Trump's Victory Shattered The Democrats, They've Been Struggling Ever Since
Trump's Victory Shattered The Democrats, They've Been Struggling Ever Since. Something had been brewing in the US for some time, the rise of the far left in the Democratic party predates Trump's victory. In fact, it may have led to his win when Bernie Sanders voters refused to support Hillary. But the night Trump won something happened, his victory was like a sledgehammer on the Democratic party creating cracks that are ever increasingly spiraling out further and further.We didn't see if at the time but the conversation had started. Bernie or Bust voters, the far left democrats, cost hillary clinton the election. Since then the far left and social justice narratives have become increasingly dominant. 2020 Democrats make absurd promises that most Americans disagree with.The narrative that is winning out is that in order to beat Trump we have to go further left and reject moderate and conservative Democrats.But it's the center that wins elections and Trump knows it. 2020 Democrats are embracing woke twitter rhetoric and its going to work much to the benefit of Trump in 2020. While polls do show Trump losing in almost every match-up the polls were wrong in 2016.Technically the polls weren't wrong, they just gave Trump a ridiculously low chance of winning and he won. But the general idea about the polls being wrong is that they shouldn't have favored Hillary.While Trump isn't the cause of the growing far left democrats he certainly helps it grow, and he does it on purpose. Trump knows that by pushing and promoting woke far left democrats and activists it will scare Americans into voting republican.Unfortunately for the US left, this means Democrats are playing into trump's hands and he will likely take 2020 in a landslide.Many Democrats know this and think impeachment is the only way to beat Trump but even this issue is too divisive.The moderate democrats and far left democrats are in a battle for the soul of the party and the far left is winning.
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I was thinking about what's happening with the Democratic Party and the left, and I realized something interesting.
These far-left types call me far-right.
I call them far-left.
We're both to the left on the political spectrum in the United States.
This is not an issue of me versus conservatives.
I feel like, you know, a way to see it, a way to explain what's happening, at least as I see it, is I'm standing here in a moderate position on the Democratic side thinking about 2016.
Hillary Clinton was awful.
Bernie was better.
Though Bernie was further left than I am, he just felt like a better candidate.
That's who I wanted.
When that broke down, something happened.
And I don't know if it was Trump or something that led to Trump.
But all I know is Trump's victory in 2016 was a sledgehammer to the Democratic Party.
And now, I'm facing left at the crazies who are ever gaining power and growing.
Probably due to Trump's victory, that hammer smashing everything.
Meanwhile, there are conservatives behind me patting on the back and pushing me saying, go for it, go for it.
Because both me and the conservative types are upset with the craziness of the far left.
Though conservatives would probably be opposed to Obama too, we are both looking in the same direction now.
It's a really weird situation.
Here's the thing.
This was predicted.
This was stated.
I feel like the Democratic Party is collapsing.
Or reforming.
Or it's a revolution.
But I think collapse might be a better way to describe it because it means they won't win for a long time.
Perhaps.
I mean, I could be wrong.
But whatever is happening now could lead to Democrats losing.
And perhaps it's exactly what led to Hillary Clinton losing.
She only needed a few more votes in some of these states to have beaten Trump.
But she couldn't get it.
And I think it may be something that predates Trump.
It led to Trump.
The rise of the far left and turmoil within the Democratic Party, in my opinion, Contributed to Hillary Clinton's loss.
Also arrogance.
Everybody thought they were so sure of themselves they couldn't lose.
But when that, on that fateful day, November 9th, 2016, it was like a sledgehammer came down right into the heart of the Democratic Party, which fractured into a million pieces.
Okay, maybe not a million pieces, but a few pieces.
That leaves moderates, And socialists, regressive intersectionals, and there's the elitist corporatist types.
It was just a fracture.
Whatever unity was left was just ripped apart when 2016 happened.
And now there's a discussion happening about how to defeat Trump.
Nobody agrees.
My answer?
You gotta play to the middle.
You gotta attract people with sane, rational policies.
But they tell me I'm wrong.
Hillary Clinton lost.
But Hillary Clinton was a corporatist, you know, free trade, all of the really bad crony capitalist things.
I didn't like her either.
So I'm not making an argument for her.
But we see this story, and I found it really interesting, so I pulled up a bunch of sources, and I want to walk you through.
A perspective I see as to what's contributing to the victories of Trump, and regardless of anything else, I really do see Trump winning.
Now, it's possible that a resistance activist base rises up and the media, the attacks on Trump really does get Trump to win.
I mean, the polls are saying one-to-one Trump loses against every Democrat.
But they said similar things in 2016.
They said he couldn't win.
Something changed.
And I don't trust the polls necessarily.
And I made this point in a video before.
I'm going to rehash the point and stress it to make sure everyone understands.
I lean towards with a good economy, with Trump's favorability and average job approval being higher than they've ever been, he's probably got more support.
So the polls in his favor probably, they're more likely to be correct.
And the polls saying he's doing really, really bad are less likely to be correct because the economy is great.
But check this out, I want to read a little bit of this story.
Democrats of all ages agree on nothing.
How did Democratic Party icons like Barack Obama come to symbolize all the problems of yore?
The point is, Democrats today aren't pointing to George W.
Bush.
They point to Trump very often.
But their policy critiques are of Obama and Bill Clinton.
Why Bill Clinton?
Why has Bill Clinton become the problem and not George W. Bush?
Why is George W. Bush seen in a video handing a piece of candy to Michelle Obama or something like that and everyone's talking about how cute it is?
The left hated George W. Bush.
Something weird happened.
Something really weird happened.
And it resulted in people in my sphere who were once aligned with the very same far-left activists on issues like Occupy Wall Street now being at odds with each other.
Bernie Sanders voters going to Trump, Bernie, or bust?
I saw former Occupy Wall Street activists at the Deplora Ball wearing Trump hats.
I don't know if it was Trump.
Maybe.
But Trump certainly contributes to it.
He's a symbol now of whatever it was that caused this divide.
Whether you like him or not.
Let's read.
They say, if time travelers from a distant era say the 1992 presidential campaign had dropped in on this summer's democratic debates, they'd be entitled to wonder just whose political party they stumbled upon.
The same could be said for a visitor from 2008 or 2012.
Medicare for all?
Decriminalization of illegal border crossings?
Free healthcare for undocumented immigrants?
Free college and forgiveness of existing student loan debt?
Once radical notions like these are now at the heart of the major party's dialogue.
They say in 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House by promising to fight for the people who work hard and play by the rules, a pointed appeal to the political center, and an implicit rejection of the George McGovern-style liberalism on which he'd cut his teeth as a campaign operative in Texas 20 years earlier.
In 2008, Obama campaigned on the notion of change we can believe in.
But today, Donald Trump has blithely broken every rule in conventional political playbook.
He has changed the tenor of national debate in ways that would have been unimaginable just months ago.
So it's perhaps logical that a sizable swath of the Democratic activist base and the 20-plus candidates in the primary field now believes, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, that the game is rigged.
In their universe, the old verity that Democrats win by claiming the center no longer applies.
Here's the important part of this story.
Hillary Clinton's loss had an exponential effect, said Robert Boorstin, who was a Clinton White House speechwriter and a pollster for Al Gore in 2000, because it changed the rules of the primary game, because people thought it was rigged against Bernie Sanders.
And there is some evidence that it was at least heavily weighted in her favor.
But it's also changed what's ideologically acceptable.
They say, in fact, it seems beyond doubt that Hillary Clinton's dominance of party processes and elders gave her a leg up in 2016.
But I want to stop here.
I'm not going to go through everything.
I want to move now to what we've witnessed.
And I think we, look, I think the Democratic Party is shattered.
I've called them fractured before.
I don't know if they will be able to piece things together and recover.
Because I absolutely reject the intersectional ideology, the left-wing identitarianism.
I have to, at the core of my being.
I believe in freedom and liberty.
I believe in hard work.
But I do believe in government programs and regulation and pro-choice and progressive taxes.
But I can't align with people who are racist.
I can't.
They say the same thing about Trump.
I agree.
I'm not going to sit here and rag on Trump all day and night, but I'm not going to vote for him for whatever reason.
You know, that's the point I'm trying to make.
They refuse to align with Trump, well don't worry, I'm not going to vote for Trump either.
But I think you're not, I don't see a big difference.
Well, let's do this.
I want to now highlight a few things.
Did Bill Clinton see this coming?
How did Bill Clinton become a pariah, they say?
Before we move on, though, make sure you go to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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But of course, I say it all the time, the best thing you can do is just share this video They're deranking independent political commentary, but it's also, I think we need to break barriers between, you know, echo chambers.
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YouTube will recommend a video to you because you like my content, but you can recommend my video to people who might not have ever seen it before.
So, maybe people in a different echo chamber.
But, I only want to read a little piece here.
They say this.
In the summer of 1996, as he prepped to turn 50 and win a second term in the White House, Bill Clinton took to musing aloud that he now had more yesterdays than tomorrows.
If that sentiment seemed maudlin for a man still in the prime of his life, it was rooted in fact.
The men in Clinton's family died young.
His birth father at 28, his stepfather at 59.
Okay, that was irrelevant.
I just want, you know what, I'm not going to read through this because I don't want to go into a big Clinton thing.
The point I want to make is, They mention that he's become kind of a pariah, that he's slammed in the Democratic debates.
They rag on him for his policy.
The Democrats today are looking at the past two Democratic leaders as problems, which brings me to the next story.
When did Barack Obama become a Republican?
Again, not going to read through this, but you get the point.
I've talked about it before.
In this story, they go through the Democratic debates and said they were ragging on Obama's policies.
Why?
When Obama was very progressive for the Democrats, he was very far left of Clinton in a lot of ways.
How did this happen?
Well, here's the thing.
The day after the election in 2016, the New York Post wrote this.
Obama's main legacy, the collapse of the Democratic Party.
They say, in the course of about six hours, what was supposed to be a Republican existential crisis turned into a Republican wave.
I remember in 2016, with Trump, they said, this is it.
The Republicans are fractured.
They're over.
There's no unity anymore.
For real.
The things that I'm saying today about Democrats were said about Republicans.
And at the time, I believed it.
I was like, wow, Donald Trump won.
He can't win.
Will there be a Republican Party in four years?
Instead, the inverse was true.
Republicans have come together.
The left is fractured and falling apart.
Here's a good example.
Check this out.
This is from 2019.
Bernie or bust voters create predicament for Democrats in 2020.
Bernie or bust, for those that aren't familiar, was Bernie Sanders voters who said either Bernie Sanders is the nominee or I won't vote.
Some people said they'd vote for Trump.
In fact, depending on which poll you look at, 12 to 18% of Bernie Sanders voters voted for Trump.
You know why?
They both opposed free trade agreements.
They were both for strong borders.
And that was what a lot of people cared about in middle America.
They said, hey, those are the ones I want.
Hillary Clinton was for opening, not open borders, but less border security.
She was very much in favor of TPP and NAFTA and these free trade agreements, which decimated jobs and allowed for massive outsourcing, the loss of manufacturing.
She didn't speak to people.
At least the working class people.
And this is where a weird shift started to happen in our politics.
Now, I'm no longer aligned with these other more far-left activist types who used to stand next to each other.
I shouldn't say me, but...
Activists that occupy Wall Street, who are Bernie or Bust types, later on, standing next to activists who are now Antifa.
They stood side by side.
Diversity of tactics.
But something happened here, and they split.
Now they're at odds with each other.
Now there's different tribes.
Here's the thing.
The Bernie or Bust people, some of them joined the Trump side.
They voted for Trump.
He attracted moderates.
That's why he won.
People who had previously voted for Obama now voted for Trump.
But, it's not so much that they're in a different tribe, all of them.
A lot of Bernie or Bust people just no longer are, they're no longer aligned with groups like Antifa on the far left.
They're at odds with each other now.
They view each other as enemies.
Me, case in point.
People I used to work with, I have friends who are very much Antifa, and I talk about it all the time, and of course, the far left people would be like, it's not your, oh, come on, dude, I was at Occupy Wall Street, you think I don't have friends from down there?
And I have conversations with them.
And I said, how did this split happen?
How are we, you know, enemies?
Political, you know, tribal enemies?
And, you know, someone pointed out to me, it was really interesting, they said, what you don't realize is that both of us have always had the same ideology.
It's something else that changed, and then I realized it was the battlefield itself.
It's like the ground split and separated us, and what's happening now is Trump voters and Republicans are all unified.
They're gonna vote for Trump, and they're trying to convince everyone else to do so as well.
I'm trying to convince moderates, because you need the moderates, and the far left is saying, no, now is our chance for revolution.
I'm looking at them and saying, you've lost it.
I've got an example of this.
I made a video about this before.
But I say, on the right-wing side, you'll be safe and have a conversation.
On the left-wing side, you'll be harassed and possibly attacked.
Typically.
I don't mean all the time.
But I highlight in this tweet that during Occupy Wall Street, when the Black Bloc activist types physically attacked me, Occupy activists protected me and offered me protection.
Security detail.
I turned it down.
The point is, at the time, Occupy was very much anti-violence.
They opposed it.
Why does everyone support Antifa today?
Something else has changed.
And I've actually got data to back it up.
Check this out.
They say, as Gallup has previously reported, the percentage of Democrats nationally who identify as politically liberal has been increasing.
This has occurred in three distinct phases.
From 2001 to 2006, when the percentage was trending steadily upward.
07 to 12, when liberalism held steady near 40%.
And then 2013 to 2018, when liberalism resumed its upward trajectory.
That's not liberalism, Gal.
Please clarify your, you know, this is not liberalism.
It's progressivism, okay?
Or, and you can all, yeah, it's what's called progressivism.
Liberalism is, it's incorrectly used in this context.
It's a colloquial American word that just typically refers to the left.
Liberalism means freedom of the individual, for the most part.
These people do not believe in that.
I do, and I'm the moderate.
But check this out.
I'll tell you exactly what happened.
Look at 2012, right here.
So, we can move back a little bit to 2011 and see, this was a crux.
This was the point at which the progressives in the Democratic Party and the moderates in the Democratic Party were equal.
They both saw each other as two sides of one faction, and they agreed.
They agreed on many things and disagreed on many things.
Because of this, there was a kind of stasis.
I could talk to people and they'd say, well, I disagree, and the violence is wrong.
But what happens then over time?
We can see a few things.
The liberal side, which they really do mean progressive, has become more dominant.
Admittedly, there is a conservative faction within the Democrats, conservative Democrats, which has fallen from in 2001 at 23% to 17% by 2018.
But we can see here that the moderates are now being drowned out.
Even though moderates and conservatives make up the majority of the Democratic Party, the faction of progressives has become large, 46%.
And this is what's resulting in the fracturing.
So take a look at this.
When you have, you know, moderates and liberals in the same numbers, they'll work together.
The conservatives have been waning.
So this is the group that says, okay, we'll play by your rules.
We're still in agreement.
Before this, you had moderates saying, chill, we can win.
And Obama won twice.
Then a flip happened, and now we have more far-left candidates, identitarian left, etc., who are dominating, feel empowered, and are now saying, we're winning, you're losing, do as we say or else.
So naturally, as the moderates and conservatives wane, for whatever reason, it looks like that's going to be the future.
The Democratic Party is going through either a revolution or collapse.
Because the issue here is, this 46% doesn't agree with this 35% or the 17%.
So now you've got people who are moderate saying, I refuse to back down.
Like me.
You've got conservative democrat types, I don't know what they're doing, I know very few.
But the progressives are saying, we've won.
It's over.
Whatever happened in 2016, okay?
It was around here.
And I think it's partly why Hillary Clinton lost.
She needed more Democratic voters, but many of them have flipped and gone further to the left and refused.
Hence, Bernie or bust.
As it stands today, the breakup of these factions says to me there is no clear majority.
Perhaps moderate Democrats and conservatives could come together for that 52% and actually, you know, stage a victory of some sort.
But they're losing power.
And in order to attract the middle to beat Trump, you need to have sane, rational policy.
They don't get it.
They don't.
They don't understand that the middle decides the elections.
And Trump is gobbling them up.
Because we're getting freaked out and scared.
Look at what Antifa is doing.
Look, a sane, rational person who's moderate, leaning conservative on the Democrat side, is watching the news.
And I've got the data for you.
Check this out.
How much of the news you read or watch comes from news organizations that are generally blank in their point of view?
White liberals get almost all of their news, over 60%, from liberal sources, and less than 10%, around 4 or 5%, from conservative.
Where as moderates have a more balanced view, 30 for liberal and around just shy of 20% for moderate.
Where as conservatives are inverted.
Just over 50% of their news is from conservative sources and just under 30% is from liberal sources.
This means that moderates and conservatives are seeing a broader picture.
And that's about it.
So when the Antifa story happens, moderates and conservatives are in agreement.
Extremism is bad.
So if we want to get those moderate voters to the Democrat side, they've got to listen to what the moderate Democrats are saying.
But the moderate Democrats are being shut out by the ever-increasing faction, now 46% of the further left Democrats, who are adamant it's not true.
This is the ultimate problem.
I can show you the facts.
I can prove it.
Antifa commits violence.
They're bad.
It doesn't mean anyone else is better.
It just means they're a bad group.
Period.
But the left denies it.
They say, no, they're not.
That's not true.
He's lying.
Tim's far right.
He's a liar.
So for somebody who is undecided in the Democratic side, doesn't know where they really sit, and they're trying to determine whether or not they want to hear me or hear them, they're conflicted.
They're confused.
Who do they vote for?
If we can't come together, we can't win.
So I really do feel like we're gonna see, you know, a Trump victory in 2020.
Could be wrong, you know, you know.
But I think we might even be on track for a 2024 Republican victory, too.
It's hard to know for sure.
It really is.
I hate making hard predictions.
You know, I bet Republicans would sweep the midterms.
I was way off.
I was way off.
But I'm looking at data to make my decisions.
And the data could be wrong because the data was wrong in 2016.
So we will see.
But an important point about the midterms that caught me off guard is that Trump voters didn't come out in the midterms.
Trump's voters wanted Trump.
I've gone over the data before, but Trump's voters said, I want Trump.
That's what they said.
So when the midterms happened and they were presented with, you know, Republican candidates, they didn't care.
They said all they thought was, you know, Trump.
That's what they chanted.
And that's why Trump tried really hard to convince his base at his rallies, go vote for these people.
But they don't care.
Most people vote in presidential elections and very little else.
Which means, in 2020, we might see the Republicans reclaim all three branches of government.
Why?
Because they're gonna come out for Trump, and while they're voting for Trump, they will check Republican in every box.
Which they didn't do in 2018.
There was low Trump voter turnout.
I'm hearing there will be record voter turnout for Trump.
But let's move on, because I want to make another point.
Because the wars are coming.
For moderates.
Bill Maher gets around 1.5 million views on his show, Real Time.
I'm critical of Bill Maher for being an elitist.
And that shows us more that the Democrats are fractured.
I rag on Bill Maher for calling for a recession.
I rag on him for being that ivory tower elitist who hates Trump so much that he wants Americans to suffer.
We are at odds with each other.
But I praise Bill Maher for calling out the woke left.
That's where we agree.
But we're fractured.
The elitist Democrats, the populist Democrats, the far-left populist Democrats, it's split.
And Democrats of all ages, as Atlantic said, agree on nothing.
Let's take a look at this.
Bill Maher boycott urged by Rep Rashida Tlaib for his HBO slam on her Israel boycott.
We now have the more far-left Democrats challenging overtly the moderate Democrat types.
Now, of course, this existed, but this is a high-profile call for boycott of Bill Maher, long-standing atheist Democrat, pro-Democrat, Trump derangement syndrome, all that stuff.
So I gotta say, when Rashida Tlaib calls for a, she says maybe, because you can see it's tepid, it's weak, but it says to me the fracture is getting worse, which is why I'd call it a collapse.
Let's move on to a few other points, though.
Following this call, the World Jewish Congress condemned Tlaib, suggesting boycott of Bill Maher's show.
I gotta say.
The longest time.
Democrats and Republicans were unified in their support for Israel, and now the World Jewish Congress, I'm not too familiar with who they are, is slamming Rashida Tlaib.
The Democrats are fractured.
The Democrats still, for the most part, support Israel, but here we can see this growth.
I want to move to how I think media is fueling this, right?
So I pointed this out.
White liberals only getting their news from the left.
Here's another graph I've shown over and over again because it's amazing.
We can see, this guy Zack Goldberg highlighted this in May, these massive spikes in things like diversity and inclusion, whiteness, critical race theory, unconscious bias, all leftist, identitarian ideology exploding.
Here's what you get.
news sources.
When you then realize that moderates and conservatives have a more balanced diet of their news,
they're seeing counter-opinions, they're seeing opposing thought to these ideas, and the left
is inundated with nothing but this ideology.
They watch nothing else.
This is from the Gallup Knight Foundation survey in October of 2017.
Here's what you get.
Here is what you get with an unhealthy diet.
I highlighted this in my other video, but I'll bring it up because it's important.
Trump disapproval rises to near record.
If you only get your news from anti-Trump sources, that's all you've heard.
If you only get your news from conservative sources, you would have heard that Trump has record support, higher than it's ever been.
Trump's approval rating at its best since we've begun tracking this figure.
Here's the thing, though.
Conservatives are going to get their news from the left and the right, and they're more likely to see both of those stories, and question it.
Because they lean conservative, they'll probably agree with the conservative side.
Moderates, the same thing.
But the left will only see the story about Trump being bad, and his approval rating going down.
They won't see it.
So when a moderate like myself goes to the more progressive Democrats and says, listen, Trump's doing well, they say, you're crazy, you're far right, and if they won't listen, we can't win.
I'll bring up two more points actually.
I don't know if it was Trump.
I don't know what caused it.
I think Trump is a symptom, not the cause.
I think the fracturing of the Democrats, partly due to news media, resulted in Hillary losing a lot of votes.
There wasn't unity, so Trump swept.
And there still isn't unity, so I still believe Trump will win.
But if the Democrats continue to push far, far left, all of them, then Trump can lose.
But here's the thing.
I'm not going to bow to the mob.
I will never bend the knee.
These people, in my opinion, are racists.
Not all of them, but enough of them.
So absolutely not.
I will not get behind their candidate.
I am going my Democrat or nothing.
And that's the problem with the Democrats.
It is not an issue of me being an agitator of the left, like, say, David Pakman has said, or of me just trying to rile up conservatives.
It's that I am a lifelong moderate left-leaning individual who is seeing a conflict break out on the left side.
They call me far right, I say you're far left.
They say no we're not, we're centrists, you're far right.
No, I'm the centrist, and that's it.
We're fighting each other while Trump's base grows.
Moderates are losing interest in the nonsense.
But take a look at this.
Incidents of curse words by lawmakers on Twitter since 2014.
In 2016, curse words were still relatively low.
But something happened in 2017 where curse words exploded.
The S-word, for instance, and the black bar here is, I can't read any of these, but yeah, swears, have exploded since Trump took office.
I do believe Trump contributed to this.
But I don't think Trump is the cause of it.
I don't.
I don't know what to say, but I will make one more point.
Whatever caused Trump, it's like, you know, people say, oh, Trump did this, it's from Trump.
No, no, no, no.
Trump got elected because something was transforming our society.
Here's the last thing that I'm going to point out.
And I've mentioned this in the past couple of videos.
It's seemingly totally unrelated, but hear me out.
OkCupid finds massive spike in politics affecting dating.
Yup.
The divide is so great.
Ideology is the most important thing.
The culture war is here.
It's huge.
The Democrats are targeting Democrats.
And so long as that's the case, the Democrats can't win.
Obama called it a circular firing squad.
But whatever this is, it affects more than just politics.
It's a cultural issue.
A cultural issue that then hits the political sphere.
Dating was hit by politics.
I am seeing now women on OkCupid believing things that are factually incorrect.
The gender wage gap.
Not a real thing.
It's a completely misconstrued and hard to understand thing.
But for the most part, women are not paid less than men due to discrimination.
It's complicated.
But I see almost every woman saying it's a problem.
They haven't done the research.
And I can go right back to this point.
They're only getting their news from left-wing sources that are telling them what they want to hear and not doing any research.
Meanwhile, the moderates and the conservatives were reading multiple sources.
In the end, what do you think's going to happen?
Bernie or bust voters who went to Trump, moderates who went to Trump, and there was another poll I saw that said, Moderates feel the left has got—more moderates feel the left is going too far left than they do the right is going too far right.
It's around like 46% of moderates think the left is too far left.
And around 30 or so think the right is too far right, but that's advantaged conservatives.
So, all of these things, the most important thing, I think, that says to me that this is a collapse of the Democratic Party, or you can call it a reforming, but the way I view it is, from Bill Clinton to Obama, there was kind of, there was unity.
I'm sorry, to Hillary, there was unity.
Something happened, and it's shattered.
It is collapsed.
It may reform, but for now, this is the collapse of the Democratic Party.
And I think that's what we see.
It's not just my opinion out of the blue.
Obama's main legacy, the collapse of the Democratic Party in 2016.
Rich Lowry wrote this.
And I'm only, you know, I know I've brought this up for a while, but I'm seeing it now.
The Democratic Party collapsed.
We are watching the continued decay of it.
It may come back together as something new.
It may come back together as something old.
But for now, it's collapsing.
Will Trump win or lose?
I honestly don't know, but I lean towards him winning for a lot of reasons.
The economy, the incumbent advantage, record low unemployment, labor participation, and he has polls showing he's doing really, really well.
His base is bigger than it was in 2016.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are in disarray and offering up things that Americans don't want.
Whether you agree with the far left or not, the majority is still the moderate to conservative Democrats.
So when you go up on stage and promise health care to people who are not citizens, don't be surprised when you do not win.
Because I assure you, moderates and conservative Democrats who are facing the threat, an existential threat, of far-left racial identitarianism And government policies for people who are not citizens, like government entitlements for non-citizens?
They'll vote for Trump.
At least I think so.
But we'll see what happens.
Let me know if you agree with me in the comments below.
The next segment will be coming up at youtube.com slash timcastnews at 6pm.
Thanks for hanging out, and I will see you all in the next segment.
We're coming off a weekend where Antifa, the Proud Boys, and Portland were the top trends on Twitter in the United States.
Donald Trump had tweeted about Antifa being an organization of terror.
And I want to just make sure there's one thing that's really clear.
When I refer to Antifa, I'm typically trying to call out Specifically, branded cells.
Okay?
These are groups that have unique names, have top-down organizations.
They claim they do.
I know many of these people.
Whether or not they recognize it, these groups fall into hierarchies.
Someone's in charge because they're more aggressive than someone else.
That's how it always happens.
You know, humans didn't just write down one day, hey, hierarchy should exist.
No, it does.
So, we have this weekend with a lot of violence.
We see all these hit pieces on You know the Proud Boys?
The Proud Boys showed up, did nothing and left.
Antifa went, started beating on people.
Then I saw this story.
TV reporter is knocked out live on air at a feminist rally calling for stronger rape laws in Mexico.
I'll just give you the quick breakdown, you know, just not to bury the lead.
There's a reporter wearing a suit, apparently saying people believe these women, and that a male feminist punches him in the face, knocking him out.
Sucker punch from behind.
He does a hook, boom, into the guy's face.
Journalist goes down.
TV reporter, I should say.
I think the feminists got mad, but a lot of these, uh, so this guy was reportedly a male feminist, and the other, the feminists' women at the rally were harassing the journalist, too, pulling at his clothes, throwing things at him, screaming at him, and then this guy comes up and hits him.
I think after hitting him, the feminists got mad at the guy, but let's read the story.
This is crazy, man.
Look, you can see in the video there's some, like, black bloc type people that are hitting him, too, and trying to, and so he's like, I'm gonna get out of here, and then one guy comes up and knocks him out.
But I just gotta say, you know, people don't seem to understand when I talk about the concept of a civil war, okay?
Again, not talking about, like, 50 million people marching through the streets in uniform.
I'm talking about these things escalating and social cohesion breaking down to the point where people can't live normal lives.
I'm talking about one or two people who might go out and commit a shooting, like we just saw.
And that's what I said was going to happen a while ago.
Some kind of insurgency will emerge where we will see people do these low-level things.
So I don't know what's going to happen.
I'm not saying I can guarantee.
I'm just trying to tone down what people expect when they think of this idea.
But the reason I bring this up is, looking at this story, it's happening everywhere.
We see this stuff in the UK, we see it in Europe, we're now seeing it in Mexico.
I think this has a lot to do with the internet.
I really do.
So let's do this.
Let's read.
They say, a violent thug punched a news anchor in the face halfway through his report on an aggressive feminist glitter protest as women called for stronger sexual offense laws in Mexico on Friday.
Juan Manuel Jimenez, a news anchor for the TV network ADM-40, fell to the ground after a protester slammed his fist into the journalist's face as he reported on the rally in Mexico City.
Demonstrations began after two teenage girls accused police officers of rape.
Some 500 women took to the streets on Friday in what has been dubbed a glitter protest.
The city's police chief was doused in pink glitter and protesters threw the glitter into the air as they called for a change to sexual defense laws.
A man walked up, stood by his side, and punched him square in the jaw.
Now here's the thing.
People are... It blocks the view.
I'm trying to make sure it doesn't jump to the next video.
But you can see a bunch of people start spraying the guy who attacked the journalist with something.
So it's clear that he crossed the line.
Even the protesters don't like it.
However, this journalist was being harassed already.
So look, man.
It's really strange to me that you see these people on Twitter act like far-left violence is not a problem simply because they call themselves anti-violence.
That makes no sense.
You can't just say, I'm anti-fascist, therefore anybody who opposes me is a fascist.
But people buy it.
They believe it.
And you see these people, you know, on Twitter Tweeting about it like, uh, doesn't it mean anti-fascist?
It's like, apparently you don't read, and that's really the problem.
So I tweeted about this.
There's a graphic, and I mentioned this a couple days ago.
The left only gets their news from left-wing sources.
Left-wing sources hire left-wing activists, and they're in their own weird little world, like, Imagine you have a group of people, moderates and conservatives, who are arguing with each other about various news sources, and they're showing them to each other, including left and right-wing sources, and the left is over there only, like, you know, talking to themselves.
And this is what you get.
People saying, like, oh, but Antifa's not that bad.
Right.
Antifa, as a catch-all term for the black bloc far-left violence, Something needs to be done about that.
Antifa, as in branded cells, is something that... So I'll try to be more specific moving forward.
When I mentioned branded cells, I often say they're branded cells.
Like, and what I mean by that is they have names.
They call themselves like, you know, X group, right?
I don't want to start a war with any of these groups, so I'm going to avoid saying their names for the most part.
But they exist.
So here we have a story from Mexico.
Look, man, how many journalists have been knocked out, beaten, at a right-wing rally?
And I'm not saying it hasn't happened.
We see all this stuff about Trump supporters, and what people don't seem to realize, on the left, because they don't read news, they don't read news outside their bubble, Trump rallies are just, like, boisterous hooting and hollering, like a frat party.
People going like, woo, woo, woo, like that's what it is.
Yelling, Trump, Trump, right?
The right-wing rallies on the streets are very different.
Trump supporters, what's the worst thing we saw?
Some woman flicked off Jim Acosta, and he was like, oh!
Harumph, I say!
Well, I never!
And this guy walking around at a feminist rally in Mexico gets punched in the face, knocked down.
I don't know who this guy is.
Andy Ngo.
Man, they are out for Andy Ngo.
They beat the crap out of that guy, put him in the hospital.
And because they screwed up, and know it, they are trying everything in their power to smear this guy.
So let's read this.
You know, I held off to do this call, but I gotta do it.
Before we move on, go to TimCast.com slash donate if you want to support my work.
There's a PayPal option, a crypto option, a physical address.
The best thing you can do is share this video because, listen, it's actually, I'll point this out too, it fits what I'm trying to talk about.
I've been tagged in a ton of Facebook posts as I've been saying, like, share this video because my content is deranked.
There's another important reason to share this video.
If you like it.
If you think I'm good at what I do.
If you think I'm terrible, give me a downvote and just tell me I'm awful.
How do we break people out of these bubbles and share stories like this so that they watch it?
Now, it's really hard.
Because a lot of these people, I'm seeing these posts on Facebook, because you guys tag me when you post it, and then I see the arguments ensue, and it's kind of funny.
I don't really spend too much of my time reading through Facebook arguments, but there was one I saw where three guys were arguing, and one guy refused to watch the video, in which I cite credible sources certified by NewsGuard and walked back some of the more egregious claims made by
certain factions.
That's what I do. Milk toast fence-sitter, right?
But this guy refuses to watch it.
And so, I don't know how you solve that problem.
When someone says, I'm smarter than this guy, I refuse to listen to it.
He has to say, well, we got a problem.
You know, one of the things I talk about, what brought me to where I am as kind of a moderate, was that I realized at a certain point, when I was like 18, if I don't listen to people, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I'm not going to rehash the whole story, but this right here is a really good example.
I just found out this happened, and this happened on Friday, that a journalist who was saying things like, people believe these women, like, he's not arguing with them, he's just reporting, and he gets harassed by protesters, he gets physically attacked by someone in BlackBlock who looks kind of like an antifa protester, and then this guy walks up and just clocks him.
Knocking him out.
How many of our friends know about this?
Did you know about it?
If you know about it because you watch me, then I'll just point out your left-wing friends and family won't know about it.
They won't.
So I don't know how we solve that problem.
I really don't.
But I gotta say, man, I think we're reaching some kind of, I don't know, climax, apex.
And I know there are people who say things like they don't think it's possible and I'm overreacting.
What people don't seem to realize is that it's not about a group of people in uniform marching down the street.
It's not about a militia.
It's about can we exist in society?
Can I go to the store and buy a soda?
That's the question.
Can a reporter for the Wall Street Journal Go out into the street and take pictures.
That's the question.
So when you have someone like Andy Ngo and all of the hit pieces popping up against him, the polarization is becoming ridiculously extreme.
And it's getting to the point where business is becoming extremely difficult between individuals.
You know, and not only that, not only that, Um, and I should stress, by extremely difficult, I don't mean like people are struggling to go to Walmart in 7-Eleven.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about like, you know, we see people getting banned from social networks.
People can't conduct, like people, bank accounts getting shut down.
Yeah, things are getting weird.
But not only that.
Like, how many people, okay, let me start over.
I was on OkCupid the other day, I made a video, I was kind of joking about this.
And I was just like browsing through, and I did this, not because I'm looking for any particular date or anything, I did it because OkCupid tweeted out a clapping, you know, meme thing, where they were like, women don't want chocolates and flowers, they want reproductive rights, or something.
And I'm like, That's great, OkCupid, but there's actually a lot of women who think life rights are reproductive rights, and it's like, you can find women on OkCupid who are pro-life.
But I got to thinking, is OkCupid saying this because they have the data, or is it just some 22-year-old social media manager?
It may be because they have the data, I don't know.
But I'm looking through all these profiles of all these women, and I'm seeing that invariably, and I did like zip code searches, and I was looking at the questions, Communism is good, overwhelmingly.
Overwhelmingly think Communism is good, and they're taking extremist positions.
Capitalism is bad, Communism is good, and I'm thinking, There was an article I read from OkCupid where they said politics is becoming extremely important.
It is!
So I take a look at some of these questions, right?
And, look man, there's literally no con- like, there's no date I could have with a communist.
And I bet you guys understand what I'm saying.
I could be friends with a communist, I really don't see how somebody who is an overt communist in support of street violence like this against this journalist is going to get along with me.
When I say things like freedom, liberty, you know, equal rights, they're gonna be like, well, I agree with the equal rights, but actually, no, they'll probably push back and say, well, equity.
That's what they'll say.
This is, like, this divide is becoming extremely apparent.
And I saw a poll earlier on Twitter, and we see the same poll all the time, that millennial women are, like, almost 70% Democrat.
And then you have, like, 45% of guys who are Democrat, 45% who are Republican, and then about 10% who are independent or moderate.
And I'm thinking, like, The polarization is hitting us between gender lines, between racial lines.
It's making things impossible.
And that's why I can only imagine a breakdown.
I don't think we're going to see people walking around in uniforms with guns for the most part.
We have militias.
I get it.
We have redneck revolt.
We've got the three percenters.
They exist on both sides.
I think the bigger issue is that people are going to stop dating.
Okay, I need to stress this point for people who don't get this.
Because this is the big question everyone says, but Tim, it's only like 10% of people doing this.
And it's like, dude, how many people wanted a revolution in the United States?
What was it like 30% or something?
And most people said, leave us out of it.
And then like 20 something percent said no revolution.
It doesn't take that many people to destabilize things.
And let me give you a better example.
A hundred people can build a machine.
One person can throw a wrench in the gears and break the whole thing.
Another example I give people is, how many people live in the New York metro?
Okay, what, 13 million?
Let's do Manhattan, which I believe is 2.5 million.
2.5 million people live in Manhattan and work.
Well, and live.
What percent of them would completely shut down Manhattan?
I don't know, what, a thousand people blocking a highway?
Which has happened.
And it jams up a huge portion, so maybe not a thousand.
20,000?
A ridiculously small percentage of the people who actually are in Manhattan need only stand up and block certain intersections.
In fact, you could take two people at every intersection in New York and have probably only a thousand or so people, if that.
I don't know, there's probably a lot of intersections.
But let's say you have a couple thousand people and they each tried, two people, to block an intersection, jamming all traffic in the city.
That would shut the city down, and the police would have almost no way to quickly go through and remove all of these people.
Now imagine if you had 20,000 people.
Imagine if you had 100 people at each intersection.
Literally nothing the cops can do.
Literally nothing.
Because the police force in Manhattan I think is what?
Like an active 8,000 or something?
I could be wrong, but the point I'm trying to make is, with 2.5 million people, if 10%, just 10%,
250,000 went out, that city would be flooded.
You wouldn't, it's done.
There's nothing the police force can do.
I don't know the exact numbers.
There might be something like 30,000 active, but not on duty, because they do three shifts.
It's been a while since I've gotten the numbers.
But think about, as our society grows, as our population expands,
you need an ever smaller percentage of the population to disrupt everything.
That's what I'm worried about.
This stuff, it's one guy, but these protests will pop up and disrupt.
Look, A protest of 10 people can disrupt a town of 100.
A protest of 10 people can disrupt a town of 1,000.
A protest of 10 people can disrupt a town of 10,000.
You see the point I'm trying to make?
Because blocking an intersection or shutting down infrastructure is easy for one person to do, it's difficult for the whole system to function properly.
So when we start seeing these societal breakdowns like men and women being politically divided like because of gender or for whatever reason there's an ideology drift between the biological sexes.
When we see the New York Times Had a quiz where they ask you, are you black, Hispanic, or Asian?
And if you click yes, it shoots you over to Democrat.
And they say we have dangerous polarization.
That's what I'm talking about.
So I know I kind of went off on a tangent on this one.
Because the news here is simple, right?
Dude gets knocked out, didn't do anything, but listen.
It may not be that there's an increasing number of people being disruptive.
We know that violence is going down.
But the media and the press are creating a thick social tension that is palpable.
Absolutely palpable.
I have to take my security ridiculously seriously.
But what many people do now, right?
When you hear Ben Shapiro has security because of the threats he gets, you're like, yeah,
but Ben Shapiro's got millions of followers.
Makes sense, right?
But now we have people who have small Twitter accounts, you know, who have only a few thousand
followers who are dealing with the same thing.
I think the Internet has caused this, it's like, you know, society evolved over time
based on the spread of information and the adoption of new ideology.
But social media is allowing it to move so rapidly that the left was caught on a hook and shot straight to the left.
Yes, the data shows that.
I won't pull it up.
I've pulled it up a million times.
And the right and the center are kind of where they are.
And the pull was so quick, it ripped the left off of social cohesion.
And now we're seeing this.
There was also something that was posted to Twitter I saw earlier that said, since 2016, swear words from politicians has skyrocketed where it almost was non-existent before.
And I think that isn't necessarily because of Trump, but I think Trump inflames it.
Something happened before Trump.
Something happened in 2016.
I don't know what it is.
But I don't think Trump is the cause of it.
Something caused Trump.
And I can't tell you.
It might be political correctness.
It might be the culture war.
I know a lot of young men who told me on the campaign trail, They were voting for Trump because he was anti-PC?
That may be the issue.
And so you get a big surge of people saying they'd rather have Trump.
It could be the Bernie or Bust.
Something happened.
And things are changing in a way that I'm growing ever concerned that, look, I had to
go to the police department by my house and let them know, like, here are the threats
I get and here's what you need to expect.
And they were like, we get it.
Yep.
Why did I have to do that?
Is that a normal, maybe it's normal.
Maybe I, maybe, maybe people did that back in the day.
I have no idea.
I know I have a lot of followers, right?
That's the point.
I don't, it's not random.
But how do we get to a point where I genuinely have fear that someone's going to show up
to my house because they do it all the time.
When you look at what's going on with swatting and all this stuff, people who have like small followings and people who aren't even famous get harassed, doxxed, swatted.
Yeah, things are going nuts.
It's like there's so many people who can't engage in the digital economy because, look man, Like, I've been doxxed.
Like, whatever.
Don't care.
But there are people who have, like, 10,000 followers who are harassed and doxxed relentlessly, and I'm like, damn, that's crazy.
I went to a skate park to skate once, and because of a smear from Antifa, these people started threatening me.
They posted a picture of my mom.
But I get it, right?
I have a ton of followers.
You know, so that makes sense.
People who are public figures, things like this happens.
That's why you don't hear me complaining about it all the time.
But I will extrapolate from that and say, if we're getting to a point where a journalist is going to get knocked out and harassed by protesters, people are viewing each other as the enemy, tribalism is expanding to absurd degrees, falling on gender lines, on racial lines, this is the breakdown of social cohesion.
It's literally, it's like, I view society as kind of like an ant... it's a wave, right?
You know, we're all interlinked by different things, but things are being digitized into blocks that don't connect anymore.
And that means, when two tribes clash, this guy didn't realize it.
And I think it's funny when people tell me everything's fine, I'm like, oh, okay, yeah.
How much violence have we seen?
These rallies are getting bigger, people are getting riled up and angry, the internet is driving them insane, and all it takes is a couple hundred people to cause the chaos.
I'm done.
I'll leave it there.
This is a long video.
Stick around.
Next segment will be at 1 p.m.
on this channel, and I will see you all there.
I was having a conversation with a friend about Hong Kong and about Portland, and something was brought up that was kind of interesting.
In Hong Kong, they are waving American flags.
They are singing the American national anthem.
I'm not going to act like it's everyone in Hong Kong doing this, but there are many people waving the American flag.
There's more than just this one photo.
I have only seen one video of them singing the U.S.
national anthem.
In this story, it says Crenshaw contrasts Hong Kong and Portland antifascists.
One waves the U.S.
flag, the other burns them.
In this conversation, my friend was saying that it's kind of like the opposite, right?
In Hong Kong, they're waving American flags, and here they're waving communist flags.
And I said, no, no, no.
It's not opposite at all.
It's actually a mirror image.
Think about it.
The Communist Party of China massing their troops, beating the crap out of protesters waving the American flag.
It's literally the same thing.
It's not opposite at all.
Now, you could say in terms of the government it's an opposite, but the point I'm making is, in Portland, you had, uh, I've seen only a couple photos of, of communist flags.
I have seen many people with communist masks at events like this.
So again, I don't want to act like literally everyone on the anti-fascist side is a communist, but they tend to be.
They're waving communist flags.
Some of them.
And they're beating people who are waving American flags.
And the people with American flags are fighting back, just like we're seeing in Hong Kong.
What we really see from this moment is exactly why you don't allow far-left extremists to gain power and why they must be called out.
Let me tell you this.
Everyone agrees the far right is bad.
So at what point can we have a conversation now about the far left?
You're allowed to burn a flag.
I completely agree with it.
I have, while I personally take issue with desecrating the flag, burning it is actually this amazing symbol of the freedom represented by that flag.
It's like the most powerful symbol, in fact, that you can destroy it as an expression of freedom.
Kind of amazing.
The other issue is waving the communist flag.
We see these people who are far left.
We see the ones who are communists and socialists.
And we can look to Hong Kong and see exactly what they do when they get power.
It's the same thing.
Fortunately, they're a small fringe faction when they go around bashing skulls and beating random people.
Which they do!
Which they absolutely do.
This man here in this photo, he had nothing to do with any of these protests.
According to multiple people reporting, this was just a guy and his significant other minding their own business when Antifa, he's like a middle-aged guy, they knocked him out and pepper sprayed him.
Had nothing to do with the protest.
Sound familiar?
Yes.
What do you think happens when these people gain power?
Look at Hong Kong.
That's what you'll see.
You will see them amass all of their power to suppress those calling for democracy.
Let's read the story.
But before we dive in, make sure you go to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There's a PayPal option, a crypto option, a physical address.
Believe it or not, this is my full-time job.
The best thing you can do, actually, is just share this video.
You know, I talk often about de-ranking, that YouTube is propping up CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the big corporate players.
And I think it's a good thing to highlight.
But I also want to highlight that people are in a bubble.
Many people are in echo chambers and this predominantly affects the left.
That's going to be my bigger story for the 4 p.m.
slot.
But it's true.
There's data to show that the left just consumes left-wing sources, and they're convinced everything else is fake.
Well, then you live in a vacuum, okay?
Because it's not.
Not everything else is fake.
And moderates and conservatives actually have a balance, a bit, between the left and the right.
So anyway, that's a better reason for sharing a video to break bubbles, break vacuums.
But let's read the news.
If you hate me, just don't share it.
I don't know why you're watching, but, you know, we'll read.
This is actually from the Daily Caller News Foundation, I suppose.
They say Dan Dan Crenshaw tweeted in Hong Kong Anti-fascists wave American flags demand freedom and
actually fight fascists in Portland Anti-fascists burn American flags demand violence in the
name of socialism Portland is a sad showing of where we are today all around
all Also, yes, obviously, buy Greenland.
That's hilarious.
And just an aside on the Greenland thing, isn't it so weird how the response to Trump saying we should buy Greenland is like ridicule and mockery, as if the man's a clown?
Look, if you want to criticize him for the silly tweets he puts out about being a clown, You know, Trump says a lot of bombastic things.
But him entertaining the possibility of acquiring more land for our country is not absurd at all.
Trump didn't say invade.
No, he said, can we buy it?
There's 56,000 people there.
Seems like a rational question.
But let's not get into that.
Let's read about Antifa.
They say, Crenshaw's tweet came the same day violent protests erupted in Portland, Oregon, between about 1,200 people representing the right-wing Proud Boys and Antifa.
As well as a police presence of roughly 700 officers.
It's actually quite impressive that 700 officers were able to control a larger group.
They say, it comes a day before 1.7 million pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong took to the streets for a peaceful protest in the rain Sunday for the city's 11th consecutive week of protests against an extradition bill that would allow criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be extradited to China for trial.
Demonstrators held American flags and sang the U.S.
national anthem during protests in Hong Kong that took place about one week ago.
And there's a meme going around.
It says, Be the America Hong Kong thinks you are.
And you know, when I saw these protests and I saw them singing Waving the Flag, I got a little emotional because at the time, what was trending in the U.S.?
Fredo.
I get it, man.
Rag on Chris Cuomo for going over the top, for sure.
He apologized for it.
But it's such a... I feel like, you know, people in Hong Kong are waving our flag because we are this ideal of freedom and the ability to challenge your government,
express yourself, and say no, reject authoritarianism.
And over here, we're sitting in our chairs going, complaining about a cable TV host.
And I'm like, man, I feel like we're letting them down.
We have to stand tall and be leaders they can look up to.
A country with freedom of speech as its first amendment to its constitution, the Bill of
Rights, 1A.
We can speak and redress of grievances.
We can assemble, speak, and challenge the government.
Now, of course, over time, the Constitution has been eroded.
And they say you need permits, and they say you can't say certain things, and it is what it is.
We're fighting.
So I can certainly understand why, in our political sphere, we challenge someone like Chris Cuomo.
Just because it's not as big as what's happening in Hong Kong doesn't mean it's not important.
Cuomo is very powerful and prominent, and he appeared hypocritical.
But I kind of felt like, when they turned to us, waving our flags, we should have turned to them and given them, you know, waved the flags back and said, we believe in you.
Now, of course, there are people saying it's the CIA.
Look, man, you're not going to convince me some random dude singing a song and waving a flag is CIA or influenced.
That's besides the point.
They made up their own mind.
Let's read on.
They say violence between the Proud Boys and Antifa escalated throughout the day.
That's actually not true.
The Proud Boys showed up and there's a left.
A total of 13 arrests and 6 injuries had been reported so far.
President Donald Trump said he is considering designating Antifa a terror organization.
You can't.
In a Saturday tweet over the conflict in Portland, major consideration is being given to naming Antifa an organization of terror.
Well, there is no domestic provision for this, as far as I can tell.
They've already been branded as domestic terrorist violence by our federal law enforcement, so there you go.
I think at the state level, there are certain, like Illinois I know for sure has terror charges, because there was this thing that happened where, it's crazy mind you, before the no-NATO protests in Chicago on 2012, The cops pulled over a bunch of left-wing protesters who secretly filmed them.
That's illegal in Illinois.
It's called felony eavesdropping.
It's a one-party, it's a two-party consent state.
Everyone's got to agree.
I think it's an all-party consent state.
They published it.
All of a sudden the cops raid their apartment and arrest them all and claimed their beer-making equipment was Molotov-making equipment.
They got charged on state-level terror charges.
It was nuts!
It was crazy.
These guys were just, like, it was beer-making stuff.
Well, it's possible they were planning something, but I really doubt it.
You know, we— Molotov cocktails, especially in the Midwest and the East Coast, are extremely atypical.
The West Coast?
People are nuts.
But in Chicago?
Nah, these are people who, like, you know, they— I did mention they attacked the press, for sure, but bringing, you know, Molotovs?
That seems— You know, it didn't seem legit.
And as someone from Chicago, it really did feel like they were targeting him for having
filmed the cops, and the cops couldn't prove who filmed them.
So anyway, the point I'm trying to make, outside of all of that, think about what happens when
these communist flag-waving, American flag-burning, black-masked individuals condoning violence,
what do you think happens when they gain power?
You will see the rise of a government like China.
Fall in line, no free speech, people get disappeared.
But China is faced with a changing world.
See, here's the thing.
People on the left like to claim that throughout history the left has always won.
In fact, liberalism has always won.
Now, I'll stop you there.
I know conservatives immediately say, no, liberals don't always win.
I'm not saying liberals in the American colloquial sense.
I'm saying liberalism in terms of freedom, liberty, self-expression, and the right of the individual.
The literal definition of liberalism, which is rooted in the word liberty.
So you have Classical liberalism, which is a right-wing position, and social liberalism, a left-wing position, but they're both very similar on the libertarian side of things.
Both social and classical liberals will likely get along.
Classical liberals tend to be less government intrusion, freedom for the individual.
Social liberals tend to be government programs can work, but yeah, we agree, more freedom for the individual.
The only real distinction is the level of programs from the government.
So I guess the point is, it's actually kind of conflicting because you'll get a lot of classical liberals saying it's authoritarian to tax people and all that stuff.
Social liberalism isn't that the government should force people to do anything, it's that the government can play a role in healthcare, in education, and I fall in that camp, in regulation, whereas classical liberals disagree, but agree on 99% of everything else.
So that's what real liberalism is.
It can be left or right.
It just means you're on the libertarian spectrum, but you're not, you know, like if you go all the way down to the bottom of the quadrant, you're libertarian.
And if you move up a little bit, you're either social or classical liberal.
These Antifa people are top-left authoritarian communists.
And they claim to fight fascism, but there are no fascists to fight.
There have been.
Like, Charlottesville, you actually saw people with, like, the fascist symbol, or however it's pronounced.
So, yeah.
And there have been times Antifa's showed up to, like, overt white supremacy events.
Won't deny it.
It's true.
And they protest peacefully a lot of these things.
That's fine.
But they use that as a mask for when they go around beating random people and pepper spraying them in Portland.
And then what's really funny is, there's like a meme where people say, there's always an infiltrator.
Antifa is convinced the right is dressing up like Antifa and, ooh, causing violence.
And then when the right says it, they go, oh, it's a conspiracy theory.
You're saying there's a conspiracy between the other faction.
I pretend to be you.
That matters.
What really matters is this is what you see when communists come out and demand their ideology be enforced, be it Hong Kong or here.
It's not the opposite.
It's the same.
The only difference is the amount of communists.
In Hong Kong, there are a lot of them, or at least those who would support the Communist Party of China.
In the US, there aren't that many.
But they do the same thing, beat people who demand freedom and wave the American flag.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
The next segment coming up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast.
It is a different channel.
I'm gonna be talking a bit, I think, about... I know I talked about this before, but there's some weird phenomenon happening where the Democratic Party is collapsing.
It really is.
So, it's like Trump took a sledgehammer and just whacked it.
His victory over Hillary shattered what the Democratic Party was.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
Whatever it is that made Trump win is a sign of the decay of the Democrats.
Stick around.
That will be up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast.
I will see you all there.
Life isn't fair, and now some Proud Boys are gonna learn it the hard way.
They got into a fight with Antifa.
They say that Antifa had been provoking them, essentially, surrounding the venue, harassing them, and so they decided just to fight back.
But they went too far.
They did.
Initially, when the story broke, it looked like Antifa started the fight by throwing a bottle, but as it turns out, another security camera showed us the Proud Boys actually ran to Antifa, which is probably why they got convicted.
Two proud boys facing, my understanding is up to 15 years in prison.
I believe prison, right?
So I will clarify that statement.
There's jail and there's prison.
They're different.
A lot of people don't know that.
So here's the thing, man.
The Proud Boys are a top-down organization with a leader.
That means it's going to reflect on the entirety of the Proud Boys.
Coming off of this PR victory in Portland is now, unfortunately, a PR loss as the next story comes out and these guys are getting convicted.
So let's read through the story, and I'll try and break down any of the BS that comes out of the New York Times in reference to what actually happened.
But admitting, I initially reported this the same as most did.
We saw footage of Antifa starting the fight, and it wasn't until later I issued a new update correction that it was actually the Proud Boys who started that particular fight.
Though, I have heard arguments from people that it was actually a long-standing thing.
And, I will stress, at the same time as this fight, Antifa had beaten and robbed somebody else associated with the event.
I don't know if they were Proud Boys or not, but Ant- So, it's not like what happened in New York was only the Proud Boys, but of course, that's what you'll hear when you read something like the New York Times or, you know, one of these other left-wing outlets.
Admittedly, BuzzFeed actually made sure they had that in the story.
So I'll give respect to BuzzFeed in that regard.
Surprising, in a lot of ways.
When they first covered this, they said, scuffle between Proud Boys and Antifa.
A block away, a guy was beaten and robbed by Antifa.
And I said, hey, you know, that's just, they're being fair about it.
But let's read.
The New York Times reports, two members of the Proud Boys convicted in Brawl near Republican Club.
The charges resulted from an altercation with anti-fascists after the group's founder, Gavin McInnes, had spoken in Manhattan.
They say.
Since their founding in New York City in 2016, the far-right Proud Boys have cultivated a rough-and-ready image, often declaring, we don't start fights, we finish them.
That's true.
But on Monday, jurors in state Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected claims by two members of the group.
Who had said they had been acting in self-defense last fall in the Upper East Side when they took part in the beating of four people described by the police as anti-fascists connected to a loose-knit group called Antifa.
One of the big problems here, I'll sidestep, maybe they'll cover it, is that after the fight There was a live stream of what happened, and some guys on the video were jumping up and down, like, I think it was like one guy jumps and he's like, oh man, talking about how he slammed someone's head into the ground, clearly going beyond self-defense.
Now, as some people have pointed out, and I've made this point in different circumstances, sometimes you do need to end a fight in some capacity.
I don't think that's what happened.
I think this is a beatdown.
I think they saw Antifa, Antifa had been heckling and harassing and protesting, and it's a long-standing thing, and so they went, we're fighting.
And unfortunately for the Proud Boys, look, you start the fight, this is what happens.
But even if, even if you think they were justified in fighting Antifa, is besides the point.
The point is, the media is biased against the Proud Boys, period.
You step out of line for one second, life's not fair.
Welcome to the real world.
They say, two defendants, Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman, were convicted on charges of attempted gang assault, attempted assault, and riot for their part in a melee after an appearance by the founder of the Proud Boys at the Metropolitan Republican Club.
The brawl mirrored clashes in other cities that had pitted far-right groups calling for free speech or chanting nationalist and racist slogans against leftists.
That's not true.
Racist?
What are they talking about?
Yeah, okay.
New York Times, how about you say this?
But yeah, it's still true.
Those they deem to be fascists or Nazis.
Yeah, okay, New York Times, how about you say this?
Those they have falsely accused of being.
But yeah, it's still true.
They think you're a Nazi.
Yeah, they think Dolores in her frilly flower shirt who's 65 years old is a Nazi, okay?
Although members of the male-only Proud Boys have battled leftists across the country,
the trial in Manhattan appeared to mark the first time people connected to the group had been before a jury
in connection to these incidents.
The jury deliberated for a day and a half before delivering its verdict.
Mr. Hare was found guilty of attempted gang assault, riot, and three counts of attempted assault.
Mr. Kinsman was found guilty of attempted gang assault, riot, and two counts of attempted assault.
The jury also found that Mr. Kinsman's actions were justified with respect to the lowest counts of attempted assault.
And there it is.
Listen, I'm not going to pretend I know better than the jury, and it's one of the biggest mistakes everybody makes.
But your bias aside, you don't know what happened.
The jurors are the ones who see all the evidence and hear an argument, and they're going to hear better than we did.
But I will stress, the way I see this, the way I reported it, the way I corrected the story, he was justified initially.
He was justified initially, that's what it sounds like.
But they went too far.
And the jury says, yeah, you went too far.
And it was probably that after the fact, in the livestream, someone's like, yeah, I slammed that guy's head into the ground, or something like that.
I can't remember, you know, I want to make sure I get this one right, because it's a contentious issue.
But there you go.
Then when they say, oh, it's self-defense, say, we heard you celebrating the attack on the guy, and it's like, you could argue, yeah, you were just, you know, adrenaline rush, and you're like, ah, we won.
But still, it looks like they found that some aspect was justified.
They were in a fight, but...
It took it too far.
Mr. Kinsman was heard saying, wow, in a low voice as the verdict was read.
Soon after, he walked into a courtroom hallway, holding a book in front of his face to shield himself from
photographers, and declined to comment.
Mr. Hare did not respond to a request for comment as he left the courtroom.
Much of the trial focused on video of the incident from several sources, which showed the minute-long brawl from
various angles.
None of the victims took the stand.
The four apparent Antifa members who were involved in the brawl, referred to in an indictment as Shaved Head, Ponytail, Khaki, and Spiked Belt, refused to speak with a police officer who approached them after the incident.
And they were smart to do it.
They were smart, I'll tell you why.
Ultimately, prosecutors were only able to charge the defendants with attempted assault, which requires evidence of intent to cause injury rather than assault, which requires evidence of injury.
The Antifa people, in my opinion, would have been charged as well.
And they knew it.
They knew they were a part of that fight.
They knew that other people in their group were beating and robbing people.
And if the police figured out who they were, it would have been bad.
Instead, the Proud Boys weren't wearing masks, and that's the thing.
Listen.
Antifa knows how to play the game.
These activists know what they're doing and how to win.
And here you go.
None of the Antifa people were charged.
At least, that's what it looks like.
They say, even after determining that the supposed Antifa members were subject to arrest because of their role in fighting, investigators were never able to learn their identities.
And there you have it.
That's why they do it.
They were going to arrest Antifa for their involvement, and Antifa said, I'm not talking, and now Antifa goes free.
It's why they wear masks.
It's why they don't talk to cops.
Instead, the Proud Boys, who don't wear masks and do talk to cops, are facing up to 15 years in prison for their role in a fight, of which it appears they started, but admittedly is part of this ongoing mutual combat.
Perhaps that should have been the end of it.
Maybe the prosecutors should have said, Antifa and the Proud Boys always do this, they know they're gonna do it.
But I guess, in the end, you can't allow this kind of street violence.
And this is what you get.
If, listen, I'm reminded of an episode of the show Frasier.
You guys know the show with Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, and there was an episode.
I haven't seen it in decades.
I was a little kid.
But something happens where Frasier is sitting at a table, drinking coffee at the cafe.
He gets up to grab a newspaper or do something, and some guy takes his seat.
Frasier is upset, so he grabs the guy and throws him.
He says, it's my seat, how dare you?
The guy tells him to buzz off, so he grabs him and pulls him out of the seat, takes the seat.
Turns out this guy then threatens to sue Frasier.
So here's what Niles, his brother, does.
Trust me, it's a good story.
Niles walks up to him.
And starts, you know, insulting him or something.
So the guy pokes him in the chest, like, listen here, buddy.
And as soon as his finger touches him, David Hyde Pierce goes, oh, oh!
And he starts flipping around and falling over and knocking things over and falls to the ground.
And then the guy says, I barely touched him.
And they went, you admit touching him?
And he's like, oh, but I... And then David Hyde Pierce yells, countersuit!
Countersuit!
And basically wins the legal battle.
The reason I bring that story up When you are confronted with something like Antifa, you can win emotionally or you can win in the long game.
And I'll tell you what.
You wanna know how you win against them in the long game?
You don't run at them when you see them and fight them.
You let them hit you and you guard yourself.
And then the media shows Antifa beat you while you refuse to fight back and guess who wins in the long run?
In our society, non-violent resistance, to an extent you can remain safe, is the appropriate response for public relations.
It's the right thing to do.
Don't fight them, unless you absolutely have to.
The point I'm trying to make is, in this circumstance, the Proud Boys weren't facing life or death.
They decided, you know what?
We're gonna fight back, you know, we're gonna fight now.
And they ran at Antifa.
And now they're gonna go to prison.
Well, I think they might get a slap on the wrist.
They might get, you know, house arrest.
They might be told to disassociate from the Proud Boys.
But in the end, they will lose.
Antifa is not charged, these guys all got away with it, and it's the Proud Boys who go down.
What would have happened if when Antifa showed up, the Proud Boys just put their hands up and kept walking in the
direction towards Antifa because they have no choice, and then when Antifa started swinging at them, they block.
And that's all they did. And they blocked and they pushed.
Antifa's not going to kill anybody.
They're not going to seriously injure or maim any of the Proud Boys.
Because the Proud Boys really are...
Like, I'm not trying to... Look, the Proud Boys are obviously stronger than the Antifa guys. They beat them
But if they just acted defensively, it would have been, in my opinion, the right thing to do
ethically, especially when you consider the Proud Boys are more physically commanding and stronger than Antifa.
Like, let's be real, man.
I'm not trying to be biased in favor of these guys.
They're bigger, they're tougher, they're stronger, more aggressive.
Antifa is a bunch of skinny socialists, communist types.
They're not people who are working out, they're not macho, they're just... they are aggressive.
But if the Proud Boys took a hit, you win.
And then the media would have said Antifa beat people, and the story would be about them.
And the story, in that instance, would be the Proud Boys saying, why won't the police find out who these guys are?
Look at Andy Ngo.
Andy Ngo didn't fight back.
And he went on his PR tour, and the left is furious.
Well, guess what?
They were in the wrong.
Antifa was in the wrong, too, here.
Yep, absolutely.
They said they were going to arrest Antifa, but they couldn't figure out who they were.
So it's just the Proud Boys who go down for their role in this fight.
So you know what, man?
This is what I tell people.
A lot of what we see is an emotional reaction from everybody.
You see somebody who's threatening you and harassing you and you get angry and the emotion takes over and then you end up losing in the long game.
I'm sure it felt good in that minute to wail on those guys who have been harassing you and threatening you and you're finally just, you snap.
And it feels emotionally satisfying to do.
But that's what Antifa does.
They show up, and they get that emotional satisfaction of smashing a window, and in the long run, they lose.
Unless they can provoke their enemies into a more heavy-handed response.
In the end, what we end up seeing was the Proud Boys beating down some guys who were on the ground.
And now the Proud Boys are gonna get locked up for it.
All they had to do was be defensive.
Fight back when you have to.
They pull out a gun, if they pull out a knife, if they pull out a baton.
So, you know the video of the dude?
One Punch Man, I think it was Rufio in Portland.
You can't really argue about that video.
That video went viral among normal people on Reddit because they're like, the dude cracked him with a baton and then he winds up a punch and hits him back.
And now people can see.
Well, the dude pulled a baton on him.
He was defending himself.
In this instance, they rush at Antifa and they're not going to get self-defense for it.
You know what I would do?
If somebody comes at me and threatens me, I'll be like, do it.
Actually, I've done this!
Okay, I try to keep these segments short, but I'll say this.
In Boston, an Antifa guy started pointing and getting in my face, and I'm just like, here we go.
You know, clench my teeth.
Tighten my abs.
Take a swing, buddy.
I'm not going to fight you.
You want to hit me?
It's all on you.
Because I know what happens a year from now.
I know what happens two years from now.
I am not going to fight you.
I am not going to start a fight.
If you're threatening my life, if I think you can actually hurt me, well then, I will do my best to leave.
This is a really great video.
Last point.
It was a viral video where it was like a martial arts master teaching his students how to win any fight.
And he's like, I'm going to show you the technique to win any fight you encounter.
This one move guarantees.
And then the two guys face each other.
He turns around and runs full speed out the building and everyone laughs.
He comes back in and makes the point.
Any fight you can avoid is a fight you've won.
And the thing is, people like, you know, I talked to, I briefly mentioned this, I think Joe Rogan kind of had like a, we had a short conversation about this back when I was at his studio, that guys who really know how to fight, like trained, like martial arts guys, will do everything in their power to avoid it.
But if you get into that fight, they will knock you down.
But they know.
Don't get in that fight.
Don't do it.
Anyway, I don't want to go too long, so stick around, I got a couple more segments coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Chicago's Teachers Union Group Trip to Venezuela Praise of Socialist Leader Slammed as Propaganda Tour Oh, thank you so much, Chicago's Teachers Union, for doing a tour of a Potemkin village in which you can pretend like Venezuela is doing okay.
And now, I'm just gonna stop right here.
There's gonna be a ton of, like, far-lefty, pro-socialist, pro-Venezuela people saying, Tim Pool has no idea what he's talking about.
He's just another one of these people reading a story, thinks he knows anything about Venezuela.
Ah, but wait.
I've been to Venezuela.
And I didn't go on a government minder tour.
And nobody knew I was going.
We went there, like, with a day's notice.
And somehow, I walked in, they stamped my passport at the time.
It was back early 2014.
You didn't need a visa as an American to go to Venezuela, but boy did they give you the side eye.
And I went in, without issue, met up with some local guy, and we went around and did normal things.
There were restaurants that had food.
It was great.
I got an arepa.
It's like avoca- What they do is like, it's like chicken, pulled chicken, mashed with avocado, and then put into a corn, you know, like, it's like a pita, but it's like corn.
It's an arepa.
Amazing.
Yes, there was food.
Yes, I was able to eat.
And the restaurant was packed, and it seemed fine.
There were wealthy areas and there were poor areas, but I'll tell you what.
I went to stores that had no food.
I saw places that were out of supplies.
I heard from people who said there was a shortage of basic goods.
And I saw it.
And I saw the problems.
The potential for violence.
I saw the protests.
I filmed fire in the streets and I had to flee the country from death threats.
So I'll tell you this.
There are certainly people who are going to highlight the worst of the worst of Venezuela.
They won't tell you that you can go to a restaurant and get an arepa.
But then you have these people who are going to act like everything's fine and the stores are full of food.
They're not!
Not only that I go there, but I know people who have been there.
So, shame on these people, because this is ridiculous.
Maduro, reportedly now, is torturing dissidents.
And I'm not going to, you know, look up the source, fact check me on that one, but I know conflict journalists who are tweeting about this, and that's why I've heard it.
So normally I don't like bringing something up unless I have the source, but you can fact check me on that one.
I don't have that pulled up.
But let's read this story and read about why Teachers Union in Chicago is going to praise what is essentially an authoritarian dictatorship.
Yeah, I'll go there.
I'll be a little hyperbolic.
Before we get started, however, head over to TimCast.com slash Donut if you'd like to support my work, because I am not a socialist.
And because I'm not a socialist, that means I need to convince you my product is worth you buying.
And then you exchange good ol' hard currency, green pictures of dead presidents, in exchange for me talking to you with beautiful words.
Or perhaps, you recognize, this is a pay-what-you-will model of business.
I produce a product, it's available to everybody, and if you choose, you can pay what you will.
More importantly, though, I always say this.
Share the video.
That way people can hear the perspective of somebody who spent a little bit of time in Venezuela to counter the opinions of those who would praise Maduro and the horrifying conditions of Venezuela.
I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I'll tell you this.
I didn't have a government minder.
We just kind of walked around and went to random places.
And I saw a rather nuanced view of Venezuela, but I'll tell you what.
It is bad.
You know, there's this place called the Tower of David, I think.
It's actually really cool.
It was a skyscraper that was abandoned.
So now there are people who've, like, taken it over and you have to actually walk all the- there's no elevators.
So they ride you on motorcycles up to, like, the 10th or 12th floor and then you gotta walk from there.
But let's read the story.
They say...
The recent trip to Venezuela by a group calling itself a Chicago Teachers' Delegation has upset some union members and expats who question the point of the tour and take issue with the group's praise of the country's disputed government.
The four travelers who crowdfunded the July trip under the banner of the CTU met with Venezuelan government officials and educators, visited a commune, and were featured in local media.
Yes, congratulations, you went on a government-minder tour to a Potemkin village.
They wrote online about wanting to connect with Venezuelan teachers, students, and unionists, criticized U.S.
economic sanctions against the South American nation, and wrote admiringly of its socialism, its communes, and high literacy rates.
And this is what really bothers me about Venezuela, is that they always say something like, the only reason Venezuela's doing bad is because of U.S.
sanctions.
Oh, come on, dude.
They're an oil-rich nation.
Look.
They should have industry.
They should have food.
Yes, sanctions hurt.
I'm not a crazy person.
I get that.
But to dismiss the problems of the country, and in fact, you could argue the sanctions are inverted.
It's the country doing bad and the problems that led to America calling for sanctions.
I don't want to play the political game and act like I know exactly why and how and the history, but I'll tell you this.
I have seen repression.
I was forced to flee the country because of death threats.
I have seen people without food or resources.
Let's read on.
They say, Critics say the group glossed over Venezuela's ongoing political and economic crises and were excessively complimentary of President Nicolas Maduro.
That's right, the same Nicolas Maduro who in a speech to his nation, who are currently going without food, he pulled an empanada out of his desk and took a big old bite.
I kid you not, the country, like people are going hungry, and he pulls an empanada out of his desk on live television and takes a bite.
Dude, can you wait 20 minutes before eating?
And I know you guys realize this, I'm never going back to that country.
I can't, so I have no problem calling out their psychotic dictator, Maduro, eating an empanada on television.
Look, man, I understand there's nuance.
I am being a bit harsh, but I think they're nuts.
I could be wrong, I recognize that, but from what I've seen personally and read the news, man, these people have lost the plot.
They say whose administration has been accused in recent United Nations reports of grave human rights violations and violence against dissenters.
I am appalled the delegation representing themselves as CTU went to Venezuela not to support striking teachers, not to object to human rights violations, but to go on what appears to be a state chaperoned propaganda tour.
Bravo, Karen.
You know, I'm not a big fan of unions, especially public sector ones, because the problem is they can't strike.
I had a friend who was in a union in New York who said when they go on strike, they get fined by the government.
They're not allowed.
And I'm like, then why be in a union, dude?
Just quit.
And it's like, well, I don't know.
You know, we're in a union.
So that's my criticism of the restrictions.
I think collective bargaining is fantastic.
So good on this teacher and union member for calling out the insanity.
Bravo.
They say, and though the four travelers regularly call themselves a CTU delegation online, the union representing close to 25,000 people has sought to distance itself from the trip, stating the CTU did not endorse, sponsor, or fund the trip.
Asked on WTTW's Chicago Tonight, that's Window to the World.
I'm from Chicago.
About some controversy surrounding the excursion, Union President Jesse Sharkey said,
members go all kinds of places in the summer. This was neither an official trip nor something
that was funded by the union. This is a group of people who are members of the CTU who decided
to go to Venezuela. Yet the official CTU Twitter account retweeted some of the group's updates,
including a blog post titled, Introduction to CTU Delegation to Venezuela. CTU also retweeted,
Oh wow! They- The CTU officially retweeted this!
CTU also retweeted another post by teacher Sarah Chambers, one of the travelers and a member of the CTU executive board, which read...
While staying in Venezuela, we didn't see a single homeless person.
USA is the richest country in the world, yet there are homeless people everywhere.
Over 17,000 CPS students are homeless.
This is why CTU Local 1 is fighting for Fair Housing, CTU against VEZ intervention.
Now look, I got no problem calling out intervention.
But you gotta call it out and you gotta call it out right.
The U.S.
is not the police of the world.
While we certainly play a role in negotiations and in some capacity security for a lot of nations, I recognize that, the last thing the U.S.
should be doing is policing other nations, regime change, war, etc.
It's a complicated situation.
But I have tons of respect for Tulsi Gabbard because I agree with her for the most part on this issue.
But I recognize, we don't have to praise Venezuela and act like they're good people.
That's not the point.
Why is it only the extreme ends?
Either Maduro is good, and we shouldn't intervene, or he's bad, and we should intervene.
I get it, but it's not America's place to go to this other country and do these things.
If they start threatening other countries, then I understand.
You know?
But...
To only have the extreme ends.
And more importantly, for a Chicago's teachers union, wow.
You know what, man?
I think everything's getting damn crazy in this country.
Like, seriously crazy.
To have people openly supporting a socialist dictatorship.
Venezuela.
Where there are reports of torture and human rights violations, where they put people in these Potemkin Village tours, and Americans going on that tour to support that.
You know, I'll stress this.
They're free to do so.
Absolutely free.
I'm not gonna say they can't, but I will say I think they're insane for doing so.
Because in America, you do have freedom of association, you do have freedom of speech.
By all means, go and do your tour, and I will make my response criticizing you.
And that's the way it should be.
No, you know, unfortunately, the way things have gone... Like, I just did a segment on Proud Boys Antifa.
That's what scares me.
I have no problem with a couple crazy people going and doing a crazy thing, because I'll call them crazy.
But it's when the violence happens.
So you shouldn't be going and praising Maduro.
There's no excuse for this.
You can talk about how it's not that bad.
You can disagree with a lot of the international community who's calling for intervention.
But to act like it's good because you went on a propaganda tour is absolutely insane.
So they say this, that prompted a rebuke from another Twitter user.
What the delegation fails to acknowledge is they used the CTU name to raise the funds,
to set up meetings, to blog their findings.
This was never voted on.
They don't get it.
Irresponsible and reckless.
She added in her tweet, have you visited Venezuela and spoke to hundreds there?
As a teacher, I teach my students to be critical thinkers, to get primary sources,
listen to people's stories, and do research before just believing any news.
I suggest you do the same.
Well, yes, madame, I have been to Venezuela.
I had a garbage bag full of Bolivar, I believe it was Bolivar's fuerte, the money, where someone had to basically illegally take US currency for a massive stack of cash.
It was nuts.
We came back with huge wads of worthless trash.
Yeah, I've been there, okay?
So let me push back.
Your government minder tour is fake news.
The government is trying to get you to push this propaganda.
When I went there, I saw a more nuanced view.
I heard from the more upper-class Venezuelans who were protesting, I heard from poor people, I witnessed the protests, and I was forced out of the country because of death threats.
I've seen the stores, okay?
It's not perfect.
It's not pretty.
It's not as bad as a lot of people might make you think, but it is bad, and Maduro is a bad guy.
You know what?
Here comes the flag from the far left.
Bring it on.
I still stand against intervention.
And that's why, even though I know people who will sing this song of Venezuela's not that bad, don't intervene, I'll say, no, you're wrong.
They are bad, but still, don't intervene.
Okay?
Be rational.
Don't lie for these people.
We don't have to storm the gates.
We don't have to shut them down and try and change their government, but we can at least admit they're bad people.
Right?
Maybe that's step one.
I got one more segment coming up for you in a few minutes.
Stick around.
I will see you there.
Twitter is displaying China-made ads attacking Hong Kong protesters.
Twitter ads are being used as political weapons.
Before I get into the bulk of this story, first, for those that aren't familiar, in Hong Kong, they are protesting against a Chinese extradition bill.
Hong Kong is supposed to be autonomous from China.
And they're fighting for what they view as democracy.
They're pro-democracy protesters.
They're waving the American flag.
They're singing the U.S.
national anthem.
Not everybody, but a lot of them.
So they have my support in that capacity because I believe protest is a fundamental human right to reject authoritarianism.
I'm not saying that they're fighting for the right thing.
I don't know the full details, but I can tell you this.
They have a right to protest.
That's true of everyone in the United States as well.
You don't have a right to go around beating random people, is where I draw the line with Antifa, but by all means, if the left wants to go out and even do a sit-in blocking an intersection and get arrested for it, civil disobedience is, in my opinion, an American pastime.
Okay, that's what we do.
We fight for change with, you know, non-violent resistance.
You can disrupt a system, you can force that change, and you can do it without hurting people.
Now, admittedly, you know, this kind of disruption can hurt businesses, which can have a ripple effect, but for the most part, you get the point.
Don't whack someone over the head.
Here's the thing.
When Hong Kong was in the news, I was so confused as to why it wasn't trending.
I noticed that Chris Cuomo, the Fredo story, was number one.
It was a worldwide trend, and I said, how?
How is no one talking about Hong Kong?
In fact, actually, people were talking about Hong Kong, but why wasn't it trending?
Some suggested to me that they thought Twitter was suppressing it, and I said, I really don't think so.
You know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories, but I will admit, Twitter displaying anti-Hong Kong protest propaganda, I find questionable.
Should Twitter not take ads from governments to sponsor these things?
Honestly, I lean more towards you should be able to buy ads.
I'm not going to say that people in China shouldn't be able to Condemn the protests.
We don't know who made it.
It probably was the Communist Party.
I don't trust them.
But I do believe in speech.
So you know what's going to happen?
They did the ads.
I get it.
I'm going to call them out and we're going to talk about it.
That's the way things are supposed to work.
When conservative pro-life types want to buy ads, they use that argument.
Oh, we can't.
We're not going to allow that.
Well, that's not fair.
You can't control the government in that way.
So if Twitter is going to allow these ads, I will criticize them, and I don't know if removing them is the right thing.
I don't know if banning them is the right thing.
I lean towards no.
I lean towards Sunlight being the best disinfectant.
Now, admittedly, the one thing that gives me pause in this regard, compared to others, is that it's potentially government propaganda hitting Americans.
Presumably Americans.
Well, let's read the story.
Before we get started, though, head over to TimCast.com slash Donut if you'd like to support my work.
There's a PayPal option, a crypto option, a physical address you can send things to.
And the thing is, I'm not a communist, and I'm going to be criticizing communists.
And as a capitalist, I require currency to continue to function in this capitalist society, which means if I can convince you that I have done something worthy of you handing me a green picture of a dead president, then I've done my job.
And if not, you can watch for free anyway.
Today, this is called the Pay What You Will model.
It's a new kind of thing.
Basically means, I hope that by getting as many people as possible to watch this, enough people will say, I will support this work.
So you get the information in the commentary for free, and if you like it, you can choose to support me.
Let's read.
Twitter is finding itself at the heart of a heated political battle.
Pinboard and other users have observed Twitter running ads from China's state-backed media outlet Xinhua, attacking the Hong Kong protesters opposed to both a sin-suspended extradition bill and broader dissatisfaction with the government and police brutality.
The ads try to portray the protests as escalating violence and calls for order to be restored.
Other ads have highlighted alleged supporters of the Chinese motherland and have pointed out Hong Kong's economic troubles from earlier in the year.
We asked Twitter for a comment.
However, Xinhua's campaign appears to target at least some people in Hong Kong proper.
I will stress this point.
The Hong Kong protesters who are beating people are wrong.
They thought it was a cop, so they tied him up and they roughed him up a little bit.
They found business cards for the police and they said, aha, he must be a cop.
They beat him up.
Turns out he wasn't.
It turns out he was a journalist who had a business card for some of these people.
The news agency in Hong Kong confirmed this guy is a reporter.
And they beat him up.
And now there's some kind of phrase, I don't know a whole lot, so you gotta fact check me on this one.
But there's a phrase being spouted that says something like, I support the police, you can beat me up now.
The reason this is an important point to be made.
In the United States, the right says that they support the police, and Antifa beats them up.
In Hong Kong, there are people supporting the police, and protesters beat them up.
It's wrong!
I support protests.
That's not something common to, you know, communist China.
If you can really call it communist, but sure.
For the most part, it's a very authoritarian system.
Anybody who wants to protest against the machine and challenge the authority, you have my blessing.
You know, within reason.
Obviously, everything's not black and white.
But beating up random people?
Absolutely not.
You're no different than Antifa at that point.
My principles are static regardless of your country and circumstance.
You want to fight against communism?
You have my blessing.
You want to go beat up random people out of a suspicion that they're fascists or communists?
No.
Sorry, don't play that game.
If somebody in the United States carrying a flag walked up to someone and said, I bet you're a communist and started beating them?
No, you're in the wrong.
Typically in the U.S., it is the communists.
People like Antifa who did the fighting.
Hong Kong gets no free pass.
But in the long run, I recognize police shouldn't be whacking people over the head.
That goes for people in the, you know... Actually, I'll draw that line with Antifa, and this is the big challenge.
I don't know enough about Hong Kong to call out who started the violence.
I can tell you, at least as it pertains to the US, when you have the right and the left at each other's throats and the police come in, well, that's very different.
You know, I'm not going to blame the police for necessarily starting something if they're intervening with two factions.
In Hong Kong, you have one protest group and the police.
If the police start it, which I have seen a lot in my experience, police typically starting the conflict, well then they're at fault.
So I'll make that point, I guess.
It's different here when the police and the protesters get into a fight.
You know, the police typically face Antifa and let the right do their thing because the right tends to be Planning to be peaceful, and the police know it.
The left uses this as propaganda, but let's read on.
They say, This kind of behavior isn't shocking.
The Chinese government has been clamping down on critics who voice dissent on Twitter, even though the service is blocked beyond Hong Kong.
The country has been determined to control the political conversation on social networks, whether or not most Chinese can see them.
In that regard, this is just an extension of its current tactics.
It does put Twitter in an awkward position, though.
While the social site is no stranger to attempts at political manipulation, it's now faced with China using ads as propaganda weapons to silence political opposition.
If it keeps the ads running, it risks alienating Hong Kong and free speech advocates, at the same time blocking ads from a major government-supported publication could provoke a harsh response with difficult-to-predict consequences.
So here's the tweet from Pinboard.
Let's jump to Twitter because it's actually a long thread.
Pinboard is the C-span in the tweets, C-pan in the sheets.
I have no idea what that means or what Pinboard is.
That's not really describing it for me, but let's read what they say.
Every day I go out and see stuff with my own eyes.
And then I go report it on Twitter and see promoted tweets saying the opposite of what I saw.
Twitter is taking money from Chinese propaganda outfits and running these promoted tweets against the top Hong Kong protest hashtags.
And we can see this right here from Jinhua.
What China is doing is clear.
If these peaceful, extremely self-disciplined protesters who enjoy the clear backing of the overwhelming majority of Hong Kongers can be discredited, it will be easier to crack down.
What the F Twitter thinks it's doing is less clear.
Twitter is just buying ads.
They're not taking a political stance.
I don't know if I think Twitter is in the wrong on this one, but Pinboard is correct.
It's something like over a million, almost two million people peacefully protesting in the streets.
That's the right way to do it!
That is the respectable way to protest, especially when they wave the American flag.
Now you're flattering us, okay?
So of course, you know, I'm gonna give you a smile and a wink when I see that red, white, and blue stars and stripes waving in your country, but I'm being somewhat facetious, although it is pretty cool to see that.
They say, if you work at Twitter, I'm asking you on bended knee to make it stop.
Don't be complicit in this.
That's a challenge, isn't it?
I don't know if they should.
I think if somebody wants to buy ads, shouldn't they be allowed to?
It's really challenging.
The fact that you can highlight this and call it out is the appropriate response, they say.
Xinhua, the agency buying these tweets, has literally referred to the Hong Kong protesters as cockroaches.
Today, a 17-year-old kid at a march insisted on holding his umbrella over my head for three
miles because it was raining.
I looked very carefully.
No antenna.
Human eyes.
Please, if you're getting them to, post or describe your favorite paid Chinese propaganda
tweet in the thread.
Here's the question.
A bunch of young people in Hong Kong are standing up to their government at terrific personal risk to fight for basic human rights.
Will a bunch of Twitter employees at far less risk stand up to their CEO and refuse to be used as weapons against them?
I don't know if I agree with that.
I think the way you stand up is tweeting.
There was a thing called Thunderclap where everybody would subscribe at the same time It would automatically tweet from every account, causing a massive trend.
That's the effective way to combat this.
Now, I will say the challenge is the Chinese government has money to spare, and the protesters don't.
But I don't think shutting them down and forcing Twitter not to buy ads is the appropriate response.
That sounds like activists trying to force a company to block content they don't like.
I'm not a fan of the Chinese government or propaganda.
Quite the opposite.
And it looks like these protesters are overwhelmingly peaceful and in the right.
You've got 1.7 million people, I think?
Have them all post a message with the hashtag, pushing back on the propaganda.
I think that's the appropriate response.
Let me know what you think, though, because, look, I'm not an expert.
These are complicated, nuanced discussions here, so I'll leave it there.
