Speaker 1: Al Zone Media, welcome back to It Could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: a podcast about it happening here. And in the original
Speaker 1: cadence of this website or website, in the original cadence
Speaker 1: of the show, that was a reference to a civil war, right,
Speaker 1: a new civil war, It could happen here. That's what
Speaker 1: Season one was made a big splash. Now, we kind
Speaker 1: of covered the dystopia beat in general, but today we're
Speaker 1: getting back to our mother fucking roots because the state
Speaker 1: of Texas has recently declared a big old fuck you
Speaker 1: to the federal government r having its National guardsmen deploy
Speaker 1: razor wire at the border and stop border patrol people from,
Speaker 1: for example, performing rescues of people who are trapped in
Speaker 1: the water drowning. It's a whole thing. At least three
Speaker 1: migrants have already died as a result of this fuckery
Speaker 1: by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and now, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty states something near to that have There may be
Speaker 1: more by the time you hear this, but something like
Speaker 1: twenty states have declared that they're in support of Governor
Speaker 1: Abbott's refusal to let the Feds in and insistence that
Speaker 1: he's dealing with an invasion and must take on the
Speaker 1: border texas'self, and some of those states are now sending
Speaker 1: or at least claim they're going to send national guardsmen.
Speaker 1: So when this all started happening, we all got a
Speaker 1: lot of messages. I got about a billion from people
Speaker 1: being like, is this it? Is this the civil war?
Speaker 1: And obviously a big chuck of that comes from right
Speaker 1: wing memes because they are all talking about like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it, Let's have us a civil war. We're
Speaker 1: all going to start fighting over some guy posted his
Speaker 1: handgun collection like we're ready.
Speaker 2: A bunch of revolvers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stupid shit, It's stupid shit, But you know, it's
Speaker 1: not unreasonable to be like, this seems like a massive
Speaker 1: constitutional crisis that's potentially in line with some of the
Speaker 1: crises that precipitated the original Civil War. You've got a
Speaker 1: governor completely defying not now not just you know, the
Speaker 1: president and the federal government, but the Supreme Court who
Speaker 1: ruled that you can't just have your fucking Texas goons
Speaker 1: stop a federal law enforcement agency from doing its job
Speaker 1: on the border. So you know, how serious is this
Speaker 1: and is this the kind of thing that's going to
Speaker 1: lead to a twenty four's New Civil War movie, and
Speaker 1: my quick take on this is no, probably not. I
Speaker 1: think what this is is in fact, a governor stretching
Speaker 1: out his authority and testing how much he can get
Speaker 1: away with against the overall federal government, because he and
Speaker 1: a lot of other conservative governors want to do things
Speaker 1: that are directly in contravention of the Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 1: of the Bill of Rights, of numerous federal protections for
Speaker 1: their citizens. And this is kind of a way of
Speaker 1: being like, well, if they won't fuck with us over this,
Speaker 1: then we can probably start imprisoning journalists and you know,
Speaker 1: killing people that or at least imprisoning people that otherwise
Speaker 1: we would not be able to write like this is
Speaker 1: a right wing power grab, and it's an attempt to
Speaker 1: see is the central government weak enough that we can
Speaker 1: get away with this stuff. I don't think they're all
Speaker 1: going to start shooting at each other. I don't think
Speaker 1: Greg abbott is wants to get in the shooting war
Speaker 1: with the federal government over Mostly the dimensions of the
Speaker 1: crisis are gend up and fake in terms of what
Speaker 1: he is claiming it is. There is, in fact the
Speaker 1: humanitarian crisis at our border, but that's not what his
Speaker 1: issue is. So that's my quick take. We're going to
Speaker 1: get into more of all of that. But James, you
Speaker 1: are our resident border correspondent correspondent, and you have some
Speaker 1: very strong feelings on how all of this has been
Speaker 1: interpreted in the media. So I wanted to pull to
Speaker 1: you first and then we'll get to Mia and we'll
Speaker 1: just kind of roundtable after that.
Speaker 3: I do, in a rare instance for me, I have
Speaker 3: strong feelings about the way this has been covered, and
Speaker 3: strong feelings about the coverage of the border, which I
Speaker 3: know is a thing I talk about all the time,
Speaker 3: but I am beyond frustrated with the way this has
Speaker 3: been covered. It's hugely a respond table and it's completely
Speaker 3: context free. Like there are people, as there always are
Speaker 3: with the border, and there always are with the right,
Speaker 3: who just tourists outside things that they understand and try
Speaker 3: and generate clicks by geeing up the fear of a
Speaker 3: civil war. And yes, I've seen dozens of people sharing
Speaker 3: headlines about national Guard deployments. So happened years ago. The
Speaker 3: National Guard have been deployed to our border for years.
Speaker 3: I see national Guard troops every day. I had a
Speaker 3: National Guard guy shooting me and shoot at me, shout
Speaker 3: at me.
Speaker 2: A friend of ours took one of their rifles.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, the National Guard have been extremely based in
Speaker 3: arming the Butterfly Center. Yeah, they they're there. There's a
Speaker 3: federal deployment. Texas also has a state deployment. These are
Speaker 3: different things, and.
Speaker 1: Other states have also sent National guardsmen to the border before.
Speaker 1: By the correct that is not the first time this
Speaker 1: has happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So there's a federal deployment and then there
Speaker 3: are state deployments, both of those distinct things. Something to
Speaker 3: know about the state deployment that is missing in the
Speaker 3: context free reporting that you're seeing is that these guys
Speaker 3: aren't getting any of their federal deployment benefits. So they
Speaker 3: won't be getting the tricare, they won't be getting the
Speaker 3: time towards their retirement, they won't be getting their GI bill, etc. So,
Speaker 3: like the Texas guys who are deployed on state orders
Speaker 3: are really the National Guard are getting barked by Greg
Speaker 3: Abbott like it's laughable that that, like, you know, he's
Speaker 3: pretending that he cares about Texas while actively screwing over
Speaker 3: and Rober and I have spoken to some of those
Speaker 3: Texas National Guard folks last time we were in Texas
Speaker 3: did not seem to be super motivated to be They're
Speaker 3: the only military unit i've seen tried to form a
Speaker 3: union because they're not in a federal they're not in
Speaker 3: a federal orders, so they're going to attempt to form
Speaker 3: a union.
Speaker 1: Get Billy bragged down to the border. We got to
Speaker 1: do this. Yeah, let's get Billy back. I'll get him
Speaker 1: going over.
Speaker 3: The Rio Grande and Billy Bragg and they'll fix it.
Speaker 3: And it has been the most dangerous deployment that they've had,
Speaker 3: including deployment to a rug They they have, unfortunately a
Speaker 3: habit of drinking and driving, which has not proven healthy
Speaker 3: for them. They also there's a quirk of Texas law
Speaker 3: that means that they can't stop National Guard soldiers from
Speaker 3: bringing their own firearms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is great. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the US they can't stop them accidentally killing
Speaker 3: each other with their own firearms. Also, Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 3: A TNG soldier did die trying to save a migrant
Speaker 3: from the river. Yes, he drowned. So like it has
Speaker 3: not like it is very boring, but also quite dangerous
Speaker 3: deployment that you know, they have really high. They wrote
Speaker 3: a manifesto a couple of years ago about how bullshit
Speaker 3: their deployment was.
Speaker 2: You know which is which is really great? To death? Yeah.
Speaker 3: So much of this has been reported without any context, right, Like,
Speaker 3: I think genuinely a lot of the people reporting on
Speaker 3: this are not aware there have been national their National
Speaker 3: Guard here in California. Like I say, I see them
Speaker 3: all the time. They're not supposed to interdict migrants, but
Speaker 3: I see them doing surveillance, and I see them guarding
Speaker 3: open air prisons in Hiccumba almost every day. And I
Speaker 3: think that seems to have been missed by the majority
Speaker 3: of people covering this.
Speaker 4: We should talk more about the open air prison part,
Speaker 4: because I think there's a lot of people who seem
Speaker 4: to be getting the impression that the Biden administration is
Speaker 4: like actually substantively trying to do something to help immigrants,
Speaker 4: and like they're like this fight is like between like
Speaker 4: pro and anti immigration. It's like, no, there is a
Speaker 4: fight between whether you think these people should be killed
Speaker 4: incredibly quickly by a combination of razor wire and rivers,
Speaker 4: or whether you think they should starve the death.
Speaker 3: Yeah or die of dehydrat should walk through the desert
Speaker 3: would die of hypothermia walking through the mountains. Like I
Speaker 3: I think I've said some in the podcast before, but
Speaker 3: I was helping a three year old girl who is
Speaker 3: hypothermic last week, and like, that is what Joe Biden
Speaker 3: is doing. That is a Joe Biden policy being enacted
Speaker 3: by Joe Biden as Joe Biden wants it to be
Speaker 3: an acted, or at very least. Yeah, I'm sure his
Speaker 3: personal like complicity or even understanding is relatively low. Given
Speaker 3: his understanding, it seems of a lot of things. But
Speaker 3: the Biden administration's policy is to deter people by making
Speaker 3: crossing more difficult and more dangerous, which de facto makes
Speaker 3: it more deadly. What Abbot is doing with his razor
Speaker 3: wire and his floating fence is a version of the
Speaker 3: same thing. Like they are not distinctly different. When everyone
Speaker 3: was up and now it's about the three people drowning.
Speaker 3: That's a tragedy. At eight hundred and fifty people died
Speaker 3: crossing the border in twenty twenty two, that was a
Speaker 3: normal day. Like the distinction is maybe in degree, but
Speaker 3: really it's an aesthetic between Abbott and Biden on this,
Speaker 3: and it's just two dudes chest stump each other trying
Speaker 3: to not look weak. There is not an option in
Speaker 3: the US system which allows you to vote for the
Speaker 3: party that doesn't want migrants to die like that. Both
Speaker 3: of the parties are completely in lockstep on that.
Speaker 1: And let's let's be very clear about something. Part of
Speaker 1: why that is is because an overwhelming number of Americans
Speaker 1: are indifferent or actively hostile to the survival of migrants. Yes, like,
Speaker 1: this is an It is incredibly unpopular in this country
Speaker 1: to think these people are human beings who deserve decent
Speaker 1: treatment in decent lives. This is a fight that the
Speaker 1: left has lost comprehensively, mostly in large part because the
Speaker 1: left has completely given up on it, which is why
Speaker 1: you've got fucking a lot of these nasbol assholes saying
Speaker 1: shit like you know this is we have like saying
Speaker 1: basically protectionist, nativist kind of shit these yes, right, because.
Speaker 3: I think that like leftist media has also and to
Speaker 3: include I guess liberal media also has completely oh yeah,
Speaker 3: like being complicit in this, right, Like, the amount of
Speaker 3: stories that you will read about migrants that don't talk
Speaker 3: two migrants in the next few weeks will be a lot.
Speaker 3: If you care to read them, right, And that's because
Speaker 3: people don't want to come here. They're either afraid of
Speaker 3: coming here or they don't want to take the time,
Speaker 3: they don't have the language skills. There are people who
Speaker 3: have the language skills who don't who don't get these jobs,
Speaker 3: and are people who don't have the language skills and
Speaker 3: who don't have the understanding of how the border on
Speaker 3: the ground works as opposed to immigration policy in DC works.
Speaker 3: And you're going to see a lot of people who
Speaker 3: don't live at the border, who don't come to the border,
Speaker 3: writing about the border and yeah, that's how we got here,
Speaker 3: and that's how we're getting to this largely like a
Speaker 3: giant panic about a nothing burger. But yeah, it's the
Speaker 3: reporting has been in continued to be responsible, and that
Speaker 3: is in some degree complicit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think this is also the explanation for
Speaker 4: why there's a lot of people going like, why is
Speaker 4: Biden not like setting the troops, why is Biden not
Speaker 4: cracking out? Because it doesn't fucking give a shit. It's
Speaker 4: the same policy. He doesn't care, right, Like, there's not
Speaker 4: actually substantive disagreements except over like whether it should be
Speaker 4: like some like a really super political stunt over whether
Speaker 4: it should be like federal troops like on or like
Speaker 4: federal agents like on the border, or whether it should
Speaker 4: be the razor wire like he doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. And to be fair, I will say,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is the start. This right here,
Speaker 1: I don't think is the start of a civil war.
Speaker 1: We may if we have one. We may someday see
Speaker 1: this on like the list of factors contributing to in
Speaker 1: the years leading up to it. But I will say,
Speaker 1: if we do ever have a shooting civil war, it
Speaker 1: will be something this dumb that I feel absolutely certain
Speaker 1: of it will. It will be a thing where no
Speaker 1: one involved really cares about the issue that starts it.
Speaker 1: It's just a dick measuring contest that goes too far.
Speaker 1: I just don't think this is the dick measuring contest.
Speaker 1: But to be fair, it will be something this dumb.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, folks, don't worry. If we do start shooting
Speaker 1: each other, it will be just as stupid as this.
Speaker 3: I do think that, Like I think we're extremely likely
Speaker 3: to start a shooting civil war over this or in
Speaker 3: the next few years. Generally, I do think the chance
Speaker 3: of shooting my context without a civil war. It's shooting
Speaker 3: specifically of migrants, especially in places where they're not safe,
Speaker 3: like open aduitencure centers is going up. And yes, that
Speaker 3: scares the shit out of me as someone who spends
Speaker 3: a lot of his life there. And I do think that.
Speaker 3: I mean, we saw in twenty eighteen, right, and we've
Speaker 3: covered this extensively, the Tree of Life shooting was in
Speaker 3: large part motivated by right wing rhetoric about a caravan
Speaker 3: of migrants. I was in Tijuana in twenty eighteen. I
Speaker 3: spent months of my life helping people down there. Like
Speaker 3: anyone who's scared of those people is paranoid to say,
Speaker 3: at least right that they were mostly fine, wonderful, very
Speaker 3: friendly people. I spent Christmas with them. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen Tree of Life shooting came from paranoia about
Speaker 3: the border. We're seeing that same paranoia from right wing
Speaker 3: media and from liberal media now, and I think that
Speaker 3: it would not be unreasonable to have that fear of
Speaker 3: individual acts of violence and terrorism along the border.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one of the things we're going to
Speaker 1: have to do in the near future is get better
Speaker 1: at understanding kind of the media dimensions of conflicts like this,
Speaker 1: and what is an irresponsible way to respond to them?
Speaker 1: And I think treating this like it is a civil
Speaker 1: war type deal is kind of feeding into the right's
Speaker 1: image of itself and their desire to treat this like
Speaker 1: their revolutionaries. Now that said, what is the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, because like the the what the Biden administrations
Speaker 1: seems to be doing right now is largely kind of
Speaker 1: ignoring it. I think at some point they will probably
Speaker 1: try to nationalize the Guard and we'll see what happens. Then.
Speaker 1: One thing that's kind of worth noting is that this
Speaker 1: has primarily gone viral on right wing media. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: very little of this on like mainstream centrist like liberal
Speaker 1: media sources. And I'm seeing little on this because like
Speaker 1: most of those sources don't really care about the border.
Speaker 1: Unless there's some way to like drum up fear against
Speaker 1: migrants like that, they'll do a caravans story. But this
Speaker 1: just this just simply doesn't sell. I think when it
Speaker 1: comes to like what is a responsible way to report
Speaker 1: on this, I think you have to start by centering
Speaker 1: what's actually happening to the migrants, what's being done to them,
Speaker 1: as opposed to focusing on this Dick measuring, because that's
Speaker 1: the actual harm here. The harm here is not that
Speaker 1: Abbott has been mean to the border patrol, and it's
Speaker 1: not that Texas and these other states, these rebel states,
Speaker 1: are raising an army to fight the federal government. It's
Speaker 1: that there's this argument between the people in power and
Speaker 1: our country about like how bad should things be for
Speaker 1: people who are already desperate? And I think that's where
Speaker 1: you should center your focus. Also, I've just noticed this
Speaker 1: on my other screen. This is a bit off topic,
Speaker 1: but you know that movie Rebel Moon by Zack Snyder.
Speaker 1: Oh god, An, there's an ad for the canned water
Speaker 1: company Liquid Death that just is showing a bunch of
Speaker 1: like Imperial troops from that movie beating a man and
Speaker 1: then drinking Liquid Death water as they relax afterwards. And
Speaker 1: it's the most unhinged ad I've ever seen. It's like
Speaker 1: running aside a box article. I've never seen anything like
Speaker 1: this before. It's just like, what the wait a second, what,
Speaker 1: Zack Snyder? Come on, you can't do Zach's no, that
Speaker 1: fucking guy, Jesus talking of advertising, Buy some Liquid Death.
Speaker 1: We're back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I want to talk about Grift because we
Speaker 3: talked about advertising. I don't know if you guys have
Speaker 3: seen the number of like right wing influences. Okay, so
Speaker 3: I'm looking at friends of the podcast Tim Pool's Twitter here.
Speaker 1: Oh, Tim, there's a guy who is excited to have
Speaker 1: a civil war where he will be murked imediately by
Speaker 1: one of his bodyguards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a man who's seen combat and knows
Speaker 3: what it is to hear rounds cracking off over your head. Okay, Timple,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to quote here at ha ha ha
Speaker 3: ha ha ha, et cetera, Fuck me, dude, and then
Speaker 3: Safe and Ready Meals dot com. Paul is not the
Speaker 3: only one on the buckets of food grift right. Alex
Speaker 3: Jones has been on this too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah a million years.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, he's been long time, long time food
Speaker 3: story guy at Alex Jones. A lot of these guys
Speaker 3: are like very clearly geing up fears of civil war
Speaker 3: on the right so that they can sell people powder
Speaker 3: dried eggs. Like it's it's so transparent, Like it's in
Speaker 3: the same tweet. Yeah, Sobiak Trump calls for all willing
Speaker 3: states to deploy National Guard to Texas border and start
Speaker 3: the deportations and then there's a special partner offer for
Speaker 3: my patriots supply dot com god, which is the way
Speaker 3: to fuel your bigotry.
Speaker 1: I guess, guys, two things. First off, if you buy
Speaker 1: your storable food from some right wing media grifters deal site,
Speaker 1: you will spend the apocalypse shitting yourself to death like
Speaker 1: it's all horrible. If you are going to buy, if
Speaker 1: you are going to throw a bunch of money on store.
Speaker 1: If you are a sane and reasonable person who wants
Speaker 1: to store food, learn how to make your own jerky.
Speaker 1: Learn how to can food. You can do it very cheaply.
Speaker 1: It is not expensive to can your own food. If
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing. You can can stuff that
Speaker 1: is in season and get it really cheap from the
Speaker 1: grocery store. And you can pickle and do other kinds
Speaker 1: of can't pressure canning. It's really economical and it will
Speaker 1: last a long time. If you are going to spend
Speaker 1: a shitload of money on storable freeze dried food, you're
Speaker 1: going to be spending a bunch of money anyway. Just
Speaker 1: go buy Mountain House. Buy Mountain House. It's the good stuff.
Speaker 1: It's tasty. As far as I know, no right winger
Speaker 1: advertises on them and it's actually pretty good food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I keep in my car for emergencies. You
Speaker 1: will not shit ever ever again. Yeah, you may never
Speaker 1: poop again, but the fucking biscuits and gravy breakfast selection there. Man,
Speaker 1: when you're alone in the mountains, that ship is fucking fire.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, that will.
Speaker 3: It is like a bun for the digestive system.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just want to plug Lentils dot org, which I
Speaker 3: checked is a website.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lentils the ship forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, find balance between the yin and the yang in
Speaker 3: your in your post avocalypse life with man House and
Speaker 3: Lentils do org you today? You know what's not running
Speaker 3: on lentils guys. Unfortunately, this is not an ad pivot.
Speaker 3: I've just I've done theil Bate switch. It's this fucking
Speaker 3: convoy that's going to the border and we talk about this, Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's do that. They're like, this is where I'm really
Speaker 3: done with irresponsible reporting, like being like oh no, January sixth,
Speaker 3: Part two. Here's a link if you want to take part, Like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Stop it?
Speaker 3: But I look, right wing groups have tried to run
Speaker 3: convoys probably a dozen times since twenty twenty. Right, I
Speaker 3: think we can all think of a different convoy that's
Speaker 3: got stuck under a bridge.
Speaker 4: When drove by my house and then basically didn't get
Speaker 4: any further than that.
Speaker 3: Yep, Yet they get lost, they disagree about directions a
Speaker 3: lot of What a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people are going to realize is that the Texas
Speaker 1: border is twelve hours from anywhere in Texas when you
Speaker 1: are in Dallas. I believe this is accurate. When you
Speaker 1: are in Dallas, it is faster to drive to Chicago
Speaker 1: than it is to direct to the border. It is
Speaker 1: so fucking far away from anything you could cross Europe
Speaker 1: in the time it will take you to get down there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of a convoy of like, you know,
Speaker 3: like completely c pilled lunatics, just like you're sending on
Speaker 3: the town of Moth.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, fucking passing Marathon and going where the
Speaker 1: christ are we.
Speaker 3: Like, Yeah, it is a really really beautiful bike ride
Speaker 3: from MafA to the border. There's from dirt roads you
Speaker 3: can take.
Speaker 1: Oh and Marfa by the way, folks, if you're looking
Speaker 1: to go down to the border, very fun town. You'll
Speaker 1: have a good time in Marfa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do love a bit of Marfa. Really, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to tell my Martha story. I'll tell you guys
Speaker 3: when we're done. But yeah, yeah, it is not Liken salacious,
Speaker 3: it's just done. Yeah, Marfa is near the border. Lots
Speaker 3: of things are not. It is a very long way
Speaker 3: from I guess like maybe people could fly to our
Speaker 3: passer that's near the border. But yeah, it's this idea.
Speaker 3: So there's three convoys, right, One I think is supposed
Speaker 3: to go from Virginia Beach.
Speaker 1: To Texas Shares the way guys enjoy spending seven thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in Gussie.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly where if they not look at the cost
Speaker 3: of fuel, you fucking idiots.
Speaker 1: Have fun homies.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another one is going from I think last Cruis says,
Speaker 3: to Yuma. And the one is going from here at
Speaker 3: Santa Sedro to Yuma. Yes, the drive from Santa Sedro
Speaker 3: to Humor is boring af but good luck, I guess,
Speaker 3: like good luck spending that Californa. Hopefully they get pull
Speaker 3: off at some of the gas stations like east of
Speaker 3: San Diego where it's still like six or seven dollars
Speaker 3: a gallon, Because you're fucked if you need fuel there
Speaker 3: and you can't buy from anyone else. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: idea that people are going to spend all their money
Speaker 3: like driving across the country. It is also just very
Speaker 3: like there's the meme right of the like the old
Speaker 3: white guy wearing Oakley wrap around or fake Oakley wrap
Speaker 3: around sunglasses doing a selfie video in his car to
Speaker 3: rent about like anything and everything. But like, I think
Speaker 3: it's very illustrative of how many of these people don't
Speaker 3: feel safe outside their vehicles and like need the activism
Speaker 3: to involve their their.
Speaker 1: F two fifty. Yeah. Well, in part because most of
Speaker 1: them are, like like most Americans, in great shape, not
Speaker 1: physically imposing, So if you're sitting in an F two fifty,
Speaker 1: you feel big and powerful. Like James, you and I
Speaker 1: both have trucks. One of the things about trucks that
Speaker 1: is nice is that being in a truck, you're elevated
Speaker 1: above the rest of the road, right, oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: that that gets to a lot of people's heads, especially
Speaker 1: if they have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives,
Speaker 1: which nobody participating in this fucking caravan does, so they
Speaker 1: this is like it's it's it's there, it's emotional support. Right,
Speaker 1: They're sitting in their truck, They've got their gun. They're
Speaker 1: not breathing hard because they have to like walk around
Speaker 1: the world, and they they would desperately prefer that they can.
Speaker 1: That's where how their activism, that's how their participation in
Speaker 1: the Second Civil War will occur. Yeah, truck A bunch
Speaker 1: of bunch of fucking wankers. Yeah, So I do want
Speaker 1: to get into kind of like what we do feel
Speaker 1: is the actual threats of this. Again, I think the
Speaker 1: danger here is you've got a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: fights going down about like how far can governments take
Speaker 1: their anti trans legislation, How mean can they be to
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants, Like how much violence can they deploy in
Speaker 1: deporting people? What can they do to journalists? What can
Speaker 1: they do to people speaking out or engaging in protests
Speaker 1: without violating the Bill of Rights? You know? What can
Speaker 1: they do to marginalized communities about virrelating the Civil Rights Act?
Speaker 1: I think this is an attempt to set a precedent
Speaker 1: for ignoring federal control so that they can be crueler
Speaker 1: to large groups of people within their purview. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of this is a reaction to this
Speaker 1: is kind of there, what if we lose this election? Right?
Speaker 1: I think there is a fear, and I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think this fear is actually like born out. I don't
Speaker 1: think the rights national hopes in terms of its ability
Speaker 1: to get elected again after Trump are as poor as
Speaker 1: people want them to be, as I might want them
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, but I think there is real fear
Speaker 1: among the right that if Trump doesn't win this, they're
Speaker 1: not going to win the presidency again, right, And I
Speaker 1: think part of what they are doing is setting up all, right,
Speaker 1: then we will just take over and take increasing autonomy
Speaker 1: in our red states, and we will effectively govern them
Speaker 1: very differently and govern them in contravention of how the
Speaker 1: rest of the country and how the federal government how
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court says that they can be governed because
Speaker 1: we can't be cruel enough without that, And I think
Speaker 1: that is what they are stepping up to be able
Speaker 1: to do. If you're asking what do I think will
Speaker 1: be sort of like line crossings that could lead to
Speaker 1: mass social violence in this country? One thing, I don't
Speaker 1: think they're going to take that leap. While a Democrat
Speaker 1: is in control of the federal government and the defense Department.
Speaker 1: I think they will push for a violent crackdown on
Speaker 1: everything left of the far right if they win power again,
Speaker 1: because they talk about that repeatedly, because they promised to
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, and I think that if they lose,
Speaker 1: there's an off chance. I don't think this is likely,
Speaker 1: but it's not impossible that protests and violence as acts
Speaker 1: of protest against Biden winning a second term could snowball
Speaker 1: into something that resembles an insurgency. Not impossible. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the likeliest outcome. But I don't see them
Speaker 1: starting to shoot at federal troops now while Biden is
Speaker 1: in the White House for one thing. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's the thing that would really clinch it for Biden.
Speaker 1: If Texas National Guard trying to secede, well, you've made
Speaker 1: his reelection campaign easier, right because now none of the
Speaker 1: red states, like none of the states that secede, You
Speaker 1: can't also have an election where those states get to vote, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's just not the way it works. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: don't feel like that's the likeliest thing. I think this is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I've made it clear what I think, and
Speaker 1: I think it's really clear that it's time for our
Speaker 1: second ad break.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Hopefully it's an ad for then new transpried oreos. If
Speaker 3: you guys those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I've not seen those.
Speaker 2: What wait, trans fried or well, yeah, maybe it's just me.
Speaker 3: I was just reading a story earlier.
Speaker 1: And I just trans fat or No, they have like
Speaker 1: a blue transflag. Ooah, well okay they have.
Speaker 2: Two years ago.
Speaker 1: Hold on, this is okay, okay, okay, let's say I
Speaker 1: don't definitely haven't.
Speaker 3: I just put a link in that woke, woke biscuit.
Speaker 1: That's good, I have. I have no opinion on this.
Speaker 1: I guess it's good. Oreos aren't bigoted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, don't give your money to me instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it really matters that. There. Ah,
Speaker 1: we're back.
Speaker 4: You know, one thing I think about, like part of
Speaker 4: what this is going viral, and I think part of
Speaker 4: what's an issue about this with the way it's being
Speaker 4: talked about on the left, but also you know, the
Speaker 4: way the way it's marketable to the right is that
Speaker 4: the thing about this confrontation is that it looks like
Speaker 4: a civil war, but it looks like it's it's it's
Speaker 4: exactly perfectly engineered to look like the lead of Civil
Speaker 4: War one, and that is incredibly misleading. It's it's it's
Speaker 4: it's basically it's like a marketing thing, right because like,
Speaker 4: and this is only thing we've talked about on this
Speaker 4: show for like literally since day one, is that like
Speaker 4: a civil war in the United States is not going
Speaker 4: to look like a bunch of states like form an
Speaker 4: alliance and then all in they're fighting all of the
Speaker 4: other states. Like it's it's not going to look like that.
Speaker 4: It's going to look closer to Syria than it is
Speaker 4: going to look like like the first Civil War. But
Speaker 4: people haven't shaken like the sort of like brain worms
Speaker 4: of a civil war is like sixteen states fight sixteen states,
Speaker 4: even though every single civil war that we've had, like
Speaker 4: in the intervening like one hundred, like two hundred years,
Speaker 4: has not been that.
Speaker 1: And here's here's how wrong. Here's how people are comprehensively
Speaker 1: wrong about this. Right on the left side, you have LMAO,
Speaker 1: you guys are going to fight the federal government with
Speaker 1: your AR fifteen's. They got bombs and planes, and like, well,
Speaker 1: we've seen how well our bombs and planes work against insurgencies.
Speaker 1: We're not good at winning those if there were an
Speaker 1: real insurgency, and there's certainly ingredients to it, it would
Speaker 1: actually be a problem for the US. However, that does
Speaker 1: not look like sixteen states declaring themselves seceded and going
Speaker 1: to because that's a conventional war. And you know what
Speaker 1: happened if Greg Abbott started a conventional war against the US.
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott doesn't have a fucking bunker, right like we
Speaker 1: could we could, he could be he could be blown up.
Speaker 1: He is again nothing against being in a wheelchair, but
Speaker 1: this is not a man who is capable of like
Speaker 1: living underground and hiding from federal bombers. Like that's just
Speaker 1: not the kind of conflict that you need to be
Speaker 1: concerned about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, this man does not have been Loden dog
Speaker 2: in him.
Speaker 1: He just does not know. He's sure, he sure doesn't.
Speaker 3: He the idea of Greg Abbott taking to a hate
Speaker 3: system in.
Speaker 1: Doing a Tora Bora Texas. He's hanging out and fucking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fucking big bend or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Torah boring big bend es Christ, Yeah, will
Speaker 1: be outstanding. We would love to see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, grainy photos of Greg Abbott and like the mountains
Speaker 1: of Southern Texas shaking hands with Mexican revolutionaries as they
Speaker 1: smile rifles to him, rifles that they also got from
Speaker 1: the United States. That is what we call the circle
Speaker 1: of life.
Speaker 3: Oh god, God, we can we can dream, but it
Speaker 3: does seem unfortunately unlikely. Yeah, it would be very funny. Yeah,
Speaker 3: see Sealed Team go off to Greg Abbott.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely Sealed Team fighting the Texas Rangers of
Speaker 1: if only.
Speaker 3: Just a bunch of dudes each with a revolver because
Speaker 3: they thought it looked cool until the very first time
Speaker 3: someone was shooting back in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's a real like who is on the
Speaker 1: most HGH competition? Whoever whoever can stop the steroids from
Speaker 1: flooding in is going to win. That's the spice in
Speaker 1: this particular conflict. Yeah, we would love to see Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan's the baron harkone and of making sure everybody speck.
Speaker 3: Ups guys have enough gear floating above a fucking table. Great,
Speaker 3: it would be wonderful in term senses. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't think we're going to see a shoot. It will
Speaker 3: be interesting to see how like Biden has screwed the
Speaker 3: pooch in terms of like his media management of this,
Speaker 3: I would say, and it will be interesting to see
Speaker 3: how hard he goes in response. Like if he goes
Speaker 3: in response.
Speaker 1: I think the smart answer would be nationalize the Guard.
Speaker 1: If there's things that you can actually prosecute people over,
Speaker 1: prosecute them and continue to not deal with it in
Speaker 1: the media. Like his instinct isn't bad in terms of
Speaker 1: not wanting to feed in directly to the right wing
Speaker 1: outrage loop, but you still have to. You still have
Speaker 1: to go after them for this, right, And it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing it's probably like too much to hope
Speaker 1: for any real action being taken, But I would say
Speaker 1: that's probably the smarter option, right, not to say anything
Speaker 1: of what the most moral thing to do is, but
Speaker 1: the smart option is don't feed into the fundraising loop,
Speaker 1: because we should probably get in on that this is
Speaker 1: all a fundraising thing, right in addition to them testing
Speaker 1: the waters. That's the biggest dimension of this is and
Speaker 1: that's why we talked earlier. All of these guys Timpoole
Speaker 1: and Jack Pisoviec and I'm sure the Daily Wire guys
Speaker 1: are in now are like advertising your storable foods companies
Speaker 1: and shit. The point of all this all right wing messaging.
Speaker 1: All far right messaging starts as a grift. It all
Speaker 1: starts with a product to sell. That's, by the way,
Speaker 1: how guns became so enmeshed with the far right right.
Speaker 1: A lot of gun companies realized that, like Americans only
Speaker 1: need so many guns for like reasonable self defense and
Speaker 1: hunting and even even recreational purposes. There's only so many
Speaker 1: guns a man could shoot at a time. But you
Speaker 1: can really get people to stockpiles shit like crazy if
Speaker 1: you convince them they're like preparing to be guerrilla fighters
Speaker 1: in a future civil war. And so and a lot
Speaker 1: of these like gun tuber influencers, that's kind of where
Speaker 1: they increasingly went because that's where the money was. And
Speaker 1: so this becomes more and more of a part of
Speaker 1: right wing politics because a lot of people on the
Speaker 1: right have a lot of money to be made in
Speaker 1: messaging this kind of stuff and selling this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: The same thing is true with the civil warshit it's
Speaker 1: true with these like fears that the government. You know,
Speaker 1: we can sell you storable food, we can sell you
Speaker 1: fucking bunkers. All of this stuff comes out of some
Speaker 1: sort of financial grift. And the biggest thing that most
Speaker 1: of the people involved and this are hoping for Fucking
Speaker 1: Jack Pisobiec doesn't want to be fucking hiding underground getting
Speaker 1: bombed by the US Air Force. Jack Pisobiec wants to
Speaker 1: make another million dollars off of affiliate sales of bullshit. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what And a lot of these people, these guys
Speaker 1: doing this caravans to the borders, they're not planning on
Speaker 1: spending their own money on gas. They're hoping that they
Speaker 1: can crowdfund a shitload of money and I'm sure one
Speaker 1: of them will steal all of it and run away, right,
Speaker 1: That's what usually happens with this kind of shit. But
Speaker 1: that's what they're all hoping to do. And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of the over if you want to actually hurt them,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at where do we how do we
Speaker 1: draw a strategic victory out of this, find a way
Speaker 1: to damage their ability to profit off of this shit?
Speaker 1: And I do think part of it is not making
Speaker 1: this as big a story as that otherwise might be.
Speaker 1: But that's not simply enough, because the Right is large
Speaker 1: enough that just through their media hyping this up, they
Speaker 1: can make a decent amount of money off this stuff,
Speaker 1: so more complex solutions are needed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think think we should probably discuss like
Speaker 3: the potential of Abbot using this in a personal or
Speaker 3: like later a presidential run, right, Like, yeah, he's in
Speaker 3: New Delhi at the moment.
Speaker 1: Have you seen he's a New Delhi hanging out with
Speaker 1: everybody's favorite pseudo dictator of India Modi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Abbott trying to build this kind of like
Speaker 3: electoral alliance and international alliance for like fascist like Wolfenstein
Speaker 3: America is is. I think like it's concerning because like
Speaker 3: Trump has a lot of baggage and I think obviously
Speaker 3: he has a great degree of personal support swishing in
Speaker 3: the primaries. But if they don't make if they don't
Speaker 3: stick the landing with Trump, I think Abbott is waiting
Speaker 3: in the wings to make perhaps a more competent fascists
Speaker 3: than Trump and make an attempt at running for the presidency.
Speaker 1: Not good anything else to say, fuck all of them?
Speaker 2: Yeah that's sure.
Speaker 4: But okay, So the other thing that you actually can
Speaker 4: do about this is that look, this bullshit, all of
Speaker 4: this stuff is going to continue until there's actually some
Speaker 4: kind of sustained attack by the left on like politically
Speaker 4: on the border regime. Right, that was a thing that
Speaker 4: when I when I was like, you know, when I
Speaker 4: was like like coming up by twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: twenty eight, and we were doing right, there was occupy Ice.
Speaker 4: There was like, there were mass demonstrations, there was like
Speaker 4: critical pleasure being applied, and we didn't go far enough.
Speaker 4: Part of the reason we didn't go far enough is
Speaker 4: a lot of people fucking a lot of very optimistic
Speaker 4: political groups, like including like PSL et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 4: like hijacked a lot of these things and pulled people
Speaker 4: off of occupations. But you know, there was actually there
Speaker 4: were there have been periods in my lifetime, like not
Speaker 4: that long ago where there was actually forward progress being
Speaker 4: made about this shit, to the point where like even
Speaker 4: that we're like the Democrats were trying to co opt it.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't fucking have to be like this, Like
Speaker 4: we don't We don't have to have hundreds of people
Speaker 4: fucking dying at the border every year. We don't have
Speaker 4: to have people in open air fuck prisons. It doesn't
Speaker 4: have to be like this. We can fight them and
Speaker 4: we can win, but it requires actually, like it requires
Speaker 4: actually going and fighting and you know you have you
Speaker 4: have to act. You have to actually be willing to
Speaker 4: do this. You have to be willing to commit to
Speaker 4: the organizing.
Speaker 2: But if we don't, if we just keep leaving all
Speaker 2: of this ship to like just the literal howling fascists
Speaker 2: and then Biden who is like it like on on
Speaker 2: the border doing the same thing but not being but
Speaker 2: not like howling about it. Yeah, yeah, you know, like
Speaker 2: this this, this, this country is going to go into
Speaker 2: fucking oblivion and we are we are going, like you're
Speaker 2: you're going to see in your lifetime the US government
Speaker 2: shooting people on the border, like with machine guns, right
Speaker 2: if you if we don't stop this fucking now, that
Speaker 2: is that is what you are going to live to see.
Speaker 2: And it does not We don't. We don't have to,
Speaker 2: We don't have.
Speaker 1: To live in that world. But you have to act now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a great Like it's also within
Speaker 3: our power to like there is not a voting option,
Speaker 3: but there is always a mutual adoption at the border.
Speaker 3: And I know it bang on about this, but like,
Speaker 3: if you are within range of the border, you can
Speaker 3: go and help. If you're not, there are migrant communities
Speaker 3: in your city, in your town, who.
Speaker 1: Need your help.
Speaker 3: And like, the way we get through to our boomer
Speaker 3: uncles and Facebook ants and stuff is by showing them
Speaker 3: that migrants are people with stories who are just the
Speaker 3: same as you, and they just want a chance to
Speaker 3: raise their kids someone where they're not going to get
Speaker 3: fucking killed by a carb bomb.
Speaker 1: And that the more.
Speaker 3: Human interactions more people going to have with migrants, and
Speaker 3: the more stories we can tell that's center migrants as people,
Speaker 3: not as numbers or a tsunami or any of this
Speaker 3: dehumanizing rhetoric, like, the more likely we are to take
Speaker 3: the teeth out of this. And that's something that all
Speaker 3: of us can do.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, so that's a good thing to end on.
Speaker 1: And obviously by our storable foods. Go to pissing my
Speaker 1: Pants dry foods dot net and use promo code Robert
Speaker 1: Evans says, the apocalypse is coming. It's a very long
Speaker 1: promo code, but you will get Actually it increases the
Speaker 1: price by fifteen percent, but please do it anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we get more money. That's going to be it
Speaker 1: for us here and it could happen here until next time.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Go to sleep with dreams of a
Speaker 1: Jdam taking out Greg Abbott right in the Austin Capitol
Speaker 1: Building just bam baby. It won't happen, but it is
Speaker 1: a funny thing to think about.
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