Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Lisa Murkowski says it's dangerous for
Speaker 1: us in the legislative branch. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today, the Lincoln Projects owen Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: joins us to discuss the No Kings protest, Trump's sad
Speaker 1: Birthday parade, and political violence. Then we'll talk to James
Speaker 1: Kimmel about his new book, The Science of Revenge, Understanding
Speaker 1: the world's deadliest addiction and how to overcome it. But
Speaker 1: first the news.
Speaker 2: So, Molly, one of the things I feared the most
Speaker 2: as being a pro union person is how much progress
Speaker 2: we were making underbided and that the second Trump got
Speaker 2: in that they would be doing everything they can to
Speaker 2: call it back.
Speaker 3: Well, we're starting to see that.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it would be very high on their priorities,
Speaker 2: And yeah, it seems like they're getting down to it fively.
Speaker 1: And by the way, can I just add the big
Speaker 1: union right, the auto Workers did not endorse Harris. They
Speaker 1: refused to endorse right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think is very interesting
Speaker 2: about union culture, right, now is that we are seeing
Speaker 2: such partisanship of their ranks that the leadership is actually
Speaker 2: fearful of what happens. We're even seeing that at our
Speaker 2: mayoral election right now with a lot of the unions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here are unions, a lot of their members
Speaker 1: are voting for Trump, and there people are getting punished
Speaker 1: by trump Ism. The arrest and violent man handling of
Speaker 1: the president of the Service Employees International Union of California
Speaker 1: suggests that Trump is targeting union leaders for arrest. So
Speaker 1: this is like right out of the authoritarian playbook, right.
Speaker 1: You don't want collective fargeting because it makes workers more powerful.
Speaker 1: You don't want powerful workers because it makes the president
Speaker 1: less powerful. Remember when whenever you see stuff like this happening,
Speaker 1: ask yoursel who does it hurt? Who does it help?
Speaker 1: And with so much of this, Trump's whole goal is
Speaker 1: to expand presidential power, right as we saw in Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. He wants to grow the executive branch
Speaker 1: and shrink the other branches. Now, Republicans in Congress are
Speaker 1: happy to do this, They're happy to give him the power.
Speaker 1: But this is a really good example of ways in
Speaker 1: which the Trump administration is trying to grow its power. Look,
Speaker 1: they want to silence dissent, right Their labor unions are
Speaker 1: trying to push back. But you know, they they have
Speaker 1: really kneecapped themselves by electing Donald Trump. It's one of
Speaker 1: these things where I don't know how you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of this late the labor protection, the negotiating protection
Speaker 1: is being rolled back right now at the state level
Speaker 1: and a lot of red states, and at the federal
Speaker 1: level too. And you know, these people, a lot of
Speaker 1: these people voted for Trump. They voted for Republicans. You know,
Speaker 1: they didn't make the connection between being in a union
Speaker 1: and the Republicans war with unions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of unforeseen consequences, the washingt Post has some
Speaker 2: great journalism about how vaccine critics appointed by RFK Junior
Speaker 2: are going to limit access to shots.
Speaker 1: This is not even unforeseen, this is foreseen. Well, this
Speaker 1: fucking guy was going to make it hard to get vaccines.
Speaker 3: We saw it.
Speaker 2: But I would argue that a lot of people were like, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's fine.
Speaker 1: Well we've had people on this podcast who said you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to get somebody. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: where we are right now. So Robert F. Kennedy Junior's
Speaker 1: overhaul of the Federal Immunization Panel will create uncertainty about
Speaker 1: how widely vaccines will be available. So these recommendations will
Speaker 1: mean that the vaccines that are covered by insurance or
Speaker 1: medicaid may not be covered anymore, because my man RFK
Speaker 1: Junior will say he doesn't think that people need measles
Speaker 1: or mumps, or rubella or chicken pox or all the
Speaker 1: vaccines that keep us safe. Look, this is because of COVID. Right.
Speaker 1: COVID made everyone lose their brains. A significant, small, but
Speaker 1: significant part of the American population decided that they were
Speaker 1: going to get tripped by grifters and snake oil salesmen
Speaker 1: like RFK Junior. And this is how we got here.
Speaker 1: So our FK Junior now running our country's house, we're
Speaker 1: all completely fucked. Did I mention that we have children
Speaker 1: dying of measles that was never needed? So many things
Speaker 1: could have been prevented. We're seeing the Trump administration just
Speaker 1: once again falling apart, elevating people who are incompetent. Now
Speaker 1: we have RFK Junior, a complete grifter. Every day, we
Speaker 1: don't have a pandemic as a miracle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know a funny thing would I went
Speaker 2: to Canada last week. I was very funny the subtle
Speaker 2: shade that the border crossing through at Americans of like
Speaker 2: measles is.
Speaker 3: Now on the rise in Canada.
Speaker 2: I wonder why, please please be sure to not bring
Speaker 2: it here, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the worst so by.
Speaker 2: One of the things we discussed last week is Trump
Speaker 2: had all these tweets where it's started to seem like
Speaker 2: he's going a little soft on Steven Miller's vision of
Speaker 2: a white no state.
Speaker 3: And Axios has some interesting reporting here. What do you see?
Speaker 1: You'll be shocked to know that rich guy talks to
Speaker 1: other rich people. Other rich people say, you know, as
Speaker 1: much as we love the visual of your guys hunting
Speaker 1: farmers in the field, hunting agriculture workers, as much as
Speaker 1: that's fun for us, it's hurting our business. These are jobs,
Speaker 1: and Americans do not want agricultural workers. They're tough jobs,
Speaker 1: they're hard work, they're in the field. We can get
Speaker 1: Americans to take like manufacturing jobs, let alone jobs working
Speaker 1: in the field. The people who do these jobs keep
Speaker 1: us from starving, and we're so lucky to have them.
Speaker 1: So we have Hatum King a senior ice official. I'm
Speaker 1: sure this person is a great person, sending an email
Speaker 1: to agency officials nationwide telling them to please hold on
Speaker 1: all work site enforcement investigations, operations on agriculture including aquaculture
Speaker 1: and meatpacking plants, restaurants, and operating hotels, especially Trump hotels. Look,
Speaker 1: this was always bullshit. This whole administration is built on
Speaker 1: a lie. Donald Trump always employed workers that had, you know,
Speaker 1: sketchy immigration statuses, always always, So of course they're going
Speaker 1: to make sure that those people don't get to ported
Speaker 1: they need them for these jobs. So here we are.
Speaker 1: Yet again, we could have seen all of this coming
Speaker 1: a million miles away, But here we are. Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
Speaker 1: of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics fan
Speaker 1: favorite bestie, Rick Wills.
Speaker 3: Man about town, the whole thing? Thank you? How are
Speaker 3: you today?
Speaker 1: Right? Man? About town? If that town is in Florida, Yes,
Speaker 1: under kind of kind of undermines the whole thing, kind
Speaker 1: of Yeah.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Florida, I live, as you know, in the
Speaker 3: middle of a giant ocean of red. Yes, and yet
Speaker 3: somehow in the capital of Florida yesterday five thousand people
Speaker 3: turned up at a protest for No Kings like I
Speaker 3: had never I mean, I've lived here a long time
Speaker 3: and it ordinarily the progressive world manages to get a
Speaker 3: protest with about a half a dozen people on the
Speaker 3: steps of the capitol and one weird sign. This thing
Speaker 3: was wall to wall blocks around the capitol, which.
Speaker 1: Was nuts in Tallahassee.
Speaker 3: Tallahassee, a state that has been dominated by the Republican
Speaker 3: Party for the last twenty five years, managed they managed
Speaker 3: to have two sort of sort of scrubby looking maga
Speaker 3: kids three blocks away hold one sign as a counter protest.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what's going on, but that seemed
Speaker 3: to be iterating across the whole country. Had a buddy
Speaker 3: of mine in Billings, Montana, crowds in the street like
Speaker 3: you couldn't believe he's like he's he goes when I
Speaker 3: tell you, this is half the city, I mean it,
Speaker 3: it's crazy.
Speaker 1: What do you think that means? The numbers I saw
Speaker 1: Elliott Morris, h smart guy, used to run five thirty eight,
Speaker 1: and he had he had sort of calculated the numbers
Speaker 1: as higher than five million. I saw five million in
Speaker 1: the New York Times, but Ellie Morris thinks it's closer
Speaker 1: to more than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah he said. I think he said something like it
Speaker 3: could be up to thirteen million people, yes, which is nuts.
Speaker 1: So up to thirteen million people gets us to a
Speaker 1: level where about we're almost too I think a little
Speaker 1: bit less than one percent of the of America protesting.
Speaker 3: That's what they call the Color Revolution line. When you
Speaker 3: have one or two percent of the population out protesting,
Speaker 3: the deer leaders have lost a lot of power.
Speaker 1: And some are saying, I'm going to use a jesse
Speaker 1: Can in fact check here. Uh. Some are saying that
Speaker 1: this was the biggest protest in American history.
Speaker 3: Listen, I could I could make that argument. I think there.
Speaker 3: I think there was something yesterday in the air across
Speaker 3: the country. I think there was a little bit of
Speaker 3: whistling past the graveyard at first, like people are like,
Speaker 3: oh god, what if it doesn't turn out? What if
Speaker 3: this doesn't work? And and it was. It was bonkers everywhere.
Speaker 1: And I was nuts. So I was in Nantucket because
Speaker 1: I have a book that just came out, which I
Speaker 1: don't know if.
Speaker 3: Do you do people know about it? Is it a
Speaker 3: New York Times bestseller? Yes?
Speaker 1: It is number six on the combined list. I have
Speaker 1: to tell you there are no words for the level
Speaker 1: of thrill. But anyway, I was in it. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm the meme where it's like the world is
Speaker 1: burning down and I'm like, so I have a book,
Speaker 1: but but but I was in Nantucket for this book.
Speaker 1: For Nantucket is known to be well in the Northeast,
Speaker 1: a very Republican island, so much so that the guy
Speaker 1: sitting in front of me was wearing a Trump a
Speaker 1: Trump golf club a shirt that had a sort of
Speaker 1: small insignia that said Trump Jupiter or whatever. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about this. It was a huge protest
Speaker 1: in Nantucket, which is a Republican island. So it is
Speaker 1: really does feel like these places where you don't expect
Speaker 1: to see protests, we're seeing big right test.
Speaker 3: Right. I think this happened to the surprise of a
Speaker 3: lot of the Maga folks yesterday because the gigantic Maga
Speaker 3: media machine was in full throttle, like there's no there
Speaker 3: are no there, nobody's at the no Kings rallies, there
Speaker 3: are no no Kings rallies whatsoever. No one's out at all,
Speaker 3: but five million people are in Washington for President's Military
Speaker 3: dictatorship Parade.
Speaker 1: Right, so let's talk about the military dictatorship parade, because
Speaker 1: there's a really smart thing. I saw that the individual
Speaker 1: No Kings Rally organizers wrote on their website which said,
Speaker 1: and even Axios, which is known to.
Speaker 3: Not be not exactly like friend of progressive politics, Axios.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, said that the people they wanted to provide
Speaker 1: a kind of counter programming and not a competition, and
Speaker 1: that's why they didn't go to Washington, DC. Right. They
Speaker 1: stayed away because they didn't because they wanted to sort
Speaker 1: of dominate the news cycle and provide an alternative narrative
Speaker 1: versus a sort of combative program, right, program around trump Ism,
Speaker 1: which I think is really an important thought when you're
Speaker 1: talking about sort of permeating the discourse.
Speaker 3: Look, I think I think that that the grassroots energy
Speaker 3: in this thing was so unique and it's and I will,
Speaker 3: I will, you know, went back to my my experience
Speaker 3: at at one of these yesterday, I actually saw three
Speaker 3: or four of my Republican friends who aren't even like
Speaker 3: people I would have thought like, oh, he's a never trumper.
Speaker 3: I was surprised. I talked to one guy I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm shocked to see you here, he goes, I'm just done.
Speaker 3: And I think that they that they correctly calibrated. That
Speaker 3: did we get a broader uplift from this if it
Speaker 3: didn't feel like it was just like one more sort
Speaker 3: of generic fuck Trump thing, and you opened it up
Speaker 3: and people felt a lot more sans of community about it.
Speaker 3: I just I don't go to a lot of marches
Speaker 3: and shit, but yeah, this was impressive and it was optimistic,
Speaker 3: and there were a lot of American flags flying and
Speaker 3: a lot of people who who who got the memo,
Speaker 3: who stood the assignment as they say.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about UH disinformation because it is
Speaker 1: really important when we talk about these protests to talk
Speaker 1: about Twitter and what happened on Twitter and the political violence.
Speaker 1: The woman and her husband.
Speaker 3: Minnesota former former House majority leader in the.
Speaker 1: Former House majority leader Melissa Horman and her husband murdered
Speaker 1: in their bads. Two other members of the Minnesota State House,
Speaker 1: both Melissa Horman and her husband and John Hoffman and
Speaker 1: his wife Okay murdered in their bads by a conservative Christian,
Speaker 1: anti choice, anti right UH worked in private security, carried weapons,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 3: Right the all the all the unsurprised, using descriptors of
Speaker 3: this guy that once you knew them, you were like,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 1: So this happens, he is now on the run. A
Speaker 1: few thoughts here. One, these were the people who were
Speaker 1: being watched by the FBI before cash Betel got in charge.
Speaker 1: Right now, they are no longer You're no longer allowed
Speaker 1: to watch these people because those people, right, because.
Speaker 3: The deep state was watching them in the We can't
Speaker 3: have anybody monitored by the deep state anymore because obviously
Speaker 3: they're just they were the same sort of innocent tourists
Speaker 3: that were just visiting with love on January Seanuary sixth.
Speaker 1: So the day this happened, Twitter became a sea of
Speaker 1: disinformation and the magas works trying to sell a story
Speaker 1: that these people had voted against healthcare for non citizens
Speaker 1: and that was why they got murdered by a Marxist.
Speaker 3: Right, and so you get guys like Mike Cernovic and
Speaker 3: Mike Lee and the rest of the sort of Trump
Speaker 3: is set.
Speaker 1: One is an online influencer who started Pizzagate.
Speaker 3: Right right, Well, they're basically, look, these these are not
Speaker 3: they're not sending their best moly, right, but but what
Speaker 3: we're talking about here, when you get down to it,
Speaker 3: is this alternate ecosystem that cannot confront reality. They cannot
Speaker 3: confront what is actually happening here, which is that the
Speaker 3: right wing maga media ecosystem feeds these people a constant
Speaker 3: diet of lies and bullshit that that that every Democrat
Speaker 3: is a is a cannibal, pedophile, child trafficker, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And when they when one of their own commits a
Speaker 3: crime like this, a horrifying crime, they believe they control
Speaker 3: their way out of the problem, right, and and so
Speaker 3: we end up with a situation like yesterday, which a
Speaker 3: US Senator, Mike Lee, who absofrikingly know better.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, is a United States senator.
Speaker 3: Yes, let's let's emphasize that point again, a United States
Speaker 3: senator is out talking the worst weird ass smack about,
Speaker 3: you know, pretending that this was a political assassination because
Speaker 3: of wokeness. And it's so disgusting at every level. It's
Speaker 3: so weak at every level, because they are they recognize
Speaker 3: that that what they've created as a monster, and that
Speaker 3: monster is now out roaming the world. And it's frankly,
Speaker 3: yesterday murdered two people. The guy in his car had
Speaker 3: a hit list of seventy other elected Democratic.
Speaker 1: Officials, but my friend Tim Walls.
Speaker 3: Yes, and and folks you know, like Ilhan Omar and
Speaker 3: a whole variety of other people that does not exactly
Speaker 3: fit the profile of left wing on a murder spree.
Speaker 3: This was a right wing assassin. He's been motivated by
Speaker 3: people like well, by by institutions like Breitbart and Fox News,
Speaker 3: because they're told over and over again, you're you're being
Speaker 3: pursued by the evil left wingers. They're trying to destroy you.
Speaker 3: They're not human. They deserve everything we can give them
Speaker 3: in terms of political and personal violence. And the whole
Speaker 3: thing is a utterly predictable and repulsive set of behaviors
Speaker 3: that I don't I don't think. I don't think. I
Speaker 3: sometimes think I've lost the capacity to be shocked, but
Speaker 3: I clearly haven't because I'm and this one is shocking
Speaker 3: even to me.
Speaker 1: First of all, Mark Cuban, if you listen to this podcast,
Speaker 1: you should buy Twitter, Okay, because somebody rich should buy
Speaker 1: Twitter and make it normal again, because Elon has made
Speaker 1: it completely unusable and it has a really good purpose
Speaker 1: and it's really a public util and you know, Elon
Speaker 1: is down the rabbit hole now of whatever. It's time
Speaker 1: to buy Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean look and frankly, you could probably get
Speaker 3: Twitter at a pretty reasonable price at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is number one, because the site has degraded,
Speaker 1: But it also is what you see, it's it's completely
Speaker 1: without use at this point.
Speaker 3: But it's also But here's the thing, the degree to
Speaker 3: which the right values Twitter because it is this normative
Speaker 3: force for them. It is this powerful thing that keeps
Speaker 3: them in line, that keeps them on message and over
Speaker 3: and over again. I don't I've said this to a
Speaker 3: lot a lot of wealthy people recently. Like the power
Speaker 3: of Fox, Facebook and Twitter to control what the maga
Speaker 3: world thinks and does is beyond comprehension. It is. It
Speaker 3: is super powerful as as a way of shaping what
Speaker 3: they believe, what they see, what they read. And it
Speaker 3: also empowers people who again think they control their way
Speaker 3: out of a mass murder or an attempted mass murder
Speaker 3: by one of Donald Trump's fervent supporters. Yeah, and it,
Speaker 3: you know, it did blow up in their faces a
Speaker 3: bit like oh yes, obviously, he's just like every other
Speaker 3: liberal who's been a registered Republican for twenty two years
Speaker 3: has a private security company and so on and so on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's the silliness of this shit is beyond Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, of course, and it's totally ridiculous. But there was
Speaker 1: also I want to talk about. There was a little
Speaker 1: bit of violence that happened yesterday that I want to
Speaker 1: talk about because I think it's really important and it
Speaker 1: didn't get reported because there's no local news, so you
Speaker 1: may be listening to this podcast and you may not
Speaker 1: know about it. So most of the rallies were peaceful,
Speaker 1: but okay, there were in Salt Lake City somebody got
Speaker 1: critically injured into the crowd and in Culpeper, Virginia, somebody
Speaker 1: throw their suv into the crowd. So those are two
Speaker 1: real things that happened.
Speaker 3: Oh you mean political violence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I mean political.
Speaker 3: I was told that only happens on the left.
Speaker 1: Weird political violence. You know, I don't think it should
Speaker 1: be brushed over, right.
Speaker 3: We should address it more honestly than than the right
Speaker 3: would like. And they really don't want to talk about this.
Speaker 3: They want to pretend that they are the set upon victims,
Speaker 3: they're the they're the the David to the Goliath of
Speaker 3: some sort of violent progressive action, which is has been
Speaker 3: and has always been garbage. And look, I believe me
Speaker 3: if I would if I saw it on the left,
Speaker 3: I'd call it out because it benefits no one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's certainly true. I wonder if we could talk
Speaker 1: for a minute about how Trump actually had to watch
Speaker 1: the parade. Oh, it was so beautiful, Like, I wonder
Speaker 1: if he didn't think.
Speaker 3: This through No, he never thinks anything through Molly. He
Speaker 3: has no ability to think outside of his of his
Speaker 3: like tiny animal brain, and he thought this will be
Speaker 3: a great triumph. I will look strong, I will I
Speaker 3: will buy association, absorb the strength of these warriors. And
Speaker 3: he looked like a dip shit half asleep behind the
Speaker 3: glass at a poorly attended and by poorly attended folks,
Speaker 3: I mean poorly attended. Yeah, they were expecting a million
Speaker 3: people and they maybe got a maybe got fifty thousand.
Speaker 3: The mall was empty. Trump's reviewing stand had empty seats
Speaker 3: directly across from it, which, if you're a political advance guy,
Speaker 3: get another job tomorrow because you fucked up.
Speaker 1: But also, can we just talk about, like why did
Speaker 1: this need to be sponsored by Coinbase and Boeing or
Speaker 1: I think coin Base. It was coin Base and Lockheed Martin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it was a bunch of there were a
Speaker 3: bunch of bunch of corporate sponsors in bold.
Speaker 1: But weren't the taxpayers really the sponsors of this?
Speaker 3: That was exactly what I was about to say, Mali.
Speaker 3: But the real the real sponsor was the US taxpayer.
Speaker 3: The real sponsor was was every American who had to
Speaker 3: fork over their tax dollars for this eighty five million dollar,
Speaker 3: eighty nine million dollar horseshit. And and the reality is
Speaker 3: Trump begged for a missile parade in the first administration.
Speaker 1: He was ab he saw one in France, that's right,
Speaker 1: Steel day.
Speaker 3: That he was obsessed with it. And now he finally
Speaker 3: got one. He didn't have an esper or a Millie
Speaker 3: who said, no, sir, you can't do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Millie was like, no dice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Millie was like a no loss, no chief, the
Speaker 3: same how this works. Yeah, but you know, he he
Speaker 3: desperately wanted this again. Donald Trump, the draft dodging, chicken
Speaker 3: shit coward who demeaned diminished John McCain, who called our
Speaker 3: troop suckers, and losers, who has over and over again
Speaker 3: essentially except pressed his contempt for the service of others,
Speaker 3: wanted to absorb the heroism of American military men and women.
Speaker 3: I mean, I found the whole thing so crass and
Speaker 3: stupid and badly run because you know, you have these
Speaker 3: guys marching by it. It's like brought to you by Coinbase,
Speaker 3: sponsored by UFC, and it's just like, oh, come on, dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was incredible stuff. Incredible stuff. Rick Wilson, John joining.
Speaker 3: Me a pleasure as always.
Speaker 1: Will you be back?
Speaker 3: I will always be back for you. You know that.
Speaker 1: James Kimmel is the author of the Science of Revenge,
Speaker 1: Standing the world's deadliest addiction, and How to overcome it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, James.
Speaker 4: Thank you, mollly happy to be here and really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about this book.
Speaker 4: So recent neuroscience revelations have given us some exciting new discoveries,
Speaker 4: most importantly that your brain on revenge looks like your
Speaker 4: brain on drugs, which is a big discovery in the
Speaker 4: sense it is it is it is your brain on revenge.
Speaker 4: It looks like your brain on drugs. And that's a
Speaker 4: big discovery because it gives us the first notion of
Speaker 4: a biological cause of violence and how to prevent and
Speaker 4: treat it.
Speaker 1: So, you know, I'm sober twenty seven years, but who's counting.
Speaker 1: Will this show us how to treat alcoholism, drug addiction,
Speaker 1: or revenge?
Speaker 4: No, it'll show us that by using alcohol and other
Speaker 4: substance use, addiction, prevention and treatment strategies, we can prevent
Speaker 4: and treat violence, which is a big revelation. It's kind
Speaker 4: of the reverse order where we're bringing those techniques into
Speaker 4: something that has eluded human prevention and treatment for thousands
Speaker 4: of years.
Speaker 1: I need you to explain this more to me. Neuroscience
Speaker 1: finds that revenge and addiction look the same. So what
Speaker 1: you mean by revenge more is the sort of anger impulse, right, So,
Speaker 1: revenge is.
Speaker 4: The desire to punish people who either violate social norms
Speaker 4: or wrong you in some way, whether it's real or imagined.
Speaker 4: So you know, it starts with the grievance, and a
Speaker 4: grievance is a real or imagined perception of having been mistreated,
Speaker 4: treated unjustly, humiliated, shame betrayed, victimized in any way. That's
Speaker 4: the beginning point of this process.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if revenge is like addiction and it is
Speaker 1: a similar kind of situation that can prevent violence, but
Speaker 1: it also perhaps might give us a little insight into
Speaker 1: what's happening in Trump's second administration.
Speaker 4: It does, and what's happening across the country in response.
Speaker 4: Because this is a it's a human problem, so it transcends,
Speaker 4: you know, political boundaries. Let's just go into this for
Speaker 4: a second. So a grievance, we've all experienced those. That
Speaker 4: can be somebody you know who cuts you off while
Speaker 4: you're driving, or an unkind word from you know, your
Speaker 4: partner or spouse or a parent, or something you know
Speaker 4: from some exchange with a coworker or your boss, or
Speaker 4: something even more broadly like a mean tweet or something
Speaker 4: that comes out of the Trump administration or a democratic administration.
Speaker 4: It wouldn't matter. But those grievances are registered in your brain.
Speaker 4: And we can see this now in brain scans. That
Speaker 4: activates your brain's pay network area, which is known as
Speaker 4: the anterior insulo. And your brain hates pain, so it
Speaker 4: wants to do something to stop that pain or cover
Speaker 4: it up. And the strategy that we've evolved to do
Speaker 4: is we get pleasure from trying to hurt the person
Speaker 4: who rolled us or their proxy, and that is very pleasurable,
Speaker 4: and it activates the pleasure and reward circuitry of the brain,
Speaker 4: which is the nucleus occumbents, and the dorsal strata. All
Speaker 4: of this is also happening for every other form of addiction,
Speaker 4: and we want to gratify that craving, the craving for
Speaker 4: revenge which is stimulated by a dopamine rush to motivate
Speaker 4: us toward harming the person who rolled us, because we
Speaker 4: get a little high from it. I mean, revenge acts
Speaker 4: inside your brain like a drug, doest.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've been interested in as
Speaker 1: a sober person who comes from a family is they
Speaker 1: tell my children all the time riddled with alcoholism. As
Speaker 1: I tell my three teenage children, I got sobern as nineteen.
Speaker 1: So whenever I see that, I say, you know, you
Speaker 1: come from a family. I swear to that I am
Speaker 1: become my grandfather. You come from a family riddled with alcoholism.
Speaker 1: My grandfather wouldn't say things like that, but he would
Speaker 1: say other things about you know whatever. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if one of the really interesting things about Trump's motivations
Speaker 1: which I think are worth looking at because he's now
Speaker 1: running the entire federal government, is that he had this
Speaker 1: brother who died of alcoholism, Mary's father, and he has
Speaker 1: committed to never drink or take drugs, right like I
Speaker 1: don't know about drugs, but has committed has made a
Speaker 1: you know, very clear about the fact that he never
Speaker 1: drinks and will never drink. Joe Biden children who struggled
Speaker 1: with alcoholism also never drinks ever take drucks, similar like
Speaker 1: non drinkers, both of them from families filled with alcoholism.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about kind of if there's a
Speaker 1: connection here between being sober or being alcoholic and having
Speaker 1: trouble managing your emotion.
Speaker 4: It's possible, And I don't want it to be focused
Speaker 4: on emotions, because this is much more than just what
Speaker 4: we think of as emotions like I feel happy or sad.
Speaker 4: This is a brain biological process that drives us toward
Speaker 4: revenge seeking for pleasure. We seek revenge to make ourselves
Speaker 4: feel better after we've been hurt. There is a theory
Speaker 4: that the vulnerable brain that suggests that people who are
Speaker 4: vulnerable to other forms of addiction are more vulnerable to
Speaker 4: addictions in general. So if you're vulnerable to a substance
Speaker 4: use disorder, you may we don't have evidence for this yet,
Speaker 4: but you may also be more vulnerable to a gambling addiction.
Speaker 4: You may also be more vulnerable to a revenge addiction,
Speaker 4: which is what we're talking about. So it's possible, but
Speaker 4: it's important to know that all humans, we all feel
Speaker 4: good when we take an opioid, but we also all
Speaker 4: feel good by fantasizing about or enacting our fantasies about
Speaker 4: revenge seeking, in other words, hurting the people who wrong
Speaker 4: us or their proxy, so that we don't even have
Speaker 4: to hurt the direct person who's wronged to us to
Speaker 4: get this gratification. And the good example of that is,
Speaker 4: like you know, you're at work, your boss says something
Speaker 4: that you don't like and hurts your feelings or worse,
Speaker 4: and you can't retaliate against your boss because you might
Speaker 4: lose your job, so you go home and pick a fight,
Speaker 4: maybe with your spouse or significant other or a child,
Speaker 4: or you kick the dog. Those are what we would
Speaker 4: call revenge by proxy, or some psychologists would call that
Speaker 4: displaced revenge seeking. But it makes you feel better in
Speaker 4: that moment. But like all drugs, it's a temporary high,
Speaker 4: doesn't last very long, usually leaves you hurting and wanting more.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump seems to have had a lifetime of perhaps
Speaker 4: sobriety from alcoholism, but has professed in many interviews to
Speaker 4: being a huge fan of retaliation and revenge seeking, right,
Speaker 4: And so you could make a case. I've never examined him,
Speaker 4: and I'm not a psychiatrist, so I couldn't diagnose it,
Speaker 4: but you could make a pretty strong case that he
Speaker 4: and others in his administration look like they're struggling with
Speaker 4: revenge addiction in a pretty mighty way and not able
Speaker 4: to control it. And that's always going to be harmful
Speaker 4: to anybody that's caught up in that and the people
Speaker 4: around them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I just wonder if you
Speaker 1: could talk to us about what this larger idea of
Speaker 1: a culture that is so set on revenge.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We're seeing a lot of like the cultural questions of revenge.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I refer to it as a revenge addicted nation.
Speaker 4: Right now. America seems like a revenge addicted nation in
Speaker 4: many ways, and part of that is the advent for
Speaker 4: which humans have not been prepared for.
Speaker 3: At all.
Speaker 4: And that's the advent of social networking platforms, and they're
Speaker 4: a unique ability to spread a grievance, right of feeling
Speaker 4: of victimization twis of other people at light speed, almost simultaneously.
Speaker 4: So we are getting perhaps millions of people with real
Speaker 4: or imagined grievances about the same thing at the same time.
Speaker 4: And these platforms also give all of those people the
Speaker 4: ability not only to spread that grievance further, but to
Speaker 4: either retaliate instantly, right, So we're also the platform gives
Speaker 4: you the grievance, and then it gives you the way
Speaker 4: to gratify the desire for revenge by firing back, you know, aggressive, mean,
Speaker 4: nasty tweets and other messaging, and also to plan and
Speaker 4: inspire and encourage other people to join in, you know,
Speaker 4: real world outside of the virtue their iOS right acts
Speaker 4: of retaliation, such as the you know, the January sixth insurrection,
Speaker 4: in which an imagined grievance about the election caused a
Speaker 4: group of people that using social networking to come together
Speaker 4: and then have a real world riot at the Capital
Speaker 4: revenge riot, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, revenge. Rt I interviewed a guy called to
Speaker 1: Read Hoffman on Morning Joe. A couple months ago, he
Speaker 1: was talking about how good the Internet is an AI
Speaker 1: and I was proposing all of it. I have this
Speaker 1: theory that while the Internet created a lot of disruptions,
Speaker 1: so did the printing press, right and he said something
Speaker 1: that was actually really smart that has really stuck with me,
Speaker 1: which is he said, the printing press it turned out
Speaker 1: to be really great, but it was like about one
Speaker 1: hundred years of just complete disaster between those two things.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that what we're in right now? Are
Speaker 1: we in this sort of I want to say, like
Speaker 1: postmodernization of the culture dysfunction? Is that where we are
Speaker 1: at this moment?
Speaker 4: I think that's possible, and it's a pretty good analogy. There.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of warfare and a lot of
Speaker 4: revenge seeking right back in those days after let's say,
Speaker 4: the Reformation in Martin Luther was spread by that new
Speaker 4: technology renting press. And we're seeing something similar to that,
Speaker 4: but across much bigger population and much more quickly than
Speaker 4: we did then. But people at that time didn't understand
Speaker 4: and wouldn't have that the printing press was able to
Speaker 4: spread grievance and retaliation and the ability to retaliate so well,
Speaker 4: and it didn't do one thing that modern technology does,
Speaker 4: which is it's based on algorithms that actually further that.
Speaker 4: So the algorithms want to us to engage more often,
Speaker 4: and since revenge is such an addictive process, it's like
Speaker 4: the you know, the social networking platforms are feeding us
Speaker 4: the drug, right, They're the system that enable us to
Speaker 4: get these painful experiences of grievance and then these amazingly
Speaker 4: pleasurable experiences of retaliation twenty four to seven, you know,
Speaker 4: seven days a week exactly.
Speaker 1: So online is obviously making a problem worse. But is
Speaker 1: the problem existing just because of the internet, or is
Speaker 1: this a problem that's always happened, And is it getting
Speaker 1: less bad because it's not happening in real life even
Speaker 1: though it is sort of happening in real life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's more about it's a problem that's
Speaker 4: always existed. So evolutionary psychologists theorize the leading theory is
Speaker 4: is that we developed this pleasurable experience in retaliating maybe
Speaker 4: eleven thousand years ago or or longer, as humans came
Speaker 4: to live in societies and needed ways to cooperate and
Speaker 4: cause people to obey social norms and you know, not
Speaker 4: steal things from you, your cave, or from your neighbor.
Speaker 4: So the desire for revenge is natural, and it was
Speaker 4: an adaptive strategy back then. Where it becomes pathological and dangerous,
Speaker 4: in particular, is now in modern society, where instead of
Speaker 4: retaliating for survival purposes or to pass on our genetic
Speaker 4: imprint to the next generation, we retaliate for just because
Speaker 4: our egos have been offended or her or our politics
Speaker 4: or our you know, we have revenge born. We have
Speaker 4: all these types of experiences of grievance, insult, and victimization
Speaker 4: that are not that our retaliation for those are not
Speaker 4: driven by a need to survive. It's not a flight
Speaker 4: or flight kind of situation. And it's always for a
Speaker 4: wrong of the past, so you're not presented. Revenge is
Speaker 4: always past looking. It's you know, it's always going to
Speaker 4: be punishing somebody for something they did, you know, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months,
Speaker 4: years and years ago. That's where that goes. So I
Speaker 4: think today the systems are making it much worse because
Speaker 4: it's able to spread grievance like a virus. It's blowing
Speaker 4: grievances into our faces right out of our cell phones
Speaker 4: and computers all day long, and we've never had to
Speaker 4: face that kind of onslaught before from something that we
Speaker 4: spend platforms like these that we spend so much of
Speaker 4: our time on. And the last part of the addiction
Speaker 4: puzzle is the prefrontal cortex, that executive function, self control
Speaker 4: area of our brain. And when that is hijacked or
Speaker 4: inhibited so that we're actually carrying out revenge seeking despite
Speaker 4: the negative consequences, that's when it moves pathological, because it
Speaker 4: moves out of an adaptive strategy into one that is
Speaker 4: harming ourselves and harming others. And you can't become the
Speaker 4: instrument of someone else's pain without feeling that pain yourself.
Speaker 4: And you also are putting yourself in harm's way because
Speaker 4: your act of just revenge seeking. Justice seeking in the
Speaker 4: form of revenge becomes the targets unjust victimization and spurs
Speaker 4: them to experience a new desire for revenge back against you.
Speaker 4: And we see that in politics.
Speaker 1: So it makes everything worse, that's right, And this is
Speaker 1: the hyper polarization.
Speaker 4: Thing, right, right, But this is the hyperness of it, yes, correct.
Speaker 1: How do you get out of this? Give everyone prozac? Right?
Speaker 1: The huge doses of prozac.
Speaker 4: And that probably the prozac probably wouldn't help because that's
Speaker 4: going to take down anxiety, which is a great thing,
Speaker 4: but isn't really this problem so our problem with revenge seeking.
Speaker 4: Prozac hasn't been found, for instance, to be the cure
Speaker 4: for addictions. It's not really prescribed for addictions. So that's
Speaker 4: really not the right one what we need to think about.
Speaker 4: So we have two options.
Speaker 1: Wait, hot, take here for one second, not to hijack
Speaker 1: this interview with my own mental health problems, but what
Speaker 1: I've noticed from myself and my own mental health problems
Speaker 1: is that prozac does not work on me as someone
Speaker 1: who's sober a long time, but effects or for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: effects or is just the greatest drug ever.
Speaker 4: That is interesting, And I can't comment because you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not that kind of docs, so I don't know.
Speaker 4: Are you my doctor, and nor are your doctor? That's correct,
Speaker 4: for sure, that's right. What is probably more likely to work,
Speaker 4: right are going to be the addiction prevention and treatment
Speaker 4: strategies that are already in our toolkit for other addictive disorders.
Speaker 4: So that can mean to start with, that can be
Speaker 4: cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, motivational interviewing, self help strategies, and
Speaker 4: things like that. We may also find and it hasn't
Speaker 4: been studied yet, but I'm hoping that this will start soon.
Speaker 4: Things like meloxone and maybe even GLP one, drugs like
Speaker 4: ozema and we go v that are have been shown
Speaker 4: to help people control craving, because that seems to be
Speaker 4: where this is all centered in the brain. It's that
Speaker 4: addiction craving desire that motivates us to go out and
Speaker 4: harm the people who we think are all on us
Speaker 4: or their proxies, including not only if somebody cuts you off,
Speaker 4: raising ahead to either flip the finger or cut them off,
Speaker 4: or even worse, pulling a gun up through mass shootings,
Speaker 4: intimate partner violence, school bullying, gang violence and street violence, extremism, terrorism,
Speaker 4: and even war. All of those are born out of
Speaker 4: this grievance desire for revenge brain biological process that we're
Speaker 4: just now understanding. But if we see it as an
Speaker 4: addictive process, we can use these addiction prevention to treatment strategies,
Speaker 4: starting with things like as well public health campaigns to
Speaker 4: warn people about the dangers of what happens when you
Speaker 4: have a grievance and this desire for revenge, and that
Speaker 4: although it's going to happen, there are things you can
Speaker 4: do about it. The other that's just one side of it.
Speaker 4: The best thing you can do, and there's a whole
Speaker 4: body of brand new neuroscience on this. That's even more
Speaker 4: exciting to me than the revenge side is what happens
Speaker 4: in your brain when you simply imagine forgiving a grievance
Speaker 4: or somebody that's done something wrong to you, even without
Speaker 4: communicating with them. It's not a gift to them, it's
Speaker 4: a gift of healing for yourself. And what happens when
Speaker 4: you forgive is it reverses. It turns out all of
Speaker 4: these things that I just described inside your brain for
Speaker 4: revenge seeking. It shuts down the pain network inside your brain,
Speaker 4: It shuts down the craving circuitry, and it restores your
Speaker 4: self control circuitry.
Speaker 1: So basically everything we do in AA is right.
Speaker 4: That whole forgiveness piece and the the you know this,
Speaker 4: you know kind of owning that. And although AA is
Speaker 4: really strong about going out right and making that apology
Speaker 4: to the person you're wrong, and that's nice and it's
Speaker 4: very powerful, But what we're finding is is that forgiving
Speaker 4: of yourself is critical.
Speaker 1: Which is what you do when you do that?
Speaker 4: Yes, right, and if you're forgiving yourself and anybody that
Speaker 4: is wronging you just internally and your listeners can experience
Speaker 4: this like right away. I mean, if it's safe to
Speaker 4: close your eyes right now, think about a grievance that
Speaker 4: you have against someone, and you know you have them,
Speaker 4: because we all do. We have maybe hundreds of them
Speaker 4: every day. But think about that and then think about
Speaker 4: just imagine what it would feel like. Just imagine what
Speaker 4: it would feel like if you decide, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm going to forgive this. Usually when people do that,
Speaker 4: they'll respond and go, oh, I would feel better. I
Speaker 4: guess I would feel pretty great. I would feel relieved,
Speaker 4: I would feel like this weight off my shoulders, and
Speaker 4: and it happens that quickly. Then the matter is simply
Speaker 4: doing it again and again and again, until every time
Speaker 4: that memory of that grievance comes back in your head
Speaker 4: you go, oh, yeah, I'm forgiving this. I'm done with
Speaker 4: this one now, and you know, kind of kaboom, it's gone.
Speaker 4: It's kind of this wonder drug superpower. If if humans have
Speaker 4: that we've sort of, you know, ignored because we think
Speaker 4: that maybe it's a weakness or it makes us a doormat,
Speaker 4: which is not what it's supposed to do. It doesn't
Speaker 4: stop you from acting in self defense or getting out
Speaker 4: of a toxic relationship, but it does help you heal
Speaker 4: from the wrongs of the past in those relationships very quickly.
Speaker 4: It's cheap. You can get it without a prescription. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's just you can use it as off as you
Speaker 4: want with no side effects. It's just like, there is
Speaker 4: nothing better than forgiveness for anybody.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Fair welcome, No, no moment.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, Holly Jogfast, I flew here this morning.
Speaker 3: And your pilot who flew you there had two certifications,
Speaker 3: once called an ATP and the others called a commercial
Speaker 3: pilot certificate.
Speaker 1: Why do we bring this up?
Speaker 3: Well, the new head of the FAA claimed it turns
Speaker 3: out you're going to be shocked to hear this from
Speaker 3: somebody in the Trump administration claimed falsely that he had
Speaker 3: a commercial pilot certificate. He has an instrument rating as
Speaker 3: a multi engineer rating, but he does not have a
Speaker 3: commercial pilot certificate. It's not that hard to get, but
Speaker 3: it's really stupid to lie about having one when you don't.
Speaker 1: But also, why does Trump World keep elevating people who
Speaker 1: can't tell the truth.
Speaker 3: They're not sending their best, They're not the endless parade
Speaker 3: of weak, weird, shitty, non effective candidates for these jobs.
Speaker 3: It's not coming because Donald Trump has a rich portfolio
Speaker 3: of options. This is what he's got. These are the
Speaker 3: people that will work for him. Now, it's not a
Speaker 3: great world to live in if you're a Trump appointee
Speaker 3: at this point, you're in such a group of scales
Speaker 3: and weirdos and fuck ups that honestly, why bothered a lie?
Speaker 3: Just say I'm a mid range, middling talent nobody who
Speaker 3: would like this job. Please, mister Trump, love me. Don't
Speaker 3: bother to lie in overstate your qualifications. It just doesn't
Speaker 3: work anymore. Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast We'll see you
Speaker 3: next week.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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