Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/17/26: End Times Fascism with Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor

Transcript

9/17/26: End Times Fascism with Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here, and we
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: can up our game for this critical election.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
• 0:11
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• 0:15
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• 0:17
  Speaker 2: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: But enough with that. Let's get to the show.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Vance out with a pretty notable new pitch for the midterms.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Please just give us another chance.
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: a lot of work left to do. Don't give power
• 0:33
  Speaker 5: to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing.
• 0:36
  Speaker 5: Give us another chance or give us another couple of
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: years to continue to work on the amazing things that
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: we've been doing for the past two years. And the
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: second argument I'd make is even if you don't agree
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: with us on every issue, The other party is consumed
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: by craziness. They're consumed by people who want to steal everything,
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: who want to give the country over to illegal aliens
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: and criminals. They actively brag about it. I mean, I've
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: heard a lot of crazy stuff, guys, over the past
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: few years in politics. But when I heard somebody running
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: for Congress in New York say that July 4th was
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: about the liberation of Puerto Rico and Palestine, I thought
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: to myself, this person needs to be checked into a
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: mental hospital, not given a seat in Congress.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Good luck with that. Never a sign of strength, Sagar,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: when you're having to acknowledge, number one, well, you may
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: not agree with us on everything, but, well, trust me,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: we're better than the other guys. And, of course, a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: midterm election, which is going to be a referendum on
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the party in power. And, number two... the implicit acknowledgement
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: here of the dissatisfaction of the American public when he says,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: give us another chance, not let us finish the job,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: which is what he tried to wrap it in, but
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: give us another shot. Let us see if we can
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: do a little better next time around.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Negative polarization only works when you're out of power. Negative
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: polarization very rarely works when you're in power.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: It has some chances.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So, for example, 2022, you had Roe versus Wade decision.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Democrats massively outperformed a lot of their expectations. But that
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: was because the party in power was actively for something
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: which had just been taken away.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: It was very popular.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: And voting Republican explicitly was an affirmation of something that
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: had just been taken away. So it was kind of
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: a different story, right? This time around, again, I keep
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: asking this. I'm like, if I vote Republican, what am
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I going to get? My $ 5, 000? check, which I'm sure
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Mitch will get right on top of. That was I,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: for those of you who don't speak Mitch McConnell. If
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: you don't speak vegetable, that's how he votes I in
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: the Senate. I just am like, that's it. And then
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I get to keep the Dems out of Congress. I mean,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: it's just not a compelling pitch, especially when gas, diesel
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and all that. To be honest, I mean, Trump is
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: screwing him because if he wants to run for president
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: and he's trying to make him the face of of
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the midterms. He's sending them all across the country. He's
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: setting him up for failure, you know, to basically catch
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the bag when.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: It comes to 2028.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: We have some of these humiliating incidents.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: We can just get to it now.
• 2:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Where J.D. 's about to go campaign in, what is it,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: in Iowa?
• 2:58
  Speaker 7: In Iowa.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: In Iowa.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And the Democrat there is like, oh, I'm busy, actually.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like, that's never a good sign.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ashley Hinson's campaign, she's a Senate candidate, tells a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: reporter that she will not attend J.D. Vance's rally in
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Council Bluffs because of Previously scheduled events.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: A little too busy for the vice president of the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: United States. But there's a bunch of stuff.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Iowa.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about Iowa because, first of all,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: it's a state that really, frankly, at this point should
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: not be in play for Democrats. And Democrats have suffered
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: extreme losses across rural America. Iowa, obviously a rural state,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a farm state. moved strongly into the Republican column over
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the past two decades after Barack Obama was able to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: win and he was the last one. And now you're
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: seeing some real signs that Iowa Republicans are under a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: lot of pressure. And obviously we've covered the polling here,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: but in some ways, the way the candidates are acting
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is even more telling. So you have that, you have
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Ashley Henson saying, I'm sorry, busy that day, Mr. Vice President,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: can't be there to see you in person and campaign
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: alongside you. Also, she cut an ad where she emphasizes
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: how eager she is to work with the Democratic Party.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that.
• 4:08
  Speaker 8: I'm Ashley Hinson. Used to be that reaching across the
• 4:11
  Speaker 8: aisle wasn't just OK.
• 4:13
  Speaker 7: It was expected.
• 4:14
  Speaker 8: Some people in Washington forgot that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: I never have.
• 4:18
  Speaker 8: That's why I worked with Democrats to expand mental health
• 4:21
  Speaker 8: care for veterans and with President Trump to take on
• 4:24
  Speaker 8: health insurance companies to lower your costs. I'm Ashley Hinson,
• 4:28
  Speaker 8: and I approve this message. Because working across the aisle
• 4:32
  Speaker 8: isn't always easy, but it's how you get results.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Now, I ran for Congress in 2010 during the Tea
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Party wave as a Democrat. And so I'm very familiar
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: with the desperate situation that Ashley Hinson and other Republicans
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: find themselves in. This is like the ads I'm seeing
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: from the Republicans. There's a lot of attack ads on
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are too extreme, blah, blah, blah. But in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: terms of the affirmative pitches they're making themselves— They're the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: mirror image of what Democrats were running in the Tea
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Party era where they were saying, oh, I love to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: work with Republicans. And I, too, am concerned about the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: fiscal situation. Don't worry. I'm going to be a responsible
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: steward because those were the right coded issues that were
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: top of mind for voters at this point. And so
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: not only here in terms of she's saying, oh, I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: work with Democrats. Don't worry. I'm not one of those
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: crazy Republicans. But the thing she's choosing to emphasize to her,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to deal with lowering costs. She's sort of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: playing on the landscape that Democrats have set here. So
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you can see that. You can also put D2 up
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: on the screen and I'll get Sagar's reaction. You had
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a number of Iowa Republican incumbents who voted against Trump's
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Iran war recently, broke with the party to, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to vote against the war. So from all of these things, Sagar,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you can see that they are really feeling the heat.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And this matches up with the public polling we're seeing.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: So that's why follow this. don't just follow a public poll.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Public polls can always be off. Candidates are always reacting
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: to what they think is actually in their interest. And
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: it's not usually based just on public polling. Usually they
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: have a much better sense than obviously we do here
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: in Washington. And you're exactly right. So I had a
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: front row of this. Chet Edwards, he was my congressman.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: He was the Democrat representing the most Republican district in 2010.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: And he had a track record of winning in multiple
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: wave election years for Republicans, even though he was a Democrat.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: He won in 2006 during the surge. 2004, I mean, 2004,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: after the whole Bush, 9-11, John Kerry, and all that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: gets blown out. So he had a lot of credibility
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: in my district. And he lost by over 30 points
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: in the Tea Party. And just to show you, there
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: was literally no chance that he had to be able
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: to win. What ended up happening while he was running
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: his race, he just kept on doing these ads, being like,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I stood up to Nancy Pelosi. I work with Republicans.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And a lot of it was like, he was like,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: you know me. I've been your congressman for 20 years. Like,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the idea that I'm some Obama radical is just not true.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: But there were two things that screwed him. He had
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: a D next to his name, and he had endorsed
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Obama back in, I think, 07. And at one point
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: was on Obama's shortlist. for vice president. And that was enough,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: like just being associated with Obama. Trump is now Obama
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: in this scenario where it's literally radioactive to have a
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: photo next to him to say that you're going to
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: vote with him. There's no matter what you say about
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: your track record of moving across the aisle in national elections,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: people know the stakes. They're like, you're either going to
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: vote D or vote R 95% of the time. I
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: need to know which part of that 95% You're going
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: to be, period, end of story. I think that's just
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: what it comes down to.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Republican strategy at this point from a national level, individual Republicans,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you know, in swing districts are going to have a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: different approach. From the national level, they are just trying
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to stem the losses. That's the reason why you have
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Trump going out and saying, pretend I'm on the ballot.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Not because that's going to appeal to independents. It's not.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Because they want to at least get their base energized.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Because that's what kept 2018. I mean, 2018 was very
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: bad for Republicans. Don't get me wrong. But there were
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: some seats that were in play that would have been
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: really crazy in deep red territory. What happened that time
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: around is Brett Kavanaugh, that whole situation was unfolding. That
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: really polarized and energized Republicans so that the polls in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: places that were deep red really shifted in the last week.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: And Democrats were not able to get some of the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: furthest reaches that they were going for. That's what they're
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: trying for at this point is not we're going to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: hold on to the House or maybe not even we're
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: going to hold on to the Senate. Although this strategy
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: plays better when you're talking about a Kansas, when you're
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: talking about a Nebraska, when you're talking about an Iowa,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: places that are partisan red. If you get your side
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to turn out, you can still win. So that is
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: really what they're playing for in a lot of instances.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Let's go and put D5 up on the screen. This
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: is the latest generic ballot poll that has come out
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: that has Democrats with a 13-point lead. It's a bit
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of an outlier, but not too much. Let's put D6
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: up on the screen. These are all the recent polls.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: generic ballot polls. So this is when you ask people, okay,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: without naming names, do you prefer a Democrat or a Republican?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Dem plus 13, plus 12, plus 11, plus 9, plus 8.6,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: plus 8.5, plus 7, plus 6. So you have the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: RCP average at this point with all of those polls
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: included has Democrats at roughly a plus 9 mark. One
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of the things that's really interesting is a few of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: these polls have gone further than the asked voters to
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the New York Times-Siena poll we covered this week as
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: an example of this. In their district, they used the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: names of the candidates. And when you did that, Democrats
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: had an even wider lead. So the specific candidates are
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: actually outperforming the generic ballot as well. So another negative
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: sign here for Republicans. One more thing. This surprised me,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you. Put D7 up on the screen.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: So if so, polled, which is the serious pollster, how
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: people feel about this theoretical $ 5, 000 Trump dividend. 63% of
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the population opposes free money. Only 17% approve of it.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say about this. Like,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I have some theories. I think part of what goes
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: into this is that they just don't think it's going
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But and, you know, and if you're a Republican, you're
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: concerned about the deficit. If you're a Democrat, you just
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hate Trump and anything he stands for. And if you're
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: an independent, you're like, this isn't happening anyway. So I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: hate the fact you're even putting this out here. But
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: pretty incredible that Trump has even made literal free money.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: deeply unpopular.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And what I also think, too, is people have been
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: negatively polarized not only against Trump. They think it's not
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: going to happen. A significant part of the Republicans, it's
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: not just about deficit. Remember, I mean, a significant part
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: of them still think that all the inflation was caused
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: by all of the.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Stimulus checks that happened with COVID. And so, I mean,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: it's not totally unreal. It's part of the story. It's
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: not the entire story.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of reasons why a lot of
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: people look at this and just say, this is a joke.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And I mean, let's also look back to the COVID stimulus.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: It's not like it worked necessarily. Like the COVID stimulus
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: alone was not enough to make up for all of
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: the structural problems of increase of the overall inflation, right?
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, period, end of story.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: So even 5,000, I mean, that would cover my increase
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: in my health insurance and just that, not alone like
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: all the other inflation.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: That's just me and I'm healthy with one child and married.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So just imagine if you have four kids or five kids,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine what that dollar figure is. That's
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: not even including grocery inflation alone. So they kind of
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: look at it as a joke because they're like, look,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: one-time check literally is not going to do very much,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: like at all. If you don't fix the system, which
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you said you're not going to, then obviously. They look
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: at it as a cheap trick, and I think it
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: obviously is.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It just reads as deeply cynical and unserious. So American
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: public picking up on that in this poll is pretty wild.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: And let's give them credit. It's a bread and circus.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: We make a lot of jokes, certainly have here many
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: times on the show about the median voter who literally
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: knows nothing. And is like a fascist communist, you know?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not even joking. That's like actually like the median
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: American voter. Didn't we have that one where it's like
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: somebody voted for Mamdani because they thought he was Italian?
• 12:16
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: It was like an anti-Islam guy. He's like, I voted
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: for Mamdani because I thought he was Italian.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: You're like, oh, dude.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And they said he was running to Cuomo's right because
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: he was talking about affordability, which is what Trump talks about.
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to live with these people, you know?
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Well, they got this one right. They get to drive cars.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: They get to literally drive on the same road as me, right?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Look, you know, I go back and forth because I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: feel that way. And then I see something like, you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the overwhelming opposition of data centers and AI. And I'm like,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you know, they kind of get it sometimes. And the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Iran war, they kind of get it sometimes. It's a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: mixed bag.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: The people are a true enigma. All right, let's get
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to Massey. Let's get now to a final farewell for
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: our friend Thomas Massey. Yesterday, the House of Representatives adjourned
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: officially until November. I'm sure he'll have some stuff to
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: cook up in the lame duck. We won't be able
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: to see many of the things he's been trying to do.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: On the floor of the House of Representatives, he introduced
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: articles of impeachment. against Pete Hegseth over the Iran war.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: He had an Epstein discharge petition, literally fighting hard against
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: House leadership. Fighting so hard, in fact, he appears to
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: have forced the House's speakers, Mike Johnson's hand, to shut
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: the House down a day early, send everybody home and say,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: don't even come back until the midterm elections have happened.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Here he is laying some of this out, especially why
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: he wanted the impeachment of Hegseth on CNN.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Why didn't you tell.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Them you were planning to introduce this?
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: Every time they see the hand that I'm going to play,
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: they get a chance to react. So last week that
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: we were in session, I introduced the discharge petition for
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: the Epstein files, the part two. What did they do?
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: They called off two weeks.
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: Of Congress between now and the election to keep me
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: from getting to 218 signatures. This is the second Epstein recess.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: We had an Epstein recess a year ago where they
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: called off Congress for like six weeks. So I didn't
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: want to show my hand. I didn't show it to anybody.
• 14:12
  Speaker 6: I was afraid that they would do something to subvert
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: me getting on the floor for an hour and 20
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: minutes and reading these articles.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And so you read all of this. In terms of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: what happened here, have you heard from Speaker Johnson since
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: this afternoon?
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: I have not heard from Speaker Johnson, but he has
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: two legislative days, actually 48 hours to call this vote.
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: So he could call the vote tomorrow or the day
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: after tomorrow. And that was another reason for the timing.
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: If I were to offer this tomorrow instead of today,
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: They could have punted this until after the election.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: This is a hot war.
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: This could become a nuclear war. And in the interim,
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: even if it doesn't, there are civilian casualties that are
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: racking up greater than they would have otherwise because another
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: one of my articles of impeachment shows that Peter Hegsath
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: has degraded the ability of the DOD to minimize civilian casualties.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Is his name Peter?
• 15:10
  Speaker 7: I didn't know that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I actually didn't realize that.
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: We'll go with it.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. And he's 100% correct about what he's
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: saying there. Right.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Well, let's put the next one up here. So just
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: as I said, quote, there it is. As I predicted,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: they are canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: impeaching Secretary Warr. It will also make it harder for
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: us to reach the 218 signatures on the Epstein discharge petition.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Before the election, we were at 190 signatures. last night.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And so that's what they decided to do, put E3
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: up there on the screen just to see also our
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: glorious Congress. Here is Mike Johnson apparently telling reporters, like
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I said, votes are canceled. They will all leave as
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: of last night on recess. This was after several House Democrats,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: about 100 or so, had called for him to cancel
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: the recess to deal with with AI and to actually
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: pass some legislation. They basically said, nope, everybody go home,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: go campaign.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: That is all that we need to do.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: They asked Massey whether he was going to file a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: discharge petition against Speaker Johnson. He was like, I don't
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: have to. He discharged himself. He's not doing anything. Like,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: why would I do that? Just to stick for one
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: second on the Pete Hegseth thing, because I think it's
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I think it obviously Pete Hegseth is not going to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: be impeached, at least not at this moment. But I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: think it was smart and obviously moral. Everything he said
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: was absolutely correct. Congress, the power to launch a war,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: declare a war, resides with Congress. That has been completely ignored. Congress,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in fact, passed a war powers resolution that has also
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: been completely ignored. He is correct about Pete Hegseth dismantling
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the capability within the Department of War to be able
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to mitigate civilian casualties that is directly implicated in the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: mass murder of little girls in the first early hours
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: of this conflict. And it would have been a more
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable vote for Republicans than voting on another Trump impeachment. Because, look,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: we all know, like, the hold Trump has on the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Republican base. Pete Heck said there's another deal. And a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: lot of these other Trump officials are a different deal entirely.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: It would be a more uncomfortable vote for Republicans, especially
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: when you look at these Iowa Republicans we were just
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: covering who are breaking with the party over the Iran war.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: would make it a lot harder. So just shout out
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to him. Like, obviously, I disagree with him on economics specifically,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: but how can you help but admire this man who
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: breaks with this party, has courage, and is also just
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: so sort of quick-witted and forceful in his pushback? So
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot that Democrats could learn from
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the way that he has approached his time in office here.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't look at like, oh, I'm a lame duck. Oh,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I've already been defeated. Let me just slink off into
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the shadows. He's like, no, I've got some power here.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I have the ability to shine the spotlight. I'm going
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to use it for everything I possibly can.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: That's my thing about him is, I mean, I got
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: plenty of disagreements with Thomas as well. You know, he
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: voted a lot of things, which I agree with.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: That's fine.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: But what I respect here is he's not just spouting off.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: He's not just on CNN. He's actually doing it. He
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: has strategy. He figured out, I mean, Ro Khanna even
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: said here, he's like, none of this would have happened
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: without Thomas because he's like an engineer's mind. He's gone
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: and studied the actual legislative process and the mechanisms where
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: an individual, one of the biggest lies in Congress is
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: I'm just one of 435.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I can't do anything when I'm in the House.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Thomas has shown that is not true.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: That is empirically not true.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Now, you're not going to win, but you can make
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: leadership's life hell. You can do all kinds of stuff,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: and that is what you have to respect more than anything.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: He's been going off lately with some recent comments, talking
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: to reporters.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: E4, let's take a listen.
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: Real quick, Donald Trump keeps saying that we are now
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: in a golden age.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: What do you make of that?
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: Do you agree?
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: You need gold to buy diesel now, so maybe it
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: is the golden age.
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: That was pretty good.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Let's go to the next one. Thomas Massey, keep going.
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: If you just always came down here and read your speeches,
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: some of them are written by AI now. The staff
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: better watch out. It was a good gig while you
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: had it, writing the speech for your robot boss to
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: come down here and burp, burp, burp, here is my speech. Well,
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: now they got a robot to replace you to feed
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: your robot a speech. This is not a robot speech, folks.
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: I am not a robot congressman, never have been. I
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: am a, contrary to what the speaker said, a fully
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: participating member of Congress.
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: You've got to love him.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And then finally, on Ted Cruz.
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: Do you agree with Senator Cruz that the Capitol on
• 19:37
  Speaker 9: American relations should be designated a foreign terrorist organization?
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: And if so, why or why not?
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: On foreign policy, if you want to know my position,
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: it's almost always the opposite of Senator Cruz's.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: I That was someone saying, do you agree with Ted Cruz?
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: He immediately says, no.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Do you agree with Ted Cruz?
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: No.
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, if you get near that.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: You just have to love this man. And then finally....
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Let's look at his learned colleague from the great state of,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: is Kentucky Commonwealth?
• 20:05
  Speaker 10: I forget.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Commonwealth, yeah.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: The Commonwealth of Kentucky, who are represented, who decided to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: kick this man out. Many apparently seem fine with their
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: current representative in the United States Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: who finally cast one of his first votes in public,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I will say, where you audibly are able to hear
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: him say aye and see if he can make that
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: out while he casts his vote from his wheelchair.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Take a listen.
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: Senator Slotkin.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: No by proxy.
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: Senator McConnell.
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: No.
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: Senator McConnell.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: Aye.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Do you guys see that? That's literally the Feinstein situation.
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: He's panicking. He doesn't know what to do.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He says no.
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Staff has to intervene. No, no, no, sir.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: The woman behind, that's the staffer, the person who's telling
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: him how to vote. The two of his colleagues, literally
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: right there, are both, they're like, no, no, no, you're
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: voting yes, right?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: He took one vote.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Took one vote.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: One vote and could not remember which way he was
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: supposed to vote.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: And if you want to see how with it he is,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: let's play this video, guys. Let's put it up here
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and show you Desiree Townsend, shout out to her, fearless journalist.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: She just tracks Senator McConnell. Here he is in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: back of the van in his wheelchair. She keeps shouting
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: questions at him. I mean, I'm sorry. Look, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: it's difficult because this person is very clearly in, like,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: health distress. And, you know, you don't want to be
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: ridiculing someone who is in this state, but he's.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: The one choosing to stay around.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Or at this point, maybe he's not even, the people
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: around him are the one choosing for him to stay around.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: It's nuts. Like the guy, he cannot speak.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Or if he can, he's not showing us that he can.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: He hasn't spoken on camera. The eye is one of
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the closest that we've gotten. All he's capable of is
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: his two finger move. I've seen him do this multiple times,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: not just with her, but anytime somebody asks him a question.
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: It's beyond crazy.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Scott Jennings claimed he had a 20 minute lucid conversation
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: with this man. Many other Republicans did as well. Liars,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: absolute liars. There is no one home. Just look at
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Look at him unable even to vote. He
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't remember whether it was I or no on the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: one vote he had to take. I mean, it's just
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: like putting Mitch McConnell aside. I think the American people
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: look At this situation, look at the Dianne Feinstein situation,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: look at the Joe Biden situation, look at all of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the gerontocracy of people that are literally falling. John Fetterman
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: is not even that old, but obviously massive mental decline.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Look at these people falling apart and are like, this
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: is not democracy. Like there has to be some way.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to remove someone who is this incapacitated, because I guarantee
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you that the people of Kentucky, like they're not going
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to vote the way I would want them to vote,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: but they deserve to have an actual representative in the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Senate and not this vegetable.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And that's that is the part which is just drives
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: me crazy, because in the meantime. While he's in this state,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: these staffers, nobody elected them. They've probably been working for
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: him for 30 years. They're just pulling the strings, running everything.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And you didn't even vote for these people. And they're
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: literally working on your behalf.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It's bullshit.
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Ryan's going to come in. You guys are going to
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: do this interview.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: And I will see you all later.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: We are very fortunate this morning to be joined by
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: two extraordinary women. Naomi Klein is a journalist, activist, and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: author of a lot of consequential books, including No Logo,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Shock Doctrine, Doppelganger. And Astrid Taylor is a writer, documentarian,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: political organizer, and co-founder of The Debt Collective. And for
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: our purposes this morning, they are also co-authors of the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: new book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Living World. Excellent book. I am almost all the way
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: through it, and it does not disappoint. Ladies, welcome. Great
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to have you both.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Christel.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So to set this up, I wanted
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to play a decent chunk of the short film that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you put out to sort of explain the framework of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: end times fascism and the three segments of the right
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: that you're taking a look at that all independently have
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: these apocalyptic views of where we are heading and where
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: they'd like us to head, frankly. So let's go ahead
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and take a listen to a little bit of that,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and then we can dig into the book.
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: On a mountaintop in the dead of winter, a group
• 24:30
  Speaker 7: of faithful men gathered an audience to share their vision.
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: They had seen a gleaming city bathed in golden light.
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: The city would be filled with buildings so beautiful they
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: would seem to float above the earth as if descended
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: from heaven. Their vision already had a name. So let's
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: see if these things work.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: They never usually work.
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: The mountaintop in question was the resort town of Davos.
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: The faithful men presenting their vision were U.S. real estate
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: moguls Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: Well, this is a very exciting day.
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: See, I'm a real estate person at heart, and it's
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: all about location. Look at this beautiful piece of property.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Let's just plan for catastrophic success.
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: Out of the horrors of a live stream genocide, an
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: exclusive paradise was about to emerge fully formed.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: We've already started removing the rubble.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And doing some of the demolition.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: We've heard the story of golden cities before.
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: I thought a bit of the shining city upon a hill.
• 26:00
  Speaker 10: Some versions of it are told and retold in the
• 26:02
  Speaker 10: sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: In God's prophetic clock, the seven signs for the end
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of days.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: First the horror.
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: Then we come to the place of Armageddon.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: The mass death. This is going to be your payday
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: for the next 50 million years. A battle of Armageddon. Then,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: for the blessed survivors, a new Jerusalem. But only for
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: the favored few.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: Hallelujah! The apocalyptic prophecies are just a prediction of what
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: humans are likely to do.
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: Today's far right is united. I mean, civilization.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Could die with a bang or a whimper.
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: By their belief in variations of this age-old apocalyptic myth.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: What I'm trying to focus on is doing as much
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: of God's work as possible right now.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: And if that leads to the end times, okay.
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: This is the dark core of the rising threat and
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: ideology that we call....
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: So Naomi, perhaps I could start with you and you
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: could just lay out the top line of the three
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: apocalyptic factions that you identify who have really found common
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: cause under the second Trump regime.
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely. So these three groups and fascism is always
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: a sort of strange alliance between different forces. But the
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: three groups that are united by this vision of kind
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: of abandoning this world as we know it and escaping
• 27:34
  Speaker 7: to some version of paradise or really bunkering down, are
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: the people who believe in the literal version of the
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: end time story, the religious fundamentalists, both Christian Zionists and
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: Messianic Jews, who quite literally want to rebuild the third
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: temple to hasten the arrival or return of the Messiah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 7: depending on which version of the story you believe in.
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: And the people we're calling the tech end timers who
• 28:04
  Speaker 7: just can't wait to merge with the machines and to
• 28:06
  Speaker 7: reach this kind of godlike superintelligence And the third group,
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: which is probably the largest groups, the mass base that
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: voted for Trump, and not everybody who voted for Trump
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: falls into this category, but are people who really see
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: the nation itself as the bunker. And these are the ethno-nationalists.
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: And there are U.S. versions of this, but there are
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: versions of this in Europe. There are versions of this
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: in Chile and But the story is the hordes are
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: coming as the world breaks down and we need to
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: fortress our nation. We need to eject the unwanted people
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: and we need to bring the resources into the nation
• 28:47
  Speaker 7: that we will need as the world collapses. So it's
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: very much a prepper mindset. We refer to it as
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: supersized prepping.
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: And Astra, how much of this is kind of baked
• 28:59
  Speaker 9: into where we are and how much of it is contingent?
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Like what can we.
• 29:04
  Speaker 9: As people in the United States or what can people
• 29:06
  Speaker 9: around the world kind of do about the direction of this?
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, I mean, there's a
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: material basis to this.
• 29:13
  Speaker 10: This is a book that explores far right fringe ideology,
• 29:16
  Speaker 10: as Naomi said, an ideology that's not dominant across the
• 29:20
  Speaker 10: entire right, but certainly describes some of the most powerful
• 29:23
  Speaker 10: people in the world, people at the top of government
• 29:26
  Speaker 10: and corporations. Um, But it is a response to unprecedented
• 29:32
  Speaker 10: planetary crises. We live in a world that's very different
• 29:35
  Speaker 10: from the world of last century when fascism.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Took over Europe.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: We live in a world with nuclear weapons. We live
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: in a world with.
• 29:44
  Speaker 10: Degenerative artificial intelligence and all the risks that that poses.
• 29:50
  Speaker 10: And we live critically in a world of climate change
• 29:53
  Speaker 10: where we are crossing all sorts of thresholds. We also
• 29:56
  Speaker 10: live in a world of intense concentrated wealth where Elon
• 30:00
  Speaker 10: Musk has more wealth than many countries, so he's the
• 30:03
  Speaker 10: world's first trillionaire, and there are many people who want
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: to join him at that level. So the material crises
• 30:10
  Speaker 10: are felt very deeply, and they're driving a lot of
• 30:14
  Speaker 10: this because we have not– addressed many of our crises.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: And this is a moment where these elites are saying,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: bring it on, right?
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Bring it on.
• 30:22
  Speaker 10: We're going to survive in our various ways, in the bunkers,
• 30:25
  Speaker 10: in the fortress nation. So it is driven by these crises,
• 30:29
  Speaker 10: but that means that we can actually mitigate it by
• 30:31
  Speaker 10: addressing those crises, which is why we need real policies
• 30:34
  Speaker 10: on the table that get to the root of this
• 30:36
  Speaker 10: and address Extreme inequality, climate change, affordability, all the insecurity
• 30:41
  Speaker 10: that is driving people to vote for demagogues, vote for
• 30:44
  Speaker 10: strongmen and make them more susceptible to building scapegoats. So
• 30:48
  Speaker 10: there are plenty of fractures in this alliance and opportunities,
• 30:52
  Speaker 10: we think, for democracy. a visionary left politics because that's
• 30:55
  Speaker 10: where the real solution is.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Naomi, let's talk a little bit about how Trump fits
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: into all of this. Let's put F2 up on the screen.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: You guys point out, and I sort of forgot this
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: moment from the campaign, that he was on a podcast
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and he sort of had this throwaway line of like,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of concerned these AI deepfakes could
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: trigger a nuclear war. Anyway, let's go ahead and talk
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: about how we're proceeding full force with the AI data
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: center build out in our glorious AI future. And it
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: really underscored the fact that not very long ago, he
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: was anti-crypto. He had his skepticisms of AI. He'd been
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: very critical of the tech world, which they saw as
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: being woke and aligned with the Democratic Party. That gets
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: sort of thrown out the window. And so how does
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Trump fit in with these various ideologies? Because it doesn't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: seem to me that he's a perfect fit for either
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: for any of the three. And yet they've all kind
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: of consolidated and found common cause under his presidency.
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: I think that's really well said, Crystal. All of these
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: different groups see Trump as useful to them in the
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: same way that the evangelicals have this story about him
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: as this flawed King Cyrus, right? Like they know that
• 32:04
  Speaker 7: he is this kind of fallen king, but they've convinced
• 32:07
  Speaker 7: themselves that he is the one who's going to fulfill
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: prophecy for them. And this goes back to the first
• 32:12
  Speaker 7: Trump administration and the move in particular of the U.S.
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: embassy to Jerusalem was seen as a really pivotal moment
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: in this hastening end time story. I think for the
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: tech oligarchs, it's precisely his, you know, that moment that
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: you're referring to in the podcast, where he sort of
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: shrugs about the end of the world. Like he says, yeah,
• 32:40
  Speaker 7: AI could bring about a nuclear war. And he talks
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: about how easy it would be to deep fake him.
• 32:48
  Speaker 7: And then he just sort of shrugs. And We're seeing
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: this right now with his response to, and this is
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: a separate conversation of how seriously we should be taking
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: the whistleblowers who are saying there's a 10% chance that
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: what we're building could end humanity. And Trump's response is
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: just to shrug. So I think that he is useful
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: to the tech oligarchs precisely because he is an extraordinarily sociopathic,
• 33:20
  Speaker 7: amoral person who seems okay with pretty much any outcome.
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: He thinks he's going to be fine. Um, he's got
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: his golden bunkers, um, and he has an extraordinary level of, um, callousness,
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: it would seem, about all of our future. So he
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: is very, very useful. And what the tech oligarchs wanted
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: from Trump was exactly what they got from him. They
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: wanted a lawless AI frontier. They did not like that
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: the Biden administration and the European Union were starting to
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: introduce some regulations for artificial intelligence. There was a lot
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: of talk about not repeating the mistakes that were made
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: with social media. of giving them a Wild West and
• 34:03
  Speaker 7: then realizing, oops, we have some problems here and trying
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: to race to protect privacy and so on. And so
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: they put some guardrails up. There were things like incentivizing
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: renewable energy, labeling deep fakes, guardrails about integration with weapon systems.
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: And people like Marc Andreessen were flipping out about this.
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: And there's a reason they keep calling them frontier models.
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: And what do frontiers want? They want a Wild West.
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: And that's exactly what they have gotten under Trump. He
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: has protected them from all attempts to regulate at the
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: local level, at the state level, but also at the
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: international level. You know, J.D. Vance gets dispatched to Europe
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: to scream at them about all of their all of
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: their laws. One of the first things Mark Carney did
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: was was roll back a law that had been introduced
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: by his predecessor. to start taxing social media companies and
• 35:03
  Speaker 7: start regulating, um, uh, along the lines of the European union.
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: So he just rolled over on that immediately. So we've
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: seen this complete integration of the goals of big tech
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: and us foreign policy. Um, they want the world to
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: be using us tech and they want it to be unregulated.
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: And now of course they're wringing their hands, um, And
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: we should be very skeptical about these claims now that
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: they want to be regulated because they have been deregulated
• 35:32
  Speaker 7: because they want it to be.
• 35:34
  Speaker 9: And, Astra, while you guys were writing this book, Trump
• 35:37
  Speaker 9: introduced something of a rupture into the equation. You could
• 35:43
  Speaker 9: obviously see directionally where things were heading, and that's what
• 35:46
  Speaker 9: you guys are writing about. But his Iran war has
• 35:50
  Speaker 9: really produced an acceleration of a lot of factors. For instance,
• 35:57
  Speaker 9: I just saw recently that apparently we're on track to
• 35:59
  Speaker 9: have the first reduction in carbon emissions this year for
• 36:04
  Speaker 9: a very long time, thanks to President Trump basically taking
• 36:08
  Speaker 9: a wrecking ball to the fossil fuel industry. He's doing
• 36:11
  Speaker 9: more to kind of disarm the United States than you
• 36:15
  Speaker 9: could ever possibly imagine through some type of treaty. He's
• 36:20
  Speaker 9: possibly opening up a kind of new global power arrangement
• 36:24
  Speaker 9: in which the U.S.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Is somewhat in retreat.
• 36:28
  Speaker 9: And so I'm curious, in that series of events, how
• 36:33
  Speaker 9: does that retreat play into the forces that you're talking about?
• 36:37
  Speaker 9: And does it kind of accelerate the millennial kind of
• 36:42
  Speaker 9: apocalyptic sense of the people who are already, you know,
• 36:47
  Speaker 9: feeling like they're under siege?
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, interesting.
• 36:51
  Speaker 10: I mean, this gives your question about contingency. I mean,
• 36:54
  Speaker 10: we don't know how this will all play out. There's
• 36:56
  Speaker 10: a lot of factors. We are in a multipolar reality.
• 37:00
  Speaker 10: I mean, another consequence, in addition to the ones you
• 37:05
  Speaker 10: laid out, is that he's alienated a decent portion of
• 37:08
  Speaker 10: his base on this issue as well, some of his
• 37:10
  Speaker 10: core supporters. I mean, many Republicans do support the war
• 37:14
  Speaker 10: in Iran, but many... prominent figures are very, very critical
• 37:18
  Speaker 10: and are not in line. And so this is, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 10: reveals the fissures that we're talking about and the fractiousness
• 37:26
  Speaker 10: of this alliance. So I think this is an opening
• 37:32
  Speaker 10: that shows the weakness of this alignment.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: It also, you know, it just makes.
• 37:37
  Speaker 10: Us, one thing we say in the book is that,
• 37:39
  Speaker 10: you know, there are these religious figures who are part
• 37:42
  Speaker 10: of the main force driving the war in Iran, who
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: believe that they are enacting biblical prophecy in the Holy Land.
• 37:49
  Speaker 10: And so they see the war in Iran through the
• 37:51
  Speaker 10: lens of the Bible. It's the war of Gog and Magog.
• 37:54
  Speaker 10: These are some of the people that we show in
• 37:56
  Speaker 10: the video that people should watch in full online. And
• 38:00
  Speaker 10: one point we make is that these prophecies don't have
• 38:04
  Speaker 10: to be literally true to be self-fulfilling and very, very dangerous.
• 38:07
  Speaker 10: So There could be these more positive consequences that are
• 38:11
  Speaker 10: openings that you just laid out, but it's also risking
• 38:15
  Speaker 10: a bigger war, a regional war. And so it could
• 38:18
  Speaker 10: go in a very dangerous direction. It's certainly been very
• 38:20
  Speaker 10: devastating for the people of Iran right now. So prophecies, again,
• 38:24
  Speaker 10: they do not have to be literally true to be
• 38:26
  Speaker 10: quite devastating. And that's why we should be paying attention
• 38:28
  Speaker 10: to what these people are saying and what they're doing.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And that actually is a good turn specifically
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to the tech guys, Astra. And you guys quote, Alex
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Karp quite a bit in the book because he has
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a tendency of saying the quiet part out loud. And
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: he really explains quite directly why some of the tech
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: executives who five seconds ago were positioning themselves as pro-DI
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and socially responsible and all of these sorts of things.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: He tries to explain to them. Well, if you're building
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: technology that you think is going to get rid of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: mass amounts of human labor, you're going to need me
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and the other tough guys with the guns on your
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: side and doing the mass surveillance. So we got to
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: fit together hand in glove. So could you speak a
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: little bit to that? And specifically, what is the vision
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that these tech oligarchs have for all of us?
• 39:18
  Speaker 10: The quote that you highlighted from Alex Karp is absolutely critical.
• 39:21
  Speaker 10: He basically says to his fellow AI executives, if you
• 39:25
  Speaker 10: think you're building a technology that's going to take all
• 39:27
  Speaker 10: the jobs, then there's no way for you to oppose
• 39:30
  Speaker 10: the government. You also have to, essentially what he says is,
• 39:33
  Speaker 10: you know, you also have to help build the surveillance state.
• 39:35
  Speaker 10: You have to get embedded with the military because you're
• 39:38
  Speaker 10: going to need to control all of those unruly people
• 39:41
  Speaker 10: who now have no way to survive, right? You're going
• 39:44
  Speaker 10: to have to track, contain, imprison those people. So I
• 39:48
  Speaker 10: think they're is, you know, it's what was striking about
• 39:52
  Speaker 10: the comment is that he's basically laying the authoritarian agenda
• 39:55
  Speaker 10: out there, the fascist agenda. It's like, if you are
• 39:58
  Speaker 10: going to grab this much wealth and power, you're going
• 40:00
  Speaker 10: to have to point guns at ordinary people. It's a very,
• 40:03
  Speaker 10: very dark vision. It's the vision Palantir is selling. We
• 40:06
  Speaker 10: also quote Alex Karp saying that Palantir is built for
• 40:09
  Speaker 10: bad times. Bad times are good for Palantir, meaning that
• 40:12
  Speaker 10: they are planning for a world of rolling shocks, of
• 40:17
  Speaker 10: increasing peril, of wars, of storms, and that they are
• 40:22
  Speaker 10: ready to profit from that. So they are prophets of
• 40:25
  Speaker 10: doom in a way, right? They're looking to profiteer from
• 40:29
  Speaker 10: an age of catastrophe and collapse. And so I think
• 40:33
  Speaker 10: he's someone, again, he can speak in a kind of
• 40:35
  Speaker 10: ridiculous way and seem a bit over the top, but
• 40:37
  Speaker 10: we really should be taking seriously what he's saying.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: He's one of the most powerful people in the United
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: States right now.
• 40:43
  Speaker 9: And Naomi, as you look through the history of other
• 40:47
  Speaker 9: kind of versions of millennial or end times fascism. What
• 40:52
  Speaker 9: can you learn about what happens when, let's hope that
• 40:57
  Speaker 9: the world doesn't end.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Let's go with that.
• 40:59
  Speaker 9: And that there's a day after that. What has happened
• 41:01
  Speaker 9: to those movements, you know, after it crests and breaks
• 41:05
  Speaker 9: and something new develops in the rubble or the aftermath
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: of those movements? And how can we, how can you
• 41:12
  Speaker 9: tell kind of looking back, like, when those turns start
• 41:16
  Speaker 9: to take place?
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: You know, it's interesting, Ryan, because I'm not sure that
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: there are direct historical parallels with the moment that we're in.
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: And this is part of what we're identifying is that
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: often when we try to understand authoritarianism, we exclusively look
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: to the past. And there's a lot that the past
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: can teach us about resistance strategies and specifically the importance
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: of signaling to people who want to exert a totalizing
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: level of control over a society that, that, that people
• 41:55
  Speaker 7: are united, that they're willing, that they're willing to take
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: real risks to resist them. You know, I, you see people,
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: you know, in the streets saying, do not obey in advance. And, and,
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: and that I think is a real attempt to learn
• 42:07
  Speaker 7: the lessons of history, um, And it does work. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: I think we saw this extraordinary pushback to the ICE
• 42:15
  Speaker 7: occupation of Minneapolis. And then we saw something of a withdrawal.
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: And to be clear, as we all know, ICE continues
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: to kidnap very large numbers of people out of their homes.
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: But they are not doing these kind of city-level, in-your-face
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: occupations because their own base started to turn against them.
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: And they turned against them because they saw extraordinary... courage
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: from people on the streets of Minneapolis standing up for
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: their neighbors and the level of, you know, the extreme
• 42:48
  Speaker 7: levels of violence that they really, I think people like
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem and J.D. Vance, who shrugged
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: off the murders of Rene Good and Alex Preddy, that
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: didn't go well for them, right? I mean, Kristi Noem
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: lost her job, and there were memos that went out saying, like,
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: we're going to be talking about criminals now, not mass deportations,
• 43:14
  Speaker 7: and there has been a shift of discourse ahead of
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: the midterms, right? So learn from history. It is important.
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: Do not obey in advance.
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: Resist.
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: Know that these people will go as far as they're
• 43:23
  Speaker 7: able to go, but also know that it is possible
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: to push back. That's important. But part of what, or
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: a big part of what we're trying to say here
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: is that our world really has changed since fascism rose
• 43:37
  Speaker 7: in Europe in the 20th century. And the fact that
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: there are these real crises at a planetary scale that
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: they are responding to is something we need to pay
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: attention to. We don't believe the world's going to end, Ryan.
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: This is not what we're saying, but what we are
• 43:51
  Speaker 7: saying is that something has changed. Like even since I
• 43:53
  Speaker 7: started writing about disaster capitalism and the way these guys
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: start profit from disasters, there's, there is now no discourse
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: around solving any of these crises or even bothering to
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: deny them. That is a real shift. The, the, the, um,
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: The standing, the relationship to crisis is taking it for
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: granted that a collapse is going to happen and telling
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: a story of how you will be okay. And even
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: as we've been writing this, there has been a dramatic
• 44:27
  Speaker 7: shift and rift between the tech faction of this coalition
• 44:32
  Speaker 7: and the mass base. And, you know, you've all been
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: covering the data center backlash, but also the backlash to
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: living under a surveillance state at all, I think is
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: very strong on the right. I mean, arguably the right
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: has stronger privacy, you know, interest in privacy than we've
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: had on the left. So this has become more and
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: more unpopular with Trump's base as we've been writing about it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: And there's been more rifts within that coalition, which is
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: something that, you know, if there was a strong Democratic Party,
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: they'd be able to work with that. The problem is
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: large portions of the Democratic Party are taking money from
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: these big tech companies and are intervening to say, well, hey, like,
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: let's not slow things down too much. I mean, this
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: could be that, you know, AI is great and so on.
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: So there isn't a clear alternative. And then what enters
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: into that rift in this coalition could be even more extreme, right?
• 45:29
  Speaker 7: Like it could be even more mask off Nazi. But
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: this has been, you know, it's been a very interesting
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: writing process because for the first few months, it felt
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: like it was going really, really well for this coalition.
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: But then the turning point in Minneapolis was so significant
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: and the data center resistance has spread so quickly that
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: that we really are in this very malleable moment as the,
• 45:50
  Speaker 7: as the book comes out. But, you know, in terms
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: of what comes, you know, we don't believe the world
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: is going to end, but we believe that we have
• 45:56
  Speaker 7: to take their belief and the story they're telling very seriously,
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: because it's a really destructive and frightening story. And it
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: tells you not to try to fix anything. That's the
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: most important part of this. And it, and at the
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: accelerationist end, it's even more extreme because it means that
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: any bad things are actually good, right? Like you should
• 46:17
  Speaker 7: welcome the signs. It's a sign that the end is coming.
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: For example, you talk about some of the extremist terrorist
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: settlers who celebrate on October 7th because they know that
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: this is going to allow them to move forward with
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: their horrific genocidal plans. Astra, last question for you. I
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: wanted you to dig a little bit into the ethno-nationalists
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: here because My assessment, I think you guys share this,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: is in terms of actual popular support, the tech stuff
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: is extremely fringe and unpopular. The transhumanist stuff is you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: have to take it seriously because a bunch of very
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: powerful billionaires who have grabbed control of the government are
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: serious about it, but most of the population finds it repellent. Next,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I would say in terms of being popular or unpopular
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: would be the evangelical end times ideology, which is held
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: by some significant minority group But the one that to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: me is the most politically potent I think has just
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: been proven by AFD's success in Germany is the ethno-nationalist sentiment.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: And on the one hand, I see Minneapolis. I see
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the way that public polling has really shifted, how there's
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a huge backlash, how there's a lot of horror among
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the populace about what mass deportation actually means and actually
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: looks like. But on the other hand, I also know
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that in difficult times, this is what fascists grab onto.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: They use the scapegoating. That anti-immigrant sentiment tends to rise.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: So do you see that as the most powerful sort
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of potent political force from the rights perspective? And how
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: are you thinking about the challenges of approaching that in
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: a time when maybe the horrors of mass deportation aren't
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: so front and center? How do we hold on to
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: a more ethical view with regard to immigration?
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: Great.
• 48:02
  Speaker 10: I mean, I agree with your assessment of the three,
• 48:05
  Speaker 10: we call them the three bunkers, the three prongs of
• 48:07
  Speaker 10: this alliance and how deeply they engage a mass base.
• 48:11
  Speaker 10: I mean, You know, the example of AFD winning Sachsen-Anhalt
• 48:15
  Speaker 10: in Germany is important. Naomi and I wrote an essay
• 48:19
  Speaker 10: recently for the Financial Times, actually, and we open with
• 48:23
  Speaker 10: the image that was all over the media this summer
• 48:26
  Speaker 10: of Nazi warships emerging from the Danube as the river
• 48:29
  Speaker 10: receded due to extreme heat. Right. And it was this incredible,
• 48:34
  Speaker 10: almost like two on the nose visual metaphor for the
• 48:37
  Speaker 10: fact that these parties with Nazi roots or sometimes just
• 48:42
  Speaker 10: members or powerful figures within them who play with Nazi
• 48:46
  Speaker 10: tropes are spreading across the European continent.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: AFD won an election. It was the first time a.
• 48:52
  Speaker 10: Far right party has won an election and they won
• 48:54
  Speaker 10: over 40 percent of the vote. And so, you know,
• 48:58
  Speaker 10: but we were looking at this image of these ships
• 49:01
  Speaker 10: in the river and we said, well, we need to
• 49:02
  Speaker 10: pay attention to is actually the river, the climate change, right?
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: The material crisis out of which these parties are emerging.
• 49:09
  Speaker 10: Another crisis they're emerging from is just the crisis of
• 49:12
  Speaker 10: economic precarity in that region. You know, people are struggling
• 49:16
  Speaker 10: with affordability. They're struggling to find workplaces. uh that's well
• 49:20
  Speaker 10: remunerated they have a sense of futurelessness and in fact
• 49:24
  Speaker 10: very low levels of immigration so what the far right
• 49:26
  Speaker 10: is doing is you know pivoting right pivoting the focus
• 49:30
  Speaker 10: and saying the emergency isn't climate change right the emergency
• 49:32
  Speaker 10: isn't the oligarchs sucking up all the wealth it's um
• 49:36
  Speaker 10: it it's it's the uh kebab shop, it's the trans kids.
• 49:41
  Speaker 10: And so, you know, part of how we fight that
• 49:43
  Speaker 10: is to keep the eye, keep our eyes on the
• 49:45
  Speaker 10: real issues, right?
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: The, the real issues that are making people's lives hard.
• 49:49
  Speaker 10: You know, last year, Century in the United States, the
• 49:53
  Speaker 10: fascist threat was partly beaten back because of the New
• 49:56
  Speaker 10: Deal and because of policies that created jobs that improve
• 50:00
  Speaker 10: people's livelihoods. They weren't perfect, but that's the model that
• 50:04
  Speaker 10: we can partly follow moving forward.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: It's like, let's address the real crises.
• 50:08
  Speaker 10: And that means that we need a left and a
• 50:11
  Speaker 10: Democratic Party that's putting real solutions on the table because
• 50:14
  Speaker 10: fascism doesn't just flourish because It's got a lot of
• 50:17
  Speaker 10: money behind it, and it's cruel, and it's willing to
• 50:20
  Speaker 10: break laws and rules, though all of that helps. It
• 50:22
  Speaker 10: also flourishes when there's a vacuum, when there's no alternative,
• 50:26
  Speaker 10: when there's a lack of courage and conviction and real
• 50:29
  Speaker 10: solutions on the table. So what we have to do
• 50:31
  Speaker 10: is keep organizing and speaking to people's real challenges and
• 50:38
  Speaker 10: conditions and insist that we actually take on the power
• 50:42
  Speaker 10: structures and take on the real crises. um, and insist
• 50:45
  Speaker 10: that we're blaming the people at the top, not the
• 50:47
  Speaker 10: people at the bottom.
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: The book is one thing I would just add there,
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: if that's okay, is just, um, we really believe that
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: there is an extraordinary opportunity for a, um, unlikely alliances
• 51:01
  Speaker 7: between people on the traditional, uh, right and left, uh,
• 51:06
  Speaker 7: a bottom up alliance, uh, to fight oligarchy. And I
• 51:12
  Speaker 7: think Bernie Sanders has been very visionary about this. And
• 51:18
  Speaker 7: within the local data center resistance, we're seeing all kinds
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: of evidence of people realizing that they have more in
• 51:27
  Speaker 7: common than they do disagreements, that they want to unite
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: against these tech companies that are coming into all of
• 51:35
  Speaker 7: their communities and raising their electricity bills, polluting the air,
• 51:40
  Speaker 7: taking their farmland. And, you know, we're seeing really, really
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: interesting conversations. It's been called the most bipartisan issue since beer.
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: And there's a lot that can be done building on
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: what Astra was just saying. You know, if it can
• 51:56
  Speaker 7: really be combined with an affordability agenda, there's an amazing
• 52:00
  Speaker 7: opportunity here. But I just want to flag that there
• 52:03
  Speaker 7: are also real dangers here. If the alliance is imagined
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: with the folks who are at the top of the
• 52:11
  Speaker 7: ethno-nationalist push. And here I'm thinking about people like Steve Bannon,
• 52:15
  Speaker 7: Marjorie Taylor Greene. And I say this because, you know,
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: I'm sure you probably covered the event that Bernie Sanders
• 52:23
  Speaker 7: did with Steve Bannon.
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 52:25
  Speaker 7: Um, very recently. And if you listen to what Steve
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: Bannon said in his portion of that event, he pivoted
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: almost immediately to cold, a cold war with China. And
• 52:37
  Speaker 7: he used that phrase. He said, we are in a
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: cold war. And he said, the way to fight AI
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: is to fight China. And this is the war that
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: Bannon has always wanted. You know, uh, Ryan knows that the,
• 52:47
  Speaker 7: as a fellow war room listener, that this entire show
• 52:51
  Speaker 7: is framed around taking down the CCP and, uh, If
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: part of what we're saying is that where our common
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: ground is, our bipartisan common ground, is we all agree
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: we don't want the endless wars and we don't want
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: the oligarchy, then it would be a real shame to
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: blow this bipartisan moment with an alliance with people who
• 53:15
  Speaker 7: actually have shown themselves to be absolutely fine making alliances
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: with people like the Mercers and other oligarchs. and want
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: very much to have a Cold War with a major power.
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: Bannon was talking about everything from building a moat around U.S.
• 53:35
  Speaker 7: tech and making sure that China doesn't get their hands
• 53:37
  Speaker 7: on our tech and banning Chinese students. And it was
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: practically sounding like internment camps. So that is not the route.
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: And that is where things are going if we don't
• 53:49
  Speaker 7: have a bottom-up alliance. So we are all for breaking
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: apart this fascist coalition. We think there are incredible opportunities.
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: We also have some amazing people coming to Congress who
• 54:01
  Speaker 7: came up with, you know, this incoming class is pretty extraordinary.
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: And I think they're going to be ready to provide
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: that kind of leadership. But we've got a really narrow
• 54:12
  Speaker 7: window here and we should not blow it.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: One quick question on that.
• 54:16
  Speaker 9: You know, it's basically impossible to stop like Steve Bannon from,
• 54:23
  Speaker 9: he's got his own show, War Room, he's gonna get
• 54:25
  Speaker 9: invited to events. So he's gonna insert himself into this movement.
• 54:31
  Speaker 9: And if the left is also concerned about fighting back
• 54:35
  Speaker 9: against data centers and all these other crises, they are
• 54:38
  Speaker 9: then just objectively by definition kind of in coalition whether
• 54:42
  Speaker 9: or not they're.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Talking to him or not.
• 54:45
  Speaker 9: To me, the best response then is there have to
• 54:48
  Speaker 9: be kind of left leaders as well as the bottom-up
• 54:53
  Speaker 9: base so that the movement doesn't get defined then, oh,
• 54:57
  Speaker 9: this is Bannon's movement. But that's just my kind of
• 55:01
  Speaker 9: immediate take. Since calling him out is not a possibility,
• 55:07
  Speaker 9: how do you navigate that?
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: Well, I think he's fighting for his own relevance in
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: part because it's either that or lose his base because
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: his base is organizing against data centers, right? And they
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: have He's right when he says that his base was
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: part of fighting back various attempts to ban local regulations
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: on data centers. But it's also true that unless he
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: has this rhetoric, you know, they'll just go somewhere else.
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: And one of the things that Astra and I write
• 55:40
  Speaker 7: about in the book is one of the things that
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: makes this form of, you know, we do call it fascism,
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: different from earlier generations, is the role of these kind
• 55:50
  Speaker 7: of entrepreneurial groups. influencers. They'll just go to another podcaster
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: who is willing to say these things. And so I
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: think he's in an awkward situation. The other thing that
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: he's saying is that it should all be done by
• 56:04
  Speaker 7: executive order by Donald Trump. We know Donald Trump isn't
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: going to do this by executive order. The only thing
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: that Donald Trump might do and might listen to Steve
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: Bannon about is this escalation of war with China, right?
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: And so what was being signaled here is the way
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: to show your base that you're serious about taking on
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: AI is escalate the war with China, because Donald Trump
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: is up to his eyeballs in this personally and economically.
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: So that's not going to happen. he has made it
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: clear that he's all in on AI. So yeah, we
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: need left leaders. I think people like, you know, I
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: think Abdul El-Sayed has been, you know, doing that kind
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: of organizing of going into red parts of the state
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: and trying to build that common ground. Yeah, I'm sure
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: Astra has some great organizing tips there. She's the true
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: organizer in our duo.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's, you know, Greg Cesar talking about the
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: need for a job guarantee. He is part of an
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: AI policy. There are good, good ideas out there.
• 57:05
  Speaker 10: We're a little skeptical of the idea of taking a
• 57:07
  Speaker 10: stake in AI, but I think there's all sorts of
• 57:09
  Speaker 10: things that can be done. So I agree with you, Ryan,
• 57:13
  Speaker 10: that what we need is bold left figures and visions
• 57:16
  Speaker 10: really filling that space so that Bannon cannot raise in
• 57:20
  Speaker 10: front and position himself as the leader of this movement.
• 57:22
  Speaker 10: Because as Naomi said, he's trying to follow his audience
• 57:25
  Speaker 10: because he knows that the vast majority of Americans are
• 57:28
  Speaker 10: extremely skeptical of AI and the tech oligarchs and aren't
• 57:31
  Speaker 10: looking forward to a technology that promises to do not
• 57:34
  Speaker 10: much besides take all the jobs and possibly in the world.
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like on his face, his argument
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: doesn't even make sense because if we need to beat
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: China in the AI race, then it's going to be
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: off to the races. I mean, this is the argument
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: that the tech oligarchs themselves are making about all of this.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: There's nothing like racing towards destruction.
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Love that. Or as Ted Cruz said, well, if they're
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: going to be killer robots, I want it to be
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: an American robot that kills me, not a Chinese one.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Inspiring stuff there from them. Naomi and Astor, thank you
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: so much, guys. The book is End Times Fascism and
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the Fight for the Living World. Congratulations to you both.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: And thank you so much for this discussion today and
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: also your contribution to the intellectual discourse around this regime
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: That does it for us. But since we have the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: advantage of having Ryan here, the salesman, the chief capitalist
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: on the team who everyone wants to apparently subscribe when
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Ryan is around, we figured we would take advantage of
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: this moment for you to make a pitch.
• 58:33
  Speaker 9: Well, you get a month free.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: How could that, you know, what do you have to lose?
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Nothing but your chains. But no, seriously. So this would
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: be the most.
• 58:41
  Speaker 9: Fun humiliation of Sagar.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 58:43
  Speaker 9: He did most of the show. And we're at the
• 58:45
  Speaker 9: back end of an episode here. So this is the
• 58:47
  Speaker 9: diehards that are still watching this.
• 58:49
  Speaker 10: Yes.
• 58:49
  Speaker 9: You went all the way through the Naomi and Astra interview.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Here you are.
• 58:53
  Speaker 9: So if we can get at least 100 people to
• 58:55
  Speaker 9: sign up for this month free, go to BreakingPoints.com, do
• 59:00
  Speaker 9: the month free. Griffin promises he will make a code.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 59:04
  Speaker 9: For next week or the week after, however long it
• 59:06
  Speaker 9: takes to make it. That will be slash bongrips.
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 59:10
  Speaker 9: And you'll get a free month if you put in
• 59:11
  Speaker 9: slash bongrips.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: But we have to get those signups today.
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: If you want the bongrips code.
• 59:15
  Speaker 9: Because it's, unfortunately right now it's a little bit of work,
• 59:18
  Speaker 9: but Griffin will do it for the bongrips.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: So bongrips for Sagar.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: So there you go, guys. Sign up today for the
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: bongrips for Sagar. And thank you for watching. We will
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: see you guys tomorrow.