The two hosts of the Bad Faith podcast join us to discuss the smooth and simple transition of power in this great nation. The Capitol obviously comes up.
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Welcome, listener, to Chapter 126 of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, the pre-inauguration episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
After four years in paradise, it looks like trouble's brewing on the horizon.
Wednesday, January 20th is the date of the presidential inauguration, after which Sleepy Joe and his prodigiously sexual son will be squirting mustard full-time across the White House walls.
Dire times.
Now, if you're a QAnon supporter, you always have the option to switch Biden to a white hat, swiftly solving the problem.
Trade one secretly good president for another.
Who knew being a lib could feel so good?
Unfortunately, there are, here in America, some nasty creatures who would refuse to adapt.
They find Biden's track record damning, his mind unfit, and his advisors unsavory.
They refuse to go quietly into the night.
These are the Bernie Brothers.
And some may even be listening right now.
To figure out these sickly eccentrics and prepare us for the next four years of dueling ideologies, we've invited Brianna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas on the podcast.
Brianna is a journalist who's worked for The Intercept and currently works for Current Affairs.
In 2020, she served as the national press secretary for the Bernie campaign.
Now, Brianna runs a podcast called Bad Faith with one Virgil Texas, a return guest and, of course, co-host of the Chopper Trap House podcast.
So we're going to be getting into it with them.
But before all that, QAnon News!
First up, law enforcement begins rounding up participants in the Capitol siege.
Since we recorded our episode about the siege last week, more information has emerged about what exactly happened.
It's become clear that, as awful as it was, it is a miracle that it wasn't much, much worse.
Many of those who participated planned and hoped for even greater violence.
Some participants were militia members who were better organized than the QAnon loons and MAGA moms.
A Reuters photographer on the scene said that he heard three separate rioters say that they wanted to find and hang Mike Pence.
One video taken from Parler shows a mob storming the building and screaming, where are they counting the votes?
Where are they meeting at?
Hey, where are they killing the fucking votes?
Where are they killing the votes?
Do it!
Hey! Hey!
Where are they killing the votes?
Where are they killing the votes?
Unsurprisingly, many of those arrested for participating in the Capitol siege are QAnon followers.
For example, the FBI arrested Doug Jensen, an Iowa man who was photographed confronting Capitol police while wearing a QAnon t-shirt emblazoned with an eagle in the phrase, trust the plan.
Also arrested were Antonio Lamada and Joshua Marcias.
These two men had previously been arrested on November 5th after they allegedly drove a Hummer festooned with a QAnon decal to a ballot counting center in Philadelphia while armed.
They both were out.
Normal stuff.
Normal outing with my friend.
Right.
So those two men were they're both out on bail, but they got arrested again for participating in the Capitol riot.
So.
There's more than one QAnon Hummer because there's a Hummer here in LA.
Oh my.
There's a QAnon Hummer.
The filing notes that Marcius even gave a speech as rioters stormed the building.
Another arrested QAnon follower is Cleve Meredith, a car wash owner from Atlanta who once advertised his business with a billboard that said hashtag QAnon.
Meredith intended to make it to the Capitol on January 6th, but he arrived late because of car troubles.
He was nonetheless arrested because the FBI was informed that he was heavily armed and sent threatening text messages like this.
Thinking about heading over to Pelosi's speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on live TV.
Purple devil emoji.
Purple devil emoji.
Yeah.
These are threatening messages.
That's just cutesy emojis.
You're joking, but this emoji is actually in history because in NXIVM, Keith sent a message with it after they showed him some girls like nude lined up or something like that.
And those girls oversaw the message that came back that had the devil.
His question to Alex and Mac was, all mine?
And she responded, all yours.
And then he responded with the devil.
So let this be a lesson.
This is the emoji of sociopaths.
Yeah, this is bad.
Do not use the devil emoji.
Like we mentioned in the last episode, the Q Shaman, a.k.a.
Jacob Chansley, a.k.a.
Jake Angeli, was arrested.
The New Yorker recently released extraordinary video of the Q Shaman walking calmly into the Senate chamber and being politely asked by Capitol Police to leave.
Now, you won't be able to see this, of course, but he walks in and finds the guy who we had watched on stream getting, like, he had gotten shot in the face and there was, like, a hole in his cheek where this plastic bullet had embedded, and that guy is found again laying against the kind of centered daze.
Right, with, like, a rag over his cheek to keep it from bleeding.
Yeah.
He's the one that you hear saying, I kept a look on the place.
I made sure, like, no one was fucking with it or whatever.
Hey!
Fucking A man!
Glad to see you guys.
You guys are fucking patriots.
Look at this guy, he's got covered in blood.
God bless you.
You good sir?
Do you need medical attention?
I'm good, thank you.
You alright?
I got shot in the face.
Where are you?
I got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet.
Any chance I could get you guys to leave the Senate wing?
We will.
I'll be making sure they ain't disrespecting the place.
Okay, I just want to let you guys know this is like the sacredest place.
I know, I know.
Hey fellas.
Hey.
This is like super sacred place.
Yeah.
If you boys wouldn't mind, just maybe.
If you don't want to, you know, hey, it's cool too.
The Q-Time is like, oh no, no, I'm not here to mess anything up.
I just want a beautiful photo holding the flag behind it.
Just calm down.
We're just here for content, sir.
This whole thing is frustrating because it's simultaneously deadly serious and completely ludicrous and like they I'll know they like it sort of bewilders you because you don't know how to feel about it if they should take it seriously or not.
Yeah, this is kind of where we're at, I think.
A soft, steady dissociation with short bursts of vicious, confusing violence.
The Q Shaman apparently did not eat for days after being taken into custody because they would not accommodate his all-organic diet.
That's right.
That's what he'll be remembered for, is the food's rights for prisoners.
Chansley's public defender told the judge that he is on an extremely restrictive diet, perhaps for religious reasons.
Maybe.
However, it was reported by Newsweek that the U.S.
Marshal's Office will be providing Chansley his organic food following the judge's order.
Oh good.
Well good.
I know.
Would you like them steamed?
I mean, how do you like your vegetables, my man?
According to a recent legal filing, the Q Shaman might be in more hot water than it initially appeared.
A federal judge said that Chansley was an active participant in a violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the United States government and ruled that he should not be released prior to his trial.
A filing also said that he left a note for Vice President Pence that says, it's only a matter of time.
Justice is coming.
The phrase justice is coming is straight from a Q drop and is often repeated by QAnon followers.
The Q Shaman's lawyer went on CNN in order to argue that he deserves a pardon from President Trump because he was just acting on the president's words.
And what ended up happening over the course of the lead up to the election, over the course of the period from the election to January 6th, it was a driving force by a man he hung his hat on, he hitched his wagon to, he loved Trump. Every
word. He listened to him. He felt like he was answering the call of our president. My client
wasn't violent. He didn't cross over any police lines. He didn't assault anyone. He was there at
the invitation of our president.
I mean, he's not wrong.
I mean, he did the only reason all these horrible things happens because the president, you know, invited people there and then got them all riled up.
But also this is actually the Nuremberg defense, like say he was just following orders.
You know, there are like a ton more QAnon arrests, obviously, but like going through all of them would be tedious.
And this is really disturbing to me because like a year ago, I was able to like memorize all the details of every QAnon arrest.
There were a handful of them and they were shocking, reported all of them individually on their show on the show.
But now there are so many of them.
I can't keep track.
I need a spreadsheet.
Yeah, we were just supposed to be like a guy who sees a salmon and studies this stream once in a while.
You know, it's like, oh, a fish will arrive perhaps in a few days.
Now they're all going upstream and mating and fucking.
And our lenses, as photographers and people with just a small stick, I'm assuming we're nude also.
Yeah, we were not ready for this.
We're not equipped.
For my next story, my pillow CEO meets with Trump bearing a plan for martial law.
Bearing a plan for martial law?
Also wanted to replace the head of the CIA.
Just going to tell you what I'd like you to do with the CIA like a week out from the end of year.
Just great.
So the number of powerful Trump allies continues to shrink, but there's still one person in the president's corner, and that's MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
Lindell is a frequent advertiser on Fox News, as well as a promoter of the discredited claim that Trump had the election stolen from him in some capacity.
I hear his latest gig actually is as a star in a Jake story on the next Premium episode.
Yes, you might get a secret window into the conversation that might have been had in the Oval Office.
See?
Jake's a nice theater director.
He doesn't want to hurt Mike's feelings.
That was great, Mike.
Your face looked like it was smiling, like a human that is happy.
But the thing, I mean, after studying too many hours of Mike Lindell footage, one thing that I've come to realize about him is all the stuff that is printed on that computer paper, I'm 100% sure that he thinks that God told him to write that down, and that he needed to go, and that God said that, oh, this CIA director is not good.
It's premium pillows.
It's colored pillows.
Get the paper to the cops!
President, he's better.
It's like a stream of pillow designs just coming through his mind.
And then there's an idea for who should be at the head of the CIA.
Totally normal stuff to go through your mind late at night.
It's premium pillows. It's colored pillows.
It's pillows that you can roll up and take with you on long car trips.
And then it's a vision of a man at the head of the CIA.
Not who's currently there, but who should be.
And we know what's going to happen.
He's making these pillows, but as soon as the storm comes, that factory with almost no modifications will begin to create the colorful bags that they're going to black bag people with.
We actually have a kind of an idea where he got these martial law ideas.
Mike Lindell posted a video claiming that he was going to speak to Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell.
We're heading off for this week, this historical week.
I'm actually going to be meeting with General Flynn, Sidney Powell, everybody on my team.
A lot of stuff going on that I can't say.
All I want to do is give everybody confidence that Donald Trump's going to be your president for the next four years.
All this, they're very much afraid all the evidence that I know is there is going to come out this week.
And everybody praying, everybody praying for protection for everybody that's standing up to these guys for our country.
This is the only time we have in history to beat these guys, to suppress the evil and beat the evil.
Um, it's, it's a blessing that we're, time we're in, we're on election night that the, uh, that Donald Trump got so many votes that actually broke the algorithms of the machines.
This is all going to be revealed.
If we, if that hadn't happened, if all you hadn't voted of our country, if we hadn't all voted and his, because of this great president, um, those algorithms would not have broke.
And he would have won.
Wait a minute!
His logic... Oh, by the way... He's in a private jet.
Yeah, this is Mike Lindell signing off from inside my private jet.
Wait, but is he saying that because you all got out and voted, President Trump lost?
No, he's saying that there are these secret algorithms that are supposed to give votes to Joe Biden.
But because all of you Trump supporters, you voted in such great numbers, you broke the algorithm and therefore you caught them in the act of stealing the election.
So you basically you revealed this fraud that would have happened but because you're so great and mighty you were I mean it's like none of it makes sense.
Yeah he went to the White House he apparently came with this plan that mentioned a martial law and suggested naming Trump loyalist Kash Patel to the head of the CIA.
Yeah no but like he's literally thinking about the guerrilla war that follows.
The MyPillow guys like we need to secure the CIA the DOD.
I mean this how the brain of these people there's not it's Candyland.
How are we here?
How is a pillow king, he's a pillow king let's be honest, a pillow king all of a sudden involving himself in matters of the highest national security and instituting martial law and Because Jake, the salesman inherited the earth.
That's true.
For my next story, QAnon followers regroup on alternate platforms after being kicked off of social media.
So like we discussed in the last episode, all social media platforms cracked down hard on QAnon in the wake of the Capitol riot.
Twitter and Facebook even cut off our big boy President Trump.
Well, this led to former Trump spokesperson Hogan Gidley making the absurd argument on Fox News that as a consequence of this, Trump can't speak to the people.
He can't he can't communicate whatsoever.
I thought Trump would take the ban hammer and wield it like Thor.
The media, though, are trying to have it both way, both ways, Howie.
On one hand, he should be censored by big tech and not be allowed to talk.
He also shouldn't say anything because it's divisive.
And then when he doesn't say anything and can't say anything because the platforms have
been removed him, they say, where's the president?
Why aren't we hearing from him?
The whole thing's disingenuous.
I mean, just the idea that he literally has a staff of people in the White House who are
dedicated to helping him get a message out.
The communications staff.
Full-time people who do nothing but help him communicate to the public.
But they act like he has such posting brain.
He's not interested in anything besides tweeting.
He's like, I don't like them.
I have to submit a statement.
They tell me I've misspelled things.
I don't like it.
It's better when I go direct to the people.
They can interpret my misspellings as secret codes.
This is a well-off guy who has ear pods in and is being interviewed in a full suit in front of his stove.
In his kitchen.
Well, that's where do you think the baking is happening?
This is symbolic, Julian, don't you know?
It's a code.
That's a choice.
I mean, I guess it's better than the undone bed, which is the other conservative trope.
Parler also went offline after Apple, Google, and Amazon cut them off.
So that caused QAnon followers to flee, basically, to the dark recesses.
So many are simply making ban evasion accounts on Twitter, leading to a game of whack-a-mole between QAnon promoters and Twitter moderators.
They're also flocking to the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, the YouTube competitors Clout Hub and Rumble, and of course Gab.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba continues to openly court the QAnon community.
A recent post from the Gab Twitter account makes a direct reference to a QDrop by tweeting, Dark to light.
Blackout necessary.
In the past few weeks, the Great Awakening group on Gab has grown by tens of thousands of members.
So this is, I mean, significant in the evolution, because we're going to probably see something, I don't know, see what exactly the next stage of QAnon is, now that they've sort of been banished to the digital ghettos.
And they don't have any stuck-up libs to tell them that they're stupid.
Yeah, yeah.
They might, I mean, the worry is that they're going to become even further radicalized, or radicalized into a more militant ideology.
I mean, let's find out.
Yep.
Better graphic design.
For my next story, QAnon followers prepare for January 20th.
So Biden is on the verge of being inaugurated.
So it might seem like, you know, the jig is up.
But QAnon followers, nevertheless, they're pressing forward.
They're hoping for the miracle.
He's a white hat in the end.
Yeah, something.
Biden is going to be a white hat.
So many are awaiting the mythical 10 days of darkness, which they think will be like a 10 day long communications blackout.
I saw one message that went viral on Telegram and other places claiming to be an update on the Q operation from someone who says that they're having a daily briefing with Trump.
Dear patriots.
I have a daily briefing with POTUS, and have posted here before a handful of times as a quote-unquote helper.
What I'm about to disclose is the most important post you'll read before the inauguration.
Q will not post here again, at least not for a while.
The operation is ongoing, but must run silent at this point.
Once we wind down, you will not hear from Q again.
Don't let this worry or upset you.
We are in perhaps the most critical juncture of American history.
POTUS is fully aware of the gravity of this time period.
We have prepared for before 2015 for this exact moment.
I am not asking for faith in us.
Q should have already used logic reason, and multiple proofs to establish our credibility.
What happens this week will change history.
We are asking for you now to stay in your homes and do not, under any circumstances, interfere with the
operation.
You'll soon see things unfold that many would think impossible.
POTUS is insulated and 100% safe.
Our plan is almost complete.
The Deep State has already lost.
Everything you're seeing in the MS Semin on Twitter is a last ditch attempt.
Why has Kamala not yet left the Senate?
Where is Joe?
Where is Joe really?
Hunter has turned himself in.
This is like, this could be a lib op to get people to not do any violence basically.
Stay at home.
Don't do anything.
Let us take care of it.
Yeah, or Intelligence Agency.
This was written by Travis.
We asked you at the beginning to prepare.
Your role is crucial, and your task is to help the population deal with what is about to be revealed.
Those patriots who have been here from the start will understand and recognize this directive.
Remember, it is always darkest before the dawn.
Do not believe the MSM over the next week.
Do not, for a single minute, give them any credence.
We have legally won this election, and what comes next is the greatest mop-up job in the history of the world.
Patriots, we thank you.
We could not have gotten here without you.
Now is our time.
Hold the line.
You will receive no further message on this channel from us until the operation is over.
At that point, the entire world will know.
Thank you and God bless.
Pray for us, POTUS, and the United States of America.
We are in the most dangerous phase and the stakes could not be higher.
Military takedowns and arrests begin this weekend and will continue forward for the next 13 days and nights.
Some international raids have already started.
Italy has also been found complicit in our election fraud.
Everyone will be getting emergency alerts on their phones, TVs, radios, and internet.
It will override all other broadcasts and could last for several hours at a time.
Do not be scared of what's coming, as it is for the safety of our nation for this to unfold.
Do not travel to any large cities, especially Philadelphia, for the rest of the month.
Military operations will be taking place in many of the major corrupt cities.
People will start rioting once this intel breaks, thinking Trump is a military dictator.
He only has 13 days to put this dog down.
But please, sir, put down my country.
Take it out back and shoot it in the head.
The implementation of the Insurrection Act began after the raid on the Capitol and was marked by Trump's broadcast to the people to disband and return home.
This broadcast wound up being blocked for the most part by the media.
Nevertheless, his address fulfilled the requirements to initiate the act.
Marines and National Guard troops are being moved as needed for the riots that will start after the national release of the intel.
The intel will be dropped for everyone to see and hear in loops that will be several hours long.
The system was just checked by the FCC a few days ago, alerting all media that they cannot block the flow of intel under federal regs.
Trump will be moved continuously like a chess piece from now until the 20th in order to avoid any retaliation against him and family.
But yeah, this kind of shit, I mean, it's gonna start circulating now that sort of Q has gone silent, hasn't posted a single thing since December 8th of last year, and now there are gonna be these other Insider Anons, these other LARPs that are gonna fill that void.
It's time for new Q!
Yep, new Q. Other QAnon propagandists framed January 20th as the last stand for their movement.
For example, here's what QAnon promoter Joe M. said on Gab.
Friends, I have to go dark for a little while.
This is literally the definition of precipice, if there ever was one.
Next week, either Q turns out to be an elaborate, well-intentioned hoax promising a level of control the Patriots never had, or we are all about to watch the Red Sea part and the unfolding of a new biblical-level chapter in human civilization.
I believe it is the second one, because everything I have studied for the past three years points to the certainty of light overcoming dark.
I mean, I hope he never posts again.
I mean, how could he?
I mean, he's staked everything on it.
He's gone all in on Trump staying in office, and it's not gonna happen.
Surely you're not naive enough to think he can't post after that.
This is the QAnon movement.
I know, I know, but this one, he repeatedly, I mean, it's like, this one, he himself- You cannot own these people into oblivion.
You're right.
It's punching jello.
So they think that after all of the lawsuits were overturned, after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump, and after all of this, that all of a sudden, what, breaking news, we have a two hour long audio doc.
Well, they don't want more evidence.
What they want is a military dictatorship.
They want Daddy Trump to drop the hammer and then basically put us under authoritarian rule.
That's what they're waiting for.
That's it.
And many people want that for different reasons.
The MyPillow guy wants it for different reasons than the Arizona Patriots and the QAnon people do.
But they all want the same thing, you know, which is blood.
Yeah, and to be dommed.
They want to be dommed so bad.
Yeah.
For my last story, I have an update about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
So I have retained legal representation in my First Amendment case against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
He's not kidding.
No, this is true.
I am being represented by Benjamin Gold of the Seattle-based firm Keller Roebuck.
Benjamin Gold.
That's right.
However, it appears that my case may have to move quickly because Green recently received a 12-hour ban on posting for continuing to spread election misinformation and if I know green she's not
someone who was bout is going to self-reflect or sort of throttle herself for crazy
conspiracy theories just because she was put in Twitter jail so she
may get herself banned before I even get the chance to bring the case so
well I'll keep you updated on how that's progressing in my very noble
important civil rights battle that I'm going through yeah I mean don't think this is
something irrelevant just because it appears like it won't have any impact.
No, no, this is not about me.
This is about Reply Guy.
It's about you!
The next generation.
I want the next generation to breathe a little bit more freer than I could.
To post a little bit, let their thumbs fly a little bit more freely over the digital keyboard.
Travis works for the Reply Guy reading this.
Brianna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas are the hosts of the Bad Faith podcast.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having us.
Thanks for having us.
It's a pleasure.
I wanted to kick off by talking a little bit about the violent clashes at the Capitol.
You know that thing that happened?
The simple diagnosis of the crowd would be that they were whipped up by Trump in an attempt to overturn the election.
This was an insurrection.
This was like an attempted revolution, essentially, by the MAGA supporters.
But I was wondering, because I've heard some discussions on your show that I found very interesting, do you have a kind of more complex explanation of how we got to that point than just the kind of cause and effect?
Yeah, well, I think we should ask ourselves if, let's say, Mitt Romney were president, No.
No.
in 2010 and said everybody should storm the Capitol and take over the country.
Would anybody have listened to him?
If he had said and done everything Trump said in the lead up to the insurrection or whatever
you want to call it, would it have had the same effect?
And I think the laughter indicates that we don't think that's the case for a number of
reasons probably, right?
One because of the whole timeline of Trump and the kind of cultish following that he's
been able to germinate, partly because of the economic circumstances of 2020 being different
than those of 2010 or 2012, if we want to pick an election year.
So I think that it is right to obviously talk about the impact of Trump.
I think it's right to talk about the rise of white supremacy, right-wing extremism, all of those things.
And I also think it's right to talk about the broader economic context at the same time.
And I don't think those are mutually exclusive.
To be honest with you, I'm more curious as observers of the QAnon phenomenon, I'm more curious what your consensus is.
Yeah, I think it has been like an internal conversation between us at the podcast, you know, what fuels this stuff.
I think early on, I became convinced that MAGA was a broader movement.
You know, even the liberals that got sucked into QAnon, you know, the people in LA that are kind of influencers and didn't really fit in, were previously kind of liberal or apolitical.
Those people all were for Trump.
So it was like that circle of the QAnon supporters or believers was all contained within MAGA.
The Venn diagram does not really poke out at all.
And so I do think it's, you know, you're looking at a mystic fringe in QAnon, but of something greater, whether you want to call it MAGA, but I think it gets carried on by Boebert, by Marjorie Taylor Greene now in Congress.
Having said that, it's like, yes, you're right.
If anyone else but Trump tried this, it wouldn't work.
With Romney, it's because you can't lead an insurrection if you look like you're firing someone's dad.
That's an interesting point about the formerly apolitical people, even in heavily blue areas.
It's like people who have never voted before and own aromatherapy studios seem to gravitate to QAnon.
Yeah, well, this is kind of the cultural point that came up on our last episode to Virgil, right?
Where there's a way that we kind of talk about Trump politically, and then we'll talk about some of the kind of disease of despair, white decline aspects of society in terms of A political or economic lens.
But we don't just kind of broaden it out and talk about culture unless we're literally just saying white supremacy.
And it never gets unpacked further than that.
You know, what makes people feel a sense of belonging, a sense of community?
You know, what are the deficits that are leading people to need this, to find that sense of community, as opposed to maybe some of the other structures they used to rely on?
The church, kind of a traditional family structure.
Now that we're in COVID, we're like literally all Alone.
You know what, how are these things?
It's QAnon.
I'm curious what you guys think.
Is the QAnon phenomenon worse now during COVID because people are able to isolate and perhaps not have a more stabilizing influence of non-Q friends and family?
Yeah, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that as the pandemic sort of gripped the country, the number of QAnon adherents exploded.
We could see this in the number of people who joined QAnon groups on Facebook.
All of a sudden, membership in those groups grew by tens of thousands in multiple countries.
Because people, again, they're forced indoors, and they're worrying about the future, and the things that they thought were stable about the world all of a sudden weren't stable anymore.
So they're seeking out alternate ways to understand what's really going on.
Yeah.
I mean, even Marjorie Taylor Greene is kind of a product of this incubator.
You know, I mean, she was a kind of more lost and tired looking person getting, you know, kind of posting videos about QAnon.
completely alone and turned into this fighting machine, you know, who can like
bench press all of us and is like trying to get a gun in and is taking off
her mask and her mask says, you know, Trump won anyways. So that's what I mean
I guess about this new breed. It's a movement that goes beyond QAnon. QAnon
can feed it with all these conspiracies that conveniently kind of square the
the circle or is it circle the square? I keep screwing this up. It's one of the two.
But I remember Julia. Yeah. You made a really interesting point.
I can't remember if it was the last episode, but you were saying how one thing that started to become apparent as we're starting to break down the videos and what we saw at the Capitol Is that there seemed to be a sense that you have these very organized militia groups that are basically, you know, are based in white supremacist ideology.
Kind of, you know, in the quote that Julian said was sort of like, riding the kooks in.
Yeah.
And, you know, I do think that there is a, there does seem, there did seem to be a split of people that were just kind of passionately there to be, you know.
Yeah, who were drunk, let's be honest.
Right.
Fucked up after listening to Trump, their favorite concert, and then they—it's literally like a basketball, like, a group of basketball fans or baseball fans just trashing a city because they won or something.
Right, right.
I mean, in this case, I guess they feel like they won, but they took the title from them, I guess, is the metaphor.
But then the basketball fans are sort of followed up by militants who want to do serious damage to the health of the country.
What's funny is those are easy to identify.
The Arizona Patriots had a strong presence there.
We've seen them at the Stop the Vote rallies at Maricopa County.
They are there very literally kind of tolerating the kooks.
They might have some light QAnon beliefs, but they are highly organized and they're debating whether the RINOs will let them in at all or whether they have to run on their own platform.
So they have real, I guess, politically material goals.
And I think that's why I wanted to transition a little bit to talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Boebert.
Who are kind of two of the first properly pilled, whether you want to say QAnon, whatever, it doesn't really matter at this point.
They are extreme right to the point where Steve King looks like a wimp.
So as kind of more anchored in the political sphere than in the fantasy conspiracy theory sphere like us, what does it look like to you, from a layperson's perspective, to have these people walk into Congress and start to interact with other Congress people?
Marjorie, isn't her district one of the top 10 most Republican districts in the country?
So I don't want to over...
But there obviously is a tolerance for this sort of thing.
And I think that people who think that getting rid of Trump is getting rid of the phenomenon are wrong.
like that where she won by what like 75% or something like that, you know. But there obviously
is a tolerance for this sort of thing. And I think that people who think that getting
rid of Trump is getting rid of the phenomenon are wrong. I think the earlier point about
there being cultural narratives holds. Those people will go away when we find a substitute
narrative that manages to explain the world in a satisfactory way and offer some solution
that seems more realistic and accessible than, you know, pedophile rings and pizza parlors
and what have you.
And I'm not over, I'm not super optimistic about that piece, you know, which makes me believe that we will get more people like this, at least in deep red districts where, you know, they're viable.
Right, that yeah, the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene beat out a bunch of other Republicans who were just running on kind of your standard, you know, shit.
She did a kind of classic, like, you know, what they accuse AOC of doing.
She was insurgent in her own party.
She didn't beat him hard enough the first time around, but it was like 20 points.
But she went to the runoff and then beat him by even more.
Right.
There was a media campaign that tried to accuse her of being anti-Semitic.
There were statements from Liz Cheney and Minority Leader McCarthy against Marjorie Taylor Greene while she was running, trying to derail her campaign.
They all failed.
But then she got the Trump shoutout, right?
Yes.
That's exactly it, right?
So that's MAGA.
That's the new thing, right?
It's almost like a different party inside the party that's slowly eating its way through it entirely.
Yeah, I'm almost jealous.
Who was it who we were talking to that said the difference between QAnon and the left was that the Republican Party actually listens to QAnon and actually takes some policy from them.
They cut them some slack here and there.
They humor them.
I have to think that for someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the real fear and the real outrage of this person is that she is more authentically conservative than someone like Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz.
Keeping in mind that guys like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Pat Toohey, these were elected as Tea Party You know, insurgent far right challengers, and they became the new establishment of the Republican Party.
Someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene simply reflects the desires of the base of the Republican Party, this reactionary base.
And I think the horror about her from other politicians, for instance, isn't that she does these stunts of bringing a gun to the Capitol or wearing a mask that says, fuck you on it or something like that.
It's that she is someone who effectively channels the energies of the Republican base, but she's not faking it.
She's not just patronizing the base.
She's not just pandering to the base.
No, she really believes the stuff.
She's pilled.
How do you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And to me, the evidence of that is that these kinds of figures are willing to be openly hostile and oppositional to the Republican establishment.
This has become my obsession.
My new litmus test is, is the person who is the insurgent willing to actually name names and be openly critical of the person in the party?
Because what we just saw on the left Was an unwillingness to do so, right?
We had this unique opportunity where, you know, the progressives had enough numbers.
We worked and we organized and we voted and we got these people into office.
Now there's enough of them to oust Nancy Pelosi or make any number of demands.
And there's an unwillingness to even say, you know, I'm not wild about her, you know, and I.
You know, it's frustrating because it's not that they respect, the Republicans respect this wing of the party, but they're afraid of them.
Yeah.
And there's a real unwillingness on the left to have anybody be afraid.
There's a real, like, pick-me-pick-me culture.
Like, I just want you to like me.
And we saw that a little bit even with Bernie.
Sometimes I think 2016 had more of that bite to it.
There was a clear antipathy for Hillary Clinton.
There was a willingness to call her out, call her corrupt.
You know, and paint a broader narrative about how both parties have failed you.
The system is broken.
We need people who are unbought and unbossed to come in and actually fix it.
And that narrative makes sense because it's true.
And then in 2020, when you have less of the emphasis on corruption, less of the emphasis on corporate greed, clearly less antipathy for Joe Biden as a human being, a willingness to call him his friend, an unwillingness to say that he is corrupted.
Well, then you don't have that same neat narrative.
There's less bite, and I think ultimately you end up being less successful.
But for some reason, there's this ongoing delusion on the broad left.
I mean, just look at this most recent, you know, CNN announcement from like an hour ago.
You know, the top two Senate leaders are nearing a power sharing agreement to hash out how the divided chamber will operate.
Like, they're just all hanging out.
With someone like, you know, Debris's point with someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, I don't think she's going to be under any pressure to be in to call out her colleagues or be in conflict with her party.
I think she's because she's going to be in the minority because there is because the Democrats control both houses of Congress and the presidency.
She's going to be voting with Kevin McCarthy 99% of the time.
There's not going to be any dissension in that caucus.
And, I mean, obviously when she was running originally in that primary runoff, the establishment didn't like her and they largely supported her opponent.
But once she got the nomination, they wouldn't disavow her because that is the message that you have to communicate to your base if you want your base to come out.
And in that regard, Trump has been very good for the Republican Party because he has managed to unify that base and keep that base together, even when they're uninspired by people like Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell.
Well, Virgil, what do you make of the fact that, you know, there are, sure, most people vote in line with their party most of the time.
Generally speaking, even people like Bernie Sanders.
But there are Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the election and there were Republicans who weren't.
I mean, there are these instances, these like fringe issues that come up where push comes to shove and we get down to brass tacks and some other, you know, 50 year olds metaphor that I tend to overuse.
And you have to think, you know, people are revealed and they become these kind of like tension inflection points for people to show whether or not they're like the real deal or not.
I agree with you.
But that's all theater, right?
Yes.
The votes on overturning the election, everyone, every single person who voted to sustain that objection during the Electoral College count knew that there was a 0% chance that the election would be overturned.
They're all doing it to panic.
My argument is that theater matters.
Theater matters in terms of galvanizing your base.
Theater matters in terms of making your voters feel like you're fighting for them.
If we want to kind of understand why, despite Trump, there is this fealty to him and to the Republican Party, I think it might have something to do with the fact that at the end of the day, it does feel like they are fighting tooth and nail against public opinion, against the quote-unquote liberal
media and all of these things, to deliver on the narrative that they've sold. We hate the
narrative, it's a stupid narrative, it's not true, obviously. But they seem to be fighting to
deliver, whereas I am really struggling to find moments where I felt that way about Democrats
outside of perhaps, okay, they really rallied hard and are pushing for impeachment. You know.
But it's to be But do you think when Ted Cruz votes to sustain the objection to the electoral college count, do you think he's actually fighting or that he is just pandering and looking to a presidential run in 2024?
I don't think it matters.
The point is that the pandering and the theatrics of it matter.
I mean, this is the argument.
I'm sorry, I make every conversation about this now.
I really apologize.
It's fine.
But this is the argument for force the vote, right?
Like, this is the argument.
Like, you can, you know, reasonable minds can disagree about the long term effect of that kind of pageantry.
But I think it's wrong.
I mean, here we are, it's Martin Luther King Day.
I think it's wrong to ignore the effect of optics, of seeing people Water hosed in the streets and dogs attacking them and Edmund Pettus Bridge and all of the like and the lunch counters and well-dressed, nice, well-behaved black kids getting, you know, milkshake spat in their face and all that stuff.
Like it started to change the country, white America's ability to buy into the narrative that everything was okay.
And I think there's a lot of power in that kind of pageantry and part of my frustration, I think partly because I'm a comms person with a comms focus, Is that there's not enough respect and appreciation of how far that kind of stuff can get you.
And also I think there's an added element to that of people taking as reality the first thing that they see that sort of aligns with their own personal belief system.
So if you have some person seeing Ted Cruz or whatever saying, I overturned, then they could be like, well there was a real guy and he really said that we shouldn't overturn.
Not convinced Ted Cruz is a real guy, but go ahead.
So much of what we see with QAnon, especially when we go undercover and then inevitably get made at all of these Q rallies that we've gone to, is they all approach Travis and they go, hey man, this is real.
This is a real thing.
It is real.
And I've even heard some QAnon supporters say, well, somebody is posting the drops.
That is an interesting way to look at the storming of the Capitol.
So Ted Cruz is posting the drops by doing the theater vote.
Yeah, Ted Cruz is posting the drops.
He really did.
He was up there.
That is an interesting way to look at the storming of the Capitol.
What I've, you know, what I'm focused on is this liminality between what is posturing
and what is real.
And that was the moment when the four years of MAGA bullshit and QAnon bullshit became
real and had a real world effect.
And I'm not counting, obviously, the violence that QAnon supporters have done in the past, and they have committed acts of violence, or the violence that reactionaries and white supremacists have committed.
These are more lone wolf things than something that is specifically molded and directed by the President of the United States.
And I think when you look at the actual composition of the people who went there, it's a mixture of, like you said, there's some of the organized militia types who aren't necessarily QAnon.
They come from a slightly different reactionary tradition in this country.
Right.
But then you have a lot of people who are there Freaking to getting clout.
Yeah.
They're all pretty much like 80% of the people there were live streaming it on DLive or YouTube or whatever the fucking racist, you know, streaming service is now.
YouTube is the racist one now.
Yeah, you're right.
And they get, you know, they sweep into the Capitol, and I guarantee most of the people who are in that crowd, you know, had convinced themselves that, you know, we're stopping the steal, right?
You know, like we're actually doing something, but had deep down inside felt, well, we're actually just going to show up and hoot and holler and make a bunch of noise and then go home, right?
Like we always do.
And then once they go in there, they don't know what to do.
Yeah.
Right.
They have no idea what to do except just screaming.
If you've read on this show some of the indictments of the people who stormed the Capitol, some of them include transcripts of what they were live streaming.
And it was just shit like, hey, I'm here in the Capitol.
You know, hit that like button.
Full name.
Yeah, here's my full name, and here's my social security address, here's my social security number, here's my home address, here's where you can normally find me, here's my contact list, and they had no idea what to do, and it's just kind of like egging each other on, because to some degree QAnon isn't something that Trump instigated, it is kind of a, at least the way I conceive of it as, it's a delusion that, it's a collaborative delusion.
It's not directed by any one force.
It's certainly not directed by Q, because the stuff that Q posts is actually just really mundane and stupid stuff.
It's paranoiacs and people who've given themselves some form of pathology by being on the internet, just collaborating on greater and greater and more extreme and bizarre explanations of the world because they simply don't have the analytical tools to understand the society.
When QAnon first, you know, hit the scene, You know, we would talk about it on my sister's show, Chapel Trap House, and the consensus that we had is, this is a heuristic that people use to explain the world, to explain good and evil, to explain why, you know, hey, Trump won, we won, right, and he's not putting the bad guys in prison, he didn't lock Hillary up or anything like that, so we had to invent increasingly
Implausible and baroque stories.
And I would agree with Bree here that this was accelerated drastically during the pandemic.
Not just because people are isolated, but because people need an explanation for the pandemic itself.
That's not a real thing.
That's not something that happens in America.
That's not something that happens in the first world.
That's not something that happens in white, tony suburbs.
That's something that happens to other people.
And, uh, fuck, I forget where I was going with this one.
No, that was beautiful.
I always forget, I mean, can we, I don't know, can you splice in me with a good conclusion?
Sure.
Julian's a great editor.
I forget where I started.
Okay, how about this, you can splice this one in.
And there you have it.
Woo folks, and that's how it's done.
That's how the pros do it.
This is how the podcasting sausage is made.
Well, let me follow that up.
It does feel like there's going to be a kind of shock doctrine period now after this Capitol thing because we already did see, I guess, some people who are supposedly even progressive leftists, you know, calling for, oh, remove this person from this platform or those kinds of things.
So we have seen that start and then, you know, obviously temper.
As as as tempers cooled.
And so after that, I mean, I'm kind of worried that the surveillance state, the state that is constantly collecting information that is constantly expanding the amount of intelligence agencies that overlook us.
Are we going to see, I guess, a further expansion of that?
And also, kind of second part to the question, do you think this sprawling intelligence apparatus contributes to the failures of electoralism in its kind of purest sense?
I mean, I think we all share that concern.
We all see the writing on the wall.
We're all old enough to have remembered post 9-11 politics.
We all understand that the president, the president-elect is an architect of some of that or a cheerleader of a lot of that.
And it's a concern.
It's also frustrating to not see more people raising that flag and to see even people on the left who seem to be Using the Shock Doctrine moment to press for not the things that I would want to be a priority in this moment, right?
It's not only that some of them are leaning into this idea of expanding the surveillance state, it's that this is an opportunity for us to talk about any number of things, right?
Including the kinds of subjects that might even, again, start to provide a better narrative for the people at the Capitol and start to stem the tide of this insanity.
Right.
Imagine if someone came out and said, and I know I'm really this is like fantasy stuff.
I know how kooky this sounds.
But what if somebody came out and said, okay, let's impeach Trump.
Fine.
At the same time, we need to deal with Diseases of Despair.
We are going to launch an opioid pandemic program that's tied in with this emergency Medicare for All that Bernie Sanders is going to start pushing for to say, we have not done your community service.
We haven't done rural white community service.
We haven't done rural black community service.
We haven't done urban community service.
And it's time for us to really use the power of the federal government to help the people as opposed to Continuing this kind of nonsense that has made everybody so frustrated with elected politicians.
Like, the podium is there.
Everyone's looking to government for leadership right now.
Everyone's staring at their TV all day long.
Well, some of them are staring because they want those heads removed from their bodies.
That's the problem is that people aren't looking like for leadership.
They're like, fuck you.
I think that's the standard American response to the average politician.
They would just pop up on TV is fuck you.
But here's the thing.
Like, I think it's really easy to be like, fuck you to a squad member that's saying impeach the president.
And like, that's not to say that they shouldn't say that, but it's obvious that if you get on TV and you're like, Donald Trump's the worst man, we're going to impeach him, and you already have a certain mind frame, you're going to be like, oh, this proves everything, every conspiratorial thought I've ever had.
We're going to impeach him twice?
What?
This is nuts.
They just really have a vendetta out against this man.
If they were to say that coupled with something else, like, I'm actually going to give you this $2,000 check and not renege on it.
I'm also going to provide you with all these other programs.
I'm going to, you know, Deal with industrial decline in all these cities.
I'm going to start actually validating some of Donald Trump's critique of trade.
Right.
And it makes it harder for you to not see someone as a full human being.
I don't mean to be overly naive or Pollyanna about it.
I don't expect there to be a change overnight.
But there's a real credibility crisis.
And we talked about this, Virgil, a little bit in our last episode.
There's a credibility crisis because people are so balkanized.
They get their news from different places.
They socialize separately.
And I think by unbalkanizing our language and marrying some of the things we want, like say impeachment, with some of the things that would actually benefit people, it is really hard to vilify people in the same way.
And you heard that a lot when Republicans, conservatives talked about Bernie Sanders.
I may not agree with the guy.
I don't agree with his plan to get there.
But I think he means what he says, and I respect him for fighting for it.
I just want to say that maybe we'll get to this later in the conversation, but I just want to say with this impeachment thing, it really feels like the Democrats are the dog that caught the mail truck.
Because now they have no idea what to do with this.
They literally have an impeachment bill.
It's a little physical thing that they've got to transmit to the Senate.
And they're like, maybe we'll do it in six months.
Maybe we'll do it right before the Senate's going to vote on Medicare for All, and then we'll just transmit it there and it becomes a privileged piece of debate that means you can't discuss anything else except for impeachment.
But I want to go back to your original question.
And it's really hard to have a measured response about this.
It really does kind of feel like post 9-11, right?
Because I don't want to minimize what happened at the Capitol building.
Five people died, and it was a dangerous event.
And if you're someone that was hated broadly by this group of people, like Ilhan Omar, someone who's been vilified by bigots for her entire political career, that could have been a matter of life or death.
Absolutely.
Totally.
And so again, I don't want to minimize that.
But I also want to point out that what we saw was not a coup, and it was not close to a coup.
There was no chain of events short of the Joint Chiefs of Staff coming in saying, you're right, yeah, get this Biden guy out of there.
That would have resulted in an actual coup against the government.
That would have resulted in overturning the election.
Yeah, and the coup has to replace the government with something.
Like you said, they took the building and they were like, well, what happens?
I can stand up there behind the dice, but no one's listening to me.
I'm not being captured by C-SPAN, no one's transcribing my shit.
I don't think that they can actually understand how much infrastructure is around them and how powerless they are.
They reach the core of the onion, they peel back all the layers, and there's nothing there.
There's nothing there at the core of the power.
There has been an infrastructure in this country to deal with emotional protests, large protests, protests with the potential for violence.
We know that because it has been deployed against Black Lives Matter for the past decade.
It has been deployed against the left, against labor organizers, against anti-war protesters for my entire life.
And that makes it transparently clear that we don't need new security measures.
We don't need new anti-terror legislation targeting white supremacists, targeting QAnon or whatever, because they already have the legislation.
They already have the powers.
They have this unrestrained surveillance state where even when they break the law, nobody, you know, you know, even if they do an illegal surveillance on an American citizen, well, nobody ever pays a penalty for that, ever.
Even when they torture someone, nobody pays a penalty for that ever, so it's pretty clear that our gigantic security state is capable of acting unimpeded against potential domestic terror threats.
Well, the wild part is that they really think, they really thought that the police and the National Guard and whatnot were going to be on their side.
You know, they were completely dismayed.
You know, the pepper spray woman, oh my God, they pepper sprayed me!
Well, honey bun, like, what did you think was going to happen?
Like, I mean, your point is correct, obviously, but I think that part of the delusion, and I mean, I find this part to be fascinating.
In some way it is a complete and total validation of everything Black Lives Matter and every other like racial equity group has been arguing forever about the alliance between the police state and kind of like white interests.
But on the other hand, you know, even I am shocked by how deeply these white people believe.
Like, they really, really, really believe the cops are going to, like, turn and, like, link arms with them and march Wizard of Oz style into the Capitol.
And, you know, apparently some of them did.
Apparently some of them did.
Yeah, that's the real danger is the actual security forces.
Right.
I mean, but the idea that the entire U.S.
military was going to turn around and be like, oh, yes, this 100 percent.
You from, you know, drove up from Pennsylvania or whatever.
To stop Joe Biden.
I'm going to follow you into the abyss.
Yeah.
But, you know, but to the point of, you know, the idea of a new domestic terror bill, you know, a Patriot Act, too.
I don't know if you've seen the photographs from the U.S.
Capitol right now, where my colleague Bree is currently stationed, hunkered down near the green zone, where someone pointed out earlier that there are more troops there than there are in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria combined.
It is... I mean, it's security theater, isn't it?
It's a classic overreaction to what was a serious event where there were profound security failures that need to be investigated and need to be, you know, figured out exactly what went down there and why they didn't actually have the security for these, you know, violent types.
Uh, who, you know, said we're gonna go to the Capitol.
We're gonna fuck shit up.
And they've been saying that for freaking weeks.
Just go on, you know, go on any social media website and you can see that.
Uh, it's not something you have to even tap a fucking phone line to find that out because these guys are all live streaming it.
Uh, it's...
You know, it's humiliating, isn't it?
That this is how the transfer of power looks.
This is how the Biden administration is going to be ushered in in a militarized D.C.
that looks like lower Manhattan on the day after 9-11.
It looks like the Green Zone in Baghdad.
And to the point of whether there will be a, you know, new, you know, domestic terror laws or things like that, I genuinely don't think so, because I don't think the votes are there for it.
I do think it's possible that there would be a shift in the priorities of the surveillance state, but that would not be a shift away from surveilling Black Lives Matter activists, or Antifa, or Muslims.
It would just be, well, we're just going to tack on some QAnon people and call it a day.
But otherwise, it should be pretty plain to everyone that there's not a need for any new legislation or new surveillance powers or new law enforcement powers.
And also, I want to add to this point about security theater.
Honestly, it was ridiculous that they put magnetometers in the portal to the House Chamber.
Does anyone really believe that Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to walk in there and just shoot someone?
I don't know, Virgil.
I don't know if I... Look, security theater, maybe.
But if the theater, again, projects a message to some people who might otherwise have come to the Capitol to, you know, not try it because they're going to fail.
I don't know that when something like what happened on January 6th happens, you can be too blasé about what still might I have no sense of how dramatic this team is compared to 2008, which was the last time I was in D.C.
So, like, I have no real sense of how dramatic this team is compared to like 2008, which
was the last time I was in D.C. for an inauguration.
But, you know, I'm not mad at that.
And Marjorie, she seems like I'm sorry, like, yeah, no, I wouldn't put it past her.
And maybe she doesn't plan to go in there and blow people's heads open.
But the idea that she would bring a gun and that her colleagues would feel uncertain about what she's going to do with it.
I personally, if I worked there, wouldn't hate Her being kept from doing that, just based on what we just saw happening.
Moreover, you know, to your earlier point, Virgil, Joe Biden was talking about funding the police more in the middle of the Black Lives Matter protests in like June.
So the idea that there isn't like a bipartisan interest in expanding the surveillance state and expanding police power, I don't know, I'm a little less sanguine on that one.
Well, there is one.
There definitely is one.
But right now, the impetus is liberals who are afraid of the right.
And based on how tight the margins are in the Congress, I don't think, you know, a comprehensive, you know, fuck the right, Patriot Act type thing could possibly pass.
And also, I mean, adding to that, I mean, I'm also using as, you know, my key argument here, The fact that when a guy went into an elementary school in Connecticut and slaughtered a bunch of children, we didn't pass any ganty gun legislation in this country.
I think any kind of legislation that seems to rein in a reactionary white minority is not going to pass muster.
Also, I think that, you know, when people are sort of planning their crimes on message boards and posting their crimes as they're happening, I think that any more intelligence about what these people are doing is really redundant.
Yeah.
Oh, it's redundant!
But this is, we're talking about the shock doctrine.
We're talking about people exploiting a moment.
Yeah, no, I agree.
To get what they couldn't otherwise get, you know.
I agree, and I don't think that they would really do it along partisan lines.
It would just be everyone going, yay cops, like yay more guns, more funding.
I agree with that.
It wouldn't be fuck the right, you're definitely right.
It would not be partisan because that's only the right that gets away with doing stuff like that.
I have friends I'm sorry, it's not going to be something that is going to impact the rights of someone who was the, you know, the vice president of a realtor company who, you know, stormed the Capitol.
Because that's the sort of person that the anti-terror legislation has been sold our entire lives to protect.
Yeah.
Well, their jet skis are dangerous!
So I wanted to ask you guys a little bit about something we call Blueanon.
Now, this is a phenomenon that is manifesting more and more.
It's a belief system structurally similar to QAnon, except the bloodlust is directed at Trump and his entourage, and the people all believe that he's imminently going to be arrested or even sometimes executed.
And so we've seen them displace this rage also onto the Capitol rioters like just having like that.
There's a reddit group called like Capitol Consequences or something like that like just something and it's of course just libs just all tattling tattling tattling So we've seen a bit of that.
Yeah, do you think it's likely that any of their enemies will end up behind bars?
Whether that's the the QAnon people or Trump or his entourage I mean, they've all been pardoned the ones that were gotten by the famous and amazing Mueller report Wait, so Blue Anon is... Oh, it's a QAnon for Democrats.
Okay.
I was thinking it was like when QAnon gets sad.
Because I know that there have been, you know, in recent days, some of the QAnon people turning on Trump as well.
Right.
Wow.
Okay.
Do I think that Trump will be behind bars?
No.
Yeah.
I'll put a marker down on that one too.
No, he will never see the inside of a jail cell.
He might be indicted.
That's possible.
It would be totally unprecedented, but it's theoretically possible.
It would probably, you know, pose some big constitutional challenge.
But I don't think, you know, he leaves office this week and, you know, like right after Biden sworn in, you know, the, you know, the G-men come down, they slap the cuffs on Trump for disrespecting the Constitution.
I don't think that's something that's gonna happen. I mean he is like a crook and involved in all kinds of shady shit.
He's a rapist So, you know, there might be some kind of state-level thing
But at the end of the day, no, I don't think he I think he's a free man for the rest of his life in terms
Of QAnon, I mean, well is Blueanon I mean, are they just trying to like is this is like the
kind of snitch thing and they're just trying to identify They're hoping these people will go to jail for a very long time for like insurrection and sedition and shit like that.
Okay, that's interesting.
Okay, that's interesting.
Virgil, they're making points where they're like, you know, where they're saying like, I believe in the coming weeks, you know, Donald Trump and Ivanka will be arrested.
I mean, it's the same.
I mean, it's very same pattern as the QAnon posts.
Yeah, terrible.
But I do want to say this.
For all the talk and outrage of the Capitol storming, and for Trump, and for the members of Congress, the Republicans like Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley, who voted to sustain the objections to the Electoral College count, as seditionists, as traitors to the United States, one of, I think, three crimes that's actually specified in the Constitution, If you read the indictments, if you look up the title that the people who stormed the Capitol, the ones who are unarmed anyway, that's carrying a weapon, you know, that's a different crime.
If you look up the title that they've been indicted under, it carries a one-year maximum prison sentence.
And it's stuff like, it's stuff like failing to, uh, it's like going where you're not supposed to.
It's stuff like raising your voice in the capital.
Look at, like, look at the actual indictments.
And I'm not a law, I'm not a lawyer.
Uh, you know, Bree handles all the legal matters, uh, on the show.
It's like, you see these, I read these indictments, and I think of, well, the fricking Black Lives Matter protesters.
It's like 20 years for being on a fricking sidewalk.
Yeah, there's people from the Summers protests who are still in jail.
Yeah.
So I will say that, you know, I'm not talking about the, you know, the militia guys who brought like a shitload of guns.
To DC, which is hyper legal.
Uh, no, they'll probably face, you know, bigger sentences, but like for, for your average imbecile who just showed up there to live stream or TikTok themselves in Nancy Pelosi's office or whatever.
And they just, you know, get hit with those two counts.
I think that.
They will face at most one year in prison, five years probation.
I think that's going to be the penalty for what everyone is calling sedition.
Eric Siegel, who is a constitutional lawyer who we've had on our show before, has been ranting and raving on Twitter about this very point.
He's like, they messed up the last impeachment by picking the wrong issue to go after and they're doing it again.
And at a certain point, you have to stop thinking that they're just hapless.
Or dumb or bad at their jobs.
At a certain point, that excuse doesn't quite gel anymore.
Unless you just have an extremely low opinion of people who have managed to get to the highest echelons of our political system.
I think the fact that most of these people will not face serious consequences.
By serious I mean the consequences that there should be for actual sedition or treason.
I think that makes the event a victory for them.
I really do.
Because, you know, I'm not saying it's pleasant to spend a year in federal prison or be on probation or anything like that, but I'm saying that actual legal charge is not commensurate with what they are supposed to have done.
And it means that if you are the one of the morons wearing, uh, fucking dressed like Jon Snow, uh, just like sitting with your feet up in Nancy Pelosi's office and, you know, you don't go, you know, you don't end up in prison for 20 years for trying to overthrow the government or trying to, you know, kill Nancy Pelosi or whatever, uh, then that means you, you know, you Manage to profane the Capitol.
And this is, you know, again, this was not a coup.
It was a symbolic act.
You managed to profane the Capitol and get away with it, effectively.
And then go back to do whatever, you know, to, you know, get out of prison and, you know, keep doing right wing shit.
Do you think that's true, even though many of them expected no consequences at all?
They thought that the cops would simply part from them and they would basically stop Biden from being elected and go back to their regular lives?
Yeah.
I mean, I continue to think that's just kind of the best part.
I mean, I would love to talk to somebody.
I mean, they love to incriminate themselves anyway, so maybe they would just come on the show.
Maybe you guys should interview one of these people.
We'll get you the Q Shaman.
Yeah, yeah.
We actually represent him now.
So do you know Q?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Definitely, definitely, definitely.
We had a Star Trek episode in which I was trying to explain one of the best villains on Star Trek who was also named Q to Virgil, and we had a little bit of a miscommunication on this.
I'm forgiven!
My brothers and sisters of the Continuum have taken me back.
I'm immortal again!
Omnipotent again!
Swell.
Don't fret, Riker.
My good fortune is your good fortune.
Kill!
But I feel like celebrating!
I don't!
That's right, we have some questions about that, specifically Star Trek.
But we also have a listener sent in a question.
All of them were very bad that you sent in, listeners, obviously.
But there was one decent one, and it was simply, Virgil, have you ever snorted adrenochrome by accident thinking it was ketamine?
I have never snorted anything by, well, I have never snorted adrenochrome.
Thank you for the straight answer.
And tell listeners a little bit about your podcast.
I really enjoy the dynamic between you two.
Your podcast is kind of teaching me to listen to podcasts where people disagree with each other in a constructive way, which is, I guess, kind of rare these days.
But tell us about Bad Faith.
That's a nice thing to say.
That's what I want people to be saying about us.
Wait, no one's disagreeing with me on the show.
I insist that everyone agree with me at all times and defer to my opinion.
Even when it's, you know, even if it's baldly wrong and flies in the face of all available evidence.
The reason why you can sneak that in is because Virgil never listens to the episodes afterwards, so yeah, they do leave in the opposing viewpoints, Virgil.
Wow, you know a lot about the lore back then, don't you?
Yeah, I mean, we do try for that.
I think like a lot of folks on the left, we're trying to figure out what the path forward is kind of like post Bernie.
And there are a lot of conflicting views on that.
There is this, you know, infighting that the left is famous for.
And I would like to think that this is a place where people could come And make arguments in good faith and know that they're going to be taken seriously and there's not going to be all this weird, like, oh, but you're only saying that because you're a grifter and there's ulterior motives to everything.
And we know we can actually get to the substance of this stuff and work through it together without just posturing and pretending like we all know the right answer.
Yes, exactly.
I think that is definitely missing from the discourse.
The ability to be uncertain, the ability to look at a gray area and to not really be certain where your opinion is, or even need to fully form it because, you know, is it existentially fully formable is sometimes a question around certain beliefs or certain areas.
But yeah, I really appreciate the podcast.
I wanted to call the show Grey Area, actually, but Virgil thought that was too Brianna-centric.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
So true.
I wanted to call the show Texas Tea, but Brie shot that one down, too.
I'm going to use that for my syndicated newspaper column.
Your breakout show.
Yeah.
I would say of our show, it's a real classy joint.
And we have some of the leading artists and intellectuals of our time appear.
And, you know, we sit in the parlor and we make quips with each other.
It's kind of a modern-day Algonquin round table.
Yeah.
It's very approachable.
So where can they find Bad Faith?
Well, you can find Bad Faith anywhere podcasts are sold, but especially at patreon.com slash bad faith podcast.
You know how to spell all those words.
They're not weird.
You can subscribe to our show for $5 a month and get an exclusive premium episode every week that we're told is often of higher quality than the free episodes that we put out.
And people constantly tell us, you should make this one free.
And it's like, well, no, then how can I do this pitch?
I make that one free.
We just did a brilliant one with Corey Robin, Terrence Ray from the Trillbillies, and Tony Boswell from Minion Death Cult.
If those words mean something to you, then you should definitely subscribe for it, but you can also subscribe to unlock our full episode library, our controversial interviews with Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, We have a YouTube page, so every Thursday episode is free.
If you are not paying for the Monday episodes or you want to get a preview of what's in them, we do put clips of all of our episodes up in visual format on YouTube.
So go there and subscribe so you don't miss out on future uploads.
Go check it out.
If you are a visual learner and you just enjoy seeing our beautiful faces, because we are a beautiful show, go to... Oh my God, I always forget.
I need that.
I'm Virgil Baking Google on YouTube.
Probably youtube.com slash badfaithpod.
I think that if they can't figure it out thus far, Virgil, they're going to have some trouble with your opinions or the words you use.
So they know you're beautiful.
Why would they have trouble with me?
They love you from the last podcast.
Have some confidence!
That's a deadpan salesman if I've ever seen one, you know?
God, what a failed pitch.
Embarrassing.
I'm gonna have to cut all of this out.
We don't talk about her.
I'm the other woman and I don't love it.
Next time, when you come on our show, you're going to get the business.
Would be a pleasure, and I will come with the tar so you can feather me.
You could just throw the feathers directly.
I want to move on to Star Trek, folks.
You've both heard the Star Trek captain question.
You've both answered it.
But who is your overall favorite Star Trek character?
Bree and Virgil, you can answer with your favorite American dad.
Overall favorite character is, you know, really hard.
I might have to just go with Lieutenant Worf, partly because my childhood dog was named Lieutenant Worf, and I just have a deep emotional connection to him.
In terms of villain, I do love Q. I love Q. End this.
Moi?
What makes you think I'm either inclined or capable to terminate this encounter?
If we all die here, now, you will not be able to gloat.
You wanted to frighten us.
We're frightened.
You wanted to show us that we were inadequate.
For the moment, I grant that.
You wanted me to say, I need you.
I need you!
Another man would have been humiliated to say those words.
Another man would have rather died than ask for help.
I understand what you've done here, Q.
But I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew.
If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed.
It's not safe out here.
It's wondrous.
With treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross.
I love every Q episode.
I will rewatch them to rock myself to sleep at night during these hard times.
And also, I will admit to having, all of my childhood crushes were from Deep Space Nine episodes.
So I had a real thing for Julian Bashir, and I had a real thing for Jake Sisko.
Oh, my partner told me that Julian Bashir was good-looking, and I did not understand, and now I'm seeing that this is—it's spreading!
The man is asexual!
First of all, you're talking about like, I was like a 13-year-old or something, so there's a certain appeal to that, that kind of adolescent quality that he has.
He's just charming and genetically modified.
He's smart, he's powerful.
I'll give you my answer.
I'll give you both answers, actually.
So I've only seen a few episodes of The Next Generation.
Looking forward to seeing more.
I would say number one, and you know, I can't really put Picard in the same group as everyone else because he's the leader.
So, I will say it's Riker.
I find him a very suave, calming presence.
Yes!
I'm shocked by that, Virgil.
That's the most Chad answer in the world, and I did not expect that from you.
His beard is palpable.
We need you to do a retake, but you need to say, well, Riker, but obviously his connection to Troy is like a character in and of itself, and so it's really about, you know, the way they work together, a bit like my podcast, and you could bring it back to Bad Faith.
I have not seen a Troy-centric episode, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.
I find her an interesting character as well.
She's great.
My favorite American Dad character, and this is a very controversial pick, is Klaus.
Okay.
Really?
Well, it's cool that Klaus Kinski got on that show.
I will say, since we're on the subject of Star Trek, that Gates McFadden, who played Dr. Beverly Crusher, did humiliate me in front of a large group of people, IRL, at one point in my life.
Acting teacher.
Wait, she was your acting teacher?
Well, she studied at a professional clown school.
She was a Lecoq clown pupil.
No way.
And so she came to my university to do an adjunct... I can't believe I'm telling you guys this story.
Keep going, man.
I know how this goes.
You're in it now.
So she came to do a semester... Was it a clown college?
Yes, yes.
So we did a... California clown college.
Yeah, we did a California clown semester.
And, um, you know, we all had to prepare, like, a clown bit, and mine wasn't, like, humiliating enough, and she used to, you know, she was trying to teach the class, she said, no, you know, you didn't take it far enough, you know, uh, you know, somebody go up, somebody go up and de-pants him.
That, like, that, that'll make you feel the humiliation that a clown is supposed to feel.
And this girl, this girl, Lisa from my class, um, came up, and she grabbed my pants, And pulled them down and I was wearing long knitted boxers so when she grabbed the thigh she was also grabbing onto the boxer material and my penis flopped out in front of my whole class and Gates McFadden.
And that's the story.
I mean, that's some men's fantasy, so... There was nothing hot.
There was nothing sexual about it.
I felt violated.
It was a bad time.
That's amazing.
I gotta say, even with the humiliation, I'm kind of jealous.
I also think that Gaines McFadden was really... I feel like she thought that she might be kind of the hot girl of Next Generation when they were casting these roles.
And then they completely just would never let her fill that space and everything went to Troy.
What was her job?
Sorry?
What was Beverly Crusher's job?
She's the doctor.
Oh, okay.
Also, because it's like, honestly, all the sex appeal falls away when you meet fucking Wesley.
And I'm not against people with children, I'm against people with Wesleys.
Yeah, it's like going on a dating app.
Like, oh, you have a child, next.
A Wesley in particular.
You heard it here.
We will not date Dr. Beverly Crusher because she has a son.
Well, thank you so much, Brianna Virgil.
You know, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Stay safe.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Please go to patreon.com slash QAnonAnonymous and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every week plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
When you subscribe you help us stay advertising free and editorially independent.
We usually stream twice a week at twitch.tv slash QAnonAnonymous.
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Listener, until next week, may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you.
It's not a conspiracy, it's fact.
And now, today's Auto-Tune.
Did I hear that Travis View got a blue checkmark?
No way.
Travis View.
He's officially a deep state shill.
He's been a deep state shill for a while.
Oh geez.
I did not see that he got a blue checkmark.
Granted, I don't hang around Twitter much these days.
Although Travis View, that's actually not even his real name.
