This is an abbreviated version of our weekly Patreon show. To access the full-episode and support the pod, head on over to http://www.patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss how the term "woke" has been co-opted into a boogey man for anything progressive - including banks failing because they're too diverse. They also examine what's happening to Emmanuel Macron as he tries to force the raising of the retirement age on the French people, before finishing with some very positive news out of Michigan.
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Montclair Podcast.
I'm JDA Sexton.
Nick, how we doing, buddy?
Well, it's not raining, and so let's cause some rejoice.
The sun came out today for the first time in a while.
It is raining like hell here.
I gotta tell you, we're recording this on Thursday, March 16th.
We are only four hours into the NCAA Tournament at this point, Nick.
My bracket is... It's not busted, my friend.
It is on life support.
Regardless, I am here.
Rainy, overcast day.
Dismal.
Tough bracket times, but I'm here for the weekender.
Break some news for me, because I've been so busy focusing on bad calls from last night's NBA games.
Were there an upset already that I missed?
Furman knocked off Virginia, which I had in the Sweet 16.
Or actually, the Elite 8.
I had him in the Elite 8.
It's an incredible thing.
People should look it up.
They should see what happened.
Awful.
That's a 4 and a 13.
I'm so upset about it.
Best time of the year.
That being said, We have a full show.
Listen, we got good news to celebrate in Michigan.
We've got weird stuff that is happening with the conservatives.
We've got a whole mess that's happening over in France.
And we gotta get into the idea of wokeness.
And, by the way, Nick, whether or not wokeness Cause Silicon Valley bank to fall apart.
But before all that, if you'll listen to the whole show, go over to patrion.com slash mccrake podcast, do it, just do it.
You like this.
You enjoy this.
You listen to the preview, go and get the whole thing.
Help the show out.
Keep us editorially independent and ad free.
Give them that link.
One more time.
That's patrion.com slash mccrake podcast.
So before we get into whether the secret spice in the failure of the Silicon Valley bank collapse was wokeness.
I'm sorry, but we have to share this on the show.
I think this is really, really important.
Conservative.
I put quotes around author Bethany Mandel, who really, really problematic stuff, was absolutely bodied by Brianna Joy Gray.
Nick, can you can you roll that sweet footage?
What does that mean to you?
Would you mind defining woke because it's come up a couple times and I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
What do I mean to you?
Would you mind defining woke?
Because it's come up a couple of times that I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that...
This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.
I mean, woke is something that's very hard to define, and we've spent an entire chapter defining it.
It is sort of the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and redo society in order to create hierarchies of oppression.
Sorry, it's hard to explain in a 15-second soundbite.
You know what, Nick?
Roll that beautiful bean footage one more time.
I'm sorry, that is too tasty, that is too good.
Roll that one more time.
A lot of Americans consider themselves very liberal, and probably fewer of them consider themselves to be woke.
And so, you know, when we talk about traditional... What does that mean to you?
Would you mind defining woke?
Because it's come up a couple times, and I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that...
This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.
Yes, yes it is, Bethany.
It is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.
And I wanted to talk about this because, first of all, that is exactly what should happen every time one of these people says the word woke.
Because they don't actually have a definition for it.
By the way, Nick, how would you define it if you had to?
If you just had to make it succinct.
I think I have one cooked up.
Do you have something approaching it?
Yeah, I mean, I think the essence of being woke is basically just being respectful for other people, really, is what you kind of boil it down to.
Yeah, it's a conservative right-wing catch-all that has been weaponized again by a bunch of institutes, a bunch of think tanks, that they think... And by the way, it doesn't even poll well.
It turns out that even the term woke and the ideology supposedly around wokeness actually is really, really popular in the United States of America.
It just so happens in certain places.
Everybody knows that it is a just a little bit of a push, right?
Like it's it's it's it's almost it sounds a little slurish, doesn't it?
Because what it actually means is any sort of ideology or viewpoint that says that there is systemic oppression, exploitation and inequality that needs to be addressed.
Not that everything needs to be redone, not that everything needs to be knocked down, but it is the belief that there is systemic inequality, which is the reason that Bethany Mandel cannot go ahead and say what it is, because everybody in this country knows that there is systemic inequality.
It is irrefutable that there is systemic inequality, is it not?
I can't.
I agree.
I mean, you're talking to the choir on this one.
And also, you know, the catch-all you mentioned is, it's basically anything progressive, anything liberal, is basically woke now.
But when you actually break it down to specifically what the woke things are, it's like, listen, if I want to treat somebody, a human, with respect, that is being woke.
If I want to call them by the pronouns that they simply asked to be called by, or they want to be recognized for who they are, that is supposedly woke now, and that is what's so infuriating.
It's like, we're compassionate.
We have empathy.
Why does it have to be some negative term?
It's so frustrating.
And they know it.
They know full and well.
And by the way, we wouldn't be doing our true duty here if we didn't mention that woke is a piece of co-opted rhetoric from the African American community.
And in order to look at this, you have to understand that this is the exact same thing as saying, of course, that there are caravans of illegals that are coming.
Also, a little old forgotten little nugget.
Do you remember the knockout game, Nick?
Uh, you mean the basketball knockout game?
Oh man, I love a good game of knockout in basketball.
That's a fun game.
That gets wild sometimes.
No, the knockout game.
Remember when quote-unquote urban teens were walking around and just randomly going up to white people and knocking them out?
Remember that?
The fear of the knockout game there for a while?
And they understand that what this does is it goes ahead and activates white supremacist fear-mongering.
The idea that, you know, minorities are going to both hurt them and also reshape the way the world works.
That is what is at the essence of this.
Well, Nick, one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this, I got brand new breaking news.
How's that?
How's my breaking news?
I wish I was quicker, like, to get my own version of that.
You don't like my breaking news?
Yeah, I'll go with it.
You need to have, like, the horns.
Right here.
Breaking news, everybody.
The Federalist.
Which, I gotta tell you, Nick, that's where I get my news from.
Great.
That's where I go to get the straight poop, if you will.
Emphasis on the poop.
Federalist is highlighting a study that was done by a reoccurring character within the muckrake universe, the Claremont Institute, who we'll hear from a couple of times in this episode.
Apparently, Silicon Valley Bank, the second biggest bank failure in the history of the United States of America.
Nick, it happened because they went woke.
And guess what happens when you go woke?
You go broke, my friend.
Sounds good to me.
It rhymes, at least.
That's what's important, is that it rhymes.
Well, the Claremont Institute, they put out a... Man, this sounds weird coming out of my mouth.
I need to put a little stink on it.
A study, an investigation, that Silicon Valley Bank had given $74 million to Black Lives Matter.
This, of course, immediately took off around the conservative world, including Fox News and all the familiar faces, that the reason why Silicon Valley Bank went under was because it was supporting Black Lives Matter.
And that, obviously, was prioritizing diversity and all these ideas over the solvency of the bank.
Nick, do you put any faith or trust in that study slash investigation that I just told you about?
Um, zero.
Zero percent?
Zero.
Nothing.
Not even an iota.
How much money do you think that Silicon Valley Bank gave to Black Lives Matter?
Well, can I just tell you?
Because I know the answer.
What's the answer?
What's the answer, Dick?
You know what?
Is it 73?
71?
What is it?
71 billion?
No, 71 million.
They gave zero dollars to Black Lives Matter.
Zero!
I read an article, I saw the number 73 million and that's what I'm going with.
How am I wrong?
Listen, I hate to shock everybody.
I can hear our listeners right now slamming on their brakes in traffic as they are just overwhelmed by the fact that the Federalist and the Claremont Institute, a right-wing institute that is focused on creating misinformation, anti-democratic trends by their billionaire donors, Yeah, they didn't give any money to Black Lives Matter.
They went ahead and said they were associated causes, which include anything that they deem woke, anything that they deem progressive, and by the way, I don't know how to tell them this, almost every institution in the country like this gives money to things that are considered progressive, and we'll talk about why in just a moment, but they gave zero dollars to Black Lives Matter.
Okay.
Well, I got some numbers for you, too.
You ready for this, Jared?
Because, you know, let's just pretend that they did.
Let's say they gave $74 million.
That was the number, right?
Love it.
Love it.
And by the way, they're positing that somehow this is the root of their crash.
We found it, guys!
We found the black box.
We know why the plane went down.
And by the way, I'm surprised that you're willing to talk about SVB considering how little we actually know about the financial system based on the comments in the Discord, so thank you.
All I know is it doesn't work the way that it's supposed to work.
And there is an area, it's not taxpayer money, as I found out after we recorded, that covers the depositors.
No, it's made up money.
It's funny money.
But there's an insurance that all the banks pay into, so okay, whatever.
I did not have that clear in my head, although, no.
But, so here's the thing.
Let's just pretend there was $74 million they gave, which is the $74 million they couldn't give back to depositors who were desperately trying to get their money out.
Well, do you know how much money that SDB had in depositor funds total?
Can I just, I'm not going to give you a number, but can I make a broad range guess?
Yes.
I'm going to guess that it is considerably more than $74 million.
You know, I did teach math in high school, so I'm somewhat of a math person, but you know, I don't know the factors here, but yes, they had $175 billion.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
What, Nick?
How much was that?
$175 billion.
$175 million!
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
What, what Nick, how much was that?
$175 billion.
$175 million.
I mean, that's $74 million has to play a big role.
Oh, you know, amazing really.
Cause even again, if, even if you want to take it to face value, like you said that we shouldn't be, uh, It's insane that like that had any bearing on on the run that was made on their bank.
They couldn't be solved and they couldn't get their money back to the depositors.
It's it's it's intellectual minima.
No, I don't want to insult Minnie Mouse intellectually.
vapid intellectually what's i'm looking for somebody well it's intellectually dishonest first of all is what it is and and by the way like the stuff that they're doing in this and the federalist is an all-time champion of this i mean really truly the the the bullshit that they peddle is incredible they went out and found this uh stiff shirt named will hilde of consumers research which sounds benign but it's like this very weird like conservative guy and And by the way, God knows how much money he's paid to do stuff like this.
You know what I mean?
Because they keep creating these fake experts as per, you know, the Powell Memo of the 70s.
He said, quote, SVB focused on woke virtue signaling instead of protecting their customers' deposits.
I gotta tell you something, Nick.
On this story, he is both somewhat right and completely wrong at the exact time.
It actually is pretty impressive the way that they're able to do this in their brain chambers.
One, no, they were not more worried about virtue signaling progressive ideas than they were their customers' deposits.
But they were virtue signaling.
Because one of the things that has happened here, and one of the reasons why this whole thing is occurring, Is because in capitalist America, whether it's the banks, it's the investment firms, it's the corporations, they are all having to give money to what some would consider progressive causes, right?
Because they make too much money, they exploit too many people, they have too much power, they circumvent too much government, it's a PR front.
And that is true.
That is actually true, and we've talked about this in the past, how quote-unquote woke capitalism Isn't about ideologies.
It's not about principles.
It's a smokescreen, right?
It goes ahead and makes sure that people aren't going to go ahead and boycott you because you're not on the right side of the culture wars.
Well, that is true.
And this is something that is happening here.
This isn't just about giving like a cover story to go ahead and protect the bank failure from conservatives and the right-wing GOP.
This is about starting to leverage against big tech the idea that they should not be giving money for public relations to progressive causes.
This is about sort of shifting the culture because that's what these people are about all about including the Claremont Institute which wants desperately to overtake big tech and to use it for their own nefarious purposes.
This is about trying to open up another front in terms of like going in the back door and sort of you know changing the way the culture works in this country.
Yeah, and then by the parallel track, it's another opportunity for these people to then slam the door on any kind of diversity, equity and inclusion.
You know, it's again, it's they have a gun and they're just they're firing the gun and they're just looking for bullets while they're, you know, the chamber is rotating around and they're shoving them in as quickly as they can.
So this is like, you know, Here's the thing.
Maybe we can do a little brainstorm session here to figure out what the next thing is going to be that's completely innocuous, ridiculous, that they're going to be able to use to indict wokeness.
But the idea – by the way, you're a banker and you probably have – it kind of feels good when you give money to charities is basically – It helps you sleep at night?
There's nothing wrong with that.
And so it's like, you know, the idea that it would somehow, you know, cause the fault of a bank in a business sense is ridiculous because it actually is the opposite.
That's what you said.
It helps businesses to at least appear that they care.
And that's an important thing for anybody's PR department.
Yes, a large part of what has happened in this country is that, you know, the sort of progressive movement to go ahead and start shining a light on these inequalities, which are everywhere, by the way.
And what are they built on?
They're built on institutions like Silicon Valley Bank.
They're built on institutions like big tech.
All of these engines of capitalist markets are what keep people down, are what keep the divisions that we're talking about here.
Instead of going ahead and risking systemic change or reform, these people would much rather pay this money.
It's not virtue signaling totally.
It's actually a little bit of a ransom.
You know, it's a little bit of just saying, hey, don't come after us.
We'll go ahead and give you a little bit here.
So, what has actually happened in this conversation is it has gone ahead and just looked at this askew, right?
Because they are right that there was money given to these causes.
That's not what caused the collapse, but it's also not for the purposes of why they did it in the first place.
It's skewing how this stuff happens.
And they're using it for their own benefit.
And this is, this is like some really advanced level stuff.
This is, this is strategy that the Claremont Institute and all of these sort of fixed institutions, they understand what they're doing.
And they understand like this war that they're starting to carry out.
