Russell chats to Bernie Sanders’ former speechwriter, Oscar-nominated writer and Editor of The Lever, David Sirota to talk about the influence of money and lobbying in politics, why Nancy Pelosi’s picked up an award for advancing healthcare despite blocking reforms and the problem with todays' new political, media ecosystem. For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here:https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Thanks for joining us on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
We'll be talking to David Sirota later from the Lever.
Also, we'll be looking a little bit at the ongoing culture war that's being fought through beer.
Beer.
Access to beer with less calories in it than normal in the way that it's marketed.
We'll have a look at that in depth.
We'll be bringing back our regular item, Football is nice, where we talk about the culture around football.
But we're going to start by talking about Rishi Sunak, who somehow or another wound up as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that we live in right now.
And you'll notice that the pageantry that surrounds our Prime Minister is not as impressive as the pageantry that surrounds our royal family.
They're going to be making a big move next week when they put a different type of hat on a different type of person.
That's right, it's the coronation.
King Charles is going to be splashed up all over your money.
They've slowly and incrementally altered the titular Camilla from Queen Consort to Queen.
They've took away that suffix, Gareth.
Yep.
She's just Queen now.
Big promotion.
Big pro... like that, you can't get a bit...
What better promotion can you get from a person?
You're a queen now.
No, a kind of god in a way.
Yeah, anointed by gods, literally, because there's a little bit in the ceremony where they turn away the cameras.
You can't see this bit, but they put a special oil on the head of the monarch, and after that bit, you're royal.
Do you know what that oil's like?
I do.
I know exactly what it is, but I'm afraid I can't reveal it.
Not while we're on YouTube, Gareth.
I actually provide that oil and we'll be talking to Dr. Shana Swan, who some people childishly refer to as Shania Twain, about another special and sacred fluid manufactured in the testes of all males.
It's sperms.
They're in crisis.
That's not today's show.
That's later, is it?
That's tomorrow?
That's yesterday.
That was yesterday that that happened.
Yeah, we've got to keep these things separate.
We can't dilute the content as radically as male sperm is apparently.
Did you enjoy talking about that yesterday?
I learned a lot, but I can't believe just how diluted sperm has become.
We're talking about that more, as well as the anointing potions that will be dousing King Charles on the brow and Queen Consort Camilla in just a matter of days.
And how will that pageantry go when you see the way that the British conduct it?
I mean, when you see a motorcade in the United States or even in Korea or in Russia, they usually do it well, don't they?
Pretty cool.
Look at how we do a motorcade.
It makes you worry about the coronation.
And also listen to the guy that's doing the commentary.
I don't know what mainstream media network he's working for.
I know a lot of people think that he's working for us from some of the outrageous things he says.
Have a look at it.
What's this madman doing?
On a bike, I don't think it's right.
Why aren't they on motorbikes?
Because on bikes it looks like they aren't even in the mechanised age.
No.
Isn't it?
It's not that much faster than running.
Some of them are running, you'll see in a minute.
It's like you're powered by your own buttocks and your own tootsie boots.
It's undignified.
A motorbike... How many horsepower is your bicycle?
It isn't a horsepower.
It's not got the power of a horse.
You'd be better off on a horse.
Even though this is mechanically a progression from a horse as a vehicle, it's a step backwards in terms of its capacity.
Also, horses are intimidating.
A bike isn't intimidating in any way.
A bicycle, I've never been intimidated by a bike.
Even when people go past, like, you know, a delivery service, like, uh, delivery, or, somebody's very trusted!
Like, if you're someone, you know, they don't stop at zebra crossings.
No, they're terrifying.
Why won't they stop at a zebra crossing?
At Pelican Crossing.
Crosswalk.
Why won't they stop at that?
They go thundering by, don't they?
I think it might be because they're on zero-hour contracts.
Zero-hour contracts, they're working so hard.
They're part of the oppressed underclass that's been created, but has once again, the technological miracle, has turned human beings into a kind of fodder for a machine that will ultimately devour your soul.
Thanks for explaining.
Let's see how this luminous cavalcade continues down the road.
You should have motorbikes!
What's going on with the motorbikes?
You should have motorbikes!
What's wrong with it?
He's actually undermining it.
I'd feel undermined.
Maybe he's the director of it or something.
He's like the director's commentary.
Oh, we said motorbikes in the meeting!
He's a genius, but he gets the job done.
He's like David Fincher or something.
He can't unsee that.
Once he's seen that they're not on motorbikes, that's going to bother him for the whole thing.
Yeah, like Kubrick.
We were actually shooting this for 10 days.
Look, one of the police ain't even on a proper bike.
The one at the back, oh no, they're all on at least consistent bikes, are they?
I don't know.
I haven't studied it.
I wonder if those are faster bikes or jazzed up in some way.
Who makes that even a police bike?
It's rubbish.
It's just a bike.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
We've got a fantastic guest on now, whether it's Oscar-winning writing, or groundbreaking investigation, or bringing together high-profile figures to have necessary conversations about democracy and its shortcomings.
I'm particularly impressed by his recent conversation with AOC where he confronted the I would say that she's an important congressperson, AOC, with the kind of questions I want to hear people ask.
Like, why do you vote in line with stuff you don't agree with?
What does that tell us about the system?
Anyway, David's here.
He's been watching us chat on about the monarchy.
He's probably utterly exhausted by now.
Thanks for joining us, David.
It's great to see you, mate.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
I like reading your newsletter.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
And I appreciate you debating whether it's the lever or the lever.
I think they say it differently here than they do over there.
You say lever?
Yeah, we say the lever.
But I think the British pronunciation, I think I'm not British, but I think the British pronunciation is lever.
So whatever you want to do is good with me.
Okay, well, perhaps we'll vacillate over the course of the conversation.
Can we ask you about Nancy Pelosi's recent award for advancing healthcare?
Has Nancy Pelosi done a great deal to advance healthcare over the years, David?
Well, I mean, so the story is that Nancy Pelosi recently, this week, got an award from one of the big health care lobby groups, the Hospital Association, the hospital lobbyists.
And for those who don't know about the American health care system, the hospital lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in the entire country, private lobbies.
And it's a lobby that doesn't want government-sponsored healthcare because it fears that government-sponsored healthcare will bring down the prices that hospitals can charge.
Hospitals are some of the most profitable pieces of the for-profit healthcare system.
So Pelosi was given an award by the major lobbying groups for the hospitals after she blocked Medicare for All,
after she blocked, used her position in the House to block all sorts of healthcare reforms.
So in this sense, this story is a story of kind of honesty, right?
Like the lobbyists who don't want a reform of the healthcare system in any serious way,
the lobbyists who wanna preserve the for-profit healthcare system,
were giving an award to a lawmaker who has, I mean, I think it's undeniable,
who's played a pivotal role in protecting that industry and preserving the current healthcare status quo,
which is basically a dystopia for millions and millions of people in this country,
but is certainly a financial jackpot for the hospitals and for the other pieces of the for-profit healthcare
system in the United States.
David, do you think that there is some kind of unspoken consensus that we are not supposed to overtly criticise our, inverted commas, own side?
I know that you are a Democrat, you're a liberal, that you've written for Bernie Sanders,
but you're willing to ask difficult questions to the AOC.
We find ourselves in our own particular media space challenged by the idea that we are willing
to attack both sides, but you start to recognize how audiences are accrued to the kind of subjects
that are appealing.
Do you face similar challenges when criticizing the Democrat party?
And we've discussed before whether or not you feel broadly disillusioned.
Just take as a starting point for this question the current glee on the left around Fox News's out-of-court payout to Dominion when their attacks on the electoral system is certainly a bipartisan issue and even the criticism of the machines themselves has been undertaken and used by Democrats in elections that they've not won.
In the next election, whoever wins, we're likely to have a period where the side that loses undermines the election result itself.
What do we do, those of us that work in media space, when tackling issues that are sort of defined by partisanship rather than real principles and values?
How does that play out with issues like the Fox payout and electoral politics more broadly?
Well, look, I think there's a couple things going on.
I certainly think there's always been partisan media in our country.
That is never going to go away.
But I do think that over the course of 20, 30, 40 years, that partisan media has become a bigger and bigger force
in American politics.
There was a study out that we reported on last week where I think it was one in seven Americans right now
are consuming eight hours or more per month of partisan media.
And that among this group of people, most of them are not exposing themselves
to cross-cutting media, media that might offer a different perspective
than the partisan bubble that they're in.
And I think that the partisan bubble has been enhanced or really fortified by social media filter bubbles.
The algorithms will serve you more of the kind of content that it thinks that you want.
So if you're on the right, the algorithms are going to be serving you more of that content rather than exposing you to different kinds of content.
So I think The problem is, and I think we've discussed a little bit of this before, the problem is there's truth and there's verifiable facts, and partisanship doesn't necessarily care about that.
What we're living in is an information system in which facts are preferenced or suppressed based on whether they are perceived to serve or undermine a particular party.
If there's a fact out there that doesn't serve a particular party, those party members are less likely to be exposed to that fact, even if that fact is incredibly important.
So I think it's very difficult to get the facts out.
Now, I will say this.
I do think we are in the middle right now of a big battle over this.
I mean, you have seen mass layoffs across corporate media.
I think that has a lot to do with corporate media's business model, but I also think it has a lot to do with the audiences sensing that they're not getting an honest picture of what's going on from corporate media.
And I think there is a rise of independent media that some of which, not all of which, but some of which is trying to hone to the facts, focus on inconvenient truths, even though it may offend one or the other side.
But when you do that, There's going to be.
There really is a lot of pushback.
I mean, if you tell, as an example, the story that we just discussed about Nancy Pelosi, if you tell that story to people who are ensconced inside an MSNBC media bubble, a kind of democratic aligned partisan media bubble, a lot of that audience will react in a hostile way to that because it's content, it's facts that they don't want to hear, that they've been conditioned To be hostile to because, in the narrative, it potentially helps the other side.
Now, I don't think that's true.
I have a different view about this.
My view is that we need to adhere to facts, not only for the public good and having a discourse that's actually rooted in verifiable facts, but that if you want your party to be better, Then what you should want is your party to be informed by those facts so it can speak to lived realities.
Again, using the Pelosi example, the healthcare system is completely a dystopia in the United States.
That's an issue that is a political issue whether the Democrats or the Republicans like it or not.
Pretending that the Democrats haven't had anything to do with the healthcare dystopia, not looking at the record of the party leadership that we've talked about as it relates to somebody like Nancy Pelosi, doesn't help the party connect with voters on those issues in elections.
When journalists like Taibi, Greenwald, Schellenberger, who I intuitively feel are probably left of centre and anti-establishment figures, start to be smeared, to use a sort of, I mean there's a point where I would have to say being right-wing is just one of the options within a rather limited rubric of potential things you can be and it shouldn't be even regarded as a smear, it's just a type of political identity, But and then public figures like say me or Joe Rogan get called right wing or far right even by association.
Do you begin to become concerned about the nature of your reporting, that there is an attempt to censor?
And even the fact that, you know, as you outlined, you said you have a different purview and perspective
that you think that it would be an opportunity to grow the party, including critiques of Nancy Pelosi
as an opportunity for the Democrat party to improve.
But that's obviously not institutionally the direction that politics is heading in.
And it seems pretty clear to me that the reason is is 'cause it can't handle those critiques,
'cause ultimately to take them on board, you'd have to change the direction.
You wouldn't be so beholden to your donors, to dark money, which you've done great work on reporting on, of course.
So ultimately, doesn't it reveal that they don't want an open, independent conversation about political systems
that are pretty turgid and corrupt when it comes to it?
I think that's exactly right.
I think that's what's really going on here is that the donor class of both parties wants to have a particular conversation that isn't about how the donor class fleeces the country.
So the donor class wants a media conversation, mostly about the culture war.
Billionaires are happy for people to be arguing about culture and not about billionaires ripping people off.
Corporations, it's the same thing.
So I think the hostility to a fact-based discourse and dialogue that doesn't hone to partisan parameters, I think that's a threat To the donor class of both parties, which is why it's hard to have that discourse.
And you bring up the tactic of labels.
Look, labeling people right-wing, you know, right-wing demagogue, you know, Bernie Sanders socialist.
I mean, socialism has an actual meaning, but you see the use of labels and the use of them as epithets to try to shut down the conversation.
Now, I want to be very clear about this.
I think that if somebody brings an unverified, unsubstantiated, untrue allegation into the discourse, that should be interrogated and debunked with other verified facts.
And you can do that without resorting to kind of name calling that seeks to shut down the conversation, right?
That's what a lot of these labels end up doing.
They're an attempt to shut down the conversation, shut down the debate, because the debate is inconvenient.
But that's different from you bring up an allegation into the debate and somebody counters it with facts.
I mean, I think we need more of that and less of the former.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
A recent conversation I enjoyed was Jon Stewart's with Kathleen Hicks, where he brought up the failed audits of the Pentagon.
And it was, for me, interesting to see someone genuinely interrogate a figure with a degree of power.
And also her hubris and disdain for even the line of questioning was pretty revealing.
I want to ask you, How does an anti-establishment voice like Jon Stewart's compare in your view to what I would regard as an also anti-establishment voice like Tucker Carlson's?
You know, although obviously Tucker Carlson is associated, certainly due to his tenure at Fox, with right-wing conservatism and it's pretty plain that his cultural values are somewhat in line with traditional conservatism.
Do you feel that as the political space shifts and the argument becomes more about centre versus periphery rather than left versus right, that new alliances between figures like even Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders and RFK, Marianne Williamson and other sort of firebrands of the libertarian right, What would be a valuable new alliance if we're going to actually shift politics away from the intentions and agenda of the donor class that you have identified as being the sort of real power behind the teleology of American politics?
So to me, the difference between somebody like Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson is about verified facts and lying.
Tucker Carlson, I believe, has lied about the, for instance, the election.
He has sown Things that are not verified, allegations that are not verified, and frankly, not true about elections.
I don't think Jon Stewart has done that.
And I'm not talking about individual issues here.
I'm saying there is fact-based questions on things that we can, after verification, stipulate are facts.
And then there is kind of knowing, deliberate sowing of information that isn't true.
So, I think that's less a question of people's political ideology, because you can be on the right and be making your arguments based on facts that are actual facts.
You can be on the left and do the same.
I think that's a question of, well, do you agree with the person's ideology if we can stipulate facts?
When people go knowingly into pushing out things that they know to be untrue, or at minimum they know to be unsubstantiated, I think that's when we get into a different kind of conversation.
It's not about political ideology.
Then it becomes about, well, is the conversation rooted in things that we can know?
And I think that's really my metric as a journalist.
I don't believe that there's any such thing as objectivity, if you're a human being.
I believe anytime you decide that something is a story to be reported on and something else isn't, that is a subjective decision.
That is based on opinion.
That is based on your viewpoint.
And that's okay, because that's what being human is.
The obligation of people in the media space, in my view, especially as a journalist, is that what you're saying is accurate, is as true as you can tell, as you can verify, and if it's not fully verified,
you can acknowledge that, you can be transparent about that. That should be the metric by which
we judge, in my view, media. It's not whether you're conservative or liberal or anything else, it's
whether you are acknowledging your viewpoint, being honest about that, being honest that there's
no such thing as objectivity, and then being true to a pursuit of truth and actual facts,
and not throwing out there things that you know to be untrue just because they serve your
particular ideology or your party.
Isn't that just one of the sort of potential flaws and tendencies of subjectivity itself?
Because whilst I Imagine that when you talk about Tucker Carlson, you're saying that there's something cynical around his reporting on the election result.
And that's sort of, you know, I'm sure you would argue demonstrable if those text messages are valid and stuff.
And with regard to that issue, you know, I take your point.
But more broadly, Tucker Carlson has said that he regrets toeing the line for the mainstream
when it comes to the Iraq war.
He's been very skeptical about US involvement in the Ukraine war.
He's attacked the deep state.
He's attacked media machinery.
He's actually gotten to the point now of saying that he don't trust either political party.
So like, when you take all that in, are you still saying you're cynicism,
are you still cynical about Tucker Carlson's agenda?
So we're just using him as an example.
'Cause I'm sort of reaching the point where I think, hang on a minute, I feel like it's probably easier
to form an affinity with Tucker Carlson rather than a kind of CNN-style stuffed shirt reporter
that's ultimately gonna parrot the talking points of their funders or their sort of overlords,
for want of a better term.
Yeah, I mean, look, I have trouble at large trusting people who have put out or who have propped up things that aren't true and done so in a way that doesn't seem to be, you know, an accidental error.
There's kind of a deliberate calculation there, which goes back to calculations based on what serves a particular party or particular ideology.
So on that level, I I have trouble trusting, whether it's Tucker Carlson or anyone else, people on that score.
Now, ideologically, I will also acknowledge that I have a set of ideologies and beliefs and values that are fundamentally, in many ways, at odds with what Fox News and what Tucker Carlson puts out there.
has put out there, right, on all sorts of issues, whether it comes to immigration, race,
whatever issue you want to go into, they are fundamentally divergent from my views.
I find some of the stuff they put out to be deplorable.
So that's less a trust issue and more a, listen, I just disagree with where you want
to take this country.
Now, I can acknowledge here and there in the way a stop clock is right twice a day,
that once in a while, somebody on Fox News will say something where I'm like,
well, you know, that's a good point.
Or, you know, I can agree with a point there.
It's pretty occasional, but I can acknowledge that.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that.
But I will say this to go back to the media information system that we live in, even me just saying that right now
on this show, there's like a decent chance that somebody's gonna go on social media, clip this clip
and use it to say that I am a shill for Fox News.
In saying that once in a while, somebody on Fox News says something I agree with, that can be clipped to say,
look at Sirota, an anti-establishment journalist.
He's actually a shill for Fox News because he said once in a while, occasionally, someone on Fox News will say something about an issue that he doesn't completely disagree with, right?
That's the information dystopia we live in.
And the trouble with it is, is that it's used to shut down the discourse.
It's used to try to classify people as on one side or the other for the purposes of muzzling them.
Yes and with the regard to the matter of vulnerable people broadly you know that can be sort of almost a derogatory term but it says to the subject of immigration and in particular homelessness.
Before I went on Tucker Carlson's show I spoke to A bunch of my mates that are, what you might say, traditionally Democrat, liberals, like, you know, mates with Shepard Fairey or Tim Robbins or whatever.
And I go, I'm going on Fox News.
I'm going to be, like, having these kind of conversations, dah, dah, dah.
What sort of points would you have me bring up?
So when I talk, you know, although I've said my own values and opinions as well, but like I spoke about the subject of homelessness and one report that I'd personally seen where Tucker had been really sort of quite incendiary.
And I brought that up and he was actually, I would say, apologetic.
And, like, owned that, right?
So, while I agree that we would have different values, how does your, like, if you say that someone's propping up ideas that they don't believe are true with regard to the sort of well-documented issues that are going on with Fox News, How do you relate that to AOC, who's voted for stuff that she said she would never vote for?
And this is a person that's in Congress and sort of like a figurehead for a movement, should we say, rather than a pundit.
Now, you could argue about who has the most influence, but when it comes to actual democratic authority, AOC has more.
So, like, do you think, do you evaluate these figures in the same way, or do you think one's own biases, and in this case your own biases, make you more broadly sympathetic to AOC?
Even if, in the end, David, the sympathy towards immigrants becomes a kind of aesthetic, because nothing's bloody well getting done, because when it comes to voting time, we're going to vote with a machine.
Yeah, I mean, let me first address the point about Tucker Carlson, because I just want to make an important point here, which I think people miss a lot.
I mean, you mentioned homelessness crime as a great example.
Fox News' focus on a particular story about crime.
You'll notice that Fox News does not focus very much, if at all, on white-collar crime.
on rich people's crimes against everybody else.
There's a particular kind of story that is told on Fox News, by the way, broadly throughout the American corporate media, that is a crime, you know, the sort of law and order story that is aimed at, as you said, vulnerable people, poor people, lower income people.
And you don't get nearly as much coverage about the white collar crime that is creating all sorts of damage in our society.
Point being here is that There's a way to dishonestly skew the narrative through story selection.
One of the most powerful ways to create or to push an ideology is to choose stories carefully, to tell one set of stories and ignore the other set of stories.
It's a really profound way to manipulate the discourse In a way where you can say, well, the stories that were airing, they're not untrue.
That's true, but you're not telling this other huge part of the crime story.
So I only bring that up to say, when I watch Fox News, I don't trust Now, as it relates to AOC, look, you're right, she's different than a pundit.
any eye towards telling an accurate and honest holistic story about the topic at hand.
Now, as it relates to AOC, look, you're right, she's different than a pundit. She is a politician.
My belief wholeheartedly is politicians need to be held accountable for their promises.
Politicians need to be held accountable for their votes.
Whether they're conservative, whether they're progressive, they need to be asked tough questions.
I would say this.
I think that AOC in the interview that I did with her, she made, I asked her the question, if you say you're on a different wing of the Democratic Party, why are you voting 91% of the time with Joe Biden in some cases on things that you've said you won't support?
And what I gleaned from her answer is that Inside of an institution like Congress, you're ultimately forced to deal with binary choices.
A yes vote or a no vote.
And if you can get good things into something that you don't like, there's a case to be made you should vote for half the loaf, even if you're voting to eat.
You know, something attached to that half a loaf is something that you don't like.
Those choices are difficult and I'm not absolving them.
That people should be held accountable for those votes.
But her argument was that it's a more nuanced situation.
Now, I would say this, it's my responsibility to ask the questions.
It's her responsibility as the politician to offer up answers, and it's the responsibility of the viewers to decide whether those answers hold water, whether those answers are convincing enough.
I would say this, I do have Because of my own political values, I guess I don't believe that the vision that somebody like AOC says they want to see for the country, I am not necessarily opposed to pieces of that.
I think there's a different values proposition than with somebody like Tucker Carlson, who I'm very open about.
I don't agree with his core values.
So does that mean I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to AOC?
I think the answer is no.
I think I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC on the facts of the matter.
I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC by saying, well, listen, I agree with your, I may agree with some of your values, so I'm not going to ask you tough questions.
But it is to say, I'm more open to the idea.
That she's not necessarily, she, and by the way, members of Congress from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party writ large, that they're not making necessarily, they don't have necessarily horrible intentions.
That their vision for the country is not, in my view, a bad vision.
I can say that I think that their tactics, in many cases, have been weak, that they've capitulated, that they haven't stood their ground.
And arguably, you can say, in not standing their ground, they are making a values decision.
This is a really interesting part of that discussion, which is, what is the difference between a tactical dispute and a values dispute?
Am I having a dispute with you over the way you're pursuing the values that we agree on, or is the way that you're allegedly pursuing the values that we supposedly agree on, are the tactics that you're using, do they exude that you actually don't have those values?
And that is the hardest thing to discern in journalism.
That is the hardest thing to figure out.
When you outlined the first part of your point saying that what Fox News presents is a kind of a mural that discounts ideas and issues that will be antithetical to their ideology, I would say that the way that they differ from CNN or MSNBC is so small as to be negligible and not worthy, ultimately, of conversation.
When you point out the restrictions that AOC offers within, it Identifies the fundamental systemic problem.
Even if she has values that are in alignment with what you believe in, it's irrelevant systemically.
This, David, leads me to the conclusion.
Oh, let me just finish this point.
I'll just let me finish.
Let me finish, man.
Come on.
I've been like such a little good little fella sat here.
This leads me to this conclusion.
It is more important that we find common ground with people that we avowedly disagree with.
And whilst you say that, you know, like Fox News, I completely agree with you.
I don't think Fox News is the answer.
I don't think republicanism is the answer.
There are aspects of libertarianism that I'm becoming sympathetic towards, because if you truly believe in individual freedom, then that means across the scale, across the spectrum, whether it's sexuality, identity, Gun ownership, you know, there's all sorts of ways I can see that that could be an interface for coalition.
But when it comes, when we start to identify that even if someone has values that you broadly agree with, cannot get across without considerable compromise, notions, ideas, intentions, or policies that would be in alignment with your beliefs, What it shows me is that systemic change is required and in order to bring about that systemic change, new coalitions have to be formed that transcend the current framing of the discourse.
That's why my-- speaking about us as two people operating in this space in varying ways, that's
why I'm interested in having conversations with people that I would plainly disagree with,
because I feel that those kind of alliances will disrupt and alter the trajectory.
I'm actually beginning to think that the taxonomies themselves
are becoming redundant.
Because particularly if you agree with democracy genuinely--
and I think that means the maximum amount of democracy, not some atavistic throwback democracy
from bloody 300 years ago, where we pretend we couldn't all be voting on many, many more issues,
that we couldn't be devolving power, that secession might be possible in certain instances.
If you actually are interested in radical change, that's going to mean the introduction of radical new ideas.
It's going to mean the potential for radical new alliances.
And if we confine ourselves to reform and partisanship, even within these media spaces, then those advances are negated.
That's my point.
So here's my one, I guess, question.
It's something that I think about and I worry about a lot.
That if you look back on some of the worst and most dangerous right-wing authoritarian fascist movements in history, Many of them have couched themselves in the language of helping the little guy, helping the working class.
And the ultimate question that really comes up on this is, if you make common cause, With right-wing fascists, people who are not interested in democracy, true authoritarians.
And you make common cause with them on this or that issue where rhetorically there seems to be agreement.
Are you ultimately emboldening that right-wing authoritarian movement to do horrible things that transcend the specific issues that you agree with them on?
I mean, look, I'll be honest.
I've been invited on Fox News a lot.
I haven't gone on Fox News, and part of the reason is because I'm uncomfortable with participating in an endeavor that emboldens not just a political party, but an authoritarian movement that
Broadly speaking, doesn't have the overarching values or goals that I support and that does have overarching values and goals that I think are quite dangerous.
Now, some could say, well, if you don't go on Fox News, you're forsaking your ability to talk to its viewers.
And I think there's an argument there.
I really do.
And so I'm kind of conflicted about this.
And I should say, I think that politicians, which is a different role than you or I, I think they have a responsibility.
To be in as many forums as possible.
So, you know, Bernie Sanders did a debate on Fox News.
I think that, I mean, if you're trying to run for president and speak to as many voters as you can, forums that you go in, you have to try to reach voters where they are.
But I will say, This question of, in trying to find common ground on specific issues, are you actually emboldening a larger and more dangerous movement that will operate in a bigger way beyond those issues to imperil everything?
That's the question I struggle with.
I don't know what the answer is.
I mean, what's your answer on that?
I understand your concern but I noticed that you had to recourse to the term right-wing fascist sort of like early on in your response and I think to that I would say yeah right-wing fascism that's out full stop and with regard to authoritarianism the rise of authoritarianism on the liberal left is being It's terrifying whenever it's surveillance, censorship, the legitimization of new methodologies for authoritarianism.
And my concern is that beyond Republican and Democrat, we're living in a time of perpetual crisis.
And the function of this perpetual crisis is the legitimization of authoritarianism.
I think we should be, it began perhaps, as far as I can tell, around 9/11,
and every subsequent disaster, whether economic or medical or military,
has been used to underwrite authoritarianism, and I think that this is a response
to something that you alluded to earlier, the real legitimate potential for actual democracy now,
that technology provides us with, immediate ability to communicate,
the opportunity for counter-narratives to emerge immediately.
All of us have the opportunity and possibility for a valid voice in this new technological space,
and the only way to shut that down is through censorship, and I think the media across the political spectrum,
which I believe is pretty bloody narrow, as a matter of fact,
are aligning themselves with whoever's interests most neatly align with their own,
in order to prevent the burgeoning changes that are presenting themselves.
That something is trying to be born and authoritarianism is the de facto response of both parties.
I would say that when it comes to the media and both political parties that by Coming out to bat for our particular side, which I think for me not long ago would have been the, you know, the sort of centre left or liberalism, even socialism, actually, although I no longer trust the state to represent ordinary people against corporate power.
I no longer think the state does that.
So I would not advocate for empowering the state further.
I feel that, I feel that in coming out to bat for either side, we are contributing to the problem.
That's my feeling, David.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's a fair point.
I really do.
And I want to be clear, I'm not using right-wing fascists as just a label or an epithet writ large.
I mean it as specific.
I mean, like, fascism as an ideology.
Fascism not as just an insult.
Fascism as the kind of fusing of corporate and state power in an authoritarian way.
The battalion that we're funding right now in Ukraine.
And I think your concerns about authoritarianism on the other side, I think about surveillance, the normalization of the war on terror, I mean, and all of that, I think that is hugely important and hugely important to criticize.
I just worry about, you know, as an example, If I go, and I'm not that important, but if somebody like me goes on Fox News to make my points, and Fox News, and again, I'm just using Fox News as an example, it could be any of the corporate media outlets.
And I am used as a way for them to go out and say, look, we're honest, we're fair, we're accurate.
You know, somebody like Sirota is on there, on here.
And then the next segment is them demagoguing something on crime in order to scare people about racial minorities or the like.
Have I participated?
in helping them make a set of arguments and create a set of narratives
that I don't think are good for democracy.
I think are authoritarian in nature.
I don't really know what the answer is.
I'm not sure there's one answer, but it is something that's on my mind.
It's sort of the opportunism, I guess is what we're circling around.
The kind of dishonest opportunism of all of many of these corporate media structures in which the viewpoints are only there to serve their deeper goals and values, most of which are not the goals and values that I share.
Most of which I think are goals and values that are bad for small d democracy and bad for the future, bad for the world.
What I did when I went on there is I went with prepared facts about inequality and political economic corruption on both parties and read them out while I was on Fox News.
That was the only way that I combated Gareth Faheer, who I work with, who loves the lever.
Like, you prepped us a whole bunch of stuff.
And so I was like, while I'm on it, I'm going to say this stuff.
Now, the idea that we might be contributing to a sort of a kind of cultural mandate of the veracity of Fox News reporting, I think potentially, David, plays into the Paternalism that is leading to the distrust in the political class and the media more generally.
I think that we're the right, and again I don't feel that being right wing is in itself a problem whilst I would consider myself to be transcendent of these political labels because I don't think there's an answer to be found within them.
One of the things I don't like is the idea that they're being spoken down to and that there's a sort of a technocratic intellectual class that think that they're idiots.
And when you can use those flashpoints like basket of deplorables and the kind of criticisms that are often levelled at literally 50% of the voting population, there or thereabouts, depending on which voting machine you use or decry, that that's going to create more antagonism.
So again, like you say, I agree, there isn't one answer.
It has to be ultimately a question of your personal values and almost your intuition.
It becomes, in a sense, spiritual, emotional at some point.
But my feeling is that approaching this conversation in good faith, acknowledging your fallibility, recognising that if you have consistent values, you're going to find yourself criticising MSNBC and Fox.
Republicans and Democrats, because your values are going to demand that of you.
Because if you're interested in real change, empowering ordinary people to live their lives, whether you have a traditional or progressive identity, your freedom to express that, the acceptance that people are going to be different and with some pretty contentious subjects have vastly differing views, therefore at some point you're going to have to say, well over there they do it that way and over here you do it that way.
But this starts to play into, you know, some Pretty libertarian argument that could only, I think, be rebutted by a state legitimized by genuine intention to stand as a dam against a corporate deluge and there is literally no evidence
That either party, due to their funding models, is going to do anything like that any time in the future.
And by settling for reform and offering panaceas for the kind of problems that are within Congress.
And I know you don't do that.
We take your information all the time.
We're talking to you because you attack the Democrats, you attack the systems and all that stuff.
I think that's part of the problem.
So I'm sort of...
Interested in ways of transcending their framing by being willing to attack both sides and also accepting, OK, you're a really traditional orthodox Jew.
Cool.
Crack on.
Oh, you don't believe in gender identity in any of the ways that people did 100 years ago.
Fantastic.
Let's get on with it.
Because as long as we're mired in this, the centralized billionaire class are going to continue to exploit those differences because we can't form any of the necessary alliances to confront No, look, I agree with that foundational point.
And I want to go back to something you said, because I've been thinking about it since you said it on this broadcast.
You mentioned socialism.
As an example, you don't trust the state to be a defense against corporate power.
I would guess that part of the reason, if maybe even most of the reason you don't trust the state, is because the state has shown that it is not really controlled by the people writ large.
In other words, democracy has been so limited, it barely even exists, that the state is not acting in At the will of the people in whose name it is governing.
I do think that the democracy crisis, and that term bothers me because I think it's been limited
to January 6th and the like, because the democracy crisis really is a crisis of a government that
governs in the people's name and doesn't really care about the people writ large,
a government that is essentially owned by a handful of oligarchs and corporations.
That is, to my mind, the fundamental problem with so much of this, is that whether it's
corporate media as the fourth estate check on government or government itself, these institutions
are not built to represent or to respond to what the public really wants.
It's a very good question.
It's it's and I think ultimately, that is really the problem.
Millions and millions.
I mean, we have look, we can go through issues where it's like, you know, polls show people are 90% in support of an issue, and there's just absolutely no chance of that happening.
Passing through Congress, getting okayed by the Supreme Court.
So we have clearly a highly undemocratic system.
And I think the ultimate question then becomes, well, not only how do we fix that, but how do we even have a media system that's able to address that?
A media system in which much of the media, certainly most of the corporate media, exists to prop up that system.
The thing that kills me in media, and I know I'm kind of all over the place here, but the thing that kills me in media is so many of these corporate media organizations present the defense of the current status quo and the system as objective reporting.
You notice when you read these newspapers and the like, it's kind of the tone of the voice of God, that what they're presenting, these are the facts, this is what's going on, and there is no alternative, right?
There are no other inconvenient facts.
And we have no ideology.
This is just the truth.
Now, obviously, they do have an ideology.
But one of the most, I think, powerful ways that these organizations create the discourse and split us apart is by pretending That their information that oftentimes props up the status quo, an unacceptable status quo, it presents it as apolitical, as completely impartial.
That's why I don't trust so much of corporate media.
I would rather you tell me and be transparent about what your values are.
Yeah, I agree with you.
and then so that I know and that you then have an ethos that at least
honors being accurate about things but I can at least know where you're coming from.
I'm more likely to trust that than somebody presenting me their story that has an ideology
but presenting it and pretending they have no viewpoint or ideology at all.
Yeah I agree with you and I think that that's a kind of a message that people that conventionally
watch Fox News would benefit from hearing as a matter of fact although I completely understand
and appreciate your position when you sort of present it in terms of oligarchical corruption
then I think that that's that is the appetite that is the anger and when there is no
representation from anyone other that's rhetorically exploiting that anger then that
is literally the only game in town.
I think people sense I think it makes sense that Joe Biden is a career politician who's corporately backed, who's precisely in position to ensure there is no meaningful change, that the capping of Big Pharma, of drug prices for ordinary Americans, becomes a kind of mealy-mouthed, mitigating, yeah, but not really kind of deal because of the power of the lobbyists, the power of the donors, the power of the media class.
I think people are exhausted.
And I think that, as you have pointed out several times in our conversation, that the systems themselves are unable to deliver change.
And if there are, and I know that you're right, issues where 90% of Americans would vote for it, democracy means that you have to deliver that.
You can't say, oh no, that's not in the interests of the elites, or we don't think that's right.
You have to persuade people.
That's what we're supposed to do.
we're supposed to be able to go, look, I personally think that we should allow some immigration
and this is how I would handle it and this is how I would ensure that it's beneficial
and that people that advocate for it don't advocate for it over here and then when it's
affecting them directly they're like, ah, aghast about it.
You have to, but as you say, the information is so tailored and I literally, I don't want
to spend any time quibbling about who's worse because I think that's just a representation
of my own prejudices because they're both so bad and I think it prevents us from moving
forward because we literally are accepting their framing.
Yeah, no, Fox is worse than MSNBC.
No, the Democrats are a bit better.
It's like we're a little bit better party in these ways and we've learned the correct
terms that you say right now and we're doubling down on crushing communities of people that
We actually have a great deal in common, and that what we should be creating is new alliances.
Whoever you are, you might have someone who's a conservative or right-wing traditional person who slips up in their language, or you might have a son that identifies differently.
We have to find some new humanity and spirituality, and there is no good faith in these arguments, I don't think, really, on either side.
I think that both of them are trying to mire us.
That's a really good point.
And you know, I think back to the 2020 election, you mentioned Joe Biden.
There was a moment in that campaign where he actually spoke the truth in a way that was like a story for one second and then it kind of went away.
And I think it was such a telling moment.
It was when he had that fundraiser with big donors and he was talking, I think it was specifically about sort of tax policy and economic policy, and he reassured them That if he wins, nothing would fundamentally change.
I mean, that's a direct quote from Joe Biden.
And I think we don't get that many admissions from people in power.
And it was considered sort of a gaffe, right?
In the United States, when a politician slips up and actually admits the truth, it's called a gaffe.
It's like an accident.
But I think that was such a revealing moment because the guy actually admitted what he thinks his role is.
He thinks his role is to prevent too much change from happening.
And I think, frankly, that was somewhat comforting to a lot of people in the era of Trump.
Where they saw Trump's behavior on TV, Trump kind of behaving like a spaz, and the idea of somebody who was just going to come in and calm things down.
I think there was at a surface level among some people that was comforting.
But I go back to the idea that if you look at something, let's talk about climate change.
If nothing fundamentally changes on our energy policy, Then everything on our planet, all that we care about, is going to change, almost certainly for the worse.
So the ideology of, it's our job as politicians, people in power, to prevent change, that ideology is quite literally not biologically or ecosystem-wise, that is not a sustainable ideology, but it is the ideology.
And that's what's so terrifying to me about both political parties, which is that fundamentally at the very top, they are not really about systemic, fundamental, and I would argue constructive change based on the verifiable facts of the kinds of changes we know we need to make.
I use climate change as one example.
We know what we have to do.
We know what the changes that have to be made fundamentally in science.
That has been verified.
That has been studied.
I don't think there's really any serious, honest debate about whether the climate is changing and whether we should probably try to do things about it to prevent bad things from happening.
And yet the ideology of those on top is to prevent change or to at least slow a pace of change.
And that should terrify us all.
Joe Biden admitted in that moment that his function and role is to steward the interests of those elite institutions to ongoing success and to be unimpeachable, which will necessarily require the management and control of the ordinary population whose interests they are directly against.
They have to control the information they have access to, the wealth that they have access to.
And with regard to your climate change argument, which I know is something that you are passionate
and very well educated around, I think that people will be like,
'cause I know some people that watch this channel will be saying, "Oh no, it's stuff that happens
"over centuries and it's hypocal "and there are counter arguments and all that stuff."
There will be those kind of arguments here.
And what I would say is that the kind of measures that tend to emerge out of the kind of globalized response,
shall we say, usually focuses on measures, changes, sacrifices and taxation,
that will be born by ordinary people around the world, rather than significant change made by powerful elites.
An organisation like the WEF, which we've discussed before, seems to fundamentally be about how How can we keep this the same and appear like we're doing something?
And also, once Joe Biden has made that omission to his powerful donors, then what the hell is the point of anything else that he says?
We're going to do something about climate change.
We're going to do something about inequality.
We're going to change the prison population.
We're going to build... No, you've just told us.
You're not going to do anything.
So stop trying to galvanize support.
Just admit that you're part of a managerial class for the elite.
You are part of the problem.
So and also, David, it's probably a good time to acknowledge that on an emotional, visceral level,
the kind of berserker, gargoyle version of the strongman that Trump represents through his casual disdain
gargoyle version of the strongman that Trump represents through his casual disdain for institutions
for institutions and establishment, his willingness to say, it's the system that I myself
and establishment, his willingness to say, "It's the system that I myself exploit."
exploit.
That has an emotional timbre that resonates with people that have spent their whole life
knowing that they're being lied to.
You're lying.
I don't trust all this, you're doing this 'cause inequality and slavery
and reparations and climate change.
I feel this is maybe bullshit.
It stirs a rage.
Then someone comes into that environment, goes, "You are right.
"You can't trust them, it's bullshit."
And there's no counter-argument 'cause they can't make a counter-argument.
Of course that people should be able to express themselves sexually, consensually in any way they want.
Of course racial and cultural identity is important.
Of course we should care for and respect and love the fucking planet that we live on.
All this stuff's bloody obvious.
But if all the people that use that rhetoric are lying to you, then it has no value.
And someone that comes out and goes, like, sort of funny, like, well, at least you're funny.
You know, like, that's where they set the bar.
It's their problem.
They created that.
They should be held responsible.
They should provide an alternative.
They're not going to, because they're not an alternative, because fundamentally, nothing will change.
Like Trump was able to say on the campaign trial for the primaries, you think Jeb Bush is going to do anything?
A member of the Johnson & Johnson family is running his campaign!
That, and he could say that again, and again, and again, and again, and again, all the way to the White House, you know?
And like, so who's it beholden on?
Who's the problem really?
Right, and I think democracy is supposed to be the safety belt.
When somebody like Joe Biden says nothing will fundamentally change, well, in a democracy, we're supposed to have the opportunity to force change through pressure, through democratic institutions.
Now, that hasn't Happened as much as I would like, but that's what it's because our democracy, I think, is so tattered right now.
But that's what's that's sort of what the release valve is supposed to be.
Look, we did an eight part podcast series called Meltdown, which was how to which to ask the question, how do you go from Obama to Trump?
Right.
You can't just say it's only racism because 220 counties that voted twice for Obama went to Trump.
And I think the answer at its core is what you just said, that You had an election in 2008 in which there was a financial crisis where millions of people were getting thrown out of their homes, and the candidate of alleged change promised fundamental change and then made a series of decisions to turn hope and change into more of the same, to side with the big banks that were causing and creating the problem.
And I think what that did was shred the last tatters of the social contract and people's faith in government to do things.
And the demagogue, Donald Trump, came in and said, listen, they've all been lying to you.
I will make change.
And I, you know, I'm a human bomb.
I'm going to blow up the system.
Now, what's interesting here is that There was a period of time in American history where this potential kind of thing almost happened before, and there was a different thing that came out of that.
Back in the 1930s during the Great Depression, FDR gave a speech In which he said, essentially, that democracies in other parts of the world have fallen because people got so frustrated, and I'm paraphrasing here, but people got so frustrated with their political leaders lying to them that they were willing to discard democracy and vote for authoritarians in the name of getting something to eat.
And the reason FDR cited that was to say that his New Deal program,
which really did focus resources on the lower end of the economic spectrum,
he understood that that was not only a macroeconomic priority, a moral priority,
but also a political priority to stop the rise of authoritarianism.
He understood that the only way to stop the population from embracing authoritarianism
and that kind of destructive demagoguery is to show that the government
is actually delivering for the people.
I think the Obama moment in 2008, when there was a chance for that to happen
and people's hopes were raised and then it didn't happen, I think that was the alternate version
of the story of FDR back in the Great Depression.
That FDR was facing a rise in the United States of serious anti-democratic authoritarian forces.
And he focused on...
He wasn't perfect, but he focused on an economic program that delivered for regular people.
I think when Obama and the Democrats didn't do that, they shredded an already tattered social contract, created a deep disillusionment to allow for the growth of an authoritarian conservative movement in response to that.
And I think we're still living through that.
And I think that Joe Biden Being a candidate and a president who has not truly embraced the kind of change and focus that FDR, as an example, emulated, I think that imperils, that further imperils the tattered democracy that we have and further emboldens the authoritarians who are seeking power right now.
I would agree with you, but I would also add, David, that if you have a president that bails out the banks when most people wouldn't want that and certainly democratically wouldn't vote for that, you already have authoritarianism because stuff is happening that you don't want to happen.
And then a post-Trump, you get Joe Biden, nothing's going to fundamentally change.
So where was the bit where it went more authoritarian?
What it went was rhetorically out of tune with the profound I have no problem with wokeness.
I think people should be who they want to be.
What right-minded person doesn't think that?
What I have a problem with is the exploitation of those ideas to mask economic and political corruption.
And yeah, David, I could talk to you for hours and hours until one of us started saying crazy stuff just to see which one of us would do it first.
It'd probably be me because it's an affliction that I have.
But we have to wrap up the show.
I just thank you once again for your conversation.
I always feel like what I think when I speak to you is if I ask the right questions and listen, I will finish this conversation smarter.
And I feel that today.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Russell.
Thanks for having me.
Cheers, man.
I'll speak to you soon.
Thanks, David.
You can watch David's interview with AOC.
It's worth watching.
You can see the question that we were referring to being asked and how that was handled.
We'll put a link in the chat.
And also you can follow David and his team's work at Lever or Lever, Levernews.com.
It's basically an L, an E, a V, an E, an R, then the word news.com.
That's what you have to do if you want to see that.
We're learning.
We are learning.
We're all learning together.
We're learning together.
Join us on Rumble tomorrow, not for more of the same, oh no, but for more of the different.
