.
But again, it didn't temper the shock and the disappointment and the anger anyway.
You weren't the only person I talked to that felt completely and utterly demoralized.
Me, I was kind of like in this weird zone where I was like, well, you know, I was prepared for this, but I suppose the whole key is the surprise vote on witnesses threw a wrench in the whole plan for a second there, and it looked like they were actually going to do that, and then they didn't.
And not only did they not call witnesses, it was like within an hour that it was over.
It was done.
It was all done.
Well, you know, we we had talked about it.
I mean, since before they impeached him, that they were not going to convict him, that the Republican Party was simply going to circle the wagons because that's what they do.
They're not going to you know, they're not going to be searching through their couch cushions one day looking for some loose change and finding their consciences.
I mean, this party is completely and utterly gone.
We'll talk more about that in a minute.
But I, you know, I knew that they weren't going to convict him.
I knew that Donald Trump was going to get away from this.
Matter of fact, while we're on the subject, there is a very high likelihood that even if the Democratic Party would have went ahead and called witnesses, even if they would have done it for weeks at a time, there's a very high likelihood that they would not have convicted him.
I understand that.
I'm not naive.
I'm not living in an alternate reality.
But it doesn't change the fact that it still sucks.
You know what I mean?
It sucks.
And it's it's like one of those moments.
I mean, we're getting up on a year of this pandemic.
You know, we're all like razor thin at this point, like trying to hold on by our fingernails.
But like the the the trauma of watching it happen.
But also, man, watching the Democratic Party fold like a lawn chair and just listen.
Either we're in the middle of a fascistic, democratic crisis or we're not.
Right?
And what the Democratic Party has continually done over and over and over again is every now and then they'll pay lip service to the fact that we're in these really, really dangerous times.
But then we hear from Chris Coons who says, well, people wanted to get back home for Valentine's Day.
They wanted to get back home with their sweeties.
And hang out with their families on Valentine's Day.
It's like, are we in the middle of a crisis or are we not?
I happen to think that we are.
And I happen to think that all this political spectacle and theater is, it's enraging, Nick.
It pisses me off so much.
That these people take their responsibility so lightly and are willing to look at us and be like, we know that this is dangerous.
And then they get on a plane with a dozen roses.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's infuriating.
Well, you know, the irony that it's, you know, Valentine's Day, which is, you know, one of those made up things to sell some cards, right?
I mean, who here is always romantic in our audience, right?
I mean, who cares about that stuff?
My understanding of St.
Valentine's Day was when a martyr was massacred.
That's my understanding of St.
Valentine's.
Yeah, so let's get some candy to commemorate.
I think it's time that we need to kind of now then talk about how this works because when we want to ascertain the political temperature of an age gone by, What do we do?
We dig up speeches.
Maybe we are lucky we have video or film of these people talking and giving us the on-the-ground feeling of what was going on at the time.
We take that at face value, usually.
So, when Mitch McConnell gets up onto that podium and delivers a 20-minute speech of which 90% of it is the most eviscerating demolition of Donald Trump.
All the things that we had ever hoped to hear a Republican say about him comes out clearly.
But he buries the lead halfway through, probably figuring that, you know, we use soundbites and maybe 25, 35, 50 years from now, they're going to miss this little part, where he gets weasels out of the whole thing by trying to argue a process as why he can't, where he gets weasels out of the whole thing by trying to argue a process as why he can't, you know, because of the way the Constitution is written, which we'll talk about
But the point is, is that this was, when we talk about political theater, that's what this was in the most cynical way possible.
This was a guy that wants to make sure 50 years from now, when we look at how horrible this was, someone's going to only find like that, you know, on the archives and say, well, look, he understood what's going on and he had the right conscience and he was in the right place.
And it would be the all time biggest bullshit that we've ever heard.
It is really staggering, the craveness of Mitch McConnell.
Like, really it is.
Like, it's sort of like, if our listeners have ever seen No Country for Old Men.
Like, there's, you know, it's like this main character, Chigurh, who is like, not quite human.
Like, human, but not.
Right?
And like, whoever he passes, it's like, people are like, ooh, I just felt a chill.
What just happened?
Standing next to a great white shark.
Something different than myself.
That's Mitch McConnell.
And this speech that he gave, and any number of these bullshit speeches... By the way, he said he couldn't vote to convict Donald Trump because he wasn't president anymore.
Who made sure that the trial wasn't going to happen until after Donald Trump was president?
Oh, well, hey, he made sure to mention that Pelosi didn't deliver the actual piece of paper until after he left office.
Not his fault, Nick!
I mean, really.
He just, you know, he just happened to be at the house fire watching it and warming his hands by it.
Mitch McConnell gave that speech.
First and foremost, you're exactly right, to history.
In order to get put down in the history books as having it both ways, he would vote to acquit Donald Trump, but also did not want to be on the record supporting him.
Right?
He was on the quote-unquote right side of history.
The other group of people, and there's two more, the other group of people that he was speaking to were people calling for unity and reaching across the aisle.
Who, by the way, I have to say, just so I'm on the record about this, I was talking about this last night on a live stream, Watching the people who support the Democratic Party and how they handled this whole thing, and using the same phrases as QAnon supporters?
Trust the plan!
You don't know what's happening behind the scenes!
There's a plan!
There's a plan!
Why are you questioning the plan and treating the Democratic Party like they're perfect?
Is madness.
I don't know how you feel about it, but watching the people be like, how could you ever criticize these people?
These are, these are saints and messiahs.
It's insanity.
That's not the way the politics actually works.
I can only imagine what that reference is.
It's like, OK, this is all deals and backroom, you know, shenanigans, chicanery, where because the Democrats ended the trial now, they'll get some of their nominations in and it'll be easier process there.
Some judges, whatever.
I mean, I imagine that's what's going to happen, right?
Yes.
The idea is that if they were to continue with this trial, it would hurt Biden's agenda.
Whatever that is.
I would love to see an alternate reality where the Republican Party would ever behave like that.
You know what I mean?
I would love the Republican Party to be like, this is a weapon.
We use it.
Go.
But the other third part that McConnell was speaking to, and we've been on this for a while, corporate donors.
It's the corporate donors who on January 6th or January 7th released a PR statement that said, we're pausing all donations to people who have gone on the record saying that the election was fixed.
We're going to pause for about six months and then we're going to reassess and see where we are.
And what did McConnell do?
He gave them a get-out-of-jail-free card.
He was speaking to them.
It's okay to go ahead and send your money to the Republican Party.
No, nothing has changed.
No one's been held accountable.
In fact, the Republican Party has been moved further and further into the fascistic, anti-democratic abyss with this whole thing.
But he was telling them, oh, it's okay, go ahead.
You can let the spice flow.
You can let the water flow.
That's what that speech was all about.
Yeah, let it rain.
I agree.
I mean, listen, there is this notion, as Pelosi announced today, that they want to create a 9-11 style commission to investigate the whole thing.
Where maybe there will ultimately be some criminal liability to some of these people that they probably should have called.
I mean, the idea that they wouldn't have called Kevin McCarthy, like that couldn't have been part of the deal.
They're like, fine, we don't have to call 100 different people.
Give us four, you take four, and then that will keep it limited in scope or something like that.
But the idea that they wouldn't call McCarthy to completely establish the chain of events and why Trump didn't call in the National Guard when they needed him and what his frame of mind was, is mind-boggling.
And a complete capitulation in a way that, like, have they forgotten that they have the majority right now and they will be able to pass whatever they want to, filibuster aside?
That's the interesting thing that we're in here, where the Democrats never seem to approach this from any position of leverage or power.
It's very, very unsettling.
I have to say, Nick, I'm very deeply uncomfortable with you insinuating that the Democrats could possibly act beyond the filibuster.
What you just said, thinking that the Democrats could use their majority without the filibuster, that's very radical.
It makes me uncomfortable.
It makes me think that socialists are taking over the country.
It makes me think that communists and Marxists are working right now to undermine America, possibly blow up Mount Rushmore, pluck the feathers off a bald eagle.
Nick, I don't know if I can continue the podcast thinking about the idea that they might disregard the filibuster, a completely made-up thing.
You would have to... I will leave.
You have to finish the podcast.
I will leave because it's on me.
I'm sorry.
We are both outraged and both canceled on our own podcast.
And the idea that you could possibly go beyond the filibuster, which is just a handshake of an artificial rule.
And by the way, let me check my notes.
Maybe you can find this earlier, Nick.
Has anybody ever eliminated the filibuster, Nick?
Um, I think so.
I think it sounds familiar.
Wait, who was that?
Was that, uh, oh that's the Republican Party.
I'm just checking.
I just want to make sure.
Well, you know, we might have, the Democrats might have done it too.
They have!
Everybody has because that's what you do!
We all do it.
Yes!
Yeah, I eliminated filibuster just now.
It was great.
I think I'm going to later with like some cheese.
No, it's absolutely absurd this idea that the Democratic Party is so afraid of power.
They really are.
And I want to say this.
I'm very happy that Warnick and Ossoff both got elected.
But there is no better situation for the Democratic Party than to split a 50-50 tie in the Senate.
It's the perfect situation.
These are all the things we would like to do if only we could do them.
That way you just go out and give them money and you go ahead and you're gonna vote for them in you know 2022 and 2024 and it just continues this cycle that just nothing really gets done and we keep having this symbolic victories and I'm sorry I hate to go ahead and say this but this was a participation trophy Nick!
This is, this is like, you know, it's like an NBA team hanging a division champion, you know, banner saying, we won the Atlantic one here.
Like that, it's pathetic.
It's so sad.
And they, they just absolutely failed to meet the moment.
And the fact that it makes me, Nervous to even say that aloud because I don't want to violate orthodoxy.
I don't want to upset people because the Democratic Party is perfect and, you know, they're saints and messiahs.
They're not.
They keep getting this wrong.
Well, I've got to say something that might actually, you might cancel me.
I listen to McConnell's speech very carefully, like the 20-minute speech about why.
And again, like we mentioned, he does it masterfully because he appeals to everybody on the left who, you know, everything he's saying is terrific.
And I got to tell you, the way he lays out the argument for why you can't impeach the president, Is very compelling because if you want to interpret the language, it says you can only impeach the president, not the former president.
Now, again, where this all falls apart is that clearly, you know, there's going to be moments in this situation like we have with Trump where he would then not have anything holding over his head, you know, for the last month of his presidency.
But his, one of his idiot lawyers did actually say the quiet part out loud during the trial where he said, you know, this really should just be a criminal thing where somebody brings him, you know, into a court of law and charges him with a crime.
So that's probably where we would probably should go with this anyway, because we do, there is a law in the books about incitement of riots and certainly insurrection that would, that maybe could stick.
So the problem here, and what you're saying has its merits.
route we have to go down that Pelosi maybe will now pull.
But I got to tell you, though, I saw it.
I almost wanted to throw my phone and be like, shit, this is a very compelling argument for why they did do it.
Now, again, the last part you mentioned, too, which was he delayed it on purpose so they couldn't do it while he was in office.
Again, but either way, I want to tell you, I was a little bit moved by that reasoning.
So the problem here and what you're saying has its merits.
And by the way, just so we're on the same page, Trump's defense team was one of the most piss poor things I've ever seen.
Like it was so, it was so terribly poorly done and never at any moment did it approach anything resembling an actual defense at all.
It was it was meandering.
It was weird.
It was bizarre, unsettling.
And it was it was literally like turning on Fox News on a day where the main producers and directors are on vacation.
And like everyone's just like, all I know is I'm mad and Starbucks and Christmas.
Right.
You know, just madness flowing out of them.
Oh, and Ted Cruz is conferring with them and giving them advice.
And he's the guy who's saying, he's like, yeah, don't worry about it, guys.
You've won this.
It doesn't matter.
You can take a shit on the stage and no one would, you know, convict him.
They didn't care.
The fact that the Republican Party, not only like some of them didn't show up, some of them would sit there and read the paper with their feet up.
They would meet with the defense team and strategize.
Like, that is so disgusting and repulsive that it's almost hard to wrap your head around.
But I will say that this idea that you can impeach a former president, the main thing here is that Donald Trump should never be allowed to run for president again.
That's the main thing here.
And I don't actually think that he will.
Maybe he will.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think he will.
But I will say, if that is to hold, then that basically means that if you are a lame duck, First term defeated president from the day of your defeat in the Electoral College to the inauguration.
You can do anything, anything whatsoever to profit and empower yourself and possibly overturn an election.
It is more or less, it's like diplomatic immunity, Nick.
It's like when you come to America and you're like an ambassador and it's like, Good luck, everybody!
Don't worry about speeding, obeying laws, or whatever.
Just do what you need to do.
It's like Lethal Weapon 3.
Or 2.
One of those.
Maybe it's 2.
But Jared, I gotta blow your mind on this one, then.
Because not only what you just described is correct, But if the president has the Senate controlled by the same party as him, then all four years are completely covered by this immunity.
He has nothing to worry about on anything.
And it's weird we've gotten to the point now where that hasn't really been... I haven't really, you know...
You know, I guess part of the reason why is because any Republican president generally would have a... I feel like the Senate has been Democratic a lot more often in the distant past than it has been... You know what?
I'm kind of talking on my ass on this one.
But the bottom line is, as far as political analysis of the past, you know, 100 years of our system, it never really felt clear to me that that was the fact until now.
You know, and then going forward, that as long as you have the Senate, you are completely covered and have nothing to worry about.
I want to, I want to say something that I think is, it's, it's, it's larger than what we're talking about, but it's about what we're talking about and, and we've nibbled around it and we've messed around with it.
The American system of government, the constitution, our laws, our governing bodies, they have corroded to the point Where they're falling apart.
They really are.
Like, listen, say what you want about the radical young minds of like James Madison and the framers of the Constitution, and God knows that I've said my share about them.
Their shit's falling apart.
It doesn't work.
This does not work.
Whenever you have somebody, and again, these past presidents, man, they have been governed by at least an internal sense of duty and how they're supposed to Approach the office and yes, they have committed ungodly amounts of crimes and they have broken the law they've broken norms They've overthrown other governments.
They've engaged in coups.
They've engaged in so I mean drug trafficking in certain cases God knows what these people have gotten up to And by the way, they all should have been held accountable.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't.
But we have a guy here, the past president, the 45th president, Donald Trump, who didn't have any sense of duty or honor or loyalty to the country or humility or anything even approaching actual basic human decency.
And it exposed a problem at the heart of the system, which is the founders had no idea whatsoever of what actual factionalism would do.
They said, we won't have parties, and then we immediately had parties.
They were like, yeah, we're not going to worry about having political parties.
And by 1800, it's like, you're either a Democrat, Republican, or you're a Federalist, and you go to hell.
And that's how this whole thing went to shit.
And I have to say, and I want to hear what you have to say about this.
There was a poll that came out today, this is really, really important, I think, and said that it's an all-time high, and this poll's been held for a while, which is a question posed to the American people, which is, do you think a third party is necessary in the American political system?
We're at an all-time high this year.
It has been 60% in 2013, 61% in 2017.
Now in 2021, the number is 62%, a solid majority of Americans.
in 2017. Now in 2021, the number is 62%, a solid majority of Americans.
And I wanna talk to you, by the way, about who composes that 62%.
Which is an important conversation.
But 62% of Americans say that we need a viable third party.
And in the face of what we're watching right now, with what happened in the Senate, in the acquittal, and what's happening in our political system, what say you?
I don't think we need a third political party.
We need a second political party.
We need a second political party.
That's the that's the real answer.
So the Republicans just need that just needs to go away.
You know, it's like you can keep painting your house, you know, and then after, you know, a long enough time, 100 years, you know, you have like 10 coats of paint and it's like 10 inches thicker than it ever was before.
It's literally going to fall off and pull your house down because of the weight.
You've got to rip the whole thing down and start over again after enough time.
And that's where we are with the whole Constitution, I think, anyway.
We need to rewrite the damn thing so the language reflects how we speak today.
It's clear.
And then certainly we need another party.
I just think it needs to replace the Republican Party.
Well, I do have to say that there for a minute I think a lot of people thought that the Lincoln Project was the beginning of an alternative to the Republican Party.
Which, by the way, we haven't talked about this.
The Lincoln Project has been imploding.
Does it mean that they're not going to be around anymore?
I, it's already a toxic brand and it's only been in existence for a couple of years.
I mean, it's already like sexual predators and con artists and like grifters, which by the way, that's what we've talked about.
These are the people who helped the Republican Party for years become the Republican Party that we have now.
You're exactly right.
The Republican Party is not an actual party.
It is an anti-democratic fascistic movement.
The question I have for you now is 62%, which by the way is a solid majority again, Who do you think composes that 62%?
I think it's really important to break down where those numbers come from.
How much of it is Democrat?
How much of it is Republican?
How much of it is Independent?
What's your instinct on this?
Because I have some thoughts.
I would say 90% of Democrats are in that 60% or whatever.
Wow.
Right?
Wow.
That's high.
Yeah.
Well, here's the thing.
I don't see how anybody who's a Democrat would look at the Republican Party.
I mean, it's an interesting poll, because what does it really mean?
If you were to ask Democrats, should the Republican Party just disappear, I would say almost everyone would say yes.
But then you're asking, well, no, let them still hang around, maybe have some influence, but let's have a third party.
And then, in theory, that would splinter off the Republicans.
So again, that's why it seems like this is really just a way to minimize the Republican influence going forward.
It has nothing to do with the Democrats, right?
I think there needs to be, and I think there's probably part of it who they hear that and they think, oh, there needs to be a conservative alternative.
I think what we need in some way, shape or form is something to shake up the snow globe.
And if you actually look at American history, like when there are these moments of crisis or stagnation or something massive, there are shifts.
Right?
Like, we saw this with, like, the civil rights movement, right?
The Democrats started championing civil rights, and all of a sudden they went from being the party of racist segregationists and white supremacists to suddenly being a working class party that suddenly stood up for people of color and unions and laborers.
And the Republican Party is like, hey, we want some of that white supremacy.
Absolutely.
Let's go that route.
And they shifted.
Of course, we've had the Whigs, we've had the Federalists, we've had the Democrat Republicans.
I feel like in some way shape or form in order for this thing to even try and move forward and by that I mean the American political system.
There needs to be some sort of a shaking up, whether that's the Republican Party hemorrhaging people, parts of them coming over to the Democratic Party, and a third party coming around that somehow or another needs to readjust the shift, whether or not it's the left goes over to the third party and the Republicans come over to the Democratic Party, or what, but it just feels like we're at loggerheads, that we're at a moment that isn't going to work, and particularly, like, it's a math problem.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like an algebra problem, which is you have three canoes, you have 15 people on one canoe and 20 on another, and you need to get equal amounts on each of them.
And it feels like we have to figure that problem out while everything's on fire and a flood is coming.
Well, give me a minute to have a concept out here that kind of connects to this in a tangential way where, you know, when you see a president take over, who's now wants to put mask mandates on, he wears his mask, he really, you know, makes sure everyone understands the value.
It doesn't have any effect on the people who won't wear masks, right?
So it's not like we could say, oh, now that we have a leader in power, like, you know, all of a sudden the people start doing the right thing, right?
Well, it's the same thing kind of with this, where it's like we could say, well, if not for Mitch McConnell, then perhaps the Republican Party wouldn't be so awful.
And so hard to deal with, and we could actually get some things done.
But you know that someone else is going to replace Mitch McConnell and be the same bullshit stuff, like, you know, and wants to win at all costs and, you know, ignore the constituents completely.
So, like, that would be my thing, where it'd be like, that doesn't help you either, which is another reason why you have to say, like, the entire Republican Party needs to be burned down.
I suppose if that, short of that, then yes, let's dilute it as much as we possibly can, and then with hopes we finally get some things done.
I would imagine that third party, yes, is all the Never Trumpers.
Is that who that would be?
I don't know.
Because I almost feel like what we watched, man, and we watched something weird happen with the rise of Trump.
We watched the Never Trumpers, like Bill Kristol.
All of a sudden Bill Kristol was like hanging out with the Democrats and talking about like what the Democrats should do to win elections.
And I keep saying this, Bill Kristol is one of the main reasons we don't have national health care.
And all of a sudden you have Rick Wilson who made every ad, every racist, paranoid, angry ad for the Republican Party suddenly going on MSNBC and talking about what Joe Biden should do to win an election and going after Trump.
It almost feels like as the Republican canoes started going down and as 90% of Republicans were like, there is no such thing as water, you know, as the canoe starts to sink, all of the never Trumpers started to get into the boat with the Democrats, which happened also in the 80s and the 90s when the Democratic Party moved right.
It feels like almost like there needs to be a move where the Republican Party just needs to maybe maybe Trump takes it over into into totality and just grips everybody to the bottom of you know the ocean and like the left moves over into another canoe and suddenly we have like one that's bubbling up into the surface.
I don't know but it feels like and and I brought this up to you because we have to have solutions.
We have to have something shift.
Because not just are we at loggerheads, but we're at... Man, we're in a destructive-ass cycle right now.
I mean, it's just not gonna get better.
And I mentioned this to you before we started recording.
This is an article that came out today in Wired.
And by the way, for anybody who isn't aware of this, and I know that they've seen articles from Wired, Wired was basically the prophet of the new technological internet revolution.
Every article was about how the internet was going to save us and it was beautiful and it was going to be wonderful.
Spoiler alert for everybody, the internet was not beautiful or wonderful.
It has moments, but it is a hellscape.
So Wired has this article today.
And by the way, they realized who they were a couple of years ago and they started like apologizing.
And they were like, we're really sorry about what we did for the tech industry.
It wasn't great.
But they released this article today called, Billionaire CVR is a way to avoid radical social change.
Tech oligarchs are encouraging the creation of virtual worlds as a cheap way to avoid problems in the real world.
Now, I'm going to read you the first two paragraphs here.
Actually, I'm going to give you three, and then I want to hear your reaction to it, Nick.
The future of virtual reality is far more than just video games.
Silicon Valley sees the creation of virtual worlds as the ultimate free market solution to a political problem.
In a world of increasing wealth inequality, environmental disaster, and political instability, why not sell everyone a device that whisks them away to a virtual world free of pain and suffering?
Tech billionaires aren't shy about sharing this.
Some people read this the wrong way and react incorrectly to it.
The promise of VR is to make the world you wanted.
It is not possible on Earth to give everyone all that they would want.
Not everyone can have Richard Branson's private island, Doom co-creator and former CTO of Oculus John Carmack told Joe Rogan.
People react negatively to any talk of economics, but it is a resource allocation.
You have to make decisions about where things go.
Economically, you can deliver a lot more value to a lot of people in the virtual sense.
Virtual reality is an attractive escape, but it's not a solution to the world's ills.
The problems of the real world will persist beyond the borders of the metaverse created by companies such as Epic, Valve, and Facebook.
Without decisive and radical action, our planet will continue to burn, the gap between the rich and poor will grow, and totalitarian political movements will flourish, all while some of us are plugged into a virtual world.
Now, if we don't figure out what led to the coup on January 6th and the acquittal of Donald Trump, And also figure out this whole thing where a majority of Americans want a third political party.
If we don't figure out how to get from one boat to another boat, that's the solution that's being offered, which is, yeah, y'all can't live together.
Y'all can't live in a society together.
Y'all have your own little fantasy worlds.
We'll give you an update every now and then.
How do you feel about that?
I mean this is what's been happening throughout history, right?
Movies were the escape, and TV.
And we've always wanted, you know, Julius Caesar discusses this, where they want people just to be fat and lazy and not even paying attention to what's going on behind the scenes.
Just enough where they can kind of, you know, be comfortable and not realize what's going on around them.
What is it on network?
When we did the network episode?
Just leave me alone in my own home!
Yes.
And by the way, it's exactly what, because what it leads to is what, you know, Carter warned us about and we talked about in the documentary.
It leads to a culture that's so focused on like buying things and being consumers.
If you're in your virtual world, what do you want?
You want to buy another room that you can get to and another thing you can play with in your arm, like another gun to shoot or something or another costume to wear.
That's the epitome of that.
We see it in movies like WALL-E where they ended up just being on a spaceship watching TV and they couldn't even walk anymore because they hadn't been active.
And we've seen it in other areas where there was actually a great pulp novel in the 50s that I was going to try and adapt as a movie where they find this and you can separate your mind from your body.
And you can go anywhere you want in the universe.
It's amazing, right?
Well, what they don't realize is that your body is wilting away because you're not feeding it.
It's not moving.
And at some point, if it dies, you are locked out of your body for the rest of eternity, stuck as this ethereal thing.
So, at any rate, that is where we are.
Even a movie like Brainstorm.
I don't think you've ever remembered that.
Natalie Wood.
Remember this movie, Brainstorm?
Here's where it gets really, you know, eerie.
They simulated sex.
You can put this thing on and you can feel it.
It's not even just like VR.
You feel like you're having sex with somebody.
And they have, you know, a guy ends up, like, just sitting there for, and he never leaves his house, you know, the rest of his life, whatever it is, for, you know, the scene after an hour of a movie.
It's really, really, really dangerous.
And when we lose sight of the beauty of the world, of nature, of movement, of, you know, whatever you want to call God or, you know, a higher power in your life, that's when we have serious problems with society.
Yeah.
Weirdly enough, I actually wrote about this.
God, I'm looking it up right now when this was published.
God, this was a long time.
ago that I published this.
This was a short story that I wrote called Habit Yourself to the Dazzle of the Light.
And it was all about how like people would be living in these alternate realities and they would just basically you could be whisked away to a paradise or sometime in the past and you could have sex with whoever you wanted to at any given moment.
And that is actually the reason why I wrote that story and the reason why I've been thinking that virtual reality was possibly going to be a solution to our political problems and political crises is because it's this idea that, well, you know what, there's no way whatsoever that we could ever share you know what, there's no way whatsoever that we could ever share the
Now that we have individualism, now that we have consumerism, now that we have all of the media that we have, it's best just to go ahead and give people whatever they want so they won't hurt each other.
But we don't want to fix things.
And you'll notice, by the way, that article, they're talking about creating massive new technologies that would disrupt the entirety of humanity.
Wouldn't it be so much easier to tax their business a little bit?
So you could give people healthcare?
Or invest in schools?
And infrastructure?
And jobs?
And something tangible and real?
And everyone's like, ah, don't worry about it, we can't do it, we should go into the next world.
Which, just a real quick thing for those who have seen this before, that's what they said about the original internet.
The original internet was being pushed not only by scientists, and by the way, it was seen as a way of trying to connect the world in case the Cold War erupted into a nuclear apocalypse.
But it was also pushed by hippies.
It was pushed by utopians who believed that there was no way to make the world better after Watergate and Vietnam and the Cold War and there was no way to fix politics.
So we should create another world and we'll go into that world and everything will be okay and everyone will have what they wanted.
By the way, how's the internet right now?
Not great!
Because it's been commodified and poisoned and awful.
And we all use it and we all hate it, which by the way is one of the reasons why I haven't logged on to Twitter in a couple of days.
Like, it is a gross maelstrom of cesspool toxic poison.
And now the same people who made that are gonna give us virtual worlds?
And they're gonna say, don't worry about the real world anymore, that's for us?
That's madness, Nick!
That is, like, absolute madness.
And it pisses me off.
It really pisses me off.
I hear you.
I hear you.
I mean, listen, as I look at how much I use my phone, I'm on my phone all the time and getting shit from everybody in my family for doing it too much, you know, it's an intoxicating thing that the brain responds to.
And that's what you have to be careful about, is that the people in power can manipulate this kind of thing.
It's not just limited to propaganda like we talked about in our last show on Patreon, in depth with what Mussolini was doing.
It is now weaponized.
I mean, listen, we saw what it did in 2016, where you can now manipulate people, almost like, gosh, what's the movie where they plant the ideas in your head?
Oh, Inception.
Inception.
It's a lot like that.
What is advertising?
Advertising is exactly that way.
It's exactly about reprogramming your brain and flashing your brain and using what we have as our technology to influence that.
And VR is just another level and a deeper level to completely reprogram people's minds.
It's very concerning.
And not even from a libertarian standpoint or even a hippie standpoint, whatever you look at it, scientifically it's very concerning.
Yeah.
And I want to point out something that goes along with this, which is I, I spend way too much time reading these accounts of like, what, what, what are the, like Davos, you know, where the, where the, the tech Lords get together and they discuss the future.
And you know, where they have like these in Aspen or whatever, and they're all wearing like puffy vests.
Are TED Talks the same or no?
Whenever they talk to one another.
And matter of fact, you keep hearing from these people, there's like this guy who is, He's an advisor and he's like a doomsday advisor to the wealthy.
And it's like, what happens when global climate change reaches its worst point?
What are they going to do to survive?
And then you listen to Elon Musk who wants to create a feudal state on Mars.
Peter Thiel who wants to make immortality possible for himself but nobody else.
Then, I don't know if you've been seeing it over the past couple of days, I just want to put this on people's radar because this is massively important.
And I know this is the last segment of our show, but this is like massive stuff.
Just in the past few months, we are seeing indicators that finally corporate America and energy companies in this country have realized oil's done.
They've gotten all that they can get out of oil.
And we have reached the point where it's time to go from oil to the next thing.
GM announced they were going to start going towards electric motors.
That was one thing.
Shell has announced there's peak oil.
All of a sudden, Bill Gates rolls out his ambitious alternative energy policies.
You're telling me that all this was just by accident?
No, we have reached the point where the wealthy and the powerful know that that's done.
There's no way to make money off of that anymore.
Now it's time to make money off the quote-unquote solution.
It should scare the shit out of everybody that most of the quote-unquote solutions are about getting rid of democracy, allowing the wealthy and the powerful to do whatever they want, including shoving our dumbasses into a virtual reality of their own choosing and programming.
These are like disturbing moments.
And I have to tell you, watching what the Senate did this weekend, Is it any wonder why these are the people taking the lead?
Is it any wonder that these are the people who are determining what the future is going to be?
Our political system has been bought and sold so many times we don't even know who owns it anymore.
Jared, we missed the big one.
The big one is Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has the potential to destroy the dollar because if everybody starts to accept that as currency, suddenly the dollar is worth nothing.
And there's people who really like the notion that it's much more anonymous and it's protected behind a wall where it's harder to track.
You know, the IRS, good luck trying to figure out exactly what people are making in the market when they're using Bitcoin and buying different coins.
It's unregulated.
It's virtual.
You know, I was trying to explain it to my dad who's 80 something years old and his buddies, like, you know, who have been trading stocks for their entire life, right, for 50, 60 years.
And they don't even understand.
They're like, where do you get a certificate when you buy Bitcoin?
Where's this piece of paper that must mean everything about everything?
No.
And it's exactly what we talked about in the past where Democracy exists only in the sense that we choose to believe it exists.
Money exists in that same way, because we all collectively decided to agree that there's this green piece of paper with some number on it that is worth something.
But imagine if Bitcoin becomes more prevalent, that's going to shake up the world order, I would think, 10 times stronger than anything else, except for maybe the climate change and the world ending from that.
And not to put too neat of a bow on this package and to bring what we've been talking about full circle.
That's one of the reasons it was so important for the Democrats to carry that trial out to its fruition.
Because I have to tell you, when they punted on calling witnesses and just said, well, we know he's going to be acquitted.
We need to get home for Thanksgiving.
What is time?
We need to get home for Valentine's Day.
Do you know what message that's sent to a lot of people who care about this?
Politics doesn't matter.
Politics is theater.
Politics is something that you watch on TV.
It's nothing you can control.
You don't understand it.
Trust the plan.
Shut your dumb mouths.
Put on your Oculus.
Go live on your sofa.
And don't ever expect for this world to change.
I'm sorry, but that is the message that's being communicated here.
And that's a dangerous, toxic, poisonous message.
And I think we have to push back against that.
Sure, although now you're sounding like what the other side is saying about the 75 million voters who were just disenfranchised and thrown cast aside because... Isn't it sad that they didn't get what they wanted?
Yeah, really, it's just a tough one, man.
What are we calling it?
Is it white grievance?
No.
A white perceived... Whatever that phrase is these days.
Perceived persecution.
Okay, that's good too.
Yeah, it really is a powerful thing that they could really wrap their heads around mentally.
But Nick, if we just get the right technology in place, they can live in their own virtual reality where Donald Trump is their president and Zack Snyder releases a new Justice League every year.
In black and white.
In black and white.
It's just a continual cycle, which is... And again, by the way, next week we're going to be releasing to the listeners our first episode of A Certain Route to Failure, Crisis of Confidence, our audio documentary.
And a part of it has to do with this movement where it's like, it's about individualism.
It's not about society anymore.
It's about me getting what I want and when I want it.
And if I don't get it, I'll burn everything down to the ground.
And that's what this is about.
These alternate realities, virtual realities, this consumerism, all of it.
It's the same thing we've been talking about.
Alright, I'm going to bring this in for a landing as my little sweet dog Betsy loses her mind in the background.
We appreciate everyone listening.
Just a quick little programming note.
Thursday night.
That is Thursday the 18th.
Is that right, Nick?
Yeah.
Thursday the 18th at 7 p.m.
I am all discombobulated.
Thursday, February 18th at 7 p.m.
Eastern, we are going to be hosting a live recording of our Weekender edition.
It's going to be a Q&A with our patrons, and all you have to do to become a patron is go over to patreon.com slash mccrakepodcast.
You can go over there today, unlock a bunch of exclusive content, get the weekly Weekender episode, but also right now, available for our patrons, is the first episode of A Certain Route to Failure, audio documentary made by Nick and myself we're very proud of.
That is patreon.com slash monkreg podcast and again that is going to be a taping Thursday February 18th at 7 p.m.
Eastern.
We'll send out information everybody and that'll be available on the weekend or episode this Friday.
If you need us until next time you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me SMH.
You can find me at J.Y.
Sexton.
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