Latest / Boomer Has It! / Has MAGA Culture Peaked?

Transcript

Has MAGA Culture Peaked? · Boomer Has It!

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to another episode of Boomer Has It.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm JB Miller in London.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm your old friend Jim Jelamis here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: So today we're going to talk about culture, uh, or rather a kind of culture, MAGA culture.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: So um it just occurred to me recently that you know MAGA controls all three branches of government, but they want to control the culture too.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean we want to discuss this, but first off, what exactly is MAGA culture?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Jim, tell us what MAGA culture is, because even I'm a bit confused about this.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to pin down, but you would I think it would be fair to say it permeates almost every aspect of culture and society that we know, from TV to music to sports, uh, gaming, books, comedy.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think maybe the best approach would be to look at it one by one.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: How is it how what's the state of it in our society right now?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, first, why don't we start off with film?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: What's a MAGA film?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the most famous and most successful of MAGA films for a variety of reasons is and mainly because MAGA appears to be a uh just consumed and obsessed with pedophilia, is a great pedophilion called Sound of Freedom.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which's a nice coinage.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's a subgenre of pedo films brought to you by Make America Great Again.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: The Sound of Freedom was a pedot thriller, uh, which came out how many years?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like three or four years ago, and was a fairly small, like$10 million budget and made uh far over, what is it, over$200 million worldwide?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was a surprise hit, and and and uh certainly surprised a lot of uh traditional Hollywood ice who are usually uh perceived as being left of center.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that would that was that shook them a little bit to the core, but uh I don't think it's been repeated much since.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess you could call that, you could certainly could call that a MAGA film.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: The only other MAGA film I I can think of recently was the Melania documentary, which was a um a kind of corrupt purchase by Jeff Bezos, or am I getting, or was it on?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're absolutely right.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: He he financed the film to the tune of 40 million dollars and added uh a cherry on top.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: He put a cherry on a$35 million cherry on top to to promote it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And unlike Sound of Freedom, uh inversely correlated, you might say, it completely flopped.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Sound of Freedom was to this day the most successful independent film ever made, if you measure it in constant dollars.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The second would have been the movie Parasite.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's interesting because I'm surprised that it wasn't repeated.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that the success of the Sound of Freedom didn't spawn, so to speak, a um a whole new, you know, uh a number of uh sort of MAGA, MAGA or pedophile um thrillers.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it didn't, as far as I can see, unless I I'm missing something, but I tend to follow the box office for Try.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're pretty good at that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm interested in I'm interested in what people are reading, what people are watching, what people are going to see in the cinemas.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very supportive of people going to the cinema, which you do, you do more than I do.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we need more theatrical uh support, otherwise, all the movie theaters will close.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um so there's also oh so that now we're talking okay, so that's movies, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you think of any other pedo thrillers or MAGA thrillers, maybe along the lines of you know, a down and out rodeo uh athlete performer or someone who works at a gas station?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if those sort of revenge dramas, which go back to kind of the you know, um so Dirty Harry in the 70s, but more recently wasn't um what's his name from uh Better Call Saul.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was in a couple of these, you know, don't mess with me, I may look like a pokey guy, but um, if you try to kidnap my daughter, I will find you and kill you.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Liam Neeson.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Liam Neeson, yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Liam Neeson and and who was a guy in Better Call Better Call Saul.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: He was in um so I haven't prepared this yet.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those Liam Neeson um shows, I I guess I think that maybe crosses over.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Liam Neeson isn't considered a MAGA hero, he although he keeps misplacing his daughter.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean the the there's been three in those, uh three in that series where she Yes, but Bob Bob Odendirk.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Odendurk made a couple of films which were like sort of Odin Kirk.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Odin Kirk, thank you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean these are I don't know is that I'm saying these are MAGA films, but but is there some theme of um getting back at the thugs who you know take our kids?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um or maybe and also I there's a theme of you know, again, children being stolen.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be a you know actually absolute preoccupation for MAGA.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's also it's also a an excuse for violence and taking taking the law into your own hands.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these manosphere people have done that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They've set up men who are looking for some kind of uh gay encounter, and um and they'll find him and embarrass him and beat him up sometimes, um, at least according to the Manosphere uh documentary that I saw.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a it's a reason for righteous anger because who can argue with it, really?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I think that's a good that's a good segue.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a good that's a um that's a good observation that that the manosphere, so it's an entry point of the manosphere into the into the sort of cinematic culture.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that's a nice way of putting it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's Mr.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Miller.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: You put it, you you brought it up.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'd say what about television?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a there's Yellowstone.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is that somehow and I read that that's a MAGA um uh MAGA people are enamored of Yellowstone, although I've never seen it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: And but why what what thematically what's what's what's uh attractive of Yellowstone to that side of the stuff?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I would say it's also a crossover, too.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it appeals to sort of both sides of it, yeah.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's you know, this idea of anti-progress and cultural nostalgia, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Dutton family, and also this theme we just touched on.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mike mate, Mike makes right, where they can use extrajudicial violence um to break through, get it take, you know, sick, stick it to the man who's oppressing them.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um this isn't this isn't a new theme.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you go back to the 70s, you go back, you know, you or the 50s, which was the um the high point, the high popularity of Westerns.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, there was a real conformist society in the 50s during the Eisenhower period.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: In the 60s, um it was uh you got more you got youth um youth-related films like uh Easy Rider, which was an anti it's an anti-establishment um uh kind of film.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um you got um Clint Eastwood in the 70s with the with Dirty Harry, he did become um a right-wing um uh sort of hero.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think Reagan even referenced some of those lines in his speeches.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Make My Day.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: That was a Dirty Harry line.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think he dared the Democratic Congress to vote something and he was gonna veto it, make my day.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I I I think there has been maybe a tradition of this um what how do you describe it, this loner who um is against what he or she sees as the uh faltering culture and um hits back at it literally.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think I I think um uh who is the great New York Times critic, uh film critic who I've not seen much lately?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: A.O.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Scott.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: A.O.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Scott, he I for a while he ran a little series about sort of nostalgic series about films that made a mark on the culture, and he described Dirty Harry, kind of a renegade cop who was running a crusade against Lily livered politicians.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, Lily livered, yeah.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Singing it to the man, man.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sticking it to the man, sticking it to the man.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think that's I think that's right.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let's let's get on the meeting.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just one more item for TV, and we should mention this because it might go over some some of our listeners.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: This may pass them by, but um Fox has created a series called David King of Israel.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a Fox TV series, it's a mega entertainment property for sure.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's attracted a huge Christian Zionist audience, and they describe it as a Fox faith vertical.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to make a little point very quickly.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the Melania film, um, and we're talking about this one.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's a sharp contrast here, I think, maybe, to the Sound of Fury pedot thriller.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when marketing people talk about Sound of Freedom, you keep calling it Sound of Fury, maybe because it makes me furious.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It it's there is a um there's a difference between organic growth and um paid growth.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Matt, there's a as you've pointed out, there's a money, a lot of money sloshing around MAGA in various uh points of society.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they have the power to finance, they have the power to boycott, and they have the power to promote uh all over um social media and the web.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, there's there's a life support system, there's a whole infrastructure on the right that can support financially publishing and and uh cinema and television.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's an interesting contrast.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Melania film, which had a lot of financing, um, and you know, it was a pretty smart move, I'd say, for Bezos because$75 million is it's it's it's play money for him, yes, but it buys it buys a whole lot when it comes to uh regulatory capture or consideration and trade in favor.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the sound of freedom, you know, that was um you know a small budget by someone also you know sympathetic to MAGA.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it was it was a surprise hit.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a definition of a viral hit.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it went viral with that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely was, no question about it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So at you know, at some point in this conversation, we you know, you know, what made that was it the time when that came that it that it arrived on the cultural scene um that made it successful?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or or was it what was it and what what's what's passing us by now?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: We we forgot a film, we forgot uh Mel Gibson's uh Jesus film, which was in um um was it some other language?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was decades ago.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Was it was it that long ago?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Decades ago.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well that seems like that's your that's a the sound of freedom reminded me of that film, but you're saying that was like 20 years ago.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So uh there hasn't been much.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I guess my that that would remind that would make the point for me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: There has haven't been that many blatantly magazine.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Good point.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to your point.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's get on to let's get on to music because that's a that's a juicy one.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's been in in the news a little recently because the Freedom 250 uh celebrations, uh that concert fell apart when more than two-thirds of the artists that had been announced backed out of the event, um, not wanting to be associated with Trump because of his uh sinking popularity.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: That maybe this would have been different just 18 months ago.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the list the list handy of performers?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's interesting because they dropped most of them dropped out because they claimed they had no uh prior mention that it would be a political event.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: That said, many of them were battling uh negative comments, um, attacks from the general public attending.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the list that I uh Martina Let's go slow.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go slow.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Martina McBride.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I didn't know a lot of these people.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Neither do I, but I know some of them.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Martina McBride, Young MC.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Young MC was a seminal early rapper, and that's where we get the term bust a move, which we use.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Carol, you know, we use regular, we use it regularly in our household, especially when you have a a young child who's falling behind on getting to school.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I used to hear bust a move, let's go.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I didn't know the derivation of that CNC Music Factory from the early.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very important band if you ever went out, because they're gonna make you sweat.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they're gonna make you sweat in 1992.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, that's a good point.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean it's a it's a it's an anthem song for anyone who ever went out in it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, sure, that's fair.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: In the 90s.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another observation here.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll see that a lot of these acts are are 90s acts.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty pretty stale.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Vanilla Ice, who's I think was gonna be disappointed that his the concept has been canceled because he he was sticking through it to the end.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Millie and Millie, who were uh exposed as lip syncing, uh not actually uh singing, but they were dancing.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: One of them died.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's one uh one left.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they were was it Millie or Vanilli?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: The Commodores, they were the first to back out.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Bless them.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Morris Day and the Time.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember him from the Prince film, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't he in in um um the blue um uh Purple Rain?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Possibly they perform Purple Rain.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: They're out, Flow Rider, as in Florida, I guess.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Flow Rider.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I never heard of Flow Rider.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know who Flow Rider is?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, all right, and Brett Michael.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Brett Brett Michaels.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I don't know who that is either.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I would guess another person from the 90s.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think the the majority of them dropped out, and there were a couple of uh defiant hangers on, but that that event called um or hosted by 250 Freedom, which is sort of a public-private enterprise, um what did you say it that blew up on the launch pad like Jeff Bezos' latest rocket?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I think it's also instructive that these aren't household names.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if it was if if if I mean I'm I'm venturing here, but I would venture to guess that if Obama um had been was present during these big celebrations, that there'd be people with much bigger names want to get involved, maybe like Bruce Springsteen, who's put his uh who's been very political.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also uh, you know, uh the left has that's the point, the left has the bigger musical names.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And even these are minor names, and they didn't want to get involved with anything associated with Trump.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that's instructive about the culture, about MAGA culture, that I would venture to say that MAGA beyond Kid Rock, whom they uh try out all the time, that they think this is a great rocker that they have on the right.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's around a lot.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um and uh and and and country music, maybe as a genre, not completely right-wing, but I think um there's a lot of conservative sentiment in the uh audience for country music.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Going back to the Dixie Chicks, remember the Dixie Chicks got in trouble uh 20 years ago when they criticized George W.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Bush and the war on Iraq, the Iraq war, right, and they got in big trouble with their fan base because their fan base was pro more tro pro-bush, and they kind of they they changed their name from the Dixie Chicks to the Chicks, uh, which I thought was interesting.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, another another interesting what when you bring up um country music, um there's a performer, she's a country star, her name is Casey Musgrave, and she attracts a young audience, whether they like country music or not, and she was she's been defiant about um standing up to MAGA sensibilities.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, she supported a mariachi family.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um they they were detained by ICE during a routine check-in.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: She heard their story, and she invited them to be the opening act for her sold-out shows, wait for it, in Texas.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the iconic Groony, Groon Hall.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I mean, I've read articles recently that that um put pay to the um conventional wisdom that all country music is uh you know right-wing music.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: It isn't.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I've read some of the might be 50-50 that they're and I think that's probably changed.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think that's probably changed from where it was, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is a more.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think um, but you could say the same thing about Texas.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Texas itself is much more politically divided.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, certainly the cities tend to be more progressive, and the outside the cities tend to be more right wing.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see what happens in November with that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I have to make one more comment, too, about the world of rappers.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this comment is about you know, we were talking about performers who are deploring MAGA influences, but some sometimes audiences do.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, this comes to me from a 22-year-old who likes a rapper named Kid Cuddy, and Kid Cuddy brought out uh a warm-up act, um, a woman by the name of Mia, spelled M I A.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And before she came out, she made a ham-handed, tin-eared comment supporting ICE uh and illegal, you know, deploring illegal immigrants.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then she went on to play her hit song, and the audience stood there dead-eyed and dumbfounded.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what ensued was a lawsuit after Kid Cuddy fired her from the tour, uh, and she's waging a countersuit, I'm sure.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but sometimes some, you know, at some point audiences eat this up, maybe leading up to you know, the Guardian had cited 2023, the year before Trump's second ascendancy, uh, as peak MAGA.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as you like to point out, they're in power and the cool factor's gone for a variety of reasons.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: We can get into that later.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I I did want to point out the the kid cuddy um hubbub.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, what was that?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Was that a misreading of her of her fan base?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if she had made those comments and not at a concert, in a podcast, maybe or an interview, a lot of those people may wouldn't maybe wouldn't have been um aware of it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: And just like the song.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: When you connect politics directly to a song, if you make an announcement just before you play your your most popular song, um that can cause um that can that can confuse matters, I think.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: You might call that a performer's miscalculation.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Performers malpractice, maybe.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's I think that's I think that's unfortunate in a way, because I'm always saying you should be able to separate the art from the artist.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um I would be I'd be I would be hypocritical to to say you should uh not you know not not listen to a song because uh the song, the performer, was of different politics than you had.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um a good point.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fair point.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's get on to let's go on to sports, because there is a MAGA um uh aspect to sports.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be a big cage fight right on the South Lawn uh of the White House.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that Trump likes personally.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: They claimed it's a totally apolitical fight.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see how a fight, anything could be apolitical on the South Lawn of the White House during this administration.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a that's a that's a wish.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: But but what was interesting, so is I don't think sports particularly has a political contingent, but we both noticed that at the recent uh Super Bowl, the halftime show became politicized.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: By the right.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: No one on the left was uh claiming any kind of politics for the show.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Remember it was Bad Bunny, uh, that a lot of people on the right were very upset about.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't even understand why.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: They were he's he was proudly Puerto Rican, and there were people on the right uh uh implying or claiming that he was an immigrant.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: A clear misunderstanding of what the United States involves.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Puerto Rico, of course, is a US, is a U.S.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: principality.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a state, but it's owned by the U.S.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a protectorate.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Protectorate.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a legal term.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the so the right wing put on their own, their competing show starring Kid Rock.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think they were hoping that they would show all these millions of people who abandoned um Bad Bunny's halftime show.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a fiasco, the the Kid Rock show was fiasco technically, they had all these technical glitches, very few people, very few people watched it because it was very hard to find.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was on a rather um obscure platform.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: And Bad Bunny's show, which I watched as opposed to I didn't watch the the game, but I watched the show.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was fun, it was great.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was nothing, it was nothing to be upset about with that show.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was very, didn't he think?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was very positive, uplifting.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was a lot of it was in Spanish.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't um I didn't understand, but it looked fine to me.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was fun.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as my you know what I I didn't find it I didn't find it less interesting because it was in another language.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was captivating.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you might say that the language of good cinema cinema made it really engaging.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And but you know, the other thing, the other, you know, the other epic fail here is it, you know, you're right, we're tracking different kinds of sports.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: MAGA hasn't had much of a foothold in the NBA, in Major League Baseball.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And here's an attempt to go after the NFL in some respects, as TV becomes a third or fourth screen that people are viewing in the United States and elsewhere, uh, with dwindling viewership.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the the Super Bowl and the NFL still dominate traditional TV.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think the second largest audience are the Oscars.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So here was a huge opportunity to defy and gain attention from a massive audience, one of the biggest in the world of all ages.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so to uh excuse the pun, they drop the ball on that one in a big way.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think I think you mess with with uh I I hate using these terms, leftist music, but I think you mess you if you mess with music politically on the right, you're gonna you're gonna lose that fight.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're just gonna lose it.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh unless you are predominantly a country music fan, perhaps, or you know, uh fealty to kid rock.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't you're not gonna win that fight.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know what that says anyway.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, and I I don't know if Bruce Springsteen, who you'd think be kind of a red collar hero, if he's lost support because of his blatant political views, which go back, you know, decades.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as I think I've said in the previous podcast, I saw last time I saw Bruce Springsteen perform was at a 2004 rally for for John Kerry.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so you know the he's Springsteen's been very always been very very political.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I I think that um sports uh is maybe politically uh resistant to politics.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say interesting about Springsteen too, because he represents a demographic demographic that's uh dominant in in the MAGA world, um and you know, which is which is boomer culture.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh us.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So so he, you know, for better or for worse, he he probably created a huge division, uh cultural division in that demographic.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: It might be also, I mean, you pointed out yourself, that might be um a generational divide as well.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think my kids are that aware of Springsteen.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's very American, um, although he has an international following.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest Springsteen fan I know is is a Swedish friend of mine who's traveled across countries in Europe to see Springsteen at concert.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: But it but um but he's our age.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um does your daughter like like Springsteen?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um she does only because you know I influence her a little bit, but I I think one of the biggest boomer or Gen X Springsteen fans in the public arena would be Chris Christie, who boasted about having seen a hundred or over a hundred shows.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Springsteen wanted kind of nothing to do with them.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: He never quite um he I don't know if he ever posed for a picture with Chris Christie.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Chris Christie, who seemed like a uh Republican oaf back when now seems like a very level-headed Republican because he was anti-Trump from pretty early on.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe maybe he and the boss patched it up for yeah, let's hope so.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: We have a note for um gaming because it's just a huge such a huge thing, a huge part of the culture that I am completely oblivious to.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would have thought would have a right wing or MAGA.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Are are we are we conflating right wing with with MAGA?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: I guess for the sake of this of this podcast, we are.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a big MAGA contingent to gaming?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's all these military games and shooting shooting people.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what what's the what's involved in game?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we're either of us or in gaming gaming families.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I don't know if if there's MAGA messaging in gaming culture.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I think it's I think it's uh informative to to share with everyone out there who might not be aware that gaming culture or games themselves have outranked Hollywood um by a magnificent of many times, size-wise.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge business.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you can be oblivious about it or to it, but you are being oblivious to an enormous, enormous industry.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and the gaming, for some reason I associate gaming with with drone, drone making, maybe uh I only bring that up because it was announced in the news today, and I don't like referring to news events because they get they get old very fast.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: But the Trump administration was calling on on um private drone makers to help make military drones um because the government's used up so many, or they don't have enough.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they've the drone drone military drones uh are have been crucial in the um in the Ukraine war with uh Russia and also in the Iran War.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: So they're calling on private citizens building drones in their sheds to help out.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um is that a MAGA thing?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what that I don't know what that is.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of the same physical reflex is required to do one and to do one and the other.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I I I I don't I you know I can't really answer the question if if megaculture is somehow permeated gaming culture, but I would definitely say in reverse, that um the look and feel of certain types of games, uh particularly nostalgic games from you know the the 90s, that look has has influenced how ICE and has um recruited uh young men.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's kind of a look of these acid colored um acid tone colors.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and well, also you you remind me that the White House, can I just interject?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Can I sorry, because it's uh I'm piggybacking on your your comment.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: The White House and the Department of Defense, or whatever you want to call it, has issued, has put out posted videos, I think AI, AI um derived videos that look like video games uh blowing shit up, um, that are pro-war, pro-Iran war.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a fair interjection?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: When I rudely interrupted your thoughts, and I apologize.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: You you piggybacked on my comment.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um now I have now I have a lower back pain.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean they you know they're using the the the gaming aesthetic.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm saying.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they use it in their in their graphics.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think it's interesting that that the White House is is kind of co-opting the visual look of gaming.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that to me uh implies that there is a um uh contingent to it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get let's get on to books, because the books is a books are a puzzle.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Literary.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is literary?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if there's literary MAGA.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: We know there's uh they like books about um conspiracy theories.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, right?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of and there's there are these imprints, like there was a regnary that would uh publish a lot of right wing mumbo jumping.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think regnery was uh uh imprint of Simon and Schuster, if I recall.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um and I think uh Crown the Crown Books has has a whole line of um right wing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Makes sense.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean they sell, they sell, but yeah, I think it has caused some uh has ruffled some feathers in uh authors that are um associated with those publishing houses, which is a um you know an occupational hazard because there are very few publishing houses now.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: There are they're they're these con conglomerates that have bought up all the uh smaller houses and they have all these imprints.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you can be uh you know part of HarperCollins or um Ren.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I'm I'm I'm so wrong about Renury.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an imprint of Simon and Schuster, it's an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, which is a hardcore fully integrated uh right-wing publishing uh house.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we know that we know that uh MAGA people like these conspiracy um nonfiction.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose they also like conspiracy thrillers, fiction?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: What are they reading?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's reading romanticy now, and more women are reading books than men.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so maybe MAGA women are reading.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Are you are is there a series of um trad housewife novels?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: I bet there are.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: There must be.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um what like what would a MAGA romance novel look like?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be a guy like sort of you know, sort of unmisunderstood, who's a a Fox newscaster or pundit who becomes Secretary of Defense and then changes the name of the Defense Department to the Defense of Warren?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't he dreamy?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you laugh, that's probably right.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would think so.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't do my research for this aspect of MAGA culture for this podcast.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: I should have looked on the bestsellers, see what's see what's selling now.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: I just I uh my point was just nonfiction is easier to identify politically than fiction is.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm sure there are trad romance uh romance novels.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: But also there are probably a lot of MAGA women watching um Heated Rivalry who had read Heated Rivalry, which is about um gay um hockey, ice hockey players.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh that's uh that's appealing to a lot of people.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Is that political?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's more it might might be more appealing to women than to men or even gay men.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think that's the that's the readership.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's that's right.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think maybe on television as a maybe a broader audience, but I think the initial appeal of the books was certainly amongst women.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Women are just reading more books than men anyway.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, almost by two to one, I believe.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, yeah, although I I think I think when we talk about nonfiction in the literature realm of MAGA, I think it's any kind of book that is quote unquote researched that validates your point of view, that immigrants uh are bad, that taxation is a way to destroy our freedoms.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it and anyone anyone can publish them because they're Skyhorse is renouri.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking for titles like that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're I think I think I I think a friend of mine was lecturing me about a book, a MAGA friend of mine, and I I looked at the author, I said, Well, who is the author?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is the author's credentials?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I I wish I was, you know, this will say this for another podcast, but I saw that the author was actually a part-time magician.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Although that is well, you know, it's magical thinking, isn't it?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: Magical thinking.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, all right.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's that's fair to say.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any other books you can think of?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: To me, uh it's a it's a it's just across the board.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: There are books for everyone.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have to do our work on that one, yeah.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we can do that off the cuff.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think our I think our observations are trenchant.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here wait for our trench observations on on this final on another category comedy, because we've we've discussed you and I have discussed this a lot, and the the idea we were talking about um you know the left wing versus right wing late-night uh talk show hosts, and the late great Stephen Colbert, um, whom we all miss so much, and and Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, um who's the other guy.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um there are five of them anyway.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: What was his name?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: His last name began with a C, Col Colbert, something like that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about we may I mentioned Colbert.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, there's Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and um Zenith Carranti, I think is his name.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's so funny.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so and then so they they add up to you know millions tonight.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh but the highest rated single show is Greg Gutfeld, exclamation point.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Gutfeld, who's on Fox News and is brought in an average of 3.1 million viewers live.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: That means when the show is uh broadcast, I think four nights a week on Fox News, and that is more than that's about twice what Stephen Colbert's uh numbers were.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's impressive.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I would argue that um the uh comics on the left are the popular the the uh watchership is viewership is the amongst four or five different shows, and so if you add up all those shows, it's more than double what um Gutfield Gutfeld takes in every every night, and because uh you can't watch two shows at once.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think more people are watching these monologues uh on YouTube as I do.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that none of those shows none of these shows are available to watch on television here in the UK.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I watch I watch Stephen Colbert and I watch Jimmy Kimmel on YouTube the next morning, and I think that's uh how uh a lot of people, millions of people watch those shows.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: But um, we both have watched Gutfeld and have some gut-related comments, um, observations to make.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: What was your what was your take on Gutfeld?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's it's the age-old question about what makes something funny.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a court jester making fun of the king with with permission um and delight from your from your viewers, or are you siding with the king and making fun of the serfs and peasants?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Gutfeld's firmly in the serf and peasant category.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's punching down his jokes, they are only funny to cruel people, I think.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, I I think that's a that's the major point to make.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh I I just don't find him I don't find him funny.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think funny is funny.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but when I watched his uh most recent show, he had uh two jokes about the women on the view.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: He had two jokes.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: This is in one one episode, two jokes about Chinese people eating dogs, and a joke about Bill Clinton being uh going to Hooters, which struck me as a 30-year-old, you know, the joke is about 30 years old.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um he never he never makes jokes about um Trump.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's to me, for a comedian, is like malpractice, really, because Trump is is pretty funny in a horrible way.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: He's not funny.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't find him funny, but the aspect, but the the the truth of him, the existence of him, I mean is just so there's so much hypocrisy hypocrisy.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's just um it's hard to avoid.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, I I have a sample joke I can share.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's from a recent monologue and what was current was the from Gutfeld.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: From Gutfeld was the Guinness Book of World Records recently declared, or I I identified the the world's largest guacamole bull, where he joked that the massive bull was used to hide illegal immigrants.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, who laughs at that?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I think our discussion about publishing, that's a joke that validates your belief that immigrants are bad people and that we they're menaced.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's at our peril, do we allow people into this country and it makes you feel good?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But for everybody else, it's it's yeah, it's uh it's a cringy joke.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, no, I would I would agree.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: That would to me that'd be that would be punching punching down.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I have to say, Jimmy Jimmy Kimmel has got into into trouble for making a few jokes that I didn't find funny.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, one was uh in the middle of an admittedly very funny spoof of the Washington Correspondence Dinner.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this was, I think, three days before the actual dinner, which of course didn't take place because of the assassination attempt.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: But Jimmy Kimmel uh did this spoof where he was the host.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: You must have seen this, Jim, and he cut in uh reaction shots of um from real um, I think State of the Union uh mess uh deliveries and and other correspondent dinners.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but he made a joke uh showing it showed Melania Trump and and she had the glow of an expectant widow.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I I didn't find that funny.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when I saw that joke, and I saw that uh episode before the assassination attempt, I thought that this is gonna get him into trouble.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even anticipate an assassination attempt.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I just thought um this is he later uh explained the joke as being because of their age difference, but that made it sound as if she was looking forward to her husband dying.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I I didn't think that was funny, and I didn't think he deserved to get into trouble over it.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I just wouldn't have I wouldn't have written that joke and I wouldn't have I wouldn't have okayed that joke either.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, just coming off a comment only a a few weeks prior where Trump Trump um declared how great he how glad he was that uh Robert Muller had died um on Truth Social or whatever you want to call it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it's part of this thing where uh you know MAGA there's snowflakes, and that caused a huge reaction from loyalists to Trump.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I will ask you if if there wasn't such a strong reaction, would you still have cringed at that joke?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I cringed at it before there was a reaction.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: I would cringe in the real time.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I did.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: I cringe at that joke, and I don't think it's a justified joke, and I think I think um justifying it because Trump said something terrible a couple weeks earlier, it doesn't justify it because that's getting down to his his level.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: He says the most horrible things.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, no, I thought that was a uh, I mean, it's you know, one joke out of thousands, and Jimmy Kimmel is pretty consistent.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Although I I did think that after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I thought he should have watched his word, been a bit more careful about.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: His words.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um remember he was pulled off the air for a week, and luckily uh that they uh they had to relent and get him back on.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's got a great team of writers, but he uh he sails a little close to the wind, and I've never felt Colbert did.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: I never felt Stephen Colbert said something that was like unjustified or cruel.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I don't think Colbert would have made the um you know that Melania joke.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: I liked it, I think his writers were better than the Jimmy Kimmel writers.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we both talked about uh how we don't like how Jimmy Kimmel has has this uh recurrent um segment where he has people talks to interviews people on the street on Hollywood Boulevard essentially to show how stupid people are.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't find that funny.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I find that kind of offensive and low hanging crisp.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's classic.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's punching down as we talk as we talk about.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: The other problem, I think the other problem with Kimmel is, I mean, generally his monologues are very good, they're very sharp.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you just made a reference to how he had been pulled off the air uh for a week, and it was because he he pontificated about the Charlie Kirk reaction.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes comics fall into this trap of lecturing or expressing their preoccupation.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the the famous comedian from the 50s, um, whose name escapes me at the moment, became obsessed with his uh obscenity trial and would read passages of his transcripts to audiences only to bore them to tears.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's Lenny Bruce.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's a sad situation because the only film we have of his act was very late in his career when he was just rambling on about his uh his court cases.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he wasn't funny.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't funny.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: I have I have uh here what what um what Jimmy Kimmel said that the MAGA gang's desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can can to score political points from it.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're quite right.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's pontificating.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's not funny.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and we didn't know who the kid was, the kid, quote unquote, it was a kid.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know what his politics were at that point.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're still kind of unclear about his politics.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, let's get back to this idea of punching up and punching down, because it's been pointed out to us by our our uh researcher that um some people on the right think that because woke culture, and we can get into this term woke, woke culture is the um this elitist uh overpowering cult overpowering culture uh in universities and in and in the left left of set of uh culture, that that because they're because that is the mainstream or default culture, that that if you attack if you attack wokeism, you are punching up.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and and maybe this was a fair argument.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I thought that was an interesting point.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone, if to me, if a comic like Dave Chappelle or Ricky Gervais uh makes a joke about a trans person, to me that's like that that seems like punching down, because trans people are not do not control the three levers of government like MAGA does, uh by definition, that has to be punching down.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: But if you are in the in the belief that that woke culture is the dominant culture, and this is separating culture from politics, then you will think that is punching up.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's an interesting that's an interesting point.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's it it seems lost on me, um, because um I don't think wokeism, for want of a better term, in fact, let's get into this term wokeism.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: What was the original definition of woke, Jim?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you're it's a it's a pretty old word, believe it or not.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I heard it was in 2017 when I was watching the director's commentary on the movie Get Out, and Jordan Peel was the had they had debated the ending, whether the protagonist dies at the end or not.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, if if you recall, this is a a great horror film, it's a really terrifically dark comedy of Oh, yes, I remember that film.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good film, sure.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he had said that what what made them decide to make the the main character survive was that the society was woke to um the plight of black people in America.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to my wife, what did he say?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said, What did he say?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Woke, and she was entrenched in the culture wars at school.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: She was on our school board, and we had a massive conflict uh among families.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I won't go into the details, but it made the New York Times eventually.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: So she was entrenched, and she said what she told me what the word woke meant, and it wasn't a new word in 2017.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a word that black people shared with each other for a long time, not not for not for popular use, but as you like to point out, co-opted by uh by our dominant bul political power very quickly structure, very quickly.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: It seemed like almost as soon as I'd heard the term woke, it got co-opted by the right wing and turned against them.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: The same way, and Trump has been very good at this, the word, the term fake news, which he turned into a different uh it turned that on its head almost almost immediately.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: But getting back to wokeism, so wokeism was really held against the left very quickly.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um but for want of a better term, I would I would I would agree that a lot of the universities were seized by a heightened political sensibility that shut down any dissent and forced a kind of curriculum on some of these universities.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: The same thing that happened in the late 60s.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it became very politicized and out of control.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: And we both know stories about professors who got uh fired because they used the wrong term, or they were perceived as not being as amenable to criticize colonialism or whatever it was.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was seemed, it did seem a bit Stalin, Stalinask after a while.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: But that was the um that was the worst, certainly, of uh wokism and the I U E I I was inclusion e I D equality inclusion and what the hell is that?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're making alphabet soup, Miller.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Get with it.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, inclusion.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: How soon they forget.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: DEI, yes.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: They also sunk another acronym, CSR, corporate social responsibility.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they seem to be against a lot of acronyms, but the point being that we we were talking a little earlier about how megaculture is obsessed with pedophilia, they're also obsessed with grievance.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, Ricky Gervais, whenever he had his stand-up attacking trans people, I think there was a time when a big part of America felt they couldn't say anything, like students or professors on a certain campus, that they felt oppressed by the woke culture.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I there the apotheosis maybe, again, I'm gonna say 2023 was the year of peak MAGA, right before the election, during Biden, when uh we were looking at the defeat of and the humiliation of Trump, uh, the J6 catastrophe.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there was a trans transgender TikTok influencer named Dylan Mulvaney, who gained massive fame in a viral daily video that documented her gender transition.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Bud Light, Anheuser Busch sent Mulvaney a single customized beer, thinking that they could broaden their audience by reaching out to an influencer on TikTok.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: It it was a complete disaster.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it triggered an immediate, intense boycott of Bud Light uh by conservative public figures and consumers.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, it was a marketing disaster, marketing malpractice.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: Although I that looked like an accident waiting to happen to me, but but that was that proved a point.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's a that's a that's a really interesting reference point.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't personally I don't see how you can not point 2024 as being peak MAGA with the re-election of of um of Trump.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, only because they won.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think as soon as you win and you're in power, you're you're you're not.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I guess you are peak MAGA, but the the culture has the cultural practices of MAGA, which are built on a form of rebellion, uh, which you know, and we all know rebellion is a is a important ingredient of coolness, um, that that changes everything.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, I think unfortunately for them, they're using the same cultural practices which are backfiring today.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I yeah, yeah, we can we can get into that.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: I have to say it's an incredibly neat trick that MAGA made white people the aggrieved party in the United States of America.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I I didn't see that coming ever um from um you know uh you know Native Americans, the people of color, um, you know, you know, LGBGQ people.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's the white, it's the white, straight white people are the aggrieved people.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that that goes that leads to the whole uh what white replacement theory, whatever it's called, uh, which I find insane, really insane.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but I wonder if we've reached both peak manga and peak wokeism, maybe at the same time.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know where that leaves us.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about I I will tell you one thing that there is one political rhetorical strategy that's like a wrecking ball uh about uh that uh wrecks anti-woke uh complaint, and that is it begins with an A, and a certain mayor of my city uses it a lot.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can you guess what that might be?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: What uh Mamdani uh using uh some I don't know what's the term uh affordability.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Bingo, affordability, yes.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's the big question in these midterm elections.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are the economic issues going to for want of a better word, trump the cultural issues?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that in I I think in 2024, I think it's you it's dangerous to underestimate the impact that that uh cultural issues had, certainly the trans issue.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: Remember there was that devastating ad, therefore therefore she and them and he's for you.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that uh saying I do.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh very pithy, um, and that was uh pretty instructive, and I think the Democrats um really lost on that.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: But they also lost on the affordability issue.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh inflation was high, it was Biden's economy.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's Trump's economy, whatever the whatever Trump wants to say, is still blaming Biden.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and if we look at Texas, where Ken Paxton just won the Republican primary, so he is there.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's the Republican uh nominee, uh the Republican challenger uh candidate for the Senate.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's running up against Talo Rico, and he recently tried to tarn feather Talo Rico as running a vegan campaign.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to wonder if that's gonna work or not.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um it may in Texas, but um, you know, that's politicizing food, politicizing diet.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't on our list of um of MAGA aspects of MAGA culture, but food is is apparently one of them.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well I uh you can certainly say veganism is woke, um, but you could also say if you're only eating vegetables and avoiding meat, maybe you're doing it for budgetary purposes.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I because I don't know if you've looked at the price of hamburger lately, yeah, or god forbid, eggs.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, you could say it's an affordability issue right now.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you're the politicization of food right there.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you you know the the the beefsteak nation can't afford its it's it's beefsteak anymore.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: I just I just wonder.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the Democrats would be really smart to avoid cultural issues and just zero in on affordability.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the great issue.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I wonder, I mean, you I guess we are gonna see a culture war in November because I don't know what else the Republicans have, frankly.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have the economic argument, they're in charge.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think they're gonna try again that playbook that's worked so many times for them, the wedge issues, the cultural issues.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I just wonder if Americans can fall for that again.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: There were a lot of people who um were uh former Democrats and independents who voted for Trump last, not last year, the year before last.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they uh I would have thought they have uh buyer's remorse, but we'll see.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um but would you I I said a few minutes ago that we'd we'd pass peak woke and peak maga.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that's right?
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Are they are we bad?
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: That would that would imply we're right in the middle, and I don't know if we are or not.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm in the middle, left of the middle.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at it on a continuum, I don't know, but I I do I do see MAGA using the same political rhetoric as they did two, three, four years ago.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I you know, I think in the in terms of uh gas prices reaching beyond six dollars a gallon, that doesn't really carry much weight anymore.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: You would think it wouldn't.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and um I mean isn't isn't isn't the trans issue the new sort of the new gay issue?
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: The gay, gay, the gay issue went away, for I think for Republicans, because it turns out there are a lot of gay Republicans, and everyone knows someone who's gay.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if anyone everyone knows someone who's trans.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe that's why it's a stronger issue.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm putting it in very crude terms, but it but I think that's politics is a blunt instrument.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: So uh but don't you think I just don't know how I don't know how the trans issue rises to uh um inflection point in the come any coming election right now.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's they've been silenced and defeated, they're out there.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, JK Rowling herself will attest to that.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I just I just don't see how it could become uh a platform issue uh in any kind of election coming up.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't either, but uh November's a few months away.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't know what else, I do honestly don't know what else the because they have to scare the public to vote for them again, right?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about this uh in a in a private phone call earlier.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: The trans issue did come up recently on the toxic dumpster fire known as X, where a hapless uh web facilitator from the DNC posted a promotion about James Tellerico.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: And here comes Stephen Miller on X, um, you know, wearing his black cape, swooping in to make a an ugly comment that they had um they they'd brought a trans candidate um to the fore to you know an important election.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: Did he he implied or said that Taller Rico was a trans a trans candidate?
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what he was trans candidate based on a photograph?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know, Taller Rico has kind of you know looks fae or feminine or something.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I don't know, do you want to?
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is a family program.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to say exactly what the response was from this hapless webmaster at the DNC?
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll try to beep out the right word.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: Her, I mean, you know, clearly these are people who work at the DNC, they're very committed to the cause and to the party.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you could just feel her uh exasperation when she responded, shut up, you ugly beep.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: It begins with an F.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's followed by a U, then there's a C, and then it might be a K at the end.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, shout out to my friend Matt Weiss for bringing this to my attention.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: My immediate reaction was, oh, we're supposed to be going high.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we going low?
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I it it it unnerved me.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I I I kind of thought, wow, this is this is oh the vapors, the vapors.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I thought this wasn't good for Democrats.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, naturally, you know, following the old Roy Cohn strategy to attack twice as hard.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine if your wife or my wife came to our defense and doxed someone.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen Miller's wife doxed this webmaster.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: Revealed her as an unhappy.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's an evil, evil, dangerous thing, evil, dangerous thing to do.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I I may just I just want to point out that Michelle Obama's famous dictum, when they go low, we go high, has been uh discredited years ago in the last uh three elections.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I I don't think you need to be by who?
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: By by Gavin Newsom, who's who's you know sort of playing the Trump game to the disadvantage of Democrats.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, by Gavin Newsom and a lot of others.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know how wise um or I don't know.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what I didn't even know what an what an X comment may, you know, what what it does now, except if you dox someone that does have repercussions on that person.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, and I I think I wonder if you know, like using mustard gas at some point both parties will say, let's not dox and let's not SWAT.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, do you know what SWATing is?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I do.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_02: You can explain it to the kids at home watching.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, our uh one of our Supreme Court justices um police showed up at her house because someone made a call that um there was someone with firearms or committing violence or murder.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_00: A whole SWAT team shows up.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: That that is truly that is it's dangerous and it's a uh costly and resources, it's a terrible thing to do.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and I I was I attended a conference um last fall uh concerning the Freedom of Information Act and the First Amendment, and we had as a speaker um the formerly very conservative judge Michael Luttig.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had been his not he, but his son and their family had been swatted too.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here we have a left, you know, we have lefties swatting righties and righties swatting lefties.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's dangerous, it's disruptive, it's it's costly.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe this is the mustard gas of our time.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be nice if doxing was too, because Stephen Miller's wife came out, doxxed this uh this web professional, accused her of being an unhappily uh unmarried uh female Democrat, you know, possibly a cat lady.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: She responded with a picture of herself picking out her wedding dress.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there, so there, Stephen Miller's wife.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I'm much more concerned about doxing than that um outraged comment by the DNC member uh using that naughty word.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I don't know if um if um you know bad language gets you anywhere.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's that's gonna be a long slog and expensive campaign down in Texas, and we'll see what happens in November.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but that's a good point.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that was well you're well to bring that up.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I don't know, but you so uh did you answer my question about about peak peak woke and peak.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I keep in my laptop.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: Peak woke and peak.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're past peak maga.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're probably past peak woke, but I don't know where that leads.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: It it leaves us at affordability.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Republicans playing defense at this point.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: On the on their back feet.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, for years they've been preaching wealth and status and power.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: And now as the powerless, as the people on budgets, uh people who are working class, um, yeah, uh as as soon as they see that there's nothing coming their way, that's gonna be that's gonna be pretty tough to defend.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a reason to vote against the Republicans.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that enough of a reason to vote for the Democrats?
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats have to get a message out um that uh you know gets people out to vote.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot of people might stay home in November, but I think the Democrats have got to get their act together.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you'll bear with me, I'll I'm just gonna do a quick analysis here.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's if we look back at the New York City mayoral campaign, and you might not say this is fair because it's New York City, it's a democratic stronghold, but uh Mamdani came out from nowhere with a 1% chance from the Emerson poll in the primaries to take the whole thing away from one of the most powerful uh democratic operatives uh in in the country, which is uh Andrew Cuomo, who like him or hate him, he gave us free pre-K in New York State.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was very friendly to the unions, he brought us gay marriage, he decriminalized a lot of the drug laws.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's dyed in the wool, that's a died-in-the-wolf Democrat and left of center democrat.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the affordability question, uh, it made him tech, you know, it was a very brilliant.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me let me just finish.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just finish quickly.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little afraid of Mamdani because I wanted someone like Cuomo in there to defend against the White House, the federalization of our local politics, which was happening far and wide, still is, but it was a it was a pretty brilliant move by the campaign to talk about affordability and the people who were struggling in in New York City.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: It forced it forced the campaign to the right.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: It forced it forced Cuomo to the right.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the the result was one of the biggest turnouts in New York City politics since the 1960s.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how did the Democrats replicate that in other jurisdictions in you know you know, in Texas communities and uh Illinois or Northern California?
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not our job.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it takes a very skilled politician, and Mabdani certainly is that.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if Taler Rico is that either.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: He seems to have already made mistakes coming right out of the gate, but like oh, like um well, like the vegan thing.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm running running in a vegan.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, your mouth.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: The vegan thing.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_02: Literally my mouth.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh why?
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: That seems like an unforced error.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, are you gonna get all the vegan vegan votes are there in Texas?
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of our listeners and viewers, could you tell us what happened?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: What what does veganism have to do with the Talo Rico campaign, please?
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_02: He announced Taller Rico, I believe.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: You can look this up and prove me wrong.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: Taller Rico announced he was running a vegan campaign.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: Said that.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: In a in a cattle state.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: In a yes, in Texas.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think you could do that in Massachusetts, maybe, or or I don't know.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a head scratcher.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's a head scratcher.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: That seems like uh we talk about political malpractice, and that seems like political malpractice.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think Mabdani would have said that.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm running for New York mayor with an all-vegan campaign.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does that mean?
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why should we why should we care what your what your diet is?
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyway, uh I rice and lentils for everyone.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, you know what?
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll leave that you know to to our new fact checker.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have we have a research assistant.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to I want to name him.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: His name is uh Nathaniel Rowe.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's done some great work for us.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it helps us be more precise in what we share with all of you.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nathaniel, look that up.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Look that up.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I may I may be wrong, but I'd be curious.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something to look out for in our next episode.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um this comes to headquakes.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Jim, do you have a headquake for us this week?
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I will have I do have a headquake, and it's uh I attended a uh protest uh in Newark yesterday.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was at Delaney Hall, where there's a detention center run by a private organization called GEO, and it's been uh a location of a really unprecedented violence.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh until yesterday or day before uh the mayor, the mayor of Newark, uh Raz Baraka imposed a curfew on the area.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh the day before that.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the governor uh had negotiated with the federal government, with uh the Department of Homeland Defense, Homeland Security, to remove IC and leave law enforcement to the state police, the sheriff's department, uh, and the Newark police, um, hopefully diffusing some of the violence because uh what we know is ICE doesn't play by the rules of law enforcement, and neither are they trained in law enforcement.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we had bloody violent pepper gas, pepper, sorry, pepper spray, pepper pellet activity all during the week.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up around in the afternoon when there were around 70 people, and uh based on my review um on social media and the news, there was incredible violence last night.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_00: The point being, why why be an activist?
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a lot of um these loosely organized groups helping protesting, but also helping um families of detainees navigate a pretty Byzantine visitation system.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I spoke to one of them who said that uh they were the rules were designed to stall them, making them go from one side of the core uh corridor, the uh sorry, the core doned area, uh which is half a mile away from the other one, forcing them to go back and forth.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and these these activists got them through, and while we were out there, and I was trying to decide whether I was a citizen journalist or an or a or a protester, we saw a woman get through in her car.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_00: She the the police waved her through because she got uh she got uh uh she got permission, and as she waited, we saw her stifle tears uh uh holding the steering wheel.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that made my whole day worthwhile.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when people ask me why I'm uh I'm an activist, that's why.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh that's very moving, and uh I'm glad you went out there.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh thanks for that, and uh I'm glad you I'm glad you went and reported on that.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_02: I have just a very short uh headquake, nothing as highfalutin as that or as um socially um uh conscious as that.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've been reading this book, Henry Chips Channel, the first volume of his uh three volumes of uh diary.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: He died about 60 years ago.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I beg your pardon.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's one volume?
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's the first volume.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's there are three of these.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: It looks like a masonry brick.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what a diary is.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: You write every night.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_02: If you live long enough, you're gonna have a lot of a lot of entries.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: He was an American born in 1898.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's from Chicago.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_02: He moved to England in the 20s, went to Oxford, and became an English person.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_02: He gave up his, I think he gave I I may maybe kept his U.S.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: nationality, but he got became he got British nationality, became a member of Parliament uh to very little effect.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh he was, I think, in Parliament just for the social aspect for the parties, married into the Guinness family, the very wealthy Guinness family who were connected to the uh aristocracy, and uh and so lived very well.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: He was bisexual, he knew everyone, everyone from the Duke of Windsor to King George VI to Noel Coward to um Richard Rogers and all that Churchill, all of them, everyone who was anyone.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: But he was very indiscreet in his diary.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: So these were finally published in the last few years.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't want them published until fifth at least 50 years after he died, to make sure everyone he mentioned in the diary said we're long dead as well.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a it's a real eye-opener and it's a real kind of um street-level view of high society.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh high snobbish society because he was a um quite pro-German, really anti-Curchill, um pro-royalist, who he called the royalties.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_02: He called all the royals the royalties.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_02: He was the ultimate snob, a very unpleasant person, but a fantastic.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was a great combination.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my my headquake.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think to keep up with you next time, I'm gonna have a I'm gonna wear like a starch collar and a pince-ne.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's the least you can do, Jim.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe or a monocle.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Monocle, maybe a pipe or a cigar.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how Carl will uh you don't have to light the cigar, uh, but it might be a good look.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right, well, that's what we have for this week on Boomer Has It.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you've uh enjoyed it.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm JB Miller in London.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_02: See you next time.