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Premium: The Age Of Radical Islamic Pronouns Is Upon Us · Blocked and Reported

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, you're listening to a preview of a premium episode of Blocked and Reported.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was an election, and we're going to talk about that,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: a bunch of different angles, some of it related to online bullshit,
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: some of it related to the future of these parties, will the Dems fuck it up,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: when will they fuck it up, all that and more.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear the whole thing, go to blockedreported.org and become a premium subscriber.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Either way, hope you enjoy the preview.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesse, I can see from your background there that you are in a hotel. Where are you?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: What happened? Why are you in a hotel?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's just I've redone my bedroom.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it looks like.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like the lighting.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am in beautiful Center City, Philadelphia, which, by the way, I don't want to be that guy.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty rough. Pretty rough here in Center City.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it near Kensington? That's the only...
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I know West Philadelphia is like the gay area,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: but there's also the gayberhood.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean by rough.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's just gays everywhere.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's just like it's rough in that way certain American downtowns have gotten rough.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say like a little rougher.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's some fellows about who are troubled.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I am here.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember free speech?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do we still have free speech this morning?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not as of last night.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Free speech was canceled.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here for the fire conference, which I'm excited for.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, I had my show with Jeff Maurer at the Village Underground.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had a show last night in Philly.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you to everyone who came out.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, can I tell you an inconvenient New York City?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be brief.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff and I got on stage in New York.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: We wanted to do a little bit of New York banter just to fodder for the slop hogs.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: People love it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in a city and you mention the city, they're like, oh my God, that's where we are.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: We could not come up with that. We skipped it because we were on a tight timeline,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: couldn't figure out what to say about New York.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right after the show, between the show and the after party with Ben Dreyfuss,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Megan McArdle, Josh Barrow, I was disappointed that Ben Dreyfuss was not
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: on anything. What's the point of Ben Dreyfuss?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: No offense, Ben.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: I went to get a couple slices of pizza at a place called Joe's, hadn't had dinner.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: While I'm in Joe's, two different patrons at Joe's,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: which is a famous New York pizza place,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: complain there's a homeless guy outside Joe's and every time they walk out,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: he spits on their pizza.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: On the pizza?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Two different people brought their pizza back in and were like,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: That homeless guy spat on my pizza.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's good aim.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is good aim. I take a laissez-faire approach to criminal justice.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you live in New York, people are going to yell at you, threaten you,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: sort of stumble across the street.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: If someone went after my pizza, death penalty, I say.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally. Absolutely.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So did they get a refund?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless the homeless guy was employed by Joe's, was it Joe? No.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's funny that you say that because the second time there was a complaint,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: the guy behind the counter went out to the homeless guy
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: and I was like sitting there chowing down.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, ooh, there's gonna be a confrontation.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: But he brought the homeless guy a 20 ounce bottle of Coke, wordlessly gave it to him.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that was it. The homeless guy wandered away.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the homeless guy sets up a system where he systematically spits on every slice
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: of pizza, I presume every night until he gets his Coke.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually beautiful.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is capitalism at work. Extortion.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's the ecosystem of the street in New York.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, thank you to everyone who came out. It was really fun.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: We got to watch the midterm election results.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Katie, we're going to get into this, but how are you feeling about the midterms?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just do a costume change right here.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting something out of my closet, Jesse.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's gonna happen?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna need you to narrate this because it's audio.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Katie is going off screen.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ta-da!
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: She put her pussy hat back on.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: It had been gathering dust in the corner.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Got the pussy hat out of storage! We're back, baby. Transphobic pussy hat.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Whose pussy hat was that?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think this was my pussy hat?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: This was my mom's pussy hat.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did not have a pussy hat.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Your mom has a very big hat.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember her having a head that day.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's an oversized pussy hat.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's for the big pussies.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny that you had a pussy hat back on to dawn.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the pussy hats are back.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are now...
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just when I thought woke one was crazy and then I guess we've skipped straight to woke two.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we after the show in Philly with Jeff Mauer, we finished the show.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: We started our election watch party at nine and it was like basically yesterday.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Over by then, it was clear it was going to be a historic election.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Republicans got wiped out everywhere.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a real there are no known survivor situation.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: As of when we're recording this,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: it looks like the carnage might trickle all the way down to Mississippi.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which nobody thought.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: A guy named Scott Colom we'll talk a little bit more about.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nate Silver had him as a 4 % chance of beating Cindy Hyde -Smith.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that and Alaska are the two outstanding Senate races.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Alaska's looking tight but also Mary Peltola.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: She has a 700 -ish vote lead over the real Dan Sullivan not to be confused
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: with the fake Dan Sullivan.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a fan of her because I was under the impression That we couldn't say Eskimo.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did you, were you also in that impression?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I haven't said the E word in decades.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know in some communities it's considered the Eastler.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did Peltola say the Eastler?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she went on Tim Miller's podcast and he said-
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just said that, nothing else.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: He asked her basically like, what term are we allowed to use?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Eskimo, what are you talking about?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked Jana, I was like, Jana, this Inuit bigot used the Eastler.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Jana was like, what are you talking about?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone in Alaska- Says Eskimo.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not taboo there.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like extremely taboo.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was under the impression down here in the lower 48 that Eskimo was out.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is one of those ones because we've covered a couple stories
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: where that like caused a major online blow up.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think to people, I think the dropout TV.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think among most people it's a huge thing.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: But so you like her because she used a slur.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's like you're a single issue voter and that issue is slurs.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, I also like that she shoved one of her staffers.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's pretty great.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: It turns out the fake Dan Sullivan thing didn't work, which...
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it might have worked if she's... How many votes did he have?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so I had checked that and then I forgot.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it is within the margin of fake Dan Sullivan error,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: but they have ranked choice voting, which apparently...
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But also maybe some people just wanted fake Dan Sullivan.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I heard him on the Daily.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: He sounded like a good candidate.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: The FBI visited people who gave money to him,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: and I think the Times tracked down the people who visited, who the FBI visited,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: and they were like, no, I'm actually a supporter of Daniel L. Sullivan.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so very good night for the Democrats, but Jesse, I'm not good at math.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my pussy hat on.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: If those two win, so Mississippi and Alaska, would that be 56 Democratic senators?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that would be 56 on top of what's now a really big House majority.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mind-melting result.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just on the Senate side, most forecasters predicted Dems would take back the Senate
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: with like You know, 52 or 53 seats.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they already have 54 with two more very live pickup opportunities.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I after late last night, like when I was back at my hotel,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: that's when it was like, wait, Mississippi,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: had you heard of this Scott Cologne guy beforehand?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I barely heard of Mississippi.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: When people started talking about Mississippi, I was like, what is that?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is that like the pie?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Silver had him at 4%. And there's a lot I want to talk about.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to start with this because there was a really interesting episode in this race.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Started with his opponent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, responding to a question about the price of beef.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So like a literal meat and potatoes issue.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: This was on a new show.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Her response was that Mississippians should seek out other forms of protein.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Really? Yeah. So are we talking insects, tofu?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all know you can eat crickets, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Things get so bad in the GOP, they become the party of insect protein.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: They encourage us to start eating lab-grown hamburgers.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So Cologne ended up turning this into a pretty genius 30-second ad.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So let's watch that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing you'll hear is Hyde-Smith saying the thing about the protein
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: and then cuts to various Mississippians.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take a listen.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Pick another protein?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Shit, I'd rather pick another senator instead.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Pick another protein?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: She done lost her damn mind.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'd rather pick another senator.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Pick another protein?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: What the?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Pick another senator instead.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's pretty good.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And man, this is just another data point for me on this bizarre, bizarro party switching.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like in, where is it, Kentucky,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: where they have the Democrat who won was a mega pastor and the Republican incumbent
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: who lost was a doctor.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't how it's supposed to go.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: She, get another protein.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So then what's remarkable is that she then doubled down.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: She went back on the news and doubled down.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: So just watch, let's embed this too.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is just her talking to a newscaster on the local news show.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: You said that there was other proteins to choose from,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: and that was a small part of your answer to your question there.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to rephrase the question here.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have an extensive background in agriculture and in food processing.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: What can be done in the Senate and federal level to bring down some of our food prices?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because food prices continue to go high.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: We all eat, and it's tough.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the comparison there is the two things that I hear the most about throughout Mississippi.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Gas prices and food prices.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Gas is one item.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Both of you had gas in your car to come to work today.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: You can't get the water hose and fill up that tank.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: You can't get peanut oil and fill up that tank.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: Gasoline, unless you want to ride the bicycle, that's your only option.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: The other is the food prices and the increase there. Just say it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: But thank goodness, when mothers want to feed their families,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: when you go out shopping, their proteins, you want to feed meat,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: There are some cheaper prices, and that's what that statement was about,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: because there's nothing to replace that gasoline unless you want to ride a bicycle.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: And the crazy thing is the Democrats
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: in New York are wanting to have state-owned grocery stores?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Are you kidding me?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: What a bad, bad plan that they're going to order what they want you to buy and control that.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: We don't need state-owned grocery stores.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: We need for the free market to work as the free market.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You actually can run your car on vegetable oil. Can you? Oh, yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had friends in college who would get,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: go to like fucking McDonald's and get Get peanut oil,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: use peanut oil and then use it to run their cars.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: The car smelled like french fries.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good thing, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, until rats start eating or beating your vehicle.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Rats do like French fries.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I thought what struck me about this was like it's such a nice microcosm
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: of everything because she's asked a pretty simple question
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: about the most basic issue imaginable.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Food costs too much.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: What are you going to do about it? She can't. She can't answer it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: She ends up talking about Zoran Mamdani and the dumb state run grocery store,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: which like what Mississippian in their in their right mind is going
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: to be like fooled by that misdirection, you know?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I mean, clearly this message did not resonate.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: No. And so this was that was posted.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan Grimm posted that October 25th.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Scott Cologne might really beat this lady in Mississippi.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: So to his credit, like the it's still very close numerically,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: but the Polly Market and Kalshi, they think it's over that she's going to win.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Last Cologne thing I want to watch.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We just got paid $50,000 when you mentioned Polly Market and Kalshi, right?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And I should reiterate Polly Market and Kalshi, Polly Market and Kalshi,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Polly Market and Kalshi.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Last Colum thing I want to watch.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, read this tweet introducing this video.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right. This is Keith Edwards.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure who he is.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some guy. Some guy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Scott Colum.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Colum or Colum?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's Colum.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Scott Colin Colum.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is Poise the Impossible's flip Mississippi blue?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be the first black U.S. senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when he does, it will be because of conversations like this,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: going to MAGA rallies and talking to voters in line.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Let's embed this.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: What do you expect at the rally?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've never been to a Trump rally. I didn't either. Oh, okay.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask you.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Where are you from? I'm from Columbus. How you doing, sir?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Can I introduce myself?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Bill Good to meet you for your service. Thank you. Absolutely.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: What matters to you as a veteran?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: EP Let's see, Second Amendment rights.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Second Amendment, I'm big on that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of iffy only AI.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: From Mississippi to it say... Indiana!
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're from Indiana?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Let me ask y 'all what matters to y 'alls in Poland.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: What are your top issues? Gas prices.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Gas prices, how do you feel about the war and Iran?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Get out of it. Get out there.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Pull out, we don't need to be there, it's not our problem.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Let me add you, what do you think about the terrorists? Are you a fan or not?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know about flight cameras?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a fan of them because I worry about privacy.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Iffy on the AI?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Iffy. Dude, We can't do that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the Dems got into this mess in the first place is being condescending.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can do it. It's amazing watching this guy walk around.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's a very talented politician.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But just having this smorgasbord of options available where he can talk
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: about so many things that voters know Trump did wrong.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's just it's incredible.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: To me, this really just like, look, a Mississippi Democratic senator,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: and it's crazy we can even use that phrase, maybe, in 2026,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: is going to have to talk different from a California senator.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the way it is.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this, like, there's no universe in which Cologne If he is elected,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: going to be like, for my first act, I want to talk about how many genders there are.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not going to happen. It's a different kind of candidate.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so this ties into this scramble among lefties and liberals
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: to define what this means in capital letters.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this has come up before.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: We should remind people that this is a very annoying thing that happens
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: after major American elections,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: which is people want them to just be about one thing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the tricky part here is if ever an election was just about one thing,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: it was kind of this one, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, Trump.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was Trump.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Trump, but also...
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: The price of gas.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Trump slash the economy, which are inextricably intertwined.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And even more so because it wasn't like a bunch of other external shit happened
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: and Trump got pulled along with it.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was because Trump kept doing stuff through executive power.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's directly connected to voters' plight.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not going to stop the different factions under the Democratic tent
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: from trying to take credit or be like, this proves what I've been saying.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: They've all got a mandate. We've all got a mandate.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hassan Piker did this.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hassan Piker won this election.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I actually saw people say that on Twitter.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So just remind people the basic like battle lines going to the election,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: like the last six months of infighting.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, what it comes down to is basically the progressive wing
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: of the Democratic Party, the sort of DSA party,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: part of the party that really are not actually Democrats.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: They actually kind of hate Democrats.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hassan Fiker, if I remember correctly,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: actually was actively telling people not to vote for Kamala Harris.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Am I correct about that?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did he say don't vote for Harris? Yeah.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, he declined to endorse Harris.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right. So the DSA wing of the Democratic Party, not actually Democrats,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: kind of hates Democrats,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: versus the moderates and centrist wings of the party,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: the sort of more normie, the normie Democrats, those are the battle lines.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see what happens when within the party there's actual power
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: and And, you know, the DSA has done really well in New York.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And not just DSA, but folks like Abdul El-Sayed who are like DSA adjacent,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: although his is a complicated case. I'll get back to it in a minute.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there have been James Tallarico. These are important victories.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, like you said, a DSA-aligned candidate is not going to win in Mississippi.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all want to overthrow capitalism with me?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: North Carolina had a big blue wave.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: In Asheville, they elected a left-wing mayor, but Roy Cooper,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: who's going to be the next senator, he was a moderate Democrat governor.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big country, and one type of candidate is not going to win every election.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Every Democratic district. Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what was every competitive district.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And what was interesting is like just in 2024,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: it seemed like Dems were so backed into a corner on so many fronts,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: just like their coalition had collapsed, just how quickly things can change, which,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: by the way, is like another reason that anyone who's like This augurs doom
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: for Republicans for the next 10 years. I know they have a rough map.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe any of that. But the Democrats, look, they're losers.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can't stand them.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hate that I prefer them to the Republicans.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely do.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: They...
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Accidentally or not, they did a good job of there was a very diverse crop
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: of candidates, many of whom suited the particular situation where they were running.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: And Republicans used to be able to do that before the party got eaten
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: from the inside out by MAGA.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there were old school moderate Republicans who were governors
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: of like states in New England and sometimes senators.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I just I was impressed by the sheer diversity of what happened.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what friend of the podcast, Tracing Woodgrain, said.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just here was his take on Twitter.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Americans don't want the hard left.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: They certainly don't want MAGA.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: If Dems restrain their populist left impulses and unite around pragmatic moderates
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: in two years, the crown in the gutter is theirs.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's phrased beautifully. Do you agree with that?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it will depend because if Democrats spend
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: the next two years investigating
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: the Impeaching trying Donald Trump and the next two years is just more
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: of that and there's no material changes to people's lives.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: If the price of gas is still $6.50 a gallon like it is where I live in two years,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: it's And Trump has managed to veto any kind of positive change. I don't know.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the Republicans could maybe come back because even
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: if it's Donald Trump's fault, even if he stonewalls any sort of changes,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: it will still look like, hey,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: you've got Congress and you didn't fucking manage to do anything.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it'll depend on what they do.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, but they can now write and introduce bills
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: and they can force Republicans to vote on them or force Trump to veto them.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but then that's like, we wanted to do, that's a very simple message.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we wanted to do this, Trump prevented us from doing it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, but I don't think people pay attention,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the average normie voter is actually paying that much attention
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: to electoral politics and to legislation.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: What they're paying attention to is the price of gas, the price of beef,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: and what they're, you know, actually most of them don't have a 401k,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: is how the economy's doing.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, look, one way to defend Trace's view that, like,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Americans don't want the populist left is...
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Folks like Abdul El-Sayed, they won,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: but he arguably kind of underperformed relative to the climate.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know people might get mad at nitpicking about that because it was still an impressive victory.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think the much stronger evidence for Trace's view is how voters voted
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: on referendums that can be much more easily coded as left or anti-left.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is much closer to actual...
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Democracy, when you can see what policies people want and what they don't.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It turns out they're very anti-tech, not a good day to be a data center.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, data centers.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was also that billionaire tax in California, which lost pretty badly.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was surprised about that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: But then for our purposes, I was also obviously interested
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: in those ballot initiatives on Trump stuff, including one in Washington, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, actually two in Washington.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, so people need to understand when we're talking about Washington state,
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: the entire state is vote by mail.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, returns come in really, really slowly.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not uncommon for the first night of an election for moderate initiatives
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: and candidates to appear to have won.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is particularly true in Seattle.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then a week later, it turns out it's a total wipeout the other way because,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: you The, you know, like, young people who are more likely
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: to vote progressives are fucking procrastinators and they do it late.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So right now, so there are three initiatives in Washington state.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: As of now, two of them. Are failing.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is a millionaire's tax there was an effort to repeal
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: the millionaires tax. Washington state doesn't have an income tax it's actually
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: against the state constitution this will be the first income tax
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: in Washington state history this is a really big deal
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: and the repeal effort is getting absolutely stomped
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: and because late ballots almost always swing progressive that is
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: that repeal effect is guaranteed to
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: fail okay
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: The next one was
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: a trans ballot initiative where the word trans did not appear anywhere
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: in the initiative.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to read it here straight from the website.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Initiative measure number whatever concerns parental rights relating
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: to their children in public school.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: This measure would repeal amendments to a statute listing certain rights of parents
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: and guardians of public school children and reenact the law
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: as it was originally enacted by initiative to the legislature.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's so confusing.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you know a lot of stuff, it's impossible to know what that means.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so these three ballot initiatives were all pushed
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: by the same right-wing activist organization, which was called Let's Go Washington.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: This one had a few different facets.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: One was about curriculum, so it gives parents greater access to view curricula in schools.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Another aspect of it was about school records.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives parents quicker access to records,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: medical records and guidance counselor records,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: academic records of their own children.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: What this really comes down to is this recent trend,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: this thing that we've seen over the last few years, which is schools...
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Enabling the social transition of students and hiding that from parents.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really what this was about, but that language wasn't in there at all.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I know some people hear this and they say, that doesn't happen.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had a conversation with the superintendent of a nearby school district recently.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say what district it was.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't realize she was talking to a journalist when she said this,
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: but I was at a party and I met a woman who was the superintendent
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: of the school district.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked her, what do you hate in your school district,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: what do you do when a student wants to change names or pronouns and they don't want
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: the parents to know? Do you do it?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, yes, we do it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I think there should be a limit on the number of times per year every student.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's it. That's all you get.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear the rest, go to blockedandreported.org and become a premium subscriber.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.