Transcripts

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

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

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

There's big money in politics, and then there's 2024. The role and influence of billionaires has taken on new shapes and patterns as the threat of fascism has made itself undeniably known, from the candidate and the campaigners to those acquiescing to the mere threat of power, billionaires are everywhere you look in this election season.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 55 minutes today includes Reveal; 5-4; The Majority Report; The Muckrake Political Podcast; The Bradcast; and Today, Explained. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more in four sections:

Section A. Democracy dying in daylight;

Section B. Actual election interference;

Section C. Elon Musk, the billionaire; and

Section D. Trump, the fascist.

Why Elon Musk Went Full MAGA - Reveal - Air Date 10-30-24

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Anna, how would you define Musk's politics?

ANNA MERLAN: [00:01:00] So this is a really interesting question because, like a lot of very wealthy people who own businesses, he's complained bitterly about federal regulation, right? He's gotten in fights with the FCC. He's just seemed really critical of government as a concept.

But at the same time, two of his companies have billions of dollars in federal contracts. That would be SpaceX, his rocket company, and then Tesla, his car company. They have incredibly lucrative and really consequential contracts with the federal government.

So he's in this interesting position where he's both very critical of government and pretty involved in it. No matter who wins, he will still be pretty involved in it through his companies.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Yeah. I think it's safe to say that even though his companies will still do work with the government, regardless of who wins, he's probably seeing a larger windfall if [00:02:00] Donald Trump wins.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, that's accurate. Donald Trump has actually said that if he is elected, he will make Musk the head of a new government efficiency commission with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts, to change federal rules, to rollback regulations, including things like safety regulations that he's complained about affecting Tesla and SpaceX. It's fair to say that this is going to be pretty consequential for him and his companies, both personally and financially, if Donald Trump takes office.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Speaking of Donald Trump, I just have to say that when he took the stage with Musk in Butler, Pennsylvania back in early October, I cannot know what was in the former president's mind, but I would say that while Elon was jumping on stage, the look that Trump gave him was kind of like, "Uh, buddy."

ANNA MERLAN: A really indelible photo.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So what comes to mind when I saw that [00:03:00] photo was that these men are very much kind of the opposite in some ways, and very much alike in a lot of ways. And they're lockstep. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Like, how are they alike?

ANNA MERLAN: Well, you know, they've feuded a lot over the years and in a way, they've feuded because they are so similar. They're both people with one might almost say like messianic beliefs in their own sort of abilities and their own importance in the history of the country and the world. They are both people who believe very strongly in unfounded ideas about voter fraud. They both like to talk a lot about things like illegal immigration at length.

But, we could probably say that Elon Musk is a more successful businessman than Donald Trump. But again, they are, both of them have inflated and mythologized their claims about how they run their businesses over the years. I guess there are more similarities than there are differences [00:04:00] now that I think about it.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Yeah, I will say Elon may be the better businessman. And if you just go by financial value, obviously, Elon is worth more than Donald Trump. But I would say that like when Trump was in his prime, there aren't many people that know how to connect and work an audience the way Trump could, let's say 2016. I don't think right now, but 2016 he was masterful in how he worked his audience and how he worked his message.

And every time you see Elon in public, it's just really awkward.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So going back to Musk and the election and Trump, the New York Times has reported that he's effectively moved his base of operations to Pennsylvania to support Trump's campaign. Why Pennsylvania?

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, Pennsylvania is going to be pretty consequential.

But what is interesting to me here, though, is that obviously Elon Musk is throwing tons and tons and tons of money into the Trump [00:05:00] campaign. But at this point, while you and I are sitting here talking, Kamala Harris is still outraising Donald Trump on the whole, right? She still has an enormous cash advantage.

So one thing that Elon Musk's involvement here is going to do is it's going to be an interesting case study in how much one person's money moves the needle. You know what I mean? How much specifically Elon Musk's involvement does something and whether one guy can have an outsized effect on the election

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Yeah, so he's offered to give away a million dollars each day to randomly chosen registered voters in some swing states Including Pennsylvania who agree to sign a petition supporting the first and second amendment. First, is that legal? It doesn't feel like it's legal, right? Like you can't give people prizes for elections.

ANNA MERLAN: So the Department of Justice has warned Elon Musk and AmericaPAC that this $1 million daily giveaway might indeed be [00:06:00] contravening federal law. AmericaPAC is saying, no, it is perfectly legal, we're not paying people for votes, we're paying people who signed this pledge, we're awarding a prize to a randomly-chosen person who signs this pledge. So, it's fair to say that the DOJ is super interested in what's going on here, and they're paying very close attention. So I guess we'll see what happens with that.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: How would you characterize the kind of power that Musk has right now? The influence he has, being the world's richest man, with one of the most popular social media platforms in the country. It seems unprecedented.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, it certainly feels unprecedented to me, in that there have always been billionaires and titans of industry who get involved in politics, like Henry Ford famously ran for Senate and then when he lost, suspected voter fraud and suspected it very loudly.

But I think the scale of Musk's involvement is really different because it's not just that he's a billionaire. It's not just that he's [00:07:00] endorsing Trump. It's also that he controls a powerful and widespread communication medium, which is Twitter. And I think Musk's role in this election cycle is probably going to be studied for years to come, to understand really what it did.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Do you think he can actually tip the balance of favor for Trump?

ANNA MERLAN: I really wonder about this because this is such a complicated election. There's so many things going on. It's one of those things where it's like, if just money mattered, there would still be a question, because Harris is still out-raising Trump.

So, I think that probably in the end, his effect on the election is not going to be discernible, though I could be wrong. I think it's going to have much greater effects on him and his business and his public profile, which could be good or bad. We'll see.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Yeah. What will you be watching from Elon Musk as the election gets near?

I mean, I think the big thing that journalists are paying attention to is allegations of voter fraud, [00:08:00] election interference from him that he's either posting himself or reposting on Twitter, and how those allegations move when he makes them. Does him making a claim cause it to spread extremely widely, for instance.

So I'm going to be paying attention to that. I'm going to be paying attention to where he decides to be on the ground. And then of course, once the election results come in, depending on how they go, I am super curious to see if he questions them, if he accepts the results of the elections or not.

Because I do think that again, somebody with a platform like the one he has, if he decides to claim that the election was illegitimate, that could be a pretty big deal.

Elon Musks War on Workers - 5-4 - AIr Date 10-29-24

MICHAEL MORBIUS - HOST, 5-4: Several large companies have recently had actions brought against them through the NLRB, and they have responded to the NLRB to those actions by arguing that the NLRB is functionally unconstitutional.

RHIANNON HAMAM - HOST, 5-4: Yeah, four big companies, probably everybody listening [00:09:00] to this has at least seen some headlines about one or more of these companies doing terrible labor practices and being taken in front of the NLRB for complaints about violations of the NLRA. And then also these companies then taking their cases to court to challenge the NLRB's decisions and now challenge the NLRB existing at all.

These companies: SpaceX, of course, run by the monster Elon Musk. Amazon, run by the goon Jeff Bezos. Trader Joe's, run by Shirley, and an insane person whose name I don't know. And Starbucks, that ugly guy that runs Starbucks. It's these four bad actors, these four companies have been charged with, over the past few years, have been charged in front of the [00:10:00] NLRB, of course, with complaints of firing pro-union workers, retaliating against organizing by cutting hours, closing shops, denying benefits being provided to non union workers, and bargaining with workers in bad faith.

Currently, and I think this was as of March of this year, Amazon had 250 cases, open cases in front of the NLRB. Starbucks had 741 open or settled cases by that time in front of the NLRB. Trader Joe's was actively being charged with retaliating against workers for organizing activity and for failing to bargain in good faith. And then famously, of course, Amazon has denied the right of workers to organize into a union left and fucking right.

So, now, I believe the first of these companies to make the [00:11:00] legal argument, and then was joined by the rest of these companies, make the legal argument that the NLRB is unconstitutional actually, is SpaceX. And Elon has been talking all over the internet about this bullshit. And here's what SpaceX is arguing, again joined by Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe's in this legal case. Their argument in court is that the existence of NLRB, the NLRB structure, violates the provisions in the Constitution that protect the separation of powers, right? So SpaceX is saying that the NLRB exercises this prosecutorial function by enforcing labor laws, but also has a legislative function by being about like a labor policy. And then it's adjudicatory authority. These are administrative law proceedings where administrative law judges are adjudicating complaints at the NLRB [00:12:00] that this violates the separation of powers, that no federal agency should be able to prosecute and also legislate and also adjudicate, right? Judges and the executive branch and the legislative branch, those should all be separate.

Now, They're also arguing that the NLRA, the law that created the NLRB, only allows the NLRB to basically provide or decide that equitable back pay is the remedy for workers who are making complaints, and complaints that are found to be true, about labor law violations.

MICHAEL MORBIUS - HOST, 5-4: To jump in here, the reason that this is so pernicious is because if the only relief that can be awarded in these cases is back pay, it pays to just do unfair labor practices. You might as well just fire people who are organizing, because the worst case scenario is that you just owe them the wages that you would have owed them.

And I also want to add some color. The original issue that this spawned out of was [00:13:00] that several SpaceX employees criticized Elon Musk in an open letter. And then SpaceX just fired them. Usually it's like you try to organize a union and you get fired, but with SpaceX, it's just like, you can't be mean to daddy Elon. And I will also add, while we're on the topic of Elon Musk, maybe six or seven years ago, some discrimination cases came out of Tesla that were the most egregious cases to enter federal courts in years.

Just to give you a little bit of an example, there were supervisors openly using the N word in Tesla factories, and Tesla defended that case. They did not settle. They took it to a judgment, which they lost. But that's part of Elon's philosophy of fight every case because he truly does not give a shit about the conditions in his workplace.

RHIANNON HAMAM - HOST, 5-4: Yeah, speaking of the stinky billionaires who are so ugly and don't care about the workplaces that they [00:14:00] run, Jeff Bezos. Let's talk about Amazon. Amazon jumped on board, of course, with Elon's case challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB. Amazon has so many complaints in front of the NLRB, something like 250 as of March of this year. Three administrative law judges at the NLRB had already ruled against Amazon. A federal court had ordered that Amazon not interfere with workers organizing rights. That's where Amazon is at legally.

PETER SHAMSHIRI - HOST, 5-4: Starbucks, as Rhiannon mentioned, has had a lot of claims against it at the NLRB. In one particular case, it's being charged with unfair labor practices for interfering with two workers who were union organizing in Philadelphia. That's the case that they have decided to bring this claim echoing SpaceX, saying the NLRB is unconstitutional. And, I just wanted to read this funny bit from that complaint. On January 25th, the store manager sent an email to his [00:15:00] boss, the district manager, venting about the two employees who were union organizing and stating he was, quote, "willing to deal with the backlash that would come with terminating the two of them, because it doesn't matter if we terminate now or one year from now, they will still call the NLRB." That's definitely the email you want in your unfairly practices lawsuit.

MICHAEL MORBIUS - HOST, 5-4: Just make the phone call. I don't want to help. I don't want to help managers out. But just pick up the phone and say the illegal thing. It's not that hard.

PETER SHAMSHIRI - HOST, 5-4: Yeah.

Trader Joe's also getting on this. Also, you, will never believe this, accused of being union busting. No way. Again, just a funny note from that case, the ALJ, the law administrative law judge when they first made their motion was like, I'm certainly not going to be ruling on my own constitutionality anytime soon. You're going to have to be taking this up with the federal courts, basically. But they are. And we'll see [00:16:00] what the Supreme Court says.

Elon Musk Is SO Bad At This - The Majority Report - Air Date 11-3-24

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But let's pull up this article from Wired by Jake LaHute, who I knew back in the day when he was reporting in New Hampshire, but he's with Wired now. And he did this reporting on workers that are working for the America PAC, Elon Musk's PAC, door knocking for Trump. If we could just scroll down to the opening paragraph. "In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions, a number of them, working conditions.

A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by Wired, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn't be paid for if they didn't meet canvassing quotas. One doorknocker alleges that they didn't even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump. A representative for Musk and AmericaPAC did not return a request for comment. [00:17:00] The contract these doorknockers signed with Blitz Canvassing, which is a subcontractor of Musk's America PAC, says they are expected to maintain a 17 to 22 percent engagement rate during their campaign, which is a high target relative to the number of people who typically open the door for a stranger." That is extremely high and unrealistic target, I'll just say anecdotally. "A group of out-of-state America PAC canvassers were told during a recent team meeting that if they didn't hit their targets, which the door knocker says, were more than a thousand a week on total doors knocked, the organization would stop paying for their motel rooms."

So, Wired obtained this audio, but let's scroll and, did they have the photo of the -- here we go. Here it is. This is the photo of the van that they're apparently driving them around in. And, not --

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's a moving violation, I think?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yes. Yes. And, the door knockers, they spoke to Wired under the condition of anonymity because, of course, this --

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: The richest man in the world put them in the back of a van?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And made them sign [00:18:00] NDAs. But, this part here. "One of the canvassers who was flown out from the Midwest tells Wired that they had no idea they would be knocking on doors in support of Trump, or that the subcontractor that they were working for was a part of Elon Musk's voter turnout operation through AmericaPAC. 'I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who they are voting for,'" says a doorknocker who was one of the people in the back of the van and who was requesting anonymity because of the NDA. "'Then after I signed over an NDA is when I found out that we are for Republicans and with Trump.' The doorknocker adds that they had overheard my su --" can we scroll down a little? Doorknocker adds -- no, still that part, "that they had overheard my supervisor and a few others mention Elon Musk by name marking the first time that they had heard of the billionaire ex owner's involvement."

This is the other part that's key here: "The Trump campaign has largely outsourced its field operation in Michigan to Musk, a move that has come under heavy criticism, as previously reported by [00:19:00] Wired. Blitz canvassing has also reportedly had issues with fake door knocks being flagged by campaign sidekick, the glitchy app used by AmericaPAC. In Nevada and Arizona, up to a quarter of the door interactions were flagged as potential fakes within the app, according to The Guardian. They did their own research."

The other part that I don't need to read, but they also point out that these people that they hired, none of them have valid driver's licenses. I think, I would imagine that they're paying them very little, and they're shoving them in the back of a U-Haul, and having them meet these impossible quotas, and if they don't, they won't pay for their hotel room. And then there's reports out of Arizona and Nevada that they're faking it. Of course they are, because they're trying to get paid and be able to keep their lodging and --

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Efficiency.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: The gamification of this is everything that's horrible about tech, and everything that's also not effective in doing these kinds of actual door-to-door retail politics. It's also the other [00:20:00] stuff that gives me more confidence than the polls would suggest, because the fact that he's giving his get out the vote operation, Trump is handing it over to this complete charlatan, it shows right there what this actually looks like.

BRANDON SUTTON: Yeah, he came and paid for it to be done well. Like he has all the money in the world. So much money that he gives away a million dollars in Pennsylvania a day, which might also get him in trouble very soon. And so, but he can't help but subcontract it out to make it as cheap as possible.

MATT BINDER: I saw that picture and all I could think of was, damn, that's how like my high school punk band traveled to shows back when we were funded by my Applebee's dishwasher job that I worked on the weekends. That's literally how we traveled: the sitting in the van like that. This is apparently a company that Musk's group contracted out to, with a $9 million contract or something like that. And that's what they're doing.

And also, I think it [00:21:00] speaks a lot to not just Musk, but like the whole tech, Silicon Valley mindset as well. So many of these guys have convinced, especially Musk, have convinced the world that their geniuses when their entire reality is fake it till you make it. And their success has been basically faking it long enough until they actually make it. But the problem is, you're not going to be able to do that with every single endeavor you launch. You fake it till you make it on one endeavor and you get lucky and it hits off. Everyone thinks you're a genius. But once you try to do multiple things like Musk is now doing, and you're trying to fake it till you make it for all of them, eventually people are going to see that, Oh, this is how he runs. And he just got lucky previously.

BRANDON SUTTON: Also, just real quick about that too, along with Fake Until You Make It, they also, with Blitzscaling and other types of semi legal businesses, they believe in breaking the law until you are big enough and powerful [00:22:00] enough that you can change the law to retroactively make what you did legal or at least not be prosecuted for it.

And it doesn't seem -- I know when you talk about human trafficking, you think about those true crime videos where like people's kids get taken or like people across the border, stuff like that -- but moving people across borders, across state lines, under false pretences, and then trying to withhold their ability to get home or withhold their ability to escape, is or could be interpreted as a type of human trafficking. And so that's just another crime he's committing that he may or may never see justice for.

The Trump White Supremacy Festival and Hootenanny - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 10-29-24

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: And if we can, and I'm looking at it now to remind myself, the Post was vehemently against Trump and had written, you can argue in there, coverage of him was pretty negative. And in retaliation, Trump had the Department of Justice file this suit against him.

The Amazon, which they had tried to get dismissed because they felt there was political retribution. So you know, as a businessman, he's like, I don't want that again. I don't want to do it at all. So [00:23:00] let's, sit this one out and signal that, you know, again, this is such, it's a petty dictator, right?

Using his authoritarian powers. And you know, from day one, they're, going to be able to do a lot, be a lot more effective in that. Um, did you see that they're actually going to try and, um, uh, circumvent the FBI's vetting process for, uh, access to top secret material? Did you see that? Oh, that, that, that is just wonderful.

That's good. Yeah. So they're going to, they're going to, there's some way I think that they, they figured out that the president can override that. And we know that because Jerry Kushner could not get a clearance originally, right? Because he lied. On his FS 86 form so many times and you know, you know, when you fill out that form, it says, you know, under penalty of like felony, like you were going to go to prison and they never, nothing ever happened to him on that one.

And then Trump finally like waved his magic wand and he was able to get, uh, you know, access to all sorts of secrets. Supposedly they're going to do that again. And, but this time is a broad swath across a whole bunch of these loyalists who are going to come in from day one. [00:24:00] Um, you know, it's, uh, I'm trying to convince myself that it won't matter.

Like I'm living in my bubble in California and nothing will affect me. And, uh, I don't know, but it doesn't feel any better thinking about it that way.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah, because it's not true. Unfortunately, like, I mean, the, the, the, the cultural change in the political sort of see change affects everybody. And on top of that, you are inherently and intrinsically linked to people who are going to suffer, right?

They are just versions of you out in the world trying to live a life just like you are. And quite frankly, Yeah. Like the only people who are actually going to benefit from this are people like Jeff Bezos, that's it. And, you know, people have been bringing up the Los Angeles times, refusing to endorse. And it's owned of course, by Dr.

Patrick Soon Shiong, uh, the, the, uh, the doctor who's made these drugs and all that now has billions of dollars, a reminder to everybody that Soon Shiong like asked Donald Trump to be part of his administration in 2016 and 2017, like, When this state of play emerges, it isn't [00:25:00] just capitulation, Nick. It is recognizing an opening to power and wealth.

And that is how this cycle works at first. Everyone's like, Oh, this is so disgusting. I don't want any part of that. This is dangerous. And by the way, shame on the Washington post for their democracy dies in darkness bullshit, which just made people feel better. Like they were somehow or another getting a newspaper subscription, but making a real difference at the same time.

It's total charlatan bullshit. But as the state of play and environment has changed, Nick, what we're now seeing is a willingness to embrace people like Donald Trump because they're a means to an end to further enrichment and empowerment. It's now the manners don't matter now. It doesn't matter what he actually says.

All that rally that we talked about earlier, like that stuff isn't enough to repel people. Now it's obvious that things are changing and developing and metastasizing to the point where people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, you name it. They recognize that they have everything to gain from this, which for the [00:26:00] record is the next step in the authoritarian cycle.

It's when they buy in, they see this as something that helps them, something that they should go ahead and put their money and their power and their weight behind. And that's when it starts gaining some serious traction and momentum.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Right. And what's supposed to be able to balance all of that is like the business aspect of it, where enough people will say, I'm not going to.

Subscribe to the Washington Post anymore. I know I canceled my subscription as soon as I read that over the weekend. And I saw reports where, uh, in one day they lost as half as many subscriptions as they had gotten all year long, you know, across the board from, from the digital side, uh, But unfortunately Bezos doesn't give a shit because we, you know, people have become so rich, right?

They, they've allowed to accumulate so many billions that losing like 1 billion doesn't mean anything to them. And they don't care if the Washington post is, you know, lost a whole bunch of subscriptions. Um, eventually maybe you could hurt them enough where like the, the bottom line is, is something that's [00:27:00] significant.

But, uh, I, again, they, they've become so rich at this point that they don't care, even though someone like Musk as well.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, I think there's a couple of things to look at here, which are really important. One, cancelling your subscription to the Washington Post. He doesn't give a shit about that. He didn't buy the Washington Post to make money.

He bought the Washington Post in order to influence the communication environment of the United States of America. That's worth way more to him than any amount of subscriptions we would pay for. Also, you know what would hurt more? Cancelling your subscription to Amazon Prime. Or buying things from Amazon.

And that right there is where a lot of his money is made. But Nick, I want to point something out. That still doesn't hurt him all that much. You know why? Because the vast majority of the money that Jeff Bezos makes is actually from his contracts with the United States government. I don't control that.

You don't control that. The idea that our dollars, whether it's the Washington Post or Amazon Prime, are going to make a difference isn't true. [00:28:00] We could boycott him all day long. It's the fact that the government, like, it depends on him. He is still going to get all of these different contracts. The only way that this changes is if we have a sea change in terms of how the government does business.

And we've already seen Elon Musk has promoted some of the worst conspiracy theories and also election interference that we've ever seen. Do you think for a second that any government contract he's up for has been affected in any way, shape or form?

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Uh, no, I guess only the invites to the, uh, events that they have about electric cars.

But other than that, nothing else has been canceled.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Nick, he has been enabling and working with dictators around the world. He actually, if America is a supporter of Ukraine, why didn't he lose some of his contracts to be investigated after he helped Russia in their invasion of Ukraine? On top of that, we just found out that Taiwan that the United States of America is supposed to support in its, in its conflict with China, we just found out that he screwed them over at the behest of Vladimir Putin, the whole point.

[00:29:00] And again, just to bring this thing full circle, we've talked about Israel and Saudi Arabia and how they realized the United States is powerless to do anything for them because their construct of power depends on them, right? They can do whatever they want. The oligarchs understand that as well. They can do anything that they want and they're still going to get the contracts because they're basically the only game in town.

They have monopolized the functions of the United States government and all of its complexes. And so as a result, like why would you piss off a guy who might be the next president of the United States of America and also serves your bottom line? It will only change when our government actually changes and our environment changes.

That does start with us demanding it, but it's not going to be from boycotting Amazon prime or canceling Washington post subscription.

Ballots Burn in WA, OR; Billionaire WaPo, LATimes owners 'Obey in Advance - The BradCast - Air Date 10-28-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Unfortunately, he is not alone. 3,000 miles to the west, Bezos's fellow billionaire, Patrick Soon Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, since 2018, pulled the same maneuver in killing his editorial [00:30:00] board's endorsement of Harris that had been in the works for weeks, and which followed months of editorials warning of the authoritarian dangers of a Trump presidency.

Observers noted that Soon Shiong is a longtime close friend to, yes, you guessed it, lottery man, Elon Musk. Vote buying man, Elon Musk. The world's richest man and who has thrown all his time and considerable dollars, more than 100 million that we know of so far into getting Donald Trump elected, even if he has to offer voters the possibility of a million dollars to sign them up in that effort.

Writes Will Bunch, while the moral center of the journalistic universe seemed to be collapsing, Trump told a rally in Tempe, Arizona that the media is, quote, the media is, quote, the enemy of the people. Echoing ominous language of dictators from the 1930s [00:31:00] and quickly followed that by a new threat to create licensing problems for CBS because Trump did not like the way they edited a 60 minutes interview with Kamala Harris.

And then a lengthy post on Truth Social, his dumb media site, threatening to prosecute his political enemies. He has already suggested several times that he would be willing to use the U. S. military. To help him do that, to round up his domestic political enemies. not just migrants in this country who so many of Trump's supporters seem to think he is talking about, despite Trump's own repeated words to the contrary, saying, no, I'm not talking about immigrants. I'm talking about my domestic political enemies. I'm talking about the Nancy Pelosi's. I'm talking about the Adam Schiff's. Maybe Fox News doesn't play those words to his supporters as much. I don't know. Maybe [00:32:00] outlets on the left don't play those words as much as they should. But the message here is clear, writes Bunch.

The cowardice of the news organizations controlled by Jeff Bezos and Sun Xiong has already taught Donald Trump, in the words of Yale's Tim Snyder. What? Power can do. And if he prevails in next week's election, he plans to bring that hammer down in full force, make no mistake. I should note again here, as we did last week on this program, I believe that on page 247 of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the 900 page policy blueprint for Trump's next term as written by dozens of former Trump administration officials.

At least the ones who aren't out right now trying to loudly warn that he's a fascist and should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again. Chapter 8, page 247 of Project 2025, it is noted [00:33:00] that, quote, Pacifica Radio. Which owns our flagship station here in Los Angeles and helps syndicate this program to dozens of other Pacifica radio outlet, radio affiliate stations around the country and across the world.

That Pacifica Radio, they're specifically mentioned by name, should be defunded and quote, shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting. Now to date, I can report that Pacifica Radio. A network founded in 1946 by Lewis Hill and E.

John Lewis in opposition to fascism as part of their commitment to progressive and anti authoritarian values, Pacifica Radio has not Obeyed in advance, at least to my knowledge, as the billionaire owners of the L. A. Times and the Washington Post have [00:34:00] demanded that their newspapers do. What happened at the Post and the L.

A. Times, writes Bunch, was a stunning betrayal of journalism's moral values. But in a strange way, he says, the papers did perform a public service, showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like. Are American voters noticing? These reversals, he says, coming now, and coming from the poisoned heart of American oligarchy, have instead confirmed the worst fears among an anxiety wracked electorate.

That the core institutions that once saved U. S. democracy under the life or death pressures of Watergate, that would be the Supreme Court, Congress, and aggressive media, all have morally imploded into empty shells.

The editorial, page editor of the, of the LA Times, resigned in protest, [00:35:00] despite the horrendous journalism job market out there. Uh, two, at least two other colleagues have now joined her. Marielle Garza bravely said, I'm resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent.

In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I'm standing up, she said. The Washington Post. For its part in its style section, confirm that, quote, the decision to no longer publish presidential endorsements was made by the posts owner. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.

As Will Bunch concludes at the Philly Inquirer, whose editorial board, by the way, on the same day as the news from the Washington Post endorsed Kamala Harris, they, had no fear of doing so on that very same day. he writes, This early sneak preview of what [00:36:00] dictatorship actually looks like is also providing the most important lesson we could have right now.

Which is how to not obey in advance, but stand up against strongmen and bullies. How all of us respond over the coming days and weeks will decide the fate of the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country,

The Trump White Supremacy Festival and Hootenanny Part 2 - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 10-29-24

TERRIBLE 'COMEDIAN': I welcome migrants to the United States of America with open arms, and by open arms I mean like this. It's wild. And these Latinos, they love making babies too, just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside just like they did to our country. Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor. [00:37:00]

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: No, they aren't. They, uh, Hinchcliffe would also go on to call Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage invoke about cutting watermelons with a Black attendee of the rally.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Oh, that one was a, uh, this chef's kiss. I think. Yeah. Good work. Um, you know, we've discussed this in the past. Gutenberg, not Gutenberg, Guttenfeld, Gutfeld? What's his name?

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Gutfeld.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yes. You have this, these people that, uh, you know, try to be funny and because obviously most of the great comedians are on the other side, I think, right? It's kind of fair to say. And so they try and do their version and it's, um, and I think Trump is probably the top of the list, right?

He's the guy who wants to drink minimum and, you know, and And it's like, um, it's, it's just not, it's cruel. It's, you can't, you can't really mine comedy out of cruelty. You're not supposed to at least. And even when like Rickles could do that, but like he had a, he was, he was talented. And this guy is not.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah. You're not supposed to be punching down. You know, so, so making fun of people who are in the [00:38:00] crosshairs of an authoritarian movement doesn't, isn't really that funny and what actually happens here and sometimes comedy will do this, it will provide clarity. It was really, really a good move by Tony Hinchcliffe to make it.

Obvious what the Republican party actually believes. They don't care about, you know, conservativism. They don't, they don't care about family values. What they want to do is they want to hurt the people that they do not like, and that they do not see as humans. Um, this was some of the most unvarnished hate that we have seen.

And the, the, the issue here, Nick, and before we move on to other clips from this white power hootenanny to end all white power hootenannies is to point out. That while a lot of people are celebrating online is if this is somehow or another going to be a death knell towards the Trump campaign, or it's going to hurt his electoral chances, it's simply not.

You can say any of this, you can make any of these claims. You can, you know, traffic in racist stereotypes. It does not move the bottom line when it comes to Donald Trump, not even the beginning of a percentage point. [00:39:00]

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Okay. But it might move the needle in terms of anybody of the undecided or people who might even have quite voted.

I don't know if anybody's even out there like that. Um, so that's what's interesting to me on that end. Um, but, but then if you look at the comments, I like to do that, right? I like to follow like what the response is to these kind of things. And it's like, so many of the people who are, you're talking about who are not swayed at all.

Um, it think it's like, it's a joke. He's a comedian. Is you guys don't have any, you don't have a sense of humor. What's wrong with you? Right? Like, what's wrong with us for not finding humor, uh, from something like that, or calling Puerto Rico a piece of trash? Um, for what it's worth, there's half a million Puerto Ricans that live in Pennsylvania.

Um, and what the early returns are, it seems to be, is that that is going to be, have an effect. This, that's what I've been seeing, like, you know, if we use Twitter, like if you listen to Musk right? That's the, the source of news. Um, it's possible. And there might be some Puerto Rican people of that heritage who [00:40:00] would, you know, figure out a ways to get more votes for, for Kamala Harris.

I don't know. You don't think so?

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: No. And I, I, I think that, like, that is a, a comforting. Idea, particularly. I mean, we're going to do our election forecast in a while. And it is, uh, it is a really tense election coming up. I mean, whatever the truth is, Nick, if, you know, superstitions or sort of things like comfort people, that's totally fine.

But I think the really dire thing. Is to look at what happened at this rally. And I have now watched every second of it and have been repulsed by it. It it's really shocking by the way, that they decided to make their final appeal, the most like pure concentrated version of their hate and ugliness. That that was what they went with because it's been working for them.

Um, I, I, I don't think that this is necessarily going to hurt Donald Trump in some way, by the same fashion. For the record that the clip we're getting ready to listen to this from a preacher who at one point nick [00:41:00] Grabbed a crucifix and called on god to help donald trump and destroy their political enemies here He is, uh giving uh, you know his his idea of who kamala harris is

TERRIBLE 'COMEDIAN': In fact, she is the devil, whoever screamed that out.

She is the antichrist at her.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: She is the antichrist. She's the literal personification of evil who has been birthed into the world in order to destroy

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Christendom. I'm so glad I watched the omen and started watching the omen too. So I know what he's talking about.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, in case you wondered what else other people thought about the Democratic Party, here is another one of the speakers.

By the way, this thing went on for six hours. It's incredible. And, and, and, and quite frankly, it never ceases to shock here. Here is a, another, uh, look at what they think about the Democratic Party.

CLIP: She is some sick bastard that Hillary Clinton, huh? What a sick son of a bitch. The whole fucking [00:42:00] party, a bunch of degenerates, low lives, Jew haters, and low lives.

Every one of them. Every one of them.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Do you ever think you'd hear a political campaign, like, turn towards this, Nick?

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, he's off script, right, Jared?

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Oh, great. Cool. I assume he was drug off by a hook, right?

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Uh, he's reading off a teleprompter, as I think they all were.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Uh, oh, cool. Oh, great. Great.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Tells us that these were vetted. These were all speeches that were okayed. Um, you, you have to imagine that, you know, the kind of control that they have means that they would not let that, this kind of thing happen if they didn't approve it. But like, it's like what you said, so I've been saying for the last several weeks, this is, they, they, they.

The polls are telling them that they need to continue to do this. It's going to get worse, right? They're going to get even worse. I try to, I wish I could predict this accurately to figure out exactly what they're going to go do next, right? Because it's so bad as it is, but I don't, they're going to, there's going to, they're going to find another way to, you know, Think that they're gonna get an extra half a point off [00:43:00] of that.

There's a reason why this is in the A Block of today's show. This right here is yet another mile marker along the way to point out exactly what's happening to American politics. You and I started our discussion eight years ago, Nick, back in 2016 when I started reporting from Trump rallies. That's when we linked up and started talking about this thing.

And I said, you know what, over time, regardless of what happens in elections, this thing is going to continue to mutate. and worsen as radicalization and polarization worsen. What happens with that? Not only does hate become the main driving force of one of the main political parties, but you start to see this embrace of, of conflict politics.

And it isn't going to be the same old speeches. Like if this was Mitt Romney speaking a couple of days before, you know, the, the 20, uh, 2012 election, like you would not be hearing this. Right? Like this is down a path that is encouraging this and [00:44:00] incentivizing this. And what you just said is completely correct.

I can only imagine within the next week, we're going to hear something else that is even going to take what we saw at Madison Square Garden and, and honestly put that to shame or put it into new context.

Well, I wrote this down because the question hit me, uh, over the weekend. Uh, when you were looking at sort of what Michelle Obama was trying to say, or it was saying in her speech, and when you hear Kamala and Wallace talk, like, how are you supposed to sell decency?

To people who are fueled by anger and hate, you know, that's where we're at because what they're going to think is that decency and empathy are all weakness. And in this society, the way we've gotten to in a way that we were going toward that, a more empathetic place, we've the pushback probably in the same way that the pushback against like the counterculture movement swung us way back toward Reagan, like this swinging back again into the toxic masculinity of which we thought had been kind of Conquered, you know, uh, is really, um, [00:45:00] frustrating and troubling.

How Trump could steal the election - Today, Explained - Air Date 10-29-24

NOEL: You recently wrote a big piece called The Very Real Scenario where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway. And it starts with the claim If Donald Trump loses the election next week, he is going to challenge the results again. Why do you feel comfortable making such a claim?

KYLE: Well, first of all, that was the collective judgment of dozens of people we talked to about what they expected that scenario. But but really, the answer is almost obvious in that Donald Trump is essentially telling us that he has said he can't lose unless there's some kind of massive cheating by Democrats.

<CLIP> DONALD TRUMP: If the election's not rigged, we're going to win.

He's describing massive cheating by Democrats, even though it's not based on any real evidence.

<CLIP> DONALD TRUMP: We got to stop the cheating. If we stop that cheating, if we don't let them cheat, I don't even have to campaign anymore. We're going to win by so much.

And he’s expressed such supreme confidence that he's going to win. That is conditioning his supporters to believe that anything other than a win is stolen from him. So he's essentially saying it [00:46:00] almost explicitly and it's what we saw four years ago, so everyone expects it to recur.

NOEL: Politico did not write a similar piece about Kamala Harris. Why not?

KYLE: Similarly, the dozens of people we spoke to said, look, if Donald Trump wins the election, he wins. There's you know, you could you'll see some protests. You'll see some legal challenges in a really close state. But if Donald Trump is the winner, he's going to be the winner.

NOEL: All right. Let's go through the chronology as you laid it out in your story. You identified a bunch of discrete stages, starting with right about now, the end of October through November 11th. Where does the potential plan to steal the election start?

SCORING IN—STUDIOUS RED

KYLE: Well, what we said in the story was, you know, if you look at if you count this as step one or phase one, it's already underway. And that is this effort to condition as many people as possible to not trust the election results so that in the event Donald Trump loses, he'll be able to say, we can't believe the numbers that we're seeing. So that's happening that Donald Trump's talking about this new Democrats registering massive numbers of non-citizen voters trying to [00:47:00] solicit illegal votes from overseas.

<CLIP> DONALD TRUMP: Our elections are bad. And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they're trying to get them to vote. They can't even speak English. They don't even know what country they're in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote.

Again, No evidence of this. There are there are certain parts of the process that are being litigated, I think, in a more legitimate way about how, you know, the different safeguards and what the right safeguards are. But there's no evidence that there's some massive orchestrated plot to get thousands and thousands of unlawful people to register and vote. But he's saying that in part because it creates that noise and pressure that he needs for later phases of the process. So I think that's really step one. Step two is election night itself. When we expect and everyone we talk to expect Donald Trump to either declare victory or at the very least cast doubt if it seems like there's a Harris victory in the offing.

<CLIP> GLOBAL NEWS: It's the same playbook he used in 2016. and again in 2020, where he still refuses to admit he lost.

<CLIP> TRUMP AT DEBATE: [00:48:00] “if you look at the facts, I would love to have you do a special on it, you can look at georgia, I’ll show you Wisconsin, I’ll show you Pennsylvania..we have so many facts and statics but you know what? That doesn’t matter..

SCORING OUT

NOEL: Okay. Americans are on edge. We're suspicious. Half the country is suspicious in one direction, half in the other. Where does it go from there?

KYLE: So the next phase in the process after election night, you know, obviously, we'll see some states being called, we might see some states that are too close to call. It could be a couple of days before we get the final results. But assuming we're heading toward a Harris victory, it probably would be a very close one. But the next phase is for the state, county and state election boards to certify those results, canvass and certify the results. Four years ago, we saw Donald Trump try to intervene in that process, lean on allies and state and county boards and tell them not to certify.T hat didn't work. It didn't get him anywhere.

<CLIP>CBS NEWS: President Trump continued his [00:49:00] assault on a 2020 vote today. And oreven as he claimed total election corruption in Arizona…BRIAN KEMP: All 15 counties have certified their results. REPORTER: The state's Republican governor was certifying Biden's victory…

But in the intervening four years, we've seen a lot of turnover on these boards, and many of them are now populated with much closer allies.

<CLIP> DONALD TRUMP: I don't know if you've heard, but the Georgia state election board is in a very positive way. This is a very positive thing, Marjorie. They're on fire.

So if there's a state where Donald Trump wants to protest or reject or challenge the outcome using those boards, he can ask those same officials and make it a different result this time. Now, what's interesting about that is we talked to a lot of secretaries of state and other election chiefs in different states, and they said that's not going to amount to very much. They they will make a lot of noise, but we will go to court and force these boards to certify the election. In their view, that's sort of a successful outcome. But [00:50:00] if you're viewing this through the lens of Donald Trump and what he wants to accomplish, in some ways that's actually right on target because that gets him [to] say these state and county boards have been forced to certify an invalid election under pressure and duress by the courts, not because they think the election is legitimate. That's why I need help from other elected Republicans to reverse the outcome.

NOEL: All right, then the next state in your chronological timeline is December 11th. What goes on on December 11th?

KYLE: So that is a really important dividing line in this process. That is called the safe Harbor deadline. It's something set out in federal law that says states have to send their certified election results to the federal government by December 11th in order for the results in their electors to be counted. And so that's when you go from this sort of this very administrative process where you're just tabulating votes and certifying them, and then to the next phase, which is where you have state legislatures and ultimately Congress receiving those results and acting on [00:51:00] them. That's when the sort of the counting process is over and you're in this sort of political power process of this this entire situation.

NOEL: What did we see in 2020 that makes you think December 11th is such a key date here?

KYLE: Sure. So. So in 2020, I think what people didn't appreciate was that once the states certified and sent the results in Trump, Donald Trump was not going to be done trying to reverse his defeat. That was when the sort of pressure campaign really ramped up again on state legislatures.

SCORING IN—A SIMPLE REVENGE

<CLIP> PBS NEWSHOUR: The accusation, like much in the Trump case, is unique. Federal prosecutors point to these seven states which Trump lost, but where they allege he plotted to subvert the results with a false slate of electors…..

KY: E And this is interesting. And this was a process that was sort of overlooked in 2020 and now is very highly scrutinized. But state legislatures under the Constitution essentially have the power to decide who gets their presidential electors. [00:52:00] And now most constitutional experts say they've already made that choice. They've said it's a popular vote. and so the winner of the popular vote gets those electors. But what Donald Trump did was surround himself with a bunch of lawyers who adopted a sort of fringe theory and said those state legislatures can take that power back at any time. They can say we don't trust the election results. We think it's tainted by fraud and irregularities. And we actually want to decide immediately, you know, that we should appoint a different set of presidential electors and send those to Congress alongside the electors certified by the governor.That is the point in the process where that would happen. If the if the governor certifies a slate that Donald Trump disagrees with and he wants an alternative slate, he can lean on those state legislatures to do that.\

WARNING Trump's Threating to END Civil Liberties - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 10-31-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to American civil liberties that could issue in [00:53:00] usher in a new era of racial violence, political tyranny. I think it's a legitimate warning. He writes, it is the We lead at our kitchen table and in our bedrooms that is most dangerously threatened by the tyranny that a return of Trump to power would represent.

This is the kind of tyranny that everyone who reads these words should fear most and work hardest to hold at bay. He notes that Trump has already begun to dismantle political protections that might prevent him from carrying out threats. This includes siccing the military on his perceived enemies, which could be you or me.

Aligning himself with dictators whose charm and patriotism he praises. Dismantling the civil service. And sacrificing American influence abroad by abandoning European allies. Edsel warned that one third of MAGA [00:54:00] Republicans expect imminent civil war. One third. More than half of MAGA Republicans say political violence is justified.

Nearly three quarters of MAGA Republicans believe that white people face discrimination and that there's a plot to replace white people in America. Which pretty much tells you, you know, why white people are supporting Donald Trump. Or why so many white people are supporting Donald Trump. It's all about white privilege.

We wanna keep our white privilege, don't you know? You know? The study says, uh, this is, you know, he's quoting a study here. He says, assessments by law enforcement experts in violent domestic extremism and prior research concern about the potential for political violence among MAGA Republicans appears to be justified.

Edsel notes that there are three protections against a president being out of control. Number one, White House advisors. [00:55:00] Two, the threat of impeachment, and number three, the threat of prosecution. Well, Trump is not going to have the same advisers again. He's not going to have John Kelly back. The threat of impeachment, he just shrugs because Republicans in the Senate won't convict him, so he doesn't care if he gets impeached in the House.

And the threat of prosecution? Ha! The Supreme Court did away with that. So, or at least six Republicans on the Supreme Court did away with that. John Kelly, per our song just a moment ago, is quoted in the Atlantic as saying that he wanted Donald Trump, excuse me, it's in Peter Baker and Susser Glaser's book, The Divider, Trump and the White House, that Trump asked John Kelly, a general, why can't my generals be more like Hitler's generals?

John Kelly tried to patiently explain to him that Hitler did what Hitler told them to do and it was a disaster. You know, attacking Russia, and as a [00:56:00] result, three times, Hitler's generals tried to, and he didn't believe it. He said, no, no, no, no, no, they were totally loyal to him. That's what Trump told John Kelly.

Meanwhile, over at Fox, Brian Kilmeade says if Trump becomes president and he gets generals like Hitler's generals, quote, that would be great. Seriously. This is Brian Kilmeade, quote, he would say it's not your job to rein in the president. It's your job to do what the president wants. It would be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do.

Thank you, Fox News. We, we understand who you are and what you're all about.

Note from the Editor on how to feel about the road ahead

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with reveal, discussing the process of Elon Musk going manga. Five four explained to the war on labor, launched by mosque with others following his lead. The majority of report looked at Musk's election efforts through America pack the muck rake political podcast discussed the role of the billionaire elite in a fascist power [00:57:00] structure. The Brad cast also looked at the shifting power games among business elite Hedging ahead of a potential Trump presidency. The McCurry political podcast discussed Trump's Madison square garden rally. Anne's today explained, looked at the potential path for Trump to subvert the election results.

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 the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics often trying to make each other laugh in the process. 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 use to listen, you may be able to use the time codes in our 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 [00:58:00] 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. I just want to clarify a couple things, share some thoughts.

The first is that we are sharing everything we are sharing in the show today, not to frighten or depress, but to prepare. My hope is that if you're a listener of the show, You won't have been metaphorically holding your breath, leading up to election day. In the hope that a feeling of relief would be coming soon. And if you have been doing that, let me help reorient you. It's like the tunnel game when you're driving and you hold your breath as you go through, but we're not coming to the end of the tunnel here on election day, we are entering that tunnel right now.

And that tunnel is at least two months long. So be mentally and emotionally prepared for that. Of course, that's in the case of the Harris win and the election. If Trump pulls out another 2016 and eats out an electoral college [00:59:00] victory, Then the tunnel we're entering is much longer. Indeed. But I have thoughts on that too. The idea of entering a second Trump term And more broadly, a fully entrenched Trump era of the Republican party. Is as dark of a political possibility as most of us will have experienced in our lifetimes. You know, maybe all of us. I'm not here to downplay that in any way. It's a, certainly better to expect the worst. Which is absolutely what they're promising. Out loud with their own words. But just take a long view on various forms of dictatorship and authoritarian government. History is littered with examples of them coming to glorious ins. I tend to think of the major bridge in Lisbon Portugal.

I'm not even going to try the Portuguese pronunciation, but it's named the 25 day, uh, Breall bridge, April 25th bridge named for the date that their dictatorship was overthrown in 1974. [01:00:00] And whenever I think of. Either current present. Dictatorships in reality or theoretical future dictatorships and authoritarian governments.

I tend to end up thinking about that bridge because it reminds me of the limitations of dictatorship, the, you know, nature of them to very often be. Short-lived I mean, you know, like 20 years. For a dictatorship. As is normal but it's not a thousand years, which is how long they imagine they're going to last.

So take from that what you will, but the point being. These things come to an end and then everyone celebrates and puts up monuments, celebrating the end of their dictatorships and, you know, pulling away from that. Just more generally speaking about politics, you know, once you've been paying attention to politics long enough, it becomes easier to remember that no defeat is permanent. Just as no, when is either. Progress and progressivism is always about [01:01:00] the endless fight and can never be about achieving permanent victory. And so when I had that mental shift years ago, it really helped reorient me and my energies to, to not be in a perpetual state of disappointment that we hadn't yet achieved. Permanent victory or that. Permanent victory seemed to be. Getting pushed farther off and oh, well, well now it's going to take longer to get to that permanent victory.

That seems to be just over the horizon. No, it's not there. that's. What I learned and came to terms with is there is no permanent victory. Any time. Ever.

But in the same way, there's no permanent defeat either. So. Regardless of the length of the tunnel we're entering today, there will be a light at the end of it. We may be much worse for wear. Again, I am not downplaying the likely damage of a Trump presidency, mostly for our chances of addressing climate change.

If [01:02:00] nothing else. It's just that I find taking that long view can help give the strength to keep the fight alive day after day. In the present.

SECTION A - DEMOCRACY DYING IN DAYLIGHT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up section a democracy dying and daylight followed by section B actual election interference section. See Elon Musk, the billionaire and section D Trump. The fascist.

Ballots Burn in WA, OR; Billionaire WaPo, LATimes owners 'Obey in Advance Part 2 - The BradCast - Air Date 10-28-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: you know, I mentioned at the, uh, at the top of the show, uh, the importance of supporting, uh, whichever media outlet happens to be making the Bradcast available to you today. Well, uh, this news from Friday and over the weekend should make the necessity of that right now, the necessity of independent media, uh, right now, just one week away from election day, more than clear.

The Washington Post Post The newspaper with the now wildly and embarrassingly ironic [01:03:00] slogan, Democracy Dies in Darkness, a slogan by the way that was adopted by the paper after Donald Trump was elected to his first term in office, uh, that paper has decided it just can't make an endorsement this year in the presidential race.

It just can't choose between, uh, the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris and a guy whose own top White House advisors from the last time he served in the White House have repeatedly and loudly described him as a fascist. A man who kicked off his final week before Election Day with a rally on Sunday night that's being described today as Nazi esque.

Given the, uh, attacks on immigrants and the calls for mass deportations and one of the speakers who described Puerto Rico, an island, by the way, of U. S. citizens, as a, quote, island of garbage. Uh, this is, uh, this is the man that, [01:04:00] uh, held a rally, Donald Trump at Madison Square Gardens in New York City, the site of the infamous America First rally back in 1939 held at the time by the American Nazi party.

These similarities there were not lost on anybody, but sure. It's a tough call for Washington Post to make, uh, as to who they should endorse this year. The Los Angeles Times made the very same decision to not endorse either of the two presidential candidates late last week. In both cases, the decision, the cowardly decision, was made by its billionaire owners.

After the editorial boards at each of the otherwise highly regarded papers had already drafted their endorsements. In both cases, For Kamala Harris, as you also heard at the very top of the show, the world renowned us expert on fascism and tyrannical authoritarian regimes, Timothy Snyder. leads off his [01:05:00] landmark 2017 book titled On Tyranny with the most basic warning for how to respond to the rise, or the potential rise, of a, of a fascist regime.

Quote, Do not obey In advance, most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given, he notes in his now classic book. In times like these, he writes, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then they offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

And yet, as our friend Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who happened to be on this program on, uh, on January 6, 2021, [01:06:00] when the man now running for president again on the Republican side, incited a violent attack on the U. S. Capitol and on the U. S. government himself in hopes of blocking the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in U.

S. history, that Will Bunch wrote at the Enquirer over the weekend, once upon a time, in a world that feels so very far away, stories of courage by the reporters, editors, and publisher at the Washington Post inspired a generation of young people to believe that journalism was a way, and maybe the best way, to change the world for good.

The pivotal scene, he notes, in the 1976 film, All the President's Men, which burnished both the facts and some legend about the Post, uh, their star reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and their role in the Watergate scandal that took down Richard Nixon, that, uh, pivotal scene takes place in the dead of [01:07:00] night on the Pivotal Island.

pitch black lawn of the, uh, top editor at the paper, Ben Bradley. The two journalists fear they are being bugged and they relay their source deep throats warning that, quote, people's lives are in danger, maybe even ours. In a famous monologue, Bradley, played by the Oscar winner Jason Robards, tells Woodward and Bernstein to keep reporting the story, that, quote, nothing's riding on this except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country, adding his trademarked newsroom cynicism, quote, Not that any of that matters.

Yet perhaps an even more revealing scene, notes Bunch, occurs earlier in the film when Nixon's campaign manager, John Mitchell, called by the reporters for his comment on a damning article, instead issues a warning to the Post's trailblazing publisher at the time, saying, quote, Katie Graham's gonna get [01:08:00] her He used a crude word for breast.

Caught in a big fat ringer if that story's published. Well, Kathryn Graham's post had a lot at stake. Federal regulators could have stripped her company's lucrative TV licenses, for instance, at the time. And yet both the story and the quote Minus the T word, were in fact published in The Post, which ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize for its relentless pursuit of Watergate.

These are the stories, Will Bunch notes, that journalists tell ourselves in order to live. So much so, that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Felt compelled when he bought the post from Graham's heirs in 2013 to invoke them to reassure the newsroom that he would never diminish the post's reputation for courageous journalism.

The 200 [01:09:00] billion dollar man at the time wrote in a letter to staffers quote, Well, I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a ringer. If they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham's example, I will be ready. Will Bunch notes, Jeff Bezos was lying. On Friday, the world's richest, third richest person, his scandal scarred British publisher, Will Lewis, and the iconic newspaper they control, stunned both the American body politic and the media world by spiking their own editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.

Just days ahead of an election defined by her rival, Donald Trump's increasing threats to impose a tyrannical form of government With mass deportation camps and arrests for his growing enemies lists, including, yes, journalists,

the, uh, [01:10:00] Lewis's, uh, this is the, uh, the publisher Lewis's utterly incoherent defense of the decision ending a tradition of presidential endorsements they post launched in 1976. The very same year that All the President's Men was released did nothing to quell the rampant, informed speculation that his boss, Jeff Bezos, had killed the already drafted editorial out of fear of a revenge minded Trump 47.

Who could terminate the billionaire's extensive business dealings with the federal government. It seemed all too fitting then that Donald Trump was in Austin, Texas, meeting executives of Jeff Bezos space venture, Blue Horizon, at the very same time that the Washington Post kiboshed the endorsement. That space company, uh, owned by Jeff Bezos, already has contracts for billions of dollars with the federal government.[01:11:00]

And many other such contracts as well, all of which, well, depending on who wins the next presidential election, could simply go away. Will Bunch notes, if this looks like the latest saga of open corruption in a nation that's become a billionaire kleptocracy, it is. But this moment is also so much more than that.

He says America is witnessing the raw power of dictatorship just days before voters even decide if that will truly be our future path. He is obeying fascism in advance.

TYT Explodes Over Calling Trump 'Fascist' - The Majority Report - Air Date 11-1-24

ANNA KASPARIAN: Donald Trump is deeply racist, and he says deeply racist things, okay? I want to make a distinction between Donald Trump, the person who says and does racist things, and the notion of a fascist.

Because look, if we're just going to use fascist toward anyone we dislike, we're going to be Alright, then the word doesn't actually mean anything. Okay,

CENK UYGUR: what do you want me to say, Anna? You want me to say wannabe dictator? Sure, you can say [01:12:00]

ANNA KASPARIAN: wannabe dictator, but I don't even think he wants to be a dictator.

Of course he does! That's what you do when you lose an election and you go,

CENK UYGUR: oh, I've got to convince the electors and I'd like to change the Constitution and bring out the tanks and use martial law against American citizens and shoot protesters. I mean, if that's not fascist, then I guess the word just shouldn't exist.

ANNA KASPARIAN: Was he able to do those things?

CENK UYGUR: First of all, his entire cabinet had to threaten, not cabinet, administration, his White House team, had to say we're all going to mass resign if you roll out tanks against American citizens. Okay, so

ANNA KASPARIAN: if you think he's a fascist, wouldn't that justify taking physical action against him?

CENK UYGUR: No, because that doesn't help, that devolves us further into fascism. Whoa, what a straw man. Can you pause it actually?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: There's a difference between somebody I guess I didn't see that part, but what, I mean, If you're a

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: fascist, why aren't you, uh, What is the guy who tried to kill Hitler? Uh, Ribbentrop I mean, It's

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: a way to continue to delegitimize what Cenk is saying there, and Cenk is absolutely right.

I mean, look, if she wants a definition, uh, [01:13:00] Fascism's a political ideology that started as an outgrowth of Mussolini and Hitler's reigns at the start of the 20th century. You can characterize it as highly militaristic, I don't think. Nationalistic, anti democratic, a political movement that encourages violence, um, uh, against leftists, um, against, um, uh, LGBTQ people, um, minority groups, sorry, what'd you say, Brandon?

I said

BRANDON SUTTON: marginalized groups, yeah. Go ahead. Marginalized

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: groups, right? Or anyone that's opposing you and, you know, that can involve, like, um, a, a consolidation of power for the wealthy, I mean, the, the definitions of fascism are quite well established, but forced deportation. Like, that's unequivocally what Donald Trump and J.

D. Vance are proposing there, is unequivocally a fascist policy. So, to basically And it's

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: demographically motivated as well, despite the, like, National Socialist gloss that they give to it.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So, so, so, I found that fascinating and depressing to see how, okay, he's not a fascist, or, when you make these claims, like, that [01:14:00] goes too far is basically what her contention is.

And then, um, Um, she asked was he able to do any of those things, and the point is that, like, yeah, he was thwarted. But apparently you're only a fascist if you win. Let's give him some more reps at it. Saga and Jenny

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: make the same point. Like, well, he didn't, he couldn't really do it, and he didn't really do it, but let's give him four more years to try knowing what he knows now.

Are you fucking stupid? Yeah. It's such

BRANDON SUTTON: a moving goalpost, too, because it goes from, like, okay, he's not, He's not in favor of those things to like, okay, yes, he is in favor of those things, but he wasn't able to do them. And you see like Republicans whose main role it is to like run interference for Trump, who are more media savvy, play this, like, Picard all time was like, he's just saying those things to trigger lip.

He's like, okay, well, we have evidence of him trying to do those things, like actually try to, you know, And that's what he says, they go, okay, but he wasn't able to do it. It's like, that's, you know, you can't, you can't fight with that. Cause until he does it, then suddenly it's not like, there's no provable point.

It's the same argument people make about Israel's genocide in Palestine, where it's like, there are still some Gazans alive. [01:15:00] So it can't be genocides. Like that's not how it works. And I would also just point out, you know, you can read Umberto Eco about fascism, but when you're talking about neo fascism or at least fascism that takes place in the aftermath of Nazi Germany, in the aftermath of.

Italian Mussolini fascism. You have to understand that fascists are able to disguise fascism better because they understand that fascism is simply not popular. You know, there is a reason why, even people on the right, when they're accusing socialists of, you know, being, Uh, anti liberal or illiberal, use the word fascist because they know fascism as a political project has been extremely delegitimized due to the many, many Or the word Nazi,

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Brandon.

Yeah, Nazi. Right, like these right wingers, so many of these people that are actual Nazis in terms of the, the core of their ideology, but they won't brand themselves as that in public at the very least.

BRANDON SUTTON: They'll try to brand Nazis as socialists, they'll be like, oh, they were national socialists, a complete canard, a complete red herring.

But, you know, you just have to be aware that neo fascists nowadays understand [01:16:00] that what they are preaching is not popular, and that's why they have to launder it into modern, you know, mainstream political discourse with any number of just like, sleights of hand that help them, you know, escape that.

Identification. But Trump isn't able to do that. He just says straight up fascist stuff and then people who are defending him have to try to launder it or disguise it as something different than it is.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, and you know, I've, I've, on Left Reckoning, we've talked a lot about, um, the definition of fascism and that sort of thing, and Robert Paxton is another definition of fascism that I think pretty much, uh, indicts Trump, uh, and he, he traces it back to the Klan as like a early form of neo fascism.

Um, Richard Evans is a historian who makes that point about a militaristic society being a difference between, uh, the original fascists and now, and I think that sort of taxonomy

But this thing where it's mainly about you're too alarmed, uh, is a big problem for me and I don't, uh, think it's, uh, you know, well founded.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And even under [01:17:00] that definition, in terms of the militarism, you could make a case for neo fascism and the, with the level of armaments that, like, a certain level of our population has, um, if you wanted to basically say that they could be, you know, Galvanized into some sort of, uh, action against the groups that are being targeted.

I think that's a very fair, uh, academic perspective on fascism. Um, but yeah, just the claim essentially that it's hysterical to make these, uh, accusations or to call him a fascist. Well, I would say that, uh, a conversation between, uh, Mark Milley and Anna is in order or with these other Trump administration officials that have said his former chief of staff, The very same things where they don't have an incentive to do so in any regard.

They're just saying what they heard. We know from Ivana Trump's, uh, divorce proceedings that he, at least she claimed that he had a speech of, uh, Hitler's is a

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: sequel to Mein Kampf is how it was marketed, which is the speeches of Adolf [01:18:00] Hitler, right? And that is, seems to be, I mean, if she made that, if she made that, If she made that detail up, she had a great divorce lawyer because it probably said like, Oh, Mein Kampf is too obvious.

Go with this. No, I think it's probably because Trump did have a collection of Hitler speeches on his bedside table. But,

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: but that's

BRANDON SUTTON: what Mein Kampf is too mainstream. He's more of a Hitler deep cuts. B sides. B sides.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But, but like what adds credibility to her claim is what we've heard from like people that worked with him and what he says in private and then what he says in public.

So the question is, how much Like, how credulous are you going to be to these right wingers? And it seems that she's made an assessment that at this point, that, uh, she lends them a lot of credence, and gives them a lot of flexibility in terms of, like, what they claim publicly, matching what they claim in private, and what that political ideology really means for people in this country.

And so, um, I found that despicable, to be honest with you. Um, and, uh, You know, it's [01:19:00] all doing whatever you want because you feel like it's better for your career makes total sense, but to downplay the threat of Trump, especially in after what we saw at the Madison Square Garden rally, which was an attempt to, uh, gesture towards the bun, the Nazi rally of 85 years ago, um, to downplay that in this moment, I feel like is a real disservice and frankly, irresponsible, uh, to do that and communicate that with your audience.

SECTION B - ACTUAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B. Actual election interference.

How Trump could steal the election Part 2 - Today, Explained - Air Date 10-29-24

NOEL: What happened with the fake electors after the 2020 election?

KYLE: So this is interesting. So in 2020, no state legislature did this. Trump wanted them to. He asked them to over and over again. And they all said, show us your evidence of fraud and we'll think about it. And he can never get them anything that was remotely convincing. And so the state legislatures balked. This is sort of similar to what I said earlier. A lot of those state legislators who stood in his way four years ago are gone and have been replaced by much more compliant, closer Trump allies. That's number one. [01:20:00] Number two is what Trump did four years ago with appoint or have his campaign essentially in the state Republican parties assemble slates of active Republican activists who called themselves legitimate presidential electors, signed documents saying they were legitimate presidential electors but were not. And they sent those documents to Congress. And what happened was a lot of the people got charged with crimes for signing false documents.

<CLIP> FOX 13 NEWS: 16 people in Michigan now facing felony charges for acting as fake electors for Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election.

And it amounted to nothing because Mike Pence, then presiding over Congress, refused to even recognize them. They had no legitimacy at all. What we point out in the story is if a slate of electors is backed by their legislature, it's a little bit of a different story. They actually have some legitimacy in the sense that a government authority has given them its backing. That was the big thing that was missing in [01:21:00] 2020. Could Donald Trump get legislatures to do in 2024 what they wouldn't do in 2020? That could actually change the equation a little bit.

NOEL: And if he did, if he was able to do that in 2024 this year, what would happen next?

KYLE: I mean, then you're going to Congress. Congress receives electors that, you know, after they meet the electors meet on December 17th this year and cast their ballots and send those ballots to Washington. If there are competing slates of electors endorsed by state legislatures, presumably they would meet too, And similarly send their documents to Congress. So when Congress starts counting electors, you may get to a state that has two slates. Now, that presents a sort of unprecedented controversy that we haven't really seen, where you have two government backed slate of electors that come before Congress at the same time. Now, one of the things that's also happened since 2020 is a federal law was passed by Congress and Joe Biden that tries to prevent this [01:22:00] scenario basically puts a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of the electors backed by the governor. But there is an open constitutional question about whether state legislatures do have that authority. And it would certainly have to go to court and be back. And it'd be a big battle over whether those alternate electors would also have to be considered by Congress.

NOEL: And and and, as you said, control of who controls Congress would really matter here.

KYLE: This, to me is is probably the most important question of all: who controls Congress? You know, after the votes are counted on Election Day and the days thereafter, because if you have a Democratic-led Congress, number one, Kamala Harris is going to be the one presiding over the January 6th session where they count electors. And so even if she had to introduce a slate backed by a state legislature, there's no universe in which Congress is going to count that alternate slate for Donald Trump in a state where Harris was the popular vote winner. It just doesn't, it doesn't compute. And so if [01:23:00] Democrats control the House and even if they narrowly lose the Senate, but you have senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and others who have been averse to these efforts by Donald Trump, you are not going to see this plan go anywhere. If you have a Republican House, that's when you get into some of these sort of wild scenarios where where this effort could still succeed.

NOEL: The final date in your timeline is January 6th. Close listeners of the podcast may recall what happened four years ago on January 6th. What would an attempted steal look like on January 6th, 2025?

KYLE: So assuming you have a Republican Congress, assuming all these other steps in the process, go as you sort of again, very hypothetical for many reasons, but that's when you get wild scenarios.

SCORING IN—A SIMPLE REVENGE

It depends on who's the speaker. Is Mike Johnston going to be speaker again? But let's assume that he is the speaker and that he is totally on board with any effort by Trump to continue challenging the election as late as January 6th. Well, then you have [01:24:00] you have to have a situation where Mike Johnson says the federal law that passed in 2022 to prevent these election challenges. I don't think it's constitutional. I don't think it binds Congress because if it does bind Congress, then we have to basically accept the results certified by the governors. If we don't accept that it binds Congress, then we have a much messier situation where we may have to think about these legislatively endorsed electors. We may not have to accept the process for challenging electors and which ones we're supposed to accept. We can actually prevent Congress from counting electors for Kamala Harris. And if we prevent both either candidate from reaching 270 electoral votes, then the election goes to the House. But in a weird sort of way, where instead of a just a majority vote, it's actually a vote by state where each state gets one vote. And that process favors Republicans pretty heavily. And so that's the scenario. That's sort of the ultimate [01:25:00] capper on this. If you get to that contingent election, they call it, you probably have a Donald Trump presidency.

SCORING

Ballots Burn in WA, OR; Billionaire WaPo, LATimes owners 'Obey in Advance Part 3 - The BradCast - Air Date 10-28-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: I'll get to the billionaire endorsement business. Uh, I'll get back to that or, or, or, or lack thereof. Momentarily, but we've got some breaking news today that I need to quickly wave at, at least in that, of course, uh, we may cover in more detail on the broadcast, uh, throughout the coming days as the final week before election is now, uh, underway.

And well, uh, literally in this case, heating up quickly, we reported on an incident last week in Phoenix, Arizona, where someone had set a U. S. Postal Service collection box on fire, burning at least 20 mail in. absentee ballots in the bargain. And now it has, guess what happened again and in two different states this time, not to a us postal service box, but to a ballot drop boxes with hundreds of ballots in them.[01:26:00]

According to KGW eight out of Portland today, hundreds of ballots were destroyed in a ballot box fire. In Vancouver, Washington, early Monday morning and another ballot box fire in Portland, Portland, Oregon, which destroyed in that case, just three ballots where apparently there was a fire suppressant inside the ballot drop box.

Now I thought I knew a lot about elections. I did not know that some ballot drop boxes apparently have a fire suppressants in them. That's good. Uh, and, and, you know, I'm glad to hear it. If so, unfortunately, apparently not in that one in Washington state. However, Vancouver police, uh, responded around 4 AM to a, on Monday to a reported arson at a ballot box on Southeast 164th Avenue near Fisher's Landing Parkway.

Transit Depot. I'm giving that very specific address, uh, because we have quite a few listeners in both [01:27:00] Washington and Oregon. And in case you or anyone, you know, might have used that specific drop box, uh, and may need now to vote again to replace a damaged ballot. Well, if you voted at Southeast 164th Avenue.

Uh, the officers found a, quote, suspicious device next to the ballot box, which was smoking and on fire, according to Vancouver Police. Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told KGW that hundreds of ballots were severely burned, many of which were destroyed. Uh, KGW is the NBC affiliate in Portland. The Clark County auditor told the outlet that anyone who dropped off a ballot in that box after 11 AM on Saturday should contact the election division at 564 397 2345 or go to, or email elections at clark.[01:28:00]

wa. gov. The office of the secretary of state in Washington said the, uh, Clark County auditor's office will quote work diligently to make sure any impacted voters receive replacement ballots before the November 5 general election in a state which votes almost entirely by mail, or in this case, via Dropbox.

Voters may check their ballot status online at vote WA. gov to track, uh, its return status. That's a good idea wherever you may vote to track that ballot. If the jurisdiction you're voting in allows you to do ballot tracking for absentee and mail in ballots and so forth. I know we do that here in Los Angeles.

If a return ballot, they note, is not marked as received, voters can print a replacement ballot in Washington, in Vancouver, or visit their local election department for a replacement, according to the Secretary of State's office. [01:29:00] Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said, quote, uh, we will not tolerate threats or acts of violence that, uh, Seek to undermine the democratic process, adding quote, I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state.

He said, despite this incident, I have complete confidence in our county election officials ability to keep Washington's elections safe and secure for all voters. The FBI is said to be investigating the incident in the democratic leaning state and around three 30 a. m. More. Uh, also on Monday, security at the Multnomah County Elections Division notified Portland, Oregon police that they responded to a fire at a nearby ballot box on Southeast Morrison Street.

Security personnel extinguished the fire in that case before officers even arrived. Portland police determined an incendiary device was put inside the ballot box to ignite that [01:30:00] fire again in another Democratic stronghold. As mentioned, a fire suppressant inside that ballot box, in that case, helped protect the ballots, according to the, uh, county, and only three ballots were damaged.

The election division will contact those three voters so they can receive replacement ballots. Late on Monday, Uh, Monday afternoon, AP was reporting that police now say they have identified what they describe as a suspect vehicle connected to the incendiary devices that set fires to those ballot drop boxes in both states.

So it sounds like it could be the same person, uh, who carried out both terrorist attacks, which is what this really is. Of course, we will keep our eyes on this story and other acts of terrorism meant to disrupt.

But I will take this opportunity again to recommend that voters who choose to vote by mail, uh, by [01:31:00] mail in absentee ballot in any state for any reason, that if you do so, please try to hand deliver those ballots, if possible, to a precinct or a voting center or a municipal election headquarters as allowed in your particular jurisdiction.

I always recommend that anyway, frankly. But of course, given the news, uh, today and, and last week and what is becoming a troubling pattern, I'm going to double down on that advice. Try to hand that ballot, uh, to a person or to a box that is being watched by, uh, a person. If you must use a postal service box, uh, the USPS advises that you do so before the last collection time of the day, which is marked on the box.

Uh, and with election drop boxes, uh, you know, do so during business hours. Again, If possible, uh, that's probably wise this year for what is quickly becoming obvious reasons. That said, if putting your ballot into a [01:32:00] mailbox or a drop box is the only way that you are able to cast your vote this year, do it and do it soon.

And don't be cowed by terrorists. And don't obey in advance, as you heard discussed at the top of the show, and as I'll discuss a bit more momentarily. Yes, your vote does count and will be counted as cast, at least if I and a few million other Americans have anything to say about it.

Little Secret Elie Mystal on Trump's Likely Plan to Steal Election with GOP House Speaker Johnson - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-1-24

DONALD TRUMP: You know, with me, we’ve got to get the congressmen elected, and we’ve got to get the senators elected, because we can take the Senate pretty easily. And I think with our little secret, we’re going to do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: “He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.” And clearly, President Trump is concerned. Pieces in The Washington Post, Politico, Politico headlined [01:33:00] “Trump lagging in early vote with seniors in Pennsylvania, a red flag for GOP.”

For more, we go to Elie Mystal. He is author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution.

Elie, welcome back to Democracy Now! OK, what is this “little secret”?

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, so, it’s really the 12th Amendment. One of the reasons you have to ask yourself: Why is Donald Trump and this group of MAGA people stomping around the country calling Puerto Ricans garbage and generally acting like they don’t need to get any more votes to win the presidency? And the reason why they think that they don’t need any more votes is — comes from the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amendment is where you get to these contingent election scenarios. What the 12th Amendment says is that the winner of the presidency is determined by whoever has a majority of the electoral votes among the electors appointed, right? And that’s the key phrase. If you do not get to a majority among the electors [01:34:00] appointed, then you kick it to the House, and that’s where you have the contingent election, where, importantly, the House votes based on its own state delegation. So, basically, every state gets one vote. Currently, there are 26 delegations that are Republican, 24 Democrat, so Trump would win in that contingent election of the House.

But that’s not the secret. The secret is that if you decrease the number of electors appointed — right? — the math is simple that the majority of electoral votes that you need also goes down. So, in a very simple case where we think it is — you need 270 electoral votes to win, if there are 538 total electors. But if you take that number down to, say, 528 electors, well, then, all of a sudden, you only need 264 electoral votes to win, right? And you can do that, you can decrease the number of electors appointed, if [01:35:00] you prevent, delay, obfuscate the ability of any particular state to certify its elections and send electors to Congress by the statutorily required deadline of December 11th.

And so, Amy, I think that’s where this whole game is going to be played by Trump and Johnson. They’re going to try to prevent states from submitting — states that Harris wins from submitting valid slates of electors by the December 11th deadline. And then, once we get to that deadline, Mike Johnson, as speaker of the House, and Republicans in control of the House, will simply call the process over and say any electors not appointed by the statutory deadline of December 11th simply don’t count. And that is a way for Trump to steal an election that he loses.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And for people who are watching this globally, Elie, for people who don’t understand the Electoral College — and there are movements to change it, like the [01:36:00] National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, designed to ensure that the candidate who received the most votes nationwide is elected president, would come into effect only when it could guarantee that outcome. What this system is that we have, that they’re finagling with right now?

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah. So, for people who are not from America, who are, like, trying to figure out what’s going on, I believe the scientific term for the Electoral College is “stupid.” Right? The Electoral College is anti-democratic and dumb. If you’re living in some other country and you have been told that America is the greatest democracy on Earth, you have been sold a lie. We are not the greatest democracy on Earth. We are not even a true democracy, because of the Electoral College, right? The Electoral College, which has always been a part of our history of our nation, it’s always been part of the structure of the government, is fundamentally an anti-democratic system for the single [01:37:00] elected official, the single representative that is supposed to be elected by all the people in the United States, right? Everybody else, it’s based on their county, their town, their state. The president of the United States is the one official that’s supposed to be elected by everybody, but he’s actually elected by — he or she, one day hopefully soon, is elected by nobody, because of the Electoral College. It is a ridiculous system.

It’s an anachronistic system, basically, like so much else in the Constitution, made to — it’s another one of those poison pills the enslavers put into the original Constitution in hope that it would make it very difficult for slavery to ever be outlawed in this nation. And while we overcame slavery, its fundamental structure of allowing for minoritarian white rule is still in place, and we still see the effects. And that’s what we’re looking at in this election.

You got to remember, Donald Trump is most likely — you know, regardless of what happens on Tuesday in the [01:38:00] Electoral College, Donald Trump is almost certainly going to lose the popular vote for the third time. For the third time in a row, this man will have a minority of the popular vote, yet still could be president, either by winning the Electoral College outright or by gaming the system as I’ve outlined in my piece in The Nation.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Tell us more about what you wrote about deadlines, that what this means is that Republicans just have to delay long enough to pass those deadlines. They don’t have to win; they just have to stall. And we’re seeing more and more across this country these complicated local election laws that have to do with counting. You know, we’re doing an election special at night, an election special the next morning, when we very possibly might not know what the election results are, even the next morning.

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, delay, delay, delay is the name of the game for the [01:39:00] Republicans. Statutorily speaking, electors have to be submitted to Congress by December 11th. Statutorily speaking, those electors have to vote and then submit their votes on who the president should be by December 25th, Christmas Day, because we are that kind of stupid, right? January 3rd is when the new House takes office. That’s a constitutional deadline, so no shenanigans are applicable there. And January 6th, as the violent MAGA people know, is the date when the House certifies the results of the Electoral College vote. But that day is largely ceremonial. Even Mike Pence understands that date is largely ceremonial. The real action is on December — is between December 11th, when the electors are appointed, and December 25th, when they’re supposed to be done voting.

Now, those deadlines are statutory. That means they can be changed. And if you roll the tape back to 2020, when Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House and the Democrats control the House, one would imagine that if [01:40:00] states had gotten cute with their delaying submitting their slates of electors, Nancy Pelosi would have just extended the deadline. But this is why Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is critical to Trump’s secret plan to steal the election, because if Mike Johnson is in charge, which he absolutely will be — even if Democrats win the House, Mike Johnson is in charge on December 11th. If he’s in charge then, he could not move the deadline, essentially, and declare the process over.

Now, let’s say Democrats win the House, right? Let’s say January 3rd, Democrats come in, Hakeem Jeffries is the new speaker of the House. Could the Democrats undo what Mike Johnson has done on December 11th and December 25th? Maybe. But as my colleague John Nichols just reminded us all, Democrats probably ain’t going to control the Senate on January 3rd. So, you generally need a bicameral proposition to move deadlines like [01:41:00] that. You’re probably not going to have the Senate, even if the Democrats win the House.

SECTION C - ELON MUSK THE BILLIONAIRE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: \ Up next section. See Elon Musk, the billionaire.

Why Elon Musk Went Full MAGA Part 2 - Reveal - Air Date 10-30-24

ANNA MERLAN: So yeah, for the last 10 years, I have been pretty focused on conspiracy theories in American life. And of course, the common definition of a conspiracy theory is a belief that a group of people are working together to hide a consequential secret or to seize power, for instance.

So I spend a lot of time covering conspiracy communities, what they believe and sort of how it drives them to make. Uh, the decisions that they make about how to live their lives.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So, Elon Musk has been in our lives for a long time. Um, and you know, I mean, my first remembrance of Elon Musk is basically Tesla, electric cars.

The first time he came on my radar, he was a tech bro. He was like working in tech. Everyone was saying he was a founder of this great new company, which he wasn't actually the founder. He just [01:42:00] ran the company. But I think back then I thought of him as leaning a little bit left and then he buys Twitter.

And even before he bought Twitter, you could see the gradual shift in who the, the person that we know as Elon Musk became. Um, I'm curious if you have any idea, like, what his red pill moment was.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, you know, there's been a lot of reporting about this because it has been so consequential. Like a lot of very rich people, Musk always went back and forth in who he supported and who he made campaign donations to, you know, he made donations to Hillary Clinton.

Um, he and President Trump feuded for years, but there has been a pretty noticeable rightward shift in his politics. And like for a lot of very wealthy people, it seems like it accelerated during the pandemic. A lot of these folks were sort of faced with [01:43:00] A level of government, what they saw as intrusion in their lives that they were not used to and became openly skeptical about things like vaccines, which mask has tweeted skeptically about quite a bit.

Um, so we saw not just mess, but a lot of other people in the tech space kind of accelerate a skepticism about government and. to some degree, like a skepticism about liberal democracy. So there have been a bunch of moments like this for Musk. You know, one was around COVID. Another was around what he calls illegal immigration, which he is, um, increasingly concerned with.

And a third is about trans people, gender affirming care, gender affirming medication. These are all things that he has expressed an increasing amount of concern about over the years, and that has found him a lot of new supporters on the right, both in politics and sort of elsewhere.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So, as he's [01:44:00] beginning this rightward shift, uh, where does the acquisition of Twitter fit in all that?

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, so Musk ended up buying Twitter, um, in, I believe, October of 2022. Uh, and this was a pretty big surprise. It didn't actually seem like he could pull it off. He had to get a lot of financing to do it. Um, and Musk has said many times that one of his interests in buying Twitter was that he believed that it was no longer a free speech platform and that it was suppressing, you know, disfavored views of conservative.

People and players. Um, and of course, this is something that like Republican politicians have claimed for years. Um, and so he spoke a lot about wanting to make Twitter into a free speech platform again, as he put it. Um, and in practice, what that's meant is, It's bringing back folks who are banned previously for doing things like spreading misinformation, uh, fomenting threats.

A lot of those users have been brought back on mass, you know, people like Alex Jones [01:45:00] who were expected to stay off the platform forever. Um, and then of course, as we've seen accelerate recently, becoming a huge spreader himself of what most people would agree is mis and disinformation. Especially around immigration and now around election fraud.

He's become very, very concerned about, uh, election fraud.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: It's striking to me that right before he bought Twitter, he was talking a lot about free speech and how he was the free speech guy and he just wanted to, you know, buy the platform to restore free speech. And then he got the platform and started banning people that said anything negative about him, essentially trampling down on free speech.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, the irony of those bans has been noted, though to be fair, a lot of those people end up Getting to come back ultimately like a recent one was the journalist Ken Klippenstein who was briefly banned and then eventually brought back But all of this kind of [01:46:00] points to the same thing Which is that Twitter under Elon Musk or X as he now calls it is his platform his rules go his decisions They do not have to be consistent.

They just have to be his which of course has concern Free speech advocates, federal regulators, like there's been a lot of concern about a very, very powerful platform, um, controlled by the whims of one guy.

The Trump White Supremacy Festival and Hootenanny Part 3 - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 10-29-24

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: But what you just said is apt and it's correct. Nick, I started talking about this in 2016 precisely because I wanted to avoid this moment. Where we are right now, watching this rally, watching Trump, watching the 2024 election, I wanted to avoid the possibility that we would arrive at this point. I wanted to avoid the major conflict.

I wanted to diffuse it before we got there. And unfortunately, history shows us how these cycles work. So, for instance, historical context in all of this. This is not the first time that we've had a fascist rally in Madison Square Garden. In 1939, the German American Bund held a Nazi [01:47:00] rally at Madison Square Garden that included over 20, 000 people in attendance.

For those who haven't seen footage of this or heard stories about it, it included a picture of George Washington surrounded by Nazis. It was a Almost verbatim, the rhetoric that was on display at this Donald Trump rally, just with some rhetorical flourishes here and there that hid the expressive fascistic ideas.

The entire point is this, this is not something that goes away. This is something that cycles around. And this actually, and, and I, Nick, I'll be honest with you. I find it hard to believe that this rally happened, you know, what, 75 years. After this rally with the, the German American bun, I have to imagine it's not a coincidence that this is something within the Trump, Trump campaign, Trump campaign, the Trump campaign that recognize the, the historical parallels of this thing.

And if you don't believe me, here's a clip from Donald Trump who is making one of his final pushes and appeals to the American voters. [01:48:00]

DONALD TRUMP: Get your husband off the couch. The football game doesn't mean a damn thing. You gotta get out and vote. Get up, Harry. Come on, Harry. Get up, Harry. Let's go. You're gonna vote for the president, Harry.

We're gonna save our country. For the past nine years, we have been fighting against the most sinister and corrupt forces on Earth. With your vote in this election, you can show them once and for all that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: So to believe that all this is a coincidence is also to believe that this rhetoric, the idea that Trump is fighting sinister forces, that the press are the enemies of the people and that they are battling an enemy from within.

They just are accidentally completely mirrors of fascist Nazi rhetoric. Like we're supposed to believe that that's what's happening, as opposed to people within the Trump campaign and the Trump circle studied these things, understand their rhetorical appeal, and [01:49:00] understand how they can lead to electoral victory.

It's not even a contest. It's obvious that this is a chosen, chosen display.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: For sure. And, you know, there are probably problems that we have with the constitution and laws and issues that we would like to change, but you know, you have to imagine that the founders also, while it's not that explicit, the press were sort of like the fourth coequal branch of the government.

They had protection in the Bill of Rights at the very least. Well, time

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: out, time out. I think what you just stepped on is something important because they were also the organs by which the Federalists were able to push their legislation and manufacture consent and they were also the friends and the landowners and the, the compatriots and wealth.

So yes, there's, there's a reason why they viewed the press as something that, that deserved to be taken care of for sure.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Although what you're describing is what the Republicans do now to plant stories and then cite them in their arguments. We're not

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: wrong.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah, so I suppose that's been going back for a long, long time, but there was a moment in this country at the very least where it did feel like the press was such a vital [01:50:00] part of our democracy and it should still be that way.

But again, when you mix democracy and you mix, uh, Capitalism, uh, eventually that's going to bleed into the press as well, where they're not going to have enough money to, to, you know, have enough journalistic integrity and then hire good journalists. And then that dies too. And then here's what we have. The New York post, excuse me, is, is now the paper of record, uh, to a lot of people.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Man, uh, you know, it's also a situation where the economic, uh, circumstances around journalism become so dire that a billionaire is able to reach into their pocket and find the funds necessary to buy one of the major press organs in the country, which brings us to the response. To what we've been discussing with this reality, uh, with this rally in Madison Square Garden with Trump, which is one of the major stories over the last few days is that the Washington Post has announced that it is declining to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time since, uh, 1972.[01:51:00]

All right. This is a statement by William Lewis, the chief executive officer of the Washington Post. The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.

As our editorial board wrote in 1960, the Washington Post has not endorsed either candidate in the presidential campaign that is in our tradition and accords with our action in full. Five of the last six elections and a reminder, they have been endorsing candidates since 1976 and what we have seen after a resignation, uh, from, uh, Robert Kagan of the Washington post and critiques by other members of the post, we have heard.

That Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the Washington Post, and also just benefactor, uh, uh, enjoyer of a bunch of benevolent contracts in the United States government, was the one who put the kibosh on the Washington Post endorsing a presidential candidate. [01:52:00] This is capitulation. It is appeasement of Donald Trump.

There's a variety of reasons for it. But Nick, what are your initial thoughts about this before we get into the background of why this decision was made?

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Oh, I think this is corruption. I think this is Bezos trying to avoid, uh, you get government interference in his businesses. Um, by. Pretending that half support Trump.

And so if he wins, they'll get rid of that investigation into Amazon. Uh, I think that was the issue that I'm trying to find the thread right now, but there I'd seen it on Twitter where, uh, you know, he's under scrutiny by the government right now. And he's, there's no other explanation for my mind as the fact that he's trying to cozy up to him more and prove to him, uh, that, uh, that he's on board and then in, in return, they will quash, uh, any kind of regulatory, regulatory investigations of his businesses.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, I'll say this. First of all, I think a missing component. What you just brought up is the idea that Jeff Bezos would oppose authoritarianism in the first place. The idea that morally and ethically, he's against Donald Trump. But you know, he's been [01:53:00] compromised because of business decisions. What we are seeing is a Is a real bellwether situation in which the billionaires in this country, you'll notice Nick, all of the tech people, the, the, the tech industrialists who gained all this money at the turn of the century, creating this infrastructure that we're currently quote unquote, enjoying.

You'll notice Elon Musk bought Donald Trump and is using him for his own purposes. Mark Zuckerberg is suddenly very Trump curious and Jeff Bezos is now. And by the way, For the record, I don't think a Washington Post endorsement would have given the presidency to Kamala Harris. It's the point that it was withheld that's important.

There are investigations of Amazon and Bezos's, uh, actions. That, by the way, was activated by Donald Trump consistently posting that he was going to go after the people who helped Kamala Harris, endorsed her, gave her money, you name it. So that right there was a legal threat. But on top of that, Nick, Jeff Bezos, like Elon Musk, like Mark Zuckerberg, like all these other tech industrialists, where do they get [01:54:00] their real money from besides the products and subscriptions that they sell?

They get it from their government contracts. They get it from their multi billion dollar contracts that they get helping the government operate their systems, including the military industrial complex, the space agencies, and just the logistics of federalism. So as a result, Why would Jeff Bezos allow his paper to endorse somebody, right?

Like, it isn't actually in his favor to do that, considering the state of play, how it has changed.

Trump & Musk Are Engineering a Recession Why Billionaires Profit When America’s Economy Crashes - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 11-1-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: The recession racket, Musk, Trump, and the billionaire's blueprint for profit. And, you know, in a recent town hall, a multi billionaire, world's Musk, acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize winning economists across the country have predicted, that if Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.

Moss said, we have to reduce spending to live within our means, and you know that necessarily involves some temporary [01:55:00] hardship. Right. But it will ensure long term prosperity. Most Republican voters are not taking this seriously. They're like, you know, why would Republicans, who, you know, generally are the party of the rich people, why would they want to crash the economy when rich people have all their money invested in the stock market and stuff like that?

Why, why would Republicans ever want to crash the market? Well, the question itself reveals a huge misunderstanding about how rich people get richer and richer and richer. They are uniquely in a position to take advantage of recessions and depressions that hurt people like you and me. I mean, this story is as old as capitalism.

Back in the 1930s, Joe Kennedy, Gloria Swanson told me this story. I used to visit her in New York. She would make me dinner in her apartment in New York City. We were both vegetarians, and she was on the board of our children's charity. And, [01:56:00] uh, just a remarkable woman, and she told me how Joe Kennedy, you know, when the market was at its bottom, Joe Kennedy was buying stock as fast, in fact, he bought a Hollywood studio.

He was one of the richest men in America as a result of the Great Depression. J. Paul Getty, his favorite phrase was, uh, buy when everyone else is selling and hold on until everyone else is buying. I mean, the afternoon of the Great Crash, J. Paul, this was, you know, October, uh, what was it, 28th, I think, 1929?

Uh, J. Paul Getty skipped his parents golden wedding anniversary celebration to get onto Wall Street to begin buying stocks. He wrote, it is the opportunity of a lifetime to get oil companies for practically nothing. And as a result of that, he became one of the richest men in America. I mean, this is, you know, recessions help.

Billionaires. They hurt you and me, but they become buying opportunities for billionaires. In, in, uh, 2007, for example, the Bush crash, [01:57:00] the stock market, uh, the American economy, home prices collapsed by 21%. Over 10 million Americans lost their homes to predatory Mnuchin, the foreclosure king, who, uh, you know, personally oversaw, uh, kicking roughly 30, 000 California families out of their homes.

Billionaires. The stock market dropped by 50 percent in the last year of Bush's presidency. On October 9th, 2007, it was at 14, 000. By March 5th, 2009, it was at 6, 500. And 8 million Americans lost their jobs. They were wiped out. And across the country, Americans who had their money in 401k's in the stock market were liquidating their 401k's, paying that, I think it's a 20 percent penalty, uh, just to get access to cash to pay their bills because they've been laid off.

And who was buying those stocks? Billionaires! Between 2009, the bottom of the bush crash in 2012, when the [01:58:00] Republic re recovery really began, the top 1% of Americans just in those three years saw their income, their income grow by over 31%, 95% of all the income gains made during that period of time, where that top 1%, if you had bought a, if you had invested a billion dollars in 2009, in the s.

It would have become 4. 6 billion in just 11 years. And by the way, during those 11 years, the combined wealth of America's billionaires went up by 80%. And then they did it again. The Trump COVID crash of 2020. Once again, the market collapsed this time under Republican Trump. working people out of work, selling stocks at a loss to pay the mortgage and buy food.

But, you know, the Dow on March 16th 2020 suffered its largest single day crash in its entire history. Worse than the Republican Great Depression of the 19 twenties and thirties. But for the investor class, [01:59:00] it was a huge opportunity. The Institute for Policy Studies documents the world's 2356 billionaires saw their wealth increased by a full 54%.

U. S. billionaires saw their wealth, their net wealth surge by 62%. Average billionaire wealth worldwide increased 27%, all just in this one year of 2020. And meanwhile, the billionaires real taxes have dropped by a full 79 percent since Reagan came into office in 1981. And, uh, so, of course, Elon Musk is saying, Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna cause a recession.

And, uh, you know, it'll be a good thing. Well, it will, it will be a good thing for him. So, I just, I just wanted to tell ya, that's how it works. Right? I mean, the, the billionaires live and operate by different rules than you and me. It's just, it's pretty straightforward. Meanwhile, Donald [02:00:00] Trump, By the way, Donald Trump is out on bail.

Nobody seems to be mentioning this. Donald Trump is out on bail. He's awaiting, he's awaiting his, his, uh, sentencing. And, you know, I, I, I, I recall when Judge Marashan said, okay, we'll postpone the sentencing until after the election. And everybody was like, oh, Trump got away with something. Well, if Trump loses, and I think there's a good chance he does.

And after the election, Juan Michon sentences him, and there's no longer the risk that Trump is president, I think he's going to give him prison time. I mean, it'll be a hell of a lot easier for the judge. He won't have all that pressure on him. And, you know, frankly, I think if he was going to impose a jail sentence, or if he was not going to impose a jail sentence, he probably would have sentenced Trump.

You know, earlier it just said, [02:01:00] okay, you owe, you owe 300, 000. But if it's gonna be a jail term, you know, Mershon said, okay, we'll postpone this until after the election. But anyhow, Donald Trump, the guy who's out on bail, came out yesterday and said it's time to put Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, essentially.

I mean, this, this is absolutely crazy.

Why Elon Musk Went Full MAGA Part 3 - Reveal - Air Date 10-30-24

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: So now that we are in this political season and we're moving towards a presidential election, Musk isn't on the sidelines tweeting, support.

He is actually on the field playing. What is he doing to help, uh, Donald Trump become the president again?

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah. So he endorsed Donald Trump, uh, following the first assassination attempt against President Trump in July. Uh, he appeared recently at a Trump rally, but the biggest thing is that he founded the a political action committee called America Pack.

He founded it relatively recently, and he sent it, you know, [02:02:00] something like 75 million. So, There's that.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Right. And not just that, because in the first half of October, he spent even more, about 44 million dollars. So, in all, Musk has put down around 120 million dollars to try and get Trump elected. I mean, it's so much money.

And I know that's not all he's doing, right?

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, there's also something that's happening on the platform, which is that Twitter created, uh, something called an Election Integrity Community, which is a hub on Twitter where people can report instances of what they view as, quote, voter fraud or irregularities you see while voting in the 2024 election.

So this is, Totally user generated content, and as our colleague Julianne McShane noted the other day, it is already full of false allegations of voter fraud. So, um, it's pretty easy to see where this is going.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: It sounds like what he's [02:03:00] created is a conspiracy theory generator, like an engine of conspiracy theory.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, specifically around voter fraud. And of course, uh, allegations of voter fraud are becoming more More and more common. Every single time we have an election, especially from powerful people, especially from powerful people who lose. So what he's done really is like turbo charged that dynamic for this particular election, you know, well ahead of any votes taking place,

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: which we should say that.

In all the cases where voter fraud has been investigated, and it's been investigated a lot, there is very little evidence that it is actually happening. Especially, there's no evidence that it's happening on a massive scale.

ANNA MERLAN: Right, there's none, but it's one of those things where Having somebody like Elon Musk, uh, make these claims to a massive platform over and over and over again has ill effects and it can probably change what people think about voter fraud.

Um, I should also mention that he recently appeared at a [02:04:00] rally in support of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, and he seemed to refer to false conspiracy theories that Dominion voting machines were part of a plot to rig U. S. elections.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: Yeah, I mean, it feels like he is begging to get into a fight with Dominion.

Yeah. Dominion got almost 800 million in a settlement after it sued Fox News over defamation. So, I mean, good luck.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, it's a very interesting choice and I'm curious to see if he continues, uh, making these particular claims.

AL LETSON - HOST, REVEAL: In the past, someone with Musk's stature and wealth making false claims about election security still might not break the law.

through to the public, but, but Elon Musk isn't your typical billionaire.

ANNA MERLAN: There have always been, you know, billionaires and titans of industry who get involved in politics, but I think the scale of Musk's involvement is really different because it's not just that he's a billionaire. It's not just that he's endorsing Trump.

It's [02:05:00] also that he controls a powerful And widespread communication medium, which is Twitter.

SECTION D - TRUMP THE FASCIST

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section D Trump, the fascist.

Imara Jones Transphobia Is Key Pillar of Trump's Push for a Patriarchal Fascist Regime - Democracy Now - Air Date 10-30-24

AMY GOODMAN: We look now at how Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars, something like over $60 million, to flood the airwaves and social media with political ads that attack transgender rights. The Trump campaign is running the first-ever presidential campaign ad on the topic, and the Senate Leadership Fund, backed by Mitch McConnell, is running ads in key Senate races in swing states, often during major football games.

NARRATOR: Kamala was the first to help pay for a prisoner’s sex change.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: The power that I had, I used it in a way that was about pushing forward the movement, frankly, and the agenda.

NARRATOR: Kamala’s agenda is they/them, not you.

But Brown voted multiple times to allow transgender biological males to participate in girls’ sports.

Baldwin supported [02:06:00] providing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries to minor children. She even supports forcing Wisconsin women’s domestic violence shelters to admit biological men who claim to identify as women.

AMY GOODMAN: Anti-trans attacks are a key part of Trump’s message. Some say it’s his closing message. At a Bronx barbershop campaign stop aired on Fox last week, Trump pivoted back to trans kids when asked how he would improve schools.

DONALD TRUMP: I say reading, writing and arithmetic. No transgender, no operations. You know, they take your kid. There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. OK? Without parental consent. What is that all about?

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Imara Jones, founder and CEO of TransLash Media, host of its investigative podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, which just launched a new season about how [02:07:00] paramilitary groups have weaponized transphobia to forge ties to Republicans and stoke political violence. Imara Jones’ new piece for Newsweek is headlined “What’s at Stake for Trans People in This Election” in national, state and local races.

Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Imara.

IMARA JONES: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the overall climate? I mean, I listened to almost every speech on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Almost every speaker, including Robert F. Kennedy, talked about trans issues. I think his line was “We’re going to protect women’s sports.” But if you can talk about the overall climate, the tens of million of dollars being put into ads?

IMARA JONES: Well, I’m sorry that you did that to yourself, Amy, and watched for six hours.

I think that what we have to be very clear about is that transphobia is not just a plank, but a key pillar of the Republican Party. It has staked a large part of its argument as to [02:08:00] why it should be in power and why it should return to power due to transphobia and due to its campaign against trans people. It’s sort of that and immigration are essentially the reasons why they say that they should be reelected.

And I think that, for them, anti-trans hate does a couple of things. I think the first thing that it does is that it helps them continue to animate their base and to essentially give them something to focus on after abortion. For several years, they’ve known that abortion was going to be on the chopping block and that they had a key part of their constituency that was engaged on gender, and so they have to give that group of people something to do, essentially.

Secondly, it allows them to have inroads into places and people that they would never be in conversation with. They normally wouldn’t be in conversation with suburban moms, who they had been turned off to. They wouldn’t be able to be in conversation with certain Black religious [02:09:00] people and Latinos who are evangelicals, or even some gay people — right? — who are anti-trans, the so-called TERFs. So, what this does is that it allows them to be able to shave off just enough votes in marginal races to eke out a win. And that’s what they look at this issue as. And I think the fact that they’ve dropped so much money on these ads tells us that they believe that this race is extremely close or they’re behind. And so, what they’re trying to do is to pick up one or two votes per precinct in order to win, which was Donald Trump’s margin over Hillary Clinton in Michigan in 2016, for example.

And the last thing that it does for them is that it cements them as a Christian nationalist party. It is the imprimatur of the fact that the Republican Party has become an extremist movement that has been taken over by the Christian nationalist movement and brands them as such and puts them in league not [02:10:00] only with political extremists, but also paramilitary extremists, in a bid to destabilize democracy from the ground up.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Imara, I wanted to ask you — The Wall Street Journal's editorial board recently ran a piece titled “Transgender Sports Is a 2024 Sleeper Issue,” and they especially focused on Senate races in Ohio, Montana and Wisconsin. I'm wondering your response and why particularly these states that they’re focusing on.

IMARA JONES: Well, those states are Republican-leaning states where the Senate candidates in those states have to rely on a lot of Republican votes, or independent voters who lean Republican, in order to be able to win. Those are also all tight races — right? — which is where you want to deploy, from their perspective, anti-trans issues and anti-trans hate or discomfort at a minimum. And so, it is a part of that [02:11:00] strategy of eking out votes, getting just enough, and playing to Republicans and reminding them that the candidates that they might be inclined to vote for in this race might be strange or somehow anti-American or, in some ways, just, you know, weird people, to turn the phrase back on Democrats. So, it’s an otherization that’s happening with this issue. And again, it’s in these tight Senate races where these Democrats have to rely on Republican votes.

And the Republican Party, in a really short amount of time, has primed its entire base to be concerned and to be focused on anti-trans issues. So, they’re ripe for it, you know? In the last four years, they have passed anti-trans laws in half of the country. And just this year, 600 anti-trans bills have been introduced, becoming more extreme each year. So, this is just something that [02:12:00] Republican voters are naturally inclined to focus on. And so, if you’re in a tight race and you have to rely on some Republican votes, and as a Republican, you see the Democrat is doing that and maybe making inroads, then you want to deploy this issue as a way to bring those voters back home.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you’ve also looked into how paramilitary groups have used anti-trans politics to forge closer ties to Republicans. Could you talk about what you found?

So, essentially, anti-trans issues acts as an affinity point between paramilitary groups and the Republican Party. And one of the things that happened after January 6th is that these paramilitary groups saw that if you do one big thing against the national government, the national government deploys its power. But what these groups decided to do was to atomize themselves, to go local, in the words of Gavin McInnes, who told me in an [02:13:00] interview that that was their strategy.

AMY GOODMAN: The founder of Proud Boys.

IMARA JONES: The founder of Proud Boys. And what he was alluding to is the fact that these groups have kept their members engaged, recruited new members, forged relationships with local politicians, Republican politicians, all across the country, and continued to develop their brand by focusing on Drag Story Hours and protesting LGBTQ events across the country. And so, it seemed as if the Proud Boys and the other groups had gone away, but all they’ve done is gone to ground. And because they’ve focused on LGBTQ issues, local authorities and other politicians and even the mainstream media have ignored their continued development and growing strength, because they see, “Oh, they’re just protesting, you know, Drag Story Hours.” But what they’ve been doing is exercising themselves and getting ready for sort of the next big events.

And one of the things that we need to focus on is that [02:14:00] SPLC last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremists and extremist groups, last year did a study, and in that study, they counted more extremist groups in the United States than ever, than since they’ve been counting. And half of white supremacist groups, half of those groups last year engaged in anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans actions and protests and some form of violence. So these groups have used these issues in order to grow strength below the radar for whatever comes next.

Elon Musks War on Workers Part 2 - 5-4 - AIr Date 10-29-24

MICHAEL MORBIUS - HOST, 5-4: Uh, so there's a lot going on here. You know, I, I think this is one of those cut and dry issues, right? Similar to sort of reproductive rights, where I don't feel like we need to make the case that To any listener that like Democrats are better on labor than Republicans, but there is a little bit of nuance here.

There's always a little bit of [02:15:00] tension between the reality of Trump and the aesthetic of Trump. And I think you see this disconnect on labor and workplace issues quite a bit, like Trump markets himself as a populist, the blue collar billionaire, right? But there are very few issues where he has been as explicit as his disdain for unions, right?

He openly hated them as a businessman. He laughs with Elon Musk about firing, striking workers. He implements anti union policies when he's in office. And. Yet he hasn't really suffered a lot of electoral consequences for it. Vox recently published a piece titled the Democrats pro union strategy has been a bust.

The piece basically argues that despite Joe Biden's like very pro labor, pro union policy strategy, union members are only slightly more supportive of his administration than the general [02:16:00] public is. And. That support has been consistently declining over the course of a decade on top of that. It's starting to manifest in union decision making.

The teamsters conducted an internal poll a few months back, showing 60 percent support for Donald Trump among their members. And after that, The union declined to make an endorsement in this election. The International Association of Firefighters followed their lead. I think there's like a tendency here among many people to basically just blame the union members for being idiots, right?

They're voting against their interests. They're being stupid. And I, I agree. Fundamentally. I think that's right. They, they are. And it's especially true of like. Teamsters leadership, right, who are abdicating their obligations to their members. But this is also the natural result of the Democratic Party's decisions over the past half century, right?

The party very consciously decided to move [02:17:00] away from labor as its base and then ostracized them further with like free trade deals under Clinton and Obama. Obama ignored Lieber's request for a card check bill, which would have made it easier to form unions. He sidled up to Silicon Valley billionaires.

And by the way, where are they now? Are they supporting Democrats? No, they're literally running the Trump campaign. Yeah, they're all melting down ever since Epstein's Island closed. Generally speaking, although Democrats have been better on labor than Republicans, labor is just not the priority for Democrats that it once was.

And The lower it goes down the priority list, the less likely you are to win over union members, right? That is just a simple fact. It's just how politics works. Politics isn't about being like slightly better than the other guy and then scolding voters for not being rational enough, right? You need to prioritize the things that are salient [02:18:00] to voters and Democrats haven't done that.

Right, Biden has done a solid job, but you can't undo what's now generations of walking away from organized labor in the span of a single term.

PETER SHAMSHIRI - HOST, 5-4: We can definitely debate like when this break with labor happened and what initially instigated it. Right. Because a lot of white working class voters started leaving the party during the sixties and seventies in response to civil rights.

And sure. Right. Sure. Whatever, that's not really, that's besides the point. The point is that Democrats went looking for votes elsewhere in a way that has damaged their ability to pitch themselves as an unequivocal pro union party, right? And that's a, that's a, that's a problem. It's a problem with like the big tent, right?

Just, you know, Inherently, like if your tent is big enough for labor and the management, they're fighting, you're going to have trouble convincing labor that [02:19:00] you're on their side, right? Like that's legitimately that that's, they are oppositional. Right. Those are oppositional forces. And yeah, Biden was, uh, better on labor than any democratic president I think is since Johnson, at least.

Right. As we were talking, you got to go back 50 years basically, but that's one guy. There are a lot of representatives and senators who are, who were not super pro labor, who are very private equity friendly, management friendly, not to mention that it's only four years, right? Like building a political constituency or rebuilding a political constituency takes time.

It takes a lot of time and consistency across the party. Like there's no reason why labor should trust Kamala Harris as much as they might trust Joe Biden after he's earned it, like legitimately, because they don't have the record for [02:20:00] her, right? Like, I think she'll be good on labor. I personally think so.

Um, I think they should trust her, but I think from a basic political perspective, like, I think it's defensible. I do. It's, which is unfortunate.

Elon Musk Is SO Bad At This Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 11-3-24

AD: Warning this ad contains multiple instances of the c word viewer discretion is advised Kamala harris is a c word A big old c word In fact, all of the other c words think she's the biggest c word of them all you can hear this in my that's right She's a tax hiking regulation loving gun grabbing c word communist She's proud of it Kamala harris the c word america simply can't See you nationwide, Tuesday,

BRANDON SUTTON: November 5th.

See you nationwide, Tuesday. That's a good one. What were they

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: trying to imply? It's just so, it's like they, it's like they want to say the C word, but they can't. It's almost like that.

BRANDON SUTTON: You know, I will say communist has all the [02:21:00] same letters as the word I was thinking they meant, but just, you know, a few extra ones.

MATT BINDER: Few extra. Wait, how, how did they miss the opportunity? How did they miss the opportunity at the end to say, see you next Tuesday? They did. They did. They did. They did. They said it straight up. Yeah, nationwide

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Tuesday. As

MATT BINDER: opposed to nationwide Tuesday. That's not the same.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I

BRANDON SUTTON: mean, they're so clever. They think Elon Musk, because like, he thinks he's so much smarter than everybody else.

Like he, like he, he thinks that provides plausible deniability and everyone's going to think it's really cute. This is America. People don't use that word there.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Does Elon only have one joke formulation, that you think something is happening and then ultimately at the end of your set up, it's another thing, like the SNL, uh, It's a class of mid direction.

The SNL pitch where he said, uh, I'm gonna whip out my cock, and it's actually just a rooster or something?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I read a joke format that's supposed to subvert expectations, um, But you guys are right that he's [02:22:00] just, I don't know what this strategy is. And that this path is just incompetent. Push away women, that's the only thing I

MATT BINDER: think of.

I know. Look at the way, like. Like, like you, you see these guys out here right now, like it's, it's even more crazy what we're seeing about like their reaction to that, uh, Kamala Harris ad about, you know, uh, uh, women, you don't, uh, you don't have to tell your husband who you vote for. Their reaction to that is even crazier than they're like, Reaction to like abortion and controlling women's bodies.

Because at least there, they use their, their, their, their faux care for the children to cut to make cover there. What is the cover for getting mad that a woman would vote differently than her husband? There is no cover there. Like, it's just, they don't think women should have the ability to think or act independently of their husband.

And this is just another way of them saying how little they think of women. It's, it's incredible

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: to see. They're [02:23:00] denigrating her. And, and, and honestly, again, like, She's a powerful woman, and they're trying to bring her down a peg, and that is what gets their, like, right wing online audience excited. But for women like me, we see that, and we're repulsed.

We're repulsed, and also motivated. And to your point, uh, Binder, like, the, the, the, They're also obsessed with methods of birth control and contraception that they can't see. Like, the ones that are always the ones that these fundamentalist Christians, uh, or fundamentalist religious people target are IUDs, the morning after pill.

Methods of birth control that women are able to, uh, Maybe doing private, or secretly, or express agency over, like they're not coming for condoms. There's some

BRANDON SUTTON: guests with no fault divorces. This is about control, like they're, you know, this is about a type of man who sees their, you know, their wife, or their girlfriend, or any woman who they might have sexual or intimate desires for as property or potential [02:24:00] property, just like their children.

They're also obsessed with controlling every aspect of their, their child's life. Uh, but I, I just, I'm always reminded of like when Sam was talking about that, uh, post State of the Union address by that Tea Party candidate for years ago. Michelle Bachmann, how like, you know, she was looking at the Tea Party camera and so facing like a profile.

This is the wrong side. Yeah. It's like a profile to like the main camera and how he would say, you can't speak to the Tea Party and the rest of America at the same time. And this is like a furtherance of that problem where it's like, you can't speak to the GOP's base of divorced dads and incels and also speak to the women and children who have no contact orders with them.

And they've basically given up

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on it, right? Like Trump won in 2016 with a lot of suburban women and he's. polling really poorly with suburban women now, so they're just hyper driving the mail vote. It seems like.

MATT BINDER: I think the difference is like, like with what Brandon said, like that, that's a great analogy with the Michelle Bachman staring at the tea [02:25:00] party camera.

But then they knew. That there was this fringe that they had to speak to. They knew there was two separates. There was main, the mainstream and then their fringe. And yes, they would speak to their fringe, but ever since Trump, because Trump just had that outlier win in 2016. They now are convinced that they are the masses, that that fringe is now everybody.

So they now deliver that tea party address while staring at the mainstream America camera. Because they are convinced they, the fringe is now everybody or at least The vast majority of people who will now support them because that's the same reason why they can't believe that they lost in 2020 and that they won't believe that they lost in 2024.

They no longer live in the reality where they even know that there's that fringe that they have to speak to, to win. They now think that fringe is the mainstream and they're speaking the same way to everybody.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, there's no, there's no Republicans [02:26:00] that are basically telling them traditional political things like this is time to pivot to the center, this is time to appeal to moderate voters, this is time to reclaim your image as someone who's too extreme or anti democratic, and the, the idea that, the sign that they weren't going to do this was with the J.

D. Vance election, um, that was not a selection that's meant to win, um, Over parts of the electorate that you're struggling with, that's one to hypercharge your base, and it was an arrogance decision made when Biden was still in the race.

Imara Jones Transphobia Is Key Pillar of Trump's Push for a Patriarchal Fascist Regime Part 2 - Democracy Now - Air Date 10-30-24

IMARA JONES: Hi. I’m Imara Jones. I’ve spent years investigating authoritarian and far-right movements. And lately I’ve been alarmed by the rise in dangerous political violence across the United States. It’s at levels not seen since the 1970s. And an unprecedented amount of this violence is being directed at queer and trans people.

NOELLE BELLOW: Drag queen story time interrupted at an East Bay library, a hate crime investigation now underway.

IMARA JONES: So, on this season of The Anti-Trans Hate [02:27:00] Machine, I’m going to show how the anti-trans ecosystem has expanded its fight from legislatures and courtrooms to the streets, and what this means for all of us.

ELI: Everybody was armed that day. Everybody was carrying sidearms. Everybody had knives on display. Everybody was putting their hands on their pistol grips.

IMARA JONES: Paramilitary groups have seized upon anti-trans hate to solidify their alliance with supposedly mainstream conservatives. I’ll show you how these attacks are part of a coordinated strategy to bring about a patriarchal, fascist regime in America, one where queer people would be erased from public life.

ANITA PARISOT: If the bullets start flying, I’m covering her up. And I’m taking the bullet for her, and she’ll survive. So she has to be with me.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the trailer for the new season three of Anti-Trans Hate Machine. You talk about a lot of specifics here, groups in Idaho who are using the state as a testing [02:28:00] ground for a new wave of extremism. Episode three, “No Such Thing as a Lone Wolf,” looks at the responses and solutions to terrorist violence fueled by anti-trans hate. You’re looking at Wadsworth, Ohio. Tell us some specific stories and also how they relate to down-ballot races.

IMARA JONES: So, one of the things that’s happening in Idaho — there’s so many examples, but in Idaho is the fact that extremist groups, paramilitary groups have found common cause with an organization called the Idaho Freedom Foundation. And the Idaho Freedom Foundation acts as sort of this connective tissue between paramilitary groups, extremist politicians and the promulgation of laws to make the state more extreme.

And essentially, what they are all doing is working to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation at the local [02:29:00] level, transforming what was once a right-leaning “mainstream,” in quotes, Republican Party into one dominated by people who want to do things or are promoting to do things like make paramilitary groups legal in the state, to literally legalize them. And this air of intimidation means that people who are considering running for races, who may not be extremist politicians, come under threats, people who put LGBTQ signs or pro-anything other than what Christian nationalists want in their yards. One person drove up to a person that we interviewed and told her when she put an LGBTQ sign in her yard, “Thanks for putting that sign in your yard, because we know where to shoot when the bullets fly.”

And so, what this is doing is using the paramilitary groups as a way of shifting the comfort level with [02:30:00] democracy, with making your voice heard at the democratic level, and therefore getting more and extreme politicians there. And they’re working and also signaling with places like Libs of TikTok, which put out a call around an LGBTQ event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. And that event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, drew in Patriot Front, who was there to stoke violence that day as a part of what an Idaho Freedom Foundation politician had called for in terms of protesting that event.

And the problem with Idaho is that it’s a Petri dish for these conditions, where we are starting to see it occur in other places, like Tennessee, where Patriot Front is beginning to make more and more of a show of force. It’s passed more anti-trans laws than any other state in the country. And so, what we’re seeing is this affinity, I mean, even in places like New York City, where the Proud Boys are increasingly allying with [02:31:00] certain, believe it or not, Republican members of the City Council around Drag Story Hour events here. So, what is happening is that being anti-trans is a signal for extremists as to who’s on their side, and that signal then allows them to work together to push the country more and more to its extremes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Imara, I wanted to ask you: There’s been a lot of attention focused on Project 2025 by the Democrats, but could you talk about the central place that anti-trans ideology plays in Project 2025?

IMARA JONES: You can’t understand Project 2025 without understanding or grasping the Republican Party’s obsession with trans people and with transphobia. As a matter of fact, anti-trans sentiment and anti-trans, you know, ideas are on page [02:32:00] one of Project 2025, going into page two. It’s literally on the first page. And essentially, Project 2025, with its weaponization of government, is essentially taking all of the learnings that the Trump administration garnered from its anti-trans policies, where it learned how to weaponize the government against a group of people, in healthcare, in the military, in education, attempted in housing, and essentially then took those learnings and then applied them to Project 2025. As a matter of fact, one of the key architects of Trump’s anti-trans policies, Roger Severino, is one of the key people who drafted and wrote Project 2025. And to close the loop, you know, he and other people were at the Heritage Foundation, came into the Trump administration with these policies and are now carrying them through, applying them to many people through Project 2025.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for [02:33:00] 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 [email protected].

The additional sections of the show included clips from The Bradcast; The Majority Report; Today, Explained; Democracy Now!; Reveal; The Muckrake Political Podcast; The Thom Hartmann Program; and 5-4. 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 those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestoftheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you [02:34:00] 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.

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 members and donors to the show from BestoftheLeft.Com.

1 reaction Share

#1666 The Holy War Against America: The New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, Evangelicals, Christian Nationalists, and the Worship of Donald Trump (Transcript)

Posted by · November 02, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 11/2/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. The cult of Trump isn't really just about Trump. It's religion and patriarchy reacting to a moment of global economic and climactic instability. But those organizing the religious right aren't just reacting to their environment. They've also been planning for a very long time.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 55 minutes today includes The Majority Report, Ideas, Straight White American Jesus, Democracy Now!, and Unf***ing the Republic. Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there'll be more in four sections. Section A: The movement. Section B: Trump and election. Section C: Patriarchy and race. And Section D: American Christian.

Extremist White Christian Nationalists Prepping For War w Brad Onishi - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-16-24

BRAD ONISHI: If we turn to the 1960s, we see great change in the country. We see a civil rights movement. We see the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, [00:01:00] everything from Stonewall to the attempts to get the ERA passed. That's a moment when many conservative Christians in the country, especially many White conservative Christians in the country, don't see progress. They don't see the country living up to its promise to be a more perfect union. Instead, they see that as that's when we lost our country. That's when it was given to those who were left behind. That's when rights and representation were afforded to people who are not perhaps real Americans and should not be trusted with the country's destiny going forward.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And so where I didn't realize this, let's talk a little bit first about your personal journey, because it gets interwoven here with the rise of this movement.

BRAD ONISHI: Sure. So I grew up in Southern California and I grew up in Orange County. And I know that for most [00:02:00] folks around the country, California, they picture California as a liberal bastion where we, the Democratic Party has a super majority and so on and so forth, right? We teach our kids Das Kapital in Kindergarten or something. The reality is it's a much more mixed political landscape and Orange County in particular in the mid 20th century became what the Harvard historian Lisa McGurk called the "epicenter of American conservatism".

Orange County is a funny place. After World War II, it was the central nervous system for the American defense industry. So in the decades 60s, 70s, 80s, you have millions and millions and millions of Southerners and Midwesterners who migrate to places like Orange County. Now they don't see themselves as transplants trying to figure out how to fit into a new place. They're implants. They're going to bring their culture. Their life and their religious ethos with them and they're going to [00:03:00] do so unmoored from all of the histories and the sedimentation of where they came from. In Pittsburgh, you might have Jewish neighborhoods. You might have large and historic Black neighborhoods. Well, in Anaheim, California, in 1965, you don't have any of that. So you see this sort of distilled form of White Christian conservatism take root in Orange County, and that's what I was born into and grew up in the 1980s. That's where I converted to evangelical Christianity as a teenager. I was ushered into a whole religious political landscape that, to me, at the time, felt normal, but I realized later, was really a kind of a central node in the development of what we now call White Christian nationalism. And if you do the history, you see it. You see that this is the region that gave birth to Richard Nixon. My hometown, Richard Nixon's hometown. This is the place that championed Barry Goldwater more than any other in Southern California and in California in general. This is the place that was really Ronald Reagan's spiritual [00:04:00] home and named its airport after John Wayne. You start to look into it and you realize the deep roots of American conservatism and somehow they unexpectedly take you back to Southern California.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I mean, we've done a couple of actually interviews about the birth of conservatism or at least the movement conservatism coming out of California. I mean, it ties in also to the medical profession. There was a lot happening in car dealerships. I mean, there's a lot of different narratives there. What I'm fascinated, is the idea of this, the distillation of the, for lack of better, I keep calling it Christian nationalism, but was it Christian nationalism when it got there? Like, the idea that this is a completely blank canvas, California, very big country. A lot of people, the whole [00:05:00] story about California, but for much of at least the 20th century was, we're going out there and I'm starting my life anew in many respects for various reasons that we saw, the Great Depression, but also because it's just so far away, if far away from their relatives far away from the legal problems, it's a blank canvas out there. But [were] there Christian nationalist, like, desires before it got there, or did things coalesce there and become more concentrated and virulent?

BRAD ONISHI: Yeah. I think the answer is "both and". And I think if we start with this idea that Christian nationalism in its essence is a fusion of the Christian and American identity, the idea that to be a Christian means to [00:06:00] be an American, and to be an American, a real American, one needs to be a Christian, right? Those are some, just a basic working idea of Christian nationalism, that Americanism and Christian identity go together. And that, if you separate them, you're left with something that, for folks who adhere to this ideology and worldview, feels incomplete.

Now, folks who are migrating from Georgia, from Pennsylvania in the 50s and 60s, are they going there saying, You know what? I just wish I could be a virulent White Christian nationalist. It's time to get the family in the station wagon and head west. I don't think so. But my argument would be those places had long and deep histories, both religiously, ethnically, and politically, that were different from Southern California.

So again, if I'm in Pittsburgh, I'm surrounded by neighborhoods, Black neighborhoods, Jewish neighborhoods, Italian, Polish, I'm surrounded by Catholic folks and other folks, right? So this [00:07:00] means that there's a check on my ability politically and religiously to distill this pure White Christian nationalism into my community, there's just things getting in my way to do that. When you get to Southern California in the 1960s, 1970s, all of those things are not there. Those main streets, they're not there. You know what is there? Burgeoning mega churches, where folks are realizing, preachers are realizing, if I combine just vehement anti communism with all these people who have jobs at defense industry plants, Anti Communism, pro Capitalism, pro Individual, you know what that equals? The Gospel of Jesus Christ. If I put all that together, now all of a sudden I get a religious and political set of elements that fuse into something that is not only, uh, what I would call white Christian nationalist, But it's unchecked by all those, those foundational components on the main streets where the, [00:08:00] where these folks left.

And that's why I think you're able to see this distillation, this petri dish of, of a conservative movement based on the idea that Christianity and America go together, form in this region of the country.

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation - Ideas - Air Date 10-18-24

CLIP: My whole goal in life was to grow up, get married, And we didn't believe in things like birth control.

So, the expectation was that we'd have as many children as possible, and our parents would use us. to bring about this change in the country. It would make the country a Christian country.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: It draws a direct link between evangelical, masculinity and masculine authority, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism.

Both of those center a particular understanding of power as power over others. Yeah, and In which then the ends always justifies the means and [00:09:00] we see the effects of that in the lives of women who live under the authority of these men and we see what happens when things go wrong.

CLIP: So in 2018, I finally got the courage to decide to come forward and I looked up Andy Savage who was now one of the leading pastors at a mega church in Tennessee and I decided to write him an email.

And I signed off, hashtag me too. Two days later was a Sunday, and the head of the church announces to the congregation that Pastor Savage has something he needs to tell them. What happened next was so enraging. I wanted the world to see it. I regretfully had a sexual incident with a female high school senior in the church.

He tells the [00:10:00] world that it had occurred and that he was sorry. And

everybody stands, and they give him a standing ovation.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: And what we see is Faith communities invariably, repeatedly rallying around the perpetrators, the abusers, protecting them, giving cover to the man of God, trying to, as they say, protect the witness of the church. And it's the victim who is maligned, who is blamed, who is silenced, and who is often pushed out of those communities.

And so For Our Daughters features the stories of several survivors who had this experience sometimes even decades ago, and came to see it in a new light, often when they had daughters of their own, I wanted to give them a powerful platform to speak their truth. And it [00:11:00] is true. Their stories are true.

They are legally vetted. They are speaking truth. And to, bring these stories to faith communities so that they can take a critical look at their own practices and also challenge them to look at the broader political scene of how this Ideology. is linked to Christian nationalism and how some of the very men depicted in this film are connected to networks that are working to essentially achieve a Christian nationalist takeover, which could in fact be upon us in this next election.

The, lines are direct. And so this is, an issue that affects us. Evangelical women inside churches, absolutely. But we're making the case that we need to listen to the warnings from some of these evangelical women who have seen the dark side of this ideology because it matters for all American women.[00:12:00]

Now, when Jesus and John Wayne released, I, within about two, three days, started getting letters. I have gotten thousands of letters, most of which say some version of the same thing. This is the story of my life. But it's also somehow shocking. I never understood how all these pieces fit together. How can Readers both be so intimately familiar with the book, so much so that some actually send me pictures of their bookshelves that are aligned with all the things that I talk about, or they [00:13:00] tell me their life stories, and it could have just been a through line of Jesus and John Wayne.

And yet, it's shocking to see it all come together. How can this be? And I, came to realize just how much evangelicals had controlled their own narrative. They had told the stories about themselves in a particular way, including some details and omitting others. They have written their own histories so that facts can seem like attacks.

Especially when they were organized efforts to tell people that legitimate histories are attacks on their faith. For generations, we've been told the enemy is post modernism, the post truth world, we are the moral majority, all that stuff thrown out the window now, and instead it's whatever it takes.

I've even seen very recently some guy on Twitter, from the right came on [00:14:00] and said, I don't know, somebody was lying about me. It happens a lot. I've been misrepresented so many times. I just saw somebody post. somebody jumped in and said, you're lying. you, you, can't.

That's not what she said. Why do you do this? And the response, I appreciated the honesty there, was essentially, she's an enemy. We can say whatever we want about her and do whatever we want to her. And I thought, wow, that is starkly presented. It is chilling, but I think it encapsulates well kind of the spirit within this movement when pushed to extremes and the leaders of this movement are doing everything they can to push followers to those extremes and they use this language of threat to do so.

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: Just thinking about you about you being you and reading something like that, you know,

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: yeah My internal response was very clarifying given the interactions. I've had [00:15:00] with people on on social media Not, not just random people, this was a random person, but more respectable folks, including some pretty powerful leaders inside evangelical organizations and institutions.

This kind of describes the way I am treated in some of those spaces, and it's, it's not just me, um, at, at all. Um, and, and it actually, I was showing it to a friend, uh, a couple of friends who were kind of scholars working in these areas. Areas, and it wasn't actually until one of them said to me, Kristen, this is really frightening.

This is actually a threat. And I, I hadn't, I just saw it as, of course, this makes so much sense of what I have been experiencing. And I didn't see it as the threat that it actually is or could entail. Uh, so I guess you work in these spaces long enough, you kind of get used to this. Um, I didn't feel personally threatened by that tweet.

I do feel personally, um, disquieted by this kind of rhetoric [00:16:00] and the dehumanizing rhetoric that I see in these spaces. I try to call it out whenever I see it, um, the, but it's always spiritualized. So you can call people demonic. You can call people a wolf. You know, the first time I was called a wolf, I thought, Oh, that's silly.

And then I realized, no, no, no, that actually has a deep meaning inside these spaces, a theological meaning, right? You are an enemy of the church, an enemy of Christ, but it also, in terms of authoritarian movements, it also dehumanizes others. And we see a lot of that kind of language used now towards immigrants.

right, to people on the margins and high levels of comfort in some of these conservative Christian spaces with extremely dehumanizing language, which, you know, to my mind goes against

MAGA's 'Young Male Voter' Plan Hits Bottom Of The Barrel - The Majority Report - Air Date 10-22-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: The Trump campaign set out to target male voters, young male voters, low propensity, young male voters. And [00:17:00] what young male voters want is stuff like that Owen Schroyer thing we played earlier, where you have young women saying, abortion is my top issue. In terms of the election, because that makes men feel like, Oh, these girls don't know what they're doing.

They're voting based upon an issue that's important to them and not me. They should be freaking out about the border like I am. Exactly. I don't know. I guess there is a cohort. I mean, wrestling fans, young people, but I don't know if wrestling fans even know who Hulk Hogan is anymore.

Maybe they do. But here is Jesse Watters. One of the, really creepy style men you'll recall the way that he basically start started his second marriage, right?

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh, I don't know, but entrapped his current wife into a marriage.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, he let the air out of her tires when she was going home. And then she needed a ride home, so he gave it to her. I guess this is from Fox. [00:18:00] Incidentally They also sell things like pepper spray and alarms if you come across this in a parking lot. Anyways here is Jesse Waters interviewing Hulk Hogan.

HULK HOGAN: Speaking from, and you'll know exactly who they are. So when they say that Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan and stuff like that doesn't make Trump one with the people or a blue collar worker. If you listen to where people were speaking from and you put Buttigieg up there, Trump definitely wouldn't be a man of the people. That's how it really is, brother. But by the way, just to correct you, Jesse Waters, I know about waters and your world and all that stuff. Well, this is Trumpamania, and this is his country, brother.

JESSEE WATTERS: All right, I'll give it to him. Just for this show. But not after that. I'm going to be taking it back. We saw you ripping your shirt off at the RNC. You know, there have been saying that men that lift weights are fascists. Can you just kind of remind Democrats?

Cause they didn't used to be like this. Can you remind Democrats [00:19:00] what American men are made of?

HULK HOGAN: Well, brother, at the end of the day, no, this is a chain of command. Our Lord and savior the wife and the husband and the kids at the end of the day, The mother is to nourish, but the man is to protect, serve, and provide.

So at the end of the day, that's what this is all about. Is being a real man, being a real American and getting this country and making it how, not how it used to be, but how it should be, brother.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: When you, okay, brother

I mean, this may resonate with people, but some people, but you've heard me say over and over again, that all the trans stuff. That all the issues with like a high value men even like back to Gamergate, all of this stuff, hat, Hulk Hogan just told you there is a fundamental hierarchy that starts the series that starts at the [00:20:00] top of the hierarchy.

And it's not man over woman. It's God over man, and then it's man over woman, and then brother, and brother. But when we say that the issue of, the political issue of trans women and women's sports is not about women's sports. It is about freaks who, for whatever reason, Maintain a notion of the patriarchy.

And the patriarchy is simply a, essentially the human version of religious hierarchy. God, who also happens to be a man, of course, and then human, and by human we mean man, and then woman, who, of course, was derived from the man. And then children and whether it's trans issues or whether it's [00:21:00] like women caring about abortion rights.

That's why they're voting. Like they're putting themselves in their own their ability their reproductive rights above my sense of national chauvinism, all of this stuff emanates. From religious fundamentalism. And often it gets laundered through other things.

This is about ethics and gaming reporting, or this is about the integrity of women's sports, or, this is protect the children or whatever it is, what it is at its root is a freak out about gender and gender roles. And that comes from religious fundamentalism. Some instances, the people know that they're operating on it.

Some instances, they don't know.

If you walked around with a swastika, [00:22:00] you could have just seen the image and said, that's a cool image. I'm going to make a t shirt with that. And walk around with it and go you know what? I'm like I believe I should wear this thing without any knowledge of where this idea or what it represents comes from.

And that's what I'm talking about with this sort of like gender freak out. Now other people may have some other issues around gender that they're struggling with individually. And then this like wind of what society and traditional society and religious society like brushes up against their own insecurities and that becomes fuel for their gender war.

But understand that these constructs exist because of religious fundamentalism.

NAR Watch Ep. 7 JD Vance Joins Lance Wallnau in Spiritual Warfare - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-14-24

MATT TAYLOR: So if we go back into the history, um, in the fall of [00:23:00] 2015, Paul Y. Kane is gathering charismatic leaders at Trump tower to meet with Trump. These are the first religious leaders that meet with Donald Trump. The people who are at those meetings become the nucleus of Trump's evangelical advisors.

And this is part of this changeover that occurs that I'm observing in my book of how these previously fringe characters from the, these independent charismatic spaces move into the center. Of right wing politics because of their association and closeness to Trump. Wall now is in those meetings. In fact, he, he, he talks to Trump in these meetings personally.

And, and is, um, he's one of the first Christian leaders to endorse Donald Trump, and even when he is endorsing Donald Trump, he's, he's offering this prophecy, this prophecy about Cyrus that he he's cribbing it from Jeremiah Johnson. But he, he's, he's the one who really popularizes a lot of these ideas and gets the ball rolling on.

This whole Trump prophecy element to, um, the, the Christian campaigning for Donald Trump. But then, Wallnau is never put on the official board of [00:24:00] evangelical advisors. Many of his friends are, but he's not. And he's invited into the White House at different points during the Trump administration to advise the White House.

I'll be damned if I can find any photos of that. Where he's in the white house. And so he, he has brought in, he's clearly an interlocutor. He's clearly a voice that they value. And he is one of the most effective Christian propagandists for Donald Trump, just bar none. I mean, he's, he's the one who's using these seven mountains ideas.

I mean, one of my, I don't know if I've ever told this story on here. Uh, so after, um, the, the access Hollywood tape comes out in October of 2016, right? And it's this moment. For those who, who were, were politically paying attention to the times, this moment where everyone's like, okay, Trump's done, right? The evangelicals are just going to abandon him.

Even Mike Pence was on the fence about whether, whether he could even talk about defending Donald Trump on this question. And it's one of the [00:25:00] few times in Donald Trump's life, especially political life that he's actually apologized. But in the midst of that, Walnut had just issued, it just published this book, God's Chaos Candidate, predicting.

And prophesying that Donald Trump would win the election. And so he, he is really in a tough spot because he has just said Donald Trump is God's anointed candidate. And then it comes out the Trump is like from his own mouth, describing how he sexually abuses women. And so Lance is in, um, he's in Israel at the time and he goes on Facebook live and records like a 10 minute video.

And in this video, it's so fascinating because he, so again, he's using the old Testament, Hebrew Bible imagery. And he says, This is his, this is the core of his message. And he says, God could use the jawbone of an ass to slaughter a thousand Philistines, but God could never use a Jezebel. And so to unpack that he's, he's, he's, he's using these two, he's linking together these two old Testament stories.

So there's, there's the [00:26:00] Samson story where Samson, Takes the, the jawbone of a donkey and slaughters a thousand Philistines. And then Jezebel, the evil, wicked queen, the, the, the most pagan of all the queen, the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. And so what he's saying there is like, Donald Trump is the jawbone of the ass.

Donald Trump is a donkey's jawbone, but he's an instrument. He's a weapon. In the hand of God and but God could never work through a hillard clinton at jezebel And and this video gets more than 4 million views before the election And I would argue it's one of the major factors in bringing evangelicals back into the, back into the fold, keeping them on the Trump train, not letting them jump off saying, Hey, he's a bad dude.

We all acknowledge that, but he's an instrument in the hand of God. And so that, that is the role wall now has played for Trump. And yet he never is apart from those, those very, the very first meetings, you never see a picture of him. With Trump and you never see him in the white [00:27:00] house. And so I think that is kind of the pattern that we're seeing, even with this JD Vance thing, they want his audience.

They want his people, but they want to maintain a little barrier so that there's a little plausible deniability.

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So there's, there's people listening who are thinking, you know, they're informed and they're thinking, okay, I know there's pictures of Sean Foyt in the white house, touching Donald Trump. Paula white for, for goodness sake was the spiritual advisor.

Uh, Donald Trump has done so many, uh, events with, uh, people in the, like, Evangelicals for Trump or the, you know, he had the, the whole, um, the, the Latinos, uh, for Trump and that was, that, that was kicked off at an N A R church. Here's my point. Donald Trump takes pictures with everybody. He had, the guy had dinner with Nick Fuentes.

I mean, you know, and Kanye West. So if I'm listening right now, can you help me understand why is Lance Wall now, like, beyond the pale? Like, you, he's not allowed to have a photo? And then, You know, much less, they basically like made sure [00:28:00] Lance was not touching the stage before like JD took one step onto the stage because they didn't want anyone to ever say they shared the stage.

Why is Lance beyond the pale compared to all these other people?

MATT TAYLOR: Well, if you go back, the Nick Fuentes, Kanye West dinner, that was before Trump had entered the race. So this was, this is in that kind of interregnum where he had lost in 2020 before he had really fully kind of stepped into and launched his 2024 campaign.

So I think there was, there was an element of, of wanting to kind of, again, play this sort of game there. With Walnut, if you track Walnut. I just, I just have, I

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: just have to say this, like, so back in the days when he was not a candidate, when he was allowed to, I don't know, call Putin on his free time, have classified documents behind the toilet and have dinner with Nazis, I mean, he wasn't even in the race yet, Matt.

It's not a big deal. He was a private citizen. Who cares? I mean, gosh,

MATT TAYLOR: Brad, aren't we all having dinner with Nick Fuentes on the [00:29:00] side? Come on.

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: You know, I'm not running for office. So hey, what's the big, I'm sorry. I just had to say that like, I I'm not doubting what you're saying, but it's ridiculous. So go ahead.

MATT TAYLOR: Walnell of all of the Trump Christian propagandists is really willing to push the envelope. And, and again, it's not, it's not that he is persona non grata. It's not that he's a bridge too far. They want his audience. They bring him in, but it's about maintaining a little bit of plausible deniability there because I don't think they want to be on the hook for the things that he says, because while now is of all of these leaders that I have seen the most willing to demonize.

His political opponents, the most willing to, I mean, he, he has at least three or four times now gone after Kamala Harris said that she is an amalgam of the Jezebel spirit, that you can't listen to her because it's just demons speaking through her, that she used witchcraft to win the debate with Donald Trump.

[00:30:00] So he really leans in. And it attaches these narratives. To his political opponents and he's also very deep into these conspiracy theorizing. In fact, just the other night, he was tweeting, Hey, Marjorie, Marjorie Taylor Greene might be right because she's doing, she's, she's saying that they control the weather.

And hey, if this, this next hurricane, this hurricane Milton hits a bunch of red counties, then I'm going to suspect that she's right. Like, so he, he plays footsie with Alex Jones and he very much is actually modeling himself. Off of Steve Bannon and Alex Jones right now, if you, if you watch how he runs his kind of podcast and media empire, he he's merchandising the way that they merchandise, he pays homage to Steve Bannon frequently.

I mean, he's really kind of taking these models of other far right provocateurs and playing with them. I think a figure like Sean Foyt still plays as a worship leader. Even though I have done the deep dive on Sean Foyt, he is an extreme far right figure. Who has, has used his influence to, to very [00:31:00] nefarious and harmful ends.

But Wallnau is, is, is so public and has, has so many of these things attached to him. I think that the Trump campaign, they, they, they want to use him. And then they also want to keep just that sliver of daylight, just so that they don't feel like they ever have to answer for the things that he says, but he can keep saying them and they can keep promoting him.

Ziklag Exposed Secretive Christian Nationalist Network Tries to Purge Voters in Battleground States - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-30-24

ANDY KROLL: Ziklag is a secretive network of ultrawealthy Christians, conservative Christians, who have this two-part goal, two-part vision for this country. One is to get heavily involved in the 2024 elections, in the ways that you just described, mobilizing pastors, knocking people off the voting rolls, demonizing trans people to motivate conservative voters. But then, looking toward the 20- and 30-year horizon, Ziklag’s goal is nothing less than moving the country toward a state of Christian [00:32:00] nationalism, having biblical worldviews, quote-unquote, “biblical truth,” shaping, influencing every part of American culture, the seven mountains that you described. So, this really is, as one expert we quoted in the story told us, a vision for Christian supremacy.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: “Ziklag” mean?

ANDY KROLL: Ziklag, the name, refers to a biblical reference about David taking refuge during his struggle with King Saul. The analogy here, of course, is that the Christians in this group apparently feel that they are under siege and that this group is their refuge, but then the place from which they plan their campaign, their assault to take back American culture.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In a Ziklag member briefing video that you obtained at ProPublica, one of Ziklag’s spiritual advisers, Lance Wallnau, a Christian evangelist and influencer, laid out a plan [00:33:00] to deliver swing states by using an anti-transgender message to motivate conservative voters who are exhausted with Trump.

MATT TAYLOR: If we can get the left to own their position on LGBTQ — the country has already drifted on the homosexual issue, but on transgenderism, there is a problem, and they know it. They’re going to want to talk about Trump, Trump, Trump, he’s indicted, the guy’s a criminal, this and that. They’re going to have riots on the street and all the kabuki theater. Meanwhile, if we talk about it’s not about Trump; it’s about the parents and their children, and the state is a threat. When you get Governor Newsom or Governor Whitmer or Polis, your top three potential candidates for the future presidency of the United States, other than Kamala, you got these — when they’re going to have to stand with their LGBTQ donors, and so, when they solidify that position, that’s where they’ve gone too far.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that’s Lance Wallnau, a [00:34:00] Christian evangelist and influencer. Andy Kroll, if you can talk about him, what he’s saying, and who the other leaders of this are?

ANDY KROLL: Lance Wallnau is maybe one of the most important Christian evangelist figures that maybe your audience hasn’t heard of. He was one of the earliest Christian right leaders to endorse Donald Trump. We’re talking way back in 2015 here. He popularized this notion that Donald Trump was a modern-day Cyrus, a sort of flawed but virtuous leader who would deliver a victory for Christians. And that Cyrus idea really caught on, was a big reason that evangelicals turned out to such a big degree for Trump in ’16, again in ’20. Wallnau remains this bridge between the Christian right, Christian nationalism and Trump world.

Wallnau is one of a number of really influential and well-known people that are part of Ziklag. Some [00:35:00] members that your audience might have heard of, the Green family, they’re the family behind Hobby Lobby. Obviously, they’ve had a pretty big impact in trying to strike down parts of the Obamacare law back in the Obama presidency. The Uihlein family have donated to this effort. They are, of course, the billionaire office supply family out of the Midwest, major, major political donors to Republicans and to Donald Trump. And then, another family is the Waller family, influential in Ziklag. They are the owners of the Jockey apparel company, which probably a lot of people have heard of even if they haven’t heard of this family. So you have a number of really wealthy, really influential conservative Christian families in this group. They have the means to invest not just in political work, but also in this larger cultural transformation plan that Ziklag has really put its — really organized itself around.

Spirit & Power Episode 4 Take Back that Which Was Stolen from Us The Charismatic Rituals of the Religious Right - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-17-24

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: Lance Wallnau gave a very interesting talk about time and different phases of [00:36:00] life. And I think there were like six phases of life that he went through, but he said that nations also have these phases. And so, he drew like a stair step on his whiteboard. Because we always use the whiteboard.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: Here's where another historic Pentecostal practice comes into play, prophecy. Pentecostals have long made prophecies about current events and political leaders and tied their leadership to the apocalypse. For example, there were prophecies about the Kaiser during World War I or FDR during World War II. But I will say the way that some prophecies tie Trump's presidency to the end of time is quite distinct.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: He drew these stairs and the first one was leader slash Cyrus. So if you look, his argument is, if you look at biblical timelines and prophecy, that it requires a King [00:37:00] Cyrus, something, someone like a King Cyrus.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: King Cyrus of Persia, celebrated for freeing the Israelites from Babylonian captivity and allowing them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, was a pagan ruler, but he's still called God's anointed in the book of Isaiah and According to charismatic interpretations, he's used by God for divine purposes.

And in these circles, Donald Trump is often compared to King Cyrus. Many view him as an unlikely vessel chosen by God to advance Christian causes. And, They draw parallels to Cyrus's role in Israel's restoration as Cyrus restored ancient Israel. So Trump could restore and is restoring 21st century Israel, which according to their theology would bring the second coming.

So the end of time and the [00:38:00] return of Christ is tied to Trump.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: To set this domino effect into place that will then bring about. The kingdom of God. The first one was Cyrus. The second one was the house, which was the rebuilding of the temple.

CLIP: Open the eyes, the awakening, we pray for the awakening revival.

We need a revival. All the preachers said we need a revival. And most Christians go, we need a revival. And we think somehow God's going to pour out like a Zeus and the nations going to go all speak in tongues. We're all going to become righteous. First, God gets to give you a ruler. You've got to pray for the right ruler.

Then you got to be in the right project, which is the Ecclesia, which is his house. Then the awakening comes to those that are in the building project. God's got them in. I honestly think those are the politically engaged and keep themselves from a spirit of strife right now are probably more in the [00:39:00] revival than they know.

Years from now, we're going to look back and say, when was the period of the great awakening? We're going to date historians will date it and they'll put you in that period of great awakening. Pictures like this crowd will be in the little textbooks in the future, saying these were the early signs that when the Trump era came, then there was a galvanizing of Christian concern and a lot of praying and a lot of gathering, a lot of indigenous grassroots people, a lot of people like are in this room right now, hearing the call of God to go into government, to go into schools, to go into media, to begin to do what, what, what, what, what, what the awakened church did next, which was they had to see for Cyrus house of God, awakening.

Yeah. They began to occupy the territory around their local church.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: Kerry notes that this vision is ultimately about the charismatic vision of the end of time.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: That's the ultimate goal. It's not the immediate. This election doesn't just have these. immediate consequences for the next four years. We're [00:40:00] talking about the restoring of the temple.

It's massive. It's a major spiritual win if this can happen in his eyes. That's what's motivating and what's encouraging to people because you can have a place in this history that gives it that historical significance as a Christian, as a faith filled person.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: This is an important point to drive home because Pentecostal and charismatic Trump enthusiasts might be quite patriotic, but that doesn't mean that they are ultimately interested in American democracy. The nation of nations in the charismatic mind is the end times nation of Israel and the United States has ultimately utilitarian value. Is the U. S. important? Yes, but not necessarily as a model of democracy.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: Whenever the lens does get turned back onto the U. S., um, the [00:41:00] words and the narrative surrounding that is typically something to do with government overreach.

And so democracy is not, not on their agenda. Uh, Rick Green gave a long talk about biblical citizenship and what. The constitution allows and what it doesn't, and that there's been government overreach going on for quite some time that we need to get rid of the department of education.

CLIP: So we are so blessed in America. We know America's great. We know she's crumbling, so we've got to turn her around. So if we want that life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, we build it on truth and we had it for a while. The reason we're losing it is because we're not doing that next sentence consent of the governed. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

You give or refuse consent by being involved. When you sit on the sideline, government assumes you've consented and starts taking over more and more of our lives, telling us how [00:42:00] to raise our families, how to, how to take care of our property, how to run our businesses, all of those things. And that's essentially where we are.

And it's not just It's not just the DEI and CRT and ESG, and it's not just the federal government. Our local governments are squeezing the life out of the free enterprise system. They're squeezing the life out of property rights. They're micromanaging what you do with your property.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: We need to get rid of the CDC because all of these were just oversteps that they're not supposed to be government functions.

And they said outright that government is supposed to protect you, not provide for you. There was a lot put into this kind of reap and sow narrative of it and framed it as, you know, the nation. So, I mean, essentially they used a lot of words, but the gist was give us your money or you're losing your nation.

CLIP: What am I saying to you? I'm saying simply this in a few weeks, we are getting ready. I believe to cut the head of a [00:43:00] lot of giants and things that have been attacking our children have been attacking our country. This is what Flashpoint's been about. It's why I've given four years of my life as a busy senior pastor of a, of a 1, 500 member church and growing and a worldwide ministry.

And yet I do this because I recognize that I'm giving my time as an offering for God, but because I also believe I put my money behind it. Because I recognize the power of an offering to not only deliver me, but to position my country for victory. How many of you would like a part of that?

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: That's really, that's really what it amounted to. And they called it this prophetic gifting.

CLIP: So I want to bring you to what I believe is a prophetic act. And here's what it is. How many of you are believing for victory in a few weeks? How many of you are believing and those of you that are watching for defeat against the giants? [00:44:00] Of all the things that we've been facing in the harsh season we've been in.

Alright, I believe a prophetic act then has to proceed our victory. And I want to show you out of the Bible some prophetic acts. I want to show you at least two that have to do with an offering that brought a deliverance to a nation.

Unfcking Flashback The American Propaganda Machine. - UNFTR - Air Date 10-12-24

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: To get the point across, let's talk about one of the heavyweight champs of public policy. The Heritage Foundation. Sounds homespun and charming, doesn't it? The Heritage Foundation, and its sister lobbying arm Heritage Action for America, openly develop public policy for so called conservative issues and lobby conservative lawmakers to adopt them.

The main foundation receives funding from a labyrinth of conservative donors, several billionaires, other foundations, foreign entities, the oil and gas, defense, tobacco, and technology industries, among others. and other undisclosed donors. Here's a fun one. Did you know that they [00:45:00] were the chief architects of what became known as Obamacare?

Yep. They lobbied for universal privately insured healthcare with an individual mandate. Why? Because they wanted people to pay for insurance and to stop undocumented immigrants and poor people from using the emergency room as a primary care doctor. You didn't think Mitt Romney came up with that all by himself, did you?

Then the second it was adopted by a Democratic president, meaning a black guy, it became the third rail and Heritage promptly reversed course. Beyond this seismic flip flop, the Heritage Foundation greatest hits include Fighting Against Taxes on Cigarette Companies, Blasting immigration reform measures, railing against climate change legislation, and advocating for covert military funding and operations in foreign nations to overthrow governments.

Just a few among other pet projects they have.

CLIP: Well, isn't that special? [00:46:00]

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: One of the most effective ground strategies these organizations have is the creation of what's called model legislation. In other words, they write the legislation they want to see, leave the sponsors blank, and circulate them throughout the states hoping their measures will be turned into law.

Let's put some real numbers to this to demonstrate just how little influence voters have on what their legislators actually do and propose. In 2019, the Center for Public Integrity published a report generated by USA Today and the Arizona Republic which found at least 10, 000 bills. Almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in just the past eight years.

And more than 2, 000 of those bills were signed into law. To help us through a few passages in the report, here's my friend. We'll call him Bobby. Bobby from Brooklyn, to give us some highlights.

CLIP: Model bills passed into law have made it harder for injured consumers to sue corporations. They've called for [00:47:00] taxes on sugar laden drinks.

They've limited access to abortion and restricted the rights of protesters. Fuckin bunch of dicks.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Uh, Bobby, please, just keep reading.

CLIP: Models are drafted with deceptive titles and descriptions to disguise their true intent. The Asbestos Transparency Act didn't help people exposed to asbestos. It was written by corporations who wanted to make it harder for victims to recoup money.

The HOPE Act, introduced in nine states, was written by a conservative group to make it more difficult for people to get food stamps. You fucking kidding me. That shit wouldn't fly where I'm from

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: again, if, if you don't mind.

CLIP: All right, all right, all right. Where was I? Cities and counties have raised their minimum wage, banned plastic bags and destroyed seize guns.

Only to have industry groups that oppose such measures make them illegal. With model bills passed in state legislatures. Y'all fucked up. Bullshit.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Fuck this bullshit. Indeed, Bobby. So who exactly is writing these model bills? Sorry, Democrats [00:48:00] outgunned again. Turns out 83 percent of model legislation was written either by conservative advocacy groups or directly by corporations.

92 percent of the bills that actually became law were from those two groups, proving once again liberals suck at hand to hand combat and lack the kind of overwhelming coordination that corporations and conservative groups maintain. So where are we? Oh, right. Billionaire X has a problem. So he, I'm assuming his preferred pronoun is he, uses a network of shell corporations to provide funding to think tanks that generate research to support a thesis that would eliminate said problem.

The think tanks send research to lobbyists who push it off to legislators as proof that new laws need to be passed. Then they coordinate with billionaire X's corporation to write the legislation directly. Now the biggest missing ingredient here is public sentiment, buy in, manufacturing. [00:49:00] Someone needs to sell this bullshit to the American people so the lawmaker can hold up some new bill with some fucking patriotic title and claim that he or she is defending the best interests of the American people.

Enter the mouthpiece, or the shill. The reason I call the Heritage Foundation the heavyweight champ among the thousands of think tanks, lobbyists, and corporations directly peddling influence Isn't because they're the biggest. Now, it's a hundred million dollar plus organization with ties to several other closely related groups and lobbyists that all told pour billions of dollars into our elections.

But they're still not the biggest. They're the best because they're by far the most Now, to really sell your snake oil, you need some clever spokespeople and mouthpieces.

These are folks who identify with the people and can twist that thing [00:50:00] that's good for you around in your brain until it no longer makes any sense coming back out of your mouth.

Take, for example, this sincere and charming fella convincing Americans that Medicare, yeah, Medicare, is nothing more than socialized

RONALD REAGAN CLIP: medicine that will rob you of your freedoms. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.

Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: In case you couldn't place the voice, that's none other than the Gipper himself, Ronald Reagan, shilling for the AMA in a prepared script designed to attack Medicare. That's when there were five TV stations and AM radio only.

Today, the information channels are limitless. And no one has fused policy and punditry better than the Heritage Foundation. Where others [00:51:00] rely on making their own videos they post to YouTube and speaking on panels at conferences, Heritage has a revolving door booking engine that gets their research fellows on podcasts Evening news shows and mentioned in op eds.

BEN SHAPIRO CLIP: Welcome back. This is the Ben Shapiro show. Joining us on the line is John Malcolm, vice president for the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the Mies Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at Heritage Foundation.

CLIP: ...the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Blue cities burning. I want to get a, a big picture historical overview with our friend, Jared Stepman. He's from the Heritage Foundation.

NEWSCLIP: John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation. I have it here in front of me.

The Heritage foundation.

The Heritage Foundation. There have been 1,285 proven cases of voter fraud...

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Voter fraud, immigration, Black Lives Matter, Obamacare, Union, Second Amendment, you name it. They've got an expert locked, loaded, and ready to spray verbal bullets through the screen and into your ear balls. Heritage Foundation research and mouthpieces [00:52:00] regularly make their way through high profile shows like Hannity and popular podcasts like Ben Shapiro.

CLIP: Twelve thousand lobbyists, eighteen hundred think tanks, two party system, and one ass fuck nation.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Clean air and water?

CLIP: It's my right to pollute if it makes me money.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Access to affordable health care.

CLIP: Get a job with benefits you welfare queen.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Pre-existing condition.

CLIP: Your diabetes is not my fuckin' problem

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Ranked 15th in standard of living despite being the wealthiest nation.

CLIP: Move to Sweden you fucking Commie.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Raise the minimum wage.

CLIP: You're a job killer.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: Background checks on weapon purchases.

CLIP: This isn't North Korea.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ - HOST, UNFTR: If you can make a common sense argument based on the concept of general welfare, there's a corporation funded policy group armed and ready with a white paper, a spokesperson, a sponsor for pre written laws, and a talk show host with prepared bullet points [00:53:00] all ready to tell you why it's a communist plot to take your guns away, kill your grandparents, and turn us into Denmark.

Note from the Editor on susceptibility to manipulation

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with the majority of report, laying out some of the history of the Christian conservative movement. Ideas looked specifically at Christian patriarchy. The majority report discussed the politics of Republicans targeting young men. Straight white American Jesus explained the spiritual warfare going on. Democracy now explain the movement of extremely wealthy Christians looking to make a political impact Straight white American Jesus laid out.

Why some tie Trump to the second coming of Christ. And unending the Republic dove into the power and influence of the heritage foundation. And those were just the top takes. There's a lot more in the deeper dive section, but first 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. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new [00:54:00] members only podcast feed the chill, receive sign up to support the [email protected] slash support.

There's a link in the show notes. Through our Patrion 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 onto the deeper dives, half of the show, a quick thought about religion and for context, I used to be. More on the angry side of the spectrum. Talking about religion and it's, you know, deleterious effects on society writ large. But over the years, you know, If you'd asked me 15 years ago, I would've been much more angry than I am now.

Over the years, I've I've chilled and sort of come to understand it [00:55:00] as part of the human condition. Not just like, well, it's a natural thing that happens. People are going to believe in stuff that isn't true. But the reason that they're. Drawn to believe in things that aren't true. Has to do with all of us trying to get through life, you know, life's hard and we need something to grab onto every once in a while.

And when things get harder That phenomenon ramps up even more. I think the real tragedy of it is not just, you know, believing in as the show's describing today, you know, political fantasies of things that aren't true, or depending on your perspective of. Religion in general, you may consider the religious tenants to be untrue as well.

But like the real tragedy is how leaning too hard into faith. Leaves one. So wide open to manipulation. And that. Is a pattern that repeats itself. Throughout history, right? Which brings [00:56:00] us to this little segment from an article. Uh, describing not history, but right now this is from slate. Why we still can't grasp the actual problem of president Donald Trump. And it says, quote, For Republicans and Fox news truth no longer has anything to do with facts or even reality.

Truth has returned to its pre enlightenment meaning Or as Miriam Webster puts it, it's archaic. Meaning fidelity, constancy. To be true in the medieval Trumpy and world is to be loyal and steadfast. It's no longer about reason or even belief.

It's about faith. Freud had a word for this kind of primitive faith. He called it illusion people crave a godlike father figure for I'd explained, especially when they feel threatened with the eruptions of two dangers. The crushing Lee superior force of nature. And the shortcomings of society, which have made themselves painfully felt. In the [00:57:00] 21st century facing severe social inequities, just when nature seems most out of control, america is in exactly that vulnerable state.

And so it shouldn't actually surprise us That nearly half the country's voters have rallied around a sociopathic strong man who promises protection. In return for absolute fealty in quote.

And I think that says almost all that needs to be said on this topic. But with that in mind, I just want to tie a bow on it by sort of putting this entire topic of discussion into the category. I come back to over and over again. often borrowing a phrase from Michael Brooks. Go hard on systems, but easy on people. And this is what has allowed me to chill over the last decade or two. Understanding that the vast majority of the rank and file and the religious right.

And Trump faithfuls are not manipulative mastermind, seeking [00:58:00] power.

They're just regular people trying to make the most sense of a chaotic world as best they can.

Those aren't the people who deserve our anger. And that's the vast majority of them. Frustration. Sure. Maybe, But aim higher with your anger and always understand the systemic forces involved.

SECTION A - THE MOVEMENT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up section a. The movement followed by section B Trump and the election section C patriarchy and race And section D American Christian.

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Part 2 - Ideas - Air Date 10-18-24

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: A while back, I spoke to a large group of evangelical pastors. Now, having written the book Jesus and John Wayne, I never take for granted when I get to speak in front of evangelical pastors. It was not a given. And when I spoke to them, I started off by affirming just how hard it is to be a pastor right now.

Any pastors in the room? [00:59:00] It's pretty rough. Many pastors are at a loss. They like to think of themselves as leaders, but what they've discovered in the last few years, The cruel realization that they exert very little leadership over their flocks. 2016 was a humbling time for a lot of evangelical pastors.

Now, pastors often like to blame the secular media. In the United States, we're talking Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and discipling the flock, right? These guys get their parishioners far more hours of the week than they do on a Sunday morning. And they are absolutely right. But it's not just out there. It's also inside popular Christian culture, Christian radio, Christian publishing, organizations that platform preachers and sell products.

A lot of things are marketed and [01:00:00] sold and a lot of money changes hands under the guise of ministry. Now pastors aren't just up against an invisible hand of the market. If you push back against the status quo, which in white evangelicalism means against conservative politics and against an alignment with the Republican party, and there is a long history here, you are going up against extremely well funded and well organized political networks.

Good hearted evangelical pastors may think that the answers to our toughest questions are to be found in opening the scriptures. and reading theology, seeking truth in community and in light of tradition. But that is not how this game is being played. When I spoke to that lecture hall filled with evangelical pastors, I told them, if you are feeling [01:01:00] like you are up against a lot right now, you are.

And also, you did this to yourselves. And then I explained how, over the past century, White evangelicals had shaped their movement through exclusion and coercion, such that by 2016 the voices that they needed to listen to were nowhere to be found.

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: I was struck by a moment in Waterloo, and by the final paragraph of your Acknowledgements section.

You talked about people telling you that your book might have gotten into the hands of certain people if, you know, it could be a little nicer. You know, which, which is a funny thing to say about a, a very well researched history book. That's been clearly a very carefully written, uh, and in the acknowledgements you write that I'm quoting you now, but the, the analysis and conclusions found in these pages do not necessarily represent the views of many who contributed to this project, uh, including [01:02:00] friends, family, and my place of employment.

And I guess the question that comes to mind for me is what is it like to write a carefully researched history and to have to countenance. An idea of being nicer or to deal with people whose views don't align with what you understand as history.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: Yeah. That pressure to be nice. Um, so you're allowed to critique a little bit here or there, as long as you keep it on the edges and as long as you kind of center the good guys, the heroes, uh, and, and you give Christians the starring role, then you're okay.

Um, this is not a book where. I did that. I was trying to get the story right. But here's the thing. The vast majority of books about evangelicals are written by evangelicals. And their primary goal is to make evangelicalism look good because [01:03:00] they want to recruit. They call it evangelize. And so every work is a work of apologetics.

a work of evangelism at its heart, whether it's history, whether it's a devotional, whether it's, you know, child rearing guide, all of the above. And that's just, that's not my training. That's, that's not what I do. And it never occurred to me to do so. I was trying to get the story and then let the chips fall where they may.

I didn't want to make them look worse than they are. I didn't want to make them look better than they are. But let's just look at it, sit with it. and understand it. And that's really the goal.

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: When you began writing this book, were you aware that you were embarking on such a sweeping history of power in, in modern, in the modern American?

Like, I felt like so many times I was reading this book, I started out reading, I'm like, okay, I'm reading a book about a very specific, community topic, but it just [01:04:00] kept zapping through into the main, this big narrative.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: Yes. That is such an astute comment because here's a little backstory that most people aren't aware of.

Um, we had a lot of interest from a lot of different publishers and I loved all the editors I talked with except this one. And I liked him as a person just fine, but I didn't feel like we shared the same vision for the project because he told me, um, you know what you have here, Kristen. This is a new history of American Christianity.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm doing something much, much smaller. I'm pulling the thread of evangelical masculinity and militarism. I'm not trying to rewrite the history of American evangelicalism or of American Christianity. I'm doing something far more modest. He's like, no, you're not. Yes, I am.

And so I decided, um, not to go with him. And I landed with a fabulous publisher. No regrets there. However, let me say about two or three months after that conversation, after we had signed with a different publisher and I [01:05:00] was writing, I don't know where I was, chapter three or four at that point, and I was overwhelmed and I was like, how do I make all these pieces fit together?

And exactly what you saw, it just like kept getting bigger and it kept touching more things. And all of a sudden his words came back to me. Kristen, you're writing a new history of American Christianity, and I thought, I'm writing a new history of American Christianity, or American Evangelicalism, certainly.

You find one thread, and you start pulling it through, and you start just doing the research, doing the research, and I started to see, wow, these Evangelicals, I'm just trying to understand what they're saying about masculinity, and then it's about gender, and it's about authority, and it's about power, and it, and at a certain point, I thought, Wow.

I mean, if I didn't know any better, this sounds almost authoritarian. And then this is just, and I was initially focused on foreign policy as it intersected with this militancy. And then I thought, oh, this is very much a story of domestic politics. And it just grew. And by the time I finished it, I felt like, I think I can explain it [01:06:00] all.

So it definitely didn't start that way, but it ended that way because of where my research brought me.

Exurbia Democracys Newest Battleground w David Masciotra - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-13-24

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I can picture, honestly, the town, these developments that you're talking about, you know, I had family living in a kind of town like that in Pennsylvania, right, where it used to be middle class, began to decline, but there's all these developments and kind of cul de sac areas where all the houses are newly constructed, and it fits the mold that you say, where it's upper, or it's middle class people moving in, And then eventually, I would say, there's this, there are some upper middle class people who are small business owners, which I'm curious about if that was a part of your analysis.

There was, in the wake of January 6th, there were a lot of people saying, well, these are just the working class people. It's the cry of the working class attacking the Capitol. And then weeks, in the weeks following, there was some analysis done where it goes, a lot of these folks flew in. [01:07:00] And a lot of these folks own a pool cleaning business in Missouri.

Or they, uh, have uh, Uh, some sort of, you know, small financial business in, uh, Indiana. And I think that that fits quite neatly with your analysis of some of these Trump voters.

DAVID MASCIOTRA: Yeah, that's a crucial point. Uh, David Brooks and his brethren gave us this asinine definition of the working class, that it's just someone without a college degree.

So if you're going to think and act according to those terms, an elementary school teacher. Making 30 grand a year is not working class, but a small business owner or a tradesman making 80 to 90 grand a year is working class. That makes no sense, but it tends to be that latter category. So as you're saying, I'm a small business owners, but also people who do relatively well in the trades who populate these exurban towns and consistently support [01:08:00] Trump and consistently support people like Jim Jordan.

And Matt Gates and some of the research into January 6th is really fascinating. So for example, the number one common characteristic of people who stormed the Capitol, uh, is residency in an exurban County. Uh, where the non white population is growing and also where the black white poverty gap is shrinking.

Uh, and people who've looked at these, uh, you know, these, these wannabe aspiring fascists, uh, have concluded That it's primarily culture and identity and resentment and hatred surrounding those issues, not economics, because they're not working class by any sensible definition of the term.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So, um, where are these people working?

Like if you're out [01:09:00] in that sort of like, you know, netherworld, like, like, where are they? If I was to look at a A typical, you know, five or three typical X urban folks like, are they. Are they working remotely? Are they going in? Are they work for insurance company? Like, who is it that they, they work? What kind of jobs these people have?

How often are they going into the city or do they just work in suburbia or are there, are there, are they working in exurbia?

DAVID MASCIOTRA: So they tend to work in suburbia. So you'll have people living maybe say 60 miles, 70 miles out of Chicago. working in suburban towns that are 15 or 20 miles out of Chicago. I, and as I was saying, they tend to be in the trades.

Many of them own their own construction firms or, uh, own their own electrician company, uh, a plumbing company. So they're, they're people [01:10:00] of that nature, you know, Petty bourgeoisie, uh, who are going into the suburbs where they previously escaped. Usually they used to live in these suburbs. That's where they built their business.

That's where they began to earn their living. Then they fled to exurbia, but most of their customer base and clientele still is in suburbia Interesting

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: and um, let's talk about the uh, the megachurches because you also uh, write that this is Um, maybe not coincidentally Um, where we find the vast, overwhelming majority of megachurches in the country are in these type of like, uh, geographical areas.

DAVID MASCIOTRA: Yeah, that's very interesting because it began as a practical matter. If you're going to build a church the size of a basketball arena, it's probably difficult and costly to do so. Well, not probably, it is difficult and costly to do so in an urban [01:11:00] area or in a densely populated suburb. So it was exurbia that had the open space and also the cheaply available land and the low, uh, property taxes, although that's a different matter because we're talking about religion.

Uh, So, the megachurches sprang up, and then they act as a magnet. for people who attend these megachurches, because many of them tend to be quite devout, and they want to move closer to their source of community, the institution that they attend, and from which they gain some sense of belonging and purpose.

Uh, so then they move closer to Xerbia, and in many of these Xerban towns, They don't have much local government. I mean, they do in nominal terms. Uh, they don't have many third places in the classic sociological sense. It's a lot of corporate chains. Uh, but what they do have are megachurches. So the [01:12:00] megachurch becomes, uh, the daycare, the source of political news and perspective.

Uh, the source of social and recreational life. And, I mean, I don't have to tell your audience why that's a big problem, because many of these megachurches, uh, at best, they preach the prosperity gospel, uh, which is destructive and insane. Uh, but at worst, they become citadels. of Christian theocratic nationalism.

Right-Winger DESPERATE For Christian Minority Voters - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-19-24

BRAD ONISHI: Well, I, I, I think there's a sense there of sometimes less is more, sometimes less. Name recognition is more, I mean, I think we're seeing this with Trump in Project 2025. Right, you're seeing more and more Americans understand what Project 2025 is, so he comes out with this incoherent rant about how he has no idea what it is and he, he doesn't believe any of it.

Well, if you don't know what it is, how do you know you don't believe it? He's just basically trying to, to do, you know, damage control. It's the same with Opus Dei. If we recede into the background, right, slowly, drip by drip, what we see over the course of the aughts in the Obama years [01:13:00] is So much funding, so much network building, right?

So much political influence coming into, uh, into cultivation. By the time we get to the Trump years, it's the Federalist Society who picks us three judges, right? By the time we get to 2022, 23, 24, we have people like the Southern Baptist convention and a Supreme court justice in Alabama condemning IVF. I mean, that is.

An overwhelming victory for the likes not only of Opus Dei, but anyone in that traditional Catholic universe. They feel enormous victory and I, I dare say enormous momentum right now. Leonard Leo's at a place where he's like, I got the court.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: He's got a billion people forgotten this, but he was given a billion with a B dollars to basically go be a, an authoritarian entrepreneur, wherever you can push this, this, uh, agenda, do it.

BRAD ONISHI: We've already got the court, in his mind, that's what he's thinking, and so let's go get the [01:14:00] state legislatures and let's go get Congress, I mean, and make Congress even worse than it is now. I mean Well, that, that, that

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: controversy, just to add to it, from, with the kicker from, uh, the Kansas City Chiefs, uh, Harrison Butker, that he was speaking at a college where, uh, Leonard Leo has connections and has donated, as well as Josh Hawley, uh, having connections to that, too.

BRAD ONISHI: Leo was the, was the commencement speaker the year before.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yep.

BRAD ONISHI: Right? So here we have Harrison Butker, 28 year old kicker, and the year before it was Leonard Leo. And so I think that, I mean, it just follows along everything you're saying.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah. Uh, it's terrifying. Um, and

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Good thing the Democrats are in a great position to beat this back right now.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is your cue, Brad, to say something like, Oh, but here's the good story.

BRAD ONISHI: Well, I mean, look, I mean, I, I think, I think for me, uh, here's a couple of things we could take away, uh, perhaps is, uh, we got news of [01:15:00] stunning left center victories in France over the last couple of days. Uh, labor is in, is in power in the UK, uh, and the Tories are gone after 14 years.

Uh, whether we look to places like Mexico or the pushback on Modi, Modi in India. There are people across the world saying no to fascism. And I think for me, the hope lies in a message that says. Uh, look, I, Biden, uh, Harris, uh, whomever, we have a chance to say no to fascism. We have a no to say, we have a chance to say no to totalitarianism, and there are people across the world who have already signaled that they, uh, understand the threat and they're doing the same.

So, um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to prognosticate and, and I'm never going to take the foot off the gas of trying to reveal to people just what a dire situation we face right now because we do. But there's always hope and hope springs from, from organizing and togetherness. And, uh, if people are willing to like rub shoulders with other human beings, you often feel a sense of momentum and a sense of, of, uh, of hope grow.

And so that's my [01:16:00] encouragement. Go do one thing you don't usually do. And, uh, don't sit on the sidelines as we kind of descend into what could be a, a, a summer of despair.

SECTION B - TRUMP AND ELECTION

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

Christian Nationalist State Official Delivers TERRIFYING Proclamation - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-7-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: One of the things that I think we can look forward to in a, uh, Trump, uh, administration, uh, would be the furtherance of theocracy. Why? Because the Republican Party is, um, very, very dependent on so called evangelical, uh, Christians and Christian nationalists for its votes. And many of its elected officials are also Christian Nationalist.

Here is Ryan Walters of Oklahoma. He is the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, and this is him just about, I don't know, almost a week ago, announcing at a news conference that [01:17:00] Bibles will be required and Bible instruction will be required in schools.

CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST: We're gonna make an important announcement today regarding the Bible and the 10 Commandments.

My staff has been looking at Oklahoma statute. We've been looking at Oklahoma academic standards, and it's crystal clear to us that in the Oklahoma academic standards under Title 70 multiple occasions, the Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country to have a complete understanding of Western civilization.

to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system. And it's frankly, we're talking about the Bible, one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country. We also find major points in history that refer to the Bible that reference the Bible. We see multiple figures, [01:18:00] whether we're talking about the Federalist Papers, constitutional, conventional arguments, and Martin Luther King Jr.,

who use it as a tremendous impetus for the civil rights movement, and tie many of those arguments back to the Bible. It is essential that our kids have an understanding of the Bible and its historical context. So we will be issuing a memo today that every school district will adhere to. Which is that every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma in accordance with our academic standards and state law.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: All right. So you see the, um, uh, the, the sort of like, um, What is that game where you, where you shuffle the three card Monte essentially here that's going on here. Um, it may be the case that the Bible [01:19:00] has inspired different historical figures. And so the way that you, the way that you would, um, Discuss the Bible is in the same way that you would discuss any, um, other, uh, document that might've inspired people.

You'd bring it in the course of studying that person or a particular event. There's no, um, mandatory, you know, we're not mandating, um, you're not even, he's not even mandating the, the federalist papers in, in, in the, uh, classroom. And do we even mandate that the constitution be printed, you know, uh, on the walls of these classrooms?

Probably unlikely. Well,

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, if we're talking just historical documents, we should be, uh, printing out the Communist Manifesto and putting it all over the classrooms. I mean, come on, it's a historical document. A lot

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: of people say that Martin Luther King was also a Marxist. Right. We should, uh, are we going to mandate Marx in every classroom?

Yeah. And at the very least, [01:20:00] not only is that maybe a good idea, but the fact is there's no prohibition under the constitution to, um, uh, imposing marks, uh, on students in a classroom. There is a prohibition for our government to in any way, recognize an official religion or to promote religion. And forcing people to read the Bible, and again, first of all, there's multiple versions of the Ten Commandments, depending on what religion you are a part of.

There's multiple versions of what constitutes the Bible. Um, depending on what religion you are. Here's that same guy, Ryan Walters, uh, on America's Voice, explaining why he needs to put the Bible In, uh, in these classrooms. [01:21:00]

CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST: But the reality is, as you see, the Chinese Communist Party, they're buying up land in America, they're weaponizing, um, and trying to influence anything in America they can.

And they are absolutely targeting our schools and our education centers. We saw this with the Confucius institutes, which by the way, remember. President Trump clamped down on him. Joe Biden let them back in by loosening those restrictions. And you're seeing in real time here in these last eight years, Trump presidency puts America first, puts communist China last, and the Joe Biden presidency says, well, we're going to put communist China first.

And we'll put the American interest last. So, it is so essentially a President Trump back in the White House. It's not the reality.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, I mean that, that was one of the, that was one of the mistakes I would say that Biden has made. You should not announce that Chinese Communist, uh, Communist China is first and America is last.

Why did Ron Klain

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: advise him to do that? It's

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: such a dumb thing to

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: do. Other historical documents I think should maybe be entered into the record is, uh, Thomas Jefferson talking to William Short about a [01:22:00] syllabus, uh, about Jesus, and he says, uh, Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Jesus by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence, and others, again, of so much ignorance and so much absurdity.

Absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I therefore separate the gold from the dross. Uh, yeah. So, I mean, Our, our, the Founding Fathers were deists. Um, almost all of them. Then, they would think this guy's a freak.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Also, uh, Oklahoma is, uh, 49th in education, uh, according to the, uh, Tulsa World, uh, local, local paper there. And, uh, Notice how he uses, uh, how the, it's foundational for, um, didn't he, did he say Western Civilization? He said that right in that first clip, if I'm not mistaken. Um, and so, yeah, I, I believe that was at least in the tweet itself.

Um, That is also often what you hear in the defense of Israel by [01:23:00] Zionists. And western civilization is often a substitute for, like, white supremacy. What'd you say? White supremacy. White supremacy. Or, uh, yeah, like colonial empire or power to wipe out the experiences of people who, uh, are either formerly colonized people, people who have a different religion, religious and ethnic minorities in this country.

So just notice that dog whistle. Um, because the reality is that Western civilization was built on chattel slavery, colonialism, and millions and millions of people dying. to create these systems and that's the real history that should be taught. What he's trying to teach is religious propaganda.

Ziklag Exposed Secretive Christian Nationalist Network Tries to Purge Voters in Battleground States Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-30-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: talk about more in depth these three programs, Checkmate, Steeplechase and Watchtower.

ANDY KROLL: Yeah. You see an almost sort of wraparound, 360-degree approach to influencing the [01:24:00] 2024 election in these three groups. So, with Steeplechase, you have mobilizing conservative pastors out in America, out in the field, to mobilize their congregations to get them out to vote. And, you know, there’s some concern that maybe there’s fatigue about Donald Trump in 2024, that maybe conservative Christians won’t turn out in the numbers they did in 2016. That’s what this program is there for, getting the church as involved as possible.

You have this anti-trans operation. As Lance Wallnau says in that video that you just played, they believe that going after trans people, demonizing transgender Americans, transgender healthcare, can, quote-unquote, “deliver” swing states. That’s what Lance Wallnau himself said.

But then, this final one, I think, is, honestly, perhaps the most interesting, this Operation Checkmate, putting money into mobilizing conservative voters in key counties — not just states, but the counties — so Maricopa County in Arizona, Fulton County in Georgia, the other battleground counties in the [01:25:00] country, and then trying to put money into knocking more than a million voters off the voting rolls in these states. And you see this in a couple of ways. But what’s so interesting is how the Christian right, Christian nationalism is fusing here with the election integrity or, really, the election denial movement that grew out of the 2020 election. We didn’t have a lot of evidence of that before this reporting on Ziklag. But you see this bridge, again, between the Christian right and the election deniers in a really big way going into this election.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And how effective can they be in knocking voters off the rolls?

ANDY KROLL: A little bit of money goes a long way when you are trying to get people knocked off the eligibility list for voters. That’s what the experts, the political consultants, the folks that know these worlds, told us in the reporting for this story. You know, Ziklag is putting, say, $800,000 or $1 [01:26:00] million into something called EagleAI, an artificial intelligence software that makes it easier to challenge the eligibility of voters en masse. So, you’re not doing it one by one; you’re doing it by the hundreds, by the thousands. You don’t need tens of millions of dollars, the experts told us, to be able to make those challenges and to sort of turbocharge the effort to make voters ineligible. You only need a few hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million dollars. That’s what this group, Ziklag, appears to be doing. So, it could have an effect. And we’re talking about margins again in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, margins that are a few thousand, a few tens of thousands of voters.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, Andy, how does the election officials in every state, especially in the battleground states, their cooperation with these efforts, how might that turn out in the coming [01:27:00] election?

ANDY KROLL: Well, you have two different camps here. You have the election officials in these states and in these counties who are just trying to run a free and fair election. What we’ve heard from those officials is that these efforts, like EagleAI or the work of the group True the Vote, another, quote-unquote, “election integrity” group — these mass challenges to the voter rolls make an already difficult job, an already stressful job, a time-consuming job, even more difficult. It’s putting just more stress on the work of these local election officials, the ones who are trying to do a good job.

And then you have the officials who have sort of bought into the election integrity claims, who have bought into Donald Trump’s election denial for 2020 or 2022 even. And for them, they are, in some places, encouraging these mass challenges. And so you might see confusion. You might see chaos. You might see voters unaware that they’ve been removed from the rolls in [01:28:00] these kinds of places. So, it’s just creating either more stress on good officials, or it’s creating more chaos with officials who buy into these baseless claims about election fraud.

NAR Watch Ep. 7 JD Vance Joins Lance Wallnau in Spiritual Warfare Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-14-24

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I'm wondering how, uh, J. D. was at the Courage Tour, because my, you know, my take for months on this show has been J. D. Vance is a Catholic convert, and, and I'm happy for you to correct me if I'm wrong here, Matt, in your own mind, but to me he strikes as the kind of Catholic convert who is a very much a bro Very much into like the guy that would like say, hey, should we get cigars tonight and some whiskey and just like talk over Aquinas?

What do you think, bro? On a leather couch. Yeah, there's probably a leather couch So my point is he's always talking about how the ways Catholicism is intellectual. Catholicism has meat. He grew up around Folks in Appalachia who were Christian, but there was no head to it. It was all [01:29:00] just heart and and speaking in tongues and all kinds of stuff.

I'm wondering if he if he in your mind was comfortable. Was he? Trying to get outta there. Did he seem like, I don't really wanna be here, but the boss sent me what? You know, I'm just wondering how Vance played to this quintessential charismatic audience who's not even really like old school evangelical.

This is, this is like, as you've outlined in, in so many places in, in your work as a whole, this is a different kind of religious right. How is JD at the Courage Tour?

MATT TAYLOR: He didn't do great. So I, I mean, all right, next question. What are the things that I'm watching for? Because it very much will be a harbinger for what will come is to find who can inherit the mantle of Trump's connection to these folks, who, what political figure [01:30:00] can take on all of the, the, the, when, when Trump.

What, whether by the hand of God, the hand of man, or he just decays into senility, who will step forward? Who will kind of take on the role that he's been playing? And you could see, even in the orchestration of this event, that Vance was trying to play a role. To that, that to cater to that audience, to speak to the new, new religious, right, this more charismatic, more populist religious, right.

Um, and, but he, he just, he came off as pretty flat footed in this event. Um, and you can tell, cause I mean, the video is online if you wanted to watch it, but occasionally they'll pan to the audience and when, when, when Lance Walno is speaking or when Mario Murillo, the, his, his kind of co host of the, the courage tours being, or really any.

of the charismatic Pentecostal folks who are speaking, you can see the audience just reacting the way the charismatic [01:31:00] audiences do when there's a good preacher. There's the amens, there's a shouting, there's the clapping. Sometimes people will, will kind of echo back what the person's saying. It was very mild with Vance.

And, and, and it, and you could tell at points that he was, he never, I don't think he mentioned being Catholic in the entire 45 minutes that he was speaking. So you just speak about Christian, but then he would use phrases that if you know what you're talking about, sound very Catholic. So at one point, he even invoked quote unquote Christian social teaching, which if, if, if many Protestants and you could very much tell from this audience had no idea what he was talking about, because the phrase is not Christian social teaching is Catholic social teaching.

And this is, this is one of the traditions within the Roman Catholic Church in the way that it thinks about politics, the way that it thinks about social issues. And yet here, Vance is trying to kind of pull these phrases and, Oh, and I've even [01:32:00] volunteered the John three 16 was his favorite first. So he was clearly trying to win these folks over, but honestly, um, he sounded even less effective than Mike Pence seemed with these folks.

Like at least, at least Pence could, could do the evangelical ease. Vance really kind of fell flat with that audience. And, and it almost was like, um, that, that there was more energy. When this pastor, his last name is Howard, was, was introducing himself. There was more like feedback from the audience, more excitement than the entire time that Vance was on stage.

Cause Vance just doesn't know how to speak to these folks. What is still shocking in some ways is that, that, that Trump can't. Because Trump comes from even a weirder world in terms of distance from this stuff than Vance does. I mean, Vance grew up around Pentecostal, charismatic, and evangelical folks.

But, but he, he, Trump has Charisma in, in [01:33:00] all the senses of that word, Vance does not, and, um, and he does not, he isn't able to kind of grab a hold of audiences the way that, especially Christian audiences, the way that Trump does. And part of it might be intellectualism. At his heart, I think, I think Vance views himself not as a populist, but as an intellectual and, and I think he tries to straddle those two ideas, but he much more comes off as the intellectual and that's just, it's not going to win him over with Walnau's audience

SECTION C - PATRIARCHY AND RACE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next Section C: patriarchy and race.

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Part 3 - Ideas - Air Date 10-18-24

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: My book's subtitle is admittedly a bit provocative. But I wasn't aware of just how provocative it was. I thought the problem might be with the whole corrupted of faith thing, or even the fractured a nation part. But no, it was just one word. White. White. It was triggering to some. And I've been accused more than once of being racist.

simply for including white in my [01:34:00] subtitle. It was not meant to be pejorative, merely descriptive. Precise. This points us to a foundational question. What is evangelicalism? Who are evangelicals? Now, if we insist on a pure theological definition, it can be really difficult to see what whiteness has to do with anything.

But if we think of evangelicalism as a historical and cultural movement, whiteness becomes visible. If you know where to look, did you know that when the fundamentals were published, this is a series of pamphlets, booklets in the 1910s, right? That gave fundamentalism its name. These books were sent out only to white pastors and not to any black pastors, even though the majority of black pastors in the United States aligned with these doctrinal stances?

Did you know that when the National Association of [01:35:00] Evangelicals was formed, black denominations were excluded from the association? Did you know that when racial justice surfaced in its early years, And in conversations among the founders of Christianity today, it was deemed too divisive to engage directly.

Now, those with openly racist and segregationist views, they were kept inside the fold. Black pastors were kept at arm's length. Historian Jesse Curtis has shown us how the myth of colorblind Christians came to dominate white evangelical understandings of race and foster in them a benevolent understanding of themselves.

A belief in their own righteousness and innocence. And people of color who bolstered this myth were welcomed and platformed. And those who challenged it were ushered out the door. Now we've noted the marginalization and erasure with [01:36:00] respect to black evangelicals, but we also see that around the issue of gender.

There is a long history of evangelical feminism going back more than a century before Betty Friedan discovered that problem that has no name. And I know because I wrote a book on it. Christian women, evangelical women, white evangelical women were among the leading proponents of women's suffrage and women's rights more broadly in the late 19th century.

And they pointed out the dangers of the sexual double standard, of an overemphasis on gender. on female purity, which they called out as unbiblical. They offered sophisticated theological critiques of Christian patriarchy, and they were thoroughly evangelical. But they have been forgotten, or rather, they have been disappeared, because there is agency here.

Now, the result of this erasure means that patriarchy remains normative. [01:37:00] biblical, and traditional, instead of contested as it was historically and theologically. So you see how this works. If we erase this history, it's much easier to erase feminist evangelicals today. They cannot be true evangelicals. For many Evangelicals, Evangelical equals true Christian, you see where this goes.

The history of American Evangelicalism as one of gatekeeping is in many ways the story that I tell in Jesus and John Wayne.

Right-Winger DESPERATE For Christian Minority Voters - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-19-24

BRAD ONISHI: I think the, the answer though, to your central question, Sam is really this, how do you convince The black church, the Latino church to vote for Donald Trump, given his stance on, uh, the border, on immigration, on race in general, the, the Central Park five, whatever may be.

And I think the answer is let's look to people who we see in front of us, Byron Donalds, Herschel Walker, uh, you know, folks like this. The key here is to emphasize what do you want for your country? Do you want a [01:38:00] country built with strong men, strong families based on a husband and a wife, men and women, no pronouns.

No non binary, whatever that means. Do you want to have groomers and perverts in your schools or do you just want to have a candidate who will support, uh, what is the right kind of sex, the right kind of marriage, the right kind of love. Do you want that kind of country over there with the rainbow flag and the gender spectrum?

Or do you want strong men leading you into an uncertain future where we are, uh, at threat and every turn? That's the cell. The cell is lean on the patriarchy, lean on the gender structure, lean on, uh, the sense of, uh, the otherness that you talked about earlier, who is other than me. Well, the people who are, who are lesbian, gay, non binary, the people who are trans, they're more other than you than, than the, the, than the folks who are telling you that Joe Biden is better for the person of color.

Be more afraid of them, be more angry at them. [01:39:00] And that works in many of these churches. It works in many of these spaces. And so that's the sell. And that's, that's the play. That's why they call

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: her the DEI. That's why the post I think called her the DEI, um, uh, Barbie or, they just, they

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: couldn't print the N word.

So.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, but that, but the, but the point is, is that by, by saying the D E I Barbie, instead of the N word, they can then sort of appeal to, uh, uh, people of color and say like, she still represents alien ness, even though in some areas, I mean, and that, that's the, that's the point is that they've been able to sort of like convert slightly the terminology so that it can apply, it can be, it's sort of like a, together on this and that we are all purpose, racist other eyes Asian that can can work meet the the the sort of the big it where they are in some way.

Well let me I want to also final question [01:40:00] because of this I think is plays a very big part what we're seeing with the Supreme Court. Is opus de. Um, the, um, um, my understanding is, is that, uh, Scalia and Alito, at least, uh, are opus de that, uh, Leonard Leo, um, who is the, um, Who has orchestrated essentially the Supreme Court, uh, via the Federalist Society for a couple of decades, also Opus Dei.

Um, I know that Kudlow, I think, is also, uh, who was, uh, Trump's chief advisor. How does Opus Dei play with this Christian nationalism? Are they just cousins, essentially?

BRAD ONISHI: No, they're I think, I think one of the things that I've tried to get across over the last few months Is that radical tradition, traditional Catholicism, right?

This, this very [01:41:00] overwhelmingly conservative strain of Catholicism, of which Opus Dei is a major part in that ecosystem, is at the center of what we now understand the Christian nationalist movement in this country and everything that's happening at the Supreme Court, as well as Project 2025. So let me lay it out.

The Heritage Foundation is behind Project 2025. Who starts the Heritage Foundation? Paul Weyrich. Paul Weyrich was a radical traditionalist Catholic. After Vatican II, he started going to a church that, uh, where the, the, the mass was in Greek because he couldn't stand the vernacular. He broke with his own church because he thought they were too liberal.

If you look at the life of Paul Weyrich, he is a strict male supremacist. He's a Christian supremacist, and he is somebody who believes that a dominant patriarch should be the head of the house, the church. and the government. Who is now in charge of the Heritage Foundation? Kevin Roberts, also a traditional Catholic.

Okay. So there's a long lineage of the Heritage [01:42:00] Foundation having this vision of Christian supremacism. They believe Christ is king, not in religious pluralism. They believe that Christian, their Christian value should be infused throughout the government without any question. They believe that male leadership Is the way to go, period.

So it's no, uh, uh, accident to me that Kevin Roberts gets on, uh, gets out there in public the other day after the immunity ruling and says, you know, if the left will allow it, we'll have a bloodless revolution. That's a traditional Catholic leading in the lineage of Paul Weirich, who is, uh, articulating that they are so excited for a unified executive.

In the vision of Project 2025, where a male patriarch will have almost complete control of the executive branch and perhaps the entire government, it's also why we're seeing SCOTUS. So one of the arguments I made in Politico a couple months ago is that the IVF rulings represent the Catholicization of American sexual ethics.[01:43:00]

Evangelicals in the 60s were not against abortion. Evangelicals up until recently were not against IVF. But IVF and abortion have been Catholic, traditionalist Catholic. issues for a long, long time. So when you see the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF, or you see the Southern Baptist convention, uh, condemn IVF, they're doing so at the, at the, the influence of those traditionalist Catholics, you're mentioning the folks who are, uh, not only affiliated with Opus Dei, but who are running the Federalist Society and in many ways are driving the conversation about gender and sex within those, uh, with those communities.

So if there has ever been a moment. Of overwhelmingly conservative Catholic, uh, forces dominating our politics. It is now whether you look at the Supreme Court or Project 2025. Project 2025 in its essence is a rad trad fever dream.

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Part 4 - Ideas - Air Date 10-18-24

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: So if you go back deeper [01:44:00] into evangelical history and into Christian history, you can certainly find expressions of patriarchy, but you can also find expressions of egalitarianism. In the 19th century, you had a lot of evangelical women who were also prominent women's rights activists.

You had evangelical women who were preaching. And in the early 20th century, that starts to change. And it doesn't change entirely, but increasingly you see that kind of fundamentalists define biblical fidelity in terms of excluding women from positions of religious authority from preaching, but it's never complete, so much so that it's It's not until the 1970s that the Southern Baptist Convention feels a need in the late 70s actually to start cracking down on all these female pastors inside the SBC.

This was not all members of the SBC by any means, but it was a powerful faction. And so they end up squeezing out not just [01:45:00] the women who are preaching, but any quote unquote moderates who supported women preaching. And this is known as the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC or conservative takeover, or as conservatives like to call it, the conservative resurgence of the SBC, right?

You know, pick your terminology there. And so, What we see happening then is this is linked with the idea of inerrancy, the way to approach scriptures, the only way to approach scriptures. And this also comes out in the late 70s, and it really takes hold during the 1980s. Now inerrancy means taking every word of the, the scripture as the literal truth, except it doesn't.

It means that when applied to select passages.

CLIP: It's a question of authority. I think that's what makes everybody nervous, but the Apostle Paul makes that argument. I forbid a woman to have authority over a man. That's not some [01:46:00] theologian sitting out on a horse staring at a sunset coming up with this.

That's the Holy Spirit. Speaking to the church through the Apostle Paul.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: So, women should be silent. Women should submit to husbands. Oh, absolutely. And we're going to interpret it in very rigid ways as we apply it to our current situation. You know, the story of the rich man being told to sell off his possessions.

No, no, that gets explained away. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies as yourself. Turn the other cheek. Welcome the stranger. There's a lot of pretty direct commands. Those don't get the literal treatment there. Wait, let's look at the context. Let's look at the biblical languages here. Oh, no, no, no.

You got that wrong. You don't understand. Biblical literalism and inerrancy is used to enforce this new orthodoxy, where you are outside of the Christian fold if you do not support patriarchal authority. Then they kind of rebrand it as [01:47:00] complementarianism. Then we have the growth of really influential organizations like the Gospel Coalition.

The Gospel Coalition was never a gospel coalition. It did not invite everybody in. who believed the gospel message. It was a complementarian club. You were only allowed in those spaces if you were a complementarian, and you were only allowed a position of power, certainly, if you were a complementarian man,

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: right?

And to be clear, complementarianism is this idea that men and women are created in a very specific way. They complement each other in a very specific way. Yeah.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: So gender difference. Is key there, right? They compli, men and women are different. But what that means then is, you know, men like sports, women like watching on the sidelines.

Men are gifted with leadership. Women shouldn't lead. You have, you know, people like John Piper who are parsing this out.

CLIP: Paul says in Ephesians five now as the church submits to Christ, [01:48:00] so also wives should submit in everything. to their husbands. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from the church called to admire and stand in allegiance to Christ.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: Could a woman be a police officer? Ooh, that's problematic. Could a woman give a man directions? Well, let's look, you know, ah, that's a little sketchy, too, right? Let's, you know, so, so complementarianism, um, you know, presents itself as gender difference, um, and that we complement each other, but obscure the fact that this is also a hierarchical relationship.

And then they extend it out to women's role in all of society and extrapolate from that, you know, this whole set of rules of what is and is not permissible. And complementarianism, right, has, has had an incredibly strong hold across evangelical, um, churches, organizations, and institutions. [01:49:00]

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: Yes. And, and I think the thing that struck me also about the book was the depth of that order of things, how it permeates women's lives in their very homes, families, relationships, identities.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: So much so, um, and the degree to which or the ways in which it does that will, um, vary depending on where you're situated within the evangelical community. So in the more conservative. Extremes than the homeschool networks, for example, or an independent fun, a fundamental Baptist spaces. Those influenced by the teachings of Bill Gohar, for example.

CLIP: I love that definition of witnessing is taking your spiritual finger and rubbing it along the edge of a person's soul feeling for the cracks. Are there things you wish never happened? Is there guilt there? And it isn't long before they say yes.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: You're going to get some pretty extreme versions [01:50:00] of, um, this sort of thing.

Um, even to the point of having been, uh, uh, kind of stay at home daughter movement where a woman, uh, a girl is under her dad's authority until she marries. And if the right guy doesn't come along that the dad approves of, she stays at home, does not go to college and is under the direct authority and control of her dad.

Um, even if she's in her twenties or, you know, um, so those are more extreme versions. Um, but then in more moderate or mainstream spaces, you'll still have a lot of echoes of this. And so a woman's primary role is as a wife and a mom. Women who have careers can tell stories about how they're, you know, well, well, who's watching your kids?

Well, you know, what is your, uh, what does your husband do? And you know, this kind of sense of judgment, um, the idea that, uh, a man has to have leadership.

CLIP: So what Eve does. She seeks control. If Adam is not going to lead, I will.

SEAN FOLEY - HOST, CBC NETWORK: Mark Driscoll, founder of Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, and co founder of the now defunct Mars Hill Church.

CLIP: She has the argument [01:51:00] with Satan. She gets confused. She sins. She gives something to her husband. He participates. She's the leader. He's the follower. And the truth is, men, hear me in this, if you don't lead your family, Satan will.

KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: This hierarchy of authority and submission applies to the bedroom as well.

The idea that God filled men with testosterone to make them good leaders, to make them aggressive, right? You need that for leadership, they say. And, um, but then you don't have the same kind of self restraint. That's not how God made men. So it's up to women to step in. God made women to, to kind of be the moral figures.

So it's very, very important that women not tempt men who are not their husbands. It's very important because boys will be boys here and women who are married have to do everything they possibly can to meet their husband's sexual needs, whatever they may be. What that means then in the case, for example, of sexual assault.

There is quite literally always a woman to blame. Even a young girl [01:52:00] can be blamed if her dad abuses her because she somehow seduced him. A wife can be blamed in that situation, even if she knew nothing because she clearly wasn't meeting her husband's sexual needs, right? This rhetoric is abhorrent. And yet it is not uncommon inside these spaces, it's kind of the logical conclusion of these teachings that are in fact quite mainstream.

There is a deep theology here, a deep set of cultural practices, and a strong sense of community within these spaces, so it's very hard to break out and it's very hard to critique from the inside.

SECTION D - AMERICAN CHRISTIAN

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

Spirit & Power Episode 4 Take Back that Which Was Stolen from Us The Charismatic Rituals of the Religious Right Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-17-24

DR. LEAH PAYNE: Today on Spirit and Power, take back that which was stolen, the charismatic rituals of the religious right. My guest and I take you on an audio tour of Flashpoint Live New Orleans, a live taping of a show from televangelist Kenneth Copeland's Victory Channel. Flashpoint is one of many conservative Pentecostal [01:53:00] and charismatic rallies and marches taking place leading up to the 2024 election, like Clay Clark's reawakened tour.

Jenny Donnelly's A Million Women, and Sean Foyt's Kingdom to the Capitol. At all of these meetings, charismatic and Pentecostal Trumpers animate conservative talking points with exuberance. My guest today shares her insights. From attending Flashpoint Live New Orleans.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: My name is Carrie Gaspard Hogwood. I am a doctoral fellow in sociology at Tulane University, and I study charismatic religions and that intersection with the political arena.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: Swag subscribers will recognize Carrie's voice because she also does research for spirit and power and frequently provides bonus content. Carrie, I wonder if you could tell us a bit about Attending Flashpoint.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: It was held at Covenant Church, which is Jesse Duplantis Jesse

DR. LEAH PAYNE: Duplantis is a charismatic [01:54:00] televangelist known for his prosperity gospel teachings, lavish lifestyle, and his enthusiastic support for Donald Trump.

KARRIE GASPARD-HOGEWOOD: The parking lot when I got there was pretty full. They opened the doors at six, the event started at seven. And so for Flashpoint Live, for this particular event, the first day was actually the evening. It was Flashpoint Live that started at seven and I don't think we left until around nine. And then the next day it was Flashpoint.

Talks with two movie screenings and a Flashpoint live again. I did register and you get badges and a gift bag full of lots of goodies. There was a magnet with the watchman's decree.

DR. LEAH PAYNE: The Watchman Decree on the Victory Channel website says, as a patriot of faith, I attest my allegiance first and foremost to the kingdom of God and the great commission.

Secondly, I agree to be a watchman over our nation concerning its people and their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, [01:55:00] then it goes on. Whereas we, the church are God's governing body on earth, whereas we have been given legal power from heaven and now exercise our authority, whereas we are God's ambassadors and spokespeople over the earth, whereas through the power of God, we are the world influencers.

Whereas because of our covenant with God, we are equipped and delegated by him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy. And it goes on from there. Okay. It includes a declaration that America's executive branch of government will honor God and defend the constitution. It stands against wokeness, the occult and every evil attempt against our nation, which is a fascinating.

Trio there. And it also includes the seven mountains mandate. If you're listening to this podcast and you're a subscriber, I'm sure I hardly need to describe the seven mountains mandate, but just in case you're new [01:56:00] for charismatics, particularly those associated with the new apostolic Reformation, the seven mountains of influence that Christians are supposed to exercise God's kingdom over include media.

And Charismatics and Pentecostals already know how to do that quite well. Business, finance. Family, education, politics, arts and entertainment, and religion. So it's a very holistic vision to conquer for Christ. A watchman in the Bible is someone who guards and protects military groups, towns, cities, et cetera, from enemy incursion.

And so the people who take this watchman declaration seriously, they're not just what you see at. an average flashpoint gathering. They're not just predominantly white charismatics of a certain age. No, they are people of biblical significance. According to this decree, they are watch people. Watch [01:57:00] people don't just live in the mundane realities of this world.

They're also engaged in a thrilling spiritual. They aren't just citizens, they're watchmen and the work of the American government isn't democracy per se, it's warding off political enemies. And if you think about combining that language with the language of voting interference and guarding polling and polls, you can see that that's a very different language.

Extremist White Christian Nationalists Prepping For War w Brad Onishi Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-16-24

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And I'm fascinated by the usage of religious Like, iconography and justifications and grafting that onto political realities, whether it be Southern California is Eden, or whether it be Donald Trump is, uh, sacrificing himself for our sins, and, you know, he's an imperfect vessel for our political goals.

That is so infa I mean, if you could just explain that, um, as someone who grew up [01:58:00] secular. The usage of that, those religious modes of thinking and applying it to politics.

BRAD ONISHI: You know, we really see this at January 6th, you know, a lot of, uh, so many of my colleagues, uh, religion scholars have, have done great work in addition to what we've done on our show to point out the deep and wide religious symbology at January 6th, Christian flags, appeal to heaven flags, you know, proud boys wearing patches with the Psalms quoted on them, uh, icons of Mary, statues of Jesus, prayer circles.

Why? And I think the response with January 6th, and I think in general to your question, Emma, is that there's a sense when you invite people into a story that has a sense of transcendence, a cosmic significance, you're able to mobilize them in a way that, uh, perhaps you couldn't, uh, you know, without it, uh, as Sam said, on the left, there's often this pluralistic and diverse coalition that, that is, has a hard time agreeing.

Well, if you invite people into a cosmic story that says we have to act now. [01:59:00] That, that Donald Trump is not just a candidate who, who maybe, like, likes some of the policies you like, but he's been chosen by God to save this country from a woke globalist apocalypse? You're, you're able to usher some folks into a movement and usher them in with urgency?

have without those, you know, those religious or or pious symbols. And so I think they have a really important function in these movements past and present.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the the Democrats are trying to do a similar thing in terms of saying that he's an existential threat. It's a lot harder to do because we do not have a framework for any of it.

And we don't have those. Um, you know, we don't have that natural cohesiveness. Um, and that we don't have the sort of like a accoutrements, I guess, to maintain that. Is it when these directives come down, like how much of it is, [02:00:00] who's the policeman? Like is it God? And I know, I know it's like even just, I know the act of, of, of sort of pulling these strains apart are.

Is is conceptually not how it works. It's really just a way for us to understand but how much of it is like God or is it you know that the vehicle for God is my pastor. Or is it the community when I go to, you know, to dinner, uh, or I go to friend's house, like how, who's, where is, where are the different forces of maintaining discipline?

BRAD ONISHI: I think that one of the things that's, that's helpful is to think about something like Christian nationalism as an identity and as living out a story. That if we, if we do what my first year students [02:01:00] do all the time and say, Hey, religion's about belief, right? We're just going to learn about what Hindus believe and what Buddhists believe.

Uh, we, we kind of get off track because what it's really about is an identity that gives people a character to play. There's some data out there that shows us that there's many people who haven't been to church in a long time who will tell you in a survey that they think the country, the federal government should declare this a Christian nation, that they believe our laws should be based on the Bible.

And yet you say, that's great, Jeff. When's the last time you went to church? And they say, I can't remember, maybe 2020, right? And so what that tells me is this is about an identity and a story to play. Well, then the question I think you're asking, Sam, is, well, how do I plug into that story, right? How do I plug in and play a part?

And what we're finding increasingly is, yes, it's pastors and churches. They're important. But those pastors and churches are just part of a kind of, uh, a network of voices. Uh, and those voices are, you know, across the media landscape. They're across the political landscape. So one of those is going to be Trump and his MAGA [02:02:00] lieutenants.

Others are going to be the Charlie Kirk's and the Ben Shapiro's and the others in the right wing media. And so by the time somebody enters church on a Sunday. There's a really good chance they've had eight or ten podcasts, YouTube channels, uh, uh, you know, other outlets, uh, Fox News and Newsmax that have informed their understanding, not only of politics, but of religion.

And so if their pastor doesn't confirm that, what we're finding is they often are just going to find a new pastor. So if you're a pastor in this day and age, even if you're not a hardcore MAGA person, you really have to make a choice. Do I get on board? save my job, probably get a couple hundred more people in the door on a Sunday, or do I disagree, take a stand and probably find myself without a job or a career and just kind of have to start over even though I'm 48 and I've never done anything else.

So I guess my point here is, I think we need to see the cultivation of this discipline and, and this worldview as multifaceted, but it's all, it's all sort of disciplined by [02:03:00] Are you on board with it is understood as a broad conservative conservatism outlined by Trump and, uh, the, the, the elites at hand and, and those come down to family, they come down to gender, they come down to immigration, they come down to sex, and, uh, those have been raised to the level of doctrine,

NAR Watch Ep. 7 JD Vance Joins Lance Wallnau in Spiritual Warfare Part 3 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-14-24

MATT TAYLOR: Yeah. One of the things that, that, um, this also calls to mind for me, cause I've been, I've been doing quite a bit of, of comparisons and trying to look at, you As you have these more authoritarian style movements emerging within democracies, what, what is the path that they, they, they forge?

How, how did, how did they get to power? And then who do they go after as they start to come to power? And, and one of the things that's very striking in that, in that, Um, research, if you, if you dig into it is when, when these authoritarian groups emerge, especially when they're very ideological, um, on one side of the political spectrum, they, they don't, they, they [02:04:00] actually really like having foils who are opposite them on the political spectrum.

So like, like while now the attempt to link me to the far left or pretend that I'm, I'm somehow being funded by far left causes really fits his narrative that, that, Oh, he is, he's crusading, I mean, Wallnau, who was there on January 6th, who I argue in my book, was, was one of the most influential, um, Christian leaders mobilizing Christians for January 6th, was supposed to speak at a rally on January 6th.

But, but, Wall Now, uh, has maintained that it was Antifa and the FBI that caused January 6th. And so, but, the, the, so, that attempt to label centrists and moderates as the far left is actually part of the strategy for authoritarian movements. Because, the, the, when, when you have the far, uh, real far left actors, they can kind of play off of that.

But people who are, I'm pretty darn centrist in my politics. I mean, I am registered independent as, as an evangelical. I voted for George [02:05:00] W. Bush twice after I left evangelicals, I voted for Barack Obama twice. So it's like the, I, I really do have him kind of right around that median voter profile, um, as close as maybe you can find in, in, in real life.

And, but he wants me to. He wants to push me off to the left because it is much easier to caricature. Whereas if I'm coming in and actually voicing my, it's using my voice as a Christian to challenge his theology. And, and you see this, this dynamic playing out with David French or Christian Cobb as you may, right.

People who have chosen. To inhabit more centrist identities and positions in this argument. I think actually come in for greater castigation often because they are more inconvenient foils. They're, they're critics that that wall now and his, his ilk don't want because they, they really want to be able to.

Portray themselves as, as being mainstream [02:06:00] and try to cast any critic as extreme.

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it also is just a window into the thinking that we've talked on the show about a lot, which is Unless you're with him, you're against him. And to be against him means to be a left wing nut.

There, there are no moderates. There are no Christians who don't agree. There's just Christians, and then left wing nuts. And so, I think that's right. Let's move, let's move into something that I think got a lot of press, and I'll admit I saw so many headlines, I saw so many tweets, I saw so many Instagram posts.

I saw very little meat on the bone in terms of analysis, and that is Pennsylvania, Lance Wallnau, is joined by J. D. Vance at the Courage Tour stop. Would you help us understand first, what happened that day? You know, in terms of content, we can analyze what it means here in a minute, but what actually took place with J.

D. Vance? Stopping by to hang out with Lance Wallnau at the Courage Tour.

MATT TAYLOR: So the Courage Tour is, um, [02:07:00] it's, it's a voter, a very highly targeted voter mobilization, um, operating as an adjunct to the Trump campaign, um, sponsored by Turning Point USA and the America First Policy Institute, run by Lance Wallnau, um, and, but it masquerades as a revival tour.

And I, I've been trying to call attention to this for quite a while, and there's a bunch of other researchers in the space who are also very, very concerned about the Courage Tour, um, because it, it, it's, it's a more NAR version of Reawaken America in many ways. So premised on, 2020 election denialism premised on kind of this very far right vision of america, but then Just injected straight into the heart of our swing states and and this voter mobilization effort and One of the things we've also been really calling attention to is this effort that they have and we've talked about this on on the podcast before to to enlist Conspiracy theory believing [02:08:00] 2020 election denying Christians to be election workers in the swing states, people are actually counting the votes and and and then kind of trying to orchestrate and set pieces on the board to uphold claims of election fraud if Trump has declared the loser.

So it's a very concerning manifestation of this hand in glove dynamic between the charismatic Christian far right and the Trump campaign.

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 [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Ideas, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, and Straight White American Jesus. Further details are in the show notes.

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 [02:09:00] helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or a 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 and 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.

So coming to from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the best of left podcast coming to twice weekly. Thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from best of left.com.

Add your reaction Share

#1665 The GOP Is A Grift And Was Long Before Trump (Transcript)

Posted by · October 29, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 10/29/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast. Trump has only come close to perfecting the grift of the American conservative. He certainly didn't invent the strategy. Today, we look at some current and past grifts and explore why they work.

Sources providing our top takes in under 50 minutes today includes

Jesse Dollemore,

Bloomberg Technology,

Amanpour and Company,

The Dig,

Dummy, and

The Bunker.

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there'll be more in four sections.

Section A: Grift,

Section B: Scams,

Section C: Conspiracy, and

Section D: Misinformation.

GRIFT-GOBLIN Donald Trump is Selling HILARIOUSLY CRAPPY Gold Watches Now!!! - Jesse Dollemore - Air Date 9-27-24

STEVE SHIVES - HOST, THE DOLLEMORE DAILY: Wanna buy a watch?

DONALD TRUMP: Hello everyone. It's your favorite president, Donald J. Trump, here to introduce something really special. I think you're going to love it. My new Trump watches. We're doing quite a number with watches and the quality to me is very important.

The Trump Victory Tourbillon. This isn't just any watch. It's one of the best [00:01:00] watches made. It's a tourbillon watch with almost 200 grams of gold and more than 100 real diamonds. That's a lot of diamonds. I love gold. I love diamonds. We all do. Only 147 of these extraordinary watches will ever exist in the world and owning one puts you in a very exclusive club.

I have watch number one and I'm gonna keep it. It's mine and that's the way I want to have it. Each watch is numbered and extremely rare, a true collector's item, and it includes a personal letter signed by me. Get your Trump watch right now. Go to gettrumpwatches. com. It's Trump time.

STEVE SHIVES - HOST, THE DOLLEMORE DAILY: Oh wow, what a neat watch! So much gold! So many diamonds! I can't wait to buy one to support my favorite president! Tourbillon, that's the one that he mentioned in the ad. Ooh, three extraordinary styles, which one do I want? I want the gold dial one, that's the one that my favorite president had. I'll just pre [00:02:00] order that now... A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?!

[uncontrolled laughter] Okay, you know what? That's fine. I'm determined to support my favorite president. I can't spare a hundred thousand dollars right this moment for a Turbillon watch, a Turbi a Bull a Bullion watch, but there's this other one, the Fighter watch. Let me see, that's probably more affordable. Ooh, choose my style. Which one do I want? I want the onyx gold one. That's what I want. 799!

So let's recap the Trump grifts so far in this presidential campaign. In addition to his standard merch. the red hats and the flags and the t shirts and stuff like that, he's sold people sneakers, coins, crypto, digital trading cards, a book of photographs of him, a personally [00:03:00] branded God Bless the USA Bible, and now watches.

Hundred thousand dollar watches. He's telling his supporters. that eggs are too expensive, but he's also selling them a watch that costs a hundred thousand dollars. Or, if that's too steep, another watch that'll only set them back several hundred dollars. Just lay aside what you'd ordinarily send to Joel Osteen for a couple of months. You can afford it!

I've seen folks on Twitter sharing their suspicion that this ludicrously expensive watch is just Trump's way of trying to find a loophole to accept a bribe?: It isn't a bribe! Come on! It wasn't a bribe! He was just buying a watch! Yes, in the [00:04:00] Personalize Your Order box this customer did request that President Trump cut off all federal aid to Ukraine, but since when is it illegal to ask for shit? Ehhh?! Maybe that's it! Maybe it's trying to find an avenue for bribes, or maybe it's a money laundering scheme. But my assumption, as it always is with Trump, is that his motivations and his goals are a lot simpler and a lot easier to understand. This is just Trump making another cash grab.

Whether he gets re-elected in November or not, he's gonna wring as much money out of the rubes that support him as he possibly can. The thing that always surprises me is how bad Trump is at this. Even after all these years, his entire public life, probably his [00:05:00] entire life, period, he's essentially been nothing but a salesman. He pretends to be other things. He pretends that he was a builder, or a real estate tycoon. But what he's always been, at the bottom of everything, is a salesman. And he's terrible at it. Inarticulate. Unconvincing. 'We're doing quite a number with watches', he says in that video. That's how he introduces his product? 'Hi, it's me, your favorite president. We're doing quite a number with watches!' Like, what? What are you...who said...what? And then he says, 'I love gold. I love diamonds. We all do!' Yes, very astute. Definitely a pitch compelling enough to get me to wire him $100,000. And he ends it with 'It's Trump time!' [00:06:00] That's the tagline they're going with? 'It's Trump time!'

So, he's ripping off MC Hammer? Or possibly Big Van Vader? Either way, I do not approve. He's a bad salesman, and he offers nothing but bad products. He tried to sell us a bill of goods in 2016. He tried again in 2020, and he's trying it yet again now in 2024. And that's why we all have to turn out for this election and vote and tell Donald Trump in no uncertain terms that he's not going to get away with it this time. Not on our watch.

The ‘Dirtbag of the Internet’ and Trump's Crypto Project - Bloomberg Technology - Air Date 9-13-24

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: You start your story focused on Chase Harrow. What can you tell about this guy?

ZEKE FAUX: Yeah, so Chase is unknown in the crypto world, but I dug into his career and he's been a marijuana dealer. He says [00:07:00] he went to prison for that. He sold weight loss colon cleanses online. He had $149/month Get Rich Quick class. And then now, he appears to be the main dealmaker behind World Liberty Financial, which is this DeFi startup the Trumps are promoting. And President Trump himself posted a video saying this is going to challenge the big banks. So it's really bizarre to see that this is the person they're partnering with.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: I'm sorry, the guy behind this DeFi project isn't even known in the crypto world.

ZEKE FAUX: No, and he calls himself, in videos, he likes to call himself the 'dirtbag of the internet'. I found in another video he said regulators should kick people like him out of the industry, and not in those words. He seems to have a very cynical, to say the least, attitude towards crypto. And, this project, World Liberty, it might sound impressive if you didn't know about crypto, but it appears to be a copy of [00:08:00] a existing project that didn't go anywhere and then lost a lot of money in a hack.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: Yeah, you're talking about the dough project, right? D O U G H. That seems to be what's got actually industry insiders, the crypto industry, a little worried, is ultimately that the people behind World Liberty Financial have come across from a much smaller project that didn't manage to raise that many funds and actually got hacked.

ZEKE FAUX: Yes. And we don't know the details of World Liberty. I obtained a white paper that lays out some of them, but I'm sure it's all subject to change. But this is supposed to be DeFi, like decentralized finance. The white paper says that 70 percent of the tokens will be reserved for insiders. So talking to people in crypto, they said this looks like it could be more of a cash grab than an innovative project.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: Okay, and therein lies the issue that this could be some sort of cash grab. Some of the details in your story, and that might hint that there's a slight [00:09:00] difference in how this DeFi project is run compared to others, is that the people behind the overall project keep, what, 70 percent of issued tokens? That's a lot.

ZEKE FAUX: Yeah, and I think we're talking about this even a little bit too seriously. Like, you should go read what this guy says about crypto. I can't repeat it. The language is too... this is a family TV channel, I guess, but the way he talks about it doesn't give you any confidence that this is a, serious project that's going to challenge big banks.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: He says, basically, you can sell utter rubbish and anyone will buy it in crypto. He happened to say that in a 2018 YouTube video recorded as he drove his Rolls Royce.

ZEKE FAUX: Yes, and I'm digging deep to try and find his crypto resume. And I found that he appeared on Influencer Logan Paul's [00:10:00] podcast and during the podcast the two of them promoted a token called Omi, which I had also never heard of before. Since they promoted it a couple years ago, it's down 96%. And another YouTuber, a scam busting YouTuber named CoffeeZilla, posted this expose that appeared to show the two of them coordinating ahead of the show their plan to talk about Omi.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: It seems that someone else listed in the white paper, who's responsible as operations lead, used to run a service called Date Hotter Girls, where he taught seminars on how to pick up women. All of this just feels like a real risk. ultimately, for the person who is running to be president of the United States again, to be associating himself with. Why do it?

ZEKE FAUX: It's pretty bizarre. and the crypto industry, the people I've spoke to from it are not happy about it. [00:11:00] They like that Trump has flip flopped, has endorsed crypto. He said that he's going to fire the head of the SEC and provide looser regulations that he says will make the US the crypto capital of the world. They're like, That all sounds great, but then why are you starting this pretty silly sounding new venture, a for-profit venture, just before the election? It almost raises questions about his motivations for deregulating the industry.

CAROLINE HYDE - HOST, BLOOMBERG TECHNOLOGY: What has, ultimately, the World Liberty Financial spokespeople said to you? Have you tried to get in touch? What have they said ultimately about the real underlying necessity of this project?

ZEKE FAUX: So, I did contact them and I received an email back from a man who said he was not a spokesperson, but then he could spoke [sic] for World Liberty and said that he could see where I was going with all these questions [00:12:00] and it was painting an inaccurate portrait of this company and that time will tell that this is a serious project that's doing cool stuff.

Controlling the Weather and Eating Pets: Expert Breaks Down Disinformation - Amanpour and Company - Air Date 10-18-24

HARI SREENIVASAN: If you are a fan of the former president, there's really no higher authority than him. And recently in the wake of these storms, he said, "They're offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away. And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They're offering them 750. They've been destroyed. These people have been destroyed". But really, the 750 bucks that he's talking about is just a direct payment sent to people to cover their emergency supplies. It is not the value of their home or the sum total of what they're going to be getting from the federal government. But what did happen in the wake of that? How did that kind of misinformation take on a different life?

RENEÉ DIRESTA: Well, it's seen as, again, as you note, a very authoritative statement from a political leader and for many people, sort of a [00:13:00] hero. And so this is the statement that he puts out. He puts that out on Truth Social. It's often then screenshotted and moved over to Twitter, particularly by his supporters. Sometimes he posts directly to Twitter now, too.

But you see that dynamic of the person who they trust is conveying a certain type of information, in this case, very misleading. It's not that it's wrong. It's not that it's false. They are getting 750, but it's that it's completely decontextualized. $750 as you then apply for all of the other aid that you'll be eligible to receive. So it's a really challenging dynamic. And then explaining it then requires nuance.

There's a saying in politics. If you're explaining, you're losing, but what you see happen then is that the Harris campaign and others, the Biden administration, have to come out and say, No, no, no, he got it wrong. Here are the actual facts. And so you see, then this effort to get the facts out to explain to people who again, many of whom have lost their homes and they really, they have [00:14:00] lousy Internet, their power's out, their water is not working. They have many many other things to worry about. And so when they're hearing this kind of information, it does impact how they think about the response. And you see this in the context also of some of the very misleading claims that Trump spread about FEMA, right? And, they are not, they're not helping Trump supporters is a thing that he said at one point, right?

So you have this dynamic of a trusted official, a trusted leader, amplifying these claims for political advantage, just to be clear, right? That's one of the main motivating factors here.

HARI SREENIVASAN: There was a group that looked into some of this and they found that just 33 posts on X that were already debunked by various different sources had 160 million views.

And what was also interesting to me in some of their analysis was that about 30 percent of these posts, contained antisemitic hate. And that some of the people, the large accounts that, who [00:15:00] had multiple millions of followers that were sharing some of these lies about the storm were also people who were actively engaged in other forms of myths and disinformation.

It's almost like there's this sort of Venn diagram of people who like to do this, whether it's about Hurricane Milton or about the Great Replacement Theory.

RENEÉ DIRESTA: one of the things that's happening is they've built up an audience base that feels a certain way towards the government or towards authority figures, and one of the, events don't happen in a vacuum once you have built up your villain, whether that's FEMA or Jewish people or the government or Biden or Trump, whoever it is, you can refer back to them constantly.

So you can connect the dots, so to speak, for your audience. There's a phrase that I've really come to appreciate conspiracy without the theory, right? So there's no actual argument for what is happening here. There's no cohesive, you know, why are these people doing this thing, right? What is the incentive?

But there are [00:16:00] these, very complicated theories that they go viral because they're phrased in certain ways that connect the dots to a different conspiracy theory. So whether it's something like Great Replacement, new world order, you know, there's so many of these QAnon, these conspiracy theory communities have a very rich lore.

Then the other thing I want to quickly add is that now on X, you can monetize that engagement, right? So it's not just online clout or growing followers that maybe you can monetize on a different platform. It's that you can actually directly make money from your engagements.

The platform sets an incentive for the type of content that's created by.

Offering people an opportunity to make money on it. And this is one of the things that's happening. If you can be the first person out of the gate with a wild theory about a hurricane or a natural disaster or a mass shooting, unfortunately, the attention is going to go to you, whether you have the facts or not. And the financial perk is also then [00:17:00] going to go to you. And so it really creates a series of, misguided incentives in some ways.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The other major kind of crisis potentially looming when it comes to misinformation and disinformation is the election cycle. And given that the internet has evolved, there have been new platforms and new technologies that have emerged almost every four years. What are the threats that you're looking at when it comes to the next couple of weeks here?

RENEÉ DIRESTA: So since 2020, I'll say the internet has fragmented quite a bit, right? There's multiple new entrants, there's Truth Social, there's Blue Sky, there's Threads, there's Mastodon, people have left Twitter on the left, it is a little bit more of a right wing platform at this point, or seen that way by a lot of the people who are using it for political communication.

So there's a fragmenting of audiences. There is generative AI, right? And the question... I think generative AI is an enhancer. It's not that we didn't have propaganda before, right? [00:18:00] It's not that we can't be just as effective at spreading misleading information without generative AI. but it is a very interesting tool, unfortunately, when it comes to things like creating evidence to backstop a rumor or a claim, right?

So, you have some shifts, but ultimately I think it is going to be very much this process of rumors and election officials and and political leaders and political influencers in their communities really taking their responsibility seriously and taking the institution of democracy seriously, right?

And, being out there speaking the truth, correcting records as quickly as possible, rebutting rumors as soon as information is known, very proactively speaking, that's what I think that we need to see in this election as well.

Down the Rabbit Hole w/ Naomi Klein - The Dig - Air Date 10-8-24

DAN DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: So, what happens with the pandemic and conspiracism? Because there is conspiracism, obviously, prior to the pandemic, but I used to listen to that AM radio show in college, Coast to [00:19:00] Coast, where people will call in and have recordings from hell that they would play or claim alien sightings or chemtrails, fake moon landing... it wasn't all harmless: 9/11 was an inside job, was a big thing in the aughts that sort of was always disrupting the, rest of the anti-war movement. But with the pandemic, there's, a shift from this less politically coherent conspiracist landscape to focused, systematic, politically far-right conspiracism. Anna Merlin calls it the "conspiracy singularity".

How and why does that happen when it does, this convergence and far-right systematization of conspiracism?

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah, I think Trump plays a big role in this, right?, where he emerges with a conspiracy about Obama, and birtherism as a conspiracy. It's a racist conspiracy theory. And it's not new, [00:20:00] but he is a sort of internet troll come to life and, as you say, the conspiracy culture has existed for a long time. I've seen it in my reporting in disaster zones. I often hear of conspiracies about the disaster itself from people who don't have a lot of power and are being victimized by profiteering of different kinds. if they see that there is this disaster that is helping elites, and this is what the shock doctrine was about, right? And it wasn't a conspiracy. It was just disaster opportunism, really, and cynicism, and moving in very quickly in those moments with a pre-existing agenda. But, if you're the victim of that, it can feel like, Well, they must have caused the thing. I mean they must have blown up the levees in order to destroy public housing and public schooling in New Orleans.

But no one was getting rich off of that conspiracy theory, like, it was just a sort of a cry of the powerless. I remember [00:21:00] hearing when I was reporting on this huge tsunami in Asia, Christmas 2004, some people may remember this. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and then it became this land grab of the beachfront properties. And people who had been displaced internally to camps were told they couldn't come home to their small plots of land because hotel developers were now building. And I heard conspiracy theories then about how maybe it was an underwater nuclear weapon detonated by the United States in order to do this.

So, people's brains try to make sense of these sort of horrific events. I think what's different about the pandemic moment is that It was a combination of factors where we were dealing with a novel virus that science had not caught up to, and science is slow. And so there was a lag time between the event that was radically changing people's lives and was very unfair, [00:22:00] right?, people were being asked to make huge sacrifices. And what we know about other moments when people have been asked to make huge sacrifices, you know, thinking about the Second World War rationing or things like that, it's always incredibly important that it be seen as fair, that the system seemed to apply to the biggest industrialists as well as to working people. And there was no attempt to do that during COVID. It was so obvious that Jeff Bezos was having a field day with this. That, you mentioned the drug companies...

DAN DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: Gavin Newsom dining in the French Laundry.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. Or, who was it? The David Geffen yacht shot. "I'm social isolating", right? It was just, there was a wildness to the fact that because of social media and people being on the same platforms, people were able to see these vastly different experiences of lockdown and no attempts to rein in the profiteering. So, people were looking for explanations. They were looking for social connection and science was taking its time as it [00:23:00] does. And grifters have no compunction to wait, right? So...

DAN DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: The grifts are not peer reviewed,

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. So, it's like, Sign up for my seminar. You know, you had a lot of people working in that sort of health influencer space, which is already pretty grifty, right? They are losing a bunch of their revenue streams because they're not able to have in person seminars and things like that. Their yoga studios are locked down. And so they're looking for new revenue streams and it's both 'buy this tincture', but it's also, the whole thing is a scam. It's a scandemic. And one of the things that I trace in the book is the whole anti-vax world that predates COVID, right? And I do a bit of a deep dive into the autism parent community, which is a place I know something about, and all of the sort of dangerous pseudo-cures and conspiracy theories that swirl in parent communities, where they're looking for someone to blame for their child's neurodiversity.

So, that whole [00:24:00] infrastructure was ready to go. They just did a search and replace from MMR vaccines to COVID vaccines. And that's how you have a figure like RFK Jr. just bang ready to go with the documentaries and all of this literature. But the point is is that the attention economy allows conspiracies to be monetized in a way that was not true for these conspiracies that I'm describing, even the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

I mean, okay, the Loose Change guys. I don't know how much money they made, but it was nothing like the ability to monetize claims about some drug or other that you alone have figured out is going to cure COVID or, whatever it was.

DAN DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: So, another important thing that happened during the pandemic was, you write, "the illusion of separateness fell away. We were not and never were self-made. We are made and unmade by one another." But then, suddenly, there's a giant reaction to this that you call a "revolt against connectedness". How did that happen, [00:25:00] the pandemic just dramatically running up against this profound deep-seated individualism, libertarian sensibility that's so pervasive in the U. S. and elsewhere? People are confronted with this harsh reality that their success and failure, their living or dying, is not determined by their own individual merit, that it depends on other people. How does that then lead to this reaction?

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. Not just other people. Not just any old people, right? Working class racialized people who are holding the world up, right? It's so weird to think about how much amnesia there is, like, about those early unveilings and the sort of people out there clapping for healthcare workers and thanking their delivery workers or the fact that we were learning more about what was going on inside Amazon warehouses or in prisons. I mean, there was [00:26:00] this moment of unveiling and who was dying most, again, at the highest rates, you know, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor called it a "Black plague". And that was intimately connected to who does the most dangerous work in our economy and who lives in the most polluted parts of our society and had some of the preexisting conditions that made COVID more lethal in those early days and who relied on public hospitals where the ratio of nurses to patient was like 30/1 compared to 2/1 in a private hospital, right? It unveiled so much that we've almost completely forgotten.

And I don't want to say, you know, the backlash, it's not the same people necessarily. There are some people who might have been out there clapping for health care workers who also joined the trucker convoy. But I think these are, for the most part, different groups of people. And a lot of the people who joined the anti-lockdown movements [00:27:00] or the movements against different kinds of health mandates were small entrepreneurs who played by the rules. Margaret Thatcher said there's no such thing as society and they took her at her word and they thought that their job was to take care of themselves and their families because that is what they were told their job was to do, that they did not owe things to people beyond that sort of inner circle. And then all of a sudden they were being asked to make sacrifices, do things they didn't want to do, like, get vaccinated in order to drive their truck across the border or close their yoga studio.

Media Literacy Can't Save Us Part 1 - Dummy - Air Date 10-7-24

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: Content warning here for White supremacy, mass violence, and death.

In the Southern Poverty Law Center's investigation into Dylan Roof's heinous hate crime of murdering nine African American citizens in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, the SPLC discovered traces of his radicalization through Google search results.

In his manifesto, Roof writes that he was prompted to "type in the words Black on White crime into Google, and I have never been [00:28:00] the same since that day". Simply clicking on the link permanently altered his media environment. As soon as the site loaded, the malicious site's cookies were downloaded on Roof's hard drive. The next time Dylan Roof made a Google search in a similar category, it used his previous search history to inform his results. As Roof sought out information to confirm his biases, the search results customized, displaying a unique media feed for Roof that persisted across various digital platforms.

This type of analysis is critical, not just because it's sobering, but because it reminds us of the influence of the medium. If we want to understand how the internet has uniquely radicalized the public and spread misinformation, we can't just look at individual pieces of content. No amount of PragerU debunkings can fix the internet's designed proclivity for misinformation.

What I'm advocating for here, then, is solutions that fit the medium. And in the modern day, that would look like... well, actually, what would that look like?

We can't rely solely on education to fix the problem of misinformation. We also have to look at our [00:29:00] current media ecology and advocate for things that would make it better. Before I talk about that, though, I want to make one final note on media literacy education. In this video, I've been mildly critical of media literacy education, but I want to make clear that this really isn't a takedown.

I continue to think that the teachers and advocates who push for media literacy education are doing something incredibly valuable. I think we ultimately want the same thing, but are talking about two different ways of getting at it that need to be able to complement each other and work together: an educational approach and an ecological approach.

And I also don't think it's quite as simple as me saying that their solution is individualistic and mine is systemic. There are plenty of ways to make systemic changes to education. For example, the national policy push for media literacy education in classrooms, which you can learn more about from the group Media Literacy Now, who has a map documenting where media literacy education exists in the United States and at what level.

But education can't fix everything on its own. Misinformation can't just be another problem that we ask teachers to solve for us. And given the [00:30:00] scale of the modern media's influence over all of us, I think we must analyze the technologies, regulations, and business models that create our media environment.

One thing I couldn't ignore when reviewing educational materials then was that a lot of them entirely avoid describing media ecology or being critical of media systems. I touched on this earlier, but I want to talk now about why I think that's actually doing a bit of a disservice to learners. And as an example, to make this clear, I want to talk about this resource that NAMLE has shared for parents, teaching them how to talk about media with their kids.

It takes an educational approach through and through, focused on guided inquiry to help students come to their own conclusions. They suggest that parents should ask questions and encourage their kids to think about the media products they're consuming. But why not also actively encourage skepticism about media products that are untrustworthy?

Take this example where a father and his son have a conversation about ads. The son really wants a new toy, but the dad asks questions until his son realizes that ads sometimes make things look cooler than [00:31:00] they actually are. It's educational best practice at its best, guided inquiry that helps the kid come to their own conclusion.

That's all well and good, but what if your son isn't capable of coming to this skeptical, literate conclusion on his own? Why not say at some point, Hey, by the way, advertisers exist and they want your money, they want to sell you things. I think we do a disservice when we don't come out and say that certain media are not designed with our best interests in mind.

Sometimes we must make our view on ecology explicit, even if it feels like telling people what to think as opposed to how to think. This is a point that Zoe and I went back and forth on a lot when talking about these educational and ecological approaches and their differences.

ZOE BEE: If you are going to pursue media literacy directly, it is easier to do that on an individual level. But I think that there are some systemic problems that, if you pursue them for the sake of helping to fix issues with media literacy, I don't think that's a very good reason to do them. [00:32:00] But I think that if you fix them for other reasons, like fixing the education system because it's dehumanizing to students, or fixing the regulations on media industries because they need them, I think that that's a good thing. I think that there are systemic things that we should fix because they need fixed, not necessarily as a media literacy solution, even though it would help fix some issues with media literacy downstream.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: What do you think about teaching people about the operations of media industries, doing some of this critical media literacy education in the educational context in this more concrete way?

ZOE BEE: Yeah, that's definitely something that I think we need more of. Because there is a lot of talk of like, We need more media literacy classes. And it's like, Yeah, but what are you actually teaching them? How would those media literacy classes be any different than, say, an English class? And I think that that is what you're getting at, is like the first approach, which is [00:33:00] just asking your children or your students to ask questions, that's the English class approach to interacting with media; whereas, I think that critical media literacy angle is what would make that media literacy class actually important and relevant on its own, is that systemic view of things.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: But even changing our education like this wouldn't be a true ecological solution. Ecological solutions require us to use technology or regulations to change the structure of a medium, to prevent it from repeating the harms that we know it's made before. My favorite version of this advocacy comes from Zeynep Tufekci, who, in a 2022 piece, argued for a right to general data privacy in the US as a means to combat misinformation.

Here's a quote. "Perhaps a starting point would be to make it harder and less lucrative to lie to huge audiences. Rather than pursuing legally dubious and inadvisable efforts to ban speech or define and target misinformation, regulations should target the incentives [00:34:00] for and the speed with which lies can be spread, amplified, and monetized. One part of the solution might be to target reckless data surveillance online by greatly limiting how much data can be collected, how long it can be retained, what it can be used for, and how it can be traded. Among other benefits, this could make chasing engagement less attractive as a business model".

I like this type of regulation because it specifically targets one of the novel harms of internet media, in this case, massive data targeting. If something like this were enacted, it could change our media environment for the better without having to pass a thousand rules about what you can and can't say online. If data were less plentiful, then online advertising would be less attractive for advertisers. This would divert some amount of advertising money back into local media, which would bolster that and diversify the media that we all consume. It would also change the media we see by changing our social media feeds, keeping us from being targeted by malicious actors or just normal advertisers.

A data privacy regulation would, in my opinion, be the holy grail of ecological solutions for [00:35:00] misinformation. But I also want to recognize that this type of regulation is probably entirely unpassable in the United States. I've talked before on this channel about how tech companies are perfectly designed for the modern regulatory apparatus. There's no chance in hell that something like this would get passed. There's simply way too much money on the line. So we probably need to focus on protecting each other more than hoping that someone else will come and save us.

One historical example I found of this came from a really excellent JSTOR blog piece by Alexandra Samuel. It documents the history of the first journalistic ethics codes in the United States as an effective means of curtailing misinformation, which was a huge problem in the era of yellow journalism.

The codes made formal definitions for things like advertisements, opinion pieces, and news, and required their signatories to cease the publication of false quotations in interviews. There's even evidence that this reduced misinformation at the time in the form of false publications. We're right now finding ourselves in a similar shift that was happening at the end of the 19th century, where new ad money is flooding in and supporting a generation of writers [00:36:00] that previously couldn't have done what they do.

The era of edutainment has brought some great writers and educators forward, but as their audiences grow and more and more people rely on them for information, they have an increased responsibility to produce that information responsibly. An ethics code for a new medium, ratified by content creators and internet publishers, might be a step in the right direction.

So, these would both be really helpful solutions that recognize ecology, that recognize the shift in the media landscape. But we also have to be careful that just because something sounds like it recognizes ecology doesn't mean that it's actually a good ecological solution. There are lots of things that use the language of ecological solutions when they are in fact just bad For example, fighting misinformation can often get dangerously close to censorship.

I'm generally not one to believe that the elites are gonna 1984 my brave new world or something, but I don't like regulations like COSA, the Proposed Kids Online Safety Act. COSA claims to protect children by giving State Attorneys General a mandate [00:37:00] to prevent and mitigate the harms of social media platforms, but this is not the type of regulation we should be going after to fight misinformation.

It gives too much power to too few people to control speech, codifying the problem I'm describing here, not fixing it. I am not content to replace Mark Zuckerberg with the United States government and call it a day. And I'm really especially not excited to do it when one of the bill's sponsors has referred to education on racial discrimination as "dangerous for kids."

How did grifters like Trump take over the GOP? - The Bunker - Air Date 9-25-24

JACOB JARVIS - HOST, THE BUNKER: Through the decades then you address three key groups: professional anti-communists, populist grifters like the Tea Party movement, and then religious charlatans.

Can you take me through a little bit, through these groups, their significance of when they emerged? And then also I want to ask, to your mind, which has been the most influential or shaping how the Conservative Party has changed?

JOE CONASON: The professional anti-communists were a phenomenon that emerged really early on in the 1950s and early 60s and formed the sort of core of the Goldwater [00:38:00] for President movement in 1964.

They came out of the red baiting investigations led by Senator McCarthy. And there were a number of people, all men or almost all men, who started businesses, basically, where they would go around the country and find ways to get gullible conservatives to give them money because of the worldwide communist conspiracy that, in their telling, had penetrated all of American society and was about to take over our country. And depending on which one you ask, they were either going to execute half the population, they were going to have the Chinese running everything from a hotel in San Francisco. Just crazy conspiracies, like some of the stuff on the internet today. And it was a way that they got people to send them wads of money. It was so absurd and crooked that even J. Edgar Hoover, who was then the FBI director and a famous [00:39:00] anti-communist in his own right, and not the most upright person in our history, even he was appalled by this, and he investigated these crooks and swindlers. And it was one of my favorite things in doing the research for the book that I found FBI files that tell all about Hoover's secret war against these people and what it was about them that upset him so much.

So I think they set a kind of tone of paranoia for the right, dating all the way back then, where it was okay to make up the wildest possible stories if they helped you to organize people around your movement and relieve them of big amounts of cash.

The populist conservatives, such as the Tea Party, come later, although there was that tone on the right for a long time, and it culminated in the Tea Party movement, which helped to give birth to Trump. Trump came in as a leading figure in the birther controversy to claim that Barack Obama was actually born in [00:40:00] Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president. It was a huge lie and a racist lie, and Trump was a leading figure in spreading that. And that made him a hero among the so-called populist conservatives. And they've had a important voice. I think that the Tea Party movement formed a core of MAGA, the Trump movement. It was a complete con and a grift. They were at war with each other over who was going to run the grift. There were several Tea Party organizations that were competing to get people's money and organize them and line them up eventually behind Trump.

And then the religious aspect of it, the sort of religious right, also has existed in different forms for a really long time. The professional anti-communists included some figures who used religious themes in their propaganda and their radio shows and other types of media. And we've seen it [00:41:00] mutate over the years from, at one point, the Moral Majority led by Jerry Falwell, which started out as a fundraising project led by the chief fundraiser, Richard Viguerie, who was behind it all and convinced Falwell to start the Moral Majority because he said there was a lot of money in it. And then has taken different forms since then. Very critical to Trump's rise and power, because the evangelical right is such a huge proportion of the Republican party vote now.

And those kinds of quote unquote religious leaders, many of whom promote something called the prosperity gospel, Jacob, which is just an unbelievable thing where they say -- and that envelopes millions of Americans -- where they tell people that they are prophets of God and you have to send them money in order to have the favor of a heaven, which will then make you rich in turn, cure your health [00:42:00] problems, make you happy. And it's incredible how many people fall for this. It was those grifters of the prosperity gospel who raised Trump up in 2015 as their candidate, at a time when evangelical Christians were skeptical, quite naturally, of a figure like Trump, who had been divorced and was clearly not particularly religious, and yet the prosperity gospel preachers rallied around Trump, helped him to defeat Ted Cruz, who actually was an evangelical Christian.

And the reason is, as I say in the book, they see in Trump a kindred spirit. They see in Trump somebody like them. A remorseless crook who rips off people by deceiving them, but does it with a level of charisma and talent for television and big audiences that reflects a lot of what [00:43:00] makes the prosperity gospel such a huge movement in this country.

JACOB JARVIS - HOST, THE BUNKER: It's not one of the most kind of intriguing thing about these grifters as well as not just that they fleece money from people, but who they fleece it from. It's like a such a fraud in plain sight. They take it straight from the people who support them. It's not like they're doing this to gain power to then get money more broadly. They are very much directly gaining support and then taking the money from their supporters entirely. It's just, it's all very almost open, but they still manage to dupe people.

JOE CONASON: Yes, that's an important point. They have almost a hermetic world that they exist in, and this is one of the reasons that they hate the mainstream media so much, because the mainstream media in America sees people grifting off of elderly, sort of defenseless conservatives, and the impulse of reporters like me, I'm an investigative journalist, is to [00:44:00] expose that kind of thing.

And so when it's exposed, the next thing that happens is government may tend to intervene, as it has occasionally against some of these prosperity gospel types, and they hate that too.

So there's a way in which right wing ideology really serves their purpose. It's anti government. It's hostile to media exploration and facts in general, and that's a great way for them to protect themselves from this kind of scrutiny that might put an end to what they're doing.

So yes, they're preying on conservatives. And one of the reasons, by the way, in this book, I tried very hard not to quote liberals very much. My orientation in writing this book and researching it was to show that there are some conservatives and to quote those people and their research who object to all of this swindling and scamming and who think it's a stain on their movement and who expect conservatism to live up [00:45:00] to the civic virtue and moral values that it's supposedly espouses. And to quote them, to say, look, real conservatives understand just how toxic this is and are exposing it.

JACOB JARVIS - HOST, THE BUNKER: There's a wider thing here as well. Obviously, your book focuses on the American conservative movement. And when we speak about Trump and we speak about this sort of shift, we look at the damage there.

But there's another quite depressing thing about this. The way that they are now so entrenched in this, it's not stopping. They want to also damage everyone else. So for example, the sort of smears they've used against people like Tim Walz and saying it's stolen valor and these sort of made up criticisms, they now, it's hit this peak for American conservatism.

And for it to keep working, they now feel like they have to drag everyone else down with them. Do you think they can be effective in that, in trying to make it look like, it's not just us, actually all of politics is like this now, we're all the same.

JOE CONASON: I think they'd [00:46:00] like to do that. I think that's exactly what the Harris campaign is fighting against.

The slogan, "We're not going back" is very specifically aimed at that attempt to scare everyone. And by the way, I would say it's worse than what you just described. They want to take the whole world down with them, okay? This is not just about our country. It's certainly about Europe and the UK, and it's really about the entire world.

They want to have a ethno nationalist world in which there are no guardrails against the very worst excesses that Trump represents, and it's a danger, I believe, to everybody.

Note from the Editor on the scam of political fundriasing

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Jessie Dollemore discussing an array of Trump's best grifts. Bloomberg Technology looked at Trump's turn to crypto. Amanpour and Company explained the political benefits of misinformation. The Dig spoke with Naomi Klein about the destructive fire of conspiracism. Dummy looked at the inadequacy of [00:47:00] media literacy to fight back against the structural forces of disinformation. And The Bunker discussed the deep history of grifters preying primarily on conservatives in the US.

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 the production crew here at discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new, members-only podcast feeds 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 [00:48:00] 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, I have a bit of news to share.

CNN did a report recently about one of the biggest, most blatant scams in politics, under the headline, "How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns." And I couldn't help but be reminded of all of the references to elder abuse during the weeks following the debate between Biden and Trump as I read the story.

In short, the predatory and deceptive outreach techniques used by political campaigns, heightened by polarization and reinforced by a fundraising mechanism that subtly tricks people into unwittingly signing up for recurring donations, is bleeding elderly donors, many with various stages of dementia, completely dry. The article points out that it's a problem with both parties technically, but this is [00:49:00] definitely not a "both sides do it so they cancel each other out" sort of situation. Quote, "While studies show that older Americans tends to lean more Republican, both parties have continued to rake in donations from elderly voters. And mainstream Republican candidates have only doubled down on this strategy using more aggressive and predatory tactics than those used by Democrats, according to donor complaints, interviews with experts and a review of solicitations. The Republican fundraising machine has been subject to more than 800 complaints to the Federal Trade Commission since 2022, nearly seven times more than the number of complaints lodged against the other side." End quote.

And when you get into the individual stories, it is absolutely heartbreaking. Here's just the overview. "Donors identified by CNN were often in their eighties and nineties. They included [00:50:00] retired public workers, house cleaners, and veterans, widows living alone, nursing home residents and people who donated more money than they paid for their homes, according to records and interviews. The money they gave came from pensions, social security payments, and retirement savings accounts meant to last decades. Donors took out new credit cards and mortgages to pay for the contributions. In some cases, they gave away most of their life savings. Their cell phones and email inboxes were so full of pleas for money that they missed photos of their grandkids and other important messages." End quote.

Just a couple of the highlights of individual stories includes the Taiwanese immigrant who, quote, "had given away more than $180,000 to Trump's campaign and a litany of other Republican candidates, writing letters to candidates apologizing for not getting donations to them on time, because she was going into [00:51:00] heart surgery. In the end, she had only $250 in her bank account when she died, leaving her family scrambling to cover the cost of her funeral."

And another story. " An 81 year old from Arizona believed he had been in personal communication with former president Trump through all the messages he was receiving." Among other things, he thought that he was actually being invited to Mar-a-Lago as a VIP, but because he was a farmer his whole life, he wasn't sure he'd fit in at a place as classy as Mar-a-Lago. But it says, quote, "He would look forward to the emails and texts and especially the ones thanking him for being a true American Patriot when he donated his money. This eventually led him to give about $80,000, leaving him tens of thousands of dollars in debt." End quote.

Again, in terms of money raised compared between the Trump and Biden campaigns and the complaints filed with [00:52:00] the FTC, we are talking orders of magnitude for this being more of a problem with Republican campaign practices over Democrats. But Democrats are not immune. "While many mainstream Democratic candidates have backed away from the practice, both the Trump and Harris campaigns have recently been using donation pages with pre-checked recurring boxes to raise money, a CNN analysis of fundraising emails and Facebook and Instagram ads found." End quote.

And the article only goes as far as condemning those pre-check boxes, I would go further, but it says, quote, "Currently pre-checked boxes for recurring donations are allowed in almost every state, despite widespread condemnation of the practice from consumer advocates. Federal legislation introduced in recent years that would have prevented their use died in committee without gaining traction." End quote.

As I said, I would go farther. It's utterly predictable how our campaign financing systematically victimizes people in [00:53:00] effectively every way from the big picture disconnect between policy outcomes and the general public, all the way down to the individual horrors that this article is highlighting, draining the well-meaning elderly of their retirement savings. And it reminds me of the old saying about the lottery being basically a tax on those who can't do math. This style of campaign fundraising turns out to be a massive tax on those who care passionately about the country and politics, but are unable to read the fine print, track their donations, and in many cases, see through the rhetoric to understand fact from fiction. I mean, what more needs to happen before we see the benefits of publicly funding elections? Politicians are always going to gravitate towards doing the bidding of the people who provide the campaign cash. If those people were the general public, they would be indebted to us rather than corporations and billionaires. This style [00:54:00] of fundraising from the public clearly devolves into a scam, but does not translate at all to doing the bidding of the people.

The only fig leaf of an argument against banning private money in campaigns is to equate money with speech and file it under the First Amendment. But just as with the problem with social media platforms geared towards amplifying the most outrageous things through their networks, it's much less of a problem with which speech of the loud and much more about the degree of reach that's available. If corporations and billionaires want to use their speech, that's one thing. If they want to buy reach, that's a completely different category.

Meanwhile, the benefits of publicly funding campaigns continues to pile up.

SECTION A - GRIFT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up, Section A: Grift, followed by Section B: Scams, Section C: Conspiracy, and Section D: Misinformation.

Russell Brand Has A New Grift - Novara Media - Air Date 10-16-24

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA MEDIA: Disgraced at former comedian and Hollywood star Russell Brand has spent years peddling conspiracy theories on YouTube, [00:55:00] and just last year, he was accused of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse by four women, one of whom was as young as 16 at the time. Those are accusations that Brand denies. And since then, he's been baptized by Bear Grylls in an attempt to rebrand himself as a born again Christian, although he might be Catholic because he's videos where he's praying the rosary.

Anyway, it now seems he might be struggling for cash these days.

RUSSEL BRAND: Hello, I'm just back from Narnia, where I had a holiday, Mr. Tumnus, Aslan, all those guys. And as you know, airports are places full of Wi Fi and all sorts of evil energies. Think all the phones out there, all of the signals, corruptible and corrupting.

Luckily, I wear this magical amulet from Airsteck that keeps me safe from all of the various signals out there. And also means, look at this, look how strong I am. I think this is making me more, more powerful as a matter of fact, look at that. This stuff is absolutely packed with Airsteck. I didn't even bring any socks, or toothbrush, or [00:56:00] dog meats, or anything like that.

Just completely full of Airsteck. You should get one as well, particularly if you're planning to go to an airport anytime soon, because the bloody things are full of lethal signals. Airsteck, a glorious amulet to protect you from corrupting signals.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA MEDIA: Was this a satire? I don't think it was because, well, we know it wasn't a satire. He's flogging these amulets for, well, they cost 180, the amulets. I mean, they probably cost about 180p to make, probably not even that. Big markup on them, I'm sure. I'm sure a lot of markups going towards Russell Brand. Uh, just crazy.

You're calling yourself a Christian and then you've got a pagan amulet, which is fine. But to stop Wi Fi in airports specifically. Dalia, what do you make of this?

DALIA GEBRIAL: This is why financial literacy is so important because how are you, someone who was probably making millions and millions of pounds overnight [00:57:00] suddenly so, Strap for cash that you are flogging pagan amulets on the internet Like I just I don't understand where all your cash went, but I mean, it's just it's deeply embarrassing But I also think there's something to be said about this trend of men You know allegedly abusing their power doing all sorts of things and then when they get caught out Turning around and saying, well, I've seen the light, you know, I found God and it's like, look, I'm not gonna cast judgment on people's spiritual journeys.

I'm not going to say whether or not I believe something like that. It's deeply personal. But what I would say is that what I know of most, you know, spiritual journeys is that it involves some kind of accountability. And for me, it's like, if you've made this claim to suddenly seeing the light and being a better person, when that comes without any accountability, any recognition, any, you know, any kind of, like, just realization or self awareness of the harm that you've caused to, to other people in [00:58:00] the ways in which you've allegedly abused your power, then really, you've not really been on a That to me is a telltale sign that you've not been on a spiritual journey or just trying to be on a journey of saving your own ass.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA MEDIA: I couldn't agree more. There's a tweet that he posted recently saying about how wonderful it is to be redeemed or whatever. I can't remember the exact formulation. Doesn't work like that, right? Um, uh, the Catholic church is about forgiveness, asking for forgiveness every day. Every day you've transgressed, somebody Forgive me.

And I forgive the people who transgress me. That's the point, right? It's meant to be about forgiveness. And of course in, in Islam, you know, submission. Uh, this is not the same as I'm redeemed. All the bad stuff I've done is all forgiven now. Great. I can sell amulets on Tik Tok. Uh, I don't think that's how it works anyway.

GRIFTER-CON Morons Did Not Disappoint - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 10-1-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson. They are out in front of the, and they're talking about the crazy diversity, uh, of the, at the restore the Republic event.

I mean, the diversity went from like all the way from like Rubin [00:59:00] through Peterson to Incidentally, they were on tour together with each other like four years ago. Um, all the way to, um, let's see, uh, Brett Weinstein, uh, another member of the IDF and then all the way to Russell Brand. Who is now a, um, extremely religious person.

I'm, I think he's probably getting to the point where he probably wouldn't even show up with, uh, Dave Rubin around because of Dave Rubin is a sinner. Um They'd want to baptize him. Yeah, he'd get it. But also, to be fair, Matt Taibbi and, um, uh, Jimmy Dore were there. Also, uh, Tulsi Gabbard and, uh, wasn't like Jack Posobiak.

I actually took a screenshot of one of the posters because it was interesting to see who was written up in dark, like, letters. Like, you know, like on the cloud. It's like one of those, like, cloud, uh, you know, word clouds. And, um [01:00:00] And who got top billing is interesting to me as well. Yeah. I wonder how much his people got for showing up.

Can

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: we

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: hold that

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: up Bradley?

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: The, the poster. Can you find that here? I'm going to send it to Matt. Uh, Matt has it on as I am, but like I'll read off some of Rob Schneider. And

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: he got top billing.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: He got top billing, but here's the thing. Like I say, this poster, Matt, if you can pop this up, uh, it's at the, uh, join the resistance.

org, rescue the Republic, join the resistance. They said that twice on the poster. Cause it's that important. Um, Rob Schneider is on there, but he is in the lightest color font. You almost don't see it in skillet skillet. I think it's

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: posted twice. Who's skillet? I don't know.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's a band, Brett Weinstein. He's in dark, uh, Colonel Douglas McGregor, Tulsi Gabbard, Tennessee jet.

Is that a band? Yeah, here it is. Okay. And look at this. So, um, [01:01:00] you can see the big bold names are Brett Weinstein, Tennessee jet, Dr. Robert Malone, one of the, uh, uh, leading lights in, uh, COVID denialism. Yeah. Um, Senator Ron Johnson gets the same color font as Rob Schneider. Like there's three. Darknesses, right?

There's the Rob Schneider, there's the skillet, and there's Brett Weinstein on the top there, and, you know, the, the, the darkest ones. And there's no

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: rhyme or, I was skeptical of what you were saying, but there's no rhyme or reason to the, the color choice, like, It just rotates. It doesn't look aesthetically, but it's all bunched in the middle.

It goes light, medium, dark. Oh, they must be thinking

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: about who they want to, um, promote. I, I definitely think it could be,

MATT LECH: but it literally goes light, medium, dark, light, medium, dark, light, medium, dark. Yeah. Successively.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, it doesn't look like it's done alphabetically. I think they choose That's true. So Charlie Kirk is dark.

You want Rob Schneider and Skillet at the top of it.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh, and don't worry, Skillet's posted again as the last person, if you see there. Skillet twice!

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But wait a second. You know who I don't see on that list is, uh, what's his face? [01:02:00] Oh, oh yeah. Russell Brand. Russell Brand is, uh, is a lighter color. So isn't Robert Kennedy Jr.

Uh, Ty's up there. Tyler Fisher, I don't know. Eric Bowling. Brandon Straka gets a bold lettering,

MATT LECH: I'm gonna guess five times. August is also a band, although I've never heard of that in my Jack Pak. Uh, he is

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: a, um, uh,

MATT LECH: naval

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: intelligence, right. Winger guy. Yeah. Um, Tell

BRADLEY: Big Tree, who's a big anti vaxxer, who Brandon

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Strzok is on there twice!

So is Skillet, that's what I'm saying. This is d This is done so ha So sloppily.

MATT LECH: Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's a big tent of diversity. I mean, one way to characterize it Laura Logan? I mean,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: it is awesome

MATT LECH: that they're letting her out on leave, uh, to go to this event. You got Zionists and you got people afraid of needles.

And a lot of both, um, so.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And you know how you, uh, make it seem like the event is even bigger than it is? You listen. Uh, two of the speakers twice, or two of [01:03:00] the performers slash speakers twice on your poster.

MATT LECH: It's Freak Cogello. I mean,

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: crowd that thing up.

MATT LECH: I, I don't want to give these freaks advice, but I would just say, like, usually when you make a post like this, you put the most notable names at the top.

And I don't, maybe Rob Schneider's that. Um, I guess, but like, I, I, I mean, maybe put Russell Brand and RFK up there, I, I don't know. But

BRADLEY: even Charlie Kirk's, like, the last, on the last, uh, you know, line there was just a little surprising.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Um, here is, uh, uh, Jordan Peterson. And, uh, Dave Rubin, uh, speaking to this crowd to restore the Republic.

DAVE RUBIN: And we should note, you know, just even relative to where we're standing right now with the Washington Memorial behind us and, and the Jefferson Memorial and, and the Lincoln Memorial that these, this country was founded on the idea that we were going to be different. We were going to be different and think different things.

And I guarantee you, if we polled every single one of you out here, this would probably be the widest tent of political [01:04:00] thought in America today. That is rare.

JORDAN PETERSON: The other thing that's, that's interesting about this team, you know, I, I think putting together a revolutionary team in a, in a political landscape is always a dangerous thing because mostly what, what you want from your political leaders when everything is working well is sort of calm and predictable stability so that you can ignore the political and you can get on with your own life and that'd be a lovely thing to see.

And now you have in front of you a relatively revolutionary cabal. L of potential leaders, and there's peril in that. But one of the things that constrains that and hems that in, in the most appropriate possible way, is the fact that all of the people who are putting themselves forward are patriots.

They're American patriots, they're pro-human, and, uh, you're, what

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: is he talking about?

JORDAN PETERSON: Strong advocates for free speech. And[01:05:00]

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: it doesn't seem like there's a ton of people there either. I gotta say. I mean, no, I'm looking for. You got a lot of people on that bill, and I don't know, maybe you can't hear it from the stage. So I feel like it's less than a typical Jordan Peterson show. I sort of feel like that now, just if you're listening at home, uh, uh, Jordan Peterson is wearing a.

Two toned suit that is divided right down the middle. Oh, blue, red and blue. I see. That's very clever.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: He raided Heath Ledger's closet from the Dark Knight or something. So strange. Um, He really is. It's like he's attempting to be a joker. Yeah. All right. Well, let's

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: listen to Brett Weinstein because here's the thing.

There is a wide range of political voices at this conference, but you should know That some of them are provocateurs. They are, of course, feds. And how will you know that they're feds? Because [01:06:00] at this, there's no way there's anybody at this, uh, Rescue the Republic, uh, um, meeting who are in any way racist or, uh, anti Semitic or fashy in any way.

And if you see them, I have an explanation as to why you see them. They

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: just want to mar

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: her.

BRETT WEINSTEIN: Now, as long as we're on the topic of fears, let's confront one directly. If, as the event proceeds, you find yourself faced with someone displaying Nazi symbols, inciting violence or lawlessness, or you encounter a group of people dressed in paramilitary garb, those are assuredly federal agents.

Thank them for their service and move on.

BRADLEY: Crap's abound.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Thank you for your service.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That's not what That's a

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: very, very tight crowd shot. Some of you are no doubt

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: thinking there's It really is. Let's

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: listen to a little bit more. The weather didn't do

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: them any favors.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, I mean, [01:07:00] it's, that is like, they're just like, that's a tight crowd shot, which is

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Also, is it a big tent?

Because I'm seeing a MAGA hat, not a ton of diversity in the crowd.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: They all have a different, uh, they have different political ideas. Like some people think that, uh, COVID was, um, uh, planned and other people think that it was a, um, Uh, a bioweapon. And other people think that it never really even happened.

It was a hoax, yeah. So the full range of beliefs about COVID are there. This is a moron parade.

BRETT WEINSTEIN: Now some of you are no doubt thinking there's something odd about a mission to rescue the republic that includes many speakers from abroad. Yeah. But this is actually a testament to the achievements of the founding generation. Our founding fathers almost accidentally invented the modern west. That's right.

They did it because they had to balance the tensions between the various [01:08:00] colonies in order to persuade them to confederate. The careful job that they did, balancing the various concerns, created a prototype for a world that was not rigged in anybody's direction.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Hey guys, I wanted this to be a fun event.

Uh, what's going

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on? Not rigged in anybody's direction? Uh, I think slaves would have to differ. I guess we

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: should have gotten that, um, I guess we should have gotten that teleprompter. How do we get South Carolina? We got to do what

MATT LECH: the, we're the founders. We need to be, we need to do what's best for equality in the future.

How do we get South Carolina to join us?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, we're going to play in a sec, Russell Brand praying on stage or whatever, but do you know this, how they use this kind of religious language about the founding fathers as if they are our date, like deities in and of themselves. I mean, they bestowed upon us this nation, this it's, it's like religious, um, A religious view of what a nation state is, as opposed to what America actually was, which was, it was forged by conquest and genocide.[01:09:00]

Actually, it was a big gift from our daddies. Oh, right.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Our sky God, George Washington. Thank

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: you.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: All right. So Russell Brand showed up, um, as well. Um, and, uh, I don't think he took Diddy's plane, but honestly, like, not this time. Uh, like I look at this and I honestly think like, is this the. Rescue the Republic, or is this like an SNL parody of it, which is, and I want to make it clear, like, I don't think the SNL parody would be that much more entertaining than this either, uh, but this does not look real to me.

It looks like we, it's like, it's, it's so bizarre. What they have done here, and you know everybody thought they were going to make a lot of cash, and they didn't, and they're

MATT LECH: pissed. As somebody who's been following Russell Brand for about 15 years, uh, not always as a fan, um, Uh, he is not sincere about this at all.

Russell Brand And The Conspiracy Grift - Media Matters - Air Date 1-2-24

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Brand views keep climbing. And as they do, his video titles get more and more ridiculous. At the start of this transformation, it's, Was Trump right? [01:10:00] Trump was right. Trump is right. But pretty quickly, Bran's channel goes full clickbait. It's starting! Here we go! It begins! Why is no one stopping?

It just happened. This will destroy us. This will end us. It's over. The end. All this gloom and doom paranoia brings brand a new financial opportunity. Sponsorships. In 2021, brand's videos start including advertisements for supplements, groceries, The

RUSSEL BRAND: world's first probiotic to support gut, brain, and immune health.

And God knows you need good natural immunity these days! Right, kids? Greens powders. Field of Greens is a science backed formula of specific fruits and vegetables you won't find in any other product. Then There is a way to secure your hard earned nest egg. American Heart for Gold make it easy to protect your savings and retirement accounts with

physical gold.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: And Brand isn't doing this alone. He starts inviting more and more right wing guests onto his show. In 2021, he interviews Ben Shapiro and it becomes one of his most viewed videos of all [01:11:00] time. Shapiro invites Brand on his show, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours.

RUSSEL BRAND: Russell, thanks so much for joining the show.

It's great to talk to you. Wow man, you do a good job of this. Thanks Ben.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: His new shtick gets him invited on other shows too. He goes on Joe Rogan to complain about the Democrats.

RUSSEL BRAND: I don't think that they are creating an agenda to advance the interests of vulnerable people.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: He goes on Bill Maher to complain about MSNBC.

I've been on that MSNBC mate, it was propaganda. And then in 2023 he goes on Fox News, the network he has spent his career criticizing. Not as a critic, but as a fan.

TUCKER CARLSON: Russell Brand has been an actor, a comedian, a podcast host for decades. All of a sudden, he's one of the most forceful voices for the truth in the English speaking world.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: So what happened here? Is it possible that Russell Brand genuinely had a radical change of heart and mind in less than a year? Maybe? I mean, I'm not in his brain. Thank God. But there's a simpler explanation for what's happening here. Call it Rift Drift. See, the problem with the kind of free thinking that Russell was doing in his lefty era is that it's hard to sell.

[01:12:00] Sure, Rand can complain about Fox News and talk about how the media sensationalizes things to keep us watching, but like, then what? How many times can you tell people they need to focus on more serious issues, like environmental justice or antitrust laws or possible alternatives to capitalism? Like, oh my god, it's so hard.

So boring. There's no story arc. There's no heroes and villains. There's no sex. And more importantly, there's no reason to keep coming back. If the problem is that corporate media sensationalizes things, then why not turn it off? You could just stop watching Vox. Go outside. Touch grass. Call your mom, tell her you love her, find a stranger, give him a kiss consensually, start a religion, I don't know.

What's the point in watching Brand make the same argument over and over and over again? In his self proclaimed last episode of The Trues, even Brand admitted that he was bored of making these same free thinking arguments about the media.

RUSSEL BRAND: How far can you go with this cyclical, uh, [01:13:00] reporting on cyclical news.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: So then what is brand really selling? What's brand's brand? Do people really want to watch a washed up comedian explain how money corrupts us or how we need a global revolution against corporate power? Obviously not. Turns out free thinking is hard to monetize.

RUSSEL BRAND: It can't be good, can it, to spend all this time, our eyes, Resting on screens, people on the other side of the screen, hiding, trying to sell us something.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: The more people can actually think for themselves, the less they need carnival barkers like Brand to tell them what's what. And that's bad for engagement. Conspiracy theories give grifters like Brand a way to keep making money. First, you scare your audience.

RUSSEL BRAND: Globalist agenda, the relationship between governments, big business, and a corrupt media are able to crush any dissent.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Then, you keep them loyal. Only I can be trusted, because everyone else is lying to you.

RUSSEL BRAND: You have to find figures, like me, that you

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: trust in media, and get your information from them. Brands videos will often hammer this message home with [01:14:00] titles like, We predicted this, and we saw this coming, and we knew it.

And then, once you've got them loyal to you, you charge them. Give me money so I can keep exposing the truth. All those other sources, they'll lie to you. I would never do that because

RUSSEL BRAND: I love you. I love you, and so, if you believe in free speech, standing up to power, refusing to believe their lies, and finding new truths together, Then join my AwakendWonders community.

Money please!

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: In 2022, Bran launched a locals community where fans could pay 60 a year to talk to each other and see some extra videos of him.

RUSSEL BRAND: Click that red button now and join our movement. Bathe in the rapture. Become an AwakendWonder. And people say this is like a

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: cult. They sure do. And to be fair, he's not the first cult leader to do this.

In fact, Brand's conspiracy schtick is almost identical to what another conspiracy theorist has been doing for the last 20 years. Alex [01:15:00] Jones.

ALEX JONES: I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay!

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Like Brand, Jones billed himself as an anti establishment free thinker.

ALEX JONES: They just want to extinguish thinkers.

Because it's like a big bright light in a room of vampires, they don't like it.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Like Brand, he used conspiracy theories to keep his viewers loyal to him.

ALEX JONES: Folks, I've been told this by high up folks, they say, listen, Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: And like Brand, he used that loyalty to make money, selling everything from nutritional supplements to doomsday prep supplies.

ALEX JONES: To investment in freedom. And fighting the global said we need the funds desperately.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: At one point in 2018, Jones's show was making $800,000 a day. Do you have any idea how much $800,000 a day is? I don't like. What is that number? As the New York Times reported Jones's fundamental insight was that his audience is also a nearly captive market for the goods.

He pedals products intended to assuage the same fear as he stokes.

ALEX JONES: This is do or die time. If you want to keep us on [01:16:00] air, they are trying to silence you. They're trying to take down the leading voice of resistance.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: But while Jones and Brand may be using the same shtick, there's one big difference between them.

See, Alex Jones had to build his conspiracy empire from the ground up.

ALEX JONES: Well, I can assure you, I don't make any money off public access.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: In 1999, Jones got fired from his local radio station for being a wacko. And he had to start broadcasting his radio show independently from his own house. Anytime he dabbled in conspiracy theories, he'd get yeeted by a bunch of radio stations, making it harder to reach new audiences.

He was a fringe outlier, and it took him decades in obscurity before he got enough attention to break into the mainstream. But now, we're in the golden age of grifters, baby! Thanks to YouTube, Bran was making an estimated 2, 000 to 4, Per video posting every day. That's up to $1.46 million a year in YouTube alone.

At the end of 2022, brand used his YouTube channel to announce he was moving to Rumble, a right-wing video platform that's riddled with Q Anon and anti-vax [01:17:00] conspiracy theorists.

RUSSEL BRAND: We have had to move to Rumble. to assure that we are not censored fervor. We would prefer you joined us on Rumble.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: He got an exclusive deal with Rumble producing a show called Stay Free, which is ironic considering how often he uses it to beg for money.

RUSSEL BRAND: We need you with us now more than ever.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Rand is airing his comedy special, Randemic, directly on Locals, which is a crowdfunding site for free speech proponents who've been banned from Patreon that's owned by, oh would you look at that, Rumble. And while he still posts on YouTube, he mainly uses it to Steer fans towards platforms where he can charge them money.

If conspiracy theorists can keep some form of presence on a mainstream platform, they will because they understand that the purpose of that is to reach new audiences. They will use Altech platforms for more extreme content, speaking to a harder audience. Join us on Rumble every single day. This is the new reality of the.

free thinking grift economy. Conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones used to have to worry about going too far and losing access to mainstream platforms, but now they [01:18:00] don't need them. Like, Bran Jones is now broadcasting a show on Rumble, Joe Rogan has the biggest podcast on Spotify, Tucker Carlson gets millions of views on Twitter, and there are dozens of popular conspiracy theory channels on YouTube.

These grifters are constantly cross pollinating. Tucker goes on Bran's show, then Bran goes on Rogan, then Rogan goes on Jones, and Jones uses his show to direct his viewers back to Tucker.

ALEX JONES: We're very, very proud of you, Tucker, and your team.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: It's a circuit of conspiracy grifters all going on each other's platforms so they can sell their viewers merch and subscriptions.

RUSSEL BRAND: So many of Alex Jones ideas have entered into the mainstream. He's a brilliant person to talk to. He's an extraordinary man.

ABBIE RICHARDS - HOST, MEDIA MATTERS: Brand isn't a free thinker. He's a performer who is adapting his act to whatever he thinks will make him the most money. And now that there's an entire conspiracy economy to profit off, he won't be the last.

Some Grifters Who Finally Faced Consequences – SOME MORE NEWS -Air Date 9-25-24

CODY JOHNSTON - SOME MORE NEWS: Here's some news. George Santos is probably going to jail. That's neat. Remember him? He's that former messy US representative and weird liar who lied about everything and was part of the [01:19:00] stop the steal movement, a famous weird lie.

Well, it turns out that when you lie a lot and do fraudulent things and just. Say stuff about people, you can get in trouble for that. I know that sounds outlandish, especially if you've watched this show. Especially, especially if you've watched this show talking about the many right wing grifters that can apparently just openly lie about stuff and continue to be supported by enablers and rubes.

But it turns out that actions can have consequences. Just ask the transphobic and Nazi adjacent super friends, Elon Musk and JK Rowling, currently being named in a lawsuit for saying a bunch of lies online. And boy, these guys are not alone. Literally, as we were writing this, Tim Poole and Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson were exposed as.

Unwitting Russian assets making millions of dollars and maybe pushing propaganda for what they thought was a Belgian investor. Despite that person having no online record and their name being misspelled multiple times on documents. And they still did it. They saw [01:20:00] somebody offer 100, 000 for a video garnering like 5, 000 views and they didn't stop to think, Um, Who's benefiting from this besides me and this ridiculous amount of money I suddenly have?

They willingly repeated the propaganda for money because it turns out that grifters tend to be very stupid and willing to say anything if you pay them. And that's all to say that it's very nice to see these liars facing real consequences for their many, many lies. And so we thought it would be fun. For a change to actually check in with these weird lying freak liars and see how that's going for them, you know, to laugh and point and perhaps some combination of the two.

The internet age, people have forgotten that you can't just. say things online, even people who own entire social media sites. We've far evolved past the days of anonymous usernames on forums and chat zones, spelled with three Z's, but I won't tell you where, as the internet has pretty much taken over reality as we [01:21:00] know it.

And while that sucks and blows, the one silver lining is that very stupid liars seem completely comfortable saying very incriminating things in writing for everyone to see and scrutinize and litigate. So let's look at those dips. Think of it like a, like a, where are they now for red hot spite? And speaking of red things, Alex Jones, a lifetime of pain and pain.

No better appetizer than InfoWars founder, host and cherry flavored baked potato, Alex Jones. Yummers. Well, you know, Jones, he's that conspiracy theorist and brain pill spokesman known for making such brave and bold claims like the Boston bombing was staged or that the Obama administration tested weapons that controlled the weather or that aliens were making cybernetic slaves to serve the devil.

Actually, that last one. Kind of wish that was real. Or at least a movie. You know, give Ron Perlman and Peter Stormare some work for crying out loud! Anyway, speaking [01:22:00] of crying out loud, Jones kind of got away with being a conspiracy party clown until he decided to profit off of the actual death of children, which, for a party clown, is generally frowned upon.

MEGYN KELLY: Alex Jones repeatedly claimed that the shooting never happened. Here he is on InfoWars in December 2014. Uh, but it took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. You said, The whole thing is a giant hoax. How do you deal with a total hoax? It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake.

I did deep research and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen.

CODY JOHNSTON - SOME MORE NEWS: Stumped by Megyn Kelly! All you have to do is say Santa is white, bro, she will hug you! Calling the Sandy Hook tragedy fake naturally upset the surviving parents and families of those real, actual, factually dead children, especially when InfoWars fans kept harassing and accusing them [01:23:00] of being crisis actors.

So they successfully sued Jones for real, actual, factual defamation and won a whopping 1. 5 billion with a big O. B. Dollars in damages. Jones had to file for bankruptcy because, you know, that's what should happen if you lose a billion bucks, especially a billion and a half. Not that anyone should have a billion dollars to begin with, of course, but we're not talking about that today.

Not only did Jones lose his stake in InfoWars and his media company, which is apparently called Free Speech Systems, but he has to cash out his personal assets in order to pay off the lawsuit. Neat! InfoWars is still able to exist and remain in operation. Neat rescinded, but the families involved in the suit can make individual claims to obtain any revenue InfoWars creates.

Neat reinstated! While it's unlikely that those families will be able to fully collect 1. 5 billion dollars, they essentially can claim any revenue that Jones makes going forward for the rest of his goddamn life. [01:24:00] Now, while Jones is trying to shift his money through the supplement company of his dentist father in order to avoid paying them via loophole, these families can still legally pursue him and likely win.

And even though Jones still has a groundswell of fans that will support him beyond all logic and decency, and Jones will bark, bray, and say he won't pay, he is significantly in the sh and is treading water, treading sh water. And unfortunately for him and the frogs, this water won't make him gay. For the foreseeable future, Jones will be bleeding money and on the brink of losing everything at all times.

I wouldn't wish that stress on anybody, except Alex Jones. All that said, while I'm glad for the outcome and have no sympathy for Alex Jones specifically, the whole thing is still just Sad. Sad for the families who lost their kids and then were harassed for years, obviously. But also, like, Jones has kids.

Four of them. One with a new wife, and three with his ex wife, who very [01:25:00] understandably fought for custody many years back. And it's sad to see this very weird and toxic dude double and triple down on this deranged legacy of slavery. Scummy conspiracy grifting, and pass that burden on to other people. Like, one of his kids apparently did an InfoWars video that's since been taken down.

It just has that Westboro Baptist Church stink to it, where this one dude has started this weird little toxic cult, and dragged everyone around him down with him. Because it is a cult, albeit a one person cult. Jones can claim to be a performance artist in court, and that his life is while never actually seeking any kind of change or atonement, even when it's no longer even financially lucrative for him to spread his lies.

So this is just his life now. There's no going back from this. There's no way to rehabilitate, not even in a media landscape that will absolve unflushable turds like Glenn Beck. Jones will just Keep spiraling forever and take as many people as he can [01:26:00] with him. And that's kind of sad. Not as sad as your child dying and then being harassed for it.

So, you know, saying that out loud, I guess I'm not sad for Jones anymore.

SECTION B - SCAMS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Scams.

Why Everything Is A Scam (Except For Scams) - How Money Works - Air Date 12-16-23

@HOWMONEYWORKS - HOST, HOW MONEY WORKS: People suspecting everything of being a scam, apart from scams, the paradox of the grift if you will, does a lot more harm to normal people who don't have the time or resources to thoroughly vet every offer they are given. The people being hurt the most by these smaller scale frauds are not who you would expect. The most common victim of financial fraud is not elderly people with deteriorating mental capacity getting targeted by scam callers claiming to be the IRS. According to data by the FTC, these scams do fool millions of people every year, and more should be done about that to educate and protect people at risk.

It sucks that every single email, text message, and phone call needs to be analyzed for sketchy links and it can be exhausting, but at least it's possible with a bit of attention to stay on the right side of these scams. But the fastest growing category of financial fraud is much harder to protect yourself [01:27:00] against.

And to show you why, we need to talk about influencers. Seeking fame and fortune is nothing new, and people running get rich quick schemes on late night cable are nothing new either. But technological and cultural changes have allowed these people to merge into one. I don't want to reveal my age here too much, but back in my day, celebrities were afraid of being labeled as sellouts.

They had to be very tactful about promoting their merch or their fans would turn on them. Today, selling out is the goal. Modern celebrities and influencers are celebrated for launching a new product line and go on interviews where they talk extensively about how much money they make. There is nothing wrong with celebrities making money, and some influencer businesses sell great products, but a lot don't, and a lot get much worse.

According to a 2021 survey conducted by the FTC on consumer losses through scams, 61 percent of all fraud contacts initiated on social media and websites. Email, online ads, phone calls, and text messages were all fighting for whatever was left. The people you watch and trust online are by [01:28:00] far the most likely to scam you.

Influencers know that their influence won't last forever. Tastes change, their audience will outgrow their content, or they could be caught up in controversies that gets them kicked out of their respective platform. That's show business. But the problem for the new age of celebrity is that the antics that they self publish onto the internet would make it impossible for a lot of them to get a real job afterwards, so they need to make enough money in their few years of fame to fund their lavish lifestyle forever.

It's not impossible to do legitimately. But it's much easier to do by jumping on the latest trends. If you are an influencer and you know your audience is eventually going to get bored of you anyway, it's very tempting to make as much money as possible off them on the way out. And that's the second reason why people think everything is a scam, apart from scams.

Fraud is exciting. Reality is depressing. Imagine you had 10, 000 to spare, and you are deciding where to put it. A BlackRock broad market exchange traded fund, or a crypto token from a YouTuber. I really hope you all watching know what the right choice is. On a different corner of [01:29:00] the internet, you will see people hyping up very risky plays to an impressionable audience while making laser eyed video thumbnails about how BlackRock secretly rules the world.

One of the biggest business and finance influencers in the world, Patrick Bet David, has made countless videos talking about the dangers of Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street while defending multi level and network marketing, including his own multi level marketing life insurance company. BlackRock is not a faultless business, but your money will be safer with them than it will be with the average influencer.

My friend Richard over on The Plain Bagel made a great video about why investing won't make you rich. It can only build wealth by accelerating diligent savings. But that's boring, and that kind of content doesn't make as much money or perform as well with the algorithm as flashy displays of material wealth and non compliant claims about making money.

Even influencers not peddling get rich quick schemes need to over sensationalize everything to maximize engagement. Influencers are an easy target for ridicule, and I understand as a now full time YouTuber myself, it's tempting to use the flames and laser eyes.

But it all builds a culture [01:30:00] of getting as much attention as possible, as quickly as possible, and then trading that influence for cash. The biggest problem is that there appears to be very few consequences for doing this. People like Logan Paul, who at the height of the cryptocurrency mania promoted several pump and dump schemes, has to date had no problems with regulators who are struggling to keep up in this area as well.

He also hasn't even taken that much reputational damage and still has millions of fans watching his videos and buying prime energy drinks. Another friend of the channel, Patrick Boyle, in an interview with Zeke Fox, an investigative reporter for Bloomberg, and author of Number Go Up, said that the grift is not something to be embarrassed about anymore.

It's now seen as high status, because the most visibly high status people are all doing it. Fox also claimed that investigations into this matter almost don't make sense anymore, because the perpetrators of this kind of fraud are so unashamed and open about it that an investigative journalist doing an exposé on Dink Doink would be like a food critic writing a review on Taco Bell.

And that's the third reason why we think everything is a scam apart from [01:31:00] scams. Fraud moves faster than we do. New technologies like cryptocurrencies, AI, and the internet all may have legitimate marketable uses, but it can take years for people to figure out what those use cases are and years more to build businesses around them.

It's little wonder, then, that the new technologies are a golden opportunity for fraud. By promising to know the secrets to using something new to make lots of money, grifters can leverage the natural hype of barely understood tech to sell a guide on how to use it for a profit. The Hustle Bros that were selling crypto trading guides when Bitcoin was entering the mainstream are now telling you how to use ChatGPT to make millions by automating some vaguely legitimate sounding online business.

This problem hits every level of finance, not just course gamers. The venture capital funds that were throwing investor money at blockchain companies are now throwing investor money at anything that claims to use AI. And the influencers that were crypto experts now know how to use ChatGPT to make 300 a day.

The rapid pace of new technologies that people are desperate to understand is [01:32:00] behind the rapid pace of new frauds pretending to know the answers.

Trump's Pro-Crypto Policies Explained - TLDR News - Air Date 10-7-24

So, as we see it, Trump has three crypto adjacent policies. First he wants to replace Gensler, the current head of the Security and Exchange Commission, or SEC, which is the body responsible for regulating financial assets in the US.

Now Gensler has cracked down on crypto assets over the past year or so, making him deeply unpopular with the crypto community, and Trump is presumably planning to get rid of him so that he can loosen some of these new regulations. Secondly, he wants to create a new strategic Bitcoin reserve, essentially requiring the Fed to hold Bitcoin as a reserve asset in the same way that it holds gold.

And thirdly, he wants to stop the Treasury Department from creating a central bank digital currency, which is something that decentralized crypto advocates worry could usurp decentralized cryptocurrencies. So let's run through each of these plans one by one, starting with reforming the SEC. Now this seems to be the root of Trump's recent [01:33:00] crypto enthusiasm, because a couple of months ago he took the stage at the 2024 Bitcoin conference in Nashville, where after a few minutes of his usual meandering, he suddenly got a standing ovation for announcing his intention to fire Gary Gensler on day one.

Now Trump probably won't actually get the chance to do this. Every SEC chair since the agency was set up in 1934 has resigned when the presidency changed party, allowing the new administration to get their own pick. Nonetheless, Trump's anti Gensler rhetoric strongly suggests that he would probably pick a more crypto friendly chair as Gensler's successor.

For context, Gensler has led a sharp crackdown on crypto assets under his term, making him deeply unpopular with the crypto community. At the heart of this debate, or dispute, is the question of whether or not cryptocurrencies should be considered a security, and therefore subject to SEC regulations. The relevant test here is the so called Howey test, which comes from the famous 1946 Supreme Court ruling which found that the Howey Company, [01:34:00] which was selling tracts of citrus groves to buyers in Florida, who would then in turn lease the land back to Howey, was indeed selling securities.

In that ruling, the court provided three key criteria for what counts as a security. Namely, securities involve the investment of money in a common enterprise, and with profits derived solely from the efforts of others. Broadly speaking, Gensler's SEC thinks that at least some cryptoassets meet these criteria, while crypto bros disagree, and argue that cryptoassets are less like stocks and bonds, and more like a new technology or digital commodity.

Anyway, a more pro crypto SEC chair would probably reduce the scope of which crypto assets the SEC would consider to be securities, making it easier to trade them and probably boosting the value of crypto assets like Bitcoin. It's also worth saying that Trump personally stands to gain from this too, via his new crypto company, World Liberty Financial.

Now, to be clear, Trump doesn't actually own this [01:35:00] company. It's actually technically registered to two guys previously involved with Doe Finance, a recently hacked blockchain app, and one of them is also a former YouTube pick up artist called Zach Folkman, who used to run a company called Date Hotter Girls LLC.

However, 70 percent of the non transferable crypto tokens that World Liberty plans to sell are allocated to insiders, including Trump and his sons. These tokens are non transferable because that makes them less likely to be considered securities by the SEC, but if Trump defangs the SEC, then him and his sons will be able to sell their tokens without worrying about SEC regulation.

Making millions, if not billions of dollars. So, let's get into Trump's second crypto policy, a strategic bitcoin reserve. Here, Trump is basically endorsing an idea put forward by pro crypto senator Cynthia Loomis, via her new Bitcoin Act. According to the draft bill, the act would require the US [01:36:00] to buy and hold a million bitcoin over five years.

and hold them for at least 20 years. Now the treasury is already sitting on a stash of about 200, 000 bitcoin, mostly confiscated from illegal operations. So buying the remaining 800, 000 would cost about 50 billion dollars at current prices. Although obviously the price of bitcoin would skyrocket once the US announced that it had started buying them up at scale.

The idea here is to use Bitcoin as another reserve asset, like gold or foreign currencies. Now this would be unorthodox, because Bitcoin isn't really considered a reserve asset, largely because of its price volatility. However, in simply treating it as a reserve asset, the federal government could essentially transform it into one.

After all, once financial institutions and other states know that the U. S. government wants to buy a million bitcoin, they're going to be far more likely to hold it in reserve, because they know that the U. S. government will act as a buyer. The U. S. could also turn a tidy profit, given that bitcoin would almost [01:37:00] definitely skyrocket if this policy was enacted.

However, there's some anxiety that this could chip away at the dollar's reserve currency status. Whether or not you think this is a real concern will depend on whether or not you think the dollar is at risk and whether bitcoin is a suitable alternative, but it's at least true to say that it would be a bit weird to see a sovereign state with the world's reserve currency tacitly endorsing a technology explicitly meant to replace it.

But let's move on to Trump's third policy, stopping the US from creating its own digital currency. For context, the Federal Reserve is currently exploring the creation of a digital dollar, technically known as a Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. In theory, CBDCs will be far easier to track, which means that states will be better equipped to tackle stuff like tax evasion, money laundering, and terrorist financing, and could also provide states with a near total knowledge of their economy, allowing them to craft more effective economic policy.

However, crypto enthusiasts [01:38:00] don't like CBDCs, because they imagine crypto as a decentralized alternative to national money, and worry that a digital dollar would squeeze out other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. All in all, these are some pretty wild policies that will probably send Bitcoin to the proverbial moon, but they'd require Trump to both win in November and convince Congressional Republicans to give up their more orthodox positions on monetary policy.

Pig-Butchering: A Texting Scam With a Crypto Twist - The Journal. - Air Date 11-2-22

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Pig butchering starts with A seemingly innocent text message and once the scammers catch a victim, they convince them to start investing in crypto. They have the victim set up an account on a fake crypto exchange and over the course of months, they steal more and more of the victim's money. And why is this called pig butchering?

ROBERT MCMILLAN: It's a reference to the idea that you're fattening up this fake online account. You think you're making money, so that's the fattening of the pig, and [01:39:00] then at the point when you actually realize you have been scammed, you're dead to them, you're butchered.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: And who is behind it? Where are these scammers based?

ROBERT MCMILLAN: There are a lot of people doing it, but the group that I interviewed for my story, the Global Anti Scam Organization has identified some Asian based scammers. So they're thought to be run by Chinese individuals who bring scammers into compounds in Laos or other Asian countries where they sort of work like office jobs scamming people. It initially, a few years ago, these scams were concentrated on victims in China, but they've, in the last two years, they've expanded and they're hitting the United States right now.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: How long has it been around?

ROBERT MCMILLAN: Well, pig butchering, I mean, the name is new. Yes, it was first coined in Asia and China about four years ago, I think, this scam was happening there, but it moved to the United States last [01:40:00] year and it's really taken off this year.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Bob says these scamming operations target people who are educated and wealthy. They also look for someone who might be a little lonely.

ROBERT MCMILLAN: The thing that really got me about it is it just preys on this fundamental human decency of you get a wrong number and you tell somebody, "Hey, I'm sorry you made a mistake," and that... I'd like to live in a society where you could have serendipitous interactions with strangers and they can lead to friendships, that's something that I think is a mark of a healthy society and that's being abused with this scam.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: These kinds of scams, where the scammers gain the trust of the victim by building a relationship with them, they have a name, they're called confidence scams.

ROBERT MCMILLAN: Pig butchering is from that family, but it has sort of a crypto twist to it. You believe that you're making a lot of money, you believe you're fattening your account, but you're making all this money on a fake crypto [01:41:00] exchange, on a website that looks like it's a crypto exchange, but it's just a website run by the scammers. So they give you a little account there and you make some initial trades and you look like you're making a lot of money.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: You're feeling actually smart because you're like, "Oh, I'm doing the thing that the cool kids do, I'm making money on crypto."

ROBERT MCMILLAN: That's right, "I have this friend who I've met online who understands crypto and I'd heard about it and finally, I'm doing what everyone else is doing, making big money."

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Right and it feels like it preys on this... the fact that many people don't understand crypto and they think, "Oh, some people became billionaires, and maybe I could."

ROBERT MCMILLAN: Right. And the fact is that cryptocurrency is really an amazing rail for moving money very quickly across borders. It's really good at that. And if you're a scammer in China or in Asia and you want to get money from people in America, the old techniques were slow and painful. You'd have to get somebody to... You'd [01:42:00] have convince them to go to a Western Union and wire the money. Now you don't have to leave your house, you could do it in your pajamas. You can be swindled for a million dollars in your PJs.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: So crypto is sort of an essential piece of this new scam?

ROBERT MCMILLAN: Of the pig butchering, yeah.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Yeah.

ROBERT MCMILLAN: Yeah. So it's that unknown, the fact that if you're going to be involved in cryptocurrency, it's not that weird that you would go to a website that you've never seen before. People aren't buying it at Bank of America or Wells Fargo. So already you're dealing with this world where the names aren't so well known to everybody and who's legit and who's not legit it's just not common knowledge at this point.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: FBI officials told Bob that in the US last year, pig butchering cost victims more than 400 million dollars.

ROBERT MCMILLAN: It's kind of remarkable how far they will go to convince you that they are real [01:43:00] people. You may have heard of the Nigerian prince scam where you get these clumsily written email messages that you're supposed to respond to in order to make millions of dollars. This is far beyond that. So I think the amount of effort that they're willing to make to sort of convince you that they're real is greater than what a lot of people have been expecting.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Jane Yan is in her fifties. She was born in China and now lives in Delaware with her husband. She works as a business analyst at a software company, and in January she got a text.

JANE: The first text message was saying, "Are we going to the salon tonight?"

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: And what did you think when you got that?

JANE: I think that person got the wrong person, so that I respond, "I think you got the wrong person. I don't know who you are."

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: But this random number kept the conversation going. He told her his name was Eric, that he was in Seattle for business and was on his way back to [01:44:00] China. He told Jane he had a daughter there and that his parents were helping take care of her. Jane thought he sounded like just a regular person and they moved their conversation over to WeChat, a Chinese social media app.

JANE: After the first day... actually he greet me daily, "Good morning. How you doing?" Even at the beginning, I wasn't really desire to engage the conversation, but I thought he was someone very consider, very kind. Then the conversation getting to talk about the family, talk about food, talk about travels and then eventually got to the investment, obviously.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: And do you remember when he brought up this investment?

JANE: If I remember [01:45:00] correctly, it was January the 28th, a week into the conversation, and at the beginning I just brushed him off because I didn't understand those stuff. I said, "Oh, I don't understand this," and I didn't want to get into detail, talk about it.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Did you have interest in crypto?

JANE: Not particularly because I don't really.... I don't do lots of investment myself. Yeah, I have some stocks, but I don't understand crypto that well. So I didn't really have any desire to invest in there. But he say to me, "Oh, don't worry. I will teach you. I walk you every step the way."

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: And he did. Eric helped Jane open an account on a legitimate crypto exchange, Coinbase, and then he [01:46:00] helped her set up another account on what appeared to be a different crypto exchange, but this exchange was actually fake.

JANE: I had my log in, I can go and check my account, so I mean, now I notice how shady these platforms are, but back then I thought, "Well, yeah I have my own log in. How wrong can it be? It just like another bank account."

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: In February, Jane put $5,000 into her account and made her first transaction. In three minutes, her investment rose 20%, to $6,000.

JANE: After first trade, I was shocked. I was like, "Wow, you can make money that way, really?" And of course he has an uncle that was giving us the inside information and I was so [01:47:00] appreciative. I was like, "Wow, I see you share this inside information with me." And I say, "Thank you."

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Right.

JANE: Yeah.

KATE LINEBAUGH - HOST, THE JOURNAL.: Did you talk to your family about it?

JANE: No, I didn't. Also, he told me not to tell anybody. He said, "Don't tell anybody about investment. People think that's lies." And he said this inside information, I cannot tell anybody else.

SECTION C - CONSPIRACY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next, Section C: Conspiracy.

⚠️Why Does The Right Always Fall For Conspiracy Theories?⚠️ - Dark Brandon - Air Date 9-12-24

DARKESTBRANDON - HOST, DARK BRANDON: It's interesting that all these conspiracy theories are embraced from those on the right or the MAGA cult.

And the question really remains is, why are those on the left? susceptible to misinformation like those on the right, right? And maybe that has to do with critical thinking. And I think it also has to do with, you know, when a person has been conned or been led to believe or has a foundation of falsehoods, right?

Um, of reality based on falsehoods, they're going to be more inclined to, to believe or embrace [01:48:00] other falsehoods. But let's dive in. Let's start with the classic, shall we? Uh, remember when the right was convinced Obama was secretly a Kenyan Muslim plotting to destroy America from within? I mean, Who hasn't accidentally become president while hiding their true identity and affairs plans?

It happens. To the best of us. And, you know, this one was, you know, the best part is Donald Trump played a role in that conspiracy theory, right, where, you know, you could really point some conspiracies to Alex Jones, but there are some that you could point to Donald Trump as the creator or the birther of this birther conspiracy.

But wait, there's more. Let's dive deeper into the rabbit hole of QAnon. But be warned, this conspiracy is like a turducken of crazy layers upon layers of wild claims stuffed inside of each other. At its core, QAnon believers think there's a secret war going on between Donald Trump and the cabal of the satanic pedophiles who run a global sex [01:49:00] trafficking ring because apparently running the world's economies and governments just isn't exciting enough for the elite.

They needed a hobby. It all started in 2017 when someone called themselves Q began posting cryptic messages on 4chan. Because nothing says top secret government insider like using an anonymous image board known for memes and trolling, right? Oh man, uh, now these Q drops are supposedly coded messages about Trump's master plan to take down a deep state.

It's like, you have James Bond communicated exclusively through fortune cookies, right? I mean, followers spend countless hours trying to decipher these vague posts, convinced they're uncovering earth shattering truths. Spoiler alert, they're not. None of Q's predictions ever came true. None of these decrypted things that they uncoded, you know, uh, came to be true, right?

But let's dive deeper. Let's break down some of QAnon's greatest hits, right? First, there's the belief that many Hollywood celebrities [01:50:00] and Democratic politicians are secretly pedophiles who drink the blood of children to extend their lives. Forget about kale, smoothies, and yoga. Apparently, the fountain of youth was child blood all along.

I guess nobody told them about the existence of, you know, regular blood donations. And then we had this idea that JFK Jr. faked his death in 1999, and then is secretly working with Donald Trump. Some believers even thought he'd 2019. Spoiler alert, again, he didn't. But don't worry, they just moved the goalpost and said it would happen later.

QAnon also claimed that Trump was secretly working with Robert Mueller to uncover Democrat crimes, not the other way around. Because nothing says undercover cooperation like publicly insulting each other for two straight years. Oh my god, during the COVID 19 pandemic, QAnon really outdated stuff. They claimed that the virus was a hoax created by the deep state to control the [01:51:00] population.

But wait. It's also a real bioweapon created by China. Oh, and it's spread by 5g networks and the vaccine. That's bill Gates trying to implant us all with microchips, because obviously the guy who couldn't even get rid of computer viruses is now an expert on his human ones. But I mean, come on. Let's not also forget the time QAnon followers thought furniture company Wayfair was trafficking children through their website.

How? By selling suspiciously expensive cabinets with human names. Never mind that custom furniture is often pricey, or that many products have human names. Nope. Must be trafficking. Oh. What about the time when Trump got COVID? QAnon believers said it was a genius ploy to avoid assassination attempts and secretly arrest his enemies.

Because faking a life threatening illness is totally what you do when you're the most powerful person in the country. Most recently, some QAnoners have started believing that vaccines will make you magnetic. [01:52:00] Yes, you heard that right. Forget Iron Man, we're all magneto, I guess. Nobody told them that syringes are made of non magnetic materials.

But why let facts get in the way of a good story? And just when you think it couldn't get any wilder, some QAnon followers have started incorporating flat earth beliefs into their ideology. Because why stop at one debunked conspiracy theory when you could have two? And that's the really mind bending part.

Countless failed predictions, zero evidence. QAnon believers just keep doubling down. It's like they're watching someone play the world's longest game of Jenga, constantly rearranging their beliefs to keep the tower from toppling. In the end though, QAnon isn't just a harmless internet joke, it's torn apart families, radicalized individuals, and even led to real world violence.

It's a stark reminder of how powerful and dangerous conspiracy theories can be when critical thinking goes out the window. And so now you might be wondering, how do people fall for this stuff? Well that brings us to an important part of [01:53:00] critical thinking, understanding the burden of proof and recognizing biases.

See, in the world of rational thinking, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. If I tell you I have an invisible dragon in my garage, it's not your job to prove me wrong. It's my job to provide evidence to demonstrate that there is an invisible dragon in my garage. And, you know, this claim, do your own research, that doesn't count as evidence, right?

That is what's going to be required to meet that burden of proof. When we start talking about bias, we all have biases, but the key is recognizing them. Confirmation bias, for example, is when we seek out information that confirms what we already believe. It's like going to a flat earth convention to prove the earth is flat.

You're only going to find exactly what you're looking for. That doesn't make it true. Another tool in our creative thinking toolkit is Occam's razor. And this is a principle that suggests that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. So what's more [01:54:00] likely? A vast shadowy cabal controlling world events in secret, or a bunch of humans muddling through and sometimes messing up?

And let's not forget about the importance of reliable sources. A YouTube video made by some guy who makes cartoons isn't on the same level as a peer reviewed scientific study. I know, shocking, right? So the next time you come across a wild claim, ask yourself, who has the burn of proof here? What biases might be at play?

What is the simplest explanation? And where is this information coming from, right? You talk about immigrants eating pets, right? Who has the burn of proof there? The person making the claim that somebody's kidnapping pets and eating them, right? What biases might be at play? Well, the people who are against immigrants .

People who want to put immigrants in a bad light. Making a claim like that, right? That really does that, right? And what's the simplest explanation, right? Maybe some dogs are getting lost, right? Maybe cats are running away from home. But this idea that immigrants are stealing them and they're going to eat them?

This is the fear [01:55:00] monbringameth they do on the right. So remember folks, critical thinking isn't just for debunking conspiracy theories. It's a vital skill for navigating our complex world.

How to Argue with Conspiracy Theorists (And Win) Part 1 - Zoe Bee - Airs 12-23-20

ZOE BEE - HOST, ZOE BEE: Who is a conspiracy theorist? Well, that depends on how you define conspiracy. Conspiracy theory, and yes, conspiracy theorist.

Conspiracy theory, at least the way that we usually use it, is kind of an umbrella term that can cover everything from 9 11 truthers and the JFK assassination to Bigfoot and aliens to the Illuminati and our government being run by lizard people. The study of conspiracy theories is relatively new, even though conspiracy theories themselves have been around for literally centuries.

But scholars have mostly come to agreement on what conspiracies and conspiracy theories are. We define a conspiracy as a secret arrangement between two or [01:56:00] more actors, to usurp political or economic power, violate established rights, hoard vital secrets or unlawfully alter government institutions to benefit themselves at the expense of the common good.

Conspiracy theory refers to an explanation of past, ongoing, or future events or circumstances that cites as a main causal factor. A small group of powerful persons, the conspirators, acting in secret for their own benefit and against the common good. So what does this mean? Well, basically, a conspiracy is when a group of powerful people does something in secret that is good for them, but bad for the public.

And a conspiracy theory is when people think that some event or circumstance is caused by a conspiracy, even if the official story doesn't agree. This definition is still a little broad, but it does narrow things down a little bit. For instance, with this [01:57:00] definition, the mere belief in aliens doesn't make someone a conspiracy theorist.

A person only becomes a conspiracy theorist if they believe that aliens exist and the government is hiding their existence from the public for some nefarious reason. This definition also shows the difference between conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Basically, conspiracies are true. They are events where people in power covered up something or hid something from the public, and there is enough evidence of it that a majority of experts agree that the conspiracy happened.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are just that, they're theories.

They are, as yet, unproven suspicions that about the facts of a particular event or group, usually going against the establishment story. From this, we can now get a definition of conspiracy theorist. A conspiracy theorist is a person [01:58:00] who believes that some event has been caused by a group of powerful people for reasons that benefit them to the detriment of the public.

Now, again, this is a little broad. Statistically, almost two thirds of Americans are, using this definition. conspiracy theorists. Does that number sound a little high to you? Well, consider that the JFK assassination is a conspiracy theory. Do you really believe the official story on that? If not, you're a conspiracy theorist.

You could also consider some more mainstream economic views to be conspiracy theories. Take, for instance, the platform of Bernie Sanders, who believes that the top 1 percent are conspiring against the working class to hoard wealth. Now, , I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but if you believe this, you're [01:59:00] a conspiracy theorist.

Does this make all of us conspiracy theorists? Even if you believe a couple of conspiracies, you probably don't consider yourself a conspiracy theorist, right? It's okay. Most people don't. The term is pretty loaded and not in a good way. It's come to be synonymous with crazy or paranoid, and it even carries some political baggage.

Most of us think of conspiracy theorists as right wing nuts. But most of this negative connotation associated with conspiracy theories is actually unwarranted. Conspiracy theorists aren't crazy or irrational or stupid. People usually think of conspiracy theorists as out of touch with reality or that they have some sort of clinical paranoia disorder.

That's not true. Statistically, conspiracy theorists have mental illnesses at the exact same rate as everyone else. And, [02:00:00] from an evolutionary perspective, it just makes sense. Think about it. If you are a cave person and you see some rustling in the bushes, you should assume that there is something dangerous behind it, because then you will be prepared for the worst case scenario, which is how you survive.

And that is what conspiracy theorists are doing. Conspiracy thinking is simply choosing to believe that there are dangerous people behind the rustling all around us. Conspiracy theories are as old as civilization. They are not a new phenomenon by any means.

They are ancient, and they span generations and religious affiliations and political parties. No one group has the sole rights to conspiracy thinking. But knowing this, it can be hard to pinpoint what exactly draws people in. I mean, if conspiracy theories are universal, there must also be some universal human [02:01:00] trait that predisposes people to conspiracy thinking.

So, if we know that conspiracy theorists aren't crazy, then what are they? I mean, why do some people believe conspiracies and others don't? Well, it's complicated. People don't believe conspiracy theories because they have better facts. Because they don't. That's why they're conspiracy theories, and not accepted journalistic truth.

People believe conspiracy theories because they give them comfortable answers to uncomfortable questions. The big question that conspiracy theory scholars are trying to answer is what makes a person more or less likely to be drawn into conspiracy theories? What makes someone reject the accepted truth and instead find their answers in conspiracies?

Well, there are a few theories here. The most popular theory, probably because [02:02:00] it's so inflammatory, is the loser theory, which posits that people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories when they are on the losing side of an election. People don't like to feel powerless, so they look for answers for why their powerlessness isn't actually valid.

If they lose, it's not because they were actually wrong, it's because the other side cheated. This is where a lot of political conspiracies come from, because politics is inherently win or lose, at least the way that our current electoral system is set up. Take the Obama birther conspiracy. Those on the losing side of that election, Republicans, were more likely to believe the idea that Obama was illegitimate because it would mean that he was a liar and a cheater.

The Republicans were honest. They were the real winners. Or, consider the Russiagate conspiracy. Democrats wanted to believe that Trump colluded with Russia, whether [02:03:00] or not there was actually enough evidence to back this up, because it would mean that he wasn't fit to be president. It would mean that they still deserved to be in power.

That they were still in the right.

This Is Why People Love Conspiracy Theories - ABC Science - Air Date 9-29-24

DR MARK WILLIAMS: Basically our perception of the world isn't what we actually see. We're making up what's actually out there based on basically predictions. We're predicting what we're actually saying, and then we're creating this visual world. And so we need patterns so that we can do that quickly. A really good example of that is the, No stopping sign just down the end here.

And the no stopping sign is red. And the reason that captures your attention is that we learnt that red signs or red things are potentially dangerous. Red in itself, of course, isn't dangerous, but we've learnt or we have a pattern in our brain.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: Right, so it's a bit of a shortcut.

DR MARK WILLIAMS: It is a shortcut, yeah.

Pattern recognition gives us these really simple ways of actually perceiving the world. But of course, because the world's not simple and people aren't simple, we then make a lot of mistakes when we're actually doing things, and especially when we're doing things [02:04:00] quickly.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: And is that what conspiracy theorists are doing?

DR MARK WILLIAMS: Absolutely, yes.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: Like when I show somebody a photo of random noise and they see a picture in it, does that mean that they're making a pattern that actually doesn't exist?

DR MARK WILLIAMS: Yeah, illusory pattern perception is a really cool experiment where we show people these patterns and people perceive things that aren't there often.

But those patterns, they're illusions. They're not actually there.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: And are some people more prone to seeing these patterns than other people?

DR MARK WILLIAMS: We're more prone if we're in a state of stress. So we all saw the awful things that happened at the end of Donald Trump's reign in power in the US and how dedicated the MAGA.

people were to Donald Trump. And that has a lot to do with the fact that they felt as though they were in danger, right? They're going to hear what Donald Trump says completely differently to someone who actually isn't keen on Donald Trump. We're always perceiving things differently based on what we actually want to hear and what we don't want to hear.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: So a [02:05:00] conspiracy theory starts as pattern recognition gone wrong, and that gets amplified by a lack of control over events happening around us. But a person's conspiracy belief can be locked in when they find other people that confirm what they think. Is that what confirmation bias is? Yeah,

DR MARK WILLIAMS: absolutely.

We like to be right as humans, and so we notice when things actually confirm our biases, and we don't notice when things don't confirm our biases, and all of us do that constantly.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: I'd love to believe that I don't have these biases.

DR MARK WILLIAMS: not true. , I'm gonna show you right now how susceptible you are to all of this.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: Great. Oh God.

DR MARK WILLIAMS: So we have four cards here with letters and numbers, and we have a rule, and you've gotta work out whether the rule is actually correct, and the rule is that if there is a vow, then there is an even number underneath. Yeah, okay, but you're only allowed to turn over two cards to confirm or disprove that [02:06:00] theory So which two cards would you actually turn over right?

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: Sure So I'm trying to prove or disprove the rule that under every vowel there is an even number. That's correct Okay, so I would choose A and four. You are susceptible to confirmation biases. Great, good. Alright, so I just fell into your trap, is what you're saying? You did, but 90 percent of people would actually choose those two cards, which is to go with the A and the four.

DR MARK WILLIAMS: The rule is, is that if it's a vowel, then there's an even number underneath. But not if it's an even number, there's a vowel underneath. Oh, okay, right. So using this one isn't actually ideal. Confirmation bias is about always trying to be right. What you're trying to do, which most of us are trying to do, is confirm, yeah, that the hypothesis is correct, rather than actually trying to disprove that it's correct.

What you actually need to look at is under nine, it's not okay, yeah, to have a bow underneath the nine. Right. So that's the one you should actually look at. [02:07:00] Yeah, A was correct though, so well done. You got 50 percent of it right. I got 50%, that's a pass! It is a pass. It is a pass. So, is there any way of preventing people from falling into conspiracy beliefs?

So, all Depends on how many of those rules or patterns you actually have in your brain. And so actually increasing the number of patterns you have by actually learning and experience in the world, traveling, for example, having lots of different friends that you actually interact with, all of those things are actually going to increase the number of options that you have in your brain that you're comparing with others.

More people in our in group is also going to help. So we want an in group that has lots and lots of people from different experiences so that they can tell us, or talk to us, about whether or not their conspiracy theories make sense or don't make sense.

ROBYN WILLIAMS - HOST, ABC SCIENCE: So I guess what I've learned overall is that pattern recognition is actually a pretty essential skill. And when people are seeing patterns or shapes in that random noise, they're kind of [02:08:00] showing off that skill. It's just that when you combine that with confirmation bias, it can tend to lead people astray in some situations.

And the fact is, we're all susceptible to that.

How to Argue with Conspiracy Theorists (And Win) Part 2 - Zoe Bee - Airs 12-23-20

ZOE BEE - HOST, ZOE BEE: Some people just make fun of conspiracy theorists and mock them.

And, yeah, I get it. It's fun. We all want to dunk on people who we think are stupid. It feels good to feel smarter than someone else. But, like, maybe don't. Like we just discussed, conspiracy theorists aren't unintelligent or paranoid or mentally ill. They just happen to have the right concoction of uncertainty or fear or loneliness at the right time for a conspiracy theory to look like an attractive solution to their problems.

Mocking someone will literally never get them to change their minds. Others try the info dump method, where they just throw every single piece of information, every math formula and science paper and famous person quote that they can get their [02:09:00] hands on at their conspiracy theorist friend. This also doesn't work.

People aren't really receptive to mountains of math and science. And this isn't just specific to conspiracy theorists. This is kind of just how humans are. We have a hard time conceptualizing things as abstract as math and science concepts. So, this method is also a no go. Now, some people are aware that they need to provide facts, and so they turn to experts.

But, these so called educators aren't actually very good at changing people's minds. Neil deGrasse Tyson, for example, is notorious for being passive aggressive and pompous on social media, or consider the popular I fucking love science page. Media like this is only convincing for one group, the people who already believe it.

It does no good for people who need scientific [02:10:00] information the most. Now, this isn't exclusive to the side of facts. Conspiracy theorists also have their own echo chamber media outlets. But what we do about those is a subject for another video. So what are we supposed to do? I mean, if we can't use facts and logic to change people's minds, how are we supposed to save our loved ones from the grasp of the rabbit hole?

Well, there are a couple of answers. One answer is to just not. To just avoid debating conspiracy theorists. Because in the age of the internet, good ideas often get drowned out by theatrics. Memes that sound good will always be more convincing than well reasoned but boring or heavy handed arguments. So what is even the point in arguing?

If you're trying to change the mind of a loved one, though, this answer isn't really viable. You can't just [02:11:00] ignore them forever. In fact, ignoring them could end up alienating them further and pushing them even further down that rabbit hole. So what do you do? How exactly do you change the mind of a conspiracy theorist?

Well, first, you approach them with respect. People love talking about themselves, and conspiracy theorists also, generally speaking, will jump at any opportunity to potentially convert you to their side.

So, if you engage with them respectfully, give them a chance to make their case, it will open up a great pathway for communication. Now, this isn't to say that your ideas are actually equal. One side does actually have facts to back them up. I'm not a conspiracy theory apologist here, and I don't believe in giving platforms to misinformation or hate speech, but if you're trying to change someone's mind, you have to start with [02:12:00] respect.

This does not apply to actively harmful beliefs that fall under the conspiracy theory umbrella. If your loved one's beliefs are predicated on the assumption that some people aren't people, respectful disagreement will not change their mind. If they hold beliefs like this, you must challenge them. Now, not all conspiracy theorists believe the most extreme versions of whatever conspiracy theory they believe.

So, second, you need to determine where exactly your loved one lies on the conspiracy theory spectrum. What, exactly, do they believe? As you're listening, don't go into it assuming that they are wrong. After all, they assume that you are the incorrect one, and they could be right. When they're explaining their beliefs, be sure to engage with them.

Repeat their ideas back to them periodically, because this helps you to understand what they're saying, [02:13:00] and it helps build trust and rapport. The third step is where you actually start the debunking.

If you have facts and figures on hand, you can use those. Show them where they might be incorrect, but also acknowledge where your own weaknesses lie. The best thing to do, though, is to use physical examples. Something that they can see with their own eyes or touch with their own hands. Math and science are really abstract and hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, maybe even you yourself, so don't lean too hard on those if you don't have to.

One other great tactic is to look at the extreme versions of their conspiracy beliefs. One great tactic is to look at the more extreme versions of their conspiracy beliefs. If they can see the errors in those more extreme arguments, they could start to turn that reflective eye onto themselves in time.

It also gives you the chance to show that you don't think your friend is crazy. You trust them and are willing to work [02:14:00] with them against a common enemy. In the course of your discussion, they will probably come back at you with some arguments and facts of their own, and while you can debunk those if you want, arguing about the details.

isn't actually super productive. Pointing out their logical fallacies is something that a lot of internet debaters do, but it's not always productive either. Ultimately, if you want to debunk their arguments, you need to go to the root of the issue. Look at the why behind their beliefs. Start at the most basic facts and premises of their position, and then get to the details.

If you can show them flaws at their base, then everything built on top of that base is productive. We'll start to crumble. Pro tip time! Conspiracy theories often rest on several assumptions. 1. There is, somewhere, a sometimes quite large group of powerful people. 2. All of the people [02:15:00] are working together. 3.

All of the people are keeping their work a secret. 4. All of the people are willing to go against the public good. 5. All of the people are somehow doing all of this while keeping up the veneer normalcy. Now, think about every single group project that you have ever done in your life. Yeah. A lot of conspiracy theorists have a warped view of how the government and businesses and even just human nature work.

It's all a lot less streamlined and efficient and organized than they imagine. Remind them of that. Generally speaking, though, the best thing to do is to give them physical evidence, examples they can see with their eyes, feel with their hands, and to point out hypocrisies in the messages from their side's experts.

If you can prove to them that they've been lied to by the people they thought they could [02:16:00] trust, then they may lose faith in their conspiracy theory experts, and begin to trust the real experts again. However, you need to be pretty careful with this, so that it doesn't feel too much like an outright attack.

Remember, respect is key.

SECTION D - MISINFORMATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Misinformation.

Media Literacy Can't Save Us Part 2 - Dummy - Air Date 10-7-24

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: In the summer of 2021, my friend and I were stopped at a gas station in Arizona by a man named Larry. Who asked if he could interview us for his YouTube channel. My friend didn't notice the Don't Tread on Me style t shirt he was wearing, and so cheerily agreed on our behalf to do the interview. I, however, suspected that Larry had asked us in particular, because we were two young people wearing masks in an otherwise maskless part of the country at this time.

Two young libs that he could own on camera. Curiosity got the better of me though, so we talked with Larry and he recorded. Larry told us that we were potentially foolish to have taken the vaccine, that it could be dangerous. I pointed out that vaccination rates correlated with less COVID by county at the time, [02:17:00] demonstrating their efficacy to me.

But Larry waved those numbers away by just saying, Oh, no, no, no, no, Those numbers are made up. You know, I could tell you about more details of the conversation here, but the whole thing basically went like that, where Larry's fears became problems that society needed to answer for, and even when the answer was relatively clear, that didn't mean that he accepted it.

This moment stands out in my memory whenever I think about misinformation, because it's In that conversation with Larry, it felt like I was talking to the personification of misinformation. Someone who distrusted all available evidence and believed what he wanted to. I think we all know a Larry in one form or another.

Misinformation became something of a household concern around 2016 with The Trump campaign, you are fake news and Brexit. I think the people in this country have had enough of experts with, uh, organizations from acronyms mutating during covid.

DONALD TRUMP: Looks like by April. You know, in theory when it gets a little warmer it.

Miraculously goes away. [02:18:00] Hope that's true.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: And eventually just kind of existing in every conflict now.

DONALD TRUMP: They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: I think that a lot of people are uncomfortable with what misinformation does, both to people and society, for good reason. So solutions have been something of a hot topic in the last decade.

And the most popular answer, by far, is media literacy. Media literacy has been championed by educators, activists, video essayists, and Random people online who claim to care about the truth. The prevailing discussion centers media literacy as an antidote for a post truth world. Sure, the rich and powerful may tell lies to everybody, but if they don't believe them, then who cares?

The National Association for Media Literacy Education, or NAMLY, defines media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. My friend Zoe, who you'll see throughout this video, recently made a video of her own on this topic, where she stress tested this definition in various ways.[02:19:00]

ZOE BEE: The Zoe B take is that media literacy is having intellectual humility and curiosity for, or about, I'm not sure which preposition to use here. So it's having intellectual curiosity and intellectual humility for the things that you are consuming. Acknowledging that your perspective is not the only one, that there is a multitude, Perhaps even, like, an infinite amount of perspectives that one can have in media or have about media.

And curiosity, meaning wanting to actually figure out what those different perspectives are. And so that's why I think those two things are, like, I'm just going

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: to accept the definition from Namely for the purposes of this video, mostly because I read a lot of work from them and definitions aren't my main focus right now, as long as we have a working one that is broadly agreed upon.

Oh, also, um, I'm almost exclusively talking about news and informational media literacy in this video, so if you came here to see me dunk on random [02:20:00] Attack on Titan takes, Sorry, wrong video. The popular understanding of media literacy that you might find on Twitter or YouTube is pretty optimistic, and I think that that's for good enough reason.

But the popular conception often leaves out a lot of the actual history. Media literacy didn't simply spring into existence in 2016, when we realized that people don't trust the news. In 2009, writing for the first volume of Namely's Journal of Media Literacy Education, I was Scholars Renee Hobbs and Amy Jensen describe the complex, evolving history of media literacy education as a highly contextualized activity that takes many forms.

It's easy to see media literacy as an extension of the practice of rhetoric developed during the 5th century B. C. to teach the art of politics. It's also possible to see its roots in the emergence of film as a tool for teaching and learning, particularly in the development of language, critical analysis, and literacy skills.

They also recognize that the field is incredibly diverse in its opinion on the purpose of media literacy, often described through the tension between protection and [02:21:00] empowerment. Two opposing, or sometimes complementary, Goals that media literacy education can work towards. Early 20th century media literacy study arose from the analysis of propaganda, wondering if education could protect readers from undue influence.

More recent conceptions have focused on civic engagement and empowering students with the technical ability to participate in an increasingly complex communication environment. The history that leads up to modern media literacy is broad and far reaching, drawing from many disciplines like technology, communication studies, media studies, education, political science, rhetoric, and the broader humanities.

A real beast of a sub discipline, which kind of drove Zoe and I both insane this summer.

ZOE BEE: Not to like make it maybe a bigger deal than it is, but it sort of like affects everything. Media is, one could argue like all things, all things are media, or at least all things are communication in some form.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: My mind is currently dominated by confusion.

I, I, I, I think that this topic is Yeah.

ZOE BEE: It [02:22:00] is quite a quagmire.

IMNOTTHEDUMMY - HOST, DUMMY: From the late 90s up into the 2010s, however, the field had begun to focus on what I'll refer to in this video as an educational approach to media literacy, governed by that definition from Namely I read just a minute ago. In this conception, media literacy is something that we can teach people, a kind of modern critical thinking toolkit.

To clarify this a little further, I think it's helpful to look at Hobbes and Jensen's analysis of Namely's core principles, which help them to define media literacy not just by what it is, But also by what it isn't. Though they don't want to excuse media makers of their broader responsibilities to society, they also are clear to point out that media literacy is not a place for media bashing or a leftist ideological perspective on media systems.

Instead, they view their role as teaching students how they can arrive at informed decisions. that are most consistent with their own values. More on this later. This educational approach is the media literacy that I grew up with, and based on my viewer demographics, if, uh, you got any media literacy [02:23:00] education when you were growing up, it probably looked like this, too.

You probably had an emphasis on research skills and finding trusted sources. For me, once a semester, we would have one English or History class where we'd go down to the library and be told that Wikipedia is bad, actually. The focus is on students thinking critically about media they consume, rather than being critical of media.

And though I'm teeing us up for a criticism of this in a second here, it's not because I hate it or because I think it's ineffective, even. I respect Renee Hobbs and the other scholars whose work I have cited in this video, A lot. And it's clear to me that media literacy education has made massive advances in the last 30 years, proving that, when done right, this stuff really works.

In one study in 2017, over 2, 000 youth, ages 15 to 27, were shown a sample of evidence based social media posts, mixed in with posts with misinformation. The study found that those with media literacy education were better at identifying misinformation and at avoiding ideological bias. And it seems that [02:24:00] this effect wasn't just a product of education, but media literacy education specifically.

They found in this same study that other education, like prior political knowledge, didn't have the same protective effect as media literacy education. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this study also indicates that political knowledge is an insufficient support for accurate judgments of partisan claims.

In contrast to these findings regarding political knowledge, we were heartened that media literacy learning experiences that aim to promote accurate judgment of truth claims appear to be helpful. Individuals who reported high levels of media literacy learning opportunities were considerably more likely to rate evidence based posts as accurate than to rate posts containing misinformation as accurate, even when both posts aligned with their prior policy perspectives.

And similar studies have shown that news media literacy can help adults to identify conspiracy theories. Another study from that same year of 400 adults found that greater knowledge about the news media predicted a lower likelihood of conspiracy theory endorsement. Even for conspiracy theories that aligned with their political ideology.

There [02:25:00] are many such studies that show this type of efficacy for media literacy, that when it's done right, it helps people believe lies less often, which is really great.

Across The Grifterverse - Pillar of Garbage - Air Date 5-25-24

PILLAR OF GARBAGE - HOST, PILLAR OF GARBAGE: It's nigh impossible to exist online without being aware of the alt right, at least in vague terms. Even if you've not personally delved into the weeds of what trends and practices distinguish the alt right from traditional conservatism or whatever else, you know there's a bunch of mostly youngish white guys very concerned about the plight of the young white male, centred on message boards, folding in formerly fringe conspiracies, weirdly an outgrowth of new atheism, Pepe the Frog, blah blah blah.

You can't not know that. But it wasn't always this way. So let's start to bring in some of the figures most responsible for changing that, for unifying and codifying the alt right and their tactics. This is Steve Bannon. He's done a lot of things in his life, but probably the two most noteworthy ones were being a founding board member and later chairman of Breitbart News, so, you know, [02:26:00] and becoming President Trump's chief strategist in 2017.

And the latter was a fairly direct consequence of the former. See, Bannon's big idea was that to change politics, you had to change culture. As a report from Buzzfeed seven years back made clear, this was his goal with Breitbart. At first covertly, as seen in a whole cache of secretive, now leaked emails dictating editorial focus guerrilla style around the early sights of the culture war, and then not covertly.

A watershed moment was the development and publication of Breitbart's so called Establishment Conservatives Guide to the Old Right. This piece was spearheaded by one of Bannon's protégés, Milo Yiannopoulos. Maybe you've heard of him. You know, he's the definitely not a nazi whose leaked passwords included longknives1290 and awordbeginningwithcrystal.

This is him here, singing karaoke to a [02:27:00] room full of people, saluting with one arm? Don't worry though, he later clarified he couldn't see what they were doing. They were too far away! He couldn't make any of it out with his poor little weak eyes! No story here, wait, what's this photo doing here? Anyway, Yiannopoulos manifesto broke down the alt right into various categories.

The intellectuals, like noted white nationalist Richard Spencer and various manosphere thinkers, the natural conservatives, you know, guys who don't like foreigners or minorities for sensible reasons, the meme team, and the 1488ers. Yiannopoulos had developed the piece in conjunction with feedback from guys like the Daily Stormers admin and Theodore Beale, aka Vox Dei.

Breitbart's editors did their best to sand down the rougher edges of the overtly racist figures the article knowingly incorporated, and Bannon even helped out, circulating the draft to gain some establishment conservatives perspectives. Upon publication, the manifesto was influential, and raucously received by the alt right.

After this [02:28:00] point, there was little need for the mask to stay on at all. A few months later, in July 2016, Bannon declared the website THE platform for the alt right. A month later, he was officially unveiled as the chief executive of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. And we all know what happened next.

This was The Goal, from Minute One. As that Reddit post I showed a while back alluded to, even before Breitbart, Bannon had seen the radical potential of the nascent alt right space while involved in a World of Warcraft gold farming company 20 years back. An article in USA Today quotes Bannon as saying, These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power.

Reflecting on his mentoring of Yiannopoulos through Gamergate to that codifying manifesto, Bannon continues, I realized Milo could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned on to politics and Trump. This is the central truth [02:29:00] of the alt right, the natural conservatives, meme teamers, and so on.

Before they were assets, they were marks. Why am I telling you all this though? Is there some clip I'm about to show you of these jabronis just hanging out with Nerdrotic or Brian Kinnell or something? Well, no, nothing like that, but there is a connection worth making here, if a more conceptual one.

Because Bannon, Unopolis and friends, at least, In large part, they built the playbook our YouTube chud cluster has perfected. Nearly all of those classic crypto fascist narratives and tricks have direct precedent here. Pre release woke spotting of geekdom properties, Breitbart did it. Blaming everything on Amy Pascal or Kathleen Kennedy?

Breitbart did it. Emphasizing some essential whiteness under catastrophic attack? Breitbart did it. Breitbart helped mainstream it. If you've ever wondered how stuff like The Great Replacement or cultural Marxism conspiracy theories went from the fringe to the heart of popular discourse, [02:30:00] these guys are a large part of that answer.

Theirs are the hands at the center of that 2014 16 era Overton window yanking. So, it isn't that our current crop of alt right firebrands, the fandom menace, or that are Bannon's protégés themselves, are Breitbart's sleeper agents, or anything like that. No, they are the results of that shift. They were the marks.

They are the fruits of that changed culture. The first generation of pundits to grow to prominence from the fields. Bannon, Yiannopoulos, and Breitbart watered, now mature enough to begin linking up with, if not the Breitbart crew themselves, their allies, furthering the alt right Culture Change Project.

Because it isn't simply legacy, the links here aren't just conceptual ones after all. Bannon's had Alex Jones on his war room, has praised the latter's political thinking,

STEVE BANNON: if you look at the evidence to that effect, You are one of the great thinkers of [02:31:00] this. That is very rare. You've got to go back almost to the revolutionary generation and see that.

In this new book, I gotta tell you, when Tony Lyons first approached me, I read this thing, I go, this is it.

PILLAR OF GARBAGE - HOST, PILLAR OF GARBAGE: He's also been on the Blaze Network, for what that's worth. Jeanopolis worked with Proud Boys founder and, again, Friday Night Tights guest Gavin McInnes on the latter's censored. tv platform, and Theodore Beale, aka Vox Dei, one of the guys Yiannopoulos checked his alt right manifesto with, yes, viewer, you have heard that name before.

He is the same white nationalist that ol buddy John De La Rose, remember him, used bounding into comics to cape for, and whose company, Castalia House, published De La Rose. Oh, and he's also published books by the Info Wars linked Mike Cernovich and by Pesobic. Again, a turning point man, and also a signal booster for bounding into comics.

Gee, it's funny how little distance separates our YouTube fanbase, Grifter Gang, from the out and out white supremacists, isn't it?

The Future of Truth: Journalist Steven Brill - The Takeout - Air Date 6-30-24

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: Section 230 and programmatic advertising. They're completely different, but they are [02:32:00] very, very important to this conversation.

STEVEN BRILL: Right. So, Section 230, which some of our listeners and viewers have heard of. Right. Most may not have, and they certainly didn't hear of it when it was passed in 1996. If you go back and do a, uh, do a search, there wasn't a news article written about Section 230 for, for like four delightful opening to the book, by the way.

It really is great. You just, you know, when I first did a search, I said, what's going on? The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, they don't have Section 230? What's wrong with them? But the reason is, it was passed in 1996 as three paragraphs in a multi hundred page telecommunications reform bill.

meant to regulate the nascent cell phone and cable television industries, right? Had nothing to do with social media platforms. Social media platforms didn't exist.

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: They weren't in anyone's mind's eye. There

STEVEN BRILL: were however, these three dial up [02:33:00] services. Yes. People of a certain age, you and me raised my hand.

Yes. Remember called AOL. Prodigy and CompuServe. Yes. And for 5 a month, you could sign up for them. You've had to pay. So you weren't anonymous. You were paying and they had, you know, half a million people, each million people, each, um, not the billion people that the platform set. And as part of your, your payment, you not only could use email a new thing, you could also join.

chat rooms where you could talk about, you know, the New York Yankees or the Yankees or bridge or dolphins or food or whatever you wanted to talk about. And as those communities of interconnected people would sign on, they type some comment in and a couple of people in a couple of these chat rooms, uh, wrote stuff that was defamatory about somebody else or some other business.

One of the [02:34:00] platforms, I think it was prodigy. I get it mixed up. said, and, and this person sued the platform because the platform had published this bad thing, publisher and prodigy. I think I'm getting this right. So we're actually not a publisher. We just let anybody write anything. We don't look at it. We don't screen it.

Right. Uh, so we're not

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: accountable.

STEVEN BRILL: We're like the phone company. If I call you on the phone and say something bad about him, phone company is not responsible. You know, anybody can call and say anything they want. I'm not. You know, censoring your phone conversation or a mailman doesn't get sued for something.

The other company, maybe it was AOL said, had advertised that we do screen things. We take this seriously. We don't want, uh, pornography on our chat sites. We don't want defamatory language because they said they do screen, they were held liable.

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: So various members of Congress. The good actor [02:35:00] penalized, the bad actor or the indifferent one got free.

STEVEN BRILL: Let off. So a few members of Congress, some Democrats, some Republicans, not controversial at all, um, inserted at the last minute on a Friday afternoon. Nobody paid attention because it was a Friday afternoon in August. They all wanted, you know. To get off and at, and at the airport for the summer recess, they put in this three paragraph, uh, section called the good Samaritan act, good Samaritans to protect the good Samaritans at one of the platforms that was attempting to clean up their stuff.

So at age 11, Mark Zuckerberg became a good Samaritan. And that has the social media platforms grew. They have used that liability protection. It's the only business you and I know of where Where the companies are completely immune from any [02:36:00] harm that their products cost And that's section 230 and that allowed Mark Zuckerberg famously to move fast and break things Which was the you know, the motto at Facebook and it still is today So instead of doing anything about it, they would just go to Congress and apologize and say, you know, we really, really care.

We really try hard. We're sorry.

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: And programmatic advertising, what is that? And how does that fuel in ways? I don't think anyone in my audience, cause I never understood it. Fuels, monetizes and makes, if not permanent, near permanent. The spread of disinformation. You've said

STEVEN BRILL: it probably better than I can.

It's It's the other hidden technological evil that was originally considered yet another marvelous technology breakthrough. So, it used to be, if you watch the, you know, [02:37:00] the cable series Mad Men, That people at ad agencies would go out for long lunches and create creative campaigns and they decide Let's advertise on CBS instead of NBC or let's do Time instead of Newsweek Right or the Journal instead of the New York Times or

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: get these

STEVEN BRILL: seven regional newspapers But not those seven over there.

Now 80 percent of advertising is done by An algorithmic auction process. So what the advertiser is looking for is someone with a particular set of demographics. I want to reach, I'm BMW. I want to reach everybody who went to a Jaguar website in the Acela corridor who's between 30 and 60 years old and who also has an income of X or I want to reach everyone who went to a website looking for fertility treatments and [02:38:00] who, and who's in the Northwest region or who's in France, whatever it is, you don't care where the ad appears.

They would, the, the product is the person, not the space on the website of the advertiser. It sounds perfectly logical. It sounds perfectly efficient. It's not efficient

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: and the surface benign, but it's not.

STEVEN BRILL: So here's how unbenign it is. Um, In, a couple years ago, guess who the biggest single advertiser was on the premier Russian propaganda news site?

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: I know the answer because I read the book. You tell them. The

STEVEN BRILL: icon of American capitalism, Warren Buffett.

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: Warren Buffett. Yeah.

STEVEN BRILL: So how did that happen? Warren Buffett owns Geico. Not because Warren Buffett signed up for it. Not because anybody signed up for it. Their marketing people have no idea until we brought it to their attention.

Nobody does. So Warren Buffett owns GEICO. There's an extra irony here because GEICO, whose headquarters is [02:39:00] just, you know, a few blocks down, um, is the Government Employees Insurance Corporation, founded to serve the armed forces during World War II and in the Cold War. Who probably were more interested in serving America's armed forces than in funding Vladimir Putin.

And yet there you go. Um, another example,

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: we're not talking about Trump change. Oh,

STEVEN BRILL: no, there's a lot of money. There's, there's billions of dollars that is going now. Now Putin doesn't particularly need the money, but I'll give you an example of where people are in it for the money. Remember when Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked at their home?

Yep. Um. That night, a website called the Santa Monica Observer, which is a website posing as a local news website. Not a local news website. Not close. Not remotely. No, it's a total hoax site. We had identified it a couple years before at NewsGuard for running stories, for example, that [02:40:00] Hillary Clinton had died in 2015 and a body double had substituted for her during the debates with President Trump in 2016.

So that's the kind of website it is. They ran this story saying that Paul Pelosi had actually been in an encounter with a gay prostitute. Now, they put it on their website, then they then they put it on their Twitter account uh, with the headline, and the headline links back to the website. That's the game here.

Uh, Elon Musk saw fit to retweet it. Mhm. Donald Jr. saw fit to retweet it. It became viral. Hundreds of thousands of people visited the Santa Monica Observer website. The Santa Monica Observer website therefore got all that programmatic advertising from Hertz Renicar, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Comcast, you name it.

You know, every brand name you know. All

MAJOR GARRETT - HOST, THE TAKEOUT: [02:41:00] finding themselves suddenly, algorithmically in bed with a hoax website Paying to produce, paying them to produce something that is manifestly false and has been proven in court to be false, and the perpetrator has admitted guilt and been sentenced all of this.

That's where we are.

Brief: Trump Temple Playlist - Conspirituality - Air Date 10-19-22

MATTHEW REMSKI - HOST, CONSPIRITUALITY: Amidst an endless parade of absurd and disorienting moments in Trump's cursed political arc, this one seemed to stump the political journo class.

At the New York Times, Michael Gold called the episode odd. Surreal, said the New Republic. NPR and the Washington Post and the Huffington Post called it bizarre. And Twitter users captioned clips of the event as weird and insane. And a lot of this commentary, I think, failed to connect this moment to the typical Thursday night dinner party at Mar a Lago.

where Trump is his own DJ, spinning Broadway tunes and Celine Dion from Spotify [02:42:00] on an iPad patched to a sound system so loud it prevents conversation, except for sycophants yelling out compliments on his taste. In that sense, Trump This session simply merged his stump life with his home life, but here at Conspirituality Podcast, we see something else recognizable in this improvised ritual, because the world we cover is strewn with the wreckage of charismatic patriarchs who bleed their followers dry in the closed loop system of cultic dynamics.

When leaders like Trump get to the end of the line, their world is stripped down to pure affect. They have exhausted themselves in the efforts of self aggrandizement. And they may have nothing left to say because they've said it a thousand times. They're all out of stories. They might even be bored of their own bullshit.

They might be underslept or dysregulated by chaotic schedules. They're [02:43:00] not sure where they are. They feel beset by enemies. They feel ill and in cognitive decline, but they can't admit it. But most importantly, when they start to feel overwhelmed by their followers pathetic, in their view, neediness, they will reach for any help they can get in maintaining their emotional dominance.

And what October 14th showed us is that in these moments, Trump's go to resource is canned music and, without his own iPad at the ready, A DJ handler who can spin the tracks.

DONALD TRUMP: But we'll listen to a couple of songs if you want, and that's okay with me, I like it. So we'll do that, uh, we'll do those songs that we had mentioned.

Justin. And if Justin doesn't get it right, he gets fired.

MATTHEW REMSKI - HOST, CONSPIRITUALITY: But at this point, I think it'll take a lot for Trump to fire Justin Caporale, his event manager, not just because he's been a faithful servant since 2016 and was pivotal in organizing the January 6th [02:44:00] riot. And he also provided some of the muscle for Trump's Arlington Cemetery stunt.

Trump has plenty of feckless goons, but by having his fingertips on the rally music iPad, Justin may have the keys to the last remaining inner sanctum where Trump can maintain a sense of safety and dominance. This feeling of being at home. Justin's special skill is that he can keep the trance state of Trump's self regard Transcribed and the devotion of his followers going.

Now, obviously, this usage of music is not unique. Music is used always and everywhere for affect conditioning to prime audiences for receptivity. Kamala Harris rallies are wall to wall music as well, and so are church services. Many of the gurus and cult leaders we study use music during their sermons and liturgies to generate contagious feelings of ecstasy and possibility.

And in the self help world, just [02:45:00] think of any Tony Robbins event. Music diminishes cynicism and irony, it tones down the reasoning brain, it encourages right hemisphere wonder and awe, and it gives that relief that comes from a sense of timelessness. And maybe you've noticed that Trump often defaults to a grammar and intonation that suggests that he's always looking back on things that are yet to happen, but will, of course, turn out his way.

We're going to win, we're going to win, it'll be so beautiful, he'll say things like that. It's the sound of nostalgic prophecy. Or consider that opening clip I played when he pinged the moment of silence during his triumphant return to Butler, Pennsylvania, where he survived that attempt on his life. It's as if he's speaking of his own resurrection in the far distant past and how it restored the world.

The music is always at hand to facilitate his [02:46:00] bounce into eternity. When Trump gapped out on Monday night, all Justin Caporale had to do was to pull tracks from the existing campaign playlist that followers will hear while waiting for him to arrive at events, often hours late. But at the town hall, in a stump context, Trump crossed a threshold.

Usually, when he drifts into the maudlin portion of his rallies, he has to catch himself and remind followers that it's not all over yet, that they still have to get out and vote. But not so much this time. He really did simply fade to music, using the playlist not just as a priming device for his speech or an outro after delivering the goods, but as a surrogate for his presence, and, in what I would argue, is a sign of his weakness.

Narcissistic exhaustion, he allowed the music to stand in for the effort of the raw emotional dominance that is his sole product. It was like a [02:47:00] Jesus take the wheel moment for the guy who thinks he's Jesus.

So, in my journalism and research on cultic groups, I've studied a lot of charismatic leaders who step right up to this line of full musical abandonment. Kundalini Yoga founder and serial rapist and fraudster Yogi Bhajan was a huge fan of using hypnotic music to heighten the impact of his BS teaching.

Jim Jones was a huge music guy. He promoted the People's Temple Choir as a recruitment arm. The Hare Krishna movement famously used chanting to generate altered states that could facilitate compliance with the demands for mindless labor. And some breakaway sects of the Krishna movement, including the one that Tulsi Gabbard grew up in, in Hawaii, which was called The Science of Identity, led by the ex Hare Krishna adept Chris Butler, who was basically Famous for his homophobic and [02:48:00] Islamophobic views, they remained faithful to the Krishna reliance on chanting.

Sogyal Lhakar, formerly known as Sogyal Rinpoche, the famed author of the Tibetan book of Living and Dying, who was later found by an independent investigation to have been abusing and defrauding his students, would often close out an all day and night ritual with a long and weird DJ set, often with his girlfriends singing or dancing near him, and while of course the whole group was exhausted.

Amma, the hugging saint of India who was alleged to abuse her inner circle while cozying up to Hindu nationalists, rakes in millions with all night chanting festivals in airport hotels around the world. And at Rajnishpuram in Oregon, music was integral to generating the trance states that bonded Osho's followers to him.

A former musician for the group wrote, quote, It is [02:49:00] impossible for me to separate playing music for Osho from being with Osho. And that's really important because what music does in these situations is that it collapses the space between the leader and the follower in scenes that look unbearably awkward from the outside but feel altogether different from within.

That collapsed space is how we get the following testimony collected by NBC reporters who asked the Oakes Town Hall attendees what they thought of the unique evening. I loved it, said Jay Bauer, who was in attendance from Montgomery County. I felt like I was sitting in a room with him. Just him. I could have been there another hour, another two hours.

I was just great spending time with the president. But he wasn't spending time with the president, was he? He was spending time getting his emotional cavities filled up with Pavarotti, Sinead O'Connor, Axel Rose, Leonard [02:50:00] Cohen, and the village people. For Jay, Trump accomplished what all charismatics aspire to.

He created a dyadic, intimate feeling. He became the sound, the voice in the follower's head. Now, I've heard countless members of Charismatic Group say just exactly this, he was speaking directly and only to me. It's a really common experience in these scenarios, and it's perfectly depicted if you saw this film, Jane Campion's great 1999 movie, Holy Smoke, with Kate Winslet as Ruth, the young spiritual seeker off to India.

And then Harvey Keitel as this macho cult deprogrammer that is hired by her family to get her out of the yoga group that she's been recruited into. During the recruitment scene, you see how a moment of eye contact between Ruth and the guru sends her into a tunnel vision hallucination of rapture. But with Jay, [02:51:00] Trump is able to accomplish something that every exhausted charismatic would envy.

Because of the music, he doesn't even have to really be there or paying attention. He can disappear into his own pleasure. And he can do that because he assumes that that pleasure will make his power and soul transparent to and accessible to his followers.

Credits

Novara Media,

The Majority Report,

Media Matters,

Some More News,

How Money Works,

TLDR News,

The Journal,

Dark Brandon,

Zoe B,

ABC Science,

Dummy,

Pillar of Garbage,

The Takeout, and

Conspiratuality.

Further details are in the [02:52:00] 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 those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also, coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from bestoftheleft.com.

Add your reaction Share

#1664 All That Gets Wrongly Blamed on Immigrants: Lies about the economy, crime, election integrity, Social Security, and more! (Transcript)

Posted by · October 22, 2024 10:56 AM

Air Date 10/22/2024

[00:00:00]

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

This is your one-stop reference guide to every issue that is being wrongly blamed on immigrants, as the Trump campaign rhetoric turns evermore fascist and xenophobic.

Sources providing our Top Takes in under 40 minutes today include:

Democracy Now!

Crazy Town

The Lever

Velshi and

The Zero Hour.

Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there’ll be more in four sections:

SECTION A - MIS/DISINFORMATION

SECTION B - REALITY CHECK

SECTION C - OTHERING and

SECTION D - SOLUTIONS.

Deportation First Trump and Harris Compete for Latinx Votes While Pushing Anti-Immigrant Policies - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-16-24

AMY GOODMAN: With just 19 days until the presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are ramping up efforts to appeal to a major voting bloc in battleground states: Latinx voters. Democratic [00:01:00] presidential nominee Kamala Harris appeared at a town hall with Latinx voters in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted by Univision last week. She took a question from Yvette Castillo.

YVETTE CASTILLO: And I’m an American citizen, born to two Mexican parents. They were here before I was even born. They have worked their whole lives. But with the way immigration laws change over time, I was only able to help my dad get his legal status squared away, but not my mom’s. My mom passed away just six weeks ago.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Oh, I’m so sorry.

YVETTE CASTILLO: And she was never, ever able to get the type of care and service that she needed or deserved. Sorry.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Take your time. Take your time.

YVETTE CASTILLO: So, my question for you is: What are your plans, or do you have plans, to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole [00:02:00] lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: There are real people who are suffering because of an inability to put solutions in front of politics. I mean, an example of this on immigration policy is that as it relates to what we need to do to strengthen our border.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Republican candidate Donald Trump will take the stage with Latinx voters tonight in Miami at a town hall also hosted by Univision.

For more, we go to Austin, Texas. We’re joined by Marisa Franco, director and co-founder of Mijente, a national organizing hub for Latinx and Chicanx communities.

Welcome back to Democracy Now! We had you on at the Democratic convention in Chicago, Marisa. I wanted to get first your response to Kamala Harris. What she responded to this very emotional plea was the support of the Biden administration for the bill that [00:03:00] militarizes the border further. Your response to the Democratic and Republican approach to how to deal with the immigration crisis in this country?

MARISA FRANCO: Hey there. Thanks for having me.

That story is heartbreaking. And it’s a story that many, many people experience in this country. We are now close to 40 years since the last legalization in this country. Vice President Harris’s response is insufficient. The woman was not talking about the border. She was talking about the fact that her mother lived in this country, contributed to this country and was part of her community and was her mother, and could not get the care she needed and had no recourse. And all around, we’ve seen — and she mentioned she was able to adjust the status for her father but wasn’t able for her mom.

There has been, unfortunately, immigration reform in this country. It has been deportation first and building [00:04:00] a huge infrastructure to survey, to identify and detain folks. And that includes at the border. What we’re seeing at the border is horrible. The border bill was not going to be a solution, and it will not be a solution for Vice President Harris to mimic Donald Trump’s policies on immigration. In fact, she has to contrast.

I think Latinos, by and large, even when they say immigration or border security is an issue for them, it’s a much more nuanced view. I think people want a fair shake, and they’re seeing that — I think what’s happening is that folks are generally — this is not just an issue in the Latino community, but generally. Working-class people are — the math isn’t mathing. Whether it’s their wages, whether it’s their job conditions or the cost of living, you know, just trying to make it, people are barely keeping their heads above water.

And what Donald Trump has presented is “Who’s at fault?” And instead of it being the billionaire class, instead of it being corporations not paying their fair [00:05:00] share, he’s blaming the easiest people to blame, which has been done time immemorial in this country, which is blame immigrants, blame the other.

Kamala Harris is not contrasting that sufficiently enough. And she didn’t answer that woman’s question. And I think the question remains: What will happen to folks who have been living, working and part of our community in this country who have no real recourse to be able to adjust their status in this country?

JUAN GONZALEZ: And I wanted to ask you, Marisa: What’s your sense of the enthusiasm for voting? Clearly, in 2020, there was a huge surge of Latino voters in the last election. But there are key states. A lot of people focus on Arizona, but I also keep reminding people that there’s a million Latinos who live in the state of Pennsylvania, perhaps the biggest —

MARISA FRANCO: Yes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: — battleground state. What is your sense of the enthusiasm among Latinx voters [00:06:00] in terms of this election?

MARISA FRANCO: I think Harris-Walz will win the majority of Latino voters in this election. That, to me, is very clear. At the same time, it’s never been Trump’s goal to win the majority of Latino voters. He just has to win enough of a sliver of it. And I do think there are real cracks.

And I don’t know that the right question is, like: Is Harris doing enough? Is the Harris campaign doing enough? I think that, in many ways, that campaign is behind the eight ball in terms of what the Democratic Party has done over the last many, many years in terms of their posture not just to Latinos, but to Black Americans, to working-class people broadly in this country.

I think the enthusiasm is — you know, I think there was a surge after Biden stepped out and she came in. And I think it’s leveled out. And I think it’s the economy that’s really, really hurting, and the fact that Biden is not popular and she’s not contrasting [00:07:00] herself enough. And so, in those states where it’s going to be very, very close, I am somewhat concerned that there’s not going to be enough of a margin, because I think that there’s — you know, I think a lot of people don’t know exactly what her plan is, or the plans that are being put out are not really capturing folks’ imagination or interest. So, I think it’s going to be very close, and I don’t know that there’s huge enthusiasm, I would say, in the community right now.

Escaping Otherism Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide - Crazy Town - Air Date 6-12-24

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: So it may be that we're talking about escaping othering, maybe it's recognizing it's not something we can completely escape from, but try to navigate and manage in some ways.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: But I do think we have to recognize and name and combat the truly dangerous and vile forms of othering that's happened.

And a lot of it does, you want to talk about the history, comes from the playbook of colonizers, right? We talked about this in our seasonal watershed moments. I think it was [00:08:00] episode 51, where we talked about the papal bulls and the doctrines of Christian discovery. In a sense, that was the papacy rubber stamping, authorizing the Spanish government, the Portuguese government and others to go out and conquer and divide up Muslim and pagan lands, to authorize slavery, authorize exploitation of the natural world. They codified that basically.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yes.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And led to a sort of a playbook of doing this around the world.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah, and I think that that ties into economics, of course, too. So in that season, related to these watershed moments, we talk about this as well about, and this was covered really well in the Seeing White podcast. There's a really interesting teachings of Suzanne Plissik of the Racial Equity Institute. And the story of what is defined as a different race or what is an inferior race versus superior race, it can't be separated from the story of labor, and rich [00:09:00] landowners in colonial America needed this reliable, consistent labor force. And they didn't want, they didn't want labor forces that were poor binding together. Bonding about their social status. And so they pitted white laborers against these racial African--

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: So indentured white slaves. Yes, chattel, those in slavery.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And so that prevented coming together because of class difference, of class solidarity, right? So this is how othered/othering can be used for empower dynamics to by the prop up the status quo and those in power

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah, and this is where it gets so heavy -- it's just even hard to think about all the examples throughout history and into today of this sort of "divide and conquer" approach that colonizers have used. Maybe more recent example and horrendous is the genocide that happened in Rwanda about 30 years ago. The [00:10:00] numbers are staggering. As many as 800,000 people were slaughtered. And mostly one ethnic group, the Tutsis, were killed by another ethnic group, the Hutu. But the whole tension between them was initiated by the colonizing forces. The Belgians kind of gave the Tutsis these positions of power largely based on skin color.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah. And so starting in like the late 1930s, I think, or after World War I or something like that is when they set up that dynamic. And then it really culminated 60 years later in this genocide.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: That to me is the -- we're going to talk about the consequences of othering, but that's getting at it. You start something moving at a point in history and it can end in utter tragedy and violence like that.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And we see, unfortunately we see that playbook still being adopted by those in power. And it can work across political structures, right? You see it in places in the world where you have authoritarian regimes [00:11:00] who find an other to pick on and to shine a light on as a scapegoat for the problems that the populace might feel because they don't have economic opportunity or civil rights of any kind. But you can also see it in democracies, where people rise to power because they played on the fears of, or tensions between different groups.

And unfortunately that playbook really works because of what we were talking about before, which is this maybe an innate tendency in us to other difference.

The Real Reason Trump Is Demonizing Immigrants - The Lever - Air Date 10-11-24

PAUL KAROLYI: Let's talk about what's happening in Aurora. How are they going to respond? Because Aurora has declared itself a, quote, "non sanctuary city." Like you said, they are run by a Republican, Mike Kaufman.

BREE: They also have this huge immigrant population already, and a lot of organizations are already mobilized to support folks in this situation. That's the interesting dichotomy.

PAUL KAROLYI: I agree. And then the other side, they don't spend public funds supporting [00:12:00] undocumented immigrants the way Denver does. These newcomers that we've supported so much in Denver. Do you all think that this wave of national scrutiny that Aurora is now like having this backlash of wait, maybe this isn't such a big problem? Do you think this is going to change anything in the local politics?

DAVID SIROTA: Boy, that's a really great question and it's really hard to predict. Look, Aurora went Republican before all this, I guess amid all of this happening.

And we are a state, we're going to talk about the history of our state. We are a state that has had that Tom Tancredo lineage of politics. A lot of people who are listening to this who may be younger don't remember that, but a real, anti-immigrant politics that was here in this state. So I think this is a volatile electoral issue.

But that said, it is a blue state. It is a Democratic state. And there is no evidence that this state's politics are going to overnight become MAGA politics. But it's also to say that [00:13:00] there are pockets of that. Even here on the front range.

PAUL KAROLYI: For the record, there have been some new polls out this week on the Trump-Harris race in Colorado, and Harris is up. No surprise. But Biden, that when he was the candidate, was only beating Trump by 2 percent in one poll back when it was getting really dicey for him. Harris is now up by 11 percent, according to this poll from Keating Research, which is a lot. But I was looking back at a precedent for this in our last gubernatorial election, Polis versus Ganahl. Polis beat Ganahl by 24 percentage points, which is double the margin that Harris is up on Trump. So I think there is something happening here.

BREE: I'm just always trying to relate this to the everyday experience of someone in Aurora. Is this really impacting their lives? Someone who is housed, who has lived there, they're, for 10 years or 20, is this really impacting them, or are they going to be motivated by fear?

DAVID SIROTA: I think those two things can overlap. I [00:14:00] do think that the perception of crime impacts your perception of how safe you feel. And so there's like kind of a psychological Vulcan mind trick going on here, where, for instance, this has happened across the country, where people's perception that violent crime is going, have a perception that violent crime is skyrocketing. Meanwhile, violent crime continues to go down, nationally and in cities across the country. But the perception can change the voting patterns, and can change how you feel in your neighborhood, right? And so what I worry about is, if the police are saying, listen, yes, we have normal problems with crime, like within the mean, like normal problems with crime, that sprinkling in, "oh, it's, a foreign terrorist organization, a foreign gang, a transnational scary gang," that it changes the politics of how people vote [00:15:00] based on perceptions that aren't necessarily real and also it can change the psychological character of a community. If more and more people walking around being afraid, right? And to be honest, that's how violent crime can go up. If everyone's walking around being afraid in a country that's got a lot of guns, that's one way that crime can go up.

BREE: Yeah, I just have thought about my own personal experience in my neighborhood and what changed when we saw the influx? I just saw more folks on the street, washing windows, asking for money, but that was literally the only difference. I didn't see a change in businesses that have been there. The housing prices didn't -- nothing changed to me. And my neighborhood conversations didn't really change.

And so that's why I wonder what it really means for Aurora residents.

DAVID SIROTA: I did hear Trump say something that was, he's always interspersed as, once in a while he'll say something vaguely interesting and almost [00:16:00] accidentally correct. And he did say, he was like, look, states and societies have been built up over decades and hundreds of years and, a whole new quick influx of people can change that. There is a truth to that. That a society, a quote unquote "culture" does build up over decades and really centuries, and that a whole new population can somewhat change that culture and that can be terrifying to people who were there.

Now, I'm not making a xenophobic argument, right? I'm not saying that I'm just saying like that fear of change is real.

BREE: And my neighborhood's also a great example of this. I live next door to the Polish club. There is nary a Polish person on my block other than my husband's last name. There's a Polish event there once a month. The rest of the time, it's mostly Spanish-speaking folks having quinceañeras, weddings, and birthday parties.

That change has happened over decades, right? And the neighborhood maybe was more predominantly Polish at some [00:17:00] point, but now it is more predominantly Spanish speaking. But this happens in neighborhoods in America everywhere. And look, New York City is a great example of that.

DAVID SIROTA: Yes--

BREE: To me, it's just part of the evolution of cities.

DAVID SIROTA: The fear of change, especially, if we're being honest among older people who are used to their communities. Not-- There was the old Wayne's World joke, right? We fear change, right? There's a baked in fear. And the question is, I go back to the maturity, are we a mature enough society to realize, okay, change can be scary, but we're being Vulcan mind-tricked into feeling it be a threat.

PAUL KAROLYI: To his benefit.

DAVID SIROTA: Exactly.

PAUL KAROLYI: To his benefit.

BREE: Oh, for sure.

PAUL KAROLYI: One more thing here, on the local impact, how it's actually affecting the people of Aurora. I wanted to share this cause I thought this was such an interesting Instagram post from Caroline Glover, the chef behind the wonderful restaurant Annette, which just by sheer [00:18:00] accident of the local economy ended up in this Stanley marketplace, which is just on the other side of the border in Aurora. And so therefore she didn't have a chance to win a Michelin star, which everyone says she probably would have in the last couple years that the Michelin guide has come here. But she put up this post and she said a lot about what's happening. But this one quote was just like, I have to share this. She wrote, "Our city leaders are doing too little to defend Aurora on the national stage and to call out these racist anti immigrant dog whistles for what they are. Some at the top in our city are even feeding the flames of falsehood and hate for political gain. This does nothing but harm our reputation and our economy. This city deserves better leadership. Let's be proud of where we live and work, and work to make it better."

BREE: Yeah.

PAUL KAROLYI: What did you all think of this from Caroline Glover?

DAVID SIROTA: I'm really glad somebody said that. I think it's pathetic for local politicians to try to use their own community as a way to platform themselves nationally.

BREE: They're throwing their own people under the bus.

DAVID SIROTA: I mean it's really gross, right? [00:19:00] Look, again, there are real problems in Aurora, like there are real problems in Denver. But the exploitation of your own constituency, your own city, to try to gain a national platform in conservative media, in any media.

BREE: And make your city look terrible. Why would you want to do that? That's the weird part to me.

DAVID SIROTA: It's just bad.

BREE: About Councilwoman Jurinsky's comments and consistent push of this rhetoric is, what are you doing? You're making people think the place that you're supposed to represent sucks.

PAUL KAROLYI: Yeah, whose fault is that, councilwoman?

BREE: And then we have a restaurateur coming out and saying it doesn't suck here. Why are you doing this to us?

DAVID SIROTA: Because here's the thing, If you're a restaurateur, I presume you want people to be, for instance, going out at night.

BREE: Absolutely.

DAVID SIROTA: You want people to be --

BREE: Feel safe.

DAVID SIROTA: Feel safe in your community. Right. So when your local politician is running out on Fox News and being like, Oh my God, this is not safe, that's bad for your business.

BREE: And it's bad for the economy of the city you're representing. So it is, [00:20:00] yeah, I liked her point. And I appreciated that. Because it takes a lot to stick your neck out a little bit as a business owner.

'Villains nor victims' Why immigration is good for our economy - Velshi - Air Date 6-2-24

VELSHI - HOST, MSNBC: "America must be kept American", said President Calvin Coolidge in 1923. As the Great Depression wore on and as xenophobia ran rampant, American leadership found a scapegoat in immigrants, blaming them for taking jobs, for not assimilating into American culture. Just before the bill was enacted, this op ed was published in the New York Times in April of 1924: "America of the melting pot comes to an end".

Then at the end of May, 1924, 100 years ago, President Coolidge signed the Johnson Reed Act, or the Immigration Act of 1924. The act banned all immigration from Asia and instituted very low quotas limiting the number of people allowed from each country, severely limiting all other immigrants except those from Western and Northern Europe.

The impact of that bill was swift and extreme. Almost immediately, the United [00:21:00] States saw a sharp decline in immigration, which lasted for the next 40 years. As author and Wharton professor Zeke Hernandez wrote in a recent op ed, "Communities that lost immigrants because of the 1920s quotas receive significantly less investment capital from the countries where those immigrants would have come from, and businesses in those places today invest less abroad as a result. That lack of investment equals fewer jobs".

The 1924 quotas, 100 years ago, led America to lose out on thousands of foreign scientists. As a result, native born scientists became 68 percent less likely to patent, and companies dependent on foreign talent suffered a multi decade decline in patenting. The architects of the 1920s immigration restrictions claimed to be protecting American workers, but it actually accomplished exactly the opposite. At the height of the Great Depression, politicians worried that American workers were being hurt by competition from Mexicans. [00:22:00] So, the government forcibly repatriated one third of all Mexicans living in the United States. That effort backfired, resulting in fewer and lower paying jobs for American workers.

One hundred years later, we find ourselves having a similar rhetorical and ideological debate about immigration. Trump and his allies are stoking anti-immigrant sentiment, using brutally dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, pushing the idea that immigration is the reason that the United States is a "nation in decline". As Hernandez points out, even many of the most progressive among us who have a positive view of immigration often have that positive view based on personal morals or an ethical obligation to help those in need and to accept the "poor, huddled masses".

But even that compassionate point of view gets it wrong. Supporting an increase in legal accessible immigration isn't the kind of thing to do for those who are fleeing turmoil in their birth country. Immigration actively improves [00:23:00] American society and there is now tons of data to back that up. Hernandez writes, "immigrants foster investment, create jobs, make us more innovative, fill our public coffers, reduce crime, and successfully integrate culturally".

Yes, people want to immigrate to our country because of the possibility of a better life, of economic prosperity, of social safety, of socio political stability. But we shouldn't just tolerate the idea of immigration as an act of humanistic altruism. We should embrace immigration as vital to our country's economic health, as integral to our position as a global leader in innovation, as necessary for us to continue on as a healthy and prosperous country.

Immigration and what we should do to change our current broken system is at the very front and center of the upcoming presidential election.

Escaping Otherism Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide Part 2 - Crazy Town - Air Date 6-12-24

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Okay, so let's talk about what the consequences are for this. Of course, there's health effects. We covered this in the episode on individualism. Being othered [00:24:00] leads to isolation and loneliness. It takes a toll on your mental and physical health. And remember we talked about, that being socially isolated is like taking up smoking or not exercising in terms of its health effects.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah, right. And of course, as we discussed in our episode on extremism, you see hate crimes, including violence against people based on their race or ethnicity or religion, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation. These rose nearly 12 percent between 2020 and 2021. Just that period of time in the U. S.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Well, and of course, where this all really gets to is after you've othered people and dehumanized them, it's easy, you know, next step to start killing them. And we've had horrendous instances of genocide, in a lot of places in Myanmar, in Darfur region of Sudan, in Rwanda as we mentioned, Cambodia, and just naming a few. But this has been with us for a long time and [00:25:00] it's still with us

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And I worry it is something we're going to have to increasingly face. We haven't talked a ton about this, but one of the drivers of othering, or a seeking of belonging to a group that might be a form of malignant belonging, is sense of scarcity, perceived scarcity, fear, and uncertainty.

And as we talk a lot about at Post Carbon Institute, if we're entering a period of what we've been calling the great unraveling of environmental systems like the climate system or social systems, that just heightens those tensions, that heightens that fear, heightens that uncertainty, heightens the at least perceived scarcity that people feel.

And so the risk of othering is even more real I think now and will be a more significant issue for us to contend [00:26:00] with looking forward. It really, if there's a thing that keeps me up at night it this is...you know.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Right. Yeah, I mean we talk about coming together in times of crisis, but also we could fall apart in a time of crisis.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Well, I think there's a dichotomy there. So it's like if you are a society and you face an acute crisis... yeah, it's like i'm gonna help my neighbor, whatever they look like, whoever they are. But if you are subject to chronic crises, I think that's more where you're going to share the great unraveling. It's like over and over and over again, you're hit with this. You probably lose that sense of cohesion pretty quick.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And you have people coming in to say, this is happening because of those people. So it's a combination of those, especially from people who want to maintain their power and the status quo for as long as possible, trying to deflect and say, we don't need to change the fundamental way that we operate as a society, because that's what's brought us here. It's like, no, [00:27:00] we can get back. We can make America great again, if we deal with those people.

Prof Richard Wolff A FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR OF IMMIGRANTS - The Zero Hour - Air Date 10-12-24

RICHARD WOLFF: First, and really important, I think that the Democrats are missing a fantastic opportunity to smash the Republicans on this issue. If I were advising Kamala Harris, I am not, but if I were, I would say go right after them. This is a mistake they have made. Clothe yourself in Judeo-Christian morality. Mary and Joseph were immigrants of a kind in that manger also, and we're kind of glad, at least those folks are, who are Christians, that they were able to survive and not be treated horribly at the border.[00:28:00]

The morality of it is obvious. I won't dwell on it. I want to dwell on why It is not only moral and ethical to welcome—welcome!—immigrants, but I want to go through the reasons why. Number one, the United States' population is becoming older, and its rate of birth is shrinking. We are not reproducing ourselves and that weakens our society and our economy and is very costly because the shrinking number of young people working has to support a growing number of old people in retirement who are not working.

This is not a sustainable arrangement unless you tax those at the lower end a lot more to fund the Social [00:29:00] Security that has to go to the increasing number of the old ones. Immigrants are overwhelmingly young, working age human beings, and what they mostly want, and we know that because of that's what they mostly do, is go to work when they arrive here. They want a job, they want a steady job, which means a steady contribution into the Social Security system of the United States. So they are not only not a burden, they are helping to address a very serious problem.

Number two, the United States, at least since the Monroe Doctrine of 1830, so we're talking now a two century history insistence that the United States is the dominant [00:30:00] power in the Western Hemisphere, that the others, mostly in those days the Europeans, are to keep out or to be secondary or need our permission or whatever. In other words, we're in charge, okay? I agree with that. We have been in charge. I would call it a kind of colonialism, but even if you didn't call it that, you know that major decisions about what has happened in Latin America over the last 200 years have been made by and with the heavy influence of the United States.

Therefore, major events like migration are partly the result of American policies across the board. Policies affecting trade, policies affecting politics, policies affecting the climate, all of which contribute to the very [00:31:00] conditions that drive people to leave their home, their religion, their community, their family, go to another country where they don't know any of those things, where they're taking enormous risks in order to create a livable life for their families. We ought to have some sense responsibility.

It's a little bit like the responsibility we do sometimes take that if we have mobilized a part of the population of a foreign country to assist the United States in administering that country or fighting a war in that country, we feel a responsibility when the war is lost. I'm thinking here, of course, of Vietnam and, to a lesser degree, of Afghanistan, to say we will create a place in the United States for those who have taken [00:32:00] risks to work with the U. S. in those countries to be able to come here. The same logic could and should apply in Latin America, which is where most of the influx of residents, immigrants have come from.

Third, the FBI data show immigrants have lower rates of crime than native Americans, and the reason for that is no mystery, and everyone should understand it. And it's simple. If you are a native person and you commit a crime, you are entitled to all the procedures of due process. If you are an immigrant and you commit a crime, you can be thrown out of the country, and you often are. Immigrants know that. No way are they going to go through what they went through to leave their country [00:33:00] with all that that means. Go to another one and then commit a petty crime that can not only deprive them of any chance of citizenship, but force them to leave and to go back to the very circumstances from which they fled.That's the reason they don't commit crimes. It's much too dangerous for them to do so. Okay?

I could go on. But I want to shift now beyond writing the list, which is a big list of why we should welcome immigrants, to asking a theoretical but yet also empirical question. Every wave of immigrants, and the United States is famous as being a country that has had one wave of immigrants after another throughout its history... well, let me change that: throughout its history, before [00:34:00] it ethnically cleansed the local people out of existence here. Those waves occasioned anxiety on the part of people who are already here, about their jobs, their housing, their communities, and so on. We know that story. And the way to handle that story, that a Democrat, especially one in the party of Franklin Roosevelt, ought to have thought through, is to say the following:

When the nation needs it, we have created full employment. We did it in 1941 when the nation went to war, okay? We are confronted with a twin crisis, a collapsing birth rate and an immigration wave. This is a good time to commit to [00:35:00] full employment, plus a housing construction program, and the two of them could be the same program. The unemployed could be put together to build the housing. The way the unemployed were put together to produce the Munitions that the other unemployed would use once they put their uniforms on. Okay, if we gave everybody a job who was here, we could then give a job to the immigrants without anyone here fearing loss of job or higher rents or any of the other bugaboos that are being suggested flow from immigration.

It would make the U. S. government a hero for all the people who need a secure job, who are native. It would make the friction between them and the immigrants disappear. It would [00:36:00] solve the entire problem and show up the Republicans and the right wingers for being the amoral, unethical departures from what could be a great American tradition of welcoming and integrating immigrants.

If Kamala Harris said it. My thinking is, it would be better for her, for her election prospects, a better response than going to the border and talking tough.

Notes from the Editor giving a quick list of immigration lies

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We’ve just heard clips starting with:

Democracy Now! looking critically at Harris’s answer on immigration at a recent town hall.

Crazy Town discussed how to escape the trap of othering.

The Lever looked at the accusation that crime is related to immigration in Colorado.

Velshi discussed the historical pattern of the impacts of immigration regulation.

Crazy Town discussed the impacts of othering.[00:37:00]

And The Zero Hour argued for how Democrats could turn immigration into a strength of theirs by flipping the script on Republicans.

And those were just the Top Takes. There’s lots more in the Deeper Dives 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, often trying to make each other laugh in the process.

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 [00:38:00] continue on to the Deeper Dives half of the show, I just wanted to give credit to the article that inspired today’s episode.

The publication “Popular Information” a couple of weeks ago wrote the piece: "Every problem Trump wrongfully blames on undocumented immigrants." Obviously, we’re covering a lot of them today in the clips, but to just go down the list real quick:

The Trump campaign blames undocumented immigrants for a "crime wave." Turns out there isn’t a crime wave.

The Trump campaign blames undocumented immigrants for voter fraud. Turns out there is hardly any voter fraud.

The Trump campaign blames undocumented immigrants for driving up housing costs. Turns out there are lots of reasons for high housing costs, but immigrants don’t contribute very much to the problem, considering that most who come here can’t afford to by houses. Many do, however, work in the house-building industry, so kicking them out of the country would slow the pace of new housing, [00:39:00] helping to keep prices high.

The Trump campaign claims undocumented immigrants will bankrupt Medicare and Social Security. Turns out they actually pay into the system just like everyone else and help increase funding of those programs - the opposite of threatening them.

The Trump campaign blamed undocumented immigrants for taking jobs from American citizens. This misunderstands the nature of where jobs come from. More people working and consuming within an economy, the more jobs need to exist to serve all those people. Mass deportation of migrants would kill jobs for those who remain because the economy would shrink.

Trump campaign blames undocumented immigrants for smuggling Fentanyl. Over 85% of fentanyl trafficking is done by US citizens. So, working to block migrants based on that premise would only make a tiny dent, and it's [00:40:00] attacking a demand problem from the supply side, which is always the wrong angle anyway.

The Trump campaign blames undocumented immigrants for inflation. Again, understanding how an economy works is helpful here. Deporting migrants who currently work in the production of a wide variety of goods would constrain that production, raising prices. One primary example: food that comes from farms which employ migrant labor.

So, for that one listener of this show who’s been complaining about the price of eggs and is planning on voting for Trump so he can deport the immigrants, you probably need to think again.

SECTION A - MIS/DIS INFORMATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we’ll continue to dive deeper on 4 topics. Next up:

SECTION A - MIS/DISINFORMATION

Followed by SECTION B - REALITY CHECK

SECTION C - OTHERING

and SECTION D - SOLUTIONS

How is Trump winning the US immigration debate - Anywhere but Washington - Air Date 10-10-24

DONALD TRUMP: Millions and millions of people have come into our country and nobody has any idea where they're from.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: [00:41:00] Donald Trump has continued to push conspiratorial racist tropes.

DONALD TRUMP: They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: And even more extreme policies.

DONALD TRUMP: We're going to have the largest deportation effort in history.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Meanwhile, the Democrats have responded by shifting further to the right.

KAMALA HARRIS: If someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry, they will be barred from receiving asylum.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: We've come to southern Arizona, near the border with Mexico. to try and unpick facts for misinformation.

CITIZEN: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. We're

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: at a meeting of the Pima County Republican Party, which is a county that covers Tucson. This is a big car rally. A lot of people talking about the border.

CITIZEN: The border has got to get closed up. Those people that are breaking the laws of this [00:42:00] country, that came across here illegal, are going to be mass deported.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Mass deportations? That's what Trump's calling for?

CITIZEN: Yes.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: That's millions of people. Well,

CITIZEN: the people that are here illegally. I don't have any problem with people coming here. My grandparents came here, but they did it the right way.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: But millions of people don't. I

CITIZEN: don't care.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: I think

CITIZEN: it has to happen, and I think citizens have to be behind it.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: How do you think it's possible to do that humanely?

CITIZEN: I don't know that, but I'm confident Trump can do it.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: You said you're a Mexican American. What do you think about Trump's border policy?

CITIZEN: I love it. I love it. I'm 100 percent for it.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Do you know anybody that came across the border without applying for green card?

Oh,

CITIZEN: yes. Unfortunately, I have family members that did. Cousins, cousins, nephews, nieces.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Because those people might be deported if Donald Trump wins.

CITIZEN: That's okay. That's okay.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: How long have they been here for

CITIZEN: Years, like 20, somewhere, 30 years.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: And so you think they, the members of your own family have been here for 30 years, should be deported?

CITIZEN: Uh, yeah. Yes. I mean, they can be deported, but they [00:43:00] can also apply to, to come back again to United States.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: How do you think they would feel about you saying

CITIZEN: that? It was lovely to meet you. so much.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Lovely to meet you too. for

CITIZEN: what you're doing. Thank you. Okay.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: We've been making these films for a long time and I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that.

It shows to you how polarised this issue has become and how far fetched it is.

As the car rally lurched into action, we hitched a ride with party secretary Steve Selvey. There's a legal

REPUBLICAN CHAIR: process, obviously there's uh, we expect some of that. Um, we have democrats talk about, it's their goal to uh, to replace the right majority and then if you bring it up it's, they're upset with you for no decision.

And is

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: that a concern that you've got about the white majority of this country?

REPUBLICAN CHAIR: Not white, because they want to make it a racial issue. I'm concerned [00:44:00] that their, the plan is to bring in a bunch of new Democrat voters. We hear reports that there are terror cells setting up here. Um, that, uh, you know, when, when, you're not, you're not vetting people.

Where

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: are you seeing those reports? I'm sorry? Where are you seeing those reports? I definitely haven't seen them.

REPUBLICAN CHAIR: You haven't seen those? No, no, no. I'd have to find that for you, because I've seen it.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: The views here are mainstream in the Republican Party. And in a political climate that's become increasingly hostile, groups like Humane Borders have stepped in.

For years, they've placed water stations for migrants crossing the desert, even as far right militia and border authorities have tried to obstruct their work.

CITIZEN: Mayor has been alleged to have vandalized several water aid stations that were positioned in rural Pima County.

HELPER: We have to lock them now. Uh. Why is that to, uh, keep vigilantes from, uh, doing, doing nasty stuff to the water?[00:45:00]

It's probably down a quarter or so.

HELPER 2: Oh, this barrel is one of my patch jobs. It's been stabbed or shot quite a few times. You can see I've used, uh, the hot glue gun on it a few times.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: I mean, obviously there is a fentanyl crisis in this country at the moment. Some people would say that. Smuggling routes around here, you know, are contributing to that.

I just wonder whether you worry

HELPER: about that. The vast, vast majority of the fentanyl that comes in, comes in through ports of entry. It doesn't come across, you know, illegal crossings through the border. You know, it comes across Americans, you know, driving it across in their trucks, cars, whatever. So, uh, I don't think that what we do here contributes to the fentanyl problem.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Just a few hundred yards away, Joel showed me where he recently found the body of a young Mexican woman. We've walked about 300 yards

and already doing 60 miles [00:46:00] feels unfathomable to me.

HELPER 2: She was like a 32 year old woman from some small village in Mexico, just came here for a better life. And the heck of it is, her life, wherever she was going, probably wouldn't be that fantastic, but it was better than where she was. I think that's what people tend to forget, is, well, not, not everybody's as fortunate as Americans are.

OLIVER LAUGHLAND: Someone's hot.

HELPER 2: Just a lightweight jacket. Does it matter if we're talking Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, or Joe Biden. It's all the same. Death is the policy. Supposedly we'd land a free at the home of the brave, but we don't act like it.

FEMA is running low on disaster money, but not because funds went to housing undocumented migrants - Verify - Air Date 10-7-24

HOST, VERIFY: FEMA is asking Congress for more money to get through hurricane season, but some say the agency would have had plenty if it didn't spend so much helping undocumented migrants. Brandon Lewis from our Verify team went to the border to find out more. [00:47:00]

BRANDON LEWIS - REPORTER, VERIFY: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the government's response to Hurricane Helene is stretching FEMA's budget and it doesn't have enough to make it through hurricane season.

Many people and politicians on social responded by claiming the real reason FEMA is running out of money is because it spent a billion dollars housing people who are entering the U. S. illegally. Multiple Verify viewers asked us if that's really the reason FEMA is running out of money. So, let's verify.

Our sources are Homeland Security, FEMA, the Congressional Research Service, the Congressional Budget Office, and the White House. Homeland Security tells Verify the claims are completely false. Congress funds disaster relief and migrant assistance through two different programs under FEMA's control, and lawmakers have yet to Don't allow the agency to transfer money between them.

A Congressional Research Service report from January says during the last four fiscal years, Congress gave FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund 175 [00:48:00] billion. Separately, Congress allocated roughly a billion dollars for migrant assistance. The Shelter and Service Program helps distribute funds to help communities provide services to migrants, such as temporary shelter, food, and urgent medical care.

And FEMA says on its website that disaster relief money has not been diverted for other non disaster related efforts. So, No, FEMA is not running out of disaster relief funds because it spent the money to house people who enter the U. S. illegally. Any additional funding for the disaster relief program would require congressional approval.

SECTION B - REALITY CHECK

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Reality check.

Prof Richard Wolff A FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR OF IMMIGRANTS Part 2 - The Zero Hour - Air Date 10-12-24

RICHARD WOLFF: Look, I talk from time to time to people who work for example. with the United States Chamber of Commerce. They are not in favor of anti immigration. They know that their members need and want to hire immigrant workers, partly because they need the workers, period, and partly because [00:49:00] those workers are cheaper, and partly because those workers are are very fearful of losing a job because of the what that might mean given their immigrant status.

So they are docile, um, nasty employers take avail advantage of that, don't pay them. Because they know, particularly if they're undocumented, or even if they're documented, but their husband or their wife or their old sick aunt is living with them and she isn't, that they don't want any governmental official coming around, etc.,

etc., etc. But there's an economic calculus, very well known, uh, in, in the literature of The economics of migration that I want to mention now because it, it belongs in the conversation. It's, it's obvious, uh, but it has been jazzed up to be useful for professional economists. So [00:50:00] here's how it goes. If you want to have a worker in your society, if you need workers, Immigration is the most efficient way to do that.

Why? Because all of the sunk costs of a baby being raised for five years while it is completely dependent, then when another 10 or 15 years of not only being dependent, but in the sense of consuming goods and services to survive, but the costs of putting that person through a public education system, learning to speak the language, learning to do the arithmetic, learning to read, and so on.

By the time they're 17, 18, 19, and enter the labor force, you have spent a fortune on them. Now, if they're Native, now consider an immigrant. Even an immigrant who comes from a poor country, [00:51:00] those expenses have been carried by that poor country. If that poor country trained that young person until he or she or they were old enough to do the dangerous trek up through Mexico and, and come across the border into the United States as a 19 or 20 year old, which many of them are, you have an unbelievable subsidy.

That's what it's called in the literature. It's a subsidy that goes perversely from the poor country to the rich country. Because the poor country paid to raise the child up, but then all the productivity of the child is lost. is in the United States. The United States gets the fruit of their labor, but the United States didn't have to pay any of the costs of feeding and clothing and housing and educating and medically caring for them.

[00:52:00] And it's perverse because subsidies like that for development purposes are supposed to go from the rich country to the poor one, but the irony is it goes the other way. And migration makes that happen. And yet, in America, you never hear from any leadwell, I shouldn't go that farbut I have never heard from a leading Republican or Democrat.

an argument in favor of the enormous benefits coming to the United States when you have millions of working age people who thereby have loaded the cost of their education onto the poor country they've left. in order to bring their most productive years to the United States.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: That reminds me of a, uh, a concept that had some currency in 2016 when I was working for Bernie Sanders and I, [00:53:00] I ran afoul of its adherence, even though I'm not necessarily opposed to it, uh, which is the concept of open borders.

Um, And here's a case where I think context is everything and the open borders adherence who are sort of a mixture of left and right, uh, of libertarian and some kind of left wing, uh, just so anybody can come in, right? Anyone, just no borders, no guards, no nothing. You want to come in, you come in. And, uh, as recline of the New York Times, uh, kind of sandbag Bernie on this one in an interview, uh, made it his leading question and pounded him.

Well, if you like immigration, you know, working people, why aren't you for this? Um, And I wrote a piece about it that basically, as I recall, just said, what I just said, context is everything, that if you'll have an open border policy with a 7. 25 [00:54:00] minimum wage, which is worth even less now than it was then, um, and, uh, and, uh, you know, no lack of, uh, employment guarantees, or absolute, complete lack of employment guarantees and so on, It would just, you know, screw the workers of the United States, you know, offer this flood of cheap labor.

And if people come in and don't obtain ID, they can be paid less than minimum wage and so on. You know, I saw a lot of practical problems with it. But again, coming back to the system we live under, but is there a system or a vision where something like Open borders could actually work, you think?

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, I think it absolutely could, it's a question of the commitment you want to make.

If I'm right, and I believe I am, that the economic benefit [00:55:00] is greater to the country to which the migrant goes

than most people have understood, then it is in the interest of the United States to facilitate that. At this point, If you open the border, my guess is you'd have a pretty hefty movement into the United States. But as people who take it seriously, the open border argument, have shown, border movements go in multiple directions.

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: Right.

RICHARD WOLFF: Uh, when conditions change, uh, so does the, uh, immigration. Europe, which has open borders to an extent among the countries in the EU, etc., etc., gives us many examples of this, uh, of this sort of thing. The French story, which I know, [00:56:00] Um, is a variation on the American. The way the French work it, and I'm not advocating this, but the way the French work it is when the economy is booming and they're short of labor and wages are going up, they allow large numbers of North Africans and now also South Africans to come into the country.

And when the economy doesn't grow. They push them back out. And so what you have is actually a moving migration in one direction or the other. And even in the United States, we've had a significant amount of out migration of people from Central America going back to Central America and When they've lost their jobs, when jobs have become, uh, difficult to obtain in recessions, and so on.

The Real Reason Trump Is Demonizing Immigrants Part 2 - The Lever - Air Date 10-11-24

DONALD TRUMP: [00:57:00] You know, the governor is a Democrat and he's a radical left Democrat, and he's not too popular right now because they're going to take over a lot more than Aurora. They're going to go through Colorado, take over the whole damn state by the time they finished.

Unless I become president, they won't last long.

BREE: A radical democrat?

PAUL KAROLYI: He's talking about our governor, Jared Polis.

DAVID SIROTA: Okay, can we just, first of all, talk about one thing that, well, many things. There's a lot of misinformation about what's going on in Aurora, and I'm sure we'll discuss that in a second. But let's just talk the pure politics of this.

Aurora is a Republican run city.

BREE: Yeah.

DAVID SIROTA: They made a big deal over the Republicans taking it over. There are barely any Democrats left in that city government. So, just the MAGA movement ripping on Aurora It's wild. It's like Yo, it's your city. It's like

BREE: them ripping on Colorado Springs. Like, where do you think you are?

DAVID SIROTA: Like, the governor, like, [00:58:00] what is he, what about the city that this is allegedly, I'm gonna underscore allegedly, that this is all allegedly happening in? Like, they made a big deal of, like, MAGA taking it over. So

BREE: it's goldfish brain, though. They don't remember. I don't know.

DAVID SIROTA: To me, I don't even like a remember.

It's like what the government of Aurora literally is right now today.

PAUL KAROLYI: Yeah,

DAVID SIROTA: it's really weird. It is very

BREE: weird.

PAUL KAROLYI: Well, well, Kaufman is saying he would love for Trump to visit. He says he wants he now wants after weeks of he was so back and forth on this whole Venezuelan gang thing. He was like, it's a huge problem.

Then he was like, we made the arrests and he was like, it's overblown. And anyway, But he said he would love to see Trump visit because he wants the opportunity to set the record straight and show the candidate that quote, this is in the Colorado sun, we've dealt with the situation from a law enforcement perspective.

So he doesn't want to talk politics anymore. It sounds like

DAVID SIROTA: I mean, the thing is, is that my takeaway from all of this is, first and foremost, there is a serious housing [00:59:00] crisis. I mean, at the root of this is an out of state developer, excuse me, owner, property owner, uh, with properties in disrepair.

Properties in disrepair tend to create all sorts of problems, right?

BREE: Also, they're making money off of people living in squalor because these are the folks that will rent these places because they need housing so badly. It's the

PAUL KAROLYI: exact same situation with the Haitian immigrants in Ohio. I made this point on the show two weeks ago, but both of these political hysterical narratives the conservatives are rolling out, they're both boiled down to the housing crisis in this country.

DAVID SIROTA: Also, the police department. continues to say that while they can't say that there's not one single person affiliated with a gang somewhere in Aurora, the police department continue continues to consistently say, this is not a gang problem, not a Venezuelan gang problem. I don't think the police department [01:00:00] has any motive to lie about this.

That right? I mean, the police police departments can lie and do lie. But about that specific fact, is this or is this not a Venezuelan gang problem? What would the motive be for the police department to lie about that? If somebody has evidence that contradicts that, that would be great to see. But why? Why are we sort of brushing aside that the police continue to say that this is not fundamentally a Venezuelan gang problem?

BREE: I love this quote from, uh, Trump said in Aurora, Entire apartment complexes are being taken over by armed Venezuelan gangs with weapons the likes of which even the military doesn't see. Sir, have you seen the military?

PAUL KAROLYI: Is he for gun control? Yeah, this is like one of those things where, like, if you actually listen to what he says, it's like, What does he actually think about this stuff?

Like, what does he actually care about? These

BREE: are vicious, violent people. I mean, it's like, It's just racism. It's just old school racism. That's

DAVID SIROTA: all. That's all it is. Now, I will also say, look, I read a stat that it was [01:01:00] 40, 000 people in the sixth congressional district have moved in, in the last year, many of them immigrants.

And look. That's a huge influx of new people for a city, and it's going to sort of stress city services, it's going to stress the housing situation, I mean, that, how to deal with that, you can do what Trump is doing and just be just a straight up racist about it, or you can actually be. try to deal with the influx of people.

And I feel like what this all represents to me is an inability to have a mature conversation about, you know, population migration. It's just straight up lowest common denominator. Racism, uh, for electoral purposes, I don't think it'll work, but then again, like, I'm, I'm an eternal optimist, uh, and, you know, I mean, it's a pretty dark period of time right now, like I could [01:02:00] imagine it working, not for Colorado, not, not electorally in Colorado.

This is not an outcome. Yeah, we're like a stage for this, right? Like, uh, for the rest of the country.

The Truth About Immigrants and the Economy - Robert Reich - Air Date 7-2-24

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: Immigrants are good for the economy and our society. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. For centuries, immigration has been America's secret sauce for economic growth and prosperity. But for just as long, immigrants have been an easy scapegoat. One of the oldest, ugliest lies is to falsely smear immigrants as criminals.

We have a new category of crime. It's called migrant crime. It's just not true. Crime is way down in America. Anyone who says otherwise is fear mongering. And whatever crime there is, is not being driven by immigration. Immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated for committing crimes than U.

S. born citizens. Maybe that's why border cities are among [01:03:00] America's safest. Immigration opponents also claim immigrants are a drag on the economy and a drain on government resources. They want the free stuff and they're coming here to get it and it's not right. Quite the opposite. The major reason immigrants are coming to America is to build a better life for themselves and their families, contributing to the American economy.

The long term economic benefits of immigration outweigh any short term costs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that adding more immigrants as workers and consumers, including undocumented immigrants, will grow America's economy by about 7 trillion. And those immigrants would increase tax revenue by about 1 trillion, shrinking the deficit and helping pay for programs we all benefit from.

Immigrants of all statuses pay more in taxes than they get in government [01:04:00] benefits. Research by the Libertarian Keto Institute found that first generation immigrants pay 1. 38 in taxes for every 1 they receive in benefits. This is especially true for undocumented immigrants, who pay billions in taxes each year, but are excluded from almost all federal benefits.

After all, you need documentation to receive federal benefits. And guess what undocumented immigrants don't have? And of course, one of the most common anti immigrant claims also isn't true. They're taking your jobs and they're creating lots of problems. They took our jobs! They took your jobs! No, immigrants are not taking away jobs that Americans want.

Undocumented immigrants in particular are doing some of the most dangerous, difficult, low paying, and essential jobs in the country. Despite what certain pundits [01:05:00] might tell you, immigration has not stopped the U. S. from enjoying record low unemployment. And as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement, young immigrants will help support Social Security by providing a thriving base of younger workers who are paying into the system.

The fact that so many immigrants want to come here gives America an advantage over other countries with aging populations, like Germany and Japan. What's more, immigrants are particularly ambitious and hardworking. They're 80 percent more likely to start a new business than U. S. born citizens. Immigrant founded businesses also impressively comprise 103 companies in last year's Fortune 500.

And immigrants continue to add immeasurably to the richness of American culture. We should be celebrating them, not denigrating them. We should be opening legal pathways to citizenship, not [01:06:00] closing them. It's time to speak the facts and the truth. We need your help. Immigrants to keep our economy and our country vibrant and growing.

They're not poisoning the blood of our nation. They're renewing and restoring it.

SECTION C - OTHERING

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next, Section C: Othering.

'Folks are scared' Springfield residents reeling from the fallout of Trump's immigration lies - Deadline - Air Date 9-19-24

DONALD TRUMP: I'm going to go there in the next two weeks. I'm going to Springfield and I'm going to Aurora.

You may never see me again, but that's okay. Gotta do what I gotta do. Whatever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield.

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE: The mystery in that clip to me is why are they clapping, right? It's unclear what any of that was. Um, I think I know, but the ex president is. undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire for the people who live and work and have to try to survive and raise their families in [01:07:00] Springfield, Ohio, by talking about planning a visit that the Republican mayor warns would be a quote, extreme strain on the city resources.

Trump continues to ignore calls from local and state officials in his own party to stop fanning the flames of this baseless, debunked racist conspiracy theory about people who live there eating the family pets. To that point, his MAGA allies are now descending on Springfield, where, remember the sky, Vivek Ramaswamy is hosting what he calls an immigration town hall there later today.

The city itself is reeling from the recklessness of these lies. Our next guest reports that Clark County Democratic Party volunteers are now facing threats. From far right groups while canvassing for the election and in response to the bomb threats at the schools, the schools in Springfield are telling students to be careful of false information while state troopers sweep the school buildings twice a day.

Joining our conversation, NBC News Correspondent Shaq Brewster, [01:08:00] out in Springfield, Ohio, and Lifelong Ohian and Managing Editor of WYSO Southwest, Ohio's community owned radio station, Chris Walter is here with us. Alicia is still here as well. Um, Chris, tell me what it's like there.

CHRIS: Well, it's, um, It's been pretty hectic the last week.

Um, you know, this is a community that has faced a lot of challenges for years and years. And, you know, the Haitian Americans here have been a part of that community for, you know, the last five years. And, uh, you know, they've been creating businesses. They've been, uh, you know, working jobs. Uh, they've been going to school.

They've, you know, they've become a part of the community. And so, uh, really, right now, things are just tense. There's a sense of anxiety in the air. Um, there continue to be bomb threats every day. We're going on six or seven days in a row. Um, you know, like you said earlier, Governor DeWine and Mayor Rue [01:09:00] resources are stretched thin.

The Ohio State troopers have been called into the city to kind of help keep the school secure. But You know, when I was on Tuesday, when I was sitting in the parking lot of one of the schools, there were parents running into the schools to pick up their kids after they heard about a new rumor of a threat on Facebook.

So everyone's just really on edge. And yeah, there's there's just a lot of uncertainty about what's going to come next.

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE: Do people feel, um, do they understand why they're in the middle of the presidential race with 50 days to go? Do they understand that the lie that, that, that people like you, people have done the work to debunk the lie that nobody that follows the truth believes that anyone's Labrador retriever is at risk?

I mean, do they, do they, has it shattered their feeling that they're welcome in this country?

CHRIS: I think it depends on the person. I've been able to speak with a lot of Haitian American folks over the last week. But, you know, I've been reporting on this issue since 2020. [01:10:00] Um, it's not even an issue. I've just been reporting on the reality that, you know, Haitian Americans are moving to our area.

Um, and, you know, kind of what the, you know, they're dealing with and, you know, the both the challenges and the successes they've had. So there are some folks that have talked about moving back to florida. I think there's a real misconception that these people are illegal immigrants or illegal aliens.

They're not. The vast majority are transplants, people that lived in florida or long island and decide to move to Springfield Ohio because of a cheaper cost of living and an opportunity to start their own businesses here. So some folks are talking about moving back to places where there's a larger Haitian American community.

Um, but other folks are talking about, you know, sticking it out and being resilient and they, you know, that this too will pass because a lot of people have, they have started businesses, they've started families here. Um, so it's, you know, they're in, they don't want to leave, right? They care about this community, they care about Springfield.

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE: mean, what's amazing, Alicia, is that they, they're neither of those things, right? [01:11:00] They're, well, I mean, but that is what Donald Trump and J. D. Vance are calling them. And J. D. Vance knows better. He knows that whether you have They're

ALICIA - MSNBC: his constituents. They're his constituents. They know, he knows what temporary protective status is.

He understands. But I want to take us to a moment in the debate where Donald Trump Was at was talking about how he was spreading a lie that immigrants are coming and stealing jobs and says, you know You know who it's the worst for black Americans and Hispanic Americans He was trying to to drive a wedge Between those of us are who are here with paperwork and those of us who are not and I think part of what?

Springfield has illustrated so sadly is that once that lie is out there, it attaches to all of us, right? To be anti Haitian is to be anti black, to be anti Latinos at the border is to be anti Latinos at the interior of this country, which they're doubling down on by saying they want to deport 11 million people who are living on the interior of this country.

So if he's trying to call to you and [01:12:00] say, don't worry, you will be protected. You will be special. You will be different because you have paperwork. They are now saying. That is not true. Temporary protective status. J. D. Vance is still calling you an illegal alien. They see no distinction between people who are here without papers and people who are

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE: shack.

I want to play some of your great interviews since you've been on the ground there. Let me do that first.

CLIP: So it was a very terrifying feeling, but I was also enraged because I know that a lot of it is rooted in lies. Against the community that has shown me a lot of love. All this activity with the bombing threats and stuff, I mean, it's has a little bit of an impact on the kids.

They're kind of scared. What's going on right now is really chaotic and hectic. Everybody having a right to live in peace, and this is just disrupting our peace. And there's men. These people are nice people. They're [01:13:00] good people.

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE: Sheck Brewster, you're on the ground there, um, for us. Tell us what you're hearing.

SHAQ BREWSTER: Yeah, Nicole, I think one of those conversations that our team had with parents who were dropping their kids off to elementary school, one of the elementary schools that was evacuated last week because of that hoax threat. One of the parents said he didn't know how to explain a bomb threat to his six year old and he tried to sanitize it a little bit and tried to still explain.

And the six year old started crying to him wanting to go to school, but also just scared and fearful of going to school. And that's the word I continue to hear in the conversations I've been having with people. Folks are fearful. Folks are scared about the reality. Of course, it's the threats that we've been talking about, the bomb threats that we've targeted.

Elementary schools, high schools, campuses. Uh, yesterday it was a grocery store and a Walmart, but it's also the fear that something else could happen because you [01:14:00] continue to hear this rhetoric. You continue to hear these false, these debunked and nasty claims, uh, continue to be made. I spoke to the manager of a Creole restaurant in town, and he told me that people are still calling up, uh, his restaurant and saying, Hey, what's the cat special today?

Are you still serving that dog? Uh, That I'm hearing about just hateful calls that he's dealing with. And as he's dealing with that, he's also dealing with members of his community, other immigrants fearful of their reality, fearing that not only they can face a threat, uh, just existing in Springfield, but fearing if Donald Trump is elected And that temporary protected status, that is what is keeping them in a legal, uh, status here, a legal immigration status here in Ohio, if that is revoked.

What that means for them when they have purchased homes when they have started businesses. So there's a lot of fear that you're hearing on the ground and it's fear based on very different things, but all rooted. [01:15:00] It seems it seems from that lie.

‘Dangerous’ Trump's immigration 'fear-mongering' spreads lies to boost his campaign - The ReidOut - Air Date 9-28-24

Donald Trump has forced another issue into the center of the campaign with a lot of help from right wing media, including Fox. His running mates admitted lies, the internet and social media, and conspiracy theories cooked up by literal white supremacists. That issue, of course, is immigration. Donald Trump knows he can't win the election based on the crappy job he did as president, or his frankly crazy ideas for another administration, like spiking the cost of everything we buy through tariffs.

So instead he's going with fear of immigrants. Ironically, [01:16:00] immigration is how modern America was built, right? Both during and after slavery, someone had to replace all that free labor and immigrants fit the bill. Most of us here today, unless you are indigenous American, come from a family of immigrants.

And yet there's always been resistance by the old immigrants to the new people. There was the Know Nothing Party of the 1850s, the America First Nazi Curious Movement in the 1930s, and now we have Donald Trump, who has decided to make fear mongering about immigration the center of his entire campaign, with fascistic rhetoric like promising the largest mass deportation operation in history and promising it would be a bloody story, spreading racist lies about immigrants eating people's pets.

And even talking about giving immigrants serial numbers, Nazi style. At this point, his entire plan is trying to scare people into voting for him, despite two of his three wives being immigrants. And just to remind you, as we talk about this, [01:17:00] border crossings are actually down to the lowest levels in four years.

Violent crimes also weigh down across the country. And everything you hear on right wing media to suggest otherwise is a lie. There is no migrant crime wave. Immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U. S. They also don't eat pets. But the facts don't matter to Trump. Instead, he just keeps ramping up the rhetoric more and more every day.

Here's what he said today at what was supposed to be a speech about the economy in Michigan.

DONALD TRUMP: These are killers. These are people at the highest level of killing. They'd cut your throat. And they won't even think about it the next morning. A lot of gang members, they take their gangs off the street, like in Caracas, Venezuela, the criminals have all been brought to the United States.

She let our American sons and daughters be raped and murdered at the hands of vicious monsters. She let American [01:18:00] communities be conquered. They're conquering your communities. We have to get them the hell out of our country. Cause they've ruined, I mean, they're ruining the fabric of our country.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Okay. And then on the other side of this adjudicated sexual assaulter slash rapist and 34 count felon on the other side of that ironic dude, you have vice president Kamala Harris, the daughter of two immigrants.

Right now, she's in the swing state of Arizona visiting the Southern border for the first time since she became the democratic nominee. Harris met with border patrol agents and will receive a briefing on efforts to curb the flow of fentanyl, you know, presidential stuff. Now compare that to Donald Trump's super awkward meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier today.

Later this hour, the VP will also speak on immigration, where she'll likely highlight her record prosecuting transnational gangs and drug traffickers as California Attorney General. She's also expected to go after Trump for killing the [01:19:00] bipartisan border deal earlier this year, just because he wanted to run on the issue.

But despite all of this Recent polling has shown a majority of voters say they trust Trump more when it comes to dealing with the border. A man who doesn't know the difference between political asylum and an insane asylum and whose plans to deport every immigrant or anyone who just looks like an immigrant would send our economy into a free fall because fear whether real or irrational can be an effective political tactic.

The question now for America is have we gotten to the point where we would destroy our own economy? And walk willingly into a Hitlerian dictatorship because of the fear Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are perpetuating solely for their own political benefit. Joining me now is Olivia Troy, a member of Republicans for Harris, who previously served as the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence.

And Ray Suarez, host of the [01:20:00] podcast On Shifting Ground, an author of We Are Home, Becoming American in the 21st Century, and Oral History. An apt book, Ray Suarez. I am going to start with you because this is the irony of all of this. Is that this is a country that wouldn't exist in its present form without immigrants.

It certainly wouldn't without slavery, but set aside slavery. That's not immigration after that. When the slaves were free, they still needed workers. So they went all around the world and they attracted people here literally to work because workers are what built the economy and what built the country.

And yet each new group of immigrants says, Oh, we don't want those new people. Oh, gosh, we don't want them. You're even seeing that. Uh, Mr. Suarez among some Latinos who also want to shut the border and kick people out and even mass deport them. Why is that?

RAY: But you know, critically, Joy, part of this story is that the first century plus of immigration was almost solely from Europe.

And then As [01:21:00] America law, American law changed in the 20th century, people started to come here from more places in the world. So that created a bifurcated, stratified immigrant population in this country where most of the new people are non white, and most of the people with pictures of their grandparents and great grandparents, sepia toned photographs, lovingly kept on mantelpieces, those people are almost exclusively European.

And that sets up a difficult Social change for us now as the new folks, nine out of the 10 sending countries of people born in another place in the world are sending non white immigrants to the United States. That's a really important part of understanding the unease we're having about this right now.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, and I mean, Olivia, during the Trump administration, when you were working in the administration, I mean, Jeff Sessions, when he was Attorney General, he is an open supporter of the 1927, [01:22:00] I believe, Immigration Act, which essentially was, to Mr. Suarez's point, the goal of it was to shut down immigration from everywhere, but Europe was to say, we don't even want that.

Southern Europeans. They didn't even want Italians. They certainly didn't want Asians. They certainly didn't want Africans, North Africans, et cetera. The idea was to whiten immigration. And of course it was Reagan who did the opposite. 3 million people given open amnesty by Ronald Reagan. And those people were largely non white.

They were largely Mexican migrants. So, so how do you square a party where Ronald Reagan did amnesty or George Herbert Walker Bush was very open about saying, we welcome immigration. We want immigrants. And where George W. Bush said the same and even made positive noises about Muslim and Arab immigration to this.

OLIVIA TROY: Well, I think the fact of the matter is that that Republican party of the past is gone, Joy. I mean, that's the bottom line. Um, what it is today is a complete fear mongering, anti immigrant sentiment. And, you know, you mentioned Jeff [01:23:00] Sessions. I brought back a lot of memories of the immigration meetings I was in.

I, you know, Spent all four years of the Trump administration working the immigration portfolio when we could spend hours talking about the things that I witnessed and the things that were said. And it wasn't Jeff Sessions. I'll be very clear. I could just remember Stephen Miller was a big proponent of all these things.

And so when I hear actually Donald Trump speaking the way he is this week, the way he has in the past couple of weeks, he actually sounds like Stephen Miller did in actual immigrant immigration policy meetings at the very highest levels. I'm talking about cabinet meetings, Joy, where traditionally. You would not hear this type of language being spoken, but this is how he would speak.

He would talk in this manner and he would engage fear because that's the only thing he had. Right. And then he would push these extreme policies. And so I think in the contrast here, when we're looking at this and the Republican Party of today under Donald Trump, which breaks my heart, right, as a lifelong Republican and as a daughter of a Mexican immigrant who believed in the Republican Party of the past.

Watching what is happening here is so [01:24:00] just detrimental to who we are as a country. And it's also dangerous as we're seeing with all the threats that we're seeing throughout the country when they push these messages out.

SECTION D - SOLUTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D: Solutions.

Prof Richard Wolff A FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR OF IMMIGRANTS Part 3 - The Zero Hour - Air Date 10-12-24

RICHARD WOLFF: I mean, I think it's a wonderful way to introduce socialism here in the United States. It's a wonderful idea. Look, it's about planning. It's about saying that our priority is to incorporate the benefits of a new technology, incorporate the benefits, if you like, of immigration, Without damaging people and and that requires planning you have to you have to plan you you can't say To the private sector you install AI when you want to and you fire X percent of your labor force And go about your business as if there's no agency, not [01:25:00] you, not the society, not the government, who takes charge.

We don't want you to fire those people. That destroys their morale. That puts, we know from, Every statistic there is that if you unemploy people, you increase their physical illness, their mental illness, their turn to drugs, their alcoholism, their, their wife abuse, their husband abuse, their child abuse. I mean, come on, the social ills that flow from unemployment are humongous and the costs of them equally so.

So it is irrational simply to incur them. And why? To secure private profit? That's not, that's not worth it. That's a bad bargain. Let's forego the private profit and make sure that we do the humane, cost minimizing thing, [01:26:00] which is to guarantee incomes and to guarantee the replacement of every worker who is found to be redundant.

Let us have a system in every workplace. If we need fewer positions, what is the system that allows those, for example, who are older to have a priority than those who are younger? Or those who have more dependents have a priority over those who have fewer? In other words, a whole system of planned adjustment.

Then we get the benefit of AI. without paying the absurd cost that is otherwise lurking. All of this anxiety about what AI is going to do has a premise that there is no program of planned job maintenance. If there were, we wouldn't be worried about it. It would be a non [01:27:00] issue. It's like saying in a community, we're worried that nobody has a public park.

No one can get out of the house. and have a picnic on the lawn. No one has a lawn. Okay, we're going to create Central Park, right in the middle of town. We knock down all the buildings, and we have grass and flowers and animals and ponds. Problem solved. Everybody can go to the picnic. This is not difficult, and if we had a voice that said it, whether it's on immigration or on AI, And I'm noticing the parallels as I talk.

I think these would be very popular positions politically for people to engage and think about. Even for one of the major parties if they lost just a bit of their mountain of timidity. [01:28:00]

RJ ESKOW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: And uh, I would summarize that all, Richard Wolff, with the phrase that popped into my head was a future without fear.

Which, which we can have, but we have to prepare for it in order to avoid that fear.

Escaping Otherism Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide Part 3 - Post Carbon Institute - Air Date 6-12-24

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Okay, let's talk about visions for for what doing the opposite might look like and

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: besides rooting for a sports team you mean Besides, okay,

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: and I think you talked about don't other another opposite is belonging, right? opposite of other Of othering.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: I could, I could buy that.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: So let's, let's just define belonging for a minute.

Belonging means having a meaningful voice and the opportunity to participate in the design of political, social, and cultural structures that shapes one's life. If you belong, then you have the right to both contribute and to make [01:29:00] demands upon the society and, and. political institutions. And so by this, we're talking about not just belonging to a small ingroup, but belonging to society, you know, more broadly, it's going outside of the completely homogeneous group,

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: right?

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And the idea of belonging is radical, because it requires mutual power, right? It requires access for everyone opportunity for All the groups and the individuals within a shared container.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah. Like that, that's it, right? It requires those with power to give up and share some of that.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Or just to say like, well, that's our goal.

Our, our goal, we have power, but our goal is to be sharing that power and to listen to others. And I think we have to be very careful then about who we elect and do they have those values or not? I would say, okay, the need to belong is of course, fundamental and universal to human survival and.

Flourishing. And so bonding is part of surviving and thriving as a human. And there's these consistent findings, right, of infants and children. You can have all the nutrients and physical care [01:30:00] set up, but if you don't have love and emotional bonds, you're stunted in brain development and IQ and impulse control and emotional empathy as well as your physical growth.

So it's absolutely critical that, that people feel that they belong to something.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Okay, so if belonging is the opposite of othering and we're going to promote belonging, let's look at what are the elements, what, what, what makes it up and I read from the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley that there are four elements, okay?

So the, the first of these is that belonging requires inclusion. This is probably the most obvious, but something I want to point out is you can be included somewhere. But still feel like you, you don't belong. So including is sort of a necessary step, but it certainly isn't sufficient. Uh, you know, an example would be, uh, Jason, you belong to a male only tennis club, right?

Why

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: are you talking? I know it's not,

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: let's pretend it was the [01:31:00] 1930s and it was male only. Okay. And you started inviting women to participate. They can play

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: sports.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yes. Okay. Okay. Don't get into trouble. I'm pretending it's the 1930s. Okay. Sorry. I'm being ridiculous. But that's the thing. If women are treated as outsiders or tokenized or even you're expected to serve as kind of the representative of all women everywhere, then we're not really getting past other ring at that point.

But I

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: understand,

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: but it's the first step is mixed

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: doubles is a great game. It is. It's fine. Okay,

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: so belonging, you know, that's one element. Belonging also requires a sense of connection. And of course, that's subjective, but When an institution or an organization or a community engenders feelings of attachment and fondness, safety, warmth, that creates that sense of connection and belonging that's really critical for people.

JASON BRADFORD - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And it also requires visibility or recognition and My wife tells me this all [01:32:00] the time, but the simple act of being seen, heard, and understood can be quite powerful for making people feel that their social group is respected and valued.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: And I think it's a particularly true for groups that have been long marginalized.

Yeah. And there can be, you know, often situations for people where, because they've never really felt that they had a voice at the table, it's not just a matter of saying, Oh, now you have a voice. It's really trying to encourage that in, in creating a sense of trust. That, that gets back to that sense of connection because people need to feel like they can actually trust to be able to feel recognized.

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Okay, so we've got inclusion, we've got connection, we've got visibility or recognition, and then the fourth element, maybe stepping it up even farther. is agency. Belonging requires agency. And that means that people have a voice and a say, they have a meaningful degree of influence over how the group or the institution operates.

[01:33:00] And it doesn't mean that when People who are formerly marginalized come into the group that any demand or anything they ask is going to automatically be incorporated or change the group, but it does mean that it would be considered that you would have a legitimate listening, weighing, and then, you know, maybe you would have a compromise or an amendment to how the group operates, but that agency is key for belonging.

ASHER MILLER - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: So part of doing the opposite to othering or otherism is practicing anti othering. So we should talk a little bit about what that looks like. And I would say it begins with a commitment to not just tolerating or respecting differences, but to ensuring that all people are welcome and that they feel like they belong in society.

It's an active form. It's not a passive form of ensuring that

ROB DIETZ - CO-HOST, POST CARBON INSTITUTE: Yeah, I think all of the anti [01:34:00] othering that we can suggest is, you have to be active. And one of the ways you can be active is to challenge, and reject negative representations and stereotypes of other social groups. You know, you hear something, see something, then you kind of got to speak out. And on the flip side of that, be welcoming to outgroups.

Send them messages that they belong, that they're welcome in your community, in your society.

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 [email protected]

The additional sections of the show included clips from:

Anywhere but Washington

Verify

The Zero Hour

The Lever

Robert Reich

The ReidOut

Deadline White House

and Crazy Town

Further details are in the show [01:35:00] notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening, thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes, thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together, thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting and thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships

You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts 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.

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 members and donors to the show, from [01:36:00] bestoftheleft.com.

1 reaction Share

#1663 Recovering from Disaster(ous) Policy Amid Disinformation: Hurricanes and Wild Fires at the forefront of our climate emergency (Transcript)

Posted by · October 15, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 10/15/2024

[00:00:00]

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

Just as COVID tended to expose the preexisting fractures and inequalities in our society causing undue harm, supercharged by disinformation, so do natural disasters. And the impact of disinformation and conspiracy has only grown in recent years.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include:

Unf*cking The Republic

The BradCast

Democracy Now!

CounterSpin

Alex Wagner Tonight

All In w/ Chris Hayes

Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there’ll be more in four sections:

SECTION A - NATURAL DISASTERS

SECTION B - INTERSECTIONAL ISSUES

SECTION C - POLITICS

SECTION D - TRUMP AND DISINFORMATION

Election Denials_ Asheville, Israel & Inequality. - Unf*cking The Republic - Air Date 10-25-24

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: A relative of mine who works in the renewable energy financing sector said something a couple of years ago that really stuck with me.

He [00:01:00] and his wife were thinking about having a child and evaluating the best places to start a family, while keeping their career prospects open. Now, as a New Yorker, I'm used to these conversations all along the age spectrum because of the insane cost of living here. And it seems like 9 out of 10 relocation conversations involve somewhere in the southeast of the United States. So-and-so moved to Florida. Our friends just bought a place in South Carolina, twice the size, half the price. There's a ton of New Yorkers in North Carolina. It just feels like home. Blah, blah, blah.

But my relative wasn't thinking that way. According to the models he and his team had built, a band of real estate from upstate New York, all the way through Quebec, will have more favorable climate conditions in the coming decades.

Investing down south was simply more of a risk for the large scale projects they work on, because, you know, climate change. North Carolina in particular has seen a huge influx of New Yorkers. In fact, New Yorkers make up the largest [00:02:00] percentage of transplants in the state, and one of the idyllic places we often hear about is beautiful Asheville, North Carolina.

SKIT: Asheville, it's a magical artsy southern futopia bubble. These blue mountains inspire you to try new things. Like doing mountain pose on top of a mountain, or blowing your own glass then drinking your craft beer out of it. There are sound baths, forest baths, and luxurious spa baths. And the food? Have you ever planned your day around a biscuit?

We can describe Asheville, but to really feel it, you kind of have to be here. Explore Asheville dot com.

CLIP: North Carolina is cleaning up from the worst flooding ever on record for the state. More than 100 people are dead from Helene, a number that's still expected to rise. Hundreds more are missing and roughly 2.1 million customers are without power across the region.

At least 57 of those who died are from Buncombe County, North Carolina. That's where Asheville is.

I haven't seen my kids. I'm tired. I'm [00:03:00] hungry. I still have no power. I have no gas to get to my kids. I don't know where to get gas. So there's that.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Asheville is one of the areas in the United States that has been billed as a so-called "climate haven" or, quote, "receiving zones of climate migration," as they call it.

Building on the success of this type of campaign and possibly even the models my relative and his team were building, cities such as Madison, Wisconsin; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; and Burlington, Vermont have latched onto this idea as a marketing tool.

But flash floods in Vermont have become more common in recent years due to warmer weather and more precipitation. Buffalo's infamous snowstorms are deadlier than ever. Wisconsin experiences an average of 23 tornadoes per year, and it's not even in quote unquote "tornado alley." And though Asheville is located inland, Hurricane Helene's intensity caused extensive damage, highlighting the [00:04:00] vulnerability of mountainous regions to hurricanes.

As the storm made its way across the southeast, heavy rainfall overwhelmed rivers and streams leading to severe flooding in Asheville and the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. The French Broad River, which runs through Asheville, swelled beyond its banks, inundating homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Many parts of the city were submerged, and residents faced displacement as floodwaters entered the neighborhoods.

Roads were washed out. and landslides became a dangerous reality due to the saturation of the soil in the region's steep terrain. The devastation was compounded by the isolation of some communities, as fallen trees and landslides blocked major roads, making rescue and relief efforts difficult. In rural areas surrounding Asheville, farmland and livestock were also heavily impacted, leading to, as of yet, unknown long term economic hardships.

This week in the vice presidential debate between J. D. Vance and [00:05:00] Tim Walz, The candidates were pressed on the issue of climate change against the backdrop of the devastation in North Carolina. Now, each man expressed sorrow at the tragic events before moving coolly into the same old talking points we've been hearing for years.

Vance said he didn't want to argue about, quote, "weird science." But said if one were to believe that carbon emissions are to blame for climate change, then the answer is to reshore manufacturing. And then stated that we're the, quote, "cleanest economy in the world." Walz made sure to hammer home the point that we're producing more oil and natural gas than ever before, and that the Biden/Harris administration created more manufacturing jobs.

After burnishing the country's resume on clean energy and oil and gas production, he concluded saying, we can do it all. But now we need to, quote, "start thinking about how do we mitigate these disasters?"

In The Future of Denial, author Tad DeLay writes, quote, "Perhaps our descendants look back on the lack of urgency [00:06:00] in the long 21st century as the great dithering," end quote.

It seems we've normalized the talk of climate change already to such a degree that growing our manufacturing base is seen as a logical answer to battling the effects of it. DeLay speaks to this level of normalization by recounting Kim Stanley Robinson's dystopian novel, New York 2140. Quote, "Set in its titular city and year, multi-meter sea level rise overcomes a seawall and permanently inundates Lower Manhattan. Instead of abandoning the city, people occupy buildings that occasionally collapse into eroded foundations. They travel by gondolas and skywalks, by boats instead of taxis. They trade financial instruments indexed to sea level rise and property values. All normalized. Robinson pitched the story as an absurd extension of capitalism beyond ecological limits, but it's not a prediction. Science fiction isn't about the future. It's the now, [00:07:00] turned up a notch."

Meteorologist Guy Walton on Hurricane Milton's threat to Florida - The Bradcast - Air Date 10-8-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Over the past 15 years, he notes, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides. They blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood.

They weakened protections for wetlands, which increasing the risk of dangerous storm runoff and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate resilience grants, the ones that Project 2025 wants to do away with entirely. Those decisions, notes the Times, reflect the influence of North Carolina's home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards that, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the [00:08:00] North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state.

Quote, The Home Builders Association has fought. Every bill that has come before the general assembly to try to improve life safety. She said many of whom are themselves, many of these lawmakers who are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry They vote for bills that line their pockets and make their home building cheaper, she says.

In 2009 and 2010, lawmakers from the state's mountainous western region wanted statewide rules to restrict construction on slopes with a high or moderate risk of landslides. Their legislation failed in the face of pushback from the home building and real estate industries. Efforts to weaken building standards in North Carolina picked up [00:09:00] steam after Republicans won control of both houses of the state legislature back in 2010.

In 2011, lawmakers proposed a law that limited the ability of local officials to account for sea level rise in their planning. Again, so much for small local government. Let's tell them what they can and cannot do. At least if it helps our political cause. And then two years later, lawmakers overhauled the way North Carolina updates its building codes.

That change attracted far less attention than the sea level rule. which I think we might have covered on Green News Report at the time. Oh yes, we did. But this, in fact, this updating of the building codes would prove to be more consequential when it came to Helene. Every three years, the International Code Council, a non profit organization in D.

C., issues new model building [00:10:00] codes developed by engineers and architects and home builders and local officials. Most states adopt a version of those model codes. Which reflect the latest advances in safety and design. And again, they come out every three years, but in 2013, the North Carolina legislature now dominated by Republicans decided that the state would instead update their codes every six years.

Instead of every three. Sure, there may be helpful, new codes that help to keep our constituents safe, but let's ignore them for three years, shall we? The change proved very important because in 2015, the International Code Council added a requirement that new homes in flood zones be built at least one foot above the projected height of a major flood.

North Carolina did not adopt that version of the building code until [00:11:00] 2019. Since they were then only updating the codes every six years at that point and by the way, even then the state stripped out the new flood prevention standard that was in those new codes rather than make elevation mandatory in flood zones around North Carolina, the state decided that the requirement should only apply if local officials chose to adopt it, which is quite a racket because there were first they're preventing local officials from doing what they actually want.

And then they blocked the state from issuing mandatory codes, leaving certain things up to the states. A recipe, frankly, for nothing ever getting done, leaving homeowners in danger, raking in the dough. In the meantime, for the home builders that are giving money to the lawmakers, it's a pretty sweet deal.

That decision most likely left more homes exposed to flooding, according to experts cited in Flavel's reporting. The Republican legislature [00:12:00] took other steps as well that may have exacerbated flooding. For example, in 2014, lawmakers passed laws to weaken protection for wetlands and which can help reduce flood damage by absorbing excess rainfall.

Three years later, the legislature made it easier for developers to pave over green spaces, increasing the risk of flooding caused by heavy rains. Last year, efforts by Republican lawmakers to ease the states, to ease the state's building codes further. that erupted into confrontation with Governor Roy Cooper, who is a Democrat.

The legislature passed a law that essentially blocked the states, blocked the state from adopting new building codes until, wait for it, 2031. So they used to do it every three years. Then they moved it to every six years. Now they don't want to have new building codes again until 2031 [00:13:00] in North Carolina.

Cooper vetoed that bill saying it would wipe out, quote, wipe out years of work to make homes safer. But. Republicans, who have super majorities in the state legislature, they overrode Governor Cooper's veto. And how much will that cost homeowners today? After Helene? I don't know. Hope folks in North Carolina are asking.

The new law has made it harder for North Carolina to qualify for FEMA grants to fund climate resilient construction projects, which prioritize states with up to date building codes. The governor's office has estimated that North Carolina has lost some 70 million in grants because of the 2023 law. And then just this past summer, the Republican legislature in North Carolina again passed a series of reforms, [00:14:00] weakening the state's approach to building standards.

The law gave the legislature rather than the governor. the authority to appoint or approve members of the state's powerful building code council. It removed the requirement that the council include licensed architects. What are we going to do with architects on the council? And it included other changes like preventing the state from requiring that electric water heaters be located on campus.

Off the ground in order to protect from flooding. Governor Cooper again, vetoed that legislation and yes, you guessed it. Republicans again, use their super majority to override the governor. Now, why is this happening? Here's one reason. The Home Builders Association has contributed some 4. 3 million to North Carolina politicians over the past three decades, with Republicans receiving nearly twice as much as Democrats, according to data from [00:15:00] OpenSecrets, which tracks political spending.

And here's where it really, here's where it's really a racket. Really a racket for the home buyers in all of this. They save money when they're building houses and other buildings because of the, easing of the codes. And when they have to rebuild, they make a lot of money again because they failed to the thing, the houses they built failed to stand up to completely predictable disasters.

So guess who gets the contracts to rebuild? Quite a racket.

Six Factory Workers Feared Dead In Tenn. After Being Swept Away During Hurricane Helene - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-3-24

NERMEEN SHAIKH - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We look now at the impact of Hurricane Helene. Power outages and water shortages continue across six southeastern states. The death toll from the storm is nearing 200, with hundreds more still missing and presumed dead. This includes six plastic factory workers in Erwin, Tennessee, who were swept away as floodwaters [00:16:00] swelled around their workplace after their boss reportedly threatened to fire anyone who left during the storm. This is the family of an Impact Plastics worker named Lidia Verdugo.

FERNANDO RUIZ: [translated] She was still working when she called me, and she told me that it was really raining. And I told her to leave. But she told me they weren’t telling her anything.

COMMUNITY TRANSLATOR: If they would have told them to leave earlier, maybe we would be here — they would still be here today, and we wouldn’t be looking for them. But when they tried to leave, it was too late.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating how some workers said Impact Plastics threatened to fire anyone who left ahead of the storm. This is Robert Jarvis, one of the survivors.

WCYB REPORTER: What would you say to the company?

ROBERT JARVIS: Why did you make us work that day? Why? We shouldn’t have worked. We shouldn’t have been there. None of us should have been there. And that’s what I should have said to them.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Impact Plastics said Monday in a statement it had monitored weather conditions [00:17:00] during the storm and that managers had dismissed workers, quote, “when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power,” unquote.

For more, we’re joined by Cesar Bautista, campaign director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, has been working in Erwin, Tennessee, to assist with relief efforts after Hurricane Helene.

Cesar, welcome to Democracy Now! We only have a few minutes. Can you explain what happened? This plastics factory is right next to a river. What were they told? Why were they so afraid they’d be fired if they didn’t come to work?

CESAR BAUTISTA SANCHEZ: Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me on.

Yes. So, a lot of the family members, you know, expressed, just like on the clip that you showed, that they were told, like, not to leave yet, that they were still asking questions, like, you know, “Should we leave or not so far?” They kept going back and forth, I believe, with one of the secretaries at the office. But as [00:18:00] they were trying to get answers, they were noticing that the water was getting higher and higher, like in the parking lot area. And, you know, once, like, the factory did make the decision of telling people, “OK, you can go,” it was just too late. And the water had rised too high, to the point that they couldn’t move their cars anymore and try to get to safety.

NERMEEN SHAIKH - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And so, what are you calling for, Cesar? You’re obviously advocating on the rights of these workers. What are you calling for?

CESAR BAUTISTA SANCHEZ: Well, you know, in these moments right now, it’s very difficult, you know, and we are standing in solidarity with all the families that they lost a loved one. And like most importantly, what we’re calling is just to be sure that there’s equitable access to the recovery plan that the city and the state have initiated, so just making sure, you know, that there’s no language barriers, that everybody has the equal amount of access to any kind of resources that are being provided, just to be sure that the families have what they [00:19:00] need in order to rebuild their lives after this hurricane.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, talk about how typical this was. Now, again, to emphasize, Impact Plastics said, “At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility.” But if you can, overall, talk about the fear of migrant workers? And also, we’re talking about a vast area of six states right now. You work with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. We don’t really know how many people have died, close to 200 at this point quantified, but hundreds more missing. And where are people going for refuge?

CESAR BAUTISTA SANCHEZ: You know, so, here in Erwin, Tennessee, a lot of people right now have been going to the county high school for any kind of refuge or resources that they’re looking for. That has been a great source also. The local [00:20:00] church, one of the local churches, St. Michael, has been just a great supporter for the community to gather, to mourn, to just really process everything that has been happening. And so, that has been, you know, where people have been going mainly just to try to find some comfort and support with the community. I would say, too, you know, that the community, overall, has shown a very great — they’ve come up as a unified forum, you know, just, like, to really support each other and just to keep each other together throughout this tough process right now.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And the understanding about climate change — for many immigrants, one of the reasons they came to this country, fleeing the devastation of climate change in their country, and then dealing with it today here. All the reports are saying the intensification, the rapidity with which this storm [00:21:00] intensified, due to climate change.

CESAR BAUTISTA SANCHEZ: Right. And so, you know, with climate change, as we see this — you know, this is starting to be more of a pattern now here in Tennessee. You know, we had the hurricane just a couple days ago. Last December, we had a tornado go through Nashville, Tennessee. And then, two years before that, there was another tornado. And so, we’ve noticed that this is starting to become a pattern.

And so, what really we’re urging, you know, our municipalities and, like, in the state, not just in Tennessee, but across the country, is that they have to have, like, you know, those evacuation plans for each city, but also now for each company that has, like, all these workers there, in order to be sure that people are safe,

Derek Seidman on Insurance and Climate, Insha Rahman on Immigration Conversation - CounterSpin - Air Date 10-4-24

JANINE JACKONS - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: In your super helpful piece for Truthout, you cite a Washington Post story from last September. Here's the headline and [00:22:00] subhead. Quote, "Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow. Some of the largest U. S. insurance companies say extreme weather has led them to end certain coverages, exclude natural disaster protections, and raise premiums," close quote.

I think that drops us right into the heart of the problem you outline in that piece. What's going on? And why do you call it the insurance industry's self-induced crisis?

DEREK SEIDMAN: Thank you. Well, certainly there is a growing crisis. The insurance industry is pulling back from certain markets and regions and states because the costs of insuring homes and other properties are becoming too expensive to remain profitable with the rise of extreme weather. And so we've seen a lot of coverage in the past [00:23:00] few months over this growing crisis in the insurance industry.

But one of the critical things that's left out of this is that the insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry. And in this narrative in the corporate media, the insurance industry on the one hand and extreme weather on the other hand are often treated like they're completely separate things, and they're just coming together, and this quote unquote "crisis" is being created. And it's a real problem that the connections aren't being made there.

So I guess a couple of things that should be said first, that the insurance industry is -- the fossil fuel industry and its operations could not exist without the insurance industry. We can look at that relationship in two ways.

So first, of course, is through insurance. The insurance giants -- AIG, Liberty Mutual and so on -- they collectively rake in billions [00:24:00] of dollars every year in insuring fossil fuel industry infrastructure, whether that's pipelines or offshore oil rigs or liquefied natural gas export terminals, this fossil fuel infrastructure and its continued expansion -- this simply could not exist without underwriting by the insurance industry. It would not get its permit approvals. It would just not be able to operate. It couldn't track investors and so on. So that's one way.

Another way is that -- and this is something a lot of people might not be aware of -- but the insurance industry is an enormous investor in the fossil fuel industry. Basically, one of the ways the insurance industry makes money is it takes the premiums and it pools a chunk and invests those. So it's a major investor. And the insurance industry across the board has tens of billions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel industry. And this is actually stuff that anybody can go and look up, because some of it's public. So for example, the insurance giant AIG, because it's a big investor, it has to [00:25:00] disclose its investments with the SEC. And earlier this year, AIG disclosed that, for example, it had $117 million dollars invested in ExxonMobil, $83M invested in Chevron, $46M in ConocoPhillips, and so on and so on.

So on one hand, you have this sort of hypocritical cycle where the insurance industry is saying to ordinary homeowners who are quite desperate, we need to jack up the price on your premiums, or we need to pull away altogether. We can't insure you anymore. While on the other hand, it's driving and enabling and profiting from the very operations, fossil fuel operations, that are causing the extreme weather in the first place, that the insurance industry has been using to justify pulling back from insuring just regular homeowners.

JANINE JACKONS - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: This is a structural problem, clearly, that you're pointing to, and you don't want to be too conspiratorial about it, but these folks do literally have dinner with one another. [00:26:00] These insurance executives and the fossil fuel companies.

And then I want to add, you complicate it even further by talking about knock-on effects that include making homes uninsurable. When that happens, well then that contributes to this thing where banks and hedge funds buy up homes. So it's part of an even bigger cycle that folks probably have heard about.

DEREK SEIDMAN: Yeah, absolutely. This whole scenario, it's horrible because it impacts homeowners and renters. If you talk to landlords, they say that the rising costs of insurance are their biggest expense and they are in part taking that out on tenants by raising rents, right?

But it also really threatens just global financial stability. With the rise of extreme weather and homes becoming more expensive to insure, or even uninsurable, home values can really collapse. And when they collapse, aside from the horrific human drama of all that, [00:27:00] and banks are reacquiring foreclosed homes that in turn are unsellable because of extreme weather and they can't be insured.

The big picture of all this is that it leads to banks acquiring a growing amount of risky properties, and it can create a lot of financial instability. And we saw what happened after 2008, as you mentioned, right? With private equity coming in and scooping up homes.

And so yeah, it creates a lot of systemic financial instability, opens the door for financial predators like private equity and hedge funds to come in.

JANINE JACKONS - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And it seems to require an encompassing response, a response that acknowledges the various moving pieces of this. I wonder, finally, is there responsive law or policy, either on the table now or just maybe in our imagination, that would address these concerns?

DEREK SEIDMAN: There are organizers that are definitely starting to do something about it. And there are some members of Congress that are also starting to do something about it. For [00:28:00] this story, I interviewed some really fantastic groups. One of them is Ensure Our Future. And this is a broader campaign that is working with different groups around the country and really demanding that insurers stop insuring new fossil fuel build out, that they phase out their insurance coverage for existing fossil fuels, for all the reasons that we've been talking about today.

At the state level, there are groups that are doing really important and interesting things. So one of the groups that I interviewed was called Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and they've been working hard in coalition with other groups in Connecticut to introduce and pass a state bill that would create a climate fund to support residents that are impacted by extreme weather. Connecticut's seen its fair share of extreme weather. And this fund would be financed by taxing insurance policies in the state that are connected to fossil fuel projects, it's also a kind of disincentive to investing fossil fuels. In New York, there a coalition of groups and lawmakers just [00:29:00] introduced something called the Insure Our Communities bill. And this would ban insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, and it would set up new protections for homeowners that are facing extreme weather disasters. I spoke to organizers in Freeport, Texas with a group called Better Brazoria. And these are people that are on the Gulf coast, really on the front lines. And Better Brazoria is just one of a number of frontline groups along the Gulf coast that are organizing around the insurance industry, and they're trying to meet with insurance giants and say to them, look, what you're doing is we're losing our homeowner insurance while you're insuring these risky LNG plants that are getting hit by hurricanes and fires are starting, and trying to make the case to them that this is just not even good business for them.

And then more recently, you've seen Bernie Sanders and others start to hold the insurance industry's feet to the fire a little more, opening up investigations into their connection to the fossil fuel industry, and how this is creating financial instability.

So I think this is becoming [00:30:00] more and more of an issue that people are seeing is a real problem for the financial system. It's something that we should absolutely think about when we think about the climate crisis and the sort of broader infrastructure that's enabling the fossil fuel industry to exist, and continue its polluting operations that are causing the climate crisis and extreme weather. So I think we're going to see only more of this going forward.

Trump's politicized lies about Helene recovery calls to mind his abysmal record handling disasters - Alex Wagner Tonight - Air Date 10-4-24

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Okay. In August of 2020, Donald Trump was campaigning for reelection amid a series of ongoing crises. We were in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. The summer saw a wave of protests and uprisings over the murder of George Floyd. And to top it all off, the state of California was experiencing its largest wildfire season in recorded history. And it was that last crisis that prompted Donald Trump to say this during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

DONALD TRUMP: And I see again, the forest fires are starting. They're starting again in California. I said, you [00:31:00] got to clean your floors. You got to clean your forests. They have many, many years of leaves and broken trees, and they're like, like so flammable. You touch them and it goes up. I've been telling them this now for three years, but they don't want to listen.

The environment, the environment. But they have massive fires again in California. Maybe we're just going to have to make them pay for it.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Maybe we're just going to have to make them pay for it. Trump bizarrely and falsely claimed that wildfires were somehow the result of California officials not cleaning the floors of the forest. And then threatened to make California pay for its own disaster relief. For the record, Trump's claim has been thoroughly debunked. The state of California owns only 3 percent of its forests. The rest are owned by private groups or the federal government. And federal agencies do take regular steps to mitigate the buildup of debris in the forest. I don't know if that includes cleaning the [00:32:00] floors, whatever that means.

But that reality didn't keep Trump from repeating this claim over and over again. The previous year, when California wildfires were also raging, Trump treated an angry screed at California Governor Gavin Newsom. This is what it said: "I told him from the first day we met that he must clean his forest floors. And then he comes to the federal government for financial help. No more."

The year before that, it was the same thing, almost like a California wildfire tradition. That year, Trump tweeted, "Billions of dollars are given each year with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments."

That was how Donald Trump acted when he was president, during moments of national disasters. He blamed the libs and threatened to withhold aid. He is still doing it. Just two weeks ago at a fundraiser in California, Trump threatened to withhold future fire aid [00:33:00] if Governor Gavin Newsom didn't agree to change the state's water usage rules.

DONALD TRUMP: And Gavin Newscomb [sic] is going to sign those papers. And if he doesn't sign those papers, we won't give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don't give him the money to put out his fires, he's got problems. He's a lousy governor.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: That threat is not just bluster. Trump has actually tried to do this before.

A bombshell new report today from E&E News reveals that in 2018, President Trump actually did try to withhold disaster aid from California, just because it was a blue state. To punish the Americans who didn't vote for Trump. Mark Harvey, a former senior disaster relief official in the Trump White House, told E&E News that he was only able to get Trump to approve disaster relief for California by pulling up voting results from conservative-leaning Orange County to show President Trump that his own supporters had been heavily affected by the [00:34:00] fires. Harvey told the outlet, "we went as far as looking up how many votes Trump got in those impacted areas to show him these are the people who voted for you."

And it wasn't just California. E&E News also found that as president, Donald Trump directed FEMA to cover 100 percent of the costs for disasters in conservative areas, like the Florida panhandle, while objecting to and slow walking aid for blue territories, like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria. Though Trump did manage to throw the people of Puerto Rico a few paper towels.

President Biden responded to this new reporting about Trump's nakedly political decisions on disaster aid, writing on X, "You can't only help those in need if they voted for you. It's the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it."

Right now, the Biden administration is in the middle of trying to deal with the latest natural disaster to hit this country. [00:35:00] The full extent of the damage from Hurricane Helene has yet to be realized. But right now, NBC News reports that over 220 people have died as a result of that storm, and hundreds of people are likely still missing.

More than a week after Hurricane Helene, nearly 700,000 people are still dealing with major power outages. Loss of connectivity has made it difficult, and in some cases nearly impossible to reach people. Residents are also dealing with the health risks posed by the lack of access to clean water and toxic contamination that has resulted from the storm.

FEMA has already processed 45 million dollars in direct assistance to the people affected by Hurricane Helene. But amid that ongoing relief effort, Trump has decided to use this disaster as fodder for his political campaign.

At a rally last night, Trump falsely claimed that hurricane victims are being denied relief money because the Biden administration [00:36:00] spent FEMA dollars on housing for migrants. Now, for the record, this is totally false. The White House has responded in a statement saying no disaster relief funding at all was used to support migrants, housing, and services. None. At. All. Trump may just be projecting here. The Washington Post reports that back in 2018, Trump himself diverted money from FEMA so that the Border Patrol could use it for migrant detention. Trump's claims about the Biden-Harris response to Hurricane Helene seem to follow the bizarre Trump rule that every accusation is a confession.

But that hasn't stopped the spread of misinformation among Trump supporters, especially online, where Trump has been aided by his pal Elon Musk in a quest to propagate lies. In addition to letting misinformation about the storm spread wildly on his platform, X, Elon Musk himself has been amplifying fake news.

[00:37:00] Things have gotten so out of hand here that FEMA has had to make its own landing page on the FEMA website dedicated to debunking these rumors about recovery efforts.

'Enraging' Republicans ‘suddenly’ see disinformation problem amid hurricane crisis - All In w/ Chris Hayes - Air Date 10-9-24

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Far right kooks and conspiracy theories of all sorts have been part of our political landscape for a very long time now. But they're more powerful than they've ever been in my lifetime. They're on social media. They're on Fox. Some now hold elected office, even at the very top. Now, whether they do it out of cynicism or self delusion, or like they've just got brain worms, they're all happy to promote outrageous disinformation about the libs and the globalists and immigrants and lots of other people who can't defend themselves. But then, every once in a while, their ceaseless lies present a practical problem to the Republican political establishment they serve.

There's a moment that I think exemplified this back in November of 2020. After Joe Biden won, and Donald Trump started spinning lies about a rigged result, there was still, remember, [00:38:00] a pair of critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia which would determine party control of the Senate. And Ronna Romney McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman at the time, struggled to convince Georgia Republicans to vote because they falsely believed their votes wouldn't be counted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Machines are switching the votes. And we go there in crazy numbers. And they should have won, but then there's still...

RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL: Yeah, we have to, we didn't see that in the audit. So, we've got to just... that evidence I haven't seen. So, we'll wait and see on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are we gonna give money and work when it's already decided.

RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL: It's not decided. This is the key.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do we know?

RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL: It's not decided. If you lose your faith and you don't vote and people walk away, that, that will decide it.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Oh really? Oh now, you don't like that disinformation, Ronna Romney McDaniel. Now you're standing up to tell them, no, no, no, it's not decided, it's not rigged. Now it's time to tell the truth that there will be bad consequences. [00:39:00] Republicans lost both those elections, by the way.

And so now here we are watching Hurricane Milton hitting Florida while still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the southeast. And I keep thinking of that Ronna Romney McDaniel clip because you've got government officials of both parties and apolitical civil servants struggling to combat the rampant misinformation that far right politicians, pundits, and influencers are spreading about the storms and disaster response.

From Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene posting repeatedly about "they can control the weather", to Elon Musk, the die hard Trump supporting owner of the website formerly known as Twitter, using his site and his personal account to spread lies that officials say are hampering recovery efforts. Listen to some of the lies that Congressman Chuck Edwards decided he needed to rebut. To be clear, he's a Republican whose district covers some of the parts of North Carolina that were worst hit by helines. He felt the need to tell his own constituents that no, Hurricane Helene was not geo [00:40:00] engineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock, adding, "nobody can control the weather".

He also stressed that FEMA has not diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid. More on that particular lie in a moment. Also stating that no, FEMA is not going to run out of money and that FEMA cannot seize your property or land. That's a conservative Republican congressman trying to save his constituents from disinformation spreading primarily among Republicans and conservatives on social media.

He's not alone. When social accounts started spreading a false rumor that FEMA was hiring private security contractors in Florida to keep evacuees away from their homes, Well, it was debunked online by Christina Pushaw, a staffer for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, saying "Spreading LIES like this could have serious consequences. If people in an evacuation zone see this and decide NOT to evacuate, despite [00:41:00] warnings from state & local emergency management, they are unnecessarily putting their own lives (& lives of first responders) at grave risk".

If Pushaw's name sounds familiar, it's because she has spent much of her career spreading antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-media conspiracy theories and fake news. She helped popularize the term "groomers", a disgusting term, to condemn anyone critical of Florida's Don't Say Gay law. Now, imagine how bad the misinformation has to be for Christina Pushaw to say enough is enough, you're endangering people's lives. Same can be said for Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who just last week, as we quoted on the show, was telling his social media followers, "you can't trust the Biden White House and Bureau of Labor Statistics on jobs numbers. Another fake jobs report out from Biden Harris government today. All the fake numbers in the world aren't going to fool people". But this week, Rubio was on Twitter, telling his followers the path of Hurricane Milton mirrored what federal weather officials told him was a worst case scenario. You see, now he needs his constituents to [00:42:00] trust federal civil servants and follow their guidelines to survive the storm. Just days after he told them that the same federal civil servants lie. See the problem here, right? And of course, the ultimate example of this is the big lie circulating about FEMA.

DONALD TRUMP: Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars on housing for illegal migrants.

MATT GAETZ: Housing assistance under FEMA, almost any reasonable person would think, would be available for Americans who are displaced from their houses in a time of disaster, but that has been used on illegal immigrants.

JD VANCE: How can we afford to give billions of dollars to illegal immigrants in this country, but we've got to go back to the well to provide disaster relief for our own citizens? That's a disgrace.

STEVE SCALISE: Look, they can't even take care of people in North Carolina from a hurricane because they're too busy spending our taxpayer dollars taking care of illegal aliens.

SEAN HANNITY: This is the Biden Harris administration caught red handed [00:43:00] dedicating a massive amount of money that was supposed to be there for emergency relief for Americans in North Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere to dispense to illegal immigrants while hurricane ravaged victims all over the country are left out to dry.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: To be clear, it's not like one of these things where it's a matter of interpretation or a kernel of truth. It's an absolute lie. Stone cold lie. Started by Donald Trump, then spread by his running mate. His supporters on Capitol Hill, all the lackeys you saw there, Steve Scalise, the number two man in Congress, his supporters on Fox. The lie says that FEMA lacks the resources for disaster victims because it spent the cash on undocumented migrants. It is a lie that, as you just heard, was debunked by a Republican congressman from the affected area.

So, here are the facts. FEMA has enough funding in the short term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, and there is no funding connection between shelter for migrants and funding for [00:44:00] disaster relief. There is no intermingling of funds between these two programs. That's not me saying it. It's the Republicans in charge of the House Appropriations Committee. In a fact sheet they shared yesterday with Chad Pergam, the congressional reporter for Fox, because they felt the urgent need to push back on a lie that is being spread by Fox News and by Donald Trump. A lie started by their candidate for President, Donald Trump, and amplified, as you see, by his campaign surrogates, passed along on the social media site owned by the billionaire funding one of his super PACs.

Republicans who suddenly see a conflict between the welfare of their constituents and the toxic effect of their party's propaganda and also don't want to fly back to Washington for an emergency session to fund FEMA when FEMA has money. Now, struggling to explain to their audiences that, well, up is up and down is down and water is wet and 2 plus 2 equals 4. And you could laugh at it when their disinformation was mainly just costing them votes in winnable elections [00:45:00] like Georgia. But now it could cost lives in a massive, complex disaster recovery. It is enraging that it took a crisis of these proportions to convince politicians who politicized everything that some government functions need to be above politics.

Hurricane Milton Menaces Florida; Fact Report after Helene with NC blogger Tom Sullivan - The BradCast - Air Date 10-7-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Now, to their credit, the North Carolina State Board of Elections, they were out very quickly after the storm announcing that they would be sending out mobile, so called Elections In A Box kits to affected areas to help register folks to vote and to process absentee ballots. Now the City of Asheville itself, as I said, is very Democratic leaning area, but the communities around it in, the mountains and so forth, I understand are very Republican leaning.

First, I know you were in touch today, I believe, with a local county elections chief out there in Asheville. What did you learn from him as far as how they can be preparing for an [00:46:00] election amid everything else that's going on, with an election just less than a month away now?

TOM SULLIVAN: Well, I mean, early voting starts next week. And we're having to scramble right now with the damage and the loss of power and water at a lot of the sites. They're having to scramble right now. They're not going to have a meeting until tomorrow to, well, basically we were going to have 14 early voting sites open for two and a half weeks. We will have fewer. How many fewer and what hours they will be run, that all has to be hashed out and on the fly.

But the Board of Elections just issued a press release this afternoon. And what they're having to do is all the planning for early voting and the voting operations have to be submitted to the state board and then approved. And once [00:47:00] that's approved, this pretty much locked in. Well, they're having to be more flexible for this. And so they're allowing for, I'm looking like 13 counties, they're going to be giving them a little more flexibility to change those plans on the fly to suit the fact that some of the sites we were planning on using may not be available. We have 80 precincts on election day. Some of those may have to be combined and all that's yet to be determined.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: After speaking with the local county elections chief, Tom Sullivan, in Asheville today, do you have confidence that everyone in North Carolina, or at least everyone in Asheville, who wants to vote will be able to vote this year? Do you feel that they are nimble enough in the state, across the state, to accommodate this disaster that's gone on? And by the way, you guys just have put in a new photo ID restriction. A lot of folks, [00:48:00] I suspect, lost their photo ID in the storm, in the wind, in the rain. Do you have confidence that voters in North Carolina of any and all stripes will in fact, be able to cast their vote if they want to this year?

TOM SULLIVAN: Well, that's the plan. We've got one of the best boards in the state. We've got some of the best voter turnout in the state. Our problem is we're not as big as Raleigh or Meck or Charlotte. But, we do a really good operation here. And we don't expect any other kinds of shenanigans, if you want to read into that. But we will do the best we can. And we're really very effective at this. So I'm not too worried about that. But your comment about loss of I. D., that could pose a problem. And I haven't had a chance, this just came up, I haven't had a chance to read through what sort of flexibility the local boards will have [00:49:00] regarding handling that problem.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: On that, I might be able to help you, Tom, because while you had no power, I was trying to keep my own eyes on this. And apparently, if you identify yourself, if you don't have an ID, if you lost your ID, but you come from one of the affected counties where there is a state of emergency, you will be allowed to sign an affidavit And I believe fill out a provisional ballot and then vote, and that should be counted. But of course, there's always concerns about provisional ballots. Those are easier to not count, easier to toss than, real ballots. So that's a concern. But as I understand it, that is currently the process for those counties that are currently, I guess, under a state of emergency, which is a bunch of counties in North Carolina.

In theory, folks should be able to vote if it's something they can even think about. [00:50:00] Karen in Oakland, calls in to ask, "Has Tom seen Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson anywhere, like tossing paper towels at storm victims?" Yes. is he out and about? People who don't know he's kind of the loony, to put it nicely, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina who is running against the Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein for governor this year. Has Mark Robinson showed up in Asheville yet?

TOM SULLIVAN: I've seen a headline that he was out making some comments about the disaster, but I think it was something that popped up while I was completely cut off from comms, so I didn't get to see it. But I saw a photo and a headline, but I don't even know where he was when he made his comments.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: It sounds like you are doing well. It sounds like the community there is pulling together, even if the rest of the world is [00:51:00] going batty around you, but do you have any sense—it may be too early, I realized, Tom—but do you have any sense of how all of this may affect the presidential race this year? Any overall understanding of that?

TOM SULLIVAN: I think Mecklenburg got added to one of the disaster counties. That's Charlotte. Their voter turnout has historically not been as good as it could be. And I believe that some of the out of state groups and some of the folks here are being encouraged to go help with their voter turnout. And if they could improve voter turnout in Charlotte, that could turn the election. Because...

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: In favor of the Democrats.

TOM SULLIVAN: In favor of the Democrats, a heavily Democratic county that doesn't turn out. A lot of people there are recent immigrants, [00:52:00] people who transition through Charlotte for jobs and then out again, it's not quite as cohesive a county as Wake County, where Raleigh is, which is a... government's the business. It's a company town. Their voter turnout is always terrific. Ours is always terrific. And that's been a weak spot and they've got a real good program. They've got a new chair there who's raising a ton of money and I think he's going to be getting a lot more help than they've used to, they're used to seeing. And, I've got my fingers crossed.

Note from the Editor on how to work with distrust in government

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We’ve just heard clips starting with:

Unf*cking The Republic looking at the hurricane impacts in Asheville

The BradCast discussed building codes and the impact of regulation

Democracy Now! highlighted the factory workers washed away by floodwaters

CounterSpin looked at the role of insurance companies and their relationship to fossil fuels

Alex Wagner Tonight reported on Trump’s politicizing of disaster recovery

All In w/ Chris Hayes explained the [00:53:00] impact of disinformation amid the election and natural disasters

And The BradCast discussed the impacts of the storm on the election in North Carolina

And those were just the top takes, there’s lots more in the deeper dives 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 manor of important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process.

Members also get chapter markers in the show but, depending on the app you use to listen, 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 [00:54:00] continue on to the deeper dives half of the show, I have just a quick thought on the decades-long effort to delegitimize the government and the effects its had.

I saw a reference to people commenting online about FEMA, calling them - effectively - a scam and refusing to donate to them. Wouldn’t donate to them. That’s not just a demonstration of how disinformation leads people to turn against those in government trying to help, it also demonstrates the sort of all pervasive idea that every group, every institution or program is doing their work while constantly asking for donations.

FEMA doesn’t ask for donations. Government doesn’t ask for donations. They’re funded, their people are paid salaries and now they’re here to help. That’s all.

Everyone knows that money can be misspent within a private or nonprofit organization, and there’s relatively little accountability. And so, if you’re [00:55:00] doing supposedly good works but you’re also soliciting donations at the same time there’s that question that arises about how well those donated funds are being used.

Are the executives getting paid way too much? What’s percentage of donations actually gets to those in need? These are the questions that always come up and haunt nonprofits while they’re fundraising.

That’s a complicated issue that I have lots of thoughts about - for another day - but what’s clarifying is the contrast with the relative simplicity of the government.

It’s funded through appropriations from congress, employees are paid based on a legally established tiered salary system - they don’t have to spend money on advertising asking for donations - in fact, they just have to advertise so that people know about the support the government is trying to provide.

But in our society that has spent so many decades demonizing government, people, exemplified by those anti-FEMA commenters refusing to donate to the cause, are [00:56:00] trapped in a worldview that sees all organizations related to the government as grifters when the reality is much more often the exact opposite.

Now, the one drawback to FEMA only dropping into a disaster area after the fact is that they don’t have the kind of local knowledge and connections that organizations on the ground might.

The Atlantic wrote a piece recently, “America Needs a Disaster Corps” and argues for a sort of hybrid model for the spending power of the government to be partnered with local organizations that, for the most part, already exist in communities across the country but don’t have the resources they need when disaster strikes.

Recognizing that disasters are only going to get more frequent and devastating, tapping into existing organizations and networks is probably the fastest way to ramp up preparedness while also reducing the effect of disinformation thanks to the nature of local organizations to have the credibility that many wouldn’t afford FEMA. [00:57:00]

We’re big fans of meeting people where they are. Usually that just means rhetorically, framing political arguments in ways that speak to peoples existing understanding of their needs - but it can also mean designing programs in a way that addresses the reality of a mistrust in government even if we know that mistrust is unfounded.

Maybe this hybrid Disaster Corps idea is just what the climate crisis is calling for.

SECTION A - NATURAL DISASTERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we’ll continue to dive deeper on 4 topics. Next up:

SECTION A - NATURAL DISASTERS

Followed by SECTION B - INTERSECTIONAL ISSUES

SECTION C - POLITICS

and SECTION D: TRUMP AND DISINFORMATION

Meteorologist Guy Walton on Hurricane Milton's threat to Florida Part 2 - The Bradcast - Air Date 10-8-24

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Florida is bracing for another intense storm. The second major storm in just two weeks as we go to air Hurricane Milton in the Gulf of Mexico rapidly intensified into an extremely dangerous [00:58:00] category five storm fueled by the record hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Caused by man made global warming, which also rapidly intensified the deadly, wildly destructive Hurricane Helene just over a week ago. Milton will hit Florida's beleaguered west coast on Wednesday, likely in the Tampa Bay region, which hasn't seen a major storm since 1921 and is particularly vulnerable to storm surge.

Officials warn that debris still on the streets from Hurricane Helene Could become projectiles where Milton makes landfall, will make the difference between impacts that are extremely destructive versus catastrophic.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: A huge difference.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Mandatory evacuations have been ordered, and Tampa Bay Mayor Jane Castor was blunt about holdouts on CNN.

CLIP: Helene was a wake up call. Uh, this is literally catastrophic and I can say without. any dramatization whatsoever. If you [00:59:00] choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And yes, climate scientists see the fingerprint of climate change in both Milton and Helene record hot gulf of Mexico.

fueling each storm's size, intensity and rapid intensification. Rising sea levels have also increased the severity of storm surge and scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that climate change caused over 50 percent more rainfall during Hurricane Helene because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: The fact that the mayor is sort of downplaying Helene to, uh, note how bad Milton can be gives you a kind of an idea because Helene was terrible.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Yes, it was. The Biden Harris administration has already approved Florida's request for federal assistance for Milton and FEMA is already on the ground pre positioning resources.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell says the agency is ready for Milton [01:00:00] amid its ongoing disaster assistance for victims of Helene. The death toll from Hurricane Helene is now more than 230 people across six states.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Yes, but is Donald Trump pre positioning his lies? about the next hurricane rolling into Florida.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Well, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump certainly has unleashed a relentless torrent of disinformation for his own political gain, which has been amplified by Fox News and social media

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: and is endangering people.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Yes, he's outright lying about the federal hurricane response to Haleen.

Republican senators and governors of those states have repeatedly debunked the right wing disinformation and demanded it stop. The editorial board of the Charlotte Observer published a scathing editorial saying, quote, shame on Donald Trump for Haleen tragedy with political lies. FEMA's Criswell was on ABC News warning that Trump's disinformation [01:01:00] campaign and lies are demoralizing first responders and harming the victims of Hurricane Helene.

CLIP: This dangerous, truly dangerous narrative is creating this A fear of trying to register for help. You know, people need resources and we need them to get into the system

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: long term. A new study released late last week suggests that hurricanes that strike the United States can result in thousands of additional deaths in future years.

The researchers publishing in the journal Nature analyzed 85 years of excess mortality data, finding as many as 11,000 additional deaths after. each storm and the death rates in affected states remain elevated for up to 15 years after a storm makes landfall. The researchers theorize it may be due to the health effects of stress, new pollutants and toxins released into the environment, loss of income, and lasting damage to homes, healthcare systems, [01:02:00] economies, and social networks.

They also found tax revenue declines after a storm, reducing healthcare and government services.

Complete Neglect Thousands Not Evacuated from Florida Jails & Prisons Ahead of Hurricane Milton - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-10-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Jordan, explain what the situation has been now in Florida for prisoners.

JORDAN MARTINEZ: Yeah, the ongoing situation, Amy, in Florida has been one of almost complete neglect and fiction writing by the Florida Department of Corrections and various county sheriff’s offices, jails, etc., claiming that incarcerated people are in fact being evacuated. The Florida Department of Corrections claims 5,600, almost, incarcerated people were evacuated, but in the list of facilities that they released, the vast majority of those evacuated were from work camps, halfway houses, work release centers. And in many cases, they were evacuated to, quote-unquote, “hardened facilities” literally across the [01:03:00] street. For example, Lowell Work Camp, which is part of the Lowell Correctional Institution women’s prison, that organizers in Florida with Change Comes Now have been fighting around various conditions, Lowell Work Camp evacuated dozens of yards away to Lowell Correctional. And so, we’re seeing this fiction being raised by FDOC, as well as the county sheriffs.

We attempted to help force evacuations in multiple mandatory evacuation zones along the west coast, and we were able to achieve one evacuation of the Orient Road Jail in Hillsborough County. But Manatee County, Lee County, Pinellas County, as well as St. Johns County on the eastern coast, all left prisoners in mandatory evacuation zones in the jails.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Jordan, you mentioned Pinellas County. The sheriff [01:04:00] there stated that, quote, “It’s really not possible to evacuate the jail because of the number of inmates,” and he instead moved people to higher floors. Can you talk about that?

JORDAN MARTINEZ: I think this is, again, part of the fiction that the sheriffs and officials in Florida like to spin to project a sense of confidence in the face of conditions that are entirely unpredictable in hurricane situations. For the vast majority of hurricanes that we’ve organized around, the actually most dangerous portions of the hurricanes are not the immediate storm surges that might flood the first floor of a prison, jail or detention center. It’s actually the aftermath in the days and weeks following, in which water is cut off, access to food is cut off, power is cut off, medical supplies are cut off. And so, evacuating people to higher floors when the bottom floor is completely destroyed that [01:05:00] houses the majority of those facilities that keep the entire system running within the prison, that people need to survive, their basic living necessities, it can create conditions in which, as has been reported on Democracy Now! before, people are forced to drink water from the toilet because they have no other access. And we see this again and again and again in disaster situations.

And the fact that they are unable to evacuate people in mandatory evacuation zones, I think, goes to show the complete lack of prioritization of the lives of incarcerated people during hurricanes. And I think we can all agree, if we are prioritizing the safety of our communities, those communities must include the incarcerated people inside, that are themselves organizing on the inside to fight for better conditions and quite often being forced during hurricanes to prepare to protect their communities via forced slave labor with sandbags or in cleanup in the aftermath.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, Jay, The [01:06:00] Intercept reports prisoners in North Carolina were left in their cells without running water or power for nearly a week, cut off from communication with the outside world and forced to keep their waste in plastic bags in their cells, from Helene. Your final comments on what needs to be done?

JORDAN MARTINEZ: Well, I think the final comments on what needs to done is there needs to be mandatory, in-place rules and regulations during evacuations when a certain category of hurricane is coming in, that require and force state and local county officials to have evacuation plans in preparation, in advance.

And lastly, I want to close with a quote from inside that we have with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, who are the folks that reported those inside conditions. And we believe it’s very important that incarcerated people are allowed to speak for themselves in these conditions. So, this is coming out of the Florida Department of Corrections itself.

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak says, “We urge the public to [01:07:00] understand our plight as people in jails and prisons. We suffer during natural disasters in locked, dark cells, not knowing if we will survive or not. This is not just a logistical failure, it’s a profound moral failing. While entire towns are evacuated and communities band together to seek safety, we remain locked within these walls, treated as less than human. It is heartbreaking to think that while the world prepares for survival during a pending natural disaster such as Hurricane Milton, we are still treated as if we don’t matter, as if our lives can be tossed aside in the name of protocol. We must end this normalized routine. We beg the public to pay attention and have a heart of compassion.”

SECTION B - INTERSECTIONAL ISSUES

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Climate.

Corporate Greed Costs Lives During Catastrophic Flooding In Tennessee - The Majority Report - Air Date 10-1-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Death toll is already over 130. Anticipated to be more. and, you know, frankly, this is like the new normal is we have a once in 100 year storm once or twice a year. we are just simply not [01:08:00] set up for this. We are not set up for these type of changes. But here is a perfect example. I mean, how many times have we?

Heard a story like this. there were workers at a Tennessee based company called Impact Plastics. people died there because they were basically, with, Helene bearing down, a private enterprise is going to Air on the side that is going to make them the most money or, you know, not prevent them from making money.

This is the story of those buses in Katrina, the outsourcing and the outsourcing and the outsourcing, the subcontracting to private enterprise to be responsible for those buses at Katrina meant that when the guy was like, the guy with the final contract, if I send those buses and they don't need them.[01:09:00]

And I send them, two hours down the road and they're waiting out there. those buses are gone to the drivers are going to be costing me. I'm going to lose money on this private enterprises. Job number one is always make money, not protect your workers, not, create a situation for the community.

That's what it is. And, here is this, worker from Impact Plastics in Tennessee, interviewed by News WCYB.

IMPACT PLASTICS WORKER: Have you seen the statement the company sent out when you saw that? What's your first thought? It was anger hurt. It was life. It was just frustration. What really happened that day? We were we were all working and the power went out and I got a text right when the power went out from another employee saying that the parking lot was flooded.

And [01:10:00] I started walking. up towards the break room. That's where you walk out at the parking lot. And I seen the parking lot flooded and I was like, what do I do? And I told me to move my car. I said, move my car. So I moved my car to higher ground, which it was still on water. There wasn't no, no at all dry ground in the parking lot.

I got out. I said, can we leave? And the woman said, no, not until I speak with Jerry. About 10 minutes later, she came back and said, y'all can leave. It was too late. We have one way in one way out. And when they told us we could leave, the one way out was blocked off. So we were stuck in traffic on that road, waiting to see what we're going to do.

Cause everybody knew it was just one way. And then we turned around. We all felt like I turned around and some people going up this big old train road, old train road for a driver, getting up there barely and people were getting stuck trying to get up [01:11:00] there. So they see. down. So some of the other employees from another company sent us down.

They said they cut open the fence on 26. So we went down there and as we're trying to go down there, my car, I lost my car and I'm sort of floating down the river. Well, we didn't know what to do. We were in a panic mode. So the water was coming up and then we did what we had to survive. It was a guy in a four by four came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives.

Well, we'd have been dead too. What does that feel like now to be, you know, one of the, I guess, few that made it out? I don't know how many. It hurts. It hurts knowing that they didn't make it and I did. I don't know. I mean, it just doesn't seem fair to me that they didn't make it. What would you say to the company?

Why'd you make us work that day? Why? We shouldn't [01:12:00] have worked. We shouldn't have been there. None of us should have been there. And that's what I should have said to him. Why did you make us work when you knew, you said in your statement, you were monitoring it. Why did you make us stay and work? Um, is there anything else?

I mean, when they let us, when they told us we could leave, it was just too late. I mean, there was no way out. Some people made it out with four wheel drive, but if you didn't have four wheel drive, or if you were stuck in that line I was stuck in, it was too late. Because, I mean, like I said, my car got washed down the river.

All right, down the road. Um,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: this is, like, reminiscent of COVID and Like I say, Katrina, the idea that these workers [01:13:00] feel so compelled and are so insecure in their status as working at this place that they can't even exercise that judgment of being able to say, like, I don't think I should go into work today.

Like that there is no margin for error for them. If they don't go into work and there's no 100 year catastrophic flood, they get fired. So if they're going to stay out from work, you better hope that's the situation that they're placed in.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I'm not sure if they're a unionized workforce, but I would bet you Everything they're

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: not.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Tennessee

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, I'm reminded of the Kentucky candle factory where eight workers died two years ago Because they weren't allowed to go home during a tornado and that same tornado also killed six amazon warehouse workers in illinois And then when you [01:14:00] mentioned covet i'm reminded of was it Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor, who said that in Texas?

Where, essentially, he said that some people would have to basically be sacrificed for the economy to keep going. We said old

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: people would be sacrificed, but, then we proceeded to sacrifice both old people and, workers.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, that's essentially how they view their work, their workers, at least in terms of how they treat them.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That's what the prevailing narrative is by all these, Restore the Republic grifters, like Bobby Kennedy, Russell Brand type of people. The problem with COVID was the shutdown and they didn't let businesses continue operating. Not that a bunch of people were maimed and killed by a virus.

Election Denials Asheville, Israel & Inequality. Part 2 - Unfcking The Republic - Air Date 10-25-24

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Inequality

CLIP: the meantime, we turn to the economy tonight into this crippling strike. Tens of thousands of Union dockworkers up and down the East Coast and the Gulf, walking off the job, threatening the nation's supply chain, and of course then, the prices you could potentially pay.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: The recent strike by dockworkers, represented by the International Longshoremen's [01:15:00] Association, is already significantly impacting ports along the East Coast and Gulf Coast.

This action, the first of its kind since 1977, is rooted in disagreements over wages and the automation of port operations, which the union argues could jeopardize jobs. The workers are demanding substantial pay increases to compensate for inflation and to oppose the growing trend of automation in port logistics.

All told, the strike currently affects 36 major ports, including key facilities in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. If the work stoppage extends beyond a few weeks, it could lead to shortages of certain goods, especially in industries like automotive and pharmaceuticals. But many companies preemptively stocked up on goods in anticipation of the strike, so the immediate consumer impacts could be limited.

As the world emerged from the pandemic, broken global supply chains had differing effects on the economy. On the one hand, it was a significant driver of inflation, though as we've demonstrated in prior episodes, multinational [01:16:00] corporations took great advantage of this phenomenon to raise prices beyond rational limits, using supply chain shocks as cover for corporate greed.

The result was a double shock to the consumer wallet. Another effect was the need to hire a great number of workers to meet pent up demand from the sudden halt to all economic activity. So taken together, in the United States at least, the economy has been incredibly difficult to read. Some areas of the economy look to be in the early stages of recovery, while others appear to be heading into a prolonged recession.

The Federal Reserve responded to inflationary pressures by increasing rates dramatically, thereby making all debt related activity extremely expensive and curbing investments. Revised employment data led the Federal Reserve to recently cut interest rates, saying that it achieved the soft landing it was looking for, and most of Wall Street and the mainstream media nodded its collective head in response to this and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

But all of this overlooks the [01:17:00] fact that the average American is still under an extreme amount of pressure right now. Accumulated household savings from government stimulus packages during the pandemic have all but been depleted. Consumer debt is at an all time high. There's a housing shortage and a homelessness crisis.

Republicans are blaming migrants for suppressing wages, taking jobs from American citizens, and taking all the available housing. Democrats are offering tax credits down the road to offer assistance for certain segments of the population, most of whom would be hard pressed to figure out how to apply for them.

Dock workers, like the rail workers and auto workers before them, understand the power of organizing and will either win certain key provisions or be obliterated by the Biden administration if this goes on long enough to hobble the economy. And of all the strike activity we've seen since the pandemic, this one has the potential to do immediate harm, so it's going to be interesting to see how the administration responds.

It's a [01:18:00] good reminder that the power is in the hands of the workers, but only to a limited extent. A hobbled economy could break the fragile electoral tie and produce Trump 2. 0, and there's no doubt that the organizers of the strike are keenly aware of this fact. It's solid brinkmanship that could pay dividends by inviting federal intervention on the side of workers to end this thing quickly in their favor.

Then again, the Biden administration isn't known for acting quickly, and has also come down on the wrong side of these disputes as in the case of the rail workers. The bigger reminder is that there is no plan for the American worker, not from the Democrats and certainly not from the Republicans. As they did with the Affordable Care Act, the Democrats crafted legislation and passed spending bills collaboratively and in favor of large corporations.

And it all passed because Republicans knew that as the minority, they could put up a stink for the sake of optics, but let it pass because Nothing materially changed on the ground for the American [01:19:00] worker. The calculus being that if they're successful in taking back the White House, they'll be the beneficiaries of corporate welfare programs that line the pockets of their donors.

So all they have to worry about is cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, just like they always do.

So, what's the upshot? If you've been watching the debates or paying attention to the election messaging at all, and I know you have, unfuckers, Then you'll know that our leaders are having all the wrong conversations. Both sides are in denial about climate change, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the struggles of American workers.

There's plenty of lip service to go around, but no plan on any of these fronts that even has a remote chance of making things better. There's no such thing as a climate haven. There's no justification for funding the massacre of civilians in Gaza and now Beirut. And there's no justification [01:20:00] for promoting the inverted totalitarian state.

It's clear that the Republican Party is openly and transparently the enemy of the people. What's so utterly mystifying to me is why the Democratic Party is trying so hard to beat them at their own game. If we dodge a bullet in November and elect the Harris Waltz ticket, there will be no time to rest.

KC Tenants helps launch a national effort for tenant protections - Up To Date - Air Date 8-11-24

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: So right out of the gate, in plain terms, explain the Tenant Union Federation and its mission to our listeners.

TARA RAGHUVEER: The Tenant Union Federation is a union of tenant unions, and we're banding together across state lines because we know our landlords are organized across state lines, and we've got a lot of work to do to figure out how The art and science of tenant organizing, you know, we've gotten a really strong start here in Kansas City and you spoke to some of the power that we've built and the wins that we've, uh, that we've been able to secure here, but the truth is where we've barely scratched the surface [01:21:00] on what tenant organizing could be and what it could look like.

We really see ourselves right now as in a similar, similar place to where the labor movement was at the beginning part of the last century before mass membership, before formal process. before organized money, um, and with a lot of urgent opportunity to go build a new kind of power in this country.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: Uh, tenants unions in Kentucky, Illinois, Connecticut and Montana are also a part of this federation.

How long has this been in the works and what initially inspired this as a collaboration?

TARA RAGHUVEER: In one way or another, this has been in the works for years. The unions that we're starting this federation with have been working together for several years, mostly on federal campaigns. We've been focused on getting the federal government to think about tenants, protect tenants, condition federal financing on a set of tenant protections.

We've been organizing a lot around the rent in the last several years with [01:22:00] that group of unions and several more. And We decided to take this next step because we saw a real limit on the power that we could organize if we didn't get serious about what defines a tenant union and started to apply some rigor to that organizing practice.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: So what went into determining who would be a part of the organization?

TARA RAGHUVEER: We spent a lot of time working with one another among that founding crew to try to understand what makes a tenant union, a tenant union. And it's interesting, even in your introduction of Casey Tenants, you describe us as an advocacy organization.

That's not how we understand ourselves. We understand ourselves to be a tenant union. And a union is actually something different than an advocacy organization. We think of ourselves as organizers, not activists. And to The sort of general listener, this might sound like parsing terms, right? Just a matter of semantics.

To us, the difference is actually really meaningful. Uh, the difference is about people [01:23:00] fighting for their own liberation. No one's speaking for the tenants. The tenants are speaking for themselves. In a tenant union, much like a labor union, uh, the tenants, like workers, organize their own power, bargain for their own protections, get their landlord to the negotiation table, uh, determine every strategic step, make decisions as a collective, and that's the type of thing that we're trying to figure out with this federation, how to do that better and more powerfully.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: And how is organizing at the national level different from organizing at the local level? Is it a much different operation when you're talking about something at that scale? Thank you. You're welcome.

TARA RAGHUVEER: In some ways it is. In other ways it isn't. Um, really what we're trying to do with this federation is strengthen each of our local efforts.

We have a lot to learn from some of the other unions at this founding table. I just spent a week with the tenants in Bozeman, Montana. And, you know, they're doing some things in Montana that we haven't tried to do here in Kansas City. So there's a lot to learn there. The local that is starting the federation, [01:24:00] um, from Connecticut is based out of SEIU 1199 Northeast, so they're based out of a labor union and they've experimented a lot more with structure based organizing in a labor organizing sense than we have.

So we have a lot to learn from each of these groups, um, and like I said, I think we're really just getting started.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: So you say you want to find like a standard approach to organizing across all the local unions. What do you exactly hope that approach looks like?

TARA RAGHUVEER: I hope it looks like something that can meaningfully contest with all that we are up against. And what I mean in saying that is 650, 000 people sleep outside in the richest country in the history of the world.

That to me, Is one piece of evidence about the failure of our current system. In addition to that, tens of millions of people pay over 50 percent of their income in rent. The rent is too damn high, and it has been for a long time. [01:25:00] The realities of the market that we exist in today, that is the product of a real estate industry that is more and more powerful.

They're, they're the most powerful today than they've ever been. One of the most potent and powerful forces, not only in the American economy, but the global economy. So we have to be serious about what we're up against. And We need to seriously contest as poor and working class tenants against those forces and to protect the people and most importantly to house the people.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: Uh, so you, you obviously want to get more people involved in moving forward beyond just the five unions that are involved so far. Uh, does this include starting new tenant unions in cities across the country or is it more about bringing more unions that already exist into the fold?

TARA RAGHUVEER: It'll probably look like a little bit of both, and it's not my decision to make.

I think one of the beautiful and interesting and challenging parts of an experiment like this is it's an experiment in real democracy. It's an experiment in [01:26:00] building real democratic process among people and institutions. So the Tenant Union Federation is founded by these five locals. Each of them has two representatives elected to a leadership team that will be making all kinds of decisions.

decisions about structure and strategy in answer to the questions like the ones that you're asking. So it'll be up to the leadership team to determine exactly what expansion looks like. We do plan to expand in 2025 and we're starting small on purpose, right? That wasn't, that wasn't an accident. We're starting small because we want to prioritize real methodological alignment.

over smoke and mirrors. We could have said we're starting with 50. We got all these numbers. It wouldn't have been a realistic picture of what this movement looks like right now.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: And what does that leadership team look like? How is that organized?

TARA RAGHUVEER: It's one organizer and one tenant leader per founding local.

So each union gets one vote. And again, that's an experiment in democratic process. We're kind of [01:27:00] making the road while we walk it. And that's a beautiful thing. And like I said, it's also a challenging thing. We've got a lot. of us.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: Uh, you've been behind a lot of change here in Kansas City with KC tenants and creating change federally, I expect is going to be harder.

Uh, how hopeful are you that you'll be able to accomplish the goals that you find out here today?

TARA RAGHUVEER: I'm very hopeful. I mean, I think the The joy of my life is being an organizer who gets to engage with people who are impacted by these issues every day. And those people are some of the most powerful, some of the sharpest, uh, some of the most disciplined people I've ever met in my life.

And all of that gives me hope, Zach. And I also think that The evidence is in what we've won, right? Like, I think that the hope comes from the fact that we've seen this type of change happen in Kansas City, poor and working class tenants have asserted their place here and they've started to [01:28:00] win. That's true across the country.

And even on a national stage in the last several years that These tenant unions have been working together. We've gotten the federal government focused on the rent. We're hearing presidential candidates talk about the rent for the first time in decades, maybe ever. Right. There's a new presidential ad out this week that has the rent in all caps.

People are starting to recognize this as what it is, which is what it is. One of the most significant economic issues of our time. So all of that gives me hope. We've already traveled a distance and now we need to move from message to material outcome. People's lives need to change for the better.

ZACH WILSON - HOST, UP TO DATE: And before we leave this conversation, I want to ask you to reflect on the work that you've done to get here so far and what else you hope to accomplish in 30 seconds.

What do you hope people take away from seeing the work you're leading?

TARA RAGHUVEER: The people have power. And more often than not, people just need an invitation to exercise that power. And that [01:29:00] invitation comes from vehicles like tenant unions.

SECTION C - POLITICS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next, Section C: Risk.

DeSantis Playing Politics With Hurricane Milton Relief - The Majority Report - Air Date 10-9-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: You know, there's so many issues involved with the, this hurricane that's barreling towards florida now. Still, my last, the last check, it's back up to a category four.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's been a category five. The hope is that it when it reaches landfall It's a category four by that point, but either way we're talking about one of the strongest storms to hit florida in my lifetime,

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: let's keep in mind times live coverage is saying as of now, it's a category four leading to its landfall

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: As of Monday, the anticipation was at this juncture, it would be closer to a category three, right?

And, it looked like it was losing steam. Then it sort of jumped back up. So we really don't know. we spoke about earlier, we played that, that clip of the mayor from Monday. We have no [01:30:00] response as a society in terms of providing evacuation notices. I mean, providing evacuation services, making it possible for people to evacuate, which, you know, in many ways, these storms are like COVID in that they expose and heighten failures that we have within our society that already exist.

Right, like the, What happens to your health care if you're not going into work? What happens to, you know, how do we do what happens with education when we have families who don't have the same technology, or money to spend on technology? In this instance, what happens to people who don't have the money to rent another apartment to own a car to drive out of town?

maybe they're disabled and don't have access to these things. I mean, these moments of crises [01:31:00] expose the weaknesses that we have that exist in society. Invariably, they're all around money because of the way that our society is structured. And we're going to have to address things for non crisis periods of time to make us more, durable and, strong enough to sustain through crises.

And, one of the problems that we also have at this point is as a society, a complete misunderstanding of like what happens in Congress, how things get funded, what services the federal government provides, et cetera, et cetera. Just contemplate this. Donald Trump wanted to get rid of the entire federal government's apparatus to track hurricanes.

He wanted to open the door for private corporations to do this work. Which means it's behind a paywall.

Just [01:32:00] contemplate that for a moment. And we know the Republicans, I mean, under him, he wanted to cut FEMA. The Republicans refused about another, 10 billion of a supplemental aid just a month ago to the FEMA budget. And then the super effed up notion about it is they will lie with essentially impunity.

Not saying they should be punished, but there's no accountability for it within their own sort of like ecospheres as to, I'm sure you've went over this the past couple of days, you know, payments to, people who suffered in Helene. there's no accountability in the sense that like, you know, Ron DeSantis outlawed the use of the words climate change in all of their sort of like, how do you address these things?

And so here is the, essentially Harris tried to, apparently [01:33:00] call DeSantis, in the run up to, Milton to offer support, find out what he needs, et cetera, et cetera. here she is basically retelling the story. President

KAMALA HARRIS: Sanchez, NBC is reporting Governor DeSantis is ignoring your calls on hurricanes, resources and health.

How does that hurt the situation here? You know, moment of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone calls himself a leader, you're gonna put politics aside people first. People are in desperate need of support right now and [01:34:00] I

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: if you recall, Chris Christie, the governor of the state I grew up in, Was photographed during Hurricane Sandy, basically putting his arm around President Obama, because Obama mobilized the federal government to help New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

And that, I don't know, you can't, like, go back in time and say that's what killed his chances in terms of his 2016 presidential ambitions. But, at the very least, the base reacted to it in such an insane way. Like, how dare you touch Satan incarnate, Chris Christie. Or a black guy. Or, well. I mean, one and the same for the base, but like, before Trump came on the scene as the guy that was gonna talk tough and be the bully, I mean, that was Chris Christie's whole persona, an East Coast Republican that likes to talk a bunch of shit, He [01:35:00] cratered under that, and so DeSantis is trying to go the opposite way, and he's making a show of not taking Harris calls, but Harris is also making a show of the fact that he didn't take her calls, which she should, because they are playing politics, but this should be a moment where we're also talking about, like, Republicans are uninterested, for the most part, in building up systems that will mitigate the harms of this in the future.

Brian Kemp is Because if you do that Yeah.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: You're conceding that there's something going on now. Right. Which they also don't want to address.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right, right. and, you know, it also gets in the way, I think, right now of her now two month long campaign for a moderate Republican voters. But, you know, that is the reality.

And Trump had been trying to do this and force Brian Kemp into lying to say that Biden, hadn't been answering calls from, or sorry, that, Biden hadn't called, or, so yes, that was true, answered calls from Brian Kemp, [01:36:00] Georgia's governor in, in. the response to Hurricane Helene. I don't know what the salience of this is anymore.

It's just like how can we get through to an electorate on the Republican side that thinks climate change is a hoax and like just seems to take the results of these extreme weather patterns at face value and then these Republican governors probably don't do anything for them.

DeSantis Playing Politics With Hurricane Milton Relief Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 10-9-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Let me just preface this by saying I am sympathetic to the plight of a Politician 30 days out less from an election, trying to get elected.

But, at one point

democratic politicians, and I don't anticipate that all will do this or that half, but some need to, not be afraid of politicizing these things. And I don't mean like [01:37:00] politics as a caddy sport. politics as is like selfish, but take this opportunity and I understand at this moment, it might be impossible to do.

And so, you know, don't misinterpret. Some people are going to be like, you know, a little bit oversensitive to this, but these are the opportunities to explain to people that there are certainly in this, I mean, even Bill Clinton was one of his best achievements was to basically rebuild FEMA. and George Bush came in and started to privatize all these services again.

When they talk about cutting FEMA. That's what they want to do. They want these to be private services.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And we saw how that worked

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: out with Katrina, by the way, exactly. And you want to take the opportunity. And it's it's it's not easy to express the people like this is what society is [01:38:00] about. Tampa cannot address this on

strength of having a country as large and as wealthy as ours is that we have the ability to respond to these crises. That don't hit everybody and part of it is you don't know if you're going to be one of those people.

Same concept behind single payer health insurance. Frankly, 80 percent of healthcare costs are borne by 20 percent of the people, but we don't know which 20 percent this is going to be. We don't know if it's today, it's Tampa getting hit by Milton or, you know, in a year, whether it's going to be.

I don't know, Craryville in upstate New York up in the mountains or something, or, Asheville, or, it's going to be, an extreme drought. We don't know where these crises are going to hit. And this is an opportunity for politicians to say, this is a fundamental difference between the policy orientation of these two [01:39:00] parties.

One understands that our strength as a country, our strength, as being this rich is that. We can help people when they are, in crisis one of the ways that we can help people when they're in crises is to mitigate these crises before they happen. That means build a public transportation system so that people can't evacuate.

That means mitigate, to the extent that we can now, the forces that are driving climate change. That means provide health care, provide resources, so that if somebody actually does have to, evacuate, and go rent a hotel at an exorbitant fee, 15 hours away, They're going to have at least some savings and some ability to do so because other aspects of their necessities in their lives have been decommodified.

I mean, this is a missed opportunity in that way. And I'll tell you something, you look at the polling on immigration right now. [01:40:00] And the turnaround of where the American public at is, is nuts.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's also a global phenomenon, I'll say, too. Like, this is a failure of, the left more broadly, I mean, liberal parties aren't really the left, but, in Europe, the right is just much more organized around this particular topic of nativism, and they've successfully incorporated Orban style politics about this with, into right wing parties throughout Europe and North America.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But America has a unique relationship with immigrants relative to Europe, right? I mean, this country literally was built. Yes. There was no Americans 250 years ago. this country was uniquely built and the speed in which This turnabout happened far more rapid in this country than in a European country.

This has been a problem in Europe for, at least a decade. This is change of the past two or three years, and I would [01:41:00] contend it is a function of essentially Democrats leaving a vacuum, moving to the right on this as a way, instead of actually engaging in The rhetorical battle. They attempted to do what was the easy thing to do in this instance and attempt to placate this in a sway, these fears, instead of actually challenging the existence of these fears and in the short run, it may help you in the long run, you're never going to be as fashy on immigrants as the Republicans.

They're just going to move more to the right on this, where they're talking about, mass deportations. And you've left a vacuum here, that is going to end up both hurting you politically, but also in terms of like, well, economically, frankly. and I think that's [01:42:00] just a question of justice.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's a failure of liberalism to be able to combat fascism. I mean, this is something I think we've talked about many times. Like, the United States is unique in that it's a massive settler colonial society, different than Europe. I do think that some of those problems, remain the Democrats like they are.

This is what happens when they're basically doing campaigns and Harris's campaign. It's almost as if given that she took over the Biden campaign infrastructure. I'm not sure she had too much of a choice, and this is the path they've gone down, but it's just everything's from a focus testing perspective, run to the right on these issues, solidify your base to the right, and they haven't built up mechanisms to do.

The opposite, the party, while it's in a better position in terms of, like, delivering for people, the strategy's long term to beat back fascism is, not, they are very [01:43:00] poorly equipped. I worry about whatever this, like, they, they could win in the fall, but if they don't adjust their strategy for a post Trump world, we're in deep trouble.

SECTION D: TRUMP AND DISINFORMATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D: Trump and disinformation.

Hurricane Milton Menaces Florida; Fact Report after Helene with NC blogger Tom Sullivan Part 2 - The BradCast - Air Date 10-7-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Meanwhile, as they prepare for another storm in Florida, officials in the Sunshine State and about five others are still responding to the catastrophic effects of the last one, of Helene.

Making matters worse is the fact that public officials are also being forced to contend now with widespread and persistent disinformation that is hampering relief efforts. And it is being spread by, yes, Donald Trump and Fox News and right wing Twitter, which is to say at this point, pretty much all of Twitter now known as X to some misinformation that suggests the FEMA is nowhere to be found and that the Biden Harris administration has pretty much left folks out there to die.

Particularly in Republican leaning areas, which is [01:44:00] out and out, false, and wildly dangerous. Roy Cooper, the governor in North Carolina, took to Twitter and called it a, quote, relentless vortex of disinformation dialed up by bad actors and platforms like X, or Twitter. A North Carolina Republican state official had to take to social media and plead for an end to right wing conspiracy theories about Helene disaster recovery.

Brian Beutler, in his off message newsletter today, described MAGA's Hurricane Helene lies as, quote, a trial run. for the election. Apparently it all got so bad so quickly that FEMA had to put up a rumors page on its website just to debunk the nonsense and the lies coming from right wingers via social media.

These rumors are still circulating and are still dangerous for those struggling to rebound from Hurricane Helene. But as we [01:45:00] pride ourselves here in a public service, as a public service journalism, I was hoping to share at least some of these, uh, today from FEMA, from their rumors web page that they had to post in order to respond to all of this stuff and nonsense kicked off by Donald Trump and Rick Scott and all the rest.

But now, with Milton headed to shore, I think it's even more important that folks here understand what is actually going on so they can help shut down the lies and the dangerous nonsense that many on the right, who I think have been hoping for their own, for years, for their own Hurricane Katrina, but with a Democrat in the White House so they could blame the Democrat, well, they may not have Katrina, or they may soon, but either way, they're trying to blame the White House.

Even if there is nothing to blame them for. So, uh, just a couple of these, uh, [01:46:00] for example, um, the, uh, this, uh, Donald Trump has been claiming that, uh, FEMA disaster, uh, money was diverted to support international efforts or border related issues. The fact is, according to FEMA, that this is false. No money is being deferred, diverted from disaster response needs.

FEMA's disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund. It's a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other non disaster related needs. efforts. There's also been a claim that Oh, 750 is the is what the Biden Harris administration is giving to survivors to support their recovery and that they will give no more.

Well, FEMA says this too is false. This 750 is a type of assistance that you may be approved for soon after you [01:47:00] apply. It's called serious needs assistance, and you get it almost immediately. It's an upfront flexible payment to help cover essential food, essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication, and other emergency supplies.

There are other. Forms of assistance that you may also qualify for, qualify to receive, and serious needs assistance is just an initial payment that you may receive while FEMA assesses your eligibility for additional funds. As your application continues to be reviewed, you may still receive additional forms of assistance for other needs, such as support for temporary housing, Personal property and home repair costs.

And yet we've seen folks out on, out on the Twitters. Over the past week, saying, yeah, the Biden Harris administration, all they're doing is giving 750 to survivors.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: Which is interesting, because remember, during the Trump administration, it was also 750 for that [01:48:00] first day, and he never said a word about that.

Because

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: that's how the fund works. Exactly.

DEZI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And Republicans have also stopped, periodically, any attempt to increase that emergency assistance fund that you can get from that 750 or something. That would be more helpful.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: This one is a particularly dangerous one that FEMA had to rebut. FEMA is in the process of confiscating Helene's survivor property, according to this rumor.

If I apply for disaster assistance and my land is deemed unlivable, my property will be seized. That is false, and it is really dangerous. Because it could lead to harm against FEMA workers who show up at people's homes trying to help them. But if they believe that FEMA might be there to confiscate their property I don't even want to think what happens.

That is another false rumor. I will link to their, uh, to the FEMA rumors page. The idea that we even have to have one.[01:49:00]

Welcome to 2024.

How Will Project 2025 Turn Hurricanes Into Even Deadlier Threats - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 9-30-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Good news, I suppose, was that the hurricane missed us. You know, it, it, it went, uh, it, originally there was some concern that it might be heading toward New Orleans. Um, the bad news is that this hurricane, this is going to be the new normal. I mean, this thing went from not even being a hurricane to being a Cat 4 hurricane when it hit, hit land, made landfall.

In just, what, two days, as I recall? I mean, you know, very, very quickly. And why? Because the Gulf of Mexico is much warmer than it has ever been in the history of humanity. Or at least in the history, in recorded human history. And now at least 115 people are dead across six states. Officials fear the death toll can rise.

Uh, there's many more people missing. Hundreds of roads remain closed, especially in the Carolinas. Carolinas got hit really, really hard. Everybody was worried about the wind, right? Oh, is it still a Category [01:50:00] 4 or 3 or 2 or 1, you know, when it hits? But, you know, what people were not counting for or expecting, and what the media, frankly, is not talking about, is that because our atmosphere is warmer, it's one and a half degrees warmer than it was just 30 years ago, um, or certainly at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, um, Because of that, it holds more moisture.

Warm air holds more moisture than cold air does. It's, you know, it's, it's why in the winter, you know, the humidity collapses. You know, it's because cold air can't hold moisture. And once it gets below freezing, it pretty much really has a hard time holding moisture. And, uh, but the warmer it gets, the more moisture it can hold.

So there was just a mind boggling amount of water That this storm had picked up out of the Atlantic and then dumped on the Carolinas and and every place in between I mean Georgia's in big trouble You know Yeah, it's just just right up the coast So there's [01:51:00] a meat and and by the way, there's an it's a they're describing it as a medium chance that a new storm Will develop in the Western Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico later this week and You know, it's too early to know what's going to happen with that.

Uh, President Biden says he's going to visit some of the affected communities as soon as they're kind of back on their feet. He doesn't want his visit to slow down or impede any rescue operations, which is just, you know, reasonable. Um, but, uh, he's, he's sending, you know, all kinds of socialist aid to these, uh, red states.

Uh, you know, I, it's now, now you've got, uh, Brian Kemp going, uh, please, uh, President Biden, send us some of that socialism. Meanwhile, of course, Project 2025 wants to do away with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. You know, the people who predict these storms and tell us what to look out for.

And they want to cut back FEMA, uh, radically. So, you know, all in the service of lowering taxes on billionaires. [01:52:00] It's crazy. Asheville, North Carolina, has been particularly hard hit. Uh, we had some friends who moved from Los Angeles to Asheville some years ago. You know, looking for a little more affordable place to live and, you know, a nice quality of life.

And Asheville certainly has that. And they just loved it. They moved back to L. A. last year, you know, so Uh, you know, they're, they're okay, but, wow, I mean, the floodwaters, uh, just, just wiped out this town. I mean, it didn't wipe out the town, but it has isolated the town. There's no cell service. Uh, I'm, I'm guessing they're, some of this is coming back today, but, uh, damaged roads, lack of power, lack of cell service, um, this is across Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, and in North Carolina alone, more than 400 roads, uh, remained closed over the weekend.

Some gas, most of your gas stations were closed. They didn't have electricity to pump gas. The few that were open had lines that were wrapped around the block. [01:53:00] Um, again, Asheville home to 94, 000 people, about 700, 000 people across North Carolina without power right now.

Rep. Frost Trump & GOP hurricane relief lies can ‘cost lives’ - MSNBC - Air Date 10-9-24\

REP. FROST: Well, thank you so much for having me on, Lawrence, and I'm here in Orlando. We're a few hours away from getting the really serious part of the storm. We've had rain and wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour so far.

Being on that plane a few days ago was terrible. Uh, very enlightening and educational experience and a very intense experience. You know, my entire life growing up in the state of florida. I've gotten used to hurricanes. I've gotten used to waking up, looking at the news, seeing the prediction of where to go, seeing all these models, but not fully understanding where this information comes from.

Even though we have great technology now, there are still data points that have to be collected within the hurricane. And for people who don't know, Noah, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, um, has an amazing heroic team that they call the Hurricane Hunters. And these folks are pilots, technicians, [01:54:00] engineers, scientists and meteorologists.

And they fly into these storms, uh, flights going anywhere between eight and 12 hours, and they drop beacons within the storm, drop different things within it to collect data about the pressure, um, the how the size of the waves and a bunch of different things. They send this data to the National Hurricane Center, and that is how we get all the information that we get about these storms.

So this data can be used. Literally saves lives. And I have to mention that there are people in Congress who have voted against funds for this important administration. And not just that, but Project 2025 wants to get rid of NOAA. And so it would literally cause us to not be able to save more lives. And so Either way, it was incredibly intense experience.

There were times where we free fell thousands of feet because of the way that they fly the plane within the hurricane. But it was an honor to be there. I learned so much about how important the work Noah does is and how important the hurricane hunters are.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - HOST, MSNBC: I just want to go back over that point [01:55:00] about Project 2025 wanting to abolish NOAA, along with abolish the Department of Education.

Abolish is a word that appears frequently in that document, but they want to abolish the scientific collection of data by the federal government that has been able to warn people in Florida, how to save their lives and how much time they have to save their lives. They just want to just eliminate that information system.

REP. FROST: Yes. And this whole thing of project 2025 and wanting to get rid of NOAA while at the same time wanting to get rid of the mention of climate change and the climate crisis as well shows that not only do the That not only do they want to deny the issue, but they want to deny us the means and solutions to deal with the issue.

And we see this happen all the time. You know, I'm on the House Oversight Committee. I have my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who constantly want to badger and talk [01:56:00] about. Um, a lot of our, uh, uh, agencies and departments, they're not doing their job. They're horrible. They're bureaucrats. This and that.

And then at the same time, vote against budget increases to ensuring these agencies have the resources that they need. It's complete hypocrisy. And it's what's going on here in Florida and the thing about it. is this data saves lives. There are people who have already died because of this hurricane today, and we're gonna have more discussions over the coming days and weeks about how these two hurricanes that seemingly came out of nowhere are here because of the climate crisis and because it's here.

But, you know, I'll tell you, Lawrence, when I was driving back from that hurricane hunters mission, I was on I four leaving kind of the Tampa area coming back to Orlando, and I broke down being in the car because I'm in the Stop and go traffic. I'm looking to my left and right and all you see is all these cars full of families, seniors, people, and you look at their face, they've packed up their entire livelihood.

and they are scared. And this is becoming more and more of a [01:57:00] normal occurrence for Floridians. And so when we talk about the impacts of climate change, of course, it's human lives. That's a death toll. But it's also people being displaced and people having to leave their homes time and time again. It's really sad.

We've been focusing on making sure people are prepared here in Central Florida. We were at the emergency operations centers earlier today. I met with lunch workers who serve lunch to kids at school who are staying overnight in shelters to feed the people in the shelters three meals a day while we get through this storm.

So if I know one thing is for sure, it's that here in Central Florida and across the state, we're going to help each other get through this. Um, we're going to clean up and then we're going to continue to have these conversations on how we need to make sure. We prevent these kind of events happening again.

I mean, we're having too many once in a hundred year storms over just the last five years.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - HOST, MSNBC: In all of your conversations with the people living in the path of this hurricane, have you found people who believe Republican Marjorie Taylor [01:58:00] Greene's statement that, I guess, President Biden controls the weather?

REP. FROST: haven't just yet. But what I have had is I've had people come up to me and ask questions about some of the misinformation they've seen out there. We saw, uh, former President Donald Trump talking about the 750 number without talking about the fact that there are different buckets that people can apply to to get direct assistance from FEMA.

One of the buckets is an immediate cash send out to help people with things they might have lost where they need food. Baby formula, stuff like that with 750 can go a long way with that. There's another bucket of funds where people can help get money to help recover their home. So there's a lot of misinformation out there.

And the problem here and president Biden brought this up is that when that misinformation goes into the public and people believe it, it means they don't believe or have any kind of faith in their government. And when they don't have faith in FEMA, it means they won't come to these organizations to get the help they need.

Which [01:59:00] means that there are people out there who will need help, who won't seek help because they've been lied to. And so what everyone should know is President Biden and Vice President Harris signed and authorized a pre landfall emergency declaration for FEMA for this hurricane hitting now. FEMA and the federal government has resources up and down the state, working closely with the state and municipal governments.

And we are working together to handle this thing. And the last thing we need are politicians trying to make political points and score political points out of this horrible tragedy. Right now, it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. We have to come together to save lives and keep people safe, especially people in our most vulnerable communities.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - HOST, MSNBC: Unfortunately, a lot of the victims in the path of this hurricane right now cannot hear you say that. They don't have access to television right now for obvious reasons. Uh, they might, uh, their phone batteries might be dying and they might not be able to have internet access over the course of this. And so [02:00:00] in situations like this, word of mouth actually becomes more important than it normally is, and Donald Trump has been poisoning and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been poisoning the word of mouth or trying to anyway, how much is that getting in the way of helping people?

REP. FROST: It gets in the way. It really does get in the way because what it does is it erodes faith. When, when I come to a mic and I say something, when our county mayor comes to a mic and says something, when someone from FEMA comes to a mic and says something, we need folks who are watching. And who get this information to help us disseminate it so our neighbors understand something we always say here in Florida.

It's like communities. We have to take care of each other. Neighbors have to take care of neighbors. I'm I'm here in my parents house right now. Um, you know, getting through the storm with them. It's going to hit here in Orlando in just a couple hours. We haven't gotten the worst of it yet. Um, but when I got here to the house, you know, my dad was out talking with neighbors talking to each other.

Mhm. taking care of each other. And the [02:01:00] problem is when people start believing this, this and misinformation, they could be spreading lies. And again, if those lies get spread, people might not reach out to get the help that they need and the help that they deserve. And so again, it is dangerous. It can cost us human lives when politicians, especially people with large platforms, spread mis and disinformation.

Just to try to get ahead, just to try to get political points. It's a damn shame and it's going to cost lives. And so we need people to focus on the truth. We cannot play politics with these hurricanes or these storms. We need to focus on saving people, helping people and making sure we get on the other end of this.

Trump's politicized lies about Helene recovery calls to mind his abysmal record handling disasters Part 2 - Alex Wagner Tonight - Air Date 10-4-24

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: George, just first, because you're a sort of student of Trump's strange psyche, what does the, the clearly confessional nature of these accusations tell you about, I don't know, where his head is at right now?

GUEST 1: Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. It's a form of projection.

He attributes to others motives that he himself has. But it's more [02:02:00] than that. I mean, the words that came to mind when I read about this controversy today is the Große Lüge. That's German. I don't speak German, so forgive my pronunciation, but Große Lüge is Big lie. It means big lie. It was a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf in 1925 for the, for a propaganda technique by which you tell as big a lie as possible so that people will believe bigger lie.

They will believe bigger lies more than they will be believe smaller lies because they simply believe, think that it's impossible for anybody to have the temerity to tell such an amazing, an amazingly large lie. But Donald Trump. Does that as a matter of course, he's a pathological liar and a sociopath.

This is par for the course for Donald Trump, just as his lies about the, about the supposedly stolen election in 2020 where gross and Luger, and this is what he does. And it's why he is a cancer on American public life that must be removed once and for all.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: I will say, [02:03:00] Michelle, you know, it's, um, I won't speak German on this broadcast.

I'll save our audience from that. Uh, but, but the, the lies. In particular, and of late, are really focused on people of color and specifically migrants. And the toxicity has possibly, if it was even possible, have increased in their sort of poison grade since the Springfield debacle. The lies that Haitian immigrants there were eating pets.

This is what happened tonight at a Trump rally. And this is evidence, Michelle, of how, how successful Trump has been in, in poisoning his audience. Let's take a listen.

CLIP: This week, this week, we have learned that not only did 13, 000, 13, 000 murders illegally cross our border, but FEMA is out of money because they have been providing 9, 000 to every illegal.

Enough. Enough is enough. We must [02:04:00] put Americans first. How soon will you start deporting the murderers?

DONALD TRUMP: So, let, let me just tell you that you're right about that, it's, uh, 13, 099 to be exact, and murderers, many of these people murdered more than one person, some, one, did seven. These are not people we want in our country.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: The crime, the crime statistics are a whole nother kettle of fish. Some of that happened under the Trump administration. Those numbers have not been verified by NBC news as far as I know, but to get to the point of the, this woman in the audience believes that FEMA gave 9, 000. And I

GUEST 2: think this vicious sort of demonization is the precondition for Trump's mass deportation plan.

When J. D. Vance was asked what mass deportation looked like at the debate, he didn't want to give a straight answer, because nobody wants to [02:05:00] talk about what it would mean to have a network of detention camps. dotted throughout this country, what it means to have the national guard going into neighborhoods and rounding people up.

And if you want to get even part of the American people to consent to that, you re and, and I mean, this actually does deserve probably some sort of German analogy, but you actually do need to convince people that they are not human beings. Yes. Like you and I.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: I just want to add on the JD Vance answer. He was asked explicitly, how are you going to deport 20 maybe what he termed 25 million people over here without their papers, Michelle.

And he outlined how one, 1 million of them would, would leave because the wages wouldn't be what they wanted them to be. And the rest, I guess in the parlance of Mitt Romney would self deport. There was no explanation of how that would all work. Um, um, Um, you know, George, for your former party of Republicans, the, the, the, even I think attempted the truth [02:06:00] has become kind of a fool's errand today, as in like October 4th, the year 2024 Marjorie Taylor green, who is now weirdly because the party is so extreme because becomes seen as.

Maybe one of the more rational actors in the Republican conference in the house tweeted, sorry, yesterday, October 3rd, yes, they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done. This is a member of Congress. It's part of the inner Trump sanctum. The truth does not matter, George.

GUEST 1: No. The truth doesn't matter. In fact, they compete with each other to tell the biggest lies. They are all into the Grosse Luge. And the phrase that you're looking for, that Michelle was talking about, there is a German phrase. Unter Mensch. It's, he, they, they are, they are. Persuading the American public that people who come from other countries are under, are beneath them, um, beneath man, beneath human.

And that, this is the kind of, of, of poison that the [02:07:00] Republican party is spreading now. It is really inhumane. Really sick and and it's it's difficult to chase it all down because they tell so many lies. So many big lies so quickly. I mean, I looked at today. I walked in a CVS this morning and I saw a big headline in the New York Post about this lie.

Perpetuating this lie that the government had blown all its money on, on migrants instead of, instead of the hurricane. And you know, it, it just, it's, it's chasing down all this, these lies is hard and difficult work and it makes, it gets in the way of people actually getting help.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: I will say, Michelle, you know, I think it's laudable that FEMA has created its landing page to debunk these rumors.

But you put that effort up against Tucker Carlson out there about Elon Musk, about any number of right wing actors propagating these lies, the, you know, the, the unbridled enthusiasm for disinformation that is the internet. Um, and I, I wonder [02:08:00] if you have a thought about how, for example, Kamala Harris should be handling this.

You know, she came out with the statement, Biden came out with the statement, you know, what is the correct pushback? On a, on a topic in particular where Republicans have mud on their hands at best, they've consistently refused to fund FEMA. It is funded through these stopgap funding measures in Congress.

The irony here is so thick, you couldn't even slice it.

GUEST 2: I mean, look, she has to go out and be on the ground to just talk about what the government is doing and calling out Donald Trump's lies over and over again. But. I don't think that that's an antidote. And this is what people were worried about when Elon Musk bought Twitter.

You know, a lot of times you can ignore the fact that Elon Musk has spent this enormous fortune to buy himself, um, a microphone for his own boundless narcissism. But when you have a natural disaster, that is a situation in which you need reliable information. And what they're doing is [02:09:00] something vicious and cruel.

To the people in those regions who need to know who they can trust. I mean, they're telling you some of some of the lies that are out there. Or that FEMA is going to confiscate your supplies, you know, that FEMA can't be trusted. And so what does that do to somebody who needs to go to FEMA for help?

They're instilling fear and paranoia in people who are already deeply, deeply traumatized. And this is only going to get worse because if you have a party That denies climate change, that calls it a hoax, as Donald Trump says. And there's going to be more and more climate related disasters. They can only explain that with recourse to, um, ever escalating conspiracy theories.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Yeah. That's such a good point, right? They don't want to do anything about climate change. Red states tend to be on the forefront of climate change. They don't want to fund FEMA, which is the last, you know, saving grace for people in harm's way. And then they're going to lie about migrants [02:10:00] who, um, help propel the American economy in a fundamental way.

Hurricane Milton Menaces Florida; Fact Report after Helene with NC blogger Tom Sullivan Part 3 - The BradCast - Air Date 10-7-24

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Now this woman on TikTok, Who explains that she is from Western North Carolina, perhaps the hardest hit region from Hurricane Helene and, and, and she is a paramedic. She says, uh, in a video posted, I believe on Sunday night, that she is enraged from what she is now seeing online now that her power is back.

And she's a, you know, able to see how the world has been talking about what is going on in Helene and particularly in Western North Carolina. This, uh, you know, it was quite a surprise to her apparently since the power has been restored enough to see the way that these false rumors have been spreading on social media over the past week.

I want to play you some of what she said.

CLIP: I just got access, um, back at my house to the world around me yesterday. And I've never made a post before, but I am [02:11:00] enraged at the number of people spreading lies about the community that I live in and I call home. Um, what I will say, the National Guard. is here.

They have been here since Wednesday, two days before the storm hit. They activated the Wednesday. FEMA is here. They're set up. Their home base is mission hospital in Nashville, North Carolina on Biltmore Avenue. They have been here. They are here. I think there's some confusion about what FEMA's job is.

FEMA is not boots on the ground. FEMA is not going into your house and searching for people. FEMA's job with the government, I'm angry, is to make sure that funds are distributed. are allotted the way they're supposed to be. FEMA comes in and they assess what the need is and then they appropriate those funds to the places that the need is.

Um, FEMA is not denying, um, donations [02:12:00] technically because FEMA doesn't take donations. FEMA doesn't take donations. They don't take money. They don't take goods. That's not their job. That's not what they do. So all these people coming on here saying that FEMA stopped me and said I couldn't. Like, take my truckload of donations.

First of all, we don't want people just coming in here. There's nowhere for you to go, okay? There is nowhere for you to go. Thousands of people lost homes. Um, those people are staying in all of our hotels. Those hotels are full. We, we have 35 active right now. Sorry, shelters for people. Most of those are at capacity.

Um, as they reach capacity, we build more shelters. Not build, but you know what I mean, make space for more people. Um, we're not building buildings. I don't want anyone to take me out of context. But we create more shelters. The Army Corps of Engineers is here. The Marines are here. Um, I didn't even know that was a thing that they did.

But they're here, um, [02:13:00] interestingly enough. Um, there are people here from all over the country. There are people here from Canada. So anyone who comes on this app and tells you that we are just not receiving help, we are. Do we need more help? Yes, we do. We need help in the form of awareness. We need help in the form of monetary donations.

Um, Needs change. Initially, what we needed was gas. What we needed was

hygiene products. Um, those things are going to change over time. My biggest concern is people are going to forget about this in two weeks, and we're not going to continue to have the support that we have. And what we have is great. Like, I am grateful for the support we have. But anyone coming on the staff and telling you that we are bulldozing bodies and the government is coming in and usurping our property, that is not happening.

It's not happening. I'm here. Those are the mountains. I'm North Carolina. I'm North [02:14:00] Carolina native. I'm a paramedic. I am Telling you right now Please do not listen to the propaganda and the people who are using the death of our neighbors our friends and our family to tell you that this is some sort of political scheme.

The government did not cause this hurricane. That's not a thing. Um, Just stop. We're hurting. I mean, literally, as I'm talking right now, there's an osprey flying. I don't know if you can hear it. The one landed right there about an hour ago and dropped supplies. The government is here. And I think it's ironic that the same people who are fighting for less government and fighting to cut all of these programs are the ones who are criticizing the government and saying they're not here.

Because they are here. can be here. Um, so if yo with your [02:15:00] running water, water and your warm, comf sofa, just like shut up, to say, you don't know wh through. You don't know w We are people. We are people who have lost loved ones. We are people who are suffering and yeah, stop it. I'm so sick and tired of it.

Stop it.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: That's a paramedic in Western North Carolina, enraged about the lies being told by yes, by folks on the right. about what is going on out there in the wake of Hurricane Helene, where they're still struggling. Even as another monster storm, Milton, is now headed toward the west coast of Florida.

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 [02:16:00] 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:

Up To Date

Democracy Now!

The Majority Report

Unf*cking The Republic

The BradCast

The Thom Hartmann Program

MSNBC

and Alex Wagner Tonight.

Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships

You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good, and [02:17:00] often funny[!] weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes - all through your regular podcast player.

You’ll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast, coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.

Add your reaction Share

#1662 Renewing the Nuclear Age: Weapons, Energy, Climate Mitigation, and Risk (Transcript)

Posted by · October 11, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 10/11/2024

[00:00:00]

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast. Humans' insatiable need for increasing amounts of energy and our tendency to want to at least have the option to wipe entire populations off the map has led to a renewed age of risks related to nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and nuclear fallout. Sources providing our top takes in about 45 minutes today includes Vox, CNBC, Our Changing Climate, One Thing from CNN, Democracy Now!, and This Is Not a Drill. Then, in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in three sections: Section A: Energy; Section B: Climate; and Section C: Risk.

Can clean energy handle the AI boom? - Vox - Air Date 10-1-24

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: Data centers are massive, often windowless warehouses [00:01:00] that house thousands of servers that run virtually non stop. Some of the bigger data centers are as big as four football fields and use as much electricity at any given time as 80,000 households. There are more than 8,000 data centers around the world, and the U. S. has more than any other country. In 2022, data centers, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies made up about 2 percent of total global electricity demand.

But by 2026, that number is expected to double, which is like adding the amount of electricity used by the entire country of Sweden.

That big jump from 2022 to 2026 is thanks to rising cloud storage and cryptocurrency electricity demands. But it's also because of the AI boom. We know AI requires a ton of computational power, but it turns out that the amount of electricity it uses is a really difficult question to answer. AI is a huge umbrella term that includes everything from basic statistical models that detect [00:02:00] patterns in data, to generative AI that creates text and images and videos.

That's the most computationally intensive kind. The thing is, The handful of private tech companies that dominate the AI field don't really disclose how much of their energy use is dedicated to AI specifically. If you look at Google's latest environmental report, it clearly states they absolutely don't want to make a distinction between regular workloads and AI specific workloads.

And these companies AI models are mostly closed source, meaning no one knows exactly how they are built. This has left some researchers to try to piece it together on their own. Researchers looked at an open source large language model called Bloom that has roughly the same amount of parameters as GPT 3, and found that training something like GPT 3 required almost 1, 300 megawatt hours of electricity, about as much power as consumed by 130 homes in the U. S. for one year. Today, large language models like GPT 4 have hundreds of [00:03:00] billions of parameters, if not a trillion. And researchers say that the computational power required to train these models is expected to double every nine months. So far, it has mostly been large language models driving the AI energy boom.

ALEX DE VRIES: Of course, that could change going forward. Now we see AI on the rise for image generation and also specifically video generation. So far we talked about training a large language model. Researchers also looked at energy use from people actually using it. It's been estimated by myself and others that a single ChatGPT interaction would take three watt hours, which is comparable to running a low lumen LED bulb for one hour.

So on itself, it doesn't sound like a whole lot, but of course, hey, it's the volume that matters. This is 10 times more than a standard Google search. And of course, if you're talking about millions or billions of interactions, the numbers start to stack up quickly.

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: Alex took another research approach by looking at [00:04:00] the hardware used for AI training and use.

Over 95 percent of the AI industry uses servers made by the company NVIDIA. They could sell 1.5 million of their servers by 2027. He multiplied that by the information NVIDIA publicizes about each of their servers' energy demands. He found that data centers devoted to AI alone could consume around 100 terawatt hours of electricity per year, or about the same as his home country of the Netherlands.

There's a big part of Cathy's question I haven't gotten to yet. Can renewable energy meet the surging demand from the world's data centers?

The good news is that using green energy is the stated goal of a lot of these companies. Both Google and Microsoft have made pledges to be net zero by 2030. But there are signs that AI is disrupting those plans. That's because solar and wind energy can't produce electricity all of the time. And these data centers need to be running all of the time.

ALEX DE VRIES: In most cases, they will just have a [00:05:00] backup connection to the power grid, which will have fossil fuels on it.

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: It's not just that. Data centers are being built at a rate that renewable energy infrastructure can't keep up with. It can take a year to build a data center, but many more years to get a solar or wind farm on an electrical grid.

Google's 2024 sustainability report showed that the company's emissions rose by 48% from 2019 to 2023, in large part due to its data center energy consumption, suggesting that integrating AI into their products could make reducing their emissions challenging.

There's already evidence in the US that coal plants that were meant to close are staying open because of data centers' electricity demands, and that state utilities are building new natural gas plants for the same reason. But even if these tech companies can look good on their sustainability reports and get to net zero, there's still a problem.

ALEX DE VRIES: The thing is that our renewable energy supply globally is limited. So if we are attributing an increasing part of that to the data center [00:06:00] industry, the consequences that there's less renewables available for everything else, that probably will mean that on the whole, we will end up using more fossil fuels anyway.

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: With all this context, the answer to Kathy's question is that for right now, we aren't prepared for renewable energy to meet the increasing demand of the world's data centers.

So, what do we do about this? As users, it would be extremely difficult to opt out of backing up our data on the cloud, or even refrain from using AI.

KATHY: I think AI is embedded in so many things that I'm not sure I will have the option to say I'm not using it, you know, I'm out.

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: Researchers like Alex say the best place to start is to force more transparency from these tech companies.

ALEX DE VRIES: In the EU, the AI Act doesn't really force tech companies to disclose anything with regard to the environment. And that's the EU, not even talking about the US yet, which is lagging behind a bit on this matter. [00:07:00]

LAURA BULT - HOST, VOX: Some environmental organizations and local communities are calling for moratoriums on data centers. And some researchers have proposed the idea of an energy efficiency rating so companies and consumers can choose data centers that are the most sustainable.

We could also hope that the servers and data centers will keep getting more energy efficient. But more than anything, this issue emphasizes how desperately we need to be scaling up renewable energy, and fast. Not only to meet the ever increasing data center demands, but so there's plenty of renewable energy to go around.

Why Nuclear Energy Is On The Verge Of A Renaissance - CNBC - Air Date 6-7-22

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: In the wake of the war in Ukraine, the United States is urging domestic producers to step up.

JESS GEHIN: A light water reactor works primarily by using fission reactions to produce heat. Nuclear fission occurs when a heavy atom like a uranium atom is bombarded with neutrons or interacts with neutrons. These particles interact with the nucleus of a uranium atom [00:08:00] and makes it unstable. It splits apart. When it splits apart, it produces large quantities of energy. That energy release heats up in the coolant, which in light water reactors is water. That heated water then produces steam. The steam turns a turbine, which turns a generator, which produces electricity.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Worldwide, there are about 440 operational nuclear reactors that are responsible for supplying around 10 percent of the world's electricity. The United States, once a leader in building out nuclear power plants, has today fallen behind countries like Russia and China.

CAT CLIFFORD: There were several accidents which really affected the public perception of nuclear power. The Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the Chernobyl accident in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. There hasn't been much construction of nuclear power recently because of the change in perception after these accidents. And also, in the 90s, the deregulation of the [00:09:00] energy markets in the United States left nuclear power competing with all other kinds of energy on an open market. And in those markets, natural gas is cheaper.

KEN LOUNGO: The sheer volume of money which is required to build large reactors in the United States today, and the amount of time that it takes, is a significant disincentive. Any utility company is going to say, You know what?, it's a lot easier for me to build a gas plant. It's cheaper and people don't care as much.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Aside from challenges around public perception, costs, and construction time, another often cited criticism is the fact that nuclear power plants produce radioactive nuclear waste. Allison McFarland specializes in nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal and served as chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for two and a half years.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: Once the spent fuel comes out of a reactor, it's very hot, both radioactively and thermally. That material needs to be placed in a pool where there's active [00:10:00] cooling, water's actively circulated, and that keeps that material cool while some of the initial radioisotopes decay away, and then it does get cool enough after about five years that you can remove it from the pool and put it in dry storage, which are basically these concrete and steel casks that sit on a concrete pad and passively cool the material. But yes, that's a safe practice and it's a standard practice all around the world to do that.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: In the US, nuclear waste is stored at the nuclear reactor facilities because there's no national waste repository. Plans to establish such a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been thwarted by local and federal politics. There are some countries like France that also reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

JESS GEHIN: It is possible to take used fuel and process it, recover the useful materials, the remaining enriched uranium, the other fissile materials such as some of the plutonium, and that could be used as fuel in future reactors.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: But that, too, is not a perfect solution

ALLISON MACFARLANE: That costs a [00:11:00] lot of money. We won't do that in the US because uranium is plentiful and cheap.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Another common argument against nuclear power is that we already have other renewables to help us decarbonize.

CAT CLIFFORD: Nuclear is a baseload power source. That means it runs all the time. For renewables to be used all the time, you need to have a huge build out of battery technology. Right now, that doesn't exist.

KEN LOUNGO: Nuclear power in the United States has changed its future and its prospects have changed quite substantially over the last two to three years. There were a number of plants that were in line to be shut down and some were shut down, but a number of states and now the Biden administration has made a determination that you need those plants and there's zero carbon electricity output in order to meet the climate objectives of the country and also at the state level.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: The war in Ukraine has disrupted energy markets in Europe and [00:12:00] reignited conversations around the need for countries to be energy independent.

KEN LOUNGO: In the wake of Fukushima, the German government made a determination to shut down all of their nuclear energy and make themselves even more dependent on Russian natural gas.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Back in the US, one of the plants scheduled to be decommissioned is Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California. The state's last remaining nuclear power plant has a long history of anti nuclear protests. Lately, there's been heated debate on whether to extend the plant's lifespan beyond its planned 2025 retirement. The reasons why nuclear power plants are shut down are often complicated and typically come down to political and economic factors.

KEN LOUNGO: The two drivers for nuclear are price and politics.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: But one Diablo Canyon employee says that the clean energy produced by the plant is still needed.

HEATHER HOFF: Part of the reason that the closure of Diablo Canyon was announced so early in 2016, with a nine year lead time, was so that we could prepare and [00:13:00] get more clean energy online so that when we shut Diablo Canyon, we could replace it with clean energy. And we just haven't made much progress.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Heather Hoff has worked at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant for over 18 years. In 2016, she co-founded Mothers for Nuclear, an activist group that supports the protection of existing nuclear power plants as well as the construction of new ones. Still, Hoff says she understands the reluctance to embrace nuclear power, and it's something that she herself struggled with when she started working at Diablo Canyon.

HEATHER HOFF: My family was pretty nervous about me working there, and I was a little nervous as well. I heard a lot of stories of scary things and just didn't really know how I felt about nuclear. I spent the first probably six years of my career there asking tons and tons of questions and eventually changed my mind about nuclear and realized that it was an really good alignment with my environmental and humanitarian values.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Californians seem to be changing their views too. A [00:14:00] recent poll found that 44 percent of voters are in support of building new nuclear plants compared to 37 percent who oppose such a measure. But that's not to say Hoff never questioned her newfound respect for nuclear power. In March, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami. Suddenly, the world had a nuclear disaster on its hands.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Brian, for the first time, Japan declared an atomic emergency at two nuclear power plants, and Japanese officials say they have lost control of two reactors.

KEN LOUNGO: For any existing reactor, what you need is to be able to continue to pump the coolant around the fuel so that it doesn't get too hot and then melt down. And what happens is in Fukushima, the electricity went out, and then in every reactor, there's backup. generation, which is mostly diesel fuel, but the diesel generators in Fukushima were on the ground and were swamped by the tsunami, and [00:15:00] so they weren't able to keep the coolant pumping, and so the fuel melted down. It's sitting at the bottom of the reactor, and then the explosions that you saw was the buildup of hydrogen inside of the reactor containment that then blew.

HEATHER HOFF: I was actually in the control room at Diablo Canyon during the few days when the Fukushima events were unfolding, and it was super scary. And, it's like my worst nightmare as an operator to be there and think about these other operators just across the ocean from us. And they don't know what's going on with their plant. They have no power. They don't know if people are hurt. Some of what I was hearing on TV and the media was pretty scary. But then, like, when we actually learned what was going on, it wasn't as bad as I thought. No one was actually hurt by events that happened at the plant. And that was really surprising to me. So, it kind of went from, like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to quit, to, like, Oh, now I feel even more strongly that [00:16:00] nuclear is the right thing to do.

MAGDALENA PETROVA - HOST, CNBC: Although there have been no direct deaths attributed to the Fukushima disaster itself, over 160,000 people were evacuated from their homes as a result of the tsunami and nuclear incident. About 41,000 have not yet been able to return home. Some experts predict that it will take another 30 years to clean up the Fukushima plant. But there is some good news. A 2021 report concluded that the doses of radiation that Fukushima residents were exposed to are such that future radiation associated health effects are unlikely to be discernible.

Is Nuclear Energy the solution? - Our Changing Climate - Air Date 5-10-19

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: Many proponents of nuclear point to the lack of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants as a major reason to increase nuclear energy production. While this is true for the actual nuclear fission process that creates energy, the processes surrounding nuclear, like uranium mining and refining, demand emissions. A life cycle assessment of various fuels conducted [00:17:00] by the IPCC reveals that the average greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power production is relatively the same as its renewable counterparts.

But when compared to natural gas and coal, nuclear emissions are drastically lower. So as an alternative to gas and coal, nuclear power is certainly less emissions heavy and could be a viable low carbon energy option. But, waste also comes hand in hand with emissions. This is a big sticking point for the anti nuclear movement, and rightfully so.

No one has really implemented a viable long term solution for nuclear waste storage. There are currently three main options right now: on site storage, long term deep storage, or reprocessing fuel for use in other nuclear energy plants.

Reprocessing spent fuel sounds like a perfect solution. But it's really not. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, one consequence of [00:18:00] reprocessing spent fuel could be the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The byproduct of the recycling process is more plutonium, which can easily be used to build weapons. In addition, only a little bit of the reprocessed waste can be used again, and you're still left with a host of other radioactive materials.

And on top of all that, recycling this waste has a substantial cost tied to it. So ultimately, the only answer right now to our current nuclear waste is long term storage. Unfortunately, the only country that is currently setting up a facility is Finland. The rest just stockpile their waste on site, with no options or outlooks for long term storage.

The other two main elements that really hold back nuclear are cost and safety. Combined, the drawbacks of these make nuclear an infeasible solution to a swift decarbonization of our global electrical grid.

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: The problem with nuclear energy is [00:19:00] that, technologically speaking, it is mature, etc., but it's incredibly expensive and very slow to build.

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: That's Arjendu Patanayak, a professor in the Carleton College physics department who teaches a class on sustainable energy policy. And this cost is in the range of an average of 9 billion per plant in the US, with the possibility of a plant taking up to...

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: They'll take 30 billion in 30 years, which. Is an unusual number to hear for a single plant.

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: With that kind of price tag, nuclear energy production becomes almost twice that of other fuels, all while needing someone with deep pockets to finance the whole operation. Once a nuclear power plant is built, the energy may seem low cost. in part due to a small amount of physical fuel needed to be shipped to the plant.

But the actual construction and decommission costs of these plants are huge financial burdens, especially when you consider that they often run over budget and way past schedule. At this point you may be thinking, but what about a [00:20:00] country like France? Doesn't it support 75 percent of its energy consumption with nuclear power? And hasn't it done so for many years? Unfortunately, France is an outlier, not the norm. Partly, this is due to France's strong nuclear initiatives and top down political approach.

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: France is a top-down kind of governmental system. And so the bureaucrats basically call their friends in the technological world and say, what should we do? And they said nuclear and so, okay, let's keep going

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: In the US and other countries lacking clear plans for nuclear power however, the opportunity to use nuclear as a transition fuel to solar and wind has passed.

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: It would take so much momentum that doesn't seem to exist for nuclear energy to have real legs.

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: Indeed, if we are trying to rapidly decarbonize an energy grid like the US's within the next 10 to 30 years, nuclear power just isn't the answer in terms of cost and time. Part of the prohibitively slow and expensive nature of [00:21:00] nuclear comes from safety concerns, which when you look at death tolls seem to be more of a product of public perception than an actual occurrence.

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: Nuclear power per capita is actually the least harmful.

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: According to a tally accumulated by Forbes, deaths caused by nuclear are much less when compared to coal. natural gas, or even wind and solar. But this low death rate could be due in part to the heavy safety regulations put on nuclear power plants already.

Ultimately, nuclear power is a contentious source of energy. As a result of both the public imagination and the complexity of its system, nuclear requires a large chunk of initial capital and time to become a feasible source of quote unquote clean fuel, a fact which Professor Patanaik agrees with.

ARJENDU PATANAYAK: I personally don't see nuclear roaring back.

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE HOST: A transition away from fossil fuels will definitely involve current nuclear power plants, but [00:22:00] renewables like solar and wind have nowhere near reached their potential, especially once we've sorted out battery storage. Not only are renewables cheap compared to nuclear, they can be produced quickly and spread widely across the globe in a decentralized fashion.

While nuclear does have the benefit of a massive power output, it is a slow and cumbersome beast. If we are to swiftly and effectively transition away from a fossil fuel-reliant grid, we have to explore other energy options.

Three Mile Island Is Reopening. Some Climate Scientists are Thrilled. - CNN One Thing - Air Date 9-25-24

ELLA NILSEN: Nuclear power was starting to fade from our collective consciousness, I feel like after various plant meltdowns.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: This is the first time an incident or accident like this has happened in Pennsylvania, which has five nuclear reactor units involving three power companies, which, of course, includes Three Mile Island.

ELLA NILSEN: In the US, the most recent meltdown was a long time ago. It was the 1979 [00:23:00] Three Mile Island meltdown in Pennsylvania.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Within days, schools reopened and families came home. On Three Mile Island, workers eventually found out half the reactor core had melted. It took years to clean it up. And it will be years more, if ever, before nuclear power's reputation fully recovers from what happened at Three Mile Island.

ELLA NILSEN: Three Mile Island closed in 2019, and it's among a pretty large number of aging nuclear plants that shut down. But just last week we learned that Three Mile Island is actually going to reopen in the next few years, and will be selling its power to Microsoft to help power AI and data centers.

The project still has regulatory hurdles to clear, and it's going to be an unprecedented thing in the US, but it's a snapshot about how a lot of players, tech companies especially, are embracing it as a way to generate lots of power with no climate pollution.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Well, so, [00:24:00] before we go any further, Ella, I need you to explain this to me and it's like as simple as you possibly can. How does nuclear energy work?

ELLA NILSEN: So, I feel like we think of nuclear energy as really complex, but it's actually pretty simple. Nuclear energy works by splitting atoms to create heat, which then is basically used to generate electricity by steam turbines. That's essentially what it is.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: And, of course, the upside here is that there are no greenhouse gases emitted, right?

ELLA NILSEN: Correct. Nuclear does not emit any CO2 or methane, the kinds of greenhouse gases that are dramatically warming the planet. It does, however, create nuclear waste, which is something that the US still needs to figure out how it's going to deal with.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Wait, yeah, so tell me about that. Are you saying that there's still a bunch of nuclear waste just sitting around at Three Mile Island and other [00:25:00] sites around the US?

ELLA NILSEN: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. That is currently how we deal with nuclear waste. It is just sitting at about 75 sites all over the US and these sites are power plants that have either shut down or are still going.

I will say, I feel like the general American population thinks of nuclear waste as green goo in barrels, kind of Homer Simpson-esque. However, the way that it is currently stored around the country, nuclear waste is essentially metal rods that, have radiation in them, and they are essentially put into these huge concrete casks that stop the radiation from getting out into the air and the environment. And so these things are being stored safely and can be transported safely. But it still, I would say, looms very large in the American imagination as something that is bad and dangerous.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Right. I mean, [00:26:00] we saw in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island incident, there was a lot of concern from the community that even though the government was telling them, Yes, this is all safe, there's no actual problems to your health, I think there are still people to this day who feel like there's been adverse effects.

ELLA NILSEN: Yeah. And there are lots of different places all over the country. Nevada was supposed to be the host site of Yucca Mountain, which was supposed to be the deep geologic formation that was going to store all of America's nuclear waste.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Energy department officials hope 70,000 tons of the most lethal atomic leftovers can be safely stored deep within the mountain for 10,000 years. Putting that in perspective, 10,000 years ago, man was just learning to use stone tools.

ELLA NILSEN: That has never actually been done because public opposition was so fierce to it that it stopped the projects in its tracks.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: But the powers in the capital, Carson City, have been fighting back in court to block Washington at [00:27:00] every turn, calling the Yucca Mountain site perilous, refusing to issue environmental permits. Seems like the government just slapped it up here and said this is where it's gonna go.

ELLA NILSEN: There are a lot of different communities around the country that are still really fearful about nuclear waste and what a nuclear meltdown might mean for our community.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: So, with all that said then, why is nuclear being talked about more as a possible solution to the climate crisis?

ELLA NILSEN: Nuclear is a really good way to generate the electricity that we are going to need, not just for AI and data centers, although that's certainly a big piece of it, but in order to really decarbonize the US. We are going to be driving electric cars. There's a big push for people to electrify our homes. Like, we're going to need a lot of electricity and clean electricity in order to really bring US emissions down. Currently, the US gets about 20 [00:28:00] percent of its power from nuclear. And nuclear has some major pros. It can stay on at all times. It's really reliable. It's easily dispatchable. But there's a push for more nuclear and different kinds of nuclear.

BILL GATES: Yeah, we've been willing to go back to the basics and do what people have always said should be done, which is to cool the plant with metal instead of water.

ELLA NILSEN: Bill Gates, I don't know if you've heard of...

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Heard of him, yes.

ELLA NILSEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard of Bill Gates. He's investing, in this big project in next generation small modular nuclear reactors in Wyoming.

BILL GATES: And that means that this problem of high pressure and extra heat when you shut down is completely solved. And so the complexity—that's meant that nuclear has gotten more complex and more expensive as it's gone from first to third generation—we changed that utterly.

ELLA NILSEN: It won't be operational until at least 2030, but it's a really interesting look at the future. And the [00:29:00] US is racing currently to make fuel for this next generation of nuclear reactors, in part by melting down old nuclear warheads from our stockpile.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: It's like weapons into energy.

ELLA NILSEN: Yes, literally old weapons into the energy of the future. The problem is in the US we and other countries have been reliant for decades on Russia for our enriched uranium. That's ending soon because Congress recently passed a ban on importing Russian uranium into the US but we need to now enrich it at other facilities, really start this supply chain from scratch.

Then—we've just been talking about nuclear fission, which is just the standard nuclear energy that has been powering reactors for years—there's also nuclear fusion, which is this holy grail energy of the future, which could really give us a limitless [00:30:00] supply of energy. There are fears that China could be eclipsing the US in nuclear fusion development, and that'll be a hugely important technology to be the first country to get right.

The private sector won't be enough to back the kind of widespread investment that's needed on nuclear, so people are looking to the government to really get this going.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Well, that's kind of what I wanted to ask. Do we know, in terms of the government, what a future President Kamala Harris or President Donald Trump feel about expanding nuclear energy in the ways that you're talking about?

ELLA NILSEN: Yeah, so Democrats and Republicans are both pretty into nuclear energy. It's like one of the sort of rare bipartisan, clean energy forms in the US...

DONALD TRUMP: but on the other hand, their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. Nobody does anything about that.

ELLA NILSEN: Trump isn't as opposed to nuclear as he is to other forms of energy. Like wind, he bashes a lot.

DONALD TRUMP: Starting on day one we will end Kamala's war [00:31:00] on American energy and we will drill, baby, drill. We're gonna drill, baby, drill. That's gonna break down...

ELLA NILSEN: You know, he doesn't really love solar, but the important 'but' here is that Trump wants to slash government funding in general and gut a lot of what was in the Inflation Reduction Act, which could be a big problem for nuclear.

KAMALA HARRIS: ...the young people of America care deeply about this issue, and I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy, while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels, we have...

ELLA NILSEN: The bottom line is the US needs a president and an administration to keep federal investment at current levels, at least, or even invest more when it comes to nuclear energy.

DAVID RIND - HOST, ONE THING: Is that just because it's so darn expensive?

ELLA NILSEN: It's really expensive, but also with things like fusion, I mean, these are technologies that are still pretty nascent, and they just need a lot more development [00:32:00] and a lot more work to get right and get to a commercial level.

Warnings of Nuclear Catastrophe as Power Plants in Russia and Ukraine at Risk Amid Escalating War - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-29-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This extreme situation at the Kursk nuclear plant, the head of the IAEA has said that it is an old plant that doesn’t have much of the safety mechanisms. Can you explain what’s happening there? That’s in Russia. It’s been invaded by Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And also, what’s happening with Zaporizhzhia, which is in Ukraine, but it’s occupied by Russia right now, and it’s the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Vladimir?

VLADIMIR SLIVYAK: So, the situation on the Kursk nuclear plant is getting worse and worse by, basically, every day. There is fighting between Russia and the Ukrainian army — well, it was officially said it was in the [00:33:00] few kilometers from a nuclear power plant. And today, Russian army already said that Ukrainians been trying to get into the city that is next to a nuclear power plant, where the workers from the plant are leaving.

And it’s true that it’s very old reactors. It’s very similar to the one that exploded back in 1986 in Chernobyl, causing the largest nuclear accident in humankind history. And right now situation, well, you can call it worst of the worst, for the reason that those are very old reactors. It’s not protected, but can’t contain them. And, well, for example, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, it’s more protected. I mean the reactors itself. In Kursk, reactors are not protected, and basically any big rocket, missile or the bomb dropped on the reactor itself [00:34:00] may lead to a very big nuclear accident. I wouldn’t say it’s going to be second Chernobyl, but it could be very, very big, with a radioactive release approaching a few countries that are close to Russia.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Matt, if you can talk more about what has taken place, this huge change in the last weeks, with Ukraine invading Russia, not clear how Putin will respond, and how he’s responded so far, and Zelensky saying at this point he’s not interested in any discussion of a ceasefire or any kind of peace deal?

MATT DUSS: Right. Well, I think what we’ve seen over the past months, before this incursion, was Ukraine being a bit more aggressive in the way it was striking sites inside Russia, specifically sites that were used to launch rocket and drone attacks inside Ukraine. They were restrained from doing that for a long [00:35:00] time by their U.S. and European partners out of escalation concerns — once again, I think reasonable escalation concerns, given the nuclear aspect here. But I think they showed that those escalation concerns may have been slightly overblown, given Russia’s relatively muted response to those attacks. And once again, I think we should note that attacking sites being used to launch missiles, rockets and drones into Ukraine is a pretty legitimate tactic.

But what we’ve seen just over the past week is, you know, actual U.S. — excuse me, Ukrainian military forces invading into Russia, the first time, I believe, since World War II that Russia’s territory has been invaded by a foreign army. And I think part of the approach here is, again, to kind of turn the tables and show that Russia is not immune to these incursions. It’s certainly a propaganda loss for President Vladimir Putin, though it’s hard to say what Russians are actually [00:36:00] seeing, given the almost complete control that the Russian government has over what Russians are allowed to see in their media. But I do think just taking the initiative, as we saw about a year and a half ago in the first counteroffensive, I think that’s one benefit of this, is for just Ukraine to show that it is not simply on its back foot and defending, it is now taking the initiative and taking the fight into Russia.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Vladimir, if you could speak about the Rosatom State Corporation, which is the Russian state corporation focused on nuclear energy, and its role in the occupation of Zaporizhzhia, Russia having replaced France now as the world’s leading player in international nuclear power plant production?

VLADIMIR SLIVYAK: Well, first of all, it’s not just a nuclear corporation. It’s a military organization. In fact, it’s part of the Russian government. And it’s in charge of a nuclear weapon and civil — so-called civil nuclear power in [00:37:00] Russia.

But it’s also being used by Vladimir Putin as an instrument of geopolitical fight around the world. Like, Russia is going around to different developing countries, proposing them to build new nuclear power plants of Russian design, even giving them loans because most of the developing countries cannot pay such big sums of money, because, well, like, one Russian nuclear power plant with, let’s say, two reactors in it would cost over 10 billion of American dollars, and not many developing countries can afford it. So, Russians would just loan this money to other countries. And in exchange, they get, well, basically, economic control and some sort of political control over those countries, because once you sign up with Russian Rosatom to build reactor in your country, you get into dependence. It’s dependence on [00:38:00] Russian engineers, Russian technology, supplying of Russian fuel — nuclear fuel, I mean. And also, when the nuclear plant will go offline because it’s old, you will be dependent on the decommissioning technology, which is also coming from Russia. And we’re talking about roughly 100 years or even 120 years, you know. So, new nuclear power extension that Rosatom is doing around the world are under order of Vladimir Putin, its extension because Vladimir Putin wants more control over developing world. He wants to use developing world in his, well, opposition to the West, I would say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And we also have to say that the Kursk nuclear power plant is similar to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which melted down in 1986.

Are we facing a new nuclear arms race? - This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler - Air Date 9-17-24

ANKIT PANDA: During the Cold War, nuclear [00:39:00] weapons were threats to other nuclear weapons, right? The United States and the Soviet Union by the 60s and into the 70s and 80s had adopted practices in nuclear targeting that privileged destroying the other side's nuclear forces. So, that was designed to limit damage. This was the jargon in nuclear strategy calls this counterforce. One of the examples in which technologies have changed today is that we actually live in an era where non nuclear weapons can pose threats to nuclear weapons as well. So you have, for instance, in the East Asian context and in the European context, for that matter, a whole bunch of American allies building conventional weapons capabilities that could be used to destroy nuclear capable launchers in North Korea, in China, in Russia, command and control facilities, leadership facilities. The precision revolution has now been playing out for a few decades, but the implications for nuclear stability, I think, are often overlooked.

But that's just one example. We're also in this era of [00:40:00] disinformation, the proliferation of artificial intelligence capabilities, non-kinetic means of interfering with the adversaries' computer systems, so cyber attacks, all of this can, I think, cut against nuclear operations in ways that could have significant escalatory effects.

But you also have old technologies that have gotten better, missile defense capabilities, I think, are the classic example there. Missile defense was once seen as highly destabilizing in the context of the Cold War. But as I think we now see with Ukraine, some of the cases where missile defenses have been used successfully by the Israelis, tactical missile defense is starting to take on significant salience for many countries, which also has implications for how strategic missile defense, for instance, for the US homeland is going to, I think, factor into debates here in the United States. So just a little taste of some of the technological change that bears on nuclear escalation.

GAVIN ESLER - HOST, THIS IS NOT A DRILL: Could I pursue a little bit of the politics now with Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security Affairs Advisor. He said, "the United [00:41:00] States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them".

So, nuclear deterrence has never really demanded nuclear superiority. I get that point. But what is he on about there? Is he suggesting that they have enough conventional weapons which are possibly able to deter because they could also attack nuclear facilities in countries that seem to be proposing a threat?

I'm not quite clear what that's about, that statement.

ANKIT PANDA: Yeah. So, Sullivan made those remarks last year. And since then, there've actually been other speeches by senior members of the Biden administration, not quite as senior as Jake Sullivan, indicating that actually the U S might need to prepare for a future where we do need additional nuclear weapons.

But you referenced this idea of nuclear superiority. It's one of the open debates in our field. I personally would agree with you that nuclear superiority does not deter, but the question of how difficult nuclear deterrence is, is really one of the fundamental dividing questions in the field of nuclear strategy.

You can go all the [00:42:00] way back to debates in the 1960s between figures like Thomas Schelling on the one hand and Albert Wohlstetter on the other that very nicely state the two sides of this debate. I would argue that Wohlstetter—who famously described the balance of terror that underpins nuclear deterrence as being delicate—really, in many ways, carried the US establishment, I think in the United States. If you talk to members of the military involved in nuclear operations and targeting, they would evince a belief that numbers do matter. The precise contours of force structure matter.

What Sullivan says, though, is really important, right? He is pointing out that the US is now facing an unprecedented problem. This problem is now known as the two-peer problem. For decades, the United States has only had to contend with one adversarial nuclear arsenal that is in the vicinity of being quantitatively in the realm of what the United States feels. And that's of course, the Soviet Union and later Russia's arsenal.

But now China is building up. And so the unprecedented [00:43:00] problem is that by the mid 2030s, the United States will have significantly more nuclear warheads pointed its way than it will be able to field in return unless a change is made today.

Now, for deterrence, the only thing that needs to obtain is that the adversary understands that pursuing a course of action that is inimical to US interests will not yield him or her advantage, or it may be unlikely to succeed. But you have two approaches basically to deterrence, you can threaten punishment or you can communicate that you have the capabilities to deny benefit. Neither of those necessarily depends on precisely ensuring that numbers match what an adversary can bring to bear.

But, going back again to counterforce, which has been this really, really strong undercurrent in US nuclear strategy since the 1960s. If the goal is to have the ability to hold at risk adversary nuclear capabilities. So, let's just use some numbers here. China's [00:44:00] building about 1500 (is what the Pentagon says) by 2035. Let's say they put that on their 300 plus nuclear silos, submarines, ground launch missiles for theater purposes. The US would need to add warheads to have the ability to hold all of those capabilities at risk in addition to simultaneously holding everything at risk that we hold today at risk in Russia, and that, of course, demands a buildup.

Now, the question for anybody concerned about an arms race is why would Russia and China tolerate that? Why would they tolerate an American nuclear force that is cumulatively as large as their combined nuclear forces? The answer is they probably wouldn't. And the other question that I think we need to ask ourselves is, in the field of nuclear strategy, we think about worst case scenarios.

During the Cold War, the worst case scenario really was a Soviet first strike against the United States. Today, it is not uncommon in Washington in certain circles to hear genuine concern about Russia and China collusively contemplating a first strike against the United States. Now, for anybody that watches the Russia-China relationship, sure, they're [00:45:00] partners. They work closely together. Xi and Putin have a lot of shared grievances. Are they ever going to collusively carry out a first strike on the United States? Probably not. But if you're a military planner in Omaha, Nebraska, at US Strategic Command, you cannot rule that scenario out, right? You mentioned this idea of thinking about the unthinkable and these are the kinds of scenarios now that American planners have to take into account seriously.

GAVIN ESLER - HOST, THIS IS NOT A DRILL: I do get that, but I expect also listeners of a certain age will remember MAD—mutually assured destruction—and will say, This is mad, I mean, both in the common sense and also in the sense of looking at those initials and what they mean. In other words, we don't really need to spend a lot of time thinking much more on this, even because Russia and China have got grievances with each other that perhaps receive less treatment in the media than they should.

ANKIT PANDA: Yeah. There's other wrinkles to this, too, for the United States, right?

So we in the United [00:46:00] States extend our nuclear deterrent to 34 other countries: the members of NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. And each of those capitals has a stake in the decisions the United States will make about the future of its nuclear forces. And of course, no two allies are alike. You'll get very different answers in Berlin, in Warsaw, in London, in Paris, in Seoul, in Tokyo, in Canberra, about what the United States ought to do about this. But in the coming years, as these debates are hashed out in Washington, American allies will have a stake in the outcomes here. And of course this is a conversation we're also having against the backdrop of a presidential election where you have two candidates with very, very different ideas about the obligations the United States has to its allies around the world. So that, too, I think, factors into a lot of what we're talking about.

Note from the Editor about the nature of humans and energy use

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with Vox explaining the energy uses of the AI boom. CNBC looked at the renewed interest in nuclear energy. Our Changing Climate highlighted the disconnect in [00:47:00] timeframes between the climate and nuclear energy. One Thing discussed the evolving design strategies for nuclear plants. Democracy Now! highlighted the extreme danger when war and nuclear power mix. And This is Not a Drill look at the nature of nuclear deterrence.

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, often trying to make each other laugh in the process. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed the 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 anyone, depending on the app you use, may be able to use the time codes in our show notes to jump around similar to chapter markers, so check [00:48:00] 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 onto the deeper dives half the show, I have a few thoughts on the nature of energy usage that I think anyone wanting to address climate change needs to come to terms with. The crux of it is something called Jevons paradox, and the basic idea is that as a commodity becomes more efficient and therefore cheaper, demand for that commodity goes up. It happened with coal production, that's what the guy Jevons was originally talking about, but it was that same idea that also describes why adding an extra lane to alleviate traffic congestion just ends up inviting more traffic. The extra lane makes driving more efficient, therefore more people do it up to the point when it becomes too congested again.

Starting around the turn of this century, [00:49:00] there was a lot of talk about switching to more energy efficient light bulbs. Like compact fluorescents and LEDs, which are 90% more efficient than the old style. Doing this in the home. Definitely reduces energy consumption, but with the availability of such cheap and efficient lights, it also opened the door to a lot more use cases for lights that we just wouldn't have considered before. One article points to the Las Vegas sphere and it's 1.2 million LEDs as an example. So globally, even though lighting efficiency has gone way up, we collectively use about the same amount of energy on lighting now, as we did about 15 years ago.

For another example, many years ago, we all started learning about the energy usage required to run the internet in general, as well as specific use cases like spam. We don't think generally of sending an email as an energy intensive thing, but once you add them all up, they actually do take their [00:50:00] toll. Now in more recent years, crypto and crypto mining came on the scene with its absurd energy usage, all for the purely philosophical supposition that it's the mining of crypto that gives it its value, which I think is a pretty perverse idea of value. Now even more recently, AI has come along with their chat bot queries that require something like 50 times more energy as a regular Google search.

And the problem with our relationship with energy is that as people who live in societies with 24 hour electricity, barring acute emergencies, we think of it as basically limitless. And when something is seemingly limitless, we feel no compunction about using more of it. We may individually want to use less of it for the sake of climate change or a company may strive for efficiency for the cost benefits or the social credit they'll get, but collectively, if there's a halfway decent reason [00:51:00] to use more energy, like building a light up sphere in the desert, making fake money, that's just real enough to sell to other people, or making the faustian bargain inherent in new technology that may deliver us from our woes or destroy us entirely, we are going to use that energy in those cases.

There's been a concern for a long time. Now that focusing on efficiency may actually backfire, and targeting renewables to be able to replace carbon emitting sources of energy has always been guaranteed to be too little too late if we don't also consider the inevitable growth in our consumption. I fear that the alternate option to this Jevons paradox we keep falling into is a world in which we are actually bumping into our power limits, experiencing rolling blackouts and brownouts as our demand exceeds our supply.

Now in theory. [00:52:00] That's one way to fight climate change—don't focus on efficiency so much, just put a hard cap on usage—but it's the sort of thing that would backfire into fascism immediately. Blackouts due to a lack of power is one thing, imposed blackouts, or even the threat of blackouts due to a government policy to artificially limit energy usage when we could theoretically generate more, that'll get people angry.

So where does that leave us? Ultimately, we are probably in another progress trap. Using more and more energy as a society has always been beneficial to humans, right up until it becomes catastrophically unhelpful. Just like Jevons paradox, progress traps have happened again and again, and climate change is the biggest one of all time. So when it comes to an all-of-the-above energy strategy, I'm in favor of that concept consisting of [00:53:00] philosophical and sociological strategies to keep energy usage as low as possible, like building walkable communities so that the easy thing to do is also the cleanest and most efficient. But also recognize that humans are going to keep demanding more and more energy, and when they demand it, what we have to offer had to better be as clean as we can get it.

Solar and wind or good starts, we should keep going on that path. Geothermal may be on the brink of a revolution as incorporating fracking technology of all things can make geothermal feasible in many more places than ever before, and it is incredibly efficient once it's set up. Thinking farther out, space-based solar power and the theoretical Dyson Sphere may even be in our future. But in the meantime, I do find it difficult to imagine a world in which nuclear doesn't need to be part of the mix. That's where I sit right now. [00:54:00]

I guess what I'm saying is that if we continue to follow our nature, then we can either pave the way for a fascist backlash against environmentalism, or we can be destined to become the aliens from independence day, roaming from planet to planet to scavenge for resources. If we want to find another path, I really think it's up to the philosophers rather than the engineers to steer us in a new direction.

SECTION A - ENERGY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on three topics. Next up, Section A: Energy. Followed by Section B: Climate and Section C: Risk.

The Renaissance of Nuclear Power Part 2 - The Energy Gang - Air Date 1-27-23

MELISSA LOTT: One of the things I would really love to dive into before we run out of time are the concerns that people have about nuclear power. And it goes back to something I said earlier, actually, about the future not looking like the past nuclear power. And I'm not going to recap the great safety records or any of that stuff. I'm just saying when people look at the future of nuclear, often I run into these conversations where they think it's a replication of the past. And with these new technologies, how do they or do they address some of the [00:55:00] biggest concerns that people do have around what having nuclear power means? So if we could touch on that, I think it's an important part of this conversation.

KATIE HUFF: I would love to come back to a comment that Carl made about his dad being anti institutional rather than anti nuclear. And I think this comes and points directly at a concern about nuclear that is rooted in distrust of large institutions, particularly large, you know, utilities or large companies that make big engineering projects, or the Department of Energy itself.

Trust is absolutely critical in our ability to build this out. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides trust. Their incredibly high standards worldwide provides trust internationally. But we also have to make good on our promises. And in the Department of Energy, for example, spent nuclear fuel is one of those promises. We are legally required to begin taking spent fuel from the sites where it currently sits and waits for a final destination. And [00:56:00] during the time in my office, we've been able to restart a process for consent based siting of an interim storage facility that would reduce the number of those interim storage facilities across the country.

There's many of them at the sites where that fuel is generated, and we like there to be a single consolidated one or maybe a couple. We need to find a site that recognizes and centers the energy justice inherent in that. So I would touch on the trust that we need to meet for nuclear spent fuel management in the United States. And that's on me. And we're taking it very seriously in my office. And I hope we're starting to rebuild some of that trust. But I would say it is infiltrated throughout. Many questions people have about nuclear reactors, even just the cost overruns, are a matter of trust. Do you trust a company to meet the cost and schedules that they've promised the public utility commissions, for example? It's about trust.

MELISSA LOTT: Yeah, I'm actually having a flashback really quick on just that comment. And I remember it was, I believe, Steph Spears who said this at the Aspen Ideas [00:57:00] festival last summer that was talking about. She said that, I'm going to paraphrase, you can find the direct quote online at the video of the event. But it was that these things move at the speed of trust.

Like that's the core of this so I just, I'm hearing it in what you say, Katie, and actually something you said earlier, Carl, about regulation. And just to give a little more background, Ed, I didn't say this earlier, but I grew up in a Navy family. Admiral Rickover is like childhood stories to me. And the nuclear navy, I mean, I grew up on that stuff, but I thought of nuclear as being this thing in a submarine, you know, and then I became a power plant, you know, more aware person around power plants later. But I just think that phrase I keep coming back to, and it's not just with nuclear, but I think it certainly applies here. But Carl, I'm sure you want to jump in on this topic too.

CARL PEREZ: I think trust is super important, but also the messengers. And what you're seeing much more of is these public advocacy groups that are grassroots movement. None of them are paid for by the utilities or anything. These are just concerned citizens. I mean, I see it here in New York. Thanks to nuclear New York, NySErda finally decided to include [00:58:00] advanced nuclear. Right. So what's also interesting is I think we spent a lot of time as an industry and myself admittedly trying to say, well, what you think of the passive nuclear is not actually what you think it is. And I think we should try to, and obviously opinion, but stop trying to focus on saying, let's agree on the past and let's agree on the future.

Let's agree on what we want nuclear to look like together.

That was really the focus of what we tried to do when I as an undergrad at 21 years old, tell myself, hey, let me start a nuclear energy company. What emboldens me in that moment is when I start learning about a scientist like doctor Alvin Weinberg, who was at the head of Oak Ridge and was one of the first environmentalists talking about carbon in the air and how problematic it is before so many other people were discussing it and him saying, we should better utilize our resources. And so he was one of the co inventors of the light water reactor and the Moen saw reactor. So obviously where I had my passion for the Moen saw reactor. But when you start looking at the technology and you start looking at the people beyond just Alvin Weinberg, Eugene Wigner and so many other engineers years, when you [00:59:00] add that personality and that humanity to it, you realize, okay, these are people who really wanted to do the right thing and were willing to take the risk because at the time, those rates and working in those labs was not the same thing as working in the labs today. And they were willing to take those life risks to make sure that we have a good future.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Yeah, no, that is a great point. I always think about one of the best lines on this I've ever heard was from the chief executive of electricity de France, who was talking about France's nuclear program. And he said, all countries have different endowments of natural resources. Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil, Scotland has a lot of wind. California has a lot of sun. In France, we have a public that's happy with the idea of nuclear power. That's our natural resource, and that's what we have to build on. Which was very funny and said it at a conference. Got a big laugh in the room. There is something to it. But also, as you've been saying, it's not a fixed endowment. People can change their minds, people can be persuaded. I think the polls always are highly unclear on [01:00:00] nuclear power, and it depends a lot how you ask the question and so on. But it does seem to be the case that there has been a shift in general, in public opinion in the United States and some other countries to being more pro nuclear over the past decade or so. Certainly there was a huge setback after.

CARL PEREZ: Fukushima just for the messengers. France. What they also did, which really changed the opinion in the recent two, three years, is they're injecting €1 billion into their nuclear industry for innovation. And more than half of that is destined to create a private sector, because they see that in the United States, there's a private sector and that we're all competing on price. And so utilities are looking at different costs, they're doing due diligence, and that's really what's helping the innovation move forward, because we're all pushing each other to progress. And I think France, because of its very nationalized nuclear industry, coming back to anti institutionalism, that was the reigning factor. In fact, three years ago, when they did a poll on nuclear, 60% of french people thought that nuclear energy generated carbon emissions.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: That's amazing. [01:01:00] One thing I worry about particular moment is, of course, the situation at Zaporozhazia in Ukraine. When you've been talking about, as you say, Poland, Ukraine, other countries in central and eastern Europe being very interested in new nuclear development because of the energy security benefits that they see. The situation in Zaporozhugier is really quite alarming. It seems to me. If you look at the recent statements from the International Atomic Energy Agency, they've been saying it's very important that the site be kept secure to avoid what could be a very serious problem. There and issues both with getting power supplies on the site, maintain cooling systems and so on, and potentially with damage. There's been missiles and shelling kind of around the plant quite a lot. There's been some quite intense fighting in that region over the past couple of weeks. Katie, maybe get specifically your thoughts on this and how the administration is thinking about this. Is this something which is a particular concern? How [01:02:00] worrying do you think that situation in Zaporozhyzia is right now?

KATIE HUFF: Yeah, it's an unacceptable situation. No country should turn a nuclear power plant into an active war zone. Combat operations in the vicinity of any nuclear plant are dangerous. They're irresponsible, they're unnecessary. Nuclear reactors are incredibly safe, but, you know, are not designed to withstand targeted military assault. And, you know, the heightened risks of a nuclear incident at Zap are the result of, of Russia's unprovoked invasion. And, you know, they've controlled a dangerous military presence at that site and they've been unwilling to turn control back to Ukraine for safe and secure operations. They've damaged power lines in the vicinity, which increased the likelihood of a loss of offside power event, which we have seen many times over the course of this invasion. And that kind of loss of offside power event, if extended, can increase the likelihood of the reactor failing to cool itself and therefore causing a meltdown, which is then a problematic situation for the reactor. Now, we haven't seen that [01:03:00] transpire because of the heroic efforts of folks repairing those transmission lines. But what it really draws out is a couple of things. One, it's just not acceptable. But two, when we look at a future of nuclear power in Ukraine, as you noted earlier, there's interest from Ukraine in building more nuclear. And the designs that they would likely select are going to leverage some of the passive safety features that would allow longer periods of walk away safety in the event of a loss of off site power event.

So, for example, the Westinghouse SCP 1000 has 72 hours after the beginning of such an event where you don't have to do anything. There's no human intervention required at all. And even after that 72 hours period, the human intervention is extremely minimal. And so you really are in this place where we've learned over many decades what to do to design reactors that are robust even to that totally unacceptable situation.

The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste - Huge If True - Air Date 5-10-23

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: This is Argonne National Laboratory. We're gonna get to go see the research that they're doing. And they have been doing research on nuclear power since, like, before I was born. Hold on. Do you recognize that name?

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: [01:04:00] Argonne National Laboratory. Yeah,

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: this was the same national lab that developed that incredible old nuclear waste recycling reactor.

But I didn't know that yet. So we go on this incredible tour. It's awesome. I'm learning a ton. I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm gonna be so overprepared to talk to Johnny about nuclear power. And on this tour with me are these two people from Oklo, which is a company that's working on new kinds of nuclear reactors.

And at the end of the tour, I'm sitting with them under this beautiful, Big tree and one of them says something that just short circuits my brain.

SPEAKER 1: So we're actually working with Argonne closely on how to recycle existing nuclear waste in the us. There is enough use fuel to power the country for the next 150 years.

Wait, I'm sorry. What? There is enough use fuel in the country in the US alone. to generate power for the country for the next 150 years.

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: There's enough used fuel, meaning nuclear waste, in the U. S. to power the country for 150 years. Like, you can see me not believing her. I think it's some fake math. Like, [01:05:00] maybe technically there's enough energy there, but like, we could never really use it.

We don't know how to do that. Or it's like when they say, you know, geothermal, you can power the earth for like, Thousands of years if we could get all of the energy out of the earth. It's like yeah We can't we don't know how to do that. Do we know how

SPEAKER 1: to yeah, we just don't have the facility Commercial facility to do so but the technology is there

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: experts differ on the exact number of years here But they agree that the nuclear waste we have now It could be used as a large energy source, based on technology that we've already built.

But it gets even better. If you reuse that nuclear waste, especially if you reuse it more than once, you can dramatically cut down on the amount of time that the waste after all of that's done is radioactive for. So the amount of time that we have to store our nuclear waste. The problems are cost and global politics, not fundamental technology.

Here we go. By the time I got to DC to talk to Johnny about this, I was Obsessed. Hello!

JOHNNY HARRIS: How's it going? Good morning! Welcome to our studio.

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: We have all of this nuclear [01:06:00] waste, right? And it is scary. But imagine that there was a way that you could actually not just store it, but actually use it.

JOHNNY HARRIS: So you can use nuclear waste as fuel for more energy.

You can recycle

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: nuclear waste. You can

JOHNNY HARRIS: recycle nuclear waste. Yes.

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: And I dug all the way into this in a video that I'm now going to promise is going to be on my channel by the time we air this one. This is that video. To understand what's going on here, you have to understand that nuclear waste isn't what you've been told.

Basically all of the electricity that you use, except solar, comes from spinning a turbine. It's magic. Most of the time inside a power plant what you're really doing is you're heating up a liquid into steam and using that to spin the turbine. The most common way to do that is still burning stuff near it.

That's fossil fuels. But you could also use liquid that the earth already heated up for you. That's geothermal. Or You can split atoms apart inside special rocks and make them really hot. That's nuclear. And the special hot rocks are uranium. Uranium. Uranium 235. Uranium. Uranium fever. But only a [01:07:00] really small part of natural uranium, less than 1%.

is a kind of breakable uranium that can sustain a nuclear reaction. This is uranium 235. The number refers to the number of neutrons in the atom. So typically, uranium goes through a process called enrichment, which is making more of the uranium 235 out of the less useful uranium 238. By the time that's all done, your fuel looks like this.

If you take your finger up to your first joint, that's about the size of a uranium fuel pellet. Those pellets then go into these long metal rods that I got to see while I was at Argon. And then comes the nuclear reaction. So you fire a bunch of free atoms at your uranium 235, which cracks it into smaller, very unstable atoms, and throws off a couple other neutrons in the process, which zoom off and hit more uranium nearby, and then more, and more, a chain reaction of splitting atoms.

And each time they get split, a little mass turns into energy, which makes the rods really hot, which heats the water, which spins the turbine, which generates electricity. Ta da! But eventually, after four to six years, you've broken enough of [01:08:00] that special uranium that the reaction stops working efficiently.

And that spent fuel is now considered high level nuclear waste. At this point, that waste is a mix of 238 and a little bit of leftover 235 and a bunch of very unstable atoms that give off ionizing radiation. That ionizing radiation, in large doses, is the bad stuff. It's the scary, invisible killer that affects our tissues and our DNA in often deadly ways.

And the thing is, this nuclear waste stays radioactive for an insanely long time. We're talking hundreds of thousands of years sometimes. Which is To put it mildly, a problem. We've got to find better and safer ways to store nuclear waste. Waste that can remain radioactive for centuries, that remains a big problem.

Right now, most nuclear waste in the United States is stored in dry casks that look like this, to protect people from the radioactive material inside. Those dry casks are meant to last decades, but not hundreds of thousands of years, which is what we're talking about here. So we've been having this ongoing fight for decades.

decades about what to do with nuclear [01:09:00] waste. There are options for long term storage, and some countries are already doing that. Johnny and I got into the details in his video. But right now, in the U. S. and in lots of other countries, there are a lot of dry casks full of nuclear waste just sitting there at nuclear power plants.

So, to summarize, we take uranium out of the ground, we use it once, and then we store it basically forever. This is the once through fuel cycle that the U. S. has today. Now listen to the analogy that they used in the 1960s to describe how This fuel cycle would be. Would you say that using the 235 and not the rest is sort of like using the cream and throwing away the milk?

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Exactly. The key is to figure out how to filter out the stuff that's still useful from the real waste that's not. Turns out, Argonne is one of the few places that is still testing nuclear waste recycling in the U. S. And I got to go see it. I'm just gonna go right on up, and they're gonna tell me to stop filming right now.

CLEO ABRAM - HOST, BIG IF TRUE: It was a whole thing. I had to send them my passport to prove that I was a U. S. citizen before they'd let me on the tour, and I wasn't allowed to film inside. [01:10:00] In order to go into this place that I can't show you, I have to wear these cool safety glasses. How do I look? Amazing. Let's do it. Luckily, Argon itself has actually published footage from the lab that I toured, so here's what they're doing inside that large protective box.

First, they cut up the nuclear waste into little pieces. Then they dissolve those pieces into a vat of molten salts. When they run electricity through that vat, it separates the uranium and other useful materials from the rest of the junk, and pushes it across the vat, where it creates deposits of the useful stuff on the other side.

Then they make new fuel rods out of those deposits and stick them back in a reactor. And it's not just possible to do that once, you can do it multiple times, not just making electricity, but also reducing how long that waste is radioactive for, because you're using up the materials that last the longest.

From hundreds of thousands of years, down sometimes to hundreds of years, which is a much easier time frame to store something. If you can pull this off, you can have a nuclear fuel cycle that looks like this. You mine the uranium, you use it in a reactor, filter out the useful stuff, then you use it [01:11:00] again, and maybe again, and again.

And when you can't anymore, then you put it in much shorter term storage that's much more manageable. This is called a closed fuel cycle, and there are lots of variations, but it's not hypothetical. Some countries, like Japan for example, are already doing this. And they say they do it because it reduces their dependence on imported fuel, it conserves uranium, and it reduces the radioactivity of their nuclear waste.

Which makes sense! So, what happened in the United States? Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced new policies meant to stop the growing risk of nuclear war. And that meant stopping all nuclear recycling. Why? Well, you remember the materials that we separated out during the recycling process.

One of those materials was plutonium, which is a highly radioactive element that was seen as the highest concern for nuclear proliferation. So President Jimmy Carter stopped all nuclear recycling, saying, quote, A viable and economic nuclear power program can be sustained without such reprocessing and recycling.

The U. S. moved away from the kinds of reactors that could [01:12:00] handle nuclear waste, called fast reactors, and toward the kinds of reactors that exist today, called light water reactors. But while the U. S. stopped nuclear recycling, other countries didn't. The ban on nuclear recycling stopped being seen as helpful to slow the threat of nuclear proliferation.

So, President Reagan lifted the ban in 1981. But by then, companies had invested in the kinds of reactors that couldn't recycle, the kind that we have now. Today, the main claim is that nuclear fuel recycling is too high cost. It's just not economical. And that's true, compared to using new uranium, which has been cheap and plentiful.

What incentive did anyone have to recycle their fuel? But those incentives The combination of wondering whether global conflict will cut off fuel supply and the recognition that we need more clean energy in as many ways as possible, as fast as possible has started to wake people up to a technology and a dream that we left behind.

We are not far off from it. We're not talking about a technology that we're dreaming of, that we hope can work. We're talking about a technology that has already been [01:13:00] demonstrated before and proven. We just need to commercialize it. There is a lot to figure out and a long way to go, but if we can recycle nuclear waste, I think it says something profound about what we as humans are capable of.

Splitting atoms, sure, but I mean something much more simple. Changing our minds and overcoming our fears to use our resources and our technology and our ingenuity to make other people's lives a little bit better tomorrow than they are today.

The Renaissance of Nuclear Power Part 1 - The Energy Gang - Air Date 1-27-23

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Do you think we are seeing a global nuclear renaissance, if you like?

KATIE HUFF: Yeah, absolutely. You know, that word has a specific sort of connotation for folks my particular age. You know, we got into the nuclear energy world in the first renaissance that never really panned out. But I absolutely think there's a resurgence. You've noted all of the ways that I would say are really critical. The increased attention on the quantifiable impacts of various energy technologies, on our fight against the climate crisis, and on our other things that are valued by people and communities. [01:14:00] I think those quantifiable impacts are being better understood by the public now than they once were.

It's a very quantitatively sophisticated public out there on the Internet now, and people want to see the statistics, they want to see the receipts. And nuclear energy looks really great. When you think about the things you mentioned, like reliability, energy density, energy security, land use, materials use, lifetime emissions, and even cost, because of their incredibly long lifetimes and stable high capacity factor power production, nuclear reactors really stack up nicely against other energy sources. And because we care about clean energy now more as a society, as a critical sort of existential threat, we worry about emissions.

Nuclear energy has an incredible role to play, and I think people are recognizing that in a more mature and sophisticated way.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Cole, what do you think?

CARL PEREZ: Just adding onto that the advent of Internet and social media and just much more transparency and [01:15:00] information and facts has been super helpful in creating new public advocates. You have never seen as many reactor types and companies in development ever. So you definitely see that there's a renaissance, but as the renaissance in the 14 hundreds, 15 hundreds, there's also an association, enlightenment, right. And people are truly understanding what are the risks beyond simply the environment, but also energy security and what that means for geopolitical tensions. And there's a clear understanding that if we really want to ease geopolitical strife globally, solving energy dependence, or at least security for nations out there, is crucial for that first step. And the second thing I'll just add is we now know way more than we knew before, right. We've had accidents. After Fukushima, there were about $47 billion spent globally in enhancements of nuclear installations to make sure that they abide by these new regulations. So we're also learning, and that's why I think that today we're in a prime position to really capitalize on nuclear technology that was first conceived in the fifties and sixties.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Melissa, what do you think?

MELISSA LOTT: So I think it's [01:16:00] interesting thinking about the fifties and sixties and the conversations that I'm in around nuclear power, which I agree, I'm seeing a huge uptick in the interests and questions around it. And. Okay, I want to understand more. How could this work when it comes to this whole question of how we get our power systems to net zero? And actually that might be the clarifying question in my part of this field. We're not talking about a 50% reduction or an 80% reduction anymore. It's net zero. And when you want to do that, and you want to do that quickly in your power sector, because that's the backbone and the leading piece of the drive to net zero, you have to start thinking about firm power, and you've got to think about how that complements energy storage and complements variable renewables. And you don't have a ton of options. Nuclear is one of them. So I see a change in the conversation as a result of that. One of the questions and why. I'm Carl, I love that fifties and sixties popped into my brain when you were saying it is. I often get asked, okay, so we're going to do what we did already again, that's what we're talking about, right? I like this conversation about how the future of nuclear. Yeah, some of it looks like the past. We're talking about vision, you know, we're talking about processes that we have used in the [01:17:00] past, but actually the technology that have been developed in the decades since then. I mean, the future of nuclear doesn't look exactly like the past.

There's actually some key differences in how we'll build things out in the future. And the second piece that I'll say, ed, that I see a lot in the work that I do is how different the conversation is actually in some parts of the US versus the international conversation. And Katie, I'm thinking about the US Poland announcement.

KATIE HUFF: Yeah, absolutely.

CARL PEREZ: And I don't know if you want to talk about that one at all, but that's a big one that signals, hey, you know, okay, maybe not every community is saying, yeah, nuclear power plant, that's something we can have, but a lot of places are seriously considering it and considering different sized reactors, different proportions of their overall energy mix and electricity mix. And I think it's important we differentiate there. It's maybe your community or my community, it's not on the table for a number of reasons, but in a lot of places it is a big part of the conversation. Poland's just one example.

KATIE HUFF: It's existential for places in central and eastern Europe right now where energy in particular, natural gas have clearly been weaponized. And countries as a [01:18:00] matter of national security, national existence, sovereignty in general, are looking towards energy sources that are going to be both clean and secure. Energy sources that don't require refueling every day. Nuclear reactors require refueling once every 18 months, every two years. If we're looking at a gigawatt scale plan. It also can supply an incredibly large fraction of a grid, the scale of Poland or other eastern and central european nations.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Sorry, I missed this announcement about the US Poland agreement. What's happened?

KATIE HUFF: Yeah, so there's been an announcement that Westinghouse will be building three, possibly more AP 1000 reactors in Poland. These will be the first reactors that Poland has built commercially and they're ready to go with a large set of three full gigawatts, possibly to expand to six.

CARL PEREZ: I was actually going to continue on that point because there's also an interesting announcement which was Ukraine's Ernago Atom saying that they also want to add two reactors. So we're just mentioning Japoricia, but Ukraine has just announced that they want to buy two AP [01:19:00] 1000s. So it's really interesting to see that even the nations that are, again, Ukraine had Chernobyl, they're one of the largest consumers of nuclear energy in Europe and they're planning on having even more. I think these signals go in the right direction.

ED CROOKS - HOST, ENERGY GANG: Yeah, agreed. No, that is really fascinating. I just wanted to jump back to something you said, though, Katy, about those words, nuclear renaissance, which have that somewhat unfortunate connotation. And it feels like probably in the late two thousands, we were talking a lot about that around 2010. The phrase nuclear renaissance got banded around for rather similar reasons to the reasons we're talking about nuclear power today. This appeal of reliable, consistent 24/70 carbon power seemed very significant then. And then the Fukushima accident happened in 2011, and that completely knocked that whole thing off course. And you had a lot of pullback from nuclear power, a lot of delays, nuclear plants being shut down, projects being cancelled, and so on. Do you think we've learned lessons from [01:20:00] that? Is there a danger that this is going to be sort of yet another false dawn for the nuclear business?

KATIE HUFF: Yeah, you know, possibly my favorite author, Sir Terry Pratchett, once wrote that coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. And we may be sort of back in this place where there's an incredible amount of optimism about nuclear. There's a recognition that we need more of it, and there's a lot of interest from vendor companies, but we have learned a lot about deploying and meeting those needs. I think the United States will be turning on two big gigawatt scale units in Georgia, the Vogel units, that are the sort of small realization of that renaissance is a very small fraction of what was expected. But we've learned so much in building those plants, learned about making sure that the design is fully complete before starting work, making sure that you have enough craftspeople in your region, you know, skilled trade workers and craftspeople, union workers, to do the work of electricians and boilermakers and welders and everything that's required. Construction union laboratory to [01:21:00] actually build a plant. Taking a design to an on the grid power plant is an incredible endeavor that we haven't done at scale since the sort of decades between the seventies and nineties. And implementing that has taught a lot of lessons that I think we will take forward as we sort of venture out this same path again. I don't think we'll hit the same roadblocks around implementation, meeting deadlines, and hitting projects on cost and on timeline.

Nuclear waste is reusable. Why aren’t we doing it? - DW Planet A - Air Date 8-2-24

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: To understand why most other countries consider them waste, we need to take a quick look into how nuclear reactors work. Basically, nuclear power is created by splitting atoms, also called fission. One specific type of uranium loves splitting up. When a neutron hits it, it breaks apart and releases more neutrons.

These neutrons then hit other uranium atoms, which also split, causing a chain reaction. When the atoms split inside the reactor core, they create heat. That heat then boils water, [01:22:00] which produces steam, which then drives a turbine. This splitting creates byproducts called fission products. After about three to five years, they build up so much that they absorb neutrons, weakening and slowing down the chain reaction.

And that's when the fuel rod is declared spent. The problem is that according to pure physics, it's very hard to get more electricity out of this type of nuclear fuel safely. There are a handful of other types of reactors where more of the energy can be used continually, but those are mostly experimental, very expensive and complicated to build and maintain.

The majority of nuclear waste around the world is sitting around unused. So what's left is mostly uranium that doesn't like to split up that much, fission products and plutonium. This plutonium is one of the big reasons why there aren't that many countries doing this. But we'll come back to that later.

So that's when [01:23:00] the fuel lands here. The next step is disassembly and separation.

SYLVAIN RENOUF: Behind this door, we have the chemical process. Everything is inside nuclear cells. Without windows, we only use sensors, but we also can send robots or drones inside to make measurements, to check that the equipment is OK. The chemical process consists in separating, uh, uranium, plutonium, and fission products.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: First, you separate the metal cladding from the fuel pellets. Then you put them into nitric acid to dissolve them. After that, you put the solution together with a solvent that extracts the uranium and plutonium, leaving the fission products behind. Then a chemical is added that changes the state of the plutonium, letting it separate from the uranium.

The fission products, which make up about 4 percent of the waste, are not recyclable. We'll get back to these later. This uranium can be used in regular [01:24:00] nuclear power plants instead of mined uranium. But this process also produces purified plutonium. And that's where it gets interesting. One gram of plutonium represents the energy equivalent of one metric ton of oil.

And this is the not so peaceful part of nuclear technology. And the first reason why recycling isn't as straightforward as it sounds. Because that plutonium is also what makes nuclear bombs so destructive. Nuclear weapons are usually produced with dedicated military technology. But you can also use recycled plutonium from civilian reactors, like India in the 1970s.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: They extracted plutonium from a can do reactor, Canadian designed reactor, using U. S. supplied nuclear fuel.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: This is Alison McFarlane. She used to work for the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: And this really terrified the U. S. government. And so that's when the U. [01:25:00] S. indefinitely deferred reprocessing.

They wanted to set an example for the rest of the world, because they now saw that reprocessing was a crime. a grave threat in terms of nuclear weapons proliferation.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: So what does Orano do with the plutonium today?

SYLVAIN RENOUF: It's a product that we have to take care of it because it can be dangerous, of course, but we have many, many protections for that.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: Orano ships the purified plutonium all the way across the country in secret, using specific trucks and escorted by the French army. There, the company mixes it with uranium to make something called MOX fuel. This fuel can then be used in regular nuclear reactors. This whole process means that the operators can use up to 30 percent less fresh uranium.

SYLVAIN RENOUF: In the end, the energy is so important that in France, 10 percent of the electricity is generated thanks to the MOX fuel.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: But there is still one pesky little thing left even after recycling all of this. The fission [01:26:00] product, which brings us to the fourth and final step of the recycling process, vitrification.

That's when the fission products are trapped in glass. And they are stored where we're headed now. It's

massive.

You can just walk right on top of them.

SYLVAIN RENOUF: Exactly. So down just below my feet, uh, the floor is two meters thick. Below my feet, I have a pit with nine canisters on top of the others. So when I stand like this, I got 18 canisters. That's the space you need for one nuclear power plant operating during one year.

I got five rows by 20. That's one year of waste for France.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: If you did not recycle, how much more room would you need? [01:27:00]

SYLVAIN RENOUF: Five times more than this.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: So the vitrified waste needs less space. The whole trapping in glass thing also makes it safer.

SYLVAIN RENOUF: But it's the same if you don't recycle. The lifetime is the same.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: The canisters are stored here year after year, for now, until France completes its final storage site, which is supposed to start construction in the coming years. So, sounds neat, yes. But the biggest hurdle here, as is often the case, is cost. The 24, 000 rooms, the security needed, the transportation casks, bespoke technology.

All of this costs a lot of money. Just buying mined uranium, using it once and throwing it away is cheaper. The price of uranium is rising, but it's still quite abundant.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: There's plenty of uranium. There's just, there's just no need to spend the money to recycle. And it's not [01:28:00] really, it's more difficult than it sounds.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: The way I explained Orano's recycling process was extremely simplified. This is what it would look like if I'd shown you the entire video. And not many countries know how to do this at scale. Russia is the second biggest recycler, reprocessing about a tenth of what France does. India also reprocesses its own waste and is planning on expanding its capacities.

China has one demonstration plant and is currently building more. The UK used to recycle, but gave up a couple of years ago, also because it was too expensive. Japan has been building a reprocessing plant for over 30 years, with massive delays and cost increases. But out of 32 countries that use nuclear power, that's it.

SYLVAIN RENOUF: France made the choice to recycle a long time ago, more than 60 years ago now. But for France, it's a very strategic way to keep sovereignty, because we have, um, a strong [01:29:00] parts of our electricity which is produced with nuclear electricity. So it's logical to have our own plants.

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: This is also why the entire recycling operation is state owned.

So is the operator of all the nuclear power plants in the country. France just locked in that strategy through 2040. But right now, they're recycling much more than they can reuse. Most of the recycled uranium is sitting around in another location and could be used if uranium becomes more expensive.

Plus, recycling does reduce the amount of extremely radioactive waste, but it also creates another problem.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: Those chemicals and all the other equipment and other materials that you use generate a lot of waste. It's not, you can't just go in and pull out, you know, with tweezers. And the once

KIYO DÖRRER - HOST, DW PLANET A: recycled MOX fuel isn't currently recycled again, so it also becomes waste after another couple of years.

SECTION B - CLIMATE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Climate.

The big environmental costs of rising demand for big data to power the internet - PBS NewsHour 6-22-24

ALI ROGIN: Tell us a little [01:30:00] bit more about what a data center is. And why do we need so many of them?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: Whenever we use the internet, upload photos to the cloud, send emails, watch a video, all of that data and digital information needs a home and it lives in these huge facilities called data centers, which hold tens of thousands of servers each and they process all that digital information for us. Something like 70 percent of the world's digital information is processed by a cluster of data centers in Virginia alone. And there are over 5,000 facilities in the US.

ALI ROGIN: What are the environmental impacts of having some of these data centers in your backyard?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: So to process all that information, they need two things. The first is electricity, of course, to physically crunch and process all that gigabyte going on. The other is water, which are used in cooling systems to protect these servers from physically overheating. And researchers think they're in the top 10 water consuming industries in the U.S. they use 2 percent of the electricity in the U.S., which is a lot.

And a source told me that data center campuses can use the resources equivalent to a small city and as AI booms they'll use even more. The average AI [01:31:00] application uses six times the amount of electricity so they run a lot hotter and that is scales exponentially they just need more water to cool down.

ALI ROGIN: And how do these data centers in the United States and around the world affect global efforts to decarbonize?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: It's tricky, because right now we are building out green energy solutions at a great scale, it's happening really fast, but it might not be happening fast enough. Currently, a lot of the grid is still running on fossil fuels, and even plans in Virginia to shut down, you know, coal firing plants may not go through, because these data centers need so much energy that grid operators need to fire those coal plants backup or just keep them running in order to meet all that demand.

So in one of the talking points of these data center reform coalition's I've spoken to is that that's a step backwards from clean energy goals, and kind of almost a betrayal of some of the promises certain states have made to, you know, get off of carbon.

ALI ROGIN: And many of these data centers are located in densely populated residential areas. What's it like to live near one?[01:32:00]

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: Yeah, you know, they're being built near schools and neighborhoods protected nature parks in Virginia, in particular. And one big impact is that they're really loud, they hum and they bring all this noise pollution to the area.

All that concrete also means a huge increase in stormwater runoff, because that rain can no longer soak into the ground at all has to go somewhere. And so the amount of electricity also could be more than the grid may be able to handle. So when there's an outage, there's kind of a question of who gets the power of residents or data centers.

ALI ROGIN: We're talking to you now via Skype, we're using a lot of data to do it. As we increasingly rely on this type of cloud computing, to do so many things we use apps we use, we do virtual meetings, that kind of thing. Is there any way that these data centers can continue to expand, continue to grow and support all this usage, but do so in a more environmentally friendly way?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: You know, it is possible to build cooling systems that use less water, but we don't really see those built out at scale yet. And you could power them with green [01:33:00] energy. But again, right now we have a grid that's kind of stuck on fossil fuels, and we're slowly making the transition to green energy, but maybe not fast enough to meet all this demand.

First, before we can really know what we need to do next, we just need more transparency from the industry, which scientists and activists both told me is pretty secretive. Google is saying it's a leader in sustainable data centers. And they only began releasing their water usage data a couple of years ago, after a lawsuit.

ALI ROGIN: And to that transparency point, I want to play for you a soundbite from an environmental activist in Northern Virginia, as we've said, where so many of these data centers are located.

JULIA BOLTHOUSE: One of the big things that concerns me is that some of these data center companies are claiming to be holding federal or Department of Defense servers, and therefore their critical infrastructure and cannot be allowed to go down. And so there's this this question of who gets the water in a trout situation? And are they going to leverage that kind of argument of national security [01:34:00] to potentially say they get the water first?

ALI ROGIN: Are there any safeguards that exist to make sure that these companies are being honest about the types of companies that they're supporting with their servers and what the effect on the environment is?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: We're kind of trusting companies to be transparent and do the right thing. There are a lot of companies like to tout sustainability goals. But truthfully, we're trying to get lost there in Virginia right now, a couple of bills were introduced in Virginia and in other states, but they're not getting a lot of traction until we have that research we need.

And so right now, Virginia is conducting a data center impact study. And the results of that will come out later this year, hopefully. I mean, we're just seeing a lot of action. In Virginia in particular, the Piedmont Environmental Council is a group that has this coalition called the Data Center Reform Coalition. And they just started this year really digging in organizing their community together with hundreds of individuals and nonprofits on board.

And they're working directly with lawmakers too to see what they can do, and how they [01:35:00] can, you know, keep this industry a little bit more accountable. They also are taking action through the Freedom of Information Act requests, to see what other kinds of information they can learn about these data centers even before the transparency is coming from the companies themselves.

The Three Mile Island Melt Up - Decouple - Air Date 9-20-24

DR. CHRIS KEEFER: In short, 20 year power purchase agreement with Microsoft, which we'll see three mile Island, uh, unit one, not, uh, not the melted unit two.

Restarted just five years after it was shut down for economic reasons. Mark, what's going on? Break this down for us.

MARK NELSON: First of all, I don't differentiate between unit one and unit two. It's all three mile Island coming back. I think that, uh, people use the meltdowns in the past to smear all of nuclear. So I just say three mile Island is coming back.

Chernobyl operated for 14 more years. Probably no hope for hope for Fukushima Daiichi, but yeah, Three Mile Island rides again. So Three Mile Island has already had a 40 unit one has already had a 40 year life. It's [01:36:00] been shut down since 2019 for two big reasons. Fracking boom made an enormous amount of cheap gas, including under Pennsylvania itself.

So there's gas coming out of the ground in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Meaning if you set up a new, uh, competing natural gas plant, you could drive down the local cost for of electricity wholesale prices enough. To kill off the local nuclear plant. So that was the idea. Economists said we'd have these markets to destroy long lived cheap assets, because that will somehow be better for consumers.

They're, they have PhDs, so they're very smart, Chris. Um, anyway, so we lost 2000, in 2019, we lost Three Mile Island Unit One. Why that reactor? Because as opposed to most other nuclear plants in the area, it was only a single unit plant. The other one melted down in 1979. So we had a one unit plant. Whose costs were higher than the two unit plants of the area and were higher than the almost dirt free, nearly free natural gas going [01:37:00] into natural gas plants nearby and the natural gas plants can turn off when there's a low prices, but nuclear plants do best when they're base load and run for the whole system all the time because they have fixed costs.

So in 2019, the nuclear plant was about to go offline and they said to the state, we need subsidies are going to lose us. And the state said, not our problem. And then they said to the tech companies, you need to buy our power or you're going to lose this power. And you're not going to have it in the future.

And the tech company says, Oh no, we're already 100 percent renewables. Powered. Now it was a lie. Like they knew they were lying. They knew it was false. They knew they were not getting 100 percent renewables. They knew they were running off of fossil fuels, but legally they were able to claim and their lawyers said it was okay to claim that they're on 100 percent renewables.

They did that by building wind and solar in a different state. Crediting themselves with that generation than building their data centers by the coal, gas, nuclear and hydro plants. Great system, until you run out of other people's baseload power, the [01:38:00] certificates of which you're not buying. This is what happened.

The big tech companies, over the last 24 months, suddenly realized they needed to 10 X the size of their biggest data centers to effectively compete for the cheapest compute, the cheapest operation of the most number of processors. So suddenly they need a gigawatt or more at a time. Of power to build the largest and therefore the cheapest per unit of computation data centers.

But they've absorbed almost all the excess available in the market and they can't just snap their fingers and bring through existing transmission lines, another gigawatt of power. And they certainly can't gather up from renewables here, renewables there, and flow it all to a single point in. In space, like a single data center and know for a fact, they're going to be able to deliver all that power at a price anywhere close to what the power purchase agreements were for the wind and solar that's getting built.

So if [01:39:00] we see as with levelized cost of electricity or power purchase agreements that are for wind and solar. where they can put their stuff on the grid. 30 a megawatt hour, 40 a megawatt hour. That means nothing to the data centers that need physical power delivery at a specific location. And if they say to the wind and solar, hey, we'll pay, we'll pay 100.

Isn't that better than your 30 and 40? And then the data that the renewables would say, so yes, but you're gonna have to have somebody else get it to you and you're gonna have somebody else like have to actually supply the The power because we're just the certificate saying you're totally good man. So there's the background with my anger.

You can hear my anger here because we lost nuclear plants because of this, this awful system. In the case of three mile island, clearly constellation was hedging a little and they took a sort of german pace of years long, slow disassembly. If that now they shut off that plant when they did need to. Some [01:40:00] life extension upgrades and some work they couldn't justify spending what at the time would have been a couple hundred million on that work.

And at the moment, what we're hearing now is that it's about 1. 6 billion dollars of spending needed at that nuclear plant. To upgrade it for long life. Now, whether that's like to build the data centers, build the hookups or to operate, or there may be a bunch of goodies thrown in there, but constellation needed to be sure it could make 1.

6 billion and the cost of the power and a healthy profit, I think they've probably been quite certain for some time they could get it. The question was how much could they get and how much certainty now I would imagine that Microsoft said. To anybody in the country that makes power, we'll take 20 gigawatts yesterday.

If you've got it clean, hopefully, but whatever, we're not picky. That's what all the big, the big tech companies are saying at the moment, in the case of three mile Island, they would have needed that as soon as possible. And I would imagine that there was [01:41:00] a. Very nice premium that was likely paid to get that restart date as soon as possible and to lock in as much of the power as possible.

Now, this is not true behind the meter. This isn't behind the meter. They're going to put this power on the grid. So it's not clear how much of this power is going to a co located data center versus just being sold into the grid and allowing Microsoft to say they have. Additionality. What is additionality?

It means you're adding low carbon generation. So there's only a few nuclear plants in the country where you can get this additionality by either, you know, turning the back on or in, I guess, in aggregate, you can have a few nuclear plants worth of up rates if people really push that. So here in Three Mile Island, there's almost none of these left.

Plants to turn back on. We've got what Dwayne Arnold in Iowa and, uh, Palisades in Michigan, but that power has been spoken for probably at lower than the prices that the tech companies would now, uh, purchase it. So Three Mile Island seems to be getting a deal that may be [01:42:00] the largest electricity deal in us history, or at least one of the largest, certainly from a single power plant, what we're hearing is it's above a hundred dollars a megawatt hour, which means on an annual basis, almost 800 million of revenue, not of profit.

You know, they've got to pay for the fuel and the staffing and the, and safety and stuff like that at the three mile Island, they've got to pay for the upgrades too. But they're going to make a few hundred million dollars of profit for years, as far as I can tell, if deal terms hold, and they're going to make it over 20 years.

Here's the key points. For your listeners, Chris, these are scales of revenue equivalent to the task of financing and building new gigawatt scale nuclear plants in America. Starting today, if we can deliver reliably, that's that's the thing. It doesn't even. Not even delivering it cheap, Chris. It's knowing that in six years or seven years, you can be giving Microsoft power at a given location and, [01:43:00] and at a, at a, at a price that they're willing to pay. Three mile Island is such a high price in part because it can be available in by 2028 and there's almost nothing left. That's additionality. Now, are these companies going to wait for additionality? Oh, hell no. They are going to buy up entire nuclear plants.

And the cities that are currently using that power are going to suddenly learn the downsides of the electricity markets if they didn't know them before. Which is, Even though a nuclear plant can keep running for 20, 30, 40 years after it's paid off its construction costs. And even though those, those operation costs for the nuclear plants, maybe 20, 25 a megawatt hour, if there's a shortage, you can sell that power for a hundred, 120, even the plants that were built out of rate payers pockets.

Back in the seventies.

Nuclear Power and the Climate Emergency - Against the Grain - Air Date 7-1-24

SASHA LILLEY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: We're told that while nuclear power may have its downsides, we need to turn to it to avert a larger catastrophe from the combustion of fossil fuels, since nuclear power would [01:44:00] allow us to produce energy without greenhouse gases. Why don't you find that argument convincing?

M.V. RAMANA: That argument is a good one and, um, under other circumstances, one would go with that argument because precisely the reason you mentioned, which is that the climate is in a real crisis situation today and it's getting worse.

But, Nuclear energy, we've had experience with this for about 70 years now. And one thing we can conclude about it is that nuclear reactors are very expensive and they take a long time to build. And this means that using nuclear energy to solve the climate crisis will be an expensive way to deal with it and will take a long time to even affect any kind of reductions in emissions.

And so the problem With that is there are other [01:45:00] alternatives. If nuclear were the only way to replace fossil fuels, then perhaps we could consider that. But, uh, because there are other alternatives, which are far cheaper and far quicker to build, I'm talking in particular about solar energy and wind energy, which have grown tremendously in the last couple of decades.

Um, trying to invest in nuclear energy represents a diversion from investing in more effective, uh, and currently deployable climate solutions. One should also think about this question politically, not just in terms of technology and, you know, does this emit, uh, greenhouse gases or not. One has to try to also think about this in terms of who's pushing it, who's going to benefit from it, what else are they interested in.

And I don't think nuclear, those people who are promoting nuclear energy are really very keen on, uh, solving the climate crisis as soon as possible, [01:46:00] especially in the way that we think it should be done, which is to have significant social and political change, uh, system change, not climate change, as the slogan in many, uh, rallies go.

SASHA LILLEY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: Well, we'll return to this whole push now for nuclear power as a purportedly cleaner alternative to the climate crisis. But I wanted to ask you if you could just give us a sense of the trajectory of electrical generation from nuclear power. Why has it fallen globally? In the last several decades,

M.V. RAMANA: the fleet of reactors around the around 400 nuclear reactors operating around the world, and this fleet has been built up since the 1950s.

Uh, initially it was a slow growth, and then there was a steep increase in the 1970s and 80s. Most of the reactors that were built, um, came up in the 1970s in the United States, and then in the 1980s, [01:47:00] uh, in Western Europe and Canada and elsewhere. Uh, And the maximum number of reactors that were ever constructed were in 1984 and 1985, roughly a little over 30 reactors every year.

And since then, there was a sharp fall, and one might note that 1986 was the year that the Chernobyl reactor exploded, uh, and caused a huge amount of radioactive contamination in Belarus and, uh, Ukraine and other parts. Uh, that did affect, uh, how, uh, Many countries thought about nuclear energy, but since then, uh, since the mid 1980s, the number of reactors that have been shut down each year, um, has, uh, compensated for or been, uh, roughly comparable to the number of reactors that have been connected to the grid each of those years, so the result of that has been that the number of reactors And the total generation capacity for nuclear energy around the world has been more or less constant, uh, [01:48:00] for since the 1990s.

But at the same time, uh, it's not as though energy demands have not been growing. And, uh. Various other kinds of, uh, electrical generation systems have been, uh, constructed around the world. And the result of it is what you mentioned, the share of nuclear energy. Uh, in the globe's, uh, electricity generation has been declining consistently since the mid 1990s.

In 1996, it was around 17.5%, and that has declined to around little over 9% in the last, uh, few years. Uh, and, uh, that's the trajectory that we've been seeing entirely contrary to what you would want, uh, if nuclear energy were to be a solution to climate change. What you would be expecting is that the share of nuclear energy should be increasing and the share of fossil fuels should be declining.

But, in fact, that's not been happening. The, uh, in contrast, uh, renewables, [01:49:00] uh, modern renewables, which is mostly solar and wind, have been increasing consistently since the mid 1990s and exceeds about 14 percent as of 2022. So considerably more than nuclear energy.

SASHA LILLEY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: You know, you mentioned the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.

What is it about nuclear plants that make them prone to accidents, even including the recent generation of nuclear plants, which claim to be safer?

M.V. RAMANA: So nuclear power, um, is, uh, Ultimately, a very complicated way to boil water. That's what it is, um, because you're producing steam, which is going to drive a turbine, and the process that is used to produce the heat that's, uh, producing the steam in turn, uh, is, uh, nuclear fission, um, nuclear fission by its very nature is hazardous because when, uh, a uranium or a plutonium nucleus, [01:50:00] uh, fissions and breaks up into two or more lighter substances.

Many of the substances that are produced, so called fission products, are highly radioactive. And in a nuclear reactor, we have to try to design it in such a way that none of these hazardous fission products or many other radioactive materials that are produced inside the reactor when the neutrons that are produced in the fission are absorbed by various other materials that are part of the reactor.

All of those radioactive materials have to be kept within the nuclear reactor and not allowed to enter the environment. And this requires a lot of safety mechanisms, extremely robust construction and so on. Um, that, uh, But, but the very fact that you have to have all of these complicated, uh, systems together means that we are dealing with a very complex technology with [01:51:00] multiple parts, which, uh, also interact with each other.

Uh, in the 1980s, uh, the sociologist, uh, Charles Sparrow, uh, examined what happened at the Three Mile Island accident. Uh, in, uh, Pennsylvania in 1979. And he realized that, uh, nuclear power, nuclear reactors, like some other hazardous technologies, which also he examined, have two fundamental characteristics.

One of it was what I talked about, the, uh, interactive complexity, the fact that you have a complex technology with multiple moving parts, which can interact with each other. And the. Implication of that particular feature of the technology is that it's very hard to foresee what all can happen, what possible end states a nuclear reactor might end up in, simply because the number of ways in which a system can evolve is extremely [01:52:00] complicated.

The second feature that, uh, Pero noticed was that they have something called tight coupling, that the events in a nuclear reactor happen very quickly and one can very easily affect, uh, another. Uh, an example I often give is imagine that you are taking, uh, some kind of an intercontinental flight. Uh, let's say you're flying from Washington, D.

C. to Colombo in Sri Lanka, uh, odds are that you would have to change, uh, flight somewhere, maybe in Frankfurt in Germany. If the time between, uh, your, your first flight landing and the second flight taking off is a very short period, let's say just half an hour, then any small error that might happen, let's say you forget to lace your shoes.

Or you forget to zip up your bag as you're leaving the first flight and all the contents fall down. You stop to tie your lace or pack your bag again. That slight delay can mean that you might miss the second flight. [01:53:00] Whereas if the flights were like six hours apart, then these kind of small errors may not cause a major impact.

The system is more forgiving of small errors. Nuclear reactors are like the tightly coupled, uh, flight system, that even small errors cannot be tolerated very easily. The only way to deal with that tight coupling is to add multiple systems, uh, to try and compensate for these errors. Uh, but that would both increase the cost of your reactor and also add to the complexity.

And adding safety systems because of the complexity does not always mean that you're going to end up with a safer system because sometimes a fault in the safety system can ultimately result in an accident. We have examples of all of these from the history of nuclear reactor operation. The bottom line from all of this is that it's very hard to, it's almost impossible to design a nuclear reactor that can, you know, under no circumstance release, [01:54:00] uh, radioactive.

There will always be some scenario where these reactors can have a catastrophic accident that results in radioactive contamination, uh, being spread out. And this is true for all kinds of reactor designs, whether they are the traditional light water reactors or fast neutron, uh, sodium cool reactors, the kind that, uh, Bill Gates has been promoting in Wyoming, uh, or Uh, so called molten salt reactors.

All of these reactors have, uh, different kinds of accident, uh, scenarios. Uh, so you cannot really rule out, uh, any of this. And you have to take into account the possibility of an accident whenever you're planning for nuclear power.

SECTION C - RISK

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section C: Risk.

Why does America need new nuclear weapons? Part 1 - On Point - Air Date 5-25-24

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: You've written quite extensively on the overall plans and expansions of America's nuclear arsenal. I'd like first to learn more from you about Sentinel. These are missiles that haven't yet fully been constructed, because obviously there's an issue about the [01:55:00] delivery of the program.

But what is the Sentinel missile? How would it ostensibly work? It is a land based, long range nuclear armed missile.

STEPHEN YOUNG: Each missile would carry one to two or three warheads potentially, and each warhead would likely be about 20 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Japanese war.

So these are massively powerful weapons that have about a 30-minute flight time from the U.S. to almost anywhere in the world. We've had these systems like this for decades, but in reality, we don't need them at all. We actually have no need for land-based missiles. We can be perfectly safe without them.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. So when we say that there are orders many times the strength of, or the devastation power of the bombs that landed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you're talking about then therefore bombs that could kill millions and millions of people, should they be used.

STEPHEN YOUNG: [01:56:00] That's correct. Absolutely.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. Now, their land base, which is the key thing here. You've also written about other weapons systems, for example and, there's a lot of, we're talking about the Defense Department, so there's a lot of acronyms and numbers here, help me keep them straight. Is this, is Sentinel the same thing or something different as the proposed gravity bomb that has been discussed before.

STEPHEN YOUNG: So the U.S. maintains what's called a triad of nuclear systems, the land-based weapons are one leg of that triad. Another leg is the air based weapons delivered by jet fighters and bombers. That's what uses gravity bombs. And the third leg are missiles launched from submarines at sea.

The third leg of the triad. So we have navy, ICBMs, bombers, and nuclear armed submarines, are the three legs of the nuclear triad. I would argue we could get rid of one, if not two of those legs of the triad [01:57:00] and still have a very strong deterrent to keep us safe.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay, so the gravity bomb then is the one that's also, it's flown in by a bomber.

And there's one at least that you've written about called the B61-12, which as you report, would cost more than its weight in gold. Is it in production though?

STEPHEN YOUNG: It is. It's taken a very long time and cost far more than initially estimated. But yes, it's in production now. And they will complete production in the next two to three years, probably. And it will be deployed in the United States and also about a hundred U.S. weapons are actually deployed in Europe, and four or five European countries maintain U.S. nuclear weapons. And should a war happen, those weapons would be handed over to those countries for nuclear war fighting.

It's a scary thought.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: So that's gravity bombs. And then Sentinel falls under the land-based missiles that you talked about a bit [01:58:00] earlier.

STEPHEN YOUNG: Yes.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Are there other land based missiles that are in development, or new types of warheads? We only have the one land based missile currently deployed, the Minuteman III, and the one to replace that is the Sentinel.

Minuteman III, as we mentioned in the previous discussion, was deployed first in the '70s. It's been updated and upgraded many times since then, so it's not still a 70-year-old missile but it definitely needs to be refurbished again, or simply retired. I would argue we should retire it.

But yes the Sentinel Missile is the only missile we will have, if it is indeed built, despite the cost increases it's going through. And then again, the third leg is the nuclear armed submarines. ... 20 or so nuclear armed missiles that have mini warheads on those.

Okay. And so are there new sea based or submarine based ballistic missiles in development? Because I think you've written about a new warhead. Is that different [01:59:00] than the quote, low yield warhead that the Trump administration deployed?

STEPHEN YOUNG: So the submarines can carry, each submarine has currently 20 missiles on it, and they can carry multiple warheads, and some of those warheads, most of those warheads are very high yield weapons.

Again, ones that are 20 to 30 times the size of the bomb dropped in Hiroshima. But under the Trump administration, the U.S. has had to deploy a few weapons that are lower yield, only a third of the size of the bomb dropped in Hiroshima. But still, if you drop it in a big city, that would kill tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people in minutes.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay.

STEPHEN YOUNG: Still, massive destruction.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: But Stephen, I just want to be sure that I hear you clearly. So the low yield ones are a third of the size of Hiroshima, which is still very devastating. And then you say the other regular yield submarine based [02:00:00] nuclear weapons, I want to be sure I'm not mishearing you, were 20 to 30 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima?

STEPHEN YOUNG: That's correct. And in total, if you add up all the explosive yield of all the bombs on U.S. submarines, one submarine has seven times the destructive power of all the bombs used in World War II. And we have 12 of those submarines. So one submarine, again, has seven times destructive power of all the bombs used in World War II.

And we have 12 of those.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: All the bombs, including conventional artillery and yes, fire bombs, et cetera. Not just nuclear bombs.

STEPHEN YOUNG: Yeah, that's correct.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: All the bombs of all types, including nuclear bombs in World War II.

STEPHEN YOUNG: It's just incalculable the level of obstruction we have at our fingertips.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: And yet, this is an effort to modernize and even expand [02:01:00] America's nuclear might, is an effort that has been consistent over several administrations, both Republican and Democratic. We'll talk in a little bit more detail about what happened under Obama, what happened under Trump and what may be going on under Biden.

But what's your conclusion from that, that there's a consistency from the White House and also the Pentagon, in the belief that this massive modernization and expansion of America's nuclear power is essential for U.S. security?

Yes. And there is a bipartisan consensus at one level that the U.S. needs to maintain a nuclear deterrent. If you actually have a vote in the U.S. Congress, most Democrats actually would support getting rid of the Sentinel Missile Program, but not enough of them. So if the President called for cancelling the Sentinel Missile, he probably would lose a vote in Congress [02:02:00] because enough Democrats agree with Republicans that they think this is a valuable contribution.

STEPHEN YOUNG: But the reality is the military simulations they play out are just so terrifying, that people worry, oh, we have to be just sure that we're going to be safe by having more of this destructive capability. But the reality is we have still far more than we need. And I think the argument to me is pretty clear that the risk is simply not worth it.

We don't need this massive nuclear arsenal. We don't need redundancy upon redundancy. We don't need to have every target covered multiple times with multiple yield warheads that are massively destructive. It's simply overkill, again and again.

Nuclear power in an unstable world - Front Burner - Air Date 7-10-23

TAMARA KHANDAKER: I was wondering if you could take us back to 2011, the tsunami that happened in Japan, which was triggered by an earthquake. What happened at the Fukushima power plant?

JIM SMITH: When the earthquake happened, the nuclear site at Fukushima, the reactors shut down automatically. [02:03:00] But 40 minutes later, that giant tsunami arrived and that overwhelmed the sea defences at Fukushima and flooded the reactor buildings. And that caused the diesel generators to be flooded and stopped working and it shut down the cooling system. So basically, the reactors no longer had cooling, they'd shut down, but they were still very hot and they overheated. And that led to a meltdown and release of radioactivity. And so the really dramatic thing that we saw at fukushima was three of the reactor buildings exploding from an explosion of hydrogen gas.

[news clip]

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: It’s becoming difficult for crews to try to prevent a meltdown at the site. Since the weekend, there have been explosions in reactors one, two and three, and temperatures are also rising at two other reactors nearby.

JIM SMITH: And so the meltdown and the explosion released radioactivity into the [02:04:00] atmosphere, which then deposited on the land and the sea, as well as direct discharges of radioactivity into the pacific Ocean.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So this water that Japan wants to get rid of now, where is that coming from?

JIM SMITH: So initially, water was radioactive water from the plants that were trying to cool the reactors. And so water was going into the ocean, but the Japanese started pumping that out and storing it. And this is still going on because the reactors still need water for the cooling operations. And there is also radioactive water in the water around the plant, underneath the plant. And so that has to be pumped out. So since about 2012, the Japanese have been collecting that water and storing it in over a thousand giant tanks. So they've now got about 1.3 million cubic metres of radioactive, not, I wouldn't say, not highly radioactive, but significantly [02:05:00] radioactive water stored in tanks.

[news clip]

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Treated radioactive water at the plant is stored in about a thousand tanks that are nearing their 1.37 million ton capacity. It must be removed to prevent accidental leaks and to make room for the plant's decommissioning.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: You said that it's not that radioactive and the Japanese government says that it’s been treated and its plan to dump it into the ocean through this tube is safe. Last week, the u.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Association signed off on this plan.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: The plan as it has been proposed and devised is in conformity with the agreed international standards and its application. If the government decides to proceed with it, would have negligible impact on the environment.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So what is it about the water that [02:06:00] people are worried about?

JIM SMITH: So the water has been treated. So there's a wide range of radioactive elements, things like if we cast our minds back to the Fukushima accident, people were worried about radioactive cesium. And that's been the main contamination of both the marine and terrestrial environment around Fukushima. That's been removed, except for the radionuclide in their water treatment processing system. What's left is a thing called tritium water. So tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. So instead of H2O, it's what we call HTO. Instead of two hydrogens and an oxygen, it's got hydrogen and oxygen and a tritium, the radioactive form of hydrogen. So chemically, it behaves in an identical manner to ordinary water. And at that sort of scale, it makes it pretty much impossible to separate it from the, you know, 1.3 million [02:07:00] cubic metres of ordinary water.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: I see. And so these concerns about the tritium, I just want to dive into this a little bit. What kind of danger does tritium pose to humans and marine life?

JIM SMITH: So at high levels, the tritium can pose a danger both to human and marine life by damaging DNA essentially. So DNA damage is going on all the time in our bodies not only from radiation, but from other things, from all sorts of chemical reactions that are going on in our cells. But the cell can usually repair it, but there's occasional moments where the cell can't repair it and that can lead to cancer. So those are the sort of concerns, but we're not talking about those sort of levels of tritium.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Right. The Japanese government says the final level of tritium that would be deposited into the water is [02:08:00] safer than the level required by regulators for nuclear waste discharge or by the WHO. So can you just sort of put the numbers when it comes to the level of tritium into context for us?

JIM SMITH: So the Japanese plan is that after this dilution 100 times, the sum of all the other radionuclides in that release will be less than 1% of the Japanese guideline limit for discharge. Yeah, the tritium will be about 40 times lower than the Japanese guideline level, and that makes a value. We measure radioactivity in Becquerels, and the tritium will be about 1500 becquerels per litre in the discharge water. Now, to put that in context, the World Health Organization guideline limit for tritium in drinking water is 10,000 becquerels per litre, so seven times higher. So in theory, from [02:09:00] the radioactivity perspective, you could drink the water that's going to be released to the pacific.

[music]

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So there seems to be agreement among a lot of scientists that this plan is safe, but I feel like it's worth noting that there isn't total consensus on this plan in the scientific community. Even inside the IAEA, there are also some who say there needs to be more studies on how this would impact the ocean bed and marine wildlife, and that Japan and TEPCO have cut corners, that this has all been a bit hasty. And what do you think of that?

JIM SMITH: I think that's totally inaccurate. It's not that this is unprecedented. We know that this has been going on for decades. And I just think that there's no scientific basis for claims that this is a big risk or that it hasn't been considered properly. I [02:10:00] think it has. We know from previous experience what tritium does in the environment. The proviso is that the Japanese do what they say they're going to do, which is really important. But if they do what they say they're going to do, then I don't see any grounds for considering this a significant risk.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: But there has also been some opposition to this plan from the Japanese public. So surveys show that people are pretty evenly divided and 45% of respondents support the plan. 40% of people are against it. But fishing communities in Fukushima have been especially hard to convince. And on Friday, a petition with 33,000 signatures was delivered by fishing cooperatives, expressing their opposition to the plan. If the majority of scientists say the water is safe, why are fishers so opposed to this?

JIM SMITH: I mean, they have a very good reason to be opposed to this because they know what perception of damage it will do to [02:11:00] their products. And we know that food is a very sensitive issue for people. And any kind of… even the perception of risk is certainly going to damage their ability to sell their catches on the market. And we know that Rice from the Fukushima prefecture after the accident, even though it had been tested and it was radioactively below the safe limits, it achieved prices less than other rice from other parts of Japan. And the fishermen know very well that this is going to damage their industry, and I have a lot of sympathy with that.

Why does America need new nuclear weapons? Part 2 - On Point - Air Date 5-25-24

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: There's a massive program to rebuild every piece of the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a cost likely to top two trillion dollars over the next three decades. Through this modernization program, the military industrial complex is building new submarines, new land based missiles, new stealthy bombers, new stealthy fighter craft, and new stealthy air launched cruise missiles, plus a suite of all new nuclear warheads and bombs [02:12:00] for the delivery vehicles to carry.

It is an enormous, yet largely unnecessary, excuse me, undertaking, end quote. What is your response to that?

MADELYN CREEDON: This whole debate and discussion really is about the fundamental security of the United States. And I think the fundamental security of the United States, the backbone of deterrence of the United States, is really based on our nuclear weapons.

And as big as these numbers are from a cost perspective, they really do have to be put in perspective. The nuclear budget of the U.S. is about 7% of the overall defense budget. And the triad, as you have been discussing, so the three legs of our nuclear deterrence, the land, the sea and the air legs are all in modernization and they've been in modernization since about 2010.

And it's a more or less for like [02:13:00] replacement of the bombers and the ICBMs and the submarines, but it is an absolutely essential part of our deterrence, as well as the deterrence of our allies.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: So the point I think that Stephen was making is that if, specifically let's talk about sea launched missiles, if we have such a mighty arsenal on at least 12 nuclear, 12 submarines that are patrolling the world's oceans right now, why would we need those land-based ones that would be launched from here in the United States?

First, we also have to look at the strategy and we also have to look at what our adversaries are doing. And in this case, what I mean by adversaries, are really China and Russia, but each of the three legs of the U.S. triad provide a different purpose. And you look at China, they're also developing a full nuclear triad, and Russia has also had a full nuclear triad for many years, [02:14:00] like the U.S.

But each one of these provides a very different response. So our sea-based leg is really for a second strike. It's survivable, and by the way, all 12 of the submarines are not at sea at any one given time, obviously they have to come back, they have to change crews, they go through refurbishment.

So it's important to keep in mind that we want these different capabilities, both in the air, the sea and land.

Okay. But this, I really appreciate your insight here because Ms. Creedon, I have to say I'm struggling to understand, and from a layperson's perspective, what would the different scenarios be that would lead to the preference of using land-based ICBMs, for example, than a sea launched nuclear capability that would ostensibly be [02:15:00] closer to whatever targets were selected by the Commander in Chief and the Pentagon?

MADELYN CREEDON: The idea here is that a president has multiple options to respond to whatever the situation presents. Obviously, no one wants any sort of a large scale nuclear war. So one of the things that the recent strategic posture commission concluded is that it's important for our national strategic posture to also focus on our conventional capabilities, so that we never get into a situation where we actually have to use the nuclear weapons, but they are all there.

As our backbone of deterrence, and there are different scenarios that each of these would be used, but the most likely in a conflict, in a regional military conflict, is probably first used by either someone else, Russia or China, or what we refer to as the [02:16:00] theater nuclear weapons. Not the strategic nuclear weapons, the strategic nuclear weapons are fundamentally there to deter an all-out nuclear war, which we don't want.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay, this is a really good point. So Stephen, let me go back to you, because as you well know, both of you will know that we came closer, everyone experienced a greater fear of potential nuclear war in the past couple of years than we have in some time, specifically because of Russia.

There was legitimate talk about would Vladimir Putin use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine? If that were to happen, how would the United States or the rest of the world respond? People were very appropriately anxious about this. So does that not give creed, give heft to what Madelyn Creedon here is saying in that we actually are closer to a [02:17:00] potential nuclear war than we've ever been before?

And so therefore now is not the time, in fact, to let the United States arsenal languish?

STEPHEN YOUNG: A great question, Meghna. Thanks for asking it. Yes, nuclear war is a terrifying thought, and she's correct. The most likely scenario is that probably Russia might use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. If it starts to lose that war, it could use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine to try and say, stop, I want to win this war so badly, I'm willing to start nuclear war.

And that is a terrifying scenario. The reality is though, if they do that, we would not need to respond with nuclear weapons at all. We have vast conventional capabilities, and Russia could be decimated with those capabilities. And that's far preferable to us launching a nuclear strike in response, because that leads to their retaliation and a nuclear escalation that would never be stopped, and we'd all be dead.

The reality is that if Russia did go nuclear, we would absolutely not want to respond with nuclear weapons. We would want to respond conventionally, and to [02:18:00] avoid further escalation, if at all possible. We can't control that. But if we do respond with nuclear weapons, we can guarantee escalation will happen and we'll all be dead.

The world after nuclear war - The Gray Area with Sean Illing - Air Date 6-17-24

ANNIE JACOBSEN: Imagine every single engineered structure. I'm talking buildings, bridges, changing physical shape and collapsing. We haven't even spoken of what happens with that thermonuclear flash that sets everything on fire. It melts lead steel. I mean, titanium.

You're talking about streets nine miles out, transforming into molten asphalt lava. People kind of getting sucked into this. The details are so horrific. And I also think it's important to keep in mind, these are not details from Annie Jacobson's imagination. These are sourced from Defense Department documents because the Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Department have been keeping track of what nuclear bombs do [02:19:00] to people and to the environment.

Things ever since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: You can't find a vision of hell and any religious text that can even approach the horror of this scenario, in my opinion.

ANNIE JACOBSEN: You know, it's interesting that you say that because the religious tax and I often look at the paintings that portray hell and their narrative and their evocative.

They're not specific and scientific. And when you read in the book, things like at precisely what distance pine needles will, you know, ignite from line of sight, nuclear flash, and you realize that that is something that has been measured by the defense department. Because when we were setting off these thermonuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands.

We were measuring [02:20:00] all of this in terms of distance, in terms of atmosphere, we were sending animals up in planes, we were tying animals to ships. This is like horrific details, a lot of which I left out so that readers didn't get essentially beyond grossed out. I worked to include enough detail that The readers could have their own imaginations and their own narrative thoughts about this kind of horror, or as you say, hell, you know, working in tandem with some of these scientific facts.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: In service of more detail in that giant mushroom cloud.

That's the image everyone has of a atomic bomb. If I understand the physics of this at all, and I don't, but if I understand what people who do. Understand it told you [02:21:00] everything around that blast gets sucked up into this giant mushroom cloud. So in the case of an actual bomb in a populated area, what gets sucked up into that cloud are thousands of people.

And I guess all the rest of the non human population. Debris in the area, which would be basically everything.

ANNIE JACOBSEN: It's not thousands of people. It's hundreds of thousands of people. It's upwards of a million people. If you're talking about a one megaton thermonuclear bomb, and when you can, you know, try and wrap your head around that.

I think that it takes your heart and soul to an entirely different area of being, perhaps that you've never even been. This was certainly my experience reporting this book when, when Ted Postal, the MIT professor emeritus was describing to me how humans turn into [02:22:00] combusting carbon and then they become sucked up in that cloud.

And this is a man who's Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: I want to talk about a nuclear winter for a minute, or what you call day zero in the book. What does that look like? How cold would it be? How dark?

ANNIE JACOBSEN: One of the big premises of the book was to take readers from nuclear launch to nuclear winter.

And the nuclear launch up to Day Zero, as you say, takes place over this horrifying 72 minute period. And, you know, that is enough to shock anyone that, as STRATCOM Commander General Keillor said to me in an interview, when we were talking about a nuclear war,[02:23:00]

And so, nuclear winter begins. In essence, after the bombs stop falling, stop exploding, there is a process of mega fires. So, the area around every nuclear detonation is going to ultimately result in what is known now as a mega fire. You're talking about a hundred. 200, 300 square miles of fire per bomb where everything in that area is burning until it doesn't exist anymore.

This is because, of course, there are no first responders anymore. There are no fire trucks. There's no way to put anything out. And so, with all of these explosions, soot gets lofted into the air. Troposphere. 330 billion pounds of soot would be lofted [02:24:00] into the air, and that is enough soot to block out 70 percent of the sun.

What happens when that much sun gets blocked out is a dramatic temperature plunge. It's up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Certainly in the mid latitudes, the areas, for example, from Iowa to Ukraine, that whole band of the mid latitudes, the bodies of water in those areas become frozen over in sheets of ice.

With that temperature drop, you have the death of agriculture. And that is why nuclear winter, after nuclear war, will result in what is now estimated to be 5 billion.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: And that model you just mentioned, if I remember, also estimated that in places like Iowa and Ukraine, temperatures basically wouldn't go above freezing for something like [02:25:00] six years, at least.

ANNIE JACOBSEN: That's right. And I mean, you know, sometimes the, the details become so overwhelming, they're almost hard to keep track of and other details you simply can never forget. At least that's the case with me as a reporter. And when I was reading Carl Sagan's, he was one of the original five authors of the nuclear winter theory.

And Carl Sagan wrote about how after these uh, uh, uh, bodies of water that get frozen over for, as you say, seven years after the thawing out of that, the dead people who had been frozen in the nuclear winter, then you have to start considering the pathogens and the plague. And so just when you thought you couldn't imagine more horror, now you have to learn about the details of nuclear winter.

And I think the best quote for all of [02:26:00] Was spoken by Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier during the Kennedy administration. And the two of them talked a lot about nuclear war with deep horror. And it was Khrushchev who said after a nuclear war, the survivors would envy the dead.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: Yeah, that sounds about right.

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 [email protected].

The additional sections of the show included clips from the energy gang.

Huge. If true. DW planet a, the PBS news hour decouple against the grain. On point front burner and the gray area, further details are in the show notes. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Aaron Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our [02:27:00] bonus episodes.

Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet. Can 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 those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships.

You can join them by signing up [email protected] slash support through our Patrion 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 will find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

So coming to you from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the best of left podcast coming to twice weekly. Thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestofTheLeft.com.

Add your reaction Share

#1661 Immigration is Actively Good for the Country Unless You're Racist (Transcript)

Posted by · October 10, 2024 3:50 AM

Air Date 10/8/2024

[00:00:00]

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

Immigration dominates our politics in the worst way because one side benefits from lying about it, and the other can't get their messaging together to create an effective rebuttal. Opposing immigration and stoking blatantly racist arguments doesn't just make the right bad or unsavory, it also makes them wrong on literally all of the facts.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include

The Thom Hartmann Program,

Democracy Now!,

Deep State Radio,

The ReidOut,

and the LeBetard Podcast.

Then, in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there’ll be more in three sections

SECTION A - DISINFORMATION

SECTION B - WHITE SUPREMACY

SECTION C - LATINO ANTI-IMMIGRATION VIEWS

Trump & Vance are Reviving Dangerous Racist Myths To Win 2024 Election - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 9-16-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: [00:01:00] Using hate explicitly as a political weapon. And this is what Trump and Vance are up

DONALD TRUMP: to:

In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: They're reviving these dangerous, racist myths. and these are not even new.

In the 1890s, in the United States, East Coast German and Dutch immigrants were slandered with claims that they were making sausages from local pets. The assertion was even made into a well known folk song. And Chinese immigrants suffered the same sort of defamation, again, starting in the mid 19th century.

Right through last year, last year in Ohio there was, or in California, excuse me, there was a Thai restaurant that was forced to shut down. because local white racists were claiming that they were serving dogs and [00:02:00] cats, and it just, it blew up their business.

So now it's Donald Trump and J. D. Vance's turn telling these vicious, racist lies. in this case, that legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who are there legally, these are not illegal immigrants, contrary to what Donald Trump and J. D. Vance are saying, are eating the pets of local white people, which is also a lie.

And most recently, Don Jr. even repeated his father's frequent claim that black people have lower IQs than white Americans. He said, quote, "You look at Haiti, you look at the demographic makeup, you look at the average IQ, if you import the third world into your country, you're going to become the third world." Yeah, right, Don Jr.

But nonetheless, this rhetoric of Vance and Trump about black Haitian immigrants, legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who were there in response to the town actually saying, please come, we need workers. [00:03:00] The response to this has been threats of violence. They had to shut down the schools a couple days in a row. They had to shut down city buildings. They're literally getting bomb threats from these, sick, pathetic Trump supporters who think that this is the way that you do politics, is you threaten violence.

This is what, this is how fascists think. Let's just be candid about this.

And yesterday Trump was asked about this and he repeatedly refused to condemn the bomb threats. And this is a guy who is literally embracing stochastic terrorism, which is what bomb threats are, just random lone wolf terrorism.

And then he published, he posted a thing saying "I hate Taylor Swift." This is just hate, hate, hate, hate. This is all these guys have. And as long as they keep making these outrageous claims and the, what it does, and this, by the [00:04:00] way, this is an intentional strategy.

Several of the, of the, Vance Trump campaign people have just come right out and said it. This is a strategy. This is what, J. D. Vance said it on one of the Sunday shows, this Sunday. I think it was on CNN. He said that we have to create these stories in order to get the media to focus on immigration.

And the reason why is there's only really one subject where the Trump Vance campaign is beating the Harris Walz campaign, and that is immigration.

And so if Trump and Vance can continue to tell outrageous lies about black immigrants, it keeps immigration at the top of the news cycle. Which, in the opinion of Trump and Vance, is to their advantage, because then the corporate media are not discussing how Joe Biden put this country back together after Donald Trump threw us into [00:05:00] the worst depression since the Great Depression.

The media are not talking about the, how we're taking, really, some pretty dramatic steps to mitigate climate change. They're not talking about the factories that are coming back to the United States as a result of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, just utterly, openly rejecting Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama's neoliberal policies, and just saying, no, we're gonna go back, we're gonna go back to FDR and John Maynard Keynes's just, real economics. We're gonna go back to that. Nobody's talking about that because they're all talking about, oh my god, these poor refugees, these poor immigrants, or these bad immigrants.

It's really time for the Republican Party, what's left of it, to [00:06:00] do some serious soul searching. But I, tragically what I'm seeing is that's not happening. Instead, what you're seeing is elected Republicans and Republican spokespeople, people who are the voices of Republicans on TV and radio just out there saying, Oh, no, we're just, it's fine with us. it's there is a problem down there. I'm hearing from my constituents.

As Madeline Albright, a former secretary of state, wrote, who fled Germany in the thirties, in her book, Fascism, A Warning decades ago, "George Orwell suggested that the best one word description of a fascist was bully." And that's what's going on. Hate has always been a tool of fascists and dictators. Because it's powerful enough to cause people to behave in ways they would normally consider offensive or even bizarre, that they normally wouldn't do it. And now we're seeing, as Vance has confessed. [00:07:00] that he is telling lies, that he's making up stories, that all the guardrails, all the limits, even common decency are gone from the Trump Vance campaign.

This is a guy who's married to the brown skinned daughter of Indian immigrants, J. D. Vance. And yet he's willing to trash people based on their skin color and do it intentionally just to gain political power. That is as sick and twisted and craven as it gets.

So this is not a problem that Democrats alone can fix. Having an overwhelming victory this fall would be a, take us a big step forward. But, I warned you about this a couple of weeks ago, the billionaire money is starting to drop. We're seeing it here in the Portland market, in the local race for Congress. Janelle Bynum, is a great member of Congress is being just viciously attacked. [00:08:00] She's actually a great member of the Georgia House of Representatives, or Senate, I'm not sure which. And she's running for Congress and we've got this Republican in the seat right now.

And just vicious ads calling her a liar and, darkening her face, the whole thing, right? It's all, it's coming from a super PAC, one of these billionaire funded super PACs. So here we are. The billionaire's money is starting to hit. And, the races are going to, they're going to tighten up.

Early voting starts this Friday in some states. So here we are.

As German conservatives learned in the late 1930s, if they don't act now, it may soon be too late.

Fascism Expert Jason Stanley on Project 2025, Great Replacement Theory, Attacks on Immigrants & Gaza - Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-15-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We're in an election year. And we were at the Republican National Convention covering it, among those who [00:09:00] spoke was Tucker Carlson.

Media Matters has accused Tucker Carlson of being responsible for, quote, single handedly introducing the White supremacist Great Replacement conspiracy theory into mainstream American politics. This is a clip of Tucker Carlson when he was still hosting a nightly show on Fox News.

TUCKER CARLSON: So into that you throw millions of brand new people who have no connection to America whatsoever.

People who broke our laws to get here, who don't speak our language, who have no idea what the U. S. Constitution says and don't care. And what do you have when you put all of that together? You have a recipe for social collapse.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So you also have written a piece in Slate, Donald Trump is openly running a Great Replacement Theory campaign.

Talk about what Carlson said, what Trump repeatedly is saying, and why you think this is so dangerous.

JASON STANLEY: I was recently talking to [00:10:00] some of my relatives who are Orthodox Jewish who are parroting this line about how our family came in legally. However, many, many thousands of Jewish refugees, from Germany weren't able to come in illegally, come in legally.

They would have had to come in illegally. Many of them were turned away. Their ships were turned away and they died in concentration camps. My fellow Jewish Americans are saying, when they're saying, we should only accept people who come in legally, is they are supporting the mass murder of Jews who were turned away from America's shores.

And that is something that I will never do. I will never turn away the victims of genocide. So this great replacement theory is the core of the message of MAGA Republicanism in this election and previously. it links to the education. framework, because in education, what you do is you eliminate the history [00:11:00] of non-White Christian cis-men.

And you instead elevate the stories of great White Christian men who are supposedly what the people who make our country great. And that way you can represent non-White immigration as an existential threat to the nation. And what we know from history is that Great Replacement Theory motivates mass violence.

It motivates mass violence on the state level and the individual level. We have many, many mass shootings since Anders Breivik, in 2011, justified on the basis of Great Replacement Theory about immigrants ruining the greatness and innocence of the nation. And it justified, of course, mass violence as we're seeing in India when they represent Muslims as sort of foreign invaders, and there's regular [00:12:00] lynchings.

And it, of course, was the core of Nazi ideology when Hitler had this crazed conspiracy theory that Jews lost World War I to, betrayed Germany in World War I in order to bring in Black Senegalese soldiers into the Rhineland to mate, have children, rape and seduce German women to undermine the White race.

So that's what we're seeing. We know from history and the present what it justifies.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And what's so interesting is that, look, when you had the White supremacists marching in the University of Virginia, they were marching chanting, "Jews will not replace us".

JASON STANLEY: Yeah. So, I always ask my students a quiz when I'm teaching this material.

Are they saying Jews will numerically replace Christian Americans? No, they're saying Jews are behind the engineering of this replacement. What we're now [00:13:00] seeing is we're seeing the Republicans say, Democrats are behind this great replacement, and that is actually aiming political violence, not just against immigrants, but at their political opponents.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Let's go back to Donald Trump and his debate with Kamala Harris, hosted by ABC News.

DONALD TRUMP: Because they're destroying the fabric of our country by what they've done. There's never been anything done like this at all. They've destroyed the fabric of our country.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: They've destroyed the fabric of our country. And of course, this is the same debate where he said that Haitians are eating your pets.

JASON STANLEY: Yeah. So, when you have accurate history, if you knew, for example, that Haiti had the only successful slave revolution in human history, then you might be able to see what the demonization of Haitian immigrants is doing.

The demonization of Haitian immigrants has multiple aspects. It's racist, of course. It's saying [00:14:00] that exactly like Hitler did with the Senegalese soldiers, it's saying that Black immigrants are going to undermine the character—so hint-hint, what is the character of the nation?—and it's singling out Haitians as particularly dangerous. And that's a shout out to history, as it were, since Haitians have been being punished by the world for their revolution for hundreds of years.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I wanted to go to Project 2025 and how that fits into erasing history, how fascists rewrite the past to control the future. President Trump has had to distance himself from this, even though something like well over a hundred of his allies and aides were involved with writing Project 2025.

It was done under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation. The head of it has just written a book. It has a forward by J. D. [00:15:00] Vance, and it's been postponed for publication until after the election. But talk about the significance of it.

JASON STANLEY: The significance of Project 2025, is that it calls for what in the Nazi parlance is called Gleichschaltung, the systematic replacement of civil servants by loyalists, by party loyalists, and the systematic replacement of teachers in schools and universities, and in general institutions throughout society by party loyalists.

In the case of education, it's completely implausible that Trump is ideologically distant from the goals of Project 2025. Trump has repeatedly said he's going to target critical race theory, which, let's face it, is simply Black History. He said he's going to replace education with patriotic education, namely patriarchy, representing the United States as an exceptional grand nation whose [00:16:00] exceptionality is due to its White, Christian, heterosexual men who've defined the nation. In Project 2025, the civil rights agenda is to base civil rights enforcement on a proper understanding of the laws and eliminating critical race theory and gender ideology.

In other words, civil rights law in schools is entirely there to make sure that there's no racism against non dominant groups, against Black Americans. Civil rights law is there to make sure that LGBT children or the children in LGBT families are not discriminated against. In other words, this is a mandate to eliminate civil rights enforcement.

Project 2025, in a bizarre kind of quasi fascist way targets funding [00:17:00] for disabled students. Of course, fascism involves privileging non-disabled people, privileging producers to the nation. And that, I find, a bizarre kind of resonance of fascist ideology to slash funding for disabled students.

The Daily Blast Trumps Angry, Unhinged New Rant About Fox News Offers Hidden Warning Part 1 - Deep State Radio - Air Date 9-30-24

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: At a rally in Wisconsin over the weekend, Donald Trump really cranked up the rage and hate speech about immigrants in a major way. He seethed at Kamala Harris over a speech she gave laying out her own vision of immigration.

But something else Trump said at the rally deserves special attention. He directly attacked Fox News for the mere act of carrying Harris's speech on the network. He said they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

This, when taken along with other things Trump has been saying lately, should be seen as a warning of sorts -- a preview [00:18:00] about what might happen to dissent if Trump wins a second term. And today we're discussing all this with Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte, who is very good at interpreting the dangerous subtexts of Trump's most unhinged public utterances.

Good to have you on, Amanda.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Thanks for having me.

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: So at his rally in western Wisconsin, Trump said that migrants will walk into your kitchen and cut your throat. He called Kamala Harris "mentally impaired." He said migrants will transform every American town into a third world hellhole. I think this is a way of getting the MAGA masses excited about the bloody mass deportations and detention camps to come if he's elected.

You wrote recently in your newsletter that Trump's language is getting more violent to create permission to persecute enemies within. Is this more of the same?

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Yeah, it's getting to the point of fantasy land, right? And I think we saw that going on with the cat and dog eating [00:19:00] accusations. It's convincing people to live in a mental space that's outside of their normal reality. And I think you see in history that this has been very effective at getting people to think about committing violence and doing acts of violence that are outside of what they would normally be willing to put up with. And it's gonna cause hate crimes, there's no doubt about it. But it's also about accepting any kind of violence that's coming. It's putting people in the space of the unimaginable and keeping them there.

DAVID ROTHKOPF - HOST, DSR: Right. It's telling people I think in a sense that look, you can just invent a whole alternate world where all this is okay, meaning the violence toward migrants.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Yeah, it's very much reminiscent, and I'm not the first person to say this, of the satanic panic in the 80s where [00:20:00] the level of accusations against daycare workers and other people that, heavy metal musicians and stuff, just got completely out of control, that they were engaging in human sacrifice, that they somehow had murdered thousands and hidden it and things like that.

And a lot of that was about justifying the religious right's grab for power, their crackdown on music, their censorship, other things that I think previous to that would have been not allowed in American society, but they work themselves into a frenzy of moral justification by imagining enemies that were so bad, so evil that everything was justified in stopping them.

DAVID ROTHKOPF - HOST, DSR: You just gave me a flashback to Stranger Things, which is also set in the 80s, where, there's this witch hunt for this one guy who's called a freak because he wears a denim jacket that has a heavy metal logo on the back. [00:21:00]

I want to play a specific quote from Trump at the rally. He talked about the speech that Harris gave Friday night, laying out her plans for stricter border security and comprehensive immigration reform. Then he said this.

DONALD TRUMP: And then I have to sit there and listen to her bullshit last night?

And who puts it on Fox News? And they shouldn't be allowed to put it on. It's all lies. It's all lies. Everything she said is a lie.

DAVID ROTHKOPF - HOST, DSR: Amanda, this is really unhinged. Trump just said Fox News shouldn't be allowed to air the opposition's criticism of him. You have to take that along with his recent threat to prosecute Google if elected, for no reason other than it carried stories that criticize him. Amanda, does this also fit into your frame in that it creates a [00:22:00] permission structure for persecution of the media for criticizing him later?

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Oh, absolutely. I think that Trump has long held the opinion that one of the most important benefits of power is silencing people who criticize you. And he's getting louder and louder about it and more and more obnoxious about the double standard that he holds, which is if you say things I like, then that's free speech. And if you think, say things I don't like, then that's should be criminal. And trying to hold him to any kind of legal or morally consistent standard is ridiculous because his only standard is, if I like it, it's good and legal; if I don't like it, it should be criminal.

The scary thing here is that sort of narcissism is spreading out across the supporters. Elon Musk is a good example. He's somebody who calls himself a free speech warrior because he lets Nazis run rampant on Twitter. [00:23:00] And he published the quote unquote Twitter files, which were all these interior communications at Twitter under the guise of free speech. But then what happened was a journalist got his hands on a dossier that the Trump campaign had made up about J. D. Vance that was supposed to be private, published it, put it on Twitter, and Elon Musk censored that. The only consistent standard here is if it's for Trump, he's for it, and if it's against Trump, he will censor it. And, he doesn't even try to be consistent anymore.

DAVID ROTHKOPF - HOST, DSR: I want to pick up on that because I think it's crucial for people to understand that the explicit declaration of a double standard is the thing here. That is the thing that Trump is promising. He's saying we no longer have to be consistent. Everything should be rigged in our favor. Elections that we lose are illegitimate. Elections that we win are legitimate. [00:24:00] The media is being fair when it criticizes our opponents. The media is being unfair when it criticizes us. He is essentially selling a kind of liberation from consistency and neutrality to his supporters, I think.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Yeah, it's very explicitly this end of liberal democratic ideals, and replacing them with fairly classic fascist ideals, blood and soil notions. J. D. Vance's speech at the RNC was very clear on this, that what makes you an American is that you're born here and your ethnicity and your history here, and he played a little around the edges to imply that there was some for racial diversity in there, but we all heard what he was saying, which is Americans are an ethnic group. And that ethnic group is obviously a white one and a conservative one and a Christian one and all these other things. And [00:25:00] once you've redefined Americanness in those lines, you can redefine the law and who is in and who is out.

And the consistency here is not we have free speech for all citizens, it's that -- or all people actually -- it's that the in group are real Americans and they have all the rights and privileges, and the out group are not real Americans and they deserve nothing.

Did Donald TRUMP Make Germany RACIST Again - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 9-27-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: This isn't just about necessarily race.

you look at the, the, history of Northern Ireland versus Ireland, and you can see it, it can be about a religion too. Or about national origin. the orangeman, the, the, people of i, of, Northern Ireland. You've got, basically this battle between, the indigenous loyalist Catholic or the indigenous Catholics and those who are the loyalists who are still, descendant of British overlords [00:26:00] and still loyal to Great Britain, and they're willing to kill each other o over it.

this tribalism is like deeply baked into us. And, all that, I lay out all that premise by way of saying that whenever any other country points to the United States and says, Oh, we have a race problem because of you, or because of America, I think we need to view it skeptically.

This is a, on the one hand, a human nature problem, and on the other hand, an all of society problem. But, Now the, minister Angela or Angela, I'm not sure how it's pronounced. I'm guessing Angela actually in England. Angela Eagle is the British minister in charge of irregular migration. It would be like, what you would call illegal immigration here in the United States.

she said that, [00:27:00] Donald Trump has helped create quote, vitriol against migrants through social media and that is what is cranking up. The, anti immigrant hate and race and just naked racism that the UK has been experiencing in large quantities recently. The overt, her phrase, overt racism that has spilled out onto British streets.

she said that, this is a quote from The Guardian. She said, unnamed right wing Tories, that's the conservatives in the UK, had used language that had given a yellow flashing light to racists. using a toxic discourse as they fought off the challenge from the Reform Party. In other words, the Brit, the British conservatives are using racism the same way that American conservatives and Republicans have been using racism since Nixon's Southern strategy.

Dixon, Nixon did it with the Southern strategy, talking about his all white, silent majority. [00:28:00] And then you had Reagan, of course, using it explicitly. the very first speech Reagan gave after he was nominated at the Republican convention, he went down to Philadelphia, Mississippi, to this little town, to the Neshoba County Fair, to give a speech to an all white audience, about states rights, which, what they were referring to in 1980 when they said states rights was the right to, prevent black children from going to schools with white children, specifically.

And, he, chose a location that was just a couple miles down the road from where, miss years, Schwimmer, Cheney, and Goodman were murdered. The three civil rights workers who were murdered, that they made the movie Mississippi Burning out of, Reagan and his campaign chose that site for the first speech of his election.

And then, he, went around giving speeches in which he would talk about. Doesn't it upset you when that young buck standing in front of you [00:29:00] in the grocery store is using his food stamps to buy steak and champagne when you're barely scraping by? And we all know what he meant. his welfare queen in New York City that literally did not exist, the New York Times spent years looking for her, she doesn't exist, a black lady driving a Cadillac.

Reagan was like all in on the stereotypes. And then of course you had George W. Bush. He wasn't so much going after black people. He was a little more tolerant there, but, Katie bar the door, when it comes to Muslims, he, gave some good lip service to, we need, but look at what he did in Gitmo.

look at what he did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then, Trump comes along and starts picking on, Mexicans. And, oh my God, these Hispanic people, they're murderous and they're rapists. And. And whatnot. So we have this long history, or at least the Republican Party has this long history in the United States, a [00:30:00] 60 year history of using racism, not just race, but racism, hatred of race, hatred of a specific race as a political weapon.

this is now starting to happen in the United Kingdom. And, I get it that Donald Trump has given license to a lot of this stuff. I think Trump's presidency. And Trump's rhetoric has helped the AFD party, the Alternative for Deutschland, the, the new neo Nazi party in, the UK, excuse me, in Germany.

I, think he has helped, Giorgia Moroni, the, neo fascist leader of Italy and her party, the fascist, I, forget the name of the party, but it's basically the reinvention of Mussolini's party, toned down slightly. you've got a, an openly white supremacist party in Sweden that, that is doing very well right now.

you've got a huge openly white supremacist party in Austria that is doing very [00:31:00] well. this is happening all over Europe. And I do believe, I I think that she's right. this, member of parliament who's saying that, Trump is the, is causing an awful lot of this.

I, think there's some truth to that. But I also think that Putin just, was brilliant when he just bombed the crap out of Syria in order to, when Assad was being challenged during the Arab spring back in 2011, 2012 and the years immediately after that, when Assad was being challenged.

Putin wanted to protect his deep water ports, off Damascus. it was basically his African base. And so he had to keep, Bashir in power in Syria. And so he bombed Aleppo back to the Stone Age and bombed a third of Damascus into rubble. And what did that do? It produced, six million Syrian refugees.[00:32:00]

And where did they go? They went to Europe. They fled north, along with the Libyan refugees following our murder of Gaddafi. And, and, refugees from other countries in the region as the Arab Spring was really cranking up. And so all of these people flooding into Europe, then that was used by Viktor Orban for his political purposes.

He, his, slogans when he was running were build a wall and make Hungary great again. And he did build a wall along Hungary's border. And he has been keeping Syrians out of Hungary. and other countries are looking at the crisis associated with this. You can absorb, people who are different than you culturally, racially, whatever it may be, over time without a problem, but it has to be relatively gradual.

So I think, part of it is just, [00:33:00] the, radical demographic shift or sudden shock rather. that was inflicted on Europe by Putin's attacking Syria back, a decade ago. And, and, to this day, you've got refugees now being coming by boat into the UK and they're struggling with what to do about it.

So that's part of it. Another part of it is that there is now a worldwide refugee crisis. this is what's happening in our southern border. You got parts of Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador. that have been taken over by gangs in large part because the Reagan administration destabilized all four of those democracies.

You've got, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. It's one other country down there. Anyway, and, you've, you, you've, and this is the result of climate change. And now we're seeing people literally on the move all over the world. Because climate change is [00:34:00] rendering their environments inhospitable. there's a much larger issue here, and I have no glib or easy answers for it.

But to reduce it down to, it's all Donald Trump's fault, which I'm happy to say, but it's not true. he's just riding the wave. But the point, I think the big point that I want to make here, is that it's going to get worse.

The Daily Blast Trumps Angry, Unhinged New Rant About Fox News Offers Hidden Warning - Deep State Radio - Air Date 9-30-24

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: Right. It's a little hard to say exactly what MAGA rally attendees believe. I think certainly some of them are there for the authoritarian display, whether all of them are, I don't know. I will tell you there was some really interesting polling from the Public Religion Research Institute that found that something like 70, high 60s, low 70s percent of people who view Trump [00:35:00] positively agree with the statements that migrants are poisoning the blood of America, as Trump has put it, and agree that immigrants are invading our country, in a way that sort of eradicates our culture.

And by the way, Trump started using that word "culture" at this rally as well.

So what do you think of that? That's really a euphemism, isn't it? Culture? In other words, it's a euphemism when Trump says, they're a threat to culture.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Yeah. Western civilization, Western culture. These have been euphemisms that have been used by the quote unquote, alt-right. I just consider them fascists for years now. And it is basically creating an in group, out group, denying that -- denying a lot of things that are just objectively true. One of which is that immigrant communities do assimilate into American culture. And they change it. And [00:36:00] that what we consider American culture is the result of waves and waves of immigration changing our culture.

But it's very easy I think for a lot of people to tell themselves a story that the way things were when they were a kid is the way things have always been and should always be. When I was at the RNC, my videographer and I went around asking people when they thought America was great again. And what we found was really fascinating was no matter how old they were or young, they would say that America's greatness peaked when they were like around 15 years old.

Like it was fascinating. If they were a boomer, it was like in the early sixties. If they were my age, it was in the nineties. And, it just tells you that it's this delusion that you, it's a very narcissistic delusion, not -- the culture that you came of age in is the real American culture, and [00:37:00] he really is -- Trump is an addled-brained old man, but he still has an ability to plug into that. And what's really scary is he came of age obviously in the fifties. So that's the great America he wants.

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: I think that's absolutely clear. I want to bring up the effect Trump's threats have, particularly the threats and attacks on the media, in terms of CBS's announcement that they won't be fact checking the vice presidential debate. The Associated Press explicitly wrote that the network, quote, "wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to candidates falsehoods." I mean, that formulation drove me nuts because what the AP won't say directly is that CBS is afraid of the fallout of fact checking Trump and Vance in particular. They're not afraid of the fallout of fact checking both candidates, both sides, because Democrats and the Harris campaign simply don't [00:38:00] attack the media and threaten it for telling the truth, whereas Trump and MAGA do.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: It's so frustrating, because it should be part of -- journalists often pride themselves on being able to take criticism, being able to take heat, but apparently it only is something to be proud of if you're getting it from the left and you withstand it. Like folding to the right is ridiculous.

What's doubly frustrating about this to me is there's many other reasons that you could say that might have to be the way things are. Vance is a better liar in many ways than Donald Trump. So fact checking him could be a much more difficult proposition during a debate. I think he's going to say untrue things, but he's going to say them in this way that creates plausible deniability, very legalistic. And I could see the, don't even bother, it's just going to turn into a nightmare.

The other thing is Vance is aching to be attacked [00:39:00] by a reporter so he can whine and flip out and say this is what the media always does, blah, blah, blah. He wants to make the debate against the moderator so he doesn't have to debate Walz. I think these are all good reasons to be cautious about fact checking him in real time.

But it's very frustrating that the actual reason is that they don't want people to yell at them on Twitter.

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: It's worse than that, right? It's, they don't want a president Trump to threaten to take away their license, and make it so that they are not allowed to say these things.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: And that's so dumb too, because there's nothing that they can do that's going to make him not go after them if he thinks he has the power to do, because the entire point of this is squelching anything that he considers opposition and that's any factual reporting. So either they give up entirely on doing journalism or they're going to be feeling the heat if [00:40:00] Trump is president again.

GREG SARGENT, HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: Let's talk a little bit about sanewashing, which is how the media soft pedals Trump's dangerous authoritarian threats. As press critic Mark Jacob pointed out, one news outlet, I think Bloomberg, had a tweet saying Trump sharpened his criticism of Harris during this rally. This is how Bloomberg describes Trump's wildly unhinged claims about migrants slitting people's throats and turning every American town into third world hell holes and describing Harris as mentally impaired. Where does this leave us? I think, we actually made some progress by pushing the New York Times To actually render the reality of Trump's quotes and public utterances and to stop sane washing them, as the saying goes.

But then there's just this constant backsliding that happens. A quick blow up happens over one particularly absurd act of sane washing. Media figures seem [00:41:00] to recalibrate a bit. They do a few pieces that do show the reality of Trump's profound mental unfitness for the presidency. But then we backslide. What do we do about that?

AMANDA MARCOTTE: I guess we have to keep the heat up because that's inexcusable. And it's inexcusable insofar just from a writing perspective, I think there's a tendency to want to make sense out of what you've seen, but you can do that very easily without misleading people. You can say, Trump told a bunch of lies, falsely accusing migrants of being murderers. And he then told some more lies, falsely accusing Kamala Harris of being mentally impaired. Simple. Easy. And you don't have to get into what I would write as an opinion writer, which is Trump is clearly engaging and just off the charts psychological projection, everything, every finger he [00:42:00] points out needs to be pointed at himself. Like the only person in this equation, that's like unleashing, that has unleashed violence against the United States, is Donald Trump. The only person who's clearly feeling a way about his own mental impairment is Donald Trump. Like they don't have to do that. That's engaging in analysis and opinion about him. They could just say he lied. End of story.

Trump's rhetoric on immigrants gets even darker - The ReidOut - Air Date 9-27-24

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And the reality is Ray, that, there was an attempt by Republicans. So this is, a lot of this is an internal Republican struggle because Democrats have always been for immigration reform and have always been like, we're ready whenever you are.

We'll pass it. We will easily pass it. Republicans got together and negotiated a very, very conservative border patrol bill, a bill that would have largely closed the border. It was going to pass. Let me let you listen to what Republicans say happened to that bill.

LINDSEY GRAHAM: So, [00:43:00] everybody who comes on this floor and says our border's broken, we should do something about it you're absolutely right and unfortunately, we didn't get there. President Trump opposed a Senate bill.

POLITICIANS: And then, our nominee for president didn't seem to want us to do anything at all? After

President Trump said don't fix anything during the presidential election, it's the single biggest issue during the election, don't resolve this, we'll resolve it next year, quite a few of my colleagues backed up, looked for a reason to be able to shoot against it, and then walked away.

The fact that he would communicate Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is is really appalling.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And so if people are so exercised on the Republican side it's really Republicans who are mostly exercised about this, Ray, then why aren't they blaming Donald Trump for not having a border bill?

RAY SUAREZ: Well, they are implicitly [00:44:00] blaming him. You just heard after all the leader of Republicans in the Senate acknowledge the former president's opposition to the bill.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: But I mean voters, I'm so sorry, I mean voters.

RAY SUAREZ: Even Senator Lankford from Oklahoma, one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate was pretty mild in his assessment. He admitted that was what was happened. Donald Trump threw a monkey wrench in the gears and that's just what happened. And life was supposed to move on. It's really something.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah. And, Olivia, it's hard, I think for people who probably watch this show and watch MSNBC to understand why voters look at Donald Trump and they look at the failures and they also look at the successes. Let me show you. Illegal border crossings fell in July. They're at the lowest level. They are in four years. That's just a fact. And so the reality that people are seeing on Fox, this idea that immigrants are running through the country, murdering people, it's just not true. Let me play one more thing that we also see happening. This is the [00:45:00] idea that immigration is somehow tied to people's lives, even if they're not in a border place. The great Alex Wagner, she, she talked to union members in Michigan. Let me let you listen to what some of them said. This is cut three from my director.

POLITICAN: There are thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants coming across the border every day. And the vice president has done minimal work to fix that based on what I've seen. So I'd like that to change.

REPORTER: Do you feel like Donald Trump's going to be better on that issue?

POLITICAN: Based on what we've seen on his first four years, I do believe that he will be better on that. Yeah.

REPORTER: Do you, are you leaning towards Trump right now?

POLITICAN: Yes, ma'am.

REPORTER: Is there anything that vice president Harris could do at this point to change your mind?

POLITICAN: Not particularly, no, unless she changes her stance completely on fixing the border. That's, no.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Olivia, based on what we've seen in his first four years, I do believe he'll be better on that based on what the only things that we saw in terms of immigration as you talked about with Stephen Miller, we're taking babies out of the hands of their [00:46:00] moms at the border and separating them and sending them off in two different directions and losing track of them.

You saw a lot of cruelty. You saw a lot of talk about S whole countries. He didn't build a wall. And border crossings are lower now than they were then. What are people seeing? What reality are they living in?

OLIVIA TROY: Well, therein lies the problem, Joy. I think it's just because the fear mongering and all of these narratives, they work when the right wing media machine is coming together and pushing that.

And that's all they're seeing. And so this is a product of disinformation that they're continuing to push, devoid of policy or facts, right? Because when Donald Trump gets up there and gets these speeches, they're He, all he does is spread this divisive, hateful rhetoric on immigrants, but he's not actually telling you what he's going to do to solve the border crisis, right?

He's not talking about international asylum cooperation agreements. He's not talking about actual foreign policy that could decrease migration. He's not talking about like, Oh, perhaps funding law [00:47:00] enforcement on the border, which is what Kamala Harris is doing. She's actually saying, I will support that bipartisan bill.

I will fund border security. I will support CBP at the border. This is what I want to do. I'm going to slow fentanyl. She's actually talking concrete policies. But the problem is that I think that it's easier to sell a narrative on a very complicated issue like immigration. By stowing fear and instilling that in communities and getting people to be divided.

And so I think that's what you're seeing there is just that what he says is resonating in communities. Now, the problem with that is that what is Donald Trump's immigration proposal actually look like in the future? It's going to look like encampments. What is it going to look like when they're like putting people in encampments on the borders or in these cities where they're shipping them around?

What's it going to look like? When they're targeting just anyone who looks potentially like a minority in general and taking these kids out of schools and corralling them. And what is it going to look like when they're going after legal residents, right? Because denaturalization was [00:48:00] actually discussed in the Trump administration where they don't actually differentiate between a legal resident alien and someone who is here illegally.

Sometimes those were actual policy discussions that were had. And so I think, to me, to someone who actually believes in legal immigration wants to fix the immigration system, this is all just like bluster. And it's sad to see that Americans don't understand it.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Well, I'll tell you what it would look like.

It would look like concentration camps. In Germany in the 1930s, because that's what you call it when you put somebody in a camp with means to separate them from society. It's called a concentration camp.

Paola Ramos Explains the Rise of the Latino Far Right and Growing Anti-Immigrant Sentiments - LeBatardShow - Air Date 9-26-24

DAN LEBETARD - HOST, LEBETARD PODCAST: Talk to me about the Proud Boys existing in Miami. And I want to read a passage from your book to the people after you explained to me what Enrique was doing as the head of the Proud Boys and how proud he must have been when Donald Trump is saying out loud in a way that is unfathomable [00:49:00] to me, telling the Proud Boys to stand down and stand by.

PAOLA RAMOS: Absolutely. So, I met Enrique Dario. And so I meet him at a time when he starts to feel himself and feel his power, but he wasn't there just yet. So my first impression of Enrique Dario, who, by the way, grew up just a couple of minutes from where I did, my first impression was that this is a guy that is deeply insecure, who can hide who he is behind his sort of like macho, tough appeal.

He does it really well. And, but he's someone that even according to him, he never really knew where he fit in Miami. No, in his own words, he was always like too black to be considered a Republican. He felt like he was too independent and too radical to be considered a Democrat. He always said this thing that like no one would ever knock on his door to ask for his vote.

So even among the sort of Miami Dade Cuban community, which is typically an exile community that looks more like me, light skinned, privileged Latinos. As a Black Latino, he never really fit [00:50:00] into that. And then come the Proud Boys. and the Proud Boys offer someone like Enrique Tarrio, not just this sudden sense of belonging, but power.

And then you see the way that Enrique and I saw it like happening in real time, how he suddenly evolves from being this like ordinary, guano guy in Miami to then suddenly becoming this guy that is being praised by Donald Trump, praised by Roger Stone, and he takes that power and runs with it.

The funny thing though, the sad thing is that come November, 2020, after Enrique Darrio tries absolutely everything to ensure that Donald Trump wins and he doesn't win. What's fascinating is the way that the Proud Boys, you have this guy called Kyle Chapman, that they instantly try and distance themselves from Enrique Tarrio and from his blackness and his brownness.

One of the things that Kyle Chapman says when Enrique is no longer powerful, he says, you know what, the Proud Boys are actually, have always been a group that's based on the white race. And he says, and the white race alone and any other [00:51:00] race has no place in this group. And so that sort of shows you how 10, that sort of idea of why power is.

DAN LEBETARD - HOST, LEBETARD PODCAST: One of the things that my mother has said since I was a child as they came from communism, is if you want to find out about a person's character, give them power. And the reason she used to say it is because when communism came to Cuba. The neighbors who were given the government power to watch the other neighbors all of a sudden became powerful in the ways that you're describing in this book and then abused the power of taking some of their identity that was given to them by the government.

So let me read this from your interview with Enrique Taddeo. You say, why define women as housewives? You asked him at one point, why not use another word? And this is something Latin men do all the time. Quote, because it's like the end goal for us. We're big on family. He said, family is a number one priority for us.

He followed up. You need to step up as a man and make sure that you provide for everyone in that household. As a man, that is your job. And then you write, I [00:52:00] always got the sense that independent, strong, and outspoken women frightened and intimidated Enrique. I imagine that's why he reserved a special kind of vitriol for them.

He would frequently disrupt women's March events with his megaphone. He'd make appearances wearing his signature. Costume, essentially a full body outfit that resembled a phallus. He would constantly provoke women, including with the use of transphobic slurs. He called Michelle Obama a tranny and refused to apologize despite the uproar that followed.

What's happening there? It's just bravado that's wrapped around as armor the insecurity.

PAOLA RAMOS: That's part of it. But imagine down what it was for me. No, I'm, a lesbian. I'm a queer woman. I'm a Latina. I, try and understand the privilege that comes with, these platforms that I have now. So I understand the power that I have and I always felt a sense of discomfort that Enrique was feeling among people like me and people like me are everywhere, no?

We're just people that like understand that we too can change the dynamic in this country. There was always something that sort of made him uncomfortable, [00:53:00] but Enrique, alludes to what I try and find in this book, and it's the same conversation that I had with other sort of Latinos in Miami actually that also participated in the January 6th insurrection and that is these men that were driven by the anti immigrant sentiment that we just talked about, a, by the sort of, fixation with going back to a time when these sort of gender norms, no, and these sort of more patriarchal norms were, there, and they're fixated by that idea.

And then what you just mentioned is when I asked them, what, what, was at the heart of what drove you to storm the Capitol that day? One of the main answers was, the United States is being taken over by communism. And if someone like Joe Biden won, then that means that this country would turn into communism.

And that sort of paranoia, which obviously comes from a real political trauma that a lot of Latinos hold, that just shows you the way that it's been just so injected with mis and disinformation. That can truly, drive someone to do something [00:54:00] as violent as storming the Capitol, no?

Note from the Editor about what Democrats need to do on immigration messaging

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We’ve just heard clips starting with

Thom Hartmann laying out some of the historical precedent for racist anti-immigrant propaganda.

Democracy Now! spoke with fascism expert Jason Stanley about far-right rhetoric.

Deep State Radio discussed Trump’s authoritarian, anti-speech response to the existence of opposition to him.

Thom Hartmann looked at how blatant anti-immigrant racism has been spreading around the world.

Deep State Radio discussed more of the fallout from threats against the media.

The ReidOut reflected on the impact of Trump’s rhetoric.

And The LeBetard Podcast discussed the race essentialism and white supremacy at the heart of the MAGA movement and Proud Boys.

And those were just the Top Takes. There’s lots more in the Deeper Dives 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 [00:55:00] important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process.

To support all 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 if you prefer, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts app. Members also get chapter markers in the show, but I’ll note that anyone, depending on the app you use to listen, 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, I just want to highlight one important point from a couple of different angles: The Democrats are terrible at messaging on immigration, and they have all the reasons in the world to start changing that discussion. [00:56:00]

The first point is that it’s simply never a good idea to let your opponents set the terms of the debate. Democrats' relative silence on immigration - even when they have policies and ideas - leaves a gap that the right can fill however they like. Unsurprisingly, they fill it with anything they think will scare people into voting for them - and their rhetoric has only been getting more extreme with time.

The second point is that there actually is a positive story to tell about immigrants, and it’s a dereliction of duty to not being telling that story. A failure to highlight the benefits of immigration puts immigrants themselves at greater risk of demonization, while also hurting the Democrats politically, so it’s a real hitting-themselves-in-the-face kind of a mistake to not take the issue head on.

The New Republic, in their article, “The Democrats’ Shameful, Foolish Surrender on Immigration” put it this way: Democrats should “point to how immigrants helped economically revitalize a [00:57:00] depressed Springfield, Ohio, and cities across the United States, instead of just ridiculing the pet-eating lie. Don’t let the right ever get away with talking about birthrates without hounding them over how this squares with the prospect of new arrivals. Force right-wing figures to explain how, exactly, the United States would have become a global economic and cultural locus without massive immigration, or how all this contemporary business about revitalizing domestic high-tech manufacturing or keeping domestic food production running could be accomplished without it. Ask voters: Do you like the prospect of Social Security and Medicare remaining solvent? Great! Immigration is the straightest path there.

“Just say it: Immigration is good. We should consider ourselves lucky to have had so much, and we should strive to have more. This psychopathic and—you can say it—white supremacist fixation on punishment and [00:58:00] control of migration is not just a moral stain but a disastrous economic policy. If carried out to its full effect, it would represent one of the greatest acts of national self-immolation in our history.”

In a different article, this one from The Nation, “Kamala Harris Needs to Meet the Moment and Reframe Our Poisonous Immigration Debate”, they lay out the historical precedent for the kind of shake up on messaging the Democrats need right now:

“Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, a presidential contender, mounted a 1924 campaign that decried the race hatred of the 1920s, and welcomed the support of the Blacks, Jews and Catholics who were targeted by the Klan. Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a future presidential contender, delivered her 'Declaration of Conscience' and challenged the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Just two years before he was elected president, [00:59:00] Ronald Reagan, then the country’s most prominent conservative, became the most high-profile foe of a 1978 California initiative that proposed to fire openly gay and lesbian teachers, warning in widely circulated public statements that the measure threatened to infringe ‘on basic rights of privacy and perhaps even constitutional rights.’"

The article continues, “None of those moves were made casually, or easily. In each circumstance, supposed 'leaders' in the two major parties had looked the other way. Political counselors and strategists urged candidates to keep silent in order to preserve their electoral viability. Sometimes there were penalties for doing the right thing. But, more often than not, these acts of courage came to be seen as both morally sound and politically smart.”

SECTION A - DISINFORMATION#

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we’ll continue to dive deeper on 3 topics. Next [01:00:00] up:

SECTION A - DISINFORMATION

Followed by SECTION B - WHITE SUPREMACY

and SECTION C - LATINO ANTI-IMMIGRATION VIEWS

Matt Walsh PAINFULLY Unprepared For Ryan Grim’s Haiti Facts - The Majority Report - Air Date 9-20-24

RYAN GRIM: We're a much bigger country. We don't want a marine invasion and occupation of, The United States that constantly decapitates governments and, and takes, takes the money out of the country.

And it saddles us with, like, debt from a revolution. Right. Although I don't, I don't, we wouldn't want to be like a, basically a colony that the entire West spends 200 years punishing after the Haitian revolution.

MATT WALSH: I, I get that, but I, but I understand that, but also at a certain point. We wouldn't want that, no, yes.

We wouldn't want that, but I would also say that, that, uh, That's not entirely why Haiti's in the position that it's in, I mean, at a certain point. As a country, you have to stand on your own two feet and take care of yourself. And,

RYAN GRIM: uh What point is that? They [01:01:00] elect Aristide and we overthrow Aristide. Then they elect Jovenel Moise.

Jovenel Moise has assassinated a bunch of Pause it, sorry. I

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: hate to Grim's doing such a good job here, but I just want to re insert what I just said about the, we don't have to go back far. We can go back to the Obama administration, Matt Wallace, what do you think about that administration?

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Even Emily, uh, points it out as a conservative.

Yeah,

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: the Clintons! The Clinton Foundation, even, yeah, putting the, uh, Haynes Levi Strauss minimum wage for textile production aside, you still have the, uh, botched response by the Clinton Foundation after the hurricane, or the, uh, hurricane or earthquake in 2010. Like, which was a notoriously, uh, failed too.

Um, which who played a lot in 2016, well, I mean, not as much as we wanted it to, but which I was paying attention to.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, right. Um, and, and also like, you know, Matt Walsh's doesn't even know what he's talking about there. He's completely on the back foot, but, uh, when, when he refers to the Haitian revolution, that's a part of it too.

There it's the racism that conservative, that conservatives reflexively have towards, uh, Towards Haitian people is just [01:02:00] that, but for conservatives that actually know the history, and Matt Walsh clearly isn't one of them, a lot of their resentment towards Haiti is what, what Ryan describes, is the fact that, uh, Haiti successfully had a slave revolt.

Uh, and Haiti has been paying for that with reverse reparations, uh, for centuries, uh, reverse reparations because of the loss of capital from the slave owners in France. That's part of why Haiti is in the situation and that they're, that it is in, in terms of political and economic turmoil and the privatization, disaster capitalists that have come in, aided by, uh, NGOs like the, you know, the Clinton Foundation and other organizations.

And so that's what Ryan is alluding to, but, but, but, but he, Matt Walsh isn't even like a well researched racist here.

RYAN GRIM: He's out of his depth.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah,

RYAN GRIM: what point is that that let's say that they Elect they elect Aristide and we overthrow Aristide then they elect Jovenel Moise Jovenel Moise is assassinated a bunch of bunch of people with [01:03:00] American connections and then we install in 2021 like the United States installed The prime minister that we just ousted.

Like, so we can say, okay, yeah, you got to get over the, you know, 200 years ago, but like we're still doing it,

MATT WALSH: right? Yeah. I mean, and I'm not in favor of, um, I'm very non interventionist in my policy. So I'm not in favor of most of the things that we're doing.

RYAN GRIM: We just made the new government in Haiti in a hotel room in Jamaica.

And then we insisted that whatever government we made in Jamaica had to allow Kenyan police. Kenyan troops to come in under the flag of the UN in order to go to war with, uh, the gangs.

MATT WALSH: Yeah. I mean, I'm not, look, I'm not interested in, if it were up to me, I'm not interested in doing anything in Haiti. Like, let Haiti be Haiti and take care of them.

That's sort of my, my whole point here. Oh! Uh, let them take care of themselves and their own problems. I'm also not saying, That there's like never a scenario where we let someone from Haiti into the country. Uh, but, and [01:04:00] it doesn't have to just be about Haiti, but when you're throwing open the gates and just inviting anyone, uh, in particular, you know, the third world.

I guess your

RYAN GRIM: assumption there was that it is Haitian people that are creating the conditions on Haiti and that if the Haitian people come to Springfield they will recreate the conditions in Haiti in Springfield. Whereas what I'm saying is that it's actually. The U. S. that is, largely.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh wow. Check out Dropsite, check out Ryan's work everywhere, but yeah.

I mean, the United States violently occupied, uh, Haiti, uh I'm

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: so against intervention, I don't even really know about it. Right. I'm against learning about it, being aware of it, as the context that sets, uh, the conversations I'm having.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Into the 20th century, the United States was occupying Haiti. Go on, Brandon, sorry.

BRANDON SUTTON: I'm so I'm so against intervention. I'm not going to intervene in my own stupidity. I'm so against intervention. You guys are taking a neutral position.

MATT BINDER: The, the, the main part of [01:05:00] intervention that he seems to be against though, is the small part where America takes responsibility for the innocent people who are caught up in this and we bring them here so they can live a ostensibly a better life than under the conditions that we put the country of Haiti in.

BRANDON SUTTON: I'm actually surprised he didn't have a better answer to that because this is not the first time Republicans or far right commentators have been confronted by like, Hey, you know, a lot of the countries that you're saying people are coming from, it's because America's like conducting a drug war there or because we did a coup or because we're like exploiting them in all of their natural resources.

They use this against, just to

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: buttress your point quickly, uh, Brandon, they use this against, uh, Biden because of, uh, the Afghan parolee problem, right? Or the Afghan parolee initiative, right?

BRANDON SUTTON: Yeah, I mean, usually the response is just like, who cares who, you know, you're saying that like they're weak, they're weak country, you know, blah, blah, blah.

So it's just weird that he didn't even go that far. He just seemed almost shocked by the fact that this is happening. It's very like shows his ignorance.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I think that ignorance is exactly right. I [01:06:00] think they legit think when people say, well, look, this is what America did, uh, 20 years ago. Five years ago, fifty years ago.

I think they literally think that is like some kind of fallacy.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: No, I think it's whining.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: To historicize. Yeah, it's like this is some sort of woke, uh, hand waving when it's actually just, no, Historically situating the problem that we're trying to fucking address. But

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: the, but the entire, all of conservatism is based on no understanding of history.

I mean, like, I guess this is kind of a, a, a point that we've made many times. It's nothing new, but Once, if you learn history, it's quite clear when patterns emerge. It's myth versus history. Right. It demystifies things like, you know, American exceptionalism, or what capitalism really means in the context of the global south, or

Walz Decries Demonizing Immigrants After Trump & Vance Spread Lies About Haitians in Springfield, OH - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-2-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: On Tuesday night, Governor Walz criticized Trump and Vance’s comments while answering a question from debate moderator Margaret Brennan of CBS.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, [01:07:00] what about our CBS News polling, which does show that a majority of Americans, more than 50%, support mass deportations?

GOV. TIM WALZ: Look, we fix this issue with a bill that is necessary. But the issue on this is, this is what happens when you don’t want to solve it. You demonize it. And we saw this, and Senator Vance — and it surprises me on this — talking about and saying, “I will create stories to bring attention to this.” That vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield. The Republican governor said, “It’s not true. Don’t do it.” There’s consequences for this. There’s consequences.

We could come together. Senator Lankford did it. We could come together and solve this, if we didn’t let Donald Trump continue to make it an issue. And the consequences in Springfield were the governor had to send state law enforcement to escort kindergarteners to school. I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this. But by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point. [01:08:00] And when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings.

SEN. JD VANCE: Now, Governor Walz brought up the community of Springfield, and he’s very worried about the things that I’ve said in Springfield. Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed. You’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed. You have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes. The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border. It is a disgrace, Tim. And I actually think — I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Very interestingly, further on in this debate, JD Vance complained about the fact-checking. Margaret Brennan of CBS said, “Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, [01:09:00] Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status,” she said. Vance spoke up to complain about the fact-check. He said, “Margaret, the rules were that you were not going to fact-check. And since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on,” he protested.

Well, we’re joined right now by Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, which recently used an Ohio state law to bring criminal charges against Trump and Vance over their false claims.

Guerline, welcome back to Democracy Now! As they were making these claims, we interviewed you when you came to New York. Now you’re in Washington, D.C. You’ve met with many public officials. Can you respond to what they said, and particularly this criminal complaint you’ve brought against Trump and Vance in Ohio for endangering the Haitian community?

GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you so much, [01:10:00] Amy.

And the reality is they continue to spread those lies, even after we have brought criminal charges against them. They must be held accountable. What they are doing, as we have seen over the past few weeks, is creating chaos, creating division and really making an environment of fear, not only in Springfield, Ohio, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, in Long Island, New York, in places in California. We cannot allow this to continue, Amy. We have lives at risk. Real people’s lives are at risk. And the Haitian community in Springfield and around the country along with our allies and the people of America are standing up to say, “Enough is enough.”

So, these criminal charges that we have brought against Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance is we need to hold them accountable, make sure that they understand that they are not above the law, and what they are [01:11:00] doing is unacceptable as people who are seeking to be really leading this country forward. This cannot be the case.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And can you also talk about what’s happened, as early as a week ago, or less than a week ago, the continued deportations of Haitians back into Haiti, where now, according to the World Food Programme, something like one in two people, half the population, is suffering severe hunger, not to mention violence?

GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you, Amy. And I want to make it clear that the Haitian Bridge Alliance is a nonpartisan organization. We have lawsuits filed against President Biden for what happened in Del Rio. And we continue to push back against deportation that President Biden and his administration continues today to Haiti, as you just mentioned, as we see that we continue to deal with [01:12:00] extreme political turmoil in Haiti and the famine that is happening right now. And President Biden and his administration continues to deport Haitians, immigrants, to Haiti right now. So, we are calling on President Biden and his administration to stop the deportation, while we are also calling on Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump to be held accountable for the criminal acts that they continue to terrorize a community and the entire country, for that matter of fact.

SECTION B - WHITE SUPREMACY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering SECTION B - WHITE SUPREMACY

Fascism Expert Jason Stanley on Project 2025, Great Replacement Theory, Attacks on Immigrants & Gaza Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-15-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And also you have Trump saying these are too far left people who tried to assassinate him. When I think in both cases, I mean, uh, the mental health, uh, Problems of both men, you know, are, uh, have yet to be fully laid out, but, [01:13:00] uh, they were originally Trump supporters.

And this last one, Ralph, um, voted for President Trump.

JASON STANLEY: Right. Misrepresentations of reality, as we know, are no barrier to, uh, the campaign that the Republicans are, are waging. Uh, now J. D. Vance, I think he should be thought of. Uh, as one of the emerging intellectuals of this authoritarian movement. Uh, initially people said, how could it be fascism when you don't have intellectuals?

Uh, the fascist intellectuals. I think that's what we're starting to see. J. D. Vance, uh, is a Yale man. When I came to Yale soon after he, he left. Uh, everyone spoke glowingly about him. Uh, he is someone that Yale loves. Uh, like Ron DeSantis, like Tom Cotton at Harvard, the, these, these leaders of this movement, uh, come from the very elite institutions that they are supposedly decrying.

Both Vance and his spouse are [01:14:00] Yale graduates. Now, Vance is entirely inconsistent. Hillbilly Elegy is a book about how Poor whites reject meritocracy and the promise of America to wallow in self pity and resentment. And now, uh, Vance is running a campaign about, uh, self pity and resentment, saying to the dominant group, you're being replaced by immigrants, your misery is not your fault, it's the fault of the very institutions that created you.

trained me to become the vice presidential candidate of the United States and connected me to billionaires like Peter Thiel, who are supporting me, who are my mentors. Uh, so J. D. Vance comes from the billionaire world of private equity and hedge funds. So He is being supported by billionaires who are exploiting, who want him to exploit resentment, uh, to elect, uh, uh, an administration [01:15:00] that's going to cut their taxes and eliminate regulation against them.

So, uh, J. D. Vance, I think his internal ideology is, uh, a far right, uh, anti woman ideology that is based around great replacement and natalism, the idea that women should be having large families to replace the true Americans, the real Americans.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And then going after, of course, uh, the childless so called cat ladies.

JASON STANLEY: Absolutely. Because in this ideology, in this kind of, uh, far right fascist ideology that draws in both social conservatives, uh, anti democratic social conservatives, uh, as, uh, the ideal, as well as sort of macho men who, who think men should be men, the sort of musk, uh, who also, uh, has a lot, you know, goes in for, we have to replace our populations.

There's a simple solution to, uh, dealing with declining birth rates in the United States, and it's on the southern border. It's immigration. If that's really what you care about, [01:16:00] is declining U. S. populations, then you're going to open the floodgates to, to immigration. Really J. D. Vance is asking for there to be more immigrants, but because what is meant Uh, non black immigrants, specifically.

Uh, because what is meant are, uh, Christian immigrants. Uh, are, are, uh, well, because, sorry, what is meant are black immigrants and non Christian immigrants as a threat to the nation. Uh, J. D. Vance is, uh, is calling for rigid gender roles, denouncing women who don't have children. And that's the ideology here.

That's the ideology that sweeps in, uh, that sweeps in social conservatives. Uh, they see, uh, women's rights being then diminished along the lines that democracy allows. It's an anti freedom agenda. Women's rights are central to the democratic value of freedom. And attacking women's rights, Is the most central way attacking the freedoms of 50 percent of the population [01:17:00] is the most central way to attack freedom.

Erasing History Yale Prof. Jason Stanley on Why Fascists Attack Education & Critical Inquiry - Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-17-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Election Day is now seven weeks away. On Monday, Republican vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance lashed out at Democrats, saying liberal rhetoric is to blame for Sunday's apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida.

Vance made no mention that the man arrested was actually a former Trump supporter. Brandt spoke on Monday at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Atlanta.

RON DESANTIS: You know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we, no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months.

I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And a Trump ally, Elon Musk, posted a message on social media [01:18:00] platform, his social media platform X, that read, and no one's even trying to assassinate Biden Kamala, along with a thinking face emoji.

Musk deleted the message after widespread criticism. Criticism is now being investigated by the Secret Service. J. D. Vance's remarks for Democrats to tone down their rhetoric came just days after Donald Trump repeatedly used inflammatory language to attack Vice President Kamala Harris during last week's ABC News presidential debate.

DONALD TRUMP: She's destroying this country, and if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success, we'll end up being Venezuela on steroids, because they're destroying the fabric of our country by what they've done. There's never been anything done like this at all. They've destroyed the fabric of our country.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We're joined right now by Jason Stanley, author and professor of philosophy at Yale University, his new book titled [01:19:00] Erasing History. How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. Professor Stanley is the son of Holocaust survivors. This is your second book on fascism. Why are you writing it now?

And the significance of its publication as this election, to say the least, heats up in its last weeks?

JASON STANLEY: Well, I faced a puzzle when writing this book. Why authoritarians always target schools and universities? Uh, so we see that, uh, all over the world. We see that with Victor Orban, who provides a kind of template for U.

S. authoritarianism. He attacked Central European University for gender ideology and leftism and being pro immigration. And so we know about the courts. Uh, the authoritarians targeting the courts, but why do authoritarians always target voting? Uh, that's, that's clear. And schools and universities. [01:20:00] So, uh, so when last year when the anti genocide, anti war protests on campus were happening, I thought about, you know, The international context.

I thought about what happened in India in 2019 when they passed the, uh, the Citizenship Amendment Act, which made Muslims into second class citizens. And there were nonviolent protests on campus denounced as anti Indian. So I Uh, so and violent militarized responses. So this, this tactic of tarring school teachers, tarring university professors as Marxists and communists and ruining the country and replacing this kind of education, uh, replacing black history, replacing LGBTQ perspectives by a kind of grandiosity of white Christian nationalism as we're seeing right now.

Uh, this seemed to me a democratic emergency. Okay.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This is Republican vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance speaking in [01:21:00] 2021 at the National Conservatism Conference. At the time, he was a candidate for the U. S. Senate in Ohio.

RON DESANTIS: I think in this movement of national conservatism, what we need more than inspiration is we need wisdom.

And there was a wisdom in what Richard Nixon said approximately 40, 50 years ago. He said, and I quote, the professors. You are the enemy.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that was J. D. Vance, the professors are the enemy. I also want to quote, um, First Things Magazine, a right wing magazine. It says, University should be places of sober analysis, but at Yale, philosophy professor Jason Stanley and history professor Timothy Snyder published books of political propaganda that described Trump as the second coming of Adolf Hitler.

TV newscasters in tone rants rather than report on [01:22:00] events. And of course, J. D. Vance, your fellow Yale, um, uh,

JASON STANLEY: So, uh, so that's a strangeness about this moment that all these people, the leaders of the movement to attack universities and schools are all Ivy League grads. Ron DeSantis is a Yale and Harvard grad.

Ted Cruz is a Princeton and Harvard grad. Uh, uh, J. D. Vance is a Yale law school. Grad Tom Cotton is Harvard, Harvard, at least Stephanie is Harvard. So what's going on? That's a mystery. These guys are sending their kids to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. They're not sending their kids to Hillsdale College. It's Hillsdale College for the rest of us and Harvard, Yale and Princeton for their kids.

So they're attacking the institutions, the universities. Because the universities provide critical inquiry into the kind of myths that's required for the, for these kinds of politics. Uh, this kind of politics, uh, elevates the dominant group, in the case of the United States, [01:23:00] white Christian men. Uh, it diminishes, uh, women, the agency of women by, it represents history as the exploits, uh, in the United States of white Christian men.

Like in India, uh, history is represented as the exploits of Hindus. In Israel, it's represented as the exploits of Jewish nationalists. Who founded the state. Uh, this kind of erasure of history, uh, justifies it doesn't just justify wars and genocide. If you look at, uh, at Russia, a case I look at, uh, extensively in the book as well as Israel, uh, in Russia, the erasure of Ukraine as an independent place, the complete erasure of Ukrainian history justifies Vladimir Putin's, uh, war on Ukraine because it says it is sort of a fake identity, a fake.

Country. Uh, it represents all Russian incursions as justified by supporting independence movements. Israel has erased the existence of the Palestinian people. It has erased the history, [01:24:00] uh, making the desert. Jews made the desert bloom, uh, this kind of thing represent a racist Palestinians from the narrative of the country and of, of the area.

And, and paves the way for genocide. Uh, this kind of erasing history paves the way for ethnic, racial, and religious nationalism, which is the core of the message we're hearing from MAGA Republicans today. Uh, when you represent, when you erase black history, when you erase LGBTQ perspectives, when you erase social history of social movements.

Then you represent history as just the exploits of great white men. You erase social movements, you make citizens feel like they have no agency, and so it's an anti democratic education. And then you justify Great Replacement Theory, which is their core message, that the greatness of America comes from the exploits of great white men, and so we need to protect that identity.

Kamala Harris blasts Donald Trump for playing political games with border policy - Alex Wagner Tonight - Air Date 9-27-24

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: [01:25:00] Elon Musk is hiring all across the country. There are job openings in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.

A few other places too, but mainly those swing states. Because the job is to canvas door to door for Donald Trump. Let me clarify. Technically it isn't Elon Musk himself who is hiring here. It's the super PAC Mr. Musk created and the one he funds and it's called the America PAC. And technically, this PAC is not canvassing for Donald Trump, they're just canvassing door to door to convince people to vote for Donald Trump on their own accord.

If those sound like meaningless technicalities, that is because they are. When you remove the layers of legal and optical separation that a super PAC magically provides, the reality here is that Elon Musk, through his super PAC, is spending [01:26:00] millions of dollars to do the Trump campaign's door knocking.

And while the Trump campaign and the RNC both claim that they are still doing some of that work themselves, we have seen numerous reports of Republicans at the state level saying there are not many signs of a Trump ground game that they can see. That is, no signs other than the door knockers hired by Elon Musk's super PAC, which is frankly surreal.

Get out, the vote efforts have traditionally been the bread and butter of political campaigns. They're basically half the reason you need a campaign staff to begin with. Outsourcing that work, having the richest man in the world and his super PAC do that work for you and pick up the tab, well, that is an unprecedented contribution to a political campaign.

And it may not even be the biggest contribution Elon Musk is making to Donald Trump right now. Today, the New York Times published an analysis of five days of [01:27:00] Elon Musk's posts on his website X. In those five days, Musk posted 171 times, and almost a third of those posts Were false, misleading, or missing vital context.

For instance, the Times found that on one of the five days, a rumor circulated online claiming that a bomb had been found near a Trump rally in New York. That rumor was quickly debunked. But Elon Musk pushed that rumor anyway, sharing it with his nearly 200 million followers. Now, the thing about all of these falsehoods that Elon Musk was pushing, the secret sauce that makes what he is doing here so nefarious, is that the falsehoods he is spreading are not just factually incorrect, they are also nakedly political.

He published misleading posts claiming that Democrats are making memes illegal, that Democrats are trying to open the border to gain votes from illegal [01:28:00] immigrants. In one post, Musk falsely implied that the Springfield, Ohio city manager had received reports of Haitian immigrants eating pets, when in reality, the city manager had said there were no credible reports.

Musk is using one of the biggest bully pulpits in the world, one that he just bought for himself as the world's richest man, to push misinformation unchecked. And that misinformation just so happens to bolster the completely twisted worldview of Donald Trump, whose politics do not seem based in reality.

Now, you could ask, what is the difference between what Elon Musk is doing here and the spin on Fox News or Newsmax or OANN or any of the other conservative information silos? And the answer is not much. But that's the problem. More and more of our country's information ecosystem has been transformed into a machine that takes what Donald Trump says [01:29:00] and pushes it out as the truth.

And that means that Donald Trump can get away with blatant lies.

DONALD TRUMP: Make up some lies, like she said about the border bill that Trump stopped. Let me tell you, number one, I didn't stop it.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: That was Donald Trump today in Michigan, telling a rally that he did not stop the bipartisan immigration bill that was drafted earlier this year.

Now that may sound like a small detail, but because polls show immigration is a top issue for voters this year, and because Trump is trying to pin the current status of our country's immigration system on Vice President Harris, Whether or not Trump killed something that would have addressed immigration in a big way is a key detail here.

And the truth is, he did. He did kill it. But don't just take my word for it.

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Everybody who comes on this floor and says our border's broken, we should do something about it, you're absolutely [01:30:00] right. Um, and, Unfortunately, we didn't get there. President Trump opposed a Senate bill. We couldn't find a better way

REPORTER: forward.

President Trump said don't fix anything during the presidential election. It's a single biggest issue during the election. Don't resolve this.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Just a couple of months ago, Republican senators were loud and proud about the fact that it was Donald Trump who killed that bipartisan immigration bill. And you know who else is loud and proud about it?

Donald Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: There is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. It's not going to happen. I noticed that, and I'll fight it all the way. I noticed a lot of the senators, a lot of the senators are trying to say respectfully they're blaming it on me. I said, that's okay.

Please blame it on me. Please.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Blame it on me, please. But of course, now that that particular detail is complicating Trump's [01:31:00] presidential campaign, he is rewriting history in front of our eyes. And to a huge swath of the country, he will probably get away with it. Meanwhile, back on Earth One, in reality, today, Vice President Harris made a trip to Douglas, Arizona, to the U.

S. Mexico border. Where she did her best to tell the truth about Donald Trump.

KAMALA HARRIS: It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol Union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time right now for our country.

But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, stop the bill. Because you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.[01:32:00]

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Which version of this story will more of the American public believe? Harris version or Trump's?

Erasing History Yale Prof. Jason Stanley on Why Fascists Attack Education & Critical Inquiry Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-17-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Jason Stanley, you write in your book, Erasing History, um, The most visible current manifestation of the black American tradition of reclaiming history is Nicole Hannah Jones 1619 Project. She's, of course, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The New York Times Magazine, creator of the landmark 1619 Project, which reframes U.

S. history by marking the year 1619, when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as the country's foundational date. This is then President. Donald Trump denouncing the project at a White House conference on American history in September 2020.

DONALD TRUMP: Critical race [01:33:00] theory, the 1619 project and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that if not removed will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.

We'll destroy our country.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Stanley, your response?

JASON STANLEY: This is an erasure of black history. This is an erasure of black perspectives. What we need to, to, to improve our democracy is we need knowledge of who has been denied equality and why. We need to know, democracy is a system all play a role in the formation of the policies that govern us, the laws that govern us without black perspectives, without the black perspective on history.

We don't know. We don't understand their voices. We can't. We can't. With the grounds for eliminating and responding to [01:34:00] stereotypes and prejudice have been robbed from us. Without critical race theory, the study of structures that maintain racial hierarchy, the study of say, uh, mortgage redlining. Uh, you won't, uh, children won't understand why there are poor black neighborhoods and wealthy white neighborhoods in their cities protected by military police.

Black children will be led to believe the stereotypes about themselves and, ironically, uh, feel shame about their own identity. These divisive concept laws that are being passed. All over the country that invite students at public universities and students at public schools to report on their own teachers and professors.

These are purportedly justified as students, uh, we shouldn't have teaching that makes students feel shame about their race. Well, when you don't allow teachers Professors and teachers to teach black history, you're making black students feel ashamed about their race. When you don't allow [01:35:00] LGBT perspectives, when you declare them as obscene and pornographic, you do you rep, or you make LGBT families feel ashamed about their identity.

People say, okay, it's not really banning because you can look at, uh, at the web, but what's taught in schools, the perspectives that are taught in schools affect us through our whole lives. They represent an authority, a state authority, and we're being told by MAGA Republicans that that perspective is the perspective of Christian, white, and black.

SECTION C - LATINO ANTI-IMMIGRATION VIEWS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: and finally, SECTION C - LATINO ANTI-IMMIGRATION VIEWS

Kamala Harris blasts Donald Trump for playing political games with border policy Part 2 - Alex Wagner Tonight - Air Date 9-27-24

KAMALA HARRIS: In the four years that Donald Trump was president, he did nothing. For to fix our broken immigration system. He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage of border agents. And what did he do instead? Well, let's talk about [01:36:00] that. He separated families. He ripped toddlers out of their mother's arms.

Put children in cages and tried to end protections for dreamers. He made the challenges at the border worse.

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Vice President Kamala Harris was in Douglas, Arizona this evening, marking her first visit to the U. S. Mexico border since she became the Democratic presidential nominee. Arizona, where 33 percent of the population is Latino, is the only battleground state facing daily migrant crossings.

Since President Biden's executive order in June restricting asylum at the border, those numbers have seen a sharp decline. In July and August, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector saw less than 12, 000 encounters per month, which is down from 80, 000 encounters in December of last year. But recent polling shows that former President Donald Trump still holds an edge on immigration in Arizona, which is a key issue among his supporters.

It is also a [01:37:00] top issue among Latino voters overall, who rank it among the most important concerns this election cycle. But when it comes to who they will vote for at the ballot box, registered Latino voters still favor Harris over Trump 57 to 39 percent. Joining me now is Paola Ramos, MSNBC contributor and the author of defectors, the rise of Latino far right and what it means for America, which is available now, wherever books are sold.

First of all, congratulations on putting this out like literally at exactly the right time. No, you're super genius is what you are. And it's deeply reported. Super relevant and essential read for right now. Um, I, I thought about it actually while I was watching Harris at the border. And then first of all, I just wonder what you thought of her remarks were, it was a combination of, you know, here's, here's some sort of detailed policy, how am I going to get tough?

Um. But with a reiteration that we have to have a humane policy, right?

PAOLA RAMOS: I'll give you two answers. No, the one is the surface answer, which is I thought it was effective. I thought it was balanced. She [01:38:00] did something that's very hard, which is a combination of toughness and softness. And the reason why I say it's the surface answer is because we're not the average listeners.

Yeah. The average listeners are the folks that you were interviewing in Michigan. No. And I say this because. The first question in an American voter's mind right now, when you're thinking about immigration in an electorate that has fundamentally shifted to the right on this issue that is fundamentally threatened by this idea of a border crisis, when you think about immigration, there's one question that comes to mind, and that is who is tougher at the border.

That's it. Who's tougher? And so I think within that context, Within a context that is so politicized and so toxic, that is the only thing that Donald Trump has in this moment, the only thing. And so the idea that you can out Trump Trump at the border, you know, because he's infused so much fear mongering and disinformation, it is so hard.

So, yes, I understand what the Vice President was doing to crystallize this image of someone that's tough. of someone that can take on the cartels, of someone that will pass the [01:39:00] border bill. But then I think about the potential backlash of that image, and I'm thinking about some Latino voters that were so instrumental in 2020, precisely because of the way that Biden could humanize immigrants.

And maybe they're thinking like, why don't you lead with that message? Why don't you flip the script?

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Can we talk a little bit, because I think most people don't understand how far the right, some in the Latino community have gone on the issue of immigration. And you, you know, this. You know what's happening here better than almost anybody else.

Can you talk about how these Latino voters are thinking about immigration and why they lust for the tough hand on, on the border wall?

PAOLA RAMOS: So the first time, Clare, because people come at me, Kamala will, will win the Latino vote. Right? And that's clear in the overall numbers. And that's clear. Okay. Um, but then, okay.

So even think about this idea, send them back. Now, there is a group, a small but growing group of Latinos that when you say send them back. They do not see themselves reflected in that them, no, they see themselves reflected as the other. And then you make sense of, of the [01:40:00] numbers that you're seeing out there right now.

The Latino electorate is so different from our parents generation, no? And it is an electorate where third generation Latinos are the fastest growing segment. It is an electorate that is overwhelmingly young. The majority are U. S. born under the age of 50. And most people speak in English. And so Trumpism, is sort of betting on this idea that you can invoke a certain type of racial and ethnic grievance.

No, they're betting on this idea that within that segment of Latinos, within that picture, Um, they have become so Americanized, you know, and so assimilated that they too can sort of buy into the nativism and the anti immigrant rhetoric, and even perhaps with more force. Why? Because there is a fear among some Latinas that we will always be otherized, you know, and we will always be these perpetual foreigners.

And when you put all of that together, infused with that fear mongering, you know, it's

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT: Trumpism is powerful. It's an intoxicant for that group of people. I mean, and I think you make a really important point, which is that she will overwhelmingly win the Latino vote. But within that vote, there is a [01:41:00] growing subsection that's really critical and explains a lot of Trump's growth among Hispanic Americans.

Same, you know, the, that phenomenon exists in, in other racial subgroups as well. I just, I guess I wonder, When you talk about authoritarianism that exists in some Latin American countries and the authoritarianism that Donald Trump presents in terms of his vision for the country, does that also have to do with the sort of interest in the right wing politics over immigration?

PAOLA RAMOS: It's so complicated because I think, so Democrats typically are betting on this idea that if you cast Donald Trump as a strong man, you know, because of so many Latinos really complicated history with authoritarianism, that that in and of itself will sort of drive some to towards Democrats. But here's the thing.

Yes, it works, but Latinos have a very complicated relationship with strongman rule. In fact, this idea is pretty present, you know, that at times, because history has repeated itself in Latin America, that at times when democracy feels messy, um, the appeal of strongman is perhaps required, no? And [01:42:00] let's also remember that the United States government sort of conditioned that.

among the Latin American population, right? In the 20th century during the Cold War, um, in the name of sort of ridding the West of communism, the United States government supported strongman rule and military juntas in places like Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua. And so considering the fact that so many migrants and asylum seekers come to this country with those political traumas, again, when you're facing something that because mis and disinformation tells you that things are feeling weird, Trumpism, again, has an appeal.

Paola Ramos Explains the Rise of the Latino Far Right and Growing Anti-Immigrant Sentiments Part 2 - LeBatardShow - Air Date 9-26-24

DAN LEBETARD - HOST, LEBETARD PODCAST: Do you have a plausible make sense explanation for how Hispanics can be against immigration?

PAOLA RAMOS: Um, the, the only explanation I have is that anti immigrant sentiment and xenophobia, no one's immune to that. No, just because [01:43:00] we're sort of descendants of immigrants and just because we're Latinos, that in no way makes us sort of immune to, uh, to also having, like, carrying these anti immigrant sentiments.

No, the sort of fear and the, what we're hearing from someone like Donald Trump, that every single day tries to create this idea that we're invaded, no, that immigrants are bad people, that immigrants are out there eating pets and dogs, like, what? I understand why people would be scared if that's what you hear every single day.

And so I think our job is to sort of ground people in the facts, you know, get people to understand that even statistically, like, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U. S. born natives. And so I understand where their fear comes, particularly when you have a Republican candidate that uses that megaphone Every single day.

And why is he doing that, Dan? Well, that's exactly how he won the 2016 election. No, he made build the wall, um, his central message, and that's how he won. In 2020, he toned it down, and now here we are in 2024, where he's trying to make that the centerpiece of his [01:44:00] campaign because he knows that it works.

DAN LEBETARD - HOST, LEBETARD PODCAST: What was your initial reaction, immediate visceral reaction, to the news that Donald Trump was talking about putting serial numbers on immigrants in something that felt a bit holocaust y?

PAOLA RAMOS: It was, I mean, it was that. It's even surreal that we're, like, it is surreal that we're in 2024 and we're literally talking about this.

No, and what's even more surreal is the idea that over 50 percent of Americans could actually fathom, I'm not even talking about being a Republican or a Democrat, But that over 50 percent of Americans could even fathom bringing this country back to those dark days now. And so I think part of the problem is, and when we're talking about these things and serial numbers and mass deportations and like immigrants in this way, like it's just become this talking point and we hear it on TV, but people have to be grounded in what this means.

Now, what would it mean to deport over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country? In Donald Trump's own words, like, it can turn bloody. And more than anything, Dan, and I think this is important, [01:45:00] we're at a point where even Donald Trump doesn't really know where, where he's drawing the line, right?

It used to be that he was just targeting undocumented immigrants, and now what we heard after his comments about Haitian migrants, it's like, Haitian immigrants are legal immigrants right now. They are protected under temporary protected status. And so where is he drawing the line? If you're a legal immigrant, would you also be deported?

If you are the sort of U. S. born child of immigrant parents, are you also going to be deported? So I think that's, that's sort of the scary part of all of this.

Trump's rhetoric on immigrants gets even darker Part 2 - The ReidOut - Air Date 9-27-24

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And we begin tonight with just 39 days to go until election day with early and absentee voting already underway in some states. And while Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are barnstorming the country talking about what they call an opportunity economy and making things more affordable for Americans, including housing food and starting a business, Donald Trump has forced another issue into the center of the campaign with a lot of help from right wing media, including Fox, [01:46:00] his running mates admitted lies, the internet and social media and conspiracy theories cooked up by literal white supremacists.

That issue of course is immigration. Donald Trump knows he can't win the election based on the crappy job he did as president or his frankly crazy ideas for another administration like spiking the cost of everything we buy through tariffs. So instead he's going with fear of immigrants. Ironically, immigration is how modern America was built, right?

Both during and after slavery, someone had to replace all that free labor and immigrants fit the bill. Most of us here today, unless you are indigenous American, come from a family of immigrants. And yet there's always been resistance by the old immigrants. To the new people, there was the no nothing party of the 1850s, the America first Nazi curious movement in the 1930s.

And now we have Donald Trump who has decided to make fear mongering about immigration, the center of his entire campaign. With [01:47:00] fascistic rhetoric, like promising the largest mass deportation operation in history and promising it would be a bloody story, spreading racist lies about immigrants eating people's pets, and even talking about giving immigrants serial numbers, Nazi style.

At this point, his entire plan is trying to scare people into voting for him, despite two of his three wives being immigrants. And just to remind you, as we talk about this. Border crossings are actually down to the lowest levels in four years. Violent crimes also way down across the country and everything you hear on right wing media to suggest otherwise is a lie.

There is no migrant crime wave. Immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the US. They also don't eat pets, but the facts don't matter to Trump. Instead, he just keeps ramping up the rhetoric more and more every day. Here's what he said today at what was supposed to be a speech about the economy in Michigan.[01:48:00]

DONALD TRUMP: These are killers. These are people at the highest level of killing that cut your throat and they won't even think about it. The next morning, a lot of gang members, they take their gangs off the street. Like in Caracas, Venezuela, the criminals have all been brought to the United States. She let our American sons and daughters be raped and murdered at the hands of vicious monsters.

She let American communities be conquered. They're conquering your communities. We have to get them the hell out of our country because they've ruined, I mean, they're ruining the fabric. Okay.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And then on the other side of this adjudicated sexual assaulter slash rapist and 34 count felon on the other side of that ironic dude, you have vice president Kamala Harris, the daughter of two immigrants.

Right now she's in the swing state of Arizona, visiting the Southern border for the first time since she became the democratic nominee. Harris met with border patrol [01:49:00] agents and will receive a briefing on efforts to To curb the flow of fentanyl, you know, presidential stuff. Now compare that to Donald Trump's super awkward meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier today.

Later this hour, the VP will also speak on immigration, where she'll likely highlight her record prosecuting transnational gangs and drug traffickers as California Attorney General. She's also expected to go after Trump for killing the bipartisan border deal earlier this year, just because he wanted to run on the issue.

But despite all of this, recent polling has shown a majority of voters say they trust Trump more when it comes to dealing with the border. A man who doesn't know the difference between political asylum and an insane asylum, and whose plan to deport every immigrant, or anyone who just looks like an immigrant, would send our economy into a free fall, because fear, whether real or irrational, can be an effective political tactic.

The question now for America is, have we gotten to the point [01:50:00] where we would destroy economy? And walk willingly into a Hitlerian dictatorship because of the fear Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are perpetuating solely for their own political benefit. Joining me now is Olivia Troy, a member of Republicans for Harris, who previously served as the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence.

And Ray Suarez, host of the podcast On Shifting Ground, an author of We Are Home, Becoming American in the 21st century, an oral history, an apt book, uh, Ray Suarez. I, I am going to start with you because this is the irony of all of this is that this is a country that wouldn't exist in its present form without immigrants.

It certainly wouldn't without slavery, but set aside slavery. That's not immigration. After that, when the slaves were free. They still needed workers. So they went all around the world and they attracted people here literally to work because workers are what built the economy and what built the country.

And [01:51:00] yet each new group of immigrants says, Oh, we don't want those new people. Oh gosh, we don't want them. You're even seeing that, uh, Mr. Suarez among some Latinos who also want to shut the border and kick people out and even mass deport them. Why is that?

RAY SUAREZ: But you know, critically, Joy, part of this story is that the first century plus of immigration was almost solely from Europe.

And then as America law, American law changed in the 20th century, people started to come here from more places in the world. So that created A bifurcated, stratified immigrant population in this country, where most of the new people are non white, and most of the people with pictures of their grandparents and great grandparents, sepia toned photographs, lovingly kept on mantelpieces, those people are almost exclusively European.

And that sets up a difficult social change for us [01:52:00] now as the new folks, nine out of the 10 sending countries of people born in another place in the world are sending non white immigrants to the United States. That's a really important part of understanding the unease we're having about this right now.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah. And I mean, Olivia, during the Trump administration, when you were working in the administration, I mean, Jeff Sessions, when he was attorney general, he is an open supporter of the 1927, I believe immigration act, which essentially was to Mr. Suarez's point, the goal of it was to shut down immigration from everywhere.

But Europe was to say, we don't even want, Southern Europeans. They didn't even want Italians. They certainly didn't want Asians. They certainly didn't want Africans, North Africans, et cetera. The idea was to whiten immigration. And of course it was Reagan who did the opposite. Three million people given open amnesty by Ronald Reagan.

And those people were largely non white. They were largely Mexican migrants. So, so how do you square a party where Ronald Reagan did amnesty or George Herbert [01:53:00] Walker Bush was very open about saying, we welcome immigration. We want immigrants. And where George W. Bush said the same and even made positive noises about Muslim and Arab immigration to this.

OLIVIA TROY: Well, I think the fact of the matter is that that's. Republican party of the past is gone, Joy. I mean, that's the bottom line. Um, what it is today is a complete fear mongering, anti immigrant sentiment. And, you know, you mentioned Jeff Sessions. I've brought back a lot of memories of the immigration meetings I was in.

I spent all four years of the Trump administration working the immigration portfolio when we could spend hours talking about the things that I witnessed and the things that were said. And it wasn't Jeff Sessions. I'll be very clear. I could just remember Stephen Miller. Was a big proponent of all these things.

And so when I hear actually Donald Trump speaking the way he is this week, the way he has in the past couple of weeks, he actually sounds like Stephen Miller did in actual immigrant immigration policy meetings at the very highest levels. I'm talking about cabinet meetings, Joy. Where traditionally [01:54:00] you would not hear this type of language being spoken, but this is how he would speak.

He would talk in this manner and he would engage fear because that's the only thing he had. Right. And then he would push these extreme policies. And so I think in the contrast here, when we're looking at this and the Republican party of today under Donald Trump, which breaks my heart. Right. As a lifelong Republican and as a daughter of a Mexican immigrant who believed in the Republican Party in the past, watching what is happening here is so just detrimental to who we are as a country.

And it's also dangerous as we're seeing with all the threats that we're seeing throughout the country when they push these messages 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 [email protected]

The additional sections of the show included clips from

The Majority Report

Democracy Now!,

Alex Wagner Tonight,

The [01:55:00] LeBetard Podcast,

and The ReidOut

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, 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 those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships

You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts app.

You’ll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of [01:56:00] 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 members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.

1 reaction Share

#1660 Criminalizing Pregnancy: The high cost in health, freedom, and even lives of the campaign to keep people pregnant (Transcript)

Posted by · October 04, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 10/4/2024