Democrats Are LOSING Union Support To Trump, "The Far Left" Is NOT Working Class
Democrats Are LOSING Union Support To Trump, "The Far Left" Is NOT Working Class. Trump recently fired back at the head of the AFL CIO over criticism on the new trade agreement with Mexico and Canadao called the USMCA. Trump claimed that in private the union leader was grateful but once the cameras turned on he changed his tune.But the important issue here is not that they are feuding but that the unions are considering Trump at all. Democrats have typically received the overwhelming majority of Union support. But Hillary Clinton saw the narrowest margin of support from union families in decades.Far left activists, Democratic Socialists, Communists, all claim to represent labor and the working class but they also tend to be privileged and educated. Of course many union members are educated and many socialists are working class, but the people we hear from most tend not to be actual workers.Dave Chappelle said Trump was playing "poor whites greatest hits" and as long as the Democrats ignore this they will continue to lose union support.But the other major issue here is that Unions are on the decline, especially in swing states. In the end, even if republicans and Trump don't see union support, the Democrats are still losing a major support base. It can only end as good news for conservatives and the president.
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Nothing really makes sense in the Trump era, and I'm trying to wrap my head around what's going on with labor unions and the Democrats, and it's just really confusing.
Now, let's start here.
Far-left protesters and the Democrats' far-left push.
Why is it that these protesters in Antifa that claim to represent the working class tend to be privileged elites who make over $100,000 a year, have college degrees, and come from the suburbs?
That's not exactly what you would expect a union member to look like.
In fact, they don't, and I have the data to show this.
Since 2016, we have seen a push to Trump, to Trump's policies from unions.
Now let's be real, Democrats still enjoy a ton, if not the overwhelming majority of union support, especially when it comes to financial contributions.
Unions overwhelmingly give to Democrats.
But it's starting to change.
The unions haven't made an endorsement yet, they've pushed back on the Green New Deal, and now Trump is actually arguing with the head of the AFL-CIO because, well, they're actually considering supporting him.
I don't understand what's happening, but it seems to be a weird, dramatic shift.
Antifa, which claims to be communist, is siding with the establishment elites?
I mean, they are privileged elites.
They're not union members.
We have this story from last year where actual construction workers came out and protested against the far left.
I don't know what's going on.
And I'll admit, I've tried recording this video now several times because it's just so confusing.
Who represents labor?
Well, I'd have to say the actual unions.
But something weird is happening in swing states.
And I've got a bunch of data to back this up.
From Axios, unions shrink fast in swing states.
So not only are unions losing power, but they're not necessarily getting behind Democrats either.
Look at this story.
From the New York Times, some labor unions are holding back on 2020 endorsements, and Democrats are desperate.
So here's what we're gonna do.
Let's go through all the latest news, it is Labor Day weekend, and we're gonna start with the feud between Trump and the head of the AFL-CIO, which I admit, it actually sounds like kind of a good thing.
Because even if they're fighting, and the union won't get behind Trump, it sounds like they might not get behind the Democrats either.
So let's start here with the hill, but before we do, head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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But let's read.
From the Hill, they say.
President Trump on Monday lashed out at American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations President Richard Trumka a day after the labor union leader criticized Trump's trade deal in a Fox News interview.
Trump, in a Labor Day morning tweet, claimed that Trumka doesn't share the same critique of Trump's trade deal when he is with me at the White House.
Now, Trump may be, I don't know, maybe Trump's making it up.
You're going to find a lot of people on the left saying, I doubt this is true, but what Trump is saying is, in private, the AFL-CIO is praising what he's doing, but publicly, he's kind of wishy-washy.
Trump tweeted, Just watched AFL-CIO President Richard Trump on Fox News and thought to myself how different he is on TV than he is when he is with me at the White House.
Likes what we are doing until the cameras go on.
We got robbed on trade and everything else while his Dems just sat back and watched.
NAFTA is the worst trade deal ever made.
Terrible for labor.
And Richard let it stand.
No wonder unions are losing so much.
The workers will vote for me in 2020.
Lowest unemployment, most jobs ever.
And should stop paying exorbitant dues, not worth it.
It's interesting.
Trump has said that the new trade agreement with Mexico, it's the USMCA, is unenforceable.
He criticized Trump's handling of China.
One country can't take on China, he said.
The White House and Trump have pushed back on claims that the tariffs on Chinese goods will hurt consumers or farmers, arguing that it will impact only China.
Now, okay, let's stop here.
Story's really, really complicated.
But what's interesting is that this is coming around a time where the unions aren't getting behind Democrats.
They're not endorsing anybody.
I think the Democrats are fractured in a very terrifying way.
I've made numerous videos about it.
But the most important issue is that when it comes to the Green New Deal, the unions are split.
This far-left ideological push has actually pitted them against the AFL-CIO and other unions.
Now, what I find truly fascinating here is that when you look at top organization contributions, unions are always giving to Democrats.
Admittedly, the president isn't the most important position when it comes to who you're giving to.
There's a lot of local-level, there's Congress positions, there's the Senate.
So yeah, they're going to be giving to lower-level politicians and not necessarily presidential candidates.
But unions have typically supported Democrats, and now we can see in this story from the New York Times that they've actually lost their edge.
Let me see if I can find this one.
Right here.
This is what the New York Times is reporting.
Though union members have traditionally voted Democrat, many are also eager to hear a candidate
address their grievances, a desire that President Trump was able to harness in 2016.
Presenting new challenges for candidates courting endorsements, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by only 9 percentage points among voters from union households, according to exit polls.
A smaller margin than the 18-point advantage President Barack Obama had over Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.
What does that mean?
While Trump doesn't hold the majority of union voters, He cut the advantage in half.
I can only imagine with unemployment down, with wages up, and with the insane far-left ideologies of the left, unions are going to move towards Trump.
Now, Trump says they're going to vote for him because of unemployment, but let's consider open borders policy.
The Democrats like to say, oh, there's no open borders, that's a right-wing talking point.
Sorry.
The Democratic Socialists of America have actually voted on a resolution supporting open borders.
And Ocasio-Cortez, a member of Congress, a House Democrat, is a Democratic Socialist of America.
There is a battle between the moderate Democrats, which you will find still have union support, and the far-left Democrats, who aren't necessarily about far-left economics.
Sort of.
It's confusing.
It's really hard to quantify what far-left really is.
You would think, economically, I should say far-left ideologies is the fracture.
Economically, you'd think far-left policies—labor unions and labor rights—would garner widespread support from unions.
But the far-left in this country also believes in open borders, which would diminish the power of unions.
It will weaken them.
And we're also seeing the unions weaken anyway because of technological advancements, and perhaps because they've been ineffective at stopping policies that have damaged the labor sector—labor unions, I should say—in this country.
So the New York Times makes this point.
We'll read this quote.
They say, So even though he's feuding with Trump, let's make one thing clear.
candidates particularly have come to understand is, unless you talk about the economic issues
that affect working people, you are not going to get elected.
And that's from TrumpCut.
So even though he's feuding with Trump, let's make one thing clear.
It doesn't matter if Trump has their support.
Traditionally, unions go towards Democrats.
Trump would probably rather see unions not support him and not support Democrats than see them support Democrats.
It means the Democrats have less support.
And that's the big issue I've brought up with why the Democrats need to be moderate.
But it won't work.
Here's the conundrum for Democrats.
Progressives won't get behind a moderate, and moderates are the only chance they have at winning.
So therefore, it seems like the Democrats are on track just to lose.
Let's look at this.
This is a story from last October, but almost a year ago.
Union members have traditionally supported Democrats, but this poll shows a dramatic shift.
I don't want to get into the weeds here, but they highlight this study from Pew showing that the likelihood that Democrat and Republican supporters would identify with certain labels, such as have traditional values and veterans, 10% of people who support each party self-identified as union members.
The gist of it is, we are seeing a shift.
I mean, it's one of the reasons Trump won.
Trump took states in the Rust Belt that no one thought he would win because they had union support and it was called the Blue Wall.
But working class people, as Dave Chappelle said, Trump is playing poor whites' greatest hits.
The Democrats don't seem to get it.
These people who are pushing for open borders and healthcare for non-citizens are privileged elites.
Look, Bernie Sanders has a lot of prose to his history.
He's fought for civil rights, he's fought for the working class, but he's still a blue state elite.
I know he's not the elite of the elite, but he's certainly not an uneducated white individual working in a factory.
He's a career politician.
You look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who claims to be working class.
She grew up in an urban center.
She is a socialist who doesn't represent the working class of this country.
I'm gonna throw it back to these construction workers protesting the far left.
Well, let's move on and take a look at some of the latest data.
This may be even more important.
It doesn't matter who the unions support in the end because unions are shrinking in swing states, which means without union support for Democrats, the moderates, you know, look, I've highlighted the poll showing that moderates feel the Democrats are going too far left more so than Republicans are going too far right.
Take that into account when you look at the, you know, the declination of unions and the Democrats are going to lose a lot of support.
There have been op-eds from lefting publications saying the decimation of unions will hurt the Democrats.
But let's read some of these data points.
And I actually want to push back a little bit.
Axios shows this graph, percent of employees that were members of labor unions in 2018.
They say, half of Americans say the decline of unions has had a negative impact on workers, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
And it may be a central reason for stagnant wages and growing income inequality.
Maybe.
Not so sure.
But that's according to a new study by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.
They say, between the lines, President Trump's appeal to blue-collar workers was a major factor in his victories in what were once big union states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton won the union vote by the narrowest margin in decades.
Once again, let me stress, The Democrats have consistently been losing support of unions to Donald Trump.
And even though they still hold the majority of that support, Hillary Clinton had the narrowest margin in decades, they say.
But the decline hasn't made labor a less important part of the Democratic coalition, as top 2020 candidates such as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have already begun to woo union workers.
Now that's good news for Democrats, but still.
They're still at a disadvantage over the past several years.
They say, Dan Primmack of Axios, Sanders and Warren have been unabashedly pro-union.
An argument could be made that one of them becoming president could be the one thing
that could bring back unions. It would be a central part of their campaign,
not a take-for-granted sidelight. Now listen, the unions themselves might end up getting
behind Sanders and Warren, because Bernie Sanders has said that open borders is bad.
So he's not necessarily a DSA kind of guy, a Democratic Socialist, though he does identify as one.
However, individual union members are where it matters.
The union might tell their members, vote this way, do this.
They might spend their money in a certain direction.
But if at the end of the day, the union members realize they're in trouble with this weird far-left ideology, they're going to Trump.
Moderates will get behind a progressive in desperation.
But union members likely won't because they know it spells their demise.
I mean, the Green New Deal is an important point.
In this story from June 19th, the Green New Deal is fracturing a critical base for Democrats, unions.
These unions, man, they're hurting.
And in this story, they mention that the AFL-CIO rejected the Green New Deal.
Here's what they tweeted in May 22nd.
You know what a real infrastructure plan looks like?
One that would create millions of jobs for working families and pay for it by making the rich and big corporations pay
their fair share.
Not this Green New Deal that would guarantee weird jobs to anybody unwilling to work or to give healthcare to non-citizens.
I'm pretty sure if you're in a union and you hear the Democrats want to give benefits from the government to people who aren't citizens, you're in a union for a reason.
Because it's a community designed to protect you and fight for your interests, much like the country is.
Can only imagine it's bad news.
But let's do this.
I want to highlight why they say unions are on decline, and then I want to show you this story from Pew.
Check this out.
Union support from 1983 to 2017 is nearly halved.
That, to me, is crazy.
They say, why are unions declining?
Well, according to Brookings, the shift from manufacturing to a services-based economy.
Why are we shifting from manufacturing?
Could it be free trade agreements?
Could it be that many of these manufacturing plants moved overseas so they could pay a dollar an hour with no health care?
Don't you think unions get that?
At least the individual members?
So these free trade agreements, when Trump came out against them and Bernie, you had union guys saying, it's one of those two.
I met many, many union members on the campaign trail.
Some guys told me, I believe it was like most of the guys I talked to, they initially wanted Bernie Sanders because he was a lifelong politician, someone with experience, but who fought against these free trade agreements.
When Hillary Clinton took that nomination away from Bernie, the only other person talking about why free trade was bad was Trump.
You had people who used to work in manufacturing, who worked in unions, who lost their jobs, and they saw Trump saying, I will bring this back.
They voted Trump.
And Trump won.
Why do the Democrats think they can win without that support?
They also add, more people are getting college degrees.
Exactly my point in the beginning.
Why are these far-left activists claiming to be union members?
They're not!
They're privileged elites from the suburbs.
The rise of tech with the attraction of more high-paying non-union jobs.
Deregulation.
The spread of right-to-work legislation.
Aggressive employers who use tactics like delaying union elections, hiring consultants to help fight unionization, and publicly opposing unions.
But let's do this.
Pew says, on August 30th of last year, most Americans view unions favorably, though few workers belong to one.
In the end, we can see that support or membership in unions has rapidly declined.
Look, we can talk about why, we can talk about the issues, but all that really matters, outside of the nitty-gritty, is that, in the end, unions are shrinking.
And that means Democrats, for the most part, are going to be losing a key base in their support.
Now, this story from Axios is from today, as my understanding.
So, while we've seen, since last year, the data showing us unions are declining, we can also see that in swing states.
In swing states, we are losing union support.
Or, I'm sorry, membership.
So in the end, it's the Democrats that are going to lose out.
Naturally, the Democrats know they have to win them over.
So this story from the New York Post, Democrats plan for a nationwide giveaway to public sector unions.
I'm not going to get into the bulk of this, but it's just an example of how Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been making hard union pushes because they know they need this.
So in the end, Does it really matter if Trump is fighting with the AFL-CIO?
Or is this actually good news?
It's Labor Day.
Union stories are on everyone's mind.
But I think the fact that Trump is having this back and forth is good news for Trump.
Why?
Well, like I mentioned throughout the past 16 minutes, The Democrats typically got support from unions.
If they're losing that support, if unions are shrinking, and if Trump is having an argument over whether or not he'll get support, it shows the shift is real.
As the New York Times said, Hillary Clinton—I believe it was the New York Times that said this?
I don't know.
But Hillary—oh, it was Axios.
It was Axios.
Hillary Clinton had the narrowest margin.
So I want to move on to a few other stories and talk about labor and populism.
This is seemingly unrelated, but I got a couple other points I want to make.
Germany's far-right makes big gains in state elections.
I'll tell you something.
I can't speak for Germany, but I can speak for what is perceivably the far-left versus the far-right.
Donald Trump's base, people who want the jobs back, people who want a nation, Think about the nation as a community designed to support its members.
When far-left individuals embrace an ideology of open borders and giving away benefits to non-citizens and mass migration, there are people who view America very similarly to how they would view a union, and they're going to say, my community, something designed to protect me, is being eroded.
They will vote for Trump.
They will vote for right-wing populism, not for the far left.
This is a strong distinction between Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, however.
Dismiss Open Borders is a right-wing talking point all day and night, but the Democratic Socialists voted on it at their latest meeting, their gathering.
And Ocasio-Cortez represents the DSA.
She's a member.
She's in Congress.
Bernie is different.
He's pushed back.
He's much more nationalistic than, say, the actual Democratic Socialists are.
But in the end, Trump has propped up that perception.
He has played the media so well to get Nancy Pelosi to defend the far left, sends a message to the working class in this country, the real working class, that they do not have your back and they want to erode your community, which provides protection.
So we are seeing this.
In the West, we're seeing it in Europe, we're seeing it in the US.
I don't think necessarily it's about far-right policies like traditionalism and free market capitalism.
But it's only the right defending the rights of the working class.
The far left is going around smashing windows, demanding open borders.
You're not going to win over the working class and other voters.
Now there's another story I want to highlight.
It's the media.
One last thing as we exit this story talking about the support from the left or the right.
Trump trails Democrats by historically large margin.
Maybe I'll do a bigger deep dive in this in a later segment, but I want to highlight these as we close out this segment.
The press has repeatedly said Trump will lose and Trump is losing.
Okay.
The poll said in 2016 the same thing.
They're highlighting the same polls today.
I don't know what to expect.
Because they claimed Hillary was going to win by a massive margin.
They claimed that she had the highest probability of winning.
And in the end, she lost.
Now some of the polls were right.
It wasn't so much whether or not Trump was going to win, but what the likelihood was.
And the likelihood ended in Trump's favor.
I don't know if this matters, but I will say the media is absolutely negative.
And that's what Trump is focusing on.
Saying his real opponent is not the Democrats, but the fake news media.
The media has been overwhelmingly negative to Trump.
Something like 80-something percent has been negative.
But the point I made in the past few videos is this.
Let's say Trump is being smeared by the press.
Well, then we know that he actually has larger support than people realize.
Rasmussen polls typically show Trump doing really well.
And they show people don't trust the media.
But it's also possible that Trump really is doing very, very poorly.
But if the unions are fractured, if the left is fighting between progressives and moderates, maybe there won't be big enough support to actually defeat Trump.
Because you have to realize, even if only 40% of voters support Trump, the Democrats have to get 41%, or 40.1%.
If the Democratic approval rating is less than Trump's, and at least among the leadership, it is, or at least their favorability, Then Trump doesn't need the majority of the country to win.
He just needs the majority of voters to win.
And if voters don't like Democrats, Trump will win.
The fake news, the media, whatever you want to call it, they're doing nobody favors.
In the end, I don't know what I can tell you, man.
I know that unions overwhelmingly fund Democrats.
But it doesn't mean the individual members are supporting them.
So in the end, I don't know what to tell you.
But when you get Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker and all these people saying, Green New Deal, full steam!
And one of the largest labor unions comes out and says, no dice!
Democrats, who are you representing if you're not representing the working class?
Hillary made this mistake, and they're making it again.
Stick around.
Next segment will be coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews.
It is a different channel, and I will see you all there.
It was a couple months ago at the White House Social Media Summit, which I was present for, where Brian Karam of CNN and Playboy Started heckling the crowd.
It was a back and forth, right?
There was a back and forth between the crowd and the press.
And Brian Karam shouted something to Sebastian Gorka about, let's take it outside.
Something like that.
We'll talk about it.
Everybody knows what that means.
When you ask someone to take it outside, you're asking for a fight.
Well, Gorka gets up to his face and says, you're a punk, you're not a journalist.
The left takes the clip of only Gorka yelling at the press and says, oh no, they're attacking the press.
And that wasn't the full context.
But here's the thing.
He said his press pass revoked.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Suspended for 30 days.
So, the latest story, and it gets even more interesting, trust me.
Playboy correspondent suing White House for suspending press pass.
Quote, I am provocative, and I am a smart aleck.
But here's what's really interesting, and we'll read some of the story.
In Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources show, he straight up calls out Brian Karam—and I gotta say, I'm really, really impressed, and I think it was a sign of integrity from Brian Stelter—to say, Brian Karam was unprofessional.
You are at the White House, and you are having a back-and-forth and yelling.
Why would you do that?
And it's kind of funny.
Because Brian Karam then says, I know Trump's unprofessional.
And Brian goes, no, no, no, I'm talking about you.
And I'm just like, I'm just clapping in my seat.
Like, thank you.
Okay.
Listen, the people at the White House summit shouldn't be heckling the press.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
However, when the president of the United States has guests, they might be, I don't know.
They're not, they're not the same.
They're not the same space you are.
Okay.
If Trump invited some little kid, Okay, yes, I'm talking about immaturity.
Let's say you invite a little kid and the little kid starts yelling and shouting stupid names at the press.
Are they going to yell back?
No, because the guests aren't professional press.
You don't know who the guests are or how they're going to behave.
There is a standard, you know, if the White House invites a person and they do something crazy, they might get thrown out.
In this instance, There was hostility between the press and the people in the invitees because Trump invited the competition.
Independent media, people like me, are competing with the establishment voices.
And that's why I think Brian Seltzer deserves a lot of credit, because he challenged one of CNN's own analysts, I believe analyst, and pushed back saying, no, you were unprofessional.
Now, of course, Brian Karam tries playing this, Trump just hates the First Amendment.
It's like, dude, if you threaten, okay?
I understand it's a veiled threat.
It's like, we'll take it outside.
One of the guests of the White House, you're shocked they took away your press pass?
Oh, give me a break.
So we can read a little bit about this because there actually is some developments.
They've apparently been to court already.
But here's what I find most interesting.
Brian Stelter is getting slammed by people on the left for having integrity.
That's the biggest problem, man.
Look, I think Brian Stelter's an alright dude.
There's a lot of things I disagree with him on.
I think he's been wrong about a lot of things, but that's normal.
I think he's a professional.
I've talked to him on several occasions.
I know him to a certain extent.
And here he is calling it like it is, saying, look, you were No, it isn't.
yelling at guests of the White House. That's unprofessional.
And what do we see? Look at these responses to reliable sources. I'm disappointed you'd
be so aggressive to Brian Karam. He's an aggressive reporter. You remained silent on
Gorka's overt physical and verbal aggression and completely ignored the White House had to
concede there was no USSS report, meaning the rationale in suspending his pass is flawed. No,
no, it isn't.
We'll see what happens with the lawsuit, because what they're claiming is Brian says,
Brian Karam, that Trump hates the First Amendment and he's coming at you sideways
and trying to weed out press.
It's like, dude, if you didn't yell a threat to one of the guests of the White House, you wouldn't have been suspended.
Nobody else was, right?
I mean, even Jim Acosta actually had a physical confrontation with a woman.
Whatever you saw in that silly video when the microphone thing happened, it was like the black and gold or blue and black dress thing.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
If the aide tried to take the microphone from him, he should have given it up.
If he tried to, you know, push your arm away, he shouldn't have done that either.
The point is, don't get into a conflict with the White House and then get outraged when they suspend, not ban, you know, your press.
So we have this one.
He then goes on to say, you've attempted to castigate Camphor's unprofessional conduct.
You continue to remain silent on the current press secretary who arguably lied to the court.
I'm not going to read it.
The point is, it's hilarious how people react.
And you know what?
It's left and right.
It is.
I've seen so much in the space of whatever you want to call it, independent media, where I can't think of anything like Perfect, in terms of, like, an example off the top of my head.
But you'll see a lot of people say, like, oh, this particular incident was, you know, SJW get woke, and I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, let's slow down.
Look, I think there are two things.
A lot of people just want to be in the fight.
So when Brian Stelter says, dude, it was unprofessional, you shouldn't have done that, people are outraged because now their side is taking a hit.
It doesn't matter if Brian Stelter is correct, it matters that their side wins.
Pretty poor performance on your part with a supposed colleague today.
Disparaging opinion columns?
I know, right?
What the heck was that?
Aw, the little rose, showing that they're a socialist.
What the heck was Brian Stelter doing condemning Brian Karam?
Brian Karam yelled a threat at a guest of the White House.
I don't understand what's wrong with these people.
No, I get it.
I get it.
It's the culture war.
It's about winning.
It's about trying.
It doesn't matter what's true.
Look, as I stated earlier, the people in the crowd, the invitees, shouldn't be heckling the press.
It doesn't make Brian Karam right to heckle back.
It makes them both wrong.
However, guess what?
The guests of the White House are just that.
They're not supposed to be there necessarily in a professional capacity.
If Trump invited a bunch of homeless people to make a point about class issues, they might not act with decorum and professionality.
Okay?
The people that Trump invited are social media personalities who are self-built and don't follow the same standards of professional press.
More importantly, Journalists aren't supposed to be injecting themselves in the story.
So you know what?
You get it.
I think it's hilarious that people... Brian Seltzer embarrassed himself when he attacked you on air.
I would trade ten of him for one of you.
Guess he doesn't think much of First Amendment either.
And I think it's a shame that people will attack you no matter what you do.
I think Brian's perspective leans to the left, but I think it's okay.
You know, I've routinely praised people like David Pakman, who I absolutely disagree with on a ton of issues, but I don't think that they're, I view them as people who just, they see, they have a perspective, there's certain things they don't know, they get certain things wrong, and I do the exact same thing.
There are people who watch me and then get really angry, they're like, oh, Tim, you were wrong about this, that, and this, and I'm like, I know!
I know!
So that's why I don't hold it against, you know, I disagree with Seltzer on a lot of stuff.
But you can see here his willingness to push back on what is clearly unprofessional behavior shows that he's legitimately trying.
I mean, are there certain circumstances where he might play politics and play tribalism?
Probably.
I'm not saying everyone's perfect, but I'm saying It's so unfortunate that this is the response people give on Twitter.
It's so apparent that you shouldn't be doing this, okay?
Look, you want to get into an argument about Jim Acosta, I get it.
Whether or not he's allowed to question the president and the aides shouldn't have tried to take the microphone away and then whatever happened, happened.
But this is Brian Karam having a reaction to guests who are hostile.
And again, we know the guests shouldn't be yelling stuff.
That's Obvious!
The problem here is that no one in the Rose Garden, who was an invitee, yelled any threats or veiled threats.
I get it.
He didn't say, I'm going to do X. He said, why don't we take it outside?
It's like, whoa, dude.
You just said, let's go fight.
No one else did that.
You stepped over the line.
Well, I'll tell you what.
Brian Stelter could see it, and it's a shame that he's being dragged for it, because it was the right thing to do.
So, um, I just want to read a little bit and try and get to the point about, uh, well, never mind, actually.
I guess the story is just plain quotes.
But, uh, I'll read the last couple quotes just so we can, um, get some, uh, I don't know, context.
Brian Kemp said, I'm provocative, and I'm a smart aleck, but I'm not going to apologize for that.
That's okay under the First Amendment.
There have been far worse altercations that occurred in the Rose Garden by members of the press.
And don't be surprised if you engage in this behavior and you get your press pass taken away.
In my judgment, a permanent revocation would be too great a punishment for the conduct involved here.
This is from Stephanie Grisham, White House Press Secretary.
Taking no action, on the other hand, would be insufficient to deter Mr. Karam and other members of the press from disrupting White House events.
That's a good point.
Ted Botros, Karam's attorney, said on Sunday during a CNN appearance.
Okay, well let's be rational here.
press credentials, violates the First Amendment and due process, and is yet
another example of the administration's unconstitutional campaign to punish
reporters and press coverage that President Trump doesn't like," Ted Botros,
Karam's attorney, said on Sunday during a CNN appearance.
Okay, well let's be rational here. Karam might actually win this one, all right?
He might win because they actually have an argument.
There's no rule against heckling invitees of the White House.
And that's why Jim Acosta won.
So what the court said is the White House is a public institution, there is a first amendment, and they can't restrict the press without legitimate cause, without due process.
The government has to go through due process.
So it's possible, I believe, they said that we're expecting a ruling possibly by today or tomorrow.
And I think, yeah, maybe later today.
I think what might happen is they'll say, give him back his press pass, submit the rules to the press, and let him know you can't threaten people.
Admittedly, the court might actually say, you know, you danced on the line of entertaining violence against a guest of the White House, and what do you think is going to happen?
So, you know, here's the thing.
Is what Karam said illegal?
It's actually not.
The challenge is, basically what he said to Gorka was, why don't we take it outside and have a discussion, or like, we'll talk about it.
Why don't we take it outside and we'll have a long, long talk about it?
But everyone knows what that means, okay?
When you tell someone to take it outside, you're saying, we're gonna fight.
But then he immediately was like, no, no, no, I was saying we would talk.
No, you weren't, dude.
But we get it.
There's ambiguity here.
And that's why it's not a complete step over the line.
It's dancing on the line.
So I think that's why the court might give the benefit of the doubt and say, listen, unless they make a clear, hard step over that line, making a direct threat or insinuation of violence, then you need due process.
In which case, I think we might see new rules, which I honestly don't believe need to exist.
But don't be surprised then if you see rules come out saying, the press is no longer allowed to heckle guests of the White House.
And it makes no sense, right?
But, I mean, it seemingly makes no sense.
You'd think that's like an unspoken rule that wouldn't need to happen.
But I'll admit, it's probably better that way.
It really is.
This guy's obnoxious.
He's an opinion columnist.
Brian Stelter even said that about him.
And a lot of people got offended.
Like, don't call him that.
He's a journalist.
He's asking the tough questions.
Okay, dude, he's an opinion guy, okay?
I know I am too.
We do a form of journalism and we also do commentary.
It's actually a really common thing that's been happening in the political space these days.
But, I think this might be a good thing.
Because setting a hard boundary, and letting people know where the line is, is important.
So, it's precedent.
Okay, before this, it was WWE, right?
You had people in the press pit yelling, yelling back at the guests, and it was just chaotic nonsense.
Okay, well now, Brian Karam has been suspended temporarily, it's a temporary suspension, he's getting his press pass back no matter what.
So he gets it back early, I guess, but then we get the hard rule, and from then on we say, if you're in the press, you are here to learn, ask questions, and share information, not engage in political theater.
That's probably a good thing.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment will be coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel, and I will see you all then.
The Street Pride Parade took place a few days ago.
It was the same day as an event that I was speaking at called Minds in Real Life.
And at the rally, there were many arrests.
Several police officers were injured.
There was a decent amount of arrests.
Now you have stories coming out saying, you know, we need to call Antifa domestic terrorists and all this stuff.
And you have stories coming out about the march itself.
But what you see on the screen is not... First, it's not about the Straight Pride Parade, but I'm gonna get into this.
It's about a man named Vermin Supreme and how he got Trump voters to chant that they wanted to suck Trump's... Yes, you get it.
They literally did.
And there's a video of it.
And the people, the Trump supporters, and I think even some Proud Boys, are happily chanting... Okay, it's at like the 14-minute mark.
Happily chanting that they want to suck Trump's...
C. I guess because of the sexual nature I have to be careful about how I talk about this, but it's really obvious.
Vermin supreme for those who don't know.
This guy right here.
He wears a boot on his head.
He carries a giant toothbrush.
He is a satirical presidential candidate.
I've interviewed him several times.
I know him.
He's a pretty good dude.
He's a funny guy.
But I think he's a relic of a time when the left embraced satire and silliness, something they're not doing so much anymore, especially at the straight pride parade, which we'll get into next.
What I really wanted to talk about with this is how the left seems to have lost the understanding, lost the Humor that vermin supreme once brought to the left look he carries a toothbrush And he's like mandatory tooth brushing laws with a boot in his head, and he's a funny guy, and he's pretty far left But when you look at this video
You can see some tweets around this where they're like, oh my god, I can't believe Trump supporters did this!
And the Trump supporters are laughing because they know it's a joke and they don't take things so seriously.
It's just silly.
It's fun.
It's a party.
And they're having fun with Vermin Supreme.
Now Vermin, I believe, has actually insulted many of these people.
When we go over now to the straight pride parade, this is how it all comes together.
Vermin was there.
And he was yelling, I believe he was there, and I, yeah, so he was definitely there, and he was calling them names and insulting them.
But here's the thing, you know, this is what I found interesting.
Vermin makes us all a big joke.
That's literally what these people are doing.
I mean, they're showing up as clowns, as Pepe clowns, and this guy's got a pillow with Sargon of Akkad as like a love interest anime character.
I don't know what it's called, man.
It's a love pillow.
It's not a body pillow.
But this guy's painted his face green with red lips like Pepe the Frog, and it's all just a big joke.
They're having a laugh.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Vermin Supreme himself was a catalyst for much of the irreverence we're seeing from the right.
Here's what's funny.
I often see these really negative memes about Donald Trump.
They make fun of him.
They make him look like a baby or they try to insult him.
And then you go to r slash the Donald and guess what?
They post them and upvote them because they're having a good time.
What a lot of people don't seem to realize on the left is that Trump's election was a lot about memeing him into the presidency because there were a lot of people who just want to watch the world burn.
And I don't mean that necessarily in like a really negative way, like they're evil.
I mean, it's a sort of nihilism where there are a lot of people like, you know what?
This country deserves Donald Trump.
It's funny.
At least we'll have a laugh.
And that's kind of the mentality of, you know, we're seeing this now with the Joker movie, right, if you've watched the trailer, where one of the lines from Jo- uh, Walking Phoenix, uh, is Jo- Walking Phoenix as Joker, is that he says he used to think that his life was a tragedy, and now he realize- realizes it's a comedy, and a lot of people kind of view it that way.
I don't know, you know, I don't want to speak on behalf of Vermin Supreme.
But we can talk about the memeing and the straight pride parades, and the reaction from the left.
So here's a story, from Buzzfeed.
Buzzfeed.
The straight pride parade is the newest far-right meme and cities aren't ready for it.
We thought this was a good time to stick it to the collectivist, idealist, identitarian
left.
Here's the thing.
These people on the right are showing up as a laugh.
Just like Vermin Supreme has done.
And these people on the left are serious.
They think they're literally fighting, like, you know, in a new world war emerging, a new fascist government.
They think they're La Resistance.
And these people are showing up dressed like clowns.
Purposefully silly.
Like, you know, here's the thing.
The left will be like, oh my god, these people are such an embarrassment.
No, you don't get it.
They're doing it on purpose.
They know they look silly and ridiculous.
It's just part of the game.
And that brings me back to that first story.
So this is from a website called NewNowNext.
I don't know what it is.
But they're like, Vermin Supreme gets Trump voters to chant they want to suck Trump off or whatever.
But they're laughing.
They know they're doing it.
They don't care.
What's funny is, they're like in on the joke with Vermin Supreme, and people are acting like they're not.
So basically in this video, someone asks Vermin, which is, again, the guy with the boot, if he likes Trump, and he says, yes, I wanna suck Trump's, you know, whatever.
And then he starts yelling it, and everyone starts laughing and clapping and fist-pumping as they chant it along with him.
I don't know why people don't understand this joke.
You know, I did a video the other day talking about Dave Chappelle.
It did ridiculously well.
And I was pointing out that these top-tier comedians we have, like Rogan, Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, they go after everybody.
They make fun of everything.
It's like making fun.
You see what that means?
Making fun.
Fun is something enjoyable we can all laugh and enjoy.
And you're making fun.
So when you're making fun of something, it's meant to be positive.
But for some reason the left views it as a negative.
So this is what we end up seeing, right?
I guess there's going to be straight pride parades now popping up all over the place.
What they don't seem to realize is that it's satire.
It is.
I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of people who really do see principle in coming out and engaging in comedy, but it's a satirical protest.
Milo Yiannopoulos, they have a photo of this?
Milo Yiannopoulos is gay, and he was the grand marshal of the event.
A gay man was leading the straight pride parade.
The whole thing is meant to be absurd!
And to point out the absurdity that is this world, it goes hand-in-hand with the clown world meme, which is exactly what we see with this dude dressed like... What is it called?
He says, a parade goer dressed as friend world Pepe.
Friend world?
I've never heard that.
I know what clown world is.
They've tried to claim that clown world is like a Nazi thing far right.
It's like, dude...
The idea behind Clown World is that, um, I can't remember the guy who said this, but the story is, the clown comes out on stage and there's a fire, and he starts trying to warn everybody there's a fire and they all laugh, and then he gets even more frantic saying, no, there's really a fire, and they laugh even more, and then they all burn to death.
So that's like the general idea.
The bigger context, the more culturally relevant, is that the world is so absurd, certainly it must be, you know, written by clowns.
Like, you know, everything that's happening.
Because nothing seems to make sense.
Whenever you come out with a story like this, like this is a perfect example, people will post the clown and the world emoji.
Or this.
Vermin Supreme, a guy with his boot in his head, chanting that he wants to suck off Trump, and all of his supporters laughing with him because they are equally as absurd as Vermin, and then the left thinking, like, wow, they sure tricked those Trump supporters.
No.
They were in on the joke with Vermin.
So what's crazy though, and actually I should say what's scary here, is you have a group of people that know it will trigger these leftists.
But look at these signs like pride means resistance with the anarchy gender symbol and like no Nazis and stuff.
Fighting with police, being pepper sprayed.
I think there was like 36, there was like some absurd amount of arrests.
Well, I guess we should read a little bit about what the conclusion of Ryan's piece is.
I don't know if he actually has a real... I don't know what his conclusion is.
I don't know what he expects is gonna happen when you have a bunch of people making jokes.
Let's read a little bit.
Alright, I'll read a little bit.
He says, on Saturday afternoon, a collection of self-described free speech advocates brought the own-the-libs internet into the real world, marching through historic Boston, purportedly intended as a parody of an LGBTQ pride parade.
Okay, he gets it.
He gets it.
That's good, right?
The march featured Pepe the Frog cosplayers, members of the far-right street gang, oh, come on, the Proud Boys.
They spend most of their time in bars getting drunk, and a decent amount in the streets, but mostly probably just getting drunk.
And alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos.
Okay, I gotta stop you there because you can already see that Ryan has no interest in actually identifying what's actually happening.
If you want to look at the history of Milo Yiannopoulos, you can say formerly, because he did make reference to the alt-right before he realized what it was, and he has since disavowed it.
And street gang Proud Boys?
That's an irrelevant descriptor of what the Proud Boys are.
You can call them a Western chauvinist fraternity.
But a street gang?
It's like, come on dude, we know what you're doing.
So as much as he knows it's a parody, he's still a victim of the gag.
The Proud Boys started as a gag!
Milo Yiannopoulos is a troll!
And they're all just screwing with you, man!
Reminds me of, like, when you go out to meet a buddy, and then you say, like, oh no, like, man, there's a huge accident, I'm just screwing with you.
You know, you say something crazy to get a rise out of them, and they say, I was just messing with you.
You know, that's like a joke.
It's getting a rise out of somebody for fun.
Like, oh, you crazy guy, you got me worried there for a second, and you laugh.
Just trolling.
And the left doesn't, you know, I don't get it.
The humor has been sucked out of the left.
I think it has to do with the rise of outrage culture.
You know, I'm somebody who enjoys offensive comedy and looks at this and thinks, it's just so absurd.
Like I mentioned, when Donald Trump won, I was laughing.
Like, wow, this world is crazy.
The real estate reality TV mogul has become president.
How, like, what else can this, like, what's going, like, you know, it's just so absurd.
It was funny.
It was funny.
I'm not scared.
What are you scared of?
Why are these people so sensitive?
Like, the last thing on my mind is Trump being president.
You know, not necessarily because I have to do this job, but I mean, like, you know what I'm really worried about?
I'm worried about, for one, taking care of my friends and family, living my life, health insurance, actual policy positions, which really drives me when I'm angry with the Democrats, because they're obsessed with Trump.
Who cares?
As Dave Chappelle said, All he's doing is playing poor white people's greatest hits.
Why do you care about him?
Why not the other, you know, 60-whatever-million people?
Exactly.
There are 60-plus million people who voted for the man, who believe that there's an issue that required his presence.
And instead of focusing on what drove that, they're worried about a small handful of people dressed like clowns walking around Boston.
And then Antifa shows up and acts a fool.
You know what?
I think I made the point.
I want to end with this.
I don't understand why Vermin Supreme isn't marching with them.
They're doing the same thing he's always done.
Satirizing our culture and our life.
Vermin represents what the left used to be.
And they're not there anymore, man.
I think Vermin's a good dude.
I've known him for a while, I've interviewed him, talked to him, and he believes in freedom and free speech and all that stuff.
But now he's protesting against the people who are doing the same thing he does.
Make fun of politics.
The left is losing their humor.
I'm surprised they actually tolerate Vermin at this point, but hey, it is what it is.
So anyway, here's your big breaking news.
Trump supporters want to suck off Trump.
There you go.
I look forward to this video being demonetized, so stick around.
Next segment will be coming up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast.
It is a different channel, and I will see you all there.
In today's political climate, we have children leading adults.
You know, like the Parkland kids and like Greta Thunberg.
I think it's her name.
You have people terrified of red hats.
And now, I am going to talk later about Democrats being led by children, but the point I'm trying to make is that it seems like there's a lack of adults in the room.
A lack of maturity.
And perhaps that's both why they're willing to follow in the footsteps of kids, and they're also going to freak out because someone's wearing a red hat.
You know what I do?
I mean this seriously.
You know what I do when I see someone wearing a red hat?
Nothing.
It doesn't even occur to me that someone's wearing a red hat.
I just keep walking.
Sometimes, when I see a red hat with the writing on it, I wonder what it says.
Because there are a lot of joke hats.
Like, Make Bitcoin Great Again is one.
Milo was wearing one at the Straight Pride Parade.
Make America Straight Again.
Well, now we have this story, and I tweeted on this.
Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Female author.
Stop wearing red hats.
It's scary.
What?
Okay, I'm gonna try to avoid being really mean about this because, you know, the author does address the contrarians, I suppose, but let me just make this point, okay?
We'll read her comment, but I'm gonna say it beforehand and probably reiterate.
If you are scared because you see a red hat, you need therapy.
And I mean that sincerely, not to be disrespectful, not as a dig.
If you're going through life feeling stress and anxiety over something like a hat, You need therapy.
More than that, you need some kind of strengthening tool.
We cannot live in a society where someone will see a hat and have a panic attack.
Okay?
Hats are normal things.
It's just a Trump hat.
Let's read.
A female author who has been a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist took Trump
derangement syndrome to a new level, stating on Twitter that she doesn't want people to
wear red hats because they are making everyone scared.
And we don't, they're not talking about MAGA hats, okay, I'm not talking about MAGA hats,
we're talking about just a red hat in general.
Could you imagine if because of the movie It, people said no one should be allowed to
dress like a clown anymore because clowns make people scared?
They do make some people scared.
I can't control your fear.
Let's read what she said.
Is anyone else made really uncomfortable these days by anyone wearing any kind of red baseball cap?
Like, I see one and my heart does weird S and then I finally realize it only says Titleist or whatever.
Maybe don't wear red caps anymore, normal people.
Also, for the love of God, the clever folks wearing Make America Read Again or whatever caps, no.
You're making everyone scared.
Don't do it.
What is wrong with these people?
Seriously, I'm not even scared of Antifa, okay?
You have someone wearing a black mask and a black hood and sunglasses walking around with a crowbar, and that's not going to scare me.
It will alarm me, like I'll be on alert.
I'm not going to have a panic attack or feel anxious.
Somebody came to my house at four in the morning, I wasn't having panic attacks and crying and going, everyone's scared!
I was like, What's about to happen?
It's an alert feeling, right?
So, sure.
That's normal.
But why would you feel that over a red hat?
If you're not gonna- Okay.
If you, on the left, are not scared of people walking around wearing all black, carrying crowbars, and you're scared of a dude, like a chubby middle-aged guy, wearing a red cap, and it's not even a Trump hat, I'm just talking about, like, a portly old middle-aged guy wearing, like, a sports cap or something, that scares you?
This is a twisted reality that makes no sense, okay?
What about that person, for any reason, would be disconcerting?
They're gonna say mean words to you?
Yes, that's it.
I kid you not.
That's what she literally says.
Look, if you're here to be contrary, an equivalent here would be Western Hindus choosing not to use the, you know, World War II symbol in public despite it being sacred to their faith because it would offend slash frighten people.
The red hat has become a symbol of hate because of how its wearers act.
How do its wearers act?
Show me the news story of the roving bands of red-capped-wearing Trump supporters breaking windows and screeching and starting fires.
Waiting.
I can't hear it.
There's nothing.
There are some people who wear, like, Proud Boys shirts.
Now look.
You see someone wearing a black polo with gold trim, and you get alarmed, then I understand.
I do.
I get it.
The Proud Boys have been involved in fights.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that they're often starting the fights, but the Proud Boys do sometimes, and they do go to areas, and then Antifa shows up, and fights ensue.
I don't care about the context, right?
Let's not argue Proud Boys versus Antifa.
I'll just make the point.
If you hear about someone that gets into fights and that's worrying to you, that I can truly understand.
But I'd be willing to bet you could freely walk up to a Proud Boy and ask them to leave or say, hey, you know, a lot of people are worried that if you hear a fight will break out, and guess what?
They'll do it.
It depends.
It depends.
Let's be honest.
You know, if they're at a bar minding their own business, they probably wouldn't.
But if they showed up somewhere, you'd actually have no problem talking to them.
So you want to talk about how the red hats act?
Please show me a video or an article because I can pull up a list of like 800 instances where people wearing the hats were attacked.
And this says nothing about what they believe.
It's just like middle-aged dudes wearing hats.
Here's the bigger point.
It's not about Trump supporters.
She's saying anyone wearing a red hat, this to me is one of the scariest things because these people are losing it.
Makai added, Also, I love the people who are like, you can't police me, Limpard.
Please note that I was specifically addressing normal people.
And what is a normal people?
Who does that refer to?
Are Trump supporters not normal?
There's 60 plus million of them.
The ones who don't want to freak people out at a distance.
The ones who enjoy it should absolutely continue letting us know who they are.
These people live in a parallel reality.
It's terrifying.
Mackay has not been reticent about her opposition to President Trump.
In December 2018, she wrote that she, quote, hit a low, a how-do-we-keep-fighting-one-more-day low, a scream-sightly-into-the-mirror low, a twilight-of-democracy low.
I tried to distract myself by retreating to the bubble of literary Twitter, where I started a thread listing some of my favorite overlooked fiction.
Soon, though, someone jumped in with a bit of scolding.
We're 100 days out from an election, she wrote.
That's what we should be all thinking about.
You see, this woman is not being attacked by Trump supporters.
She's being attacked by the anti-Trump people.
That's exactly what they're highlighting here.
Her response is exactly a reaction to the anti-Trump resistance.
The fervent anxiety and panic attacks, schizoid, paranoid, all that stuff, of people thinking that Trump's lurking around the corner at any moment and is going to show up with a crowbar or a train to bring you off to the gulag.
That's not what's happening though.
So these people don't live in reality.
And it's a circle of this excitement, this rile, you know, they're riling each other up.
When she says this, people start getting scared.
What are the red hats doing?
You're right.
How are they acting?
You can't wear a red hat anymore.
But her basis is nothing.
What she's tweeting about is because a different resistance Twitter person said, you have to talk about Trump's bigotry.
You can't talk about books.
So then she panics and she goes, imagine if you have a ring of people, like take a hundred people and put them in a big circle and have someone tap someone on the back and say, This is the end of the line for us.
This is the end.
And then have them keep telling it to everybody.
And it keeps traveling around the circle back to the person who started it, but through the game of telephone, it gets even worse.
The person, you know, it goes all the way through that hundred-person, you know, game of telephone, and then comes back to the original person, but now they're shrieking, going, the end is near, the end is near, he's gonna take us all to the gulags.
And then that person goes, ah!
And then it keeps going around, amplifying and amplifying and amplifying, and eventually, they're going, red hats!
Red hats!
Do I care if someone wears a red hat?
Nope.
I gotta be honest.
If I saw a dude marching around with a Confederate flag or something, I also wouldn't think twice.
I'd be like, whatever.
Now, if I saw somebody marching around with a Confederate flag, wearing body armor, carrying an AR-15, and taking aim at people, then I'd get concerned.
In fact, if I just saw someone exercising their Second Amendment right, carrying around a rifle with body armor, I would still be concerned.
I would absolutely be concerned.
And I would expect, in a dense urban environment, there would be a general check from the police.
Now, some 2A people might disagree with me on this one, but I've seen a lot of these Second Amendment audit videos where the cops come up and they say, hey, just wanted to, you know, see what you were doing and just do a checkup.
And a lot of these guys will be like, I have every right to do this.
You do.
And then tip, there was one video I watched, it was, it was actually, it was actually excellent.
Okay, so maybe, maybe there's a lot of 2A people who might agree with me.
Where these two guys were walking around with AR-15s, totally legal, and the cops stopped them and said, we just want to do a check on your firearm.
And the guy's like, yeah, I have every right.
And they're like, let me see it.
The cops do a check and say it complies with the law.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate what you do.
And then the cops went on to say, like, we're defenders of the Second Amendment.
We completely agree.
You know, we just want to make sure we know what's going on.
And in the future, you have every right to do this.
You can just give us a call so that no one else bothers us, right?
So the point is, don't be surprised if people get alarmed if you're carrying a weapon.
Because it's not something that's common.
And I would understand if someone was like, you shouldn't walk around with an AR-15 all the time.
However, I also recognize that most law-abiding, you know, firearm owners don't commit any crimes.
In which case, you know, call the local authority and say, if anyone gets worried about it, just I'm walking around, they'll be like, yeah, no problem.
Now, I get it.
You have a right to do it, and they do these audits for a reason, sure.
The point I'm trying to make is, these people are treating a red hat as if there's an actual threat of anything happening.
Imagine where we go from here.
I love saying this.
Imagine where we go from here.
Where do you go when people think the red hat is the problem?
These people are going to get dangerous.
They're going to see a red hat and they're going to get violent.
And they're already doing it.
And then they're blaming people wearing red hats for being the violent ones.
They're going to keep spinning around, playing this game of telephone with each other, in their cult, until something really, really bad happens.
And it's already starting to.
Woman just threw a Molotov into an immigration facility for whatever reason.
Anyway, stick around.
I've got a couple more segments coming up in a few minutes.
Actually, I'll do this.
Seriously.
I tweeted, This is a mental illness, and I mean it with the utmost sincerity.
It's been called Trump Anxiety Disorder by some.
If the sight of a red hat is causing you anxiety, you need therapy.
You need to get off the internet and turn off the TV, and I really, really mean that.
Okay?
I am not trying to be mean and derogatory.
Here's somebody who says, No reason at all to have anxiety at the sight of a MAGA hat.
They must be crazy, right?
I didn't say MAGA hat.
We're talking about red hats in general.
We're talking about people who are terrified that there are people who wear red hats.
And one of the photos, he doesn't even have anybody wearing a red hat.
So the point is, we're not talking about Trump supporters or MAGA hats.
The base issue is people wearing a red hat.
It's a normal thing.
Calm down.
I'll see you on the next segment.
I actually saw this tweet for the first time in a video from Sardan of Akkad.
He was talking about Andy Ngo and David Pakman, and he shows this tweet that says, from Tulsi Gabbard, quote, I'll never apologize to smear merchants for doing everything I can to prevent more of my brothers and sisters from being killed or wounded.
If it means meeting with a brutal dictator or a hundred dictators, I will do whatever it takes to prevent or end a regime change war.
Quote, Team Tulsi.
This is the gist of what she said.
In the actual clip on Twitter, she doesn't use the phrase Smear Merchant.
However, Smear Merchant, as far as I understand, mostly originated or was popularized recently by Sargon of Akkad himself.
Thus, the joke title about Tulsi Gabbard dog-whistling to the Intellectual Dark— I don't know what I'm gonna title this, but the joke is something about how, like, Tulsi is dog-whistling, because that's how the Smear Merchants like to play it.
But it does say to me that there's one of two things.
Someone who works with Tulsi, because again, she did not say this.
Someone who works with her is familiar with what's going on with Sargon and getting smeared in the press.
I'd imagine because Tulsi gets smeared in the press all the time.
Or it could just be that Karl, you know, aka Sargon, his influence spreads in this space of people who are trying to cross party lines, you know, left and right and have a conversation.
So first, let's take a look at the origin.
Mr. Benjamin accused journalists of being, quote, dirty smear merchants, adding, I'm not answering your questions, I'm not apologizing for anything.
The media does like to smear people.
The media is a nebulous vague term, but the point is, there are many organizations that have been trying to tear down Tulsi in an effort to stop her.
She didn't get enough in the polls to go into the next debate, and it seems like the DNC is cheating, we can get into all that stuff.
But that's kind of where I'm going to go from here.
What I want to make for the main point is that Tulsi is someone who's gone on Joe Rogan and gone on Fox News.
She's someone who has real military and combat experience.
She actually is willing to be diplomatic, and I think that is first and foremost one of the prerequisites we need for a commander-in-chief in this country.
It's no surprise.
I am a big fan of Tulsi.
And I'm especially a big fan because she's going after Google for, you know, free speech and censorship issues.
She's denounced identity politics as divisive.
She's defended free speech.
She's got a lot of policy stuff I don't agree with, but I'll admit, principles, liberty, anti-war, those are like the core tenets of what I preach about when I do these videos.
Those are the things I'm always talking about.
You don't see me doing videos where I'm like, progressive tax!
No, no, no.
I'm talking about freedom.
Speech.
Inquiry.
Arguments.
Coming together.
Tulsi embodies that.
She is incredible.
Even though I disagree with some of her policies, I think she may go a little hard on gun control as far as I'm concerned, because I'm probably more moderate.
She's probably more on the left side of this.
But I'm gonna show you something funny real quick.
I found this on accident when I was searching for the Dirty Smear Merchants thing.
And there's an IMDB post for, quote, I'm not apologizing for anything, you dirty, dirty Smear Merchants 2019, with 9.4 stars out of 10.
It's Carl standing at the UKIP podium.
But here's the big issue.
When it comes to Tulsi, what we see here is that Whatever the intellectual dark web is, I don't think it actually can be defined, but Tulsi Gabbard is very clearly aware of what's going on.
She seems like an incredibly smart person, and I'm gonna say this one thing.
All I care about is that our Commander-in-Chief has experience and com- Like, I believe- Look, I'm willing to vote for someone who's not been in the military, but...
I'd much prefer a military-experienced individual as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the Executive Branch than a businessman or a career politician.
I gotta be honest.
And so that to me is already like, you have my respect.
You know, I have many people in my family who have served in the military, and I don't have this like...
You know, I don't view the armed forces or anything as like this perfect institution.
No, of course not.
I get it.
There's nuance.
You know, I know people who have told me that people who join the army do it just because it's like a job.
Yeah.
The point is, shouldn't the person who's, you know, commander-in-chief have that experience?
I think so.
And I think what we see here is that she is in a similar space where she recognizes the importance of speech and inquiry and debate.
And now what do we get?
From the Independent, Bali Jongfest.
Tulsi and Marion need to face the facts.
No one wants them at the next debate.
Excuse me?
But they want Beidou O'Rourke?
Come on, man.
Who's passionate about Beidou?
He's the weird dude who jumps on coffee tables or whatever and then swears all the time.
And what about Julian Castro?
These people are not prominent.
Tulsi Gabbard has tremendous support across the aisle from people like me, she has over 160,000 donors, and she has more than 26 national and state-level polls showing she surpasses 2%.
But, the DNC uses arbitrary rules.
And I think that's why, you know, maybe she's in a similar space, maybe we see the smear merchants line from her team, because they get it.
You know, when Tulsi's being smeared the way she is, which, like, literally this is a smear against Tulsi Gabbard, You have to imagine that her team of mostly progressives and some with far-left, you know, policy positions might be curious, and might look into this, and might see what they did to Sargon.
Take a look at this.
In the U.S., they come for Tulsi, and they say, no one wants you.
Okay, well, I do, and I donated, and she has 160,000 donors, and she does have, you know, copious polls showing 2% support.
The DNC is a dirty, dirty cheater machine.
Whatever, I don't know, whatever.
The point is, I feel like she's being arbitrarily kept out when she has tremendous support.
When she was the most searched for candidate after the first debate, and I believe she was one of the most searched for in the second debate, especially with the Kamala Harris thing.
I want to see that.
I want to see a principled individual take down some of these corporate cronies.
So when they do these smears, I wonder, do people who are engaging in politics on Tulsi's side understand what's happening in the UK when they do the same thing to Carl Benjamin?
Look, man, I just did a panel with Sargon Carl in the Philly area, and we had a panel called How to Admit You Were Wrong.
And he conceded in the past he was mean, and he changed.
He says he didn't start out as mean, but he responded to mean people by becoming mean himself, realized it was wrong, and he's done better.
And I'm like, I think you have.
I agree.
That's, you know.
There was a point where I did a podcast where I said he was, I think I said he was a dick.
And people were like, oh, Sargon Tim's, you know, talking smack.
And I told him and he was like, eh, well, you know.
He understood.
Right?
If he was, like, I wouldn't consider him a friend if he was unable to recognize a fault.
I've been mean too.
And I often criticize myself.
I do try to do better.
It's why I'm successful.
But anyway, without derailing, it seems like You have a space.
You know, the people watching this video, there's probably a lot of conservatives because they're tired of being smeared, but now you are seeing how it impacts even Tulsi Gabbard, someone who supported Bernie Sanders, stepped down from the DNC.
I think what we see from this is that the dirty, dirty smear merchants are going to lose a good portion of the left.
Going after Tulsi is a mistake.
Tulsi is a good person, a principled person, and she's on the left.
Of course, they try to smear her as a Republican.
I kid you not!
Tulsi's policies on, like, gun control and minimum wages?
To the left of me!
And I'm, like, moderate, slight to the left.
And they smear Tulsi.
They call her alt-right.
They say she ponies up to, you know, dictators and all that.
Well, what's going to happen?
Tulsi's fans, who see her principled actions, are going to be pushed away.
And they're going to be called conservatives.
And I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people who are conservative today who actually aren't.
Who actually used to be Democrats.
I know that's true.
I've talked to them.
I've seen the comments.
Certainly there are a lot of conservatives who are laughing and clapping, being like, welcome to the party!
Welcome to getting smeared by the media!
I wonder.
That's my big question.
Does Tulsi, or at least her team, watch Sargon's videos?
I'd be impressed.
I would.
Sargon has been considered by even those who smear him as a member of the Intellectual Dark Web.
No, seriously, there was a study that came out trying to claim that he was part of this, you know, rabbit hole pipeline to the alt-right.
They called him Intellectual Dark Web.
That's a big step up from, you know, Gamergate personality or anti-SJW.
For a while Sargon was just in that space, but now he's considered intellectual Darkweb.
I think it was Brett Weinstein who said he's the working man's intellectual.
I'm not sure what Carl's academic background is.
But this is impressive to me.
You know, the media doesn't...
I think the media plays a game to circle around the establishment because they even go after Bernie Sanders, too.
I don't know what they want, but I can say that it's among the left, the Democrats, moderates, progressives, it's all just chaos.
It is.
They want to claim that I'm a conservative.
Well, I'm not.
Definitely not.
I think moderate's fair.
But I also think moderate's not fair.
Like, if I'm gonna be honest, I don't think moderate's fair either because, dude, I gotta admit, I'm lefty.
Like, when I look at my personal politics and what I do, you have no idea how I operate my businesses, how I treat other people.
I was very much a Bernie Sanders supporter.
But I've now conceded to being a moderate because even though I'm still holding left-wing policy positions, I don't see the left on my side anymore, so I don't feel like I'm a part of the left.
They're doing it again now to even people who are further left like Tulsi.
I guess it's a problem.
You know, I think the problem is that people I feel like I'm willing to fight, okay?
I'm not willing to back down.
But perhaps me saying I'm a moderate is me backing down and saying, you know what?
I have nothing to do with them.
And then if you see the same language from people like, you know, Carl, who used to be very much left, and now he's more of a centrist because he's being pushed away too, that language now resonating on the Tulsi Gabbard side of things.
I am a symbol.
I'm an image of the left's cultural battle within itself in the United States.
Like, as a moderate, as somebody who was like, yeah, Barack Obama, right?
For the first time.
And now you're gonna see something similar with Tulsi.
She's clearly not a conservative, but what happens when she gets smeared by the Independent?
Nobody wants you.
Well, her fans do.
We are the politically homeless.
We are not, you know, absurd authoritarians.
We believe in liberty.
We believe in cooperative market policy, social programs, and we are being kicked out of the left.
And the language from this faction of independent, former left, I don't know what you'd call it, is now hitting even people in the mainstream.
You know, Tulsi, for what it's worth, she's a mainstream candidate.
She is.
I mean, she's an outlier, she's an underdog, and she's anti-establishment, but at least she was in the debates as long as she was, and the reason why I think they're kicking her out is because she is breaking the mainstream.
She's breaking into those ranks.
Well, they can't have that, so... The Dirty Smear Merchants are at work!
Check out The Greatest Hits 9.4 on IMDb.
Stick around, I got one more segment coming up for you in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Greta Thunberg responds to Asperger's critics, quote, it's a superpower.
Teenage climate activist responds to criticism, saying, when haters go after your looks and differences, you know you're winning.
You know what?
She's got a point.
It's an ad hominem attack.
And I think people who are criticizing Greta for being, you know, autistic or for being goofy looking or whatever, you're losing, you're losing, okay?
You've lost.
I completely agree with Greta.
However, I also want to point out the strange phenomenon of Democrats being led by children.
Why?
I've always considered myself on the left, but shouldn't a mature adult be leading the charge?
Well, it's politically expedient because, for one thing, when people criticize the ideas of Greta, like taking a boat across, you know, the Atlantic and then having people fly across the Atlantic to bring it back, it's not carbon neutral.
They say, stop attacking a child!
Why do you have to go after children?
Okay, dude, first of all, I'm an environmentalist.
100%.
I love nature.
I believe nature should be preserved.
I am alarmed by deforestation.
I have worked for several of the world's biggest environmental non-profits, and one of these organizations is one of the biggest contributors to the Democrats.
I believe in environmental policy, protection policy, because we live in a delicate ecosystem.
I also believe you shouldn't be putting children in front of you and engaging in this political battle or walking behind a child because they don't have the experience to lead the charge.
Think about it this way.
I understand it's a political battle, and people aren't going to get hurt, necessarily.
But could you imagine, like, an actual conflict?
Where, like, one army is like, put the child in front of the battalion to lead us to victory!
It's like, well, hold on.
That child doesn't know how to lead you.
They can say things that are charismatic, they can say things that aren't charismatic but still inspire you because it's coming from someone so young, but I'm not gonna follow a child into battle.
I'm sorry.
Because they're gonna do things that are easily poked apart, and they're gonna get insulted.
But I do think there's a tactic here.
When you look at what happened with, like, the Parkland kids, why are you rallying behind children?
Stop.
It's a tactic.
You put the kid in front of you.
You put an autistic, goofy-looking kid in front of you.
I'm not saying this to insult Greta.
I'm saying the critics are calling her autistic and goofy-looking.
You put someone in front of you like that, that way you can easily deflect any argument by saying, you know, it's like Neo in the Matrix stopping the bullets and being like, you can't insult an autistic child who looks strange.
And then the bullets all fall.
It works.
It works on regular people who don't understand what's going on.
They see this little girl, and a regular person has an emotional play, right?
They're emotionally impacted by seeing a small child go, climate change.
And then they say, aw, that's so sweet.
And then when people say, this goofy looking kid, they go, hey, hey, hey, that's mean.
They're not wrong.
It's a clever tactic and it works.
That's why the most important thing you should do is, first of all, don't insult people's appearances.
If you want to make a criticism over, like, the body positivity stuff, I get that because I've done that too.
That's about health and about pushing back on a capitalistic system that's entertaining a weird, unhealthy lifestyle.
Yes, you can criticize capitalism.
It's not a perfect religion.
There are problems.
I believe in a mixed economy.
And I believe in criticizing vices.
It's fine.
But I don't think when you're engaging in a political argument you should be making fun of someone for looking strange.
They will use that against you.
But I think it's important to point out this is a manipulation.
Let's read a little bit of the story and then we'll continue on with the narrative of the left is using immature children to lead them as a human shield of sorts, like a political shield.
Greta Thunberg has spoken about her Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis after she was criticized over the condition, saying it makes her a different, but that she considers it a superpower.
Thunberg, the public face of the school climate strike movement, said on Twitter that before she started her climate action campaign, she had no energy, no friends, and didn't speak to anyone.
I just sat at home alone with an eating disorder.
She said she had not been open about her diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum in order to hide behind it, but because she knew many ignorant people still see it as an illness or something negative.
And then she goes on to make that statement.
Let me stress something.
There's a quote from Greta where she says, like, I don't want you to, uh, what does she say?
I don't want you to be calm or something.
I want you to panic.
I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.
Okay.
What is she, 16?
You only feel that fear because a bunch of adults keep shaking you violently, going, The end is coming!
And then screaming in your face.
And then you get scared, going, What's happening?
What's happening?
If they weren't grabbing you by the shoulders and screaming in your face, you wouldn't feel any fear.
She then turns around, now embracing the fear from the people shrieking in her ears, and shrieks it back at them, and they'll get scared.
I made this point in my past segment, where I said, imagine, it's about the Red Hats, imagine you have a line of people forming a circle, you know, take a hundred people, one behind another, forming a circle.
And then someone, they all scream.
One by one they scream, and the screams get louder and louder, and people keep getting more and more scared, because the person behind them keeps shrieking, the end is coming.
Now they're in this loop.
A bunch of adults come out and say, we have 10 years left before the end comes.
You know what Ocasio-Cortez says?
12 years until irreparable damage on the planet that can never be reversed.
You scream that to a 16-year-old who doesn't understand the world, politics, or science, and then she starts shrieking and saying, I feel fear every day.
Well, stop.
Calm down.
The world's not ending.
OK?
We have problems.
I'm an environmentalist.
I think we need to come up with new technologies, and we need to act fast.
This is not how you do it.
Because when you act hysterical, you lose the argument.
Think about it this way.
Let's say you go down to Town Center, and there's a guy wearing a nice button-up shirt and a clipboard.
And he says, excuse me, can I talk to you?
And I want to show you some things.
You know, we've got a serious problem with lead in our pipes.
We need to retrofit them.
I think it's causing illnesses.
Recently, they're going to go, oh, whoa, is that for real?
And be like, look, don't take my word for it.
Go to City Hall and talk to them about the levels and the studies they've done.
And I think if we can come together, we can solve this problem.
And they'll say, wow, thanks for telling me.
Or at the least, you can say, look, We might not be able to fix these pipes.
It's negatively impacting the poorest of our community, and that's a problem.
We're only as strong as our weakest link.
But at least for now, avoid drinking the tap water, and see what you can do, and we're going to work together.
And you might actually find people saying, hey, hey, let me help.
Let me help fix this.
Can I donate?
Can I bring water somewhere else?
Can we ship in bottled water?
I'm using the lead in the water as a general analogy.
Now let's present another scenario.
You walk into the town center, and there's a person holding up a giant sign, screaming, the pipes are killing us!
The water is poison!
Stop!
You must feel the fear!
Feel the fear I fear every day!
The water is poisoning us!
And you're gonna be like, dude, dude, stop, man, leave me alone!
And you're gonna walk away.
They may be right.
Greta might be 100% right.
Her fear may be well-founded.
This is not how you effectively communicate problems because you're creating too large of a gap for someone to jump over.
Bring someone in and say, you know, we've seen the data has presented this problem.
In fact, steelman your argument.
You know what steelman is?
There's strawman and steelman.
Steelman is present the strongest argument from your opposition.
If I, as someone who is for environmental action to help solve the problem of carbon
emissions in the environment and the potential greenhouse, global warming, all that stuff,
climate change, the big thing people need to realize is that the fresh water going into
the oceans will disrupt currents and saline balance.
It's complicated.
However, I recognize there are a lot of people who don't agree with that assessment, in which
case I believe the most—I mean, look, I'm telling you this, but you watch my videos,
you totally understand what I'm about to say.
Entertain the argument from the other side so that you're giving an honest interpretation
of why you think you are right and you will find people will respect you more.
Instead of going to someone and saying, I want you to feel the fear every day like she did, I would say, listen, there are a lot of people on the right that question the current climate science for reasons A, B, and C, X, Y, and Z. There's a concern that it's an effort to alter the economy.
Or to increase international trade.
Here are their arguments.
Personally, I disagree for, you know, reasons 1, 2, 3, 4.
I'm not gonna get into a whole climate debate.
I'm not.
I'm not gonna sit here and debate.
I'm just gonna say, like, if you truly want to be effective, just say, I hear you.
I absolutely hear your argument.
Can we come up with an agreement that will work towards both of our goals?
And what I've typically said is economy plus environment equals everybody happy.
People on the right, in my opinion, the ones I've talked to at least, would likely be willing to entertain a climate deal that is designed to bolster and protect the economy.
Create new jobs over time as quickly as we can.
Not like a complete government overhaul and expansion of the public sector.
That's terrifying.
But if we said, hey, tax incentives might be a good idea.
Republicans, people on the right, like lowering taxes, right?
So we'll do that.
How does that sound?
And we've done stuff like that.
So you have the concerns on the right of strengthening our economy and building up our country and expanding and all those things that are good for the people, and on the left, the environment.
Let's sit down and talk about what advantages we can bring each other through this agreement, because new technology is valuable.
Instead, what do we get?
We get this child who is, you know, has Asperger's, saying, I want you to feel fear.
And it works.
And they use children like they did with Parkland because it's a defense.
I think it's ineffective, right?
You might get a short-term gain, but you'll see two things.
By using someone like Greta and propping her up and throwing money behind her, you will see people poke holes in what she's doing.
That boat ride she took generated way more carbon and had a way higher carbon footprint than just flying on a plane.
What she did was pandering to Republicans.
Now hear me out, she was.
On the left, they don't care if you fly in a private plane.
The celebrities do it all the time.
Some people call them out.
Greta took a boat.
She said, I'm not going to fly.
It's a zero carbon boat.
Right, someone had to build the boat.
She did by second hand, I understand.
But all of the clothing, technology, and supplies, and then people flew across the Atlantic to bring the boat back.
So it was more carbon dense doing it this way.
They did that to push back on conservative criticism that climate activists don't practice what they preach.
So, in a sense, I guess you could say that she was trying to convince them that she was willing to practice what she preached, and I can respect that.
But in the end, it was completely ineffective.
You know what would be more effective?
Here's what I'd do.
I'd come out and say this.
I believe we need to reduce carbon emissions to protect the planet.
I believe the science on the issue, not because science is always right, they're not, but because they know more than I do.
Look, I can't argue with all of these different scientists, and I know it's not an absolute consensus, it's an overwhelming majority, but what am I supposed to do?
I'm not a climate scientist, so I'll take their word for it.
That being the case, the plane leaving from New York to, you know, wherever, is going to fly whether I'm on it or not.
I've decided I will take that flight because it is the fastest and most efficient way to address the problem.
Building a raft out of trees on the beach and then trying to get there will take months and be completely ineffective and we are constrained for time.
That would have been the most effective thing she could have done.
But in the end, they wanted to pander.
And in the end, it was less effective than just being honest and rational.
So I'll say this, my final thought.
The point is, stop hiding behind kids, okay?
Stop taking children and paying to put them in front of you and then getting angry when people criticize them.
I don't believe she has any idea what's going on because she's 16.
I know kids can be smart.
I was smart when I was young, but I was also extremely arrogant and thought I knew more than I really did.
That's a normal thing that kids do.
I thought I knew everything.
Admittedly, I did read a lot all the time and it helped me get to where I am, so I can't say I wasn't successful and I wasn't on the right track, but of course I recognized I was an arrogant youth.
Kids today think they know more than they do.
That's always how it is.
And there's good things about being confident and headstrong.
But in the end, we need experts and leaders and charisma and rational thought and unity to bring us together.
I definitely have respect for Greta.
I think she's doing great things, but I do detest those that would prop her up as a shield, a political shield.
If you're a kid and you want to stand up for what you believe in, that is the first step to making change and doing the right thing, and I respect it.
From the Parkland kids to Greta, I'm just sick and tired of the left being led by children.
