Transcripts

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

In a world of infinite information but a finite amount of time to check your facts, we're living in the logical conclusion of an online environment that favors false information over truth. And the most popular online media reflects that reality, perfectly.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes All In with Chris Hayes, The Bunker, Why America?, On the Media, The Kavernacle, Breaking the Habit, and a TED Talk.

Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A. The Joe Rogan experience and the media;

Section B. Trust and belief;

Section C. Centrism; and

Section D. Roots.

Aaron Rodgers moment perfectly sums up how fake information spreads - All In with Chris Hayes - 11-14-24

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Offer a little parable for our age, and I'm gonna use sports for a minute here. So indulge me. I promise I'm going somewhere with it. So this week on Sunday night [00:01:00] football, Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff, generally very good quarterback, was having a terrible game against the Houston Texans. Goff threw four interceptions by halftime, meaning he threw the ball, the other team caught it taking possession. That's bad. It's a turnover. You don't want to do it. At halftime, someone posted a surprising statistic to social media. And it started going viral. Here it is. This is now Jared Goff's seventh career game with at least four interceptions. His record in those games? 6 0.

Now, for those of you who don't follow football, that is an extremely shocking, improbable, indeed, it turns out, ridiculous claim. Four interceptions a game is exceedingly rare. Winning six games where you did it? Okay. But it just kept circulating. The original poster even shared what appeared to be a graphic from a well known sports statistic website to back it up.

It looks like stat news. And that was apparently enough for folks to just parrot the claim unchallenged. It went everywhere. Even people who should know better like ESPN host Pat McAfee and Aaron Rodgers, the conspiracy theorist quarterback for the New York Jets, who RFK [00:02:00] Jr. apparently wanted at one point as his running mate.

AARON RODGERS: I love Jared, I'm sure he'll bounce back. Amazing stat though, is this a true stat? That he's done four more picks seven times and he's won every single one of those games?

PAT MCAFEE: Yes, yep, 7 0.

AARON RODGERS: That's wild. I mean that's why stats are for. What did Big Mike used to say, age?

HOST 2: Stats for losers.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: They're for losers. Is this true?

It's true. You can probably tell where I'm going with this. The statistic is not true. It was a total lie. Just take it from the guy who made it up in the first place. Quoting: "If you've ever wondered how easy it is to spread fake information, I made this stat up while laying in my bed at halftime of the game."

And this random Twitter football guy actually makes a pretty great point there. Thankfully, this is a totally harmless prank example of disinformation. It doesn't matter. The only consequence was [00:03:00] McAfee getting embarrassed and having to walk it back on air. But what happened in that exchange, between Pat McAfee and do your own research Aaron Rodgers, is kind of the entire story of our age, of our information environment right now.

These are the guys, those kinds of guys that are doing the vetting of what's true and not in our current information environment. That's it. Those are the guardrails. They are doing their own research, if you will. And it's not just sports. This problem translates across our political culture. I mean, everything.

Lies and misinformation and intentional slander about immigration and immigrants and the economy. They're spreading on this kind of terrain where the anti vax quarterback just parrots an unvetted statistic he saw on Elon Musk's website to millions of people on the ESPN. I saw this stat. Yeah, it's true.

That's it. That's the whole problem in miniature. A miniature version of the [00:04:00] enormous problem that we all face that has gotten us to this point. That the rest of us gotta try to find some way to solve. And I will be the first to say, we do our part here, but I don't know the answer. I don't know the answer, but boy, oh boy, are we gonna have to come up with some.

Why is everyone suddenly an expert? (Even when they’re not) - The Bunker - Air Date 5-20-24

ROS TAYLOR - HOST, THE BUNKER: This is the second edition of this book, I think the first one came out in 2017. In the first, you thought things that might improve if there was a major crisis and Americans had to rally round and understand the importance of expertise. And there was that major crisis, as we all know, in the form of COVID, and they didn't. In fact, they got worse. Why was that?

TOM NICHOLS: Yeah, boy, experts hate being wrong, book authors really hate being wrong. Yes, please buy my book, because I was wrong. But we definitely had three crises. I said in the book and in subsequent lectures about the book, look, a war, an economic crisis or, pandemic [00:05:00] would probably snap people out of this and say, "listen, we need people who know what they're talking about." We had all three of them. War broke out, the largest war since World War II in Europe is raging in the middle of Europe, and yet experts, diplomats, have managed to keep this thing from exploding into World War III. Remember the Russians rolling westward was the thing that kept Cold War strategists, up at night and waking up in a sweaty panic. And somehow we've managed to do this and contain this, and yet that hasn't seemed to dent at anybody's thinking about this very much.

We had an economic downturn that turned into a soft landing. Here in the United States it's been a lot better than you've fared in Britain. And I'll just bring up the experts warned about Brexit, and that was another case of, the ordinary folks listening to yeah, it was I think it was Michael Gove who said, " we're tired of experts!" Now you have, 60/40 split wishing that it hadn't [00:06:00] happened.

But economically here in the United States we have sustained the longest stretch of unemployment under 4 percent since 1953. And yet people, they don't think that matters very much and they don't seem very aware of it. And they don't seem inclined to think that expertise had anything to do with it, political or economic.

And of course, then the pandemic, and why was the pandemic so divisive? I would argue that the one thing I should have known that I didn't was that pandemics are inherently divisive because you don't go into the streets to help your neighbors. It's not like an earthquake or a fire or a natural disaster. Pandemics by their nature, make you shut your door and lock it and treat everyone as a potential threat, and that's inherent in pandemics.

But the other thing that I could not have counted on was that an entire American political party would make opposition to science a fundamental plank of its platform. And that the president of the United States would be [00:07:00] the cheerleader for basically rejecting science and, simply distrusting basic science about everything. That had a toll and we paid the price for that.

ROS TAYLOR - HOST, THE BUNKER: It wasn't just a case of anti vaxxers ignoring experts. You write about how the partisan backlash against those people minimizing COVID also did damage. Tell us about that because it's not a narrative that gets much attention in the UK.

TOM NICHOLS: Absolutely. One of the things I decided to write about in the new edition of the book was to do what experts ought to do, which is to say, look, where did we go wrong? Trump's failures, the craziness of the Republican Party and the right-wing ecosystem, that's been well documented elsewhere. What did doctors do wrong? What did health experts do wrong? And there were a couple of serious mistakes.

One is that health experts tried to step into the vacuum left by the irresponsibility at the top of [00:08:00] the political elected political officials. And so you had health experts, including some that worked for the government, like the Surgeon General, trying to fill the void on should you wear a mask.

Most people wanted to do the right thing. And they said, "okay what should I do?" " Well, don't go buy masks," because of course, now the doctors were worried that there was going to be a run on masks. And so instead of saying, "Hey, we got it wrong, this is an airborne thing, stay away from each other, but don't go buy masks until we tell you to, because the people in hospitals are going to need them first." they just didn't say that they played this game back and forth of buy them, don't buy them, put them on, don't put them on. Would bandana work? "Maybe, we don't know. Go ahead. Try it." now, some of that. Is that the public just doesn't understand how science works. That science is trial and error experimentation, competing hypotheses, but the health experts were not ready to [00:09:00] step in to being political leaders, and they shouldn't have tried. They're not good at it, they didn't communicate well, and they hurt their own cause.

The two other things that happened that I think really damaged expertise in the United States were the debates over school closures. And I supported all these, by the way, I was all about, telling people to mask up and closing down the schools. At the time, I was 60, pre existing health conditions. I didn't want to sit in a 14 person seminar breathing in each other's faces. But when it came time to reopen the schools, a lot of people on the left just dug in because it got to the point where anything people on the right said people on the left at the opposite of. And you did have permanent pandemic people, which wears people out. It makes them not want to listen to expert advice anymore because when everything's a crisis and if I've alarm fire forever, then nothing is.

And the last thing that happened that I think the medical community and a lot of people on the [00:10:00] left don't want to talk about that was really damaging was the George Floyd protests, where doctors who had said, listen, you can't go to church, you can't have weddings, you can't sing in a choir. And then you had 1500 doctors signing a letter saying, but if you want to go march and sing, and be together, in tight, big crowds because of this one political issue, then we think that's important enough to say, go ahead and do it.

You had a lot of people in the country who said, and in other words, this isn't disinterest in science, this is these are regulations that only apply if your cause is not judged good enough by the doctors. And it was a legitimate complaint. And it was not just a complaint among people on the right-wing, you really did have a lot of ordinary Americans saying, I can't hold a funeral, but the doctor say this is okay. And I think that was a massive self inflicted wound.

There were only two [00:11:00] options. The protests were going to happen no matter what. And and public officials were in a jam here because they certainly weren't going to make the protests not happen. The horror of that video meant that, This whole country was going to be convulsed and protests were going to happen. But if the doctors thought that masking up and drinking water and staying far away from each other and all of that stuff during the protests would work for the protests, then they should have told everybody else that it would work for them if they needed to get married. Or if this wasn't really necessary and they said, as many of them did afterwards, there was really no spike in COVID, then they're basically admitting to millions of people. Yeah, we didn't know what we were talking about.

To his credit, Anthony Fauci was the one who said, "I have real concerns about this. I understand it's going to happen, but I just think anything like this is a vector for spreading, COVID. And I just hope people wear masks and, try not to, be too close together." And he shrugged and just said, "but as a doctor, I have real concerns about this," and I think that was the smart [00:12:00] path and there were a lot of doctors who publicly wouldn't go down that road.

How Right Wing Media Took Over America Part 1 - Why America? with Leeja Miller - Air Date 11-18-24

LEEJA MILLER - HOST, WHY AMERICA?: Before we get into who's bankrolling this bullshit, I think it's worth taking a step back to understand what we mean by right-wing media and how it became so powerful in the first place.

Many factors have contributed to the ecosystem we see today, including media fragmentation in the digital age, increasing political polarization, and the massive profitability of rage bait and the culture wars. But what makes the conservative content ecosystem uniquely powerful is that it's simultaneously isolated and unified.

Unified because even though these outlets compete amongst themselves for clicks, when it comes to reinforcing the GOP's narratives, they're marching in lockstep. And isolated because conservative outlets are first and foremost contrarian. They define themselves in opposition to the mainstream press. And that's why it feels so impossible to get through to Trump voters. They exist in a sealed feedback loop and fundamentally distrust the sources the rest of us value. And that's thanks to a decades long [00:13:00] conservative crusade against the media and educated elites. Because you can't go to war without first defining an enemy.

The Republican obsession with liberal media prejudice Dates back to at least the 1950s, but didn't properly boil over until the 1970s. See, ol Ricky Nixon didn't much like the press. Forever a paranoid, from early in his career, Nixon believed reporters were out to get him, and as president, he had a plan to fight back. Aiming to undermine the press's credibility, the Nixon administration started pushing a new name for them, "The Media". Apparently, The Press sounded too dignified and serious for Nixon's liking, as though The Press implied a sacred duty to, I don't know, be a watchdog serving the public's best interests by overseeing government affairs or something. The Media, on the other hand, had the perfect ring to it, calling to mind manipulative, slick and slimy Madison Avenue types.

A popular book also helped push the narrative. In 1971, The News Twister hit shelves, claiming, despite weak at best methodology, to have scientific proof of liberal [00:14:00] media bias. By the time Nixon went to war with the Washington Post over Watergate, many conservatives were primed to see the president's downfall, not as the righteous result of his own crooked actions, but as a coup orchestrated by The Media against a beloved twice elected Republican.

As the 70s gave way to the 80s, this distrust in The Media, as it was now known, began to faster. Americans trust in media peaked in 1976, when 72% of the population said they trusted mass media a great deal or a fair amount. By 1996, that figure had dropped to 53%. So what the fuck happened in the 20 years between 1976 and 1996? Well, at least four major things. CNN, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, the rise of Rush Limbaugh, and the birth of Fox News.

In 1980, CNN launched the first 24 hour cable news channel, changing the speed of breaking news forever, and arguably taking reporting outside the realm of the public good and into the realm of rage bait [00:15:00] for profitability. As a cable news station, CNN had far fewer restrictions than broadcasters using the public airwaves. Public broadcasters like CBS, NBC, and ABC were considered public trustees with a duty to serve the people. Part of that responsibility included the Equal Time Rule, also known as the Fairness Doctrine, which required newscasters to air competing views on important issues in approximately equal measure.

The doctrine was written to prevent broadcasters from abusing their power and setting a biased public agenda. Doesn't that sound nice? In the 1970s, the Federal Communications Commission called the Fairness Doctrine "the single most important requirement of operation in the public interest." And then in 1987, Ronald fucking Reagan ruined everything.

In 1987, the FCC voted 4-0 in favor of ending the Fairness Doctrine, claiming that the policy hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights. Broadcasters had complained that the Fairness Doctrine was overly burdensome and actually inhibited their ability to cover issues of public importance, which on a certain level sort of [00:16:00] makes sense. The Fairness Doctrine ultimately required broadcasters to decide which issues were important to the public and then decide which perspectives should be presented in equal measures. But the FCC preferred to instead leave it up to broadcasters to decide what to air based on how the marketplace reacted, because, as we know, the market always knows best.

Furthermore, broadcasters argued that the rise of cable TV made a diversity of viewpoints available that hadn't existed in previous eras, meaning people could seek out sources aligned with their interests rather than expecting the Big Three broadcasters to cover every conceivable viewpoint on the nightly news.

The problem is that this logic eliminates the notion of a single source of truth. If nobody is required to even pretend to be fair and balanced in the public's interest, then the line between news and editorial starts to blur really fast.

Many members of Congress agreed that eliminating the Fairness Doctrine was a slippery slope. They criticized the FCC for trying to flout the will of Congress, and said the decision was "wrongheaded, misguided, and illogical." They even [00:17:00] managed to pass a bill codifying the Fairness Doctrine. But Reagan vetoed it, and they couldn't get enough votes to overturn his veto.

The Manosphere Celebrates a Win. Plus, M. Gessen on How to Survive an Autocracy - On The Media - Air Date 11-8-24

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: How did the former host of the network reality show Fear Factor become a political kingmaker? For one, he was an early podcast adopter. Rogan realized that there was a deep hunger for alternative media that doesn't tell you what to think, or at least presents itself that way. A hunger for discussions that aren't bound by broadcast time constraints, stuffy talk show decorum, and editorial guardrails that favor mainstream experts and centrist politics.

JOE ROGAN: The thing that **** television, the thing that **** entertainment, in general, is money. They were selling advertising, so everybody has to say certain words. Don't say certain words. Don't bring up certain subjects. You can't just express yourself because you're expressing yourself to someone who's selling advertising space.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Joe Rogan as a guest on an internet talk show in 2007, which seems like the [00:18:00] precise moment that he discovered the potential of podcasting.

JOE ROGAN: You just need to keep doing this. We need to figure out how you make money from this.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Definitely figured that out.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Spotify has signed a multi-year, $250,000,000 deal with Joe Rogan.

JUSTIN PETERS: Rogan somehow caught lightning in a bottle.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Justin Peters, a correspondent for Slate, profiled Joe Rogan.

JUSTIN PETERS: His podcast began with him generally just interviewing fellow comics, standups that he'd met on the road. He went into interviewing MMA fighters because he's a big mixed martial arts guy. Then at a certain point, he started bringing on academics, evolutionary biologists, sociologists, people from the tech world. I can't stand the guy, but I also have to acknowledge that his podcast can be incredibly entertaining.

JOE ROGAN: Boom. Thank you. Thanks for doing this, man. Really appreciate it.

ELON MUSK: Hey, welcome.

JOE ROGAN: It's very good to meet you.

ELON MUSK: Nice to meet you, too.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This is [00:19:00] Rogan's 2018 interview with Elon Musk. That time they smoked a blunt on camera.

ELON MUSK: Is that a joint or is it a cigar?

JOE ROGAN: No.

ELON MUSK: Okay.

JOE ROGAN: It's marijuana inside of tobacco.

ELON MUSK: Okay, so it's like pot tobacco posh?

JOE ROGAN: You never had that?

ELON MUSK: Yes, I think I tried one once.

JOE ROGAN: Come on, man.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I'd argue this was when Musk's hyper online man of the people shtick took root.

JUSTIN PETERS: I think you're right that this was the moment where Musk started really trying to reach out for the alt-right intellectual, dark web appeal. Smoking weed with Joe Rogan was the turning point. Certainly, I'll buy that.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: For Rogan, politics were a bit more complicated. Even as he hosted buddy-buddy interviews with Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and the like, he was still reaching a politically diverse audience. He was saying stuff like this on his show.

JOE ROGAN: I think I'll [00:20:00] probably vote for Bernie. Him as a human being when I was hanging out with him. I believe in him. I like him.

JIMMY DORE: Look at you progressive.

JOE ROGAN: Yes, I've always been.

JIMMY DORE: What? Everyone says you're a right-winger.

JOE ROGAN: I've never voted right-wing in my life.

JIMMY DORE: Really?

JOE ROGAN: Never. Never. I voted Democrat except for independent. I voted for Gary Johnson because he did my podcast.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Rogan in 2020. Part of a montage of clips that resurfaced on social media this week.

JOE ROGAN: 87% of scientists said that human activity is driving global warming. I'm very pro-choice. I'm very women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, trans rights. I'm even universal health care. Obviously, this protected status is driving me crazy. This thing that Trump's doing with children that were born in other countries and then brought over here as children, and then they're talking about--

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: How did Rogan the liberal end up endorsing Donald Trump? I've heard several explanations. One is that Rogan gave up on the Democrats after they dumped Bernie Sanders in 2020. Another is that he's been slowly [00:21:00] red-pilled by his guests.

JUSTIN PETERS: When someone keeps on saying, I'm a liberal, I'm a liberal, and then people with whom he talks speak incessantly about the evils of cancel culture, who talk about how the mainstream media is suppressive, and so on and so forth, then you're not actually a liberal. You're wearing a costume. I think what's happened over the past five years is Rogan has finally taken off that costume and revealed himself for who he was all along.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Since 2020, Joe Rogan has become a lightning rod for controversy and criticism. The kind of scrutiny that comes with the territory when you're the most popular podcaster in the world. There was that time a couple of years ago when he had to apologize after the Internet discovered that he'd used the N-word repeatedly in old episodes.

JOE ROGAN: Look, I can't go back in time and change what I've said. I wish I could. [00:22:00] Obviously, that's not possible, but I do hope that this can be a teachable moment for anybody that doesn't realize how offensive that word can be coming out of a white person's mouth in context or out of context. My sincere and humble apologies.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: There was his interview with so-called vaccine skeptic Dr. Robert Malone.

DR. ROBERT MALONE: These mandates of an experimental vaccine are explicitly illegal. They are explicitly inconsistent with the Nuremberg Code. They're explicitly inconsistent with the Belmont Report.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Over a thousand doctors, scientists, and health professionals are calling out Spotify over false claims about COVID aired by its most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Rogan would double down on the vax stuff and even went on to endorse his friend RFK Jr. after he came on the podcast. Then there was this.

JOE ROGAN: Ready for this? My friend, his wife is a schoolteacher [00:23:00] and she works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girls room because there is a girl who's a furry who identifies as an animal.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: He had to walk back this totally bogus story in 2022 saying he must have misunderstood his friend or something. More recently, he told a guest that Joe Biden faked the State of the Union address.

JOE ROGAN: The State of the Union was not live.

JRE GUEST: Yes, it was.

JOE ROGAN: No, no. Did you see that they found out that it wasn't? Someone zoomed in on his watch and his watch was the wrong time.

JRE GUEST: How could that even be? I don't think all the Republicans would agree to it, too. They're all there.

JOE ROGAN: [crosstalk] They knew. They're all there live while he's doing it.

JRE GUEST: Yes.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Rogan had his producer do a mid-interview fact check. They pulled up an article debunking a photoshopped image of Biden's watch.

JOE ROGAN: Yes, there is a fake image. They got me.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: How do you fall for this stuff?

It's been [00:24:00] pointed out by many of his critics that Rogan doesn't seem to prepare enough for his interviews. He exercises poor judgment. Rogan says he's a victim of cancel culture. I think that's a big reason why he likes Trump.

JOE ROGAN: There's probably no one in history that I've ever seen that's been attacked the way you've been attacked and the way they've done it so coordinated and systematically. When you see those--

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This is how Rogan set up his three-hour interview with Donald Trump last week, by telling their shared story about the media and the political establishment. "They hate us not because of our behavior, but because we threatened them.'

JOE ROGAN: Did you just assume because people loved you on The Apprentice they were going to love you as a president?

DONALD TRUMP: Well I figured it would be so easy. You know it was very interesting.

JOE ROGAN: Well it probably would have been if the media didn't attack you the way they did. If they didn't conflate you with Hitler. Even today, like Kamala was talking about you and Hitler. They're going to take what you said about Robert--

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: We'll never know whether Rogan's endorsement moved the needle on [00:25:00] Tuesday. Whether Kamala Harris's appearance would have made any difference. But all the spilled ink about it this week says a lot about where it feels like political influence is headed.

RYAN GRIM: I hope that this is the last Democratic nominee who says no to Joe Rogan. Like, even if you have to go to the studio.

MEHDI HASAN: I would go further than that, Ryan. You need your own Joe Rogan is the bigger point. That's your bigger problem.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: One of the closest analogs to a left-wing Joe Rogan is 33-year-old Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer and political commentator. He's big and burly, fluent in memes and gaming culture. He gets the Internet. But as a socialist, he's likely seen as too radical to be embraced by mainstream Democrats in the way that Republicans have harnessed their right-wing influencers. I watched Hasan Piker deliver the results on election night with some 200,000 concurrent viewers. As the news began to set in, he started raging against Trump supporters who joined his chat to rub in the loss.

HASAN PIKER: [00:26:00] Donald Trump winning the presidency is not going to improve your life. It's actually going to continue making it worse because there are major material issues that you are experiencing and neither party is actually providing any adequate solutions to that. But owning the libs is not going to improve your life. It is a way for Donald Trump and the Republican Party to distract you away as they pick **** your pockets and rob you blind.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: For years now, he's been sounding the alarm on the rise of the manosphere.

HASAN PIKER: There is a massive amount of right-wing radicalization that has been occurring, especially in younger male spaces.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Here he is speaking on Jon Favreau's podcast Offline.

HASAN PIKER: If you're a dude under the age of 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever, whether it's playing video games, whether it's working out, whether it's-- I don't know, listening to like a history podcast or whatever, every single facet of that is just completely dominated by right-wing politics.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: As he watched Dana White shout out the [00:27:00] podcast bros during that victory speech we heard at the beginning of this piece--

DANA WHITE: Adin Ross, Theo Von, and last but not least--

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Hasan Piker reacted on his live stream

DANA WHITE: -the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.

HASAN PIKER: No.

DANA WHITE: Thank you, America. Thank you. Have a good night.

HASAN PIKER: What is this country? We're done.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: The news monoculture of old is dead. It seems that, to many, the New York Times, a company that employs 2,700 journalists, is just one source of information and perspective. Joe Rogan, another. The incoming administration has shown us that it will lean on a new generation of personalities and media networks to spread its lies and shape hearts and minds.

We DON'T need a LEFTIST Joe Rogan - The Kavernacle - Air Date 11-14-24

THE KAVERNACLE - HOST, THE KAVERNACLE: Just because Joe Rogan had left wing people on doesn't mean this podcast ever turned people to left wing politics. And also Joe Rogan is just a bit of an idiot, right? He would just agree with anything people said. He had Cornel West on once and agreed with so much of what he said. Joe Rogan does not believe in the same things as Cornel West.

He does [00:28:00] not believe in the same things as Bernie Sanders. And Joe Rogan's podcast always skewed conservative. Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, just every single right-wing person has been a regular on the Joe Rogan podcast, far more than any progressive people. Like, you know, I have a Kyle Kulinski tweet up here.

He used to go on Joe Rogan sometimes. I've seen, like, Cenk on Joe Rogan. I've seen a couple people, but you never get, like, loads of socialists and communists on it. Bernie Sanders is probably, like, the most left wing person who has been on the Joe Rogan podcast. And I don't think Joe Rogan is as influential as people think.

And also a lot of people who now watch Joe Rogan are actually going to him because of his conservative audience and conservative guests, while a lot of people who used to watch him have left. So he is attracting conservatives to watch his podcast more than he's turning an established audience into conservative.

And also, let's remember, it's just one demographic. Which also a lot of them in this demographic don't even vote in the first place. So [00:29:00] blaming Gen Z men for Trump winning is just stupid. It just doesn't work out like that. I know not all of his audience are Gen Z men, but they're saying that Joe Rogan is like a symptom of this.

Gen Z men, Millennial men, Gen X men, they all listen to Joe Rogan and that's where they'll hear conservative politics. Now I do agree there is a problem more broadly, with the conservatives having domination in the media ecosystems. And I would say in the UK it's a bit different, where we have centrists dominating them, you know, they are pretty much conservatives, but they aren't as far right.

Where in the US it's more like, just the far right dominate all these things. And that is important, like, how much does Fox News play a role in helping various Republicans get elected? Including George Bush stealing the 2000 election. Yeah, of course, that is important. But I want to point something out as well. Because I focus on the social element, like let's say you listen to Joe Rogan, you agree with him politically on social things, trans people in sports, I don't know, all the other [00:30:00] bullshitty pedals.

There's something you need to remember is that people mostly vote for their material conditions and this is something that always stuck out of me because it's absolutely fucking insane. But I think it proves everything, right? So there's been a narrative around the election that Latino men don't vote for women because they're misogynistic. But firstly, that's just a huge stereotype which isn't really true considering Latinos and Latino men voted for Clinton more than they voted for Republicans. And also when they're talking about Mexican men, yeah, the two candidates for the Mexican leadership this year, or the presidency, were both women.

So this is a culture that has a problem with women. But there was this article that came out in the 2008 presidential election, I couldn't find the original one now, but it's the Guardian reporting on the article, called Racists for Obama, and I just wanted to read it for you quickly, to just show you how people, even when they're bigoted, and even when they might be watching Fox News all the time, to rot their brain, people fundamentally [00:31:00] care about material conditions more.

This is an extreme example, but I wanted to read it because it's extreme. So, Sean Quinn of the site FiveThirtyEight has been driving around the Middle Atlantic. Yesterday, he was in a town called Washington, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of M Town. I know this turf quite well. Obviously, we called Washington Little Washington to distinguish it from Washington, D. C. which was close enough to be a familiar destination. Anyway, Sean heard the following story in this town where Obama just got slaughtered by Hillary Clinton. A canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure.

Has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're voting for the 'racial slur,'" meaning Obama. The woman turns back and says, as a matter of fact, that we're voting for the 'racials' though. I've heard similar stories from West Virginia in which people openly [00:32:00] use the N-word while saying they're voting for Obama.

It's important not to read too much into this, it's mostly a reflection of the economy. McCain's ridiculous response to the crisis, Palin's presence, and clearly part of it must be, Obama has come across to these folks as smart and steady and someone who will use good judgment in office. I still doubt that Obama will carry West Virginia, but he's a lot further along with these voters than I'd thought back in April or May.

So Obama did lose West Virginia in 2008, but I'm highlighting that because fundamentally, the conversation about a left wing Joe Rogan or a liberal Joe Rogan to help the Democrats win another election just completely misses the point, right? It's all about economic issues during an election. And rather than focusing on making some sort of liberal media empire and going to meet the youth in Gen Z, promising people things economically that will impact them the most is the way to go.

And with America, [00:33:00] right? Their social safety nets, their healthcare system, they're so bad there are so many things you could do and campaign big on to win an election. So Obama of course campaigned on a lot of things, which made him a good candidate, and he campaigned on vibes, and he campaigned on policy.

That's how you get people who are actually racist, like insanely racist, voting for Obama. Because they thought he'd be good on economic issues and stuff like that, right? So, in that, if someone like Kamala Harris, or just any Democrat, campaigned on, literally like, I'm gonna give you universal healthcare, it's time.

The UK has had it for, like, 70 something years. Most of the developed world have it. We have to have it too. Too many people die every year from not having health care. We need to modernize and stuff. Or I need to do something economic, right? Some big economic policy to help people's everyday lives, instead of the Democrats pretending, oh, because inflation's not as bad anymore, people love us for the economy.

They don't. [00:34:00] Because everyone's like, gas is going up, everyone's bills are going up, everyone's rent is going up, and you're not doing anything about it. So if they're not going to vote for you, they're just going to blame you. And if they don't think you can handle these economic things, then they're not going to vote for you.

And that's the fundamental point. The conversation completely misses for me. The Democrats and just any, like, liberal left political organization, they don't need a Joe Rogan to target young men. And I would say focusing on loads of people who don't vote is also important, including young people. But, elections are lost on policy, not on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Stop Having an "Open Mind" - Breaking In The Habit - Air Date 5-31-24

CASEY COLE: In our world today, there may not be a more important value than having an open mind, or a more hurtful insult than to be called closed minded. We applaud people that are always asking questions, always seeking, always open to new things, and look down on those who are stuck in their ways, who refuse to change.

Frankly, I think that it might be our most toxic quality, and it's destroying our society. Let me explain. [00:35:00] On the surface, having a so called open mind is not a bad thing. Removing our biases and preconceived notions, looking at the world as it is rather than how we want it to be, taking in new information, and adjusting our opinions, these are all good things.

What I love about the idea of an open mind is the desire to always be seeking and learning. Especially as a Christian, I know that a thousand lifetimes could never exhaust all that there is to learn about the unimaginable mystery that is God and the beauty and wonder of his creation. To sit back, unimpressed, to be content with where we are, seems like a sin against the gift of reason that God has given us.

Seeking is a good thing. Wondering is a virtue. Welcoming new information is essential for all Christians. We must have an open mind to all that is true, beautiful, and good so that we ourselves may be transformed by all that is true, beautiful, and good. I don't have a problem with any of this. No, the problem I have with much of our world is not that it insists on an open mind per se.

It's that it never allows for an open mind to reach a conclusion. Tell someone that you're a seeker, that you're someone who stares out over the [00:36:00] ocean and wonders how it all came to be and where we're all going. And people think that you're deep and interesting. Tell someone that you're a Christian?

That you believe that the ocean and all of creation are the works of God, and that everything should fulfill its purpose in giving God glory? Well, you know the response. How can you know this? What arrogance? Who are you to tell me that my ideas are wrong? As a society, we value minds that question, but belittle minds that claim to have answers to questions.

I think of it a lot like the cliche often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's not the destination that matters, but the journey. At first, it seems wise. It reminds us that how we get somewhere matters, that we should care about the process, the ways, and the means. And that's true. We don't want to lie or cheat to get somewhere.

We don't want to get to our destination having lost ourselves along the way, for what good would the destination be at that point? But the opposite is true as well. What good is a journey if we never actually reach a destination? If we never even have a destination in mind? If all we do is wander around forever, never reaching a place better than [00:37:00] where we started?

The journey is not all that matters. That's ridiculous. The destination is the purpose and fulfillment of a journey. While there may obviously be enjoyment along the way and lessons learned on the road, the reason we set out in the first place is not for journeying itself, but to get somewhere. When I look at our world, what I see is a society that is always on the road, but never getting anywhere.

It insists that people head out on a journey, that it asks deep questions, ponder life's mysteries, keep an open mind, but never get anywhere. Those who reach their destination, who stand by an answer, who say that they have found what they are looking for and do not want to journey any longer, are scoffed at and belittled.

While there is always a need for intellectual humility, and we should be cautious of speaking dogmatically about every little thing, the idea of living life without any dogmas, without any moral imperatives, without any belief that is beyond change, is a life that doesn't stand for anything. The dirty truth of the matter, is that nobody actually lives this way.

As much as people demand open minds and decry any sense of dogma, [00:38:00] there isn't a person on earth that doesn't hold some truth beyond questioning. Are we to keep an open mind about genocide, always giving an opportunity for the other side to convince us otherwise? No. Must we stay open to the idea that the Earth may actually be flat? That NASA and every scientist in the world for the past 2, 500 years has been involved in a conspiracy? Please. Should we treat the love we receive from our parents, spouse, siblings, and friends with skepticism, mindful of the fact that we cannot know for sure if they're being honest, and so should protect ourselves in case they're lying? I hope not.

The fact of the matter is that there are certain things in life we have to either accept, or not accept. Some things have a mountain of evidence to support them, making doubt more difficult, while other things must be accepted simply on intuition, but the point remains. Eventually, we have to choose one way or another.

Do we believe, or do we not? To journey our entire lives without reaching a destination, to seek and to ask without ever coming to a conclusion, is a sad, uncourageous life. To remain open to everything is to attain [00:39:00] nothing. At some point, we have to take the risk, even if just temporarily, and make a claim. What a waste to live your entire life as an agnostic.

Sure, you're never going to be outright wrong, but you're never going to have a chance of being right either. You're never going to find fulfillment, purpose, direction, or any sense of meaning if you remain open to everything. What a waste to live your entire life not sure if your partner is "The One." Sure, you're never going to be heartbroken, never have to deal with a messy divorce, but you're also never going to experience the sort of love that comes only with commitment and vulnerability.

We could continue down this line of thinking for everything. A career choice, vocational discernment, political positions, which movie to watch on Netflix. With every decision in life, the end goal must always be to actually make a decision. It begins with an open mind. It starts with seeking, questioning, removing biases, doing everything you can to come to the truth.

But at some point, you must come to the realization that you will never have enough information, that you will never exhaust everything that can be learned, but must make a decision anyway. [00:40:00] Now, I'm not suggesting that we must make a dogmatic decision about everything, or that we should never change our minds once we've decided something.

There is a sense in which an open mind is still a very good thing. What I'm suggesting is simply that an open mind is a means to an end, not the end itself. It is the thing that gets us where we're going, not a quality of a good person. The irony of being open to everything, of never settling on anything in particular, is that you'll never actually know when you found the right or wrong answer.

We must be willing to take risks, to put ourselves out there, to stand for something rather than be open to everything. Maybe we'll come to realize that we were wrong, but at least we'll have found something, and we'll be closer to our ultimate destination than when we started. Commit to something. You may never know the right or wrong answer beyond a shadow of a doubt, but what sort of life is it if you never even try?

Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight | Peter McIndoe -TED - Air Date 9-13-23

PETER MCINDOE: I grew up in Arkansas, in Little Rock, where I was homeschooled on the outskirts of town. The community that I grew up with was [00:41:00] hyper conservative and religious, and almost everyone that I knew believed in some form of conspiracy theory, whether it was that Obama was the Antichrist, or that there are microchips in the vaccines.

During my entire life, I always felt like I was on the fringes of normal society. So, as you can imagine, when it became time for me to play a character, The Conspiracy Theorist was a pretty easy one for me to tap into. During the years in character, I used the same cadence, logic, and arguments as those I grew up around. Just with a different theory swapped in. I was really dedicated to playing this character as convincingly as I could, as method as possible. So I spent days sometimes in character, a lot of time out in public with the van there, just talking with strangers. It led to hundreds of interactions with strangers who thought that I was a real conspiracy theorist.

I'd often be out there, cowboy hat on, handing out fliers that said things like, [00:42:00] "If it flies, it spies." We had another flier that said, "Birdwatching goes both ways." And during these times, as I'm handing out fliers and talking with people, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of instances over the years where strangers would approach me. You know, they'd see me in public, and I'd see them notice me. They'd walk up to me with complete disdain on their face. They thought that I was a real conspiracy theorist.

And time and time again, they'd come up to me, look me right in the eyes, just as close as I am to you right here, and they would tell me how stupid I am. They'd tell me I was uneducated, that I was crazy, that I was the problem with this country. When this happened, I didn't feel the emotions of the character that I thought I would.

My out of character [00:43:00] self may interpret these interactions as a funny response to someone that fell for the comedy project, but instead, I felt the emotions of the character. I felt emboldened, and I felt sad and angry, like they didn't even take the time to know me. They instantly condemned me, judged me and othered me.

I'd found myself on the opposite side of this equation that I'd grown up around. The normal and the fringe. And in those moments when those people were talking to me, they could not have been more ineffective at what I would assume they really want: less conspiracy theorists in the world. These experiences, hundreds of them over the years, watching how people interact with those on the fringes of our society, gave me an entirely new perspective on our approach to conspiracy theorists.

Whether it's how we frame them in the conventional [00:44:00] media, to how we deal with those in our own lives. If our goal is to live in a shared reality with our neighbors, what if our current approach isn't bringing us any closer to that? What if by talking to conspiracy theorists like they're ignorant and stupid, we're actually pushing them farther away from the truth that we want them to see?

Because what happens when someone tells you that you're stupid, you're all wrong, you're the problem? You'll feel judged and dismissed, and most importantly, you'll feel othered, which may lead you to look for safety in those who are like minded. To do what they have been doing for you. Affirm your selfhood, give you a sense of identity, belonging.

These are some of the most basic human desires. We have to consider that conspiracy theorists are not just joining these groups for no reason. They're getting rewards out of these, things that we are all looking for. A sense of purpose, [00:45:00] community. I grew up with the internet, and during my time with this project, especially out of character, people have talked to me about the misinformation age and this, you know, terrifying problem of online echo chambers and conspiracy theorists, but I want to remind us that there are humans behind a lot of these screens.

It's not just numbers. Everyone's unique experience influences their own narrative about the world, and there's no blueprint for how to deal with this yet. But I do not think that online echo chambers of conspiracy theorists are this inevitable symptom of life online. The internet is about 30 years old, and things are changing quickly, and I think it'll be very important that we develop new solutions for these new problems on a fundamental level.

What if, by addressing belief before belonging, we're starting the conversation at the wrong place? Instead of sitting in collective bewilderment and [00:46:00] frustration about how these people could believe these things, these crazies, what if we first looked under the hood and thought about what made them vulnerable to this information in the first place?

What might they be getting out of this that they're not getting in their everyday lives? How much does it have to do with a different truth? Or how much does it have to do with the community that that truth brings? We need to think about people's circumstances and reference points. To see them as fellow human beings who want to believe in something and want to belong, just like all of us do in this room.

Because if we continue with our current approach of arguing on the level of belief, it's not going to get us anywhere. We're going to end up with more echo chambers, more disinformation and more polarization. Instead, we can do the harder work of looking into what is fueling the need for an alternate truth.

Not only would this lend us more empathy for those who think differently than us. But I really think this might be the only actually [00:47:00] productive means, productive means of moving toward the shared reality that we all want to live in. Let's direct our energy toward the crisis of belonging. And then maybe we will understand the crisis of belief.

Note from the Editor on the nature of skepticism and open-mindedness

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with All In with Chris Hayes looking at just one case of disinformation spread. The Bunker discussed the decline of trust in expertise. Why, America? looked back to the destruction of the fairness doctrine under Reagan. On the Media tracked the evolution of Joe Rogan. The Kavernacle took a deeper dive into Rogan's potential impact. Breaking the Habit discussed the downsides of having an open mind. And finally, a TED Talk about the "birds aren't real" satirical conspiracy theory.

And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive section.

But first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring their production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often making each other laugh in the process. To support all of our [00:48:00] 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. Members also get chapter markers in the show, but depending on the app you use to listen, you may be able to use the time codes that we put in the show notes to jump around the show, similar to chapter markers. So check that out.

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 now, before we continue onto the Deeper Dives have to show, this is just a quick share of a realization that I had while prepping this topic. I got thinking about the title of Joe Rogan's show, The Joe Rogan Experience, and it kind of pondered the literal words. It was like the Joe Rogan experience. What is the experience to be Joe Rogan? And I realized that it's [00:49:00] a quite perfectly named show, because Joe Rogan and his audience really do seem to be having a very similar experience, and it goes kind of like this, I realized.

Number one, you start out being genuinely curious, let's say, a commitment to open-mindedness, looking for new information. Great.

Number two, you listen to people, talk for hours and hours and hours. So far so good.

Number three. Remain so open-minded that you effectively learn nothing from what you've heard.

And number four, repeat. Day after day after day.

So if you would like to experience what it's like to be Joe Rogan, you can listen along and have that experience yourself.

On a related topic, I became aware of the skepticism genre many years ago. with shows like The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe and Skepticality, and there might've been more. And I never got into them because I had a gut level aversion to them, but I [00:50:00] couldn't explain why at the time. And to be clear, this isn't an actual critique of the shows. I didn't listen to them. I don't know if they were good or not. I'm just giving a window into how I navigate these sort of judgment calls. Arguably, if I was going to judge them, I should've listened to them. I think maybe I did, dipped in and it was like eh, not for me, or more likely, not a good fit for research for this program in particular.

Anyway, I think I can explain now what my gut was opposed to back when I first came across those kinds of shows that based their whole identity on being skeptical, because the trick of course is that I think being skeptical and critical and questioning are all good things. So why would I feel an aversion to media focused on those positive ideas? The problem isn't about being skeptical. It's basing your identity on being skeptical. That skeeves me out a little bit. Just like [00:51:00] being open-minded is a positive attribute, but defining one's self, identifying as open-minded, can lead to taking those kinds of identities to an extreme in a sort of devil's advocacy feedback loop. Instead of just being thoughtful, you're Skeptical with a capital S. You question everything, trust no one. Taken too far, that kind of thing will drive you into conspiracy world, ironically.

But the same kind of goes in the other direction: open-mindedness, which feels like the opposite of skepticism, being eternally open to the possibility that anything might be right, also basically leads to a sort of unthoughtfulness that opens a person up to conspiracism. And you're like, well, it's an interesting theory and we can never know. So I'll keep an open mind.

Like with so many things, a little bit of a good thing is a good thing, while too much of a good thing stops being so good. Being [00:52:00] open to new ideas is good, as long as one maintains a thoughtfulness that engages skepticism when warranted. Not everything needs to be questioned, nor does every idea deserve credence at all.

And again, I'm not trying to call out those shows I mentioned. Maybe they're all great at drawing that line on what deserves questioning and what deserves trust and, using science and reason to follow it. I'm sure they're fine. I just can't help but get a little bit of the ick whenever a strong identity is formed around a narrow idea, like skepticism. Or atheism is another that sort of comes up in that genre.

And, basically it's just that you don't want to get yourself boxed in with a narrow idea. You need room to pivot when you grow and learn new things and inevitably your perspective shifts.

Now, funnily enough, I've heard stories of people getting the same sort of feeling from the title of [00:53:00] this show. But in my experience, exploring all different parts of the left has given me plenty of latitude to shift my perspective over time. And if you went back and listened from the very beginning, you would think that it is a very different-sounding show then when I started, coming up on, unbelievably I think, 19 years ago.

So I'd say that, if there was someone out there thinking that "the left" is too narrow of an idea to base a show on, then, I'd say they should probably be a bit more open-minded.

SECTION A - THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE AND THE MEDIA

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up section a the Joe Rogan experience and the media followed by section B trust and belief, section C centrism and section D roots.

How Right Wing Media Took Over America Part 2 - Why America? with Leeja Miller - Air Date 11-18-24

LEEJA MILLER - HOST, WHY AMERICA?: Once tiny blip websites posting fringe conspiracy theories like Breitbart can grow and be used as a tool to shift the overall conservative conversation nationwide. These days, while Fox still reigns supreme on cable, podcasts, YouTube [00:54:00] videos, sub stack newsletters, and boutique platforms like Rumble have become the go to sources for the most extreme right-wing perspectives.

And there's a revolving door between Fox and these more extreme platforms. Many conservative celebrities who rose to fame while working for established media organizations have continued leveraging their profiles after leaving those outfits often in disgrace. Kelly, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon, whose podcast The War Room was named the top source of misinformation in 2023 by a Brookings Institution study.

The relevance of trusted individual commentators over actual news gathering organizations speaks to a unique moment in American history, at which trust in mass media has reached an all time low. As of this year, only 3. 31 percent of respondents to a Gallup poll said they felt a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.

So instead, Americans are putting their faith in individual content creators who sometimes say things their audiences want to hear. You probably [00:55:00] wouldn't be tuned into this show right now if you didn't understand that impulse. And it never ceases to amaze me how many comments I get from people calling me out to be a for being biased and not presenting fair, equal, and unbiased reporting, despite the fact that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a fair and balanced source of journalistic reporting.

I'm not a journalist. I care deeply about the factuality of my sources, but this isn't live on the ground reporting. I condense the work of real journalists into easy to digest content and provide additional context that news sources don't, including my legal knowledge as a lawyer. That's the value I provide to you, and I hope to God that in addition to watching my videos, you also read actual news articles from a variety of sources.

But the prevalence of people confusing YouTube commentators for fair, unbiased journalists is indicative of the consequences that happen when you have a deeply divided populace with a poor education system, whose distrust in the news means there's no single source of truth. So they seek the truth out in alternatives.

But the very important difference between me and the right-wing commentators [00:56:00] we're talking about is that not only do I genuinely care about facts, But also that my sponsors don't get to tell me what to say. The same apparently cannot be said for commentators like the Tim Pools of the world. In September 2024, Tim Pool and half a dozen other conservative content creators came under fire after a DOJ indictment alleged that they'd been sponsored by Russian propagandists.

to spew disinformation to their social media audiences. Allegedly, two employees of the state controlled media outlet Russia Today orchestrated a 10 million scheme to distribute English language videos consistent with the Kremlin's goal to weaken U. S. opposition to Russian interests like its war in Ukraine.

Though the DOJ didn't allege any wrongdoing by the influencers and commentators, noting that they were actively deceived about the source of the company's funding, let's not let them off the hook entirely. Because regardless of who was paying, the conservative commentators were still perfectly happy to accept money to spew disinformation.

This wasn't talking points about quality in an ad for a mattress, this was disinformation about current events presented as truths, and [00:57:00] none of these commentators bothered to check the facts or give two shits about what they were actually saying in exchange for money. Allegedly. One of the commentators allegedly created 130 videos for this fake Russian company.

And our collective distrust of news sources that have proven over decades to be credible in exchange for relying on independent, third party, non journalist internet commentators means our media landscape is more vulnerable than ever to the influence of nefarious actors. And the 10 million dollars the Russians stole from us Spent buying out a handful of influencers is small potatoes compared to the kind of funding being pumped through the broader right-wing media ecosystem at any given moment, even with explicit foreign policy goals in mind.

For example, the popular conservative news website, the Epoch times is just one of the U S news outlets aligned with fallen gong, a religious movement that opposes the Chinese state since launching in 2000, its publications, which aim to foment anti CCP sentiment have promoted conspiracies about Democrats, election fraud, and communists.

Though it's ridiculously easy to [00:58:00] make a buck off of right-wing conspiracy peddling and fear mongering, profit isn't always the main driver anyway. It's influence. Because when it comes to controlling the media and the message, Republicans have long understood the importance of having their own media to push their propaganda.

As the conservative movement began to coalesce during the second half of the 20th century, its operatives had a big picture strategy to control the full continuum of information production from universities to think tanks to media outlets. A 1997 report by the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy revealed how conservative organizations had aligned their grant making around a three pronged mission designed to help political conservatives shape public and elite opinion.

Prong one, developing right-wing media outlets. Prong two, developing conservative public affairs programming on public television and radio. And prong three right-wing media critics to exert pressure on the mainstream media into covering the rights political and policy agenda. And it worked. By 1995 before Fox News even entered the [00:59:00] chat media references to conservative think tanks, far outnumbered references to center or left of center research institutions by nearly seven to one.

Even so, Republicans have remained convinced that the liberal media monster poses an urgent, existential threat that must be stopped, and thus continue pumping funding into alternative news organizations. And like political donations, the media money can be difficult to trace. My fantasy of giving you a cute little flowchart, Went out the window when I realized how many non profits, PACs, and donor advised funds are involved in the whole scheme.

That said, some players are significantly more committed to the media influence angle than others, and I think it's worth naming and shaming at least a few. First up is David D. Smith, executive chairman of his daddy's company, Sinclair Broadcast Group. Today, the right-wing media empire is best known for gobbling up local television news outfits and forcing anchors across the country to spew identical Republican talking points.

In 1995, when the company went public, Sinclair had 13 TV stations and 8 markets in its portfolio. Today, it controls 185 [01:00:00] stations in 86 markets. The acceleration point came in 1996, when the Telecommunications Act loosened some restrictions on media ownership, allowing Sinclair to more easily expand into new markets.

Most of Sinclair's holdings are local TV news stations with immense, built in trust with their loyal audiences. And that trust is ripe for abuse. Studies have shown that when Sinclair buys a station, its coverage of national politics increases significantly and the tone of all coverage shifts to the right.

For example, Sinclair stations have followed Trump in characterizing crime as a grave threat, despite violent crime decreasing significantly in recent years. Next up, Philip Anschutz. When he launched the Washington Examiner in 2005, his goal, like Murdoch before him, was to create a conservative alternative, in this case, to the Washington Post.

Anschutz insisted that the Washington Examiner's op ed content was to be produced by conservatives and conservatives only. Today, Anschutz houses the Washington Examiner and his other media properties under Clarity Media Group, a subsidiary of the Anschutz Corporation, which also owns multiple [01:01:00] hotels, oil and gas wells, and, obviously, Coachella.

Yes, the music festival. Next up, Ferris and Dan Wilkes, a pair of evangelical Christian billionaire brothers whose fortunes derive from oil and gas fracking, who have each poured millions of dollars into right-wing media companies that promote climate change denial and push anti LGBTQ dogma. They've given at least 8 million to PragerU alone, the unaccredited edutainment platform with video titles like Prager U was recently approved for use in Florida schools and is angling to appear in more states, including the Wilkes home state of Texas.

In 2015, one of the brothers put up nearly 5 million to help Ben Shapiro launch The Daily Wire. According to scholars who've studied the influence of big oil in the conservative right, the Wilkes brothers have played an outsized role in funding and shaping the conservative and evangelical right in Texas and nationwide.

Because they, like so many Republicans, are keenly aware of how important it is to put your money into your megaphone. And then there's hedge fund billionaire and former computer scientist Robert Mercer, who was [01:02:00] the single biggest donor to Trump's 2016 campaign, throwing 13. 5 million behind him even before it was cool.

Mercer rarely speaks in public and never to journalists. But his spending makes his beliefs clear. He gave 10 million to help Steve Bannon usher in a new era at Breitbart. He's a major donor to the Media Research Group, an organization that calls itself a media watchdog on a mission to correct liberal media bias.

And he has a 10 million stake in Cambridge Analytica, the company famous for collecting personal data from millions of unsuspecting Facebook users to target political ads for Trump's 2016 campaign. Yikes. Next, there's shipping supply magnet Dick Uline. This Tea Party Republican was the top conservative donor for the 2022 election cycle, to the tune of 82 million.

And his foundation supports conservative media outfits including Real Clear Media, which has 14 sub brands, including the polling aggregator Real Clear Polling, and the right-wing news site The Daily Caller. Both of those outlets are also supported by numerous other major conservative donors, but if I kept naming and shaming individual billionaires [01:03:00] funding right-wing media, we'd be here all day.

So instead, let's round this out by looking at a vehicle instead of a person. Donors Trust is a donor advised fund that's been called the dark money ATM of the conservative movement. It's given money to the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and Leonard Leo's 85 Fund, to name just a few. Donor advised funds are basically charitable giving middlemen.

Instead of giving directly to a foundation, rich people put their money into a donor advised fund, which then takes their advice, recommendations, donor advised. about where the funds should go. It's a win win for the rich person who gets to claim the tax deduction immediately, whether or not the money has actually been distributed yet, avoid the administrative aspects of giving, and duck capital gains taxes.

Perhaps most importantly though, it puts a smokescreen between the rich person and their priorities, because donor advised funds aren't required to disclose their donors. In 2021, Donor Trust took in more than 1 million. And most of it came from just two anonymous donors. So though we can name and shame, we don't even know how much some of these people have [01:04:00] actually given.

Jen Senko on The Brainwashing of My Dad - CounterSpin - Air Date 9-20-24

JEN SENKO: My parents, in 2010, they moved to a senior community and somewhere in the, in the move my dad's radio. Broke and he put it in the garage and it just sat there and he didn't fix it.

So immediately he was sans his three hour lunches with Rush Limbaugh. So. He kind of actually mellowed a little bit right away, and we didn't want to remind him, you know, you've got to fix your radio, whatever. So, that was a really, really, really big, big thing. Probably, I'd say that maybe the first biggest thing.

Then the second thing that happened is, I guess it was a few months later. The TV in the kitchen that they watched during lunch, uh, was very old and my mom got a new one and she programmed the remote and they had stickies all over them, you know, do this, do that, do that. So my dad didn't bother. He just.

Left on what she [01:05:00] had on. I think she watched MSNBC or just different, you know, various news shows. They always watch the news and then might have been a year later. I'm not sure. Sometime later, my dad went into the hospital for a kidney stone and he was there for a week. And they had these really old computers, and my mom was afraid that the computers were getting clogged up, and she asked me to delete some of his email.

I said, look, they just, they just keep coming. You have to unsubscribe them. And I don't have time to do that. So she did it, but she added something. She not only unsubscribed him from all this vile email from, I mean, dozens of hard rate Republican organizations. She. Subscribed him to what she was reading, independent, more progressive media emails, [01:06:00] like alternate reader supported news, truth out, that kind of thing.

And when he got back from the hospital, I don't think he noticed they were just political emails, and he was reading them. You know, he had a little bit of both, whatever. And then one day. It was after lunch, I think he had been watching Obama on the news. He said to my mom, I like that guy. You know, he's pretty good.

And lo and behold, he ended up voting for him. Okay. So the point isn't that. His politics became aligned with ours. The point was that my dad was like free and happy and singing and, and not angry and not hateful. And. It was the last few years of his life, and we became really close where it had really kind of [01:07:00] damaged us and damaged relationships before this media is so potent as it's meant to be.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, longtime FAIR analyst Steve Rendell, who along with FAIR founder Jeff Cohen, Well, here's in this work, Steve is an expert in talk radio, and he would often describe its power as having to do with the way it was consumed, which I think your experience just underscores, you know, um, in the case of your father, he started listening on a long solo commute to work for other folks.

It's going out to the barn with their brother. But. You know, it has to do with the way certain kinds of media, not just the way they talk to you, but the way they talk to you in a sort of isolated format. And, and this is where I think the book helps people see that this isn't accidental, that the messages that we're coming through, uh, It wasn't just your father.

There was a game plan. It wasn't an unintended effect. The effect that it had on your father, making him angry, making him hateful and making him [01:08:00] particularly hateful towards particular groups. All of that was intentional.

JEN SENKO: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Say it or not, Hillary Clinton, she was spot on in 1998 when she said there was a vast right-wing conspiracy.

But, the conspiracy wasn't just against her husband. Basically, far right libertarian Republicans, you know, starting back in the 2000s, 50s, actually, after Brown versus Board of Education figured out that in order to affect the change they wanted, which was basically one party rule by billionaire white men, they would have to create distrust in mainstream media and one.

Major way to do that was they had to label it as liberal, and that changed a lot of things right there. It was a very successful campaign. Mainstream or corporate media fell right into [01:09:00] the trap. They folded, they leaned right, you know, they bent over backwards to not be labeled liberal media, and it's stuck today, and it's like they were like abused spouses, like, uh, I'm sorry, what did we do wrong?

Right. But they didn't know that or understand that there was this plan. So. Control over the media was an easy peasy way to get ordinary citizens into voting against their own interests and in line with billionaires. But eventually, of course, it metastasized to what it is today. Like a weed, it took over the whole garden.

But the plan, if you

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: want me to go into some detail and mention some of the points, pick some highlights, you know, there, the book does go through a number of landmarks in the creation of this right-wing media machine. We're talking about history here and not guesses about things. These are things that are documented, but there are a few things that stand out as, you know, Important and moving us toward the situation [01:10:00] we have now, right?

JEN SENKO: So, in 1969, after Goldwater lost to Johnson read, Irvine started aim, accuracy and media supposed media watchdog group. It was really more of a media tactic. Dog group. They still exist today. They were the ones that first took on, um, this goal to discredit the media as liberal. Interestingly enough, that same year, Roger Ailes, the creator of Fox, he was working with Nixon to improve his television image.

And anyway, the following year, he submitted a memo to the White House, which had a scheme to create a new show that would put the GOP in a good light. Later on, then, that. Came in handy when Rupert Murdoch hired him to create Fox, but then the next year was Lewis Powell memo. This was monumental and it was secret.

At first, until a journalist discovered it, but nobody [01:11:00] paid attention to it because it was just, it was like Gerbil said about the big lie. Like, you can't believe that people would actually do this, but it basically outlined steps to take for the vast right-wing conspiracy. It was designed as a anti New Deal blueprint to undo, like, the New Deal and squelch all the social changes that were going on at the time.

You know, they were going to influence college campuses, the pulpits, the media, corporate influence over scientists, and to create and fund think tanks, basically, to push the free market philosophy. Right. And then there was, in the 80s, the creation of the CNP, which was Christian based, and thus the marriage with evangelicals happened.

So the group got bigger. Then Reagan made Rupert Murdoch a citizen. Then he killed the Fairness Doctrine, and then the next [01:12:00] year after the Fairness Doctrine was killed, we had Rush Limbaugh go national, and he reigned for decades, poisoning the minds of, I think his following was like 20 million people, not to speak of, they caught him in the military, so poisoning Their minds too, but then the final big blow came with Clinton and Gingrich and their telecommunications reform act of 1996, which opened up media ownership and cross ownership.

So all the big media companies got even bigger and squeezed out. Any, like, independent ownership, and then after that, just eight months later, Fox News was hashed. That's it in a nutshell. I do go into a lot more detail in the book.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: The book covers a lot of this history, and I just want to underscore the book and the film are not negative, they're colorful and engaging and they're forward looking, you know, which I think is, is maybe [01:13:00] the most important thing.

And, and so maybe to bring us up, you know, to now, I know a lot of listeners will be listening and thinking, Oh, you know, Fox fired Tucker Carlson. And so, you know, maybe that means things are going in a good direction. But you and I know that whatever Carlson was fired for, it wasn't for years of Sewing hatred against black and brown people against, uh, it wasn't years of punching down because that has been his stock in trade for years.

So, you also, and not alone, suggest that what we are learning around Fox's admissions, which are still coming out, around the lawsuit, around Dominion and the voting machines, that that ought to remind us that Fox is not caring about its own viewers in the same way that it didn't care about your dad and that it doesn't care about Lots of other folks.

"Burn The Boats" is a Funeral for Joe Rogan's Comedy Career - The Elephant Graveyard - Air Date 8-11-24

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: I gotta say, this special is terrible and beyond salvaging.

Possibly career ending.

JOE ROGAN: You can't just put lipstick on, now you get shit in the women's room. Like, oh my [01:14:00] god, I'll send it to hate rally.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Yeah, actually, kinda is. Doesn't help that this guy looks exactly like Mussolini.

JOE ROGAN: I'm not prejudiced! I think it's China. I think they got us with TikTok. Craziest thing is they make our phones.

That's supposed to be our enemy, and they make our phones. Do you know how dumb that is? I just want to say, honestly, I admire what they've done.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: A lot of people missed this, but the Joe Rogan Spotify deal was in part financed by the Chinese Communist Party. Spotify is owned in part by Tencent, whose CEO, Pony Ma, has openly vowed to uphold the goals and desires of the CCP.

So it's odd that Joe would complain about this TikTok China stuff because he is most likely, whether he realizes it or not, a weapon of propaganda used by the Chinese government to sow chaos in America. All you gotta do is follow the money. That's the one good thing I learned from Joe's podcast. And now something starts to happen that, and I can't believe I'm even saying this, but Joe actually goes full Brendan Schaub with this wonderful Chinese voice he does here.

Uncle!

BRENDAN SCHAUB: [01:15:00] Look, there's Harry! Mr. Schaub, I have to numb your lip. You need many, many stitches. This'll be worth paying your life. With all his big criticisms about our infrastructure! Well,

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: that is rough. But at least he's not straight up copying Brendan's jokes, right?

BRENDAN SCHAUB: My life would be so much easier if I was just gay as shit.

I wish I was gay. It

JOE ROGAN: looks way easier.

BRENDAN SCHAUB: We'd like play video games all day. We'd work out. At night we'd fuck each other. You're hanging out with only guys? No one can get pregnant?

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: That is a low that is so low where I never expected Joe to go. Stealing from Brendan Schaub. My god, if that is not the death knell of a comedy career, then I don't know what is.

Brendan Schaub quit comedy after releasing that special, and it only stands to reason that if Joe is stealing from it, then he ought to do the same. Ugh, he just won't stop screaming. This joke doesn't need to be yelled. If everything is yelled, then you can't emphasize anything. So this whole thing just kind of becomes white noise.

It all [01:16:00] just flows and blends together meaninglessly. It's stimulating, but meaningless. Which is basically what his podcast is, a screensaver for the brains of failed warehouse forklift operators. Sat at home chewing on oxys and collecting pogey. Alright, what else did Danny Benito say here?

JOE ROGAN: If you're getting your vaccine advice from me

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Oh, great.

JOE ROGAN: Is that really my fault?

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Next he goes into his routine of I'm just a shithead comedian, don't take me seriously.

JOE ROGAN: I'm a professional shit talker, okay? Don't take my advice!

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: This special is just PR now, this is not comedy. He knows nobody normal listens to his show anymore so he can't reach them on his podcast.

But Normie's watched Netflix, and a lot of them are gonna be checking out what that guy who's podcast they can't believe they used to listen to and have to try and remember to whom they admitted listening to it and Cringe with pure embarrassment about that. They yeah, they want to see what that guy is up to. So this is Joe's chance to get some good damage control in

JOE ROGAN: They tried to use that quote as proof that [01:17:00] I'm homophobic

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: He's literally just reenacting one of his many Instagram apology soliloquies.

And, it is just so fucking tedious to listen to. He gets into his famous n word controversy. And sorry to say, he's still doing that propaganda where he tries to convince everyone that he only said it when quoting other people saying it. Which obviously is a lie, here's a clip from the first ever Joe Rogan podcast.

Once, once I get the internet to do it, I'll make it. I'll make it HD so you can see how ugly I am. That n a's ugly. They forgot to delete that one during Spotify's extensive Operation N Word cleanup.

JOE ROGAN: Yeah, nobody gives a fuck about context! So, I'm not racist, but if I was gonna quote Oh,

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Joe, you should have just let this one go.

This PR is embarrassing.

JOE ROGAN: I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this. I thought everybody would understand. Here's the thing about these words, you can't say them.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Damn, six years of honing this material and he's gotta pad the back half of the special with PR. Oh, that's bad. But he still [01:18:00] doesn't stray too far from the gay stuff, as that shadow continues to seep out.

I love gay men! Joe's shadow is now in total control, and is just leaking all over the place. And now, with the shadow in control here, he's gonna steal another joke, this time from Bill Burr.

JOE ROGAN: And the light turns green, but the scooters keep coming, and you just want to go to jail! Yeah, I have a lot of fucked up thoughts, man.

I do. You ever drive down the street and see like 30 people up on a sidewalk, and you just think

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Now that's at least two stolen jokes in this special, so that's bad. And this is the guy who got fired. If someone steals a riff from

JOE ROGAN: a song, that shit's in the news constantly. Motherfuckers steal shit and make it on HBO.

Netflix. Put it on television.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Not only did he steal material from Brendan Shaw, but he really just became the new Mencia tonight. I can't believe it. Talk about full circle. The shit hero's journey. So who is going to step up and be the new Joe Rogan to the new Carlos Mencia? I nominate Joe List. [01:19:00] Come on Joe, stand up for comedy.

Go after Joe Rogan aggressively, please.

JOE ROGAN: I send my wife pictures of other dudes dicks.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: This is, uh, please Joe, please, we don't need to know this. And as his deepest secrets are spilling out against his will, Joe is fully lactating now. Leaking both psychically and physically.

JOE ROGAN: San Antonio, I love you to death, very much!

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: And now it's all over. It's finally done. Six years. And they really dipped into the budget for this closing credits music. Which sounds like it's ripped straight from the Ken Griffey Jr. game for Super Nintendo. Well, I guess if I had one sentence that could sum this thing up, it'd be,

JOE ROGAN: I hate dumb people that are confident, you know.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: Try again. I

JOE ROGAN: hate dumb people that are wrong and confident.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: And now that that's done, every comic on every podcast is going to spend the next six months raving about how Joe murdered and killed and massacred and chopped up all the bodies into little tiny chunks, threw them in the Austin River, whatever [01:20:00] that's called.

BRENDAN SCHAUB: Laugh out loud. Yeah, dude. I like it because the him saying the N word. So funny. So funny. It said the N word. Oh, it's so good. It was so good, man. That's good. That's good. It's so good. Yeah. Watch. And then he is talking about the word retard.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: They'll kiss the ring for that podcast invite and the cycle of comedy shit will go on and on and on.

But like we've discussed here before, everything has its cycle. Joe has completely run out of ideas. And his mind is ruined by social media. It can happen. It can. Joe has never been very good at comedy, but somehow he gets to be the number one guy, the big gatekeeper. He's our era's Johnny Carson and getting the invite to Joe's podcast is the new bringing you over to the couch or whatever.

This special will go down as Joe's last. He's like 60 or 70 years old and it's clear that his heart isn't in it anymore. This thing was just a greatest hits montage of the worst era of this guy's podcast, condensed into an hour. Every grade [01:21:00] has their final moments, and sometimes we don't even realize it's a final moment until it's already passed us by.

Wayne Gretzky had his final goal, his final shift. Michael Jordan. His final dunk. There

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: he is, back in the back

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: door! Elvis. His final song.

The last time you ever pick up your son. Your final summer sunset. And Joe Rogan. His final stool hump. Gotta go back to 2016. We didn't even realize it at the time, but we were witnessing Joe's final stool fucking. Gotta appreciate every moment like it's the last, guys. He didn't mount that thing once during this special.

So disappointing. You gotta play the hits, Joe, come on. And now he's this sad Charles Foster Kane figure. All the money in the world and never satisfied. All his decent friends scared away. The only friends he has left [01:22:00] just kiss his ass and tell him he's amazing. That's the only explanation for him thinking this was his greatest set of all time, leading up to this live stream.

No real friend would allow Joe to gringo poppy himself. Now this Netflix thing is getting panned by just about everyone. And despite Joe insisting that he doesn't read comments, it's obvious that he does. And the feedback from this thing is going to wound him deeply. And the weird thing is, he didn't even need to do this.

He's got more money than he knows what to do with. He just did this because he still wants people to think he's funny. This guy literally cries when he talks about becoming a stand up and getting passed at the comedy store. He wants to be a comic so bad, and he's just getting torn apart out there.

JOE ROGAN: Who knows what kind of bullshit act I would have had.

If, uh, I didn't run into Mitzi, if I didn't get past this door. One of the reasons why she passed me is a trick that we all used to do. I learned from the Todd. He would sit in the back of the room and he would sat next to Mitzi while Mitzi watched me and he would laugh hard. I [01:23:00] went up there and I did my set and he laughed really hard.

Mitzi just grabbed my arm and she goes, You're really funny.

Wow. Call in for spots. You're paid regularly. Wow. That was more important to me than any TV show. Like, the TV show was just a lot of money. It was like, I couldn't sleep that night. I was like, I'm a paid regular. Like, I'm a real comedian. I'm a real comedian. I'm a real comedian. I'm at the store. I'm a real comedian.

I'm at the comedy store. Dude, I always knew I was going there. It was a religious call. And the comedy store was terrible. And there was all these people that she passed that were like, I'm telling you. Talentless. January 6th, lock em up, lock em all up.

ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - HOST, THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD: The sad thing is, despite it being the meaning of life or whatever, Joe's legacy will not be his comedy.

He will be remembered as the stool humper who won the entertainment industry lottery, then voluntarily let the world collectively watch him go insane [01:24:00] on the internet over the course of thousands of hours of podcasting. A cautionary tale of money chasing, Dunning Kruger, and unreconciled childhood trauma.

SECTION B - TRUST AND BELIEF

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B trust and the belief.

Barron Lerner on challenges to physician expertise and restoring trust in the medical profession. - NEJM Interviews - Air Date 8-14-24

STEPHEN MORRISSEY - HOST, NEJM INTERVIEWS: Dr. Lerner, at what point in history and for what reasons did physicians initially begin to benefit from trust in their expertise and authority?

BARRON LERNER: I would say the huge rise in physician authority and trust occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

That's when the germ theory of disease became established and various technological innovations came into medical practice. Things like vaccinations and antibiotics. And all of a sudden doctors could really accomplish a lot for patients who had various diseases. Prior to that, there were some effective treatments, but not a lot, and patients often chose to stay away from doctors and hospitals.

But the big change really comes when you've [01:25:00] got scientifically proven interventions that can truly help patients and get them better.

STEPHEN MORRISSEY - HOST, NEJM INTERVIEWS: And then, as you explain in your article, social movements began confronting the medical field and rejecting medical expertise in the 1970s. So, what were those movements pushing back against, and in what ways did the medical field undermine its own authority?

BARRON LERNER: The social movements I was referring to outside of medicine would be things like the Civil Rights Movement, anti Vietnam War protests, and second wave feminism. And if you think about all those social movements, they all challenged people in positions of authority, whether it was men, whether it was soldiers, whether it was white people and said, you need to do better.

And that is the exact sort of change that happened in medicine. It would make sense that patients, research subjects, and other activists began to look more closely at doctors and the practice of medicine. And what they often found, much to their [01:26:00] dismay, were things that weren't very good. Treatments that were done based on not enough scientific evidence, evidence of coercion to be in research trials, and most ominously, instances where there were with sexism and racism done by the medical profession to its own very own patients and human research subjects.

STEPHEN MORRISSEY - HOST, NEJM INTERVIEWS: And then more recently, what's been the effect of the internet's empowering patients and promoting access to both information and misinformation?

BARRON LERNER: Well, the internet changed pretty much everything. I think any practicing doctor knows that these days for good and for bad. Let's start with the good. The good is I'm all for empowered patients being involved in their medical care.

I think the days of paternalism, when patients went passively into doctor's offices and just took their information and did what they were told is gone, and that's for good reason. It's good to have patients who are engaged, who want patient [01:27:00] autonomy, and one way to do that is to learn about your diseases, and the internet can be a very good way to do that.

So I am glad when patients come in and challenge me and say, I read this on the internet, what do you think about it? And oftentimes there's stuff that I don't even know about that I can look into. That's the good. The bad is the flip side, which is what is on the internet is of unbelievably variable quality.

And so for every good article that's written that suggests something, there might be five or ten even that portray things that are not true or very speculative or downright unfair to doctors and medical practice. So I think most patients know that. But it's hard to sift through it, and certainly patients who are very sick or very desperate will understandably latch on to things they read online, even if they're not true.

STEPHEN MORRISSEY - HOST, NEJM INTERVIEWS: And then, how did challenges to the Medical Professions Authority affect the response to [01:28:00] COVID 19 and the public health measures that were taken at that point?

BARRON LERNER: COVID was really interesting. Even as someone, as a historian who's looked at the doctor patient relationship over time in public health interventions, I was surprised at the degree to which seemingly reasonable measures that, certainly at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, were questioned right away, were rejected.

I think public health officials were surprised. This exact sorts of suggestions that had been made for past epidemics, like masking, and separating people, closing schools, staying home, that there was no grace period, almost, in which all of those things got accepted, at least for a little while. And from the very beginning, People were challenging the authority of doctors to say this and the validity of what they were saying.

And I think that built on what we were talking about before, that there has been this growing suspicion [01:29:00] of things that doctors have done, and the medical profession has sort of fallen off its pedestal. And when COVID came in, that was often the response that occurred, a skepticism, a mistrust. As opposed to saying, Oh my God, there's a terrible pandemic here.

We'll do whatever the public health officials say. So it really turned things on its head.

STEPHEN MORRISSEY - HOST, NEJM INTERVIEWS: So finally COVID taught us that the usual response to a crisis, providing the best scientific information was no longer adequate, what steps can physicians take to better understand their patients values and connect with them in a way that could help restore the trust that we need.

BARRON LERNER: There's a number of types of things I think that doctors can do and I urge people to take a look at my perspective because I'm not an expert on this type of intervention, but people are talking about things like trust. Things like values, things that don't necessarily get talked about in doctor patient interactions.

So, as you alluded to in the old [01:30:00] days, it was, what's the science, tell me doctor, and I'm going to do what you tell me because you're an expert and you're an expert in the science. But now I think we need to talk to patients better. We need to understand what it is that influences their decisions. Whether or not they're decisions that we disagree with or even agree with.

What is it that patients bring to their medical encounters? What are their values? What things are important to them? This means oftentimes asking very broad questions instead of narrow questions. Things like, are there past instances in which you thought doctors may have violated your trust? What are positive things about your life that you value that medicine can participate in?

Do you have particular religious or moral opinions about the type of medical care that you get? Those sort of very broad questions, non judgmental, and I think [01:31:00] that this can open up much better channel of communication between doctors and patients. All the time, but particularly when we're discussing things like the COVID vaccine, other sort of early or experimental interventions that are not proven, that are new, and just step back and try to have a dialogue about what's important.

What are the values? And in that way, I think we can gain back some of the trust that we've lost.

Democracy Dies in Disbelief - Steve Shives - Air Date 11-10-24

STEVE SHIVES - HOST, STEVE SHIVES: Years ago, when I first started doing YouTube videos, I was active in the online atheist community. And if there's one thing the online atheist community taught me, it's that most of the people who got internet famous from it were huge pieces of shit. But if there are two things the online atheist community taught me, it's a fairly decent layman's understanding of logical fallacies.

Atheists, particularly of the Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, New Atheist type, love [01:32:00] logical fallacies, and it's not difficult to see why. Logical fallacies are neat, they're simple, they're basic contradictions in the thinking underlying an argument. What you're saying can't be true because of this. This position is nonsensical.

Because of that, your argument is invalid. Appealing to logical fallacies is like a shortcut to proving someone objectively wrong. They're easy, and that's why so many people in the online atheist community favored them, because the online atheist community was overflowing with smug, stunningly lazy intellects.

But I'm not here to talk about the online atheist community. I'm here to talk about logical fallacies, and one logical fallacy in particular, and how it relates to the presidential election we just had here in the United States. The fallacy I'm talking about is called the argument from incredulity, and it's pretty simple.

When someone commits the argument from Incredulity Fallacy, they're saying that something can't be true [01:33:00] because they can't believe it, or because they can't understand it. This sort of argument pops up a lot in Conspiracy Theorist, thinking, People landed on the moon? I don't believe it. The Twin Towers fell because a couple of planes crashed into them?

How gullible are you? One shooter fired all those shots at JFK? Yeah, right. What makes this a fallacy is the fact that reality is not contingent on our capacity to accept it or to grasp it. What happens, happens. What is true, is true. Whether we can bring ourselves to believe it or not, there's a lot of incredulity flying around in American politics at the moment.

For the past few years, the most obvious examples of it have been coming from the right Donald Trump refusing to accept that he lost the 2020 election. Joe Biden? How could I have lost to this guy? There's no way so many more people voted for him than for me. That's an argument from incredulity. It's fed by toxic ego and [01:34:00] narcissism and entitlement, but ultimately that's what it is, an argument from incredulity.

I didn't lose, because I can't imagine any way I could have lost. But at the same time, there was quite a bit of incredulity on the left, as well. How did this guy get the nomination again? Why are so many people still supporting him? Since Trump won the election last week, that kind of incredulity has only been amplified.

And here are two important points I want to make. First, there's nothing inherently wrong with incredulity itself it's an emotional response to a surprising or overwhelming situation. It's fine to be incredulous at the election of Donald Trump. It's fine to think, how did this happen? How could this have happened again?

I'm right there with you. But here's the second point we need to remember. Our incredulity won't protect us. The incredulity of Democrats and Progressives leading up to the election was not a factor in our favor. [01:35:00] He can't possibly win again, can he? After everything he's done? After all the horrible things he's said?

After the criminal prosecutions? The national disgrace that he's become? The American people can't possibly be this dumb! And yet, the incredulity from our side since the election isn't helping, either. Harris got ten million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020? That can't be right! Someone must have hacked the voter machines to steal the election for Trump.

Okay, Hey, if compelling evidence is uncovered indicating that actually happened, I'll certainly have no trouble believing it. It's not that I think Trump or someone on his side wouldn't do that. But I don't need to believe they did do it in order to account for the election result, and neither should you.

So, what country have you been living in? You know the most dangerous expression of incredulity I've heard in the wake of Trump winning the election this time? [01:36:00] This isn't who we are. And you know what makes that so dangerous? It's the same thing that was said by many of the same people when Trump won in 2016.

Being incredulous in the aftermath of a shocking event is understandable, but when that same event happens over and over again and you still can't believe that it happened, it's time to open your eyes. If we want to turn this around, if we want to win the next election assuming there is one, but that's a whole other problem we need to shake off our incredulity and accept some uncomfortable truths.

One of those truths is that Donald Trump's message our problems are easily solved, immigrants and other outgroups are to blame, I will fix everything is genuinely appealing to a lot of people. You and I may find it pandering and disingenuous and juvenile, not to mention bigoted, but that message is compelling to many people in a nation of easily frightened [01:37:00] fools which is what we are.

The incredulity of Republicans, and others on the right, won't protect us, either. When people on our side express fear and anxiety about what could happen during a second Trump administration, the response we often get from their side is, oh, calm down, he's not even going to do most of that stuff. Yeah, he said he was going to be a dictator on day one.

He said he was going to use the federal government to go after his enemies. He said he was going to deport 20 million people. He's not actually going to do it. That attitude didn't stop him, did it? It didn't stop him from trying to implement a ban on Muslims entering the country? It didn't stop him from appointing Supreme Court justices who ruled to overturn Roe v.

Wade. It didn't stop him from trying to steal the 2020 election after he lost it. If someone voted for Trump because they thought he would lower the price of milk and eggs, and they hand waved all the fascism he has repeatedly promised to do because they don't [01:38:00] believe he's actually going to do it, they're one of those fools I was just referring to.

Speaking of fascism and when we speak of Donald Trump, fascism is always the subject there's another statement of incredulity that if we hope to survive these next four years and come out of them in a position to begin repairing the damage that's about to be done, we absolutely must guard ourselves against.

It can't happen here. I think this might be the most threatening form of American exceptionalism. A lot of people who support Trump argue that he isn't a fascist because, well, he can't be. This is America. We don't do that here. Trump and his incoming administration are going to take advantage of that incredulity and use it as a shield as they attempt to impose fascism, because they know what they are, no matter what they choose to [01:39:00] call it.

Our institutions won't protect us. An institution is a group of people that's all it is, a group of people operating according to rules and norms made by people that can be changed by people or ignored by people. Trump and his people have shown that they are willing, even eager, to light those institutions and their rules and norms on fire.

They're about to get another opportunity to do just that. I don't tell you this to discourage you, or to bum you out. I'm telling you to remind you, whether you need the reminder or not, that you refusing to believe things will get that bad isn't going to stop things from getting that bad. If you care, and you should, if you don't want Trump and his allies to succeed in destroying our democratic institutions and replacing them with autocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, and you shouldn't, then you need to get involved.

Jonathan Rauch: A Defense of Truth Part 1 - The Commonwealth Club of California - Air Date 7-31-21

JONATHAN RAUCH: Humans are bad at sorting out our biases, correcting our errors.

We [01:40:00] believe what makes sense for us to believe in terms of our identity, our social status, what gives us pleasure. We even perceive what helps our status. The result of that is if you just leave it to people in an unmediated marketplace, you get this hate speech, propaganda, ignorance, and so forth. And this is, this is a well known fact.

You need more than just sort of open exchange. You need structure. You need this guy. Of course, this is James Madison, uh, the leading architect of the U. S. Constitution. It turns out that most of the same principles that make the U. S. Constitution work to create a democratic republic that survived, what, 250 years and now has 10 times the population, I'm sorry, 100 times the population of Madison State, you need a lot of structure, you need institutions.

You need norms, you need incentives for people to behave in pro social ways. You know, stuff like if you lose the election, you're willing to live with that. Well, the same thing is true in the realm of knowledge. Around the same [01:41:00] time as Madison, we set up a regime to settle our differences of opinion, figure out what's true.

Um, most of the first half of the book is all about that. This is not just an analogy, not just a metaphor. The Constitution of Knowledge is not written down like the U. S. Constitution. It has rules that do a lot of the same things. Checks and balances, forces compromise, distributes authority, uses impersonal rules instead of personal rulers.

Builds institutions that regulate behavior and prevent chaos. And the result of that's what I call the reality based community. We're part of that today doing the session. Bruce Kane is part of that at Stanford. I'm part of it at Brookings. Reality based community is a global network of people and institutions who use impersonal rules to hunt for error.

We're talking here big for our science and research and academia. That's number one. Number two, journalism. Number three, government. That's everything from statistical agencies to administrative law courts. [01:42:00] And finally, number four, the law itself. The concept of a fact originated in law, and jurisprudence is all about finding facts in adversarial ways, showing where these are the things that keep us as a society anchored to truth, tethered to reality.

They keep us out of constant warfare with each other or going down the route of of Jonestown, uh, where we split off into separate realities. There are a lot of advantages to the constitution of knowledge. Objective knowledge is the result of the constitution of knowledge. It fills our libraries, our databases, if all humans died out. Aliens could come to this planet, reconstitute it all and use all that knowledge.

It exists independently of us. This is a transformative technology for humans because it allows us to make knowledge, build on that knowledge, accumulate it, bequeath it. That's what's made our, our ability to transcend our small tribes. Point number two. So what's going on today? You're being manipulated.

You know, you hear [01:43:00] a lot of people say they talk about polarization and cynicism and hostility toward institutions. And they say, well, is us, where do we go wrong? Is it stagnant working class white wages? Is it the decline of religion? Is it the decline of unions? Is it Vietnam? And. Watergate and inflation and the 2008 crash.

Well, I want to focus on something else. Those are all conversations we have, but I want to focus you on information warfare. That's propaganda and disinformation that organizes and manipulates the social and media environment for political advantage. The goals of doing this to dominate, divide, Disorient and demoralize the target population.

The methods are to weaponize cognitive and social vulnerabilities. For example, our tendency, um, to rise to our defense when we're outraged or insulted, or our tendency to find explanations [01:44:00] when things go against us, even if they're wrong, our tendency to use social coercion, to silence people. We don't like our ability to get confused.

If we're swamped with too much information, all of these can be weaponized.

I'm going to just focus because I think it's the most important one right now on a single aspect of this. There are many more in the book and they're all important to talk about disinformation and a specific type of disinformation or class of disinformation. This is Stephen Bannon. He was an advisor to Trump.

He worked in the administration for a while. His famous quotation here, the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone, flood the zone with. Well, that doesn't sound very sophisticated, but it turns out it's a propaganda technique that was perfected by the Russians.

It's called the fire hose of falsehood. Now, time is precious, but it's still worth spending a minute to listen to a [01:45:00] Soviet KGB, senior defector explain how this works. I think you'll find it chilling.

FORMER (?) RUSSIAN SPY: But in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my, uh, opinion and opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85 percent is a slow process, which we call either ideological subversion, or active measures. KGB, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, To such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.

[01:46:00] Exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Uh, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures.

JONATHAN RAUCH: It's pretty chilling stuff. It's very psychologically sophisticated.

It works. This is the Russians using it in 2018 when they sent operatives to poison a defector in the UK. Uh, they had explanations for that. In fact, they had a lot of them, Britain poisoned him, Ukraine poisoned him. It was an accident, suicide, revenge, not a nerve agent. Russia didn't produce a nerve agent, a different nerve agent.

They fling up swarms of falsehoods, concocted theories, red herrings intended not so much to persuade people as to bewilder them. This creates cynicism, mistrust. People don't know what to believe. They become open to demagoguery, [01:47:00] cynicism, polarization. It's good stuff or maybe bad stuff. Well, who else does that?

This is 2016 political campaign. The numbers are the same. If you go through the end of the campaign, according to PolitiFact, 26%, about a quarter of what Hillary Clinton said was mostly or entirely false. That's too high. But that meant most of what she said was true. The equivalent figure for Donald Trump, 71%, at least mostly false.

If the man was opening his mouth, he was probably telling you something that was entirely or mostly false. Why would he do that? Some kind of weird psychopathy? Some just sort of craziness? No, I don't think so. This is his presidency. We've never seen anything like this outpouring of false or misleading claims over 30, 000 over the course of his presidency.

And look at the run up. Before November of 2021, that's the Stop the Steal campaign. [01:48:00] That's the unleashing of a misinformation, of a disinformation campaign on a scale we've never imagined before in the United States. It starts in April of 2020 with the attack on mail in voting, which is irrational from the point of view of maximizing Republican votes, since lots of senior Republicans vote by mail.

But very rationally, if your real goal is post election to inflect the media, media environment because you expect to lose. This is Donald Trump's Twitter account. I just picked a random day. This is December 10th. These are seven tweets. Uh, sorry. Uh, yeah, seven tweets. The election is a fraud. Doesn't end with Donald Trump.

This is my hometown of Arizona, the veterans Memorial Coliseum, where I sat and saw many sons games as a kid. That is a so called audit of the vote going on. It's not only unnecessary, it's being done by an unqualified firm called cyber ninjas, which has. Whose president has devoured that the election was stolen using unorthodox methods.

It's pure propaganda [01:49:00] theater. And as you can see from the headline here, the goal here is to spread a conspiracy theory and use this as theater to do that. And it's working Republican officials are making pilgrimage to figure out. How they can replicate this in their own state. This is very sophisticated stuff, right?

And it's never been deployed in America. We are in an epidemiological sense, a naive population, meaning that we don't have any antibodies against this kind of warfare. That's how we get to 75 percent of Republicans believing the election was stolen. And notice in this kind of information warfare, you don't have to convince everybody that something that's false is actually true.

You're happy if you just confuse them. And it turns out that 40 percent of independents also are unsure who won the election. They say, well, we don't really know because they've heard so much of this stuff. The deliverables of this kind of campaign are cynicism. Like the woman who says there's no real news sources anymore.

I don't trust anything. [01:50:00] Demoralization. I guess I would have to say that I'm completely confused as to who is lying and who is telling the truth. I just feel helpless. If you make people feel helpless, if you demoralize them, you demobilize them. They cannot work against you. You can dominate them.

SECTION C - CENTRISM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next section C centrism.

How "Moderates" Serve The Right - Second Thought - Air Date 12-17-21

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: Over time, movements that start out on the left, like liberalism, republicanism, or even parliamentary monarchy, become solidly right-wing movements without ever changing their ideology because they replace the old right and become contested by the new, more radical left. In such a position, Centrism becomes nothing more than a conservative ideology.

Its prime directive is resistance to change. And as a result, it's not, as they claim, neither left nor right. It's just right-wing. It might have been on the left in yesterday's society, but now that the goals of the old left are the established order and have become the new conservative right, preserving present society with only incremental and [01:51:00] moderate reform, which is what centrists believe in, becomes a profoundly conservative worldview.

And it makes sense that this is where moderacy settles. Because it has to compromise between two completely opposing ideas. Changing society in a new way, or keeping it the same. Think about classic centrist statements like, we just need a mix of socialism and capitalism. An idea that makes absolutely zero sense when you understand the two ideologies and that their base disagreement about the ownership of the means of production makes them fundamentally incompatible.

Okay, this all might seem a little confusing. Let's get away from the the theory for a second and look at something concrete, like the Biden brand of centrism.

JOE BIDEN: I know how to make government work,

because I've done it, across the aisle, to reach consensus, to help make government work in the past. I can do that again with your help. For me, to me, as itself [01:52:00] is not

a dirty word. Consensus is not a weakness. It's the only way our founders down the road there thought it was the only way we could govern. It was necessary. It was designed the way the Constitution says it. It requires consensus. This speech is Biden's free bird. Biden, like pretty much every centrist, is a big fan of compromise.

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: Reaching across the aisle to get past political gridlock is the doctrine of American centrism. And when you hear him talk about it, you can kind of get sucked into the idea that this form of compromise is what makes politics, and therefore society, progress. It appeals to our vision of the democratic ideal.

A society in which everyone gathers around the table to discuss an issue, and then comes to a mutual decision that compromises on the various interests represented by the assembly. And, if after all, nobody compromises, we might very well not get anywhere. In American politics, this is anything but democratic, [01:53:00] though.

And far from leading to the progress we're promised, we get a government that stagnates or actively pursues regressive, reactionary politics. Take immigration. For over a year, we heard just about every democrat call out the very real, fundamental far right policies enacted by the Trump admin at the Mexican border.

One of these was the invocation of Title 42, a policy choice that might as well be called oh, it really is just that easy. At the start of the pandemic, the Trump administration used the pretext of national health and COVID 19 To close the southern border pretty much completely. Nobody comes in and a whole lot of people go out.

It was a brilliant success for conservatives and reactionaries and a massive step back in immigration law. And to this day, title 42 still stands, no, sorry. That makes it seem like people aren't paying attention to it. The Biden administration is defending it tooth and nail in the courts. True to the spirit of compromise, Biden changed the [01:54:00] application of the rule so that it would no longer apply to unaccompanied minors.

But on the back end, has used it to expel around 700, 000 migrants, far more than the Trump administration ever achieved with its paltry 450, 000. Simultaneously, Biden has also continued the construction of the border wall, has led the infamous Do Not Come campaign, and left untouched migrant detention facilities.

You'll remember them as concentration camps during the Trump presidency. Now, it's not that Biden has done nothing for progressive immigration politics. He's reinstated DACA and done work to reunite separated families. But the majority of his platform has been tweaking Trump era policies in the spirit of compromise.

rather than reversing them entirely and treating them like the indefensible right-wing policies that they are. Centrism isn't incremental progress in these circumstances. Malcolm X said it best.

MALCOM X: Do you feel, however, that, uh, that we're making progress in, in this country? No, no. No, no. [01:55:00] I'm, I will never say that progress is being made.

If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. You pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow, that the blow made. They won't even admit the knife is there.

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: When reactionary and far right politics are so dominant in a society as the U.

S., and so regularly find their way to institutions of power. Or are baked in right from the start. The centrist stance of compromise and incremental retroactive change allows for politics to jump to the right without ever really coming back. How many politicians today pretend that there's a reasonable compromise between the we need healthcare left and the we need an ethnostate right?

Title 42 still stands because the myopic compromise of moderate ideology fails to take into account longer political trends. There are, of course, some exceptions to the rightward shift of American politics. But the attachment to moderation at all costs makes any left wing legislation a blip in [01:56:00] what is otherwise a sea of reactionary bravado.

But most centrists don't like this, and that's not how they think about themselves. They don't like the idea that they're just a mushy average of the left and the right, or a simple tool of conservative politics. Instead, moderates describe their stance something like this. I don't care whether something comes from the left or the right.

I just look at the idea and judge it on its own merit. Here, the tricky centrist thinks he's gotten us. We couldn't possibly disagree with the idea of sensibly considering multiple options and forming an opinion based on rational cost and benefit analyses. And he's right, but at the end of the day, centrism falls right back into the same place whether it sees its role as averaging out the left and the right, or picking and choosing from each side.

And that's because the Overton window is so small and so skewed in the US. The choices centrists make. are limited by the acceptable politics they are contextualized in. And the American political spectrum being so stunted toward the right, with only figures like Bernie [01:57:00] Sanders and his social democratic politics even approaching the left, means that centrism will by default fall into the conservative, liberal, stagnatory, or even regressive role.

There just aren't that many options to choose from, and they're mostly on the same side anyway. Even if the centrist voter is a careful and considerate pragmatist who doesn't blindly follow the party line and thinks entirely for themselves on every topic and political debate, the inevitable fact that they will be picking and choosing policies from the fascistic Trumpism in the Republican party and the neoliberal capitalism of the Democrats, to the extent that they can even be differentiated at times, means they'll never actually consider the full range of political debate because the left isn't prominently represented.

The result is the center conserves far more than it progresses. And when it chooses to conserve something built by the right, it actively engages in regressive, reactionary politics. There's also the issue that politicians who call themselves the center [01:58:00] aren't really doing so in good faith. While they may represent the center between elected officials, the actual center of the American people is far more to the left on many key issues than the center of the American political class.

Just look at this clip featuring celebrity centrist Joe Lieberman.

MEHDI HASAN: Your new book is called The Centrist Solution. Uh, you were a famous quote unquote centrist senator. Uh, and yet my issue with that word is that centrist doesn't necessarily reflect the American people's views. I want to pull up, uh, some polling.

Here are some of the measures in that Build Back Better bill that quote unquote centrist like Manchin and Sinema want to get rid of. Here's how popular they are, hugely popular across the spectrum. 83 percent support, 84 percent support, 73 percent support. And yet you and Joe Sinema oppose many of those measures that the American people overwhelmingly support.

So the question is, how in the world does that make you a centrist? Surely based on that polling, Bernie Sanders is closer to the center of American politics and public opinion than you are or Joe [01:59:00] Manchin is.

JOE LEIBERMAN: Yeah, I don't, I don't think so, but it's a great question. question. That's not happening enough now.

We could probably get some of those good things done on that list if people, instead of trying to push it through, would sit down and talk to each other and agree.

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: And here we get back to that MLK quote. It's absurd to think that any moderate Democrat or any Republican would ever agree to any of these policies that have overwhelming support among Americans if the only difference was that they were sat down and talked to as opposed to having things pushed through. There is no way that moderate Democrats like Manchin, Sinema, or Biden are going to be convinced by good argumentation presented politely when that is contending with the massive sums of money changing hands to make sure they remain spoilers.

MLK made it very clear, the moderate's role in politics is to slow things down to a trickle. Justice gets delayed further and further, never actually realized despite decades [02:00:00] of promises, allowing for millions of people to continue suffering injustice and hundreds of thousands more to be brought into the fold.

It's trite, but justice delayed is justice denied. The issue we're going to have to figure out is how we do anything about this.

Aaron Rodgers Slobbers Over Tucker Carlson in Brain-Melting Exchange - TYT Sports - Air Date 5-16-24

AARON RODGERS: What about you though? Cause you, you did one of the most controversial, somehow, not to me, most controversial interviews in the last, I don't know how long, when you went to Russia and did Putin. How did it feel coming back? Cause like anybody who watched the interview was like, number one, it was awesome.

Number two, Putin came off as an interesting, thoughtful, smart individual.

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: Where to even begin? First off. Tucker Carlson's interview was critiqued rightfully for his softball style. Even local journalists in the country said Tucker's pro Putin accusations were baseless. Tucker even laid off Putin's regime, which has a history of unaliving media members, imprisoning them and censoring them.

Historians say the [02:01:00] litany of claims made by Putin are nonsense, representing nothing more than a selective abuse of history to justify the ongoing war. In Ukraine, Sergei Rodchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins school of advanced international studies would go off on Putin saying the leader is trying to construct a narrative that is backwards, where he states Russia as a state began its development in the ninth century.

You could equally say that Ukraine as a state began its development in the ninth century, exactly with the same kind of evidence and documents. He's trying to use certain historical facts to construct a state centered narrative that would favor Russia. as opposed to any alternative agglomerations.

Another falsehood of many that was spewed in this interview between two knuckleheads was this. Putin claimed that Poland, which was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 39, collaborated with Hitler. He said by refusing to cede an area of Poland, calling the Danzig Corridor to [02:02:00] Hitler, Poland went too far, pushing him to start World War II by attacking them.

Anita Prasmowska, a professor emerita, would rebuke this. Saying that there were diplomatic contacts between Poland and the Nazis. The first treaty Hitler signed after coming to power was a non aggression pact with Poland in 34, Putin is conflating diplomatic outreach to a threatening neighbor with collaboration.

The accusation that the Poles were collaborating is nonsense. She would add. I think the question is this, why is Aaron Rogers falling for Vladimir Putin propaganda? Ask yourself that question.

AARON RODGERS: You had the live case numbers. You had, um, just the fear mongering and then anybody that stood up to it was canceled.

You mean all the Twitter files that got released when Elon took over that show the collusion between the alphabet, uh, companies.

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: First off him saying the alphabet companies is different than what he said [02:03:00] previously, which was the alphabet mob, which had a direct correlation and a Bullhorn of a whistle to say that you are anti gay rights.

I suppose it's somewhat of a positive for splitting hairs here that he corrected himself. However, referencing the Twitter files as a source. I mean, let's revisit. It was promoted by Musk to Bari Weiss, an idiot, and the like, to put out an idea that showed Twitter's bias against conservatives, as well as interference by the U.

S. government to censor certain posts and users. When in reality, the released info showed former Twitter employees engaging in fairly even handed, basic content moderation found on almost any social medium. Nevertheless, Elon curated the narrative. And broke through with conservatives and his fans. There were even congressional hearings held.

Remember those? Reformer employees shared just how much was missing from Musk's chosen [02:04:00] documents. Rogers once again is proving how dense his approach is. When discussing his guy RFK, he said this.

AARON RODGERS: He's spending millions of his own dollars on private security, um, which he has to because. He's a threat because he's not, you know, bought and paid for.

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: All right, hang on. He's not bought and paid for? Do we understand the legalized bribery that happens in this country in the form of campaign donations? As a matter of fact, RFK's biggest donor is the biggest donor to Donald Trump. Per Newsweek, Timothy Mellon, the heir to the Mellon Banking fortune, gave a Trump aligned Super PAC 5 million, plus the same figure to an RFK aligned Super PAC.

His VP, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy tech entrepreneur and lawyer, donated 4 million to a pro RFK junior Super PAC in efforts to fund a Super Bowl ad. But hey, keep politics out of sports. The New York Times reported dozens of VCs. Tech execs, real estate builders, investors with [02:05:00] varying political alliances contributed to RFK's PACs.

Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock, and one of the most prominent supporters of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, gave 100, 000 in Bitcoin to Common Sense, another PAC supporting organization. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Abby Rockefeller. I mean, let's continue. Why not? A daughter of the investment banker, David Rockefeller, who runs a cannabis farm in upstate New York, gave 100K to American Values 2024 PAC.

Then there's Gavin DeBecker, who also donated to a pro Kennedy PAC. His security firm has been paid 1. 5 million by Kennedy's campaign. Becker has reportedly provided security for A list celebs like Cher, and Jeff Bezos. One thing Rogers will undoubtedly cling to is, oh, he doesn't need it. He can fund himself.

And that's a great thing because that's the moral way to do it. Hang on a minute. [02:06:00] Saying that there is no corruption because someone can benefit from their own wealth misses the reality that wealthy candidates typically already Represent a special interest the business and industry that got them or their parents rich wrote the Brennan Center more generally studies show that the Affluent have different policy views than most Americans.

For example, they unsurprisingly tend to oppose higher taxes on the wealthy.

AARON RODGERS: But I don't know if you saw this, but Bobby recently came out and said, uh, in the summer months at some point he wants to do a 50 state poll with like 20, 000, I don't know what the exact number is, votes in each of these states and whoever polls lower between him and Joe Biden has to drop out of the race.

Because in his own analytics, he's found out that if the three of them run, uh, Trump is most likely to win. If he goes against Trump, he wins. If he goes against Biden, he wins. If Biden goes against Trump, Trump wins. [02:07:00] So in fact, the F so he said, Hey, listen, I'll drop out if you pull higher than me in these 50 States.

Um, but if I pull higher than you,

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: you're out. What fantasy land are we living in here for real, for real?

AARON RODGERS: Yeah. Here's more. Bobby's a main player in this.

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: Let's play this clip one more time. And it's of Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and others. who will dispel this in their own words.

ROGER STONE: So I'm a great admirer of Robert Kennedy.

He's a friend of mine. I am a fan of Bobby Kennedy. So I want people to know that I actually look at him and I think he's one of those like, um, I actually think I have a lot in common with him because I'm a former Democrat. I just changed my party affiliation two years ago. If I were a Democrat, I'd certainly vote for him.

If I had any money, I'd send him a contribution, but I don't.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: I think RFK Jr is doing a great service to our country. I am disappointed that his party is so corrupted. I mean, he's the perfect example of [02:08:00] a true American Democrat, a true patriot who loves this country.

ROGER STONE: I think he is potentially an extraordinarily, uh, attractive candidate.

At the end of the day, however, um, I believe that his candidacy. May serve the purpose of softening Joe Biden, or whoever the Democratic nominee is for the candidacy and defeat by the man who will clearly be, no matter what the courts do, the Republican nominee for president, Donald J. Trump.

RICK STROM - TYT SPORTS: Son, your boy is playing, spoiler.

He is the foil. Stop the cap. They are telling you right now that he is. in the race to help Donald Trump win. One of his, one of the members of his campaign staff was seen in an uncovered video that they were indeed playing spoiler to ruin Joe Biden's [02:09:00] chances in order for Donald Trump to take the presidency.

This man is not a big brain thinker. He is a big idiot. I am amazed at the things we have learned about this guy since COVID, because I truly believe he, like many. have had their brains wrecked by falling down a million and one rabbit holes, and it changed them completely, unfortunately. We all have that one person, friend, family, work friend, associate, boss, doesn't matter.

We all have someone in our lives who we have noticed a seismic internal shift after the coronavirus pandemic, where everything they started to believe could be fact checked into oblivion and were blatant lies. Yet Rogers Because of his status, now a Putin apologist, who ran out to start this [02:10:00] NFL season with an American flag, is now telling you, once again, exactly who he is.

Why "Neither Left Nor Right" Just Means Right Wing | Bonapartism - Second Thought - Air Date 3-18-22

ANDREW YANG: I have done the math, it's not left.

It's not right, it's forward, and that is how we're going to beat Donald Trump in 2020.

SIMPSONS: But tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: Bonapartism works because it's confusing. Bonapartist politicians, both those who actually embrace the label and those who prefer to hide it a bit more, have a pretty specific strategy for muddying the waters on politics.

Pretending like there's no such thing as the left and the right, but only strategically in order to usher in a more reactionary, or at the very least conservative, political program cloaked in the symbols of progressive politics. Let's take a little trip to France to see what we're talking about. Ah, très bien, une baguette.

Ahem. French people love [02:11:00] Napoleon. Here's French President Emmanuel Macron commemorating him on the 200th anniversary of his death. And here's far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen making him a fan cam for his death day. These very same politicians are the ones who will use the messaging of the neither left nor right slogan for their own political interests. Neither left nor right has been lap pen's strategy since 2015,

and here's a room of Macron supporters chanting at the same time. The president's own quirky, unique way of saying he is at the same time from the left and the right of the political spectrum. Now, it's obvious to most people that Le Pen is a far right candidate, and that Macron's presidency has been one of right-wing liberalism.

What with the cutting taxes on the wealthy, violently beating down protests, and abusing executive powers to force through legislation. Classic right-wing authoritarian stuff. So then, why are they so keen on telling us they're neither left nor right? The obvious answer is, because they're lying and abusing a political system that offers little to no accountability once you're in [02:12:00] power.

But there's more to it than that. The point is that a lot of French politicians really dig Napoleon. But most importantly, they especially like his strategy. Napoleon, and later his nephew Napoleon III, were masters of counter revolutionary and anti democratic reactionary politics, but were also very skillful propagandists.

They were both incredibly capable of When it came to convincing the masses that rallying behind a single leader above the left right, worker owner divide was better than continuing with the messy and difficult exercise of democracy and revolution. This leader could claim to be above the left and the right, but then of course use his power solely for right-wing policies and turning back the gains made by the revolutionaries.

Like universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and the nationalization of labor. In the spirit of, quote, defending the republic, and making that very clear by celebrating it with all of its symbols like the blue, white, and red French flag, and the revolutionary anthem, La Marseillaise, [02:13:00] Napoleon cut down the gains made by French revolutionaries over time, and de facto reinstituted the monarchy, overturning the revolution's most central victory.

Basically, left wing symbols, but right-wing politics. Both leaders were able to use the revolution's comparatively more democratic institutions for their own benefit to turn around and tyrannize foreigners and their own people. Specifically, Napoleon I pushed his way into office with a coup, but then leveraged his support from the French people as a famed military general to go from first consul to first consul for life and finally emperor, all with a massive amount of public support.

His nephew did the same thing. First as President of the Second French Republic, then seizing power in a coup d'etat and calling himself Emperor. Both leaders became dictators, all the while constantly evoking the spirit of the Revolution and the defense of the Republic which they had themselves destroyed.

These were men who conquered, who warred, who controlled all organs of the [02:14:00] press, who stripped women of their rights, who reinstated slavery by brutally repressing slave revolts, and who disempowered the parliaments. Generally speaking, Bonapartism takes all the ways in which people previously expressed their political power through local governments, associations, unions, parliaments, revolutions, Basically, any semblance of democracy, and thins out politics until all that's left is the quasi universal support of the great, enlightened leader who unites the nation.

It is a politics of strength, of peace by force, of law and order, and of deeply reactionary logic. Ultimately, it is a politics based on deferring authority and decision to powers above the democratic body. There's the way in which that's literally happening with the nation's single leader with all the power.

But there's also the more metaphorical way this happens behind the scenes. Markets are a great example of this kind of power above democracy. Both Macron and Le Pen, though different in their execution, are both [02:15:00] ultimately allowing markets to decide what the correct way to organize society is. These leaders are more than happy to delegate the power they are granted upwards to let market forces ultimately be the way by which politics are decided.

For Macron, it's the classic neoliberalism of the third way politicians that preceded him, like Bill Clinton in the US and Tony Blair in the UK. Basically letting international markets run loose, deregulating and privatizing all over the place, and fixing things when they inevitably go wrong with austerity politics.

For Le Pen, it's the same thing, but with domestic, not international capital markets. Relying on French capitalists to just treat their employees better, because they're both French, and that's what matters at the end of the day. It shouldn't be surprising to learn that that does not happen. Back when it was the two Napoleons doing this, there was a guy who looked at what was happening and said, But man, this blows.

In his book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx saw all of this unfolding in real time, figured out [02:16:00] what Bonapartism was about, and correctly identified that the French peasantry, disunited and without common interest, happily accepted the all powerful sovereign. But that it was ultimately the French bourgeoisie, divided among itself and unable to rule effectively, that gave up its crown to save its purse.

It gave the powers of the executive to a popular leader that would leave them alone, free to exploit the French working class that had started making too many gains during the first two republics, so that they, the bourgeoisie, The upper class could keep making their profits. That's the purpose of neither left nor right discourse, a way to unite people behind one guy or one idea that'll take politics and democracy out of their hands and into the hands of a few capitalists.

We don't hear about it as much here in the US, but Yang's platform gives us an idea of what it could be like. Andrew Yang's, not some far right authoritarian. Nothing about him really gives us that idea of a vaguely fascistic unifying leader the way a lap pen or a Macron can be [02:17:00] despite whatever this is

DUMB SONG: Yang Gang 2020 Yang Gang.

JT CHAPMAN - HOST, SECOND THOUGHT: But Yang is still applying the same principles as the bona artist with roughly similar goals. He's using this idea of unifying the left and the right, getting rid of all the silly polarization and commotion of political life. to give more power to markets and what he calls human centered capitalism.

He's using a universal monthly check as a permission slip for capitalists to do whatever they feel is fair. Workers be damned. Deregulate and privatize everything, including social safety nets. Let the market do it at once. Just toss back enough crumbs that people won't want to change things themselves or have an actual place at the table.

If he can present himself, and his very conventional neoliberalism, as the politics of change, and turn around and cast the quote, extremism, of the left wing of the democratic party as nothing more than political stagnation, that's all the better for him. He's defending democracy while [02:18:00] turning back the clock on its gains.

Not for any personal political power, but for that of capital markets. And if you're thinking I forgot about the guy who I literally cannot make a joke about without sounding like Colbert, Trump's strategy wasn't very different. His was just more personal, more closely related to the imagery of kings and monarchs, based on an appeal to an imaginary nation that never existed except in some racist white guy's fantasies.

That distinction doesn't make him substantially different. It was still just a way to let the wealthy do whatever they want in the background. But it's what prompted a lot of observers to analyze him with the Bonapartist model, though usually stopping short and using the more en vogue populist label.

And here we find part of the reason why some people who talk about populism can get politics so wrong. Equating someone like Sanders to someone like Trump makes a lot less sense than equating a Trump and a Yang. Because even if both Trump and Sanders are both known for bold, loud personalities and a very vocal grassroots support, their [02:19:00] politics are so radically different in the way they treat democracy and what people want, that putting them on the same level misses the point entirely.

Yang isn't a populist, really, but it doesn't necessarily matter. Trump and Yang, like Napoleons I and III, have figured out that people think democracy stops at the ballot box. These people are perfectly happy with a system that gets them public support and lets them use it to act as protectors of the capitalist economy.

An economy that lets the few people who own entire industries decide for the rest of us what's right and what's wrong. That is not what democracy is. Democracy is not just letting your favorite guy do whatever. Especially not if that means giving power to a wealthy group of capitalists to continue exploiting you.

That's not democracy. That's Bonapartism.

SECTION D - ROOTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section D routes.

Jonathan Rauch: A Defense of Truth Part 2 - The Commonwealth Club of California - Air Date 7-31-21

JONATHAN RAUCH: If there's one new idea in this book that I'd like to leave people with, apart from the idea of the constitution of knowledge that we have one, it's something that we're not used to really [02:20:00] thinking about, which is what I just described.

Russian style, disinformation and propaganda is very different in terms of its methods and who's using it and what ideologies it's attached to at the moment from what we call cancel culture, a term that didn't exist when I started the book. But they are both in fact, forms of information warfare. That is they attempt to organize and manipulate the social and media environments for political gain.

So cancel culture does it differently. Before that term came along, I called it social coercion or coerced conformity. So here's the idea. You can do an experiment. You put eight people in a room, you give them a simple test that says, it's just, The answer is obvious. You ask them which of three lines on the right matches the same length as the line on the left.

You make it blindingly obvious that it's impossible to get it wrong. Put eight people in that room, but there's a catch. One is the experimental subject. The other seven are actors. The right answer is [02:21:00] B, and it's obvious. And when people are left to their own devices, they always get it right. But in that room at that time, seven of those people will say, see, they create a false consensus in the room.

What is the eighth person? The actual subject to a third of the time, they actually go with. The wrong answer. They go with the group answer, whether because they want to conform socially, whether because they really think they might be wrong. Maybe this is an obstacle optical illusion, and I'm not getting it.

Maybe they have genuine doubt. A third of people, um, a third of participants do that. And, uh, in 75 percent of the time, a person will do it in at least one trial in multiple trials. So now flash forward to the present, suppose you've got a community like a university, suppose a group, a small group of faction, you know, maybe 20 percent of the university or 10 percent or whatever.

Supposedly are very motivated activists [02:22:00] who want to impose a point of view, manipulate the environment for political advantage, intimidate, silence their opponents. Well, you can weaponize social media, you can weaponize course evaluations against professors, you can use rules against harassment to launch investigations.

You can just use denunciations of people as racist, so that people who hold certain points of view or want to ask certain points of questions will feel very reluctant to do that. It becomes very risky to go anywhere near these topics. They become chilled, and indeed, polls now find that two thirds of university students say that they avoid expressing their real political views for fear of social consequences.

I've talked to many professors, they're quoted in the book, including, by the way, many, many progressive professors who say they don't feel safe, um, teaching the way they want to teach. They're worried about social consequences, investigations. So this has two results. One is the obvious result, which is you can shut down the people that you don't want to be heard.[02:23:00]

But the second result is you're actually playing with people's minds, right? Because you're creating a false consensus. It looks like everyone on campus believes, for example, um, well, take your proposition. We won't get into it. Everyone believes that. Anyone who doesn't believe that is isolated, shameful, stigmatized.

That plays with our brains. That makes us think we're in doubt. We're ashamed of ourselves. We must be wrong. So that can go on in a university environment. Then it turns out social media makes that quite easy to organize and do in a public environment. So now we see cases again and again of social media campaigns being used to isolate shame.

People go after their employers. People are now fired if they become controversial on social media, demolish people's reputations if they're called racist, so that's what comes up on Google. Secondary boycotts, big part of that, that's where you go after their friends, their professional associates. They say, Bruce Kane, how can you associate with Jonathan Rauch?

You know he's a racist, right? So now you're going to have to [02:24:00] denounce me. You're going to feel intimidated. You'll be drawn into the same denial of reality. So that worked in the Soviet Union, although they use cruder methods for the most part. They just, you know, sent you to Siberia, but this can allow a minority, meaning a numerical minority to sustain a false consensus and impose its alternative vision on reality on a society really for quite a long time.

We now see that happening nationally, 60 percent of Americans say that they're reluctant to state their true political views. for fear of social consequence. A third of Americans say they're worried if they state their true political views that they will lose a job or job opportunities. And that, by the way, Bruce, this is a new and important development that is now just as true of progressives as it is of conservatives.

So Houston, we have a problem.

BILL KANE: So do you see this as primarily a kind of Problem of a new technology of communication and combined with some sort of culture of going public. It just seems people want to go public with [02:25:00] their views a lot more and in other words, is it possible that there was always this danger, but it's just the fact that a so many people are now easily Part of the public dialogue that they're confronting what normal political figures always had to confront.

Uh, in terms of castigation, et cetera.

JONATHAN RAUCH: Yeah, that's, that's such an important question. There's a bunch of historical material in the book, but it's, it's a perfect storm. It's new technology, um, new ideologies and above all new actors. So we know cancel cultures, ancient, um, we saw it in the Salem witch trials.

We saw it in 1835, Alexis to Tocqueville. That's a name you'll recognize came to America and says the biggest threat. To freedom in America is not from the government. It's from what we now call canceling. If you get on the wrong side of a received opinion, you can lose your livelihood, your friends. So you'll submit, you'll just be quiet.

In 1859, John Stuart Mill says exactly the same thing is the case in, in Victorian [02:26:00] England. Um, the disinformation tactics, the fire hose of falsehood that dates over a century, uh, Hitler. And Goebbels used that, Lennon used that. So why do we have this new problem in America right now? Number one, we have the technology we've talked about, which have made it trivially easy to spread disinformation, to target disinformation, uses, uses bots to do that.

You can test disinformation in seconds. You put it out there. You see what spreads virally. Bots automatically are programmed to amplify that. You can exploit vulnerabilities in social media. You know, it used to be very hard to do this. A KGB agent would have to plant documents on like a shipwreck In order to make them seem authentic.

Well, you know, now you just claim to found stuff on a hundred Biden's hard drive and you send it through social media. So you got technology, you have ideologies, which is for example, emotional safetyism, which is useful for counselors. Cause it says if, um, that emotional damage. AKA offendedness [02:27:00] is equivalent to physical damage and that's a violation of my rights.

So that's useful on college campuses to suppress alternate viewpoints. And then the, I think the most important, I know this sounds partisan. I'm not a partisan person. I'm center right. I've voted for and supported many Republicans. I just think this is the truth. The facts right now, you have new actors, you've got trolls on social media.

That's anti vaxxers. It was gamer gate. Um, new publications. You've got conservative media, which is in many ways in its own epistemic environment. Most important, you have Donald J. Trump. Um, Bruce, we have never seen a situation before when a presidential candidate and then a president with all the, uh, the capabilities Of his office and his genius.

He is a disinformation genius. He's the best since the 1930s plus conservative media plus the Republican Party have all been used as an [02:28:00] institutional organ of disinformation propaganda. We have just simply never had to deal with that in America before it is it is new when you add those three things together.

Yeah, you get it complicated and and worrisome situation.

Obedience and Mass Education - Against the Grain - Air Date 11-18-24

SASHSA LILLY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: I can imagine some listeners might hear your description of the origin of education.

mass primary education and say, well, that sounds so different from education now. Education now isn't about control. It's about giving children the tools to expand their potential in the world or to see the world critically or to become good citizens. When you look at the origins of mass education, primary education and look at the present.

Is there such a stark contrast between the origins and what we see today across schools, especially schools [02:29:00] that primarily serve non elite children?

AGUSTINA PAGLAYAN: I wish there was, Sasha. As you know, I'm, I'm a professor. I teach university, uh, students, and One of the things that I did to examine whether the origins of education look very different from today was I gathered, along with a large team, data on the prevalence of indoctrination efforts and the prevalence of efforts to teach critical thinking skills across 160 countries from 1945 to the present.

And when you analyze the data, what you see is a very high prevalence of efforts to instill a specific set of political values that substantiate or justify a particular type of social and political order, and those efforts being more intense than [02:30:00] efforts to teach critical thinking. And this is important.

Problematically, also true of democracies. Now, of course, I'm sure we have some listeners who think, Well, my education looked quite different. Well, my education also looked quite different. I had the privilege of going to schools that did cultivate my critical thinking skills. Probably wouldn't be where I am today if that hadn't been the case.

But even then, I think it's important to recognize that The opportunities that I had are not the norm, that they are the kinds of opportunities that are available to people who were lucky enough to be, to live in a more affluent community, or Um, how have the ability to access that type of education. But when you look at the norm, the most prevalent type of education and particularly the type of education that a lot of low income Children in the U.

S. And around the world have access to itself. It's an education that focuses very heavily on discipline. You have entire charter [02:31:00] schools, uh, franchises that are Zero tolerance. That's kind of the way they brand themselves, right, as, as strict on enforcement of rules. And I just, I wish, again, that things were different, but the data don't suggest that things are looking that different today.

Um, there has been, according to this data that I'm telling you about, some growth over time, particularly in democracies in the extent to which schools teach critical thinking skills. But again, how much emphasis they put on doing that pales relative to how much emphasis they put on teaching kids to accept the existing status quo and, um, just think of just how many kids, when they're five year olds, pledge allegiance to the U.

S. flag and the republic for which it stands, uh, for even though at five year olds, um, they have no idea what a republic means, right? [02:32:00]

SASHSA LILLY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: Sure, and I wonder if you could talk about that thread of, you know, a word that seems highly charged for us, indoctrination, you know, agenda of indoctrination in schools. And yet, as you point out in your book, Raised to Obey, we actually use a different term to mean the same thing, which is socialization, that making a child ready for society is, you know, one of the values that schools.

But what does that actually mean in terms of this longer history of schools as a vehicle for maintaining the social order?

AGUSTINA PAGLAYAN: The history of the term indoctrination in the United States is quite, um, interesting because Up until World War I, education reformers, Horace Mann, and you name it, um, they talked about education and indoctrination as interchangeable terms.

Again, this goes back [02:33:00] to what we were talking about earlier, that they thought of education as indoctrination. They didn't have the ideas we have in mind today. Now World War I comes in, and the US and Germany are big enemies, and that's when the US wants to differentiate itself from Germany in terms of, Everything that Germany is doing.

And so that's when education reformers start saying, Oh, indoctrination is what Germany does. What we do is socialization. But interestingly, if you look at the term indoctrination on the dictionary, what it means is a process of teaching people to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. And it's not about which specific beliefs you're teaching.

You can teach someone to accept uncritically that the Nazi regime, for example, is a legitimate regime. Or you can teach someone to accept [02:34:00] uncritically that republican institutions are the best, uh, type of institution we should have. Or you can teach them to accept uncritically that, uh, institutions are biased against racial minorities.

Or you can teach them to accept uncritically the opposite, that institutions are not biased against racial minorities. And so there's the point again is that Schools in the United States teach kids a lot of ideas that do not, um, get taught in, um, in a way that enable kids to question what they're being taught.

They're being taught something, they need to memorize it in order to do well in tests, get a strong GPA, be able to go to college. And that's, that's what I see in the classroom as a college professor, that kids come with very strong GPAs. And yet, they, they don't have the capacity yet, because they haven't been trained to do so, [02:35:00] to question the things that they're reading, to question the things that I'm saying.

Because they've been, they've been told that the teacher knows what's right, um, in some ways. And so, um, it's, it's sad, I think there's a lot of room for improvement, and it kind of would require overhauling. education systems, um, to, to depart completely from what they were designed to accomplish and thinking, rethinking dramatically, how would we design schools from scratch if we were to use schools with the goal of promoting critical thinking, promoting creativity, equipping people with the knowledge and the tools to be autonomous individuals who have the capacity to impact society, pursue their dreams, advance their ideas.

It would look like, not like what we have today.

SASHSA LILLY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: And yet there's a whole discourse around schools [02:36:00] that schools are failing, that schools fail to teach children, and this is often in the primary level, basic skills. And yet what it sounds like you're arguing is that that's actually how the system has been structured from the beginning.

teaching children to obey, teaching so called values is actually a higher priority than teaching children at, you know, the very least skills and then even more so critical thinking because that is not what these institutions were set up to do.

AGUSTINA PAGLAYAN: Exactly. So the, the, I think the main argument of the book is that a key reason why Education systems today in the U. S. And around the world are failing to level the playing field are failing to equip children with basic skills of reading and math as well as more advanced [02:37:00] critical thinking skills is because those schools that we have today, were not designed to accomplish these goals. On the contrary, they were designed to teach children to accept the status quo, to accept their place in society, to accept and be satisfied with their material condition.

And so even well intended, um. teachers or education reformers today, they have to operate within the constraints of systems that were not designed to accomplish this. We still have teachers standing in front of the classroom as an authority and kids sitting in rows and having to raise their hand every time they want to speak and so on and so forth.

There's, there's just so many aspects that we take for granted as normal as the usual business that are part and parcel of The design of the systems to infuse obedience on that's kind of the challenge is to move away from that.

Matt Gaetz And The Clown Car Crash Into The Justice Department - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Air Date 11-16-24

DR MARY ANNE FRANKS: If you think free speech meant that we were on the [02:38:00] side of the oppressed or the side of the people advocating for democracy, you need to understand that throughout history, that's never been true, right?

It's something we tell ourselves as kind of a comforting, you know, bedtime story that, oh, yes, and you'll even see civil libertarians doing this now to say, yes, this is free speech or the First Amendment is why the abolitionists were able to advocate against slavery. It's the reason why the suffragists were able to advocate for women's right to vote.

First Amendment didn't show up any of those people, right? It wasn't even on the radar for most judges or litigators to even think that the First Amendment had anything to do with that. And when we finally got at the turn of the 20th century, you finally got some understanding that maybe, yes, that's what the First Amendment should do.

Every one of those dissenters lost. They went to jail, right? And so we've only recently had even a beginning, I think, of a formal review defense of those kinds of radical ideas that are radically democratic that have been defended by the First Amendment. So it's important to understand that our history isn't what we think it is.

But yes, when I try [02:39:00] to get to the, the heart of what we would need as a kind of reorientation for our free speech discourse, isn't so much to say we shouldn't protect free speech and whatever that means. It's oftentimes to ask first, what do we mean by free speech? Because once we realize, That it's about picking winners and losers.

It's not about saying we're going to take all comers that the government is allowed to say things like we're not going to let you say, you know, conspire to commit a murder. We're going to not allow you to engage in defamation full stop all the time, right? It's always a question of what speech is going to be protected in the hierarchy and which one isn't.

And my point is to say that if we're going to have a coherent. Theory of speech, the things that should be at the very top are the things that challenged government, challenged power, challenged the people who have so much more than everybody else. So it's a sliding scale of protections, right? And the way that we need to weight those, because we're weighting them whether we actually acknowledge that we're doing it or not.

And I'm saying let's acknowledge it. And when it comes to conflicts between [02:40:00] people who are trying to advocate for the expansion of democracy, who are. Actually trying to defend equality. That's what belongs at the very top of our free speech protections and the people who are advocating for harm to other people should be quite a bit lower on those protections.

It doesn't mean they need to be put in jail. It doesn't mean that, but What the ancient Greeks talked about in that distinction between parousia and istigoria is the distinction between a kind of conception of free speech where everybody just gets to say whatever they want. And there's a lot of really fascinating ancient Greek theory about how that's actually in many ways kind of counter to democracy.

Because people who don't care about the consequences of their speech are actually going to make it harder for people to coexist. By contrast, the people who are willing to speak fearlessly are the people who are speaking truth to power in a really meaningful sense. And when the French philosopher Michel Foucault gives his gloss on what he thinks this fearless speech concept really entails, [02:41:00] he picks out these characteristics that are, I think, so meaningful for our time.

And the first one is that you have to be candid, as in, You have to be speaking for yourself. You can't be pretending to play a role. You're not a devil's advocate. You're speaking from your own identity. And then what you have to be saying is something critical about someone more powerful than you, or some system or institution more powerful than you.

And the reason why that's important and it's called fearlessness is because, because of that, that power asymmetry. You are taking the risk that you are going to be punished for speaking against power in that way. Everything else, you know, speaking down to someone else or trying to create harm to somebody else, all of that might need to be protected or it might need to be tolerated, maybe, depending on the circumstances.

But it's not fearless. It's not at the core of what we would think we needed to protect as a means of checking power. And so that's the distinction that I think we really have not spent enough time with. And again, it's not as though. The neutrality [02:42:00] doctrine that we've been told has ever been true.

There's always some kind of calculation that the courts are doing to say, we're going to balance the kind of harm from the speech. I mean, think about the 1980s, uh, child pornography case, right? The court is saying, this is free expression of a sort, but we think it's really harmful. And so this is why we're now going to protect it.

That is the kind of calculation we should be doing all the time openly. And again, thinking about the kinds of speech that are actually trying to expand that promise of democracy and the ones that are actually trying to exclude people from it. We can make those distinctions, or another way of putting it is, if we're not making those distinctions, what are we even doing with our legal theory?

What are we even doing with this concept of freedom of expression?

DALIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: That Foucault template is really useful, Marianne, just because, again, you're sitting in Charlottesville as we're talking, and I'm remembering the civil suit that was brought against the Nazis and the white supremacists and the Klan, all of the defenses they tried to mount were sort of efforts to insulate their speech from this construct you just [02:43:00] posited, right?

So, like, we're just joking, right? It's just Pepe the frog. We're punching up. We're We're not punching down even as they're like, literally, you know, carrying flaming torches. It's interesting because in order to kind of create the carve out for free speech and to call yourself the victim, every single one of those tenets of what you're describing as fearless speech has to be deconstructed.

And part of, I think, your critique is that we allowed that deconstruction to happen without even thinking very hard, A, about who was being harmed, but B, about what it means to hide behind, you know, I'm just retweeting this Nazi. I'm not supporting it. Like, we really literally constructed a way to work around every single thing that you're describing as the hallmarks of what should be protected speech.

And I think, As you say, we did that in some ways thinking like, because the end [02:44:00] game here is to protect all speech, as opposed to think about what kind of speech is really speech. I feel like I have to ask you about Elon Musk. Um, it pains me and I feel like I have to ask you about Elon Musk before it becomes illegal to ask you about Elon Musk.

Um, he is the world's richest man. He is a. sent a billionaire. If you look up at night, you will see some of his almost 6500 and counting Starlink satellites. You may own one of his electric cars. He owns one of the biggest social networking sites in the world where he has, as we just said, endorsed anti Semitic conspiracy theories and great replacement theories.

Technology writer Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic wrote last week, quote, X is no longer a social media. a white supremacy problem, but a white supremacist site with a social media problem. Um, in addition to this, we've got Musk pouring, you know, millions and millions of dollars into electing Trump. He joins Trump on [02:45:00] the congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Zelensky.

On Tuesday of this week, Trump announced that Musk would help lead what is going to be a brand new Department of Government efficiency to dismantle bureaucracy. Have we ever in thinking about speech encountered, even in the Gilded Age, have we encountered an oligarch who owns the airwaves, who owns the president, who owns our speech, and who has the power to do all these things under the guise of

DR MARY ANNE FRANKS: freedom?

I don't think we've seen it in the United States. I think maybe other countries have seen something somewhat similar. When you've got someone who's in charge of administering propaganda for the state and has so much control over what everyone thinks, right? Someone who's going to be part and parcel of a movement that's already been in place for many years, to attack educators, to burn books, to move people away from, you know, Places where you might [02:46:00] actually critically reflect upon power and history, I'm afraid we have seen it.

I think Europe has seen it. I think we're about to experience exactly how bad it can get because this is supercharged in the age of social media. But we began by talking about the marketplace of ideas. And when Musk bought Twitter. Well, he was himself saying, well, I'm going to turn this into the public square.

You know, actual free speech is going to exist here. And so many people were praising him for that. And when he started to basically just kick off anybody who might criticize him, a few people who had praised him before were like, well, we're not really sure if that's what is a very free speech protective way.

But what I really think is interesting, and I mentioned this in the book too, is to say He's actually doing exactly what power does when it invokes free speech, that that is not different from what they do. That is, we've been telling ourselves that in this country, in the United States, with the First Amendment, we're protecting, you know, everyone equally or even protecting the powerless more than the powerful.

It's never [02:47:00] been true, right? It's always been the case that our government has managed to preserve a space for itself and the kinds of power and privilege that have been cemented from the beginning. And it's no There's no coincidence here about why it is that this attack on education that we've seen for the last 20 years has been attacking concepts of history of racism of misogyny to tell Americans you can't learn about that, right?

You can't learn how racist and sexist our history is. That's the most dangerous idea out there as a way of trying to re educate the public. What you really see with someone like Elon Musk before he's now I guess going to be officially part of the government was he gave you the trial run. I mean, the marketplace of ideas looks like Twitter.

It's, it's Elon Musk's ex is the marketplace of ideas overrun with white supremacists overrun with misogyny. Yes. Technically can other people speak there sometimes if he doesn't actually eliminate you from the platform, but you're never going to be able to speak in the same amplified way. As the people that Elon Musk [02:48:00] likes, that power likes, literally Elon Musk changed the algorithm so that it would boost his posts more than anybody else's, tweaked it so that it would boost right-wing content far more than other types of content, although that was already happening before Musk, I should say.

That's what free speech looks like. That's what the marketplace of ideas looks like. That's what you get. And now that he's going to be in government, it's literally going to be what we all get.

Credits

The additional sections of the show included clips from Why America?, Counterspin, The Elephant Graveyard, NEJM Interviews, Steve Shives, The Commonwealth Club of California, Second Thought, TYT Sports, Against the Grain, and Amicus. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton [02:49:00] 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 all those who 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 a 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 podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the [02:50:00] members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.

Add your reaction Share

#1671 The Non-Exclusive Impact of White Supremacy and Misogyny on the Election (Transcript)

Posted by · November 20, 2024 6:43 PM

Air Date 11/20/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast. We live in a deeply racist and sexist society, nearly devoid of people willing to admit to being racist or sexist. In a sense, this is a sign of progress. We're in the phase where prejudice still exists, but it has become socially unacceptable to openly express it. But to deny the impact on our politics, just because people don't admit their prejudice would be to completely misunderstand the nature of the issue.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today, includes Democracy Now!, The New Abnormal, Reveal, and MSNBC. Plus during my editor's note today, I'll discuss the tectonic shifts happening in the world of social media, with a few tips on how you can navigate them. And regardless of my analysis, find all the links to follow Best of the Left on your preferred platform in the show notes.

Then, in the additional deeper dives half with the show, there'll be more in four sections: Section [00:01:00] A- A Mirror for America. Section B- White Supremacy for the Win. Section C- Reverberation. And Section D- What Now?

The Racism of MAGA Is as American as Apple Pie Nina Turner on Trump & 2024 Election - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-31-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We turn right now, also on the presidential race, to Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator, founder of We Are Somebody, which has been out talking to voters in Ohio about early voting, voting hours, voting the whole ballot. She is a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy here at The New School. Her new piece for Newsweek is headlined “Calling Trump a Nazi Is Giving Our Own History a Pass. The Racism of MAGA Is American.”

Nina Turner, unlike Bishop Barber, you have not actually endorsed your party’s candidate, Kamala Harris. But if you can explain why and then explain this piece, why you’re saying what’s happening in this country is uniquely American?

NINA TURNER: For [00:02:00] me, in this race, it’s important to give the voters the depth and the breadth that they need to be able to make their own decisions. As you know, I was on a presidential campaign twice, in 2016 and 2020, so I was actually out there stumping for my candidate, which was Senator Bernard Sanders. In this particular race, I mean, I’m feeling just as frustrated as most of the voters and the people that I’ve had the opportunity to talk to all over this country. People are really tired. They are exhausted. And we are going to have a lot of work to do after this election cycle. I’m more exhausted now than I was in 2016 and 2020, mentally and physically, although I am not on the campaign trail.

In terms of my piece in Newsweek, it was important to set the stage that the MAGA movement itself, and not to say that all people in the movement are white supremacists or bigoted, but President Donald J. Trump has certainly set a stage by which the unfulfilled promises of this country, the [00:03:00] undealt-with anti-Blackness and other types of racism and bigotry have not been dealt with sufficiently. And so it bubbles up to the top when you have someone like him that spreads that kind of stuff. And no one should be surprised.

But I think when people lay this at the feet of Nazi Germany, oh, no, no, no, wait a minute — that’s really what the crux of my piece was, is, “Oh, no, this is just as American as apple pie.” And also, when they do that, you diminish what happened to millions of people in Nazi Germany, and, more importantly, you diminish the Black liberation struggle right here on this soil, where a type of fascism, apartheid-type activity, chattel slavery itself, that deprived generations of Black people from living out their greatest greatness, from rapes to lynchings to generational chattel — you diminish that, and you say, “This is not us.” That piece was to say, “No, it is us, and we need to deal with it and not [00:04:00] push it off on some other nation.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what are you hearing, Nina, from voters that you’ve been speaking to? What are their principal concerns?

NINA TURNER: The economy. I mean, that is the thing that I hear about the most. And I know now some numbers have come out. Gas prices are mysteriously lower now. Imagine that. I’ve had voters say that to me. But it really is the economy and how inflation has really siphoned off any advantages that working-class people from all backgrounds have been trying so hard to change their material conditions, but they have not been able to get ahead.

Some Americans Are Already Living in Trump’s Purge - The New Abnormal - Air Date 10-1-24

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah. They don't. No one deserves this. And the fact of the matter is that if Donald Trump and JD Vance become president and vice president, this will be the norm. Because what I remember is Donald Trump throwing people in Puerto Rico paper towels for their massive devastation from a hurricane during his administration.

What I remember is the last time that he was president of the United States, he [00:05:00] denied North Carolina federal funds for two weeks while they were dealing, again, with the impact of a hurricane. So in my mind, like, there are some people. Donald Trump's base and constituents that don't care what they don't have access to, so long as Donald Trump is denying the same people that they hate.

And that to me is fucking wild. But that's where those folks are.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: This is one of the many things that will become, well, it's the norm now. It will become much, much worse if Trump and Vance get into office. And along those lines, I'm assuming you are familiar with, even if you haven't seen the series of movies called The Purge.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: I don't watch horror films because being a political analyst is enough, but please go ahead and tell the audience what The Purge is.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: Okay. I watch horror films to cheer me up, Danielle. But so the conceit of The Purge is that for I think 12 hours, basically all laws are suspended in America [00:06:00] and you can do whatever you want to anyone else.

It's dystopian. It's not portrayed as a good thing. So Donald Trump over the weekend decided that what he thinks will solve crime —and again, he was spouting his nonsense about crime and violent crime being up when the exact opposite is true—but what he said was that he was speaking in Pennsylvania and he said, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Mike Kelly should be put in charge for "one really violent day".

And then he went on to say "one rough hour". And real rough, the world will get it out and it will end immediately. End immediately. It will end immediately. So he basically wants a version of The Purge. And that comparison has been drawn by a lot of people.

But I think it's also important to note that in The Purge, this applied to all Americans. Any American could go out and loot and murder and do horrific things. What Trump is saying here is basically he wants one person in charge of this. And then basically it would be like The [00:07:00] Purge, but only for law enforcement. So basically giving law enforcement one really violent day to do whatever they want, which is, some might argue that's pretty much what we have right now.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: I was gonna, like, I'm sorry, give me a headline that's different from where law enforcement is now without full immunity. I'm confused.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: Yeah. But no, and Danielle, I'll toss it over to you, but it is basically, he wants to give qualified immunity. He wants to basically, or replace that with complete immunity for law enforcement for six hours, or sorry, for one day or one rough hour, whatever it is. Danielle, does this remind you of anything? Besides The Purge movies.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah, actually it does. And thank you so much for giving me that softball toss over here, which is, while folks are comparing this to a horror film that they want to believe could never possibly happen in these United States, let me remind you that over the course of history in this country, [00:08:00] there have been a number, a number that we couldn't even imagine, of White supremacist led mobs that would storm into segregated areas, Black towns, Black cities, and destroy them. Murder, rape, lynch, beaten, killing children, babies. And it was all okay. Because Black people in this country for nearly a hundred years lived under Jim Crow. And no, this was not just in the South. This was everywhere in the United States. Some places were more segregated and more terrorized than others. But let's not create this narrative that the North was somehow some utopia for Black people. It was just less bad.

And so when I think about what Donald Trump is saying, I think about the Tulsa Massacre that people in Oklahoma just learned about [00:09:00] in the last couple of years. But Black people in Tulsa have always known the story of what happened in the middle of the night where over 300 Black people were murdered. An entire prosperous city. town, Black town, was destroyed and that they never received any reparations, any money back from the government. And basically it was pretty much government sanctioned. So Black people in America and Indigenous people in America already know what the fuck The Purge looks like, because it has happened time and time again.

So, for folks that want to compare this to a horror movie, it's not a horror movie. It is very real American history that continues to be swept under the rug as if people can't imagine the horrors that people have done at the hands of White supremacy. So, when I heard that, Andy I didn't chuckle as some people [00:10:00] did on social media. I didn't shrug and just say, Oh, he sounds insane. He sounded like Bull Connor. He sounded like every other racist that was in a position of power to actualize their White supremacist fantasies. That's what that was like to me.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: Oh, absolutely, I think i've said this before but it's insane that... look, I would never claim to be the smartest person in the room, but I am what would be considered well educated and I read a lot and all that stuff. I had never heard of the Tulsa Massacre until I'm sitting there watching an HBO show called Watchmen. And then I immediately just started reading about it. I was like, how was I not taught any of this? Or how did I just not even come across it in, like I said, I read a lot. It is amazing to me what we don't teach in this country.

And like you said, what we sweep under the rug. And, which also ties directly into what Ron DeSantis and other Republican governors and Republican-run localities are trying to do, or are actually doing in our [00:11:00] public schools, is trying to prevent people from learning about stuff like this. But yeah, I, no, I agree with you.

I don't have a problem with people making Purge comparisons and saying 'Trump is insane', because yes, to both of those. But also this, as you said, there's nothing funny about this. This is fascism. This is, I don't know what else to call it. Even if you want to take race out of it, which I don't think you can, but even if you want to, the idea of giving cops complete immunity to act for one rough day, one rough hour, whatever it is, that's pure unadulterated fascism.

And I don't want to go off on a media rant here because we do that a lot, I know, maybe too much, but cover this shit. Stop, again, stop with the sane washing and everything else and report that this is what this guy is saying. And don't say he was just joking or he was exaggerating. I don't care.

He's running for the president of the United States. There are certain things that I'm sorry, you don't joke about if you're [00:12:00] running for president of the United States. Also, I don't think he's joking.

Why You Shouldnt Buy the Election Narrative About Black Men - Reveal - Air Date 10-23-24

VOTER: As far as President Obama, lecturing or chastising Black men to vote, I don't think it was with malicious intent. I do think that it is a tactic that does not work. I think we should be addressing why Black men are either voting for Trump or not voting at all.

His most recent comments around Black men are definitely disappointing because when you look at the stats, like when you look at who came out like the last time a woman was a Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, after Black women, Black men were with a segment of the population that voted for her the most. And so I feel like this critique against Black men is like a bit unfair.

GARRISON HAYES: And while it may look [00:13:00] like Black men aren't doing their part to uphold and bolster Kamala's strong Showing, as much as Black women, what they are doing, though, is something that is supremely American, and that is to hold candidates accountable for their promises and making them take notice. And I think that's what Obama did. He took notice and he spoke to them.

VOTER: I think Obama was correct. I think it's solid for me. I think when I first started this, my vote was against Donald Trump, but now it's for Kamala.

GARRISON HAYES: If Obama had made the same comments to a room full of Black men, and there were no cameras around, we wouldn't care. But this is at least the second time that I know of, the first time being Morehouse's convocation, where he has Taken on this kind of condescending tone towards Black men and Black people in our choices. And I, I want to say, 'brother, read the [00:14:00] room. He really doesn't know how to read the room.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So Barak admonishes Black men on the campaign trail, but then, a couple days later, Kamala comes out with a plan specifically for Black men, which, I have to say, I don't think I've ever heard of a candidate coming specifically with a plan for Black men. It felt like Barack was acting as the stick and Kamala was acting as the carrot, that it was a planned thing to move Black men that are on the edges or possibly thinking about voting for Donald Trump.

GARRISON HAYES: And so in some very real ways, Kamala Harris is taking a political risk in releasing an agenda specifically for. Black men. What this agenda for Black men does is it contextualizes her existing policy proposals, the things that she's been running on for the last 70 something days. And it places it within the context of the way these proposals will impact or will potentially impact Black men.

Black people, [00:15:00] Black men specifically for so long. Politicians have been afraid to talk to and about the Black community. They've been afraid that if they frame their policies as something that will help Black people specifically, it will create a kind of racial resentment in the majority culture among white voters and it may turn them off from supporting them.

And so they've walked around with this Hey guys, I'm for everyone. And I think if politicians do much more of the framing of their plans for Black communities, particularly we'll have voters who are better informed and able to make the right decision for them.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: On the flip side, Donald Trump also tried to connect with Black men earlier this year, or at least that's what a lot of people assumed he was trying to do, when he started selling a shiny gold pair of sneakers called Never Surrender High Tops.

COMMERCIAL: That's the real deal. That's the real deal.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So I don't think that I've heard anywhere Trump saying that specifically the sneakers were for Black men. Black men and Black [00:16:00] people and this is his outreach to Black men and Black people. I just felt like that's the subtext of it And I gotta be honest like I was offended because if you think you got to buy my vote with sneakers No, it doesn't. No, sir. Please give me policy over sneakers.

GARRISON HAYES: Yeah. I know that they framed those sneakers that way on Fox news, that this was something that was designed to serve as outreach to the Black community, because obviously Black people love their sneakers. Like that was the idea.

NEWS CLIP: This is connecting with Black America because they love sneakers. They're into sneakers. They love the, this is a big deal, certainly in, in the inner city. So when you have Trump roll out his sneaker line, they're like, wait a minute, this is cool. He's reaching them on a level that defies and is above politics.

GARRISON HAYES: I think more than the sneakers, Trump has repeated multiple times that his mugshot has helped him with Black people, Black voters particularly, and I can only imagine [00:17:00] as folks disproportionately represented in the car serial system that, that he means Black men in particular.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: A lot of the young people that I have spoken to, I had a good conversation with my son, who is, my youngest is 20, and him and I were talking about who his friends were voting for, and he was telling me that a lot of them, like Trump He also said, they're not actually going to vote, but they like Trump.

And I was like, why do they like Trump? And he said that they like Trump because he's tough because he acts tough because he's because things like that picture of his mugshot or the picture of him getting shot at and him throwing his fist up in the air For their generation, for a younger generation, that's like Tupac getting shot and throwing, the middle finger in the air, right?

Like that, for my generation, that was like classic. That was defiance. That was like, you can't take me out. And so Trump basically took a page from Tupac.

GARRISON HAYES: Yeah, I definitely think that's true to a [00:18:00] degree. I think for younger generations, I'm not sure if the framework of toughness, I think for millennials and maybe older, I Toughness really is kind of part of that, that quoi that Trump has as an appeal to Black men, I think for younger generations, especially those who came up in kind of the internet age, it's his lack of care.

It's the unscripted, unwilling to bow to social norms and that element, that kind of trolling element, I think is what kind of endears him to the, to Twitch streamer generation. He is in that reality TV vein that we see a lot of folks adopting on TikTok and YouTube and streamers on Twitch.

And so he comes off as this untouchable kind of guy. He just says what he, the term is based, he just says whatever it is that he wants to say and he gets away with it and he's rich and he has all this stuff. And I think that kind of. countercultural affect is actually what endears him to younger generations, even if they don't have the [00:19:00] language to necessarily put to it.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: I think it all comes down to is that what Black men are looking for is action. They need to see change because the Black vote has been taken for granted by Democrats, Black people, Black men specifically. They need to see that you're actually doing something they need to connect the possible future Harris administration to actually something changing in their lives.

That's right. And I want to end with just a question to you that I will also answer. Do you believe the hype that Black men are leaving in mass to the Republican Party? And go into Trump.

GARRISON HAYES: I don't believe the hype, Al. I think Black men will show up in majority numbers for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

I think the number that we will see grow are those [00:20:00] who don't show up to vote at all. Those folks who Terrence Woodbury at Hit Strategies frames as rightfully cynical. Folks who have been, Thinking about the political landscape and coming to the conclusion that this just ain't for them, that the politicians aren't working for them, that this country really isn't working for them, and that their vote really doesn't matter.

Trumps Nazi Rally at MSG Perfectly Reflected Republican Values - The New Abnormal - Air Date 10-29-24

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: So, Danielle, I feel like I've opened the show a couple of times recently talking about how I have a browser tab that just says Nazi shit. Today's a little different, because I have a browser tab that just says Nazi rally.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Oh, that's nice.

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah. Shout out to Donald Trump and the Republicans for letting me get out of my rut, I guess.

But obviously I'm talking about the rally that was held here in New York City at Madison Square Garden Sunday night, which was, I would say, every bit as awful as expected, if not possibly more. I guess let's just take it in order, because it started with a comedian named Tony Hinchcliffe telling jokes [00:21:00] about black people and watermelon, and then moving on to describing Latinos as basically mindless breeders, making a joke about that, and then calling Puerto Rico a, quote, "floating island of garbage."

This, needless to say, got a lot of play. And Danielle, I'm gonna guess you don't have strong feelings about any of this. It's just a sense that I have. This doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that really--

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Rubs me the wrong way?

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah, yeah. But prove me wrong. Debate me, bro.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Okay, I'm gonna try and get through this without just doing a primal scream, which is how I felt watching the coverage of this Nazi rally that took place at Madison Square Garden.

First off, I think that this was one of the most notable [00:22:00] signs of terrorism from this campaign that I think that we have seen since it started. Donald Trump and Republicans have alluded to white supremacy and white nationalism, have been a bit nuanced over the course of the last several years and how they frame their commentary. When Donald Trump is asked about white supremacy and to disavow it, he famously told the white supremacist militia to "stand back and stand by." When the march happened in Charlottesville, where the Nazis were screaming, "Jews will not replace us," Donald Trump embraced them and said that they were good people on both sides.

He has sat down to dinner with Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist, and Kanye West. He has said to a group of Jewish people that if he does not win re-election, the [00:23:00] Jews will be to blame.

Donald Trump and every single one of his followers want a white nationalist version of America that is deeply rooted in their twisted and warped ideas regarding the Bible and regarding evangelicalism.

And what was on display was just unadulterated hate. There were no jokes that were said, so I don't even want to create this notion that because somebody puts on their resume that they're a comedian that anything that comes out of their fucking mouth is funny, right? And that's some way to soften the absolute vitriol that that motherfucker was spitting the entire time that he was on stage.

It's not a joke. Nothing that Donald Trump has said over the last nine years is a joke. Stephen Miller being up on that stage as another known white supremacist that he wants to put in charge of quote unquote their [00:24:00] immigration deportation plans isn't a comedian.

So I think that this was probably the biggest display of white terrorism, domestic terrorism, and hatred that we have seen since January 6th. But January 6th, you could have even said like, oh, well, that was about the election and they were hopped up on the election lie and that being stolen from them.

AOC was on MSNBC and she was very clear and articulated very clearly that this was about priming Donald Trump's audience and base for a wave of violence following this election.

And it was disgusting. And, yeah, those are my initial thoughts, Andy, without me screaming full fledged into the microphone.

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: No, I actually think you did a really good job. I 100 percent agree with everything you said. [00:25:00] I am finding it, I'm gonna use the word, funny. Except I'm not laughing when I say this, but I'm finding it funny that there are now a bunch of Republicans scrambling to disassociate themselves with the things that were said about Puerto Rico.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Not the watermelon joke though, right?

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: No, no, no, I haven't heard anything.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah, so they're very specific about their denouncements, but it's only about the slate of voters that are very prevalent in the actual states that they want to win. But black people and their overt racism, they are fuck that, they're good. Got it.

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Correct. Correct. And the reason I wanted, when I intro this, the reason I wanted to bring up the watermelon quote unquote joke was because I do feel like it's being completely forgotten about and overlooked and I don't think it should be.

I want to talk about a congresswoman in Florida, Republican congresswoman named Maria Elvira Salazar. She tweeted that she was disgusted by Tony Hinchcliffe's comments, and then she said -- I love this phrase -- she said, "This [00:26:00] rhetoric does not reflect GOP values."

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: [Laughs] Give me a break!

ANDY LEVY - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: And I've seen that numerous times now, since the rally. I have seen numerous Republicans out there, saying exactly that. And honestly, I think these -- Bedlam was a famous psychiatric hospital in England, and it did all kinds of horrible experiments to people back in like the 19th century and earlier than that. I really do think that if you are at the level of delusion to think that this rhetoric does not reflect GOP values, you are very lucky you're not living in 19th century Britain, because you would have had horrible experiments done to you in Bedlam. Because you would have absolutely been locked up as a delusional maniac.

And they can't be allowed to get away with it. And that's why I want to highlight it. Because nothing that was said at that rally last night, not a single thing that was said at that rally last night, not a single disgusting, hateful, racist, bigoted thing that was said [00:27:00] does not reflect GOP values. Those are GOP values in the year 2024. We know this.

And to sit there and try to say -- even the Trump campaign now is -- you know things are bad when the Trump campaign has to come out and say that what Tony Hinchcliffe said does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign, which again, well, that's a lie. And that's a lie right up there with this rhetoric does not reflect GOP values. Of course it does. And of course it reflects the views of President Trump and the Trump campaign.

But the fact that they have had to come out and say that, I do think gets to something that happened with that rally last night.

“The Confederacy Won” Why Donald Trump’s Reelection Is a Win for White Supremacy, Xenophobia & Hate - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-6-24

Professor Anderson, let’s begin with you. If you can respond to Trump’s victory?

CAROL ANDERSON: The Confederacy won. When you begin to really think about [00:28:00] what he advocated, the kind of racism, the kind of xenophobia, the kind of hatred, all wrapped in a sense of honor and gallantry, and how that resonated with such a large, wide swath of the American public, that begins to tell you that you’re seeing the backlash to what they call the great — you know, that you’re seeing the backlash to what they fear was the great replacement. And so, this feels like the kind of last stand of white supremacy.

And it’s going to put so many of us in jeopardy. And it’s also part of the drug of American exceptionalism, where those who voted for him believe that they’re going to be safe from the policies that he’s going to rain down. And so, that becomes part of the amnesia of not seeing how he handled COVID, not remembering how he handled COVID, of not remembering his tariff wars that basically almost [00:29:00] bankrupted farmers in Iowa, and the kind of chaos that he brings, the kind of divisiveness that he brings. It’s like living in a reality show and believing that it’s not reality. It is — this is a dark day for America. I think of Thomas Jefferson when he said, “I tremble for my country, because God is just,” because that’s what we’re looking at. I’m trembling for our country right now.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, Professor Anderson, the vote that Trump got, right now it’s at 71 million. It will probably go up 1 or 2 million more as other states are counted in and absentee ballots. But it’s still roughly about the vote that he got certainly last time. But the big drop appears to be in the vote for Kamala Harris. She’s at around — the national vote is 66 million now, significantly [00:30:00] below the 81 million that Joe Biden got. Why do you think there’s been such a disparity in her vote totals this time around?

CAROL ANDERSON: I think part of what we’re looking at, because she was explicit about policies, and so the language that she just needs to explain her policies is hokum. It’s that it is — we’re looking at the misogyny and the racism and the fear of what it meant to have a Black Asian woman who’s married to a Jewish man sitting in the White House, that this was not the kind of vision of America that that large swath that voted for Trump believe is America. It is the fear of what a multicultural, multiracial, multilingual, diverse America could mean. It means — and so, you’re seeing the backlash to her very being.

It’s a sad day for America. It’s a sad day because there was a — [00:31:00] really explicit about the horrors of Project 2025 and what that meant for Social Security, what that meant for Medicare, what that meant for education, what that meant for equity. All of that could not override the depth of the misogyny, the depth of the racism that fuels the MAGA movement, that fuels Trump.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah, I’d like to bring in professor Michele Goodwin into the conversation from Georgetown University. Professor, your reaction to the results?

MICHELE GOODWIN: We have to understand this as a Project 2024. So, the response, which I think was so eloquently put just now, is an amalgamation of a number of things. If we look at what the election results were based on race, it paints a picture in the United States. It paints a picture with regard to [00:32:00] how people think about electing a woman, how people think about electing a woman who is Black and of Asian descent. It paints a picture policywise about what Americans are willing to embrace. And in that way, it’s a Project 2024, it’s a Project 1619, in terms of what Americans are willing to accept, to the extent that we know that Donald Trump is willing to fulfill on what it is that he says. He said that he wanted to criminally punish women. He said — in 2016, 2015, he said that he wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. After that occurred, he took full credit for that. There were a number of things that he had hoped to dismantle. This was a president who right after coming into office had a Muslim ban, was responsible for kids at the border being placed in cages, being fed frozen burritos. This was an [00:33:00] administration that had its lawyers fighting to deny those children soap and toothpaste, arguing before federal judges that those children who were locked in cages in federal custody did not deserve soap, did not deserve toothpaste. This was a president who failed on COVID, who made sure that he had medications for himself, vaccine, and then also sent to others, including, what has been alleged, to Russia and to Putin so that there would be access to the best of what we had for COVID at that time, but for Americans, did not do a good job at all in terms of collaboration, cooperation and leading with regard to COVID, and instead had suggested that perhaps injections of bleach and other things might be the way to respond to COVID. And one could really go down the list in terms of what that presidency represented. And Americans [00:34:00] overwhelmingly voted for that.

But is that something that is new? I think that one of our challenges in our country is to really understand the arc of who we’ve been and the arc of who we are. We tend to think that we actually had our own truth and reconciliation, such that we have confronted what have been the thorny, horrific parts of our past. And we haven’t. We’ve not done the work of a South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, right? We’ve not looked and said, “How could we tolerate systems where women were denied citizenship? How could we tolerate women being denied the right to vote? How could we tolerate women being denied the opportunity to become lawyers?” And I’m talking about Supreme Court cases. “How could we tolerate women being denied from serving on juries? How could we tolerate women being denied the opportunity to have bank accounts in their own names, have their own checking accounts in their own names?” And [00:35:00] that’s a modern iteration.

And then we can unpack what this means in terms of Jim Crow and slavery. How could we be a nation that tolerated children standing on auction blocks and being auctioned off, bid upon? Not for a horrific day, where we wake up and say, “My goodness, what was that all about? Bidding on children in shackles and chains?” No, but not practice that lasted a day, a week, a year. A year alone might have been waking up and saying, “How in the world could we have tolerated that?” But to see that flow into centuries and then to create patterns of justification and narratives for that, that then flowed into Jim Crow, a time in the United States that was marked very narrowly by what happened to Rosa Parks, but more fulsomely the denial of people being able to walk in the parks, swim in pools, go into motels, stay at hotels, live where they wanted to based on their race, and a practice that lasted for generations upon [00:36:00] generations, that then required federal intervention.

So we have to ask ourselves: How could we have tolerated all of that? And in part, the answer is what we see in the election yesterday, is that we’re willing to tolerate more of that. And then we have to ask ourselves: Why? What is behind that?

Trump campaign was built on 'hate' which has contributed to 'racial terror' NAACP exec - MSNBC - Air Date 11-8-24

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: And I want to go back, Charles, to what he said about the ubiquitousness of information that's out there.

But, I was struck by the fact that so many of the recipients were young, that they were college students, high school students, middle school students, who, before their parents would ever want to, may have to sit down and have a very serious conversation. But from a legal standpoint and the search that's going on for who might be behind this, does that tell us anything about the type of person, the group that might do this, or is this just what people, horrible people do and how they think they can [00:37:00] get it out there.

CHARLES COLEMAN: Well, certainly, Chris, there is a profile of a person who is a horrible person who engages in this sort of behavior, a White supremacist, someone who is on the far right, but make no mistake about it, regardless of the illegality of this—and the FBI has the tools necessary to make those assessments and to identify and characterize who they need to, in order to do their investigations—there was one thing that you said in your reading that I had a problem with, and it was the characterization of this as shocking. It's disappointing. It's upsetting. But it's not shocking. And the reason why these individuals who have been targeted are oftentimes younger is because the people who are sending these messages want to send a very clear message as early as possible so that folks understand where we are going and what this is.

And as we have this conversation, it's incredibly important that we realize that for those people who are expressing a little bit of hesitancy, a little bit of reticence, a little bit of unsurety around whether they are going to [00:38:00] continue to be in lockstep around our coalitions, this is why. Because this is a real fear, and as Jonathan talked about, this cannot be put in the same breath as wondering whether you'll be ostracized for people not knowing how you voted.

No, this is a safety issue that Black people in America are not going to be able to escape. And so it is a false equivalency for us to say at this point, we should all just come together and be able to move forward.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: Take a breath.

CHARLES COLEMAN: Take a breath, right. Because this is something that is affecting us, our children, our families, our livelihoods, in ways that other people simply cannot understand.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: And Patrice, the president of your organization, CEO at Derrick Johnson condemned these texts, but he also said something I think to Charles point, these actions are not normal. And we should refuse to let them be normalized. Talk about that and what can be done about it. I feel like every time I have [00:39:00] you on, every time I have somebody from the NAACP, every time I have Charles on, cause we talk a lot about civil rights cases, I'm asking this question: What do we do about it? And here we are again.

PATRICIA WILLOUGHBY: Well, Chris, thank you for having me on. And this is a critical point that leadership and the tone is very important. Elections have consequences and the president-elect's campaign was built on hate and grievance, which has contributed to an environment of hate, racial hatred, and racial terror that the NAACP has seen since its inception in 1909.

As Mr. Coleman has indicated, there is a great deal of empowerment and joy among young Black Americans. And these messages are meant to tamp that down. But their proliferation is the evidence that when you don't denounce [00:40:00] hatred and you actually promote it, there are consequences for fellow American citizens.

These text messages are disturbing, but they are only beginning. We saw this going back from the enactment of the 14th Amendment and the rise of Jim Crow and the rise of racial terror. This is simply the latest iteration of that strategy.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: Jonathan, one mother whose daughter received one of these texts told your paper, and it's related to Charles' point, she said, "I'm disappointed, but I'm not shocked". Is this a new world for Black Americans, or a continuation? I guess maybe the better question is, is this a continuation or an escalation of the world that Black Americans were already living in? And I should say by that I've also had other people of color reach out to me and say that they have also had the same kind of reaction given where we are right now in this moment

JONATHAN CAPEHART - HOST, MSNBC: It [00:41:00] is a continuation. And I think a lot of the fear, especially as a result of these text messages is, is this the beginning of an escalation? I mean, there was a reason why people were in the streets four years ago after the murder of George Floyd, but George Floyd was not the first Black person killed by law enforcement, unarmed Black person killed by law enforcement. People had been marching in the streets for generations. What's concerning here is we don't seem to learn the lessons—by we, the American people—don't seem to learn the lessons of the past. And when we—meaning Black people—talk about our concerns, talk about, you know, fill in the blank person who has just been killed by law enforcement, just been killed by vigilante, set upon by White supremacists that suddenly, when we [00:42:00] ask for our leaders and ask for our government to take our lives seriously, suddenly it's you're catering to the far left, that you are not paying attention to other issues. When all we're asking you is to, can you pay attention to our dignity? Can you pay attention to our lives?

We are very much a part of the American fabric. And so when we say to you, we don't think it's right that law enforcement has done this to George Floyd, that you take what we're saying seriously, especially since we have been saying the same thing for generations. Ms. Freeman, who is the woman you showed at the beginning of this segment, that conversation she had to have with her child as a result of getting those text messages, that's the conversation that Black parents have been having with their children for generations. Unfortunately, because of text messaging and social media, [00:43:00] she wasn't able to have that conversation on her timetable. Painful timetable. She had to have that conversation because someone decided to weaponize her child's identity,

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: And we know, as you said, that information is out there on all of us, but it's not hard to find out details of a person. Charles, is this a hate crime?

CHARLES COLEMAN: It is unquestionably, and I think that one of the things—I don't use this word very often, Chris, but the notion of being terrified. As a civil rights attorney, I am terrified when I think about where we are right now, meaning that, this is November; by January, there will be a new Attorney General and there will be a new person heading the DOJ's Office of Civil Rights. Kristen Clark will no longer be there to do the amazing job that she's done. This investigation, wherever it goes, will likely end there. And then what happens? What happens to the people who are responsible for perpetrating these wrongs? What happens to the other people [00:44:00] who feel emboldened at that point? Because we can almost guarantee that under a Donald Trump DOJ, whomever he decides will be the AG, the level of attention that is paid to civil rights cases will not be what it was under this past administration. And that is what terrifies me. Because there will be no guardrail. There will be no stop. There will be no legal repercussions to even stop these actions as they have been identified as illegal and as hate crimes. And that's deeply problematic and something we have to stay keeping our eyes on.

The Hard Truth About Why Harris Was the Wrong Choice for America - The New Abnormal - Air Date 11-6-24

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah, the thing is, and there are a lot of people, particularly Black women on social media right now, that are saying, I'm done. I'm actually tired. I'm tired of being on the front lines of America's war with itself, America's reckoning with its racist and misogynistic foundation that they choose to ignore, and saying, where I am going to be is taking care of myself and my community and my family and leave the 50 percent of [00:45:00] white women who voted for Kamala Harris to do the work, leave the rest to do the work.

What do you say to that? Because I understand that the path ahead is going to be, I don't even actually -- I don't even think I've wrapped my mind around it. But what do you say to those that, particularly for black women that have been carrying the burden, I'm not doing it anymore? Because this is already going to be damn near impossible for me.

So you're on your own.

JARED YATES SEXTON: I'm glad you brought it up this way. And the first thing that I would say is that I'm terribly sorry. I am terribly sorry, not just for the circumstances that have led us to this point, and have inundated the lives of vulnerable communities and populations that have been targeted and discriminated for forever.

But I also want to apologize for something else. In the past eight years, since Donald Trump became a political figure in the United States of America, what black women in other communities that we're discussing, what they have experienced are the aesthetics of support and [00:46:00] allyhood. They have seen on social media a lot of people who post a lot of things, who say a lot of things about what they care about and what their principles are. And a lot of that was delusional. And a lot of it was dishonest. And it wasn't backed up by anything that actually meant anything.

And we're now seeing all of these DEI and diversity statements at universities and corporations that are going away. And this entire thing about quote unquote "wokeness", there are people who have woken up to the actual circumstances and those people are your allies. But we also need to understand that a lot of people saw a financial and political advantage to using those things as a costume, and using those things as a marketing opportunity.

So the first thing I would say is I'm sorry. And the second thing that I would say is this: right now, people are tired, and part of the reason they are tired is because some of them have put their blood, sweat, tears, and livelihoods on the line, and they were betrayed. And they were not helped by people who purported to help them, or who purported to [00:47:00] be their allies. And I understand that exhaustion.

The other part of this is a lot of people were misled by politicians. They were misled by online influencers. They were misled by a lot of people who told them, Hey, we're almost done with this thing. It's going to be totally fine. And I want people to imagine. -- and I hope this metaphor resonates -- I want people to think about being on a road that is many, many miles long, and you're being pursued by wolves as you're on that road. It is exhausting. You think that you only have another mile left to go after many, many miles, and then you suddenly realize that you have another 5, 6, 10 miles left to go. That disappointment and frustration and exhaustion is natural.

And I would invite people to take the moment of rest that we currently have. We have a few months until this thing actually takes off. This is a time to fortify yourself, to catch your breath, to drink your water, metaphorically [00:48:00] and literally, to actually get yourself in a position where you are ready for the fight that is coming.

Some people aren't going to be able to do it. But guess what that means? You and I and the other people listening, we have to pick them up and help them. We have to do our part. And that's what actual solidarity is about. It's about going on a journey and understanding that sometimes you are going to carry others, and sometimes those people are going to carry you.

And the only way that we can actually make that happen is to build trust and intimacy and solidarity. And if there's anything that the United States of America is missing right now, and we are missing many things, it is trust, intimacy and solidarity.

I understand why people feel like they're not going to get picked up. I understand why people feel alone. That is part of the abuse of authoritarianism, which is systematic abuse which is supposed to crush your spirit and kill it.

And by the way, that's what it's about. You're supposed to reach a point in which you have no [00:49:00] hope and you either put the armband on and you goosestep down Main Street, or you close your door and hope and pray it doesn't come to your door. I have bad news for everybody: It's coming for your door. And putting that armband on is not an option.

So the whole point is we need to fortify ourselves. We need to find trust. And we need to find hope and solidarity and intimacy that has been missing. And that's the only way we're going to make it through this thing.

Note from the Editor about the shifting landscape of social media

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Nina Turner on Democracy Now! discussing the very Americanness of the white supremacy endemic in the MAGA movement. The New Abnormal described historical and current threats of violence at the hands of white supremacy. Reveal discussed both the political targeting and scapegoating of Black men. The New Abnormal focused on Trump's Madison Square Garden Nazi rally. Carol Anderson on Democracy Now! described the election as a victory for the Confederacy. MSNBC discussed the racist text messages that were sent out to mostly young Black people in the immediate wake of the election. [00:50:00] And Jared Yates Sexton on The New Abnormal described our current state and the importance of supporting, and being supported by community. 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 supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics. 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 bestofleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Members also get chapter markers in the show, but depending on the app you use to listen, you may be able to use time codes that we put in the show notes to jump around the show, similar to chapter markers. So check that out if you like. 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 [00:51:00] hearing more information.

Now, before we continue on to the deeper dives half of the show, speaking of the importance of depending on community, there is an interesting shift happening online as people are making moves between social networks in large numbers. This isn't the first time this has happened or threatens to happen. There were a lot of people who wanted to leave Twitter after Musk's acquisition. And of course some did, but the forces of network effects are strong. And so many people stayed put or, like us, many created accounts on new social networks, just in case, but then didn't end up actually engaging on them. Now, thanks to Musk's heavy hand in the election and close ties with Trump combined with all of the new policies turning X into an explicitly right-wing haven, this time feels different. And the exodus to alternate platforms is more substantial than before. As one headline put it, "'I'm going to Bluesky' is the new 'I'm [00:52:00] moving to Canada.'"

So, regardless of where you go, you can follow us on Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads. Those are the big three right now. And if you have any sense, like you may want to be dabbling in more than one, I recommend the app Open Vibe, which consolidates posts from all three of those platforms and lets you cross post to all of them, creating a unified experience.

As for a couple of tips specific to Bluesky, Bluesky is the big one that is, I think, enjoying the most benefit from people actively leaving Twitter right now. I've been using a tool called Sky Follower Bridge, which helps you track down accounts that have migrated from Twitter to Bluesky. So you use it to find all of the accounts that you followed or who followed you on Twitter, who have now migrated to Bluesky and lets you reconnect with them by following them on the new [00:53:00] platform.

Finally, the last tip is from Bluesky, which has this next tip built right into their system, no extra apps or plugins necessary. In Bluesky, you can create starter packs of accounts that you want to promote. So naturally Best of the Left has a starter pack of progressive writers, activists, and organizations, so you can follow them all in just a couple of taps. That means you can also create your own starter pack. I would certainly hope that you would include Best of the Left in your starter pack, if you were to do that. And you should also encourage other individuals or activists or, you know, organizations, people with trust with existing networks to create their own starter packs, to help people get started on the new network.

Obviously building a community from scratch is a daunting task and this is a major tool to help you do that much more quickly. So check the show notes for all of those links.

SECTION A - MIRROR FOR AMERICA

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to [00:54:00] dive deeper on four topics. Next up section a a mirror for America. Followed by section B white supremacy for the win. Section C reverberation and section D what now?

American Coup Wilmington 1898 Film Examines Massacre When Racists Overthrew Multiracial Gov't - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-12-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The trailer for American Coup: Wilmington 1898. We’re going to speak to the director, but first this clip lays out how Wilmington was the largest city in North Carolina in 1898. Black people held many positions in government alongside white people.

CRYSTAL SANDERS: The removal of troops from the South ushered in the end of Reconstruction, and white supremacists are once again able to regain power.

LERAE SIKES UMFLEET: Democrats and Republicans of 1898 are not the Democrats and Republicans of the 21st century.

CAROL ANDERSON: Remember, what we had coming out of the Civil War was that Lincoln was a Republican, and the Republican Party was founded on an [00:55:00] anti-slavery platform.

LERAE SIKES UMFLEET: That meant that most African American voters were going to vote for the Republican candidates.

CAROL ANDERSON: The Democrats were the Klan members. The Democrats were the slaveowners, the enslavers. They were deeply committed to the denying citizenship rights to African Americans.

ROBIN D. G. KELLEY: The Democratic Party holds the state in the 1870s throughout the 1880s. It’s really not until the 1890s that you begin to see the Democrats again lose their power. There’s a depression that takes place in 1893. White farmers are suffering.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: These white farmers felt that the Democratic Party was beholden to the banks and the railroads and the moneyed interests.

ROBIN D. G. KELLEY: And they bolt from the Democrats and join the [00:56:00] Populists, which is a third party.

LERAE SIKES UMFLEET: Neither the Republican Party nor the Populist Party had the voting power to unseat Democratic Party candidates if they were running in a tripart election.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: So they form an alliance, white Populists and Black and white Republicans. This became known as fusion.

CRYSTAL SANDERS: We see a political alliance between African Americans and working-class white people.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: The Populists were as racist as any of the members of the Democratic Party, but their economic interests were so strong that they were able to set that aside.

CAROL ANDERSON: It’s not some kumbaya moment. We’ve got to be really clear about that. It was a pragmatic moment.

CRYSTAL SANDERS: So, both in 1894 and in 1896, this fusionist coalition of Black and white men are able to sweep the North Carolina General Assembly.

ROBIN D. G. KELLEY: North Carolina elects a [00:57:00] fusion governor, Daniel Russell. They send George White to Congress. And they start to pull back all the things that the Democrats did to reduce democracy. So, for example, the positions that were once appointed in Wilmington are now turned into elected positions, which allows Black people to run for office.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: It created, really, a situation in Wilmington that was unique. You had Black men in positions of authority and power.

CRYSTAL SANDERS: So we see Black and white men on the Board of Aldermen. We see Black and white men serving in various municipal offices.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: Ten of the 26 policemen were Black men, the city treasurer, the city jailer, the city coroner. John C. Dancy was the custom collector at the port, which is a federally appointed position. He made $4,000 a year, which was $1,000 more than the governor made.

ROBIN D. G. KELLEY: The mayor of [00:58:00] Wilmington is also a fusion candidate. It’s not the majority of Black, it’s the majority fusion that makes the difference.

KIDADA WILLIAMS: So, with Wilmington by 1898, African Americans had still held on to a lot of the rights and privileges and the institutions and the power they had enjoyed.

CAROL ANDERSON: It was a land of possibility, a land of hope, a different vision of what American democracy could be, that it could actually be multiracial and work.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That last voice, Carol Anderson, Emory professor. And this is another clip from American Coup: Wilmington 1898 that describes an editorial in Wilmington’s Black newspaper, The Daily Record, before the coup.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: Rebecca Felton, she was the wife of a congressman in Georgia. She gave a speech to the agricultural society condemning white men for, in her mind, not doing enough to stop the Black beast rapists and this supposed rape epidemic [00:59:00] in Georgia. There was no rape epidemic, but she created one. White supremacist newspapers in Wilmington realized they could make something of this, so they reprinted her speech in August of 1898. And as soon as Alex Manly saw that, he sat down and wrote an editorial in response to Mrs. Felton.

KIERAN HAILE: “Mrs. Felton from Georgia makes a speech before the agricultural society at Tybee, Georgia, in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure.”

ALEX MANLY: [dramatized] Experience among poor white people in the country teaches us that women of that race are not more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men that are the white men with colored women. Meetings of this kind go on for some time until the woman’s infatuation or the man’s boldness bring attention to them, and the man is lynched for rape.

Every negro lynched is called a big burly black brute. When in fact, many of those who have thus been dealt with, have [01:00:00] had white men for their fathers, and were not only not black and burly, but were sufficiently attractive for the white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them.

KIERAN HAILE: “Tell your men that it is no worse for a Black man to be intimate with a white woman than for a white man to be intimate with a colored woman. Don’t think ever that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours.” Alex Manly editorial, Daily Record, August 18th, 1898.

CAROL ANDERSON: This was blasphemous. You know, to say that a white woman could actually desire a Black man? What?

DAVID ZUCCHINO: The other point he made was that for generations, white men had been raping Black women with impunity, and that had been going on forever, and nobody talks about that.

CAROL ANDERSON: Alexander Manly’s rebuttal to Rebecca Felton was absolutely courageous. He didn’t say it behind closed doors while he’s talking with his friends. He did it in an [01:01:00] editorial published in The Daily Record that has white advertisers. I mean, so he’s really putting himself out there. You had some members of the Black community who were like, “Oh, Manly? Manly doesn’t speak for us.”

CRYSTAL SANDERS: There were many who perhaps, even if they believed it was true, thought that it was, you know, too inflammatory to be printed. We also see prominent Black men in Wilmington urge Manly to recant the editorial, to apologize, in an effort to avoid conflict. He refuses. He sees himself as someone who has done nothing wrong. He has spoken a truth that he believes has gone unspoken for too long.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: American Coup: Wilmington 1898 premieres tonight on PBS and will also stream online.

The Hard Truth About Why Harris Was the Wrong Choice for America Part 2 - The New Abnormal - Air Date 11-6-24

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: You're nicer than me. I think that it's absolute bullshit to blame this loss on the Harris Walz ticket. In a hundred days, they put together one of the most formidable [01:02:00] campaigns we have ever seen. This had nothing to do with her. This is the thing that gets me. about racism and misogyny is that it has you questioning like yourself.

This had nothing to do with perceived deficiency on the part of the Harris walls ticket. And I know that people will love particularly Democrats as they run and leap to move to the right. We'll love to have this conversation and do this autopsy about all of the ways in which she was wrong. The only ways in which she was wrong for America is that she is black and Asian and a woman.

That is how she was wrong. And that's the reality. Just the same way, like, I could look in a very conscious way and say, here are some of the things that Hillary Clinton in 2016 took for granted and did wrong. This campaign knew all of those things from 2016, took that, took also the things that they learned from 2020, and applied them.

What we have to understand [01:03:00] is that there were going to, there was never going to be a facts and figures case that was going to be presented to racists and to misogynists that were going to have them let go of their perceived power in the goal of trying to help other people. That was never going to be the case.

So while we could sit down and tell folks the ways in which Donald Trump is going to be bad for them as well, they do not care so long as he is going to be worse for people that they don't like. And that's the rea so there's no like, rationalizing with people that are inherently racist. And see their position and their power in this country being challenged by the perceived other.

Whether that other be black people, which it often is, and always is. Whether it be now too educated and too lippy of women and too free of women who don't know their place and will be put back in it. Like, so, whether it's [01:04:00] gay or trans people that, like, have the audacity to say, to want to live inside of their own skin and not operate on this false binary.

To me, the analysis is really a critique of America and how far we have yet to come and probably will ever come because we don't really want to have the hard conversations about embedded racism and misogyny. Which is what won this election, along with the help of American oligarchs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, who used their platforms to either suppress information, depress information, or spread misinformation.

NICHOLAS GROSSMAN: Yeah, absolutely. And look, I want to talk about another thing that I've seen a lot of people sort of hitting about Kamala Harris, and that they say that she should have distanced herself more from Joe Biden. Yeah, absolutely. And here's how I look at this. That's first of all, that's easier said than done because she [01:05:00] was his vice president.

Second of all, Joe Biden did a pretty damn good job. The problem is that because of misinformation and disinformation, people don't know that, I guess, or see that. The third problem is. Why do I feel like if she had tried to distance herself from Joe Biden, the response to that would have been, who does this uppity black woman think she is?

Like that was the first thing I thought of. Like the first thing that they will say is who is this ungrateful black woman that Joe Biden elevated and now she's out here. distancing herself from him, and I just find it hard to believe that we wouldn't have seen that from a lot of places. I sort of feel like she was, that was a real lose lose situation for her.

And look, one of the things that's been written about, that was something I really didn't pay much attention to, is the strong anti incumbency feeling all across the And if you look at, you know, in Europe and here and how many [01:06:00] incumbents were tossed out this year, and it really is staggering. I think it's almost every incumbent party was thrown out of office this year.

It feels like there was just this wave of anti incumbency. And look, for all intents and purposes, she was the perceived as the incumbent, even though she's not Joe Biden. So I get why the argument is she should have distanced herself from him. I'm not really clear where, though. Should she have distanced herself from record low unemployment?

Should she have distanced herself from record high stock market? I mean, look, people are going to bring up Israel and Palestine. I don't care what side of that you're on. I don't think that means anything. A hell of a lot to the majority of American voters. Anyway, that's how I feel about that, because that's one I've seen thrown around.

Everything I've seen mentioned, well, she should distance herself from him here. I'm like, really? But it almost always comes down to the economy. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you about the economy. Like, by every, normal metric, the economy is in good shape. And [01:07:00] the economy is particularly in remarkably good shape, considering where we were four years ago, even though there are so many Americans who seem to think they were better off four years ago, because as someone tweeted, Americans, and I think this is true of humans in general, have no sense of object permanence.

And somehow, They remember a completely crashed economy under Donald Trump as being good. I don't know how you fight that. I honestly, I don't know how you fight people who simply believe things that aren't true and won't be moved from that belief when you show them how. actual real facts. I don't know how you fight that.

And that's the wave that Donald Trump rode.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Yeah, a hundred percent. Like I said, you can't argue facts and figures with people that have told themselves that Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ. Like you can't, you can't show facts and figures to people that believe that he is the Messiah. He is, you know, a, an [01:08:00] unusual tool that which, you know, to, to wield in order to exercise, like the policy.

that they have been foaming at the mouth for, for the last 50 and 60 years. So there, to me, there was no appeal that she was going to offer to these people that are formulated, have formulated their, their lives in a scarcity mindset that believes that there just is not enough for all of us. And some of us should have nothing right like should like are deserving of nothing and not even are deserving of nothing but on top of that are deserving of pain so like that there there's like there's no what what would the slogan have been to try and bring those people over you try to link arms with more thoughtful and conscientious Republicans who believe in democracy if not if agree on nothing else right And that didn't work.

Like, oh, you don't have to align yourself with this guy over here. Here are some people that share your same values, but they [01:09:00] also believe in the value of democracy. I believe that white America, they decided in this election that democracy no longer works for them. Because democracy means adding more people to a table that they say there is not enough.

That exists for them already. So don't pull up those chairs. This is all mine. And if the way that I keep it mine is through authoritarianism and autocracy, then that's what I'm gonna do. That's what they voted for.

NICHOLAS GROSSMAN: Donald Trump got up there at a debate and said that they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats.

And the only possible response to that is No, they're not. And that was the response, but it didn't matter. And that's the truly sad thing. That's the truly frightening thing. It didn't matter that the Haitian immigrants who moved to Springfield, Ohio and took jobs in factories took jobs that were sitting vacant.

They didn't steal those jobs from white people. And they improved the [01:10:00] economy of Springfield, Ohio. Radically. And none of that matters. Because Donald Trump got up there and said, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, and people were like, yeah, we got to get these people out of this country.

There's no way to fight that other than the way that was tried. Would you say that? Well, that, that's, that's just not true. He's lying. You know, he's making shit up to try to scare you. It didn't matter. That's what people believed when they walked into the voting booths on Tuesday. Uh, that's what they believe today, and apparently that's what they want for at least the next four years.

American Coup Wilmington 1898 Film Examines Massacre When Racists Overthrew Multiracial Gov't Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-12-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We’re joined by the co-director, Yoruba Richen, award-winning filmmaker.

Yoruba, welcome back to Democracy Now!

YORUBA RICHEN: Thank you, Amy. Thanks for having me.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Yoruba, I wanted to start off by asking you — the Manly editorial became the basis for the first attack of the white supremacists, when they burned down his newspaper. Can you talk about — and [01:11:00] again, they were spurred on by the editor and publisher of the white-owned News & Observer. Talk about the role of that publisher, as well.

Absolutely. So, the editorial that we just saw was used as the spark to, you know, go into action. But this coup had been planned meticulously in the months leading up to it. It was planned by a group called the Secret Nine, otherwise known as the Chamber — you know, very prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce. And they were self-styled, self-called white supremacists. And it was led by Josephus Daniels, who was the editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh. And the newspaper had published [01:12:00] continually this idea, this racist idea, of Black men raping white women and of bad government that Negroes were in charge of, and that if we continued — you know, if they continued to let this happen, white women would be debased and continue to be raped, an epidemic of rape.

And that’s what you saw, you know, the Rebecca Felton newspaper — her speech reprinted in the newspaper, and Manly responding and saying, “No, that’s not true,” and debunking that. And it was that editorial that was — that they said, you know, “Look what happens when Negroes are in rule. Look at the things that they can say. We’ve got to get rid of them. We’ve got to get rid of this newspaper.” And that was the spur for the attack. But it had been planned [01:13:00] many months before the actual events happened.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: JUAN GONZÁLEZ:

And in making the film, you not only went into the archival records, but you made a decision to locate and interview both white and Black descendants of families that were involved in the events at the time. Could you talk about that?

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Absolutely. My co-director and I, that was one of the first things that we knew we wanted to include in the film. We found out that a group of Black descendants and, really, one white descendant had been meeting for about a year before we started the production, through an organization called Coming to the Table, which is a national organization that deals — that brings Blacks and whites together dealing with racial issues. And they had been meeting. And we were able to meet them through that organization, attend those meetings and start to create a relationship [01:14:00] with some of the descendants who you see in the film. And then we did work to find more descendants, particularly more white descendants, because they were harder to locate or to invite to come and be a part of the film. And we’re very grateful for their participation.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And one of the white descendants was the descendant of the newspaper editor, right?

YORUBA RICHEN: Absolutely, yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And he and the other descendants took down his statue.

YORUBA RICHEN: Yes, yes. So, The News & Observer, up until the 1960s, was the paper that we saw in 1890s. And then there was a change. And the family recently took down the statue, I think in about 2020. And, you know, Frank was a part of it. He is in the film admitting to what his ancestor did and the harm that it produced not only to North Carolina but to the nation.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And what happened, actually? [01:15:00] What did all of this lead up to? How many people died?

YORUBA RICHEN: So, you know, we’ll never know the numbers, the exact numbers. They weren’t — you know, they weren’t taking it down. But it’s said that it was maybe 200 to 300, but it was probably more than that, you can imagine. Black people were run into — ran into the swamps. One of the — Alfred Waddell, one of the leaders, said, “We’ll choke Cape Fear with their bodies.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We have 10 seconds.

YORUBA RICHEN: And then it returned to — and, sorry, then it became a majority-white city. And two years later, Jim Crow was instituted, and there was not another Black person elected from the state of North Carolina ’til 1992.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Wow. It is an amazing film, and I encourage people to watch it. It premieres tonight on PBS and also live-streamed. Yoruba Richen is co-director of American Coup: Wilmington 1898. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. This is Democracy Now!

Is Trump Who We Really Are America’s True Face Revealed w Rohn Kenyatta - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 11-11-24

ROHN KENYATTA: Tom, I've kept my powder dry for this last almost week since Donald Trump's election, which is absolutely no surprise to me. But what I am astounded by is that, uh, it is. It is such a [01:16:00] surprise to other people on. I find that very just, uh, on an ominous reality. And if I might, I know that you don't, uh, cotton to pardon the phrase people reading.

On your program, the author of this piece, which is about to be published in a few moments called the man in the mirror. I'd like to, uh, if I could read a paragraph from it, uh, for it. Donald Trump won because he is a true reflection of what the United States is. He is a reflection in the spiritual and social mirror of the United States.

Republicans figuratively, if not literally, embrace and adore the grotesque, selfish, entitled, greedy, racist, obese, vile creature that they see in the mirror. While the Democrats would rather lie to themselves and say, that isn't me. [01:17:00] Ah, but it is the mirror mirror on the wall, as in Snow White, racist tropes will always be the trump card.

Pardon the ridiculous pun. In the United States, we saw it from the times of the Civil War. To, uh, super Predators and the Crime Bill to Willie Horton ads to, uh, black people from Haiti eating cats and dogs. And the media was complicit in this time when Donald Trump and during that debate with Kamala, uh, Kamala Harris, uh, you know, made.

That ridiculous statement. The media jumped on weeks instead of just saying he said something ridiculous because you see, immigration and the border was is, you know, repeatedly, he said that is his central issue. [01:18:00] And as long as that and until we understand that, and I know it's uncomfortable for people who probably many in any event, Um, have good hearts, you cannot get past it.

Racism is always going to be, especially anti blackism, the sexiest thing in U. S. politics. It has been repeated over and over and over again. What Donald Trump did was a tried and true strategy. Yep. And he won on it. And he didn't, you know, and I, you know, I went so far as to say right after within a week of Joe Biden's, uh, State of the Union address this year in March, within a week, He's called the State of the Union 2025.

And I'm not, you know, I'm not plugging myself. I'm simply saying that I'm not, I'm not understanding how [01:19:00] this is a surprise to anyone because I'm not that, you know, I said this to you before. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm in the dull ones and and And how no one could see this coming really is worrisome to me.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Well, when you look at the people who voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, and then voted for Donald Trump this time around, do you really think they just just suddenly became racists?

ROHN KENYATTA: Oh, and I, and no, and I'm glad you said that because you know what,

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: I mean, I, I agree with you that, that, you know, racism is, is more endemic, more deeply entrenched, more vicious than, and frankly, I ever imagined.

I, I, I'm totally with you on that, but,

ROHN KENYATTA: well, I was actually going to quote you, uh, from a few weeks ago, maybe a month. You said that, you know, and, and you're a very well traveled. Very intelligent person, uh, and a historian to boot. Uh, you said that, [01:20:00] you know, uh, with your vast experience, the idea that the United States was as racist and white supremacist as it is, that's not a surprise to, to me.

Yeah. You see, I know. And when you talk about, when you talk, when you talk about Joe Biden, pardon me?

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: I said, I know we've had this guy before.

ROHN KENYATTA: Yeah. Yeah. And when you talk about Joe Biden, uh, and the people that voted for him in 2020, let me tell you something, uh, Donald Trump right now is telling people, um, that particularly he's saying that I won three times.

Okay. You know, he sees this election as a validation of Of, you know, uh, what he called the, the steal.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: No, I get that. But to my question, you've got enough people who voted for Joe Biden last time [01:21:00] to make him president who voted for Donald Trump this time to make him president. What happened with those people?

I don't, you know, do you, do you think it's race that they suddenly decided, Hey, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll be even more racist? I, you know, I, I think s like I said, I think there's more going on here, and I think that. The demonization of trans people had something to do with it. I think the, the, the quality of the campaign that Kamala Harris ran in some cases, you know, lacked, uh, she, she failed to embrace economic populism.

I was talking about all these tariffs that Joe Biden has put into place that she not, not only didn't mention, but ridiculed, um, you know, I, I, I think that there are other pieces to this, although I agree with you, the foundation of Donald Trump's candidacy. And that's been the GOP since Richard Nixon talked about the silent majority, which we all knew was code for white people.

And Ronald Reagan gave his first speech of his official campaign in Philadelphia, [01:22:00] Mississippi.

SECTION B - WHITE SUPREMACY FOR THE WIN

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B. White supremacy for the win.

“The Confederacy Won” Why Donald Trump’s Reelection Is a Win for White Supremacy, Xenophobia & Hate Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-6-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: very quickly, Professor Goodwin, the historic ballot measures enshrining the right to an abortion passed in seven of the 10 states that they were introduced, passed in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Maryland, New York and Missouri, where voters backed a measure that will overturn one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation that prohibits abortion even in cases of rape and incest. The significance of that, and yet at the same time Kamala Harris loses?

MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, again, if we parse this out, what we can see is that white women overwhelmingly voted for the former president, but yet also voted for the constitutional protection or statewide protections of abortion rights in their state. So they were able to parse these issues out, even though Donald Trump has articulated wanting to criminally punish women and wanting to — [01:23:00] in the past appointed federal judges and justices on the lower courts, as well as the Supreme Court, in order to make it very difficult to access reproductive healthcare. Yet they could parse their vote. And it’s not just them. It’s men, too.

And I want to make one clarification, too. In Florida, it’s being articulated that women in Florida rejected the ballot initiative there. No, overwhelmingly, the majority of people in that state voted for that initiative, except it was required that there be at least 60%. And what we know is that it’s been over 57, 58% that voted for the initiative, so it failed by a small percentage. But it’s worth noting that that was a requirement that meant more than a majority had to vote in support of that initiative.

Separation Anxiety Part 2 - This Week In White Supremacy - Air Date 11-13-24

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: A hundred percent. A thousand percent agree. And you know, well, that comes to this, you know, we need trouble. You know what we need. What do we need? Clearly, we need another [01:24:00] Women's March, isn't that right?

I'm not about to crush

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: you out on this podcast. The Women's March organizers. I'm not trying to get fired.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: The organizers are planning another big march. It says the Women's March event organizers say they're preparing a, quote, comeback tour. A

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: comeback tour? There's no fucking tour. This is not a celebration.

People are going to be dying. A comeback tour? Like, what are we, Justin Timberlake? You know what we need right now? A tour. Pussyhats and marches. A parade. No, this is why, after all of the other conversations, they pushed out the leaders of the actual Women's March. Yes. Samika! Carmen and Linda because they were radicalizing and training women about their rights, about policies, about the need to fight and organize a tour.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: Yes,

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: a tour.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: You're not going to take our joy says Rachel O'Leary.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I am tired of. Go back. [01:25:00] Why we wanna be I so bad, man. I'm tired of people making, when we talk about joy being radical, we're talking about using joy to fight for a future and, and, and build the community. We're not talking about just having like a party.

We're talking about finding joy and solidarity, finding joy in the fact that we haven't been broken, finding joy that there are people who are. still fighting for a better tomorrow, fighting joy, and the fact that we have tears that we can share with people who've gone through the same things and understand that there is a better day ahead.

When we're talking about joy being radical, we're talking about joy being something that drives us to organize, to fight back, not just to go march and have a parade and these.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: Women.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: You know, I don't,

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: I don't

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: support all women, right? I don't believe all women are right. Yes. And when we talk about a tour, what type of, no, what do you go?

Oh my God, there's going to be a tour on January 6th. Like what? No, there needs to be, there needs to be a riot, there needs to be a [01:26:00] protest. There needs to be a strike. When we're looking at what our, our, our mothers did, they took to the streets. Even if you want to talk about the, you know, the women wearing white, the suffragettes, they weren't just outside, but we're going to have a tour.

Y'all know they were organizing and there were some racist people, you know, out, but they were organized and mobilizing women to actually get up and do something.

TREBLE NLS: Yeah. And this, I feel like this is like a, This is a call to action to people, right? It's like the same way that we on this podcast and like encourage you to question your politicians and question those in power.

We also would encourage you to question your organizers and the people that are putting these things together, question the, the intention behind what they're trying to organize question. How this will actually help towards your liberation and if it'll actually help towards your liberation, or if it's just smoke and mirrors and, and, and identity politics or just like, you know, parading.

This false [01:27:00] concept that doesn't really lead to any true liberation.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: You mean like wearing a blue friendship bracelet to show that she didn't vote for the safe one. It says in response to presidential election results, some white women are crafting blue friendship bracelets on social media that signal that they did not vote for Donald Trump.

The movement seemingly began when a content creator posted a viral tick tock asking fellow white women. How are we signaling to each other which side we are on and the video racked up 4. 2 million views. I'm not mad at it,

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: but at the same time it's like very centralist. It's very look at me ish. No, it's not.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: The problem is y'all gotta learn whisper campaigns.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: The reason

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: why you've made this whole like normal thing happen and we know y'all lie.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: That's a fact.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: Right. We, we, we know that y'all do not tell the truth. Yes. The numbers do not lie. They don't lie. Right. Unless you know, they do. And it's like, oopsie, my bad.

But so you need to start like a whisper [01:28:00] campaign. Who did you vote for? Let me, did you screenshot your ballot? What proof do you have? Right. Then you get this little bracelet. And then next, why are people wearing these braces? You'll find out soon enough. Right. Have you seen, then you give it to your circle and you do it like that.

You got, you organically, uh, Move people, you can't put stuff on social media because that allows people to fake the funk. And I, we've seen before, like there are people, I guarantee you, there are people who have a immigrants are welcome here sign that voted for Trump. There are people who have a black lives matter sign that voted for Trump.

There are people who like all are welcome here who are calling ice right now to report people. And so again, when you try to do these. Symbols, these symbols are great. It's like, yes, do something, but it's also like, you got to learn to organize better.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: Somebody said, this is one of the widest things I've ever seen.

And I'm white.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I mean, yeah, I do think that [01:29:00] the simplification of what white women's protest needs to be studied, but it's like this idea that at some point you're going to actually have to do something.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: Right. And you could like, how about donating to 100 media? Like, why not like put your money where your mouth is or volunteer somewhere or, you know, do something like that.

Why don't you do that?

Some Americans Are Already Living in Trumps Purge Part 2 - The New Abnormal - Air Date 10-1-24

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Also, can we have the media. Stop saying like, Oh, it was a joke. Oh, it was a, he's not a fucking comedian.

Like he's not a comedian. So the only person that I give a shit is somebody that is actually paid to do fucking standup. That's not what this is. And it is a lie. And it is just a, an abdication of duty for journalists to turn around and not report on like, and all I'm saying is. Just report on what is being said.

This is what Donald Trump said. You don't want to add your fucking opinion into it. You don't want to, you know, provide any deeper analysis. Then just run the goddamn transcripts for the love of God.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: [01:30:00] There were so many of those. Just in this, uh, just, just over the weekend, you had Trump saying that Joe Biden became mentally impaired.

And then he followed up by saying, Kamala, although he mispronounced her name, cause he loves to do that. He said, Kamala was born that way. And I mean, again, like this is a Republican nominee. for the President of the United States saying this about the Democratic nominee. And I'm tired of being told that, like, Oh, that's Trump being Trump, like, like, like you said, Danielle, or, you know, that's just Trump.

He needs to be held accountable for shit like this. There were so many other things. He was talking in, I think it was in Pennsylvania, and he was talking about immigration. And then there was a fly. He saw a fly. And he was like, Oh, I wonder where that came from. Two years ago, that fly wouldn't have been here.

And he was talking about an influx of immigrants. And he was basically saying, look at these dirty immigrants. They bring, you know, flies and disease, et cetera. This shit is not funny. This shit is not acceptable. It is stuff that [01:31:00] has to be. It is stuff that has to be denounced. And yeah, I get it for the media and for people who cover politics.

It's like, it's a full time job to do that. Well, that's the job you chose.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: Right? It's a full time job. I'm like, ain't that your job?

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: I mean, because that's, that's where we are now. That is the political situation. I don't want to read about Harris is up one in Wisconsin or Harris is down three in Wisconsin.

Reporting that is not journalism. You know, reporting what the candidates are saying is journalism, and this is the kind of stuff, I mean, those are only a few of the examples of the nutty things he said over the weekend.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: That comparison of human beings, human beings to flies, when Donald Trump then said a couple of months ago, That they were vermin?

Yeah. This is the language of a dictator and a fascist and that is why you just had recently a group of hooded mass fucking cowards show up in Springfield, Ohio with [01:32:00] a banner that said that Haitians are not welcome here. Meanwhile, there was a very brave woman. Who was driving in her car, stopped her car to scream out her window and say, you are not from Springfield.

Like, we love all people here. The Haitian population is welcome here. Like, take your hate and go someplace else. And it was a non Black woman who was doing that. And I was just like, that's what we need to see more of. More people who live in these areas, who are from these towns. That J. D. Vance and Donald Trump are lying about, are creating hysteria around, are turning into dangerous places because of the escalation of bomb threats and school closures and buildings closing down.

That the real people who are being impacted of all races need to link arms and say, Not in our [01:33:00] town. Like, not, like, stop using our town's name for your political points and your, like, hate mongering because that is the only time that people are actually going to see that they're full of shit. And not only are they full of shit, but that they're dangerous.

MATTHEW SELIGMAN: Yeah, I don't know if you saw, uh, there's the, uh, I guess he's a factory owner or businessman in, in Springfield. And he spoke out in an interview, he said, of the Haitian immigrants who he employs, he said, they come to work every day. They don't cause drama. They're on time. I wish I had 30 more. Take a guess as to the responses he got.

Here is as reported by the New York Times, because this is actually a case of the New York Times doing journalism. People were leaving messages on his company voicemail. The owner of McGregor Metal, that's Jamie McGregor, the guy who said this, the owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100 percent justified.

Another one said, why are you importing third world savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens? Uh, another one said stack [01:34:00] all 20, 000 Haitians inside Jamie McGregor's factory at once and forced him to praise the benefits of foreign labor while being crushed to death by black bodies themselves being crushed to death.

Uh, and he is sitting there and he's basically saying, I have to buy a gun now for my home. His exact quote was, I have struggled with the fact that now we're going to have to have firearms in our house. Like what the hell? And he said, they're now taking classes. They're going to shooting ranges. This is unbelievable.

Because he said that, hey, these people that he has hired have been great employees. So this violence and, and, and, and so this traces back all the way, you know, we can, we can go back to the quote unquote purge comments to, like you said, the constant description of immigrants as vermin, as animals, saying that they're bringing flies and bringing disease with them.

That's where all of this leads. And And Donald Trump knows this, and JD Vance knows this, and this is what they want.

WTH Trump Wants REPARATIONS for WHITE PEOPLE Who Were 'VICTIMS' OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION - Roland S. Martin - Air Date 11-13-24

ROLAND S. MARTIN - HOST, ROLAND S. MARTIN: Donald Trump is saying, white people, [01:35:00] I'm coming to you with reparations.

CLIFF ALBRIGHT: This country was founded on identity politics. There's never been an era that hasn't been defined by identity politics, by white identity politics, by white male identity. It was literally identity politics is literally enshrined in the constitution.

Y'all said only white men, property owners could vote. That's the original identity politics, and every decade since then has been defined by that identity politics.

ROLAND S. MARTIN - HOST, ROLAND S. MARTIN: And fact clip, here is Donald Trump touting identity politics today!

DONALD TRUMP: And getting their money's worth. Furthermore, I will direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases.

Again, schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination and schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination [01:36:00] under the guise of equity will not only have their endowments taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them find up to the entire amount of their endowment.

A portion of the C's funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal And unjust policies. Policies that hurt our country so badly. Colleges have gotten hundreds of billions of dollars from hard working taxpayers. And now, we are going to get this anti American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.

We are going to have real education in America. So, Donald Trump is saying,

ROLAND S. MARTIN - HOST, ROLAND S. MARTIN: White people, I'm coming to you with reparations. For more UN videos visit www. un. org

CLIFF ALBRIGHT: Exactly. And, and that was written into everything that he just said is a part of project 2025. Yep. You know, the project 2025 that he said he didn't know anything about, [01:37:00] but before the, the, the, or before the votes are even counted in this election, he's already rolling out the project 2025 policies and his, his transferring or, or transforming.

The department of justice and office of civil rights from something that investigates and deals with anti black racism, he is now redefining it as dealing with anti white racism, anti white discrimination, which doesn't exist. But that's the identity politics. And that's from Jim Crow through the Southern strategy, right?

Which was identity politics defined to Ronald Reagan, to Pat Cannon all the way through through this person. That's all they do is identity politics. In fact, even the economic anxiety argument, even the economic anxiety argument is really another form of identity politics, because when they talk about the working class and economic anxiety, they're only talking about the white working class.

But as if black folks [01:38:00] ain't working class, that's identity. It's all this country knows.

Separation Anxiety - This Week In White Supremacy - Air Date 11-13-24

DONALD TRUMP: If we don't have free speech, then we just don't have a free country. It's as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes, one by one, they'll go down.

That's why today I'm announcing my plan to shatter the left wing censorship regime and to reclaim the right to free speech for all Americans. And reclaim is a very important word in this case because they've taken it away. In recent weeks, bombshell reports have confirmed that a sinister group of deep state bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, Left wing activists and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American people.

Maybe they have collaborated to suppress vital information on [01:39:00] everything from elections to public health. You can, you can pause the censorship.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: Um, It's very interesting when people talk about free speech, because it's like what free speech we're talking about, because like you censor a lot of stuff when it's stuff about trans people, stuff about black people, stuff about Palestinian people, stuff about immigrants, that gets censored everywhere.

But if you want to tell people to drink horse medicine to save a virus, that gets pushed out. So I'm very confused about what we're talking about here. Well,

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: I think that's the question because he was on record as saying like, CBS should get their, their license revoked because they fact check them, right?

I think ABC, he was calling that they're the worst network. So he has been saying these things about other net, like threatening them. And so again, like does free speech mean Like we have the ability to say whatever we want to say, because remember, even Elon Musk, who was supposed to be like, I'm a free speech, whatever absolutist, whatever word that he called.

But then when he bought X or Twitter, the first he started [01:40:00] to take out or kick off accounts, including the one that followed his private jet all around the country. Right. And so again, like free speech, but whose speech is considered free. What I hear you saying is. White speech, right? Any speech that bigs you up or that is white supremacist speech.

That's cool. But like you said, miracle, any speech that threatens that white supremacist structure probably is going to be in some way defunded or shut down. Is this something that we as producers of media should be concerned with?

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I mean, what's a little, what's a little shut down, state violence, statesmanship to be worried about?

But I will tell you, like, when you have, we're having these questions. Conversations and your immediate thought is like, well, what have the Democrats said they're going to do to protect free speech? And when you don't have an answer that shows you the state of survival that we [01:41:00] really need to be in. And I do think that people are now trying to create their own media, thinking about the Tik TOK ban and how our government tried to under a democratic government.

Ban tick talk and ban our access to information. And so now is really the time to think about the ways in which we're able to connect, how we're able to put out media. We're going to have to start doing like projectors, you know, talking to our elders and figuring out like, what do they do with the radio, going back to radio stations, all these different things.

But I do think there is some cause for concern. You know, even today with, you know, 9495 possibly being passed, I do think that we're going to have to start to organize and mobilize a lot more, but You know, who knows? Because it seems like he has a hit list and we may not be on his hit list. He may, you know, review our episodes and be like the MAGA Muslims like me and he may, he may let us go.

We may be, I mean,

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: you did, you were his [01:42:00] lawyer in New York City. I mean, he'd be like,

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I don't hate free speech. I support, you know, this week of white supremacy. Like I let them go, who knows? But I do think the way that we have, um, Come to know the world is going to radically change because people decided not to fight for the world that we have.

I did just want to

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: say before I come to you trouble that you mentioned house bill nine four nine five, which is the stop terror finance and tax penalties on American hostages act. And basically what this bill, if this bill passes, it would give the United States the ability to just terminate any like taxes in the tax exempt status of any quote unquote terror supporting group.

So by, so if this passes, somebody could say, Oh, you know, one hood, we saw y'all show up at this rally. and supported Palestinians. Therefore we're taking away your nonprofit status, [01:43:00] right? No video up at a rally. I'm just saying it could, this could be, this could be something that could happen, right? We saw it could be right.

We saw you at this rally supporting against police. We saw y'all organized against the police in Pittsburgh. Therefore, we feel like you're supporting terror. Y'all got Muslim names, you know, y'all wearing all types of Palestinian stuff on the show. Y'all got Palestinian nails.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I wonder who he's talking to.

I wonder who he's talking to. Palestinian nails is crazy. I wonder who he is talking to and who he's talking about. And luckily, you know, as an individual, I express and I fight for people who are oppressed and oppressed. Come on, come on, I try to use your fashion

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: as a faction in my activism. Let's go. No,

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: I'm just, I'm not, I'm not

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: coming

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: at you.

You didn't see any one hood stuff when I was out here fighting for freedom. We do have a red, black and green one. That's RBG.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: Again, again, revolutionary. Right. But that's all this is in the platform. So

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: [01:44:00] let it out. And any other, any other things of note that I've done that you forgot to mention? I'm not saying

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: it's you.

I'm saying us, us collectively miracles. I told you what my price was talking about you have a contract, you can't leave.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: Wow.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: So anyway, that's what the bill means. And if this bill passes organizations like ours, organizations that do this type of work that strive to be also a radical in many ways, that radicalism, remember it was like, remember under Trump, it was the, what was it?

The black. Black identity extremist, black identity extremist, right? That could mean our tax exempt status can be taken away under Trump, particularly if you're a dictator on day one. That could happen just right

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: on day one, all across the board. Just want to say it doesn't have to be radical organizations.

They could just basically say any organization that talks about birth control, any organization that talks about abortion, any organization that talks about interracial marriage. Like I think a lot of times we think when we hear terrorism, we think of violence or [01:45:00] Muslims or, or Islam, but we got to remember that what they have been talking about is a, a false narrative.

Fight for men's rights. And it's talking about women and feminists have been terrorists. So we are not even thinking about all these other nonprofits.

SECTION C - REVERBERATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next section C reverberation.

Why You Shouldnt Buy the Election Narrative About Black Men Part 2 - Reveal - Air Date 10-23-24

BARRACK OBAMA: You're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I'm speaking to men directly. Part of it makes me think that, well, You just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president.

GARRISON HAYES: Wrong approach, wrong tone, wrong message. This is the reality. The

NEWS CLIP: party has to stop scapegoating black men. Black men are not the problem. And then

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: In this election cycle, the spotlight has turned on black men. And it's complicated. To talk about it, I invited my colleague and good buddy, the great Garrison Hayes.

Garrison, how you doing, man?

GARRISON HAYES: I'm always doing well when I get to hang out with you and, and I, you know, I'm just hoping not to get into any trouble today.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Well, as a great John Lewis would say, we can get into some good trouble. [01:46:00] So let's do it. So you just reported an episode of reveal called red, black, and blue, which is all about black Republicans.

GARRISON HAYES: I spent the better part of the last year reporting on Black political power. You know, even the title itself, Red, Black and Blue, is all about putting Black people at the center of our kind of political discourse this election cycle. And I learned a lot throughout the process. I focused primarily on conservatives, Black conservatives, because I thought that they might represent some of the dynamism.

Which feels like perfect for this political moment, but I had a lot of conversations with a lot of folks all across the political spectrum in the black community.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Listeners, if you haven't heard it, go back and listen to his reporting. It's excellent. And today we're going to hash out what's happening on the Democratic side.

for your time, Farron. Now, there are some recent polls suggesting that fewer Black men might support Harris than came out for President Joe Biden in 2020, and that 20 percent of Black men might vote for Trump. And with those [01:47:00] numbers, there came a lot of hand wringing and finger wagging from Barack Obama and others about whether or not Black men are going to turn out and vote for Kamala Harris.

GARRISON HAYES: I do think there is something Uniquely frustrating about a conversation that skulls or looks down on, um, the second most reliable group of people for this party.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: And the first constituency being black women who resoundingly vote Democratic.

GARRISON HAYES: I mean, we looked at the gubernatorial race in Georgia. We look at Hillary Clinton back in 2016, um, black men showed up for that woman candidate.

And so I guess. There's a little bit of frustration at the same time. It's created a national discourse It's created at the very least a conversation in the community that's showing up today on this show

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So Garrison and I wanted to kind of bring our group chats to you So we got some of our friends to weigh in on this.

This is my buddy a day

FRIEND OF SHOW: This [01:48:00] idea that black men are leaving the democratic party to vote for Donald Trump, uh, this election cycle in large numbers is absurd. I mean, it's, it's absurd. It's propaganda is propaganda that's being pushed by both Democrats and Republicans. And I think that Democrats are pushing it so that they can use black men as a scapegoat, uh, in case Ms.

Harris doesn't win the election. I do think that black people in general. Are having issues with the Democratic Party and how they deal with the black community, but also, uh, how they treat the people that have supported them since the late sixties. So I do think that this is a time of reckoning for the Democratic Party and its black supporters.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Garrison, what resonated with you about what Adaye had to say?

GARRISON HAYES: I do think that a point was made about scapegoating. I mean, you know, we know the racial history of this country. We know that the history of this country is one that [01:49:00] often looks to place blame on Black people, and they do that to Black women and to Black men in different ways.

But one of the ways that we've seen every single election cycle is that there's always this conversation about, Whether or not black men will, you know, show up and quote unquote, do the right thing and vote along with black women and in every single election cycle, black men do to some, to some degree, sometimes it's at basically 90%.

Sometimes it's closer to 80%, but they do every single time. And yet the very next cycle, we're having a conversation again. Um, and I do think we, we need to kind of interrogate that a bit as, as kind of like media professionals, as the, the quote unquote media, we, we need to ask, why do we continue to do that?

Um, and what is the utility? Um, but I think that politicians also need to ask, why is it that some black men don't feel represented by their, Parties. I think that answer comes a little easier for black folks when looking at conservatives or republicans There's the [01:50:00] anti dei anti woke anti crt stuff just blatant racist and the literal blatant racism You know what?

I mean? Like that's definitely kind of a turnoff to black folks. I just had to burp. I don't know why But it's a headline. It's just kind of a turnoff. It's a headline. Read extra, extra, read all about it. Black people don't like racism. Right? I mean, like, I, I don't know. So I I, I'm, I'm with you on it. I, I would say, I, I, I wish the listeners could see me right now.

'cause as you were saying that, like, I'm, I'm doing my hand like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Exactly, exactly.

Separation Anxiety Part 3 - This Week In White Supremacy - Air Date 11-13-24

DONALD TRUMP: Every gang street crew and drug network in America, every single one of them will be dismantled. We already know where these turf wars and drug dens are. We know who the people are. I'm going to charge them and charge the culprits with every crime that we can find. We're going to be fair, but we're going to be tough.

We also need the death penalty for drug dealers. So important. Consequences.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: So somebody tell Waka Flocka that right now, [01:51:00] but this is very much in the Philippines that happened in the Philippines and they just used it to kill young men and this is what this is going to do. So now is also the time if you know, people who are straight pharmacists to try to reroute them into, you know, different, different avenues.

But I also want to point out that white supremacist biker gangs, you know, Are the ones out here flooding the streets with this poison and y'all think it's just like urban gangbangers.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: But are those, are those gangs going to be the ones targeted? No. And that's the unfortunate reality is it's like we're moving from mass incarceration to like mass execution.

Because we know when a white men say gangs, and we're talking about dismantling gangs, that these white people think crips bloods, they think like MS 13, they think like the Mexican mafia. They're not thinking about the white biker gangs, right? They're not [01:52:00] thinking about those angels and these type of, these type of gangs, right?

Or sons of anarchy, right? They're not thinking about that. They're thinking about, yo, we voted for this man because he told us he was going to You know, this is about punishing black and brown people. To me, ultimately, this is about you seeing a country that. Black and brown people like having babies and birth rates rising.

White people's birth rate are not remaining stagnant or going down. And you want somebody that's going to get all of these people either out of the country by mass deportation or literally execute black people. And again, now that the police understand that they have this power, right? We want to dismantle these gangs up until the death penalty.

We want And, and, and they have a president in place that saying police immunity, what do we think the out, the outcome is going to be apparent according to what we've heard recently of Michigan state police shot and killed a young man recently. So [01:53:00] are we going to see more of this?

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: You know what's interesting?

Like the, the irony of all of this is sickening because we're acting like Trump didn't have 34 felonies, right? We don't, we acting like his entire cabinet in his last administration was all people he built out of jail and got pardons and like, they wasn't out here breaking the law. Yeah. Like they was like, we act like he

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: like runs a criminal gang.

He has like

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: this motherfucker. Wasn't impeached twice. Yes. You know what I mean? Like he wasn't on the suspicion of. Trading sensitive information with other countries like he wasn't looking at you know Flushing down nuclear launch codes all that Mar a Lago under the toilets and all that. Yes Like what are we really talking about here?

Yeah, I mean like oh It's, it's, it's scary hours right now in the States, man. Like it's really spooky out here. It

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: is, it is really, it's like we have to brace, right. And particularly like if you're black and brown, because you know, Trump also is [01:54:00] naming, you know, Stephen Miller. Who we know is like, really like, you know, one, like, I think, how old is Stephen Miller?

He's like 35, but it looks like

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: man. So how, when you were a bigot, man, you aged like milk. Yeah, he looks,

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: he looks, but anyway, Stephen Miller is somebody who is, was the architect of Trump's family separation plan, right. Where he was separating families. And then Trump named a new border czar.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: Crazy.

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: And this borders are is on record.

What's this man's name? Oh, Tom Hammond is his name. He did prior to being elected borders are or named borders are by Trump. He did an interview on 60 minutes. We'll play a clip of that interview.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: This is, yes, this is foul talk, man. If it'll queue up, there we go.

CLIP: We have seen one estimate that says it would cost 88 [01:55:00] billion to deport a million people a year.

DONALD TRUMP: I don't know if that's accurate or not.

CLIP: Is that what American taxpayers should expect?

DONALD TRUMP: What price do you put on national security? Is that worth it?

CLIP: Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?

DONALD TRUMP: Of course there is. Families can be deported together. For

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: That's such a crazy scene.

One estimate.

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: He talking heavy families can be supported together. So can I, can I say what I had said yesterday on social media? So what did you say? So what I had said yesterday was the overwhelming majority of the 55 percent of the other races that voted for Trump. Yes. Right. And the Latin for Trump movement being so powerful.

Yes. No one was surprised about Their resurgence in this election, right? I think that for me, what was interesting was the 55 percent of [01:56:00] other races. Like Arabs, Asians, everybody else. Yes. But the question I have is what do you lot plan to do when your chickens come home to roost? What are you going to do with those eggs?

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: I mean, they're going to have to go back to their country

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: with them. Eggs. I mean, what can they do? Like, yeah. You know, so it's like, you know, you're voting, you clearly were suckered into voting against your self interest and now the immigration is probably going to be the forefront and the number one thing that they, this administration starts to enforce when they resume power in January.

So you. Absolutely have family members that are undocumented a thousand percent have siblings. You have people that are close to you that are absolutely undocumented. So you voted for what to, to eliminate them. Like there's

JASIRI X - CO-FOUNDER, 1HOOD: a clip I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm putting this clip and it really, this clip kind of sums up the mentality.

Mind you, this is a Latino man. That has a Trump hat on. They

CLIP: let in hundreds or thousands of people who already have criminal records. If [01:57:00] deporting them creates a mass deportation, I'm all for it. But what if rounded up in all of that are people who work on a farm? If they're doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do, does that worry you?

That wouldn't be fair. Of course, you know, they need to make sure that they don't throw away, they don't kick out. They're on the poor people that are, that are family oriented, right? So it's this idea of like, Oh, I'm a good, I'm one of the good ones. But

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: you were, you, you bought into that dream. Like the thing is, it's like.

It doesn't stop or start with you. You're part of the collateral damage. Like, you're not exclusionary in this. Like, there's no, there's no exemption for you. It's the fact that you voted for an America that does not include you. Right. In any shape or form, you are not included in this election. Doctrine.

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: But again, like, and it's funny and they told you, don't vote though. Immigrants who are undocumented can't vote. Right. Right. So when we're talking about what this is, what you voted for, people who are going to be deported did not vote for this. [01:58:00] Correct. And I think that's very important. Number one, number two.

I know twinning

FAROOQ AL-SAID - DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. 1HOOD: besties,

MIRACLE JONES - DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND POLICY: you know, it's the toxicity that just like, but I think that's very important. Right. But also when we're talking about why these, whatever for Trump's existed, we've said before the elasticity of white supremacy brings people in and it kicks people out and it makes people think that they're special.

Like they're the chosen ones. They're going to be protected. And that man said, no, you, your family. Yes. And the citizen that you are connected to can all get the F on it. Your anchor baby, all you niggas can go. And so I think that is something that we have to think about. But also for me, my question is, does that mean the sanctions end?

Does that mean Cuba can finally be free? Does that mean Venezuela can finally be free? Oh, probably not. Talk about this, these mass deportations. What are we now going to do when that's going to cause social unrest [01:59:00] in other countries where their anger is going to be targeted at the U S

Racist texts sent to Black Americans appears to be 'phishing scam' Louisiana AG - MSNBC - Air Date 11-8-24

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: We are just getting some new findings in the investigation into where a deluge of racist text messages are coming from the recipients as young as middle school. Those messages largely target black Americans and warn them to prepare for a return to slavery. The FBI and law enforcement in at least two dozen states, including Louisiana are investigating right now.

I'm joined by Louisiana's attorney general, Liz Murrell, among those. into this. So I underst some preliminary findings What can you tell

LOUISIANA AG LIZ MURRILL: us? Wel that these text messages

Virtual private network server that's that's located in Poland. So, you know, that that doesn't tell us where the person is, or the group, or the organization is that's actually pushing them out. [02:00:00] It could be from the basement of a small town in Louisiana, or it could be coming from Bangladesh. We don't we don't know that yet.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: So tell me about what you folks are doing and what kind of cooperation, as I said, there are at least two dozen different states. Now, I think initially they were saying maybe these were received in 10 states. Now it's up to 24 25. Who are you talking to? Who are your investigators cooperating with?

LOUISIANA AG LIZ MURRILL: Well, of course, we are, um, talking to the FBI.

Um, it is a national problem, not just a state problem. That's that's limited limited to Louisiana. I can tell you it's not just text messages. I received 1 of these directly to my personal email just this morning. So they are going out fairly broadly. Um, it is very much. It looks a lot like a phishing scam, and there is what appears to be a hyperlink in it.

So we really want to caution people not to click on it, uh, delete it. [02:01:00] Um, you can report it to your local to your attorney general. If, um, if you're in another state or to us in our state, and you can report it to the FBI, but we are all trying to get to the heart of it and figure out where they're coming from.

But it behaves like a phishing scam. It can. It can get into your network and perpetuate itself through your

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: network. And it also has had a real impact on people, um, the emotion that comes from getting something like this, the fear that it engenders. Um, I wonder if you had an opportunity to talk to anyone else, particularly, um, black Americans, black Louisianans, and what impact you're seeing or hearing about.

LOUISIANA AG LIZ MURRILL: You know, I haven't had that conversation with, I think that, you know, I received one of them. They're vile, they're racist, um, they are certainly not from any official source and, and, and I think every official that has seen them or heard about this has condemned [02:02:00] them. Um, so, you know, our, our main message right now is not to be victimized because we don't know whether, uh, Uh, that's a it is some kind of phishing scam there.

It does appear to be a hyperlink in it. So we don't want people to click on it. Um, and we would just urge people to, um, to delete them. You know, they are intended to be offensive. Uh, they are intended to be divisive and we need to, um, reject all of that.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: What went through your mind when you saw that you got an email like this?

LOUISIANA AG LIZ MURRILL: Uh, you know, I was surprised that it was in my email box. I mean, I don't think that Any of us know exactly how they access these locations. Some people get them through their telephones, which it feels very personal when that happens. You know, I think that, um, when you see something that lands in your text message box, you're used to texting back and forth with people that you know, um, or that you have some familiarity with, and then this comes through.

And so you wonder, you know, how did [02:03:00] they get my phone number? Um, and, and I think you feel the way when it comes into your personal email box like it did for me. Um, but I think there are a lot of ways that they can access this particular kind of information. Um, they can, uh, they can also piggyback on other people's networks and an email list.

The text messaging specifically, in our opinion, is coming through an email server. So it is really an email. It's just coming through your phone and your text messages, but it's coming through an email server. Then that's, um, so it's also coming through people's email boxes, but. It's offensive.

CHRIS JANSING - HOST, MSNBC: Yeah. I was just going to say we have literally just 30 seconds left, but, um, you know, how, um, sophisticated some of these folks can be.

Uh, they route through, as you, you point out, they can route through servers all over the world. What is your level of belief that, uh, someone, whether it's the FBI or anyone else investigating, we'll get to the bottom of this. [02:04:00]

LOUISIANA AG LIZ MURRILL: You know, it's hard to say. Um, we are going to try and continue to investigate and figure out where they're originating from.

Uh, we have been very successful and chasing a lot of criminal activity that occurs in the dark web. And so I actually have a fairly high degree of confidence that we will eventually find out where these are coming from. Um, but it's, it's, you know, like a lot of scams, you're right. They can be routed through a lot of different pathways.

Um, this 1 is mainly appears to be intended to, uh, offend people. And, uh, at this point, we aren't sure whether it has more nefarious effects, but that's why we're saying don't click on it.

SECTION D - WHAT NOW

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section D what now?

The Hard Truth About Why Harris Was the Wrong Choice for America Part 3 - The New Abnormal - Air Date 11-6-24

JARED YATES SEXTON: well, I mean, to get him at midterms would mean having a workable strategy and it has now been proven that there was never a strategy to begin with and we now have to cobble together an actual strategy.

And I want to be very intentional as I answered this [02:05:00] because we have entered into a new era. And, you know, I, I've been warning about this for years, and one of the things is the time to stop this has passed. The time to actually make sure that some of the worst case scenarios come to pass, that's gone.

And we had that opportunity, uh, back in 2016. If you think about the idea of you're living in a gated city and there is an army coming towards you, the time to lock the doors in order to ward them off is before they get there. They're now in the city. And as we look at this, we have to wrap our heads around a couple of crucial facts.

And to be frank, and this is some hard love, there are a lot of people who are going to have to grow up very quickly. They need to get away from some very, very delusional self serving fantasies that have been motivating them for years, that this was all fun, that everything was going to be fine, that they could meme their way out of it, that they could, you know, simply engage in a lot [02:06:00] of these soothing behaviors.

Bye. The truth is this. We are now engaged in an all out war, and that war has been coming towards us for a while and the time to ward it off is gone. This is now going to be the work of our lives. Even if there are elections in four years, even if we are able to elect a Democrat or at least keep a Republican from getting elected, this is going to be the fight that defines the rest of our lives.

That's the truth of this thing. If you can think about it in terms of a disease, you can either detect the disease early and mitigate the consequences of it or you can detect the disease later when it has metastasized and you have to take care of the radical consequences of that. So what we're actually talking about right now With Project 2025, with Elon Musk having control, unchecked power over the budget, I'm already thinking about what they're going to do.

What we're actually [02:07:00] talking about, Danielle, is we are talking about the culmination of a strategy that has been playing out for decades. The Republican Party, on behalf of their billionaire donors, have been working to destroy the progress of the 20th century, to get rid of all the social safety nets, the regulatory power of the federal government, everything that was put in place to actually serve citizens.

They've been going after that, education, science, reality itself. Now, all of a sudden, we are a couple of minutes from midnight on that. They have the apparatus in place that can actually deal a final blow to it. should have been answered with the 2024 election. And quite frankly, it should have been answered with the Joe Biden administration.

It should have been answered with the 2016 election. And to be frank, it should have been answered before the 2016 election. We now find ourselves in the reality of the moment, which is we are in the middle of a battle that is going to last the rest of our lives, and it's [02:08:00] going to define our lives. And quite frankly, for anyone listening to this who has children or grandchildren, it's going to define the lives of their children and their grandchildren.

All of this is not to make people feel powerless or hopeless. This is to talk about the facts of where they are and to start leaving behind childish delusional notions that we are not dealing with what we are actually dealing with.

DANIELLE MOODIE - CO-HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: You laid it out so beautifully and so perfectly. This is defining who we will be now, moving forward.

And I personally think, Jared, too, that the time for pointing fingers or Democrats doing what they normally do, which is let us do this autopsy and then move vigorously to the right. And forget about the base of black women. Forget about the base of progressives. We need to move dramatically to the right, uh, so that we have a fighting chance.

I think that the reality is, is that the fighting chance was 2024 [02:09:00] and that is now past us. And so my question to you is then, what does resistance look like moving forward? Because none of us Inside of these United States, we have not lived in an autocracy or a dictatorship before, so we have no idea what resistance looks like.

In the terms of this new context, we've only ever known go out and march, go out and protest. Well, Donald Trump wanted to shoot people back in 2020 for doing so. He's already talked about operationalizing our military against the American people. So, Jared, what does it look like? What do you think it looks like to resist inside of a country whose rules are now completely and totally thrown out the window?

JARED YATES SEXTON: Well, I would like to start by Probably reframing the way that some of the people listening to this podcast are thinking about American politics look at politics, you know, you were talking about pointing fingers and we could talk all day about the [02:10:00] results from the election and what they show us about politics moving forward, but that's not actually what we're talking about right now.

I need people to understand that 2024 was the moment that we could have possibly mitigated some of these consequences. And we could talk about the tactics of the Harris campaign, the Democratic Party, all we wanted. I want to talk about the, uh, the, the consultants and the, uh, the strategist and the operators within the Democratic Party.

We now know that billions of dollars were spent on this election. And by the way, that we had one grifter political action committee after another that raised tens of millions of dollars. Basically to enrich themselves and all of this is to point out that what we have done is we have outsourced resistance we have expected politicians and Operators to take care of it for us almost like hiring a contractor to take care of a leak or something going wrong in your house those notions Are no longer true and it's time we left them behind because we've been betrayed by these people And [02:11:00] they are going to be fine because they have made millions of dollars and they have lined their pockets You know, they went ahead.

They sold their soul for the silver and that's where things are now If we actually want to make a difference, what we need to do is on a personal level, we need to take a look at ourselves and decide what it is that we actually want, where it is that we actually want to go, what do we want this country to look like.

I understand that you oppose Donald Trump and the Republicans, and that's a great starting point. You need to understand why you oppose them. What is it about this agenda that offends you so much as an individual? When you decide that, You start figuring out your principles and principles are not about supporting a party.

They're not about sharing things on social media They're not about proclaiming what it is. You believe It's determining what it is that you want to live for and what it is that you're willing to die for That is one of the first rules of surviving in a dictatorship or an autocracy You have to decide i'm not going to go along with this I'm not going to put my [02:12:00] head in the sand when you're able to do that You're going to be able to talk to other people and what I want to challenge people to do besides healing in themselves the ways that authoritarianism and capitalist oppression has leaked into them, it's to start reaching out to other people and having real conversations to actually talk about how you're treated in your workplace, whether or not you think it's right that people are being exploited like this.

And I'm not just talking about coworkers. I'm talking about immigrants. I'm talking about vulnerable communities. Once you start dealing with these issues, those things, and we're talking about actual material conditions and experiences, you can start to form coalitions. And Danielle, what you just said is exactly right.

We are entering into a period where intentionally state power has created apparatuses in order to stave off protest. And I'm not just talking about the Gaza protest in which we saw students being absolutely decimated by law enforcement. I'm also talking about what happened during the BLM protest. I'm talking [02:13:00] about surveillance.

I'm talking about all these things that some people have said, Man, this is awful and then turned a blind eye to. The reason that we need to be with other people is because we need to recognize the interdependence of our situations, how I rise or fall based on what happens to you and what happens to people that I have never met and will never meet.

And when that comes together, all of a sudden there's a lot more people in the street and, you know, all you have to do It's look at China, you look at Iran, you look at actual social movements, and if this resonates with people, look what happened with civil rights. It wasn't that Martin Luther King made a speech that resonated with people.

It's that they got in the streets and actually stressed the system until the system had to look at its own privilege and make decisions. Liberals did not suddenly decide to pass civil rights legislation. It wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts. It was because they were confronted with the reality of their privilege and the oppression that came from that privilege.[02:14:00]

And so what is going to happen if we are going to get to a place where things are actually going to get better is a lot of people are going to have to be made uncomfortable. And that is the basis of modern America, is comfort where you can find it. That's why it's a premium. You have to pay extra to be comfortable in America, right?

Whether it's a gated community or to live in a blue state away from the oppression of the red states. People are going to have to take a look at what the actual conditions are that underline their own comfort and their own privilege. And you don't get a Donald Trump, you don't get the Republican Party, you don't get an autocracy or an authoritarian regime if people have not been living comfortably at the expense of Of others and so this is going to take a spiritual political Cultural and social sea change and if what i'm saying sounds hard and daunting it's only because it's hard and daunting But the alternative to it the alternative to it honest to god [02:15:00] Is a type of tragedy that I don't think most people are ready to really wrap their minds around but quite frankly The time to wrap your your mind around it is now

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today as always keep the comments coming in. I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202)999-3991. Or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now!, The New Abnormal, The Thom Hartmann Program, This Week in White Supremacy, Roland Martin, and MSNBC. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet: Ken, Brian, Ben, and our new addition, 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 [02:16:00] 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.

1 reaction Share

#1669 Private Equity: The worst of capitalism, amplified (Transcript)

Posted by · November 12, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 11/12/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast. It's easy enough to look into one industry at a time to see what's going wrong. That's what we usually do. But today we're looking at what is often lurking in the background of higher prices, lower quality goods, and services, and ultimately many failing businesses: private equity.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes The Plain Bagel, Wendover, The Chris Hedges Report, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and More Perfect Union.

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there'll be more in three sections: Section A: How it works; Section B: Power; and Section C: Solutions.

Why Does Everyone Hate Private Equity? - The Plain Bagel - Air Date 9-20-24

RICHARD COFFIN - HOST, THE PLAIN BAGEL: Most people have never heard of these companies before. Blackstone, the largest private equity company with over 1 trillion in assets under management, might be a more well known part of the group in part because people just keep mixing it up with the much larger Blackrock, but other [00:01:00] companies like KKR, Carlyle Group, Apollo, and a number of other large players in the space have all managed to maintain pretty low public profiles, despite the fact that many of these companies each individually manage hundreds of billions of dollars, really contributing to this dark, ominous image of a secret puppet master corporation operating everything from the shadows. And with the area having grown over 10 fold since the 2008 financial crisis, they've come to control some pretty prominent brands, including Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Michaels, and even Ancestry. com, which raises a number of questions. Who exactly are these companies? Are they really as evil as people say they are? Should I be concerned that they've been collecting spit samples from over 3. 5 million subscribers? And most importantly, should I invest in private equity? Because these days there are services rolling out that bring private equity offerings to retail investors.

Well, that's all what I'm going to try to sort out in today's video. And in the past, I have tackled the more conspiracy-esque theories around [00:02:00] large asset managers secretly controlling the world or trying to destroy given companies. And indeed private equity does come up often as a sort of filler villain for especially meme stock style theories. But to be clear, that stuff aside, the bad reputation around private equity is still pretty well deserved, with one National Bureau of Economic Research paper even arguing that private equity ownership of nursing homes has contributed to over 22, 000 additional deaths over a 12 year period. So, among other things, I'll also try to explain why it is that private equity can't seem to stop getting in trouble.

Now, as you might know, when we talk about private equity, we're really referring to private equity firms, or funds, which are groups that specialize in helping clients invest in these types of companies. Private equity itself is just an asset class or type of investment that encompasses all privately owned businesses. So basically any company that's not a publicly traded stock is technically private equity. And private equity or PE firms specialize in [00:03:00] helping their clients buy these types of companies since doing so is a lot more complicated than just buying a stock in Robinhood. With PE firms pooling client money together, employing teams of lawyers, analysts, and operations experts to take over these companies, and then trying to employ best practices or what have you to make the business more profitable, to earn themselves and their investors a return.

Now within private equity, there are a bunch of different strategies that a group might focus on. For example, there's venture capital where you effectively invest in startups. But the most popular and controversial strategy is the leveraged buyout, which represents roughly 28 percent of all private market AUM, inclusive of debt oriented strategies as of June, 2022. With this typically involving the PE fund, borrowing a bunch of money, typically 80 to 90 percent of the company purchase price, using that to acquire a usually mature business, saddling the debt onto the target company, and then trying to use the higher profits from the turnaround to pay down the leverage. Something that, when successful, can be very lucrative for investors, given how little capital is being put up front [00:04:00] to try and own this business.

Which touches on why private equity has been such a popular asset class. Because in addition to this sort of high risk, high return strategy, they've often been presented as being a superior asset class in terms of return, given the illiquidity premium, the higher barrier to entry, which leaves more opportunities for realizing returns. And in addition to all of that, they're argued to be less correlated to public markets, meaning they might not fall when everything else does, which offers diversification benefit. And they're often presented as being less volatile, meaning they don't swing around in price as much. I'll be able to get to those points later.

Now, the asset class does have its drawbacks. Some of the strategies are higher risk. It can be pretty illiquid, meaning that it can be difficult to get your money out of the investment, with some funds being able to gate or otherwise block investor withdrawals. And the superior return they offer does come at a pretty hefty price, with most funds charging two and 20, meaning a 2 percent annual fee based on the value of your investment, plus 20 percent carried interest or a [00:05:00] performance fee that pays out 20 percent of profits above a given threshold. But despite this private equity has continued to be a pretty popular strategy, which is why the investors who ultimately own the 13 trillion dollars being managed here include the likes of pension plans, endowments, and even country sovereign funds, which all sounds pretty good.

But then what's the problem? Well, there are a few, and they typically involve other stakeholders, but even investors in PE funds face a number of issues, with one of the more public problems being the layoffs that typically follow a PE acquisition, with this seemingly being a favorite tool in the arsenal of PE firms to try and squeeze more profits out of the companies they acquire.

In fact, one 2021 paper that looked at 6, 000 buyouts from 1980 to 2013 found that employment at target companies shrunk an average of 4.4 percentage points in the first two years relative to a peer group when omitting post buyout acquisitions and divestitures, with retail sector, in particular, receiving the short end of the stick here. With the area [00:06:00] expected to have lost 600, 000 jobs as a result of PE firms and hedge funds taking over companies over the last 10 years.

Now, layoffs can make sense when company is overstaffed and could use further optimization. But these layoffs and other cost cutting measures are often blamed for hurting the quality of products and services offered by these target companies. Which sucks when your morning honey cruller isn't as fresh as it used to be, but is particularly concerning when it comes to the other, more critical industries that private equity has gotten involved with.

Most notably, healthcare. With private equity having come to own 8 percent of private hospitals and 5 percent of total nursing home facilities, with one ASPE study finding that private equity investment in the latter resulted in a 12 percent relative decline in RN hours worked per resident day. And as you'd expect, it's had some negative impacts, with private equity owned private hospitals, seeing a lower CMS star rating and nursing facilities seeing a 14 percent increase in their deficiency score index, lower overall [00:07:00] inspection and staffing ratings, and even as cited earlier, a higher mortality rate among residents.

Now, in addition to healthcare, private equity has also caused a ruckus with real estate for managing funds that exclusively go around and buy up single family properties, with the goal of renting them out to tenants, which as you can imagine during a real estate affordability crisis is not cool, man. With advocacy groups arguing that not only are private equity firms taking inventory from other buyers, but that they also have a tendency to hike rates, evict tenants, and overall neglect their properties more than other ownership types in the pursuit of profits.

So, already you can see why some people aren't all that fond of private equity. But perhaps the most frustrating aspect here is that despite the layoffs and the deterioration of the products and services they offer, the companies that these firms promise to turn around still fail pretty frequently. Whether it be Toys R Us or, again, the more recent bankruptcy of Red Lobster, private equity's high risk approach has a pretty high failure rate [00:08:00] with a space accounting for 16 percent of us bankruptcy filings in 2023 and the first four months of 2024, in one study, even suggesting that companies held by leveraged buyout firms have a 20 percent bankruptcy rate in their first 10 years, 10 times higher than that of a control sample. Which is actually part of what contributes to the high unemployment that seemingly stemmed from private equity activity. And as you can imagine, for again, those critical industries, these sort of bankruptcies and failures can have pretty severe implications for many other stakeholders.

Which all brings us to the question: Why are private equity companies seemingly so reckless and aggressive? Don't they want to have a better rate of not failing? Well, part of it is that private equity firms tend to have a pretty short time horizon of anywhere from three to seven years, meaning that they often have an exit strategy that focuses on short term profitability, rather than long term sustainability. For example, a pretty common strategy for private equity firms is to take all of a company's real estate holdings and sell it to the market only to then rent [00:09:00] back those positions so that the PE firm has access to a sudden pool of capital, even though long term that just forces the company to now pay rent in addition to trying to pay down their massive debt balance.

But a more controversial aspect here is that private equity firms don't inherently need their companies to succeed to make money, thanks largely to how their investments are structured. When a private equity fund carries out a leveraged buyout, as mentioned, they often saddle that debt onto the acquired business. Meaning that there's a degree of separation between the fund and the liability for the debt they've taken on. If that company fails and is unable to pay back the debt, the fund is not often liable for the amount owed. So, beyond their initial investment, which again is often only 10 to 20 percent of the company's whole purchase price, there's not much financial liability that the funds face for their companies failing, with this lack of liability even sometimes extending to legal matters, with companies often able to dodge responsibility for the actions of the companies they effectively run thanks to their complex ownership structures.

In fact, according to federal prosecutor, [00:10:00] Brendan Ballou, we've even seen examples of PE firms abusing bankruptcy laws, using the mechanism to extinguish things like pension liabilities, which, mind you, represents money owed to employees, only to then reacquire the business after bankruptcy under a different arm to ultimately end up in a better financial position. And while the investors of these PE firms might lose when the companies they hold go bankrupt, because the private equity firms are often charging both their investors and the companies they manage fees, they can still benefit and end up positive while everyone else in the situation loses, with PE firms often criticized for benefiting from any of the cost cutting actions they've carried out, regardless of how intense they are, while leaving their portfolio companies to deal with all the consequences

How Private Equity Consumed America - Wendover Productions - Air Date 5-7-24

SAM DENBY - HOST, WENDOVER PRODUCTIONS: Structurally, private equity firms are not complicated. Their cores are the general partner. General partners typically know the right people. It is not an entry level job.

To take the example of a rather random, rather unremarkable firm, JW Childs Associates was founded by general partner John W. Childs [00:11:00] after a long and successful stint at Thomas H. Lee Partners, founded by Thomas H. Lee. Thomas H. Lee founded his firm after a long stint at the First National Bank of Boston, where he rose to the rank of Vice President. Other examples of private equity general partners include Mitt Romney of Bain Capital, who was also the 2012 Republican nominee for President, and Stephen Schwartzerman of Blackstone, the 34th wealthiest person in the world.

These connections are crucial thanks to step two in the process: raising money. Typically, general partners start by throwing in a couple million of their own money to set the stakes, then they'll go around pitching investors on why they're the best person to manage the investors' money. Often it has something to do with having particular experience in a particular industry that is particularly attractive for particular reasons.

In the case of J. W. Childs, he likely went around arguing that he had a particular knack for investing in consumer food and beverage companies, since at his prior firm, he had helped arrange the buyout of Snapple for $135 million in 1992, which his firm sold two years later for [00:12:00] $1.7 billion after massive revenue growth. And he likely argued that food and beverage companies are great for investment since people have to eat and drink, and therefore the sector is less subject to the cycles of the market than something like tech.

This sort of stability is particularly attractive to the massive institutions that make up the core of private equity investors. In John W. Childs's case, insurance companies like Northwestern Mutual or employee pension funds like the Bayer Corporation Master Trust. Individuals can theoretically invest in PE funds, but only if they hold enormous wealth. It varies dramatically, but many funds have minimum investments upwards of $25 million.

Meanwhile, the way private equity firms themselves make money is remarkably consistent. They just take 2% of it. 2% of all money each year is taken as a fee regardless of whether or not the firm actually grows the investments. But then to incentivize returns, the firm also sets a benchmark called a "hurdle" that they're aiming to beat in year over year investment growth, say [00:13:00] 7%. Any money earned on top of that hurdle is then subject to a 20% fee that goes back to the firm.

So, say if a fund was originally worth $100 million but grew to $110 million, $3 million would be subject to that performance fee, and so 20 percent of it, $600,000, would go back to the firm.

In practice, what's earned from the 2 percent base fee is fairly consistent, since there are generally restrictions as to when investors can take money out of the fund, so the sum does not generally fluctuate rapidly. Therefore, firms typically earmark this base fee for covering basic operating costs like office rent and analyst salaries.

But how much is made from that 20 percent fee varies enormously. Some years it could be nothing, others it could be yacht money, especially since the gains from that fee are generally distributed primarily to the general partner.

This is how general partners like John W. Childs become billionaires. And even better, the money from these fees is not considered traditional income by the American tax authorities. It's considered capital gains. Despite the fact that [00:14:00] these earnings do not truly come from investments by the general partners themselves, the IRS treats them as if they do, and therefore only about 20 percent goes to taxes, versus the 37 percent they pay on traditional income.

So, considering it's the primary source of their wealth, the general partner is massively incentivized to maximize their firm's gains, and to supercharge this to the next level, they almost all rely on one simple trick. They don't actually invest their own money, at least primarily. Now, if a $100 million fund bought a $100 million company and increased its value by 25%, they'd gain $25 million. But if a $100 million fund bought a $400 million company and increased its value by the same multiple, they'd gain $100 million. They'd 2x the fund's value.

And, believe it or not, a $100 million fund can buy a $400 million company, as long as they have a friendly banker. This is what's referred to as a leveraged buyout. The fund puts in some of [00:15:00] their money, but primarily relies on borrowed money to pay the seller, just like a homebuyer with a mortgage. This magnifies the potential earnings, but in turn, of course, the potential losses. But it's worth considering what this does for the general partner. In a $100 million fund buying a $400 million company with 75 percent borrowed money, very small margins of growth can make all the difference for this one individual.

With a 7 percent hurdle and 7.5 percent growth, 20 percent of the margin above 7 percent on that $400 million company would earn this individual $400,000. But if instead, the company reached 7.75 percent growth, the general partner would earn $600,000. Because of this amplifying effect, every quarter of a percent growth, a rather small difference, earns the general partner another $200,000 in income.

It's also worth considering that it really doesn't matter exactly how this value is created. For every [00:16:00] miraculous Yahoo turnaround story, there's a Marsh Supermarkets. At no point did Marsh reach the size or level of national ubiquity as Yahoo. If you aren't from Indiana or Western Ohio, you've likely never heard of Marsh Supermarkets. Yet, while confined to just two states, Marsh Supermarkets and its private equity takeover exemplifies a pattern that spans all 50.

The first Marsh opened here, a small local grocer catering to specific local needs in Muncie, Indiana, in 1931. The simple concept took. Weathering the Great Depression, then outlasting World War II, the budding Indiana institution began to expand. By the 1950s, there were 16 Marsh locations across the state, by 1952 there was a Marsh distribution center in Yorktown, Indiana, and by 1956 the store was expanding into Ohio.

As demands changed in the 60s, the company adjusted. Marsh FoodLiners became Marsh Supermarkets, growing in size to accommodate one stop shopping.

Diversifying as decades [00:17:00] progressed, the company also established its own convenience store, the Village Pantry, its own bargain bin store, Lowville Foods, and eventually purchased its own upscale grocers in Omalia Foods and Arthur's Fresh Market. Blanketing urban and suburban Indiana and western Ohio, Marsh and Marsh properties were a mainstay through the 90s and 2000s.

And it was at about this time that Sun Capital became interested in the company.

Today, there are zero Marsh locations. In 2017, unable to keep up with rent payments and struggling to pay vendors, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, closing every last location and liquidating all remaining assets. Like an empire spread too thin, Marsh had reached its territorial epoch before collapsing in on itself within just two decades, all on a timeline that rather neatly lines up with the brand's time under Sun Capital's ownership.

Now, Sun Capital Partners didn't instigate the regional grocer's fall from grace. Prior to the sale, Marsh had [00:18:00] expensively failed to expand into Chicago, it had felt their revenue squeezed from encroaching box stores, and it watched Kroger's parade into its grocery market. In response, the company began to fall behind, failing to modernize its stores or products, backing out of sponsorship deals with the Indiana State Fair, and opening itself up to the possibility of selling.

In an atmosphere of supermarket consolidation, though, there wasn't much interest in the struggling chain. Not until someone noticed in a footnote in the company's financial report that the company held a rather robust real estate portfolio, a $325 million purchase point then became more palatable. And in early 2006, Sun Capital jumped, paying $88 million in cash and assuming $237 million of debt.

To Sun Capital, the deal was a can't lose proposition. Either they'd turn around and flip a bloated business, or they'd sell the assets -- assets which, just in real estate, have been estimated to be worth $238 to $360 million.

[00:19:00] Under new ownership, things changed quickly. They pared management, they sold the company jet, and with the money saved, they renovated storefronts. Sales went up. Then came more maneuvering, but less the kind that would help bump sales. Almost immediately after Sun Capital took over, store locations went up for sale; this one for $750,000, this one for $2.15 million. and this one for $1.2 million. They'd stay operating as Marsh Stores, but they'd now be paying a lease while Sun Capital would collect an unspecified commission on the sales.

They even went as far as selling the company headquarters for a reported $28 million before then straddling the grocer with a 20-year lease increasing on a 7 percent clip every five years. This maneuver is called a sale leaseback, and it's quite common in private equity because, at least on paper, it makes sense for both parties. Marsh supermarket properties were no exception, as they could boost dividends or provide capital for [00:20:00] another leveraged buyout for Sun Capital, while also helping the grocer to pay down debt and provide investment flexibility in the short term. But as for the consequences accompanying that long, escalating lease on company headquarters, along with cost saving moves like carrying name brand products, cutting staff, and contracting out more and more services, well, Sun Capital just hoped it wouldn't have to deal with them.

As of early 2009, news bubbled to the surface that they were trying to sell the grocery chain. But to the dismay of Sun Capital, the new, leaner, streamlined Marsh just wouldn't sell. Ultimately, the new owner business boost was short lasted, and in 2017, the grocer would go out of business with Sun Capital at the helm until the very day it filed for bankruptcy.

Tucson Capital, failing to sell was a missed opportunity in a company overhaul that they would deem a loss, as the group ultimately came $500,000 short of recouping their investment into the chain grocery store.

But even in a loss, the private equity firm won. They still collected their management [00:21:00] fee each year of ownership, after all. They also collected their commission on sold assets as the company spun off its property at seemingly every turn. Really the only loss was that they just didn't win more.

The same couldn't be said about the consumers or employees, though.

Deeply embedded in Indiana and Ohio's urban areas, Marsh locations provided healthier, fresher alternatives in areas at risk of fading into food deserts. Beyond nostalgia, residents who lost their local grocery and pharmacy were mad, confused, and lost with the disappearance of a long-time local institution.

Then there were the people that worked for Marsh. According to Washington Post reporting, at the onset of Sun Capital's ownership, only one of three retirement plans was agreed to be fully funded by the new ownership -- unsurprisingly, the executive's plan. As for store employees, their pension went underfunded by some $32 million, which fell not on Sun Capital to even out, but to the government insurer.

As for warehouse workers, Marsh owed [00:22:00] some $55 million at the time of bankruptcy to their pension, which was already struggling to pay out full checks.

Ultimately, Marsh Supermarkets as a business and Sun Capital as a private equity firm are relatively small potatoes, but their ill-fated eleven years speak to a larger pattern in American life.

How private equity conquered America - The Chris Hedges Report - Air Date 3-1-24

CHRIS HEDGES - THE CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: You write that they operate in secrecy with hidden ties to companies they control. The wreckage they leave behind is often difficult to track back to its origins. And I want to raise another point that you do in the book and I thought it was important: Many Americans who are being assaulted this way know something’s wrong, but they don’t quite know what is wrong. It’s tied to this, almost invisible, hand. Explain that. And then I want you to talk about their political clout because it’s significant. They get [00:23:00] the tax breaks, they corrupt the system enough to essentially grease the skids for them to continue to operate.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. So the secrecy is important. One of the reasons that we wanted to write this book is to let people know how pervasive this business model is.

CHRIS HEDGES - THE CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: Well, you write at one point that all of us, although we don’t know it, are engaging with private equity firms. So talk about how extensive it is and then talk about that secrecy too.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: I write in the book that the coffee and donut that you pick up on the way to work, the child care entity where you drop your son or daughter off, the nursing home where your mother or father lives—it is cradle to grave, literally, you’re impacted by private equity, but you don’t know it because these are just companies that are buying and selling, but you [00:24:00] don’t know who the real owner is behind the scenes. And they like it that way, they want to keep it that way because they operate best in secrecy. They’re private companies. They don’t have to make filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, so a lot of their business and a lot of their practices are hidden from view, and that is by design.

One of the things that I think could improve our perception or educate people about how pervasive private equity has become is to force these firms to identify themselves as the owners; So it should be the Carlyle nursing home or the Blackstone donut shop or whatever, just so you are aware of who you are dealing with and whose [00:25:00] pocket you’re putting your money into.

Now, the secrecy is one thing; the political clout is, as you say, immense, because they have so much money. Their tax treatment is an outrage and many presidents have tried to change it, but have not been able to do so.

CHRIS HEDGES - THE CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: Explain the tax part.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Their fortunes are enhanced by the fact that they pay a fraction of what you and I pay on our incomes every year because it’s called carried interest. It’s not considered ordinary income. The ordinary income tax rate is, what, up to 35%? What these people pay is around 21% on the income that [00:26:00] they receive from their operations. That’s something that’s been in the books for decades but it really has created a skewed system where they make fortunes, billions of dollars. The government loses because they’re not generating the tax revenues that they should on those billions. It’s just, it's nuts.

Now, the last time someone tried to change this, Kyrsten Sinema was a holdout, the –

CHRIS HEDGES - THE CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: Because it was good for the people of Arizona.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: – right, the lawmaker from Arizona. She, I think, received $1.5 million from the private equity world to stand up and say no, and she scotched it. So, getting them to pay their fair share of taxes would [00:27:00] be a good thing. It would help the government, it would generate more income, and it would take away this unfair aspect of their business.

CHRIS HEDGES - THE CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: You write, “Routinely lionized in the financial press for their dealmaking and lauded for their ‘charitable’ giving, these unbridled capitalists have mounted expensive lobbying campaigns to ensure continued enrichment from favorable tax laws. Hefty donations have won them positions of power on museum boards and think tanks. They’ve published books on leadership extolling ‘the importance of humility and humanity’ at the top while eviscerating those at the bottom. Their companies arrange for them to avoid paying taxes on the billions in gains that their stockholdings generate. And, of course, they rarely mention that the companies they own are among the largest beneficiaries of government investments in highways, railroads, and primary education, reaping massive perks from subsidies and tax policies [00:28:00] that allow them to pay substantially lower rates on their earnings. These men are America’s modern-age robber barons. But unlike many of their predecessors in the 19th century, who amassed stupefying riches by extracting a young nation’s natural resources, today’s barons mine their wealth from the poor and middle class through complex financial dealings.”

These people, not just control politicians, but they serve in government. You have several examples of that. So explain a little bit about how they dominate the political system.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Jay Powell, our head of the Federal Reserve Board, he was a Carlyle executive. They’re really everywhere. Again, it’s this pervasiveness. But even if they’re not on the job, say, in the [00:29:00] government, they are behind the scenes absolutely manipulating outcomes so that their businesses will benefit. They’re so powerful and so wealthy and, you know, Chris, better than anybody, how money is so central, unfortunately, to how our government works.

You just have not had enough attention to this wealth grab by these people. The one thing we did have—the activity, the practices were so outrageous that it got Congress to act, and that was on the surprise medical bills that you mentioned a bit ago. This was a creation, the brainchild of a company called Envision, which is owned [00:30:00] by KKR. And what Envision did was it went into emergency departments and started running many of those emergency departments in a hospital. It wouldn’t own the hospital, but it ran the emergency departments.

Envision decided that what they could do is they could make the emergency department a separate entity outside of the insurance coverage that the hospital’s patients would normally have. So you’re in your town, you go to the emergency department, you’ve broken your arm or whatever, you naturally assume that yourinsurance – which covers your normal hospital stay or treatment – you naturally assume it’s going to cover your emergency department bill.

Well, Envision carved themselves out of that so that you would have to pay more. And this was something that was so [00:31:00] crazy and impossible to think that it could happen, that Congress did something about it and changed and curbed the practice. They didn’t eliminate them, but they curbed it. And guess what? Envision went bankrupt after that because its business model required them, … its business model was based on ripping people off.

Warren Calls for Ownership Transparency for Private Equity in Health Care - Senator Elizabeth Warren - Air Date 7-12-24

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Mr. Chairman, and thank you and Ranking Member Braun for holding this hearing on price transparency. For almost every other type of service, you can look up the price before deciding whether or not to purchase. But when it comes to health care, it is virtually impossible, even though Americans are paying more for health care then at any other country in the world.

So when patients need health care, they should be able to easily find out the price of those services. Here's something else they should be able to find out easily: who [00:32:00] owns the hospital or the physician practice that you or a loved one may visit to receive that care? Today, nearly 80 percent of doctors are employed by corporate entities, including private equity firms. And once in control, these firms raise their prices and cut corners to line their own pockets, while the quality of care suffers.

So let me start with you, Dr. Whaley. You are an expert on private equity in health care. If a patient wanted to find out whether a neighborhood hospital or a primary care practice was owned by private equity, how hard would that be to do?

DR. CHRIS WHALEY: Senator Warren, I think it's virtually impossible for a patient to know whether or not their doctor's office is owned by a private equity company.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah, so virtually impossible. Because private equity firms don't have to report ownership, it is nearly impossible to find out if the doctor's office you visit is owned by one of these corporate [00:33:00] vultures.

Well, let's ask about the workers. How hard is it for the workers to find out? Ms. Upsal, you lead the health fund at Labor Union 32BJ. If one of your members wanted to find out if a potential employer of any kind was owned by a private equity company, how simple would that be to do?

CORA OPSAHL: Similar to what Dr. Whaley said, next to impossible. And I would even say as the employer or as the sponsor of the plan, I don't know who I'm writing my self funded checks to, as well.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Okay, so next to impossible, virtually impossible. I'm, sensing a trend here. Patients can't find this information. Workers can't find this information. Even antitrust regulators have a hard time finding this information. These are the agencies that are responsible for cracking down on anti-competitive behavior, and they can't get their hands on these data. And it matters, because [00:34:00] private equity ownership has real consequences for the families and the workers who need help here.

So Dr. Whaley, once private equity firms take over health care companies, what happens to health care cost and quality?

DR. CHRIS WHALEY: Several studies have shown that when a private equity company acquires a healthcare practice, whether it be a physician or a hospital or other type of healthcare provider, prices increase quite substantially.

We've also seen evidence, particularly in nursing homes, that quality goes down, again, quite substantially.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: I just want to relate this to the earlier line of questions, where he said, people are using higher price as a signal that they're going to get better care. And yet, the data show us that when private equity takes over, price goes up and quality of care actually goes down. Is that right, Dr. Whaley?

DR. CHRIS WHALEY: That's what the host of studies that have examined this question.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah, so not just one [00:35:00] study. You see it across the board in all of the studies that have looked at this.

I saw this first hand in Massachusetts after private equity drove Steward Health Care into bankruptcy. And that is why I introduced the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act, which, among other things, would require private equity-owned health care companies to publicly report mergers, acquisitions, changes in ownership and control, and financial data. So at least the information would be out there.

Let me ask: Dr. Whaley, would these data help state and federal regulators prevent crises like the Steward failure in the future?

DR. CHRIS WHALEY: I think having accurate and transparent data on ownership is incredibly important, and can help both state and federal regulators monitor healthcare markets and get ahead of what's happened in many cases.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah. It is shameful that these firms can hide in the shadows while [00:36:00] patients and workers suffer. My Corporate Crimes Against Healthcare Act would shine a light on private equity's most parasitic practices. It would also claw back compensation from private equity executives that drive portfolio companies into bankruptcy. It would impose criminal penalties on executives when their failures result in patient deaths. And it would empower regulators to prevent crises like Steward from ever happening again. There's a lot of work we need to do here.

BlackRock: The Conspiracies You Don’t Know - More Perfect Union - Air Date 9-15-24

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: I spoke with Benjamin Braun, a professor of political economy at the London School of Economics. He's written a bunch of studies on asset managers' role in our economy and society.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: The fees you earn if you're BlackRock increase when the market value of the assets you manage increases. You maximize your assets under management by winning over new clients and by getting the clients that you already have to give you more money.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: When you have 10 trillion dollars, you have to put them somewhere, [00:37:00] and eventually that somewhere becomes everywhere.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: Universal ownership refers to holding shares in the entire universe of firms listed on the stock matket, the big three asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, hold a sizable, but still relatively small, stake in all listed corporations.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: BlackRock is a 3-10% shareholder in all of these companies. This may not sound like a lot, but it's enough that selling all of it at once would likely crash that entire stock, locking them into the whole not selling passive thing.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: 5 percent in any individual company is actually very significant because if and when shareholdership is dispersed, 5 percent makes you, in all likelihood, the single largest shareholder in that company.

That's why, for example, in a lot of academic studies, 5 percent is taken as a threshold for control. There's almost no difference between Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, and [00:38:00] even a bunch of other asset managers in terms of their business model. So then you can start and wonder, okay, so if the big three together hold 25% of the shares in any individual company, then you're definitely above the threshold.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: Let's zoom in on Amazon. The big three owns 16% of all outstanding Amazon shares. Jeff Bezos only owns 9%.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: In theory, universal owners should have an interest in maximizing profits in the long term across the entire economy. And that is not how they operate in practice.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: The amount of stock you have determines the number of votes you get.

BlackRock is almost always in the top three, maybe five if they're feeling broke. So that is a lot of votes. And let's not forget, It's not BlackRock's money that's invested. It's your dad's pension fund and your insurer's massive pile of savings. It sounds crazy, but when you put your money in a pension fund, you sign away your voting rights to the pension fund manager. And then when the pension fund manager puts all their pension [00:39:00] funds under an asset manager's control, they sign away all those votes to the asset manager. Kind of pyramid scheme vibes.

And how do they actually use those votes? A 2017 study found that asset managers almost always voted with what the company executives recommended. And why are they always voting with company management? Back in the 80s, company managers used to spend company money on company things, like corporate jets, fancy offices, or occasionally paying their employees. And this made the investors sad, because they wanted those profits. So they started offering company managers, in addition to bonuses and benefits, stock options. Executives' total pay was now forever tied to how much the company made.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: They can push managers, corporate managers, to act more in the interest of shareholders, meaning in the interest of corporate profits, and do more to maximize corporate profits.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: This funnels money back to investors, who now include management, and away from any hope of making companies work better, or including employees in the [00:40:00] profits that their labor created. Back in the day, like, my grandparents' day, more regular people had stocks, and the idea was that every shareholder could vote on things like board elections, mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, and once in a while, wages. Sort of like democracy for people with disposable income.

RONALD REAGAN: Government is the people's business. And every man, woman, and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: In 1945, 94 percent of stocks were owned by households. But that's not really how it works anymore. Today, households have more like 40 percent of the stock market, and about half of that belongs to the top 10%.

Today, the top 1 percent own 50 percent of corporate equity and mutual fund shares, while the top 10 percent own 86%. [Referring to chart in video] Did you think this yellow part was everyone else? Nope. The tiny green part on the bottom is the least wealthy [00:41:00] half of Americans.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: You often hear this argument that what is good for shareholders is good for everyone because, especially in the U. S., where retirement assets are overwhelmingly invested in corporate equities, everyone is a shareholder. But that's simply not true. The bottom 50 percent virtually owns no shares at all. The vast majority of shares are held by the top 10%, and within that even, shareholdings are quite concentrated within the top 1%.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: And while the strategies corporations choose (because asset managers vote for them) affect everyone, they only benefit half the population even a little bit, and frequently hurt the other half, those without any shares at all. Take the example of worker pay. BlackRock and other asset managers play a huge part in wage stagnation.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: If you're a corporation, you can increase profits only in so many ways, and you can always, in the short term, increased returns to shareholders [00:42:00] by squeezing workers.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: So this kind of uber monopolization really hurts working people, consumers, and even small businesses. And this is where it gets interesting. There's evidence that this type of universal ownership is in part responsible for why everything is so expensive these days. For example, they have significant stakes in Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, and Under Armour. If one outperforms the other, it's the same from BlackRock's point of view. And sometimes it can even lose investors money altogether if companies were to start lowering prices to compete.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: That's the universal ownership logic in action, but it's also an anti competitive logic in action. The fact that all five airlines, all the major banks, for example, in the U. S. have the same large shareholders, creates a danger and a risk that these corporations will not engage in competition in the same way they would if they each had different shareholders, because in that world, each shareholder would root for [00:43:00] their company and would help to outperform the market by the company they waged a bet on.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: It's sort of like a neo monopoly where companies don't even have to merge and buy each other anymore because they all send profits to the same guys no matter what. And their large stakes in basically every company affords them friends in high places.

From just 2014 to 2015, BlackRock performed over 1, 500 private engagements with the companies held in their portfolio. BlackRock reportedly believes that meetings behind closed doors can go further than votes against management. And they typically give management a year before voting against them. They also have a lot of friends in the government. There's a sort of revolving door between BlackRock, the government, and the international bodies that create monetary policy. Things like the U. S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, the central banks of Canada, some European countries and Sweden, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, BlackRock has hired at least 84 former government officials, regulators, and central bankers worldwide.

LARRY FINK: The [00:44:00] intersection of politics and business has never been more ongoing.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: Larry Fink himself is on the board of the WEF and even tried to get himself selected as Hillary Clinton's Treasury Secretary in 2016. And in 2008, they got themselves a pretty sweet deal.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Traders say this is the craziest day they have ever seen in these markets. Veteran traders say they've never seen anything like it.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: In the aftermath, the government created the Financial Stability Oversight Council to oversee entities like BlackRock that control a lot of money but aren't banks. The FSOC pointed to BlackRock as an organization that's so big that its failure could cause another collapse and tried to put additional oversight on them.

But BlackRock doubled their political lobbying spending, including running a super targeted ad campaign on the D. C. metro, and managed to dodge the oversight that other large financial institutions received. And let's come back to that loophole they like to call passivity. The people who decide if they're passive enough to continue not to be overseen by the government is BlackRock themselves.

Basically, BlackRock and other asset managers have to submit annual [00:45:00] letters to self certify that they've been compliant with the terms of passive investment. That's like being allowed to write whatever you want on your taxes and then audit yourself, except if you also had 10 trillion dollars, which, unless you're watching this and you're literally Larry Fink—hey bestie—I'm gonna safely assume you don't.

The part that really blows my mind is that while this one company already has their eggs in basically every basket and is making money off seemingly everyone, it goes even deeper than that. The biggest investors in BlackRock are Vanguard and State Street. And the biggest investors in Vanguard are BlackRock and State Street. And the biggest investors in State Street are, you guessed it, BlackRock and Vanguard.

BENJAMIN BRAUN: Asset managers are the shareholders of asset managers. And this is true for all financial firms. And not only, in fact, for stock market listed firms, but private equity firms, buying a private insurance.

ADREINNE BULLER - HOST, MORE PERFECT UNION: So the financial sector effectively owns itself. The biggest companies that they own, own them back, creating this loop that sucks money in and never seems to [00:46:00] spit it back out. They play all sides of the game because at a certain point, you can't lose when you play against yourself.

So, going back to our original questions: Does BlackRock own everything? No. But do they control everything? Kinda. They profit off of every bit of your life, while controlling just the minimum amount they need to make sure they can continue profiting off of every bit of your life. And they get paid by teacher's retirement funds to do it. And they get away with this by constantly exchanging money for power and utilizing legal loopholes.

It's worth being pedantic here for a second. They don't own everything. They own shares in everything, which gives them an outsized amount of control. So while they're not necessarily the ones making all the nitty gritty decisions in every company, it is their influence and this giant structure of universal ownership that continues to make their pie bigger and ours smaller. It's the ultimate endgame of the Investor Management Alliance.

Regulating them much further is going to prove difficult, and this is a solution to one part of a much larger problem. [00:47:00] We no longer have the old system of shareholder democracy. We have something more like a shareholder oligarchy where the people with the most power over where our money and stuff goes are incentivized to make that stuff worse and more expensive and not work for us.

But BlackRock didn't create this system, they just used it to their advantage. And I think we deserve a better one.

Notes from the Editor on getting through this together

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Plain Bagel explaining the basics of private equity. Wendover highlighted the case study of the Marsh grocery chain. The Chris Hedges Report looked at the revolving door behind the scenes of private equity. Senator Elizabeth Warren looked at the impact of private equity on healthcare. And More Perfect Union broke down our shareholder oligarchy headed up by BlackRock.

And those were just the top takes. There's a lot more in the deeper dives section. But first a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process, even in these trying [00:48:00] times. 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. Members also get chapter markers in the show, but depending on the app you use to listen, you may be able to use the time codes in the show notes to jump around the show, similar to chapter markers. So check that out. 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.

Now, before we continue on to the deeper dives half of the show, just a quick comment on the post election recovery period we're in right now. Now, as a straight White guy with full citizenship, I am aware that I am certainly not near the top of Trump's enemies list. But presumably, because I care about how other people will be impacted, as well as caring about how my own [00:49:00] mental health will be affected by the stress that comes along with President Trump-driven news alerts, I'm definitely having a sort of anticipatory anxiety that is impacting my sleep patterns and appetite. All of which is to say that I can hardly imagine what others who will be more directly affected are going through right now. And yet, at least to varying degrees, we are all going through this together.

Now, nothing is going to make the current situation feel good, but I hope that there is at least some comfort in being reminded that the feelings you're having are not just yours alone. To that point, I mentioned toward the end of our post election round table discussion that I'd been having some thoughts about how to rework and relaunch our activism segments we used to do more often. Before I'd even given more details on it. Alan, from Connecticut called in and sort of preempted my plan.

VOICEMAILER: ALAN FROM CONNECTICUT: Hey Jay, it's Alan from Connecticut calling in. I skipped [00:50:00] ahead to the last episode here—and, uh, bonus gone mainstream, if you will—and in the end you were talking about activism and how you wanted to rethink that because It gives a laundry list of things that we're not doing. I have to tell you, I love hearing that stuff, even if it's not something that I'm able to do or doing knowing that it's out there, knowing that somebody's doing something is really good for my mental health, even if I can't participate, or even by the time I hear about it, it's over, knowing that it's happening is really, really helpful. So, put the different spin on it if you want, but do know that knowing what's going on out there is helpful. And if you put it at the end of the show, people can always speed past it or whatever. But I find it helpful. Anyway, thanks, stay awesome, and for whatever we can do, keep the faith.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now in all honesty, one of the major reasons we drift away from doing those segments was that we were very unsure of how effective they were on multiple [00:51:00] levels. We were unsure of how effective the actions were in general. And we were even more unsure of how much action we were actually driving from listeners with those segments. So, we sorta got discouraged in the sense that we didn't know if the effort we were putting in was really amounting to anything.

Now, the rethink I had just after the election was exactly what Alan just laid out. The biggest benefit from those activism segments probably never had anything to do with driving action. The biggest benefit was likely driving inspiration. So, the hope is to gear back up in a way that incorporates activism into the show, but with a clearer understanding of what it's there for, and to have that be part of the communication in each of those segments. The idea will be to make people feel good to help people's mental health and to potentially spur inspiration, whether to take action on what we're talking about or [00:52:00] something else, it doesn't really matter. But that is the idea at least. Give us some time to sort that all out because of course we're still not eating or sleeping well, so it's not exactly the best time to stretch ourselves even further.

SECTION A - HOW IT WORKS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: For now we'll continue to dive deeper on three topics. Next up Section A: How it works; followed by Section B: Power; and Section C: Solutions.

Why Private Equity SUCKS for (almost) Everyone - The Market Exit - Air Date 9-8-22

ANDRES ACEVEDO - HOST, THE MARKET EXIT: How come the handful of people who are partners at private equity firms gets so immensely wealthy? The answer to that is simple. As the recipe prescribes, the magic PE sauce must include life changing incentives, which means that the fees that private equity firms charge must be out of this world. First, the private equity firm charges an annual management fee, usually 2 percent of the money that the investors put into the fund.

This is a fee that they get irrespective of how the fund performs. Second, the private equity firms Many private equity firms also charge a performance based fee, [00:53:00] which is for some reason called a carried interest. This performance based fee is usually 20 percent of the profits that the funds make. And in addition to the management fees and the carried interest, many private equity firms also charge the target companies that they buy various fees with creative names, such as deal fees, service fees, and advisory fees.

As if all of those fees to the private equity firm wasn't enough, there's a lot more that the investors have to pay for. Leveraged buyouts are really complex transactions, and private equity firms don't know how to do them. So they take in hordes of extremely expensive consultants to do the transactions for them.

Lawyers, management consultants, bankers, accountants, etc. All billing handsomely by the hour. If you average out all of these fees that the investors have to cover, you'll find that investors have to pay between 6 and 7 percent to invest in private equity. [00:54:00] To compare, hedge fund investments cost around 4 percent, active mutual funds around 2 percent, and passive mutual funds less than 1 percent.

If you have capital to deploy, private equity is an extremely expensive way to do it. So why do investors, such as our pension funds, still invest in private equity? Why do they accept that so much of their money goes into the pockets of a few private equity partners and all of their consultants when there are cheaper investment options?

Surely that must be because private equity clearly outperforms everything else that is out there. And for sure, the private equity firms and their lobby organizations, such as the AIC and the SVCA, will tell you that yes, private equity does outperform other investments and that the life changing fees private equity firms are charging are not only worth it, they are a key reason for why private equity firms perform [00:55:00] so well.

Also the consultants who build by the hour to enable the buyouts, the lawyers, the bankers, the accountants, the management consultants will gladly attest to how much value private equity firms can create. But many independent experts are quite certain that That private equity does not clearly outperform other asset classes.

The University of Oxford professor of finance, Ludovic Falippu, and several others, makes the case that private equity funds do not clearly outperform other asset classes. Instead, private equity has given investors performance that more or less matches the public stock market indexes. And if that is true, then anyone who invests in private equity will pay around 7 percent per year when they could have paid way below 1 percent per year for a similar return.

But even if private equity would clearly outperform other asset classes, I still find it difficult to accept that these fee levels are necessary. [00:56:00] Should we really believe that private equity partners wouldn't go to work unless the investors, in other words, our pension funds, are there? Give them billions of dollars in fees.

Clearly, there is something foul about the incentive ingredient in the magic pea sauce. But unfortunately, also the other two ingredients smell a bit funky.

When private equity firm Accel bought the Jon Bauer school group, they loaded it up with a mountain of debt. Immediately after the acquisition, Jon Bauer had to start paying huge sums in interest And as long as John Bauer kept expanding as much as Excel had expected and projected, everything was fine.

But when John Bauer no longer was able to attract as many students and failed to increase revenues, things got tough. John Bauer had to start cutting costs to afford its interest payments, and scandals soon started piling up. And in 2013, John [00:57:00] Bauer had to file for bankruptcy. Remember that backbreaking debt is a key ingredient in the magic pea sauce.

The private equity firm borrows around 80 percent of what it costs to buy a company and makes the company responsible for that debt. And why do they do that? Well, this debt, or leverage, increases the private equity firm's potential return on investment. In other words, how much profits they can make. But the debt also serves other purposes.

First, it lowers the target company's tax liability. Second, it supposedly makes the target company more disciplined. The company must keep its costs low and revenues high in order to afford the debts. Otherwise, it fails. But this debt that the private equity firms load onto its target companies also makes the target companies much more vulnerable, increasing the risk of failure, which is what happened to the John Bauer school group.

The beautiful thing for private equity firms is that when that [00:58:00] happens, when their target companies that they've bought out succumbs to their debt obligations, it's not the private equity firm's responsibility to repay any of that debt. When their investments do well, the private equity firm reaps astronomical gains, but when their target companies fail, the true losses fall mainly on other stakeholders.

The company's employees, its customers, its suppliers, its creditors, and the community at large. A fate that John Bower's teachers and students had to experience firsthand. The third ingredient in the magic pizza sauce is that the brilliant private equity partners take full control of the target company so it can unlock value thanks to the private equity firm's superior management skills.

But it should go without saying that a private equity partner with little or no experience from a particular industry cannot improve the actual products with actual services of a [00:59:00] target company. All this private equity partner, this glorified financial intermediary can do for its target company is to deploy the bluntest instruments that capitalism has to offer.

The private equity firm helps the target company cut costs through layoffs. Offshoring and asset stripping. And the private equity firm helps the target company increase revenues by deploying state of the art methods for price increases. In other words, what private equity firms do is to help target companies focus more on financial engineering and consumer exploitation and less on improving the company's products and services.

Or as the author Matt Stoller has expressed it, private equity firms act as disease vectors for price gouging and legal arbitrage. But to extract value from the target companies, some private equity firms are not satisfied with only firing people and raising prices. [01:00:00] Some private equity firms have bigger plans for their target companies.

Market domination.

This right here is Ryds Bilglas, a Swedish car glass repair chain. This chain was founded in the 50s and was in 2016 acquired by the private equity firm Nordic Capital. In a leveraged buyout. Immediately after the acquisition, Rydsbyrglas initiated its strategy of market domination. When a private equity firm acquires a company on a fragmented market, in other words, a market where there is a lot of competition, Then the private equity firm will inevitably try to destroy as much of that competition as it can, so that it can start raising prices.

After Nordic Capital took over Rydsbyglas, it initiated a wild shopping spree, acquiring, on average, one new company per month. In theory, our competition and antitrust laws should prevent [01:01:00] the private equity companies from going too far in their attempts to destroy competition. But in practice The private equity companies can often get around the competition authorities with the help of stealth consolidation, as the University of Chicago professor Thomas Woolman has called it.

Stealth consolidation is possible when each separate acquisition is small enough to fly under the competition authority's radar. Either the authorities are clueless as to what's going on, or they lack the weapons to defend. And this is particularly common in the retail sector. The private equity firms have also, with some help from their lawyers, built a whole nomenclature to obfuscate the true purpose of their consolidation strategies.

Private equity firms doesn't monopolize. It acquires a platform and then makes add ons and bolt ons and tuck ins. Private equity doesn't destroy competition. It makes the market more efficient and private equity doesn't do price increases, it does margin [01:02:00] expansions. If, and when the competition authorities finally wake up to what private equity has been doing

below its radar, it's often already too late. After a few years of extremely aggressive consolidation, Nordic Capital last year sold off its control stake in Rydsbygglas through an IPO. And in the IPO prospectus, Rydsbygglas even brags about its successful stealth consolidation and how it has created market entry barriers that will make it difficult for small competitors to stay relevant on the market.

So does private equity own everything? - Good Work - Air Date 9-22-23

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Outside of healthcare, you can find lots of examples of private equity getting all up in things that are commonly thought of as public services.

Like when water bills rose 28 percent in Bayonne, New Jersey following KKR's acquisition of the town's water system. Or when pandemic relief money found its way to PE firms despite being attended for small business support. Or when the state of California had to evacuate dozens of boys from an abusive Michigan rehab facility for troubled youth that was owned by a Bay Area private equity firm.

But if we look at [01:03:00] all of these troubling examples of private equity's massive growth and entanglement into public services, one thing remains clear. These guys f ing rock at making money.

PAUL KEIRNAN: 2012, private funds as a whole, a lot of which is private equity, managed 9. 8 trillion. Now, 10 years later, it's 27 private funds industry, which again includes hedge funds and VC, is now bigger than the commercial banking sector.

Sector. according to Gensler,

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: indeed, private equity has had an even more meteoric career rise than euphoria. Haie Jacob, all lordie. But what besides Ivy League grads burning desire to own a helipad yacht has contributed to this industry's startling growth,

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: low interest rates, zero cost of money. Big reason.

Huge. Okay. Easy. can borrow at low rates.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: a cheap source of debt, w for leveraged buyouts. Co that private markets hav The industry has been [01:04:00] able to expand pretty much unchecked.

PAUL KEIRNAN: So you've got this really big part of the economy that is more or less operating in the shadows because there's not really systematic.

There hasn't been systematic disclosure on it.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: So why does the government ignore these asset managers? It's not like there's some annoying aspect to it. public school teacher asking for money to buy a protractor that works. The

JEFF HOOKE: SEC or the government's first response would be, okay, we supervise the public markets where we have to protect widows and orphans.

They don't know what they're doing, so we got to protect them.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: There's also lobbying. Private equity spends more time in Washington, D. C., than the worst kid you went to college with. For example, the industry spent 70 million on lobbying in the run up to the 2020 presidential election, while they donated 262 million.

Directly to political campaigns and it turns out that private equity in Washington have a few mutual linkedin connections as well

JEFF HOOKE: Lawyers that work at the sec. They don't want to work at the sec They want to work on wall street make triple what they're making now How are you going to [01:05:00] get a job on wall street if you're a pain in the ass that you prosecute PE firms? You know, that's not the way you get a job on wall street

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Looks like the revolving door between washington and private equity is gonna need some maintenance Because it revolves a lot. Jerome Powell, the current Chief of the Federal Reserve, was a partner at the Carlyle Group. And three months after finishing his stint as Donald Trump's SEC Chair, Jay Clayton became Apollo's first ever lead independent director of its board of directors.

And those are just the head honchos. Private equity's money and political influence is so immense that it's been difficult for regulators to square up with.

JEFF HOOKE: The government is reluctant to bring a case against the big name like Blackstone or Carlyle Private Equity because they think they can't win a case.

They just don't think they got the horsepower to go up against these gigantic blue chip Wall Street law firms.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: So you're saying that the SEC feels less powerful than some private equity firms? And as you might imagine, this unchecked growth [01:06:00] in private equity has also somehow correlated with the unchecked growth of P.

E. Executives bank accounts. In 2000 and five, there were three multi billionaires among the P. E. Executive class in 2020. It was 22. 22 multi billionaires. Just think of how ass their group chat is. You can chalk all of this up to the way the industry pays itself. Regardless of how investments perform, a private equity firm will charge a management fee of about 2 percent each year.

So a fund with 2 billion in management will baseline make 40 million annually. But the real clams come from this second thing called The performance fee. Unlike the management fee, the performance fee is 20 percent of a firm's annual profits, and it's taxed as capital gains, which means it's taxed as an investment you've held for over a year instead of income for your services.

This performance fee is more famously known as carried interest, and it's one of the biggest tools PE executives use to maximize their earnings. In fact, this carried interest tax rate is so important to the private equity industry that this spike [01:07:00] in lobbying spending in D. C. happened the same year that Congress first started having hearings about it.

JEFF HOOKE: Income tax, if you're really wealthy, might be 35 or 40 percent plus state tax. And the capital gains tax would be half of that. So there's a big, what you call benefit from having a capital gain as opposed to income.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: But for an industry that generates such an exceptional amount of wealth for its practitioners, surely they must get a great deal for their investors as well.

The answer isn't as obvious a yes as you might think. In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, benchmark private equity returns turned negative for the reported fiscal year. But since the government can't regulate private equity very effectively, it's pretty difficult to figure out what the industry's finances are.

Act actually look like even if you're an investor in the fund.

PAUL KEIRNAN: In terms of regulation and I'll contrast this with like mutual funds You go to vanguard's website and you look at one of their mutual funds. You'll see a semi annual Report that's [01:08:00] got maybe 28 pages and it's got their expenses and that's required by regulation What is currently required by regulation is basically no disclosure, by funds, by private equity funds to their investors.

JEFF HOOKE: The investment process would all be hush hush, and for the private equity industry, you know, that's good. They can keep a lot of their fees hidden and their returns, which are mediocre at best, secret.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: And while there are studies claiming that private equity as a whole offers better returns than the stock market, there is reason to be skeptical about their numbers.

WARREN BUFFET: We have seen a number of proposals from private equity funds where the returns are really not calculated in a manner that, well, they're not calculated in a manner that I would regard as honest.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Warren, all they're doing is lying a little bit to make the money come in. Yeah, that sums it up.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Those garbling muppets raise a good point.

One of the reasons why the returns can be tough to trust is that they're often calculated by people who are [01:09:00] hired by the firms themselves. For the most

JEFF HOOKE: part, there's no outside party going in and doing a smell test. To some extent, the auditors might do it, like Pricewaterhouse or Coopers and Libra. The problem with them is they're getting paid by the PE fund itself.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Are you sure? Are you sure? Okay. I'm receiving breaking news against all odds. The Southeastern Football Conference has announced the most significant regulations to private

I am sorry. The Security and Exchange Commission has announced the most significant regulations to the private equity industry in years. That makes much more sense, Dan.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: The SEC imposing changes on hedge funds and private equity firms on fee disclosures. The move is meant to curb preferential treatment of certain investors.

There's the disclosure on a quarterly basis. of performance in a way that right now is not required per se. There's a element that prevents special deals.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: So, everything's fixed, right?

JEFF HOOKE: So it's about 15 or 20 years too [01:10:00] late. You know, the train's left the station. The plutocracies become too powerful.

They'll be able to ride roughshod over these if they don't even try to get them thrown out in a car.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Well, the new rules have to mean something, right? Like, how fast could they sue them anyway?

BRYAN CORBETT: So there are really three reasons why we're suing the SEC.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: Touché, suited egg man. That's Brian Corbett, CEO of the Managed Funds Association, one of the many groups that lobby for hedge funds and private equity firms and are currently suing the SEC for its recent regulation.

BRYAN CORBETT: We think the SEC in this final rule has exceeded its statutory authority.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: So as we stand today, private equity is mobilizing their cinematic universe of lawyers while the SEC tries to rein them in. for the first time in many years. So what does this mean for the future? Not just for private equity, but for us, everyday people whose lives have been, in one way or another, tied to this industry.

JEFF HOOKE: If I was a union employee looking forward to retirement, and let's say I can pose a few questions to my union representatives on the board of trustees of these [01:11:00] gigantic funds, I'd ask my representative, Hey, look, have you taken a closer look at this?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: I think it's a moment to really see Okay, what kind of capitalism do we want?

Do we want the kind that really benefits the, a broad array of people? Or do you want to have a system that benefits a tiny, tiny fraction of people at the expense? Of a lot, a lot, a lot of people.

DAN TOOMEY - HOST, GOOD WORK: What type of capitalism do we really want? Do we even know the type of capitalism we already have? If investigating private equity teaches us anything, it's that powerful, profit seeking forces are indeed all around us.

In every part of our lives, in places we wouldn't even think to look. Wait a minute.

This YouTube channel is owned by Morning Brew. Morning Brew was bought by Business Insider in 2020. Business Insider is owned by Axel Springer, who is 43. 54 percent owned by private equity megafund KKR, which means For [01:12:00] good work, I'm 43. 54 percent private equity.

How Private Equity Is Making Your Health Care Worse - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 4-15-23

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: When did private equity really start to dip its toe into the healthcare industry, which is 20 percent of the United States economy, something like that?

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: It's definitely 20, it's not only 20 percent of the U. S. economy, but it's a significant, Medicare and Medicaid, for example, are significant percentages of the federal and state budgets.

So, Willie Sutton says, why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is. And that's why private equity is going into healthcare, because that's where the money is.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Lots of money, unfortunately, I mean, on our show, we're Advocates for single payer...

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: Let me answer your question, which I didn't. They did a little bit in health care [01:13:00] in the 1990s and a little bit in the early 21st century. But since 2015, they've just been accelerating dramatically and as they have more and more, what they call a dry powder. should I explain what that is? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. public pension funds, university endowments and nonprofit endowments.

So they started to get more and more dry powder, which is the money that these, investors are giving them and they have to spend it.

And so this money is growing and growing and the money is sitting there. And they finally decided that, hey, healthcare has a lot of benefits to it, including the fact, that it's very profitable. So, by about 2015, [01:14:00] they started, investing seriously in the healthcare sector.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And this is, probably around the same time that some of these pension funds begin to move more into the stock market and into the investment sphere, is that correct?

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: Well, these pension funds started moving away from the stock market to private equity, right?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Okay. That's yes. Gotcha

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: Okay, I do I just read this morning that there's an average of about 14 percent of their and this is just an average Of their pension fund money now is in private equity and they keep investing more and more money.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Is it because they perceive it as less risky?

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: It's definitely more risky.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right, but the perception might be that it's less [01:15:00] because, but based on your research, it definitely seems more risky.

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: No, it's definitely more risky. And another problem, it's illiquid. You know, the private equity fund keeps this money for decades. But the reason they're investing more and more is because they believe, and I emphasize the believe that they're getting high rates of return. there is growing number of studies now showing this may not be the case anymore. It's very, very hard. private equity is very secretive. It's very hard to get any information, including the investors get very little information.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right. Well, you were struggling to, to get anyone to give you, More information for your research as well On this side. I know you wrote a bit about how secret secretive they were and you trying to [01:16:00] get in the process of your research

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: Well, they make all of the businesses that they buy sign nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses and at the risk of losing the money that they were given.

So, people are very, very reluctant, obvious, obvious reasons to talk about the, um, the problems that they experience that once they've sold their small business. A lot of these small businesses in health care. Uh, whether it's autism or eating disorders or drug and alcohol rehab centers, a lot of the original owners really care about the issue and really care about their patients.

And they don't understand, there's a lot of naivety among physicians, for example. They don't really understand what they're getting into. Because they're, they're told that what the private equity firm is going to do [01:17:00] is take care of the annoying stuff and there's lots of annoying stuff with, uh, rules and regulations and, uh, handling, uh, you know, patient, uh, times that they're coming and all of that.

That's all going to be taken care of the private equity by the private equity firm, so as to allow the, let's say, physician or provider to practice what they want to practice. It's a big thing. They let physicians practice medicine, but the reality is they are totally controlled by the private equity firm.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Can you talk, uh, expand a bit on the, the point about how private equity is targeting, uh, places like eating disorder centers, uh, re, rehabilitation clinics, autism treatment, uh, facilities, because [01:18:00] they're a little bit, there's a little bit less, uh, government oversight into, uh, Into some of those, those facilities and they've, I think been, and correct me if I'm wrong, um, targeting them for that particular reason.

LAURA KATZ OLSEN: Well, one of the reasons that they're targeting, uh, healthcare obviously is because that's where the money is. Uh, that's where the profits are. Uh, the aging population, Um, the affordable care act, which put more patients on the, but also, uh, healthcare is fragmented. I mean, lots and lots of small agencies, mom and pop shops that they, then they, they, they, what they'll do is they'll buy, um, what they call a platform, like a flourishing [01:19:00] company.

And then they will add on to that company. By taking on these fragmented, these small mom and pop shops or agencies, buying those companies and making it larger and larger, which increases the value exponentially, but also gives them local, regional, uh, state and sometimes national monopolies so that they can control the costs.

Gotcha. Gotcha. And, um, can I just, can I just say one thing, which if I don't get in, it won't, because this is one of the most important things when they buy a company, the private equity firm puts in about 2 percent of the value, only 2%, the pension funds and endowments [01:20:00] put in about 38%. And the rest of that is paid for by debt.

Now, the debt is paid back by the companies they bought. So whether it's the large company, which is the platform, or the add ons that they buy, it's the companies, not the private equity firms, that pay back the debt.

Sociology Ruins Private Equity Part 1 - Sociology Ruins Everything - Air Date 11-1-21

EILEEN APPELBAUM: You have private equity firms, you probably have heard of some of them, Blackstone, Carlisle, Apollo. These big firms sponsor investment funds. What that means is they recruit investors for their fund. The private equity firm looks for institutional investors. To put money into it. And so what do I mean by an institutional investor? This will be a pension fund, a university endowment, a foundation of some sort and sovereign wealth funds.

Those are the main institutional investors and they recruit them [01:21:00] to put up the equity in the private equity fund. So that's where the equity comes from. And it's important to know that the private equity firm itself puts up one to two cents for every dollar. The other, uh, investors in that fund put up the private equity firm calls all the shots.

It has something called a general partner, which is not a person. It's a committee made up of principals in the private equity firm. So that's the decision maker, the general partner. And then you have all these other people that they've recruited to put money in. They're called limited partners. They are the private, we'll just call them private equity investors.

Those are the investors. Okay, so that's the equity and that's where the down payment comes for buying a company. So the private equity fund does make a down payment and then it finances the rest of the acquisition with debt. [01:22:00] And, uh, it's one thing for you to put down 20 percent on your house. It's 20 percent on a multi million or even billion dollar company and raise the rest.

In debt. It's a huge amount of debt. And now the interesting twist, which nobody can believe the first time they hear it is that the private equity firm owns the portfolio companies that are being purchased with this equity down payment in debt. But the debt has to all be paid back by the company they acquired.

So, to just say it over again, you have this investment fund. It does have money in it that came from the limited partners, and that becomes the down, that's the private equity fund, and that becomes the down payment on the business. And all the rest of the financing is in the form of debt. And the interesting and unbelievable fact is that while the private equity [01:23:00] Firm owns this company.

The company has to pay back the debt, and if it can't pay back the debt, the private equity firm and the private equity fund and the general partner in the private equity fund who made the decision about how much debt to put on that company, they get away scot free. They have no responsibility for paying back any part of this debt goes into distress.

The first thing it does is it squeezes its workers. It's trying to find money to keep to keep them business. So that make the payments on the debt. And if it can't do that, then it goes into bankruptcy. Sometimes bankruptcy ends in liquidation, as was the case with Toys R Us. And sometimes bankruptcy, uh, ends with some sort of restructuring of the company.

It depends on the creditors. That's the point at which it depends on the creditors. So you have, okay, all this debt was put on the company. Somebody loaned them that money. [01:24:00] And the lenders of that money took a look at Toys R Us and said, we have a better chance of getting some of our money back. Certainly they're not going to get it all back, but getting some of our money back.

If we have this, we liquidate the company, get rid of all the employees, sell off all the stores for other uses and take that money and pay ourselves back for all this debt. Other cases, they may look at a situation and say, well, if this company just restructures them this way and that way, we'll take a haircut on the debt.

In bankruptcy, the company always gets to reduce some of its debt. Uh, so the creditors are going to lose money on it for sure. But they look at the situation and say, we have a better chance if this company keeps operating. So that's how it turns out that sometimes they liquidate and sometimes they just restructure.

But the interesting point is that the folks who decided to put all that debt on [01:25:00] that company have no responsibility for paying off that debt.

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: How did you get into this particular line of research?

EILEEN APPELBAUM: So, I've been studying private equity since, uh, 2010, when I first became really aware of how much what we thought was negotiations between labor and management really was, management was really not able to speak for itself, that there was, uh, someone behind a curtain pulling the strings.

And, uh, we wanted to know more about it. Uh, so this is work I've been doing with Rosemary Bott, a professor at Cornell University. I was at Rutgers when we started. We had the idea that this would just be something small and quick and easy to understand. And so we offered to write a small volume, just a little, a monologue, monograph rather, on private equity for 25, Four years [01:26:00] later, a few hundred pages later, we had our book private equity at work when Wall Street manages Main Street, in which we lay out a lot of the private equity model that came out in 2014.

Of course, there have been many developments since and Rose and I continue to write about private equity and all the new, all the new bad things it's doing. So, so just to be clear, there are. Thousands, probably 8, 000 private equity funds out there, and most of them are smallish funds. And these private equity firms that sponsor these funds by smallish companies.

When you buy a smallish company, one thing you notice is there are not many assets to mortgage. And consequently, they don't use excessive debt, not because they wouldn't like to, But because they can't, and because these are small, usually family owned companies that they take over, uh, there's a lot of room for operational improvement.[01:27:00]

There's room to put people on their board of directors who understand business strategy and can help them make inroads where they haven't already done that. And these are really the success stories. And so we talk about them in the book, Private Equity at Work. We try to be even handed and to say that there are.

Many cases among those 8, 000 funds, uh, where this is going on, but this is not where the bulk of the money goes. The bulk of the money, overwhelmingly, the money that goes out to private equity firms that sponsor these funds. There are 300 private equity firms worldwide that, that get most of the funds, uh, that have these huge.

investment funds and can't take on small companies because the transactions costs are too high. So they go out and buy big companies. And the, the size of these is just growing tremendously. So Carlisle announced that it was going to [01:28:00] raise a 27 billion fund, 27 billion. It used to be that a 5 billion fund, which is the definition of a mega fund was rare.

Now 5 billion funds are becoming common. And we have Carlyle going out for a 27 billion fund, and not to be outdone, a few weeks later, Blackstone just announced that it's going out for a 30 billion fund. Well, when you have funds that big, all you can do is invest them in really Big companies, uh, and those companies have, uh, very, that they already have modern accounting systems.

It wouldn't be worth a couple of billion dollars if they didn't already have modern accounting systems, modern IT systems, good business strategy, good operating, uh, the strategies or the policies. So there's not much left to do to make money with them beyond some sort of financial engineering.

SECTION B - POWER

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Power.

The Sporting Class: Why NFL Owners Want Private Equity Cash - Pablo Torre Finds Out - Air Date 8-29-24

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: The NFL, [01:29:00] this week, took a vote. A vote on a subject that we've covered on this show previously, more generally, but specifically to them, it's about taking private equity investment.

And so, the proposal was 10%, up to 10%, which is not as much as the other leagues, which we're talking about 30%, uh, but David, to you, Private equity money in the NFL, landing in this way, the top line understanding that you have is what?

DAVID SAMSON: Well, private equity money is very important as a source of capital. And what that means is when you are putting together money to buy something, you, uh, Have to find owners.

You have to find individuals to put in money, to buy a team. Sometimes you run out of individuals. You have to go to the capital markets, which means you go to a bank to borrow money, or you find a syndicate of banks to borrow money. Or if that doesn't work because you're tapped out, then there are these firms that are willing to invest in your company, except they require a heightened [01:30:00] rate of return.

So when you borrow money from a bank, You pay an interest rate. When you get money from a private equity firm, it comes in the form of an equity investment, but it's like a preferred equity investment which means that upon a monetization, upon a sale, they get back their money and a rate of return on their money before anyone else gets a rate of return on their money.

That's how private equity firms make money. And it is an amazing thing to be in a private equity firm because you invest in different companies. And you make a lot of money. And

JOHN SKIPPER: With an amazing, favorable taxation rate.

DAVID SAMSON: That is also true. I can't deny that.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: Which is a feature of American capitalism.

DAVID SAMSON: Which is, which is, well, it's all, it's all in the code.

It's not illegal. Oh, sure. I didn't suggest it was illegal. It may not be moral.

JOHN SKIPPER: I wouldn't even suggest it's immoral. I would suggest it's unfair.

DAVID SAMSON: It is unfair, it's unfair in the way it is unfair.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: A bug, arguably, morally, but a feature financially. It is a [01:31:00] tiny bug.

DAVID SAMSON: But what the NFL is doing by having this vote, they're the last league, and I think we should point that out.

MLB, the reason why MLB allows private equity investment to end the NBA And the NHL. Is they want their Value of the teams to keep going up. So if you're buying the commanders for six billion dollars, Josh Harris had to come up with six billion dollars between the people he knows and the banks he does business with.

It's hard to do that.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: But, but John, just to make this even more plain English here, what these teams and these leagues are realizing is, there aren't enough players. Super, super, super rich people to keep pace with the idea of a single owner of a super, super, super rich asset.

JOHN SKIPPER: Well, and you've also got the realization by owners that most of the benefits of owning a team don't require you to own more than 50.

1%, right? You get to sit in whatever seats you want. You get to pick the personnel who run your team and do things if you choose to. Uh, [01:32:00] And so why should they put 6 billion in when they could put 3. 1 billion in, get all the benefits of ownership other than the, they're giving away half the upward valuation.

And as David pointed out, the private equity guys will actually get a favorable return. But that's not why most people own teams. They own teams because they're the greatest trophies you can have to display your importance and your wealth.

DAVID SAMSON: But that's changing now, John. And these PE firms are not doing it because of the trophy.

They're not. Well, I know. And that is where some rub may end up coming in. Big time. So what's, what's changing? Why is this happening? So the PE firms, if they're going to invest, what they do is they've got a, uh, picture you having, uh, A hundred million dollars, just for fun, Pablo. And you're deciding how to diversify Let's take a break while Pablo and I consider that.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna recline here for a second.

DAVID SAMSON: Oh, thank you. That was really great for the audience. For YouTube on the DraftKings

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: Network, I was chewing on a pen [01:33:00] like a guy with nine figures.

DAVID SAMSON: So

Come on, buddy, you can do it. I was gonna use a different amount. I was gonna use like a billion dollars, but I decided to bring it down to a number that I thought that you would be okay with. Oh,

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: I'm sorry, David is unimpressed. I'm impressed by the hypothetical.

DAVID SAMSON: Right, the hypothetical doesn't even make sense.

This is why, this is Rich Guys Only fans. It's not, it's math. But we're good. Back to a hundred million. You've got a hundred million to invest. You want to find different sectors. You want to diversify your investments. What these firms have said is, you know, sports teams keep going up in value. We keep buying corner grocery stores and widget stores.

I think we ought to be investing in sports teams because they do well. We don't need good seats. We don't need to stand on the stage when we win a Super Bowl. But man, it seems like when you buy a team and sell a team, that's one hell of a return on investment.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: So this is quite different from previous minority owners, right?

Big time. So previously, what is it like to be a minority owner

DAVID SAMSON: of a team? [01:34:00] Previously, because the numbers were lower, it's called a CPI. That is a Cocktail Party Investor. That is someone who puts in a little shtuple of money into the team.

JOHN SKIPPER: This is an industry term, the CPI. This is, this is. I thought that was Consumer

Price Index.

DAVID SAMSON: I always say that it's the Cocktail Party Investor because they get to go to cocktail parties and say, Hey, I own. The Marlins. Oh, I've never heard of you. Yeah, no, I'm one of the owners of the Marlins. And they put in 250, 000 bucks, and they get to tell everybody that they're an owner. The numbers have changed significantly.

To be a CPI, it's not an ordinary CP that we would be invited to. It is now for the super, super wealthy individuals. And we're pretty much out of those parties, which is why you start with PE.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: So, John was explaining the upside of being an owner Uh, an owner in any form of these teams as, as essentially, yes, the CPI dynamic, the court side.

I get to be, uh, the owner of this precious piece of art, a [01:35:00] single, a symbol and a signal of exclusivity. Um, the NFL, of course. Is the apex predator of all of these leagues, right? And so here are the numbers over the past 20 years, the NFL's total value has risen from 23. 46 billion to 190 billion, 710%. The S& P 500 by contrast has risen about 660 percent during the same time span.

JOHN SKIPPER: Which does kind of prove the fact that all for almost any ordinary human being, the best way to invest your money is to put it in the S& P 500.

DAVID SAMSON: If people are out there asking what do I do with my thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars or a hundred thousand dollars Put it in an index fund and then forget about it like revisit in 50 years But it's funny that that is the difference but in any case the NFL as the apex predator what's interesting is is what they're talking about in the NFL, however, is totally different than what the other leagues do.

The other [01:36:00] leagues took votes with owners, and they approved private equity investments in order to keep valuations rising. But for the NFL, it wasn't good enough.

PABLO TORRE - HOST, PTFO: Right. So the NFL doesn't have the same problems of other leagues because the Cowboys, the Dallas Cowboys, uh, their valuation in 2019, John, was 5.

5 billion. Now, as of August 2024, from Sportico, 10. 32 billion. Uh, you go down the list, the Rams 7. 79, Giants 7. 65, Patriots 7. 31, you can go It's These are all, all, uh, so much richer, so much more expensive, valuable than their equivalents in other sports. And so the NFL, what do they want here? What's, what's the, what's the, what's the reason why they're approving to do this vote?

DAVID SAMSON: They want those numbers to be real for starters, and I'm not yucking on Sportacus Yum or on Forbes, but those valuations were never really looked at within baseball. We never could go to a bank for that. And bring out the Forbes article [01:37:00] and say, Hey, lend us money, our team is worth blank. We never were able to use that.

How did you get the 1. 2 billion, David Sampson, that you got for the Florida Marlins? Having nothing to do with Forbes, clearly, the way we got it is when supply demand. It's when you have two people who want the same trophy, they're going to bid up the price of that trophy. It's really that simple. And I love the fact that I get credit for that transaction, but I feel as though that my Beagle could have done that.

Well, it's, it is not my fault. You can't blame a seller when a buyer overpays for an asset. I don't believe.

JOHN SKIPPER: Yeah, and you could question even the overpaid, if they are happy to pay 1. 2, and they get to sit in the seats they want, and it makes them happy, they didn't overpay.

DAVID SAMSON: They're despondent beyond repair, and they're losing money hand over fist, and they'd sell it for 1.

2 in a heartbeat if you want to buy a team. You can buy the Marlins today. All you have to do is give them their money back, plus the losses they've incurred. But getting back to a broader subject, the NFL wasn't satisfied with just being like the [01:38:00] other leagues. And that's what fascinates me.

Project 2025 is All Trick, No Treat (with Peggy Bailey) - Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer - Air Date 10-29-24

GOLDY - HOST, PITCHFORK ECONOMICS: Recently, you took a bullet for the rest of us in that you’re not just looking at the type of policy that you want to do, but you actually went through the Republican proposals, including the Heritage Foundation’s infamous Project 2025. If you could just, I don’t know, broadly describe what the Republican agenda would be if they had complete control.

PEGGY BAILEY: Sure. So right, in addition to making sure we’re four things, we need to make sure to point out the things that people really need to fight against, especially those of us who are interested in helping people with the lowest incomes be able to live lives that are not just stable, but to be able to thrive. And so the overriding thing to understand is exactly where you were headed, that Project 2025 [01:39:00] is part of a suite of Republican proposals that all have the same themes, have the same policies, and are moving in a direction that really benefits the wealthy and wealthy corporations and shifts a lot of the burden to low and middle income families.

Big picture, there are a few ways that we’ve kind of organized the elements of Project 2025. The first thing to know is that these proposals would cut benefits, benefits that people have right now and benefits that they rely on, whether it’s cutting access to health insurance, cutting access to food, housing, blocking people who are immigrants from being able to come to this country and live the American dream. There are ways that the proposals would seriously undermine people’s ability to keep benefits that [01:40:00] they already have.

The second thing that these proposals would do is shift costs from the federal government to state’s governments. We know that when the federal government doesn’t live up to its responsibilities, it’s states and localities that then bear the burden. One example of this is in the homelessness space, where the federal government doesn’t provide universal rental assistance and therefore many people are living on the streets because they can’t afford a place to live. It’s states and localities that are trying to address that problem when the federal government really does need to step up to put its resources behind that problem.

The third thing that it would do is shift the tax burden from wealthy corporations and wealthy people to middle and low income people by continuing and making deeper the tax cuts to [01:41:00] the wealthy that were included in the 2017 tax bill while not providing any positive tax relief to low and middle income families.

The fourth thing that the proposals would uniformly do is simply undermine the federal government in totality, getting rid of agency’s wholesale, hurting our ability to provide safe food, safe water, healthcare, protect fair housing rights, things like that would be undermined with the lack of investment. One thing that’s overarching everything that you can’t shy away from is the racism and discrimination that is inherent in all of these proposals. They may look colorblind, but their impact is most definitely not and would disproportionately impact people of color.

PAUL - HOST, PITFORK ECONOMICS: One of the rebuttals I’ve heard to conversations about Project 2025 is that every presidential candidate makes promises and they [01:42:00] don’t follow through on them. Do we have confidence that these are policies that Trump would pass in a hypothetical second term, or if Trump wins the presidency and there’s a Democratic House, would that offer a check to the proposals?

PEGGY BAILEY: Well, that’s why it’s important to understand that Project 2025 is just one data point in the overall extreme Republican agenda. In our report, we highlight the Republican Study Committee’s budget proposals, we highlight the House Budget Committee’s recent resolution. Those three things put together along with evidence of recent legislative activity, show that this isn’t about the current presidential election so much as part of a steady strategy that extreme Republicans have. If you think about the Dobbs decision and the reversal of Roe, that was a 50-year march to get to the [01:43:00] place we are today. We should think about these proposals that would punish people with low and middle incomes and benefit the wealthy and wealthy corporations as part of that same sort of consistent steady march that we need to work against.

GOLDY - HOST, PITCHFORK ECONOMICS: And to be clear, this isn’t about fiscal responsibility. It’s not like, “Oh, we’ve got to make the tough choices in order to balance the budget and get our books in order.” It creates massive deficits at the same time that it defunds the federal government, disinvests in the American people and just makes cuts, and we’ll go into some of the details, cuts to programs that people just take for granted, but it’s just huge deficits come out of this due to the tax cuts for wealthy and corporation side of this.

PEGGY BAILEY: Exactly. Another piece that [01:44:00] has to be considered is the lack of raising revenue in any of these strategies. The three proposals that I highlighted would repeal parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that call for increased spending in the IRS as an example. So it’s not only cutting taxes for the wealthy and wealthy corporations, but cutting the federal government’s ability to enforce the tax rules that are on the books. And that’s just one way that these agendas don’t think about the need to raise revenue because it’s just unfathomable to think that in the wealthiest country in the world, we can’t take care of people with low incomes.

We know that it isn’t their fault necessarily that they have low incomes. They’re working, they’re not getting paid [01:45:00] wages that allow them to afford to meet their basic needs or they face inabilities to be able to work and federal benefits like Social Security don’t pay high enough for them to afford their basic needs. Therefore, it is the government’s role to fill in that gap until we do create the structures to have living wages in either through work or through public benefits. And so that mindset of the pie is only so big so we can’t afford to do this. Just really when you think about the wealth in this country and the disproportionate way that economic justice shows up, we can make the changes if we want to.

Matt Stoller: Monopoly, Medical Care & More - The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow - Air Date 10-21-21

MATT STOLLER: So, you know, the Reagan quote, you know, the nine most dangerous words in the English language. Um, today, if he were saying that he said the nine most dangerous words in the English language, or I'm from Comcast and [01:46:00] I'm here to help. I got a whole conference of libertarians to laugh at that. So, They know what's going on. Like, they might think, Oh, yeah, yeah. But like, in their bones, you know, if you if you laugh at that joke, it means you know, that the corporate bureaucracies are just massively problematic.

And I don't want to like let it's not that the government bureaucracy isn't a problem, because it is it in fact, they are linked, because what you have with it. You know, the, the, a lot of the bureaucracies in DC is that they are, they have this kind of symbiosis with big, big corporate, uh, big corporate actors.

And when you, you know, it's like, it's pretty easy to regulate small banks, right? Cause small bankers are, they're focused on just their communities. And when a regulator comes the, they hand over what they need, they fix things, whatever. But when you go to regulate a big bank, You don't even get to really deal with the bankers is what I'm told by regulators, like you get, you have to deal with a special group, which [01:47:00] is, you know, we'll give you maybe PowerPoints on what they're thinking of doing and they will fight you and they will go to, you know, up a political level.

And so you never really get to see have any visibility into what the bank is doing. And it's just easier not to fight that. And that's a function of scale. And you see that across the economy. It's safe. I guarantee you that, like, you know, Pfizer gets a better hearing at the FDA than some, like, random company that's, you know, making something that might be competitive, like, it's true kind of across the board.

You have this, like, you know, it's a club, um, at, at every one of these agencies. And the reason that it's got so bad is, you know, is because We have these concentrations of private power. If you broke up these companies, if you had, then you wouldn't like, they wouldn't have to, they wouldn't spend their time thinking about how to capture politics.

They would spend their time trying to beat their competition and providing better products. Like that's what, that's why like, fundamentally, the reason you don't want concentrations of private economic power [01:48:00] is because that becomes That's just power. That's not it's not private economic power. That's just an accumulation of power.

It becomes political power and it fundamentally becomes authoritarian power. And when you're dealing with CBS, right, and you're trying to deal with with them, um, effectively threatening your health, right, and putting stress on you, you're dealing with an authoritarian, government in that sphere, right?

That's what, that's authoritarianism. It's just in this very narrow sphere. So yeah, you have democracy, you can go to the voting booth, you can do all these things, you have free speech, right? We can complain about this, but in that particular area, in terms of the access to medicine that you need, you are dealing with a dictator and that like with very limited rights.

And that's a very, very significant political problem as more parts of our society. Get consolidated under the hands of these mini dictators. We start to look around and we start saying, wait, are we actually a free living in a free society? And we sort of we mostly are right. We're [01:49:00] not. We're not in a dictatorship.

I don't want to overstate it.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: Right.

Speaker 17: But, you know, corporatism is not a totally free society, and the more corporatist you get, the more you kind of bleed over, um, into what we're seeing.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: And it's certainly not democratic in the sense that, I mean, take my medication, for example. If it had been a policy decision of, uh, you know, the Centers for the CMS or whomever that, uh, uh, that this should not be a covert drug, I could, you know, write my congress representative, I could write, uh, the White House and say, look, you know, this is a autocratic unfair decision and, you know, maybe they won't listen, but if a hundred thousand of us did, maybe they would, et cetera, et cetera.

The government had nothing to do with this issue.

Speaker 17: There would be public debates about it, too. There would

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: be public

Speaker 17: debates? It's like, like, Congress, like, argues a lot about Obamacare, right? But when CVS [01:50:00] bought, or Aetna, CVS bought Silverscripts, right? That was just a, the decision, the debate happened in two boardrooms.

And the public had no access to it at all.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: And the decision not to cover this drug, which effectively means to deprive people of it, was made in boardrooms. It was not, you know, and there's no recourse, you can't, you know, write your congressman about it because the government has outsourced this very important policy decision to a corporation.

Speaker 17: Right into a monopoly, right? Because you had a lot of insurance companies and a lot of, you know, and, and they, if there were alternatives, it would be different, but they know that, that, um, that there aren't, right? And all of it's based in, you know, and I mean, that's where the network of commercial bribery and kickbacks comes in because that helps, you know, The reason they're, they're using, um, these kinds of, of tactics, um, is to exclude [01:51:00] competitors, right?

That that's the other thing is, is that, you know, that's why like Aetna says pony up if you want to be on our formulary. Right,

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: right. And you know, there's a last thing on the health care maybe is, uh, of course, they, they keep the system afloat with the mythology of being a smart health care consumer, right?

This is the mythology as if, as if, you know, one individual up against a monopolistic https: otter. ai Uh, situation is going to have any difference. Well, you know, first of all, you can't know what conditions you're going to develop in the next year. So you don't know your needs, but secondly, you know, in fairness to me, I was a smart shopper on this one.

I looked, I checked, they covered it, but you can't be a smart shopper if they get to change the product halfway through, which is also to me, a characteristic of monopolies, isn't it?

Speaker 17: Yeah. Um, Yeah, I mean it that it's a it's a version of [01:52:00] dominance and you know, it kind of loose. It's a loose, loose type of fraud.

And You know, look, fraud happens in every business, uh, and every line of business. It doesn't, it's not unique to monopolies, but the difference is that when you, when somebody cheats you and they're a monopoly, you have to go back to them. Right. So it's like, it humiliates you and she eats you, but you don't have a choice, but to go back and fight with them for,

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: you know, if

Speaker 17: I get, if I buy something, you know, and it's not a good product and I can, I can, you know, find a different.

Version of that from a different manufacturer. I will, but that's, that's not a, um, an option here. So, yeah.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: Right, it's like, you know, if I buy a shampoo and it's terrible, I can say, your shampoo sucks, I'm gonna buy a different one, but, you know, maybe not the best example in my case, but, you know, no, it's, you gotta use this shampoo forever.

[01:53:00] So, that, that to me. Is the essence of all of this, and I guess we may never get to the Cantillon effect, Matt Stoller, but I

Speaker 17: can do a really short version of that.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: Do a short version, and then maybe I'll have a last, ask you for a last thought on conservatism, but okay, go ahead.

Speaker 17: All

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: right, so

Speaker 17: the Cantillon effect is based on a 17th century or 18th century French economist, sort of one of the first economists.

Um, and he, what he said, his name is Cantillon. And what he said is that when, you know, when you have a gold mine, right, if then the people near the gold mine get money first, and then people far away from the gold mine get access to that money because money was gold. Later on. And that has a distortionary effect on inequality and on inflation.

Um, to bring it forward to today that we don't have, we don't use gold, but the, the fed is Prince money. And so whenever we have a bailout and I wrote the piece on the country on fact, during the [01:54:00] March, 2020 bailouts, although we'd saw bailouts much earlier than that as well, 2008, nine, the closer you are to wall street and the fed, the faster that money reaches you.

So this was a way of explaining. Why, uh, you know, private equity, why the big banks got money very quickly, why rich people got money very quickly, because they are very close to Wall Street. They have accounts with The people that deal directly with the Fed, um, and why small businesses who have to work through a rickety system of small banks that have a very poorly staffed agency, the Small Business Administration, why it took them much longer to get access to that safety net.

And then why individuals also had problems as well, because our main connection to the government is through the IRS. And that is also underfunded and rickety. So it's about, you know, it's about the institutions of money creation. And we have traditionally assumed that money is what's. called neutral, which is that if you put some money into the economy, it hits everyone equally at once.

In fact, that's not true. The money is, [01:55:00] is not a neutral commodity. If you want it to be neutral, it flows along the institutional frameworks of our society. Right now, the institutional links between the fed and the, the, the wealthy and dominant firms are much stronger than the institutional. Additional links to everyone else.

Um, so money is is not neutral. It didn't used to be this way from the thirties to the seventies. We actually had a pretty neutral set of systems. You had a whole bunch of different financial institutions that did connect people to the Fed into our centers of monetary power. So money was more neutral, but we sort of have systematically taken Apart.

So that's the continual effect why Wall Street gets a bailout and why you don't.

How Private Equity Ate Britain - Bloomberg Originals - Air Date 6-7-24

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: To understand what's been going on here, we're going to look at Morrisons.

For much of its existence, it was family owned. And until recently, it was one of the big four supermarket chains.

Speaker 61: Well look and you'll know, our prices are low, whenever you shop at Morrison's.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: Look at this chart. It shows how Morrison's valuation compares to US retailers as a multiple of their earnings.

That's just a way of comparing companies on a [01:56:00] like to like basis, even if the firms aren't the same size. And in the years immediately after Brexit, the valuations were pretty comparable, until the pandemic came along. Then look what happened. The US retailers recovered with the post pandemic spending bump, Morrison's did not.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: Morrison's valuation was cheaper compared to U. S. payers, making it quite attractive for an external buyer.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: So in 2021, we're just coming out of COVID lockdown, and there is a bidding war for Morrison's between private equity firms.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: The American firm Clayton DuBillier Rice emerged victorious, paying about 7bn in October 2021.

Just a few months earlier, Morrisons had been valued at four and a half billion pounds. But even that inflated price seemed worthwhile because low interest rates meant it was easy to borrow a lot of money. And Morrison's wasn't alone. Private equity piled into Britain in a big way in the years after Brexit.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: Post Brexit, there was a lot of uncertainty, um, in the UK economy. Um, I [01:57:00] think that was compounded by the effects of COVID.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: And suddenly these American private equity companies were looking at British assets that were valued far less than they were just a few months ago. Between 2016 and 2023, private equity companies spent nearly 200 billion buying British companies.

That compares to about 81 billion in Germany and 36 billion in France. Essentially, you walk down any UK high street and the chances are you're going to be looking at private equity owned firms on either side.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: The Body Shop, Pizza Express, Wagamamas.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: In fact, there are scores of high street brands that are now controlled by private equity and similar investors.

And that was because British companies in general became a lot cheaper. You can see that in this chart. Publicly traded American companies simply became a lot more valuable than British ones after Brexit. A British firm that makes a dollar of [01:58:00] profit is, on average, given 11 of value. American firms get 20.

So remember that little shop we talked about earlier and how its purchase was financed with a lot of debt?

ELEANOR DUNCAN: In the case of Morrison's, it was something like 6. 6 billion.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: Here's the important bit. When CDNR bought Morrison's, interest rates were low. But since then, they have increased.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: Around half of Morrison's debt, that's around 3 billion, is affected by interest rates going up.

So that debt is now much more expensive.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: The reason that's a problem is that Morrisons competes with other supermarkets on price. And now it has to pay hundreds of millions of pounds more each year in interest payments.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: They were just about making enough money to pay their debt, which meant that when Aldi and Lidl came in during a cost of living crisis and cut prices, Morrisons simply couldn't keep up with them.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: That's helped Aldi overtake Morrisons as the UK's fourth biggest supermarket. To deal with the [01:59:00] suffocating debt load, Morrison's has sold assets, including a 2. 5 billion deal for its petrol stations in January. It's hoping that will let it offer lower prices to shoppers. These problems are besetting a lot of the businesses that private equity has bought.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: All of this really matters because private equity backed companies employ 1. 9 million people in the UK. And their suppliers employ another 1. 3 million people.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: So when these deals go wrong, it can have real world impacts. So it can mean higher costs of goods for consumers. And we can also see jobs lost.

This is something that a number of politicians are already quite concerned about.

CHARLOTTE NICHOLS: How could you ensure the increase? Cost of borrowing won't be passed on to consumers.

MOHSIN ISSA: We are not about sweating assets at all. Our customer experience, CSI, is improving as we speak today. And we are absolutely focused in delivering value for our customers.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: We've seen the owners of Asda, which are the billionaire Issa brothers. And [02:00:00] TDR being hauled in front of a parliamentary committee recently, where they were questioned about, you know, kind of so called price gouging.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: The Bank of England has been worried about increased private equity ownership of British companies.

They're worried about increased debt levels. And they're worried about the impact it will have on the British economy.

MADIS KABASH - HOST, BLOOMBERG ORIGINALS: But with a general election on the horizon, the solution may not be as simple as imposing higher taxes on private equity deals.

ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN: It's difficult for politicians to really crack down on private equity companies because after Brexit, Britain has been searching for external investment and options are thinning on the ground a little bit.

ELEANOR DUNCAN: Proponents of private equity firms say that The money that they bring into the UK economy is super important because there's just not that much foreign investment coming into the country right now. And I think that's the line that the Labour Party, if they do come into power, is going to have to tread very carefully.

SECTION C - SOLUTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section C: [02:01:00] Solutions.

Sociology Ruins Private Equity Part 2 - Sociology Ruins Everything - Air Date 11-1-21

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: You're working on a project right now, the Private Equity Employment and Earning Inequality Project.

What is your research question?

DYLAN NELSON: The research question is, How do private equity leveraged buyouts affect workers in different positions within the firm?

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: Obviously you can't speak about your results yet, but are you testing a particular hypothesis?

DYLAN NELSON: Yes, I'm looking at four hypotheses right now, and This is comparing education on the one hand and the leverage in the buyout deal on the other and then interacting those two factors.

So education is giving you workers as a proxy in different positions within the firm and the cost of debt. In the general economy is giving you the proxy for the leverage in the deal and what I'm hypothesizing as I bring these together is that private equity buyouts of public firms [02:02:00] mostly are negatively affecting non college educated workers while actually benefiting.

College educated workers, but that this difference disappears somewhat when you look at these very high leverage deals, which mostly happened in the lead up to the great recession and to the 2000 recession. And what you see there is the effect on the higher educated workers actually moves negative and the effect on the lower educated workers moves even more negative.

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: Sorry. So I'm trying to understand. It's this idea that as the debt ratio changes, there's a different effect among workers and education.

DYLAN NELSON: Yeah, so the theory gets back to this idea of the conception of the firm and the conception of the restructuring process. When we have normal private equity buyouts, when the cost of high yield debt is very high, These are more focused on operational engineering and operational engineering brings skill bias, technological change, outsourcing, other factors that [02:03:00] increase earnings inequality based on education.

One of the things I'm showing in the paper is that when the cost of debt falls low and the leverage increases in the deals, the conception of the restructuring is more focused on financial engineering, and this ends up. Leading to a greater likelihood of bankruptcy and it leads to more job cutting and other Intermediate factors that reduce worker earnings after the buyout.

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: So what is your methodology? I know that private equity data sets can be hard to obtain. So what are you using?

DYLAN NELSON: This is a big question and it's one of the reasons that we haven't made a ton of progress on private equity. We know it's this important macro organizational phenomenon, and I know you've talked with Eileen about the amazing effects that private equity is happening, yet we often are not able to observe companies prior to and post being bought [02:04:00] out by private equity companies, and especially the workers under those different conditions.

So I'm using quantitative methods. To study these earnings effects of private equity buyouts. I'm using census data, which are collected by states and aggregated in the census department. And this allows you to do a couple of really interesting things. One, you can follow companies through restructuring and you can follow workers over time, because it's all linked through the social security number to you can see companies.

even when they're not public. A lot of the quantitative research in economic sociology uses the Compustat data, which is SEC filings for public firms. And three, you can look at workers actually moving between firms over time. You can use that for identification and also to ask research questions, including on the classic labor mobility questions of the 70s [02:05:00] and 80s, for which we didn't have actually a lot of evidence.

MATT SEDLAR - HOST, SOCIOLOGY RUINS EVERYTHING: For sociologists starting work in this area, what is a good jumping off point in terms of literature? Like, where do you start?

DYLAN NELSON: I would start first with the Private Equity at Work book by Eileen and Rose. It explains basically the way that private equity works, it gives interesting case studies, and it reviews some of the literature on employment.

In terms of the broader private equity literature, it's mostly in finance. And I would recommend sociologists interested in these topics to look into those papers, because ultimately finance is a very sociological, uh, domain of the economy in terms of the institutions, uh, the relationship with government.

The flows of workers and change in the financial sector over the last 30 years. So some of those would be the Steven Davis project, [02:06:00] which has a number of papers over the years using census data to look at employment effects. And there are some other kind of newer research using administrative data from different companies.

Lily Fang at INSEAD. Olsen and Tagg are economists. They have some work on, uh, Nordic countries. In terms of sociology, Neely and Carmichael have a short article in the American Behavioral Scientist about Shadow banking, which they include private equity under that and the Oxford handbook of sociology of finance, which is useful to get started.

Matt Stoller: Goliath - War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy | 054 - Just Another Mindset Podcast - Air Date 2-7-23

ISMAEL VON DER GATHEN - HOST, JUST ANOTHER MINDSET: Why are monopolies the biggest threat we have in our economic system?

MATT STOLLER: Yeah, so if you want to, you know, people look at, at inequality or, um, as kind of a, um, You know, on the left, people look at inequality and they say, Oh, my gosh, there's so much inequality. Look at so and so has worth 100 billion and there's a lot of people in poverty. Um, and you can see that between, you know, [02:07:00] rich countries in the global South, there's like lots of ways to understand that problem.

You can also look at, you know, corruption and say, Oh, there's all this corporate influence over how our governments work. And, um, and you can look at it the other way as well. The, you know, conservatives would say, Oh, there's this collusion with government. Right. controlling corporations. All of that are, is a description of the consequences of what's happened.

Not, it's like you're describing the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself. The disease itself is the consolidation of private power in the hands of the few, right? So the reason that someone is worth a hundred billion dollars, say, is because they have a over a vital Trade or service, and then they can charge effectively a private tax.

They own a important, um, uh, toll booth over a vital part of the economy. So you could look at like someone like bill Gates, you know, Microsoft controlled [02:08:00] access to the personal computer through Microsoft windows. Um, Google controls. access to the internet, right? When you're searching, um, and, and so on and so forth, right?

You can look at any industry and, and, uh, and if there's a tremendous inequality, it's because there is one Entity that's controlling the terms and the pricing in labor conditions. And if you want to address that, the obvious way to, to, to deal. So if you, if you want to address it on the backend and say, we need to deal with inequality, you might say, Oh, tax and redistribute or, um, or various other mechanisms to do something along those lines.

But if you want to address the heart of the disease, what you will say is. Let's not just have one, let's have two, or three, or four. Let's break their power. And if you can't do that because it's something like an electric utility when you're not going to lay [02:09:00] Multiple wires, you know, two wires to a house doesn't make any sense.

Then you just either have public ownership or just pricing rules from the government that says you're not going to be able to exploit this monopoly infrastructure, but either way, the symptom, uh, the, the disease is a consolidation of power in the hands of a few. That is essentially unregulated by any democratic system.

So that's, that's where we are. And, um, uh, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that we can talk about, but that's the, the fundamental, um, social, like, and this problem also caused a lot of, um, like a lot of the social concerns that I think we have, uh, the, the, the feeling that people don't have control over their, um, Over their, their community, their political system, the, the, the really really deep inequities between urban areas and rural areas.

The, um, General sense that that [02:10:00] there's a lot of speech that is kind of like incendiary and sort of out of control. All of these things are a function of this consolidation of power. And if you just look at the symptoms, then you'll go for things like censorship, you know, or you'll go for things like subsidies to maybe to rural areas or instead of what's really happening, which is there's this.

Massive appropriation of property by monopolists. And all you really have to do is stop that. And then you'll have a much more healthier, egalitarian, what's not going to be a perfectly equal society, but it'll be a society where everybody has the same political rights and people can control their, you know, have some control over their own communities and politics will be able to function in terms of being able to craft a society as opposed to sort of the weird, out of sense that everyone has today.

ISMAEL VON DER GATHEN - HOST, JUST ANOTHER MINDSET: We talk about addressing the disease, and one [02:11:00] factor I really like about your book is that you talk about monopolies and the consolidation of power over the past 100 or so years. Another question that I want to ask you is who was Wright Pettman? And why should everybody know about him?

MATT STOLLER: Yeah, right. Pat, that's a good question. So, so the book is about, Goliath is about, um, you know, the fights over a hundred years. It's not a sad story. It's a story about, it is certainly a story about why things are so screwed up today. And I, the reason I wrote it is because I was working in Congress during the financial crisis and I wanted to understand why I'm a Democrat, why my party engineered a foreclosure crisis and facilitated massive wealth redistribution upward.

Cause that's not why most, what most Democrats think of themselves. And we didn't do that like when we had similar crises like we did in the 19 late 1920s that foster the Great Depression. We didn't do that in the US, we did the opposite. We broke the monopolist. That's what Franklin [02:12:00] Delano Roosevelt did in the New Deal.

It's a book that's focused on the U. S. It does have some implications globally, because the U. S. is sort of a very powerful country and structured a lot of what happened. But, um, uh, but I was sort of, like, trying to figure out why did the U. S. do that? Why did we do what we did under Obama? And it's not really about Obama at all, but I was just trying to figure that out.

That's why I wrote the book. And what I found is, is this, there's, there is a series of fights. And one of the main characters is this guy that we've, we don't really know about today. His name is Wright Patman, who was a congressman who was elected first in 1929, 1929. And he was in Congress until 1976. In 1975.

And in 1929, he was elected and he immediately started fighting The kind of then monopolists who were very powerful that the secretary of the treasury was a guy named Andrew Mellon, who, um, was basically a billionaire back then when a billion dollars was a lot of money, uh, obviously it's a lot of money today, but it's a massive amount of [02:13:00] money in, in the 1929 and, uh, owned, I think he was on the board of 99 banks.

He was also the treasury secretary of the United States. So this is like a very powerful guy. Um, or at least he had been on the board of 99 banks before he took that job. And he and Patman got into a fight over how to handle the Great Depression. And eventually Patman filed articles of impeachment.

Mellon resigned. And then over the next 45 years or so, Patman went after bankers and monopolists. Those were the two things that he, those were his two kind of main goals. And he was very successful. He also helped build the administrative state. And then, and he was from a rural area in Texas, which is today very Republican, but he was a very partisan Democrat, very kind of left wing guy, but a populist, not a socialist.

And, um, and that tradition of populism, which in Europe, I think is considered a bad word, but is in fact, Not bad at all. It's just like, [02:14:00] if you mean fascism, you should say fascism. The reason people in Europe and in the U. S. say that populism is a bad word is because they don't like democracy and they're afraid of democracy.

And so they've misconstrued populism to mean fascism, but it's not, it's just normal people saying we don't like how bankers are running things. And that's what Patman was. And he eventually became the chair of the banking committee. And then in 1975, Uh, so in the, in that, you know, the, that period of time, like from really from the 30s until the 1970s, there was kind of like this period where the middle class in the U.

S. expanded dramatically, and then after World War II, that was global phenomenon. Um, and that was because of these anti monopoly policies. And then a new generation of leaders, this is kind of the Bill Clinton generation. emerged and they had a different intellectual tradition. And in 1975, they actually overthrew Patman.

So they kicked him out of his banking committee chair. And these were Democrats. This was not a Democratic Republican thing. This was a [02:15:00] fight in the Democratic party. And it was an intellectual fight over how do you build a good society? And the Democrats who emerged in the 1970s and afterwards thought the way you build a good society is You trust technocrats and experts and billionaires, and that's what they did.

And so since really the mid 70s, we've seen the emergence of, um, the growth, uh, massive, uh, massive growth of, of large multinationals and the domination of every one of our industries by monopolists. And I think you've seen similar trend driven by the same ideas, in some cases, the same people all over the world.

Um, And so Pabman, Pabman was kind of written out of history, even though he was very important. He was written out of history because the idea that you'd have A populist who has modern views of the economy was very, a very impressive thinker and, you know, not, not at an authoritarian at all, but just very, you know, democratic and the [02:16:00] method of addressing inequality was to address, regulate wall street, break up wall street, and also break up large firms and constraint constrained chain stores.

That's a very threatening, uh, idea. Uh, Because it gives the public a way to actually do things that doesn't sound crazy, but sounds very normal, because it is, right? And that, and Patman, I think, some of the laws, he wrote a law that constrains chain stores in 1936, it was called the Robinson Patman Act, which says that you're not allowed to sell goods and services, actually just goods, to large stores at better prices than to smaller stores.

You're not allowed to price discriminate if you're, if that would facilitate consolidation or monopolization. And this protected local stores and it protected the local, local economies all over the, the, the US. And that law, they just stopped enforcing it in the 1970s. They say roughly the same time that they overthrew Patman because they thought, Oh, chain stores are [02:17:00] good.

Local stores are bad. And today. The, uh, we're reversing the choices that we've been making since the 1970s. So the sort of Patman idea, Patman's philosophy is coming back. So the current chair of the federal trade commission, her name is Lena Kahn. She's bringing back and trying to enforce what's called the Robinson Patman act, which was written by Wright patman. Um, and this is going to have significant changes in the economy in general, but that idea that we want to constrain large firms who are engaged in, you know, Anti competitive or, um, unfair conduct is a, you know, it's coming back, um, pretty aggressively in the United States and somewhat in Europe as well.

And that's, I think, a reversion to the ideas that Patman had. And those ideas go back to, you know, you could take, take it back to the 1600s if you want to.

Private Equity and Healthcare with Senator Elizabeth Warren plus ANNIE! with Laura Tretter - Oddly Specific with Meridith Lynch - Air Date 5-15-24

MERIDITH LYNCH - HOST, ODDLY SPECIFIC: What motivated you to take a stand against private equity?

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Well, think of it this way. Look, if somebody [02:18:00] wants to come in and invest in a business and grow that business, triple yoo hoo for them. I'm happy about that. That is not a problem. What I'm concerned about is the business model that much of private equity is used. where they pay what sounds like some fabulous amount of money, let's just say 100 million to buy this business or this chain of stores or whatever.

And then instead of that money going into the business to make the business stronger, to expand it, to clean it up, to freshen it, to do all those things. Instead, That money goes only to the investors who had owned the business and the new investors who are going to run it and suck value out of the business.

I, I think of it kind of like an old car. You've got a car, it's running, it's going on down the highway and what private equity does is it looks at it and says, Hmm, I think we could make money [02:19:00] off the tires and the engine. So they buy it, They pull out the engine and sell it to one group. They take off the tires, sell it to someone else.

And then they just leave what's left to rust by the side of the road. But they don't care, because they got their money back out of it. And the executives who originally owned that car got their money out of it. And you know who's left behind? Who's left behind are the employees, the retirees, the customers, the communities that counted on that business.

They're all gone. And this is just one more example of the The guys who understand financialization come in and they figured out how to make the rich richer and leave everybody else sucking air. And that's what I'm fighting here.

MERIDITH LYNCH - HOST, ODDLY SPECIFIC: Senator Warren, what specific concerns do you have about private [02:20:00] equities involvement in healthcare, especially as exemplified by the situation with steward healthcare?

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah, boy, that's the right question. Hospitals are super duper important. Important to patients, important to employees, important to communities. Think of it this way. When private equity comes in and hollows out and destroys Toys R Us, I admit, I'm still pretty bummed about that. When they do that to Sears, oh, no, really?

When they do it to Kmart, darn. But when they do it to a chain of nine hospitals in Massachusetts, where that's the closest hospital for people who have a heart attack, for, you know, a mama who's trying to get a kid who's gashed her head on the playground and needs to get in and get stitches. Shorter. All those things where people need access to their hospital [02:21:00] immediately, private equity, when they destroy these hospitals, that has the potential to go away.

And there's the special twist, because when private equity comes in and hollows out a hospital, They know that there's a good chance that the local folks will not let the hospital close, so it will end up costing taxpayers money because they will have to infuse the cash back into the hospital to keep the hospital up and running, and that's what makes it particularly dangerous when private equity starts diving into the healthcare space.

MERIDITH LYNCH - HOST, ODDLY SPECIFIC: Yes, and you know, I have read that the mortality outcomes of private equity backed hospitals are actually lower than publicly owned hospitals.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: One of the things we know is, for example, uh, back during COVID, There were [02:22:00] nursing homes, some were private equity owned nursing homes, and some were privately owned, some were for profit, some were not for profit, but when you make that comparison, private equity, non private equity, the private equity owned nursing homes had a 40 percent higher mortality rate.

Just just absorb that for a minute. People literally die because of private equity. And why does that happen? Because private equity cuts staffing, because private equity cuts access to expensive medications, because private equity, as much as this one is going to shock you. I talked to some of the nurses.

Hospitals that have been taken over from private equity, and they talked about things like linens, whether or not there were enough clean linens to go around in the hospital, whether or not the hospital had continued paying [02:23:00] so that it had access to the To the database that tells you if a patient is taking drug A and drug B and you prescribe drug C, what is the likely interaction?

I mean, these are things. that directly affect the health and the health care of the people who come to these hospitals. And nobody hangs a giant sign out front that says, Private equity has taken over this hospital. So you better understand they may not have the equipment they need. They don't have the staffing they need.

And that's just fundamentally wrong. You know, this is a time you when we have to change the underlying laws and say that private equity cannot come in and just hollow out these businesses, suck up all the value for themselves, and leave behind a disaster for the employees, for the patients, for the customers, and for the [02:24:00] communities.

MERIDITH LYNCH - HOST, ODDLY SPECIFIC: Thank you for saying that. I tell people all the time when they say, Why are you, why do you care so much, Meredith? And I say, at the end of the day, It's truly a safety thing. If it isn't affecting you, it's going to affect your grandmother. It's going to affect your mother. So thank you for even bringing these conversations to light.

Cause they've been living in the dark. And so my next question for you is you have advocated for legislation that would claw back the compensation from the healthcare executives and wall street investors. How exactly would this work and what outcomes do you hope to achieve with that?

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: So you'll figure out much of the answer from the name of the bill in Wall Street looting.

It's what we've named this thing. And the idea is just to put in place some curbs on private equity. Doesn't say that nobody can ever make any investments in these businesses or in these hospitals, but it says specifically, for example. If you are one of the investors who comes into one of these [02:25:00] hospitals and sucks all this value out and then the hospital implodes, you have to give back the money.

And that money can be used to rebuild the hospital. And, and I want to be clear, and same thing for Toys R Us, if you come in and suck the money out and then the business implodes, then you didn't buy this business. To help it. You didn't buy this business to expand it. You didn't buy this business to keep it going.

You bought this business to take the value out, sell it for parts, and leave the rusted shell behind. And that is not a business practice. That we want to advance. So partly it's about the executives and their own incentives. And by the way, I hope everybody understands right now, now that you and I are talking about private equity, that private equity actually gets special tax breaks.

that are not available to anybody else. So you [02:26:00] start your own small business, good for you, but you pay your taxes straight up. You go in under private equity and suck out that value. Right now you get special tax breaks, you get taxed at a much lower tax rate, and that means in fact all the rest of us are subsidizing private equity, the very entity that is hollowing out our hospitals, for example, and leaving the rest of us to pay to try to keep those hospitals back up and going.

So from my point of view, the Stop Wall Street Looting Act is just some common sense restrictions that say you want to invest in a business, good for you. But we're not going to help you hollow them out.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [02:27:00] [email protected].

The additional sections of the show included clips from The Market Exit, Good Work, The Majority Report, Sociology Ruins Everything, Pablo Torre Finds Out, Pitchfork Economics, The Zero Hour, Bloomberg Originals, Just Another Mindset Podcast, and Oddly Specific. 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 Andrew—for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to all those who 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 [02:28:00] ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

Add your reaction Share

#1667 Billionaires are Ballots: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Transcript)

Posted by · November 05, 2024 11:26 AM

Air Date 11/5/2024