Air Date 7/30/2024
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left Podcast. The Republican party is making it sound like they're trying to transform themselves into the party of working people. There's a mountain of evidence suggesting that you shouldn't believe them, but there's also plenty of reason to sit up and take notice of the situation.
Sources providing our Top Takes in under 45 minutes today include Democracy Now!, Deconstructed, Parallax Views, The Majority Report, The Thom Hartmann Program, and The Real News Network.
Then, in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on three topics:
Section A - the Teamsters speech and false populism.
Section B - pro-worker legislation.
Section C - J.D. Vance and the center-right.
“He’s a Fake” Robert Kuttner on How J.D. Vance Disguises His Anti-Worker Views as Economic Populism - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-16-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Tell us who J.D. Vance is and the significance of Donald Trump choosing him, who would be the youngest-ever vice president if he were to win, at the age of 39, the former marine and venture capitalist.[00:01:00]
ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, he’s a very dangerous fake. And his whole history, from writing Hillbilly Elegy to doing a 180-degree pivot from being a critic of Trump to being a loyalist to Trump, to pretending to be very favorable to working Americans, when in fact all of his votes have been the opposite, suggests both that he’s a fake, and he’s an attractive fake. He’s personally likable. I hate to say that. He’s an intellectual. He knows how to engage issues. He knows things that Trump is completely ignorant of. He’s young, whereas Trump is old. And when I wrote this piece yesterday morning, before Trump had made his selection, I wrote that if Trump is shrewd, he will name J.D. Vance, but I’m not sure [00:02:00] that Trump’s own narcissism will let him do that, because the risk for Trump is that Vance will upstage Trump.
And let me say a word or two about Hillbilly Elegy, because this was a classic case of bait-and-switch. So, the story is that he’s got a dysfunctional family, they move from southern Ohio to Kentucky, and supposedly the book is expressing great compassion for his kin and his neighbors, but the actual message of the book is that if you’re not doing well in Kentucky, it’s because of your own bad behavior. You’re taking too many drugs. You’re selling your food stamps. You’re not able to hold a job. You’re not doing right by your children. It’s the old conservative narrative that poverty is the fault of the poor. It’s all behavioral. It’s not structural. It’s not industry being outsourced or the coal mines closing. [00:03:00] No, it’s just your behavior is bad. \
The right-wing foundations invested in a guy called Charles Murray, who wrote a book in the ’80s called Losing Ground, which basically said that poverty is the fault of the War on Poverty, and poverty is the fault of the welfare system, and poverty is the fault of spoiling the poor. And in the review that I wrote of his book, I described Vance as “Charles Murray with a shiteating grin.” And when I met Vance at a conference the following year, he quoted that line back to me and engaged intellectually and was very self-reflective and thoughtful and likable. And I said to myself, “Uh-oh, this guy is really going to be trouble.”
And so, what they did last night, they repositioned the Republican Party as the party that’s pro-worker, even though this is complete nonsense. But because Vance [00:04:00] is so adept at these head fakes, and because he’s got this fake compelling life story, he’s the ideal guy to try and represent that. And they were so cynical, they even put Sean O’Brien on the program, who sort of threaded the needle between talking about what we needed to do to give unions a fighting chance, without quite mentioning that Biden was the one who was in favor of this, and it was the Republicans who were blocking this.
This is very clever on the part of Republicans to reposition themselves, at least for the purpose of the convention, and maybe for the campaign, from being the party of hatred to being the party that cares about workers. It’s nonsense, but Vance is a very good symbol of that. And that’s why he’s so dangerous.
Normally, it really doesn’t matter who the vice president is. You have to go all the way back to 1960 to point to a vice president, Lyndon Johnson, who really made a difference in an election [00:05:00] outcome—he helped Kennedy carry Texas and maybe won the election. But other than that, the vice president doesn’t matter very much. In this case, where you’ve got very closely fought races in Wisconsin and in Michigan and in Ohio—well, not Ohio, but Ohio where Sherrod Brown is concerned, anyway—and western Pennsylvania, Vance could actually make a difference.
The only silver lining—and I hate to call this a silver lining—is it makes it even more urgent for the Democrats to find somebody more effective than Biden who can beat these guys.
Trump, Vance, and the New Right at the RNC - Deconstructed - Air Date 7-19-24
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: So first of all, Emily, what would you call it. What is the name that people who are of the J.D. Vance variety prefer to call themselves? Or are there multiple names and we could pick from a couple?
EMILY JASHINSKY: As we're recording this, there was a new name, a powerful suggestion for a new name actually floated this morning by Saurabh Amari, who has been at the center of the discourse over what the new-right is, if there needs to be a new-right ever since he [00:06:00] wrote a viral article against David French, who was at the time a National Review columnist and has since been elevated to New York Times columnist, and said, "it's not the new-right, it's the new-center." And I find that very interesting because the new-right, I think, comes with a lot of cultural baggage. And I say that as somebody who's probably part of the cultural baggage, who's, staunchly anti-abortion and has deeply held conservative religious beliefs, and I think new-right has come with that.
And J.D. Vance is a convert to Catholicism. Like a lot of intellectuals in the right wing space are. He's a student of Rene Girard who is Peter Thiel's favorite philosopher and is big in those venture capitalists, Silicon Valley circles. So. What we saw from J.D. Vance at the convention, I think accurately describes as a new-center as opposed to a new-right, because when you attach Trump to the new-right, I think you [00:07:00] lose some of the cultural baggage.
And the new-right that just convened at the National Conservatism Conference a week before the Republican National Convention kicked off... and I also think the left should consider that because all of this fear mongering about it is missing that there are some genuinely interesting shifts on labor and on trade in these spaces, but perhaps it's incumbent on republicans and new-right movement people to figure out how to deal with that cultural baggage.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: From a marketing perspective, trying to claim the center is actually quite smart. I mean, most people out there who are not politics junkies tend to think of themselves as in the center, whether they are or not. They think "my views are the sensible ones." That's why they hold those views because they believe they are sensible. And the directions of left and right almost by their nature are self marginalizing. So that is an [00:08:00] interesting attempt to gather people around this new-center idea. but what is the new-center? What would you say are the things that characterize it, and how does it rank its hierarchy of issues that it cares about?
EMILY JASHINSKY: That reminds me, one thing I like about what we get to do, Ryan, is that right before I started taping with you, I was interviewing Kevin Roberts, who is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a friend of J.D. Vance's, and asking him about Project 2025. And I asked him about Sorobomari referring to the new-center instead of the new-right. And he said, basically, I don't like labels. Kevin Roberts is somebody who has spoken at NatCon and said, I'm not inviting you into the conservative movement. I'm here as the conservative movement to tell you, you are the conservative movement. I think he and J.D. Vance, now that J.D. Vance is firmly ensconced in Trump world, would describe it as mostly in terms of populist economics, but would also probably bring into it the parents right movement that sprung up after Covid. You should have the right to know what's being taught [00:09:00] in classrooms. They probably wouldn't frame it in the terms of you hear a lot about pornography and you hear a lot about, LGBT issues. They would probably say parental rights. Glenn Youngkin is being here at the RNC. Everyone's very excited about that. So I think that's how they would attach cultural issues to the suite of economic issues.
For example, the 10%. tariff, or I'm sorry, the 100 percent tariff, right? What's Trump on now? I was just reading his interview with Bloomberg, but they would talk about protectionism vis a vis China. They would talk about industrial policy when it comes to chips manufacturing. When it comes to the defense industry, they would talk about ending forever wars. Foreign policy is a huge component of the new-right. There are basically no supporters left of the Iraq war left anywhere, but even in the Republican party, I went back and looked at the speeches from the 2004 Republican convention just last night. It was all about the Iraq war.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: Oh, that whole thing was organized around "stay the course". That was Bush's entire argument, stay the course. [00:10:00] So where do the cultural issues that Republicans were rising on the last 10 20 years fit in, whether it's, trans issues, briefly you had this little reactionary move against marriage equality. Do those take something of a backseat there, despite the fact that Vance himself is a Catholic convert who, has a pretty strong personal views on abortion. Where do they fit in? is it more of an economic trade and foreign policy type of tendency, or is it married to the cultural stuff? How do we think about that? Do they want to put it in the backseat? Is it leading? What is the Positioning there?
EMILY JASHINSKY: I think that is the question that bubbled to the surface in the proverbial smoke filled back rooms this week when Donald Trump went full send and picked J.D. Vance as his Running mate and Vance wasn't someone who was at the top of the list. A lot of people expected Tim Scott or Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio was on the short list, but when he went with J.D. Vance, I think right now as [00:11:00] Trump is trying to figure out post assassination attempt, how to be a unifier, we've heard the word unity all the time at the RNC. What does that look like? Is that new-center or new-right? And that's why abortion has basically been absent from this RNC.
The trans issue has been front and center at the RNC, because Republicans feel like that is a real winning issue now, but you haven't heard a lot about pornography in schools. You haven't heard a lot about marriage. You haven't heard a lot about some of those really red-meat issues that even as they fell out of fashion with the broader public, were still very much in vogue with the Republican party.
The other huge component we're leaving out is immigration. That's big. And so right now, I think as we are speaking, people in the Republican party in the Trump circles are trying to figure out how to sell J.D. Vance's populism, and Trump's populism, honestly, as a unifying centrist message. And obviously there are some Pretty clear ways to do that. There's [00:12:00] a lot of consensus on immigration, but, being directionally opposed to the Biden immigration policy does not make you in favor of J.D. Vance's immigration policy, as it has been, articulated in the past.
So that I think is like literally in the process, like the sausage is being made right now as we're speaking.
JD Vance, Phony Populism on the Right, the Republican National Convention, and Democratic Party Messaging w_ Ben Burgis - Parallax Views - Air Date 7-22-24
BEN BURGIS: So what the PRO Act would basically do, most of it is just reversing some of the most egregiously anti-union parts of Taft Hartley. The existing structure of American labor law, as I'm sure most people are listening to this know, but just really quickly is just crazily tilted against workers trying to organize unions, go on strike, all that stuff. And when I say that, I don't just mean compared to my wishlist as a bright eyed socialist. Compared to Canada. Just compared to normal Western democracies, US labor law, graded on that curve, is tilted crazily against workers trying to [00:13:00] organize unions and go on strike and all that. You can have these captive audience meetings where workers , during their working hours, are required to go to meetings to be barraged with the anti-union propaganda, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure people know all this stuff.
So the PRO Act is just this very basic initiative to reverse some of the worst, most anti-worker part of existing American labor law, and the fact that Hawley and Vance and Rubio, these people won't even support that to me says everything. It's such a minimal standard. I saw that thing where J.D. Vance was giving his reasons for not supporting it.
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: I have it pulled up right here. I was going to ask you directly about it.
So Vance, this Saurabh again was the one to interview him about this. Vance says that he supports a regime of sectoral bargaining, like the ones that prevail in continental Europe, rather than shop-by-shop organizing bequeathed by the New Deal. He also noted that as it is the existing mainstream labor movement is [00:14:00] irreconcilably hostile to Republicans and that more trust building is needed before a comprehensive rapprochement can take place.
And that second part alone just says to me, this is just excuse making. If you want the Republicans to be more labor, they have to give something to labor, in order to get labor on their side, but they don't actually want to do that anyways. So to me, that's just excuse making, but go on.
BEN BURGIS: Yeah, totally. The second part really gives away the game.
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: And I'd say the same thing if some Democrats...
BEN BURGIS: Yeah, of course. The second part is just " they don't like us for some reason. We're not going to make it easier for them..."
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: I couldn't imagine why.
BEN BURGIS: Yeah, exactly. And then yeah, the first part, I think also
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: The sectoral bargaining stuff,
BEN BURGIS: it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously because I think it fits into a larger pattern with Vance, and this is a big part of what I was writing about in that 2022 article for The Daily Beast, which is that, Vance in particular, his party trick, is that he has really mastered the ability to come up with populist sounding ways to [00:15:00] concretely come down on the same side as the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
So my favorite example of this is when Vance was on Tucker Carlson's old show on Fox. He said that Medicare for All would be a giveaway to the professional class because the government would essentially be paying doctors. This is the perfect example of a J.D. Vance argument. You start to dig into it at all. It's nonsensical. It's Oh yeah. Weird then that the AMA doesn't support Medicare for all. I wonder why not. But in fact, doctor, salaries would probably go down a bit, if we had Medicare for all, which, I'm fine with, I think they're unusually high, by standards of comparable nations. If doctors could be making a bit less money and it would still be a very desirable career. If you paired it with free college, it would also be less of a big deal, but it's silly.
Oh, that's why you don't support Medicare for All, because you're just not willing to give anything to doctors because that's a middle class profession. There was another one where he described Universal free [00:16:00] daycare as class war against ordinary people on the grounds that there's polling where people who didn't have college degrees were more likely than people who did have college degrees to say the arrangement they would prefer most is one parent staying home with the kids while the other one works.
Although again, not even that dramatically, and I think not even an absolute majority, I think it was like 44 percent of non college people versus 35 percent of college graduates said that was their preferred arrangement. And of course, again, 10 seconds of thought should tell you that if the state is paying for daycare, that doesn't actually mean you have to take it. It just gives you more options. Nobody's going to come to your door and be like, "why hasn't your child reported to daycare? You're not allowed to stay home with them." But it's an excuse.
Again, he's coming up with a populist sounding reason to oppose giving people free daycare, and this is just the same thing that he's doing for the PRO Act, like with that first reason. He's saying "Oh, I don't like the PRO Act cause [00:17:00] I want to go even further." One, no, you don't. I see no reason to believe that you're serious about that. If a bunch of Democrats were out there pushing sectoral bargaining I don't believe for a second that, J.D. Vance would be on their side. And the reason I don't believe that is if he wanted to go even further, why wouldn't you support this? Because look, that's not normally how J.D. Vance decides his votes that it's like, "if it's less than the full thing that I want, I'm not going to support it." He supports all kinds of things that he thinks should go further. Every Senator does.
My last thought about this is just, I'm a little suspicious of if you do to believe for the sake of argument serious about this, I think any version of sectoral bargaining that J.D. Vance would support would likely suck. When you talk about sectoral bargaining in Nordic countries, for example, that's based on you having these incredibly strong industrial unions, that they're doing the bargaining. So I want to know who would be the representatives with the [00:18:00] workers' interests if he actually got this in this bargaining process, and if it's unions, then yeah...
None of this I think makes that much sense, but I think even trying to sort out the mechanics misses the point. The point is that he doesn't actually want to do anything that would upset Peter Thiel in policy terms, but at the same time, he wants to do his populist shtick even though anybody whose memory extends all the way back to 2016 knows how strange it is that he sounds like this now.
Teamster President’s RNC Both-Sides Pandering Fails Miserably - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-17-24
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: There's an easy litmus test as to whether they actually support unions, and that is things like voting for the PRO Act, which died because Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema, and then all the Republicans.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: 48 co sponsors in the Senate of the PRO Act. They were all from one party. 48 co sponsors all caucus with the Democrats in the Senate.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Also, in the American Rescue [00:19:00] Plan, Biden administration included $38 billion that saved the pensions of hundreds of thousands of Teamsters.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: 350,000
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Hundreds of thousands of Teamsters. And do you know how many of the Republicans voted for that? Zero.
But, we get stuff like this. So we'll do the bad stuff first. Here is O'Brien. Now. I get it. You get up there. You want to say things that will make the audience feel you're on their side. It's called getting in the circle of trust before you deliver some of the harder stuff.
There's two audiences for this. There's the people watching the Republican convention, and there's Teamsters who are getting their information from their president about how to perceive the different parties.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But it [00:20:00] is funny, speaking of the audience that's in front of him, to see how Republicans responded in the crowd. They didn't really know how to respond.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Here's the first part.
TEAMSTERS PRESIDENT: I know that no window or door should ever be permanently shut. In my administration, the Teamsters reached out to eight Republican senators who stood up for railroad teamsters over our fight for paid sick leave. Josh Hawley was one of them.
We started talking. Senator Hawley changed his position on national right to work. Then we started walking. Senator Hawley walked a Teamsters picket line in St. Louis and a UAW picket line in Wentzville, Missouri. More than that, I want to recognize Senator Hawley for his direct, relentless, and pointed questioning of corporate talking heads, [00:21:00] lawyers, CEOs, and apologists.
He has shown he is not willing to accept they're pillaging of working people's pocketbooks. I know from a career in negotiating that you get nowhere by slamming your fist on the table. The first step is to listen. The Teamsters and the GOP may not agree on many issues, but a growing group has shown the courage to sit down and consider points of view that are funded by big money think tanks.
Senators like J.D. Vance, Roger Marshall, and Representatives Nicole Malliotakis, Mike Lawler, and Brian Fitzpatrick are among elected officials who truly care about working people. [00:22:00] And this group is expanding and is putting fear into those who have monopolized our very broken system in America today.
There are far too many people on both sides of the aisle still caught up in knee jerk reactions to unions who subscribe to the same tired clap trap that unions destroy American companies. Take a moment to consider United Parcel Service.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it for a second. Alright. Aside from the fact that none of the people he mentioned, those senators, voted for anything, that was in any way pro-union. Nothing.
MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Hawley changes posture on right-to-work. That's the one thing he cited there.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: No vote. There was no voting to associate that, because there wasn't going to be.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: He did some performative questioning.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And we'll get to the, visiting the picket lines.
But the idea [00:23:00] that on both sides, there are still many people who have a knee-jerk reaction to unions. Is that true? Is that true on both sides? Okay, Joe Manchin, now is an independent. Kyrsten Sinema, now is an independent, not running for re election. Josh Gottheimer. Many people on both sides who are knee jerk against unions? No.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: No.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: No! That's just an undeniable fact. Do Democrats go as far as we would want them to? No. But, let's be clear, 48 co sponsors for the PRO Act. If Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema had co-sponsored that as well, we'd have the PRO Act. Jennifer Bruzio would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be appointed General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board under [00:24:00] a Republican, administration.
She would never, ever, ever, ever get past a Republican Senate. I'm sorry, this type of both-sidesism is just factually wrong. Now, I know that O'Brien goes to Donald Trump and makes a deal with him. When they had that meeting, whatever it was a month or 2 ago, and the deal was, you got to help us with Amazon. That's what it was. Is Donald Trump going to follow through?
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Who knows?
MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, that's the tough thing. The immediate situation is, you said the election's close, O'Brien might be betting that Biden's lost. So what do you do as a union leader at that point is try to prepare for being under the worst case conditions.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: You got to protect your members.
MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Exactly. And like we talked about with Lainey Newman, Theda Scotchpaul, the book Rust Belt Union Blues, these unions, especially the folks who don't go into [00:25:00] them with college educations, are increasingly moving to the right. Now, I don't know if that justifies what O'Brien's doing here, but it is something in the political role that union leaders, it's something that they have to face and it's something to deal with.
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, it's fascinating because I was talking to somebody who's, husband is an electrician and is in a union and his perception was that, he votes however the union tells him to vote and he was sad to see potentially Joe Biden step aside because he's been the most union president in his lifetime, he was saying, in the lifetime, before that as well. And that's undoubtedly the case, which is what makes this an odd decision here by Sean O'Brien, to say the least is because Biden. For all of his flaws has actually delivered on this front. whether it be through being, more aggressive and cracking down on union busting, whether it be through CEMEX, that rule that, makes it much easier for union elections to be held without there being, management or corporate [00:26:00] crackdowns that would be illegal under a Republican administration or even under Obama or Clinton.
In the past, perhaps you could have made this case more. I still would have been against it and disagreed, but it would have been a little bit more salient to say that there were issues on both sides. But the Democratic Party under Biden has, and I think it's probably the strongest feature of his administration, decided to be more pro-labor in both action and in rhetoric.
Why Hiking Tariffs Actually Protects Americans - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 5-14-24
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: This is amazing. As you know, those of you who have listened to the program over the last 21 years, I am a big advocate of protectionism, of economic protectionism, of tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade. I think America, but I think generally this is true of every country in the world, countries should be able to stand on their own two feet. If China cut us off tomorrow, we would be in a world of hurt. Every Walmart in America would be empty in a week. You wouldn't be able to buy half, literally, three quarters of the stuff that we buy right now, if China [00:27:00] cut us off. And China's threatening a war with us over Taiwan.
Anyhow, Joe Biden just slapped a 100 percent tariff on Chinese made cars, electric vehicles. Why? Because they're made with slave labor, they're heavily subsidized by the Chinese market. China's only capable of selling right now around 20 to 23 million electric cars a year in their own domestic market. But they're manufacturing over 30 million. Because, they're following Alexander Hamilton's advice to George Washington—become an exporting powerhouse.
Before Ronald Reagan came into office and imposed neoliberalism on America, we sold things all over the world. American toasters, American televisions, American computers, American cars, American clothing. They were sold in Europe. They were sold in Africa. They were sold in Asia. They were sold in South and Central America, Australia. All over the world american goods were the pinnacle, the best you could get. [00:28:00] And then, Reagan with the general agreement on tariffs and trade, and then George Herbert Walker Bush negotiating NAFTA, which then Bill Clinton signed into law. The three of them basically just blew a hole in American manufacturing. 20,000 factories moved to China and Mexico. Excuse me, 15,000 factories, 20 million jobs.
So anyhow, Biden is doing something about this. 100 percent tariff on the cars. He raised the tariff on lithium batteries from 7.5 to 25 percent, from 0 to 25 percent on critical minerals, from 25 to 50 percent on solar cells, and from 25 to 50 percent on semiconductors. On aluminum, steel, and personal protective equipment, the tariffs went from 0 to 25 percent. I see this as a good thing.
The citizen's trade campaign released this notice. "These tariff increases will help prevent cheap imports, which are all too often made with forced [00:29:00] labor, sweatshop labor, or under other unfair conditions from undercutting quality jobs and sustainable development at home and around the world. Diverse supply chains are critical to a rapid clean energy transition. As such, the Biden administration's latest efforts to fight the monopolization of clean energy technologies," by China "is the right move for working people and the planet. Allowing any single country or region to dominate the production of clean energies like EVs, batteries, and solars will eventually lead to higher prices, increased supply chain disruptions, stifled innovation, and a fracturing of the coalitions we need for ambitious climate action."
And basically Joe Biden is doing it. He's doing it.
Sean O'Brien faces criticism from Teamsters Vice President for RNC appearance - The Real News Network - Air Date 7-19-24
MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: Now, I really don’t want to ask you to try to speak for everyone here—you guys are a big union with a lot of members—but what can you tell us about how the union is reacting right now?
JOHN PALMER: Well, in large part, the bubble of people that I speak to are very upset about this. People that are dialed [00:30:00] in — you don’t have to be an official, either. If you’re a job steward, working, you understand what happened during the Trump administration. Some of your rights as a job steward were stripped away by the board. You see the effects of this. Anybody that’s had to deal with the Labor Board knows how difficult it is.
What we need in this country, and you alluded to it, we’ve got two parties, and there’s issues with both of them. And I understand, we’re stuck with a two-party system, which I frankly think is problematic, because they’re owned by corporate America. There is a stark difference in the two parties, but change is going to come. Unions are agents for change, and that’s the very reason that we shouldn’t be doing this.
My position has been, as a veteran, as my dad is [00:31:00] a retired first sergeant , and every male member in my family served in the military. Everybody has the right to vote. People died that we might have that right. But as a labor leader, both on the international and local levels, I think it’s our responsibility to garner the facts and relate that to our members.
Now, people are going to do what they’re going to do, but if we fail to educate and inform people as to why it’s harmful to support Donald Trump and the Republicans as they are currently made up, that’s our fault, and we’re failing ourselves and our members. I think that’s where we’ve really failed.
We’re career politicians. Many of my peers on that executive board draw multiple salaries. They live a very good life. [00:32:00] Most of them are, frankly, removed from the life of, let’s say, someone at a meat packing plant in Colorado who’s exposed to all kinds of hazards, and contaminants. You can only imagine, I’ve seen that work.
Now, those folks aren’t making $300,000 a year. Those folks are probably making $50,000, $60,000 a year. They need our help. And they don’t need a party coming to power that’s made it clear in their Project, 2025 writings that the plan is to weaken labor unions and create faux unions in the workplace.
We’re just now making gains in getting on top of wages outstripping inflation. And that’s because the last few years, labor unions, including my own, have done a nice job of winning wages. But [00:33:00] we’ve got a long ways to go, and if they destroy the unions, and without unions, there’s nobody to pull the safety standards and the wage standards. And we all want to live that middle-class lifestyle.
MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: I want to pick up on that point you made about educating your members, about what this is all really about beyond the surface level stuff. Because that’s all I’m seeing on mainstream media, and I’ve been watching it obsessively. It’s my job, which sucks, but every time I turn on the TV, so many mainstream media pundits and politicians out there, they keep talking about this election, and electoral politics in general, but this election specifically, as if it’s all just a matter of people with differing opinions campaigning passionately for different visions for the country’s future. But they never really talk [00:34:00] about what the real world consequences will be if and when these opinions become policy.
So let’s bring this down to the shop floor level, here. What would a second Trump presidency mean for your members and for working people in general on a real, tangible day-to-day level?
JOHN PALMER: Well, for one thing, I know that Sean was impressed with the election denier J.D. Vance and the insurrectionist Josh Hawley and their commitment to not supporting right-to-work legislation. First of all, I don’t know of any time that I’ve watched Donald Trump tell the truth, literally, and I don’t know of any time in my working career as a Teamster that the Republican Party did anything that would benefit labor. That goes all the way back to [00:35:00] Reagan, union busting, firing the air traffic controllers. So those are really emblematic of who we’re dealing with. You learn people after a while. I’m 65 years old, and I know who to trust and who not to trust. And there’s no reason to trust these folks. Based on their past behaviors, I would expect that first of all, right-to-work, unless something odd happens, I think it takes 60 votes in the Senate to get it. So that’s not our biggest issue.
Our biggest issue is getting rid of career people that do good work in places like the EPA, the DOL, the DOT, the National Labor Relations Board, all these places that are backstops for working men and women, [00:36:00] safe, clean drinking water. And then replacing them with lackeys, political lackeys, and people without any... … What was the guy from Bush’s administration, a horse judge or something that did the Hurricane Katrina relief thing? We might’ve learned something from that, I hope, but it’s really important that most of these people, like the people in our building at the International Union, these are career people that are there because they want to do a good job and they really don’t want to get caught in the politics.
But these are dangerous precedents, and they’ve made it clear what they want to do. It’s 900 pages, Project 2025. But if you just step back, and there’s plenty of places to summarize it, quoting much of the language. If you’ll read this, it will tell you what they intend to do.
And card check, [00:37:00] we should be getting card check neutrality, where, in many countries, if you get enough cards to sign workers up, they’re in the union. You sign a card, that’s part of your election process. And now they get beat up from us by a union buster. This union busting’s not going to stop. It’s only going to get more intense. And our rights are going to be more difficult to maintain in the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act. By the way, you mentioned the rail strike, and that’s a very different venue, the National Mediation Board. The processes are very different. It’s very hard to get the right to strike. And that’s not fair to these workers. If people understood what they were really fighting for, they would sympathize with them.
And there we go. We should be educating the public about all the things that go on. So I don’t see anything historically that would give me any [00:38:00] confidence in these people as truth tellers and as advocates for labor. I mean, that’s just not the Party.
Final comments on the shifting political epoch toward pro-worker policies we're witnessing
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Democracy Now! discussing J.D. Vance and his claims to be pro-worker. Deconstructed looked at the concept of the new-center marketing term the right is trying to occupy. Parallax Views debunked the false populism of the right. The Majority Report broke down the speech given by the president of the Teamsters at the RNC. The Thom Hartmann Program laid out some of the ways Biden and Democrats have been delivering for working people. And The Real News Network interviewed the vice president of the Teamsters giving his perspective on the president speaking at the RNC. And those were just the top takes there's a lot more in the deeper dive section.
But, before we continue on I want to talk about what I think may be an epoch shifting moment we're living through regarding political party stances on economics, going all the way back from the New Deal Through neoliberalism and [00:39:00] now maybe to something beyond To start, I would say that any criticism of republicans for being insincere in their interest in promoting more pro-worker policies that's based on a perceived notion that they could never change may end up being right but for the wrong reasons. The fact is that political parties can and do change, and in fact, we should be hoping that both parties are in the middle of a shift toward pro-worker policies right now.
For evidence of this possibility of change, this from progressive commentator Jim Hightower.
Let's adopt the GOP's national platform - Jim Hightower - Air Date- 3-6-13
JIM HIGHTOWER - HOST, JIM HIGHTOWER RADIO: Well now, here's some unexpected news. It comes from what purports to be an official document of the National Republican Party. And wow, the policy positions it contains show that the party leaders really are serious about coming to their senses and rejecting the plutocratic extremism and far right wackiness that has stained their recent presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial campaigns.
Right at the [00:40:00] top, this 18 page manifesto proclaims that "our government was created by the people for all the people, and it must serve no less a purpose." All the people. Forget last year's ridiculous pontifications by Mitt Romney and others dividing America into virtuous creators, like themselves, and worthless moochers, like you and me. This document abounds with commitments to the common good. "America does not prosper," it proudly proclaims on page 3, "unless all Americans prosper." Shazam! That's downright democratic! And how's this for a complete turnaround? "Labor is the United States. The men and women who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country, they are America." Holy Koch brothers share the wealth?
Yes, and how about this? "The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Republican [00:41:00] Party." Eat your heart out, Scott Walker, and you other labor bashing GOP governors. The document also supports the Postal Service, the United Nations, equal rights for women, expanding our national parks, vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws, and raising the minimum wage.
New Enlightenment in the Grand Old Party! Hallelujah! This is Jim Hightower saying, Can all this be true? Yes, except it's not new. This document is the Republican Party Platform of 1956.
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now, I would argue that even back in 1956, Democrats were still the party of the working people, carrying on the tradition of FDR and the New Deal, while the GOP, influenced by the overwhelming popularity of those policies, we're willing to give lip service to unions and workers, maybe even feeling it somewhat genuinely, but never following through to the same degree as Democrats did.
For the past several decades, since the Reagan revolution, [00:42:00] the GOP stopped bothering to give lip service to workers and went all in on union busting and showering the rich with tax cuts, all while calling them job creators. That dynamic is what allowed Democrats to get away with only giving lip service to workers and unions while not really delivering all that much in the past few decades. Ever since Clinton, they've needed to keep good relationships with Wall Street and Silicon Valley to balance out the massive corporate fundraising the GOP is capable of from all the fossil fuel companies and every other anti-union business out there.
With the GOP pivoting to at least giving lip service to workers, Even though they will almost certainly not deliver on any of those promises, it puts pressure on Democrats to actually deliver, which they have just begun to do anyway. That, in the big picture, is a good thing. It'll definitely be a good thing for working people, but it may even be a good thing for the Democratic Party to regain some legitimacy in the minds of people [00:43:00] who have thought, for good reason, that Democrats have been more focused on pleasing their big donors than working people recently.
I would say that the Democratic lip service reached its peak when Barack Obama said, during his first campaign for president, if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States." And that was proven to be only lip service when the opportunity came and he did not show up.
However, I would also say that sometimes lip service and broken promises may lay the groundwork for actual progress in the future. Joe Biden did become the first president to stand with workers on the picket line when he stood with the United Auto Workers, and there's actually been policy to back that up during his term.
Without getting swamped in details, here's one headline "Biden’s labor report card: Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR". [00:44:00] And the sub headline is, "President Joe Biden came into the White House intent on being 'the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.' Four years later, he has shown a lot of progress."
it hasn't been a spotless record to be sure, but i'll take that as a win and not just a win But a move in the right direction that we should expect and demand to continue That article points out that every president is limited by the context in which they are governing, they didn't just fall out of a coconut tree after all, and that Biden has been blessed with the most pro-union sentiment in decades—now it's at about seven in ten americans supporting unions generally—has helped in making the progress that he's been able to make. That has been the wind at his back, while at the same time Primarily GOP appointed courts have been ruling against unions. The article concludes quite rightly, "Historically, U. S. judges have had [00:45:00] at least as much say in determining labor rights as presidents." So, it's not just about who we put in office, it's about who sits on the bench.
So, the MAGA Supreme Court we have right now doesn't bode well for workers, but since we know the conservative justices are really just political hacks, that's all the more reason to hope that the sentiment among Republicans starts shifting back to being pro-worker, even if what they have to say about it is just pablum.
One last thing, though. If you do a search right now about how the Republicans of the 1950s really felt about economics, unions, and workers, it's not terribly easy to find. The reason is that those keywords will instead bring up all of the stories about how modern Republicans longed to return the country back to the 1950s.
Now, for those of us who know, we know that the big part of that, even if unconsciously, is envisioning a world in which women and people of color knew their places in the gender and racial caste system of the [00:46:00] country. But I think we'd be wrong to not also recognize that what they're longing for is actually the same thing people on the left have been longing for, an environment of political policies that empowers workers enough to demand wages in line with their productivity. I mean, that's not how they would say it, but the end result of those policies is what gave the 50s that glow that people long for.
And it was during the Reagan years that that connection between wages and productivity was broken. Before that, productivity and wages went up in basically parallel lines. After Reagan, productivity continued to climb, but wages flattened out. And then you add the globalization that kicked off in the 90s, and a realignment of the Democratic Party, and Influenced again, just like how Republicans were influenced by FDR, Democrats were influenced by Reagan and they ended up picking up the mantle of neoliberalism and converted into a party that only managed to give lip service to workers without much to back it up. [00:47:00] You take all of that and you've got a perfect recipe for widespread precarity and nervousness about economic insecurity.
That's where we are right now, and it's no wonder that people would look back to the 1950s and see an economic landscape worth longing for. It needs to be the job of the left to lean into this titanic shift in sentiment toward working people that we're experiencing right now and actually deliver on the kind of economic populism that people are starving for, all while leaving the white supremacy and patriarchy of the 1950s in the trash heap of history where it belongs.
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SECTION A: TEAMSTER SPEECH AND FALSE POPULISM
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we'll continue with deeper dives on three topics. Up next, Section A, the Teamsters Speech and False Populism. Section B, pro-worker Legislation. And Section C, J.D. Vance and the Center Right.
JD Vance, Phony Populism on the Right, the Republican National Convention, and Democratic Party Messaging w Ben Burgis Part 2 - Parallax Views - Air Date 7-22-24
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: That's, uh, one of the big things that I've been thinking about a lot lately with, this is with regards to, uh, Democratic messaging, you know, a lot of Democrats are talking more and more about, um, Project 2025, the, you know, the Heritage Foundation, short of [00:49:00] agenda lists that they have, uh, for when Trump gets into office, and then Trump has, I think, Agenda 47, which is similar, but he's tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but what I find interesting is if you read Project 2025.
And I know Sarabha Mari, who I don't always agree with, uh, has pointed this out, but if you look at that heritage foundation wishlist, a lot of it's like deeply libertarian stuff, you know, it's all about getting rid of OSHA, hurting the workers, you know, letting, you know, companies do whatever they want, corporations do whatever they want, getting rid of like, Water safety.
They want, you know, it's, it's just insane, but that's not what anyone's talking about when it comes to the conservative agenda. I mean, I think we should be talking about immigration and, um, you know, LGBTQ rights, uh, abortion, but I also wish more people would talk about like justice clearance. Thomas just said he wants to get rid of OSHA.
You know, um, I wish more people would talk about the project 2025 stuff [00:50:00] about that would affect, um, you know, trying to. Deal with the forever chemicals problem because there's been a scientific American article on that and it feels like we're not really talking about what a Trump term would mean both for, uh, you know, just consumers and also workers.
Do you think that's an issue that Democrats should maybe, um, push on more, especially in light of the main topic we're going to be covering, which is the phony economic populism of J.D. Vance. Sorry if that was long winded. No,
BEN BURGIS: no, no. That was great. I absolutely, I mean, yes, the answer is yes. I think that it's, uh, it's crazy to me that.
They are kind of allowed to, um, change the subject as much as they are away from all of this, because, um, you know, Every issue that you mentioned is, is important. Uh, I, I would, you know, I think that, [00:51:00] um, you know, it's like, certainly it's terrible that, um, you know, that, that, that. Justices that Trump appointed, you know, essentially, you know, robbed women and, you know, many states of, you know, bodily autonomy, uh, during, uh, during, during pregnancy.
That's disgusting. Uh, but, you know, they, they're sort of, you know, on a strategic level, if you think about this, um, That I think that the I think that the stuff that you're talking about is is actually where Republicans are the most vulnerable because people kind of know that they're that they're anti abortion.
And in fact, I think Trump has has had, you know, in his sort of usual way. Uh, you know, he has this kind of good animal instincts, uh, to, uh, to, to sort of veer away from that a bit, right? Like he, um, [00:52:00] uh, you know, he actually really did this, like, sort of in a way, I mean, I guess, you know, it was kind of funny.
But like he, he did this sort of very Stalinist, uh, dictating of the RNC platform, you know, usually there'd be like a platform committee that would like, you know, that would like wrangle over all these different provisions and stuff. And he essentially said, now here are some thoughts I had in the shower.
This is the RNC platform, no discussion. And you know, everybody just kind of fell into line. Uh, and it really does read like that, like one of them is we should have a giant missile dome over the entire country and all, you know, made in America and it's like all caps. And, um, and, and in that, right, he, uh, he, he veers away from talking about abortion.
Uh, he, he, he very pointedly does not include a national abortion ban, uh, which, you know, I think he realizes would, would kill him in the election. He. Um, he's like, [00:53:00] yep, I did my job. It's up to the states. Uh, he veers away from saying that he wants to take away a gay marriage. Uh, the, he just has like, uh, the only sort of bone to the social conservatives is like, uh, this very ambiguous phrase about believing in the sanctity of marriage, but you know, which marriages?
is left, you know, is left open. But, you know, certainly like, you know, trans stuff, I could, I could definitely imagine very easily a, you know, a second Trump administration finding some ways to, to be really performatively cruel about that. But again, I think people kind of know that, whereas I think, you know, That they are like, for
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: instance, real quick, I just wanted to get this out there because I've been wanting to mention it.
So I have this scientific American art club project, 2025 plan for Trump presidency has far reaching threats to science and buried halfway in it. Is the project 2025 recommendations would also limit what is considered a pollutant or a hazardous chemical in particular, they make the call to [00:54:00] quote revisit the designation of PFAS.
Those air uh, the forever chemicals that people were talking about. Um, like this affects our drinking water, man. Like, and I just, I don't hear people talking about that, uh, or the OSHA stuff. And that's. I'm just frustrated that that's not because that affects everyone. So I think you can pull swing bars, you know, or whatever.
BEN BURGIS: Absolutely. I mean, this is the thing. And this is the kind of thing that we should actually be very confident that Trump is going to do. Right. So, yeah, because
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: it's
BEN BURGIS: deregulation.
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: It's the deregulation agenda. Yeah.
BEN BURGIS: Yeah, exactly. Right. Because this is like anything. You know, like anything that's about like stuff that he might do now that he's like promising to do now that he didn't do before.
It's kind of anybody's guess how serious he is about it, you know, this time around. But also Trump was president for four years already. Everybody seems to have sort of forgotten that. And, and we [00:55:00] know what he would do. Cause he, he did it right. And, uh, the, the first four years of Trump were this like nonstop orgy of, you know, deregulation, union busting, uh, you know, tax cuts for rich people.
He did, uh, Uh, I mean, like, I remember in, like, December 2020, seeing this New York Times piece about how there were these Trump officials who were sort of taking the opportunity of their last weeks in office to weaken safety regulations for long distance trucking, right? So it's like, yeah. Undermine workplace safety undermine, you know, environmental protection, make it easier for companies to poison the air and water.
I mean, like, that's the kind of stuff that it's like, that's just the given. That's the baseline.
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: Did you hear what just happened where I'm at in Florida? What happened back in April? What happened? Ron DeSantis, uh, got rid of, um, Any possibility of having like water breaks based based on municipalities. Oh yeah.
I remember when this was first coming up. Yeah. Yeah. [00:56:00] They're prohibiting municipalities from like forcing companies to allow for water breaks and shading for, uh, Oh, my lights just went out. Anyways, uh, they're, they're, uh, prohibiting municipalities from forcing corporations to, you know, allow water breaks, uh, shading.
It's like there's no, it's like contempt for workers that have, you know, uh, risks associated with heat exposure. Just, none of that matters. It's all just being ignored. They don't care about, like, the risks of heat exposure that some people have, no accommodations being made, and I mean, to me, this kind of thing is like, I mean, it's horrible, and if DeSantis is doing that, and if that's the agenda here in Florida, I mean, I think we know what the Republican agenda is nationwide.
Teamster President’s RNC Both-Sides Pandering Fails Miserably Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-17-24
TEAMSTERS PRESIDENT: We need meaningful bankruptcy reform. Today, corporate vultures buy up companies like Yellow Freight with the [00:57:00] intent of driving them into bankruptcy and feasting on their remains. The courts leave workers begging for crumbs as third tier creditors.
Labor law must be reformed. Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions And hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people, but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best. An individual cannot withstand such an assault.
A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays, and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker. We need corporate Pause it for a second.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Now, now. Okay. He thinks he's at a democratic convention because that's where you would hear the screams. He's sitting there knowing full well there will not be a single [00:58:00] solitary even attempt to increase or reform labor laws in this country in a way that is positive.
For unions under a Republican administration, not, not in two years, not in four years, not in five years, not in 10 years, probably not in 20, maybe, maybe long after I'm dead. But it's just not happening. And he knows that. And he stopped for a moment anticipating an applause line and it's just some scattered stuff going like people.
What the fuck is he talking about? Hopefully we just get some votes in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. Go ahead.
TEAMSTERS PRESIDENT: This is for the company, Only the Worker. We need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ.
[00:59:00] These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country of corporations, and this is real corruption. We must put workers first.
What could be more important to the security of our nation than a long term investment in the American worker?
In 2021, Teamsters Nationwide elected me to fight for them, and that's precisely what I'm doing. Thank you. Something is wrong in this country and we need to say it out loud. I will always speak for America and the American worker, both union and non union.[01:00:00]
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Okay. Um, I mean, fun that this is being said, uh, in a Republican, uh, convention. uh, chance that down the road this plants a seed and some of these people realize like, oh, I'm supporting a party that is completely against just about everything he said. And maybe in the event that Trump wins, it helps with, uh, he helps with, uh, Amazon organizing.
But if it costs 5, 000 votes, 10, 000 votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That may be a problem and let's just be clear again. Billions nearly 40 billion dollars saving the pensions of over [01:01:00] 350, 000 Teamsters
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: by Biden
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: by buying the
EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Democrats. Yeah, there also is this myth. I think we talked about it like there are a lot of white working class people that support Trump.
That is a big part of his base. But the Washington Post did an analysis in 2016 that below the national median income in terms of white voters, yes, 58 percent, uh, support Donald Trump, um, but in terms of above the median, it's also 60, 65 percent in terms of percentage of, um, white voters who support Donald Trump.
So there is some, a good amount of working class support for Donald Trump. The people that stormed the Capitol, too, that were coming in on flights and things like that, they were business owners. They owned a pool cleaning company in their local town. They are, above the median income level, business owners with concerns related to that.
So it's just a bit of a different constituency and, uh, [01:02:00] than is sometimes always portrayed in, like, the media that was, in the wake of 2016, talking about how J.D. Vance is the whisperer to understanding this particular class.
Responding to Tim Scott & J.D. Vance on Poverty - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-16-24
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: So would it be right to say that you're trying to expand the definition of who is poor in America to many people who might be generally referred to in the media as white working class?
REV. DR. WILLIAM BARBER: Exactly. Because that is one of the misdirection. I've been thinking a lot about how extremists, uh, and, uh, persons who call themselves conservative.
I really don't think that's a good thing. Good title, but certain politicians, whether it be J.D. Vance or, or, uh, Tim Scott, and they will say working class Americans and, but what they don't want to deal with is the 52 to 55 million of those working Americans make less than a living wage because the minimum wage is only 7.
[01:03:00] 25 an hour. And so they are working poor, they are low wage workers, and any of the best economists in this country will tell you, you have to measure that to talk about poverty, to deal with it, uh, and, and, and, and look at who else would be extremely poor if we did not have certain things, uh, supplemented.
I mean, in this country, the way we do our military spending, you have persons who have been in the military. And serve this country, who then have to go on food stamps. You just think about that for a second. They have to end up on food stamps. During COVID, we called people essential workers, but then treated them like they were expendable.
So you're essential, but we're not going to pay you a living wage. We're essential, but we're not going to guarantee you health care. Or we may guarantee to give you some Medicaid expansion during the high times of COVID, but as soon as it's over, we're taking that back. We may give you some child [01:04:00] tax credit and reduce child poverty by 60%, But as soon as we see that there's some ending of COVID, we're taking that back as well.
What we're saying is expand understanding of poverty and low wages. And we're saying you have to look at race and poverty, uh, not either or, but both. And this is not a way to dismiss dealing with the issue of systemic racism and policy racism, but as a moral leader, as religious leader, uh, servant leader, I cannot.
Go to Appalachia and East Kentucky and visit, say, white coal miners in East Kentucky, some of whom I've known who have died since we've been in this movement, who have watched politicians allowed their coal mines to be taken over by multinational companies. And, and do away with their union rights. Uh, I can't go in those areas and then ignore that, and we can't ignore it in [01:05:00] America either.
And when Dr. King, who actually started the Poor People's Campaign because of welfare rights, women came to him, and they were black, and they were white, and they were women of all different geographies and races, and they said, Poverty has to be listed as one of the three evils. We suggest today that systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, denial of health care, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism have to be seen as the five interlocking injustices that requires a multiracial movement to address them.
And the first thing we have to do. And stop lying about the reality of poverty in this country and deal with these facts. Over 135 to 40 million people are poor. Low wage poverty kills 800 people a day, 295,000 people a year. There are over 87 million people, either uninsured or [01:06:00] underinsured. There are millions of people every morning can get up.
And buy unleaded gas and can't buy unleaded water. And these are some of the realities that exist in this country that do not have to exist. And we could really be talking about abolishing poverty, not just adjusting poverty.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And to get explicitly to what we heard at the Republican convention last night in the clip we played from Senator Tim Scott, uh, I guess you've already indicated that You, uh, who came to prominence in North Carolina and Senator Scott from South Carolina have somewhat different takes on racism in America or the role of government and politics in lifting people out of poverty.
Where would you start?
REV. DR. WILLIAM BARBER: Well, there's so much there. And, uh, you know, Tim Scott is an interesting, uh, person. Uh, he, he loves to talk about poverty. Being raised poor and being black, he even has talked about how he believes in the ideas of Dr. King. And the [01:07:00] thing we have to learn, though, in where these politics have learned misdirection is to unpack what they're saying.
Now, for instance, we had heard that they weren't going to be divisive. Well, what he just said was very divisive. And not only is it divisive, it's not true. It's just a lot of persons who have needed to be lifted up. Uh, through certain social uplift programs are not engaged in victimhood. They are trying to survive.
We live in a country that gives more corporate welfare to corporations than we ever have given to poor people who, who, who merely need some food stamps just so they can survive. I've met white women in Appalachia. Who work low wage jobs, who, who have to sell tacos on the side of the road during the course of the week in order to put a fund together to support one another during the course of the month.
That's not victimhood. Those are people that are victims of [01:08:00] policies because there's, they're senators in that same state and in that same, uh, or Congress. People like Tim Scott. On the one hand, tell people to vote hard, but Tim Scott voted against living wages. He voted against raising the minimum wage to a living wage of at least 15 an hour indexed with inflation, which would, which in 1963 at the March on Washtenaw, remember Dr.
King and all of the folk that gathered there, they wanted to raise the minimum wage to 2 an hour indexed with inflation, which if they had. The minimum wage would be about 17, 18 an hour today. So, what he's saying is, is such a mismatch of, of, of, he needs to be fact checked. The reality needs to be fact checked.
The programs that were put in place, uh, that help lift people up, like food stamps, like, uh, Public housing, uh, have actually, uh, reduced poverty or at least reduced abject [01:09:00] poverty in some major ways when we, when social security was put in place, it reduced our white poverty, you know, by a large, large percentage.
And you think about people like Tim Scott when they see things like, even like social security, they see that as social welfare program as rather than a nation being responsible, he comes from the south, but one third of all poor people live in the south. One third of all poor white people live in the south and you don't hear him in any way.
Talking about limited wages and union rights, and he's talking about cutting public education and not funding public education. So just because he happens to be black and stands up in an audience and says, Uh, America is not a racist country, you know, that's wordsmithing. America is It's like America as a country, the whole country is not racist, but there is plenty of evidence of policy racism, whether you look at it in terms of housing, whether you look at it in terms of [01:10:00] inequity, uh, in, in, in, in, in wages and equity in, uh, the way in which environmental injustices impact community, but even beyond that, yeah.
Beyond that, this is what I want to say to Tim Scott, you know, you get up and say that in an audience to get them applauded, but you're also dismissing the millions of white people, the hundreds of thousands of white people in your own state, who are the majority of the persons that benefit from what you call welfare.
And the fact of the matter that he would racialize poverty is again one of those mythologies that we live in and then would suggest that his mama taught him to not be a victim. But I would bet you if they were poor and you go back and really fact check his history. They benefited from government programs in some way or another to help them make it through life and to get where they [01:11:00] are.
SECTION B: PRO-WORKER LEGISLATION
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B: Pro-worker legislation.
Surprising Reason West Virginia May Vote Blue In November w Troy Miller - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 7-25-24
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: My old friend, Troy Miller. Troy has edited several of my books. He was a producer for our television program for years and years. Uh, he's, he worked in our studio. He worked on this radio show. He's a great guy. All of us love him and he lives in West Virginia. That's where he's from. And, uh, he's a DNC delegate and a DN a member of the DNC platform committee.
And he also writes about, uh, West Virginia politics on his Substack, which is BlueRidgeBreakdown. Substack. com. Troy, welcome back to the program. It's been on Troy for West Virginia Day uh, Troy, F O R W V. com. Um, that's your, uh, campaign site, right, Troy?
TROY MILLER: That is my campaign site. I am also running, on top of all those things you listed, I'm also running for West Virginia House of Delegates here in District 98, which is our lower chamber, hundred district, single member districts.
And, um, we have a real chance to win this race for the first time and flip this seat for the first time in a decade, along with a [01:12:00] couple of other seats neighboring me. So it's a, it's a really exciting time to be a Democrat here in West Virginia. And, uh, it's a really exciting time to be a Democrat in, in the United States, I think.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. So,
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: so, uh, you just, you just had some significant influence, I believe, on your, uh, state party. You just, uh, came out, your state convention just finished. You guys came up with a pretty good platform.
TROY MILLER: We came up with a really good platform. Um, one of the things that really stands out from other platforms is it is designed as a slide deck.
It's uh, more like a powerpoint than anything else. Because we intended for um, people to be able to, party leaders to be able to use that in their counties to get people involved because I think one of the Things that, as Democrats, especially in rural areas, we've lost is sort of that, um, key thrust of who we are and what we're fighting for.
And one of the central things that we got, um, into our platform and started as a resolution with our executive committee last year, which was [01:13:00] reaffirmed again this year by the broader convention, and now formally codified into our platform, is the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights that Professor Harvey Allen Kaye and Alan Minsky, um, First sort of proposed as a unifying, a document based on FDR's 1944 second Bill of Rights or economic Bill of Rights, and it includes 10 very straightforward universal Um, uh, rights that we are aiming to secure and, um, those are the right to a job and a living wage, the right to a voice in the workplace through a union and collective bargaining, uh, the right to comprehensive quality healthcare, the right to a complete cost free public education and access to broadband internet, the right to decent, safe, affordable housing, the right to a clean environment and a healthy planet.
The right to meaningful resources at birth and a secure retirement. The right to sound banking and financial services. The right to an equitable and economically fair justice system. And the right to vote and otherwise participate in public life. And that's not the [01:14:00] entirety of the platform, although I personally think it is.
Um, I think when you look at our platform and what is being drafted and will be proposed for the DNC's platform, even though this language is not formally codified in that national level, we'll keep and continue working on that, is that pretty much everything we're fighting for falls under one of these categories.
That is great. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: You and I are both going to be at the DNC, and we just have a minute and a half here. You and I are going to both be at the DNC, and I'm hoping you can drop by the show and keep us up to date, but you're on the platform committee. Do you have any insights? I mean, have you heard anything from your colleagues, your fellow delegates to the convention, about who the vice president might be, or what's going on, or what the process is going to be, or when we might even hear?
TROY MILLER: You know, that is still, um There's a lot of talk, and a lot of it is the same talk that you'll be seeing at the national media. I will say my personal preference when [01:15:00] I'm talking to people, I think, um, Governor Andy Beshear would be a fantastic, um, sort of antidote to J.D. Vance, and I think what we're seeing is Appalachia has really become a salient political force.
In, um, our American politics, whether you're looking at what the North Carolina Democratic Party is really achieving across their rural areas, including rural Appalachia, whether you're looking at Governor Beshear in Kentucky, what he's been able to deliver, um, and as these areas are living through the real impacts of climate change and having to transition out of a fossil fuel economy, an extractive economy, Um, we need people who are really leading on that.
Um, and so that process is, I think, going to look a largely like it will, um, the, the, uh, Vice President Harris will vet a lot of candidates and she will come forward with a choice. And I think we'll, we have a lot of great choices on that vice presidential picket. I will just say here and use the microphone I have with you and your [01:16:00] audience to say, I think, um, um, Governor Beshear would be a great choice.
And I think really investing in Appalachia and rural Democrats here and understanding that we are, um, we are real, there are a lot of us, um, there are people ready to join the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party can continue to stand for and build on the things that we, they've delivered on for the last four years.
Responding to Tim Scott & J.D. Vance on Poverty Part 2 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-16-24
REV. DR. WILLIAM BARBER: Well, he's exactly right. Dr. King said in 65 at the end of December, the Mount Thumb remarks, the greatest fear of the greedy oligarchy in this country would be for the masses of black people.
with the masses of poor white people and form a voting block that could fundamentally reshift the economic architecture of the country, which is one of the reasons with these mythologies. One of the mythologies we talk about in the book is that only black people want change. Uh, uh, that, that, that uh, You only have commonality if you're of the same color, another mythology.
Uh, another mythology [01:17:00] is that poverty is just a black problem. All of these are ways of, of, of pitting people against one another. Uh, we talk about how in the book that oftentimes people have offered people whiteness rather than a cure, uh, for the issues of poverty and, and low wages. You know, J.D. Vance, he did that in his book when he, he, he talked about coming from.
Appalachia, but then he blames the problems of the hillbilly on their personal morality and not on the public policy that actually continues to extend poverty. But to my brother's point, we're in a place now. The flip side of those horrific numbers, 135 million, 140 million poor low wage in this country, 800 dying a day, 295,000 a year.
The flip side of that is that poor people now make up 30% of the electorate across this country and in battleground states where the marginal victory for the presidency was within 3% [01:18:00] poor and low wage. People make up. Over 43 percent of the electorate. So there is not a battleground state where if just 10 percent of poor and low wage people organized around an agenda.
And when we had that massive assembly on DC, we didn't come there with just a venting March. The voices you heard were poor and low wage people from across the country, not people speaking on behalf of them, people of every race, color, creed, and sex, rather, and they laid out a 17 point agenda. You can go to poorpeoplescampaign.
org and pull it to say that if you want these votes, they're for you. 87 million poor and low wage voters in this country, 57 million voting in the last election, 30 million were infrequent voters. We're reaching out to 15 million of them to say, it's time for you to demand to be heard. And you have the power to unite together around an agenda.
And if you vote in such a way, you can force our, uh, society to talk about right [01:19:00] now. You can have presidential debate at the presidential debate. One of the reasons we saw the debate, it. The reason for that as a failure was not the personality of the two candidates or who, uh, you know, maybe flubbed a word or who told a lie, was that the commentator didn't ask one question to them about how will you address this reality of poverty, the fourth leading cause of death?
How will you address the issue of living wages? What poor low wage people are doing in the movement are coming together and saying, wait a minute, we hold this massive voting bloc. We can unite together. In most places, if just 20 percent of poor low wage folk were mobilized around the agenda that happened voting in the last two elections, they could change the outcome.
For instance, in Michigan, in the last election, the margin of victory was about 10, 000 votes. There were over a million poor low wage voters. So less than, you know, a few percentage points organized could shift. In North Carolina. [01:20:00] Uh, that's how Obama won in 2008. We didn't endorse candidates with those issues in Kentucky when poor and low wage people that we met without an East Kentucky, Harlan County, uh, has the county heard the truth and organized and joined with people out of Louis, Louisville.
They took out an incumbent Republican governor who had cut healthcare, who refused to fight for a minimum wage increase, who fought against their union right. And they won in Kentucky. And we didn't endorse a candidate. We endorsed issues and several of the counties that were considered red counties or whatever you want to call them, go look at the voter map.
They flipped. So it is possible in a moral fusion movement, but what you have to do is deal with these mythologies up front, and then you have to recognize the power that you have. It's not about mobilizing everybody, but what we do know from the new data that's out, that that poor low wage people, let's stick that 50, [01:21:00] 000 a year or below and a family of four tend to vote progressive when they vote.
That's how, if you look at Georgia, for instance, the last election, if you pull out Poor low wage folk that voted for progressive ideas. Do you have a different outcome in Georgia, both in the Senate and in the presidential race? If
CALLER: you,
REV. DR. WILLIAM BARBER: if you, if you look at, uh, uh, other places where you saw chapter, you look at it in Pennsylvania, pull out poor and low wage folk, but then recognize If it was in Pennsylvania, the margin of victory was about 40, 000, but some 2 million, almost 2 million poor and low wage infrequent voters didn't even vote.
In Wisconsin, the margin of victory was about 20, 000, but over a million poor and low wage voters did not even vote. This is the largest potential swing vote in the country.
SECTION C: JD VANCE AND THE "CENTER" RIGHT
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section C: J.D. Vance and the Center-Right.
JD Vance, Phony Populism on the Right, the Republican National Convention, and Democratic Party Messaging w Ben Burgis Part 3 - Parallax Views - Air Date 7-22-24
No, I agree. And you mentioned O'Brien mentioning Josh Hawley, and I wanted to use [01:22:00] Senator Hawley as an example of, um, sometimes people like Hawley can say something that may sound Oh yeah, I, I, as a leftist I agree with that.
That sounds crazy, but for instance When he was pushing the copyright clause restoration act, I actually do think it's ridiculous that you can extend copyright, uh, like 95 years, come on, you know, uh, gone with the wind should be in the public domain at this point, right? But that bill would have only affected entities 150 billion, which means for practical purposes, You know, it's only intended to punish the Walt Disney Company, you know, so it's not really about truly changing the copyright laws, you know,
BEN BURGIS: which is kind of funny because in a way that's like, this is like the, uh, you know, this is like the stuff you expect from Democrats that they roll out something that sounds good and then there are like 100 caveats at the end of it.
[01:23:00] You know, it's like, oh yeah, we're going to forgive student debt for people who have. Operated small businesses and minority communities for at least three years and, you know, have one brown eye and one green eye. And, you know, like, it's like, okay, never mind. Right? Like, uh, it's very much like that. But it's like, yeah, look, Josh Howley.
has a few good votes in the Senate. Uh, but like to, to make this concrete, the AFL CIO puts out legislative scorecards where they, um, you know, where they, they give politicians, you know, percentages of like how many sort of pro labor votes, uh, they, uh, they did, like how many times they voted on the right side of issues affecting labor.
And, uh, Josh Howley's AFL CIO legislative scorecard is 11%. Which, granted, makes him Eugene Debs compared to most of the rest of his caucus, but like, it's 11%. [01:24:00] Like, that was like, pretty miserable.
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: Vance didn't get a good scorecard either, did he?
BEN BURGIS: Oh, Vance is actually 0%. So, uh, Vance is, Vance is doing worse than Ali is.
Uh, Vance is another one, by the
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: way, not to interrupt you, but you know, I looked at the real safety bill and I was like, Oh, that's good that he's working with, uh, Sherrod Brown or other Democrats to, to deal with real safety in light of East Palestine, Ohio and what happened there. But then I look into it more and Jacobin has a whole article about this, uh, by Julia Rock, uh, entitled J.D. Vance has weakened his real safety bill at lobbyist requests.
You know, so Republican Senator J.D. Vance quietly amended his rail safety bill to allow the same unsafe tank cars that leaked chemicals in East Palestine and Ohio to continue circulating through U. S. cities until as late as 2028, just as rail and chemical lobbies asked. So even though it seemed like he was doing something good at first, you know, then [01:25:00] he weakens the bill.
Also, by the way,
BEN BURGIS: like,
why is Trump's record on rail safety as president? Like not part of this discussion, right? Yeah, well, that's the
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: elephant in the room.
BEN BURGIS: You know, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Like even the stuff that's this good, right? Uh, like I always talk about rail safety is like doing some work at that. Then you look at the details and it's kind of like, uh, yeah, nevermind.
Um, and yeah, I mean, it's, it's in general, the van stuff, like, you know, you know, granted advances 0 percent is just for 2023. Cause that's the only full year that he's been in the Senate. Yep. Right. Maybe he could get that up to 11 percent over the course of a few years. But, um, uh, it's, it's also, you know, I think it's also meaningful that it's a 0 percent for 2023 and, and like, yeah, uh, people, people like Vance and Howley have, [01:26:00] have mastered, um, the art of, of sounding like populace, uh, when they talk about economic issues.
But then. You, you really start digging into the details and, and it's just ridiculous. Like, um, you know, even, even Josh Howley with his, a few good votes, right. Which is what you can honestly say about this. Um, that, you know, he voted against stopping the, the, the rail strike. There are a few, there are a few good votes, but like, um, but look.
You know what? He doesn't support the proact, which would, and
J.G. MICHAEL - HOST, PARALLAX VIEWS: neither does Vance and Vance has given reasons for that, that I'm not convinced by, but go on.
Trump, Vance, and the New Right at the RNC Part 2 - Deconstructed - Air Date 7-19-24
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: and Trump still has. Enormous number of oligarchs in his ear trump is susceptible to pressure whoever talked to him last What what have you?
So much depends on who trump picks as chief of staff. Let's say in a trump any trump presidency [01:27:00] Let's assume that for the sake of this question that he wins So much depends on who he picks as chief of staff and kind of how he staffs up and approaches things in the beginning what's your sense of what the trump circle is now and like where on the kind of The, the based scale, you know, uh, the door that on the J.D. Vance scale, his inner circle is how solidified is it?
How fluid is it? Like, what's your read of that? That world that has now had kind of 8 years. Eight or nine years to kind of develop an ecosystem that was nascent when it first, you know, shocked everybody, including himself by winning.
EMILY JASHINSKY: I mean, there was nothing and you remember this like there was a heritage foundation that was raking in money from big tech, um, alongside, you know, the American Enterprise Institute alongside this suite of Koch funded Koch brothers funded think tanks that were staunchly anti labor and had been the backbone.
Of the tea party movement. So there really was absolutely nothing. And now [01:28:00] what's sprung up are groups like American compass and a couple of others. Um, but what's interesting about those groups, and this is what's fascinating about Trump in general, is that it's a, it's a mix. Ideologically, because the primary litmus test ideologically is whether you're on board with Donald Trump.
And that sounds like a line that is like kind of tired and like elite media spaces, but there's actually some truth to it. Like they're doing this vetting process for personnel and a potential Trump administration and their litmus test is loyalty to Donald Trump himself. Nobody's looking for like what maybe you said about policy, you know, five years ago, you could be Anthony Scaramucci.
You could be, let's take our favorite example, Stephanie rule. And if you had been nice to Donald Trump and said good things about him, you could have those politics. You can be art laugher or Larry Kudlow and have Donald Trump's ear, uh, in the same way that J.D. Vance does in the same way that people in those circles, uh, Marco [01:29:00] Rubio, you know, it's, it's just really a mix because the primary litmus test is loyalty to Donald Trump.
Now, people who have loyalties to Donald Trump tend to be. Those people that are also on board with like the new-right policy agenda, um, you know, Peter Navarro, Bob Lighthizer, people who are sort of quote, based on trade protectionist on trade. Um, obviously you're not going to see John Bolton in another Trump administration, but you might see Mike Pompeo who is here at the RNC this week talking about.
How, you know, Trump will ultimately control J.D. Vance, I think is a quote that's I'm paraphrasing a quote he gave to RealClearPolitics, but like, it's just about loyalty to Trump and Trump is floating what Jamie Dimon as his treasury secretary. It's about him. Uh, and so, you know, that tends to be more new-right than not, but also a lot of the really powerful people in his ear, to your point, Ryan, are oligarchs or oligarch adjacent.
“He’s a Fake” Robert Kuttner on How J.D. Vance Disguises His Anti-Worker Views as Economic Populism Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-16-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: But, Robert Kuttner, if you could say how they’re against it? [01:30:00] Show, through their records — Vance, a senator, of course, Trump, former president, — how they’re anti-worker, because this right-wing populist appeal, the Teamsters president addressing, seeing the reactions of the presidential and vice-presidential candidate, was very powerful.
ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, you look at everything, from Biden’s executive orders that make it easier for workers to organize, to Biden’s executive orders requiring federal contractors to pay a living wage, to decisions by the NLRB on unfair labor practices, to raising the minimum wage, to defining Uber and Lyft workers as regular employees. I mean, you go down the entire litany of things that unions want, the Republicans have opposed every one of them, either in court or by statute [01:31:00] or in reported votes or Republican appointees on regulatory commissions.
And although Vance once walked a picket line with the UAW, he has not done anything to support the labor agenda. It’s all image. It’s all fakery. It’s all political stunts. And the more that comes out into the open, the more people realize that the Republican effort last night to present itself as the pro-worker party is nothing but posturing. And they need to be held to account on that. It should be a very major issue in the campaign. The more Republicans try and make their alleged pro-worker stance a high-profile posture, the more they need to be held to account.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: If people were just reading the script of Sean O’Brien’s speech, it could have been one given by, oh, [01:32:00] independent Senator Bernie Sanders. Are the Democrats at risk here of dismissing this level of right-wing populism? And can you talk about why it appeals so much, especially in the states, the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where we are right now?
ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, what’s truly dangerous about Vance, if you compare Vance with Trump — so, the Trump of 2016 posed as a populist, but it was cultural or social or racist populism — it’s all the fault of Mexicans, it’s all the fault of immigrants, it’s all the fault of, you know, DEI. This was a kind of an attempt to play into the feeling [01:33:00] of white working-class people that they have been disrespected. And it was a racist, nationalist, cultural brand of fake populism.
Now, what Vance brings to this is he tries to add economic populism: Not only are we going to seal up the Mexican border, but we’re actually going to help you earn a living wage. And Trump didn’t really do that, other than raising tariffs on Chinese goods and being anti-China. Trump didn’t follow through on that. It was left to Biden to complement the tariffs with a real industrial policy. Trump was opposed to that. Whereas Vance is much more effective at connecting Trump’s cultural and social and racist populism to what [01:34:00] looks like pocketbook populism, except it’s a fake, so that if you’re a worker in Wisconsin or Ohio or Pennsylvania, and your living standards have gone to hell, and you can’t send your kid to college because your child would have to go into debt, and you can’t afford to buy a house, and your health insurance is going down the drain — those are pocketbook issues. And to the extent that Vance talks a good game on pocketbook issues, that shores up Trump’s rather thin cultural populism. So, it’s dangerous.
And I come back to the fact that the Democrats have got to do better than Biden, if they’re going to contest this. I mean, Biden has done great stuff, but the number of Americans who think he’s too old, he’s too fragile, he’s too feeble, the fact that he can’t keep his lines straight, and the fact that Vance, by the way, is an excellent debater. [01:35:00] And we’ve got to do better than the current Democratic ticket, or these guys are going to win. And they’re cynical enough to carry out all their threats. And we really will cease to be a democracy, and you can change the title of your program to Democracy Then.
Credits
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991, or simply email me at [email protected].
The additional sections of the show included clips from Parallax Views, The Majority Report, The Brian Lehrer Show, The Thom Hartmann Program, Deconstructed, and Democracy Now!. Further details are in the show notes.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show [01:36:00] co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today and get 20% off this month only at BestOfTheLeft.com/support or through our Patreon page. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes—all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.
So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC. My name is Jay!, and this has been the best of luck podcast coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.
