Speaker 1: Col Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, joined
Speaker 2: by James Stout.
Speaker 3: Hello, I get what are we What are we learning about? Today?
Speaker 2: We are going to be learning about a man named
Speaker 2: James Fishback.
Speaker 3: Okay, good first name.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've wanted to get someone kind of unbiased,
Speaker 2: but I now understand unfortunately that you might be might
Speaker 2: be just kind of, you know, drawn drawn to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've come here to defend the James name.
Speaker 2: I don't think that defense will last very long. I okay.
Speaker 2: James Fishback is a former hedge fun analyst who's been
Speaker 2: worming his way into the political world of the new
Speaker 2: Right during the past two to three years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm giving up on that one. Already. Got no
Speaker 3: interest in defending this guy.
Speaker 2: If you're active on you know, any kind of political feeds,
Speaker 2: whether that's you know, short short form video, blue sky, Twitter,
Speaker 2: you've probably seen a video or two of James Fishback.
Speaker 2: But this episode, we're gonna dive a little bit more
Speaker 2: into his background at his current political activities, which includes
Speaker 2: some things you probably haven't heard before. So James Fishback
Speaker 2: has tried to attach himself to a lot of you
Speaker 2: know various aspects of the new right. He attempted to
Speaker 2: attach himself to the presidential campaign of a Vek Ramaswami
Speaker 2: back in the uldie days.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah remember when.
Speaker 2: But he did so just by like showing up at
Speaker 2: campaign staff events. He wasn't a staffer, like, he just
Speaker 2: kept like appearing. He asked, like, stay overnight at a
Speaker 2: hotel that this staff was all staying at for this
Speaker 2: campaign event in Florida, and tried to build a personal
Speaker 2: rapport with the VEC over a few months, and eventually
Speaker 2: Fishback outstayed is welcome. He then pivoted to becoming what
Speaker 2: I would call a D tier right wing comic and
Speaker 2: an advocate of Doge. In twenty twenty five, Fishback was
Speaker 2: a frequent guest on like news networks CNN, Fox and others,
Speaker 2: speaking as a quote unquote Doge advisor. Huh, a role
Speaker 2: that he never officially had great never actually worked with Doge.
Speaker 2: His quote unquote advising was through adding Elon Musk on
Speaker 2: Twitter with random suggestions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just at least literally in their comments online.
Speaker 2: And yeah, his Doge claim to fame is that he
Speaker 2: came up with this idea of the Doge dividend, which
Speaker 2: is like a stimulus type check that the government would
Speaker 2: send to people based on the savings that they found
Speaker 2: or created through slashing government agencies.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: So that was his idea that he added Elon Musk about,
Speaker 2: and this idea gained some traction and this this kind
Speaker 2: of boosted his image as a quote unquote Doge advisor
Speaker 2: and helped him trick news agencies into boosting his public
Speaker 2: profile by associating him with Doge. Eventually, this led to
Speaker 2: Doge official Katie Miller, wife of Steven Miller, having to
Speaker 2: clarify in July of twenty twenty five that Fishback was
Speaker 2: not involved with Doge in any way, but he got
Speaker 2: a lot of traction off of this Doge advisor thing
Speaker 2: right back when Ramaswami left Doge.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's forgotten that he did. Wow, how time flies.
Speaker 2: Before the inauguration, because he was planning on and is
Speaker 2: planning on running for governor of Ohio, Fishback tried to
Speaker 2: put his name in as like a hey, all become
Speaker 2: the co chair of dog elon since my pal Ramaswami
Speaker 2: is going to be busy. That also, you know, did
Speaker 2: not did not work obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what needy guy.
Speaker 2: He's just very very needy, very clingy, yeah, paid, very parasocial. Yes,
Speaker 2: And after Katie Miller released a statement being like this
Speaker 2: guy's not part of dog, Fishback began lobbying Trump for
Speaker 2: the vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Speaker 3: Really no shame.
Speaker 2: Based on his you know, credentials as this like patriotic
Speaker 2: America first investor right, who's worked at a hedge fund
Speaker 2: or two and tried tried to get his way onto
Speaker 2: the SPACAN seat. When that didn't turn out, obviously, Fishback
Speaker 2: set his sights on his home state of Florida, launching
Speaker 2: what I would call a groiper style campaign for governor cool.
Speaker 4: And this is what we're going to be discussing for
Speaker 4: the rest of this episode.
Speaker 3: I'm not like intimately familiar with the grouper space, but
Speaker 3: this seems to be like the most kind of like
Speaker 3: Beata behavior to constantly like notice me, uh, I forget
Speaker 3: what that's a wedd that begins.
Speaker 4: With sick me?
Speaker 3: No, yeah, it could be pick me. I guess it's
Speaker 3: like a notice met sempi or something that people say.
Speaker 4: I never expected you to say noticed me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've unfortunately I've been on the internet too, Like
Speaker 3: that's what he seems, right, he seems like extremely uh yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is like I think what will be coded as
Speaker 3: like beata behavior in the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now he's kind of trying to do this
Speaker 2: with when Tesen the Gropers, although to this point more successfully. Okay,
Speaker 2: he's actually more successfully ingratiated himself with the Groper's space.
Speaker 2: On Tucker Carlson interview, he talked about how the Twitter
Speaker 2: account sorry x account af news or af post it's
Speaker 2: America first post America first News was a part of
Speaker 2: his like political radicalization towards the sort of Groper's style
Speaker 2: of politics. This is like a news aggregation account that
Speaker 2: promotes far right nationalist talking points through and like framing
Speaker 2: through various news stories. A lot of people used to
Speaker 2: share a post with this account, like not knowing its
Speaker 2: political orientation, just because it was very active as a
Speaker 2: news aggregation source.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a few of those on Twitter, like
Speaker 3: bno news is another one that used. Yeah, they aggregates
Speaker 3: from repost stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know, Fishback has pointed to this as being
Speaker 2: a part of his like a Graper style red pilling.
Speaker 4: Is the activity of this.
Speaker 2: Account to get a sense of his kind of very
Speaker 2: graper online background, or at least like a place within
Speaker 2: the New Right. I'm going to read a tweet of
Speaker 2: his from February eighth, twenty twenty six. Quote, as Florida governor,
Speaker 2: I will refuse to let sub human gesters spike our
Speaker 2: collective cortisol, not even once. Also, no foids or egirls unquote.
Speaker 2: How much of that do you understand?
Speaker 3: James, I got cortisol. I'm familiar, all right.
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, this is using the kind of currently
Speaker 2: trendy like looks Maxing terms the jester, which has been
Speaker 2: used a lot since Clinocular's stream with Fuentes and sneak
Speaker 2: O at that club where they played the Kanye hal
Speaker 2: Hitler song. Spiking cortisol is a frequent way that people
Speaker 2: in the looksack in space refer to your stress being raised,
Speaker 2: especially like through politics, like through politics raising your stress. Okay,
Speaker 2: And voids and egirls is just like misogynistic ways to
Speaker 2: refer to women coming out of like the in cell space. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you know this this post is you know, kind
Speaker 2: of a joke, but it's also signaling to a certain
Speaker 2: a certain type of person that hey, I'm your guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I speak your language.
Speaker 2: And it's also just really annoying. Right, He's trying to
Speaker 2: be off putting on purpose because that will drive attention
Speaker 2: to him from people who don't like him. And you know,
Speaker 2: in trying to cover him in this episode, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to like ride that line of not just
Speaker 2: unnecessarily giving him publicity because he has outrageous things, but
Speaker 2: then also framing his rising profile within a certain like context,
Speaker 2: which is groper candidates popping up more and more frequently
Speaker 2: across the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, in terms of Florida, de Santists can't run for
Speaker 2: another term.
Speaker 4: He is term limited.
Speaker 2: The clear front runner to succeed Dysantis is US representative
Speaker 2: from Florida by Donald's who has Trump's endorsement. Last month,
Speaker 2: Lieutenant Governor j Collins also announced a run for governor.
Speaker 2: But Fishback is not a non player in this race,
Speaker 2: and his candidacy displays attention within the Republican Party between
Speaker 2: the former Tea Party and classical MEGA wing, which is
Speaker 2: now the effective conservative establishment, and this New America First wing,
Speaker 2: which takes some of Mega's originating principles to their far
Speaker 2: right nationalist conclusion. I talked about this tension last year
Speaker 2: in the episodes about Nick Fuentez's interview with Tucker Carlson
Speaker 2: and this surge of Graper adjacent gen Z staffers filling
Speaker 2: out the ranks of the Republican machine in DC. Now,
Speaker 2: Fishback is one of the first candidates to draw a
Speaker 2: lot of attention by essentially running as a Graper candidate.
Speaker 2: Depending on how well he does, it could indicate how
Speaker 2: successful this politics can be when presented in front of
Speaker 2: Republican voters. The primary election isn't doneuntil August. There's not
Speaker 2: tons of polling yet on this race, like let alone
Speaker 2: from established pollsters. But as of late January, Fishback's most
Speaker 2: favorable pole puts him fifteen points behind front runner Byron
Speaker 2: Donald's according to quote unquote Patriot polling. Meanwhile, Donald's own
Speaker 2: sponsored poll puts them upwards of forty two points ahead
Speaker 2: of Fishback around the new year. So all this stuff
Speaker 2: is really out of date, and Fishback certainly has risen
Speaker 2: his profile since then, But we're still waiting on like
Speaker 2: reliable polls to come out. Yeah, but he's certainly getting
Speaker 2: a lot of headlines and is doing a successful job
Speaker 2: in raising his public profile. Now part of Fishback's strategy
Speaker 2: to raise his public profile and like name recognition both
Speaker 2: in Florida and nationally, it seems to be just through
Speaker 2: generating controversy, very similar to how Fuentes did this or
Speaker 2: the more recent social ascension of the looks Maxims streamer
Speaker 2: clvicular earlier this month, Fishback claimed that a fire was
Speaker 2: quote intentionally set in his sideyard, prompting him to do
Speaker 2: a publicity stunt where he walked out of his porch
Speaker 2: holding an AR fifteen style rifle above his head, promising
Speaker 2: to shoot anyone who attempts to harm him and his staff.
Speaker 4: I will share a clip.
Speaker 3: I've seen this one. I'm excited to wash it again there.
Speaker 5: If you come back to this home and our staff,
Speaker 5: our volunteers are working hard. We're not waiting for the police.
Speaker 5: We're gonna shoot you with an AR fifteen sight on scene.
Speaker 3: Five five six.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what we're going to do. It's very simple.
Speaker 5: Shall not be infringe?
Speaker 3: We have a right. It's just a bunch of woods,
Speaker 3: they saying, like not in any particular.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make much sense.
Speaker 3: It doesn't know it. It's also five point five six
Speaker 3: able to call it five five six bit, yeah, fascinating,
Speaker 3: two two three yeah, thirty round. Wait, doesn't actually have
Speaker 3: a magazine in there? I noticed no, no, no, The
Speaker 3: back sites folded down as well. It's for those familiar
Speaker 3: with such things, a straight at the box Smith and
Speaker 3: Western MP fifteen. It looks like he may have bought
Speaker 3: it quite recently.
Speaker 2: So this is one such incident where he tried to
Speaker 2: generate some kind of publicity through this, you know, very
Speaker 2: provocative gesture. But he's also done this through the language
Speaker 2: he uses. Fishback refers to front runner Byron Donalds, who
Speaker 2: is black as by Rone, which is just not his name,
Speaker 2: and has said quote by Rone wants to turn Florida
Speaker 2: into a Section eight ghetto unquote. He's also used Charlemagne's
Speaker 2: nickname for Hakeem Jeffries a pack Schakur to refer to Donald's,
Speaker 2: and has called Donald's a quote unquote slave to his
Speaker 2: donors Jesus Christ. So yeah, a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fishback has proposed a fifty percent income tax on OnlyFans creators,
Speaker 2: calling it a quote unquote syntax, and one of his
Speaker 2: very first campaign videos was titled I'm running for Florida
Speaker 2: governor to make the trains run on time.
Speaker 3: Oh cool.
Speaker 2: So this has not like generated tons of controversy in headlines. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's you know, caused some social media posters to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: look at this guy clearly doing a Nazi dog whistle.
Speaker 2: But then it's also signaled, you know, early early in
Speaker 2: the campaign signaled to you know, grapers and people in
Speaker 2: the very very far fringes of the right, has signaled
Speaker 2: to them that hey, I'm going to be your guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which in part he's doing so that he can count
Speaker 2: on them to kind of do free, free publicity for him, right,
Speaker 2: Like he wants to activate a certain type of overly
Speaker 2: online young male to be like a public spokesperson to
Speaker 2: like to just to boost his name recognition, and even
Speaker 2: if he doesn't win in Florida in this race, it
Speaker 2: at least help his career like nationally in some way.
Speaker 2: So's he's counting on this, like a groper block to
Speaker 2: do a lot of heavy lifting. And that's part of
Speaker 2: why he does some of these very very late, gross
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek stuff make them trains run on time?
Speaker 4: Come on, dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a clumsy dog whistle, right, it's embarrassing.
Speaker 3: There's no like a sleight of hand here or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, he's just kind of blundering his way towards
Speaker 3: being like look at me, Nazis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like this video he just talked about trying to bring
Speaker 2: back the Amtrak to the Florida Panhandle.
Speaker 4: It's like a one minute video.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: It had nothing to do about actually like making trains
Speaker 2: run on time. It's about trying to return Amtrak to
Speaker 2: a certain section of Florida. Fitchback has promised to quote
Speaker 2: divest every penny from Israel on day one unquote, which
Speaker 2: would include three hundred and eighty five million in foreign
Speaker 2: bonds invested in by the state. And he's apposed to
Speaker 2: adopting anti semitism ministions in schools that make it quote
Speaker 2: unquote against the law to criticize Israel.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where the hard right and the software
Speaker 3: I bet, yeah, I'm sure it's Israel you'll concern with here, buddy, Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I bet.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's not doing this out of you know,
Speaker 2: principled stances of Palestinian solidarity.
Speaker 3: And he just wants to do anti semitism like the
Speaker 3: old fashioned way.
Speaker 2: Yes, and this can be displayed during a campaign event
Speaker 2: at the University of Central Florida where Fishback discussed how
Speaker 2: to make lunches in high school cafeterias more healthy.
Speaker 3: Putant topic, what's with the.
Speaker 5: Pop tarts in the Broward County public schools in the cafeterias.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying that the test scores are a result
Speaker 5: of the pop tarts, But if you wanted kids to fail,
Speaker 5: if you wanted to set up our kids for failure,
Speaker 5: you would feed them the absolute boy slop in our cafeterias.
Speaker 5: And that that is on gentile.
Speaker 3: Okay, everyone's really excited to hear that. Hey, uh yep, wow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean the crowd is like, uh, they love it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it also looks like they just derived from like
Speaker 3: a Southern Florida be a pong invitational tournament. Like it's uh,
Speaker 3: it's it's a lot of like frat boid type.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a lot of the people who are who
Speaker 2: consumed like the menosphere type content online. Yeah, short clips
Speaker 2: of Nick Fuentes probably aren't regularly tuning into his like
Speaker 2: three hour livestream on Rumble, but but engage with his
Speaker 2: content through short clips online. Yeah, same thing with like
Speaker 2: sneak o clvicular, Right, It's it's it's this type of
Speaker 2: this type of influencer which has right wing politics, but
Speaker 2: but they aren't like super invested in politics. It's it's this,
Speaker 2: it's this mix of like post in cell male influencers
Speaker 2: that combine right wing politics, and it's a very common
Speaker 2: form of like entertainment for these people that we see
Speaker 2: in the background this video. Right, it's a lot of
Speaker 2: like call guys eighteen to twenty two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's mostly white men, yeah, from the traditional
Speaker 3: college age.
Speaker 2: Speaking of schools, In twenty twenty two, a Florida school
Speaker 2: district cut ties with Fishback's debate organization after a female
Speaker 2: student came forward with allegations at Fishback quote initiated a
Speaker 2: romantic relationship unquote with her while she was working for
Speaker 2: his student debate organization when she was seventeen years old
Speaker 2: he was twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Jesus.
Speaker 4: The student claimed in.
Speaker 2: A protection order request that after joining the debate organization
Speaker 2: when she was sixteen, Fishback quote unquote systematically cultivated a
Speaker 2: relationship with her by increasing quote unquote opportunities for personal interaction,
Speaker 2: and that Fishback later quote unquote explicitly directed her to
Speaker 2: keep the relationship a secret while she was working for
Speaker 2: his school debate organization Jesus. After turning eighteen, she moved
Speaker 2: in with fish Back. The two were briefly engaged. Fishback
Speaker 2: denies the student's characterization of the relationship timeline. After the
Speaker 2: girl broke up with him, Fishback allegedly sent hundreds of
Speaker 2: unanswered texts to her over several days. This information comes
Speaker 2: out of a harassment case that was later dismissed. The
Speaker 2: case wasn't about the legality of their relationship, importantly, it
Speaker 2: was about harassment after the two had broken up, where
Speaker 2: these details emerged.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his debate organization, this is some kind of like
Speaker 3: like plastic turning point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it kind of.
Speaker 2: It was a Florida based debate organization in high schools
Speaker 2: to encourage debate.
Speaker 4: It was active around twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: It was bought by another company a year or two ago,
Speaker 2: but in twenty twenty two a district ended cooperation with
Speaker 2: this organization after news came out about this relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is interesting considering the amount that Fishback and Fuentes
Speaker 2: and these guys will talk about the Epstein files and
Speaker 2: then have this in your Yeah.
Speaker 3: Inappropriate relationships with underage women.
Speaker 2: Yeah that work for you in your high school debate organization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that gives me the age in a substantial way.
Speaker 3: Also kind of not that surprising from this kind of
Speaker 3: area of the right, but it's still gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's time for an ad break, but we will
Speaker 2: return to discuss fishbacks reoccurring campaign rhetoric and his promises
Speaker 2: as governor. All Right, we're back. A big part of
Speaker 2: Fishback's campaign targeting H one B visas. He promised on
Speaker 2: day one as governor to fire as many H one
Speaker 2: B workers as you can and to quote unquote incentivize
Speaker 2: companies to hire Americans. Again, here's a radio appearance where
Speaker 2: he discusses this.
Speaker 6: On the first day in office, I would fire every
Speaker 6: single H one B who works at a state agency.
Speaker 6: Number two, if you have a state contract with Tallahassee,
Speaker 6: I don't care if it's serving nils or serving up.
Speaker 3: IT tech support.
Speaker 6: You have twenty four hours to pick, as President Reagan said, Drew,
Speaker 6: now is the time for choosing.
Speaker 3: You got to pick.
Speaker 6: Do you want your fifty million dollars a year state
Speaker 6: contract from Tallahassee or do you want your fifty year
Speaker 6: one hundred h one vs.
Speaker 4: You pick.
Speaker 6: You can't have both. There's no negotiating and you have
Speaker 6: twenty four hours. That's how we create a culture that
Speaker 6: stands up for the dignity of American workers.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting approach, Like you can't get H one
Speaker 3: B jobs not for federal government, but for state government.
Speaker 3: I kind of imagine that, especially in Florida, there are very.
Speaker 2: Many Well, he's not just concerned about H to one b's.
Speaker 2: Fishback has also railed against student visas as a threat
Speaker 2: to the American way of life, and has falsely said
Speaker 2: that Trump plants descended two hundred thousand students from China
Speaker 2: to Florida's public universities, which serve only about four hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty thousand students.
Speaker 3: So it'd be like forty five percent.
Speaker 4: It's not real. That's just not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was proposed as an idea, not Florida specifically.
Speaker 2: But this was proposed in spring of twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: as a negotiating tactic with China over tariffs. This isn't
Speaker 2: a real thing. Since then, Fishback has promised to raise
Speaker 2: tuition on all foreign students to one million dollars via
Speaker 2: executive order. The governor cannot legally raise state school tuition
Speaker 2: via executive order.
Speaker 4: These are just words that he's saying.
Speaker 3: Well, so like a lot of these state schools having
Speaker 3: a certain number of students who are paying a higher fee,
Speaker 3: be that the non US or out of state, like
Speaker 3: it's integral to their budgeting, right, Like, yeah, they're not
Speaker 3: making it on in state tuition.
Speaker 2: Fishback has talked about all this in an interview on
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson's Internet show last month, where he said that
Speaker 2: a child quote from Shenjin, who doesn't know what Florida
Speaker 2: orange juice tastes like, can't possibly in an economic sense,
Speaker 2: but I think I mean not to sound gay, but
Speaker 2: in a spiritual sense, does not represent our state and
Speaker 2: our heritage unquote. Tucker replied, that's the opposite of gay. Actually,
Speaker 2: quote that's.
Speaker 3: A head of an exchange of words. Again, like I'm
Speaker 3: like a little lost here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is a sizable faction of the
Speaker 2: new right of of the of of the gropers who
Speaker 2: are filling staffer positions at Heritage and in DC, Like
Speaker 2: this is the sort of media environment like linkinguistic environment
Speaker 2: that they that they are coming out of. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the pearl clutchy reaction is not useful here, right, I'm
Speaker 2: not like who cares?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 4: This is this is obviously embarrassing.
Speaker 2: This is like a man in his thirties trying to
Speaker 2: sound like a kind of homophobic eighteen year old who's
Speaker 2: kind of only homophobic via like linguistic reflux.
Speaker 4: This is like embarrassing cosplay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very cringe.
Speaker 4: I can't even find this stuff offensive, Like this is
Speaker 4: this is just it's no.
Speaker 3: It's sad. Like the primary sentiment I feel is like
Speaker 3: vicarious shame, Yeah, for this guy and his like desperate
Speaker 3: search for attention.
Speaker 2: Now, a core component of selling fascism too people is
Speaker 2: that they were promised a future that's now been taken
Speaker 2: away from them because of some people that are the enemy. Right,
Speaker 2: This is like the dream of finding a subservient wife,
Speaker 2: a cushy, full time job, buying a home, raising two
Speaker 2: point five kids in a safe and secure homeland. But
Speaker 2: because of quote unquote, this dream is no longer possible.
Speaker 2: Through the years, we've seen different versions of this targeting Jews, Feminists, Palestinians, Muslims, Mexicans,
Speaker 2: Central and South American immigrants.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: During Fishbeck's Carlson interview, he elucidated on like an updated
Speaker 2: version of the like twenty first century version of the
Speaker 2: American dream that was stolen from gen Z.
Speaker 7: Gen Z was such an important part of the president's
Speaker 7: victory last year. Yes, and they feel betrayed by a
Speaker 7: lot of these Trump advisors and what they've chosen to
Speaker 7: prioritize and not.
Speaker 1: I can see why.
Speaker 7: And when I've met them, and I've met them where
Speaker 7: they are at their universities, whether it's UF a couple
Speaker 7: of weeks ago, I'll be at FSU and just a
Speaker 7: couple weeks from now. Their number one frustration is that, look,
Speaker 7: they don't want to be lectured anymore. They got a degree,
Speaker 7: they got good grades, they got good test scores. They
Speaker 7: didn't study gender studies or black intersectionality. They did the
Speaker 7: stem thing that Republicans told them to do. Yeah, learn
Speaker 7: to code, learn to code. And now they say, you
Speaker 7: know what Amazon, Google fed acts. No, No, those jobs
Speaker 7: aren't available for you Upesky Americans. You want paid time off,
Speaker 7: you want to go to church on Sunday. We're going
Speaker 7: to give those jobs to an entire new class of
Speaker 7: foreign serfs known as the Indians and the Chinese, and
Speaker 7: we're not going to even interview you for those positions.
Speaker 7: They don't even pretend that the Chinese or the Indians
Speaker 7: are smarter. They're not. They don't speak our language, they
Speaker 7: have no skin in their nuts smarter act, they're not
Speaker 7: at all, I know. And so the issue then becomes,
Speaker 7: do we actually have a labor market that is utterly
Speaker 7: rigged against American citizens? The answer is yes.
Speaker 2: I think this is a really interesting exchange on a
Speaker 2: sort of slide that's happening on the right.
Speaker 4: Beyond talking about like illegal immigrants.
Speaker 3: What's really interesting to me is that like the first
Speaker 3: real immigration lik restrictions that were part of the United
Speaker 3: States was the Chinese Exclusion Act, right, Yeah, and we
Speaker 3: have circled all the way back to essentially a very
Speaker 3: similar argument.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The slide from talking about illegal immigrants in like the
Speaker 2: far right space to really honing in on on student
Speaker 2: visa's foreign workers, I think is an interesting pivot. And
Speaker 2: this new version of the American dream of like you know,
Speaker 2: stem jobs, learned to code that's now been taken away,
Speaker 2: that's no longer accessible because so many young Americans aren't
Speaker 2: getting hired because they're adamant about going to church on Sunday.
Speaker 4: Something that's not true. That's not real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not a real thing.
Speaker 2: First of all, young Americans are not in large numbers
Speaker 2: going to church on Sunday. Nor is their hiring this
Speaker 2: discrimination because they don't want to work on Sundays. Right,
Speaker 2: These things aren't aren't real, but it taps into a
Speaker 2: certain feeling that someone in college might might have right now,
Speaker 2: especially in the wake of like AI vibe coding, of
Speaker 2: they were told that there's this like life track where
Speaker 2: you can work in tech, and now there really isn't
Speaker 2: many tech jobs open to people, and they're trying to
Speaker 2: turn this situation in to this fight against legal immigration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, into fascism. It's funny to see Carlson repeating that
Speaker 3: the learned to code thing, as if that was like
Speaker 3: a serious piece of career advice given to people Like
Speaker 3: that has been a meme for close to a decade. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like everybody knew there was bullshit that it's it's literally
Speaker 3: like that. The phrase is a joke.
Speaker 2: Fishback later says after this little rant that quote, our
Speaker 2: north Star should not be a free market, but a
Speaker 2: free people. He's okay, if the market's not freeze, Okay,
Speaker 2: if we're going to be restricting which types of workers
Speaker 2: are allowed, as long as we have a free American people.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, his strategy for winning this race appears to be
Speaker 2: through appealing to homeowners and prospective homeowners through tax cuts
Speaker 2: and down payment assistance, but then also really trying to
Speaker 2: engage gen Z voters. Looking at the success of previous politicians,
Speaker 2: including Trump, and how much of his victory was related
Speaker 2: to the gen Z vote, He's really really honing in
Speaker 2: on trying to activate young voters in Florida. He's planning
Speaker 2: to visit every single state college and so university and
Speaker 2: talk with these issues. As a social media stunt, He's
Speaker 2: going on a statewide waffle house tour, visiting all the
Speaker 2: locations in the state great and through this he continues
Speaker 2: to talk about these beliefs on legal immigration. In an
Speaker 2: interview with a local magazine, Fishbeck discussed his belief in
Speaker 2: the quote unquote great replacement state d quote. You can't
Speaker 2: make America great again with Chinese, you can't make America
Speaker 2: great again with Indians. You can't make America great again
Speaker 2: with Haitians. So when I speak about the great replacement,
Speaker 2: I speak about legal immigration programs that for far too
Speaker 2: long have been overlooked. A legal immigration has been a
Speaker 2: primary concern for establishment Republicans. But each one of many
Speaker 2: legal immigration programs, by definition, takes spots and slots jobs
Speaker 2: away from American citizens. My campaign is the one that
Speaker 2: stands up and says America is for Americans, and so
Speaker 2: we have to stop apologizing for that. Yeah, little slight
Speaker 2: move there with the Americas for Americans.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in reference to German Germany for Yeahman Germany for
Speaker 4: the Germans.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing. Oh, certainly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like this is the obvious next place. They have made
Speaker 3: so much political headway with racism, and like the obvious
Speaker 3: direction to keep going there for is to be the
Speaker 3: one who's willing to lean a little bit further into racism, Right,
Speaker 3: See if that can get you a little bit further,
Speaker 3: a little bit, a little bit more popular. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: makes sense in that.
Speaker 2: In that way, That's why I find his canadacy really interesting.
Speaker 2: Regardless of how well he's going to end up doing
Speaker 2: in the primary, he is trying to trojan horse something
Speaker 2: into not even trojan horse in a way. He's kind
Speaker 2: of openly trying to pull something into Republican politics and
Speaker 2: something that's been like festering in the sidelines for a while.
Speaker 2: You know, start that Nick's been advocating for a while.
Speaker 2: There was that fight around H one B Visas about
Speaker 2: a year ago. Yeah, and he's he's really honing in
Speaker 2: on this as a potential future for the party. And
Speaker 2: we're gonna see how successful this is. Like in part right,
Speaker 2: there could be other factors that make his campaign not
Speaker 2: do very well beyond these sorts of politics, but this
Speaker 2: is this is the first time you've really seen these
Speaker 2: deployed at this scale.
Speaker 4: I think. And he's counting on the groper support.
Speaker 2: And this is what Nick's been talking about for a while,
Speaker 2: trying to run candidates like this as much as possible.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty six, we'll talk more about Fishback's relationship
Speaker 2: with Fuentes and the.
Speaker 4: Grapers after this ad break.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: In my episode last year about the right wing fallout
Speaker 2: of Nick Fuentez and Tucker Carlson's brief friendship, I discussed
Speaker 2: how Fuentes was making threats and promises to deploy his
Speaker 2: groper fan base to influence elections both in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six and then in the the Republican presidential primary in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight, and after that new cycle had peaked,
Speaker 2: Fuentes continued to really hammere down his promise and threat
Speaker 2: to various candidates that if they do not adopt sufficient
Speaker 2: America first messaging, he will deploy his fan base across
Speaker 2: many different primary states to influence the election through support
Speaker 2: and harassment. And I believe that Fishback is attempting to
Speaker 2: hold Nick to this promise. On a podcast appearance last year,
Speaker 2: Fishback said that Nick Fuentes quote unquote broke the Internet
Speaker 2: by speaking truth to the deranged maniac Piers Morgan in
Speaker 2: an interview.
Speaker 3: I do love how Peace Morgan is now like an
Speaker 3: avatar woke for the Nick American Right.
Speaker 7: For the biggest interview of the year, Nick fuent Has
Speaker 7: and Piers Morgan were, Nick made very very clear, we
Speaker 7: are done with the pearl clutching, We are done with
Speaker 7: the white guilt. We are done with this pseudo religion
Speaker 7: that attacks us for just wanting to exist in our
Speaker 7: own country, to buy a home, to get a job,
Speaker 7: and to benefit from all the things that we were promised.
Speaker 2: There he is again talking about all the things that
Speaker 2: we were promised.
Speaker 3: And us right, like he's a thirty year old hedge
Speaker 3: fund guy. Yeah, like he got all the things.
Speaker 2: No, he did get the dream that he is saying
Speaker 2: no longer exists, like that has been his life.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and he's just trying to cash in on
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: But it's through this interview he just keeps talking about
Speaker 2: Fuentes and glowingly refers to the Graper fan base.
Speaker 7: I'll tell you the truth. I found the audience of
Speaker 7: young men who follow and watch Nick Fuentes to be
Speaker 7: actually incredibly informed and insimple and very patriotic young man.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be completely honest. I probably shouldn't say this,
Speaker 7: but I think Nick's following is actually really impressive. There's
Speaker 7: a lot of young men who are patriotic, who are
Speaker 7: well informed, who know our history, which is why they
Speaker 7: are so frightened by the current path that we are on.
Speaker 2: Having a candidate talk openly about the Grapers in this
Speaker 2: way I think is super interesting. This is the one
Speaker 2: of the first cases, and I don't think it'll be
Speaker 2: the last where Nicks fans and and Nick himself are
Speaker 2: like openly referred to in a race like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's interesting again, like super duper surprising to
Speaker 3: me how easily the Overton window is moved to the
Speaker 3: right right now. And there's a whole network of these
Speaker 3: like short form and long form video places to do
Speaker 3: that right that are kind of set up to incentivize that.
Speaker 3: Almost he doesn't have any particular genius that allows him
Speaker 3: to do it right, Like there is a system in
Speaker 3: place both with like Fointe is kind of outside of
Speaker 3: the electoral politics Overton window, and then all these places
Speaker 3: that straddle the line right like Tucker Carlson, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera, where, Yeah, that exist to bring these further
Speaker 3: right discourses into the admiss discourse of electoral politics in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and fishback, as a largely unremarkable candidate, is counting
Speaker 2: on a group of probably hundreds to thousands of young
Speaker 2: men to do free campaign work for him by telling
Speaker 2: them that they're good, smart little boys, by complimenting them.
Speaker 2: He is counting on his success being contingent on this
Speaker 2: graper army of gen Z Internet users. To him, these
Speaker 2: are like a valuable political block and like that that's
Speaker 2: the thing that I find interesting about this, as you
Speaker 2: they used to be like pure poison, right yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Now they're seen as like as like a possible asset,
Speaker 2: and Fishback knows that there could be some drawbacks by
Speaker 2: going this extreme. A few days ago, Fishback walked through
Speaker 2: Miami's nightlife on stream with Manosphere influencer sneako who asked
Speaker 2: Nick foyant as if you would endorse Fishback as governor?
Speaker 5: What you say all? He said?
Speaker 3: Yes, Nick Foyn says has endorsed Fishback for governor. That
Speaker 3: don't really help go Wait, he's voting for Byron uh.
Speaker 7: No, Nick Foyt says, he's voting for Byron Donald's.
Speaker 3: But that's a bad name, myrown Donald's.
Speaker 7: Does that even sound like it could be a governor?
Speaker 2: So there you can see that he knows that it
Speaker 2: could have some possible negative effects, but he's he's willing
Speaker 2: to play in this like irony irony zone while still
Speaker 2: very clearly embracing Fuentes and and the Groper's. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: like this stream with Sneakos is like indicative of a
Speaker 2: few things. After Fishback talked about Goyslop at that school event.
Speaker 2: You know, he said afterwards that he wasn't aware of
Speaker 2: like the offensive connotation.
Speaker 4: The fuck else is getting, which is not true.
Speaker 2: Right, This has been like a four Chan term forever
Speaker 2: to talk about how like the Jews are poisoning gentiles
Speaker 2: with food to make them like subservient.
Speaker 4: Right, that's what the term means. He knows that.
Speaker 2: And he continued to use the goyslop term on Sneako's stream,
Speaker 2: and after jaywalking on this stream, Fishback joked quote the
Speaker 2: headline will read tomorrow Florida govenatorial candidate breaks the law
Speaker 2: with Hitler sympathizer, referring to sneak o great And based
Speaker 2: on the most recent polling we have on this race,
Speaker 2: Fishback's youth centric strategy does seem to be getting its
Speaker 2: intended results. In a University of North Florida Public Opinion
Speaker 2: Research Lab poll from the middle of February, Byron Donalds
Speaker 2: is up thirty one percent to James Fishback at six percent,
Speaker 2: about a twenty five percent gap, which is kind of
Speaker 2: in between the more Fishback friendly Patriot polling numbers and
Speaker 2: Byron Donald's own internal polling. A sizable gap, to be sure,
Speaker 2: but not one that is insurmountable. What's really interesting about
Speaker 2: this pole, though, is the youth numbers for ages eighteen
Speaker 2: to thirty four. James Fishback is at thirty two percent,
Speaker 2: whereas Byron Donald's is at eight percent. He's massively ahead
Speaker 2: among youth. Meanwhile, Byron Donald's tactics to address Fishbeck's connection
Speaker 2: to the Gropers has been a little odd. I'm going
Speaker 2: to read a statement from last week. Quote, Dear James Fishback,
Speaker 2: I heard you crashed out when I told the truth
Speaker 2: about your stupid anti Semitic BDS plan that you stole
Speaker 2: from Kamala Harris, just like you stole your whole gimmick
Speaker 2: from Nick Fuentes and Zoron Mom Donnie, You're no racist,
Speaker 2: your no groyper, your no anti Semite. You're what people
Speaker 2: hate about politics, performative slop unquote. So Byron Donald's approach
Speaker 2: to addressing Fishbeck's ties to the Gropers are not to
Speaker 2: actually attack him for these ties, but to say that
Speaker 2: he's a fake groper, that he's not actually one of them,
Speaker 2: that he's stealing his policy ideas from Kamala Harris and
Speaker 2: stealing his gimmick from Fuentes and Zoron Mamdani quote unquote
Speaker 2: your no anti Semite, your no racist. So basically attacking
Speaker 2: Fishback for not being a real enough racist. And Donald
Speaker 2: isn't the only one linking Fishback to Zoron Mamdanni. The
Speaker 2: conservative magazine The Spectator released a positive profile on Fishback
Speaker 2: last week with the headline is James Fishback the rights
Speaker 2: answer to Zoron Mamdani, The similarities seemingly being that he's
Speaker 2: behind in the polls in a race that could be
Speaker 2: very influential for the future of the Republican Party, while
Speaker 2: gaining a lot of traction among youth and having a
Speaker 2: savvy online element of the campaign, and so Byron Donald's
Speaker 2: response to Fishback's popularity online a popularity among young voters
Speaker 2: is to compare him to Kamala Harris and Zoron Mamdani
Speaker 2: and claim that he's not actually a real racist, that
Speaker 2: he's not actually a real groyper. I do not believe
Speaker 2: this is going to be an effective line of attack
Speaker 2: or damage his numbers among the young, especially male supporters
Speaker 2: that he has, because Fishback already knows that he has
Speaker 2: the groper base in his pocket, and that's why he's
Speaker 2: able to make jokes with Sneako about how no, no, no,
Speaker 2: Nick Fuentes is actually supporting the other guy. He is
Speaker 2: secure enough in his groper support to jokingly distance himself
Speaker 2: from Fuentes as a strategic move, because he knows the
Speaker 2: Grapers are already going to be doing free labor for
Speaker 2: him to boost his chance of winning. He already has
Speaker 2: them cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, Like he's relying on social
Speaker 3: media exposure from them, and then he can even say
Speaker 3: other stuff to conventional media and it probably won't matter
Speaker 3: that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I mean he's still getting profiled by
Speaker 2: major outlets like every every week, and it's it's it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a long race. He wants to eventually debate Donald's,
Speaker 2: like in a televised debate. Unclear thatats going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but as of now, that's kind of the current state
Speaker 2: of his candidacy, his strategy to overcome the gap and polls.
Speaker 2: And I will be keeping an eye on this race
Speaker 2: specifically because it does relate to what I was talking
Speaker 2: about last year in terms of this like wave of
Speaker 2: groper friendly candidates expected to try to get into the
Speaker 2: Republican Party in the next two to four years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's his. The election is November of this year.
Speaker 4: November is the general. August is the primary.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so I guess the kind of Republican primary
Speaker 3: in Georgia is the big deal. I mean in Florida. Sorry, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The primary race in Florida is going to be the
Speaker 2: one that I'm keeping the most track of.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, don't be surprised if if you
Speaker 2: start seeing fishback pop up and more stuff.
Speaker 4: In the next few weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, well that doesn't for us today at It could
Speaker 2: Happen Here? Yeah, now it's time to end the podcast
Speaker 2: to lower the collective cortisol.
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