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Transcript

Vibes vs MAGA · Mechonomist Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Good evening everyone.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And tonight is the night of the probably one and only presidential debate between
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: what I'm calling vibes versus mega.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I expect the debate to be full of insults, clownishness, and juvenile behavior on both sides.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I expect there to be very little content, um, between either of the candidates.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think what the reason that it's going to be like this is because both campaigns
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: are essentially television advertisements.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're reality TV.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're marketing and they like any sort of substance whatsoever.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the clear theme of this presidential election is contentlessness in the
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: sense that there's nothing behind anything that any of the
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: candidates are doing there's no substance to any of it i do believe kamala harris
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: will win ultimately because i think she has a better campaign but i there's nothing
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: at all of substance that is going to be said and this speaks to what this video
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: essay is really about which is the sense that politics the experience of the
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: political
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: is completely divorced from the experience of everyday life.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the political,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: which means concerning power,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: the people that actually run the country are not connected to the way that most of
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: the country lives.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the political is therefore experienced as an advertisement, as
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: a visual representation of facsimile of power, but it's not the real power.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the people who run the country are behind the scenes.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're working in what's called the deep state or the alphabet organizations,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: the American society,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: the governing portions of American society are essentially big business
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: and intelligence agencies at this point in history.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what people experience as the political is essentially an advertisement with no content,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: a commercial.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they're selling you something that has nothing to do with the governing of the country,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: which is Kamala Harris's coolness,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: her vibes.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that she would be the first black woman president, which means nothing.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Donald Trump's supposed anti-establishment rhetoric,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: which also means nothing because Donald Trump is as big a part of the establishment
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: as anybody.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's a fucking billionaire capitalist, for Christ's sakes.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: He is the establishment.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what people experience as the political is essentially a spectacle.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: and it's a orchestrated uh television show for the purposes of ensuring that the
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: people never see what's really going on behind the curtain it's very much like the
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: wizard of oz in which the great and powerful oz is this you know uh uh ghost-like
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: creature that
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: supposedly governs society when the man behind the curtain is just a man and the
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: people that supposedly govern our society the people like kamala harris and donald
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: trump are that specter that is the great and powerful eyes when the actual eyes are
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: just people trying to make money and be powerful and the spectacle masks
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: the actual relationships that exist, which are relationships of employer to employee.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you never meet your employees,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: the place where your employer,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: the place where I work,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: who knows who my employer is.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I meet my manager, but he's an employee too.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you never see the actual employer and that's by design because if they are
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: separated from the working people,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: there's no way that the working people can adequately resist it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes it interesting because things have become quite different in terms of
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: the way the working class has to move through society because unions are now
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: fighting against middle managers.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're not fighting against the actual bosses as they did 75 to 100 years ago.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody knows who the bosses are or can even see them.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: What I expect to see tonight is a childish display of reality TV.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that spectacle is a way to sort of herd people into believing that they are
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: participating in their government when in fact it is governed by an unassailable
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: class of people
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: and their policing agencies that assure that at the end of the day,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: even if this spectacle breaks down,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: that the governing people will be still unassailable.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They will be defended by intelligence agencies and policing agencies.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not optimistic about tonight.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: My wife's going to watch it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably going to put earbuds in and listen to some music.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if you watch it, watch for what, as I said, the contentlessness of it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that there's no substance behind any of it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just vibes and anger.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see y'all next time.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, y'all.