Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein critique Chuck Todd's Rolling Stone interview, arguing he trivializes Trump's false crowd claims while ignoring consequential corporate disinformation like Iraq WMDs. They expose NBC's Brian Williams' lies and question why anchors like Rachel Maddow blame alternative media for low trust despite their own fabrications. The discussion extends to Steven Pinker's libertarian views, challenging the idea that social spending equals moral progress and asserting that voluntary taxation would reveal true public support for redistribution. Ultimately, the episode suggests corporate media prioritizes ratings over credibility, creating perverse incentives that sustain narratives rather than seeking truth. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Government Too Big00:06:39
Fill her up!
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Cheers your host, James Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
It's me, the most consistent motherfucker.
You know, Dave Smith.
And of course, as always, I'm joined by the king of the cocks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What's up, brother?
It's like having a second Christmas.
It is kind of a bonus episode with you in the middle of a Thursday afternoon.
Yeah, there you go.
That's right.
They're all bonus episodes, really.
If you think about it, 500-plus bonus episodes that we've brought you on this podcast.
We never even really do regular episodes.
That's my new thing.
How was Goy Christmas?
It was great.
It's great.
A lot of fun.
It's undeniable.
Just a better holiday.
Better holiday than Hanukkah.
You missed out over all the years?
Yeah, I think we all knew we were always missing out.
Didn't you know you were missing out all that time?
Of course.
It's just more fun.
I don't know, man.
I've had some good Hanukkah moments.
Some jelly donuts, some latkes.
Yeah, they have food there too, Rob.
There's food on the other side.
I went to an Italian Christmas.
There's enough food to feed Mussolini's army at these.
Dude, I had the most Jewish Christmas bagels and locks and smoked white fish.
I do love a bagel with locks.
It was a Jew celebration for the ages.
Yeah, that's the one area I'll never lose Jewish faith in.
It's the smoked fish on a bagel.
Just fucking perfect.
Sorry.
Sorry to disappoint my right-wing audience, but I love it.
But yeah, no, it was great.
It's a lot of fun, man.
Because last year, you know, my daughter was born in December.
So this was her second Christmas, technically.
But last year, she's like a newborn.
She's a few weeks old.
And it's just, it was such a pain to traveling with a newborn is just, it's a nightmare.
And, you know, she doesn't.
And you know that you're just pissing everybody else off, too.
It's just an inconvenience for everybody involved.
And the baby doesn't care at all.
It's like, you know, at a few weeks old, the baby's concerns are like, where's my mother's boobs?
That's about it.
They should have segregation between people with babies and people without.
I mean, separate but equal.
Sure.
That sounds reasonable to me.
Reasonable legal order, which is what we're all about on this show.
But this year at one year, at one year old, one year in a couple weeks, I mean, the baby just loves it.
Loves hanging out with the family, loves getting passed around, loves opening presents, really into it.
A little bit more into the wrapping paper than the actual presents, but still, like, you know, she gets an Elmo and her face lights up, and it's just so much fun.
So it was really, really great.
And I love my wife's family.
I'm lucky in that regard.
Her family is really great.
I like every one of them.
And we just have a lot of fun, just drinking and talking shit.
And it was great.
Great time.
I think you're supposed to hate your in-laws, right?
Isn't that the like kind of hacky like joke, right?
That you always like hate your mother-in-law.
But that would really suck.
I'm glad my wife's family is awesome.
I love all of them.
Thank God.
Life would be a lot less fun if they sucked.
But anyway, yeah, so I had a great time.
Hope all you guys did as well.
I watched It's a Wonderful Life at one point.
Forgot how good that movie was.
I don't know.
Great fucking movie.
I don't think I've ever seen it.
Great movie.
Great.
Just black and white.
And, you know, you never saw?
Is that when Santa comes to town, but he's not there as Santa?
No.
It's not with the guy from Jurassic Park.
No, you're thinking Miracle on 34th Street.
Oh, okay.
What's it's a wonderful life?
It's the one, it's the one where he breaks down fractional reserve banking at one point.
I was talking about that last episode, which is one of my favorite scenes in a movie.
I mean, they do it from the point of view of like fractional reserve banking being great.
Like, they're like, well, Joe, your money's over with Steve, and it's building up the farm and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Of course, you can't have your money now.
It's like a guy who, spoiler alert, it's a guy who it's a thing the movie was put out in 1947.
So it's if you know, if you haven't gotten around to see it yet, this is partly on you.
But it's about a guy who he ultimately gets to the point of trying to kill himself, and then his guardian angel comes down and he wishes that he was never born.
And then he shows him what life would be like if he was never born.
And then people are so happy.
No.
They're just celebrating.
No, everything's thrown out of whack.
It's a very bad life when he's not for everybody else.
So he gets to see his contribution.
That's right.
And then he's like, oh my God, I wish I was born.
I wish I'd never wished this.
And then he goes back to his normal life.
And then he really appreciates his family.
He's a real dickhead to his family until he sees what life would be like if he was never born.
And then all of a sudden, he loves his kids and his wife.
And then a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.
I don't know.
It's just a good, feel-good movie.
It's back the better time when America was Christian and white.
And there's a couple black people.
There's a couple black people in the movie, but they're not very consequential.
But yeah, no.
But it is amazing to see.
It really is amazing to see a movie from the 40s and to see when you watch it.
Like, just like, obviously, Hollywood is Hollywood.
I'm not suggesting movies are real life.
I don't.
What I'm trying to say is I don't think there were actually guardian angels running around on Christmas in the 40s.
But it does give you, like, when you see a movie from the 40s, it gives you a little feel of what the country was like, what their entertainment was like.
And man, it really is such a different country.
Just such a different country already than it was, you know.
I mean, 60 years is or whatever is, you know, a long time.
70 years.
It's a long time.
But it's not so long that, like, you know, it's, you know, it's your grandpa.
Like, that's how long ago that movie is.
It's not, it's like one person.
There are people who are living today who cover that whole time period.
It's not that crazy.
Not even, you know, for people my age, it's your parents, basically.
Anyway, but yeah, a really great, really great Christmas.
Really great Christmas.
Media Role in Disinformation00:07:29
So we have a whole bunch of like, you know, a little bit of scheduling problems this week.
And obviously, we usually record Wednesday.
We're recording Thursday now.
And there's a bunch of shows recording.
We're a little bit pinched for time.
I'm sorry.
I know I'll get some shit about that.
But it's a bonus episode.
But they're all bonus episodes, so you can't really complain about it.
But there are a few things that I wanted to talk about.
So let's jump in for today's show.
So the first thing that caught my eye, because I haven't, you know, I was celebrating Christmas with the families.
I'm sure lots of you were.
And I saw as I was coming home this morning that Chuck Todd, our favorite, our favorite guy in media, Chuck Todd, was trending on Twitter.
And you know, it's pretty funny already is that this is just the world we live in now.
When you see Chuck Todd, who's look, Meet the Press is the longest running, I believe it's the longest running show on television.
It's the longest running news show on television for sure.
It still carries with it, like Meet the Press just kind of has this feel of like it's the news show.
This is like the show that represents media in America.
And Chuck Todd, of course, is the moderator.
And I believe he's like the political director at NBC News or MSNBC, something like something.
He's got some big fancy title.
But in today's world, when you see Chuck Todd is trending, that's all I saw was trending, hashtag Chuck Todd.
And you just already know, right, right inside of me, I get filled with a little bit of excitement because you know this is going to be delightfully embarrassing.
Like it's not like Chuck Todd's just trending, like and people are like, what a wonderful journalist Chuck Todd is.
You know, of course, it's something just hilarious.
And he was interviewed by Rolling Stone, and there's been a lot of backlash over this interview, both from the left and the right.
And I thought we would go through the article and take it apart ourselves because I think as usual with these things, we might have a slightly different critique than the typical right-wing or left-wing critique of this interview.
But I did think it was interesting and a little bit of a window into the mind of Chuck Todd and a guy who runs, you know, is right at the center of the mainstream media, the corporate press, somebody who's like right, you know, one of one of the biggest names, if not the biggest name, there, who's supposed to be, you know, Mr. Objective Journalist, not like, you know, Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow or someone like that.
This isn't just some guy who has like a late-night opinion-based show.
This is the moderator of Meet the Press.
Okay, so this was from Rolling Stone.
It's up on rollingstone.com if you guys want to check it up.
And it's titled How Disinformation Spreads According to Chuck Todd.
And then the subtitle is Chuck Todd has had a front row seat for the spread of disinformation.
Here's how he sees it happening and the media's role in it.
So, you know, by the way, I really agree with that subtitle.
Does he start with like the first mistake is that people go to non-traditional news sources.
Originally, they only came to NBC and CNN when they got the best take.
Well, you're not the true take.
Well, I would just say with that subtitle, I really do agree.
I mean, Chuck Todd has had a front row seat for the spread of disinformation.
That's for sure.
I will agree with the pieces by Peter Wade in Rolling Stone.
I would agree with Mr. Wade on that.
Chuck Todd's been real close to the front.
You know, he's seen a lot of the disinformation.
And then he said, and then, of course, here's how he sees it happening and the media's role in it.
So let's see how he sees it happening and the media's role in the spread of disinformation.
All right, to the piece.
So this is Peter Wade's article, and it's an interview as well.
So Chuck Todd has had a front row seat for the spread of disinformation while hosting MSNBC's Meet the Press.
Whether it was Kellyanne Conaway using the phrase, quote, alternative facts to dispute her report, to dispute media reports about the crowd size at Trump's inauguration, Senator John Kennedy blatantly using Russian talking points to blame Ukraine for interfering in the 2016 election, or Senator Ted Cruz spreading Russian conspiracy theories.
Todd has seen it all.
I spoke with Todd about the erosion of truth ahead of the upcoming December 29th special edition of Meet the Press that will focus on journalism and the weaponization of disinformation and feature guests such as Marty Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post, Dean Backett, executive editor of the New York Times, Masha Gesson, and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFowell.
Okay, so Just to start with, so jumping on the fact that Kellyanne Conaway used the term alternative facts, which is, you know, of course, they're taking it out of context.
But right away, if you're talking about the spread of disinformation, and it's just of note that there's three examples that he throws out.
The three examples are that Kellyanne Conaway said alternative facts when she was disputing the crowd size at Trump's inauguration.
I just look, man, if you were to talk about lies in the media, like really consequential lies that have come out of these big media conglomerates, the crowd size at an inauguration being the first one that you go to, like that's that's what you have here is that yes, Donald Trump said it was the biggest crowd in the history of presidential inaugurations.
It wasn't.
He lied about that.
It's amazing to me how these mainstream media types they always focus on what is to everybody else.
You know, everybody, again, I have to say, there's no other way to say it.
Everyone not suffering from Trump derangement syndrome.
Everybody else out there, even people who really don't, and that does not mean people who like Donald Trump.
There are people who really, really don't like Donald Trump, myself included, who just don't suffer from the syndrome.
Like even people like, you know, Glenn Greenwell, Glenn Greenwald and, you know, Aaron Matei and Jimmy Dore and, you know, other people like this on the left, I could name.
These are people who really, really don't like Donald Trump, would very much like to see someone else as president, but they don't have the syndrome.
So they don't just go like, well, the CIA must be trusted because I don't like Donald Trump.
That's when you have this derangement syndrome.
But the truth is, for everybody outside of that, everybody not afflicted with that mental illness.
These lies, like when Trump tells a lie, like my crowd was the biggest crowd ever, I'm the greatest ever, brags about how big his buildings are, or whatever.
You know, it's like, this is the most obvious and boring point to make at this point, almost four years into Trump's presidency.
Unwitting Russian Assets00:03:34
It's like, yes, obviously.
We all know this.
Like Donald Trump bullshits for his own ego.
He builds himself up.
You know, that's what Donald Trump does.
Okay.
Obviously.
Who didn't know that about Trump a decade, two decades, three decades before he won the White House?
This is the least interesting part of it.
But that's, of course, the first thing in there.
And then after that, it's John Kennedy's blatantly using Russian talking points to blame Ukraine for interfering in the 2016 election or Ted Cruz spreading Russian conspiracy theories.
Look, this is it's gotten into bonkers, bonkers world.
So it's that if somebody says that they think Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, now we don't, you don't have to demonstrate how they didn't.
You don't have to have any information about what, well, what evidence do we have that they did interfere?
What evidence do we have that they didn't anything?
There's no conversation like that.
That's a conservative talking point.
Well, it's not even a conservative talking point.
That's the same argument, though.
It's right.
We don't even need to address whether or not that this is factually accurate.
That's right.
But now it's not just a conservative talking point.
It's a Russian conspiracy.
It's a Putin talking point, which is really like a bananas claim to make.
And then, of course, if you say anything that, you know, it's kind of a clever tactic because if you say anything that could be construed as something that Putin or Russia would benefit from, then you're a Russian puppet.
You're a Russian asset, witting or unwitting, right?
That's the new thing.
So you don't even have to be like, you know, it's not that there's a connection, like you're on the dole.
It's not even that you mean to be a Russian asset.
Now they'll accuse you of being an unwitting Russian asset, like Hillary Clinton accused Tulsi Gabbard of being.
So anything that could benefit them, of course, if you examine this for like, I don't know, seven seconds soberly, and you have an IQ of like 82 or above, you could kind of figure out that that's kind of a flawed measure.
Like if you, so like, if you're just advocating something that could benefit Russia, it's like, I don't know, like, let's say I were to say, I don't think we should have a war with Russia.
Well, that could benefit Russia.
So I guess I'm unwittingly now a Russian asset.
And by the way, this is exactly what was hurled at people like me when I was advocating that we don't fight a war in Syria.
It's like, well, you know who benefits from that?
Putin.
Well, it's like, yes, that's true.
That doesn't mean it's wrong or that anything I said isn't like good advice.
So yes, Vladimir Putin might benefit from that.
Also, our military guys who have to go fight the war might benefit from that.
Also, the Syrian people might benefit from that.
Also, you know, might save some wasted money.
So there could be benefits all around.
But just to give another example, right?
Like if you, let's say, in 2002, you were out there making the argument that Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction and we shouldn't go fight this war in Iraq, you could have easily said, well, you know who benefits from this?
Saddam Hussein.
And sure, that's true.
Saddam Hussein would benefit from that.
But to accuse anybody of being, you know, an unwitting...
That's a sane talking point.
Benefits of War Spending00:15:29
Right, right.
You're an unwitting asset of Saddam Hussein.
It's like, well, no, maybe I just don't want to see a disastrous war, you know?
And I pick the Iraq war as an example because it's pretty widely recognized at this point that that was an oopsie.
So in addressing, I guess, all the misinformation that exists in this political climate, they must at least reference CNN claiming that there was Russia collusion for two whole years.
Yes, of course.
You'd think, you know, it's just so funny that you're going to have a conversation about the, you know, low trust in the media or just a conversation about Russian conspiracies.
I mean, wrong every day for two full years.
I mean, I think that at least get an honorable mention or some sort of review here.
I'm sure it will.
I'm sure it will.
There's no way.
I mean, they're honest people.
That's why they're looking into this.
Yes, of course, obviously.
But you can't question the brave men and women of the corporate press.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, so back to the article.
Rolling Stone, this is the interview portion.
What made you decide to devote an entire show to the topic of disinformation and fake news?
Chuck Todd.
For the last two or three years, we've been pondering a social media special like this.
Last year, we focused on climate change, but we had not done climate change.
But had we not done climate change, we were in the social media world thinking about what it was doing to our politics.
And then you realize it's the misinformation.
This is bigger than social media.
The Ukraine story for me really crystallized it.
And for good or bad, our show has been at the forefront of this.
The first Sunday of the Trump administration is when the phrase, quote, alternative facts was debuted.
It was on Meet the Press that Rudy Giuliani used the phrase, truth isn't truth.
So look, whether we'd like it or not, our platform has been used or they've attempted to use our platform to essentially disseminate or to sort of, what would I say, is lay the groundwork for this.
And it's clearly an epidemic.
And I think that if a special like this is only seen by people who already believe we have a problem, it is a reminder.
I'm a big supporter of something called the new literacy project.
My fear is the next news consumers, how will they know truth from fiction?
How will they have the tools to discern this?
I think our biggest problem going into 2020 is that we have two sets of standards simply on political advertising.
If you choose to advertise on cable or television, on linear television, there's a certain set of standards on fact that you have to surpass in order to get your ad on the television.
Not the case on social media.
And we have seen the Trump campaign literally use two different ads.
One that allows them to say their misinformation about Biden in the areas that they can.
So part of this is putting it all in one place as almost as almost as an educational exercise, if you will, to show we have a systematic issue here.
So of course, that's the problem, is that there's, you know, I mean, he's might be saying in a slightly different way, but that it's like, hey, we're supposed to be the gatekeepers and we're not really allowed to be the gatekeepers anymore.
And people are getting their information in other places.
So, you know, forget the fact that you're taking this kind of truth isn't truth and alternative facts quotes out of context, which they are in both cases.
But it might lead you to ask yourself, well, what is the, like, what are the real problems that have come as a result of this misinformation?
I mean, what information is it that they got wrong?
And what have the disastrous results been?
I remember arguing with Brian Stelter, our favorite little piggy, over at CNN when I was still working there last year, or a year and a half ago now, this was.
And we were arguing about there was, what was the shooting?
Oh, Casey, it was the it was that shooting in Florida, the Florida High School.
What was the name of it?
The where all the kids became famous, David Hogg and all those guys became famous afterward, after that, that school shooting.
And there was a video that claimed it was like all an inside job, like they were paid crisis actors or something like that, which I don't think is true.
And the video was like trending number one on YouTube or Twitter or something like that.
So it got a lot of heat.
And I think part of that is, you know, part of it is that people are very open to these conspiracies.
Part of it is that some people really hardcore believe in these conspiracies.
And part of it is just that something like that probably has a very clickbaity title, you know, and if right after a mass shooting, people are like, the whole thing is bullshit.
People are like, what?
Let me check this out.
And he was like, this is dangerous and crazy.
And I said to him at one point, I go, well, what's really so dangerous about this?
I mean, like, what's the danger?
So if somebody doesn't believe that these kids really got shot, it's like, and I said, I was like, I believe it.
I believe they did get that kids were killed.
But that being said, someone doesn't believe it.
So what happens from that?
What's like the big, and he couldn't, he couldn't give me like a real consequence.
It was something vague, like, well, then their trust in institutions is undermined or something like that, which, you know, to me is kind of just wonderful.
But that was, you know, I was like that.
I go, okay, so how about if I'm sold on the fake news that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?
Now, what comes of that?
What's the disaster that's brought on from that?
And it's like, I could really point to some shit.
You know, you can see the piles of bodies from that mistake.
Like, maybe a nation is destroyed and a region is destabilized and hundreds of thousands of people are killed and millions are displaced.
You know, like that's the result of that lie.
So let's just go, if we're really going to say that disinformation is such a problem, okay, let's look at the disinformation that comes out of the corporate press.
Let's look at the disinformation that comes out of the internet, which I'm not suggesting there isn't disinformation on the internet, but how consequential is it really?
That doesn't seem to be a conversation that ever comes up in these interviews.
All right.
So Rolling Stone asked another question.
Let me bring you back a little bit.
Were you surprised by the consistency that the Trump administration was willing to spread disinformation with Sean Spicer, Sean Spicer's initial press briefing when he lied about the crowd size at the inauguration?
Were you surprised that the president and other administration's officials and their allies just kept it going?
I was shocked.
I spent a day and morning when I discovered that a person at a press conference might lie to the American people.
Well, let's, by the way, you're not far off.
I fully admit, this is Chuck Todd.
I fully admit listening to you ask that question now and giving me your honest answer of, yeah, I guess I really believed they wouldn't do this.
Just so absurdly naive in hindsight.
Donald Trump's entire life has been spent using misinformation, his entire life.
I've spent years studying him now and trying to figure out how did this guy even learn politics?
Where did he learn?
And the more you learn, you realize he learned at the feet of the master of deception in Roy Cohen, who learned at the feet of the original master in deception of sort of the modern political error in Joe McCarthy.
So, I mean, if people want to read my answer to your question, boy, that Chuck Todd was hopelessly naive.
Yeah, it looks pretty naive.
I think we all made the mistake of not following Tony Morrison's advice, which when people tell you who they are, believe them.
And then there's an editor note because that was actually Maya Angelou who said that, not Tony.
I don't know who any of the people he just mentioned are.
Okay, so Roy Cohen was like this mob lawyer who worked for Trump and Joe McCarthy was Senator Joe McCarthy, the McCarthy error.
Okay.
So the anti-communist warrior.
So, which by the way, he was more right than he was wrong.
Anyway, so here you have it going back.
So here's something that I found interesting about that.
First off, the most hilarious part is that he mixed up his black authors and gave Tony Morrison credit for Maya Angelou's show.
By the way, woke Twitter, bashing Chuck Todd for that mistake.
Really?
That's the one that I'd let go the quickest is just stupid, but it's pretty funny.
But yeah, he's getting bashed by woke Twitter for that.
So the funny thing here to me is that it kind of reminded me of the Comey interview where Comey is going, they're like, well, the IG says that this was either gross negligence or intentionality.
And he's like, well, he didn't find intentionality.
So I think I was pretty much exonerated in that.
And it's like, so you're clinging to gross negligence now and you're proud of this.
Like this is, you have no problem saying this.
So even by Chuck Todd's own defense here, he's saying, I suck at my job.
That's even Chuck.
That's Chuck Todd's defense on this.
I was so naive that I never thought that the president and like as you ribbingly pointed out before, which really is hilarious.
I never imagined that a press secretary could be lying to me.
You realize what a press secretary does, right?
They lie.
They're the president's liar.
This is not new to Donald Trump.
And of course, I've played this clip before.
We'll probably play it again at some point on the show.
But Obama's first press secretary joked.
on MSNBC, on Chuck Todd's network, about how they lied their ass off about the drone program and how they were instructed to not answer any questions about drones.
And this is back in the first couple years of Obama's administration when they weren't even admitting that there was a drone program.
They're like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about.
They got bad microwaves in that country and they really like popcorn.
It was actually that people in fucking like Yemen and these different places in Pakistan and shit with their shitty little grainy like Nokia phone cameras were taking pictures of crash drones.
And eventually they were like, yeah, these are American.
Like, see, these are American-made drones.
What are they doing here in Yemen?
What are they doing in Pakistan?
Before they finally admit it.
And this was a lie.
This isn't a lie about a crowd size.
This was a lie about a war that they're conducting.
So anyway, even by Chuck Todd's own admission here, he's, you know, he's saying I'm very, very bad at my job.
I was so naive that I didn't see the possibility that government officials could be lying to me.
Okay, so then they go on.
The other thing that really stands out to me there is that he says that Trump learned a deception from the master of deception, Roy Cohen, who learned at the feet of the original master of deception of sort of the modern political error in Joe McCarthy.
And it's pretty funny that they don't see the irony in like bashing Joe McCarthy when they have become a much worse cartoon version of modern McCarthyism.
Like everything that they tell you that's wrong about Joseph McCarthy is, I mean, they start this by accusing two Republicans, sitting members of Congress, of being Russian assets, that they're spreading Russian disinformation, right?
This is, at least Joseph McCarthy existed during the actual Soviet Union.
There were real card-carrying communist members then.
There were actual communist infiltrators in the State Department.
We know this all for a fact now.
You guys are just ghost hunting.
Just ghost hunting.
The Soviet Union does not exist anymore.
It broke up.
And since the Soviet Union collapsed, all that's been going on is NATO aggression, U.S.-led NATO aggression moving further and further east.
So this whole thing is just, it's really, it's hard to even imagine that it's real.
But yeah, so this is Chuck Todd.
He was naive, but obviously Trump's a liar and he realizes it now at some point.
So Rolling Stone asks, in your recent interview with Senator John Kennedy, he used Russian talking points to defend Trump.
Somehow he gets that disinformation from Russia.
Why do you think Republicans are willing to come on your show and run that exact line?
There's Chuck Todd.
The fact is, and by the way, this isn't going to be easy to show, but I actually think when we outline this, it will.
The right has an incentive structure to utter this misinformation.
Look, I'll just be honest.
When I had the third senator to spread Russian disinformation, Senator Ted Cruz, come on my show and do this, who I did not expect to do this.
I started to think he wants the confrontation.
He wants to use this for some sort of appeasement of the right.
I didn't know what else to think.
I was stunned because he's a Russian hawk.
He spent his entire week showcasing his hawkishness on Russia, threatening the administration on the pipeline in Germany, and really be there.
So the reason, and I'm sorry I ever showed an expression, the reason that that expression on my face went viral, I think, I was genuinely shocked.
And by the way, they came to us.
They came to us saying they wanted to come on this week.
And I really naively thought, maybe he wants to remind people that with Russia and blaming Ukraine, this is getting ridiculous.
And it turned out not to be the case.
So I do think one of the things I want to explore on this is the incentive structure.
One of the things we don't fully appreciate in mainstream media on these attacks is that it's become fun to attack the press.
If that makes sense on the right, it doesn't matter if we're right or wrong.
Attack them anyway.
This is, to me, the greater challenge we have, which is that pretending that the media is a liar or fake news and all this stuff is sport.
Trump has turned this into sport.
People that are the loudest chanters of fake news and accusatory of us are the ones who are under a lie detector would probably take our word over any other word they've heard from the other side on whether something was poisonous or not.
Hannity says drink it and so-and-so, so-and-so says don't.
Who do you trust?
So I do think that that is something that this sort of cheering on falsehoods for sport.
Wow, we have gone off the rails on the right side of the sillow and the conversation that's taking place.
Okay, so that was pretty incredible.
A pretty incredible answer.
Cheering on Falsehoods for Sport00:07:01
And he doesn't even, of course, see the irony of where he's going like, oh, you know, when, you know, Ted Cruz comes on and he's a Russian asset too.
I mean, he's repeating Russian disinformation.
And I was shocked because he's a Russia hawk.
So man, it's so crazy that even the Russian hawk is a Russian asset.
It's like, well, but maybe then the answer is that he's not.
And he's not repeating Russian disinformation.
He must have good proof that this is solely Russian disinformation.
Right.
I mean, that seems like it must be proven fact in the way that he's accusing Ted Cruz.
Which is crazy because Ted Cruz is this guy who's basically pushing us closer and closer to war with Russia.
And even he's working for the Russians.
I love the idea of studying the incentive structures.
Maybe we can get the incentive structure behind some of these news networks and the relationship with the CIA and Warhawks.
Isn't it so information?
So just amazing that you could have this conversation.
You know, it kind of like, again, I was saying before, it reminds me of Comey.
Now his answer is reminding me of Hillary Clinton and writing this book, What Happened, and going on this whole tour about all of these forces that cheated her out of the election.
And here you have, you know, this candidate, Donald Trump, who you were just supposed to beat.
You, like, first off, anybody would have probably said at a certain point in time that Trump was like, you know, if Hillary Clinton in 2013 or 2014 had been talking privately with her people and they'd had been like, okay, we're running in 2016.
I wonder who the nominee is going to be.
And someone says, it's Donald Trump.
They'd have just been thrilled.
Like, oh, this is the easiest person for us to beat.
And you still couldn't beat that guy.
And no part of you is going like, man, maybe I should take a look in the mirror and think like what I did here.
By the way, this isn't just speculation that Hillary and her team thought this came out in the WikiLeaks dump, that she was actually getting, her campaign was pressuring MSNBC, Chuck Todd's network, to cover Trump more.
They wanted them to push Donald Trump because they thought he would be the easiest candidate to beat in the general election.
They were like, well, once it comes down to it, no one's going to go with this goofy, fucking loudmouth, you know, insult comic.
And in the most beautiful of all ironies, they got Donald Trump and he fucking humiliated her and then beat her, humiliating her even more.
But could you imagine being Chuck Todd and having this whole conversation about how, man, this has really become sport for the Republicans to come on and look for a confrontation and to say fake news and to trash the media and all this stuff.
And he is right.
He is right about that.
There's no question.
Look, if you are a Republican politician right now, maybe the best thing that you could do, the most effective thing you could do right now is really just start railing against the media and really start saying, hey, there's so much fake news out there and CNN's fake news and NBC is fake news and all this stuff.
But if you were the moderator of Meet the Press and you're talking about this, how you could talk about it, it's like Hillary Clinton, what happened?
I mean, how can you talk about this without at a certain point looking in the mirror and going like, oh, well, why is it that this is, why does this resonate so much?
Like, okay, yeah, politicians are being opportunists.
Like, of course, that's just like a given.
You know, Ted Cruz is looking for a confrontation to get a viral moment and boost his own support.
Of course.
But why is this working?
Why do the people hate you so much?
Why are people screaming CNN sucks at a Trump rally?
Like, what is it that those people have a beef with?
And while you're sitting here talking about the disinformation and the alternative facts of the, you know, the social media news or whatever, like, well, what, do they have a gripe?
Do they have a gripe with some disinformation?
I mean, look, we live in a country and this is the thing.
Like, look, not everybody looks at the government the way I do.
I wish more of them did, but, you know, the majority do not.
If they did, we wouldn't have a government, or certainly not the government we have now.
But you can't, like, they smell it.
They smell the bullshit.
Look, your job is to cover the state.
That's what you do.
You're a political reporter.
You're the moderator of Meet the Press.
You are there to cover this criminal organization of the state.
And instead of ever exposing any of its crimes, all you do is carry water for it.
And most people, they've, you know, they've just kind of learned to accept that generally from the corporate press for, you know, basically its entire existence.
But at this point, they're starting to smell that, you know, well, this country seems to be failing.
They're just like, well, the country can no longer win its wars, balance its budgets, protect its borders.
We can't agree on any common like ground of decency.
You have like half, you know, you know, there's an opioid epidemic that's just been ravaging through the fucking country.
And all of this gets very, very little attention.
Very, very little attention in the corporate press.
What gets far more attention than any of that would be like an accusation of racism.
That would get far more attention than any of these major, major issues that I'm talking about.
Okay.
So people smell that.
They smell that you're not really concerned about the issues that they really care about.
And then on top of that, you guys are liars.
You put out every bit as much disinformation as any other alternative media outlet, and yours is way more consequential.
So that, you know, you could be sitting there and you're, you know, all you guys are selling.
There's like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which is complete bullshit.
You're selling them on, you know, whatever, that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor with Obamacare, and that turns out to be bullshit.
You sell them on the hands-up, don't shoot narrative in Ferguson.
They sell them all these stores, story after story after story that's wrong.
And then for the last few years, you've been selling them that Donald Trump is involved in a conspiracy with the Russians.
We have this whole special investigation.
He releases a 400-page memo that finds that no one in Trump's campaign was involved.
Not Trump or anyone in his campaign was involved in any conspiracy with the Russians.
Questioning Conspiracy Conclusions00:12:57
That's what that's what that's your track record.
And yet you come out and you go, man, these guys really hate us.
And the problem is that we're not allowed to be the gatekeepers anymore.
Well, why is it that most of these people don't want you to be the gatekeepers?
It's really something.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So this is Rolling Stone asks, what surprises me most is the lack of fear of being called out as unpatriotic.
And here's Chuck Todd.
Yeah, I know.
You would think it would.
That's why I was like, I don't understand.
You hit on something.
Look, I'm checking ourselves all the time.
I'm like, all right, I don't assume I'm 100% right ever.
I don't get why so many people are comfortable uttering stuff that they may know will look ridiculous in three or four years.
It might get them through three or four months, and maybe this is just about getting through a primary or whatever it is.
Look, the Iraq war in the aftermath discredited enough politicians and enough media.
I assume that when all this in the Trump era, and this is to me, how I think we in the press will get judged, it will be about five or six years in the rearview mirror.
How did we cover it in the moment?
Were we honest in the moment?
It turned out that the previous generation of national reporters missed the story in the moment.
I'm not saying they were dishonest in the moment.
They were too trusting of their sources.
They maybe were too naive.
I don't think it was active disinformation, if you will.
It was probably more feeling patriotic pressure that was coming down on them.
Whatever motive it was, it just turned out they let it influence how they reported.
Maybe the tone of reporting in particular.
I think we're going to have another reckoning when this post-Trump era truly works itself out of our system.
Really, the only ones he's talking about is basically Fox News.
And he's saying that in five years from now, it's going to become so apparent that on all of these important issues, Trump was lying to us that there'll be a public outrage towards Fox News.
Here's the problem with this.
Right.
Yes.
And by the way, he's right.
It's just not in the direction that he thinks it is.
He's so he is right, but he's on the wrong side of it.
Here's the problem, though, is that he goes, he says, he kind of pays lip service to this idea.
And he mentions the Iraq war, to be fair, which is, at least he does acknowledge that, yeah, this drove, like to this day, caused major distrust in the entire establishment, the entire media establishment.
But the thing is that you can say, well, listen, I'm not saying I'm always right.
And that's what he says, right?
He goes, I don't know that I'm always right.
And I'm always questioning myself whether I'm right.
But, you know, in five, six years, this is exactly how people are going to look back and judge this.
It's like, well, in order for you to know how people are going to look back and judge this in five, six years, you'd have to be pretty convinced that you're right.
And what exactly are you right about?
That they're spreading Russian disinformation.
I mean, I hope he's right that in five, six years, when all of this comes out, people will look back on it and some people will be held in lower regard because they got all this shit wrong.
But I think, I would guess, that in five years, looking back and going like, oh, they accused the sitting president of being involved in a conspiracy with Russia day in and day out for years and years and years, that's not going to look very good.
Do you know what Rachel Maddow was doing the whole fucking Russia gate, those whole two years?
She was just spinning the most ridiculous, elaborate conspiracies.
Again, by the way, it's just what's really crazy to me is to have a conversation about trust in news media being so low and to not see.
I mean, look, dude, the number one news anchor at NBC News was Brian Williams.
This guy now has a job at MSNBC.
Brian Williams was the host of Nightly News on NBC.
He got caught just completely fabricating stories, just bullshitting.
The guy, I don't know any other way to say it.
The guy was just a liar.
How could you have something like that and then come out and go like, man, I don't know why all these people don't trust us?
And not like, like, do you really think like this isn't in the back of Chuck Todd's head somewhere?
I wonder.
I really wonder what Chuck Todd's mentality is.
Because, you know, some of these people are just fucking liars and some of them just buy into their own bullshit.
But I really wonder how Chuck Todd could have this conversation and this could not be like in his head somewhere.
Somewhere.
By the way, it's not even like, it's like the entire Trump moment they've got everything wrong.
They were also the ones telling you Trump had no shot of winning.
And then he won.
What does Chuck Todd make a year?
20 million, 10 million, 5 million?
I don't know, something like one of those.
Yeah, you're like a, you know what it is?
This is like a CEO job at a corporation where you're lying about profits.
If you can just ride that ticket for four Four or five more years and cash that into the bank, it's worth it.
I don't think Chuck Todd necessarily plans or thinks he's going to be working as a credible guy in 20 years.
I bet with a bunch of these guys, you got the job now.
The gig is to go sell the narrative and you're getting paid very well to sell the narrative.
Fuck it.
So I spent 12 years spewing some bullshit.
I think, but I don't know if that is always in the front of people's heads.
I mean, I agree with you.
I'm just saying you want to talk about incentives.
If you have enough incentive to not look at the bigger story or have a credible career, they're going to be paid well enough in the short term that if it means that they can only work this job for four more years, it is a well-paying job for us.
Well, this is, and of course, this is like, and this happens all the time when people are arguing for state intervention of one source or another, like you mentioned earlier in the article, where he's like, well, we really want to look into the incentive structures of some of these like, you know, disinformation sites or whatever.
And it's like, okay, fair enough.
There certainly are, you know, perverse incentives all around us.
But like you just pointed out, what about the incentive structures of NBC News?
I mean, what about that?
Like you're making, you know, $20 million a year or whatever it is.
Yeah, they talk about like financial clawbacks.
Like they should have dishonest reporting clawbacks where if three years later you had good ratings, but it was all off bullshit news.
I don't know, take away the same as like financial bonuses.
Take away all these guys' salary.
They lied.
Right.
Well, right.
I mean, and there seems to be no interest in like lining up financial incentives on their side to be the right thing.
But this is the same thing when people like, you know, advocate for government intervention in whatever area it might be.
You know, they'll be like, oh, well, there are these perverse incentives in the market and we have to look at these incentives, you know, and that's why the government needs to come in and regulate things.
And you're like, okay, but if incentives affect human behavior, do these human beings who run the government lose that human quality when they get in there?
Because then aren't they incentivized to just buy votes in the short term?
I mean, like, you know what I mean?
Like with the, like, isn't the government just kind of incentivized to spend future generations into debt to buy votes in the next election?
Like, why would those incentives not be a problem?
Why is it only a problem on the other side?
So go ahead, Chuck Todd.
Look at the incentives of your news competition, but look at your own also.
And then there's also, there's just the obvious angle of all of this, which is like, there's something, if you want to talk about incentives, it's like, so Chuck Todd, you kind of represent like the corporate media.
And then there's like this alternative media that's that's at odds with you guys that you're calling, you know, misinformation or whatever.
Well, what's the incentive of you as a member of the corporate press going, you know, I've thought this whole thing through and our competition is the problem.
They've got to go.
It's like, don't aren't you a little bit incentivized to fucking kick your competition out?
I mean, what is that?
Can you imagine, though, if Chuck Todd ever stood up and told the truth on all these issues, he would lose that cushy fucking job he's got.
And I think a lot of times for people, like at least this has been my experience in getting a little bit close up to the corporate press, is that a lot of times when you've got, if you have a really sweet gig like that, it may not be at the front of your mind because people most of the time aren't just okay with identifying as evil.
They justify their own bullshit, you know?
And so it's not that you go, well, I've got this $10 million a year job.
I don't want to lose it.
This is really cushy.
But in the back of your head, that's affecting you.
Like you don't want to lose this cushy job.
And then you rationalize away.
But the truth is that I think a lot of these people really do live in a bubble and they're just convinced that they're right.
They're right.
I've got all these really important people around me telling me that I'm doing this the right way.
And what do these fucking idiots at a Trump rally know better than me and all these really smart, well-educated people with important titles around their name mean to me?
Like, it just, I don't think so.
It's just not going to happen.
And, you know, it's just interesting that he's so convinced.
You would think that after Donald Trump winning and everything that's happened over the last few years, that he wouldn't be so convinced that the future is his.
But he's still convinced that in five years, people will look back at this and be like, man, thank God Chuck Todd pointed out that Ted Cruz was really a Russian asset.
Because otherwise, you know, like, who stood up to all of the Russian infiltrators in this moment?
This is so laughable.
Like, once you just start to question the conspiracy, which is how conspiracy theories, and I mean this in the worst sense of the word, conspiracy theories, like people who have crazy conspiracies, this is how they always work, is that if you go into them assuming the conclusion, like you know this conclusion is true no matter what, and then you can find evidence that points toward it, right?
Like there's, it's, it's very easy to support your own predetermined conclusion.
So if you decide, if you start with the conclusion that Trump was in a conspiracy with Russia, you already know that going in.
And then you go, oh, well, look at this meeting here.
Oh, we'll look at this meeting here.
Oh, we'll look at him saying Russia.
If you have the emails, you know, release them to the press.
And then you find all of these things that back up the conclusion that you've already drawn.
But if you're questioning the conclusion the whole time, if you're at all going, I don't know that there is actually any evidence here.
Well, then they all just start to fade away into nothing, into nothing.
Oh, so Donald Trump, Donald Trump's son had a meeting with some Russian woman at Trump Tower.
And you're like, oh, okay.
And what happened?
They didn't have any dirt for her.
And they were actually, it was set up by the same company that did the opposition research.
And you're like, oh, but then that doesn't really look like a conspiracy.
That looks a lot more like a trap that he didn't fall into.
And then you go like, well, Donald Trump asked on national television if Russia has more emails.
Please, you know, send them to the press.
And then you go, but wait a minute.
If Donald Trump was involved in a conspiracy with Russia, why would he go through the press to ask them for information?
Wouldn't he keep that on the hush-hush?
Like all of these things just start to fall apart if you question the conclusion.
But Chuck Todd has his conclusion, which is that in five years, we will look back at what a great job MSNBC did during this moment of peril, which is, you know, if you think about it, it's pretty goddamn hilarious and seems to me fairly unlikely.
Marginal Ideas vs Universal Values00:03:44
Okay.
So let's do, let's go to the video that we had.
This was something for Christmas.
This was what I got because there's nothing more I love than responding to these videos critiquing libertarianism.
So someone sent me this video.
I had never seen it before, but it was by Steven Pinker.
And the title of the video is Why Libertarianism is a Marginal Idea and Not a Universal Value, which I thought was a little bit of a strange title.
But, you know, fair enough.
We are a marginal idea.
I love, I can never get...
Okay, what time do we have to be out of here by sex?
Okay, we'll keep this one fairly brief.
I always love why libertarianism is a marginal idea.
You know, it's like when debating these or when I'm going through these debunking libertarian videos, it always switches back and forth to whether we're like, so are we a marginal idea or are we responsible for all the problems in society?
I'm always not, I'm never sure which one we are because it seems like a lot of times we're both.
It's like libertarianism is so crazy that only a retard would take it seriously.
And also it's the reason why everything is so bad.
You know, so Tucker Carlson will say, it's all libertarians who are running Washington, D.C., or something like that.
And then someone else will be like, oh, it's five guys in a basement.
And it's like, fine, I'll take on each of those criticisms separately, but it can't be both.
It's got to be one or the other.
But anyway, this video is from last year, but it's got almost 200,000 views on it.
So that's enough that it's worth taking on.
So here is Steven Pinker on libertarianism.
Sometimes people say that in the absence of religion, there can be no moral values.
And in fact, for that reason, there can never be values that everyone agrees upon.
We are inherently conflictual.
The human condition is conflict among peoples because they could just never agree on values.
Well, putting the light of that are developments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Millennium Development Goals, where the nations of the world agreed on a number of milestones that humanity should strive for, having to do with health and longevity and education.
Please pause for one second.
And some of which will...
So firstly, I happen to be a big fan of Steven Pinker.
I wrote his book, whatever that giant-ass book was.
I forgot.
I'm not sure.
I didn't read it.
But he's a very bright guy.
Yeah, he's a bright guy.
The book that I read, it was very informative because he was basically talking about how people were actually at the least violent time in all of human history.
And so he puts a more positive spin on everything that you see in the news.
What's interesting, though, about this argument, where I guess he's kind of saying, hey, we could have morality outside of religion, is that you're now talking within a framework where people are commentating with religious, like off of the backs of religious scholars.
So if you didn't have any religious thinkers prior to these governments that are largely made up of religious individuals saying, hey, let's have these, let's all agree to these moral things.
Like I don't know that they would come to those conclusions.
I agree with you on that.
And the way he phrases it is a little, is not the way I would ever phrase it.
It's not that people can't act morally in the absence of religion.
I guess what to me is just a more interesting question that I don't know I've ever had a real satisfactory answer to is kind of like, well, why would you?
Well, why would you?
If there is no God, if there is no afterlife, if you're not going to be punished for sins and rewarded for virtue, it's an interesting question to ponder.
Wealth and Social Spending00:10:02
Well, if nobody's looking and you could just steal a little bit of money, why wouldn't you?
Why not?
And that's more to me like the deeper interesting question.
But anyway, let's get, we are pushed on time.
We got 10 minutes till we have to be out of the studio.
So let's get into the libertarians.
Were met years early, such as reduction of extreme poverty, usually defined as more or less what a person would need to support himself and his family, which was met several years ahead of schedule.
Right now, less than 10% of the world lives in a state of extreme poverty.
And the successor to the Millennium Development Goals, called the Sustainable Development Goals, calls for the elimination of extreme poverty by the 2030s.
An astonishing goal, one that is by no means out of reach.
One development that people both on the left and the right are unaware of is that it's almost an inexorable force that leads affluent societies to devote increasing amounts of their wealth to social spending, to redistribution, to children, to education, to health care, to support of the poor, to support of the aged.
Until the 20th century, most societies devoted at most 1.5% of their GDP to social spending, and generally much less than that.
But starting in the 30s with the New Deal in the United States and accelerating in Europe after World War II with the welfare state, now the median across societies of social spending is 22% of GDP.
The United States is a little bit below that, but even that's misleading because we've got a lot of welfare that's done by our employers.
That's how we get our health insurance.
That's how we get our retirement.
Other countries, it's the government that mediates that.
But if you add the private social spending onto the public portion, the United States is actually second highest in the entire world.
But let's pause it right there.
First off, I don't find it to be a tremendously deep point to say that as societies get wealthier, there was more wealth to share around.
It's like, well, why didn't this happen until the 20th century?
Because there wasn't really wealth until the 20th century.
There you go.
That's your answer to that.
So he's right about the fact that poverty around the world is going down and down.
It's obvious to me that the major driving factor in that was the abandonment of communism and the move toward market liberalization.
But okay.
If he's going to say, when you're talking about like the year 1890, 1895, like right before the 20th century, extreme poverty was the norm.
So the idea that people who live on a couple dollars a day aren't sharing a ton of it with poorer people, it's like, yeah, there wasn't that much to share.
I don't know what to tell you.
And then there's another really weird conflation that he makes there between saying, well, there's like, there's public welfare, but then there's also private welfare.
And the example for private welfare he uses is that we get health insurance and pensions from our work.
That's just paying your workers.
Now, you may opt in for a pension rather than getting more money in your salary that week, or opt into a pooled health care plan rather than getting more money in your salary that week.
But that's all part of your salary.
So I don't think that should be equated to welfare.
That's pretty different, if you ask me.
All right, let's keep playing.
A development sometimes called Wagner's Law, and it just seems that resistance is futile.
Even conservative politicians like George W. Bush presided over another expansion of the welfare state with his Medicare drug benefit.
And the attempts by the Trump administration to repeal Obamacare, for example, were stymied by almost like pitchfork and that torch bearing angry constituents.
People like social spending, despite their protestations.
All right, pause it right there.
Pause it right there.
This is the shit that drives me crazy.
This fucking drives me crazy.
Okay, so first off, not what drives me crazy.
It's like, even conservatives like Bush grew and expanded the size and power of government.
It's like, right, it's almost like there's no difference between him and the Democrats.
Okay, sure, agreed.
Yes, it's almost like people who are in charge of this entity called the state seem to support increasing the power and the size of the state.
That's a good point.
Now, as far as Trump wanting to repeal Obamacare and being met with people with pitchforks, I don't know.
It's not like you're going to show any popularity poll of Obamacare that was like 80% of people loved Obamacare.
It was very split.
And actually, how exactly does this line up to you that Donald Trump ran on repeal and replace Obamacare?
So when people got a vote, when they got to say he was running, I'm going to repeal and replace it.
But then when he gets into power, he doesn't repeal and replace it.
He chopped away at it a little bit, but didn't repeal and replace Obamacare.
And so this is your indication that it was just the people were so outraged.
Now, there might have been a few town halls where people are like, don't take away my health care.
But this doesn't seem to indicate that it's it seems more like, oh, the political process does not make it very easy to roll back government programs, that the political process makes it very easy for someone like George Bush to expand government programs, but it doesn't make it very easy for someone to roll back government programs.
This doesn't prove anything other than the fact that the will of the people is not borne out by politicians.
Now, what drives me crazy is then when he goes, people like social programs.
They like social programs.
This is like, if you want to criticize libertarianism, fine, but you can't have it both ways.
You can't say, well, people like this stuff.
Look, obviously, people like handouts.
People like getting stuff.
It's like kids like not going to school.
Well, right.
Kids like eating candy.
But here's the thing, right?
Obviously, look, if you're to give somebody, try this with a friend, try giving them 50 bucks a week and then ask them if they like that, if they like giving them 50 bucks a week, right?
So probably your friend's going to like that.
That would be my guess.
Most of the time, that people will probably like getting money.
But the question is, does the guy giving the 50 bucks like giving the 50 bucks, right?
Isn't that, that's obviously the question.
It's not do people like getting welfare.
It's do people like paying the taxes for the welfare?
That's the question.
And there's one really easy way to find out whether people really like doing it or not.
Make it voluntary.
Make the taxes voluntary.
There's no punishment.
There's no jail time if you don't pay this.
And then we can find out real quick whether people like paying it or not.
And if you're right and they like it, then there's no reason to have it backed up by the threat of imprisonment.
But you can't, I'm sorry, you can't.
I know I've used this example before and I'm sure I'll use it again, but it's like, I can't put a gun to Rob Bernstein's head and say, you're coming over to my place for dinner and then go, Rob likes coming over to my place for dinner.
It's like, okay, then put the fucking gun down, man.
Like, if you like it so much, we can demonstrate this real quick.
How about I put the gun down and I just invite you over for dinner?
By the way, my wife's Italian, great cook.
Rob would be thrilled to come over for dinner.
But you get the point I'm making, right?
So if you're going to argue that people like it, then I'm sorry.
Make it voluntary.
On what you're saying, just a little bit softer.
I agree 100% with what you said.
But even without voluntary taxes, if you also just didn't use deficit spending, you get a better idea of what people really wanted.
Because let's say, for example, you wanted healthcare spending without deficit, you know, without financing through borrowed money, you'd have to jack up people's taxes.
And then when they really have to pay for it, figure out how they vote.
Yes, no, you're absolutely right.
All right, let's play a little bit more.
Coming up on Tuesday.
Even in libertarian America.
And in fact, it's probably not a coincidence that the number of libertarian paradises in the world, that is, developed states with no substantial social spending, is zero.
And as developing countries develop, as they start to become affluent, they get on the bandwagon and they start to develop programs of social spending.
Okay.
Let's call it.
We'll just wrap on that because that's basically the central point to his video here.
Correlation always proves causation.
Right.
And of course, there's a million things that correlate with events that have nothing to do with the causation.
But let me just take on these real quick because this just bugs me to no end.
Okay.
Number one, as societies get more affluent, the welfare state grows.
That doesn't prove anything.
This is all that it proves is that as people get more wealthy and more comfortable, they're not going to revolt as easy against a government stealing their money.
If you're living on $2 a day and the government comes in and says, I'm taking a dollar a day of that away from you, I'm stealing a dollar.
Your kid now goes from living on $2 a day to $1 a day, that you might be ready to go kill a man over that.
But if you're making $100K a year and the government says we're taking 50, you might just bitch and moan and start a podcast, okay?
The other thing is that this argument that if libertarianism was so great, why aren't there libertarian paradises around the world might sound good at first, but it's really fucking stupid.
It's like me saying, if murder is bad, why is there murder in every single society?
You're here arguing against murder, then how come there's not a murder-free society that doesn't exist?
I don't know, because people like using the initiation of violence, and that's what we're trying to fight against.
Sorry, Steven Pinker.
This one's a fail.
All right.
Wrapped up with 10 seconds to go.
Thank you, Brian.
Thank you guys for listening.
We will be back tomorrow with a brand new episode.