Weekly Roundup: J8 in Brazil to Biden's Classified Corvette
Brad and Dan begin by breaking down how the attempted coup in Brazil is a Christian nationalist copycat of J6, and what this means for how the world views the USA.
Annika Brockschmidt at Religion Dispatches: https://religiondispatches.org/coups-of-a-feather-the-striking-similarities-between-brazils-insurrection-and-jan-6-may-be-due-to-authoritarian-learning/
Brian Klass on Substack: https://brianklaas.substack.com/p/bolsonaro-trump-and-authoritarian
Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood at Word and Way: https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/christian-nationalism-invades-brazil
They then discuss the revelations about classified docs found in President Biden's garage and other locations. What does it mean for him going forward? How does it compare to the Trump case? What is the reaction from Republicans and Democrats?
They finish by going over the new committee formed in the House by the GOP majority - a committee to investigate the weaponization of the government to be headed by Jim Jordan. Brad breaks down the significance of the committee and what it portends going forward, while Dan brings in the case of Rep. George Santos and what it means for the short-term.
Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC
Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi
SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
AXIS MUNDY AXIS MUNDY You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center UCSB, and I'm here today with my co-host.
I'm Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
Nice to be with you, Brad, recording a little earlier than we do, because you have like exciting stuff going on tonight, right?
Yeah, headed home, home at least where I grew up, and going to be talking at Church and Costa Mesa about my book.
I'm really excited to talk about the history of white Christian nationalism in Orange County.
So if you're listening today, Friday, January 13, 2023, check the link tree and come on out.
If you are in LA or close, come out tomorrow night.
We'll be at Mission Hills Church and talking about Christian nationalism and Future of California.
So that's exciting.
Next week we'll be in Seattle.
So if you want to come to Seattle, Elliott Bay Book Company, and that's free.
So no need for a ticket.
And anyway, there's a bunch more events going to be in San Francisco and Santa Clara and some other places.
So excited about that stuff.
And I want to thank everyone who came out to our J6 event last week.
It was a lot of fun.
As fun as talking about a two-year anniversary of an insurrection can be, I guess, Dan, but it was good and a lot of good discussion.
And so I appreciate y'all.
I want to make sure y'all note that the video from Denver is available.
So if you check our show notes, you can see that.
And if you haven't yet, it is there.
And it's just open and it's on YouTube.
So all you got to do is open it up, clear about two and a half hours and watch an amazing discussion with all of our panelists.
So anyway, a lot of great stuff.
I want to just say here at the New Year, we're excited about a lot of stuff.
We got a lot of great series.
Dan's still doing his.
It's in the code.
I'm working on things for Ranging from a series on Buff Jesus to one on purity culture and white supremacy, conspiracy theories, and other stuff.
So we could really use your support to do all that.
This is not a show where we have outside funding.
No universities are giving us money.
We don't get anything from UCSB or anyone else.
And so last night, Dan, we were the number 13 show on the politics charts, right ahead of 538 and Al Franken and Vox and NPR, but you know, you're recording from a home office.
I'm in a storage closet.
We're a humble pair here.
No plush digs.
And so anyway, would love your support.
Think about that.
Patreon, PayPal, however you can do that.
All right.
Announcements out of the way.
Let's talk today, Dan, about Brazil and what happened there a couple of days ago.
Let's talk about Biden and all the documents that are being found, what that means, and then the GOP and its new majority in the House of Representatives and what that means, including a committee investigating the weaponization of the government.
A lot of shenanigans are ahead.
I'll just spoiler alert when it comes to the House of Representatives.
All right.
Let's talk Bolsonaro and what happened in Brazil.
I'll set it up here, Dan, and throw it to you.
As many of you know already, we have J6 and Brazil now has J8.
And there was what can only be called something that resembles the attempted coup in this country on J6.
happened on J8 down in Brazil.
I'm going to read from a piece by our friends at Warden Way And a public witness, Brian Kaler, who's been on the show a couple times.
And so he says, here's the context for what happened in Brazil.
With pre-election polls showing former President De Silva would likely return to office, Bolsonaro started making claims of election fraud before votes were even cast.
And long before De Silva won by more than 2 million votes, Bolsonaro suggested that if he lost, Brazil would have worse problems than the US did on J6 2021.
After the election, Bolsonaro's party sought unsuccessfully to convince judges to invalidate votes.
Long nicknamed the Trump of the tropics, Bolsonaro even found allies among prominent supporters of former U.S.
President Donald Trump.
People like Steve Bannon and Ali Alexander, who pushed false U.S.
election and fraud claims ahead of J6, More recently attacked the legitimacy of the Brazilian election results and now praise those who attack the government buildings in Brazil.
So all of that should sound familiar.
Now, after the election, you had the New York Times.
reports, just thousands of Bolsonaro supporters camped out across the country near military bases.
They blocked roads.
They set vehicles on fire in certain times.
They tried to parallel, paralyze the country and really just create a situation where there would be military intervention in the government.
And I think there was a hope for kind of military intervention on the side of Bolsonaro.
You know, folks were basically saying things that probably sound familiar.
We won't surrender.
We won't accept this.
And I think that phrase has stuck with me through all this.
The idea of we will not accept this.
It's not it's not that it's not real or Legitimate.
It's just, we won't accept it.
And I just, I want to, I want to hang on that for a minute.
So, um, I want to, um, in a minute, go to a great piece at Religion Dispatches by our friend Annika Brockschmidt, who, who wrote about this this week, but I'll throw it over to you.
I also want to talk about authoritarian learning.
So I got two more things on this, but I'll throw it to you, Dan, um, on how we are now, uh, exporting things from this country that probably we don't want to be.
So what do you think?
Yeah, so everything you run through, I mean, we've now provided a script.
The Trump administration and the kind of American Christian National has provided a script.
Call it fraud, predict that it's going to be fraudulent, say this for a long time with no evidence and, you know, just sort of cast that there.
Predict things.
We talk about coded language.
When Bolsonaro says, oh, things would happen.
It's a call to action.
It's not a prediction.
It's a call to action.
And his followers know this.
Trying to tie it up in courts.
Just on and on and on and on.
What strikes me, and folks will remember this, people our age, I know that for some of the listeners who aren't our age or like the age of my students, this is all, it feels like ancient history, but post 9-11, we remember the language of the war on terror and how basically everybody who kind of dissented or something was accused of aiding terrorists or maybe being a terrorist or this or that, and that became our export.
And we are still unspooling the significance of that globally as Authoritarian regimes all over the place have cracked down on journalists.
They've cracked down on dissent.
They've cracked down on civil disobedience and so forth, always by saying that it's terrorists, that journalists are terrorists, so we can put them in prison without due process, or on and on and on.
And we've seen how dark that is.
This is what it reminds me of.
So when we talk about exports, I'm like, great, cool.
Here is, unfortunately, one of the most potent exports the U.S.
has now given, once again, to authoritarian and right-wing regimes.
To just embolden the masses of their supporters to actively try to contest the peaceful transition of power.
The last point I'll note as I read this, this was a nuance I didn't know about, you know, with the Brazilian transfer of power, but the outgoing president is supposed to attend their version of the inauguration and like hand over this sash.
It's like the ceremonial sort of thing to visually represent the peaceful transfer of power.
What did Bolsonaro do?
He didn't show up.
He was like, I won't do it.
Same thing when Trump was saying, you know, well, we can't guarantee anything, can't promise anything and so forth.
This is our export and it's now in Brazil.
And unfortunately, I think we're going to see it other places as well with people like Bannon cheering openly for it.
Ryan Kloss is a political scientist, and he talks about this idea of authoritarian learning, and it really goes on everything you just talked about.
And he says it this way, authoritarian movements learn from one another.
Populist demagogues and despots pay attention to their peers because they share similar problems.
To stay in power, they must muzzle or attack the press, neutralize judges and the rule of law, weaken or eliminate political opponents, rig or discredit elections, and find innovative strategies to cheat, lie, and steal.
As a result, they have their political antennae tuned to regimes and politicians most similar to themselves, hoping to glean a bit of wisdom from another authoritarian playbook.
But believe it or not, they also directly share information with each other.
It's not quite the case that there are dictator conferences in which people give PowerPoint presentations.
But it's not far off from reality.
There's a long history of dictators getting together and swapping strategies.
And I'll just say that, like, Bolsonaro's son was at J6 and there was a lot of close ties, especially with people like Steve Bannon and Bolsonaro.
And so this idea of authoritarian learning, I think, is really just dovetailing on what you talked about, Dan.
Klaus goes on in his writing at Substack this week that I'll post in the show notes.
It's no secret there's a mutual admiration between Trump and Bolsonaro, but the links between their closest advisors is less well known.
And he goes on to just talk about how Bannon really cozied up to Bolsonaro and formed a relationship there.
Bolsonaro's son Eduardo had a front row seat to J6, and Eduardo Bolsonaro actually met directly with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Um, and, uh, on and on and on and on.
Okay.
Um, so I'll just stop there and say like, everything you just said is, is, is true.
J6 matters, and we've talked about this on the show so often, but here it is.
J6 matters because this is now what the world sees from the United States.
This is what the world understands and has learned from us.
You know, you ever hear people say, oh, we don't make anything in this country anymore.
All we do is import things.
And it's like, well, We export some things, I'll tell you that much, you know, and some of it is pop music, Dan.
Some of it is.
I have, like, sat in cafes in Croatia and listened to, like, the Backstreet Boys and just been like, what is happening now?
How are the Backstreet Boys playing in this tiny cafe in Croatia?
But now it seems we export a blueprint for, you know, for an attempted coup.
So that's all there.
I don't want to forget this either, though.
And this is from Annika Brockschmidt, and I think Brian Kaler also does a great job talking about this this week.
There were Christian nationalist elements in the Brazilian J8 attempted coup, and I think we need to make sure we don't forget that.
And so there were, and Kaler and Brockschmidt sort of both highlight this, but there were people.
Who were kneeling in prayer.
There was a man wearing a shirt with a Bolsonaro slogan, God above all.
There were attackers chanting God, fatherland, family, and liberty.
All of that, Dan, just, I mean, it gives me chills because that's, it just, that's J6.
I mean, honestly, as somebody who spent a lot of time looking at pictures and images and footage of J6.
What Anika Brockschmidt goes on to talk about how is that, you know, Brazilian evangelicalism is different in the U.S.
and in Brazil, but something that is overwhelmingly prominent is something we've been talking about a lot on this show in recent weeks and months, and that is Pentecostal Christianity and, in fact, The language of spiritual warfare.
And there are just all the flavors and all of the kinds of spices of spiritual warfare language.
And Brazil has just a large population there.
And so if you've listened to Charismatic Revival Fury, if you have like understood what Matt Taylor's talked about, and you've seen how spiritual warfare language is used to mobilize people to do things like show up in physical spaces and try to occupy them, take them over, and in some cases, act violently to enact real physical warfare, then you can see that also in the Brazilian case.
And so all that to say, Dan, I think I'll throw it back to you for any final thoughts on this, but it's really just distressing to realize that what happened on J6 in our country is resounding throughout the world.
And it is one of those moments of infamy that we inflicted on ourselves, but will continue to ripple out, I think, for years and years and years in ways that, you know, we'll see in Brazil and probably other places.
So, other thoughts on this before we go?
Just, you know, one more quick thing on the authoritarian learning and a couple of things.
One is, Ray knows, I watch the NFL and they have a phrase there that they'll always say that it's a copycat league, right?
That if something works for a team, you're going to see it.
Other teams are going to do it.
And within a season or two, it becomes like a standard practice.
And that's what it is, right?
That's the authoritarian learning.
It's a copycat sort of system with all those connections that you're talking about.
The only other point that I'll make about this, this exporting is, you know, for a long time, You know, if you go back and you read about, like, authoritarian movements, populism, nationalism, Christian nationalism and things from, say, the 2010s, right, say before 2016, before 2015, something like that, you would read stories about Eastern Europe and you would read stories maybe about parts of South America and things like that.
What you wouldn't really read much about was in the U.S.
because there still was this widespread sense that that's stuff that happens other places.
It doesn't happen here.
It was happening here.
There were voices that knew it was happening here, but it was overlooked and there was this kind of smug sense, frankly, that the U.S.
was safe from that and this is something that happens other places.
What strikes me about this is that this is something that originated in the U.S., right?
The J6 and this pattern and this model and this form and action by Christian nationalism and then went somewhere else.
That's how far the needle has moved on this from being able to to say or to think well that happens other places not here to oh no no this this is where people learn how to do it now and I think that that's a really striking transition that's taken place.
Just a few more examples of the Christian nationalism.
You had a gospel singer, was one of the organizers of the J8 protests in Brazil.
You had an evangelical pastor recording videos of himself during the day's events, which is exactly what happened on J6 here.
You had another pastor who said he Stayed across the street and claimed the violence was actually started by leftists who infiltrated the rally.
OK.
I mean, you know, it just it's just it just it just sucks, Dan.
It really does.
To see the stream of disinformation, the propaganda tactics, all of it just exported, as you've been talking about.
I just I don't know.
It's just really sad to think that this is your country.
You know, I don't know.
I'll just say for One second.
Like you and I have both lived, lived abroad.
You and I have both traveled a fair amount.
I mean, and you know, there are times when you go abroad that you're, you're kind of proud.
Like people do stuff that, you know, you're, comes from your country and, and sometimes it's trivial.
I don't know.
Sometimes it's, it's important.
And sometimes there's deep admiration there.
Right.
And sometimes there's not.
And I don't know about you.
Like we, we lived abroad in the UK during the George W. Bush years.
And there was a lot of like, People just being like, oh, you're American.
Hey, screw George W. Bush.
And I'd be like, yeah, thanks.
OK, thanks, Bob.
Yeah, good.
Great.
Yep.
And there was just this sense of like, that's who that's who your country.
And, you know, from someone who lives six thousand miles away and they don't know that much about the US, but they they read certain things and they know certain aspects.
It just you know, it wasn't fun to like go to a pub and be like meet someone new and they'd be like, oh, yeah, hi.
I'm Raymond and you're American?
All right, you know, screw you and your imperialist regime.
It's like, yep, I appreciate that.
Okay, Raymond, great.
What kind of beer do you want?
And now I just think we see that here.
And it's a different case.
It's a much different scenario than I'm describing, but it just, I don't know, it just brings back a lot of shame and a lot of sense of just embarrassment and tragedy.
So, all right, let's take a break.
We'll come back We'll talk about, I don't know, our president having documents next to his Corvette in a storage closet.
So that's even better, I guess.
I don't know.
Uh, you know, Biden has a storage closet, but there's a Corvette in it, Dan.
I'm in a storage closet doing this podcast and there's just like a washer and dryer.
I don't know.
Do you?
I just, I thought he was like a Scranton guy, man of the people.
I don't have a Corvette.
What's going on?
All right, here we go.
Taking a break.
Hi, my name is Peter and I'm a prophet in the new novel, American Prophet.
I was the one who dreamed about the natural disaster just before it happened.
Oh, and the pandemic.
And that crazy election.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging.
It's not like I asked for the job.
Actually, no one would ask for this job.
At least half the people will hate whatever I say and almost everyone thinks I'm a little crazy.
Getting a date is next to impossible.
I've got a radio host who is making up conspiracies about me, a dude actually shooting at me, and an unhinged president threatening me.
But the job isn't all that bad.
I've gotten to see the country, and meet some really interesting people, and hopefully do some good along the way.
You can find my story on Amazon, Audible, or iTunes.
Just look for American Prophet by Jeff Fulmer.
That's American Prophet by Jeff Fulmer.
All right, Dan, tell us about the Biden.
A lot of people are hearing, you know, today about Biden this, Biden that.
So break it down for us.
What do we got?
Yeah, so it's like, start with the PSY.
That's what we're going to get is a lot of the PSY.
They found classified documents in Biden's possession from his time as vice president.
And they found some classified documents in his private office in DC.
That was like sort of earlier in the fall.
And then That came out just recently, and that's a point that I'll come back to in just a minute.
So just days ago, we kind of heard that they had found these.
It was his team that found them, his people that found them, turned them over to the National Archives, and so forth.
And then Biden basically kind of expressed, you know, we're not sure how this happened, shouldn't have happened, and so forth.
Real differences from Trump.
There was no claim to declassify the materials or to own them or to have used his mind or, you know, whatever else.
But we hear that.
Well, then it comes out that, oh, sorry, we also found more documents at his home a few weeks later, you know, in like, I think it was December or November, somewhere in there.
And then it comes out yesterday that they have appointed a special counsel to investigate this.
So it has blown up into probably the biggest sort of political crisis of Biden's term so far.
And some things to sort of think about this.
Again, there are real differences in this.
He voluntarily found these, turned these over.
Things I've read have said that they think he's probably clear of the kinds of legal repercussions that Trump may be under.
People remember Trump, they had to go after these.
They had to subpoena them, and then they were turned over, and then it turns out there were more, and they had to execute the search warrant, and all that kind of stuff.
But a lot of Things going on here and just huge blunders on the part of the Biden administration.
Obviously a blunder for Biden to have these documents in the first place.
But things that I think sometimes are real questions that need to be addressed.
This is troubling and it is problematic.
And we were all critical of Trump for having classified documents.
And so like when a former, in this case, vice president has classified documents, it raises real questions.
But there are also other just sort of tactical mistakes by the Biden administration that I handled this.
The first thing that stands out is why were they looking in the first place?
It was because of Trump.
And I'm connecting that dot, but obviously you had the search at Mar-a-Lago and everything that was, and you can just feel the Biden administration being like, anybody looked in our closet?
Anybody checking that box by the Corvette?
Are we sure?
Like what's in there, right?
To stick with your garage metaphor?
I see you, Brad, and your room is blurred out, but I'll bet that the storage room has boxes that haven't been opened in, like, years.
My basement's full of boxes like that.
You know how much classified information I have from Skidmore College?
I mean, I worked at Rhodes College.
I have classified.
I do not, okay?
You have Vox's old syllabi.
That's what that is.
The exams that students never took back, you're like, oh, that student graduated seven years ago.
I could probably get rid of that.
Oh, there are some important course catalogs in this storage closet that if the wrong people got their hands on, God knows what they would do with them.
All right.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So yeah, but I mean, you can hear them being like, oh, we should go.
So they go and they take a look and they find some.
But when do we hear about it?
And this again, I'm just kind of painting this the way it's going to be painted.
We hear about it after the midterms.
We hear about it after 2023 starts, right?
We hear about it later.
And so that gives every impression of secrecy and a cover-up and double standards and so forth.
And then when they do come out and say, oops, our bad, we had some documents, they already knew that they had found them in two different places and didn't say that.
So then that comes out.
And so again, it gives the impression of secrecy and so forth.
And I think some of that impression is real in the sense that somebody made the calculation and said, well, maybe we can get away with only acknowledging these and the other things will just quietly be handed over to the National Archives.
No, no harm, no foul.
Except that people then found out, and it looks terrible.
It's like when you don't tell somebody something you did, and you're like, they'll be really upset, it'll hurt their feelings, I should not tell them, but then when they find out that you didn't tell them, it's like worse.
It's that.
But you get other things that sort of smell like scandal to people here, right?
Some people are upset that Garland and the DOJ has named a special.
He had to, right?
We have, and we're going to go into this in a minute, right?
We talk about the weaponization of the House with the GOP.
The GOP has played this game for years of saying that Biden is weaponizing the Department of Justice and so forth.
If they don't investigate this, all it does is feed that narrative, right?
Okay, you're going to investigate the former president when he has classified documents, but now the former vice president does, and we're going to do what?
Nothing?
Because he's the president?
It would feed that.
So Merrick Garland has to do this, and I think that the way the Biden White House has handled this sort of made that happen.
I think it was an important part of this because, I don't know, if they had come out God, they could have done it in late November.
They could have dumped it right before Christmas or something in some press release that says, oh, hey, we checked the box in the shed and there were some documents in there.
And Merry Christmas, everyone.
Happy holidays.
You know, Happy New Year.
It's not a war on Christmas.
We're just saying that because it's a cultural thing and go about their business.
Right.
That's all they would have to do.
So they had to do that.
And I think a real question that people are going to ask, and I think the GOP is going to feed on it, is, OK, so supposedly, they would say, the National Archives is doing some check of documents.
They think that there are some are missing.
They reach out to the Trump administration.
Is there any chance you have these?
They're stonewalled and so forth.
It escalates.
Why didn't that happen with the Biden administration?
Why were the National Archives not knocking on Biden's door saying there are these unaccounted documents?
I have no idea how that process works, but that's the fodder that's going to feed the narrative.
And I guess the last thing I'll say and throw it over to you is just it feeds the ecosystem of conspiracism and conspiracy theories.
It gives weight to weaponizing those things.
Because now the GOP is saying, well, we're not just investigating Biden because he's Biden.
Look at this thing.
He had classified documents.
How dare he?
and so forth.
It also detracts from attention on things like Santos and others and the dysfunction of the GOP in the House and just sort of on and on and on.
So a lot going on with this.
I think some real questions about how this happened and it should be of concern that there were classified documents.
I think just a bumbled handling by the Biden administration sort of makes everything worse.
I think the knock-on effects this will have for the GOP and trivializing the significance of what Trump was doing and so forth going forward.
So throw it over to you for whatever thoughts you have Corvette related or otherwise.
Well, yeah, I have a couple thoughts and so I think Number one, this is one of those moments where you just really mourn the fact that it's impossible to have any kind of nuanced discussion in our news media, right?
Because in some sense, as you've just done really well, there are similarities here.
And look, This is not good.
And they should, they should look into this in every way possible.
And if there's more documents and more, you know, storage bins, then they should go find them.
Okay.
I have no, this is not a show where I'm like, well, no, Biden actually, or, you know, it's like, no, this is not good.
I don't like it.
I don't like this.
I don't like classified documents being found all over the place.
Okay.
And like Biden's yearbook from 1912 or whenever he went to high school.
Okay.
So I don't want that.
But on the other hand, there are real differences here, Dan.
What I don't like is we're in a situation where you have brothers growing up.
I have brothers.
I'm the oldest of three brothers.
And when you're seven and nine, or you're like, 10 and one of you does something and mom's like, don't do that, you know?
And then the other one does it, but not in the same way.
And it's clearly not the same situation, but you clearly did it.
And from the backseat, you know, your brother's like, he did it too.
And your mom has no choice, but to be like, yeah, you did, you did do it.
And it's like, clearly not the same thing, but it's like two brothers fighting and, you know, officially you did do the thing.
And so that's it.
It's just a kind of like no nuance, you know, decision from mom.
You're both grounded.
You're both like sent to the room.
You both don't get whatever.
I just feel like Biden fumbled this.
I agree.
You said it.
And then when they found out, they were like, hey, we did this.
We're just admitting to it.
And we'll, yeah, whatever you need to do, cooperate with, you know, the investigation that the archives makes sense.
So yeah, come on in, come on in.
Right.
And I just want to remind people Trump's reaction was, yeah, we might have them.
We don't know.
Yeah.
We'll see.
Yeah.
We'll look for them.
Yeah.
We might look for them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Come, you know what?
Come by later.
Actually, no, it's not a good time.
Come by in a month.
No, you know what?
Maybe in the summertime.
And they stonewalled for like 170 days.
They stonewalled.
And even when they were asked about, is that everything?
Of course it's everything.
And then it wasn't.
And those documents, in many cases, and this is like kind of weird, but they were not necessarily locked away in a dusty closet.
They were like in a place at Mar-a-Lago where people had access to and on and on and on and on and on.
There are real differences that I wish we could talk about, especially in terms of the reactions and the ways that, and also the motivations, okay?
I'll just say it.
And I'm happy to have egg on my face in a week or a month, but my understanding at the moment is that this is Biden being careless.
My understanding, and I know we can't really, you know, read someone's intentions fully, but evidence tells me Trump strategically took certain documents for his own strategic purposes, and I think that's a real difference.
One or two more thoughts here before I turn it back to you on this, but I would also say it bothers me a little bit, not that there is a special counsel on this at all.
Okay.
Not bothered by any means.
It does bother me that it took so long for it to happen with Trump.
And this is not whataboutism.
Yes, they acted quickly with Biden.
Great.
It's not a you're accusing me of wrongdoing.
Well, what about that?
It's you're accusing Biden of doing something wrong.
Yep, he did.
Totally did.
And he's cooperating.
He didn't stonewall.
And this is no good.
This stinks.
Why do we give such special treatment to narcissists who will not cooperate?
Toxic people and toxic relationships.
And I know everyone listening has, and I'm not trying to recall things that are hurtful or painful for people to remember.
But if you have been in a relationship with someone who just refuses to engage with you in good faith, they're a narcissist, they're toxic, they're something.
They push the boundaries of that relationship, right, as far as they can to their side before you either walk away or force their hand.
And, right, so the people that are willing to say, oh, I broke a rule.
OK, we got to figure this out.
That's one that's one set of norms.
And then there's other people that are like going to just say no, no, no, no, no, no.
And Stonewall and push and lie and manipulate until they finally have to, like, get in a place where there's, I don't know, the FBI at Mar-a-Lago.
Like, why?
Why do we just continue to allow this man such special treatment to break every norm, every process, every badge of honor we have in this democracy to hide nuclear weapon documents in his like, you know, guest house or whatever at his golf club.
So that bothers me.
I'll throw one more idea at you and I don't want to be, I don't, what I'm going to say here sounds a little bit like talk radio and I don't like it, but I'm just going to say it.
I do think, Dan, there are people in the Democratic Party who are a little happy right now.
And I think it's because whether you're Kamala Harris, whether you're Gavin Newsom, whether you are Gretchen Whitmer, this might be the weird little thing that turns Biden into a one-term guy.
And it may, honestly, Dan, I could see it is January.
I could see by June.
This being some weird scandal that has been blown up by the House of Representatives led by McCarthy and Jim Jordan and everyone else and Biden not handling it well and them finding more docs.
And all of a sudden it's like, this is not looking good, buddy.
And we're kind of getting ready now to start the 2024 business.
Are you up for this?
Do you, do you, you want to get out there and clear your name?
Or do you want to just hand this off to like.
You know, Kamala Harris or Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or someone else.
So those are some thoughts.
Off to you.
One where I was going to pick up is exactly that of what will this make Biden radioactive when it comes time to run?
And as you say, lots of people in the Democratic Party aren't crazy about him running.
So this could become that leverage point, whether legitimately or not.
The only other point I want to make, because I feel like what you're highlighting, Sam, about the lack of nuance and so forth, and all the points you raise are true, is, and we've talked about this before, and I talk about it a lot with the media and other things, always wanting to create this sense of equivalence or symmetry, right?
As if there's always a balance, right?
That it happens on both sides and so forth.
I think people are going to pick up on that because I'm with you.
Great, cool, investigate it, do it, whatever.
But I think that because of that sense of false symmetry, and I do think it's a false symmetry, that whatever the outcome is on the investigation of Trump, there will be demands on the right for the same outcome.
Whatever it is, it has to be the same.
So if They were to say, well, and I don't know, right?
I do not know that this is true.
But if they were to look at it and say, I don't know, maybe the kind of documents are substantively different.
They're all top secret, whatever.
But you know, one of it's like, yeah, these are the receipts from like, when we took this trip to this country that people didn't know we went to or something.
And something else like, yeah, this was a nuclear, like nuclear capabilities of Pakistan or whatever, whatever it is.
The cooperation or lack of it, false statements made to the government, all that kind of stuff.
If all of that is sort of swept away by an angry GOP to say, Oh, nope, see, we told you it was going to be a cover up because yeah, they had a special counsel in quotes, but you know, they just gave him a slap on the wrist and they, you know, referred charges to Trump or whatever, however that plays out.
I think that's another piece of it.
And that is also the kind of thing To feed into that last point about how this may linger, obviously the GOP will want this to linger.
They will want this to hang on Biden and gum up his administration as much as possible.
And so as these investigations go forth, raising those kinds of claims will keep it visible.
And I think to a lot of Americans, and partly because of the media that I think does fall into this trap of creating false symmetries all the time, They will say, well, why didn't they, right?
Why aren't they treating Biden the same way as Trump?
And the fact that he cooperated, this was all voluntary and on and on and on won't matter.
So I think that that's just my last thought about this theme that you're highlighting of the kind of false equivalences that are drawn, which again is not to exonerate Biden, just to say that, you know, we're a couple of academics and we like nuance and we like to be able to actually analyze things and note real differences and similarities.
I agree.
And all that's there.
You're going to hear people talk Hunter Biden's laptop and Joe Biden's Corvette.
They're just going to say Joe Biden's Corvette so often.
When you see a little Ron at a barbecue and he brings up Hunter Biden's laptop, it's like critical race theory.
You're just like, what's on the laptop, Ron?
What's on the laptop?
And he's like, well, you know, it's pretty bad.
We've got to find out.
And I was like, tell me what's on the laptop that you really...
And because he's just been told so many times about Hunter Biden's laptop that he just think that's like the conversation stopper.
And we're going to, we're going to get that again with like Biden's Corvette or something.
So we'll, we'll see, we'll see what happens.
All right.
Let's take a break.
We'll come back and stay on domestic stuff with the newly led Republican house and the continued.
A lot of words I want to use right now.
The continued process of governance in the House of Representatives.
We'll be right back.
Okay, so I think we'll talk about George Santos in just one second, but before that, I want to just mention something that happened this week, and I think it plays into everything you just said, Dan, about polarization and rhetoric.
Steve Bannon, writing at the Matto Blog, put this really well.
So he first quotes the New York Times and says, The Divided House on Tuesday voted to launch a wide-ranging investigation into federal law enforcement and national security agencies.
As Republicans promised to use their new power in Congress to scrutinize what they said was a concerted effort by the government to silence and punish conservatives at all levels, from protesters at school board meetings to former President Donald J. Trump.
Okay, so just want to point this out that the Republicans who are always talking about the thin blue line and everything are now, the first thing they did was vote to investigate the Federal Law Enforcement and National Security Agency.
So that's one.
The committee, Ben and Reitz, was approved 221 to 211, falling on partisan lines, Democrat and Republican.
And the leader of the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government will be none other than Jim Jordan.
Okay.
Jim Jordan was described as a political terrorist by John Boehner, also from Ohio.
So Democrats plan to be part of the committee, filling five of the panel's 13 slots, though they'll have no real influence over its direction.
I will note that that's different than the J6 Select Committee, because Democrats actually are taking part and will at least be voices in hearings that I'm sure will just, you know, Dispute and fight very vociferously at every turn.
Bennett says this, it's tempting to simply roll one's eyes at such an endeavor.
After all, in reality, there's been no concerted effort by the government to silence and punish conservatives.
And anytime Republicans have tried to point to ostensible proof of the phenomenon, their baseless claims have been quickly and easily discredited.
So why?
Why is this important?
It just seems like a clown show from the party that took 170 or 180 rounds to elect its Speaker of the House the other day, alright?
But it's a problem, Bennett writes, because of its stated purview.
The resolution explicitly says the panel will have the power to, quote, examine the expansive role of Article 2 authority vested in the executive branch to collect information on or otherwise investigate citizens of the United States, including ongoing criminal investigations.
OK.
Now, the DOJ, Dan, doesn't usually make information about criminal investigations available to Congress, right?
So they're not going to just walk into Congress and say, yeah, hey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, hey, Matt Gaetz, here's everything we're doing with open criminal investigations.
Because you can see that, A, that just may not be smart, and B, at least in this day and age, Congress people may be the subject of those investigations.
But, Benen writes, given that Jordan is all but certain to examine the criminal investigations into Trump, this seems likely to get quite messy.
What happens when the legislative branch demands confidential information from the executive branch about ongoing cases surrounding a corrupt former president who enjoys the loyalty of the congressional investigators?
If their matter is adjudicated, how might Trump appoint a jurist's rule?
In other words, the House won't just have oversight over intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement, it will now have a powerful special committee.
Okay.
And so basically, Dan, the purview of the committee is intentionally broad so that they can just investigate anything they want at any time and do what you just said.
And I think this is the point I'm trying to make.
They can turn any issue they want into the next Benghazi.
They can take anything related to the investigation of Trump by the DOJ, any action by Biden, anything related to the FBI, anything related to criminal probes of like Trump loyalists and just turn it into a Benghazi anything related to criminal probes of like Trump loyalists and just turn it into a Benghazi style, 16 hours in front of the committee on And again, what are they going to say?
Well, this is what you did with the J6 Select Committee, so what?
And it's going to be a, you did it, how come we can't?
Okay.
This feels, I'm sure, to many like a clown show.
Jim Jordan being in charge of it doesn't help that, but it's going to gum things up.
It's going to create headaches.
It's also just going to feed conspiracy and not help to tamp it down.
It's going to give them opportunity just to get up there and grandstand about stuff that is Not real, it is not essential, and is really just meant to polarize the nation and hurt their political opponents.
And it's just distressing and it shows you.
That as good as the 2022 midterms were, in some sense, these are the real results.
If people don't think, you know, anytime someone, and I know you out there, you don't need reminders of this, but if people say voting doesn't matter, elections don't matter, again, you don't have Jim Jordan, who, you know, forgot to wear his coat for the 1200th day straight and is in his sleeves leading the committee.
Apart from elections going a certain way.
So all right.
What do you think?
And then if you want to, you know, I don't know.
Tell us about George Santos.
Yeah, so on these, the only things that, everything you say is true.
Everything you say is right.
Everything you say is what they're going to do.
The one thing that gives me some solace, maybe, is that we are beginning to see that not all investigations are created equal, right?
The J6 investigation had more of an effect than I frankly thought that it would.
Part of that might be because, as you say, the Republicans chose not to play, and Democrats know that that was a mistake, and so they're not going to do that.
But if we think back to Benghazi, I mean, it made a lot of noise and things like that, but how successful that was, It was pretty minor, all in all, right?
And so all of which is to say, I think we are seeing that at least at times you can make lots of noise, create lots of smoke, but every now and then the truth pokes through, and like the big things emerge as big things, and it does.
So I have some hope of that, that this will be more procedural, and as you say, gumming things up, than Then kind of substantive or sort of longer lasting, but I don't know that.
That's me, I guess, on a hopeful Friday the 13th, thinking that maybe that'll happen.
The other thing that'll be interesting to see with this is how this tenuous structure in the House works with the GOP hardliners.
I've read things this week that say, you know, the hardliners are going to control the GOP.
There's others within the GOP who are like, no, actually, this is going to make us be more moderate and have to work with Democrats sometimes and so forth.
So we don't know how that's going to work with these committees, let alone all the weird rule changes that went through.
So it's just like, On and on and on, and you're right.
So it sounds like clown show kind of stuff, but there's a lot of stuff going on, and the U.S.
House of Representatives is like the ultimate clown show.
That's kind of what they do.
On that point of clowns, just like a weekly check-in of our friend Santos, right?
The Long Island GOP called for Santos to resign, and folks remember the Santos.
It's not that he, quote-unquote, embellished his resume.
It's more like There's nothing on his resume that was true.
I mean, it wasn't like an embellishment or saying that, you know, I graduated with... Brad Onishi graduated his PhD in three years and it took more than three years, but he got the PhD, right?
It was degrees that didn't exist.
Thanks a lot, Dan.
You know, I did my best.
Okay?
Jeez.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It took him three and a half years.
It was pretty good.
It's made up all this stuff and so forth.
So you've had all these calls and so forth, and the GOP in Long Island called for him to step down.
Why do I think that's significant?
Number one, we all know the sort of wipeout that were the Democrats in New York State at the midterms.
But I think it does show that Republicans in New York State are not fully confident of that.
I don't think that they think that they've turned New York State red somehow.
If they did, I don't think they would call for Santos to resign.
So I'm just reading into that.
But more significantly, what does McCarthy say, right, when he finally comes out and says something about Santos?
It's not until after this and he says...
The voters, you know, it's up to the voters.
I can't tell Santos to resign.
I shouldn't, you know, the voters should speak.
The appeals to the voters, I would point out to McCarthy, the voters did speak.
They voted for Santos, but they did so with completely false pretenses.
It's a chance that there was some kind of special election tomorrow.
A lot of them would still vote for him anyway, whatever, but they didn't.
So it's sort of nonsense.
But why is McCarthy taking that line?
He can't afford to give up a Santos.
If McCarthy wants one representative who is going to absolutely be in his pocket for like his entire tenure, it's Santos, right?
And somebody that he can count on to help counterbalance the right wing and all that other stuff.
He's not going anywhere.
So just as I say, on this theme of Clown Show, these are the kinds of dynamics.
And I don't know Where it's all going to go because of the kind of volatility within the GOP itself, plus the fact that Democrats as the minority party now get the privilege of just sort of making noise and saying things and so forth, the kind of role that that plays.
So yeah, I think your metaphor of a clown show is maybe just right, which doesn't bode well, by the way, for getting real legislative stuff done.
Yeah, well, and so if you have not kept up with the Santos stuff and you're just like, you're somebody who, you know, you don't want to watch cable news.
And, you know, this is not a matter of like he said, hey, I went to Harvard, but he, in fact, went to like, you know, SUNY Albany or something.
Right.
So that would be bad.
But this is like he talked about his mother dying in 9-11 and she died.
And I don't have it in front of me.
I think 2016.
This is a guy who talked about being Jewish and is not Jewish at all.
This is a guy who fabricated almost his entire biography and educated.
So it honestly if you if you've been listening to the show for three years and you found out that Dan and I are in fact not professors have no degrees have never like you know what I mean?
studied these things and we've just been spouting off stuff with no training whatsoever that we're not who we say we are in any way blah blah blah you would just feel a little differently about the show now and some of you might still listen and and say well nonetheless you know good dad jokes why not cargo short recommendations it's worth it but it's just like it changes everything and i just i agree dan that we're here's here's where i want to type together the the threads and then we'll we'll go to reasons for hope
is you're going to hear jim jordan and kevin mccarthy and marjorie taylor green and and whoever else talking about biden and integrity and transparency and we have to be a nation with values and And this man George Santos lied about everything about himself.
He is a complete fraud.
He's wanted.
We talked about Brazil today.
He's wanted in Brazil.
OK, and they couldn't find him.
And then they're like, oh, he's in your Congress.
So, yeah, maybe now we'll open that investigation up again.
Santos is a 100% fraud and shuckster and Kevin McCarthy's response is cowardice.
Period.
Okay.
It's cowardice.
Kevin McCarthy is like, I can't make that political maneuver.
So, and so anytime you hear them talk about Biden and documents and integrity, that the case of Santos is one of, Dan, there's no, like, you know, how we always talk about like nuance and complexity.
I'm not sure I've seen a such a like an open and shut case in a long time like there's just there's no nuance here there's no like I made a mistake like we've all made mistakes and we did things unintentionally and we're like yep that wasn't good all right Well, I'm really sorry that happened.
And my intent was not for that to happen, but I recognized the impact was this and that.
And so I messed up.
Okay.
This was just 100% lie about everything to get into Congress.
And Kevin McCarthy's like, yeah, in two years, you know, we'll have to see what the voters say.
And it's like in two, in two years, he will have been in our Congress.
He'll be one of 400 something members of our Congress and have had a say.
On really important things in Americans lives.
And you're taking that like, Dan, can you imagine hiring?
Okay.
I'll stop after one more example.
I promise.
But like, can you imagine you had a company and you hired somebody to do a really important job as an engineer or as a, like a product designer or as a software designer or something?
And they get in there and you realize they've lied about everything.
They have no experience.
Their recommendation letters have been falsified.
They did not actually get a degree or an accreditation like they said they did.
You're not even sure it's their real name.
And you're like, you know...
Let's give him two years.
We already hired him.
We did the paperwork.
We already set up the direct deposit.
Let's give him two years.
Come on.
I mean, that's what Kevin McCarthy is saying.
Okay.
And that's why Kevin McCarthy should be coaching JV Baseball in Bakersfield and not here leading the House of Representatives.
So, all right.
Any final thoughts?
If you have them Dan, or we can just go to Reasons for Hope.
My final thoughts, number one, I have seen enough of those Hallmark holiday movies where somebody gets a job under false pretenses to know that at least the romances that develop there can survive.
So there's hope for that.
I don't know what Santos' personal life is, but there is that possibility.
I'm really hoping that there's like a really wacky you know, hijinks filled situation where he is somehow like in a relationship with Kirsten Dunst later on and Jack Black is there, you know what I mean?
Somehow.
And maybe Hannibal Buress, it's going to be really- A little School of Rock revival, that kind of thing.
So much whimsy, whimsy everywhere.
Yeah.
Okay.
But in all seriousness, I can't imagine because we've seen it happen over and over and over where real companies or sports teams, this happens a lot among college coaches for some reason, it seems to come out, where it turns out they made stuff up on their CV and guess what?
Uh, They're fired.
Like, that's what happens.
Like, you fire them or they're allowed to resign or whatever.
They don't get to stay for two years.
So from that, I will transition now very smoothly into Reasons for Hope.
I had a couple weird ones this week.
We talk about being academics and nuance and whatever.
So my reason for hope was kind of a something that I realized was different this January than the last couple.
And I was reading some stuff and I realized, oh, it's January the last it feels like 27 years in January.
All we hear about is COVID and like how many people are hospitalized and how bad it is and so forth.
And what occurred to me and I started kind of looking into it was that we don't hear that as much this year.
And it turns out COVID numbers are up.
People have it, but it's become less of an issue.
Now, some of that is negative.
Some of that are states that pretended it never existed and whatever.
But some of it is that it has become, I think, we've turned the corner where it's a fairly manageable thing now.
If my kids get COVID, my kids are all fully vaccinated.
I'm fully vaccinated.
I'm a big fan of the vaccines.
But I had COVID and it was a hassle.
It wasn't a threat to my life.
It wasn't a threat to my kids' lives.
So as I sort of, I find myself January's New Year being reflective, looking back.
That's one of the things I've taken hope about is that aspect of this and I think Ongoing, that we can focus on real things now instead of being able to sort of hide behind that.
I'm glad that when I hear about the GOP and all the obfuscations they'll put forward in the House, that's like not as much on the list anymore, the COVID stuff.
So, I don't know.
For whatever reason, that was something that sort of struck me this week, that I'm just glad that I'm not reading about people dying or being hospitalized like I was before, that hopefully we've turned a corner with COVID.
And I know just to, yeah, and I, you know, I'm going to get on a plane later today and go down to Orange County.
And I couldn't do that in the previous couple of years.
With that said, I know that there's Immunocompromised folks out there for whom this is still really hard and you know the fact that people aren't wearing masks and stuff does present an issue so we definitely don't want to forget you and know that you know there are ways that it probably feels like hey I wish everyone was still wearing masks because as in you know somebody with an immunocompromised situation it's hard for me to feel safe in public and so on so Yeah, and that's part of why I'm hopeful, Dan.
I'm, you know, I'm having a chance starting today to really just go out and get to see folks and meet with people.
And the response has been really cool.
And there's been people who've responded to these events in ways I didn't expect.
And so I'm just excited to like, I'm an introvert for sure.
And I definitely like to just spend time by myself reading and so on.
Endless stack of French novels, etc.
But what really excites me is getting to talk to people and meet people and folks who find this show helpful, find my book helpful, and I just can't wait to see people in Orange County and L.A.
and Seattle and all that.
So if you're listening and you're thinking about coming, really looking forward to hanging out.
We did a lot of this in Denver, Dan, after the event.
We went to a pub and people hung out late into the evening and got to know each other, made new friends.
I don't know.
It's kind of hokey, and I'll always be kind of corny this way, but I just think that's really what this is about in some sense, and so I'm excited for that.
All right.
All the links to events are in the show notes.
Come hang.
Find us at Straight White JC.
Find me at Bradley Onishi.
Find our Patreon and our PayPal.
We could really use your help.
I am working.
Some of you have asked me, why don't we have Venmo?
And it's because I've Had an ongoing issue with my Venmo and the one I've been using is my wife's and I don't want to give you all my wife's Venmo because I get emails from white supremacists and other people and, you know, we don't need to be doing that.
So if you're wondering why no Venmo, that's part of it.
It'll be up soon.
Other than that, we'll be back later next week with interviews and Dan's It's In The Code series and the week Loretta.
