Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Paul, Mission control decand most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. Before we begin our exploration this evening.
Speaker 3: If you have some time, if the spirit so moves you,
Speaker 3: why not drop us a kind review on your podcast
Speaker 3: platform of choice. It's a way to vote for us.
Speaker 3: It's a free vote, and as we'll learn, elections are important.
Speaker 4: Free and fair election in iTunes review form. Yes, thank
Speaker 4: you for your service.
Speaker 3: That's why Steve Jobs did the whole thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: elections are kind of a hot topic, to say the
Speaker 3: least about it, and in some places they can be
Speaker 3: downright dangerous. One of the things that human society has
Speaker 3: always quarreled with is what we call the peaceful transition
Speaker 3: of power. And you know, here in the United States,
Speaker 3: it seems like we're continually in one campaign cycle or another.
Speaker 3: You know, anybody listening you probably have received crazy cold
Speaker 3: call text messages proliferating in recent months that just say
Speaker 3: something in all caps and then also donate money to us.
Speaker 4: I had a lovely lady knock on my door on
Speaker 4: behalf of her husband who's campaigning for state senate here
Speaker 4: in Georgia, and I can't remember the tagline, but she left.
Speaker 4: She signed off with his like campaign slogan, and I
Speaker 4: thought it was very charming, and I, you know what,
Speaker 4: I saved the handbill and I'll probably vote for him
Speaker 4: just because she was so nice.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm into that somehow too. If there's somebody I could
Speaker 2: see around town that I voted for, I feel like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I did something for real.
Speaker 3: I love that, you guys, know I without disclosing too
Speaker 3: much personal info, I live walking distance to a library
Speaker 3: where elections are held, and it's always cool because this
Speaker 3: is just between us and the millions of us listening
Speaker 3: along tonight. Those before and also immediately after elections, those
Speaker 3: candidates just find excuses to hang out at the Library's
Speaker 3: just so like to your point, Matt, so that they
Speaker 3: can be seen as a member of the community.
Speaker 4: And you know, and to be fair, some of them
Speaker 4: very much are, especially in these local, smaller elections, Like
Speaker 4: you know, they make a point of being community boosters
Speaker 4: and showing face and going to those kinds of events.
Speaker 3: And thanks to a fantastic message from our fellow conspiracy
Speaker 3: realist Tay Gray, we have been exploring some strange stuff
Speaker 3: about elections abroad. When everything works as it should, elections
Speaker 3: are powerful and positive. They give the public agency. They
Speaker 3: help us decide how we will be represented domestically and abroad.
Speaker 3: So with all this power on the table, it's not
Speaker 3: really surprising that elections are always a ripe subject for conspiracies.
Speaker 3: In tonight's episode, we're traveling the world to learn why
Speaker 3: some people are convinced elections have become a tool of war.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, let's put on our
Speaker 3: nerd policy walk hats. Yeah, of course I love the
Speaker 3: term boffin. So to be a policy walk first off,
Speaker 3: you have to have a garish bow tie every time
Speaker 3: you're on CNN or Fox News or whatever.
Speaker 4: Must I That's not really my style though, can I
Speaker 4: just I don't know where like a.
Speaker 2: You can still wear the hat and you just have
Speaker 2: to also wear the bow tie.
Speaker 4: You could also do a bolo I do, thank you.
Speaker 4: I was looking for alternatives. I love a bolo. I've
Speaker 4: recently become a nolo bolo.
Speaker 3: What would you wear, Matt as a policy walk.
Speaker 2: I would just be completely naked to show.
Speaker 5: I've got nothing to hide.
Speaker 3: Just don't let them stand up on the zoom call
Speaker 3: or do or do? Let's really speak to the public.
Speaker 3: Episode is about elections. Ten minutes off air that we
Speaker 3: subjected our long suffering super producer to all of our
Speaker 3: election jokes. But voting, though, Why is voting important?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Well, in democracies, the only way things done is if
Speaker 2: there's a big old vote.
Speaker 3: Or the appearance thereof Hey, now, let's not be cynical here.
Speaker 4: Democracy works as intended on paper every single time.
Speaker 3: Right, Look, we've nailed it there. It sounds like an
Speaker 3: obvious question, but the answer is quite important. It's mission critical,
Speaker 3: especially in a functioning democracy. If imagine a world in
Speaker 3: which for some reason, every eligible voter in the United
Speaker 3: States decided to abstain, just no one voted for president,
Speaker 3: including the presidential candidates. It was zero to zero. That
Speaker 3: has never happened in an election. And if that did happen,
Speaker 3: modern society could not move forward. There would be a
Speaker 3: crisis point. It's such a weird hypothetical that the founding fathers,
Speaker 3: you know, found themselves in a found themselves in a
Speaker 3: prisoner's dilemma. Right. People feel like they have to vote
Speaker 3: even if they don't want to, because if they don't,
Speaker 3: then someone else will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we talked about this before. In the previous
Speaker 2: presidential election in the United States, only sixty six percent
Speaker 2: of eligible voters.
Speaker 5: Voted, which is why I was so tight.
Speaker 4: I mean, it makes sense, and that seems to be
Speaker 4: what's happening right now as well. Although we do have
Speaker 4: the potential for maybe some folks that abstained last time
Speaker 4: to maybe get out, you know, to the polls because
Speaker 4: of some sort of new excitement around particular candidate and
Speaker 4: party or what have you. But it is interesting that
Speaker 4: we're seeing these tight margins and that largely has to
Speaker 4: do with folks just kind of not making time for it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, guys, I didn't realize. This is from
Speaker 2: the Pew Research Center. By the way, in the twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen what they call midterm elections here in the US,
Speaker 2: where if you don't live here that's when most of
Speaker 2: the time there are votes for the Senate and the
Speaker 2: House of Representatives, there's only a turnout of forty nine percent.
Speaker 3: Right, because most people in the United States only vote
Speaker 3: when it's time to vote for the US president, which
Speaker 3: is wild. But part of that is, we could argue
Speaker 3: by insidious design here in this country, and indeed in
Speaker 3: many other countries, there are a lot of powerful people
Speaker 3: who for some reason or another would prefer that you
Speaker 3: not vote at all. And in the US it is
Speaker 3: entirely legal to just not do it, to just not participate,
Speaker 3: because we don't have mandatory voting. Twenty one countries do.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 4: Well, it's just interesting too, how of that sixty percent
Speaker 4: issue said in the main election or in the main
Speaker 4: election Excuse me, I'm adding to the problem. The presidential
Speaker 4: election last cycle, it's about fifty to fifty split down
Speaker 4: the middle in terms of like you know who those
Speaker 4: people support, which.
Speaker 5: Just makes it really, really difficult.
Speaker 4: And you see these I'm sorry I'm repeating myself, but
Speaker 4: it's astonishing how you have like margins of thousands of
Speaker 4: votes that can like make all the difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and sometimes those chats that's hang, that's not.
Speaker 5: Chad Chad loves to hang. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, voting laws vary from country to country, but generally speaking,
Speaker 3: if you want to vote in a country, you are
Speaker 3: required to be an adult and a citizen in good
Speaker 3: legal standing. You have to be registered most times, and
Speaker 3: you have to have documentation to prove it. That's a
Speaker 3: very that's something that becomes incredibly important when we look
Speaker 3: at the ideas of election interference. I mean, look, also,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of people in the US who
Speaker 3: can't vote, children, felons, depending on the state.
Speaker 4: Well, and not to mention many felons quote unquote, we're
Speaker 4: not able to vote under laws that have since been changed. Right, Like,
Speaker 4: so people had their their were disenfranchised for years because
Speaker 4: maybe a very small margin that led to a felony
Speaker 4: marijuana possession, and now those laws have been changed, but
Speaker 4: those people don't really get any recompense for that time
Speaker 4: that they were not allowed to vote. I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 4: just very interesting to me, like how that led to
Speaker 4: so many people not being able to vote, so many
Speaker 4: people largely affected who.
Speaker 5: Maybe would have voted in a particular direction.
Speaker 3: Let's sure think back to the horrors of polling tests. Right,
Speaker 3: how on earth is somebody going to be expected to
Speaker 3: know Mandarin In the rural South, there are insidious attempts,
Speaker 3: conspiracies to prevent people from voting. And before this sounds
Speaker 3: to partisan, that runs across American history, that is an inarguable,
Speaker 3: inextricable piece of the American experiment and as part of
Speaker 3: why voting is so controversial. The practice of elections often
Speaker 3: falls short of the theory of elections sometimes honest mistakes,
Speaker 3: like especially back before there were more robust methods of
Speaker 3: accounting for votes, people just might mess up. They might
Speaker 3: carry the wrong number across the equation.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you, guys real quick, how do you
Speaker 4: feel about the idea of mandatory voting? I think, based
Speaker 4: on what we've said thus far, probably would never happen here,
Speaker 4: just because by design, like you said, some folks don't want.
Speaker 5: People to vote. But how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4: I mean, we're required to, like pay taxes, we're required
Speaker 4: to do certain municipal things as a result of being
Speaker 4: a citizen, and yet we're not required to exercise that
Speaker 4: most important you know, right.
Speaker 2: If you could somehow make it simple and easy and
Speaker 2: secure enough, then yeah, I mean, that would be awesome.
Speaker 2: There's just a button. There are two buttons you got
Speaker 2: to push a couple of times, you know, every four
Speaker 2: years or whatever, every two years. Sure, but I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't think the still see it happening.
Speaker 3: I have been on a record I am one hundred
Speaker 3: percent on board with mandatory voting so long as it
Speaker 3: could be simple and seamless and transparent. And I think
Speaker 3: answering those three factors is what makes it so difficult
Speaker 3: for those in power in the US to ever co
Speaker 3: sign something like this. I mean, you know, it's strange because,
Speaker 3: especially if you're a conspiracy realist of a certain age,
Speaker 3: it's strange because you can see this increasingly divisive political
Speaker 3: climate right to the point where not too long ago
Speaker 3: people were concerned there might be a second Civil war.
Speaker 3: Right now, when someone's candidate, you know, their chosen person
Speaker 3: doesn't win an election, whether it's for president or whether
Speaker 3: it's for like local city council person or cog catcher,
Speaker 3: right right then, many people, we would say, will immediately
Speaker 3: allege conspiracy. It's not that the public has spoken, it's
Speaker 3: not that someone has been honestly outvoted. It's that the
Speaker 3: system is rigged. And the weirdest thing is people often
Speaker 3: do have legitimate grievances here, and part of those grievances
Speaker 3: come from the fact that the US has a weird
Speaker 3: voting system. They're actually, if you're not from the US,
Speaker 3: we got it to just spend a little bit of time,
Speaker 3: make a little bit of space for this thing. There
Speaker 3: are two types of voting in presidential elections in specific,
Speaker 3: there's the popular vote, that's the one Jane and John
Speaker 3: Q Blue Jeans can actually participate in. And then there's
Speaker 3: the electoral college, which is its own thing, and it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be informed by the popular vote, but unless
Speaker 3: you are an elector for your state, you know, get
Speaker 3: to choose.
Speaker 5: Another weird thing.
Speaker 4: I mentioned this guy a lot, and he's been on
Speaker 4: Daily Zeitgeist before, Jason Pargin. He makes these really great
Speaker 4: short Instagram videos, and he pointed out that, like what's
Speaker 4: going on right now in the US presidential election, with
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris getting that kind of last minute, you know, switcheroo,
Speaker 4: the amount of time that she has to campaign is
Speaker 4: much more along the lead lines of what happens in
Speaker 4: other countries that the election campaigning cycle in the US
Speaker 4: is really really bizarrely long, and that you don't see
Speaker 4: that in other countries. That hadn't really occurred to me,
Speaker 4: but apparently that's the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, back to the electoral college, guys, do you remember
Speaker 2: that Key and Peel like a mini sketch basically that
Speaker 2: they did where they're playing basketball and Keegan Michael Key
Speaker 2: is like, yeah, you gotta make sure you vote, and
Speaker 2: Jordan Peele's.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, okay, I'll vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's like, cause you know, we're gonna have our fake vote,
Speaker 2: the public vote, and then it goes to the real vote.
Speaker 2: He's like, wait what And then they explained the electoral
Speaker 2: college somewhat, so we know.
Speaker 3: That the electoral college, it's just it's a it's what
Speaker 3: we would call in entertainment, a choice. And I hope
Speaker 3: you can hear the italics there.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 3: It is a thing that remains controversial for good reason.
Speaker 3: And we often forget here in the United States that
Speaker 3: the US is not the world entire If you travel
Speaker 3: across the globe and witness the many other elections and
Speaker 3: the many other countries, you will find disturbing accusations of
Speaker 3: conspiracy and corruption on pretty much every single continent. Other
Speaker 3: than Antarctica. And the only reason I'm saying other than
Speaker 3: Antarctica is because we don't have transparency or visibility into
Speaker 3: you know, whatever those scientists are voting for that like
Speaker 3: they might have accusations of corruption when it comes to
Speaker 3: you know, voting on that month's menu, right, and someone's
Speaker 3: like you are burying the mac and cheese candidate. We
Speaker 3: don't know possible. So as a result, there's this huge
Speaker 3: industry of people, a rotating ensemble cast, dedicated to election monitoring.
Speaker 3: And the idea is that with election monitoring, you send
Speaker 3: a group of independent, third party observers to a country
Speaker 3: to watch the vote happen, starting you know before, like
Speaker 3: when they're in their version of a campaign season, and
Speaker 3: staying afterwards. And they're supposed to ensure again in theory
Speaker 3: that a given election is legitimate. Votes are counted accurately,
Speaker 3: Voters are not intimidated, nor threatened, nor prevented from accessing
Speaker 3: the polls. They vote their conscience. This is a beautiful thing,
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful idea. We also know that there are
Speaker 3: tons of ways to influence elections that are perhaps unethical
Speaker 3: but technically legal. The great dark art of electioneering. You know,
Speaker 3: lobbying groups. We got super packs here, which is a
Speaker 3: crazy thing. And then, weirdly enough, you guys, I was
Speaker 3: thinking about this, How bonkers is it that in the
Speaker 3: United States celebrity endorsements have become such a big deal.
Speaker 3: People who are not qualified as you know, as policy
Speaker 3: wonks or experts, people who are not super read up
Speaker 3: you know, on geopolitical concerns, but they made your favorite
Speaker 3: album of the past year. So yeah, the way they
Speaker 3: say you should vote.
Speaker 5: You might.
Speaker 2: You might just do it because hey, if they like it,
Speaker 2: maybe I should. There's maybe there's something I'm not seeing,
Speaker 2: but are there are other ways to mess with elections too,
Speaker 2: And a lot of it has to do with once
Speaker 2: you get in power, what other influence can you have
Speaker 2: on the power mechanism? So the other leavers of government
Speaker 2: that exist in whatever country you are currently running, which
Speaker 2: is a big part of what we're going to be
Speaker 2: talking about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hunt the nerds, hunt the judges right, control the
Speaker 3: means of production voting wise, And this is our question.
Speaker 3: Could a country weaponize another country's voting process? If so,
Speaker 3: what does that look like, What could it mean for
Speaker 3: the future? What exactly are zombie monitors.
Speaker 4: Oh, I certainly want to know, and we're all gonna
Speaker 4: find out together when we get back from a quick break.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy, all right, let's get in
Speaker 3: front of it. Sadly, zombie monitors are not, in fact
Speaker 3: undead lizards boom.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: And before we get into that, let's kind of define
Speaker 2: what zombie zombie election monitors are. According to the National
Speaker 2: Endowment for Democracy, these are monitoring organizations that look like
Speaker 2: they're legitimate, but they actually are not. And they're willing
Speaker 2: to quote ignore internationally accepted norms about what constitutes free
Speaker 2: and fair democratic elections in order to create confusion about
Speaker 2: the authenticity of an election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd agree with that, well said, And we've got
Speaker 3: to dive in, and to do that we have to
Speaker 3: learn the larger context at play here. Right, goes back
Speaker 3: to what we're talking about, the idea of election interference.
Speaker 3: You might not know this, folks. The founding fathers of
Speaker 3: the United States a super like, a supergroup of absolutely
Speaker 3: imperfect dudes. One of their primary concerns about threats to
Speaker 3: the American experiment was that foreign countries would interfere. That
Speaker 3: foreign powers, and let's be honest, they were mainly worried
Speaker 3: about European powers. They would that those powers might interfere
Speaker 3: with the vote. And they were so worried about this
Speaker 3: that it influenced how they wrote the constitution. That's why
Speaker 3: we've got that one line that sounds kind of un
Speaker 3: American without context. You can't be president unless you're a
Speaker 3: natural born citizen, like you have to be born on US.
Speaker 4: Soil, just to like head off at the pass any
Speaker 4: threat of you know, like some sleeper agents or something
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 5: Right, it's acting on the behalf of other interests.
Speaker 2: Thankfully we've gone around that because you can have as
Speaker 2: many advisors from any other country you want to.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, you love to see it. Yeah, you can also,
Speaker 3: of course, be bored on a US military installation abroad.
Speaker 3: That still counts for people who were following these kind
Speaker 3: of stories earlier. You know that it sometimes comes up
Speaker 3: as an idea that people float during an election. I
Speaker 3: think most notably, or one I remember was when the
Speaker 3: actor and later politician Arnold Schwarzenegger not Norman Schwarzkraft. Arnold
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger was able to serve as governor right of California,
Speaker 3: and people wanted him to run for president so much
Speaker 3: so that they floated the idea of changing the constitution,
Speaker 3: which is a super ambitious concept.
Speaker 5: Well, floating and getting it done are two very different things.
Speaker 4: I sincerely doubt that would get bipartisans isn't there Also,
Speaker 4: doesn't this have to do with that emolument's clause that
Speaker 4: we've been hearing a lot about in the news over
Speaker 4: the last handful of years, The idea of not being
Speaker 4: allowed to accept gifts and you know, kind of from
Speaker 4: foreign powers. And I know it's bigger than that, but
Speaker 4: isn't that the just.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was one of the other things they were
Speaker 3: really concerned about. They were concerned that there was vulnerability
Speaker 3: to bribery that are very powerful foreign hostile force would
Speaker 3: be able to essentially buy out the courts, or buy
Speaker 3: out Congress, or own a president. And it turns out
Speaker 3: they were prescient about at least they were prescient in
Speaker 3: their concern about foreign interference, because research has proven beyond
Speaker 3: a shadow of doubt that other countries have spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time and money attempting to influence elections in
Speaker 3: the United States, and not always for the reasons we
Speaker 3: might assume. Because we have to realize that these countries
Speaker 3: exercise this asymmetric warfare. They don't think of themselves as
Speaker 3: the bad guys. They think of themselves as what we
Speaker 3: would call solution oriented. So Russia and China both waged
Speaker 3: information war in previous elections, and just this year, as
Speaker 3: we're recording, in the evening of August thirtieth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: it appears that hackers in Iran, operating under the auspice
Speaker 3: of the Revolutionary Guard, targeted the Trump campaign. I gotta
Speaker 3: tell you, you know, I think we can all agree people,
Speaker 3: especially here in the US, often tend to have a
Speaker 3: knee jerk reaction to this stuff. Like if you're a
Speaker 3: fan of the Hillary Clinton campaign, you would dismiss accusations
Speaker 3: of corruption as fake news. If you're a fan of
Speaker 3: her opponent, Donald Trump in that campaign, you would tend
Speaker 3: to do the same. You would be like this, these
Speaker 3: are the other guys trying to muddy the water. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I know what's what.
Speaker 3: I'm an informed voter, and this is fertile ground for
Speaker 3: conspiracies of foreign election interference. I think it's important for
Speaker 3: us to note that the countries who are doing this again,
Speaker 3: they don't see themselves as the bad guys. They don't
Speaker 3: have the same set of desires or interest as domestic citizens.
Speaker 3: They're trying to put their finger on the scale for
Speaker 3: whichever candidate might best suit their geopolitical goals. And that's
Speaker 3: a very different thing from let's say a voter who
Speaker 3: is worried about inflation or is worried about education, things
Speaker 3: like that. That doesn't matter to these guys. What matters
Speaker 3: to them is a much larger horizon of concerns. And
Speaker 3: so if they have, you know, if they have a
Speaker 3: candidate that they're kind of working against, and that candidate
Speaker 3: cracks a deal with them and switches sides, then they'll
Speaker 3: switch sides too, because they just want it to get done,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: They just.
Speaker 3: They just want to control the microchips and so on.
Speaker 4: Careful, careful, you're saying politicians don't always believe everything they
Speaker 4: talk about.
Speaker 3: Whoa whoa FBI here he is. It's just what you're right, though, nol.
Speaker 3: I mean, we also know that countries will conspire behind
Speaker 3: the scenes with each other. A great example of this
Speaker 3: would be the nineteen seventeen Zimmerman Telegram, where in the
Speaker 3: Foreign Minister of Germany at the time, he had his ambassador.
Speaker 3: He was trying to be slick. He had his ambassador
Speaker 3: to Mexico send a pitch letter and they said, hey,
Speaker 3: if you ally with us, with Germany against the United States,
Speaker 3: then you know, we'll just we'll give you a bunch
Speaker 3: of land that used to be the United States. We're
Speaker 3: on your side, so help influence opinions. Right, And this
Speaker 3: is I don't know, I think this is the part
Speaker 3: where we also have to note, Paul, if we could
Speaker 3: get a wamp wamp perfect, the US is not a
Speaker 3: paragon of good behavior in this respect. The US in
Speaker 3: fact skips past a lot of the tame election interference
Speaker 3: methods and they just straight up have killed people and
Speaker 3: overthrown governments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, search our feeds for School of the Americas if
Speaker 2: you will, especially on YouTube and watch the old video
Speaker 2: there really explains that stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Democratically elected leaders too. Yeah, they just went for it.
Speaker 3: There aren't really good guys in geopolitics. And yeah, the
Speaker 3: Founding fathers had no idea how much of a role
Speaker 3: twenty first century technology will play in elections, but they
Speaker 3: were pretty on point to be worried about all the
Speaker 3: things that could go wrong. I mean, this is a question, right,
Speaker 3: do we think that technology has empowered citizens of countries
Speaker 3: to vote? Or has it made it easier for bad
Speaker 3: faith actors to interfere? Or is it both?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I know there's always kind of a
Speaker 4: reluctance to go full online, like full technology for elections.
Speaker 4: You know, at least over here, there's always some analog
Speaker 4: kind of hand counted aspects, you know. To your point,
Speaker 4: Matt about like how in this country it probably would
Speaker 4: be difficult to have mandatory voting because I don't think
Speaker 4: they're ever.
Speaker 5: Going to just make it online where you don't have
Speaker 5: to leave the house.
Speaker 4: There always needs to be some aspect of the process
Speaker 4: that is monitored by humans or at the very least
Speaker 4: double checked by humans, or some paper ballot aspect.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to that sixty six percent of American
Speaker 2: citizens voted in the previous presidential election. If you know
Speaker 2: that over thirty percent of voters pretty much aren't going
Speaker 2: to vote, and now you're implementing technology pretty heavily and
Speaker 2: gaviring as much information about that thirty percent of voters
Speaker 2: that isn't going to vote couldn't you somehow, behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: through some backdoor, make it look as though at least
Speaker 2: a percentage of that thirty percent did vote, maybe in
Speaker 2: favor of your candidate.
Speaker 4: How so, like how I had one implement that are
Speaker 4: you talking about through like hacks or through you know,
Speaker 4: bad acting Like.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying, with technology, you are gathering more and
Speaker 2: more information on the voter.
Speaker 3: So that's I'm glad you brought that up, because that's
Speaker 3: going back to that question I had just asked, Right,
Speaker 3: is it empowering people with information or is it empowering
Speaker 3: bad faith actors with information? Would be another way to
Speaker 3: phrase this. We know that cyber attacks, info war, well
Speaker 3: timed leaks, shout out to WikiLeaks. All this stuff is
Speaker 3: super affordable for a state actor, and when you deploy
Speaker 3: it successfully, it yields a huge bang for your buck. Right,
Speaker 3: and people are also I would argue. I would argue
Speaker 3: to that point, people are more vulnerable now to disinformation
Speaker 3: than they are empowered.
Speaker 5: Like if you read if you read.
Speaker 3: Arguments from US citizens going back decades, just decades, then
Speaker 3: you'll see that the average person seemed to at least
Speaker 3: appear to give in depth answers about public policy stuff
Speaker 3: that no offense. I certainly couldn't answer if someone had
Speaker 3: a man on the street interview with me and they
Speaker 3: were like, what do you find to be the most
Speaker 3: troubling and or promising things about the new idea of
Speaker 3: stepping away from the gold standard?
Speaker 4: I mean, of course knowledge is power in theory, but
Speaker 4: when you know you have access to so much, yeah,
Speaker 4: admittedly good information, there almost is this like pushback of
Speaker 4: flooding that good information with bad information and misleading information.
Speaker 4: So it's almost like a zero sum game in a way,
Speaker 4: where like, yes, we do have access to all this
Speaker 4: great stuff, but it's also so muddied by all these
Speaker 4: bad actors flooding it so that it's almost like finding
Speaker 4: a needle in a haystack sometimes to get the good
Speaker 4: information guys.
Speaker 2: I would argue that with the technology, and as that
Speaker 2: is increased, the usage of different forms of technology, as
Speaker 2: that's increased, we've seen an increase in the set of
Speaker 2: talking points that is simply aimed at the other candidate,
Speaker 2: rather than on those actual policies that we're talking about
Speaker 2: the things that could be changed or that a populace
Speaker 2: may want to have changed By having a new person
Speaker 2: in office, it's altered now to just oh, well, you
Speaker 2: can't vote for that person because of X. Right, And
Speaker 2: at least those are the conversations that I've been engaged
Speaker 2: in where I'm just meeting somebody new and the subject
Speaker 2: comes up and it's all about, well, don't vote for
Speaker 2: that person because of whatever thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're a crooked comptroller. The idea the idea too,
Speaker 3: and I love that we're pointing this out. The idea
Speaker 3: is weaponization of headlines, right, and the discourse becomes a
Speaker 3: lot more bread and circuses, a lot more theatrical. Let
Speaker 3: me you know, I have taught you this phrase, and
Speaker 3: this phrase is now going to be used as a
Speaker 3: thought terminating cliche. So when I say this phrase, you
Speaker 3: will respond, as programmed right, to either go yay or
Speaker 3: to go boo.
Speaker 2: No more new taxes, read my lips.
Speaker 3: And what he meant. Of course, as we said a
Speaker 3: previous episode was no comma more taxes, So because you
Speaker 3: sure put them in. But I think we're on the
Speaker 3: same page. There's no reason to assume that these technological
Speaker 3: trends will do anything but continue you as time goes on,
Speaker 3: and by this point, it's more or less common knowledge.
Speaker 3: But before we go to our next break, there is
Speaker 3: another aspect of election interference that does not get as
Speaker 3: much attention in the West, and it really should. What
Speaker 3: if you could pretend to monitor elections in other countries
Speaker 3: throughout the world as a cover for downright evil things.
Speaker 3: That's what a zombie monitor does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll take a quick break here away from our
Speaker 4: sponsor and then jump right into that.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Speaker 3: And of course you're gonna hear a lot of fancy,
Speaker 3: innocuous names here, so please check into all the controlling
Speaker 3: powers of the institutions we mentioned. There was an excellent
Speaker 3: article by a guy named Joseph Siegel that references a
Speaker 3: book by a guy named Samuel run Manny and Romani
Speaker 3: writes about Russia in Africa Resurgent great power or bellicos pretender.
Speaker 3: And I want to point out I love the word bellicos.
Speaker 3: You don't see it used often outside of you know,
Speaker 3: United Nations diplomacy stuff, But if you're ever in an
Speaker 3: argument with one of your friends, accuse them of being bellicos.
Speaker 2: It just means like it's like belligerent, inflammatory in the
Speaker 2: pot right, ready to fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, belligerent agro. You could also say provocative.
Speaker 3: It's basically warlike and it's just a fancy word that
Speaker 3: that people in the international set prefer to use over hater. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, these bars in Buckhead are feeling really bellicos around
Speaker 2: two am.
Speaker 3: There it is there, it is. So what what's brilliant
Speaker 3: about this argument is that they depict how desperation puts
Speaker 3: Russia as a foreign power to pursue unorthodox methods of
Speaker 3: influencing the African continent. And I don't know about you guys,
Speaker 3: but I learned a lot about this. I think we
Speaker 3: had together been doing more and more research when we
Speaker 3: were learning about the Wagner group and their adventurism on
Speaker 3: that continent.
Speaker 2: But uh oh yeah, and.
Speaker 4: I love that term, right, It's like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 4: conquest basically, is what it means.
Speaker 2: Well, we were also learning a lot about the influence
Speaker 2: that China was exerting in many countries on the African continent,
Speaker 2: and you know, for different purposes, but utilizing some of
Speaker 2: the same methods to make sure they've got people in
Speaker 2: the right positions to say, Okay.
Speaker 3: Mm hm exactly. We'd love for you to have a
Speaker 3: base of operations here. And you know what, that's a
Speaker 3: great point. We don't need to take this to the
Speaker 3: UN I mean yeah, like I don't. I don't need
Speaker 3: to call my senator just because someone's crashing my house.
Speaker 3: Let's came out, bro.
Speaker 2: But in China is one of the countries that, at
Speaker 2: least for my money, I would say, is a big
Speaker 2: financial player in many countries on the African continent. What
Speaker 2: is Russia's role there? How is it different?
Speaker 3: It's interesting because Russia as a state power is not
Speaker 3: a big financial player in the region in comparison to
Speaker 3: you know, your US or your colonial European powers or
Speaker 3: China of course, which is actually China is kind of
Speaker 3: winning if you're talking about foreign influence. And check out
Speaker 3: our earlier episode on that a few years ago, which
Speaker 3: unfortunately remains relevant. Russia was in a pickle. They have
Speaker 3: a ton of trade prospects. It was interesting to learn
Speaker 3: that this country is the source of less than one
Speaker 3: percent of what we call foreign direct investment in Africa overall.
Speaker 3: So while Russia has a very big shadow militarily and
Speaker 3: a very big political shadow, a very big energy production shadow.
Speaker 3: They don't have a big financial shadow in Africa, at
Speaker 3: least not officially. So what they decided to do they
Speaker 3: were thinking, all right, we got to pitch these these leaders,
Speaker 3: these king makers in this collection of countries. We got
Speaker 3: to pitch them on being friends with us and letting
Speaker 3: us explore their resources quote unquote, letting us also base
Speaker 3: our military there for more force projection. We're going to
Speaker 3: do a different We're going to take a different path.
Speaker 3: We're going to be the disruptors. We're going to stick
Speaker 3: up for any African dictator, and we're going to legitimize
Speaker 3: whatever the hell they're doing.
Speaker 2: Dude, well, what does that mean. That means that if
Speaker 2: you ever see, let's say, a coup that occurs on
Speaker 2: the African content in any country, pick your country, because
Speaker 2: there have been so many over the past decade, Russia
Speaker 2: puts its hand up and says, hey, we got your back,
Speaker 2: no problem. What do you need, what do you need?
Speaker 2: You guys need some help, We're there for you, exactly.
Speaker 2: It does make you wonder a little bit, at least
Speaker 2: it makes me wonder when you hear a former president,
Speaker 2: you know, in an official capacity, just making off andder
Speaker 2: remarks about, oh well, I actually think you know that
Speaker 2: one leader of this dictatorship is a strong leader or
Speaker 2: something like that, and that leader is being propped up
Speaker 2: by Russia in this way. And then there are also
Speaker 2: accusations that that same president is being in some way
Speaker 2: meddled with right by Russia. It's just it makes you think.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's true necessarily, it just feels.
Speaker 3: Off to me, right, And a big part of this,
Speaker 3: a big part of these conspiracies does depend on feeling right.
Speaker 3: What appears to be the case, How does this seem?
Speaker 3: And this is where Russia went into deep narrative war. Essentially,
Speaker 3: their argument was any time someone might criticize Russia or
Speaker 3: co signing of corrupt government functions, Russia would pop back
Speaker 3: in and they would clap back really and they would say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know what, though the West shouldn't run everything, we're
Speaker 3: here to help. We support African solutions to African problems.
Speaker 3: And guess what, you guys, we're not old school colonial
Speaker 3: powers on this continent. Remember Belgium, remember France, And then
Speaker 3: you know you can't blame it. Like obviously, that message
Speaker 3: resonates deeply with many people in these countries who survived colonialism, right,
Speaker 3: that wasn't too long ago, and it's scary, scary stuff.
Speaker 3: So that, I think is a point well made. And
Speaker 3: if we're exercising empathy, I could totally understand being someone
Speaker 3: in a postcolonial African country and saying, hey, yeah, I
Speaker 3: know Russia doesn't get everything right, but at least they're
Speaker 3: not letting themselves be trod upon by the expansionist West,
Speaker 3: or yeah.
Speaker 2: Or it doesn't appear as though they're trying to control
Speaker 2: us outright.
Speaker 3: Right, right, unless you check out things like the Russia
Speaker 3: Sphere network, or to be fair, things like Voice of America.
Speaker 2: Well it's that, no, just look it up.
Speaker 3: Let's leave those coughs in that silence in yeah, look
Speaker 3: it up. So now we get to zombie election monitoring.
Speaker 3: The emergent tool that's become quite popular is the idea
Speaker 3: of sending in what are sometimes euphemistically called low quality
Speaker 3: election monitors, or more controversially, zombie monitors. And we have
Speaker 3: a great quote about this from a paper that's free
Speaker 3: to read online.
Speaker 4: That's right in their article Zombies Ahead, explaining the rise
Speaker 4: of low quality election monitoring. The authors Sarah soun Bush,
Speaker 4: Christina Catcierro and Laura Praether make the argument that this
Speaker 4: is in their words, the number of organizations engaged in
Speaker 4: high quality election monitoring has plateaued, but the number of
Speaker 4: low quality monitors, commonly known as zombie monitors, has continued
Speaker 4: to grow.
Speaker 2: And again, these are monitors that just kind they appear
Speaker 2: to have the same function as what would be a
Speaker 2: legitimate election monitoring group, but really they've got ulterior motives.
Speaker 3: M Yeah, And in full disclosure, we are friends with
Speaker 3: people who work or have worked in Western election monitoring,
Speaker 3: folks from the Carter Center, which is based here in
Speaker 3: the United States, and I was personally surprised when I
Speaker 3: was talking with some of those folks about it, and
Speaker 3: I said, well, do you think this is another one
Speaker 3: of our crazy conspiracy things, And they said, no, it
Speaker 3: is absolutely true. Those people are getting sent on the ground.
Speaker 3: And as we'll find, there is a cold and brutal
Speaker 3: logic to doing this. These authoritarian regimes will they're sometimes
Speaker 3: called the Big Five, These countries will send a group
Speaker 3: like we're describing into another country to look at their
Speaker 3: voting process and claim it is legitimate no matter what happens.
Speaker 3: So someone gets you know, one hundred and ten percent
Speaker 3: of the votes, and then these people are literally paid
Speaker 3: to go. This is amazing, guys, democracy, This is what
Speaker 3: the people want. You can see examples of this in
Speaker 3: a lot of places that are sometimes described as vassal
Speaker 3: states like Southeast Asia and Central Asia are struggling with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really are, and there is I think we
Speaker 2: just have to point out here there is still space
Speaker 2: here for election monitoring groups to have influence. Even the
Speaker 2: ones that are super above board or appear that way,
Speaker 2: there is space for them to have some kind of
Speaker 2: minor meddling where it is that same deal makes something
Speaker 2: look legitimate. I think of it like a fixer, right,
Speaker 2: like the wolf, like sending in the wolf to make
Speaker 2: sure this election goes the way we want it or
Speaker 2: need it to go.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But I'm not saying that's what they do every time.
Speaker 2: I'm saying there's space for that, because anytime you have
Speaker 2: a third party entering in, like a new challenger, approaching
Speaker 2: kind of deal, you have to be at least moderately
Speaker 2: skeptical of their intentions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 3: Dare I say trust but verify?
Speaker 5: Hmm?
Speaker 3: About that old quote because it is I think it
Speaker 3: is applicable here. It's apropos. We see that countries like
Speaker 3: Cambodia and Myanmar, or obviously Venezuela, and a lot of
Speaker 3: the stands Uzbekistan as are by John Tajikistan, they're vulnerable
Speaker 3: to this kind of stuff. And I love that you're
Speaker 3: pointing out that we should also question the motives of
Speaker 3: the generally accepted election monitors. Sometimes they have a horse
Speaker 3: in the race too. It's weird because, and said with
Speaker 3: great affection, the nerds have been trying to warn the
Speaker 3: public about this for quite some time. We mentioned the
Speaker 3: National Endowment for Democracy a little bit earlier, they published
Speaker 3: basically a banger mixtape, like an academic version of a
Speaker 3: mixtape about this problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they did, Yeah they did. And I'm just
Speaker 2: going to point here before we get to that mixtape.
Speaker 2: It's an argument that we've made on this show many
Speaker 2: a time. In any of these situations, when one of
Speaker 2: these election monitoring groups is being deployed, you have to
Speaker 2: keep in mind, no matter who's deploying it, that person
Speaker 2: believes that they are fighting in some way for the
Speaker 2: greater good. Yes, it might be the greater good is
Speaker 2: if our team is running things or if our team
Speaker 2: make sure the other team doesn't get into power, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna be that way every time, in every situation.
Speaker 5: Can we just say too that?
Speaker 4: Then the mixtape in question also has a banger of
Speaker 4: a mixtape esque name. It's called Authoritarianism Goes Global subtitle
Speaker 4: the Challenge to Democracy. But no doubt I could see
Speaker 4: that as actually being the name of a mixtape. But
Speaker 4: the authors argue that the Big Five we mentioned, China, Russia,
Speaker 4: around Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are all united by this
Speaker 4: desire to contain the global advance of democracy, which.
Speaker 3: Just side note, folks, this has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: domestic US politics. This has nothing to do with the
Speaker 3: name of political parties like Republicans or Democrats. This is
Speaker 3: the concept of a remember of the public being able
Speaker 3: to vote.
Speaker 2: Dude, it's Cold war stuff.
Speaker 3: It is very much the Cold War. Also never ended.
Speaker 5: No, that's why it's cold.
Speaker 3: That's why it's the cold.
Speaker 5: Steal in the fridge might be heated up though.
Speaker 3: I mean this. I love that we're mentioning this because
Speaker 3: there are other things that are unfamiliar to the public.
Speaker 3: Something I propose we call our term of the evening Gongs.
Speaker 4: That could be the name of the rap group that
Speaker 4: releases the mixtape there it is, yeah, kind of like migos.
Speaker 4: I don't know, gong Goos just sounds like a really
Speaker 4: sick like like like a group. You know, everyone's got
Speaker 4: their own style and this those we don't have enough
Speaker 4: of those, and we need more of those.
Speaker 3: We need more of those.
Speaker 2: It's like multiple gone girls, but they're a group.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they go and uh.
Speaker 3: Or it could be a set of bongos you order
Speaker 3: from Timu.
Speaker 2: Never never gets a stolen set of bongos Anti bongos.
Speaker 3: So these are this lovely little portman comes to us
Speaker 3: from the idea of NGOs non governmental organizations things like
Speaker 3: the Red Cross or things like you know, Greenpeace. It's
Speaker 3: supposed to be an institution centered on some aspect of
Speaker 3: humanitarian activity. Right, we want to give people medical treatment.
Speaker 4: On their surface, pretty non controversial because they're not they're
Speaker 4: not governmental.
Speaker 2: They are not a part of the government. But what
Speaker 2: happens when a government makes an NGO.
Speaker 3: Right, So in geo, let's remember the end term there
Speaker 3: and then where's the GEO come from? Gongo is a
Speaker 3: term meaning government organized non governmental organizations.
Speaker 2: Surrealism there, Dudengo has already had such problems, and now
Speaker 2: now we're just reverse engineering them again.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, and you'll love to see it, right.
Speaker 3: Zombie election monitors are part of this toolbox. Sometimes they
Speaker 3: are from GONGOs themselves, and it can be quit pretty
Speaker 3: difficult for the average person to suss out the ultimate
Speaker 3: providence of these GONGOs, who actually controls something like, you know,
Speaker 3: the Organization for Health and Safety and Elections. We may
Speaker 3: we freestyled that name, but as like, what's an example
Speaker 3: of one, just so people can see how innocuous these outen.
Speaker 2: Oh, here's a real one, the i f EES or
Speaker 2: International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Speaker 3: Oh type all right, above board, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah. So we also know that and in the
Speaker 3: same step that you would, you would create GONGOs and
Speaker 3: deploy them, and deployment is the right word. At the
Speaker 3: same time, you might target actual in geos as foreign agents,
Speaker 3: which is you know, going back to the great debate
Speaker 3: of things like the Peace Corps and the CIA, You
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Dude, two, yes, I'm going to read this to you guys.
Speaker 2: This is directly from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Speaker 2: website and it's just to back up that point you
Speaker 2: made Ben. Here it says about IFES advances democracy for
Speaker 2: a better future. We collaborate with civil society, public institutions,
Speaker 2: and the private sector to build resilient democracies that deliver
Speaker 2: for everyone. This is the part as a global leader
Speaker 2: in the promotion and protection of democracy. Our technical assistance
Speaker 2: and applied research develop trusted electoral bodies capable of conducting
Speaker 2: credible elections, effective and accountable governing stakeholders. And it just
Speaker 2: goes on and on, and which they could be great,
Speaker 2: and you're probably man. You might work for them, and
Speaker 2: you might be an amazing human being and do a
Speaker 2: good work. It just feels it feels.
Speaker 5: Like that thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we should also remember to that brilliant point.
Speaker 3: A lot of times folks might not know the ultimate
Speaker 3: you know, the ultimate boardroom as it were, for an
Speaker 3: organization that employs them or has them. Do you know
Speaker 3: their volunteer gap year or whatever. These these groups when
Speaker 3: they arrive, the weird thing is often they seem to
Speaker 3: have little or no track record of election monitoring, at
Speaker 3: least in the beginning, sort of like in the Terminator franchise,
Speaker 3: the original androids were very easy to differentiate from humans,
Speaker 3: and they just got better and better and better. They're
Speaker 3: legitimizing corrupt elections. That's the conspiracy. And the tricky part
Speaker 3: is we're talking about this a little bit off air.
Speaker 3: I always say, if podcasting doesn't work out for us,
Speaker 3: maybe this could be our new gig. They will straight
Speaker 3: up higher Western like West folks as operatives. And this
Speaker 3: is where we go to a great quote from The
Speaker 3: Diplomat written by Casey Michelle.
Speaker 4: Right Westerners brought credence supposedly hailing from democratic nations themselves.
Speaker 4: It didn't matter whether or not they actually had any
Speaker 4: experience observing elections. All that mattered was their citizenship. If
Speaker 4: they had prior political background, all the better. Elections served
Speaker 4: as one more avenue for these governments to utilize their
Speaker 4: methods of caviar diplomacy, to whine and dine current and
Speaker 4: former Western politicians into overlooking the electoral shortcomings and cite
Speaker 4: the progress and transition apparent Caviard diplomacy. Guys, this seems
Speaker 4: to fit in with that emolument's clause A little bit
Speaker 4: done then I mean, isn't it interesting though, how it
Speaker 4: doesn't apply to some people that definitely should, Like we know,
Speaker 4: Supreme Court justices who arguably or even more powerful than
Speaker 4: the president. I mean, the president puts them there, but
Speaker 4: then they really guide the you know, the course of
Speaker 4: policy and laws at least in this country. And yet
Speaker 4: they are able to take all kinds of crazy gifts
Speaker 4: that aren't referred to as bribes.
Speaker 3: Right, and the guy at publics can't even take a tip,
Speaker 3: you know, no tips.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely. It's definitely a concept that has this
Speaker 2: like pleasant saltiness, but ultimately it tastes fishy to me.
Speaker 5: Like caviar, Like caviar. You ever had cavard, Guys, it's
Speaker 5: pretty good. Yeah, it's okay, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 4: It is overrated, but I had some black caviar once
Speaker 4: and then actually it's it's nice on a on a
Speaker 4: cracker with a little crimp.
Speaker 2: Fre dude, did you have it on a cutting board?
Speaker 2: I'm just joking.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Yeah, Okay, i'm cutting board, rich, guys, I'm cutting
Speaker 4: How many do you have?
Speaker 5: Well, I've got I've got.
Speaker 4: Two really nice wooden ones, one quite bespoke that I
Speaker 4: bought at an art market and then I have, you know,
Speaker 4: a bunch of plastic ones that I use for my
Speaker 4: day to day cutting, my daily cutter.
Speaker 2: Sorry, no, this is too late, Matt.
Speaker 5: We're down. We're already down the yellbrig road here.
Speaker 3: Over the guys. Also, just so you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of the h a lot of the idea of caviar is,
Speaker 3: oh gosh, we should do an episode on caviar. Quite honestly,
Speaker 3: the the idea of caviar diplomacy is it's a real thing,
Speaker 3: and it's something that to our earlier point kind of
Speaker 3: skirt skirts around the idea of these these clauses preventing
Speaker 3: the gift giving right or the potential for bribery, especially
Speaker 3: when we're talking about a former Western politician, because then
Speaker 3: you get back into the revolving door private and public industry.
Speaker 3: And also, yeah, people in the West objected to this,
Speaker 3: and they were saying, rightly, I don't know, man, I
Speaker 3: think this election's rigged. There's not any real election where
Speaker 3: one person gets ninety eight percent of the vote or whatever.
Speaker 3: But the country trees doing this, both in the country
Speaker 3: sending the zombie monitors and the countries that are engaging
Speaker 3: in that farce. They don't give a tinker's damn about
Speaker 3: what the West thinks. This is not this is a performance.
Speaker 3: It is not a performance meant for you in the
Speaker 3: global West. It is meant instead to further oppress the
Speaker 3: people living under these authoritarian regimes. This way you can say, hey,
Speaker 3: citizens of this country, that I'm the strong man over
Speaker 3: for you know, insert this number of years. Look, we're legit,
Speaker 3: We're what the people want. Everybody voted this way, you know,
Speaker 3: because we listen to you. And just for one case here,
Speaker 3: let's look at the twenty fifteen election in Kazakhstan. The
Speaker 3: zombie monitors there, the president at the time, claimed he
Speaker 3: did get literally ninety eight percent of the vote, and
Speaker 3: he did this while he threw all of his opponents
Speaker 3: in jail and crushed any independent media except for a
Speaker 3: couple Western journalists who happened to monitor the election, and
Speaker 3: they said it was aces.
Speaker 5: Cool. Case closed.
Speaker 3: Go Nur Sultan Nazerbayev. That's the guy who won the election.
Speaker 3: I'm just mentioning his name because I think he has
Speaker 3: a really fun name.
Speaker 2: And to ninety eight percent of the voters there voted
Speaker 2: for him, so he must be popular.
Speaker 3: I just like. Okay, there was a journalist from Latvia
Speaker 3: a journalist from the United Kingdom. They both hailed the
Speaker 3: election as legitimate. And here's the kicker. Actual members of
Speaker 3: US Congress also participated in this grift, Steve Stockman and
Speaker 3: Robert Wexler particularly in this election, and Wexler himself had
Speaker 3: some pretty rich quotes. He said, the election is impressive
Speaker 3: and that the love and affection that people have for
Speaker 3: this president is most remarkable. And then he could have
Speaker 3: stopped there, but he didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He also said, we export ninety eight percent of
Speaker 2: the world's potassium. Oh wait, no, that's something else.
Speaker 3: He said, I don't know of anywhere else in the
Speaker 3: world today where there is such diversity, and yet there
Speaker 3: seems to be such harmony, no offense Kazakhstan. But that
Speaker 3: is not an entirely accurate statement. It sounds nice, though,
Speaker 3: it sounds great. You know, sell me a bridge while
Speaker 3: you're at it.
Speaker 5: Okay, I don't understand that reference, man, I saw it
Speaker 5: in the outline. I just made you off by what
Speaker 5: do you mean? I don't. I think I just want
Speaker 5: to know because it sounds clever, but.
Speaker 3: I feel it's referencing the old con artist move of
Speaker 3: finding someone like There are multiple real versions of this,
Speaker 3: but the American folk tale version would be someone arrives
Speaker 3: in a big city for the first time and they
Speaker 3: want to make their fortune and they run into a
Speaker 3: guy who says something like, oh, you like this Brooklyn Bridge,
Speaker 3: I happen to own it. I'll sell it to you
Speaker 3: right now, gotcha.
Speaker 5: It's sort of a magic Beans kind of argument.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, yeah, so I think we believe all that
Speaker 4: in because maybe other people have questions about this too
Speaker 4: and quickly.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about using these very specific ways of
Speaker 2: election monitoring to legitimize elections that are not above board
Speaker 2: and ways for essentially authoritarian powers to either stay in
Speaker 2: power or to grasp power. Right, But it's usually a
Speaker 2: staying in power thing. When you're using these election monitors,
Speaker 2: a lot of it goes back to intimidation, either through
Speaker 2: like warnings if my party loses, there's going to be
Speaker 2: a blood bath, which is something that Venezuelan president that
Speaker 2: was just re elected Maduro said basically warned everybody, you
Speaker 2: better reelect me or there's gonna be trouble. You can
Speaker 2: quell dissent by putting people in jail as the way
Speaker 2: we saw Russia do it right with navalny and who
Speaker 2: ended up passing away while while incarcerated. In Syria, you
Speaker 2: can do it by quelling dissent through basically state sponsored
Speaker 2: violence against people who would vote against you or who
Speaker 2: would try and get you out of power.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, we're seeing those kinds of threats
Speaker 5: over here.
Speaker 4: I mean just in terms of if I don't win
Speaker 4: the election, then it was rigged and there's gonna be
Speaker 4: a blood bath. Just saying that's that's something that was
Speaker 4: literally said in political discourse.
Speaker 3: That's true. Paul Dekin did say that early he's a
Speaker 3: monster in an email he sent to the entire company.
Speaker 5: Mm hmmm. Still wait to see how that one pans out.
Speaker 4: But I'm just saying it's like, you know, what we
Speaker 4: have seen in the past has something that only happens
Speaker 4: in other countries. We're starting to see over here as well.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I'm just saying we're not special in
Speaker 4: some way.
Speaker 3: No, for sure.
Speaker 2: You can read in the New York Times. It's an
Speaker 2: article titled how authoritarian government's rig elections to stay in
Speaker 2: power and if you go through it you will find
Speaker 2: that there are all these little ways to manipulate. It
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be just a threat, right. You can
Speaker 2: do things like Paraguay, who actually goes and finds indigenous
Speaker 2: peoples that generally wouldn't just go out and vote on
Speaker 2: their own, and they will attempt to make large numbers
Speaker 2: of them vote for a particular person.
Speaker 3: It's essentially cooping exactly when you used to conscript people
Speaker 3: in places like Chicago to vote.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly, think about some of the stuff that happens
Speaker 2: in our country.
Speaker 3: That's why I yeah, I think is one of the
Speaker 3: big things for us to take away from this exploration
Speaker 3: of a very real series of conspiracies. We're not talking
Speaker 3: about a glasshouse, a glasshouse environment. We're talking about a
Speaker 3: glass planet. These things are rigged in ways that the
Speaker 3: public is not meant to understand.
Speaker 4: Ben I propose a new not portmanteau, but as squishing
Speaker 4: together of two aphorisms. Let's call it a glass house
Speaker 4: half full or glass house half empty scenario.
Speaker 5: Love it, yes, don't know what it means, Write in
Speaker 5: and let us know what you think.
Speaker 3: We also know that it's crucial to understand the importance
Speaker 3: of this bait and switch. It may sound academic, yes,
Speaker 3: it may sound like talking about something over the horizon
Speaker 3: that does not touch you, but it very much does
Speaker 3: no matter where you find yourself in this wide world.
Speaker 3: Because of this. This is one key thing. When zombie
Speaker 3: election monitors come out and say an election was legitimate,
Speaker 3: and then legitimate election monitors come out and say there
Speaker 3: was something screwy afoot right, something's rotten in the state
Speaker 3: of Denmark, then the public is far less likely to protest.
Speaker 3: The public is going to tend to assume that there
Speaker 3: is respectability. That patina of legitimacy is dangerous in a
Speaker 3: very real way. This is gaslighting a nation entire right.
Speaker 3: And that's something that should keep.
Speaker 5: You up at night.
Speaker 3: And it does, and it does, and it does. We're
Speaker 3: so fun at parties. We know this is still going
Speaker 3: to continue in the future. It's just such a cost
Speaker 3: effective tool of public control. It's such a successful conspiracy.
Speaker 3: And maybe we end on this. When you see those
Speaker 3: declarations about elections, this sound a little bit too good
Speaker 3: to be true. Oh, this guy's been in power for
Speaker 3: ten plus years and ninety plus percent of the people
Speaker 3: keep voting for him. Who told us that? Who was
Speaker 3: saying that, and why is there some stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know? The answer candidly is usually going
Speaker 3: to be yes, unless, of course, you are an authoritarian
Speaker 3: dictator who would like to contact us with your firsthand experience.
Speaker 5: Have your people call our people. You can do that.
Speaker 4: You can find this first of all, on the Internet
Speaker 4: and all the usual social media places of note at
Speaker 4: the handlic conspiracy stuff where we exist on Facebook with
Speaker 4: our Facebook group here is where it gets crazy, on YouTube,
Speaker 4: where we have video content galore for you to enjoy,
Speaker 4: and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However,
Speaker 4: we are conspiracy stuff show.
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