WTW105: A 2019 DSA Convention Was a Little Weird and Now Bill Maher Can't Possibly Support Mamdani

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:33 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 105. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Hi, I am doing great. I'm excited to get into this last little third of Bill Maher and his nonsense. Can't wait. How are you?

0:00:54 Thomas: I'm hoping to finally make the case that Bill Maher's an idiot. You know, finally.

0:01:00 Lydia: Yeah. This should do it.

0:01:01 Thomas: You know what's funny is I didn't even realize that we've done a Bill Maer thing like shortly before this. Oh man, he's so frustrating. So I had seen someone joke like, oh, you got a something about the like Bill Maers an idiot podcast or something.

0:01:16 Lydia: I hate Bill Maer.

0:01:16 Thomas: I don't know what it's called. Yeah. I thought it was a joke. I was like, oh man, yeah, I got to start that podcast. And then apparently that's a real podcast. God damn it. I wish we had time for infinite podcasts because we don't even have time for the ones we have.

0:01:23 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Nope.

0:01:30 Thomas: But if there's a podcast called Bill Maher's a fucking moron, I want to startthat one. God, he's so dumb. It's the worst.

0:01:37 Lydia: You'd make for a good host.

0:01:38 Thomas: The more we learn about him, the worse it gets. But I'm excited because we're finally going to get to the rest of the video we we did you know we've been on on pace he's not a smart man there's a lot to debunk in every single clip as I recall we were two -thirds of the way roughly almost two - thirds of the way through the this uh new rules from let's see three weeks ago and this is where he starts talking about democratic socialism and zoron and we'll try to do less joke notes I say we I'll try to do fewer joke notes and uh we'll trying to actually critique his substance yeah we kind of already have but like his substance on this section for sure because it's so bad it's so bad and it's like in general how do these dinosaurs have these major media platforms and they just say the most blase uncritical unthought out stuff that any moron would reproduce if they took three seconds to try to do it like it's just so pathetic like it is just just so mediocre

0:02:42 Lydia: It's so corporate is what it feels like. Right. Because it's like it's easy. It is going to appeal to like a decent enough people. It is not going to scare money away potentially.

0:02:51 Thomas: Yeah I guess so just so funny because bill maher's whole identity has been the politically incorrect and there there have been you know obviously a time or two in history where he's been on the right side of stuff but like for being the politically incorrect bad boy of you know getting canceled off of his original show back in the day for I don't know some 9 -11 thing I can't remember I see the one where you said like uh it takes bravery to be a hijacker or something and that was what he got canceled for oh hold on

0:03:19 Lydia: I don't know. I don't know if I ever saw that.

0:03:21 Thomas: Whoa holy shit so didn't know this on september 11th 2001 conservative political commentator barbara olsen was on her way to los angeles to appear as a guest on politically incorrect when the airplane she was on was hijacked and flown into the pentagon holy shit I didn't Know that how have I never heard of I mean I guess I don't know if she was like how big she was but how have I never heard Of this she's a this conservative television commentator who was en route to Bill Maher. God, that's so depressing too. To die going to be on Bill Maer's fucking show. I mean, this is 2001, different time. Wow. How have I never heard of that? Anyway, that was just the start of the section. So on September 17th, 2001, George W. Bush says the terrorists are cowards. Dinesh D'Souza, that's weird, says these are warriors and we have to realize that the principles of our way of life are in conflict with people in the world. And so, I mean, I'm all for understanding the sociological causes of this, but we should not blame the victim. Americans shouldn't blame themselves because other people want to bomb them. Maher agreed and then replied, we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. It's not cowardly." Similar comments were made by others in media, it says. Yeah, so that's what he got canceled for.

0:03:38 Lydia: That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Yeah hmm.

0:04:41 Thomas: So I was right about that in my memory. And like, that's, yeah, I mean, he's kind of right. Yeah.

0:04:45 Lydia: Oh well. Yeah yeah I don't think that's wrong.

0:04:47 Thomas: It's not like it's this statement of values that I really care about. And yet it's also, it's more like if you want to cancel him for something that's stupid, that's the attitude we were at back then. And it's so funny to think like, wow, you think back to that time, like it was such a scary time. You couldn't say anything against the regime essentially. And now it's like, oh, it'S worse now though.

0:05:07 Thomas: There hasn't been a 9/11 again to justify it in their minds. And it's still worse now. I guess Charlie Kirk was their 9 -11. The show was replaced on ABC by Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2003. Oh, that's really funny.

0:05:20 Lydia: I feel like I did know that because I feel like that, like, talking point came up when Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air by the government.

0:05:27 Thomas: Oh really? Oh yeah. Oh wow. He came pretty much right back in 2003 with this show in real time. Geez. Wow. It's been a long ass time that he's been on this very pathetic show. Anyway, all that is to say, I think you're right that it's amazing how Reagan Republican this is and corporate friendly, as you say. And, and, And, you know, we watched John Oliver and he makes jokes about who knows what the corporate daddy is going to, yeah, business daddy. I think it's interesting. I don't know that Mars, like, I don'T even think that's what it is for him though. Like, I DON'T think he's trying to be like corporate friendly for HBO or for the, whoever the hell owns it now. No, no, I'M NOT disagreeing with you. I'M SAYING LIKE, I THINK IT'S INTERESTING BECAUSE HE JUST IS THAT. LIKE, HE IS THE CORPORATION.

0:05:32 Lydia: Yeah, with HBO. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah big business daddy.

0:06:06 Lydia: No, I don't. Yeah I don' think so either. Mm hmm. Yeah exactly.

0:06:16 Thomas: So anyway, we'RE gonna get to it. We'll take a break. Got a really fun episode for you coming up next, by the way. Eli Bosnick joins to talk about some serious academic work done in Oklahoma by a particular student you may know about. And so, hey, patreon.com/where there's woke if you want to probably get that ahead of time. That's a place to go do it.

0:06:36 Thomas: Join the wokies. Wokies know. They get the stuff early. So thanks so much to the patrons. Join their ranks and skip the ads. And after this, we'll get to the rest of this stupid segment.

0:06:51 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:06:51 Thomas: All right. So we got Venezuela. We did all that. I'm several like full browser update refreshes away. So I don't know where we were, but I'm going to go ahead and go to the end of the like Venezuela part.

0:07:02 Clip: If you think New York can somehow reinvent this wheel, you're in for a rude awokening.

0:07:08 Thomas: Oh yeah. We were at that. That's right.

0:07:08 Lydia: Yeah we talked about that. Yeah! Oh

0:07:14 Clip: Zoran can't make your wishes come true.

0:07:18 Lydia: Yeah we talked talked about all that

0:07:19 Thomas: Okay. I can't get pulled in. I get pulled into this again.

0:07:21 Lydia: No we already talked about

0:07:24 Clip: Democratic socialism is like a dating profile.

0:07:26 Thomas: Here we go.

0:07:27 Clip: Things look great until you meet up in the real world. For example, Bernie Sanders,

0:07:33 Thomas: That is him misreading his teleprompter because that was supposed to be the end of like a punchline things are great until you meet up in the real world and everyone's like what's the next like he thinks the next part of it is going to be like a more detailed oh you saw that he was a something and then it turns out but like I think it was just supposed to be it's like a dating profile but they're great until they meet up in the world

0:07:38 Lydia: It yeah yeah right it's like the inverse of the joke that nobody laughed at at the beginning he paused on that one like this is obviously a joke why isn't anyone laughing and this one he steamrolls through something that could have been set up as a joke was intended to be a joke

0:08:04 Thomas: Yeah well I think he was supposed to yeah he did the wrong emphasis that was the problem never mind I said we wouldn't do comedy notes I'm gonna try to okay let's

0:08:16 Clip: His big thing was always bringing single-payer health care to our sea,

0:08:17 Thomas: Go oh we did at this. Okay. So Bernie Sanders. So basically he argues himself into, we were so confused just to catch everyone up. It seems like he believes single payer healthcare can't possibly work anywhere despite the fact that it works places and there's other countries. So I think we were going to go past that. Yeah.

0:08:32 Lydia: Because years ago one state tried and it didn't work

0:08:36 Thomas: Did we get to the bottom of that? Yeah.

0:08:36 Lydia: Out no no I think it's a variety of

0:08:39 Thomas: Yeah, it's even better.

0:08:40 Clip: Mandani, are not Democrats. They'll be the first to tell you that. They're Democratic socialists, and that's a very different thing, and I don't think people know that yet. Yet. I don't think people realize we already have a lot of socialism, social security,

0:08:54 Thomas: Guys, are you ready for this? Okay. Here's where we're getting to it. Just to reset, The year is 2025 and the place we're in is America. Just I just want to give everybody the content, the background. Let me think if I can explain, do some world building. It's present day in fucking the United States. And so just to give you that background, here's how we have all this socialism, guys. We already have a lot of socialism, social security.

0:08:55 Lydia: Issues yep yeah

0:09:23 Thomas: Sorry, you mean those things that are being gutted? All that list is stuff that like Republicans are gunning for actively right now. Now, maybe.

0:09:26 Lydia: And have been actively working towards dismantling if he paid attention at all to what was happening in Washington, D .C., and the whole reason why the government was shut down has a lot to do with access to health care.

0:09:43 Thomas: It's not like these have gotten out of control. Boy, Medicare has gotten too good for everybody. These are on the verge of being taken away in a lot of ways. And the cost is mainly just going way up for people. Veterans. First off, veterans benefits. Could you call that socialism? Like that's like you potentially risk your life and maybe even die for the country. And so the country has to take care of you and your family for that. That's not socialism that's almost capitalism that's almost like you you hired on to be like you know a mercenary and like this is the transaction of that yeah

0:10:24 Lydia: I think it's kind of telling, right, because that means that he sees that as an entitlement, like all these other things that are branded as entitlements by the government. So veterans benefits, risking your life, entitles you to being taken care of, which also they're are not being taken care of appropriately.

0:10:36 Thomas: Veterans benefits imagine thinking that's socialism even benefits in general again it's taxes so it's like that's how you're gonna have to fund stuff so I guess it's one thing to be like for the average person we pay a bunch of taxes we get some of it back yeah I guess you could call that socialism but like I don't know what the The distribution of government benefits is in terms of where you are in the socioeconomic ladder, et cetera, et cetera. But veterans benefits, it's like, yeah, you're doing something for that.

0:11:04 Lydia: So it's part of your payment, honestly,

0:11:05 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. You could just reframe that as like it would be expected that that would be part of the contract of your employment, essentially. To be a soldier, you would never think of it as socialism. Obviously, what's happening here is, hey, everybody, we need to make it sound like there's a lot of socialism in our government.

0:11:22 Lydia: That there's enough. Yeah.

0:11:22 Thomas: Find every single thing where it's like the government paying money like anything that's where the government gives back that's not like the military I would just like to point out that both I don't know a ton about this but both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the government websites it says Fannie Mae was created in 1938 Freddie Mac was chartered by Congress in 1970 and they're both shareholder -owned companies that operate under a charter so it's the what are we we were was talking about with that Amtrak or something where we couldn't figure out if it's like a company or a government thing or there was something else that was that

0:11:59 Lydia: Yeah, Amtrak. Huh? I don't remember talking about Amtrek. Oh, it's

0:12:02 Thomas: No not on the show but there's there's something we were talking about where it was like it didn't make any sense we thought it was a company or not company but anyway point is it's funny that's a shareholder owned company but I guess if they're because of the congressional charter or whatever if they get

0:12:16 Lydia: Like a public private partnership kind of thing. Yeah?

0:12:18 Thomas: Like yeah it's probably that kind of thing so anyway but I do think it's fun funny that even our socialism is shareholder -owned companies.

0:12:24 Clip: Freddie Mac, corporate bailouts, farm subsidies, disability payments, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

0:12:25 Thomas: Oh, we missed a good one. I got to go back. Ready for this? Corporate bailouts.

0:12:32 Lydia: I don' t understand how that's socialism. It's socialism for capitalism. Like that's Yeah.

0:12:37 Thomas: In the way that we say, you know, the whole thing is like socialism for me and capitalism for thee or whatever. Like it is true that we do say that about like Elon Musk wants capitalism for you and socialism for him and his companies when they get. So like you could call it socialism in that way, but in the structure of an argument against socialism and in favor of like the market. Why are they getting bailed out, Bill Maher?

0:13:01 Thomas: Fucking Aquaman. Like, why are they being bailed? Why are they getting out? Why do they need bailouts?

0:13:00 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:13:04 Thomas: Was it because of the socialism? It's like, that's specifically socialist policy bailing out capitalist policy. Like that's socialism helping capitalism.

0:13:14 Lydia: Capitalist structures.

0:13:16 Thomas: To use that as an example of socialism in an argument against socialism and in favour of markets is pretty fucking crazy. Yeah.

0:13:22 Lydia: Yeah I just think think it's also such a stretch to put that in a list of socialism when it isn't benefiting the people.

0:13:31 Thomas: Us at all. Right.

0:13:31 Lydia: It's benefiting corporations.

0:13:33 Thomas: That's a good point. So So like also in the structure of the wider argument that he's doing here, which is, hey, all you idiots who have hair on the soap and have to put your name on food, which was the one good party did, you shouldn't want socialism. We already have plenty of socialism. For example, those corporate bailouts.

0:13:52 Thomas: It's like, what is that fucking doing for me?

0:13:55 Lydia: Exactly.

0:13:55 Thomas: It's exactly your point. That doesn't help us at all.

0:13:57 Clip: Corporate bail-outs, and the jobs program that is building weapons the Pentagon doesn't

0:14:04 Lydia: What is socialism?

0:14:04 Thomas: Military industrial complex is the last item on the list. Like he actually put it on the list on the visual as military industrial complex is socialism yeah

0:14:15 Lydia: No, it's absolutely not socialism. It is not capitalism, but it is benefiting corporations via nepotism, right? It's enriching your friends and family. Yeah yeah. I don't get it.

0:14:24 Thomas: Crony whatever yeah I'm trying to like even think of it's so amazing to try to cast that as that way these are so weird to even talk about like you brought up all the things that are socialism that aren't basically can be maybe technically considered socialist in a way but why would you count those in your they aren't anything anyone's thinking about the people who want socialism aren't wanting more military industrial complex.

0:14:48 Thomas: That's the, I mean, I was going to go into a thing. Don't even need to go to it. End of story. The people you are arguing against with your stupid fucking segment are not saying we need more military and industrial complex and corporate bailouts.

0:15:00 Lydia: Just cut those from your visual that you have up there, Bill Maher, and like use bigger font or adjust the size of the graphic. Like you don't need to fill it. You don't need to fill it with nonsense.

0:15:08 Thomas: Play with the margins. Yeah. Make a big title that takes up more. Oh, he did that. Okay.

0:15:15 Lydia: It's better to edit.

0:15:16 Thomas: Fundamentally, I don't know how anyone in the room allowed him to get away with this. And I think it just shows either everybody in his writer's room is an idiot like him or they just or he won't listen. Yeah, because, like, imagine being like, hey, writer'sroom, I know I give you a hard task each and every week to try to make me funny. It's impossible. Can't be done.

0:15:27 Lydia: Or they don't actually speak their mind. Yeah.

0:15:37 Thomas: I need to do as a goof. He might as well be like, we need to do a segment that's like there's too much socialism in the United States in the year 2025. And they're like, oh, that's so funny. Yeah, let's do a bit. He's like, no, straight up. Yeah no actually you need to make the case that there's too much socialism in the united fucking states of america in 2025

0:15:48 Lydia: They think it's going to be like psych like and it's not. Yeah, yeah. What

0:16:02 Thomas: And I this is the best I could do uh I don't know the military industrial complex we're all against that the socialists are more against that than you what is your point

0:16:06 Lydia: A stretch. Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:13 Clip: All that is socialism. Much of it is appropriate to soften the edges of capitalism, but the DSA are radical.

0:16:18 Thomas: Okay much of it appropriate also sorry I have to point out one of them was was COVID era payments. Oh yeah. Okay. You're right. I should be happy with the level of socialism we have because four years ago or whatever, there were COVID payments.

0:16:32 Lydia: I I got a one-time payment of $2,000.

0:16:35 Thomas: We already have socialism. That was how he, I'm sorry. I have to go back to Joe.

0:16:40 Lydia: Crazy.

0:16:40 Thomas: I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but just how he starts this.

0:16:42 Clip: I don't think people realize we already have a lot of socialism.

0:16:48 Thomas: We have socialism at home, the socialism at home and it's the military industrial complex and COVID era. I don't think people, he goes, because socialism is evil, never works, and people don't realize how much socialism we already have. For example, COVID era payments.

0:16:54 Lydia: Yeah, what a weird stance to take. For

0:17:09 Thomas: What is... Yeah. Yeah. For example, all our taxpayer money goes to Elon Musk's companies,

0:17:09 Lydia: Example, Elon Musk continues to get government contracts to do SpaceX. Yeah what?

0:17:17 Thomas: And also there's COVID air payment, so what the fuck are you complaining about? Plus, there's all these farm subsidies. I am up to my ass in farm subsidies... Hun, do you know what to do with all our farm subsidy money? Gosh, yeah, I don't even... What do I even been doing with it? It's fucking, ugh, I'm just burning it. Don't even need it. God, so fucking stupid. This as a bit would

0:17:27 Lydia: No, mailboxes overflowing with those checks. Geez. Yeah it would

0:17:37 Thomas: Be funny. Like, this would be like, oh yeah, oh Yeah, guys, the premise is there's too much socialism in the US in 2025. What do we come up with?

0:17:45 Lydia: Make for like a good comic in a newspaper, you know, like the far side or whatever, like something like that sort of satirical point about the country. But no, this is real.

0:17:55 Clip: Capitalism. Much of it appropriate to soften the edges of capitalism. But the DSA are radicals

0:17:55 Thomas: God. Much of appropriate, guys. All right, let's see where it goes. We've got, how wrong can he be in the final three minutes? Here we go.

0:18:06 Clip: About this concept. And radical economic policy is always ineluctably married to radical social

0:18:13 Thomas: What's that word? Ineluctably?

0:18:16 Lydia: Ineluctably.

0:18:17 Thomas: I don't know what he's saying. Does he mean inevitably, indelibly, you know, it is ineluctably.

0:18:21 Lydia: No, ineluctibly is a real word. It means in a way that is impossible to avoid, escape or resist. It signifies inevitability, often used for powerful forces.

0:18:30 Thomas: How do you spell that?

0:18:32 Lydia: I -N -E -L -U -C -T -A -B -L. Yes.

0:18:36 Thomas: Ineluctable. Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to give Bill Mark credit for that one. Egg on my face. Yeah. I just assume because he can't say the word mom Donnie. Like if you can't pronounce the word, mom Donny, I am going to go ahead and I defend my feeling that he was probably mispronouncing something when it was inelructably. Yeah.

0:18:39 Lydia: You know, that's a good word. I like that word. Yeah.

0:18:53 Lydia: Yeah, I will say I think it's because he wanted to use a word like that, because just looking at what Google says, it says when to use for formal writing or serious context where you want to stress that something must happen. And it's a little dramatic.

0:18:58 Thomas: Yeah. Or when you, or when, when making the case that there's too much socialism in the United States. Yeah.

0:19:10 Lydia: Yeah, it feels a little traumatic to be using that word here when you can just say inevitably.

0:19:15 Thomas: It's kind of, I've never heard of it. Egg on my face. He's right. I'm wrong. But I just want to say, if you can pronounce ineluctably, I think you could pronounce mom, Donnie. I am waiting for your video.

0:19:28 Lydia: Mom, Donnie. Yay.

0:19:28 Thomas: I can't wait for it. Donnie, yay. Okay. Okay. Note how much he's talking about economic policy. What is ineluctably... Man, that is hard to believe that's a word. I think I'm getting black mirrored. I don't think that was actually a word I don think that there was a Republican who was on her way to the show and died in 9 -11. And I don't think ineluctably is. I'm in the black mirror episode.

0:19:51 Thomas: Who's doing this to me? I'm being gaslit. Anyway, just remember that he's talking about Economic Policy.

0:19:55 Clip: Policy. Are radicals about this content. And Radical Economic Policy is always ineluctably married radical social policy. Their platform for example calls for completely completely open borders they're for what Biden was doing but more in an election on that

0:20:13 Thomas: Okay.

0:20:14 Lydia: Let's talk about it.

0:20:15 Thomas: Biden didn't have an open border policy. He just didn't. Have you noticed that that's gone down in, again, not in Republican circles, not Fox News circles, in mainstream media circles as the history is Biden had an open border policy.

0:20:28 Lydia: And Is it just because the numbers were up for a period of time while he was president

0:20:33 Thomas: Here's just a quick fact check. The closest thing for now that I can find is a fact check of the presidential debate in which Trump said he decided to open up our border, open up Our Country. This is 2024, you know, June 2024. So it's a good time to do it. I found some other ones from like 2021, but I was like, oh, you could argue, was it after that or whatever? So I think this is a good time frame. And the fact check here from this is an NPR fact check. It says this is not accurate. It is true that under Biden, unauthorized crossings hit a record high. Hey, I just want to stop you there. Unauthorized.

0:21:07 Thomas: That would tell you that it's not. Yeah. If it was open border policy, then there would be you'd be like, wow, no unauthorized crossings. They were all fine. Unauthorized crossings hit a record high, oftentimes overwhelming certain border communities and straining its resources, but the border is not open. In fact, it's arguably more reinforced than ever. And the reason I mentioned this is still, you know, Biden's still in office during this time.

0:21:07 Lydia: That there's not an open border policy? Yeah. Yep. I

0:21:31 Thomas: So it's more reinforced than ever at the time Biden is in office, according to NPR. The federal government has added more sections of the U .S. southern border walls, and there have been more military operations at the border. The administration has also increased the number of expedited removals. Biden has tried to work with Congress to overhaul the immigration system, but a majority of Republican. Yeah, well, we remember that.

0:21:51 Lydia: See a stat here that the Biden administration had over four million deportations and expulsions since 2021, which is supposedly a higher rate than Trump 1.0.

0:22:02 Thomas: Yeah. It just doesn't matter. This is why it just doesn'T fucking matter. We should stop going to. And I made this point at the time. There's a lot of argument. And actually, this is important to talk about because this is substance that goes along with the first episode we did, too, about the moderation, because, again, it is just down as fact. It is historical fact now that Biden and I won't straw man. It isn't historical fact based on the you know, in the mainstream media that Biden had a literal open I think that's going too far. The retconned history is that Biden had this lax policy and he just let everybody come over the border. Essentially, it'll be in the premises to New York Times reporters questions. They're like, no, Joe Biden, of course, with, you know, it's like that's the level of revisionist history we're doing here. The Democrats who are arguing that we should be moderate, like so many of them, so many of them make border a big part of that. They're like, am I a Republican? No, but I believe that we Should have a strong border and that, you know, we, and they're using that issue to differentiate in quotation marks themselves from like the Biden administration or from like The Far Left or whatever.

0:23:09 Thomas: And I just have to point out that Biden did that. Biden very much did exactly that. That after they wouldn't sign the legislation, he did an executive order that he claimed reduced the border crossings by 40 percent. Like he tried to go hard on the border. He went as hard as he could on the fucking border short of, I guess, child separation and doing the evil stuff that Trump's doing. And it doesn't matter. It still gets Nelson Mandela effect.

0:23:34 Thomas: It gets Mandela affected into he had an open border policy, even though he went as far to the right as he could. He really did on the border. It didn't matter.

0:23:43 Lydia: And I think that's a note for like, anyone who's running for politics, too, is whatever narrative they want to say about you, it will not matter what you actually stand for and what you do. Like they're going to say whatever nonsense they're gonna say. So just stand on principle, stand on values.

0:23:59 Thomas: Yeah. And I think that a lot of these Democrats do have that value. And so fair enough. Like, and it is true that a Lot of, I mean, they cite polling and it seems as though the majority of people will express that opinion that we ought to have a tough border, blah, blah. Like it does seem like that's where the Overton window is. And that's one thing. So like, I would disagree with that, but that's at least dealing with here's how people people feel. What really gets me is the fact that no matter what Democrats do, no matter what Joe Biden did, he's perceived as being an open border guy like that. You can't fucking do anything about if we are in a position where let's say 70 percent of the country is like pretty right wing on the border. And I kind of think they are. I don't necessarily blame Democrats for being like, all right, well, on that issue, I'm going to say, hey, we ought to be tough on the board. Fucking fine. Whatever. We got to win. We gotta do what we got to do. I also think what you should be doing, what we should be doing is trying to move those people. Trump has done more to move those people than anything by enacting these evil policies that people then see coverage of and that really move people. And also, you know, people on the left advocating and using that negative coverage, you know, to like point out how evil this is. But it's one thing to be at least dealing with the problem in real terms, in terms of like the people have this view about the border and let's either move a little bit that way or at least be allowing like compromise in certain ways. It's another to point out that like, hey, if you think that compromising or that going further right on the border is actually gonna do anything, you're just avoiding the problem. The main issue that I just can't believe nobody fucking talks about. This is the point of this entire show. And indeed is the part of this whole episode, this whole series in a broad sense is is the actual issue is misinformation about Democrats. Like, it's just misinformation. The country does not have correct beliefs about Democrats, and we can blame ourselves forever, and that's the thing to do, because it looks weak and whiny to say, well, it is because people are lying about us. But, like, that is what it is. And so the thing that every politician has to say whenever they are asked a question that is anything like that, like, oh, hey, Biden did this, this. And it seems like he was perceived as this, but he's not, it looks too weak to be like, yeah, they were fucking wrong. And the people are idiots and we're getting lied about. So they have to be like, but you know, maybe if he had spent more time talking about this and which is nothing because nobody listened to anything he said, we're just stuck in this stupid loop of politicians either don't know or don't want to appear weak. So, they don't wanna say, yeah it's not my fucking fault. It's the fault of the idiots lying and the lying idiots believing the lying. Those are the two problems. So they have to do like a bootstraps thing where it's like, well, what I think we have to do is just, we have to really make sure we're representing the people, working people, and we have to get on their level and we haveと really communicate. It's like yeah, okay, jack off motion. Like they all try to do that and it's not working. Yeah, sorry. I'll slip you a dollar. How you trademark the jack off emotion? Boy, we're rich. We don't need that farm subsidy money anymore. Damn.

0:26:56 Lydia: My trademark, by the way, but that's okay. I'll allow you to use it. It's fine. Thank you. Licensing fees. I don't know. It's saying it out loud is the trademark. Yeah.

0:27:14 Lydia: I want to piggyback off of that a little bit because he brings up that open borders as part of the democratic socialist platform.

0:27:15 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:27:21 Lydia: It's not. Yeah. It is titled freedom of movement. And I think that this is another problem too, because the way that this gets characterized in the media and in polling is always about just large swath of immigration, open borders, like kind of this broad terminology that doesn't get at the nuance of what we're talking about with immigration surprise surprise so under freedom of movement how they've put this together on their website on their platform is allow workers to freely migrate between countries to seek employment without restrictive immigration controls demilitarize the border and all immigrant detention and deportations immediate amnesty for all immigrants regardless of current immigration status and provide well but here's my point and provide access to jobs, labor rights and social services to all immigrants but what you can do is let's debate on each of those points to combine it all and call it open borders is playing into the fear mongering that is so easy for the right to do. But if we sat there and we just kind of identified each of Those points, what does compassionate, effective immigration policy look like on this aspect, on this respect on this effect, I feel like reasonable people could actually come to decent agreement there. And then maybe we have debate on some of the finer issues, Like you said, you know, the end all immigrant detention and deportations. Right. And some of those elements.

0:28:00 Thomas: All right. Well, that one would obviously. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:28:41 Thomas: I guess amnesty doesn't mean citizenship. I just remember that being a huge trigger word for Republicans. But amnestry, I assume, would just mean they're no longer in trouble for having entered. But that doesn't means they become citizens, I guess.

0:28:53 Lydia: No. And so it's just it's simplifying it because it riles up the base. And then unfortunately, the mainstream media and Bill Maher play into that by utilizing that exact same rhetoric, that exact same language that triggers that fear response in people. And if we talked about it with more specificity, with more nuance, I think we would be in a much better place.

0:29:15 Thomas: Yeah and that's just going back to how it used to be. Like it wasn't that long ago that that's how it worked. You could could just, yeah, yeah.

0:29:21 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Seasonality, right? Like you would have people come up from Mexico and work at the farm or whatever for whatever harvesting season, and then they would go back home, right. There was that more freedom.

0:29:30 Thomas: But once there's a militarily enforced fucking border, a militarized border, then they can't go back home. So they have to stay here to send money back home and then they become illegal aliens or whatever, as the terminology is. And then that's what led to the explosion of this problem. The other thing that leads to it is that our economy and all the rich people actually know they need this migrant labor because they can underpay them.

0:29:55 Thomas: And so it's this really stupid, weird thing where I'm trying to think it's the dog that caught the car. I'm trying to make who is the dog and who is The Car. It's like the Republicans are the dog and Trump is the car now because Republicans have both fear mongered on illegal immigration. But at the same time, the solid moneyed interest in the Republican Party, which is a lot of it, has always known that they need this cheap labor.

0:30:08 Lydia: What? Mm hmm.

0:30:20 Thomas: And so it's been this interesting marriage of of like, we're going to fear monger. And you could even argue in a cynical way, like maybe part of that is also if they stir up fears of immigrants, there's no risk that these immigrants will be made citizens, which would then probably lift their bargaining power, definitely lift their bargaining power. Raise their bargaining Power and lift their wages. They want to keep them in this Schrodinger's immigrant thing where they can't be, they're an evil immigrant. They shouldn't be here, but they also need to be here to do the cheap labor. Yeah.

0:30:49 Lydia: And they're also our nannies. They're also our housekeepers. They're also, yeah, like supporting our livelihood in so many ways.

0:30:52 Thomas: I think the rich people are just being maximally evil, which is like keeping everyone afraid of them, but not going so far as to want all of them gone actually, because they need the cheap labor. But I think they've had to in that marriage of xenophobia and rich people, and there's overlap obviously, but in that marriage too, the genuine xenophobes have taken over the government because they just want them all gone.

0:31:18 Thomas: Like they just wants all of the people to be gone. And I think that's a really, really of them going and it is going to kill a lot of our economy. It already is starting to going back back to your point, it's not an open border as in anyone can come become a citizen. It seems like not even the democratic socialist platform says that.

0:31:30 Lydia: Not from my reading.

0:31:32 Thomas: That's a way different thing saying, hey, they can come work. And yeah, like that would be the best of all worlds. Wages should go up for these people because anyone who's doing work at just terrible wages and the wages are artificially low because they're a black market of labor, essentially, that's awful. That's a human rights fucking violation in my book. If cucumbers need to cost more than they need to cause more. I just think that's how it is. I think that there's also other ways that like the market is actually pretty powerful and it will work itself out if they drive up the labor cost. There's going to be other places in the supply chain where, you know, something's going have to give maybe some of that it's going into somebody's profit somewhere or will recognize like, well, shoot, I guess food costs more and we need more economic focus on food, whether it's with better social programs or some other whatever way it is, yeah, like the way markets work is it's not as though food prices go up and then it's like, well, then everyone

0:32:24 Lydia: To find the affordability without sacrificing.

0:32:31 Thomas: Starves to death. It's like no, there's a way that the fucking the shit equals out. If food prices Go up, then more people start farming rather than all the land going to marijuana and wine grapes. Maybe people start growing more cucumbers. Maybe that supply like there's complicated. Yeah, like there's Complicated ways, you know, it's disruptive, but like the market does eventually figure shit like that out. And having a black market economy of labor hinders the good parts of market economics.

0:32:44 Lydia: To enter into business in that way. Yeah mm -mm. Yeah mm.

0:32:59 Thomas: You know, like the good part of it is that it'll figure itself out and the wages will go up because they'll have more bargaining power. That too, like if the food prices are possibly going to go up and these folks are able to represent themselves and be in a union and be like not a black marketplace, then all of a sudden they have bargaining power. Then their rights, workers' rights, you know, maybe get a little better. All this stuff, like that's the good part of market economics. It's looked at as socialism, but it's actually not. Like that's part of it. A lot of the stuff that people think of as market economics is just actually evil, monopolistic capitalism. That's not inevitable. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying like markets are always great, but I'm saying they're also not always bad. Like a lot of what we think of als just markets is actually manipulation of markets by monopolies and crony capitalism.

0:33:47 Lydia: Yeah I was gonna say if a market was in the middle of the woods like not surround not not impacted by people at all like I think it's value neutral.

0:33:55 Thomas: That's very abstract, but I like it.

0:33:58 Lydia: Yeah, but you can picture it right?

0:33:58 Thomas: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it pretty much is. Yeah. It can be good or bad. All right. Let's see. So good info about the democratic socialist. I noted that he was talking about the economic policies and the ineluctable. And I've realized that on the 40th time of watching this, I was going to make the point that spoiler, what he's going to go on to do is not at all talk about economics at all, or any sort of policy that's anything other than culture war stuff.

0:34:22 Lydia: Yep. Surprise, surprise. Yeah.

0:34:22 Thomas: He's going to go into infinite culture war. And the way he justified that was by saying, here's the problem with socialists is the socialist financial fiscal policy always goes with this other stuff that you should be afraid of, which I think is so funny. Intellectually, indubitably.

0:34:39 Lydia: Must go with the other stuff, too, by that choice of word. You're right.

0:34:45 Clip: This just seems like more extremism at a time when Americans are begging both parties please

0:34:46 Thomas: No, no one's running on open borders.

0:34:52 Clip: Could just one of you act normal

0:34:57 Thomas: Yep. I do it every time.

0:34:58 Lydia: I kind of like that one person at the beginning of that, though, that was like, hmm.

0:35:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Here's what the country is saying. Hey, I need one of you to act normal. I need either the Republicans or the Republicans version of Democrats, which is my only exposure to Democrats. One of you act normal, never going to happen, man. The Republicans are crazy. And the Republican version of democrats, which has all anyone sees is also crazy.

0:35:22 Thomas: That's the problem. These aren't real things. Biden didn't have an open border policy. Even the democratic socialists don't have open border policies in their fucking platform. It's just fake can one of you act normal you don't see the other one it's a crazy person and then you're also asking the crazy person what they think the other person's doing yeah and it's like boy both of those sound nuts it's Like yeah God drives me insane

0:35:42 Lydia: Their version of that. Yeah.

0:35:48 Clip: It's either defund the police or military in the streets. Either MAGA's crypto-crony capitalism or city-run grocery stores, or defund

0:35:57 Thomas: Okay first off yeah Lydia has some stuff on this but I just want to point out as I always do look at the asymmetry in what we're talking about I just wanna look at these comparisons these are always so telling

0:36:09 Clip: The police, or military, in the street.

0:36:10 Thomas: Defund the police defund the police something that hasn't happened the opposite of that has happened so police have gotten only more funded in the time since defunded the police it's something that not a single major democratic politician has run on not a single fucking one there have been times when there's like well there's a quote where kamala seemed sympathetic to something that seemed like no they don't run on it why do we live in a fucking world where you don't get to count what what they actually do and, or even want to do. It's only what you can smear them as being sort of tied to. And if you can sort of tie the Democrats to like something a student or a protester said, then you get to just treat it as though that's their fucking policy. So defund the police on one hand, which is something that has not at all happened in the opposite of it has happened or military in the streets is current. Now that's what is is happening that is the actual fucking not only the policy the it is the reality it is now so those are the two comparisons well it's either this something that no democrat fucking runs on or our current hell let's see the next one

0:37:00 Clip: Defund the Police or Military in the Streets.

0:37:05 Lydia: It's literally happening. It's literally happening right now. Yeah?

0:37:21 Clip: Either MAGA's crypto-crony capitalism

0:37:24 Thomas: That's happening currently the trumps are making billions off of fucking insider dealing in this awful corrupt crap with crypto that's currently now Now, let's see what the comparison is.

0:37:35 Clip: Or mony capitalism or city-run grocery stores?

0:37:39 Thomas: Even the headline is Mamdani's city -run grocery store plan criticized as unrealistic. We don't even get to try it once. Leah's got more on this in a second, but like we don't Even get to have a try. They get to do all the crypto schemes. They just get to have military in the streets and they get to make billions of dollars on crypto schemes, but we can't have an idea to do a plan of maybe try one or five fucking grocery stores in one city maybe try a thing we don't even get to do it let's play it out

0:38:16 Clip: I want a Democrat who reassures me, if you like your Whole Foods, you can keep your Whole Food.

0:38:21 Lydia: Yep. All right. That's where he ends this bit about grocery stores.

0:38:25 Lydia: What a great joke. So surprise, surprise, Whole Foods is not going anywhere. Let's talk about Mom Donnie's plan here.

0:38:31 Thomas: First execute every whole foods

0:38:34 Lydia: So the plan is a pilot program of five grocery stores, so they're going to pilot this with five grocery stories on city -owned land exempt from rent and property taxes. They will be able to buy products at wholesale prices. And these will be not -for -profit entities. Again, five grocery stores. We're talking about all of New York City, all boroughs, five stores. That is basically the extent is that they would like to pilot this because they think it could help people right the issue is that corporate supermarkets get some city funding so now the corporate super markets are complaining that that they're going to lose some of their funding

0:38:56 Thomas: Owner love it yeah there's only six grocery stores in New York City so it's gonna be most of them yeah I'm gonna try it hmm see you have socialism at home oh wow

0:39:26 Lydia: To continue to operate in some of the places where they feel like it's higher crime

0:39:28 Thomas: So they're like we just want the socialism to go to us not to this other

0:39:33 Lydia: Exactly exactly here's the other thing a lot of people are like well we don't even want you to try the the pilot because it doesn't work.

0:39:39 Thomas: Thing oh for fuck's sake

0:39:39 Lydia: City -owned grocery stores do not work, which is stupid because I want to highlight this piece that I saw in VitalCITYNYC .org. Yeah, it's called VitalCITYNYC .org, and this is from someone named Nevin Cohen who said, guess what? Government is already in the grocery business. And they point out very notably that there is already a, this is from the article, there's already a prominent American example of government grocery stores we ignore at our peril. The largest and longest running network of such stores in the U .S.

0:39:46 Thomas: Vital city oh

0:40:10 Lydia: Is the military commissary system dating back to the 1800s.

0:40:10 Thomas: Okay that'll never work still

0:40:14 Lydia: And so these are supermarkets. They're operated by the Department of Defense, I guess now the Department of War, to provide affordable groceries to service members and their families.

0:40:22 Thomas: Department of defense they haven't passed a congressional

0:40:24 Lydia: Oh, okay. Thank you. It's 235 stores that they run. 177 are on bases in North America, and they have annual revenues of $4 billion. They sell food that averages 25 % below private supermarkets because they have a very small markup, which is about 5 % to cover the overhead of running the stores. They have reduced overhead, of course, and economies of scale. They're fully owned and operated by the federal government. They're staffed by government employees or contractors. They don't turn a profit, and any earnings from the surcharge is reinvested in the stores themselves. This works.

0:40:27 Thomas: Thingy wow yeah

0:40:59 Lydia: There's no one that describes the military commissary system as not working. It's been working for 200 years. That is crazy to me.

0:41:08 Thomas: I don't know but any minute all those bases could explode and I'll starve

0:41:11 Lydia: Yeah. They point out there's a commissary actually in New York City in the neighborhood of Brooklyn because there's Fort Hamilton is located there. And the market, they said, has one hundred and ninety three ratings on Google Maps, averaging four point six stars. Like it's doing all right. You know, people aren't that upset about it. No.

0:41:25 Thomas: Wow not bad yeah it's and here's the thing I don't believe in fully government control of industry I just don't think it'll work. I think it's a bad idea. Good news, we're not anywhere fucking close to that and never will be. But that aside, if that's a point of disagreement between me and some genuine communists, fine, it doesn't matter. We're way over here on the left, relatively speaking, and Bill Maher is 400 ,000 miles over to the right. We might slightly disagree on that, but my feeling is, why wouldn't we want to try to have the best of both worlds? Why wouldn't we want try to the best, of capitalism and markets where we can, and the best of social programs where we can. Things that are vital for life, like food, healthcare.

0:42:07 Lydia: Shelter.

0:42:07 Thomas: Yeah, maybe housing, things like that. We don't need companies to need to turn a profit. Like that's the thing. Any profit that the fucking health insurance companies, that the grocery store, whoever, that corporations that are buying up housing and charging rent on, any profit there is just lost. There's no function of that that is good for society at all. The good thing about markets is they can encourage innovation. They can encourage, you know, like people to try stuff, to invent stuff, to work, to whatever. We don't need more innovation in terms of houses. Well, we do, but for one, it's a house. You need a house, people need places to live. We do not need to invent the new iHouse. There is no new fucking app that is going to be your house. People need housing. That is just what it is.

0:42:52 Thomas: And it is so restricted already, people do not build new new housing because there's too much risk involved you know so like what we need there is if we had more of the government handling like the risk then that might encourage more building if we had less regulation on you know there's a little bit of the abundance stuff but like we need more houses like that's the number one thing to have people fewer homeless you need more homes that's just a basic thing when it comes to food why do we need someone to profit off of food we all know No, we need food. We don't need the new iFood. We don'T need innovation and the, all the innovation has been bad. All the innovation is been, how do we make this shit so addictive? Yeah, that we, I can't stop eating the fucking Doritos. Like I just can't ever stop. We don' t need it. That's not good for society. Now, when it comes to the actual iPhone and the iWhatever and the apps and the fucking whatever, go nuts. Fine. That's NOT life or death. Like the new fucking phone, the new tablet, the computer, the TV. Yeah. Capitalism. Capitalism that all you want that's great make your money have people invent new stuff that's cool but the stuff that is vital for life this is my personal view that's the stuff that should be socialist as fuck because we all need it you don't need to juice up any demand for fucking food it's already there like you don' t need more innovation it's all there and the profit margins on food specifically are so low anyway

0:43:28 Lydia: New Coke. Yeah yeah yeah

0:44:12 Thomas: That it's funny because you say they don't turn a profit the commissaries but they do have a markup so like in a sense that's just kind of terminology like if that were a privately owned grocery store you would say that like they might turn a profit if there was any money over and above rather than it being reinvested in the store so I guess the only point I'm making there is it's not necessarily bad if there's a bit of a markup or something it just depends on what it's going to like if the incentive is markup markup markup so that we can do stock buybacks and bonuses for the executives that's fucking And for us, for you and I, that's bad.

0:44:47 Thomas: That's nothing. If the markup is, well, we're going to make a little more money and we can expand. We can pay the employees better who work there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like then that's good for everybody. You know, like broadly speaking, that'S better for everybody,

0:44:43 Lydia: It's evil. Yeah add an additional bathroom in this store that would be nice yeah.

0:45:02 Lydia: They go on to name several other ways in which New York City specifically is in the grocery business right like in terms of subsidies and and specific programs trying to help affordability for people you know it's an incredibly expensive city anyway and they're saying not just is it expensive to live in New York and that food is expensive it's more expensive than the national average and the prices for groceries in the New York City area have increased more than they have increased nationally growing by 65 .8 percent in price from 2012 -2013 to 2022 -2023 nationally was 48 .8 so So they're outpacing what we're seeing in price of groceries. Now, because the city government is already involved in all of these other ways, the military commissary kind of on the side, this isn't a new crazy thing. It's an extension of what the city is already doing.

0:45:54 Lydia: It's looking for additional ways in which they can help. You know, they have expansive food pantries that are being utilized way more than probably people want because 1 .4 million New Yorkers are food insecure. It just feels like there is a problem. They've been trying to solve it with these various programs. OK, it's not enough to bridge the gap. Let's pilot this at five grocery stores across the entire New York City area.

0:46:18 Thomas: Now the whole city is going to fall into the ocean.

0:46:21 Lydia: Millions and millions and millions of people.

0:46:21 Thomas: They're dead. You're if you're in New York, you're as good as dead. Yeah.

0:46:25 Lydia: Whole Foods will remain.

0:46:26 Thomas: Yeah, I think they'll be okay.

0:46:26 Lydia: Trader Joe's will remain, and then let's see if this helps bridge that gap. Let's see, if this reaches people. Yeah.

0:46:32 Thomas: So good news, Bill Maher, you can keep your fucking Whole Foods, you idiot asshole.

0:46:39 Clip: Governor-elect Spanberger once said about Biden's presidency that, quote, nobody elected him to be FDR.

0:46:48 Thomas: Some people did.

0:46:49 Clip: You know, at this year's DSA convention,

0:46:51 Thomas: Who decides what's normal? Who decides What's normal is that code for be corporate friendly and kind of vaguely conservative, which voters count like which voters?

0:47:02 Lydia: White says heteronormative. Yeah.

0:47:04 Thomas: Yeah, like, why don't we ever talk about how Hillary won by three fucking million popular votes or whatever it was? It was a ton. That's weird that we didn't have a huge reckoning. The world's actually signaling we want the SJWs and the Wokies like that. No, it doesn't ever matter. Spanberger, this white lady can decide that we elected the whole country, elected him to be normal and not to be FDR. By the way, isn't it crazy that like FDR's programs that are still here to this day, like those are all pretty much universally looked at as good and necessary. And when the government shutdown happened, the Republicans were like, oh, no, you're not going to get your things that we hate that FDR gave you. You know like why wouldn't we want another FDR like isn't that what we would want yeah I don't even understand the point now we get to round it out with some good old -fashioned fucking anti -woke idiocy that we can debunk

0:47:47 Lydia: Yeah. They've all been seen as like positive additions to what this government can offer. Yeah. Yeah.

0:48:03 Clip: You know at this years DSA Convention, or as it's commonly known,

0:48:06 Thomas: This year's DSA commie con yeah they're not there's they're not communists or socialists different

0:48:15 Clip: Get this, you had to submit a photo of a negative COVID test to get in. Yeah, no one wants to do that shit again.

0:48:26 Thomas: Thing well you know who did want to do it is the people who were putting together this convention so fuck you does this have any effect on you Bill Maher Yeah, like like Bill Maher was gonna go like as though this would be the what? Like if Mom Donnie gets elected now, this is the New York City policy. Like you just it's the submit pictures of COVID test city.

0:48:34 Lydia: Where are you going to go otherwise? Yeah.

0:48:48 Thomas: OK, I would probably call myself a Democratic socialist, not because I'm part of the party or anything, but because if someone pressed me like that's probably where I am more. I don't know. I'm a Democrat. I mean, whatever. I know we need to go way to the fuck to the left. And I don'T know what this is. I'M not part of it. Like, I 'VE NEVER HEARD OF THIS. This I've never heard mom Donnie mentioned that he wants pictures of COVID like this is just fear -mongering based on what a private group of people wanted to do for their convention I looked it up I checked it and they did have a policy that they wanted negatives and they wanted tests you know what a bunch of people want to get together and make sure they didn't get COVID what the fuck is wrong with that what's the issue it's something they can do it's not even expensive how hard is this

0:49:24 Lydia: Yep. Yeah, you just took a test last week because you're like, I feel kind of under the weather. Let me make sure it's not COVID. No.

0:49:33 Thomas: Yeah and you keep getting them so I don't even know are they expensive like how how much are these?

0:49:37 Lydia: I mean, these were the last free ones I could get through the post office, but I mean they're not expensive really otherwise.

0:49:41 Thomas: There you go. Yeah. Some people doing a gathering. It's not that many people. Like it really isn't that many people. The party has been tiny until Bernie, the membership went up quite a bit after that. Before Bernie, it was like, you know, it wasn't that big. It was in the single digit thousands.

0:49:55 Lydia: Nobody?

0:49:57 Thomas: It was like nobody. And now, you Know, it's grown quite a bit because of him mainly. And it's not like even he's personally advocating for it. It is just in the zeitgeist, like democratic socialists, like got a bit of a bump in terms of, you And a lot of people are getting more socialists in general because of the fucking hair on the soap and the fucking putting their name on the food to parts of this video that Bill Maher did that were genuinely like kind of insightful. They want to not get COVID at their thing. Is that a big deal, Bill?

0:50:29 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:50:29 Thomas: All right. And now Bill Maer is going to not quite use a slur, but he's going to say something that I genuinely, I think they're just saying it now. And I want to know what you all think this means. You ready for this?

0:50:42 Clip: Again we've had enough of Trump's macho bullshit and also enough of pussy politics these yeah I couldn't help himself yeah these Democratic socialists at another of these Democratic Socialists at

0:50:50 Lydia: God, so gross.

0:50:59 Thomas: What is that supposed to mean? It's genuinely just tough guy, five foot two Bill Maher saying, stop being pussies.

0:51:00 Lydia: Gross I don't know yeah I don'T know how that puts him like not in the trump's macho politics sort of position yeah

0:51:13 Thomas: Yeah, no, you're right. It does. You're the same, Bill Mahr. That's the same thing. Yeah. That's a good point. What's the difference between Trump's macho politics and you calling Democrats pussy politics?

0:51:18 Lydia: You are pete hegseth

0:51:27 Thomas: What'sthe difference? What is the daylight there? They wanted to not get COVID at their convention.

0:51:27 Lydia: Yeah or to give it to somebody at

0:51:33 Thomas: Yeah? Is that a big deal?

0:51:33 Lydia: Home who could have died from it potentially because they're immunocompromised like we don't know everybody's single situation it's not a big deal it's something that they all agreed to and it's their convention leave him alone

0:51:43 Thomas: It's just so dog shit. It's so, we've regressed so fucking hard. It's depressing. And it's these fake tough guys like Bill fucking Maher. You can just be a tough guy by being a grumpy piece of shit and whining. That's tough guy. You know, it's fucking pussy politics. You whining like a fucking pussy on every single show you do. Everyone. Look, they wanted to have a convention where they don't get COVID and that affects me. I'm so sad about it. I can't handle it. If somebody else does something like that then it's threatening to me I'm tough I'm so tough I'm bill maher I'm little bill mahr I'm really tough stop being pussies everyone oh

0:52:22 Lydia: Just like automatically flags to to me that he's misogynist. Like I just using that word in that way and denigrating women as a result, like even just related to that. Like, I don't know. I just, I have no interest in that.

0:52:25 Thomas: 100 I can't get over what whiny little fucking I don't even know what word to use it doesn't quite do it justice I feel like calling him a pussy is I feel Like only valid because it's what he's doing and it's kind of valid but I'm still just uncomfortable with it give me a better word but like it's just this whiny little shit this fucking snot nose whiny shit politics is what it's him it's trump all trump does is whine all he does is wine and you know what bill maher used to have a thing when we started watching him because I didn't really know that much about him it was when trump started and he had a thing where he called trump a whiny little bitch and he didn't like that was at least a better use of this problematic language and it was at least more accurate like that is what he is he's whiny he's a whiny little shit so is Bill Maher how does he not see that that's exactly what he does all day it's the same fucking thing you just whine and whine about how much the choices of other free people in the world are affecting you even though they don't fucking affect you in any

0:53:25 Lydia: So is Bill Maher. Exactly. Yeah, look in the mirror. Yeah?

0:53:39 Thomas: Way now here's the thing the rest of this is picking on the DSA the democratic socialists there's some clips and I will say I was was expecting to debunk this. I looked at it and mostly it's like, these are some really far left people. Like, it's mostly like, okay, these Are the people where it's Like, that's a little too woke for me.

0:53:59 Thomas: Like of a little, I'm a little like, I don't want to waste a whole day arguing about nonsense. Okay, we'll go to it.

0:54:09 Clip: Another of their conventions they were told to make jazz hands instead of clapping lest some delegates suffer sensory overload and also and I'm not joking they were told not to be wearing you know any aggressive sense please don't go into that space with anything that's like an aggressive scent for instance right because that's going to be difficult for people oh for fuck's THIS IS WHO THE DEMOCRATS ARE THINKING OF FOLLOWING YOU KNOW CHUCK SHUMER AIN'T PERFECT

0:54:50 Thomas: I'm sorry. I don' know who the fuck that is. What do you mean? This is who the Democrat that's not, I Don't know who that guy is. What are you talking about? I love too that he says, add another one of their conventions. Notice that listener. Did you hear him say add another, one of the convention? And then in the fucking clip, we can see that it says national convention, 2019. That's six years ago.

0:55:12 Thomas: It might be seven years ago, and then he says this is what they want. I don't know who this is. What are you talking about? This is the stupidest fucking shit. Also, obviously, obviously this guy is talking about a special area that's going to be for like, I don't know if it's people who get sensory overload, you know, and Bill Maher has to do the straw man of misleading everyone into thinking this is like the whole space, like, and no one can be around a smell. First off, that's a good rule. Don't wear any strong smells ever. I fucking hate it. God, it's so bad.

0:55:43 Lydia: I was gonna say like, that was a rule at my workplace, even. I mean, I guess it wasn't a rule but it was a recommendation it was like you know some people are sensitive to particular scents and we have a lot of people in shared spaces here please refrain from using yeah exactly and

0:55:56 Thomas: That's just courtesy. I will say this is for some reason, something that I have, and it's really hard. I cannot stand certain scents. I don'T understand it.

0:56:06 Lydia: We also can't identify what in particular it is so

0:56:07 Thomas: Like, yeah, yeah. And it really sucks for me. Like it really sucks. Now, obviously, you know, like I don't think those should be banned or anything. I think that in general, people shouldn't wear really strong stuff. I just think it's bad no matter what, even if you aren't me, I think it'S bad to wear a strong sense, but I get that, that that's a sensitivity I have. And I don't really think that this is society's problem though. This is where when I look at, I watched like a bunch of this convention and it seems to be a A group of far, far lefties who really, really want to all out far left each other. And it seems like the axis of social currency there is super duper sensitive to everything -ness. And, like, fine. Again, this is a group of people I don't know. I don' t know who the fuck this is. This has nothing to do with Zoran Mamdani. If I go to Zoram Mamdami's platform, oh, let me see. Let me see the don't wear anything smelly part. Oh, it's not fucking there! Because it's nothing to deal with anything. Here's his platform, just for fun. Housing, freeze the rent, build affordable housing, cracking down on bad landlords, supporting homeowners, and ending deed theft. Oh, he has some stuff on safety. It's like policing based, oh, gun violence. Affordability, city -owned grocery stores, we talked about that. Free buses, fighting corporate exploitation, early childhood and education, no cost childcare, baby baskets for New York's newborns, K -12, paying our agenda, taxing corporations and the 1%. Climate, oh I missed the part where it's don't wear anything smelly and don't be too loud and use jazz hands instead of clapping. That's not any part of it. You had to dig up something from 2019. This was a year where I looked it up and like even the people who went there, the DSA people who Went There were like, hey, this got kind of hijacked by a bunch of people who were trying to like do a bunch like they kept bringing up. You know what the main beef of this is having watched a bunch of this convention? The problem is with Robert's rules of order or whatever

0:58:00 Thomas: Because they spent all this time being like like, point, objection, point. Can I get a second? And they always do this stuff where they have to, like, clarify the rules. And this happens in groups of people where there's some troublemakers. There's some people who suck. And there's Some people who clearly, like they want their moment in the sun. They want to inflict themselves on everybody. And there are a bunch of people who are, like objecting all the time to, like, hey, you use gendered language when you said, like you guys, you know, it's like, all right, here's the thing. This is a group of a very specific group of people. Who are doing a thing. What is the right wing equivalent of this? It's a fucking KKK. Like, that's the level we're talking about. When we talk about how small this group is and how niche this is, the right wing equivalent is literally a goddamn terrorist cell. You know, so do we want to compare like to like? I think I'll go with the people who are trying to be really considerate and maybe are being a little too like, all right, you're getting a little Too Crazy with your being considerate. Like I'll take that any day over fucking racial violence and like terrorism, which is essentially the equivalent on the right.

0:58:58 Lydia: Do want to share just a couple quick things I mean for one the aggressive scent situation was they said it specifically with regard to the quiet rooms that they had available

0:59:08 Thomas: Yeah, of course. And I started to say that. That was obviously true. Without even looking it up, I could tell that he was talking about a specific space.

0:59:14 Lydia: Right right so it's a specific space that is intended to be there for people who are having maybe anxiety. Maybe they're feeling overwhelmed in the convention space. They want to participate, but they need a minute. And it's a way for them to potentially form quick friendships with other people in that space so then they have someone to go with to the next part of the convention. And if someone is experiencing anxiety, which I also have a piece from an individual who spoke there talking about his experience, the last thing you need is for something to be part of a room that's supposed to help you calm down,

0:59:33 Thomas: Well, let's not get crazy.

0:59:47 Lydia: That's going to make you feel more anxious. So that is best practices, I would imagine, for conventions at large, not just people who care about other people. I think that's the right thing to do at all conventions. And I don't blame them for wanting to establish that space for their people.

1:00:05 Thomas: Here's where I diverge from these people who are too woke, in my opinion. I have no problem with that. I think that's great. Have the separate room. One million percent. Fully agree. Especially as someone who, I don't know, our kids may need that room, you know, occasionally. That's fantastic. The thing where they aggressively, and I think it's kind of funny, because again, I watched a bunch of this conference and some of the other years there was one a couple speakers who aggressively were like scolding people about the clapping don't clap do the jazz hands don't clap and then what's funny is once there was a speaker who was a real person that all went to shit no one cared Rashida Tlaib for example and this is later this is like 2025 this convention and this party has grown like in 2019 it was still very small and it was pretty niche and what was funny is they were doing the jazz fans until it was like you know Linda Sarsour was the speaker And it's like, once there's speakers that are the people you may have heard of, then they're all clapping and no one cares. And I just think it's one of those things where it's, like, look, when it's something like that, I think if you are someone who has a hard time with those loud noises, you should bring ear protection. That's how I feel about it. Now, I think in general, concerts too fucking loud. They should turn those down. It's hurting everyone's ears. No one should do that. But that's like because concerts and other venues with music, they're actually playing sound that's loud enough to damage people's ears, that's one thing. When we're talking about you have a sensory issue, which I can relate to in some ways, if it's something that affects a small portion of people, I feel like it's a big deal. I think rounds of applause and cheering are actually an important part of having a gathering like this. And you can see when you watch some of these speakers where they're like make sure you do the jazz hands and they try to give like an applause line and it just feels like shit because everyone's silent in my opinion is this worth everyone changing what they do or is this something where on an individual basis someone can accommodate for themselves and I think there's a give and take there I think There's some things where it's not zero sum it doesn't affect everybody it's totally fine things like Jenessa brings up with the crosswalks that's great for everybody with it Like there's plenty of stuff like that. There's some stuff where it just is my personal philosophy. I think it's a little bit too much of an infringement on everybody else when it's something that affects a handful of people. So if you're somebody who has the sensory thing, you already have a room you can go in and you can just watch the thing there. And there's like subtitles. Or if you want to be there, grab some earplugs. I think people like that often have to bring earplug anyway. We can have a debate over like what is a bit too Much of a burden on everybody Else versus what's not. What's just easy and we should do anyway and just my personal view is like something like that I feel like that's a bummer like having everybody quietly do jazz hands I hate that personally and I think it takes a lot away from the energy and the point of a gathering it's just a very human thing you feel more motivated you feel mehr energized with applause and that kind of thing like that so I mean so there's stuff like that where it's like I would have gone the other way on that now how big of a deal is it that in 2019 they did jazz hands is that a big fucking deal Does that matter in any way, shape or form? Does that have anything to do with Zoran Mamdani in any way? No.

1:03:06 Lydia: And I think it matters to the folks in the DSA. And from what I understand, this is like like a debate that's been happening. I read a piece from the disability working group from the DSA because there's a lot of challenges there. They do not feel like the DSA is as inclusive as it can be. And so they've been pushing for that. They said there was like a mass resignation of the steering committee in 2019 because, yeah, it did. And it says, unmentioned in the text of, you know, their resignation letter is that prominent leftist writer and co -host of the the popular podcast Chapo Trap House, Amber Ailey Frost was a key player in the harassment that they faced. Given Amber's turn towards advocating for an anti -woke left and masculine working class fetishism, who knows, they link it.

1:03:31 Thomas: Cause that convention did go weirdly. Oh, wow. Oh for fuck's sake. No, I believe it.

1:03:53 Lydia: I haven't looked at that stuff. It's hard not to see the historic parallels and how attacks on disabled people are often harbingers of latent right wing tendencies. Years later, and ableist slurs and ableistic rhetoric has once again proliferated in the broader society. So there's a whole piece on that there. And then the other thing that I read that I thought was really interesting was from the individual that got turned into the meme, basically. Oh, OK. All right.

1:04:13 Thomas: Yeah, well, we're going to get to that, right? So let's keep playing. Really?

1:04:23 Clip: BUT AT LEAST HE DOESN'T CRUMPLE INTO A HEAP WHEN CONFRONTED WITH CHANEL NUMBER FIVE. YOU MAY NOW CLAP IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY.

1:04:33 Thomas: None of the Democrats, not the socialist Democrats, Not the centrist, none of them crumple when there's Chanel No. 5. That's not any of them. It's such a stupid fucking point. So because there's a hypothetical person from 2019 who's not on the ballot, who has nothing to do with anything, who said in a room, by the way, I fully agree with that, in aroom for people who have sensory overload or whatever, you shouldn't come in with a strong scent.

1:04:58 Thomas: Therefore, we need Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schemer, who is the fucking worst centrist, he's trying to pretend to be left now because he he knows that next election primary is going to need it. But like, that's such a non sequitur has nothing the fuck to do with anything. It's so silly. Anyway, go on. Sorry. I thought there was more of that guy, but I'm realizing now what happened was I went down a fucking rabbit hole and there was a guy and a guy who asked a question who at first I thought was the guy we heard, but wasn't. It was a different guy who has the question who got blasted onto Fox news and just harassed and stuff. Yeah. Tucker Carlson.

1:05:30 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Tucker Carlson covered it back then. Yeah? So this is James Jackson.

1:05:35 Thomas: Yeah, yep. Sacramento. I saw. Yeah yeah.

1:05:35 Lydia: He's actually out of Sacramento. Yeah yeah. He is a delegate for DSA. And he wrote a whole piece about his experiences with the conventions.

1:05:42 Thomas: That's what what I was referring to it didn't go

1:05:45 Lydia: He had good experiences in 2017. He was feeling, like, energized, right? So he comes back for 2019 and was feeling really excited about that. But he said, but the tone of 2019 was much different and much more divisive than in 2017. This convention was also much less democratic than in 2018. Delegates were bombarded with bad faith attacks by sectarians who smeared our convention chairs and used procedural nonsense to bog down progress whenever they did not get their way. I am not joking when I say we delegates lost a full day of debate and voting thanks to constant, idiotic procedural motions. Debates about the convention rules and needless credential challenges against delegates stole hours of work from us. And then he goes on to say that as good as he felt back in 2017 and as hopeful as he was for 2019, it was, quote, so chaotic and so full of members attacking each other in bad faith that I ended up in a moment of poor judgment, grabbing the mic and having a full -on anxiety attack on the convention floor. I also made the mistake of forgetting I was no longer in California and therefore forgot that regional dialects don't always carry over. Over long story short after my anxiety attack a trans non -binary comrade took the mic and took furious exception to the fact I referred to the delegation as guys and not as comrades when

1:06:07 Thomas: Well yeah yep yeah

1:06:52 Lydia: It first went viral I was promptly doxxed by fox news and several right -wingers he didn't know if he was ever going to come back because of what he experienced there

1:06:59 Thomas: And see that's shitty I don't think it's a good thing because I I watched that clip you know a non -binary person like yells at him and then everybody does their jazz claps after that which I think is funny because that person is fine to yell at it literally grabs the mic and yells at them so that sound is is fine you can yell at someone for saying guys but then you need to do jazz hands because the clapping it's just it's stuff like that like look does that have anything the fuck to do with socialism or democratic socialism?

1:07:25 Thomas: No, it doesn't. You could argue that like the far, far side of a party that wants to be considerate, maximally considerate is going to have some issues, but the far far other side is doing hate crimes. Like I'll take this any day. You can't just find the worst example of something and smear the rest of the entire thing with the worst sample of that. And by the way, the worst examples, I'm not saying that person's horrible, but I think that was a bad bad move. I think it's a bad move to grab the mic and yell at someone who's clearly in distress

1:07:20 Lydia: Yeah yep

1:07:56 Thomas: Just because they said guys.

1:07:58 Lydia: It's not helpful to anybody yeah

1:07:59 Thomas: Yeah, I think that's bad. That's that's not good. Big fucking deal. 2019. This is what he had to go to to try to smear Zoran Mamdani checks notes. Zorin Mamdami. Now, apparently Mamdali did speak of this in 2023. So that's cool when he was an assembly person. But this 2019 one, like I watched a bunch of them. They changed dramatically after 2019.

1:08:19 Thomas: Like Like they, well, 2020, I think they couldn't do one probably. And then like, yeah. And then I think They've Grown and whatever. It's a niche fucking group. Like it's just a niche group. It's not like the other parties where the party kind of came first and then people identifying of it, you know, kind of became downstream of that. Like it is more like Bernie and some other people say they are democratic socialists as a matter of more like terminology. He is not like a key cog in the DSA party, really.

1:08:22 Lydia: I think 2021 was the one that they did on zoom or whatever Never. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:08:52 Thomas: That's just not the structure of it. It's silly to try to find this very niche thing nobody knew about. Nobody who voted for Zoran Mamdani did so on the basis of this. It has nothing to do with it. Fucking stupid. Tired of Bill Maher's fucking pussy politics.

1:09:07 Lydia: Well, it's like sloppy seconds from Tucker Carlson from six years ago. Like, come on, Bill Maher.

1:09:11 Thomas: God, yeah. Yeah, and you know that's where he gets his information. It's so weird how all his sources end up being basically Tucker Carlson. Isn't that weird?

1:09:20 Lydia: It is strange.

1:09:20 Thomas: Weird. All right, well, Bill Maher's an idiot. We finished it, guys. Guys. We finished and he had such a good punchline. You can clap in the normal way or whatever. Wow. Fantastic. Well done.

1:09:29 Lydia: All that for that.

1:09:32 Thomas: Well, I got some things off my chest that have been bothering me. Fucking asshole. God, he's such an idiot. Well thanks so much for listening. Thanks Lydia for putting up with my yelling.

1:09:35 Lydia: I'm glad. Yeah, of course. Oh, every day.

1:09:42 Thomas: And I for one am never going to vote Democratic Socialist because of something a guy said in 2019 at a convention I've never heard of. That's how I make decisions Because

1:09:52 Lydia: Gonna carry that to my grave.

1:09:53 Thomas: I'm smart and I'm not a fucking pussy Stupid mom Donnie's City Run grocery store plan