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Speaker 1: All Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to it could Happen Here, a podcast about things

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Speaker 2: falling apart and how to put them back together again.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host bo Wog. With me is Robert Evans.

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Speaker 1: Woo woo.

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Speaker 2: So we have spent a lot of time on this

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Speaker 2: show talking about the rise of the far right and

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Speaker 2: what that's looked like electorally, what that's looked like in

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Speaker 2: the streets, and the sort of you know, deleterious effects

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Speaker 2: that it has had on effectively everyone in the US.

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Speaker 2: This is going to be a little bit of a

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Speaker 2: different episode. We've talked about a lot of the responses

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Speaker 2: to the far right, sort of you know, in terms

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Speaker 2: of sort of direct actions and sort of confrontations. We

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Speaker 2: haven't really done is talked about what can be done electorally.

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Speaker 2: And I do think that a significant portion of the

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Speaker 2: far right can be defanged and eventually defeated through a

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Speaker 2: series of things that are not particularly complicated. But the

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Speaker 2: problem is that defeating feeding the far right means going

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Speaker 2: beyond simply trying to win every single election, which is

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Speaker 2: the current sort of democratic strategy. Right If you want

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Speaker 2: to actually defeat the far right, winning every election is

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Speaker 2: not a viable strategy. We've seen this fail already with

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Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton. We cannot rely on simply winning every election

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Speaker 2: into the future. You have to go beyond mere electoral

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Speaker 2: victory towards using your electoral victory to actually defeat the

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Speaker 2: base of the far right. When the Republican Party held

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Speaker 2: power for twelve years following the ascension of Ronald Reagan,

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Speaker 2: they did it by destroying the political base the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 2: They shattered America's trade unions and rebuilt the economy to

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Speaker 2: ensure unions would no longer be able to provide the

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Speaker 2: ideological and financial support the Democrats had relied on. If

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Speaker 2: we are going to defeat the far right, we need

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Speaker 2: to wage the same kind of campaign against them. Now.

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Speaker 2: Luckily for us, unlike Ronald Reagan, we do not need

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Speaker 2: to completely rebuild the American economy to knock the legs

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Speaker 2: of the far right out from under them. There is,

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Speaker 2: in fact, a pretty minimal program that we can implement

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Speaker 2: to defeat the far right that is very simple. It

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Speaker 2: has three components. First, a crack down on MLMs that

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Speaker 2: drives them effectively completely underground.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, by which we mean multi level marketing for these

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Speaker 3: appearance schemes right, which are a major source of funding

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Speaker 3: for the fire right. I mean, this is where Trump

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Speaker 3: comes out of right, this is why he did that

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Speaker 3: fake university like, this is a big part of his base.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're going to get more into that in

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Speaker 2: a seconds. The second, very important one is a regulatory

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Speaker 2: overhaul of how the FDA regulates supplements. Oh boy, which

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Speaker 2: sounds like it. Yeah, extremely technical and nerdy thing, but

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Speaker 2: supplements are another enormous cash spigot for the far right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where Alex Jones and Joe Rogan get

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Speaker 3: their shit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, yep. And the third is another kind of

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Speaker 2: wonky change that will be extremely important, which is making

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Speaker 2: sure to allow car companies to make sure rec sales

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Speaker 2: to customers, thus undercutting the enormous and extremely politically powerful

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Speaker 2: base of right wing American car dealership owners.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, who donate more money to political causes than any

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Speaker 3: other career field in this country.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And you may not believe us yet just from

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Speaker 2: this sort of basic introduction, but these three simple reforms

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Speaker 2: EML and regulation, regulation of dietary supplements, and the direct

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Speaker 2: sales of cars will destroy so much of the financial

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Speaker 2: and political base of the far right that they will

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Speaker 2: at least temporarily and in the sort of mid range term,

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Speaker 2: becomes significantly less of a threat than they are now.

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Speaker 2: So we are going to start with MLMs. Yeah, as

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Speaker 2: Robert has sort of alluded to, MLMs are a very

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Speaker 2: very important political base for the far rights. I'm probably

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Speaker 2: the most famous and the one that Robert has done

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Speaker 2: an entire show on. So go listen to that if

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Speaker 2: you want to really actually in detailed thing on the

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Speaker 2: history of Amway, Mway and the sort of political family

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Speaker 2: the devices that they've generated are an incredibly important part

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Speaker 2: of the emerging far right. I mean, obviously, most famously,

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Speaker 2: Betsy de Vos, who married into the Klan, was our

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Speaker 2: Secretary of Education under Trump. You know, the sort of

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Speaker 2: prince family is embedded into this. And Amway famously used

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Speaker 2: its own internal communications to stump for Republican Party candidates

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Speaker 2: and also uses its base and also directly its own

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Speaker 2: funds to fund the Republican Party and a bunch of

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Speaker 2: Republican congressional candidates. Now, obviously, and this is something that

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Speaker 2: is true of all of these reforms, is that everything

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Speaker 2: we're doing here, they're morally and politically good in their

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Speaker 2: own right, right, MLMs are scams. They're extremely exploitative, and

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Speaker 2: their rule, I think in the far right is a

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Speaker 2: lot more important than people understand. Even if you just

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Speaker 2: look at the money, you're sort of missing part of

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Speaker 2: what's going on with MLMs. MLMs aren't just a cash spigot.

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Speaker 2: They're part of how the far right builds his ideological base.

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Speaker 2: Teach you to convert all of your personal relations into

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Speaker 2: potential assets for sales. This is obviously evil on a

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Speaker 2: moral level, but it's also insidious on an ideological level.

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Speaker 2: The MLM logic of turning all of your most precious

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Speaker 2: relationships into sales vectors changes how you see the world,

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Speaker 2: and this is why Republican recruiting inside Amway works so well.

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Speaker 2: Once you've been trained that literally everything, even in your

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Speaker 2: sort of closest friends, and you know your dearest relationships

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Speaker 2: with your family, are just business opportunities, it's extremely easy

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Speaker 2: to convince you of the rest of the Republican Party platform.

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Speaker 2: In the same way the experience of being in a

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Speaker 2: union and organizing with your coworkers once reliably turned out

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Speaker 2: the ideological base of the left. MLMs have generated enormous

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Speaker 2: political basis for the right and Unfortunately, this sort of

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Speaker 2: ideological threat doesn't just go away if people are able

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Speaker 2: to get out of MLMs, or especially if they're sort

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Speaker 2: of cast out of mlems because they've simply are broken

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Speaker 2: brand of money and are in debt. The isolation and

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Speaker 2: alienation that comes from pushing away, you know, every single

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Speaker 2: relation that's close to you, from attempting to sell them

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Speaker 2: soap or whatever, makes people isolated and alienated and makes

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Speaker 2: them more vulnerable to far right radicalization. And this is

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Speaker 2: why driving these MLMs under isn't just a way to

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Speaker 2: sort of cost Republican party money, because that's not enough

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Speaker 2: to defeat the Republicans. They can find other sources of money.

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Speaker 2: What you need to do is systematically remove parts of

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Speaker 2: their political base. And when I say your roofports to

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Speaker 2: their political base, what I mean is you have to

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Speaker 2: go after the systems that are creating more members of

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Speaker 2: the far right. Going after MLMs is a way to

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Speaker 2: do that. Now. The FTC has gone after m lms before.

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Speaker 2: They sort of famously, as you talked about in that

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Speaker 2: episode an mway, they went after a bunch of MLMs

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Speaker 2: in the eighties, but this sort of caused MLMs to

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Speaker 2: get smarter and has you know, has been pretty effective

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Speaker 2: in in sort of warding the FTC off from really

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Speaker 2: going after MLM since then.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, which is by the way, like another you were

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Speaker 3: just talking about how the way MLMs impact like the

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Speaker 3: minds of the people participating in them, like prepares them,

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Speaker 3: you know, for the far right. Yeah, the way in

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Speaker 3: which this sense of impunity has developed among the people

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Speaker 3: who run and participate in these things due to their

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Speaker 3: capture of the legal system is also a part of

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Speaker 3: like why the far right works the way it does,

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Speaker 3: that sense of impunity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And part of the reason why they have that

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Speaker 2: impunity is is just the way the FTC goes after

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Speaker 2: these companies, right, I mean there was in the in

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Speaker 2: the mid twenty tens, the FTC went after neutral Light,

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Speaker 2: which is one of the biggest and oldest MLMs. But

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Speaker 2: the way they went after them was they issued them

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Speaker 2: a two hundred million dollar fine and that's a lot

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Speaker 2: of money, but it didn't drive Neutralight out of business.

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Speaker 2: And as the anthropologist David Graeber pointed out, if government

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Speaker 2: regulation just means setting fines and if the finds still

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Speaker 2: all the business to make more money than they lost

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Speaker 2: from the fines, then that's just the government taking a cut.

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Speaker 2: It's not actual regulation. And if you're one of these

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Speaker 2: businesses and the worst that could happen to you is

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Speaker 2: the government takes a cut, you end up with, you know,

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Speaker 2: two thousand and eight right where all these banks know

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Speaker 2: they're going to get bailed out and they know the

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Speaker 2: worst punishment that's going to happen to them is just

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Speaker 2: the government taking a small cut and they can go

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Speaker 2: back to just making all their money. So in order

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Speaker 2: to actually go after MLMs, we can't simply rely on

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Speaker 2: the FTC. You know, even if if you were to

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Speaker 2: sort of put in charge a more militant FTC that

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Speaker 2: was were willing to go after stuff. There needs to

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Speaker 2: be actual regulatory change here, and that is possible but difficult.

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Speaker 2: But if we actually want, if we're actually deeply serious

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Speaker 2: about wielding political power to defeat the far right and

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Speaker 2: to keep them from re emerging and to keep them

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Speaker 2: out of power generationally, then this is the start of

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Speaker 2: what we have to do. So we mentioned neutral Light,

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Speaker 2: which is you know, a very very power. NEUTRALI is

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Speaker 2: important because it is actually two kinds of business that

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Speaker 2: are extremely important to the far right at the same time,

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Speaker 2: it is part MLM, but is an MLM that also

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Speaker 2: sells dietary supplements. And when we come back from these ads,

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Speaker 2: we will be considering the role of the virtually unregulated

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Speaker 2: dietary supplement markets in the rise of the far right

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Speaker 2: more broadly, and we are back. Oh boy, Yeah, the

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Speaker 2: supplement market. There is a lot less that has been

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Speaker 2: written about this than there should be. So dietary supplements

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Speaker 2: are barely regulated by the FDA. People are getting scammed

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Speaker 2: all over the place. Enormous numbers. I mean, I've seen

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Speaker 2: numbers that we're suggesting. I mean two hundred million people

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Speaker 2: take some kind of dietary supplement if you include things

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Speaker 2: like sort of vitamin gummies, et cetera, etc. This is

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Speaker 2: an enormous This is an enormous business. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: read from Johnny R. Starr, who wrote an article about

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Speaker 2: supplement regulation in the American Journal of Public Health. If

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Speaker 2: you're going to read this, By the way, this is

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Speaker 2: slightly out of date because the next year, I don't

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Speaker 2: know if this is part of this. The next year

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Speaker 2: at FDC a little bit overhauled their supplement regulations. But

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Speaker 2: here is star quote. The dietary Supplement Health and Education Act,

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Speaker 2: which is the big thing that sort of deregulated supplements,

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Speaker 2: prohibits supplements that pose a substantial risk of injury, allows

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Speaker 2: the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue immediate

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Speaker 2: bands on substances that are imminent hazards, and authorizes the

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Speaker 2: FDA to implement current good Manufacturing Practice guidelines. The law

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Speaker 2: also requires pre market notification for new dietary supplements, defines

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Speaker 2: supplements that were not marketed in the US before October fifteenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty four, which is when the Dietary Supplement Health

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Speaker 2: Education Act went into effect. Products violating these regulations are

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Speaker 2: deemed dangerous, adulterated, and miss it, or otherwise unlawful. And

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Speaker 2: that all sounds well and good until you get to

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Speaker 2: the next sentence, which is quote, However, supplements need not

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Speaker 2: be evaluated for efficiency, and only limited data on safety

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Speaker 2: are required for new supplement ingredients.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, like, you're not supposed to let people sell

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Speaker 3: dangerous supplements, but we're all also not supposed to check

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Speaker 3: to make sure the supplements are safe or work.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah it as the FDA itself admits that even

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Speaker 4: the little tiny notifications for things like new ingredients that

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Speaker 4: the FAA in posts of twenty sixteen, you're supposed to

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Speaker 4: like notify the FDA if you put new ingredients.

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Speaker 2: But like even that just isn't happening. These companies just

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Speaker 2: don't care. They're just not either' not even like doing

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Speaker 2: the little tiny legal mandate stuffy're required to.

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Speaker 3: I should also note a large part of the blame

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Speaker 3: for particularly the supplements, but also I mean MLM's actually

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Speaker 3: they play a role in it too. It's the state

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Speaker 3: of Utah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: By the way, the political power of the State of

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Speaker 3: Utah is a huge part of why, because supplements are

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Speaker 3: a massive fuck industry in Utah. So are MLMs. So,

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Speaker 3: by the way, our team treatment facilities, the ones where

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Speaker 3: they like kidnap your children and torture them, these are

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Speaker 3: all things that the State of Utah and specific will

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Speaker 3: fight like hell to stop from being fixed in any

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Speaker 3: way shape or for.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that bill I keep talking about the Dietary

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Speaker 2: Supplement Health Education Act, that is the baby of Utah

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Speaker 2: Senator or In Hatch, who is a terrible right wing

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Speaker 2: force in American politics. And the fact that orin Hatch

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Speaker 2: has been this effective, and the fact that Utah serves

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Speaker 2: as such a powerful base. Here demonstrate something that's important

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Speaker 2: about this political strategy, which is that it has to

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Speaker 2: be a federal level political strategy because there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of seats the Republicans effectively have strangleholds. You need

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Speaker 2: to use the federal government to bypass the unbelievable block

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Speaker 2: of sort of political power in these states. I want

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Speaker 2: to read a little bit more from that article by

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Speaker 2: Star about what kind of regulations are required for supplements

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Speaker 2: because I think it's extremely dire in and of itself. Quote,

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Speaker 2: manufacturers are not required to confirm the identity of all

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Speaker 2: ingredients supply to them.

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Speaker 3: Sure why they need to do that?

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Speaker 2: Unbelievable, And they're not required to followup river how I

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Speaker 2: talked about. There's current good manufacturing practices guidelines. Following those

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Speaker 2: guidelines does not guarantee the absence of all contabinants. Moreover,

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Speaker 2: unlike drugs, which are considered unadulterated or misbranded, if they

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Speaker 2: do not achieve compliance with national standards set by US

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Speaker 2: pharmacopia and national formulary, dietary supplements may choose to be compliant.

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Speaker 2: Only six brands of dietary supplements are currently verified by

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Speaker 2: US pharmacopia, so they don't have to work. They can

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Speaker 2: choose whether or not they want to be submitted to

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Speaker 2: see if any of this stuff works now in theory, also,

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Speaker 2: the marketing of dietary settlements is supposed to be regulated

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Speaker 2: by the FDC, But like, is the FDC regulating all

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Speaker 2: of these false class people are making with their dietary elements? No,

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Speaker 2: of course they're not doing that. So why do we

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Speaker 2: care about supplement market Robert has kind of has talked

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Speaker 2: about this at the very beginning of the episode. The

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Speaker 2: easiest answer for why we should care about supplement markets

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Speaker 2: is simply the figure of Alex Jones, who, you know,

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Speaker 2: we have talked about extensively on this show. It's been

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Speaker 2: behind the Bastards. If you want to really, really in depth,

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Speaker 2: look at who Alex Jones is. The podcast and Knowledge

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Speaker 2: Fight is the single best resource I think anyone has

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Speaker 2: ever created. Yeah, it would be hard to beat. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's it's unbelievably detailed. But Alex Jones has, you know,

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Speaker 2: as an individual figure, has done more to sort of

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Speaker 2: spread the ideology the far right and turn this country

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Speaker 2: into what it is now than maybe almost any other

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Speaker 2: single person other than someone like Trump. Right, he is

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Speaker 2: probably most well known now as quote the Sandy Hook guy,

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Speaker 2: which he's extremely mad at all people calling him, but

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Speaker 2: he's why everyone thinks that not everyone, but a bunch

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Speaker 2: of people think that Sandy Hook was a false flat

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Speaker 2: And importantly, here's from NPR quote most of Free Speech Systems,

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Speaker 2: which is Alex Jones, the corporate name for Alex Jones' company.

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Speaker 2: Most of Free Speech System's revenue to this day, about

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Speaker 2: eighty percent comes from dietary supplements, according to court records. Now,

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Speaker 2: these court records come from one of a number of

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Speaker 2: lawsuits against Alex Jones for defaming the families of the

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Speaker 2: victims of the Alex Jones shooting. Are serty for defaming

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Speaker 2: the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Sorry, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: And you know, in the process of discovery, we got

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Speaker 2: a bunch of information about how Alex Jones's internal media

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Speaker 2: empire actually works. Now, if you followed Alex Jones over

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Speaker 2: the years, you know that he's hawked everything from silver

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Speaker 2: to satellite phones. But it is the dietary supplements that

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Speaker 2: actually sell. Right, As an MPR article said, about eighty

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Speaker 2: percent of his revenue comes from dietary supplements. This is

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Speaker 2: not a sort of small independent media outlet right free

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Speaker 2: speech systems. Again, as Alex Jones' company was worth hundreds

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Speaker 2: of millions of dollars, this is an enormous far right

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Speaker 2: media empire, and supplement sales allow right wing figures like

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Speaker 2: Alex Jones to bypass the reliance on ads, which removes

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Speaker 2: a lot of potential leverage from activist groups who wage

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Speaker 2: pressure campaigns against you know, dated this against Tucker Carlson

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Speaker 2: for example, where people went after their advertisers and showed

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Speaker 2: them the stuff Tucker Carlson was saying on Fox before

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Speaker 2: he got kicked off, and what do you want to

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Speaker 2: fund this? And you know that was actually a sort

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Speaker 2: of effective strategy. But you know, the funny part about

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Speaker 2: this is if you look at the end of Tucker

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Speaker 2: Carlson's show, right, the ads on that show were ads

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Speaker 2: from the my Pillow guy who was a far right

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Speaker 2: extremist in his own right and a very important election denier,

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Speaker 2: and a bunch of supplement companies. Supplement sales are a

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Speaker 2: durable and renewable grift because there's a ready an extensive

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Speaker 2: network of suppliers and distributors right wing brands who want

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Speaker 2: to make a bunch of money can just sort of

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Speaker 2: slap their name onto existing supplements that they buy wholesale,

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Speaker 2: and then they can market them to their viewers, and

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Speaker 2: this gives them an extremely profitable and lucrative source of funding.

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Speaker 2: And this is used all over the place.

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Speaker 3: Right Again, it impacts what they say and like how

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Speaker 3: they like the obsession they have with like seed oils

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Speaker 3: and what's destroying your ability, like your testosterone and all

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Speaker 3: of these like different far right conspiracy theories about you know,

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Speaker 3: what kind of stuff you shouldn't be eating, Like all

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Speaker 3: of this stuff is related to the supplement business, right,

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Speaker 3: Like they are trying to drum up and destroy trust

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Speaker 3: and public health and drum up conspiracy theories for their

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Speaker 3: own profit. And so it's not just a matter of

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Speaker 3: like this is how they get money, but this also

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Speaker 3: is why they do some of the things that are

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Speaker 3: so harmful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And as you're saying, this is cyclical, right, the

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Speaker 2: incentive structure for going further and further into these conspiracies

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Speaker 2: and selling more and more of the supplement things. It's

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Speaker 2: a spiral. It keeps on just increasing in size and

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Speaker 2: increasing in size due to the feedback loop from the

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Speaker 2: incentive structure that's selling these supplements creates. Now, this is

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Speaker 2: actually not an enormously difficult sort of feel to just

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Speaker 2: completely shut down the next branch we're going to talk about,

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Speaker 2: I think is actually a much harder political fight, But

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Speaker 2: a lot of the market for this can be defeated

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Speaker 2: by just having the FTC actually regulate supplements the way

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Speaker 2: they do drugs because, and this is really important, these

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Speaker 2: supplements are being marketed as drugs, right The advertisements that

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Speaker 2: these people are already doing are already illegal. The FTC

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Speaker 2: is not supposed to allow people to sell supplements like this.

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Speaker 2: They shouldn't be able to be manufactured like this. And

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Speaker 2: this is again, as with banning MLMs, this is something

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Speaker 2: that helps the consumer because it'll mean that whatever supplement

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Speaker 2: market exists after sort of a massive regulatory even crackdown

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Speaker 2: will be much safer, it will be much more effective,

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Speaker 2: and it will also destroy the base of far right media.

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Speaker 2: If you can cut the knees out of this sort

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Speaker 2: of far right media ecosystem, you can go an enormous

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Speaker 2: way towards solving the crisis of the far right that

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Speaker 2: has been brought upon this country. Speaking of crisis, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna let the ads talk about the ads, and

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Speaker 2: then we're going to come back and close by talking

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Speaker 2: about car manufacturers in the American gentry.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're back, and this is a fun one. This

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Speaker 3: is also like one of my particular favorite things to

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Speaker 3: hit because I don't think a lot of people know

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Speaker 3: how much the Republican Party is just a party of

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Speaker 3: used car dealers YEP.

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Speaker 2: Probably the most famous piece that talks it's not really

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Speaker 2: fully about car dealerships, but it mentions the sort of

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Speaker 2: political effect and the kind of class that they belong to.

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Speaker 2: Is maybe the best thing The Atlantic has published in

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Speaker 2: the last decade, at least one of the best things

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Speaker 2: they've published, and it's an article on the American gentry

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Speaker 2: by the journalist Patrick Wyman. Wyman argues that huge swaths

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Speaker 2: of America are ruled by what he calls the local gentry.

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Speaker 2: These are millionaires, and notably, these are not billionaires. These

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Speaker 2: are multi multimillionaires whose wealth derives from immediate wealth extraction

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Speaker 2: from the surrounding communities. In places like Wyman's childhood home

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Speaker 2: of Yakima, Washington, these elites have enormous local power over

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Speaker 2: the territory. They rule like the landed gentry of old.

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Speaker 2: Here's Wyman quote. The conspicuously consuming celebrities and jet setting

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Speaker 2: cause of politans, if popular imagination exists, but they are

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Speaker 2: far outnumbered by a less exalted and less discussed league group,

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Speaker 2: one that sits at the pinnacle of the local hierarchies

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Speaker 2: that govern life for tens of millions of people. Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump grasped this group's existence and its importance, acting as

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Speaker 2: he often does, on unthinking but effective instinct, when he

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Speaker 2: crowed about his quote beautiful boaters, lauding the flotilla of

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Speaker 2: his supporters trailing MAGA flags from their watercraft in his honor,

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Speaker 2: or addressed his devoted followers among a rioting January sixth

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Speaker 2: crowd that included people who had flown to the event

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Speaker 2: on private jets. He knew what he was doing. Trump

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Speaker 2: was courting the support of the American gentry, the salts

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Speaker 2: of the earth, multimillionaires. You see them as local leaders

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Speaker 2: in business and politics, the underappreciated backbone of a once

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Speaker 2: great nation.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: Wyman is largely focused on the agricultural gentry because that's

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Speaker 2: you know, the sort of the sort of agrobarons who

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Speaker 2: are very important to this story, but are are kind

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Speaker 2: of are are kind of auxiliary to this and that

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Speaker 2: you know that that's largely because he's talking a lot

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Speaker 2: about the places where he grew up, which are which

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Speaker 2: are agricultural pubs. But a very critical component of this

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Speaker 2: American gentry, of this local elite class are card dealership owners,

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Speaker 2: and their wealth and influence literally cannot be overstated. The

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Speaker 2: journalist Alexander Salmon wrote this in an article in Slate

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. Quote auto dealers are one of

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Speaker 2: the five most common professions among the top point one

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Speaker 2: percent of American earners car dealers, gas station owners, and

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Speaker 2: building contractors. It turns out, make up the majority of

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Speaker 2: the countries one hundred and forty thousand Americans who earn

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Speaker 2: more than one point five million dollars a year. Crunching

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Speaker 2: numbers from the US Census Bureau, data, scientists and author

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Speaker 2: Stephens Devotowitz found that over twenty percent of car dealerships

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Speaker 2: in the US have an owner in banking more than

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Speaker 2: one point five million a year, which is absolutely absurd.

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Speaker 2: That is an unbelievable amount of money for people who, really,

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Speaker 2: when you think about it, don't do anything like what

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Speaker 2: is the actual service that a car dealer is doing.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the primary thing that they do is rip

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Speaker 3: people Offcause the entire way that car sales work is

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Speaker 3: based on fraud, ye right, Like it's based on getting

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Speaker 3: you to buy things that do not actually work, like

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Speaker 3: service packages and whatnot that you often will not get

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Speaker 3: any benefit from. And it's a lot of it is

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Speaker 3: based around also just outright scams, you know, altering the

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Speaker 3: information buyers have access to so they don't realize like

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Speaker 3: problems with a used car or whatever. Like, it's it's

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Speaker 3: all fraud, right Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And as as is becoming ever true of American life, fraudsters,

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Speaker 2: scammers and people who are just their entire existence is

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Speaker 2: dedicated to ripping you off have more and more political

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Speaker 2: power in this country. Here's a salmon from that same

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Speaker 2: article quote. As of twenty twenty one, the top one

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Speaker 2: hundred dealership groups in the US had annual revenues of

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Speaker 2: around one hundred billion dollars, more than any company that

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Speaker 2: actually makes cars. The National Automotive Dealer Association NADA became

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Speaker 2: one of the most influential lobbying entities in Washington, with

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Speaker 2: sixteen thousand dues paying members spanning thirty two thousand, five

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Speaker 2: hundred franchises. Soon enough, a stop at the annual Nauta

435
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 2: convention became routine for presidential hole fuls, and even Presidents

436
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 2: Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Hillary Clinton all attended

437
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 2: ahead of presidential runs. Bill Clinton and both Bushes came

438
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 2: after they left the White House. And the fact that

439
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 2: Democrats are showing up to this is appalling on a

440
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 2: moral level. Right, This is an entire organization of fraudsters

441
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 2: and it doesn't even work.

442
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: Right.

443
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 2: Car dealers donate six to one for Republican causes.

444
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 3: But they really want that one.

445
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

446
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 3: It's the same thing with like you've got Schumer going

447
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 3: out for the crypto caucus now, where like, yeah, well

448
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 3: only a fraction of those guys are going to donate

449
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 3: to DIMS, but it's all scam. He doesn't really care

450
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 3: as long as some of it goes to him.

451
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

452
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now.

453
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: The thing that's more that's dangerous about these people, and

454
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:53,120
Speaker 2: I think it's even more dangerous than something like crypto money,

455
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:57,679
Speaker 2: is that these are local elites, right, and they are

456
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 2: dispersed enormously across the country. This is this is something

457
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 2: that Salmon is very sort of specific about is somebody

458
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 2: that comes up in Wyman's piece, and somebody comes up

459
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: if you do any research about this at all. A

460
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 2: huge part of the power is because these people are

461
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 2: spread geographically across the country, and because they are the

462
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 2: richest people or among the richest people in the sort

463
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 2: of small areas that they dominate, they have unbelievable amounts

464
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 2: of political power. And because they are again unbelievably wealthy,

465
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 2: they can funnel this money directly into local politics on

466
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 2: a scale that cannot be matched by your sort of

467
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,160
Speaker 2: grassroots organizations. This allows them to buy everything from city

468
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:35,920
Speaker 2: council's to seats in Congress.

469
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 3: And they effectively unionize. Like in Portland, They've got the

470
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 3: Portland Business Association right, which is to a significant extent

471
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 3: allied with the police, and like dominates local politics. They're

472
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 3: the ones who buy the mayor's election, Like, They're the

473
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 3: ones who make deals with the Portland Police Officers union.

474
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 4: Like.

475
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 3: This is the way in which a lot of power

476
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 3: gets exercise that actually impacts your daily life.

477
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they've also been doing things like coordinating and

478
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 2: doing strategy sharing about defeating unions. I mean, this is

479
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 2: why most of these big associations were formed was specifically

480
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 2: to destroy unions in the early twentieth century. And you know,

481
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 2: I mean the Autolobbying group was formed to do autolobbying

482
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 2: because these car dealerships don't have unions. That's another thing

483
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 2: that we'll come back to it a little bit. But yeah,

484
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 2: these car dealerships are a durable and extremely powerful for

485
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 2: us in electoral politics, and they deliver seats and this

486
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 2: is the most important thing if you're an electoralist, right,

487
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: these people consistently deliver seats to Republicans by flooding an

488
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 2: amount of money into local races that people can't compete with.

489
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 2: And because of this, they miserate the lives of hundreds

490
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 2: of millions of people. And they can also largely be

491
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 2: destroyed in a single stroke. That's maybe oversalling it a

492
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 2: little bit, but their power largely rests on an enormous

493
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 2: array of state level monopolies that ban the direct sales

494
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 2: of cars to consumers or prevent car companies from competing

495
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 2: with local retailers. And this is something that the autolobby

496
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 2: has been you know, the Auto Association Lobby NA has

497
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 2: been fighting for for ages. They've gotten it in an

498
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 2: enormous number of states.

499
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this, by the way, you know, in terms

500
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 3: of abilities to like disrupt things, this is a big

501
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 3: part of like how Tesla is different from other auto

502
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 3: manufacturers is in most states. There are some states where

503
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 3: they're not allowed to do this, but in most states

504
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 3: they sell directly to the customer, which is like back

505
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 3: before Musk became as political a figure, was actually a

506
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 3: major reason why these people didn't like him.

507
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 2: Well, they still don't. This is actually a really interesting thing,

508
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 2: is what the thing I want to close on here. Yes, yes, yes,

509
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 2: these people still hate Musks and they hate electric cars

510
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 2: because electric cars to a large extent are both a

511
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 2: being directly sold by companies and B it's harder to

512
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 2: you actually have to do service on them in a

513
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 2: way that makes it more expensive for these these companies

514
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 2: to write about this. This is something that Semon has

515
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 2: written about extensively. So they absolutely despise elect cars. And

516
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 2: this is actually a political opportunity for us, right because

517
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 2: Elon Musk now is again one of there is I

518
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 2: think he's still the richest person in the world technically

519
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 2: until sort of all his stocks implode. But this is

520
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 2: an opportunity also to split parts of the Republican base, right,

521
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 2: because the local government monopolies that these car dealers have

522
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 2: are actually enormously unpopular among a lot of the other

523
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 2: parts of the Republican base. Right, Elon hates them. Actual

524
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 2: car manufacturers hate it. No one likes car dealers, like,

525
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and this is everything you know. This is

526
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 2: also something that libertarians hate because libertarians look at this,

527
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: and this is one of the few times libertarians are right.

528
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 2: They look at this and go, oh yeah, Well, these

529
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 2: people have been literally granted market monopolies. There are a

530
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 2: lot of places where if there's already a car dealer there,

531
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 2: if you're a car company, you can't compete with these things.

532
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 2: So these are state sanction monopolies. So there's large portions

533
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 2: of the Republican base who oppose these companies. And if

534
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 2: you can, you can use this as a wedge issue

535
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: to split the Republican base. And that's sort of where

536
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 2: I want to close on. As much as I've been

537
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 2: talking about these three very specific things, right, banning MLMs

538
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: or at least having extremely large regulatory crackdowns, regulatory crackdowns

539
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 2: on supplements, and legislation to allow direct car sales. What

540
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 2: we're trying to do here isn't just getting rid of

541
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: the money that supports the far right. We're trying to

542
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 2: destroy their institutions, and we're trying to fracture their base. Right.

543
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 2: Going after MLMs destroys their ability to sort of produce

544
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: more produce more Republicans from these MLMs and produce more

545
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 2: people in the far right from these MLMs. Going after

546
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 2: supplements is a way to destroy the right wing media ecosystem,

547
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:40,959
Speaker 2: which has been crucial to the rise of the far right.

548
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 2: And going after cars can help split the emerging Republican

549
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 2: coalition by pitting two parts of the Republican base against

550
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 2: each other, pitting these car dealers versus Elon and versus

551
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: the auto manufacturers.

552
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 3: Well, Mia, great episode, This is a nice starter. This

553
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 3: is again something we're going to continue to talk about

554
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: because I really think we can't hit enough on this. Obviously,

555
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 3: these three things don't solve every problem with the far right,

556
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 3: but this is like, if you could actually like packaged

557
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 3: these together into a legislative agenda, it could be the

558
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 3: equivalent of like the nuclear option for these people.

559
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I.

560
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 3: Think this is a smart thing to be hitting. We

561
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 3: will continue to talk about this in more detail, but

562
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 3: you know what we're done for the day. Go do

563
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 3: something else.

564
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of pool Zone Media.

565
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from pool Zone Media, visit our website

566
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: poolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

567
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,000
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568
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Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at

569
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Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.