Air Date 1/15/2025
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. Elon Musk is leading the way for his class of tech broligarchs anxious to take over the MAGA movement and shape it to their own ends of deregulation, tax cuts, and lucrative government contracts. The disappointment that is inevitable for the MAGA populists is coming even faster than expected. For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes The Reidout, Democracy Now!, The Muckrake Political Podcast, No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, Bad Faith, Straight White American Jesus and Left Anchor.
Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, the Oligarchs; Section B, the MAGA Fracture; Section C, Global Influence; and Section D, Organizing.
The long con of America's ultra-wealthy elites - The ReidOut - Air Date 1-2-25
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Back in the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh became a radio powerhouse by enthralling mainly white working class men, truck drivers, cops, [00:01:00] and other non college educated blue collar types who spent their work days in their cars or other places where they could tune into AM radio for hours.
AM radio network saw the potential profit in this and syndicated his show to hundreds of rural and small town AM radio stations to pump the Limbaugh show for hours a day, so Rush Hudson Limbaugh III of the prominent and affluent Limbaugh's of Girardeau, Missouri could lean into his golden microphone and tell his audience of ditto heads, as he called them, that real Americans like them were having their pockets picked by the welfare queens, the Brown immigrants and the feminazis. They were the ones making White working class men's lives worse. Not the Reagan revolution, which ended pensions, gutted unions, and slashed away at Lyndon Johnson's great society programs.
No, no. It's the poors who are the problem, not the rich. He was so good as a broadcaster, one of the best ever in the business, frankly. He even helped radicalize Clarence Thomas, according to a [00:02:00] documentary by PBS Frontline.
CLIP: He would listen to Rush Limbaugh as he was doing a long commute and he would have court staff tape record it so he could listen to it when he was commuting.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Limbaugh, who ultimately became a billionaire, fit the 80s and 90s perfectly. The lifestyles of the rich and famous era, when Americans practically worshipped the financially successful. Even making a star out of pretend billionaires like failed real estate developer Donald Trump, who was born rich and promptly squandered his fortune on failed real estate deals before he was bailed out by banks and Russia, allegedly.
Rush spawned a slew of copycats, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Neil Boortz, Sean Hannity, and more. Each of whom had the same general message: poors bad, affirmative action bad, Brown immigrants bad, feminism definitely bad. But the wealthy and oil companies and big business? Good.
CLIP: Charles Koch and David Koch have been outspoken advocates of the free market for over 50 years.
This should send a chill down the [00:03:00] spines of everyone out there who's watching Fox now. Because if you dare to question, you might not have the money of the Koch brothers to defend yourself.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Rush was followed by Roger Ailes, who went to work for billionaire Rupert Murdoch, building Fox News, which took his same message that White American voters should focus on crime. No, no, not mass shootings. Black crime. Brown crime. Sexual minorities that make them uncomfortable and illegal immigrants. That's the problem. Not billionaires like say, Rupert Murdoch or the Koch brothers. They deserve the tax cuts and deregulation. We promise it will all trickle down. But we gotta get rid of the welfare, affirmative action, equal opportunity, DEI, CRT, ABCDEFG. That's the real threat.
And as long as you keep focusing on that, we are good. In the modern era, billionaires branched out from bankrolling talk radio and cable news to funding right wing online ventures like Breitbart News, initially bankrolled by the billionaire Mercer family. There's also conservative organizations and think tanks active on college campuses like Turning Point USA, the Federalist [00:04:00] Society, the Young America Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity, which was the Koch money fueled pro-corporate backbone of the Tea Party movement. As well as up and coming podcasters like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro, who offer a younger, slicker feel, but the same message. Poors bad, Brown immigrants bad, blacks and especially Black history and affirmative action bad, DEI bad, Black Lives Matter bad, feminism bad, insurance companies, oil companies, drilling, and rich people? Good.
And while hating on immigration is a core part of the right wing media ecosystem, these right wing outlets have found a form of immigration they do like, namely the migration of rich foreign nationals with inherited wealth into the U. S. where they can buy up tech companies, gobble up small businesses into giant conglomerates and reduce competition and create monopolies while building massive defense contractors that eat up taxpayer subsidies so their billionaire owners can buy up even more companies, lay off people, and traffic in stock buybacks.
In the process, a small group of super wealthy families have gained breathtaking control over [00:05:00] the courts, including the Supreme Court, thanks to Leonard Leo and the Heritage Foundation, and over politicians, through the unlimited donations, the Supreme Court cleared the way for in the Citizens United decision.
They control what we eat, how we shop, and even how much we pay for housing because the super rich own literally millions of acres of farmland and millions of units of housing through private equity firms, making them America's biggest landlords.
They also increasingly control information, what Americans are allowed to know. Jeff Bezos doesn't just control a lot of what we buy via Amazon. He controls the Washington Post. Ditto the South African billionaire who owns the Los Angeles Times, who is even more aggressive about pushing a friendly, pro-rich point of view.
And of course, there's Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire who controls probably the single most powerful disseminator of right wing groupthink ever created, the aforementioned Fox News. The small group of families, the Mercers, the Cokes, the DeVosses, the Ulines, the Bradleys, the Wilkes, and more, plus America's [00:06:00] billionaires and mega corporations, own so much. And you've probably never even heard of most of them, which is kind of great for them.
And then there are the tech entrepreneurs, like Peter Thiel, the born-rich immigrant from South Africa who invested in PayPal, got even richer, and went into private equity, where he employed a Yale graduate who wrote a book dissing Appalachians who changed his name to JD Vance. Thiel also controls a company called Palantir that helps the government surveil you. So yay.
And there's Vivek Ramaswamy, the first generation American son of Indian parents who took Soros money to start his first company, but reps a party that hates liberal billionaire George Soros. Vivek recently lectured Americans about our culture of mediocrity, ranting that a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers, a culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World, or Zack and Slater over Screech in Saved by the Bell, or Stefan over Steve Urkel in [00:07:00] Family Matters will not produce the best engineers.
Which is weird because the culture he described produced the internet and Facebook. The Winklevoss twins and Mark Zuckerberg created the app after Zuck dropped out of Harvard having basically digitized Harvard's freshman Facebook so men could find dates easier. Ramaswamy, who graduated from Harvard, once had a failed company to supposedly cure Alzheimer's. Here he is selling it on CNBC.
CLIP: I actually think the potential opportunity here is really tremendous for delivering value to patients.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, that company failed. Though somehow, Vivek and his mom made a lot of money by cashing out. And did Vivek try to replicate Steve Urkel along the way? Nah. Here's Vivek mimicking a key aspect of the American culture he'd find so terribly mediocre on the campaign trail.
Yeah, lose yourself indeed. He also did [00:08:00] that act as a college student at Harvard long before running to be president of this supposedly mediocre nation. And then there's Vivek's partner in the pretend agency to cut government spending, Elon Musk, who controls the app formerly known as Twitter and used it along with 200 million dollars to put Trump back in office.
He's now gotten Trump to come out wholeheartedly for visas for lower paid foreign workers to replace Americans in Silicon Valley jobs because you know, Hey, because he's the richest man in the world and Trump needs the money. And what value has Elon created? He was born rich in South Africa, came to America after apartheid fell, and he and his brother got 3 million dollars to invest in their tech company called Zip2. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me neither. Also, his brother says they were working illegally in the U. S. at the time, which Musk disputes.
CLIP: In fact, when they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants. Well, I'm sure it's a gray area. Yeah. Yes, we were. I was, we were illegal immigrants. Haha.[00:09:00]
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: It's a gray area. Yeah. Okay. And while his super fans worship Elon, like MAGAs worshiped Trump and used to worship Jesus, Elon didn't create Tesla's or the technology behind them. Elon became the company's CEO. He invested in the company, became the CEO, and then he bought the company out, which is actually created by two American engineers from California, Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpening, who probably grew up watching Saved by the Bell in the nineties.
Crack-Up Capitalism- How Billionaire Elon Musk's Extremism Is Shaping Trump Admin & Global Politics - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-6-24
QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, this is really a fixation of Musk that echoes throughout other Silicon Valley thinkers, too, which is a fear that demographic decline is coming more quickly than many of us realize. And that gets read in sort of two ways. On the one hand, as he frequently says, you know, there will be no human civilization if there are no humans. So there’s this kind of universal fear of the reality of sort of long-term slowing birth rates leading to literally fewer humans on Earth.
But more importantly for him is particular humans on Earth. So, if you look at the [00:10:00] kind of conversations he’s had, especially in Italy with members of the Brothers of Italy, the fascist-derived party from which — you know, which Meloni now heads, the fear is the loss of populations of a discrete culture. So he’s worried about the decline of particular European civilizations, particular European cultures, the Italian culture, the British culture. He has endorsed the “great replacement” theory, this notion that liberal politicians are encouraging immigration from nonwhite populations to build their own support, but also, too, to kind of dilute and disorient the native or autochthonous population. So, his pronatalism is not a kind of a general one that sort of hopes that humans can propagate themselves to produce hopefully more solutions to human problems, but it’s the defense of particular human populations which he sees as endowed with more capacity for kind of economic productivity, economic intelligence and sort of economic [00:11:00] performance.
So, his immigration policy and his immigration language is now — in the last two weeks has taken a very hard-right turn. Many people have noticed that. In December, you could have seen him still posting about meritocracy and the idea that anyone can make it in the United States if they work hard enough. Since January 1st, almost exactly, the stream of his posts has been dominated by the faces of men who have been charged with sexual crimes, who are from Muslim-majority countries. He is doing everything he can to sort of hype up very clearly racially coded fear of sexual assault and crimes coming from immigrants on non-Western backgrounds, and pairing that with this idea of immigrants from non-Western backgrounds as sort of welfare dependents who are not feeding into the mainstream economy. So, his demographic fears are very much also part of his kind of hard crime, hard borders policy that is now starting to come to the fore [00:12:00] as his primary talking point.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Let me ask you something. I’m looking at a piece in the Financial Times. “Elon Musk lived in apartheid South Africa until he was 17. David Sacks, the venture capitalist who has become a fundraiser for Donald Trump and a troll [of] Ukraine, left aged five, and grew up in a South African diaspora family in Tennessee. Peter Thiel spent years of childhood in South Africa and Namibia, where his father was involved in uranium mining as part of the apartheid regime’s clandestine drive to acquire nuclear weapons. And Paul Furber, an obscure South African software developer and tech journalist living near Johannesburg, has been identified by two teams of forensic linguists as the originator of the QAnon conspiracy, which helped shape Trump’s Maga movement. [Furber denies being 'Q'.] In short, four of Maga’s most influential voices are fiftysomething white men with formative experiences in apartheid South Africa.” Can you comment on this, Professor Slobodian?
QUINN SLOBODIAN: Absolutely. This is something I’ve written about in a couple of my books. The centrality of southern Africa for [00:13:00] the far right and for neoliberals is quite extraordinary. Rhodesia, of course, has been seen as a kind of a lost cause for the hard right. People might remember Dylann Roof, the far-right mass murderer, talking about his allegiance to the Rhodesian cause. South Africa, in the time of apartheid, was seen as a kind of a last bulwark against the Black socialism of postcolonial Africa. In the time of transition, in the time of Mandela, in the move to “one person, one vote” universal suffrage, in the end of apartheid, it was cast by the far right and by sort of libertarians and neoliberals as a kind of prosperous site of gold production and manufacturing that was now under assault by a socialist, Black-majority government, the ANC.
And for Musk himself, the experience of growing up there with a very authoritarian, dictatorial father [00:14:00] was a very dystopian one, from the way that his biographer recounts it. There’s memories that he recounts, perhaps a little bit gleefully, and perhaps through fabrication, of sort of walking through puddles of blood on the way to rock concerts. He saw it as a kind of a social Darwinist, sort of all-against-all-type environment, which I think has now very much implanted into his mind. I think he discovers that again in the online world of brutal, so-called dungeon-crawling video games, where he spends much of his time, and also in the kind of cyberpunk world of science fiction and films and novels.
So, I think that extrapolation, which is in part based on the reality of very intense intercommunal conflict, but also becomes something that he can kind of embrace to kind of give — to permit his own sort of vision of nihilism, really, and this belief that all alliances are kind of [00:15:00] provisional, you need to defend your own. As we know, he’s sort of been clear about sort of building compounds to which he can retreat, expanding his own genetic pool through, you know, a very large family, using the federal government when it’s useful, you know, tapping into federal budgets, becoming effectively a techno contractor for NASA through SpaceX, selling his services as Starlink, but always, I think, very much with this exit end game in mind, the same way that many people in South Africa have their own kind of gated communities into which they can withdraw, if they can afford it, with their own water systems and their own sort of power supplies. This kind of Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower-type reality is one that someone like Musk has sort of sadistically embraced in a way.
And I think that his sort of accelerationism, by which he makes alliances recklessly, one after the other, with whichever kind of far-right politician appears [00:16:00] on his video feed and has a kind of a distinctive appearance — you know, Tommy Robinson does look like he might have stepped out of a video game. Naomi Seibt, the Alternative for Germany influencer, who he has done so much to boost, sort of cultivates this sort of anime-like appearance. So, I think that, for Musk and Thiel and others, the experience of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa has, for them, filled this role of a kind of a bad future, which is also inevitable and from which they have to just do everything they can to kind of, you know, hunker down and shield themselves, while also tapping into, of course, the extraordinary profits that are available in doing things like providing surveillance systems, as Palantir does, Thiel’s company; providing weapon systems, as Anduril does, the Palmer Luckey-owned company that Thiel helped back; and the various other ways that the old-fashioned military-industrial complex, I think, is now just being extended with a new kind of Silicon Valley kind of headquarters.
GOP Already At Each Other's Throats While Musk Gloats - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 12-24-24
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Nick, on the weekend or last week, we were [00:17:00] covering the fact that Elon Musk absolutely scuttled the funding bill in Congress, basically single handedly. Congress eventually passed the funding bill after Musk basically blew this entire thing up. We had an inter party war with the Republican Party over multiple things. Most of the bill ended up getting passed, except for, you guessed it, cancer research, especially cancer research for children. Nick, there is a lot, I think, that we can look at here in terms of how this whole thing played out, the sort of inter party dynamics of it all. Maybe there's some strategy to be gained from this. What was your take of finally seeing the government shut down being averted and the Republican Party sort of going to war with each other?
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: I just think it's going to prepare us for what's going to be in store but, you know, a lot worse. It's just the very, very beginning of how unruly this is all going to be. That said, the process of pulling apart all the different things that they had shoved together in one big, basically omnibus bill, maybe that's not the [00:18:00] worst thing, right?, to be able to do that sort of more separately and then be able to address everything like that.
My fear is that someone's going to be able to have some weird argument like that saying, Look, all the things that Musk and Trump are doing are, those things actually work, you see, and then they manipulate whatever they do to make it seem like it works. And so that might be my biggest concern out of all of this.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: I want to say, first of all, the fact that we have this debt ceiling thing is absolutely ridiculous. And along the lines of a broken clock being right twice a day, Donald Trump pushing for unlimited debt is both telling in terms of what the Republican Party actually cares about, what their principles are, but also, we shouldn't have this. We should not have these showdowns where Congress gets in a room and the government is either going to shut down or it's not based on who gets what. In this case, this was Musk carrying out a power play, going ahead and previewing for everybody that he basically has control over the Republican Party, and that Trump is more or less just an avatar, a dancing clown out in front of all of this.
So, the MAGA-GOP rift at this point, it's already [00:19:00] showing us one thing that we covered in the first Trump administration, what we always talk about, which is, far right authoritarian movements are dysfunctional. They destroy each other, they attack each other constantly. That is one of the weaknesses, but I do not think that people should take a look at what happened here and think, Oh, it's not actually going to be that bad. It is still going to be very, very bad, but there are vulnerabilities that can be exploited if we're looking at an opposition that actually wants to exploit them, which the Democratic Party, it depends on the day, it depends on the coin flip.
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: You know, it's funny, if you look at it that way, in terms of the debt ceiling and whether or not debt really means anything to a government like the United States and the economy, like capitalism. Obviously we'd want more efficiency, right? We want to eliminate waste, but you don't need to use the boogeyman of your kids are going to be have nothing. the country is going to be destroyed with too much debt. And when you wrap your head around why they want to use that specific reason to cut the budget, you start to get a handle on why they're doing it, [00:20:00] right? It's never been about the debt. It's always been about getting rid of entitlement programs, right? Freeloading people and the people on the couch who don't want to work and all that bullshit. So, you know what I mean? Like, so it just becomes even more clear when they use that kind of line of reasoning and you hear Musk and all those people do it, who'd have no connection to anybody who struggles check to check or month to month to make ends meet. They don't understand anything like that or what the value of what the government does bring to people like that. So, it's, just really enlightening and revealing of where they really are coming from.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: It's revealing in the way that traditional politics, the narratives that we get through liberal media, especially corporate liberal media, is the idea that, oh, we really wish we could fund all this stuff, like I would support it in a heartbeat, but we really need to take care of the debt.
Meanwhile, one of the reasons that we have a national government is to take on debt, is to go ahead and do these things. And meanwhile, the Republican Party doesn't care about debt when they're creating a war, when they're giving historic tax cuts to the wealthy. It's a cudgel.
And more or less, it's a language that's [00:21:00] been created between the right and liberal moderates. Which is, you can go out and say that you want to take care of this stuff, like again, cancer research for children. This is something that the government should fund, one of the few places where it actually does get funded. But, meanwhile, what's actually happening here, Nick, we go ahead and get the military taken care of, particularly in this bill, Musk had his relationship and connections with China. That was the main thing, making sure that Tesla was going to maintain all of their little inner workings with the government.
Meanwhile, all that happens is that the budget is always going to run the deficit up in the way that the Republicans want it to, and moderate liberals are able to shrug and say, well, you know, we just got to take care of the debt.
Meanwhile, what is happening? The wealth class continues to get their checklist marked off one thing at a time. And again, you see the rift here between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. One person's out there talking about buying Greenland or trying to do something with the Panama Canal. I never thought I would hear about that again. And you have [00:22:00] another guy who is essentially privatizing the government and turning it into an organ for his own enrichment and empowerment.
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: For sure. For what it's worth, the Panama Canal could very well be related to the fact that the Trump organization is being sued in Panama now for not paying taxes.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Ding, ding, ding.
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: You know, and so, this is the other reason why the conflict of interest is so ridiculous because we saw it already when they put Qatar, as I think it was, on a terrorist watch list because they wouldn't give money to Jared Kushner's fund. And as soon as they did, they were magically taken off that list, right?
So here's another kind of thing where they're going to leverage. And we know about Greenland is because there's minerals there. Guess who needs minerals, Jared?
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Well, I mean, you know, what's funny about it is actually so much of our politics revolves around resource extraction and who is able to get a hold of that. That is also one of the reasons why there's a right wing authoritarian international movement, because we need to make sure that certain countries have their resources and minerals available for the wealth class to extract and extort. And by the way, let's just point out the Greenland thing also has [00:23:00] implications when it comes to eco fascism, which is basically rearing its ugly head right now. But you have one guy, in Trump, who's just out here going wild, which is what he does, and you have Musk who is playing the long game and pulling the strings behind the scenes.
MAGA civil war explodes between Elon & Trump faithful - No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Air Date 12-29-24
BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, NO LIE: So Elon Musk's honeymoon in the Trump administration seems to have ended before the administration has officially begun. While most of us were celebrating the holidays, Elon's been waging a fight with the very people whose voices he spent months elevating. So he's been publicly advocating for offering more visas to highly skilled foreign workers via the H1-B program. And he tweeted, "I am referring to bringing in, via legal immigration, the top 0. 1 percent of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning. The number of people who are super talented engineers and super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team. If you want your team to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole team to win." And he was backed up by his Department of Government Efficiency co-chair, Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted, "A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers." [00:24:00]
Well, I'm sure you can imagine how that went over with Trump's 'America First' base. Matt Gaetz, for example, tweeted, "We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the third grade teacher picking their kids gender, and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline. We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy."
He was joined by Ann Coulter, who tweeted, "American workers can leave a company, imported H1-B workers can't. Tech wants indentured servants, not high skilled workers." Laura Loomer, who would ultimately have her Twitter verification stripped away by Elon over this very argument, wrote, "Vivek Ramaswamy knows that the Great Replacement is real, so does J.D. Vance. It's not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H1-B visas, not an extension. And I would happily say it to their faces because there's nothing inflammatory about what I said. Everything I said is true. If India was so high skilled people would stay there instead of flocking to the U.S., you're not going to shame me into tempering my thoughts. I really am past the point of giving a fuck. The tech billionaires don't get to just walk inside Mar a Lago and stroke their massive checkbooks and rewrite our immigration policy so they can have [00:25:00] unlimited slave laborers from India and China who never assimilate."
And so then, Elon started clapping back, tweeting stuff like this, quote, "The reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H1-B. Take a step back and fuck yourself in the face. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend ."To which Steve Bannon replied, "Someone please notify Child Protective Services. Need to do a wellness check on this toddler."
And this was all just a tiny sampling of the hundreds of tweets that consumed Twitter over the holiday on this very topic. Now, first of all, just as a quick aside, imagine being the richest person on the planet. You can quite literally do anything on Earth and you spend the holidays fighting with random racists on Twitter, whose voices you elevated, by the way? Like, if you ever needed to disabuse yourself of this notion that money buys happiness, all you gotta do is look at Elon Musk, because my god, this dude really does have a pathetic existence.
Also, this is what you spend Christmas doing? Aren't you part of the administration whose entire M.O. is that Trump is [00:26:00] bringing Christmas back? Those evil communist Marxist Democrats stole Christmas from the department stores, and yet now Trump is entering office, and you spend that sacred holiday fighting with strangers on the internet?
This is what we brought Christmas back for? Okay, but Elon's sad little holiday aside, the broader irony here is that Elon paid hundreds of millions of dollars to help Trump, who ran on a xenophobic platform of deporting immigrants, win the presidency. And yet now he can't understand why the rabid base of unrepentant racists that he emboldened continues to be racist?
'Man votes for Leopards Eating Faces Party did not think leopards would eat his face too.' And look, of course all of this is a hill that Elon will die on. He's a former H1-B visa immigrant who owns businesses that I'm sure largely rely on H1-B visa recipients to function. It's also a hill that the MAGA faithful will die on, though.
Trump's agenda is America First, and his campaign handed out Deport Them All signs at his rallies. And so look, my take on this is that they both got fooled. The MAGA loyalists probably took it worse, recognizing now that they just installed into power an unelected oligarch [00:27:00] who's going to use Donald Trump to expand immigration programs that they hate, and there's probably nothing they can do about it, because if Elon is the de facto president, but Elon is also a sad little man who desperately craves the approval of the MAGA base that he has spent the better part of a year nurturing.
He needs them to keep petting him and massaging his ego, and now he's recognizing that his little foot soldiers are just racist assholes who are happy to accept the financial help, but don't actually agree with his worldview and instead want to elevate white Americans and no one else. So not great for either side.
Now, it goes without saying, but the H1-B program is good. We should absolutely bring the best and the brightest talent to the United States, and if they don't come here, the talent goes to other countries. There is actually a 100% quote unquote America First incentive to do that. Now, of course, MAGA doesn't care, because for them it's more about promoting white Americans than actually helping America as a whole.
The irony of all of this, though, is that Democrats understand this, but Elon decided to throw his lot in with the deport them all guy and just hope that everything would work out from there. If Elon is looking for the party that would [00:28:00] actually embrace and welcome high skilled labor from other countries, that would be the party that he himself helped ensure would be shut out of power.
But hey, I'm sure it's gonna be plenty easy convincing Steve Bannon and Matt Gaetz that suddenly immigration is good.
Elon & Vivek's H1-B Crash Out - Bad Faith - Air Date 1-2-25
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: So just to step back for a second, for people who aren't aware of what H1-B visas are, they are visas that are extended generally to tech companies use them more, PMC class, I guess you could frame it, visas to get foreign workers into the United States of America. And the question is, one of the central questions that I think there's a lot of debate on, is whether or not there's an actual need. So we've framed this up as a, you know, do you care more about kind of industry and the ability for a company like Tesla to grow and get the workers that it needs because there is ostensibly a deficit of U. S. workers that can do this job? Or do you care more about just kind of a protectionist attitude in preserving the job opportunities for American workers? But people have been making the case that that is not in fact really the contours of this debate, namely because there are in fact sufficient U.S. workers to fill these posts that there have been record layoffs in the tech sector over the last year or so. And that in fact, this is [00:29:00] very similar to the broader immigration debate, which understands that allowing sort of open borders has negative implications for the U.S. job market, and this is ultimately a bid to be able to hire lower workers at lower pay who aren't going to go on strike, who aren't going to rabble rouse because they risk being deported from the country.
IRAMI OSEI-FRIMPONG: Yeah, is there a meaningful difference between an illegal immigrant laborer who's undocumented and a guest worker who is documented but is vulnerable? Because one of the major problems for an American worker and an American labor force is that undocumented workers are so vulnerable that they're less likely to organize, they're less likely to demand higher wages, they're less likely to demand better working conditions, they're less likely to raise the floor for what an American worker is.
And that's the same criticism you can land at the guest worker programs, who are also less likely to organize, less likely to demand higher wages, because if they do any of that stuff, and for some reason, and [00:30:00] Netflix is famous for this, they just get fired. Then they end up, like, functionally deported or on borrowed time.
So, that installed vulnerability, as a workforce, is the problem. Not necessarily the legal versus illegal. At least in my view, that's the problem. So maybe we should be talking about, like, getting rid of guest workers, and maybe guest workers is a problem for American democracy. Because the workers are not just workers they're also people and property owners and all of that stuff so we need to talk about what it means to be a guest worker. Because you don't just come over here as a coder. You're also a whole person who buys things and has ideas about things that you might want to share but you can't share because if you get fired you might, because if you tick off your boss, you might get deported. So I think I might have a problem with guest workers.
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: This is the part what's so interesting about this conversation, I think, because you're getting conservatives who, frankly, oppose the H1-B visa program less because of kind of labor rights issues, but more because of these kind of nativist cultural arguments that get thrown around, many of which are racist, there's been a lot of anti Indian [00:31:00] smearing and slurring happening on the internet, talking about how these workers are coming from an inferior culture, all of this kind of stuff, which has been really revealing on a number of fronts, right?
On one level, there are a bunch of kind of liberals who are eager to point out that Republicans who argue that their concerns about immigration weren't about race, but were in fact about kind of the worthiness of the immigrant have had that sort of exposed by the extent to which these are as worthy quote unquote immigrants as you can get in terms of being highly educated, having jobs, contributing to the economy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but there's still an antipathy for them, apparently, based on them being quote unquote, culturally unfit. At the same time, though, there is a, what's fascinating about this to me is that you have all these conservatives kind of walking up to making what are ostensibly left arguments about the labor interests of American workers. About the use of foreign workers to drive down labor, about how less competitive American workers are because they have student loans and therefore need to be paid higher rates. And the fact that there is this willingness to tip tap right up to the edge of these arguments does sort of start to feel like it's a little [00:32:00] bit of an opportunity for the left here.
Our Moment is Approaching - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 12-31-24
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: And speaking of the class, and I'm glad we reframed it through this thing. I put out a thing on Substack because I realized that In the wake of the 2024 election, not only has class politics gotten more and more muddled, it's just gotten completely contorted for a variety of reasons, which we'll get into in a little bit.
And actually, what has happened is I actually believe that the tech oligarchs have carried out an incredible run around. Like what is actually occurred is that they have more or less supplanted the wealth class, the donors who created the modern Republican Party, got rid of the regulatory state, destroyed public education, science, and you name it, they have actually captured basically all the means of production in the country.
There's not a corporation, there's not a business that doesn't use their tools at this point that doesn't then feed into them and give them more and more historical wealth, which is now going to even fracture the class system even further. I [00:33:00] call them the burger class because basically the burger class, the Trump supporters who have the private jets and the boats, they, you know, basically you've got your regional used car lot magnates, right?, who used to basically run the country. And they have been alienated from power, they've been supplanted by the wealth class, who are people like your Kochs, who have these major international corporations and have closeness to energy manufacturing, basically everything, and they've controlled politics now for decades.
The tech class has now climbed above them. And they're pushing the wealth class down underneath them. They'll be fine. Like, those people who have hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even touch around the billion, couple of billion dollar mark, they're going to be totally fine. But everybody down that ladder is going to get crushed over the next few years.
And I don't actually, and, It's actually funny, Carl, because I think there are parallel structures within both parties. The Democratic Party has a [00:34:00] base that yells at them constantly. They've been told that they're wrong and that they're going to cost them elections. And meanwhile, they've, worked hand in hand with the wealth class in order to carry out their agenda.
The Republican Party has been now even more compacted with the tech class, which recognized that the Republican Party and right wing, nationalistic, racist, White supremacist groups around the world are their best chance to finalize their takeover of governments and the economies and to go ahead and extract the resources that they need to further their products and their agendas into the future.
And so what you have is the vast majority of Americans have no idea what the fuck is going on. They have no idea how politics actually works. And the MAGA people are now going to get a hard lesson in this. But, and the problem is here, and this is something we're going to have to work against if we're going to defeat them, they have built in cognitive dissonance machines. They have everything from their media to their conspiracy theories to their delusions, you name it. That's what's going to blame the deep state and conspiracy theories and woke and all of that for all the economic travails. [00:35:00] And meanwhile, it's going to elevate people like Musk to become the first trillionaires and have widespread, probably international power over politics and economies. And so meanwhile, underneath them, you have a lot of other people who are just being controlled or basically being disenfranchised. And I think we're watching that in real time at this point.
KARL FOLK: Yes, I think, what's been interesting is seeing all of this, right? Like this huge gearing up for the plundering of the American public. And at the same time, we have stuff like the assassination of a UnitedHealthcare exec. And it's polling better than both political parties. And so, we're set up right now in such a way where people know or have a feeling that something's amiss here, right? As someone who is a glutton for punishment and I'm trying to understand the far right a little bit better, you know, [00:36:00] I perused the comment section of terrible people on social media and on YouTube and I'm sure a lot of people who listen to this saw some of the screencaps coming from places like Ben Shapiro.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Oh, Ben Shapiro's audience is on board.
KARL FOLK: Yeah, well, and that's the thing, this is where Bannon understands the game better than the rest of the write, is he knows that that anger is very real...
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: incredibly real.
KARL FOLK: And it's very much an onion skin beneath the surface. And he can see the same thing that I think a lot of us see, which is this cabinet of billionaires and a White House that is being designed by billionaires for billionaires, there are only two routes here. And that's actually a problem for the far right.
They need a multiple option kind of buffet of ways that they can turn when things go poorly. And You can't really [00:37:00] turn on the wealth class now for them in any fundamental way. And the reality is most people are on board with doing so much better with our economic situation that they're not at all against a targeted assassination.
Which these are huge shifts. These are historic shifts in America's trajectory socially. And they're being coupled with this massive, like I said, getting ready phase for the plundering and those two things together are shocking, right? this is something this country hasn't seen in 120, 110 years, where you have like actions against the wealthy on the street. And then you have the rise of this authoritarian sect of capital. That's not just like, Oh, we're going to be authoritarian, but like, Thank you for playing, but now it's all ours. And that, [00:38:00] we haven't had a makeup like this in, a long time. So we're really setting ourselves up here for a couple of huge fights at the same time that sit side by side, but aren't going to be the same fight.
And I've been talking with people recently about how we are actually going to have to navigate both. Incredibly rough fascist politics. And the fact that they are going to start to lose support at a rate that's almost unimaginable once some of these things start to hit. And we're gonna have to be forward thinking enough, let's say, to go and pick some of these people up and say, Look, we all got the short end of a stick here.
You voted for a fascist. This is what we were trying to tell you about. But we also Are going to have to figure out how to get you and me and everyone else out of this hole now And that's not going to happen Without [00:39:00] us figuring out how to do that together And I think you know i've been watching this and saying okay This is going to be really tough, but we might also actually have a chance here to change the direction again. Because people do understand, like this is a class problem not a race or gender problem. And The people who were stuck in those information silos with the far right, in some cases, are starting to say, hold up, this is a problem.
This isn't the direction to solve that problem. This is the direction to keep us from actually dealing with it. And, you see that now in comment sections where prior to the assassination and prior to Trump's winning and then lining that with the White House cabinet with billionaires, just wasn't there.
Weekly Roundup Jimmy Carter vs Elon Musk - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 1-3-25
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: All right, Dan in my book, I do discuss Carter quite a bit. And one of the dates that you threw out there was 1980. It's a sore point [00:40:00] for me, Dan. And I just want to address it so that we don't have any issues later. You said it was a long time ago. It happens to be the year I was born. So, I'm just going to try to,
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I'm just doing a math. Yeah.
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I just had my birthday and I'm feeling a little older, but that's fine. 1980 is also the year Ronald Reagan wins the White House and Jimmy Carter becomes a one term president. Most of you listening know the story: the religious right sided with Ronald Reagan. And I want to just read a bit of what I wrote about all of this that did not make it into the book. This is stuff that was on the cutting room floor. So here we go. "In retrospect, the evangelical breakup with Jimmy Carter was the result of a number of complex issues, but all the details lead back to a central theme.
Though Carter was one of them, his policies didn't fit their agenda. His faith was unquestionable. He was born and raised a Southern Baptist, served as a missionary, supported his church at every turn, and married his one and only love. Carter's politics, on the other hand, were not aligned with the vision that Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell and others had for the United States. They felt he didn't represent the power of the nation." [00:41:00]
I just want to stop and say one of the things that dogged Carter as president is that people like Jerry Falwell and other warmongers, labeled him as not manly enough. He was he was a man who listened, a man who wanted diplomacy, a man who wasn't always talking about control and violence and nuclear weapons. It's in the same ways that Obama was labeled this guy who wears mom jeans and that whole thing. it's very similar.
"In essence, Carter was Christian enough, but not nationalist or patriarchal or warmongering enough to satisfy other Christians. The man who embodied family values was characterized as hating the traditional family. The man who was an officer in the Navy was castigated as unpatriotic when it came to foreign policy. He brought the cross into the white house, but according to his critics, he left the flag outside of the sanctuary. So in 1980, Christian conservatives supported a divorced Hollywood actor with a mixed record on issues surrounding quote, "family values" and a history of supporting abortion over the Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher who married his high school sweetheart, served with distinction in the armed forces, and often brought his Bible with him when leaving the house.
It was the election that made clear that the cross [00:42:00] wasn't enough for Christian nationalists. The cross must always be accompanied by the flag. This leads to one final lesson to be learned from the Carter/Reagan election. When it came to voting for Donald Trump, Christian nationalists had precedent for prioritizing politics over morals and policies over identity. Jimmy Carter was born to a poor family in a tiny town in rural Georgia. Donald Trump was born to a rich real estate magnate in New York City. Jimmy Carter was a dyed in the wool evangelical from the time he left the womb, was baptized as a teenager, and committed himself to Jesus Christ wholeheartedly.
Throughout his life, Donald Trump has rarely attended church, and to this day, he is religiously illiterate. Jimmy Carter joined the Navy and became an officer. Donald Trump avoided the draft in Vietnam because he claimed he had bone spurs. Jimmy Carter's father, Mr. Earl, as they called him, was a pillar of his community who helped out his neighbors in ways that would only go noticed after his death.
Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, was arrested after a KKK rally in the late 1920s. In 1963, Jimmy Carter ran to be part of the Georgia State [00:43:00] Legislature, in part to prevent segregationists from shutting down Georgia schools after the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. In 1989, Donald Trump took out a full page ad in the New York Press decrying the Central Park Five and calling for the death penalty.
They were later exonerated, of course. Jimmy Carter built his presidential campaign out of the conceptions of justice inspired by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his friend Bob Dylan, / Timothy Chalamet. Donald Trump modeling himself after Andrew, modeled himself after Andrew Jackson." Dan thinks that's so funny.
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I Wasn't expecting that. Sorry, I didn't mean to break in there.
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: "Jimmy Carter appointed more people of color and women to the federal judiciary than any other president before him. Trump employed open white nationalists in his cabinet, including Stephen Biller, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller. When Jimmy Carter became president, he put his peanut farm in a blind trust, giving him control of his financial portfolio. As President Trump used his power to promote and grow his various businesses across the world. When Carter left the White House, he [00:44:00] was badly in debt because those who had managed his blind trust had done so poorly. By the time Donald Trump left the White House, his children earned nearly a billion dollars of private income while he was in office, not to mention Jared Kushner's deal for multi billions after Trump left office.
After leaving office, Jimmy Carter helped to build 4, 000 houses for those in need through programs related to Habitat for Humanity. Since the end of his presidency, Trump has lived at the private golf resort he owns in Florida."
One of the things I'll just say, and I want to really launch us into Musk and Trump and all that is, Jimmy Carter was also, Dan, in some ways, the last middle class president.
So, we might get an email here or two about Obama, and that's fair. But the Bush family, the Reagan family, no. Not even close. Okay? The Trump family, no, he's a fake billionaire, but still he's lived a life of upper class luxury for his entire existence. The Obamas, when they entered the White House, yes, I think were middle class, and I think you [00:45:00] could, I think you could probably say that Obama and Carter came from the same kind of class background in some ways.
But, what I'll add to that though, and of course, the Obamas being black I'm not going to overlook what the economic challenges that this country has posed to black Americans at every turn. Whether it's enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining, and so on. So, not overlooking any of that when it comes to the Obamas.
Jimmy Carter was born on a farm. I mean, he was the first president born in a hospital, but he was a farmer, Dan. That, I mean, Tim Walz, I think was notable for a lot of, for a lot of us, because he came off as this, like, regular guy, a teacher, a military guy, a dad, go out and fix your car, go out and go hunting for turkey. I think a lot of people found Tim Walz endearing because he felt like somebody they might know. Jimmy Carter was one of those people, and you cannot even imagine that. Now, I mean, the Clintons I, come on, by the time Hillary Clinton ran, they were, they were millionaires a hundred times over.
So, I think that's there. Anything else on Carter before we go to some contemporary stuff here with [00:46:00] Musk and Trump and everybody else?
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I think to echo your point about not, I have nothing but respect for the achievements of the Obamas, but you also have like, was at University of Chicago educated Barack Obama, I think it's another contrast even between, somebody like Carter.
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Well, ivy league law education.
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So I just to make that point is I think to reinforce that, that, If you wanted, some sort of middle class credentials now, like, I think you'd be really hard pressed to find anybody who could have fit that better than somebody like Carter.
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Well, and this whole idea of class and money and corruption and, the guy put his family's peanut farm in a trust and the whole time he's president, he's like, don't tell me about it. I don't, I legally don't want to know about it. And when he gets out, it's like he's in debt. So I've said this before in the show, Dan, can you imagine being president and you lose and you're like, well, got to leave the white house and take my solar panels with me.
The Oligarch Class - Left Anchor - Air Date 1-3-25
ALEXI THE GREEK - CO-HOST, LEFT ANCHOR: Maybe we should shift to some of the solutions here, because I think we're juxtaposing these private individuals who are lionized and debauched and all these things, and it's been this [00:47:00] way for so long, how do we reverse that course? I mean, we've talked about feudalism. Some people think maybe this is neo feudalism. What's your analysis in the book about the path to reverse this kind of inequality and change the ruling class to rule by the people? That's a small question.
PROF ROB LARSON: Yeah, I know the answers to all these questions. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that we can see would work because it works historically, which is a good start. Like, we did have for many years in the past, a New Deal, Great Society period that did accomplish a lot.
It had like reforms that are not necessarily reformist, like little gestures and crumbs to keep the working class from rebelling, but reforms that make it easier, or not necessarily easier, but kind of prepare the way for more like real activism or organization. So things like, take something obvious, like the National Labor Relations Act that creates the NLRB that they're always trying to get rid of these days, but gives workers, plenty of limited and boss-favoring tools as well.
But several real allowances that any [00:48:00] local or union organizer will tell you are incredibly important. I'm my union local's council rep. So I can tell you these things really matter. And things like the minimum wage and the Civil Rights Act and voting rights, I think like lots of real, real achievements there that are like very positive and very constructive for us, but at the same time, I would say like those things also left the main thing intact, which is private ownership of resources and capital, you know? So for like broad, it's at the broadest level, how we try to deal with or you know, begin to address getting out of this kind of condition that we're in, with incredible, just incredible wealth in the US certainly, and globally, and just no one can have any of it, except the already spoiledest, completely diluted ruling class goons.
I mean, there's things that worked historically. We got those gains historically through a big fat labor movement. Reagan and Clinton really killed labor in the US along with a million decisions by corporate investment boards, the ruling class of capital. People who decide "We're going to close down all the factories in this country and put them in this country, unless you give us 50 prizes." Like that's, that's like a major change, and that kind of hurt labor enormously, giving capital global mobility, but [00:49:00] certainly not labor. "We can't have you f f f f f foreigners coming in here and doing jobs. We're just gonna bitch about there not being any workers. No one wants to work anymore." "We will work, señor." "F f f f ugh! Foreign People!" It's amazing to watch that response, but like labor could be rebuilt.
We have like a modest labor renaissance happening now. We should push that as hard as we possibly can. A couple of hundred organized Starbucks stores, maybe not recognized with contracts yet, but that organization is the beginning. Recent victories for the UAW in, like, southern auto plants, which is about some of the worst territory you could be organizing in. Tiny amounts of victories against Amazon. Microsoft has collective bargaining units because it's bought up a bunch of gaming studios. These things, like, are existing, and you still have a lot of organization in some sectors, like in the railroads, in construction the public sector, where I work.
So these things exist. That's important. We should try to get back to where we were at least before when union density peaked in 1953 at around a third of the workforce under collective bargaining agreements. It'd be great to get back to those days and indeed exceed them. We also need something that goes beyond just, organizing for better pay [00:50:00] and vacation days and health insurance. As important as that stuff obviously is. And that's where it's great to get actual, like, socialist, nationally visible political representation. Which, for I can only tell young people trying to help move socialism forward today, if you think this is a terrible era, you should have tried before 2016 when I mean, like, "Oh, socialist, what have you done since the Berlin Wall fell?" Just like, aging, boomer, instant put downs, ignoring anything you say after that, no matter how popular your socialist ideas are, from reforms like Medicare for all, all the way up to, like, much more broad measures, but having people like The Squad, at least those who have survived the AIPAC shooting gallery lately. Or Sanders himself, of course.
Like, these people have put left wing and even really socialist ideas in front of the national public and back in the conversation again, which is on its own a huge contribution beyond what they've been able to influence in legislation, which, exists but is debatable. So to me a much stronger labor movement, visible and real socialist representation would be the things we need. But to me, the real thing that we would want to do this time that never happened before is [00:51:00] expropriation of capital is all it is. I would say that's where the liberal or social democracy line is drawn between that and like democratic socialism or like real more radical ideas. Fundamentally, the New Deal and Great Society in the US and the big social democratic welfare states, which went well beyond what we did in Northern and Western Europe.
Real achievements there. People don't want to give up their national health insurance. I wish we had gotten it, so like real valuable things there that people love. But they left, with a few exceptions, like other than health specifically, transportation, and energy in a few countries. Other than those, and things like ports, other than those, private property remained private property.
Might be regulated a lot during that period. Lot higher taxes, no doubt. But it's your oil refinery. It's your giant tractor plant, it's your huge agricultural estate. Most of the time antitrust doesn't require you to break it up just because you're big, you have to be proven to be monopolizing, it's a lot more specific. I've been writing about all these antitrust cases on tech for Jacobin. It's interesting, fingers crossed, [00:52:00] Google's a monopolist, that's what happened with Microsoft.
On the other hand, Microsoft beat getting broken up and is the biggest company in the world today, so who can tell if that will work? But the point is, those huge fortunes and the physical capital assets remained in the hands of the corporate world and the ruling class that owns their stock. And that's why they were in a position, eventually, in the 70s and especially 80s and 90s, to mount that neoliberal attack on us and use their ownership of media to give us a bunch of right wing ideas for the Republicans and Democrats to adopt. They were able to move their capital overseas when NAFTA kind of opened up, and increasing telecommunication power opened up the doors for doing that. Like, we left them in charge of economic assets and investment fundamentally. Despite the significant and real regulations and like public planning that existed to an extent in these countries.
And they were able to come back with it. Like, we never ultimately took their main source of power in their hand. We said, "You can keep your ring, Sauron, but you better be good." He's like, "Oh, totally." For 30 years, until the labor movement's tired, and people are sick of 70s inflation, and you can roll in a handsome actor who says, "All this happened because we [00:53:00] chained up poor Sauron. We should let him use his ring more freely." And now, back in charge. So, unless, next time we have a socialist movement, just throw the damn ring into the lava so we can have some freedom this time. It's definitely a concrete piece of advice that's very helpful that I'm giving, so you won't regret it.
Note from the Editor on the rehashing of the anti-democratic argument for extreme wealth for the benefit of humanity
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Reidout laying out the history of right-wing influencers from Limbaugh to Musk. Democracy Now! looked at the impact of growing up in apartheid South Africa on Elon Musk. The Muckrake Political Podcast examined Musk's impact on the Republican Party through campaign finance threats. Brian Tyler Cohen on No Lie looked at the MAGA civil war over H-1B visas for skilled workers the tech lords want for their companies. Bad Faith continued the discussion on H-1B visas. The Muckrake Political Podcast looked at the big picture of the wealth classes influencing politics. Straight White American Jesus contrasted Jimmy Carter with Donald Trump. And Left Anchor zoomed out even further to discuss the historical context of inequality [00:54:00] and the shortcomings of past efforts to combat it.
And those were just the top takes. There's a lot more in the deeper dive sections. But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. And, as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.
And recently we've been trying something new, offering you the opportunity to submit your comments and questions for upcoming topics, not just current and past ones, so I can give you a heads up on what's coming. Next up, we're working on the topic of the legacy of Jimmy Carter with a focus on where things currently stand on some of his top issues like environmentalism, housing for the [00:55:00] poor, and so on. Then we're also going to be tackling an idea that I think will be new for a lot of people, which is the de-alignment of working people with the left, driven by the impact of neo-liberalism as well as the tentative realignment of the right to include a bit more economic populism, At least among their supporters, if not their actual politicians and policies, as we have seen play out. And finally, we will definitely be tackling the LA fires and the broader interplay between fire and water in the age of climate change. So, get your comments or questions in now for those topics. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-399 1, or simply email me to [email protected].
Now, as for today's topic, it just so happens that The Daily podcast from The New York Times took up this issue of Silicon Valley and Trump this week. So. I had a listen. Turns out their focus was on Marc Andreessen, another [00:56:00] high profile tech billionaire. He's slightly less high profile than others. But anyway, you know, he's one of the guys who switched over from being a sort of moderate Democrat. to a Trump supporter. And one of his big ideas is what he calls "the deal". And the basic "deal" he proposes is that taxes and regulation should be stripped down to the minimum to allow for super wealthy people to do great things with their wealth, which will benefit all.
Now, it's unclear, but it seems like he doesn't often or maybe ever mention that Andrew Carnegie propose d basically the exact same idea in the late 1800s. So, this is nothing new. The difference between the two, maybe that Carnegie's idea was that great wealth should be accumulated and then given away in the form of philanthropy, which is how we got thousands of Carnegie libraries around the world, as well as Carnegie Hall and untold numbers of other things that stemmed from Carnegie foundations. Andreessen's [00:57:00] idea seems to be a lot less about philanthropy and a lot more about simply using wealth to build tech companies because tech companies themselves are such a great benefit to society that it's basically like philanthropy. It's like, we're doing capitalism and getting extremely wealthy, but the work we're doing is for everyone and it's all good. That seems to be his idea. So, the end goal of benefiting humanity is the same, but the path is different for these two.
Given those two ideas you may be thinking well, you know, I guess Jay probably prefers the Carnegie method of actually spreading wealth around than just building ever more tech companies and simply framing your wealth accumulation as inherently good for humanity. And, yeah, maybe, I guess,
But really, the answer is, that's the wrong question. And both ideas are bullshit. Andrew Carnegie famously laid out his idea in an essay titled "The Gospel of Wealth". And within the very first paragraph, he falls into multiple [00:58:00] logical fallacies and presents multiple painfully flimsy arguments. So, talking about the technological progress over the past few hundred years leading up to the late 1800s, Carnegie says, "But contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race that the houses have some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better, this great irregularity, than universal squalor".
Okay. Let me stop you right there. This [00:59:00] either/or framing is a classic misdirection that artificially limits the scope of the debate and the discussion, and even the imagination of where people go in their minds when they think about ideas like wealth inequality. This, Do you want for there to be untold inequality and have arts and literature, or Would you prefer that there be no culture at all, and for literally everyone to live in squalor? That is absurd. Ridiculous. Those are not the options.
And then his next line caused me to have to do a little bit of research. He says, "Without wealth, there can be no Maecenas" I'm like, okay, what or who is Maecenas. I was not familiar with that. So I did a deep dive by reading the first paragraph of Wikipedia, which says "Gaius Maecenas who lived from about 68 BCE to 8 BCE"—just barely missed Jesus; [01:00:00] shucks!—this man was "an important patron for the new generation Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. In many languages, his name is an eponym for 'patron of arts'... During the reign of Augustus, Maecenas served as a quasi-culture minister to the Roman Emperor".
So, Carnegie's point is that only by being wealthy was Maecenas able to patronize artists so that they could create their great works, which we still appreciate today. But as I've already pointed out, that's an artificially narrowed perspective that precludes other possibilities of how society might be organized. So, it's true that Maecenas' being rich allowed him to patronize the arts. But it doesn't mean that in order for the arts to be patronized, there must be obscenely rich people. That is another logical fallacy.
And highlighting any benefit that is created by the wealth of these [01:01:00] kinds of oligarchs, again, narrowly focuses the discussion. It becomes a question about the outcome of the patronage rather than a discussion or debate about how things might otherwise be organized compared to the wealthy philanthropy patronage system.
To start at the most basic unit of wealth accumulation, it is always built on the exploitation of laborers. So that always needs to be calculated in. People died in Carnegie's steel mills and he hired the Pinkertons, basically a private army, to break up efforts to unionize. And then today we think of tech workers as nerds making six figures while living in the Bay area in California. But the subcontracting that supports those big tech companies are often built on people all around the world, living in grinding poverty, while doing profoundly menial but essential tasks that those companies require in order to provide the services that they do. So the difference between now and 130 years [01:02:00] ago in terms of labor is not actually as stark as you'd imagine. But look, I'm sure the oligarchs would wave that away and just say, well, you know, Those are the eggs you need to break to make omelet.
So fine. You can't force people to care about the humanity of others. So forgetting for a moment those who suffer directly for the accumulation of wealth by the very few, the bigger issue is how philanthropy in almost every form bypasses the democratic process and robs people of the ability to have a say in how society is impacted by those flows of enormous wealth.
It's an inherently paternalistic mindset that sees the wealthy as uniquely qualified to make decisions that will impact everyone without the legitimacy that comes from being elected or having ideas run through a democratic process of debate. And you don't have to cast aspersions on any particular rich person and say they are going to make the wrong decision. You just have to understand the effects on the whole. [01:03:00]
And it's easy to understand that philanthropy in general, and with very few exceptions. Is given in a way that may sort of soften the edges of society, shave off some of the sharp corners that are particularly objectionable. But philanthropy never truly challenges the status quo, no matter how much public support there is for change. There's a reason why rich people are far more likely to patronize the arts ban support the establishment of universal workers' rights or healthcare, widely popular ideas that would also help everyone.
So, if the idea is to help everyone, you would think, Oh they should be in favor of, you know, directly helping everyone. But that's not how philanthropy works. Even though some good can unquestionably come from philanthropy. It is also. Basically just another way of artificially narrowing the scope, but not just of a debate or a discussion, but in how society can choose [01:04:00] to shape itself. It's been described as a sort of benevolent authoritarianism with the rich deciding what's best for everyone else and saying in effect. Trust us. We know what's good for you.
Now to wrap up, I'll mention that the only alternative is not necessarily taxation and spending through government appropriations. The Best of the Left producers had a discussion on our show for members that will be coming out soon about the benefits of citizen councils that bring together a random, but representative group of people to help sort through options and make decisions. These can be used to propose solutions to a particular problem that an elected council wants to address. But they can and have been used to help decide how to distribute large sums of money from the private sector, just a rich person who wants to give their money away, but doesn't want to be in charge of it themselves. Doesn't want to do it in a paternalistic way, wants to give a democratic process the option to give that money away.
So that's just one [01:05:00] small idea of how wealth could be managed slightly differently. Of course, we could have a bigger discussion about avoiding having wealth accumulated in such vast sums to begin with. But in short, the big idea is don't be fooled into allowing our options of how to design society to be narrowed by the whims of the ultra wealthy. There are other options that we can imagine, if we just widen out our perspective.
SECTION A: OLIGARCHS
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now. We'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up section a. The oligarchs followed by section B, the maca fracture. Section C global influence and section D organizing.
The Oligarch Class Part 2 - Left Anchor - Air Date 1-3-25
ALEXI THE GREEK - CO-HOST, LEFT ANCHOR: You know, it might be a good place, since we're talking about that, because you have such a nice, simple definition of capitalism and socialism, and I'm sure we'll get to the plan at the end to combat all the ills and evils of these nasty characters and what they've done over history. But speaking of productive wealth maybe you could distinguish between productive property versus as you say, petty [01:06:00] private or personal property, and why that distinction matters so much for growing inequality and for the political and economic social power.
PROF ROB LARSON: Yeah. That's a great one, man. Definitely. When you talk to people who are in the political mainstream, people who are more conservative or more liberal, they're going to refer to socialism in scary terms, and they'll refer to it as being tyrannical, which is kind of funny, if you look at the history of it. But primarily the first thing that conservatives always refer to is like, oh, you know, socialists, they're coming and they're going to take my gun and my truck and my gas burning stove. They're going to come and take my pants and my pets and my toothbrush. Like, no one wants your petty personal property.
ALEXI THE GREEK - CO-HOST, LEFT ANCHOR: They're going to come for your truck nuts. They're going to take your
PROF ROB LARSON: Should we connect? Literally castrating the working class. Yeah, it's about productive wealth that we usually talk about. I mean, your personal money, your little petty middle class house and cars. I mean, you're drawing on social services. You should [01:07:00] pay a tax assessment to fund those. I mean, sure. But this is not like the wealth of society. When we talk about "socializing the means of production" or "nationalizing capital," we're talking about those big pieces of productive capital that we talked about, that I mentioned a moment ago, again, like housing stock is kind of intermediate.
Usually a lot of socialists like to draw the line at expropriating your second home and up. But if, you're working on your mortgage on your home, I mean, you paid for it with your actual working class labor. That's not where the, it's not because you have a personal house or condo unit that the working class is oppressed.
It's because we have tiny ownership of all the productive capital of society. And it puts those owners in a position to decide who gets a job or not. It's like, that's a real distinction. And that's very different from, well, if there's, if Bernie is president, is he going to take away my Xbox? You know, he won't. It's not, it's productive property we care about. That's the important thing. And just to kind of connect it to Ryan's first question about wealth because I just feel this one point is so important. So I'm always kind of lunging to make it. One thing I mentioned in the chapter on the [01:08:00] wealth itself and the numbers in the book is again, we talk about different kinds of wealth and owning it.
The main thing that makes up the giant fortunes of the real high end of the wealth distribution and the ruling class, as it were, it's financial assets. And that includes things like bonds and, every kind of financial tool from, derivatives to futures contracts to everything else, but the big thing is ownership of that corporate property. That big capital we mentioned, and we should just mention that the oil refineries, the data centers, those things belong to Corporate America, they're corporate property, they belong to Microsoft or Chevron or whichever.
Well, those corporations and, we on the left or have a long history of being skeptical of these powerful corporations and their incredible ability to control political events and so on. We should just recognize too, though, that those corporate empires have owners. They belong to their (sarcastically) "equity investors," their shareholders and shareholders are very tightly concentrated across the economy.
So, whereas [01:09:00] if I can just turn to some wealth data here. All the data I'm referring to here is from the WID, the Wealth Inequality Database, which is a great resource that everyone listening should check out. You can pull up the World Inequality Database. It includes all of your hotshot economists who study the wealth gap, Piketty, Zuckerman, Saez. If you know who I'm talking about, you'll be very excited. If not, that's okay. Very good data visualizations. See the share of income held by the rich versus like the bottom 50 percent and they have that distribution visualized for your convenience for almost every individual country in the world. So you can pull up like Algeria, or South Africa, or Bolivia, or Canada's wealth or income distributions over time. Pretty cool. So I just want to plug them since I'm stealing all of their work.
So they found that the US in 2021, last year we had numbers for, the wealthiest 1% of households owned about 35% of wealth. Which is an outrageous crime against a human spirit, [01:10:00] so that's bad. However, I would point out, that richest- that same richest 1% of households owns 40% of all stock, of all that corporate equity. And those traded stock assets, 40%. And the richest 10% of households own 84% of it, like most of it. Now if you're like some, "professional class" person like myself, a community college professor, you may have a full time job that may come with a tax advantaged retirement vehicle of some type, mine does.
And when you sign up for the job, you get a little retirement plan and you pick basically a mutual fund. Which a mutual fund, you can buy shares in a fund and they own shares of companies. So it's shares of something real. This is what finance is all about. If you're excited by this, you should go into finance, listeners.
But the point is, all that big capital and productive wealth we're talking about, it's corporate property. Of this same ruling class, that's all. I just feel like sometimes people don't [01:11:00] necessarily have that connection between the super rich households and billionaires and the giant global corporate empires that they disproportionately own. People like me may own little shreds of stocks, and I have a, modest little retirement plan there, but it's a minority of households, and we certainly own a strong minority of the stocks. So I just want to mention that we talk about petty property. Petty property's important. Your comforts of life.
The productive property is represented by ownership of an investment portfolio and representing a bunch of real productive wealth. So I think that's the distinction people should see. Are we talking about your personal wardrobe in your closet or this portfolio that means you own half of South Africa? Like, that's a real distinction.
Zuckerberg Stops Licking And Puts Trump's Entire Boot In His Mouth - The Majority Report - Air Date 1-7-24
CLIP MARK ZUCKERBERG: Hey everyone. I want to talk about something important today, because it's time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram. I started building social media to give people a voice. I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting free expression, and I still believe this today.
But a lot has happened over [01:12:00] the last several years. There's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation.
These are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly. So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts, that's millions of people. And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship.
SAM SEDER - HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it one second. All right. The one thing, and this is maybe a little bit tangential, but this is always there with this. These conversations understand when he talks about these complex systems, creating mistakes, et cetera, et cetera, it is because they do not want to hire. Human beings who could do [01:13:00] this on the regular basis because the number of human beings they would have to hire would inhibit their profitability and make it harder for him to become chasing after the wealthiest man in the world.
EMMA VIGELAND - C0-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And what he borrowed from Elon Musk was also that labor model. Like, Elon came into Twitter and he fired a bunch of folks. And you know what Meta did, uh, just a few months ago? They laid off a lot of people, too. They're copying the community notes thing. Like, we made fun of how incompetent Elon Musk is, but the reality is, is he's making a lot of money and he's trying to make sure that he's as profitable as possible.
This is what the board of directors at Facebook is going to say like, Hey, let's, let's, let's take some of that stuff too.
SAM SEDER - HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: I don't think that's what I, because frankly, Musk is not making a dime on Twitter. It is a complete loss leader. He's made the money back in terms of, uh, what he's going to get in tax cuts from Donald Trump.
Facebook and Google had been doing this [01:14:00] for, for a decade. Um, um, and Their moderation sucks because they don't want to pay people to do it. The trick for them has always been the challenge has always been, how do we do this without paying labor? And so their complex system is so complex because you don't have a human being You can go like, oh, wait a second, this person's criticizing racists, not promoting racists, which a human being could do.
Right. Good.
CLIP MARK ZUCKERBERG: Point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.
More specifically, here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes. We're Similar to X, starting in the U. S. [01:15:00] After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth.
But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U. S. So over the next couple of months, we're going to phase in a more comprehensive community notes system. First off, also, this is all
SAM SEDER - HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: bullshit. Because, I mean, we have seen, uh, where he's gone, uh, what's happened in terms of, um, you know, economic sentiment.
People have biases. And they, it begins to, um, uh, uh, change their perception of facts. And when bird flu, if the bird flu comes, and there's a problem, um, Um, it should not be an up or down [01:16:00] popularity vote by community notes of a platform that has been designed to attract a certain type of, uh, of viewer as to whether, um, what the R value in terms of like the ability of bird flu to be spread from person to person is or what the morbidity rate is for the bird flu.
EMMA VIGELAND - C0-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I mean, he, this is the, did you notice how he, what the things he listed there that, um, were threats to the platform? Drugs, childhood exploitation, and terrorism? It sounds like he's literally just Taylor, Taylor making his message for the conservatives with the whole like Terrorism and drugs coming over the border and then hey QAnon There's also this sex trafficking here too in the same way that earlier on last year his letter to Jim Jordan and the Republicans Basically framed it and said we were quote, [01:17:00] repeatedly pressured by the Biden administration to remove social media content that, uh, would have been critical of them.
So he, in addition to also donating to the inaugural fund, this is a full capitulation to Donald Trump because Donald Trump in a book that he put out, what was that, uh, earlier the around the same time it had a quote. That he said that he would put Zuckerberg, quote, spend the rest of his life in prison.
SAM SEDER - HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: Right, read that whole thing.
EMMA VIGELAND - C0-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Former President Donald Trump writes in a new book set to be published next week that Mark Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election and said the Meta chief executive would quote, spend the rest of his life in prison if he did
SAM SEDER - HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: it again. What an amazing coincidence that, uh, that, uh, just days before Donald Trump is inaugurated right after he is made president again, that, uh, Mark Zuckerberg does this.
EMMA VIGELAND - C0-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And you know, another coincidence is that Meta has an antitrust lawsuit in front of the government in April. What a complete coincidence that he would be sucking up to [01:18:00] conservatives during this time period. Um, this is Lena Kahn actually this morning asked about it on CNBC.
CLIP REPORTER: What do you think though of the relationship that we're seeing between Big Tech and the next administration?
What do you make of the meetings, uh, and pilgrimages with which we're seeing Mark Zuckerberg go to Mar a Lago? Or we're seeing a Jeff Bezos interview? Bezos or Tim Cook. I mean, this is a very different kind of relationship than the administration. The Biden administration had and specifically what you represented to the business community.
CLIP LINA KHAN: So I approached my job with a focus on faithfully enforcing the law and making sure we were doing that across the economy without fear or favor. There has been, as you know, a lot of concern. Um, and he's an even as we've seen the president elect announced some of his future appointments, he's noted that he's making these [01:19:00] appointments with a view that they're going to continue to maintain a tough line against some of these big technology companies think
CLIP REPORTER: they are given the meetings that we're seeing, given the million dollar donations to the inaugural.
I mean, I'm on a very personal basis. You know, there's only eight business days left in your role. What What do you make of that?
CLIP LINA KHAN: Well, I can't predict what future people in my position are going to do. It is true that the FTC has been very successful, including in its ongoing litigations against Amazon and Facebook.
And so it's only going to be natural that those companies are going to want to come in and see, can they get of sweetheart deal, right? Can they get some type of settlement that's cheap that settles for pennies on the dollar and gets them escape? Let's them escape from a liability finding in court.
CLIP REPORTER: You see that happening?
Is that what you think is happening?
CLIP LINA KHAN: I hope it won't. But again, I can't predict that. And we are set to go to trial against Facebook this spring against Amazon and fall of 2026. Of course, they would want a sweetheart deal. And I hope [01:20:00] future enforcers wouldn't give them that.
The Oligarch Class Part 3 - Left Anchor - Air Date 1-3-25
RYAN COOPER - CO-HOST, LEFT ANCHOR: Yeah, what you're describing basically is like Downton Abbey, like a, like an aristocratic household, where there's a family of very, very, very rich people and a lower class of people who need, or can be induced to be servants and that's what they are. And like, that was not a great system, but I think what stands out about what you're talking about in your book is the Americans are kind of allergic to the type of class differences that constituted the British aristocracy.
You know, it's like the people who are born into this stuff, like most of the time they are literal, like peers of the realm or whatever. And that came with a certain, noblesse oblige. And one shouldn't romanticize that system, of course. But I think that from what I've read, I'm not an expert in the history of the British aristocracy or anything like that. But the way that Americans think they deserve it. [01:21:00] They deserve the money that they got, whatever, even if they inherited it, probably, especially if they inherited it, they think, oh yeah, that all this money, all this vast wealth that I have, this is mine and nobody else has any claim on it and therefore I get to do whatever I want. I get to order my servants around however I want, whereas I think in the British system, despite the horrible inequality, like there was a sense of I'm just sort of in this position, I'm the lead, and that comes with certain duties. Sort of legacy of the medieval system where like, you can't be that terrible to the servants. Or just acknowledging that, if you're hiring someone to like, wash your balls for you or whatever, that is, you have to behave in a responsible fashion. You have to take account for the needs of the people who are doing the work for you.
And whereas now it's like the absolutely fucking absurd tasks like having your butler drive six hours to go pick up some dirt so your [01:22:00] dog can take a shit. It strikes me as more common. I don't know. I mean, I haven't done any studies on this, but I think that American aristocrats is what they are. This sort of unshakable, permanent ruling class absent, massive economic transformation. They're like aristocrats who think they aren't aristocrats. They think they're self made bootstrapping entrepreneurs. And so they get to push people around whoever they want. And it makes him even more sick than, Lord Baron von Palmerston on Higgins or whatever the fuck.
PROF ROB LARSON: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. It is worse. It was, you look back at, yes, the upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey-era, and, it is hideous. It's the worst, the most grotesque entitlement you can have is when people are born into it, who are, like, I'm gonna say, literally entitled. And I am using "literally" correctly. You actually are entitled. You have the title of the Baroness of, yes, friggin Pizzly Wiggles or whatever the hell it is in, Central Britain or something. It's true. Then, though, at least, [01:23:00] yeah, there was this noblesse oblige you have obligations, you're supposed to be providing employment, sure, but also it's this whole idea that you're living the fine life, because only a few people can afford it. Because it's pre capitalism for most of this era. And only a few people can live a fine life and have art and learn French and read, learn to frickin read, and stuff like that. Whereas now, these people have, whatever the opposite of a sense of obligation is what these people have.
And when you feel something like that, you make a foundation and you put your big, fat, dumb name on it and you go, "It's hooray for me, the Professor Rob, I Saved All You Penniless Africans from AIDS foundation." And we can get into the philanthropy if we wish but that is like the way that these guys burnish their reputations. I mean, certainly for everyone else, but for themselves too. Like a lot of these people, when you like look at their biographies, I talked a lot about this in Bit Tyrants, my last book specifically on the tech people, like they're aware that there's a certain amount they deserve and it's not $30 billion. And so you make a foundation and it makes you look better while [01:24:00] the government's antitrusting you, which is important. And also you could say, you know, that's mainly what I do is helping people. And it does work. If you look at the Wikipedia biographies for Bill Gates, Rockefeller, you name it, it's businessmen and philanthropists. Like the main thing they did was just giving money to people.
ALEXI THE GREEK - CO-HOST, LEFT ANCHOR: It works to make them look good. It's not necessarily a good use of our resources.
PROF ROB LARSON: I should be clear. Oh no, it's demonic. I should be clear. It works to make them look and feel better. It destroys the world, of course, around us. Yes, that is accurate.
But it is amazing, because, yeah, it means that today's aristocrats are, like, significantly worse than even the landed gentry, historic aristocrats, or even people depicted in the joke, the aristocrats. That's the level that has been reached by today's billionaires.
Big Tech Backs Trump to Cut Taxes, Boost Crypto, Replace Workers with AI- Roger McNamee - Democracy Now! - Air Date 12-27-24
AMY GOODMAN: So, they are clearly extremely interested in tax cuts and deregulation. Can you talk about the significance of this, what this means for the health of the nation?
ROGER MCNAMEE: So, Amy, I think here’s the fundamental [01:25:00] challenge, that Americans for too long have trusted Silicon Valley. You know, for 50 years, the products that came out of the valley made us more capable. They made us more productive. That is no longer the case. And we have maintained this increasingly tight relationship with technology products, essentially treating everything new as though it would automatically be better than what came before. That has not been the case since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.
And so, the point I would make to everybody is I think we need to change our relationship to technology. You know, what you’re seeing in this space is exactly what the professor just described going on at foreign affairs, which is there are a lot of distractions, a lot of things being thrown out there to grab your attention. But the core things come down to displacing workers with artificial intelligence, displacing the currency with crypto, and getting rid of any kind of taxation on wealth that might come up. [01:26:00] And that’s the agenda. It’s really straightforward. And the only power we have as citizens — and I think it’s a huge power — is to sit there and say, “You know what? We’re not going to use your products anymore.” And we have been accepting all kinds of invasions of privacy, all kinds of surveillance, all kinds of manipulation in exchange for convenience. I think it’s time for us to look at that relationship and ask, “Could we do with less convenience for a while in exchange for regaining human autonomy?” That’s a trade I made a number of years ago, and I’ve been encouraged others to do, and I just think it’s really the only option that we have for at least the next four years.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the relationship of these tech billionaires or oligarchs with workers. I mean, you have Amazon workers out all over the country on strike. Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post Of course, Bezos and, what, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times, stopped the endorsements of their editorial [01:27:00] boards for Kamala Harris. But the significance of how they deal with workers and what this administration will mean?
ROGER MCNAMEE: Well, if you go back, the great Meredith Whittaker at Signal wrote an essay, I don’t know, maybe a year and a half ago, about the history of computing and how, even back to the 1850s, the predecessor technologies that led to computing were all about control of labor. And it started on plantations and controlling slaves. And you have seen a steady evolution. It was broken — temporarily, it turns out — by the personal computer, which, in fact, empowered people. And then the internet did the same thing.
These guys have been attempting to revert to centralized control ever since, and so that their goal is really, really simple. If you watch artificial intelligence, for example, the mania for AI began — and I do not think this is a coincidence — when Silicon Valley workers [01:28:00] resisted going back into the office after COVID. And the first market they tried to sell it to was Hollywood during the writers’ strike and the Screen Actors Guild strike. And I think it’s really simple. There are ads in San Francisco right now about how you should not employ any more humans. You know, you can employ AI instead of humans. And I sit there and ask a really basic question: Who does that serve? You know, our children are being lured into using ChatGPT for school. And in what way does that benefit them? It doesn’t prepare them for a future in which they’re empowered. It prepares them for a future in which they are disempowered.
AMY GOODMAN: Roger McNamee, how is all this going to be powered? Microsoft wants a nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island. Explain the role of nuclear power, AI and cryptocurrency.
ROGER MCNAMEE: Amy, this is such an important question. You know, even if you thought that artificial intelligence was useful — [01:29:00] and to be clear, it is not at all obvious that the utility of it is anything like as valuable as the cost, but the starting assumptions are totally flawed. So, the industry starts by stealing all copyrighted information, as well as all the personal information that all of us have in cloud services. So, if you think about things you might have in Google Docs or, you know, that you might have in an email server or in an app that does your productivity apps, you know, all of those things are being absorbed. So that’s a theft.
But the second problem, the really huge one, is what it does to natural resources. If you look at Microsoft and Google in particular, both have made commitments to carbon neutrality by 2030. Both in the past year abandoned those commitments, because their power consumption has gone nonlinear, up 30, 40, 50% over the last few years, simply to power artificial intelligence. The same thing is going on with water. A lot of these processing plants, both [01:30:00] for the data and for semiconductors, are located in deserts, and so they’re consuming massive amounts of water.
And the public has had no voice in this. The companies have acted unilaterally. And they’re at the point now where they’re literally talking about restarting Three Mile Island, in Microsoft’s case, or building floating nuclear plants in the Northwest, in the case of Amazon. And I would simply observe that the public really should have a voice in this. And what we decided in this last election is that we were going to forgo that vote and let the industry have control of it. And, you know, I seriously have no idea how this is going to turn out, and I think the only power we have is to say no.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Roger, but, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk’s worth soared over 70% to $450 billion after the presidential elections. The significance of this?
ROGER MCNAMEE: Well, everything about Trump appears to be pay to [01:31:00] play, right? All of these executives are giving a million dollars each. These are rounding error numbers. This is money they find between the cushions of the couch in their living room. But, you know, it’s basically a protection payment. And in Musk’s case, the investment he made in Trump, which was a quarter of a billion dollars, or the investment he made in Twitter, which was like $44 billion, those have paid off, obviously, many, many times over.
I believe that Trump and Musk will eventually part ways. I mean, I don’t know Trump at all, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would put up with someone who competes at the level that Musk competes at. But we’ll have to see how that turns out. My point here is that —
SECTION B: THE MAGA FRACTURE
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B the maca fracture.
Elon & Vivek's H1-B Crash Out Part 2 - Bad Faith - Air Date 1-2-25
Q ANTHONY ALI: I think the issue here is that the tech people, or rather, the nativists, are expressing this, and the tech people are just flabbergasted they can't understand it. Most people don't want to have to do that much shit just to live. That's the long short of it. The big problem is here, we're acting as if every single person should have the drive and determination to [01:32:00] want to out hustle all of their pure competitors and have the best job possible. Everybody should shoot for being a CEO.
But that's just not what life is like for most people all over the world. Generally, people want to be able to wake up, sit down for breakfast with their family, see their kids off to school, go to work, work the amount of hours that they agreed to when they signed their work contract, come home, watch TV for a couple of hours, read the kids a bedtime story, and then go to bed themselves.
That's all people want to do. They want to be able to barbecue on weekends, they want to be able to hang out, have fun, do things that don't involve their life revolving entirely around their work. But the issue is, these people in the tech industry have so bought into their own line of thinking, their own ideology, their own tech futurism, that they think everybody should be plugged in all the time, that everybody should be trying to out-hustle everybody else.
That's not how they live. They would like you to think that, but that is just not how they live. Everyone thinks that Elon Musk, running six or seven or eight or ten, I don't know how many different companies that he runs, he's not actually [01:33:00] running it. Essentially, he's just overseeing production for all of these companies. That is not how he lives. That's not how his peers live, but that's how they want the average American to live. And I think the nerve that they struck for a lot of these MAGA nativists is that they don't want to live like that. That's not how their lives, growing up that's not how they saw their lives shaking out. That's not how they want their lives to be, but they see that their lives are being forced in that direction by people that are degrading the standards of the labor market.
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: I think that's such an important point. If I were to also just frame it a little bit differently, it feels like we all know as leftists (blah) that there are all these kind of systemic barriers. That we have top six people in the country that have more wealth than the bottom 6%. That someone like Elon Musk (denies it, but it is true) inherited this emerald mine, or his father had this emerald mine and had all this wealth that he used to buy Tesla. He didn't start anything from the ground up.
And now these people that are incredible elites, who ran scams like Vivek Ramaswamy to earn their money, turn around and tell the rest of the [01:34:00] masses that they are culturally unfit, that they're undeserving, that they're not hustling hard enough. And the cherry on top is someone like Vivek saying, "And if you hustled as hard as someone who's coming from another country, where they have many fewer opportunities, then you too could succeed."
And no one's asking the question, "Well, do we really want it to be that kind of a dog eat dog world?" Isn't the whole point of America to your point, Q, that you should be able to have a chicken in every pot and a reasonable middle class lifestyle without having working 80 hours a week. And this is, again, what seems like such an interesting opportunity for the left to demonstrate why our analysis is so much superior to that of the right.
You have Matthew Knowles. You know Matthew Knowles. He's one of these conservative commentators. He tweeted a few days ago, "Tired: meritocracy is bad. Wired: meritocracy is good, inspired, the very notion of meritocracy conceals a conception of justice and politics that is dubious upon close inspection." Wait, is he doing CRT?
Q ANTHONY ALI: I was just going to say, that's Critical Race Theory!
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: Like, this is one of those, I'm pretty [01:35:00] sure he's like a hardcore anti-CRT, anti-woke, blah, blah, blah guy. But they're all kind of coming to this realization.
Q ANTHONY ALI: Hang on a second. We just got white Derrick Bell, that's crazy.
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: Exactly. What do we do with this? We have people like Laura Loomer out here again, doing these woke discourses again, not totally woke. She's being like super racist while she's doing it.
Q ANTHONY ALI: No, she's being right wing woke is what it is. She's a woke right winger.
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: How would you describe that? What is Right Wing Woke Q?
Q ANTHONY ALI: Right Wing Wokeness, their third eye has just decalcified, like their third eye has just opened up and they're now starting to see the world for the way it is and not, not- they don't have the blinders over them. So now they're drinking, like, peanut punch. They're drinking the mineral water and whatnot to decalcify themselves. No, seriously, they're gonna be drinking rainwater. They're already on the anti fluoride. But it's be so much worse than that. Now they're actually seeing that there is a class divide. They're actually starting to understand that.
That there's rule by elites. And the people that they thought were elite [01:36:00] previously, were generally like coastal academic liberals. Now they're beginning to understand that the actual true elite are the corporate and financing overlords. The people that they previously used to look up to and worship, they're now beginning to understand, now wait a second, the world that they envision for themselves doesn't include me. I'm just a cog in the machine. I'm just a battery to be plugged in.
What they're actually waking up to is that there is a tangible and variegated class difference, differences in class interest, whereas for them being working class people, they don't intend on being CEOs. They don't intend on commanding multimillion or multibillion dollar salaries. They want to have a comfortable life, raise their children and be able to have fun Christmases 30 or 40 years down the road with their grandkids. They don't aspire to be tech overlords or finance overlords.
But what they're seeing is that these tech and finance overlords have essentially gotten together since the late [01:37:00] 1970s and the 1980s. It's actually really interesting that Jimmy Carter has just passed away, where he was essentially the one that ushered in this neoliberal age that we're in right now with massive deregulation, financialization of almost every industry, and then shipping work either south or overseas. What they're beginning to understand is that they don't fit into the grand scheme of American labor practices.
Essentially, their jobs are going to be so far abstracted away from being able to actually make anything that is of tangible value. They're just going to be sitting at a desk, working a useless email job or simply unemployed altogether because everybody from overseas is going to be brought over to work those useless email jobs.
That's right wing wokeness, but the way that they express it is not through talking about class differences. They're not talking about exploitation of labor, et cetera. They're talking about, they want us to be a bunch of street hitters.
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY - HOST, BAD FAITH: Although I will say some of them are getting pretty close. Tell me, who do you think said this?
Noam Chomsky or Laura Loomer? [01:38:00] "The biggest threat to our country, our freedom and humanity is the unchecked power of technocrat billionaires who have God complexes, access to defense contracts, and openly declare war against dissenters. This should freak you out."
Q ANTHONY ALI: You know, it's actually kind of wild. She's the one that I think blew the whole lid off of all of this, because she was the one that just straight up called out Elon Musk and said that he's a stage- she called him a stage five clinger. He's basically a hanger on to the incoming Trump administration. And what he's doing essentially is just prying the door open for all of his tech buddies, Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen, David Sachs, et cetera, prying the door open for them to come in and implement their own version of tech futurism in America, but that doesn't leave any room for the ground level people, the people that were there from the very beginning, like the prototypical MAGA-ites. They're pushing people like her out the door. But the way that she expressed it, I think, kind of, like, struck a nerve in working class MAGA Americans to the point where they realized, like, wait a second, these people don't really [01:39:00] give a shit about us.
With the kinds of appointments that Trump was making to his incoming administration, I think what they saw was something that they did not recognize as being originally part of that movement. And it turned them off so much that she was the one that actually gave a voice. It's a very strange combination of racism and class consciousness. It struck that note with many of them. And that's why there was this huge revolt over the past four or five days.
Our Moment is Approaching Part 3 - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 12-31-24
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Like, they honestly do not understand what Donald Trump is, or what Donald Trump represents. Because he just basically, gestured to them in order to capitalize on basically a niche that existed within our politics In order to get himself in a place to become a grifter king more or less Yeah, and it was just oh you you guys want white national absolutely like i'm actually for white nationalism But meanwhile, i'm just going to go in and serve the wealth class and and worsen this condition meanwhile And Carl, this is the thing [01:40:00] that I keep trying to, to, to get into people's heads.
What Musk is doing is on a whole other level from anything that we've actually seen in the modern era whatsoever. Like, even the rise of the fascists and the Nazis and the authoritarianism of the 20th century, it was a group of industrialists that were pushing this thing. They basically wanted them out there in the streets in order to go after socialists and to take over liberal democracy.
Musk has recognized, much like how Trump recognized within the Republican Party there was an opportunity, Musk has recognized that MAGA, which he paid a couple of hundred million dollars for, That's the wildest thing. He didn't even pay that much for it. He's now trying to take over germany through alternative for deutschland He's also going to try and take over the uk through nigel farage and hopefully some sort of tory alternative And so what has happened?
Is that all of these people who literally believe that they were in a project for a white ethnostate, and yes, they are ideologically Nazis, but they're not even [01:41:00] like the actual neo Nazis. Like, they understand, and that was something that I was tracking for years, which is, as Trump was coming to power, like the actual Nazi groups, the paramilitary groups, the separatists, the accelerationists, They all recognized that Trump wasn't going to give them a white ethnostate.
They thought it was, uh, uh, advantageous to get people radicalized through Trump and bring them over to their side. These people are sort of caught in the middle of something that I don't think that they understand whatsoever, which is that Elon Musk bought MAGA. In order to basically assimilate the United States government, which he's now on the precipice of doing.
On top of that, the, uh, the media structure is not going to side with them. Fox News is not going to have Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon on to give, like, an articulated criticism of Elon Musk. They're not even going to give this any sort of airspace. The Ben Shapiros, all those other people who are being paid by right wing oligarchs, and also Russia, While we're on the [01:42:00] subject are not going to give this their party and their movement got sold off from underneath them, and they don't understand that this has happened.
It just so happens that their racism and Elon Musk's racism, and he is racist, and he has been very openly racist. They do not intersect because their goals have never actually been in line with each other outside of the prioritization of rhetoric and speech and ideology that is white supremacist and patriarchal.
Meanwhile, they're on the outside looking in before January 20th even gets here and are having to come to understand that they are dispensable unless they go ahead and kiss. Musk's boots. Donald Trump is going to push them away and MAGA is going to move on without them because MAGA is now subservient to the wishes of the oligarchical class as opposed to all these other things.
So they can basically, they can shut up and eat shit or they are going to get exorcised [01:43:00] from all of this stuff. They are, they are finding out some real material condition lessons at this point. And that's what's happening as opposed to a major, major schism that's going to derail any of this.
KARL FOLK: No, no, absolutely.
And like, that's the thing, right? Like this is no vert shift in what the goal is because they've achieved a couple of their bigger goals. And for the new right, specifically the techno fascist side, like their whole goal has been to amass enough wealth to then, as you said, assimilate governments, right?
And for them, like the, the neoliberal order. The same way is for modern fascists like Trump has been a really good way for them to get into our lives, right? And For better or worse, you know, we have kind of seeded ground to the tech oligarchs in really [01:44:00] strange ways, right? That even 10 years ago, I think a lot of people might've asked questions about and that money, I mean, I did some quick tape back of the napkin math the other day at, uh, at dinner.
And you know for the price that musk paid both for twitter and for maga He's gotten exactly the return on investment. He
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: was
KARL FOLK: oh, he's already profit off
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: of both of them.
KARL FOLK: Yes Exactly. And and so You know if the goal was never to actually You know, really have Trump be the thing for these people. He was always an avenue for them to get in and then take over, essentially.
Um, they're going, they're well on their way to achieving that as well. And like, Trump's base hasn't figured it out. And [01:45:00] many others haven't. But like, they're gonna get squeezed the hardest. Yes. By what these people are planning to do. And a couple days ago, you know, they, I believe it was Trump, you know, put up a post on, through social media.
That basically laid out the argument for why the economy was not going to fare well while he was a president. And, you know, you start to put all these together, and it becomes more and more clear that some of the more outlandish stuff that the, Silicon Valley new right had been thinking through is really stuff now that might be on the table for them and at least in their mind, right?
So that means they're going to work to enact those goals and like in tech acceleration is as laid out by both. [01:46:00] Yarvin and land kind of the, you know, the, the two kind of minds, two of the bigger minds, the horsemen of
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: the, uh, the fascist at this point.
KARL FOLK: Yeah. Um, you know, their, their whole thing is basically using capitalism and economics as a tool for them to shape society into something that bends to their will, not the other way around.
And so, you know, at the end of the day, like, These people are going to do maximum harm to those who are already the most harmed. And like, you know, as much as none of us like to admit it, like Trump supporters. Not the, uh, four boats and private jet Trump supporters, but like the run of the mill, small town America, Trump supporters, they're going to get just smacked in the face, but
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: they're going to get destroyed.
SECTION C: GLOBAL INFLUENCE
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next section C global influence.
Weekly Roundup Jimmy Carter vs Elon Musk Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 1-3-25
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: We've reached a place in [01:47:00] our politics, whether it's with Christian nationalists, presuppositionalist theologies from reformed circles, uh, those who would say there's no such thing as neutrality. And I just want to point us back to Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter as a religious person is like, keep God out of the government. As a financial actor, he's like, when I get to the white house, I want to have no financial interests. I want no way for me to gain or lose money. That I know about when I go to bed at night when I am president and I have a quiet 10 minutes I don't want to wonder if I've made money today or think about how I could make money today I'm done with that and here's Sununu saying well, everyone has a conflict of interest and my point is like I totally get it, Dan.
You and I have been through the philosophical ringers. Everybody wants to talk. Is there such thing as objectivity? We have said on this show that everybody has feeling and affect and embodiment. I, I, I understand all of that. It does not mean that as a leader, you can't strive to say, I'm going [01:48:00] to do everything possible to serve the people of this country, of this community, of this state with, The same status and respect and voice.
You can try that. You can do things to practice that. You can cultivate that. Let me, I mean, you want
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: to jump in. I was just going to say, this is like such a fallacy and it's a really common one. I run into it with students all the time because I will say there's no way to not have a perspective on something, especially if it's something important.
If it's something you care about, you know, you and I teach and sometimes we're teaching about stuff that's really, really impactful to us. It's something that we care about. I have a perspective and it's going to color how I teach it. And people should know, I don't teach in the classroom with the voice that I use in the podcast.
Every now and then I'm like, you should be, people are like, you should be ashamed of yourself. And I'm like, I'm not indoctrinating my students. I'm not just there like throwing out my ideas. But there's a difference that the fallacy from we all have interests, we [01:49:00] all have desires, we all have perspectives to therefore, I guess anything goes, right?
There's nothing wrong with, with grinding your own axe or pushing your own agenda. It's a fallacy for the reason that you're hinting at is that we can be aware of that. We can reign that in. We can put that on the table. We can put that out front and say, I have this perspective. And I think it probably colors how I look at things.
I'm, I'm open to hearing others. I want to hear other perspectives or just recognizing that it's, it's a fallacy that gets inserted and it really throws people because it's, I think it's a false alternative that you either have some sort of pure neutrality or objectivity or it's just pure subjectivity, whatever anybody thinks is of equal value or equal worth.
It's a false choice, but it's one that gets put out all the time. It's one that Sununu is putting here. And what it does in this case is it licenses the worst impulses within a kind of advanced American capitalism, which is part of what Musk is [01:50:00] within this technocratic elitist wing of the MAGA movement, it unleashes and licenses the worst.
Elements of that because it accepts whether, whether, you know, strategically or ignorantly or whatever, it accepts that false alternative. And I just want to put that out there. People have to know that that's a false alternative. The last example I'll give is, you know, you teach philosophy classes sometimes, and there's certain questions people have been arguing about, but like, as long as people have been arguing about questions, right, they might feel unresolvable.
And one of the things I tell students is I'm like, you know, just because we're not sure what the right answer is. Doesn't mean we don't know what some wrong answers are. And I think it's the same kind of thing. Yes, there may be perspective. Yes, there may be interests that sneak in. Yes, we may, in retrospect, realize that we had perspectives that we didn't know were there or biases and so forth.
That doesn't mean we can't identify those biases and seek to mitigate them and have that eye out moving [01:51:00] forward for just the knowledge that, you know what, maybe I will bring my perspective in here in a way that I don't want to or that isn't fair to others. So, I don't mean to hijack that, but it's just, it's such a fallacy and we find it not just in the classroom or in abstract philosophical discussion, but in the concrete discourse of somebody like Sununu.
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Well, and everything you said is so spot on because what Sununu says is the guy's worth 450 billion dollars. So I don't think he's doing it for the money. He's doing it for the bigger project and bigger vision. What else is
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: he doing
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: it
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: for? I'm, sorry, like 450 billion dollars. Everything you have ever done is for the money like that.
Ah, sorry, like
BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: dan dan dan Calm down because you know what I need to tell you is there's something that I know about rich people Okay, they're the kind of people that they they make a lot and then one day they they sit up in bed and they're like I think i've done enough I no longer need this much.[01:52:00]
That's all the rich people I've ever met have, have always just been the kinds that are like, once I've hit this amount of power and influence, I will stop. And so I, yeah, of course that's what's in it. No. So a couple of things here. I don't think he's doing it for the money. He's doing it for the bigger project and the bigger vision of America.
So here's the deal, y'all. Here's the deal. Jimmy Carter, rest in peace, a hundred years old, a unique life that will never be. Ever be repeated the first resident born in a hospital. I mean jimmy carter dan lives from Like the roaring twenties to all the way to the point where we have supercomputers in our, in our pocket.
And we just talked about the ways that he was not doing it for the money as president. He lost money as the president of the United States as a farmer, a farmer was president and he lost money serving the American people. Was he the perfect president? No, but just a, that's a [01:53:00] B. He was a thoroughly committed Christian who said God should not be part of the government.
So Elon Musk, if you're doing this for. The country for the bigger vision of america step down right now step down Step down as leader of every company. You have cash out get your your Let somebody hold all of the power when it comes to the government contracts the the corporate interests tesla spacex starlink get yourself out and then Continue to live at mar a lago and then continue to do what you're doing.
I'll just say dan that You He, we don't have time to go through it today, but Musk wrote an op ed for Die Welt on AFD, which is the neo Nazi party in Germany. And he made so many falsehoods. He overlooked so many things and the editor of that newspaper stepped down because they published it. But one of the things he says in there is, I [01:54:00] think I have, I am not German and I do not live in Germany, but I think I have the right to appear in, in like Germany's paper of record as an op ed writer.
Because I have invested so much in the country. Do you know what he's saying there? I am so rich, I deserve a voice. I am so rich, you get to listen to me now. That's why I get to pop up into your feed if you're a German. Because I don't live here. I've never lived here. I'm not a citizen. And I'm not really somebody who's ever planning to have anything but a financial interest in your country, but you still have to listen to me.
Does that sound like a guy who's doing it for the bigger project and bigger vision of Germany? Then why would I ever think he's doing it for the bigger project of America? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, Sununu, okay? And I have to say it for the second time in this podcast. Sununu, Sunono, okay?
That's what I'm saying. Sorry, Dan. It's a new year. It's a new year. I'm feeling As spry as I [01:55:00] can feel right now. And all of that, this leads to what Laura Loomer said, and I want to play a clip from Laura Loomer. And this is really the epitome of the civil war that's happening between Laura Loomer versus Elon Musk, Ramaswamy and the tech magnate.
So here's Laura Loomer.
CLIP: And what we need to have a conversation about is what is it going to mean for the future of our country, our national security and the incoming trump administration. If we have a bunch of technocrats who are also essentially welfare queens because their companies are receiving government subsidies and they want to take over our defense industry.
If you have a bunch of tech bros with billions of dollars and direct unfettered access to the vice president and the president of the United States, and then they are also, you know, very cordial with our adversaries as in China and Iran. We see that Elon Musk is having these meetings off the books with Iranian [01:56:00] officials, with Chinese officials.
What does that mean for us and the future of our constitutional republic?
Is Elon Musk Heir To Nazi Dream of World Conquest- w- Jim Stewartson - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 1-7-25
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: An operation paper
JIM STEWARTSON: was a classified program that, uh, the U S intelligence services, um, uh, executed, um, The end of World War Two, um, and for, um, years after, uh, and it brought over at least 1600 Nazi engineers, scientists, and others, um, over to the United States, uh, to, uh, help fight the, the Cold War.
And one of those Nazis, uh, was a guy named Werner von Braun. Uh, and Werner von Braun, um, Invented the V2 rocket, which was otherwise known as the Vengeance rocket, uh, and it terrorized London and Antwerp at the end of World War Two. Um, and this guy who [01:57:00] created the, the V2 rocket, um, was part of Operation Paperclip and he's, uh, uh, relevant.
It's part of Operation Paperclip. It seems to the richest man's life in ways that are surprising.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Yeah. So he comes to America and while he's here, he writes a book called Mars Project in German, uh, at Fort Bliss, Texas, and publishes it in 1952 in English. Tell us about the science fiction novel that Verner Von Braun wrote.
JIM STEWARTSON: Yes, well, it's a science fiction novel, but it's a very technical science fiction book the whole last third of it is real technical drawings, etc Rocket scientist it was by one of the most famous rocket scientists in History. He was a Nazi, but he was a legitimate rocket scientist, but he wrote this science fiction book, um, called Mars project.[01:58:00]
And in the book, um, there is a, a sort of, uh, figure on earth, um, who demands that we become multi planetary. which is something Elon Musk says constantly, um, and that, uh, we have to, um, colonize Mars. Well, it turns out when you get to Mars, there's a colony there already. And in the lead with that
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: in the novel,
JIM STEWARTSON: yeah, in the novel.
Yes. I was not, we're not breaking news here. Uh, yes. In the, in the novel, you get there and there's a colony and the leader of the colony is. a lot.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: E. L. O. N.
JIM STEWARTSON: E. L. O. N. The alarm. Um, and, and so you may think, well, that's a strange coincidence. Um, and you know, I kind of heard this story and thought, you know, Hey, maybe it's apocryphal.
But [01:59:00] then I went and started listening to Errol Musk, who is Elon Musk's father. And Errol Musk said out loud that as a, a child growing up in apartheid South Africa, he was taught, uh, these science fiction books that they, he was a, a, you know, huge rocketry fan and that he did in fact, name his son after the Allah.
So he's Elon Musk's father says this is Elon
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Musk is named after the guy who ruled the colonies on Mars in the novel written by the Nazi rocket scientist, Werner von Braun, and to make it even weirder. Those colonies did not live on the surface. Now, Elon has this company called the Boring Company that drills tunnels.
Tell us about how the people lived on Mars. The in the in the novel. Well, yes, there's
JIM STEWARTSON: also do you remember Hyperloop? Oh, yeah. [02:00:00] Hyperloop. Yeah. Well, you
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: tell people what it is for a lot of people. You know, I remember a lot of people don't know what we're talking. It
JIM STEWARTSON: was this, it was this project that was meant to create a, a high speed, um, railway of sorts between, um, San Francisco and LA.
And it was going to be in a tunnel, in a, in a closed. Loop. And, um, which is very reminiscent of the tunnels on Mars that Wernher von Braun said the Alon was in charge of.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Because people couldn't live on the surface because the surface is so hostile. So this entire society on Mars that they discovered when the Ameri when, you know, humans got there, was living underground in these tunnels.
JIM STEWARTSON: That's right. Living underground in these tunnels, which tells you that even back then, Werner Von Braun knew that trying to colonize Mars was not going to happen unless somehow you were able to create a [02:01:00] subterranean planet. World, right? Right. Um, uh, one other thing that I think is important to understand is that this colony underground was a technocracy.
So it was, the Alon was, was basically the dictator, but his court of jesters, as it were, and people around him, um, were all technocrats, engineers and scientists, et cetera. Um, because, uh, he considered those people to be the only people who really should be involved in such, you know, difficult, kind of a benevolent dictatorship, essentially.
Exactly. And, and, uh, something to know about Elon Musk is that his. Maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was literally the leader of a pro Hitler fascist movement in the 30s and 40s called Technocracy Inc. You can, this, again, it's [02:02:00] crazy. You can look it up. And what they did, what they wanted was a society that was ruled by By technocrats,
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: by engineers and scientists, et cetera.
Just like the Society on Mars. And this novel run by the Elon. By the Elon.
JIM STEWARTSON: Exactly. And one thing to know also about Elon Musk, uh, to give you an idea of how sort of deep this this goes with him, is that on his SEC filings for Tesla, he's not the CEO, he's not the CTO, he's the techno king of Tesla.
Interesting. Literally, that's his title, according to the Security and Exchange Commission. And the reason for that is because, you know, that's how he sees the world. That's how he sees himself, as this sort of benevolent dictator, as you said. There's a full lot of these billionaires have latched onto.[02:03:00]
called long termism. Um, it's also called effective altruism. And it's basically the idea that billionaires are so much smarter and more powerful and capable than everyone else, that they should make these decisions for us. They're going to make the hard choices and let the, you know, the, the citizens just take their medicine.
Unfortunately, you know, for the rest of us, one of those, those, you know, um, imperatives for Elon Musk is literally going to, he doesn't care who gets hurt on earth in the process.
Crack-Up Capitalism- How Billionaire Elon Musk's Extremism Is Shaping Trump Admin & Global Politics Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-6-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The power of Elon Musk cannot be underestimated, from here in the United States — and we’re going to talk about the Trump administration — well, many are calling him, of course, “President Musk” and “Vice President Donald Trump” — to, well, the latest kerfuffle in Britain and his support [02:04:00] for the AfD in Germany. If you can talk about the significance of all of this?
QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, it’s a pretty extraordinary situation to find ourselves in, right? I mean, if you think back to 2017, there was a lot of concern and attention to the efforts of Steve Bannon to create a kind of transatlantic coalition of far-right actors and parties. Imagine now here we are only a few years later, and there’s a Bannon-like figure but who also happens to be the wealthiest man in the world, overseeing some of the most profitable companies in the planet, who is leading that sort of effort to create a transatlantic coalition. So, the stakes are much, much higher. They are being dealt with with perhaps even less kind of care than someone like Bannon, which is an extraordinary thing to say. But Musk, I think, has entered this field of politics as a kind of [02:05:00] scaled-up version of his video game play, with no real thought to the kind of consequences of the disruptive effects that he’s creating, from here to Britain to Germany and beyond.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And let’s talk specifically about the conversation we’re having on this day, on January 6th, when the vice president, Kamala Harris, who presides over the Senate, will essentially certify her own loss, and this fourth anniversary of what took place January 6th,
QUINN SLOBODIAN: 2021.
Well, I think that, you know, the January 6 is apropos for a couple reasons. One is kind of silly but also meaningful, which is, if you look at the character that Musk uses when he plays the game Diablo IV, which he describes as giving him life lessons and allowing him to see the matrix, [02:06:00] the guy kind of looks quite a bit like the QAnon shaman, so well known from January 6. So, January 6, in a way, kind of, I think, opened this new era in American politics where the kind of surreal, fringe, often online communities have sort of entered the world of sort of high politics and have scrambled the kind of coordinates of average rules of the game and the normal sort of protocols. I think that Musk is someone who is really a product of that kind of crossover effect, where building up a kind of huge online community, building up the sort of status as a global media influencer, has now the capacity to actually shatter existing coalitions, shatter existing standards of what normal politics is. And his connections now to people like Nigel Farage, until recently, Tommy Robinson, [02:07:00] the AfD, Giorgia Meloni, these are signs of kind of a willingness to shatter existing traditional party systems, to embrace disruption kind of for its own sake, and to really harness especially the power of the internet to make possible things that had been previously impossible, so to make certain forms of speech possible, to make certain forms of mobilization possible, and to make things like, you know, the attempted coup d’état in January 6 something that could actually be followed through to its conclusion.
And I think that, you know, the kind of — the horizon of what the kind of politics in real life that someone like Musk is aiming at is broadcast by him frequently on his own Twitter account. Most recently, for example, he celebrated Nayib Bukele, the leader in El Salvador, as having done something that has [02:08:00] happened in El Salvador and will happen and must happen in the United States, which, in El Salvador, has been to imprison 2% of the adult population as an absolutely draconian way of cracking down on crime. So, this vision of sort of authoritarian strongman on politics, sort of gloves-off mass incarceration crackdowns, on the one hand, and then a deregulatory kind of unleashing of the free market, on the other hand, is — produced this kind of curious combination of, on the one hand, Elon Musk posting Milton Friedman memes all the time, on the other hand, scaremongering about the, quote-unquote, “genocidal rape tactics” of nonwhite immigrants in the U.K. So, he’s produced this sort of surreal effect, I think, of sort of the strong state and the free market turning the sort of Thatcherist vision, grafting it onto all kinds of online aesthetics and kind of video game [02:09:00] dynamics in ways that have really, I think, blindsided, for good reason, sort of mainstream, normal politicians, like Olaf Scholz, Keir Starmer, Biden-Harris, who don’t know how to deal with this kind of chaotic energy, which, unfortunately, has a huge amount of legitimacy behind it, not only his multimillion-dollar — or, multimillion number of followers on social media.
But keep in mind, I mean, he oversees Tesla, which is a car company that is worth more than all the other car companies in the world combined, whose valuation has gone vertical since Trump’s election, whose stocks are held in the portfolios of many, many, many Democrats who might otherwise find Musk, as a person, and his politics objectionable. So, he is a kind of a locomotive who has sort of attached himself to the very dynamics of both the online sort of meme market, but also the very much offline stock market, in ways that makes him hard to reckon with and hard to actually oppose.
GOP Already At Each Other's Throats While Musk Gloats Part 2 - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 12-24-24
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: And I do want [02:10:00] to take a second in the midst of all of this conversation. You brought up Greenland. Like, there is an effect in how all of this stuff sort of takes place.
Like, for instance, you know, we didn't even talk about the fact that the Canadian government is on the brink of falling apart. Justin Trudeau, very, there's a very good chance he's going to have to resign and will be replaced by a right wing government Simply because Donald Trump said some things about tariffs with Canada, which is going to set in motion, you know, the countries that are underneath the American sort of tree.
We've talked about how countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia, they're sort of straddling the line between, you know, the Russia, China, uh, coalition and the United States of America. So they can get away with whatever they want. Meanwhile, you have other countries like Canada that basically have to fall in line based on something that Trump will say.
He's being used as a, as a battering ram. And then, meanwhile, while we're talking about this, we also have to talk about the fact that Germany, which is in alignment with the United States of America as part [02:11:00] of that Western liberal democratic sort of coalition, it's starting to fall apart as well because of far right tropes, conspiracy theories, and put, uh, all the stuff that's happening, uh, with, with their plans and strategies.
What is Musk doing now? He is voicing support for Alternative for Germany, which is a far right, neo Nazi adjacent group that is gaining power, much like all these places. It's gaining power in France, gaining power in England, gaining power in Germany, and now in Canada. All those places that are aligned with America.
And we're hearing now that he is planning on maybe throwing 100 million towards Nigel Farage in the UK. In Germany, we're seeing the ascendance of this as they're coming into alignment with Russia, China, and the right wing international movement. And what are we seeing with it? We're seeing in Magdeburg, there was a terrorist attack on a Christmas market that killed at least five people.
And it was carried out by a guy who is a huge fan of Elon Musk. He's a huge fan [02:12:00] of Alex Jones. He's listened to all these conspiracy theories. And what does that do? It creates a more violent environment in which right wing authoritarians are able to gather more and more power. It's, it's a domino effect.
And what we're seeing take place right now is a lot of these dominoes are starting to fall.
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: I just want to go a little deeper into the, uh, the terrorist attack in Germany because Appears like they'd be a Muslim and from a Muslim country, but was actually virulently anti Muslim and having been living in Germany since I think 06.
So to see the, um, it's not Koch, what is it? The seed of the right wingers who can't, Use that right. They want to be able to say, look, this is a Muslim extremist who's driven a car into a nice people in Germany. And they can't do that. And you can see them getting just upset about it. That's what's so disgusting about all these things.
And you, and I have, I guess I'm dip my toe back into Twitter a little bit. And it really had, I had, you've been doing this Jared at all. If you'd be going back to Twitter. Um, you know,
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: I, I've been off the grid, so [02:13:00] I've been as far away from social media as I possibly can, but yes, I've been keeping an eye on Twitter, which has been turned into a propaganda organ, so unfortunately, yes, I have to study that damn place.
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: It's far worse than it ever has been, even though I gotta tell you, Blue Sky is kind of like, it had a big influx, and it's sort of Nick,
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: I'm glad you brought this up, because just, I want to let people know, I talked about this a little bit on the Discord, it's There is a huge operation that's taking place on Blue Sky, and I think it has a lot of implications.
I've been studying it, but yes, it's more or less been flooded with a lot of accounts that are trying to spread disinformation, and also to continue sort of the liberal coalition rift that we've talked about in the past. So yes, it's sort of being infiltrated in much the same way that Twitter
NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: was as well.
Yeah, I mean, and the sky is blue, but, but, uh, it's the, it's the engagement too. Like there was a lot of engagement, like I was getting more engagement on my political blue sky than I ever had on my Twitter, blue sky, Twitter account. Even though my Twitter account had many more followers. Right. And I have to, I'm going to choose to believe in my conspiracy adult [02:14:00] brain that, you know, I would tweak Musk all the time.
And I'm convinced that like, they put me on some sort of thing where like, you know, those tweets don't go anywhere. Of course they don't. But it's starting to do something there too. So it's frustrating because yeah, one, one little dip of my toe back on the Twitter and it's really disgusting. So, but again, it's important for our work because we need to monitor what they're saying, what they're feeling and what the, you know, the news on that end is, is reflecting, um, however, you know, soul killing it can be, uh, just so, cause other people probably listen to this, don't aren't as connected to that.
And it's really a fascinating how, The scapegoat of trying to use Muslim extremism for terrorism when in reality, like in our country, it's usually white people who commit these horrible, you know, uh, the mass shootings and stuff. It, it's, it, it really is, um, indicative and, and a problem.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Well, a lot of what we're seeing here, and, and for the record, the way that this misinformation sort of works and the way that the propaganda works is you do multiple things.
There's going to be one group that's very frustrated that they can't use it for their [02:15:00] traditional purposes, and another group's just going to do it. We saw that, of course, in, uh, Great Britain, where there was an attack, and they instantly, like, blamed it on, you know, uh, one person, when it turns out it was another person.
That's one of the reasons why this guy who carried out this attack in Germany carried it out was because he had been inundated with Alex Jones style conspiracy theories that framed it in a different way, uh, and included Tommy Robinson, you know, one of these far right shitheads who is part of this whole sort of ecosystem.
So, what's happened over time, Nick, is something that I, I was afraid of going back into, I would say 2016, 2017, which was the Overton window started to change, the environment started to change, people started getting affected by this, even if they understand it's bullshit, it sort of moves things around, which has now led to a place Where again, you have an international authoritarian movement, China, Russia, North Korea, uh, Turkey is on that list, you name it, Venezuela, whatever.
They, they have this sort of coalition that's moving more towards autocracy, and now the [02:16:00] liberal democracies are naturally being moved in that direction on purpose, you know, again, France is falling to it, Germany is falling to it, the United States of America re elected Donald Trump, Canada is starting to go in that direction.
It is an assimilation, and the propaganda and misinformation that we're talking about right now has done its job. I mean, it's, it is the equivalent, again, of playing a completely rigged game in which one team isn't playing all that hard, and the other team is not just playing a rigged game, they've been playing a multi faceted, eight dimensional chess game.
So we're starting to see this stuff move around. That doesn't mean it's a fait accompli. It does mean that we're going to have Push back against this stuff and it starts with being aware of it and covering it as opposed to just acting like everything is happening in a vacuum, which again is one of the reasons we do this podcast in the first place.
SECTION D: ORGANIZING
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section D organizing.
Our Moment is Approaching Part 4 - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 12-31-24
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Well, and, and speaking of the Mangione thing, we didn't have a chance to cover it because of the, the certain amount of time that we were recording and going on, uh, holiday and all that. [02:17:00] They've already made the concession to the billionaire and the millionaire class on that. The DOJ went ahead and charged him with terrorism.
And what are we going to see? Undoubtedly, we're going to see Trump push more of that. We're going to see more and more money thrown at law enforcement. This will probably be one of the reasons why we'll see like even more buildup in law enforcement and surveillance. Then what happens at the lower level is this.
They like Trump like people like where I'm from in southern indiana. They like Trump because he's not politically correct, because he says that the elites are crooked, he knows that all of this shit, like that's why they're into that. The racism is part of it, the patriarchal shit is part of that as well.
But they are similarly troubled by Elon Musk. They don't want a wealthy tech, you know, uh, pharaoh, they don't, they don't want that, they want Trump to be that. And there's already an obvious sort of division here between Trump being a figurehead for this tech fascist push that's [02:18:00] taking place. And what you brought up is important, and it gets a little squishy here, Carl, because as you and I, who are both working behind the scenes, we don't need to talk about what it is that we're doing in a private forum.
Why? Because we're in the middle of a class war. And I just want to make it clear that actually one of the things that works to our advantage is the people that you and I are talking about, whether it's Bannon or Yarvin or any number of these people, including the wealth class and their think tanks and their institutes, they have broadcast Everything that they have wanted to do that is one of the reasons why we know what they're doing They've been very exactly about it.
So we can't talk about it. We can't talk about it explicitly, but I will say this Anybody who is a leftist or even going back to the progressives who fought this battle a century ago? What they recognized was that there are class contradictions when it comes to power and particularly within capitalist countries.
You have to understand them, you have to learn to [02:19:00] communicate about them, and you have to look for moments of opportunity. And what you just brought up is exactly the right point, which is, this thing isn't going to resolve itself. This thing's not just going to go away But it's also not going to tear MAGA apart and ruin trump's second administration in the plans of elon musk There has to be pressure put upon it.
There has to be organizing that's used against it You have to use every opportunity to talk to people who quite frankly have been duped And you're also going to have to talk to some racist people, and some sexist people, and some xenophobic people, and some gay and transphobic people. It doesn't mean that you tell them that what they're saying is okay, because it is not okay.
But you need to be able to talk to them about the fact that their prejudices have been used against them. And the evidence is right there for everyone to see. Which is This fight right here. They say they're for free speech. Well, they're taking away the free speech rights of all the people that disagree [02:20:00] with them constantly.
Oh, they say that they're for a white ethnostate. Well, look what they're doing here. They're looking to bring in an underclass of controllable workers from another country, which is what they've claimed that liberals in the deep state were doing all along. That's what they want to do to help them. You have to be able to talk about this stuff and give them an alternative that gives actual solutions as opposed to the bullshit that Trump and all these people have peddled towards them.
KARL FOLK: Exactly. Exactly.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: This is what we've been shown in the past. This is the only thing that works against this stuff. Unless, of course, you want to go to war with them. And you want to have a world war where those things get settled and actually those differences just kind of get taken care of and it goes underneath the surface.
But that's not particularly where I want to go with this thing.
KARL FOLK: No. No. No, no. And I mean, that's just it, right? Like you have to give people viable options that aren't up here above their head, right? Like you have to give people. Options that are right in front of them and you have to be able to give [02:21:00] them real world examples of how and why it's worked the way it has.
Right? Like the thing that I think for a lot of people that we have a very hard time in this country specifically talking to other people we think we may not agree with and it's gotten worse. Right? So that's tough. A lot of that's based on good reasoning, right? A lot of the politics have gotten to a point where it is dangerous to talk to other people, depending on where you are and who you are.
100 percent true. But there are going to be moments where you're going to have an opportunity literally to say to someone, look, you got screwed. I got screwed. We're actually in the same boat. I don't really, you know, you don't have to probably say it, but like, I don't really like you or your politics. Do you know who else got screwed?
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Gay, trans people of color. Exactly. Women got [02:22:00] screwed. Exactly. All
KARL FOLK: of us are in the same boat together.
JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE PODCAST: Yes.
KARL FOLK: They just happened to get you to believe that they, that you were in a different boat, which you were not. And that was always the goal. Right. And so people, people want. Material change in the positive for them.
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 our upcoming topics: the legacy of Jimmy Carter and his biggest issues, the disconnect between labor and the left, and the LA fires and the politics of water in the age of climate change. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Left Anchor, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, Bad Faith, The Muckrake Political Podcast, The Thom Hartmann Program, and Straight White American [02:23:00] Jesus. Further details are in the show notes.
Thanks 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 Lara—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 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 at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. 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 the link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you may be joining these days.
So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left [02:24:00] podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.
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