Transcript

Inside Job?!?! · Politix

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SPEAKER_00: Anyone who says,
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I'm going to be so concerned with the kitchen table issues of
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the American people
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SPEAKER_00: that I will not be destroying any ballroom or any monument,
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that person lost my vote because they're just going to fuck
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everything up.
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Donald Trump had to be evacuated from the White House
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Correspondents' Dinner on
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Saturday after a gunman attempted to breach the security
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perimeter guarding the
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SPEAKER_00: dinner hall at the Washington Hilton.
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But unlike last year when the entire GOP firmament responded to
0:34
the killing of
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SPEAKER_00: Charlie Kirk by attempting a broad civil society crackdown,
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SPEAKER_00: this time Republicans have a somewhat different focus,
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SPEAKER_00: helping Trump get his palace ballroom built on White House grounds.
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So we'll talk about how Trump sends U.S.
0:50
politics spiraling into stupidity over and over again.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: If you want to listen to the whole conversation,
0:56
SPEAKER_00: you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boyler.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:09
So I have listed here for us to discuss the long-running
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travesty of the White
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SPEAKER_00: House Correspondents' Dinner,
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the specific travesty of the decision to invite Trump to this
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year's dinner.
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Trump's uncanny pivot after the security incident there to the
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importance of his ballroom.
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SPEAKER_00: And then fourth,
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SPEAKER_00: what to do about a U.S.
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political discourse where you aren't supposed to say that Trump
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brings this kind of
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SPEAKER_00: shit upon himself.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't care what order we go in.
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SPEAKER_00: That just seems like chronological.
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SPEAKER_00: That's a hot take, that last one.
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SPEAKER_01: I thought we were going to talk about who was really behind the shooting.
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SPEAKER_00: This guy,
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Cole Hauser Trump brought it on himself Trump brought it on
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himself in the sense
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that these are inside jobs That is a conclusion that a lot of
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people are tempted by
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SPEAKER_00: That I don't think you actually need to resort to It's all staged,
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SPEAKER_00: man
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SPEAKER_02: Well, here's what I want to say.
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SPEAKER_02: I was chilling while this happened with some moderates.
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SPEAKER_02: And I was actually surprised a little bit by the level of...
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Conspiracism about Trump shootings in the in the moderate donor
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community and it
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reminded me of like why I always sort of enjoy conspiracy
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theories that I don't per
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SPEAKER_02: se endorse that like if I think back to like when George W.
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SPEAKER_02: Bush was president
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SPEAKER_02: Right.
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SPEAKER_02: Like the way you could tell somebody was like a real lefty,
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SPEAKER_02: like serious,
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SPEAKER_02: hardcore,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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like out there kind of shit is that they would be like watching
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Michael Moore
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SPEAKER_02: movies and being like,
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SPEAKER_02: maybe this whole Afghanistan war is about a pipeline.
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SPEAKER_02: And like, that's not true.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's dumb, but it also doesn't actually commit the person.
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SPEAKER_02: to like any particularly outlandish public policy commitments.
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SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
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And then like the moderate sophisticated take is like the
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failures of George W.
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Bush's foreign policy are very complicated and based on the
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da-da-da-da-da.
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SPEAKER_02: And then like the lefty is like, they're just getting the oil, man.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's like one way or another,
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SPEAKER_02: like we're all just saying the same thing,
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which is that like Bush is bad and we should defeat him
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electorally and replace him
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SPEAKER_02: with somebody else.
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SPEAKER_02: Whereas today as politics is-
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It worked the other way around a little bit too in that like
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Diebold conspiracy
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theories or Diebold conspiracy theories were very common after
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the 2004 election
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SPEAKER_00: when George W.
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SPEAKER_00: Bush was reelected.
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SPEAKER_00: But those served, I think, to tamp down on Democratic Party defeatism.
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It told a story that allowed a subset of Democrats to absolve
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themselves or the
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SPEAKER_00: party of whatever shortcomings prevented them from just defeating.
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Bush because he clearly had allies in the vote yeah I mean I
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mean that is true I
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just mean that I just mean the kind of like specific ideology
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of like you know
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SPEAKER_02: asserting that um
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SPEAKER_02: You just,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: look at stuff where on its face it's like,
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SPEAKER_02: oh,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: there was this assassination attempt in Butler,
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SPEAKER_02: Pennsylvania,
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SPEAKER_02: and then Trump did,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: a good job of making propaganda hay out of that to,
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SPEAKER_02: like...
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SPEAKER_02: The whole thing was propaganda from the get-go.
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SPEAKER_02: Like, it has no upshot.
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It,
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like,
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positions you as,
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like,
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more vociferously,
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like,
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on the left or out there somewhere.
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SPEAKER_02: But it doesn't, like, carry any particular implication, right?
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I think,
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no,
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I look at it in a little bit different way,
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but you can go ahead.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll just make a mental note.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh,
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SPEAKER_02: just to say that like,
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SPEAKER_02: and I think you see it on the right,
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SPEAKER_02: like the progressive politics,
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left of center politics has broadly speaking become like more
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respectable and less
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SPEAKER_02: conspiratorial since the Bush era.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: conspiracists like RFK Jr.
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SPEAKER_02: was like a huge,
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SPEAKER_02: deep old guy and like is now in the Trump cabinet,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: But by the same token,
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SPEAKER_02: just this kind of like diffuse,
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SPEAKER_02: slightly nonsensical,
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not really committing yourself to anything completely clear
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energy is a big element
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SPEAKER_02: of like far right politics right now.
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And Democrats have become much more fussy and literal in their
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infighting,
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right?
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SPEAKER_02: Because like one of the nice things...
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about conspiracy politics is that a relatively mainstream
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politician can just sort
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SPEAKER_02: of like wink at them,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: Like you could say,
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SPEAKER_02: I think legitimately,
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that there continue to be a lot of unanswered questions about
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exactly what happened
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SPEAKER_02: in Butler,
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SPEAKER_02: Pennsylvania and how that investigation was carried.
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SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
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SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00: Like I...
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Like,
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I think that,
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you know,
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and that is a classic political dog whistle.
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SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it is true that there are unanswered questions about that.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think that it's like Donald Trump was like really,
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SPEAKER_02: really chummy with the Secret Service details.
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SPEAKER_02: You're really not supposed to do that as a security detail,
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SPEAKER_02: like become political allies of the principle.
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SPEAKER_02: But,
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SPEAKER_02: clearly,
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it carries the implication that maybe there's more to this
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story in a darker,
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deeper kind of way that can get people on board versus if I
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were to just go out
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SPEAKER_02: there
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SPEAKER_02: and be like, healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.
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All the real Medicare for all heads are like,
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we got to pin this guy down on the details.
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SPEAKER_02: Is he really with me?
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So conspiracies are fun,
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even though as a journalist,
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I do not per se endorse them.
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I think the role that leaping to conspiracy theory assumptions
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about anything
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SPEAKER_00: happening around Trump plays in left of center politics is
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to the extent it's more than just people being like freaked out
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and untrusting of
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SPEAKER_00: this bad person is as a test among one another.
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SPEAKER_00: Like, do you see Donald Trump clearly?
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If you're not willing to acknowledge the possibility that he
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would do something
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SPEAKER_00: like stage an assassination attempt against himself,
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SPEAKER_00: then you don't see the picture right.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think that that impulse is correct,
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SPEAKER_00: even though the conspiracy theories themselves are false,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: And like,
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I think that like there's a there's a lane there for people in
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democratic politics
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if they want to if they want to do it to do what you're
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suggesting is like just
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asking questions like like what are they hiding right and I
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think you know what you
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SPEAKER_00: would find is uh
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There was internal Secret Service chatter about how shitty it
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is that Trump likes
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SPEAKER_00: to do his events outdoors where the threat environment is high.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's inconvenient.
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And also that a bullet did not strike Trump's ear,
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that something else struck Trump's ear.
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But he wanted people to believe that he had been hit by the
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actual bullet.
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And so they did not allow the medical records from the
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Pennsylvania hospital where
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SPEAKER_00: he was treated to come out.
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SPEAKER_02: And that's like,
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SPEAKER_00: Release the medical records Sure,
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SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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you don't need to go all the way into Trump asked Vladimir
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Putin to send a shooter
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SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean,
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whatever the conspiracy theory happens to be But that the
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impulse This latest
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SPEAKER_00: shooter is the perfect patsy though,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: He's a normie fightlib, isn't he?
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SPEAKER_02: But he's,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: he's like downwardly mobile,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: seems like he's having trouble getting his life together.
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SPEAKER_02: You know, get some agents out there.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like a blue sky resistance lib.
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SPEAKER_00: You were mentioning George W. Bush, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And I remember the conspiracy theories from the George W. Bush era.
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But it was also like a palpably different- Can we play like an
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Immortal Technique clip here?
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I'm going to have to leave that to Mike You know on other
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podcasts they like have
9:48
clips at the ready to play for people but we're not that
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sophisticated No okay but
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like you know I don't want to be like like Bush and Trump is
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the like the drill
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tweet difference between good things and bad things because I
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think George W.
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SPEAKER_00: Bush was very bad but like
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SPEAKER_00: The climate that Bush fostered domestically was hothouse in its own ways,
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SPEAKER_00: but it was not like what Trump is doing,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: And there are assassination plots against basically every president.
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But until Trump,
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it made sense to chalk them up,
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I think,
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to ambient factors.
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SPEAKER_00: There are lots of guns in America.
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SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of crazy people.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a big country.
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And I think you could even attach significance to political
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rhetoric from the
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SPEAKER_00: opposition,
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SPEAKER_00: like particularly in the case of Barack Obama.
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SPEAKER_00: But when Obama faced security risks,
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it would have been a bit crazy to accuse him of bringing it on
10:47
himself because he
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took his responsibilities as president of the American
10:51
citizenry very seriously,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: And like from the perspective of an American, so did Bush.
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But like Do you remember when Bush went to Iraq And an Iraqi
11:05
man in the press corps
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threw Shoes at Bush's head And it backfired It was one of the
11:11
greatest moments of
11:12
all time It backfired because Bush had very good reflexes Bush
11:15
was so good at
11:16
dodging And it made him look very cool But like I don't think
11:20
it's hard to
11:21
understand Why somebody like an Iraqi Would feel that Bush was
11:25
evil And deserved to
11:26
SPEAKER_00: have Something bad happen to him
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Trump changes that around, right?
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Like Trump actually antagonizes the people he is supposed to
11:38
serve and it makes people angry.
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SPEAKER_00: And that is the thing that causes chaos to come find him, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And in our discourse,
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SPEAKER_00: though,
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SPEAKER_00: it's like because we're American exceptionalists or whatever,
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we're not supposed to point out that Trump does this and that's
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what's causing
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SPEAKER_00: chaos.
11:57
incidents like everything from Butler to the White House
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Correspondents thing.
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SPEAKER_00: But it just seems like obvious to me that that's what's happening, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Like he increases the number of people prone to lash out.
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There are more instances of people lashing out and you don't
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need to resort to a
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SPEAKER_00: false flag conspiracy theory to explain why this is actually his fault.
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SPEAKER_01: Uh...
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SPEAKER_02: Okay.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, I thought it was interesting, you know, after Charlie Kirk.
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SPEAKER_00: Give me more than okay.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, like- No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm going to try to rephrase.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
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SPEAKER_02: You know, I thought it was notable after Charlie Kirk's murder.
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SPEAKER_02: Right.
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SPEAKER_02: Remember,
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we had our friend Ezra Klein trying to offer the olive branch
12:48
and say that Charlie
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Kirk is the single greatest practitioner of politics who he has
12:53
no disagreements.
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SPEAKER_02: Ezra tried to say,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:58
that that Charlie Kirk was a guy who like believed in takes and
13:02
believed in the
13:03
SPEAKER_02: discourse and like to have,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:07
arguments with people and debates and things like that with a
13:10
smile on his face.
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SPEAKER_02: And of course,
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SPEAKER_02: there was a backlash to that among people on the left,
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SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:15
SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:15
SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:16
SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:16
SPEAKER_02: blah.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: But like Trump.
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actually in his remarks sort of like agreed with Ezra about
13:23
that and said that like
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SPEAKER_02: Charlie was a guy who didn't hate his enemies,
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SPEAKER_02: who enjoyed the give and take.
13:29
And then Trump said that like he thought that was bad and that
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he is not like
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SPEAKER_02: Charlie Kirk and that he hates his enemies.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
13:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: I think that that speaks to something profound about Trump,
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SPEAKER_02: which is that Trump has never
13:48
SPEAKER_02: Never,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: ever,
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SPEAKER_02: ever,
13:50
ever made the slightest gesture to the kind of really banal
13:58
trope of American
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SPEAKER_02: political rhetoric that like,
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SPEAKER_02: I'm the president for all Americans,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: like including the ones who didn't vote for me.
14:07
I think like actually like a genuinely flawed aspect of the
14:12
American constitutional design is
14:14
SPEAKER_02: is that it puts every president in this awkward position where they are
14:18
simultaneously the leader of a political faction and also the
14:24
leader of the entire
14:26
SPEAKER_02: country.
14:27
And that,
14:27
you know,
14:28
like in Sweden,
14:29
you can like trot out the king to be like,
14:32
SPEAKER_02: He is the king for all Swedes.
14:34
And then like the prime minister is the manager of a specific
14:37
parliamentary
14:38
SPEAKER_02: coalition that like,
14:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:40
SPEAKER_02: is here today,
14:41
SPEAKER_02: gone tomorrow.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: But like American presidents all do this, right?
14:45
SPEAKER_02: Like going back to Thomas James.
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SPEAKER_02: Jefferson at his inauguration, right?
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SPEAKER_02: Jefferson was like the first partisan president.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: He defeated John Adams at the polls.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: He overturned the Washington Adams consensus.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: People don't know what's going to happen.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: And he says in his inaugural address, today, we are all Federalists.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: We are all Republicans.
15:07
Every president since then,
15:09
except for Trump,
15:11
has made like some effort in that direction.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Abraham Lincoln,
15:17
SPEAKER_02: persecuted a literal war in which hundreds of thousands of people died.
15:23
in which the proximate issue of the war was that people were
15:28
mad that Abraham
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Lincoln had won the election.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: And in his second inaugural,
15:34
SPEAKER_02: with the war winding down,
15:35
SPEAKER_02: he says,
15:36
SPEAKER_02: with malice toward none,
15:38
SPEAKER_02: with charity toward all,
15:39
SPEAKER_02: da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: And Trump is just not like that at all.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: And conservatives, I feel like, have a hard time
15:49
SPEAKER_02: thinking clearly about this.
15:52
But like Donald Trump's message day in and day out to people
15:58
who disagree with him
15:59
SPEAKER_02: and did not vote for him is that his mission in politics is to crush us.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, like that is just true.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: That is a overt statement that Donald Trump makes.
16:12
And I understand that conservatives feel that like Joe Biden
16:16
was actually trying to crush them.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: That Barack Obama's real agenda.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Conservatives assert.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Conservatives don't feel this.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Some do.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like the rubes do.
16:27
But the but the the official of the Republican Party knows what
16:30
they're fucking doing.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: No, I wouldn't even go that far.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I take it to the moon.
16:36
They want to say like,
16:37
okay,
16:38
all this togetherness from Barack Obama is a clever ruse.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: Maybe yes, maybe no.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: Maybe all this togetherness from Thomas Jefferson was a clever ruse.
16:46
I think definitely the togetherness from Abraham Lincoln was a
16:50
clever ruse.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: But like, it's a ruse.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: It counts.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: It's politics.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: It makes a difference.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: It matters that you have a president.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: What do they say?
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Dune.
17:01
I don't I need to stand up for my boy the late great Abraham
17:05
Lincoln I need to
17:06
stand up for my boy because the way he prosecuted the war
17:11
conveys a you know a
17:13
design he could have rewritten the whole constitution after
17:16
that war right he could
17:17
like if he did not actually care about the union and it was all
17:23
a ruse things could
17:25
SPEAKER_00: have proceeded differently they would have ended differently
17:28
and I think he meant it and I think Jefferson meant it and it's
17:31
like we repeat the
17:32
cliches about political violence having no place in blah blah
17:35
blah blah because
17:36
it's important to instill that in people even if like in
17:41
literal moments it like
17:44
the it's like not accurate you know what I mean like it's it's
17:49
work it's it's part
17:50
SPEAKER_00: of of maintaining good mental habits about
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Our civic space.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think,
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I think basically every president has meant it,
18:03
SPEAKER_00: even if they're like,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: sometimes about having to be magnanimous.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And Trump literally doesn't mean it.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And this is what
18:11
Life is like under a tyrant who doesn't have like enough
18:15
control over the apparatus
18:17
SPEAKER_00: to literally just gun down his political enemies,
18:19
but does have the power to starve them of resources when
18:23
hurricanes and earthquakes
18:24
hit and throw innocent people in prison or jail or prison camps
18:31
because they have
18:32
SPEAKER_00: dark skin or because they were monitoring the
18:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, like he has real tools of oppression and he uses them.
18:41
And what has happened in every society that has been faced with
18:45
somebody like this
18:46
SPEAKER_00: is people fucking lash out.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: They get angry and rightfully so.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: And like then it's on people like us to be like, do it this way.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: I know you are.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's unhealthy.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Where are you at on micro-looting?
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Anti.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: I have the conventional liberal...
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I think that,
19:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: everyone needs to have a degree of chill about,
19:27
SPEAKER_00: like,
19:28
moral infractions that are basically harmless and be more
19:33
concerned about bigger
19:34
SPEAKER_00: crime and blah,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: blah,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: blah.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: But,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: like,
19:37
SPEAKER_00: it is a continuum between,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: micro-looting and murdering healthcare executives.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And you want to be, like...
19:48
SPEAKER_02: I just think the word microlooting is really funny.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: It is funny.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I also think that people getting so mad at that conversation.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Look, here's the other thing I think about it.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I think that podcasting,
20:00
SPEAKER_00: not us,
20:01
SPEAKER_00: because we are responsible people who came up in regular journalism,
20:05
SPEAKER_00: but most podcasters,
20:06
SPEAKER_00: most streamers,
20:07
the environment inclines them towards or incentivizes them
20:11
towards being spicy,
20:12
SPEAKER_00: right?
20:14
And so they say things that are kind of meant to make the
20:17
conversation enjoyable to
20:18
SPEAKER_00: listen to,
20:19
SPEAKER_00: but that have taken literally are morally odious.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And that also creates the opportunity for,
20:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:26
SPEAKER_00: your opposition or your enemies to clip you out of context and be like,
20:29
SPEAKER_00: look at the crazy thing this person believes.
20:31
What they're really doing was like being an entertainer,
20:34
you know,
20:34
in a...
20:36
SPEAKER_00: in a moment of levity or, you know, just trying to be impressive.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's not,
20:41
SPEAKER_00: it's not an ideal medium for actually,
20:44
like the only ideal medium for refining your ideas is writing
20:49
and writing is dying.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: we're going to be a society of micro looters,
20:55
SPEAKER_00: presidential assassins,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: just like reactionary psychopaths.
21:03
I think it's a serious problem because I was reflecting on like
21:08
music I was into in
21:10
the 90s you know and like I had Rage Against the Machine albums
21:18
you know and like
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Formalistically, right?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: Like one of the albums is the Battle of Los Angeles, right?
21:23
SPEAKER_02: They're like really like valorizing the LA riots.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: And I,
21:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:29
SPEAKER_02: and I also more obscure,
21:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:31
SPEAKER_02: I liked,
21:32
SPEAKER_02: I like this Bratmobile song,
21:35
SPEAKER_02: Polaroid Baby,
21:36
SPEAKER_02: which has the lyrics like burn to the fucking ground,
21:38
SPEAKER_02: LA,
21:39
SPEAKER_02: Whitey's gonna pay,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: Whitey's gonna pay.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: And I love that song because it's like, it's funny, right?
21:45
I did not actually think that it was a good idea to murder
21:49
white people in Los
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Angeles or really any other city.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: Some of my best friends are white.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: I stand in solidarity with the white community in many respects.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know.
22:00
It was just like a vibe that was like fun if you were a
22:03
teenager to at least like
22:04
SPEAKER_02: pretend that you were into violent revolutionary politics.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, and then and then what's it?
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Against Me has their song Baby I'm an Anarchist,
22:16
where she's like specifically calls out people who think that
22:19
stuff is just kidding
22:20
SPEAKER_02: around in in like punk music.
22:23
But I think a lot of people did just think I just thought it
22:26
was kidding around.
22:26
Um and you know as we have more of these like streamers more
22:33
stuff that like blurs
22:35
the line between like what is an op-ed in the newspaper and
22:39
what is like some shit
22:40
somebody says on the radio um you know we get like a very murky
22:45
uh kind of
22:47
SPEAKER_02: Culture, you know, and like we kid around on this podcast, too.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: We are going to have another site.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: We are going to have a satanic panic equivalent.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: We aren't experiencing one already.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And like I remember after Columbine,
22:59
SPEAKER_00: the panic about Marilyn Manson inspiring mass shooters,
23:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:04
SPEAKER_00: like this is an old story in a lot of ways.
23:08
It's just there was like the president was not igniting it
23:12
further,
23:13
fueling it,
23:14
banning it.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: Well,
23:15
SPEAKER_02: and I just,
23:16
SPEAKER_02: I do think that there,
23:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:18
SPEAKER_02: we're having a,
23:19
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:20
SPEAKER_02: mode collapse,
23:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: escapade.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: We're like,
23:24
SPEAKER_02: I did not really think that,
23:26
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:26
Marilyn Manson was causing big social problems in the United
23:29
States of America.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: That being said,
23:31
SPEAKER_02: if,
23:31
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:31
SPEAKER_02: the NBC Nightly News,
23:34
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:34
SPEAKER_02: featured,
23:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:36
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:36
SPEAKER_02: if instead of Tom Brokaw doing whatever Tom Brokaw was doing,
23:40
SPEAKER_02: Tom Brokaw was saying Marilyn Manson lyrics,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: I'd be like,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: whoa.
23:46
You know,
23:46
like that's really out there because we had like a pretty firm
23:51
divide.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Wait, can you imitate Tom Brokaw doing a Marilyn Manson lyric?
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Can you put on that voice?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely cannot.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Capitalism has made it this way.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: Fresh new fascism will take it away.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, tonight.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: The podcast domain in particular, right?
24:12
Like you and I have like entered podcasting from the rarefied
24:17
world of writing for
24:18
SPEAKER_02: small circulation ideological political magazines.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Other people have entered the realm of podcasting.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: from,
24:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:25
a background in mixed martial arts or stand-up comedy or video
24:30
game streaming or
24:31
SPEAKER_02: many,
24:31
SPEAKER_02: many,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: many,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: many other things.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: And it's just always been the case because we live in a democracy, right?
24:38
SPEAKER_02: To offer commentary on political issues or questions of public policy,
24:42
SPEAKER_02: you do not,
24:43
SPEAKER_02: like,
24:43
SPEAKER_02: need to be,
24:45
SPEAKER_02: like,
24:45
SPEAKER_02: a licensed member of the Political Pundits Guild.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Like, you don't need to have, like, demonstrate...
24:53
SPEAKER_00: it was like discouraging me from entering this field he's like you want a
24:56
profession where there's a barrier to entry or else it's going
24:58
to be filled with
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Charlotte and I was like you don't need to worry about that
25:03
SPEAKER_02: But it's like,
25:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:05
SPEAKER_02: you don't need to have like demonstrated the ability to like explain the
25:10
three-legged stool of the Affordable Care Act before you're
25:13
allowed to weigh in on
25:15
SPEAKER_02: political issues.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's correct.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: Like that's part of what it means to live in a free society.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: But it does mean that like a lot of
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Commentary on Politics is just like it's very irresponsible.
25:30
Like it comes from people who have not bothered to learn
25:34
anything about the topics at hand.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: And like a real difference between,
25:39
SPEAKER_02: say,
25:40
SPEAKER_02: like Ben Shapiro,
25:41
SPEAKER_02: who like I really don't like and I don't agree with,
25:44
but I also fully acknowledge as a peer who has like a similar
25:49
background in like
25:51
doing political journalism and has thought about like what he
25:56
believes and is
25:57
SPEAKER_02: articulating it versus like tons of people,
26:00
SPEAKER_02: including people who I'm way closer to.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Like who's that like wine mom resistance, whatever it is.
26:07
There's just tons of people like spouting off about politics
26:10
who clearly haven't
26:12
SPEAKER_02: like bothered to engage at all with any of the boring aspects of it.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's bad and we have a president who is like that, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_02: Like a president who is an amateur,
26:25
SPEAKER_02: who is like a TV call-in guy,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:29
SPEAKER_02: just like firing off takes.
26:33
And his version of microlooting is like you pardon the Proud
26:36
Boys and you pardon
26:36
SPEAKER_00: the January 6th rioters and you say,
26:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: if you're just mad enough about bad things happening to Donald Trump,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: go out and commit violence and I will pardon you.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Like,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit more severe,
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I think,
26:47
SPEAKER_00: than like he's,
26:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:50
SPEAKER_00: he's like Gia Tolentino and Hassan Piker in being a little mischievous.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's as if Gia Tolentino just randomly became president.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: And like, I have no idea what she would do.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
27:07
SPEAKER_02: And like Trump as president has just turned out to be like,
27:12
incredibly committed to this like Schmidian friend-enemy
27:17
politics in which he does
27:19
SPEAKER_02: not acknowledge any kind of public responsibility to anything and like
27:29
SPEAKER_02: You might say,
27:30
SPEAKER_02: I might say that he's like corruptly pardoning people,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: in exchange for bribes or exchange for money or something like that.
27:37
But I think from his view,
27:39
it's like,
27:39
it's actually something even worse than that,
27:41
right?
27:41
SPEAKER_02: Which is that like,
27:42
he just does not like acknowledge the concept of like neutral
27:48
legal principles or
27:51
SPEAKER_02: anything.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: So I actually, I disagree with this.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: I disagree with this.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: I disagree with this.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I think we need to,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: it requires a kind of discernment that you can't really quantify,
28:05
but I think you need to be able to distinguish between people
28:08
who are willing to
28:08
SPEAKER_00: bullshit,
28:09
whether it's for entertainment purposes or clout or even for
28:15
winning votes,
28:16
SPEAKER_00: but they have some kind of independent judgment working in their head.
28:20
When Trump was running in 2016,
28:23
I was like,
28:24
you know,
28:24
I think I wrote this somewhere,
28:27
that
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Michael Schoen
28:47
proved that he's willing to take things seriously enough to be
28:51
able to master the
28:52
SPEAKER_00: law,
28:53
SPEAKER_00: be solicitor general of the state of Texas,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: have a good record arguing in front of the Supreme Court,
28:58
SPEAKER_00: be admired by people in the legal bar,
29:02
SPEAKER_00: such that whatever
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I would count on Ted Cruz
29:20
to not be like,
29:21
oh,
29:21
well,
29:22
my macho-ness requires me to just charge ahead with the bad
29:25
idea.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: He would try to find a way out of it.
29:28
And I am Piker Tolentino or Tolentino Piker 100 times out of
29:32
100 against any Republican ticket.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: But I think that they are probably like that.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Whatever...
29:40
Whatever they really think about the microlooting question is
29:43
that if they became
29:44
SPEAKER_00: president and somebody was like,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: hey,
29:46
there is an epidemic of shoplifting in the country that is real
29:50
and it's making
29:51
SPEAKER_00: people really upset and they want a federal response,
29:54
SPEAKER_00: they wouldn't be like,
29:55
Microlooting is actually like the voice of the unheard and we
29:58
need to encourage it.
29:59
They would come up with some ideas for getting it under control
30:02
because they're not
30:03
SPEAKER_00: actually of unsound mind.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And Trump is, and he's like very different in that regard.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not,
30:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't think putting Piker into the White House is a good idea,
30:12
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think he would be completely maladapted to the job.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
30:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to speculate exactly.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm just saying that these are like
30:27
I I want to like there is just like a baseline unseriousness
30:35
about like most
30:37
people's engagement with the political process only a subset of
30:42
like unseriously
30:44
engaged people also like talk about politics constantly and
30:49
there's something
30:49
really like off about those people you know where you're like
30:53
not just occasionally
30:54
SPEAKER_02: yakking at the end of the bar but you're like
30:57
building a whole career around it without being in any way
31:00
serious about it.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And
31:04
It could go awry in any number of different directions when you
31:07
empower people like that.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: With Trump, we've seen it go in a particular kind of way.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: You know,
31:12
there was a reading of Trump going way back to the beginning
31:15
that I think has
31:16
SPEAKER_02: proven correct,
31:18
SPEAKER_02: that he's like a true,
31:19
SPEAKER_02: like,
31:20
SPEAKER_02: megalomaniacal sociopath.
31:23
You know,
31:24
that like,
31:24
he really does mean like all these bits he does about himself.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's proven completely true.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that that's true of
31:35
SPEAKER_02: Like celebrity figures in general, right?
31:39
Like we have a lot of like entertainment industry people who
31:42
say things and who
31:43
SPEAKER_02: have these personas and like,
31:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:47
SPEAKER_02: who knows,
31:48
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:48
what any of them would or would not amount to if you greatly
31:52
empowered them.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I, okay.
31:55
Like,
31:55
to me,
31:56
anyway,
31:57
I think we're talking more about microlooting than I meant to.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to say one more thing about it now.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: Let's take a break and talk about the ballroom, though.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Can I say one more thing about the microlooting thing?
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Because when they had that conversation,
32:13
SPEAKER_00: I was,
32:13
SPEAKER_00: like,
32:14
SPEAKER_00: thinking about,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: like,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: my own,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: what do I actually think about this?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: What is my own experience of stuff like this?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: And
32:23
I recalled fairly recently being in line at Whole Foods to buy
32:29
a few things and I
32:33
can't even remember what the product was but because all Whole
32:35
Foods in the DC area
32:36
SPEAKER_00: at least now are moving away from human checkers and like it's almost all
32:42
self-checkout I was in the self-checkout line scanning my items
32:46
and like one of
32:46
them wouldn't ring right like ring up like the thing was bent I
32:51
don't remember
32:53
I do remember I was in a hurry and I was annoyed and I was like
32:57
you know what I am
32:57
not gonna like wait for the person who's not around anywhere to
33:01
come help me or I
33:03
just put in the bag I'm like I'm gonna pay for everything else
33:07
it's fucking Jeff
33:07
Bezos who cares and you know I I that wasn't like an act of
33:13
civil disobedience but
33:14
it was like a calculated decision that like my this was not
33:18
worth the fucking
33:18
SPEAKER_00: hassle right
33:20
But if the local bodega had self-checkout and I was in a
33:25
similar circumstance,
33:28
I would go to much greater lengths to try to get somebody to
33:32
help me ring up the
33:33
item because I think stealing from a person who's running thin
33:39
margins in a local
33:40
bodega and working 18-hour days is different from stealing from
33:43
the Amazon
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Corporation,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: right?
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I do feel that.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: However,
33:48
if trying to give people some thoughts about how to actually
33:52
protest Jeff Bezos,
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Whole Foods,
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Amazon,
33:56
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
33:56
SPEAKER_00: is like,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: cancel your Prime subscription.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Buy things from Whole Foods or Amazon and then return them.
34:03
Do the Scott Galloway thing where you try to get as many people
34:08
as possible to
34:10
cancel as many subscriptions as they're comfortable canceling
34:14
so that these guys
34:15
SPEAKER_00: feel like a little bit of money leeching out of their pocket.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Like that's way better.
34:20
That'll cause them way more distress than like you couldn't get
34:24
your apple cider vinegar to
34:27
SPEAKER_00: to go ding at the cash register so you walk out with it.
34:30
And like,
34:31
I didn't feel like I was being some kind of reactionary chic
34:34
person.
34:34
I thought I was just like solving a problem in the easiest
34:37
possible way and it
34:38
SPEAKER_00: happened to be stealing.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: But like the...
34:44
Freddie DeBoer sent out a thing about this actually this
34:47
morning that I was like,
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I was taken by.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: He said,
34:49
SPEAKER_00: for about a week,
34:50
readers have emailed to ask for my take on the recent
34:52
endorsement of shoplifting as
34:54
SPEAKER_00: an act of radical anti-capitalism from Hassan Piker and Gio Tolentino.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: They asked, what do I think about it?
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote,
35:00
SPEAKER_00: when I read about those statements in that interview,
35:02
SPEAKER_00: I immediately thought of Gandhi's famous advice.
35:05
Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest person that you
35:08
have ever seen and
35:09
SPEAKER_00: ask yourself if the next step you contemplate will be of any use to them.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is very good advice.
35:15
Like a good way to resolve any of these seeming dilemmas that
35:20
arise in this like
35:21
SPEAKER_00: weird era of moral collapse.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Be like Gandhi.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: I guess, okay, Gandhi, yeah, that's pretty good.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: But I also like, I do actually want to flag a difference though, right?
35:35
SPEAKER_02: Because you were kind of talking about
35:39
SPEAKER_02: You know,
35:40
SPEAKER_02: there's a question of,
35:40
do you want to use some kind of like focus boycott tactics or
35:45
something boycott
35:46
adjacent against specific individuals to try to inflict
35:51
economic pain on them for
35:53
SPEAKER_02: specific reasons?
35:55
SPEAKER_02: Right?
35:56
SPEAKER_02: And you could do that like lawfully through a boycott.
36:00
You could do it unlawfully through like a targeted shoplifting
36:03
campaign or there's
36:04
SPEAKER_02: sort of gray zone stuff like loophole exploitation,
36:08
SPEAKER_02: like the Amazon Returns idea.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: Right?
36:10
But the premise of all of that is like you were taking
36:13
political action against Jeff Bezos.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Right?
36:20
SPEAKER_02: Anti-capitalism is like a different idea.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: And,
36:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:29
Freddie's point is interesting because even though Freddie
36:32
seems to have incredibly
36:34
SPEAKER_02: sensible,
36:34
SPEAKER_02: moderate opinions on basically everything,
36:37
he has like a social identity where he's committed to being a
36:40
leftist and will
36:42
SPEAKER_02: always say that whatever his like sensible,
36:43
SPEAKER_02: moderate opinions is.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Jesus has managed the Washington Post,
37:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:02
SPEAKER_02: that maybe legitimizes some whole other kind of behavior.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: But I don't I like I just don't agree with that.
37:10
It's like it's relative to tweet about about about your
37:15
politics is that like the
37:16
only good way to resist is to firebomb a Walmart and then not
37:19
firebomb a Walmart.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Like that, right?
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what the logic of radical anti-capitalism chic is,
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is to like talk about how these small ball things are like
37:30
keeping the system up
37:32
SPEAKER_00: and what you really need to do is like property destruction.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And of course,
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almost all the people saying that are full of shit and they do
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not go out and
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SPEAKER_00: destroy property.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: Let's take a break and focus in on what's really at stake here.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh,
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SPEAKER_00: the ballroom,
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which is property that should be destroyed the moment a
37:50
Democrat comes into office.
37:51
If you want to hear us talk about that,
37:53
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