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April 11, 2024 - On Brand

02:32:54

OB #51 - Steve Bannon

So the antichrist came on Russell's show to outline his vision for America, the UK, and the wider world. How bad can it be? Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand Buy a magnet! - getyerreallivegoldhere

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	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to take him out of the boat.
	Extraordinary cultural moment.
	Already iconic.
	Already iconic.
	We love you.
	You're welcome here.
	Where did this guy come from?
	It looks like he's been doing it for ages.
	He's very confident.
	Plainly, and this is a matter now of fact and record, I'm right wing.
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Is this misinformation or is Vivek Ramaswamy in the lavatory?
	That's sort of like a poem.
	Is this Eminem?
	Man, if we didn't come together in that stream.
	I'm assuming it was just the Pete.
	Now these are the kind of conversations I think that the legacy media can no longer compete with.
	Win win win win win win win This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one, Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth, and each week I go through an episode of Brand's Show with my co-host, Lauren B. That's me!
	I am still Lauren B., and I still have no idea what we're about to get into today, but it's usually bad.
	It's almost invariably bad, which is why we do the good thing before the bad thing.
	Lauren, what is your good thing this week?
	Do you want me to go first?
	Should I go first?
	Yes, I do!
	You order first, I'm still looking at the menu.
	Okay.
	Okay, so my good thing this week, it's a little thing, but it's something that has brought me a lot of joy, which is Orville Peck and Willie Nelson have done a song together, and it's a cover of Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.
	And it's delightful.
	The video is great.
	All of it is fantastic.
	I love Orville Peck anyway.
	He really kind of nails the 70s country crooning kind of sound, which is a very specific vibe, but he's got it.
	And just to hear him and Willie Nelson teaming up for a gay cowboy anthem, I'm like, yes, this is... I am so about all of this.
	It makes me...
	The Elder William has known where all of his clothes come from and why he looks good for 50 years?
	Yeah.
	And has probably made a lot of friends with those people.
	So that exposure to other types of people is what makes you aware.
	So he's probably been fine with that for a long time.
	I think also vocally, publicly, has been that way as well.
	Yes, yes!
	He's very, very consistent at being a decent human being, which I'm like, oh, that's nice.
	That's good.
	It's very nice to see that in that space that can be so homophobic.
	You know, it's like, ah, good on you, Willie.
	I'm feeling good about that.
	And it's a really great song on top of that.
	They just absolutely nailed it start to finish.
	The video is brilliant.
	I recommend everyone go and enjoy it, because it's been a special little highlight of my week.
	Yeah.
	How about your good thing?
	Have we had time?
	We're not serving up anything great.
	I can tell you what I'm excited about, nervous about, worried about, excited about.
	But that's good still, I think.
	Yeah.
	No, no, this is good.
	It's gonna sound like a plug, I think, but it's just good.
	I've been posting stuff, kind of treating my- and I'm sorry if this is redundant in some way, and I mentioned it as a plan before.
	I don't know if we talked about this on air, or I'm just remembering talking to you about it.
	But I've gotten on top of my Instagram, set up a shop.
	It is in the process of working.
	It's threatening to work correctly on the back end.
	She's close, I hope.
	The things that are not in my control are things that I have, uh, and if you've ever had to contact support with Meta, um, you understand where I'm at, which is why this doesn't seem like a good thing, but I'm really proud of myself for like getting it together, having a system, having a pattern to be able to follow and get this motherfucking bullshit that I make posted and having kind of a plan because we're, um, getting ready for, uh, Oh, it came from the Bayou in Houston is in like two weeks in Texas, which is a print fair thing.
	It's very, very cool.
	Very fun.
	And we've done it for a couple years.
	Mike's done it for a long time.
	So that's really cool.
	Looking forward to but at the same time.
	Crunch, crunch, crunchy, crunch, crunch time and having the kind of just like the wherewithal to be able to post stuff.
	I'm sure it's easy for a lot of people.
	I'm sure it's medium difficult for a lot of people and other people and it's hard for me and As we were just talking about the fun mystery of managing tiny little problems that accumulate into something massive but also could mean nothing but you don't know until you, you know, lighting.
	Lighting for recording a video or a podcast and how complex it can actually be.
	So that's very cool and it's exciting and getting the thing done and making it work.
	Which might be the least interesting good thing I've ever had.
	I mean, the thing is, you know, the things that really bring joy and make our lives easier are not exciting.
	They are the mundane things that are then cumulative.
	So, you know, I think... Joy is a bridge too far, I think, at this moment.
	But if the app will actually, like, will show me an order someone makes without just stealing their money and not telling me, then I'll be very happy.
	We're not there!
	Yet.
	I'm still investigating by myself with no access to help yet.
	We'll get there.
	Joy is on the horizon, potentially.
	It's exciting and it's cool.
	It's something that I did like the math.
	Loose napkin math.
	And the amount of time it would take for me to, like, there was this connection in my head of like, okay, I have all this documentation of all these pieces that I've made over the years.
	And even in the last, like, year or two.
	Stuff that I would like to share and is interesting, it would take years to post it all.
	Especially at the rate I was going, oh, that would just never.
	But if we can speed this up a little bit and actually get a system, then I'll at least be able to make a dent in it and make some kind of progress.
	Because I'm sick to death of people showing up at an event and being like, oh, this is this, or like a consignment, like, oh, this is what it is.
	The internet was woefully negligent in explaining this, and I see it now.
	I'd like some of that to share with people that aren't in the same room with me.
	Because it's 20-motherfucking-24, year of our Lord, right?
	I should be able to share enough of it where it's not like a shock.
	It's a fun surprise.
	But I was like, oh, this is what it is.
	Like, yeah.
	I'm sorry.
	It's difficult.
	And user error.
	Both things.
	Like, it's tough and I'm tough.
	Both.
	Challenge.
	It's a challenge.
	So anyway, that's cool.
	And it's exciting.
	And it's some eye candy if you, you know, are on Instagram and you have like, and you're, you're, you know, taking a bathroom break.
	Yeah, help me help you steal time at work.
	Absolutely, and do that by going to appmade.by.lauren.b.
	Yes!
	And check out the cool stuff.
	And if I could do it there, more platforms where I don't have to put periods between all of the words, much simpler, and I do it there, then I actually have the kind of materiel to carpet bomb everywhere else.
	Yeah!
	And come to you, because also all of It's amazing to me.
	All of these social media sites are siloing even harder.
	And making it harder and harder to, like, if you don't want to be on Instagram, God bless you.
	You're right.
	Like, that's kind of, like, you can't totally unplug.
	That's irresponsible.
	But if Instagram isn't your bag, bless you.
	That's amazing.
	Good for you.
	But then you used to be able to just, like, see stuff.
	Especially Twitter is doing this.
	And I'm mentioning it because it's an issue that is relevant to Russell and relevant to the kind of shit that we have to talk about.
	You know what I mean?
	It's a challenge.
	So calling attention to the siloing of effort, and I hear you folks that have told me, I can't see this thing.
	We hear you, we see you.
	And the process just takes time.
	Yeah, that's it.
	So that's the good thing.
	And joy delayed is still acceptable.
	Contentment and feeling accomplished, getting a step done.
	We are on the road to joy, which is the main thing, I guess.
	We'll get there, everybody.
	We'll get there.
	Doesn't sound great upon examination, but here we are.
	In the meantime, we have a show to do.
	But first, we should thank some new patrons.
	And first up, we have Switch Fencer.
	You are now an Awakening wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you Switchfencer.
	Thank you so much.
	And Rybina, you are now an awakening wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you Rybina.
	I know that's not the beverage, I know who that is.
	Now Rybina has actually been shouted out on the show before, our dearest Robert Barron.
	But they've done us a huge, huge solid this last week in helping out with some behind-the-scenes technical work on the show, and they are more than deserving of another public showing of love from us.
	So thank you, Ribena.
	You're the best!
	Thank you so much!
	Yeah, thank you.
	Yeah.
	Aces.
	Very cool.
	Very good.
	And if anyone wants to support us from what we do, become an Awakening Wonder, join the Invisible Hand, or donate on an elevated tier, head to patreon.com slash OnBrand and you will have our eternal gratitude.
	It's this which allows us to be editorially independent and ad-free.
	As a patron, you will also get a shout-out on the show and access to our patron-only show OffBrand, where we discuss anything but Russell Brand.
	And this week Lauren led a special Off-Brand on the subject of restorative justice and how it can
	and should work from a more practical perspective while also looking at Russell and his ilk
	with a special guest appearance from Mike at the end.
	Yeah! Roped him in! Last minute!
	I was like, well, we got to handle it.
	And that was something that was an idea that was cooking for a long time.
	And I think it's really important.
	And I think what I realized in real time when I was recording this, I was like, we fantasize a lot about what Russell could do.
	Rather like, oh, man, we wish that he could handle this better.
	But in reality, that's Well, I will say that imagining something better is great, but talking, it was really important to me to talk about the steps that you have to take to get there, not just imagining magically, you know, that's magical thinking, is if you just imagine a different result.
	It's not really helpful.
	Whereas it's helpful in the fact that you can kind of see the end but what I wanted to talk about was the steps to take from getting from point A where we're at to point B what could be better and there's like very clear delineated steps.
	And I have a ton of super useful resources for patrons on the post.
	You can access a whole list of websites with both historical research, which is very cool, and That I'm the most excited about, honestly, is to, like, show people, like, these resources are right there.
	It's a conversation.
	I feel like it's, oh, this is a conversation that's just not happening, which is true.
	And, you know, like in social commentary, you know, like popular social commentary.
	It's not that it's not happening.
	It's just really quiet and far away and very specific and kind of, again, siloed.
	It's there, but it's little, and I'm trying to give you some resources.
	So I'm excited about that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I think, yeah, it's really interesting and I think the, because the subject itself can feel very kind of difficult to grasp.
	It can feel very pie in the sky unless you kind of are able to see those practical steps.
	It's like, oh, okay, this is how we get to that point.
	There is a framework to follow, which is really cool.
	And if you've heard me at all and paid attention at all, Folks, practical steps are my thing.
	Oh, I get very excited about practical steps for anything.
	So yeah, you've nailed exactly why I was really excited to talk about it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Got some bolts, let's get it done, let's do it.
	Everyone head to patreon.com slash ombrand to check that out.
	It is well worth your time.
	And please note that while you can easily listen to our audio version anywhere you can find podcasts, you can also watch us on YouTube, or if you listen in the Spotify app, the video will come up there too.
	Now then, this week we are back to dealing with an interview that Russell has done, and I promised at the end of last week's show that this would be a doozy, and I do not doozy lightly.
	Yes, you do!
	Oh my god, you say it all the time!
	Am I wrong?
	You say it all the time!
	Am I ever wrong?
	I'm gonna get straight to the reveal, however.
	Is that wrong?
	You destroyed the definition of doozy for yourself!
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I bet it is though.
	They always are.
	They always are to someone.
	When Charlie Kirk came on the show, Lauren, you made the assertion that now all bets were off as to who Russell would have on his show, right?
	Completely correctly, I think.
	And in fact, specifically what you said was, who's he going to have on next?
	Steve Bannon?
	Fuck.
	All the way.
	No.
	Steve Bannon, thank you so much for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand today.
	Thanks for having me, Russell.
	Big fan of the show.
	Yeah!
	Oh my god!
	You can't!
	It feels like an elaborate prank!
	Well, I think we can begin the rumours that you are in fact a wizard.
	Anyway, Steve Bannon's on the show.
	Steve Bannon's on the show.
	Witch.
	My preferred term is witch.
	Okay.
	Which.
	Cool.
	Different pointy hat.
	Thank you.
	Fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	Now, Steve Bannon is in many ways a figure who requires no introduction these days.
	And of course, best known as the man who got Trump elected to office.
	And obviously he has his own show, The War Room.
	But the guy has been around a long time and I would like to paint a broader picture of him before we get into the show.
	So Steve Bannon was born in 1953 and he grew up in a traditional Catholic working-class household.
	He then went to a Catholic military school.
	He graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Architecture and Urban Studies and went into the Navy in 1976.
	After he got out, he got into investment banking, working at Goldman Sachs in the mergers and acquisitions department.
	He moved to LA to help them expand into the entertainment industry, and he eventually left with the title of vice president.
	Goldman Sachs have multiple vice presidents, by the by, so yeah, there are many of those.
	He's more like executive director kind of thing.
	It's just what they call him.
	VP of something, right?
	Not just--
	Yeah, kind of.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So he left with a few other people to form their own company, Bannon & Co.,
	which was a boutique investment bank specializing in media.
	In This is an interesting little side note.
	In one of Bannon and Co.' 's transactions, the firm represented Westinghouse Electric, which wanted to sell Castle Rock Entertainment.
	Bannon negotiated a sale of Castle Rock to Turner Broadcasting System, which was owned by Ted Turner at the time.
	Instead of a full advisor's fee, Bannon & Co.
	accepted a financial stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld, which was in its third season at the time.
	So Bannon still receives cash residuals each time Seinfeld is aired.
	That's a fun little fact.
	Just sucking the joy out of everything, Steve.
	Thank you for that.
	From there, Bannon became an executive producer for a bunch of movies, including The Indian Runner and Titus.
	They sold Bannon & Co.
	in 1998, and he lived a pretty swish life in the entertainment industry for a while.
	In 2004, he made a documentary called In the Face of Evil, which was essentially an enormous puff piece about Ronald Reagan.
	Um, yeah.
	And while screening it, Bannon met Andrew Breitbart.
	Uh, which we'll come back to.
	In 2005, Bannon secured $60 million in funding from Goldman Sachs and other investors for Internet Gaming Entertainment, IGE, a company based in Hong Kong that employed low-wage Chinese workers to play World of Warcraft in order to earn gold in-game, which could then be sold to players of World of Warcraft for real money.
	So, a scam!
	Blizzard Entertainment thankfully shut down gold farming accounts eventually.
	But not before he made a bunch of cash.
	So much money.
	So much money.
	In 2007, Bannon wrote an eight-page treatment for another documentary that never got made, Destroying the Great Satan, The Rise of Islamic Fascism in America.
	The outline states, quote, although driven by the best intentions, institutions such as the media, the Jewish community, and government agencies were appeasing jihadists to create an Islamic Republic, unquote.
	Shame nobody picked that up.
	Oh boy.
	Sure.
	Also in 2007, Breitbart News was formed, proper, with Steve Bannon as a founding board member.
	He was therefore instrumental in pushing the racist, sexist, xenophobic, antisemitic, and just generally bigoted viewpoints of that site, and pushing them specifically to the alt-right.
	He would later personally recruit Milo Yiannopoulos to Breitbart.
	That's a nice little feather in his cap.
	That's such a drop in the bucket.
	Yeah.
	It's a great example.
	It's not the worst.
	That's a drop in the bucket.
	But it's an excellent example that is indicative of a whole lot of other stuff, right?
	So many ripple effects that this man has caused.
	From here, Bannon continued making shitty documentaries and pushing the alt-right agenda through Breitbart until, in 2012, Andrew Breitbart died of a heart attack.
	At which point Steve Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News.
	And according to the Associated Press, Breitbart's editorial tone became more nationalistic and became also even more friendly to the alt-right.
	Also in 2012, Bannon was a founding member of the Government Accountability Institute, which is a 501c3 non-profit organization that digs up dirt on politicians, almost exclusively Democrats, and also reports and promotes conspiracy theories about them.
	Which, uh, great.
	So it's kind of like a little propaganda outlet.
	They receive funding predominantly from the Mercers and the Cokes.
	And Bannon himself took home $778,000 between 2012 and 2015 for his time there.
	$78,000 between 2012 and 2015 for his time there.
	Yep.
	Wonderful.
	Yep.
	In 2015, he was in the US.
	In 2013, Bannon became Vice President of the Board of Cambridge Analytica.
	You know, that company that stole everyone's data and manipulated the outcome of elections and referendums on things like Brexit through micro-targeting and outright lies?
	That thing.
	In 2014, Bannon set up the London division of Breitbart, which helped spearhead Nigel Farage's UKIP in the 2014 European Parliament elections, and was of course a great advocate for Brexit.
	Bannon and Farage are in fact good buddies.
	And then in 2016, Bannon became CEO of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
	And honestly, there is so much there that is worth noting that it would take a four-hour episode on its own.
	And also, there's plenty of resources.
	Yeah, it's well documented.
	Plenty of resources.
	I'll see if I can find some that I'm actually... I'll see if I can find some... We'll try to talk about it off-brand.
	I'll see if I can find some that I found useful.
	There's a ton.
	Yes, there's a lot.
	And there's a lot of, like, kind of BS.
	Like, there's... I've interacted with some of these and I'm like, that's a little silly.
	So, yeah.
	Okay, cool.
	I always have homework, if you want.
	Yes!
	In 2017, Bannon exited the Trump administration and later would go on to start his podcast and show The War Room, which features in the Top 10 News Podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
	Do you remember that Brookings Institute study which found Charlie Kirk to be the second highest spreader of lies and misinformation on these things?
	I'm already aware of who's the first.
	Yeah, guess who took the top spot?
	Tell the truth and shame the devil.
	So when researchers compared the show's transcripts against a list of keywords and common falsehoods identified by fact-checkers, they found that nearly 20% of Mr. Bannon's War Room episodes contained a false, misleading, or unsubstantiated statement, which is more than shows by other conservatives like Glenn Beck or Charlie Kirk.
	So great.
	Mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the We Build the Wall fundraising campaign.
	According to the grand jury indictment, Bannon and the defendants promised that all contributions would go to building a US-Mexico border wall, but instead they just took it for themselves.
	It's amazing!
	It's just so blatant!
	There's probably still more!
	We got it. There's probably still more. Yeah. Let's let's uh, let's let's let's let's keep
	coming.
	Don't they? Um, man, uh, Bannon pleaded not guilty. Um, On Trump's last day in office, he pardoned Bannon.
	However, because the pardon doesn't apply to state charges, Bannon is still on the hook for money laundering and conspiracy charges in New York.
	The trial for which should be taking place next month, I believe.
	So let's keep an eye on that.
	I hope this is worth anything.
	Yeah.
	Bannon was held in contempt of Congress in October 2021 after he refused to comply with the subpoena issued by the Select Committee on the January 6th attack.
	He was indicted by a federal grand jury on two criminal charges of contempt of Congress and later was convicted on both counts in a jury trial.
	He was then sentenced to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine, but is currently fighting it still in the Court of Appeal.
	Most conventional wisdom suggests he's putting off the inevitable, but we shall see.
	Anyway, so this guy's terrible and is one of the big reasons the world is terrible, and I think most people credit him with being the reason Trump got elected, and I do see merit in that argument, and now he's on stay free.
	Happy days.
	Amazing.
	I feel like this is one that, like, Old Russell?
	I mean, Old Russell would show up in, like, an offensive costume and see all this as a joke.
	Genuinely.
	Even old Russell, like this, this to me is, is a symptom of like brain rot.
	Like this is like, we are not talking about the same person that used to be publicly, you know, like a, a, a, a public scamp, you know, private behaviors notwithstanding.
	No, absolutely not.
	This is, this is not 2013 Russell in any shape or form.
	Like that guy would have an issue with this.
	Yeah.
	This is telling me like, we are, yeah, we're, we're very far afield.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, but he's still playing on that old person.
	2013 Russell would have come in, you know, fucking swinging, basically, you know, shouting very verbose things at this man, and well, that's not what we're about to see, I can say that.
	Right.
	So, Steve Bannon has priors, and now we know a bit about his history, which may provide a completely different perspective to the question that Russell is about to ask.
	Thank you.
	I'm fascinated by you as an individual, and I'm astonished by how your early life gives us insight into what would come to pass.
	I'm talking about your time as a serviceman in the Navy, your time in finance, your time at Breitbart, and how that led into permutations of independent media.
	In a way, we're living amidst perpetual geopolitical crisis, escalated events in the Middle East, a war that would seem to be unwinnable, funded as it is by your nation, between Ukraine and Russia.
	We live in the aftermath of a financial crash that perhaps you understood better than most people, its implications, its impact, how it spelled the end of the kind of moderate neoliberalist politics that preceded it.
	And gave birth to the populist era that we live within now.
	Your experiences, too, in Hollywood, I imagine, give you an interesting perspective on the nature and power of culture.
	Soft power, as it's commonly referred to now.
	And at Breitbart, you established, among others, Yanis, young Yanis.
	What's the dude's name, Yanis?
	Yeah, Yiannopoulos, I think.
	Yeah, that dude.
	Yiannopoulos.
	Yeah, he was unbelievable.
	And, of course, Ben Shapiro.
	For a while, for a while.
	He was pretty extraordinary.
	And then, in our country, PJW.
	Commonly, these figures are understood as right-wing pundits.
	So now that many of us believe that we're on the precipice of a black swan event, Will you tell me, Steve, where you think populism is heading?
	If you think the left-right... I heard you once say at the Oxford Union that the future would belong to populism.
	Do you still believe that there's a chance of either left-wing or right-wing populism?
	Or do you feel that a different ideology is about to assert itself?
	And over the course of our conversation, I hope to get into all of those areas of which you have personal professional experience.
	So, Russell advocating for Milo Yiannopoulos there.
	Obviously, clueless as to who that is.
	I get that if you've never encountered that name before, it's a real tongue twister, it's a real thinker.
	It'll stump you.
	If you've heard the name and you care about what this person has, how they have impacted the world at all, or impact individuals at all in his own access to power and then what he's allowed to accomplish against others in his personal life, you know exactly who it is and you know exactly how to at least competently navigate his name to say it in an interview.
	That is also, that is a telltale sign of a larger problem to me.
	Mm-hmm, yeah.
	Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that Russell doesn't really know that much about Miley Yiannopoulos, because he can't even remember his name.
	He's busy!
	He's busy, too.
	I get that.
	He still has way more Hollywood jobs.
	So I don't necessarily fault him, because he's busy doing big, important things.
	In entertainment for himself and his career.
	Now, where I do have issue is now you make a political show.
	Get your shit together.
	You should care now.
	You should at least be able to do a cursory Google search about the guy, you know, to be able to be like, Is this guy okay?
	Because when even Steve Bannon is like, eh, maybe he's not that great anymore, you know, because Milo is too much of a mask-off Nazi even for Steve Bannon.
	Liability, yeah.
	Exactly, the problem there is the mask being off, not the Nazi part.
	But yeah, and oh boy, boy.
	That's what I'm saying.
	And also nice to see Paul Joseph Watson, PJ Dubbs, getting a mention there, who was formerly so intertwined with Infowars and was basically, you know, king made by Alex Jones.
	You know, that jackass has nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers these days.
	He's been at this from the jump.
	And yeah, he does have an appeal.
	Yeah, he has an appeal to a certain breed of asshole.
	Absolutely.
	So yeah, honestly, the amount of work, because I'm familiar with outside of this show, the amount of work that I'm familiar with him doing, he better have at least fucking two million followers.
	Yeah.
	Because the girl works.
	It's true.
	She shows up to the gig, It's bad, but shows up.
	Yeah, it's pretty insufferable.
	I did take a look at some of his present day work and oof, do not recommend.
	But to compare, was still the adult in the room for the Sandy Hook shit?
	Yeah, it's true, it's true.
	We all have a line.
	He was being like, hey, we should back off this subject, Alex, but nope.
	So, yeah, we all have some lines.
	And aware of a public presentation regardless of personal feelings.
	Like, he knew what was gonna be illegal.
	So does Steve Bannon.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Oh boy.
	Anyway, the broader part of that question that Russell was making was stating how interesting it is that one can look at all of Steve Bannon's life and it can spell out what came later, which is a sentiment I actually agree with, but probably for entirely different reasons to Russell.
	Like, oh, we have a shady, amoral, bigoted grifter making his way through finance and media spaces with great success.
	Yes, that does spell out where we've ended up quite a bit, actually, when you put him in charge of a presidential campaign.
	Like, oh, yes, yes, no, this does make sense.
	Yeah, maybe we should consider the fact that financial institutions just produce grifters on an industrial scale.
	Think about it.
	Maybe we should keep an eye on that issue.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, let's hear Bannon's slightly self-aggrandizing answer to this question.
	I would say that if you go back and look at the Oxford Union speech, that was a pretty good call.
	Probably because the day was several years later, and it's right-wing populism and left-wing populism.
	I think the reason is that the oligarchs that particularly control the West, Uh, have been so over the top in their greed, uh, in their incompetence.
	Their greed and their incompetence that people are rising up all over.
	You see that whether it's the collapse of the Tory party in England, the rise of, uh, alternatives for Deutschland in Germany, the rise of the right in Latin America, Central America, and obviously the Trump movement.
	In the United States.
	So I think it's a combination of their greed and their incompetence.
	The elites have failed us and they failed themselves and it's a populist takeover and it's going to be determined whether it be right-wing populism or left-wing populism.
	Oh, I wonder which it'll be.
	The Oxford Union speech he gave was in November 2018, by which time populism, particularly right-wing populism, was well underway across the world.
	So I think, you know, congratulating himself on his skills of prediction might be a little much.
	I am, however, curious about the supposed collapse of the Tory party that's happened.
	I mean, it's true that Rishi Sunak is not polling particularly well right now, but I'm quite sure if the ruling party of the last 14 years had collapsed, I would know about it, you know?
	That would show up on my newsfeed somewhere.
	Well, he's really, like, from what I'm familiar with with Steve Bannon, and this might come up later, I don't know, but he's really good at looking at the state of, like, how the relationship between the media and the social kind of, like, movement and opinion, and kind of, he's excellent At reading tea leaves and seeing the sea change, because also he's part of making it happen.
	He's very integral to making it happen and has the resources to do it, so it's not... Yeah, it's not magic if you're 20% of this change and you are trying to direct it in the most effective way, which is what he's doing, because he's a wildly successful propagandist.
	Calling balls and strikes, he's incredible at.
	Everyone should be, like, not everyone, anyone who is trying to collate this data and disseminate it in a way that is useful for people that don't want the world to burn need to listen to what he's saying because he's- Yeah.
	There's no better word for it, but it does sound distasteful to say.
	He's a tastemaker, and he's got his finger on the pulse.
	I feel like using the literal definition of failure, that sounds absurd, but I think what he means is their messaging is trash, and they're not getting it together, and they're going to lose market share in the attention economy that's going to get them through.
	You know what I mean?
	Well, I have a little more on this.
	So what he's saying is a nod at a recent statement he made.
	Quote, I believe the Tories are essentially where the Republican Party was before Trump.
	And I think the Tory party, as you see it today, will essentially collapse at the next election and will be rebuilt, I think, with people like Nigel Farage and others who are populist nationalists.
	Unquote this in combination with Nigel Farage saying that he is going to be the leader of the conservatives by 2026 paints a grim picture of what's of what's to come because as you say like Yeah, when Steve Bannon says it, you better sit up and take notice, because there's a chance.
	And in hindsight, because the thing is, he makes it very, he takes great pains to, he can talk about this stuff on his show, but what's happening behind the scenes is much more deliberate, and he has an excellent ability.
	To keep his own machinations behind the scenes, and then he looks like... I mean, he's very kind of Wizard of Oz.
	He's like, you know, looking... Not even Wizard of Oz.
	Sylvia Brown?
	John Edward?
	He's Peter Pop... He's got, like... He's like, I'm a medium.
	I can see the future when, like... No, you're making it.
	I'm a savant.
	Yeah, you've got, like, an assistant in your ear.
	Like, you're doing it also.
	You're not psychic, you are active.
	Yes, you are a political activist, telling people what you're doing.
	Yeah, exactly.
	A very effective one, with a lot of resources.
	Like, more than we could even imagine.
	Saying that his like, I think that that's and that's also why I think at the time people were like, people in my orbit anyway were like, you know, because there was a lot of popular comparison between Boris Johnson and Trump.
	And there were people saying like, he's not Trump.
	This is not Trump.
	Be aware, Trump is coming.
	This isn't Trump.
	Y'all tried it, didn't work.
	And they're still like, catch it.
	I mean, Trump is kind of lightening in a bottle and even that's like, again, it all sounds positive.
	I don't know.
	Lightening kills people.
	I don't know.
	Bottled lightning sounds dangerous.
	I think everyone has to acknowledge there is something very unique about Trump.
	And Steve Bannon.
	Time and place.
	And Boris Johnson in an entirely different way.
	Now, next we're going to skip ahead just a minute to a question from Russell about what Steve Bannon describes as economic nativism.
	Clearly what's changed in the last few years, and I can't help but consider you to be a significant architect in this transition, is what you refer to as economic nativism has become the default position of the working class or blue-collar populations In America, when you talk of economic nativism, Steve, is that at odds with where I've elsewhere heard you talk about Catholicism, Christianity, subsidiarity, and ideas that are plainly, literally, both in terms of their nomenclature, but plainly their ideology, derived from spiritual ideas?
	How do these two opposing ideas sit together?
	Economic nativism, which, as the name would suggest, is about economics, and the idea that there is something we are aspiring to, that we are people of spirit, that there are values that transcend materialism and materialism in all its forms.
	There are the restrictions that rationalism necessitates.
	I can see your answers ready, Steve.
	I'm watching your body language, but I'm just gonna keep talking!
	So tell me, ultimately, Aren't you saying, let the market sort shit out?
	I don't really care about the Christianity.
	Or are there real ideals behind this?
	No, I think, look, we're in a spiritual war, and I'm a Catholic, you know, a Roman Catholic, Irish Catholic, and I'm, you know, as I try to be as close to my faith as possible, but obviously we're all imperfect instruments, I do believe in a form of that the United States is the New Jerusalem, and the United States is particularly endowed with a relationship to divine providence.
	I think we've had a very providential history.
	The economic nativism or nationalism is that I believe that strongly, though still the best system we have is the Westphalian system, the nation-state, which as you know was created a couple hundred years ago, and that sets it out into national units and is still Until we come up with something different, it's still the best way for the working class and the middle class to have a shot if some have what I call subsidiarity through a grassroots effort trying to control, to the best of their ability, that national entity.
	So they're kind of talking past each other a little bit here.
	Yeah.
	First, we're in a spiritual war, so that's good.
	I'm sure nothing bad can come of that.
	And super yikes, especially right now, to comparing America to Jerusalem and saying the USA has had large amounts of divine providence, particularly from a man who self-describes as a Christian Zionist.
	Oh, that's all part of it.
	I'm not surprised at all because I've been concerned with this for a long time.
	It's been happening.
	It's been happening and he's going to say it.
	Yep.
	Absolutely.
	But yeah, they're talking past each other in that Russell is trying to not so subtly advance his tiny theocratic ethnostates idea to Steve Bannon.
	Using the word subsidiarity that Bannon uses frequently, which just means dealing with things at the most immediate or local level that is possible to deal with them.
	But Bannon's use of it, however, is a little different, because what he's actually referring to is grassroots politics and the basis of populism, which is lots of people rounding around one political figure.
	And said people using the power of their votes and voices to get that figure into power to exact their apparent will, etc.
	Which is why he's then harping on about the Westphalian system at the end there, which is essentially just the concept of individual states having sovereignty.
	And Bannon is saying, aha, these people can use their subsidiarity to effect change to the country as a whole.
	While Russell is like, yeah, we should all live in groups of roughly 100 to 120 people like the monkeys do.
	You know, these are two very different kind of conversations.
	Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	What I get is like, and we see this with Russell all the time, is like, he's saying, do you think A or do you think B?
	Or do you think A and B are connected?
	And then somehow A is a reasonable size, and then B just, whoo, goes on a bramble.
	And We know the answer at the outset.
	He's not asking, like, a question for information.
	He's expecting the answer to be yes, and then for Steve Bannon to say yes, and I think that, like, Steve Bannon does not need hand-holding from Russell, and I don't think Russell necessarily knows how to handle someone that's, like, so much smarter than him that they're barely the same species.
	So, it's that, it's Russell's, you know, like, standard, like, arithmetic, and like, no, Steve's already, he's on algebra, he's doing calculus, like, he's got this, and so he's just gonna say whatever he wants to say.
	Frankly, I'd do the same if I were in that position, and I were an evil demon.
	Yes, yeah, 100%.
	So, Steve gets back to the point about economic nationalism here.
	Nationalism is for the political leaders and the economic leaders to put the well-being of the citizen first.
	Whatever that nation is, to put their economic well-being first.
	And so it would be economic nationalism.
	You would put forward a program of either terrorists or bringing manufacturing jobs back.
	A little bit of this we saw in Brexit.
	It was very imperfect, and I think the way Boris Johnson and the Tories implemented it was very imperfect.
	But you've seen this with the Trump program to try to confront China, but most importantly confront China's financiers, which are in the United States, private equity firms, hedge funds, Wall Street, to force them through a series of tariffs and economic confrontations to start to bring manufacturing jobs, particularly high value-added manufacturing jobs, back to the United States.
	So I would say economic nationalism is in the material realm, and of course Christian nationalism or these more spiritual Uh, yearnings are in the, uh, are in the spiritual realm and I do think we're in a, I do think we're in a spiritual war.
	I think at the end of the day this is a spiritual war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.
	Not enjoying this rhetoric.
	So one of the important things about Bannon's use of economic nationalism as a phrase is just the way he uses it.
	And one of the more notable times he's said he's an economic nationalist was when he was being accused of being a white nationalist.
	And he said, oh no, I'm not a white nationalist, I'm an economic nationalist.
	See, it's fine, because it's actually about money, not about race.
	Now, yes, all the people he takes issue with seem to be not white, but it's just about the money, just like how according to Russell, the Great Replacement Theory is just an economic theory, actually.
	It's very much the same situation.
	Tricky.
	Yeah.
	I'm going to quote a piece from Vox on the issue of Steve Bannon's economic nationalism.
	The idea that the United States as a whole is locked in zero-sum economic competition with other countries, or that average Americans could become wealthier at the expense of foreigners, is simply wrong.
	At best, it's an analytical error born of bias or confusion about relative versus absolute living standards, and at worst, it's a con job, an effort to distract middle- and working-class Americans from very real questions about the domestic distribution of economic resources by casting aspersions on foreigners.
	Sounds familiar.
	Sounds really familiar!
	Now, we are going to skip ahead just a moment to where Bannon is essentially reciting a portion of his Oxford Union speech from five years ago.
	If I could just be specific for a second, if you look at basically the world map, you take Western Europe, let's take the Middle East and particularly around the Gulf, the Gulf Emirates, you then go around the map to the South China Sea and around that area and then up to North Uh, you know, Northwest, uh, or the Pacific, or near Japan and Korea.
	Those four nodes on the Eurasian landmass, if you think about it, the United States has, uh, commercial relationships, cultural relationships, trade deals, economic deals, in all of those, okay?
	We also, there are, those are also, whether we have NATO, or in the Middle East with our forces, with CENTCOM, the South China Sea and Taiwan, and then up as a protector of the Korean Peninsula, and still Japan, with forces still in Japan.
	If you look at all the commercial and all the trade deals and then layer on top of it an American security guarantee and back of it, whether that's NATO or troops in the Middle East, that is what's been unfair to the American people.
	The reason we've been bled out for the last 40 or 50 years is that those trade deals and the commercial relationships were all one-sided, all lopsided.
	By the way, They benefited our 1%.
	They're the ones, it's their architecture that created this post-war.
	It's called the post-war international rules-based order, and it's kind of become a fetish for the wealthy and the connected.
	They have benefited from that, but the whole burden of that, whether it's the manufacturing out of balance in the trade deals or the commercial deals are upside down.
	The Americans have also funded the, both through their tax dollars and our $1 trillion defense bill, and more importantly their sons and daughters.
	Their sons and daughters are the ones that were on patrol in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan.
	They're the ones in the carrier battle group in the Red Sea right now.
	They're the troops, or they're the sailors in the South China Sea.
	We're also, you know, we have the 101st Airborne A whole brigade in Romania right on the border of Ukraine and probably, in all likelihood, many special force operators already in Ukraine.
	So it's that architecture in the post-war order that has really led to the managed decline of the United States.
	And this is what has driven, along with the financial crisis in 2008, a populist uprising.
	And that's why, because it hasn't been solved today.
	In fact, I would argue it's actually getting worse.
	This is why you see with Trump, Being kicked to the curb after January 6th of 2021 and sent to Mar-a-Lago is essentially in exile, a ruler in exile, never to return.
	He's come back with actually more power in a more powerful and broader movement that now has African American males now has Hispanic, the Hispanics almost 50%, Asians at 32%.
	We're building our coalition every day because people can see that the model that exists in the United States, it's economic and governing model no longer works and that's why I think you're seeing populism in Europe and particularly right-wing populism is on the rise.
	Woo!
	So, according to Steve Bannon, the decline of the United States over the last 50 years or so, if there has been one, is because of the Post-War International Rules-Based Order, as he calls it.
	It's more commonly recognized as the Liberal International Order, but his definition is fine.
	And that decline has then led to the rise of populism within the United States, according to him.
	I take maybe a little bit of issue with this, because the rules-based order which has existed since the late 1940s describes a set of global, rule-based, structured relationships based on political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal internationalism.
	And this is the traditional use of the word liberalism, by the by.
	More specifically, it entails international cooperation through multilateral institutions like the United Nations, World Trade Organization, and International Monetary Fund, and is constituted by human equality, so freedom, rule of law, and human rights, open markets, security cooperation, promotion of liberal democracy, and monetary cooperation as well.
	Now, these are the ideas that have defined the politics and international relations of Western Europe, the United States, and Japan in the modern age.
	Scholars tend to quibble over certain definition of terms, even precisely when the RBO kind of began, but there is a consensus of, oh yeah, this is the thing we've all been doing, or at least aiming at, for a long, long time.
	The greatest threats to this order, internally to a country, are populism, protectionism, and nativism.
	Three things Steve Bannon is all about.
	The greatest external threats are authoritarian and illiberal states, with China and Russia being the two most significant states that threaten the rules-based order on a global basis.
	Guess which two countries Steve Bannon absolutely loves and constantly talks about?
	It's China and Russia.
	Didn't used to be.
	Which should be considered because when it used to be, it was different and better.
	We needed more empathy and compassion and cooperation before.
	Now we're here.
	This is different than then.
	Then we needed less rabid anti-communist psychopathy in our government, and we didn't get it, and now we're here.
	So I think it's worth pointing out that this has not been his position.
	Yes, yeah, he's hopped on board when it is demonstrably worse to do so.
	Now, this should be setting off some alarm bells to anyone paying attention because Steve Bannon, as we've said, is no small fry.
	He's massively influential, devoid of a moral core, and an incredibly savvy political operator, so the idea that he's against the very definition of what we might call a society should be of some concern.
	Not least of all because, well, if you're against all those things I mentioned, what you're left with is isolationist authoritarianism.
	Which does put his mention of the Westphalian system in something of a different light.
	Because in its simplest terms, yes, Westphalian sovereignty is the idea that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory.
	But you can see how that idea would run counter to the notion of, say, the EU, or NATO, or the United Nations, which are global, multilateral institutions that can affect individual countries pretty seriously if they fall foul of those institutions.
	In 2001, Jiang Zemin, then President of China, and Vladimir Putin, who, yes, even then was the President of Russia, issued a joint statement vowing to counter attempts to undermine the fundamental norms of the international law with the help of concepts such as humanitarian intervention and limited sovereignty.
	So, essentially, they believe even humanitarian aid would be infringing upon their country's sovereignty.
	In fact, China and Russia both used their UN Security Council veto power to block intervention and humanitarian aid during escalation of the Syrian civil war in 2012, supposedly on that basis of sovereignty.
	It's this degree of extreme isolationism, and I would say extreme sovereignty, Bannon wants to bring into the United States and the UK, coupled with an authoritarian populist leader in your country under the name of Donald Trump and in the UK, Nigel Farage.
	That's the project.
	Yeah, that's absolutely right.
	And what I heard, what I was hearing when he was speaking is that, and what is very tricky, and I probably sound like a broken record, but what is so effective for his particular breed of sophisticated propaganda is that what he says, his analysis, I don't think was wrong.
	I don't disagree with the analysis in that little bubble.
	I disagree with his lens, and I disagree with where he wants to go as a solution, which is what you just said.
	So, without context, as a less informed, maybe, I don't know, I've never heard of Milo Yiannopoulos until this morning, and I'm not as informed.
	And I'm coming to this interview, then I can agree wholeheartedly without having a background analysis of what he said.
	But I know where he's coming from, and I know where he wants to go.
	So I'm like, ah, that's what will raise alarm bells for me.
	And I don't even necessarily think – and I can't say this about anybody else, but I can say this about Steve Bannon, because this person has been It's been scaring me for a long time now.
	So I do see a pattern that I can't necessarily say he has no... But also I have to kind of play with the definition of moral.
	I don't think he has no moral core.
	I think he has a very specific set of rules that he believes in, he follows.
	He has been wildly consistent in his own definition I think he has a very clear, consistent set of morals, and he knows that, I mean, this is the trap that you fall into.
	He's the best at this, is if you are not concerned with, like, if your goal is to win.
	And your only overarching goal is to win, not to compromise and not to like live with other people in a fair and just way.
	But if your goal is to win in an argument, and in his series of arguments, right, that he has made over his career.
	He doesn't have to concern himself with consistency.
	So then he can just win each individual exchange and be an authority and come out on top.
	Because he doesn't share a moral compass with regular people, then he doesn't need to like, the ends justify the means.
	So he doesn't concern himself with being consistent.
	He is internally consistent.
	And part of his internal consistency is that the The blowback does not matter if you accomplish your goal.
	I genuinely think that he's mad that like a lot of this, the thing is like he's big mad that America wasn't more straight out over evil and just did the damn thing and they're wishy-washy instead.
	I genuinely think that that's one of his main complaints and that's where he's coming from.
	Is like you should have just you covertly iron fist, you know, like ruled with an iron fist and and and and inconsistently and you know, it's kind of like a variety and I think that like from where I'm coming from whenever I Complain about like, you know, America doing bad things and then if nothing else be pragmatic and they're they're also bad at accomplishing those bad things and it's wasteful and it's messy and he's saying yeah it's wasteful and it's and I'm saying that's a terrible thing to do to your citizens and he's saying you're being a messy Bessie.
	And I don't like it.
	Just do it out in the open and do it right.
	Well, I mean, that does track with his reverence for the British Empire.
	He says he takes a lot of inspiration from the British Empire and Reagan.
	Fuckin' loves Reagan.
	Yeah, I think one of the things we're picking up on, you know, in terms of kind of agreeing with the things he's saying in isolation, in a bubble, or some of his analysis, is that unlike most of Russell's guests, he, I think, lives in more or less the same reality that we do.
	And that's one of the reasons I find him fucking terrifying.
	That's why he's scary.
	Yeah, because a lot of the people that Russell has on that are dangerous, they exist in their own little fucking world of how things work.
	And it's a reality that's completely counter to our own reality, which is one of the biggest struggles that we have as a society now.
	But Steve Bannon is not that.
	He is seeing things in exactly the same reality as the rest of us and going, oh, and this is how I'm going to fuck it even more.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, no.
	Yeah.
	So, great.
	Next, let's get Russell.
	Now it's fun.
	It's come back around to fun.
	We'll see how this goes.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Russell appears to be on board with all of what Bannon is saying, whether he understands it all or not.
	But he does now have a bramble of a question to ask.
	I don't think he does.
	Not even a little.
	Are you then saying that this right-wing, anti-populist movement would have to become universally and fundamentally anti-war, except in matters where responding to an aggressor?
	Should this sort of nativism, this Westphalian nativism, whether it's your country or mine, be coupled with, if indeed strong borders and migration is, you know, and strong migration rules and regulations is to be part of it, Does it similarly have to be anti-war in order to limit the amount of disruption and migration caused by, in particular, globalist intervention in some of the countries you've listed there, and the more insidious corruption and destabilization that happens through commercial relationships, primarily because of countries or companies, call them what you will, like Apple and their involvement in various nations, their financial relationship with China,
	There are mineral requirements in Congo.
	Is it, would you say, that if it is a movement that's actually truly about Helping ordinary working people rather than getting the popular support of ordinary working people.
	We would have to say that we are anti-war, including the war in Gaza.
	We are anti the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
	We wouldn't fund it anymore.
	We'd stop provoking China.
	And that an anti-migration policy would have to be coupled with a non-interventionist policy.
	Would you consider that to be reductive, Steve?
	I can reduce that question down quite a bit, Russell.
	What you should have said is, do you consider your movement to be anti-war?
	That was it.
	Notable moment there where he said he's anti what's happening in Gaza.
	He hasn't really said that.
	Much before, he's very much just kind of towed the line, so we might see a development in narrative from Russell, where he's still been walking down the middle of the line, but we'll see if that changes.
	Well, even our government is navigating capitulation to some degree.
	With the overwhelming popular opinion, they're trying to navigate that right now, so I'd imagine that it's safer for Russell to say that these days.
	For sure.
	He doesn't want to get on the wrong side of Ben Shapiro.
	I get the distinct feeling that Russell wants to impress Steve, at least a little bit.
	And in doing so, once again, he made his question pretty amazingly diffuse, even for what should have been such a direct thing to ask.
	Which means, unfortunately, we don't really get an answer to what I would consider to be the more interesting portion of that question, which is about Apple and other companies economically ravaging other countries and like, oh, that's an interesting kind of concept.
	Not very Westphalian, honestly.
	No.
	If you ask me.
	No, it's not and that would be a really interesting thing to hear Steve Bannon try and kind of work his way around.
	But we do get an answer from Steve on the anti-war portion.
	So let's hear that.
	I think it's okay.
	So I think one, I think we're anti-interventionists and anti-war to the degree that what's amazing about our populist movement, it's principally made up of veterans, of parents of veterans, of sons and daughters of veterans, and many active-duty military.
	Remember, we look at the world, America first looks at the world, is that our two biggest allies are the Russian people And the Chinese people, Lao Bajing, old hunter names.
	Because in World War II we see the war against the fascists and really this was a war against corporate interest.
	Remember the economic structure of both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
	Creed war is almost virtually the structure, industrial structure of it at post-war.
	Almost none of the corporate leaders that supported the fascists and made money off the fascists, both in Imperial Japan and in Italy and in Germany, there were no tribunals for them.
	They were almost virtually intact and had their same ownership.
	We did!
	and NATO and I'm a big supporter of NATO as long as it's an alliance right now as I go back around the Eurasian landmass
	like we did a minute ago, but the post-war international rules based order.
	It makes all those areas of the world protectorates of the United States, not allies.
	Protectorates. We would fall into the same trap the British fell into.
	And I look very much to British history and the British Empire as something I have tremendous admiration for the
	British, but I don't want to make the same mistakes the British made, right?
	And I see the United States, which is, remember, our revolutionary generation was an anti-imperial power at exactly that moment.
	that in India and the North America, because they had Canada, were about to build the greatest
	empire on earth, and they still did. But our revolutionary generation backed off. They said,
	"We don't want to be a part of something, no matter how much it grows, how fast it grows,
	that has a worthless landed aristocracy that calls the shots along with monopolistic power like
	crown charters given to the East India Company, where you're totally monopolistic."
	So I know you love a bit of historical and present day revisionism, Lawrence,
	so I thought we could take this point by point, and I'll let you deliver the
	verdict on whether any of the following statements are true, okay? So, uh...
	So, the United States doesn't have any monopolies whatsoever.
	Yes, they do.
	Yes, they do.
	Quite a bit.
	The United States is anti-imperialist, as were the founders of the country.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	The Founding Fathers didn't want to have anything to do with what Steve Bannon describes as a worthless landed aristocracy.
	Get out of here.
	Or just Britain in general.
	Okay.
	Yep.
	Yep.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	The British Empire made the mistake of becoming the world's protectors and that that's what led to the downfall of the British Empire.
	See, I feel like these are true or false, not yes or no.
	And like false, but I mean, question mark?
	Go on.
	Yeah, okay.
	Yep.
	And the work of NATO makes all NATO countries protectorates of the United States, not allies.
	On its face, that is false, but it's, I mean, from his, I can see where he's coming from.
	Like, I can see how these things are true to him.
	So it's difficult to kind of... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Also, such complicated, like, it's, yeah, tough to even get it together.
	Yeah, there are things, there are things where like, you almost want to be like, well, maybe Maybe there's an argument that could be made, but I would say... Yes or no didn't seem like an answer to the question.
	Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	The questions were broader than yes or no for my brain for like, yeah, if we're talking about history.
	But like, yeah, because there's two different answers.
	In context to each of those questions, right?
	Yeah.
	Yes!
	Yeah, exactly.
	And, you know, I mean, again, you know, with NATO, like, yeah, sure, you can see where it's coming from in that America, you know, has the biggest military or whatever.
	but if America left NATO there would still be what, 25, 26 countries in a union, you know,
	together with that defensive pact. And so, you know, I don't think it would be worthless
	without America, let's put it that way.
	Yeah, well, I mean, I think that, I don't think he's wrong that he's like observing the way that NATO is supposed to work versus the way it actually works.
	We're all seeing that right now.
	As far as, well, I mean, as far as security agreements and consequences that we're all supposed to adhere to equally.
	I think that he's like, in a way that where I would like For NATO to function in a more fair way.
	He's saying NATO's not fair, and it's not working.
	To his liking, I would agree with that notion in and of itself.
	In and of itself.
	But what he's saying is, fuck that, tyranny.
	And I'm saying, no, everybody needs more.
	There needs to be more equality.
	He says, no, less.
	And genuinely, calling all these institutions out for inconsistency is what endears people to him.
	This is why people listen.
	I think it's really important to point out the stuff that's like, in and of itself, these separate statements.
	are, you know, like these separate statements, not fucking wrong.
	Now, the context is what makes it no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah.
	You could take any of them in isolation and be like, yeah, broadly agree.
	Exactly.
	And then when you hear the vision and understand the backing behind it, you're like, oh, no, no, no.
	Right, exactly.
	This is not the way.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I did make a note of him saying that the America First movement's greatest allies are the Russian and Chinese people.
	That's interesting.
	No mention of the American people ever in this show, actually, which is curious.
	Now, let's get to another question.
	Oh, it could be implied.
	Yeah!
	We know where he's at.
	We know where Russell's ads are coming from.
	Yeah, that's 100%.
	I guarantee you Steve Bannon knows more about Russell's ad revenue than Russell does.
	I promise that that's true.
	I promise you that's true.
	And audience.
	All of it.
	Yeah, I'm saying all his analytics.
	I promise you Steve Bannon could rattle it off with no preparation.
	I promise.
	Certainly.
	And Russell doesn't have a clue.
	Steve is here for a reason.
	One of the other things I'd like to comment on is that our Labour Party, as I'm sure you're aware, being as educated and informed as you are, is now essentially another globalist, neoliberal outfit led by a globalist in the form of Keir Starmer.
	Now, I reckon you're right when you're talking about the potential of right-wing populism to rise in this country, but we are seeing, indeed, Steve, I should tell you, Somewhat undergirded by anti-war sentiment, a rise of figures way, way to the left of the Labour Party, which isn't hard.
	Comparable to what we saw in 2017 around the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, who's, you know, I know you know, but for our listeners and viewers, a kind of, say, Bernie Sanders, but less corporatist, less financially strong, more idealistic.
	So this is interesting.
	So there are comparable politicians to Jeremy Corbyn and in a way Bernie Sanders rising on the left wing of British politics who are left wing populist figures.
	Now I realise you and most of our audience might not be well versed in the make up of our parliament at present.
	But do you have any clue who we might be talking about?
	Any ideas?
	It's fine if you don't.
	I'm sorry.
	Yeah, those references are too disparate.
	No.
	Yes!
	Yeah, they are a little bit.
	That doesn't make any fucking sense.
	Also slightly historic as well.
	You know, Jeremy Corbyn was a while ago and so it hit my ear funny.
	I was like, who is he talking about?
	The left-wing populist figure that's really kind of taking hold at the moment.
	So let's find out who he means.
	There's for example, and you may not have heard of him, a politician called George Galloway who's just been elected in the north of our country.
	Too obvious.
	Bad writing.
	Too obvious.
	He's planning to stand enough candidates that cause a dent in the presumed majority of Keir Starmer's Labour.
	I wonder what you think When figures from the left that are populist are gaining traction, presumably in the case of Rochdale, among the Muslim community.
	I wonder what you think, Steve, about the necessity for cultural differences to be respected
	within these nativist projects, for when we say things like American communities and British
	towns, that's not coded to mean, "Oh, we don't like people that have got different outfits
	on."
	That is about working people, respecting, loving one another, respecting native or Christian
	culture as well as the other cultures that live alongside them.
	But perhaps more tactically and importantly, I wonder if you consider that if you're in
	a war against the globalist establishment, peripheral forces that transcend the former
	lexicon of left and right are going to have to...
	There's people in my country like Andrew Bridgen who come out hard on the vaccine issue and has been kicked out of the Tory party.
	You've mentioned Nigel Farage.
	Not to populate this nebulous question with further matter, but when you see the rise of Bobby Kennedy in your country, do you not feel that there is room for truly independent movement outside of the uniparty, whether much of their
	culture and heritage appears to be derived from the left or right, as long as it is
	genuinely about ordinary people from those countries.
	Look, George Galloway, I happen to know him and I met him, I think it was in Kazakhstan
	years ago when we were at a conference together speaking.
	He's a very, not just bright guy, I think he's one of the best orators out there.
	And so he's, he's going to give a real voice to this.
	Don't disagree.
	The man can talk.
	That's what I'm saying!
	He can talk.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, I mean, Russell was right about that being a nebulous question, but I dare say he was wrong about pretty much everything else.
	You can't tell me that George Galloway is a left-wing populist figure like Jeremy Corbyn when Galloway himself said he doesn't like being called a leftist because he isn't one.
	I did not factor in Russell's goldfish brain when being confronted with the question.
	Yeah, you're right.
	Yeah, yeah.
	When I first heard that, I nearly threw my headphones off.
	I was like, what the hell?
	What the hell?
	Left wing?
	Go on.
	Oh, I just mean that George Galloway was recently, like, that's a recent guest.
	Yes, yeah, exactly.
	Like, I'm sorry.
	I was trying to answer accurately, not just what Russell would think, which is the last person, last blinky shiny thing he saw.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yes, yeah, no, I fell for the exact same thing.
	I was like, huh, I wonder who he's talking about?
	Oh, fuck.
	Rake hits me in the face immediately.
	MP Andrew Bridgen isn't worth getting into particularly.
	He's an anti-vax shithead MP.
	He was booted from the Tory party and now he spends his time whinging about it.
	He was on Russell's show a little while back but he's honestly not worth the oxygen.
	What is worth the oxygen, at least according to Steve, is the subject that Russell was broaching about different cultures living in the same place.
	But first, we have a little tie-in to last week's show.
	The one thing I think the difference in right-wing and left-wing populism, I think for populism like Bernie Sanders, we often have the same directional approach to the elite and particularly the taxation of the elite, how much they should own as far as assets go, etc.
	I think we differ in that we don't believe In more state ownership.
	We think there's a problem with state ownership of entities.
	One of the problems I think we have with the arms industry today and the biopharmaceutical industry, they're almost nationalized industry.
	You've had elite merger in that regard, not just elite capture.
	You have these quasi-state institutions.
	That's why biopharmaceutical industry is so powerful in the United States and particularly powerful with the progressive left because it underwrites it.
	It's the reason the The defense industry is so all-powerful in our country.
	It's the reason we have a trillion dollar defense budget that we should never have.
	One trillion dollars just from one country we should never have.
	The one thing I do think differentiates the left and the right, and I think the reason the populace left has a tough time getting traction here in the United States, is this topic of immigration or migration or what we call here in the United States an invasion of 10 million illegal alien invaders.
	Bernie Sanders and the populace, even as short as a decade ago, We're more fervent than the Bush administration and the Country Club Republicans about keeping out migrants or economic migration because it drove down wages.
	The one thing that's happening today in the United States is the head of the Federal Reserve and the Biden regime are very open about Why they want so many migrants into the country, we call them illegal alien invaders, is to drive down the wages of working-class African-Americans and Hispanics.
	That was their theory of the case, to bring down inflation.
	And now, if you look at our budgets and all these massive deficits, they have baked in 10 million illegal alien invaders into the permanent economic model of the United States, because they understand That these will drive down wages and the more government assistance they get even with the small wages they spend almost every penny of it and and and as you know if somebody's very focused on health and and and great food uh these folks unfortunately are the ones that buy the Cheetos and buy the Oreos and they see that the corporatist elite see that as a benefit they've they've baked it into our gross national product that there's seven trillion dollars of economic benefit
	In our latest CBO report right to the illegal alien invaders so they make it so that it's almost hard to take it out of the system and the only people to get hurt are the people farthest down the chain.
	Okay, uh, that was, there was a lot there.
	So, in this rendition of Great Replacement Theory, Biden and the Fed are bringing in all the pesky brown people to lower wages, deliberately they're doing this, and because all the brown people eat all the processed food, you see, so it's an economic benefit to the food manufacturers as well.
	That's why this is happening.
	Well, what he's doing, what I mean, what I heard is that he is, like, he is switching between, like, real problems and fantasy problems that are kind of like propaganda, like, old propagandistic tropes where he has these, like, fan- like, because genuinely, yeah, industrialists want Massive cheap labor, like they do want massive amounts of labor and to not in any way be accountable for how that labor is treated or compensated or lives or dies doing the work for them.
	That is absolutely a motivating factor.
	I wouldn't say it's and I think that there is a massive problem with Political parties in general, and I would level the same issue with Democrats.
	As Republicans, they pay different lip service to it, that they are supporting and enabling these corporations and these industrialists to accomplish that goal of the cheapest possible labor with the least amount of accountability to its own citizens or the environment.
	And to To make it into a conspiracy theory is really convenient for Steve because even the realities of like what I think there is shocking bloat and misallocation of funds and inappropriate spending for entitlement programs which he's talking about is bleeding the country.
	If you are – sorry, you're not eligible for food assistance if you are not – there are only very specific circumstances where you are in any way eligible for food assistance through the government if you are not a citizen and if you have any kind of non-legal status.
	That's a fool's errand, but in general, yeah, there is a ton of misappropriation of funds, Within our social entitlement system that I have a massive fucking problem with, I don't think it's the same problem that Steve has.
	Mine is that it's not helping anybody and it's like this Byzantine embezzlement system.
	It's really horrendously bad.
	Reveal does a lot of reporting on it.
	If you want homework, I got it.
	But yeah, I have this... Again, I'm hearing the same complaint.
	It is crazy to me hearing my arguments from the absolute opposite side, from my bizarro world.
	But it's also honestly really fucking illuminating.
	I can do a lot with this information, if I had any power.
	If I had any power at all, which I don't.
	Yes, yeah, yeah, it is, it is, it is very interesting.
	Yeah, just the complete fucking opposite perspective.
	Oh, and as covered last week, immigration does not negatively affect wages.
	But, but yeah.
	Good to know S.D.
	Bannon stands on the issue.
	I'm sure we are all surprised.
	Now, Bannon is about to give us an overview as to why the left are so freaked out by America First and what that has to do with black men specifically.
	This is why your audience should understand.
	Why do we have so many black men today that are looking to even give Trump a chance?
	And I'm saying not vote for Biden, but even give Trump a chance or Hispanic men.
	It's just not the assault on the family or the assault on the male.
	It gets back to economics.
	They understand that they're now forced to compete.
	Yeah, the amoral ones.
	that we let in through this border and they're revolting against that. I think this is why
	you're seeing the Democrats are so freaked out, the elites are so freaked out, because now our
	coalition is really taking some of the basic foundation of the AOC and Bernie Sanders left.
	The Bernie bros are coming to our side. To a large extent if they can handle the cultural,
	we realize there are cultural differences, if they can come to our side.
	Yeah, the amoral ones. The amoral ones have.
	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
	That's a different problem.
	Well, this is it.
	So yeah, the Bernie Bros and AOC supporters are becoming Trumpers!
	Now, there was something of a phenomenon of this back in 2016.
	On Twitter?
	Well, no, no, no.
	The Cooperative Congressional Election Study did an election survey of about 50,000 people and found that 12% of Sanders voters later voted for Trump in 2016.
	Now, those, I would say, are probably the anti-establishment voters, that would be my guess, and are most likely the very people that are watching Russell's show these days.
	Because, as you say, the notion of AOC or Bernie supporters going to Trump in droves is pretty nuts because the values are basically opposite.
	Like, some, sure, as demonstrated.
	That's not a drove to me.
	No, exactly.
	That actually sounds completely accurate for the people that were just there for the spectacle.
	Actually, that bolsters an argument that I have had for a long time.
	Nope, it's a digression.
	Thank you, Steve, for giving me evidence, and Al, for again, supporting this.
	Basically, somebody wanted a spectacle, and that was what they were interested in.
	Yeah, I think that there's a degree of that.
	And I think there's a degree of, Neil Gaiman pointed this out near the time, was that the thing, the fervor around both Bernie and Trump at the time, was that both of them were stood there saying, this thing is fucked.
	We need to do something.
	Whereas Hillary Clinton was, we're the same everybody.
	You know, and, and, and, you know, if, if you weren't going to get Some of the this-thing-is-fucked vibes from Hillary, maybe you would go over to Trump if you have no other kind of moral kind of leanings.
	Well, Lauren was saying in 2015, too, but no one fucking listened to me.
	Yes.
	Yeah, well, I mean... It means nothing.
	Great.
	Lauren for president.
	No.
	I would never, which is why I'd be a better candidate than anyone who would.
	Which is why you should have the job, exactly.
	Real catch-22.
	Here we are.
	Real catch-22.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Some of the people who were kind of Bernie supporters or whatever, some people will have fallen victim to grifters and propaganda and lies in the last few years.
	That will have happened as well, for sure.
	Yeah.
	Though, a quick note to say, I know there is speculation that Trump is about to start saying that he's anti-Israel and pro-abortion to try and hit Biden to win some votes over.
	First one being more likely than the second, I think.
	But that is something that has occurred after this interview, so I've kind of not included that in this analysis because Bannon wasn't able to either.
	Though if that does happen, we're probably even more fucked, so yay.
	Anyway, the long and short of it is that Barron is just kind of selling a good story right now, you know, like all these leftists are coming over to us and especially all the brown and black people because they've all seen the light.
	Now Trump is seeing an increase in minority voters, quite a significant increase among black men actually, but I feel like saying Ah, because they're black, they all must have previously been socialist, is the line that Steve Bannon is casually striding up to there.
	It's like, oh, we've got all these new black voters, they must have all been because, you know, black populations historically have had socialist leanings.
	Well, anyone that is familiar with the story from the RFK tapes, and I mean you can be familiar with this from any number of other sources, and just in general being aware of it in the oomph of living in America, that specifically like corrupt, violent, terrifying human beings that also happen to be officers with the LAPD, would interchangeably refer to Black people as Democrats.
	So not only is that a problematic stereotype, but it's not far off if you have an antique brain and are aware of your own experience.
	The experience, the cauldron where Steve Bannon was formed, I'm sure Assumed this because of a handful of Black Panthers and other civil rights groups organizing for basic dignity and safety in their own country.
	That is the conception is that they were also like, I mean, that was what McCarthyism did is Yeah.
	File them under socialist and then immediately they're enemies of the state, just by dint of being black.
	So I think it's entirely reasonable to, like, this exposes where he's coming from.
	And yeah, I expect this too.
	Exactly.
	So we're going to finally get back to the point about cultures living side by side.
	I think the same thing.
	In England, it hasn't coalesced yet.
	And in Galloway, remember, the one fly in the ointment here, as you said, cultures and societies as citizens living side by side.
	Let me just be brutally frank.
	The issue with Islam is not Islam.
	The issue with Islam is not that it's one of the five or six great religions in the world.
	The issue with Islam is the political Islam, which is Sharia supremacist.
	The day political Islam thinks that Sharia law has to be supreme.
	And that is a problem.
	It's a problem in the Middle East.
	It's certainly a problem in Europe right now.
	It's going to be a bigger problem in France.
	It's a problem in the United Kingdom.
	It's a problem to the fact that you almost can't talk about it in the United Kingdom.
	Oh, you can't talk about it.
	That must be why no one's talking about it.
	Makes sense.
	Couldn't possibly be that what he's saying is not actually happening and it's just another stupid and offensive right-wing talking point pioneered by the likes of Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage.
	It's another useful fantasy for him to invoke.
	Uh-huh.
	A hundred percent.
	It harks back to the idea that there are, you know, parts of London you can't go into because they're under Sharia law, you know, that whole fucking nonsensical thing.
	Of course, Steve has a storied and full-throated history of hating Muslims.
	In 2010, Bannon said, quote, Islam is not a religion of peace.
	Islam is a religion of submission.
	He also criticized George W. Bush for calling Islam a religion of peace.
	Bannon has said that Islam today is something much darker than Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
	He has also stated, quote, if you're Sharia compliant, we don't want you here, unquote, and has accused US newspapers of being Sharia compliant.
	He has also stated, the elites in Europe are allowing an Islamic invasion to take place.
	Again, that last one is feeling real familiar.
	Really, really familiar.
	Well, fortunately, one of the co-hosts of this very podcast has gone out of their… Doggone dang it way to make a point about the rich and storied cultural history of Islam and how important it is to the fabric of the human experience and how very, like, cool and good
	Almost all of it is.
	And also, it's manipulated, just like Christianity, as a cudgel for violent extremists and fundamentalists.
	So, he's not using his own.
	He's not taking that same lens and turning it on maybe his Catholicism past.
	So, that's where it is a convenient fantasy to invoke.
	And a lot of people shouldn't have done it, not just him.
	So, Yep, yep, yep, 100%.
	I have provided resources for y'all to have plenty of argument against this, and I'm proud to say that I just, listen, it ain't perfect.
	I'm new to this whole thing, but it's there and I'm happy with it.
	So, there's homework for you.
	Recommend.
	Really pleasant, easy homework, by the way.
	Ah, dear.
	But yes, elites replacing us with brown people and Muslims.
	Okay, great.
	So from here, Steve takes us back to how Trump is apparently doing so great.
	That is, and it's going to be a problem here in the United States, the situation in Michigan where the folks in Dearborn, and I'm not saying they're all Sharia supremacists, but the Muslim community, the Arab community, refused to vote for Biden and put him on notice because of Gaza and the handling of the situation, the Palestinians, they won't.
	It is mathematically impossible for the Democrats to take the White House or keep the White House in this regard if they don't win Michigan and right now President Trump's up eight points in Michigan and that is because there's a significant amount of Arab Americans that are just saying we don't support the Biden regime in this regard and we're going to stay home.
	Yes and Bobby Kennedy is also very popular in that state and it does seem to be a significant interface in that particular campaign.
	Thanks for that, Russell.
	Yeah, so, I mean, I don't think Trump is any better on this issue particularly, but he's not in power, so it's difficult to say.
	But either way, the issue is not, in this instance, Trump being so great, it's that Biden has earned the nickname Genocide Joe, and I don't think anyone's going to forget that, especially the people who are more personally affected by it.
	Or the people that can use it really effectively like this one I'm looking at right here.
	Exactly!
	Yeah, he's wrong about Michigan in that the election, you know, it can still be won by Biden even if he loses Michigan but, you know, it'll take a flip somewhere else which is not unprecedented.
	Okay, fine, whatever.
	There is, however, an interesting thing happening where, according to the pollsters, Biden is losing ground in more ethnically diverse areas at the moment, which you would expect, But he's gaining ground in the rural and more white areas.
	Very, very interesting.
	Very interesting.
	Yeah.
	No comment on it, just saying that's a thing that's happening.
	Just gonna let that hang, honestly.
	Yeah.
	Uh-huh.
	Uh-huh.
	Make of it what you will!
	Comment as you see fit.
	Personally, my political position as someone who can't vote in that election is that you should just take both major candidates, fire them off into space, and start again.
	And then maybe think about doing the same with Thomas in the Senate.
	Oh, we'll definitely do that.
	What an excellent solution.
	Yep.
	Good!
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Good.
	Right on.
	Now, finally, Steve gets to his discussion of RFK Jr.
	There's so many things I want to cover, Steve, but just let me touch on... Can I say one thing about Bobby Kennedy?
	Because I think Bobby Kennedy started, and I felt that, you know, although I'm a Kennedy Democrat as a little kid because of being Irish Catholic, right, when you just never even conceive, I come from a blue-collar working-class family, The conception that you would vote for a Republican would almost be like you would leave the church, right?
	It was that ridiculous.
	Bobby Kennedy, I think, started out and had a tremendous message, and that message was, I've never seen an individual with such clarity about the biopharmaceutical industry and the power it has exerted on modern society.
	And he was, to me, the most powerful voice about techno-feudalism, and what techno-feudalism really was about.
	I think, unfortunately, over his, I mean, fortunately, as a Trump supporter, because I'd always hoped that at one time we could actually blend the Kennedy movement, particularly the anti-vax part of it, which has a big portion of the MAGA base.
	As you know, I'm not vaxed.
	We were the most adamant, we were banned on every platform, never to return because of our election denial and because of vax.
	That we could see a fusion of MAGA and what Bobby Kennedy stood for into a movement that really could be two-thirds of the populace of the United States.
	Now, unfortunately, I think Bobby and his team, as he got shut out by the Democratic Party and ran as an independent, he's almost run to the left.
	And so now, you're right, he's a dagger to the, particularly with Shanahan, I think it's Nicole Shanahan, his vice presidential pick, he's a dagger at the heart of the Democratic Party right now.
	He almost takes very few Trump voters, very few MAGA, even the strong anti-vax nature of our and the anti-biopharmaceutical industry part of the MAGA, which is a very large part, I think would pass on Bobby Kennedy now to support Trump very strongly.
	But Bobby Kennedy's a dagger at the heart of the Democratic Party.
	If Bobby Kennedy gets access, and they know this, this is why they're coming down on him so hard, if he gets access to the ballots, If he's on the ballot in those states, I think it's very hard mathematically, given the coalition of Biden is not coming there.
	The under 35s are hesitant, the African American community, the male particularly, is hesitant, the Hispanic community is hesitant, the Arab American or the Muslim community is hesitant.
	His coalition is tough to come together with enthusiasm.
	You add Bobby Kennedy on top of that, I think it's a dagger to the heart of the neoliberal, neocon, Democratic Party.
	I think he's saying politically hesitant.
	Yeah, I do.
	Yeah, because he's trying to he's saying that non-vax is a portion that he's trying not to alienate.
	So this is hard for me to believe that he's not vaxed.
	But if it's true, yeah, right.
	Well, we've heard it.
	Anybody that lives around Steve Bannon?
	I don't know.
	That gives me a little hope if he's not.
	Just a gentle cough in his direction.
	So neoliberal, neocon, democratic party is what he finished that with.
	I mean, which is it?
	Is it neoliberal or is it neoconservative?
	And do either of those things accurately describe the Democratic Party?
	Because I'm not sure that they do.
	Words just don't mean anything.
	But it's really easy to make that conception because they're not doing either.
	They're not doing anything.
	They're so impotent.
	That's the thing, in a vacuum, they are giving us a vacuum of information and anything concrete to know about them.
	So yeah, they're sitting ducks for this kind of label.
	They're not helping themselves either, you know?
	Yeah, you're not wrong.
	For the record, in a world where words do have meaning, Steve Bannon is a neoliberal, believing in so-called small government and free market ideology.
	If RFK Jr.
	is siphoning people from the left now, that to me would suggest they were not particularly left to begin with.
	I mean, at this point in where things are at.
	I could be wrong on this, but I think the reality is more that RFK Jr.
	is siphoning votes from both sides, but more so voters on the right who are unhappy with Trump's support for COVID.
	Covid vaccine, right?
	I think this is just a bit of spin and deflection here, but I do agree with him that the savvy move would have been to have RFK Jr.
	as the Trump's VP pick, but that would require RFK ending his campaign and that means people would be giving less money to him and more money to Trump, and RFK seems to have a preference of people giving money to him.
	Yeah, and I also don't think that's a goal that they're necessarily considering.
	I think that there is kind of a hope and a gamble that RFK being allowed to be a free radical in the wild is going to take away votes from Democrats.
	And honestly, listen, there's polling all over the place and we don't know.
	There is no like, yeah, we, and I'm always, I shan't ever rest on a laurel again,
	not a single leaf because of 2016.
	So I think that there's some analysis and some people that are fucking in charge that need to take it more seriously.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Um, yeah.
	Though I do think, you know, the man himself has never held elected office once in his life and as shown in the episode where we covered him, he's utterly fucking clueless and just makes things up.
	So is Trump!
	I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure.
	Yes, exactly.
	That is an apt comparison because I'm not sure he'd want the job if it was offered to him, you know, and I don't think Trump wanted it initially.
	It was, ah shit, we've won.
	Oh, no!
	No, I think his added delusion of grandeur because he is a progeny of RFK, I think that he does want it, but for entirely ego-based reasons.
	I think he just wants it because he wants it.
	And if he thinks he can get it, he's going to try.
	Which, okay.
	So there are, however, two things I want to touch on briefly, and that's Bannon's use of the word techno-feudalism.
	It's a big talking point of his, and he likes to make the claim that we're all digital serfs in online fiefdoms, that we don't own anything of our digital selves, and we're just slaves to the elites who own the fiefs.
	It sounds way more- I don't disagree, again, in that little speck.
	Now let's see where it goes, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	It sounds more interesting than it is, because what he's actually doing is whinging about the ability of private companies like Facebook or YouTube to remove him for being a hateful lying piece of shit.
	That is the perspective that is problematic.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	It's the same old tired line, but he's given it a pseudo-historical point of reference, as he is wont to do.
	And for the record, about his social media bans, one was, yes, on January 9th, 2021, Rudy Giuliani appeared on War Room accusing Democrats of stealing the recent presidential election and blaming them for the storming of the Capitol.
	Hours later, YouTube removed both the podcast channel and another one called Trumpet War, a film by Stephen K. Bannon, citing a violation of YouTube's terms of service.
	So yes, one was about the election.
	The other time he was banned from socials, however, was during the November 5th, 2020 edition of his show.
	Bannon called for the beheadings of Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
	Bannon said that if it were up to him, after beheading Fauci and Wray, he would put the heads on pikes and display them outside the White House as a warning to bureaucrats who dared to oppose Trump.
	So, but by the end of the day, Facebook and YouTube had deleted the video from their platforms and Twitter had permanently banned his account for glorifying violence.
	MailChimp also disabled Bannon's email newsletter.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Fair.
	Yeah.
	Pretty fair choice from a company.
	100%.
	Yeah, that's not anti-vax stuff, Steve.
	That's calling for the beheadings of state officials.
	You know, there's a difference.
	Well, as restorative justice teaches us, every perspective is valid.
	Doesn't need to be realistic at all.
	But the thing is, he's telling us where he's coming from.
	He's telling us exactly where he's coming from.
	Absolutely.
	In his own moral conception, he's consistent, which is bonkers to hear.
	And he's back on Twitter now anyway, thanks to Musk.
	Of course!
	Of course he is.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Though he himself does not seem to be a particular fan of Musk.
	At least, you know, he is consistent on that issue as well, unlike most of his ilk.
	Because from here we move from the discussion of techno-feudalism to transhumanism, and Bannon has a familiar sounding take here.
	Now the hardest part, and the one that overlays our entire conversation we haven't gotten into, maybe it'll be next time, this whole issue of transhumanism.
	We are literally, I think, five or six years away from the singularity.
	And that's just not AI, that's the convergence of CRISPR, biotechnology, quantum computing, advanced chip design, regenerative robotics, artificial intelligence, where on this side- Five years!
	You have homo sapien, you have humanity.
	On the other side, at minimum, you have humanity plus, or what they call enhanced man.
	And I actually think, leading to homo sapien 2.0.
	That is the brightest line we've ever had in since recorded history.
	It's going to happen in your, not just your audience's lifetime, it's going to be a major political issue in the next three to five years.
	That's why we must break the tech oligarch state.
	I am a proud, What I call Neo-Luddite, right?
	I am all for, I would have treaties and stop this immediately, because I think what's happening in transhumanism right now, led by artificial intelligence, and you see the flood to capital in artificial intelligence, where once that happens it gets out of control.
	There are things that are going to happen that are so far beyond the Shire's ability to control it, that it'll make a farce of everything else we're working on.
	All the other populist structures we put in it, things to try to get down to subsidiarity, it'll be overwhelmed by this.
	And I'm to the point, I believe with some of these guys that you have to have actual, if you need to, direct military intervention into data centers, water supplies that would supply this.
	What is happening behind the scenes in these big research labs, what's happening behind the scenes in these big companies, and what's happening overseas in places like South Korea, North Korea, Romania, Russia, China, the CCP.
	You have no idea how advanced some of this stuff is.
	Once it comes, it's going to be too late to control.
	On top of all the issues we have, trying to take back and not be tech-feudalistic, On top of that is really what could be the end of the human era.
	And I think that's why to be alive today is to say, hey, Divine Providence put me here for a reason, right?
	For every one of your audience members, what is that reason?
	And I think the greatest epoch in mankind's history in the, what, 10,000 years or 15,000 years or 20,000 years is about to be upon us, and I think in the next five.
	Wow.
	Rich guy brain rot.
	That's rich guy brain rot.
	Thinking that it's inevitable in the next five years.
	That's your observation bias, his bias of who he hangs out with and how he spends his days.
	Because all the richest fucking people in the world think that Neuralink works.
	They think that all this technology that is advertised, like that fucking Cretan who uses his child as a blood bag, thinks that he's going to live forever because...
	Sucking the life out of his own son and thinks it's gonna work.
	It's just like Disney wanting to cryogenically freeze his head and thinking that that's gonna work even though we all have freezers and we all eat dinner from them and we understand what happens in the freezing process regardless of how high-tech it can seem.
	I mean, and it is different, obviously, for other medical applications, but, like, thinking that you're just going to be thawed out and be who you are in a thousand years or whatever, that is rich guy brain rot.
	That is, like, you are usurping your own, like, what's in front of you knowledge and understanding.
	And also, things probably work a lot better for rich people with the resources to hire others to make things work for them.
	It's just because they don't see the issue.
	Yeah!
	Yeah, there's a huge portion of that and Bannon's views echo those specifically of Alex Jones,
	to the point where you could basically take that little segment, throw it up on InfoWars
	and it would be right at home.
	I don't know.
	I think he's way smarter than Alex is.
	I don't think Alex could- Oh, he's definitely way smarter.
	Yeah, he's definitely way smarter.
	But on this, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's going to be here in the next five years now.
	So for those not in the know, right, the singularity is the hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization.
	The most popular conception is that an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a runaway reaction of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an explosion in intelligence and resulting in a powerful super intelligence that far surpasses all human intelligence.
	Now, I for one welcome our new robotic overlords.
	They can't fuck it up any worse than we have.
	If I seem flippant about the issue.
	If that's how it was gonna work, sure.
	Well, yeah.
	If I seem flippant about it, it's because, you know, despite the advent of chat GPT, etc., advancing and AI generally getting more sophisticated, we're predicted to be able to potentially reach human levels of intelligence by maybe 2050.
	But there are a lot of people who argue that we will never be able to achieve a true digital equivalent of human intelligence.
	Because of capitalism, by the way.
	Because of capitalism.
	Because it's not capable.
	Because it's all profit-based.
	Seriously.
	Yeah, huge chunk there.
	There's conversations around how software develops and that kind of thing that are significant limitations.
	I'm going to quote Daniel Dennett on the issue.
	Quote, the whole singularity stuff, that's preposterous.
	It distracts us from much more pressing problems.
	AI tools that we become hyper dependent on, that is going to happen.
	And one of the dangers is that we will give them more authority than they warrant.
	Unquote.
	And we'll downplay the potential dangers and then we won't put safeguards in place just like nuclear energy.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	It's more power than we are willing to handle because we won't face the problems and then safeguard.
	It's not that it's impossible, it's just that we are not capable of organizing society that is responsible with this kind of technology.
	It's a us problem.
	It's a big problem.
	And just an aside, Dennett I think is the last of the four horsemen of new atheism that isn't either dead or an outright piece of shit, I think.
	But if anyone knows otherwise and that Dennett is somehow problematic, I'm happy to be corrected.
	But I think he's okay.
	Don't hold your breath.
	I know, right?
	Just saying.
	Just temper your expectations.
	Yes, exactly.
	Guard your heart.
	I tried looking around for stuff.
	I couldn't find anything, but if anyone, if there is anything, then yeah, let me know.
	But yeah, back to the point.
	AI and its usage in modern culture is a way more pervasive issue that needs to be dealt with pretty immediately.
	And also, on a further note, to echo a meme that's been doing the rounds lately, not to sound too Alex Jones-y, I support AI but it's going in the wrong direction, right?
	I don't want AI to be making art or music so I can do chores and work, I want AI to be doing chores and work so I can make art and music.
	That's the direction that I want it to go!
	And yeah, AI in general.
	It's such a widespread problem at this stage that just the other day Pink Floyd held a music video competition for one of their songs and the winner that was chosen was an AI-generated video.
	Like, pretty obviously AI-generated as well.
	I'm like, oh dear.
	Yeah, okay, right.
	Ah, so anyway, yeah, ignore the fear-mongering about the singularity that is at this stage nothing short of fantasy, and instead let's stop AI from getting involved in the art world and start getting it to do my laundry, because that's actually useful.
	Well, that's the thing.
	It's what it's being used for.
	And I think that, I don't know, what I picked up on and I think is really, really important, I really want to point this out, that he said he's a Neoluddite.
	So he explained his own value, and he's very concerned.
	And I think it's entirely reasonable, especially if he's got a rich guy brain rot, and he thinks that all these things are inevitable.
	I would argue, no, Elon's robot was a guy in a costume.
	Talented dancer who got paid, hooray for them, in a costume.
	And we just saw this go down with the registerless cash, oh, the cashierless Amazon magic store was not technology.
	It was a thousand outsourced people in India being underpaid and abused compared to like,
	'cause they don't wanna pay Americans to do it.
	This is not what five years away from singularity looks like, and that's the issue.
	But what I am seeing And what we are all seeing and dealing with in real meat space is the richest people in the world
	Expressing in no uncertain terms that they believe that they have just no effect, like they are powerless and this kind of like rolling, like the singularity, he's like, the singularity is inevitable.
	I have convinced myself of that.
	It's going to happen in five years.
	He's not using his platform to do anything about it because it would impose limitations on corporations, which he doesn't actually want to do.
	Because if his True beliefs and his feelings and his experiences, which he says make him a Neo-Luddite, and it's very tricky to, you know, hold the word of a liar.
	I'm kind of reading into what he's saying and just saying it as a potential, like, something to think about, is this notion that, like, if this is your belief, In the same thought, he expressed both his actual beliefs and feelings and fears, and then immediately explained why he is inert to stop it in any way.
	I'm sorry, but he even listed all the things that could be done, the treaties that he would put in place immediately.
	Why aren't you using your platform for that?
	If that's what you believe, why aren't you using any stitch of your fucking massive network For that because you could but you are instead accepting and explaining that you are completely powerless in the face of this which I know that Stephen doesn't believe or he believes that he can't do anything about it and it's not gonna make him any money and that's why he's not actually going to,
	Follow through on some values that he's expressing.
	So he is, and I do think that we need to pay very close attention, and I don't have any solutions for this problem in the wider world, that the richest, most powerful people are all like, just, well, I don't know, I'm just a baby.
	Like, they're the Fred Armisen meme of, like, in a big sweater, just, I'm just a baby, I can't help it.
	I just gotta keep making money.
	It's the next quarter's coming.
	And if I just set, like, A couple of buildings on fire and get an insurance claim, or if I lay off all these people that are integral to functioning my company, then I'll make a little more money.
	And on the corridors, I can only think about six weeks ahead.
	I'm a baby.
	That's what they're doing!
	It's crazy!
	Yeah, if this was an actual significant problem that he believed in, there is so much he could be doing.
	Exactly.
	And in terms of kind of evidence, I mean, what he's saying is that he has kind of behind-the-scenes knowledge of what's going on in Romania and North Korea and all these other places he listed off.
	I'm like, well, why don't you tell us about them?
	That would be a start.
	Exactly that!
	Now!
	Yeah!
	We're right here!
	You're right in front of a microphone, buddy.
	Let's hear him.
	What have they got going on in North Korea?
	Do you think Russell's gonna stop you from saying anything?
	Do you think that Russell's capable of stopping you from saying anything?
	Especially if you say something like, real juicy?
	Russell will be all on board.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, right!
	He'll be all on board.
	There's no reason not to.
	Don't keep the best information in another room when you have no limitation.
	That means that you don't really... Exactly.
	It's not that important.
	Well, maybe there's no information.
	On his face he thinks that he's already been defeated.
	It's crazy.
	No, you're Steve fucking Bannon.
	If anyone has the power to make some kind of change, it's you.
	Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's fucking raining, dawg!
	Not cool!
	Pretty much.
	Ah dear.
	And anyway, Russell naturally has some thoughts on this discussion and then we learn something
	a little troubling about Bannon's audience.
	If we are indeed facing something as apocalyptic and as apocal as the end of human supremacy
	and the ability to control reality into the scale that you've just described, don't our
	political and cultural affiliations that have either been formed around agriculture, i.e.
	monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, Or are the political ideologies that have emerged from industrialisation, i.e.
	capitalism and all of its late and failing expressions, or socialism and all of its derivatives, somewhat redundant, and all and we be looking for extreme subsidiarity as local as possible, new alliances to oppose that potential immediately, because I believe you that it's a real threat.
	This is what I think you're awakening your show, other shows, War Room.
	And remember, we have a principally a conservative, blue-collar, deeply religious audience.
	They would rather watch Russell Brand and our audience watches you more than they watch Fox News, right?
	And here's the reason.
	Innately know something's up and that's why populism is getting to be, that people are putting their time into populism and trying to put in time at the school boards, at the district level to take things back because they understand there's a dark specter that's over us.
	And the only way to combat that, you're not going to combat that with equal structures.
	It has to be, if it's going to be defeated, it has to be defeated by essentially an uprising of the shire.
	I mean, is this not what Lord of the Rings was about?
	I mean, remember, Tolkien was, uh, it was the trenches of World War I. We saw the inhumanity of the mechanized German army and what happened to the basic, you know, British Tommy and those great, you know, working men that he had seen from the Shire and the destruction and how much agony it caused when he went back home.
	That's what gave him the whole vision of it.
	Okay, so in Steve Bannon's conception of things, Lord of the Rings is about populism and the hobbits of the Shire rising up to defeat the great evils of the elite that is Sauron.
	Now, there are many, many nuanced discussions that we can have of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's writings.
	The man was a broadly conservative Catholic who wrote these books between the late 30s and late 40s, so There are some very fair and genuine critiques that can be leveled at them through a modern lens.
	But one thing I know for sure about Tolkien was that he fucking hated Stalin.
	Wasn't a fan of authoritarian populists in general, one could say.
	There's not a lack of information on this.
	Yeah, yeah, and I do get the feeling that Lord of the Rings being a populist parable is a little bit unlikely, but as with many works of art, even the blindingly obvious sort, people see what they want to see.
	Like, Ted Cruz loves Rage Against the Machine, for instance.
	1776 is the answer to 1984.
	That's a complete mis-fucking-understanding of both of those things.
	Yes, 100%.
	But he's sold a bunch- you know, Alex Jones has sold a bunch of t-shirts and bumper stickers to say exactly that.
	He makes a great bumper sticker, yeah, that's the thing!
	Catchy!
	And, you know, I'm in agreement with Russell's initial point, not where he was going with it, but his point of, like, surely if the world is ending, that renders all of our political systems as a moot point, right?
	Surely.
	That's the question he was... And then he was trying to direct it more towards, hey, we should live in our tiny little theocratic ethnic states, but he was mostly like, surely if we're fucked, we should do something, right?
	And Steve's like, well, Lord of the Rings.
	We need the Hobbits to rise up.
	That's what we need.
	If this adult was trying to do a good job, I'd be sad that he's in over his head, but he doesn't care.
	No, it's true.
	It's true.
	The other thing we learned, and this may just be blowing smoke up Russell's ass, but apparently Steve's audience would rather watch Russell than Fox News, and watch more of Russell than Fox News, which didn't give me a great feeling.
	He's been saying this for a long time, though.
	The thing is, if you want to hear gripes about Fox News, Steve Bannon has the most.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	They don't go far enough for him.
	It's not that they don't go far enough.
	Yeah, I mean, he's got a million critiques that could be leveled from his perspective that are completely valid.
	It's really interesting to listen to.
	Yeah.
	It sucks that it's so distasteful and disheartening to listen to what he says and does, because there's a lot of valuable information if you are trying to... I can listen to it.
	I can't do anything about it.
	I genuinely can't.
	I can't not vote for Steve Bannon.
	I can't get him to be quiet.
	I can't do anything.
	We're doing this for Russell, and it's not easy.
	Yeah.
	Steve Bannon?
	That's a whole other ball of wax.
	A lot of reporters are trying, and it's very hard work.
	Because a lot of people think it's way around the world before the truth gets its pants on, you know?
	I wouldn't even know where to begin with that, man.
	There's too much.
	There's too much.
	Now, from here, Bannon goes on for a while about the singularity and his self-describing as a Neo-Luddite, which is then a phrase that Russell takes some issue with.
	Well firstly Steve, we've got to brainstorm the name because I bow to no one in my admiration for Ned Ludd and his attacks on industrialisation and his understanding of what it was about to do to the peasant class of the United Kingdom.
	But the Neo-Luddite movement, you've got to You've got to come up with some more White House gear that's going to be a little more catchy.
	And also I want to point out this, while we're using image systems that are derived from early political structures, i.e.
	neo-feudalism and techno-feudalism rather, it seems to me that what we are actually being opposed by now is something that is a dark power, and yet Luciferian.
	We are talking about the apex of evil potentially and I believe that, as you indicated earlier, that to oppose that you're not going to be able to bolt something together from these sort of half-arsed, neoliberal, secularized, rationalistic structures.
	You're going to have to reach down into the very thing that makes us human, our The realization of the divine, the expression of God, God's self, living Christ on earth, transcendence of the individual self and a willingness to sacrifice all in order to carry the great fight.
	Now, if we are going to practice that kind of a war, Doesn't it seem that economic models that are somewhat, if not arcane, arcane's not the right word, nostalgic, are they going to be enough to get people up on their feet and out onto the street?
	And can I add to that question, do you really believe that Trump is about to impose the kind of demonopolising regulations that are required across the big tech, finance and military industrial complex spaces?
	Or will he, when in office, as he has been in 2016, ultimately find himself Bound and held in the chokehold structures that exist only to perpetuate their own existence.
	But I believe sometimes, Steve, on both sides.
	What's the hysteria about?
	If you want to know what a Trump presidency is going to be like, look at the Trump presidency there's always, there's already been.
	I feel that we have to break beyond these models and my willingness to even look at something as sanctified Though it need not be so, as the Westphalian treaty and the idea of nation is because we have got to unlock something extremely powerful, Steve, extremely quickly.
	Firstly, I disagree with the sentiment that the Trump of 2016 is the same Trump you would get in 2024 if he won.
	Just as a matter of a second term president is going to behave completely differently than a first term president.
	That's just on paper.
	Yep, let alone, you know, with, like, he's notably more extreme in his rhetoric and vision, there's way more of a cult of personality surrounding the guy, you know, and, you know, pressing legal issues that might affect some of his decision making, and, you know, has said he'll be a dictator.
	Yes, fun.
	Yeah, right.
	And he fucked up a lot in his first presidency.
	You know, he kind of shot himself in the foot several times and had a lot of people kind of stopping him from doing things.
	And while he's not exactly known for learning things, you know, if he's learned from any of those mistakes, the world would be in trouble.
	Smart and cunning are different.
	And the things that would stop him from doing stuff.
	A lot of those, yeah, a lot of those protections were removed by the administration itself and the lack of, and the Democrats absolute lack of responsibility and their part in allowing these things to continue to happen and do something about it to curtail this power in the future.
	And, you know, to varying degrees of what they're able to do, but I don't see them get caught trying.
	But the like, the notion that like, Any president is going to be like more responsible or rational like if someone's already trying to fucking go whole hog and then they can't because they're trying to get reelected and I mean that's that's the complaint and that's the fear that we are all living under right now is that like an unfettered Trump.
	Is the problem is that there is no there will be no accountability there barely was to begin with and if like that's the fear and sure there is fear mongering around that fear because this what is happening right now here in America regards to you know like the choices being made Yeah, in regards to Israel and the relationship with American Israel is indistinguishable from the maximum bad thing is paying for supporting and funding and making excuses for a genocide.
	I think it's easy to conceive that like, yeah, if it looks the same, then what's the point for people to make that argument?
	So, yeah, if Trump doesn't have any... if there are less consequences and there's less accountability, it's reasonable to be afraid.
	Fewer safeguards in general.
	Yeah, it's a big concern.
	So yeah, I disagree with the concepts there.
	And that whole question was quite a lot.
	Because yeah, Russell is saying like, oh, revolution!
	We need new systems!
	We need to do things differently!
	He's also not offering any solutions beyond his idea of tiny theogretic ethnostates.
	And more than that, He's starting to characterize this as a religious war, not even just a spiritual war, a religious war, particularly against secularism and rationalism.
	We've come a long way since our episode with Dawkins, but even then I'm not sure we could have seen this coming specifically.
	It's almost like his solutions are as reasonable and useful as shooting both Political candidates that are running for president into space, which I know you don't think that's going to happen.
	I don't think that Russell has the same kind of conception as you do.
	I mean, I also noticed that you kind of let your ear prick, you mentioned like Lucifer.
	Luciferian.
	Luciferian.
	That's a really convenient trick that I think that Russell is going to invest in and already has, because if you say something is wrong, you have to prove that it's wrong.
	And why?
	If you say that it's evil, and if it's Luciferian or any other synonym for evil, you don't have to prove anything.
	Evil is wrong in and of itself.
	Very convenient.
	Yeah, this is an old school trick, this is, and one that Alex Jones is famous for employing.
	You know, everything's the devil, everything's Luciferian, and he described what we're facing, Russell described what we're facing as the potential apex of evil.
	In a gish gallop, no less.
	Yes, in a gish gallop, and cited secularism and rationalism as Being that, basically.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay.
	That's concerning.
	All right.
	Why is it bad?
	Evil.
	No proof.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Exactly.
	Now, Steve is not a revolutionary.
	He's not one that actually wants to change or upturn the systems that are in place.
	He wants to solidify and isolate them.
	So he, in this next clip, tells Russell to maybe calm it down a little bit.
	Well, I think the first thing, you know, you got to look, it's about a process, right?
	We would love to be able to wish it away and wave a magic wand and have somebody come down and help us and do it.
	We're going to have to do it ourselves.
	There's nobody coming to save us.
	That's why I think the power of your show and your audience And remember, they've tried to cancel you like crazy, also the warm and others.
	People will search this information out.
	And the one thing we know about our viewers, the hardest thing we have to do is keep ahead of the viewers because they're out there all day long getting more information and connecting more dots.
	That's where they're cutting edge.
	We have to, in the process, take care of first things first.
	The reality is we have to take care of the economic structures, and that's going to be a battle all of its own.
	We have to also take of the connective tissue of all this, which is deep state or administrative state actors.
	On that note, I can tell you Trump's going to come in like a crusader from the 11th century.
	Oh, don't like that.
	Given the state of the world today, how much Steve hates Muslims, and the religious war Russell was just talking about, hearing the concept of Trump coming in as a crusader from the 11th century does not feel good.
	So a banker.
	Not enjoying that comparison.
	As an aside, I do love the little bit where he's like, oh yeah, we struggle to keep ahead of our audience because they're out there all day making up bullshit.
	I mean, they're cutting edge.
	They're cutting edge.
	There's also, yeah, and there's a lot of like, you know, flattery in what Steve Bannon says, like a lot of flattery to his audience and to Russell's, that's Absolutely.
	It's smart.
	But yeah, Bannon's broader point is like, well, you know, we need to deal with the system that's there.
	And also there's that ding-dang old deep state to deal with that may handcuff us at every turn.
	So, you know, revolution might not be possible just yet, Russell.
	We need to deal with the economic situation first.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I have a theory.
	I have a theory when this is all wrapped up.
	Uh-huh.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	We get a little more singularity talk from Steve here.
	The thing about tech and all that, it's complicated.
	I know that even people that are with me in the populist movement, there's a lot of divergence about tech.
	A lot of people don't want to get too hard on that.
	I actually want to shatter it and get it back to human scale, even if we have to lose 40 or 50 years of potential innovation.
	I'm all for losing.
	A generation of innovation, as long as this time we do it right and we don't let technology spin out of control, spin out of control of the people's ability to do it.
	And like I said, this is all, and I use Neil Luddite as the best term I can come up with, but you bring up a great point.
	I believe the Luddite's lost.
	Yeah, and I sincerely hope you do, Steve, because your ideas are nuts!
	I'm more than happy to set us back!
	Yeah, right.
	Right?
	But also, like, Russell at least knew that, like, the actual story of the Luddite is complicated.
	At least there was that, you know?
	True, true, true.
	Because I think past Russell wouldn't have been comfortable here, you know?
	Old past Russell came in.
	So Steve is more than happy to set us back 40 or 50 years technologically.
	Within that 40 or 50 years, you know, it could be the cure to cancer or significant things to combat climate change or whatever, but no, fuck it, the singularity's coming, so let's burn it all to the ground!
	And justify the means.
	Which is very easy.
	And justify the means.
	And adding that into his little project is a bit disconcerting.
	And it's very easy for a 70 year old guy to say when he's not going to live to see any of what's going to happen as a consequence that he is successful.
	No!
	Shit!
	No fucking shit!
	What a great point!
	Jesus.
	To impose your will that you will not see the results of and have to live through it.
	No, absolutely not.
	Like, I'll happily, you know, throw this problem down the road till when I'm 120 or more likely very much dead.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And you know what?
	I want to give credit to Mike.
	We were talking last night about, well, some very disconcerting things that are being said by, like, People that are in charge of the Biden campaign, people that are determined to... people that are in charge of this election on the Democrat side, right?
	And they were... why I bring up the, you know, like, rich people, rich people with the power and the resources believing that they are completely ineffective and it's like, we might lose, I don't know!
	And just like, just completely losing the plot is...
	We are listening to the just this tiny minority as far as like mainstream media and in the government people that the talking heads that we are listening to and telling us that there's just a baby and there's nothing we can do we don't know why everything's bad that is what like they are the ones saying it and they're all a million fucking years old so they're not going to have to sit in any of that like they they're the ones potentially the only ones that will not ever have to contend with the consequences of what they're saying and what they're what they're doing.
	They are, again, from their perspective, they're right enough, because they're lazy and it's convenient to be like, well, it's just going to happen and we can't do anything about it.
	This is all just happening, oopsie poopsie.
	Has access to all these bomb trees, which is why they get so many bombs.
	We don't even know where they come from.
	So that's the point.
	We are going to have to listen to how fine and okay everything is, even though it's not.
	And we're going to have to listen to how much the rich and powerful can't do anything about it because they will never have... They're the only ones that will never have to face the consequences that the rest of us will have to fucking sit in.
	And that's exactly what's happening here, too.
	Yeah!
	And so I'm more than happy to just kick that can down the fuckin' road.
	Exactly!
	Because they're not gonna be here to see it.
	They're not gonna be here to see where the can lands.
	And I've said it before, I'll say it again, we need fuckin' age limits on people in public office, for a start.
	That would at least be a start.
	They shouldn't be allowed to gamble with our future.
	And I mean gamble, because there's plenty of input.
	There's plenty of research.
	There is so much knowledge and understanding that they are not applying, and they're going to the one-armed bandit, and they're pulling on a slot machine.
	I think, well, this is one thing.
	It might work.
	Let's throw all our money at it.
	Yep.
	Oh, joy.
	Now, after this, Steve pretty significantly lost the thread and spent a good five minutes talking about a Bible passage, which is something I don't intend to put our audience through because he never actually even arrived at a point with it.
	But we are going to look at Russell's response that goes to a bit of a troubling place.
	Yes, because in a sense, if it is a truly transcendent connection between man and God as established in the figure of Christ, it is by its nature atemporal and aspatial, otherwise the category of transcendent don't mean much at all.
	Therefore, these kind of revelatory epiphanies and declarations in the gospel must be referring
	to this very battle where the sanctified nature of man achieved through Christ's redemption
	is somehow collapsed by the absolute capture of consciousness that this transhuman experiment
	may yet represent.
	That's why it's so important, I believe, for us to be transcendent in our approach to political
	spaces that we must indeed capture the hearts and the minds of entire populations rapidly,
	as well as challenging forces that are extremely powerful, but are, by your reckoning at least,
	about to become yet more powerful when this type of technology is married to the increasing
	centralized globalist authoritarianism that we're now facing.
	I see no way but God.
	I see no way through this but the expression of the highest possible principles and from that place I feel that we can be absolutist when it comes to the rights of every individual.
	We can be absolutist when it comes to what constitutes the right to bring people to a state of war and what doesn't.
	And I feel that this is the point that we are at now.
	Indeed, the War Room seems to be an apposite term for what we are about to encounter, Steve.
	I see no way but God, I see no way through this but the expression of the highest possible principles, And from that place, I feel that we can be absolutist when it comes to the rights of every individual.
	We can be absolutist when it comes to what constitutes the right to bring people to a state of war, and what doesn't.
	And I feel that this is the point we are at now.
	Indeed, the war room seems to be an apposite term for what we are about to encounter, Steve.
	I wanted to read that back to everyone to check that that is in fact what I've just heard, and whether saying it out loud would make it any less fucking crazy, but here we are.
	So he's doubling down.
	We are, according to Russell, on the brink of what he defines as a religious war.
	Like, it wasn't a throwaway statement before.
	He seems to mean at least a degree of this, and I think we're gonna have to keep an eye on this.
	He's said that a lot before.
	Well, he said spiritual war, and in much vaguer and gentler terms.
	We're seeing a marked kind of amping up of this.
	And I don't know if it's just because Steve Bannon's there and he's all about the war kind of side of it.
	Well, I think he's certainly getting bigger in his britches, for sure.
	But also, as we document every single week, he is having these ideas bolstered and reinforced, and he's getting more ammo.
	But yeah, he's wanted... He has not shied away from understanding... Spiritual warfare and religious war are not... I don't think that Russell... I think that Russell was couching it differently in order to make it palatable to his audience.
	I don't think that his beliefs have changed at all.
	But yeah, you're right in saying that he feels more...
	I mean, again, I think that he's adjusting.
	The thing is, he can learn.
	He's adjusting from what he's hearing.
	It's just not okay.
	I mean, the notion that a lot of the stuff that he absolutely wants and hasn't already been attempted is absurd.
	It's not a problem of ambition.
	It's a problem of enforcement.
	And it's a problem of organization.
	So you can wish and hope and pray and think that things are going to work out and that life is going to be grand and we all just need to agree.
	Why can't we all just get along?
	But that's not practical, and it's not enforceable, and it's not organizable.
	So like, and I would say that a lot of my complaints with like, the, my, you know, like the, my argument to Steve Bannon's bizarre arguments, it's not a problem of ambition or outlining a, like a, you know, it's not a problem of even a conception of something better, it's the enforcement and what actually happens whenever we're trying to make the world better.
	And there's just not Like, if all the rich, powerful people are babies and insist on being babies, enforcement isn't going to happen.
	Organization isn't going to happen.
	And funding isn't going to happen.
	And it's not going to happen.
	Yeah.
	No, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	So from here, we have one more clip, which is Steve Bannon leaving the show.
	Now, What I've taken clips from is the Locals version of this interview, which has a delightfully awkward ending that I enjoyed, but it was naturally cut from the version that went up onto Rumble, so we get to enjoy that at least!
	Well, thank you.
	Like I said, there are many bigger picture issues that I'm just one small player in.
	I'm kind of like a field commander of one part of the army, of a vast legion.
	And I just know my task and purpose is to, here in the United States, is to assist President Trump in returning to power and grow the MAGA movement and make sure the MAGA movement, at least on a political scale here, begins the process of having the Shire start to take control back from our sociopathic overlords.
	Yeah, thanks, man.
	Steve, that's a fantastic conversation.
	I feel like I could talk to you forever.
	I'd love to come on your show at your convenience and I'm most grateful to you for your time.
	Thanks.
	Love your show and love your audience.
	Keep up the great work.
	I certainly will.
	I'm going to be in touch if that's okay.
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you, Steve.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	Cheers.
	Cheers, mate.
	Oh.
	Oh boy.
	Rough.
	Aww.
	Should happen to him.
	So for those listening, in the end they had Russell saying, cheers mate, and waving at Steve who is completely oblivious, has taken his earpiece out, and has otherwise chanted to his producer.
	I think, justifiably, Steve thought that the feed was over.
	Cause someone else was in charge of that.
	That's not Steve's problem.
	That's funny.
	I mean, at least, I mean, you know, it's, he wasn't like on mic and confessing to a murder, but that was certainly a weird, like, you know, we know it can be more dire, but that was at least no, I don't know.
	I was like, is someone going to say something fucked up?
	Nope.
	Nope, okay. (laughs)
	Yeah, no, no, no, no.
	(both laughing)
	I've been, there's a bit of a hot mic.
	Yes, yeah.
	Oh god, that Russell guy.
	What an asshole.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Can I come on your show, please, Steve?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	We'd love to have you, Russell.
	Come along.
	Bless him.
	Anyway, that's Steve Bannon.
	That's Steve Bannon on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	Wow.
	Yeah, there was a lot there, honestly.
	There are, in my orbit of media, obviously I have tried to educate myself as much as I possibly can on Steve Bannon.
	Genuinely, I thought he was three different people for like a while, like when I was learning about a bunch of stuff.
	Like I had to, because he has done so much fucked up stuff, I had to be like, oh no, that's the same guy.
	Oh no, that's the same guy!
	It's one person that has so much power and has so many resources, and I literally could not conceive of one person having so many grips and schemes just cooking at the same time with only succeeding.
	Zero repercussions.
	I am surprised this Happened, and I don't know, I think it's really illuminating.
	I didn't think that Steve... Another thing that, like, almost concerns me is how patient that Steve Bannon is with Russell.
	Like, he really appears, and maybe he genuinely does, like, feel kindness and wants to give space... wants to hold space for Russell.
	Because what I said earlier is that Russell is...
	Or that Steve Bannon is so much smarter than Russell.
	And I'm not saying that Russell doesn't have the capacity and is incapable of being as intelligent as Steve Bannon.
	What I'm saying is intelligence as applied, the way that Steve Bannon has applied his intelligence, his intelligence, cunning, book smarts, all of it, it requires discipline.
	And Steve Bannon has done the work.
	Steve Bannon is very disciplined and insists on being disciplined.
	And also, I think he understands that just not having the feed cut off, he's not going to yell at anybody because he knows it's not important.
	It's not a superficial thing.
	He has this kind of internal, his own compass.
	Russell has the capacity, but I think as we have demonstrated, he doesn't have the discipline.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And Steve, I mean, Steve has to be an incredibly patient man.
	I mean, he was Trump's campaign manager, you know, he must be.
	It has to be entertaining.
	Genuinely, I think, like, he has to sit back and be like, okay, do another twirl in your new little dress.
	Get the shoes, baby!
	Like, you know, it's like, tell me all about your new haircut!
	Give it a shake, you know?
	Like, it has to be, like, because a person like that, I just would assume, because I guess I haven't seen him interact very much, as you know, I'll hear, like, just what he says in an interview, not seeing him interact with another person, that I would assume, if you asked me before, like, when we started, will Steve Bannon visibly loathe Russell?
	Yes.
	And I would say yes.
	Right, yeah, yeah.
	And I stand corrected.
	That was absolutely my conception on the outset, and I was like, this is gonna be rich.
	And I saw the exact opposite, which I am also not protecting my prior notion.
	I'm very relieved that I was corrected because at least I'm more informed and it's interesting in its own way.
	So having that kind of like... Being able to be so magnanimous and respectful It also doesn't necessarily expose his motives or view.
	I think if you see that there are tiers of people, some of whom are your equals and some of whom are conveniently popular and will entertain you, And are dumber than you, then you have a lot of leeway to again, do what he is going, which is the ends justify the means.
	So Russell's ends, you know, if the way that he's talking is not necessarily, I mean, you know, just kind of like watching him spin his wheels, because it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things for Steve and his intention.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	The point is audience capture.
	A hundred percent.
	That's what I was going to say.
	You know, it's Steve.
	Steve, I think, knows which way the bread is buttered with Russell.
	And Russell is on the rise in these circles.
	Butter is on the same side for both.
	Yes, exactly.
	You know, and so, oh yeah, love you, Russell.
	Of course I want to hear your perspectives on all these things.
	Yeah, please, please tell me all about your tiny theocratic ethnostates.
	I'd love to know more.
	Tell my little story.
	You want to come tell your little story on my show?
	Come on.
	Spreading his perspectives, encouraging more people to go over to the War Room and check him out and all that stuff.
	Yeah, that's a hundred percent it.
	And, you know, there's no telling with Russell where he's going to end up in the near future as well because he has that trend of failing spectacularly upwards and, you know, he's floated the idea of, yeah, fucking off to Bali and setting up a cult.
	He's floated the idea of Setting up within his stay free movement, you know engaging in political office and that kind of thing You know that there is no telling specifically where this guy's gonna go So, I mean if he's in your circle best to keep him on side, you know, cuz hey who knows?
	Yeah, because also what he's shown is that he doesn't have the discipline to do it on his own.
	So that's literally all we can hope for is he does not have the discipline to follow through on these ideas that are the most problematic and the most potentially harmful.
	Yep.
	Sweet!
	Yeah, and you know, when, I don't know, there may even be a degree of Steve kind of looking at him and be like, Yeah, maybe I can do something with this guy.
	This guy's, um, this guy's useful.
	This guy's useful in at least some kind of way.
	Yeah, there is a potential, isn't there?
	And that's also what he's explained, you know, like, that's how he sees Nigel Farage.
	Like, he's trying to test him out to see what works.
	Yeah.
	And he's going to support, like, once he finds something that works, he's going to back it 100%.
	And we need to be very worried.
	Vigilant is what we need to be.
	Both.
	Yes.
	Take it fucking seriously.
	Yep.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely.
	By the time he tells you what really works and he's telegraphing it, it's already, like, it's too late.
	It's already working.
	Yeah, it's too late to fix.
	And this is what makes me very concerned about Nigel Farage potentially becoming the leader of the Conservative Party.
	I'm like, oh no!
	Entirely valid.
	But I think that, um, I don't know if he has the juice to be a Trump.
	The thing is, like, For Steve's immediate plan to work, there is a wild card that he can't... I think that he's acutely aware that Trump came with a lot of settings already locked in, like public persona and charisma and the branding of being a rich guy, and that populist kind of attitude.
	Media, not to say discipline, but like comfort and being able to wind the media around his fucking little finger.
	He's been able to do that for decades before he ever ran for president.
	Well, also all the times he also ran for president, before he ran for president.
	And so that's, it's really tough to find that person.
	But I think that once Steve does, he's not going to tell us right away.
	And he's going to throw everything he's got at us.
	I could see it happening with Nigel Farage, with a little bit of work, I could see that coming, because there are definitely parallels in terms of skill set, and you know, because Nigel Farage is such a, when you think of him, you think of nationalism, like that's, you know, it's intertwined with him, and so if he can If he can capitalize on that, you know, and allow that to kind of strike a mood within the country, it's definitely possible.
	Right.
	Definitely possible.
	We'll pit in that too, because I think that we're going to talk a little more about the stuff on Off-Brand.
	We're probably going to have a little bit of a potpourri episode, but I think that, yeah, I think that's a good thing too.
	I have my theory that I'd like to expand upon.
	Okay, and we shall do that in Off-Brand.
	But hey, if you want to support us on what we do, head to patreon.com slash onbrand.
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	Yeah!
	And the rest of you, we'll see you next week for... I don't know what.
	I don't know what.
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	Yep.
	Take care of yourselves and each other.
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	Bye!
	That's not win-win-win.
	That's lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

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