WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 197 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:03.120 Alson media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.760 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.400 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.719 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:24.800 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.320 All right, it could happen here. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:36.120 It's me, it's Robert, and we are gathered here today 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.680 to talk about one of the most annoying things that 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.160 can happen on your telephone, which is that you can 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.320 be sent a tweet from Gavin Newsom. 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.800 Which is just no one needed that. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.159 It's already really bad. I see really bad things on 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.800 my telephone every day. I don't need to see a 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:57.920 tweet from Gavin Newsom. If you're not familiar with this, 0:00:58.120 --> 0:00:59.440 you're living a better life than me. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:00.720 Proud of you. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.480 But I'm going to give you some context here for 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.760 those of you who are not familiar. Gavin Newsom is 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.080 the governor of California. He's also kind of been the 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.240 presumptive of twenty twenty eight Democratic candidate for quite a while. 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.520 He's term limited out running for California governor again, so 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.520 he won't be doing that, and his term will end 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.520 in January of twenty twenty seven. He had for a 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:23.959 while tried to dismiss claims that he was interested in 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:25.800 the presidency, but he's been a lot more of it 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.800 about it recently. Yeah, I don't believe any claims that 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.679 he was not interested in this for a long time. 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.319 He has definitely tried to cast himself this summer as 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.760 the sort of leader of the resistance type figure. Yeah, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.040 he hasn't done that by, for instance, ordering the California 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.959 National Guard to go home, protecting people from the massmen 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.080 with guns snatching them in the street, or even standing 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.040 up for trans kids. Instead, he has focused on I 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.480 guess what you could generously call Twitter trolling, like it's well, 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:57.880 we're going. 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.400 To get into it. It's extremely annoying. 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.160 So about a week ago now, I think the eleventh 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.640 of August was when he began Newsom began his social 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.360 media rebrand. He did this by posting about himself in 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:15.119 all caps as America's favorite governor. His posts since then 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.880 have mimicked the Donald. Trump has a pretty distinctive posting. 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:19.280 Style, right. 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.799 Yeah, Newsom's are written in all caps, which Trump doesn't 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.040 tend to do. Trump tends to capitalize sporadically and as 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.359 far as I can tell, entirely randomly. But Newsom's doing 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.000 it in all caps. He uses over uses exclamation marks. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.680 I should say this beef between the two of them 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.960 is not new right. Trumps has called him new scum 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.560 on true social and I don't think Trump can claim 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.320 the intellectual property to new scum. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:45.320 I've seen that one. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.839 Yeah, yeah, like it's up there with like hair Gel, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.120 Hitler and Ussolini. Like anyway, if you if you're buying 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.680 a firearm in California, you will hear someone say one 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:57.520 of these things almost without fail. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:02:58.720 Yeah. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.880 The claim the newsman's team is making is that he's 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.560 like holding up a mirror to Trump's bigot tree by 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.880 doing this Trump style posting. But I think in doing so, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.000 he's really illustrated the difference between him is not as 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:16.520 profound as you'd think or hope. He in one example, 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:21.720 called Scott Presler Nancy Mace. It's got Presler, gay conservative 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.880 right wing figure, and then he was called out for 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:26.520 miss gendering presler By. 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.040 This will shock and amaze you, Tommy. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.720 Laurn Wow yeah, which yeah, no one knows, okay, yeah, 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:40.040 he responded, quote, you sound woke. This really isn't funny. 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.720 It's just Bigo tree like comparing gay ment to women 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.080 is an old, worn out and lazy jab. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:47.080 Yeah. 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:48.840 So when you combine. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.920 This with him having right wing figures like Charlie Kirk 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:52.120 and Steve Bannon on his. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:56.280 Podcast and it just for reference, folks, I don't know 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:00.040 how much detail we can get into legally here, but 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.320 this being our business, we are aware of the numbers 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.360 different podcasts do. And Gavin Newsom's podcast is not like 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.320 it does. Okay, but there's certain podcasts about, for example, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.520 bad people in history that lap at several times. So 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.800 like the star power that Gavin Newsom has, I'm not 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.360 seeing it. We're not talking about a guy who has 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.599 shown evidence that he is capable of on his own, 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.880 generating like a super loyal fan base or continued interest 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.440 in his personality. Now, I'm not saying that's that on 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:34.960 its own isn't a bad thing. A lot of politicians 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.560 who are very competent at certain things are not competent 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.680 at that, and in fact, most of the worst politicians 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.279 we have are also the people who are the best 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.919 at that and building a fan base, so to speak. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.240 But what I'm saying is that Gavin Newsom is obsessed 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.680 with doing something, being this Trumpian populist figure that he 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:59.320 has not exhibited faculty for. Right, Yes, that's what I'm saying. 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:01.880 Yeah, no, And that's what I'm saying too, is a 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:07.320 he's confusing engagement with actual political action. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.359 Right, And he's confusing the kind of engagement that you 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.080 get on social media when it's someone else's algorithm, And 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.440 a lot of the engagement is like, not people who 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.359 are going to vote for you or support you, but 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.799 people who the algorithm is pushing your content to because 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.200 it knows they'll get pissed. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:23.800 Off by it, right exactly. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.040 That I'm not against you know, pissing off conservatives, but 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.440 that doesn't help you necessarily, right, Like, there's not a 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.280 clear benefit to us in this. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.840 Yeah, good things piss off conservatives, but pissing off conservatives 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:37.520 are not inherently a good or useful thing. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:38.240 It's just a thing. 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.320 It's not enough, right, Like, I again, it can be 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:46.120 I'm not sometimes that's necessary just for morale purposes alone. 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.640 But again, I don't really think Gavin Newsom is making 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.599 the right scared. I don't think he's breaking their morale. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.120 I think he's just kind of creating content that people 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.159 on the left are sharing because it pisses them off. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.680 People on the right are sharing because it makes them laugh. 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.000 I think they think it's sad more than anything else. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.119 And obviously you've got a chunk of like a decent 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.279 chunk of like centrist dim types who like Newsom, and 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.719 I guess maybe it's working for some of them, But 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.760 I don't think it's broadening his support. I think there's 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.200 a single voter, especially in a fucking swing state, who 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.960 is like, I wasn't going to vote for Gavin Newsom 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.720 until I saw him mimicking Donald Trump's tweets. 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.960 Yeah, exactly, like he is doing, in a sense what 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:38.520 Harris did, which is this consistently failed Democrat political strategy 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.320 that they seem so addicted to that no amount of 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.560 losing will break them of it, which is moving to 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.880 the right to try and capture moderate Republicans. Right, they've 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.839 done this, everything's Trump took the Republican Party closer closer 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.359 to fascism right, Like, I want to give an example 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:00.839 of this. His Gavin Newsom talking to Sean Ryan about 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.560 transgender athletes. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:04.840 I'll be cannon with you. I looked at that issue 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.040 and I said, boy, they're just exploiting this. It's a 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.000 handful of people. What the hell is this? It's being weaponized. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.800 It was just another cultural issue. Intel two years ago, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.080 there was a state track championship. We had a trans 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.320 athlete that was successful, and there was a video of 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.920 the girl that lost and she was devastated, and that 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.160 video went around everywhere and it was very emotional, it 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.520 was very real. I remember calling my team man, I said, 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.960 this is legit, and I did this podcast with Charlie Kirk. Unsurprisingly, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.680 he brought it up and he said, tell me that's 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.840 not fair. I said, it's not fair. You're right. My 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.560 party was pissed. Lgbtqcucus furious with me because I don't 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:38.200 think it's fair. 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:38.560 It's not. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.920 But because you oppose sports doesn't make you homophobic, and 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:44.960 my party needs to stop saying that. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.040 Yeah again, I know who he thinks this is going 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:53.160 to help. He believes it's a religion. Effectively among a 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:57.239 lot of establishment dims that there's a whole huge chunk 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.400 of voters who are just itching to vote for a 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.440 Democrat if they weren't in favor of all of these 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.440 icky cultural issues that are hard to touch that the 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.360 right is, it spends so much time harping on, and 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.160 I think part of what they're seeing and where a 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:16.840 lot of the logical disconnect comes into effect, is that 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.240 they see how much money conservatives and time and discourse 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.960 conservatives spend talking about this and obsessing over it, and 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.680 they believe, well, oh, if we just kind of fold 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.040 on these people, then we've taken this great weapon out 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.439 of their arsenal, and they'll be helpless because they're stupid. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.080 And I don't think these are fundamentally very smart people 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.080 in the political sense of the world. I think they 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.000 bad politicians. I think they're bad. I think they were 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.960 good politicians in terms of a competency sense at a 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.000 prior age to get to where they were, But the 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.839 ground has changed and intelligence is largely a product of adaptability, 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.760 and they have not proven adaptable. And I think what's 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.240 actually going to happen, because we've seen that, is if 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.120 they throw trans people under the bus as they're actively 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.720 talking about doing the right will grab another chunk of 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.400 their coalition and start ruthlessly trying to destroy that group 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:17.480 of people, and these people's suggestion will once again be Okay, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.480 well we gotta, you know, throw those people under the bus, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.880 because then we'll deny them that weapon, and eventually you 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.520 won't have any Democrats left. 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.400 Like yeah, right, they'll come off to same sex marriage'll 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.400 come off to fucking interracial marriage, and Newsom will try 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:33.080 and find the middle. 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:33.439 Yeah. 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.360 Like where he has. 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.439 Received praise for this, he's in the legacy media. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.040 I want to quote here from a cal Matter's op ed, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.120 which suggests that Newsome was quote someone trying to hold 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.720 space for a hard conversation in his podcast. 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:46.360 He's not. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.719 You don't have conversations with Charlie Kirk. He's never had 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:50.800 a real one in his life. 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.280 Yeah, the conversation is not hard to have, right, trans 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.200 people deserve the same fucking rights as everyone else. It's 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.000 very easy to have. Also, he's having this conversation with 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.960 someone who agrees with him, Like, I would love to 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.760 see him tell a young trans woman that she can't 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.400 play on the fucking third s during the high school 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.880 volleyball team, because then he's going to see a kid 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.240 cry too. I don't want to go over the lake 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.959 trans people and compete sports like I've made my living 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.800 as an athlete for much of my life. This is bullshit, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.760 and it's fundamentally disrespectful to women athletes to continue to 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.760 suggest it they're biologically inferior. But I do want to 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.600 talk more about Gavin you some slide into mean politics. 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:34.360 His press office claimed that after the fires in LA 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:36.679 claim this in New York Times in a piece of 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.040 our link, he was troubled by the misinformation that came out. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.960 Apparently was his first fucking time in encountering misinformation on 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.839 the internet. Like oh wow, Yeah, Well, when you think 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.800 about the ease with which he lies, right, yeah, absolute 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.480 comfort he has, bullshitting it sort of makes sense until 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:01.640 it hits him. He doesn't care because he's too So 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.320 they decided to take the fight to the internet. I 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.640 guess they began with Star Wars memes. And then when 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.400 the redistricting debate in Texas, so we've covered extensively on 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.720 executive disorder was kind of reaching its peak, Newsom sort 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.480 of begun this sign I know you are, you said, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.080 you are, But what am I kind of tendency In 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.679 his posting, he posted in all block capitals, I'm not 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.880 going to shout Donald Trump. If you do not stand down, 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:28.800 we will be forced to leave an effort to redraw 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.520 the maps in CAA to offset the rigging of maps. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:32.079 In red states. 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.200 But if the other states call off their redistricting efforts, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.640 we will do the same. Thank you for your attention 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.720 on this match. Sorry it's hard to readcause it's entirely 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.199 unpunctuated apart from at the end there. These tweets aren't 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.679 on his personal account or the official governor of California one. 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.720 They're on an account called governor use some press office, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.880 but that count does have their little gray tick mark 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.880 that you can get in Twitter now for like government accounts. 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.920 Then he moved on to AI generated images and signed 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.440 his post with initials like Trump does, claiming Kid Rock 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.640 had endorsed him, which isn't true. Incidentally, they did this 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.880 exactly a year after Donald Trump posted an AI generated 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.440 image of Taylor Swift with the Swifties for Trump montage, 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.480 which shows how much time they spend looking at Trump's 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.000 post rather than doing anything fucking useful. Then they moved 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.120 on to mocking Greg Abbott for using a wheelchair, saying 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.520 he rolled over for Trump again, like, you do not 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.440 build a political coalition by mocking people with disabilities. There 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.960 are a million things to fucking hate Greg Abbott for. 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.960 I could spend an hour talking about the loathsome shit 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.520 he has done, but using a wheelchair is not one 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.640 of those things. If you cannot find anything else, that 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.840 really shows a paucity of democratic politics right now, let's 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:51.560 take a break and we'll come back. 0:12:52.120 --> 0:13:04.400 Awesome, All right, we're back. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.840 Unfortunately, and probably predictively, Newsom has received praise from all 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.600 over the legacy and media for these posts. The NYT quoted, 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.240 it's actually unclear of they quoted. I don't know if 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.120 this was just a mistake that they haven't corrected. But 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:20.439 it was phrased like she said it directly, but it 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.880 wasn't in quotation mark, so I'm a little unclear. I'm 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:23.960 just gonta assume they quoted this. 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:24.319 Lady. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.440 Sarah Roberts, a director for the Center of Critical Internet 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.680 Inquiry UCLA, said, quote, mister Nuisan's posts are perhaps grabbing 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:33.800 so much attention because they stand out for the rest 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.520 of democratic party's ineffective approach of playing it safe and 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.400 proceeding as if its business as usual, and then just 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.440 to double down on this useful podcast idiot, John Favreau 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.840 tweeted quote, I mean, it's pretty clearly a parody of 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.000 Trump's absolutely insane, all caps off to nonsensical posts. Probably, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:52.720 while all the people in my life who aren't political 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.319 junkies keep reaching out to say they don't know much 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.360 about Newsom but think the tweets are hilarious, humor and 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.520 mockery can be quite effective, neither of them say what 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:07.120 they are effective for. Right, No one seems concerned that 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.079 these make no material difference, and he is doing them 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.480 instead of doing things that make material difference. Right, I'm 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.000 going to play another clip from Chris Hayes here before you. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.480 Governor Gavin Newsom and his team have figured out a 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.920 very entertaining way to deal with Donald Trump at his 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:22.960 own rhetorical level. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:24.480 They've got a new social. 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.080 Media strategy that is both I got to say, pretty 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.200 damn funny and I think extremely effective, mocking the President 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.720 with a spot on impression of his very weird communication stock. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.880 Since Newsom jumped into the ongoing redistricting fight. His official 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.240 Twitter account has been posting Trump style. Donald has finished. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.840 He is no longer hot. First the hand so tiny, 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.160 and now me, Gavin C. Newson have taken away his step. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.160 Many are saying, we can't even do the big stairs 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.880 on Air Force one anymore, uses the little baby stairs 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.000 now sad as all the Trump trademarks, all capital letters, 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.640 random quotation marks, little parentheticals, complete unhinged absurdity. 0:14:57.720 --> 0:14:58.560 I thought that's a good one. 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.200 I hate kid Rock reference to Trump's infamous I hate 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.960 Taylor Swift. Another drags a vice president to it. Not 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.560 even JD just Dance Vans can save Trump from the 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.520 disastrous maps war he has started. Not even his eyeliner 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.240 lines look as pretty as California map lines. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.040 He will fail as he always does. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.720 Sad and I, the peacetime governor of our nation's favorite, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.320 will save America once again. Many are now calling me 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.440 Gavin Christopher Columbus Newsom because of the maps. Thank you 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.000 for your attention to this matter. Beyond the mockery of 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.200 Trump's text post, Newsom has also been posting Trump style 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.920 AI generated images of himself, including this I think absolute 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.520 masterpiece of Newsom deep in a moment of reflection or 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.320 prayer link by three Maga icons and the laying of 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.560 hands Kid Rock who he hates, Tucker Carlson, and the 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:47.240 angelic spirit of the recently departed Hulk Holgan again a 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.480 spot on mockery Trump, who. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:50.920 Isn't doing any of this satirically. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.080 What has been equally hilarious has been to watch the 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.000 joke just go soaring over the heads of Trump's sick 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:57.040 ofphants in the media for. 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:58.320 The last week. 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.880 Devin Newsom, Why am I giving him advice? You had 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.880 to stop it with the Twitter thing. I don't know 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.720 where his wife is. I want his wife. I would say, 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.760 you are making a fool of yourself. Stop it, Do 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.960 not let your staff tweet. And if you're doing it yourself, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.480 put the phone away and start over. And if you want. 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.000 He's got a big job as governor of California, but 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:21.520 if he wants an even bigger job, he has to 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:22.640 be a little bit more serious. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.560 Yes, right, be more serious, stop posting exactly like the 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.080 President the United States does. Newsome's account responded to that 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.840 advice quote, Dana ding Dong Pirno never heard of Hegel 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:33.120 today is melting. 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:33.760 Down because of me. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.040 God and c Newsom Fox hate that I am America's 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.080 most favorite governor ratings King saving America. Trump has lost 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.280 his step and Fox is losing it because when I'm 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.680 type American that wins. Thank you for your attention this 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.680 matter again. It is just it is a stark reminder 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.760 with someone else doing it of how truly utterly deranged 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.920 our current president sounds whenever he communicates, and also how 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.400 accustomed we've all become to this very very weird behavior. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:01.480 I know, we wouldn't be talking about this serus. He 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:02.720 was just bad tweets. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.480 Right, We're talking about it because I think it shows 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.919 a fundamental and ability of the DNC to meet the 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.800 moment right now. Yeah, we're talking about it because people 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.240 are dying, Yes, and more people will die as a 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.520 result of this administration's policies. Other people are being imprisoned, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.359 and like I, you know, the damage being done you know, 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.639 to medical science, to the future of humanity, to the 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.119 future of this country is tremendous and escalating. And the 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.679 fact that like this is the best a major a 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.520 major contender for the Democratic presidential candidate in twenty twenty 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.840 eight has been able to pull out so far is 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:40.359 like terrifying. 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.680 Like and again, obviously no one should be reliant upon 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.239 the dims. But unfortunately, also like, what are you got 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:48.479 to do? What am I going to do? 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:48.800 Right? 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.679 I don't have the resources of the Democratic Party. I 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.040 don't have a bunch of elected leaders listening to me. Like, 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.240 because of the status of our situation, individual people in 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.640 small groups in towns, and you know, we talk about 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.320 mutual aid on this show, we talk about unions. All 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.399 of these increased personal resiliency. They increase the ability of 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.280 groups and of individuals within groups to be resilient. But 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.320 none of that is going to stop the fucking DHS 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.879 from turning into the SS right Yeah, and the Democratic 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.520 Party clearly fucking isn't either. But the fact that this 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:27.720 is what they're doing instead of effective resistance is I mean, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.800 it's important. I wish there was more to say than 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.600 we should know how badly they're failing us. Right, Yeah, Like. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.760 A world where Democrat gets elected in twenty twenty eight, 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.320 it's getting less awful less quickly, and we should want them, yes, right, 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.920 Like I'm not one of these Like acceleration is. 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.040 No, I just I don't think that's going to help either, Yeah. 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:48.280 Yeah, right now. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:19:01.800 It is accelerating and it is bad. There are so 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.520 many obvious challenges Democrats can make. And I want to 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.800 play Robert. Have you seen this Graham plant for Senate 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:08.560 campaign ad? 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:10.920 No mane all right, I'm going to. 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.600 Play this for you, like I think it's good as 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.440 a contrast, right, But. 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.560 I love most about man of the people. I have 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.399 never met people who are more hard scrabble, even in 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:25.879 a place that requires you to work like two or 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.560 three different jobs. We have watched this state become essentially 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.760 unlivable for working class people, and it makes me deeply angry. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.680 My name is Graham Plattner, and I'm running for US 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.040 Senate and Maine to defeat Susan Collins. A decade of 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.080 military service, going overseas, farming oysters to feed my community, 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.000 diving to lend a hand to other fishermen, trying to 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.960 start a family. But everywhere I've gone, it seems like 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.119 the fabric of what holds us together is being ripped 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.480 apart by billionaires and corrupt politicians profiting off of destroying 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.960 our environment, driving our families in the pop and crushing 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.960 the middle class. I did four infantry tours in the 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.400 Marine corps in the army. I'm not afraid to name 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.080 an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy. It's the 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.720 billionaires who pay for it and the politicians who sell 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.400 us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins. 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.280 I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins deliberations 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.360 and moderation. The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:25.879 is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.080 out and not giving a damn. People know that the 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.680 system is screwing them. They know it in their bones. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.000 Nobody I know around here can afford a house. Healthcare 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.280 is a disaster. Hospitals are closing. We have watched all 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.520 of that get ripped away from us, and everyone just 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.679 trying to keep it all together. Why can't we have 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.000 universal health care like every other first world country. Why 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.320 can't we take care of our veterans when they come home. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.920 Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children? Why 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.160 are CEO is more powerful than unions? We fought three 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.920 different wars since the last time we raised the minimum wage. 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.959 I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but I 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.240 know that I'm asking the ray questions. When I tell 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.840 people around here that I'm running for Senate, sometimes the 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:10.800 initial reaction is what. But when I tell them why, 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.480 I'm doing it because I truly do believe that we 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.080 can build a system that is going to represent working people, 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.480 the number one response has been, well, thank god, somebody's 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:22.239 going to do it. You're supposed to fight for the 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.600 things you love. This is our home, and I will 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:31.280 fight tirelessly for it for you. It's maner's first in 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:32.520 Maine always. 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:37.760 I mean, that didn't seem bad. 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:38.880 No, it's good. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:40.200 That's that's a solid ad. 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:45.080 Yeah, yeah, Like the BA is reasonably low. But like 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:46.360 that dude hit it, I think. 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:48.800 I mean, yeah, yeah, Like I would say that's just 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.240 outright good, like if I were if I were crafting 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.359 an ad to run from other than the fact that 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:56.719 he's lived a different life, but like how he's talking 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.280 about the oligarchy, how he's talking about the life act 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.119 of progress on things like minimum wage and how unacceptable 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.959 it is, and like how the difference between Susan Collins 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.520 and Ted Cruise is that at least Ted Cruise is honest, Like, yeah, 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:12.720 I'm on board this guy. Yeah, this guy seems like. 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.440 He rips, But I would vote for that dude. Like, yeah, sure, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:17.440 he might turn into a fucking fatimen, but. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:19.760 Like, I mean, they can all get milkshake ducked. But 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:21.560 he's saying the right things at this point. 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:27.119 Yeah, it's remarkably straightforward, right like yeah, and yeah, that 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:28.640 seems to evade most Democrats. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.600 He's he's got the audio of a car ad But 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:33.520 I guess if it works, it works. That's the thing. 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.840 I don't know. I'm not familiar with the Platinu race, 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.480 so I'm not sure where the polling showing. 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.880 This video is like two days old, Like he's extremely fresh. 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:44.560 So yeah, I will say that visually it hangs together. Dude, 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.680 Jesus the same open soel wetsuit. I do, Like he 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:49.520 didn't just buy all this shit, Like didn't buy an 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.560 axe and chopping for the first time in this video, 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:52.960 right right right, He. 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.800 Didn't do the normal weird democrat trying to reach out 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.800 to a rural thing of like posing awkwardly with a shotgun. 0:22:59.119 --> 0:22:59.359 Yeah. 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.160 Yeah, like this is a dude, and just like physically 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.280 he appears to have done some work with his hands. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:07.240 Yeah, he looks like a working class guy. 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.040 Yeah, let's compare this to like Newsome has not done 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.600 the material things that he could be doing instead of 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.320 tweeting right. Trump didn't call it the California National guid 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.560 under the Insurrection Act. He used Title ten, Section yeah 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.600 one two four zero six of the US Code. That 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.479 section states orders for these purposes should be issued through 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.360 the governors of the states. It also outlines the procedures 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.440 for DC which we don't care about here. I didn't 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:32.520 see why he could at least try to force the 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.680 issue in ordering the guard to go home. He's pursuing 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.280 a court case yet, but leg forced the crisis because we're. 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:40.640 Already in one. 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.639 He has not taken a single meaningful action to stop 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.440 I snatching people from our communities in California, nor has 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.280 his Attorney General taken a single meaningful action to stop 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:56.240 individual sheriff's departments from violating SB fifty four. SB fifty 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.520 four if you're not familiar as a California Values Act, 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.120 which limits which which inmates can be transferred to ice 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:06.320 custody and when. It doesn't oblige anyone to transfer them, 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.040 but it does allow them to transfer them if certain 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.120 felonies have been committed in the last fifteen years. The 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:14.800 San Diego Sheriff has been accused of violating this are 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:17.240 linked to a KPBS article on that where they transferred 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:19.840 to someone who, according to claims in the article, had 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.000 a twenty one year old conviction. Where As I said 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:26.040 before the cutoff fifteen years, Newsom could do something about 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:30.560 the surveillance which is being installed all over California. These 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.199 license plates readers at the ones at San Diego has 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:37.560 spent thousands, if not billions of dollars on these license 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:41.040 plate readers have had their information shared with federal agencies 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:43.720 more than one hundred times in May alone. 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:45.560 According to cal Matters. 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:50.359 That is a violation of California law. Specifically, it's Senate 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.359 Bill thirty four, which limits the sharing of licensed plate data. 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:59.159 Rob Bonto issued an advisory, but again, this is resulting 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:04.399 in our communities being harassed. Right Californian's being snatched. Newsom 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:07.960 has done nothing about that. He could stand up for 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:10.920 unhouse people, but instead, alongside Todd Glory, he has led 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:15.200 the charge against Todd. Glory is seemingly intent on driving 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:17.920 our city into debt to pursue Castrow approach against thee 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:24.200 unhoused Newsome posed for a photo shoot destroying unhoused people's property. 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:28.119 He hasn't done a single thing that puts him at 0:25:28.200 --> 0:25:31.920 any risk. Right. He's presenting himself in this Sean ram 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:34.679 podcast the big risk taker because he spoke out about 0:25:35.119 --> 0:25:39.239 fucking teenage girls running, right, But he hasn't put his 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:43.520 neck on the line once for marginalized people in california're anywhere. 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:44.240 Else, absolutely not. 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:47.000 I think where I want to end is I don't 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:50.760 want you to engage with Newsom's tweets like that doesn't help. 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:54.200 He's going to mistake that for making a difference, right, 0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:56.919 because I think for a lot of people in the 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.600 legacy media and probably knew some of his friends, the 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:02.200 real tragedy of what's happened in the last eight months 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:04.560 is that they have to see scary, nasty stuff on 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:08.520 their telephones. So seeing something funny on their telephone seems 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.679 like an antidote because it's not their community, it's not 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:14.280 their people, and it's not people they fundamentally give a 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:17.600 shit about either. That I think is why to them 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:20.600 this seems effective and hopefully to you, as it does 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:22.560 to me, it seems completely ineffective. 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:24.760 Yeah, I don't know. How much else to say, it's 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:28.439 nice to see guys like Platner at least seem to 0:26:28.480 --> 0:26:31.240 be figuring it out. I've been looking into it, and 0:26:31.320 --> 0:26:34.320 there's there's not much polling. There's not really any polling 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:36.800 because I how recently he announced his bid to show 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:38.760 how well he's doing. Other than that, the video has 0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:40.800 got like two and a half million views something like that, 0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:44.920 which is good and seems to be spreading well online. 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:48.040 But that doesn't translate electorally. What we do have electorally 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:51.879 is that polls in Maine show that the Democratic Party 0:26:51.960 --> 0:26:56.359 is historically unpopular, including with Democrats. This is from a 0:26:56.480 --> 0:26:59.879 July survey. There's a good article in PBS that's just 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:03.520 they roll right over. Many Democrats think their party is weak. 0:27:04.160 --> 0:27:07.040 Ap n O RC whole finds. Oh sorry, this is 0:27:07.080 --> 0:27:10.080 actually no, sorry, this is overall across US adults. Sorry. 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:12.359 The initial article I had seemed to be saying that 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:15.800 this was just in May. No, this is this is nationwide, right, 0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:20.160 So I mean, I think that what Platner has seen, 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:23.280 the opportunity he's seen is real that there are a 0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:25.080 lot of people who are not at all interested in 0:27:25.160 --> 0:27:27.359 voting for a Republican who have not been swayed to 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:32.439 the right, who identify as Democrats but hate the party 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:35.680 and think it is weak. Right, Like about two inten Democrats, 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:39.000 according to this poll, described their party positively. One intent 0:27:39.040 --> 0:27:42.879 said it was empathetic and inclusive. That's terrible, right, and 0:27:42.920 --> 0:27:44.800 that is that I mean, that shows that just what 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:47.640 we were saying kind of based on our gut, which 0:27:47.720 --> 0:27:50.320 is it's a bad idea to hang people out to 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:53.639 dry because you don't think you can defend them. You 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:56.760 think that it'll be beneficial politically to make the choice 0:27:56.760 --> 0:27:59.960 to you know, let them die basically. Yeah, And it's 0:28:00.000 --> 0:28:03.480 it seems like Democrats largely are responding by saying, well, 0:28:03.480 --> 0:28:05.800 this party doesn't give a shit about us, and they 0:28:05.880 --> 0:28:08.959 are ineffective. They can't do fuck all, right, Yeah, and 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:11.840 that's definitely what's happening. So, yeah, I don't know if 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:14.800 Platner is gonna win, but I'm growing more convinced every 0:28:14.880 --> 0:28:18.719 day that there is opportunity for people who are actually 0:28:18.720 --> 0:28:21.320 willing to fight these bastards. Yeah, and you understanding that 0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:24.240 fighting these bastards isn't just like, well, let's give them 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:27.240 almost everything they want and hope that somehow lets us win. 0:28:27.960 --> 0:28:28.200 Yeah. 0:28:28.320 --> 0:28:31.000 Yeah, talking of like not leaving people out to dry, 0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:34.040 for instance, talking about trans women in sports, he says 0:28:34.040 --> 0:28:36.880 it's abstraction from the things that impact Americans materially every 0:28:36.920 --> 0:28:39.760 single day. Then he said, I'm dedicated to a quality 0:28:39.760 --> 0:28:41.360 and justice for all in this country. And I think 0:28:41.400 --> 0:28:43.760 the specific topic has become such a touchstone of the 0:28:43.840 --> 0:28:46.360 media discussion because it pulls away from the conversation that 0:28:46.400 --> 0:28:49.680 needs to be happening is getting every American affordable healthcare. 0:28:49.960 --> 0:28:53.240 It's not the best response, it's not the worst one either, Like, 0:28:53.280 --> 0:28:55.160 and I think he is right. For most of these 0:28:55.200 --> 0:28:57.560 conservative people, they don't care about women's sports, right, They're 0:28:57.560 --> 0:28:59.720 not there when women are getting shit priced, women are 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:01.040 getting shit TV time. 0:29:01.480 --> 0:29:04.000 This for them is just a culture war issue. 0:29:04.520 --> 0:29:07.000 He also called the genocide and Gazara a genocide, which 0:29:07.120 --> 0:29:09.640 is something that it's like. 0:29:09.880 --> 0:29:12.840 Yeah, I enjoyed the line about where we're just killing 0:29:12.960 --> 0:29:13.800 kids with bombs. 0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:16.520 Yeah, yeah, I think that he He didn't mince his 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:19.400 words about it. When asked by ABC, he said he's 0:29:19.400 --> 0:29:22.080 following the leader of Israeli scholars on genocide on this issue. 0:29:22.600 --> 0:29:26.680 So yeah, like, it's remarkably easy, right to build a 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:30.520 coalition right now of people who are fucking mad. And 0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:32.400 a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because they 0:29:32.440 --> 0:29:35.840 were sick of this same smami bullshit. Some of them 0:29:35.880 --> 0:29:38.200 are to vote Johnal Trump because a hateful, terrible, fucking 0:29:38.280 --> 0:29:41.400 people right. Just to be super clear, Yeah, but like 0:29:41.640 --> 0:29:45.080 it's so easy, and yet it seems to be evading, 0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:48.360 Like you say, the presumptive nominee, that this guy who 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:50.600 for for nearly a decade we have assumed we'll run 0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:53.960 in twenty twenty eight. And I guess I know, fuck 0:29:54.080 --> 0:29:57.720 Gavin Newsom. I hope that he does not succeed with 0:29:57.760 --> 0:29:59.800 his presidential campaign missions. 0:30:00.200 --> 0:30:02.480 Yeah all right, well that's yeah, most of what I 0:30:02.520 --> 0:30:03.800 got to say about that son of a bit. 0:30:03.920 --> 0:30:40.600 Yep, me too. Let's roll out, Bye bye. 0:30:24.280 --> 0:30:27.120 Hello everyone, I'm welcome to it can happen here. My 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:30.080 name is Daniel Kurd, and I'm a writer, analyst, and 0:30:30.160 --> 0:30:34.240 researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor 0:30:34.240 --> 0:30:36.760 of political science and a senior non resident fellow at 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:40.120 the Arab Center Washington. I'm also occasional co host of 0:30:40.160 --> 0:30:43.120 The Fire These Times. Today, I want to talk about 0:30:43.240 --> 0:30:48.360 the attacks on American universities in American academia and what 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:51.440 role Palestine plays in all of this, and maybe end 0:30:51.480 --> 0:30:54.800 on what's being done to stop it. So you may 0:30:55.080 --> 0:30:57.640 or may not have heard about the attacks on universities 0:30:57.640 --> 0:31:01.760 in academia, but given the general onslaught of disastrous news, 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:04.760 even for those of you who have noted something is 0:31:04.800 --> 0:31:07.880 happening in higher education may not be keeping up with 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:10.440 the details. So let me give you a brief summary. 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:16.440 A number of universities, including Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and UCLA, 0:31:17.000 --> 0:31:21.200 have been investigated for campus anti semitism related to pro 0:31:21.240 --> 0:31:24.680 Palestine protests on those campuses over the past two years. 0:31:25.120 --> 0:31:30.280 From there, the Trump administration has escalated by slashing federal 0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:34.560 funding that those universities receive and forcing those universities to 0:31:34.600 --> 0:31:39.200 settle with the administration not only monetarily, but also by 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:43.600 implementing changes to how their universities are run. So, for example, 0:31:44.000 --> 0:31:48.080 Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration two hundred 0:31:48.080 --> 0:31:51.360 and twenty million dollars punish seventy students involved in the 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:54.600 protests in a variety of ways, including by expelling them, 0:31:54.960 --> 0:31:58.160 and they agreed to monitor and report their programs for 0:31:58.360 --> 0:32:02.560 unlawful dea goals, that's a quote. One of the ways 0:32:02.600 --> 0:32:06.560 Columbia has agreed to monitor, as the Intercept reported in April, 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:10.040 is by appointing a vice provost in charge of monitoring 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:13.680 the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department, in 0:32:13.720 --> 0:32:18.400 particular for quote balanced curricula. The faculty in that department 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.600 will no longer run that department, and as the Middle 0:32:21.640 --> 0:32:25.200 East Studies Association, in a statement back in March noted, this, 0:32:25.400 --> 0:32:30.840 placing the department under administrative receivership is a quote fundamental 0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:34.959 abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. This comes at 0:32:35.000 --> 0:32:38.120 a time when the Trump administration has also attacked the 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:41.960 National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the 0:32:42.040 --> 0:32:45.280 National Institutes of Health. All of these are federal funding 0:32:45.320 --> 0:32:47.840 sources for the majority of research that happens at universities 0:32:47.840 --> 0:32:52.360 across disciplines the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities. The Trumpet 0:32:52.360 --> 0:32:56.240 administration has also attacked foreign students and the processes by 0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:58.200 which they are able to get visa study in the 0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:01.520 United States, which is just another way to get at 0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:05.360 a major revenue source for many universities. But why is 0:33:05.400 --> 0:33:09.040 the Trump administration doing all this. Here is Vice President JD. 0:33:09.160 --> 0:33:12.520 Vance speaking to the National Conservatism Conference back in twenty 0:33:12.520 --> 0:33:13.240 twenty one. 0:33:13.320 --> 0:33:17.200 We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:17.760 this country. 0:33:17.880 --> 0:33:18.680 Ladies and gentlemen. 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:22.920 The universities do not pursue knowledge and truth. They pursued 0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:25.440 deceit and lies. And it's time to be honest about 0:33:25.480 --> 0:33:30.360 that fact. And we subsidize, we support, and in our 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:34.959 own ways all of us reinforce the power of universities 0:33:34.960 --> 0:33:37.040 to control our lives and control how we live them. 0:33:37.360 --> 0:33:40.840 So much of what drives truth and knowledge as we 0:33:40.920 --> 0:33:45.400 understand it in this country is fundamentally determined by, supported by, 0:33:45.760 --> 0:33:48.080 and reinforced by the universities in this country. 0:33:48.640 --> 0:33:51.760 So that's Vance before him and Trump won the election, 0:33:52.680 --> 0:33:57.320 identifying that universities are sites of power. Therefore, he argues 0:33:57.960 --> 0:34:01.640 very explicitly that conservatives must destroy these sites of power 0:34:01.960 --> 0:34:05.320 or submit them to their will. Are universities truly sites 0:34:05.360 --> 0:34:09.040 of power? The short answer is yes, for two reasons. 0:34:09.719 --> 0:34:15.279 Number One, as Vance themselves identifies, universities produce knowledge, and 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:19.520 that knowledge produce that universities drives innovation in the private sector, 0:34:20.120 --> 0:34:24.960 in tech, in health, and weapons, manufacturing, universities are a 0:34:24.960 --> 0:34:29.560 main engine of economic growth. In fact, universities are part 0:34:29.560 --> 0:34:33.000 and parcel of American global power. They are a major 0:34:33.040 --> 0:34:35.359 source of that power for the United States, whether in 0:34:35.400 --> 0:34:38.880 the students and scholars they attract, whether for their research 0:34:38.920 --> 0:34:41.800 that they produce that various arms of the American government 0:34:41.840 --> 0:34:45.680 can use, or whether for the legitimization that universities provide 0:34:45.920 --> 0:34:49.960 for certain frameworks like the frame market liberalism, etc. 0:34:50.200 --> 0:34:50.399 Etc. 0:34:51.520 --> 0:34:55.960 So, really, universities largely generate power for the powers that be, 0:34:56.840 --> 0:35:00.919 But sometimes universities are also sites of power that can 0:35:01.160 --> 0:35:05.799 challenge orthodoxies. With greater inclusion of scholars and students from 0:35:05.800 --> 0:35:09.000 a variety of backgrounds, we get a diversity of thought. 0:35:09.719 --> 0:35:13.160 And because of how universities are supposed to run in theory, 0:35:13.680 --> 0:35:17.720 as governed by faculty and as sites of free inquiry, 0:35:18.239 --> 0:35:23.440 that means sometimes occasionally knowledge is produced that can challenge 0:35:23.480 --> 0:35:28.560 power too. That sometimes occasional knowledge production is too much 0:35:28.800 --> 0:35:31.520 for the jd vances of today's politics, though, so they're 0:35:31.560 --> 0:35:35.879 cracking down. The number two reason why universities are sites 0:35:35.880 --> 0:35:39.600 of power is because they offer a promise of social mobility. 0:35:40.280 --> 0:35:45.480 And that's generally true too, even the most modest regional 0:35:45.480 --> 0:35:48.440 public school in America still offer some of the highest 0:35:48.520 --> 0:35:51.360 quality of education you can get around the world, but 0:35:52.239 --> 0:35:54.920 that shot at upward social mobility that you can get 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:59.040 with the university of education is definitely getting harder and 0:35:59.320 --> 0:36:03.799 costlier and less accessible. There's this book by Mark Busque 0:36:03.880 --> 0:36:08.759 I highly recommend reading, titled How the University Works. In it, 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:14.520 the author details how as universities became more corporatized, tuition increased, 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:19.280 university workers were disempowered, and the value of a degree plummeted. 0:36:19.760 --> 0:36:24.240 And this process started way before Trump. Clifford Ando, professor 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:27.160 of Classics and History at the University of Chicago, wrote 0:36:27.200 --> 0:36:30.400 for Compact magazine recently on what's happening at the University 0:36:30.440 --> 0:36:33.080 of Chicago right now for those who may be unaware. 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:37.440 At the University of Chicago, the university is stopping PhD emissions, 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:42.360 it's increasing enrollment numbers, it's slashing budgets, it's even proposing 0:36:42.400 --> 0:36:46.399 to teach some courses using chat GPT. Ando argues that 0:36:46.600 --> 0:36:49.760 this current dismantling of University of Chicago that we're witnessing 0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:53.840 is again not Trump related, but can be traced to 0:36:53.880 --> 0:36:59.439 this corporatization of the university where universities prioritized money making, 0:36:59.520 --> 0:37:04.080 technology and investments, and as he writes, quote fundamentally corroded 0:37:04.160 --> 0:37:10.400 policymaking at universities. So to get a high quality education today, 0:37:10.600 --> 0:37:13.319 at a university that isn't trying to trap you as 0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:17.040 cheap labor or doesn't just use overworked adjuncts to teach 0:37:17.080 --> 0:37:20.279 courses to avoid paying faculty their worth, you need to 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:22.840 either come from money, or you need to be highly 0:37:22.920 --> 0:37:26.919 highly exceptional, or you need to accrue exorbitant amounts of debt. 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:32.200 And yet, and yet, marginalized people still made advances in 0:37:32.239 --> 0:37:36.520 this system. We saw, for example, more African American presidents 0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:43.160 of universities, more women, We saw diversifying scholarship courses, pathways 0:37:43.160 --> 0:37:47.280 for students as universities became more inclusive. That's what diversity, 0:37:47.320 --> 0:37:51.040 equity and inclusion efforts did. Imperfect as they were, and 0:37:51.360 --> 0:37:55.360 even though the university as an institution continues to exploit labor, 0:37:55.920 --> 0:37:59.920 continues to exploit their own students, often doesn't deliver enough 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:03.600 on the promise of social mobility. Even delivering a little 0:38:04.000 --> 0:38:06.680 was too much for the Jdvanss of the world. They 0:38:06.680 --> 0:38:10.759 don't want upward social mobility for some Americans, and they 0:38:10.800 --> 0:38:13.400 don't want those challenges to power, even at the margins, 0:38:13.920 --> 0:38:19.840 so they're cracking down. The attacks on Harvard, Brown, George Washington, UCLA, 0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:24.640 the list goes on, is predicated on attacking DEI Diversity, 0:38:24.640 --> 0:38:29.240 equity and inclusion. Conservatives alleged that universities taking a person's 0:38:29.239 --> 0:38:34.160 background into consideration and admissions or in hiring or in scholarships, etc. 0:38:34.920 --> 0:38:38.680 All of that violates anti discrimination laws. And our conservative 0:38:38.719 --> 0:38:41.440 Supreme Court, in its recent ruling in the cases of 0:38:41.520 --> 0:38:45.120 Students for Fair Admissions versus University of North Carolina and 0:38:45.280 --> 0:38:49.360 Students for Vera Admissions versus Harvard, agreed they overturned the 0:38:49.360 --> 0:38:51.799 two thousand and three Grotta versus Bollinger case that had 0:38:51.840 --> 0:38:56.520 allowed higher education institutions to consider race and admissions. And 0:38:56.680 --> 0:38:59.120 all of this comes at a time after decades of 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:03.600 the university an institution eroded itself. But I would say 0:39:04.080 --> 0:39:09.400 attacking DEI wasn't effective enough, especially after the Black Lives 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:14.319 Matter movement. Saying DEI is bad is a harder sell 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:17.479 for an American public fifty one percent of which say 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:20.640 they support Black Lives Matter. And this was according to 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.399 a twenty twenty three study by the Pere Research Center. Now, 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:26.479 fifty one percent isn't overwhelming, but it's not nothing either. 0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:31.720 So conservatives to attack the university have had to exploit 0:39:31.760 --> 0:39:35.399 the weaknesses that already exist within the academy. That has 0:39:35.440 --> 0:39:39.800 meant exploiting the way the university's institution has become sensitive 0:39:39.880 --> 0:39:43.919 to money and endowments and donors, and that has meant 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:47.000 exploiting the way the university has not actually been a 0:39:47.040 --> 0:39:50.520 site of free inquiry or expression for particular people and 0:39:50.600 --> 0:39:55.799 particular topics. And by exploiting and expanding that gap, they 0:39:55.840 --> 0:39:58.360 are now trying to take those freedoms away from everybody. 0:39:59.080 --> 0:40:12.400 This is where Palestine comes in. The truth is attacks 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:16.319 on student protesters for Palestine, attacks on scholars who work 0:40:16.360 --> 0:40:20.840 on Palestine or speak on Palestine. That all started before Trump, 0:40:21.520 --> 0:40:24.480 and that has become the blueprint for attacking universities and 0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:29.520 academic freedom. Generally, they're using the pro Palestine protests, pro 0:40:29.600 --> 0:40:34.399 Palestine programming, or just any knowledge production about Palestine as 0:40:34.440 --> 0:40:40.080 an excuse to allege anti Semitism. Enter into these investigations 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:43.799 and demand the universities do what they want. After the 0:40:43.800 --> 0:40:48.520 Hamas October seventh attacks, we saw student protesters detained like 0:40:48.600 --> 0:40:53.399 Mahmud Kriil Columbia and remaisa ouster Get Tufts and many more. 0:40:54.160 --> 0:40:58.280 We have seen diplomas withheld, like what Virginia Commonwealth University 0:40:58.320 --> 0:41:02.000 attempted to do to many students, including students sitting in Hadad. 0:41:02.640 --> 0:41:06.239 We have seen professors put on leave or fired like 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.600 what Muhlenberg College did to Mora Finkelstein. The list goes 0:41:09.640 --> 0:41:12.760 on and on, but again, a lot of this pattern 0:41:12.880 --> 0:41:16.919 started before Trump. In a November twenty twenty three poll 0:41:17.239 --> 0:41:22.080 conducted by political scientists Mark Lynch and Shibley Telheme called 0:41:22.280 --> 0:41:26.360 the Middle East Scholar Barometer, the results show that sixty 0:41:26.400 --> 0:41:29.160 six percent of faculty members who study the Middle East 0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:32.839 quote self censor when speaking about the Middle East in 0:41:32.880 --> 0:41:36.399 an academic or professional setting, and that number goes up 0:41:36.560 --> 0:41:40.280 to seventy seven point four percent when talking about Israel Palestine. 0:41:41.160 --> 0:41:44.560 On the Israel Palstonin issue in particular, almost fifty two 0:41:44.560 --> 0:41:49.640 percent of scholars have concerns about pressure from external advocacy groups, 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:52.399 and of those who said they self censor, a full 0:41:52.520 --> 0:41:55.400 eighty three percent said the issue they most feel the 0:41:55.480 --> 0:41:58.759 need to censor themselves about is anything related to criticism 0:41:58.760 --> 0:42:02.440 of Israel. This is a crazy number if you consider 0:42:02.920 --> 0:42:06.160 that of the same group, only one point six percent 0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:10.440 of respondents said they censored criticism of US policy, and 0:42:10.560 --> 0:42:14.840 a full ninety eight percent of assistant professors untenured professors 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:18.439 who work on the Middle East quote feel the need 0:42:18.480 --> 0:42:21.840 to self censor when speaking about the Palestinian Israeli issue 0:42:22.000 --> 0:42:25.880 in an academic or professional capacity. Part of this story, 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:30.399 the censorship story, is the large scale adoption of the 0:42:30.440 --> 0:42:35.120 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti Semitism. Back during 0:42:35.160 --> 0:42:39.520 his first term, President Trump's Executive Order on Combating Anti 0:42:39.600 --> 0:42:43.359 Semitism directed government bodies to take the IRA definition into 0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:47.200 consideration when enforcing Title six, which is a part of 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:49.960 the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four that prohibits 0:42:49.960 --> 0:42:53.960 discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. 0:42:54.680 --> 0:42:57.680 The Biden administration didn't overturn any of that either. They 0:42:57.719 --> 0:43:02.239 implemented that executive Order themselves throughout their tenure. And this 0:43:02.360 --> 0:43:06.200 definition is one definition of anti semitism that critics say 0:43:06.560 --> 0:43:11.400 conflates criticism of Israel with anti semitism. In fact, the 0:43:11.480 --> 0:43:15.520 main drafter of the IRA definition, ken Stearn, has expressed 0:43:15.600 --> 0:43:19.480 concerns that this definition is being used as a quote 0:43:19.760 --> 0:43:23.360 blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemit, and it's for 0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:25.960 that reason that Human Rights Watch and one hundred and 0:43:26.000 --> 0:43:29.880 four other organizations signed a letter urging the UN not 0:43:30.000 --> 0:43:33.319 to use this IRA definition. As a result, there are, 0:43:33.360 --> 0:43:37.480 of course, a number of competing definitions of antisemitism, such 0:43:37.520 --> 0:43:41.279 as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, that has a more 0:43:41.360 --> 0:43:45.359 nuanced understanding of one criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism. As 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:48.360 their website notes, the Jerusalem Declaration is a product of 0:43:48.360 --> 0:43:51.759 an initiative that originated in Jerusalem and includes in their 0:43:51.840 --> 0:43:55.440 numbers international scholars working in anti Semitism studies and related 0:43:55.480 --> 0:44:01.120 fields including Jewish Holocaust, Israel, Palestine, and Middle East. But 0:44:01.239 --> 0:44:03.640 of course the IRA definition is the one that the 0:44:03.640 --> 0:44:07.160 Trump administration wants to follow and the one that universities 0:44:07.200 --> 0:44:11.120 are adopting. Maybe it goes without saying, but I'll say 0:44:11.160 --> 0:44:15.200 it anyway. It's not because this administration that engages with 0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:19.200 the far right and propagates conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, 0:44:19.760 --> 0:44:22.600 It's not like they actually care about anti Semitism. It's 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:26.759 just a tool. As Jewish organizations working to combat anti Semitism, 0:44:26.880 --> 0:44:30.400 such as the Nexus Project explicitly point out it's a 0:44:30.400 --> 0:44:34.480 way to quote weaponize anti semitism by attacking free speech 0:44:34.800 --> 0:44:38.920 DEI foreign students, and in this environment we can understand 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.680 why there's so much fear to speak up and so 0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:46.160 much self censorship. You can be falsely accused of anti 0:44:46.160 --> 0:44:49.960 semitism for bringing up Palestine as a topic of discussion, 0:44:50.840 --> 0:44:55.680 for trying to study what's happening, for trying to produce 0:44:55.719 --> 0:44:59.399 any sort of knowledge on what's going on. I also 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:03.360 really want to score that this self censorship and fear 0:45:04.000 --> 0:45:08.560 that already existed in a space in academia is a 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:12.600 worsening trend today, but it definitely existed before October seventh too. 0:45:13.280 --> 0:45:15.160 Take it from me as someone who studies Palestine in 0:45:15.160 --> 0:45:18.680 American academia. Palestinian scholars have long been under attack in 0:45:18.719 --> 0:45:22.600 the American academy. But after October seventh and before Trump, 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:26.680 this of course got worse. External actors and donors got 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:29.160 involved in campus governance. As we saw in Harvard and 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:34.360 many other places, University administrations cracked down on students, professors, everyone, 0:45:34.600 --> 0:45:37.760 often preemptively doing the work of the right wing because 0:45:37.760 --> 0:45:40.240 they thought that taking away freedoms from some groups wouldn't 0:45:40.280 --> 0:45:43.400 come back to bite them. And this is how Palestine 0:45:43.640 --> 0:45:46.040 is now one of the cudgels that Trump is using 0:45:46.480 --> 0:45:50.080 to attack universities and the academy. And it's an effective 0:45:50.120 --> 0:45:54.560 cudgel because some liberals in universities and outside universities can 0:45:54.600 --> 0:45:58.360 also be persuaded to attack scholarship on Palestine and students 0:45:58.360 --> 0:46:02.560 who speak on Palestine. But those exceptions to academic freedom 0:46:02.960 --> 0:46:05.759 that have long existed in the academy are now being 0:46:05.840 --> 0:46:09.440 used to attack everyone. A quick note here to outline 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:14.279 what academic freedom for a faculty member actually means. As 0:46:14.280 --> 0:46:18.319 the American Association of University Professors the AAUP notes on 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:22.839 their website, academic freedom has these main elements. Number one, 0:46:23.040 --> 0:46:27.399 the freedom to discuss relevant matters in the classroom. Number two, 0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:30.520 the freedom to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and 0:46:30.560 --> 0:46:33.200 creative expression, and to publish the results of such work. 0:46:34.000 --> 0:46:38.680 Number three intramural speech freedom from institutional censorship or discipline 0:46:39.080 --> 0:46:42.920 when addressing matters of institutional policy or action. And number 0:46:42.920 --> 0:46:47.680 four extramural speech freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when 0:46:47.719 --> 0:46:51.680 speaking or writing. As citizens. So faculty members are allowed 0:46:51.880 --> 0:46:55.640 to speak on matters as citizens. Being a faculty member 0:46:55.680 --> 0:46:58.000 and being a member of the university community does not 0:46:58.040 --> 0:47:01.120 take away their right to be citizens. That last one 0:47:01.160 --> 0:47:04.879 is worth emphasizing. To maintain universities as sites of free 0:47:04.920 --> 0:47:07.960 inquiry and knowledge production, there has to be academic freedom, 0:47:08.800 --> 0:47:14.160 and that freedom includes teaching, research, intramulo speech, and extramural speech. 0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:17.400 You can't censor people you don't like or don't agree 0:47:17.440 --> 0:47:20.880 with and think your institution and your university will continue 0:47:20.920 --> 0:47:23.640 to function. You certainly can't do that and think the 0:47:23.719 --> 0:47:26.880 right wing won't sniff it out and use it against you. 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:31.400 So what's to be done? Things are happening, People are 0:47:31.480 --> 0:47:34.880 fighting back, and just like Palestine has been the Canarian 0:47:34.920 --> 0:47:38.160 the coal mine for so many things, including the assault 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:41.360 on American academia, Palestine may be one of those crucial 0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:44.840 issues that helps academics and students and faculty to organize 0:47:44.840 --> 0:47:48.279 in this moment. For example, because of the arrests of 0:47:48.280 --> 0:47:53.239 pro Palestine students and their attempted deportation, the American Association 0:47:53.280 --> 0:47:57.520 of University Professors, alongside the Middle Ease Studies Association and 0:47:57.560 --> 0:48:01.799 the Night First Amendment Institute, sued the Trump administration over 0:48:01.840 --> 0:48:05.160 this policy of arresting and threatening deportation for a lawful 0:48:05.160 --> 0:48:08.360 speech on Palestine. The AAUP is also now ap plaintive 0:48:08.400 --> 0:48:11.360 in a number of cases challenging the Trump administration on 0:48:11.400 --> 0:48:15.240 a tax on DEI, attempting to abolish the Department of Education, 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:19.920 cuts and federal funding of research, etc. An attacks on 0:48:19.960 --> 0:48:22.960 students and faculty after October seventh, which set off this 0:48:22.960 --> 0:48:26.839 whole barrage of attacks on university since then, have galvanized 0:48:26.880 --> 0:48:31.440 people to demand their university administrations uphold academic freedom. In 0:48:31.480 --> 0:48:34.839 twenty twenty four, nearly forty chapters of the AAUP were 0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:38.560 founded or re established across the US. Even professors who 0:48:38.640 --> 0:48:41.120 don't teach or study the Middle East or Palestine are 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:43.280 starting to speak out about the dangers of these moments 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:46.760 and these trends. I think people are starting to realize 0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:50.160 that American universities will have to uphold their ideals of 0:48:50.239 --> 0:48:55.440 faculty governance, free inquiry, free thought for everyone, or they 0:48:55.480 --> 0:48:59.520 really will cease to exist. That's all I have for 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:01.680 you today. I'll be back soon to talk more about 0:49:01.680 --> 0:49:05.200 the latest developments in Palestine. Stay strong, everybody, Thanks for listening. 0:49:20.120 --> 0:49:23.680 Welcome to Ikadath to hear a podcast about things falling 0:49:23.719 --> 0:49:27.279 apart and also sometimes about how not to put them 0:49:27.280 --> 0:49:30.480 back together and how to fail to put them back together. 0:49:31.239 --> 0:49:34.200 I am your host, Miya Wong, and today we are 0:49:34.200 --> 0:49:36.840 going to be talking about the place where the anti 0:49:36.880 --> 0:49:41.920 trians crusade began, North Carolina, and about the recent spade 0:49:41.920 --> 0:49:44.279 of anti trans bills that have been passed there. And 0:49:44.400 --> 0:49:47.160 with me to talk about this is David Forbes, an 0:49:47.239 --> 0:49:49.560 editor and journalist with a trans news network and the 0:49:49.600 --> 0:49:52.080 Asheville Blade. David, welcome to the show. 0:49:52.480 --> 0:49:52.799 Thank you. 0:49:53.920 --> 0:49:54.000 So. 0:49:54.239 --> 0:49:57.120 I think some people, if you're listening to the show, 0:49:57.160 --> 0:50:00.480 you may remember that North Carolina is the state that 0:50:00.560 --> 0:50:03.920 passed the first bathroom bills. But what has gotten significantly 0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:07.080 less attention is a everything that happened after that, and 0:50:07.239 --> 0:50:12.560 b a series of two really sweeping and hideous anti 0:50:12.600 --> 0:50:16.320 trans bills that have been passed in the last month 0:50:16.440 --> 0:50:19.600 or so. And David wrote a really really good piece 0:50:19.600 --> 0:50:24.279 for Transnus network about both these bills and also how 0:50:24.320 --> 0:50:27.040 democrats in the state helped pass them. 0:50:27.480 --> 0:50:28.319 So I want to. 0:50:28.320 --> 0:50:30.440 Talk about that, and I guess the place to start is, 0:50:30.440 --> 0:50:34.319 can you talk about what these two bills HB aight 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:38.080 oh five and SB four four to two got started. 0:50:38.600 --> 0:50:42.120 Sure, So of the two, HBAH five is the more 0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:46.560 sweeping broadly, at least, they're both terrible anti trans bill. 0:50:46.600 --> 0:50:51.080 It affects everything from changing your birth certificate to state 0:50:51.120 --> 0:50:57.080 health plans not covering trans healthcare to really ominously like 0:50:57.440 --> 0:50:59.719 what jail or prison you get put into if you're 0:50:59.719 --> 0:51:04.120 a train person and you're arrested. That one, it's kind 0:51:04.120 --> 0:51:07.360 of a laundry list of far right anti trans ideas. 0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:10.040 The other SB four forty two is one of those 0:51:10.080 --> 0:51:12.600 where it takes some digging. And here I'm really thankful 0:51:12.760 --> 0:51:15.480 that TNN's policy analyst, who I think you y'all have 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:17.319 had on your ftim's Kareem Green into the show, was 0:51:17.320 --> 0:51:21.360 actually there to yes, was a huge help in reviewing 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:25.200 this bill. I've been covering with North Carolina politics and 0:51:25.239 --> 0:51:28.919 it's various horrors for a long time. But even still, 0:51:28.960 --> 0:51:33.080 it's good to have like legislative expertise on that. And 0:51:33.680 --> 0:51:37.320 SA four forty two changes the definition of child abuse 0:51:38.120 --> 0:51:43.320 to not include transphobic child abuse. Essentially, it was written 0:51:43.320 --> 0:51:47.080 against the very fictional specter of like, oh, if you 0:51:47.800 --> 0:51:50.680 have questions about this trans stuff and you get your 0:51:50.760 --> 0:51:54.040 kids pronouns wrong. DSS could come like snatch them overnight, 0:51:54.080 --> 0:51:56.560 which is not a thing that has ever happened, no, 0:51:57.000 --> 0:52:01.560 including them, especially North Carolina, like yeah, yeah, so, but 0:52:01.719 --> 0:52:04.920 what it does is just bluntly open the way, especially 0:52:04.920 --> 0:52:09.439 in the state foster care system, for just anti trans 0:52:09.520 --> 0:52:12.680 bigotry across the board. You know, at this point it's like, okay, well, 0:52:12.880 --> 0:52:17.000 placement can't be NYE based on someone's religion or their 0:52:17.080 --> 0:52:21.719 race and being a transfer, you know, it's like that's 0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:26.000 that's being added those predicted identities. It's also essentially letting 0:52:26.000 --> 0:52:29.640 the ground work for just even more legal sanctioning of 0:52:29.680 --> 0:52:32.920 conversion therapy, which is of course torture and abuse. I 0:52:32.960 --> 0:52:35.560 think cream summed up as that if you if you 0:52:35.560 --> 0:52:37.560 don't have a trans can do abuse, foster care will 0:52:37.560 --> 0:52:42.480 provide one for yeah, which is it's really bleakah we chuckle, 0:52:42.560 --> 0:52:45.040 but it's we chuckle and like gallows humor because he's 0:52:45.040 --> 0:52:48.960 that absurd. So SB four forty two was the one 0:52:49.000 --> 0:52:51.960 that kind of went through the whole legislative process first, 0:52:52.600 --> 0:52:56.400 and in some ways it had less of a party 0:52:56.440 --> 0:53:02.080 line treatment than HB eighth five eventually did so you know, 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:06.040 say credit where do but NC Senate Democrats, of whom 0:53:06.040 --> 0:53:08.719 there aren't terribly many, but there are some did universally 0:53:08.800 --> 0:53:10.840 vote against this bill. They were like, no, we're not 0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:15.320 approving it. However, the GOP has a two thirds majority 0:53:15.320 --> 0:53:18.319 in there, so it's really not as necessary. They can 0:53:18.520 --> 0:53:19.919 put in sially over right a vito and there where 0:53:19.920 --> 0:53:22.399 things really came down to as North Carona House, and 0:53:22.440 --> 0:53:26.080 they are nine Democrats joined with the Republicans to pass this, 0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:29.960 and then it got to the desk of Governor Josh Stein, 0:53:30.320 --> 0:53:34.160 who won in a landslide last year like North Fromine Democrats. 0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:36.000 Despite how Jerry mayor of the state is, which we'll 0:53:36.040 --> 0:53:39.080 talk about more in a little bit, actually did pretty well. 0:53:39.760 --> 0:53:42.320 The GOP no longer had a supermajority in the House, 0:53:42.440 --> 0:53:46.160 and the Democratic candid for governor, former Attorney General Josh Stein, 0:53:46.239 --> 0:53:50.040 won in a route. So essentially that was supposed to 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:54.239 prevent bills like this from becoming law, because okay, if 0:53:54.280 --> 0:53:56.160 the Dems held the line in the North Carolina House, 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:59.319 the Republicans on the supermajority, then the governor vetos it, 0:53:59.440 --> 0:54:02.080 then they can varide of the video that didn't happen 0:54:02.760 --> 0:54:07.360 so not only did non Democrats side with Republicans Stein sign. 0:54:07.200 --> 0:54:09.799 The bill, yeah, which is hideous. 0:54:10.560 --> 0:54:14.640 Yeah, and it was it was bleakly insulting the way 0:54:14.640 --> 0:54:17.200 he did it too, because it was just like he 0:54:17.239 --> 0:54:19.680 didn't even issue a statement or oh, like, well we 0:54:19.760 --> 0:54:22.520 still believe in trans rights. This is a bureaucratic thing 0:54:22.800 --> 0:54:25.160 or even bother to make an excuse. It was just 0:54:25.239 --> 0:54:27.799 tuck in a list of bills that he signed that 0:54:27.880 --> 0:54:31.280 day alongside like some other bureaucratic stuff involving like retirement 0:54:31.320 --> 0:54:35.560 communities and recognizing driver's licenses. So it's it's definitely kind 0:54:35.560 --> 0:54:40.239 of insult to injury sort of situation. Interestingly, North Carolina's 0:54:40.440 --> 0:54:43.560 gay inc organizations, you're kind of like the mainline nonprofits 0:54:43.560 --> 0:54:45.400 and in North find there's like a quality and see 0:54:45.400 --> 0:54:48.560 there's a campaignsion the quality, which is regional is based 0:54:48.600 --> 0:54:51.279 in the state here in Aashville. They actually had been 0:54:51.440 --> 0:54:54.319 very strongly against this bill, despite some Democrats supporting it, 0:54:54.719 --> 0:54:58.160 but they stopped short as will become a theme with 0:54:58.719 --> 0:55:01.959 condemning or attacking any of the Democrats who did, which 0:55:02.000 --> 0:55:04.440 was a giant signal that this is not an issue 0:55:04.440 --> 0:55:07.360 you're really going to fight Democrats on. So the governor 0:55:07.440 --> 0:55:10.400 then thinks, well, there's no political capital be lost signing 0:55:10.440 --> 0:55:14.080 this thing. On the same day, he did veto HBATO five, 0:55:14.160 --> 0:55:16.120 along with a bunch of other bills targeting, you know, 0:55:16.320 --> 0:55:20.080 in quote marks dei measures, which are basically attempts to 0:55:20.360 --> 0:55:24.080 smash out anything that's not far right and further research 0:55:24.120 --> 0:55:27.240 shape the state, and he did veto those. The language 0:55:27.239 --> 0:55:29.400 you use, though, was definitely what a lot of us 0:55:29.520 --> 0:55:33.040 become used to. It's the oh, this was divisive. No 0:55:33.200 --> 0:55:37.320 trans people mentioned, no trans healthcare mention, no trans rights mentioned, 0:55:37.520 --> 0:55:40.040 just vaguely, well, this is divisive and it's a distraction. 0:55:40.760 --> 0:55:44.960 So HBAO five does actually go back to the legislature, 0:55:45.239 --> 0:55:48.279 and one Democrat had voted for HBAO five, so there 0:55:48.280 --> 0:55:50.640 was a tension turning of Okay, is this guy gonna 0:55:50.680 --> 0:55:55.040 still vote for a veto override Representative Dante Pittman, because 0:55:55.120 --> 0:55:58.200 it's a big deal, supposedly anyway, for a Democrat to 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:00.560 defy their own governor. It's one thing when it's like 0:56:00.600 --> 0:56:02.400 you're just okay, you know the bill's going to pass. 0:56:02.719 --> 0:56:06.600 It's still horrible, but it's supposedly a harder bar to 0:56:06.640 --> 0:56:08.520 reach or at least that's what there is. You know, 0:56:08.520 --> 0:56:11.600 ostensibly pro Queer Democrats are telling us for them to 0:56:11.600 --> 0:56:13.120 go on the record and be like, no, I'm joining 0:56:13.120 --> 0:56:15.520 with the other party to override your veto and like 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:18.880 give you the middle finger, essentially. But what happened when 0:56:18.880 --> 0:56:20.640 he got to the House, he actually did did vote 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:23.680 to hold with the veto. But another representative we've been 0:56:23.719 --> 0:56:27.439 out on a pretty dubious excused absence when HBOO five 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:31.200 was originally their Democratic rep Nasif Maajid, voted in favor 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:36.600 and that was enough to make it law. So the 0:56:36.640 --> 0:56:39.560 one thing that among Queer and transcing with Carolina, who 0:56:39.560 --> 0:56:42.720 liked a lot of other places, voted very heavily against 0:56:42.760 --> 0:56:45.279 the Republicans, you know, for the Democratic candidates and all. 0:56:45.280 --> 0:56:47.920 That's one reason they did fairly well last year to 0:56:48.040 --> 0:56:51.640 stop exactly the sort of legislation becoming law. It just 0:56:51.760 --> 0:56:54.800 became law, and it did so thanks to members of 0:56:54.840 --> 0:56:58.040 the Democratic Party and in one bill, the Democratic governor. 0:57:08.920 --> 0:57:13.120 Both of these bills are unbelievably draconian, like these are 0:57:13.120 --> 0:57:16.920 things that even like two years ago, like banning state 0:57:17.000 --> 0:57:19.560 funding for like all trans healthcare. 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:21.600 Well for the state health plan, we should specify. 0:57:21.680 --> 0:57:24.480 Yeah, yeah, sorry, it is like the state healthcare but 0:57:25.280 --> 0:57:26.680 and this is at least my understanding of it, is 0:57:26.720 --> 0:57:27.720 that this is a ban on. 0:57:27.960 --> 0:57:31.800 All ages, yes, for anyone on the state health care plan. 0:57:31.840 --> 0:57:34.800 So if someone is a state employee or a teacher, yeah, 0:57:34.880 --> 0:57:37.480 or like your kids are exactly. And it's kind of 0:57:37.480 --> 0:57:40.160 Actually it's close to home for me because I grew 0:57:40.240 --> 0:57:42.040 up poor in North Carolina and one of the only 0:57:42.040 --> 0:57:44.600 reasons we had healthcare growing up was so my mom, 0:57:44.600 --> 0:57:48.680 as poorly paid as she was, was a public school teacher. So, 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:52.480 you know, it's a trans kid in where I was. 0:57:52.600 --> 0:57:55.520 Now where we know, you know, it's easier for trans 0:57:55.600 --> 0:57:57.200 kids to know who they are. It's not quite as 0:57:57.280 --> 0:57:59.440 a race as it was back in the nineties. Yeah, 0:58:00.200 --> 0:58:03.400 get health care. A trans adult who's a teacher can't 0:58:03.400 --> 0:58:04.880 have their health care covered anymore. 0:58:05.080 --> 0:58:07.680 And that's a thing that like two years ago, Ron 0:58:07.720 --> 0:58:11.600 DeSantis wasn't calling for this. No, right, the Daily Wire 0:58:11.760 --> 0:58:14.280 at that point, like two years ago is explicitly calling 0:58:14.320 --> 0:58:19.080 for trans extorminacious things, but they're not specifically proposing adults 0:58:19.160 --> 0:58:23.000 can't use trans healthcare. That's not a thing like, yeah, 0:58:23.040 --> 0:58:25.439 that was that was even on the table, and now 0:58:25.560 --> 0:58:28.880 you have like, you have a Democrat overwriting their own 0:58:28.880 --> 0:58:30.439 governor's veto to get this through. 0:58:30.560 --> 0:58:33.560 Yes, a Democrat in a solidly blue district. Magine's district 0:58:33.640 --> 0:58:36.080 is in the middle of Charlotte, which for folks who 0:58:36.080 --> 0:58:37.640 may I mean, it's going to sit like Charlotte's the 0:58:37.680 --> 0:58:40.720 largest city here, and it is not known for being 0:58:40.880 --> 0:58:43.520 like at least on voting law, as it doesn't go 0:58:43.640 --> 0:58:45.040 for the GOP generally. 0:58:45.600 --> 0:58:48.080 Yeah, and then this is the same point that I 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:52.160 want to make about this bill, like redefining what child 0:58:52.200 --> 0:58:56.000 abuse is like even by the standards of sort of 0:58:56.040 --> 0:59:00.520 like far right anti trans bills, those are really weird 0:59:00.640 --> 0:59:01.400 and radical. 0:59:01.720 --> 0:59:04.120 Korean said it was one of the worst that she'd 0:59:04.200 --> 0:59:06.480 seen in the country as far as like on the 0:59:06.520 --> 0:59:07.360 childcare front. 0:59:07.440 --> 0:59:09.680 From my covering of this too, Yeah, this is one 0:59:09.720 --> 0:59:12.640 of the worst things I've ever seen. And the Democratic 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:14.200 Party passed. 0:59:13.880 --> 0:59:16.320 It passed with nine Democrats in favor, and the governor 0:59:16.400 --> 0:59:16.760 signed it. 0:59:16.880 --> 0:59:20.920 Yeah, that's unbelievably horrifying. Yeah, And the fact that the 0:59:21.000 --> 0:59:24.600 queer wargs in the state were unwilling to condemn the 0:59:24.720 --> 0:59:28.600 Democrats who passed this is just horrifying. 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:31.400 It is and actually goes one further than that because 0:59:31.760 --> 0:59:34.480 afterwards they didn't even bother to put out perfunctory Oh, 0:59:34.520 --> 0:59:37.720 we're disappointing Governor Stein. You know, we will continue to 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:40.280 try to fight this legislation in court or something like that. 0:59:40.680 --> 0:59:44.320 They did nothing. Yeah, they just they went silent. So 0:59:44.440 --> 0:59:47.280 and you know, their combinations of SB four forty two, 0:59:47.320 --> 0:59:50.480 especially before this bill passed, they were all correct. It 0:59:50.560 --> 0:59:53.600 is horrible. It does sanction child abuse. It is horrific 0:59:53.640 --> 0:59:56.440 on every single front. It is a catastrophe. It is 0:59:56.520 --> 1:00:00.000 draconian all that. It didn't stop being so when Democrats 1:00:00.160 --> 1:00:03.280 started supporting it. Yeah, the kids hurt by this family's 1:00:03.320 --> 1:00:05.200 hurt by this aren't going to be any less hurt 1:00:05.760 --> 1:00:07.840 because a Democrat signed on to it. 1:00:08.520 --> 1:00:10.560 Yeah. And before we go to break the thing I 1:00:10.600 --> 1:00:13.800 want to sort of close this section with is that, like, 1:00:14.640 --> 1:00:16.680 you know, I think it's a very very common thing 1:00:16.760 --> 1:00:19.440 to focus on, like, Okay, why are you focusing on 1:00:19.600 --> 1:00:21.840 the Democrats right now when the Republicans are doing all 1:00:21.880 --> 1:00:26.920 of this stuff? And this is a case where very explicitly, 1:00:26.960 --> 1:00:29.000 and this is the dynamic I think you've seen across 1:00:29.040 --> 1:00:32.240 the board with for example, like Chuck Schumer like helping 1:00:32.280 --> 1:00:36.160 to get their Republican budget through right. Yes, the stuff 1:00:36.200 --> 1:00:39.680 the Republicans are doing, a lot of it can't be 1:00:39.800 --> 1:00:43.560 implemented without the support of the Democrats. And the Democrats 1:00:43.600 --> 1:00:47.400 have been willing to support the fascist governments implementing this stuff, 1:00:48.160 --> 1:00:53.000 and that makes them a collaborationist party, yes, in a 1:00:53.040 --> 1:00:57.000 lot of extremely important cases. And when that happens. In 1:00:57.040 --> 1:00:59.960 North Carolina is one of the places at the forefront. 1:00:59.760 --> 1:01:03.040 And it has been at the forefront for like a decade, 1:01:03.160 --> 1:01:05.880 for nearly a decade. Yeah, for nearly a decade. It's 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:09.640 like eight years, seven seven, eight years nine nine. As 1:01:09.680 --> 1:01:12.320 of this year, it's nine years since HB two. Good 1:01:12.360 --> 1:01:14.760 lore along in the spring of twenty sixteen, sixteen, Yeah, 1:01:14.760 --> 1:01:18.200 oh that is yeah. This is do not do not 1:01:18.360 --> 1:01:20.240 go to sleep at five in the morning and then 1:01:20.240 --> 1:01:21.920 try to do math live on the area. It will 1:01:21.960 --> 1:01:26.720 come for you too, really truly. It was China subtract 1:01:26.760 --> 1:01:31.920 sixteenth of twenty Okay, this is this, this, this, this 1:01:31.960 --> 1:01:33.640 is this is your one moment of levity and a 1:01:33.640 --> 1:01:36.080 bunch of extremely bleak shit. Isn'ta be a trying and 1:01:36.120 --> 1:01:38.040 failing to do math on air? Look, I can drive 1:01:38.400 --> 1:01:42.960 that's I'm thinking to it. But what we were seeing 1:01:43.000 --> 1:01:46.200 here is the way in which like resistance to the 1:01:46.200 --> 1:01:48.720 GUOPN this is a place like North Carolina is a 1:01:48.760 --> 1:01:52.920 state where in the midst of a just unbelievable national 1:01:53.000 --> 1:01:59.240 right wing turn right queer people turned out to stop this. Yeah, 1:01:59.560 --> 1:02:04.360 and their reward for their resistance was the people that 1:02:04.400 --> 1:02:07.760 they had put in charge of defending them, and in 1:02:07.920 --> 1:02:10.800 as staggering of an example of the banality of evil 1:02:10.840 --> 1:02:14.520 as I've ever seen, just signed this horrific piece of 1:02:14.520 --> 1:02:16.960 anti trans legislation that couldn't have been passed without them 1:02:17.240 --> 1:02:21.640 into effect in the same thing as like fucking as 1:02:21.680 --> 1:02:23.160 a bunch of regulatory bullshit. 1:02:23.760 --> 1:02:25.760 Yeah, and then Gaying did nothing. 1:02:25.920 --> 1:02:26.120 Yeah. 1:02:26.160 --> 1:02:28.360 The groups they're supposed to lobby at the football this 1:02:28.400 --> 1:02:31.280 is the point of their existence, did nothing. 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:31.800 Yeah. 1:02:32.120 --> 1:02:34.280 At that point, they just they let they let it go, 1:02:34.560 --> 1:02:37.040 you know, on the next fundraising cycle, onto the next 1:02:37.160 --> 1:02:39.840 AI meme to on your page to boost you know, 1:02:40.000 --> 1:02:41.720 content generation or whatever. 1:02:42.520 --> 1:02:55.520 And here we are, and we are back. 1:02:55.880 --> 1:02:59.080 Now for the brevity of this show, I am not 1:02:59.520 --> 1:03:01.680 going to go into my giant rants about how this 1:03:01.760 --> 1:03:04.200 is what happened with mid Rand and the French socialists 1:03:04.200 --> 1:03:08.120 and how Midrand and the Socialist Party institute of neoliberalisab 1:03:08.200 --> 1:03:12.080 in France. But Comma, we are instead of doing that 1:03:12.320 --> 1:03:15.080 or me going on another rant about the abromation of 1:03:15.120 --> 1:03:18.680 social movements by the NIS of Bolivia, or another rants 1:03:18.800 --> 1:03:23.520 about the seventeen different iterations of this that we've seen 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:27.800 over the year. See my episodes on Lula, see many many, many, 1:03:27.920 --> 1:03:30.760 many many things I've done. We're gonna go back and 1:03:30.960 --> 1:03:33.439 talk about this in the context of North Carolina because 1:03:33.480 --> 1:03:35.680 I think there's a really very a very important thread 1:03:36.280 --> 1:03:39.560 that David you have been pulling on in this piece 1:03:39.680 --> 1:03:45.160 and in general that is really not well understood anywhere. 1:03:45.200 --> 1:03:49.200 That is about the structure and function of the Democratic 1:03:49.200 --> 1:03:51.720 Party in the South and the way that North Carolina 1:03:51.720 --> 1:03:55.520 has functioned is it's sort of like the moderate human 1:03:55.640 --> 1:04:02.080 face of like the Greensboro massacre. Oh my, yeah, And 1:04:02.280 --> 1:04:03.800 this is one of those where to start thing. 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:06.160 There's a quote that I have in the piece by 1:04:06.320 --> 1:04:09.360 civil rights historian Timothy Tyson that, since I read it, 1:04:09.560 --> 1:04:12.560 I think over a decade ago, really just kind of 1:04:12.640 --> 1:04:15.040 hit me like a hammer and is kind of simple 1:04:15.040 --> 1:04:17.840 at the experience I've seen as a you know, impoverished 1:04:17.840 --> 1:04:21.960 trans woman living in North Carolina and covering local state 1:04:22.000 --> 1:04:24.160 government and how federal government works on the ground here too, 1:04:24.400 --> 1:04:27.880 like beneath the green ivy of civility but a stone 1:04:27.920 --> 1:04:32.240 wall of coercion. Yeah, and that is one of the 1:04:32.240 --> 1:04:35.280 better summaries, and it applies other circumstances too, but it 1:04:35.320 --> 1:04:38.640 is it just perfectly sums up kind of the historical 1:04:38.640 --> 1:04:41.320 real the North kind of Democratic party. And when Tyson 1:04:41.400 --> 1:04:43.680 was doing that, he was tracing this whole history from 1:04:43.720 --> 1:04:47.600 the eighteen ninety eight Wilmington Cudaeta and massacre, which is 1:04:48.000 --> 1:04:50.400 one of the most decisive events in American history. And 1:04:50.400 --> 1:04:52.160 I'd even say in like the history of the rise 1:04:52.160 --> 1:04:56.080 of fascism too, to the current day. He was writing 1:04:56.080 --> 1:04:59.560 the late nineties, and it is part of a project 1:04:59.560 --> 1:05:01.959 of history. And one of the terms they were using 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:06.320 was has this progressive mystique while you were having governors 1:05:06.320 --> 1:05:08.360 on their southern states during the Civil Rights era, where 1:05:08.360 --> 1:05:12.120 you know, giving angry speeches from courthouses and things like that, 1:05:12.200 --> 1:05:16.360 and North Carolina was trying to be the moderate example 1:05:16.360 --> 1:05:19.360 of the South. Oh, you know, we put money into 1:05:19.480 --> 1:05:21.560 look at all these schools and roads were building this 1:05:21.720 --> 1:05:25.080 college system. We're building. We just built Research Triangle Park. 1:05:25.160 --> 1:05:27.720 You know, we're attracting. You know, it's the too busy 1:05:27.760 --> 1:05:31.680 to hate kind of myth. And on that note, they 1:05:31.720 --> 1:05:35.400 generally were more careful about repression, but it still happened. 1:05:35.760 --> 1:05:38.080 You know, North caronin doesn't make the headlines and something 1:05:38.080 --> 1:05:41.240 of the like Selma did, for example, But there was 1:05:41.280 --> 1:05:44.800 a history of riots and a brutal attempts of repression 1:05:45.040 --> 1:05:48.480 from the forties all the way to the seventies in 1:05:48.520 --> 1:05:51.560 North Carolina, and they happened like in almost every city, 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:53.880 major city there is here, you know, and some that 1:05:53.960 --> 1:05:54.760 weren't so major. 1:05:55.200 --> 1:05:56.760 That's the thing that we've talked about a little bit 1:05:56.800 --> 1:05:59.680 on the show with the Holy Week uprising and the 1:05:59.720 --> 1:06:03.280 sort of the whole wave of riots kind of culminating 1:06:03.320 --> 1:06:05.800 in the assassination of Martin Luther King. But like, yeah, 1:06:05.800 --> 1:06:08.680 like statistically, most of the riots that happened in that 1:06:08.800 --> 1:06:12.919 entire period happened in these small and midsized cities. Yeah, 1:06:12.960 --> 1:06:14.840 that have just like the historical memory of which has 1:06:14.880 --> 1:06:17.600 been completely fucking buried. Yeah, and with Carolina, as you saying, 1:06:17.640 --> 1:06:20.480 like it's one of the critical sights of this. Yeah, 1:06:20.640 --> 1:06:23.600 Durham was rioting in the forties. Yeah, like that, that's 1:06:23.640 --> 1:06:24.760 how far back it goes. 1:06:25.000 --> 1:06:27.840 And I think a lot of time people think, oh, well, 1:06:27.880 --> 1:06:29.680 not much happened in this era, and I think it's 1:06:29.680 --> 1:06:32.040 just a lack of knowledge of history, especially radical history. 1:06:32.400 --> 1:06:34.960 Did it not happen or was it suppressed and then erased? 1:06:35.040 --> 1:06:36.360 Yeah, yeah, and that. 1:06:36.640 --> 1:06:38.320 Happened a lot of this, So you had, you know, 1:06:38.520 --> 1:06:41.280 and figures like Governor Terry Samer at the time, who 1:06:41.320 --> 1:06:44.400 was you know, famous North Carolina Democrat, And yeah, if 1:06:44.440 --> 1:06:47.360 the klan was like openly marching to murder people, he 1:06:47.480 --> 1:06:50.080 might say like, Okay, look a massacre's bad news. We 1:06:50.160 --> 1:06:52.080 are going to like put the state troopers out to 1:06:52.480 --> 1:06:54.960 them from doing that. But a lot of the rights 1:06:55.000 --> 1:06:57.600 activist end up dead, yeah, you know, or there's still 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:01.960 like violent crackdowns, you know, the Greensboro if he was 1:07:01.960 --> 1:07:04.360 a side at both of some really well organized like 1:07:04.360 --> 1:07:07.600 civil rights efforts and sit ins and more radical action too, 1:07:07.960 --> 1:07:09.920 but also have a lot of repression. You know, by 1:07:09.960 --> 1:07:13.440 nineteen seventy nine, when the States boosters are portraying, you know, 1:07:13.480 --> 1:07:16.520 all that upheaval is a thing of the past. This 1:07:16.720 --> 1:07:20.680 anti racist marched or anti clan Mark, specifically organized by 1:07:20.760 --> 1:07:25.320 this communist group in Greensboro, was massacred. The clan and 1:07:25.360 --> 1:07:28.360 Neo Nazis came in. They just opened fire on people. 1:07:29.040 --> 1:07:33.200 Largely they were acquitted later and in ensuing years, a 1:07:33.200 --> 1:07:36.240 lot of investigation has been done into this and various 1:07:36.280 --> 1:07:38.920 levels of local and state and aft the fact federal 1:07:39.000 --> 1:07:42.200 law enforcement were very complicit and things ranging from just 1:07:42.240 --> 1:07:44.400 kind of trying to sweep it under the rug to 1:07:44.720 --> 1:07:48.200 outright especially the local level like cooperating with the clan. 1:07:48.880 --> 1:07:50.520 A lot of them were either aware this is going 1:07:50.560 --> 1:07:52.880 on and did nothing to stop it, or even actively 1:07:52.920 --> 1:07:56.919 fed the clan information. There's a book recently called Morningside 1:07:56.920 --> 1:07:58.680 that goes into a lot of a lot of this 1:07:58.760 --> 1:08:01.760 detail that courage folks take a look at. But like, 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:04.600 that's the reality of North Carolina, and that's the reality 1:08:04.640 --> 1:08:08.439 beneath the progressive mystique. And one of the historians quote 1:08:08.480 --> 1:08:11.720 the piece mentioned that this is an exquisite instrument of 1:08:11.760 --> 1:08:16.120 social control because you've kind of already framed the discussion as, oh, 1:08:16.160 --> 1:08:19.200 it's just this genteel civil thing. We'll hear you out. 1:08:19.320 --> 1:08:21.960 Just be a little more patient. But if stuff ever 1:08:22.000 --> 1:08:25.960 really escalates, there is the option of just flat out 1:08:26.360 --> 1:08:31.000 smears violence and massacre, and knowing the history of North Carolina, 1:08:31.080 --> 1:08:33.559 you know a lot of this was directed at black 1:08:33.600 --> 1:08:37.200 North Carolinians, but also it was used to crush labor stuff. 1:08:37.200 --> 1:08:39.000 A lot of the people killed in the Greensboro massacre 1:08:39.080 --> 1:08:42.400 were also organizing in the textile mills. And North Carolina 1:08:42.479 --> 1:08:45.719 under the Democrats under their moderate period, had and continues 1:08:45.760 --> 1:08:49.160 to have some of the most draconian anti labor laws 1:08:49.160 --> 1:08:52.720 in the country, which takes some work. So that's kind 1:08:52.760 --> 1:08:55.040 of the reality in North Carolina and of the Democratic 1:08:55.080 --> 1:08:58.840 Party here, and they lean on that mystique heavily, and honestly, 1:08:59.040 --> 1:09:00.719 I think a lot of it is they evoke because 1:09:00.720 --> 1:09:03.360 you know, we're we're the defenders of the sane, sensible 1:09:03.439 --> 1:09:07.559 civil status quo. Even sat Mustein's statements about Hbao five 1:09:07.600 --> 1:09:09.759 when he did veto it, it's like, well, this is divisive, 1:09:09.800 --> 1:09:12.519 it's making too many ways. We need to get back 1:09:12.560 --> 1:09:14.880 to business, which they mean not as the business garnment. 1:09:14.920 --> 1:09:19.240 They literally mean business. We're marketing the state and making 1:09:19.280 --> 1:09:22.120 more money, and everything means making more money for the gentry. 1:09:22.600 --> 1:09:25.360 So that's kind of the reality North Carolina beneath this 1:09:26.080 --> 1:09:29.240 kind of you know how, how things supposedly are better 1:09:29.280 --> 1:09:31.840 and more progressive here in the end of the day, 1:09:31.960 --> 1:09:33.160 you can still get massacred. 1:09:33.640 --> 1:09:36.320 Yeah, And I think on a sort of structural level, right, 1:09:36.760 --> 1:09:38.880 I think there's going to be people who are being like, well, Okay, 1:09:38.880 --> 1:09:40.080 why the fuck do I give? Do I give a 1:09:40.080 --> 1:09:42.559 shit about North Carolina? And one And this is something 1:09:42.560 --> 1:09:43.960 that you point out in the piece, and something that's 1:09:44.360 --> 1:09:48.439 really obvious if you spend literally any time in the South. 1:09:48.600 --> 1:09:51.040 Is that what I think? It's thirty six percent of 1:09:51.080 --> 1:09:54.360 the South is like, what's what's the actual number? I 1:09:54.360 --> 1:09:55.559 should have looked this up before. 1:09:56.200 --> 1:09:59.679 So of the national population of queer and trans people, 1:10:00.120 --> 1:10:03.040 thirty six percent live in the South, which is far 1:10:03.160 --> 1:10:05.679 more than any other region, like by a wide march, 1:10:06.560 --> 1:10:10.280 I think, under the same twenty twenty three calculation. And 1:10:10.439 --> 1:10:12.360 there was another reason story they came out spifickly about 1:10:12.360 --> 1:10:15.559 trans people. All these have faults. It is a general 1:10:15.600 --> 1:10:18.760 rule that trans people, especially in areas where they are 1:10:18.760 --> 1:10:23.479 more legally and violently marginalized, are wildly undercounted. But it 1:10:23.640 --> 1:10:25.920 maps to about the same numbers I think of trans 1:10:25.960 --> 1:10:28.519 people in the country. The ESME population is about thirty 1:10:28.520 --> 1:10:31.320 three to thirty six percent live in the South, and 1:10:31.439 --> 1:10:33.800 in the twenty twenty three one the next highest amount 1:10:33.840 --> 1:10:35.640 live in the Midwest, which is kind of different from 1:10:35.680 --> 1:10:38.200 how you see things portrayed that you know, we're just this, ye, 1:10:38.320 --> 1:10:42.200 this coastal you know, elite bohemians on a few coastal cities. 1:10:42.280 --> 1:10:44.040 As a matter of fact, there are a lot of 1:10:44.080 --> 1:10:47.280 trains people in the South and the Midwest. Yeah, we've 1:10:47.280 --> 1:10:50.160 been here for ages, We're still here. Yeah, Yeah, it's 1:10:50.200 --> 1:10:53.280 it's it's it's North Carolina, it's Texas, it's fucking New Orleans, 1:10:53.360 --> 1:10:55.240 West Virginia, Florida, you know. 1:10:55.800 --> 1:10:58.559 Yeah, and again like in terms of like, okay, so 1:10:58.600 --> 1:11:01.840 I'm not in those places, like A, but we all 1:11:01.880 --> 1:11:05.160 have a responsibility to all queer people, like as core 1:11:05.200 --> 1:11:06.960 people right like we have we have, we have a 1:11:07.040 --> 1:11:09.600 responsibility to each other, and we should fucking fight for 1:11:09.640 --> 1:11:13.840 each other. And b you can look at what happened 1:11:13.840 --> 1:11:16.479 in North Carolina, and it was deliberately This is the 1:11:16.600 --> 1:11:21.080 place where the right wing's anti trans strategy was born, 1:11:21.160 --> 1:11:23.880 and it was exported from the success that they had 1:11:23.880 --> 1:11:28.559 in North Carolina to the entire rest of the fucking country, Yes, right, 1:11:28.600 --> 1:11:30.479 with the bathroom bills. And this is something we're going 1:11:30.520 --> 1:11:33.120 to get into a second with the way the Democratic 1:11:33.120 --> 1:11:37.400 Party like didn't react to those bathroom bills. The last 1:11:37.400 --> 1:11:38.960 point that I want to make here is that this 1:11:39.320 --> 1:11:43.320 strategy of control is also very similar to the one 1:11:43.360 --> 1:11:47.800 that the Democrats use in places like San Francisco, where 1:11:47.840 --> 1:11:50.200 you have this sort of progressive veneer over. You know 1:11:50.280 --> 1:11:52.599 that the consolation well, I guess, I guess the constellation 1:11:52.640 --> 1:11:57.639 of class forces is getting more similar as as big 1:11:57.720 --> 1:12:01.559 tech moves into like that part of the South. But 1:12:01.760 --> 1:12:04.160 you know, it's this constellation of like, oh, hey, we 1:12:04.240 --> 1:12:08.160 are the queer rights Party, but our actual interests are 1:12:08.200 --> 1:12:13.280 this combination of housing developers' landlords and tech giants, and 1:12:13.400 --> 1:12:15.400 so as a method of social control, we're going to 1:12:15.439 --> 1:12:18.880 do this like, hey, we're extremely pro trends stuff, and 1:12:18.920 --> 1:12:21.040 then we're going to throw a whole bunch of fucking 1:12:21.080 --> 1:12:25.360 trends homeless people into concentration camps. Yeah, and that's the 1:12:25.400 --> 1:12:27.600 thing that like, you know, we're going to I'm going 1:12:27.680 --> 1:12:32.240 to talk more about this on the show another time. 1:12:32.600 --> 1:12:37.720 With the ways that Trump's anti homeless executive orders, some 1:12:37.760 --> 1:12:40.360 of the models for it are the way that sweeps 1:12:40.360 --> 1:12:43.000 have been working in places like Oakland's. We've talked about 1:12:43.040 --> 1:12:47.479 this on the show before, but yeah, this mechanism of 1:12:47.560 --> 1:12:52.400 social control is one that's really really widespread. And the 1:12:52.439 --> 1:12:55.240 South operates as a laboratory for that too, in the 1:12:55.240 --> 1:12:57.080 same way that it operates as the laboratory for the right. 1:12:57.560 --> 1:13:00.519 Yeah, and I think that's really important, because this is 1:13:00.520 --> 1:13:02.920 the point I can't I can't hone this point enough 1:13:02.960 --> 1:13:05.720 and make it sharp enough. Frankly, folks need to take 1:13:05.760 --> 1:13:08.240 it really seriously. Whether you cut the South or not. 1:13:08.439 --> 1:13:09.000 Fascist do. 1:13:09.400 --> 1:13:12.519 The var right does, and they have for a long 1:13:12.800 --> 1:13:15.920 long time view did not as a place to ignore, 1:13:16.000 --> 1:13:18.160 but as a place to consolidate power and try out 1:13:18.160 --> 1:13:21.360 their tactics. Too often, the left, even the queer left, 1:13:21.640 --> 1:13:24.479 has not. We have all suffered for it. Yeah, and 1:13:24.720 --> 1:13:26.719 this is this is the whole thing for the historical 1:13:26.800 --> 1:13:28.760 left right. Like one of the things that broke the 1:13:28.800 --> 1:13:31.320 American labor movement was the defeat of the CIO in 1:13:31.360 --> 1:13:31.639 the South. 1:13:31.720 --> 1:13:33.760 Yeah, I mean all the way back to I mean 1:13:33.920 --> 1:13:36.520 events you were literally talking about, like the defeat of reconstruction. 1:13:36.840 --> 1:13:40.000 But this is, this is why this country is like this, 1:13:40.160 --> 1:13:42.479 And if you don't want the country to be like this, 1:13:42.880 --> 1:13:46.720 you have to fucking fight in the South. Yes, that's 1:13:46.760 --> 1:13:50.000 all we've got time for for today, but tomorrow we 1:13:50.040 --> 1:13:52.559 will be back talk about the long and sordid history 1:13:52.560 --> 1:13:56.960 of the Democratic Party's progressive venear in North Carolina and 1:13:57.000 --> 1:14:00.679 what truly lies beneath it, and we will look how 1:14:00.760 --> 1:14:05.360 the original response to the twenty sixteen bathroom bills set 1:14:05.360 --> 1:14:10.160 the stage for both Democratic Party in North Carolina's passing 1:14:10.160 --> 1:14:12.800 of anti trans laws today and the future of the 1:14:12.840 --> 1:14:31.400 rest of the country. Welcome Dick, It Appened Here a 1:14:31.479 --> 1:14:35.679 podcast about things falling apart and also sometimes about how 1:14:36.240 --> 1:14:38.240 claiming that you were going to put things back together 1:14:38.320 --> 1:14:42.040 and then not doing it makes things fall apart even worse. 1:14:42.200 --> 1:14:44.800 I am your host, Mia Wong, and today we're going 1:14:44.840 --> 1:14:47.680 to be continuing with part two of my interview with 1:14:47.800 --> 1:14:50.760 David Forbes, an editor and journalist for the Trans News 1:14:50.760 --> 1:14:54.120 Network in the Asheville Blade, about the history of the 1:14:54.160 --> 1:14:58.920 North Carolina Democratic Parties progressive veneer over their agreement with 1:14:58.960 --> 1:15:05.760 Republican policy, and importantly, how the Democratic Party's original response 1:15:05.920 --> 1:15:09.519 to the anti trans bathroom bills from twenty sixteen paved 1:15:09.520 --> 1:15:14.320 the way for where we are today. So enjoy, let's 1:15:14.360 --> 1:15:18.519 talk about the original bathroom bills, because I think there's 1:15:18.840 --> 1:15:21.679 some knowledge well okay, I don't know. It's been almost 1:15:21.680 --> 1:15:23.919 a decade. Yeah, so I think people may have forgotten 1:15:23.960 --> 1:15:26.719 how this all start. Is let's talk about the first 1:15:26.800 --> 1:15:29.880 bathroom bills, what happened, and then how the Democrats kind 1:15:29.920 --> 1:15:32.360 of ensured that they would stay in place. 1:15:32.840 --> 1:15:36.439 Sure, so there is the big one everyone knows about 1:15:36.520 --> 1:15:39.280 is HB two because it became kind of internationally famous 1:15:39.320 --> 1:15:42.200 as the North Carolina bathroom Bill, and even I think 1:15:42.240 --> 1:15:44.400 for folks who memories may have faded, it has come 1:15:44.479 --> 1:15:47.439 up recently as kind of a benchmark, and often a 1:15:47.479 --> 1:15:50.439 misinterpreted one. Is we're about to get into for how 1:15:50.479 --> 1:15:54.400 far things have shifted, because on paper, it looks like 1:15:54.800 --> 1:15:58.599 this really horribly backfired, and in some ways it did. Initially, 1:15:59.160 --> 1:16:03.240 HB two was a bill that was kind of slapped 1:16:03.280 --> 1:16:08.599 in last minute. It clearly drew from the larger anti 1:16:08.720 --> 1:16:12.280 trans far right policy circles which North Caroin Republicans are 1:16:12.600 --> 1:16:15.720 highly connected to. Those kind of Dems often kind of 1:16:15.800 --> 1:16:18.600 view themselves their own little like institution, like where the 1:16:18.640 --> 1:16:20.960 Democratic moderate it's like North North carnd Democrats have always 1:16:21.000 --> 1:16:23.400 been at their best. People of that tuation we talked 1:16:23.400 --> 1:16:27.559 about the Republicans here were like, okay, we're now in power, 1:16:27.680 --> 1:16:30.800 which they were starting in twenty eleven. Let's try out 1:16:30.800 --> 1:16:32.720 this stuff from ALEC. Let's try out this stuff from 1:16:32.760 --> 1:16:34.880 some obscure right wing think tank. And that meant they 1:16:34.880 --> 1:16:39.679 were plugged in when in the wake of Obergefell, and 1:16:39.960 --> 1:16:42.920 also in North Carolina as well, the year before you'd 1:16:42.920 --> 1:16:45.639 had equal marriage for that whole swath of the South 1:16:45.840 --> 1:16:49.400 was kind of imposed by a federal court order or 1:16:49.439 --> 1:16:52.120 recognized by federal court order. So they were like, Okay, 1:16:52.120 --> 1:16:54.439 this isn't working. There is not just more d there 1:16:54.520 --> 1:16:57.800 is more de facto on the ground popular acceptance of 1:16:57.880 --> 1:17:02.080 equal marriage. Now that's not the wedge was previously. So 1:17:02.120 --> 1:17:04.320 what do we shift to wile we shift to trans people, 1:17:04.960 --> 1:17:08.040 And so North Caron legislators very eager to try out 1:17:08.040 --> 1:17:11.280 far right policies. The North Caron GOP is far right 1:17:11.320 --> 1:17:14.360 even by Southern standards, which is interesting because the state's 1:17:14.640 --> 1:17:17.439 very split as far as like votes and demographics go. 1:17:18.280 --> 1:17:22.559 So twenty sixteens rolled around four years earlier, the Dems 1:17:22.560 --> 1:17:25.000 had done the usual thing they'd run a super conservative, 1:17:25.040 --> 1:17:29.559 super pro business, white guy Democrat. He got trounced by 1:17:29.840 --> 1:17:32.160 Pat McCrory, who was the former mayor of Charlotte, and 1:17:32.240 --> 1:17:34.840 Rain is like, Oh, I'm a moderate, sensible Republican. I'm 1:17:34.880 --> 1:17:37.479 going to bounce out the legislature a little bit. But 1:17:37.840 --> 1:17:40.880 unlike too many outside the region and the state who 1:17:40.920 --> 1:17:42.800 kind of wrote oka in North Carolina just becoming this 1:17:42.920 --> 1:17:45.720 red state now like other Southern states have, they knew 1:17:45.720 --> 1:17:50.160 their hole was actually really precarious. Now they jerrymandered extensively, 1:17:50.720 --> 1:17:54.160 so extensively that like North Carolina. The same year as 1:17:54.240 --> 1:17:58.000 HP two pass stopped being recognized as a democracy by 1:17:58.120 --> 1:18:00.559 the the policiers a study a matter of fact, the 1:18:00.600 --> 1:18:04.280 district Carolina they did a whole commentary later that year 1:18:04.320 --> 1:18:07.320 that these were the most rigged districts, the most area 1:18:07.400 --> 1:18:09.839 districts they'd seen, not just in the US but anywhere 1:18:09.840 --> 1:18:12.840 in the world. So that is where we live, That's 1:18:12.840 --> 1:18:16.880 where we lived for some time. But the governor's like 1:18:16.960 --> 1:18:19.880 the statewide, so he's in a more precarious position, and 1:18:20.720 --> 1:18:23.960 they wanted a wedge issue in their view to drive 1:18:23.960 --> 1:18:26.679 out conservative votes. They also hate trans people and want 1:18:26.680 --> 1:18:31.240 to hurt us. So this HB two said that trans 1:18:31.280 --> 1:18:35.280 people can't go into bathrooms unless they use the one 1:18:35.320 --> 1:18:38.960 matching their birth certificate in any state building in North Carolina. 1:18:38.960 --> 1:18:42.160 And this technically also includes like local government buildings, includes 1:18:42.240 --> 1:18:47.120 like social services, it includes like any educational setting pretty much. 1:18:47.360 --> 1:18:49.840 So this was clearly a slab dash affair. They didn't 1:18:49.840 --> 1:18:52.600 even have like an enforcement mechanism in there. But I 1:18:52.680 --> 1:18:54.759 did a few other things too, I think people forget about, 1:18:55.200 --> 1:18:59.120 which is it also stripped the ability of localities to 1:18:59.200 --> 1:19:02.040 make their own minimal wage rules, So it was also 1:19:02.080 --> 1:19:05.200 an attack on labor because those always go together and 1:19:05.760 --> 1:19:09.360 not unrelated. Trans and quick people are only working class demographics, 1:19:09.360 --> 1:19:12.960 which I don't think gets set enough, and also essentially users. 1:19:13.000 --> 1:19:16.920 On reaction to Charlotte adding gender identity to its existing 1:19:17.000 --> 1:19:21.360 non discrimination ordinance, there's was a local one, but in reality, 1:19:21.520 --> 1:19:23.360 you know, if Chartte had never done that, they would 1:19:23.400 --> 1:19:26.519 have done a bill like this pretty shortly. Anyway, it 1:19:26.560 --> 1:19:29.759 was kind of just the excuse. And they also struck 1:19:29.840 --> 1:19:33.400 down all non discrimination ordinances across the state, like local 1:19:33.439 --> 1:19:37.559 non discrimination ordinances. So this is a broad attack with 1:19:37.720 --> 1:19:40.599 trans people as kind of the point of the spear 1:19:40.800 --> 1:19:43.240 as it were, like the ones most in the front lines. 1:19:43.680 --> 1:19:46.479 It's a familiar pattern. You go after trans rights, you're 1:19:46.479 --> 1:19:50.120 also going after broad rights for any marginalized group because 1:19:50.160 --> 1:19:52.320 non disformation stuff is being struck down left and right. 1:19:52.760 --> 1:19:56.280 And also you're attacking labor yep. So you know, it 1:19:56.360 --> 1:19:58.040 really kind of set the model for things to come. 1:19:58.560 --> 1:20:03.439 HB two sparks a massive international backlash. I think the 1:20:03.439 --> 1:20:06.679 indestment was four hundred million. The state lost four hundred 1:20:06.720 --> 1:20:09.680 million as companies pulled out, events pulled out. There was 1:20:09.720 --> 1:20:13.839 a boycott, a fairly effective one, honestly, that was started 1:20:14.240 --> 1:20:17.800 as grassroots though gay inc groups and even like just 1:20:18.240 --> 1:20:21.519 random nonprofits and some Democratic Party officials later joined in 1:20:21.560 --> 1:20:25.040 on it. So the money's being hemorrhage left and right. 1:20:25.120 --> 1:20:28.639 McCrory's being turned into a national laughing stock, if anything, 1:20:28.760 --> 1:20:31.719 is proving a rallying point for the other side. Because 1:20:31.760 --> 1:20:35.599 twenty sixteen rolls around and in a year where Trump 1:20:35.680 --> 1:20:38.639 takes North Carolina and generally the Republicans do fairly well 1:20:38.680 --> 1:20:41.240 throughout the South, even in a swing states like NC, 1:20:41.960 --> 1:20:45.679 McCrory loses. He loses to the Attorney General Roy Cooper 1:20:45.720 --> 1:20:48.120 as a Democrat. Now, I would never say his pro 1:20:48.200 --> 1:20:50.400 trains are about again some major betrayals he did. He 1:20:50.479 --> 1:20:53.360 was more willing to say, at least perfunctory statements about 1:20:53.400 --> 1:20:57.240 trains rights than any northbound Democratic politician as a statewide 1:20:57.320 --> 1:21:01.840 level before and honestly since, including the current governor. And yeah, 1:21:01.880 --> 1:21:15.439 he proceeded to win, so he gets in office. North 1:21:15.479 --> 1:21:18.599 Carolina gentry are historically plenty fine with big a treat, 1:21:18.800 --> 1:21:20.800 but the Republicans had by this point broken one of 1:21:20.840 --> 1:21:23.559 their cardinal rules, which is they fucked with the money. Yeah, 1:21:23.600 --> 1:21:26.360 because like the state was losing money, They were losing 1:21:26.400 --> 1:21:29.479 business deals, corporate headquarters and stuff. And this is a 1:21:29.479 --> 1:21:32.639 lot of what the status quo, very antire labor says. 1:21:32.680 --> 1:21:35.120 Quote that North kid Democrats and Republicans had generally both 1:21:35.120 --> 1:21:39.519 supported in varying ways was in danger and you know, 1:21:39.520 --> 1:21:41.879 some of them persons were losing money. So they basically 1:21:41.920 --> 1:21:47.120 tell the Republicans in early twenty seventeen to knock it off, like, Okay, 1:21:47.160 --> 1:21:49.960 you've gone far enough. It didn't work, you lost the election. 1:21:50.640 --> 1:21:52.360 They still do the Jerry manner had a lot of 1:21:52.360 --> 1:21:54.920 power in the state legislature, but they didn't have the 1:21:54.920 --> 1:21:59.200 governor's office anymore, so you know, repeal this, like we're 1:21:59.200 --> 1:22:01.640 getting too much bad to see. And what really escalated 1:22:01.680 --> 1:22:04.560 it was basketball is kind of a religion in North Carolina, 1:22:04.760 --> 1:22:07.880 especially college basketball, and the NCAA said, look, we'll pull 1:22:07.920 --> 1:22:09.880 the tournament out of HB two is still in the books. 1:22:10.360 --> 1:22:13.120 And at that point there became like these back and 1:22:13.160 --> 1:22:17.439 forth sessions. Earlier in December, there was this compromise effort 1:22:17.680 --> 1:22:21.920 where supposedly Charlotte would strike its non discrimination stuff on 1:22:22.000 --> 1:22:24.920 its end. It was currently like the source of legal challenge. 1:22:24.920 --> 1:22:27.519 They'd gone to court to fight to uphold it. And 1:22:27.920 --> 1:22:30.960 this should have been a warning sign. The governor, ELEC. Cooper, 1:22:30.960 --> 1:22:34.480 at that point brokeer kind of this deal where okay, Charlotte, 1:22:34.600 --> 1:22:36.880 you take trains people out of your non screaming short 1:22:36.920 --> 1:22:39.120 and insa of your own accord and the state will 1:22:39.120 --> 1:22:42.559 repeal HB two. Well that didn't happen. They did the 1:22:42.560 --> 1:22:44.840 first part, and then the least legislators were like, okay, 1:22:44.920 --> 1:22:47.519 well that's nice, we're not doing anything about this. That 1:22:47.600 --> 1:22:51.439 should have been a lesson about complying in advance, but 1:22:51.760 --> 1:22:55.400 it didn't really seem to take Sadly, so HB two 1:22:55.360 --> 1:22:57.400 wastll in the books. By March, you know, March Madness 1:22:57.520 --> 1:23:00.759 is coming up and all that, And so they finally 1:23:00.800 --> 1:23:04.720 do a repealed and this is still hailed as oh, 1:23:04.800 --> 1:23:07.680 look like back in the day, like even Republicans, some 1:23:07.800 --> 1:23:10.479 Republicans would like repeal a trans bill when it got 1:23:10.479 --> 1:23:12.720 this big backlash. Their federal funding was being threatened as 1:23:12.760 --> 1:23:15.439 well for the state. It's not like federal education funding 1:23:15.479 --> 1:23:18.639 and all. That's not what happened though, And what happened 1:23:18.680 --> 1:23:20.439 I think is actually was a lot more ominous and 1:23:20.520 --> 1:23:24.080 a lot more revealing. What passed instead was honestly a 1:23:24.080 --> 1:23:27.240 second bathroom bill called HB one four to two or 1:23:27.400 --> 1:23:30.120 HB two point zero, as a lot of activists and 1:23:30.240 --> 1:23:32.400 queer folks in the ground Transfer the Ground dubbed it. 1:23:32.840 --> 1:23:35.960 And what this bill did was it technically took out 1:23:36.000 --> 1:23:38.280 the bathroom ban, but it's put in a bunch of 1:23:38.320 --> 1:23:40.680 byzantine provisions about who could use the bathroom wins, so 1:23:40.680 --> 1:23:42.439 it would still take a court case for a trans 1:23:42.439 --> 1:23:46.280 woman to go use the women's bathroom. It kept all 1:23:46.280 --> 1:23:48.400 the anti labor stuff, and it kept all the non 1:23:48.400 --> 1:23:51.479 discrimination stuff struck down for years, like you couldn't pass 1:23:51.560 --> 1:23:55.760 local manscration protections for years, and at this point the 1:23:55.800 --> 1:23:59.840 pressure is mounting the Democratic Party for the first time 1:24:00.800 --> 1:24:04.200 most of a decade, their votes in the legislature actually 1:24:04.280 --> 1:24:07.000 matter because the Republicans they're split between kind of the 1:24:07.000 --> 1:24:08.840 capitalists who are hate trains that were using this as 1:24:08.880 --> 1:24:11.040 a wedge issue and now the money's being fucked with 1:24:11.320 --> 1:24:13.599 they're ready to repeal it, and some of the others 1:24:13.640 --> 1:24:15.960 who are like, no, no, we really are dedicated to 1:24:16.000 --> 1:24:18.160 hating trans people. The state can burn as long as 1:24:18.160 --> 1:24:20.240 trans people's lives are made more miserable. So they have 1:24:20.280 --> 1:24:22.640 the votes in their own caucus to pass this. So 1:24:22.720 --> 1:24:25.040 for once DEM's had a lot of power and they 1:24:25.040 --> 1:24:27.759 could have easily been like no floor or peel or nothing, 1:24:27.880 --> 1:24:30.960 and they probably would have gotten it through. They did not. 1:24:31.360 --> 1:24:34.439 They sided with the Republicans. They passed this mess that 1:24:34.880 --> 1:24:38.400 essentially kept the status quo. It was just barely enough 1:24:38.439 --> 1:24:41.360 for the NCAA, who even noted they even know their corporation. 1:24:41.439 --> 1:24:44.160 Basically they know it was reluctant that they were, you know, 1:24:44.520 --> 1:24:47.439 putting the tournament back in NC, but they did. The 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:50.920 governor knew. Governor Democratic governor signed it. I probably forget 1:24:50.920 --> 1:24:53.639 as mentioned earlier. HB two passed with two Democratic votes. 1:24:53.640 --> 1:24:56.000 In the first place, this is like not a new 1:24:56.040 --> 1:24:59.479 trend of this happening. Heck, anti queer stuff even well 1:24:59.479 --> 1:25:02.559 before that would often pass with democratic support as well 1:25:02.600 --> 1:25:06.519 as Republican support, often be signed by democratic governors, So 1:25:07.240 --> 1:25:10.120 this is not an entirely new thing. And this is 1:25:10.160 --> 1:25:12.519 also a point where you can see gay Ink splitting 1:25:12.560 --> 1:25:15.680 a bit because gay Ink did actually had actually condemned 1:25:16.000 --> 1:25:20.000 h two point zero, but once it became passed, they 1:25:20.040 --> 1:25:23.240 either offered tempted statements or they backed down, and so 1:25:23.479 --> 1:25:27.559 the lesson from HB two wasn't okay. Back in the day, 1:25:27.800 --> 1:25:30.880 you know, nine years ago, trans rights used to be 1:25:30.920 --> 1:25:34.000 more of a consensus, even among moderate conservatives, at least 1:25:34.000 --> 1:25:37.040 basic protections for it. And a good example was how 1:25:37.160 --> 1:25:40.840 unpopular hbtw was it was repealed under all this backlash. 1:25:41.160 --> 1:25:44.400 It did get a backlash, but it wasn't really repealed. 1:25:44.520 --> 1:25:46.760 And as a matter of fact, what the far right 1:25:46.880 --> 1:25:50.439 learned was that when it comes down to it, the 1:25:50.520 --> 1:25:54.240 Democrats North Carolina, it turned out, elsewhere will fold if 1:25:54.280 --> 1:25:55.960 trans rights has made an issue. 1:25:56.280 --> 1:25:59.400 Yeah, and you know, and you can watch everything that 1:25:59.439 --> 1:26:03.240 has happened and since with trans rights has just been 1:26:03.280 --> 1:26:05.640 the Democrats folding over and over and over again and 1:26:05.680 --> 1:26:08.639 getting weaker and weaker language until we're in this place now, 1:26:08.840 --> 1:26:10.320 you know, Like and I think the thing that is 1:26:10.360 --> 1:26:13.200 a little bit different is that like you used to 1:26:13.280 --> 1:26:17.360 have to like claim you had done something about the 1:26:17.400 --> 1:26:19.640 anti trans bill, and now you can just sign it 1:26:19.720 --> 1:26:22.560 yeh and it becomes law. And this is something that 1:26:22.600 --> 1:26:24.320 has does played out across the country. Like there have 1:26:24.439 --> 1:26:27.879 been a lot of states where Democratic governors have signed 1:26:27.920 --> 1:26:29.320 anti trans bills, yes. 1:26:29.160 --> 1:26:31.160 Or vita pro trans bills like in California. 1:26:31.320 --> 1:26:34.919 Yeah, And you know even in states where like Pritzker, 1:26:35.000 --> 1:26:36.840 the governor of Illinois, has been being held up as 1:26:36.880 --> 1:26:38.800 like the big pro trans people I've seen. I see 1:26:38.840 --> 1:26:41.880 like even trans leftists doing this, and you know, like 1:26:41.960 --> 1:26:43.400 there are a lot of things in Illinois that are 1:26:43.439 --> 1:26:46.679 very good for trans people. Because of the weird Pritzker corruption, 1:26:46.800 --> 1:26:49.879 his sister is trans. And also the moment the government 1:26:50.040 --> 1:26:53.000 was like, oh, hey, we're gonna like sort of make 1:26:53.040 --> 1:26:56.840 a big show of threatening like healthcare funding, Pritsker just 1:26:57.000 --> 1:26:59.920 folded and let all these hospitals stop providing transcrir to youth, 1:27:00.000 --> 1:27:02.640 even though it is literally a violation of Illinois like 1:27:02.680 --> 1:27:06.040 of Illinois discrimination legislation. Yeah, they just back down and 1:27:06.120 --> 1:27:06.760 refuse to do it. 1:27:06.920 --> 1:27:07.320 Yeah. 1:27:07.360 --> 1:27:09.800 And the way that this starts that there is a 1:27:09.840 --> 1:27:13.559 gap between the rhetoric of someone like Pritzker being like, 1:27:13.640 --> 1:27:16.000 oh no, like we support trans rights. Trans rights are 1:27:16.040 --> 1:27:18.120 in an important civil rights issue, and then you watch 1:27:18.160 --> 1:27:21.080 them like allow a bunch of hospitals in Illinois to 1:27:21.080 --> 1:27:23.880 stop providing character trans kids. And the place where that 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:28.400 ends is more and more Democrats just straight up voting 1:27:28.439 --> 1:27:29.120 for this stuff. 1:27:29.360 --> 1:27:29.559 Yeah. 1:27:29.840 --> 1:27:31.920 And it's and the Democrats, you know, as you're talking 1:27:31.960 --> 1:27:35.280 about with with HB two is like you know, there 1:27:35.360 --> 1:27:36.960 were there were Democratic votes on that one. 1:27:37.160 --> 1:27:41.200 Yeah, HB one four two especially yeah, the compromise, but 1:27:41.200 --> 1:27:42.880 even h ME to itself, Yeah, there were there were 1:27:42.920 --> 1:27:44.080 Democrats who score that too. 1:27:44.280 --> 1:27:45.920 Yeah. And so this is this is I think the 1:27:45.920 --> 1:27:48.880 critical part of this is that like this stuff only 1:27:48.960 --> 1:27:51.680 can happen with the support of the Democrats. And that's 1:27:51.840 --> 1:27:55.120 why it's happening. It's because because like, and this is 1:27:55.160 --> 1:27:57.320 this is something that's incredibly important. Right now, We're like 1:27:57.360 --> 1:27:59.759 all of the ship that is happening, all these Republicans 1:27:59.760 --> 1:28:03.639 are doing are hideously unpopun like thirty percent approval ratings 1:28:03.840 --> 1:28:07.800 across the board for like, all of this just hideously 1:28:08.200 --> 1:28:12.040 hideously hated. The only way it can happen is if 1:28:12.080 --> 1:28:16.000 the Democrats go collaborationists inside with the Republicans, and that's 1:28:16.000 --> 1:28:16.599 what they're doing. 1:28:16.800 --> 1:28:18.840 Nazis always need Whislims. 1:28:18.520 --> 1:28:21.880 Yeah, and they're relying on the image of resistance to 1:28:21.960 --> 1:28:24.360 distract everyone from the fact that they're helping these policies 1:28:24.439 --> 1:28:25.960 go through. And if you want to stop them, you 1:28:26.040 --> 1:28:27.640 have to stop them from collaborating. 1:28:38.000 --> 1:28:39.360 I think I also brings up the kind of the 1:28:39.360 --> 1:28:41.799 third element in this. You've got the are always fascist, 1:28:41.800 --> 1:28:46.839 increasingly fashionst Republican Party, You've got the increasing collaborations Democratic Party, 1:28:47.280 --> 1:28:50.920 and especially on queer and trains rights, you have gay 1:28:50.960 --> 1:28:53.400 inc which and I go into some examples in the piece. 1:28:54.120 --> 1:28:56.799 After HB two point zero they put out some prefernatory statements, 1:28:56.800 --> 1:28:59.759 but then they turn to gatekeeping and the ensuing years 1:29:00.200 --> 1:29:05.840 they very consistently tried to stifle any activism that was 1:29:06.600 --> 1:29:09.160 more radical or more principled to try to get this 1:29:09.200 --> 1:29:11.880 stuff off the books, and especially if it came to 1:29:11.920 --> 1:29:14.160 holding Democratic officials feet the fire. I literally have an 1:29:14.160 --> 1:29:16.920 example in the article that I was physically therefore and witnessed, 1:29:17.600 --> 1:29:20.320 where a director of the canvass and Equality sees the 1:29:20.439 --> 1:29:22.960 mic as it was being passed some candidates to answer 1:29:23.120 --> 1:29:26.599 a stronger question from some transactivists and change the question 1:29:26.760 --> 1:29:29.240 to something that didn't actually put any pressure on them 1:29:29.240 --> 1:29:32.519 at all, like just kind of absurd, petty stuff like that. 1:29:32.800 --> 1:29:36.599 But the coom of effect has been that, you know, 1:29:36.640 --> 1:29:40.360 they turned to thinking about their political careers and their fundraising, 1:29:40.800 --> 1:29:43.320 and when push comes to shove again and again, they've 1:29:43.320 --> 1:29:46.200 shown they won't hold Democrats' feet to the fire. If anything, 1:29:46.280 --> 1:29:48.160 they will tell the trains people trying to hold their 1:29:48.200 --> 1:29:51.120 feet the fire to shut up. So if you know 1:29:51.280 --> 1:29:54.200 that the lobby, the official lobby that's supposed to, you know, 1:29:54.760 --> 1:29:57.439 ostensibly on some level stand up for some mild version 1:29:57.439 --> 1:30:01.479 of trains and queer rights, will never give someone any 1:30:01.560 --> 1:30:04.479 shit for breaking ranks, not even like we can dem 1:30:04.479 --> 1:30:07.840 officials so and so and they're bigotry or whatever more 1:30:07.840 --> 1:30:09.880 we are sorely disappointed in or anyone of the boiler 1:30:09.920 --> 1:30:12.200 play things. They won't even go that far. That's too 1:30:12.280 --> 1:30:17.760 far for them. So you have Democrats collaborating and a 1:30:18.320 --> 1:30:22.439 gay ink structure that has taken the energy and funding 1:30:22.439 --> 1:30:26.000 out of lat of other queer activism, but will absolutely 1:30:26.040 --> 1:30:28.639 will not fight when Democrats are involved. So if you're fascist, 1:30:28.760 --> 1:30:30.839 all you have to do is get some Democrats involved. 1:30:31.320 --> 1:30:34.080 Yeah, and that's that's how you give VICHI friends Like 1:30:34.439 --> 1:30:35.360 that's yeah. 1:30:35.439 --> 1:30:37.720 And honestly, this is it's a question I put to 1:30:37.720 --> 1:30:40.720 folks because you know, look, I'm honestly dealing with the 1:30:40.720 --> 1:30:42.479 North Caround Democrats is one of the things that made 1:30:42.479 --> 1:30:46.240 be an anarchist. So so it's you know, I've not 1:30:46.280 --> 1:30:49.360 had any faith in them for a very very long time. 1:30:49.400 --> 1:30:51.479 But for folks that you know, kind of do put 1:30:51.680 --> 1:30:55.080 a little more energie into electoral processes, I just you know, 1:30:55.640 --> 1:30:57.439 so questions the piece I think are worth asking them, 1:30:57.439 --> 1:31:00.120 Like what's the point of people who are just to 1:31:00.160 --> 1:31:02.640 support your enemies? Yeah, what's the point of people that 1:31:02.680 --> 1:31:05.640 you elect, maybe even like get out you know and 1:31:06.200 --> 1:31:09.800 dock doors or whatever to get elected, who then don't 1:31:09.800 --> 1:31:12.760 do the one thing they're elected to do? And God 1:31:12.760 --> 1:31:14.640 asked too for some of the folks who support some 1:31:14.720 --> 1:31:17.360 of these gay ink ords, I was like, if they 1:31:17.400 --> 1:31:20.840 won't fight, now, what is the point of them, Why 1:31:20.840 --> 1:31:23.839 do they deserve any support from US as a community, 1:31:23.960 --> 1:31:27.280 or is it far past time to look to other alternatives. 1:31:27.320 --> 1:31:30.200 There was only lesson hbto taught as well, which is 1:31:30.720 --> 1:31:34.240 if you want even the most die hard bigot to 1:31:34.520 --> 1:31:38.759 start losing their nerve to attack their money and their power, 1:31:39.600 --> 1:31:43.080 and then you don't stop if say, oh you have 1:31:43.160 --> 1:31:45.800 to compromise with a pragmatic solution, you ignore them, laugh 1:31:45.840 --> 1:31:49.000 in their faces, do whatever, but you keep pressing them 1:31:49.360 --> 1:31:51.320 because that was their thing. HQ too, there was a 1:31:51.439 --> 1:31:55.640 really effective campaign to boycott and it did have a 1:31:55.640 --> 1:31:59.400 substantial effect. You know, the lovely weapon of vicious mockery 1:32:00.040 --> 1:32:01.840 really came in handy, and even the Hulgans didn't like 1:32:01.880 --> 1:32:05.679 becoming a national laughing stock. So there were less about 1:32:05.720 --> 1:32:08.040 how stuff could be fought as well. And the more 1:32:08.120 --> 1:32:10.960 radical history in North Carolina, you know, there are there 1:32:11.000 --> 1:32:13.000 are quier radicals here. You know, my city was hit 1:32:13.000 --> 1:32:16.760 by a massive hurricane last year, and honestly was a 1:32:16.800 --> 1:32:20.000 lot of US radicals getting out in the ground that 1:32:20.560 --> 1:32:23.400 kept things from getting even worse. And you know, and 1:32:23.439 --> 1:32:26.719 just folks on the ground pitching in outside of government structures, 1:32:26.760 --> 1:32:29.440 not waiting for the official nonprofits who were either devastated 1:32:29.520 --> 1:32:33.280 or had not planned for this. So there are other alternatives, 1:32:33.720 --> 1:32:37.400 you know, and or heck that the hell I have 1:32:37.400 --> 1:32:41.800 to remember I could curse here that the fact that 1:32:42.000 --> 1:32:44.280 civil rights the low Attenson has gone to sitidence, and 1:32:44.439 --> 1:32:46.720 there was a lot of organizing in those movements. It's 1:32:46.760 --> 1:32:50.160 a lot more Miltonant than folks. Remember that also went 1:32:50.200 --> 1:32:53.639 along three decades of riots and cities throughout the state 1:32:53.960 --> 1:32:58.000 before the old order even began to budge a little bite. 1:32:58.320 --> 1:33:01.400 And the lesson from that Democrats and North kind of 1:33:01.400 --> 1:33:03.960 status quo. And I see throughout the South and throughout 1:33:04.000 --> 1:33:08.200 the country it only budgets even starts to move when 1:33:08.240 --> 1:33:11.320 the cost of continuing the way it is become far 1:33:11.360 --> 1:33:11.800 too high. 1:33:12.280 --> 1:33:15.679 Yeah, And our job is to impose that cost. Yes, 1:33:15.720 --> 1:33:17.920 because if we don't impose that cost, they're going to 1:33:18.000 --> 1:33:20.719 keep pushing and they are going to continue to write 1:33:20.800 --> 1:33:22.640 us out of existence until they have the guns to 1:33:22.680 --> 1:33:22.880 do it. 1:33:23.000 --> 1:33:25.519 Yeah. And honestly, that is that is a mentality I 1:33:25.560 --> 1:33:29.080 think a lot more people need to need to absorb. 1:33:30.000 --> 1:33:32.320 And I think one of the lessons from you know, 1:33:32.760 --> 1:33:35.519 fighting the far right at some points for my entire 1:33:35.800 --> 1:33:38.439 like adult life, basically even a little bit before then 1:33:39.040 --> 1:33:42.479 in North Carolina is that the more you fight than 1:33:42.479 --> 1:33:45.160 the weaker they are. But also, and this is this 1:33:45.200 --> 1:33:47.599 is something one of the more experience transfernds the South 1:33:47.640 --> 1:33:51.360 I know has emphasized you won't always win, you can 1:33:51.520 --> 1:33:55.200 always inflict a cost. Yeah, and I think a little 1:33:55.240 --> 1:33:57.439 more like thinking outside of elections, a little more bloody 1:33:57.439 --> 1:34:01.559 minded determination can really come in hand of the sense 1:34:01.640 --> 1:34:04.800 of like, if our enemies are like, okay, court rules 1:34:04.800 --> 1:34:08.800 against us, we're still pressing the attack. Okay, election goes 1:34:08.800 --> 1:34:11.599 against us, We're still pressing the attack. I think we 1:34:11.640 --> 1:34:13.720 can do way meaner and way better than they than 1:34:13.760 --> 1:34:16.559 they do on that front. Yep, something goes against us, 1:34:16.800 --> 1:34:20.599 that's nice, We're still pressing the attack. You know, there's 1:34:20.840 --> 1:34:23.519 nothing in this healthscape of an empire we have to 1:34:23.560 --> 1:34:25.599 abide by, especially not in the South. 1:34:25.920 --> 1:34:26.240 Yeah. 1:34:26.720 --> 1:34:29.719 Yeah, So if something doesn't go our way once, okay, 1:34:30.080 --> 1:34:32.840 learn regroup, redouble, make sure you inflicted some costs, go 1:34:32.840 --> 1:34:33.880 out and inflict more of them. 1:34:34.320 --> 1:34:38.639 They're not invincible, trust me. Yeah, another gender is possible. 1:34:38.720 --> 1:34:40.360 You just have to go out and fight for exactly. 1:34:41.240 --> 1:34:43.040 Yeah. 1:34:43.080 --> 1:34:46.000 So I think on that note, David, where can people 1:34:46.040 --> 1:34:46.759 find your work. 1:34:47.040 --> 1:34:50.280 You can find my stuff for trans News Network at 1:34:50.640 --> 1:34:54.880 Transnews dot Network, including this most recent piece. And you 1:34:54.920 --> 1:34:57.519 can find some of my local reporting as part of 1:34:57.560 --> 1:35:01.400 the Ashville Blade co op at Asheville Blade dot com. 1:35:01.439 --> 1:35:04.760 Awesome. And y'all at both the Transduced Network and the 1:35:04.760 --> 1:35:07.240 actual Bladey've been doing a bunch of absolutely incredible work. 1:35:07.280 --> 1:35:11.200 Thank you, and I encourage everyone to support both because ideally, 1:35:11.240 --> 1:35:13.639 the function of journalism is to be the targeting mechanism 1:35:13.720 --> 1:35:18.439 of the class, and these are these are two groups 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:20.559 of working class trans journalists to do. 1:35:20.640 --> 1:35:22.639 It, and both organizations are worker run. 1:35:22.840 --> 1:35:23.800 I should add. 1:35:24.000 --> 1:35:46.439 Yep, this has been it could happen here, Go fight them. 1:35:46.479 --> 1:35:50.759 This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder our weekly 1:35:50.880 --> 1:35:54.040 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 1:35:54.080 --> 1:35:56.799 what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, 1:35:56.840 --> 1:36:00.400 I'm joined by Mia Wong and Robert Evans, working the 1:36:00.439 --> 1:36:03.400 week of August twenty first and August twenty seventh. 1:36:04.160 --> 1:36:06.240 Yeah, we sure are. 1:36:06.880 --> 1:36:10.640 I can't believe Cracker Barrel would do that. It's outrageous. 1:36:11.080 --> 1:36:13.400 Yeah, that's clearly the biggest news. 1:36:13.880 --> 1:36:16.240 Thankfully they switched it back. They took the cracker out 1:36:16.280 --> 1:36:19.040 of the barrel, and thankfully though they've. 1:36:18.840 --> 1:36:20.800 Reversed course put the cracker back in. 1:36:21.680 --> 1:36:24.160 I really don't understand how it's how it's woke. I mean, 1:36:24.160 --> 1:36:26.519 I do understand, because I understand how this messaging works, but. 1:36:26.720 --> 1:36:29.880 It doesn't matter anytime anything happens, and they can see 1:36:29.880 --> 1:36:32.880 a backlash forming you after the fact, because people were 1:36:32.920 --> 1:36:36.400 starting to get pissed off about the fucking cracker barrel 1:36:36.520 --> 1:36:38.519 thing in the same way, like that happen with fucking 1:36:38.520 --> 1:36:41.360 Games Workshop earlier this year, like they redid their logo 1:36:41.400 --> 1:36:44.519 in a shitty way. It's the same like animal bullshit. Yeah, 1:36:44.520 --> 1:36:45.720 it's everyone's doing it. 1:36:45.720 --> 1:36:48.760 It's it's it's it's not woke. Yeah, it's just incentivizing 1:36:49.080 --> 1:36:51.960 like capitalist conformity. This is why they've changed all of 1:36:52.000 --> 1:36:54.360 the buildings of like you know, McDonald's pizza Hut to 1:36:54.400 --> 1:36:57.000 the same structure, so you can use the property and 1:36:57.040 --> 1:36:58.840 resell it over and over and over again without having 1:36:58.840 --> 1:37:02.080 to do this big renovation. It's just all about capitalist efficiency. 1:37:02.200 --> 1:37:03.479 It's not about woke. 1:37:03.800 --> 1:37:06.920 It's got nothing to do with woke. But there's people 1:37:06.920 --> 1:37:09.719 whose whole like Chris Rufo, whose whole job is sitting 1:37:09.720 --> 1:37:12.080 around and as soon as you started to see the 1:37:12.120 --> 1:37:15.160 backlash forming it and realize like, oh, there's probably gonna 1:37:15.160 --> 1:37:17.080 be a spree of these companies coming in with these 1:37:17.120 --> 1:37:21.440 new minimalist logos, because it's clearly a trend in like consultancies, 1:37:21.640 --> 1:37:25.000 right like it started happening. This is not the first one. 1:37:25.240 --> 1:37:27.400 So I'm just gonna look around until I see one 1:37:27.400 --> 1:37:29.559 of these that feels like it's got culture war potential, 1:37:30.000 --> 1:37:32.559 and cracker Barrel is an obvious one, like if I'm looking, 1:37:32.600 --> 1:37:34.439 if I was looking out there, that's when I would 1:37:34.439 --> 1:37:35.320 pick right, Like. 1:37:35.439 --> 1:37:38.000 I think they're also responding to, like, you know, the 1:37:38.439 --> 1:37:41.280 past few years where we've been removing like racist caricatures 1:37:41.320 --> 1:37:44.679 from logos right with like like Entermima's and like Lando 1:37:44.760 --> 1:37:48.680 Lakes and using this in a similar way, except they 1:37:48.680 --> 1:37:53.160 took quite the white guy leaning against the barrel. Yeah, 1:37:53.200 --> 1:37:56.280 so it's part part part of that whole backlash as well. 1:37:56.320 --> 1:37:58.560 It's funny though I have seen like I don't I 1:37:58.560 --> 1:38:00.160 don't know if it's from Chris Rufo, but you know, 1:38:00.200 --> 1:38:03.599 people similar in that orbit talking about how this thing 1:38:03.640 --> 1:38:08.920 actually is wokeism because minimalism is based on brutalism, which 1:38:08.960 --> 1:38:13.280 was invented by communists. So actually turning everything into this 1:38:13.320 --> 1:38:17.519 minimalist design is actually a plot from the Frankfurt School, 1:38:18.080 --> 1:38:19.639 the Communists taking over. 1:38:20.200 --> 1:38:24.639 I mean, look, it doesn't matter outside of the fact 1:38:24.680 --> 1:38:28.559 that people, whenever you buy into it, like you're you're 1:38:28.560 --> 1:38:30.960 helping to feed like if you like, even dunking on. 1:38:31.080 --> 1:38:33.600 That's part of the problem is that like, yeah, just 1:38:33.640 --> 1:38:36.920 talking about this shit at all fuels the feedback loop, right, 1:38:36.960 --> 1:38:39.320 And that's that's what this is, is a feedback loop 1:38:39.320 --> 1:38:41.960 that they're very good at manipulating for political purposes. And 1:38:42.320 --> 1:38:44.120 I'm not going to sit here and lecture you and say, 1:38:44.160 --> 1:38:48.000 like stop commenting on this, stop talking about this stuff, 1:38:48.040 --> 1:38:52.760 but we do need to understand that this is the 1:38:52.800 --> 1:38:55.559 olds in the audience will remember the old Simpsons Halloween 1:38:55.640 --> 1:38:59.760 episode where the different like mascots from different companies like 1:38:59.800 --> 1:39:02.960 come alive and start murdering people in town. And the 1:39:02.960 --> 1:39:05.720 solution that's an old ad man gives everyone is like, well, 1:39:05.720 --> 1:39:07.759 if you want to stop the monsters, just look away. 1:39:07.880 --> 1:39:11.519 Advertising feeds on attention, you know, and as every once 1:39:11.560 --> 1:39:15.439 everyone ignores the monsters, they go away. And unfortunately that's 1:39:15.439 --> 1:39:17.680 not how things actually work, because there's three hundred and 1:39:17.720 --> 1:39:20.160 fifty million people in the country and so whatever you 1:39:20.240 --> 1:39:22.280 choose to do about this isn't going to matter. But 1:39:23.120 --> 1:39:26.360 the feedback loop is going to continue unabated. That much 1:39:26.400 --> 1:39:26.879 I can. 1:39:26.720 --> 1:39:30.360 Say cracker barrel has fallen and like Christ after three days, 1:39:30.400 --> 1:39:31.400 has rose again. 1:39:32.240 --> 1:39:40.040 Yeah. Great. Anyway, speaking of memes, unfortunately, we should talk 1:39:40.080 --> 1:39:43.680 about this horrible mass shooting that is probably going to 1:39:43.720 --> 1:39:46.200 be the big story this week. I mean, I hate 1:39:46.240 --> 1:39:48.040 to reduce it to that, but yeah. 1:39:47.800 --> 1:39:51.599 We're recording this on Wednesday, a few hours after the shooting. 1:39:52.400 --> 1:39:53.520 This is in Minneapolis. 1:39:53.840 --> 1:39:57.920 Yes, there was a mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, 1:39:58.680 --> 1:40:04.240 Annunciation School. This happened earlier the day that we're recording this, 1:40:04.560 --> 1:40:08.400 So that's going to be Wednesday, August twenty seventh. As 1:40:08.439 --> 1:40:11.840 of right now at about two eleven pm PST, two 1:40:11.960 --> 1:40:16.559 children are dead, Seventeen people, mostly children, are wounded. The 1:40:16.680 --> 1:40:20.040 shooter is also dead, and the shooter has been identified 1:40:20.080 --> 1:40:24.520 as Robin Westman, who graduated from the school in twenty seventeen. 1:40:24.840 --> 1:40:28.160 Their mom also worked at the school until very recently yeap. 1:40:28.439 --> 1:40:31.680 And that's not at all an unusual kind of situation. 1:40:31.920 --> 1:40:34.880 Mass shooters at schools often are either attending the school 1:40:34.960 --> 1:40:37.599 or recently graduated. There's been a couple of cases where 1:40:37.600 --> 1:40:40.479 a family member worked at the school. Like this stuff 1:40:40.520 --> 1:40:43.880 is all pretty standard for somebody shooting up a school. 1:40:44.320 --> 1:40:46.680 What's different is one of the things that's different is 1:40:46.720 --> 1:40:50.479 that the shooter basically followed in Brenton Terrant the christ 1:40:50.240 --> 1:40:53.560 shooters footsteps by covering their firearms and the gear that 1:40:53.600 --> 1:40:56.920 they were wearing and draw like I guess drew or 1:40:57.000 --> 1:40:59.280 painted on. I'm not sure. It looks like with like 1:40:59.280 --> 1:41:01.640 a white paint pat like whiteout or something like that, 1:41:01.640 --> 1:41:04.840 a white paint pin and covered it. In the names 1:41:04.840 --> 1:41:09.280 of other mass shooters, references to racial annihilation memes like 1:41:09.320 --> 1:41:12.840 the Removed Kabab meme, which is in short, a memes 1:41:12.920 --> 1:41:17.400 celebrating the Bosnian genocide, and it was a meme that 1:41:17.479 --> 1:41:21.080 was specifically Brenton Tarrant had signaled in his like manifesto 1:41:21.160 --> 1:41:22.719 and I think on his gun he had a remove 1:41:22.800 --> 1:41:26.320 Kebob reference. But it's something he signaled and it was 1:41:26.360 --> 1:41:28.720 on the shooter's firearm. As well as the names, I 1:41:28.720 --> 1:41:32.000 mean Tarrant, there's references to tarrent On there, Timothy mc 1:41:32.360 --> 1:41:35.519 McVeigh tem mcvay's name, just the word McVeigh is painted 1:41:35.560 --> 1:41:39.040 on there. Ted Kazenski, the Unibomber. 1:41:38.680 --> 1:41:42.960 A whole bunch of other more recent mass shooters people 1:41:42.960 --> 1:41:45.880 who are in like the mass shooter fandom, yeah, as 1:41:45.880 --> 1:41:50.280 well as just a collection of memes from like old memes. 1:41:49.960 --> 1:41:54.080 Too utterly unrelated to shooting, Like there's a loss meme 1:41:54.200 --> 1:41:56.400 on there, and if you're a lot of people are going, wait, 1:41:56.439 --> 1:41:59.240 what the fuck really? And if you're too young for 1:41:59.240 --> 1:42:00.840 a loss, they're used to be a wet well. I 1:42:00.880 --> 1:42:03.479 think there still is a web comic called Control Alt Delete. 1:42:03.880 --> 1:42:06.640 It started in like the early two thousands. It might 1:42:06.680 --> 1:42:08.160 have gotten started in the late nineties, and it was 1:42:08.200 --> 1:42:10.560 part of like this, there's this boom in webcomics in 1:42:10.560 --> 1:42:12.800 the late nineties when suddenly the people are able to 1:42:12.800 --> 1:42:15.680 make their own comics online and make livings off of them. 1:42:15.800 --> 1:42:20.360 A whole bunch of guys made gaming comics after Penny Arcade, 1:42:20.360 --> 1:42:22.000 which is like the big one that blew up, And 1:42:22.040 --> 1:42:23.639 one of them was Tim Buckley, who did a comic 1:42:23.680 --> 1:42:26.320 called Control All Delete that was not good and he 1:42:26.400 --> 1:42:29.520 tried to have a serious storyline where his character's girlfriend 1:42:29.680 --> 1:42:32.960 has a miscarriage, and the strip in which he finds 1:42:33.000 --> 1:42:36.280 her having a miscarriage is called loss. And it's gotten 1:42:36.280 --> 1:42:39.519 to the point where people are abstracting the four panels 1:42:39.560 --> 1:42:43.000 into like a minimalist line representation of how the blocking 1:42:43.000 --> 1:42:45.559 look like. It's a bit people have done everything like 1:42:45.920 --> 1:42:49.240 put loss memes on everything, like that's the joke at 1:42:49.240 --> 1:42:51.240 this point, more than a reference to the show is like, 1:42:51.320 --> 1:42:54.160 look at this new crazy place. Somebody put a loss meme, 1:42:54.360 --> 1:42:56.680 and so yeah, it's a game, and a lot of 1:42:56.680 --> 1:42:58.240 what we're seeing with the shooter is like, oh, this 1:42:58.280 --> 1:43:00.320 is the natural extent of a bunch of things, and 1:43:00.439 --> 1:43:03.439 a fucking mass shooter putting a loss meme on the 1:43:03.479 --> 1:43:05.880 bear or on the side of their gun before shooting 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:10.000 up a school is the natural furthest craziest extent of 1:43:10.160 --> 1:43:11.240 the loss meme. Right. 1:43:11.880 --> 1:43:14.120 If this is anything, it is like a mimetic shooting. 1:43:14.439 --> 1:43:16.920 It is based on a whole bunch of memes about 1:43:16.960 --> 1:43:20.800 other mass shootings as well, specifically in the way that 1:43:20.840 --> 1:43:25.000 engages in like anti semitism and racism and includes slurs 1:43:25.040 --> 1:43:28.080 and catchphrases. It's not in the way that the shooter 1:43:28.120 --> 1:43:31.759 actually believes these things ideologically, it is just to gesture 1:43:31.960 --> 1:43:35.160 to them as they exist in the lineage of other 1:43:35.240 --> 1:43:38.479 mass shootings. It is like it's a perfunctory use of 1:43:38.600 --> 1:43:42.599 slurs and of messaging that just kind of wraps around 1:43:42.640 --> 1:43:47.639 this whole like nihilistic fandom culture around other mass shooters, 1:43:47.680 --> 1:43:50.160 and like that is that's what this shooting is. I've 1:43:50.439 --> 1:43:53.360 watched now like seventeen minutes a video of the shooter 1:43:53.520 --> 1:43:56.479 like showing off their weapons, going through their like diaries 1:43:56.520 --> 1:43:59.320 and journals, inspired by a whole bunch of like Eastern 1:43:59.320 --> 1:44:02.680 European mass shooters as well, and this shooter reminds me 1:44:02.760 --> 1:44:07.800 of participants of what's called the true crime community or TCC. 1:44:08.600 --> 1:44:12.080 Not as in like the genre of true crime podcasts 1:44:12.120 --> 1:44:15.960 or documentaries, but it's more of an online fandom based 1:44:16.000 --> 1:44:19.560 on a personal obsession with mass killers themselves and specifically 1:44:19.560 --> 1:44:23.680 school shooters. And this community encourages reenactments and tries to 1:44:23.680 --> 1:44:27.200 get some people to do their own mass shootings. Yeah, 1:44:27.240 --> 1:44:29.840 and this is not the first one of these we've 1:44:29.880 --> 1:44:32.160 had in this past year. Now, the shooting in Wisconsin 1:44:32.240 --> 1:44:35.559 last December. I spent the repnow, which we reported on 1:44:35.560 --> 1:44:39.280 on Nikodeppen here was also in this variant of like 1:44:39.439 --> 1:44:43.040 Columbiner True Crime Community Shootings. Repnow's name is on one 1:44:43.040 --> 1:44:46.040 of this shooter's rifles. Yes, there was a shooting in 1:44:46.080 --> 1:44:49.599 Tennessee a few months later which also referenced Repnow, done 1:44:49.600 --> 1:44:52.960 by a black white supremacist in cel whose manifesto was 1:44:52.960 --> 1:44:56.960 full of like plagiarized memes and other manifestos. It's about this, 1:44:57.160 --> 1:45:00.200 like yeah, this complete lack of meaning, Like they they 1:45:00.520 --> 1:45:04.200 scattershot all of these memes and references and like bits 1:45:04.240 --> 1:45:07.960 of manifestos and images to just to make this whole 1:45:08.720 --> 1:45:11.519 mess of stuff to look at. But none of it 1:45:11.560 --> 1:45:12.920 actually means anything. 1:45:12.760 --> 1:45:15.200 Well, and the draining of meaning, the flattening of meaning 1:45:15.280 --> 1:45:17.280 is part of the po that's the point taking is 1:45:17.400 --> 1:45:20.840 taking a man who shot fucking fifty people to death 1:45:21.360 --> 1:45:24.080 and turning that into the same thing as a twenty 1:45:24.200 --> 1:45:26.200 year old joke about a comic strip in terms of 1:45:26.280 --> 1:45:30.000 its impact and severity, Because if that's no more serious 1:45:30.240 --> 1:45:33.639 or meaningful or painful than fucking a joke about Tim 1:45:33.720 --> 1:45:37.280 Buckley's dumbass cartoon. Like once you get someone in a 1:45:37.360 --> 1:45:40.960 mind state where they accept that they're willing to accept 1:45:41.000 --> 1:45:42.960 a lot of terrible things, right, And the goal here 1:45:43.320 --> 1:45:47.200 is creating content in the form of mass shootings, right, 1:45:47.760 --> 1:45:49.639 Like that that is the goal, and that is also 1:45:50.240 --> 1:45:52.320 what people are consciously. A lot of people want to 1:45:52.400 --> 1:45:55.280 be a part of themselves. You mentioned the last year's 1:45:55.280 --> 1:45:58.360 shooting that committed by Samantha Rupp now, but there's also 1:45:58.439 --> 1:46:01.080 I found a December thirtieth, twenty twenty four article in 1:46:01.240 --> 1:46:06.120 Wisconsin Public radiowpr dot org their website. It talks about retnow, 1:46:06.160 --> 1:46:08.519 but it also gives the story of thirteen year old 1:46:08.720 --> 1:46:12.800 Jamie Sitz, who killed herself in twenty twenty four and 1:46:13.120 --> 1:46:15.439 was a member of the true crime community. The police 1:46:15.479 --> 1:46:17.680 went through her phone and they found a bunch of 1:46:17.760 --> 1:46:22.040 memes and reference and like her contributing to online discussions 1:46:22.080 --> 1:46:25.360 and telegrams and stuff for PCC. She was obsessed with 1:46:25.400 --> 1:46:27.559 the Columbine Kids, right, She like engaged in a lot 1:46:27.600 --> 1:46:30.080 of those conversations, and she was posting about her plan 1:46:30.200 --> 1:46:33.200 to kill herself, but she was not interested in carrying 1:46:33.280 --> 1:46:36.360 out like a mass shooting or killing other people. And 1:46:37.200 --> 1:46:40.639 that fit in fine within the discourse like people encourage 1:46:40.720 --> 1:46:42.680 presents basically, right, Like, yeah, I think part of the 1:46:42.720 --> 1:46:45.519 thriller hitary is just wanting to feel like you sitting 1:46:45.680 --> 1:46:48.920 on your ass on the computer, you are impacting the 1:46:49.040 --> 1:46:51.640 world in part because like you feel like that's the 1:46:51.720 --> 1:46:54.120 only chunk of the world that you've got right like, 1:46:55.360 --> 1:46:57.479 and that's you know, tied into like the hopelessness and 1:46:57.479 --> 1:47:00.519 the nihilism of all of this. I found a random 1:47:00.560 --> 1:47:03.320 poster on Reddit in a discussion of the TCC community. 1:47:03.920 --> 1:47:06.640 I actually really liked this person's summary of it. And 1:47:06.680 --> 1:47:09.519 this is like seven years old. Interestingly enough, it's not 1:47:09.560 --> 1:47:12.400 a new phenomenon. It dates back to inter war period Germany. 1:47:12.439 --> 1:47:14.240 There were many Germans at the time who were fascinated 1:47:14.280 --> 1:47:17.160 with the topic of extremely grisly murder and torture, especially 1:47:17.240 --> 1:47:20.519 such instances where sexual arousal was involved. The German language 1:47:20.520 --> 1:47:23.000 even has a word for it, lust mort or lust murder. 1:47:23.280 --> 1:47:24.960 Serial killers were on the rise at the time, and 1:47:25.000 --> 1:47:26.679 many of them claimed to get extreme amounts of carnal 1:47:26.720 --> 1:47:29.720 pleasure from the act of killing or maiming. And there 1:47:29.840 --> 1:47:33.320 is this weird vein. I found another study as I 1:47:33.400 --> 1:47:37.240 was looking into this that uses the true crime community term. 1:47:37.320 --> 1:47:40.920 It's from twenty fifteen by Naomi Barnes of Utah State university, 1:47:41.520 --> 1:47:44.559 and it was like looking into fandoms that had grown 1:47:44.640 --> 1:47:48.680 up around serial killers and around spree killers online. And 1:47:49.000 --> 1:47:52.120 Naomi is using the word true crime community for just 1:47:52.200 --> 1:47:54.439 the general term of people who are interested in true crime, 1:47:54.560 --> 1:47:55.920 not in the way that you and I have been 1:47:56.040 --> 1:47:56.320 using it. 1:47:56.479 --> 1:47:58.560 Yeah, because we're using this term to refer to like 1:47:58.640 --> 1:48:02.920 a specific than them around like around these shootings, not 1:48:03.120 --> 1:48:06.080 the general milieu of like true crime podcasts and like 1:48:06.160 --> 1:48:08.439 documentaries and people who are into that sort of content. 1:48:08.760 --> 1:48:12.320 We're referring to a much more niche group of people 1:48:12.360 --> 1:48:16.559 online who operate on like Telegram, discord, tumbler, and other 1:48:16.640 --> 1:48:20.000 social media accounts. Right, it's based around like specifically like 1:48:20.240 --> 1:48:23.360 like an obsession over actually doing these acts and like 1:48:23.560 --> 1:48:26.240 and and like they like cause play as these people. 1:48:26.840 --> 1:48:28.760 This isn't like your you know, average white woman who 1:48:28.840 --> 1:48:30.600 likes listening to true crime podcasts. This is this is 1:48:30.640 --> 1:48:31.599 something very different. 1:48:31.960 --> 1:48:34.280 No, and that's that's important. But it's also important to 1:48:34.360 --> 1:48:36.760 note that, like what you've been talking about, this this 1:48:37.120 --> 1:48:40.679 need to recreate and not just prior to actually carrying 1:48:40.720 --> 1:48:42.640 out a shooting, because most of them don't ever do that. 1:48:43.280 --> 1:48:45.479 There's this need, this obsession with the aesthetics to want 1:48:45.520 --> 1:48:49.080 to own clothing and objects and whatnot that like look 1:48:49.280 --> 1:48:51.080 like Eric Adyllon or whatever. 1:48:51.240 --> 1:48:52.599 Right the column by bandshirt. 1:48:52.760 --> 1:48:57.000 Yeah, right, that that And this does extend to the shootings, 1:48:57.120 --> 1:48:59.160 Like there's a number of shooters who have like worn 1:48:59.240 --> 1:49:02.160 that KMFD I'm sure because one of the columnbind guys wore. 1:49:02.040 --> 1:49:05.120 It cementthro up now and I believe this recent shooter 1:49:05.240 --> 1:49:07.720 also had had a KMDS shirt picked out. 1:49:08.160 --> 1:49:10.479 And what's interesting about that twenty fifteen study is that 1:49:10.880 --> 1:49:14.360 it is looking at the true crime community because column 1:49:14.400 --> 1:49:16.080 biners were already a thing. There'd been a number of 1:49:16.200 --> 1:49:21.160 copycat attacks, but the kind of social fandom around like 1:49:21.280 --> 1:49:24.519 that aspect of it had not really taken hold in 1:49:24.640 --> 1:49:27.080 a mass level in a way that the internet and 1:49:27.160 --> 1:49:28.920 virality could really make use of. 1:49:29.200 --> 1:49:32.240 It involved on Tumblr like in that era. Yes, it's 1:49:32.280 --> 1:49:34.760 more like an infant compared to like the fully grown 1:49:34.880 --> 1:49:35.760 version that it is now. 1:49:36.200 --> 1:49:39.120 Yeah, And what's interesting to me is this this paper 1:49:39.240 --> 1:49:42.360 kind of catches the communities it's starting to calv off. 1:49:43.000 --> 1:49:46.000 And so there's a chunk of the paper where she's 1:49:46.080 --> 1:49:48.519 quoting from a couple of different people who went and 1:49:48.720 --> 1:49:52.200 visited in one case they visited like Adam Lonza's house 1:49:52.600 --> 1:49:55.599 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School, and it's people visiting 1:49:55.640 --> 1:49:58.240 places like that, sites associated with like mass shootings and 1:49:58.280 --> 1:50:01.040 the like. And she gives this mix of people being like, oh, 1:50:01.280 --> 1:50:02.920 like the first person he quotes who went to lands 1:50:02.960 --> 1:50:04.800 of houses, like, I was actually just really sad and 1:50:04.880 --> 1:50:07.320 I just wish none of it had ever taken place, 1:50:07.760 --> 1:50:09.680 Like it was all really horrible and it made me 1:50:09.760 --> 1:50:13.280 feel bad. But then a bit later she gives you 1:50:13.360 --> 1:50:16.760 responses from people who have the opposite reaction, Like there's 1:50:16.840 --> 1:50:20.720 this fella Paul, who does not specify which murder site 1:50:20.960 --> 1:50:23.240 they visited, but specified that it was a place where 1:50:23.240 --> 1:50:27.040 a murder victim's body was found. And Paul responded, Honestly, 1:50:27.120 --> 1:50:28.920 I felt a static, like, Wow, I'm going to a 1:50:28.960 --> 1:50:31.200 place someone was killed. What if there are ghosts the 1:50:31.280 --> 1:50:34.000 murderer him or herself? I was absolutely off. My kid. 1:50:34.320 --> 1:50:35.880 We dug up some dirt and we keep it in 1:50:35.920 --> 1:50:36.960 a little glass bottle. 1:50:37.280 --> 1:50:40.960 It's like a religious pilgrimage, right right, And that's the static, 1:50:41.040 --> 1:50:42.679 and that's what this starts to document. 1:50:42.920 --> 1:50:45.759 And that's where I'm like, oh, this is this study 1:50:45.840 --> 1:50:48.640 is mostly about an unrelated just a normal fandom. But 1:50:48.760 --> 1:50:51.560 you can see the bits like already popping up in 1:50:51.600 --> 1:50:55.320 twenty fifteen, these people who are having these astatic almost 1:50:55.320 --> 1:50:58.719 again like almost like psychosexual experiences being at the site 1:50:58.760 --> 1:50:59.599 of a mass shooting. 1:51:00.080 --> 1:51:02.439 Yeah, and the further centry that is then doing one yourself. 1:51:02.479 --> 1:51:04.760 And obviously this also is like a part of like 1:51:04.800 --> 1:51:07.280 a suicidal drive, a suicidal attention. A lot of people 1:51:07.360 --> 1:51:10.080 kill themselves in the course of the act, right, it's 1:51:10.080 --> 1:51:12.920 a way of making your suicide not just be about yourself. 1:51:13.360 --> 1:51:16.839 Right. And there's more to say about like the culture 1:51:16.920 --> 1:51:21.720 of fame in this country and like how how virality 1:51:21.760 --> 1:51:24.840 and whatnot has made it so that like these people 1:51:24.960 --> 1:51:27.479 tend to get what they want, or at least they 1:51:27.600 --> 1:51:30.080 know they've got a good chance of getting what they want, right, 1:51:30.280 --> 1:51:33.280 they're obviously not around to experience it. But like, as 1:51:33.320 --> 1:51:36.400 long as you do something sufficiently like weird and bloody, 1:51:36.800 --> 1:51:38.960 you're likely to get a good amount of attention for 1:51:39.120 --> 1:51:39.519 a while. 1:51:40.479 --> 1:51:43.880 So that's the actual like background of what this shooting was. 1:51:43.920 --> 1:51:46.160 I think now we should probably mention how the shooting's 1:51:46.200 --> 1:51:50.560 being talked about more broadly, Yeah, because it takes a 1:51:50.840 --> 1:51:54.919 very different angle from the actual like nihilistic, like TCC 1:51:55.600 --> 1:51:59.240 fandom aspect. It it is making this more about like 1:52:00.120 --> 1:52:02.839 woke contemporary politics I suppose. 1:52:03.080 --> 1:52:03.320 Yeah. 1:52:03.760 --> 1:52:07.240 Cash Betel's announced that he's investigating this as an anti 1:52:07.439 --> 1:52:08.599 Catholic hate crime. 1:52:09.200 --> 1:52:13.479 Yeah, which is just not true. I mean, it's almost 1:52:13.520 --> 1:52:16.240 certainly by a Catholic, ors somebody who was raised gath Like. 1:52:16.439 --> 1:52:16.639 Yeah. 1:52:16.920 --> 1:52:19.799 All the people who hate Catholics most are often lapsed Catholics. 1:52:20.560 --> 1:52:23.760 Very early on, people started claiming that this shooter was 1:52:23.960 --> 1:52:27.320 trans Now a few years ago, they did change their 1:52:27.400 --> 1:52:30.680 name to Robin, and the name change petition stated that 1:52:30.800 --> 1:52:33.960 at the time they identified as female. At this point, 1:52:34.080 --> 1:52:38.240 we still know very little about the actual shooter beyond 1:52:38.360 --> 1:52:40.719 like the videos they posted on YouTube of their weapons 1:52:40.920 --> 1:52:45.000 and a journal written in cyrillic and a note that 1:52:45.120 --> 1:52:47.679 they left to their parents discussing their fear of dying 1:52:47.880 --> 1:52:50.920 of cancer due to vaping. I've not been able to 1:52:50.960 --> 1:52:53.760 look at their Internet presence or activities in the intervening 1:52:53.840 --> 1:52:57.759 years since changing their name, and their current gender identity 1:52:57.880 --> 1:53:01.519 is still not very clear. In a translation of their 1:53:01.760 --> 1:53:06.000 cyrillic journal, they discuss detransition quote, I don't want to 1:53:06.120 --> 1:53:09.000 dress girly all the time, but I guess sometimes I 1:53:09.160 --> 1:53:11.280 really like it. I know I am not a woman, 1:53:11.400 --> 1:53:14.559 but I definitely don't feel like a man. I regret 1:53:14.760 --> 1:53:18.080 being trans. I wish I was a girl. I just 1:53:18.320 --> 1:53:20.800 know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we 1:53:20.840 --> 1:53:24.360 have today. I also can't afford that I only keep 1:53:24.479 --> 1:53:27.679 my long hair because it is pretty much my last 1:53:27.800 --> 1:53:31.240 shred of being trans. I'm tired of being trans. I 1:53:31.360 --> 1:53:35.720 wish I never brainwashed myself. I can't cut my hair now, 1:53:35.920 --> 1:53:38.920 as it would be an embarrassing defeat and it might 1:53:39.080 --> 1:53:42.240 be a concerning change of character that could get me reported. 1:53:42.680 --> 1:53:45.839 It just always gets in my way. I will probably 1:53:45.960 --> 1:53:48.320 chop it on the day of the attack. 1:53:50.000 --> 1:53:50.160 Now. 1:53:50.320 --> 1:53:53.680 Discussion of gender takes up a very small percentage of 1:53:53.960 --> 1:53:56.920 the journal. Most of their writing is about admiration for 1:53:57.080 --> 1:54:01.040 previous mass shooters and fantasizing about killing children from a 1:54:01.200 --> 1:54:04.600 very young age. On the cover of their journal, alongside 1:54:04.640 --> 1:54:07.360 a bunch of other like gun stickers, they do have 1:54:07.600 --> 1:54:11.000 a defend a quality progress flag sticker with an AK 1:54:11.200 --> 1:54:14.639 forty seven YEP. From my perspective, this is just another 1:54:15.120 --> 1:54:18.320 one of those memes that they're wrapping into everything. On 1:54:18.520 --> 1:54:21.719 one of their magazines. They wrote, I am the wokeler, 1:54:22.000 --> 1:54:25.600 why so queerious? Right on the other side of the 1:54:25.960 --> 1:54:30.240 magazine had an antiqueer slur. So I view this type 1:54:30.280 --> 1:54:32.480 of stuff in the same way I view the inclusion 1:54:32.520 --> 1:54:35.280 of like the Lost Meme or like Ted Kaczinski or 1:54:35.360 --> 1:54:37.760 all this other stuff. This this like memafied version of 1:54:37.800 --> 1:54:40.560 trying to throw everything at the wall just to make 1:54:40.680 --> 1:54:44.720 everything mean nothing right. And it's it's extremely like obnoxious 1:54:44.760 --> 1:54:45.640 and annoying. 1:54:45.680 --> 1:54:46.760 But it it works. 1:54:47.360 --> 1:54:49.720 But yeah, it works. And I don't know what else 1:54:49.720 --> 1:54:52.200 I want to say on this, on like the trends angle. 1:54:52.280 --> 1:54:54.200 We don't want to deny that like this is going 1:54:54.280 --> 1:54:56.720 to cause a problem, that this is going to be 1:54:57.000 --> 1:54:59.480 used by the right, Like there will be there will 1:54:59.520 --> 1:55:03.240 certainly be rhetoric. And I've already seen rhetoric from you know, 1:55:03.640 --> 1:55:05.360 Jack Posobic in that crowd around it. 1:55:05.320 --> 1:55:07.040 About trans people targeting Catholics. 1:55:07.080 --> 1:55:09.560 Well, this is why these people shouldn't have weapons or whatever, 1:55:09.880 --> 1:55:11.240 like this is why we should put them all in. 1:55:12.080 --> 1:55:14.280 And I don't I'm not going to minimize that that 1:55:14.480 --> 1:55:17.400 didn't start with this, that that kind of rhetoric, that 1:55:17.480 --> 1:55:20.440 conversation and this is useful to that crowd, and you 1:55:20.520 --> 1:55:23.200 know that is that is bad. I don't we don't 1:55:23.200 --> 1:55:26.160 know what's going to happen or to what extent this is. 1:55:26.360 --> 1:55:28.680 Like we're talking right now that they clearly would like 1:55:28.880 --> 1:55:33.040 to use this and are trying to use this. One 1:55:33.160 --> 1:55:35.520 thing that I would point out, and I don't know 1:55:35.560 --> 1:55:38.240 if this is certainly not an on balance optimistic thing, 1:55:38.400 --> 1:55:42.320 but making Americans focus on a mass shooting for more 1:55:42.360 --> 1:55:44.640 than a day or two not as easy as it 1:55:44.800 --> 1:55:45.160 used to be. 1:55:45.680 --> 1:55:49.400 No, yeah, which is really devastating. It's not good that we're. 1:55:49.280 --> 1:55:52.120 There, but like two people dead, I'm just saying, like 1:55:52.200 --> 1:55:56.240 Americans ignore way bigger numbers all the time now the right, 1:55:56.560 --> 1:56:00.320 You know, there's not always a media campaign like going 1:56:00.360 --> 1:56:02.600 to be with this beyond trying to make this huge. 1:56:02.680 --> 1:56:05.840 But also they've done that before, right, they did that 1:56:06.000 --> 1:56:08.400 with the rep Now shooting, right Like, there were attempts 1:56:08.440 --> 1:56:10.120 to make that and it didn't. 1:56:10.360 --> 1:56:12.840 Every mass shooting they have tried to pain it's been 1:56:12.840 --> 1:56:14.560 done by a transperson, and I think in some ways 1:56:14.880 --> 1:56:18.480 that has depowered this rhetoric as a tactic. Yeah, by 1:56:18.520 --> 1:56:21.880 claiming every shooter is trans. Most Republicans already believe that 1:56:21.960 --> 1:56:24.600 to be the case. So whether this person either was 1:56:24.760 --> 1:56:27.880 trans or used to be trans, it may not matter 1:56:28.040 --> 1:56:31.520 that much to the right because they already think every 1:56:31.640 --> 1:56:35.360 shooter is trans. Trump's already targeting queer people. The right 1:56:35.400 --> 1:56:38.920 doesn't need an excuse to go after queer people. I 1:56:39.000 --> 1:56:41.720 don't think an event like this will make the hammer 1:56:41.840 --> 1:56:45.920 come down much harder. This could be a boy who 1:56:46.040 --> 1:56:50.440 cried wolf situation for the anti trans right, since their 1:56:50.480 --> 1:56:53.520 base already thinks that every mass shooter from the past 1:56:53.600 --> 1:56:57.400 three years is trans. I did a whole episode on 1:56:57.520 --> 1:57:01.240 this last year, called fake trans Terrorists. The Gun Violence 1:57:01.320 --> 1:57:04.040 Archive says that there have been two hundred and eighty 1:57:04.080 --> 1:57:06.200 six mass shootings in the United States so far in 1:57:06.240 --> 1:57:09.880 twenty twenty five. If one or two trans people do 1:57:10.000 --> 1:57:12.880 a mass shooting, that would still mean trans people, at 1:57:12.920 --> 1:57:15.440 one percent of the population, are less likely to do 1:57:15.520 --> 1:57:18.680 a shooting compared to CIS people. There was like one 1:57:18.800 --> 1:57:22.240 legitimate trans mass shooting targeting a school a few years 1:57:22.280 --> 1:57:25.520 ago in Nashville, and if this happens to be the second, 1:57:26.120 --> 1:57:29.960 I don't think that this new brain Rod Columbine true 1:57:30.000 --> 1:57:33.680 crime community shooting will make much of an impact on 1:57:33.800 --> 1:57:37.520 trans people nationwide. Think of how quick conservatives moved on 1:57:37.680 --> 1:57:41.120 from the Zizians, and certainly being trans is not a 1:57:41.240 --> 1:57:44.280 motivating factor of this shooting. If you look at their 1:57:44.320 --> 1:57:46.800 writing and videos posted on YouTube before they did this, 1:57:47.840 --> 1:57:53.000 this nihilistic meme maximalism has no trans causation. It has 1:57:53.040 --> 1:57:55.720 nothing to do with being trans. There's no coherent or 1:57:55.800 --> 1:57:59.960 ideological leftist screed, there's no pronoun pins. Their journal talk 1:58:00.160 --> 1:58:04.480 both about quote unquote hating fascism and inequality, while also 1:58:04.920 --> 1:58:10.360 hating Jews, Arabs, Mexicans, Indians, calling Somali's subhuman and criminal, 1:58:10.720 --> 1:58:14.080 writing that quote white people should rule the world unquote, 1:58:14.360 --> 1:58:18.360 but that minorities should quoe unquote have rights. While talking 1:58:18.440 --> 1:58:22.640 about ideological Nazi killers, they remarked, quote, I don't often 1:58:22.720 --> 1:58:27.120 find myself aligning with these killers specific ideologies unquote. They 1:58:27.200 --> 1:58:31.440 said that they disliked racism but also were racist. They 1:58:31.520 --> 1:58:35.800 wrote about killing quote unquote fags while also calling themself 1:58:35.880 --> 1:58:39.280 one on one of their weapons. This shooter and all 1:58:39.360 --> 1:58:42.120 the memes and rhetoric they use is most similar to 1:58:42.240 --> 1:58:45.120 the Repnow shooting last December in Wisconsin in terms of 1:58:45.200 --> 1:58:49.400 the neo Columbiner school shooter obsession, as well as the 1:58:49.520 --> 1:58:54.120 white supremacist mimetic black in cell shooting in Anoc, Tennessee, 1:58:54.680 --> 1:58:59.400 last January. All these shootings are heavily referential, contradictory, and 1:58:59.600 --> 1:59:06.320 intentionally incoherent. Right, every single extremist political faction is represented 1:59:06.360 --> 1:59:09.200 there because that that is the point, is combining all 1:59:09.280 --> 1:59:13.240 of these references to previous mass shooting. So they're incorporating 1:59:13.560 --> 1:59:15.840 everything they can and things that they just think are funny, 1:59:15.920 --> 1:59:19.120 like just a whole bunch of like meaningless memes. 1:59:19.400 --> 1:59:19.600 Yep. 1:59:20.000 --> 1:59:23.520 And that's vastly more important than whatever gender identity the 1:59:23.520 --> 1:59:26.520 shooter happens to have right now at this point in 1:59:26.600 --> 1:59:27.400 twenty twenty five. 1:59:28.080 --> 1:59:31.440 All right, Well, anyway, folks, there's going to be a 1:59:31.480 --> 1:59:34.760 lot of people going the sky is falling over what 1:59:34.960 --> 1:59:37.400 this is going to mean for people and how this 1:59:37.560 --> 1:59:41.640 is going to be used, And obviously this is terrible. 1:59:41.680 --> 1:59:43.440 I'm not telling you not to feel terrible about a 1:59:43.520 --> 1:59:44.040 mass shooting. 1:59:44.120 --> 1:59:45.880 You should feel bad about the actual mass shooting. 1:59:46.040 --> 1:59:48.440 You should feel bad about the mass shooting. The sky 1:59:49.400 --> 1:59:52.360 I mean, this guy's been falling, right, Yeah, Let's give 1:59:52.400 --> 1:59:54.880 this one a little bit to see if it makes 1:59:54.920 --> 1:59:57.160 the sky fall any faster or if in a week 1:59:57.200 --> 1:59:59.000 We're like, no, this guy's still falling at about the 1:59:59.040 --> 2:00:03.080 same rate, which isn't good. It's just what happens. It's 2:00:03.120 --> 2:00:17.400 where we are, all right, ads, and we're back. 2:00:19.360 --> 2:00:22.160 We can safely leave the brain rot in the previous 2:00:22.200 --> 2:00:26.240 section and now talk about something totally real. The economy. 2:00:26.640 --> 2:00:29.000 Yes, the economy which never kills people. 2:00:29.600 --> 2:00:35.200 Okay, so speaking of things that have never killed any one, eye, 2:00:35.320 --> 2:00:38.040 that's so not true. The Volkershaw killed so many people. 2:00:38.520 --> 2:00:44.640 But a very very critical rubicon was crossed on Monday 2:00:44.720 --> 2:00:48.200 of this week when Trump attempted to fire a member 2:00:48.360 --> 2:00:52.240 of the Federal Reserve Board, Lisa Cook. Now, Lisa Cook 2:00:52.360 --> 2:00:57.360 is refusing to step down under the fairly obvious justification 2:00:57.560 --> 2:00:59.680 that the president does not have the power to do this. 2:01:00.000 --> 2:01:04.880 Trump has been cooking a very weird thing, accusing her 2:01:05.320 --> 2:01:08.760 of mortgage fraud as a as a way to remove 2:01:08.800 --> 2:01:12.120 her from the Federal Reserve Board. But Trump does not 2:01:12.960 --> 2:01:15.600 have the power to do this. So we are in 2:01:15.640 --> 2:01:20.760 the midst effectively of a confrontation over this, where Lisa 2:01:20.840 --> 2:01:26.520 Cook has continued to just not actually leave her position 2:01:26.560 --> 2:01:29.880 at the Federal Reserve and is going to court. This 2:01:30.280 --> 2:01:35.600 is an extremely significant escalation of what up until this 2:01:35.680 --> 2:01:39.520 point had largely been a series of attacks on the 2:01:39.600 --> 2:01:43.920 Federal Reserve's governor, Jerom Powell. There are a few factors 2:01:44.000 --> 2:01:46.240 here that one of the most important things is Trump's 2:01:46.280 --> 2:01:49.840 anger over continuing high interest rates or sort of high 2:01:49.880 --> 2:01:52.080 interest rates. Trump wants to slash interest rates because he 2:01:52.120 --> 2:01:55.280 thinks it will make the economy grow more. Now, when 2:01:55.320 --> 2:01:58.400 I said this was the crossing of the rubicon, what 2:01:58.720 --> 2:02:01.680 this is is this is the beginning of the fight 2:02:01.880 --> 2:02:04.680 over whether the Federal Reserve is going to be an 2:02:04.760 --> 2:02:08.480 independent density right. Trump has been attempting to, as we've 2:02:08.480 --> 2:02:11.360 talked about in the show, appoints Stephan Miran as another 2:02:11.480 --> 2:02:15.680 one of the governors on the Federal Reserve's board. Miran 2:02:16.040 --> 2:02:19.200 very explicitly wants to eliminate the independence of the Federal 2:02:19.280 --> 2:02:21.520 Reserve for what to talk about exactly what that means 2:02:22.040 --> 2:02:24.720 in a second, But I want to read this quote 2:02:24.800 --> 2:02:29.200 from Fortune magazine interport on it describing a JP Morgan 2:02:29.360 --> 2:02:36.240 analysis of the situation, because this has really spooked a 2:02:36.320 --> 2:02:39.760 bunch of major financial institutions for very obvious reasons. Quote 2:02:40.400 --> 2:02:43.040 in a note on Friday, JP Morgan analysts, led by 2:02:43.120 --> 2:02:47.240 chief economists Bruce Cassman highlighted key proposals such as giving 2:02:47.360 --> 2:02:51.080 atwill power to the President to fire FED board members 2:02:51.240 --> 2:02:55.920 and fedbank presidents, giving Congress control of the Fed's operating budget, 2:02:56.320 --> 2:03:00.480 and shifting the Fed's regulatory responsibility over banks and markets 2:03:00.520 --> 2:03:04.080 to the Treasury. So this is what Stefan Mihern has 2:03:04.200 --> 2:03:07.680 been proposing. This is what looks to be the long 2:03:07.840 --> 2:03:11.400 term plan of Trump and the people around him. Eliminating 2:03:11.440 --> 2:03:14.320 the Federal Reserve is a long, long time goal of 2:03:15.560 --> 2:03:20.040 the far right for an extremely convoluted variety of reasons. 2:03:20.840 --> 2:03:24.280 The FED in and of itself is an extremely confusing entity. 2:03:25.000 --> 2:03:29.080 Its creation has spawns a full century of academic arguments 2:03:29.120 --> 2:03:33.520 about what the States even is, and it's complicated to describe. 2:03:33.920 --> 2:03:36.080 Also because most of the information will not most, but 2:03:36.680 --> 2:03:39.080 a significant portion of the information about it is just 2:03:39.120 --> 2:03:43.280 anti Semitic conspiracy. Because this is eliminating the Federal Reserve. 2:03:43.320 --> 2:03:45.840 In the return to quote unquote sound money is one 2:03:45.880 --> 2:03:50.360 of the key elements of a massive network of sort 2:03:50.400 --> 2:03:53.720 of right wing, very old right wing conspiracy theories. But 2:03:53.960 --> 2:03:56.800 I think that the thing that's best understood by people 2:03:57.000 --> 2:03:58.920 kind of is just about the Federal Reserve is the 2:03:58.960 --> 2:04:01.680 FED printer meme. And the Federal Reserve is the body 2:04:01.880 --> 2:04:05.720 that creates money like that is, that is authorized to 2:04:05.720 --> 2:04:07.360 create the US dollar. That is why it's a Federal 2:04:07.400 --> 2:04:12.800 Reserve bank. It is critical on a level that is 2:04:13.240 --> 2:04:19.040 difficult to express to the entire functioning of the world economy. Now, 2:04:19.160 --> 2:04:22.200 the Federal Reserve Board is technically a government entity, but 2:04:22.400 --> 2:04:26.320 it is it was set up explicitly to be quote 2:04:26.400 --> 2:04:29.320 unquote non political. Now the extent to which that's true 2:04:29.440 --> 2:04:34.160 is fuzzy, obviously, But the point of it was so 2:04:34.280 --> 2:04:36.800 that there would be a large scale financial institution that 2:04:36.880 --> 2:04:42.040 controls like the money supply effectively, that that controls enormous 2:04:42.120 --> 2:04:46.320 portions of US sort of macroeconomics policy through its due 2:04:46.360 --> 2:04:50.800 is control of interest rates would not be able to 2:04:50.920 --> 2:04:54.440 be like directly interfered with by the President or Congress. 2:04:55.120 --> 2:04:56.680 That is that it's the whole point of this, you know. 2:04:56.760 --> 2:04:59.600 It is effectively a measure to instill confidence that the 2:04:59.720 --> 2:05:01.800 US isn't going to just like turn the printers on 2:05:01.920 --> 2:05:04.600 and print a bunch of money from every other capitalist 2:05:04.640 --> 2:05:05.040 in the world. 2:05:05.840 --> 2:05:09.320 Yeah, and like so much. When that promise goes away, 2:05:09.600 --> 2:05:11.080 what happens, I don't know. 2:05:11.600 --> 2:05:14.520 Yeah, Well, and this is something that I think, I 2:05:14.560 --> 2:05:15.720 think is not understood very well. 2:05:15.800 --> 2:05:15.880 Right. 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:20.040 The current conflict is largely over Trump wanting to be 2:05:20.080 --> 2:05:24.120 able to control the Federal reserves interest rates. Right, So 2:05:24.320 --> 2:05:26.120 he wants he wants the lower federal interest rates to 2:05:26.160 --> 2:05:28.080 make it make it cheaper to borrow money because he 2:05:28.120 --> 2:05:30.000 thinks this will pump more money back into the economy 2:05:30.000 --> 2:05:31.640 and this will make the economy grow. And he thinks 2:05:31.680 --> 2:05:33.760 that he's being like sabotaged by the Fed. The Fed's 2:05:34.640 --> 2:05:38.560 worried about inflation. But I actually think that focusing just 2:05:38.720 --> 2:05:43.080 on that part of the Federal Reserve is significantly underestimating 2:05:43.200 --> 2:05:48.040 how important the Federal Reserve is to the entire structure 2:05:48.480 --> 2:05:52.240 of the economy. There are so many just sort of 2:05:53.040 --> 2:05:57.000 random things that it does that are not particularly well understood. 2:05:57.000 --> 2:05:58.960 I was talking about this earlier in a meeting, but 2:06:00.080 --> 2:06:03.560 nificant portion of the gold held by countries around the 2:06:03.640 --> 2:06:05.760 world is literally just kept in a vault under the 2:06:05.800 --> 2:06:08.840 New York Federal Reserve building. And that's just the sort 2:06:08.840 --> 2:06:11.280 of seemingly random thing that it does. I was reading 2:06:11.320 --> 2:06:14.120 about its payment system for reasons that I'll talk about 2:06:14.200 --> 2:06:16.240 in the episode to do about this next week. It 2:06:16.400 --> 2:06:19.680 just in a footnote about the payment system, there is 2:06:19.840 --> 2:06:22.760 a part where it says that the Federal Reserve runs 2:06:22.840 --> 2:06:26.080 the payment system for the World Bank. So this is 2:06:26.160 --> 2:06:32.480 something that is a critical, critical, an extremely complicated center 2:06:32.680 --> 2:06:34.800 of the entire capitalist world. 2:06:35.040 --> 2:06:35.200 Right. 2:06:35.760 --> 2:06:38.800 Its payment infrastructure has trillions of dollars a year and 2:06:38.880 --> 2:06:45.720 moving through it. If this infrastructure stops working or breaks 2:06:45.840 --> 2:06:48.919 a little bit, a lot of the very subtle management 2:06:49.000 --> 2:06:52.280 of the economy of the Federal Reserve does can stop working. 2:06:52.440 --> 2:06:55.280 And you know, again we've been talking mostly about interest 2:06:55.320 --> 2:06:57.760 rates and its ability to sort of print money, which 2:06:57.840 --> 2:07:00.480 is over simplification. But you know, for exameple the Fed 2:07:00.560 --> 2:07:03.800 also does these things like carries out these like massive 2:07:03.960 --> 2:07:08.080 overnight repo agreements, like inject liquidity into the market. There's 2:07:08.160 --> 2:07:10.360 all of these massive we are talking billions and billions 2:07:10.400 --> 2:07:13.320 of dollars of financial interventions that you basically never even 2:07:13.400 --> 2:07:17.080 hear about that have been stabilizing the economy since two 2:07:17.080 --> 2:07:21.600 thousand and eight. And this apparatus, if it is dismantled, 2:07:21.680 --> 2:07:25.280 if it has directly seized control of by Trump, and 2:07:25.480 --> 2:07:27.160 and part of what's going on with this board is 2:07:27.200 --> 2:07:29.720 that Trump is trying to get a majority of the 2:07:29.800 --> 2:07:32.120 people on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 2:07:32.480 --> 2:07:34.800 to be his appointment so that he can control it directly, 2:07:35.480 --> 2:07:37.480 and so they can start bringing it under directly under 2:07:37.480 --> 2:07:42.440 the control of I mean the president effectively. Right, this 2:07:43.160 --> 2:07:46.320 is something where if you unleash the doge people on 2:07:47.120 --> 2:07:51.480 the Federal Reserve and the payment systems, the settlements and 2:07:51.560 --> 2:07:56.320 clearance systems stop working. We are talking about a catastrophe 2:07:57.040 --> 2:07:59.640 that it's unclear to me whether it's even been modeled. 2:08:00.280 --> 2:08:04.000 There are so many different complicated things that this institution 2:08:04.160 --> 2:08:08.400 does that these people do not understand particularly well at 2:08:08.400 --> 2:08:11.240 all and think that they can use to just sort 2:08:11.280 --> 2:08:14.160 of permanently create a bubble economy that they can ride. 2:08:15.000 --> 2:08:17.680 And this is the first sort of shot over the battle. 2:08:17.680 --> 2:08:20.040 Isn't even the right where this is the first engagement 2:08:20.120 --> 2:08:22.360 over the fight for that. There's also been a lot 2:08:22.360 --> 2:08:25.240 of sort of taco analysis of this, arguing that this 2:08:25.360 --> 2:08:27.560 is actually Trump backing down from trying to fire Jerom 2:08:27.600 --> 2:08:29.720 Powell to just try to fire one of the Reserve 2:08:29.800 --> 2:08:33.600 board members that's not backing down. There's also a chance 2:08:33.640 --> 2:08:35.200 to heal that if this works, he's going to try 2:08:35.240 --> 2:08:37.960 to fire Powell too. So we're going to We're gonna 2:08:38.000 --> 2:08:39.680 keep watching a situation. I'm going to talk more about 2:08:39.680 --> 2:08:41.360 it next week when we know more, and also talk 2:08:41.400 --> 2:08:44.920 about what the Federal Reserve is as an institution. And 2:08:45.120 --> 2:08:47.520 we're going to continue monitoring the situation because it is 2:08:48.320 --> 2:08:51.960 extremely important and handing the keys over to these people 2:08:52.120 --> 2:08:54.360 is something that is dangerous enough that it is creating 2:08:54.360 --> 2:08:58.520 significant pushback among the actual people in finance and in 2:08:58.560 --> 2:08:59.560 the banking system who matter. 2:09:00.120 --> 2:09:05.520 Great, Well, it's so good. I mean, we'll see if 2:09:05.600 --> 2:09:09.920 this means anything other than more suffering for you know people. 2:09:10.440 --> 2:09:13.040 I guess that's where I am as like, is there 2:09:13.120 --> 2:09:14.960 even a level of fucking with the money that Trump 2:09:15.040 --> 2:09:18.960 can do that that's enough to seriously cause consequences for him? 2:09:19.120 --> 2:09:21.960 And there must be, but it's just hard to imagine 2:09:22.160 --> 2:09:22.880 if there was. 2:09:23.040 --> 2:09:23.400 It's this. 2:09:24.160 --> 2:09:27.880 Yeah, we'll see. I mean, that's the fun thing with 2:09:28.080 --> 2:09:31.000 the big stories we've got this week is they're all like, well, 2:09:31.680 --> 2:09:34.080 could get a lot worse, could just stay as bad 2:09:34.120 --> 2:09:37.120 as it is right now. Well, we'll continue to wait 2:09:37.200 --> 2:09:38.720 to see what's going to happen with all of that. 2:09:39.120 --> 2:09:41.320 Speaking of something that we don't have to just wait 2:09:41.600 --> 2:09:44.840 and wonder what's going to go on, because the news 2:09:44.960 --> 2:09:47.720 changes every single week. Here's the tariff. 2:09:47.480 --> 2:10:02.760 Songs Jazz Bob Rock, Jazz, bo. 2:10:04.360 --> 2:10:07.720 Oh boy so and yet another instance of the whole 2:10:07.800 --> 2:10:13.080 Trump backing down thing not happening. The tariffs on India 2:10:13.160 --> 2:10:15.720 that Trump had been threatening for the purchases of Russian 2:10:15.800 --> 2:10:18.160 oil have in fact taken effect. The terriff right on 2:10:18.240 --> 2:10:23.360 India is now fifty percent. This is a significant barrier 2:10:23.480 --> 2:10:26.840 to any trade between India and the US. It is 2:10:27.440 --> 2:10:29.800 again sort of unclear whether India is going to bow 2:10:29.840 --> 2:10:33.040 to the political pressure here because as with many of 2:10:33.160 --> 2:10:36.000 these terriffts. We've talked about this situation with Brazil fairly 2:10:36.040 --> 2:10:39.720 extensively on this show. The thing about imposing tariffs on 2:10:39.800 --> 2:10:44.240 a country to get them to fall in line with 2:10:44.360 --> 2:10:46.880 the American policy is that it pisses off everyone in 2:10:46.960 --> 2:10:49.320 the country, regardless of whether or not they would traditionally 2:10:49.360 --> 2:10:52.280 be US allies. And so there's you know, it creates 2:10:52.320 --> 2:10:56.600 a massive countervailing pressure against the financial incentive to fall 2:10:56.680 --> 2:11:01.360 in line and stop buying Russian oil. I also, very 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:04.520 briefly want to talk about something that I think is 2:11:04.600 --> 2:11:06.800 a sort of part and parcel of the tariff policy 2:11:07.400 --> 2:11:09.400 that Garson you mentually want to talk about, which is 2:11:09.680 --> 2:11:11.720 like the US purchasing ten percent of Intel. 2:11:12.440 --> 2:11:14.400 Yes, socialism has been achieved. 2:11:14.520 --> 2:11:14.880 We did it. 2:11:15.360 --> 2:11:15.720 Uh huh. 2:11:16.360 --> 2:11:19.520 Now you can finally call Trump a national socialist. 2:11:20.120 --> 2:11:20.560 That's right. 2:11:22.000 --> 2:11:25.320 Yeah, And this is sort of a intensification, I guess 2:11:25.400 --> 2:11:27.200 of a agree that we talked about a while back 2:11:27.840 --> 2:11:31.440 where Intel was talking about giving part of its profits 2:11:31.480 --> 2:11:35.160 to the US. This is just the US government is 2:11:35.360 --> 2:11:37.680 just buying a stake in these companies. And this is 2:11:37.720 --> 2:11:41.720 actually a very very weird maneuver by the US because 2:11:41.760 --> 2:11:45.960 the US has obviously bought companies before, right, this is 2:11:46.000 --> 2:11:48.440 how a lot of the bailout worked. But the thing 2:11:48.520 --> 2:11:52.200 about if you look at the bailouts from two thousand 2:11:52.200 --> 2:11:53.640 and eight and you look at the US like purchasing 2:11:53.640 --> 2:11:57.160 the automakers, the US got these really weird specific shares 2:11:57.200 --> 2:12:00.240 that don't give any kind of controlling interest and are 2:12:00.320 --> 2:12:02.760 the direct rationale for this that the US should just 2:12:03.440 --> 2:12:07.160 own part of the chip manufacturers because they're effectively like 2:12:07.240 --> 2:12:11.040 domestic national security resources. Significant portions of the market think 2:12:11.160 --> 2:12:13.240 that this is going to be a continuing tread and 2:12:13.280 --> 2:12:16.680 the US is going to continue buying stakes in these companies. 2:12:16.760 --> 2:12:18.800 There is a sort of symbiotic relationship here in the 2:12:18.880 --> 2:12:21.400 sense that, like, on the one hand, it's obviously not 2:12:21.520 --> 2:12:24.800 great to have sort of stakes in you bought by 2:12:25.280 --> 2:12:29.040 the US governments and have US government federal policy directly 2:12:29.120 --> 2:12:33.480 dictating what these companies do. But on the other hand, 2:12:34.440 --> 2:12:37.400 it creates for these actual companies themselves, It creates a 2:12:37.480 --> 2:12:42.120 sort of symbiosis right where these people now have effectively 2:12:42.200 --> 2:12:45.680 guaranteed state backing that can bail them out of all 2:12:45.760 --> 2:12:50.280 of their unbelievably terrible business decisions around basing all of 2:12:50.320 --> 2:12:54.040 their production around AI. So yeah, and this is all 2:12:54.080 --> 2:12:59.600 sort of part of the same hypernationalists direct national socialism, 2:12:59.640 --> 2:13:06.240 if you will. Yes, kind of natural sentence, but. 2:13:06.360 --> 2:13:08.360 The most stupid form we've ever seen. 2:13:08.480 --> 2:13:08.640 Yeah. 2:13:08.920 --> 2:13:11.240 Yeah, I don't know. There's gonna be a lot of 2:13:11.320 --> 2:13:14.400 hype about this being like American state capitalism or something, 2:13:14.560 --> 2:13:18.000 and I just ignore that, just just ignore it. It's bad. 2:13:18.320 --> 2:13:21.880 I think it's it's in the same category as a 2:13:21.960 --> 2:13:23.720 lot of the things here, which is that Trump administration 2:13:23.800 --> 2:13:26.919 is trying to consolidate as much power over the economy 2:13:26.960 --> 2:13:29.280 as they can, both in Federal Reserve and through just 2:13:29.440 --> 2:13:33.160 straight up taking controlling parts of companies. This is a 2:13:33.240 --> 2:13:35.600 trend that's going to continue, and it's not good. 2:13:35.920 --> 2:13:36.680 Do you know what is good? 2:13:36.720 --> 2:13:36.920 Though? 2:13:37.320 --> 2:13:41.600 You beat me to that exactly, that's right. The fact 2:13:41.640 --> 2:13:44.680 that we get a nice ninety to to I don't know, 2:13:44.680 --> 2:13:47.320 one hundred and twenty second break to listen to these ads. 2:14:00.000 --> 2:14:02.560 All right, we are back. There has just been so 2:14:02.680 --> 2:14:05.880 much news this week. It's kind of outrageous. Trump is 2:14:05.880 --> 2:14:11.080 continuing his attacks against the Smithsonian for going woke. He's 2:14:11.120 --> 2:14:14.320 promised a Department of Justice lawsuit against California for their 2:14:14.400 --> 2:14:18.080 new redistricting map. A GOP house probe has begun to 2:14:18.200 --> 2:14:21.760 investigate if the DC crime stats have been faked this 2:14:21.840 --> 2:14:24.320 whole time, making it look like crime is low even 2:14:24.360 --> 2:14:27.000 though it's obviously super high as we all know. Yeah, 2:14:28.080 --> 2:14:30.760 as Mia said, we have socialism now with ten percent 2:14:30.800 --> 2:14:34.760 of intel and Trump and Hague says announced that they 2:14:34.840 --> 2:14:37.320 want to change the name of the Department of Defense 2:14:37.640 --> 2:14:40.920 back to the Department of War because it quote unquote 2:14:41.160 --> 2:14:42.480 sounds stronger. 2:14:43.040 --> 2:14:46.160 Hey, guys, this is this is the. 2:14:46.240 --> 2:14:48.560 Only one of those that I that I actually agree with. 2:14:48.720 --> 2:14:51.760 They should do this, like calling it anything other than 2:14:51.840 --> 2:14:54.440 the Department of war is incredibly dishonest. 2:14:54.800 --> 2:14:57.080 Yeah, I wonder that I'll make get a harder short 2:14:57.080 --> 2:14:59.160 of get people on board increasing funding. 2:15:00.000 --> 2:15:02.680 He used to be called the Department of War, and 2:15:03.600 --> 2:15:06.480 it had a stronger sound. And as you know, we 2:15:06.560 --> 2:15:09.120 won World War One, we won World War two, we 2:15:09.200 --> 2:15:09.839 won everything. 2:15:10.400 --> 2:15:14.120 Now we have a Department of Defense with defenders. I 2:15:14.200 --> 2:15:17.080 don't know if you people want to standing behind me, 2:15:17.120 --> 2:15:18.520 if you take a little vote, if you want to 2:15:18.600 --> 2:15:20.680 change it back to what it was when we used 2:15:20.720 --> 2:15:21.600 to win wars. 2:15:21.320 --> 2:15:22.680 All the time, that's okay with me. 2:15:23.000 --> 2:15:24.000 All right, that's coming. 2:15:24.160 --> 2:15:26.040 You let me know if you want to do it. 2:15:26.160 --> 2:15:28.160 I think Department of War. It just sounded me and 2:15:28.240 --> 2:15:30.320 he said, sir, behalf of the Department of Defense. 2:15:30.440 --> 2:15:30.839 Defense. 2:15:31.760 --> 2:15:34.720 I don't want to be defense only. We want defense, 2:15:34.800 --> 2:15:37.440 but we want offense too, If that's okay, So you'll 2:15:37.520 --> 2:15:38.280 make a decision. 2:15:38.360 --> 2:15:42.960 But you know, as Department of War, we won everything. 2:15:43.800 --> 2:15:46.240 We want everything, and I think we're going to have 2:15:46.280 --> 2:15:47.000 to go back to that. 2:15:47.840 --> 2:15:50.680 All right, man, cool stuff happening in the uffal office. 2:15:51.120 --> 2:15:54.560 I mean, I do like that when he starts that speech, 2:15:54.720 --> 2:15:56.720 he has to go like we won World War one, 2:15:57.160 --> 2:15:58.720 Like he's like, there's a question at the end there 2:15:58.760 --> 2:16:04.480 where he's like he's he's like, he's like, just make sure. 2:16:05.400 --> 2:16:05.720 I don't know. 2:16:05.920 --> 2:16:07.800 I don't really remember if we won that one or not, 2:16:07.920 --> 2:16:10.160 but we definitely won the second one and others. 2:16:11.400 --> 2:16:13.760 When as to how he would go about change the name, 2:16:13.920 --> 2:16:16.560 as it requires an Act of Congress, Trump replied to quote, 2:16:17.040 --> 2:16:19.760 We're just gonna do it. I'm sure Congress would go 2:16:19.880 --> 2:16:22.480 along if we need that. I don't think we even 2:16:22.560 --> 2:16:25.360 need that, But if we need that, I'm sure Congress 2:16:25.440 --> 2:16:26.160 will go along. 2:16:26.360 --> 2:16:28.360 I don't know that we do we need I don't know. 2:16:28.480 --> 2:16:30.800 If what you need to change the name of the 2:16:30.880 --> 2:16:34.720 Department of Defense, you do, Yeah, you do. That makes 2:16:34.800 --> 2:16:35.520 sense to do that. 2:16:36.160 --> 2:16:37.160 Auto macro sense. 2:16:37.280 --> 2:16:37.400 Right. 2:16:37.480 --> 2:16:40.000 What Trump is suggesting here is wouldn't wouldn't it simply 2:16:40.080 --> 2:16:42.480 be more efficient if there was simply a fearer, a 2:16:43.080 --> 2:16:44.840 single person to make all the decisions? 2:16:45.200 --> 2:16:47.200 He said a lot of things in that vein recently, 2:16:47.360 --> 2:16:52.160 is like Congress being more of a symbolic, symbolic branch 2:16:52.240 --> 2:16:55.080 of government that if if we need them, they'll probably 2:16:55.160 --> 2:16:55.800 just agree with me. 2:16:55.920 --> 2:16:56.480 But like we don't. 2:16:56.560 --> 2:16:58.879 Really that's your standard dictator stuff. 2:16:59.240 --> 2:17:02.200 That's how he's been talking about it recently now. Earlier 2:17:02.240 --> 2:17:06.240 this week, a redacted transcript of Gillaine Maxwell Gillan Jizline 2:17:06.280 --> 2:17:09.720 Maxwell's meeting with Trump's DOJ has been released, where she 2:17:09.879 --> 2:17:14.000 denied that she ever witnessed President Trump engage inappropriate behavior, saying, quote, 2:17:14.320 --> 2:17:16.840 I actually never saw the President in any type of 2:17:16.920 --> 2:17:19.960 massage setting. The President was never inappropriate with anybody, and 2:17:20.160 --> 2:17:21.800 the times that I was with him, he was a 2:17:21.879 --> 2:17:25.920 gentleman in all respects unquote. She also denied allegations that 2:17:26.000 --> 2:17:28.480 Prince Andrew ever had sex with a minor in her home, 2:17:29.240 --> 2:17:32.000 saying that a substantiating photograph is quote unquote fake. 2:17:32.160 --> 2:17:34.920 Well, I can't imagine why she'd lie, and. 2:17:35.160 --> 2:17:37.960 Also claimed that there is no Epstein quote unquote client 2:17:38.120 --> 2:17:40.760 lest So yeah, that all about wraps that up. I 2:17:40.879 --> 2:17:44.080 think we got to the bottom of the whole Epstein case. 2:17:44.400 --> 2:17:45.720 We don't need to worry about this anymore. 2:17:46.520 --> 2:17:48.160 I would say, of all of those, the one of 2:17:48.200 --> 2:17:50.440 those that I might have believed before she denied it 2:17:50.600 --> 2:17:53.320 was that there wasn't an additional client list outside of 2:17:53.480 --> 2:17:55.480 what we've already seen, like his black we bele O. Well, yeah, 2:17:55.480 --> 2:17:58.080 I wouldn't surprised if they didn't keep all of that 2:17:58.280 --> 2:17:59.960 many notes on a criminal conspiracy. 2:18:00.480 --> 2:18:02.000 Yeah, I don't think there's a list of being like, 2:18:02.120 --> 2:18:04.480 here's all of my pedophile friends in one place. 2:18:04.560 --> 2:18:07.160 Here's what does make me wonder now, and this really 2:18:07.240 --> 2:18:09.360 is the first time I am which is that they 2:18:09.400 --> 2:18:11.160 clearly came to her with a list of here is 2:18:11.200 --> 2:18:14.320 all of the things you need to say you didn't see, like. 2:18:14.560 --> 2:18:17.440 Maybe or she's just savvy enough to know what to say, 2:18:17.480 --> 2:18:19.400 Like I even think, yeah, we don't even need to 2:18:19.440 --> 2:18:22.959 an allege a larger conspiracy here. I think everyone involved 2:18:23.000 --> 2:18:24.840 in this is quite savvy and knows what they should 2:18:24.879 --> 2:18:25.640 say and shouldn't say. 2:18:25.760 --> 2:18:28.280 Yeah, I mean I think the conspiracy is obvious, Like 2:18:28.400 --> 2:18:30.240 that's that's all there is. There doesn't need to be 2:18:30.360 --> 2:18:32.800 an explicit quid pro crow here. Yeah, I don't know. 2:18:33.600 --> 2:18:35.640 It's interesting to me that she brings up Prince Andrew. 2:18:35.800 --> 2:18:38.720 If nobody brought that up to her, she was asked 2:18:38.720 --> 2:18:40.920 about it. That's what I'm saying is I believe there's 2:18:40.959 --> 2:18:43.640 a conversation. We're not privy here too, where she got 2:18:43.800 --> 2:18:47.920 marching orders in exchange for getting you know, she's basically 2:18:47.959 --> 2:18:49.160 out on work release, right. 2:18:49.560 --> 2:18:52.920 I don't need to jump to such outrageous conspiratorial beliefs 2:18:53.000 --> 2:18:53.480 such as that. 2:18:53.720 --> 2:18:57.760 I'm okay with it at this point. Yeah, I don't 2:18:57.800 --> 2:19:00.760 know what to what extended it was, but yeah, I 2:19:00.760 --> 2:19:03.960 don't know this is this is pointless, Like, yeah, I 2:19:04.000 --> 2:19:06.760 don't know if this helps with his base. I don't 2:19:06.800 --> 2:19:08.360 know that his bass is going to be like, well 2:19:08.400 --> 2:19:10.960 if Gilan Maxwell says it, nope, yeah. 2:19:11.360 --> 2:19:14.959 I mean people have responded positively, like Margor Taylor Green, 2:19:15.000 --> 2:19:17.160 who was previously going on a slight offense that on 2:19:17.160 --> 2:19:20.440 the Epstein things, has now fully come around being like, well, 2:19:20.480 --> 2:19:23.080 there you go. It's it turns out Trumpet isn't a 2:19:23.160 --> 2:19:27.200 pedophile after all. Thank goodness, that was a close call there. 2:19:27.360 --> 2:19:32.080 I know this is being disseminated to his influencer network, 2:19:32.240 --> 2:19:35.360 right and to the network of people that he uses 2:19:35.400 --> 2:19:37.720 for stuff like this. I'm wondering about the actual like 2:19:38.920 --> 2:19:42.280 voter base, fan base, like time will tell, and the 2:19:42.320 --> 2:19:44.760 folks who are a step or two further than Marjorie 2:19:44.760 --> 2:19:46.640 Taylor Green, like the like the people who are more 2:19:46.720 --> 2:19:48.720 like on the Rogan side of things, like does this 2:19:49.000 --> 2:19:50.520 really move the needle for them? 2:19:50.720 --> 2:19:50.920 Sure? 2:19:51.120 --> 2:19:53.800 I hate having the cares like is Joe roganm gonna 2:19:53.840 --> 2:19:57.960 buy this shlot, but this does seem like, yeah, shameful 2:19:58.040 --> 2:19:58.680 even for him. 2:19:59.080 --> 2:20:01.520 I mean, I think a lot of people can see 2:20:01.560 --> 2:20:05.480 that there is an incentive for going to say certain things, 2:20:05.920 --> 2:20:08.600 and I think people people are smart enough to understand that. 2:20:09.000 --> 2:20:11.240 I don't think she's going to tell the Trump's own 2:20:11.280 --> 2:20:15.240 DOJ about like a smoking gun involving Trump. Why would 2:20:15.240 --> 2:20:17.320 that help her try to get a pardon from the President. 2:20:17.600 --> 2:20:19.480 Yeah, I think I think I think the important thing 2:20:19.680 --> 2:20:22.039 for this is that like, the people who are going 2:20:22.080 --> 2:20:24.000 to believe this are the people who just don't want 2:20:24.080 --> 2:20:25.800 to believe that Trump did this, and this is this 2:20:25.920 --> 2:20:29.040 is a reinforcing thing that you can feed them. But 2:20:29.200 --> 2:20:31.680 the question is what answer for everyone else? And it's 2:20:31.760 --> 2:20:34.080 not particularly compelling for them. 2:20:34.520 --> 2:20:37.280 All Right, we have four executive orders to get through 2:20:37.280 --> 2:20:40.400 before we close this episode, starting off with cashless bail. 2:20:40.959 --> 2:20:44.160 On Monday, Trump signed two executive orders targeting cashless bail, 2:20:44.200 --> 2:20:46.600 one specific to Washington, d C. Which directs law enforcement 2:20:46.680 --> 2:20:49.279 to charge people federally and hold them in federal custody, 2:20:49.760 --> 2:20:53.000 and to use federal funding and services as leverage to 2:20:53.080 --> 2:20:57.120 pressure DC to change its cash less bail policies. The 2:20:57.200 --> 2:21:00.640 other executive order targets cashless bail nation Why, and asks 2:21:00.640 --> 2:21:03.160 the Attorney General to make a list of quote states 2:21:03.200 --> 2:21:05.879 and local jurisdictions that have, in the Attorney General's opinion, 2:21:06.160 --> 2:21:08.920 substantially eliminated cash bail as a potential condition of pre 2:21:09.040 --> 2:21:11.959 tray release from custody for crimes that pose a clear 2:21:12.120 --> 2:21:15.360 threat to public safety and order, including offenses involving violent, 2:21:15.520 --> 2:21:19.160 sexual or indecent acts, or burglary, looting, or vandalism. The 2:21:19.160 --> 2:21:21.640 Attorney General shall update this list as necessary. 2:21:22.440 --> 2:21:22.720 Quote. 2:21:22.920 --> 2:21:25.800 So, using that list, Trump's cabinet will then quote identify 2:21:26.000 --> 2:21:29.520 federal funds, including grants and contracts currently provided to cashst 2:21:29.520 --> 2:21:33.400 bail jurisdictions that may be suspended or terminated unquote. So 2:21:33.480 --> 2:21:37.640 it's trying to bribe states and local municipalities to cease 2:21:37.840 --> 2:21:41.120 cash's bail policies using federal funds, the same way that 2:21:41.120 --> 2:21:42.680 they've tried to do for a whole bunch of other 2:21:43.240 --> 2:21:46.800 anti WOUE policies Trump has tried to force onto unwilling states. 2:21:47.520 --> 2:21:52.400 Second Executive Order from August twenty fifth, titled Prosecuting Burning 2:21:52.560 --> 2:21:58.880 of the American Flag. Let's start with a clip from Trump. 2:21:58.959 --> 2:22:01.080 I don't want to just place super long Trump clips 2:22:01.120 --> 2:22:02.840 because they know that can be annoying. But the way 2:22:02.879 --> 2:22:05.600 that he talks about disorder is kind of more interesting 2:22:05.680 --> 2:22:07.840 than the way the order is written. But we will 2:22:08.120 --> 2:22:10.280 talk about some of those smaller details included in the 2:22:10.360 --> 2:22:13.800 actual text. But here's a clip from c SPAN. 2:22:14.440 --> 2:22:18.640 Flag burning all over the country. They're burning flags all 2:22:18.680 --> 2:22:21.640 over the world. They burn the American flag and as 2:22:21.680 --> 2:22:25.560 you know, through a very sad chord. I guess it 2:22:25.720 --> 2:22:28.560 was a five to four decision. They called it freedom 2:22:28.600 --> 2:22:31.880 of speech. But there's another reason, which is perhaps much 2:22:31.959 --> 2:22:35.640 more important. It's called death. Because what happens when you 2:22:35.720 --> 2:22:39.920 burn a flag is the area goes crazy. If you 2:22:40.000 --> 2:22:42.280 have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You could do 2:22:42.440 --> 2:22:44.760 other things, you can burn this piece of paper, you could, 2:22:45.560 --> 2:22:49.160 and it's when you burn the American flag. It incites 2:22:49.360 --> 2:22:53.040 riots at levels that we've never seen before. People go 2:22:53.160 --> 2:22:56.959 crazy in a way. Both ways. There's some that are 2:22:57.000 --> 2:22:59.039 going crazy for doing it. There are others that are 2:22:59.360 --> 2:23:03.680 angry angry about them doing it. Do you want to 2:23:03.720 --> 2:23:04.200 discuss that? 2:23:04.400 --> 2:23:04.600 Sure? 2:23:04.840 --> 2:23:07.520 What the Executive Order does? Their charges your Department of 2:23:07.720 --> 2:23:11.640 Justice with investigating instances of flag burning and then where 2:23:11.800 --> 2:23:16.320 there's evidence of criminal activity, that where prosecution wouldn't fall 2:23:16.360 --> 2:23:18.520 afoul of the First Amendment, and instructs the Department of 2:23:18.720 --> 2:23:21.920 Justice to prosecute those who are engaged in these instances 2:23:21.959 --> 2:23:23.920 of flagburn and what. 2:23:24.120 --> 2:23:25.280 The penalty is going to be. 2:23:25.840 --> 2:23:29.120 If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail, 2:23:29.840 --> 2:23:33.640 No early exits, no nothing, You get one year in jail. 2:23:33.680 --> 2:23:36.120 If you're burn a flag, you get. And what it 2:23:36.320 --> 2:23:39.080 does is insight to write, I hope they use that language. 2:23:39.120 --> 2:23:41.560 By the way, did that insight to riot? 2:23:41.840 --> 2:23:42.160 I love it? 2:23:42.200 --> 2:23:44.879 He is to check, yeah, because God forbid him actually 2:23:44.959 --> 2:23:45.879 mean what he's citing? 2:23:46.680 --> 2:23:48.039 Trump trump auto pen. 2:23:50.320 --> 2:23:53.920 That's right. So included in the order, it says, quote, 2:23:54.000 --> 2:23:57.320 notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling on Fristman protections, the Court 2:23:57.440 --> 2:24:00.960 is never held that American flag desecration, conducted in a 2:24:01.000 --> 2:24:04.480 manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action, or 2:24:04.800 --> 2:24:07.640 that is an action amounting to quote unquote fighting words, 2:24:08.200 --> 2:24:12.760 is constitutionally protected see taxes fee Johnson unquote. The order 2:24:12.800 --> 2:24:15.360 directs Theatory in General to enforce criminal and civil laws 2:24:15.400 --> 2:24:18.600 against acts of American flight discration that cause harm unrelated 2:24:18.680 --> 2:24:21.600 to First amendment expression, which could include charging people with 2:24:21.720 --> 2:24:27.119 violent crimes, hate crimes, a legal discrimination against American citizens, 2:24:27.400 --> 2:24:31.800 what violations of American civil rights, crimes against property and peace, 2:24:31.959 --> 2:24:35.080 as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate in aiding 2:24:35.160 --> 2:24:38.040 and abetting others to violate such laws, so it's like 2:24:38.080 --> 2:24:41.000 an anti rioting thing. The dj will also look for 2:24:41.160 --> 2:24:44.640 cases where American flag discretion could violate applicable state or 2:24:44.680 --> 2:24:49.160 local laws, such as open burning restrictions, disorderly conduct laws, 2:24:49.440 --> 2:24:51.960 or destruction of property laws, and will refer such matters 2:24:52.000 --> 2:24:54.680 to state and local authorities for potential action. Finally, the 2:24:54.720 --> 2:24:59.320 Secretary of State shall deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas residents, 2:24:59.360 --> 2:25:02.720 permitsture realization proceedings and other immigration benefits, or seek to 2:25:02.760 --> 2:25:06.080 deport any foreign national that has engaged in American flag 2:25:06.320 --> 2:25:09.840 to secretion activity. So that's how they're going to go 2:25:09.920 --> 2:25:11.800 after it. Rob, Are do you anything to say on 2:25:11.879 --> 2:25:13.200 this flag burning thing? 2:25:14.360 --> 2:25:17.960 I mean they're waiting. I mean, and they didn't wind 2:25:18.040 --> 2:25:20.280 up waiting long. Someone did it immediately as they knew 2:25:20.280 --> 2:25:22.000 they would, so that they can get a case that 2:25:22.080 --> 2:25:24.080 they can take up to the Supreme Court. So we'll see, 2:25:24.320 --> 2:25:25.960 We'll see what happens. We'll see. Yeah. 2:25:26.640 --> 2:25:30.040 Yeah, they want to prosecute one of these things and 2:25:30.160 --> 2:25:31.720 appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court to 2:25:31.760 --> 2:25:34.520 maybe change that ruling so they can apply it more broadly. Right, 2:25:34.720 --> 2:25:37.039 So it's part of the same test that they've done 2:25:37.080 --> 2:25:39.880 with a number of other things that seems unconstitutional, It 2:25:39.879 --> 2:25:43.120 seems to violate Supreme Court rulings. Yeah, but the point 2:25:43.160 --> 2:25:44.880 is to test that and see if they can change it, 2:25:45.000 --> 2:25:45.960 just like they did with abortion. 2:25:46.440 --> 2:25:46.640 Yeah. 2:25:46.920 --> 2:25:49.320 Can we go further and if this works, if we 2:25:49.400 --> 2:25:52.280 feel like we made progress on this, can we start 2:25:52.320 --> 2:25:54.480 pushing and saying other things our incitement? 2:25:54.680 --> 2:25:54.840 Right? 2:25:55.120 --> 2:25:55.280 You know? 2:25:55.640 --> 2:25:57.760 Can we start going after people who aren't even present 2:25:57.840 --> 2:26:00.800 who write something that is like, well, this was incitement 2:26:00.840 --> 2:26:03.120 to write because they wrote about the police murdering this guy. Right, 2:26:03.240 --> 2:26:05.600 like a party of free speech strikes again. This is 2:26:05.640 --> 2:26:08.080 the kind of thing where can I wargame out? Would 2:26:08.120 --> 2:26:10.520 they try this? If they can get that far? Yeah 2:26:10.560 --> 2:26:12.280 they will. If they can get that far. Will they 2:26:12.320 --> 2:26:12.959 get that far? 2:26:13.200 --> 2:26:13.360 You know? 2:26:13.680 --> 2:26:15.760 Is the Supreme Court going to give them everything they 2:26:15.800 --> 2:26:18.320 want on this? I don't actually know, Like I really 2:26:18.400 --> 2:26:20.640 don't know. So I'm going to try not to doom 2:26:20.720 --> 2:26:24.440 spiral too much, just you know, let's see, none of 2:26:24.520 --> 2:26:26.480 us have any choice in the matter at this stage. 2:26:27.320 --> 2:26:30.840 Finally, let's address the quote additional measures to address the 2:26:30.879 --> 2:26:34.920 crime emergency in the District of Columbia. So it's another 2:26:34.959 --> 2:26:39.600 executive order from August twenty fifth. Trump wants to establish 2:26:39.640 --> 2:26:43.040 an online portal for Americans with law enforcement experience quote 2:26:43.320 --> 2:26:46.320 or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join 2:26:46.400 --> 2:26:49.680 federal la enforcementities to support the policy goals described in 2:26:49.800 --> 2:26:52.640 Executive Order one four three three. That's the Making a 2:26:52.760 --> 2:26:56.480 DC Safe and Beautiful Order from a few weeks ago. Right, 2:26:56.760 --> 2:27:01.160 the Secretary of Defense is instructed to create and begin manning, hiring, 2:27:01.280 --> 2:27:04.959 and equipping a specialized unit within the District of Columbia 2:27:05.080 --> 2:27:09.000 National Guard who will be deputized to enforce federal law. 2:27:09.640 --> 2:27:12.320 To quote the order quote, the Secretary Defense shall immediately 2:27:12.320 --> 2:27:16.000 begin ensuring that each state's National Army Guard and Air 2:27:16.120 --> 2:27:19.200 National Guard are resource trained, organized, an available to assist federal, 2:27:19.280 --> 2:27:22.280 state and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and 2:27:22.440 --> 2:27:26.400 ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, 2:27:27.000 --> 2:27:31.199 as appropriate under law. In coordination with respective Adjuncts General, 2:27:31.440 --> 2:27:34.039 the Secretary Defense style designate an appropriate number of each 2:27:34.120 --> 2:27:37.320 state's trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for 2:27:37.480 --> 2:27:40.360 rapid mobilization for such purposes. In addition, the Secretary Defense 2:27:40.480 --> 2:27:43.360 shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick 2:27:43.520 --> 2:27:47.560 reaction force that shall be resource trained and available for 2:27:47.879 --> 2:27:54.320 rapid nationwide deployment. National Guard walking streets of DC are 2:27:54.520 --> 2:27:58.040 now carrying firearms after first being deployed without their service weapon, 2:27:58.400 --> 2:28:01.800 and since the operation in DC he began on August seventh, 2:28:01.879 --> 2:28:04.560 or now been over a thousand arrests, including dozens of 2:28:04.680 --> 2:28:09.040 undocumented immigrants. Currently, the Pentagon is planning to deploy thousands 2:28:09.080 --> 2:28:14.240 of National Guard to Chicago to continue Trump's alleged crime crackdown. 2:28:15.000 --> 2:28:17.080 I would have much more respect for Pritsko. If he'd 2:28:17.120 --> 2:28:18.680 call me up and say, I have a problem, can 2:28:18.760 --> 2:28:21.040 you help me fix it? I would be so happy 2:28:21.120 --> 2:28:24.320 to do it. I don't love not that I don't 2:28:24.360 --> 2:28:26.480 have the right to do anything I want to do. 2:28:26.640 --> 2:28:28.520 I'm the President of the United States. If I think 2:28:28.600 --> 2:28:30.640 our country is in danger, and it is in danger 2:28:30.720 --> 2:28:35.199 in these cities, I can do it no problem going 2:28:35.280 --> 2:28:39.039 in and solving you know his difficulties, but it would 2:28:39.040 --> 2:28:40.840 be nice if they'd call and they say, would you 2:28:40.959 --> 2:28:41.160 do it? 2:28:41.959 --> 2:28:46.240 He's hurt, poor guy. They want to ask him for help. 2:28:46.520 --> 2:28:50.600 His little fewings. He's gonna have to He's gonna have 2:28:50.640 --> 2:28:53.680 to deploy the national goal without putschool's. 2:28:53.480 --> 2:28:54.640 Approval, you know. 2:28:54.879 --> 2:28:58.000 Gang. In all of this focus on the people being 2:28:58.120 --> 2:29:00.640 killed and persecuted by the government, I don't think any 2:29:00.680 --> 2:29:03.600 of us has stopped and spent enough time thinking how 2:29:03.680 --> 2:29:04.920 does Donald Trump feel? 2:29:05.640 --> 2:29:09.160 And shame on us, you know, shame on us. But 2:29:09.320 --> 2:29:13.080 it's not just Chicago. On Friday, the Pentagon told Fox 2:29:13.200 --> 2:29:16.400 News at upwards of seventeen hundred National Guard troops will 2:29:16.400 --> 2:29:18.960 be mobilized in nineteen states to be deployed across the 2:29:18.959 --> 2:29:22.600 country to assist ice in the nationwide hunt for undocumented immigrants. 2:29:23.040 --> 2:29:30.600 The Guard will be activated in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, 2:29:30.680 --> 2:29:35.360 New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, 2:29:35.440 --> 2:29:40.359 and Wyoming, with effective status ranging from August through mid November, 2:29:40.720 --> 2:29:45.400 and operations expected to start in early September. Importantly, as 2:29:45.440 --> 2:29:49.080 we saw in DC, national guard from other states might 2:29:49.200 --> 2:29:52.440 deploy two other states. Specifically, in the case where Trump 2:29:52.440 --> 2:29:55.800 doesn't get cooperation from the governor who is in control 2:29:55.840 --> 2:29:58.520 of the national Guard of each state, he can deploy 2:29:58.640 --> 2:30:01.080 national Guard from somewhere else, like what he did in DC, 2:30:01.320 --> 2:30:05.000 pulling national Guard from other Red states being deployed to 2:30:05.360 --> 2:30:09.520 d C but mobilized in those Red states. So national 2:30:09.520 --> 2:30:11.920 guards from all of these states could be deployed in 2:30:12.040 --> 2:30:14.800 a town near you, no matter where you live. And 2:30:15.040 --> 2:30:17.720 this operation specifically with these like seventeen hundred National Guard 2:30:17.720 --> 2:30:21.080 troops is specifically to assist ice. His plan to do this, 2:30:21.240 --> 2:30:26.480 like anti crime deployment in Chicago, is a separate yet 2:30:26.600 --> 2:30:30.039 similar plan. It's also pulling from national Guard. But these 2:30:30.080 --> 2:30:33.760 things are two separate operations according to White House officials. 2:30:34.520 --> 2:30:36.960 And I think one of the important things about this 2:30:37.240 --> 2:30:39.400 is that, you know, obviously there's the part of this 2:30:39.440 --> 2:30:41.120 where it's like, yeah, they want to at the very 2:30:41.240 --> 2:30:43.520 least look like they're just occupying cities and they are 2:30:43.680 --> 2:30:47.000 arresting huge members of people, But they also just don't 2:30:47.840 --> 2:30:53.200 have the manpower to do this kind of stuff, which 2:30:53.280 --> 2:30:56.520 is why they're pulling the National Guards. Why they're trying 2:30:56.560 --> 2:30:58.640 to expand the number of people on ICE. This is 2:30:58.680 --> 2:31:00.360 why they're pulling National Guard out to do this kind 2:31:00.360 --> 2:31:02.200 of stuff, which that like they don't actually have the 2:31:02.240 --> 2:31:06.280 repressive capacity to just occupy cities and they're trying to 2:31:06.360 --> 2:31:08.039 find the manpower to be able. 2:31:07.840 --> 2:31:08.120 To do it. 2:31:09.520 --> 2:31:12.360 So we will keep an eye out in September for 2:31:12.520 --> 2:31:17.920 these possible military deployments around the country. Yep, hey everyone, 2:31:18.040 --> 2:31:21.600 this is Garrison recording a short update on Thursday since 2:31:21.640 --> 2:31:24.040 we have a little bit more information about the Minneapolis, 2:31:24.120 --> 2:31:30.440 Minnesota school shooting. So right after we recorded, rumors started 2:31:30.600 --> 2:31:35.720 circulating that this shooter was linked to neo Nazi, satanic 2:31:35.879 --> 2:31:40.720 pedophile groups nine A and seven to six four. Someone 2:31:40.800 --> 2:31:44.760 on Twitter found a neo Nazi forum account that they 2:31:44.879 --> 2:31:49.480 alleged belonged to the school shooter. This account used in 2:31:49.879 --> 2:31:54.000 nine A symbol, and an affiliated Twitter account made other 2:31:54.400 --> 2:31:58.400 nine A references. These claims gained a lot of traction 2:31:58.640 --> 2:32:02.400 from leftist accounts and armchair experts on Twitter and Blue 2:32:02.440 --> 2:32:06.160 sky Lots. People were very eager to talk about something 2:32:06.320 --> 2:32:11.120 else besides that this shooter was trans and many pinned 2:32:11.200 --> 2:32:14.840 the blame on seven sixty four, the child exploitation group 2:32:14.959 --> 2:32:19.720 that operates on discord and telegram that Blackmaile's children and 2:32:19.959 --> 2:32:23.680 encourages some to commit acts of violence like school shootings. 2:32:24.200 --> 2:32:27.200 I talked about seven sixty four on my Nihilist Violent 2:32:27.280 --> 2:32:32.560 Extremism episode from earlier this year. As these claims spread online, 2:32:33.200 --> 2:32:36.440 I remained skeptical because this shooter did not seem to 2:32:36.520 --> 2:32:39.400 really fit the profile of a nine A or seven 2:32:39.560 --> 2:32:43.040 six y four grooming victim. This shooter did not really 2:32:43.080 --> 2:32:46.160 seem like an O Nina acolyte. They more closely resembled 2:32:46.560 --> 2:32:50.400 the True Crime Community fandom. And while sometimes True Crime 2:32:50.400 --> 2:32:54.800 Community or TCC may use O Nina references because other 2:32:54.920 --> 2:32:58.280 mass shooters have or because previous mass shooters have been 2:32:58.320 --> 2:33:01.440 affiliated with Nina and really groups, I did not see 2:33:01.520 --> 2:33:04.640 much evidence linking this shooter to nine A based on 2:33:04.720 --> 2:33:08.440 the videos they posted to YouTube, And while some Nazi 2:33:08.560 --> 2:33:12.960 Satanist types have helped facilitate the Columbiner or TCC fandom, 2:33:13.400 --> 2:33:17.520 there was no solid evidence linking a group like seven 2:33:17.560 --> 2:33:21.120 to six' four to this latest. Shooting the shooter was 2:33:21.240 --> 2:33:23.720 in their mid. Twenties they weren't a fourteen year old 2:33:24.040 --> 2:33:28.080 being groomed into doing a mass, shooting and then On thursday, 2:33:28.160 --> 2:33:32.520 morning the forum account alleged to be The minneapolis shooter 2:33:32.760 --> 2:33:35.840 and the source of claims calling them a NINE a 2:33:35.959 --> 2:33:39.440 or sen six four grimmy victim started posting again on the. 2:33:39.520 --> 2:33:42.920 Forum it wasn't the shooter's. Account the shooter did not 2:33:43.040 --> 2:33:46.400 fit that. Profile they weren't in a Cult Nazi. Satanist 2:33:46.760 --> 2:33:50.560 they were obsessed with mass, killers and translations of their 2:33:50.680 --> 2:33:54.400 cerecict journal have helped to substantiate. THIS a journal entry 2:33:54.520 --> 2:33:57.520 discussed taking pleasure in dressing up as a school. Shooter 2:33:57.720 --> 2:34:02.000 quote TODAY i assembled a school shoot cosplay. Quote and 2:34:02.160 --> 2:34:06.000 in translations of their, journal they made explicit references To 2:34:06.520 --> 2:34:10.480 True Crime COMMUNITY, tcc saying that they might cringe if 2:34:10.520 --> 2:34:14.760 they joined an ONLINE tcc community and it could make 2:34:14.800 --> 2:34:17.000 them not want to follow through on doing an. Attack 2:34:17.320 --> 2:34:22.320 doing ONLINE tcc fandom as mostly full of. Posers, QUOTE 2:34:22.680 --> 2:34:26.240 i think joining a community would alienate my future, unquote 2:34:26.760 --> 2:34:30.320 and QUOTE i feel a very small portion OF tcc 2:34:30.800 --> 2:34:36.200 feels AS i. Do harbor's admiration of intent. Unquote one 2:34:36.240 --> 2:34:39.000 more update BEFORE i closed the episode earlier, today On, 2:34:39.120 --> 2:34:42.040 THURSDAY Rfk junior was asked if he would now be 2:34:42.120 --> 2:34:47.359 looking into if gender transition drugs cause. Violence he responded 2:34:47.440 --> 2:34:50.840 by saying that they were already doing studies looking into, 2:34:50.959 --> 2:34:54.960 that and then quickly pivoted to talking about quote launching 2:34:55.040 --> 2:34:58.279 studies on the potential contribution of some of THE ssri 2:34:58.560 --> 2:35:01.600 drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might 2:35:01.680 --> 2:35:06.440 be contributing to violence. Unquote this lines up WITH Rfk 2:35:06.600 --> 2:35:12.080 junior's general focus on psychiatric DRUGS SSRIs depression, medication as 2:35:12.240 --> 2:35:15.880 he has previously. Stated that's all for us today On 2:35:16.120 --> 2:35:16.640 It Could Happen. 2:35:16.720 --> 2:35:18.400 Here we reported the. 2:35:18.480 --> 2:35:20.840 News we reported the. 2:35:20.920 --> 2:35:28.600 News, Hey we'll be Back monday with more episodes every 2:35:28.640 --> 2:35:30.360 week from now until the heat death of The. 2:35:30.440 --> 2:35:33.760 Universe it Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone. 2:35:33.840 --> 2:35:36.840 Media for more podcasts from Cool Zone, media visit our 2:35:36.879 --> 2:35:40.680 website coolzonmedia dot, com or check us out on The iHeartRadio, 2:35:40.760 --> 2:35:43.000 App Apple, podcasts or wherever. 2:35:42.800 --> 2:35:43.280 You listen to. 2:35:43.400 --> 2:35:46.320 Podcasts can now find sources where it Could happen here 2:35:46.360 --> 2:35:47.520 listed directly in episode. 2:35:47.560 --> 2:35:48.840 Descriptions thanks for. 2:35:48.959 --> 2:35:49.320 Listening