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As more and more protests happen across the country on college campuses, co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss where this is all headed. They pivot to an interesting discussion about a feud between the New York Times and the Biden administration that transcends the usual stuff, before finishing on Trump's trials and Ben Shapiro's rejection of Tucker Carlson.
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Hi everybody, Jared Yates Sexton here with Nick Halsman.
This is The Weekender edition of my great podcast.
How you doing, Nick?
Well, I think I don't have a drinking problem.
Do you?
Are you okay?
Well, no, I'm just having a drink.
It's The Weekender.
It's time to break for the weekend.
I thought you were just going to pour it like, you know, an airplane.
Like a Stone Cold Steve Austin situation?
All over your shirt.
I always loved that.
He would just pour it on himself.
Is that what Steve Austin would do?
Do you not, you don't know about Stone Cold Steve Austin?
The only Steve Austin I know is a six million dollar man.
Six million dollar man.
That doesn't even ring a bell?
Stone Cold Steve Austin?
No, Stone Cold Creamery.
I know like ice cream.
You don't know who Stone Cold Steve Austin is?
I'm like, I'm aware if you were to say that name that I could say he's a wrestler.
That's about all I could do.
You have so many interesting, like, cultural blind spots.
It's incredible.
I can't tell you, like, does he have, like, sandy blonde hair?
Does he have hair?
We're moving on, everybody.
This is incredible.
There are people screaming.
They're veering through traffic, Nick, right now.
They're losing their mind.
Do you guarantee that our audience has the wrestling book?
I guarantee that our audience knows who Stone Cold Steve Austin is, and there are some people who are absolutely shocked.
Let's go to the Discord, we'll find out.
We'll go to the Discord, and you can go to the Discord as well by going to patreon.com slash muttcraigpodcast in order to gain full access to the Weekender edition, and also our Discord, and also our live tapings, and free exclusive, or free, it's not free, I mean, we need support, we need to be ad-free and editorially independent, but exclusive analysis after big political events, patreon.com slash muttcraigpodcast.
Nick, we got a full slate today.
And we have a developing story.
We started talking about this on Tuesday.
We talked about the protests at Columbia, how things were getting out of hand there, and things are sprouting up all over.
We're looking at the University of Texas, Michigan, USC, NYU, from Maine to California, across the country.
Students are taking to their campuses.
They're forming pro-Gaza encampments.
Of course, protesting the Israeli assault of Gaza.
We have so far seen hundreds of arrests.
We're seeing state troopers in places like Texas and Emory in Georgia, where people are being tased, where tear gas is being deployed.
There's been a giant standoff at Cal Polytechnic.
This thing is not slowing down.
It is picking up speed, thanks in part to Colombia's overreaction and the way the president Send in cops there, the NYPD.
Nick, what do you see as this thing is gaining traction?
I want to talk about not just the fact that this is growing, but also what the reaction is among the commentariat in the political class right now.
Yeah, you know, I would lament that I didn't have time today to run down to USC to kind of see what's going on because sometimes my worry is that this is a little bit more overblown media wise.
This is not overblown media wise.
Well, you know, sometimes you'll see protests and It ended up being more people filming than protesting, right?
Like, that's sometimes what happens.
But USC definitely looked like there was several hundred people there making their opinions known.
You know, the only issue I would ever have with any of this is if some of the rhetoric or some of the chanting becomes violent in nature or threatening in that respect.
Certainly, we saw it.
Or even just, like, You know I probably even if all on the side of if you want to like wave a Hamas specifically a Hamas flag like okay whatever do that but I can also understand why that would feel threatening to certain people on the campus so I think the what your solution would probably end up being you don't need the military or the the the police intervention because if you let them have their protests Perhaps even have a dialogue with them, with the people who run the universities.
It will maintain itself and not get out of hand without needing to inflame the situation.
Is that safe to say that what your take on that is?
It's in part.
I want to, again, we started on Tuesday by saying this.
I want to set a baseline.
First of all, not just the McCreg podcast, but myself and you as a person, we disavow anti-Semitism of all stripes.
I want to say that anti-Semitism is a poisonous ideology, particularly of the far right.
The left occasionally, when it comes to things like this, will go ahead and get into anti-colonialism, and from there there's some people who will take things certain places.
I think there are some extremists who are showing up at these protests.
I think there are some provocateurs who are showing up at these protests.
I want to state and put my cards fully on the table.
I wholeheartedly support these protests.
I am invigorated by them.
I think that they are inspiring to see people, young people, taking a principled stand against atrocity, which is what is happening in Gaza.
I think that it is really incredible To watch this start to take hold and take root and see it spread and to watch, not just the reaction to it, which we'll get into in a second, because there is a lot of stuff that we need to discuss that I think it isn't just about commentating on what the commentators are saying.
It's about the fact that this show wants to go deeper and we want to talk about what's happening, where things are going, and we've been telling people for years where things are going, so you need to know it.
This is a major thing.
What's happening right now in the spring of 2024 and is probably going to lead into the summer and then the fall of 2024.
I think we are historically and politically going to look back on this as a major moment.
I support this.
I want to express again my full solidarity.
I know that there are protesters who have reached out who listen to the show.
I am with them 100%.
I say keep the extremists out, keep anybody who's going to say anti-semitic things.
Most of the people I've talked to have said that they're trying to, but I think that this is a major, major event and I think people are turning up their nose and rolling their eyes and slandering this in a way that they don't need to.
Yeah, I mean, listen, it is inspiring when you see young people get active like this.
You know, in defense of the universities, like, from everything that I've seen, and I've tried to look really closely at all the footage that's coming out, you know, nothing necessarily unlawful is occurring with the police departments coming in there and arresting protesters who are... And grabbing them and throwing them and dislocating their shoulders and assaulting them.
I didn't see it.
Did you see people getting their shoulders dislocated?
Oh, absolutely, yes.
All right, well, I'll have to find that footage, but... No, we disagree on that, Brun.
I believe that the universities and law enforcement are way out of line on this, but sure.
Well, the thing is, legally, the universities are allowed to disperse a crowd if they feel like it's their campus.
They do have that right.
At USC, it was extremely orderly, which was, I guess, good to see.
Everyone was sort of respectful of the whole process as they're leading hundreds of people out into handcuffs.
So, but remember, I mean, like, there is... What a sentence you just said, for the record.
Everybody is just sort of being orderly as they're being arrested in mass.
Very solemn.
It's, you know, by the way, that is part of the thing.
You know, back, going to protest and being arrested was sort of, that was the badge of honor.
Well, it is, it is showing that the system is oppressive and as a result, you're standing against it.
Now, and by the way, that badge of honor that was probably before, well, it was before Kent State and before a lot of the violent stuff was really happening when they didn't control situations very well.
So now I can get, with all the history we've had, the real sphere of like how this could all turn into a powder keg.
But on USC campus, it was very much an orderly thing.
They gave them plenty of time if they wanted to, to leave.
They gave them, you know, the avenues to, you know, just go that way if you want to.
They agreed that they weren't going to in a solidarity, which is great to see.
And, you know, they're arrested.
And that's going to, you know, well, it wasn't violent, which is that I'm, you know, I'm glad to see as well.
But it's an interesting thing because, you know, by the book, by the law, yeah, universities do have the right to declare like they have to leave and will give them every chance they can.
If they don't, then they'll get arrested.
I mean, unfortunately, I haven't seen what you're talking about as far as people.
Well, I mean, first of all, they're shooting them with rubber bullets.
They're tasing them.
You know, in Texas, they're showing up with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
I mean, this thing is a powder keg.
But I will say, Nick, and this is unfortunately, I think, what's been missing in this.
The historical context, I would love to talk about civil disobedience for just a second before we get into like what the reaction has been widespread and what the underlying things are here.
But Nick, I mean, that's literally like talking about like civil rights protesters and being like, well, the police have a right to clear them off that bridge.
And like I really truly think that people have lost that sort of long range idea.
You're right.
A large part of protest movements like this are to show that the system is unfair and abusive and oppressive and to be arrested.
And to be dragged off and to show what police and administrators are actually capable of.
Which, by the way, bravo to these students for showing that police are going to oppress and that university administrators are feckless cowards and closeted authoritarians.
But now you look around, Nick, I'm shocked by what the response has been to this.
It's gone from absolute stupidity.
By the way, Matt Iglesias, who makes millions of dollars every year, is now saying that the problem is that students are not assigned enough homework, which basically brings us back to what we talked about on Tuesday.
We already said that they're going to say professors aren't good enough at controlling students, which to that we offer a hearty fuck you, Matt Iglesias.
You are one of the most worthless commentators that we have.
But on top of that, Nick, you have people who are calling for the National Guard, and when someone says the National Guard needs to be sent out, we know what that means.
We're not stupid.
We understand that they are intentionally invoking Kent State, is what they're doing.
Like, these people need to be mowed down.
There are other people who are openly calling for all of them to be arrested.
I've seen calls for students to be put in work camps, for not just their freedom of speech to be trampled, but for all of their phones and communications to be taken away.
By the way, in a fun little twist, now it's being claimed that Russia, China, and even the Jews, Nick, are behind this, that all these shadowy puppet masters are paying money to make these kids do this shit.
What we are seeing, and this is one of the things I wanted to talk about, We're watching the crack up of the liberal coalition in the United States of America.
We are seeing the divide between liberals and the left or whatever you want to call the left.
And I think that we're watching a readjustment of our politics, which we've been covering in part for a while, but we're watching the tectonic plates move right now.
I think we're watching an earthquake in American politics, and I don't think people are going to really be able to wrap their heads around this for a long time.
It's funny because part of me almost feels like we're just becoming aware of how much apathy there is.
There's a lot of it.
Other than an earthquake, to me, I feel like we're just exposing like, you know, people don't care as much as they used to do.
They care about a lot of this stuff as well.
obviously the right, it's such a weird reactionary, predictable response, right?
It's almost like there's just some weird loop that they get stuck in for decades and decades and say the same bullshit over and over again.
But I think I'm probably more worried about that, which is why it is invigorating to see all these campuses having activism like that, because you started to wonder, okay, maybe that wasn't a place that was going to happen anymore.
You know, we're all having our screens and our headphones on and the whole thing.
We're completely disconnected to the community.
So that's what I'm going to take from this.
I don't I don't know if I can writ large across the, you know, progressive movement, whatever, feel like that's an earthquake shattering thing yet for me.
Well, I want to say and I want to try and say this as succinctly and directly as I can.
I think there are millions of Americans, Nick, who are getting older and they're reaching that point.
And you know this.
It's like there's a certain point in your life where like your politics change.
What was the old saying?
It was when I was young, I was a socialist.
Or if you're not a socialist, when you're young, you have no heart.
If you're not a capitalist, when you get older, you have no brain.
The old idea is that everybody gets more conservative as they age.
I don't.
I have grown more leftist and more radicalized as I've gotten older and as like I think facts have revealed themselves.
I think millions of Americans who still claim that they are liberals They're Democrats, they're anti-Trump, whatever you want to call it.
We talked about this with DeSantis.
The fact that, like, some liberals were starting to get a little bit curious about DeSantis, you know, because he wasn't Trump, right?
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