Jared Yates Sexton welcomes back Nick Hauselman from vacation, and they pull apart the long game that is the Republicans' thirst for authoritarianism. There are only 2 solutions to the political mess we're in, and one of them is to have a strong man impose his will and destroy the 2 party system in the name of "patriotism," which is the path that leads to the destruction of the American experiment. In some breaking news, Tucker Carlson began broadcasting his White Supremacy Hour from Hungary, normalizes the dictatorship of Hungarian Prime Miniser Viktor Orban, so Jared and Nick added some extra analysis of where we're heading with this development.
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I mean, you know, you've had all the experts say, well look out for the Delta Variant, or the Lambda Variant.
Next is going to be like the Chi Omega Variant, or the Pi Kappa Psi Variant.
I got the Florida Variant!
I got the Freedom Variant!
It affects the brain!
It gets you to think for yourself, where you don't just surrender to the truth that they're trying to create and corrupt big media.
A very complicated pandemic, a new strain, and we're trying to figure everything out.
And the attending physician says, since you're a group from all over the country, be a little bit cautious.
And he gets mocked.
This is the doctor we all go to!
Hey everybody, welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Sexton.
I am so happy because Nick Halseman is back!
Oh, you were sorely, sorely missed by myself and the entire community.
How was vacation?
Tell us tales from the road.
Well, first of all, truly impressive to hear you be able to do a couple one-man shows by yourself.
I do them on the basketball side, but I have people who call in, too, to give me something to react to, so you can do that and carry the mic for that long is very impressive.
I appreciate that.
I had my handy-dandy post-it note.
I put it over here.
It was just the topics.
Basically, when you lecture to college classes at some point, you learn how to bullshit.
Right.
Exactly.
And the extra long sip of the beer, we can kind of, you know, have a couple extra seconds to listen and let that fulminate.
So I was in.
Well, just to talk about my vacation for a second, I mean, it was warranted.
After a long NBA season, I was just relaxing, played a lot of tennis, and I got to catch a falcon on my arm, which is exciting.
Learned a lot about owls and how vicious they can be, despite being just majestic and beautiful animals.
And, you know, just some real self-reflection driving, you know, almost six hours each direction up and back.
Well, I'm glad that you got it in because you got it in right under the wire.
I was doing a little bit of traveling myself, like seeing the people I care about and love and going around seeing them.
And I got back I was like man this feels like such a different universe and like I can't believe we can do this I can't believe that like I'm not social distancing I'm not quarantining and then almost immediately Nick the hammer came down and we are back in the shit Jared I actually had planned to do a to get in the basketball court with some pros and some college players and invent a new defense yesterday And I am getting tested today.
I'm going to get tested probably later this week.
But I can tell you right now that I'm having, I have a lot of anxiety about it.
And it's, you know, a couple of guys like they said that they weren't vaccinated and I have to be able to get here.
So I was like, you know, having to have my mask off to, you know, coach.
So I'm, I don't know.
I'm, I'm, I'm very, very nervous now the way this is going.
And, and I won't rest easy until I get like five or six days from now.
Well, the sad truth, Nick, is that you are not alone in feeling that.
Just released from Gallup, one of the main polling firms, is a really disconcerting sort of a glimpse into what is happening.
And we're going to talk briefly about this and then we're going to get into, oh, you know, the fact that Donald Trump tried to steal the election of 2020 and what that means and the things we've been discussing.
in all this.
So the poll that we have here shows that at this point, more Americans than not feel like things are not getting better with the coronavirus and the pandemic.
The majority of them expect for it to last at least the rest of the year, if not longer.
People are planning on quarantining.
I personally am planning on that.
I don't know how you're going to approach it, but I'm also, I'm kind of freaked out a little bit, man.
I'm supposed to be back in the classroom next week, and I'm supposed to be up lecturing in front of these classes, which, by the way, it's weird.
They just keep getting larger and larger and larger.
It's almost like that's by design and exploitative, but now my university is not requiring people to wear masks.
It's not requiring people to be vaccinated, they suggest.
They're like, oh, maybe the vaccination is something you should look into and maybe you would consider wearing a mask.
But because I am in a red state with a red legislature, my state has decided to completely act like nothing is happening, like the rest of the former Confederacy is pretending like nothing is happening.
I don't know if you caught this on your vacation, but one of the governors was like, we're in the middle of an emergency and we're wide open.
And that is unfortunately where this thing is going.
Right.
I mean, I believe it was like, I'm declaring a state of emergency and we're wide open and, you know, let's go swim with some sharks.
Let's see what happens.
It's like, uh, it is, uh, it is crazy.
I mean, and certainly with Florida right next to you is what that's going on there.
It's really, it's devastating.
It's deflating.
It's the same feeling that you get like when Trump won.
You know that you see people mean, you know, I'm picturing even like Pink Floyd the wall where they're all marching off of this without marching.
They're on a they're on a conveyor belt into the meat grinder, you know what I mean?
And that's and they're happily doing this in Florida without even recognizing that like what it's so Cavalier and so dangerous what they're doing without masking without getting vaccinations without, you know, social distancing there.
I mean, they're having their peak, they're having peak case counts.
And when I say peak, I mean higher than it was in the peak.
Crazy.
Yeah, it's historical.
And I want to say a couple things, because one of the deals that we've been working on here is not just diagnosing this, but also speaking to action and speaking to reaction with all of this.
Um, you're exactly right.
It's demoralizing.
It's, it, it, it, it feels like a crushing of the spirit because I don't know how you feel about it looking at this thing getting ready to play out.
I have a hard time imagining that this country with as, um, as uneven economic ground that we're on and political ground that we're on, I have a hard time believing that there will be a massive response to this or that People are going to go back into lockdown or businesses are going to be deprived of those things.
I think we're looking at the real possibility of a late summer fall surge that we're going to be gaslight through, that we're going to be lied to, that we're going to have to experience the trauma of it while being told by political leaders and economic leaders that it's not real.
And what I will go ahead and say about all of this is, For our listeners who are hearing this and undoubtedly that they're feeling that demoralization that we're talking about, steel yourself for this.
Understand that that is the real possibility of what's going to happen here is that it's going to be a long and hard drag and on top of that you're going to feel isolated, you're going to feel alone, you're going to feel like your politicians are letting you down.
Find Solace in other people.
Find the people around you that you can talk about.
We say this all the time.
The gaslighting feature of oppression, the only way to actively fight against that is to build objective reality between yourself and the people that you trust and that you care about.
So, like, have conversations with people.
Do not isolate yourself in that regard.
Find other people that you can trust and discuss with because otherwise, I don't know about you, Nick, I'm damn tired.
I'm damn tired of this thing.
Well, I have a really good buddy who I just discovered in the last month is an anti-vaxxer.
And he's written some very angry texts to me when I'm trying to express my concern for him just to be like, well, all right, if you're not gonna get the vaccine, I would say just don't be out and about in a lot of big groups and this and that, whatever.
But then it comes out in this long, you know, insane streams of like what he believes.
And it's, at least I have the finger on the pulse of a bit of what that side is saying, in case you're wondering.
I mean, they think that the vaccine is killing people in much huger numbers than anything that's being reported.
They think that 50, 60, 80,000 people have already died from the vaccine.
I don't know what else to say.
I don't know what to tell him.
He's using VAERS, you know, as his proof.
And I don't know if you remember when VAERS was a big, you know, watchword before we had the vaccine.
Anybody can fill out anything they want in VAERS and basically give a reason of death, whatever reason they want to give.
And he's convinced that it's like a database that's reliable.
And anyway, I don't know if we're going to end up, you know, being friendly anymore after this.
Well, that's really tragic.
The only thing I can do in this case is talk about why such a thing is happening.
And I want to go ahead and recommend to people, if you haven't already, the Weekender episode that aired last Friday.
And if you want access to that, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
You know it was one of those things I would have waited until today to talk about it and really get into it with you.
But it definitely felt like one of those moments where we had to get into the specifics of it.
It was a new development and evolution along the right.
But it's actually a reemergence of this old ideology which you know they're calling now for a Caesar.
They're looking for a strong man to come up and take over society and set it right.
And a big part of that, and this goes ahead and talks into the main story that we're getting into today, which is, of course, that Donald Trump tried to make the Department of Justice declare the election of 2020 corrupt and basically make that a pretense for him going ahead and trying to steal the election.
Which, by the way, Nick, what information did Donald Trump have that the election of 2020 was stolen?
Where did that come from?
Underneath his pillow?
Yeah, it was it was a bunch of literally unhinged people who fed him conspiracy theories and...
And why did he believe it?
Because he wanted to believe it.
Wait, was that Sue S. Otero I gave a reference?
Or did you get it?
Oh no, that was Mike Lindell, never mind.
Okay, good.
You know, it was something that Donald Trump wanted to believe.
The entire time that Donald Trump has been a political figure, he has said, if I don't win, it's rigged, if this doesn't happen, it's wrong, it's criminal, and it's this idea.
And it goes back to what we've talked about in the past, which is the difference between revealed knowledge, right, which is knowledge that is sent from God, or one day you suddenly think it, so it must be true, you feel it.
Stephen Colbert minted this back during the Bush years, truthiness.
Right?
It's not provable, but you feel it.
You know, you feel it.
That's the difference between empirical and revealed.
Empirical, of course, is something that's measurable.
How many votes there were in the election?
Who voted for who?
What is the tally?
What does it come out to?
And what we're seeing with that is you're exactly right.
The people who want to believe that the vaccine is dangerous, or that they're not interested in being involved in that, A lot of people are finding solace in stuff that's off the records.
And I told you, just to go ahead and be very clear, because we like to be transparent.
We like to have everything above board.
We like to not be, we're not partisan.
We're trying to call it down the middle as much as we possibly can.
You know this.
I talked about it off the air.
I had a friend of mine who died after a vaccine.
And, you know, this was something that was really, really tragic and rough.
And it was really hard to understand what exactly had happened.
There were other conflicts that happened.
But like if I, for instance, didn't trust the vaccine or I was worried about the rollout of the vaccine, that anecdotal evidence could have led me to believe that the vaccine wasn't worth taking or that other people shouldn't have it.
And if it went into my worldview, then suddenly that would make it to where I had my idea.
And it wouldn't matter what you showed me, what proof you had, what science said.
And it would get to the point where you lived in your own personally tailored reality.
And that's where Donald Trump is and where a lot of his followers are.
Well, and where he is is that he knows he can lie.
And it doesn't matter if you can prove it 10 minutes later that it's a lie.
Once it's out there, it's...
It's done.
We saw William Barr do this when he was arguing on with Wolf and Of course, it's a matter of logic that when you do mail-in ballots, there's going to be fraud.
And then he quoted some, you know, fraud like in Texas.
That was an absolute and utter lie, which actually benefited Republicans.
And that was the scam that was going on in a much smaller way than what he had tried to say it was.
They try and issue a retracting statement the next day.
Doesn't matter.
It's out.
He has said it.
He said it in front of Congress when he said that they were spying on Trump's campaign when there was never any spying going on.
So that is the other part of this, which is not that necessarily that Trump believes it or doesn't believe it.
He simply knows that he can lie.
And once it's out there, it doesn't matter what any kind of if it gets refuted at all later on.
You know what I mean?
It's out there.
It's done.
Yeah.
So there was to go ahead and draw this back in a historical context.
The crack up that we're dealing with in America was a long time coming.
We talked about this in our audio documentary, A Certain Route to Failure, how the idea of consensus in America was basically a lie, that there was never actually a national agreement that everything was good and dandy and the 1950s were perfect and all this.
It was because, you know, people of color, women, LGBTQ Americans were oppressed to the point where they couldn't speak, where they couldn't actually stand up for themselves.
Why do you hate America?
Why do you hate America?
So the white majority of the country was able to basically put this net of reality over everyone.
So it started to come apart and we're starting to learn that the people who push that consensus reality, the quote unquote consensus reality, they didn't really have a majority in the first place.
They simply, like, made people afraid.
They made sure that they weren't able to vote.
They made sure that, you know, they were intimidated to the point where they didn't make their feelings clear.
Eventually you reach this point where in the 1990s into the 2000s the internet starts making it very clear what people think and what people believe and suddenly they start like they're not afraid anymore of talking about this or if they're afraid they go ahead and do it because they're brave.
All of a sudden you start having this enclave with the Republican Party with my friend and yours Karl Rove.
I mean what a what a saint that guy is.
Turd Blossom.
Love him.
And Karl Rove, you know, eventually says with the Bush administration that empire and the powerful make their own reality.
That's what this is, is we are watching, and Donald Trump was like, because he was an absolute buffoon and he had no artfulness, he is the visceral embodiment of the right's need to create its own reality.
Right?
Well, if democracy rejects us, then we should reject democracy.
If democracy isn't going to serve us and choose us, well, then democracy is wrong or corrupt or rigged.
We have to overthrow it.
And so now you have the right, going back to what I talked about on the weekend or last week, which people should listen to, you now have a point where they're like, we'll just overthrow this whole damn thing.
And you'll figure out over time, you'll figure out that things are fine.
And that's why things are escalating, because it's inevitable with these people.
That is the only way they can try and square that circle.
Well, listening to your talk on Friday and on the Patreon, which again, if you haven't listened to it, you should definitely get over there and check it out.
Caesarism, which is an interesting concept, because This can go two different ways.
We can kind of fix our democracy, get these two parties to finally start talking to each other and actually in good faith negotiate in the name of helping their constituents earnestly.
Or we could get it destroyed into some sort of fascistic government where one party basically just dominates, controls everything.
So, it's not that far-fetched for me to reason that, yeah, like, it could easily fail.
The two-party thing is already on its way to failing anyway.
It hasn't worked well for a long, long time.
And so, there isn't any other version of the Matrix that we're going to have.
Besides, someone's going to come along and probably just sort of outlaw one of the parties.
Right.
Make them so like, you know, so they can't get anything done.
They're not they don't have any power at all.
They don't have any influence and they can stomp on it.
And again, destroying more and more of our norms.
Now, the funny thing is, is what I'm describing clearly to me sounds like what the Republicans would do.
But the irony is that that's what they accuse the Democrats of trying to do ad nauseum for everything they try and do.
Right.
The Democrats are the fascists.
They're the ones who are going to crush everybody and silence everybody and make it into a work camps and all sorts of a Chinese version of what's happening there with Uyghurs or what the Nazis did with all the Jews and everybody else.
That's what's so interesting about this whole thing is they're able to frame it that way and it's been compelling enough that they can grow that base.
Well, I think what they would want, like if you handed them the pad and the paper and you said, just write down what you want and it'll happen, right?
Like, what's your wildest dream?
I think their wildest dream is a combination of things.
One, and just a reminder because inevitably somebody on the right is going to hear this and it's going to turn into a Dinesh D'Souza stupid-a-thon.
Yes, the Democratic Party was the force behind the Confederacy, and the South, and slaveholding.
Eventually, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party switched places, now that we've established that.
Wait, isn't that that movie, like, isn't that Freaky Friday?
It's like that, except for it involves like an inter-civil war.
So, in this case, prior to the Civil War, before the Republican Party starts standing up to the Democratic Party and it leads to the Civil War, You had a ton of people, by the way, who were, they were lucky they should could show up to Congress on a daily basis.
They're like, oh, just don't hurt us, guys.
You know, I'm not for slavery, but you can have it.
It's a wonderful institution, right?
And meanwhile, the Republicans are sitting there.
I mean, the Democrats, because again, it's split, are sitting there pounding clubs into their fists.
And they're like, that's good.
Keep that going.
Exactly.
You should be afraid of us.
They want a two-party system in which the second party is docile and subservient.
Going into the 1950s, and even in the late 1980s, early 1990s, which is what happened, they had the ideal situation which was black people LGBTQ Americans and women, all of these people, indigenous people were terrified to say anything because they would be lynched, they would be assaulted, they would be thrown out of their jobs and ostracized.
They would love to get back to that point where there's an economic and a social consensus.
This is why everybody looks at Eisenhower, by the way.
Everybody says, oh, the good old days with Ike, because Ike wasn't offensive to Democrats or Republicans.
It was just sort of a high tide, right?
It was like, oh, it's the birth of like the American dream in this modern era.
They want to get back to the point where they can have that ability to control society.
But I'm telling you, there's no putting that back up.
Like, the ascending populations now, they're not going to just be like, congratulations, you all win.
Like, there's no way to do this that doesn't involve blood.
There's no possibility.
Like, one day you don't take over the government.
I mean, if the DOJ would have said it's corrupt, you're right, Mr. President, you win the election.
That would not have turned out bloodless.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, I hear you.
Well, you know, it's funny because it's the same thing he was trying to do with Ukraine when he's like, just announce, just say something like that you were investigating.
You don't actually have to do it, but just give me a little sound bite I can use to then let everyone else take over and we'll make it really blow it up into a big sounding board for the election against Hillary.
And it's the same thing that we hear now in the reporting with Trump and the Department of Justice when he, they have all these notes now that are coming out.
And I'm sure there are more.
I'm sure we're going to get the notes from what he did when he called, you know, your state as well, where he's like, just say, give me a soundbite and I'll take care of the rest.
And it is startling because that's illegal.
It's illegal.
It is illegal.
And so Ted Lieu, well not my congressman, the congressman from California, he actually cites the statute that he violated, the 18 U.S.C.
595, makes it a crime for a person employed by a U.S.
department or agency to use, quote, official authority for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the election of any candidate for the office of president.
So back then whoever wrote this law got it.
They understood it.
We should probably look at the history of this law because I'd like to know exactly when it was enforced or written.
But clearly they understood that this could happen.
You could get a president who's going to want to sully the stature of the elections for the sake of just winning it.
You know, now we have to find out what's going to happen with this because it seems clear to me that the only way you dissuade people from breaking the law is by prosecuting them for breaking the law.
And I think you and I both know what's going to happen with this.
I want to believe, Jared.
I want to believe that they're going to do something.
I would, man, it would be so wonderful if we logged off of this and we looked and it was like, breaking!
Donald Trump held accountable for multiple crimes, including crimes against humanity during the coronavirus pandemic, including election crimes.
The problem is that it doesn't work that way.
And that is the main problem here.
You're right.
There's a law in the books.
There's a lot of laws on the books that Donald Trump has crossed over.
And one of the reasons why the Republican Party has rallied to him is he showed it doesn't matter.
It does not matter.
For a very long time, they were terrified to cross these lines.
It's almost like, you know, if you tell a kid, like, you're in timeout.
Do not leave that.
Timeout was never a thing in my childhood, but I have to imagine it's like this.
We had a much different system of punishment.
Yeah.
So, you know, don't leave that corner, right?
Until you're told that you could.
And then, The kid's like, oh, God, I'm here.
I'm in trouble.
I better not move from this corner.
And then suddenly the kid realizes there's nothing keeping him in that corner.
It's it's imaginary lines and boundaries that don't exist anymore than a person's willingness to enforce them.
Donald Trump made it apparent there's not a lot of will to enforce these things, and there's no political consequence to going over them.
So what he's actually done, and we've talked about it before, it's the velociraptor in Jurassic Park.
He found the weak spots.
He figured out where, and it was simply because he was such a buffoon and he was so reckless and dangerous.
But that has made it clear, not only that the system is not ready to take on somebody like Donald Trump, But that the system, it's a social construct.
Yeah.
And if you, if you have the will to overthrow it, which by the way, going back to Caesar, the whole point is Caesar made a decision.
I'm done with this.
I'm now in control.
And if somebody comes up and says, I'm done with this, we're now under control.
It's a question of who follows, you know?
So you do it and it doesn't work.
You end up being hung and killed and prosecuted or whatever.
Or people go with you and suddenly you're dictator for life, which is what the right has now not just realized but has seen fulfilled.
I asked the Germans in the early 30s.
They would have said, and you know my son was listening to your show too with me, it's like it's impossible.
It cannot happen.
They would not be able to become a dictatorship in America.
And I said, that's exactly what they said in 1932 in Germany.
And they were just as confident that that wasn't going to happen either.
And, you know, correct me if I'm wrong.
Are you old enough to remember images in your head of the police beating innocent people on the streets during the protests last year?
I mean, it was very, very long ago, like nearly a year.
Yeah.
But yeah, I remember very vividly.
And so, you know, I know we can't, okay, there's a movie by a guy that gets, we're not forbidden from talking about, but he goes to a fictional South American country where there's a revolution.
And in a hilarious way, the guy who takes over, it was a military man, decides to, you know, institute his own laws.
And one of them, which is, Everyone will change their underwear five times a day, and to prove it, they will wear it on the outside of their pants.
And you can see the point being that it quickly devolved as soon as it becomes an autocracy, and that people were sort of willing to do it and follow along.
That is the fear.
Just to put a button on that, like my wife and I would put my daughter in timeout and we would sit in our room with the abject terror waiting for that moment when she realized she doesn't really have to stand in the middle of a room and not say anything and can't move or touch her toys or anything like that.
And it's a similar fear to where we are now.
When is that moment in that – what was the other movie?
The last action hero when the bad guy comes out of the movie into real life and he shoots somebody.
And then nobody even blinks an eye and he realizes like that's that moment we're at.
It's really chilling.
And then you throw in COVID and it's like, I don't know what we're supposed to do at this point.
So this is the fright.
I'm glad that you brought COVID up at the very end of that, because here is where our current situation, both politically and economically, start to converge.
I talked about this again a little bit on the weekend or last week.
You know, the problem is that there are different groups who are very interested in getting rid of democracy.
There are, of course, the Trumpist who literally believe that Donald Trump should be president for life.
Like, they believe it.
They are wide-eyed, ready to go.
There are other people, and I talked about this, the people talking about the Caesarism, they know Donald Trump is a dumbass.
They do not think that he is like this, you know, warrior king.
Like, they have not drank the Kool-Aid.
Like, most Republicans, they don't actually believe that.
You also have another group, white supremacists, who like they want a white ethnostate.
They also understand Donald Trump is like a dumbass, right?
But there's a fourth group that really want to get beyond politics and already have, corporatists.
They're not interested in who gets elected and who serves as Speaker of the House and necessarily who's president.
They sort of control politics as a whole.
When you look at the rise of people like Hitler, Hitler was, like, an agent provocateur.
Like, he was somebody who got in the street and caused problems, and, you know, like, the beer hall pooch happens, and then he goes to jail, and he was a national joke to certain people.
But he also had the support of the wealthiest and most influential Germans.
Because eventually what ends up happening is, in a moment like this, and we've been seeing it, I mean, the polls tell us this.
You want to talk about another poll, We've moved to the point where more and more Americans are questioning not just the system in totality, but capitalism.
Like, all of a sudden you start talking about moving money around, you start talking about having government do things for people.
And we were going to talk about this today, and I'll just go ahead and bring it up.
You have Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, who comes out and says, why should we forgive student debt?
That'll upset some people, and it won't help, you know, all of our supporters.
Well, the reason why you get rid of it is because it's not fair, and because it's cruel, and it holds people back, and we should believe in solidarity and helping others.
Well, the old guard doesn't believe in that.
It's a neoliberal, hyper-capitalistic ideology.
It's everybody for themselves, and eventually that selfishness will help.
Well, what happens when more and more people are calling for Solidarity.
They were calling more for the government to actually help people.
All of a sudden, the people in power who are incredibly wealthy, who are taking joy rides to space?
Who are they gonna start working with?
And we've already seen that with Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg gave Trump a big wet kiss because he made him a ton of money on Facebook.
And we've talked about that.
If it would have been the left, he would have been wearing a Che Guevara shirt, right?
They don't care about politics.
All they care about is establishing the order and gaining more and more power and profits.
So what happens in a moment of crisis when all of a sudden the fascists and the people who want to seize her, they start looking pretty good?
That's the question here.
Right.
And then you can argue that that's a direct outcropping of capitalism itself.
You know, when you mix capitalism with a republic like we have, like we talked about this in the past before, it's like this could very well be the inevitable end of it.
And it lasted pretty long and we had a nice run, the experiment, but it will fail.
The experiment will fail, in my mind, if it continues to weigh capitalism more than the Republic itself.
Right?
I think that's kind of like, we have this constant tug of war between those two things.
And eventually, you know, politicians get bought off, and then legislation follows suit from there, and then most people in the country get screwed.
And we've seen that.
I mean, we've seen it so many times.
I'm not so sure how you could be against getting rid of student debt, But like, be all for the Dreamers Act.
You know what I mean?
Because in my mind, the people who would argue against getting rid of student debt, well, I had to do it and it's just whatever.
Well, it's the same thing with like the Dreamers.
Well, I had to come into this country legally and I had to wait in line and take my turn.
We can't just let these people, you know, jump the line ahead of us.
When in reality, a lot of these things are tied to how well, how good of Americans they are.
Like, you know, Dreamers have to be the absolute best of the best.
Student debt, you know, I would imagine they would probably absolve student debt people who actually had been paying on time this whole time.
If some people were really delinquent, like maybe they'd say, well, we're not going to pay yours off because you haven't been, you know, the model debt payer on that thing, whatever.
So it's like, here we have these people.
And by the way, the fact that they went to college to better themselves, to educate themselves, to be better people on this upward march of humanity.
Why can't we reward that?
I don't understand.
Just keep adding it to these intractable ideas that don't fit together and that seem to exist in the same mindset or minds of people that cause all sorts of torque.
Well, I think that's an important thing, and I'm glad that you framed it like that.
Like, when you start trying to balance it or look for it, there's a natural incoherence to it.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, what's happening there?
And I think that that's a real key.
And I was saying this the other day, I was tweeting on this, and again, this is a pro tip.
Stop trying to make sense of the things that the right does.
There's no coherence to it.
There's no actual logic beyond what it's trying to do.
In this case, and you're talking about the left, you're talking about Democrats, you're talking about modern America, the incoherence here tells us a lot.
In this case, it's about saying, well, we might need to help people who had to take on debt for education.
And then immediately there's people who are like, well, I took on debt and I paid it off.
Why should I help somebody else do it?
Then there's another thing, which is who has the most student debt?
It's a lot of people who had to take on debt in order to go to college.
There are class differences.
There's a rigidity there.
There's a little bit of an antagonism that's happening.
And by the way, as somebody who had to take on nearly, you know, six figures worth of student debt, this is one of those situations that I feel very, very close to.
And if I had paid it off, I wouldn't even be upset if somebody else got it forgiven.
I wouldn't.
Because I recognize, and by the way, this is the story, it actually helps everybody.
If we go ahead and forgive that student debt, like the economy is going to get a whole lot better and you actually are going to see benefits that you might not be able to necessarily see right now.
The problem is what's happening in that is also the problem of what's happening politically, which is what's happening with the right right now with growing fascism and anti-democracy and what they're pushing for.
We're having a hell of a time putting together a coalition to stop that and make things better.
And the reason is because of class differences, and it's because we don't recognize solidarity, and we're alienated, we think that we're all opponents of one another, and it keeps us from even agreeing about what has happened.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
We had Joe Manchin on a yacht on a COVID cruise with Mr. Lindsey Graham this weekend, Hanging out.
Is that true?
Yeah!
Lindsey Graham was on a yacht.
This is why they think that Manchin is probably exposed too, and he's going to have to go into quarantine.
By the way, for people who don't know, Lindsey Graham just tested positive for COVID.
But go ahead.
But there's nothing more telling about America, there's no perfect metaphor, more than Joe Manchin hanging out with Lindsey Graham on a cruise.
By the way, maybe Ted Cruz is on the same thing too.
I feel like the reporting was it was a number of senators altogether, but like, it makes me, it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Is that, can I use that term?
Is that still okay?
Yeah.
It gives me the creeps to think of that.
And I, listen, I'm all for bipartisanship.
I would love for this to somehow work again, but to picture Manchin of all people with Lindsey Graham of all people and whoever else was on that cruise, Do you have that same reaction?
Because it's anger.
It is anger that they are actually pretending that we can all just get along and somehow make this work.
Well, I think this is one of those things where you actually look at it and that is actually class solidarity.
I mean, Joe Manchin is an extremely wealthy person.
And the fact that he's sitting there and often sides with the Republican Party and actually serves as like an impeding force into progress, like that's because he's a wealthy person.
That's because he has class solidarity with people who are incredibly wealthy.
He has no interest in helping you or me or anybody else.
That's one of the main problems that's taking place is that politics has gotten so expensive and so exorbitantly wealthy.
That there's no possibility for normal working people to go run for office and establish themselves as players in a national scene.
That's one of our main issues.
The fact that they're hanging out on the yacht, that betrays real reality.
That's who they are.
And, you know, we've been seeing this lately with, you know, more and more Democrats of actual conscience are coming out and they're saying, They'll go on Fox News, and they'll call me the devil, and the next thing you know, they're trying to chum up with me.
Like, it's professional wrestling.
They're performing this whole thing.
And when you look at somebody like Manchin, like, he absolutely has a performative task.
His task is to be the Democrat who stands in the way of all this.
And by the way, he's got company now, of course, with Kristen Cinema.
That's their entire play.
That's their entire appeal.
It will get them reelected.
It will get them tons of money from special interest.
And that is the main problem, is that that class solidarity at the top with the ruling class keeps us from being able to change things and even admit how bad the rising fascism is actually getting.
I'll take it one step further, because while it might be class solidarity as well, because obviously they want to keep theirs, and their heirs continue to keep that wealth, it's corruption.
I think it's outright corruption.
I mean, you know, I've talked about this before, but in the 80s, in the Iran-Contra affair, I guess is that what we'll call it, an affair, you had a democratically controlled Congress, which they had been in control for 50 straight years, not impeach Reagan for Iran-Contra.
We have Tip O'Neill and Reagan and everybody, the Chief of Staff, whoever, I'm forgetting who it was then, you know, chumming up, having drinks in the cloakroom of the Congress, whatever.
That's just corruption.
That isn't bipartisanship.
That isn't the way, like, this isn't government, you know, the wheels turning smoothly.
That's just corruption.
And I feel like we're there To the nth degree.
And by the way, you gotta keep a real side-eye glance at the Department of Justice because it's unclear that they're gonna extricate themselves completely from what the stink of the Trump administration put on them by being so chummy with them.
But that is really the problem.
And again, we can all agree, both sides, right and left, that there is corruption, right?
I don't see that.
certainly their conspiratorial theories, and it certainly feeds my anger as well.
And it just, again, it continues that divide.
So to the point where, like, again, there isn't much of a solution in my mind for a two-party system in the way we have our government structured right now going forward, right?
I don't see that.
Do you see a future where someone's gonna finally come together and say, hey, we can do these things together, We can finally get some legislations passed.
We can get people to stop saying, uh, the, the, it'll be the death of, uh, of our country.
Uh, if the Democrats win all that kind of shit, do you believe that that'll happen?
So there's a couple of ways out of this thing.
And, and I'll go ahead and give this a positive note before, before we say goodbye, because obviously this is as always heavy shit.
Um, what I will say is, These moments where it feels like there's no way for anything to move forward.
Like, yeah, there are crises.
There are moments where, like, a republic will fall or a country will fall and fascism will rise.
I mean, we've seen that happen.
But there are also times where movements arise that are completely shocking.
But when you look at them in their context, they're inevitable.
Right?
Like, how did that happen?
Well, it did.
And here are the reasons why it occurred.
What you just brought up, that corruption, that sort of removal from societal responsibilities, right?
If you're a part of the ruling class and you're not taking care of people, you're violating your oath, you're violating the social contract, right?
And by the way, the smartest thing that any of these people would do, whether it's elected officials or the wealthiest Americans, they have to recognize they're pushing this thing to the point where it's getting ready to fall apart.
The smartest thing that they could possibly do would be pull back on the lever a little bit and give a little bit to the country and the people and allow there to be a little bit of a calming.
That would make sense.
That would be rational.
But capitalism is not rational.
It has to go as quickly as possible and as much as it can possibly do.
So I would not be shocked to see a reform movement.
I really truly wouldn't, which would be more of getting money out of politics.
It would be making sure that like regular people could run for political positions.
Because I have to tell you something else I've noticed in my research.
The same people that I played on that Weekender episode, the ones who were calling for an American Caesar, the ones who were talking about the end of regimes and the necessity of hierarchical power and possible coups, do you know who they're blaming for the problems in America?
Big Tech.
Corporations.
They are saying that these people have too much power.
They're right.
They do have too much power.
What are they doing with it?
We can have conversations about that.
I don't agree with how they're doing it, you know, the wrong way.
They say it's their, you know, their censoring conservative voices, right?
Or they're making wokeness sort of the watchword of the day.
But you know what we can have a conversation about?
That those people need to be restrained, and that they need to be pulled in, and that money needs to be gotten out of politics.
So I actually think that there is room, going back to what we talked about, man it feels like forever ago that you went on vacation, with the Frito-Lay strike, right?
You have to have people who are at that plant, which by the way I don't know if you followed eventually, they signed a contract that guaranteed them one Fucking day off a week a national labor Nationally televised paid attention to labor strike one day a week all right, but then but still was 10 hour days Oh, I think maybe it was 12 hour days or something crazy Something yeah, and so what what you see here is there is room for that part now
The political spectacle, the political controversies, the social issues that we fight about, those things at the moment are completely paralyzed.
There's not a lot to do with them.
But I actually do think that there is a possibility of reform coming and the possibility of, particularly the next generation, they're tired of this shit.
Yeah.
They're disgusted by it.
For a minute there, I thought maybe you were pitching a third party, like a reform party.
Maybe.
And by the way, I'm sure that there are people out there who are working on such things, but I don't even know if it has to be a party.
It has to be the people.
It has to be grassroots efforts.
And real fast, I just want to say I've been getting so much hope.
The people of our listenership, our community, They are smart as hell, and they're paying attention to unbelievable things.
They're nuanced, you know what I mean?
We're not shoveling them bullshit, red and blue bullshit.
They are nuanced, they understand this, and they have to be just the top of the iceberg.
I have to tell you that people are engaged, and they're aware, and they're awake, and I think that has incredible possibilities, to be honest with you.
I mean, it sounds good to me.
Remember way back when we were talking about the death of the Republican Party all together?
That was a clear trajectory that they were on.
They're still on that trajectory.
But I don't know.
Is that even a thing anymore?
We don't talk about it the way we used to.
I mean, it was clear, even going into 2016, it was going to just die.
They were never going to win another presidential election.
They were never going to win very many other national offices either.
It felt that way, at least.
We're not that way.
It doesn't feel that way anymore.
If there was some sort of a national federal action against their disenfranchisement strategies right now, that would be something we would still talk about.
If only there was a bill that somebody could put together that would protect against those things, right?
You know, Jared, if we could just figure out how to write that language.
If only there was a priority to make that happen.
And I think that's the truth.
To put it in a very modern COVID sort of a frame, they're on life support.
They really are.
The Republican Party is not electorally viable anymore.
They have to do this.
They have to steal elections.
They have to figure out ways to disenfranchise people or else they're not going to win anymore.
And that's the truth of it.
They have to do this or else they're nearly extinct.
But that's the end of our civilization, Jared.
That's why we can't let it happen.
It's the end of civilization.
So we are willing to do anything, steal elections, disenfranchise anybody, because you're not going to believe what's going to happen when everybody gets health care.
Well, by the way, I want to put this out there because what you just said is dead on.
But it's also telling.
You'll notice that the Republican Party has framed it to say, if we lose, the world's gonna end, which means that your entire fate is wrapped up in us.
It's an incredibly destructive, narcissistic point of view.
I'll tell you what would happen if the Republican Party ended, if the Republican Party, like, went away the way that it needs to.
A new conservative party would come up in its place almost immediately.
And by the way, like, that thing could actually be further right.
Like, they could literally be like, we are the American fascist party, and that is what we believe.
Or they could come out and they'd be like, they would go back to, what was it?
It was 2012 when they had the autopsy and they were like, we have to move away from white nationalism.
We have to go after, you know, Latino voters.
We have to go over black voters.
We have to like change our tactics and get away from white nationalism.
And it would be one or the two.
It's not like suddenly it'd be like the Democratic Party, United States of America.
Like that wouldn't happen.
Parties end and the world doesn't end with them.
It's an interesting way, it's certainly a pondering that it's hard to wrap my head around what that would look like.
But it could happen, and I think it would need to happen to figure this whole thing out.
Because again, I don't know if it would be ideal to have the Democratic Party so firmly in control, you know what I mean, that they can pass everything they ever wanted.
Imagine, let's just say they had 70 senators, they had, you know, whatever, 300 and some congressmen, you know what I mean?
And they could pass anything they ever want with a snap of the fingers.
I wonder how well that would work as well.
But the bottom line is that that is what democracy is.
It represents the will of the people.
But it's important to point out they can't do that with their current political strategy.
What happened in the Nixonian era is that both sides determined what they needed to win elections.
And it gave them a slight majority, and it gave them an independent voter that they had to fight over.
And whoever won it, they took over control.
And they had narrow, narrow control.
The problem is the Democratic Party doesn't want overwhelming numbers.
They're not interested in that because What would they do?
You know what I mean?
And the only way to actually get to the point where the Democratic Party would have overwhelming support is to start proposing massive changes that people want.
And so that would actually be the only thing that would lead to it.
So if we ever reach that point, It would be not just a progressive agenda, but I mean it would be a progressive agenda.
That's the only way they would ever be able to have that.
That's why I thought it was so important to nuke the filibuster right now, get these things in place, let the people actually feel how beneficial it really is for a lot of their agenda, and then come time for the midterms and the presidential election, they feel that that gallop pole is a lot in the other direction.
And that's why Joe Manchin is opposed to doing it.
You know, him and his fucking houseboat.
So it wasn't a yacht, it was a houseboat, forgive me.
But how was your houseboat, Jared?
You know, I basically spend my summers on that houseboat, you know.
I like to keep it real, is what I'm saying.
It's a special place.
It's a special place where I get to do my real thinking about how special interests are just pushing $100 bills, you know, down my pocket.
Houseboats, are they two stories?
I had this discussion on vacation.
Are they?
I'm picturing like a house, like a two-story house that floats and I don't know, do you have to pay taxes on it?
I don't think that's what a houseboat is.
I just think a houseboat is something that has a bed.
Am I wrong here?
I don't know.
We'll have to do some research.
Hi, everybody.
It is 1137 p.m.
Eastern Time, which means in the Golden State of California, Tricky Mickey Houselman is hanging out at a cool 837 p.m.
Pacific Time.
We have recorded today's podcast that you'll be listening to shortly.
But we've had a quick update because obviously this is right in our wheelhouse, this is right in our strike zone.
Tucker Carlson is in Hungary, people, and he is licking the boots of Viktor Orban and championing a liberal democracy.
Because of course he is, Nick.
Of course he is.
Of course.
Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense because We know the NSA was monitoring him and he was freaking out about it as if he was being spied on illegally.
But the NSA was pretty, you know, matter of fact about it where it was, no, you know, we're not spying on you.
He clearly was collected because he was talking to foreign nationals.
This is a big one, you know, and if you're going to be talking to the, you know, head of Hungary, The autocrat named Victor Orban there, then they're gonna listen and they're going to be aware of what you're saying.
So this explains a little bit of it.
I'm kind of curious if there was some incendiary things being said on that call or in the emails or whatever that prompted someone to reach out to him, but it's not shocking at all.
All the things start to make sense now.
This is nothing about Yeah, I mean, and that's a big part of what's going on.
Listen, I just want to give people some information that we're going to talk about more in the future and we'll get more in depth about.
The shit that's going on in Hungary is right in the wheelhouse of people like Steve Bannon.
It's in the wheelhouse of far-right extremists.
We're talking about people who want to overturn, as we talked about in this episode, who want to overturn representative democracy.
They want to get back to hierarchical politics, post-politics.
They want to rig elections and ensure that they're never defeated and have strongmen.
And we've been seeing this movement grow, not just in America, but around the world.
And so what have we seen over the past couple of years?
Like you were talking about before we started recording.
We saw Trump in North Korea.
We saw Trump with Putin.
We saw America start to align itself with some really dangerous motherfuckers.
And now all of a sudden you have Tucker Carlson, the heir apparent, we all know it, sitting there hanging out with Orban.
And this whole situation continues to grow and develop and metastasize and get so much worse with every single day.
And of course, the boogeyman, George Soros, happens to be from Hungary.
So they get to fold him into this too, even though he's lived in America for decades and decades.
Here's a guy in Hungary who is trying to maintain, just like when we hear the white supremacists, he's trying to maintain this clean bloodline of Hungarians by not letting people, other people in the country, by trying to reduce the size of the country so that, you know, the only families that are growing are like legitimate Hungarians, whatever you want to call, however you classify that.
He is, the thing, he is Trump, but, But in a setting that allows him to be even more autocratic, which is frightening about it.
And what Tucker is doing is legitimizing this.
Yep.
And that is what's so frustrating to me because, you know, you know, most people watching his show probably don't have much of an understanding of what Hungary is.
All they know is Soros and, you know, he must be a strong leader.
He must be good.
And for the next week he's going to be broadcasting from Hungary basically selling propaganda of an autocratic regime.
That's going to happen for the next week.
Okay, from a business standpoint, do we blame him?
Hey, I can go and have a dictator on, or I'm sorry, I can go and have a president of a country on my show.
It's a great get, right?
Like, I think that's what he's thinking.
But he's speaking at a major extremist right conference.
Right.
That's why he's in town.
And here's the thing, I want to break it down because what's happening right now is really weird.
It actually truly is and it's troubling.
You know how like in World War II it's like Germany and Italy found each other and they're like, We got something going on here, right?
There's like some sort of connection here.
Right now you have Russia, you have Hungary, you even have, you know, Brazil, like the little sibling of them all, right?
And now the Republicans in America, what you have is this movement that is illiberal democracy, the idea that the wealthy and the powerful should rule over everybody, that you do that by pushing white supremacy, whether or not you say it explicitly or not, that's at the heart of all of this.
They are aligning ideologically.
They are.
This isn't this isn't just like a happenstance.
It's not like Tucker just ended up in Hungary.
This is a message to the right wing that we have we have allies here.
We have common interest and common common goals.
And for the people watching at home, like you said, they have no idea what Hungary is.
They have no idea who Arbonne is.
And for the next week, they're going to get a propaganda piece that's like this place is great if America was more like this.
And I have to ask you, Nick, You know, you said not too long ago, and I think about it all the time, almost daily now, you talked about how they don't have the need for the mask anymore and how that is both refreshing and also chilling.
Isn't this really upsetting?
Like, isn't this like really, really bizarre that we've reached this point in this situation?
Well, here's something that might be chilling, is that you didn't add China, North Korea to that list of countries you mentioned.
We didn't even talk about any of the countries in Africa.
And then Russia.
So if we add all these different countries in and we look at that as a percentage of the globe, we are rapidly coming to a point where the majority of the Earth is in an autocratic regime.
This far-right bullshit.
Right?
That is what is scary.
Everybody seems to be, you know, yearning or leaning towards that.
And I've talked about this before, like in the even sense of the Russian mindset, where even though they got rid of the Soviet Union and communism, quote unquote, There seemed to be a built-in need to go back to the absolute corruption of what they had for all those decades anyway, right?
And then even before that, before they had the Russian Revolution.
So it's almost like in the DNA of certain people.
That was what was nice about the American experiment, I suppose.
It was begun in earnest to put a foot down and not have that.
There's something about the human condition, I don't know, that seems to gravitate towards dictators.
It's really, it's really, you know, mind-blowing.
Well, and one of the things that we have to keep in mind, and this is a hard thing.
Like, I'm not, again, we don't want to blow smoke up your ass.
We want to be honest about this and treat this in a mature manner.
Part of the problems, part of the problem we're dealing with here is the fact that we look at fascism and we think it's an aberration of Western Europe in the 20th century.
It's just something that happened there.
There is a part of humanity that gravitates towards that.
And when, especially when they're not well, when they're not doing great, when they're down on their luck, whenever the country is suffering, however you want to cut it up, they can be brought over into that.
What we're talking about right now is an authoritarian spirit that is being stoked around the world, like literally around the world right now.
And we've talked about this, we've warned people about this, that this is growing and rising.
You cannot get a better example in living technicolor of what this thing is and what it's becoming.
Yeah, and the legitimacy of it now and the acceptance of it by certainly the right in America.
It just makes all this harder.
And what we discussed earlier in the episode of how we're supposed to get this to get back on some sort of track where you have two parties that, you know, in earnest believe in helping their constituents.
They continually go so far down the road that the only solution is to get rid of them completely and have another party replace it.
I don't know how the Republican Party comes back from this.
I really, truly don't.
I don't know how you make that argument.
I don't know how that works, but I can tell you right now.
And again, how long have we been doing this show?
Going on two years?
143 episodes.
We've been doing 143 episodes.
I've been on the Trump fascism beat for four or five years now.
Five years, I guess, now that we're looking at it.
I have to tell you, this is this is concerning, Nick.
Like, this is like, it feels like today was an escalation, which is why we had to get on here, you know, nearing midnight.
But it feels like a really bad escalation in this entire thing.
You know, it does, but it also, I know that everybody on the right would be like, well, what's the big deal?
We went to Hungary!
Yeah, you know, what's the big deal?
We had the people, you know, visiting the capital and kind of walk through a little bit.
Like, you know, it's all, what's the big deal?
It's just a little cold you might get and then you survive.
Almost everybody survives.
It really, It boggles my mind.
And then, by the way, so what's the big deal for all of those things?
But then, the amazing ability to turn these powerful radars on to things like the Clinton Foundation or what Soros is doing.
It's incredible how Deeply caring they are about those things and not be able to use that same radar to look at themselves and look at what the policies that they back.
It's intellectually dishonest.
There's no other way to characterize that.
Well, and a big part of it, I mean, one of the reasons why we're doing this, some people might be, what the hell is going on?
Why is it a big deal that Tucker's in Hungary?
What is this all about?
And you have to understand, like Bannon opening up Anti-democracy academies, neo-fascist academies.
I mean they're all over Europe.
These people are all in conversations.
These extremist groups all talk to one another.
We have one far-right regime after another that is growing and gaining power, and one far-right movement after another that is gaining power.
This is about building bridges.
And that story is not being told.
That story is not showing up on the evening news.
It's not showing up on the major networks.
Why?
Because it's mind-blowing in its size and its scope.
It's literally horrific to think that one of our major parties is now not just flirting with dictators, but openly courting them, Nick.
They're openly trying to work with dictators at this point.
Right.
And again, we saw that in North Korea.
And I don't think, obviously, Trump didn't recognize the damage he was doing then.
It was reported then, at least, and the legitimization of what he was doing with that regime.
But this is a direct line to what we're doing here.
laundering the image of all these dictators.
Yep.
I mean, I'm kind of mad that we didn't predict this more, but it's like what would be next is that he'll do a whole tour of this.
He's going to go.
I mean, obviously he wanted Putin, right?
That was what was reported.
Who's to say he's not going to go hang out with Putin?
This is probably, yeah, this is a warm-up or an audition, right, for Putin, I'd imagine.
And maybe Putin was like, well, you know, you do Hungary first and then we can come to Russia.
I don't know.
But it's just frightening.
And then, by the way, well, anyway, this is what's happening.
And so it has to be Ingram is going to be broadcasting next, right?
Or who's the next, you know, person?
I'd like to see Judge Jeanine.
Go to one of these countries, drink a little too much and report from there.
That would be fun.
The amazing thing about that is like it really makes you start thinking about the stratification of the Fox universe.
You know what I mean?
It's like Judge Jeanine has no ideology.
She has no idea what she's talking about at any given point.
But somebody like Tucker, I mean, this is this is chosen.
This is strategic.
This was a message to everybody.
And you're right.
It's that thing where it's like, what are you all upset about?
I took a trip to Hungary.
Is that not allowed in the free world now?
Oh, what?
You think this is a message when obviously it's a message.
That's what this is.
It's incredibly concerning.
But I want to get on the record for this because I feel like this is again, this is a fastball right right into the strike zone for us.
This is an escalation that had to be commented on.
Where he's speaking is a bit like a Turning Point USA conference, right?
Or whatever they just had recently.
The hootenanny.
The racist hootenanny.
Yeah.
You know, the normal Republican get-together they have every year.
Although, I suppose it's worse, right?
This is even more radical, where they're meeting and having this discussion.
But that's why they have these.
That's why they have these conferences, so that they can network, so they can come together, so this stuff can spread worldwide.
It's been done for years now.
And the far right, Illiberal democracy tunnel, that network has been built for so many years and we're watching it come into full fruition.
The MCC Fest, which might sound familiar when it's a government funded plan to train a conservative future elite.
I mean, this is right out of the 17th.
The 1776 Project?
Is that what they were calling it?
In response to the 1619 Project?
That sounds awful.
That sounds god-awful, is what that sounds like.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this is all... I mean, again, it's almost impressive in their long-game approach to this.
And it's, you know, you could argue it started when Reagan, you know, allowed, you know, Saturday morning programming to not have educational programming anymore, which was what sort of indoctrinated children in the 70s to, you know, treating the environment well and treating each other well in an American melting pot.
That goes away in 1980 and then we have, you know... The Fairness Doctrine goes away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And here we are.
The Fairness Doctrine goes away, you start deregulating trust and monopoly.
So all of a sudden you can have people come in and buy major network shares and create, you know, a giant propaganda network.
Yeah.
So I mean, yeah, no, it's a long term plan.
That's that's impossible to deny at this point.
Yeah, and if you're wondering, like, where was the long-term effect of what the 60s had on the country, which should have been an effect where we had a nice, you know, liberal progression going forward.
It's gone the absolute opposite here.
It's going, you know what I mean?
Like, even with the Trump crazies, who we always were, you know, placated by saying they only represented 30% of the country.
31% of the country.
I gotta tell you, it's grown.
It's more than that now, wouldn't you say?
I don't know if it's necessarily grown, but I know that it's gained in power.
Okay.
And not just power, but boldness.
I'll tell you that much.
Again, this, what we're talking about right now, the reason why we broke in and did an additional recording on this is because This is honest to God, the logical progression of what we have seen.
And it's so brazen.
It's so massively in your face what they're doing at this point.
But you're right.
It felt like, and this is what we're told about history.
It's always progressing.
We're always getting better.
But again, this is what I keep warning about, which is they can rewind the clock.
They really can.
And all it takes is the will and the force to do it and the desire.
And then you can rewind back the clock.
You can make it go way, way back.
And the apathy, you know, we get used to it.
We get used to it.
They beat us over the head and we're like, at this point, we're not even surprised anymore by this.
We're not outraged by this anymore.
And then that's what they are relying on.
Yeah, I have a strong feeling that we'll be talking about this on our Weekender episode here coming up.
So hang in there for that.
Thank you as always.
It's so nice to have Tricky Nicky Halseman back.
It's the best thing in the world.
Well, I'm glad I could be back.
It feels good, although I'm struggling to get back into the saddle here for my normal day.
But maybe tomorrow will be better.
Well, I'm just so glad that you can come back and we have to do an emergency recording.
I think that is a proper, proper welcome.
So thank you everybody for your support.
If you need us, you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me?
