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March 25, 2015 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
01:24:10
To Play the King

Roman Bernard and Jack Donovan join Richard to discuss House of Cards, what it is says about the nature of power, women, sovereignty, and the ultimate impotence of politicians. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe

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Well, Jack, Romain, welcome back.
Jack, you first.
How are things in the Pacific Northwest?
Lovely early spring.
Yes, that's good.
That's how it is here.
No skiing.
It's just hot.
Romain, how are things in Paris?
Well, first I'm...
I have to say I'm ready for a new discussion between Europeanized Americans and an Americanized European.
Things are good in Paris, but as I told you before we went on, the proximity of the British Channel makes that you don't see the sun until June.
It's never really cold in Paris, but you don't see the sun and you don't even see the sky for months.
I'm really yearning for the real spring that should come around May and then June, especially.
That sounds lovely.
Romantic.
Yes, romantic.
Well, let's talk about House of Cards.
How did you guys get into this program?
Jack, since you're...
Roman's more of a regular podcaster, so I'll defer to our special guest.
But how did you get into this program, House of Cards?
Oh, I think a friend recommended it to me about a year ago.
And I actually enjoy long series.
I don't watch regular television, but I think I actually enjoy long series more than movies.
Yeah, I don't have a television now.
Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy...
These long-involved kind of operatic series more than movies at this point because I just think they're more interesting, more complicated, and you can have these long storylines that unfold slowly.
So that's the only TV I watch is a TV like that.
So it just was recommended as a good one, and I got into it like you do with some of these shows when they've been out for a while.
And I think Roman just told me on Facebook that he watched the whole season of this House of Cards in like a day.
I think I watched the first two seasons in a week.
So, you know, just kind of get addicted to hitting on to the next one.
I know, and I've noticed with Netflix, they keep starting, almost the moment the credits start rolling of the last one, you're kind of like, oh, yeah.
Yeah, no, I had a few 3 p.m. and later nights watching this stuff.
It's terrible, actually.
I feel kind of pathetic that I'm literally doing that, but I guess I'm admitting it.
It's the first step towards overcoming.
It's your recovery.
So for a moment, how did you get into it?
Actually, you know, sometimes, and maybe oftentimes, good things come out of bad ones.
So, I don't want to recount my life, but last year I was stuck.
Oh, do!
About the same time of year, I was stuck with a shitty job, which really was, and you remember it, because you were interviewed by them after Budapest.
No, in Budapest, you know, and it was...
A job that really left me with no energy when I went back home.
So the only thing I could do, I couldn't write.
So I only could be passive.
And that was pathetic in a way too.
And I didn't even have the patience to watch movies, you know, which lasts two hours or more.
So I watched many series during that time too.
Actually, wait for the end of this shitty job, which happened last summer, and then I could leave again.
And during this period, I watched, actually, when I say that, and I said the American as European, because these were all American or sometimes British shows.
Many shows, including House of Cards, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and others.
You're a big Archer fan, aren't you?
Yeah.
It's not really serious.
It's more an amusement park.
I don't know how I can qualify it.
Luckily, it only lasts 20 minutes because otherwise it would really get nonsensical.
Yes.
So I started watching it just because I read reviews of it and I'm interested in politics, not in the politician sense, but more the reflection on power.
And I knew I would find that in that series.
I have to say, maybe it's mainstream and liberal, but there's a reflection on the real nature of power that you don't find in more dissident literature.
I don't want to play the old far-right review that tries to find white nationalism in...
Walt Disney, but I really found many themes that we talk about all the time and that you could have broadcast to millions and millions of viewers.
So it's an interesting show for Yeah, I agree with everything you said.
I think it does touch on interesting themes and deeper themes.
And I think that's why it is a captivating show.
You know, you can watch it just for the surface element, but there's something else.
And I think also there's, it's not the West Wing, which I think I, gosh, many years ago, I think I watched a couple episodes and I was like, oh my God, so stupid.
It's basically, that's the kind of Aaron Sorkin, you know, liberal fantasy where all of these politicians are all good and earnest and they're, you know, they have the best intentions except for the bad ones and so on and so forth.
So it was a comedy?
Right.
Well.
But I think in a way, House of Cards is kind of a comedy.
Particularly with the BBC version, which I have to say, I really do love that one.
I think House of Cards, the Netflix, Kevin Spacey, is fascinating and worth watching.
I think the BBC one I really have a special affection for.
And that one becomes more satirical and it becomes a kind of like a renaissance.
Drama where there's murder and evil scheming and things like that.
But I like this...
Not farcical.
I like the stylized elements to House of Cards so much more than the realistic, earnest elements.
I hate those elements, actually.
I like it when they're throwing girls in front of oncoming trains and coming up with bizarre schemes and doing a triple move and all that kind of stuff.
I think that stuff's really fun.
It reminds me of Shakespeare.
The BBC version.
You know, is definitely Shakespearean.
Anyway, I think I watched, I think I was like a year late on watching the first season.
And then I just like watched both seasons together.
And it was, I think it was like December of 2013 or something.
But I definitely liked it for all of these qualities.
This kind of like, there's a depth behind it all.
And I liked the, you know, there's something.
I appreciate when you look at politics as this, not as getting the work done for the American people, but as scheming and just the quest for power and power in itself, mere power on some levels.
I thought that was a much refreshingly cynical look at Washington.
It actually also, we don't need to dwell on this, it reminded me...
Of my time in Washington, it was actually pitch perfect in some ways.
In some of those early scenes where you walk into the Washington Herald office, that really reminded me of my time there.
Some of those journalists that were all overweight and kind of like, you know, their belly was bulging out and they were wearing kind of like...
Dull, tasteless clothes.
I was like, oh wow, it's Jim Antle.
It reminded me of my colleagues.
Anyway, he I thought it had a kind of Washington element.
But anyway, let's just do this.
Let's go scene by scene, three seasons.
I think that might take a little long.
That might take more than a day.
Let's just talk about something.
And then we publish it as counter-currents.
No, I'm not sure it'd be long enough for that.
Why don't we just talk about some themes.
Where do you want to begin?
Actually, let's talk about this.
Let's talk about Francis Underwood himself.
Jack, why don't you pick up on this?
When we were just emailing about doing this podcast, you mentioned that he's a kind of...
He's a kind of fantasy of the Southern boy ending up at the top of the pile.
Well, that was just something that struck me immediately.
And as the show went on, when you see what's going on in our society now, I'm sorry, in their society now, I don't know that a Southern white man will ever be president again.
That doesn't seem likely.
And so, I mean, in a way, it's kind of a fantasy of a time past and how politics might have been.
I said something about it being Clinton-esque in many ways.
You have this power couple and you have this kind of guy who's a little bit folksy and also kind of liberal at the same time.
But not really liberal, you can kind of tell.
No, I think it is true.
It's a kind of fantasy of like, we can still do this.
We can still win at this game.
I think in a way, Frank Underwood is also a white supremacist in the age of multiculturalism.
I say that with a tongue-in-cheek in a way, but what he represents is that Southern boy made good, and he actually is able to win at...
I think it's one of the first scenes of season one where he's talking to the camera, and I think he ends that monologue with saying, you know, welcome to Washington.
Before that, he talks about, he placed the president's chief of staff, and he talks to the camera, and he's like, you know, a woman, check.
Latina, check.
You know, she's from the South or Midwest, check.
And he's basically checking off all these multicultural things.
And so he's kind of like...
Playing multiculturalism.
He wants someone who is loyal to him, or at the very least, that he thinks that he can use.
And he's using the multicultural checklist to get that.
And so he's obviously not a man with ideals, but at the very least, he is the one, he's aware of his surroundings, and he kind of uses them.
For his own gain.
So I think it is.
He is that fantasy of, we can actually win at this.
Which is, in a way, a kind of trumped-up version of the Republican fantasy of, oh, don't worry.
We don't have to change anything about ourselves.
There'll be no implications to mass immigration.
We'll just win over the Hispanics through Christianity and family values.
It's that kind of vision of, oh, we can do this.
We can win.
Get a black man on the ticket.
Check.
Yeah.
That's what politics is today.
And I think you're right in saying it's in many ways a progressive fantasy in the sense of there's so many progressives I think who I've dealt with who are kind of cynical about multiculturalism and just deal with it as a reality of what you would need if you were assembling, say, like a school.
You know, like, you know, you want to have, you know, a teacher who's Latina and a teacher who's this, you know, at all levels of the system, there are managers and so forth making those kind of decisions.
Yeah.
And they're probably more bald and frank about it than we might actually imagine.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah, I mean, you know that someone sat down, people are sitting down in a meeting somewhere right now saying, oh, well, and that candidate's black, so that's great.
Yeah.
You know, we need one of those.
Right.
I mean, it's basically the kind of racism that is implicit within multiculturalism that's kind of always there.
She'll protect us from lawsuits and protect us from this and that.
Yeah, yeah.
Roman, do you want to chime in on this topic?
Yeah.
You are talking about the first scene because it's the very first scene of the first episode where he checks all the multicultural aspects of the president's chief of staff.
I don't know if it was only during the first episode or during the first ones.
You know, it's not clear at the beginning if he's a Democrat or Republican.
We only learned that later.
And I wasn't sure, actually, because the president at first, Garrett Walker, who is the former governor of Colorado, which I think is a very British state, I mean, before the Hispanic Swimping.
You know, and the vice president is very waspy, too.
So it's not, as Jack said, it's not really credible.
It could be set in the 90s, but not really in the second decade of the 21st century.
But, you know, I was thinking it was a kind of, there was a kind of Republican revenge in 2010 and then in 2012.
Why the White House was white again, if I may.
But no, we soon learn that there are Democrats.
And it's kind of surprising.
And again, I don't want to interpret or over-interpret this series, but it's telling that they took a liberal administration and left-wing, at least officially, and How did you say that these people were not as nice as they could pretend?
Which is PC in a way because it means that they don't live up to their high and noble ideals.
But then you start watching the series and you start liking as a guy who is cynical and playing all this multi-culture establishment against each other.
You start liking him especially because he understood the game and unlike it's pompous, but I would say people like us, he doesn't want to criticize it openly.
But then, you know, if Francis Underwood was on the podcast, he would agree with everything we're saying about the fact that multiculturalism is about hypocrisy and That eventually you need managers who have to play all these token minorities against each other.
So Underwood is a really complex figure for that.
I think you're getting a lot of interesting things.
If you look at the BBC version, and it was actually based on a novel by a man named Dobbs, I believe.
Anyway, it came out in 1991, and it was immediately following on Thatcher, and I guess Thatcher's downfall as well.
So it was a kind of...
It was produced by the BBC, which is well known for being a hyper-liberal organization.
In a way, it was their fantasy slash nightmare of the Thatcher era.
Ian Richardson, who brilliantly plays Francis Urquhart, he's old.
He's from a privileged background.
He's not like Frank Underwood, who's a country boy.
You know, he's from privilege.
And it was this kind of vision of these just horrible conservative Tories and what they're really like.
And they're all, you know, having sex with mistresses and trying to slime people.
You know, it was that kind of fantasy.
But I guess the odd thing about it is that you end up sympathizing with Francis to such a degree.
And so much of that is because he's looking at the camera, breaking the fourth wall.
I'm kind of letting you in on his schemes.
But even beyond that, it's hard not to like him or at least admire him.
And so the fantasy kind of is flipped on its end.
The BBC, in a weird way, even a conservative Tory can watch this and kind of get into it.
And I think that's also with Francis Underwood.
I mean, he's a good liberal at some level, but in a way, people, I think...
People watching it, including lots of liberals watching it, they like him precisely because he's not really a liberal.
He has some Southern values, and those aren't...
You know, like, redneck values.
He kind of has, you know, some taste, and he likes the finer things in life, and he went to a military school, and blah, blah, blah.
So it's a kind of, like, having it both ways, of he's this southern conservative who, but who's also kind of a good liberal and plays along with it.
I was also thinking, like, and this is maybe something to criticize about the series, is that...
One thing that you see with Hollywood, whenever they try to add depth to a character, they'll do something like, oh, he was abused as a child or whatever.
And so with Frank, it's like, oh, he's kind of sort of secretly gay as a kind of depth to him.
But I felt that that...
I don't know.
I felt all of those things were kind of implausible and not really believable.
And they didn't really...
I don't know.
I thought it was very...
It seemed...
Yeah, I'd agree.
It was scandalous and titillating, which is what TV shows are about, but I don't think that it was really realistic for that particular character.
Yeah, and again, it's like, you know...
With a great character, he's deep because of his mind and the way he does things.
But I think it's very shallow to be like, you're deep because you happen to be abused as a child or you're secretly gay.
It's a kind of...
I don't know.
It struck me as a little bit stupid, to be honest.
He has enough desperation that comes from being poor.
Yeah.
You know, usually being poor and having a father who's a loser and whatever, the guys who become ambitious because of that tend to be extremely, extremely driven.
So that all made sense.
Yeah.
Yeah, and there is a lot to him.
I remember he was giving this speech.
There was some kind of a one-off episode where he goes down to South Carolina to clear up some peach pit or peach.
What was that?
Water tower thing.
Kind of like one of the sillier moments.
Because a girl was texting.
We're driving and kill ourselves, something like that.
Right.
The peach water tower looks like a gigantic ass and or dick.
A butt plug.
Right.
And so she was texting, like, that looks like dot, dot, dot, and then she ran off the road.
Anyway, it's a kind of morbid, comical thing, but he was giving, he gave a funeral operation.
And he would just say these things that were kind of shocking.
And it would be like, I hate you, God!
He goes, oh, come on, we've all thought it.
And he obviously tied a Christian, a Southern Christian bow around the whole thing.
But just the fact that he says things like this gives you, like, that's in a way real depth.
Like, that gives you a glimpse into some kind of terrifying human being.
Actually, I don't want to spoil the third season too much.
I should say this.
If you are listening to this podcast and you've not watched it, I mean...
Please, don't blame us for spoiling plot points.
Don't be a victim.
It's not true about the plot, but it's a very both deep and comical scene in the third season.
He's talking with a priest, and then he asks to be left alone in the church, and he goes to...
To Christ and a cross.
And he says, love, is that what you're selling?
Well, I'm not buying.
And then he spits on Jesus Christ.
And of course, you know, from a liberal point of view, it's maybe a mix of sacrilege and a way of saying that, you know, religion from politicians is funny, but...
When you look at this scene and the religion of love, it's so cheesy.
Maybe not at first, maybe not in the Middle Ages, but today when you look at the Pope, the current Pope, Christianity is really cheesy.
And it's good to have an important character who happens to be the president of the U.S. saying...
I'm not buying it.
It was really a great scene of the third season.
Yeah, I mean, he has a kind of devilish and maybe even almost like right-wing critique of Christianity.
Yeah, Nietzschean in a way.
Yeah, I mean, and obviously it is kind of shallow because it's all about like, you know, oh, I think he says, you know, we're just, he says at one point like we're...
It was almost like the famous Matthew Arnold poem, Dover Beach.
We're just people fighting each other.
He says some kind of bleak, atheistic-type sentiment.
But nevertheless, I think, again, that and that is his funeral oration where he says, I hate God.
They're just these glimpses of a deep person who has psychological and philosophical depth.
And I think that's what's interesting.
Anyway, why don't we talk a little bit about Claire?
Jack, why don't you start off by talking about his wife with whom he conspires?
Well, I really enjoyed actually Claire Underwood's character in terms of, I think she's in many ways until in the third season where she becomes A little bit more modern and feminist and also kind of emotional and unpredictable.
I mean she's really a rock for the first two seasons.
And she's complicit in her husband's ambition.
And she's a supporting wife in the way that today – they talk a lot about partnerships of equals.
And that becomes challenged in the third season.
But, you know, through most of the season, there's this moment, especially in the third season, there's a moment where they're talking on the phone.
And she says, if you need to talk, we can talk.
But if you're going to luxuriate in self-doubt, I won't entertain that.
And I just think that's a fantastic thing for a woman to say to a man who's trying to be better.
We get so many messages from women today that have to do with, well, you should get in touch with your feelings more.
We should really talk more.
You should cry more.
I want to hear your feelings.
And she's a woman who is pushing a man to be great.
And that's what I really liked about her character.
Very much like the...
Queen Gorgo in the movie 300.
She's very much come back with your shield or on it.
She's definitely go out and do it and I'll support you however I can.
But you're here to be great and I can't help you weaken yourself.
She's a Donovanian hero in a way.
Yeah, strangely enough.
She's a good woman.
Until she screws it up at the end.
Right.
No, I think in the third season, she kind of falls off the path.
But no, I agree.
I think she's a kind of Lady Macbeth figure.
And obviously Lady Macbeth is kind of a devilish villain.
But in a kind of almost good way, where she doesn't say, like, you need to spend more time with me!
She's instead, you know, like, you need to achieve your ambition fully, and, like, you know, you're getting soft on me.
And I think there is something, yeah, I agree.
I think there is something powerful, and it's a kind of...
It's something extremely different than contemporary feminism, which wants female autonomy and disconnect.
It really is a true marriage, and in a weird way a loving one, but where both parties are working together and they're pooling their resources.
And things like that.
I agree.
It is a kind of image of something.
She pushes her husband and rises with him.
The idea of a first lady is actually really well fleshed out in her.
Yeah, I agree.
Unfortunately, in the third season, they have this Vladimir Putin stand-in and this feminine pussy riot.
They're literally called Pussy Riot, aren't they?
I think so.
They are the pussy right.
Yeah, okay.
So they just went beyond...
And it's a very unlikely scene because they are invited at the same table of the Putin-like president.
Right.
Which doesn't really make sense.
Yes.
No, that is very unlikely.
But even here, and this is where I think this House of Cards and other things are kind of...
They kind of have it both ways, or there's another side to things.
What's interesting is that the Putin figure is actually deeply admirable.
He's not a monster, and he's not stupid, and he's actually someone who's tough, very smart, maybe a little bit thuggish, but you understand him.
Don't you agree?
He's treated as sympathetic.
To some degree.
Obviously, they were making him Putin.
But at the same time, they actually took the cooler things away from Putin.
He wasn't quite as composed.
But he was a little bit more slimy, I thought.
But otherwise, he's a very comparable character.
Maybe about the Russian president.
You know, there's a scene and maybe they took it directly from, you know, during the Syrian crisis in August 2013, there was a very, very famous picture of Obama and Putin sitting next to another.
And you had Putin, you know, very calm, confident.
"Alpha," as Manofstria sites used to say.
And then you had Obama twisted like a grape plant and very weak and, you know, and the contrast between the two was very striking.
And there's a similar scene because Underwood is not...
Underwood is not weak, he's not better, to use the same metaphor, but he's not as alpha, so to speak, as the Russian president.
And there's a scene in which you have two presidents sitting next to another and it's very close to the real one.
And of course, during the dinner at the White House, the Russian president dances with Claire and...
At the end, kisses her, which is kind of diplomatic humiliation to Underwood.
The character was actually more interesting than Putin, even if there are many common points, like the fact that he's much more liberal than his party and his support in Russia.
Putin is like, I think I said it before, but Putin is Like Bismarck in 19th century Germany.
Bismarck was a kind of progressive, actually.
He has a conservative image because he was a warrior, but he was very progressive and liberal.
And Putin is a little like that.
He doesn't really have right-wing values.
He just wants power.
And he knows that in post-communist Russia, you have to be...
A nationalistic and conservative president if you want to remain in power.
So the character was very interesting.
And the fact that they were describing him as maybe, yeah, like Jack said, a thug who worked for the KGB and went to Afghanistan to kill Muslims.
So they were, you know, presenting him as a kind of dark figure.
He's very educated, with taste and very, you know, maybe inside he's a suck, but he acts in a very polite and refined manner, which is not really the case of Underwood, who is more blunt and sometimes slobby, you know.
Because he's a Southern guy, you know, for the producers.
Oh, yeah.
Like, you know, he doesn't exercise and he's playing video games and things like that.
I mean, he is kind of...
Underwood is a little bit contemptible in his life.
Well, it seems like the Vladimir Putin...
I'm forgetting what his name is, but it was like...
It's Victor Petrov.
Victor Petrov.
Yeah, VP.
Just, you know, it was a...
Romain Clef.
But he was almost aristocratic and cultivated.
He gives a good image of Russia, actually.
Again, that's interesting.
It's almost like the Hollywood types are...
A little deeper and a little more multi-sided than the shrill American media that wants to portray these things as battles between good and evil.
It's almost like you see at the end of the day even Hollywood kind of like wants a good adversary.
Well, you know, another interesting thing about the two is that...
I was thinking they had this moment where Francis reminds him that it's harder for him because he has to have a real election.
He actually has to actually cater to the voters.
In many ways, the contrast between the two of them, as Rahman pointed out, is in many ways the contrast of having to cater to the American public, which needs its president to be soft at this point.
They can't tolerate – they're not going to tolerate a – kind of a – someone as strong as the Victor character.
Yeah.
Oh, totally.
But I think – but they might secretly want one.
Oh, yeah.
Of course they do.
But they wouldn't vote for one at this point.
It's like they would want one, but we wouldn't play well in the papers or on CNN.
He would come off as too hard and too fascist and too dictatorial.
Dictatorial.
There's actually a great line from the BBC version where Francis is talking with his wife, and they're talking about electoral coalitions, and Francis says, well, we can't please everyone.
And his wife says, don't be so sure.
Everyone secretly wants to be dominated.
No, there's some good sentiments.
Why don't we talk a little bit...
Let's do this.
I think we should talk a little bit about Francis as this Caesarist, Caesar character, and almost a fascist that I think is brought up in the third season a little bit.
But I think I do want to mention the...
The figure of this gay marriage advocate whom Claire meets in Russia.
And I mean, I just found this...
This is almost like the Hollywood fantasy in a totally stupid, blind way.
In the sense of, you have them, I'm forgetting the exact plot detail, but there's basically an American gay marriage advocate who was protesting in Russia and he's been arrested.
And in order to get some diplomatic deal done, part of it is that Victor is going to release this American national.
And Claire actually spends all time with this person in a Russian prison.
He's actually being well-treated, what he says.
But Claire is being this pragmatist saying, oh, we need to pursue compromise and all this kind of stuff.
And the gay rights activist is like, never, there's no compromise and revolution.
And he just says all of this pompous kind of stuff.
And I found it to be, it's almost...
In the end of history, where we are now, where all we're doing is...
We're just discovering new human rights and things like that.
There's no great political or ideological struggle.
It's almost like the gay rights advocate is now some Leninist character.
We shall bring gay marriage to Bulgaria.
Bulgaria will fall, and after that, the entire East will be ours.
It's this...
Well, it's like everything.
I mean, because you don't have real problems, you have to make everything progressively more – the language has to become more hysterical.
Right.
I mean, it's like everything in the grocery store is a war on – you have to have a war on obesity and a war on cancer, a war on this and more of that.
Of course, those are not real wars and, of course, they can't be won either.
Right.
But, you know, you have people talk like that.
Right.
Well, we're losing the war on boredom.
But, yeah, no, I think that is just kind of funny.
It's almost like that's the last revolution is gay marriage.
I just found that kind of silly when it's like being supported by, you know...
You know, it's George Soros and, you know, all of corporate America or something.
Right.
Oh, this is...
Anyway, I thought that was kind of funny.
Yeah.
But, yeah, let's talk a little bit about Francis as a Caesar.
And I think there's a lot of different elements to this.
I'll just mention...
I'll just start with what he was talking about in the third season, You know, he's way down in the polls.
It looks like he's going to lose his election, maybe shouldn't even run.
And then he decides to just go big or go home kind of thing with this program called America Works.
And it's very interesting because he does a national televised speech, and he says he's not going to run, which of course is a lie.
He says that, and then he basically says these things like, you are entitled to nothing.
Let me repeat that.
You are entitled to nothing.
And he basically, he says something that I think a lot of people probably recognize in the back of their mind, but they're totally unwilling to even broach the topic politically.
And that is that we have this entitlement structure of...
Hundreds of trillions of dollars, and there's just no way we can actually pay it.
Or we're going to be paying Social Security on more and more debt, and so on and so forth.
And he kind of, he offers this like, it's like he recognizes the unworkability of the old entitlement state, you know, derived from FDR.
And then he offers this new one in its place that is actually a kind of direct socialism or really fascism.
And it's really like, if you're willing to work, we'll give you a job.
Just go work.
It's a very different kind of socialism, and I think it is much more something like you would see in...
I mean, in America, we have a tremendous amount of socialism, if you want to call it that, but it's all hidden, and it's all kind of mendacious.
So we'll do things like, oh, everyone should have health insurance, so we'll spend trillions of dollars to give everyone health insurance.
As opposed to doing something like providing health care through the government.
Wouldn't that be simpler?
We're going to sponsor all these housing loans.
We could never build government housing.
That's socialist.
But instead, we're going to spend more money by sponsoring loans.
We like to hide socialism.
Because we want to pretend that we live in this free society.
But I think in a way, Underwood gives us a glimpse of maybe what a lot of people really want, and that is just direct government action.
We'll pay you.
Just go work.
I mean, I think that the speech he gave to open that program, I mean, it's something that I know a lot of my readers would like.
I mean, a lot of guys with a...
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps kind of attitude.
Of course, in a very realistic view of the world, no, no one owes you anything.
I mean it's a great sentiment on that perspective.
I don't know if – I mean I guess in terms of like a liberal fantasy, as you said, I mean he's definitely – That is something I think that a lot of them would have liked Obama to just walk in and issue executive orders giving everyone $20 an hour and all these new unworkable things.
Go dig ditches.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then put the dirt back in there again and dick them all over again.
Exactly.
I mean, I know I say that, and libertarians love to make fun of government programs like that, but isn't there...
I mean, I can't believe...
I used to be a libertarian, but isn't there a kind of common good and a decency of people working?
I don't...
Maybe we should help them just go dig dishes.
Oregon actually has a lot of really good examples.
I think it was a WPA project or something.
The Timberline Lodge that's on Mount Hood is beautiful.
They hired a bunch of out-of-works craftsmen and all these people to do all this great carving and make this beautiful lodge.
Painters that they hired and all these kind of things to make great paintings and so forth.
There's things like even the prisoners go up and clean up the hiking trails.
There are things that, yeah, you can put people to work doing things that are actually useful.
But I have to wonder if that would really be – I mean I think it works in some place like Oregon.
I don't know about whether it would work in, I don't know, like Alabama or – You know, Detroit.
Whether people would say, no, how about I shoot you instead?
How about I shoot you and take your money?
Yeah, I think you're getting at something as well.
I forgot what percentage of the population is on workers' compensation.
It's very high.
It's like shockingly high.
20% or something.
I can't remember what it is.
But anyway, we do have a kind of benefit state where there's a lot of people like, ah, let me just sit around and collect money.
And I think there is a kind of maybe yearning of kind of like, well, yeah, why don't you go build a hiking trail?
I mean, think of how much of the national park system and things like that were improved, and some of them just created by all of these work programs.
And, yeah, I mean, it's a kind of, we're almost like not good enough to do that anymore.
We're not craftsmen, for one thing.
Go ahead.
Well, again, there's that kind of, well, yeah, there's, you know, the people really don't have any skills.
I mean, you know, there were woodcarvers then.
You know, there aren't now.
There aren't people who have that skill.
You'd actually have to teach them first.
But people – I mean the only skill that they've had, they've run a cash register or something like that that really isn't anything that any person, any junior high school kid could learn.
And so you don't have that anymore and in many ways – and there's also this – a lot of the people who are on assistance of some kind have perpetuated a disability.
And they want to be there.
It's not that they can't get jobs.
It's people who have actually gamed the system and hurt themselves on purpose.
Hurt themselves on purpose or done the I have a sore back thing.
There's a lot of the I have a sore back thing.
And therefore I'm on disability for a year, two years, three years.
When really it could probably be fixed in a week, that kind of stuff, or really it's just because you're fat and you're top-heavy.
There's a lot of that in America, and I don't think that as much as they would say other people should work, there's a lot of people who have absolutely no intention of working.
And they, in a way, need – I would say it also.
I agree that Americans are – many of them are quite lazy.
But there are a lot of people.
Who, in a way, need to be taken care of in the right way.
You know what I mean?
On trains.
Well, I think we should build up a new railway system in the United States.
Excellent.
I agree.
I literally agree with that.
I actually meant that in a very paternalistic sense.
We have this instinct where, look, we're probably never going to have...
A free market healthcare system.
I mean, that might very well be more efficient, or it might serve everyone's needs, but there's just something about us as human beings that strikes us as cold and uncaring, and there would be some horror story, and we just couldn't put up with the notion that someone who couldn't pay for it wouldn't get healthcare.
There's always going to be some kind of paternalism in society.
And the question really is, how do we do it?
And I think the way Americans do it is that we have, like, mendacious socialism where, you know, it's like we could spend $100 million just directly giving people food.
But no, no, no.
Let's spend $250 million on food stamps that look like debit cards so people can pretend like they actually have money.
We want to always lie about what we do.
It's an inherent aspect of Americans.
We want to lie to ourselves.
It's a very funny thing.
Maybe we can say that history is back with America Works because maybe I should remind our listeners that we are talking about House of Cards.
Let me finish this real quick.
I'm the host!
Let's get back to my railway program.
I promise I'll bring it back.
Hold on, Romo.
No, I wanted to...
Complete your idea.
History is back in a way because the welfare state which has degenerated in a society where you have half of the national wealth that is taken by the state and then redistributed in many programs that keep maybe 20% of the workforce home.
If you take the real statistics and not the official ones, you know, and especially blacks in America, and there's something more honest, but also more, you know, society is in motion again with Underwood's program.
He says that people are going to, you know, I think it...
There are three pillars in his program.
So he wants to increase the military, which is not something really new, but something interesting he wants to do is to improve the infrastructure.
And coming from Europe, where much money is put in roads and things like that, when you drive in America, it's surprising how roads are.
The bad state of the roads when you drive on the turnpikes, etc.
There's no train system really to speak of.
I mean, Amtrak is kind of a joke.
You have holes on highways.
And this is because you only have private companies which...
Work for public contracts, which are overpaid and overpriced to the taxpayer.
And then Underwood comes with a program that says, OK, we have to use minimum wage people.
Otherwise, we would be on the street or be on drugs or in prison.
And we have to take them to dig these holes.
And as you say, libertarians might make fun of it, but you get more dignity and honor by digging holes if they are useful than staying home and eating, you know, pizza.
So libertarians are wrong on all counts.
We knew that, but now it's official.
Now it's official for House of Cards.
It's decided.
And this fictional miniseries has determined this.
No, I completely agree.
I mean, it's how I feel as I get older.
I mean, it's like...
We're going to be paternalistic.
And the question is, how are we going to do it?
And the current American version is awful.
Just look at it.
It's not what we want to do.
And I think in a way, we should start thinking about that.
How are we going to take care of people?
Because there's not this liberal and...
Fox News-y type notion of like, oh, everyone can just take care of themselves.
Look, no.
They can't.
And it's better to really think about it, to be realistic.
And they don't want to.
And they don't want to.
Which is that they don't want to and they can't.
It's the same thing in a way.
So we need to think about what's a good type of paternalism.
And having people work, and in a way, making them work, in some instances, that's so much more positive than getting them involved in some totally phony...
Health insurance market that's semi-governmental or something.
Or, you know, giving them more disabilities or whatever.
Or even promising them some retirement thing that's kind of a joke.
You know, Social Security, it's kind of a joke anyway and that they may never even benefit from.
You know, like, why don't when they're 30 years old they go out and build a railroad or something?
And I think it is, like, I don't think this is, you know, this is something that we're talking about, but I actually bet a lot of tremendous amount of people, whether they're liberal or conservative or whatever, think like this.
And I think they kind of think it in their gut.
And I agree with what Jackson, like, I think in 2009, I think a lot of people really wanted Obama to just, like, do that.
You know, it's just like, let's spend a trillion and let's just all...
Build a new light rail system or something.
Who cares if it's useful or efficient?
Let's just do it.
And I think people really wanted that, and I think they still do want it.
And to be frank, I think that's an infinitely better use of government money than the kind of nonsense we spend it on now.
Than baiting out banks.
Oh, yeah, right.
That's the American way.
Let's bail out a gigantic financial insurance conglomerate.
You know, when you put together all the pieces of the puzzle, because, you know, you have people complaining about the state, people complaining about the banks, and of course the welfare state and the banks are one and the same.
And so you have...
The system is slightly different in Europe because private banks don't officially control the central bank.
It's more indirect than that.
But the US system is that you have private banks printing money out of nothing and then people buy stuff they couldn't buy otherwise.
To private companies, that's the way the economy works.
And of course, that's why we are being bought off by China and other countries.
It's because it brings inflation and debt and it's totally unworkable.
And maybe America works, so Underwood's program is kind of non-realistic, especially in...
In old times, maybe it's too late for that before a real crash happens, but at least it would be a way to end that system, you know, of Goldman Sachs printing fake money and then you buy things out of which there's tax going to the government.
And interestingly, in the series...
Democrats oppose the program, but Republicans tend to approve it, which, again, that's one thing we discussed before recording, but more and more you have the feeling, watching the third season, that there's a one-party state coming, and Underwood being the head of it, in a way.
But I talked too long.
Oh no, I hope that's the fourth season.
One thing I'll just mention, because I've actually watched the BBC version, and in the second season of the BBC version, there are just three seasons of the trilogy, but basically Francis Urquhart battles against a newly crowned king of England.
And he's this interesting guy.
He's actually played by this actor named Michael Kitchen.
He was in some of the Pierce Brosnan and James Bond movies.
But anyway, he's a very good actor.
He plays the king in this upright...
Ernest, deeply earnest manner of like, well, I say, man, don't we need some more idealism about?
Everyone's just so depressed.
But the king is a kind of interesting character because Urquhart is a Tory and he now has a ruling coalition and he seems untouchable.
And the king does challenge him.
Puts forth these kind of naive, idealistic policy agendas.
Like, well, we should have public works programs that are beautiful.
Why is that so wrong?
To be useful and beautiful.
And these minorities, they don't really feel part of the nation.
Shouldn't we take care of the environmental world?
So he is paternalistic.
He is paternalistic towards minorities, even.
But in a way, he's the king, after all.
It's not too surprising to think that he would be like that.
And Francis Urquhart is able to beat him by playing the political game better than the king.
But in a way, the king, even in his naivete and bleeding-heart-ness towards minorities, actually is a real nationalist.
He is whom the king...
You would hope the king to be.
And Francis Urquhart ultimately rules by winning 40% of the population.
I mean, he ultimately rules by winning over the middle class and the upper middle class by talking about, you know, hard work and capitalism.
And, you know, I think, you know, it's...
So in a way, like, there's this almost, like, shallowness to Urquhart, where he really isn't...
Like, he isn't the man of Britain.
I mean, he isn't this man who's connected with centuries of history.
He's kind of, like, you know, dividing up the population in some way and saying things that appeal to them so that he can win.
And I think, you know, the king, in a way, represents something that, you know, to get back to the public works and stuff, it represents something that we kind of all want and feel, and that is a...
I don't know, an environmentally friendly socialist fascism.
Is that your running platform?
I think you could appeal to a broad base there.
I agree.
Environmentally friendly.
Gluten-free fascism.
I mean, that's just what we're into.
Yes.
But anyway, I've probably talked too long myself.
What are some other little aspects of this whole world that we haven't touched on yet?
There's so many sordid murders.
Oh yeah, let's talk about those.
That's a big driving plot element is political secrets.
And in that way, I think at some point we...
I might have mentioned the theatricality of murders and these are rather sorted in a way that I think that they would be.
They're over petty little human things, little sex affairs and so forth that get out of hand and that just need to be covered up because they could be too politically damaging.
Yeah, well, they could bring down the government.
I mean, I think that's – they're small and big at the same time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they just call everyone's credibility into question, and yet we all kind of secretly assume that all of that stuff is going on all the time.
Yeah.
And that's, I think, one of the things – the reason why the – as you said, the show – the cynical nature of the show, I think, makes it ring.
Fairly true.
I mean, when I watch it, I'm just assuming that that's actually the way Washington works.
That it's all people screwing each other over and covering things up and lying and doing whatever they have to get the money to do what they want to do.
Yeah.
Well, just little things like the whole Petraeus affair.
That was something that seemed to combine really squalid matters, like having some affair with a woman writing his...
God, that is just like a House of Cards episode right there.
He's writing an affair with the woman writing his biography.
But then his enemies decided to use that against him when he was about to say something bad about Benghazi.
Pretty interesting, actually.
And it's been forgotten.
I mean, nobody's talking about it anymore.
And it's a bit like that that happens in House of Cards.
One of them, you know, and it's made clear by the, you know, the opening credits.
You have this, it looks like, it looks like a kind of beehive, you know, living at every hour of the day and the night, which with all these small insects.
You know, making all their schemes and moving all around.
And every time in the series someone dies, so you have maybe five minutes of emotion and then the show must go on and Zoe Barnes, for example, is completely forward.
And it's, you know, it's something that you can find in real politics today.
You know, I had forgotten this case.
When was it?
Maybe two years ago?
Or three years ago?
Yeah, I think it was two or three years ago, yeah, with Petraeus.
It was just such a made-for-House-of-Card scandal.
It's almost, you know, truth is stranger than fiction or something.
But, yeah, I am kind of curious about the death.
I would say...
I would say this.
In the BBC House of Cards, the deaths are a little more fun, for lack of a better word.
Because the BBC version is a little more stylized, a little more satirical.
And so they have this thing where, again...
Spoiler alert, but, you know, we've already done that.
But the Zoe Barnes figure is named Maddie Storen, and she's confronting Francis Urquhart on the rooftop of Parliament, where he goes up to, you know, contemplate the world.
And she's confronting him about the death of this other, you know, congressman, very similar to the American version.
And while they're having an affair, she starts calling him Daddy.
And so they're having this thing of, you know, where Urquhart says, you know, can I trust you?
And she's like, oh, yes.
Like, she says, you can trust me.
And then he says, I'm not sure I can.
And he picks her up and throws her off Parliament.
And she screams, Daddy!
As she falls.
It was really great.
And then, you know, there's another one where his chief of staff, who's the stamper, He blows him up and blames it on the IRA.
There's just a kind of stylized, kind of fun character to it all.
Actually, you have that in the American version.
So he goes down on her and at the same time she's calling her a real dad.
And when she reaches orgasm...
At the same time, she's saying, Happy Father's Day to her dad, which is really gross, actually.
But, you know, there's something a deeper about the relationship between...
Underwood and Zoe Barnes.
No, I mean, I thought that scene was gross, but it was in a way appropriate.
I mean, it definitely got at the heart of their relationship.
I would just say about the murders themselves, they're a little more on the squalid side, you know, pushing her into an oncoming train.
And then, particularly in the third season, it was just depressing.
I mean, there's this...
One woman, a prostitute, whom they used to frame or to push Peter Russo over the edge, but she's a kind of loose end, and Stamper seems to be in love with her in some way, but they just run her down and bury her.
I don't know.
It struck me as kind of hard not to feel sorry for that woman, and a different tone.
I almost like being a little stylized and kind of reveling in the murder of your enemies.
I think that's kind of, it's more fun than to actually like, oh wow, you just killed a former prostitute, you know?
Jeez.
It's kind of depressed after watching that scene.
Anyway.
Maybe I'm just a soft-hearted guy.
That's what they always say.
I'm always criticized for that.
I've heard that.
Anyway, anything else, Romain?
Well, it was a time when you were bringing the bookmark session.
Actually, it's related to this You are entitled to nothing.
It's related in a way to the superiority of political power over financial power.
It's really interesting that this theme is present in the whole series.
Of course, it doesn't mean that money is not important, especially in politics when you have to run for a campaign and you have to bribe people.
You know, there's this scene in the second season when he says to Raymond, this big CEO of, I don't remember what, maybe electric power plants, something like that.
And he says, you may have all the money, Raymond, but I have all the guys with guns.
And, you know, it's something that might sound obvious for...
You know, people with a political background and people who read and write about politics.
But for most people, everything is about money today.
And it was interesting that this series is bringing the fact that eventually Apple might have a GDP, might have, you know...
A gross product bigger than many countries, but countries have a police force, they have an army, and if they want to seize property, they can, which a private company can't.
So eventually the state has the ultimate power of constraining people.
So it was maybe a Schmittian.
And the second quote, you brought it before we recorded and you improved on it.
So maybe you can give your own version about the McMansion.
Oh, yes.
Money is a McMansion in the suburbs that will be foreclosed upon after your Ponzi scream dries up.
But power is owning a castle that will be here 200 years in the future.
The actual quote was, I think that's what I said, He chose money over power.
That's, in itself, very interesting.
In a way, that's how he plays the game.
People want security and money, and he wants...
Power.
Money is the McMansion in Sarasota.
I apologize to all of our Florida listeners.
Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years.
Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.
I cannot respect someone who doesn't see the difference.
Yeah, I mean, it's a kind of Kyle Schmidt for dummies in a way.
I mean, and it's completely true.
Yeah.
I think there's...
There is, though, I think something else.
I mean, I think without question, what this series teaches you is that power trumps money.
I mean, I think you've said this before, Ramal.
It's kind of like the powerful, they'll find money when they need it.
But money in itself doesn't necessarily make you powerful.
Yeah, it's more...
It's when we talked about Eyes Wide Shut, actually.
Because the powerful are rich, of course, but it's an expression of their power.
Their money is not the source of their power.
And many people, you know, they see it the wrong way.
They think that you have to amass a lot of money and then you're powerful.
But when I was...
I hate to say that, but I used to be a kind of libertarian activist at some point, maybe three years ago.
And I was working for a guy, a French guy, but was working in Hong Kong and actually heading a hedge fund.
And he was actually a billionaire.
So it's the only time I had a close relationship with a billionaire.
He was my employer.
And the tragedy of his life was that when he went back to Paris, nobody knew him.
And he had no influence on anyone.
And actually, he wanted me to be this kind of editor-in-chief to...
Kind of make his great ideas, which weren't great actually, known to the world because nobody cared about him.
The politicians, the journalists, nobody was paying any attention to him, even if he had a billion euros on his bank account.
So I could witness that firsthand and I'm glad to see that a popular show tackles the issue because in the show you have Raymond Tusk, "Aventure is Broken" and "Underwood Yeah, I think it is real.
I mean, the people who quest only after money and security, these people are, in a way, powerless.
I mean, it's the other people who risk things.
They'll find the money when they need it to pursue their goals.
But the people whose life goal is to have a two-car garage in Sarasota, it's those who are the tools.
And the fridge that makes ice cubes.
Well, that is an end in itself.
They'll now have coffee on there, too.
You'll put in this horrible preserved coffee cup thing, and your fridge will make coffee for you.
We've really reached new levels of last man-ness in this country.
I would say, though, the ultimate tragedy of Francis, particularly Francis Urquhart, is that He is kind of playing the game, and he's playing with power, but he doesn't know for what, really.
I mean, you know, and I guess this is a little bit different between the British and the American version, because Francis Urquhart is this man of privilege.
He actually says something at the beginning.
He's like, oh, privilege just carries responsibility.
You know, he knows who he is, and he knows where he's coming from.
And he has these values.
Another point, he says that he's part of centuries of the British people.
He understands the British people, because he understands who they are as a proud nation stretching back centuries.
But at the end of the day, even Francis Urquhart ultimately loses.
I mean, at the end of the British version, he's dead, and he's become a tool himself.
But beyond that, he never...
He leaves office in 1996 or something, and Britain is becoming the multi-culti liberal cool Britannia anyway.
I mean, he ultimately didn't have any effect on his society.
He was able to destroy his enemies, and he was able to play the game.
For really what purpose?
And I think Francis, you know, Francis Underwood is like this, although, you know, to maybe a lesser degree.
And he won't leave a legacy.
A biological one.
He won't have children.
Right.
Which is significant.
Symbolic.
Yes.
Yeah.
And, you know, because the problem with when he criticizes Remy Danton, actually it's a Haitian name, because Danton, you know, was...
French Revolutionary.
So it's funny to have a Haitian at the White House.
Anyway, so it's the second part that is wrong when he says, not that it is wrong in itself, but when he says power is the old stone building that stands for centuries, but does he really think that becoming the president of the US now will...
Really make him known in one century.
I mean, who will remember Bill Clinton in a hundred years?
Yeah.
Really, most people have forgotten him now.
And maybe if his wife wasn't around, people wouldn't even think about it, about him.
And so Underwood eventually is wrong about that because...
In the democratic system, he won't make history.
He won't be remembered.
He will just be a name on a gravestone somewhere.
At a memorial maybe, but not more.
Yeah, I mean genetics is the ultimate legacy.
And that's what the Francis's symbolically lack.
I mean that's the ultimate stone building that lasts forever.
Yeah, no, I think it's worth, you know, for us to think about in the sense of, for anyone of our worldview to enter politics or these things like that, you know, it's all fine and good, but you have to be playing the game for a reason.
And mere power isn't enough.
Because there are limits, even the, you know, there are actually...
Major limits to the influence of presidents.
I think politicians, in their own way, are really lagging indicators of society.
Absolutely.
And, like, real lagging indicators, like decades.
I mean, I think it's ridiculous for someone to think that, like, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama invented gay marriage or something.
I mean, in 2011.
You know, I mean, they're coming...
Like, that was something that people...
Got that ball rolling like 30 years ago.
And people thought they were insane suggesting the notion 30 years ago.
And then these politicians come later and they're like, okay, we'll enact it.
Well, that took decades of intellectual, cultural, ideological work.
And, you know, I think Republicans are almost even worse because they're like, they defend like the liberalism, the old-time liberalism.
Give me more of that old-time liberalism, like what we had in 1987.
You know, it's, you know, they're pathetic.
So, you know, I think in a way they're things that are much more powerful than politicians.
And if anyone of our worldview is going to go play the game, I think we should think about that.
You know, I mean, it's...
That's great if you're a really good chess player, but what are we playing for?
That's the question.
It's not just about having someone with our views in power.
Because eventually they will lose their views.
Ron Paul is a good example of that.
He was a paleo-libertarian, so he was not...
Completely interesting, but, you know, when there was this huge controversy that goes back, that repeats every four years about his LA newsletter in 92, I mean, it was something that could have been published in American Renaissance at that time.
Sure.
And in 2008, and even worse in 2012, it was...
Saying how Rosa Parks was his hero.
So, you know, and it's not only old age and Alzheimer that makes that.
It just had to adapt to the system.
So, eventually, you can make your way into the system, but you don't have anything to bring with you.
So, it's useless.
Yeah.
Because when you're a dissident and you feel your power, sometimes you can consider the fact that you might erase your name on nasty websites and then go to the nearest right-wing party that can be in your country.
But I know I wouldn't do it.
Not because I don't want power, but because I, you know, there are so many examples of very clever and brave guys who ended, like, so there was Jack Hunter, but to take American examples, but Ron Paul is a good one too.
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, there's this kind of pointlessness.
I mean, there's someone above the game.
The Illuminati?
Well, you know who I'm referring to.
The Illuminati.
The lizards.
The lizard people.
The reptilians, yes, absolutely.
And in a way, these lizards want us to play the game.
They want us to be fascinated with smearing or, oh, let's go smear that liberal.
They want us to be obsessed with ultimately useless nonsense like that.
Anyway, should we put a bookmark in it?
Sure.
One thing I wanted to add, and I think this is actually good to wrap up.
You talked about the...
Kind of the impotence of politicians and the impotence of even the president at this point.
And the cynicism of the series itself, although you shouldn't say it's a sign of the times necessarily.
But in many ways, I think it does reflect the cynicism that I think most Americans have in the post-Obama age.
You know, you can vote in a big savior that's going to go fix everything and then it doesn't happen.
And, you know, so I think that the cynical show about politics, you know, just kind of shows, I think, how people feel in many ways.
Yeah, I mean, isn't denial the first step towards recovery?
Non-denial.
I was like, I don't think so.
No, you haven't been going to my alcoholic programs.
That's a different 12-step program.
Step one, denial.
Step two, acceptance of your denial.
What is that, the Saul Alinsky's 12-step program?
No, I mean, in a way, a show like this does come in a particular social mood, so to speak.
And yeah, I think that's kind of part of moving to something higher, is to recognize something for what it is.
And not to be like, oh, if we only elect this magical Negro character, he's going to make everything go away.
Everything bad is going to go away.
I think a lot of it, maybe being cynical, it's the first step towards something higher.
I think it probably was for us.
I think becoming massively cynical about America and American politics is kind of a first step.
Yeah, that's how we've become something higher.
Yeah, so we tell ourselves.
Exactly, exactly.
All right, well, let's do that.
Let's just put a bookmark in and hopefully we can return to some fun things like this in the future.
But anyway, Jack and Romain, thank you both.
Thank you.
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