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Episode One Hundred Eighty Four: Unburdened By What Has Been · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number one hundred and eighty four of
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Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism Podcasts. My name is John Sigler.
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Speaker 1: I'm your host on today's show. The Democratic Convention ends
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Speaker 1: with great TV ratings and possibly a polling bounce, but
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Speaker 1: no Beyonce, apparently in order to protect Kamala Harris. The
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Speaker 1: me Too movement has been forgotten. Trump gets the RFK endorsement,
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Speaker 1: but how much will it really matter? Bill Maher goes
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Speaker 1: after CNN rather brilliantly, and as college football season begins,
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Speaker 1: I'm really close to jumping off of the Dion Sanders bandwagon.
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Speaker 1: We begin this episode with a programming note. We usually
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Speaker 1: tape on Monday and Wednesday mornings. I'm taping this episode
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Speaker 1: about twenty three hours earlier than normal because of logistical reasons.
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Speaker 1: But I don't anticipate, barring late breaking news, that it's
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Speaker 1: going to matter very much because we have a jam
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Speaker 1: packed program of things to catch up on that have
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Speaker 1: occurred since the last episode of the podcast. Obviously, politically,
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Speaker 1: the biggest story has been the end of the Democratic
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Speaker 1: National Convention and the way I would describe the Democratic
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Speaker 1: National Convention, and just a couple of words would be hypocritical,
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Speaker 1: I mean, unbelievably just gaslighting level of hypocrisy, deceitful, but
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Speaker 1: largely effective. That would be my very short synopsis of
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Speaker 1: the Democratic convention, which is in keeping with the bizarre
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Speaker 1: nature of the modern world, especially with regard to the
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Speaker 1: modern media and how they are handling this campaign. So
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Speaker 1: I would describe it as hypocritical, deceitful, but apparently largely effective,
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Speaker 1: and to me, the biggest moment by far. I'm a
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Speaker 1: big believer in the modern ara. The only thing that
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Speaker 1: really matters at these conventions is the speech of the
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Speaker 1: presidential nomine maybe that of the vice presidential nominee, if
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Speaker 1: they're not a known entity, which is the case with
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Speaker 1: regard to both vice presidential nominees in this particular cycle,
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Speaker 1: but especially in a case where Kamala Harris was really
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Speaker 1: being reintroduced one more time to the American people, this
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Speaker 1: time for the first time as the Democratic presidential nominee,
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Speaker 1: a person who hasn't even done any sort of formal
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Speaker 1: interview or real press conference. So there was obviously and
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Speaker 1: understandably a lot of attention surrounding her speech, and I
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Speaker 1: thought that her speech was vacuous. It was incredibly vague.
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Speaker 1: It created an impression about her that is completely anathetical
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Speaker 1: and contradictory. That thus the hypocrisy to everything that she
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Speaker 1: has ever stood for in her career. It basically made
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Speaker 1: her sound like she was more conservative than Donald Trump
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Speaker 1: on a few issues, especially with regard to her tone.
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Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, there were no solutions, no
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Speaker 1: policy positions. It was annoying at times, it was brill
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Speaker 1: at times, But I wasn't the target audience, and I
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Speaker 1: don't think that that was the standard by which this
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Speaker 1: should be judged. We are living in, basically, in my view,
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Speaker 1: the embodiment of the movie Idiocracy. I think all the
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Speaker 1: old rules are close to dead. And her threshold here
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Speaker 1: was does she look good? Does she sound good? Can
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Speaker 1: she speak well? Does she come off with a commanding presence?
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Speaker 1: Does she seem at all likable? And I have to
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Speaker 1: say that for the target audience here, the answers to
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Speaker 1: those questions were largely yes, we don't live in a
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Speaker 1: world where details matter. We don't live in a world
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Speaker 1: where policy matters, or consistency matters, or achievement matters, or
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Speaker 1: great ideas matter. That's in fact, you can get more
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Speaker 1: in more trouble than you can by saying nothing. I mean,
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Speaker 1: you're much better shape saying nothing than if you actually
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Speaker 1: come up with a great idea that could be misconstrued
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Speaker 1: or be seen as dangerous by the wrong demographic group.
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Speaker 1: And so unfortunately, I think Harris's speech was effective for
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Speaker 1: what she was trying to do, even though I hated it,
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Speaker 1: most conservatives hated it. There's nothing memorable about it at all.
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Speaker 1: But she achieved what I think was the goal for her.
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Speaker 1: And I don't think that conservatives are fully understanding this.
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Speaker 1: And this is one of the things I've been saying
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Speaker 1: really since I don't know, at least a year, maybe
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Speaker 1: since the beginning of this podcast. The conservatives are underestimating
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Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. Not because she's great, she's not, but because
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Speaker 1: of the world in which we now live and the
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Speaker 1: advantages that she has as a woman of quote unquote
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Speaker 1: color with a democratic industrial machine media complex behind her,
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Speaker 1: Especially given all the guilt they have over having stabbed
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Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the back, they're overcompensated because now they're
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Speaker 1: invested in her candidacy. They literally created it, they own it.
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Speaker 1: It has to work for them to justify what they
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Speaker 1: did with Biden. So she has an Obama like hurricane
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Speaker 1: wind at her back, and anybody under those circumstances can
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Speaker 1: be formidable. But she has I think been very underestimated
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Speaker 1: by Republicans and Conservatives and by Donald Trump himself. Trump
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Speaker 1: still hasn't fully adjusted to the fact that she's the nominee,
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Speaker 1: and I think part of it's because they never thought
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Speaker 1: that she would be much of a challenge. She had
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Speaker 1: terrible approval ratings. She comes off as a dingbat, but
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Speaker 1: that's not the world we live in, especially when you've
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Speaker 1: got all of these institutions trying to prop you up.
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Speaker 1: And the media has lost a lot of power, but
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Speaker 1: they still have when they work together. They still have influence.
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Speaker 1: And the Democratic Party has a lot of money and
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Speaker 1: they have a lot of advantages, and we saw a
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Speaker 1: lot of those advantages at the convention. They get all
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Speaker 1: sorts of famous people to get out there, although they
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Speaker 1: didn't get Beyonce, we'll get to that in just a second,
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Speaker 1: but they know they can get you know, Barack Obama,
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Speaker 1: Michelle Obama, the Clinton's Oprah, you know, all sorts of
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Speaker 1: other people that the media loves, and this helps facilitate
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Speaker 1: this perception this astroturfing that Kamala Harris is the greatest
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Speaker 1: thing since at least Obama, and maybe longer than that,
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Speaker 1: because that draw unlike Obama, she's a female. Although I'm
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Speaker 1: still confused as to how the Democratic Party can get
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Speaker 1: away with calling anyone a female because they don't know
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Speaker 1: what the definition of a female is. I mean, just
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Speaker 1: one of the many hypocritical aspects of the modern Democratic Party.
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Speaker 1: But one of the things that Harris did during her
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Speaker 1: speech that was particularly deceitful and yet I think probably effective,
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Speaker 1: was the focus on Donald Trump. Here she is reintroducing herself,
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Speaker 1: and she spent most of a fairly short speech, and
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Speaker 1: I thought it was a smart move for it to
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Speaker 1: be a speech that was much much shorter than Trump's
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Speaker 1: marathon convention except in speech, but she focused mostly on
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Speaker 1: how terrible Donald Trump is. Well, Donald Trump is not
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Speaker 1: the president. And yet, and this is something that even
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Speaker 1: I did not think they could get away with. They've
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Speaker 1: gotten away with so much in the last few weeks
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Speaker 1: that even me as pessimistic as I am, as cynical
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Speaker 1: as I am, did not think was possible without at
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Speaker 1: least some damage, without at least some punishment, and it
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Speaker 1: never occurred to me that, although it did, I think
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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago I started talking about this,
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Speaker 1: But before this happened, it never occurred to me that
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Speaker 1: Harris could get all the advantages of the experience quote
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Speaker 1: unquote of being vice president, but none of the disadvantages
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Speaker 1: of being part of this current administration that has a
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Speaker 1: lot of baggage attached to it, and also portray Donald
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Speaker 1: Trump effectively as if he is the incumbent president. It
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Speaker 1: never it never occurred to me that that was possible here.
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Speaker 1: But even the Bulwark and a pseudo conservative outlet of
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Speaker 1: sellouts who now are effectively Democrats. I actually wrote for
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Speaker 1: them one time before they threw me under the bus
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Speaker 1: because they got so much negative blowback for me writing
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Speaker 1: for them that the whole story I've never really told publicly.
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Speaker 1: That infuriated me at the time. But there are a
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Speaker 1: bunch of complete and total frauds at the Pullwark. But
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Speaker 1: they actually put out a story gleefully, gleefully championing praising
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Speaker 1: Harris for turning Trump into the effect of incumbent in
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Speaker 1: her convention speech. But that's not true. He's not the incumbent.
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Speaker 1: He has not been president for almost four years. I
9:39
Speaker 1: would argue he was not even president most of twenty twenty.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Fauci, Gavin Newsom, and Andrew Cuomo were president, and
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Speaker 1: I mean that sincerely through most of twenty twenty. Yet
9:51
Speaker 1: yet somehow we've got allegedly conservative media outlets cheering that
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Speaker 1: they're lying to the American people, creating the impression that
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the incumbent here. And yet she gets
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Speaker 1: away with it. So's she talk about having your cake
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Speaker 1: and eat it too, but she gets to be experienced
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Speaker 1: incumbent but have none of the back into the Biden administration.
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Speaker 1: And Trump doesn't even get to be the change agent
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Speaker 1: because somehow heats the boogeyman that's still in charge. Now,
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Speaker 1: all of this created a lot of frustration for me,
10:27
Speaker 1: especially as somebody who doesn't like Donald Trump but is
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Speaker 1: just enraged by what Democrats are getting away with here.
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Speaker 1: And I put out a tweet that for me, went
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Speaker 1: rather viral and even got some media coverage. And here
10:41
Speaker 1: was that tweet, which I think is appropriate to share
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Speaker 1: on the podcast I wrote. With the media's help, Democrats
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Speaker 1: have somehow been allowed to portray themselves as the party
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Speaker 1: of and then I did bullet points democracy, and then
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Speaker 1: I wrote in parentheses with the most undemocratically selected non
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Speaker 1: many in modern history. I've talked about that a lot
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Speaker 1: in the last couple of episodes. Probably doesn't need a
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Speaker 1: whole lot more explanation bullet point number two Freedom, and
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Speaker 1: then in parentheses, just after they demanded mask and vaccine mandates,
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Speaker 1: they want price controls and groceries with huge tax increases.
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Speaker 1: I didn't mention it because of space, but I should have.
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Speaker 1: They're also very much against free speech. They're in favor
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Speaker 1: of censorship. They got a vice presidential nomini that doesn't
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Speaker 1: even understand the First Amendment, and yet they're claiming to
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Speaker 1: be the Party of freedom. Next bullet point change. This
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Speaker 1: is something I just alluded to with regard to portraying
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Speaker 1: somehow that Trump is the incumbent president. This is particularly
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Speaker 1: absurd when Democrats have controlled the White House for twelve
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Speaker 1: out of the last sixteen years, and as I wrote
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Speaker 1: in this tweet, thirteen if you include the COVID year,
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Speaker 1: because as I've already mentioned, fauci K, Newsome and Cuomo
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Speaker 1: were actually the president, not Donald Trump during twenty most
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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, but forget about the COVID here for
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Speaker 1: a second, twelve out of sixteen years Democrats have held
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Speaker 1: the presidency, and they were allowed to portray reality as
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Speaker 1: if they're the change agent. They're the change age, even
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Speaker 1: though they have been in control of the White House
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Speaker 1: for twelve of the last sixteen years. Next bullet point,
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Speaker 1: rich people, at least super rich people are bad. And
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Speaker 1: you know who told us that super rich people are
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Speaker 1: really bad? Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. You cannot make
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Speaker 1: this shit up, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama talking about
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Speaker 1: the horrors of income inequality and how you shouldn't take
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Speaker 1: more than you need and everything that you've suffered through,
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Speaker 1: and how bad it is that rich people are taking
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Speaker 1: too much Oprah and Michelle Obama, who has three massive mansions,
13:00
Speaker 1: largely because not in Tault entirely, but largely because of
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Speaker 1: who she married, by the way, It's just it's laughable.
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Speaker 1: It's absurd not to mention that it's wrong, because rich
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Speaker 1: people drive a lot of the economy for the not
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Speaker 1: rich people. The next bullet point was black people, especially women,
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Speaker 1: are still badly discriminated against. And I wrote in parentheses
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Speaker 1: as explained by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Kamala Harris,
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Speaker 1: three women of color who have obviously proven that Black
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Speaker 1: women are not greatly discriminated against. These are three women
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Speaker 1: that have been extremely successful without a lot of achievement.
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Speaker 1: Now Oprah, I'll give credit to because she did build
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Speaker 1: a media empire, but I would suggest that a large
13:53
Speaker 1: part of how she was able to build and maintain
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Speaker 1: that media empire was because of her gender and race,
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Speaker 1: not as a situation where she was fighting against her
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Speaker 1: gender and race. But it's really remarkable. It is amazing.
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Speaker 1: So many things are amazing with regard to our current
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Speaker 1: view in the media of race and gender, but for
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Speaker 1: a lot of black women, and you see this a
14:18
Speaker 1: lot in politics and in the media, it really is
14:21
Speaker 1: amazing that for a lot of black women, obviously not
14:25
Speaker 1: all who have achieved great quote unquote success in our society,
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Speaker 1: especially in media and in politics, they have this very
14:35
Speaker 1: distorted view of reality. And I don't think it's their
14:39
Speaker 1: fault entirely because they have had their way paved for them,
14:46
Speaker 1: because we are so desirous of black people in general
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Speaker 1: and women in particular, to be successful that they actually
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Speaker 1: are advantaged. Even though in their ps exception. They think
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Speaker 1: that they are from a disadvantaged class. So the fact
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Speaker 1: that they're able to achieve, I think, actually facilitates this
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Speaker 1: mindset that, boy, they must be really super special, they
15:13
Speaker 1: must really be amazing to be able to overcome all
15:16
Speaker 1: these odds, when they don't realize that in many circumstances,
15:21
Speaker 1: not all, in many circumstances, they are actually advantaged by
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Speaker 1: their gender and race. And I would put Oprah, Michelle Obama,
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Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris into that category. And then once this
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Speaker 1: tweet went viral again for me, it went viral because
15:41
Speaker 1: it has like two hundred thousand views at this point
15:44
Speaker 1: and well over a thousand likes, I realized that I
15:47
Speaker 1: had left an important bullet point off the list, and
15:51
Speaker 1: I wrote in a subsequent tweet that I attached to this.
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Speaker 1: Had I known it would have been, it would have
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Speaker 1: gone viral. I definitely would have added this bullet point
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Speaker 1: to the list. And that is patriotism. Yes, the Democratic
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Speaker 1: Party portrayed themselves as the party of patriotism, even though
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Speaker 1: they want to radically alter the essence of America quote unquote,
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Speaker 1: unburdened by what has been unquote which is a reference
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Speaker 1: to something that Kamala Harris has said many many times
16:28
Speaker 1: that I think has been vastly underrated and is far
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Speaker 1: too often mocked when it is actually I think maybe
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Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing that Harris has said on a
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Speaker 1: consistent basis. People think that it's funny, like it shows
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Speaker 1: that she's vacuous. No no, no, no no, when she says,
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Speaker 1: see what can be unburdened by what has been? That
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Speaker 1: means radically altering the essence of America. And the way
17:02
Speaker 1: you do that is, let's not be burdened by what
17:07
Speaker 1: has been in the past when we were the greatest
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Speaker 1: country that has ever been created. No, no, no, Let's
17:14
Speaker 1: not be burdened by things like the Constitution or our
17:18
Speaker 1: laws or Supreme Court rulings. Those are burdens our traditional values.
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Speaker 1: Those are burdens that we need to get passed in
17:28
Speaker 1: order to make America what we want it to be,
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Speaker 1: which is radically different than what it has always been.
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Speaker 1: How the fuck is that patriotism? How is it patriotism? Now? Look,
17:41
Speaker 1: some change is always good. America has never been perfect,
17:44
Speaker 1: will never be perfect. I think one of the great
17:47
Speaker 1: flaws in liberalism is that they allow the perfect to
17:51
Speaker 1: get in the way of the very good. They're always thinking, oh,
17:54
Speaker 1: we can have this utopia. Well, no, there is no
17:56
Speaker 1: such thing as utopia. And so they destroy things that
17:59
Speaker 1: are very very very good in this quixotic effort to
18:04
Speaker 1: try to make them perfect, which is totally unrealistic and
18:07
Speaker 1: it's certainly not going to happen with regard to the
18:10
Speaker 1: way Kamala Harris wants to radically alter America. And so,
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Speaker 1: you know, those, to me are the most frustrating elements
18:19
Speaker 1: of what Democrats were allowed to get away with during
18:22
Speaker 1: this convention. They portrayed themselves as the party of all
18:27
Speaker 1: these things just to review democracy, freedom, change, super rich
18:32
Speaker 1: people are bad, Black people, especially women are still badly
18:35
Speaker 1: discriminated against, and the Party of Patriotism. None of those
18:39
Speaker 1: things are accurate. Yet they were allowed to portray themselves
18:43
Speaker 1: that way almost entirely because they knew the news media
18:47
Speaker 1: would not call them out on any of this. Because
18:50
Speaker 1: the news media, other than the conservative media, with is
18:53
Speaker 1: very very little influence over swing voters in this country,
18:56
Speaker 1: has no inclination to call out Kamala Harris for a
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Speaker 1: whole host of reasons, some of which I've already referred to.
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Speaker 1: And so I think they basically mostly got away with this.
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Speaker 1: I think it was largely effective. The ratings indicate that
19:15
Speaker 1: it was also very popular, more popular as a television
19:20
Speaker 1: product than the Republican Convention was if you include not
19:25
Speaker 1: just the final day, but all four days. And that's
19:29
Speaker 1: really kind of amazing when you consider the fact that
19:32
Speaker 1: the Republican Convention occurred two days after Trump heroically survived
19:39
Speaker 1: an assassination attempt. I keep pointing to the assassination attempt
19:43
Speaker 1: as kind of the canary and the coal mine for
19:46
Speaker 1: how this election is going to go. How in the
19:48
Speaker 1: world that didn't impact people more. I think should be
19:53
Speaker 1: studied not just from a political perspective, but from a
19:57
Speaker 1: sociological psychological standpoint. I mean, I think we are unbelievably
20:02
Speaker 1: desensitized in our society. And maybe this is partially because
20:07
Speaker 1: Trump is so hated by at least half the country
20:10
Speaker 1: that they just weren't impacted by it. But it had
20:13
Speaker 1: no influence on the polls. It had very little impact
20:18
Speaker 1: on increasing the ratings for the Republican National Convention. Even
20:23
Speaker 1: Trump's convention speech got beaten by Harris's convention speech. Now,
20:29
Speaker 1: a lot of Trumper's and conservatives are saying, but John John,
20:33
Speaker 1: the reason why Harris's speech got slightly larger numbers from
20:39
Speaker 1: a ratings perspective than Trump's convention acceptance speech is that
20:43
Speaker 1: the media created this expectation that there would be a
20:47
Speaker 1: special guest, a superstar special guest, and the largest speculation
20:53
Speaker 1: about who this guest would be was Beyonce, that Beyonce
20:58
Speaker 1: was going to show up, although there were also rumors
21:00
Speaker 1: put forward by actual reporters, some of whom are pretty
21:05
Speaker 1: well known, that we're suggesting it might be Taylor Swift,
21:09
Speaker 1: or it might even be George W. Bush, which there
21:12
Speaker 1: was no chance it was ever going to be George W. Bush.
21:15
Speaker 1: And I don't think there was any chance it was
21:16
Speaker 1: ever going to be Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Now it's
21:19
Speaker 1: easy to say in retrospect because it didn't happen. But
21:24
Speaker 1: I'll explain in a second why this was always an
21:27
Speaker 1: absurd idea. But before I do that, I want to
21:32
Speaker 1: put forward the proof that the media did in fact
21:36
Speaker 1: facilitate this false narrative that Beyonce was gonna likely show
21:42
Speaker 1: up to perform at the Democratic National Convention. And of
21:46
Speaker 1: course Trumpers are saying that's why the ratings were choosed.
21:50
Speaker 1: For Harris's speech, Here is a montage put forward by
21:55
Speaker 1: a conservative by the name of Tom Elliott and I
21:58
Speaker 1: actually I think a few clips have been left out
22:01
Speaker 1: of this montage because I saw them myself. But this
22:04
Speaker 1: will give you a pretty good idea of just how
22:07
Speaker 1: insane it got. With regard to the media hyping the
22:11
Speaker 1: possibility that Beyonce may show up to the Democratic National
22:15
Speaker 1: Convention surrounding Kamala Harris's acceptance speech, there are rumors.
22:20
Speaker 2: There are rumors that Beyonce might make an appearance. I
22:24
Speaker 2: personally think that that's true, but we shall see.
22:26
Speaker 1: There are Oh we're going to say this now, can
22:29
Speaker 1: I say this?
22:30
Speaker 2: Well, let's couch it in rumors and rumbling.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's just say so. I mean, that's out there,
22:37
Speaker 1: the Beyonce talk. You have to stay tuned, but I
22:41
Speaker 1: have it on really good word.
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Speaker 2: The beehive is buzzing right now because the preparation for
22:46
Speaker 2: the beehive it has to start her a like sources
22:48
Speaker 2: come from backstage.
22:50
Speaker 1: That's all I'll tell you. JMZ and the Hill recording
22:54
Speaker 1: that she will indeed be making a surprise performance on stage.
22:57
Speaker 1: Here in Congress. That was just dancing along and he's excited.
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Speaker 1: Any hearing rumors which your donor confirmed to me that
23:03
Speaker 1: she's also hearing that Beyonce is in resident of all
23:07
Speaker 1: things music and fashion and style. I E Beyonce. I
23:11
Speaker 1: mean it's going to show up mean may guest tonight Beyonce.
23:16
Speaker 1: I know, Beyonce's got to be in town, right, my gosh?
23:18
Speaker 1: Is that what we're in for a Beyonce show tonight?
23:21
Speaker 2: There are rumors that Beyonce may be there this evening.
23:26
Speaker 1: We may see Beyonce. Is the Ania Center going to
23:29
Speaker 1: be turning into the Beehive tonight?
23:32
Speaker 2: Earlier today, we spoke with Christy George, the executive director
23:35
Speaker 2: of the DNC Host Committee.
23:36
Speaker 1: Not hope for Beyonce. Is that gonna happen? I don't know,
23:40
Speaker 1: but that was ving about it around here. I know,
23:43
Speaker 1: I thought you would have the insider tip on that.
23:46
Speaker 2: I'm hoping fingers cross, fingers scross. They're keeping it very
23:49
Speaker 2: close to the mouth where it's like everyone else, we
23:51
Speaker 2: were hoping that Beyonce makes an appearance.
23:54
Speaker 1: There could be a surprise performance from Beyonce. Is that a.
23:56
Speaker 2: Beyonce song playing right now? And is that telling something
24:01
Speaker 2: possibly breaking news, breaking Beyonce news. The rumor has it
24:06
Speaker 2: Beyonce maybe performing, someone's doing a warm up with her song.
24:10
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, Rachel, two pretty powerful black women up
24:14
Speaker 2: on the stage together, Lee.
24:15
Speaker 1: We'll see what you Beyonce and Beyonce or no Beyonce.
24:17
Speaker 1: I'm guessing she's here. We're hearing rumors about Beyonce.
24:20
Speaker 2: I tried to get Senator Booker to give me the
24:22
Speaker 2: tea on that, but he just played toy.
24:23
Speaker 1: Beyonce comes out, I just may lose my cool just
24:26
Speaker 1: a little bit. Charles. We're going to break you off
24:28
Speaker 1: right now to get you back on the hunt now.
24:31
Speaker 1: Of course, when Beyonce never showed up, from what I
24:34
Speaker 1: could tell, there was very little media coverage of Hey,
24:39
Speaker 1: what the hell happened to Beyonce. There was no accountability.
24:42
Speaker 1: There never is. This is the modern world we now
24:45
Speaker 1: live in. You can you get all sorts of benefit
24:48
Speaker 1: from the ride of the fake story, but when it
24:51
Speaker 1: turns out to be fake, no one goes. I really
24:54
Speaker 1: need to apologize because I created an expectation that Beyonce
24:58
Speaker 1: was going to be here and she never was going
25:00
Speaker 1: to be here, And there were some people who were
25:03
Speaker 1: obviously disappointed by that. You tune in to expect to
25:07
Speaker 1: see Beyonce or somebody else of that stature, and nothing happens.
25:11
Speaker 1: And yet we just pretend, because that's what we do
25:14
Speaker 1: all the time now in the media. We just pretend
25:16
Speaker 1: that that whole thing never happened. Now, you know, I
25:20
Speaker 1: understand why some conservatives Trump fans are so cynical that
25:24
Speaker 1: they think that this was all a scam, This was
25:26
Speaker 1: a conspiracy, as you probably know, I don't think that way.
25:31
Speaker 1: I think this is just incompetence and the media not
25:34
Speaker 1: being able to resist the catnip of a super large
25:38
Speaker 1: celebrity like Beyonce potentially showing up surrounding Kamala Harris's convention speech.
25:45
Speaker 1: But the idea that Taylor Swift or Beyonce we're ever
25:51
Speaker 1: going to show up the George W. Bush Ruber actually
25:54
Speaker 1: made a small bit of sense because if you're going
25:57
Speaker 1: to have that happen, that would be the time to
26:00
Speaker 1: have George chub Push show up. Again. That was never
26:02
Speaker 1: gonna happen, but it was rumored, and it would at
26:06
Speaker 1: least make some sense because there's it's not a natural
26:10
Speaker 1: occurrence for that to happen any other time, and it
26:14
Speaker 1: would be a massive part of the narrative, and it
26:17
Speaker 1: would make sense because it's in the political realm. But
26:21
Speaker 1: Beyonce or Taylor Swift, who I've talked about, you know,
26:25
Speaker 1: a nauseum, probably too much over the last year or so,
26:28
Speaker 1: who's eventually gonna do something publicly on behalf of Kamala Harris.
26:33
Speaker 1: You don't do that at her convention speech. There would
26:38
Speaker 1: be idiotic. Yes, you would juice the audience, but you
26:43
Speaker 1: would completely overshadow the speech itself. And with regard to
26:50
Speaker 1: a Beyonce or Taylor Swift, there's plenty of opportunity to
26:54
Speaker 1: do that in the future where you get a completely
26:59
Speaker 1: new news cycle devoted just to that. Why would you
27:04
Speaker 1: waste it when you're already getting a huge news cycle
27:08
Speaker 1: regarding your convention acceptance speech, especially one that's so important
27:12
Speaker 1: since you're reintroducing yourself to the public so strategically. It
27:17
Speaker 1: never made any goddamn sense that Beyonce or Taylor Swift
27:21
Speaker 1: would do this. That would be idiotic to have that
27:24
Speaker 1: happen at her convention speech. Not to mention, this is
27:29
Speaker 1: another small element of this that the media never really
27:31
Speaker 1: considered but also performing that night was Pink, who was
27:36
Speaker 1: a pretty big star in her own right, so it
27:39
Speaker 1: would be insulting to her to bigfoot Pink by bringing
27:44
Speaker 1: in Beyonce or Taylor Swift, which was never gonna happen
27:49
Speaker 1: on that night. So nobody used their goddamn brains when
27:54
Speaker 1: when putting this out there, mainly because they're not able
27:57
Speaker 1: to resist. The media is a bunch of children, and
28:00
Speaker 1: they just cannot resist this, this catnip. And they got embarrassed,
28:06
Speaker 1: but there's no accountability. Nobody apologized, Nobody said, oops, we
28:13
Speaker 1: made a mistake. We fell for an obviously false rumor.
28:17
Speaker 1: Now did they facilitate this rumor knowing that it would
28:20
Speaker 1: help the audience for Harris? Yeah, I'm sure that was
28:23
Speaker 1: part of it, But I don't believe this was a conspiracy.
28:25
Speaker 1: I could be wrong about this one, though, because it
28:28
Speaker 1: was just so stupid, just absolutely idiotic. Now, on a
28:32
Speaker 1: more substantive note regarding the way that Harris's speech was perceived,
28:39
Speaker 1: I thought that the New York Times Morning newsletter the
28:43
Speaker 1: next day really summed up so much about the insanity
28:48
Speaker 1: of the current state of this campaign. When the newsletter
28:53
Speaker 1: had as its title quote, why is Harris's centrism working
29:02
Speaker 1: question mark? Why is Harris's centrism working? Question mark? This
29:10
Speaker 1: is hilarious. I looked at this, I thought, this is
29:14
Speaker 1: like an NFL referee wondering why it is that a
29:21
Speaker 1: team's defensive line can't get to the quarterback when they
29:24
Speaker 1: haven't called an offensive holding penalty the entire game, and
29:29
Speaker 1: it made it clear they're never going to call offensive
29:32
Speaker 1: holding and the offensive line knows they can do whatever
29:34
Speaker 1: the hell they want to. The defense. Gee, you, how
29:37
Speaker 1: is that possible that they've not had their quarterback sacked? Well,
29:42
Speaker 1: it's because of you. It's because the news media has said, basically, yeah,
29:47
Speaker 1: you go ahead, and you change all those crazy positions
29:51
Speaker 1: you took during the twenty twenty presidential campaign when you
29:54
Speaker 1: were trying then to become the new Obama, and it
29:57
Speaker 1: just never worked because you weren't very good at it.
30:00
Speaker 1: There were too many other candidates, you weren't really seen
30:03
Speaker 1: as the black candidate, and it just never caught fire.
30:07
Speaker 1: And then you got lucky and we're picked as the
30:09
Speaker 1: DEI vice president in the middle of presidential nominee, in
30:13
Speaker 1: the middle of COVID and we never really vetted you.
30:16
Speaker 1: Then for all the crazy things you said during that campaign,
30:20
Speaker 1: and so we're just gonna forget all that happened because
30:23
Speaker 1: we know, we know you had to do what you
30:26
Speaker 1: had to do at that time, and now none of
30:29
Speaker 1: that's convenient for running for president in twenty twenty four.
30:32
Speaker 1: So we're going to let you change every position you've
30:35
Speaker 1: ever taken and allow you to pretend to be somehow
30:41
Speaker 1: a moderate or even in some ways a conservative, because
30:44
Speaker 1: we think it'll help win this election, because you really
30:48
Speaker 1: do have to bring it back in because it even
30:50
Speaker 1: as leftists as we are, we realized that you, who
30:55
Speaker 1: were once seemed to be the most liberal senator in
30:58
Speaker 1: the entire US Senate, though that's now been scrubbed from
31:01
Speaker 1: the government website, we know you need to bring it
31:05
Speaker 1: into the middle. So, acting once again, as I've said
31:09
Speaker 1: many times as the Harris campaign manager, the news media
31:13
Speaker 1: has said, hey, go ahead and become centrist because will
31:17
Speaker 1: allow it. We're not going to call a foul on this.
31:20
Speaker 1: There'll be no flags thrown, There'll be no portraying you
31:24
Speaker 1: as a flip flopper, portraying you as having no core,
31:28
Speaker 1: not believing anything, portray you as being deceitful, but there's
31:32
Speaker 1: been a whole series of issues where she has completely
31:36
Speaker 1: abandoned not like old positions, positions that she took during
31:41
Speaker 1: her presidential campaign during the last election cycle, and she's
31:46
Speaker 1: never even had to explain it. That's the amazing thing.
31:49
Speaker 1: The media has just taken comments from aids or spokespeople,
31:55
Speaker 1: sometimes even off the record. Yeah, she no longer believes
31:58
Speaker 1: in that, So don't you know, don't pay any attention
32:01
Speaker 1: to those crazy things that she said during the twenty
32:04
Speaker 1: twenty campaign. Well, that's how your centrism can work. If
32:09
Speaker 1: you've never been vetted before, no one knows what you
32:11
Speaker 1: really said. Because your campaign was a disaster in twenty twenty,
32:16
Speaker 1: and the media allows you to change all your positions,
32:19
Speaker 1: of course your centrism is gonna work. What a shock
32:23
Speaker 1: that is. And then we get you know. In keeping
32:26
Speaker 1: with this, there's a headline in the Washington Post Harris
32:31
Speaker 1: allies say her price gouging band plan has been misconstrued.
32:40
Speaker 1: She literally said it herself last week. It's one of
32:44
Speaker 1: the few times where she's actually said thing in her
32:49
Speaker 1: own words. It was just over a week ago, so
32:52
Speaker 1: we have it on tape. It's not old at all.
32:55
Speaker 1: It just happened. But the Washington Post wants you to
32:58
Speaker 1: know because it wasn't really received particularly well even in
33:02
Speaker 1: some media outlet, left wing media outlets, that Harris allies,
33:06
Speaker 1: not even herself, She's not even forced herself to say,
33:10
Speaker 1: you know what, I've been misconstrued. I may have not
33:13
Speaker 1: communicated this properly. No, no, no, she gets to have
33:16
Speaker 1: Harris Allies say that her price gouging band plan has
33:22
Speaker 1: been misconstrued. It's unbelievable. And this is the advantage that
33:29
Speaker 1: Democrats and the Harris campaign have when they know the
33:32
Speaker 1: referees are not only on their side, I mean they're
33:36
Speaker 1: they're literally on the same team. I mean they're literally
33:40
Speaker 1: on the same team. The news media acting as Harra's
33:44
Speaker 1: campaign manager. And there were a couple of moments at
33:48
Speaker 1: the end of the Democratic Convention where there were episodes
33:53
Speaker 1: where they said the quiet part out loud, the quiet
33:58
Speaker 1: part out loud. I've always said, if you pay attention
34:01
Speaker 1: long enough, you keep your eyes and ears open, the
34:04
Speaker 1: truth's gonna come out. And it happened on at least
34:07
Speaker 1: two occasions at the end of the Democratic National Convention.
34:12
Speaker 1: Of course, the media, mainstream media will not make a
34:16
Speaker 1: big deal about either of these. These will be memory. Hold,
34:19
Speaker 1: this is not a story. Let's move along, But I'm
34:23
Speaker 1: going to play them for you right now because they
34:26
Speaker 1: are just too rich to ignore from my prospective. The
34:29
Speaker 1: first deals with the two of my favorite topics in
34:34
Speaker 1: this campaign, although they're both very, very frustrating, and one
34:39
Speaker 1: is the idea that there was a coup against Joe
34:42
Speaker 1: Biden and that Democrats the Party of Democracy, have somehow
34:47
Speaker 1: gotten away with the most undemocratically selected nominee in the
34:53
Speaker 1: modern history of America. I did a very long Diet
34:58
Speaker 1: Tribe a couple episodes ago in the beginning of the
35:00
Speaker 1: Democratic Convention, where I said, look, it's okay that Biden
35:05
Speaker 1: dropped out, even though he's not dead. At least we
35:07
Speaker 1: don't think he's dead. But it's okay. But we have
35:10
Speaker 1: a process for when that happens. It's called an open convention,
35:16
Speaker 1: where the delegates who were selected by Democratic primary votes
35:21
Speaker 1: get to choose in an open democratic process, if you're
35:26
Speaker 1: the Party of Democracy, who the nominee should be to
35:30
Speaker 1: replace Biden. But Democrats knew that that was a really, really,
35:36
Speaker 1: really dangerous idea, not just because they didn't have much
35:40
Speaker 1: time but because they're smart enough to know that, much
35:44
Speaker 1: like the Republican base, their base is fucking crazy. In fact,
35:48
Speaker 1: I would argue that their base is far more dangerous
35:51
Speaker 1: than the Republican base, because as nutty as the Republican
35:54
Speaker 1: base of Trump cult members is, at least they get
35:58
Speaker 1: in line for basically whatever Trump says on that day,
36:02
Speaker 1: so it's easy to unify them. It's just a matter
36:05
Speaker 1: of what Trump says. But there is no Trump like
36:09
Speaker 1: cult on the Democratic side. These people have nothing in
36:12
Speaker 1: common at all, and they're all crazy. And if they
36:16
Speaker 1: had allowed an open process at a convention, it would
36:20
Speaker 1: have been a catastrophe. It would have been a cluster
36:26
Speaker 1: fuck of epic proportions. And they knew it, and the
36:29
Speaker 1: news media knew it, which is why they never pressed
36:32
Speaker 1: the issue. Well in that context, I found it fascinating
36:38
Speaker 1: that my least favorite political figure and probably history, California
36:44
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom or Gavin Pousam as my daughter still
36:47
Speaker 1: refer to him thanks to his COVID tyranny. He did
36:51
Speaker 1: an interview on a liberal podcast and this is really interesting.
36:57
Speaker 1: One because it's the quiet part out loud. Two because
37:00
Speaker 1: I don't think it's difficult to interpret Newsome having at
37:04
Speaker 1: least a little bit of angst or anger or you
37:09
Speaker 1: can decide for yourself, but this is clearly consistent with
37:14
Speaker 1: Newsome not being real happy that in all likelihood he's
37:19
Speaker 1: smart enough to understand that his presidential aspirations ended when
37:24
Speaker 1: Harris was selected with no actual process, to the point
37:29
Speaker 1: where he actually mocks this is amazing. This is Gavin
37:34
Speaker 1: Newsom on a liberal podcast mocking openly the lack of
37:41
Speaker 1: democracy in the selection process for how Harris was chosen
37:47
Speaker 1: to replace Joe Biden. And here's what that sounds like.
37:50
Speaker 1: There's an intangible it's different. How are you feeling about
37:53
Speaker 1: the switch? I mean this switch? Now, we went through
37:56
Speaker 1: a very open process, very lusive process. It was bottom up.
38:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know that. Yes, that's what. Yes,
38:04
Speaker 1: was the Blitz primary, very very fast, thirty minutes convention. Yeah,
38:14
Speaker 1: between tweets and tweets amazing. Yeah, it's been amazing. But
38:18
Speaker 1: what is amazing is how unified everybody is in his
38:21
Speaker 1: next level. To me, that was really telling. Telling a
38:25
Speaker 1: little bit on the Newsome front, but more so with
38:29
Speaker 1: regard to what really happened here. This was a boondoggle.
38:33
Speaker 1: This was a scam, and even Gavin Newsom admits it.
38:39
Speaker 1: And unfortunately the Trump team and Trump himself did not
38:44
Speaker 1: have the foresight to cut this off at the past,
38:48
Speaker 1: because I think they absolutely could have, especially given the
38:51
Speaker 1: timing of the Republican Convention. I've talked about that many
38:53
Speaker 1: many times before. I think it's a there's a very
38:56
Speaker 1: good chance that when the story of this election is
39:00
Speaker 1: told and written, this will not be Unfortunately, unless I'm
39:04
Speaker 1: the one writing it, this is not going to be prominent,
39:08
Speaker 1: but it should be. I think the key moment was
39:10
Speaker 1: the Republican Convention when they allowed Democrats to get out
39:16
Speaker 1: of this maze that had no exit, to get out
39:18
Speaker 1: of the noose, to ignore Biden and Harris, instead of
39:23
Speaker 1: triangulating against Biden Harris and putting Harris in an impossible
39:29
Speaker 1: position should she be the beneficiary of a coup where
39:33
Speaker 1: she was selected and not elected. Trump is trying to
39:37
Speaker 1: do that now, in artfully and typical Trump formed. But
39:41
Speaker 1: it's too late. It's too late. Now the horse is
39:45
Speaker 1: out of the barn, she's taken flight. There is nothing
39:48
Speaker 1: that can be done about this now. I still think
39:50
Speaker 1: it could be an effective issue on the periphery, and
39:54
Speaker 1: I still urge the team to try to use it,
39:57
Speaker 1: but it would have been much much, much more effective
40:00
Speaker 1: preemptively than trying to do it. Now, then it's that
40:03
Speaker 1: it's already as I said, the horse is out of
40:05
Speaker 1: the barn. The other clip that is under the heading
40:09
Speaker 1: of saying the quiet part out loud, this actually got
40:13
Speaker 1: more play than the newsome clip. This is from a
40:19
Speaker 1: meeting of the Black Caucus at the Democratic Convention. And
40:24
Speaker 1: I don't even know who this speaker is. I tried
40:26
Speaker 1: to find the name and could not do so. It
40:29
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter who it is, but it's it's this
40:31
Speaker 1: is a person speaking on a panel of Black leaders
40:35
Speaker 1: at the Democratic National Convention. This is not actually at
40:39
Speaker 1: the convention itself, but like in an auxiliary event under
40:42
Speaker 1: the umbrella of the Democratic National Convention. And they say
40:47
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud when it comes to them
40:50
Speaker 1: behaving before the election, so that after the election they
40:56
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about that kind of stuff anymore.
40:58
Speaker 1: And here's what happened there. We got seventy days to act, right, Joe,
41:03
Speaker 1: It's right, that's seven days we can go back down crazy, right,
41:08
Speaker 1: So there you have it, folks, it's all in act.
41:10
Speaker 1: They're admitting it. Newsome admits that the process to select
41:14
Speaker 1: Harris was an act, and a member of the Black Caucus,
41:19
Speaker 1: speaking at the Democratic National Convention admits, it's all an act.
41:23
Speaker 1: We got to act right for seventy days and then
41:25
Speaker 1: we can be crazy again. Thanks for listening to today's
41:29
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