Wajahat Ali On Why Capitalism Makes White Nationalism Profitable
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman welcome to the show Wajahat Ali, author of "Go Back To Where You Came From" and Daily Beast contributor, to discuss a host of issues including the fascist leanings in Texas and Florida, and how the desperation of the conservative movement has led them to undemocratic norms.
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I'm Jared DH Saxton, here as always with Nick Halsman.
Reminder to everybody, this Friday on the Weekender episode, we'll be taking questions from our patrons over at patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Get those questions in.
But today, we have an incredibly special guest, fresh from South by Southwest.
One of my favorites out there in the world, the author of Go Back to Where You Came From, Daily Beast contributor, Wajahat Ali.
How you doing, Waj?
I'm fresh.
I'm sizzling.
I'm hot.
I'm off the grill.
Just came back from Austin, where people don't like wearing masks.
And people also don't like Governor Abbott, but it doesn't matter because Texans, Texan Republicans run the state legislature and are using that state as a laboratory to see just how far right And fascist asymptotic they can get leading up to the 2024 elections.
I got a question on that front, actually.
Texas is doing an interesting thing where they're actually trying.
Nick and I were talking about this not too long ago.
They're actually trying to bring people in from California with like libertarian right wing sort of philosophies in order to build up almost their own right wing state.
Like you said, a laboratory to see what's happening.
Austin, of course, is continuing to try and keep it quote-unquote weird while also embracing Elon Musk and a bunch of other bizarre things.
It's hella weird.
What was the scene down there?
South by Southwest is such a weird place anyway, but what did you find there politically?
So South by Southwest, you know, it was one of the major festivals that's come back.
It's like the lifeline of Austin and it's been virtual for two years and it's like devastated the local economy.
So many people lost jobs.
So the fact that they opened and so many big stars came was like just this huge, huge infusion of life and money into the place.
But I've been going there for a few years and you know that, like you said, for those who don't know, like Austin says, we like to keep things weird.
But Beck was performing.
He performed this awesome two-hour folk set, right?
And he was just having fun.
He's like, man, I haven't performed in months.
And he was on the stage, and he's saying, yeah, I remember I started my career in Austin.
It was like the freakiest, weirdest place.
But then I went walking, and there was this Hermes store.
I'm like, OK, let me get a hat from the Hermes store.
So even when Beck's calling it out, and you see a Google building, and you see Elon Musk, and I made this comment repeatedly, Cause like I had friends from Austin there who were part of my team and I'm like, why are there so many hot people?
It's like unusual levels of hotness and no disrespect.
There are a lot of hot folks in Texas, but this was like manufactured hotness.
It was like LA hotness.
Coach Nick knows what I'm talking about.
I'm like, there's too much LA hotness.
Like this is, there's something wrong.
My Spidey sense went off and the locals were like, yep, you're seeing the infusion of these California quote unquote expats.
Who come here to escape, not just escape the high rising prices of California, but also with the tech sector.
They've come gentrified Austin.
So now Austin resembled to me what the Bay Area resembled to me in the late 90s, early aughts, because I'm a Bay Area guy.
And what you're seeing is all these Hermes stores and lime bikes and super hot people.
The property has gone up like it's unaffordable.
And then right there in the alleyways of Austin, Homeless people.
It reminded me of the Bay Area.
In bad ways.
You know, I'm not as refined as you are, Waj.
It's not Hermes?
It's Hermes?
Is it Hermes?
I don't know.
I always thought it was... I don't know.
I've always seen it when I drive by it.
Dude, I was so bad that you used to say Yves Saint Laurent and, like, never say that again.
I'm like, Yves Saint Laurent.
I'm like, is it Herpes?
Hermes?
They're like, I don't know.
Is it Hermes?
This is a question for the audience.
I'm a simple man.
Okay.
Well, you know, I wanted to say I was at South by Southwest in 1994.
So I think it would be interesting to kind of compare and contrast because there's probably a lot of metaphors here with what's happened there and everywhere else.
But like, so I remember it was not that organized.
I mean, you got like some sort of a ticket where they let you into various bars to see various, you know, people performing.
Nobody, no huge names, you know, backyard barbecues you can wander into and hang out, right?
That kind of thing.
How much different is it now that you've been there for the last several years?
The spirit's still there, where you can sit there outside of a taco truck and just literally bump into a band that's performing, like, in two hours, and the band says, here's a flyer.
You got, like, all these bands competing.
The music is still where you see the spirit, where you got, like, all these bands performing, like, nine shows.
Everyone's, like, raw and grungy, trying their best.
You could just get, like, a pass and just literally just walk in from concert to concert.
And someone said to me, like, I'm like, yo, how do I, like, I don't know anyone.
They're like, here's a rule for South by Southwest.
And Austin, just go where the music is.
But with that, then you also got like Hollywood coming in.
You got tech, you got Silicon Valley property.
Like it's unaffordable.
Like if we move there, we wouldn't be able to buy a house.
Homelessness has increased.
A ridiculous amount of artificial hotness that has come from L.A.
And Hermes or Hermes, I trust you.
I probably messed it up.
I apologize.
And so it's like, huh, this isn't weird or freaky.
This looks like Rodeo Drive.
So on that note, and I'd be interested to hear what both of you think about this, because Nick and I have been talking about what's obviously been happening in Ukraine.
And we have this, I don't know, there's this bizarre sort of celebratory thing where like all the companies are canceling Russia.
Meanwhile, they're going to be back in Russia immediately as soon as everyone turns away from it.
But there's also a strange thing happening here, too, where it's like we're looking at corporations and companies to make these decisions politically for us and socially for us.
Meanwhile, you are in Texas, where the government is literally going to start hunting trans people.
They're going to start hunting gay people.
There's almost this sort of, not just libertarian, but almost neo-fascistic thing that's occurring here.
You're going to start having, I think, corporations that are going to sort of define themselves as being quote-unquote woke, right?
And then on the other side, you're going to have your, we've talked about Coke versus Pepsi, you're also going to start having the corporations that are like, we have no social conscience whatsoever.
But Disney, Disney in Florida right now.
Well, you know, so this is what also makes Austin so weird, is you forget, oh yeah, this is the capital of Texas, and then you look at it, they have this beautiful, like, statehouse, it's beautiful, and you're like, oh, Abbott's right there, like, literally right there, this is like Congress Avenue, and you're like, you go right there, and this is the capital of Texas, and oh, as you have Austin, which is this outlier, or used to be this outlier, this liberal hippie outlier of Texas, you also have Governor Abbott, as we were speaking, attacking the parents of trans kids.
Attacking gay kids, attacking, you know, CRT, all of it.
The abortion bill, which is now the heartbeat bill, which has become the copycat for even more extreme measure.
That's what's happening all across America, right?
Like where you're incentivizing bounty hunters to collect bounties by ratting out on abortion providers, right?
And the state goes, aha, be a vigilante.
And so you see Governor Abbott and DeSantis, and this is the type of analogy I've given, is like Abbott and DeSantis have realized they know where the base is.
They know the conservative movement doesn't care about democracy, doesn't care about human rights.
They want to chokehold this country back to 1953.
More misinformation, more racism, more misogyny, more Islamophobia, more authoritarianism.
Abbott wasn't always like this.
Neither is DeSantis.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
They are transforming themselves for the base to be neo-fascist, like you said.
And right now the competition is who can be the most neo-fascist Leading up to 2024, if Trump dies or gets arrested.
So it's between Abbott and DeSantis.
Just notice, it's a tit for tat.
Abbott does the heartbeat bill.
DeSantis says, oh, I'm going to copy the same language and incentivize bounty hunters for whoever teaches CRT.
DeSantis cracks down on gays and don't say gay.
And then next week he goes, OK, you didn't don't say gay.
Let me go after trans kids and their parents.
And so it's I've written articles on both in Florida and Texas and I'm telling people if you want to see a crystal ball roadmap of where the mainstream conservative movement is going to go, look to first and foremost Florida, look to Texas, and then you'll get a snapshot because they're leading the way.
Other states are copycatting them and they're looking to the leadership of DeSantis and Abbott who have national aspirations, which is why they're doubling down and going like right wing on steroids right now.
And then there's the weird thing, and this hits closer to where you're from, the Californian ideology, which everybody looks at tech and they say, this has to be a liberal thing.
Look at the sheen.
Look at the progress and all of this.
But actually, it's about unbound capitalism, right?
The number one funder for the right wing movements in the GOP is who?
Peter Thiel.
Yep.
Runs everything.
No, seriously!
A white gay man who is a white nationalist supporter who made his money in quote-unquote Silicon Valley is the number one open transparent funder of the GOP and specifically the most extreme movements in the GOP.
Is anyone surprised?
Who's helping destroy democracy?
Zuckerberg?
Facebook?
Is anyone surprised?
It's also worth noting that in Idaho, they're now making it where the rapist can't sue his victim for having the abortion, but the rapist's family could sue the victim.
That's just good sound policy, guys.
I mean, literally, I don't know what we're, by the way, just a complete abomination.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, please.
It's like, wait a second, wait a second.
I have to just, that's where we are right now.
We're like your sarcasm.
People might be like, oh, Jerry has a point.
Like, no, no, no, no.
I'm just kidding.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is horrific.
It's hard to find the comedy of that subject but unless we're like Anthony Jeselnik or somebody but the point being that here's what I think is going on in Texas and Florida and Idaho is that they're never going to want to get rid of the electoral college because what they're going to try and end up doing they want to keep it so they can get progressives out of those states.
So in my mind, they're trying to be as bombastic as possible because they literally want people in Texas to be like, I don't want to live here anymore.
I'll go to California, whatever.
And as a result, they'll have these strongholds with high electoral counts so they can then somehow control the national elections.
Doesn't that sound like what they're doing?
I think you're going a step further than what they have envisioned because they realize they don't care.
They run the state legislature.
So the reason why this is happening in Texas, and I did a piece for the Daily Beast, I think last month, where I was talking to folks on the ground, and they were like, the Texas state legislature, the one that just came in, that is the most far-right they've ever seen.
And they realize they're going against historical trends, minority-majority.
So instead of caring about the populations, they're going to double down, they're going to cheat, They're gonna voter suppress, they're gonna gerrymander, and as you know, you guys have talked about on your show, now they're openly telling you how they try to do the coup, where if they don't like the election results, they're just gonna put in their own electors in there, right?
Straight up coup.
So it doesn't matter, Nick, whether or not they have the numbers, they have the power, and because they have the power right now, they're gonna just steamroll over Democrats, right?
And because they just control the state legislatures in all these states, It was a 40-year long-term plan to win locally and at the state level.
Democrats didn't match it.
They thought demographics would be destiny.
It wasn't.
And now a democracy nationally and internationally hangs by a thread because we have minority, even now we have minority rule, right?
Like very quickly, 50-50 Senate.
Yeah, those 50 Republicans represent 40 million less people.
And so with what you're saying, Coach Nick, with the Electoral College, is that the majority of people in America will be moving to the blue states, but California will still have two representatives to freaking North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, Vermont, Oklahoma, and you combine all those states together, it still doesn't match half of California's population.
We're already in minority rule.
I've lived in Georgia now for a decade and it has been a noticeable shift because they do not give a shit.
That's the thing.
They used to have to try and reach out and get certain voters.
Like the old idea was you go far right and then you come to the middle.
And now I don't know how you two feel about this, but it's like everybody's like, oh, The Republican Party is moving away from Donald Trump.
No, it's not.
It wants to get beyond Trump and use Trump.
And the people who want to do this have unbelievable machinations.
I mean, they literally want to get to an illiberal democratic state that they control for white, patriarchal, evangelical, wealthy men.
And they are pushing this.
Everybody's like already sighing a sigh of relief that Trump's hold is slipping.
It's not slipping.
It's just mutating.
You know, the thing is, if I may flex now as an old man, and I'm a South Asian kid, so you never talk to flex, you're supposed to like self-deprecate, like I always joke if we were like rappers, our rap would be like, we're okay, I guess, maybe.
But like, you know, I was right.
You were right.
We've been right.
We've called it out.
We've been consistent.
We were seen as the crazy people, even last year.
I wrote a piece.
I said, uh, what makes you think that the Republican Party will moderate after their losses in 2020?
And they're like, no, would you?
I said, I said it.
You go, go look at my tweets and my articles.
It's all there.
I said the base and the future of the Republican Party is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
This was last year.
The Ian Bremers of the world mocked me on Twitter.
He's been consistently wrong, by the way.
And they said, no, no, no, the adults are still McConnell and the others.
I'm like, you guys, you guys wish it to be.
You guys are wishing a reality that does not exist into existence because you are dependent upon this ecosystem where the guardrails benefit you, right?
I'm on the margins as a Muslim, as a person of color.
I'm telling you, I see this clearly.
The future, the base and the present is the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and the Gosar's.
And if you don't believe me, look at the transformation of Elise Stefanik and even Mandel, who now is so far right.
Right.
Even though it's all bullshit.
The Politico did a piece on him that said this guy was a central leftist.
What?
He just transformed himself.
Even Cruz, you can mock his wife and you'll still kiss your ass.
Even Mike Pence, they hunted him to kill him.
And he's like, well, you know, I still think that the violent insurrectionists were onto something.
The RNC, I got to say this, because if Democrats have done this, it would have been like nonstop news.
But Democrats couldn't message to save their life.
The RNC, ladies and gentlemen, on its own, without any pressure, said that the violent insurrectionists who tried to overtake our election were legitimate protesters, ordinary citizens.
That's where we are.
You know, it's a lot like Sugar Ray.
Remember that band, Sugar Ray?
Wow, deep cut.
Yeah, they were like... I can't wait to see where this is going.
Yeah, they were like country-western for a while, then they like switched to like reggae.
Because of the one hit?
Right.
Well, no, they couldn't get the hit.
I do not want to defend them, but they had two.
Yeah, but then they finally kind of said, well, we're gonna try sort of the pop, you know, 90s pop, whatever, and then that hit, and then that's what they were, and they became successful.
It's almost like capitalism demands that.
And you have to kind of A/B test and see where you are.
On YouTube now, we have plenty of people who have gone that way, that route as well, who are now making a lot of money just doing live streams and just spouting off the most ridiculous stuff.
For some reason, the crazy right stuff gets more money.
It does.
I think you can monetize that a lot better as we've seen throughout, you know, history with these progressive outlets and platforms that never do as well as the right ones.
Right-wing stuff.
I'm just gonna throw this out there just so I'm on the record.
Marjorie Taylor Greene will be surpassed by somebody with more extremism.
There will come a time in the next few years where people will look at Marjorie Taylor Greene and suddenly say, I can't believe somebody moved beyond her to the right.
That will happen.
And so you know what I'm trying to do, because I don't know, some days I'm hopeful, some days I'm cynical, but you know life is short and we're all gonna die one day and I just want to know that I did my part.
If that means just warning, if that means planting my flag in the ground, if that means my words are a testament, like I tried.
And what I've been telling people, and they think I'm crazy, is 2024, maybe even sooner, so we got two years, you're gonna see white power slogans and white power signs as part of the mainstream GOP identity.
The type of stuff that six, seven years ago we would dismiss as KKK neo-Nazi stuff.
I'm warning you, I hope I'm wrong, and if you say, Wad, you're wrong, ha ha ha, eat halal crow, I will gladly eat halal crow with salsa on it.
I wanna be wrong, but I don't think I will.
Well, you know, I don't know if you've studied the Constitution carefully enough, but you have a right to not be shamed in public for anything you say out loud, right?
That's a right, a God-given right.
By the way, I love that the Grey Lady just completely made up a new right in the Constitution.
Wonderful.
Yeah, because again... Is it the Bible?
Is it in the Quran?
Is it this part of, like, some... Is it written in a scientific formula?
Is it the Constitution?
New York Times editorial board, what did you cite when you wrote that?
Well, it's not strange.
It's what the New York Times does.
say whatever you like but you're also allowed to then get the shit criticized out of you for saying that and we've always had that this is the strangest take i had seen in a long time well it's not strange it's what the new york times does it's a corporate sin it's a center publication that basically is terrified that a bunch of liberals or leftists are going to gain power and go after them Like, this is part and parcel.
And on top of that, they make a ton of money because everybody retweets it and talks about it and clicks on it and goes forward.
I mean, this is who they are, unfortunately.
Michael Jordan have said, right?
Even Republicans buy sneakers.
Here's a quote that I'll give you.
Let's see if it stands the test of time.
Fascism will be accepted in America as long as it's profitable.
That's a quote from me and a prediction from me, and I think there was a very pure quote.
I always remember this because it's so pure, it distills it so perfectly.
It's 2015.
Les Moonves, who was then the head of CBS and then he had to resign because of like all these other toxic white dudes, he like apparently allegedly assaulted all these women, but he said it.
It was like at this one of these, you know, media trade shows where he says, Donald Trump might not be good for America, but he's great for CBS.
And there you have it.
Jeff Zucker, who helped create Donald Trump, who helped literally, you know, they were doing conference calls while he was running for president.
They helped each other.
Once Trump became president, he unleashed his mob against CNN employees.
Remember that?
Cesar Sayoc and all these other people sent, like, pipe bombs.
CNN, I don't know if you guys remember this, but the CNN building had to be evacuated.
Even then, when it was Ben Smith, I think it was last year, when he interviewed Zucker, and he said, do you regret it?
He goes, nope.
NBC, I've taken a crack at CNN, I've taken a crack at CBS, let's take a crack at NBC, let's be fair.
SNL, Donald Trump was hosting SNL after he made those racist cracks.
So you sit there and you look at it and you go, huh, at the end of the day, and you guys have both said this repeatedly, I don't think you realized, is if it helps those in power, if it helps corporations, if it helps people get money, America will tolerate fascism.
And I think it's the grievance that they're talking about that because here's the thing these guys can say the most ridiculous things of all time but it's people are swallowing it up whole and like and getting rabid about this and that's what's so concerning because it's almost infectious now where people get these rallies are insane and the energy is insane Jared knows better than anybody so I think it's what that's what they're tapping into and then that's what this thing was talking about as far as this this right to not be canceled which by the way everyone's complaining about being canceled as they're on national TV talking about being
By the way, here's the thing that we haven't said.
There's one important word.
White.
We're talking about white people being afraid of saying things and being punished for them.
And that isn't just Donald Trump rallies.
Donald Trump rallies were safe spaces for racists to come together and say the things that they would have been shunned for years ago, and they found power being together.
And guess what?
The New York Times editorial board coming together and saying you have a right to say the things that you want to say without being criticized.
White people.
Well, this is, you know what it is?
Because I used to be a contributing writer for them.
I have a good relationship with them.
But this is revenge for the Darkies revolting against James Bennett.
This is what's happening.
And they've been festering and simmering and holding that anger in.
And then they've hired a few columnists, as you've seen, who their only job is to talk about cancel culture.
But within this ecosystem, this media ecosystem, I've been there for a long time.
And I can tell you, a lot of the heads were like, look what they did to Bennett.
And I'll give you some context for your listeners in a second.
The fear was, with most of this white incestuous group, it's a big club and you ain't in it, as George Carlin said.
Oh, these darkies are going to come after us now.
And what Bennett did as the head of op-eds in New York Times is, I'm telling you as an insider, Many people of color and women for months, years said, we are not doing a good job.
You have to address problems with race and diversity.
It was swept under the rug.
The culture, even though he didn't really have problems against him.
They said, we like you.
Just do better.
And you see this exodus of often black talent leaving the New York Times board.
There's multiple stories, right?
And so then Tom Cotton, they decide to publish an op-ed, a pro-fascist op-ed, during Black Lives Matters protests, right?
Which then they admitted on their own that A, it was not vetted.
B, they didn't read it.
C, it had mistakes in it.
As a result of that admission by Bennett, there was an outrage.
Naturally, even from within the New York Times, people risk their jobs.
And then as a result, I think the publisher was like, yo, it's too much.
And so Bennett had to be the fall guy.
And Bennett, as the fall guy for this, sent chills throughout the media ecosystem.
All his friends were editors.
I'm telling you guys, real talk.
I know these folks.
I'm telling you exactly the conversations I had.
They're going to come after us.
And then you saw the famous Harper letter.
That's kickstarted all this bullshit.
They asked me to sign on to the Harper letter.
I said no.
I don't know if I told you that, Jared, before.
They said, why would you like to sign on this?
I read it.
I'm like, guys, I understand what you're talking about.
But this is why this is problematic.
This is why I think it's being used and will be misused by now.
And this is going to be weaponized.
By the wrong people.
And it was precisely those people in power, all of them who still have failed up, ladies and gentlemen, not a single one has been canceled, who are terrified that they no longer have the full, complete control, that their terrible, often wrong opinions, who are all supporters of the war on terror, by the way, pretty much 95% of them all failed up, will now be subject to public scrutiny.
And that fear and security, which resembles the cultural anxiety of Trump voters, goes back to race, is so deep There's been a really interesting thing that has been bubbling up recently.
And by the way, I can't recommend this enough.
People should talk about how much they're paid.
People should talk about how much they're being paid in order to compare them.
And you'll find something.
In New York media circles, in New York publication circles, all of these jobs, and this is New York City where you can't buy like a one-bedroom apartment for under a million dollars at this point.
Of course you can, haven't you seen Friends reruns?
They're all, all these positions, they're getting paid like $40,000 a year, $50,000 a year, some of them don't even pay.
And people are like, how can anyone afford that?
And the answer is, nobody can afford it.
It's legacy people.
It's people who have money.
It's privileged white people whose parents worked in those jobs.
That's right.
Or they want it to be their hobby.
And as a result, they bring their privilege.
They bring their worldview into the job.
And the greatest lie, by the way, that Republicans ever told was that the media is leftist.
That they're radical.
That they're socialist.
That CNN is leftist.
That MSNBC is leftist.
That the New York Times is leftist.
They're not.
They're centrist at best.
They are pro-corporate news, pro-corporate messaging.
And the fact is, everybody still wants to look at these people, who, by the way, you want to talk about news being profitable.
They made so much money off of Donald Trump, who they helped create.
And then they said, oh, we're the weapon that will protect against the thing that they created.
Wait, wait.
Is this a safe space to light Maggie Haberman on fire?
I didn't miss that.
Is this what the show is going to be now?
Can we?
Is that where we're at?
Because, like, let's do it.
You can.
You can.
He deserves criticism.
Let's just do a t-shirt.
Did you see the interaction she had with Taylor Lorenz a week and a half ago on Twitter?
Yeah.
And it was, that was kind of encapsulated there, too, where, like, you know, yeah, they'd expect you to work for nothing and it's so prestigious and that's what you have to do.
And meanwhile, Taylor Lorenz is saying, no, like, this is a brand and I have to build my own brand and I shouldn't have to be, you know, suppressed by my employer by what I want to actually get out there.
It was fascinating to see them go back and forth.
And Haberman was so So condescending as if she wasn't the beneficiary of this whole thing.
It's gatekeeping.
And, Walsh, I assume you had the same thing.
I thought that the work that I was doing, going out on the Trump campaign and exposing this stuff, I thought that that was what journalism was and it was going to be embraced.
But I was the wrong person.
And the wrong message also.
You're too critical.
You're seen as too radical.
You're seen as too angry.
Exactly.
And you upset the gatekeepers.
You're a little bit too... You have the right complexion.
You're from the South.
You're a white guy.
Well, I'm from the Midwest, but it's the beard.
But you and Sarah Kensior are the unsafe whites.
Because you disrupt the people in power.
Yes, we're hysterical and we talked about that.
And so what I figured out very quickly, and it took me a minute to figure this out, was that they have their own club.
They don't want anybody else coming in.
And by the way, they're looking at all these universities where kids are getting actual educations, and it terrifies them because deep down they're culturally conservative.
Can I tell you two things from my experience?
I have been lucky to have a foot in.
I've seen the Wizards.
Wrote for the New York Times, columnist at Daily Beast, wrote a play, published a play.
You know, I've dabbled.
I've gone to Aspen, gone to TED.
I always joke that with me, there's an opening where they feel like, oh, he's one of the good ones, but they can't trust me because each time they feel like I'm a neutered, friendly one, I slap him across the face.
Not deliberately.
I just try to be myself.
And so I get the annual, maybe holiday invite to the party.
But that's it.
You know, I'll get like the eat a cheese, but don't eat our main course.
So like it's it's been a very interesting role for me because I could tell they don't fully trust me.
And my friends are kind of, you know, we were talking about this.
My friends are like, yeah, with you, they're like they like you and they respect you and they want to like you.
But you they also are afraid of you because they know you're going to slap them in the face once in a while.
And it's a big club.
It's an incestuous club.
It's an insecure club.
I've said this before on live TV.
I'll say it on your podcast.
They sleep with each other.
They divorce each other.
They sleep with each other's spouses.
They go to the same country clubs.
They go to the same parties.
I don't care.
Right, left, doesn't matter.
They party together, right?
And I'll give you one example.
Just one crystal clear example.
Three years ago.
Day before the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner.
My agent at the time said, come to this party.
It'll be good.
I just want to show you around to people.
I had no desire to do this.
Right.
And like my daughter was in the hospital, like with cancer treatment.
He goes, I know.
I know.
Just come for 15 minutes.
I'm like, OK.
All the D.C., New York cable news folks, all the reporters, all the TV execs.
You guys got me so far.
OK.
Guess who was also invited and had the best time at that party?
Sean Spicer.
The man who lied to them, berated them, mocked them, fed them misinformation and helped rally an angry mob was having the gayest time at this party for journalists.
And I'm like, right then I saw it.
And I'm like, yep, everyone fails up here.
If you're part of the club, they'll protect you.
And this is all for money and power and greed.
And we're screwed.
The rest of us are screwed.
You do not have Bill Barr on your shows.
Unless you want to help him sell books.
A guy who literally, as Attorney General, not only illegally served the President of the United States of America, but gave multiple speeches saying that the United States of America, that the law was Christian, and that should be used as a weapon to tame people.
You're exactly right.
They love this stuff.
They'll bring them on.
It's all professional wrestling until you start messing with the profit margin.
It was in the Green Room, bro.
I'll give you an example.
In the Green Room, we had an etiquette at CNN, which was fine.
Like, you've seen me.
I don't yell on TV.
I wait.
You never see me interrupt people.
I usually get the least amount of time.
I sit there quietly.
I take my time.
I do it, and I peace out.
Like, I drop the mic hot, and I peace out, right?
Not along with people.
Never raise my voice.
In the Green Room, you see this incestuous ecosystem.
I wish Americans could just see what happens in the Green Room.
How they're chummy with each other, and how they, you know.
Just all of them, it's just gross.
And these are folks, and I'll tell you also this, during the Trump administration, that most of the Trumpers, the people who had to debate, the people who I had to waste my time on, on a panel, like there's six prime minutes of TV real estate, and me and the host are like, why the F have we just wasted four debunking this idiot because of this both sides analysis, right?
It's terrible for news.
But most of them, I won't name them, I talk to them, I'm like, do you believe this stuff?
We hate Trump.
We hate Trump's base.
Only two of them are true believers.
Paris Denard and that guy, uh, remember he got fired for doing, Jeffrey Lord, he got fired for doing that Nazi salute.
Those are the only two real believers.
You can't do it on camera.
You can't do it on Twitter.
But that was it.
Most of them, you know what they said?
I hate this shit, but I gotta do it.
So that's what you're not doing then, because you're remaining true to yourself and that might actually hinder you from other opportunities because you're not willing to be one of them.
Is that what makes it... your term was gross.
Is it gross because they don't believe what they're saying?
Or is it gross that they're chummy about it?
I know what you're talking about here.
And this is a good question for us.
I've thought about this.
Is it grosser to be a true believer, spout all this nonsense, but be sincere about it?
Or is it worse that you know it's damaging, you know you hate it, you know it doesn't represent conservative values, you know it's bad for information, the press, democracy, yet you still go and do it and now you've become a fake Trumper because that's where your bread is buttered.
I would think the latter is worse because with the latter there's an awareness and you have a choice.
With the former you still have a choice, but you're a true believer.
You're sincere.
Okay, I still disagree with the content, but you believe it.
It's worse when you don't believe it, and you know it's damaging, and you still choose to do it.
Well, let me ask you this real quick.
Have we all accepted capitalism in our hearts?
Haven't we?
I mean, to some degree, we all live here.
I'm sure we enjoy all the benefits of that.
You can't exist in the United States of America without ending up on the streets of Austin if you do not accept the tenets of capitalism.
Wouldn't that dictate that behavior that's so horrible?
Because you make more money that way.
Well that's, you know, every immigrant family, I don't care whether they're from Europe or from the Middle East or South Asia or from China, like if you talk to immigrant families, right, what do they say?
America worships money.
America worships money.
And it's kind of a realization, like the color that trumps all other colors is the color green.
And so it's like, so those are my kids in the background.
I apologize.
That's just like your listeners, like, is why is he like losing his mind right now?
Those are just my kids.
I tried to tame them.
But it's one of those things is, yeah, at the end of the day, and it's very important, the problem with the news in this country, and I'll tell you, anyone who tells you the following is lying to you or naive.
Our North Star as cable news is the truth.
They're lying to you or they are naive.
I've been in this game a long time, folks.
I'm keeping it real.
The North Star is ratings and money.
This is not to say that people don't care.
There are a lot of good reporters, guys, a lot of good commentators, a lot of good journalists who really care.
But the North Star is ratings and money.
I've written for New York Times, I've written for The Atlantic.
I have had a good career.
Even in those places, the North Star subscriptions, eyeballs, clicks.
They look at it surgically, minute by minute, every day.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And you know, it's really repulsive to say this, but it's like, The repulsion that you feel looking at Tucker Carlson is looking at the deep, dark recesses of humanity, right?
It's looking at someone saying, oh wow, you would have worn an armband like in two seconds flat.
You would have had no problem with that.
Watching someone like a Sean Hannity, it's like a used car salesman who doesn't, the problem with Hannity is it's like teaching a dog to count.
They don't actually know what they're doing.
You know what I mean?
They've just given given enough treats.
He's been a true believer.
He's been a true believer since he was in college.
Yeah.
But but but even now, I think he let me put it this way.
He's been a right wing activist and a true believer of the Republican Party.
But from what we've learned from his texts is that he even knew January 6th was too far.
And what we've learned from Brian Stelter's hoax book is that like Trump used him as a sounding board in a hand he tried to like like kind of keep him somewhat at bay, right?
Whereas I feel like Tucker really does believe the white national stuff.
I believe he does. - Absolutely. - Yeah, and does he really believe the Russian propaganda as well?
I mean, I kind of think he does.
- Well, they're on the same page, absolutely. - I mean, look, Tucker decided to do his show from Hungary and he's gonna go back to Hungary And for your listeners, we've talked about it before.
Viktor Orban's Hungary provides the model for the modern right wing movement.
How do we know?
They tell us!
Viktor Orban's Hungary is now a backsliding democracy.
It's almost an autocracy where it's a single party rule, crushed, you know, independent judiciary.
You know, it's a one party state, like, you know, has implemented loyalists and propagandists in the arts.
Thank God that Republicans suck at the arts.
Victor Orban is much smarter than them.
He's literally put loyalists in the theater department, right?
And also, criticism is stifled.
Funding is removed from critics, uh, ethno-nationalism, uh, white Christian identity to protect it against the invaders, right?
So they see Hungary as the model that they have to follow in America, which is why Tucker went there.
They're literally telling you the blueprint, like, what do you, what's your vision of America?
Hungary!
They're telling you!
And meanwhile, New York Times and, you know, not everyone, look, I write for the New York Times, I have good relations with them, they've been good to me, but like New York Times, CNN, again, all these institutions I've worked with have also been very critical.
It's like, You have to be biased in favor of democracy.
It is okay to be biased in favor of democracy.
It is okay to be against fascism.
Yeah, I mean, you have a moral and an ethical obligation.
Watch, before we go, we got to ask you about this.
Things in Russia are getting absolutely worse.
Vladimir Putin's crimes against the Ukrainian people are growing by the day.
There are now reports of thermobaric weapons, vacuum bombs, hypersonic missiles.
I mean, it's absolutely terrible.
I'd love to hear what you have to say about that, but also, something that I've noticed in the past couple of days, the far-right channels, the chatter, they are starting to pick up on some of the pro-Putinist narratives, propagandas, conspiracy theories.
It's starting to really pick up some momentum, which was something I was afraid of, because they are going back to Orbanism, but it's also Putinism.
They want exactly what Putin and Orban have.
They've sort of been licking their chops, licking their wounds, trying to figure out what will work, how to bring people over to the other side.
What do you see and how do you feel about everything that's brewing right now?
So number one, I think we have to make peace with the fact that Putin, unfortunately, is going to go with the way of Assad, with Syria.
He's willing to scorch the earth, kill them all.
For him, this is personal.
For him, this is his pride, his legacy.
He is being outmaneuvered.
He miscalculated.
His troops don't have the loyalty to the mission.
He thought he could roll them over in a week.
Actually, no, like a day.
And Ukrainians, I was at South by Southwest.
I interviewed this young singer, Sasha, who was supposed to come with her band.
They've been practicing for two years, preparing, and her bandmates are now fighting.
Like literally.
So the musicians are not fighting and the band said, go be the voice of our country and tell them what's happening.
Right.
And she's like, I'll tell you this.
We're never going to give up.
We'll fight to the last man like we don't care.
And so I think we're going to be we have to be prepared for that number of three million refugees is going to increase.
War crimes are going to increase and it's going to be very hard For the Republicans, but to go to your second question, to reconcile how they can still be pro-Putin, pro-Russia, as these war crimes are happening.
It's going to get worse, it's going to get uglier, it's going to get bloodier, it's going to get violent, because I think he's going to flatten them.
I agree.
The only way he's going to be out is if he dies.
That's it.
Right.
So this is going to be like a war of attrition.
Well, it's... Sorry, go ahead.
And finally, with the right wing, they're trying to find an avenue to be pro... Like, you can see anytime there's a crack, Candace Owens, can I be pro-Russia?
Tucker, can I be pro-Russia?
And Tucker is so pro-Russia that Russia has informed pro-Russian outlets that you have to now put Tucker and Fox News on as part of our disinformation campaign.
I'm not making this up, ladies and gentlemen.
They're using Fox, an American corporate news company, for their propaganda to fuel their illegal war against Ukraine.
That's how bad it is.
And I feel like they're stuck.
Because the right wing for several years has been courted by Putin and has courted Putin.
And they see him as, quote, their Christian lion.
He's like the pre-Orban.
So the right wing, specifically the white Christian nationalist movement in America, just do your research on this, rushes the model.
He goes against the gays, against the feminists, against the Muslims, against this new order of liberalism.
And he then doubles down and says, I have to be a strong arm to protect white Christian European values.
And so now they're not giving it up, but they're going to get stuck, Jared and Nick, because as he doubles down on his war crimes, How much are the majority of Americans going to finally be able to take it?
I don't know.
Let's see.
And because Putin is the richest man in the world, those evangelicals will probably say that's more proof that God has rewarded him for being who he is.
Prosperity gospel.
Yeah.
And so here's the thing, because you think that if you're going to take over a country, you kind of want to have some infrastructure left over to like actually run the country and you're done.
This guy is going to level, I think, everything if he has the opportunity.
which tells you, I guess, even more volumes about what he really, his objectives are and how fragile his ego is.
Here's the thing.
They leaked a screenshot of the 10,000 Russian soldiers have been killed from one of the official, you know, Russian outlets.
I bet you it's higher than that.
But here's a little context to that.
If that's true that 10,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in two weeks, do you know how many soldiers died in Vietnam in 10 years for fighting for Americans?
58,000.
So they're already like 20% of the way there and it's been not even a month.
This is really interesting because part of me keeps thinking we know they're never going to win.
Ukrainians are going to lose.
It's going to happen.
They don't have enough people.
But like I got to tell you, every time you keep seeing these reports, you kind of I keep having this glimmer of like, well, wait a minute.
This is maybe this can be won by somehow by the Ukrainians.
Well, two things.
Look, just don't have to go to Vietnam, go to Afghanistan.
Russia thought they could rule over Afghans.
It was a nine year war who ended up losing and leaving Russia.
But even with Vietnam and Afghanistan, the trauma the pain the refugees uh the death the the destruction to the environment to the infrastructure right that's what people don't realize so yes us lost and russia lost but the generations generations have been harmed that war has been revisited in the memory and you know it like lives in the dna and so this is going to be a tragedy it already is a tragedy uh even the russian soldiers right they're not
they don't really believe in this war you've seen it like they're not committed to it just like us soldiers after a while like why am i here and if your force is not committed to it and if your force is not committed to it and if your force is not committed And you're meeting up with a resistance that is like, I'm a grandmother, but I'll kill you.
I'm a musician, but I'll stay behind instead of going to South by Southwest.
I don't know how to use a gun, but forget it.
I'll use that back of a gun to beat you to death with it.
Right.
That it's going to be a war of attrition with immense pain and suffering.
But ultimately, this guy is going to lose.
But as he loses, how much damage is he going to do?
And as he loses and that losing narrative, it will weaken.
The right wing.
Because fascism ultimately always fails.
But what people don't realize, it's very hard to come back from fascism.
And even though it does fall, everything else falls with it.
No, it's a death wish.
It's literally the blowing out of a star.
The only way that fascism ever takes hold is that something large and powerful has suddenly lost its control and its power and it has to lash out in order to try and rebirth itself.
You know, Nick, I think that was a good point in terms of like destroying the infrastructure.
This isn't about necessarily socioeconomic things.
It's purely ideological.
I mean, we talked about this on the podcast I want to say a week ago.
He's got his chips pushed in in the middle of the table.
This is about Vladimir Putin.
And being near the end of his life, being near the end of his rule, wanting to realize his ideological dreams, which of course are fueled by Elian and Dugan and all of these neo-fascistic things, who by the way are all beloved ideologues of Steve Bannon and other right-wing Christofascists.
And what we're looking at here is an attempt to try and change the world.
They literally thought that this would be something that would shake the world off its axis and it would just take over after a few days.
It's what we're witnessing also really quickly in America.
It's the death rattle of white supremacy that has turned into a death march.
You just have to listen to them.
Like, I think the difference between us and other folks is we read them and take them seriously.
The people who benefit from this safe, nurturing ecosystem where whiteness and legacy wealth and corporations are bent, you know, kind of I scratch your back, you scratch my back.
They willfully ignore the warning signs because it doesn't benefit them.
It doesn't threaten them.
Right.
For us, it threatens us.
So we take it seriously.
Look at Trump.
They were able to condone Trump and tolerate Trump because he didn't go after their communities and go after their wives and go after their children.
He didn't go after their interests.
So they allowed themselves to be these neutral zoologists, you know, umpires, balls and strikes.
Right.
And not calling it out for what it is and and what what I think people fail to realize is even Trumpism is an act of self-immolation right if you listen to the people who voted from Bulldozer, I don't care.
He's gonna tear it all down and what it really boils down to is if we can't be in power God damn it.
Those darkies aren't gonna be in power Well, how you describe Putin as this war is going to start getting worse for him and he's going to start, you know, taking everybody with him.
It's exactly what happens with Trump as well at the end of his presidency.
And nothing was lower enough for him.
As long as you came with me, we're all going down together.
All fascists, man.
Look at all fascists.
And I don't think it's hard to then, you know, it's clear how hard it's going to be for us to eventually restore whatever version of democracy we hope we can get back to.
But it's, you know, what you described there, it's like I can already picture on our level in America, how hard that's going to be.
I mean, how long did it take for Obama just to, he had to go around the country twice, around the world twice to just sort of, you know, make some sort of normal relations with like most other countries in the world after W.
So I had, you know, can you imagine how long it's going to take after, you know, and then we're in the midst of it now.
This is, look, this is a very pivotal moment in America's history, right?
Do we choose this flawed democracy and we strengthen it or do we go in the way of fascism?
And I use the word fascism.
I called it out.
I wrote an article about it before it became fashionable to say fascism and people said, are you being really extremist?
But Because if you don't understand white supremacy, if you're unwilling to acknowledge it, if you're unwilling to see how it shapes everything, our history, our economy, our system, and our structures, then you do not have a proper understanding of this country and why we're at this position.
And this is precisely why so many of my colleagues fail.
They refuse to acknowledge it, they refuse to study it, they refuse to diagnose the real problem.
And so we're witnessing again, the death rattle of white supremacy that has become a death march.
They are playing for all the marbles.
This is like Jared said, they pushed all of it in the middle, all in.
And it's like, either we're going to win or we're going to drag you with us.
And that includes the darkies.
But also what you guys are, are the race traitors.
You guys are race traitors.
So look at the way they talk about the victims of Kyle Rittenhouse who were white people.
You guys notice that?
It's the same way.
White supremacists and white nationalists used to talk about white allies of black folks during desegregation.
Same language.
And so that's what we're witnessing.
People don't realize that this is a death march and a death cult willing to bring it all down.
Putin, Orban, Trump, the base, they realize they're losing.
They feel like they're losing.
And rather than have equality, they'll burn all down.
I'll give you an example that I used, but also was used by the author of Dying of Whiteness.
It's an analogy.
You know, we don't want to be the owners of the house.
We just want to be co-owners.
That's all.
But they say, no, no, no.
We're the owner and we let you rent.
Know your place and be grateful.
If we, God forbid, become co-owners of the house or even own a room, instead of burning the house, they're going to burn down the village.
And that's what you're seeing.
The burning down of the village and self-immolation.
Yeah, one of the things I learned studying apocalypticism was that the apocalyptic idea is that white people will have to live in the world that they've made people of color live in.
That's the end of the world!
That's every doomsday scenario, right?
Suddenly you have to live in a second or a third world situation, and they would much rather bring about an apocalypse than deal with what that would actually mean.
Not only that, but also, colonizers have always believed that those who they colonized Will visit upon them the cruelty that they have visited upon them.
And it never happens.
So that's the fear in South Africa.
What happened?
You know, when Mandela came, he goes, all right, Whitey's, we're going to crack some skulls.
And he probably would have been justified.
Instead, he had truth and reconciliation.
Wasn't perfect, but it was not.
He did not revisit that same cruelty.
In India, we British are the civilized and we have to keep our boots on the necks of the Indian savages because you are uncivilized and you need our might and our boot on your neck.
And then if we take it off, you're gonna kill us.
Didn't happen.
Same thing with America.
These blacks, if they ever get freedom, you know what they're gonna do?
We enslaved them!
We raped them!
They're gonna kill us and take our women, and hasn't happened in U.S.
history.
The horrors of Santo Domingo.
That's exactly right.
They looked at Haiti and they just said, there's no way that we could ever get rid of slavery without some sort of a violent massacre of white people.
And it's just, it's white supremacist paranoia.
It's a projection of what they have done to everybody else coming back around.
And people of color, when you talk to them, they're like, what do you want?
Do you want vengeance?
Like, you really want to be bold about this?
Think if you're a black person in this country.
If white people were to trade places with black people with all of their marginalization, two things would happen.
In mass, white people would start committing suicide.
In mass, white people would burn this country down.
This country would be burned down in a week.
The fact that black people haven't burned this country down or killed white people in mass, it just shows you that most people, it's like Blade Runner.
They always think that the replicant is savage, but in both movies, the replicant is the one who values life the most.
And it's always the white people who are trying to frame black people to do these race wars, right?
That's the other craziness thing.
But man's not the only one.
But a lot of these things happen where they try and frame it, and it's... I don't know.
Jared, I thought we were supposed to be uplifting these days.
No, we are.
I mean, the fact that we're... Listen, it ain't over till it's over.
We have the numbers.
The problem is the following.
A flabby, moderate majority with the numbers will always be carved like butter if it goes up against a zealous, organized minority.
If you look at the school boards, it's a small but highly organized, funded, zealous minority.
Once the numbers show up, we crush them.
We just don't show up.
So what happens instead is, and you see this recurring theme, what we've talked about in the press and politics, is that the majority is Charlie Brown, the minority of the right wing is Lucy.
We need to start flexing, and it's OK to flex.
Once we flex, we actually have the edge with numbers.
But the problem is our institutions are failing us because they're chasing the dollars.
The framing is both sides when it's not.
And the majority still in America, we learn the hard way like it, like we have to suffer before we do anything.
The majority still thinks that the guardrails will save us.
And that we outsource our problems to the Avengers.
Avengers aren't going to save us.
The guardrails are being chewed upon by the termites.
And I hope, I hope, I hope.
Look, sometimes it has to get worse to get better, but sometimes it just gets worse.
So that's the hope and the fear I have right now.
That's as good a place as any to end this.
We have been so lucky to have Wajahat Ali, the author of, I think, one of the best books I've read in a very, very long time.
