Republicans Are Impeachment Curious While Ignoring Another Mass Shooting
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman go over the clown show that is Vivek Ramaswamy as he makes his way around the talk shows. They then discuss Kevin McCarthy's unenviable position as Speaker of the House, as he's made a lot of promises he can't keep including the impeachment of Joe Biden. They finish up with more outrage over yet another mass shooting, made worse due to the influence of white supremacy from republican leadership.
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The summer heat has left me alone for a couple of days.
It was 100 plus degrees.
It was unsuitable for living.
And now it's down in the 80s.
There's a nice little cool breeze.
I see the end of summer coming.
I'm very excited.
Everybody knows that the fall autumnal time is Jared Yates-Taxton time.
I'm ready to go.
Wow, okay, yeah.
Who knew that the, you know, the beginning of the fall programming on TV, and Jerry did Sexton's programming as well, in sync?
Just imagine me putting on a flannel, getting cozy and enjoying myself.
But yeah, so there's that.
Everybody, real fast before we get going, we have an absolutely full show here.
We gotta talk about the fallout from the debates and all of the media silliness.
We gotta talk about potential impeachments.
We gotta talk about God, a mass shooting.
You have to even say which mass shooting you're talking about at this point.
We gotta talk about one of the dumbest op-eds that I've read in a very long time, and that is really saying something.
But a reminder to everyone, if you want to support this show, if you want to keep this show growing and on the right track, we need you to go to patreon.com slash mcgreggpodcast.
Again, that also gives you access to our weekly Weekender show on Friday morning, in which, Nick, what do we do?
What do we do on the Weekender?
We do a lot of things.
That's a terrible answer.
Well, we do that we answer questions directly from the audience.
We answer questions directly from the audience.
That means that if you are a subscriber over at patreon.com slash Montclair podcast, you can leave us a voicemail.
That you can take off of the Patreon page.
You can leave us a voicemail.
We do these.
You can send us an email with questions.
We will answer them on the show.
It is a great segment.
We need you to go over to patreon.com slash mccraigpodcast and our patrons.
We need you to send in your questions in the Today?
Or tomorrow in order to get it in for our taping on Thursday.
That is patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
That being said, Nick, we had a debate last week, and let me tell you something.
I think that American media has learned its lesson.
I think it has absolutely learned not to platform problematic, demagogic characters.
I feel very good about the future of this country and its political trajectory.
Yeah, you forgot to turn on your sarcastic whatever that is.
You know what I did?
I forgot to turn on the Sunday morning shows because I refuse, Nick.
I'm not going to watch these damn things anymore.
What would I have seen if I would have turned on one of these awful, worthless Sunday morning political talk shows?
Well, should we begin with Vivek and what he was saying?
Yeah, so Vivek Ramaswamy, who just made a complete and utter ass out of himself, because he was seen as the winner of the GOP debate, and I'm putting heavy quotes around winner, this guy, who went on the debate and just absolutely pissed everybody off, he supported Vladimir Putin, he talked about the elimination of education and basically every other department, And on top of that, pushed what sounded like a neo-fascist new national identity.
Just one of the worst characters to come on the political scene in a while.
He was rewarded with one slot after another in front of millions of American viewers.
And Nick, this first clip that we're going to hear was from CNN, the leftist CNN, with Dana Bash, in which he was asked about a previous comment, and you'll hear a little bit about this before he answers it, that white supremacists are like unicorns.
In that they don't exist.
I'm sure the boogeyman white supremacist exists somewhere in America.
I've just never met him.
Never seen one.
Never met one in my life, right?
Maybe I'll meet a unicorn sooner.
And maybe those exist too.
So just because somebody hasn't encountered one doesn't mean that the notion of white supremacy doesn't exist as a threat in America.
What do you think goes through the minds of the families of the three victims in yesterday's shooting when they hear you say that white supremacy is basically a fantasy?
I'm sure they're grieving for their loss, and I don't want to politicize those victims, Dana, but I was responding to a question where someone asked me, what racism have I experienced in recent years?
Do you acknowledge, though, that white supremacy does still exist in the United States?
I acknowledge that all forms of racial animus exist in the United States, including fringe branches.
I mean, that's clearly what was at the, at the head of this mentally deranged individual responsible for this shooting.
Yes.
But I think there are many forms of mental derangement that cause us to see one another on the basis of our skin color and our attributes.
Nick, I, I, I, I, we've been doing this a while and we've been paying attention for politics longer.
Before I lose my mind, can you tell me what you think that these journalists and these media operations think they're going to get by having people like Vivek Ramaswamy on their shows?
Well, you know, I want to answer that question, but I also need to ask you a question, which is more like, what would you want them to do?
But maybe, okay, we'll put that right after this.
Sure.
Because the answer, I guess, is, you know, we know what the answer is.
They're putting them on there because they know people are going to watch and they're going to make some money off of the That is the root reason, right?
Is that having Vivek or somebody like a Donald Trump, and I have to tell you, my deja vu is just off the charts.
This is 2016 all over again, and I swear to God, Nick, I swear to God, if Vivek is invited to host Saturday Night Live, I'm going to lose my shit.
The core reason is because it will attract viewers and hopefully something they say, like something like this, will lead to a viral moment and will lead to commentators discussing it, right?
That is why they are actually doing it.
What do you think that they tell themselves?
Okay, great.
Journalists.
Yeah, what story are they telling themselves to you?
Well, I mean, because obviously they know what he is going to say because everything he says is canned from, you know, the last six months.
So they know what he's going to say.
They probably prepare rebuttals.
They probably prepare all these gotcha things.
They're going to be able to, you know, this guy is intellectually dishonest.
He's not, you know, straightforward with what he's trying to say.
He's clearly just being swindling the public.
So we're going to expose that.
We're really going to show everybody what he really is.
I think that's what they're probably thinking.
The Edward R. Murrow inside of every one of these people is thinking that.
So Nick, based on that, and I think you're right, I think they're sitting in their booths and they're like, got your ass, like they're ready to do it.
Based on that logic, and I think you're exactly right, what grade would you give them on that?
You know, Dana, Dana or them in general?
Let's just start with Bash.
Let's just start with Bash.
I suppose.
What do you want to say?
Like, I thought she actually followed up a couple times more than you would normally see.
And that gets into what you'd want them to do.
Are we expecting someone who is a lot more forceful?
A lot more histrionic?
Is there a tone in the questioning that we're looking for that we're not getting?
No, just more than this.
Because it's not, they're not, Vivek is going on there to use them, they're bringing him on to use him.
It is a mutually, reciprocity is what it is.
They're not interested in the journalistic hard knocks.
That question that you just heard, literally the only way to respond to Vivek saying that is, are you or are you not giving an excuse for people who say that white supremacy doesn't exist?
That's what you're basing your appeal on.
It is obvious that there are white supremacists in this country.
It is obvious that America has a white supremacist past.
Here are some examples, right?
You had all day to prepare for this interview and all you could say is, it's a failure.
And it literally is the exact same failure that took place during the Donald Trump campaign of 2016.
It's the exact same one.
Nobody ever brought Donald Trump onto a show and was like, aha, got his ass.
Like, literally, Lester Holt had him on NBC, the nightly news, and he admitted to an impeachable crime, and NOTHING HAPPENED.
Like, there's nothing- and speaking of people on NBC who aren't going to do anything for anybody and aren't going to hold anybody to any standards, Let's hear, let's hear.
He went on Meet the Press, Nick.
And for people who didn't see this, he called Chuck Todd, Chud.
Which is incredible.
That happened.
But let the people hear what happened when he went on Meet the Press.
Let me bring up a couple questions you didn't get a chance to answer at the debate.
Most of the candidates on stage Wednesday night said Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th.
Do you agree?
I would have done it very differently.
I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to reunite this country in that window.
What I would have said is, this is a moment for a true national consensus, where there's two elements of what's required for a functioning democracy in America.
One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power.
When those things come into conflict, that's an opportunity for heroism.
Here's what I would have said.
We need single day voting on election day.
We need paper ballots and we need government issued ID matching the voter file.
And if we achieve that, then we have achieved victory and we should not have any further complaint about election integrity.
So what would you have done?
So I would have driven it through the Senate.
So what would you have done with Mike Pence?
You would have not certified the election?
In my capacity as President of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then on that condition certified the election results, served it up to the President, President Trump then to sign that into law, and on January 7th declared the re-election campaign pursuant to a free and fair election.
I think that was a missed opportunity, but that's the kind of spirit we're gonna need to unite this country rather than sweeping those concerns under the rug.
Jared.
You know what's incredible here, and this goes in Chuck Todd's Hall of Shame, he didn't even bother to say, Mr. Ramaswamy, that that is not within the purview of the Vice President of the United States of America within their role as President of the Senate.
You don't introduce legislation and you don't federalize elections.
Like, that's not what you do.
But also, how would you expect to have any of those things done in, like, a day?
Like, what is he saying?
You know what would help?
You know how you get those things done in a day.
You have a murderous crowd of people streaming through the capital of the United States of America, threatening to hang and murder Republicans.
Yeah, and that'll just bring us all together, Jared.
We'll reunite as a country over this.
I mean, the guy is such... He can't be this dumb, right?
He is dumb, but he can't be that dumb, I don't think.
You know what?
I actually think there's a possibility he's that dumb.
I don't know if people follow Vivek's background whatsoever.
He is a quintessential modern American story.
Do people know how he made his money?
Do you know how he made his money, Nick?
Yeah, you know, he kind of got the patent on some pharmaceutical stuff, right?
Failed pharmaceutical stuff!
He built a company that failed, and he profited off of a company that failed.
That is who this person is.
Who, by the way, hasn't voted!
Like, has no actual interest in politics, has no actual, like, background of actually doing anything of substance.
That's who he is.
He's the quintessential modern American politician.
Just to add one last detail to that, as far as I remember, there was, like, a drug that had failed three trials.
He gets involved and then promises everybody that the fourth trial for sure is going to be...
It's going to work out, folks.
And they pump up the stock, whatever.
He gets out, no skin off his nose.
And the whole thing fails the fourth time again.
And it never becomes a drug that is worth being able to use.
So yes, more of the same.
What's weird about that, Nick, is what you just described in terms of how Vivek made his money is exactly what the American media is guilty of as well.
Because the entirety of the American economy is built off self-destruction.
Bringing people like this on, demagogic figures, same way they brought Donald Trump on, it's to go ahead and create discord, anxiety, terror, frustration, anger, you name it.
Anything that actually hurts things in order to keep eyeballs tuned in, people retweeting, people looking at, people talking about.
And Vivek got, and I don't know what the numbers are, it has to be millions of dollars of free advertising.
Because he went on stage, said a bunch of stuff that was controversial, that was anti-democratic and dangerous, and as a result, he got invited on to all of the major shows and he got featured.
Nick, we gotta look at polls for a second, because the numbers have come in.
Emerson College has shown that post-GOP debate, Trump's support has fallen from 56% to 50%.
DeSantis went from 10% to 12%.
Hey, Ronnie Dion, how about that?
Mike Pence went from 3 to 7, which is still kind of sad.
Nikki Haley, 2 to 7, still sad.
Christy, 3 to 5, pretty sad.
Vivek, it said, fell from 10 to 9, but also it shows the Trump supporters are now not a definite, it goes from an 82 to 71% voting for him.
By the way, none of these numbers mean anything!
Nothing that we're talking about here actually means anything.
It's about profit.
It's about trying to get eyes on things.
This is what happens during the primary season.
And Nick, I'm going to go ahead and give this a technical term.
I apologize for the jargon.
It's a load of shit.
All of it.
Top to bottom load of shit.
Well, you know, Nikki Haley, my favorite candidate now, you know, when you go from 2% to 7%, that's over triple.
That's impressive.
But you're right, because again, you know, have you seen Pence keep going on the shows and insisting that Trump will not be the nominee?
Have you seen that?
And it starts me wondering, first of all, what fantasy, what color is the sky in his world?
But also, maybe he knows something about some of these lawsuits, right?
Because that's the only trajectory that they have where Trump is not on the ballot.
Is it somehow, and we've been hearing rumblings about this, that his legal woes will ultimately not permit him to be voted for on those ballots.
I would say that Mike Pence, anything that he says, you have to remember that him and Mother probably are down on their knees every night getting instructions from God.
And God wants him to be president so bad he can't stand it.
That being said, I don't know where this whole thing's going.
I keep saying I think Trump's health is going to end up playing a role in all of this, but what is happening right now is that the horse race mentality that you and I talked about before the debate even took place, We told everybody what was going to happen.
Somebody was going to get the focus for a week or two.
The media was going to build them up.
Also, a bunch of bad ideas were going to get dispersed into the discourse.
Congratulations, Vivek.
You went on TV.
You spewed a bunch of bullshit.
You said a bunch of things that are really, really damaging.
You're probably going to change the trajectory of the debate, the next one in September.
Then we're going to have another person.
It's going to be another person.
It's going to be another person.
And meanwhile, democracy itself and our institutions are absolutely not being served by any of this.
By any of it.
And you have this big looming thing with Donald Trump, his legal troubles, which you just brought up.
Some people are completely convinced that he's not going to be in the race because he's going to get barred from the race because of legal reasons.
Some people think eventually somebody else is going to come out of nowhere and beat him.
And the picture isn't clear at all!
And anybody who tells you any different right now is just saying it to get on TV or get clicks or make a profit from it.
This thing that we're talking about right here is such a vicious, stupid cycle.
And this is one of the things I wanted to warn people about, is how much of a silly season we're going to have over the next year and a half.
It's going to be so much of this shit.
Are you aware that Vivek wrote a book last year?
I am.
I am aware that Vivek wrote a book, and I am aware that it's terrible.
Okay, well, I'll tell you the title in a second, but I think that's probably part of this is when you're saying they're going to profit off of this.
You know, they can all write books.
He sold a ton of books this week.
He absolutely sold a ton of books this week.
But he's got another book in him, Jared.
He's gonna have another book in him all about this whole thing and how he was persecuting, you know, that's why he couldn't win, whatever it is.
The book title, though, from last year was Woke Inc.
Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam.
Now, there's a lot of things in there that I think probably would align with what we've said on the pod about corporations being woke, quote-unquote, anyway.
And he'll take a nugget of that and then twist it all completely off.
He'll tell you that they're woke when in fact corporations aren't woke.
What they're actually doing is they've seen a marketed demographic, and he's twisting all of that in order to get out in front of it and make a ton of money.
He's made a ton of money off this book, and he's going to make a ton of money off of it this week spreading this bullshit.
And it's incredible what he's using this to do, and his stock has gone up simply because he's going to make more money.
He's going to be on every show.
And by the way, Leftist CNN, leftist NBC, they're all going to have him on there.
They don't even care what he says.
And they're not going to challenge him either.
You know, it's weird because, in theory, if you're an alien who comes down and, you know, studies what we're doing in our political system for, you know, ten years, they would, Vivek would do exactly what they would tell him that he should be doing.
Of course, this is what you have to do and it's a say and you get on these shows and this is, you know, how you build your campaign.
On the flip side, if they're looking at the media, then it's the same thing.
Yes, you would have this person on here, and you wouldn't push back on here, and you let him say this thing here.
And again, it's all part of the system of making the money.
Am I arguing for some sort of socialist control over everything?
I don't know.
Okay, let's go ahead, and before we get to this next segment, let's just go ahead and say, this system doesn't work!
This system doesn't work.
How long it goes, how much money is in it, how our media has a parasitical relationship with it, it doesn't work at all.
It's broken through and through.
The timing that you just mentioned is, you know, Trump is arguing that they can't have, by the way, they announced when the Georgia, or when Judge Chuck announced when the trial is going to go on.
It's a week before Super Tuesday, which I think is just chef's kiss.
The thing is, the argument can be, well, it's going to be in the middle of campaign season.
Well, here's the, I got news for people.
There is never a moment where you're not in campaign.
Maybe like, maybe it's like for like a Three or four days after you actually win, and then a couple days in there where you can relax?
No?
Am I not wrong, or did Trump not announce that he was running for another term in 22?
It was like in 22 at some point, am I wrong?
Like, he's been running for president for over a year now.
And he never stopped!
Yeah, I think maybe it was like December or whatever.
He's been running for president for eight years!
All of them!
All of these people have been running for president for eight years, and meanwhile now we're in this artificial season where all this silliness is taking place.
And on that note, Nick, chances are the House is taking steps towards impeaching Biden to be part of this silly season.
GOP Speaker of the House of the Moment Kevin McCarthy was on Fox News this weekend and he told them a Biden impeachment inquiry is, quote, a natural step forward in investigating.
Here's the thing, Dick.
Investigating What?
They say Biden's business dealings, they say corruption, they can never give you one thing.
It's just sort of up in the air at all times.
It's like, speaking of unicorns, how much does a unicorn weigh?
It looks like this is going to move forward.
There's a lot happening within the House that I'm going to speak about in a second.
They're also talking about shutting down the government while that's happening.
Basically, at this point, it's trying to perform surgery with a bunch of head shears, is what it is.
I mean, it's absolute madness, but this is where we are now.
Well, no, they're going to impeach Biden because they think that, as vice president, In front of everybody, withheld a billion dollars of aid to Ukraine until they fired Viktor Shokin.
Who's now on the news, too, coming out and saying the same thing, which I love the credibility of that.
The balls on that guy to come out and it's like that.
When, meanwhile, the entire international community recognized how corrupt this guy was, and he wasn't doing his job as prosecutor in Ukraine, so they wanted him fired because the United States' big thing was to try and help Ukraine become much more of a reputable democratic society that didn't have all the corruption.
You know, it's just so amazing how How parallel this is to what Trump tried to do when shaking down the Ukrainian government anyway with his call.
But it's a sweet siren call for the Republicans.
And meanwhile, we have to remember that Kevin McCarthy is only in this position because he promised to do this impeachment, release the impeachment inquiry.
That's all he promised and so he's going to have to do that part.
Yeah, and McCarthy right now, the reason he's bringing this up, he's just literally like, what's the saying?
I always hear people say this, I've never actually said it out loud, but now that I'm recording a podcast for public consumption, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Sure.
Is that the saying?
Yeah, I think so.
I've always heard people say that.
Yeah, that sounds great.
It always sounds wonderful when other people use it.
I'll jump into the pool, that's fine.
He is on borrowed time as Speaker of this House.
The Freedom Caucus has no interest whatsoever in having McCarthy around.
They have already tried to push the impeachment of Biden forward.
Of course, Lauren Boebert, that blabbering idiot, has just... I don't know how many resolutions she's introduced at this point trying to get Biden impeached.
And he has to go out and say, oh, don't worry, we're going to do this impeachment.
It'll happen in time, which means eventually he's going to drag himself over the finish line of getting him impeached.
Matt Gaetz is out there telling anybody who will listen, we don't expect to actually get him convicted.
We just need to get him impeached.
In order to put this in front of the American people.
The House Freedom Caucus has called this, quote, impeachment theater.
Which is rich!
Coming from the people who are trying to carry out, Nick, impeachment theater!
It's incredible that this is happening at this point, and they have nothing on him.
They probably are going to impeach Biden before this thing is all said and done, for nothing.
And all it is, is desperate, grasping at straws.
That's all it is.
There's nothing to- and maybe there is.
Maybe there is something to it, at which point I think you and I agree again, corruption should be served.
But nothing has been seen.
Nothing is out there.
They're literally doing this in order to try to throw a stumbling block out there in front of Biden and turn it into some sort of a feeding frenzy.
Jared, the Biden family has accounts, they have businesses they set up in Delaware.
Do you understand what that means?
You know what?
If the Republican Party of the United States of America wants to start going after corporations that have strategically incorporated themselves in the state of Delaware, I'm going to be controversial and say, I'm with them.
Let's do it.
Let's investigate corporations that started and bank accounts that started in the state of Delaware.
On board.
Let's do it.
And by the way, the House, GOP doesn't have the votes to do an impeachment.
They can do the inquiry based on nothing.
They can just do it.
They can force that through.
And you know, when you have a guy, so basically McCarthy's equivalent of hanging upside down and they're holding it by his ankles off of, you know, the only question is how high, what story of the building is he on, right?
It's a second story.
It's a fifth story.
We don't know.
But they also, you know, there's a huge chunk that will get rid of McCarthy before they agree to any kind of continuing resolution so the government can continue to fund.
And McCarthy's whole argument now is, well, we need that so that we can continue all these investigations.
And if we don't have any money, we can't do all that stuff.
So he's trying to tie these things all together and try and hopefully pull it Across the finish line in one piece, but it's going to fall apart and they'll probably have at least one of those idiots calling for McCarthy's resignation, of which he can because or they can because they changed the rules and only one congressperson could do it or is only needed to have that happen.
This is a fantastic opportunity to point out something that we have talked about ad nauseum on this show.
The Republican Party is the PR front for what is actually happening with the donor class in the United States of America, and particularly what's happening on the state level.
Nick, look at this clown car.
It's not even a clown car.
It's like a broken down clown car, you know, that can't even get to where the clown car is supposed to get.
That the clowns are too busy arguing with each other to actually arrive at the place where all of the clowns are supposed to pour out of the clown car.
That's the title of this pod.
Meanwhile, what is actually happening is other things, where things are getting desperate, This is a story that is breaking, is that the Republican Party of the state of Georgia has plans in place, has already put into motion the possibility that they might be able to take out the prosecutor who is bringing charges against Trump, using their powers that they have created for themselves in a red state, which is what is happening around the country right now,
Those are the people actually getting things done, actually trying to push things.
Meanwhile, these clowns over here can't even put on the makeup.
They can't even get their wigs on.
You know?
They can't find the car.
They're too busy honking their horns.
Isn't it rich, to quote a song?
Yes, it is hilarious how they are not going to be able to do any of these things.
And McCarthy just wanted to go status quo.
He's trying to run his side of the government the way a normal Speaker of the House would, right?
He's got two fingers in his ears.
So I don't know how this is going to work eventually.
It's going to come to a real problem here, where I bet you the government will shut down.
Anyway, right?
He's not gonna be able to prevent that.
It seems like there's enough appetite for those people to try and shut the government down.
They didn't get to have their fun last time, and they're pissed that they kicked the can down the road.
Yeah, they're having just an absolute fun bang-up job.
What a great thing to be Speaker of the House, be a Republican Speaker of the House.
You know, to move away from clowns and talk about something very serious.
Nick, this Saturday, and my God, am I tired of having to talk about this shit.
I wish somebody would do something about it.
A 21-year-old in Jacksonville, Florida, wearing a tactical vest, a mask, and carrying an AR-15 covered in swastikas, went into a Dollar General after stalking people on the historically black college of Edwards Waters University, ended up shooting three at the Dollar General store.
Um, an absolute tragedy, but also like all of these that always happen in America, we are pretending that this is just some lone wolf, some lone nut.
Nobody could do anything about it.
Meanwhile, Nick, this is a person who had been institutionalized.
He bought his guns legally, and on top of that, he lives in the state of Florida.
Where the governor and the Republican Party has continually peddled white supremacy in all forms, and where I think just a month ago, they had open Nazis rallying around the state.
Like, we can't sit here and pretend that these things are just happening in a vacuum, that it's just a sick person creating these urges in themselves and carrying them out.
Oh, you know, I'm tired.
I don't know if I can offer anything more than that, but I've already said over and over again.
And then DeSantis came to speak to a crowd who was masked to discuss this shooting and they booed him.
They booed him off.
Good.
You know, and it's his policies that are enabling this thing.
So, why can't we just ban, at the very least, ban AR-15s again?
Did it once, let's just do that again and save a couple lives at the very least.
Well, let's ban the AR-15s.
Let's go ahead and jack up liability insurance for the people who make these things.
Let's go ahead and, I mean, let's make ammunition so expensive and scarce that nobody can get a hold of it.
And, I don't know, call me crazy, Nick, maybe we should make it unacceptable to push white supremacy in public anymore.
Maybe we should get back to the point where if you go out in public and you push things like, I don't know, maybe slavery was okay and maybe we don't need to really talk about what World War II was about or what happened in American history.
Maybe if you get out and say such asinine fucking stupid shit, you should be drummed out of society summarily.
Like the people at this rally who booed Ron DeSantis into whatever cicada hole he originally emerged out of, I'm for it.
Don't let this idiot go out and talk without being interrupted and treated like the pariah that he is.
This stuff is just going to continue to happen.
And we're going to have a radicalizing environment until we crack down on it.
Until, by the way, and this isn't going to be popular, and I'll go ahead and say it, I guarantee you that this 21 year old kid who did this I guarantee that there is a laundry list of radicalizing websites and forums that this person absolutely stewed in and marinated in and lived within and got radicalized by.
Maybe take that seriously.
Maybe it's time that we take a look at all these places where people are getting these ideas and they're being radicalized and, I don't know, do something about it.
But the green light are the leaders.
It's the leadership.
It's the Governor DeSantis saying his shit.
And a lot of the Republicans.
And there's a through line there.
If I have to see Maxine Waters, when they want to bring her up saying, we got to make all these Republicans uncomfortable and go talk to them when they're in the restaurants or whatever.
They want to both sides this, which is again a media failure because they can't seem to handle balancing these two things and reporting on them as they should be.
But you really see a direct connection, and I'm sure if we had law enforcement on it, what I've read from the experts, there is a direct connection and the green lighting of these things based on when you see Trump or DeSantis or all these other leaders saying that stuff.
No one wants to recognize how nefarious that is and how influential those people are, letting it all out of the box.
And unfortunately, if we weren't going to have these things, it's probably because those people who, like the guy, the shooter yesterday or over the weekend, they want to do it.
They're desperate to do it.
But like, for some reason, they're just going to end up staying in the shadows just enough because somehow society has deemed they shouldn't do that.
Like there's a little bit of pressure there.
But that seemed to be the only tenuous thing that would keep us from having even more mass shootings than we do now.
Yeah, and that's the thing, is this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.
It simply doesn't.
Like, you're not going to have people going around carrying out white supremacist mass shootings in an environment where this stuff isn't in the ether.
Yes, it is unwell, people.
A well person does not go out and just shoot up a place and murder a bunch of people.
But guess what?
They're being affected by the signals that are in the air.
And they're being told that people are coming after them.
Tucker Carlson spent God knows how long talking about white replacement, which is just neo-Nazi bullshit.
Like, they cookin' this stuff.
And walk into a store and buy the gun within the day, maybe, whatever that, or the waiting period is very slow or short.
That is the other part of it, right?
And they're not, these are not mentally ill people that you would see like in the stereotypical, you know, what Reagan shut down in the late 70s or 80s.
These are people who would function, you would not know that they're mentally unstable.
This is a person who had to be institutionalized.
Like, this was on the record.
This, by the way, was a person who wasn't just institutionalized, like, just willy-nilly.
It was the family that said that this person's not well, they're a danger to themselves and others.
Oh yeah, that happened.
And based on those rules and those laws, they can take away their guns.
They can go, and by the way, then they can like get them back, I think within 24 hours after getting out.
And then later on, nothing keeps them from buying the guns.
Like, I'm not, this isn't, and again, this is, I've suffered with my own mental illness.
A lot of our listeners have suffered from mental illness of all stripes.
That doesn't mean that ever, like, you know, your rights, your liberties should be infringed on, but my God, this is a weapon of war!
That's what, that, it's not even just somebody who picked up a gun and went and did this.
He dressed as a soldier.
Like, and he's going out with these things.
And that's the argument that you see on Twitter.
It's like, why should all these law-abiding citizens have to be punished because of a few bad apples?
It's the other line of a thing.
It's like, you know, listen, Jared, I'm, I'm sorry if, uh, you know, I, you're not letting me murder people because you know, you're behaving so well and you're not, it's, it's unbelievable what they're, what they're, how they'll, They'll twist themselves to figure out how to keep their guns in their hands.
It's crazy.
It sucks.
And by the way, lastly, speaking of something that sucks, Nick, man, the New York Times never ceases to give us material.
This was a guest essay that I want to talk about on this podcast to end it.
This was an article by Adam Grant, who is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School.
Thanks, Wharton, by the way, for Donald Trump.
We'll always appreciate that.
This article, the title now is the worst people run for office.
It's time for a better way.
Nick, did you see the original title for this article?
Oh, no.
How do you get to see the original?
Because they had it up for about a day until people were like, what the shit are you doing?
Oh, what was it?
The original title of this article was, quote, elections are bad for democracy.
Ah.
Not great.
Not great.
But you only brought this up because you want to hear my take on this, right?
Because of my obsession with robots.
I actually, this article, we're going to go through this thing and we're going to pick it apart.
And here's the reason why, Nick.
Before we even read a word of this article, I want to point out what this is.
This is the perfect New York Times article.
It is written by an expert who has a background, who, by the way, is probably very intelligent and probably has a lot of reasons to say the things that they say.
It doesn't do anything.
Nobody's going to do this.
It is an absurdity.
It's offensive.
And, by the way, the academic, like Pigeonhole, and this is coming from a former academic, this is written by someone who didn't consider for a second one very obvious huge problem with what he is saying and that he is giving fuel to the fire of anti-democratic movements.
Are you ready for this shit?
Go ahead, because I can't wait.
All right.
This is Dr. Adam Grant.
Dr. Adam Grant, quote, on the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows.
Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity.
But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.
Great start, Dr. Grant.
If you think that sounds anti-democratic, I do.
Think again.
Okay.
The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens, many government officials were selected through sortition, a random lottery from a pool of candidates.
In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors.
What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices, and even presidents?
Nick, have you ever served on a jury?
I have.
Do you think that the system for jury should be used to make all decisions in the United States of America?
Well, if you had, if it was between that and what we do now, Okay, we'll get there.
Okay, we'll get there.
Back to the article.
People, you were a jury foreman.
I was.
That's right, of course.
By the way, it's sort of in because of that, I knew how hard it was going to be to get everybody to agree on a verdict.
And I felt like I might be one of those guys who could kind of massage and health and whatever.
I was because we had a couple people who were like, you know, so yeah, I understand that.
But again, it doesn't sound that much different than what we do now.
Okay.
Quote, people expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically.
But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true.
Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skills.
Why were randomly chosen leaders more effective?
They led more democratically.
Quote, systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals, Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to assert their personal superiority.
When you're anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head.
I'm the chosen one.
Real fast, Nick, before we move forward, do you see any problems with saying that there was this experiment and using it to extrapolate something about larger political ideas?
I have no problem with it.
It all sounds exactly what happens.
Yeah, because if you're in a laboratory doing an experiment that's the exact same thing as being picked randomly to be in the Senate and making major decisions about the world.
Goddammit, why do you have to put it that way?
So, it's the idea that people would just get in that laboratory setting and do the exact same thing in the halls of power.
That's incredible.
That's an incredible extrapolation.
But, moving forward.
When you know you're picked at random, you don't experience enough power to be corrupted by it.
I would love to talk to the person who would be randomly selected to be President of the United States of America about that, but that's okay.
Instead, you feel a heightened sense of responsibility.
I did nothing to earn this, so I need to make sure I represent the group well.
Over the past year, I've floated the idea of sortition with a number of current members of Congress.
I bet those were fantastic meetings.
You know, Jerry, this is a screenplay.
Maybe I shouldn't even say that.
It is a screenplay!
You're exactly right.
This would make a really interesting screenplay.
And we'll talk about why this is a terrible idea in a second.
But look how well it worked for Dave.
I love Dave.
Dave's a fun movie.
Their immediate concern is ability.
How do we make sure the citizens chosen randomly are capable of governing?
I love that little anecdote that Congress people, who barely could probably even function in society outside of working in Congress, that they're worried about how stupid the average American is.
That's great.
In ancient Athens, people had a choice about whether to participate in the lottery.
They also had to pass an examination of their capacity to exercise public rights and duties.
Oh, that's interesting!
You gotta pass a test before you can do that.
Oh, okay.
I wonder who writes that test, Nick.
In America, imagine that anyone who wants to enter the pool has to pass a civics test.
Hmm.
The same standard as immigrants applying for citizenship.
A lottery would also improve our odds of avoiding the worst candidates in the first place.
When it comes to character, our elected officials aren't exactly crushing it.
To paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr., which I always loved to do, I'd rather be governed by the first 535 people in the phone book.
That's because the people drawn to power are usually the least fit to wield it.
The most dangerous traits in a leader are what psychologists call the dark triad of personality traits, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
What these traits share is a willingness to exploit others for personal gain.
Nick, I agree with what he's saying here, that our current political situation does invite psychopaths, self-dealing, self-centered narcissists.
You agree with that, correct?
I agree wholeheartedly.
Yeah, I think that that is one of the biggest problems that we are absolutely facing.
Would you agree?
Yes.
And that regular people can't run for office, and so these rich assholes are the ones who are out there doing this?
Wait, you're saying regular people can't run for office or they won't?
Regular people can't afford to.
They can't actually compete for these things.
I think that's a problem, correct?
Yeah, that's a problem.
Okay.
Eliminate voting and candidates with dark triad traits would be less likely than they are now to rise to the top.
Which, maybe that's true.
I don't know.
Of course, there's also a risk that a lottery would deprive us of the chance to select a leader with distinctive skills, which would be a problem.
A lottery would give a fair shot to people who aren't tall enough or male enough to win.
That's true.
It would also open the door to people who aren't connected or wealthy enough to run.
Absolutely.
I think that's true, too.
Our broken campaign finance system lets the rich and powerful buy their way into races while preventing people without money or influence from getting on the ballot.
They're probably better candidates.
I agree with him on this front.
Do you agree?
I absolutely do.
Well, I guess here's the question, Nick, and I'll go ahead and end our reading series here.
In our current state of precarity, if you chose randomly people from the United States to serve in positions of power, and you did absolutely nothing else to reform our political systems, with those people who do not have money, probably a lot of them are just barely making it by.
Many of them, by the way, are living paycheck to paycheck.
Many of them are in deep, deep debt.
Are those not the type of people that dark money and special interests would feed on within a second?
Yeah, I could see that.
It wouldn't take long, perhaps, at least for them to try.
What happens if someone gets picked and they don't want to do it?
That's your concern is getting picked and having to serve.
I guess they could run the thing again and then take another person and keep going until somebody finally says, yeah, I'll do it.
But like, you know, I don't know.
This is...
Just an absolute harebrained scheme, which was cooked up because he looked at our political system and said, look at all the terrible people that are being elected by the people.
They can't choose winners and losers.
They can't pick leaders.
We need to just try something out of the box.
And there's never a mention in any of it of getting money out of politics, Of trying to take out the actors and the special interests that have absolutely run this car into the ditch.
It's just this idea that what needs to change is we shouldn't trust the people to choose people.
That's wild!
Um, I mean, it is wild, but then again, what we're doing now was wild when we started, right?
Like, in the history of the world.
No, it's never worked.
Do not get me wrong.
There have been very few times in the United States of America's history in which this whole thing has actually worked.
It's been a real mess.
And it needs change.
But we don't need people just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks.
Well, the random picking part also is, are you familiar with the 1985 NBA draft?
Because it is in lore because it was the first time they did the random drawing for who gets to pick first.
Are we talking about the Patrick Ewing controversy?
The Patrick Ewing controversy where, you know, supposedly the ballot was cold and they knew who was going to pick it.
So you got that problem too, where it's like, okay, how are we going to really make sure that this is random?
I just love what you just put out there into the world.
Who sets up the drawing?
Like in this environment, who sets up the drawing?
But I know how to program in BASIC a random number generator, so you could do it, and that would do it.
Wait, but who sets up the random generator?
This means nothing!
The fact that he went in front of members of Congress to pitch them to them is laughable!
He went to them and said, let's get rid of your jobs.
Let's get rid of democracy.
What are they supposed to say?
We're going to hold a committee hearing about this.
This is absurd.
This is a person placing an article in the New York Times that the New York Times ran, by the way, to go ahead and bring this whole thing full circle.
They ran it because people would share it and say, what the shit is this?
And all it does is trying to decrease confidence in democracy writ large.
It does nothing.
This guy goes ahead and pads his resume, probably shows this to the people who fund him, and it moves forward.
I'm so mad.
I just, I'm knocking my things around.
I'm so angry right now about how this works and what this does.
This makes me so mad, Nick.
So then, now, all that's left is my idea for robots.
Robots!
Robots!
Just pre-program them and program them with all the issues you want, whatever, and they know exactly how they're going to vote.
It's robots.
It's robots.
I love it.
Nick, I'm too upset to continue.
I'm sorry to hear that.
But you know what?
We had a good show.
I think it was a good show.
I'm angry.
I'm mad.
I want things to get better.
That's why we do this show.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Head over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
You're going to want to listen to The Weekender.
You're going to want to get your questions in.
A reminder, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
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Send your messages in.
We will get to them on The Weekender.
I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about.
If you need us, before then, you can find Nick at CanYouHearMeSMH.
