Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/13/26: Hegseth Floats Livestreamed Execution, Eugene Debs Lessons From The Grave

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10/13/26: Hegseth Floats Livestreamed Execution, Eugene Debs Lessons From The Grave · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:03
Speaker 1: Turning now to the recent controversy over the execution of
0:06
Speaker 1: Nadal Hassan. He was the perpetrator of the Fort Hood
0:09
Speaker 1: terrorist attack in 2009. He has now worked his way
0:14
Speaker 1: through the judicial system in the United States military some
0:16
Speaker 1: 17 years later and is scheduled for execution. The news
0:20
Speaker 1: had broken earlier that Hassan would be executed by a
0:24
Speaker 1: firing squad at the order of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary
0:28
Speaker 1: of Defense. But in a recent interview, he kicked off
0:31
Speaker 1: a firestorm where he says, that the entire execution will
0:34
Speaker 1: be live streamed. Here's what he had to say.
0:36
Speaker 2: No brainer. execution by firing squad. Army major betrays his country.
0:41
Speaker 2: Radical Islamist kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood.
0:44
Speaker 2: Of course, we're going to do it at Fort Hood
0:46
Speaker 2: and do it on a Thursday. We're going to do
0:47
Speaker 2: it at one o'clock, which is when he did it.
0:48
Speaker 2: And it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the
0:52
Speaker 2: firing squad. It hadn't been since World War Two since
0:55
Speaker 2: we've done that. Well, I kind of like the mentality
0:56
Speaker 2: we had in World War Two, which was win, which
0:59
Speaker 2: was understand when the enemy attacks you, you stand your ground.
1:03
Speaker 2: So it was radical Islamist terror attack. Remember what Obama
1:07
Speaker 2: called it? workplace violence i mean that's what we're up
1:09
Speaker 2: against that's the worldview we're up against is workplace violence
1:12
Speaker 2: cve we don't we know what it is it was
1:15
Speaker 2: a radical islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks and
1:18
Speaker 2: so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers
1:20
Speaker 2: as it should be and we'll make sure that people
1:22
Speaker 2: are able to to watch it that it's public uh
1:25
Speaker 2: because people need to understand that this is a there's
1:28
Speaker 2: serious consequences for these types of things do you has
1:31
Speaker 2: major hassan made any uh final request reach out to
1:33
Speaker 2: the president anything like that to your knowledge.
1:35
Speaker 3: Don't care We'll see him on December 3rd.
1:39
Speaker 1: So all of that has now kicked off a political firestorm,
1:42
Speaker 1: both the vice president and the president now, you know,
1:46
Speaker 1: basically throwing a little bit of cold water on it.
1:48
Speaker 1: First was here from the vice president, who was like,
1:50
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure that's going to happen. If it does,
1:52
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be watching it. Let's take a listen.
1:55
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I've seen these announcements. I don't
1:56
Speaker 4: know if that's actually going to happen. Let's sort of
1:59
Speaker 4: see what... I think it's going to happen in December
2:01
Speaker 4: when he's executed. But what I try to remind people is, look,
2:04
Speaker 4: this is a guy who committed, in my view, the
2:07
Speaker 4: worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9-11. The
2:11
Speaker 4: people that he was meant to treat, the Army soldiers
2:14
Speaker 4: that he was meant to treat for mental illness and
2:16
Speaker 4: other problems... He took them at their most vulnerable and
2:19
Speaker 4: gunned down these people where they live. So whatever the
2:22
Speaker 4: controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope
2:25
Speaker 4: that people don't forget that this is a guy who
2:28
Speaker 4: brutally murdered a lot of innocent people. Now, that said,
2:31
Speaker 4: I mean, look, if it's ultimately live streamed, I'm not
2:33
Speaker 4: going to be watching it.
2:35
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be watching it. Apparently, Trump himself,
2:37
Speaker 1: now having some questions, has put this up here on
2:40
Speaker 1: the screen. He says, behind the scenes, he's been calling
2:42
Speaker 1: people up and privately shared misgivings about the live streaming.
2:46
Speaker 1: has been deluged with negative input from the idea from
2:50
Speaker 1: a bipartisan chorus of lawmakers, as well as advisors inside
2:54
Speaker 1: and outside of the White House. It appears, Crystal, that
2:57
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth was freelancing during this entire thing. Okay, so
3:01
Speaker 1: with all the news set up, I actually do feel
3:03
Speaker 1: like there's a lot to say about this. Is that,
3:06
Speaker 1: you know, there is a lot of baste and trad,
3:08
Speaker 1: you know, like, wow, this is awesome. This is public execution.
3:12
Speaker 1: But let's put it in the context of where we
3:15
Speaker 1: are of the United States military. And let's also put
3:17
Speaker 1: it in the context of Major Assange, who himself, yes,
3:21
Speaker 1: is a terrorist, is a scum. He's also paraplegic and
3:24
Speaker 1: he's a 60-year-old man, right? And so I don't think
3:26
Speaker 1: there's any doubt, or at least I can say in
3:28
Speaker 1: my case, to say death penalty, I can understand that.
3:32
Speaker 1: Even firing squad, especially for somebody who is himself, was
3:36
Speaker 1: in the uniform of the United States military and is
3:38
Speaker 1: subject to a different code of justice and law than
3:41
Speaker 1: the rest of us who are civilians. But to publicly
3:44
Speaker 1: live stream such a thing, and in particular, when you
3:47
Speaker 1: have Hegseth there, you know, standing on the deck of
3:50
Speaker 1: the United States Navy, talking about the mindset of World
3:53
Speaker 1: War Two, while we're in the midst of this disastrous
3:57
Speaker 1: war with Iran, it looks very much more like to
4:02
Speaker 1: me as an act of desperation. to show bigness and
4:06
Speaker 1: toughness and how awesome and based you are at a
4:12
Speaker 1: moment of genuine military defeat. And so when you put
4:16
Speaker 1: that all together, instead what you land on is this
4:20
Speaker 1: grotesque public spectacle, which is designed to shock. It is
4:25
Speaker 1: the same thing of why people are drawn to these
4:29
Speaker 1: gory and horrific videos out of war zones. And it's
4:32
Speaker 1: the very same reason that totalitarian countries and barbaric societies
4:37
Speaker 1: that are remainders here in the world maintain public execution. Now,
4:42
Speaker 1: that said, for people like me, in my case, I'm
4:44
Speaker 1: a supporter of the death penalty. I can give the
4:47
Speaker 1: nuance here if we want to talk about it. There
4:50
Speaker 1: is a grappling, I think, that has to be had
4:52
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, you want it to be medicalized
4:55
Speaker 1: and kind of behind the scenes. You don't want it
4:57
Speaker 1: in your face because then you'd have to grapple with
4:59
Speaker 1: the brutality. I think that's a fair argument. I'd be willing–
5:02
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But I think within the context
5:04
Speaker 1: of Hegseth himself, LARPing, kind of making this up literally
5:08
Speaker 1: as he goes along to create this grand public spectacle,
5:11
Speaker 1: which he claims would be, you know, some sort of
5:14
Speaker 1: warning per se, that is not the context in which
5:18
Speaker 1: he is operating. And so I look at it as
5:20
Speaker 1: a tremendous, you know, real act of desperation for to
5:23
Speaker 1: shock to to be the base testosterone tight T-shirt guy
5:28
Speaker 1: at a time of literally losing a war while he
5:30
Speaker 1: himself is an idiot.
5:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's all very well said, Sagar. And
5:35
Speaker 5: I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, but certainly
5:38
Speaker 5: if there were any instance where it would be merited,
5:40
Speaker 5: I understand why people would say that this would be
5:43
Speaker 5: such an instance. But the other thing about Hegseth is
5:46
Speaker 5: he's one of these types that talks all about Western
5:48
Speaker 5: values and has this sort of religious holy war clash
5:51
Speaker 5: of civilizations ideology that he's trying to use our military
5:56
Speaker 5: to pursue. And if you look at the countries that
5:59
Speaker 5: still do public executions, it's like, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, actually,
6:07
Speaker 5: you know, not exactly the harbingers of Western values that
6:11
Speaker 5: he would claim to be in league with. So I
6:15
Speaker 5: think most people are repulsed by the idea that you
6:17
Speaker 5: would have not just government executed death penalty, but a
6:23
Speaker 5: celebration of that, a government backed sort of snuff film
6:28
Speaker 5: put out for public consumption. And in the same way
6:32
Speaker 5: that there was a concern that the mass gore that
6:37
Speaker 5: we saw on our timelines all the time in Gaza
6:40
Speaker 5: sort of cheapens human life and makes violence commonplace. I
6:45
Speaker 5: think that's the fear here as well, is that you
6:49
Speaker 5: not only accept this as, okay, society has decided that
6:53
Speaker 5: government is going to hold this awesome power in their hands,
6:55
Speaker 5: which again is something that I don't accept, but I
6:58
Speaker 5: think most Americans probably do, but that we're actively going
7:02
Speaker 5: to display it and celebrate it as some sort of
7:05
Speaker 5: a tough guy theater is grotesque to people. And then
7:10
Speaker 5: as you pointed out, this is an old man in
7:11
Speaker 5: a wheelchair at this point. I think that's probably the
7:14
Speaker 5: part that Trump was thinking about, because obviously he's always
7:16
Speaker 5: thinking about the theatrics of things and how it's going
7:18
Speaker 5: to come across on TV. Like, are we going to
7:21
Speaker 5: look big and bag and tough when you have our
7:23
Speaker 5: soldiers in military uniform pumping bullets into the body of
7:27
Speaker 5: this paraplegic and an old man in a wheelchair? I
7:30
Speaker 5: don't know that that's like the tough guy imagery that
7:34
Speaker 5: Hegseth is imagining it's going to be.
7:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and I recently, shout out to the
7:39
Speaker 1: Rest of History podcast, because they had years ago done
7:43
Speaker 1: a big series on the French Revolution, and specifically on
7:47
Speaker 1: the guillotine. And so I became obsessed with the guillotine.
7:50
Speaker 1: I've been talking to you and all of our team
7:53
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. And so of course, you know, this
7:54
Speaker 1: comes up in the midst of one of our discussions.
7:58
Speaker 1: And so let's put D5 up here on the screen.
7:59
Speaker 1: I was fascinated to learn this. Sir Christopher Lee the
8:03
Speaker 1: famed British actor, was actually a witness to the very
8:07
Speaker 1: last public execution by guillotine on the streets in France,
8:12
Speaker 1: actually outside of Versailles. And in his autobiography, he described, quote,
8:18
Speaker 1: a powerful wave of howling and shrieking that greeted the
8:22
Speaker 1: appearance of the condemned on the street. And he said,
8:26
Speaker 1: I couldn't actually watch it. I turned my head, but
8:29
Speaker 1: I heard it. He eventually goes on to describe how
8:33
Speaker 1: people who witnessed this public execution took their handkerchiefs and
8:38
Speaker 1: dipped it in the blood of the condemned. And keep
8:42
Speaker 1: in mind, this is a person, I believe he was
8:45
Speaker 1: like a serial killer. I mean, he's an absolute scum
8:47
Speaker 1: of the earth. In fact, the exact type of person
8:49
Speaker 1: who I would say, okay, I think he deserves the
8:51
Speaker 1: death penalty. But what you find of the description of
8:54
Speaker 1: the guillotine, be it 1789 to the very last of 1939,
9:00
Speaker 1: is that what it says about us and the type
9:03
Speaker 1: of people who revel in gore and in bloodshed and
9:07
Speaker 1: in violence, and time after time, including the contemporary accounts,
9:11
Speaker 1: you can actually read them. I have some of them
9:13
Speaker 1: here in front of me. The dominant reaction to the
9:16
Speaker 1: behavior of the crowd at the very last guillotine in
9:19
Speaker 1: 1939 was, was repulsed. I mean, people were outraged at
9:24
Speaker 1: the behavior of how they had opened a history book
9:29
Speaker 1: of the guillotine. They say, oh, the crowd, they would
9:31
Speaker 1: bring their children and all that. But by 1939, they're like, oh, well,
9:35
Speaker 1: we're better than that, right? But we're not. It turns
9:37
Speaker 1: out we're exactly the same. And I would say to
9:41
Speaker 1: add live stream on top of this actually makes it
9:44
Speaker 1: worse because the people who were there sickos and weirdos
9:49
Speaker 1: who want to go and to actually watch a public
9:51
Speaker 1: execution is one thing. But the barrier of entry of
9:55
Speaker 1: watching something and of taking perverse pleasure at the spilling
9:59
Speaker 1: of blood and of violence by it you know but
10:02
Speaker 1: almost disaggregates the reality of it when it's on your
10:06
Speaker 1: phone or it's on your screen it normalizes not only
10:10
Speaker 1: violence but thirst for blood and it gives the very
10:14
Speaker 1: same reaction in the form of mass media and dehumanization
10:18
Speaker 1: of which already pervades our entire society. And so the
10:22
Speaker 1: live streaming aspect of it, the entertainment aspect of it
10:27
Speaker 1: itself is something that even the public executions could not emulate,
10:31
Speaker 1: you know, at the height of the violence of the
10:34
Speaker 1: French terror. And I feel like, you know, if anything,
10:37
Speaker 1: it just encapsulates again, you have a weakened military, you
10:40
Speaker 1: have a secretary of defense who wants to appear awesome.
10:43
Speaker 1: Everybody's out there, you you know, wanted public executions and
10:51
Speaker 1: frequently carried them out, which was the norm, I will
10:53
Speaker 1: say at the time. I feel like that is one
10:55
Speaker 1: thing in the middle of, you know, the Revolutionary War.
10:58
Speaker 1: But it is simply something very different, especially the live
11:02
Speaker 1: streaming aspect. So I don't know. I really haven't been
11:05
Speaker 1: able to stop like thinking about how the live stream
11:08
Speaker 1: aspect itself and how we are exactly the same type
11:11
Speaker 1: of people as the crowd of 1789. Like nothing actually
11:14
Speaker 1: separates you at all from that person. And the moment
11:18
Speaker 1: that you start to attend and engage in that type
11:20
Speaker 1: of spectacle, you will turn in to the same.
11:23
Speaker 5: Type of people that they were.
11:25
Speaker 1: You know, the mob has not changed at all and throughout,
11:29
Speaker 1: you know, organized civilization.
11:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. There's nothing in human nature
11:35
Speaker 5: that has really evolved beyond that. And I think that's
11:39
Speaker 5: been a painful lesson for me in my adult life.
11:42
Speaker 5: to realize, and certainly, you know, watching us, uh, basically
11:46
Speaker 5: live stream a genocide and no one intervene. And I
11:48
Speaker 5: think you're right. The argument for doing it in public
11:51
Speaker 5: is okay. Don't hide the ugliness and brutality of it.
11:55
Speaker 5: Maybe that will make people more repulsed by it and
11:57
Speaker 5: actually value life more. But what we've seen in history
12:01
Speaker 5: is that it has the opposite impact that it feeds
12:04
Speaker 5: a blood lust and, um, you know, leads to, uh,
12:09
Speaker 5: a sort of destruction of a part of the humanity
12:13
Speaker 5: of everyone who decides to partake. So it's barbaric. I mean,
12:16
Speaker 5: that's the bottom line. So we'll see if Trump decides
12:19
Speaker 5: that this is a bridge too far for him. He
12:21
Speaker 5: is apparently contemplating that.
12:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that even he understands this would not
12:27
Speaker 1: be a good look. Last thing I wanted to mention,
12:30
Speaker 1: just because I think it's kind of an interesting tension,
12:32
Speaker 1: D6 just came across the screen. The archbishop, actually, of
12:37
Speaker 1: the United States military, says that Catholic soldiers should not
12:41
Speaker 1: serve on the firing squad and described the planned execution
12:45
Speaker 1: as contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, stipulated
12:49
Speaker 1: that anybody who was assigned who was a Catholic should
12:52
Speaker 1: be excused from that duty and again spoke out specifically.
12:56
Speaker 1: This is after actually the Pope intervened directly against the
13:01
Speaker 1: death penalty and used his pulpit to speak out against
13:05
Speaker 1: the news after livestreamed news became public. I personally, I
13:09
Speaker 1: would bet that it probably doesn't happen just because of
13:11
Speaker 1: the overwhelmingly kind of negative reaction. But I think it
13:15
Speaker 1: tells me more about Pete Hegseth and really about, you know,
13:18
Speaker 1: their belief in the literal bread and circus of the
13:22
Speaker 1: Roman empire and of gladiators and all that than it does,
13:27
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily about whatever. But yeah, I just, I
13:30
Speaker 1: get last thing is it's not just about them. It's
13:32
Speaker 1: also about us and about the content and the dehumanization
13:35
Speaker 1: that we see on the screen every single day from Israel,
13:38
Speaker 1: as you said, to, I mean, how many terrorist attacks,
13:40
Speaker 1: school shootings and other things have we, I mean, Charlie Kirk.
13:43
Speaker 1: I mean, we all saw it. I saw the blood
13:45
Speaker 1: rush out of that man's neck. I wish I'd never
13:47
Speaker 1: seen it. There was no reason for, for it. You know,
13:50
Speaker 1: it's bad enough to know that it happened, but to
13:52
Speaker 1: watch it, I didn't need to see that. And I
13:55
Speaker 1: don't think anybody else did either. All right. So with
13:58
Speaker 1: all that said, let's get to the next one.
14:03
Speaker 5: So the primary midterm strategy for the Republican Party in
14:06
Speaker 5: order to try to stave off a major blue wave
14:09
Speaker 5: has been to sound the alarm about socialism or even communism.
14:12
Speaker 5: You hear from Trump, you hear from all kinds of
14:15
Speaker 5: negative ads. And of course, this comes as a number
14:17
Speaker 5: of Democratic socialist candidates have been elected in offices across
14:22
Speaker 5: the country and are making a major impact on American politics.
14:25
Speaker 5: So joining us now to talk about that and the
14:27
Speaker 5: legacy that they draw from is the former editor of
14:30
Speaker 5: Jacobin Magazine, who is out with a fantastic new book,
14:33
Speaker 5: American Socialist, The Life and Legacy of Eugene V.
14:36
Speaker 3: Debs.
14:37
Speaker 5: Sean Goody, that author, joins us now. Great to have you, Sean.
14:40
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks so much for having me on. Appreciate it.
14:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course. So we were chatting before you came
14:45
Speaker 5: on that the book ends up being very timely. And
14:48
Speaker 5: I do want to get into some of those modern
14:51
Speaker 5: day connections. But just for people who may be really
14:54
Speaker 5: ignorant about who Eugene Debs is, why did you decide
14:57
Speaker 5: to profile him? Why do you think that he's an
15:00
Speaker 5: important figure in American politics people should know about?
15:03
Speaker 3: Sure. I mean, I think people's ignorance, if they have it,
15:06
Speaker 3: is quite excusable, given his legacy and really the really
15:10
Speaker 3: rich history of democratic socialism in America has been sort
15:14
Speaker 3: of whitewashed from American history in a lot of ways.
15:17
Speaker 3: And that's kind of what pushed me to write this book.
15:21
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, I was I found Debs a
15:24
Speaker 3: very compelling figure. But even more than that, I thought
15:27
Speaker 3: he was a perfect kind of entry point. and way
15:30
Speaker 3: to talk about democratic socialism in America through the story
15:36
Speaker 3: of one of its more compelling figures. This book really
15:40
Speaker 3: is a story about him and the movement around him.
15:43
Speaker 3: It's not sort of a recitation of facts or anything.
15:46
Speaker 3: It's really a vibrant sort of history of the socialist
15:49
Speaker 3: movement in the early 20th century during the Gilded Age.
15:52
Speaker 3: And I think certainly we're in our own Gilded Age now.
15:55
Speaker 3: And so I think that history is quite relevant.
15:59
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I think we have F3 here, Sean.
16:01
Speaker 1: We can put this up here on the screen, which
16:04
Speaker 1: is about socialism has its first positive rating for the
16:08
Speaker 1: first time at 40% in some recent Gallup polling. How
16:14
Speaker 1: similar is today's socialism to the Eugene Debs and socialist movement,
16:20
Speaker 1: which is kind of embedded in prairie populism and sewer
16:25
Speaker 1: socialism of the Gilded Age period, which you talk about?
16:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, there's both similarities
16:31
Speaker 3: and some obvious differences. I think what you point to,
16:35
Speaker 3: there is a real geographic difference right now in terms
16:38
Speaker 3: of where socialism is strong, because as you mentioned, socialism,
16:42
Speaker 3: and I'm actually from Iowa, I'm a proud Midwesterner, so
16:46
Speaker 3: this sort of history speaks very much to me. And
16:49
Speaker 3: so the Socialist Party was extremely strong in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Milwaukee,
16:56
Speaker 3: as you mentioned. The largest socialist newspaper was in Kansas.
17:01
Speaker 3: It was called Appeal to Reason. It was published out
17:05
Speaker 3: of a small town and had a circulation that rivaled
17:08
Speaker 3: mainstream newspapers. So there were also sort of hotbeds of
17:14
Speaker 3: socialism in places like the Lower East Side of New
17:17
Speaker 3: York among Jewish garment workers. But for the most part,
17:20
Speaker 3: it really was a kind of like heartland socialism, you
17:23
Speaker 3: could say. And that is different from today so far,
17:27
Speaker 3: I would say, because certainly where socialists have been strongest
17:31
Speaker 3: so far is on the coast and certainly big cities.
17:35
Speaker 3: But I think this sort of history tells us and
17:39
Speaker 3: shows us that that's not inevitable, that socialism isn't just
17:43
Speaker 3: this like big city coastal thing. It very much is
17:47
Speaker 3: something that can speak to the ordinary needs of people
17:50
Speaker 3: around the country.
17:52
Speaker 5: I want to come back to that. But first, tell
17:53
Speaker 5: us a little bit about Debs. He grows up in Indiana,
17:58
Speaker 5: drops out of school relatively young, becomes active in the
18:02
Speaker 5: labor movement. But you track the fact that when he
18:04
Speaker 5: first gets interested in politics, he's actually much more of
18:08
Speaker 5: a moderate and then becomes radicalized. So talk about his
18:11
Speaker 5: radicalization and how it perhaps mirrored the radicalization of others
18:15
Speaker 5: at that time period.
18:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. And you're right. It is
18:19
Speaker 3: like it's kind of a stunning story. personal transformation, really.
18:23
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the arc of the book, because
18:26
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, he starts out as a kind of
18:29
Speaker 3: moderate union leader, he sort of thinks that if workers
18:33
Speaker 3: are upstanding, good people, basically, the employers will treat them well,
18:38
Speaker 3: and we'll see that they're decent people that are, you know,
18:41
Speaker 3: that that should be accorded respect. And it's really through
18:46
Speaker 3: a series of strikes that he that he leads that
18:50
Speaker 3: he sees that this is actually a pretty unrealistic view
18:53
Speaker 3: of the world. And that when employers and businesses have
18:58
Speaker 3: extraordinary power over workers and over the course of society,
19:03
Speaker 3: you really do have to push something, a kind of
19:06
Speaker 3: more radical transformation of society to make sure that wealth
19:10
Speaker 3: and power isn't concentrated in the hands of just a
19:13
Speaker 3: few people. And so that's when he, he sort of
19:16
Speaker 3: becomes a socialist later on. And I think that, that, um,
19:21
Speaker 3: that transformation does mirror the transformation of a lot of
19:24
Speaker 3: other people at the time because it is a time
19:27
Speaker 3: of upheaval, of labor strikes, of extraordinary wealth being created
19:33
Speaker 3: and opulence. This is the Gilded Age, but also people
19:37
Speaker 3: don't even have unemployment insurance and they're thrown out of
19:40
Speaker 3: work willy-nilly and they are working in conditions where they
19:45
Speaker 3: could lose an arm or something on the railroad and
19:48
Speaker 3: you know tough luck you don't have any sort of
19:51
Speaker 3: you don't get compensation for that you and then if
19:54
Speaker 3: you you know go out and protest that with your
19:56
Speaker 3: with your fellow workers you might get beaten down and
20:00
Speaker 3: have judicial injunctions called in to to uh to block
20:04
Speaker 3: you from striking. Um, so it's, uh, it's that kind of,
20:09
Speaker 3: those kinds of conditions that produce the radicalization of Debs
20:12
Speaker 3: and produce the kind of radicalization to some extent of
20:16
Speaker 3: the country and lead to the rise of the, of
20:18
Speaker 3: the socialist party.
20:20
Speaker 1: Uh, Sean, how do you assess Debs is historical legacy
20:24
Speaker 1: in terms of his influence, but also the reality of
20:28
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy only won 6% of the vote,
20:30
Speaker 1: like at his peak. Now, I mean, don't get me wrong.
20:33
Speaker 1: He literally ran from a jail cell. I think the
20:35
Speaker 1: government threw him in prison for correctly speaking out against
20:38
Speaker 1: intervention in the war. And if you think censorship and
20:40
Speaker 1: propaganda and all that are bad today, you have no
20:43
Speaker 1: idea what life is like in.
20:45
Speaker 5: 1915, right?
20:46
Speaker 1: So, you know, with all that said, the deck was
20:49
Speaker 1: genuinely stacked against him. That said, he only won 6%
20:52
Speaker 1: of the vote. He does seem to have been tremendously influential.
20:55
Speaker 1: on a lot of the other people around FDR or
20:58
Speaker 1: people who would assess his legacy, Huey Long and all
21:01
Speaker 1: of that, et cetera. So talk me through a little
21:04
Speaker 1: bit of that.
21:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a fair question. I mean, the Socialist Party
21:08
Speaker 3: was able to have these really strong pockets of support.
21:12
Speaker 3: I mentioned places like Oklahoma, and I haven't mentioned out West,
21:16
Speaker 3: but they were very strong in mining camps and mining towns.
21:21
Speaker 3: So they had these pockets of support where they're quite strong.
21:24
Speaker 3: Also the upper Midwest, they were very strong and kind
21:27
Speaker 3: of industrial cities, not only Milwaukee, but kind of midsize
21:32
Speaker 3: industrial cities where steel workers kind of voted the socialist
21:36
Speaker 3: ticket too. But they weren't ever able to translate that
21:40
Speaker 3: support into a national level support. And it really was,
21:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to go too much down
21:48
Speaker 3: a kind of scholarly rabbit hole, but if you kind
21:51
Speaker 3: of compare the US to other countries, because the US
21:54
Speaker 3: really is an outlier in terms of its socialist party
21:58
Speaker 3: not taking off, because every other advanced capitalist country has
22:02
Speaker 3: a social democratic party, a labor party, that sort of
22:08
Speaker 3: built the welfare state and built what we think of
22:12
Speaker 3: today as social democracy. Um, and the U S didn't
22:16
Speaker 3: have that because, um, you know, the U S was, was, uh,
22:20
Speaker 3: the business class was so strong. Um, and because the
22:23
Speaker 3: labor movement wasn't as, as large in, in other countries.
22:27
Speaker 3: And so the socialist party was sort of, wasn't able
22:31
Speaker 3: to link up with the strong labor movement essentially, um,
22:34
Speaker 3: is kind of what it comes down to. Um, but
22:37
Speaker 3: you're totally right that, um, I, I do think its
22:41
Speaker 3: legacy is, uh, is very relevant today and also has had,
22:47
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say that the points in
22:50
Speaker 3: American history where ordinary people have won more freedom and
22:54
Speaker 3: more democratic rights, the labor movement of the 1930s, the
22:58
Speaker 3: civil rights movement of the 1960s, democratic socialists have been
23:02
Speaker 3: really central to those movements. You think of people like A.
23:06
Speaker 3: Philip Randolph during the civil rights movement was very good
23:09
Speaker 3: friends with Debs. drew a lot of his kind of
23:12
Speaker 3: inspiration in politics from people like Debs. And, you know,
23:16
Speaker 3: I could name other examples, but it's that kind of
23:20
Speaker 3: impact that democratic socialism has had in the U.S. And,
23:28
Speaker 3: you know, I think that's a pretty proud legacy, too.
23:36
Speaker 5: Well, and the legacy obviously is very clear today. Debs specifically,
23:39
Speaker 5: Bernie Sanders is a big admirer of Eugene Debs. And
23:43
Speaker 5: Zoran actually shouted out Eugene Debs and quoted him in
23:47
Speaker 5: his victory speech. Let's go ahead and take a listen
23:50
Speaker 5: to a little bit of that.
23:51
Speaker 6: The sun may have set over our city this evening,
23:57
Speaker 6: but as Eugene Debs once said, I can see the
24:03
Speaker 6: dawn of a better day for humanity. For as long
24:11
Speaker 6: as we can remember, the working people of New York
24:15
Speaker 6: have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that
24:19
Speaker 6: power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from
24:25
Speaker 6: lifting boxes on the warehouse floor Palms calloused from delivery
24:30
Speaker 6: bike handlebars. Knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not
24:36
Speaker 6: hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet
24:40
Speaker 6: over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach
24:44
Speaker 6: for something greater.
24:46
Speaker 5: And Sean, one thing I was reflecting on is, you know,
24:49
Speaker 5: the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs era really was a
24:52
Speaker 5: sort of ground up. You know, they're able to elect
24:55
Speaker 5: if it was 1200 officials across the country at the peak.
24:59
Speaker 5: But to your point, you know, his highest watermark in
25:01
Speaker 5: terms of presidential campaign is six percent. So he's not
25:04
Speaker 5: able to grab a sort of national foothold. The modern
25:08
Speaker 5: movement is almost the reverse, you know, splashes into being
25:11
Speaker 5: with Bernie Sanders coming very close actually to winning the
25:14
Speaker 5: Democratic nomination and potentially the presidency. Zoran is become this
25:19
Speaker 5: massive national sensation as extremely popular and mayor of the
25:23
Speaker 5: largest and arguably most important city in the entire country.
25:27
Speaker 2: So.
25:28
Speaker 5: What do you think about the differences in the way
25:31
Speaker 5: that the movement has grown and whether that represents a strength,
25:34
Speaker 5: a weakness, whether it doesn't matter which way it goes?
25:37
Speaker 5: How do you think about those pieces?
25:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's a really astute point. I hadn't really
25:43
Speaker 3: even thought about that before necessarily. But yeah, I think
25:48
Speaker 3: it's a weakness on some level, but it's also just
25:51
Speaker 3: kind of a challenge because it was that having a
25:55
Speaker 3: party that had that level of support Locally, as you mentioned,
26:00
Speaker 3: 1,200 elected officials at its peak. They had about 120,000 members,
26:05
Speaker 3: something like 80 mayors in 36 states. So they had
26:09
Speaker 3: a real strength in a lot of places. But also, yeah,
26:16
Speaker 3: they were never actually able to acquire national-level political power.
26:22
Speaker 3: And right now, at least, we do have the opportunity
26:28
Speaker 3: you know, as, as democratic socialists to really see something different. Um,
26:33
Speaker 3: because we do have national level standard bearers that are
26:36
Speaker 3: among the most popular, uh, politicians in the, in the
26:40
Speaker 3: U S. And so that, that provides extraordinary power too. Um,
26:44
Speaker 3: it comes with dangers. Like obviously you don't just want, um,
26:49
Speaker 3: you need us at the end of the day, you
26:51
Speaker 3: really do need a really strong labor movement to transform
26:54
Speaker 3: the country. And if that doesn't come about, then we're
26:58
Speaker 3: going to be in trouble. But certainly having Bernie Sanders
27:04
Speaker 3: as one of the most popular politicians in the U.S.,
27:07
Speaker 3: now having Zoran and AOC, very effective politicians and kind
27:12
Speaker 3: of communicators of democratic socialist ideas, I think really good
27:17
Speaker 3: at bringing democratic socialism down to human level and making
27:21
Speaker 3: it not just a kind of wonky, sort of policy
27:27
Speaker 3: alternative or something, but like really speaking to people's needs
27:31
Speaker 3: for solidarity and human connection and joy in this, in
27:35
Speaker 3: this world, um, that's really important too. And so there are,
27:39
Speaker 3: there are real strengths to the movement right now. Um,
27:43
Speaker 3: and so, uh, I think we have some real opportunities.
27:47
Speaker 1: But Sean, to press you a bit here, um, you know, you, you,
27:50
Speaker 1: you talked about Eugene Debs and his legacy and, and
27:54
Speaker 1: largely of the socialist connection to the heartland and away
27:59
Speaker 1: really from the kind of cosmopolitan elite. You know, today,
28:03
Speaker 1: modern day DSA socialism is a literal product of the
28:07
Speaker 1: cosmopolitan elite at a cultural level from New York City,
28:11
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. The higher educated, the more likely you are
28:15
Speaker 1: to be, you know, kind of a card carrying member
28:18
Speaker 1: of DSA. That You might be downwardly economically mobile. I mean,
28:22
Speaker 1: you know, that is a little bit separately different.
28:25
Speaker 3: How do you square that?
28:26
Speaker 1: You know, the everyday working man doesn't really seem to
28:28
Speaker 1: be a DSA card carrying member. They may like Soran,
28:32
Speaker 1: but they may not identify themselves as part of the
28:35
Speaker 1: so-called socialist movement. Kind of the beating heart of modern
28:39
Speaker 1: day DSA, you know, leftism reminds me a little bit
28:42
Speaker 1: more of like the affinity for international communism. in the
28:46
Speaker 1: cultural elite of the United States? I don't say this
28:49
Speaker 1: in any aspersion. I'm just saying in terms of kind
28:51
Speaker 1: of the parallel. So how do you work through that?
28:53
Speaker 1: Or do you want to challenge some of the things
28:55
Speaker 1: I'm saying?
28:57
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think I wouldn't agree entirely with
29:00
Speaker 3: what you're saying, but I do think it's fair that
29:02
Speaker 3: so far DSA only has a slice of of, um,
29:11
Speaker 3: the working class and it's, it's the college educated working class.
29:14
Speaker 3: It's nurses and teachers, um, rather than, um, you know,
29:19
Speaker 3: Amazon workers. And that's a huge problem. Um, you can't have, uh, you,
29:25
Speaker 3: you can't have, um, just like one small slice of,
29:29
Speaker 3: you know, you can't just have white collar workers and,
29:33
Speaker 3: win democratic socialism. I agree that it's a problem. I
29:41
Speaker 3: have some optimism about this because I think Zoran in
29:45
Speaker 3: particular is very good at breaking that kind of divide.
29:49
Speaker 3: I also think the socialist movement in the US is
29:55
Speaker 3: still fairly young. This is really only a recent development.
30:01
Speaker 3: And it's true that the people that it's attracted so
30:05
Speaker 3: far have been disproportionately college educated workers. But I don't
30:11
Speaker 3: think that's I don't think that's something that's inherent to
30:16
Speaker 3: where we're at. I mean, I think someone like Bernie
30:19
Speaker 3: is very good at at. talking to people across the
30:24
Speaker 3: divides within the working class. And I think, you know,
30:28
Speaker 3: we should take a page from that, certainly. But I'm
30:31
Speaker 3: not so pessimistic that that's not going to change.
30:35
Speaker 5: And Sean, my last question for you on that note is,
30:39
Speaker 5: I wonder if we don't need to reconceptualize the working class,
30:43
Speaker 5: especially in the age of AI, where you've got a
30:46
Speaker 5: bunch of tech oligarchs saying they're going to put all
30:48
Speaker 5: white collar workers in out of work. I mean, it's
30:50
Speaker 5: a very different economy than it was during Debs time. Um,
30:54
Speaker 5: you know, the, there's a, the, the blue collar workforce
30:59
Speaker 5: has been decimated. You have a lot of service workers now,
31:02
Speaker 5: and you have a lot of, um, white collar knowledge workers,
31:05
Speaker 5: college educated with a lot of debt who are facing
31:07
Speaker 5: a lot of economic precarity themselves. So I wonder how
31:11
Speaker 5: you think about how the left may need to adjust
31:14
Speaker 5: and look different in an age of AI where they
31:17
Speaker 5: are trying to make all of human labor irrelevant. And
31:21
Speaker 5: in that way, there should be a lot of solidarity
31:23
Speaker 5: between all human beings about what's going on and what's
31:27
Speaker 5: going to come next.
31:29
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I mean, you
31:31
Speaker 3: can take the point too far and say that only
31:34
Speaker 3: that it's fine. The composition of DSA currently is okay.
31:38
Speaker 3: But But certainly, I totally agree that the economy of
31:42
Speaker 3: today is extremely different from the economy of Debta's period.
31:47
Speaker 3: I mean, there just aren't as many railroad workers in
31:51
Speaker 3: the US. There aren't as many steel workers. And rail
31:55
Speaker 3: workers and steel workers and those people very much should
31:59
Speaker 3: be part of the socialist movement, and the socialist movement
32:03
Speaker 3: should be speaking to them. But nurses and teachers are
32:08
Speaker 3: also very much part of the working class too. And
32:12
Speaker 3: I think they're very central to socialist politics today. And yeah,
32:18
Speaker 3: even tech workers too. They're not the classically defined working class.
32:23
Speaker 3: And certainly if all DSA was just tech workers, that
32:27
Speaker 3: would be a problem. But we also shouldn't make the
32:30
Speaker 3: mistake of saying that, you know, only people who didn't
32:33
Speaker 3: go to college are, um, are in the working class.
32:36
Speaker 1: Uh, I think that, I think that's fair to, yeah,
32:39
Speaker 1: I know. I think that's entirely fair. Uh, where does
32:41
Speaker 1: culture play into this? So, you know, it's been interesting
32:44
Speaker 1: to me, uh, Eugene Debs, you could correct me if
32:47
Speaker 1: I wrong, uh, from what I was looking into was
32:50
Speaker 1: a genuine, like class first egalitarian. Um, he was like, look,
32:54
Speaker 1: I'm here, you know, he, he opposed, I believe like
32:57
Speaker 1: racial quotas in the 19, I forget the, year of
33:01
Speaker 1: the 1919, I think, Immigration and Nationality Act, which eventually
33:06
Speaker 1: was passed. I know he was a strong supporter of
33:09
Speaker 1: civil rights, but he often took an approach of saying, look,
33:12
Speaker 1: this is about class first, which I believe actually put
33:15
Speaker 1: him at odds, I think, with some of the more
33:18
Speaker 1: racial leaders at the time. What did you find in
33:22
Speaker 1: some of your research on that? I'm curious.
33:26
Speaker 3: I think it's more complicated than that. He certainly thought
33:29
Speaker 3: that he certainly thought that the best way to fight,
33:35
Speaker 3: you could say the best way to fight for racial
33:37
Speaker 3: equality was through building a mass movement of which Black
33:42
Speaker 3: workers would be a part of. And he certainly came
33:46
Speaker 3: to the view, too, that the Socialist Party and socialists
33:49
Speaker 3: had to be on the front lines of fighting Jim
33:52
Speaker 3: Crow because, you know, other people in society weren't going
33:55
Speaker 3: to do it. So he was very much on uh,
33:59
Speaker 3: on board with that, but he also, he did reject, um,
34:02
Speaker 3: the idea that, um, you could fight racism without, you know, um,
34:08
Speaker 3: fighting the kind of, uh, without fighting economic exploitation, because
34:12
Speaker 3: he thought that was really central to how racism, um,
34:18
Speaker 3: actually operates in, in American society. So he, he kind
34:22
Speaker 3: of linked the two, I would say. And, um, That
34:26
Speaker 3: was a pretty interesting part of researching the book. And
34:29
Speaker 3: I think that's part of his legacy too.
34:32
Speaker 5: The book is American Socialist, The Life and Legacy of
34:34
Speaker 5: Eugene Debs. And fascinating character, incredibly impactful, very much understudied
34:40
Speaker 5: and under-discussed is the type of thing that it was
34:42
Speaker 5: very likely left out of your public school education. And
34:45
Speaker 5: obviously with a lot of implications for today. I think
34:49
Speaker 5: people will see a lot of parallels there. with Eugene
34:51
Speaker 5: Debs era and today while also noting there are profound differences,
34:55
Speaker 5: of course. Sean, thank you so much. It's great to
34:58
Speaker 5: have you.
34:59
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it, guys.
35:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, our pleasure.
35:02
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it
35:04
Speaker 1: about to do our AMA and we will see you
35:06
Speaker 1: all on Thursday.