Speaker 1: Good morning, Peepsen. Welcome to Bookayeff Daily with me your
Speaker 1: Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Homebunker. Folks, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend too much time on today's introduction, as
Speaker 1: I want you to get to the interview that I
Speaker 1: just did. You know, often in this work I have
Speaker 1: the privilege of sitting down and speaking one on one
Speaker 1: with some of the most brilliant minds, people who I
Speaker 1: really believe whose voice, presence, writing deserves accolades upon accolades.
Speaker 1: Jaredy eight Sexton is, in my humble opinion, absolutely beyond.
Speaker 1: He's a political analyst. He is the co host of
Speaker 1: the Muckerak podcast. He is the author of the upcoming
Speaker 1: book that will be available January twenty twenty three, The
Speaker 1: Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia and the Coming Crisis.
Speaker 1: I had an amazing time in this jam packed close
Speaker 1: to forty minute conversation with Jared where we really unpack
Speaker 1: the crises that are at hand and what our future
Speaker 1: looks like. And frankly, you know, it's not often I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys know that I am a person that is
Speaker 1: ye of little hope, but it isn't often that I
Speaker 1: honestly get to get into the nitty gritty as to
Speaker 1: why I am of little faith as to why we
Speaker 1: need to understand that what we are fighting for is
Speaker 1: a future that we may not see right, and that
Speaker 1: is actually the responsibility of each generation to fight so
Speaker 1: that the generations that come behind us don't have to
Speaker 1: remake the wheel. But in the fight that is impending,
Speaker 1: the fight for our democracy, the fight for our bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: the fight for our civil liberties, we may be just
Speaker 1: at the precipice of the darkness, and we may not
Speaker 1: see the light again, but that should not stop us
Speaker 1: from doing everything that is within our power to make
Speaker 1: it so that there is another side, right, that some
Speaker 1: generation does get to the other side, and that sometimes, folks,
Speaker 1: it is necessary to break shit down, to break it apart,
Speaker 1: to have a breakdown, in order to have a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: So Jared and I pull absolutely no punches in this conversation.
Speaker 1: I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, my conversation with political analysts, co host
Speaker 1: of the muck Rake Podcast, an author of the upcoming
Speaker 1: book The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia, and
Speaker 1: the Coming crisis. Folks, I am very excited to welcome
Speaker 1: to okay f Daily for the first time author all
Speaker 1: Around Badass jaredy eight Sexton, who has a new book
Speaker 1: that will be coming out in January twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: The Midnight Kingdom, The History of Power, Paranoia and the
Speaker 1: Coming Crisis. He is also author of the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: book American Rule, How a nation configure conquered the world
Speaker 1: but failed its people. Jared, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: making the time to join woke F. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about what we have been seeing over the course
Speaker 1: of the last several months, which is the normalization of
Speaker 1: dehumanization and brutality and cruelty as it pertains to the
Speaker 1: migrant crisis in this country, and what both Governor Abbott
Speaker 1: in Texas and Governor Descantis in Florida have been doing
Speaker 1: when they have decided to either bus or most recently,
Speaker 1: charter planes to bamboozo migrants into believing desperate people into
Speaker 1: believing that there is work, housing, food, a better life
Speaker 1: on the other side of this transit. And then they
Speaker 1: arrive and they're dropped off on a tarmac or abandon
Speaker 1: in front of a building, and there are photo ops,
Speaker 1: and you know, they get to replay this humiliation and
Speaker 1: dehumanization on Fox News for political points. But what's worse
Speaker 1: is that our media is complicit in the continuation of this.
Speaker 1: And so I want to get your thoughts on how
Speaker 1: this level of normalization is really getting to the core
Speaker 1: of the destruction of the values, most values this country
Speaker 1: was actually built on. Yeah, this stunt. We were talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about this before, like just how repulsive
Speaker 1: this thing was, And I want to call it what
Speaker 1: it is because a lot of the time we get
Speaker 1: caught up in the idea that this is a stunt
Speaker 1: or a game or some sort of political move, which
Speaker 1: is what our media is portrayed. As we're talking about living,
Speaker 1: breathing human beings. We're talking about some of the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable people on the face of the earth right now, Families, children,
Speaker 1: months old babies who were being used by some of
Speaker 1: those powerful people in the United States as part of
Speaker 1: this stunts, as part of this giant manipulation. And I
Speaker 1: want to point out that what does that show us.
Speaker 1: It shows us that these people do not see these living,
Speaker 1: breathing human beings as human beings. They're treating them like trash.
Speaker 1: It's literally the equivalent of a political stunt where there's
Speaker 1: some sort of I don't know, trash strike and as
Speaker 1: a result, you throw your garbage bags on like the
Speaker 1: lawns of the people in charge. What this is and
Speaker 1: it reveals like the deep, deep, corrosive white supremacy that
Speaker 1: is at the heart of not only the Republican Party
Speaker 1: but also the powerful in this country. Because what is
Speaker 1: happening at this point is that the Republican Party is
Speaker 1: not just a worsening political project. They're representing a lot
Speaker 1: of forces and a momentum that's taking place in this country.
Speaker 1: We obviously have seen for years now these people have
Speaker 1: been put in camps. This is one of the stories. Hardly,
Speaker 1: it hardly rose up to the public consciousness. There were
Speaker 1: four sterilizations. The amount of abuse that took place in
Speaker 1: these camps like this was for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and it was not limited to just the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: This has been a continual abuse of these people who
Speaker 1: have been dehumanized and brutalized constantly. Occasionally, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it and there will be a moment where
Speaker 1: politically we'll talk about who's winning here, who's winning there?
Speaker 1: Our media class and our political class have shared that
Speaker 1: view that these are not actual human beings that you
Speaker 1: necessarily need to treat humanely. It just so happens that
Speaker 1: the Republican Party says it out loud. These types of
Speaker 1: stunts are open expressions of that. The fact that our
Speaker 1: media is normalizing this, that they're calling this a protest,
Speaker 1: that they're saying it was a political move. Some people
Speaker 1: are criticizing it. Notice how the headlines sort of treat this.
Speaker 1: What we're watching is this immigration quote unquote crisis, which
Speaker 1: is what they always call it, right, which is actually
Speaker 1: a humanitarian crisis. It's just being treated as what do
Speaker 1: you do with all of these people because we in
Speaker 1: the United States, we don't have enough resources to take
Speaker 1: care of them, which is absolute hogwash. It's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 1: So we're reaching this point in our political environment where
Speaker 1: so called liberals, people who are supposed to care about
Speaker 1: these people, they're saying, listen, I wish we could treat
Speaker 1: them better, but we just we can't. We just don't
Speaker 1: have the resources. We don't have the things, and you
Speaker 1: and I both know things are going to get worse
Speaker 1: as climate change starts to knockout resources starts to actually
Speaker 1: like corrode away of land, and this immigration crisis that
Speaker 1: everybody keeps talking about, this humanitarian crisis, is only going
Speaker 1: to grow and grow. So what we're seeing from Abbot,
Speaker 1: what we're seeing from the Santis, this is an early
Speaker 1: preview of where all of this is going unless the
Speaker 1: United States of America has an actual reckoning with first
Speaker 1: of all, where we come from, who we are, what
Speaker 1: we've done, and how we treat people who are not considered,
Speaker 1: you know, worthy human beings. So this is actually an
Speaker 1: expression of something that is latent within the American character
Speaker 1: and culture, and it just so happens that now it's
Speaker 1: coming to the forefront because this crisis grows and grows
Speaker 1: and grows, and we're sort of we're sprinting towards a
Speaker 1: cliff right now. So this type of cruelty, it's only
Speaker 1: going to get worse, you know. It's I want to
Speaker 1: stay with this for a moment because I think that
Speaker 1: what has happened, and obviously we saw it magnify during
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, but it is the acceptance of a
Speaker 1: certain level of cruelty, right it is, you know, we
Speaker 1: went from revering and applauding essential workers at the height
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen, to beating teachers up for wanting to
Speaker 1: have mask mandates, to sending in bomb threats to hospitals
Speaker 1: that are caring for people and saying that this is
Speaker 1: a hoax and you're killing these people. This all does
Speaker 1: stem from a part of what your upcoming book is about,
Speaker 1: which is paranoia and the politics of paranoia and how
Speaker 1: when we're able to set it as well as the
Speaker 1: Republican Party has that the only thing that grows from there,
Speaker 1: as far as I can see as a student of history,
Speaker 1: is violence, right, is authoritarianism, is fascism. So I want
Speaker 1: you to speak about the politics of paranoia and the
Speaker 1: how the insidiousness in which we are trying to defund
Speaker 1: our public education system and stop the learning of our
Speaker 1: history as a way to continue fueling that reality that
Speaker 1: they want us to believe, that alternate reality of their
Speaker 1: coming for us. Yeah, and to go ahead. I think
Speaker 1: public education is a really really troubling but perfect way
Speaker 1: to look at all of this. So, on one hand,
Speaker 1: the attack on public education is absolutely about trying to
Speaker 1: push a curriculum which all these people are that goes
Speaker 1: ahead and whitewashes America's history of inequality, America's history of
Speaker 1: white supremacy, misogyny, you name it. This is about going
Speaker 1: ahead and sort of repairing a break in the dam.
Speaker 1: Like as we're talking about what actual history is, they
Speaker 1: see that is like incredibly dangerous, right because it reveals
Speaker 1: what has actually happened and what this entire American project,
Speaker 1: how we've arrived at this point. Because if you start
Speaker 1: putting things together all of a sudden, you can have
Speaker 1: mass politics, you can actually push for change and and
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of course correction. So on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely about controlling information. And if you look at history,
Speaker 1: reactionary causes always go after education first. That's the first
Speaker 1: thing that they do. They call teachers traders, they call them,
Speaker 1: you know, enemies of the people, they call them, you know,
Speaker 1: dangerous threats. That's always what happens. But there's a twin
Speaker 1: part of this that reveals a larger thing. All of
Speaker 1: these sort of quote unquote grassroots groups that are going
Speaker 1: after CRT or you know, groomers in public education, they're
Speaker 1: all being funded by wealthy, wealthy donors and their their
Speaker 1: constellation of think tanks and institutes and the reason that
Speaker 1: they're doing that is not in order to control history
Speaker 1: and information. It's also to destroy public education in totality.
Speaker 1: They want to go ahead and privatize it because and
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to say trillion with a T, this
Speaker 1: is a potential trillion dollar industry privatizing public education. So
Speaker 1: what's happening in the middle of all of this. You
Speaker 1: can't have a Koke brother who comes out and says,
Speaker 1: my plans are to destroy public education and make billions
Speaker 1: of dollars. That doesn't work right because people are going
Speaker 1: to hear, oh wait a second, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that my child not only doesn't get an education,
Speaker 1: but also that they're going to make less money, which
Speaker 1: is part of this. Like, if you think this is
Speaker 1: going to stop at Roe v. Wade, it's going to
Speaker 1: We're talking about gay marriage, but we're also talking about
Speaker 1: things like minimum wage, we're talking about workplace regulations. An
Speaker 1: oversight like it's the rolling back of all of the
Speaker 1: progress of the twentieth century. So you can't go out
Speaker 1: and say this is what I'm doing for my own profit,
Speaker 1: for my own empowerment and basically to finish off my
Speaker 1: takeover of government and public industries, so you have to
Speaker 1: create a story. And what this group always does, and
Speaker 1: again this is historical, is it's the playbook. And it's
Speaker 1: really kind of disturbing how predictable it is. What you
Speaker 1: do is you make up a story that explains why
Speaker 1: things are the way they are, why people are suffering,
Speaker 1: but you take your blame and you transfer it over. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, you'll notice that in all of these stories,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about in the New York Times and
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, all of them, they all talk about
Speaker 1: there's something happening in the country. We don't know why,
Speaker 1: there's some sort of anti democratic crisis that's taking place,
Speaker 1: and people who have just been paid millions of dollars
Speaker 1: to diagnose the problems. And by the way, the problems
Speaker 1: are always a moral crisis, right, it's always the nuclear
Speaker 1: family has fallen off. People. Aren't you going to church enough?
Speaker 1: These people who've been paid millions of dollars to know everything,
Speaker 1: they just can't figure out what's going on, Like, who
Speaker 1: knows what's happening. It's a democratic crisis, but they can't
Speaker 1: figure it out. And the reason is this, all of
Speaker 1: these stories, all of these conspiracy theories they take the
Speaker 1: onus off of the wealthy who have just not only
Speaker 1: become historically wealthy as they've created inequality, but they've started
Speaker 1: to take over the government. They've corrupted the government with
Speaker 1: special interests. They've basically bought off members of both parties.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party is only a pr front for these
Speaker 1: people at this point. It goes ahead and it takes
Speaker 1: the spotlight off of this unequal capitalist system that they
Speaker 1: have completely run rough shot over, and it says, no,
Speaker 1: it's not economic inequality. The problem is satanic cabals, right,
Speaker 1: And it's always this supernatural evil capital evil, right. And
Speaker 1: what it does is it basically says that there are
Speaker 1: people who are serving Satan, who are serving and you
Speaker 1: know with Alex Jones, Q yeah, Q and on, it's
Speaker 1: extra dimensional stuff. They're they're abusing children, they're doing all this.
Speaker 1: And you'll notice in all of this what always gets
Speaker 1: lost is the simplest explanation, which is this is because
Speaker 1: wealthy people want to agree more wealthy, Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: always is a detour that goes around it. So all
Speaker 1: of this paranoia, all of these conspiracy theories, they are
Speaker 1: intentional weapons. They go ahead and hide what's happening. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, they always grow and grow and grow.
Speaker 1: Whenever people get sick of this, they say, I'm so
Speaker 1: tired of working this hard, of being treated this way.
Speaker 1: The government obviously doesn't serve me. And then the wealth
Speaker 1: they say, hey, by the way, let's tell you some stories.
Speaker 1: And those stories are always to that purpose. And I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, the destruction of public education it makes
Speaker 1: it less possible to fight back against those conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: because they go ahead and they fill the vacuum of ignorance,
Speaker 1: and that superstition grows, and then you have the I
Speaker 1: was just talking on my podcast yesterday about the satanic
Speaker 1: panic when you have a conservative push, right when they
Speaker 1: take over the government and they take over power, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you start talking about demons and possessions
Speaker 1: and evil spirits lurking in the dark. And what you're
Speaker 1: not talking about is the corruption by the wealthy of
Speaker 1: the government and the buying off of the public sphere.
Speaker 1: It's it's a perfect distraction and it's and it's worked
Speaker 1: for generations. You know what's so wild to me? I
Speaker 1: mean all of that like brilliant. It's like every alarm
Speaker 1: bell just went off. What is so wild to me
Speaker 1: is how people fall for it all the time. Because
Speaker 1: I want to use again COVID nineteen as kind of
Speaker 1: the perfect model of what has happened to our idea
Speaker 1: and understanding of work and workers. Right, So we have
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic. We
Speaker 1: shut down this country, and and you have only a
Speaker 1: handful of people who barely make minimum wage, if minimum
Speaker 1: wage was even passed in their states. Right to be
Speaker 1: the ones that are going out to get you your groceries,
Speaker 1: that are bringing you your food to your house so
Speaker 1: that you can stay safe. But it was the poor
Speaker 1: and people of color that we said, here's this flimsy
Speaker 1: cloth mask, you go face the virus, so that I right, me,
Speaker 1: middle class and up people can stay wrapped in the
Speaker 1: safety of the cocoon of my home. Okay, we applaud
Speaker 1: those people. We don't call for an increase in minimum wage.
Speaker 1: We don't call for, you know, a mandatory maximum of tipping.
Speaker 1: We do nothing. We just applaud them, We say thank you.
Speaker 1: Then after a little while we get annoyed with that
Speaker 1: many people who are privileged were able to continue to
Speaker 1: work from home. Right, who then realized why the hell
Speaker 1: is I spending eight to ten hours a day in
Speaker 1: this cubicle, in this office, not being able to see
Speaker 1: my kids, not being able to cook my dinner, not
Speaker 1: being able to just live my life because I had
Speaker 1: these overlords that told me that if I wasn't in
Speaker 1: this space for eight to ten hours a day, the
Speaker 1: entire society would collapse. Well it didn't, right, And now
Speaker 1: you have a younger generation of people who have graduated
Speaker 1: from school within this context of I actually don't need
Speaker 1: to be miserable. I don't need to bide my time
Speaker 1: for thirty forty years. So Jared, it seems really convenient
Speaker 1: then that we would find ourselves in this place where
Speaker 1: I have a president of the United States had just
Speaker 1: said that the COVID nineteen pandemic was over. I got,
Speaker 1: you know, people telling me, well, you know, folks need
Speaker 1: to come back to work because you know, we need
Speaker 1: to have more community at work. Right, We're a family here.
Speaker 1: Capitalism isn't about family, right, So I just it's so
Speaker 1: let us all tell these stories about how young people
Speaker 1: are so desperate for the community of the water cooler,
Speaker 1: so that then we all have to go back into
Speaker 1: this grind, into this machine because the higher the overlords
Speaker 1: are not going to be able to make as much
Speaker 1: money if people recognize that they actually don't need to
Speaker 1: work as hard. So let me tell you the new
Speaker 1: narrative of quiet quitting, meaning I recognize my value as
Speaker 1: a human being and I'm no longer going to allow
Speaker 1: you to treat me like a mule. Yeah. And by
Speaker 1: the way, this is one of the reasons I Julie said,
Speaker 1: come on this show, because let's talk about some stuff
Speaker 1: to start with. What you just brought up in terms
Speaker 1: of like the lockdown is one of the most telling
Speaker 1: parts of recent American history, which is this. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I was one of those people. I was
Speaker 1: a college professor who taught on zoom. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to leave my house. I could get DoorDash, I could
Speaker 1: get things delivered if I went out and exposed myself,
Speaker 1: like to get groceries and stuff. It was very, very rare.
Speaker 1: That privilege on my part was built on the backs
Speaker 1: of so called you know, essential workers, which was an
Speaker 1: incredible piece of rhetoric that we put out them right
Speaker 1: and basically and you're exactly right, not only did we
Speaker 1: not pay those people more, we have not advocated for
Speaker 1: reform of our medical system. We haven't pushed for anything
Speaker 1: to actually help any of these people outside of like
Speaker 1: a couple of things that, by the way, Larry Summers
Speaker 1: had to go and tell Joe Mansion it was okay
Speaker 1: to vote on that. If you need to know how
Speaker 1: this stuff works, that's how it works. It's important to
Speaker 1: point this out. America is built not just on a
Speaker 1: class system, but on a very very rigid class system
Speaker 1: that people don't want to admit. This is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why you have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are espoused liberals, right, they're like, listen, I care about people.
Speaker 1: I don't want people to be hurt. But guess what,
Speaker 1: A lot of your existence as a middle class white
Speaker 1: color work in this country is built and predicated on
Speaker 1: the suffering of poor people and people of color. I
Speaker 1: come from like a family of factory workers and labors.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. They didn't get to stay
Speaker 1: at home, they didn't get to work on zoom. Every
Speaker 1: single day, they went out and put their lives on
Speaker 1: the line. That cruelty. This is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we're facing a crisis in this country because the
Speaker 1: history shows us that as authoritarianism grows, and we have
Speaker 1: a bunch of myths about this, by the way, the
Speaker 1: myth that, oh, authoritarian dictators they're such good speakers, Like
Speaker 1: their speeches are so good, the words are so carefully
Speaker 1: chosen that it hypnotizes the masses, and the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, you're wearing an armband and goose stepping down
Speaker 1: the avenue. That's not what it's about. The authoritarian dictators
Speaker 1: come in and say we're going to make this place
Speaker 1: work because there's a crisis in capitalism, and guess who
Speaker 1: lines up to support them. The middle class, particularly the
Speaker 1: white middle class. And this into everything that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You have people in the media, you have a political class.
Speaker 1: They'll sit there and they'll say, I care about people,
Speaker 1: I don't want them to be exploited. But meanwhile, down
Speaker 1: underneath it all, there's a conflict, right because they have power,
Speaker 1: they have wealth, they have influence. This is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why our media class just can't see the problem.
Speaker 1: What's everybody pulling their hair about it? Meanwhile, you know,
Speaker 1: some of us are yelling about it, and people have
Speaker 1: color been yelling about it their entire lives, right, because
Speaker 1: that contradiction has always been there, and this is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we see places like CNN and
Speaker 1: are like quote unquote liberal institutions that are normalizing this.
Speaker 1: They want a strong man, they want authoritarianism to an extent.
Speaker 1: They just they wish that it didn't come with the
Speaker 1: vulgarity of Donald Trump. You know. They yeah, like, and
Speaker 1: that's why they love Ronda Santis because he's he's Trumpian,
Speaker 1: but he's not Donald Trump. He doesn't have those eccentricities, right.
Speaker 1: He just he makes the trains run on time. Right,
Speaker 1: That's what they want, That's what they love, and they
Speaker 1: will mainstream that. Meanwhile, we have come out of this pandemic,
Speaker 1: and pandemics throughout history they always lead to a realignment.
Speaker 1: There's always a moment. So like one of the most
Speaker 1: major parts in history is the Bubonic plague. The Bubonic
Speaker 1: plague finished off feudalism. People all of a sudden, they
Speaker 1: looked up and they said, why am I working on
Speaker 1: your land and not getting paid anything? And they walked
Speaker 1: away and they went to the cities and they got
Speaker 1: jobs and they got paid more, and it actually broke
Speaker 1: it down and led to the creation of capitalism, which
Speaker 1: took feudalism and then turned it into a different form
Speaker 1: of exploitation. Well, now we've reached this point, and this
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why we are coming up
Speaker 1: on a point of crisis. We've reached this point where
Speaker 1: the pandemic literally created a new balance of power between
Speaker 1: workers and employers. Right, yeah, And we don't need to
Speaker 1: get totally into the weeds on this thing. This is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why they're raising interest rates. You, like,
Speaker 1: if you actually hear the speeches, if you read this
Speaker 1: is the meetings, they're saying, we have to rebalance the
Speaker 1: power between labor and employers. It's out of whack. So
Speaker 1: as a result, maybe a little recession could help make
Speaker 1: people more desperate to go to work. Can we pass,
Speaker 1: you know, legislation that will possibly make this happen. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you're exactly right, we have reached a point post of well,
Speaker 1: I've belt said post pandemic, but it's still raging. Man.
Speaker 1: It's weird how those I know get in your head.
Speaker 1: We've reached this point where we are sort of reaching
Speaker 1: the possibility where labor might grow again. Like we're at
Speaker 1: like the first time in I want to say fifty years,
Speaker 1: the approval of labors off the charts right in terms
Speaker 1: of unions and solidarity. That doesn't work for the people
Speaker 1: who pay for government, who have corrupted the government. They
Speaker 1: need people to go to work. They need people to
Speaker 1: come out into the offices, because it's not just about
Speaker 1: watching over them. Middle management is could completely just blow
Speaker 1: away tomorrow and everything be pretty fine, right, But they
Speaker 1: also it helps with real estate, it helps with these downtowns,
Speaker 1: Like the economy wants all of these people to go
Speaker 1: and circulate the money and all of this. If the
Speaker 1: people are going to rise up, if they're going to
Speaker 1: form labor unions, if they're going to demand better working
Speaker 1: conditions because they're like I deserve better, well guess what
Speaker 1: a strong man is going to need to come along.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the reasons we've seen the
Speaker 1: rise of Christian nationalism. This is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: we've seen the rise of anti democratic energies in this
Speaker 1: country because the wealthy I've reached a point where they
Speaker 1: have so dominated the sphere that people are like, screw this,
Speaker 1: this is obviously unfair. I'm not represented in government I'm
Speaker 1: not respected at work. I got fed into the maw
Speaker 1: of a murderous generational pandemic. I deserve better and so
Speaker 1: as a result, now it's going to come to a
Speaker 1: point where someone has to put things right, you know,
Speaker 1: based on what these people want. Hey, I'm David Plots
Speaker 1: of Slaves Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it
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Speaker 1: If you are a student of history, which not many
Speaker 1: people are because we are not even taught real history
Speaker 1: in schools. Right, you know that this only Jared, It
Speaker 1: only goes in one direction, right, And so I want
Speaker 1: you to like and again, I try and paint a
Speaker 1: very clear picture of where things are headed. I remember
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when I started woke a f and I said,
Speaker 1: this ship is going to get bloodier before it gets better.
Speaker 1: I said it on repeat as Donald Trump was ascending
Speaker 1: to the White House. I'm like, this is the beginning,
Speaker 1: literally of the end. I called it on national television.
Speaker 1: White Supremaci's last stand. Right. I didn't say how long
Speaker 1: that stand would be, but I said it was going
Speaker 1: to be the last one. I will now tie in
Speaker 1: capitalism based on where we are and what has happened
Speaker 1: with this pandemic and continues to happen with the stories
Speaker 1: that are being told about workers. People are lazy, they're quiet,
Speaker 1: quitting all of this narrative that is coming down from
Speaker 1: on top. So Jared tell us, where does this go right?
Speaker 1: Because you say in your upcoming book that there is
Speaker 1: an impending crisis. We're already living in compacted crisis. So
Speaker 1: what is the next one? Yeah, so basically we are
Speaker 1: sort of in I would say, the labor pains of
Speaker 1: a larger thing that is coming down the pike. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's really I'm with you. I was talking
Speaker 1: about this in twenty sixteen when I was like going
Speaker 1: into Trump rallies and talking to people, and people are like,
Speaker 1: that's absurd, He'll never get elected. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: like this is just hysterical hair pulling. Everything is fine,
Speaker 1: the system will go ahead and regurgitate it. Meanwhile, one
Speaker 1: of the things that kept getting lost in this is
Speaker 1: that the American system of government was created specifically to
Speaker 1: go ahead and reward the wealthy, the white, and the
Speaker 1: powerful and keep everybody else in control. It was supposed
Speaker 1: to give us the illusion of representative government. This is
Speaker 1: the reason why we have so many minoritarian machinations within
Speaker 1: the government. This is one of the reasons we have
Speaker 1: the electoral college, why the Senate was originally not direct voting, right,
Speaker 1: and also why it's still sort of populated the way
Speaker 1: that it is. The House of Representatives was almost supposed
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, check this out, you have democracy,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, all the courts over here. It's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't you don't act. We've reached this point now where
Speaker 1: the illusions of the American myth, the idea of liberty, equality, freedom,
Speaker 1: all those things. The American dream has always been a lie.
Speaker 1: The meritocracy has always been a lie. It's a game
Speaker 1: that was fixed for white, wealthy people, particularly white wealthy men.
Speaker 1: Now that that that illusion is threadbare, this is one
Speaker 1: of the things that happens when that illusion starts to
Speaker 1: become see through, people demand that something changes because that
Speaker 1: noble lie starts to lose its power. You have to
Speaker 1: find a new noble lie. Yeah, And whenever we start
Speaker 1: having these problems where wealth accumulates in a few hands,
Speaker 1: and it's not shocking that you're elon musks, your Peter Teels,
Speaker 1: your cokes. They consider democracy the biggest inimy that they
Speaker 1: have ye period. They see that as their one impediment
Speaker 1: of power. This plays out over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: We've seen it with everything from the original slave even
Speaker 1: companies which took over their governments and outgrew the nations
Speaker 1: that birth them. Right, all of these things always go
Speaker 1: in one direction, which is you reach a point of
Speaker 1: economic and political and institutional crisis, and then it's a
Speaker 1: moment of malleability. It can go in a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways. And I always tell people I actually am
Speaker 1: optimistic because humanity does continue to win these battles. Right,
Speaker 1: there will be something that flares up, whether it's the
Speaker 1: Gilded Age, whether it's fascism, Nazism, you name it. They'll happen,
Speaker 1: and then people will eventually work their way out of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we'll live. I hope. The wheels
Speaker 1: were starting to turn and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'll be here for the other side of it. Okay, no,
Speaker 1: not necessarily, because we're getting ready to go into what
Speaker 1: is probably going to be a long term crisis. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that you see with this, it's
Speaker 1: not just conspiracy theories. You start to see white supremacist
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories of a very specific type replacement theory, right
Speaker 1: what we now call the deep state, or what QAnon says,
Speaker 1: this is a longstanding white supremacist idea. And it breaks
Speaker 1: down to this, which is democracy is dangerous because it
Speaker 1: allows outsiders, which are Jews, by the way, it's an
Speaker 1: anti Semitic conspiracy theory. It allows them to infiltrate the government,
Speaker 1: rely on satanic traders, liberals, democrats, you name it, and
Speaker 1: go ahead and manipulate people of color who don't know better, right,
Speaker 1: because they're not smart enough to know better. And this
Speaker 1: isn't just by the way, deep state, QAnon. This is
Speaker 1: what happened during Civil rights, this is what happened during
Speaker 1: both red scares. It's a continual use of these conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories by the powerful, again to protect themselves. We are
Speaker 1: reaching a point where this malleability can go in a
Speaker 1: different a couple of different ways. One we can have
Speaker 1: a better society, which means sharing resources and actually starting
Speaker 1: to fix those minority Harry and infrastruct which, by the way,
Speaker 1: involves learning actual history and learning how the Constitution was
Speaker 1: actually created and who it was created for. You can
Speaker 1: create a fairer future right and democracy. When it wins out,
Speaker 1: it actually moves usually towards altarianism, or we can create
Speaker 1: a new illusion. And that's what stuff like fascism and
Speaker 1: Nazism did. It created a white supremacist mythology, It merged
Speaker 1: with Christianity, it merged with national myths, and it created
Speaker 1: a new myth Christian nationalism right now is what's on
Speaker 1: the rise. And the reason it's on the rise is
Speaker 1: because it's a new mythology. It goes ahead and reinforces
Speaker 1: the old American mythology, the white supremacist mythology, the Christian mythology.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, but things can change into her. You
Speaker 1: can see all the progress of the twentieth century rolled back.
Speaker 1: Look at Hungary, look at Russia. What do they do?
Speaker 1: They take away your rights? They go ahead and say
Speaker 1: this is a free and fair society. Meanwhile, it's completely
Speaker 1: structured for all these for all these intentions oligarchs, and yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So that's where we're going. The question is what wins out.
Speaker 1: But where we're at right now, this is not sustainable
Speaker 1: at all. And again talking about climate change like the
Speaker 1: worst thing, inequality and the specter of climate change, all
Speaker 1: of these things coming together, they are going to I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be combustible, and I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you it's going to be ugly one way or another,
Speaker 1: and there's going to be bloodshed one way or another.
Speaker 1: That's just going to happen. The question is what happens
Speaker 1: on the other side of it, And that question is
Speaker 1: still up in the air. You know. It's so fascinating
Speaker 1: because I remember the first time, and people who listen
Speaker 1: to this show know that I reference this book all
Speaker 1: the time. The first time that I read Octavia Butler's
Speaker 1: parable of the Sower series, and I said, there's no
Speaker 1: way right that all that this perfect storm is created
Speaker 1: Chris Show. Fascism, climate change, economic instability all happen at
Speaker 1: the same time to birth this new dark, dystopian America,
Speaker 1: right where each state is operating as its own fiefdom
Speaker 1: and has built walls around itself because there is no
Speaker 1: longer any federal institution, any federal production. It's all been gutted. Right,
Speaker 1: So each and every place you have to pay off
Speaker 1: police much in the same way that you do that
Speaker 1: in developing nations, right, because there is no there is
Speaker 1: no one looking and making sure that everyone is on
Speaker 1: the up and up. And so when you say that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a couple of places that this goes.
Speaker 1: The question will remain for the American people if they're
Speaker 1: willing to go along for this ride. Yes, right, because
Speaker 1: we're being taken for a ride and it's like, are
Speaker 1: you buckling up for it? And again, this is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I was excited to talk to you,
Speaker 1: because this is not pleasant stuff. And I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear because people always say to me, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is like the Handmaid's Tale. That's always
Speaker 1: the push, right, like after the overturning of Wade. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to speak some hard truths here.
Speaker 1: When Pete, when when everybody said, oh Roe v. Wade's
Speaker 1: going down, there's going to be the marches are never
Speaker 1: going to stop. People won't deal with this. It's September,
Speaker 1: late September. Yeah, the marches stopped. You know, there are
Speaker 1: still there's still protest all of this, like part of
Speaker 1: what has happened, and it goes to what you just said,
Speaker 1: this idea that the federal oversight has been completely dismantled, right,
Speaker 1: and that's intentional. That goes back to these oligarch that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. We now have reached a point where
Speaker 1: governors and this is why Abbott and de Santists are
Speaker 1: doing what they're doing. Why why even Gavin Newsom is
Speaker 1: doing what he's doing. At the state level is where
Speaker 1: the power resides. Now, that's where the main focus on
Speaker 1: things is, and you can get away with things like
Speaker 1: overturning roev Wade why because people in blue states feel
Speaker 1: like it's not going to affect them. Meanwhile, who's being affected.
Speaker 1: It's people of color and poor people in states that
Speaker 1: have already been raff and so and I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen on social media as well, everybody like does this
Speaker 1: thing where they blame people who live in red states,
Speaker 1: like get out, just move, just move. And Meanwhile, what
Speaker 1: has happened. It's turned into this dissection of America where
Speaker 1: you have one side, like so called blue states that
Speaker 1: are insulated from these type things. Right, So, when you
Speaker 1: talk about something like a Handmaid's Tale or dystopias. This
Speaker 1: authoritarian movement that we're talking about, it's going to be
Speaker 1: felt in certain places. It's going to lead to massive
Speaker 1: oppression in certain places, and in other places, life is
Speaker 1: going to feel a lot like what it feels like now.
Speaker 1: It's almost like gated communities. Right, you can pay a
Speaker 1: certain amount of money to be walled off from things. Yes,
Speaker 1: and neoliberalism, which by the way, is at the heart
Speaker 1: of all of this. Neoliberalism is all about levels. You
Speaker 1: pay a specific amount to go on the airplane first, right,
Speaker 1: you pay a certain amount that you can bypass traffic
Speaker 1: on the interstate, whatever it is. You are going to
Speaker 1: reach a point where the dystopia in America is going
Speaker 1: to be something that you can pay to get your
Speaker 1: way out of. You can live a very twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two existence in the future that is away from the
Speaker 1: oppression and way from that. You're going to have to
Speaker 1: pay for it, but you have to pay for it.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, it's not going to be something like a
Speaker 1: Handmaid's tale. You know, you see this thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you've been informed on right, it's a spy network. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have spies, but that's not what's happening here.
Speaker 1: You have algorithmic technology that is historically powerful, and we're
Speaker 1: already seeing the state use data from your phone, from
Speaker 1: your search results, from your GPS whatever. We are talking
Speaker 1: about the construction of something historically cruel. But going back
Speaker 1: to what we were talking about with the middle class,
Speaker 1: particularly the white middle class, they will allow authoritarianism. They
Speaker 1: will they will embrace authoritarianism if it allows them to
Speaker 1: keep their power, their privilege, and their safety, and it
Speaker 1: pushes the cruelty off on vulnerable people like these migrants,
Speaker 1: and they don't have to look at it, yea, if
Speaker 1: it can just be done over here, much like essential workers.
Speaker 1: If I don't have to see them suffering, if I
Speaker 1: don't have to see them intubated, if I don't have
Speaker 1: to see them dying and saying goodbye to their families
Speaker 1: on iPads, then I'm okay with it and part of
Speaker 1: the problem. And I just want to make this final
Speaker 1: point on this point. One of the things that leads
Speaker 1: to change in this country, such as civil rights. Middle
Speaker 1: class white Americans were not necessarily rallying for civil rights
Speaker 1: in the fifties. In the sixties, it was TV bringing
Speaker 1: the suffering into their home. Civil rights activists made them
Speaker 1: look at it, they made them smell it, they made
Speaker 1: them confront it. That's what moved the needle on this.
Speaker 1: But middle class white people particularly are fine with authoritarianism
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases as long as they don't
Speaker 1: have to witness it, and as long as it doesn't
Speaker 1: make them feel guilty about their own privilege, which is
Speaker 1: one of the upsetting and disturbing parts of this culture.
Speaker 1: I mean, and that is you know, and I will
Speaker 1: end here today. God, I could literally talk to you
Speaker 1: for days, like a marathon podcasting. But you know, the
Speaker 1: fact is that to me, that is the responsibility and
Speaker 1: the power of the fourth estate. That is why it
Speaker 1: is so imperative that people are paying attention to how
Speaker 1: we are watching the crumbling of journalism and media under
Speaker 1: the pressure of capitalism and greed, and that without those cameras,
Speaker 1: without those conversations, without this analysis, that is clear of
Speaker 1: partisan bullshit. But it's very obvious about what is happening
Speaker 1: to you, you'll just allow it to continue. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we've been fed speaking in bullshit. We've been fed this
Speaker 1: bullshit story that the media is liberal and left. That's
Speaker 1: not the case. The media in a very very large sense.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's through a corporate lens. It's owned
Speaker 1: by giant corporations and billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who have
Speaker 1: a very particular point of view, which is that capitalism
Speaker 1: is good. We don't need a lot of reform. Maybe
Speaker 1: we look at Trump and we're disturbed by him, but
Speaker 1: if we get rid of Trump, everything will be fine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: who are the people who are working in journalism? And
Speaker 1: I think you know this as well as I do.
Speaker 1: That doesn't pay enough for people to live in New
Speaker 1: York City and Washington, DC, in Los Angeles. These are
Speaker 1: people who come from wealth and privilege. In a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, their parents are subsidizing their careers in media journalism,
Speaker 1: and or their parents are media moguls themselves. And so
Speaker 1: what happens here You have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: can't face this crisis. Why because if you agree that
Speaker 1: the meritocracy is broken, the white supremacy and privilege is
Speaker 1: what runs this country, right, and that is built on
Speaker 1: the backs of suffering of the poor and people of color.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you gotta look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and you got to start wondering how you became like
Speaker 1: one of the main journalists in the country, and how
Speaker 1: you became a best selling author and how you became
Speaker 1: a media personality. That mythology of America is intertwined with
Speaker 1: their own personal mythology, and they can't face it. They
Speaker 1: just can't face it. And that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they hated Trump. Trump made them think about it, and
Speaker 1: they needed him gone. They needed Trump to get out
Speaker 1: this absolutely incompetent but foonish, disgusting man. They needed him
Speaker 1: to be gone so they could go back to their
Speaker 1: own sort of privileged bubble and their own mythology could
Speaker 1: be safe. And again, a lot of these people will
Speaker 1: go along with this thing until the bitter end. God damn.
Speaker 1: Jaredy eight Sexton, he must come back to woke aff
Speaker 1: His upcoming book is The Midnight King, A History of Power, Paranoia,
Speaker 1: and the Coming Crisis, and he is the co host
Speaker 1: of the muck Rake podcast, which you guys have got
Speaker 1: to listen to. Jared, I please, please please come back
Speaker 1: and join us again. This was eye opening, It was incredible,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed the comvote so much. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite podcasts. So this was a
Speaker 1: trade for me, thank you. That is it for me today.
Speaker 1: Dear friends on woke a App as always, Power to
Speaker 1: the people and to all the people. Power, get woke
Speaker 1: and stay woke as fuck.